Canon Anarchy: Lucy Parsons, W. E. B. Du Bois, and the General Strike in Black Literary History

Abstract:Whom do we imagine as part of the general strike, and who imagined it? This essay rethinks W. E. B. Du Bois's limited vision of the general strike of the enslaved, which he implicitly depicts in Black Reconstruction as a men's story, by excavating the strike's Black literary history in the long nineteenth century. Doing so reveals the importance of the Black, Mexican, and Native American anarchist Lucy Parsons in theorizing and advocating the general strike decades before Du Bois. By juxtaposing Parsons with Du Bois, who wages and theorizes the general strike becomes much more expansive, and what the strike does becomes much more revolutionary. The implication for literary critics is significant: far from the niche concern of a few radicals, the general strike constitutes a recognizable and determining figure within Black literary history.