AMST 252gm: BLACK MOVEMENTS IN THE U.S.

AMST 252gm: BLACK MOVEMENTS IN THE U.S.Fall 2007 Tu Th 9:30 -- 10:50

INSTRUCTOR: Professor Robin D. G. Kelley OFFICE HOURS: Tues. 11:00 – 12:30; Thurs. 11:00 – 1:00OFFICE: Social Sciences 277CONTACT: rdkelley@usc.edu 740-1679

As laborers, creators, culture bearers, political activists, dreamers, and renegades, African Americans were the fulcrum upon which the country’s material and cultural wealth was built. Throughout the last two centuries, black social movements occasionally pricked America’s moral conscience and compelled the nation to re-think the meaning of democracy. The core of much of “American” culture and politics has been shaped immeasurably by black social movements, which in turn have opened a path for the demands of other aggrieved populations.

In this course, we examine historical and contemporary black movements for freedom, justice, equality, autonomy and self-determination. Beginning with the struggles of Africans to destroy or escape from the system of slavery, we consider a wide range of movements, including labor, civil rights, radical feminism, socialism and communism, reparations, Black Nationalism, and hip hop as a political movement. We will explore, among other things, how movements were formed and sustained; the social and historical contexts for their emergence and demise; the impact they might have had on power, on participants in the movement, on the community at large, and on a people’s vision of a liberated future.

The lectures, readings (which include many primary sources) and talks by guest activists, should compel us to move beyond traditional binaries (e.g., accommodation vs. resistance; integration vs. separatism; North vs. South); demolish the myth that black people needed a “messiah” to lead them by introducing us to local leaders who rose from the grassroots but never found a place in the grand narrative; and reveal a vision of emancipation so broad, so complex, so fluid that it defies labels and categories. “Freedom” was a much bigger matter than integration; it was, and continues to be, a struggle for full citizenship and the right to determine our destiny, a struggle for power and the overthrow the many oppressions we all experience, a struggle to remake the world and to ensure we never forget the past that made us. The we, I venture to say, includes all oppressed humanity, for black social movements at their best exposed the fragility of whiteness, shed light on how racism arrests the human potential, and sought to replace the values of individualism, accumulation, and competition with the values of community, cooperation, self-determination, love, and an unwavering commitment to social justice for all.

ASSIGNMENTS: Students are responsible for keeping up with the reading assignments and showing up for lecture. The final grade will be based on two essays and final project (see below). The written assignments will be worth 30% each; class participation will make up the remaining 10% of your final grade. Class participation is based on regular attendance and participation in discussion. I generally do not tolerate late papers without a plausible excuse. A late paper will be docked one-half of a grade for each day it is late. In order to participate fully in class discussions you must keep abreast of the reading assignments.

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ESSAY #1: Revisiting the period from the end of Reconstruction to the Great Depression (ca. 1877-1940), what movements do you believe were most effective and why? Are there lessons to be learned for contemporary social struggles? Effective, of course, can mean several different things: an ability to mobilize large numbers of people; capacity to make fundamental changes; the movement that promotes the most inclusive, democratic vision. None of these criteria are interdependent or mutually exclusive. Therefore, you need to define “effective” and make your case thoroughly and carefully by using evidence from the reading and lectures. You must discuss at least two different movements.

ESSAY #2: Imagine a conversation between Assata Shakur and Ivory Perry in Havana in 1984. Using the readings, construct a dialogue between these two about their respective ideas and political developments. Pay particular attention to their experiences and to the way they understood and characterized the Black freedom movement(s). How would they explain the development of their own political consciousness? What strategies would they promote in light of the political conditions in the U.S. (and the world) in 1984?

I encourage you to be creative, but please do not stray from the evidence available. Part of the assignment is to try and understand the lives and thoughts of these two activists and the contexts that created them and the contexts in which they are living (i.e., don’t have them talk about things that happened after 1984!) And don’t be a ventriloquist, simply inserting your ideas into their mouths. The papers should be between 7-10 pages, typed double-spaced.

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS WEB PROJECT: For our group project, we will be creating a website that will provide links to contemporary social justice movements in Los Angeles. You will be divided up into groups and each group will select one organization and develop a web page about their work. The research will involve visiting the organization, interviewing leaders and rank-and-file members, and conducting library research about their history and activities. After the preliminary work is done, we will post all the web pages, along with links to the organization, and collectively (as a class) figure out how we want to organize the site.

Obviously, the size of the site will depend on the size of the class, but I imagine this will be a permanent site that will continue to grow even after the class is over. I will provide more details later. For now, there are three stages to the assignments—initial proposal, first draft posted for class critique, final page posted. The entire class will read each of the web pages and post constructive criticisms for revision. Once the site is finalized, it will be made available to the public with the hope of linking interested individuals with social justice movements around the city.

STATEMENT ON ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: USC seeks to maintain an optimal learning environment. General principles of academic honesty include the concept of respect for the intellectual property of others, the expectation that individual work will be submitted unless otherwise allowed by an instructor, and the obligations both to protect one’s own academic work from misuse by others as well as to avoid using another’s work as one’s own. All students are expected to understand and abide by these principles. Scampus, the Student Guidebook, contains the Student Conduct Code in Section 11.00, while the recommended sanctions are located in Appendix A:

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http://www.usc.edu/dept/publications/SCAMPUS/gov/

Students will be referred to the Office of Student Judicial Affairs and Community Standards for further review, should there be any suspicion of academic dishonesty. The Review process can be found at: http://www.usc.edu/student-affairs/SJACS/

STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES: Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability is required to register with the Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure the letter is delivered to me (or to the TA) as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and can be contacted at (213) 740-0776.

REQUIRED READING

Jonathan Birnbaum and Clarence Taylor, eds., Civil Rights Since 1787. New York: NYU Press, 2000.

Cedric Robinson, Black Movements. London: Routledge, 1990

Robin D. G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. Boston: Beacon Press, 2002.

