Towards the gentrification of Black Power(?) by Jonathan Fenderson

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2013 55: 1Race ClassJonathan Fenderson

Towards the gentrification of Black Power(?)

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Race & ClassCopyright 2013 Institute of Race Relations, Vol. 55(1): 12210.1177/0306396813486593 http://rac.sagepub.com

Towards the gentrification of BlackPower(?)

JONATHAN FENDERSON

Abstract: The recent explosion in US scholarship on the Black Power Movementprovides the context for this close reading and textual analysis of Peniel Josephslatest book, Dark Days, Bright Nights: from Black Power to Barack Obama. Takinginto account the context of the books appearance and the critical public debatesurrounding it, this article unpacks Josephs discussion of Black Power, payingparticular attention to his rendering of self-determination and other keypolitical ideologies. It asks what is at stake for Black radical memory when

knowledge production on the Black Power Movement is governed by the dictatesof the American marketplace and, more specifically, the publishing industry. Inaddition, it briefly reconnoitres the ways that Black radical (collective) memorycan serve as a counterbalance to the erasures of marketplace history, and keep usattentive to the contemporary pertinence and unfinished business of the past. Thearticle closes by highlighting some alternative routes taken by scholars concernedwith the future of Black Power Studies.

Keywords: Barack Obama, Black Power, Black radicalism, Dark Days, Bright

Nights, Kwame Ture, Malcolm X, Peniel Joseph

Black Power Studies has emerged as one of the most exciting and dynamic sub-fields in Africana Studies, African-American History and American History.1

Jonathan Fendersonis an Assistant Professor of African & African-American Studies at WashingtonUniversity in St. Louis, currently completing a manuscript on Hoyt Fuller and the Black ArtsMovement.

86593RAC55110.1177/0306396813486593Race& ClassFenderson: Towards thegentricationofBlackPower(?)


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Since the publication of The Black Scholars two-volume special issue in 2001, wehave witnessed a sheer explosion in the scholarship on the subject. Following thelead set by The Black Scholar, several journals have dedicated entire issues to thetopic, while many have opened their pages to articles on the movement.2Over

the same time-span, both academic and commercial presses have also caught thefever for Black Power, seemingly investing in any manuscript that mutters a fleet-ing mention of the subject almost to the extent of flooding the market. It is safeto say that scholarly engagement with the Black Power Movement has beenrevamped over the course of the last decade. The era has gone from one that waswidely written off as inconsequential by the custodians of American historicalorthodoxy, to now being considered a recognised, essential epoch in UnitedStates history and a legitimate topic for academic study in both the humanitiesand social sciences.

No small player in this refashioning process, historian Peniel Joseph occupiesan important place in the subfield of Black Power Studies. In fact, it is Joseph whocoined the term Black Power Studies and is broadly credited for inauguratingthe subfield in his watershed essay, Black liberation without apology: reconcep-tualizing the Black Power Movement.3His prominent place in the field was fur-ther augmented by the appearance of the anthology entitled The Black Power

Movement: rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power erain 2006.4And his place as oneof the pre-eminent young historians on the era was no doubt cemented with thesubsequent publication of the widely praised Waiting Til the Midnight Hour.5Thepromotion and scholarly acclaim of these publications resulted in Josephs

appearance on C-Span, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and The Tavis SmileyShow and his proffering of the keynote address at the Smithsonian NationalMuseum of African-American History and Cultures symposium on the impactof Black Power in America.6This spate of solid scholarship and media face-timehas led some to deem Joseph the dean of Black Power Studies.7

Encompassed in an integument of deeply informed archival research, a tremen-dous number of oral history interviews and eloquent, easily comprehensible prose,

Josephs main interventions emerge as two-fold. Though these interventions arefrequently rehearsed throughout his oeuvre, they bear brief repeating and prcis

here. Paramount among these is Josephs contention that Black Power paralleled,and at times overlapped, the heroic civil rights era.8His major aim here is to rethinkBlack Powers timeline, revealing its rich existence prior to Stokely Carmichaelsdeclaration in 1966. Complementing this goal is the second assertion which wasborrowed from Timothy Tyson and amplified by Joseph that civil rights andBlack Power, while occupying distinct branches, share roots in the same historicalfamily.9Joseph here highlights the links between the two, characterizing the CivilRights and Black Power era as a complex mosaic rather than mutually exclusiveand antagonistic movements.10The first is an argument about chronology; the sec-

ond considers interconnections between the activists, strategies and organisationsin the respective movements. While these two points have become readily accepted


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Fenderson: Towards the gentrification of Black Power(?) 3

in the emergent subfield of Black Power Studies, it is a newer argument advancedin his most recent book with which this essay is most concerned his attempt toutilise the notions of self-determination and democracy as the political and ideo-logical bridge linking Barack Obama to Black Power.

Through a close reading of Josephs most recent book, Dark Days, Bright Nights:from Black Power to Barack Obama, this article challenges the expansive scholarlyconsensus and aura of inerrancy encircling the young historians work. Not onlydoes it engage the text at close quarters, it unpacks the context within which thetext was written, while recounting the major public debates that occurred in thewake of its publication. Employing what David Scott has referred to as a strate-gic practice of criticism [that] is concerned with determining at any conjuncturewhat conceptual moves among the many available options will have the mostpurchase, [or] the best yield,11 the article poses critical questions about the

future(s) of Black Power Studies, especially as it relates to Africana Studies, theextant Black radical tradition and the parameters of Black memory, as MichaelHanchard might say.12 In what direction(s) is Black Power Studies going, andwhat alternative routes could it possibly take? Or put another way, what coursedoes Joseph sketch out in this text, and what is at stake if scholars in this field fol-low this trajectory? What do we gain by revealing the hidden, forgotten oroverlooked historic connections between Black Power and Barack Obama? And,more importantly, what silences (and distortions) must be enacted in order todraw these links? Finally, can we raise a different set of questions from a scholar-activist orientation that resists outmoded claims to dispassionate scholarly meth-

ods or objectivity?

Pre-text: Black Power Studies meets middayJazz & Justice

On 15 March 2010, Joseph appeared on the midday Jazz & Justice show onWashington DCs Pacifica radio station (WPFW). Hosted by Jared Ball, professorat Morgan State University, the show emerged as an important venue for com-mentary, critique and exchange of Black progressive and radical ideas in the DCMaryland-Virginia area and on the internet.13Conscious of the shows existence

as part of the Black counter-public, Ball intentionally explores topics that areexplicitly anti-racist, anti-capitalist, radical and anti-imperialist. Balls show andaccompanying website constitute a multimedia space where Black progressiveintellectuals and radical grassroots activists dialogue about the myriad problemsfacing Black America, and the broader African world.14It is a space where schol-arly discourse meets social activism; where Michelle Alexander, author of TheNew Jim Crow, is put into conversation with Howard Universitys StudentsAgainst Mass Incarceration; and where scholars on Malcolm X interact withmembers of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. It was this venue where

scholarly discourse publicly intersects with contemporary political engagement that Joseph entered to chew the fat about Dark Days, Bright Nights.


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The hour-long discussion between Ball and Joseph initially exhibited signs of aroutine stop on a promotional book tour, but quickly escalated into a wranglebetween the host and guest. For Ball the crux of the dust-up was about politicalclarity and historical accuracy regarding Black Power. However, Joseph was

more concerned with whether or not the President represented an extension, cul-mination, or product of the Movement, as he expressed it on the show; or didthe Black politician in fact embody the antithesis, as host Ball maintained. As theshow progressed it became evident that Joseph and Ball were neither going to seeeye-to-eye on the issue nor cede ground to one another. They reached an impassewith Ball challenging Josephs rendering of Black Power and its legacies, and

Joseph accusing Ball of sloganeering.15After the show the debate continued toexpand, eventually spilling over to other venues.

