History Teaches Us to Resist

December 15, 2017
A brief survey from the front lines of resistance by an author whose experience gives her a variety of perspectives.Now a distinguished academic, Berry (American Social Thought/Univ. of Pennsylvania; Five Dollars and a Pork Chop Sandwich: Vote Buying and the Corruption of Democracy, 2016, etc.) began her activism as a college protestor during the Vietnam War and a journalist covering it for her university newspaper. She was fired by President Ronald Reagan from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and later named by President Bill Clinton to chair it. Though she writes like a historian studying political resistance, Berry benefits from her experience both inside and outside the government, working through different channels and with grass-roots movements as well. What she offers here is less a polemical broadside than a measured, matter-of-fact account of how resistance has pushed social movements forward and aided progress in movements including civil rights, war protest, pro-abortion rights, disabilities, gay rights, and so many others, despite consistent Republican efforts to "turn back the clock." The author discusses Franklin Roosevelt's support for segregation and how a planned March on Washington found organizers warned by Eleanor "that following through with the demonstration could precipitate a reactionary rollback of unspecified civil rights gains that she attributed to her husband's administration." That experience paid belated dividends with the civil rights marches of the 1960s. Berry goes light on demonizing Richard Nixon, whom she praises for establishing relations with China as well as the Environmental Protection Agency. She also argues that Clinton pretty much got a free pass from the left: "he had the advantages of personality and his party identification, and after the Reagan and Bush years, progressives and liberals were tolerant and glad to have a 'friendly' president in office." A short coda on the many challenges of the Trump era restates what she plainly sees as the obvious: "None of these battles is over....Much resistance work still needs to be done."More of a well-informed handbook of effective resistance than a call to arms.

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January 1, 2018
Berry, professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and a past chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, examines six historic movements that generated widespread resistance to the status quo. Among them are those against the Vietnam War, against the reactionary policies of the Reagan administration, and against South African apartheid; the book also includes a recounting of various protests during the presidencies of G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, and G.W. Bush. The book is most thought-provoking when Berry utilizes the knowledge she gained through her work in the antiapartheid and civil rights movements. Her accounts of various protest strategies, including such nonviolent forms of civil disobedience as “marches, sit-ins, hunger strikes, and acts of guerrilla theater,” provide a catalogue of the many avenues open to activists. Berry also makes clear that political action is only one mechanism for change and that political movements can be greatly affected by federal court decisions. She briefly touches on 21st-century activism and offers little discussion of how social media fits into current progressive action. This isn’t a how-to book for progressives, but an exemplar of past work; Berry effectively combines her roles as historian and activist to show how previous achievements of social justice were won and to encourage future activists.