Rod Bush: Lessons from a Radical Black Scholar on Liberation, Love, and Justice

By Robin D. G. Kelley

Editor: Melanie E. L. Bush • Foreword: Robin D. G. Kelley 
Co-editors: Rose M. Brewer, Daniel Douglas, Loretta Chin, Robert Newby 
Series Editor: Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

Roderick Douglas Bush (1945–2013) was a scholar, educator, mentor, activist and a loving human being. In reflecting on his life well-lived, t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ahead Publishing House (imprint: Okcir Press)
• Release date: Jan 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781888024739

Robin D. G. Kelley

Robin D. G. Kelley is Gary B. Nash Professor of American history at UCLA.

Book preview

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Rod Bush

About this Book

Roderick Douglas Bush (1945–2013) was a scholar, educator, mentor, activist and a loving human being. In reflecting on his life well-lived, the contributors in Rod Bush: Lessons from a Radical Black Scholar on Liberation, Love, and Justice share insightful lessons from his life and works on how to effect liberation and radical social transformation in the everyday practices of scholarship, teaching, activism, and personal interaction through a loving spirit dedicated to social justice. Rod Bush was deeply convinced that Pan-European racism is the Achilles’ heel of the modern world-system, and the demographic situation of the United States, with its large, strategically located populations of color, is a key locus of struggle for a more just, democratic, and egalitarian world order. This book shows by the example of Rod Bush how one can be the change—through a commitment to everyday practices and personal transformations that embody, enable, embrace, and engage global social change.

This anthology is edited by Melanie E. L. Bush and co-edited by Rose M. Brewer, Daniel Douglas, Loretta Chin, and Robert Newby. Contributors include: Robin D. G. Kelley (Foreword), Angelo Taiwo Bush, Chriss Sneed, Daniel Douglas, Godfrey Vincent, Matthew Birkhold, Loretta Chin, Latoya A. Lee, Tatiana Chichester, A. Kia Sinclair, Mojúbàolú Olufúnké Okome, Natalie P. Byfield, Komozi Woodard, Bob Barber, Rodney D. Coates, Charles Cappy Pinderhughes, Jr., James V. Fenelon, Walda Katz-Fishman, Jerome Scott, Rose M. Brewer, Robert Newby, Roderick D. Bush, and Melanie E. L. Bush. The anthology is a volume (XII, 2019) in the Edited Collection Series of Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, edited by Mohammad H. Tamdgidi.

From the Contributors …

"As we struggle to rebuild our movements and develop an expansive vision of liberation, Rod Bush can be our guide. He showed us how to struggle from a place of love, how to model the change we hope to see, and how we might work toward building what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and later Jimmy and Grace Lee Boggs, called the Beloved Community. Rod understood love not as sentimentality but as a constant struggle to build and rebuild community." —Robin D. G. Kelley, University of California at Los Angeles

"What I chose to share on my part for this book are photos I took in Kenya. Being a person of African descent, these images make me feel at home at a higher level than I have ever felt in my fifteen years of life. These images in my eyes respectively represent climbing feats of greatness, strength and courage, love and parenthood, family tree, unity, unbreakable bonds, persistence, patience and hard work, and self-awareness—in short, home—which are all the things that cross my mind when I think of my grandfather, Roderick Bush." —Angelo Taiwo Bush, High School Student, St. Paul, Minnesota

Dr. Bush continued, his voice sounding as if he was stating a fact rather than asking a question, I know you’ve only been working in the department for a few months, but you are a graduate student, right? Shyly, I laughed and said that I was a first-year undergraduate student. Two brown eyes, framed by thin, silver-ish wire glasses, widened in front of me as Dr. Bush grinned in surprise. You know, I was sitting there listening to the questions you asked at the colloquium thinking—I know her, I know she’s got to be a graduate student with a question like that! I just had to tell you!" I laughed again—blushing." —Chriss Sneed, Doctoral Student of Sociology, University of Connecticut

Rod Bush

Lessons from a

Radical Black Scholar on

Liberation, Love, and Justice

Editor:

Melanie E. L. Bush

Foreword:

Robin D. G. Kelley

Co-Editors:

Rose M. Brewer • Daniel Douglas • Loretta Chin • Robert Newby

Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge

Edited Collection Series, Volume XII, 2019

Rod Bush: Lessons from a Radical Black Scholar on Liberation, Love, and Justice

Editor: Melanie E. L. Bush

Foreword: Robin D. G. Kelley

Co-Editors: Rose M. Brewer, Daniel Douglas, Loretta Chin, and Robert Newby

Copyright © 2019, by Melanie E. L. Bush; each part by its contributor; Ahead Publishing House

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any informational storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher (representing copyright holders) except for a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Published by: Ahead Publishing House (imprint: Okcir Press)

P. O. Box 393 • Belmont, MA 02478 • USA • www.okcir.com

For ordering or other inquiries contact: [e-mail]

Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN): 2018951363

For latest and most accurate LOC data for this book, search catalog.loc.gov for the above LCCN

Publisher Cataloging in Publication Data

Rod Bush: Lessons from a Radical Black Scholar on Liberation, Love, and Justice

Editor: Melanie E. L. Bush; Foreword: Robin D. G. Kelley

Co-Editors: Rose M. Brewer, Daniel Douglas, Loretta Chin, and Robert Newby

Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge

Volume XII, 2019, Edited Collection Series

Journal and Series Editor: Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

Belmont, Massachusetts: Ahead Publishing House • First Edition: January 1, 2019

496 pages • 6x9 inches • Includes bibliographical references, photos, references, and index

ISBN-13: 978-1-888024-71-5 • ISBN-10: 1-888024-71-2 (hard cover: alk. paper)

ISBN-13: 978-1-888024-72-2 • ISBN-10: 1-888024-72-0 (soft cover: alk. paper)

ISBN-13: 978-1-888024-73-9 • ISBN-10: 1-888024-73-9 (ePub ebook)

ISBN-13: 978-1-888024-76-0 • ISBN-10: 1-888024-76-3 (PDF ebook)

1. Bush, Roderick Douglas 1945-2013. 2. Black nationalism—United States—Biography. 3. African Americans—Biography. 4. United States—Race Relations. 5. Internationalism. 6. Social Movements. 7. Marxism—United States—Biography. 8. World-Systems Analysis. 9. Sociologists—United States—Biography. 10. Humanism. I. Bush, Roderick Douglas, 1945–2013 II. Title

Cover and inside photo credits:

© Courtesy of Melanie E. L. Bush, Angelo Taiwo Bush, James V. Fenelon, Sunaryo

Cover and Book Design and Typesetting: Ahead Publishing House, Belmont, MA, USA

Printed by Lightning Source, LLC. The paper used in the print editions of this book is of archival quality and meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper). The paper is acid free and from responsibly managed forests. The production of this book on demand protects the environment by printing only the number of copies that are purchased.

To freedom loving people who know that liberation, love, and justice are possible;

Who have historically struggled for them and still do;

Who are building better ways to attain them;

And who continue to resist, believe that surrender is not an option, and that a new world is made starting from ourselves each and every day and night;

To our elders, families, friends, comrades, mentors, students and all who are and have been part of our journeys;

We offer these reflections to bolster our collective pursuit and achievement of justice.

Hasta la victoria, siempre!

Until freedom, always and forever!

… More from the Contributors

Love for what? Love for whom? Knowing Rod Bush first as my teacher, it was first and foremost clear to me that he loved his students. But knowing him as a man and as a friend, it is clear that he also loved his family, his community, and the world. Reflecting years later, and having been part of the collaboration that produced this volume, it is clear that these categories cannot and should not be disentangled. Rod’s family and community were indispensable components of his teaching and mentorship; his students in turn were and are viewed as part of his family and community. And so to love one is to love them all, and that integration is precisely what made Rod such a transformative presence in the lives of so many people. —Daniel Douglas, Rutgers University

"In time as our friendship developed and deepened, I understood that Rod had a sincere love for people. Often in the revolutionary movement, we shout the slogan Power to the People, but we less frequently show our love for the people around us in our daily interaction. Rod understood that having love for people in general and in particular is an essential revolutionary characteristic." —Godfrey Vincent, Tuskegee University

"From it I took a belief that if as people who want to make the world better we build relationships only as a means to a strategic end, we are not doing anything much differently than those we oppose. We are merely separated from our oppressors by our justifications for using people to get what we want accomplished. As Martin Luther King, Jr.—and Rod Bush—understood so clearly, when we treat people as means to an end—rather than as ends in themselves—no matter how righteous the ends, we debase the worth of individual people." —Matthew Birkhold, Educator and Writer, Washington, D.C.

"Rod Bush’s impact can be felt and seen through all he has done to influence and enlighten those around him. He was like the pebble sent skipping over the waters of life, sending forth never ending reverberating ripples, one affecting the next and resulting in acknowledged (and many more unacknowledged) changes in the lives of those who knew him; in turn, those affected put into motion their own circles of influence, and so on, and so on in a continuing pattern." —Loretta Chin, Brooklyn College/CUNY, Independent Journalist and Scholar

"When we look back at what brought all of us to Dr. Rod Bush’s class, we laugh because we thought we were just there to get our degree but instead we received lifelong lessons, and a selfless mentor who shared his knowledge, gave of his time and resources, made us feel like family and equipped us to stand strong against the oppression of the marginalized." —Latoya A. Lee, Tatiana Chichester, A. Kia Sinclair, Graduate Student Alumni, St. John’s University

"Always the internationalist, Rod Bush’s world-systems theory approach lifts us out of the narrow nation-state context and makes Black freedom a global issue." —Rose M. Brewer, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

