Solidarity with Palestine - A Radical Black Feminist Mandate: A Reading List

Photos (top, left to right): Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Toni Morrison, Angela Y. Davis, and bell hooks. (Bottom, left to right): Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Barbara Ransby, and another photo of June Jordan.

By Black Women Radicals

This reading list offers a brief primer on the radical Black feminist political mandate, which is solidarity with Palestine.

“...I was born a Black woman
and now
I am become a Palestinian
against the relentless laughter of evil
there is less and less living room
and where are my loved ones?
It is time to make our way home.”
— June Jordan, Moving Towards Home (1982)

We, who believe in freedom, we as Black feminists who believe in freedom  –– freedom from white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, transphobia,  queerphobia, ableism, and other oppressions –– unabashedly believe in and stand in solidarity for a free Palestine. 

As students of Black feminist politics and movements, we know and understand that our liberation as Black women, femme, and gender expansive people in the United States, in the belly of the imperial beast, is tethered to the liberation, freedom, and emancipation of all marginalized peoples around the world. We know that we come from long radical and revolutionary traditions of Black women and gender expansive organizers, educators, and activists who have and continue to be committed to the liberation struggles of oppressed and “Third World” peoples. 

More specifically, and especially at this current juncture in Gaza and the West Bank, we know as Black feminists that our political commitments, mandates, and solidarity are bound up and intertwined with the liberation and self-determination of the Palestinian people. 

According to reports, more than 2,383 Palestinians are dead and 10,814 are injured. The organization, Defense for Children International–Palestine has reported that at least 724 Palestinian children have been killed by the Israeli military since October 7th. This past Friday, October 12th, the Israeli army issued an evacuation order – by way of dropping leaflets – of more than 1.1 million Palestinians in northern Gaza, giving them only 24 hours to leave their homes and move to southern Gaza toward a “safe route.” However, when many Palestinians migrated to southern Gaza, the army bombed the south part of the Gaza strip – the only road in and out of Gaza – killing and injuring hundreds. Israel has cut off Gaza from electricity, fuel, food, water, and humanitarian aid.

According to Human Rights Watch, on October 10 and 11, 2023, the Israeli army used white phosphorus - which is a “chemical substance that burns at temperatures hot enough to melt metal” - in military operations in Lebanon and Gaza. The chemical agent is also known to cause fatal birth defects. The organization notes that the use of white phosphorus by the Israeli army violates international humanitarian law. 

Moreover, not only has the Israeli military deployed airstrikes on hospitals, journalists, medics, and more, it has dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza, as innocent people flee with nowhere to go. 

The violence and humanitarian crisis we are seeing right before our eyes comes at the heels of an attack by Hamas, officially known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, on October 7th, where members from the group killed more than 1,400 Israelis and kidnapped hundreds of others. We do not condone the killing of innocent lives –– whether Palestinian or Israeli. However, while many media outlets have disseminated misinformation and portrayed a one-sided narrative about the attack, they do not discuss the political, historical, and present-day siege of Gaza by the Israeli military and the systematic violence, expulsion, poverty, displacement, Zionist settler colonialism, sexual and racialized terror, surveillance, Apartheid, and more that Palestinians have endured for decades since the Nakba. 

Many media outlets are promoting the Zionist propaganda that Israeli lives are worth more than Palestinian ones by justifying the Israeli State's past and present collective punishment of Palestinians. For years, the Israeli State has ignored the protests, pleas, and outcries of Jewish, Palestinian, and Allied individuals and organizations alike, who repudiate the institutional subordination of Palestinians. 

What we are seeing before our eyes is genocide. We charge genocide. 

Throughout the years, Black feminists such as Angela Y. Davis, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Toni Morrison, Barbara Ransby, Margo Okazawa-Rey, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, and countless others have made it crystal clear about their solidarity and commitments to Palestine. Many of us cite their work, but what we have seen and observed presently by many Black feminists who claim to have an abolitionist politic and praxis is silence. 

We are calling you out. 

