From popular anti-imperialism to sectarianism: the african liberation support committee and black power radicals

Abstract

This essay critically examines the popular mobilizations conducted by the African Liberation Support Committee (ALSC) and the organization's ultimate collapse into sectarianism. The natural history of ALSC and the factors responsible for both its successes and demise bear important implications for the development of viable black radical politics during the contemporary period. Though commonly neglected in discussions of African American influence over US–Africa relations, ALSC made an indelible impact on American public consciousness and state policy towards Africa during the 1970s. Through the African Liberation Day (ALD) mobilizations of the early 1970s and other programmatic activities, ALSC activists articulated a vision of postcolonial Africa that fused the standard claims of state sovereignty and democratic rights with a radical critique of the post-Bretton Woods global political economy and the inordinate influence of transnational corporations within this emergent configuration. Likewise, ALSC activists crafted a political campaign that made radical ideals and interpretations relevant to the everyday lived experiences of thousands of blacks throughout North America and the Caribbean. Albeit momentarily, ALSC organizers articulated a popular anti-imperialism that effectively connected the relations of production, conditions of labor exploitation and political disenfranchisement on the African continent with American corporate–state institutions and constructed productive channels for the expression of a substantive, transatlantic racial solidarity. This essay probes the sources of ALSC's demise and develops the claim that the conversion of many activists from nationalism to Marxist–Leninism stemmed from contradictions within black power discourse. Furthermore, I argue that the turn to Marxism was progressive to the extent that it encouraged the development of critical perspectives regarding the limits of black indigenous control and racial identity politics in general. Nonetheless, I maintain that emphasis on ideological purity—the fundamental premise that doctrinaire ideology and not historically specific, temporal political issues should serve as the principal basis of political work—was essentially flawed and counterproductive. To the extent that the mid-1970s Marxist–nationalist debate was characterized by dogma and ad hominem attacks versus reflexive political theory and constructive engagement, this development degraded the character of public debate within radical circles and deeply undermined ALSC's viability and the maintenance of opposition more generally. The advent of the Marxist–nationalist debate marked a tragic retreat from the powerful issue-driven popular alliances personified by the ALD mobilizations. Radicals' emphasis on doctrinaire ideology profoundly fragmented the capacity of oppositional forces, alienated them from vast sectors of the black population and ultimately arrested the potential impact of their programs.