AfricaNow! March 6, 2024 Thinking Through CLR James with Matthew Quest

Topic and Guest: In an article for Insurgent Notes, Matthew Quest asks, What Type of Historian Was CLR James? CLR James, native of Trinidad, was a historian with a speculative philosophy of history. He brought these methods to his narrative of Haiti in The Black Jacobins (1938), and later in his Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution (1977). James was influenced by historians of the French Revolution, while his approach was shaped by Leon Trotsky’s A History of the Russian Revolution, Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West, and the Edwardian radicals GK Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, both literary men who wrote polemical histories sympathetic to the social motion of commoners. 

...For James, the working classes, be their wages high or low, and the unemployed possessed a hidden depth, a latent understanding, and a creative genius. Ordinary people, not professional leaders of official society, were the chief actors of history....Highlighting another important contribution of CLR James to Black radicalism, Matthew Quest unpacks his political economic analysis. Quest writes that CLR James is recalled as a Pan-African and independent socialist...

Quest goes on to argue that the Black radical tradition, after experimenting with European radicalism and socialism, never developed its own independent political economy. ...For James, there is a connection between state planning and repression of toilers, and he in no way subscribes to classical liberal market economics. We must remember that James’s mature political economy was worked out not just in response to Russia but Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal welfare state, and its repression of self-directed action during the CIO labor movement....

Today, we will explore CLR James’s thought, paying specific attention to his articulation of notions of direct democracy, worker’s self-emancipation, and meditations on autonomy with Matthew Quest. 

This conversation will be presented as a three-part series where we specifically explore CLR James as a frame of reference in the context of current labor struggles, the opportunities and potential limitations of demands within labor movements [where we think through the limitations of labor demands being divorced from direct critique of imperialism and colonialisms]; and how does CLR James’ conceptualization of autonomy and direct democracy have an important part to play in conceptualization of labor movements today. 

To understand the depth and range of impact of CLR James’s work, I would describe him as your ‘rappers’ favorite rapper’. Your favorite theorist, revolutionary, radical, Pan Africanist had to or at some point must come to terms with CLR James’s work. His influences are both undeniable and misunderstood. 

Matthew Quest has taught African, African American and Caribbean History at universities including Georgia State University in Atlanta, and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He is known as a scholar of the legacies of CLR James.

MUSIC ON THE SHOW: intro--“BABA AFRIKA” BY CHRISTINE KAMAU; break--“KURIMA” CHIWONISO MARAIRE; sign-off--“JARABI” BY SONA JOBARTEH; closing song--“ALUTA CONTINUA” BY MIRIAM MAKEBA commemorating her birthday on March 4 (March 4, 1932—November 10, 2008) International Women’s Day March 8 and Women’s History Month.

Support AfricaNow! and your community station WPFW.  Donate online visit https://pledge.wpfwfm.org/index.php and then on Step 1: Contribution scroll down to AfricaNow! to make your donation to the show. Or on our CashApp, which is $WPFW write it is for AfricaNow! and include your email address. Thank you.

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 (U.S. Eastern).

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AfricaNow! Mar. 6, 2024 Thinking Through CLR James with Matthew Quest

AfricaNow! March 20, 2024 Thinking Through CLR James with Matthew Quest Pt.II

Topic and Guest: According to Renault in Toward a Counter-Genealogy of Race: On CLR James, it is argued that James always stressed the fundamental importance of the notion of class struggle, and closely followed developments in revolutionary working-class struggles in Europe and the United States. 

“This did not prevent him, however, from analyzing and taking part in movements for decolonization: In 1938, he authored the famous history of the Haitian Revolution, The Black Jacobins; in the 1940s, he was seen as a specialist on the “Negro Question” within North American Trotskyist movements; he also had ties to African independence leaders – Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, and later, Julius Nyerere in Tanzania – and he became involved in “party politics” himself during the time leading up to Trinidadian independence. James strove to reposition Pan-Africanist struggles within a global revolutionary history, by interpreting them in light of Marxist theory and historiography; the latter, in turn, was reshaped through the lens of the experience of (de)colonization. He foregrounded and thematized the relations between class oppression and racial oppression as well as the connections between struggles for emancipation waged by subaltern groups with their own autonomous demands.”