You cite radical and revolutionary Black feminists who have made unwavering theoretical and political commitments to Palestine, but you refuse to be in solidarity yourselves. Just like many of us said about so many White and Non-Black People of Color who were silent during the uprisings against intersectional anti-Black state violence in the U.S., your silence on Palestine is complicity.

We will not be silent. We will not be complicit. 

This reading list offers a brief primer on the radical Black feminist political mandate, which is solidarity with Palestine.

 

Black Feminist Writers and Palestine

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Black Feminist Writers and Palestine 〰️

Black Feminist Writers and Palestine

On Sunday, October 22nd at 5:30 PM ET/2:30 PM PT, Black Women Radicals hosted the online event, “Black Feminist Writers and Palestine.” This online event focused on the importance of the Black feminist literary and political canon and the mandate of Black feminist commitments to a free Palestine. Moreover, we will cite, discuss, and interrogate the long, extensive, and unwavering tradition of Black feminist educators, poets, writers, organizers, and more who have committed to being in solidarity with Palestine. Featuring remarks from: Clarissa Brooks, Angela Y. Davis, Breya Johnson, Briona Simone Jones, and Jaimee A. Swift.

Watch the playback here.

Radical Commitments

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Radical Commitments 〰️

Letters, Reflections, Speeches, and Statements of Solidarity  

  • Oberlin College Commencement Speech by Audre Lorde, May 29, 1989

    • In this speech, Audre Lorde addresses the genocide of Palestinian people, nothing that: “Encouraging your congresspeople to press for a peaceful solution in the Middle East, and for recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people, is not altruism, it is survival.”

Photo Credit: Audre Lorde in Austin, Texas, 1980. Photo by K. Kendall. Wikimedia Commons.

“Our federal taxes contribute $3 billion yearly in military and economic aid to Israel. Over $200 million of that money is spent fighting the uprising of Palestinian people who are trying to end the military occupation of their homeland. Israeli solders fire tear gas canisters made in america into Palestinian homes and hospitals, killing babies, the sick, and the elderly...Encouraging your congresspeople to press for a peaceful solution in the Middle East, and for recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people, is not altruism, it is survival. ”
— Audre Lorde, Oberlin College Commencement Address, May 29, 1989

  • A Letter from 18 Writers, signed by Toni Morrison, August 18, 2006  

    • Toni Morrison, one of the most celebrated and critically acclaimed authors of our time,  was one of 18 writers who co-wrote and signed a letter as a call to resist Israel's undeclared political aim: the liquidation of the Palestinian state. 

    • The letter, which is titled, “A Letter from 18 Writers” was published on August 18, 2006 in The Nation and was a part of the magazine’s August 28, 2006 Print Issue. 

    • Other signatories included: John Berger, Noam Chomsky, Harold Pinter José Saramago, Eduardo Galeano, Arundhati Roy, Naomi Klein, Howard Zinn, Charles Glass, Richard Falk, Gore Vidal, Russell Banks, Thomas Keneally, Chris Abani, Carolyn Forché, Martín Espada, Jessica Hagedorn

Photo Credit: Bettman/Getty Images.

“Each provocation and counter-provocation is contested and preached over. But the subsequent arguments, accusations and vows, all serve as a distraction in order to divert world attention from a long-term military, economic and geographic practice whose political aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation.”
— “A Letter from 18 Writers”, signed by Toni Morrison and 17 other writers, August 18, 2006.

  • The Feminist Wire’s Forum on Palestine by Darnell L. Moore, January 26, 2012

    • The Feminist Wire’s (TFW) Editorial Collective Member, Darnell L. Moore returned from a trip to Israel/Palestine as a member of the first LGBTQI delegation to the Palestinian territories. He asked several US-based scholars, activists, and cultural workers, who also visited Palestine as members of US delegations, to offer critical reflections on their experiences. Part I of this forum included reflections from Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Katherine Franke, Lisa Weiner-Mahfuz, Roya Rastegar, Vani Natarajan, and Darnell L. Moore.

