Reluctant reformers : racism and social reform movements in the United States / Robert L. Allen and Chude Pamela Allen ; foreword by Jamelle Bouie.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Allen, Robert L., 1942-2024, author.

Allen, Chude Pamela, 1943- author.

Contributor:

Bouie, Jamelle, writer of foreword.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Civil rights movements--United States--History.

Civil rights movements.

United States--Social conditions.

United States.

United States--Race relations.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (269 pages)

Place of Publication:

New York ; London : OR Books, [2021]

Summary:

Reluctant Reformers explores the centrality of racism to American politics through the origins, internal dynamics, and leadership of the major democratic and social justice movements between the early nineteenth century and the end of World War II. It focuses in particular on the abolitionists, the Populist Party, the Progressive reformers, and the women's suffrage, labor, and socialist and communist movements. Despite their achievements, virtually all these predominantly white movements failed to oppose, capitulated to, or even advocated racism at critical junctures in their history, with their efforts undercut by their inability to build and sustain a mass movement of both Black and white Americans. Reluctant Reformers examines both the structural roots of racism in US radical movements and the impact of racist ideologies on the white-dominated core of each movement, how some whites resisted these pressures, and how Black people engaged with these movements. This edition includes a postscript describing the Black freedom movement of the 1960s and the central role it has played in the development of today's radical social justice movements.

Contents:

Front Cover

Back Cover

Half-Title Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Contents

Foreword Reluctant Reformers as Guide-and Warning

Preface

1. Introduction

2. Black Militancy Confronts Militant Abolitionism

3. Self-Interest and Southern Populism

4. Progressivism: Expediency and Accommodation

5. Woman Suffrage: Feminism and White Supremacy

6. Organized Labor: From Underdog to Overseer

7. Socialists, Communists and Self-Determination

8. Capitalism, Racism and Reform

Postscript: Recent Social Reform Movements

Notes

About the Authors.

Notes:

First published by Howard University Press, 1974.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-68219-273-3

OCLC:

1281987360