Arming Black Consciousness
The Azanian Black Nationalist Tradition and South Africa's Armed Struggle

Explores the history of the Black Consciousness Movement and its engagement with guerrilla warfare in South Africa and in exile.

Toivo Tukongeni Paul Wilson Asheeke (Author)

9781009346665, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 June 2023

308 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.1 cm, 0.57 kg

Since 1994, as the ruling party in South Africa, the ANC have become synonymous with and indivisible from the fight against apartheid rule. This has left little space for competing accounts, visions, and political projects to find their appropriate place in the historical narrative. In this innovative book, Toivo Asheeke moves beyond these well-trodden histories, to tell the previously neglected story of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), a militant revolutionary nationalist wing of the anti-colonial struggle. Using archival sources from four countries and interviews with former veterans of the movement, Asheeke explores the BCM's engagement with guerrilla warfare, community feminism and Black Internationalism. Uncovering the personal and political histories of those who have previously received scant scholarly attention, Asheeke both illuminates the history of Africa's decolonization struggle and that of the wider Cold War.

Introduction: black consciousness, echoes of Haiti's revolution and the Azanian black nationalist tradition
1. African decolonization, armed struggle and the black power movement, 1958–1973
2. 'Our struggle calls for the involvement of the entire black community': building black consciousness, 1968–1973
3. Forging an armed wing in exile, 1973–1976
4. Azanian black nationalist guerrillas, 1976–1993
5. 'Sharpening the spear': black consciousness in MK, 1972–1981
6. Contributions, absorptions and repressions of black consciousness in MK, 1981–1994
Conclusion: assessing BCM, its armed struggle and the Azanian black nationalist tradition
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: African history [HBJH]