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Change?: KTS Scholars on the Potential of Barack Obama and the 2008 Election

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A few KTS members sound off on Obama, his potential for change, and what he represents for the Pan-Africanist world agenda.

Chigozie Onyema: I can't speak for anyone else, but I for one am not for Obama. As a black nationalist I can appreciate a black man in the highest office in this country. However, it has become increasingly clear that while a black face enters that office black identity, which is infinitely more important, is left outside. Obama declared his allegiance when he not only distanced himself, but eventually denounced Rev. Wright and his words. While I am not a member of the black church, it has been a stalwart in the black community since its inception. For Obama to join the church as a Harvard student when it was conducive to his political ambitions in Southside Chicago, then to leave it when its conducive to his political ambitions now speaks to his political opportunism and how his relationship may be with the black community if/when he is in office. Lets be very clear, I prefer Obama over McCain. One reason I prefer Obama over McCain is because if McCain and the Republicans assume the White House the masses will say that if Obama was in things would be different. I'd rather the masses have a front row seat and observe how it is about the way our society is organized and its resources distributed and not about which party or person assumes office. Obama's foreign policy plans, while not as overtly destructive as his predecessors, will be consistent with what we has been institutionalized as the norm by the Council on Foreign Affairs and white nationalism as a whole. We will remain in Iraq for decades, because we built one of the largest bases known to man there. We will continue the blockade on Cuba, because the Cuban American elite in Florida largely determine who receives its 25 delegates in the Presidential Election. We will continue to stand by apartheid in Palestine, because AIPAC and the Israel lobby contributes to Obama's campaign just as it contributed Bush's and everyone before him. The Congolese will continue to suffer, because the world needs her resources and not her people. We must understand the geo-political implications of our support for Obama, because he will only be a black face on the white nationalism that destroys "us" around the world. With all of this said, that does not mean that we should or should not vote for him. That is a personal decision that requires much deliberation. As of right now I will be supporting Cynthia McKinney (as someone once said the black candidate that loves you back). I'm supporting her and the Green Party, because the best chance at having an honest conversation that transcends larger society in this country is by having a third party. If a third party receives 3% (I think that number is correct) of the vote then it is eligible for real funding. I doubt that the Green Party will get that this time around considering the hype around this election, but we must continue to dream. Below is a response by Fidel Castro to a speech Obama made in front of the Cuban American National Foundation, created by non other than Ronald Reagan. Perhaps it will give us some insight to what true leaders think of Obama. I hope all of this makes sense.
Ava Wilson: As an African in America, I can say that I personally don't feel Obama is Black. I saw a bumper sticker once with Obama's name on it but it had an apostrophe between the O and the B: O'Bama, Irish/Scottish style. While it was probably just a cute marketing ploy to sway Irish descendants for possible Obama support, the lingering reality of that bumper sticker resonated with me. O'Bama (as I will now be writing his name) can not be culturally identified with the Black experience. What do I mean by this: white mother raising him, all-white neighborhood, sure white people "see" you as Black but no cultural identity is being reinforced in the home. Why is this important? Because I would suggest that it probably wasn't until he graduated Law School, moved to Chicago, joined Trinity United Church of Christ (which in my opinion was a political ploy) that he understood a culturally Black identity. O'bama or No Bama, it really doesn't matter to me. I don't care to even get in debates or discussion over this whole thing. The only thing that I feel is at the heart of my opinion is the fact that he used this American (Euro) idea of Blackness (i.e. just being present) to transcend our own (Black people's) ideals of what Blackness is. And for that we should not get our hopes and dreams up about him; all he knows about Africans is what he read or saw somewhere. Yet, we fell for it. And Europe continues to define for us what leaders are, what success is, what government is and what culture is via race. O'bama is just "white supremacy in Black face" to quote Dr. Watkins-Beatty. In my opinion he is not the first Black anything, and why should we care about a Black president of this place? WTF is the right expression to have at a time like this! If I go on more I will just be rambling and Chigozie's point struck a much deeper cord and really got to the core of the issue and what we as Black people need to focus on. As I said on Facebook, only the Maroons knew about change because they knew what freedom had been which afforded them the ability to transcend the slave dungeons, middle passage, and the entire institution of slavery. O'bama ain't nobody's Toussaint, Boukman, or Capiten so in my opinion he don't know the 1st thing about change. The only change that's gonna be going on is us becoming more white, becoming more assimilated in this fake ass virtual reality. My final question would be: What are Black folk gonna do when O'Bama can't change a damn thing? Chigozie, your piece was on point.
Josh Myers:There's really not much more to be said. I would add that we need to be careful who we consider to be allies. Is Barack Obama an ally? We know he is not an ally for Africans abroad as Chigozie related. Is he an ally for Africans in America? I think his treatment of the black church is evidence of that relationship. Not only that he is not a member of any organizations that are our allies in struggle? Why? Because his loyalty is with machine politics. Investment banks, lobbyists, and other groups who are behind American politics. So when we support Obama, we support AIPAC. When we support Obama we support Wall St., and its relationship with Africans is less than favorable. So if not obama, who? Along with the implicit fallacies of integrationist ideology came this notion that if we don't vote, we are not political. This is not true. American and European hegemony has taken the word "political" to mean what it needs it to. The fight for the right to vote was predicated on our organization of political power bases to effect the change we needed as people. Group solidarity not individualism. But because our concept of integration was once again hijacked by the power structure to mean individuals " do what you please", it has left a vacuum concerning how we must organize politically. Because we are oppressed as a group, our concerns must be voiced as a group. So with that said the candidate that is closest to that worldview is probably Cynthia Mckinney. But I don't wanna let that overshadow my belief that we have to have a political organization that does not seek to exploit our people. To your other point, Barack Obama is not opening a door for anyone, except his benefactors. We, whose goals are on the nationalist side of what Cedric Robinson calls the two competing views will not benefit from an agenda emanating from a President whose conception of liberation is putting more blacks in jobs. We cannot afford to fool ourselves. I have my reservations as to whether he would even work for that. I do not think he will inspire kids or anyone for that matter to do nothing more than aspire to assimilate as he did, and that's damaging in terms of what we're are trying to do, which is liberate them from oppressive ideology. What are kids need is not to see a black face president; they need rites of passage, to reclaim their identity, to conceptualize themselves as who they are and not what capitalist media portrays them as. Lastly, this accomplishment is undermined due to the fact that he is considered black only because we can see his skin color. I would like to further echo the sentiments of Chigozie and Ava. And that was my 2 cents. Ohh yeah, Kwame Ture said, we cannot fight for integration as articulated presently, because it is unhealthy to repeatedly deny one's self. And that's precisely what Obama represents (although as Ava pointed out this may be who he really is ). He is creating the illusion, and essentially saying that you must first deny yourself and your culture then you can do whatever you want, this not a change. We've always known that assimilation was possible.

KTS Reading: Pan-Africanism or Perish by M.S. Toloane

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There has recently been a rise in seemingly orchestrated, systematic attacks on the tenets of Pan-Africanism, especially personal attacks on those of its proponents who were crucial to its development, on the continent and beyond, that take the form of inferring these individuals were misguided, or question their qualifications, intelligence, and sometimes sanity. This campaign, usually spearheaded by very highly educated men, professors or lecturers at the highest institutions of learning in "developed" countries, flaunting African colors and erudition, is as pathetic and disheartening as the reality these men exist within. Personal attacks on Pan-Africans with intent to discredit are ultimately aimed at the movement itself. But then, it shouldn't take a rocket scientist to see just why Pan-Africanism is an imperative for Africans. Observe the incompatible mentalities formerly similar people have developed over such a short period of time, and, as if this were not enough, continental Africans are already so in the grips of artificial identities forced on them by imperialists they actually talk of their nationalities as if they were referring to race itself. A Ghanaian is not only a Ghanaian, a national of Ghana, but is a member of a race in its own right, even though we all know there is more to Ghanaians than meets the eye.
It goes without saying that African national demarcations do not reflect the ethno-cultural realities on the ground, and as such do nothing to keep the profile of their own people. Some African ethnicities form tiny minorities, completely surrounded by larger ethnicities who are more advantaged, and the needs of such tiny groups cannot be addressed. Other ethnicities are split between two, sometimes three different countries, each part forced to learn a different official language, each part considered a nationality in its own right. Sometimes, as was the case with the Germans under the cold war, movement between countries can become restricted, but usually passports are required to pass from one country to another. In most cases, power is more or less exclusively in the hands of a single ethnic group, and resentment grows. This means that, for many African people, no real identification occurs with the country in which they live, meaning the various republics are not considered "homes" in the same manner the Dutch would consider Holland their home. One doesn't need to do much thinking to realize the attitude people within the borders will have towards the entity they reside in, and also see just why there is so much wanton robbery of state coffers in high places. It is hard to imagine a man robbing a place he feels is his home in the same manner Africans in high places rob their own countries.
Keeping in mind the past and achievements of the people of this continent, what this chaotic state of affairs, and a lot of other negative activities by Africans in our day says is mental and physical degeneration has really set in, and is bound to go but one way. It reveals acceptance on our part of colonialism as the only system possible for us. We are probably in the last phase of a process that was designed by colonialists who forced cultures and identities on us, against our will, with a lot of our own blood spilt in resistance. What is more disconcerting is the fact the strongest voices against Pan-Africanism, the only movement capable of bringing order to this chaos, including the abolition of colonial borders that lie at the center of the problem, are actually African. Suffice to say how adjusted and comfortable these people are with the way things are going is both a measure of the intelligence their academic qualifications obscure from sight; and a measure of how successful our colonizer's efforts to shove these same people, and unfortunately our entire continent into the colonial straitjacket have been, what with Africans doing the rest of the shoving themselves. This is indeed the actualization of the best dreams of the colonizing commission.
As far back as 1853, a British minister, Lord Grey, put the agenda of the colonial powers into words. "The true policy I believe to be" he said, "the formation of a regular government on the European model, so that the interference of the British authorities may be less and less required". This policy, known today as neocolonialism, was understood and observed, and on many occasions paraphrased by many colonial authorities in the colonies up till the time that the territories became independent.
A typical example of the resolve of the colonial powers, the ultimate determination to make colonialism a permanent aspect of the African continent is to be found in the works and writings of the person of Gordon Guggisberg, the governor of the Gold Coast from 1919. Believing greatly in the "imperial mother's" mission to help Africans, this governor strived tirelessly to improve the colonial system so as to make it stronger. Guggisberg, who believed the colonial system the only possible system there could be, believed, like his ancestor Lord Grey, that the goal was to make Africans take over, and run it themselves.
The documented activities of the colonial authorities aimed to strengthen colonialism, to make true the ultimate goal. Towards the period that the colonial powers were allowing Africans to form their own political organizations, the presence of colonial officers on the continent was ever on the increase, a fact that is unknown by most people in Africa today who believe European powers were reducing the numbers of such people as they handed power to the natives. The obvious aim of this exercise was to leave no stones unturned.
In the British colonies, they had more or less made sure that there could be no comebacks. They had had more than enough time to prepare for such a state. The transitional period, the actual handing over of power after an African leader had been chosen, was as a result smooth in their territories. The individuals who led the civil rights movements that fought for equal rights to begin with, were trusted. Later, when these were to show their true colors, they would be removed by whatever means necessary, as swiftly as was possible. In the French and Portuguese colonies however, the situation was quite different. Here, men whose crime was possibly charisma, intelligence or descent from the original ruling families, were thrown into jail before they had committed any crimes. Police here were instructed to shoot indiscriminately into crowds that gathered for any reason whatsoever. It is impossible to explain this madness any other way than that, given the complexity of the situation, the Portuguese and French felt they had no other option. They felt pushed against a wall. To them, the continuation of the colonial dream called for such drastic, and on the surface, frenzied measures.
The designs that grew out of this "dedicated work" are the African republics we know today, including the stultified mentalities of those who reside in these colonial divides. If Lord Grey or Gordon Guggisberg were to come back from the dead, they would immediately recognize the state of the continent as a product of their work, give or take a few flaws here and there.
Seen in this light, it becomes painfully clear the continent has lost this leg of the battle. It would be correct to say Africans have been completely outwitted. There is a pressing need for reeducation of the masses, starting with a lot of our intellectuals who feel by contributing to the final fall of Pan-Africanism they will usher in a new, prosperous era in Africa; who are solely motivated by the need to belong to something big, and are now members of this big house, and working hard to destroy its enemies, while, unbeknownst to them, in reality they've simply sold their own souls to the devil. We require to enable awareness of what is really happening, that enemies of worldwide African unity in our midst are doing nothing better than fulfilling the dreams of our enemies as we speak. We require at this juncture to look closely at the mentalities of the continent and the manner in which the continent is designed today, and prioritize the search for a solution to the borders that prevents this situation from getting worse. Because there was a lot of cultural suffocation and our identity was tampered with, what's crucial is the need to forge a new identity for our people, and this identity should by necessity "exclude" the 100 or so years we have been colonized, and the reason for this has already been made clear.
Many would argue here that an identity is an identity, no matter how convoluted the journey to the acquisition of this identity has been, that one cannot pick out certain aspects of the past, and discard others (colonialism in this case) in order to forge a new identity. Such an identity would be false, they assert. An identity is rather a taking into account of all the parts that have played a role in its creation.
Still, the various identities that Africans stick to today, and the different mentalities that have resulted, even between members of the same tribe who live in different countries, especially when these countries have different "official" languages, are illogical, and incompatible with a thinking people. They obscure our past because they were gained by denial of this, by deceit of the very people who bear the cultures and identities. The knowledge we have of who we are today excludes truths that would make us know who we really are, where we came from, so that we are unable in our time to properly project into an attainable future, a necessity to control of one's destiny. The simple truth is our colonizers and enslavers couldn't exploit the fruits of African resources and labor if they had not affected a lobotomy on our conscious. The dirtying, denigrating and vilifying of African culture, the successful attempt to have Africans feel like making distance with these renounced ways, the replacement with other non African truths (or lies)/ways, and mostly, with nothing at all, was done to force Africans to accept inferiority, a position that aids in the exploitation of Africans since, when in the grips of this complex Africans put and accept western ways above their own, making them prone to agree to western orders, and ultimately the primacy of western interests above their own.
The identity that Africans should forge to redeem themselves from colonial chains has to do away with a colonial identity that by its very nature is designed to negate or deny real African culture, real African identity, so that we are unable to look back and embrace our real selves in the past, and know ourselves in the present. Our identity has to be one made by our own people for the benefit of our people, after we have redeemed ourselves from the deceit we have been forced to live by, and have redesigned our societies according to an order we know reflects who the people really are, and will therefore benefit all. Africa can not become a home to Africans if the present colonial designs stay intact, if it is not redesigned by Africans to reflect the ethno-cultural realities on the ground. With this will disappear or be diminished a lot of the vices we experience in our day that bring our people down, including tribalism and corruption. As I said already, it is very hard for any man or woman to rob a place he feels is his home, and it will be impossible for there to be tribalism where ethnicities are autonomous on a federated continent where unity is understood to be mutually beneficial.
The only way to get to this state is to use the past; not as a model, but as a guide to the formation of these new identities. The goal is to stay who we are come what may, and manage our lives so that nobody can take advantage of us. This is similar to keeping track of self, and we all know what happens when an individual cannot do this. Staying who we are requires knowledge of who we are. A man who doesn't know who he is cannot know how to maintain that which he is. Oblivious to his true nature, he can go whichever way the wind blows since self-monitoring's prerequisite is "prior self knowledge". If I do not know myself, but someone else does know who I am, then I will forever stay at the other's whims. If we Africans no longer know who we are, which is clearly the case, then the clue to this we will find in our ancestors, their ways, their languages, their institutions, tracking this all the way into the present. They are, after all, this version we carry around with us. They are us at a later date, to put it awkwardly. There is nothing we have that they didn't have, no potentials we possess that were not inherent in them. Ultimately, this identity will have to be forged on a few cues.
Marcus Garvey says, "a nation with no knowledge of its history (and culture) is like a tree without roots", outlining the importance of being able to relate to the past in order to understand the present and deal with the future. A more genial way to look at it is Maurena Karenga's way: "A people will never look forward to posterity who never looked backward to their ancestors". Human societies behave much like an individual does with regards knowledge of self. They do not want to lose track of themselves because the consequences are dire. They are built like a tree rooted firmly into the earth. Descendants look backward to their past as they look forward to their future. The culture they build is based on experiences they go through as a group, on a journey of maturity much like an individual's, which is why tradition is also nothing more than a group's accumulated wisdom. Only unnatural situations can cause interference to this natural order, which happens to be the inheritance of colonialism or slavery in the case of modern day Africans. But then this goes with the territory. The point of bequeathing Africans such an inheritance is to sever this link to our past, to remove our knowledge of self so that we lose our collective mind, and, wondering the earth like fools, can be robbed much more effectively.
It is clearly evident that we are playing the game by the ground rules set by the colonizing commission, by people who have shown repeatedly they have no respect for their own selves as reflected in their willingness to change their own history as befits the moment, or advantage, as such anchoring their own image of self in a suspended reality. People who do not mind tampering with history, and as such their own identity, who knowingly cause their own society to lose track of itself, are obviously oblivious of the harm this can do to self and environment, otherwise they would not indulge in such an activity. This is to say our colonizers were as misled and brainwashed themselves as we have become under the system they created. We have accepted definitions of self set in motion in 1885 in Berlin, when men who were more concerned with human and natural resources sat down and drew squares on a map, sharing as such the spoils of wars they knew they could win with ease, slicing the land on which my ancestors had roamed for ages like a cake. We have taken on systems of rule that are much more backward and dictatorial than much of the pluralistic systems our ancestors developed, have acquired a mentality of leadership that is a throwback to prehistory in our case, one of which is the north European Viking line of development where, very recently, the only way to get to the throne was by killing siblings, rather than through the rules set by society, of which maternal lineage is one. This is obviously retrogression, for the rule of the jungle era, though it reared its head here and there in Africa, was a surpassed stage. The traditional idea of the role of a leader in society has also become decadent, where now he is the most pampered person on the block, and not the one who brings order to chaos, the allegorical equivalent being the intermediary between the divine and mortals.
It is crucial for us to keep in mind who we really are goes much farther back than what we have been made to think, and takes a route very different from the one found in present history books. There has never been a tribe, or race of people called Rwanda, Liberia, Malawi, Zambia, Nigeria, or Ghana, and non has so far been created for the duration that these names have been in use, and non is about to be created anytime soon. There are ruins called Zimbabwe, but, even though the people here have spent a little over a century living in this area formerly called Southern Rhodesia, the former and latter name has only made a mark on their idea of what they are in official speak, because, unlike others across the seas who readily call themselves what they also call their country, names of African countries are still felt by the people to say little, if nothing, of what they feel they are. As intimated already, a people believing they can create a prosperous existence on such a chaotic foundation are as deluded as it gets, and will end up making that final walk into the wall of time. Obviously, correction is the first step to taking the matter of the race's survival into our hands. Let it be remembered this cannot be done regionally, since, like a disease, it has infected the entirety of our organism, the lines the colonizers drew across the continent a mask over its true face. Faults are connected throughout the system, and, to date, there has only been one ideal that has found the correct approach that constitutes the sole cure for this particular affliction. Pan-Africanism is undoubtedly it.

