Revolutionary Rumblings

I don’t know exactly what I was looking for when I began reading for the course.  For the first weeks, I wanted to learn more about causal factors of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, approaching the movements from perspectives I was unfamiliar with.  As I read, I realized I was often making note of similarities between factors provoking these civil upheavals and those of other movements and revolutions I knew about.  I was also connecting many themes and ideas to the state of affairs in American society today.  

     Sugrue in Sweet Land of Liberty talks about the atmosphere in black cities during the 1963 Emancipation Proclamation centennial year; he cites descriptions of the time as bitter and tense, an anxious feeling of impending violence.  As discontent within Black America grew in intensity and publicity, it was referred to as the “Negro Revolt of 19863,” and like most rebellions, Sugrue notes, this Revolt was born out of frustration, hope, and solidarity.  I appreciated this statement because it embodies what I think is the general sentiment of most mass movements and rebellions, a group of individuals brought together, exhausted and motivated by the frustration of desperate situations.  

In At the End of the Dark Street McGuire talks about a Civil Rights movement with which most people should be familiar, bus boycotts.  The story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott is the most notable – one of a young lady who, tired after a long day at work, refuses to give up her seat on the bus to a white man.  A similar boycott inspired by the success of the Montgomery boycott was set in motion in Tallahassee by groups of students willing to “rally behind the protection of black womanhood rather than the plodding litigation favored by the NAACP” after two young women were arrested for refusing to give up their bus seats [135].  The action on behalf of the students, Ms. Parks, and countless others launched movements that effectively shut down the bus companies.  These individual movements composing the larger Civil Rights Movement were born of solidarity around desperate, frustrating situations faced by communities across the country.  

     Sweet Land of Liberty mentions first young folk to stage a lunch counter sit-in [280;].  The Greensboro Four provided the spark for mass peaceful demonstrations across the South aimed at desegregating public facilities.  This is another instance that can be viewed through the lens centering on solidarity, frustration, and hope.  These individuals, like many others throughout the South, fed up with their circumstances, needed a team to accomplish their mission; they could not have carried out the task alone.  Faced with a frustrating situation, motivated by hope for a better future, united by collective determination to act on that hope to overcome the desperate situation, these young people inspired nationwide demonstrations.

The notion that revolts are born out of frustration, hope, and solidarity, seems to encompass the sentiment behind many movements with which I am familiar.  One instance in particular that came to mind was the 2010 Arab Spring.  The circumstances of many people of Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia was seemingly hopeless: an impoverished community with high unemployment accompanied by mass underemployed.  Desperate within his situation, Tarek al-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi performed the dramatic, arguably heroic act of self-immolation.  His act was the deathly culmination of his own circumstances, which embodied the circumstances of so many others.  This act alone incited a need for change within a community connected by desperate times.  This one act was what it took to bring dramatic change to a region so desperate for it.  Bouazizi’s act can be viewed in one sense simply as suicide – a depleted individual experiencing ultimate hopelessness.  Ironically, it was this act of extreme hopelessness that provoked the desperate desire to actively seek change. 

     Another movement I connected with this theme was a development within the Feminist movement: Womanism.  Though this was not the case of a violent or mass movement in the traditional sense, womanism was a consequence of discontent within feminism.  Bothered by the exclusionary nature of much of feminism, women seeking intersectionality in regards to womanhood voiced their concerns and critiques.  When their critiques were discredited and condemned, the situation became more frustrating to those who knew it could be better.  The new direction of feminism that not only acknowledged, but even centered on issues of intersectionality became known as womanism. 

The general theme that revolts are born of frustration, solidarity, and hope is a lens that sets up the motivations behind many mass rebellions and movements.  There are very many nuances that lead people to react in the face of an overbearing force, but these factors often fall in line with this general theme.  Civil, economic, and social hardships comprise the frustration that, in these cases, brings together people perhaps otherwise unconnected.  Viewing through this lens, it is that solidarity around a particular issue or set of issues driven by the hope that change is possible (or necessary) that constitutes the motivating factors behind revolutions.

Somewhere to start ...

To begin a conversation of Blacks in white America and initial influences on black radicalism, we have to include W.E.B Dubois and his “A Negro Within the Nation” speeches; these speeches, published together in 1935, advocate self-segregation. This was an interesting shift from Dubois’ past advocacy of integration. It is necessary to note this because we cannot analyze these speeches as the story of W.E.B. Dubois' philosophy. Dubois cannot be depicted solely by the thoughts he framed in this work, but his stance during this period will help shape understanding of future black revolutionary thought and it is what we can hone in on moving forward. For Dubois to arrive at theories consistent with Black Nationalism (and his crucial rule in the Pan-African movement) he underwent many transformations.

“A Negro Within the Nation” begins by discussing the issues that plagued the Black community in America. With a discussion of how Blacks fit, or rather did not fit, into the economic, social, political and even geographical space of white people during the Depression. His major argument focused around the inferior economic position of Blacks. Freed Blacks did not have a way to become financially independent so Dubois called for reform, manifested through land redistribution, arguing that failing to redistribute land after the Civil War gave Blacks no alternative but to depend on their masters. The radical thought of the time was Dubois’ want to separate black economic progress from white industry. While other black intellectuals looked at the solution as integrating blacks into white economy, Dubois did not. Dubois understood that racism in America was real and as such, it did not allow for black progress within white America’s economy.



This was what set up a lot of “A Negro Within the Nation,” clearly, depicting “the nation” as white America. Dubois’ manifesto on black life within this nation was explained by a critic as describing, “a series of historical paradoxes, black life in North America is full of tragic irony – the enslaved in the land of freedom” (37). This, to black intellectuals, was to be understood only with increasing black consciousness. How black consciousness unfolded since this time would shape black revolutionary thought moving forward. For W.E.B. Dubois, developing black consciousness meant developing a separatist movement. For the coming weeks, it will be interesting to follow up on how this self-segregation informed Dubois’ Pan-African movement, advocating reform as opposed to calling for revolution. Furthermore, his journey in forming Black Nationalist thought was anything but consistent and straightforward. I’m interested in exploring how that journey, for example going from believing in a talented 10th to advocating economic dependency, compared to increasing black consciousness in future revolutionaries and black power movements of the time.

Melissa A.