Climbin′ Jacob′s Ladder - The Black Freedom Movement Writings of Jack O′Dell

1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-0-520-25958-4
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 334 Seiten, Cloth Over Boards, Format (B × H): 164 mm x 233 mm, Gewicht: 596 g

This book collects for the first time the black freedom movement writings of Jack O'Dell and restores one of the great unsung heroes of the civil rights movement to his rightful place in the historical record. Climbin' Jacob's Ladder puts O'Dell's historically significant essays in context and reveals how he helped shape the civil rights movement. From his early years in the 1940s National Maritime Union, to his pioneering work in the early 1960s with Martin Luther King Jr., to his international efforts for the Rainbow Coalition during the 1980s, O'Dell was instrumental in the development of the intellectual vision and the institutions that underpinned several decades of anti-racist struggle. He was a member of the outlawed Communist Party in the 1950s and endured red-baiting throughout his long social justice career. This volume is edited by Nikhil Pal Singh and includes a lengthy introduction based on interviews he conducted with O'Dell on his early life and later experiences. Climbin' Jacob's Ladder provides readers with a firm grasp of the civil rights movement's left wing, which O'Dell represents, and illuminates a more radical and global account of twentieth-century US history.

Autoren/Hrsg.

O&

O'Dell, Jack

Singh, Nikhil Pal

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein Biographien & Autobiographien: Historisch, Politisch, Militärisch

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments

Introduction
“Learn Your Horn”: Jack O’Dell and the Long Civil Rights Movement
Nikhil Pal Singh

Part One: Tracing the Freedomway
Report on Voter Registration Work, Southern Christian,Leadership Conference
Foundations of Racism in American Life
Editorial, Freedomways Special Issue on Mississippi
The Threshold of a New Reconstruction
A Colonized People
The July Rebellions and the “Military State”
Climbin’ Jacob’s Ladder: The Life and Times of the Freedom Movement
Charleston’s Legacy to the Poor People’s Campaign
Report of the Acting Executive Director, Southern Christian Leadership Conference
A Rock in a Weary Lan’: Paul Robeson’s Leadership and “The Movement” in the Decade before Montgomery
An Assessment: PUSH’s First Five Years and Its Next Five
On the Transition from Civil Rights to Civil Equality
The Rainbow Coalition: Organizational Principles

Part Two: Contemporary Reflections
Democracy Charter
Reclaiming the Second Reconstruction: Democracy, Class, and the Social Transformation of the United States

Afterword: Growing Light in a Dark Time
Editor’s Note
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Jack O'Dell was Editor of Freedomways, a legendary publication that from 1961-1985 published Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King Jr., Pablo Neruda, and Alice Walker, among many others. Nikhil Pal Singh is Associate Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and History at New York University. He is the author of Black is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy.