Kate Quinn
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780813049090
- eISBN:
- 9780813046693
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813049090.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter explores the response of Forbes Burnham's People's National Congress (PNC) government to local, regional and international Black Power. It examines the complex relationship between the ...
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This chapter explores the response of Forbes Burnham's People's National Congress (PNC) government to local, regional and international Black Power. It examines the complex relationship between the ruling party and the African Society for Cultural Relations with Independent Africa (ASCRIA), assessing the impact this had on the government's domestic and regional policies, including the response to the crisis in Trinidad, policies of cooperative socialism, and questions of political asylum. The chapter then analyses local interactions with U.S. Black Power, focusing on the presence in Guyana of a significant community of African-American exiles/émigrés. While the Burnham government initially levered support from local and U.S. Black Power, ASCRIA's split from the PNC forced the American expat community to choose between competing versions of black emancipation polarized around the figures of Forbes Burnham and Eusi Kwayana. This split marked a fundamental shift in Guyanese politics, opening the gateway to new alliances that began to cut across Guyana's ethnic divides.Less
This chapter explores the response of Forbes Burnham's People's National Congress (PNC) government to local, regional and international Black Power. It examines the complex relationship between the ruling party and the African Society for Cultural Relations with Independent Africa (ASCRIA), assessing the impact this had on the government's domestic and regional policies, including the response to the crisis in Trinidad, policies of cooperative socialism, and questions of political asylum. The chapter then analyses local interactions with U.S. Black Power, focusing on the presence in Guyana of a significant community of African-American exiles/émigrés. While the Burnham government initially levered support from local and U.S. Black Power, ASCRIA's split from the PNC forced the American expat community to choose between competing versions of black emancipation polarized around the figures of Forbes Burnham and Eusi Kwayana. This split marked a fundamental shift in Guyanese politics, opening the gateway to new alliances that began to cut across Guyana's ethnic divides.
Nigel Westmaas
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780813049090
- eISBN:
- 9780813046693
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813049090.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter assesses the contributions of Guyanese Pan-Africanist activist and intellectual Eusi Kwayana, asking why he has not received the recognition he richly deserves. It traces the emergence ...
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This chapter assesses the contributions of Guyanese Pan-Africanist activist and intellectual Eusi Kwayana, asking why he has not received the recognition he richly deserves. It traces the emergence of Kwayana as an “organic activist,” examining his extensive writings as well as his activism in ASCRIA and the Working People's Alliance (WPA). It contends that Kwayana's curious absence from the narrative of global Pan-Africanism and Black Power is partly explained by his relative lack of international travel within Pan-African circuits, his immersion in Guyanese village and national life, the difficulties in accessing his published work outside Guyana, his later support for multiracialism, and his criticism of the shortcomings of some variants of Pan-Africanism, specifically relating to issues of race and gender. A fuller appraisal of Kwayana's multiple contributions is long overdue.Less
This chapter assesses the contributions of Guyanese Pan-Africanist activist and intellectual Eusi Kwayana, asking why he has not received the recognition he richly deserves. It traces the emergence of Kwayana as an “organic activist,” examining his extensive writings as well as his activism in ASCRIA and the Working People's Alliance (WPA). It contends that Kwayana's curious absence from the narrative of global Pan-Africanism and Black Power is partly explained by his relative lack of international travel within Pan-African circuits, his immersion in Guyanese village and national life, the difficulties in accessing his published work outside Guyana, his later support for multiracialism, and his criticism of the shortcomings of some variants of Pan-Africanism, specifically relating to issues of race and gender. A fuller appraisal of Kwayana's multiple contributions is long overdue.
