African diasporic adherents of anarchist principles
Black anarchism
, also known as
New Afrikan anarchism
or
Panther anarchism
, is an
anti-authoritarian
and
anti-racist
current of the
Black power movement
and
anarchism in the United States
. It is characterized by its
intersectional analysis
of different forms of
oppression
, its skepticism of both
authoritarian socialism
and
Eurocentric
anarchism, and its advocacy of
community organizing
,
armed self-defense
and
revolutionary
black nationalism
.
Black anarchism draws its origins back to the work of
Lucy Parsons
, who developed a form of
social anarchism
with an intersectional analysis and called for Black
self-determination
. After
World War II
, links formed between
anarcho-pacifists
and Black activists of the
civil rights movement
, leading to the development of an anti-authoritarian tendency within the latter, with some groups such as the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC) adopting a
decentralized
structure. Anarchism also partly inspired the programs of the
Black Panther Party
(BPP) and fit into its
intersectional analysis
of the relationship between
white supremacy
,
economic exploitation
and
political repression
by the
state
.
Black anarchism as a distinct tendency first emerged out of the
radicalization
of some rank-and-file members of the BPP, who were critical of the
centralization
of power under the party leadership. These people included
Ashanti Alston
,
Kuwasi Balagoon
,
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin
,
Greg Jackson
, and
Martin Sostre
. Their anti-authoritarian analysis of the BPP leadership led them to encounter anarchism, which they adopted due to its anti-authoritarian commitment to decentralization and
consensus decision-making
. Upon entering the American anarchist movement, these Black anarchists found that White anarchists were often unreceptive to their ideas on anti-racism and Black autonomy. As a result, Black anarchists established their own organizations, dedidcated to pursuing anarchist approaches to anti-racist struggles and strengthening anti-racism within the anarchist movement.
History
[
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]
Roots
[
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]
When Black activists first joined the
American anarchist movement
, largely dominated by White men, they added perspectives of
anti-racism
to the existing focus on
class struggle
. Nascent Black anarchism was distinguished from White American and European anarchism due to the experience that Black anarchists had with
racism
, which brought them to prominence within anti-racist social movements. Black anarchism highlighted the institutional racism within the white anarchist movement, which suppressed participation by Black people, and sought to build a movement that better represented Black people and drew from their experiences.
Lucy Parsons
developed a form of
social anarchism
that concerned itself with both the
labor
and
civil rights movements
, as she considered racism to have stemmed from
capitalism
.
She attempted to draw attention to the oppression of people of color, including
widespread lynchings
in the
Southern United States
, which had previously been neglected by White anarchists.
In
The Alarm
, the newspaper of the
International Working People's Association
(IWPA), Parsons publicised a lynching of thirteen African Americans that had taken place in
Carrollton, Mississippi
. In her article, titled "The Negro", she discussed the poverty that many African Americans lived in, demonstrating the connection between racism and classism, and called on African Americans to resist their oppression through
racial uplift
,
self-determination
and
armed self-defense
.
Parsons' views on the dual racial and class oppression of African Americans led her to encourage them to join the socialist movement, as she considered that the dissolution of the state and the end of capitalism were necessary to create an anti-racist society.
Emergence from civil rights movement
[
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]
In the wake of
World War II
, Black activists of the nascent
civil rights movement
began to form links with
White American anarchists
. This led to a notable influence of
anarcho-pacifism
on the movement, with
Martin Luther King
contributing to
David Dellinger
's magazine
Liberation
and
Bayard Rustin
finding employment with the
War Resisters League
(WRL).
Anti-authoritarian practices
were subsequently adopted by civil rights organizations such as the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC), which
Paul Goodman
allegedly described as an essentially "anarchist organization".
Under the influence of
Ella Baker
, who declared that "strong people don't need strong leaders",
the SNCC was organized along a
decentralized
and
grassroots
structure, and remained independent of other civil rights organizations.
Over time, Black anti-authoritarians grew increasing critical of the movement's leadership, the
Big Six
, who they accused of
opportunism
and
corruption
. In a
class analysis
of the movement,
Ojore Lutalo
declared that the leadership didn't have the interests of all black people in mind: "Just look at how
they
live today and look at how
we
live."
In reaction to the prevailing
liberalism
of the civil rights movement, and its perceived failure to achieve
racial equality
, the
Black power movement
first came into being. The movement initially dedicated itself to electing Black people to political office and establishing
black nationalist
groups, but later distanced itself from
integration
and began to focus on ways to achieve
autonomy
from the United States.
Unlike
Black liberalism
, which saw
racial inequality in the United States
as having stemmed from
Social exclusion
and
racial intolerance
, the Black power movement considered inequality to be a product of institutional
white supremacy
.
