Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker”
The History of a Phrase
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8895103 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Bill Freind (Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey, United States, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 54 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 302-321 |
| Publication date | 2024-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Canadian Review of American Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-7720 • E-ISSN: 1710-114X |
| Publisher | University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.3138/cras-2024-003 |
| OpenAlex | W4405612912 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 6 |
During Amiri Baraka’s sentencing in 1967 for possessing an illegal weapon, Judge Leon Kapp read parts of Baraka’s poem “Black People!” including the line “[t]he magic words are: Up against the wall motherfucker!” This quickly became one of the most powerful phrases of the 1960s: an anarchist group in Manhattan went by the name Up Against the Wall, Motherfuckers, and the slogan was central to the student uprising at Columbia University. This became a form of political blackface in which White radicals claimed they occupied the same position as Black people. Simultaneously, Baraka sought to distance himself from it. Recognizing that African American voters could dominate Newark politics, Baraka constructed a cynical public persona, blaming the riots following the death of Martin Luther King Jr. on “outside agitators.” At that point, the phrase was little more than a bit of radical chic that apolitical bands like the Jefferson Airplane could mouth
Art · Art history · Humanities · Literature · MAGIC (telescope · Persona · Poetry · Political science · Politics · Slogan · Anarchism and Radical Politics · History · Law · Race, History, and American Society
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |