Jed Brandt
Encyclopedia
Jed Brandt is an American communist. His writing, photography, design and artistic work has appeared in the Indypendent
Indypendent
The Indypendent is the newspaper of the New York City Independent Media Center, a local branch of the worldwide Indymedia network. Founded in the fall of 2000, it has won numerous awards and has broken several local stories; with over 500 journalists participating in the project over its seven year...

 and other publications. Brandt is a member of the Kasama Project
Kasama Project
The Kasama Project is a United States-based network of people organized to support a communist project for the overthrow and transformation of all oppressive social conditions....

, and advocates for the formation of a new communist movement.

Early life

Brandt was born in Cleveland, but moved to West Virginia
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...

 for most of his childhood. Brandt later relocated to Chicago. He was one of the founders of Youth Against Apathy, a high-school network of communists, anarchists and Bohemian youth from Northern Illinois.

At age 15, he was tried on felony charges of aggravated battery
Aggravated battery
Aggravated battery in criminal law is a more serious form of battery, and is considered a felony. Aggravated battery can be punished by a fine or more than a year in prison in some countries...

 of a police officer. He "unarrested" someone from a squad of riot police. He was hospitalized in the arrest with multiple contusions. However, he was exonerated
Exoneration
Exoneration occurs when a person who has been convicted of a crime is later proved to have been innocent of that crime. Attempts to exonerate convicts are particularly controversial in death penalty cases, especially where new evidence is put forth after the execution has taken place.The term...

 when the bite mark that was allegedly delivered by Brandt on the arresting officer's hand did not match his slightly crooked teeth.

In 1996, Brandt, along with student leaders from across the city, formed the Student Liberation Action Movement. He was the editor of the radical tabloid Spheric and the Hunter College Envoy. Both newspapers received awards from the Campus Alternative Journalism Project for reporting and graphic design.

Jed was also briefly a member of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade
Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade
The Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade is the former youth group of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. Founded originally as the Attica Brigade, it became the Revolutionary Student Brigade. The RCYB uniform included a t-shirts with a large red star superimposed with the silhouette of a...

, where he burned an American flag of the steps of the Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...

, an act he said was in solidarity with all humanity and for "a world without borders."

Professional life

Brandt was a staff illustrator for Vibe Magazine, and has done publication design and reporting for LeftTurn, Political Affairs, Monthly Review
Monthly Review
Monthly Review is an independent Marxist journal published 11 times per year in New York City.-History:The publication was founded by Harvard University economics instructor Paul Sweezy, who became the first editor...

online, and other publications. His first article was written on the police torture case involving Chicago's then-Commander of Detectives John Burge, for the now-defunct Revolutionary Worker newspaper.

Brandt studied philosophy and history at the City University of New York
City University of New York
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...

, Hunter College
Hunter College
Hunter College, established in 1870, is a public university and one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Hunter grants undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in more than one hundred fields of study, and is recognized...

, with an emphasis on legal and social systems theory. He resided Kathmandu, Nepal, and was reporting on the Himalayan revolution led by a Maoist Communist Party.

External links

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