Development within the Black Panther Party
[
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]
In its "Ten Point Program", the
Black Panther Party
(BPP) took a critical stance on the intersections between white supremacy and the
economic exploitation
and
political repression
of Black communities. Furthering this
intersectional analysis
, many Panthers extended this into a critique of
patriarchy
,
social stratification
and the
state
.
The Panthers were also influenced in part by
anarchism
, publishing
Sergey Nechayev
's
Catechism of a Revolutionary
and creating their own version of the
Diggers
' free food distribution system, the
Free Breakfast for Children Program
, which itself influenced the later work of
Food Not Bombs
.
The Panthers and other Black power organizations of this period upheld a
revolutionary
form of
Black nationalism
, advocating for autonomy from White society and for Black communities themselves to build that autonomy.
During the late 1960s, violent clashes between Panthers and the police became more common, as the former became increasingly frustrated with a lack of progress on racial equality and the latter intensified political repression against Black activists, who became targets of
COINTELPRO
.
At the same time, corporations attempted to stem the radicalization of the movement by increasing funding for more
moderate
organizations, such as the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) and the
National Urban League
(NUL).
By the 1970s, declining membership numbers in the BPP and the "oligarchization" of the party leadership led to the
political polarization
of its remaining members and the
radicalization
of some towards armed struggle against the state.
The party experienced a split, as the
Oakland
-based
central committee
reoriented itself towards
electoralism
. Meanwhile, many of the party's autonomous groups throughout the country fractured along various different lines, with some becoming involved in
community organizing
and moving towards anarchism.
Drawing on
elite theory
, some rank-and-file members began to see the party leadership as responsible for the party's decline, as the BPP was transformed from a "large decentralized, revolutionary organization" into a "small, highly centralized, reformist group" under the one-man rule of
Huey P. Newton
.
Kuwasi Balagoon
became increasingly disillusioned with the party's leadership structure, as the
central committee
divorced itself from and dictated commands to other chapters around the country, without any internal
democracy
. He adopted an anti-authoritarian analysis of the party, which he characterized as a "
hierarchy
"; Balagoon believed that the party had declined due to its leadership's turn away from organizing towards fundraising, its top-down structure that stifled the rank-and-file, and the development of a quasi-capitalist class within the party leadership.
Others, like
Martin Sostre
, accused
Bobby Seale
of
selling out
and attempting to join the "
pig system
".
Ashanti Alston
himself expressed regret for his "uncritical acceptance" of the party leadership: "After all, what does it say about you, if you allow someone to set themselves up as your leader and make all your decisions for you?"
Both Sostre and Alston believed that the party's
Marxist-Leninist
orientation made it inclined towards political repression and intolerant of
spontaneity
and
participatory democracy
.
At this time,
Eldridge Cleaver
's
New York
-based faction had split off from the party to establish the
Black Liberation Army
(BLA).
Many Panthers on the
East Coast
, including the anti-authoritarians Ashanti Alston and Kuwasi Balagoon, joined Cleaver's BLA, which they intended to serve as the military wing of the Black power movement.
Another organization that advocated for Black armed self-defence, the
Philadelphia
-based
MOVE
, even took up anarchist politics, favouring autonomous and
cooperative
forms of living and upholding
animal rights
and
environmentalism
.
Growth of the tendency
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]
One of the first Black activists to convert to anarchism was the African American bookstore owner Martin Sostre, who was already considering anarchist ideas in the late 1960s. By 1972, he had begun studying sketches of
Mikhail Bakunin
and
Peter Kropotkin
, but remained cautious of introducing anarchism into the Black community, worrying that others would not be able to relate to them. Over the years, Sostre developed a critique of the BPP's Marxism-Leninism, which he considered to be a program for replacing ruling elites rather than improving freedom and equality.
Anarchist ideas then spread through Black activist circles by
word of mouth
.
It was Sostre who introduced anarchist ideas to
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin
, who deepened his understanding of the subject during his time in prison in the early 1970s.
Experiences with incarceration played a large role in radicalizing Panther activists towards anarchism, as time in prison gave them space to re-assess the movement's weaknesses.
Ashanti Alston was himself introduced to anarchism by the Panther activist
Frankie Ziths
, who wrote of Black activists' need to learn from the history of the
Makhnovshchina
, lest they themselves be betrayed by White communist activists.
Ojore Lutalo was likewise introduced to critiques of Marxism by Kuwasi Balagoon, who considered Marxism to be ineffective for organizing Black communities and opposed its tendency towards
bureacracy
and political repression. Lutalo himself became convinced of the efficacy of
consensus decision-making
, believing that people had the capacity to govern themselves without being ordered to by individuals or organizations with political power. Drawing from this attitude, Alston summed anarchism up as "power to the people where it stays with the people".
