Linking the struggles: Amilcar Cabral and his impact and legacy in the black liberation movement

“Keep always in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone’s head. They are fighting…..for material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children. National Liberation, War on Colonialism, building of peace and progress – independence – all that will remain meaningless for the people unless it brings a real improvement in the conditions of life.” Amilcar Cabral, from “Destroy the economy of the enemy and build our own economy”, 1965.[1]

Since the close of the Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester, England and the end of the second great inter-imperialist war (better known as World War II) in 1945, the radical-wing of the Black Liberation Movement in the United States (US) has been inspired by and drawn many lessons from its reciprocal interactions with the national and social liberation movements of Africa (primarily from 1945 through 1994) and the Diaspora (particularly those of the Caribbean).

The Black Liberation Movement or BLM is the historic movement of people of African descent within the territories now occupied and claimed by the settler-colonial government of the United States for self-determination and social liberation in three primary (and often mutually inclusive) forms[2]:

• Repatriation back to Africa

• The creation of a sovereign, independent national-state for Black or New Afrikan people in the southeastern portion of what is presently the United States

• The socialist and/or anti-capitalist transformation of the United States by an anti-racist, anti-imperialist multi-national alliance

The radical elements of the BLM - composed primarily of revolutionary nationalists, socialists, communists, and anarchists – have over the years learned and incorporated many of the critical aspects of the theories and strategies of radical social transformation developed by many of the twentieth century intellectual and political towers of the African world revolution, such as Kwame Nkrumah, George Padmore, Amy Ashwood Garvey, Aime Cesaire, Constance Cummings-John, Sekou Toure, Leopold Senghor, Amy Jacques Garvey, CLR James, Julius Nyerere, Walter Rodney, Patrice Lumumba, Govan Mbeki, Frantz Fanon, Robert Sobukwe, Winnie Mandela, Abdias do Nascimento, Mariam Makeba, Steven Biko, Maurice Bishop, and Thomas Sankara[3]. Of all of these leaders and theoreticians from Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America however, none have made more profound theoretical and strategic contributions to the advancement of the BLM than Amilcar Cabral.

All of the above named figures made valuable contributions to the BLM, particularly in the realm of providing ideological clarity on various questions, such as the relevancy of Marxism, Leninism, and Maoism to the struggles of African peoples worldwide, the exploratory power of dialectical and historical materialism, and the necessity of fighting for a United States of Africa and a unified Pan-African world guided by scientific socialism.

What separates Cabral from the others however, is that his work provided detailed theoretical and strategic clarity on a number of fundamental questions that were critical to understanding the transition from “American colonialism” to neo-colonialism following the defeat of legalized white supremacy in the early 1960’s. Some of Cabral’s particular contributions centered on the following questions[4]:

• The limitations of national liberation within the capitalist world-system

• The internal material basis for neo-colonialism within colonized and oppressed nations and the critical dangers associated with this form of capitalist penetration and imperialist rule

• The ideological and theoretical weaknesses and shortcomings of the peoples movements for liberation and the detriments they pose to the success of the movements

• The centrality of culture to anti-imperialist resistance and the need to create a new culture through struggle to restore oppressed people into full agents of their own history and identity

• The imperative of class struggle within the oppressed nation and the necessity of class “suicide” amongst critical segments of the nation (or nation-class as Cabral himself stated), but most particularly the petit bourgeoisie who often constitute the leadership of the movements given their strategic location within the capitalist mode of production and its national/international hierarchies

All of these questions and issues have haunted the BLM since the 1970s, and continue to pose some of the most quintessential challenges confronting the movement. Although the historic development of Guinea-Bissau is profoundly different than that of the Black or New Afrikan nation contained within the United States, there are some fundamental dynamics regarding how colonized and oppressed peoples are subjected and exploited within the capitalist world-system established through European colonialism and imperialism, that can be generalized to address the varied examples of the colonial experience. Cabral’s works not only discerned generalities of the colonial phenomenon that were applicable to the New Afrikan context, they also provided critical specificities that can and are still being used by various forces of the BLM to sustain and advance the struggle for liberation.

