Climbin' Jacob's Ladder: The Black Freedom Movement Writings of Jack O'Dell.

CCDS' Recorded Discussion of O'Dell's Book:

Session One: June 12, 2010 - Jacobs_Ladder_6-12-10.mp3

Session Two: June 19, 2010 - Jacobs_Ladder_6-1910.mp3

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Book Review by Van Gosse

“Reprinted from Portside.com" - March 2010

For activists across many movements and two generations, Jack O’Dell has been a wise counsel, an example of political tenacity, and a living, fighting (sometimes quietly chuckling) connection to the many lefts of the 20th century. His trajectory began in the Popular Front left of the 1940s and 50s. Despite exposure to the full force of McCarthyism, repeatedly named, summoned, and baited by congressional committees and the FBI, he operated at the center of the black freedom movement in the 1960s and 70s. Rather than stepping back, he then helped anchor the chaotic, post- Vietnam movements of the 1980s and 90s, by bridging the mainly white peace and solidarity networks with the world of black politics. There are few individual histories like his-- a militant of the National Maritime Union, shipping around the world during World War II, then, successively, southern regional organizer of the CPUSA, a top aide to Dr. King until forced out by Kennedy Administration pressure, Associate Editor of Freedomways for many years, and a key player in Operation PUSH and the Rainbow Coalition for two decades, while chairing an array of coalitions and boards, including SANE/Freeze and the Pacifica radio network.

Jack O'Dell's role in turning American politics inside- out-- from exclusion to inclusion, from a white man's country to a democracy for all--is now documented in a handsome book highlighting his political contributions over the past half- century. Nikhil Singh, a professor at New York University and author of Black is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy, has edited Climbin' Jacob's Ladder: The Black Freedom Movement Writings of Jack O'Dell (University of California Press, 2010). It is an unusual anthology. Books of this sort usually feature essays from academic journals and book chapters over a decade or two. O’Dell’s role presence been much larger and longer-lasting, and Singh adroitly interweaves organizational proposals and reports with remarkable historical analyses from his years at Freedomways, to forge an intellectual biography of a whole current on the black left.

Singh's introduction lays out the contours of O'Dell's life, from his roots in Detroit's black working-class before World War II through his active retirement in Vancouver, British Columbia in recent years. The first two pieces then articulate the duality of this personal trajectory, as an organizer and a theoretician, under and around the movement’s visible face.

The 1962 "Report on Voter Registration Work" to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s annual meeting offers remarkable insight into the civil rights movement at full tide, dispatching organizing teams to set up southwide workshops focused on the hard work of acquiring electoral power--black power--so white politicians could no longer ignore African Americans. This is a less dramatic narrative than the familiar counterposing of SNCC in the Black Belt to Dr. King’s tortuous liaising with Northern elites, but it is equally vital, since entrenched white supremacy did not simply surrender in hundreds of counties, but was shoved into acquiescence by little-known SCLC, NAACP, and CORE cohorts.

Two years later, out of SCLC, O’Dell began a series of essays in Freedomways that prefigured the entire direction of historical thinking about the U.S. over subsequent decades. In "Foundations of Racism in American Life" (1964) he argued that this country’s development was inextricably tied to the "special character of racism in the United States....rooted in two economic factors which complement each other-- namely, private property in land and private property in slaves." In a powerful synthesis, he demonstrated how slave-led expansion was organically linked to the expropriation of land from Native Americans and Mexicans via "a state system of racial totalitarianism," offering a theory of U.S. history that was neither romantic or nationalist, and thus a considerable departure from traditional Communist popular-frontism.

The rest of the book maintains this high standard, as we see O’Dell consistently questioning assumptions about movement progress or decline, and proposing new directions forward. Always his eye focused on the prize of expanded political weight, as he drew upon the legacies of Du Bois, Robeson, and other protagonists of the black left never effaced inside Black America, however much white leftists forgot them.

People do not make history as they wish, but Jack O’Dell has made a great deal. There is much to learn about tenacity and independence from studying such a life, still moving forward in this new century.

Presente, Jack!

Climbin' Jacob's Ladder: The Black Freedom Movement Writings of Jack O'Dell by Jack O'Dell (author) & Nikhil Singh (editor). University of California Press. January 2010. ISBN: 978-0520945067, ISBN-10: 0520259580, ISBN-13: 978-0520259584. (Available in print or ebook)