No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half Century, 1950-2000
Gail Hovey, and Charles Cobb Jr.
Published by Africa World Press.
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No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half Century, 1950-2000 |
Edited by William Minter, Gail Hovey, and Charles Cobb Jr. Published by Africa World Press. |
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Research Updates
2009 Cape Verde - Ray Almeida chronology Cape Verde - Salah Matteos interview Guide to Sources of Liberation Posters 2008
"Anti-Apartheid Solidarity in US-South African relations"
Work a Day for Freedom
A História Continua
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A História Continua!Corrections, Additions, Gaps & Research Agendas"It is a measure of the scope of the movement that after an overview, five decade chapters, and more than two dozen vignettes, many relevant names and organizations are still left out of these pages or mentioned only in passing. For every person whose role is discussed there are five more, or 10 more, who should be profiled as well. ...To all the individuals and organizations who are not mentioned in this story but should be, we can only say that we hope you see this book as also reflecting your own experience, and as a catalyst for documenting other threads of the movement for African liberation. ... The stories we tell in this book are, in our view, just a beginning of the history that needs to be written." - No Easy Victories, pages xii and 14 "This is a highly valuable volume ... Still, in its very strength it exposes an entire realm of research that has yet to be completed." - Gerald Horne, H-NET review, January 2008CorrectionsDespite repeated proofreading, there are always a few mistakes to be corrected. Please let us know of any such mistakes or factual errors you see by writing to website editor William Minter. For factual errors please supply documentation if possible for the correction. Corrections will be noted on this site and, to the extent possible, corrected in future print editions.
(1) Page 69 - The name of the woman identified as "Margaret Cartwright" in the photo
caption should be corrected to "Marguerite Cartwright."
AdditionsIn many cases it was not possible to identify all the people in photographs included or other relevant details. If you can supply such missing information, please send a message to website editor William Minter. Sucah additions will be noted on this site and, to the extent possible, corrected in future print editions. (1) Page 49 - When I took the book to the gym at which I work out regularly (City Fitness in Washington, DC) to show to friends, Veronica Robin on the desk flipped the book open by chance to this page. "Oh, my god," she said, "that's Mr. Cooke from my mother's church." The caption on the photo only identitied Aleah Bacquie, Rev. Morris Shearin of Israel Baptist Church and "a church deacon." What I learned subsequently is that William Branson Cooke, II (1927-1998) was not only a highly respected leader in Walker Memorial Baptist Church, but also a lifelong community activist and, along with Rev. Shearin, an active leader of the Washington, DC branch of the NAACP.Gaps and Research AgendasAs noted above, there are many gaps in the book, as well as legitimate differences of emphasis related to the background, knowledge, and judgments by the editors and authors of No Easy Victories. The list below is itself only a beginning. It includes gaps noted by reviewers. Many of these are ones we were painfully aware of when writing the book but unable to fill for lack of adequate information, time, budget for travel and interviews, or simply practical limits on the length of the book. We are particularly grateful to the review by Gerald Horne for elaborating a number of these points in such a constructive way as to open room for substantive discussion and, even more important, for new research. Whether or not we differ in some respects with Horne's opinions on a particular topic, we are fully agreed that each of these topics calls for new research and ongoing debate among historians and activists. For some of the points below—only a few initially with more to be added as time permits—the reader will find responses or additional comments, in part to advance the debate about interpretation but even more importantly to stress unresolved questions and possible sources for future reseerch rather than simply differences of emphasis or interpretation. Unless a particular comment is otherwise attributed, these responses, opinions, and possible mistakes are my responsibility. Other editors and authors of No Easy Victories may or may not hold the same view on some of these points. - William Minter. Countries(1) "The title notwithstanding, this book focuses heavily and disproportionately on the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa." - Gerald Horne Editor's Comment: "Heavily," yes. "Disproportioniately," maybe but that is debatable. I personally would agree that, despite our best efforts, no other African country receives as much systematic attention in the book as I would like. From the point of view of movement activists ourselves, as noted in the book, South Africa was always part of a much larger struggle. While we make no claim to be comprehensive, Several other coutries receive attention in the book for their influence on American activists, including Ghana, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Namibia. Each of us has our own links to specific countries, and much we would like to have said that there was no space to include. For me it was Mozambique and Angola, countries on which I have written in more