ABSTRACT
On November 6, 1970, the Ostsee-Zeitung, a provincial newspaper based in Greifswald, published a letter written by local secondary school students. The letter called for "freedom for Angela Davis" and appealed to the youth of the Baltic Sea region to send "flowers of solidarity" to the United States. Against the background of conflicting political-economic systems, solidarity demonstrations like those supporting Angela Davis were not unusual in East Germany. During the late 1960s, "Black Power" grew to be the guiding inspiration for many young urban blacks—a group long targeted for recruitment by American communists. Anti-imperialist solidarity was firmly ingrained in the anti-fascist founding myths of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), and a cornerstone of the East German campaign for international recognition. The GDR's leadership identified "solidarity" as a "driving force for social integration in society at large" that would contribute to the "political and moral unity" of its people.