“Having grown up in the Jim Crow, apartheid South of Memphis, Tennessee, in the 50s, and having attended Spelman College in the Civil Rights mecca of Atlanta, Georgia, in the 60s, I was aware of the commonalities among oppressed people globally, as was the case with my sister travelers. But, “we wanted to see for ourselves the conditions under which Palestinian people live and struggle against what we can now confidently name as the Israeli project of apartheid...”
— Beverly Guy Sheftall, in The Feminist Wire’s Forum on Palestine, 2012

Photo of Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall. Photo Retrieved from UNC Chapel Hill.

“We call upon all people of conscience to stand with Palestine and to join the worldwide actions in which communities and civil society are stepping up in critical ways. We recognize that all our struggles for social, racial, gender, and economic justice and for self-determination are deeply interconnected and can only gain strength and power from one another. As Audre Lorde taught us, “When we can arm ourselves with the strength and vision from all our diverse communities then we will in truth all be free at last.”
— Statement in Solidarity with the Palestinian People of Gaza, 2014

Poetry

I was born a Black woman and now I am become a Palestinian

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I was born a Black woman and now I am become a Palestinian 〰️

“Didn’t you read the leaflets that they dropped
from their hotshot fighter jets?
They told you to go.
One hundred and thirty-five thousand
Palestinians in Beirut and why
didn’t you take the hint?
Go!
There was the Mediterranean: You
could walk into the water and stay
there.
What was the problem?”
— June Jordan, Apologies to All the People in Lebanon (2005)

June Jordan (1936-2002)

June Jordan posing for the cover of her book, Moving Towards Home. 1989. Gwen Philips.

Photo: Ntozake Shange, Reid Lecture, Women Issues Luncheon, Women's Center, November 1978. Photograph by Chris Woodrich. Wikimedia Commons.

Ntozake Shange (1948-2018)

“there is no edge
no end to the new world
cuz I have a daughter/ trinidad
I have a son/ san juan
our twins
capetown & palestine/ cannot speak the same
language/ but we fight the same old men
the same men who thought the earth waz flat
go on over the edge/ go on over the edge old men
you’ll see us in luanda, or the rest of us
in chicago
rounding out the morning/
we are feeding our children the sun”
— Ntozake Shange, Bocas: A Daughter's Geography (1983)

ISAIAH

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ISAIAH 〰️

Jean "Binta" Breeze (1956-2021)

Photo: Jean Binta Breeze at Humber Mouth, 2007. Photo by walnut whippet. Wikimedia Commons.

Jean "Binta" Breeze (1956 – 2021) was a Jamaican dub poet and storyteller, acknowledged as the first woman to write and perform dub poetry. She worked also as a theatre director, choreographer, actor, and teacher. She performed her work around the world, in the Caribbean, North America, Europe, South-East Asia, and Africa, and has been called "one of the most important, influential performance poets of recent years".

“Her poem, “Isaiah” caused controversy when the campaign group Human Rights Watch barred it from a fundraising event because it was seen as too pro-Palestinian.”

In response to the poem, Breeze said:

“It’s a very strong poem. It talks to Israel very strongly because I have very strong feelings about the situation in the Middle East and about the treatment of the Palestinian people in a land that is equally theirs. This is creating the kind of desperation that has led to suicide bombers.”
— Jean "Binta" Breeze

Part of the poem (which you can read in its entirety), reads:

ISAIAH
de iyaman
bow im head as im humbly stan
an big Israel come clean
to remember what love mean
an retreat from a murderous scene
stop pushing others to where you’ve been
you of all should find genocide obscene
God just might let yah een

Here, she said that this verse meant:

“I was saying that the Israelis were committing a genocide against the Palestinian people. There were years of killing of women and children by the right wing, although they say it wasn’t sanctioned by the government. A lot of Palestinian people were wiped out.”
— Jean "Binta" Breeze in "Jean Binta Breeze — ‘I translated Isaiah into a Rastaman preaching" (2005) by Kelly Hilditch

capetown & palestine/ cannot speak the same language/ but we fight the same old men

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capetown & palestine/ cannot speak the same language/ but we fight the same old men 〰️

PODCASTS

Photo Credit: Barbara Ransby by Danielle Scruggs for The New York Times.

