Chapter Eight: We Need A Movement
Organizing is our superpower.
Forty-four years after being forced onto the shores of the burgeoning capitalist state, Black people began organizing.
The Gloucester County Rebellion occurred in Virginia in 1663 when enslaved Africans and white indentured servants organized themselves. The 1676 Virginia Bacon’s Rebellion included enslaved Black people. There were over 250 slave rebellions in the United States between the 17th and 19th. That is an enormous amount of organizing by Black people.
The Free African Society (FAS) was a mutual aid society founded in Philadelphia in 1787 by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones. The FAS provided fellowship, a place of worship, and money for members and their families and assisted newly freed Black people. By 1794, the organization had over 70 members and established St. Thomas’s African Episcopal Church.
In 1881, Black washerwomen in Atlanta organized the Washing Society and went on strike to demand higher wages and better working conditions. Within three weeks, the Washing Society grew to 3,000 members. After two weeks, the washerwomen won a pay increase of 25 cents per dozen pounds of laundry and greater work autonomy.
Black people organize. Organizing is our superpower.
Revolutionary Organizations
The Civil Rights Movement was mass because it relied on replicable local action with a common agenda.
There are a plethora of black revolutionary organizations all over the country that can work as the infrastructure of an Equitable Society Movement.
- Black Alliance for Peace
- All African People’s Revolutionary Party
- African Peoples Socialist Party
- The New Black Panther Party
- Lowndes County Freedom Democratic Party
- Party for Socialism and Liberation
- Black Socialist USA
There is a need for another Black Radical Congress to debate and adopt a revolutionary agenda and consolidate the many and myriad Black Revolutionary organizations. The first Black Radical Congress was an organizing effort culminating in the Black Radical Convention in Chicago in 1998. The Congress resulted in the Black Radical Congress Freedom Agenda. The Freedom Agena speaks to everything I’ve mentioned; I’ve just attempted to give more specifics.
Coming out of the second Black Radical Congress, we should share the Equitable Society movement in the black community by doing seminars at churches, community organizations, fraternities, and sororities. The Equitable Society movement should support and not support political candidates who support the agenda items. Radicals should seek to elect city council members, state representatives, and Senators who support the items. Radicals should build coalitions with other oppressed groups around these agenda items.
The Equitable Society movement should invade mainstream organizations like the Urban League, NAACP, and local political parties. We can also build grassroots support by teaching in churches, civic associations, fraternities, and sororities.
The Equitable Society movement Agenda items have city- and state-level versions that radicals can move on. The most important thing is building a power base of voters who subscribe to these agenda items and building voting coalitions that subscribe to these agenda items. Having a clear agenda is the first step in radical action, then being able to communicate that agenda to black people. Last is combining the agenda and the people to bring about actual change in the system.
Legislation and institutional change codify change in America.
The Equitable Society Agenda is a reform agenda with a revolutionary vision. It prioritizes achieving radical change while acknowledging America’s historic ability to forestall revolution with strategic reform and violence. The Equitable Society Agenda seeks root changes to American politics and economy. Achieving the agenda will take decades of sustained effort and mass movement building. Think of it as a slow-motion revolution–over three decades, perhaps. Enacting this agenda would have a profound impact on America. We would move significantly away from capitalism and closer to an equitable society. Change, as with most things in America, will be gradual, but the cumulative effect of these reforms would be revolutionary. Building grassroots, state-by-state support for an Equitable Society over time is, in essence, the revolution. When pursued strategically and persistently, incremental reforms can lead to transformative change.
