Organizing Your Own: The White Fight for Black Power in Detroit

The fascinating history of white solidarity with the Black Power movement

In the mid-1960s, as the politics of Black self-determination gained steam, Black activists had a new message for white activists: Go into your own communities and organize white people against racism. While much of the media at the time and many historians since have regarded this directive as a “white purge” from the Black freedom movement, Say Burgin argues that it heralded a new strategy, racially parallel organizi...