This panel explores the dialectic between state violence and Black resistance during the mid-twentieth century. Panelists will consider such cases as the 1943 Harlem uprising, the 1967 rebellions in Detroit and Newark and the government’s response, police violence and Black resistance in the early 1970s Bay Area, and Black activism in 1970s New York. Each case highlights how state violence compelled a radical response against the frontlines of state power, the police. Moreover, they illustrate how Black resistance not only spanned the United States, but the tactics used by activists and rebels often paralleled those used by anti-imperialists in liberation struggles across the globe.

Together, the panelists’ papers illuminate the variegated nature of Black resistance, which ranged from nonviolent actions to armed self-defense and collective rebellion. Equally as important, the panelists show how governments at the local, state, and federal levels aimed to stifle Black dissent in historically evolving ways. Curtis Austin documents activists’ response to an unprovoked SFPD Tactical Squad attack on the Black Panther Party’s San Francisco office in 1971. He places Black resistance against police violence in San Francisco in a larger context of anti-police activism throughout the United States during this period. Bridget Kelly examines the Harlem uprising in 1943 through a gendered framework. Using affect theory to reject the dominant representation of the uprising as a “riot,” she centers Black women as agents of disruption in order to demonstrate the uprising’s anti-colonial and pro-labor character. Shannon King focuses on Black resistance against drug-related crime, police corruption, and police brutality in New York City during the early 1970s. He does so by exploring the intersection of anti-crime politics and community mobilizations, particularly in relation to the Rockefeller drug laws. Navid Farnia documents how the urban uprisings of 1967 not only dictated an overwhelming state response, but in so doing, illuminated a crisis in liberal governance. By placing these uprisings in a global context, he highlights how state authorities tapped into a transnational apparatus of repression to subdue Black resistance, while at the same time, publicly rebuking white supremacy.