Agitations: Ideologies and Strategies in African American Politics

Preface

Preface Agitation: 1. To call attention to by speech or writing, discussion or debate. 2. To arouse or attempt to arouse public interest and support , as in a political or social cause. 3. The persistent urging of a political or social cause or theory before the public. —Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Those of you who have been around for some time know that I’ve sometimes been called a troublemaker in the city of Birmingham, an agitator. I don’t resent that because I remember the little old lady [who] said if a washing machine didn’t have an agitator, then it wouldn’t get the clothes clean. I’m proud to be in Birmingham, the United States. I am an American and I’m just as patriotic as they come. But I don’t mind taking a stand, telling my city, and my state and my nation they’re wrong when I believe they are wrong. —Rev. Abraham Woods, president, Birmingham Chapter, Southern Christian Leadership Conference When Africans first arrived in America, they came bound together in chains. These chains tied them together as a group yet the links of the chain separated them into individuals, creating distinct experiences with slavery, racism, and the character of American life. How did these experiences affect the agitations for freedom? How did this diversity of experiences and ideas become the foundation of African American ideologies? The racial nature of slavery and segregation in America means that African American politics is often defined by the fight for inclusion and equality in the American polity. Historically, all forms of civil resistance—lawsuits, sit-ins, protest marches, internal community building and armed resistance—were viewed as of a piece, as different stages of a universal fight against racism and second-class status. What is the impact of group exclusion on African American political thought and political strategies? Does the common oppression of racism produce a unique unified political response or are African American political responses complicated by the different perceptions of racial oppression in America? Are the diverse methods of political resistance historically engaged in by African Americans separate pieces of a common strategy or do they reflect a complex ideological diversity rooted in American ideas? Can we understand the foundations of African American political actions as direct challenges to, ix and dynamic examples of, American democratic action? This study posits that while exclusionary political, social, and economic pressures may have dictated a common idea of resistance, the multiple strategies of political engagement reflected differences of ideological perceptions—perceptions that revolved around the impact of race, religion, social class, and gender among African Americans. These differences define the problems and possibilities of politics for African Americans, and they lay at the foundation of how African American political thought transformed into concrete political strategies. Did the different perceptions of race influence the ideological dispositions of African Americans in ways that generated different strategies for change? The degree to which African American political organizations reflected the ideological diversity of the African American community is complicated by the common oppression of racial exclusion. Groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) fought for equality for all Americans yet their task involved a fight for equal treatment on multiple fronts: education, voting rights, criminal rights, and simple social equality. The universal nature of this fight often obscured a detailed look into the foundations of their strategic approaches. How does African American history frame the ideological development of African Americans? What perceptions of racism lay at the core of their ideological approach to overcoming racism? Was it a universal approach grounded in American political thought or did other ideological influences shape the strategies used to attain political power? Can understanding the evolution of political thought produce viable political strategies that are instructive in contemporary African American politics? The Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education1 in 1954 fundamentally altered civil rights as an issue in American politics. The African American fight for equality becomes an essential public policy debate far beyond the contested terrain of education. The unanimous Supreme Court decision affected everything from school integration to voting rights to the American image during the cold war. The powerful impact of race relations in the wake of the decision, and the resultant protest movement identified as the “modern civil rights movement...