The South and the Black Radical Tradition: Then and Now

Abstract

From the inception of the emerging American nation, the South is a central battleground in the struggles for freedom, justice, and equality. It is the location of the most intense repression, exploitation, and reaction directed toward Africans Americans, as well as Native Americans and working people generally. At the same time the South is the site of the most heroic resistance to these oppressive conditions of class domination, of white supremacy, and of sexist social relations in the public and private sectors. The institution of chattel slavery thrusts the Black radical tradition into the forefront of these early struggles. Today's globalization in the electronic age and neoliberal policies — the attack on the New Deal and Civil Rights reforms of the past era — again place the Black radical tradition at the center of the struggles for freedom, justice, and equality.

We present a historical materialist analysis of the Black radical tradition in the South, from slave resistance and rebellions in the 1500s through the Civil War to the economic and political justice struggles in the current period. Black women — often working class — are always at the core of the Black radical tradition and are frequently in its leadership. Black radicals in each period make revolutionary demands that challenge state policy and/or capitalist property relations. But history reveals that each victory, hard fought and won, merely reforms capitalism and is only temporary. We conclude that the Black radical tradition in America calls for the liberation (i.e., the full economic, political and social equality) of the black masses. Permanent victory means that the Black radical tradition is at the heart of a working class-based movement to bring an end to the global capitalist system and to the class, color, and gender oppression that is its cornerstone.