Consciousness Raisers about Racism
Philadelphia: Movement for a New Society Racism Task Force, circa 1979. Folded pamphlet, measuring 8.5 x 14 inches unfolded. Printed on both sides, illustrations throughout text. Finger smudges on mailing address panel.
Illustrated flyer produced by the Racism Task Force of the Movement for a New Society (MNS), a Quaker-based network of activist groups “working nonviolently for fundamental social change,” active from 1971 to 1988. Aimed at a white readership, the flyer anticipates the language of twenty-first-century anti-racism: “We should not be afraid to live with the contradiction of benefitting from white privilege while working against it. What is important is to sort out the difference between rights which should be available to all and privileges which are available to white people only and require the exploitation of Third World people.” The flyer contains a bullet-pointed list of “daily reminders for working on our racism,” tips for anti-racist organizers, and a reading list that includes works by Martin Luther King, Jr., Alice Walker, and Nat Hentoff. For more on MNS, see Andrew Cornell, “The Movement for a New Society: Consensus, Prefiguration, and Direct Action” in The Hidden 1970s: Histories of Radicalism. “Since MNS dissolved, its ideas and practices have been taken up by groups such as Earth First!, Food Not Bombs, Anti-Racist Action, and ACT UP, as well as by infoshops, radical periodicals, anarchist collectives, campus organizations, and, perhaps most notably, the global justice movement that arose at the turn of the millennium.” A compelling piece of anti-racist ephemera.
Price: $250.00