This program is in remembrance of Richard Grossman, who died of cancer in November 2011. He was one of the great uncompromising, courageous thinkers and activists in the unfolding project to define, limit and abolish corporate power. Grossman was one of the first historians who called attention to the fact that corporations have become persons under the 14th amendment.He said: "If we are going to have pretense to a democracy, we cannot give political rights and powers to a private entity. We cannot let that private entity get so strong that it rewrites the laws, that it shapes the culture, that it shapes the education. It may be difficult to imagine a country that's not dominated by giant corporations, but other people before us have imagined that ... (and) left us many important mechanisms that we can use."
Richard Grossman re-discovered the amazing history of the Abolitionists and this talk answers the question what it is that we can learn from them today.
Grossman spoke in Yellow Springs Ohio in November 2006. At that time he was working with CELDF, The Community Legal Defense Fund. Many remember him as an inspiring teacher at CELFD's ongoing Democracy Schools.