New Pathways in Civil Rights Historiography
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Jeanne Theoharris, Komozi Woodard, eds.. Freedom North: Black Freedom Struggles Outside the South, 1940-1980. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001. vii + 326 pp. $26.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-312-29468-7. Reviewed by Patrick Jones Published on H-1960s (June, 2005) A few weeks into my "Civil Rights Movement" point. I want to contest my students' ready no‐ seminar, I place a series of images on the over‐ tions of the movement as they think they know it. head projector. One shows a long, inter-racial pro‐ Over the remainder of the semester, we set off on cession of movement activists marching down a an academic adventure to develop a more compli‐ street lined with modest homes, lifting signs and cated understanding of white supremacy and singing songs. Another depicts a sneering young struggles for racial justice. white man stretching a large confederate fag. Yet Admittedly, this brief exercise is a bit cheap another portrays three angry white men, faces and gimmicky, but the visual trickery conveys an contorted in rage, holding a crudely scrawled sign important point that is not soon lost on my stu‐ with the words "white power." I ask my students dents: most of us have been taught to accept, un‐ to scan these images for clues that might unlock critically, a certain narrative of the civil rights their meaning. Of course, they have seen such movement. This narrative focuses mainly on the photos before, from Montgomery and Little Rock, South and privileges well-known leaders, non-vio‐ Birmingham and Selma, and invariably it is these lent direct action, integration, and voting rights. place-names that come up in the conversation. So According to this telling, the story of the move‐ powerful are the popular images of the civil rights ment moves north and west only during the latter movement that it is assumed by my students that half of the 1960s in fts of riots and radicalism, dis‐ they are looking at "the South," the archetypal sention and disintegration, repression and racial face of non-violent direct action and "massive re‐ exclusivity. This shift is often portrayed as the sto‐ sistance." Many are thus shocked when I tell them ry of opposing dichotomies and as a wrong turn that these images are not from below the Mason- that ultimately accomplished little. Dixon line, but rather come from my research Over the last two decades, historians and soci‐ into race relations and civil rights insurgency in ologists have greatly complicated this popular ac‐ Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For most of them, that re‐ count by revising our understanding of the South‐ alization is jarring. And, of course, that is the H-Net Reviews ern movement. This research has begun to create innovative ways. Ula Taylor asks, "Why would a much more subtle and multifaceted picture of anyone become a member of the Nation of Islam race relations and social change that pushes back after the assassination of Malcolm X?" and con‐ the origins of the movement at least as far as cludes that the reasons were more theoretical ("a WWII, highlights the often hidden contributions new political source of black personhood and soli‐ of local people and women, reformulates Black darity") and practical (the establishment of black Power and armed self-defense, and places south‐ businesses and schools) than religious (pp. 177, ern activism within an international context.[1] 195). Scot Brown demystifies the cultural national‐ But until recently, the focus continued to stay ism of Maulana Karenga's US Organization during on the South. When historians did train their gaze the late-1960s by giving a fuller picture of the on the movement in other areas, it was often to group's history than its well publicized clashes track the Southern movement (and its failures) to with the Black Panther Party. He thereby illumi‐ the North or to focus on the activism of the Black nates the roots of modern Afrocentrism. Komozi Panther Party in Oakland.[2] Slowly, this is begin‐ Woodard portrays Amiri Baraka and the Black ning to change as a new wave of historians (in‐ Power "experiment" in Newark, New Jersey, as a cluding me) begins to focus concentrated atten‐ significant bridge between the political and cul‐ tion on freedom struggles in other regions and tural aspects of black nationalism (p. 287). Jon consider them within their own unique contexts. Rice zeros in on the community-based programs of the Illinois Black Panther Party (based on The frst fruits of these labors are now being Chicago's west side), a chapter that was, perhaps published. Freedom North, which appeared in surprisingly, dedicated to radical "inter-ethnic 2001, is now available in paperback. Edited by coalitions" and "cool to the idea of Pan-African Jeanne Theoharris and Komozi Woodard, it is a unity" (p. 41). Together, these essays