The Making of the “Black Muslims”

2020 ◽  
pp. 16-49
Author(s):  
Garrett Felber
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Black Freedom Struggle ◽  
Freedom Struggle ◽  
Civil Rights Organizations ◽  
Political Group ◽  
Black Muslims ◽  
Black Freedom

The idea of the “Black Muslims” as a hate group, or an example of the emergent falsehood of reverse racism, was facilitated and propagated by carceral officials. It was pliable enough that law enforcement could suppress Muslim practice in prisons and police local mosques by claim- ing that the NOI was a subversive political group in the guise of religion while offering civil rights organizations the language to dismiss it within the Black freedom struggle. But this suppression and surveillance often helped grow the organization, and Muslims found creative ways to practice Islam and express Black self-determination and anticolonial solidarity, even in the state’s most repressive spaces.

Hostile Heartland

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brent M. S. Campney
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
World War I ◽  
Racial Violence ◽  
World War ◽  
Black Freedom Struggle ◽  
Freedom Struggle ◽  
Civil Rights Organizations ◽  
Black Freedom ◽  
New Research

Hostile Heartland examines racial violence—or, more aptly, racist violence—against blacks (African Americans) in the Midwest, emphasizing lynching, whipping, and violence by police (or police brutality). It also focuses on black responses, including acts of armed resistance, the development of local and regional civil rights organizations, and the work of individual activists. Within that broad framework the book considers patterns of institutionalized violence in studies of individual states, like Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas over a number of decades; it also targets specific incidents of such violence or resistance in case studies representative of changes in these patterns like the lynching of Joseph Spencer in Cairo, Illinois, in 1854 and the lynching of Luke Murray in South Point, Ohio, in 1932. Significantly, Hostile Heartland not only addresses the years from the Civil War to World War I, which are the typical focus of such studies, but also incorporates the twenty-five years that precede the Civil War and the additional twenty-five that follow World War I. It pioneers new research methodologies, as exemplified by Chapter 4’s analysis of the relations between and among racist violence, family history, and the black freedom struggle. Finally, Hostile Heartland situates its findings within the historiography more broadly.

scholarly journals Media, Criminal Injustice, and the Black Freedom Struggle

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 86-102
Author(s):  
Erin G. Turner
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Legal Action ◽  
Black Freedom Struggle ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Freedom Struggle ◽  
Black Freedom ◽  
International Attention

Since the mid-20th century, media outlets have driven publicity for newsworthy events and shaped content for their receptive audiences. Commonly, massive movements seek publicity to attract attention and participation for protests, demonstrations, slogans, and unfortunate events. For instance, the black freedom struggle of the 1950s through the 1970s took advantage of their traumatic narratives of oppression to attract national and international attention. Many African Americans who experienced dastardly components of a racist criminal justice system were, in turn, earning respect and power from their freedom-seeking counterparts by commodifying the emotion that fueled black liberation efforts.[i] Media, therefore, became a tool for exposing the nation to racist law enforcement and legal action. Ultimately, black freedom struggle activists deployed media depictions of their policing, arrest, and imprisonment to be used as movement publicity, earning increased participation and advancing movement motives through this subsequent growing interest. [i] Colley, Zoe A. Ain't Scared of Your Jail: Arrest, Imprisonment, and the Civil Rights Movement. University Press of Florida, 2012. 4.

To All Store and Office Workers … Negro and White!

2019 ◽  
pp. 83-115
Author(s):  
Traci Parker
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
York City ◽  
Black Labor ◽  
Black Freedom Struggle ◽  
Freedom Struggle ◽  
Civil Rights Organizations ◽  
Fair Employment ◽  
Black Freedom ◽  
The Subject

The exceptionality of retail unions governing Macy’s Herald Square in New York City and South Center Department Store in Chicago in advancing black labor and civil rights is the subject of chapter three. New York and Chicago locals successfully linked worker and consumer rights and improved African Americans’ social and economic conditions, even propelling some of them into the middle class. Also, in acting as both labor and civil rights organizations, these unions expanded views on fair employment in this industry beyond bread-and-butter issues and promoted equal employment and promotion. These unions point to the nature and direction of the black freedom struggle, albeit without the presence of strong unionism.

scholarly journals “The Epitome of Black Masculinity”: Isaac Hayes, Black Moses, and the Long Freedom Struggle

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
J. MICHAEL BUTLER
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Black Power ◽  
Black Masculinity ◽  
Central Component ◽  
Black Freedom Struggle ◽  
Black Manhood ◽  
Freedom Struggle ◽  
Civil Rights Organizations ◽  
Black Freedom ◽  
Popular Appeal