But does this necessarily mean that as a Marxist, James thinks of race in the same way he thinks class? Does a concept of race exist in his writings, one invested with a specific theoretical and/or political function, beyond the attention he pays to actual instances of racial domination? 

...In short, this debate is captured in the question still echoing in freedom struggles, specifically in the African world, what is the primary contradiction that must be centered in movement work, race or class?...

...Today, we present Pt. II of the three-part series where we are unpacking CLR James’s thought, paying specific attention to his articulation of notions of direct democracy, worker’s self-emancipation/management, and meditations on autonomy with Matthew Quest. 

We are intentionally exploring CLR James as a frame of reference in the context of current labor struggles, the opportunities, and potential limitations of demands within labor movements [where we think through the limitations of labor demands being divorced from direct critique of imperialism and colonialisms]; and how does CLR James’ conceptualization of autonomy and direct democracy have an important part to play in conceptualization of labor movements today. 

To understand the depth and range of impact of CLR James’s work, I would categorize him as your ‘rappers’ favorite rapper’. Your favorite theorist, revolutionary, radical, Pan Africanist had to or at some point must come to terms with CLR James’s work. His influences are both undeniable and misunderstood. 

Matthew Quest has taught African, African American and Caribbean History at universities including Georgia State University in Atlanta, and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.  He is known as a scholar of the legacies of CLR James.
 

MUSIC ON THE SHOW: intro-- “BLUE NILE” BY ALICE COLTRANE; break--“KURIMA” CHIWONISO MARAIRE; sign-off--“NABU CORFA” BY DOROTHY ASHBY; closing song--“SISTERS’ CHANT” BY JUDY MOWATT commemorating Women’s History Month.

Support AfricaNow! and your community station WPFW.  Donate online visit https://pledge.wpfwfm.org/index.php and then on Step 1: Contribution scroll down to AfricaNow! to make your donation to the show. Or on our CashApp, which is $WPFW write it is for AfricaNow! and include your email address. Thank you.

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 (U.S. Eastern).

AfricaNow! Mar. 20, 2024 Thinking Through CLR James with Matthew Quest Pt. II

AfricaNow! March 27, 2024 Thinking Through CLR James with Matthew Quest Pt.III

Topic and Guest: Summary--Today, we present part three, the final installment of the three-part series where we are unpacking CLR James’s thought, paying specific attention to his articulation of notions of direct democracy, worker’s self-emancipation/management, and meditations on autonomy with Matthew Quest.  We are intentionally exploring CLR James as a frame of reference in the context of current labor struggles, the opportunities, and potential limitations of demands within labor movements [where we think through the limitations of labor demands being divorced from direct critique of imperialism and colonialisms]; and how does CLR James’s conceptualization of autonomy and direct democracy have an important part to play in conceptualization of labor movements today. 

Matthew Quest is an editor of Clash! a collective of writers who advocate for Caribbean unity from below. He has taught African, African American and Caribbean History at universities in the United States.

Part of Full Intro--Matthew Quest in CLR James and George Padmore: Hidden Disputes in The Black Radical Tradition, examines the collaboration between James and George Padmore since their partnership within the International African Service Bureau in the 1930s. Despite their joint activism in Pan-African affairs, political rifts emerged on democracy, socialism, and revolutionary strategy. 

Quest specifically explores James’ portrayal of Padmore to highlight the political tensions underlying their friendship. James’ and Padmore’s different perspectives on anti-imperialism reveal hidden disputes in the Black radical tradition, disputes that promoted evolution in thought and practice that must be taken up today.

In  London during the 1930s, the era of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, CLR James (1901–1989) and George Padmore (1903–1959) worked together as activists in the International African Service Bureau. 

Quest goes on to highlight that “in 1957 a plan was hatched in Britain for Padmore to become chief of staff of Pan African affairs in Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana, and James to become the editor of The Nation, the organ of Eric Williams’s People’s National Movement (PNM), but also the secretary of the effort to federate the West Indies from 1958–1962. When Padmore passed away CLR James began to write him into history.”...

MUSIC ON THE SHOW: intro--“WATER” BY INNA MODJA commemorating World Water Day March 22; intro with CLR James's interview--SPACE BY HYPNOTIC BRASS ENSEMBLE FEAT. YASIIN BEY; break--“MAI” CHIWONISO MARAIRE commemorating her birthday March 5 (March 5, 1976–July 24, 2013) and Women’s History Month; sign-off--“FORTIFY” BY NUBYA GARCIA; closing song--“THINK” BY ARETHA FRANKLIN commemorating her birthday which is March 25 (March 25, 1942–August 16, 2018) and Women’s History Month.

Support AfricaNow! and your community station WPFW.  Donate online visit https://pledge.wpfwfm.org/index.php and then on Step 1: Contribution scroll down to AfricaNow! to make your donation to the show. Or on our CashApp, which is $WPFW write it is for AfricaNow! and include your email address. Thank you.

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 (U.S. Eastern).

AfricaNow! Mar. 27, 2024 Thinking Through CLR James with Matthew Quest Pt. III

AfricaNow! July 3, 2024 Thinking Through CLR James with Matthew Quest Pt. I

Topic and Guest: Today AfricaNow! goes into its archives and plays a show that explores CLR James.  In an article for Insurgent Notes, Matthew Quest asks, What Type of Historian Was CLR James? CLR James, native of Trinidad, was a historian with a speculative philosophy of history. He brought these methods to his narrative of Haiti in The Black Jacobins (1938), and later in his Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution (1977). James was influenced by historians of the French Revolution, while his approach was shaped by Leon Trotsky’s A History of the Russian Revolution, Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West, and the Edwardian radicals GK Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, both literary men who wrote polemical histories sympathetic to the social motion of commoners.

...For James, the working classes, be their wages high or low, and the unemployed possessed a hidden depth, a latent understanding, and a creative genius. Ordinary people, not professional leaders of official society, were the chief actors of history....Highlighting another important contribution of CLR James to Black radicalism, Matthew Quest unpacks his political economic analysis. Quest writes that CLR James is recalled as a Pan-African and independent socialist...

Quest goes on to argue that the Black radical tradition, after experimenting with European radicalism and socialism, never developed its own independent political economy. ...For James, there is a connection between state planning and repression of toilers, and he in no way subscribes to classical liberal market economics. We must remember that James’s mature political economy was worked out not just in response to Russia but Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal welfare state, and its repression of self-directed action during the CIO labor movement....

Today, we will explore CLR James’s thought, paying specific attention to his articulation of notions of direct democracy, worker’s self-emancipation, and meditations on autonomy with Matthew Quest.

This conversation will be presented as a three-part series where we specifically explore CLR James as a frame of reference in the context of current labor struggles, the opportunities and potential limitations of demands within labor movements [where we think through the limitations of labor demands being divorced from direct critique of imperialism and colonialisms]; and how does CLR James’ conceptualization of autonomy and direct democracy have an important part to play in conceptualization of labor movements today.

To understand the depth and range of impact of CLR James’s work, I would describe him as your ‘rappers’ favorite rapper’. Your favorite theorist, revolutionary, radical, Pan Africanist had to or at some point must come to terms with CLR James’s work. His influences are both undeniable and misunderstood.

Matthew Quest has taught African, African American and Caribbean History at universities including Georgia State University in Atlanta, and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He is known as a scholar of the legacies of CLR James.

MUSIC ON THE SHOW: intro--“THE AWAKENING” BY AHMAD JAMAL commemorating his birthday on July 2 (July 2, 1930— April 16, 2023); break--“KURIMA” CHIWONISO MARAIRE; sign-off--“JARABI” BY SONA JOBARTEH; closing song--“LIZOBUYA” BY MBOGENI NGEMA.

Support AfricaNow! and your community station WPFW. Donate online visit pledge.wpfwfm.org/index.php and then on Step 1: Contribution scroll down to AfricaNow! to make your donation to the show. Thank you.

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 (U.S. Eastern).

AfricaNow! Jul. 3, 2024 Thinking Through CLR James with Matthew Quest Pt. I

all tracks mixed, mastered, produced and recorded by me 

1. NOT WITH THAT ATTITUDE 
2.TIME CHANGES ALL THINGS
3.IF I COULD TAKE YOU AWAY W/ CHANTAL
4.CHILE 2 ATL 
5.MAKE THE MOST (INTERLUDE)
6.IT FEELS GOOD TO LET GO
7. WHY ?

KHALID HIGHSPEED- RADICAL BLACK TRADITION (FULL ALBUM)

AfricaNow! April 2, 2025 The Rhythms of Black Freedom: Africa and Black Internationalism

Topic and Guest: As we begin Jazz Appreciation Month, the show goes into its archives and features a conversation from 2022 (AfricaNow! March 2, 2022 The Rhythms of Black Freedom: Africa and Black Internationalism) with Professor Tom Porter former member of CORE (the Congress of Racial Equality), SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), former head of the King Center in Atlanta, former Director of Black Studies at Ohio University, former WPFW Program Director and more. The discussion between Professor Tom Porter and AfricaNow!’s Co-Host and Executive Producer James Pope explores the rhythms of movement, the manifestations of the global Black Freedom Struggle, the impact of Black classical music in the struggle, programs of freedom, conceptualization of human rights which were/is directly related to the temporal conditions produced from various forms of colonialism, slavery, Apartheid, Jim Crow, etc., institution building, Black radical thought and Black internationalism.

Professor Porter is the embodiment of the concept organizer-intellectual; a former member of CORE (the Congress of Racial Equality) ... SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) … head of the King Center in Atlanta … former strategist and adviser to Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign … former Director of Black Studies [Ohio University] … Dean at Antioch Graduate Center in Washington DC ... program director and longtime radio host, jazz critic, sociopolitical theorist [specifically Black radical thought] ... author and organizer. Professor Porter can be firmly placed in the tradition of Black organic intellectuals and political philosophers.

This conversation was a collaboration between Africa World Now Project and WSSU's Office of International Programs, a contribution of People of African Descent to global society, justice, freedom.

MUSIC ON THE SHOW: intro--“AFRICA” BY THE JOHN COLTRANE QUARTET commemorating Jazz Appreciation Month; break--“THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED” BY GIL SCOTT-HERON (April 1, 1949–May 27, 2011) remembering his birthday; sign-off--“PATIENCE” BY HUGH MASEKELA (April 4, 1939–January 23, 2018) remembering his birthday and commemorating Jazz Appreciation Month; closing--“GOD BLESS THE CHILD” BY BILLIE HOLIDAY (April 7, 1915–July 17, 1959) remembering her birthday and commemorating Jazz Appreciation Month.

Support AfricaNow! and your community station WPFW.  Donate online: visit https://pledge.wpfwfm.org/index.php and then on Step 1: Contribution scroll down to AfricaNow! to make your donation to the show. Or on our CashApp, which is $WPFWFM write it is for AfricaNow! and include your email address. Thank you.

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 (U.S. Eastern).

AfricaNow! Apr. 2, 2025 The Rhythms of Black Freedom--Africa and Black Internationalism

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New tracks tagged #Radical Black Tradition