Jonathan Fenderson | Washington University in St. Louis (original) (raw)

Papers by Jonathan Fenderson

Building the Black Arts Movement, 2019

This chapter recounts the circumstances surrounding John Johnson’s decision to discontinue Black ... more This chapter recounts the circumstances surrounding John Johnson’s decision to discontinue Black World and terminate Hoyt Fuller. It recalls the broad national outcry and subsequent efforts by the Black intellectual community to replace the magazine with the short-lived journal First World. More than just an attempt to chronicle the life and death of a seminal Black periodical and its short-lived replacement, the chapter elucidates how these magazines’ respective trajectories embodied larger shifts and rifts among Black intellectuals and within the Black Arts movement. In recalling this history, the chapter explores the very meanings of Black intellectual community in the 1970s while paying close attention to intraracial class politics. In essence, it argues that the slow demise of Jim Crow exacerbated preexisting class (and ideological) divisions within the Black intellectual community, and these divisions, once inflamed, had a tremendous impact on Black institutions and the shape ...

Chicago History, 2024

A history of OBAC, and the central role played by Hoyt Fuller. Published in Chicago History: The ... more A history of OBAC, and the central role played by Hoyt Fuller. Published in Chicago History: The Magazine of the Chicago History Museum, as part of the catalogue for the Designing for Change: Chicago Protest Art of the 1960s-70s exhibit curated by Olivia Mahoney.

Western journal of black studies, Mar 22, 2008

White Money/Black Power: The Surprising History of African American Studies and the Crisis of Rac... more White Money/Black Power: The Surprising History of African American Studies and the Crisis of Race in Higher Education AUTHOR: NOLIWE ROOKS BEACON PRESS, BOSTON 2006 PRICE: $29.00 ISBN: 0807032700 Noliwe Rooks' White Money/Black Power: the Surprising History of African American Studies and the Crisis of Race in Higher Education is a provocative work on the history of the Black Studies Movement. Sharply focused on the Ford Foundation's efforts to shape Black Studies, the work reveals the important role of white philanthropy in the development of the discipline. Comprised of six chapters, White Money/ Black Power is divided into two major parts. According to Rooks' "The first is historical, and the second focuses on the legacy and relationship of the earlier period to today" (12-13). In the historical section, Rooks attempts to recast the history of the Black Studies Movement by making two major assertions. The first contention concerns the role of white students in the movement to establish Black Studies. Although Rooks argues that "at San Francisco State, Black, white, Native American, Asian, and Latino students rose up together, joined forces, and made or supported unequivocal demands" she places her emphasis on the reinsertion of white students, whom she believes the historical narrative has forgotten. In a chapter entitled "The White Student Protest Movement: Port Huron Statement", Rooks attempts to "disrupt comforting visual, historical, and oral narratives" by reminding the reader that white students were important actors in the protests for Black Studies (5). Rooks' claim however, is somewhat of an overstatement as most historical narratives have not failed to include the participation of whites. In Maulana Karenga's Introduction to Black Studies (2002), for example, the author declares that "the struggle to win Black Studies ... was supported by other Third World students and whites" (15). Similarly, Michael Thelwell's journalistic essay covering the events leading up to the Black Students occupation of Williard Straight at Cotnell, entitled "Negroes With Guns", also mentions the support of the Students for Democratic Society (SDS). The most important part of the historical section tells the story of McGeorge Bundy, former cold war National Security Director and Ford Foundation president from 1966-1970. Focused on his tenure with Ford, Rooks argues that Bundy sought to define his career with the Foundation by "solving America's racial troubles" (61). Bundy viewed the Foundation's support of Black Studies as a positive step in alleviating America's racial crisis. More importantly, in funding Black Studies, Rooks argues, Bundy and Ford "crafted a meaning and understanding of Black Studies that made hesitant administrators see Black radicalism as part of the American mainstream and Black Studies as a step toward racial inclusion in America in general, and within higher education in particular" (66). Bundy and Ford constructed a vision of Black Studies that hinged upon "an interdisciplinary program [model], dependent on traditional disciplines for faculty, funding, and legitimacy" (165) while eschewing, if not hindering, programs based on radical black politics. Essentially, Rooks' work situates Bundy and the Ford Foundation at the center of Black Studies' early development. Indeed, one of the major limitations of the first part, and Rooks' work overall, is that it is based solely on secondary sources. …

Western journal of black studies, Jun 22, 2008

... This page intentionally left blank Page 5. From Black Power to Black Studies How a Radical So... more ... This page intentionally left blank Page 5. From Black Power to Black Studies How a Radical SocialMovement Became an Academic Discipline Fabio Rojas The Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore Page 6. ... Social movement scholars often focus on mobilization processes. ...

The Journal of African American History, 2013

“When the revolution comes, guns and rifles will be taking the place of poems and essays,” declar... more “When the revolution comes, guns and rifles will be taking the place of poems and essays,” declared the Last Poets in 1970, “Black cultural centers will be forts supplying the revolutionaries with food and arms, when the revolution comes!” Serving as both social commentators and literary wordsmiths, the Last Poets accurately captured the explosion in black student activism that rocked U.S. college campuses in the 1960s and 1970s and ultimately altered the disciplinary boundaries of knowledge production around the globe. In the poem, the Last Poets described a world where pistols, carbines, soul food, and spoken word existed alongside well-worn issues of the Liberator, The Black Scholar, and the newly developed Black Studies courses; a world in which revolution was imminent and African American students were part of the vanguard. It is this world that authors Diane Brady, Ibram Rogers, and Martha Biondi attempt to recover, explore, and unpack in their monographs on the Black Studies Movement and black student protests in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The Black Scholar, 2018

If economics professor Richard Wolff is correct in his assessment that “class is one of the most ... more If economics professor Richard Wolff is correct in his assessment that “class is one of the most repressed discourses in this country,” then the current underdevelopment of class analysis in Black Studies may be another sign that the field has become status quo, reflecting dominant trends in American intellectual life. The real irony here is that this jettisoning of deep class analysis is occurring against the backdrop of
record levels of economic inequality and in the face of the Supreme Court’s Janus vs. AFSCME decision, essentially gutting the economic base of public-sector labor unions. Even worse, Black Studies scholars have remained relatively quiet about the decision, which not only serves as a frontal assault against labor but an attack on Black folks and women who tend to be overrepresented in public sector jobs.