Cabral’s theoretical insightful works did not spring from thin air. Cabral was the product of a rather unique nexus of historical conjunctures that enabled him to directly experience and engage the various dynamics he wrote about and reflected upon. Cabral developed his theories on the motive forces of history, colonialism, imperialism, questions of national liberation, neo-colonialism, class and class struggle within national liberation movements, the transition to socialism, and the centrality of culture and identity to resistance and social transformation from his unique social experiences, central location in the struggle against Portuguese colonialism, and his critical study of the numerous challenges and failures of the national liberation movements on the African continent in the 1950s and 60s.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A LEADER

Cabral was born in Guinea-Bissau in 1924 and was reared primarily in Cape Verde, a small island chain off the Northwest Coast of the African continent formerly ruled by Portugal. He attended university in Portugal and studied to be an agronomist. In the employment of the Portuguese colonial administration in the 1950s, Cabral was able to gain extensive knowledge of the cultures and social conditions of the various peoples of Guinea-Bissau and (to a lesser degree) Angola performing agricultural census studies. In September 1956, along with five other comrades from Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, Cabral established the Partido Africano da Independecia da Guinea e Cabo Verde or PAIGC (which translated into English means the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde), which lead Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde islands to political independence in the 1970s. While living in Angola, also in 1956, Cabral collaborated with Mario de Andrade and Antonio Agostinho Neto to form the Movimento Popular Libertacao de Angola or MPLA (in English this translates into the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola), which played a leading role in the liberation of Angola.

In 1957, as part of a conference in solidarity with the Algerian anti-colonial movement in Paris, Cabral again partnered with Mario de Andrade and Antonio Agostinho Neto to form the Movimento Anti-Colonista or MAC (which translated into English means Anti-Colonialist Movement) to discuss strategies to overthrow Portuguese colonial rule. In 1958, Cabral attended the All-African People’s Conference in Accra, Ghana organized by Kwame Nkrumah to coordinate support for the liberation movements from the existing independent nation-states and to unite the liberation movements on a continent wide basis [5]. In 1960, while in Tunisia, Cabral established the Frente Revolucionaria Africana para a Independencia Nacional das colonias Portuguesas or FRAIN (which translated into English translates into the Revolutionary Front for the National Independence of the Portuguese Colonies). FRAIN was established to coordinate the strategies and initiatives of the PAIGC and MPLA against Portuguese colonialism. In 1961, while in Casablanca, Morocco, Cabral helped to establish the Conferencia das Organizacoes Nacionalistas das Colonias Portuguesas or CONCP (which in English translates into Conference of Nationalist Organizations of the Portuguese Colonies) to expand upon and replace FRAIN to include FRELIMO from Mozambique and the MLSTP from Sao Tome and Principe to coordinate resistance to Portuguese colonialism on the African continent. In January 1963, Cabral and the PAIGC initiated the armed phase of the resistance movement in Guinea-Bissau, which lead to its formal political independence from Portugal in September 1974[6].

As these initiatives illustrate, Cabral was a principle architect in the overthrow of Portuguese colonialism and the weakening of imperialist domination of Southern Africa via the white settler colonial regime in South Africa. As the spokesperson for the PAIGC, MPLA, and CONCP, Cabral was able to travel extensively throughout the African continent (and the world). Cabral used the knowledge gained on his travels to judiciously assess the many failures of the first wave of national liberation movements and the national-state governments produced by many of these movements. These combined experiences shaped his worldview, theory, and most importantly, his practice as a revolutionary nationalist, socialist, and internationalist. It was Cabral’s particular ability to systematically and scientifically summarizes these experiences in a coherent and concrete fashion that made his work applicable to the ongoing struggle for liberation of people of African descent in the United States.

UNITING WITH OUR “COMRADE”

“I am bringing to you - our African brothers and sisters of the United States - the fraternal salutations of our people in assuring you we are very conscious that all in this life concerning you also concerns us. If we do not always pronounce words that clearly show this, it doesn’t mean that we are not conscious of it. It is a reality and considering that the world is being made smaller each day all people are becoming conscious of this fact.