Eric Mann, Katrina’s Legacy: White Racism and Black Reconstruction in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Los Angeles: Frontlines Press, 2006/

Assata Shakur, Assata. Brooklyn, NY: Lawrence Hill Books, 1987.

George Lipsitz, A Life in the Struggle: Ivory Perry and the Culture of Opposition. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995 new ed., orig. 1988.

LECTURES AND READING ASSIGNMENTS

(NOTE: Some of the lecture headings represent one class, others represent two classes (one week) or more. How they are divided depends on the length of the semester, holidays, and in some cases, class interest. Below I’ve indicated what topics we typically spend a week on, but it is important to remain flexible)

AUGUST 28 –– WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM SOCIAL MOVEMENTS?

**Read the assigned material (and for those a bit more ambitious, some of the suggested material) and prepare to discuss theories of social movements. What societal forces

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produce social movements? What impact do they have on participants? What is the relationship between knowledge and movements for social change?

REQUIRED READING

Verta Taylor, “Mobilizing for Change in a Social Movement Society,” Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 29, No. 1, (Jan., 2000), pp. 219-230. Posted and available through JSTOR

Kelley, Freedom Dreams, Preface and Intro.

Lipsitz, A Life in the Struggle, Intro.

SUGGESTED READING

Aldon Morris and Carol M. Mueller, eds., Frontiers in Social Movement Theory (1992)

Barbara Epstein, Political Protest and Cultural Revolution: Non-Violent Direct Action in the 1970s and 1980s (1991)

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (2004)

Charles Payne, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (1995)

Temma Kaplan, Crazy for Democracy: Women’s Grassroots Movements in the U.S. and South Africa (1996)

Paula Stewart Brush, "The Influence of Social Movements on Articulations of Race and Gender in Black Women's Autobiographies," Gender and Society 13 (February 1999): 120-37.

Michael C. Dawson, Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary African-American Political Ideologies (2001)

David Graeber, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology (2004)

AUGUST 30 -- SLAVERY AND THE MAKING OF A POLITICAL CULTURE

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**Most scholars have assumed that the formation of a black political culture begins in freedom. More recently, scholars such as Steven Hahn have demonstrated that the source of the rich political culture that emerged during Reconstruction was formed in slavery. Your reading assignments examine the political context of antebellum America, the articulation of a vision of freedom among enslaved people, and relationships between revolting slaves and the struggles of Native Americans. Please read in preparation for the lectures this week.

****You will be assigned to groups (of 3, 4, or 5, depending on the size of the class) to begin the social justice “wiki” project. I expect the groups to get together this week and become acquainted. You also need to begin a regular discussion about what organization you want to focus on for your web page. Remember, the organization has to be contemporary, it has to be based in Southern California (preferably Los Angeles, but it can include environs), and it has to have some anti-racism dimensions—but it need not be a “black” movement. The first stage of the project is to produce a proposal, which you will e-mail to me.

REQUIRED READING

Birnbaum and Taylor, Civil Rights since 1787, chaps 1, 3, 5-13, 17-19, 23,

Robinson, Black Movements, pp. 1-66

SUGGESTED READING

Vincent Harding, There is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America (1983)

Steven Hahn, A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles In The Rural South, From Slavery to the Great Migration (2003)

Cedric Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (2000 new ed.)

Deborah Gray White, Ar’nt I A Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South (1987)

Sterling Stuckey, Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America (1987) Jack D. Forbes, Africans and Native Americans: the language of race and the evolution of Red-Black peoples. (1993, 2nd ed.).

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Richard Price, ed., Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas (1996).

Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many Headed Hydra (2000)

Shirley J. Yee, Black women abolitionists : a study in activism, 1828-1860 (1992).

R.J.M. Blackett, Building an Anti-Slavery Wall: Black Americans in the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement (1983).

SEPTEMBER 4 AND 6 -- BLACK MOVEMENTS TO REMAKE DEMOCRACY, 1865-1900

**This week, lectures and readings focus on the period of Reconstruction. The primary documents from Birnbaum and Taylor examine both government documents and first-hand accounts of ex-slaves of the transition to freedom. Discussion questions: how did the political culture of slaves translate into freed people’s movements? How did African Americans balance the desire to create independent institutions with the desire for the broader transformation of society? What is the political legacy of Reconstruction, not just for African Americans but for everyone?

***First wiki assignment due (not graded). In order to familiarize yourself with the software and syntax, please post your biography as well as a photo of you (or something relevant) to your personal page on our Wiki sight. (We will demonstrate how to do this in class). Also, continue to work on your proposal for your web page.

REQUIRED READING:

Birnbaum and Taylor, Civil Rights since 1787, chaps 25-29, 34-35, 38-43.

Robinson, Black Movements, 67-93

Tera Hunter, “’Washing Amazons’, chap. 4 of To ‘Joy My Freedom, [POSTED]

SUGGESTED READING

W.E.B. DuBois, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 (1935)

Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (1988).

Jane Dailey, Before Jim Crow: The Politics of Race in Postemancipation Virginia (2003)

Stephen Hahn, A Nation Under Our Feet (2003)

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Elsa Barkley Brown, "To Catch the Vision of Freedom: Reconstructing Southern Black Women's Political History, 1865-1880," in African American Women and the Vote 1837-1965, ed. A. Avakian et al. (1997)

Noralee Frankel, Freedom’s Women: Black women and families in Civil War era Mississippi (1999)

Edward Magdol, A Right to Land: Essays on the Freedman’s Community (1977)

Barbara Fields, Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground (1985)

V. P. Franklin, Black Self-Determination: A Cultural History of African-American Resistance (1992 2nd ed.)

SEPTEMBER 11 -- UPLIFT OR EXODUS?

