Review: Reckoning: Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Necessity of Social Movements, by Deva Woodly

In Reckoning: Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Necessity of Social Movements, Deva Woodly beautifully weaves together a detailed portrait of the Movement for Black Lives coalition (M4BL) and her theoretical interventions to demonstrate the necessity for social movements for the survival of democracy. Her book arrives at a necessary point in understanding the intellectual and political contributions of the Black Lives Matter Movement (BLM). Following the summer 2020 BLM uprisings, policymakers advocated for stronger carceral policies and began smear campaigns against critical race theory. These were reactions to BLM’s political philosophies, work against the deeply emancipatory positions such coalitions as M4BL rose to uphold. M4BL pulls together more than fifty organizations working in the name of marginalized Black folks to radically transform our current systems of power. Using on-the-ground interviews with activists, Woodly examines the “peculiar political philosophy” of M4BL—she uniquely presents Radical Black Feminist Pragmatism (RBFP), a...