Robin Kelley brings
grass-roots movements to history’s grand narrative
BY ELAINE RAY
When a reader compliments
historian Robin D. G. Kelley on the accessibility of his
writing, the ever soft-spoken scholar's response betrays
no false modesty.
"That's the biggest
compliment, because that's the one thing I try to
achieve, only because I can't understand academic writing
myself. I'm just not that smart."
OK, so he earned a
bachelor's degree in three years from California State
University at Long Beach in 1983 despite the fact that
he'd chosen four majors before settling on one in
history. Back then, some of his professors were so taken
with his intellect that they allowed him to forego
bluebook exams. Instead, he wrote 120-page primary source
research papers and accepted invitations to lecture in
some of his undergraduate classes. Within four years
after earning his B.A., Kelley got a master's in African
history and doctorate in U.S. history, both from UCLA in
1985 and 1987, respectively. In 1994, at age 32, he
became a full professor at New York University. Not that
smart? Yeah, right.
Kelley, 36, recently spent
an academic year at the Center for Advanced Study in the
Behavioral Sciences. His time there was devoted to
promoting his latest book, Yo' Mama's Disfunktional!:
Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America, which
takes on popular notions of life in urban life. He
also got started on his next project, a book on the late
jazz pianist Thelonious Monk. In between, he gave a few
campus lectures and served on some dissertation
committees.
Kelley's accessibility is
not limited to his writing. He is as comfortable talking
to unemployed black workers in Yonkers as he is with
white democratic socialists. He can rattle off the ideas
of Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci and in the
next breath dissect the lyrics of a rap artist.
"He immediately
breaks down the barriers between the lecturer and the
audience," says Clayborne Carson, professor of
history and director of the Martin Luther King, Jr.
Papers Project. "He's very in touch with young
people. He's not very old, but he's also very aware of
contemporary social trends."
Kelley's other books
include Hammer and Hoe, on the experience of
Communists in Depression-era Alabama; Into the Fire:
African Americans Since 1970, part of the Young
Oxford History of African Americans series; and Race
Rebels: Culture, Politics and the Black Working Class.
"He's in the middle
ground between social history and kind of postmodern
cultural analysis," Carson adds. "He certainly
doesn't go in for the jargon of the postmodern literary
scholars. But he's aware of some of the insights coming
out of that work and is able to adapt them to his needs
as a social historian." Carson, who has known Kelley
for several years, appreciated the opportunities their
families had to spend together on the Farm this year.
"What was different this time was being able to
spend time with his family, Diedra [Harris-Kelley] and
Elleza [their daughter]."
Kelley spent the early
years of his life in New York and later moved west to
Seattle and ultimately to Pasadena. The difference
between his Harlem and Southern California experiences
was striking. In Harlem, Kelley remembers participating
in the Black Panther Party's free breakfast program. At
his elementary school, students routinely sang Lift
Every Voice and Sing rather than The Star-Spangled
Banner. The flag that stood in the auditorium at P.S.
28 was red, black and green, symbolizing black
liberation.
"It was a very
international kind of environment. You had a lot of West
Indian families, Puerto Rican families, people trying to
be African because that was both chic and politically
important." By the time Kelley got to Pasadena,
things were quite different. His focus, like that of
other teenagers there, was on hair, cars and parties.
"By the time I got to high school in the late '70s,
there were political movements, but they weren't as
pronounced," he says.
Kelley's political
reawakening came during his years at Long Beach, where he
started out as an industrial arts major. He abandoned
those ambitions when he met Diedra, a visual artist.
"I wanted to be a photographer, then I met an artist
and realized that's not my vocation," he says. He
then decided to pursue business because it was a popular
major. In the meantime, he got involved in campus
political organizations such as the All-African People's
Revolutionary Party and the Communist Workers Party.
"It was the political
experience which really informed my academic trajectory.
It had nothing to do with academics per se. It had to do
with the political connections I had," Kelley said.
Those connections included professors who were long-time
Jewish radicals as well as Afro-centric nationalists.
"So, here I am in this bifurcated world, reading
Egyptology on one hand and German ideology on the other.
History allowed me to bridge those two gaps," says
Kelley, who in addition to industrial arts and business
tried out philosophy and political science before he
realized his true calling.
Kelley went straight from
Long Beach to graduate school at UCLA. He taught at
Southeastern Massachusetts University, Emory University
and the University of Michigan before joining the faculty
in NYU's history department and Africana studies program
four years ago. There, he teaches U.S. history, African
American history and popular culture. His favorite course
is one called "Black Revolt in the Modern
World," which takes an international view of
liberation struggles from the 17th century to the
present.
"We look at North
America, South America, the Caribbean, Africa and Europe.
We look at the impact of things like the Haitian
Revolution and black people's involvement in the American
Revolution. We look at the end of slavery not just in the
U.S., but all over the world to show that these free
people reconstructed the state in places like Guyana, the
United States, South Africa in making demands and
redefining what freedom meant," Kelley says.
Unlike many of his
colleagues, Kelley says he rarely teaches courses based
on his own research. "I'm finding that students are
having trouble getting a whole big picture," Kelley
says. "Instead they're getting their professors'
research interests."
Kelley's scholarship
focuses on two central questions: How have black people,
particularly in the New World, defined the notion of
liberation, and what strategies have they developed to
achieve it. Liberation struggles, according to Kelley,
are varied and continual and fraught with conflict. The
interests of one group inevitably clash with those of
another, whether it's the black poor vs. the black middle
class, blacks against other racial communities or men
against women.
"I don't think
there's going to be a moment when suddenly we're all
going to get together and win. I think it's a constant
battle, and it's always been sustained it's just that
it ebbs and flows. That's why the kind of history I try
to write is about those ebbs and flows on the one hand.
On the other hand, it's about movements that we simply
don't know anything about. Movements that actually made a
difference that are not part of the general grand
narrative."
To that end, Kelley has
focused a lot of his attention on grass-roots protests
and efforts. These include the network of organizations
built and run mostly by women in Watts in the early 1960s
before the community erupted in flames in 1965. They also
include acts of resistance to Jim Crow waged by the
South's black poor well before the black elite lifted the
civil rights banner.
These protests don't
always translate into movements, he says. They can range
from work slowdowns at factories to employees pilfering
items from their workplaces. By engaging in these acts,
Kelley says, workers often feel that they have somehow
righted an injustice. Because these actions are often not
organized, scholars generally overlook them. Instead, he
says, academics define liberation, then go out and try to
find examples that fit their definitions.
Kelley views culture
particularly popular culture as an expression of those
desires for liberation. Hip-hop music, graffiti and other
popular forms, for instance, are not simply venues for
making money, he says, but have provided a creative
outlet as well.
"It's not always
about more money or more things to buy or even a better
house or a better car. Sometimes it's intangible things
like love or being able to create," Kelley says.
Acknowledging the
importance of creativity in political expression is what
has attracted Kelley to Surrealism, a body of political
thought that recognizes that oppression is often rooted
in capitalism, but that unleashing the imagination and
being able to see beyond one's immediate circumstances is
a big part of being free.
"If I were going to
characterize my politics, it would be Marxist Surrealist
feminist who is not just anti something but
pro-emancipation, pro-liberation. Marxism is
anti-capitalist, feminism is anti-patriarchy. But it's
also about re-envisioning our lives in this world."
SR
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