Author Archive

The Fire Last Time: Post-civil rights black politics

Written by Norman Kelley on . Posted in Books, Posts

Black Political Organizations in the Post- Civil Rights Era is a slim but worthwhile collection that examines the role of the country’s leading black organizations in the post-civil rights era. Published by Rutgers University Press, its general diagnosis is that organizations like MLK’s SCLC, NAACP, CORE and the Urban League have floundered in the last
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HNIC #3: Al Sharpton and the Slow Death of Black Politics

Written by Norman Kelley on . Posted in Breaking News, Posts

"I’m qualified, probably more qualified than any other person who is expected to be on the Democratic ticket for 2004, because I actually have a following and I speak for the people." So boasts Rev. Al Sharpton as he prepares his campaign to secure the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, a campaign that has all of
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Black Cultural Criticism, Inc.

Written by Norman Kelley on . Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

Once upon a time, not too long ago, a wise minister pondered a paradox. He wondered, how is it that black intellectuals more than 100 years ago, "endowed with few resources, facing every imaginable form of racial disenfranchisement, living in a world of routine racist lynchings–conducted an intellectually serious program of cooperative and engaged research,
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K.R. Timmerman’s Shakedown

Written by Norman Kelley on . Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

When Frantz Fanon wrote his seminal work Wretched of the Earth more than 40 years ago, his chapter on violence and the colonial situation was either condemned by the establishment or lauded by revolutionary anticolonial intellectuals and activists. His most prescient chapter–"The Pitfalls of National Consciousness"–outlined the corruption and cronyism that would befall those nations
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Dear Hillary: Are You Already Selling Out Black New Yorkers?

Written by Norman Kelley on . Posted in Breaking News, Posts

Dear Hillary: Are You Already Selling Out Black New Yorkers? Dear Hillary:     I want to congratulate you on your recent electoral victory as senator of the state of New York. Undoubtedly you are one of the most influential, if not controversial, Americans of our time, and your presence in the august halls of Congress will
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WBAI Is Its Own Worst Enemy

Written by Norman Kelley on . Posted in Breaking News, Posts

Last year the battle for the Pacifica radio network raged over a confrontation between the network’s mother station, KPFA (Berkeley), and the Pacifica Foundation, the "corporate" holder of the network’s licenses for its five radio stations. Initially, it began when Nicole Sawaya, KPFA’s station manager, was dismissed by Lynn Chadwick, Pacifica’s then-executive director. Shots were
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Arming America

Written by Norman Kelley on . Posted in Books, Posts

Arming America By Michael Bellesiles (Knopf, 603 pages, $30) The new scholarship, according to David Thelen, the Journal’s editor, was viewed as "too obscure to appreciate and too remote from everyday life." He believed that the profession had gotten to the point where dazzling people with the unfamiliar and erudite had become more important than
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