What do you think?
Rate this book
Black Radical: The Education of an American Revolutionary
Black Fire , the celebrated first volume of Nelson Peery's riveting autobiography, told the story of his childhood and teenage years during the Depression and his subsequent political awakening as a soldier in the all-black 93rd Infantry Division in World War II. In this electrifying sequel, Peery picks up where Black Fire ends, beginning with his integration back into civilian life following the war, and describing the development of his revolutionary consciousness as he attempts to move from first-class soldier to first-class civilian. Black Radical offers a rare perspective and a new and fascinating vantage on the crucial historical period from 1946 through 1968, including the postwar grassroots struggle for equality and democracy led by black veterans, the battles of the black left and revolutionaries during the McCarthy inquisition and their role in the freedom movement, and the 1965 Watts rebellion in Los Angeles, where Peery and his family were living at the time. Above all, Black Radical is about the education of an American revolutionary amid the continuing struggles to bring to life the ideals that Peery and so many others fought for in World War II.
242 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2007
2 people are currently reading
165 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 14, 2012
This book is in many ways a chronicle of failure, but failure can be very enlightening.
As many have said, Nelson Peery's memoirs are essential reading for any student of American history and the intersections of politics and race. Black Radical traces, from a personal perspective, lines of activity within the black activist and leftist communities that led to the civil rights struggle. Many people don't realize that the civil-rights struggle was initially nurtured within the larger internationalist struggle against capitalism.
What interested me particularly was the extent to which Peery was able to cling to the ideological principles of political revolution despite observing persistent setbacks and hypocrisies. Of course, a committed revolutionary can't afford to doubt his mission and one can't help but respect Peery's tenacity. He is, after all, a bricklayer, and a very good one. His story, while recounting political turbulence is also a story of personal triumph. At the same time, I don't see how leftist revolutionaries such as Peery keep from recognizing that people are primarily opportunists that desire pleasure, something that almost always overwhelms their rational need for a fair and just society.
Peery recounts plenty of instances in his own book that a prime stumbling block for American communism is American opportunism. Throughout, he introduces clues that the ideological struggle is too much for flesh-and-blood humans to live up to. Party members engage in hustling and opportunism (the true ideology of America) and Peery at times even writes about his conviction as though it's a religion, which seemed to me almost an admission that it relies on illusion. He even refers to Communists at one point as "believers," which he may have meant ironically, I'm not sure. The reality is, it seems, people function emotionally and sensually far more than ideologically. Even revolutionaries smoke Marlboros and kick comrades out of the party for being black.
I read this book shortly after observing the crackdown and subsequent disarray of the Occupy movement which had intrigued me as a version of the recurrent impulse toward some sort of anti-Capitalist revolution in America. Like the Communist groupings that Peery chronicles in this book, Occupy seemed to me to subvert itself through its allegiance to ideology rather than thinking pragmatically within the realities of American capitalism and the security apparatus that guards it. Already during the 50s and 60s that Peery writes about, the CIA, FBI and police apparatus had assumed an anti-revolutionary power that was impossible to effectively oppose. Occupy members opposed an even greater power, but seemed unaware of what they were really up against, preferring to cling to ideology even when it seriously endangered the movement.
[SPOILER ALERT]
Peery ends his book, interestingly, on a religious note. In the context of the Watts rebellion in the 60s (one of the book's most exciting segments), his identity as a victimized black man appears to overcome his political ideology and his writing falls back on the black American tradition of appealing to Jesus for deliverance. The lament gives the book's close a DuBois-like eloquence, but hit me like yet another instance of why revolution as ideologically conceived is doomed to failure.
The dream of international Communism seems more and more dated these days. Personally, I would like to see more revolutionaries conceive of fair versions of capitalism rather than unrealistically longing for a world without it, but I still found Peery's story well worth reading. It is full of interesting insights that remain valid, such as how the white majority chooses black leaders and manipulates black movements, as well as how hard it is to negotiate political principles and racial identity, possibly the single greatest dilemma this country has. It is, finally, the story of a man living in a double bind, being both black and Communist in a time when it was very hard to be either, let alone both.
As many have said, Nelson Peery's memoirs are essential reading for any student of American history and the intersections of politics and race. Black Radical traces, from a personal perspective, lines of activity within the black activist and leftist communities that led to the civil rights struggle. Many people don't realize that the civil-rights struggle was initially nurtured within the larger internationalist struggle against capitalism.
What interested me particularly was the extent to which Peery was able to cling to the ideological principles of political revolution despite observing persistent setbacks and hypocrisies. Of course, a committed revolutionary can't afford to doubt his mission and one can't help but respect Peery's tenacity. He is, after all, a bricklayer, and a very good one. His story, while recounting political turbulence is also a story of personal triumph. At the same time, I don't see how leftist revolutionaries such as Peery keep from recognizing that people are primarily opportunists that desire pleasure, something that almost always overwhelms their rational need for a fair and just society.
Peery recounts plenty of instances in his own book that a prime stumbling block for American communism is American opportunism. Throughout, he introduces clues that the ideological struggle is too much for flesh-and-blood humans to live up to. Party members engage in hustling and opportunism (the true ideology of America) and Peery at times even writes about his conviction as though it's a religion, which seemed to me almost an admission that it relies on illusion. He even refers to Communists at one point as "believers," which he may have meant ironically, I'm not sure. The reality is, it seems, people function emotionally and sensually far more than ideologically. Even revolutionaries smoke Marlboros and kick comrades out of the party for being black.
