Peter Lownds
Peter Lownds is a collaborator with People’s World - he translates articles about Brazil for the paper. Lownds served in the Peace Corps in the city of Recife in the northeastern state of Pernambuco.[1]
Education
- Studied Social Science/Comparative Education at UCLA
- Yale University
Communist connection
Comrade Paula Solomon (1946-2023) was memorialized by a crowd of about 50 people at the historic activist First Unitarian Church on Sept. 3 2023. An array of speakers attested to her character, dedication, and steadfastness over an entire lifetime of positive contribution to people’s movements.
Paula was the ultimate “red diaper baby,” born to Lee Solomon and Will Solomon, both Communist Party USA members and activists in Los Angeles. Will had been blacklisted on the L.A. waterfront and was often out of work, and it was her mom Lee who seemed to be the greater influence on young Paula. One of Lee’s projects was the founding of the People's College of Law, a law school established to teach students how, as lawyers, to help ordinary people—workers, tenants, students, immigrants, members of oppressed groups—rather than the rich and the corporations.
Will and Lee owned a modest six-unit apartment building on a busy street in Central L.A., and Paula inherited it. As her parents had done, Paula ran the building almost like a commune, offering affordable housing to kindred spirits, and lifelong caring for those, like comrade Esther Cicconi, who was able to age in place there with “a little help from her friends.”
A couple who had lived in Paula’s building, Terre Lownds and Peter Lownds, also spoke and read poems in her honor. Terre related that she once asked Paula if she was related to King Solomon. “Probably,” Paula answered with a straight face. “Even as we grieve,” Terre recited, “we groove. Even as we tire, we try.” Peter, calling Paula “a consistently courageous person,” also stated that his great-grandfather was named Zalmen Solomon—so maybe they too were even related somewhere along the line.
FRSO connection
Gabriel Sayegh's; art
Open Letter to Obama on Iran
In 2008 Peter Lownds, Paulo Freire Institute, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA signed an online petition “A Open Letter to Barack Obama on Iran”.[2]
"Support Bill Ayers"
In October 2008, several thousand college professors, students and academic staff signed a statement Support Bill Ayers in solidarity with former Weather Underground Organization terrorist Bill Ayers.
In the run up to the U.S. presidential elections, Ayers had come under considerable media scrutiny, sparked by his relationship to presidential candidate Barack Obama.
- We write to support our colleague Professor William Ayers, Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who is currently under determined and sustained political attack...
- We, the undersigned, stand on the side of education as an enterprise devoted to human inquiry, enlightenment, and liberation. We oppose the demonization of Professor William Ayers.
Peter Lownds of Paulo Freire Institute of the University of California, Los Angeles signed the statement[3].