"He treated everyone he encountered with respect, dignity, and kindness. … Rod showed the drivers the same kind and considerate attention as he did to the Assistant to the Deputy Vice Chancellor and the Deputy Vice Chancellor himself. He was warm, patient, and ever ready to engage in conversation. When you spoke to him, he paid you full attention, truly listening and talking to you." —Mojúbàolú Olufúnké Okome, Brooklyn College/CUNY

"Rod Bush’s legacy embodies so much of this love. The legacy is about what his intellectual work and activism do in real terms. He has also left us with a tremendous foundation to support future analyses and movement building. I will always feel his presence here at St. John’s and anywhere else I go. It is a presence through ideas." —Natalie P. Byfield, St. John’s University

"Rod helped me understand where anti-racism and Black Nationalism fit into the important work with Immanuel Wallerstein linking white domination to the world-system. The global framework established by Rod Bush has clarified my research agenda: How did racism and whiteness develop into basic organizing principles in the making of the modern world? And, based on that research, what must be the content of programs for Black Liberation and for the abolition of racial tyranny?" —Komozi Woodard, Sarah Lawrence College

"How is intersectionality among races, classes, and genders practiced in a non-dogmatic way such that other axes of domination/subordination are also considered? This multi-partite view seems critical to me. To the end, I believe Rod thought that current organizing efforts, particularly by and among youth and with communities of color in leadership roles and women centrally located, provide hope for the future." —Bob Barber, Activist and Instructor in Oakland, California

"Too many progressives, in their presumptive critical stance, confound race and class. The problem with these approaches is that quickly we get into binary constructs where we argue which is most significant, and by definition which must be addressed in order to provide sustainable, realizable, and substantive change. Bush found such debates not only meaningless but problematic. Race has no meaning without class, and one cannot effectively understand class without an understanding of race. Simply put, race and class are interconnected, interrelated, and interdependent. " — Rodney D. Coates, Miami University

"Literatures were woven together—in the world-systems analysis and radical Black social movement history traditions—by our warrior friend, Rod Bush, in the tradition of leaders of the past, who did not stray from their duties to their people, their society, their world." —James V. Fenelon, California State University at San Bernardino

"Rod Bush encouraged ideas, whether he completely agreed with them or not. He mentored with love, pressing the positive, embracing agreement even as he stated nuanced differences, gently but clearly. I am sure that if he were here today, Rod would have continued our dialogue regarding Internal Colonialism Theory." —Charles Cappy Pinderhughes, Jr., Essex County College

"Rod’s life situated him within many interrelated worlds. He bridged these worlds by the way he moved in them through his understanding of the totality, in his vision of an inclusive global society of justice, equality, love, and peace, and through his political practice to realize this vision." —Walda Katz-Fishman (Howard University) and Jerome Scott, Social Forum and Scholar Activists

"Rather than look toward protest movements, electoral campaigns and reform initiatives, we chose to investigate be the change projects, following the wise analysis of movements like the Zapatistas and people like Grace Lee Boggs and the examples all over the world of energies focused on building the world envisioned rather than reshaping current system and structures." —Melanie E. L. Bush, Adelphi University

Contents

Robin D. G. Kelley

Foreword

Melanie E. L. Bush, Rose M. Brewer,

Daniel Douglas, Loretta Chin, and Robert Newby

Introduction

Acknowledgments

I. Theory in Practice

Angelo Taiwo Bush

Photos of Home: A Letter to Grandpa

Chriss Sneed

Everyday Conversations with Dr. Rod Bush:

The Radical Potentials of Mentorship, Intimacy, and Practice

Daniel Douglas

Rod Bush and Radical Pedagogy

Godfrey Vincent

The Professor and the Student:

Lessons from My Experiences with Rod Bush

Matthew Birkhold

Rod Bush: A Revolutionary with a Soft Heart

Loretta Chin

Rod Bush: Passing the Torch for Love, Liberation, and Freedom

Latoya A. Lee, Tatiana Chichester, and A. Kia Sinclair

Paying it Forward: Lessons from Dr. Rod Bush

Melanie E. L. Bush

Mama, Was it Magic or Just Hard Work?: Being with Rod Bush, Always

II. Practice in Theory

Mojúbàolú Olufúnké Okome

Rod Bush Fought the Good Fight

Natalie P. Byfield

Fighting in the Core: Questioning the Last Century’s Debates over Race, Class, and Gender in Light of the Life and Works of Rod Bush

Komozi Woodard

Citizen Malcolm X Blueprint for Black Liberation: Coming of Age with Rod Bush on Race, Class and Citizenship in the Bandung Era

Bob Barber

Black Internationalism and the End of White World Supremacy: An Analysis and Application of Rod Bush’s The End of White World Supremacy

Rodney D. Coates

Rod Bush and the Quest for Social Justice:

Beyond the Binary Constructs of Race and Class

James V. Fenelon

Black Nationalism and Native American Struggles through the World-System Lens: Engaging with the Legacy of Rod Bush

Charles Cappy Pinderhughes, Jr.

