Tinson - Radical intellect: Liberator magazine and black activism in the 1960s

Radical Intellect

Radical Intellect

LiberatorMagazine and Black Activism in the 1960s

CHRISTOPHER M. TINSON

The University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

2017 The University of North Carolina Press

All rights reserved

Set in Charis by Westchester Publishing Services

Manufactured in the United States of America

The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Tinson, Christopher M., author.

Title: Radical intellect : Liberator magazine and black activism in the 1960s / Christopher M. Tinson.

Description: Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017009457 | ISBN 9781469634548 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781469634555 (pbk : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781469634562 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH : African AmericansPolitical activityHistory20th century. | Liberator (New York, N.Y.: 1961) | African American political activists. | African AmericansPeriodicals. | African AmericansCivil rightsHistory20th century. | Anti-imperialist movementsUnited StatesHistory20th century. | Social movementsUnited StatesHistory20th century. | Black powerUnited StatesHistory20th century. | African AmericansRace identityHistory20th century.

Classification: LCC E 185.615 . T 59 2017 | DDC 323.1196/073dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017009457

Cover illustration: Front cover photograph, Liberator , June 1964 (courtesy of Pete Beveridge).

Portions of this book have been previously published in a different form as Manning Marable and the Triumph of American Liberalism in Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention , in A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marables Malcolm X , ed. Jared A. Ball and Todd Steven Burroughs (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 2012); Harlem, New York! Harlem, Detroit! Harlem, Birmingham!: Liberator Magazine and the Chronicling of Translocal Activism, The Black Scholar 41, no. 3 (Fall 2011): 916.; and The Voice of the Black Protest Movement: Notes on the Liberator Magazine and Black Radicalism in the early 1960s, The Black Scholar 37, no. 4 (Winter 2008): 315. Used here with permission.

Myrtle Hines

Desmond Bevel

Charles Mac Tinson

William Bill Little

Al Hines

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

A book project is never the work of a singular individual alone. I have been blessed to know and benefit from the knowledge, expertise, and company of many amazing people.

First and foremost are my partner, Kyngelle, and our son, Caiden: thank you for your love and patience and for immensely supporting my work; my incredible mother, Marie L. Hines Tinson; LaShawnda, Jennifer, Leslye, Ted, Jade, Resean, Hunter, Dominic, Rene Monroe and family; BJ, Terrance, Sly, Bruce, Karl, G, Dre, Steve, Itch, Tina, and AaronTinsons, Hines, Normans, Russells, and Williams wherever we be. I hope you all are proud of this athlete-turned-scholar. Special thanks go to Vilaire Charlot; Kevin, Fabienne, and Ayanna Maxwell; Nitza Martinez and family; and Gil and Kim Traverso. To my first schoolteachers, Mrs. Thompson, Mrs. Lacefield (RIP), and Mrs. Hunter, thank you for planting the seed of love for learning. Your unwavering support has lifted me up for years.

Thanks go to the Liberator family whom I met through this work: Carlos E. Russell, Pete Beveridge, C. E. Wilson, Ossie Sykes, Richard Gibson, and the family of Dan Watts; and also Askia Tour, and Calvin Hicks; special appreciation goes to the Liberator crew who passed away before the completion of this book: Clayton Riley and Charlie Russell. This would not have become a book without you all and the work you did and continue to do.

Thanks go to my mentors, Ernest Allen, John Bracey, and Bill Strickland, whose names opened many doors with many of the activists I interviewed for this book and who have been a reservoir of knowledge and materials since the beginning; also, huge thanks and praise go to Esther Terry, James Smethurst, Ekwueme Michael Thelwell, Dayo Gore, Steve Tracy, Manisha Sinha, Nancy R. Mirabal, the great Wade W. Nobles, Nelson Stevens, Maddie and Roberto Marquez, Amilcar and Dee Shabazz, Agustn Lao-Montes, Joye Bowman and John Higginson, Charles E. Jones, Akinyele Umoja, Susan Tracy, and Sabine Broeck (University of Bremen, Germany). Thanks also go to the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University, the Africana Studies department at California State University Dominguez Hills, and the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Many thanks go out to The Black Scholar , the Journal of African American History , the National Council for Black Studies, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, and the TRGGR Media Collective.

Many thanks to the staff at UNC Press, especially my editor, Brandon Proia. Thanks also to Jad Adkins, Michelle Witkowski, and Jen Burton. You all have been professional and in my corner throughout the process. Thank you to the anonymous readers of earlier drafts of this book. Your critical feedback made this a much better book.

The staffs at the following libraries and library collections were of great help to this work: the John Henrik Clarke and Larry Neal Papers at the Schomburg Center, and especially archivist Stephen Fullwood; the W. E. B. Du Bois Library at University of Massachusetts Amherst; the Robert W. Woodruff Library at Atlanta University Center; Amherst College Special Collections; Harold Cruse Papers and George Breitman Papers at NYUs Tamiment Library; Joellen El Bashir at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Library at Howard University; Patrice M. Kane at the Fordham University Archives and Special Collections; and Peter Higgins at WGBH Boston archives.

The colleagues and dear friends who have inspired my work and kept the path lit are many: Carlos Rec McBride, Jonathan Fenderson, K. C. Nat Turner, Anthony Ratcliff, Viveca Greene, Wilson Valentn-Escobar, kara lynch, Amy Jordan, Korina Jocson, Sujani Reddy, and Jennifer Guglielmo (who deserves a special shout out for providing incredible advice, energy, and feedback at critical stages of this project), Ousmane Power-Greene, Dana Finkelstein, Omar Dahi, Suheir Hammad, Micaela J. Daz-Snchez, Allia Matta, McKinley Melton, Tanisha Ford, Whitney Battle-Baptiste, Trevor Baptiste, Johanna Fernandez (NYC), Noura Erakat, Aracelis Girmay, Djola Branner, Daniel Kojo and Anna Schrade, Branwen Okpako, Sonya Donaldson, Hiba Bou Akar, Rachel Amma Engmann, Jutta Sperling, Roosbelinda Crdenas, John Murillo, Sara Lennox, Bob Rakoff, Marlene Fried, Frank Holmquist, Eva Rueschmann, Jonathan Lash, Lynn Pasquerella, Hassan Johnson, Thabiti Asukile, Orisanmi Burton, Cedric Gilmore, Morris Jones, Mary Bombardier, Karina Fernandez, Evelin Aquino, Charles Payne, Tricia Loveland, Shelly Perdomo, Carla Wojczuk, Connie Wun, Deroy Gordon and Zahra Caldwell, Davarian Baldwin, Jakobi Williams, Mike Funk, Vanessa Lynch, Jorge Pop Master Fabel and UZN, Theresa Mama Kuji Cooper Gordon, sister-in-struggle Jacquelyn Smith-Crooks, Ingrid Mama Ing Askew, Judyie Al-Bilali, Andrea Battle, Sebastian Weier (Germany), Jamal Watson, David Goldberg, David Lucander, Shawn Alexander, Russell Rickford, Sam Roberts, Christina Greer, Saulo Colon, Sean Arce, Jelisa Difo, Keita Grace, Revan Schendler, Chyrell George, Jean Sepanski, and Carol Boudreau.