Podcast Summary: New Books Network – Garrett Felber, "A Continuous Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Martin Sostre" (AK Press, 2025)
Episode Date: February 6, 2026
Host: Michael Stauch
Author/Guest: Garrett Felber

Main Theme & Purpose

This episode dives into Garrett Felber’s biography, A Continuous Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Martin Sostre. The conversation explores Sostre’s dynamic, multifaceted activism as a Black radical, his prison organizing, conversion to Islam, transformation of legal precedents for prisoners’ rights, mentorship legacy, evolving political philosophy, and pioneering community-building projects. Felber and Stauch unpack Sostre’s journey from Harlem to Buffalo, from prison study groups to grassroots organizing, and highlight the broader lessons of Sostre’s continuous struggle against state repression.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Meaning Behind "A Continuous Struggle"

• Title Origin: The title comes from Sostre’s reflection upon leaving prison in 1976 — that his fight was “a continuous struggle,” never limited to prison walls, but extending into every facet of life and politics. (00:59)
• Sostre’s Political Growth: Sostre transitioned from Black nationalism to anarchism, showing how activism and political thought grow through life and direct confrontation with state power.
• Quote (Felber):

  “He was describing something that I think his life also captures... a continuous struggle, not just in a temporal sense but also… in a geographic sense of, you know, being inside and outside.” (01:49)

Harlem Roots: The World that Raised Sostre

• Social Life in Depression-Era Harlem: Harlem was a "river of black radicalism," with vibrant bookstores like Louis Michaux’s acting as political and community hubs. Felber reconstructs this context due to lack of direct memoir or oral history from Sostre.
• Breaking the ‘Autodidact’ Myth: Learning wasn’t solitary—Sostre (and his contemporaries like John Henrik Clarke) learned within rich community networks. (04:26)
• Quote (Felber):

  “People who are, quote unquote, self-taught are actually part of a community of learners. And that was very much the world that Martin grew up in.” (06:44)

Military Service & Critique of Policing

• Unexpected Discovery: Sostre served as a Black military police officer in Jim Crow Florida during WWII—a revelation from court-martial records, as official military archives were destroyed.
• Influence on Later Views: His experience policing Black soldiers shaped his later critiques of Black police officers and the complicity of marginalized groups in state repression.
• Quote (Felber):

  “I think then it kind of began to dawn on me how that was linked to his later critiques of the role of Black police during the 60s and 70s.... He was quite critical of... greater inclusion into police forces... compared it basically to the role of indigenous troops in colonial settings.” (08:32)

Jailhouse Lawyering & Prison Organizing

• Conversion & Leadership in Nation of Islam: Incarcerated on a drug charge (1952), Sostre converted to Islam and became a leading jailhouse lawyer, writing legal briefs and communal constitutions within prison.
• Collaborative Legal Action: He organized collective mass petitions that laid the groundwork for later prisoners’ rights by using Section 1983 litigation and other pioneering tactics. (10:19–13:48)
• Quote (Felber):

  “He would sort of author [cases] and then provide templates for people who would fill out the same petition, the same writ. So it was essentially like a collective mass action of litigation.” (12:38)

• Legacy in Prisoner Rights: Sostre’s legal victories include pivotal cases on religious rights, censorship, solitary confinement, and bodily autonomy; cited by jailhouse lawyers to this day. (14:09–16:33)
• Notable Moment:

  “If you talk to jailhouse lawyers from that period and onward, they're all familiar with Sastre's work because he's, he's frequently a precedent that they cite.” (15:49)

Buffalo’s Afro Asian Bookshop – A Radical Hub

• Post-Release Community Building: After his 1964 release, Sostre opened a pioneering Black revolutionary bookstore in Buffalo, serving as a community center and point of intersection for Black youth, white antiwar students, and Marxists.
• Role in Uprising: The bookstore sat at the core of the 1967 Buffalo rebellion, providing safety, political education, and a locus for activism. Its function mirrored Sostre’s earlier collective organizing, both inside and outside prison.
• Quote (Felber):

  “It was a place where people could just come in and leave things. Like, he would watch people's kids while they were on. I mean, it was just on Jefferson Avenue, which was, like, the center of Black life on the east side.” (20:18)

• Repression & Frame-Up: Sostre was targeted, surveilled, and ultimately framed via planted evidence, leading to a 31–41 year sentence. (23:26)
• Legacy & Memorialization: The historical site is now reclaimed as a community garden and radical library.

