Departments

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radicalism

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    2/26/2021

    The Deep South Has a Rich History of Resistance, as Amazon Is Learning

    Columnist Jamelle Bouie draws on the work of historians Michael W. Fitzgerald, Paul Horton, Robin D.G. Kelley, and Robert Widell, Jr. which shows that Alabamians, and Black Alabamians in particular, have organized to fight both racial oppression and labor exploitation.

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    2/22/2021

    The Campaign to Free the Wilmington 10 Holds the Key to Successful Activism Today

    by Kenneth Janken

    A campaign to free 10 racial justice protesters in 1972 worked because it connected the cause to the problems with police, poverty, and racism experienced by a broad cross section of the community, and "recognize[d] racism not as separate from history but as part of historical processes and political economy."

  • SOURCE: The New Republic
    2/17/2021

    The Retrograde Quest for Symbolic Prophets of Black Liberation

    by Adolph Reed, Jr.

    The prevailing pattern of invoking activist or intellectual figures from Black history as prophetic exemplars of moral and political authority takes those figures out of their historical contexts and discourages consideration of how racism connects to multiple systems of economic and political power in contemporary crises like COVID-19. 

  • SOURCE: Black Perspectives
    2/1/2021

    Law Enforcement’s Double Standards for Black Radical Activists

    by Denise Lynn

    Those puzzled at the FBI's inability to monitor white supremacist and right-wing extremist groups like those involved in the Capitol rioting should consider how the bureau has historically worked to surveil and harass radical Black organizations like the Sojourners for Truth and Justice. 

  • SOURCE: Boston Review
    2/1/2021

    Why Black Marxism, Why Now?

    by Robin D.G. Kelley

    Robin D.G. Kelley places the work of Cedric Robinson in the context of Black radical traditions that have challenged the use of Marxism as a critique of power and politics. 

  • SOURCE: In These Times
    12/1/2020

    The Great Black Radical You've Never Heard Of

    by Peter Cole

    The author of a new book on an understudied Black labor radical presents context for an exerpt of an interview Ben Fletcher gave to the New York Amsterdam News, a rare surviving case of the organizer telling his own story.

  • SOURCE: The Nation
    10/21/2020

    Aaron Sorkin Sanitizes the Chicago 7

    by Jeet Heer

    According to Jeet Heer, "Sorkin takes many liberties with the facts, most of which are designed to make both the New Left and its conservative opponents more palatable to contemporary liberal viewers."

  • SOURCE: Boston Review
    10/7//2020

    Getting to Freedom City (Review)

    by Robin D.G. Kelley

    Historian Robin Kelley reviews Mike Davis and Jon Weiner's "Set the Night on Fire," which chronicles the growth of resistance to inequality and miltarized policing in 1960s Los Angeles.

  • SOURCE: Toward Freedom
    9/19/2020

    Against State Capture

    by Austin McCoy

    Austin McCoy warns that the energy of today's protest movements, which demand deep changes to the organization of society, is at risk of being captured and contained by small-scale reforms. The challenge for "abolition democracy" is to involve people in deciding how to dismantle and replace repressive institutions.

  • 9/20/2020

    Woody Guthrie's Communism and "This Land Is Your Land"

    by Aaron J. Leonard

    The author of a new book on the FBI's surveillance of folk musicians argues that Woody Guthrie did join the Communist Party, though he was at odds with leadership over discipline. The affiliation is reflected in the lyrics of his most famous song. 

  • 7/26/2020

    One of the Chicago 7 Reflects on Dissident Politics Then and Now

    by Lee Weiner

    A veteran of dissident politics in the 1960s warns that while today's broad coalition of activists for a more just and democratic America are on the right track, they must learn from the mistakes of an older generation and find ways to keep united despite difference. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/obituaries/vale

    Overlooked No More: Valerie Solanas, Radical Feminist Who Shot Andy Warhol

    Solanas was a radical feminist (though she would say she loathed most feminists), a pioneering queer theorist (at least according to some) and the author of “SCUM Manifesto,” in which she argued for the wholesale extermination of men.