BiblioVault - Books about Political Activism

African or American?: Black Identity and Political Activism in New York City, 1784-1861
Leslie M. ALexander
University of Illinois Press, 2012
Library of Congress F128.9.N4A44 2008 | Dewey Decimal 305.8960730747

During the early national and antebellum eras, black leaders in New York City confronted the tenuous nature of Northern emancipation. Despite the hope of freedom, black New Yorkers faced a series of sociopolitical issues including the persistence of Southern slavery, the threat of forced removal, racial violence, and the denial of American citizenship. Even efforts to create community space within the urban landscape, such as the African Burial Ground and Seneca Village, were eventually demolished to make way for the city's rapid development. In this illuminating history, Leslie M. Alexander chronicles the growth and development of black activism in New York from the formation of the first black organization, the African Society, in 1784 to the eve of the Civil War in 1861. In this critical period, black activists sought to formulate an effective response to their unequal freedom. Examining black newspapers, speeches, and organizational records, this study documents the creation of mutual relief, religious, and political associations, which black men and women infused with African cultural traditions and values.

As Alexander reveals, conflicts over early black political strategy foreshadowed critical ideological struggles that would bedevil the black leadership for generations to come. Initially, black leaders advocated racial uplift through a sense of communalism and connection to their African heritage. Yet by the antebellum era, black activists struggled to reconcile their African identity with a growing desire to gain American citizenship. Ultimately, this battle resulted in competing agendas; while some leaders argued that the black community should dedicate themselves to moral improvement and American citizenship, others began to consider emigrating to Africa or Haiti. In the end, the black leadership resolved to assert an American identity and to expand their mission for full equality and citizenship in the United States. This decision marked a crucial turning point in black political strategy, for it signaled a new phase in the quest for racial advancement and fostered the creation of a nascent Black Nationalism.

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The Madrasa in Asia: Political Activism and Transnational Linkages
Edited by Farish A. Noor, Yoginder Sikand and Martin van Bruinessen
Amsterdam University Press, 2009
Library of Congress LC910 .A78M33 2008 | Dewey Decimal 306

Since the rise of organizations like the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the traditional Islamic school known as the madrasa has frequently been portrayed as a terrorist hotbed. For much longer, the madrasa has been considered by some as a backward and petrified impediment to Islamic social progress. However, for an important segment of the poor Muslim populations of Asia, madrasas constitute the only accessible form of education and an opening to the wider world. This comprehensive volume presents a representative overview of the unknown world behind the walls of these institutions in nations such as China, Indonesia, Iran, and Pakistan, showcasing the educational changes and transnational networks that help to produce an alternative form of globalization.

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Private Aid, Political Activism: American Medical Relief to Spain and China, 1936–1949
Aelwen D. Wetherby
University of Missouri Press, 2017

This book explores American medical relief to Spain and China in the 1930s and 1940s as responses to the Spanish Civil War and the Second Sino-Japanese War. Although serving vastly different peoples in strikingly distant landscapes, the three aid organizations focused on here illustrate a transition in how Americans responded to foreign conflict and how humanitarian aid was used as a political tool. The story of these small and relatively unknown organizations can help refine historical understanding of the development of humanitarianism and the evolution of global citizenship in the twentieth century.

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Transforming Rural Water Governance: The Road from Resource Management to Political Activism in Nicaragua
Sarah T. Romano
University of Arizona Press, 2019
Library of Congress TD231.N5R66 2019 | Dewey Decimal 333.910097285092

The most acute water crises occur in everyday contexts in impoverished rural and urban areas across the Global South. While they rarely make headlines, these crises, characterized by inequitable access to sufficient and clean water, affect over one billion people globally. What is less known, though, is that millions of these same global citizens are at the forefront of responding to the challenges of water privatization, climate change, deforestation, mega-hydraulic projects, and other threats to accessing water as a critical resource.

In Transforming Rural Water Governance Sarah T. Romano explains the bottom-up development and political impact of community-based water and sanitation committees (CAPS) in Nicaragua. Romano traces the evolution of CAPS from rural resource management associations into a national political force through grassroots organizing and strategic alliances.

Resource management and service provision is inherently political: charging residents fees for service, determining rules for household water shutoffs and reconnections, and negotiating access to water sources with local property owners constitute just a few of the highly political endeavors resource management associations like CAPS undertake as part of their day-to-day work in their communities. Yet, for decades in Nicaragua, this local work did not reflect political activism. In the mid-2000s CAPS’ collective push for social change propelled them onto a national stage and into new roles as they demanded recognition from the government.

Romano argues that the transformation of Nicaragua’s CAPS into political actors is a promising example of the pursuit of sustainable and equitable water governance, particularly in Latin America. Transforming Rural Water Governance demonstrates that when activism informs public policy processes, the outcome is more inclusive governance and the potential for greater social and environmental justice.

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