My Dialogue with Rod Bush on Internal Colonialism

Walda Katz-Fishman and Jerome Scott

Celebrating Rod Bush: Friend, Comrade, and Revolutionary Warrior

Melanie E. L. Bush

From Tensions in the American Dream to As the World Turns: Lessons from Rod Bush’s Last Projects

III. From Rod Bush

Roderick Douglas Bush

Black Internationalism and Transnational Africa

Roderick Douglas Bush

The Internal Colony Hybrid:

Reformulating Structure, Culture, and Agency

Melanie E. L. Bush

Closing

Rod Bush in Memoriam

Rod Bush Gallery

Rod Bush Vita

Contributors

Index

Robin D. G. Kelley

Foreword

I first encountered Rod Bush in 1981 in the pages of a little-known but immensely important journal called Contemporary Marxism. I was nineteen, an aspiring revolutionary just beginning my sophomore year at Cal State Long Beach. At the time, all I knew about Rod was that he was based in the San Francisco Bay area, he was a Marxist, and I guessed that he was Black since his critique of racism was so effective and unsparing. He was a model for those of us trying to reconcile class struggle and Black nationalism. Little wonder that Rod’s writing on racism and the rise of the Right, the international division of labor, and apartheid South Africa really spoke to me. In my imagination, Rod Bush was a towering figure, an afro- or dreadlocked coifed militant, a cross between Paul Robeson and Kwame Ture, armed with Lenin and Malcolm under one arm and a semi-automatic rifle under the other. When I learned that his political trajectory brought him to groups such as the Congress of African People, the Student Organization for Black Unity, Youth Organization for Black Unity, the Revolutionary Workers League (Marxist-Leninist), and the African Liberation Support Committee, this only confirmed my image of Rod.

Thirteen years later, one cold, late night in March of 1994 on a New Jersey Transit train heading to New York Penn Station, I met my hero in the flesh. He may have been on his regular commute from Seton Hall. I may have been coming back from a conference. I don’t recall exactly. I do remember that he came over to me and introduced himself. I had to do a double take—could this rather short, soft-spoken man with the gentle smile be the Rod Bush? Fumbling for words, starstruck, excited and humbled, I rambled on about Contemporary Marxism, his piece on Southern Africa in Crime and Social Justice, The New Black Vote, Ethiopia, how many times I re-read Racism and Changes in the International Division of Labor in Our Socialism, and things I’ve since forgotten. His smile and his kindness set me at ease immediately. He was unfazed and probably embarrassed by my flattery. As we talked quietly on the ride to the city, Rod mainly talked about my work, barely mentioning his recently completed doctorate in Sociology. It quickly turned into a conversation about our lives and our families and why we do what we do.

Of course, this was just the beginning of a beautiful friendship and comradeship, but that is not the main point of the story. Rather, I learned in a matter of minutes that Roderick Douglas Bush was, as his beautiful and dedicated partner Melanie put it, all about love. His arms and heart were always open, not out of naiveté but because this was his moral, ethical, and political compass. He was not the caricature of the revolutionary I had conjured up; he was the real thing. Before we parted that night, I learned that Rod’s lifelong commitment to liberation derived not out of hatred of the system but love for the people. I later learned that Rod once worked as a clinical psychologist and an urban planner in Kansas City, devoting his skills to helping Black working class communities transform their lives and neighborhoods. And I watched him devote his time and energy to movements such as the Black Radical Congress, to students at Seton Hall and St. John’s University, to young activist/intellectuals from every part of the globe, to independent spaces for radical thinking like the Left Forum, and to his extraordinary family.

As the essays in this book demonstrate, Rod Bush embodied the unity of theory and practice. His scholarship, pedagogy, activism, personal relationships, and everyday interactions were governed by an ethic of love, social responsibility, a commitment to radical social change, and, in Marx’s words, a ruthless criticism that is not afraid of its own conclusions, nor of conflict with the powers that be.¹ His commitment to study and struggle in the service of human liberation knew no boundaries. His vision was planetary. He wrote critically and brilliantly about Black radical movements—here and abroad—and about the destructive power of racism, colonialism, capitalism (the modern world-system), all with the goal of transforming a society based on exploitation, subjugation, and war into a society rooted in mutual benefit, life, and love.