While this group was united by their identification with anarchism, their individual perspectives on racial identity influenced their adoption of different labels for themselves. In his book
Anarchism and the Black Revolution
, Ervin described this new group as "Black anarchists", although this label wasn't universally adopted. Balagoon and Lutalo self-identified as "New Afrikan anarchists", emphasising their identity as Africans rather than "African Americans". Alston himself took the label of "anarchist Panther", under which he published a magazine during the early 21st century.
Entry into the anarchist movement
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Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, American anarchist organizations began to take up the
anti-racism
of the Black power movement, culminating in 1990, with the establishment of the
Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation
, which itself included Black anarchist members such as Ashanti Alston and Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin.
However, following their entry into the American anarchist movement, Black anarchists found that their ideas on anti-racism were rejected by many White anarchists. Black anarchists struggled to achieve representation within the movement, which they felt emphasised the pressing need for intersectional analysis within anarchism.
Balagoon was particularly critical of White American anarchists for their lack of understanding of white supremacy and racism, as well as their opposition to national liberation movements. Alston himself argued that White American anarchists were ignorant of the African American experience with white supremacy, which damaged their ability to be effective anti-racist allies. The
Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW) and Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation resisted Ervin's efforts to establish autonomous working groups for people of color, with some leading members accusing him of "separatism". To Ervin, the reluctance of white anarchists to allow people of color their own spaces had stifled their interactions and even culminated in expressions of racism and condescension, resulting in him feeling out of place in the "overwhelmingly White, middle-class, and for the most part, pacifist" movement.
Despite this, Ervin continued to advocate for Black anarchism and attempt to establish spaces for anarchist people of color, believing that African and Latin American people would inevitably come to "constitute the backbone of the US anarchist movement in the future."
The Black anarchist movement's approach to anti-racism, which drew on the BPP's earlier targeting of racist institutions, contrasted with majority White anti-racist organizations such as
Anti-Racist Action
(ARA), which focused on opposing overt manifestations of racism and white supremacy such as the
Ku Klux Klan
. Black anarchists were critical of the ARA for its focus on overt racism as opposed to institutions of structural racism, as well as its
racial color blindness
. Despite these issues, many anarchist organizations began to draw on some of the BPP's earlier tactics, establishing
Copwatch
and
Anarchist Black Cross
(ABC) networks to respectively oppose police brutality and support
political prisoners
.
Over the years, anarchists increasingly noted commonalities between their own principles and those of the black power movement, including their shared advocacy of
people power
and
mutual aid
.
Contemporary movement
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During the 1990s, Black anarchists established their own organizations, such as the
Black Autonomy Network of Community Organizers
(BANCO) and the
Federation of Black Community Partisans
(FBCP),
which gained chapters throughout the country and introduced anarchist approaches to movements against
racial inequality in the United States
.
Greg Jackson
also published the newspaper
Black Autonomy
, which, over its four year run, introduced more people to Black anarchist ideas and publicised news of police brutality and urban insurrections.
Black anarchists also participated in the
Anarchist People of Color
(APOC) movement, which brought together African, Asian and Latin American anarchists throughout the United States. APOC collectives provided
safe spaces
(described as a
quilombo
by
Pedro Ribeiro
) for its members to provide each other with solidarity and strategize on anti-racist initiatives, away from the prejudices of the White majority anarchist movement.
Worldview
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Drawing from the perspectives of the early Black power movement, Black anarchism takes an
intersectional analysis
of
oppression
, is critical of
reformism
and advocates for
revolutionary nationalism
. Black anarchists are intensely critical of
authoritarian
leadership structures and top-down organizations that separate the leaders from the led, which they see as having contributed to the failure of Black power organizations such as the BPP. Although they reject the authoritarianism of the BPP, they continue to uphold its platform of
community organizing
and
mutual aid
, which they believe can increase the influence of anarchism among marginalized people. They also advocate for the
armed self-defense
and
self-organization
of marginalized communities.
Black anarchism is critical of all forms of oppression, and thus upholds not only
anti-statism
, but also
anti-authoritarianism
,
anti-capitalism
,
anti-clericalism
,
anti-homophobia
,
anti-imperialism
,
anti-racism
and
anti-sexism
.
According to Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin, African Americans can fight against oppression in all its manifestations by engaging in traditional anarchist practices, including
boycotts
,
labor strikes
,
rent strikes
and
tax resistance
, as well as by participating in the
police abolition movement
. Ervin also proposes that each community's needs be met by the communities themselves through the establishment of
community councils
,
mutual societies
and
cooperatives
, and by extending
common ownership
over food distribution, education and industrial production.
Black anarchism thus upholds a
revolutionary approach
to
Black nationalism
. Ashanti Alston considers black nationalism to have been an effective way to unite African Americans and drive forward social change, despite its historical problems with
sexism
and
hierarchy
. Alston proposes that revolutionary nationalists themselves are obliged to resolve any such problematic hierarchies within their movement, which would provide an anti-authoritarian approach to nationalism.
