Day of the Dead Celebration
Day of Giving
People’s World Amistad Awards, Saturday, Dec. 13
by People’s World Amistad Awards Committee
This year’s People’s World Amistad Awards Working Class Unity! To Defend Our Rights and Fight for Our Future will be held Saturday, Dec. 13 at 4 p.m. at the First and Summerfield Church – home to Unite Here – 425 College St., New Haven. The keepsake greeting book will be printed and will be in an electronic edition.
We invite your attendance and participation in the greeting book to honor the awardees and the occasion. The ad deadline is Nov. 20. For greeting book and ticket information, please call 203-624-8664.
People’s World is honored to present the Amistad Award to four wonderful allies and working-class champions:
Tabitha Sookdeo, director of Connecticut Students for a Dream
Wayne McCarthy, president of International Association of Machinists Local 700
Norma Martinez-HoSang and Constanza Segovia of Connecticut for All Director and Director of Organizing.
More about the awardees will be in the December issue of the Progressive Action Roundtable newsletter.
Courage Award to Go to Imprisoned, Tortured Palestinian Doctor
by LouAnn Villani, Middle East Crisis Committee
The Middle East Crisis Committee (MECC) will give its 2025 Courage Award to Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya of Gaza, Palestine. Dr. Safiya was the Director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza, Palestine when he was arrested on Dec. 27, 2024 by Israeli troops. He has been in their custody ever since. Israeli authorities claim he’s being held under “suspicion of terrorism.” He has not been charged in court with any crime but is held under a cruel legal-like measure the Israelis call “Administrative Detention.”
Dr. Abu Safiya was head of the pediatric department in Kamal Adwan Hospital before becoming its director. While not exclusively a pediatric hospital, Kamal Adwan Hospital was particularly known for its specialized pediatric services, including a critical Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Like all Gaza medical facilities, Kamal Adwan performed incredible work despite severe shortage of essential supplies. And like all Gazans, he and his staff were being intentionally starved, often arrested, even as its building endured sieges and bombardment. In December 2024 the hospital was closed at gunpoint.
He has been seen by a lawyer very infrequently. In February, his attorney said Dr. Abu Safiya had suffered torture, including beatings with batons and electric shock sticks. In July his attorney reported that Dr. Abu Safiya had lost nearly 90 pounds while in Israeli custody.
Dr. Abu Safiya stands for all Palestinian doctors and healthcare workers who have done outstanding humanitarian work amid indescribable conditions and constant slander that they are terrorists.
We hope to have a ceremony in late November to honor Dr. Abu Safiya in absentia. MECC’s Courage Award was initiated in 2023. It was bestowed that year to Alaa Abd El-Fattah, an imprisoned activist in Egypt who has very recently been released. In 2024 the award was given to Palestinian journalists and media workers as a whole. Visit TheStruggleVideo.org for future developments.
A Petition in Response to a Movie about Nukes
by Stanley Heller, Promoting Enduring Peace
It may seem like a simple ask, a call to have the president take part in a nuclear war drill. Actually, it could have enormous consequences. On Oct. 24, Netflix streamed the movie A House of Dynamite. At one point the fictional president says, “I had one briefing when I was sworn in…one.” In an interview, a technical advisor for the film said that no president since Ronald Reagan has taken part in the national security drills involving nuclear war. Annie Jacobsen makes the same point in her 2024 book Nuclear War: A Scenario. She quotes President Reagan’s memoirs, “Six minutes to decide how to respond to a blip on a radar scope and decide whether to release Armageddon! How could anyone apply reason at a time like that?”
So, after talking with folks from Back from the Brink, our organization came up with a petition, “Urge President Trump experience a nuclear war drill to see the folly of nuclear weapons.” You can see it on Change.org. Here’s a quick link: tinyurl.com/nuclear-drill.
It may seem futile to try to educate Donald Trump about anything given his politics and his persona but the 1980s have an interesting lesson for us. Ronald Reagan came in with far-right views and made all kinds of aggressive threats. He faced pushback from the Nuclear Freeze movement and the million-person anti-nuke rally in NYC in 1982. Two movies were produced in the ’80s: WarGames and The Day After, both with stark messages about the results of nuclear war. Reagan saw both movies and they strongly affected him. Within a few years he negotiated with Gorbachev and came up with a treaty that sharply reduced the number of nuclear weapons.
The petition background lists a number of interim measures that could make the world safer, like taking weapons off hair-trigger, abandon “launch on warning,” pledging no first use. Please sign the petition and spread it around.
Americans and the Holocaust: A Traveling Exhibition for Libraries
by Meriden Public Library
Americans and the Holocaust is on display at the Meriden Public Library, along with a series of related special events, through Nov. 9, 2025.
The 1,100-square-foot exhibition examines various aspects of American society: the government, the military, refugee aid organizations, the media and the general public.
Drawing on a remarkable collection of primary sources from the 1930s and ’40s, the exhibition tells the stories of Americans who acted in response to Nazism, challenging the commonly held assumptions that Americans knew little and did nothing about the Nazi persecution and murder of Jews as the Holocaust unfolded. It provides a portrait of American society that shows how the Depression, isolationism, xenophobia, racism and antisemitism shaped responses to Nazism and the Holocaust. Info: 203-630-4730, www.meridenlibrary.org. Meriden Public Library at 105 Miller Street, Meriden.
Appeal for Help for Cristian Carias and Family
Unidad Latina en Acción hopes to raise funds for Cristian Carias, who was detained by ICE in New Haven, on Sunday, Sept. 21.