** Though Reconstruction had been essentially crushed by the late 1860's, 1877 marked a significant political and social turning point. That year the federal government ended all ambiguity: it retreated from the promise of state-enforced equal opportunity for African Americans. We will deal with increased racial violence, the extension of Jim Crow legislation, and disfranchisement, emphasizing the fact that much of this legal and extralegal repression was a response to black opposition: populism, women's anti-lynching campaigns, early civil rights organization and agitation, the nascent interracial labor movement spurned in part by New South industrialization. Furthermore, the late 19th and early 20th centuries also marked the height of black emigration and colonization movements. In some respects, we will reject the all-too-popular notion that the late nineteenth century was the age of Booker T. Washington, since black women's activism, for example, was in many respects at the center of black political struggle in the North and South. We close on the first “Great Migration” during World War I, when over one million African Americans left the South (and the Caribbean) for the metropolitan centers of the North and West. Among other things, we will examine the reasons for migrating, efforts to adjust to the new urban environments, as well as the convergence of an expanded black working class and anti-colonial struggles for self-determination that generated new, radical political movements among African Americans immediately after the war.

***Read and work on web proposal. Due next week.

REQUIRED READING

Birnbaum and Taylor, Civil Rights since 1787, chaps. 48-56, 61-62.

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Robinson, Black Movements, 95-105

Kelley, Freedom Dreams, chapter 1

SUGGESTED READING

Kevin Gaines, Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century (1996).

Wilson J. Moses, ed., Classical Black Nationalism: From the American Revolution to Marcus Garvey (1996).

Nell Irvin Painter, Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas after Reconstruction (1976).

Farah Jasmine Griffin, Who Set You Flowin’?: The African-American Migration Narrative (1995).

I., K. Sundiata, Brothers and Strangers : Black Zion, Black Slavery, 1914-1940 (2003)

James R. Grossman, Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration (1989)

SEPTEMBER 13 -- FILM: “MARCUS GARVEY: LOOK FOR ME IN THE WHIRLWIND” BY STANLEY NELSON (2001)

**Show up to class and watch film. Reading is still required since it will prepare you for the film on Marcus Garvey.

***Go to PBS website and further explore the themes of the film by looking at additional speeches, texts, and the on-line forum. (Web page below)

****WEB PROJECT PROPOSAL DUE THIS WEEK!

REQUIRED READING:

Birnbaum and Taylor, Civil Rights since 1787, chaps. 63-64

Visit: www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/garvey/sfeature/

SEPTEMBER 18 -- GARVEYISM AS A SOCIAL MOVEMENT

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**Prepare to discuss readings and film. Lecture will emphasize Garveyism as a social movement, looking at working class UNIA chapters and the experience of women, both as rank-and-file members and leaders. What were the UNIA’s main demands? Was there a difference between Marcus Garvey’s ideals and the desires of rank-and-file members? How did the film portray the Garvey movement, and what are the main contradictions between the readings and the film? What gave rise to a black nationalist agenda and what’s its connection to earlier social movements? Or is there connection at all? [Keep in mind, the UNIA was an international movement and so far we’ve focused on movements limited mainly to the domestic U.S.]

***Continue to work on web page. Please make sure you visit the organization you plan to work on in person, try to interview members. I encourage all of you to visit during office hours to talk about your progress.

REQUIRED READING

Robinson, Black Movements, 106-122

Karen S. Adler, "Always Leading Our Men in Service and Sacrifice": Amy Jacques Garvey, Feminist Black Nationalist,” Gender and Society, 6, No. 3, (Sep., 1992), pp. 346-375. Link to JSTOR

SUGGESTED READING

Robert Hill and Barbara Bair, eds., Marcus Garvey: Life and Lessons (1987).

John Henrik Clarke, ed., Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa (1974).

Martin, Tony. Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (1976).

Theodore Vincent, Keep Cool: The Black Activists Who Built the Jazz Age (1995)

Ula Taylor, The Veiled Garvey: The Life and Times of Amy Jacques Garvey (2002)

Barbara Bair, "True Women, Real Men: Gender, Ideology, and Social Roles in the Garvey Movement," in Gendered Domains: Re-thinking Public and Private in Women's History, ed. by Dorothy O. Helly and Susan Reverby (1992)

SEPTEMBER 20 -- ‘WHEN AND WHERE I ENTER’: BLACK WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS, 1880S TO 1920S

**The readings and lectures offer an alternative to the standard political narrative that defined the late 19th, early 20th century as the age of the Washington-DuBois

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debate, or accommodation versus integration. We revisit uplift ideology, but through the work of black middle-class women’s organizations as well as movements formed and led by working-class women. Do black women offer an alternative vision of freedom? Can we call these early movements ‘feminist’? What were the class dynamics of class tensions between working-class and middle-class women, if any?

****Continue to work on your websites.

REQUIRED READING:

Birnbaum and Taylor, Civil Rights since 1787, chaps. 30-32, 57-60

Beverly Guy-Sheftall, ed., Words of Fire: An Anthology of African American Feminist Thought (1995). [EXCERPTS] - posted

SUGGESTED READING

Paula Giddings, When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America (1984).

Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson, Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America (1998).

Tera Hunter, To ‘Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors after the Civil War (1997)

Jacqueline Jones, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow (1985).

Dorothy Salem, To Better Our World: Black women in organized reform, 1890-1920 (1990)

Ida B. Wells-Barnett, On Lynchings: Southern horrors, A Red Record, Mob Rule in New Orleans, 1862-1931 (1969).

SEPTEMBER 25 -- “FACING A RED, RED SUN”: BLACK SOCIALIST MOVEMENTS

**Lectures examine the history of black socialists and communists, beginning with late 19th century black socialist leaders, socialist preachers, to the rise of Harlem radicalism during and after World War II, up through the Communist Party in the 1930s. We will also explore the internationalism evident in socialist/communist movements at the time and discuss what it means when social movements look beyond the boundaries of their nation-state for connections and allies. Is there a unique black socialist vision, and if so what is it?

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In addition to engaging the history of these movements, I want us to imagine what a successful socialist revolution might look like in terms of the conditions of African-Americans, as well as the broader society.

