Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Blacks and the Alabama U.S. Senatorial Race
Ken Morgan
13 Dec 2017
🖨️ Print Article
Blacks and the Alabama U.S. Senatorial Race
Blacks and the Alabama U.S. Senatorial Race

“The capitalist moribund two-party electoral politics takes us down a dead-end road.”

Democrat Doug Jones’ hair’s-breadth win Republican Roy Moore is being hailed as a great victory. In reality, it makes no difference.

An unemployed Alabama black construction worker John Dewayne Richardson provided food for thought. According to the Washington Post, he said, “People don’t vote because they don’t feel their votes matter because nothing is going to change. What difference is it going to make?”

Did not Obama or Trump v. Clinton or JFK teach us a lesson? The capitalist moribund two-party electoral politics takes us down a dead-end road. Even the Jackson experiment and the Black Lives Matter movement are bound and limited by bourgeois electoral politics.

Instead, start with independent political action movement beyond mainstream, electoral politics. Give it an anti-capitalist base. Add massive doses of anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-homophobia, and pro-immigration. Give it an internationalist view. Our allies represent oppressed people of the world.

“Even the Jackson experiment and the Black Lives Matter movement are bound and limited by bourgeois electoral politics.”

Get over the dump Trump syndrome. Instead, dump capitalism with its bourgeoisie electoral politics. It is not about replacing Trump with Bernie Sanders types. The capitalist economic crisis is real. Attacks will continue lowering wages, cutbacks in social areas as well as attacks on our democratic rights.

Alabama’s history is strewn with varying degrees of independent black politics – not relying on electoral politics. Black miners’ activated struggles in the 1890s and turn of the century. Organizing black sharecroppers signaled still another method. The modern civil rights era brought us Rosa Parks and the E.D. Nixon-inspired Montgomery bus boycott.

Birmingham’s Rev. Shuttleworth’s 1956 efforts to end segregation in that city woke up the struggle. Dr. King’s Birmingham SCLC campaign exemplified another form of battle not led by electoral politics. The Selma to Montgomery marches marks another epoch struggle.

“Alabama’s history is strewn with varying degrees of independent black politics – not relying on electoral politics.”

The Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO) helped usher in a more concentrated form of independent black politics mixed with black solidarity, and black awareness. The group helped to create a transition from civil rights to black rights. LCFO, with its symbolized black scowling panther, was nicknamed the Black Panther Party, aided by SNCC field secretaries that Stokely Carmichael led.

True, none of these Alabama episodes were anti-capitalist. They did contain seeds of independent politics that spawns it. My argument is that these happenings included elements of independent, albeit different methods, of struggle.

Spontaneous reaction to black oppression is not enough. The black working class and black working class-minded sisters and brothers must be the central leadership.

Alabama represents fertile ground. Build the movement!

Dr. Morgan is a Black, and internationalist activist scholar. He can be reached at kmorgan2408@comcast.net

duopoly

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Arnold August
Genocide as the Principal Cause of the Democrat’s Crushing Defeat
04 December 2024
While genocide is a clear cause of the democrats' defeat, economic issues are usually mentioned.
Black Alliance For Peace
No Matter Who Sits in the White Peoples’ House, the War Being Waged by the U.S. Colonial/Capitalist Class Against the Black Colonized Working Class and All Oppressed Peoples and Nations Will Continue
20 November 2024
Originally published in Black Alliance for Peace
Malaika Jabali
In Milwaukee, Many Black Voters Aren’t On Board With Either Party
31 July 2024
The city’s abstainers could determine who wins Wisconsin, a critical swing state, this November.
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
War, Genocide and Coups: Biden/Harris and The Irreversible Crisis of Neoliberal Fake Democracy
24 July 2024
One of the defining characteristics of the current crisis is the speed at which contradictory social, political and ideologic
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
For African/Black Working Class and Colonized Peoples, Midterm Elections in the U.S. Offer No Relief from War, Repression and Capitalist Misery
10 July 2024
This article was
Democratic Party Betrayal, Abortion, and the Supreme Court
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Democratic Party Betrayal, Abortion, and the Supreme Court
08 December 2021
Democrats have been fooled into thinking that only the courts can protect abortion rights.
Elections and the Illusion of Black Political Power
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Elections and the Illusion of Black Political Power
03 November 2021
Black politicians may be openly conservative or pretend leftists but their constituents rarely get what they need.
Biden is No FDR  and Build Back Better Legislation Proves It
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Biden is No FDR and Build Back Better Legislation Proves It
27 October 2021
The idea that Joe Biden is the "most progressive president since FDR" is a propaganda device meant to quiet the Democratic Party left and force
Senators Bonnie and Clyde - 1% soldiers of fortune
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Senators Bonnie and Clyde - 1% soldiers of fortune
27 October 2021
                                         
Some provisions of Biden’s “Build Back Better” legislation benefit the masses of Black people, but this legislation is a bare minimum effort to blunt some of the sharpest contradictions of the system while attempting to maintain the neoliberal order.  
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Build Back Better Legislation: New Keynesianism or Neoliberal Public Relations Stunt?
06 October 2021
Some provisions of Biden’s “Build Back Better” legislation benefit the masses of Black people, but this legislation is a bare minimum effort to

More Stories


  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Psy-Op Satan’s Speech on Capitalist Hill
    31 Jul 2024
    "Psy-Op Satan’s Speech on Capitalist Hill" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    The Useful Tool: Kamala “Heartbeat Away” Harris
    31 Jul 2024
    If Biden wins, Kamala Harris will be put forward as a kind of “co-president,” as a palliative for the lack of substantive relief from the forces that are plaguing Black lives.
  • Black Alliance For Peace
    The Black Alliance for Peace Stands in Solidarity with Venezuela Against the Assault on its Democracy
    31 Jul 2024
    The election interference and subsequent US backed protests in Venezuela are another attempt to destabilize the nation and stop the ongoing Bolivarian Revolution. But the masses will remain strong.
  • Netfa Freeman
    The Ruthless and Desperate Pursuit of U.S. Influence and Access Over Africa
    31 Jul 2024
    AFRICOM is growing more bold in its attempts to maintain dominance over the African continent. Now is the time for Pan-African and Black Nationalist forces to organize to sabotage those efforts…
  • Jon Jeter
    How the Democratic Party Committed Suicide by Biting the Black Hands That Feed It
    31 Jul 2024
    The Democratic Party dug its own grave decades ago when it began trying to siphon from the GOP by appealing to conservatives and ignoring the needs of its strong base of African American people.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us