We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in the American Century

by Rod Bush

An "Indispensable" Book of The Black World Today website

"In broad strokes, Bush takes readers from the early challenges to the accommodationism of Booker T. Washington through the tumultuous years of the 1960s."
--Choice

"This story of Black social movements in the U.S., as seen from the inside by a theoretically sophisticated and committed analyst, is mandatory reading for those who don't knowthis story, which is most of us."
--Immanuel Wallerstein

"A crucially important and incisive work on the Black Power movement, its aftermath and its antecedents. By not treating race and class as an 'either/or' proposition . . . Bush has given us one of the mostcomprehensive analyses of the current crisis of Black leadership thatI've read in a very long time, on par with Harold Cruse's classicCrisis of the Negro Intellectual and Cedric Robinson's Black Marxism:The Making of the Black Radical Tradition."
--Robin D. G. Kelley

"Rod Bush's We Are Not What We Seem is a wonderfully idiosyncratic tour through a plethora of twentieth-century African American movements."—The Journal of American History

"Fascinating . . . A must read for students of politics and social movements and a basic text for Black militants and students in Black Studies."
--Abdul Alkalimat, The University of Toledo

Much has been written about the Black Power movement in the United States. Most of this work, however, tends to focus on the personalities of the movement. In We Are Not What We Seem, Roderick D. Bush takes a fresh look at Black Power and other African American social movements with a specific emphasis on the role of the urban poor inthe struggle for Black rights.

Bush traces the trajectory of African American social movements from the time Booker T. Washington to the present, providing an integrated discussion of class. He addresses questions crucial to any understanding of Black politics: Is the Black Power movement simply another version of the traditional American ethnic politics, or does it have wider social import? What role has the federal government played in implicitly grooming social conservatives like Louis Farrakhan to assume leadership positions as opposed to leftist, grassroots, class-oriented leaders? Bush avoids the traditional liberal and social democratic approaches in favor of a more universalistic perspective that offers new insights into the history of Black movements in the U.S.

Genres: History, Labor

Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Lawrence Grandpre · Rating 5 out of 5]

On of very few mainstream academic text defending the revolution nature of Black Nationalism. Through the African blood brotherhood, Malcolm x, and the black panthers, the text explains the historical limitations of class first analysis and Marxism while defending symchretic and revolutionary form of Black Nationalism as empirically essential and revolutionary struggle. With nuance and appropriate analysis of the limitations of Marxism and the labor movement, the text explains how cointelpro and social attacks on revolutionary Black Nationalism leads to more conservative forms taking power. The text is clearly done in response to the million man March and the farakhan fear that gripped liberal and leftist spaces in the 90s. I fear the text under estimates the degree of anti nationalist sentiment in the academy, as it relatively obscurity shows, even intelligent empirical and nuanced defense of black nationalism seem just too difficult for the academy to assimilate.

[Malik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not sure how I haven't heard of this book earlier, actually it makes sense considering his favorable view of nationalism was seen as stuck in the old times (he was writing in 1999). Bush's focus on the contributions of poor and working class Blacks also distinguishes this book from other texts talking about the history of African American social movements. I would compare parts of this book to Harold Cruse 's Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, and its discussion of ideological trends among African Americans starting during the turn of the 20th century. His discussion of the radical labor movements in the northern industrial cities was also appreciated, labor history in America tends to focus on euroamericans. Bush does a great job of contextualizing different elements of Black social movements with domestic and international happenings. There is something for every person in this book, will consider getting a physical copy.