Long Live African Women Wherever They Are! Black Women, Pan-Africanism, and Black Power’s Global Reach

Animated by the idea that they were witnessing the “unparalleled degeneration” of “white power,” in the 1970s, U.S.-based Black Power activists increasingly situated their domestic organizing within the global context. They participated in a range of Pan-African-inspired protests and meetings including African Liberation Day (ALD), the All-Africa Women’s Conference (AAWC), and the Sixth Pan-African Congress (6PAC). Not only did these protests and summits bolster ties between domestic and international movements, they also served as conduits through which these organizers articulated their real and imagined identification with Africa and as Africans. Historians are now beginning to chart the centrality of these meetings to the evolution of Black Power organizing on U.S. soil. However, black women activists remain marginalized in these accounts. In this paper, I analyze black American women’s speeches, referendums, and conference resolutions from ALD, AAWC, and 6PAC in order to highlight their pivotal role in shaping diasporic discourses on Black Power and black liberation. I argue that black women’s participation at these global events had appreciable effects on the national and international stage. Through their intellectual production, they challenged monolithic and masculinist characterizations of the Pan-African actor and diasporic community. They also offered more holistic approaches to diasporic ideological and organizational frameworks that transformed U.S. Black Power activists’ political and social work.