In the ensuing weeks, The Black Agenda Report (BAR) a weekly online politi-

cal-journal and Black commentary site picked up on the debate. Managing edi-tor Bruce Dixon chimed in by posting an article that held no punches. His piece,titled Dr. Joseph peddles slick marketing constructs as Black history, insistedthat Joseph was guilty of spinning fables and writing histories that reinforcerather than challenge illegitimate power, ill-gotten wealth, and undeserved privi-lege.16 Shortly thereafter, Dixons broadside was followed by an ambiguousupdate that read:

Dr. Joseph contacted us, and took strong exception not only to what was writ-ten above, but to the notion that his brief appearance on Dr. BallsJazz & Justice

show adequately conveyed either the books thesis or the direction of his work.He graciously offered to send us copies of two of his books, which we intendto read, review here on BAR, and afterward donate to our local public library.And if it looks like we misjudged his work, we will not hesitate to say so, hereor anywhere.17

Dixon remained true to his word and a few months later published a two-partreview that cut even deeper into Josephs book. The first part lambasted the his-torian for his inability to analytically engage with imperialism and identify

Americas praxis of empire, as many Black Power advocates did during the move-ment. The second segment took a square look at Josephs uneven and inconsistentuses of democracy throughout the text a point I revisit below.18About a monthlater, BARpublished another detailed review of the book by Anthony Monteiro,professor of African-American Studies at Temple, long-time activist and formerCommunist Party candidate for Congress.19Monteiro reiterated many of Ball andDixons concerns, including those revolving around democracy and Obamasdomestic and foreign policy.

In many ways, these exchanges serve as a pre-text to this article. They exem-

plify the dense historical minefield that is Black Power Studies, and the politics ofthe present that almost alwaysinform scholarship on the past in general, but morespecifically and perhaps in unique ways studies of the Black Power Movement.


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Despite their occurrence within the midst of the decade-long revisions of BlackPower Studies, discussions on the movement remain extremely heated and con-tested, almost as a microcosm of the multifarious debates that coursed throughthe movement itself. As Margo Perkins perceptively noted, there is a struggle

within the struggle being waged for control of the historic record the effort toseize control over how this history will be remembered is no small matter.20Whydoes this remain the case? Much of the heat firing these contemporary debates isrooted in Black Power activists desire to have some say over how and where theyare situated in the annals of history, and some emerges in response to the FBIscounter-intelligence programmes (COINTELPRO) and prevailing relations withthe state.21We can also accede to the fact that some of the fervency derives fromideological and political skirmishes within the movement; and yet other parts canbe described as routine bickering among scholars. However, the debate between

Joseph and Ball represents something notably different; especially since both menare at least a generation removed from the 1960s.

Context: the euphoria of an extraordinary electoral season

The value of a historical product cannot be debated without taking into account boththe context of its production and the context of its consumption.22

Michel-Rolph Trouillot

Dark Days, Bright Nights epitomises the convergence of, on the one hand, anexpanding scholarly interest in Black Power and, on the other, an extremely pop-ular, lucrative and easily marketable topic for the American publishing industryin Barack Obama. In the wake of Obamas electoral victory, Book Publishing Report,a periodical that tracks and predicts the trends of the American publishing indus-try, made note of the way that the campaign and election led to a prodigiousproliferation of Obama titles.23Daisy Maryles of Publishers Weekly, a trade maga-zine geared towards the ebb and flow of the publishing industry, stated quitefrankly that, In a presidential election year, its no surprise that many politicaltomes hit the lists [of bestsellers] particularly those with the name Obama in thetitle.24The 2008 presidential win raised non-fiction sales beyond those of fictionin the month of November, with Obamas two books, Dreams From My FatherandThe Audacity of Hope, continuing to move significant numbers. More to the point,the topic of Obamas election and ensuing presidency, according to Book PublishingReport, emerged as one of the most popular topics in the five-year trend for theprint industry. Needless to say, the remarkable 2008 presidential campaign andObamas subsequent capture of the Oval Office created an economically lucrativemilieu for the publishing industry and provided the context for the productionand appearance of Josephs work. Dark Days, Bright Nightsis, in part, a product

emerging out of surmised economic opportunity on behalf of the publisher; it isa tangible example of the publishing industrys aggressive effort to cash in onwhat Ricky Jones referred to as Obamamania.25


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During an appearance on C-Spans Book TV, Joseph was asked what compelledhim to write the book. He replied, I was really transformed and impacted by the2008 election. In a way what I wanted to do was to connect the election resultswith my own work on postwar African-American history, especially the Civil

Rights and Black Power Movements.26

Though not intentionally, Joseph essen-tially admits that the text is driven by answers, not by questions. Indeed afterreading Dark Days, Bright Nightsit becomes quite evident that the text was con-ceived of around the time of the 2008 primaries, and subsequent presidential elec-tion, with the last chapter completed in the first few months of the forty-fourthpresidents administration.27In terms of its vocabulary and preoccupation withAmerican democracy, the text reflects the euphoria and, we could add, optimismof that extraordinary electoral season. Black arts literary-theorist StephenHenderson might say that the text is saturated in the language of that moment.28

Media catchphrases like community organizer, audacious (as in The Audacity ofHope) and political maverick abound throughout the books pages. Popularterms used to describe the competing candidates, Obama and John McCain, arerecycled to refer to Black Power and Civil Rights figures. In Josephs words,Malcolm X and [Adam Clayton] Powell personally bonded over shared reputa-tions as unapologeticpolitical mavericks; while Malcolm had developed into atalented and effective community organizer, as did Huey P. Newton and BobbySeale; though, ironically Carmichael is not described as such [emphases mine].29In sum, Josephs historical analysis is punctuated by the newspeak of media pun-ditry, which further reflects the ubiquity of Obama and the 2008 electoral moment.

His historical analysis is, at times, inhibited by bouts of presentism and dashes ofmainstream electoral parlance.

It should also be pointed out that Joseph served as an historical analyst for thePBS during these same primary and presidential elections. On The NewsHourwith

Jim Lehrer, the scholar appeared quite frequently, providing historical frames forthe Democratic and Republican conventions, lead-up and results of election nightand the inauguration. Though Joseph never openly indicated his admiration foreither candidate, it is important to acknowledge the role that he played on PBS.As an expert on American history, Joseph was effective at drawing comparisons

between the presidential campaign of Obama and those of previous administra-tions. He added historical context to a mainstream media discourse that is oftenahistorical, and even anti-historical at times. While PBS is not necessarily an influ-ential venue shaping discourses of the Black counter-public, we cannot discountthe importance of having a knowledgeable Black historical voice as part ofAmericas predominant bourgeois public sphere.

More significant than his employment of media catchphrases or appearanceson PBS is the way Josephs text is animated by the same questions and perforatedby the same omissions found in popular media discussions of American politics,

especially during the 2008 electoral moment. In Josephs work, as in conventionalmedia discussions on PBS and more popular networks, the full political spectrumis curtailed and distorted, therefore limiting the span of the possible political


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horizon. As the following section illustrates, Joseph, much like mainstreamAmerican media, elides explicit anti-capitalist politics in order to firmly situateBlack Power within a normalised, legitimate, and nonetheless skewed, liberalhis-tory of American democratic progress.

The text: a close quarters engagement

The architecture of Dark Days, Bright Nightsis constituted by an introduction andfour core chapters, three of which are essentially biographical. The first chapterrecycles the major interventions that Joseph has made in his previous work. Thetwo following chapters offer biographical sketches of Stokely Carmichael (KwameTure) and Malcolm X. And the final chapter rehashes the life story and 2008 elec-toral victory of Obama. Two ideological concepts bind the book, serving as theanalytical threads holding the text together and working as the historical bridgebetween Ture, Malcolm X and Obama. The first is the highly contested idea ofdemocracy. The second is the African-American articulation of self-determina-tion, as it was enunciated by Black Power advocates. However, in order to con-stellate these political ideas and the three lives situated at the centre of his text,

Joseph is required to adopt a narrative strategy that obscures paramount ideo-logical differences and elides remarkably distinct long-range objectives.

