Black Power and James Baldwin, World War and the Cap Times

Expand

The Capital Times (Wisconsin Historical Society Press), by Dave Zweifel and John Nichols

In 1946 the Capital Times was the only major newspaper in Wisconsin that refused to endorse Joe McCarthy in his U.S. Senate race. History made the editors proud of their decision. The scrappy Madison paper marked its centennial last year and is the subject of this narrative by two of its editors, Dave Zweifel and John Nichols. Refusing to hide behind the mask of objectivity, the Capital Times has always been an advocate of progressive politics. Zweifel and Nichols organize their account in chapters devoted to the causes the Cap Times has adopted, including opposition to the military-industrial complex, environmental degradation, racial discrimination and, yes, McCarthyism. Often, the Cap Times was at the leading edge of opposition, a stand that continues in the 21st century struggle against Scott Walker’s Koch-driven policies.

The Defeat of Black Power: Civil Rights and the National Black Political Convention of 1972 (Louisiana State University Press), by Leonard N. Moore

Integrate or separate? Work within the system or tear the system down? The two trains of African-American activism were already pulling apart during the lifetime of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. The gap widened after King’s assassination, culminating in the little-remembered National Black Political Convention of 1972, the subject of Leonard N. Moore’s study. A history professor at the University of Texas Austin, Moore paints a picture of a diverse gathering—delegates arrived wearing dashikis, Brooks Brothers suits and combat fatigues. They grappled with charting “an agenda that the masses could agree upon.” The delegates managed to produce one, yet the black power movement faded rapidly as African Americans actually gained power in municipalities around the nation leaving militants on the fringe.

A Political Companion to James Baldwin (University Press of Kentucky), edited by Susan J. McWilliams

The subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary drawn from his words, I Am Not Your Negro, James Baldwin (1924-1987) returned to the center of public discussion over the past few years. His interrogatory yet fundamentally humane perspective on American racism sounds as prescient as ever. This essay collection examines Baldwin’s thoughts from many angles, including his distrust of all ideologies, the role of status anxiety in perpetuating American racism, the delusional disconnection from the past in a present haunted by ghosts, the moral responsibility of improving the world, the ability to recognize oneself in others. One theme emerging through many of the essays is the impossibility of confining Baldwin’s ideas in tidy little boxes. The poet’s responsibility, he once declared, “is to defeat all labels and complicate all battles.”

Remembering World War I in America (University of Nebraska Press), by Kimberly J. Lamay Licursi

Americans emerged from World War II with a feeling of great accomplishment: America, indeed, the world, was saved from great evil. World War I was another story altogether. In Remembering World War I in America, Siena College history professor Kimberly J. Lamay Licursi argues, “Americans simply forgot the war after the first few parades welcoming the doughboys home.” Licursi has forgotten—among other things—the Bonus Army, a march on Washington by those same doughboys demanding pay for their service. Her thesis is also undermined by her own table of war movies and their box office revenues, which shows no less than seven Hollywood hits from before World War II, including the propagandistic Sergeant York (1941) and the enduring All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). But she is correct to point out that the strength of enthusiasm carrying America into the conflict was soon reversed by skepticism over the war’s objectives and the peace that followed. The larger purpose of World War II eclipsed the dodgier pursuits of the earlier war in the public imagination.