CFP: Urban Rebellions in the 1960s

During the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, activists used marches, boycotts, sit-ins, picketing and other forms of peaceful protest to achieve desegregation and racial equality, protection from state and vigilante white supremacist violence, along with socioeconomic inclusivity through social and legal channels. However, some African Americans rejected nonviolent protest and advocated for Black self-defense and rebellion to combat racial discrimination and oppression. From 1964 through the 1970s, events like the 1963 Ku Klux Klan (KKK) bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama that killed four young Black girls, the 1965 arrest of Marquette Frye in Los Angeles, California, the 1968 assassination of civil rights activist Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and a variety of police brutality cases sparked over 250 uprisings nationwide, providing a voice to African Americans who felt victimized, powerless, silenced, and angry about the overt and covert racism, discrimination, and violence that existed in their everyday lives. In honor of the 60th Anniversary of the Urban Rebellions of the 1960s that began in Harlem in July 1964, the editors of Black Perspectives, the award-winning blog of the African American Intellectual Society (AAIHS), invite submissions from scholars interested in the legacy of the Urban Rebellions of the 1960s, given the historical scholarship academics like Gerald Horne, Thomas Sugrue, Heather Ann Thompson, Matthew Countryman, and Elizabeth K. Hinton have cultivated in the field in the last three decades. These essays should consider, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• The impact and aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement
• The causes and effects of deindustrialization in urban cities
• The Black Power Movement and ideas of self-sufficiency and self-defense
• Activists and protest movements against police violence
• Social inequality and racial justice in labor, housing, and education
• Race, class, and gender aspects of urban uprisings

Submissions should be between 750 and 1500 words. They must be submitted to the senior editors no later than Tuesday, April 30th at 11:59 pm Eastern time. With your submission, please provide your bio (250-300 words) and a headshot (for use if your essay is accepted).

All submissions will undergo a peer review process before they are accepted. Please click here for more details on the blog’s submission guidelines as well as information regarding format and citations.