The political landscape of Black Power is no doubt vast and varied. Scholarslike Robert Allen, William Van Deburg, Rod Bush and, more recently, Cedric

Johnson, have all demonstrated the fact that Black Power politics formed a spec-

trum that stretched from conservative articulations of Black capitalism, to darkershades of liberalism, variations of Black feminism, pluralism, cultural national-ism and radical articulations of revolutionary nationalism, socialism and doctri-naire Marxism to name only a few points on the gamut each with their ownset of long-range objectives and strategic means. This broad spectrum is what

Joseph referred to as a panoramic view of Black Power politics while on Ballsshow. Though fully aware of this spectrum, Joseph flattens Black Power ideolo-gies in order to construct his narrative arc, which links with Barack Obama.

Throughout the book, Joseph bleeds the meaning(s) out of Black Power ide-

ologies, a practice that, as historians Cha-Jua and Lang remind us, is quite com-mon in scholarship on the Civil Rights and Black Power movements.30 Josephavoids the detail, muck and mire of each of the various political ideologies andobliterates consequential points of divergence in political desires. An emblematicinstance occurs in his summation of Malcolm X, in which Joseph declares:

Malcolm was more than simply an eloquent though ultimately ineffectual rab-ble-rouser who attacked civil rights from Harlems safe streets while youngactivists both black and white risked life and limb in the heroic pursuit of

democracy and citizenship. Malcolm pursued the same goals as his Civil Rightscounterparts, first as a Nation of Islam activist, and later as an independentpolitical organizer and mobilizer.31


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This passage, no doubt, flattens the evolving politics of Malcolm X. For exam-ple, it completely glosses over the activists early belief that Black Americansneeded to establish a separate state or territory of their own either on thiscontinent or elsewhere, which he shared with Elijah Muhammad and mem-

bers of the Nation of Islam (NOI).32

What the author describes as the heroicpursuit of democracy and citizenship does not explain, nor can it be perceivedas the same as, the desire to establish a sovereign territory and state indepen-dent of the United States.33Historical evidence suggests that Malcolm X heldfast to this long-range goal at least until January 1965, when he articulatedotherwise on the Pierre Berton Show in Toronto.34 Though the Black Poweradvocate did not remain statically situated as a territorial nationalist to bor-row Van Deburgs political description my point here is to highlight the tre-mendous divergence between Malcolm X, on the one hand, who for a long time

believed in and worked to attain the long-range objectives of the NOI, and, onthe other hand, those advocates of the Civil Rights Movement who sought fullparticipation in American life. Of course Malcolm Xs ideas evolved even tothe point where he deeply questioned the orthodoxy of the NOI but to simplysay he pursued the same goals as his Civil Rights counterparts, first as a Nationof Islam activist is a distortion that dismisses important political distinctionsand long-range objectives.

What is also missing from Josephs analysis is the devout Muslim who grew tocondemn capitalism. In 1965, Malcolm stated unequivocally:

It is impossible for capitalism to survive, primarily because the system of capi-talism needs some blood to suck it has become cowardly like the vulture,and can only suck the blood of the helpless. As the nations of the world freethemselves, then capitalism has less victims, less to suck, and it becomesweaker and weaker. Its only a matter of time in my opinion before it will col-lapse completely.35

Though Martin Luther King Jr would eventually begin to question the viability ofcapitalism in a similar fashion, Malcolm Xs condemnation of capitalism as an

economic system does not fit into the norm of Civil Rights politics.36His buddingquestions about capitalism put him at odds with the mainstream agenda of theCivil Rights Movement, which often adopted economic boycotts as a strategicmeans to fair treatment and entry into Americas segregated commercial sectors.Rather than mapping Malcolm Xs unfolding political theory and thereby offer-ing an accurate depiction of his life, Joseph proffers a neat, synthetic narrative. Heprivileges Malcolm Xs proximity to the Civil Rights Movement over his shiftinglong-range goals and blots out the (territorial nationalist and anti-capitalist)points where Malcolm Xs objectives completely diverged from the Civil Rights

Movement.Along with flattening Malcolm Xs evolving politics, Josephs narrative alsodownplays Kwame Tures blossoming radicalism. In his 53-page chapter on Ture,


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Joseph lends a paltry few paragraphs to the activists final and enduring devotionto pan-Africanism and never once describes Ture as a socialist, or someone fun-damentally opposed to capitalism though he describes the Revolutionary ActionMovement, Kwame Nkrumah and Skou Tour as such. This omission is glaring,

primarily because Kwame Tures political and ideological arc is the most far-reaching in the way it accentuates the breadth of Black Powers political spec-trum. As someone who was firmly situated in the Civil Rights struggle for votingrights and desegregation, Ture grew to be one of the most vociferous critics ofliberalism.37While organising in Alabama (and Mississippi) in the mid-1960s,Ture advocated a notion of Black Power that rested on an idea of self-determina-tion through electoral politics; then in 1967 when Black Power: the politics of libera-tion in Americaemerged, his idea of Black Power was constituted, in part, by aracial (or ethnic) pluralism.38And by 1969, he deemed the vote irrelevant to the

lives of Black people.39

More to the point, in 1968 Carmichael passionately statedthat Communism is not an ideology suited for Black people Socialism is notan ideology fitted for Black people.40 However, he would eventually openlyembrace socialism and see it as the best way forward. My point is that the authorexplores Tures physical travels, but leaves his ideological journey noticeablyunderdeveloped. Though he recounts these years of Tures life in biographicalnarrative, he does not unpack moments of ideological transition or evolution forTure beyond his shift from the mainstream of Civil Rights politics. As he does inthe chapter on Malcolm X, Joseph selectively deals with the activist, emphasisingthose political gestures that are closest to the goals of the Civil Rights Movement,

while completely omitting Tures eventual commitment to scientific socialism as opposed to Josephs ambiguous notion of radical democracy. In sum, theauthor utilises a dirigible historical spotlight, illuminating the strands of BlackPower that fit into a liberal myth of American progress and expanding democ-racy, while simultaneously obscuring the territorial nationalist and radical anti-capitalist manifestations of Black Power as they emerged in the respective politicaltrajectories of Malcolm X and Ture.

Josephs uses of democracy throughout the text raise additional questionsand concerns. Jared Ball, Bruce Dixon and Anthony Monteiro have all noted the

authors lack of definition and cumbersome use of the term throughout the text.41In his book review Monteiro states, Joseph never defines American democracyas it is deployed in the text.42Dixon deepens the point, writing:

In the ten page introduction to his book, Dr. Joseph manages to use the wordsdemocracy and democratic at least 25 times, invoking utterly opposite andcontradictory meanings without bothering to tell us what the thing really is, orwhat it means.43

Since Dixon and Monteiro have already examined Josephs use of the term, I willnot explore the topic in great detail here. However, I would like to echo andamplify their arguments and suggest that democracy functions like a Rorschach


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inkblot test throughout the text, vague enough to garner as many interpretationsas there are interpretive-readers.