KTS Reading: Ture on Nkrumah

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Ture, Nkrumah, and Shirley Graham DuBois

NKRUMAH WAS A TRUE VISIONARY: A GENUINE PAN-AFRICANIST

Kwame Nkrumah was born in 1909 in Nkroful, a middle village in what was then the British-ruled Gold Coast on the West Coast of Africa that we now know as Ghana. And thanks to the education he received from his people, he understood at an early age that he had a responsibility to help his people's movement toward freedom. The generations that came before him had already begun the political struggles for independence against colonialism.
Nkrumah did well in his academic studies and finished all levels of institutions in Ghana. Looking for further studies, he came to the United States. But even before leaving Ghana, he had demonstrated his concern for the liberation of his people. He gave untiringly of himself, his energies to help encourage all movements to uplift Ghana.
In the United States, where, if my memory serves me correctly, he would spend about 10 years, he studied at Lincoln University, Pennsylvania. Nkrumah studied very carefully all aspects of our struggle. He fully engaged in it. He embedded himself in Harlem, where he was a part of all struggles there. And of course, he was at the forefront of all struggles concerning the emancipation of Africa.
Nkrumah never met the Honorable Marcus Garvey, who died in England in 1940. I think it was in 1942 that Nkrumah left America for England, where he was to continue his studies. C.L.R. James, an African born in Trinidad, who was living here in America had thankfully provided Nkrumah a contact. He introduced him to George Padmore, who was then in England. After their meeting, Padmore became Nkrumah's mentor. Probably at that time, Padmore was the leading African with practical and theoretical knowledge of the African struggle throughout the world.
It was with Padmore that Nkrumah would see the need for disciplined study.
As a revolutionary, Nkrumah was always a man given to study. But he would grow to see the necessity of disciplined study within the political field, and Padmore would help to train him in so many ways. And when the fifth Pan-African Congress (PAC) was called together in 1945, Nkrumah, Padmore, and W. E. B. Du Bois served as the coordinating secretaries.
This PAC made clear two very important aspects of the African struggle: One was that they knew the final confrontation with colonialism was coming; therefore, they called for mass confrontation against colonialism. And the second one was their willingness to use arms to arrive at independence. Some people do not look very carefully at history, which moves very fast sometimes.
In 1947, the bourgeoisie of Ghana called Nkrumah to do some political organizing work because they, too, could see that they needed political organization to arrive at independence. Nkrumah accepted, after seeking advice from Padmore. And having established a base in London, he immediately sailed for Ghana, where under the bourgeoisie he was given the job of organizing for political independence.
Of course, the people Nkrumah worked with were speaking not of organizing the masses, since they feared them more than they feared the British. They were speaking merely of using negotiations and tea parties to arrive at independence.
There arose inevitable conflict, political conflict, between the two, and they had to parted ways. Nkrumah immediately set up the Convention People's Party (CPP). The CPP wanted independence now, while others asked for independence as soon as possible. The CPP look to the masses of Africans as the major factor, the major motivating force and the major weapon in the anticolonial struggle. Thus we can see that Nkrumah clearly understood that the African struggle was mass in character and that there must be mass organization. Therefore, the CPP was a mass party.
This is one of the first points at which we want to stop and acknowledge Nkrumah's genius. If we look at all the struggles for independence prior to that time, what we see is that they were carried out at best by "vanguard" parties.
These were the parties that did not touch the masses. Whether these vanguard parties were revolutionary or reactionary, they did not touch the masses. The vanguard revolutionary masses would organize themselves with the most conscious elements of the given society. Then through liaison with the masses, they would come to arouse the masses and direct them to certain action. But having a mass party in which the masses themselves directly participated was unheard of. Therefore, the mass party came to represent a means and method of struggle against colonialism. And Nkrumah gave the mass party a fundamental basis with the CPP
Nkrumah was consistent. If we go to Nkrumah's book, The Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare, in which he outlines the unification process of Africa, we see how he showed Africa coming together.
So this idea of the mass party has continued. But the idea of the mass party itself Nkrumah would tell all, came from the Honorable Marcus Garvey, who injected the mass character into the Pan-African struggle with the Universal Negro Improvement Association, which was a mass organization worldwide. And Nkrumah now used the CPP, a mass party, as an instrument for the independence of Ghana. For Nkrumah, Africa's independence meant everything. Class struggles should be submerged until independence arrived on the scene for the African continent.
Nkrumah never saw Africa as Ghana; he always saw Ghana only as a part of Africa. Those reactionary people who attacked him later saying that he sacrificed Ghana for Africa knew absolutely nothing of the African revolution. Nkrumah never worried about any one part of Africa. He was a true visionary. A genuine Pan-Africanist.Nkrumah not only had created the mass party and showed the rest of Africa the road to liberation through it, but he also came to avenge the history of Africa.The Gold Coast was, of course, changed to the name of Ghana. And more important, he brought back the Black Star Line, a commercial steamship venture, which was given to us by Marcus Garvey. Garvey established the Black Star Line here with the intention of using these ships to go between Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. J. Edgar Hoover, then head of the FBI, sabotaged Garvey's entire operation of the Black Star Line. Not only did he sabotage it, but also he himself had Garvey arrested on trumped-up mail-fraud charges. Nonsense, just lies as they have done all the way through history.But as soon as Nkrumah won independence and drove the British out of Ghana, one of his first acts was to sign the Black Star Line into being. Nkrumah told them, "You laughed at Garvey, but you will never laugh at us." And he signed in the Black Star Line, which was to travel the world as the the ocean-going fleets of Ghana, which still exist even today despite all the attacks, internal and external, that it has undergone.Nkrumah was a genuine Pan-Africanist. When Guinea got its independence and the French had taken everything-Nkrumah gave [Guinea] from the treasury of Ghana, if my memory serves me correctly, close to $10 million to start the Guinean nation.The burning vision of Nkrumah was a unified Africa. For him, African unity meant everything. This vision of a unified socialist Africa would be an inevitable reality. In all his writings, Nkrumah demonstrated this. And in spite of all the obstacles placed in the path of Africa to keep it divided, the continent will be unified.I have the honor of having worked as a political secretary for Kwame Nkrumah.He invited me to accept this position during my first visit to Guinea in 1967.I jumped at the opportunity understanding that if I did, just by osmosis, I would know more about the African revolution than most scholars.I met Nkrumah through Mrs. W. E. B. Du Bois. I was in China on my way to North Vietnam, where I would have the honor of meeting Ho Chi Minh. I received a dinner invitation from Mrs. Du Bois, who also was in China, which I didn't know.I was overwhelmed. Mrs. DuBois was full of enthusiasm, full of information. Sometime during the middle of our conversation, she asked, "Young man, have you met Kwame Nkrumah?" I said, "No, madam, I've not met him." And she asked, "Would you like to meet him?" I said, "I'd give my right arm to meet Kwame Nkrumah." And she said, "All right, you'll meet him." I thanked her. We continued the discussion. Later, when I was in Algeria, I was given an invitation to come to Guinea. And when I arrived in Guinea, Mrs. Du Bois happen to be there also. She grabbed me quickly from my hotel and said let us go meet Kwame Nkrumah. At this time, he was co-president of the People's Revolutionary Republic of Guinea. And this is how I came to meet Kwame Nkrumah. Previously, Nkrumah served as Ghana's prime minister, 1952-1960, and its first president, 1960-1966. I remember one of the first lessons that he taught me. I was talking about fighting.One of the major purposes for my becoming his political secretary was to organize the fight so that he could return to Ghana. Of course, I was young. I just wanted to fight, fight, fight. So he gave me books to read. Subsequently, I was to do a book report. I guess he instinctively understood that I wouldn't pay much attention. He was correct. I was talking about fighting. After he gave me the books, I read them and brought back the report. He sat me at the desk, and in the British educational tradition, he took out his red pen. He just started with my paper; he marked here, marked there, marked there, while I sat looking at him. When he finished, the whole paper was nothing but red ink. He gave it to me very gently and politely. He looked me straight in the eye. He said, "I thought you came here for the revolution?" I took my paper. I thanked him. I stood up. I asked him could I have the books again, please. And this time, I went and did the report correctly . I promised myself that from day on he would never pick up his red pen against me again. And fortunately, from then on, of all the assignments and missions he gave me, he never again had to use his red pen.Many people have made it appear that Nkrumah was sad and down in the dumps during his last days in Guinea. Nothing is further from the truth. Nkrumah knew that Africa would be unified. And he knew that he would not see it in his lifetime. But he knew that he had to continue to work until his death. So in no way were his last days in Guinea pessimistic or sad. On the contrary, every day news would come to confirm that Africa would be free and unified. You must not forget that Nkrumah died in the early '70s [1972], when the liberation movements were unfolding. He died at a time when Africa was in a period of high enthusiasm. There was full support for the armed liberation movements against imperialism. Nkrumah foresaw the falling of colonialism in Africa. He prophesied neocolonialism as a last stage in Africa. So if Nkrumah were alive today and saw neocolonialism rampant in Africa, he would in no way change his attitude. As we know, Nkrumah understood that neocolonialism is not only a passing phase in Africa, but it is also the last phase in Africa before we arrive at a unified socialist Africa. Nkrumah's most enduring legacy is the work he did for the people. Organize the people. One of his favorite quotes was about how organization decides everything. He taught me to pay great attention to little details. He would tell me over and over again, "Little details will make you lose a war."Nkrumah's plans for African unity were to sweep the African continent. You cannot go anyplace in Africa today without speaking of African unity. And one cannot speak of African unity without speaking of Nkrumah. Nkrumah's plans as laid out in his writings and political works and actions are clear. They represent the only path toward making Africa a unified continent-with a mass body directing its affairs. There's no question that this is inevitable-and will definitely come about. Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown by the CIA. That has been documented in different books. But everyone knows that the CIA played a major role in overthrowing Nkrumah because of his Pan-Africanist ideas, because of his socialist ideas. There is no question that the CIA saw Nkrumah as one of the biggest threats toward maintaining their interest in Africa.

