(Counter)Insurgency: a study of radical Black struggle in post-60s Atlanta

Keywords: Black geographies, Black Radical Tradition, counterinsurgency, self-determination, urban geography.
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract

Abstract

In response to generalized Black rebellion in the 1960s, which threatened to topple the racial capitalist order inside the U.S., the state expanded its repressive functions. During the neoliberal turn, the state reproduced counterinsurgent measures to contain rebellion. An ever-increasing web of carcerality cast entire populations as criminal, reemergent Black radicalism faced heavy repression, and newly elected Black political leaders found themselves managing ongoing rebellion. In 1981, at the height of the Atlanta Child Murders, Black Atlanta residents organized an armed patrol—the Ron Carter Patrol—at Techwood Homes public housing project to defend their community against kidnappings. Through archival research and in-depth, semi-structured interviews, I argue the patrol represents a continuation of radical strategies for working-class Black self-determination and mutual aid. The alternative imaginary projected from the patrol presented a threat to dominant imaginaries of Atlanta as the “Black Mecca” and “the city too busy to hate.” State and non-state actors, primarily Black political and civic leaders, collaborated to enact counterinsurgency measures to suppress the spread of armed Black self-defense and to reaffirm interracial elite governance.