Founded by Jean Hardisty in Chicago as Midwest Research, with a staff of three.
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Midwest Research produces two award-winning posters emphasizing the broad spectrum of right-wing violence.
View Poster 1 - View Poster 2 |
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Researcher Chip Berlet appears live on the NBC Today Show to discuss Posse Comitatus recruiting in the beleaguered farm belt.
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Berlet is named as a defendant in a defamation lawsuit brought by Lyndon LaRouche against NBC News and others. |
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In response to the New Right's "pro-family" movement, Midwest Research publishes its first monograph, Nostalgia on the Right: Historical Roots of the Idealized Family, by historian Nancy Theriot. |
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Midwest Research attains 501(c)3 status, becoming a not-for-profit organization. |
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An online computer bulletin board system
(BBS) is launched, the second progressive BBS in the United States,
and the first devoted exclusively to challenging the Right.
(read more) |
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Midwest Research receives the Citizens Alert "Rev. Willie Baker
Award" for "outstanding efforts" in
working for racial justice in Chicago by helping anti-racist activists
understand how White supremacist and antisemitic groups mobilized
support in neighborhoods.
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| The office moves to Boston and is renamed
Political Research Associates. |
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Lyndon LaRouche: Fascism Wrapped in an American Flag, a topical report by Chip Berlet and Joel Bellman, is published by PRA.
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PRA collaborates with South End Press to co-publish two books by Russ Bellant, The Coors Connection: How Coors Family Philanthropy Undermines Democratic Pluralism, and Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party.
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| PRA publishes Chip Berlet's report Right Woos Left: Populist Party, LaRouchian and Other Fascist Overtures to Progressives and Why They Must be Rejected. |
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PRA celebrates its ten-year anniversary!
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In response to the anti-environmentalist movement, PRA publishes The Scent of Opportunity: A Survey of the Wise Use/Property Rights Movement in New England.
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PRA begins publication of its magazine, The Public Eye.
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PRA produces a twelve-part set of packets titled Constructing Homophobia: How the Right Wing Defines Lesbians, Gay Men and Bisexuals as a Threat to Civilization.
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PRA completes groundbreaking research on Christian Reconstructionism,
an ultra-fundamentalist wing of the Christian Right that has been a factor
behind increased violence in the anti-abortion movement. (read the article)
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South End Press publishes Eyes Right! Challenging the Right Wing Backlash, edited by Chip Berlet. The book receives the Gustavus Myers award.
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In the face of the right's demonizing rhetoric about "welfare queens," PRA publishes Decades of Distortion, a report that documents the right's strategic misidentification and stereotyping of those aided by public assistance.
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A joint research report with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and Equal Partners in Faith, Calculated Compassion, is first to identify the Christian Right “Ex-Gay” movement as another attack on gay rights using softer rhetoric and clever re-framing of issues. |
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Beacon Press publishes Jean Hardisty’s Mobilizing Resentment, winner of the Gustavus Myers award.
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PRA publishes Defending Public Education, the first in a series of Activist Resource Kits, primary and secondary materials about campaigns on the Right. |
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Guilford Press publishes Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort, by Chip Berlet and Matthew N. Lyons, which receives the Gustavus Myers award.
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PRA publishes acclaimed research on the African-American anti-abortion movement and the Right's attack on LGBT safe zones in high schools.
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After more than 20 years at PRA, founder and executive director Jean Hardisty steps down to serve as President Emerita.
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PRA welcomes Katherine Ragsdale as the new Executive Director.
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| Defending Justice: An Activist Resource Kit is published. It includes over 250 pages of information on how to resist the growing system of courts, surveillance, policing, and incarceration. With it, a comanion website, www.defendingjustice.org, is launched. |
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PRA celebrates its 25th anniversary! |
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Magazine
