Louis Head
Louis Head is a New Mexico activist. He is community engagement coordinator at Casa de Salud, an independent and innovative integrative healthcare facility serving the Albuquerque metro area. He previously was part of the team that built the New Mexico-based SouthWest Organizing Project during the 1980s and 90s, and later was co-founder and executive director of the Cuba Research and Analysis Group, which for over ten years built relationships between U.S.-based institutions, artists, professionals and others and their counterparts in Cuba. Prior to coming to Casa de Salud, he served as facilitator of the South by Southwest Experiment, a partnership between established Latino/Indigenous and African-descendent grassroots social justice organizations in New Mexico, Texas, and Mississippi.
He holds a BA in the Political Economy of U.S.-Latin American relations from the University of Michigan, where he also founded one of the first Central America solidarity organizations in the US in 1980. He brings with him a wealth of experience related to US-Latin America relations, including those between Latin American social justice movements and organizations and their U.S. counterparts.[1]
Chavistas
Manuel Criollo March 19, 2017:
Look what I found Richard Moore Louis Head Catherine Murphy Pam Tau Lee I was so lucky to share that moment with many of you Lanita Morris Robert Battles Majora Carter Katynja McCory Roberto Roibal — with Shirley Pate, Esperanza Luzbert and Richard Moore.
Venceremos Brigade
In July, 2006, a group of five activists from Albuquerque went to Cuba for two weeks with the 37th contingent of the Venceremos Brigade. Raices Collective (radio station) members Steven Emmons and Louis Head, along with community organizers Elisa Pintor, Alejandra Maroquin-Flores, and Rosina Roibal took part.[2]
Letter to Obama on Cuba
In March 2009 Head and several others wrote to president Barack Obama, urging him to lift restrictions on Cuba;
- Dear President Obama:
- We are artists, arts presenters, arts educators, cultural entrepreneurs and scholars, and cultural heritage and policy professionals from diverse political persuasions. We have been adversely affected by the cultural embargo imposed by the U.S. government against both Cuban and American artists and cultural institutions. We are writing to request that you make concrete changes in U.S. policy towards Cuba that will allow for the uninhibited flow of art, culture, information, ideas and debates, as well as travel by artists, cultural workers and professionals, and arts and cultural aficionados between the two countries. U.S. policies towards Cuba worsened many times over by the previous administration and criticized throughout the world have prevented us from engaging in critical communication and collaboration with our Cuban counterparts, compromising our nation s cherished ideals of freedom of expression and preventing cultural interchange between two societies that share a historic relationship lasting over two centuries.
- One year ago, we requested policy changes from the Bush Administration so that respectful, critical dialogue and principled exchange could take place between the peoples of Cuba and the U.S. and our respective governments. Our petition fell on deaf ears. As citizens, artists, scholars, educators and cultural workers from all artistic practices and from advocacy and service organizations in the arts, we now call upon your Administration to:
- 1. open a respectful dialogue with the government and people of Cuba in accord with established protocols supported by the community of nations;
- 2. end the travel ban that prevents U.S. citizens from visiting Cuba, and allow for Cuban artists and scholars to visit the United States, thus eliminating the censorship of art and ideas, and
- 3. initiate, by working with the U.S. Congress, a process that can result in the development of normal, respectful bilateral relations between our countries. The artistic and cultural communities in the U.S. and in Cuba are catalysts of imagination and creativity. We are committed to serve as bridges for our fellow citizens. Now, we need our government to take leadership and re-open the pathways of exchange.
- We look forward to working with you to advance the interests of the U.S. and of Cuba.
Signatories were[3];
- Bernard Rubenstein, Conductor, Copland/Gershwin New Music Group, Santa Fe, NM
- Isabel Soffer, World Music Institute, New York, NY
- Rob Gibson, Executive & Artistic Director, Savannah Music Festival, Savannah, GA
- Ann Rosenthal, Executive Director, MultiArts Projects & Productions, New York, NY
- James Early, Artists and Intellectuals in Defense of Humanity, Washington, DC
- Bill Martínez, Martínez & Associates, San Francisco, CA
- Louis Head, US-Cuba Cultural Exchange, Albuquerque, NM
- Jose Griego, Ph.D., President, Northern New Mexico College, Espanola, NM
- Erica D. Zielinski, General Manager, Lincoln Center Festival, New York, NY
- Mike Kappus, President, The Rosebud Agency, San Francisco, CAderson, U
US Social Forum National Planning Committee
Contact Sheet for the National Planning Committee of the U.S. Social Forum, Detroit 2010. Original April 09, 2009, Updated February 23, 2010.
Dump Trump
DUMP TRUMP, DEFEAT RACISM AND MISOGYNY, BUILD THE LEFT was an open letter to the left from 47 grassroots organizers. October 17, 2016.
- A lot of us see something really clearly, but few of us—radical and revolutionary organizers—are willing to say it out loud.
- So we’re going to say it. Defeating Trump in the presidential election is a top priority for the left. And at a minimum, that means mobilizing voters for Hillary Clinton in swing states even if you vote for another candidate in a safe state. We’ve got to beat Trump and Trumpism while building movements that will fight, resist and disrupt a Clinton administration that will be militaristic and pro-corporate...
- As we mentioned at the beginning, defeating Trump is not enough. We need movements strong enough to fight a Clinton administration on several fronts—whether Israel/Palestine, free trade agreements, climate change, a $15 minimum wage, or the prison-industrial complex. And neutralizing the appeal of the far right means we need to both strengthen our movements for racial justice and win over white workers to a progressive class politics as an alternative to Trump’s racist economic nationalism. Finally, we need to build a left that can help anchor a visionary alternative to corporate Democrats. It won’t be easy, but we’ve come this far. Let’s defend what we’ve got in this election, and keep our eye on collective liberation.
Signatories included Louis Head, SouthWest Organizing Project.