Resistance: Reclaiming an American Tradition

by Jeff Biggers

Overview

This "powerful, urgent" narrative history of resistance campaigns throughout history and how they affect today's battles (Jeff Chang, author of We Gon' Be Alright)--from the American Revolution and the defeat of fascism during WWII, to landmark battles for civil rights and the new movements for equity.

Across cities, towns, and campuses, Americans are grappling with overwhelming challenges and the daily fallout from the most authoritarian White House policies in recent memory.

In this inspiring narrative history, Jeff Biggers reframes today's battles as a continuum of a vibrant American tradition. Resistance is a chronicle of the courageous resistance movements that have insured the benchmarks of our democracy--movements that served on the front lines of the American Revolution, the defense of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the defeat of fascism during World War II, and landmark civil rights and environmental protection achievements.

Legendary historian Studs Terkel praised Biggers's The United States of Appalachia as a "how-to book" in the tradition of the American Revolution. With Resistance, Biggers opens a new window into American history and its meaning today. In a recovery of unsung heroes, including Revolutionary forefather Thomas Paine, Resistance is a provocative reconsideration of the American Revolution, bringing alive the early struggles of Indigenous peoples and people of color, and immigration, women's rights, and environmental justice movements. With lucidity, meticulousness, and wit, Biggers unfolds one of our country's best-kept secrets: in dealing with the most challenging issues of every generation, resistance to duplicitous civil authority has defined our quintessential American story.

"Resist we must, resist we will--and as this volume powerfully reminds us, in so doing we are acting on the deepest American instincts." ―Bill McKibben, author of Radio Free Vermont: A Fable of Resistance

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781640092464
Publisher:	Catapult
Publication date:	08/06/2019
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Jeff Biggers is an award-winning historian, journalist, and playwright. He is the author of several books, has been long-listed for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award, and is the recipient of the Delta Prize for Literature and David Brower Award for environmental reporting. He is the founder of the Climate Narrative Project, an arts and advocacy initiative for schools and communities.

Table of Contents

Author’s Note: Hope Resists

Introduction: Let Us Now Praise Resistance

1 We the People, Resist

2 Let Your Motto Be Resistance

3 Enemy of the People

4 To Undo Mistakes

5 Cities of Resistance

Acknowledgments

Bibliographic Notes

Index

Editorial Reviews

"Journalist Jeff Biggers's handy reader . . . An intellectually honest and valuable read." --The Progressive

"In divisive times, things can seem quite hopeless, but in Resistance, Biggers proves in compelling prose that, if anything, history does repeat itself--not only in its hardships and misfortunes, but its times of human connection, understanding and positive change." --Asheville Citizen-Times

"Biggers offers much to reflect upon as he traces the path of resistance movements through time. Many of the stops along the way will give pause to all but the most fervent of believers in American virtue . . . He reveals the dynamic, complicated nature of our shared history and the people and movements that have overcome--or still struggle against--injustice and prejudice in America." --The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, IA)

"[Jeff Biggers's] latest book may be his best yet . . . With fresh insights from the American Revolution to Standing Rock, Biggers argues that resistance is a quintessential American tradition and the most patriotic act we can undertake to sustain democracy." --Blue Ridge Outdoors

"[Biggers] provides a wealth of historical detail in this celebration of past American resistance and call for continued dissent." --Booklist

"A widely ranging history of intellectual and moral resistance within American politics . . . The author writes clearly and with a firm grasp of historical comparison, intimately focused on compelling figures." --Kirkus Reviews

"Well-informed and often witty . . . Biggers succeeds in showing how the long tradition of resistance movements continues today." --Publishers Weekly

"Resist we must, resist we will--and as this volume powerfully reminds us, in so doing we are acting on the deepest American instincts." --Bill McKibben, author of Radio Free Vermont: A Fable of Resistance

"Reading this book, I saw history vanquish amnesia, David slay Goliath, and tenacity take down tyrants. I saw a long, unbroken chain of resistance extending back through centuries. I saw the world saved over and over. I saw heroes and declared them my ancestors. I heard stories to inspire bold action. I found traditions I want to pass on." --Sandra Steingraber, activist and author of Living Downstream and Raising Elijah

"These times are tumultuous and divisive. But Jeff Biggers, a gifted writer who approaches history as expansively as Zinn and as passionately as Galeano, finds resistance everywhere. He shows us how freedom movements--led by people of color, women, and commoners, from revolutionary-era rebels to today's loud majority--have pulled American democracy away from tyranny and toward humanity time and again. These powerful, urgent essays remind us that everywhere there is resistance there is hope." --Jeff Chang, author of We Gon' Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation

"With compelling and engaging prose, Jeff Biggers lays out the case for Resistance in the age of Trump. Using Common Sense, Thomas Paine's incendiary call to overthrow the British, as the thread that binds his narrative, Biggers interweaves stories from before the American Revolution to the present to offer the reader a view of history not found in most high school textbooks. From the armed resistance of the Powhatan in 1622 to the protests of the Water Protectors against the Dakota Access Pipeline; from the speeches and essays of Maria Stewart, 'the first Black feminist-abolitionist in America, ' to the words of Black Lives Matter founder Alicia Garza, he entreats us to remember that the constitution of our country is founded on the premise of 'We the People.' There are so many lessons to learn from Resistance: Reclaiming an American Tradition. Our turbulent times, Biggers shows us, have eerie and chilling parallels to the birth pangs of our nation and to the continuing struggles of 'We the People' to define and claim our voices. At this moment in history, when even the act of listening to the news can cause despair, Biggers gives us hope. In response to our darkness, he reaffirms the light that resistance offers. He shows us that the free expression of resistance, whether with the pen, our marching feet, the taking of a knee before a football game, the words to a song--to name a few--remains a cornerstone of what it means to be American." --Naomi Benaron, author of the Bellwether Prize-winning Running the Rift

From the Publisher

05/21/2018
To make the case for resistance in the age of Trump, Biggers (The United States of Appalachia) traces U.S. opposition movements from pre-Revolutionary times to the present, drawing parallels between the tumultuous present and the early days of the Republic. Well-informed and often witty, Biggers covers the resistance movements—and their many, often unsung heroes—of Native Americans, African-Americans, immigrants, and those fighting for women’s rights and environmental justice. Readers meet, among others, Ona Maria Judge, a slave who escaped from George Washington’s household in 1796; labor activist and physician Marie Equi, who was physically assaulted for her outspoken dissent against America’s entry into WWI; Bree Newsome, who scaled a 30-foot flagpole to remove the Confederate flag from the South Carolina statehouse in 2015; and Lakota historian Ladonna Brave Bull Allard, a leader of the Native American resistance against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016. Biggers also discusses the restorative processes of “truth and reconciliation commissions” to address centuries of racial injustices and the way some rural areas and U.S. cities are combating climate change in defiance of “the coal-peddling Trump administration.” Some sections are cursory, but Biggers succeeds in showing how the long tradition of resistance movements continues today. (July)

Publishers Weekly

2018-05-06
A widely ranging history of intellectual and moral resistance within American politics.Biggers (The Trials of a Scold: The Incredible True Story of Writer Anne Royall, 2017, etc.) connects this tradition to the authoritarian tendencies of the Trump presidency, arguing, "the language of Trump's America First narrative…reflected [Thomas] Paine's warning of ‘brutish' leadership." This brief survey is structured in five essayistic chapters, each focused on a different era and aspect of resistance. He considers figures both widely known, such as Paine, or his own mentor the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, and more obscure—e.g., the anti-World War I protester and activist Marie Equi. Biggers calls out beloved figures who fell on the wrong side of resistance movements, like George Washington, who obsessively pursued runaway house slaves. Slavery provides a fuller fulcrum for the author's discussion; he examines both Frederick Douglass and those who argued against nonviolent resistance to this historical wrong. In "Enemy of the People," Biggers contrasts Trump's brazen attacks on the press with the conflict between free speech and John Adams' Alien and Sedition Acts, which Thomas Jefferson noted "had been designed specifically to suppress oppositional media." In "To Undo Mistakes," the author looks at early American immigration policy debates, as well as the more recent internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, tying them to the resistance sparked by Trump's pursuit of a religion-based travel ban. Unlike previous immigration bans, "a coordinated effort by religious congregations to resist Trump's deportation forces emerged across the country." In the final essay, "Cities of Resistance," Biggers links early interest in environmental preservation (embodied by Thoreau's writings, among others) with attempts to counter the Trump administration's dismantling of key federal oversight. The author writes clearly and with a firm grasp of historical comparison, intimately focused on compelling figures; still, his work could use fuller focus on the actual resistance movements Trump has inspired. An engaging jeremiad proposing that "the resistance is now in the hands of a new generation."

Kirkus Reviews