New Black activists favored disruption over conventional protest politics

Evidence

A series of protests around the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area later that day showcased the differences between what Sharpton and the traditional black leaders were doing and what a burgeoning new movement aspired to do. DC Ferguson, a group of young activists in the DC metro area who hoped to connect what happened in Ferguson to the broader issue of police violence in the country, engaged in direct actions that blocked traffic on a key highway and disrupted business as usual throughout the city. No one, they argued, should be comfortable until racial justice is a reality. For them, Sharpton and his ilk stood in the way of fundamental change. They were part of the problem. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 491

Categorization

• XREF: Supports Glaude’s core contrast between the value gap’s maintenance-rituals and genuine disruption. — connects to: Black activists moved from demanding equal segregation to demanding its abolition — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 1012