By using facile descriptors and modifying adjectives as subterfuge that obscuremore than they clarify, such as revolutionary application of democracy, radical

democracy, Joseph is able to toy with the lines between reformist and revolution-ary politics, allowing him to acrobatically link Obama with two of Black Powersradical advocates.44Black Power critiques of Americas core structural failuresare reduced to concerns with what the author describes as democracys jaggededges. He leads us to believe that if the edges were somehow smoothed, thecore problems would also be fixed to the satisfaction of Malcolm X and Ture.Through artful illocution and narrative dexterity Joseph substitutes superstruc-tural complaints for astute critiques of the structure itself. He essentially eviscer-ates the Black Power movements radical critiques, as Monteiro perceptively

noted.45

However, in order to avoid the confusion perpetuated by Joseph in thisbook, we would do well to heed the words of Harold Cruse. In Rebellion orRevolution, the crotchety yet oft insightful social analyst argued, There is a greatdifference between rebellion and revolution two conceptions which some peo-ple insist on confusing.46Unwilling to acknowledge and interrogate the struc-tural critiques apparent in Malcolm X and Tures revolutionary ideologies, Josephpaints a picture of two men who both buy into the idea that democracy and capi-talism are coterminous, congruent and reconcilable; when in fact, both menunderstood the two to be diametrically opposed. Both understood revolution, i.e.the complete transformative change of racial capitalisms base and superstruc-

ture, as imminent and absolutely necessary.47America, for them, was a repressivenation state and hegemonic idea that always rested upon the pillars of undemo-cratic praxis, in the forms of racism, capitalism and imperialism. Hence for themAmerica was not ultimately a place in need of democratic reform, but revolution.And in Malcolm Xs assessment, Revolutions are never based upon that which isbegging a corrupt society or corrupt system to accept us into it. Revolutions over-turn systems.48

Josephs narrative fails to articulate this radical reading or explore these cri-tiques of structure because he never adequately analyses capitalism and instead

relies on the myth of American democratic exceptionalism as an anchoring trope.Examples of his reliance on this myth abound throughout the text; however, I willonly cite a few from the last chapter here. Barack Obama, according to Joseph,does not signal the death of black politics so much as the evolving character ofrace and American democracy.49 Later he writes, Obamas symbolism, then,amounts to far more than just being the historic milestone of Americas first blackpresident. His rise speaks to the very possibilities of American democracy.50Hesubsequently deepens this point when he writes That a nation founded in racialslavery, nurtured on Jim Crow, and steeped in the color-line could elect a black

president speaks to American democracys capacity for reform, innovation, andevolution.51 A few pages later he posits, Obamas historic election helped tousher in a new stage of Americas democratic evolution.52These examples reveal


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a discreet presupposition held by the author: that he believes in the myth ofAmerican progress and holds fast to the idea that American democracy is con-stantly expanding. Though he recognises the persistence of racism, de facto JimCrow and economic inequality at times throughout the text, he struggles to effec-

tively come to grips with a systematic critique that sees racism and economicinequality as endemicto Americas racial capitalist order present since birth andpart of its very institutional fibre.53In Josephs rendering, condemnations of thesystem of capitalism are remade into a more manageable contempt for poverty and squalid living conditions, disdain for inequality stands in for the convic-tion to dismantle a system that thrives on economic exploitation, racism and(re)produces inequality.54 Quick and inattentive readings of Dark Days, BrightNightsmight allow Joseph to hide cursory analysis behind eloquent penmanship.However, closer readings reveal that the actors in Josephs book are drained of

their explicitly radical political content and refashioned as liberal actors in askewed historical rendering of the Black Power Movement.Another problematic aspect of the text that is perhaps even more disquieting,

though it has been completely overlooked by critics thus far, is his refashioningof self-determination in the final chapter. It is imperative that I draw examplesdirectly from the text here to effectively make my point. For example, Josephwrites, Obamas willingness to seek the nations highest office after barely twoyears on the national political scene embodies the boldness and politics of self-determination that were hallmark of Black Power-era politics.55 A few pageslater he declares, Although Obama has been lauded as an extension of the civil

rights eras quest for integration into the mainstream of American life, his effortsat political self-determination borrowed from Black Power proponents auda-cious pursuit of power.56Again, five pages later, Joseph remarks, Black Powerscall for political self-determination and willingness to take risks on long oddsinfused Obamas campaign as well.57Demonstrating that these are not arbitraryexamples, Joseph made similar assertions on PBS NewsHourwith Ray Suarez andon National Public Radio (NPR).58

The problem with these examples and the authors general (mis)use of self-determination throughout the final chapter is that he roots it in the individual.

During the Black Power Movement, self-determination was not a concept thathinged upon any single individual. Instead, in Black Power literature, organisa-tional documents and speeches there is general consensus that the politics of self-determination referred to the Black community as a collective body.59Self-determination was linked to the idea that Black people represented a nationwithin a nation. The self in self-determination is, as Tommie Shelby explains,the collective self of a cohesive interdependent community.60He further pointsout that the ideal expresses the claim of a people black Americans to pursuetheir ends without being unjustly constrained or interfered with by outside

forces.61

Basic political theory informs us that at the root of Black Power calls forself-determination lies the political value of collectivism, which treats groups,rather than individuals, as the principal agents or primary unit of analysis. As a


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political value, collectivism not only anchors nationalism, feminism, socialismand Black Power calls for self-determination, but is also antithetical to individual-ism. In his final chapter, the self for Joseph is Obama, not the collective bodypolitic of Black America. In Josephs configuration the nation within a nation

lineament of Black self-determination is substituted for a single individual. Bysleight of hand, he reworks the collective politics of Black Power into a politics ofindividualism, which fit firmly into a liberal narrative of American history. Inessence, Joseph reformulates acts of individual tenacity, solitary ambition andpersonal gumption into the politics of self-determination. By wrongly equatingBlack collective politics with expressions of individuality and individualism, theauthor grossly distorts one of the focal points of Black Power politics. To be per-fectly frank, Obamas decision to run for president was not an example of Blackself-determination, it was an individual decision made by Obama (along with his

immediate family, political advisers and initial campaign financiers). WhileObamas subsequent victory may have been largely determined by the collectiveagency of Black people in the voting booth, his decision to run, no matter howbold or audacious, was not.62

The final assessment of Dark Days, Bright Nightsis that it is eloquent as a narra-tive and structured chronologically, but bereft of political analysis and ideologi-cal clarity. Joseph downplays the complexity of political ideologies, vaguelytoying around the edges of some concepts, while completely distorting others.Though accidentally ambiguous definitions of democracy are somewhat excus-able, complete distortions of key Black Power concepts such as self-determina-

tion are not especially in a text on the Black Power Movement. Ultimately,Joseph is ineffective at reconciling the political ideas of democracy and self-deter-mination with the divergent lives of Malcolm X, Kwame Ture and Barack Obama.And this is mainly the result of his inability to adequately define democracy,interrogate racial capitalism as a system, unpack the myth of American excep-tionalism, distinguish reformist politics from revolutionary ideologies, and prop-erly come to terms with the political value of collectivism that has historicallyanchored Black self-determination. With a lack of clarity dogging the two ideo-logical treads meant to impel the book, the text loses traction and the historical

bridge between Black Power and Obama essentially collapses. Political substanceis reduced to a scintilla of style and the swagger of shadows. This warping ofBlack Power concepts and political history should no doubt raise a red flag forscholar-activists interested in this important era. However, what is perhaps moredisconcerting is Josephs attempt to mash the history of the Black Power Movementinto a narrative that sustains the predominance of liberalism and the contempo-rary racial capitalist order.63

Subtext: memory, marketplace history and the gentrification of Black

Power

It might be argued that a sinister development of postmodernity or late capitalism is theability of the marketplace to make even politically conscious and historically accurate


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memory nonthreatening. Of what oppositional value is heightened historical con-sciousness in these United States?64

James C. Hall

When one considers the contexts of the books production, its point of entry intothe marketplace, the textual strategies adopted by the author and the subtle artic-ulation of American exceptionalism, a troubling subtext emerges. Written underthe euphoric spell of the Obama moment, published at the height of both post-racial and exceptionalist claims on American democracy, and laden with deliber-ate and measured modifications of explicit radical politics, the book offers themost sanitised historical rendering of the movement that we have seen thus far inBlack Power Studies. Instead of advancing a new agenda for the subfield, the textcleans and sanitises Black Power for mainstream consumption. The book repre-

sents a heroic attempt to make the Black Power Movement easily digestible andinoffensive to a white clientele that supported a Black candidate for the Americanpresidency, and a Black bourgeois constituency that aspires to make the myth ofAmerican progress a reality. What Dark Days, Bright Nightsmakes tangible is thesubtle, though incredibly dangerous, gentrification of the history of the BlackPower Movement through the lens of Black Power Studies.