Naturally if you ask me between brothers and comrades what I prefer then if we are brothers it is not our fault or our responsibility. But if we are comrades, it is a political engagement. Naturally, we like our brothers but in our conception it is better to be a brother and a comrade. We like our brothers very much, but we think that if we are brothers we have to realize the responsibility of this fact and take clear positions about our problems in order to see if beyond this condition of brothers and sisters, we are also comrades. This is very important for us.

We try to understand your situation in this country. You can be sure that we realize the difficulties you face, the problems you have and your feelings, your revolts, and also your hopes. We think that our fighting for Africa against colonialism and imperialism is a proof of understanding of your problem and also a contribution for the solution of your problems in the continent. Naturally the inverse is also true. All the achievements towards the solution of your problems here are real contributions to our own struggle. And we are very encouraged in our struggle by the fact that each day more of the African people born in America became conscious of their responsibilities to the struggle in Africa.

Does that mean you have to all leave here and go fight in Africa? We do not believe so. That is not being realistic in our opinion. History is a very strong chain. We have to accept the limits of history but not the limits imposed by the societies where we are living. There is a difference. We think that all you can do here to develop your own conditions in the sense of progress, in the sense of history and in the sense of our total realization of your aspirations as human beings is a contribution for us. It is also a contribution for you to never forget that you are Africans.” Amilcar Cabral, from “Connecting the Struggles: An Informal Talk with Black Americans”, October 20, 1972, New York City.[7]

The BLM came to know Amilcar Cabral and his work through a dynamic set of interlocking organizations and networks linking activists based in the United States with the national liberation movements in Africa and Asia (the Vietnamese in particular), and revolutionary and progressive governments and social movements in Latin America (particularly Cuba), Africa (primarily Ghana, Tanzania, Guinea, and Algeria), Asia (particularly China) and the Eastern Bloc. These links consisted of survivors from the anti-communist repression and purges of the late 1940s and 50s, from groups like the Council on African Affairs (CAA) headed by the likes Alphaeus Hunton, Paul Robeson, and W.E.B. DuBois, which was formally active from the late 1930s to the mid-1950s[8]; to liberal organizations like the American Committee on Africa (ACOA), started in the early 1950s[9]; and a host of religious and academic institutions, Black and white, that had been active, particularly around missionary activities in Africa and supporting students from Africa to attend academic institutions in Europe and the United States since the 19th century. Through these links, activists engaged in progressive social movements were able to encounter their international counterparts via international conferences, student exchanges, solidarity missions, and campaigns.

Another critical link that facilitated the introduction and ongoing communication between revolutionaries from the continent with revolutionaries from the BLM in the United States were Black ex-patriots that lived in Europe (particularly London and Paris) or on the African continent, particularly in Ghana after it gained its independence in 1957 and was able to host a number of Black radical activists, intellectuals, and artists like George Padmore, W.E.B Dubois, and Shirley Graham-Dubois[10]. Conversely, African students and political exiles based in the United States and Europe played this critical role in reverse.

The first major student and youth oriented organization to introduce the BLM to the likes of African revolutionaries like Amilcar Cabral, Eduardo Mondlane, and others was the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee or SNCC. Over the course of its 9-year existence from 1960 to 1969, SNCC took several delegations to various parts of Africa to exchange lessons in the struggle and engage in international campaigns. SNCC’s first major trip to the continent was in the fall of 1964, when a delegation of 11 members visited the Republic of Guinea, led by President Ahmed Sekou Toure [11]. The SNCC delegation was exposed to an extensive amount of literature about the national liberation movements on the continent while in Guinea, some of it invariably from Cabral and the PAIGC, which was operating out of Guinea at that time [12].

The next major SNCC trip to the continent was in the fall of 1965, when several members visited Ghana and attended the Organization of African Unity (OAU) conference being held in the capital Accra [13]. Cabral and several members of the PAIGC were in attendance at the OAU conference. However, it is unclear to what extent they were able to meet and exchange at the conference. But, they were definitely exposed to the PAIGC’s politics at the conference via presentations made by their representatives.

