Reconstituting Political Genealogies: Reflections on Youth, Racial Justice, and the Uses of History

Contemporary youth activism—particularly activism that works toward social and racial justice—has begun to receive long-overdue attention in scholarly inquiries. Research on the prison-industrial complex is a prime example of such inquiries; in recent years, scholar-activists such as Angela Davis have turned their lens to youth—incarcerated and not incarcerated—to document their perspectives and critiques of the prison industry and of its effects on Black and Brown populations. [1] Organizations of youth activists, such as the Blackout Arts Collective in New York City, have developed multilayered projects meant to confront this industry; in workshops and projects with college youth and with incarcerated youth, those activists are attempting to build a critical mass of young people organized against state-sponsored racism. Black and Brown youth activists in the United States are creating new forms of politics and establishing new communities and networks; some of the most creative anti-racist projects are those in which youth activists use the Black radical past.

For many, this is not simply an exercise in acquiring historical facts, but of creating new understandings of histories and of the relationships between Black and Brown activists over time and space. Two examples of the kinds of histories to which some turn are those that involve Carlos Cooks and Arturo Schomburg. Carlos Cooks was born in 1913 in the Dominican Republic; he died in his adopted hometown of Harlem in 1966. He is often referred to as the ‘‘ideological son of Marcus Garvey’’ and is credited for starting the ‘‘black is beautiful’’ and ‘‘buy black’’ campaigns. He worked with the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and fought to defend Garvey when he was deported. Cooks is recognized as an important figure of Black nationalism, and was its main advocate in Harlem. Born in Puerto Rico, Arturo (or Arthur) Schomburg (1874–1938) was a prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance. He was active with other Puerto Ricans in the Cuban Revolutionary Party and worked with pan-Caribbean organizations such as Las Dos Antillas. However, he is best known for his diligent work as an analyst and archivist of all things related to the Black diaspora, the results of which led to the creation of the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research on Black Culture, located in Harlem. Neither figure was typical of Dominican or Puerto Rican intellectuals and activists of the early 20th century, but today, progressive youth point to them as important actors who were part of multiple histories and groups. The way they use these histories is indicative of the formation of new diasporic ideologies and organizing.

Racialization and globalization processes, practices, and effects have made it necessary for people to find new strategies of resistance. In her analysis of contemporary globalization processes and of the new racisms contained therein, Leith Mullings states that, in fact, ‘‘a variety of antiracist strategies and interventions have emerged to confront [these] new racisms.’’ [2] The recent neoliberal era has resulted in the increasing rates of racial disparities in unemployment, education, public assistance, and incarceration rates. In light of such devastating consequences, some have put forward the idea that we are now beginning to see the emergence of new forms of ‘‘contestatory projects.’’ [3]

For many Black and Brown Afro-diasporic youth, reimagining and resurrecting the Black radical past is an essential aspect of this new organizing. As such, their attempts to build coalitions are based in a sense of a shared past, a common network of ‘‘fictive kin.’’ Manning Marable has written about the uses of history in contemporary organizing, calling attention to ‘‘living black history’’ as a cornerstone for new projects of liberation. [4] He writes, ‘‘For us, the past is not merely prologue; it is indelibly part of the fabric of our collective destiny.’’ [5] This article will explore the ways in which some Black and Brown youth activists have used history in developing new coalitions and political ideologies. [6]

Preliminary Inquiries

This article is based on years of observation, participation, and analysis of contemporary anti-racist work initiated by Black and Brown youth. This current analysis emerged during research in Washington Heights, New York. Coalitions and networks with other people of color—whether formal or informal, horizontal or vertical—were instrumental to Dominican politics and institution building in the area. [7] I also noticed that some youth leaders cosponsored events or projects with other groups in which they viewed and discussed films like Malcolm X and Pa’lante Siempre Pa’lante, a film about the Young Lords Party, alongside films and discussions about Dominicans and Dominican history. In discussions about these films and about those histories represented in these forums, some youth activists offhandedly referred to these varying (and parallel) historical movements and figures as part of their own political lineages. This occurred with histories specific to the Dominican Republic, of course, but also to those that were external to it. I wondered what led them to claim Puerto Rican and African–American radical histories and movements as their own.

Over the past few years I have seen other groups of young people of color searching and studying histories of racial/social justice work in organizations and colleges in New York, Boston, Chicago, and elsewhere. Their gaze into the past has not been about a desire to return to an idealized past; it has not been a nostalgic or voyeuristic stroll through radical moments. They have been using these histories in developing their own ideologies and actions.

