A Reader on Black Revolutionaries in the United States

January 18, 2016 7:04 AM

A Reader on Black Revolutionaries in the United States
In the spirit of our previous reader on European Socialism and Communism (volume 1), the Communist Research Cluster has released a reader on Black Revolutionaries in the United States (volume 2).

The reader can be downloaded from our Readers page in PDF, ePub and Mobi formats.

We do anticipate releasing a revised version of volume 2 in the future (note that this reader is versioned as 0.1 to indicate its provisional status), but we felt that the reader had gotten to a point such that releasing it in its present state would be valuable.

We also have added some content on the web site elaborating on the rationale for these readers and giving advice for running reading groups.

Role: Co-creator

posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles (5 comments total)

This project was posted to MetaFilter by Westringia F. on January 24, 2016: A Reader on Black Revolutionaries in the United States

This is fantastic! Thank you -- reading [parts of] this was exactly how I wanted to spend MLK day.

Very torn about posting this to the blue today vs. waiting for the revised version....

ps. $ \heartsuit \LaTeX \heartsuit $
posted by Westringia F. at 6:41 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

Up until the sixties it's a pretty good litany of people you'd expect to hear from. I think it'd probably benefit from having Robert Vernon's White Radicals and Black Nationalism and maybe George Breitman's How a Minority Can Change Society, not just because I still have a lot of hangovers from a long association with the Socialist Workers Party tradition, but because Breitman was important in promoting Malcolm X's legacy and Vernon's essay is a challenging one. (Also it's weird to have Dick Fraser in there and not Breitman, when they both worked together and debated this question for years.)

I do wonder that there is so very little from revolutionaries after the sixties - it just goes a little bit into the New Communist Movement and then peters out. It seems wrong to do that moving forward. Mumia Abu Jamal deserves at least something among his rather lengthy writing. Not sure who else you'd want to cover, but certainly the recent Black Radical Tradition conference is a starting point.

But it really is quite strong and comprehensive in what it covers. Well done.
posted by graymouser at 1:46 PM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Thanks for the suggestions. We are planning to include some Breitman in the revised version.

We cut the Communist Interventions readers off at ~1980 both because we want to produce readers describing debates that took place when a workers' movement was still a significant force and since selecting modern readings (and presumably reading group debates about them) could be too contentious.

Any other suggestions on what to include in the subsequent version (since that is still in flux) are appreciated.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 2:17 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Funny timing! In about 30m I'm leaving for my SF Revolutionary Feminism (Vol 3) reading group. Well, the group was started for that reader, but we finished a couple weeks ago. Most of us were encountering those authors for the first time & we really enjoyed working through the texts. I look forward to reading this & thank you for posting. ♥
posted by yaymukund at 11:00 AM on January 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Glad to hear it! We plan to post vol3 to the projects page after the revised version (2.0) is released, which should be in a matter of months.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 7:20 PM on January 24, 2016