Title: Waiting 'til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America
Author: Peniel Joseph
Year of Publication: 2006
Thesis:
If we only concentrate on the "heroic" period of the Civil Rights Movement (1954-1965) bound within a provincial geography and temporality, it is easy to conclude the Black Power Movement was a period of violent eruption that ended in disaster. Joseph argues that we need to begin in the postwar period and even looking to where those early Black Power folks drew fromf: Garvey, Robeson, Hansberry (Raisin in the Sun), Malcom X, Robert F. Williams are a few of those he begins with who preceded Carmichael's call for using the term Black Power. With his analysis stretching backward and forward in history, Joseph demonstrates how lasting cultural forms, academic scholarship, and institutional changes were created through the Black Power Movement.
Time: 1940s-1970s (some before, some after)
Geography: U.S. (with much attention to pan-Africanism)
Organization:
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraphs
Preface
Introduction: To Shape a New World
1. Forerunners
- Malcom X & famous scene with Johnson X
- Robert F. Williams & Cuban Revolution
- Elijah Muhammad / NOI
- * Reminds us that Harold Cruse & Amiri Baraka went Cuba as well; revived in Baraka a sense of commitment. He moves into politics, as well.
- Curtis Mayfield
2. At Home in the World
- Cuban Revolution
- Malcom X greets Castro in Harlem
- Patrice Lumumba killed; demonstrations - UN Security Council descended upon (Maya Angelou & others there)
- From "Negro" to "Afro-American" shift takes place here
3. Waging Wars Amid Shadows
- William Worthy - Journalist
- Goes to China & tried for it
- Interviews R.F. Williams
- Police brutality, death of Ronald Stokes
- Albert Cleage - (Shrine of the Black Madonna)
- Also GOAL (Group on Advanced Leadership)
- Donald Freeman - RAM (Revolutionary Action Movement)
"RAM’s ideology encompassed Cruse’s idiosyncratic internationalism, a nuts-and-bolts approach to class struggle, and a blueprint for political revolution drawn from Chinese Marxists, black radicals, and guerrilla struggles." (page # forthcoming)
- Describes the overlap/communication between leaders - check out Grace Lee Boggs
4. Liberators
- James Watts - The Liberator Magazine (Cruse on editorial board - Baldwin as a major contributor)
- Baldwin
- See: "Not 100 Years of Freedom" (16min on Emancipation Proclamation) - https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_28-vm42r3ph61
- Baldwin's thinking influenced by visit to NOI
- Baldwin as a broker between R. Kennedy & Black intellectuals
- Robert F. Williams (Crusader)
- "Sporadic episodes of black militancy, observed Malcolm, had, in fact, forced the White House to act after weeks of stalling." (page # to follow)
- Conflicts between Robinson and Malcom X / X and King
- Medgar Evars assassination
- Freedom Now & FBI tension
- Gloria Richardson
- Malcom X's House/Field speech (I use this to have Ss think about his call for unity among Black folk)
5. Political Kingdoms
6. "Black" Is a Country
7. "What We Gonna Start Sayin' Now Is Black Power!"
8. Storm Warnings
9. The Trial of Huey Percy Newton
10. Dark Days, Bright Nights
11. Dashikis and Democracy
Epilogue: Legacies, 1975-2005
Notes
Type:
Synthesis
Methods:
Sources:
Interviews, books, articles, newspapers, autobiographies, FBI records,
Historiography:
I would group this with Long Black Freedom Struggle authors who see the movements overlapped and intertwined vs. consecutive.
Keywords:
Themes:
Critiques:
Questions:
Quotes:
Notes:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?201302-1/waiting-til-midnight-hour