A Promise and a Way Of Life: White Antiracist Activism

by Becky W. Thompson

The first in-depth look at white people’s activism in fighting racism during the past fifty years.

Not since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, when many white college students went south to fight against Jim Crow laws, has white antiracist activity held the public’s attention. Yet there have always been white people involved in fighting racism. In this passionate work, Becky Thompson looks at white Americans who have struggled against racism, offering examples of both successes and failures, inspirations, practical philosophies, and a way ahead. A Promise and a Way of Life weaves an account of the past half-century based on the life histories of thirty-nine people who have placed antiracist activism at the center of their lives. Through a rich and fascinating narrative that links individual experiences with social and political history, Thompson shows the ways, both public and personal, in which whites have opposed racism during several social the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, multiracial feminism, the Central American peace movement, the struggle for antiracist education, and activism against the prison industry. Beginning with the diverse catalysts that started these activists on their journeys, this book demonstrates the contributions and limitations of white antiracism in key social justice movements. Through these stories, crucial questions are Does antiracist work require a repudiation of one’s whiteness or can that identity be transformed through political commitment and alliances? What do white people need to do to undermine white privilege? What would it take to build a multiracial movement in which white people are responsible for creating antiracist alliances while not co-opting people of color? Unique in its depth and thoroughness, A Promise and a Way of Life is essential for anyone currently fighting racism or wondering how to do so. Through its demonstration of the extraordinary personal and social transformations ordinary people can make, it provides a new paradigm for movement activity, one that will help to incite and guide future antiracist activism.

Genres: Nonfiction, Race, Anti Racist, History, Social Justice, Sociology, Social Movements

512 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2001

Reviews

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've never read anything like this book, which is also what I said after I came across Elly Bulkin/Barbara Smith/Minnie Bruce Pratt's Yours In Struggle, and given the reading list I left this book with, it's shameful how hard it is for even a bibliophilic think-y bitch like me to find this stuff. Starkly, there's not a lot out there in a lineage of white people committed to anti-racism. As much as we can learn from BIPOC, and as much as anti-racism for white folks necessitates that learning & accountability, the experience of living whiteness & anti-racism in the same body is particular and I know that I need elders and examples of how the fuck to do it. Written in a straightforward way that builds history through both personal narratives of activists and explorations of themes and patterns throughout decades of organizing, this book looks at white anti-racist presence in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, the 1970s feminist movement (centering multiracial feminism & proposing revisions to the dominant narrative of feminist history), and multiple places and types of activism in the 1980s and 1990s (more fragmented, less Movement): the Central American Peace Movement, largely focused on sanctuary for refugees of US imperialism; prison activism (inside & outside); and anti-racist trainings that began to be so widespread as legislation mandated that businesses and organizations practice equity. It offered me glimpses into lineage that I had never known before, and consistently traced the tension, pain, and difficulty of this work, while illuminating the simple motivations for commitment to this life. It was consistently critical in a way I wish radicals & activists my age would figure out: with an eye to generative learning and self-accountability, not competition, nihilism, guilt, or never-enoughness. The book concludes with a brief chapter on "anti-racist culture," which I pretty much just cried the whole way through because I recognized my life and the lives of my chosen family in it, and I still felt so much distance/loss around what I recognized, and also because I'm Going Through Some Shit with my white family of origin right now that isn't unrelated to my unrelenting Politics and it's sad.

[Geoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is indeed a pretty incredible book using white anti-racists personal stories to reclaim the history of white folks struggling against white supremacy in the late 20th Century. There's solid stuff here on the civil rights movement, the new left, radical anti-imperialism, women's liberation, and the Central America Solidarity struggles detailing the ways in which white radicals worked for racial justice in solidarity with people of color. This is important history that we need to know and learn from. The stories the activists tell are often incredibly inspiring and there's real wisdom in here. Unfortunately in too often falls into the trap of individualism and guilt tripping. Both revolutionary Marxists and liberal bourgeois nonprofit bureacrats seem to fall in the scope of this book, which seems to point to an certain lack of political clarity. The fight against white supreamacy is absolutely central to the creation of a free society, but we need to remember that it's about collective struggle, and that being a good white person when it comes to race is worth struggling for, but it's sure as hell not enough.