Writings: "The New Prisoner" and Analysis of Attica

• Importance of "The New Prisoner": Sostre’s essay offered a unique account of the Attica Rebellion’s roots and prisons as revolutionary training grounds, arguing for a continuum of struggle dating back to the 1950s.
• Legacy in Scholarship: Felber and others recognize it as essential reading for grasping prison organizing and radical theory. (27:59)

Evolution Toward Anarchism & Organizational Innovation

• Defense Committees as Experiments: As his defense struggles moved from top-heavy (vanguardist) to decentralized, Sostre pioneered horizontal, autonomous organizing, using his own case as an entry point for broader movement-building.
• Quote (Felber):

  “He describes his reorganization of his defense committee from a centralized committee in Buffalo to this network of autonomous bases as his first experiment in anarchist organizing.” (31:11)

• Building Lasting Structures: The North Country Defense Committee, inspired by Sostre’s approach, evolves from his legal defense into eco-defense, becoming a model for sustained horizontal organizing. (35:29–39:01)

Post-Prison Life: Community Development in New Jersey

• Brick-and-Mortar Organizing: After final release, Sostre and Sandy Shivak rehabilitated buildings to create community centers, libraries, affordable housing, and daycares, bridging youth mentorship, tangible skills, and radical politics.
• Legacy Through Oral Histories: Felber collected rich stories from those who worked with Sostre—many unaware of his national importance until much later—emphasizing humble, grounded activism. (41:36–47:13)
• Quote (Felber):

  “He was humble, and they spent their time putting up, you know, sheet wall, so… they just knew him as the guy organizing and helping.” (47:52)

Lessons & Broader Implications

• Multiple Entry Points & Revolutionary Optimism: Sostre’s life illustrates that struggle is multifaceted, needing diverse tactics, skills, and approaches, and that optimism is vital—even in dire contexts of repression.
• Quote (Felber):

  “If you look at Martin's life, even within one of his tactics, the law, he was both using the law as an offensive tool and a defensive tool. And he wasn't just using the law. He was writing. And then he was… creating encounter spaces such as the bookstore and the community site.” (48:09)

• Quote (Felber):

  “He’s just so certain at every point that we’re gonna win... It’s not like...[giving] lip service. It’s like a deep belief.” (49:42)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Sostre’s Growth:

  “Part of my interest in writing this book was to give people a sense of how we continually grow our politics and transform them, especially through, in his case, through actions and experimentation with actions against the state.” (01:29)

• On Prisons as Part of Society:

  “Understanding the prison as a concentrated manifestation of repression of the state rather than something sort of outside of society or independent from it.” (02:16)

• On Defense Committee Horizontalism:

  “He describes his reorganization of his defense committee... as his first experiment in anarchist organizing.” (31:13)

• On Lasting Community Spaces:

  “It was a place where people could just come in and leave things... He would watch people’s kids while they were on [errands].” (20:25)

• On Revolutionary Optimism:

  “He would immediately see it and say, ‘Oh, this is perfect. This is such a glaring contradiction of the state that we can use to show people that they say one thing and do another.’” (49:32)

Timestamps for Critical Segments

• 00:59–02:33: Title origins and Sostre’s continuous struggle
• 04:26–06:48: Harlem’s social life and Sostre’s political formation
• 07:00–09:34: Military police experience and critical stance on Black policing
• 10:19–13:48: Prison organizing, Nation of Islam, legal innovations
• 14:09–16:33: Legacy as a jailhouse lawyer, key legal victories
• 18:27–23:26: Buffalo bookstore, community building, being targeted by the state
• 27:59–30:22: Analysis of “The New Prisoner” and Sostre’s writing on Attica
• 31:11–34:35: Defense committee transformation, experiments in movement autonomy
• 35:29–39:01: North Country Defense Committee, shifting from defense to eco-defense
• 41:36–47:13: Community-building in NJ, oral histories, lasting impact
• 48:09–50:14: Broader lessons: diversity of struggle, revolutionary optimism

Takeaways for Listeners

• Sostre’s life embodies “continuous struggle”—across institutions, tactics, and generations, showing the permeability between prison and “free-world” activism.
• He innovated forms of legal struggle, community-building, and horizontal organizing—his legacy lives on in today’s abolitionist, anarchist, and radical community work.
• The biography offers not just a history but a toolkit and model for confronting state violence, seeding revolutionary optimism, and building durable counter-structures.

Book: A Continuous Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Martin Sostre by Garrett Felber (AK Press, 2025).
Host Closing Recommendation:

“I'd encourage anyone who'd like to learn more to pick up a copy... There's so much that we were not able to cover.” (50:14)