KTS Reading: Kwame Ture on Black Power, Berkeley CA 1966

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Audio: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/mp3clips/politicalspeeches/stokelycarmichaelblackpower4543593229.mp3

Thank you very much. It’s a privilege and an honor to be in the white intellectual ghetto of the West. We wanted to do a couple of things before we started. The first is that, based on the fact that SNCC, through the articulation of its program by its chairman, has been able to win elections in Georgia, Alabama, Maryland, and by our appearance here will win an election in California, in 1968 I'm going to run for President of the United States. I just can't make it, 'cause I wasn't born in the United States. That's the only thing holding me back.
We wanted to say that this is a student conference, as it should be, held on a campus, and that we're not ever to be caught up in the intellectual masturbation of the question of Black Power. That’s a function of people who are advertisers that call themselves reporters. Oh, for my members and friends of the press, my self-appointed white critics, I was reading Mr. Bernard Shaw two days ago, and I came across a very important quote which I think is most apropos for you. He says, "All criticism is a[n] autobiography." Dig yourself. Okay.
The philosophers Camus and Sartre raise the question whether or not a man can condemn himself. The black existentialist philosopher who is pragmatic, Frantz Fanon, answered the question. He said that man could not. Camus and Sartre was not. We in SNCC tend to agree with Camus and Sartre, that a man cannot condemn himself.¹ Were he to condemn himself, he would then have to inflict punishment upon himself. An example would be the Nazis. Any prisoner who -- any of the Nazi prisoners who admitted, after he was caught and incarcerated, that he committed crimes, that he killed all the many people that he killed, he committed suicide. The only ones who were able to stay alive were the ones who never admitted that they committed a crimes [sic] against people -- that is, the ones who rationalized that Jews were not human beings and deserved to be killed, or that they were only following orders.
On a more immediate scene, the officials and the population -- the white population -- in Neshoba County, Mississippi -- that’s where Philadelphia is -- could not -- could not condemn [Sheriff] Rainey, his deputies, and the other fourteen men that killed three human beings. They could not because they elected Mr. Rainey to do precisely what he did; and that for them to condemn him will be for them to condemn themselves.
In a much larger view, SNCC says that white America cannot condemn herself. And since we are liberal, we have done it: You stand condemned. Now, a number of things that arises from that answer of how do you condemn yourselves. Seems to me that the institutions that function in this country are clearly racist, and that they're built upon racism. And the question, then, is how can black people inside of this country move? And then how can white people who say they’re not a part of those institutions begin to move? And how then do we begin to clear away the obstacles that we have in this society, that make us live like human beings? How can we begin to build institutions that will allow people to relate with each other as human beings? This country has never done that, especially around the country of white or black.
Now, several people have been upset because we’ve said that integration was irrelevant when initiated by blacks, and that in fact it was a subterfuge, an insidious subterfuge, for the maintenance of white supremacy. Now we maintain that in the past six years or so, this country has been feeding us a "thalidomide drug of integration," and that some negroes have been walking down a dream street talking about sitting next to white people; and that that does not begin to solve the problem; that when we went to Mississippi we did not go to sit next to Ross Barnett²; we did not go to sit next to Jim Clark³; we went to get them out of our way; and that people ought to understand that; that we were never fighting for the right to integrate, we were fighting against white supremacy.
Now, then, in order to understand white supremacy we must dismiss the fallacious notion that white people can give anybody their freedom. No man can give anybody his freedom. A man is born free. You may enslave a man after he is born free, and that is in fact what this country does. It enslaves black people after they’re born, so that the only acts that white people can do is to stop denying black people their freedom; that is, they must stop denying freedom. They never give it to anyone.
Now we want to take that to its logical extension, so that we could understand, then, what its relevancy would be in terms of new civil rights bills. I maintain that every civil rights bill in this country was passed for white people, not for black people. For example, I am black. I know that. I also know that while I am black I am a human being, and therefore I have the right to go into any public place. White people didn't know that. Every time I tried to go into a place they stopped me. So some boys had to write a bill to tell that white man, "He’s a human being; don’t stop him." That bill was for that white man, not for me. I knew it all the time. I knew it all the time.
I knew that I could vote and that that wasn’t a privilege; it was my right. Every time I tried I was shot, killed or jailed, beaten or economically deprived. So somebody had to write a bill for white people to tell them, "When a black man comes to vote, don’t bother him." That bill, again, was for white people, not for black people; so that when you talk about open occupancy, I know I can live anyplace I want to live. It is white people across this country who are incapable of allowing me to live where I want to live. You need a civil rights bill, not me. I know I can live where I want to live.
So that the failures to pass a civil rights bill isn’t because of Black Power, isn't because of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; it's not because of the rebellions that are occurring in the major cities. It is incapability of whites to deal with their own problems inside their own communities. That is the problem of the failure of the civil rights bill.
And so in a larger sense we must then ask, How is it that black people move? And what do we do? But the question in a greater sense is, How can white people who are the majority -- and who are responsible for making democracy work -- make it work? They have miserably failed to this point. They have never made democracy work, be it inside the United States, Vietnam, South Africa, Philippines, South America, Puerto Rico. Wherever American has been, she has not been able to make democracy work; so that in a larger sense, we not only condemn the country for what it's done internally, but we must condemn it for what it does externally. We see this country trying to rule the world, and someone must stand up and start articulating that this country is not God, and cannot rule the world.
Now, then, before we move on we ought to develop the white supremacy attitudes that were either conscious or subconscious thought and how they run rampant through the society today. For example, the missionaries were sent to Africa. They went with the attitude that blacks were automatically inferior. As a matter of fact, the first act the missionaries did, you know, when they got to Africa was to make us cover up our bodies, because they said it got them excited. We couldn’t go bare-breasted any more because they got excited.
Now when the missionaries came to civilize us because we were uncivilized, educate us because we were uneducated, and give us some -- some literate studies because we were illiterate, they charged a price. The missionaries came with the Bible, and we had the land. When they left, they had the land, and we still have the Bible. And that has been the rationalization for Western civilization as it moves across the world and stealing and plundering and raping everybody in its path. Their one rationalization is that the rest of the world is uncivilized and they are in fact civilized. And they are un-civil-ized.
And that runs on today, you see, because what we have today is we have what we call "modern-day Peace Corps missionaries," and they come into our ghettos and they Head Start, Upward Lift, Bootstrap, and Upward Bound us into white society, 'cause they don’t want to face the real problem which is a man is poor for one reason and one reason only: 'cause he does not have money -- period. If you want to get rid of poverty, you give people money -- period.
And you ought not to tell me about people who don’t work, and you can’t give people money without working, 'cause if that were true, you’d have to start stopping Rockefeller, Bobby Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson, the whole of Standard Oil, the Gulf Corp, all of them, including probably a large number of the Board of Trustees of this university. So the question, then, clearly, is not whether or not one can work; it’s Who has power? Who has power to make his or her acts legitimate? That is all. And that this country, that power is invested in the hands of white people, and they make their acts legitimate. It is now, therefore, for black people to make our acts legitimate.
Now we are now engaged in a psychological struggle in this country, and that is whether or not black people will have the right to use the words they want to use without white people giving their sanction to it; and that we maintain, whether they like it or not, we gonna use the word "Black Power" -- and let them address themselves to that; but that we are not going to wait for white people to sanction Black Power. We’re tired waiting; every time black people move in this country, they’re forced to defend their position before they move. It’s time that the people who are supposed to be defending their position do that. That's white people. They ought to start defending themselves as to why they have oppressed and exploited us.
Now it is clear that when this country started to move in terms of slavery, the reason for a man being picked as a slave was one reason -- because of the color of his skin. If one was black one was automatically inferior, inhuman, and therefore fit for slavery; so that the question of whether or not we are individually suppressed is nonsensical, and it’s a downright lie. We are oppressed as a group because we are black, not because we are lazy, not because we're apathetic, not because we’re stupid, not because we smell, not because we eat watermelon and have good rhythm. We are oppressed because we are black.
And in order to get out of that oppression one must wield the group power that one has, not the individual power which this country then sets the criteria under which a man may come into it. That is what is called in this country as integration: "You do what I tell you to do and then we’ll let you sit at the table with us." And that we are saying that we have to be opposed to that. We must now set up criteria and that if there's going to be any integration, it's going to be a two-way thing. If you believe in integration, you can come live in Watts. You can send your children to the ghetto schools. Let’s talk about that. If you believe in integration, then we’re going to start adopting us some white people to live in our neighborhood.
So it is clear that the question is not one of integration or segregation. Integration is a man's ability to want to move in there by himself. If someone wants to live in a white neighborhood and he is black, that is his choice. It should be his rights. It is not because white people will not allow him. So vice versa: If a black man wants to live in the slums, that should be his right. Black people will let him. That is the difference. And it's a difference on which this country makes a number of logical mistakes when they begin to try to criticize the program articulated by SNCC.
Now we maintain that we cannot be afford to be concerned about 6 percent of the children in this country, black children, who you allow to come into white schools. We have 94 percent who still live in shacks. We are going to be concerned about those 94 percent. You ought to be concerned about them too. The question is, Are we willing to be concerned about those 94 percent? Are we willing to be concerned about the black people who will never get to Berkeley, who will never get to Harvard, and cannot get an education, so you’ll never get a chance to rub shoulders with them and say, "Well, he’s almost as good as we are; he’s not like the others"? The question is, How can white society begin to move to see black people as human beings? I am black, therefore I am; not that I am black and I must go to college to prove myself. I am black, therefore I am. And don’t deprive me of anything and say to me that you must go to college before you gain access to X, Y, and Z. It is only a rationalization for one's oppression.
The -- The political parties in this country do not meet the needs of people on a day-to-day basis. The question is, How can we build new political institutions that will become the political expressions of people on a day-to-day basis? The question is, How can you build political institutions that will begin to meet the needs of Oakland, California? And the needs of Oakland, California, is not 1,000 policemen with submachine guns. They don't need that. They need that least of all. The question is, How can we build institutions where those people can begin to function on a day-to-day basis, where they can get decent jobs, where they can get decent houses, and where they can begin to participate in the policy and major decisions that affect their lives? That’s what they need, not Gestapo troops, because this is not 1942, and if you play like Nazis, we playing back with you this time around. Get hip to that.