demonstrate worthy introduction to, and preview of, this sig‐ that the meaning of Black Power was hotly con‐ nificant new scholarship. As Theoharris writes in tested and more variegated than often portrayed. the introduction: They also make clear that local political, social, "Foregrounding the South has constricted and economic contexts critically shaped Black popular understandings of race and racism in the Power's sometimes complimentary and other United States during and after WWII--making it times contradictory ideologies and strategies. seem as if the South was the only part of the coun‐ Two essays in the collection concentrate on try that needed a movement, as if blacks in the school desegregation campaigns in the Northeast. rest of the country only became energized to fght Adina Back chronicles the "Harlem Nine" and after their Southern brothers and sisters did, as if their parents' efforts to challenge segregated pub‐ Southern racism was more malignant than the lic education one year after the more well-known strains found in the rest of the country, as if social events in Little Rock, Arkansas. Jeanne Theoharris activism produced substantive change only in the recasts the story of Boston's 1974 busing contro‐ South" (pp. 2-3). versy by deemphasizing working-class white re‐ Freedom North aims to correct this imbalance sistance and focusing attention on the preceding by drawing together eleven essays that push the twenty-five-year struggle for "educational justice" boundaries of our knowledge in important new waged by local black activists (p. 144). Both essays directions. suggest that public school inequality in the urban Several of the pieces in Freedom North focus North was more formalized and deliberate than on aspects of what might be broadly defined as the oft-used term "de facto segregation" indicates, Black Power politics, but approach the subject in and that organized school desegregation efforts 2 H-Net Reviews did not trail those in the South. Moreover, by re‐ with one another, interpenetrated, and over‐ covering the contributions of Mae Mallory and lapped" (p. 95). Ruth Batson, this research compliments other re‐ As with any collection, Freedom North is a bit cent work that underscores the central role of uneven and the overall coverage is incomplete. women in movement activism. The move to achieve formal electoral political Articles by Beth Bates and Felicia Kornbluh power by African Americans during this period bridge the gap between civil rights and economic seems underrepresented. For example, the elec‐ rights. Bates explores working-class black ac‐ tions of Carl Stokes and Richard Hatcher, the na‐ tivism for equal employment opportunity in De‐ tion's frst big-city black mayors, are conspicuous‐ troit during WWII and draws interesting connec‐ ly absent from consideration. In addition, impor‐ tions between these campaigns and the all-black tant leaders, like Jesse Jackson and his P.U.S.H. March On Washington Movement. Kornbluh re‐ coalition, and events, like the Poor People's Cam‐ considers the National Welfare Rights Organiza‐ paign or the various efforts by militant black stu‐ tion's attempt to organize poor black women in dents to establish Black Student Unions and Black several northern cities to gain access to credit and Studies Programs on college campuses, might consumer goods at Sears. It is clear from these es‐ have been included. Moreover, the articles are says that race and economics were linked in a overwhelmingly focused on coastal cities and structure of inequality throughout the North. To large urban areas in the Midwest to the exclusion overcome this, African Americans crafted cam‐ of more moderate-sized locales in the Northeast, paigns that went far beyond civil rights to chal‐ Midwest, Mountain West, Southwest and Pacific lenge the economic control and resource distribu‐ Northwest, to say nothing of struggles for racial tion at the heart of segregation. justice in smaller towns, suburbs and rural areas While each of the pieces in this collection has outside the South. Finally, more might have been something to offer, three essays stand out. Johan‐ included on the relationship between religion and na Fernandez's article on the Young Lords and civil rights activism in the North, or on the rich Puerto-Rican community organizing in New York cultural politics of these movements, particularly City during the late-sixties brings to the fore new in the areas of fashion, language, music, and liter‐ issues not often linked with civil rights, including ature. sanitation, lead poisoning, and public health. It Yet these criticisms are somewhat unfair. highlights important interconnections between Theoharris acknowledges in her introduction that African -American and Latino activism, and un‐ the point of Freedom North is not to cover all the derscores the need for more research that reaches bases but to contest old patterns of thinking and across ethnic, class, and racial lines.