Black Liberation in the Midwest ― The Struggle in St. Louis, Missouri, 1964-1970

This book offers a response to the inadequate examination of the Midwest in Civil Rights Movement scholarship - scholarship that continues to ignore the city of St. Louis and the Black liberation struggle that took place there. Jolly examines this local movement and organizations such as the Black Liberators, Mid-City Congress, Jeff Vander Lou Community Action Group, DuBois Club, CORE, Zulu 1200s, and the Nation of Islam to illuminate the larger Black liberation struggle in the Midwest in the mid- and late 1960s. Furthermore, this work details the larger atmosphere and conditions in St. Louis, Missouri and the Midwest from which this local movement developed and operated.

This work raises important questions about periodizing and locating Black liberation and Black Nationalism. As racial oppression in the United States was equated with neo-colonialism and internal-colonialism, this discussion reveals the global nature of white supremacy, race and class oppression and exploitation, as well as the material and ideological relationship between local and transnational liberation movements.

Kenneth Jolly is Assistant Professor of History at Saginaw Valley State University.