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. 

Read More

The first and only scholarly monograph on Black Panther Party member, Ericka Huggins, A Spirit on a Sword foregrounds prison organizing and collective care strategies by Panther women to oppose carceral violence. The book documents Huggins’s early life and career in the BPP, her imprisonment, and post Panther work. The heart of the book, on the whole, excavates Huggins’ day-to-day experience and acts of political dissent through an examination of her wellness praxis routine. Phillips argues that Huggins’ actions serve as forms of resistance critical not only to her preservation but that of other women prisoners and that her caged experiences exemplify the critical role of spiritual growth and its interconnections with Black Power social activism.

Read More

His fiery speeches, striking analogies, advocacy of Black solidarity, self-determination, self-defense, and cultural pride; his constant and forceful ridiculing of assimilationists and non-violent civil rights activists stimulated a generation of Black power activists across the nation during the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Read More