Black Power International

Black Power activism erased national boundaries as its strategies and tactics proved adaptable to a variety of circumstances. Black Power became global, part of narratives of commerce, migration, imperialism, and cultural exchange. Black Power was an international movement that, in voicing common elements within the experiences of African and African-descended peoples, provided a framework that helped define their grievances and goals. Additionally, it supplied a vocabulary to others who, though spatially and culturally removed from the conditions of African diaspora life, and engaged in struggles with different objectives, found meaning in the interpretations conceived through Black Power’s set of values and practices. Proponents in Asia, the Middle East, and Oceania borrowed from its rich cultural and political inventory to shape their own agendas in response to local conditions. Black Power’s legacy is the ongoing history of the worldwide determination to contest all forms of domination and injustice.

Brenda Gayle Plummer, University of Wisconsin-Madison