Built with Empty Fists: The Rise and Circulation of Black Power Martial Artistry during the Cold War by Maryam K. Aziz A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (American Culture) in the University of Michigan 2020 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Matthew J. Countryman, Chair Associate Professor Victor Román Mendoza Associate Professor Sherie M. Randolph, Georgia Tech University Associate Professor Stephen Ward Maryam K. Aziz [email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0002-2006-4285 © Maryam K. Aziz 2020 DEDICATION To my Nana, Dr. Winfred Barbee, who passed away just as I finished prelims and defended my prospectus. Thank you for helping to raise me, for all the years of laughter, rigor, and Black culture, and for being the first person to see me submit this dissertation, perched from your hallowed place atop my desk. To Aura Rain Rosser, who lost her life shortly after I arrived in Ann Arbor. If not for state violence, you may very well have become the doctor instead of me, but you certainly would have grown old. And to all the Black women, cis, trans, and non-binary, who have lost their lives but now fly over us. You are the real warriors. #SayHerName ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I could not have written this project without the figures included in its pages. They told their own stories and created their own archives. I picked up a story already told and, like my favorite detectives, listened to those who lived it. I thank everyone that showed me that martial arts, movement arts, and healing movements are woven into the fabric of human cultures. The act of breathing life into this project would have been overwhelming without the support, affirmation, and challenge of two committees. The first was my undergraduate thesis committee in the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University. I find it difficult to write about how life changing the mentorship of Farah Jasmine Griffin was. Sophomore year I walked into my first humanities classroom taught by a Black woman. To see Farah Griffin lecture changed my orientation to higher education. She told me to go to graduate school in a comment on one of my very first discussion posts. I wish I had printed it out and saved it. When I timidly talked to her about my Mellon Mays project, I expected her to be confused about a project on Blackness, activism, literature, and martial arts. What I received was enthusiastic affirmation that this project was important and that it was waiting to be written. I could not have asked for a more powerful co-thesis advisor. My other advisor was none other than the inimitable, Black, queer genius that was Marcellus Blount. Marcellus passed away before I could send him this dissertation, but without him, there would be no Built with Empty Fists. He gave joyous support, distraction, and feedback. The classes I took with him, namely “Black Masculinities,” modeled how to be a scholar of race that critically studied gender in all its formations. I cannot forget his smile or the iii air about him. I am still shocked that he has left us but not without a trail to follow him. I hope to write a book that would make him smile wide as if he were reading it in his office. To whomever inherited my gift to him, a DVD copy of Black Belt Jones, take care of it well. When I left Columbia, I did not imagine that I could find comparable mentorship. I found more than enough of it in the dissertation committee I formed-Matthew Countryman, Victor Mendoza, Stephen Ward, and Sherie Randolph. Sherie, I am grateful that you took me to Harlem Shake to discuss graduate school. I am more grateful for the model of writing women into movement history that you provide. Stephen, you have provided no short of laughter over the years. I am grateful for you: from the first time Scott Kurashige asked you to speak with me to our random conversations about popular culture to being your first Graduate Instructor. Thank you for keeping my work grounded historically and for being a great partner in teaching crime for the “The History and Evolution of Hip Hop.” Victor, it has been an absolute pleasure and delight. I was terrified to audit Queer of Color Critique because I knew nothing about the field. But it was one of the most important courses I have ever taken. I am deeply touched by our conversations in your office, including how you helped analyze my first offer letter. Thank you for calling me Dr. Aziz every day you saw me in the Women’s Studies lounge during my last semester. Lastly, thank you for the exam question that became the basis for my dissertation. Matthew, I do not think that a better chair exists for a dissertation committee. You are a mentor exemplar, even when people have to leave sticky notes on your door to reach you (not me, of course). I will always remember sitting around with your other mentees pasting pictures of your face onto famous activists. Why was this the source of joy for students burned out from teaching and taking exams? It is because your guidance is irreplaceable. Earlier this year, I remarked how all of your women of color mentees got jobs. You simply responded that you did iv your job correctly. You have done your job with the utmost professionalism and helpfulness. Thank you for answering my distress email when I thought I had to rewrite my dissertation proposal in a week. Thank you for knowing I would get a job. Thank you for calling me when your intuition sensed I was overwhelmed. Thank you for knowing I was always a historian. Thank you for supporting all my schemes and for supporting me that semester I “dropped out” to teach anti-hate crime self-defense. As I stated when someone foolishly asked me to speak on your behalf: “We need more advisors like Matthew Countryman, and we should all become advisors like Matthew Countryman.” More than any institution or person, this project is here because of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. I cannot begin to speak about how much it has taught me. So many of my delighted and brilliant moments happened within its walls. I cannot sympathize with people who spent years in dark, archive basements. I spent my formative years surrounding by diasporic art, Harlem’s organic intellectuals, and the spirit of my childhood favorite, Langston Hughes. Thank you eternally to the Schomburg Mellon Summer Humanities Institute. I do not know where the future of African Diasporic Studies would stand without it. Thank you to Nicole Burrows, Sean Green, and my Summer 2012 cohort for listening during the early days of this project. Nicole, your continued mentorship around the academy is appreciated. I am grateful for the rigor you and Sean asked of us. I know that in our battle of martial artists, you would win. Sylviane Diouf, thank you for directing the program and later giving me the greatest job of my life. Working on the 2017 Black Power! exhibit made me anew. To know that I was the only Ph.D. student to contribute to it still uplifts me. Nothing compares to seeing a cartoon of a Black woman doing martial arts on the Schomburg wall, a cartoon discussed in this very dissertation. v Thank you to the spirit of Jean Blackwell Hutson and the world she created. To the archivists, librarians, and pages who worked in the Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division; the MARB Division; and the Photographs and Prints Division between 2011 and 2019: thank you. Thank you to the Center’s maintenance staff and community safety staff. Thank you to the Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Its staff was helpful during the hectic time I spent pouring over boxes in the Malcolm X Project Collection. Thank you to the University of Michigan Library and the Chicana Por Mi Raza Digital Archive. Maria Cotera, thank you for sharing materials with our class before the archive opened. Jen Alzate, thank you for indexing “karate” in Chicana Movidas for me and future scholars. I would be remiss to not thank the martial artists who I interviewed. Mfundishi Maasi, your testimony has shaped my work for years. I have the utmost respect for you, Khalil Maasi, and your assistant Olu. Your wisdom is only matched by your spirit. Thank you Ron Van Clief for talking to me during the early hours of the morning and for sharing your story of self-defense and anti-racism. James “Weusi” Johnson, talking to you about Camden and Philadelphia history was a personal joy. Steve McCutchen, your oral history changed my work. I do not want to live in a world where we forget the vibrancy of East Oakland sporting culture. Thank you to the greater UM community. Marlene Moore, you were the best graduate coordinator we could ask for. Tammy Zill, your work was so central to the department; may you rest in peace. Wayne High, thank you for welcoming me to DAAS and for always keeping an eye out for me. If I had not defended during the pandemic, I would have taken you up on the offer to defend in the Afroamerican and African Studies Department. Hannah Yung, you were the most fabulous events coordinator. As I told you, I would not have made it through first year without your friendship. To my 2014 cohort, I think we made history by all six of us graduating vi in six years with jobs.