Black Activists Research Articles

How the government’s portrayal differed from Black activists’ portrayal of the African American soldiers in the second world war

This article is about the difference between the portrayal from black activists and the government of the African American soldiers in the Second World War, focusing on the real situation of human right of the African Americans during the second world war, when the United States was still in the Jim Crow System. Through comparing the film made by the War Department, which represent the government and the pamphlet made by black activists which call for equal rights, we can have a comprehensive understanding of the Black’s human right.

Dismantling Development: How Black Activists Spearheaded Affordable Housing In Paterson, New Jersey, 1950-1980

Winner of the 2023 New Jersey Scholastic Alliance Stellhorn Undergraduate Award.

Conceptualizing White Allyship among Undergraduate Students in the United States

ABSTRACT Colonialism in the U.S. has embedded anti-Blackness in social institutions, including but not limited to those of higher education. Preliminary research indicates that white allyship, or white people’s efforts to dismantle racism by advocating for and partnering with People of Color, is protective and beneficial to Black communities. However, little work has sought to clarify conceptualizations of white allyship – especially comparing the perspectives of Black and white students. To address this, the present study recruited 24 undergraduate students (12 Black, 12 white) to participate in semi-structured interviews focused on white allyship. Data were systematically transcribed, then coded using thematic analysis. Results indicated that Black and white students have somewhat similar understandings of allyship spanning from emotional support to actively resisting oppression; however, Black students generally conceptualized ally behaviors as involving more risk-taking. These data lend support to what Black Activists have been urging for years: emotional support and self-education are important ally behaviors, yet combating anti-Blackness also involves disrupting the systems that perpetuate it. Findings have implications for vested partners in education, institutions, and researchers.

Hotep anti-Blackness: Misogynoir and queer exclusion in online conspiracy theorizing

Research suggests African Americans are more likely than Whites to support conspiracy theories, especially those related to the U.S. government. Locating the pedagogical practices of Black activists in the online hotep subculture, I use the concept of public pedagogy to understand how these activist influencers use social media to spread political messages in the public sphere. This essay situates hotep subculture as a conspiritualist project that uses Pan-Africanism, Afrocentricity, Black spirituality, and hip-hop culture to advance conspiracy theories among Black communities for consciousness-raising and economic independence. While hoteps have promulgated a pro-Black politic, their reliance on ethnonationalist homophobia and misogynoir promotes a form of erasure that is not only exclusionary and anti-Black but also reflects racial fears rooted in anxiety. This essay contributes to the growing literature on conspiritualism’s investment in white supremacy and the need for conspiritualist critiques to investigate how anti-Blackness shows up in discourses at the intersection of faith, spirituality, and global regimes of power. Drawing on the concepts of misogynoir and anti-Black heterotopias, Black gender and sexual minorities are framed within hotep discourse as subservient, deviant, and perilous to Black liberation.

Theatre, Anti-Theatricality and Anti-Blackness in Romantic Criticism

This article argues that anti-theatricality is entrenched in, even a manoeuvre of, anti-Blackness. The article begins by establishing the contexts of the first Black actor known to have played Othello in Britain – Ira Aldridge in the first half of the nineteenth century – and, conflictingly, the repeated efforts in Romantic-era performance and criticism to reject Othello’s Blackness. These contexts highlight the default white perspective of Romantic theatrical texts, and the role anti-Blackness had in shaping Romantic dramatic criticism. Having introduced these concepts, I offer a close reading of Charles Lamb’s essay ‘On the Tragedies of Shakspeare’ (1811, rpt. 1818) to demonstrate that Romantic anti-theatricality’s desire to transcend embodiment is, specifically, a rejection of marginalised bodies in favour of an idealised imagination coded as white.

