Rethinking The Red Power Movement

"Rethinking the Red Power Movement examines Red Power ideology with a focus on its many forms of solidarity with African Americans, the role of gender in shaping the movement, its international expansion, and its current meaning in contemporary activism. The Red Power Movement is often considered the apex of Indigenous activism in the 20th century. While diverse, the movement is typically told through four actions. Beginning with the occupation of Alcatraz in 1969, followed by the Trail of Broken Treaties in 1972, Wounded Knee in 1973, then culminating with the Longest Walk in 1978, there is a clear jumpstart, middle, and end to the Red Power Movement. Through a chronological approach, this study makes the case that Red Power never died--and neither did Indigenous activism. Instead, it shows how Indigenous peoples found many ways to push forward Indigenous sovereignty and continue to call on the United States to value Indigenous possibilities for justice, freedom, and power. This book is useful for students and scholars interested in 20th century America, social movements, and the history of Indigenous activism"--

Rethinking the Red Power Movement examines Red Power ideology with a focus on its many forms of solidarity with African Americans, the role of gender in shaping the movement, its international expansion, and its current meaning in contemporary activism. The Red Power Movement is often considered the apex of Indigenous activism in the twentieth century. While diverse, the movement is typically told through four actions. Beginning with the occupation of Alcatraz in 1969, followed by the Trail of Broken Treaties in 1972, Wounded Knee in 1973, then culminating with the Longest Walk in 1978, there is a clear jumpstart, middle, and end to the Red Power Movement. Through a chronological approach, this study makes the case that Red Power never died—and neither did Indigenous activism. Instead, it shows how Indigenous peoples found many ways to push forward Indigenous sovereignty and continue to call on the United States to value Indigenous possibilities for justice, freedom, and power. This book is useful for students and scholars interested in twentieth century America, social movements, and the history of Indigenous activism.

The Black Power Movement remains an enigma. Often misunderstood and ill-defined, this radical movement is now beginning to receive sustained and serious scholarly attention. Peniel Joseph has collected the freshest and most impressive list of contributors around to write original essays on the Black Power Movement. Taken together they provide a critical and much needed historical overview of the Black Power era. Offering important examples of undocumented histories of black liberation, this volume offers both powerful and poignant examples of 'Black Power Studies' scholarship.

The Black Power Movement is one of the most controversial phenomenas in post-war America. This book provides a historical interpretation of the period during the 1960s which started a movement that redefined black identity. It is meant for scholars and students looking for a historical meaning behind the Black Power Movement.

Although it is one of the least-known social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the Asian American movement drew upon some of the most powerful currents of the era, and had a wide-ranging impact on the political landscape of Asian America, and more generally, the United States. Using the racial discourse of the black power and other movements, as well as antiwar activist and the global decolonization movements, the Asian American movement succeeded in creating a multi-ethnic alliance of Asians in the United States and gave them a voice in their own destinies. Rethinking the Asian American Movement provides a short, accessible overview of this important social and political movement, highlighting key events and key figures, the movement's strengths and weaknesses, how it intersected with other social and political movements of the time, and its lasting effect on the country. It is perfect for anyone wanting to obtain an introduction to the Asian American movement of the twentieth century.

Gosse, one of the foremost historians of the American postwar left, has crafted an engaging and concise synthetic history of the varied movements and organizations that have been placed under the broad umbrella known as the New Left. As one reader notes, gosse 'has accomplished something difficult and rare, if not altogether unique, in providing a studied and moving account of the full array of protest movements - from civil rights and Black Power, to student and antiwar protest, to women's and gay liberation, to Native American, Asian American, and Puerto Rican activism - that defined the American sixties as an era of powerfully transformative rebellions...His is a 'big-tent' view that shows just how rich and varied 1960s protest was.' In contrast to most other accounts of this subject, the SDS and white male radicals are taken out of the center of the story and placed more toward its margins. A prestigious project from a highly respected historian, The New Left in the United States, 1955-1975 will be a must-read for anyone interested in American politics of the postwar era.

The first book-length biography of Richard Oakes, a Red Power activist of the 1960s who was a leader in the Alcatraz takeover and the Red Power Indigenous rights movement A revealing portrait of Richard Oakes, the brilliant, charismatic Native American leader who was instrumental in the takeovers of Alcatraz, Fort Lawton, and Pit River and whose assassination in 1972 galvanized the Trail of Broken Treaties march on Washington, DC. The life of this pivotal Akwesasne Mohawk activist is explored in an important new biography based on extensive archival research and key interviews with activists and family members. Historian Kent Blansett offers a transformative and new perspective on the Red Power movement of the turbulent 1960s and the dynamic figure who helped to organize and champion it, telling the full story of Oakes’s life, his fight for Native American self-determination, and his tragic, untimely death. This invaluable history chronicles the mid-twentieth century rise of Intertribalism, Indian Cities, and a national political awakening that continues to shape Indigenous politics and activism to this day.

How do we explain not just the survival of Indian people in the United States against very long odds but their growing visibility and political power at the opening of the twenty-first century? Within this one story of indigenous persistence are many stories of local, regional, national, and international activism that require a nuanced understanding of what it means to be an activist or to act in politically purposeful ways. Even the nearly universal demand for sovereignty encompasses multiple definitions that derive from factors both external and internal to Indian communities. Struggles over the form and membership of tribal governments, fishing rights, dances, casinos, language revitalization, and government recognition constitute arenas in which Indians and their non-Indian allies ensure the survival of tribal community and sovereignty. Whether contesting termination locally, demanding reparations for stolen lands in the federal courts, or placing their case for decolonization in a global context, American Indians use institutions and political rhetorics that they did not necessarily create for their own ends.