***In addition to working on your website, students should begin to work on Essay assignment #1 (See above).

REQUIRED READING

Birnbaum and Taylor, Civil Rights since 1787, chaps. 65-67, 77. 87, 89

Kelley, Freedom Dreams, chap. 2;

Nell Irvin Painter, The Narrative of Hosea Hudson, chaps. 3, 4, and 5. POSTED

SUGGESTED READING

Philip Foner, American Socialism and Black Americans: From the Age of Jackson to World War II (1977).

Carolyn Ashbaugh, Lucy Parsons, American Revolutionary (1976).

Winston. James, Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America (1998).

Robin D. G. Kelley, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression (1990).

Robin D. G. Kelley, Race Rebels: Culture, Politics and the Black Working Class (1994).

Kate Weigand, Red Feminism : American Communism and the Making Of Women's Liberation (2001).

Michael C. Dawson, Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary African-American Political Ideologies (2001)

Gerald Horne, Communist Front?: The Civil Rights Congress, 1946-1956 (1988).

Mark Naison, Communists in Harlem During the Depression (1983).

Jeffery Perry, ed. A Hubert Harrison Reader (2001). 

Mark. Solomon, The Cry was Unity: Communists and African Americans, 1917-1936 (1998).

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SEPTEMBER 27 -- WAR(S) AND THE ROOTS OF REBELLION

** World War II brings us, once again, to the international arena. We consider the initial reluctance on the part of many African-Americans to support the war and how it is related to unfulfilled promises of democracy generated by the First World War. The Double-V campaign and A. Philip Randolph's threatened March on Washington to protest racial discrimination in employment and the military partly articulated the sense of hope and pessimism. Central issues here include: black migration North, the slow, uneven (and in some cases temporary) integration of black male and female workers into war industry jobs--paying special attention to differences between women and men; the "hate strikes" waged against them, and their own wildcat strikes against racism. The period is also marked by intense racial violence in U.S. cities during summer of 1943, as well as various forms of cultural rebellion.

***Continue to work on essay #1: Due next session at the beginning of class. Late papers will not be accepted without a persuasive excuse.

REQUIRED READING

Birnbaum and Taylor, Civil Rights since 1787, chaps. 68-76.

Robinson, Black Movements, 123-135

Lipsitz, A Life in the Struggle, chaps. 1 and 2.

SUGGESTED READING

Carol Anderson, Eyes off the prize : the United Nations and the African American struggle for human rights, 1944-1955 (2003)

George Lipsitz, A Rainbow at Midnight: Class and Culture in the 1940s (1994)

Manning Marable, Race, Reform and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction in Black America, 1945-1990 (1991)

Karen Anderson, "Last Hired, First Fired: Black Women Workers During World War II," Journal of American History 69 (June, 1982), 82-97

Robin D. G. Kelley, Race Rebels (1994)

Neil Wynn, The Afro-American and the Second World War (1991)

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Joyce Blackwell, No peace without freedom : race and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, 1915-1975 (2004)

OCTOBER 2 AND 4 -- BUILDING THE "MODERN" CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

** On the buses of Alabama, in the bayous of Louisiana and the back roads of Mississippi, African Americans slowly built a movement that captured the attention of the nation and the world. While the temptation is to talk about charismatic personalities, the movement was a grassroots affair which ultimately re-defined leadership. Focusing solely on the “big names” of the Civil Rights era obscures the collective nature of the movement, silences essential local voices--especially women’s voices--and distorts the history and impact of the struggle. As the readings and lectures will reveal, the Civil Rights movement began in fits and starts across the South, finally mushrooming in frequency and force nationwide. Sometimes the struggles were highly organized; other times they were spontaneous uprisings. And they were not always about removing “Colored Only” signs; on the contrary, sometimes the struggles were over police brutality, housing, and poverty. Its impact was global, not only shaping world opinion of the United States but inspiring movements for social justice in other countries (e.g., South Africa). We will not only outline the major court decisions, the confrontations with Southern governments, and the movement cultures that developed in this period, but will pay attention to the men, women, and children who made themselves the architects of social change.

REQUIRED READING

Birnbaum and Taylor, Civil Rights since 1787, chaps. 78, 79, 81, 82-85, 90-92.

Robinson, Black Movements, 136-144

Shakur, Assata, chs. 1-3

SUGGESTED READING

Aldon Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement (1984)

Clayborne Carson, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s (1981).

Jack Bloom, Class, Race, and the Civil Rights Movement (1987).

Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years (1988)

Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It (1987)

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Manning Marable, Race, Reform and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction in Black America, 1945-1990, (1991)

Michael Eric Dyson, I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King Jr, (2000).

James Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries (1997 orig. 1972).

Bettye Collier-Thomas and V.P. Franklin, eds., Sisters in Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights – Black Power Movement (2001).

Diane McWhorter, Carry Me Home: Birmingham Alabama, Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution (2001)

OCTOBER 9 -- MODELS OF ORGANIZING

**Lectures and readings examine different approaches to mass mobilization—“representative leadership,” “mobilization/creative chaos,” creation of permanent structures and local institutions,” the development of “freedom schools.” We will look more closely at the contexts for various tactics and strategies and take apart the notion that there was a single Civil Rights movement. In particular, we will pay attention to CORE, SNCC, SCLC, the NAACP. In addition to reading and analyzing primary documents in Birnbaum and Taylor, we will listen to first-hand accounts by SNCC activists on line.

***HAND IN ESSAY #1, DUE AT BEGINNING OF CLASS!!

REQUIRED READING

Birnbaum and Taylor, , Civil Rights since 1787, chaps. 93-94, 96-100, 102-106, 108, 111

Lipsitz, A Life in the Struggle, chap 3

Shakur, Assata, chs. 4-5

Listen to recollections, speeches and songs of SNCC activists (Fannie Lou Hamer, John Lewis, Bob Moses, etc.) Requires Real Audio. http://www.ibiblio.org/sncc/audio.html

SUGGESTED READING

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Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (2003)

Chana Kai Lee, For Freedom's Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999);

James Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries (1997 orig. 1972).