On several occasions Joseph has argued that his work represents the profes-sional historicisation of the movement. For Joseph, the Black Power era has beenweighted down by a mythology that substitutes memory for history and relies on

perception in place of scholarly analysis.65

However, there are inherent dangersin Josephs attempt to reverse these substitutions by replacing memory with his-tory. What are these dangers? Or put another way, what is at stake when knowl -edge production on the Black Power Movement is governed by trends of theAmerican marketplace, i.e. presidential history in the wake of an election? Whathappens when historical interpretation is skewed by the desires of a vulgarlycapitalist publishing industry? What do we lose when the history of Black Powerbecomes fashionable, readily consumable and even palatable to the averagemiddle-class [white] American? And finally, what is lost when radical history isrefashioned to reinforce, fit into and echo the constructs of American liberalismand democratic exceptionalism?

At stake in Josephs latest work is the vibrancy of Black collective memorysradical sectors, which feed and foster the contemporary Black radical imagina-tion.66We could think of Black radical (collective) memory as part of an intangiblepublic trust maintained not by any individual, the state or by the private sector,but by a contemporary assemblage of Black activists, intellectuals, artists andfrustrated segments of Black communities that find themselves frequently atodds with the state, free-market bureaucrats, private corporations and their eco-nomic hitmen. I would like to suggest that the Black Power era remains a vitally

important historical tributary for the radical contours of Black collective memory,anchoring, informing, inspiring and firing contemporary Black activism espe-cially among those born in the wake of the movement.67By distorting political


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concepts and refashioning political views, Joseph essentially reroutes this impor-tant historical tributary and restricts our ability to accurately recollect recent har-bingers of a more just world. The author of Dark Days, Bright Nightsis too narrowlyconcerned with constructing a corollary history, making Black Power history into

an intelligible preface to Obama. His narrow focus causes him to lose sight of theways that history can easily be converted into a commodified and fetishised tokenof that which is no longer present, especially when it is completely divorced frommemory and cleansed for the marketplace. However, in the face of rampantlytrenchant neoliberalism, when everything, even history, is subordinate to the dic-tates of the free market and corporate enterprise, the ability to recall a viable anti-capitalist politics and tap a robust remembrance of previous epochs of Blackradicalism become increasingly important especially to contemporary scholar-activists concerned with ongoing social justice projects.

Instead of substituting history for memory when exploring the Black PowerMovement and the Black radical tradition, those of us concerned with Black his-tory and Africana Studies would do well to hold on to, and find value in, bothmemory and history. The point here is not to create a rigid dichotomy betweenhistory proper and memory, but remain conscious of their overlapping, insepa-rable, interdependent and interconnected nature. And though memory, like his-tory, is also susceptible to commodification, it can also, at times, serve as acounterweight to sanitised, marketplace history. Instead of simply explainingwhat is no longer present, Black collective memory, according to Hanchard, oftenserves another important normative function: to remind those collectivities of the

choices each generation must make when faced with the unbearable weight ofracial and national oppression accede or quit, fight or negotiate, just as theirforbears did.68Ross Poole echoed Hanchards point when he wrote:

It is the project of memory to understand the past as a source of present respon-sibilities. In memory, we reach into the past, and make that past a presence inour current moral and political agenda [Memory] is especially concernedwith those aspects of the past that remain unfinished business. For memory, anevent only becomes past when the responsibilities associated with it have been

satisfied.69

As a text that subjugates memory to history, Dark Days, Bright Nightshelps torelieve us of the responsibilities we have to the past. It renders the critiques putforth by Black Power advocates as bygones of yesteryears, though far too manyremain strikingly apropos. Critiques of systemic racial and economic injusticebecome antiquated, and no longer analogous. Instead of prodding its audience torecognise the continued relevance of the incomplete racial and economic justiceprojects that were called for by (radical) Black Power activists, Dark Days, Bright

Nightsworks to make the history of the Black Power Movement less threatening,comfy and cushy for a literate target audience of middle-class whites and inter-ested members of the Black middle class. The book lulls us to sleep in the lap of


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the neoliberal present by turning the fires of Black Power into the tepid elixir ofObamamania. He transforms the scorching calls for an end to racial capitalisminto the breezy air conditioning of American liberalism. Welcome everyone to thenew Black Power Studies: renovated, refurbished, repurposed and remade for

every American to enjoy for the low, low price of twenty-six dollars.

Post-text: where do we go from here?

Progressive black politics has always sought to rip away the illusory myth that allowsmuch too large a segment of America to comfort and congratulate itself about the degreeof racial progress and unity that has been achieved.70

Michael Dawson

Scholarly critique is incomplete and insufficient unless it also offers an alternativevision of how things could be. Therefore, it is imperative that we briefly identifyalternative directions in which Black Power Studies could possibly move. Howmight we ask a different set of questions about Black Power Studies keeping inmind both the importance of history and the responsibilities of memory? Howcan we advance Black Power Studies in ways that align with and inform unfin-ished economic and social justice projects? Can we free the study of Black Powerfrom the confines of the US nation state as the only unit of analysis? And, lastly,are there ways that Black Power Studies can help to rejuvenate, deepen and infuse

(Black) peoples contemporary understanding of capitalism, exploitation, free-dom, liberation and geopolitics in the era of Americas first Black presidency?While this section does not seek to answer all of these questions, it does quicklyhighlight the ongoing work of scholar-activists who are charting alternative tra-

jectories for Black Power Studies.In a brilliant paper presented at the National Council for Black Studies (NCBS)

conference in 2012, Akinyele Umoja, chair of African-American Studies at GeorgiaState University, pointed out that one of the conspicuous lacunas in Black PowerStudies is the absence of critical analysis and commentary on Black political pris-oners. For anyone familiar with the movement it comes as no surprise that thereremain far too many (Black) women and men unjustly languishing in prison as aresult of trumped-up charges and heinously criminal activity on the part of localand state police, the CIA and FBI. These political prisoners remain part of theunfinished business of Black Power and can help to inform our current scholarlyand political agenda. In addition, instead of actively silencing this aspect of thepast, Black Power Studies might take into account those paths of the movementthat led to the rise in Black political prisoners between 1966 and the present. IfBlack Power Studies is going to be truly comprehensive there is a need to expandupon the work of Joy James, Matt Meyer and other intellectuals studying the

imprisonment of political activists in the United States.71Thinking beyond thescholarship and the academic trafficking of texts for just a second, Mutulu Shakur,Mumia Abu Jamal, Jamil Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown), Sundiata Acoli, Sekou Odinga,


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Herman Bell, Jalil Muntaqim, Russell Maroon Shoats, Marshal Eddie Conway,Veronza Bowers and the Move Nine remain living-breathing reminders of thepolitical stakes of radical Black activism.72 At the same time, the current twomillion-dollar bounty on the head of Assata Shakur (which was increased as late

as May 2013), along with the recent harassment, rearrests and arraignment of theSan Francisco 8 (some thirty years after the dismissal of their original trumped-up charges and in the light of no new evidence), illustrate the contemporary sig-nificance of the not-so-distant past.73They help us to understand that history andmemory are sites of struggle that have bearing on both the material and psycho-logical aspects of our present.