The first critical introduction of Cabral and his work to the BLM was provided by Immanuel Wallerstein, a renowned academic on African affairs, via an interview he conducted and published in 1965 entitled “Our Solidarities”[14]. This interview was one of the first major pieces on Cabral and the struggle of the PAIGC against Portuguese colonialism to appear in English. It received modest distribution via the left wing press in the United States, but was read and disseminated by Black activists in New York City, Detroit, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Oakland and Los Angeles that were active in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM). Although its impact was limited at the time, it did serve notice to many activists who played critical roles in the development of the BLM over the course of the next twenty years, that there was a major struggle occurring in Guinea-Bissau and other Portuguese speaking colonies on the African continent.

The BLM’s first major encounter with Cabral and his work occurred in January 1966 in Havana, Cuba on occasion of the Tri-continental Conference of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America [15]. Cuba, like Ghana, Guinea, and Tanzania on the African continent in the 1960s, played a critical role as a revolutionary socialist state engaged in active struggle against US and European imperialism. In this role, Cuba gave shelter, support, and resources to revolutionary organizations throughout Latin America and the world. In this same vein, Cuba was also home to many BLM exiles. The most prominent BLM exile in Cuba during the 1960s was Robert F. Williams. Robert Williams was a militant from North Carolina who fled into exile to avoid false imprisonment for an act of self-defense against white terror in 1961[16]. Williams was one of the most outspoken advocates for armed self-defense and the formation of Negro Gun Clubs in the late 1950s and early 1960s. His organizing, self-defense network, and militant advocacy had a major impact on the thinking of Malcolm X, the Louisiana and Mississippi based Deacons for Self-Defense and Justice, the Revolutionary Action Movement, and the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.

In support of Williams and the BLM in general, the Cuban government provided him with contacts to the various revolutionary organizations that visited or had representatives stationed on the island and with access to printing and broadcast facilities to propagate his message back to forces within the United States[17]. Robert Williams, other BLM exiles, and several members of RAM attended the 1966 Tri-Continental Conference, and like most in attendance, were highly impressed with Amilcar Cabral and his address to the conference. This address, known as the “Weapon of Theory”, was a watershed moment in advance of revolutionary theory, particularly that branch of theory dealing with national liberation and neo-colonialism, called Tri-Continentalism by many following the conference.

Through the “Crusader” journal and his extensive personal correspondence with BLM partisans, Williams, along with the RAM cadre in attendance, introduced Cabral, his works, and the struggles of revolutionaries in Guinea-Bissau, Angola, and Mozambique to their first major audience within the movement. Following the Tri-Continental Conference BLM revolutionaries began critically studying Cabral and the national liberation movements against Portuguese colonialism in the pursuit of how they might help advance the struggle for Black national liberation within the territories claimed by the United States.

From 1966 through the 1970s, more and more BLM partisans visited Africa and engaged in regular and sustained contact with African revolutionaries, particularly those individuals and movements that were operating out of the progressive states of Algeria, Egypt, Guinea and Tanzania (Ghana was removed from this equation in 1966 following a military coup that overthrew the Nkrumah government) such as the PAIGC, MPLA, FRELIMO, the African National Congress (ANC), the South African Communist Party (SACP), and Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC). These exchanges facilitated the deeper exposure of the BLM to the ideas and movements of African revolutionary leaders leading national liberation movements like Amilcar Cabral, or states engaged in socialist experiments like Sekou Toure in Guinea or Julius Nyerere in Tanzania.