“If we say we abolish the prison-industrial complex, as we do, we should also say abolish apartheid, and end the occupation of Palestine!”
— Angela Davis

Articles

Photo Credit: Angela Davis at Oregon State University. 2019. Wikimedia Commons.

The articles featured below are written from authors from an array of backgrounds: Black Women , Queer, and Transgender, and Gender Expansive, People of Color, Palestinian, Jewish, Non-Black People of Color, and Allied People in Solidarity with Palestine. The themes of this articles range from solidarity, race and racialization in Palestine, Afro-and-Black Palestinian perspectives, feminism, abolition, and more.

  • Arab and Black Feminisms: Joint Struggle and Transnational Anti-Imperialist Activism by Nadine Naber

    • This essay explores the conditions out of which a diasporic anti-imperialist Arab feminist group came into alignment with the Women of Color Resource Center. It focuses on the history and leaders of the Women of Color Resource Center and its roots in the 1960s and 1970s people of color and women of color based movements in the United States in order to map alliances among black feminist thought, radical women of color movements, and Palestinian de-colonization then and now.

End the occupation of Palestine

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End the occupation of Palestine 〰️

BOoks

what you’re prepared to do on behalf of the Palestinian people

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what you’re prepared to do on behalf of the Palestinian people 〰️

 

Videos

“There are two issues of our time really that I think amount to a litmus test for morality, as far as I am concerned: one is, what you’re prepared to do on behalf of the Palestinian people, and the other is, and what are you prepared to do on behalf of gay and lesbian people? I really feel that those two things are co-equal fundamentals in my worldview at this time.”
— June Jordan in A PLACE OF RAGE (1991), Directed and Produced by Pratibha Parmar

  • Black Lives, Black Freedom and the Indivisibility of Justice, July 21, 2020, Hosted by The Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Studies at San Francisco State University 

    • Black Lives, Black Liberation, and the Indivisibility of Justice came about in the process of Al-Adab developing its most recent file on “The US in Depth,” with its urgent emphasis on making the current historical moment, focusing on Black liberation and Black freedom struggle. Black liberation and indeed anti-colonial, anti-racist and anti-imperialist US struggles have been understood and embraced by Arab readers/publics in a comparative and historically contextualized theoretical and activist perspectives. This roundtable seeks to address some of these issues and more.

    • Participants: Dr. Angela Davis, Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Dr. Dayo Gore, Dr. Gerald Horne, Dr. Robin D.G. Kelley, Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi

  • Archiving Black Palestinian Solidarity: Visions of Liberation, 1968-2021

    • This video is a presentation of archival material on key moments of solidarity between Black American and Palestinian political movements from 1968 to 2021. It is an updated version of a work-in-progress started in 2018 by students and faculty at the Center for Palestine Studies, Studio X Amman at Columbia GSAPP, and the Columbia Global Center| Amman. Advised by Lila Abu-Lughod and Nora Akawi and edited by Rahaf Salahat, the video was prepared for an event and panel discussion on "Black-Palestinian Solidarity, 1968-2018" at Columbia University. It was included as a collateral event of Qalandia International IV, whose 2018 theme was Solidarity.

“[June Jordan] said her entire career had been brought to a halt in 1982 by the political stance she took in The Village Voice when she wrote a poem titled “Apologies to All the People in Lebanon” about the Israeli military’s massacre of Palestinians in the refugee camps in Sabra and Shatila. That same year, she wrote the poem “Moving towards Home” with those iconic words that pushed so many of us to extend ourselves beyond our demographic to make common cause with the most vulnerable, the most persecuted peoples: “I was born a Black woman and now I am become a Palestinian.”
— Sriram Shamasunder in “June Jordan’s Legacy of Love and Solidarity Remains” (2023)

Black Feminist Solidarity with Palestine

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Black Feminist Solidarity with Palestine 〰️

Archives

Third World Women’s Alliance (TWWA), Triple Jeopardy - Palestine

“Mid East Round-Up….A Palestinian Perspective” by Georgette Ioup (PDF) | Source: Women of Color Resource Flickr.

