Viewpoints: Invasion of the Communist Body Snatchers

Nick Rowell, Cabrillo College political science professor, will discuss two Supreme Court decisions about protected speech and the Communist Party.
Michael Pebworth, Chair of Global Studies and history professor at Cabrillo, will address 1950’s popular entertainment as he reveals how the period’s science fiction and horror comic books treated the Red Scare and the Cold War.

Our Community Reads is a series of programs inspired by a book selected in a public vote. Red Letter Days tells of Phoebe Adler, a young television writer in 1955 New York. Finding herself suddenly blacklisted, she flees to London and the seeming security of a community of fellow expatriate blacklistees. But not even the Atlantic Ocean can protect her from the reach of the FBI. This timely book reminds us of our heritage of free speech and independent thought and how they can be put at risk.