In 1969, Basil Davidson, a progressive British Africanist scholar, published one of the most historically important works on Cabral, the PAIGC, and the national liberation movement in Guinea-Bissau entitled “The Liberation of Guinea: Aspects of an African Revolution”[18]. This work was read extensively by partisans of the BLM, particularly amongst college students in the late 1960’s and early 70’s in organizations like the Pan-African Union (PAU) in California and the Student Organization for Black Unity (SOBU) in North Carolina[19]. Another critical work also published in 1969 was “Revolution in Guinea: An African People’s Struggle”, by a British collective called Stage 1. This was one of the first English publications of a collection of Cabral’s speeches and writings, and received a decent distribution in the United States amongst BLM forces. It was from this publication that many in the BLM were introduced to the saying most commonly associated with Cabral, “Tell No Lies. Claim No Easy Victories”[20].

By 1969 there were several radical Black and multi-national solidarity committee’s operating throughout the United States that were providing material and political support to the national liberation movements against Portuguese colonialism and white settler colonialism in Southern Africa (Azania, Zimbabwe and Botswana in particular)[21]. The solidarity committee’s played a critical role in spreading Cabral’s ideas throughout the BLM. These networks also played a critical role in providing forums for African revolutionaries in the United States to make their case and present their ideas directly. Cabral and the PAIGC directly benefitted from this organizing on two occasions. Cabral first visited the United States in 1970, where he gave several lectures throughout the state of New York and held several dialogues and interviews in New York City related to the promotion of the PAIGC’s and allied CONCP organizations advocacy for self-determination and national independence at the United Nations. [22]

In addition to Cabral’s first visit to the United States, another critical event occurred in 1970 that had a major impact on the spread of his ideas in the BLM. In February of that year, members from the Afrikan People’s Party (APP) and the House of Umoja (HOU) based in Los Angeles collaborated with Guyanese revolutionary Eusi Kwayana and the African Society for Cultural Relations with Independent Africa (ASCRIA), along with Forum from St. Vincent, the Afro-Caribbean Movement from Antigua, and the PAC from Azania to develop the Pan-Afrikan Secretariat (PAS) in Georgetown, Guyana[23]. Guyana, then lead by Prime Minister Forbes Burnham, was operating as a progressive base for revolutionary international coordination throughout the Caribbean, South America, and Africa, and was home to several BLM exiles and ex-patriots from the late 1960s to the 1990s. The PAS was the first organization to call for the international launching of African Liberation Day (ALD), originally called World Wide African Solidarity Day (WWASD), and held the first ALD observances in 1970 and 1971 respectively in Guyana, Canada, Europe and several cities in the United States[24]. WWWASD/ALD was specifically intended to promote the African World Revolution, giving particular focus to the struggles against Portuguese colonialism in Africa, settler-colonialism in Southern Africa, neo-colonialism in Africa and the Caribbean, and the New Afrikan Independence Movement within the confines of the United States.

A connected development occurred on the East Coast through the auspices of SOBU and Malcolm X Liberation University (MXLU). In the fall of 1971 Owusu Sadaukai, one of the founders of SOBU and MXLU, toured the liberated territories of Guinea-Bissau, Angola, and Mozambique. In Mozambique, Sadaukai was implored by Samora Machel, the leader of FRELIMO, to build an international campaign in support of the national liberation movements of Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea-Bissau. Upon his return, Sadaukai released a six-part report on his trip in the movement publication the “African World”[25]. This series was widely distributed in the movement and played a pivotal role in helping to launch and guide the formation of the African Liberation Day Coordinating Committee (ALDCC). The ALDCC, a broad coalition of BLM forces representing different tendencies and trends within the movement, called for and organized the groundbreaking May 27, 1972 ALD demonstration that mobilized more than 100,000 participants throughout the United States, including Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New Orleans. Following the success of ALD, the ALDCC expanded and transformed into a more permanent structure, the African Liberation Support Committee (ALSC), which was the fulcrum of support for the national liberation movements in African through the mid-1970’s[26]. ALD and the ALSC were very intentional in their promotion of the works of Amilcar Cabral and other national liberation leaders of the era, such as Eduardo Mondlane and Samora Machel of FRELIMO and Robert Sobukwe of the Pan-Afrikanist Congress (PAC).

