Almost three decades ago, I began writing regularly about white supremacists, anti-Semites and related topics with a portable typewriter and plastic press-on letters. I have been trying to catch-up with technological change ever since. This website re-captures many of the articles, opinion pieces and essays that have been published over the years. Additional material from this archive will be added to this site each week. Please note that on March 1, 2008 a cyberspace bulletin, The Zeskind Fortnight, will begin regular publication. I am now trying to finish a book on the history of the white nationalism movement for Farrar Straus and Giroux.
Before turning to research and writing and professional human rights activism, I worked in heavy industry: on the warehouse dock of a lamp factory, on an automobile plant assembly line, and in steel fabrication shops helping to build large girders, columns, trusses, and other elements of the manufacturing architecture. It was work that I enjoyed and still believe is undervalued. I am a high school graduate, and have earned certificates in welding and structural steel blue print reading.
My work has been recognized by several institutions. In 1987, I received the Columbia University School of Journalism Paul H. Tobenkin Award for my contribution to an award-winning edition of the Spokane Spokesman-Review. I became a Petra Foundation Fellow in 1992 and was given the “Owen Bieber Civil Rights Award” by the Civil Rights Department of the United Automobile Workers Union in 1993. In addition, I received the “Bayard Rustin Award” from the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment in 1996. And the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation awarded me one of its famous five year fellowships in 1998.
I remain a life-long activist with the hope of repairing a badly torn world.