Within and Outside the Black-Maghrebi Binary

Abstract What does it mean to be both Black and Tunisian, Black and Maghrebi, when the two identities are defined as different from each other, and in opposition with each other, in both North Africa and its diaspora? This article is an annotated conversation with Dr. Maha Abdelhamid, a Tunisian Black activist and scholar who has been crucial to the creation of the Black movement in Tunisia and Tunisian diaspora. This conversation examines the construction and negotiation of Tunisian-Black and Maghrebi-Black identities through Abdelhamid’s experiences of living in and working against racism in both Tunisia and France. It details Abdelhamid’s trajectory in becoming conscious of her Black and African identities, her complex relationship with her Arab identity, her role in building the Black movement in Tunisia after the 2011 revolution, and her arrival in France and experiences of exclusion in both Maghrebi diasporic as well as Black feminist civil society organizations. The interview points to the possible essentialization of Maghrebi and Black as separate identities not only in socio-political discourses that racialize and marginalize these groups, but also among groups challenging Islamophobia or anti-Blackness, leaving those with overlapping identities and racializing experiences outside their scope.

Screening race, streaming Frenchness: Women of colour on French Netflix

ABSTRACT This article builds on the emerging scholarship on Netflix productions and French series to analyse questions of racial visibility and feminine representation in two series: Dix pour cent/Call My Agent! (France Télévisions/Netflix, 2015–2020) and Plan cœur/The Hook-Up Plan (Netflix, 2018–2022). The first section focuses on Dix pour cent’s Sofia Leprince, a mixed-race receptionist and aspiring actress, and the ways in which she serves to highlight the lack of Black actors in French cinema. The second section analyses Plan cœur’s Charlotte Ben Smires, a young woman at a career crossroads who offers a paradoxical perspective on the place of Maghrebi descendants in – and their relationship with – France. Overall, the authors examine how Dix pour cent and Plan cœur, two series featuring strong women of colour, navigate racial visibility in universalist French contexts. These series speak back to a striking historical absence of actors of colour – especially women – from French television screens, yet they are nonetheless circumscribed in persistent norms of republican universalism and thus racial colour-blindness. This article examines this paradox to determine whether these successful contemporary series can truly offer ‘narrative renewal’ within the confines of republican representation norms.

The Black Lives Matter Movement, Jewish Allies, and the Long Legacy of Black Anti-Zionism

Abstract: From the emergence of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, massive numbers of Jews, committed to resuming the Black-Jewish coalition of the civil rights era, became its avid allies. They failed to recognize that this alliance, which foundered and was sundered by the late 1970s, had increasingly been replaced by Blacks' identification with "their Brown Palestinian siblings," which rendered the conflict with Israel in stark racial terms. After the Six Day War, Black militants promoted a narrative that replaced Jews as a fellow oppressed group with Jews as iniquitous Zionists, who had established an illegitimate settler-colonial state that ethnically cleansed and victimized indigenous people of color—a narrative upon which their successors in the BLM movement drew heavily. With the rise of the BLM movement, the Black-Palestinian alliance was solidified—their wide divide on issues of race, gender, and homosexuality overridden by their shared anti-Zionism. In 2016, when the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), a constituent partner of the BLM umbrella organization, issued a policy platform identifying Israel as "an apartheid state," committing "genocide against the Palestinian people," leading Jewish organizations appeared confounded and dismissed these views as a minority position. Spokespersons of secular and religious Jewish associations condemned what they labeled BLM's "anti-Israel rhetoric," which they insisted was "totally unrelated" to the movement's "social justice work." They appeared to be unaware that far from mere "rhetoric," the denigration and delegitimization of the Jewish state had long been at or near the core of the anti-racist ideology propounded by the Black militants revered by BLM leaders and activists. Thus, in 2020, organizations allegedly "representing over half of Jewish people in America" published a statement that endorsed the BLM movement "unequivocally," while several of the signatories released additional statements condemning those Jews who had rejected the movement once it posted the policy platform. The Jewish community fractured over the issue of Black antisemitism, but unlike in earlier periods, far more Jews, identifying as "progressives," continued to support a movement whose leaders and activists espoused or tolerated antisemitism, albeit lightly cloaked in anti-Zionist garb.