Ann Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi (1975)

Susan Erenrich, Freedom is a Constant Struggle: An Anthology of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement (1999).

Bettye Collier-Thomas and V.P. Franklin, eds., Sisters in Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights – Black Power Movement (2001).

Belinda Robnett, How Long? How Long? African-American Women and the Struggle for Civil Rights (1997)

Visit Veterans of Hope Project. http://www.veteransofhope.org/

OCTOBER 11 -- NON-VIOLENCE VS. VIOLENCE VS. SELF-DEFENSE

**Lectures and readings make a distinction between “violence” and “self-defense.” We will explore the philosophical foundations for all three approaches as well as the practical, on the ground experiences of movements organizing in the South and, to a lesser degree, the urban North. Contrary to popular belief, the history of groups like the Deacons for Defense reveal that armed self-defense often accompanied non-violent passive resistance, and in most cases the presence of armed self-defense groups reduced episodes of racist violence.

***Please work on websites! It is important at this stage to visit other groups’ sites and exchange ideas. Don’t assume your group only works in isolation from other groups, or that this is a competition.

REQUIRED READING

Birnbaum and Taylor, Civil Rights since 1787, chaps. 95, 101

Lipsitz, A Life in the Struggle, chap. 4

Shakur, Assata, chaps. 6-8

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Akinyele O. Umoja, “The Ballot and the Bullet: A Comparative Analysis of Armed Resistance in the Civil Rights Movement,” Journal of Black Studies, 29, No. 4. (Mar., 1999), pp. 558-578. ACCESS THROUGH JSTOR

SUGGESTED READING

Herbert Shapiro, White Violence and Black Response: From Reconstruction to Montgomery (1988).

Lance Hill, The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement (2004).

Timothy B. Tyson, Radio Free Dixie: Robert Williams and the Roots of Black Power (1999).

James Cone, Martin and Malcolm and America: A Dream or Nightmare (1991)

Michael Eric Dyson, I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King Jr, (2000).

Peter Levy, Civil War on Race Street: The Civil Rights Movement in Cambridge Maryland (2003).

John D’Emilio, Lost prophet : the life and times of Bayard Rustin (2003)

Sudarshan Kapur, Raising up a prophet : the African-American encounter with Gandhi (1992)

OCTOBER 16 AND 18 – VIOLENCE VS. NON-VIOLENCE (CONT.) FILM: “AT THE RIVER I STAND,” (1993)

**Come prepared to take notes and discuss the film. Next class we will devote about 15 or 20 minutes to the Memphis Sanitation workers’ strike, which is the subject of this film. And please keep up with the reading assignments!

REQUIRED READING

Birnbaum and Taylor, Civil Rights since 1787, chaps. 109, 110, 112-113.

Lipsitz, A Life in the Struggle, chap. 5

Shakur, Assata, chaps. 9-10

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SUGGESTED READING

Michael K. Honey, Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights: Organizing Memphis Workers (1993)

Joan Turner Beifuss, At the River I Stand: Memphis, the 1968 strike, and Martin Luther King (1989)

OCTOBER 23 AND 25 -- MALCOLM TO MAO: BLACK INTERNATIONALISM AND GHETTO REBELLION

** As the Civil Rights movement enjoyed its legislative victories, much of urban black America believed the movement did little to solve the problems of poverty and police repression. We will focus on the rise of urban rebellions during the mid to late 1960s, the growth of militant black nationalist organizations (e.g. The Revolutionary Action Movement, the Black Panther Party, the Black Liberation Army), and the emergence and meaning of the slogan “Black Power.” For some, Black Power meant separatism--that African Americans need to find a new homeland within or outside the U.S. For others, Black Power meant holding more political office, taking control of community institutions. Yet, for others Black Power was simply another slogan for black capitalism. In this revolutionary period, demands for Black Power and Black Pride were everywhere, from the 1968 Olympics to the pages of flashy new magazines intended for a growing black readership, to the ghetto theaters that showed films like “Sweet Sweetback’s Badass Song.” No matter who used the term and for what purposes, it generally conveyed an aura of revolution, of masculinity and even violence. Nevertheless, there was a price to pay: repression from without--the FBI and local police, and repression from within--attacks on black women whose political work either overshadowed men or who were seen as too “masculine.”

REQUIRED READING

Birnbaum and Taylor, Civil Rights since 1787, chaps. 121-128, 153

Kelley, Freedom Dreams, chap. 3

Malcolm X Project, [selected docs./speeches]http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ccbh/mxp/index.html

Program of the Organization of Afro-American Unityhttp://www.malcolm-x.org/docs/gen_oaau.htm

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“Malcolm X Talks to Young People,” January 18, 1965http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/070.html

“Interviews of Panther Sisters on Women’s Liberation,” (pamphlet) http://www.anarco-nyc.net/anarchistpanther/otherwritings.html

SUGGESTED READING

Charles Jones, ed., The Black Panther Party Reconsidered (1998)

Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story (1992.)

Rod Bush, We Are not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle I the American Century (1999)

Manning Marable, Race, Reform and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction in Black America, 1945-1990 (1991).

Williams Sales, Jr., From Civil Rights to Black Liberation: Malcolm X and the Organization of Afro-American Unity (1994).

Ferruccio Gambino, "The Transgression of a Laborer: Malcolm X in the Wilderness of America," Radical History Review, 55 (Winter 1993), 7-31.

Gerald Horne, The Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s (1995).

Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide (1973).

James Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries (1997 orig. 1972).

Komozi Woodard, A Nation Within a Nation (1998).

William L. Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965-1975 (1992).

Robin D. G. Kelley and Betsy Esch, “Black Like Mao: Red China and Black Revolution,” Souls (Fall 1999), 6-41.

Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin, Detroit, I Do Mind Dying: A Study In Urban Revolution. (1975).

