In their essays “Providential Design” and “The Negro Question,” both Robert Trent Vinson and Hakim Adi show how American ideas of Garveyism impacted South African challenges to segregation and that the Black working class saw communism as a useful tool to organize against shared oppressions of American racism and colonialism. Both Garveyism and Black Communism fall into our definition of pan-Africanism/Black Internationalism.
- Pan-Africanist ideologies required African people to reject European assimilation and embrace African ideologies. How is this reflected in “Song of Freedom”?
- Pan-Africanist ideologies requires mutual cooperation amongst people of the African diaspora. How does Song of Freedom show mutual cooperation between Africans and Africans of the diaspora? What ways do they both learn from each other?
- Though it was not perfect, women and the Black working class played much more prominent roles in Black radical groups like the UNIA and Black socialist groups. How does Song of Freedom reflect a much more prominent role of the Black working class and Black women during this period?
Source: Song of Freedom (1936)