He was detained on Dixwell Avenue in front of the Q house at 9 in the morning, after he was followed a few blocks from his house. ICE detained him by smashing his window and pulling him out of the vehicle. The link at the bottom is an article detailing the kidnapping.
He was here in the country for several years, and he was a leader in his church. These funds are to help his family obtain and pay a lawyer. They are also to assist the family as they lost the sole monetary provider for the household, and there are still two daughters who need care, not to mention rent and food.
All and any monetary assistance are greatly appreciated in these difficult times. Sharing this GoFundMe campaign is also greatly appreciated. Only the people can save the people!
To read the article in the Yale Daily News about Cristian, please go to bit.ly/4ojTd2Y.
Dr. Ira Helfand and Dr. Bárbara Cruvinel Santiago to speak at Yale 7-8:15 p.m. Thursday Oct. 9
Location: William Harkness Hall, Room 119, 100 Wall St, New Haven, CT 06511
Speakers: Dr. Ira Helfand (Back From the Brink; International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons), Dr. Bárbara Cruvinel Santiago (Yale Physics; Berkeley College)
As global tensions evolve, nuclear weapons continue to raise questions of security, peace, and existential risk—concerns that have grown more acute in recent years. This event will: examine why the dangers posed by nuclear weapons are growing and urgent; explore the humanitarian and environmental consequences of nuclear weapons use and the risks embedded in current U.S. nuclear policies and posture; and provide useful information about how Yale students, faculty and staff and the general public can get involved and help reduce these threats.
Opening remarks provided by the Yale Chaplain’s Office. Additional remarks provided by Rishi Gurudevan (Yale College; Students for Nuclear Disarmament) and Cassady Mullaney (Yale Physics; Kimball Smith Series).
Visit tinyurl.com/yalenuclearweapns to register.
No Kings Day 2! Demonstrate on Saturday, Oct. 18
[Demonstrations on Oct. 18 will take place in many towns across the country and the world. The Hartford demonstration at the Capitol is from noon-2 p.m. The New Haven demonstration will be on the New Haven Green from 3-5 p.m. NOW IS THE TIME!!! See www.nokings.org for all locations. And check the time before you go to ensure the time has not changed.]
In June, we did what many claimed was impossible: peacefully mobilized millions of people to take to the streets and declare with one voice: America Has No Kings. And it mattered. The world saw the power of the people. President Trump’s birthday parade was drowned out by protests in every state and across the globe. His attempt to turn June 14 into a coronation collapsed, and the story became the strength of a movement rising against his authoritarian power grabs.
Now, President Trump has doubled down. His administration is sending masked agents into our streets, terrorizing our communities. They are targeting immigrant families, profiling, arresting and detaining people without warrants. Threatening to overtake elections. Gutting healthcare, environmental protections, and education when families need them most. Rigging maps to silence voters. Ignoring mass shootings at our schools and in our communities. Driving up the cost of living while handing out massive giveaways to billionaire allies as families struggle.
The president thinks his rule is absolute. But in America, we don’t have kings and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty.
Our peaceful movement is only getting bigger and bigger. “NO KINGS” is more than just a slogan; it is the foundation our nation was built upon. Born in the streets, shouted by millions, carried on posters and chants, it echoes from city blocks to rural town squares, uniting people across this country to fight dictatorship together.
Because this country does not belong to kings, dictators, or tyrants. It belongs to We the People – the people who care, who show up, and the ones who fight for dignity, a life we can afford, and real opportunity. No Thrones. No Crowns. No Kings.
Know Your Rights https://undocumented.media.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3141/2025/03/Know-Your-Rights_One-Pager_Bilingual-2.pdf
Greater New Haven Indivisible News
by GNHI Steering Committee
We are the steering committee for the newly formed Greater New Haven Indivisible (GNHI). Our general mission is to push back on the Trump administration’s agenda and policies that are leading to an authoritarian system in the United States. We want to work, through non-violent actions and resistance, to make the US more democratic, progressive, and pluralistic.
All of you have expressed interest in various ways of being notified of the start of another Indivisible group in New Haven. We want to invite you to the first meeting of GNHI:
Date/Time: Wednesday, Oct. 8, 6-7:30 p.m.
Place: Stetson Free Public Library, 197 Dixwell Ave., New Haven. Take elevator or stairs to 2nd floor; we will be in 2nd floor classroom.
At this meeting, we will briefly introduce ourselves, our mission statement, our code of conduct, and our practical vision for meetings. We will also be talking with you about areas of interest for “break-out” groups/meetings – which we hope will start meeting separately in the future – where the planning and taking of many actions will occur. We hope that some/many of you will come ready to join break-out groups – and some will be ready to participate in organizing, planning, and helping lead those action-groups.
And, we will discuss the next big 2nd No Kings protest on Oct. 18. With limited time, we will be sticking to our agenda, and hope that member cross-talk can continue in the break-out, smaller group meetings.
We are excited to meet you all and to begin making “good trouble” together. Please share this information with anyone you know who wants to join; tell them to send us an email. They can find our email through the national Indivisible website or give it to them: greaternewhavenindivisible@gmail.com.
You don’t need to respond/RSVP, just come.
Resistance Toolkit Zines
by City of New Haven Peace Commission
The Peace Commission has created a new community resource https://heyzine.com/flip-book/19c5ceb599.html for activism in New Haven in the current political moment.
Be sure to check out our website peacecommission.org for our bilingual Resistance Toolkit Zines, created by Nelani Mejias for the Peace Commission.
[To read more about the Resistance Toolkit, please see bit.ly/3IcUglQ]
Know Your Rights https://undocumented.media.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3141/2025/03/Know-Your-Rights_One-Pager_Bilingual-2.pdf