The Rise of Decolonial Image: Postcolonial Reading to Django Unchained Movie by Quentin Tarantino

This paper provides postcolonial analysis of Django Unchained movie which is written and directed by American Film writer Quentin Tarantino in 2012. More specifically, the analysis focused on three primary components: firstly, Quentin Tarantino’s critique for slavery of blacks and racial discrimination, secondly, Orientalized Oriental discourse via postcolonial lens, and thirdly, decolonization discourse which is represented by Django, the protagonist of the movie. Throughout the movie, the viewers can see many scenes of slavery and racial intolerance which reflects many historical facts in the era of American slavery; including how blacks were obliged to work and how they were treated inhumanely. In a similar vein, the viewer can see the spirit of Orientalized Oriental phenomenon through Stephen as one of the major actors of the movie who embodies the phenomenon which supported abusing with blacks although he is a black actor. Quentin Tarantino gives a spectacular role to Django who becomes a symbolic emancipation of blacks and earns his freedom and frees his wife, Broomhilda. Postcolonial critics react against the imperial history of colonization, like the structure of racism as well as colonial power which reshaped itself by Orientalized Oriental discourse. After all, Django Unchained Movie contributes to the discourse of postcolonialism in which Quentin Tarantino reveals some historical facts about African American slavery, and in contrast to many other Film Makers, he gives a good role to non-European hero, Django.

The uses and reuses of monuments in the Black Lives Matter era

ABSTRACT The destruction of white supremacist monuments has become a flashpoint in the Black Lives Matter mass movement. However, this essay recounts the construction of monuments by Black activists and artists, including their work to reclaim public space and monument aesthetics. Specifically, I discuss the liberatory memory work of the Equal Justice Initiative and Chicago Torture Justice memorials. I also explore how Black artists, particularly Kehinde Wiley and Kara Walker, have repurposed monumental aesthetics via blackwashing. Finally, I consider the appropriation of monument building by governments and foundations and question the motivations of these powerful entities’ entry into the “monuments movement”.

Black Youth Rising: Understanding Motivations and Challenges in Young Adult Activism

Black young adults participate in activism to challenge and transform oppressive systems. In this qualitative study, we employed thematic analysis and used the framework of sociopolitical development (SPD) to explore their motivations and challenges to participation amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the summer of 2020 in the United States. Semi-structured interviews with 22 Black young adults in early 2022 revealed that social identities, sense of legacy, impact, and morals drove their participation. Further, contending with systemic oppression, impact, harm, and working with others challenged their participation. This study holds valuable insights for stakeholders as they support and empower young Black activists navigating social justice efforts in our dynamic and evolving sociopolitical landscape. Further, this work highlights the enduring tradition of activism within the Black community and emphasizes the need to empower young Black activists as change agents in the pursuit of a more equitable society.

Az interszekcionalitás mint elméleti keret a migráns munkavállalók egyenlőtlenségekkel és társadalmi pozicionálással kapcsolatos tapasztalatainak tanulmányozásához

Intersectionality depicts the intricate interplay of various social categorizations in shaping the experiences of individuals or communities rather than single categorization alone. This article attempts to introduce intersectionality as an essential theoretical framework for research and analysis of migrant workers' lived experience with social inequalities, and at the same time, their social positionings. Initially a critique of academic feminism from a Black activist and more inclusive perspective, intersectionality has been quickly adopted by researchers from other fields as a framework due to its usefulness in researching inequalities. By tracing intersectionality back to the context where Crenshaw coined the term, together with the presentation of its key proponents and analyses of two case studies, this article hopes to shed light on the way intersectionality can be an essential tool to explore the way migrant workers employ their multiple and intersecting identities to seek upward social mobility.

Dirty Work: An Ecocritical Reflection on Human Feces as a Tool of Protest and Performance

On March 9, 2015, Chumani Maxwele, a University of Cape Town political science student, hurled the contents of a portable toilet at a statue of British mining magnate and white supremacist Cecil Rhodes. At nearly a decade’s remove, Maxwele’s controversial act reverberates. Though often portrayed as the rash gesture of a dispossessed Black youth, the event was a meticulously stage-managed piece of ecocriticism. Yet his catalytic act is virtually absent from academic discussions of the #RhodesMustFall movement. The erasure of Maxwele’s radical protest raises important questions about who can create ecocriticism, who can perform, and what it means when a Black activist uses human excrement and disgust as the medium for protest.

