[Guest blog by Rafael Rodríguez Cruz]

As I read the Winter/Spring issue of Carry It Forward, I realized that I have been a member of the RFC Board for almost 17 years. I still remember my first meeting with Robby Meeropol and Bruce Miller in the summer of 1997 to talk about my potential candidacy for the Board.

As the RFC’s first year of new leadership under Jenn Meeropol proceeds, we’re focusing a lot of attention on strengthening our links to a younger generation of progressive activists and their allies. Part of that process involves experimenting with new styles of outreach. Our efforts are aimed at both online and in-person networks, and we’re pursuing many different avenues for making those connections.

My book group almost exclusively reads fiction; usually political fiction, often written by women. In general, I prefer reading novels rather than non-fiction, so I was surprised by how moved I was by the first non-fiction book my group read this year: Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity by Andrew Solomon (http://andrewsolomon.com/books/far-from-the-tree/).

We woke up this morning to the news that Pete Seeger had died.

My (Robert’s) first memory of Pete was seeing him and the rest of the Weavers at Carnegie Hall just before Christmas in 1955.   I was eight years old.  My parents, Abel and Anne Meeropol, who knew the Seegers, took me to visit them at their home in the Hudson River Valley of New York the following year.

Thanks to all who joined us on January 12, 2014, for the premiere screening of CARRY IT FORWARD: Celebrate the Children of Resistance. This 90-minute film presented a condensed version of the June 2013 theatrical event staged at Town Hall in New York City, that commemorated the 60th anniversary of Ethel and Julius Rosenbergs’ executions.