Race & Class 55(1): 1-22, Jul 2, 2013

The recent explosion in US scholarship on the Black Power Movement provides the context for this ... more The recent explosion in US scholarship on the Black Power Movement provides the context for this close reading and textual analysis of Peniel Joseph's latest book, "Dark Days, Bright Nights: from Black Power to Barack Obama." Taking into account the context of the book's appearance and the critical public debate surrounding it, this article unpacks Joseph's discussion of Black Power, paying particular attention to his rendering of 'self-determination' and other key political ideologies. It asks what is at stake for Black radical memory when knowledge production on the Black Power Movement is governed by the dictates of the American marketplace and, more specifically, the publishing industry. In addition, it briefly reconnoiters the ways that Black radical (collective) memory can serve as a counterbalance to the erasures of marketplace history, and keep us attentive to the contemporary pertinence and unfinished business of the past. The article closes by highlighting some alternative routes taken by scholars concerned with the future of Black Power Studies.

Journal of African American Studies 16(1): 1-20 , Mar 2012

With a beginning remarkably different than conventional academic disciplines, Black Studies emerg... more With a beginning remarkably different than conventional academic disciplines, Black Studies emerged on the American college campus amidst Black Power protests and student demands. Now more than forty years old, Black Studies exists as an established discipline constituted by a robust scholarly discourse, an ever-expanding body of innovative interdisciplinary literature, hundreds of collegiate programs at the undergraduate level, a growing number of graduate and doctoral programs, and some of the world's most well-known intellectuals. This introduction-and special issue of the Journal of African American Studies-explores the origins and history of the Black Studies Movement in the United States. Our aim in this volume is to bring the political history to the forefront. Based on historical detail and deep archival research, the works ground the history of Black Studies in the radical Black politics of the late 1960s and 1970s, while emphasizing local materiality and ideological developments. The contributions in this special issue recover some of the names (and faces) of Black Studies' founders, offering a range of perspectives on the movement to establish the field both within and without the American academy.

James Turner has been at the center of the modern Black Studies Movement since its emergence in t... more James Turner has been at the center of the modern Black Studies Movement since its emergence in the 1960s, as an extension of the Black Power Movement. Since his days as a student activist at Northwestern University he has remained a consistent voice in the struggle to expand the discipline and re-write scholarship on the people of Africa and the African Diaspora. This detailed oral history interview chronicles the life of the initiator of the term "Africana Studies" and the founding director of Cornell University's Africana Studies and Research Center. Aside from addressing contemporary debates and interrogating his own writings in this area, the interview also draws parallels between Turner's unique career as a scholar-activist and the experiences of others working in African-American, African Diaspora and Africana Studies.

Journal of Black Studies, Jan 1, 2009

This article is a critical rejoinder to Manning Marable's "Beyond Brown: The Revolution in Black ... more This article is a critical rejoinder to Manning Marable's "Beyond Brown: The Revolution in Black Studies," featured in the Summer 2005 issue of The Black Scholar. Written in the form of a letter, the article addresses the role of professional organizations within the field of Black Studies and the failed commitment on behalf of "public intellectuals" to build and maintain these disciplinary institutions. Through an interrogation of scholarly writings, current events, conventional media coverage, and various organizational documents, the article lobbies for a recommitment to broad-based dialogue and professional Black Studies associations. Furthermore, it critically engages and outlines developing trends in the field of Black Studies, like institutional under/development, "theoretical balkanization," and the emergence of paradigmatic schools of thought.

The Black Scholar, Jan 1, 2008

The assassination of Lumumba created in me the kind of deep-running sadness...I had long had a se... more The assassination of Lumumba created in me the kind of deep-running sadness...I had long had a sense of myself not simply as an Akan, an Ewe, a Ghanaian and a West African, but most strongly as an African. It was as an African, then, that I contemplated, then understood, Lumumba's murder.

Books by Jonathan Fenderson

Building the Black Arts Movement: Hoyt Fuller and the Cultural Politics of the 1960s, 2019

As both an activist and the dynamic editor of Negro Digest, Hoyt W. Fuller stood at the nexus of ... more As both an activist and the dynamic editor of Negro Digest, Hoyt W. Fuller stood at the nexus of the Black Arts Movement and the broader black cultural politics of his time. Jonathan Fenderson uses historical snapshots of Fuller's life and achievements to rethink the period and establish Fuller's important role in laying the foundation for the movement. In telling Fuller's story, Fenderson provides provocative new insights into the movement's international dimensions, the ways the movement took shape at the local level, the impact of race and other factors, and the challenges--corporate, political, and personal--that Fuller and others faced in trying to build black institutions. An innovative study that approaches the movement from a historical perspective, Building the Black Arts Movement is a much-needed reassessment of the trajectory of African American culture over two explosive decades.