Elaine Brown

Elaine Brown, former Chairperson of the Black Panther Party from 1974 to 1977, will speak at UNC-Asheville, hosted by UNCA SDS, on Oct. 30th. For more information see the website of UNC-Asheville Students for a Democratic Society and www.elainebrown.org.

For some context of the Black Panther Party and the larger Black liberation movement and its relationship to the Marxist-Leninist movement, I would encourage folks to read Black Like Mao.

Black Like Mao

Mao’s China, along with the Cuban Revolution and African Nationalism, internationalized the black revolution in profound ways. Mao gave black radicals a non-Western model of Marxism that placed greater emphasis on local conditions and historical circumstances than canonical texts.

A friend sent me this article by Robin D. G. Kelley and Betsy Esche, “Black Like Mao: Red China and Black Revolution” (PDF) from Souls Vol. 1 #4. It is about the influence that the Chinese Revolution and the thought of Mao Zedong had on radical African American activists, including figures like W. E. B. Du Bois, Harry Haywood, Robert Williams, the Black Panther Party, Elaine Brown, Huey P. Newton, General Baker, Nelson Perry, Amiri Baraka and others.