detail on U.S. connections in earlier works, particularly Chapter 6 ("The Cold War Connection:Crusaders and Conflict Managers") in Apartheid's Contras (now out of print but available from Amazon.and sometimes also at Powell's).However, I think it is fair to say that the "disproportionate" emphasis on South Africa in the book, if that is indeed the case, in fact reflects the realities of the popular social movement that extended far beyond the ranks of the most committed and politically conscious activists. This is in fact one of the subjects that itself calls for systematic investigation. Although we have mentioned several plausible reasons in the book itself, it is both historically and practically important to analyze more deeply why it was possible to mobilize so many more people on South Africa than on any other African issue, past or present. That said, Horne's suggestions for additional research on particular countries are all very worthy of the attention of scholars. In addition to the ones he mentions, others that would well reward additional research, given the relatively high levels of U.S. connections, include at least the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire), Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Ghana, Nigeria, and Liberia, as well as Mozambique, Tanzania, and Namibia. (2) "Zimbabwe receives short shrift, for example. ... During the time of the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe, for example, the party of Robert Mugabe, now the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), received substantial support not only from a critical mass of U.S.-based Black Nationalists, but also from many of the Euro-American left who were heartened by its closeness to China; concomitantly, many of these same forces were not particularly fond of Joshua Nkomo's the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), because of the perception that it was overly close to the former Soviet Union." - Gerald Horne Editor's comment to come (3) "The same holds true for Angola. The authors do make reference to the mid-1970s crisis in the run-up to independence from Portugal when some in the United States opposed the ultimately triumphant faction, the MPLA, which continues to lead the government in Luanda. ... Yet, the most lengthy and comprehensive essay in this estimable collection chastises the "Angolan government" since it "made little or no effort to reach out to U.S. civil society or even to Africa activists" (p. 47)." - Gerald Horne Editor's comment to come (4) "Again, unfortunately, this volume underestimates the support that the anticolonial resistance in Kenya received during the most frigid period of the Cold War, the 1950s. We are told that with rare exception there 'was virtually no analysis or criticism of the war' in East Africa (p. 19). This is simply not true." - Gerald Horne Editor's comment to come Political Currents and Issues (1) "There is no mention of the epochal 1981 solidarity conference at Manhattan's Riverside Church, perhaps because U.S. Communists were perceived as playing a leading role, though, in fact, there was a broad constellation of forces at work led by the exceedingly competent Trinidadian-American lawyer, Lennox Hinds, who went on to play a leading role in Mandela's post-1990 rhapsodically received visit to the United States." - Gerald Horne Editor's comment to come (2) "Unfortunately, the reader does not receive much assistance in comprehending how it was that socialist-oriented organizations in Africa came to receive considerable support in the citadel of anticommunism, the United States. Part of the answer rests in the fact that African Americans--who were not as captivated by conservatism--were the bulwark of the movement in solidarity with Africa. - Gerald Horne Editor's comment to come (3) "How African militancy inspired the same militancy in Black America is largely an untold story in these pages. In part, it stems from the orientation, which emphasizes the ACOA, students, and religious elements, and does not give sufficient attention to, for example, Black Nationalists and Marxists of various stripes." - Gerald Horne Editor's comment to come (4) "It would have been worthwhile, as well, if this book had pointed out one of the major problems with the solidarity organizations based in Washington, D.C. (as opposed to New York City): their often problematic relationship to the political establishment. At times, activists joked that instead of these organizations lobbying on our behalf in Washington, D.C., they lobbied us on behalf of Washington, D.C.--that is, as if to say, 'Congress will not simply accept your demands, please accept half a loaf.'" - Gerald Horne Editor's comment to come (5) "Another weakness of this trans-Atlantic movement was that when movements came to power, instead of tending to and nurturing solidarity movements that boosted them, they instead abandoned them, discarding them as if they were soiled paper napkins, thereby weakening these newly founded governments' attempt to influence Washington. This was a strategic blunder of monumental proportion to the extent that it merits an intensive study grounded in multiple archives." - Gerald Horne Editor's comment to come Organizations To come. To encourage additional research on organizations not mentioned or perhaps underemphasized in the book, this section will include the organizations included in the index of the book, and others of which we are aware. Individuals To come. To encourage additional research on organizations not mentioned or perhaps underemphasized in the book, this section will include the organizations included in the index of the book, and others of which we are aware. |
