This volume contains four lectures delivered by David North, at that time the national secretary of the Workers League, and today the national chairman of the Socialist Equality Party (US), to a series of meetings held on the fifth anniversary of the assassination of Tom Henehan, on October 15, 19, November 23 and December 14, 1982.

On the evening of October 15, 1977, Tom, a member of the National Committee of the Workers League, was supervising an activity sponsored by the Young Socialists, the party’s youth movement, in Brooklyn, New York. Two men, later identified as Edwin Sequinot and Angel Rodriguez, started a disturbance by attacking another Workers League member, Jacques Vielot. As Tom rushed to Vielot’s aid, he was shot five times by a third assailant lying in wait, a professional gunman named Angelo Torres. He died approximately one hour after arriving in the hospital, in the early hours of October 16, 1977, at the age of 26.