In this time of unprecedented global crisis, with the specter of fascism on the horizon and the prospect of planetary extinction a reality, we need Rod’s revolutionary praxis more than ever. He gave us a model for movement building and knowledge production devoted to ushering in a radically different future based on love and justice. The purpose of this book is to revisit his life and distill its most crucial lessons for current and future generations. And I do not say this because of Trump’s ascendancy to the White House, as if a Democratic replacement would bring the current crisis to an end. Trump’s election hardly signaled a state of emergency for most people since many have been enduring such a state for years: living in ghettoes and barrios with underfunded, crumbling schools that are now annexed to the criminal justice system; living under the day-to-day violence of the war on drugs or the war on terror; locked up along with 2.6 million people; living under the constant threat of state-sanctioned violence or enduring and endless loop of police killings of unarmed black and brown people on television and social media; living in the shadows of legality, immigrants mainly from the Global South vulnerable to an expansionist, militarized deportation and detention machine. These are the social and structural realities Rod and Melanie confront in their extraordinary book, Tensions in the American Dream, and have spent the better part of their lives confronting in the streets, the classroom, and the political arena.

Before Rod left us on December 5, 2013, he bore witness to the emergence of a new generation of radicals—in the people’s takeover of Zucotti Park launching the global Occupy Movement, in the streets of Athens and Cairo, London and Santiago; in the city of Jackson, Mississippi, where a genuinely revolutionary movement is building America’s first cooperative commonwealth dedicated to the principles of human rights, workers’ power, environmental sustainability, and socialism; and perhaps most poignantly, near Rod’s hometown in Sanford, Florida, where the killing of seventeen-year old Trayvon Martin by vigilante George Zimmerman birthed a new movement in the form of the Dream Defenders, Black Lives Matter, and a global struggle against state-sanctioned racial violence. From the Movement for Black Lives to Jackson Rising to South Africa’s Rhodes Must Fall/Fees Must Fall movement, a new generation of radicals are groping towards a politics of love and liberation resembling everything Rod Bush stood for, lived for, fought for, and wrote about. They are committed to dismantling racism, along with class exploitation and inequality, hetero-patriarchy, homophobia, and rampant exploitation of the environment. They insist that divesting from prisons, demilitarizing the police, abolishing money bail, decriminalizing drugs and sex work, and ending the criminalization of youth, trans, and gender non-conforming will make us safer. They believe that investing in education, universal healthcare, housing, living wage jobs, community-based drug and mental health treatment, restorative justice, food justice, and green energy will make us healthier and begin to make us whole. And they believe that by giving power to the people—that is to say the most marginalized and vulnerable among us—to control the institutions that have governed our communities for decades without accountability is the only way to ensure peace.

As we struggle to rebuild our movements and develop an expansive vision of liberation, Rod Bush can be our guide. He showed us how to struggle from a place of love, how to model the change we hope to see, and how we might work toward building what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and later Jimmy and Grace Lee Boggs, called the Beloved Community. Rod understood love not as sentimentality but as a constant struggle to build and rebuild community. Making community requires a kind of nakedness, leaving one’s armor at the door, opening oneself up to others and giving freely, being vulnerable, speaking truth while allowing others their voice. Love, in other words, is not a thing you adopt or embrace; it’s a process of making community, nourishing relationships, re-making oneself over and over again. And like James Baldwin, Rod understood love as agency, as action. As a product of a deeply rooted Black culture with all of its sacred and secular dimensions, with its history of suffering and celebration, with its deep blues epistemology, he knew that active, agentive love meant loving ourselves as Black people (not just bodies); it meant making love the motivation for making revolution; it meant envisioning a society where everyone is embraced, where there is no oppression, where every life is valued.

Rod Bush may no longer be with us in person, but thanks to the foresight and tireless dedication of Melanie Bush and the co-editors of this volume, the lessons he imparted will continue to live on. Of course, those of us who knew him also know that he would have refused to be the focus of such a book. His inscription in my copy of his extraordinary book, We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in the American Century, says it all: With deepest appreciation, Rod Bush, Melanie Bush, Sarafina Bush. This was Rod, our mentor, our model, our example, living according to radical, democratic, egalitarian principles, refusing to be the sole signatory.

Abstract

This essay by Robin D. G. Kelley is a foreword to the anthology Rod Bush: Lessons from a Radical Black Scholar on Liberation, Love, and Justice, edited by Melanie E. L. Bush, and co-edited by Rose M. Brewer, Daniel Douglas, Loretta Chin, and Robert Newby (2019). Kelley tributes Roderick Douglas Bush as one who understood love not as sentimentality but as a constant struggle to build and rebuild community. Making community requires a kind of nakedness, leaving one’s armor at the door, opening oneself up to others and giving freely, being vulnerable, speaking truth while allowing others their voice. Love, in other words, is not a thing you adopt or embrace; it’s a process of making community, nourishing relationships, re-making oneself over and over again. And like James Baldwin, Rod understood love as agency, as action. Kelley further states that Rod Bush as a product of a deeply rooted Black culture with all of its sacred and secular dimensions, with its history of suffering and celebration, with its deep blues epistemology, … knew that active, agentive love meant loving ourselves as Black people (not just bodies); it meant making love the motivation for making revolution; it meant envisioning a society where everyone is embraced, where there is no oppression, where every life is valued.