Isaac Hayes provides a vital public figure through which scholars can analyze, evaluate, and more fully understand the comprehensive nature of the black freedom struggle as it progressed into the 1970s. Hayes merged the integrationist political objectives of mainstream civil rights organizations and leaders with the notions of racial pride, assertiveness, and autonomy that characterized the popular appeal of the black power movement. Hayes, through his “Black Moses” persona and LP of the same name, moved those freedom struggle promises and opportunities into the cultural realm, where he personified African American artistic self-determination. In doing so, he demonstrated that the contemporary conceptualization of black masculinity was not monolithic, as Hayes introduced and embodied an ideal that countered the prevailing notion of black manhood which pervaded popular culture and remains a central component of popular memory concerning black power. Most importantly, Isaac Hayes embodied a model of black masculinity that contradicted the prevailing “black macho” ideal. “Black Moses,” therefore, embodied the freedom of African Americans to move beyond contemporary racial classifications in a cultural capacity and presents scholars with an intriguing model through which to examine the evolution, possibilities, and accomplishments of the post-1960s American black freedom struggle.

“If the March Cannot Be Here, Then Where?”

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aram Goudsouzian
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Methodist Church ◽  
Black Freedom Struggle ◽  
Freedom Struggle ◽  
National Office ◽  
Black Freedom ◽  
The City

This essay examines the role of Memphis in the Meredith March against Fear, a demonstration for black freedom that moved through Mississippi in June 1966. James Meredith began his journey from Memphis and was shot by Aubrey Norvell, who hailed from a suburb of the city. In the aftermath of the shooting, Memphis hosted important events that not only determined the character and success of the march but also influenced the course of the black freedom struggle. The titans of the civil rights movement orated from the pulpits of Memphis churches and engaged in contentious debates in the rooms of the Lorraine Motel. Even as the march continued south through Mississippi, its headquarters remained at Centenary Methodist Church in Memphis, which achieved James Lawson’s vision of an activist church driven by grassroots pressure and militant nonviolence. The city’s whites exhibited both hostility and accommodation toward black protesters, demonstrating both connections to and distinctions from the racial patterns of Mississippi. For the Memphis branch of the NAACP, the demonstration presented an opportunity to assert its historic strength, even as the march highlighted the complicated dynamics between local branches and the national office.

Women in the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Greene
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
African American Women ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Black Power ◽  
White Male ◽  
Black Freedom Struggle ◽  
Freedom Struggle ◽  
Black Freedom

Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X are the names that come to mind for most Americans if asked about the civil rights or Black Power movements. Others may point to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, both of whom backed pathbreaking civil rights legislation. However, recent scholarship suggests that neither black male leaders nor white male presidents were always the most important figures in the modern struggle for black freedom. Presidents took their cues not simply from male luminaries in civil rights organizations. Rather, their legislative initiatives were largely in response to grassroots protests in which women, especially black women, were key participants. African American women played major roles in local and national organizing efforts and frequently were the majority in local chapters of groups as dissimilar as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Black Panther Party. Even familiar names like Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King have become little more than sanitized national icons, while their decades-long efforts to secure racial, economic, and gender justice remain relatively unknown. Aside from activists and scholars, even fewer of us know much, if anything, about the female allies of the black freedom struggle, including white southerners as well as other women of color. A closer look at the women who made enormous contributions to both the modern civil rights and Black Power movements sheds new light on these struggles, including the historic national victories we think we fully understand, such as the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. In short, examining women’s participation in the “long civil rights movement,” which historians increasingly date to the New Deal and World War II, calls for a redefinition of more conventional notions of leadership, protest, and politics.

Black Power and Black Theology in Cairo, Illinois

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerry L. Pimblott
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Black Church ◽  
Black Power ◽  
Black Theology ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Black Freedom Struggle ◽  
Freedom Struggle ◽  
Black Freedom ◽  
Moral Suasion ◽  
Over Time

This chapter argues that the thesis of Black Power's de-Christianization must be tested on the ground, with scholars paying attention to local struggles as they evolved over time, and in response to changing social and economic conditions. It follows the religious contours of Cairo's black freedom struggle from the 1950s to the 1970s to illustrate that while Black Power's reliance upon the black church was consistent with earlier campaigns, the United Front's theology nevertheless reflected a significant departure from the established Civil Rights credo. Whereas civil rights leaders expressed a firm belief in the redemptive power of Christian nonviolence and moral suasion to topple the walls of segregation, Cairo's Black Power advocates were less optimistic.

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