Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour

"Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour weaves an amazing tapestry of the black freedom movement . . . We now have a single work that can be used in college courses to examine the full scope of the black freedom struggle, not just in the United States, but from a global perspective . . . This is a work of historical investigation at its finest."—Felix L. Armfield, The Journal of African American History

"Peniel E. Joseph's sweeping book . . . expands our understanding of the post-World War II black freedom struggle and offers a look at the black radical movement overlapping and intersecting with the better-known and more mainstream civil rights movement. In the process, Joseph makes a significant contribution to the growing body of scholarship that is effectively challenging the traditional (and simplistic) notion of good 1960s/bad 1960s, civil rights to black power paradigm."—Emilye Crosby, The American Historical Review

"The title of this new, multifaceted, deceptively fast-moving ‘narrative' (really, an account and an analysis) of one of the most explosive, if still misunderstood, eras in American history, is appropriately complex . . . Joseph's Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hour seeks broad historical ground, in space, subject matter, and most especially historiography. For the first time, arguably, a historian has taken on Black Power—as a movement and as an era—within an explicitly historical framework. The result is a strikingly ambitious work . . . Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hour represents an achievement that renders Black Power a movement and an era that historians can no longer afford to ignore."—Reviews in American History

"Joseph's ambitious new study is the most visible example of an explosion of literature on black power and black self-defense during the civil rights era. Challenging received wisdom and, especially, traditional civil rights periodization, Joseph presents the fullest treatment to date of the black power movement. Tracing it back to the 1950s and the rise of the Nation of Islam as embodied in Malcolm X, often perceived as the radical foil to Martin Luther King Jr., Joseph shows how the nascent black power movement preached self-empowerment rather than integration, demanded pride rather than brotherhood, and called for rigorous defense rather than nonviolence. Joseph shows how the fiercely independent Stokely Carmichael was among the first leaders from within the traditional movement to bring about a more radical focus to black demands for freedom. It was Carmichael who instigated the first 'Black Power' chants, to the dismay of King and much of the movement, during a 1966 march in Mississippi. Joseph shows how within just a few years 'Black Power' went from a slogan in search of a movement to a dominant, if misunderstood, strain of black political activism. Joseph's book will not provide the last word on Black Power, but it is arguably the most vital contribution to date on what is still one of the most misunderstood phenomena in American history."—Derek Catsam, Virginia Quarterly Review

"Peniel E. Joseph, a talented young historian . . . has finally taken us beyond the politics of memory, mining virtually every available archive and printed source relevant to the Black Power saga. The result is an engaging . . . revisionist narrative that reveals a hidden world of black intellectual ferment and purposeful political organizing."—The Washington Post

"Once in a while a book comes along that projects the spirit of an era, its zeitgeist; this is one of them. Skillfully woven together in a vibrant and expressive prose . . . Anyone interested in 20th-century American history and politics should read this book."—The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Professor Joseph . . . gives us a thorough, highly readable understanding of the underlying intellectual currents and players that shaped the actions and thoughts of men like Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale."—Fred Beauford, Black Issues Book Review

"For those interested in the evolution of Black Power, this seminal study is a must-read. Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour vividly captures the essence of Black Power, challenges narrow interpretations of it, stimulates intellectual debate, and enhances an understanding of a movement that was widely misunderstood."—Dwayne Mack, Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society

"By drawing on archival histories and oral histories, Joseph moves beyond slogans and symbols to provide a nuanced, detailed study of the Black Power movement in the U.S. He covers not only the major events and players but also the complicated negotiations between unlikely allies and the participatiopn of unknown men and women committed to the cause. Joseph's ability to situate the Black Power movement in a global context gives an added dimension to this valuable contribution to scholarship about the struggle for civil rights."—Reference and Research Book News

"Offers a wonderful opportunity to expand the scope of the famous movement and incorporate the little known events and social history that led to the Black Power Movement. Joseph's addition to the historical record of African American Studies is of significant importance. The leading figures bounce off the page and the reader experiences historical crises that bordered between struggle and hope. More importantly, this study adds to the growing record of remembrance and study during this pivotal time in African Americans and America's history."—Edward L. Robinson, California State University-Fullerton

"Joseph provides such a rich history and analysis that anyone reading it will immediately want to challenge the traditional curriculum which portrays the Black Power Movement as the evil twin of the Civil Rights Movement while over simplifying the Civil Rights Movement and treating the Black Power Movement as 'too hot to touch.' Joseph provides a complex and engaging picture of both movements, and the inseparable relationship between the two. He shatters many of the assumptions about the Black Power Movement, including when it began, its relationship to electoral politics, the range of key figures, and international relations."—Deborah Menkart, Executive Director, TeachingForChange.org

"Peniel Joseph takes us beyond the simplistic and superficial treatments of the Black Power movement to present that movement in all its complexity, and in its historical context. It is a dramatic story, carefully researched, and deserving of our attention."—Howard Zinn, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Boston University, and author of A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present

"With rigorous scholarship, Peniel E. Joseph has done a great service toward the understanding of this complex history, enabling the spirit of those times to reach into the present through the voices of those who participated."—Lewis R. Gordon, Laura H. Carnell Professor, Temple University, and Coeditor of Not Only the Master's Tools and A Companion to African-American Studies

"The challenge in writing a history of Black Power rests in negotiating a maze of political, social, and economic forces, balancing the interplay of local, national, and international events, respecting the influence of big and small actors, and appreciating the rich intellectual inheritance that informed this movement. Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour tells this story with sensitivity to the connection between the smallest historical detail and the broad sweep of black struggle."—Craig Steven Wilder, Professor of History, Dartmouth College, and author of In The Company of Black Men

"The best historical synthesis of Black Power to date."—Harper's