It is important that we consider more seriously this question of the varying ways young Black and Brown activists today understand and use radical histories in developing their personal and collective ideologies and activism and whether or not this has implications for our notions of community, the ethnographic present, and ‘‘living history,’’ to borrow Manning Marable’s concept. [8] What do these processes look like, and what can we learn from them? Are they part of an ongoing process of reinvention and transformation? Could it be that young people of color make astute assessments of their current contexts and develop ideologies and tools with which to draft critical interventions in the political sphere? If this is the case, then João Costa-Vargas’ concept of ‘‘black radical becoming’’ is a key to understanding this process with which many youth activists of color are engaged. [9]

Azabache [10]

Azabache [11] epitomized this type of contemporary activist initiative. Although the organization no longer exists, its organizers continue to work with the ideologies and networks they developed during the life of the organization; furthermore, they are conscious about the way they attempt to infuse these into the work they currently do in other organizations and with other youth.

Azabache was founded in 1995 when a group of young activists from Puerto Rican-, Black-, and Dominican-led organizations initiated a conversation about collaborating on one project aimed at fostering awareness of social and racial justice among new generations of youth. They envisioned an organization of people who shared political ideologies that demanded justice for Black, Latino, and Asian populations and for people of color in general.

Members of Azabache were active in various youth-led organizations such as the Puerto Rican organization, Muevete!, African–American and West Indian organizations in Brooklyn such as the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and Alianza Dominicana. This collaborative venture was not a new concept for these organizers. Many had worked with other groups before. For example, the two members from one of the Dominican organizations had been the organizing leaders for the New York contingent of the Venceremos Brigade, a U.S.-based organization that assembles groups of young activists from around the country to participate in work and training in Cuba every summer. Members of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement had also established working relationships with orga- nizers in Cuba, primarily hip-hop activists. One Alianza Dominicana leader commented, ‘‘Of course it’s connected if you see people that look like you as the constant target. We’re targets for police, our communities, our poor. We have overcrowded schools and live in the worst conditions. That’s not an accident. Not if you look around and it’s happening to all us black and brown people. . . . And we have to address this together. The divide- and-conquer tactics have to be left behind. We need to address all these political, these real issues together.’’

The organizer’s understanding of his involvements and commitments clearly suggests his adherence to a social theory that privileges a systemic critique, combating institutional racism and social inequality beyond any one locale. His actions at the local and diasporic levels are part of one larger project that draws attention to injustice and challenges hegemonic power. This necessarily involves people from various geographic locations and national/ethnic groups.

All those involved with Azabache were aware of the projects in which their peers were involved. In many cases, their work had brought them together previously, particularly in their efforts to combat police brutality in New York City. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s they organized a large annual rally, Racial Justice Day, in the city. A flyer for the 1997 rally announced: ‘‘Rally for Racial Justice: Against Racial Violence and Police Brutality.’’ [12] Held at the steps of New York’s City Hall, the rally was spearheaded by the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights, led by Richie Perez, former Young Lords Party member. Alianza Dominicana, Azabache, Alianza Islamica, Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation, Audre Lorde Project, Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Muevete, and Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood, among others were cosponsors. Families of the victims of police brutality led the rally, in which Azabache, the groups they represent, and many others took part. But, the organizers went on to say,

[I]t’s not only about those who have been killed. All our young people are at risk because of government policies and police action. We’re marching because it seems that society has no use for its youth, especially youth of color. Education, youth services, and job programs have been cut drastically. There are no jobs for young people and the doors of the colleges are slamming shut in their faces. What is the message when the only increased spending is for prison construction? With dignity, discipline and militancy, thousands of us will send our own message: INVEST IN OUR YOUTH! JOBS & EDUCATION—NOT PRISONS! PROTECT OUR YOUTH! STOP RACIAL VIOLENCE AND POLICE BRUTALITY! JUSTICE NOW! (emphasis on flyer)

People organized against the state’s mistreatment of youth, particularly then Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s concentrated efforts targeting youth of color. During Giuliani’s first year in office, juvenile arrests increased nearly 50 percent, with four of five arrests for nonviolent offenses and half the result of minor violations that did not even require finger-prints. During this same era, programs meant to help young people, such as the Summer Youth Employment Program, were drastically cut. Members of Azabache were among the groups organizing around these issues.

