Revolutionary Threads: Rastafari, Social Justice, and Cooperative Economics offers an American Rasta’s retelling of episodes in American history with an anti-colonial thrust, accented by Bobby Sullivan’s own personal experiences. The book ties together various subjects while returning each time to the culture of Rastafari, social justice movements, and cooperative economics. From how we perceive history in general, America’s precolonial past, and global capitalism’s early development and the resistance to it, to political prisoners and a celebration of religious tolerance, the book approaches North America with an African-centrical perspective. Sullivan aims to dispel the oversimplification of our perceptions of Rastafari, as well as other cultures, in the age of the Internet, where the loudest voices are often the most extreme and divisive.
Bobby Sullivan grew up in the Washington, DC, punk scene, fueled by Rasta rockers the Bad Brains and the foundational Minor Threat. His most notable band continues to be Soulside (of which he is the singer), which had multiple releases on Dischord Records, produced by Ian MacKaye. Along the way, Sullivan became an activist, working with Food Not Bombs, the Anarchist Black Cross political prisoner support network, and a Rasta prison ministry. He currently manages a retail grocery co-op and sits on the board of the National Co+op Grocers. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with his wife and four daughters. He will be in conversation with Orus Barker, local farmer, political activist, and former religious studies professor at Lagos, Nigeria’s University of Oxford.
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