OCTOBER 30 -- REFORM OR REVOLUTION?: MOVEMENTS OF THE BLACK URBAN POOR

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**Before Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968, he was attempting to build a “poor people’s movement.” King’s movement wasn’t the first or the last. Indeed, one of the most significant movement was the predominantly female National Welfare Rights Organization. We will look at various post-1968 movements for welfare rights, housing, and related issues. Can poor people themselves effectively mobilize a movement for social justice? Is organizing along race lines effective, or should poor African Americans work within broader alliances with other poor people? What are the demands of the Welfare Rights movement, and should we consider them revolutionary or reformist (or are these labels even useful)?

**PLEASE work on essay #2—the conversation between Assata Shakur and Ivory Perry. It is due next class period.

REQUIRED READINGS

Birnbaum and Taylor, Civil Rights since 1787, chaps. 115-120, 131-132

Premilla Nadasen, “Expanding the Boundaries of the Women’s Movement: Black Feminism and the Struggle for Welfare Rights,” Feminist Studies 28, no. 2 (Summer 2002). Access from Expanded Academic ASAP

Robinson, Black Movements, 145-153

The last four chapters of Lipsitz, A Life in the Struggle, are also relevant here.

SUGGESTED READING

Premilla Nadasen, Welfare Warriors: The Welfare Rights Movement in the United States (2005)

Guida West, The National Welfare Rights Movement: The Social Protest of Poor Women (1981).

Lawrence Neil Bailis, Bread or Justice: Grassroots Organizing in the Welfare Rights Movement (1972)

Susan Handley Hertz, The Welfare Mothers Movement: A Decade of Change for Poor Women (1981).

Larry Jackson and William Johnson, Protest by the Poor: The Welfare Rights Movement in New York City (1984).

Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, Poor People‘s Movements (1979)

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Jill Quandango, The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty (1994).

NOVEMBER 1 -- BEYOND CIVIL RIGHTS? PROTEST, POLITICS, FAITH

**Religion has been critical for many black social movements, notably during the Civil Rights movement but one could argue throughout the entire scope of African American history. This unit examines the relationship between social movements and the institutionalized church, focusing primarily on the contemporary period. Have black religious institutions proven to be radical? Reformist? A hindrance or fetter to social justice?

REQUIRED READINGS:

Birnbaum and Taylor, Civil Rights since 1787, chaps. 129, 130, 133-134, 136-137, 163-164, 182-183.

Eva Thorne and Eugene Rivers, “Beyond the Civil Rights Industry: Black Church and the Contemporary Crisis in Black America.” PLUS Responses http://bostonreview.net/ndf.html#Faith

SUGGESTED READING

Cathy Cohen, The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics (1999).

Manning Marable, Race, Reform and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction in Black America, 1945-1990 (1991).

Manning Marable, How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America (2000 2nd Ed.)

Michael C. Dawson, Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary African-American Political Ideologies (2001)

Robin D. G. Kelley, Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America (1997).

Adolph Reed, Jr., Stirrings in the Jug: Black Politics in the Post-Segregation Era (1999).

Robert C. Smith, We Have No Leaders: African-Americans in the Post-Civil Rights Era (1996).

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NOVEMBER 6 AND 8 -- RACE WARS/SEX WARS: BLACK FEMINIST MOVEMENTS

** For all their radicalism, some advocates of Black Power, not to mention Civil Rights and student movement leaders, exhibited a strain of conservatism with regard to gender roles. Male leaders, consciously or unconsciously, tended to assign women to jobs typing reports and letters, operating mimeograph machines, and running offices--in other words, work traditionally associated with women. There were exceptions of course. But some of the women who emerged as public speakers, carried arms, or led protests in the streets were frequently accused of doing "men's work" or undermining black men's "manhood." Some of the cultural nationalists believed that women should adopt traditional African practices--emphasized that women ought to remain in "their place." Black women generally resisted efforts to silence or diminish them, and few joined mainstream feminist organizations. However, within these predominantly white organizations, black women had to deal with racism and the patronizing attitude of some white feminists. The lectures and readings examine the gender politics of the black freedom movement and the rise of black feminism during the late 1960s and 70s. Among other things, we will look at the tensions within the Black Panther Party, SNCC, as well as the formation of groups such as Black Women Organized for Action (BWOA), the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO), and the Combahee River Collective.

***ESSAY #2 ON ASSATA SHAKUR’S MEMOIR AND GEORGE LIPSITZ, A LIFE IN THE STRUGGLE IS DUE AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS

REQUIRED READINGS

Birnbaum and Taylor, Civil Rights since 1787, chaps. 179, 180.

Kelley, Freedom Dreams, chap. 5

“Combahee River Collective Statement,” 1977 POSTED

Mary Ann Weathers, “An Argument For Black Women's Liberation As a Revolutionary Force,” (1969). POSTED

Patricia Robinson, "Poor Black Women" including "Birth Control Pills and Black Children," a statement by the Black Unity Party (Peekskill, NY) and "A Response" by black sisters. POSTED

Frances Beal, “Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female,” (1970) POSTED

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SUGGESTED READING

Beverly Guy-Sheftall, ed., Words of Fire: An Anthology of African American Feminist Thought (1995).

Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (1997)

Benita Roth, Separate Roads to Feminism: Black, Chicana, and White Feminist Movements in America’s Second Wave (2004)

Cathy J. Cohen, "Punks, Bull Daggers and Welfare Queens: The Real Radical Potential of 'Queer' Politics," GLQ 3 (1997): 437-485

Michael C. Dawson, Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary African-American Political Ideologies (2001)

Audre Lorde, I am your sister : Black women organizing across sexualities (1985)

Barbara Smith, The Truth that Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender and Freedom (1999).

Kimberly Springer, Still Lifting, Still Climbing: Contemporary Black Women’s Activism (1999).

