CUNY DIGITAL HISTORY ARCHIVE

In this interview, Suzy Subways discussed the queer and feminist politics of the Student Liberation Action Movement (SLAM!) and the larger movement in and beyond CUNY in the 1990s and early 2000s. She discussed her work with the Welfare Action Committee at Brooklyn College, where she studied, in the wake of welfare reform policies that pushed working class and poor mothers out of CUNY and universities across the nation in the middle of the 1990s. In addition to the gender politics of SLAM!, she also talked about the role of anarchism in the organization, as well as SLAM!'s ability to train students in organizing skills. One site of training and radicalization that she discussed was the High School Organizing Project, which sought to mobilize New York City high school students in defense of Open Admissions and the victories of struggles at CUNY from prior decades.