Just as critical as the promotion Cabral and the views of other CONCP leaders was the film “A Luta Continua”, which was produced by Robert Van Lierop and disseminated by the Africa Information Service (AIS) in 1972[27]. AIS was founded by BLM activists Prexy Nesbitt and Van Lierop in 1971 specifically to distribute educational materials about the national liberation struggles against Portuguese colonialism lead by CONCP. The film was shot in 1971 in Mozambique and Tanzania, and focused on the armed struggle being waged by FRELIMO. The film spread like wildfire from 1972 through the mid-1970s, and perhaps more than anything made the ideas of Cabral and Machel real and concrete to millions of Black folks in the United States. AIS subsequently published “Return to the Source: Selected Speeches by Amilcar Cabral”, the first major collection of Cabral’s writings and speeches published in the United States, in 1973.

The AIS was also instrumental in coordinating Cabral’s final visit the United States in 1972. During this visit Cabral asked the Africa Information Service to set up a meeting with various leading forces in the BLM.[28"> The meeting was held in New York City on October 20 and involved participants from over 30 BLM organizations. The speech was entitled “Connecting the Struggles: An Informal talk with Black Americans”, and had a profound and lasting impact on the BLM in all its diversity, as it clearly affirmed the interconnectedness between the African liberation struggles on the continent with those in the United States, the Caribbean, and beyond.

Agents of the Portuguese colonialists assassinated Amilcar Cabral shortly after his last trip to the United States on January 20, 1973[29">. The effectiveness of Cabral’s work and leadership in helping to guide a peoples’ revolutionary movement proved the notion of “cut off the head and body will whither” theory to be false in this case. Following his assassination, the PAIGC escalated the war against the Portuguese and not only lead Guinea-Bissau to political independence in 1974, but resulted in the overthrow of the Fascist Salazar-Cateano regime in April 1974, that ruled Portugal since 1932, by a group of Portuguese military officers called the Movimento das Armed Forcas or MAF (which translated into English means Armed Forces Movement) admittedly influenced by the theories and moral example of Amilcar Cabral[30">.

Half a world away, Cabral’s works had also become common parlance within the BLM by the time of his death. His works greatly aided the political and theoretical development of the BLM in the 1970s, which unfortunately played itself out in many fractious debates, broken alliances, and organizational splits during the middle of the decade (many greatly aided by the provocations of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or FBI). Despite the fragmentation of the BLM during this period, Cabral’s work has had a lasting influence on the movement, as it is still being studied and referenced today in the formulation of strategy and the programmatic orientation of revolutionary nationalist and Pan-Afrikanist organizations like the All African People’s Revolutionary Party (AAPRP), the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), the Organization of Black Struggle (OBS), the Pan-African People’s Organization (PAPO), the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika (PG –RNA), the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM), and the New Afrikan People’s Organization (NAPO).

A LUTA CONTINUA!

In the 41 years since his untimely death, Amilcar Cabral’s political legacy lives on in the strategies and tactics used by the forces of the BLM to defeat the neo-colonial control of Black communities, the advance of neo-liberal exploitation and social decomposition, to counter the consolidation of the Black faction of the trans-national capitalist class, to stop the genocidal assault against the working class via mass incarceration and economic displacement, and build self-determining institutions and communities to liberate our people.

What the radical forces in the BLM have learned to be undeniably true is that as long as capitalism, colonialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, imperialism, and neo-colonialism exist as forces that exploit and oppress African (and all) people, Cabral’s insights and analysis will always have relevance.

In our opinion, the foundation for national liberation rests in the inalienable right of every people to have their own history, whatever formulations may be adopted at the level of international law. The objective of national liberation, is therefore, to reclaim the right, usurped by imperialist domination, namely: the liberation of the process of development of national productive forces. Therefore, national liberation takes place when, and only when, national productive forces are completely free of all kinds of foreign domination. The liberation of productive forces and consequently the ability to determine the mode of production most appropriate to the evolution of the liberated people, necessarily opens up new prospects for the cultural development of the society in question, by returning to that society all its capacity to create progress.

