Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Blacks and the Alabama U.S. Senatorial Race
Ken Morgan
13 Dec 2017
🖨️ Print Article
Blacks and the Alabama U.S. Senatorial Race
Blacks and the Alabama U.S. Senatorial Race

“The capitalist moribund two-party electoral politics takes us down a dead-end road.”

Democrat Doug Jones’ hair’s-breadth win Republican Roy Moore is being hailed as a great victory. In reality, it makes no difference.

An unemployed Alabama black construction worker John Dewayne Richardson provided food for thought. According to the Washington Post, he said, “People don’t vote because they don’t feel their votes matter because nothing is going to change. What difference is it going to make?”

Did not Obama or Trump v. Clinton or JFK teach us a lesson? The capitalist moribund two-party electoral politics takes us down a dead-end road. Even the Jackson experiment and the Black Lives Matter movement are bound and limited by bourgeois electoral politics.

Instead, start with independent political action movement beyond mainstream, electoral politics. Give it an anti-capitalist base. Add massive doses of anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-homophobia, and pro-immigration. Give it an internationalist view. Our allies represent oppressed people of the world.

“Even the Jackson experiment and the Black Lives Matter movement are bound and limited by bourgeois electoral politics.”

Get over the dump Trump syndrome. Instead, dump capitalism with its bourgeoisie electoral politics. It is not about replacing Trump with Bernie Sanders types. The capitalist economic crisis is real. Attacks will continue lowering wages, cutbacks in social areas as well as attacks on our democratic rights.

Alabama’s history is strewn with varying degrees of independent black politics – not relying on electoral politics. Black miners’ activated struggles in the 1890s and turn of the century. Organizing black sharecroppers signaled still another method. The modern civil rights era brought us Rosa Parks and the E.D. Nixon-inspired Montgomery bus boycott.

Birmingham’s Rev. Shuttleworth’s 1956 efforts to end segregation in that city woke up the struggle. Dr. King’s Birmingham SCLC campaign exemplified another form of battle not led by electoral politics. The Selma to Montgomery marches marks another epoch struggle.

“Alabama’s history is strewn with varying degrees of independent black politics – not relying on electoral politics.”

The Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO) helped usher in a more concentrated form of independent black politics mixed with black solidarity, and black awareness. The group helped to create a transition from civil rights to black rights. LCFO, with its symbolized black scowling panther, was nicknamed the Black Panther Party, aided by SNCC field secretaries that Stokely Carmichael led.

True, none of these Alabama episodes were anti-capitalist. They did contain seeds of independent politics that spawns it. My argument is that these happenings included elements of independent, albeit different methods, of struggle.

Spontaneous reaction to black oppression is not enough. The black working class and black working class-minded sisters and brothers must be the central leadership.

Alabama represents fertile ground. Build the movement!

Dr. Morgan is a Black, and internationalist activist scholar. He can be reached at kmorgan2408@comcast.net

duopoly

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Arnold August
Genocide as the Principal Cause of the Democrat’s Crushing Defeat
04 December 2024
While genocide is a clear cause of the democrats' defeat, economic issues are usually mentioned.
Black Alliance For Peace
No Matter Who Sits in the White Peoples’ House, the War Being Waged by the U.S. Colonial/Capitalist Class Against the Black Colonized Working Class and All Oppressed Peoples and Nations Will Continue
20 November 2024
Originally published in Black Alliance for Peace
Malaika Jabali
In Milwaukee, Many Black Voters Aren’t On Board With Either Party
31 July 2024
The city’s abstainers could determine who wins Wisconsin, a critical swing state, this November.
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
War, Genocide and Coups: Biden/Harris and The Irreversible Crisis of Neoliberal Fake Democracy
24 July 2024
One of the defining characteristics of the current crisis is the speed at which contradictory social, political and ideologic
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
For African/Black Working Class and Colonized Peoples, Midterm Elections in the U.S. Offer No Relief from War, Repression and Capitalist Misery
10 July 2024
This article was
Democratic Party Betrayal, Abortion, and the Supreme Court
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Democratic Party Betrayal, Abortion, and the Supreme Court
08 December 2021
Democrats have been fooled into thinking that only the courts can protect abortion rights.
Elections and the Illusion of Black Political Power
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Elections and the Illusion of Black Political Power
03 November 2021
Black politicians may be openly conservative or pretend leftists but their constituents rarely get what they need.
Biden is No FDR  and Build Back Better Legislation Proves It
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Biden is No FDR and Build Back Better Legislation Proves It
27 October 2021
The idea that Joe Biden is the "most progressive president since FDR" is a propaganda device meant to quiet the Democratic Party left and force
Senators Bonnie and Clyde - 1% soldiers of fortune
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Senators Bonnie and Clyde - 1% soldiers of fortune
27 October 2021
                                         
Some provisions of Biden’s “Build Back Better” legislation benefit the masses of Black people, but this legislation is a bare minimum effort to blunt some of the sharpest contradictions of the system while attempting to maintain the neoliberal order.  
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Build Back Better Legislation: New Keynesianism or Neoliberal Public Relations Stunt?
06 October 2021
Some provisions of Biden’s “Build Back Better” legislation benefit the masses of Black people, but this legislation is a bare minimum effort to

More Stories


  • Demonstrators in Niger
    Black Alliance for Peace Africa Team
    BAP’s Africa Team and U.S. Out of Africa Network Applauds Niger’s Move to Expel AFRICOM
    03 Apr 2024
    In another step toward the achievement of its national sovereignty, Niger recently declared the United State's military presence in the country illegal.
  • NY Panther 21
    Dhoruba bin-Wahad
    55th Anniversary of the NY Panther 21 Case
    03 Apr 2024
    The trial of the New York Panther 21 was the moment in the Black liberation movement that ushered in an era of intensified state repression and violence and increasingly aggressive tactics…
  • Uhuru
    Penny Hess
    Chairman Omali Yeshitela, Uhuru 3 put state on trial in fightback against bogus charges
    03 Apr 2024
    Three members of the Uhuru Movement were recently indicted on charges related to operating as "unregistered foreign agents." This attack has huge implications for free speech everywhere.
  • Bassirou Diomaye Faye
    Abayomi Azikiwe
    Senegal Elects New President
    03 Apr 2024
    After months of social unrest, the youngest leader in the West African state’s history will take office pledging a progressive program.
  • Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black and Brown Coalition for Palestine Meets with South African Foreign Minister
    29 Mar 2024
    We hear from a Black and Brown coalition in Chicago about their meeting with minister Naledi Pandor of South Africa and their mobilizations for solidarity with Palestine.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us