The question then is, How can white people move to start making the major institutions that they have in this country function the way it is supposed to function? That is the real question. And can white people move inside their own community and start tearing down racism where in fact it does exist? Where it exists. It is you who live in Cicero and stop us from living there. It is white people who stop us from moving into Grenada. It is white people who make sure that we live in the ghettos of this country. it is white institutions that do that. They must change. In order -- In order for America to really live on a basic principle of human relationships, a new society must be born. Racism must die, and the economic exploitation of this country of non-white peoples around the world must also die -- must also die.
Now there are several programs that we have in the South, most in poor white communities. We're trying to organize poor whites on a base where they can begin to move around the question of economic exploitation and political disfranchisement. We know -- we've heard the theory several times -- but few people are willing to go into there. The question is, Can the white activist not try to be a Pepsi generation who comes alive in the black community, but can he be a man who’s willing to move into the white community and start organizing where the organization is needed? Can he do that? The question is, Can the white society or the white activist disassociate himself with two clowns who waste time parrying with each other rather than talking about the problems that are facing people in this state? Can you dissociate yourself with those clowns and start to build new institutions that will eliminate all idiots like them.
And the question is, If we are going to do that when and where do we start, and how do we start? We maintain that we must start doing that inside the white community. Our own personal position politically is that we don't think the Democratic Party represents the needs of black people. We know it don't. And that if, in fact, white people really believe that, the question is, if they’re going to move inside that structure, how are they going to organize around a concept of whiteness based on true brotherhood and based on stopping exploitation, economic exploitation, so that there will be a coalition base for black people to hook up with? You cannot form a coalition based on national sentiment. That is not a coalition. If you need a coalition to redress itself to real changes in this country, white people must start building those institutions inside the white community. And that is the real question, I think, facing the white activists today. Can they, in fact, begin to move into and tear down the institutions which have put us all in a trick bag that we’ve been into for the last hundred years?
I don't think that we should follow what many people say that we should fight to be leaders of tomorrow. Frederick Douglass said that the youth should fight to be leaders today. And God knows we need to be leaders today, 'cause the men who run this country are sick, are sick. So that can we on a larger sense begin now, today, to start building those institutions and to fight to articulate our position, to fight to be able to control our universities -- We need to be able to do that -- and to fight to control the basic institutions which perpetuate racism by destroying them and building new ones? That’s the real question that face us today, and it is a dilemma because most of us do not know how to work, and that the excuse that most white activists find is to run into the black community.
Now we maintain that we cannot have white people working in the black community, and we mean it on a psychological ground. The fact is that all black people often question whether or not they are equal to whites, because every time they start to do something, white people are around showing them how to do it. If we are going to eliminate that for the generation that comes after us, then black people must be seen in positions of power, doing and articulating for themselves, for themselves.
That is not to say that one is a reverse racist; it is to say that one is moving in a healthy ground; it is to say what the philosopher Sartre says: One is becoming an "antiracist racist." And this country can’t understand that. Maybe it's because it's all caught up in racism. But I think what you have in SNCC is an anti-racist racism. We are against racists. Now if everybody who is white see themself [sic] as a racist and then see us against him, they're speaking from their own guilt position, not ours, not ours.
Now then, the question is, How can we move to begin to change what's going on in this country. I maintain, as we have in SNCC, that the war in Vietnam is an illegal and immoral war. And the question is, What can we do to stop that war? What can we do to stop the people who, in the name of our country, are killing babies, women, and children? What can we do to stop that? And I maintain that we do not have the power in our hands to change that institution, to begin to recreate it, so that they learn to leave the Vietnamese people alone, and that the only power we have is the power to say, "Hell no!" to the draft.
We have to say -- We have to say to ourselves that there is a higher law than the law of a racist named McNamara. There is a higher law than the law of a fool named Rusk. And there's a higher law than the law of a buffoon named Johnson. It’s the law of each of us. It's the law of each of us. It is the law of each of us saying that we will not allow them to make us hired killers. We will stand pat. We will not kill anybody that they say kill. And if we decide to kill, we're going to decide who we going to kill. And this country will only be able to stop the war in Vietnam when the young men who are made to fight it begin to say, "Hell, no, we ain’t going."
Now then, there's a failure because the Peace Movement has been unable to get off the college campuses where everybody has a 2S and not going to get drafted anyway. And the question is, How can you move out of that into the white ghettos of this country and begin to articulate a position for those white students who do not want to go. We cannot do that. It is something -- sometimes ironic that many of the peace groups have beginning to call us violent and say they can no longer support us, and we are in fact the most militant organization [for] peace or civil rights or human rights against the war in Vietnam in this country today. There isn’t one organization that has begun to meet our stance on the war in Vietnam, 'cause we not only say we are against the war in Vietnam; we are against the draft. We are against the draft. No man has the right to take a man for two years and train him to be a killer. A man should decide what he wants to do with his life.
So the question then is it becomes crystal clear for black people because we can easily say that anyone fighting in the war in Vietnam is nothing but a black mercenary, and that's all he is. Any time a black man leaves the country where he can’t vote to supposedly deliver the vote for somebody else, he’s a black mercenary. Any time a -- Any time a black man leaves this country, gets shot in Vietnam on foreign ground, and returns home and you won’t give him a burial in his own homeland, he’s a black mercenary, a black mercenary.
And that even if I were to believe the lies of Johnson, if I were to believe his lies that we're fighting to give democracy to the people in Vietnam, as a black man living in this country I wouldn’t fight to give this to anybody. I wouldn't give it to anybody. So that we have to use our bodies and our minds in the only way that we see fit. We must begin like the philosopher Camus to come alive by saying "No!" That is the only act in which we begin to come alive, and we have to say "No!" to many, many things in this country.
This country is a nation of thieves. It has stole everything it has, beginning with black people, beginning with black people. And that the question is, How can we move to start changing this country from what it is -- a nation of thieves. This country cannot justify any longer its existence. We have become the policeman of the world. The marines are at our disposal to always bring democracy, and if the Vietnamese don’t want democracy, well dammit, "We’ll just wipe them the hell out, 'cause they don’t deserve to live if they won’t have our way of life."
There is then in a larger sense, What do you do on your university campus? Do you raise questions about the hundred black students who were kicked off campus a couple of weeks ago? Eight hundred? Eight hundred? And how does that question begin to move? Do you begin to relate to people outside of the ivory tower and university wall? Do you think you’re capable of building those human relationships, as the country now stands? You're fooling yourself. It is impossible for white and black people to talk about building a relationship based on humanity when the country is the way it is, when the institutions are clearly against us.
We have taken all the myths of this country and we've found them to be nothing but downright lies. This country told us that if we worked hard we would succeed, and if that were true we would own this country lock, stock, and barrel -- lock, stock, and barrel -- lock, stock, and barrel. It is we who have picked the cotton for nothing. It is we who are the maids in the kitchens of liberal white people. It is we who are the janitors, the porters, the elevator men; we who sweep up your college floors. Yes, it is we who are the hardest workers and the lowest paid, and the lowest paid.
And that it is nonsensical for people to start talking about human relationships until they're willing to build new institutions. Black people are economically insecure. White liberals are economically secure. Can you begin to build an economic coalition? Are the liberals willing to share their salaries with the economically insecure black people they so much love? Then if you’re not, are you willing to start building new institutions that will provide economic security for black people? That’s the question we want to deal with. That's the question we want to deal with.
We have to seriously examine the histories that we have been told. But we have something more to do than that. American students are perhaps the most politically unsophisticated students in the world, in the world, in the world. Across every country in this world, while we were growing up, students were leading the major revolutions of their countries. We have not been able to do that. They have been politically aware of their existence. In South America our neighbors down below the border have one every 24 hours just to remind us that they're politically aware.
And we have been unable to grasp it because we’ve always moved in the field of morality and love while people have been politically jiving with our lives. And the question is, How do we now move politically and stop trying to move morally? You can't move morally against a man like Brown and Reagan. You've got to move politically to put them out of business. You've got to move politically.
You can’t move morally against Lyndon Baines Johnson because he is an immoral man. He doesn’t know what it’s all about. So you’ve got to move politically. You've got to move politically. And that we have to begin to develop a political sophistication -- which is not to be a parrot: "The two-party system is the best party in the world." There is a difference between being a parrot and being politically sophisticated.
We have to raise questions about whether or not we do need new types of political institutions in this country, and we in SNCC maintain that we need them now. We need new political institutions in this country. Any time -- Any time Lyndon Baines Johnson can head a Party which has in it Bobby Kennedy, Wayne Morse, Eastland, Wallace, and all those other supposed-to-be-liberal cats, there’s something wrong with that Party. They’re moving politically, not morally. And that if that party refuses to seat black people from Mississippi and goes ahead and seats racists like Eastland and his clique, it is clear to me that they’re moving politically, and that one cannot begin to talk morality to people like that.
We must begin to think politically and see if we can have the power to impose and keep the moral values that we hold high. We must question the values of this society, and I maintain that black people are the best people to do that because we have been excluded from that society. And the question is, we ought to think whether or not we want to become a part of that society. That's what we want to do.
And that that is precisely what it seems to me that the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee is doing. We are raising questions about this country. I do not want to be a part of the American pie. The American pie means raping South Africa, beating Vietnam, beating South America, raping the Philippines, raping every country you’ve been in. I don’t want any of your blood money. I don’t want it -- don't want to be part of that system. And the question is, How do we raise those questions? How do we ....How do we begin to raise them?
