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The fascinating history of white solidarity with the Black Power movement
In the mid-1960s, as the politics of Black self-determination gained steam, Black activists had a new message for white activists: Go into your own communities and organize white people against racism. While much of the media at the time and many historians since have regarded this directive as a “white purge” from the Black freedom movement, Say Burgin argues that it heralded a new strategy, racially parallel organizing, which people experimented with all over the country. Organizing Your Own shows that the Black freedom movement never experienced a “white purge,” and it offers a new way of understanding Black Power’s relationship to white America.
By focusing on Detroit from the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s, this volume illuminates a wide cross-section of white activists who took direction from Black-led groups like the Northern Student Movement, the City-Wide Citizens Action Committee, and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. Organizing Your Own draws on numerous oral histories and heretofore unseen archives to show that these white activists mobilized support for Black self-determination in education, policing, employment, and labor unions. It was a trial-and-error effort that pushed white activists to grapple with tough questions – which white people should they organize and how, which Black-led groups should they take direction from, and when did taking Black direction become mere sycophancy. The story of Detroit’s white fight for Black Power thus not only reveals a broader, richer movement, but it carries great insight into questions that remain relevant.
"Few have explored how white allies worked in solidarity with Black Power activists to develop campaigns parallel to their Black comrades’ organizing. No book has gathered their stories together and developed a coherent analysis of their diverse politics and activism like Organizing Your Own. As white allies wonder how they can best work in solidarity with struggles for Black Freedom today, the larger questions that Say Burgin asks remain urgent. How, she wonders, might we learn from these activists’ successes and challenges?"
"Organizing Your Own is an important intervention in Black Power historiography, not least because its focus on Detroit raises so many questions... Burgin deserves praise for encouraging historians of Black Power to wrestle with those questions in the future."
"Burgin’s research uncovers a new archive for scholars of Black Power, offering previously unexplored materials for consideration. Drawing on personal papers, oral interviews, autobiographies, and newspaper clippings, Burgin constructs organizational histories and archival collections that largely did not exist before her scholarly contribution. The book is written accessibly and will become a staple in the historiography of the Black Freedom Struggle in the North."
"Burgin’s research on the alliance of white activists stepping up to support Black Power in white neighborhoods in Detroit is a significant contribution to American history. Burgin has revealed a treasure chest filled with the lost history of racially parallel organizing."
Say Burgin is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Dickinson College.