What is Pan Africanism?
If you have an interest in African studies beyond one Diaspora group, this reading list is for you!
Here's another list compiled by Anthony Ratcliff. This is especially helpful for those whose study of religion includes Pan Africanism. If you are a student of Black or Womanist Theology, you will find a lot of the ideas within Pan Africanism to provide you with a lens by which to examine theological beliefs.
If you are a preacher, these readings will provide you with tools for creating a postcolonial reading for many of the texts that you preach from on Sundays. As we move into summer, you may wish to relax with a few books that help you with these goals. We hope this list proves helpful and inspiring.
The Misogynoir to Mishpat (M2M) Research Network (c) 2023
Black Radical Tradition Reading List
This list was prepared by Anthony J. Ratcliff, tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Pan-African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles.
Dr. Ratcliff earned a Ph.D. in African American Studies from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2009. His dissertation analyzed the Pan-African politics of cultural struggle, with particular attention paid to the international dimensions of the Black Arts Movement. As a critical Hip Hop educator and radical historian, Anthony's scholar-activist research and teaching interests include revolutionary Black arts and politics; Black anti-authoritarian and autonomous movements; Black feminist theory and praxis; decolonial activism and organizing; the impact of capitalism and mass incarceration on Hip Hop cultural production, and the abolition of policing and prisons.
Anthony's articles on Pan-Africanism, Afro-Latinx cultural politics, Hip Hop, and other topics have appeared in numerous venues, including the Routledge Handbook of Pan-Africanism, Journal of Pan African Studies, the International Journal of Africana Studies, the Black Scholar, An Encyclopedia of African American Literature, and elsewhere.
When not in the classroom or mentoring students, Anthony is the Chapter President of the California Faculty Association (CFA), Los Angeles, as well as the chair of the Educational Justice and Solidarity Committee. Moreover, he is the faculty advisor to the Students for Quality Education (SQE) at Cal State LA. In addition, Anthony's an organizer with the IWW Educational Workers IU 620 and the Leimert Park Mutual Aid Organizing Committee.
Abolition Democracy by Angela Y. Davis Call Number: Available to Request for Pick-UpISBN: 1583226958 Publication Date: 2005-10-04. Revelations about U.S policies and practices of torture and abuse have captured headlines ever since the breaking of the Abu Ghraib prison story in April 2004. Since then, a debate has raged regarding what is and what is not acceptable behavior for the world's leading democracy. It is within this context that Angela Davis, one of America's most remarkable political figures, gave a series of interviews to discuss resistance and law, institutional sexual coercion, politics and prison.
Angela Davis by Angela Y. Davis Call Number: Level 2 North ; E185.97.D23 A32ISBN: 0394489780 Publication Date: 1974-10-01. From a childhood on Dynamite Hill in Birmingham, Alabama, to one of the most significant political trials of the century, Angela Davis describes in full the story of her life: from Carrie A. Tuggle Elementary School to the U.S. Communist Party; from her political activity in a New York high school to the Soledad Brothers; from the faculty of the Philosophy Department at UCLA to the FBI's list of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives.
Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis Call Number: Course Reserves - Level 1 Service Desk ; HV9471 .D375 2003ISBN: 1583225811. Publication Date: 2003-08-05. With her characteristic brilliance, grace and radical audacity, Angela Y. Davis has put the case for the latest abolition movement in American life- the abolition of the prison.
Back to Black by Kehinde Andrews Call Number: Available to Request for Pick-UpISBN: 1786992779 Publication Date: 2019-10-25. Back to Black traces the long and eminent history of Black radical politics. Born out of resistance to slavery and colonialism, its rich past encompasses figures such as Marcus Garvey, Angela Davis, the Black Panthers and the Black Lives Matter activists of today.
Black Marxism by Cedric J. Robinson Call Number: Available as a Free eBook ISBN: 0807848298 Publication Date: 2000-01-24. In this ambitious work, first published in 1983, Cedric Robinson demonstrates that efforts to understand black people's history of resistance solely through the prism of Marxist theory are incomplete and inaccurate.
Blues Legacies and Black Feminism by Angela Y. Davis Call Number: Available as a Free eBook ISBN: 0679771263. Publication Date: 1999-01-26. Angela Davis's book is a complete revelation to me and a serious re-education.' Toni Morrison From the author of 'Women, Race & Class' comes a brilliant analysis of the blues which provides the historical, social and political contexts with which to reinterpret the performances and lyrics of Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey, Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday as the articulation of a black, working- class, feminist consciousness at odds with mainstream American culture.'
Decolonial Marxism by Walter Rodney Call Number: Available to Request for Pick-Up ISBN: 1839764112. Publication Date: 2022-08-02. A previously unpublished collection of Rodney's essays on Marxism, spanning his engagement with of Black Power, Ujamaa Villages, and the everyday people who put an end to a colonial era.
Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination by Kelley, Robin D. G. Call Number: Available to Request for Pick-Up ISBN: 9780807007853
From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (Expanded Second Edition) by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor; Angela Y. Davis (Foreword by)Call Number: Available as a Free eBook ISBN: 1642594555 Publication Date: 2021-06-01. In this stirring and insightful analysis, activist and scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor surveys the historical and contemporary ravages of racism and persistence of structural inequality such as mass incarceration and Black unemployment. In this context, she argues that this new struggle against police violence holds the potential to reignite a broader push for Black liberation.
