Friends of Socialist China, in conjunction with the International Manifesto Group, organised a well-attended webinar on Saturday May 11 on the theme of Black Liberation and People’s China – Rediscovering a History of Transcontinental Solidarity.
The webinar marked the 65th anniversary of the historic visit to China by Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, where, together with his wife Shirley Graham Du Bois, the great scholar and revolutionary celebrated his 91st birthday on February 23rd, 1959.
Focusing specifically on transcontinental solidarity between the Chinese revolution and the African-American freedom struggle, the webinar noted that this revolutionary history neither begins nor ends with Dr. Du Bois. It embraces Langston Hughes and Paul Robeson from the 1930s; Robert F. and Mabel Williams and Malcolm X in the 1960s; the Black Panther Party in the 1960s and 1970s; and many others, joined by Chinese leaders, including Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, as well as Chinese American communists and progressives and returned overseas Chinese.
The event was moderated by our co-editor Keith Bennett and featured a distinguished panel of speakers as follows:
- Professor Gerald Horne, John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies, University of Houston, USA;
- Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly, Associate Professor of African American Studies, Wayne State University, USA;
- Dr. Gao Yunxiang, Professor of History, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada;
- Dr. Zifeng Liu, Post Doctoral Scholar, Africana Research Center, Pennsylvania State University, USA;
- Margaret Kimberley, Executive Editor and Senior Columnist, Black Agenda Report; and
- Qiao Collective, a diaspora Chinese media collective challenging US aggression against China
The video of this interesting and important webinar is embedded below, followed by the individual contributions.
