Black Power in Hemispheric Perspective

When SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael first called for "Black Power" on a Civil Rights march in 1966 he not only gave name to a movement that shaped one of the most significant periods of the African American freedom struggle in the USA. His background as son of migrants from Trinidad and Tobago and his argument that the struggle for black liberation in the United States was part of a global movement against white supremacy also point to the international dimensions of Black Power. With a special focus on the Americas, this volume deals with the embeddedness of Black Power in a long history of resistance and its relationship with international freedom struggles beyond the boundaries of the African American community in the United States. As the articles brought together here show, Black Power was deeply rooted in practices of black transnationalism and heralded a new era of African American defiance, militancy, and cultural awareness, which left its footprints throughout the Hemisphere, providing marginalized communities beyond national and cultural boundaries with meaningful symbols of resistance and self-affirmation in the face of racial oppression. Black Power's hemispheric impact encouraged the emergence of antiracist movements, musical genres, and border-crossing networks of solidarity among Afrodescendants in the Caribbean, Latin and North America, and continues to be a source of inspiration for the political and cultural expressions of the Black Americas in the 21st century. This transdisciplinary compilation of essays by scholars and activists intends to fill an important gap by addressing Black Power within a historical, polyvocal and multi-locational approach shedding light on the entangled manifestations of Black Power in Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, Jamaica, Panama, Puerto Rico, and the United States.


CONTENTS

WILFRIED RAUSSERT AND MATTI STEINITZ
Introduction: Black Power in Hemispheric Perspective1

AFUA COOPER
The Roots of Canadian