We have grown up and we are the generation that has found this country to be a world power, that has found this country to be the wealthiest country in the world. We must question how she got her wealth? That's what we're questioning, and whether or not we want this country to continue being the wealthiest country in the world at the price of raping every -- everybody else across the world. That's what we must begin to question. And that because black people are saying we do not now want to become a part of you, we are called reverse racists. Ain’t that a gas?
Now, then, we want to touch on nonviolence because we see that again as the failure of white society to make nonviolence work. I was always surprised at Quakers who came to Alabama and counseled me to be nonviolent, but didn’t have the guts to start talking to James Clark to be nonviolent. That is where nonviolence needs to be preached -- to Jim Clark, not to black people. They have already been nonviolent too many years. The question is, Can white people conduct their nonviolent schools in Cicero where they belong to be conducted, not among black people in Mississippi. Can they conduct it among the white people in Grenada?
Six-foot-two men who kick little black children -- can you conduct nonviolent schools there? That is the question that we must raise, not that you conduct nonviolence among black people. Can you name me one black man today who's killed anybody white and is still alive? Even after rebellion, when some black brothers throw some bricks and bottles, ten thousand of them has to pay the crime, 'cause when the white policeman comes in, anybody who’s black is arrested, "'cause we all look alike."
So that we have to raise those questions. We, the youth of this country, must begin to raise those questions. And we must begin to move to build new institutions that's going to speak to the needs of people who need it. We are going to have to speak to change the foreign policy of this country. One of the problems with the peace movement is that it's just too caught up in Vietnam, and that if we pulled out the troops from Vietnam this week, next week you’d have to get another peace movement for Santo Domingo. And the question is, How do you begin to articulate the need to change the foreign policy of this country -- a policy that is decided upon race, a policy on which decisions are made upon getting economic wealth at any price, at any price.
Now we articulate that we therefore have to hook up with black people around the world; and that that hookup is not only psychological, but becomes very real. If South America today were to rebel, and black people were to shoot the hell out of all the white people there -- as they should, as they should -- then Standard Oil would crumble tomorrow. If South Africa were to go today, Chase Manhattan Bank would crumble tomorrow. If Zimbabwe, which is called Rhodesia by white people, were to go tomorrow, General Electric would cave in on the East Coast. The question is, How do we stop those institutions that are so willing to fight against "Communist aggression" but closes their eyes to racist oppression? That is the question that you raise. Can this country do that?
Now, many people talk about pulling out of Vietnam. What will happen? If we pull out of Vietnam, there will be one less aggressor in there -- we won't be there, we won't be there. And so the question is, How do we articulate those positions? And we cannot begin to articulate them from the same assumptions that the people in the country speak, 'cause they speak from different assumptions than I assume what the youth in this country are talking about.
That we're not talking about a policy or aid or sending Peace Corps people in to teach people how to read and write and build houses while we steal their raw materials from them. Is that what we're talking about? 'Cause that’s all we do. What underdeveloped countries needs -- information on how to become industrialized, so they can keep their raw materials where they have it, produce them and sell it to this country for the price it’s supposed to pay; not that we produce it and sell it back to them for a profit and keep sending our modern day missionaries in, calling them the sons of Kennedy. And that if the youth are going to participate in that program, how do you raise those questions where you begin to control that Peace Corps program? How do you begin to raise them?
How do we raise the questions of poverty? The assumptions of this country is that if someone is poor, they are poor because of their own individual blight, or they weren’t born on the right side of town; they had too many children; they went in the army too early; or their father was a drunk, or they didn’t care about school, or they made a mistake. That’s a lot of nonsense. Poverty is well calculated in this country. It is well calculated, and the reason why the poverty program won’t work is because the calculators of poverty are administering it. That's why it won't work.
So how can we, as the youth in the country, move to start tearing those things down? We must move into the white community. We are in the black community. We have developed a movement in the black community. The challenge is that the white activist has failed miserably to develop the movement inside of his community. And the question is, Can we find white people who are going to have the courage to go into white communities and start organizing them? Can we find them? Are they here and are they willing to do that? Those are the questions that we must raise for the white activist.
And we're never going to get caught up in questions about power. This country knows what power is. It knows it very well. And it knows what Black Power is 'cause it deprived black people of it for 400 years. So it knows what Black Power is. That the question of, Why do black people -- Why do white people in this country associate Black Power with violence? And the question is because of their own inability to deal with "blackness." If we had said "Negro power" nobody would get scared. Everybody would support it. Or if we said power for colored people, everybody’d be for that, but it is the word "black" -- it is the word "black" that bothers people in this country, and that’s their problem, not mine -- they're problem, they're problem.
Now there's one modern day lie that we want to attack and then move on very quickly and that is the lie that says anything all black is bad. Now, you’re all a college university crowd. You’ve taken your basic logic course. You know about a major premise and minor premise. So people have been telling me anything all black is bad. Let’s make that our major premise.
Major premise: Anything all black is bad.
Minor premise or particular premise: I am all black.
Therefore...
I’m never going to be put in that trick bag; I am all black and I’m all good, dig it. Anything all black is not necessarily bad. Anything all black is only bad when you use force to keep whites out. Now that’s what white people have done in this country, and they’re projecting their same fears and guilt on us, and we won’t have it, we won't have it. Let them handle their own fears and their own guilt. Let them find their own psychologists. We refuse to be the therapy for white society any longer. We have gone mad trying to do it. We have gone stark raving mad trying to do it.
I look at Dr. King on television every single day, and I say to myself: "Now there is a man who’s desperately needed in this country. There is a man full of love. There is a man full of mercy. There is a man full of compassion." But every time I see Lyndon on television, I said, "Martin, baby, you got a long way to go."
So that the question stands as to what we are willing to do, how we are willing to say "No" to withdraw from that system and begin within our community to start to function and to build new institutions that will speak to our needs. In Lowndes County, we developed something called the Lowndes County Freedom Organization. It is a political party. The Alabama law says that if you have a Party you must have an emblem. We chose for the emblem a black panther, a beautiful black animal which symbolizes the strength and dignity of black people, an animal that never strikes back until he's back so far into the wall, he's got nothing to do but spring out. Yeah. And when he springs he does not stop.
Now there is a Party in Alabama called the Alabama Democratic Party. It is all white. It has as its emblem a white rooster and the words "white supremacy" for the write. Now the gentlemen of the Press, because they're advertisers, and because most of them are white, and because they're produced by that white institution, never called the Lowndes County Freedom Organization by its name, but rather they call it the Black Panther Party. Our question is, Why don't they call the Alabama Democratic Party the "White Cock Party"? (It's fair to us.....) It is clear to me that that just points out America's problem with sex and color, not our problem, not our problem. And it is now white America that is going to deal with those problems of sex and color.
If we were to be real and to be honest, we would have to admit -- we would have to admit that most people in this country see things black and white. We have to do that. All of us do. We live in a country that’s geared that way. White people would have to admit that they are afraid to go into a black ghetto at night. They are afraid. That's a fact. They're afraid because they’d be "beat up," "lynched," "looted," "cut up," etcetera, etcetera. It happens to black people inside the ghetto every day, incidentally, and white people are afraid of that. So you get a man to do it for you -- a policeman. And now you figure his mentality, when he's afraid of black people. The first time a black man jumps, that white man going to shoot him. He's going to shoot him. So police brutality is going to exist on that level because of the incapability of that white man to see black people come together and to live in the conditions. This country is too hypocritical and that we cannot adjust ourselves to its hypocrisy.
The only time I hear people talk about nonviolence is when black people move to defend themselves against white people. Black people cut themselves every night in the ghetto -- Don't anybody talk about nonviolence. Lyndon Baines Johnson is busy bombing the hell of out Vietnam -- Don't nobody talk about nonviolence. White people beat up black people every day -- Don't nobody talk about nonviolence. But as soon as black people start to move, the double standard comes into being.
You can’t defend yourself. That's what you're saying, 'cause you show me a man who -- who would advocate aggressive violence that would be able to live in this country. Show him to me. The double standards again come into itself. Isn’t it ludicrous and hypocritical for the political chameleon who calls himself a Vice President in this country to -- to stand up before this country and say, "Looting never got anybody anywhere"? Isn't it hypocritical for Lyndon to talk about looting, that you can’t accomplish anything by looting and you must accomplish it by the legal ways? What does he know about legality? Ask Ho Chi Minh, he'll tell you.
So that in conclusion we want to say that number one, it is clear to me that we have to wage a psychological battle on the right for black people to define their own terms, define themselves as they see fit, and organize themselves as they see it. Now the question is, How is the white community going to begin to allow for that organizing, because once they start to do that, they will also allow for the organizing that they want to do inside their community. It doesn’t make a difference, 'cause we’re going to organize our way anyway. We're going to do it. The question is, How are we going to facilitate those matters, whether it’s going to be done with a thousand policemen with submachine guns, or whether or not it’s going to be done in a context where it is allowed to be done by white people warding off those policemen. That is the question.
And the question is, How are white people who call themselves activists ready to start move into the white communities on two counts: on building new political institutions to destroy the old ones that we have? And to move around the concept of white youth refusing to go into the army? So that we can start, then, to build a new world. It is ironic to talk about civilization in this country. This country is uncivilized. It needs to be civilized. It needs to be civilized.
And that we must begin to raise those questions of civilization: What it is? And who do it? And so we must urge you to fight now to be the leaders of today, not tomorrow. We've got to be the leaders of today. This country -- This country is a nation of thieves. It stands on the brink of becoming a nation of murderers. We must stop it. We must stop it. We must stop it. We must stop it.
And then, therefore, in a larger sense there's the question of black people. We are on the move for our liberation. We have been tired of trying to prove things to white people. We are tired of trying to explain to white people that we’re not going to hurt them. We are concerned with getting the things we want, the things that we have to have to be able to function. The question is, Can white people allow for that in this country? The question is, Will white people overcome their racism and allow for that to happen in this country? If that does not happen, brothers and sisters, we have no choice but to say very clearly, "Move over, or we’re going to move on over you."
Thank you.

