Avant-Garde: Mission Statement

Avant-Garde: A Journal of Peace, Democracy, and Science seeks to advance the struggle of ideas at the dawning of a new revolutionary period in American and world history. In such a moment of possibility, our journal insists upon the capacity of people to think for themselves in new and creative ways, and to see the possibilities for a new world. Avant-Garde aims to be a publication where ideas can live and breathe, producing writing and art that speak to people from every facet of their lives.

Our journal commits itself to principles associated with the best of the avant-garde ethos: Courage, in standing for ideas that are worthy of the people, and Science, in seeking to arrive at the truth through disciplined experimentation along several modes of discovery and inquiry. It is with this spirit that we inherit the ideas of W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King Jr., and James Baldwin, claiming them as figures for our time. We see ourselves in the tradition of the Black Freedom Struggle and the breakthroughs it achieved in human consciousness, in theories of democracy and social change, and in methods of revolutionary struggle. We link ourselves to the fearless innovation and imaginary of John Coltrane, Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, Nina Simone, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, Alice Coltrane, Stevie Wonder, Archie Shepp, Max Roach, Ornette Coleman, and many others—artists who were part of the struggle for freedom in the United States. We use the concept of the avant-garde as they do: in recognition of a people already in motion, hastening to make all things new.

As a world historic concept, the avant-garde speaks to new and experimental movements in art, music, and politics. In the U.S., it emerges directly from the effort to connect progressive and revolutionary ideas to people’s strivings for freedom and peace. Hence, we seek to recapture the avant-garde from the ruling elite, who have distorted its meaning into a farce of trivial, decadent pursuits far removed from the people. We see the struggle of ideas as an existential question confronting all forces in society that struggle for progress. We thus place ourselves squarely among those broad sections of the American people who are searching for a future, who are challenging the philosophy, values, and legitimacy of a dying regime in the United States.

The American people today are in open rebellion against their ruling class. This rebellion manifests in many ways—from the mass outcry against U.S. proxy wars in Palestine and Ukraine, to the groundswell of support for anti-establishment candidates in the 2024 presidential race, to the broader collapse in public trust toward major institutions of rule in U.S. life. America faces a profound crisis: the ruling elite cannot rule in the old way, making it the task of the people to find their own solutions to resolve the crisis. Contrary to the claims of those who defend the status quo, the American people are not an ignorant, hateful mass interested in imposing a fascist regime upon themselves. Rather, they seek a new type of democracy and a new economy anchored in peace and industry; and in the process, a new American people is being born. This democratic movement in the U.S. is commensurate with much larger global processes: what can be called an Afro-Asiatic reconstitution of humanity, the democratic recentering of the world order toward the most densely populated and creatively fertile civilizations on the planet.

In this light, we recognize that the advances of the 20th century—namely, the socialist, anti-colonial, civil rights, and working class movements and revolutions—forged a new global consciousness through the freeing of humanity’s majority, and in turn created new possibilities for revolutionary change. Old ideas of revolution are no longer sufficient for this time. We are therefore dedicated to the pursuit of clarity—cutting through manufactured ideas pushed by a ruling elite who seek to divide humanity, and discarding the dogmatism of a Left that believes knowledge comes from the top-down rather than belonging naturally to the people. Unafraid, we strive to know the truth. Indeed we greet the present moment, as greater numbers of ordinary Americans proceed upon a new field of politics on their own terms, striving to know one another in new ways and to rediscover their capacity as agents of history.

Avant-Garde emerges from the thinking of the Saturday Free School for Philosophy & Black Liberation, a unique project which has for more than a decade endeavored to create spaces of moral, spiritual, and political education for the people of Philadelphia, especially the youth and children. Remaining rooted in Philadelphia—simultaneously America’s poorest major city and a ravaged, living symbol of deindustrialization, as well as a creative epicenter of art and culture and the birthplace of many revolutionary traditions—our journal seeks to engage with the vast and varied coalition of the discontented in our country and with all people who are sincerely searching for a way out of despair; with men, women, and youth of every creed and color who fight for peace and democracy. We embrace the responsibility of exploring questions that the people themselves have put on the table: questions of war and peace, of poverty, of democracy, and of our shared future with each other and all humanity.

We are, ultimately, optimists about the future. Standing on the foundation of previous revolutions in our nation’s history—the Civil Rights Movement, the Civil War & Reconstruction era, and the Revolution of 1776—we believe that a Fourth American Revolution is possible. Armed with the fire and force of new ideas, we are confident that the American people can make it so.

Editorial Board

Jeremiah Kim, Co-Editor
Michelle Lyu, Co-Editor
Serafina Harris
Jahan Choudhry
Anthony Monteiro

Avant-Garde is a sister publication with Vishwabandhu Journal, based in India.