Pardo Soldiers’ Historical Claims in Late Eighteenth-Century Cuba

Abstract José Maldonado and Manuel José Castellanos were two Cuban pardo veterans who, in search of military status, rank, and salary, petitioned the court, making arguments that would prove subversive to the racial order. As Maldonado justified his entitlement to rank and Castellanos his to rank or salary, they recovered family narratives dating from when pardo and moreno commandants had enjoyed real power. Under the guise of symbolic recognition, new regulations greatly reduced black militias’ autonomy. These militiamen acted as de facto historians, legal interpreters, and activists during times of institutional and historical change. While they did succeed in recording their families’ past, their petitions for rank and salary were denied.

Bourbon, Black and White: Bourbon and Race in America, 1935-1975

ABSTRACT This article explores the cultural history of bourbon in the United States between the 1930s and the 1970s through the lenses of race, politics, and consumerism. Several related trends pushed bourbon’s cultural history in new directions during this time. Like many popular consumer products, Americans endowed bourbon with complex meanings that reflected imagined, contested notions of history and racial identities and hierarchies. As Black and white Americans bought, sold, drank, and talked about bourbon, they also grappled with racial conflict and social change. Distillers crafted new appeals to Black Americans to spur sales. Mass consumerism grew in importance as an arena of activism after the Second World War. Black activists targeted the bourbon industry in their ongoing fight against commercial racism and segregation. Bourbon became a touchstone in the politics of civil rights. Black and white commentators invoked contrasting bourbon symbolism and tropes in their civil rights rhetoric. These trends and dialogues flavored the meanings that Americans consumed as they drank bourbon. All the while, bourbon whiskey became a staple of the upwardly mobile, consumption-driven lifestyles of the middle and professional classes, regardless of their racial identities. To tell these stories, the article relies on bourbon-related advertising, journalism, and commentary in the Black and white presses, corporate market research materials and correspondence, and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) archival records.

Broadening the “Problem-Space” of Political Theory

Pineda's book is an original and imaginative reconstruction of activist strategy and political theory, upending the orthodox account of civil disobedience during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Against liberal and democratic theorists who domesticate civil disobedience in the United States, with the aim of legitimizing the nation's constitutional democracy as “nearly just,” or in need of reform rather than revolution, Pineda argues that civil rights activists “theorized and deployed” civil disobedience as “decolonizing praxis” (16). She traces the decades-long history in which Black activists in the United States crafted their strategy of civil disobedience through embodied spaces, relationships, and practices of “imaginative transit” with revolutionaries in India, South Africa, and Ghana. These networks of transit enabled activists to diagnose segregation and colonialism as sites of a “shared, global condition” (59) of white supremacy, “operating with a common, reinforcing logic” of economic, political, and psychological domination (89). As a decolonizing praxis, civil disobedience combined an “inward-facing politics” of self-emancipation with an “outward-facing politics” (16) of disruption and disclosure—aimed not at reforming aberrations in constitutional democracy, but at “transforming the psychological, structural, and relational bases of white supremacy” (59).

Reckoning with the Past, Imagining the Future

In the wake of the Trump presidency—with its endemic corruption, norm-breaking, and open subversion of the rule of law culminating in an attempted insurrection and ongoing false claims of election fraud—an overdue national conversation about the health of US democracy is taking place. For many, this was their first conscious experience of US democracy as imperiled or in crisis, and it raised pressing questions about whether there was cause to hope rather than despair, and of what the sources of such democratic faith might be. Black political thought has long grappled with the foundational deficits of US democracy; even as Black activists have worked tirelessly to bring about such alternative futures the persistence of white supremacy has made it difficult to hope in the possibility of radical transformation. Reckoning provides rigorous, complex answers to the question of how to practice democratic hope and refuse despair without trafficking in easy answers or simple prescriptions. According to Woodly, social movements: help members of the polity recover from the cynicism wrought by insufficiently responsive governance. . . . [They] remind us of the power of the public sphere. . . . [They force] governing officials to be responsive to new or neglected constituencies and attentive to their causes. . . . [They] help us to feel that our opinions and political actions matter—that “we the people” have power. . . . [They] make a citizenry both believe and act on behalf of the belief that “another world is possible.” (10)

