“Not Your Grandmamma’s Civil Rights Movement”

A New Take on Black Activism

Abstract

The article reflects on how the failure of the post-racial ideal, evident in the many forms of institutionalized racism that still plague American society, has shaped a new approach to black activism. Weaving together several theoretical frameworks – critical race studies, the history of black social movements, visual studies, black feminism, intersectionality theory and life narrative studies – I analyze how #BlackLivesMatter and other contemporary movements for social justice have ignited a new phase of black activism which rejects many of the strategies employed by previous generations of black organizers, such as the focus on respectability politics and the tendency to favor charismatic male leadership. In this context, contemporary activism is giving space to more inclusive and participatory policies, based on the work of women and LGBTQ people and on a bottom-up rather than a hierarchical, top-down approach. The focus of
#BlackLivesMatter on humanity, moreover, can be interpreted as a struggle for human rights rather than civil rights, which further differentiates the movement from earlier phases of black militancy. In the last section of the article I briefly consider how this new approach to activism is represented in When They Call You a Terrorist (2018), the recently published memoir of #BlackLivesMatter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors.