AfricaNow! September 1, 2021 SNCC & The Black Radical Imagination  

Topic and Guest: The range and scope in manifestations of the Black freedom struggle are varied yet connected by a common thread…it does not matter where you look, pick a point on the map of human geography, pick a geographical landmass or region -- the continent of Africa, the Caribbean or somewhere in Northern part of the Americas, you will find a common thread.  And that thread is the radical imagination of young people. You will find a historical path that reaches into the present.... 

We can see the materiality of this fact in continuum of African/a resistance. In 1937 as a response to a resolution passed at the 1936 National Negro Congress in Chicago which asserted that “"it is the indubitable duty and right of all Negro youth to fight for the eradication of the evil from which they suffer”, and from this, the Southern Negro Youth Congress [SNYC] was created [Hughes, We demand Our Rights: Southern Negro Youth Congress, 1937-1949]. ...
The Southern Negro Youth Congress [SNYC] lasted for 12 years, 1937 to 1949. 

SNCC: According to Charlie Cobb, Young activists, and organizers with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, represented a radical, new unanticipated force whose work continues to have great relevance today. For the first time, young people decisively entered the ranks of civil rights movement leadership. They committed themselves to full-time organizing from the bottom-up, and with this approach empowered older efforts at change and facilitated the emergence of powerful new grassroots voices....[SNCC Digital Gateway].

On February 1, 1960, Black students in Greensboro, North Carolina launched sit-ins challenging segregation in restaurants and other public accommodations. Similar “direct action” lit by this spark in Greensboro spread like wildfire across the south. SNCC was founded just two and a half months later – on Easter weekend – at an April meeting of sit-in leaders on the campus of Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. Ella Baker was the gathering’s organizer....[SNCC Digital Gateway].

I would be remiss not to materialize SNCC’s deep international dimensions....Today, we present a conversation with SNCC activist: Courtland Cox.  While a Howard University student, Courtland Cox became a member of Nonviolent Action Group [NAG] and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He worked with SNCC in Mississippi and Lowndes County, Alabama, was the Program Secretary for SNCC in 1962, as well as the SNCC representative to the War Crimes Tribunal organized by Bertram Russell.  In 1963 he served as the SNCC representative on the Steering Committee for the March on Washington. In 1973 he served as the Secretary General of the Sixth Pan-African Congress in Tanzania.  Additionally, he co-owned and managed the Drum and Spear Bookstore and Drum and Spear Press in Washington DC.

In our conversation we explored: SNCC Freedom Schools; CLR James; Jamil Al-Amin; Black internationalism; internal critical debate; scholars without portfolio; independent political parties; Sekou Ture; Tanzania; Marion Berry; and the Sixth Pan African Congress. 

MUSIC ON THE SHOW: At the beginning--“THE BEGINNING & THE END” BY SAULT; at the break--“KURIMA” BY CHIWONISO MARAIRE; closing--“PANIC IN BABYLON” BY PRODUCER AND MUSICIAN LEE SCRATCH PERRY OF JAMAICA IN REMEMBERANCE OF HIM—HE JOINED THE ANCESTORS ON SUNDAY AUGUST 29, 2021. 

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Originally broadcast on WPFW 89.3FM, Washington, DC. Tune into AfricaNow! live on WPFW 89.3 FM in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area or visit www.wpfwfm.org on Wednesdays from 1:00 to 2:00PM (Eastern).

Photos from https://snccdigital.org/

AfricaNow! Sep. 1, 2021 SNCC & The Black Radical Imagination

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AFRICAN DIASPORA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL…WHERE BLACK LIFE MATTERS!

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AfricaNow! Sep. 1, 2021 SNCC & The Black Radical Imagination

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