Author

Robin D. G. Kelley is the Gary B. Nash Professor of U.S. History at UCLA. His books include Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (2009); Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times (2012); Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (2002); Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression (1990); Race Rebels: Culture Politics and the Black Working Class (1994); and Yo’ Mama’s DisFunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America (1997).

---

1. Karl Marx to Arnold Ruge, September 1843, in Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader (New York: Norton, 1972), p. 8.

Melanie E. L. Bush, Rose M. Brewer,

Daniel Douglas, Loretta Chin, and Robert Newby

Introduction

Roderick Douglas Bush (b. November 12, 1945) was a scholar, educator, mentor, activist and loving human being who passed on December 5, 2013. In reflecting on his works and a life well-lived, this anthology aims to reaffirm and demonstrate that Rod Bush’s contributions as a radical Black scholar are many and that important lessons can be drawn from his example on how to embed a loving spirit dedicated to justice, liberation, and radical social transformation in everyday living.

Rod Bush was deeply convinced that Pan-European racism is the Achilles’ heel of the modern world-system, and the demographic situation of the United States, with its large, strategically located populations of color, is a key locus of struggle for a more just, democratic, and egalitarian world order (Bush 2009:20).

His scholarship and life’s work thus spanned many important areas related to social movements and social change, and questions of justice, power and politics. His efforts were particularly rooted in commitments to and explorations of: 1) the Black community, such as Black Left, Black Nationalism, the Black Radical Tradition, Black Internationalism, and Transnational Africa; 2) the Left in general (Marxism, Labor, and Communist movements); 3) critiques of the modern world-system (capitalism, internal colonialism, imperialism, white supremacy, coloniality of power, U.S. nationalism and nation); 4) the relationship between race, class, gender and nation; and 5) critical understandings of Africana Studies, the Black family, and the Black church.

In addition to numerous scholarly articles, chapters, and presentations, Rod Bush’s book publications include We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in the American Century (1999, New York University Press); The End of White World Supremacy: Black Internationalism and the Problem of the Color Line (2009, Temple University Press); Tensions in the American Dream: Rhetoric, Reverie or Reality (2015, co-authored with Melanie E. L. Bush, published by Temple University Press) and the early volume, The New Black Vote: Politics and Power in Four American Cities (1984, Synthesis Publications).

This co-edited, co-authored, anthology provides deep reflections on the question of how one can live radical principles in contemporary times. What does it mean to be human? How does one embed love and justice in one’s worldview and daily practice? Rod Bush, our partner, colleague, teacher, mentor, comrade, and friend, was well known as an activist scholar who incorporated his values into his teaching, mentorship and everyday interactions. Therefore, his theoretical interests and practical involvements in movements are intimately linked and simultaneous. In his early twenties, Rod Bush dedicated his life to the liberation of Black people and all humankind, working as a full time activist, and then as a movement scholar. He remained deeply committed to that vow throughout his life.

With reflections on how revolutionary praxis was embedded in his writing, mentorship, teaching, activism, and daily interactions, this anthology provides lessons for anyone concerned with where we are headed in the contemporary moment. The volume includes chapters written by a diverse group of scholars, students, and lifelong friends of Rod Bush. It chronicles Rod’s transformational praxis while referencing his example of a life dedicated to love, justice, peace and liberation.

At a historical moment when the political landscape is fraught with volatility, and the Movement for Black Lives and other struggles for dignity and justice gain increasing momentum, Rod’s life serves as an example, providing many lessons that we can draw from and practice ourselves. Rod consistently asserted that it is critical to recognize the historical leadership of those involved in struggles for Black Liberation and justice writ large. For, a vision for Black Lives is indeed a vision that benefits all humanity.

The anthology explores Rod Bush’s contributions by tracing his scholarship, pedagogy and mentorship, and his daily interactions and practice. The purpose is to show how such activities demonstrated how Rod lived his theory and writings in his everyday personal and social transformative practices and, in turn, how he lived his personal and social transformative practices in his theory and writings.

In his foreword to the volume, Robin D. G. Kelley shares his intimate views and appreciations of Rod Bush’s life and works. In Kelley’s view, Rod’s commitment to study and struggle in the service of human liberation knew no boundaries. His vision was planetary. He wrote critically and brilliantly about Black radical movements—here and abroad—and about the destructive power of racism, colonialism, capitalism (the modern world-system), all with the goal of transforming a society based on exploitation, subjugation, and war into a society rooted in mutual benefit, life, and love.

The Organization of this Volume

The book is divided into three sections: I. Theory in Practice; II. Practice in Theory; and III-From Rod Bush. They are followed by a memoriam, a photo gallery, a vita, a contributors’ list, and an index.

