Anarchism and the Black Revolution by Komboa Ervin Lorenzo;Anderson William C.;James Joy;

Author:Komboa Ervin, Lorenzo;Anderson, William C.;James, Joy;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pluto Press

A CALL FOR A NEW BLACK PROTEST MOVEMENT

The Black Autonomists recognize there has to be a whole new social movement, which is ultra-democratic, on the grassroots level and is self-activated. It will be a movement independent of the major political parties, the state and the government, or control by white radicals. It must be a movement that, although it seeks to expropriate government money for projects to benefit the people, does not recognize any progressive role for the government in the lives of the people. The government will not free us and is part of the problem rather than part of the solution. In fact, only the Black masses themselves can wage the Black freedom struggle, without a government bureaucracy (like the U.S. Justice Department), reformist civil rights leaders like Jessie Jackson, or a revolutionary vanguard party on their behalf.

Of course, at a certain historical moment, a protest leader can play a tremendous revolutionary role as a spokesperson for the people’s feelings, or even produce correct strategy and theory for a certain period (Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey and Martin Luther King, Jr. come to mind) and a “vanguard party” may win mass support and acceptance among the people for a time (e.g., the Black Panther Party of the 1960s), but it is the Black masses themselves who will make the revolution and, once set spontaneously in motion, know exactly what they want. The people must empower themselves.

Though leaders may be motivated by good or bad, they will ultimately act as a brake on the struggle, especially if they lose touch with the freedom aspirations of the Black masses. They will be bought off, beat off, killed off, or imprisoned. Leaders can only really serve a legitimate purpose as an advisor and catalyst to the movement and should be subject to immediate recall if they act contrary to the people’s wishes. In that kind of limited role they are not leaders at all—they are community organizers. Community organizers can help to build a movement, but they cannot truly lead.

The dependence of the Black movement on charismatic leaders and leadership (especially the Black bourgeoisie in this period) has led us into a political dead end. We are expected to wait and suffer quietly until the next messianic leader asserts him or herself, as if he or she were “divinely missioned by God” (as some have claimed to be). What is even more harmful is many Black people have adopted a slavish psychology of “obeying and serving our leaders,” without considering what they themselves are capable of doing in their own communities.

Thus, rather than trying to analyze the current situation and carrying on Brother Malcolm X’s work in the community against racial oppression, they prefer to bemoan the brutal facts, for year after year, of how he was taken away from us. Some mistakenly refer to this as a “leadership vacuum.” The fact is there has not been much “movement” in the Black revolutionary movement since his assassination and the virtual destruction of groups like the Black Panther Party.

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