From Toussaint to Tupac: The Black International since the Age of Revolution / Edition 1

by Michael O. West, William G. Martin, Fanon Che Wilkins

Overview

Transcending geographic and cultural lines, From Toussaint to Tupac is an ambitious collection of essays exploring black internationalism and its implications for a black consciousness. At its core, black internationalism is a struggle against oppression, whether manifested in slavery, colonialism, or racism. The ten essays in this volume offer a comprehensive overview of the global movements that define black internationalism, from its origins in the colonial period to the present.

From Toussaint to Tupac focuses on three moments in global black history: the American and Haitian revolutions, the Garvey movement and the Communist International following World War I, and the Black Power movement of the late twentieth century. Contributors demonstrate how black internationalism emerged and influenced events in particular localities, how participants in the various struggles communicated across natural and man-made boundaries, and how the black international aided resistance on the local level, creating a collective consciousness.

In sharp contrast to studies that confine Black Power to particular national locales, this volume demonstrates the global reach and resonance of the movement. The volume concludes with a discussion of hip hop, including its cultural and ideological antecedents in Black Power.

Contributors:
Hakim Adi, Middlesex University, London
Sylvia R. Frey, Tulane University
William G. Martin, Binghamton University
Brian Meeks, University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica
Marc D. Perry, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Lara Putnam, University of Pittsburgh
Vijay Prashad, Trinity College
Robyn Spencer, Lehman College
Robert T. Vinson, College of William and Mary
Michael O. West, Binghamton University
Fanon Che Wilkins, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807859728
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	09/01/2009
Edition description:	1
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Michael O. West is professor of sociology and Africana studies at Binghamton University.

William G. Martin is professor of sociology at Binghamton University.

Fanon Che Wilkins is associate professor of African American history and culture in the Graduate School of American Studies at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction Contours of the Black International From Toussaint to Tupac Michael O. West William G. Martin 1

Part 1 The American Revolution and the Creation of a Global African World Sylvia Frey 47

Haiti, I'm Sorry The Haitian Revolution and the Forging of the Black International Michael O. West William G. Martin 72

Part 2 Nothing Matters but Color Transnational Circuits, the Interwar Caribbean, and the Black International Lara Putnam 107

Providential Design American Negroes and Garveyism in South Africa Robert Vinson 130

The Negro Question The Communist International and Black Liberation in the Interwar Years Hakim Adi 155

Part 3 Waiting for the Black Gandhi Satyagraha and Black Internationalism Vijay Prashad 179

The Rise and Fall of Caribbean Black Power Brian Meeks 197

Merely One Link in the Worldwide Revolution Internationalism, State Repression, and the Black Panther Party, 1966-1972 Robyn Spencer 215

Hip Hop's Diasporic Landscapes of Blackness Marc D. Perry 232

Bibliography 259

About the Authors 299

Index 303

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

This comprehensive collection on the Black international from the eighteenth century to today is exciting, wide-ranging, and pioneering. It demonstrates the movement's multiple and complex links and its internal divisions. It will become an indispensable basis of further research and analysis.—Immanuel Wallerstein, Yale University



This masterful collection proposes an alternative paradigm for our interpretation of modern 'world history,' reconsidering the histories of South Africa, West Africa, the Caribbean, the United States, and Europe. It is a bold intervention whose intellectual, chronological, cultural, social, and geographical sweep is without rival.—Komozi Woodard, author of A Nation within a Nation: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and Black Power Politics

Editorial Reviews

A model in which the struggles of black people worldwide from the Haitian Revolution to contemporary rap fundamentally inform and shape historical questions and understandings. . . . Recommended.—Choice



Michael West and William Martin's stirring introduction precedes a fascinating, well-argued collection of essays whose breadth, both temporally and geographically, issues a dramatic call to scholars of the global Black Freedom struggle.—Kalfou

From the Publisher