The first section of this book opens with a photo essay by Angelo Taiwo Bush, for his grandpa. Angelo expresses the heart of what he inherited from G-pa (as he was known): a longing for his ancestral home and roots in Africa. Angelo writes, These images in my eyes represent love, unity, parenthood, family, unbreakable bonds, and feats of greatness which are all things that cross my mind when I think of my grandfather Roderick Bush.

Next, from her moving experiences as Rod’s student, Chriss Sneed uses a critical intersectional feminist frame to draw out three themes: radical intimacy, intergenerational mentorship, and a commitment to praxis. She concludes that Rod’s theoretical and embodied praxis expand possibilities for both sociology and social justice.

The contribution by Daniel Douglas places Rod’s praxis within the tradition of radical pedagogy by pivoting between key concepts from the educational theory of Emile Durkheim, John Dewey, Paulo Freire, and bell hooks, and moments from his experience as Rod’s student. Ultimately, Douglas argues that love constitutes the driving force behind and foundation of Rod’s radical pedagogy.

Godfrey Vincent was also Rod Bush’s student at St. Johns University, though one who came to higher education later in life and already with years of experience of work and activism. Godfrey elaborates on Rod’s continuous support throughout his educational journey, from the Bachelor’s degree through the Ph.D., suggesting core practices of radical mentorship.

Amid his activism, Matthew Birkhold self-reflectively explores how Rod Bush contributed to his practice of nurturing, caring for, and practicing love as a constant. Birkhold explains how his own political practice benefitted from his relationship with Rod and the lessons learned from Rod’s involvement in the Black liberation movement in the 1970s. Specifically he notes that when organizers emphasize love more than ideology, they create conditions for not only the political development of people and movements but also their personal transformation.

Independent journalist Loretta Chin reflects on Rod Bush as an exemplar of how kindness, compassion, humility, and love for one’s fellow human being can manifest in thoughts, words, and actions that can change the world for the better, one person or deed at a time; not just in large shows of grandiose demonstrations, but in the everyday decisions that each one of us must make in how we conduct our lives.

Former students Latoya Lee and her classmates, Tatiana Chichester and A. Kia Sinclair, also recall memories and trace out themes from their memories of Rod Bush’s pedagogy. They go further toward ‘paying it forward’ by suggesting ways that they have incorporated Rod’s lessons and examples in their lives and work in the academy, healthcare settings, and in non-profit work with youth.

In her first chapter in the volume, Melanie E. L. Bush offers reflections from her partnership with Rod over more than thirty years. They met doing movement work, having each dedicated their lives to the struggle for a world rooted in community and justice. She shares everyday lessons from their journey together on how to foster a loving spirit dedicated to liberation and justice.

Many of the authors in the first section of the anthology were Rod Bush’s students. Some in the traditional sense, others encountering him as an informal mentor and advisor. Each in his or her own way speaks to the contrasts between Rod’s pedagogy and the context of higher education in which it was experienced. Breaking the mold of the professional academic who enacts the split between students and teacher, Rod eagerly incorporated his students into his community and family. This was an act of love and trust on his part, and provided a lifeline for many who arrived in this space without a firm foothold or sense of belonging.

Beyond simply securing a presence in the university system—which by design encourages docility and conformity—Rod vigorously promoted his students’ and colleagues’ voices. He emboldened them to dissent and encouraged them to make demands, often at his own personal risk. Thus, beyond helping them survive, Rod encouraged others to take ownership of their lives and orient them toward social justice. The writings of his students offer perspectives on Rod Bush’s divergence from the traditional role of the professor.

Taken together, the contributions in the first section offer critical lessons for those of us who engage in mentorship inside and outside of the academy. While we all would agree that Rod Bush was singularly equipped for this role, we hope that by reflecting on his praxis and suggesting key elements of it, we can foster a new generation of scholars, mentors, and friends committed to liberation, love, and justice.

The second section of the anthology is dedicated to a close reading of Rod Bush’s writings in and about the Black Liberation movement.

In her opening chapter for the section, Mojúbàolú Olufúnké Okome laments that Rod Bush has gone too soon, but is comforted that he lives on in the body of work he produced, the lives he touched, and the people he loved, as well as those who loved him. In her view, Rod Bush was the epitome of what the Yorùbá call Omolúàbí, a concept she explain briefly in the chapter. Okome argues that Bush will never be forgotten, because he kept the faith. She also claims him as her brother.

In her richly nuanced chapter, Natalie Byfield highlights Rod’s theoretical sophistication, never far removed from on the ground realities. Byfield notes that all of Bush’s work—especially his two books, We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in American Century (1999) and The End of White World Supremacy: Black Internationalism and the Problem of the Color Line (2009)—contextualize Black struggle in the global capitalist system. Always the internationalist, Rod Bush’s approach lifts us out of the narrow nation-state context and makes Black freedom a global issue. Rod’s training in world-systems framework (especially at the Braudel Center in Binghamton, NY) shaped his analytical trajectory. He understood clearly that the unit of analysis was the global system, not the U.S. However, his work was much more. He deeply nuanced world-systems theorization through his analysis of white world supremacy. This is a signature contribution articulated early and compellingly throughout his writings.

