Intellectual History: "A Colony in a Nation," Chris Hayes

In fact, when Nixon invoked “a colony in a nation” black activists and academics were in the midst of extended debate about the concept of internal colonialism and whether the state of black people in America was akin to a colonized people. A year earlier Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton published Black Power, which argued explicitly that America’s ghettos were colonized and occupied, and that black nationalism was the only route to true liberation. The concept had long roots: in 1935, W. E. B. DuBois had written of black people as a “nation within a nation.” Over the years, critics of the concept have noted the weaknesses of the framework in accounting for the distinct economic situation of African Americans and the changes in their representation and situation over time.

But whatever the academic debate on the topic, Nixon was correct that black Americans “don’t want to be a colony in a nation.” And yet he helped bring about that very thing

31 pages; 10,319 words, visuals