Living in the Future - Utopianism and the Long Civil Rights Movement

"Victoria W. Wolcott argues that utopianism is the little-appreciated base of the visionary worldview that informed the prime movers of the Civil Rights Movement. Idealism and pragmatism, not utopianism, are what tend to come to mind when we think about the motivating philosophies of the movement. It's well-known that many of its iconic moments were carefully executed products of planning, not passion alone. But Wolcott holds that pragmatism and idealism alike were grounded in nothing less than intensely utopian thought. Key figures from Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott to Marjorie Penney and Howard Thurman shared a belief in a radical pacificism that was, Wolcott shows, both specifically utopian and precisely engaged in changing the existing world. Casting mid-twentieth-century civil rights activism in the light of utopianism ultimately allows us to see the power of dreaming in a profound and concrete fashion, one that can be emulated in other times that are desperate for change, like today"--

About the author

Victoria W. Wolcott is professor of history at the University of Buffalo.

Product details

• Authors: Victoria W Wolcott, Victoria W. Wolcott, Wolcott Victoria W.
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.03.2022
• EAN: 9780226817255
• ISBN: 978-0-226-81725-5
• No. of pages: 272
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Ethnology > Folklore; USA, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Civil Rights, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Utopias, United States of America, USA, Ethnic groups and multicultural studies, History of the Americas, Civil rights & citizenship, Human rights, civil rights, Black & Asian Studies, Relating to African American / Black American people