Book Review: A Continuous Struggle

Image: The cover of the book is a cream background with a photo of Martin Sostre broken up into several squares divided by thin lines. Sostre is bald, with medium brown skin and a very short beard. Across the top in black is "a continuous struggle," below that in red is "the revolutionary life of Martni Sostre." Across the bottom is the author's name Garret Felber and "Foreword by Robin D.G. Kelley."

In modern day USA, those unfamiliar with anarchism may only have government smear campaigns and mainstream media depictions to draw from. These usually portray anarchists as small groups of young privileged white people breaking windows for no reason or the anarchy=chaos colloquial use of the term. One of the biggest challenges in terms of growing anarchist community is connecting with people and showing them that anarchism is about dismantling and resisting hierarchies, building mutual aid/community based structures, and growing/practicing liberatory frameworks (and while we're at it, that those windows were broken for a reason.) Part of the optics problem also lies at the feet of our own communities. Anarchists who are often centered are white and as a result, a greater effort is needed needed to combat white supremacy within movements. While there are histories of anarchist movements from a variety of countries with mostly white demographics, some better or less problematic than others, the tent of anarchism is much larger and unfortunately often ignored or simply not known. As a result, people often miss out on the rich history and present of Black anarchism. One of the most passionate and often unknown anarchist organizers is Martin Sostre. It is very tough to find anything comprehensive out there about him for a variety of reasons I will detail later. When I saw that a biography about Sostre was being released, I was excited to learn more about him and his life. 

A Continuous Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Martin Sostre is a labor of love by Garrett Felber. He begins the book humbly, expressing his concern that he may not be able to do this story justice, but being willing to try his best anyway. He also mentions that there were mixed feelings about whether or not Sostre would have wanted a biography as even his death was kept private when he passed. I think that Felber executed this biography well. There is an extensive and impressive level of research into history and materials that are not easily accessible. Much of Sostre's writing was in the form of letters or small pamphlets rather than books and better archived things of the past. I also think that Felber did well to center the revolutionary aspect of Sostre's existence, as Felber and Sostre's family guessed he would have preferred. Felber did this without sacrificing honesty, though, and did well to tell the story of Sostre as a human being rather than a flawless leader.

The life and history of Martin Sostre is essentially also a history of USAmerican prison industrial complex and civil rights movements for both Black and Puerto Rican communities at large. One cannot understand Sostre without also understanding these histories. I believe that Felber did well to set the stage for things that were going on at the time, including giving mini bios of the various organizers that worked with Sostre. Sostre spent so much of his time incarcerated, that much of his organizing took place behind bars. It was frankly quite intense reading about what he went through. In early life, he was incarcerated for drug offenses that he did admit to. However, moving on, changing, and creating community and liberatory structures landed him in the sights of the state, who then framed him (now documented and admitted to by the officers involved) in order to put him back in prison. He endured torture regularly, but remained so defiant throughout it all. I honestly don't understand how someone could have kept going, even with the supports he had and how incredibly strong his beliefs in the struggle were.

Sostre truly exemplified the "propaganda of the deed" style of organizing. While he did write and make speeches, which are unfortunately often lost to time, his real focus was in taking action and building community. Outside prison (or in part from within via help from his support system,) Sostre created revolutionary spaces that worked as book stores, libraries, community gathering areas, and so on. Dealing with everything from closures and fire bombs from the state, he kept going through it all. He also was involved in organizing for prisoners, despite the absolute brick walls built up around him. In prison, he resisted oppression every chance he got, even from solitary confinement, including the fighting the regular sexual assault of invasive bodily searches and the beatings that ensued. There was a lot of interesting history in this book about Muslim organizing in prison which led to many religious freedoms we see as more common today, however flawed. Sostre had an amazing support system outside composed of stellar and unrelenting organizers. However, even they could only do so much in the face of state repression. I found myself regularly thinking about what it was like for prisoners- political and non- who didn't have any support. Once he was finally out of prison for good later in life, Sostre continued the practice of radical bookstore/infoshop creation and also took up organizing around housing and education in his communities. Essentially, Sostre was known far more for what he did than what he said.

Sostre's journey towards identifying as anarchist was also interesting to read about. Like many, he initially saw anarchism as a white thing, but later realized it as a larger struggle. He discovered time and again that authoritarianism from state structures to the Nation of Islam were flawed at the center. To read about someone going from a corrupt military cop in his late teens (a story too long for a review) to black nationalist-adjacent/Muslim marxist-leninist to a prolific anarchist organizer added a level of hope to my worldview (and also forgiveness of my younger imperfect self.) Sostre went on to influence other Black anarchists such as Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin who met Sostre in prison and was inspired by his guidance. The story is far more complex and interesting than I have detailed in this paragraph, so I highly recommend the book before seeing this as the whole picture.

In the end, I do think Felber was successful in this monumental task of telling the complex story of someone's life taking place in a complex time and in complex institutions. I like to hope that if Sostre were alive today, he would appreciate the way his story was told. This book is a necessary addition to the bookshelves of anyone interested in history as well as any anarchist or leftist thinkers. It expands upon not only general assumptions about what anarchism is but also about the various belief systems and activities taking place during the civil rights movements at the time all well telling the story of Martin Sostre, who kept fighting until the very end.

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.