“A people who free themselves from foreign domination will be free culturally only if, without complexes and without underestimating the importance of positive accretions from the oppressor and other cultures, they return to the upward paths of their own culture, which is nourished by the living reality of its environment, and which negates both harmful influences and any kind of subjection to foreign culture. Thus, it may be seen that if imperialist domination has the vital need to practice cultural oppression, national liberation is necessarily an act of culture.” Amilcar Cabral, from “National Liberation and Culture”, February, 20, 1970 Syracuse, New York.[31">

REFERENCES:

BOOKS

Braganca, Aquino de, Wallerstein, Immanuel (1982) The African Liberation Reader, Three Volumes, Zed Press, London, England.

Bush, Roderick D. (2009) The End of White World Supremacy: Black Internationalism and the Problem of the Color Line, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Bush, Roderick D. (2000) We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in the American Century, New York University Press.

Cabral, Amilcar (1973) Return to the Source: Selected Speeches by Amilcar Cabral, edited by Africa Information Service, Monthly Review Press, New York, New York.

Cabral, Amilcar (1969) Revolution in Guinea: An African People’s Struggle, Stage 1, London, England.

Cabral, Amilcar (1979) Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings of Amilcar Cabral, Monthly Review Press, New York, New York.

Chabal, Patrick (2003) Amilcar Cabral: Revolutionary Leadership and People’s War, Africa World Press, Trenton, New Jersey.

Cruse, Harold (2002) The Essential Harld Cruse: A Reader, Palgrave Macmillian.

Davidson, Basil (1969) The Liberation of Guinea: Aspects of an African Revolution, Penguin Books, Middlesex, England.

Ferguson, Herman (2011) An Unlikely Warrior: The Evolution of a Revolutionary, Black Classic Press.

Gaines, Kevin K. (2008) African Americans in Ghana: Black Expatriates and the Civil Rights Era, University of North Carolina Press.

Grady-Willis, Winston A. (2006) Challenging U.S Apartheid: Atlanta and Black Struggles for Human Rights 1960-1977, Duke University Press.

Johnson, Cedric (2007) Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Kadalie, Modibo M. (2000) Internationalism, Pan-Africanism, and the Struggle of Social Classes, One Quest Press, Savannah, Georgia.

Lumumba, Chokwe (1991) The Roots of the New Afrikan Independence Movement: Revolution Requires Maturity, New Afrikan Productions, Jackson, Mississippi.

Meriwether, James (2009) Proudly We can be Africans: Black Americans and Africa 1935-1961, University of North Carolina Press.

McCulloch, Jock (1983) In the Twilight of Revolution: The Political Theory of Amilcar Cabral, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, England.

Minter, William, Hovey, Gail, and Cobb, Charles Jr. (eds) (2008) No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half Century 1950 – 2000, Africa World Press, Trenton, New Jersey.

Sherwood, Marika (2011) Malcolm X Visits Abroad, Tsehai Publishing, Los Angeles, CA.

Tyson, Timothy B. (2001) Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power, University of North Carolina Press.

Van Deburg, William (1993) New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture 1965-1975, University of Chicago Press.

Von Eschen, Penny (1997) Race Against Empire: Black Americans and Anti-Colonialism 1937-1957, Cornell University Press, New York, New York.

Young, Robert J. C. (2001) Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, England.

ARTICLES

Davidson, Basil (1984) On Revolutionary Nationalism: The Legacy of Cabral, Latin American Perspectives, Issue 41, Volume II, pp. 15-42.

Magubane, Bernard (1983) Toward a Sociology of National Liberation from Colonialism: Cabral’s Legacy, Contemporary Marxism: Journal of the Institute for the Study of Labor and Economic Crisis, No. 7.

Mullen, Bill V. (2002) Transnational Correspondence: Robert F. Williams, Detroit and the Bandung Era, Works and Days, 39/40, Volume 20.

UNPUBLISHED DOCUMENTS

Tyehimba, Watani Sundai Umoja (2012) ‘NAPO/MXGM Roots and Timeline: A View from the House of Umoja’, Unpublished, Atlanta, Georgia.

