Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color (Stanford Studies in Comparative Race and Ethnicity) by Michael R. Fischbach


Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color (Stanford Studies in Comparative Race and Ethnicity)
Title : Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color (Stanford Studies in Comparative Race and Ethnicity)
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 1503605450
ISBN-10 : 9781503605459
Language : English
Format Type : Hardcover
Number of Pages : 296
Publication : Published November 20, 2018

The 1967 Arab–Israeli War rocketed the question of Israel and Palestine onto the front pages of American newspapers. Black Power activists saw Palestinians as a kindred people of color, waging the same struggle for freedom and justice as themselves. Soon concerns over the Arab–Israeli conflict spread across mainstream black politics and into the heart of the civil rights movement itself. Black Power and Palestine uncovers why so many African Americans―notably Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Muhammad Ali, among others―came to support the Palestinians or felt the need to respond to those who did. Americans first heard pro-Palestinian sentiments in public through the black freedom struggle of the 1960s and 1970s. Michael R. Fischbach uncovers this hidden history of the Arab–Israeli conflict's role in African American activism and the ways that distant struggle shaped the domestic fight for racial equality. Black Power's transnational connections between African Americans and Palestinians deeply affected U.S. black politics, animating black visions of identity well into the late 1970s. Black Power and Palestine allows those black voices to be heard again today. In chronicling this story, Fischbach reveals much about how American peoples of color create political strategies, a sense of self, and a place within U.S. and global communities. The shadow cast by events of the 1960s and 1970s continues to affect the United States in deep, structural ways. This is the first book to explore how conflict in the Middle East shaped the American civil rights movement.

Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color (Stanford Studies in Comparative Race and Ethnicity) Reviews

  • Justin Pellis

    I can't stop recommending this book to my friends!

    This book is not meant to persuade. Fischbach compiles real "old-school research" to illustrate how African American politics and power dynamics were closely intertwined with peoples' stances on the Israel/Palestine conflict.

    A fresh and relevant historical perspective on the American racial struggle. Set in the '60s, '70s, and '80s.

  • Lesley

    Many white Jewish and Christian supporters of Israel proudly point to Martin Luther King's statements in defense of the Jewish state, in which he equated anti Zionism with Antisemitism. Yet as Fischbach demonstrates in this amply researched and documented account, King's view was largely a minority one among both radical and middle of the road African Americans during the 60s, 70s and early 80s. The Black Power, Black Arts, Black Panthers and SNCC movements were all solidly pro Palestinian, seeing the Palestinian struggle against dispossession as part of a global struggle of black and brown indigenous people against European colonialism. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference, with its focus on Jewish-Christian brotherhood and Israel as a spiritual homeland was seriously out of step, as was Bayard Rustin's neoconservative Black Americans to Support Israel Committee. While Rustin, Roy Wilkins and A Philip Randolph were Israel supporters, such legendary figures as Angela Davis, Stokeley Carmichael (Kwame Ture), Jesse Jackson and Shirley Chisholm were vocal critics, and even King himself expressed reservations after visiting Jerusalem and the West Bank. After Andrew Young, the first Black US representative to the United Nations, was forced to resign after defying US policy to meet with the Palestine Liberation Organization, even the more conservative NAACP and SCLC began speaking out against Israel, with their leaders traveling to Palestine to meet with Yasir Arafat, and the Black Theology Project issuing a statement equating Israel with apartheid South Africa.

    A much needed response to the oversimplified narrative of "mainstream" Black support for Zionism.

  • Charlotte Richardson

    A very interesting read.

  • Maxx Brown

    Book was awesome and informative. Shows how Black Americans came of age internationally. Also sad to see the same things still going on today.