Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

The third essay analyzes the impact of global anticolonial movements on the development of the Black Power movement in the United States, beginning in the 1960s, with a particular focus on the Black radical Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) and its offshoots. These groups were inspired by international Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, a militant form of Communism that advocates for the lower classes to seize the means of production, such as farms and factories, which would then be controlled democratically by the people.

Kelley opens the essay with a discussion of the conventional narrative of the rise of the Black Power movement in the United States. As recounted by Kelley, the story often begins with Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court decision that banned racial segregation in schools, and with the 1955 murder of a 14-year-old Black boy named Emmett Till in Mississippi. These events sparked protest movements across the United States, culminating in the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act the following year. However, despite these gains, which Kelley describes as “Pyrrhic victories” (61), Black leaders and activists continued to be targeted without any support from the state or police. As a result, formerly peaceful advocates such as those in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) began to arm themselves, and in 1966 the slogan “Black Power” came to the fore of the Black liberation movement.

Kelley contests this narrative. He cites three reasons why it is insufficient. First, it is too focused on domestic American politics and ignores the international context of global anticolonial movements at the time. Second, it minimizes Black organizing in the Northern United States at the time. Third, Kelley describes “a general conspiracy of silence against the most radical elements of the black freedom movement, the movements and activists that spoke of revolution, socialism, and self-determination, and looked to the Third World for models of black liberation in the United States” (62). In this essay, Kelley seeks to push back against this conspiracy by detailing the history of the connections between Black American radicals such as Malcolm X and Robert Williams and the global, socialist/communist anticolonial liberation movement.

Kelley begins with a discussion of how Black American radicals were inspired by the 1955 meeting of nonaligned nations, largely former colonies, in Bandung, Indonesia. The nonaligned nations, which at the time were known collectively as the Third World, sought to govern themselves in a way that was free of influence from either side of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Kelley details how a number of Black radical leaders and artists, including Malcolm X, Harold Cruse, Amiri Baraka, Vickie Garvin, and Ramon Durem were inspired by anticolonial and Communist revolutions in Cuba, Ghana, and China.

Mao Zedong and Communist Chinese policy more generally strategically encouraged and embraced these Black nationalist movements. For instance, in 1963, Zedong issued a statement in solidarity with Black Americans, identifying their protests as part of the global fight against imperialism. For this reason, Black radicals including Elaine Brown and Huey Newton held Communist China in high regard and made trips there. Black Radicals learned from Mao’s example the importance of culture in the revolution and the possibility of carving out a path distinct from either the United States or the Soviet Union.

In the rest of the essay, Kelley describes in great detail the formation and history of Black Marxist-Leninist-Maoist groups in the United States, beginning with Robert Williams. Williams was an ex-Marine who organized local self-defense groups to fight the KKK in North Carolina. For his militant efforts, he was suspended from the NAACP, a more mainstream Black civil rights organization, sought political asylum in Cuba, and ultimately ended up in Beijing, China in 1966, where he published the Crusader, a magazine promoting “black world revolution” (72), which influenced Black organizers in the United States.

In 1961, inspired by Williams’s writings and his flight to Cuba, a group of Black radical intellectuals began meeting in Ohio, eventually calling themselves RAM for Revolutionary Action Movement. They held demonstrations for Black radical causes, such as advocating for the release of activist Mae Mallory. Another branch of RAM came from the West Coast movements in Los Angeles and Oakland. Philadelphia was also an important hub of RAM, where much of their recruitment and publishing activity took place. While RAM leadership held different ideological positions over the years, by 1965 they firmly declared the organization as promoting Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. In this vein, RAM advocated for armed resistance and insurrection against state oppression, although they never actually took up arms. They also connected their work to global anticolonial struggles, describing their position as “black internationalism” (82).

In the section of the essay titled, “Moving to the Rhythms of a New Song,” Kelley describes the impact of Maoist ethics and militancy on the organization and on other Black radicals. For instance, drawing from the text Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, RAM members were encouraged to be frugal and have self-discipline. They also promoted “re-Africanization” (89), or a rejection of Western aesthetics such as hair straightening.

RAM was ultimately driven out of existence by the end of the 1960s due to COINTELPRO and related operations. At the same time, the Cultural Revolution took hold in China, sparking massive societal change in the country. The Cultural Revolution included the breakdown of feudal conditions, the expropriation of farmland from the bourgeoisie, and other reformations. Black Americans, especially the newly formed BPP, were inspired by this revolution. Kelley points out that the Panthers were explicitly Marxist and that leader Eldridge Cleaver drew many insights from Mao. However, the Panthers did not embrace the feminist ideals of Maoism as firmly, although there were many women, such as Assata Shakur, who contributed immensely to their work.

The question of Black nationalism was hotly debated amongst the various Black Marxist-Leninist-Maoist groups in the United States at the time. Some, like Huey Newton, felt it was best to advocate for an international revolution rather than a Black nationalist one. Others, like Nelson Peery, took an approach more in line with Stalin than Mao, arguing that Blacks in the American South constituted a “Negro Nation” (101). Later organizations—such as the Revolutionary Communist League (RCL), formed under the leadership of Amiri Baraka in 1976—took a more international rather than national stance. Kelley argues that these groups, and RAM in particular, were ultimately unsuccessful not only because of COINTELPRO but also because they didn’t have a vision of the future they wanted to build. However, they were successful in connecting Black radicalism to an internationalist, global movement.