New UA Press Book

A new book by University of Arkansas alumnus Kevin R. Anderson “Agitations: Ideologies and Strategies in African American Politics,” has been released by the University of Arkansas Press. The book examines African-American political activisim from the 19th century to the present, specifically how the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee fought their battles on multiple fronts.

The NAACP filed lawsuits and aggressively lobbied Congress and state legislatures, while Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC used nonviolent mass action and the SNCC focused on community empowerment. Anderson traces the ideological foundations of these groups to understand how diversity among African-Americans created multiple political strategies.