Book Section — Fighting in the Core: Questioning the Last Century’s Debates over Race, Class, and Gender in Light of the Life and Works of Rod Bush — by Natalie P. Byfield

This essay by Natalie P. Byfield, titled “Fighting in the Core: Questioning the Last Century’s Debates over Race, Class and Gender in Light of the Life and Works of Rod Bush,” is a chapter in the anthology Rod Bush: Lessons from a Radical Black Scholar on Liberation, Love, and Justice, edited by Melanie E. L. Bush, and co-edited by Rose M. Brewer, Daniel Douglas, Loretta Chin, and Robert Newby (2019). The chapter explores Rod Bush’s intellectual and activist legacy in real terms by a former colleague of his at St. John’s University. Through historical notation, anecdote and substantive documentation and in relation to social movements and scholarship, the author articulates many lessons that Rod Bush provided about what is important and how to uphold that in practice. In particular she notes the critical role of radical Black scholars in providing an understanding of the dynamics of a social world designed to negate the humanity of African peoples.