Anbar Lecture: “Bayard Rustin and the Responsibilities of Political Organizing”

Derrick Darby is Henry Rutgers Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. His recent books are Boxed In: Making Identities Safe for Democracy, A Realistic Blacktopia: Why We Must Unite to Fight, and The Color of Mind: Why the Origins of the Achievement Gap Matter for Justice. He talks about discovering his passion for philosophy growing up in New York City’s iconic Queensbridge housing projects in his TEDx talk, “Doing the Knowledge.” He teaches a popular course on hip hop and philosophy.

Title: Bayard Rustin and the Responsibilities of Political Organizing

Abstract: When building democratic political movements to address problems such as climate change, immigration, discrimination, gun violence and war, we cannot ignore intra-and-intergroup identity differences. As a skilled political organizer, Bayard Rustin also learned that when our collective identities are scripted too tightly, which can happen by specifying their meaning in overly restrictive ways, we can become boxed in. My lecture examines how being boxed in can undermine the cooperation needed to address intractable social problems. It draws lessons from Rustin’s approach to political organizing to argue for a civic responsibility to search for heterogeneity among potential coalition partners as a component of breaking free. This lecture draws from my recent book with Eduardo J. Martinez, Boxed In: Making Identities Safe for Democracy.

For more info about Derrick Darby, go to derrickdarby.com.