Bob Barber and Komozi Woodard’s chapters speak directly to Rod’s analytical contributions.

Barber does a thorough interrogation of Rod’s highly acclaimed book, The End of White World Supremacy: Black Internationalism and the Problem of the Color Line (2009). Indeed, what makes Barber’s examination especially moving is that he and Rod were comrades, as political and community activists in the 1980s. They worked side by side in the political work of that historical moment. Barber expresses admiration for the radical intellectual praxis that was at the heart of Rod’s life, whether door knocking as an organizer, or leading a seminar.

Woodard takes a distinct path in his piece. He, too, knew Rod and connected with him politically. Woodard is aware of how deeply the theory and practice of Malcolm X shaped Rod’s approach to Black liberation. In his chapter, Woodard takes us into the Bandung Age that so catalyzed Malcolm X. His Citizen Malcolm X is articulated in the context of the decolonizing struggles of the 1950s and 1960s as the Black Power movement emerged. Rod came of political age during the Black Power period, which critically shaped his understanding of Black social transformation.

In the chapters by Rodney D. Coates and James Fenelon, we are connected both to the man and his theory. Indeed the deep humanity of Rod Bush is articulated in his thought and life practices as a whole, which is warmly conveyed in these pieces through their descriptions of the integrated reality of Rod’s life.

Rodney D. Coates, calls it the quest for understanding and remedies—that ever present dialectic of theory and practice, of hope and sober mindedness. Coates argues that Rod Bush’s quest for social justice derived from his interrogation of imperialism, racism, and exploitation, to move beyond binary constructions of race and class. According to Coates, Rod Bush was critical of a complacent sociology that frequently misdiagnosed social movements, misinterpreted social protests, and misunderstood how to bring about meaningful change. He proposed that the agency of change begins at the grassroots level and extends outward throughout society.

James Fenelon harkens us to a deeper spiritual journey regarding Rod’s life and work. He draws on the Dakota tradition to name Rod, AKICITA SAPA OYATE, which he says "could be construed to mean Warrior of/for the Black Nation (or Black Warrior for the People)." Fenelon also explores the relationship of Native and Black struggles, bringing us to the current moment by showing how the Native casino and Black elite have become increasingly disconnected from the masses of their people. Rod recognized this coloniality in his analyses. Fenelon asserts Rod’s clarity on this question of race and class. He draws from Rod Bush the idea that as long as racism is core to capitalism the struggle of the Black liberation movement will continue to be at the vanguard of social change in the U.S.

Charles Pinderhughes’s contribution weaves together Rod Bush’s mentorship and scholarship, reflecting on their years-long dialogue concerning Internal Colonialism Theory. Therein, we see how Rod was able to support the intellectual growth of people around him in addition to his students, even when their views did not neatly align with his own. The chapter discusses Rod Bush’s generous capacity to mentor and support academic comrades. Bush’s unselfish example led to a new approach to a part of Charles Pinderhughes’ re-assessment of Internal Colonialism Theory.

Walda Katz-Fishman and Jerome Scott share their views on how Rod Bush understood the need to connect theory and strategy to people’s lived experiences and daily struggles in the classroom and in the street. Through compelling pedagogy, Katz-Fishman and Scott argue, Rod Bush mentored a new generation of transformative thinkers and movement actors. He did the essential work of nurturing the intellectual side of the twenty-first century revolutionary movement. In celebrating Rod Bush’s life, the co-authors re-commit themselves to the revolutionary praxis his life embodied.

The theoretical section concludes with an intimate look by Melanie E. L. Bush at the multiple social forces that shaped Rod’s journey as a radical theoretician. The chapter is autobiographical since it involves Rod’s posthumously published last book, Tensions in the American Dream: Rhetoric, Reverie or Reality (2015), co-written with his political partner and partner in life, Melanie Bush. This piece directly takes on the present moment and offers vital insights on the nature of struggle today in the context of rising white supremacist nationalism in the U.S. and globally.

It is quite clear in all of these chapters that Rod Bush understood and lived the struggle for social transformation. One of his signature contributions was to powerfully show how African Americans, literally living in the belly of the beast, are a key people for the struggle against U.S. hegemony and imperialism. And, as Rod Bush so acutely articulated in his exceptional body of work, African Americans will continue to be a key people for bringing fundamental social change worldwide.

The authors in the second section of the Rod Bush anthology make a compelling case for his radical analytical praxis—a phrase that best describes his theoretical gifts. He is rigorous in his analyses and understands, given his long history in the Black liberation struggle, that theory must be deeply rooted in practice. Rod was a remarkable theoretician. The authors of the second section take very seriously Rod’s intellectual contributions, leading us on an amazing reading of his writings and the man himself.

Given the time and energy he