And what about Black women? There is still desperate need to flesh out thepolitical and ideological range of Black womens participation in the movement.Offering only a single fleeting mention of Shirley Chisholm, and erasing Cynthia

McKinney from the 2008 election altogether, Dark Days, Bright Nightsoffers anexample of what not to do. Black Power Studies cannot afford to follow the samethreadbare clich of plotting a story of great men. Scholars working in this areahave to find creative ways to enrich the research conducted on well-known BlackPower women. For example, how would up-to-date, well-researched historicalbiographies amplify and complementAssata: an autobiographyor Elaine Browns

A Taste of PowerorAngela Davis: an autobiography?74In addition, there is a need torecover the stories of those lesser-known women in the movement. For example,we know very little about the women in the Congress of African People, theRepublic of New Africa or the US Organization. Who were they? How did they

shape the organisations and how do we make sense of their political lives? Whatabout lesser-known Black womens organisations, like the Chicago-basedCommittee for the Care and Protection of Our Children, that held fast to a Blackradical feminist form of Black Power politics? Though several scholars have pre-sented us with a great start to the study of Black women and Black Power, thereis much more work to be done.75

Another alternative is provided in Quito Swans insightful yet largely under-appreciated Black Power in Bermuda: the struggle for decolonization. More than anyother book in Black Power Studies, Swans work urges us to think about the Black

Power Movement as an international phenomenon on two fronts.76First, BlackPower in Bermudareveals an extremely rich set of players and organisations out-side the United States. In doing this, Swan, a historian at Howard University,challenges us to go beyond mere lip-service to international manifestations andunpack the movement at various intersecting and interconnecting geopoliticalsites. Instead of simply following the travels of US Black Power advocates abroad,Swan encourages us to study the ways the movement developed locally andindependent of the trajectory of Black Power in the US, while remaining attentiveto the points of convergence and confluence. Furthermore, Black Power in Bermuda

raises salient points about the flipside of the international equation. It is the firstbook in Black Power Studies to also chart the international dimensions of theintelligence community which the author refers to as the Bermuda Triangle of


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Imperialism. Swan analyses the alliances made between the CIA, the RoyalCanadian Military Police, Britains Scotland Yard and the British Army to effec-tively squash the Black Power Movement on the island. As a result, it internation-alises and expands the work of Ward Churchill, Jim Vander Wall, Clayborne

Carson and Kenneth OReilly.77

In the final assessment, Black Power in Bermudaproves that we know far less than we think we know about the demise of theBlack Power Movement and the mechanics of state repression at the local, nationaland international levels. If Black Power Studies is ever going to constitute a morecomprehensive corpus, then case studies, like Swans, must emerge.

Acknowledgements

For Professors Ernest Allen Jr., John Bracey and William Strickland, to whom scholars working in

this area owe a collective debt of gratitude. This piece is also written in honour of Jamala Rogers

and Kalimu Endesha of the Organization for Black Struggle in St. Louis. You two remain exemplarypillars in your steadfast commitment to the struggle.Asante sana a luta continua, vitria certa! Also

many thanks to my colleagues who read this piece and provided feedback.

References

1 Throughout this text I use the term Africana Studies to refer to the discipline/field that isreferred to by a host of titles, including Black Studies, African-American Studies, AfricanDiaspora Studies and Africology.

2 P. Joseph (ed.), Black power studies, The Black Scholar(Vol. 31, nos 34, 2001); V. P. Franklin(ed.), New black power studies: national, international and transnational perspectives, The

Journal of African American History(Vol. 92, no. 4, Fall 2007); P. Joseph (ed.), New Black Powerhistory, Souls: a critical journal of Black politics, culture and society (Vol. 9, no. 4, 2007); P. M.Guerty (ed.), Black Power, The Organization of American Historians Magazine of History(Vol. 22,no. 3, July 2008).

3 P. Joseph, Black liberation without apology: reconceptualizing the Black Power movement,The Black Scholar(Vol. 31, nos 34, 2007), pp. 219.

4 P. Joseph (ed.), The Black Power Movement: rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power era(New York,Routledge, 2006).

5 P. Joseph, Waiting Til the Midnight Hour: a narrative history of Black Power in America(New York,Henry Holt and Company, 2006).

6 C-Span BookTV After Words with Peniel Joseph (11 January 2010), available at: http://

www.c-spanvideo.org/program/291151-1 (accessed 19 July 2012); C-Span BookTV Waitingtil the midnight hour (27 September 2007), available at: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/201302-1 (accessed 19 July 2012); Joseph appeared on PBS The Tavis Smiley Showon 15 August 2006.

7 S. Hall, Book review: Dark Days, Bright Nights: from Black Power to Barack Obamaby PenielJoseph,Journal of American History(Vol. 97, no. 3, June 2010), pp. 8612.

8 P. Joseph, Waiting Til the Midnight Hour, op. cit, xvii; P. Joseph, Foreword: reinterpreting theBlack Power Movement, OAH Magazine of History(July 2008), p. 5; P. Joseph, Dark Days, BrightNights: from Black Power to Barack Obama(New York, Basic Civitas Books, 2010), pp. 1213.

9 P. Joseph, The Black Power Movement, op. cit., p. 4; T. Tyson, Robert F. Williams, Black Power,and the roots of the African American freedom struggle, Journal of American History(Vol. 85,

no. 2, 1998), pp. 54070; T. Tyson, Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the roots of black power(Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1999).

10 Joseph, The Black Power Movement, op. cit., p. 8.


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11 D. Scot, Refashioning Futures: criticism after postcoloniality(Princeton, Princeton University Press,1999), p. 7.

12 M. Hanchard, Black memory versus state memory: notes toward a method,Small Axe: a Caribbeanjournal of criticism 26 (Vol. 12, no. 2, June 2008), pp. 4562. For more on critical exchange as adriving force in Africana Studies see: P. Hall, In the Vineyard: working in African American Studies

(Knoxville, University of Tennessee, 1999); J. Stewart, Reaching for higher ground: toward anunderstanding of Black/Africana studies, The Afrocentric Scholar(Vol. 1, no. 1, 1992), pp. 163.

13 It should be noted that Jared Ball was an early frontrunner as the US Green Partys 2008presidential nominee. Ball eventually agreed to support Cynthia McKinney as the Partyspresidential candidate. More to the point, if a solid historical narrative is to be told aboutBlack Powers lingering influence on the 2008 presidential election, it cannot be told withoutdiscussing the Green Party and McKinneys ten point platform, which was modelled after theBlack Panther Party, and included calls for freedom, reparations, an end to police brutality, anend to the drug war and the release of all political prisoners.

14 Balls website is http://www.voxunion.com15 Defining Black Power: Drs. Jared Ball and Peniel Joseph debate, Voxunion(posted 15 March

2010), available at: http://www.voxunion.com/defining-black-power-drs-jared-ball-and-peniel-joseph-debate/ (accessed 19 July 2012).

16 B. Dixon, Dr. Peniel Joseph peddles slick marketing constructs as Black History, BlackAgenda Report: news commentary and analysis from the Black Left(31 March 2010), available at:http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/dr-peniel-joseph-peddles-slick-marketing-constructs-black-history (accessed 19 July 2012).

17 Ibid.18 B. Dixon, Dr. Peniel Joseph: peoples historian or establishment courtier? Part two of two:

Peniel Joseph vs. Hubert Harrison on democracy, Black Agenda Report: news commentary andanalysis from the Black Left (7 July 2010), available at: http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/dr-peniel-joseph-peoples-historian-or-establishment-courtier-part-two-two-peniel-

joseph-vs-h (accessed 19 July 2012).19 This same ticket championed CPUSA chairman, Gus Hall for president and Angela Davis as

his running mate. A. Monteiro, Black Power, Barack Obama and Peniel E. Josephs defense ofAmerican democracy, Black Agenda Report: news commentary and analysis from the Black Left(28July 2010), available at: http://blackagendareport.com/content/black-power-barack-obama-and-peniel-e-josephs-defense-american-democracy (accessed 19 July 2012).

