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A painful history
STEVEN ANDREW applauds the reissue of a seminal study of social reform movements in the US  that seems more relevant than ever 
UNFORTUNATE REFERENCE TO RACE: All-white suffragette group joins parade on Fifth Avenue on March 27 1921 [Paul Thompson/Public Domain]

Reluctant Reformers — Racism and Social Reform Movements in the United States 
Robert L Allen and Chude Pamela Allen, OR Books, £17.99

INSPIRED by, and indeed often involved in the movements for civil rights, black power, labour unity and an end to the war in Vietnam, Robert and Chude Allen took much of their ideological bearings not only from Marx, Engels and Lenin but also from other schools of thought such as pan Africanism.  

Successful influencers and networkers both inside and outside the universities, in 1969 they were central to the establishment of the widely renowned and still existing journal, The Black Scholar, and this was also the year that saw Robert write his monumental Black Awakening in Capitalist America.

In 1983, as Reaganism really began to take on its deadly hold across the country, the pair were once again involved in a great publishing venture, but this time on different territory altogether.

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