New Books in Critical Theory

Hajar Yazdiha, "The Struggle for the People’s King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement" (Princeton UP, 2023)

Jan 12, 2024

Hajar Yazdiha, an expert in post-civil rights era activism, discusses the transformation of the memory of the Civil Rights Movement. She explores the distortion of history by right-wing social movements who claim the collective memory of civil rights as the newly oppressed minorities. The podcast delves into the contested legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., the branches of his memory, and the consequences of distorting his message on multicultural democracy.

30:32

Episode guests

Hajar Yazdiha

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Quick takeaways

The memory of the civil rights movement has been strategically distorted by right-wing groups to erode multicultural democracy and roll back civil rights advancements.

The competition over the moral authority of Martin Luther King Jr.'s memory plays a role in shaping different branches of activism and their use in political discourse.

Deep dives

The Struggle for the People's King

The author, Hajar Isdia, discusses her book and the significance of the civil rights movement in shaping collective memory. She explores the reverse racism arguments that emerged during the Obama presidency and the rise of the Tea Party as a reaction. Isdia delves into the question of how Dr. King's words are being used in conservative claims of white victimhood. She highlights the long process of institutionalizing the King holiday and the debates that shaped its memory. Isdia examines the intentional political strategy of erasing the radical elements of King's legacy, leading to the creation of a safe and acceptable version of King that upholds American exceptionalism.

Introduction

3min

The Development of the Collective Memory of Martin Luther King Jr.

4min

Understanding the Branches of King's Memory and the Shaping of Collective Memory

4min

The Contestation of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Legacy

14min

Consequences of Distorting King's Memory and the Importance of Alternative Histories

5min

In the post-civil rights era, wide-ranging groups have made civil rights claims that echo those made by Black civil rights activists of the 1960s, from people with disabilities to women's rights activists and LGBTQ coalitions. Increasingly since the 1980s, white, right-wing social movements, from family values coalitions to the alt-right, now claim the collective memory of civil rights to portray themselves as the newly oppressed minorities. The Struggle for the People’s King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement (Princeton UP, 2023) reveals how, as these powerful groups remake collective memory toward competing political ends, they generate offshoots of remembrance that distort history and threaten the very foundations of multicultural democracy.

In the revisionist memories of white conservatives, gun rights activists are the new Rosa Parks, antiabortion activists are freedom riders, and antigay groups are the defenders of Martin Luther King's Christian vision. Drawing on a wealth of evidence ranging from newspaper articles and organizational documents to television transcripts, press releases, and focus groups, Hajar Yazdiha documents the consequential reimagining of the civil rights movement in American political culture from 1980 to today. She shows how the public memory of King and civil rights has transformed into a vacated, sanitized collective memory that evades social reality and perpetuates racial inequality.

Powerful and persuasive, The Struggle for the People's King demonstrates that these oppositional uses of memory fracture our collective understanding of who we are, how we got here, and where we go next.

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