ABSTRACT
The decade of black power politics (1965-1976) can be usefully analyzed as the public manifestation of dissident politics stifled by the Cold War. During these years radical discourses were propelled into national and international politics. From this perspective the black power movement’s critique of American imperialism can be viewed as the extension of black anti-colonialism circumscribed by geopolitical imperatives. Inspired by global events, black Americans had comprised the vanguard of a radical anticolonial politics that sought to challenge European dominance over “third world” majorities the world over.1 Yet the political damage suffered by “her majesty’s other children” was not the sole concern of black radicals.2 Black anticolonialism was situated, and experienced its decline, within the context of America’s emerging dominance over post-World War II Europe.3 Bound by the Cold War’s silencing of critics of American foreign policy, African American anticolonialism survived, and at times thrived, through the works and activities of late 1950s and early ’60s radicals.4
