2012/01/01 by Curry · 34 citations
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Race, History, and American Society #Academic Freedom and Politics #Pragmatism in Philosophy and Education #Militant #Civil rights #Political science #Law and economics #Law #Religious studies #Sociology #Philosophy #Politics
paper · doi:10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.48.4.456
published in Transactions of the Charles S Peirce Society 48(4), 456 (University of Massachusetts Press)
openalex publication_date 2012/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
Despite the recent rise of attention to race and racism in American philosophy, there is no current scholarship exploring the philosophy of T.Thomas Fortune and his influence on Ida B. Wells-Barnett. The contemporary mode of thinking in American philosophy seeks to establish a bridge between the thought of turn of the century thinkers and 1960 style integrationism. This integrationist tradition is not only the newest, but the smallest tradition in African American thought. Most Black thinkers, as evidenced by the work of Fortune and Wells-Barnett, conceptualized the world from a radical perspective that was pessimistic about the capacity for whites to be morally persuaded against white supremacy and thought that violence against white racist lynchers was the only hope for Black survival in the South. This paper first explores the philosophy of T.Thomas Fortune which held that Blacks must agitate and create disorder in the South, since it was the white race’s order that gave rise to lynch mobs, murder, and rape. Second, this paper considers the effect of agitationist philosophy on the anti-lynching campaign of Wells-Barnett. Ultimately, this paper concludes that with the help of Fortune, Wells-Barnett introduced a political philosophy that shares intellectual kinship with the armed militancy popularized by in the 1960’s.