What would it mean to overcome or transform this? What have movements imagined, attempted, and built?
See the pedagogy document for what this lens does across all themes. The school does not resolve the disagreements among traditions. It puts them in front of the room and lets the room think.
The Black radical tradition is not one program but an argument that has run for two centuries. This lens gathers its poles: self-emancipation and anticolonial revolution, Black feminism and abolition, and the long disputes over nationalism versus coalition and over reparations. The central question is whether a world without racial domination is possible without ending capitalism, and the traditions here answer it differently on purpose.
Anchor questions
- What would a world without racial domination require? Is it possible without ending capitalism?
- Abolition of what, exactly, and built in place of what?
- Integration, separation, or transformation: what have Black freedom traditions argued, and why do they disagree?
- What do reparations mean, and what would they have to repair?
- What have movements already built that shows another world is possible?
Materials
Free unless marked otherwise. This lens deliberately gathers positions that disagree with each other.
Self-emancipation and anticolonial liberation
- C.L.R. James (1901 to 1989), The Black Jacobins (1938). The classic account of the Haitian Revolution as the only successful large-scale slave revolt, a founding text of the Black radical tradition and of the idea that the enslaved freed themselves. Free: libcom.org
- Frantz Fanon (1925 to 1961), The Wretched of the Earth (1961). The anticolonial analysis of decolonization, national consciousness, and violence, foundational for thinking about liberation on a world scale. A bridge to Imperialism and the Global System. Free: libcom.org
- Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (1952). A psychological study of how colonialism and anti-Black racism deform selfhood, essential for the interior dimension of liberation that the anticolonial texts leave out. Free: libcom.org
Black feminism and abolition
- Combahee River Collective, The Combahee River Collective Statement (1977). The Black feminist statement that articulates interlocking oppressions and an integrated, socialist analysis. A key origin point for intersectional liberation politics. Free: archive.org
- Angela Y. Davis (b. 1944), Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003). A short, accessible case for prison abolition that traces the prison’s roots in slavery and argues for decarceral alternatives. A strong first reading on abolition. No borrowable copy exists. Paywalled: sevenstories.com, and see the note on access for how to get it.
- Mariame Kaba, So You’re Thinking About Becoming an Abolitionist (2020). A short primer on what prison-industrial-complex abolition means as vision and strategy, a good single reading to anchor a first session before the longer texts. Free PDF: interruptingcriminalization.com
- Mariame Kaba, We Do This ‘Til We Free Us (2021). The book behind the primer: essays and interviews treating abolition as everyday organizing practice rather than a slogan, drawn from decades of campaigns. Behind a paywall, and worth chasing down; see the note on access. Not free: haymarketbooks.org
Debates and disagreements
The school holds the disagreements open. These pairs stage two of the longest-running arguments in Black freedom politics.
- Malcolm X (1925 to 1965), The Ballot or the Bullet (1964). The major statement of Black nationalism, self-determination, and self-defense, the nationalist pole of the strategy debate. Free (abridged transcript): teachingamericanhistory.org
- Bayard Rustin (1912 to 1987), From Protest to Politics (1965). A social-democratic argument for coalition politics and economic reform over separatism, set here deliberately against Malcolm X. Free: crmvet.org
- Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Case for Reparations (2014). The influential case that reparations follow from a documented history of plunder from slavery through redlining. The pro-reparations position. Free, resolves in a browser: theatlantic.com
- Adolph Reed Jr. (b. 1947), The Case Against Reparations (2000). A left, class-first critique arguing that reparations politics is a poor strategy that sidesteps universal redistribution. The counter-position to Coates. Free: nonsite.org
- Malcolm X and Rustin disagree about whether Black freedom runs through separation or coalition. Coates and Reed disagree about whether justice runs through race-specific repair or universal redistribution. Put each pair side by side and let the room argue it rather than resolving it.
Video
- “Angela Davis on Abolition, Defunding the Police, and the 2020 Uprising” (Democracy Now!, 2020). Roughly 26 minutes, about 48,000 views, a niche pick. Davis situates the 2020 uprising within a long abolitionist tradition and the defund debate. A living voice for the abolition strand. youtube.com/watch?v=N7RPQo0LW-I
- “Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks: An Overview” (Shades Of Literature, 2019). Roughly 22 minutes, about 18,000 views, a niche pick kept because stronger Fanon explainers do not exist on YouTube. A lecturer-style walkthrough, best as facilitator preparation or a companion to the reading. youtube.com/watch?v=DJmyNQN7fmM
Status
First pass, and it may be a while before there is a second. Contributions welcome, especially accounts of abolitionist and cooperative experiments underway now, and liberation traditions beyond the United States.