Reconstituting Political Genealogies

Abstract

Contemporary youth activism—particularly activism that works toward social and racial justice—has begun to receive long-overdue attention in scholarly inquiries. Research on the prison-industrial complex is a prime example of such inquiries; in recent years, scholar-activists such as Angela Davis have turned their lenses to youth—incarcerated and not incarcerated—to document these youth’s perspectives and critiques of the prison industry and of its effects on black and brown populations.1 Organizations of youth activists, such as the Blackout Arts Collective in New York City, have developed multilayered projects meant to confront this industry. In workshops and projects with college youth and with incarcerated youth, those activists are attempting to build a critical mass of young people organized against state-sponsored racism. Black and brown youth activists in the United States are creating new forms of politics and establishing new communities and networks; some of the most creative antiracist projects are those in which youth activists use the black radical past to address racial issues of the present.KeywordsDominican RepublicYouth ActivistShared HistoryPolitical PrisonerBlack Panther PartyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.