We Are an African People

Russell Rickford's We Are an African People makes a significant contribution to the historiography of black power. In this thorough and comprehensive look at black power educational institutions, Rickford reconstructs the history of pro–black power institutions providing instruction, from prekindergarten through high school and postsecondary levels. The survival and impact of these institutions remain a significant legacy of black power. We Are an African People focuses on institutions whose orientation was “black national and transnational consciousness as a primary pedagogical and social mission” (p. 8). These institutions served as vehicles for transmitting pan-African nationalist ideology and training a potential cadre for the fight for liberation. They were “engaged in academic uplift, but their primary purpose was sociopolitical and counterhegemonic” (ibid.). Rickford distinguishes the institutions with a radical and pan-Africanist vision from black private schools with liberal, middle-class orientations. Rickford also documents the acceleration of pan-African ideological influence during the 1970s. The emphasis of black power activists that they were not just “black” but also an “African people” dominated in the movement of the early 1970s. African identity and solidarity with African liberation movements from white minority rule in southern Africa (Zimbabwe and South Africa) and Portuguese colonialism (Mozambique, Angola, Guinea Bissau, and Cape Verde), were primary objectives in varying degrees for liberals, cultural nationalists, politically oriented revolutionary nationalists, and Marxist-Leninists

Black Power · Colonialism · Historiography · Ideology · Liberation movement · Nationalism · Political radicalism · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Solidarity · Critical and Liberation Pedagogy · Diverse Education Studies and Reforms · Gender Studies · Global Educational Policies and Reforms · Law