Expanding the Boundaries of Politics: The Various Voices of the Black Religious Community of Brooklyn, New York, before and during the Cold War

Students of African-American history and politics have argued that cold war hysteria and political repression of left forces marginalized the black left. The result was the removal of a serious progressive force that had the potential to steer black America to a left-of-center politics. Instead, black America, according to these historians, moved to the right with little dissent. Noted scholar Gerald Horne, for example, argues in the American Historical Review that the attack on black radicals silenced important progressive voices during the cold war. Because radicals were too weak and received little support from mainstream organizations, narrow black nationalism rose to fill the void.1