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

James Boggs, Stephen M. Ward

Wayne State University Press, 2011 - Political Science - 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 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: 37
• Viewing Negro History Week 1954: 43
• The Stage That We Have Reached 1955: 50
• Who Is for Civilization? 1957: 56
• What Makes Americans Run 1960: 63
• A Visit From the FBI 1961: 69
• The American Revolution: 75
• Introduction: 84
• The Challenge of Automation 700: 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 777: 171
• Culture and Black Power 1967 780: 180
• Manifesto for a Black Revolutionary Party 1969 795: 186
• 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
• Authors: James Boggs, Stephen M. Ward
• Editor: Stephen M. Ward
• Publisher: Wayne State University Press, 2011
• ISBN: 0814332560, 9780814332566
• Length: 401 pages
• Subjects: Political Science / Labor & Industrial Relations; Social Science / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies; Social Science / Sociology / Urban