Pages from a Black Radical's Notebook: A James Boggs Reader

James Boggs

Wayne State University Press, 2011 - African Americans - 401 pages

Born in the rural American south, James Boggs lived nearly his entire adult life in Detroit and worked as a factory worker for twenty-eight years while immersing himself in the political struggles of the industrial urban north. During and after the years he spent in the auto industry, Boggs wrote two books, co-authored two others, and penned dozens of essays, pamphlets, reviews, manifestos, and newspaper columns to become known as a pioneering revolutionary theorist and community organizer. In Pages from a Black Radical's Notebook: A James Boggs Reader, editor Stephen M. Ward collects a diverse sampling of pieces by Boggs, spanning the entire length of his career from the 1950s to the early 1990s.

Pages from a Black Radical's Notebook is arranged in four chronological parts that document Boggs's activism and writing. Part 1 presents columns from Correspondence a newspaper written during the 1950s and early 1960s. Part 2 presents the complete text of Boggs's first book, The American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker's Notebook, his most widely known work. In Part 3, Black Power-Promise, Pitfalls, and Legacies, Ward collects essays, pamphlets, and speeches that reflect Boggs's participation in and analysis of the origins, growth, and demise of the Black Power movement. Part 4 comprises pieces written in the last decade of Boggs's life, during the 1980s through the early 1990s. An introduction by Ward provides a detailed overview of Boggs's life and career, and an afterword by Grace Lee Boggs, James Boggs's wife and political partner, concludes this volume.

Pages from a Black Radical's Notebook documents Boggs's personal trajectory of political engagement and offers a unique perspective on radical social movements and the African American struggle for civil rights in the post-World War II years. Readers interested in political and ideological struggles of the twentieth century will find Pages from a Black Radical's Notebook to be fascinating reading.

Contents

• Correspondence Newspaper: 35
• Talent for Sale 1954: 42
• Sensitivity 1955: 48
• Who Is for Law and Order? 1957: 54
• Land of the Free and the Hungry 1960: 60
• The First Giant Step 1961: 67
• The American Revolution: 75
• Introduction: 84
• The Challenge of Automation: 100
• The Classless Society: 106
• Peace and War: 120
• The Decline of the United States Empire: 126
• The American Revolution: 139
• Black Power Promise Pitfalls and Legacies: 145
• Liberalism Marxism and Black Political Power 1963: 157
• A Scientific Concept Whose Time Has Come 1967: 171
• Culture and Black Power 1967: 180
• Manifesto for a Black Revolutionary Party 1969: 195
• Putting Politics in Command 1970: 229
• Beyond Rebellion 1972: 251
• Think Dialectically Not Biologically 1974: 264
• Toward a New Concept of Citizenship 1976: 274
• The Next Development in Education 1977: 284
• Liberation or Revolution? 1978: 293
• The Challenge Facing AfroAmericans in the 1980s 1979: 306
• Community Building and Grassroots Leadership: 315
• Letter to Friends and Comrades 1984: 322
• An Idea Whose Time Has Come 1987: 331
• An Alternative to Casino Gambling 1988: 341
• We Must Stop Thinking Like Victims 1990: 347
• A No Vote Will Say Detroiters Want to Save Whats Left 1991: 353
• What Can We Be That Our Children Can See? 1991: 359
• We Can Run But We Cant Hide 1993: 365
• Afterword by Grace Lee Boggs: 371
• Index: 387

About the author

Stephen M. Ward is assistant professor at the University of Michigan in the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies (CAAS) and the Residential College.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Pages from a Black Radical's Notebook: A James Boggs Reader; African American life series
• Author: James Boggs
• Editor: Stephen M. Ward
• Publisher: Wayne State University Press, 2011
• ISBN: 0814332560, 9780814332566
• Length: 401 pages