Power to the Poor - (Justice, Power, and Politics) by Gordon K Mantler (Paperback)

About the Book

Power to the Poor: Black-Brown Coalition and the Fight for Economic Justice, 1960-1974

Book Synopsis

The Poor People's Campaign of 1968 has long been overshadowed by the assassination of its architect, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and the political turmoil of that year. In a major reinterpretation of civil rights and Chicano movement history, Gordon K. Mantler demonstrates how King's unfinished crusade became the era's most high-profile attempt at multiracial collaboration and sheds light on the interdependent relationship between racial identity and political coalition among African Americans and Mexican Americans. Mantler argues that while the fight against poverty held great potential for black-brown cooperation, such efforts also exposed the complex dynamics between the nation's two largest minority groups.
Drawing on oral histories, archives, periodicals, and FBI surveillance files, Mantler paints a rich portrait of the campaign and the larger antipoverty work from which it emerged, including the labor activism of Cesar Chavez, opposition of Black and Chicano Power to state violence in Chicago and Denver, and advocacy for Mexican American land-grant rights in New Mexico. Ultimately, Mantler challenges readers to rethink the multiracial history of the long civil rights movement and the difficulty of sustaining political coalitions.

Review Quotes

"Mantler offers an impressive examination of an understudied topic: antipoverty movements." -- Journal of American History

"Gordon Mantler turns conventional wisdom on its head. . . . An important, innovative addition to the growing literature on racial coalitions during the civil rights era." -- Law and History Review

"Mantler shows the way (the campaign) was a step forward in the construction of multiracial coalitions, and also as a way to draw attention to a number of the group's causes." -- A New Left Blog, Top Ten Books of 2013

"Mantler tells a much more complex story of multiracial organizing and coalitions." -- Labor Studies Journal

"Provides a fresh and persuasive view of the Poor People's Campaign." -- Labour/Le Travail

"Skillfully brings together the histories of the African American and Mexican civil rights movements and shows their development both regionally and nationally." -- New Mexican Historical Review

"The often-overlooked partnership between Mexican American and African American activists of the 1960s receives much-deserved attention in this important contribution to the history of the civil rights era. . . . Recommended. All academic levels/libraries." -- CHOICE

"This fascinating and richly researched book offers an important corrective to assumptions that identity politics and multiracial coalitions are necessarily mutually exclusive." -- American Historical Review

"Well written and significantly researched book that explores instances where identity politics and multiracial coalitions were not mutually exclusive. . . . A highly helpful read for those interested in the historiography of civil rights and identity-based movements, African American organizing, Mexican American activism, poverty, economic justice, and, most importantly, coalition politics." -- H-Net Reviews