For the Sake of Peace

Africana Perspectives on Racism, Justice, and Peace in America

Edited by Charles L. Chavis Jr. and Sixte Vigny Nimuraba

For the Sake of Peace examines racism and injustice in the United States through the eyes of those of African descent. Historically America has promoted itself as the moral police promoting democracy across the globe, offering her perspectives and ideas to combat poverty and racial and ethnic violence. The rise of overt political racism and intolerance has made visible, for a global audience for the first time since the Civil Rights Movement, the deeply rooted systems of discrimination and identity-based conflicts in the United States, that gives rise to structural and direct violence. African Americans, like other minorities, find themselves in a unique position in this age as new forms of race lynching continue to go unchecked; voting rights continue to be suppressed; prisons continue to serve as a mechanism for disenfranchising minorities and the poor.

This volume centers around an understanding of peace that is concerned with justice and racial equality. Highlighting the prevailing impact of anti-black racism and injustice, authors offer prescriptive and descriptive insight that will aid in understanding and overcoming these historical and contemporary obstacles to peace focusing on specific themes including civil rights, education, white supremacy, structural violence, ritual, reparations, and human rights. Interdisciplinary in perspective, the essays are written by leading and emerging scholars, activists, and practitioners from the viewpoints of history, conflict analysis and resolution, anthropology, ethics, theology, and philosophy. A foreword by The Rev. Canon Nontombi Naomi Tutu, daughter of Nobel Peace Prize–winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Cathedral Missioner for Racial and Economic Equity at The Cathedral of All Souls in Ashville, NC, highlights the importance of Africana perspectives in the global pursuit of peace and equality.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Rowman & Littlefield International

Pages: 232 • Trim: 6½ x 9

978-1-78661-444-5 • Hardback • June 2020 • $152.00 • (£117.00)

978-1-78661-445-2 • Paperback • June 2020 • $54.00 • (£42.00)

978-1-78661-446-9 • eBook • June 2020 • $51.00 • (£39.00)

Series: Peace and Security in the 21st Century

Subjects: Political Science / Peace, Political Science / History & Theory, Political Science / World / African

For the Sake of Peace

Africana Perspectives on Racism, Justice, and Peace in America

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

For the Sake of Peace examines racism and injustice in the United States through the eyes of those of African descent. Historically America has promoted itself as the moral police promoting democracy across the globe, offering her perspectives and ideas to combat poverty and racial and ethnic violence. The rise of overt political racism and intolerance has made visible, for a global audience for the first time since the Civil Rights Movement, the deeply rooted systems of discrimination and identity-based conflicts in the United States, that gives rise to structural and direct violence. African Americans, like other minorities, find themselves in a unique position in this age as new forms of race lynching continue to go unchecked; voting rights continue to be suppressed; prisons continue to serve as a mechanism for disenfranchising minorities and the poor.

This volume centers around an understanding of peace that is concerned with justice and racial equality. Highlighting the prevailing impact of anti-black racism and injustice, authors offer prescriptive and descriptive insight that will aid in understanding and overcoming these historical and contemporary obstacles to peace focusing on specific themes including civil rights, education, white supremacy, structural violence, ritual, reparations, and human rights. Interdisciplinary in perspective, the essays are written by leading and emerging scholars, activists, and practitioners from the viewpoints of history, conflict analysis and resolution, anthropology, ethics, theology, and philosophy. A foreword by The Rev. Canon Nontombi Naomi Tutu, daughter of Nobel Peace Prize–winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Cathedral Missioner for Racial and Economic Equity at The Cathedral of All Souls in Ashville, NC, highlights the importance of Africana perspectives in the global pursuit of peace and equality.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Rowman & Littlefield International

Pages: 232 • Trim: 6½ x 9

978-1-78661-444-5 • Hardback • June 2020 • $152.00 • (£117.00)

978-1-78661-445-2 • Paperback • June 2020 • $54.00 • (£42.00)

978-1-78661-446-9 • eBook • June 2020 • $51.00 • (£39.00)

Series: Peace and Security in the 21st Century

Subjects: Political Science / Peace, Political Science / History & Theory, Political Science / World / African

Author

Charles L. Chavis, Jr., is assistant professor of conflict analysis and resolution and history and director of the John Mitchell, Jr. Program for History, Justice, and Race at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, George Mason University.

Sixte Vigny Nimuraba is president of the Burundian Independent National Commission on Human Rights (CNIDH), a visiting scholar, and director of Violence Prevention Initiatives of the Raphaël Lemkin Genocide Prevention Program at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, George Mason University.

Table of Contents

Foreword, Rev. Cannon Naomi Tutu

Introduction, Charles L. Chavis, Jr.

Part I: Racism: A Systemic Thing

1. Structural Violence Through the Lenses of Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation Comparative Case Study of America-South Africa Racial Politics, Siyabulela Mandela

2. Deconstructing the Origin and Myth of Black Criminality: Asserting Black Agency Over Black Lives and Black Communities, Wayne Rose

3. The Systemic Lynching of Trevyan Devon Rowe, Robert Hoggard

Part II: Knowing the Past: Narrative Change and the Historical Perspective

4. Segregation, White Supremacy, and the Dangers of Political Opportunism: A Case Study of George Wallace and Hendrik Verwoerd, Matthew Washington

5. I Leave You a Desire to Live Harmoniously: Mary McLeod Bethune on Health and Wellness, Ida Jones

6. From Birmingham to Monrovia: Black Women and the Wait/Weight of Freedom, 1960-2005, Ajanet Rountree

7. ‘So Tried, So True:’ The Legacy of Student Led Protests at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Simone R. Barrett

8. Reparations and Reparations NOW! A Brief History of Compensatory Justice for the European Enslavement of Africans, Raymond Winbush

Part III: Africana Cultural and Religious Perspectives on Peace

9. Ritual Remembrance and Protest as Embodied Pedagogy and its Role in Solidarity, Courtney Bryant Prince

10. Race, Rituals of Dissent, and Blackness in America, Oluwagbemiga Dasylva

11. For Renewal: Faith in the Fight for Dignity and Human Rights, Sandra Tombe

12. Carcasses of Memory: Intersectionality, Institutionalized Terrorism, and the Play on Black Bodies in America, David Olali

Reviews

For the Sake of Peace takes the voices of established and emerging black scholars from across the global African Diaspora and places them front and center in critically examining racism in the U.S. in the early 21st century. The collection of essays, thoughtfully assembled and curated by Charles Chavis, builds on a wealth of historical scholarship and searing set of contemporary observations of being black in America and the tried and new ways of 'demanding peace.'
— Omar H. Ali, Professor, African American and African Diaspora Studies and History, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

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