KTS Reading: A Dissenting View by John Henrik Clarke

2 comments

The following is Dr. Clarke's response to "Black Demagogues and Pseudo-Scholars"In reference to the OP-ED of Henry Louis Gates Jr. the New York Times (Monday, July 20, 1992), entitled "Black Demagogues and Pseudo-Scholars,"

I am raising the following questions: At once, I questioned the title of Professor Gates' article. He should never refer to anyone as a demagogue unless he's ready to call the names of the demagogues, singular or plural, and point out the nature of their demagoguery. He should never refer to any scholar as being pseudo, unless he is ready to name the scholar and prove the pseudo nature of his or her work. To disagree with a scholar does not make the scholar a demagogue.Most of the old and new Black scholars asking for a total reconsideration of African history, in particular, and world history, in general, are using neglected documents by radical White Scholars who are generally neglected by the White academic community.In African history I am referring to scholars like Gerald Massey and his work, Egypt, Light of the World, (two volumes), The Book of the Beginnings, (two volumes) and Natural Genesis, (two volumes).I am also referring to Gerald Massey's greatest English disciple, Albert Churchward, whose book, The Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man, asks for a reconsideration of the role of people outside of Europe and their role in human development.Your attention should also be called to the work, Anacalypsis, two volumes by Godfrey Higgins, published in 1837. These books deal with the dispersions of African people throughout the world.Many of these Black scholars, whose work Professor Gates questioned, were reading works by Whites in French, German and other languages that spoke positively about African American achievement long before Mr. Gates' parents were born.This school of Black scholars are neither demagogues nor are they pseudos; they are the forerunners of the present propagators of Afrocentricity. They know what Professor Gates doesn't seem to know: that African people are the most written about and the least understood people in the world.If Professor Gates has not read the works of the White pioneer scholars about the role of African people in world history, it stands to reason that he has no understanding of the senior Black scholars such as Yosef ben-Jochannan, John G. Jackson, Cheikh Anta Diop, Jacob Carruthers, Chancellor Williams, Lao Hansberry and myself.Professor Gates' reference to Black anti-Semitism is an exaggeration. A new Black awareness is causing Blacks, young and old, to question everything that has any influence on their lives. We are realizing that Jewish people have an influence on our lives far out of proportion to their numbers in the population. I totally disagree with Professor Gates that anti-Semitism among Whites is on the wane in the country. Quite the contrary, I think it is increasing in this country and in the world, and Black people are not the cause of it.What you have in this new charge of Black and Semitism against Blacks is the most pathetic of all tragedies, a scapegoat looking for a scapegoat. Because of Black Americans' reading or misreading of the Bible, we have always had a sentimental attachment to Jewish people and, to a large extent, most of us still do. During slavery, we wanted to attach ourselves to a people who had escaped from bondage. So, the Exodus story in the Bible became more real to us than to the Jewish people. Right now, in a large number of Black Baptist churches, you can get a large number of the congregation to shed real tears of sympathy over the three Hebrew boys in the fiery furnace. Most of tganized White hate groups in the United States. I know of no overt attacks by the Jews being made on any of them. Yet, Jewish people have attacked Louis Farrakhan more than they have attacked the leaders of the Aryan Nation or the American Nazi Party. Are the Jews in America looking for an easy victory or the Truth? Black Americans have never been their enemy. And they, the Jews, have never been our friends unless it was to their convenience. Neo-Nazism has fully re-emerged in Germany and in other states in Europe. These are people with a nation structure and armies. Why is it that a group of weak Black Americans are getting more attention from the Jews than these powerful White forces rising against them?I'm sorry that Professor Cornell West saw fit to make a statement about this false charge of Black anti-Semitism. I could agree with his statement if the statement were true. What Black people are realizing in this country, in the Caribbean Islands and in Africa is that the Jewish people, of European descent, are a part of the world apparatus of European control. And, in the matter of White control over the world, their position is no different than that of other Europeans. I am not saying that the Jews of Europe are more bent on world dominance than other Europeans; I am saying that they are not radically different from other Europeans in this regard. Internal disputes between the Jews and other Europeans is a form of European domestic racism. European racism has spent itself out outside of Europe. During the Nazi regime in Germany, that racism turned inward on itself and created what is referred to as The Holocaust. This was a problem started in Europe by Europeans that should have been resolved in Europe by Europeans.Repeatedly I have said that Europeans are geniuses at draining the diseased pus of their political sores on the lands of other people. What is now being called anti Semitism among a newly awakened Black intellectual class is that they are beginning to look at the people referred to as Jews as part of the totality of European world dominance. We are not saying that the European who is a Jew is any more of an imperialist than any other of the Europeans, but that he is basically the same. We are not saying that the role of the Jews in the slave trade was any different then any other Europeans, but that it was basically the same. When they saw the opportunity to make money in the slave trade, they took advantage of this opportunity the same as other Europeans in the same business.I do not choose to deal with Jesse Jackson's opportunistic appearances at the World Jewish Congress and the statements that he made. Jesse Jackson has his own agenda that is unrelated to the Liberation Movement of his own people. He was catering to his Jewish audiences for reasons unrelated to Black people and their liberation movements.Black people are becoming increasingly conscious of people who exploit their community and hold them in contempt. We make no exceptions when these exploiters are non-European.In referring to present-day anti-Semitism and the attempt to trace it to having roots in Christianity, Professor Gates shows his lack of understanding of the manifestation of Christianity among American Blacks and how that interpretation of this religion is part of their humanity. Their interpretation, in no way, relates to anti-Semitism.I wonder if Professor Gates would explain the words in the Negro spiritual:Go down Moses ... Tell ol' PharaohTo let my people go.or the words:Deep river,My home is over Jordan.This is African identification with the Biblical people of the Hebrew faith. It would help if Professor Gates would read a towering masterpiece in three volumes by James Fraser, The Folklore in the Old Testament and another contemporary book, Hebrew Myths, edited by Robert Graves and Raphael Patai.I do not think that Professor Gates completely read Michael Bradley's The Iceman Inheritance before referring to it because in it Michael Bradley has very little to say about the Jews. The book, in essence, is about the rise of a certain kind of temperament that changed the world-the European Personality. This personality has shown little or no respect for civilizations, cultures and ways of life that it did not create. Cultures and people that the European did not understand were declared primitive.In the last 500 years especially, European historians have inferred, or said outright, that the world waited in darkness for the Europeans to bring the light. In fact, the Europeans destroyed more civilization than they ever created. They destroyed civilizations that were already old before Europe was born.Michael Bradley was characterizing the Europeans as "Icemen" is not totally incorrect, if it is incorrect at all. I wrote the Introduction to the new edition of this book, because I considered the book to be of some significance in explaining the origin of racism. I did not say the book was a masterpiece of the greatest achievement in writing. It was good basic research and told honesty about Europeans' beginnings and the impact of racism on the broader world. I have also written the Foreword to another book by Michael Bradley that will be even more controversial, Chosen People From The Caucasus: Jewish Origins, Delusions Deceptions, and Historical in the Slave Trade, Genocide Cultural Colonization. (Third World Press, Chicago).My writing on Black-Jewish relationships is not new. I participated in forums on this subject in the old Harlem History Club in the 30s. In my latest book, Notes for an African World Revolution: Africans at the Crossroads, (Africa World Press, Trenton, 1991), Chapter Four is called 'Africa, Zionism, and Friends Without Friendship." This is an analysis of 500 years of African-Jewish relationships. I am not writing about an historical Black-Jewish affiance, because the one often referred to is a myth. There can be no successful alliance between weak people and strong people.There have been times when it was to the best interest of the Jews to support certain Black causes, and they have supported them. When it was no longer in their interest, they withdrew from them. The Jewish people have practiced what all people on this earth have a right to practice the essential selfishness of survival.Indeed, I have criticized multiculturalism and Jewish control over the education system in New York City and the education system in the United States, in general, especially the Teachers Union. Jews have had no compunction in fighting for a holocaust curriculum. And in many schools it is mandated and Black students must learn about the Holocaust before they learn about their own history.Over the years, I have said repeatedly I am not willing to argue whether Hitler killed 6,000,000 or six. He was wrong if he only killed six. I think he committed one of the greatest crimes in history. No human being would ever approve of this crime. If we are honest about historical information, we would know that the mass murder and what is referred to as the Holocaust was a small event in comparison to other mass murder events in history. The Belgians killed three times more people than this in the Congo. In an island near Australia called Tasmania, the British killed every man, woman and child. In the years of the slave trade, Africa lost, over one hundred million people. For every African captured, three were killed. The Arab slave trade in East Africa that started a thousand years before the European Atlantic slave trade and the Atlantic slave trade that lasted approximately 300 years was a holocaust against African people, which started 500 years ago and is not completely over to this day.If the four policeman in Los Angeles had been beating a dog instead of Rodney King, they would have been put on trial and convicted. It is time to speak of the Great Holocaust in history. The European holocaust, I repeat, was small in comparison to some of the others.When Professor Gates refers to me as the paterfamilias of the Afrocentric movement," I'm not too clear about whether this is a compliment or a thinly veiled insult. I did not go to the dictionary to look up the words because I never use dollar words in 25 cents situations. But, as a matter of fact, my interest in African history and world history in general started when I was a Baptist Sunday School teacher in Columbus, Georgia, where I grew to early manhood. I could not find the image of my people in the Bible, so I began the search through the literature of the world until I found them and learned why some people considered it a necessity to leave African people out of the respectful commentary of history. I became active in the old Harlem History Club at the Harlem YMCA soon after arriving in New York City at the age of 18 in 1933.The study of African