In the Cause of Freedom by Minkah Makalani Call Number: Available as a Free eBook ISBN: 0807869163 Publication Date: 2011-11-28. In this intellectual history, Minkah Makalani reveals how early-twentieth-century black radicals organized an international movement centered on ending racial oppression, colonialism, class exploitation, and global white supremacy.
Left of Karl Marx by Carole Boyce Davies Call Number: Available as a Free eBook ISBN: 1283035529 Publication Date: 2008-01-01. Assesses the activism, writing, and legacy of Claudia Jones (1915-1964), a pioneering Afro-Caribbean radical intellectual active in the U.S. and U.K.
Making the Revolution Global by Theo Williams Call Number: Available to Request for Pick-Up ISBN: 1839761989 Publication Date: 2022-10-18. African and Caribbean activist-intellectuals, such as Amy Ashwood Garvey, C.L.R. James, Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah and George Padmore, came to Britain during the 1930s and 1940s and intervened in debates about capitalism, imperialism, fascism and war.
The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power by Jared A. Ball Call Number: Available to Request for Pick-Up ISBN: 3030423549 Publication Date: 2020-04-02. This Palgrave Pivot offers a history of and proof against claims of "buying power" and the impact this myth has had on understanding media, race, class and economics in the United States.
The Nation on No Map by William C. Anderson; Saidiya Hartman (Foreword by); Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (Afterword by) Call Number: Available to Request for Pick-Up ISBN: 1849354340 Publication Date: 2021-11-29. A call for Black survival in the face of widespread crisis. The Nation on No Map examines state power, abolition, and ideological tensions within the struggle for Black liberation while centering the politics of Black autonomy and self-determination.
No More Police by Mariame Kaba; Andrea Ritchie Call Number: Available to Request for Pick-Up ISBN: 1620976781 Publication Date: 2022-10-11. In this powerful call to action, New York Times bestselling author Mariame Kaba and attorney and organizer Andrea J. Ritchie detail why policing doesn't stop violence, instead perpetuating widespread harm; outline the many failures of contemporary police reforms; and explore demands to defund police, divest from policing, and invest in community resources to create greater safety through a Black feminist lens.
Organize, Fight, Win by Charisse Burden-Stelly; Jodi Dean Call Number: Available to Request for Pick-Up ISBN: 9781839764974 Publication Date: 2022-10-04. The first collection of its kind, Organize, Fight, Win brings together three decades of Black Communist women's political writings. In doing so, it highlights the link between Communism and Black liberation. Likewise, it makes clear how Black women fundamentally shaped, and were shaped by, Communist praxis in the twentieth century.
Prophet of Discontent by Jared A. Loggins; Andrew J. Douglas Call Number: Available as a Free eBook ISBN: 0820360171. Publication Date: 2021-09-30. Many of today's insurgent Black movements call for an end to racial capitalism. They take aim at policing and mass incarceration, the racial partitioning of workplaces and residential communities, and the expropriation and underdevelopment of Black populations at home and abroad.
Radicalism at the Crossroads by Dayo F. Gore Call Number: Level 2 North ; E185.615 .G668 2011 ISBN: 0814732364 Publication Date: 2011-02-02. With the exception of a few iconic moments such as Rosa Parks's 1955 refusal to move to the back of a Montgomery bus, we hear little about what black women activists did prior to 1960.
The Revolution Has Come by Robyn C. Spencer Call Number: Available to Request for Pick-Up ISBN: 0822362759 Publication Date: 2016-12-02. In The Revolution Has Come Robyn C. Spencer traces the Black Panther Party's organizational evolution in Oakland, California, where hundreds of young people came to political awareness and journeyed to adulthood as members.
A Soldier's Story by Kuwasi Balagoon; Matt Meyers (Editor); Karl Kersplebedeb (Editor) Call Number: Available to Request for Pick-Up. ISBN: 1629633771. Publication Date: 2019-05-15. Kuwasi Balagoon was a participant in the Black Liberation struggle from the 1960s until his death in prison in 1986. A member of the Black Panther Party and defendant in the infamous Panther 21 case, Balagoon went underground with the Black Liberation Army (BLA). Captured and convicted of various crimes against the State, he spent much of the 1970s in prison, escaping twice.
Soledad Brother by George Jackson; Jean Genet (Introduction by); Jonathan, Jonathan Jackson, Jr. (Foreword by) Call Number: Available as a Free eBook. ISBN: 1613742878. Publication Date: 1994-09-01. A collection of Jackson's letters from prison, Soledad Brother is an outspoken condemnation of the racism of white America and a powerful appraisal of the prison system that failed to break his spirit but eventually took his life. Jackson's letters make palpable the intense feelings of anger and rebellion that filled black men in America's prisons in the 1960s. But even removed from the social and political firestorms of the 1960s, Jackson's story still resonates for its portrait of a man taking a stand even while locked down.
We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice by Kaba, Mariame Call Number: Available as a Free eBook ISBN: 1642595268. Publication Date: 2021. A reflection on prison industrial complex abolition and a vision for collective liberation from organizer and educator Mariame Kaba.