Black resistance to white supremacy is often reduced to a simple binary, between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolence and Malcolm X’s “by any means necessary.”
In We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance (Seal Press, 2024), historian Kellie Carter Jackson urges us to move past this false choice, offering an unflinching examination of the breadth of Black responses to white oppression, particularly those pioneered by Black women.
The dismissal of “Black violence” as an illegitimate form of resistance is itself a manifestation of white supremacy, a distraction from the insidious, unrelenting violence of structural racism.
Force — from work stoppages and property destruction to armed revolt — has played a pivotal part in securing freedom and justice for Black people since the days of the American and Haitian Revolutions.
But violence is only one tool among many. Carter Jackson examines other, no less vital tactics that have shaped the Black struggle, from the restorative power of finding joy in the face of suffering to the quiet strength of simply walking away.
Clear-eyed, impassioned, and ultimately hopeful, We Refuse offers a fundamental corrective to the historical record.
In hybrid in-person and online event Kellie Carter Jackson examines the breadth of Black responses to white oppression, particularly those pioneered by Black women on Monday, February 3, 2025 from 6 until 7 pm, ET.
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