Mohammed Elnaiem

What Is Critical Race Theory?

Critical race theory has become a focus of conservative legislation, often with little understanding of its meaning and history.

Marcus Garvey is shown in a military uniform as the "Provisional President of Africa" during a parade on the opening day of the annual Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World at Lenox Avenue in Harlem, New York City, 1922

Black Radicals

Marcus Garvey’s Journey Began in Central America

Marcus Garvey left Jamaica unemployed, an anti-colonial trade unionist who British authorities considered dangerous.

Engraved portrait of George Washington Williams

Black Radicals

George Washington Williams and the Origins of Anti-Imperialism

Initially supportive of Belgian King Leopold II’s claim to have created a “free state” of Congo, Williams changed his mind when he saw the horrors of empire.

Terracotta memorial portrait (nsodie) of an Akan ruler from present-day southern Ghana

Black Radicals

The “Deviant” African Genders That Colonialism Condemned

European travellers and anthropologists found that their gendered worldview didn’t easily map onto the societies they encountered.

Statue of Benkos Biohó in San Basilio de Palenque, Colombia

Black Radicals

Black Conquistadors and Black Maroons

Some formerly enslaved Blacks and freedmen accompanied the Spanish invaders; others formed their own communities.

A 19th-century engraving depicting an Arab slave-trading caravan transporting black African slaves across the Sahara.

Black Radicals

What Was the Zanj Rebellion?

A remarkable episode of Medieval Islamic history that often goes untold.

Black Radicals

Black Americans in the Popular Front against Fascism

The era of anti-fascist struggle was a crucial moment for Black radicals of all stripes.

Black Radicals

The Death of Steve Biko, Revisited

Like the death of George Floyd, the South African activist Steve Biko’s death galvanized a global movement against racism.

A protest during the Australian bicentenary

Black Radicals

On Black Power in the Pacific

How the meaning of Blackness, and the social construction of race, varies across era and region.

Black Radicals

Interview: The League of Revolutionary Black Workers

Two industrial workers, members of Detroit’s League of Revolutionary Black Workers, share experiences with political organizing and education.

Two police officers in full riot gear arrest a Black man during a breakout of rioting and looting on the West side of Detroit, Michigan, July 23, 1967.

Black Radicals

The Detroit Rebellion

From 1964 to 1972, at least 300 U.S. cities faced violent upheavals, the biggest led by the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, in Detroit.

Walter Rodney and W.P.A members exit the Ministry of Labour & Social Security, Guyana - 1970s

Black Radicals

Walter Rodney, Guerrilla Intellectual

Walter Rodney’s radical thought and activism led to his eventual killing by a bomb in Guyana, in 1980.

Black Radicals

The Defense of Ethiopia from Fascism

For black activists in the 1930s, defending Ethiopia from Mussolini’s invasion created unprecedented unity.

Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates testifies during a hearing on slavery reparations held by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties on June 19, 2019.

Black Radicals

The Case for Reparations Is Nothing New

In fact, Black activists and civil rights leaders have been advocating for compensation for the trauma and cost of slavery for centuries.

Black Radicals

What Was the Black International?

The twentieth-century struggle for African independence began in Paris salons hosted by the daughters of elite blacks, then travelled by telegram and steamship.

Black Radicals

Bolívar in Haiti

Simón Bolívar was a man of contradiction. He was willing to set in motion the gradual abolition of slavery, but that would be as far as he would go.

Alice Childress, Paul Robeson and Lorraine Hansberry

Black Radicals

In the McCarthy Era, to Be Black Was to Be Red

The Marxist sympathies of Black radical leaders like Paul Robeson, Alice Childress, and Lorraine Hansberry made them targets for the FBI.

Politics & History

Did Kongolese Catholicism Lead to Slave Revolutions?

The legacy of Kimpa Vita, a Kongolese Catholic mystic, was felt from the U.S. to Haiti.

Politics & History

Black Radicalism’s Complex Relationship with Japanese Empire

Black intellectuals in the U.S.—from W. E. B. Du Bois to Marcus Garvey—had strong and divergent opinions on Japanese Empire.

Politics & History

The African Roots of MLK’s Vision

“Ghana tells us that the forces of the universe are on the side of justice… An old order of colonialism, of segregation, discrimination is passing away now.”

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