Black anarchists generally rejected narrow or explicit forms of anarchism that ignore issues of race and national oppression. Pedro Ribeiro defines it as a deformed "white, petty-bourgeois Anarchism that cannot relate to the people" and that refuses to talk or deal with issues of race by saying "No, don't talk about racism unless it is in that very abstract sense of we-are-all-equal-let's-sing-kumbayas-and-pretend-the-color-of-our-skin-does-not-matter anti-racism."
[37]
Ashanti Alston, who has explicitly used the term
Black anarchism
, also argued that "
Black culture
has always been oppositional and is all about finding ways to creatively resist oppression here, in the most racist country in the world [the United States]. So, when I speak of a Black anarchism, it is not so tied to the color of my skin but who I am as a person, as someone who can resist, who can see differently when I am stuck, and thus live differently."
[38]
As an anarchist, Alston added that he viewed
Black nationalism
as progressive yet also as deeply limited, stating that:
"
Panther anarchism is ready, willing and able to challenge old
nationalist
and revolutionary notions that have been accepted as 'common-sense.' It also challenges the bullshit in our lives and in the so-called movement that holds us back from building a genuine movement based on the enjoyment of life, diversity, practical
self-determination
and multi-faceted resistance to the "Babylonian" Pigocracy. This Pigocracy is in our 'heads,' our relationships as well as in the institutions that have a vested interest in our eternal domination.
"
[39]
[
verification needed
]
Contemporary
[
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Most recently, activists and scholars have emphasized the importance of Black anarchism in the formation of histories surrounding the
Black Liberation Army
,
Black Panther Party
and other modes of the Black
radical
tradition beginning with
slave rebellions
in the European colonies of the late 18th century to the present day. In
As Black As Resistance: Finding the Conditions of Liberation
, activists
William C. Anderson
,
Mariame Kaba
and
Zoe Samudzi
, describe the necessity of Black anarchism in current political struggles, arguing that:
"Black Americans are residents of a settler colony, not truly citizens of the United States. Despite a constitution laden with
European Enlightenment
values and a document of independence declaring certain inalienable rights, Black existence was legally that of private property until postbellum emancipation. The
Black American
condition today is an evolved condition directly connected to this history of slavery, and that will continue to be the case as long as the United States remains as an ongoing settler project. Nothing short of a complete dismantling of the American state as it presently exists can or will disrupt this."
[40]
See also
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]
References
[
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]
Bibliography
[
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]
Further reading
[
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]
- Anderson, William C. (2021).
The Nation on No Map: Black Anarchism and Abolition
.
AK Press
.
ISBN
978-1849354356
.
- Beswick, Spencer (2022). "From the Ashes of the Old: Anarchism Reborn in a Counterrevolutionary Age (1970s-1990s)".
Anarchist Studies
.
30
(2): 31?54.
doi
:
10.3898/AS.30.2.02
.
ISSN
0967-3393
.
S2CID
252748012
.
- Bey, Marquis (2020).
Anarcho-Blackness: Notes Toward a Black Anarchism
.
AK Press
.
ISBN
978-1849353762
.
- Emswiler, Aems DiNunzio (2020).
"Conditions of possibility": towards an archival praxis informed by Black feminist anarchism and a critical trans politics
(Thesis).
University of Texas at Austin
.
doi
:
10.26153/tsw/14268
.
- Gershon, Livia (5 September 2020).
"The Real Story of Black Anarchists"
.
JSTOR
.
- Holcomb, Gary Edward (2007).
Claude McKay, Code Name Sasha: Queer Black Marxism and the Harlem Renaissance
.
University Press of Florida
.
doi
:
10.5744/florida/9780813030494.001.0001
.
ISBN
9780813030494
.
- Insansa, Lisa (25 October 2022).
"To be ungovernable: on the history and power of Black anarchism"
.
gal-dem
.
ISSN
2517-6242
. Retrieved
21 March
2023
.
- Kom'boa Ervin, Lorenzo
(2021) [1988].
Anarchism and the Black Revolution
.
Pluto Press
.
ISBN
978-0-7453-4575-8
.
- Lovitt, Sean (2020).
Mimeo Insurrection: The Sixties Underground Press and the Long, Hot Summers of Riots
(Thesis).
University of Delaware
.
- Tenorio, Sam C. (2021). "Assata's escape as disincarceral practice".
Cultural Dynamics
.
33
(1?2): 1?17.
doi
:
10.1177/0921374020935137
.
ISSN
0921-3740
.
S2CID
225743651
.
- Tenorio, Sam C. (2022). "White Carceral Geographies".
South Atlantic Quarterly
.
121
(3): 515?539.
doi
:
10.1215/00382876-9825962
.
ISSN
0038-2876
.
S2CID
251365079
.
External links
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]