Many activists were clear about the way their collective and individual experiences with racism and the state united them in important political and personal ways. For them it became necessary to work from a diasporic perspective. Azabache was given a home in the Caribbean Cultural Center in midtown Manhattan. Rooted in a center that showcases the importance of Afro–Caribbean cultures and artistic representations, the group’s attachment to the Caribbean and to the African diaspora was striking. Not only were people going to work together around common goals of racial and economic justice, but they would also do so with a sense of common heritage, a bond created in their roots in experiences as part of the Black diaspora. The selection of the Azabache as an organizational symbol also signaled a connection to Latin America, but in a way that highlighted Latin America’s place in the Black diaspora. Challenging racism and offering anti-racist discourse and language with which to redefine their communities was no small divergence from the more common racialized discourse over Blackness, particularly for those coming from the Dominican community. For many young activists of color, examining racial and racist discourse and affirming their Blackness or connections to other Black diasporic populations, have been important. This stance was evident in Azabache’s mission statement:

Who We Are: We are a collective of African (Black/New Afrikan) and Latino grassroots community activists desirous of radical social change and the development of a politics of human liberation. We reject capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy and homophobia as it is these institutions which have constantly oppressed us. We are students, New Afrikan nationalist, socialist, youth organizers, cultural and educational institutions. Collectively we understand that we are responsible for forging this new change in society, our communities and in ourselves. We are dedicated to the defense of human rights globally.

Why We Exist: We exist to initiate a proactive movement for the benefit of our communities. We recognize that a reactive pattern of organizing has had limited success in transforming the overall economic and political condition of People of Color—domestically and internationally. We exist to create new alternatives for strengthening and empowering our communities for self-determination, self-preservation, and self- defense.

What We Will Do: [selections]

We will design and build a city wide network that will unify our actions as a larger community.

We as a collective have taken on the charge of empowering our communities with information needed to effectively mobilize our communities, through organizer training sessions.

We will continue to organize political education sessions for grassroots organizations and activists.

We will articulate the need for the larger masses of our communities to understand their/our responsibility to move forward. (Azabache organizational literature, my emphasis)

The agenda makes numerous critical interventions, but I want to highlight two points: first, the unity in Blackness and in the experiences of socio-economic and political conditions; and second, the need for ongoing education and collective action among communities of color. Azabache made clear assertions about what local organizing and empowerment means for the creation of a larger movement—one that critiques capitalism and offers a ‘‘radical social change and the development of a politics of human liberation...domestically and internationally.’’ This is the kind of ideology that infuses new social movements. This particular movement is not one that rests simply on issues of ‘‘identity’’ in the abstract. Instead, activists focus on how the state has targeted and continues to target people based on race, gender, and class locations; activists then move in the direction of uniting people to challenge those in positions of power who manipulate these constructs and marginalize them. They position themselves into a shared history and a united present.

The impact of such an ideological stance was felt in the activities organized by Azabache and in the work of those activists who later focused their efforts on other organizations. During its relatively short existence (the organization came to a slow end in 1998), Azabache held monthly organizers’ training sessions where they ‘‘continued the dialogue on crucial organizational issues, such as political prisoners and legal defense, organizational security, grassroots utilizations of the Internet, sexism within the ranks, independent educational institutions, etc.’’ Numerous young activists, including many who were not directly involved with the organizations to which Azabache leaders belonged, attended these sessions. The role that Azabache and its members played as an important ideological force in the evolving collective identity and politics of a new generation of activists in New York cannot be overlooked.

Between 1995 and 1996, the coalition established a ‘‘‘Charge for New York City,’ that sought to address the position of the African (Black/New Afrikan) and Latino grassroots community and the challenges we face, as well as the direction we must take to effect substantive change,’’ as its organizational literature put it. In New York City, Latino, Black, and Asian organizing had often taken place around rallies against police brutality. [13]

In June 1996, the Azabache Organizing Committee held its second annual Roundtable Conference. The event was held in the school that was also home to Alianza Dominicana’s afterschool Beacon program. Martin Guevara, the director of the Beacon program for Quisqueya United, said, ‘‘It’s important for this to be included in what we do. We can’t build a real movement separately. I want these kids [in the youth programs] to see us working together.’’ In the invitation to this second conference the coordinating committee summarized their first conference as ‘‘a ‘call to action’ to mobilize, educate and organize our communities with the goal of radical social change and the development of a politics of human liberation.’’ During this conference, representatives from all organizations participated in three ‘‘think tank microgroups’’ that focused on the topics of: ‘‘1) Defining a common vision, 2) Defining common principles, and 3) Developing common organizing strategies.’’ The conference brought together the new leadership with ‘‘veterans from traditional resistance organizations like the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords, SNCC, The East, and trade unions.’’ [14]

