Pages from a Black Radical's Notebook: A James Boggs ReaderBorn 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. |
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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 |
The Challenge of Automation | 100 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
| 387 | |
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| Title | Pages from a Black Radical's Notebook: A James Boggs Reader African American life series |
| Author | James Boggs |
| Editor | Stephen M. Ward |
| Contributor | Grace Lee Boggs |
| Publisher | Wayne State University Press, 2011 |
| ISBN | 0814332560, 9780814332566 |
| Length | 401 pages |
| Subjects | › › › Social Science / Ethnic Studies / American / African American & Black Studies Social Science / Sociology / Urban |
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