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This book presents a provocative reinterpretation of recent
political history. In this pioneering exploration of the interplay
between liberalism and black nationalism, Devin Fergus returns to
the tumultuous era of Johnson, Nixon, Carter, and Helms and
challenges us to see familiar political developments through a new
lens. What if the liberal coalition, instead of being torn apart by
the demands of Black Power, actually engaged in a productive
relationship with radical upstarts, absorbing black separatists
into the political mainstream and keeping them from a more violent
path? What if the New Right arose not only in response to Great
Society Democrats but, as significantly, in reaction to Republican
moderates who sought compromise with black nationalists through
conduits like the Blacks for Nixon movement? Focusing especially on
North Carolina, a progressive southern state and a national center
of Black Power activism, Fergus reveals how liberal engagement
helped to bring a radical civic ideology back from the brink of
political violence and social nihilism. He covers Malcolm X
Liberation University and Soul Town, two largely forgotten,
federally funded black nationalist experiments; the political scene
in Winston-Salem, where Black Panthers were elected to office in
surprising numbers; and the liberal-nationalist coalition that
formed in 1974 to defend Joan Little, a black prisoner who killed a
guard she accused of raping her. Throughout, Fergus charts new
territory in the study of America's recent past, taking up largely
unexplored topics such as the expanding political role of
institutions like the ACLU and the Ford Foundation and the
emergence of sexual violence as a political issue. He also urges
American historians to think globally by drawing comparisons
between black nationalism in the United States and other separatist
movements around the world. By 1980, Fergus writes, black radicals
and their offspring were 'more likely to petition Congress than
blow it up.' That liberals engaged black radicalism at all,
however, was enough for New Right insurgents to paint liberalism as
an effete, anti-American ideology - a sentiment that has had
lasting appeal to significant numbers of voters.
This book presents a provocative reinterpretation of recent
political history. In this pioneering exploration of the interplay
between liberalism and black nationalism, Devin Fergus returns to
the tumultuous era of Johnson, Nixon, Carter, and Helms and
challenges us to see familiar political developments through a new
lens. What if the liberal coalition, instead of being torn apart by
the demands of Black Power, actually engaged in a productive
relationship with radical upstarts, absorbing black separatists
into the political mainstream and keeping them from a more violent
path? What if the New Right arose not only in response to Great
Society Democrats but, as significantly, in reaction to Republican
moderates who sought compromise with black nationalists through
conduits like the Blacks for Nixon movement? Focusing especially on
North Carolina, a progressive southern state and a national center
of Black Power activism, Fergus reveals how liberal engagement
helped to bring a radical civic ideology back from the brink of
political violence and social nihilism. He covers Malcolm X
Liberation University and Soul Town, two largely forgotten,
federally funded black nationalist experiments; the political scene
in Winston-Salem, where Black Panthers were elected to office in
surprising numbers; and the liberal-nationalist coalition that
formed in 1974 to defend Joan Little, a black prisoner who killed a
guard she accused of raping her. Throughout, Fergus charts new
territory in the study of America's recent past, taking up largely
unexplored topics such as the expanding political role of
institutions like the ACLU and the Ford Foundation and the
emergence of sexual violence as a political issue. He also urges
American historians to think globally by drawing comparisons
between black nationalism in the United States and other separatist
movements around the world. By 1980, Fergus writes, black radicals
and their offspring were 'more likely to petition Congress than
blow it up.' That liberals engaged black radicalism at all,
however, was enough for New Right insurgents to paint liberalism as
an effete, anti-American ideology - a sentiment that has had
lasting appeal to significant numbers of voters.
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