The involvement of Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and African–Americans in this kind of collaborative project is an example of how some contemporary activists (many young) imagine themselves as part of a longer lineage and larger network of people of color in the United States. In this way, they create a new level of consciousness through coalitions with other people of color and grassroots politics. And they attempt to socialize younger generations with an understanding of these histories and sense of ‘‘collective community.’’

The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement

The ideology of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) echoes some of that of Azabache; it is, in fact, not a coincidence that organizers from MXGM were deeply involved in establishing and nurturing Azabache. In 1993, the MXGM began working in central Brooklyn doing community organizing and creating programs that respond to day-to-day problems faced by residents. Since then, the organization has spread out, establishing numerous chapters and working across the United States and, at times, across continents and with numerous groups of people. The organization describes itself thus:

The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement is an organization of Afrikans in America/New Afrikans whose mission is to defend the human rights of our people and promote self- determination in our community. We understand that the collective institutions of white-supremacy, patriarchy and capitalism have been at the root of our people’s oppression.... While organizing around our principles of unity, we are building a network of Black/New Afrikan activists and organizers committed to the protracted struggle for the liberation of the New Afrikan Nation—By Any Means Necessary! [15]

When referring to ‘‘New Afrikans,’’ MXGM states:

The term ‘‘New Afrika’’ reflects our Pan African identity, our purpose, and our direc- tion. Although we come from distinct ethno-linguistic groups in Africa and the African Diaspora, our shared oppression and the interdependence of our liberation redefines our borders. We are New Afrikans and we are a Nation. We will be free. Toward that end, MXGM will work to honor the legacy of our ancestors, for our own progress and for future generations. Let us surface the New Afrikan Nation for ourselves, all Afrikans and all humanity by proudly calling ourselves . . . New Afrikan! [16] (author’s emphasis)

Among MXGM’s six guiding principles are the following points:

1. to actively support and struggle to defend the Human Rights of Afrikan people in the United States and around the world.

2. to promote Self-Determination and organize for the liberation of the Afrikan nation, held colonized in the United States.

3. to oppose Genocide or the acceptable and calculated killing of our people by individuals, institutions and organizations of the United States government, through lynching, disease, police terror and any other means. [17]

One of the best-known MXGM projects is Black August, a name rooted in histories of radical and Black liberation movements. MXGM states, ‘‘Black August was established in the California prison system in the early 1970s by men and women of the Black Liberation Movement.’’ Elsewhere, its literature points out that August was the month in which Nat Turner’s rebellion occurred (1831), the Underground Railroad began (1850), Marcus Garvey was born (1887), and the March on Washington took place (1963). The most significant event to the founders of Black August was the assassination of George Jackson, a member of the Black Panther Party murdered by prison guards in August 1971.

Black August’s main project is the Hip Hop Project. Leaders have understood that hip-hop is an important element of youth culture today and use this as a tool to reach out to new generations. They organize and support events and exchanges locally and internationally. As explained in their literature, ‘‘The vision is to bring these various political and cultural elements together and allow them to grow into a vehicle for artists and activists to oppose the genocide of African people, white supremacy and its propaganda, the criminalization of youth and youth culture, the advancing global prison industry, and the continued existence of political prisoners in the United States.’’ They hold concerts and conferences, conduct workshops, and foster networks across geopolitical boundaries, in New York City, Cuba, and South Africa. They have raised thousands for political prisoners in the United States, including Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu Jamal. They say they do this to ‘‘educate, reach and recruit black and brown people to the movement to halt the booming prison industry and to develop further and expand an international network of activists and artists opposed to the criminalization and mass incarceration of African people and youth in particular.’’

Part of this work involves an awareness of shared marginalities, reaching others who face similar concerns (e.g., poverty, incarceration, AIDS, police brutality, and political marginalization) and working with networks to construct local and global movements of racialized youth. In much of their literature they point out their desire to reach Black and Latino youth and offer them lessons from their shared histories. They also strive to mobilize this population.

