Revolution Books-Without-Walls Goes to the Met

Recently Revolution Books set up outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The "Met" is one of the most famous art museums in the world, and thousands of tourists and New Yorkers visit every day. We had two staff people, 2 new volunteers, a woman who lives near the new RB space in Harlem and a university student we had just met, and a couple tables brimming with new and used books. While the new Revolution Books and its mission is getting to be well known in the neighborhood in Harlem where it will open, we had decided to reach out a lot more among people from all kinds of walks of life who are interested in culture, art, books – and the world.

Outside the museum we joined a whole scene of local artists selling their own artwork and other vendors with inexpensive reproductions of famous pieces. Our displays included a color Stolen Lives poster [put the visual next to the text], the recent quote from Bob Avakian about how something beautiful could come out of the ugliness of today's America, and individual portraits of several victims of police murder – Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Anthony Robinson and Tyisha Miller.

We went to introduce our bookstore and BA's works to the people coming to the museum, to get donations which are still urgently needed to re-open RB in Harlem soon, and to challenge and involve them in #RiseUpOctober. Over the course of a sunny Autumn afternoon we sold books and Revolution newspapers and got over $60 in donations.

As one RB staffer noted, "Interest was quite high -- the Stolen Lives posters were a big draw, as always. (The B&W ones of individual faces literally stopped people in their tracks.) ... About half of the passersby were tourists: Europe, Japan, Latin America, and we even made some inroads there with flyers, palm cards and some personal contact... [Our new volunteer] was great at reaching out." This volunteer commented that it was striking and also frustrating that "these people from other countries seem to be more concerned about what the police are doing than many of the people from NYC." At one point a stream of Bronx High School students passed without stopping so we caught up with the crowd of 2 dozen at the corner and loudly challenged them to take up O24 – "THIS MUST STOP – WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?" and many reached out, taking about 200 cards.

Many people did stop, to find out what Revolution Books was about, to ask us about the posters, and to study the faces of the victims of police terror. These included: 3 people who work at the museum; A Chilean who bought Lo BAsico (the Spanish edition of the book BAsics, from the Talks and Writings of Bob Avakian) and who wanted to find out more about the new synthesis of communism developed by BA; an Argentinian man who bought BAsics and the Constitution of the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft); an Italian who had known the anti-globalization protester killed by Carbinieri (Italian military police) there; several Brazilians who commented on the similarity between the police murdering people here and in their country, and about how the majority in prison in Brazil are Black; a children's author who gave a donation to the store and said she might donate children's books; the elderly widow of a famous African drummer who said she had "been to Selma and look at this still going on!" – indicating the Stolen Lives poster; and a young woman from Taiwan who, shocked by what she saw, took many pictures of the table and the display and bought Revolution newspaper, saying she would tell people back home about this horrible crime committed by the U.S. government against people living in this country.

We will be continuing to set up regularly outside the Met and in other unexpected locations. We invite the Revolution Books community to join us in reaching out to important sections of New Yorkers and people from around the world!