I read this book shortly after observing the crackdown and subsequent disarray of the Occupy movement which had intrigued me as a version of the recurrent impulse toward some sort of anti-Capitalist revolution in America. Like the Communist groupings that Peery chronicles in this book, Occupy seemed to me to subvert itself through its allegiance to ideology rather than thinking pragmatically within the realities of American capitalism and the security apparatus that guards it. Already during the 50s and 60s that Peery writes about, the CIA, FBI and police apparatus had assumed an anti-revolutionary power that was impossible to effectively oppose. Occupy members opposed an even greater power, but seemed unaware of what they were really up against, preferring to cling to ideology even when it seriously endangered the movement.
[SPOILER ALERT]
Peery ends his book, interestingly, on a religious note. In the context of the Watts rebellion in the 60s (one of the book's most exciting segments), his identity as a victimized black man appears to overcome his political ideology and his writing falls back on the black American tradition of appealing to Jesus for deliverance. The lament gives the book's close a DuBois-like eloquence, but hit me like yet another instance of why revolution as ideologically conceived is doomed to failure.
The dream of international Communism seems more and more dated these days. Personally, I would like to see more revolutionaries conceive of fair versions of capitalism rather than unrealistically longing for a world without it, but I still found Peery's story well worth reading. It is full of interesting insights that remain valid, such as how the white majority chooses black leaders and manipulates black movements, as well as how hard it is to negotiate political principles and racial identity, possibly the single greatest dilemma this country has. It is, finally, the story of a man living in a double bind, being both black and Communist in a time when it was very hard to be either, let alone both.
December 30, 2020
Nelson Peery was a wonderful human being, a dedicated radical who I was privileged to know for a short time. Black Radical chronicles his political education and activism from the time he got out of the Army after serving with the all-black 92nd Division in the Pacific through his time in Watts where he witnessed the 1965 rebellion. Combining thorough familiarity with classic Marxist texts with his experience as a bricklayer, steelworker, and roofer, Peery developed an approach that resisted abstraction and rhetoric while concentrating on mobilizing communities with an understanding of how their struggle would improve their everyday lives.
November 23, 2008
Nelson Peery, a forgotten soldier on the front lines of the Civil Rights movement, tells his story of returning home from World War II and having his heart broken, as he hears of his black brothers in arms, who fought fascism only to return to see it live and well in America. The opening fifty pages are riveting as he describes reading in the Chicago Defender the horrors of his fellow veterans in the south being lynched and burnt because they defied southern bigotry. A history from below as you've never read it. Accounts of meeting Malcolm X on the streets, hearing and working the Communist Party with his hero Paul Robeson, and an all night party at his parent's house in Minneapolis with Lead Belly. Warm and fierce, Barack Obama stands on the long legs of these unsung Black Vets who started a movement that changed and is changing the world. A continuation of his much prized, Black Radical. A pal of our beloved Studs Terkel, who called it "A gripping powerhouse of a book."
July 25, 2011
There is a degree of lifelong passion in Nelson Peery that I can see starting to well up in me. His convictions were solid, and he has never let them go. It was disappointing to see that more are not reading books like this. It was only published in 2007, and I found it in the bargain bin at Barnes and Noble for $1. It's excellent reading and gives an insight into the Black freedom struggle that a white man like me can never fully understand. I like his quote which sadly sums up most Americans..."There goes the American. Generous, decent, and so damned dumb that all his good qualities are blocked". He was referring to a couple he had met that were kind to him but completely unaware of the social and political situation around them, that can apply to so many who are disengaged.
February 22, 2016
Following Mr. Peery into his postwar reintegration into civilian life and his engagement with the Communist Party USA this book spans about 1945 to late 1960's.
Again Peery's writing is interesting and his personal journey entirely compelling, navigating the internal politics of the CPUSA at a time when the Left was in constant attack from the McCarthy-era conservatism, the personal history well captures the unique black experience of this era.
Eventually landing in Watts, Peery was also at ground zero for the riots and early nationalist struggles that were to unfold throughout the late 60's and early 70's.
Peery gets five stars(!), book gets 4.5, because I wanted more of his life shared into the 1970's...
Again Peery's writing is interesting and his personal journey entirely compelling, navigating the internal politics of the CPUSA at a time when the Left was in constant attack from the McCarthy-era conservatism, the personal history well captures the unique black experience of this era.
Eventually landing in Watts, Peery was also at ground zero for the riots and early nationalist struggles that were to unfold throughout the late 60's and early 70's.
Peery gets five stars(!), book gets 4.5, because I wanted more of his life shared into the 1970's...
February 8, 2008
I had read Nelson Peery's first memoir, Black Fire, and heard him speak at the public library probably in 1995. His writing powerful and poetic.
Black Radical picks up where Black Fire ends, and has many lessons important to be learned. One of these is Peery's recounting of the struggles of Black WWII veterans for civil rights in the late 1940's. The Civil Rights movement really started then.
Black Radical picks up where Black Fire ends, and has many lessons important to be learned. One of these is Peery's recounting of the struggles of Black WWII veterans for civil rights in the late 1940's. The Civil Rights movement really started then.
December 6, 2012
Eye opening, I am ashamed that I never knew of the experiences of African Americans in this era, and the challenges that they faced dealing with racism, classism, and the FBI.
April 19, 2017
I enjoyed reading about Nelson Peery's life--which is definitely interesting and unusual--and the ways that it illustrated the exteme racial discrimination of the post WWII-mid 60s, as well as the roles that the communist organizations he was a part of played during this time. I'd actually never heard of him or the organizations he was part of before reading this book, so it was very informative.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews