Conflict and resolution are the lifeblood of social movements. How, and with whom, do we find lasting friendship, support, and joy in a world in need of so much repair?In On Activism, Friendships, and Fighting veteran organizer and social worker Benjamin Heim Shepard traces a pressing dynamic of social movements: friendship and conflict. The project builds on oral histories with more than thirty movement organizers—from AIDS, queer, trade union, community, Occupy, ...

Urban activism can manifest in many guises, from community gardening to mass naked bike rides. But how might we theorize the evidence of the collisions between social forces that take place in our streets and public commons? Cities are formed through these collective collisions in time.This book draws on the author’s own vast experience as an activist to make links between a theory of practice with rich discussion of the histories of conflicts over public space. Each chapter examin...

San Francisco in the early 1990s. Cab is on the deep end of a losing streak. After having been dumped yet again, he moves to Haight-Ashbury fresh out of college. It is the middle of a recession, before the dot-com boom, and AIDS is an immediate and untreatable reality. He finds himself working in a housing program for people with HIV/AIDS. The entire city is reeling. His clients are dying. Cab records their every word. He starts drafting a narrative of every person with whom he’s slept: th...

Examines New York City as a paradigmatic example of the tensions between privatization and public uses of space in the contemporary U.S.Focusing on the liberating promise of public space, The Beach Beneath the Streets examines the activist struggles of communities in New York City-queer youth of color, gardeners, cyclists, and anti-gentrification activists-as they transform streets, piers, and vacant lots into everyday sites for autonomy, imagination, iden...