scholarly journals Red Squads and Black Radicals: Reading Agency in the Archive

2020 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 387-406
Author(s):  
Sylvester Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Religious Movements ◽  
Christian Leadership ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Religious Dimensions ◽  
Poor People's Campaign ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
State Actors ◽  
Politics Of Race ◽  
State Archives ◽  
Moorish Science

Abstract Scholarly accounts of racial formation have regularly focused on the role of state actors or non-state oppressive subjects administering racial systems against a dominated population. Challenges or resistance to state racialization practices by dissenting communities, on the other hand, have not received commensurate engagement, particularly at the level of race-making. Judith Weisenfeld demonstrates in New World A-Coming that African American religious movements such as the Moorish Science Temple of America and the Peace Mission were not merely protesting a racial system but also inventing new racial subjectivities. This account of Black radical agency is deeply consequential for understanding the religious dimensions of Black radical politics and the agential architecture of racialization. In this article, I apply Weisenfeld’s method of mapping radical agency from the underside of state archives. The focus is on the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Chicago campaign of 1966 and the Poor People’s Campaign (PPC) that culminated in the summer of 1968. I argue that Black radical activists, despite being targeted by counterintelligence operations of law enforcement, nevertheless transformed the politics of race and power with lasting consequences by exceeding in specific ways the efforts of state actors to destroy Black liberation projects. The archival records of state entities themselves render the import of Black agency. This implies, among other things, that scholarship on Black religion and racialization broadly must shift significantly to account for a central argument of Weisenfeld’s book: dominated peoples have been agents of racial histories and not merely objects of racial governance.

Organizing for Economic Justice in The Late 1960s

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Penny Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Christian Leadership ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Racial Injustice ◽  
Poor People's Campaign ◽  
Southern Christian Leadership Conference ◽  
Martin Luther King

Shortly before the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) launched the Poor People’s Campaign that aimed to highlight the links between economic and racial injustice. Although t 1960s are usually characterized as a period in which race, gender and sexuality were the key identity issues for American protest, this chapter brings to the fore issues of class and poverty. From SCLC to labor unions to coalitions of African American single mothers, a range of activist organizations waged their own wars on poverty, putting into action the poverty tours that Robert Kennedy conducted in the mid-1960s and accounts such as socialist Michael Harrington’s influential 1962 book The Other America. These organizations worked at the intersections between economic and identity politics. Their successes and failures account for the new, often regressive contours of political action, discourse and policy around class and poverty in the following decades, and the re-emergence of a progressive vision in contemporary protest movements such as Occupy Wall Street.

Dreams and Shadows

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvester A. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
Christian Leadership ◽  
Internal Security ◽  
Politics Of Race ◽  
Southern Christian Leadership Conference ◽  
Radical Activism ◽  
Martin Luther King

This chapter explains how the FBI targeted Martin Luther King, Jr. as an exceptional and uniquely dangerous threat to the nation’s internal security. The author demonstrates the numerous efforts by the bureau to oppose the influential activism of King and the organization he led, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The chapter explains the important shifts in American culture that pitted the more radical activism of civil rights leaders against an increasingly strident FBI that was determined to thwart law abiding activists who challenged the nation’s mainstream racial politics. The author argues that the pivotal issue behind the FBI’s repression of King was not personal antagonism between King and Hoover but the politics of race and repression.

Archives as Fields of Heritage-Making in Istanbul's Historic Peninsula

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 361-387
Author(s):  
Pinar Aykaç
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Significant Component ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Past ◽  
State Actors ◽  
State Archives ◽  
Heritage Discourse ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract Heritage-making is a process of valorization carried out using complex exchanges, contestations, and negotiations between various actors. State actors attempt, through various strategies, to employ heritage-making in order to construct a unified heritage discourse and avoid multivocality. One of these strategies is the control of state archives, an approach that seeks to dictate what is accessible and inaccessible and thus to dominate conceptualizations of heritage. This paper discusses how research in state archives sheds light on heritage-making in Istanbul's historic peninsula and how the state's tendency to restrain access reflects the contested nature of Istanbul's heritage. The restriction or denial of archival access becomes a significant component of heritage-making in Turkey, shaped not only by the past but also by the present. Therefore, archives and the practice of archival research become both a tool for the researcher and at the same time a subject worthy of research in and of itself. This paper argues that the attitudes of state institutions and the discourses they adopt in restraining access to archives are in fact objects of enquiry in the understanding of the precise boundaries of their scope of authority and, as such, can provide further insight into the fragmented nature of the state and state archives.

King and the Other America

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvie Laurent ◽  
William Julius Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Racial Equality ◽  
Mass Mobilization ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Black Liberation Movement ◽  
Poor People's Campaign ◽  
American Society

Did the Civil rights movement of the Fifties and Sixties fail to address economic issues and to grasp that class, beyond just race, was the main cleavage and the greater hindrance in American Society? Many historians and social scientists contend that the movement too narrowly circumscribed its mission, deceptively assuming that specific race-based demands were the only way to achieve social equality and racial fairness. This book argues that, despite an inability to hamper a growing class divide, significant members of the Black Liberation movement actually intertwined civil rights to economic issues, some of them defending that class was trumping race when it comes to racial equality. Time has come, they argued, to build an interracial coalition which would bring substantive freedom to the lesser-off of America, Blacks being at rock bottom. This book will demonstrate that Martin Luther King Jr. was profoundly shaped by their conviction that racial equality was embedded in the broader class struggle, as illustrated by the forgotten Poor People’s Campaign of 1968. Although carried out postumously, the Poor People’s campaign, presented as much an interracial mass mobilization demanding redistribution as the culmination of King’s comprehension of the entanglement of class and race. It also dovetailed with compelling academic works which, either preceding or following the campaign, have vindicated its framework.

