In this episode, we discuss Brandon Terry’s 2025 book Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope: A Tragic Vision of the Civil Rights Movement. There is little doubt that in US the Civil Rights Movement stands out as one of the clearest examples of Black politics in the social imagination. How we narrate the Civil Rights Movement tends to shape our expectations of politics and the future. But what happens when the resources of this tradition fall into crisis? What is the future of Black politics in a present increasingly disconnected from the past of the Civil Rights Movement? We work through the exhaustion of a certain form of Black politics in the present, the importance of judgment and historical examples for political action, and whether a tragic disposition can help us avoid naive optimism or paralyzing pessimism when faced with the ruins of our present.
leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil | @leftofphilosophy.bsky.social
References:
Brandon Terry, Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope: A Tragic Vision of the Civil Rights Movement (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2025).
Music:
“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com
“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN
