Michael Parenti was a Marxist-Leninist political scientist, historian, and professor who received his PhD in Political Science from Yale University on a full-ride scholarship. From humble beginnings in Italian East Harlem, Dr Parenti dedicated his life to using his voice to speak out for the voiceless, writing 25 books and over 1000 articles during his time as an active militant of the anti-imperialist cause, appearing on various radio & TV programs, as well as film appearances, and giving hundreds of lectures throughout North America to thousands who were present at the time, and later millions who studied his recordings.

During the start of his political career, Dr Parenti was violently beaten and arrested by police, pointed out by officers for being outspoken about the US war against Vietnam, the police murder of student protesters against the war, and federal persecution of members of the Black Power Movement, from his position as a university professor. He was later surveilled by police and federal agencies and blacklisted from teaching in the country’s top universities, in some of which he outwrote entire departments in terms of research and analysis on a wide array of different topics. Michael wrote the first Marxist university textbook in the US, Democracy for the Few, which kept his family and himself afloat for various years.

Some notable oppositions to imperial and colonial domination throughout Dr Parenti’s career include opposition to the US invasions of Panama, Grenada and Iraq, the Contra terror group in Nicaragua, the Gulf War, the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, and US interventions in Cuba and Syria, among many others.

Always steadfast, standing under the rain, Dr Parenti continued to risk his career and his life by refusing to be shut up by his co-politicists on the left—liberals, anarchists, and Western Marxists that have, directly or indirectly, supported the imperialist power structure, while being subject to attacks from major media outlets during and after his career for his positions during the dismantlements of the socialist projects in the USSR and Yugoslavia.

Dr Parenti has taught so many of us as a popular educator, whose dynamics would make complex and nuanced subjects become enjoyable and easily digestible by his students. Since his passing, we, his scholars, have been laboring to create new ways for his works to be easily accessible to the public. This is one of our tributes made to him, returning the gift he gave us with his lifetime of work, and keeping the flame of his loving memory shining in the darker times ahead after his passing to immortality.