“The United States has a long history of white supremacy. This phenomenon has played itself out in the courts, the workplaces and the streets of this country… Most tellingly—at least as a means of illustrating just how deeply this system of white supremacy is ingrained in the psyche of our nation—it rears its ugly head frequently in US social movements ostensibly designed to make the country a more progressive place.

It is this latter case that is the subject of a recently-republished text by Robert L. Allen and Chude Pamela Allen titled Reluctant Reformers… Even though this text is almost forty years old, reading it now makes it clear how much remains to be done on the US Left to address the role of white supremacy in the modern world.”

“Robert L. Allen and Chude Pamela Allen wrote the book on the destructive and corrupting impact of racist ideology on U.S. social movements. Their recently re-issued Reluctant Reformers remains as timely now as when it was first published 47 years ago. The book takes readers through a sweeping survey of major U.S. social movements – beginning with abolition and marching through the Populist, Progressive, women’s suffrage, labor, socialist and communist movements. An epilogue added in 1983 looks at the burst of radical activism that flourished in the long sixties. In each case, Reluctant Reformers details the ways that racist ideology shaped and ultimately corrupted white-dominated collective efforts at social reform.”

“The re-release of Reluctant Reformers is a timely as it is necessary. For the agitators among us, it highlights the importance of historical study to our efforts and highlights the pitfalls of our predecessors. For the historians among us, it reminds us that we have a role in validating critical questions arising from today’s social movements. And for those of us who do both, it is a usable past paragon.”

Read the article here.