[1] Cabral, Amilcar (1979) Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings of Amilcar Cabral.

[2] Chokwe Lumumba (1991) The Roots of the New Afrikan Independence Movement: Revolution Requires Political Maturity, page 1-2.

[3] For biographies on many of these individuals see Adi, Hakim, and Sherwood, Marika (2003) Pan-African History: Political figures from Africa and the Diaspora since 1787.

[4] There are three key speeches of Cabral that present the clearest articulations of his theories and strategic reflections and which have had the most profound and enduring impact on the BLM. These speeches are: “the Weapon of Theory” (1966), “National Liberation and Culture” (1970), and “Identity and Dignity in the Context of the National Liberation Struggle” (1972).

[5] Mario de Andrade (1979), “Biographical Notes”, Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings of Amilcar Cabral, Monthly Review Press.

[6] Ibid, and Young, Robert J. C. (2001) Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction, pp. 283-292.

[7] Cabral, Amilcar (1973) Return to the Source: Selected Speeches by Amilcar Cabral, pp 75-76.

[8] Von Eschen, Penny (1997) Race Against Empire: Black Americans and Anti-Colonialism 1937-1957.

[9] Minter, William, Hovey, Gail, and Cobb, Charles Jr. (eds) (2008) No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half Century 1950 – 2000, pp 15-22.

[10] See Ibid, pp. 59-150, Sherwood, Marika, (2011) Malcolm X Visits Abroad, and Gaines, Kevin K. (2008) African Americans in Ghana: Black Expatriates and the Civil Rights Era.

[11] See Ibid, pp 83-112.

[12] Wilkins, Fanon Che (2007), The Making of Black Internationalists: SNCC and Africa before Black Power 1960 – 1965.

[13] Ibid.

[14] See reference in Minter, William, et al, (eds) (2008) No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half Century 1950 – 2000, and Braganca, Aquino, Wallterstein, Immanuel (1965) The African Liberation Reader Volume 1: The Anatomy of Colonialism.

[15] Young, Robert J. C. (2001) Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction, pp. 204-216.

[16] Mullen, Bill V. (2002) Transnational Correspondence: Robert F. Williams, Detroit and the Bandung Era.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Davidson, Basil (1969) The Liberation of Guinea: Aspects of an African Revolution.

[19] Tyehimba, Watani (2012) A View from the House of Umoja, and Johnson, Cedric (2007) Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics, Chapter 4.

[20] Amilcar Cabral, “Revolution in Guinea: An African People’s Struggle”, published by STAGE 1, 1969.

[21] Johnson, Cedric (2007) Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics, Chapter 4, and Minter, William, et al, (eds) (2008) No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half Century 1950 – 2000, chapters 3 and 4.

[22] Minter, William, et al, (eds) (2008) No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half Century 1950 – 2000, Chapter 3 and Cabral, Amilcar (1979) Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings of Amilcar Cabral.

[23] Tyehimba, Watani (2012) A View from the House of Umoja.

[24] IBID, page 20.

[25] Johnson, Cedric (2007) Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics, page 138 – 139 and Minter, William, et al, (eds) (2008) No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half Century 1950 – 2000, Chapters 3 and 4.

[26] Johnson, Cedric (2007) Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics, Chapter 4.

[27] Minter, William, et al, (eds) (2008) No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half Century 1950 – 2000, chapter 4.

[28"> Minter, William, et al, (eds) (2008) No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half Century 1950 – 2000, page 93, and Cabral, Amilcar (1979) Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings of Amilcar Cabral.

[29"> Cabral, Amilcar (1979) Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings of Amilcar Cabral.

[30"> See Immanuel Wallerstein biography in Cabral, Amilcar (1979) Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings of Amilcar Cabral.

[31"> Cabral, Amilcar (1979) Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings of Amilcar Cabral.

*Kali Akuno

A shorter version of this article was printed in ‘No Easy Victories: The Legacy of Amilcar Cabral,’ edited by Firoze Manji and Bill Fletcher Jr, 2013 by CODESRIA.

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