REVOLUTIONARY HILLBILLY Notes From The Struggle On The Edge Of The Rainbow
by Hy Thurman
paperback / $19.95 / isbn: 978-1-58790-551-3 / 204 pages /5.5" x 8.5" /
Politics / Organizing / Young Patriots / Autobiography
ABOUT THE BOOK
Revolutionary Hillbilly is a history book, an organizer's notebook, and an autobiography. These are stories of unity against poverty and racism. Hy Thurman is a hillbilly and a revolutionary organizer. As a co-founder of the Young Patriots Organization, Thurman helped organize poor white communities in alliance with the Illinois Black Panther Party and Young Lords Organization during the Sixties. He is an educator who got his schooling in the fields of Tennessee, his PhD on the streets of Chicago, and his hunger for justice in the back of a patrol car.
Revolutionary Hillbilly is unique because it is a first person chronicle of the unfolding of landmark events of the 1960's. Hy Thurman's book provides an insiders view of how coalitions can form and the group dynamics that can keep these movements vibrant. It is an invaluable resource for historians and activists alike.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Beginning as a civil rights advocate as a teenager, Hy Thurman has been an inspirational grass roots organizer, dedicating himself to improving the lives of marginalized and oppressed people and leading them into action to take control of their daily lives. A southern white migrant who settled into Chicago's Uptown community, in 1967 at the age of 17. He became a community organizer and cofounder of the Young Patriot Organization, a group of displaced southern white youth. He also was a cofounder of an inter-racial coalition called the original Rainbow Coalition , made up of a Puerto Rican gang turned political, Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party for self-Defense and the Young Patriot Organization. These groups, created survival programs such as free health clinics, breakfast for school children, free legal services and police brutality patrols and fought urban renewal that was displacing them from their homes. Each group fought for self-determination for their communities.
Hy presently resides in Alabama and is founder, president and Instructor of the North Alabama School for Organizers.