Document Type
Thesis
Degree
Master of Arts
Department
History
Advisor's Name
Alex Lichtenstein
Advisor's Title
Committee Chair
Advisor's Name
Alexandra Cornelius-Diallo
Advisor's Name
Jean Rahier
Date of Defense
3-31-2011
Abstract
This thesis fills a gap in the existing historiography of comparative American-South African history. Using primary source documents such as trial testimony, newspapers, books, memoirs, and poetry, this thesis compares the ways in which African and African American activists remembered their past and deployed it in the context of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) and the Black Power movement. Both movements seized upon particular memories of the anti-colonial struggle of the nineteenth century and of slave revolts, respectively. In keeping with their policy of non-racialism, MK looked to a variety of colonial wars waged by Xhosa, Zulu, and other African states. Black Power activists challenged depictions of contented slaves in a bid to reclaim their history from their oppressors. At a broader theoretical level, this thesis demonstrates that memory is strongly implicated in race-making and protest movements.
Recommended Citation
Jones, Douglas, "Constructing a Revolutionary Narrative: Black Liberation and the Political Uses of the Past in the United States and South Africa, 1960-1975" (2011). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 399.
http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/399