ABSTRACT
The movement that emerged in the 1830s to abolish slavery was the first rights-based coalition in the United States. This chapter examines the history, development, and contemporary manifestations of African American social movement behavior. To understand the dynamic instability of African American coalition politics, we must know some basic concepts and theoretical propositions. In many ways the strangest and most paradoxical coalition in African American politics is the one fashioned by Booker T. Washington in the aftermath of Reconstruction. In these 95 years, Du Bois's life was one of extraordinary scholarship and political leadership, a life that at one point or another embraced every tendency in African American thought—integration, black nationalism, and finally socialism and communism. In The Reluctant Reformers: Racism and Social Reform Movements in the United States, Robert Allen analyzes six major social reform movements, beginning with the abolitionist movement and including populism, the progressive movement, feminism, the labor movement, and the socialist and communist movements.
