8 - “A Heritage of Fascists without Labels”

Summary

This chapter looks to the early postwar period to explore some of the early legacies of black antifascism. While many scholars have examined the antifascist aspects of radical movements like the Black Panthers, this chapter focuses on this earlier moment of transition in the midst of growing bipartisan Cold War opposition and the alliance between anti-Communism and massive resistance. It explores which aspects of the black antifascist tradition endured and informed postwar struggles. As Du Bois noted shortly after German surrender: “We have conquered Germany but not their ideas.” This chapter explores the critical intellectual response to postwar shifts in domestic and foreign affairs and shows how it circulated in the press and civil rights rhetoric, and among everyday African Americans. Antifascism shaped local practices of militant protest, armed resistance, and self-defense, particularly among African American veterans disillusioned with the false promise of democracy and freedom promised to them with Allied victory. This chapter provides a new perspective on an understudied aspect of the long civil rights movement and postwar far right.