“In the Name of the God of All Names: Yahweh, Obatalá, Olorum”: The 1981 Quilombos Mass as an Ecumenical Pilgrimage in Brazil

AbstractOn November 22, 1981, thousands of laypeople, along with bishops, priests, and theologians, gathered in Recife to celebrate the Eucharist. Offered during a military dictatorship in a period of popular insurgency, the Quilombos Mass mourned the death of millions in the African slave trade, sought pardon for the Church's past sins, and celebrated the resistance of Blacks in Brazil and beyond its borders. The acclaimed Black Brazilian pop star and activist Milton de Nascimento collaborated with an activist poet and three bishops to produce a multimedia performance; in the spirit of liberation theology, it was marked by striking visuals, dance, music, and the invocation of the sacred. This article draws on reportage, speeches and correspondence, military court and intelligence records, published interviews, and the author's interview with one of its composers. It offers a close textual analysis, with attention to Catholic theological debates, as well as an analysis of the performance itself, drawn from video recordings and bringing attention to aspects neglected by most commentators, who refer only to the album, as it was finally produced. Initially stifled by the Vatican, Milton's masterpiece, issued as an album on vinyl and performed in paid concerts, became a powerful cultural reference for activists, serving as a touchstone for a strategic alliance between Black activists and the liberationist Church.

“The name is Blacula!”: Identity and Palimpsest in William Marshall’s Vampire Diptych

Abstract: In the early 1970s, a new cinematic genre, the Blaxploitation film, emerged from a creative scene which saw Black actors, writers, and directors enabled to produce their own original works for the first time. Often accused of trafficking in unsavory racial tropes, Blaxploitation films nevertheless displayed aspects of America’s racial problems and subtly complicated Black stereotypes while capitalizing on them to entertain both Black and White audiences. Films such as Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (dir. Melvin Van Peebles, 1971) and Shaft (dir. Gordon Parks, 1971) may be most recalled as having catapulted this genre to fame, but an often-overlooked subgenre—the Blaxploitation horror film—also offered its unique brand of cultural insight. William Crain’s seminal Blaxploitation horror film, Blacula (1972), and its fast-tracked sequel, Scream Blacula Scream (dir. Bob Kelljan, 1973), demonstrate the power of the Blaxploitation framework to transcend its harmful stereotypes and to expose oppressive cultural practices. Our analysis of this pair of Blaxploitation horror films focuses upon two aspects of their position as representatives of their subgenre: first, their influence upon the wider cinematic culture, particularly the culture of horror cinema; second, the ability of Blacula and its sequel to play with and against their racial stereotypes.

Marshall Plan or neocolonization? The Model Cities Program and Black planning criticism

ABSTRACT This paper analyses the writing of Black activists, planners, and critics to reconcile two opposing perceptions of the Model Cities Program: an initiative known for its elevation of Black elected officials and a program that used the guise of citizen participation to stifle more radical forms of dissent. In 1966, Model Cities emerged in part from the call for a domestic Marshall Plan for Black Americans. Yet as the program began making incremental changes to the country’s neighbourhoods from 1967 to the early 1970s, participants and critics instead began to see Model Cities’ relationship to Black Americans as a new form of colonialism. To determine how this shift occurred, this paper analyses this critical commentary against the archival evidence of Model Cities implementation in the cities in which it appeared. Situating these authors’ arguments within the parallel emergence of Black studies and participatory planning as well as within larger Cold War diplomatic history, planning history, and African American intellectual history reveals how visions of revolution turned into a program of representation. Meanwhile, the plans these figures produced as part of Model Cities point to what a revolutionary program might yet be.