Toni Cade, ed., The Black Woman: An Anthology (1970)

Byllye Y. Avery, “Breathing Life into Ourselves: The Evolution of the National Black Women’s Health Project,” in Dear Sisters: Dispatches from the Women’s Liberation Movement, eds. Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda Gordon (2000).

Joy James, Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics (New York, 1999)

Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (2d ed., 1999)

NOVEMBER 13 -- MORE THAN A PAYCHECK: POST-CIVIL RIGHTS RACISM AND REPARATIONS

**We will discuss the historic demand for reparations, but emphasis will be placed on the more recent debates and movements. In particular, we will look at groups such as N’COBRA and the African Reparations Movement, and we will examine the demand for reparations in the wake of Katrina and the grassroots movements that emerged in the Gulf Coast calling for the right to return.

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***POST DRAFT OF WIKI SITE BY THE END OF THE DAY. SPEND THE WEEK EXAMINING EVERYONE’S SITE AND PLEASE WRITE COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS ON THE COMMENTS PAGE.

REQUIRED READING

Birnbaum and Taylor, Civil Rights since 1787, chaps. 138-146, 175-177.

Kelley, Freedom Dreams, chap. 4

David Horowitz, "Ten reasons why reparations for slavery is a bad idea for blacks--and racist too," Black Scholar 31, no. 2 (Summer 2001), POSTED

Ernest Allen Jr. and Robert Chrisman, “Ten reasons: A response to David Horowitz,” Black Scholar 31, no. 2 (Summer 2001). POSTED

Molly Secours, “Riding the Reparations Bandwagon: A White Woman’s Perspective,” http://www.reparationsthecure.org/articles/secours1.shtml

Adamma Ince, “No Masses, No Movement,” Village Voice (May 22-28, 2003), http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0221/ince.php

SUGGESTED READING

Robert L. Allen, “Past Due: The African American Quest for Reparations,” Black Scholar 28, no. 2 (1998): 2-17.

Boris Bitker, The Case for Black Reparations (1973).

Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua, “Slavery, racist violence, American apartheid: the case for reparations,” Sage Public Administration Abstracts 28, no. 3 (2001): 301-445.

William Darity, Jr. “Forty Acres and a Mule: Placing a Price Tag on Oppression,” in Richard F. America, ed., The Wealth of Races: The Present Value of Benefits from Past Injustices. (1990).

Joe R. Feagin, Racist America (2000)

Manning Marable, “An Idea Whose Time has Come,” Newsweek (August 27, 2001), 22.

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Clarence J. Munford, Race and Reparations: A Black Perspective for the 21st Century. Trenton: Africa World Press, 1996.

Raymond Winbush, ed., Should America Pay?: Slavery and the Raging Debate on Reparations (2003)

NOVEMBER 15 -- NEW ABOLITIONISTS: PRISON RIGHTS’ MOVEMENTS

**We will have a guest speaker—Professor Ruth Wilson Gilmore. She will discuss the prison-industrial complex and the efforts on the part of a variety of organizations( i.e., Critical Resistance, Prison Moratorium Movement, etc.) Please be prepared to take notes and discuss readings.

REQUIRED READING:

Birnbaum and Taylor, Civil Rights since 1787, chaps. 166-168.

Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California (UC Press, 2007), Introduction, Chapters 5 and 6. [POSTED ON

Critical Resistance - Incite Statement Gender Violence and the Prison Industrial Complex,” http://www.incite-national.org/involve/statement.html

“30 Years after the Murder of George Jackson: Radio Documentary about the Origins of the Modern Anti-Prison Movement,” http://www.freedomarchives.org/struggleinsideAug.htmlLISTEN TO PROGRAM

SUGGESTED READING

The NOBO Journal of African-American Dialogue (special issue: Black Prison Movements USA, 2, no. 1 (Chicago: Africa World Press, 1995).

Mumia Abu Jamal et. al, All Things Censored (2000)

Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003)

Daniel Burton-Rose, Dan Pens and Paul Wright, eds., The Celling of America: An Inside Look at the U.S. Prison Industry (1998)

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Joy James, ed., Imprisoned Intellectuals: America's Political Prisoners Write on Life, Liberation, and Rebellion (2003).

Joy James, ed., Neo-Slave Narratives: Prison Writing and Abolitionism (2004)

S.E. Anderson and Tony Media, ed., In Defense of Mumia (1996).

Christian Parenti, Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis (1999)

William Upski Wimsatt, No More Prisons (1999) www.nomoreprisons.net

Marc Mauer, Race to Incarcerate (1999)

NOVEMBER 20 -- MOVEMENT POLITICS AND THE HIP HOP GENERATION

*Hip Hop is more than rap music, d-jaying, break dancing, and graffiti. It has spawned a new generation of activists who are working in social justice movements focusing on issues such as police brutality, prison conditions, education, homelessness, among other things. We will examine some of the more notable movements, including the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement.. Sista II Sista; Still We Rise Coalition; the Peoples Convention; BlackOut Arts Collective; Sisterfire, to name a few. To a lesser extent, we will look at the how Hip Hop artists articulate a political vision—or rather, a plurality of political visions. Nonetheless, our main focus is on political movements on the ground that speak for or two the Hip Hop generation.

**PLEASE POST THE FINAL DRAFT OF YOUR WEBSITE BY THE END OF THE DAY. We will be spending the last day of class going over each one as a class, offering critical feedback.

REQUIRED READING

Birnbaum and Taylor, Civil Rights since 1787, chaps. 157, 158, 161-162, 169.

Angela Ards, “Rhyme and Resist: Organizing the Hip Hop Generation,” Nation (July 26, 1999). POSTED

Jeff Chang, “This Ain’t No Party,” (2004) http://www.alternet.org/election04/19044/

Ishmael Reed, Michael Franti, and Bill Adler Hiphoprisy, “In Conversations,” Transition, No. 56. (1992), pp. 152-165. LINK THROUGH JSTOR

Davey D, “How to Organize Hip Hoppers,” (1999)

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http://www.daveyd.com/hiphoporganizingart.html

Selected Music Posted

SUGGESTED READING

Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (1994)

Michael Eric Dyson, Between God and Gangsta Rap (1996)

Michael Eric Dyson, Holler if You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur (2002).

