From Complements to Service Leaders: Women Activists in Pan-African Cultural Nationalist Organizations, 1965-1987

From Complements to Service Leaders: Women Activists in Pan-African Cultural Nationalist Organizations, 1965-1987 explores the memories and motivations of women who helped mold Pan-African cultural nationalism through challenging, refining, and reshaping organizations influenced by Kawaida, the Black liberation philosophy that gave rise to Kwanzaa. This book focuses on female advocates in the Us Organization, Committee for a Unified Newark and the Congress of African People, the East, and Ahidiana. Emphasizing the years 1965 through the mid-to-late 1980s, the work delves into the women’s developing sense of racial and gender consciousness against the backdrop of the Black Power Movement. 

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Kenja McCray is an Associate Professor of History at Atlanta Metropolitan State College (AMSC) where she teaches U.S. and African American history. She earned a B.A. from Spelman College, an M.A. from Clark Atlanta University, and a Ph.D. in history at Georgia State University.  Various interdisciplinary perspectives influence her research, from gender, social justice activism, and the black freedom struggle to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL).

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