Living in the Future
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A01=Victoria W. Wolcott
activism
activists
african american studies
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Author_Victoria W. Wolcott
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biographical
bitter history
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBJK
Category=JBSL1
Category=JFSL3
Category=JPVH
Category=JPVH1
Category=NHK
civil rights movement
COP=United States
daily life
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discrimination
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eq_history
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eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
equality
father divine
howard thurman
impractical
justice
Language_English
major figures
martin luther king jr
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pauli murray
pragmatism
Price_€20 to €50
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race relations
racism
radical pacificism
reform
social issues
softlaunch
united states
unrealistic
utopia
utopian ideology
visionary worldview
Product details
- ISBN 9780226817255
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 21 Apr 2022
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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Living in the Future reveals the unexplored impact of utopian thought on the major figures of the Civil Rights Movement.
Utopian thinking is often dismissed as unrealistic, overly idealized, and flat-out impractical-in short, wholly divorced from the urgent conditions of daily life. This is perhaps especially true when the utopian ideal in question is reforming and repairing the United States' bitter history of racial injustice. But as Victoria W. Wolcott provocatively argues, utopianism is actually the foundation of a rich and visionary worldview, one that specifically inspired the major figures of the Civil Rights Movement in ways that haven't yet been fully understood or appreciated.
Wolcott makes clear that the idealism and pragmatism of the Civil Rights Movement were grounded in nothing less than an intensely utopian yearning. Key figures of the time, from Martin Luther King Jr. and Pauli Murray to Father Divine and Howard Thurman, all shared a belief in a radical pacificism that was both specifically utopian and deeply engaged in changing the current conditions of the existing world. Living in the Future recasts the various strains of mid-twentieth-century civil rights activism in a utopian light, revealing the power of dreaming in a profound and concrete fashion, one that can be emulated in other times that are desperate for change, like today.
Victoria W. Wolcott is professor of history at the University of Buffalo.
