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Red Emma’s

Modibo Kadalie presents "Pan-African Social Ecology"

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Saturday, January 18th 2020

7:00 pm

Red Emma's

In the middle of the twentieth century, the civil rights, Black power, and Pan-Africanist movements forever altered the shape of human social existence as millions of people organized in a world-wide struggle for freedom that continues into the present day. In this approachable new volume, Modibo Kadalie reflects upon his nearly six decades of participation in social freedom movements, from Atlanta’s lunch counter sit-ins, to labor organizing in Detroit, to student protests for Black studies, to anticolonial support networks for African liberation and beyond. Through conversations and public speeches, Kadalie offers a new way to understand history by recasting these movements as remarkably leaderless revolutions and connecting Black freedom struggles to ecological activism in the era of climate change. Kadalie calls upon present and future generations of activists to reconnect with the spirit of past revolutions and our own intuitive capacities for cooperation and directly democratic self-governance.

“Modibo Kadalie is a storyteller—in the most honorable and powerful sense of the word—who opens up the possibilities of fundamental social transformation. ... reminding us that power and truth always reside in the people, not their ‘leaders.’” —Natsu Saito, author of Settler Colonialism, Race, and the Law“Modibo Kadalie elaborates a vision of Pan-African social ecology rooted in the Black anarchist tradition, people’s power, ecofeminism, and lessons from global struggles. … Following C.L.R. James’s dictum that ‘any cook can govern,’ Kadalie lifts up—and acts in concert with—ordinary people who have fought to preserve their autonomy and re-make the world.”—Jackie Wang, author of Carceral Capitalism“This collection offers a gift of understanding and clarity in a way we shouldn’t take for granted and at a time when almost nothing feels certain.” —William C. Anderson, co-author of As Black As Resistance“Empowering and helpful to scholars and activists alike.” —Eusi Kwayana, author of The Bauxite Strike and the Old PoliticsModibo Kadalie is a social ecologist, academic, and lifelong radical organizer. In the 1970s, he was a member of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers and the African Liberation Support Committee and a delegate to the Sixth Pan-African Congress. He is also the author of Internationalism, Pan-Africanism, and the Struggle of Social Classes.

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