MXGM offers a community workshop series, a ‘‘know your rights’’ discussion educating new activists on how to interact with state authorities, and a series of discussions and events around the prison industrial complex. In the wake of disasters like that of the government response to Hurricane Katrina or the military coup in Haiti, and the more recent case in Louisiana of the ‘‘Jena 6,’’ MXGM members have initiated workshops and direct action.

It is important to note that these activists have worked with organizations across racial, ethnic, and national lines in all their projects. One recent example occurred in early October 2007 with their Oakland chapter: Along with the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, the Oakland chapter of MXGM presented a discussion titled ‘‘Preserving Histories in the Face of Oppression: Palestinian Oral Historians Building Solidarity with Black/New Afrikan Communities.’’ The organizers wrote, ‘‘Faced with displacement and Diaspora, renaming and claiming of destroyed homelands, Palestinian and Black/New Afrikan Historians maintain their histories through traditions of folklore, humor, family legacy, art, music and politics.’’ Speakers discussed, as one said, ‘‘past and present displacements, the current political situations arising out of them, and the struggle to maintain histories for liberation.’’ In this event, as in many others that MXGM puts together or supports, the organizers were clearly drawing historical and contemporary parallels between the groups.

All that said, it is imperative to point out that the cases of Azabache and MXGM—and of the activists involved—are not necessarily representative of the experiences or ideologies of all other new youth activists doing anti-racist and social-justice work. Studies of Puerto Ricans and Mexicans in Chicago, and that of Cubans and Central Americans in Miami, for example, suggest that coalitions based on an understanding of some kind of shared history are not a given, nor can they be adequately understood through one template. There are many national histories, local political and racial contexts are all factors in their lived experiences in the United States. The conditions that lead to the creation and/or rupturing of collaborations are not fully understood. Analyzing the ways in which some organizations resurrect and reconstruct histories in community building efforts is imperative as we attempt to formulate a more comprehensive and complex analysis of coalition-building in the contemporary.

In preliminary research in the greater Boston area, I have found that the local context of continuous and extreme disenfranchisement of longtime resident communities of Blacks, Puerto Ricans, Cape Verdeans, Native Americans, Chinese, and other racialized groups, including Dominicans, has led to a more sustained collaborative movement across the decades. Recently, for example, established activists created a group called the New Majority, which brings together African–American, Caribbean, Latino, Asian, and Native American groups to propose and advance alternative political strategies collectively to empower all these communities. However, Dominicans in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where they are the majority, have undertaken a different approach—one that does not involve ongoing coalitions with other groups. Because they are a relatively new and large group in Lawrence and because of the way city demographics and politics operates, the political growth of Dominicans in this town has not regularly involved coalitions with other groups. The local history and context clearly matter just as much as the decisions or hopes of any one group in attempting to establish a foothold in their local power structures. But the effort to reconstitute collective or parallel histories of anti-racist social- justice work is an important proactive strategy that begins to address the dire issues many youth confront today. This is not a new strategy; various important examples from history demonstrate the significance of diasporic collaborations for those working against empire.

Resurrecting and Reconstructing Histories of Activism

Historical examples of diasporic collaborative work abound, as does an understanding of the way people construct a sense of a ‘‘shared community’’ rooted in experiences with colonialism, neocolonialism, racialization, exploitation, and marginalization. These include the well-known projects of Marcus Garvey and pan-Africanist initiatives. In the latter half of the 20th century people suffering at the heels of U.S. empire building in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America frequently worked in solidarity with one another. Leftist grassroots activists in the Dominican Republic in the 1960s and 1970s reached out to Cuba for support and refuge—particularly during the most brutal times under dictator Rafael Trujillo and U.S. military invasions—and to comrades in El Salvador and Nicaragua to help build movements against U.S. hegemony in the region. This long history of diasporic organizing continues, albeit in ways that are not as obvious to the casual observer.

Among the new generation of activists in this tradition of diasporic organizing, there are two major undertakings. First, they study and educate groups about historical and contemporary parallels among and between groups. Second, they make a conscious effort to reconstruct or reimagine communities by invoking historical examples of fruitful diasporic collaborations.

Historical and Contemporary Parallels

Youth who emphasize parallel developments among and between groups do so to point out that during particular moments, various groups of marginalized youth developed similar organizations and working ideologies. When analyzing these movements and moments, the young organizers highlight their complexity and diversity, drawing attention to four kinds of organizing strategies.