[Elliott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book that works on many levels: history, biography, ethnography, primer, cautionary tale... For anyone who desires a better world this book wouldn't be a bad place to start.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came to this book off of the recommendations of white role models in antiracism from "Why Are All thr Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?"
I had two problems with how the premise was explored. Men were either supportive partners to strong women, or incarcerated. Likewise, many of the most spotlighted people are incaracerated. From the very sampling of highlighted stories, this presents a white man reading to learn about antiracist options the choice between: being a racist, becoming a secondary partner in your household, or becoming incarcerated as resuly of antiracist action. If those are truly the only stories, more evidence and narrative needs to be given.
This volume detours very heavily into feminism. While all activism is connected, the premise was communicated and substantiated over the first 30 pages. The section was nearly 100 pages.
In sum, this book is an excellent survey of movements, but doesn't fit a narrative of people so well as women in its current structure. There's a lot of good research, but the flow of information bogs down under repeated statements and a rhapsodic series of choruses of praise to lesbians who seem to have single-handedly saved multiple movements. I am glad to know it, but didn't need to read the same nearly identical story several times in a row to understand the point, particularly when other groups (straight women, men of any orientation) did not receive anywhere near the same level of prosody.

[Benjamin Fasching-Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thompson interviewed many activists from the McCarthy era on up to the 1990s and she combines their stories with background information. She periodically brings it all together, showing how whiteness or a kind of white blindness has affected the way certain movements and organizations have been presented in history books. She also shows interesting connections between white antiracist activists and their work from different decades, movements and attitudes. Although I am not out there putting my body on the line like these people, a lot of their thoughts and struggles with being white and antiracist resonated with me. This book is too honest and real to get the reader (or the author) to charge into the fight, but it does conclude with a call to be active in these dark times.

I really appreciated the author's discussion of how doing these interviews and writing this book affected her own worldview and self-perception. Also, I will be considering the idea that people with more privileges who take great risks for a cause that may not impact them so directly are people whose politics are less personal and more about principle.

[Christina Cathcart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I believe no race is better than another, but participating in antiracist work is not just about supporting diversity. White supremacy is a political & cultural system designed to suppress, enforced through mental abuse and physical violence, and keeps those who wish to subvert it in fear through acts of sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ablism and much more. It is on each of us to speak up in the face of injustice.

History has so much to teach us, and yet our generation is repeating the shameful practice of caging innocent brown bodies. This book is a inspiring lesson on the importance of fighting for something bigger than yourself.

The chapters on multiracial feminism are a wealth of information for anyone researching the elders of women’s liberation.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not an easy read as it is an academic work, but comforting and interesting to see a more comprehensive history of white people who have dedicated their lives to fighting racism and injustice. Their failures, successes, what they have learned and the costs of such work are helpful to those of us trying to make such work part of our own lives.

[Laurel Hirt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a lot reading this book. I highly recommend.

[Lo · Rating 1 out of 5]

When you use a line from a book I did not like (The Color Purple) as the framework in which to examine a subject that is of little interest to me, you're gonna have a free problems. It also did not help that the way in which this was recommended (ie leaving the book on my kitchen counter) was not unlike passive aggressively leaving a Dear Abby column on my fridge.

Also, the writing was a tad pedestrian. And this is coming from a lady who has a stack of Archie Comics on the back of her toilet. Trust me, I've done the legwork.

Have you met me? I am a girl looking for real, big, can't-live-with-out-it prose. (to paraphrase Carrie Bradshaw)

[Cait · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book captured my attention for the first 50 pages. Then it loses it's spark and becomes redundant. This was my second attempt to read this, and I just can't make it through. But like I said, the first 50 pages or so gave me a lot to think about.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a history of white antiracist work in the US since the 50's. It's fascinating and inspiring and has totally motivated me to get involved in activism again.