Seeing Like an Activist : Civil Disobedience and the Civil Rights Movement

There are few movements more firmly associated with civil disobedience than the Civil Rights Movement. In the mainstream imagination, civil rights activists eschewed coercion, appealed to the majority's principles, and submitted willingly to legal punishment in order to demand necessary legislative reforms and facilitate the realization of core constitutional and democratic principles. Their fidelity to the spirit of the law, commitment to civility, and allegiance to American democracy set the normative standard for liberal philosophies of civil disobedience. This narrative offers the civil disobedience of the Civil Rights Movement as a moral exemplar: a blueprint for activists who seek transformative change and racial justice within the bounds of democracy. Yet in this book, Erin R. Pineda shows how it more often functions as a disciplining example―a means of scolding activists and quieting dissent. As Pineda argues, the familiar account of Civil Rights disobedience not only misremembers history; it also distorts our political judgments about how civil disobedience might fit into democratic politics. Seeing Like an Activist charts the emergence of this influential account of civil disobedience in the Civil Rights Movement, and demonstrates its reliance on a narrative about black protest that is itself entangled with white supremacy. Liberal political theorists whose work informed decades of scholarship saw civil disobedience "like a white state": taking for granted the legitimacy of the constitutional order, assuming as primary the ends of constitutional integrity and stability, centering the white citizen as the normative ideal, and figuring the problem of racial injustice as limited, exceptional, and all-but-already solved. Instead, this book "sees" civil disobedience from the perspective of an activist, showing the consequences for ideas about how civil disobedience ought to unfold in the present. Building on historical and archival evidence, Pineda shows how civil rights activists, in concert with anticolonial movements across the globe, turned to civil disobedience as a practice of decolonization in order to emancipate themselves and others, and in the process transform the racial order. Pineda recovers this powerful alternative account by adopting a different theoretical approach--one which sees activists as themselves engaged in the creative work of political theorizing. There are few movements more firmly associated with civil disobedience than the Civil Rights Movement. In the mainstream imagination, civil rights activists eschewed coercion, appealed to the majority's principles, and submitted willingly to legal punishment in order to demand necessary legislative reforms and facilitate the realization of core constitutional and democratic principles. Their fidelity to the spirit of the law, commitment to civility, and allegiance toAmerican democracy set the normative standard for liberal philosophies of civil disobedience.0This narrative offers the civil disobedience of the Civil Rights Movement as a moral exemplar: a blueprint for activists who seek transformative change and racial justice within the bounds of democracy. Yet in this book, Erin R. Pineda shows how it more often functions as a disciplining example-a means of scolding activists and quieting dissent. As Pineda argues, the familiar account of Civil Rights disobedience not only misremembers history; it also distorts our political judgments abouthow civil disobedience might fit into democratic politics.0Seeing Like an Activist charts the emergence of this influential account of civil disobedience in the Civil Rights Movement, and demonstrates its reliance on a narrative about black protest that is itself entangled with white supremacy. Liberal political theorists whose work informed decades of scholarship saw civil disobedience "like a white state": taking for granted the legitimacy of the constitutional order, assuming as primary the ends of constitutional integrity and stability,centering the white citizen as the normative ideal, and figuring the problem of racial injustice as limited, exceptional, and all-but-already solved. Instead, this book "sees" civil disobedience from the perspective of an activist, showing the consequences for ideas about how civil disobedience ought to unfoldin the present "There are few movements more firmly associated with civil disobedience than the civil rights movement. In the mainstream imagination, civil rights activists eschewed coercion, appealed to the majority's principles, and submit willingly to legal punishment in order to demand necessary legislative reforms - and facilitate the realization of core constitutional and democratic principles. Their fidelity to the spirit of the law, commitment to civility, and allegiance to American democracy provided the blueprint for activists pursuing racial justice, and set the normative horizon for liberal philosophies of civil disobedience. Seeing Like an Activist charts the emergence of this influential account of civil disobedience in the civil rights movement, and demonstrates its reliance on a narrative about black protest that is itself entangled with white supremacy. Liberal political theorists whose work informed decades of scholarship saw civil disobedience "like a white state": taking for granted the legitimacy of the constitutional order, assuming as primary the ends of constitutional integrity and stability, centering the white citizen as the normative ideal, and figuring the problem of racial injustice as limited, exceptional, and all-but-already solved. In contrast, building on historical and archival evidence, this book shows how civil rights activists, in concert with anticolonial movements across the globe, turned to civil disobedience as a practice of decolonization, in order to emancipate themselves and others from a racial order that needed to be fully transformed. We can recover this powerful alternative account only by adopting a different theoretical approach - one which sees activists as themselves engaged in the creative work of political theorizing"-- Provided by publisher As it is popularly understood, civil disobedience is a form of constitutional patriotism: protestors have to accept legal punishment and appeal to society's core principles in order to demonstrate that they are sincere reformers, not revolutionaries. Although this template for action is based on the example of the Civil Rights Movement, 'Seeing Like an Activist' demonstrates that it profoundly misunderstands civil rights activism. Based on historical and archival evidence, it argues that civil rights activists turned to civil disobedience as a practice of decolonisation: to emancipate themselves and others, and in the process transform the racial order Cover 1 Title Pages 2 Dedication 6 Epigraph 7 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction: Civil Disobedience and the Civil Rights Movement 15 1. Seeing Like a White State 36 2. An Entire World in Motion 67 3. Incarceration as Liberation 105 4 Forcing the Better Argument 141 5 The Techniques of Disavowal 173 Epilogue: To Build a New World 206 Notes 217 Index 269