20 M. Perkins,Autobiography as Activism: three Black women of the sixties(Jackson, University Pressof Missouri, 2001), pp. xiiixiv.

21 Seth Rosenfelds Subversives: the FBIs war on student radicals, and Reagans rise to poweris a goodexample of just how contentious this history can be. It characterises Richard Aoki, the longtimeAsian American activist and early member of the Black Panther Party as an FBI agent. The

accusation, which was based on blacked-out FBI documents and an alleged corroboration byformer FBI agent Burney Threadgill, created uproar among Aokis longtime allies and set off afirestorm of debate among activists and historians of the 1960s that has yet to be extinguished.S. Rosenfeld, Subversives: the FBIs war on student radicals, and Reagans rise to power(New York,Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), pp. 41846.

22 M. Trouillot, op. cit., p. 146.23 Publishing scorecards: election victory gives rise to Obama titles, Book Publishing Report(Vol.

33, no. 12, December 2008), p. 1.24 D. Maryles, Bestsellers 08: its hard to get on the charts; its even harder to get traction,

Publishers Weekly(Vol. 256, no. 2, 12 January 2009).25 R. Jones, Whats Wrong with Obamamania? Black America, Black leadership and the death of political

imagination(Albany, State University of New York Press, 2008). In the spirit of full disclosure,I also campaigned for Barack Obama in California and Massachusetts. However, I neveroperated under the illusion that Obama represented a culmination or extension of Black


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Powers radicalism or self-determination or racial empowerment, or the inevitable fulfilmentof American democratic possibility or the ultimate goals of Martin Luther King Jr. Indeed, thisis where Joseph and I part ways.

26 After words with Peniel Joseph, C-Span BookTV(11 January 2010), available at: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/291151-1 (accessed 19 July 2012).

27 The only chapter that was probably not written during the election was the third chapter onStokely Carmichael, entitled Stokely Carmichael and America in the 1960s. It is an expandedversion of an article with a slightly different title that the author published in Soulsin 2007. SeeP. Joseph, Revolution in Babylon: Stokely Carmichael and the American 1960s,Souls: a criticaljournal of Black politics, culture and society(Vol. 9, no. 4, 2007), pp. 281301.

28 S. Henderson, Saturation: progress report on a theory of Black poetry, Black World(Vol. 24,1975), pp. 417.

29 Joseph, Dark Days, Bright Nights, op. cit., pp. 48 and 39. For other uses of the phrase communityorganizer see: pp. 38, 164, 172, 174 (three times), 183, 195, 207, 212, 215, 225. For other uses ofthe phrase political maverick see: pp. 75, 97, 143. For audacious and audacity, as in TheAudacity of Hope, see: pp. 33, 49, 91, 116, 117, 205.

30 S. K. Cha-Jua and C. Lang, The long movement as vampire,The Journal of African AmericanHistory(Vol. 92, no. 2, 2007), p. 273.

31 Joseph, Dark Days, Bright Nights, op. cit., p. 102.32 Elijah Muhammad, What the Black Muslims believe. What the Black Muslims want, Negro

Digest(November 1963), p. 5.33 Joseph, Dark Days, Bright Nights, op. cit., p. 102.34 G. Breitman (ed.), Malcolm X Speaks: selected speeches and statements (New York, Grove

Weidenfeld, 1965), p. 197.35 Ibid, p. 199. For further discussion of Malcolm Xs emergent critique of capitalism see: W.

Sales Jr., From Civil Rights to Black Liberation: Malcolm X and the organization of Afro-Americanunity (Boston, South End Press, 1994), pp. 857; G. Breitman, Last Year of Malcolm X: the

evolution of a revolutionary(New York, Pathfinder Press, 1967), pp. 3550; J. Barnes, Revolution,internationalism, and socialism: the last year of Malcolm X, New International: A Magazine ofMarxist Politics and Theory14 (2008), pp. 7482; M. Marable,Malcolm X: a life of reinvention(NewYork, Viking, 2011), pp. 3367.

36 For a discussion of King, capitalism and the search for a radical alternative, see: T. Branch,AtCanaans Edge: America in the King years, 19651968(New York, Simon and Schuster Paperbacks,2006), pp. 5556; J. Cone,Martin & Malcolm & America: a dream or a nightmare(Maryknoll, OrbisBooks, 2004), pp. 2807. Also see his Riverside Church speech, A time to break silence, in J.Washington (ed.), I Have A Dream: writings and speeches that changed the world(San Francisco,Harper Collins, 1992), pp. 13552. This speech was also republished in Freedomways, animportant, and explicitly left, Black journal.

37 S. Carmichael, The pitfalls of liberalism, in S. Carmichael, Stokely Speaks: from Black Power topan-Africanism(Chicago, Lawrence Hill Books, 2007), pp. 16574.

38 H. K. Jeffries, Bloody Lowndes: civil rights and Black Power in Alabamas Black belt(New York,New York University Press, 2009); S. Carmichael and C. Hamilton, Black Power: the politics ofliberation in America(New York, Random House, 1967); R. Allen, Black Awakening in CapitalistAmerica: an analytic history(New York, Anchor Press, 1969).

39 Stokely Carmichael, Stokely Speaks, op. cit., p. 116.40 Carmichael originally made this statement at the 17 February 1968 Free Huey Rally/Birthday

Benefit in Oakland, California. This quote can be clearly heard on both the audio recordingand video footage of the event. However, this portion of the speech is significantly reworkedinto an analysis of race and class in Stokely Speaks. The revision reveals a person whose ideas

are rapidly changing and evolving. Stokely Carmichael, Stokely Speaks, op. cit., pp. xxi, 121.Also see C. Carson, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black awakening of the 1960s(Cambridge, HarvardUniversity Press, 1981), p. 282.


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41 B. Dixon, Dr. Peniel Joseph: peoples historian or establishment courtier, op. cit.; A. Monteiro,Black Power, Barack Obama and Peniel E. Josephs defense of American democracy, op. cit.;Defining Black Power, op. cit.

42 A. Monteiro, Black Power, Barack Obama and Peniel E. Josephs defense of Americandemocracy, op. cit.

43 B. Dixon, Dr. Peniel Joseph: peoples historian or establishment courtier, op. cit.44 There is a rich body of scholarship on the notion of radical democracy that is usually traced

back to Ernesto Laclau and Chantal MouffesHegemony and Socialist Strategy. Both authors wereadvocates of a post-Marxist theory that built upon the work of Gramsci. However, Joseph doesnot engage this literature at all. See: E. Laclau and C. Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy:towards a radical democratic politics(New York, Verso, 2001), p. 178.

45 A. Monteiro, op. cit.46 H. Cruse, Rebellion or Revolution?(New York, William Morrow and Company, 1968), p. 101.47 Here I draw from the work of Cedric Robinsons Black Marxism, in which he writes, In

contradistinction to Marxs and Engelss expectations that bourgeois society would rationalizesocial relations and demystify social consciousness, the obverse occurred. The development,

organization, and expansion of capitalist society pursued essentially racial directions, so toodid social ideology. As a material force, then, it could be expected that racism would inevitablypermeate the social structures emergent from capitalism. I have used the term racialcapitalism to refer to this development and to the subsequent structure as a historical agency.C. Robinson, Black Marxism: the making of the Black radical tradition(Chapel Hill, University ofNorth Carolina Press, 2000), pp. xiixiii, 2.