The first, and most obvious, organizing strategy that contemporary activists underscore involves young radical activists who confronted the state and proactively developed community-based programs. They draw parallels between the Black Panthers, the Young Lords, and MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil de Chicanos de Aztlán). When discussing these organizations, activists explain that they were established by marginalized youth struggling through the same era; they also stress that they all developed similar platforms and programs.

In October 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party (BPP) in Oakland, California. It was established on the principles of its Ten-Point Program, a document that called for ‘‘Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice And Peace.’’ The program also included demands for equal and full employment, health care, housing, and education and an end to police brutality, state-sponsored racism, and capitalist exploitation.

The Young Lords Party (YLP) began as a Chicago turf gang at the end of the 1950s. Faced with urban renewal, forced evictions of their families, and increasing police abuses in their neighborhoods, they politicized their organization. One of the founding members, Jose ‘‘Cha Cha’’ Jimenez, began to develop his political ideology while reading the work of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Lenin, and Mao. In 1968 Illinois Black Panther Party chairman Fred Hampton reached out to Jimenez, further solidifying their political foundation based on a critique of U.S. structural inequalities. The organization became the Puerto Rican equivalent of the Black Panther Party. The YLP also fostered alliances with the Young Patriots Organization, an organization of poor white youths that had turned political. The YLP focused most of its activity around self-determination for Puerto Rico and local community issues such as gentrification, health, and police injustice. The YLP used direct action, political education, and ‘‘survival programs’’ to bring their concerns to mainstream public attention. In this way, their platform and programming was similar to the BPP.

El Movimiento Estudiantil de Chicanos de Aztlán (Student Movement of Chicanos from Aztlán), or MEChA, is a nationwide umbrella organization that has existed since the late 1960s. Chicano students and community organizers met at a conference in Santa Barbara, California, in 1969 to discuss their organizing goals and strategies. During this conference they outlined their ‘‘basic principles of unity’’ and ‘‘El Plan de Santa Barbara,’’ which led to building a solid base of Chicano youth activism. In the plan they called for a united common philosophy, strategy, and curriculum for Chicano students and Chicano studies programs. Their goals and strategies suggest that they employed the philosophies and strategies of both the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords Party, including equality in education, housing, and health care, community-based political development, and self-determination.

The second organizing strategy that contemporary activists point to stresses nonviolence. They study the lives and work of those who challenged racial and economic disparities via nonviolent, grassroots work such as César Chávez, Dolores Huerta, and Martin Luther King Jr. A third strategy draws attention to militant youth who focused on direct action; these included organizations such as the Brown Berets and MOVE. The fourth trend emphasizes the creation of national umbrella institutions such as the National Council of La Raza and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The fifth and final political strategy that some youth activists mention comes up relatively infrequently—that of the ways in which people of color have carved out juridical paths that challenge U.S. structures of racism. During a visit to a Latino student organization on a college campus, I heard a small group of students briefly discuss the 1947 Mendez v. Westminster School District case. This was a seminal case explicitly outlawing Jim Crow segregation of Mexican American students in Orange County California, which led to the Anderson Bill of 1947 that repealed school-segregation statutes throughout California. The constitutional grounds and the social-scientific foundation was also the basis for the decision in Brown v. Board of Education, as students discussing this case pointed out. [18]

In highlighting any of these points of historical parallel development or unity, youth are attempting to understand the historical conditions that led to the creation of so many diverse political parallels among and between marginalized populations in the United States. The second step in this process is an awareness of the ways in which some of the same concerns activists had nearly fifty years ago persist and continue to affect the same groups of racialized subjects. It is in that moment or process of awareness that some youth activists begin to delve into an examination of what ‘‘community’’ means to them. Who constitutes this community, this group that shares similar material and political conditions, these racialized bodies that struggle against the state and its structures of inequalities? This leads to the second major endeavor, that of reconstructing community by drawing on and using historic movements and figures.

