When #BlackLivesMatter emerged in 2013, it animated the most consequential Black-led mobilization since the civil rights and Black power era. Today, the hashtag-turned rallying cry is but one expression of a radical reorientation toward Black politics, protest, and political thought. We’re joined today by the author of a book about the past 10 years of political movement, Christopher Paul Harris. His book To Build a Black Future examines the spirit and significance of this insurgency, offering a revelatory account of a new political culture—responsive to pain, suffused with joy, and premised on care—emerging from the centuries-long arc of Black rebellion, a tradition that traces back to the Black slave.
Drawing on his own experiences as an activist and organizer, Christopher Paul Harris takes readers inside the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) to chart the propulsive trajectory of Black politics and thought from the Middle Passage to the present historical moment. Carefully attending to the social forces that produce Black struggle and the contradictions that arise within it, Harris illustrates how M4BL gives voice to an abolitionist praxis that bridges the past, present, and future, outlining a political project at once directed inward to the Black community while issuing an outward challenge to the world.
FUND DRIVE SPECIAL – Pledge $200 and receive To Build a Black Future by Christopher Paul Harris. Essential reading for the age of #BlackLivesMatter, this visionary and provocative book reveals how the radical politics of joy, pain, and care, in sharp contrast to liberal political thought, can build a Black future that transcends ideology and pushes the boundaries of our political imagination.
Follow Christopher Paul Harris on Twitter: https://twitter.com/black_poethics
FUND DRIVE SPECIAL – Pledge $100 and receive a black zippered sweatshirt celebrating the first year anniversary of KPFA’s newest current affairs program Law & Disorder – on the front it has KPFA’s logo, and on the back, the logo of Law & Disorder with Cat Brooks & Jesse Strauss, with the show’s tag-line: Expose, Agitate, Build.
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