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History. Sociology. Nonfiction. HTML:An intersectional history of the shared struggle for African American and Latinx civil rights Spanning more than two hundred years, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history, arguing that the �??Global South�?� was crucial to the development of America as we know it. Scholar and activist Paul Ortiz challenges the notion of westward progress as exalted by widely taught formulations like �??manifest destiny�?� and �??Jacksonian democracy,�?� and shows how placing African American, Latinx, and Indigenous voices unapologetically front and center transforms US history into one of the working class organizing against imperialism. Drawing on rich narratives and primary source documents, Ortiz links racial segregation in the Southwest and the rise and violent fall of a powerful tradition of Mexican labor organizing in the twentieth century, to May 1, 2006, known as International Workers�?? Day, when migrant laborers�??Chicana/os, Afrocubanos, and immigrants from every continent on earth�??united in resistance on the first �??Day Without Immigrants.�?� As African American civil rights activists fought Jim Crow laws and Mexican labor organizers warred against the suffocating grip of capitalism, Black and Spanish-language newspapers, abolitionists, and Latin American revolutionaries coalesced around movements built between people from the United States and people from Central America and the Caribbean. In stark contrast to the resurgence of �??America First�?� rhetoric, Black and Latinx intellectuals and organizers today have historically urged the United States to build bridges of solidarity with the nations of the Americas. Incisive and timely, this bottom-up history, told from the interconnected vantage points of Latinx and African Americans, reveals the radically different ways that people of the diaspora have addressed issues still plaguing the United States today, and it offers a way forward in the continued struggle for universal civil rights. 2018 Winner of the PEN Oakl… (more)
User reviews
This book is full of that reality. Due to it's framing of being a history of African American and Latinx history the story of the two presented in this work is very much and joined and mutually supportive movement for economic justice and equality against racist capitalism.
It is a sweeping history, so for more in-depth looks at the various periods touched on the notes section would be more helpful than the text itself. And, sometimes the time periods listed as chapter headers are clearly more guidelines than rules.
However, for a more casual reader like myself, I found that the author's chosen voices to highlight with full quotes to be very illuminating. As someone who was educated in predominately white rural schools, these are voices who I was largely never exposed to prior. Or, in some cases, quotes from lionized figures that shine a light on the more insidious truths of the nation's foundations.
A very good read.
The first half focuses on the inspiration Black people in the US drew from liberation movements across Latin America, and the support they espoused for
There are too many great books on the African American experience for me to list, but to learn about Latinx history I strongly recommend Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States, and Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America, two excellent (and complementary) books.