history, culture and politics and world history in general has been the all-prevailing passion of my existence. It is something I do, like breathing is something I do.I think too much fuss has been made of the case of Professor Jeffries who has said nothing that he cannot document. It is too often forgotten that most of the information Professor Jeffries gave on the slave trade was taken from Jewish writers.The book, The Grandees, by Steven Birmingham, set his search in motion. He read large numbers of documents over and beyond that book, such as more revealing books by Professor Ben-ram Wallace Korn: Jews and Negro Slavery in the Old South 1789-1865, (1961), and The Early Jews of New Orleans, (1969).The story of Aaron Lopez of Newport, Rhode Island, is too well-known to be retold here. Conrad Muhammad and Kahlid Kahfah are not intellectual cohorts with Professor Jeffries. I doubt if he's met either one of them. Neither one of these men belong to the academic community, nor is either one well read enough to be classified as a scholar. They are mainly Moslem zealots; not too different from zealots of other religions.I have no argument for or against the Learned Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I have not been able to authenticate it one way or the other. If someone assures me that it is a piece of fiction, I am not prepared to argue.Professor Gates' complaint about the book, The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews seems without justification. The book is no masterpiece. It is a competent piece of research. The documentation is good. Instead of complaining about the footnotes, Professor Gates should read some of the footnotes and the books they refer to; especially he should read the works of Professor Bertram W. Korn, an able Jewish scholar whose writings about the role of American Jews in the slave trade is most revealing. Professor Gates should also learn that neither Blacks nor Jews can go on forever denouncing every thing that is not in their favor.Honest sentiment and some very able research in favor of the Jewish people was started in the old Harlem History Club by Willis N. Huggins in the 30s. Some of the best known of these findings were published in the Chicago Defender and in the magazine, The African. The following quote is from Willis N. Huggins' article, "How Wrong is Hitler?...On the History of Jews, Black Folk and 'Aryanism?'" (Chicago Defender, Chicago, January 28, 1939).When the news broke in the American Press on July 15th that the Italians were ready to go tread "The Aryan Path," it evoked as much laughter as the world may get when news comes from Germany that Max Schmeling has been cast out of the "Aryan Fold" because "anonymous scientists" have discovered that he has a grandfather named Goldberg. "Political Aryanism," according to a prominent Nazi leader, "aims to turn its ire against Jews, Gypsies and the Negro races."Since Jews are able to take care of their part of this "sentence" and, doubtless, the Gypsy does not give a hoot I should like to summarize the reactions of black folk to the new "Aryan Wave." If we should look at the records we would see that the early Aryan language-groups stemmed from the black Dravidians who occupied southern India in remote times. 'Me two peoples mingled freely. Thus, the so-called Indo-European movements around 2,500 B.C., were basically migrations of a Negroid folk which pooled itself in southern southeastern and southwestern Europe, around 2,000 B.C. Indeed black African races, The Grimaldi" had already covered most of Europe as early as 20,000 B.C. They left a secondary African base for art in ancient Hellas (Greece) and a primary African base for color in Austria, Italy, France, Spain and Portugal.Willis N. Huggins also wrote a series of articles on the African origin of Adolf Hitler's racist symbols. In my opinion, I think both Blacks and Jews are often arguing about the right thing the wrong way. Jews who lived in slave trading countries participated in the slave trade as citizens of the respective country. Slavery was a business, a dirty business, but still a business. Business people engage in any business where profit can be made. The same thing is true about business people living in colonial countries in relationship to African people. I place no special blame on Jewish people who are white Europeans. I offer no special vindication, either. Their behavior in relationship to non-Europeans is basically the same as other Europeans. The internal difference and difficulties that Jews have had within the White family does not alter or change what I have just said. What Professor Gates, the Jews and some people referred to as "Black Conservatives" fail to understand is that the African people throughout the world have suffered a special catastrophe over and above that of other people of the world. When Europeans rose in the 15th and 16th century, started the slave trade, colonized history and information about history, they also colonized the image Of God. They took away from millions of people the image of their original God-concept and replaced him or her by a god conceived in Europe. Again, I ask Professor Gates and other Black conservatives to try to understand that for 500 years we have lived in a European-conceived intellectual universe. I am willing to acknowledge that I am influenced by this conception, but I am, at least, at war against it because I realize that it is not only detrimental to my people, it is detrimental to the whole world. Professor Gates and other Black conservatives are the crawling dogs to this new design to continue European world dominance.Professor Gates is snide in his assumption that "We can rarely bring ourselves to forgive those who have helped us." The truth is the contrary. African people have always over-rewarded those who have helped them, often to their detriment. I wish he would explain the nature of the help and the time it was given. All people that have come among us have taken more than they have given and have eventually done us more harm than good. If you forgive the modesty, I refer you to my pamphlet, Black, White Alliances: A Historical Perspective (Third World Press, Chicago, 1971).Professor Gates keeps referring to an historical alliance between Blacks and Jews. I wish he would be more precise and say when this historical alliance occurred. I have been a teacher of African World History most of my life and a student of history in general. I know of no evidence indicating such an alliance. The earliest opportunity for a coalition between Blacks and Jews came in 1675 B.C., when an African people called the Egyptians took in the sons and daughters of Abraham, who were fleeing from hunger and starvation in Western Asia. After receiving food, clothing and shelter as well as the foundation for Judaic culture, language and religion, the majority of these a guests" joined the invaders, the Hyksos (or Shepherd Kings) rather than form an alliance to defend the country of their African benefactors. They had found a greater acceptance in Africans than Africans have ever found in a European-dominated country. With this visit to Africa, the people who would later be known as Jews conspicuously entered world history.Professor Gates, Cornel West and other Black conservatives use beautiful words, sometimes to say nothing, sometimes to say what has already been said and sometimes to say what is not in debate. They display their ignorance of European history and history in general. They decry any form of Black nationalism and often call it racism without knowing that for the last 500 years the world has been controlled by European or White nationalism. African self-assertion, the demand for a proper curriculum in the schools demand that we stop praising a liar and a faker like Christopher Columbus who discovered absolutely nothing-threatens an apparatus of European control set in motion by the Atlantic slave trade and continued with colonialism that ultimately laid the basis for present-day monopoly capitalism. No matter what Europeans say they believe religiously, politically or culturally, their main objective in the world is control. Everything that has ever been developed in the European mind was meant to facilitate mind control of the world. There are no exceptions, Left or Right politically.Black conservatives are really frustrated slaves crawling back to the plantation, figuratively, letting their master know that they are willing to go back into bondage. One needs to question their words because, as slaves and enemies of their people, they will say what they are told to say and do what they are told to do. The Black conservatives have nothing to conserve except their miserable obscurity and their tragic cowardice. These pathetically lost creatures and avid White behind kissers don't have the nerve to be African or Black.To be African or Black with the understanding of all of its ramifications is, in itself, a commitment to the unification and uplift of all African people on the face of this earth. It is a commitment, also, to take Pan-Africanism beyond its narrow base of Black nationalism to a concept of an African world union.When the real tragedy of Black-Jewish relations is finally identified, I think it will be the dictionary and how we have misused its words. Here is a case where semantics change depending on who is listening and what they are listening for. Your listener will often hear what you did not say and stubbornly ignore what you said. The present controversy around Black and Jewish relations is a good example of a poor and unimaginative use of words.What exactly do we mean by Black-Jewish relations? From these words we have no way of knowing that there are Blacks who are also Jews, members of the Hebrew faith.There is a genuine conflict between Black and Jewish people, and this conflict has international implications. We can not deal with this conflict honestly until we call it by its correct name and examine its origin and development. African people the world over have no culture or religious fight with Jewish people. We come out of pluralistic societies, of our own making, where we lived side by side with a multiplicity of cultures and religions, most of the time in peace. Cultural and religious tolerance is part of our heritage as a people. If we were disposed to be against any culture or religion, it would probably not be Jewish culture and religion that had part of its early development in Africa.Now that I have eliminated culture and religion as the basis of the Black-Jewish conflict, precisely what is the conflict about? It is about power and the emerging expectations of most of the world's people who until recently were mainly ruled by Europeans or people of European extraction.The one thing the conflict is not about is anti-Semitism. There is a world-wide Black-White conflict which is part of the broader conflict between European and non-European people. African people are on one side of that conflict, and the people we refer to as Jews are on the other side. When I use the words Jews or Jewish people, I am referring to White people of European descent, whose culture, development and political loyalty is European. This political loyalty to Europe and the part that Jewish people still play in maintaining European world-wide power, and not anti-Semitism, is the basis of the conflict between us. This conflict will become more fierce and tragic as non-European people challenge the power of European people all over the world.With urgency I invite you to read Yosef A.A. ben-Jochannan's book, We the Black Jews and the book by John G. Jackson, Christianity Before Christ. I believe that Blacks and Jews need a genuine partnership. Before one can be built both of them have to be honest in admitting that they have no partnership now. Figuratively speaking, the partnership between a horse and a rider is neither a partnership or an agreement. Today the Jews are aligning themselves with the forces of White supremacy that is diametrically opposed to the interest of most of mankind. I think they have made a political mistake of disastrous proportions, and I compare their present political position with the period of Joseph and his brothers in Egypt and the period and time that followed the loss of political connections with the Egyptian Court that Joseph made for them.And I wonder will their present position lead to another time when a king will arise, figuratively speaking, who politically knew not Joseph.