The Politics of Race, Nationhood and Hindu Nationalism

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 27-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tejaswini Patil
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Hindu Nationalism ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
State Actors ◽  
Politics Of Race ◽  
Modern Nation State ◽  
Religious Differences

The discussion on Hindu-Muslim conflict in India has revolved around religious or ethno-nationalist explanations. Employing the Gujarat riots of 2002 as a case study, I argue that dominant (Hindu) nationalism is linked to the ideas of “race” and has its roots in Brahminical notions of Aryanism and colonial racism. The categories of “foreign, hypermasculine, terrorist Other” widely prevalent in the characterisation of the Muslim Other, are not necessarily produced due to religious differences. Instead, social and cultural cleavages propagated by Hindu nationalists have their origins in race theory that accommodates purity, lineage, classification and hierarchy as part of the democratic discourses that pervade the modern nation-state. It focuses on how the state and non-state actors create discursive silences and normalise violence against minority communities by embodying emotions of fear, hate and anger among its participants to protect Hindu nationalism.

Non-State Actors and the Evolution of Humanitarian Norms

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 70-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shahla Ali ◽  
Tom Kabau
Keyword(s):  
Self Regulation ◽  
Humanitarian Assistance ◽  
Legal Regime ◽  
Nutrition And Health ◽  
Minimum Standards ◽  
Life Saving ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
State Actors ◽  
Human Rights Based Approach ◽  
To Receive

The Sphere Humanitarian Charter, a self-regulation instrument of humanitarian non-State actors, establishes principles and minimum standards in the provision of humanitarian assistance in select vital life-saving relief activities, especially in nutrition and health. The Charter articulates principles and minimum standards for facilitating the achievement of rights and obligations enshrined in various international legal “soft law” instruments. Due to the multiplicity of international legal instruments, the Sphere Charter provides a tool for a coherent understanding and application of relevant obligations, and therefore increases accountability and efficiency. The Sphere Charter bold human rights based approach to humanitarian assistance, including its articulation of a right to receive humanitarian assistance, may contribute to the evolution of the international legal regime into a more “victim centered” system. The central argument postulated in this article is that although the Sphere Charter is not a binding legal instrument, it has significant normative value that may contribute to progressive developments in the legal regime governing humanitarian assistance, and is particularly helpful in improving accountability and quality in the provision of nutrition and health relief. The Sphere Charter framework for local participation is particularly viewed as significant in engendering accountability in relief activities.

A New Sense of Direction

Worldview ◽  
1972 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 5-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Luther King
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
South Carolina ◽  
Urban Violence ◽  
Fundamental Change ◽  
Christian Leadership ◽  
Sense Of Direction ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Poor People's Campaign ◽  
Southern Christian Leadership Conference

A few months before his assassination in Memphis, April 4, 1968, Dr. King spoke to the staff of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference meeting in retreat at Frogmore, South Carolina, He was preparing them for the Poor People's Campaign scheduled for the spring of 1968. This is Dr. King's last thorough evaluation of “the movement” its prospects and problems, in our possession.While the description of urban violence may seem dated, Dr. King's analysis of the causes and cures of urban injustice remains disturbingly relevant. His understanding of what was happening among youth as well as his understanding of American militarism is, for better or worse, equally pertinent. Especially important, in view of current claims that Dr. King was undergoing a fundamental change of political philosophy toward the end of his life, is his concluding affirmation of non-violence.

Race and New Religious Movements in the USA

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
American Religious History ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Native American Church ◽  
The Usa ◽  
History Of ◽  
Moorish Science

Organized in chronological order of the founding of each movement, this documentary reader brings to life new religious movements from the 18th to 20th century. Engaging with religious studies theory and method and critical race theory, students are provided with the tools needed in order to understand questions of race, religion, and American religious history. Each chapter has: An introduction to the movement, including the context of its foundingTwo to four primary source documents about or from the movementSuggestions for further reading. Movements covered include the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism), the Native American Church, the Moorish Science Temple, and the Nation of Islam. The voices included come from both men and women. Showing that religio-racial movements have been a perennial aspect of American history from the colonial period to the present, this reader provides a history of innovative social groups in America. A timeline of movements is included, and discussion and study questions can be found in the book’s online resources.

Grounding the Space Race

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil M. Maher
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Television News ◽  
The Other ◽  
African American Families ◽  
Christian Leadership ◽  
Kennedy Space Center ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
Space Race ◽  
Poor People's Campaign ◽  
Kennedy Space

On July 15, 1969, while more than one million space enthusiasts flocked to Florida's Cape Canaveral to celebrate the final countdown of the Apollo 11 launch the following day, a less festive gathering took place just a few miles away in an empty field outside the western gate of the Kennedy Space Center. On one side of the clearing stood NASA's chief, Thomas O. Paine, with several space agency administrators, while at the other end waited the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's (SCLC) president, Ralph Abernathy, with twenty-five poor African American families, four scruffy mules pulling two rickety wagons, and, much to Paine's dismay, a phalanx of newspaper reporters and television news crews. When Abernathy's group began slowly marching hand-in-hand singing “We Shall Overcome,” Paine and his entourage walked forward to meet them in the middle of the field. Abernathy then took a microphone, nodded toward the Apollo 11 rocket towering in the distance, and explained that his Poor People's Campaign had not traveled to the cape to protest the Apollo launch, but instead to demonstrate against the country's distorted sense of national priorities. “I want NASA scientists,” he explained to the gathered press, “to tackle problems we face in society”.

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