The Fire Last Time: Post-civil rights black politics
Black Political Organizations in the Post- Civil Rights Era is a slim but worthwhile collection that examines the role of the countrys leading black organizations in the post-civil rights era. Published by Rutgers University Press, its general diagnosis is that organizations like MLKs SCLC, NAACP, CORE and the Urban League have floundered in the last thirty years. Successful in dismantling de jure segregation, they have had less success in dealing with what one contributor calls "now-you-see-it, now-you-dont" racism. That is, while most white Americans are less blatantly hostile toward blacks, the more insidious, less obvious racism is harder to confront. When it comes to addressing the challenges of the "underclass," these organizations are unable to mobilize blacks or influence the government as before. Put another way, they are victims of their own success.
Black Political Organizations also examines the black church, whose influence has waned in recent years. While it may be the only independent institution that blacks control, it has increasingly lost the attendance of young black men (hiphop?) and the underclass, the very groups that the black church has traditionally nurtured during hard times.
Two articles focus on the transformation of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and Louis Farrakhan. COREs subscribing to a "clientage political strategy" explains the organizations transformation from a pacifist, direct-action group to a conservative freak show. Led by Roy Innis, CORE initially embraced a "pragmatic" black nationalist agenda that shifted over the years and began courting conservatives. When white conservatives began setting up "alternatives" to the civil rights establishment, Innis and CORE were there to reap the benefits as a vociferous civil rights organization that castigated affirmative action, supported the NRA, defended Robert Bork and wanted welfare reform.
The fascinating essay on Farrakhan shows how the Nation of Islam leader essentially saw his leadership role as a performance; he was the "premier showman who actually performed leadership." Farrakhan was thus able to do something that other black leaders could not, namely draw large numbers of blacks. The Million Man March was the logical culmination of what he had been doing for years. Arguably, by 1995, Farrakhan was the most influential black leader in America, yet he squandered whatever political capital he had accumulated by embarking on a world tour, neglecting the agenda that he offered at the march. Farrakhan, like most of todays black leadership, was better at performing as a leader than actually being one.
The one clunker in the book is by Karin L. Stanford, a co-editor, who examines Jesse Jacksons Wall Street Project. This may be due to the fact that Stanford is the mother of Rev. Jacksons "love child," and both Ms. Stanford and Rutgers University Press did the book and the reader a disservice by not disclosing her relationship with the subject. If judges and political officials are expected to recuse themselves in conflict-of-interest matters, intellectuals should do no less.
Black Political Organizations in the Post Civil Rights Era Edited by Ollie A. Johnson and Karin L. Stanford Rutgers University Press, 264 pages, $22