Dr. James Turner who passed this August, was one of the pioneers of Black Studies in the U.S. university who wrote a 1984 article called “Africana Studies and Epistemology.” In this article, Turner writes that many faculty “have succumbed to the orthodox norms of academic traditionalism in their pursuit of careerist aspirations for legitimacy and acceptability for the purposes of job stability and security” (181).
The books written by Keisha Blain clearly show that she is academic traditionalist because she writes about influential figures–specifically Amy Ashwood Garvey and Fannie Lou Hamer– in a context that makes these women look like lackeys for the Democratic Party.
A close personal study of each of these women, shows they are not simply lackeys for the Democratic Party but were radicals who challenged the machinations of the Wall Street-backed Democratic Party, a party whose popularity has dropped 33 percent this year.
In the September 9th issue of The New Republic, Keisha Blain penned an article called “Black Historians Know There’s No Such Thing as Objective History,” where she claims that “in a white dominated world and academy,” Black historians “are always fighting to assert our voices and histories into spaces designed to exclude us.” However in the process of asserting “voices and histories” Blain downplays the seminal work of these women in resisting the harmful policies of the two party mainstream.
In her book Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom, Blain writes more of Amy Ashwood Garvey’s public statements endorsing integrationism than Black Nationalism. For example, in quoting Ashwood’s words at the April 1944 conference hosted by the Council on African Affairs, Blain writes: “maintaining the belief that interracial political unity was a necessary step toward ending political rule, Ashwood added ‘I see no ill in finding white allies’” (Blain 149). In Blain’s words, Amy Ashwood Garvey becomes an integrationist. Blain’s writings about Amy Ashwood Garvey turn her into an integrationist who sought cooperation with the N.A.A.C.P. when in fact Tony Martin writes about her nationalist identity, seeking advertising space in the Nation of Islam’s Muhammad Speaks newspaper for sponsors of her concrete enterprise in Liberia.
Tony Martin put Amy Ashwood Garvey in her proper nationalist context, rather than a figure seeking approval and integration into Western white organizations.
In Blain’s latest book Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America, she situates Hamer as an inspiration for Democratic politicians like Kamala Harris. Although Blain puts Hamer’s work in the context of the popular causes of the Black Lives Matter movement, she does not apply the most enduring and important principles of Ms. Hamer’s speeches. For example, Blain quotes Hamer saying “time out for white people…hand picking the leader that [is] going to lead me ’cause we ain’t going to follow” (65-7). However she does not show how Hamer practiced this principle in her own life. In the conclusion of this book, Blain references Kamala Harris’s 2020 Democratic National Convention speech that mentioned “structural racism” as evidence that Hamer “helped to frame” Harris’s political vision.
This is a vision by Harris that allows the city of Jackson in Hamer’s state of Mississippi, to not have running water, while the federal government stands by, failing to respond. Yet this government finds the money and the weapons to deliver to the Ukraine, which has clean running water. A close read of Hamer’s autobiography, available on SNCC Digital, reveals that Hamer did not believe the policies of the Democratic Party should go unchecked by Wall Street.
Blain’s frame of Fannie Lou Hamer as one who inspired Kamala Harris downplays the failure of the federal government in addressing the very real systemic racism in Mississippi that the Democratic Party has demonstrated it is unable to address.
My forthcoming book details exactly how Blain mischaracterizes Amy Ashwood Garvey and is scheduled for release in June 2023 by Arawak Publications. It is entitled To A More Positive Purpose: Critical Responses to the Scholarship of Tony Martin and features articles by Joshua Myers, Ian Smart, Rupert Lewis, Geoffrey Philp, Latif Tarik, Wendy McBurnie, Ophera Davis and April Shemak.
Blain writes that “the work we do has the potential to shape national debates and inform policies that have broad implications for all Americans.” It behooves her and the academic establishment that supports her to ensure she writes about these influential women in a deeper context from which they emerge so as not to distort them into corporate lackeys for personal career advancement. -RF.
