The fascinating history of white solidarity with the Black Power
movement
In
the mid-1960s, as the politics of Black self-determination gained
steam, Black activists had a new message for white activists: Go into
your own communities and organize white people against racism. While
much of the media at the time and many historians since have regarded
this directive as a “white purge” from the Black freedom
movement, Say Burgin argues that it heralded a new strategy, racially
parallel organizing, which people experimented with all over the
country. Organizing Your
Own shows that the Black
freedom movement never experienced a “white purge,” and it offers
a new way of understanding Black Power’s relationship to white
America.
By
focusing on Detroit from the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s, this
volume illuminates a wide cross-section of white activists who took
direction from Black-led groups like the Northern Student Movement,
the City-Wide Citizens Action Committee, and the League of
Revolutionary Black Workers. Organizing
Your Own draws on
numerous oral histories and heretofore unseen archives to show that
these white activists mobilized support for Black self-determination
in education, policing, employment, and labor unions. It was a
trial-and-error effort that pushed white activists to grapple with
tough questions – which white people should they organize and how,
which Black-led groups should they take direction from, and when did
taking Black direction become mere sycophancy. The story of Detroit’s
white fight for Black Power thus not only reveals a broader, richer
movement, but it carries great insight into questions that remain
relevant.