Reconstructing Community Through History

This second trend, based in serious reflection on radical histories, is about how people use history to construct new communities and new political strategies. It is about the important ways that some activists reconstruct their political genealogies, documenting fictive kin across time and space. This is considerably different from simply being inspired by a group or movement and using what one learns from that history in contemporary political formations. When operating within this paradigm, people are claiming multiple histories as their own, as is seen in the work of both Azabache and MXGM. This is not a tension between roots and routes; rather, it is an attempt to conflate the two for the dual purpose of developing new political communities (beyond just horizontal networks of solidarity) and building anti-racist and anti-colonial projects. Young activists are raising awareness toward this end by creating exhibits, screening films, and organizing workshops and conferences that underscore these shared histories and call upon new generations of organizers to continue to work in this tradition.
In addition to the kinds of collaborations among Puerto Rican, African–American, and Chicano organizations highlighted earlier, organizers point to organizations that were, at their core, collaborative. An example of such a group was Are ́ıto, developed by progressive Cuban students in Florida and New York City in the late 1960s and 1970s in solidarity with student movements against the Vietnam war, independence movements in Puerto Rico and with Puerto Rican, Black, and Chicano communities in the United States. Are ́ıto worked with organizations such as the American Indian Movement (AIM) and with groups calling for an end to U.S. invasions and interventions in the Dominican Republic, Chile, and Guatemala.

They point to other important examples of people who worked across prescribed definitions or borders of ‘‘community,’’ including Carlos Cooks and Arturo Schomburg, who are being ‘‘reclaimed’’ by multiple groups today. The ideologies and work of these organic intellectuals are crucial. Those who look to such activists are reinscribing them into a Black–Brown collaborative history. Drawing attention to such figures also suggests that youth activists are redrafting the Black radical past in a way that questions canonical descriptions and representations of this past. Using the histories of activists such as Cooks and Schomburg gives many young activists of color examples of the way people of color have created politics and history from the ground up.

Putting History to Work

Youth activists currently use varying levels or types of ideological or political community-building strategies. They put histories to work—or apply history to contemporary political projects—in a number of ways. First, they attempt to build a grassroots base by educating and socializing other youth that they meet in school clubs, community-based organizations, and on college campuses. This political project and socialization process is one that can influence what these students do after graduation. In a second effort, they establish new collaborative organizations. Azabache in New York and the New Majority in Boston were locally rooted and brought together constituents representing distinct groups in order to connect and build mutually supportive projects. Utilizing yet another strategy, youth organizers have created connections with ‘‘sister organizations’’ with youth in other cities and/or countries. João Vargas has examined this trend among youth in Los Angeles and in Rio de Janeiro. [19] And youth organizers have coalesced around one event or cause in a ‘‘glocal’’ way; this can be viewed as traditional solidarity work. Examples include the effort to free Mumia Abu-Jamal from prison, the Jena 6 protests, Dominican Americans working with people of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic, [20] and Acción Zapatista and Estación Libre, in which people of color support revolutionaries in Chiapas, Mexico.

In all of the efforts and with all of the trends and strategies I have outlined in this article, we can see how contemporary youth activists are analyzing history and using it to create organizations that define ‘‘community’’ and its members in ways that acknowledge but go beyond geopolitical and ethnolinguistic borders. At their core, they seem to have three things in common. First, they are anti-colonial, anti-imperial, and anti-racist. Second, they work across prescribed group boundaries; that is, they are ‘‘diasporic’’ or ‘‘pan-something.’’ They are attempts to create community based on a sense of shared history, racialization, and disenfranchisement. This does not mean that they do not recognize an equally important history rooted in national interests; for instance, a Dominican-American youth and his/her family members are still very much affected by histories particular to the Dominican Republic. However, people do create multiple notions of political his- tories and community that are not in conflict with identities rooted in histories specific to national or ethnic groups. As one of my interlocutors in Washington Heights said when explaining to her African–American friends why she saw herself as very much like them but simultaneously separate from them, ‘‘[they are] first world African and [I am] third world African.’’ There are layers of historical particularities as well as connections. What one does with the examination and reconstruction of this past is what is most intriguing and ripe with possibilities. And this is the final element that all the strategies, trends, and organizations I have outlined have in common: They all seem to be attempting to draw attention to and use history in some important and strategic way.

There is ample room to develop further research into these ever-expanding youth-led organizing efforts. I have attempted to draw attention to an overlooked and innovative strategy that I see young people employing today. Their strategic study and use of Black radical histories suggests that there is much more brewing beneath the surface. Their work tells us of the hope of the ‘‘great wells of democracy’’ arising from grassroots coalitions, to borrow Manning Marable’s phrase, [21] and of the way that new generations are spearheading much of this new kind of discourse, altering their own communities and offering us a chance to imagine a different kind of politics from the ground up in the process—a new Black radical politics, that is, with all its impositions, contestations, and prospects.