Testimony before the Subcommittees on Africa and International Economic Policy and Trade

Abstract

On September 25, 1976, the Congressional Black Caucus convened The Black Leadership Conference on Africa. The conference, comprising the leadership of virtually every national black civil rights and social organization, accomplished two noteworthy objectives. It authored the AfricanAmerican Manifesto on Southern Africa which expressed grave concerns with the previous Administration's negotiation initiatives for a Zimbabwe settlement. Secondly, it mandated a task force, chaired by me, to propose and execute an institutional vehicle through which black Americans could express to the Congress and the Administration their views on United States foreign policy vis-a-vis Africa and the Caribbean. TransAfrica, incorporated July 1, 1977, is the fruit of that process. The Board of Directors is chaired by Mayor Richard Hatcher of Gary, Indiana and the organizational membership is drawn from virtually every black community of interest across the country. My personal active involvement in the African thrust for self determination and majority rule is more than a decade old. As a law student at Harvard University in 1967 I helped through the Southern Africa Relief Fund to raise money for refugee assistance to those displaced by the independence wars against Portugal. In 1972 I participated in the challenge to Harvard's Gulf Oil Corporation stockholding and later helped to organize a national campaign against Gulf as a response to its role as the largest corporate supporter of Portugal's war-making capacity in Africa. More recently and just previous to joining TransAfrica, I served for two years as Administrative Assistant to Chairman Charles C. Diggs, Jr., whose interest, concerns and sympathies on African foreign policy issues are well known and appreciated throughout America, particularly black America, and Africa.