Racial Liberalism: Connecting Protest and Electoral Politics Today

Sanford F. Schram and Richard C. Fording

The year is 2020, not 1968. There has been extensive commentary about the protests over the recent murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police suggesting parallels to the black insurgency of the late 1960s, including especially the massive number of riots that occurred in cities across the country in 1968. A number of historians have incisively pointed out differences as well. In particular, Tom Sugrue has noted the diversity of today’s protesters compared to the exclusively black composition of the 1968 rioters. It is true that outrage over police brutality directed primarily at African-American men was similarly the spark that ignited many riots back then in addition to those that broke out with the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr, in the spring of 1968. And today’s uprising represents the culmination of efforts by the #BlackLivesMatter movement that carried forward that legacy of resistance ever since the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri by policeman Darren Wilson in 2014 had re-ignited the smoldering flames of frustration with the persistence of racialized policing in America. Yet, the largely black protesters of #BlackLivesMatter have now been joined by a diverse set of allies who for a variety of reasons support that resistance. The racial diversity of the protesters is noteworthy for many reasons, but not…