Diverse Approaches of Civil Rights Activists Explored in New University of Arkansas Press Book

Photo Submitted

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Agitations: Ideologies and Strategies in African American Politics, by Kevin R. Anderson (cloth $34.95), examines African American political activisim from the 19^th century to the present, specifically how the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, though unified in their common idea of resistance to oppression, fought their battles on multiple fronts.

The NAACP filed lawsuits and aggressively lobbied Congress and state legislatures, while Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference challenged the racial status quo through nonviolent mass action, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee focused on community empowerment activities. In Agitations, Anderson studies these various activities in order to trace the ideological foundations of these groups and to understand how diversity among African Americans created multiple political strategies.

According to Adolph Reed, co-author of Renewing Black Intellectual History: The Ideological and Material Foundations of African American Thought, Anderson’s book is “a cogent account of the trajectory of black American strategic political thought in the 20^th century.” Lucius J. Barker, professor emeritus of political science at Stanford University, said the book “skillfully weaves political theory with practical politics in the context of our overall democratic governing system.”

Anderson, a University of Arkansas alumnus, is assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University. Agitations is dedicated to the memory of Diane Blair, one of his university instructors, and is available at the University of Arkansas Bookstore in the Arkansas Union.