48 George Breitman (ed.),Malcolm X Speaks, op. cit., p. 50.49 P. Joseph, Dark Days, Bright Nights, op. cit., p. 205.50 Ibid., p. 209.51 Ibid., p. 213.52 Ibid., p. 216.

53 Malcolm X once argued, Its impossible for a white person to believe in capitalism and notbelieve in racism. You cant have capitalism without racism. George Breitman (ed.),Malcolm XSpeaks, op. cit., p. 69.

54 P. Joseph, Dark Days, Bright Nights, op. cit., p. 38.55 Ibid., p. 201.56 Ibid., p. 205.57 Ibid., p. 210.58 On PBS NewsHour, host Ray Suarez queried the author about where Obama fits in what he

described as the age-old debate over whether Black Americans ask for their freedom, orwhether they seize it and make it theirs. Joseph replied, I think he has a foot in both camps being a junior senator from Illinois and saying youre going to throw your hat in the ring and

aggressively pursue the presidency is rooted in that other, really much more ambitious self-determination camp . Then on NPR Joseph stated, Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael wouldhave been impressed by Obamas self-determination . From dark days to bright nights:reexamining the civil rights era, PBS NewsHour(18 January 2010), available at: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/social_issues/jan-june10/mlk_01-18.html (accessed 20 July 2010); Arewe overlooking the Black Power behind Obama, NPR All Things Considered(17 January 2010),available at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122569310 (accessed20 July 2012).

59 The Basic Unity Program of Malcolm Xs Organization for Afro-American Unity (OAAU)provides a good example of how the notion of self-determination was used by Black Poweractivists. Under the heading Self-determination, the document reads: We assert that we Afro-

Americans have the right to direct and control our lives, our history, and our future ratherthan to have our destinies determined by American racists . The emphasis is placed on


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Afro-Americans as a collective. See: S. Clark (ed.), February 1965: the final speeches(Vancouver,Pathfinder Press, 1992).

60 T. Shelby, We Who Are Dark: the philosophical foundations of Black solidarity(Cambridge, HarvardUniversity Press, 2005), p. 250.

61 Ibid., p. 249.

62 In his discussion of Black Power and Obama, Joseph misses the opportunity to explore amore challenging point raised by Michael Dawson in his latest book, Not In Our Lifetimes. Thepolitical scientist argues that a new Black nationalism emerged among Black supporters ofObama. However, the key is that he roots this nationalism in Black supporters of Obama, andnot the president, as Joseph does with his discussion of self-determination. M. Dawson, Not InOur Lifetimes: the future of Black politics(Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2011), p. 70.

63 Devon Fergus has argued that liberalism had a dramatic cooling effect on the Black PowerMovement, essentially repositioning activists from radicals to liberal reformers. And thoughhe uses Black Power and Black nationalism interchangeably throughout the text, he opens byexplicitly making the point that Malcolm X shared concerns about liberalisms entente withBlack Power [H]e understood its effects [and] warned contemporary black nationalists

of the permuting powers of liberalism. My point is that, while Fergus has pushed scholars torethink Black Powers relationship to liberalism, he simultaneously positions Malcolm X assomeone that stood outside, and critical, of this liberal trajectory. And in this regard, he andJoseph offer two completely different readings of one of Black Powers most important figures.D. Fergus, Liberalism, Black Power and the Makings of American Politics, 19651980 (Athens,University of Georgia Press, 2009), p. 1.

64 J. C. Hall,Mercy, Mercy Me: African-American culture and the American sixties(Oxford, OxfordUniversity Press, 2001), p. 8.

65 P. Joseph, Reinterpreting the Black Power movement, OAH Magazine of History(Vol. 22, no. 3,2008), p. 4.

66 For a discussion of the Black radical imagination see: R. D. G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: the Black

radical imagination(Boston, Beacon Press, 2002). For a discussion of Black collective memorysee: M. Hanchard, op. cit., pp. 4562.

67 I am using activism here to refer only to radical and progressive forms of political activity.Nevertheless, I remain conscious of the fact that activism spans the political spectrum; meaningconservative Black activists also exist, though they are not considered in this paper.

68 M. Hanchard, op. cit., p. 52.69 R. Poole, Memory, history and the claims of the past,Memory Studies(Vol.1, no. 2, 2008), p. 160.70 M. Dawson, Not In Our Lifetimes, op. cit., p. 67.71 J. James, Imprisoned Intellectuals: Americas political prisoners write on life, liberation and rebellion

(Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield, 2003); M. Meyer, Let Freedom Ring: a collection of documentsfrom the movements to free US political prisoners(Oakland, PM Press, 2008).

72 For more on Sundiata Acoli visit: http://www.sundiataacoli.org/. For more on Jamil Al-Amin visit: http://www.freeimamjamil.org/. For more on Herman Bell visit: http://www.freethesf8.org. For more on Veronza Bowers visit: http://www.veronza.org/. For moreon Marshall Eddie Conway visit: http://www.freeeddieconway.org/. For more on JalilMuntaqim visit: http://www.freejalil.com/. For more on Sekou Odinga visit: http://www.thejerichomovement.com. For more on Mutulu Shakur visit: http://www.mutulushakur.com.For more on the Move Nine visit: http://www.onamove.com/

73 Wanted By the FBI act of terrorism-domestic terrorism; unlawful flight to avoidconfinement-murder: Joanne Deborah Chesimard, available at: http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/dt/joanne-deborah-chesimard/ (accessed 23 July 2012); L. M. Alexander and C.J. Austin. Africana studies and oral history: a critical assessment, in J. R. Davidson (ed.),

African American Studies (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2010), pp. 17193; MattMeyer, op. cit., pp. 72638.


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74 A. Shakur, Assata: an autobiography (Chicago, Lawrence Hill Books, 1987); A. Davis.AngelaDavis: an autobiography(New York, International Publishers, 1989); E. Brown,A Taste of Power:a Black womans story(New York, Anchor Books, 1992).

75 J. James, Shadowboxing: representations of Black feminist politics(New York, Palgrave Macmillan,1999); M. Perkins, op. cit.; R. Rickford, Betty Shabazz: surviving Malcolm X: a journey of strength

from wife to widow to heroine(Naperville, Sourcebooks Inc, 2003); D. Gore, J. Theoharis and K.Woodard (eds), Want To Start A Revolution? Radical women in the Black freedomstruggle (NewYork, New York University Press, 2009); C. Greene, Our Separate Ways: women and the blackfreedom movement in Durham, North Carolina(Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press,2005); R. Y. Williams, The Politics of Public Housing: Black womens struggles against urban inequality(Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004); K. Springer, Living for the Revolution: Black feministorganizations, 19681980 (Durham, Duke University Press, 2005); F. Holsaert, M. Noonan, J.Richardson et al., Hands on the Freedom Plow: personal accounts by women in SNCC (Urbana,University of Illinois Press, 2012).

76 Also see: W. Trew, Black For A Cause, Not Just Because: the case of the Oval 4 and the Black PowerMovement in 1970s Britain(Derwent, Derwent Press, 2010); P. Buhle, Tim Hector: a Caribbean

radicals story(Jackson, University of Mississippi, 2006); R. C. Lewis, Walter Rodneys Intellectualand Political Thought(Detroit, Wayne State, 1998).

77 W. Churchill and J. V. Wall,Agents of Repression: the FBIs secret wars against the Black PantherParty and the American Indian Movement(Cambridge, South End Press, 2002); W. Churchill andJ. Vander Wall, The COINTELPRO Papers: documents from the FBIs secret wars against dissent inthe United States(Cambridge, South End Press, 2002); K. OReilly,Racial Matters: the FBIs secretfile on Black America, 19601972(New York, Free Press, 1992); C. Carson,Malcolm X: the FBI file(New York, Carroll and Graf, 1992).

Documents

Towards the gentrification of Black Power(?) by Jonathan Fenderson