[To achieve . . . structural change will require the rapid
development of new forms of leadership and new organizational
structures for the protest movement.] [[link removed]]

2020 UPRISINGS, UNPRECEDENTED IN SCOPE, JOIN A LONG RIVER OF STRUGGLE
IN AMERICA   [[link removed]]

 

Matthew Countryman
June 7, 2020
The Conversation
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_ To achieve . . . structural change will require the rapid
development of new forms of leadership and new organizational
structures for the protest movement. _

Protesters filled the newly named Black Lives Plaza, near the White
House, on June 6, 2020 in Washington, DC., Win McNamee/Getty Images

 

The river was the metaphor that best captured “the long, continuous
movement” of the black freedom struggle for theologian, historian
and civil rights activist Vincent Harding
[[link removed]]. Harding,
who had served as a speechwriter for Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.,
wrote in his groundbreaking 1981 study of African-American history,
“There is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America
[[link removed]]”
that the freedom struggle was “sometimes powerful, tumultuous,
roiling with life; at other times meandering and turgid.”

When I think of the sudden, explosion of anti-racist protest that has
overwhelmed the nation’s cities over the past two weeks, it is
Harding’s metaphor of the river that comes to mind.

It is as if the dam has broken, and the many currents of the American
protest tradition — not just the anti-racist tradition
[[link removed]],
but the anti-corporate
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and anti-war
[[link removed]]
protest traditions; women’s
[[link removed]],
LGBTQ
[[link removed]]
and student [[link removed]]
movements; movements for workers’ rights
[[link removed]]
and economic justice
[[link removed]] — have all
come together in a massive river of outrage and sorrow, exhilaration
and hope.

This weekend, tens of thousands of protesters joined the river in
massive demonstrations in hundreds of cities across the country, from
New York City to Jackson, Michigan, from Washington D.C. to
Louisville, from Philadelphia to Seattle.

The River of Protest

Numerous commentators
[[link removed]]
have compared the events of the past few days to the urban uprisings
that shook 125 cities
[[link removed]]
in the aftermath of the April 4, 1968, assassination of Martin Luther
King, Jr.
[[link removed]]

But as an historian of black social movements
[[link removed]], my view is that as
widespread and destructive as the 1968 rebellions were, neither their
size nor the challenge they posed to the American political system
approached what the U.S. has seen over the past two weeks. According
to USA Today, as of June 4 there have been protests in 700 cities and
towns
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since the death of George Floyd in police custody.

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Protests have spread across the nation, including to St. Louis, where
several hundred doctors, nurses and medical professionals demonstrated
against police brutality and the death of George Floyd on June 5,
2020. Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images
[[link removed]]

This remains true even if we consider the protests and police violence
that shook the Chicago Democratic Convention
[[link removed]]
in August 1968. Similarly, the scope and scale of the 2020 protests
dwarf the student strikes that shut down hundreds of college campuses
in the aftermath of the shootings of student protesters at Kent State
[[link removed]] and Jackson State
[[link removed]] in May 1970;
the six days of protest and looting that shook Los Angeles in the
aftermath of the 1992 Rodney King trial
[[link removed]];
the 1999 “Battle of Seattle,
[[link removed]]”
during which protesters used a mix of nonviolent and more militant
tactics to disrupt a World Trade Organization conference and the 650
cities that hosted Women’s Marches in January, 2017.

More than the number and size of the protests, though, what makes the
2020 uprisings unprecedented are the ways that they have pulled
together multiple currents within the U.S. protest tradition into a
mighty river of demand for fundamental change in American society.

Wanton disregard for black life

The spark, of course, was the horrifying video of yet another police
killing of an unarmed African-American, George Floyd.

The nation was confronted with incontrovertible evidence, played out
over 8 minutes and 46 seconds
[[link removed]]
of video, not only of wanton disregard for black life but also of the
ongoing failure of political institutions to solve the problem of
racist police violence
[[link removed]].

On top of the disproportionate death rates and economic devastation
that COVID-19 has wrought on communities of color
[[link removed]],
a harsh light has been shone on the structural racism rampant in
American society.

[[link removed]]

Among the comprehensive range of demands by protesters is this one:
Defund the police. Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images
[[link removed]]

But while the murder of George Floyd was the spark, the fuel for the
uprisings comes from many sources: the worst public health and
economic crisis in generations
[[link removed]],
three and a half years of a divisive and chaotic presidential
administration
[[link removed]],
a burgeoning white nationalist movement
[[link removed]]
and decades upon decades of growing economic inequality
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amid an increasingly threadbare social safety net
[[link removed]].

The focus of the protests has been on police violence
[[link removed]] and
the nation’s unfinished racial justice agenda. But the diversity of
protesters and the use of protest tactics —- from nonviolent marches
and rallies to civil disobedience, rock throwing and looting —-
drawn from the traditions of youth, labor and anti-corporate protest
make it clear that even more is at play in the uprising.

The point is not, as others have argued
[[link removed]],
that it is the level of involvement of whites in the protests that
distinguishes them from previous high points of anti-racist protest.
There is in fact a long history of white support
[[link removed]]
for, and participation in, black protest movements.

What is unprecedented is the way that protesters of all races and
ethnicities have focused their ire on upscale business districts
[[link removed]]
and national retail chains (as opposed to neighborhood businesses),
while others have called for the redirecting of public spending from
the police
[[link removed]],
prisons and other elements of the criminal justice system to health
and social welfare programs.

Despite, or perhaps because of the protests’ decentralized and
leaderless nature, they have managed to put on the table the broadest
and most comprehensive set of social and economic reforms since the
Poor People’s campaign
[[link removed]]
that followed on the heels of Martin Luther King’s assassination in
1968.

From calls to shift funding from police
[[link removed]]
budgets to programs for the poor to proposals for renewed public
investment
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in minority businesses and urban neighborhoods, the uprisings are
likely to reshape public policy debates for months and even years to
come.

It is impossible to know whether the protests can or will be
transformed into sustained campaigns to reform the criminal justice
system or reinvigorate government programs for the poor and
economically downtrodden. To achieve that level of structural change
will require the rapid development of new forms of leadership and new
organizational structures for the protest movement.

But as unlikely as that may seem, remember that no one could have
predicted that the U.S. was on the verge of this level of mass
mobilization of anti-racist protest two short weeks ago.

[_Insight, in your inbox each day._ You can get it with The
Conversation’s email newsletter
[[link removed]].][The
Conversation]

Matthew Countryman
[[link removed]],
Chair, Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Associate
Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies, History and American
Culture, _University of Michigan
[[link removed]]_

This article is republished from The Conversation
[[link removed]] under a Creative Commons license. Read
the original article
[[link removed]].

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