Bakari Kitwana, The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture (2003)

Yvonne Bynoe, Stand and Deliver: Political Activism, Leadership, and Hip Hop Culture (2004).

Kevin Powell, Who’s Gonna Take the Weight? (2003).

Joan Morgan, When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: My Life as a Hip Hop Feminist (1999)

David Toop, Rap Attack 3 (1999)

Chuck D, et. al., Fight the Power: Race, Rap and Reality (1998).

Joseph G. Eure and James G. Spady, eds., Nation Conscious Rap (1991).

Robin D. G. Kelley, Race Rebels (1994)

Jeff Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation (2005).

Check Jeff Chang’s site, ‘Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop’http://www.cantstopwontstop.com/power.cfm

Check dozens of articles posted on Davey D.’s website:http://www.daveyd.com/politicaldir.html

NOVEMBER 22 – THANKSGIVING BREAK – PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT DURING YOUR MEAL TO REMEMBER THE GENOCIDE OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

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NOVEMBER 27 AND 29 -- A FOURTH RECONSTRUCTION?: ORGANIZING IN POST-KATRINA AMERICA

**In the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, we were bombarded with images of the Red Cross rescuing helpless victims, mostly black residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast too disorganized and poor to do anything. In some instances, the black poor have been blamed for their own poverty and victimization—dismissed as dependent on the government dole and an overall blight on the development of New Orleans. Meanwhile, the mainstream media ignores grassroots organizations that are demanding relief, fairness and competence in FEMA’s response, the right to return to their communities, and control over the reconstruction process. In other words, we’ve witnessed the emergence of new social movements growing out of the pre-hurricane movements in the Gulf Coast. How are these movements similar to the other two Reconstructions we’ve studied? Who makes up these movements and what are they demanding? What are the broader implications for national policy?

REQUIRED READING

Eric Mann, Katrina’s Legacy: White Racism and Black Reconstruction in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. READ ENTIRE BOOK

SUGGESTED READING

Dyson, Michael Eric. Come Hell or High Water: Katrina and the Color of Disaster. New York: Basic Civitas, 2006

Rogers, Kim Lacy. Righteous Lives: Narratives of the New Orleans Civil Rights Movement. New York: New York University Press, 1993.

Woods, Clyde. Development Arrested. New York: Verso, 1998.

And the following articles, all available on http://www.infocollective.org/katrina.html

"A Strategy for Rebuilding New Orleans." A report submitted to the Louisiana Recovery Authority by the Urban Land Institute.

"Rebuilding New Orleans". BBC News. Jan. 19 2006.

"Who is Killing New Orleans" by Mike Davis. The Nation. April 4th 2005.  

"20 Point Plan to Destroy Black New Orleans" by Robert D. Bullard. Bayview. Feb 1 2006.

"Purging the Poor" by Naomi Klein. The Nation. Sept. 22 2005.

"The Battle for New Orleans" by Glen Ford and Peter Gamble. The Black Commentator. Oct. 17

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2005.

DECEMBER 4 AND 6 -- ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE? NEW MOVEMENTS AND POSSIBILITIES

**The final two dasy of class will be devoted to sharing the group web pages and imagining what future social movements might look like, and most importantly, what the world would look like if movements for social justice succeeded. Please finish the reading and be ready to discuss your ideas for “another world.”

REQUIRED READING

Birnbaum and Taylor, Civil Rights since 1787, chaps.170-176, 184-188.

Kelley, Freedom Dreams, chs. 5 and Afterword

Andrew Hsiao, Color Blind,” Village Voice (July 25, 2000), POSTED

Juan Gonzalez, “From Seattle to South Central: What the movement needs to do next,” In These Times (September 18, 2000). POSTED

CAAV Voice 2003 - War Abroad, War at Home: Movement EmergencyDownload from http://www.caaav.org/resources/index.php

Peruse programs and workshops organized by Sista II Sistahttp://www.sistaiisista.org

Black Radical Congress, “Freedom Agenda.”http://www.blackradicalcongress.org/aboutus/freedomagenda.html

Grace Lee Boggs, “These are the Times that Try Our Souls,” http://www.boggscenter.org/ideas/speeches.shtml

Ashanti Alston, “One Journey into and out of the Anarchist . . . Black!” http://www.anarco-nyc.net/anarchistpanther/writings.html

Ashanti Alston, “Beyond Nationalism But Not Without It,” http://www.anarco-nyc.net/anarchistpanther/writings.html

SUGGESTED READING

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Black Radical Congress website:http://www.blackradicalcongress.org/

Anarchist People of Color: Illegal Voices website:http://www.illegalvoices.org/knowledge/writings_on_anarchism/

Veterans of Hope Project. http://www.veteransofhope.org/

Makani Themba, Making Communities, Making Change: How Communities Are Taking Law into Their Own Hands (1999)

Eddie Yuen, Daniel Burton-Rose, and George Katsiaficas, eds., Confronting Capitalism: Dispatches From a Global Movement (2004).

Eddie Yuen, Daniel Burton-Rose, and George Katsiaficas, eds., The Battle of Seattle: The New Challenges to Capitalist Globalization (2001)

David Solnit, ed., Globalize Liberation : How To Uproot The System And Build A Better World (2004).

Notes from Nowhere, ed., We Are Everywhere: The irresistible rise of global anticapitalism (2003).

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (2004)

Tom Mertes, ed., A Movement Of Movements: Is Another World Really Possible? (2004).

Robin D. G. Kelley, Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America (1997).

SUGGESTED

Have a conversation with a clerical, physical plant, and/or food services worker here at Columbia and find out what they would like to change about their working conditions and the university as a whole. If you are so moved, then find out what you and your friends can do to support their efforts to organize.

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