Tunde Adeleke - Africa in Black Liberation Activism: Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael and Walter Rodney

First published 2017

by Routledge

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2017 Tunde Adeleke

The right of Tunde Adeleke to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Names: Adeleke, Tunde, author.

Title: Africa in Black liberation activism : Malcolm X, Stokely

Carmichael and Walter Rodney / Tunde Adeleke. Other titles: Routledge

African studies ; 24.

Description: New York : Routledge, 2017. | Series: Routledge African

studies ; 24 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016034109 | ISBN 9781138218192 (hardback) |

ISBN 9781315409313 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: X, Malcolm, 1925-1965. | Carmichael, Stokely,

19411998. | Rodney, Walter. | African diaspora. | Black power. | Black

nationalism. | African American political activists. | Africa, Sub-Saharan

Politics and government1960

Classification: LCC DT16.5 .A283 2017 | DDC 320.546dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016034109

ISBN: 978-1-138-21819-2 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-40931-3 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman

by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

This book is dedicated in loving memory of my teacher, mentor and friend, the late Dr. Johnson Adefila of Bennett College, Greensboro, North Carolina. Oga (Master), the seeds you planted at Great Ife continue to sprout! I am eternally grateful.

It is also dedicated to George Stinney, the fourteen-year-old Black boy wrongfully convicted and executed by the state of South Carolina in 1944 for the murder of two white girls. In 2014, seventy years later, the government of South Carolina publicly admitted it had executed the wrong person. George had vehemently denied the charges, but no one cared. Finally, you can Rest in Peace, George!

It is dedicated as well to the other unknown George Stinneys whose innocence would forever remain buried beneath state sanctioned conspiracies of silence!

The seeds for this book were planted and watered in that citadel of intellectual excellence students and alumni affectionately and proudly call Great Ife! It was at the University of Ife, Ile-Ife, Nigeria (now Obafemi Awolowo University), in the late 1970s that I was first introduced to the African Diaspora. With a newly minted PhD from Brandeis University, the late Johnson Adefila taught the Senior History (Special Honors) Seminar: The Negro in the New World . In his calm, cool and deliberate demeanor, Dr. Adefila introduced the class to the history and struggles of blacks in America. I was hooked! The rest, as they say, is history. Dr. Adefila subsequently relocated to the United States in the early 1990s where we reconnected, and for the next two and half decades our relationship transcended teacher-student. He became my elder brother and friend. Ever so caring, loving and generous, Dr. Adefila was the one person I could summon, regardless of the time of day, for comforting words and sage advice, during my many personal trials and tribulations. I always looked forward to our yearly reunion at the Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc., (SCAASI). I treasured every moment of those four days of face-to-face contact. His recent sad and unexpected passing has left a void. He will surely be missed. For me, attending SCAASI will never be the same.

This book is the outgrowth of four major international conferences that took place over a decade. The first was the 20th International Congress of Historical Sciences hosted by the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia from July 39, 2005. I participated in a panel on Myth and History in which we interrogated among other themes, what our conveners Luisa Passerini (Italy) and Stefan Berger (Great Britain) described as The Political Usage of African National History in the Anticolonial Struggle. on Malcolm X is a revised version of a paper I presented at the 13th International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences Conference in Antibes, France from September 1518, 2014. My paper, titled The Political, Moral, Intellectual and Revolutionary Authority of Africa in Malcolm Xs Life and Thought, is a critical analysis of Malcolms use of Africa as the foundation for his colored cosmopolitan framing of the African Diaspora struggles in the last ten months of his life. Two responders to my presentation offered useful comments and suggestions for which I am grateful: Moipone Rakolojane of the University of South Africa, Pretoria, and Christofocus Ioannidis of Kings College, London. The chapter on Stokely Carmichael developed from my contribution to the international conference on African Thoughts on Colonial and Neo-Colonial Worlds organized and hosted by the Department of African Studies, University of Vienna, Austria. I presented a paper titled Stokely Carmichael and the African Revolution: Intellectual Insights from Guinea, which provoked spirited debates and comments. I am grateful to Arno Sonderegger and Misa Krenceyova for inviting me to present on Carmichael. My revision of the paper has resulted in the expanded version in this book. I am especially grateful to Joanna Tegnerowicz of the University of Wroclaw, Poland for her insightful and thoughtful comments.