The Third World Women's Alliance (TWWA) was a revolutionary socialist organization for women of color active in the United States from 1968 to 1980. It aimed at ending capitalism, racism, imperialism, and sexism and was one of the earliest groups advocating for an intersectional approach to women's oppression. Members of the TWWA argued that women of color faced a "triple jeopardy" of race, gender, and class oppression. The TWWA worked to address these intersectional issues, internationally and domestically, specifically focusing much of their efforts in Cuba. Though the organization's roots lay in the Civil rights movement, it soon broadened its focus to include women of color in the US and women of the Third World.

Source: Click to View Document. Third Women of Color Resource Flickr.

“What effect has the recent war in the Middle East had on the Arab World? Recently we spoke with several Palestinians living in the U.S. to find out their response to this question. Although opinions differ, on several points there seemed to be a general agreement. The most immediate outcome of the war is the change it has brought in the attitude of the Arab people. There is no doubt that this war has given the Arab people a new confidence in themselves and their ability to stand up to Israel. One Palestinian, who recently returned from a visit with his family on the occupied West Bank, told us, “My aging parents have become encouraged and for the first time have hope of returning to their home inside of Israel.”
— “Mid East Round-Up….A Palestinian Perspective” by Georgette Ioup, Triple Jeopardy, Third World Women’s Alliance

ETHEL MINOR AND THE PALESTINE PROBLEM

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ETHEL MINOR AND THE PALESTINE PROBLEM 〰️

“Third World Round Up: The Palestine Problem: Test Your Knowledge” by Ethel Minor, SNCC Communications Director

Published in the June-July 1967 SNCC Newsletter, shortly after the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War. The article would be known as the SNCC Palestine’s Statement. Source: SNCC Digital Gateway.

The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC): In the early 1960s, young Black college students conducted sit-ins around America to protest the segregation of restaurants. Ella Baker, a Civil Rights activist and Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) official, invited some of those young Black activists (including Diane Nash, Marion Barry, John Lewis, and James Bevel) to a meeting at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina in April of 1960. From that meeting, the group formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). It was made up mostly of Black college students, who practiced peaceful, direct action protests. Ella Baker recommended that the group keep its autonomy and to not affiliate itself with the SCLC or other civil rights groups. 

In 1967, Ethel Minor (November 9, 1938 – September 21, 2022), civil rights activist, journalist, and SNCC Communications Director, wrote the article, “Third World Round Up: The Palestine Problem: Test Your Knowledge”, which was published in the June-July 1967 SNCC Newsletter, shortly after the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War. The article would be known as the SNCC Palestine’s Statement. Born in Chicago, Minor was working as Malcolm X’s secretary when he was assassinated in 1965. An editor of SNCC’s Newsletter, Minor also edited much of Stokely Carmichael’s political correspondence, and edited “Stokely Speaks”, his collection of speeches. 

Source: Click to View Document. Third World Round-Up: The Palestine Problem: Test Your Knowledge," SNCC Newsletter, June-July 1967, 4-5, crmvet.org. Retrieved from SNCC Digital.

Black Feminist Solidarity with Palestine

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Black Feminist Solidarity with Palestine 〰️

“Living Under Israeli Occupation”: Margo Okazawa-Rey Intercollegiate Women’s Studies Visiting Scholar

November 13, 2006

Screenshot of “Living Under Israeli Occupation”: Margo Okazawa-Rey Intercollegiate Women’s Studies Visiting Scholar. Posted on November 7, 2006 via Scripps College.

Feminist activist and scholar Margo Okazawa-Rey will present a lecture “Living Under Israeli Occupation,” Monday, November 13, 2006 at 4:15 p.m., in the Hampton Room, Malott Commons at Scripps College. 

Based on her recent experience in Palestine, Professor Okazawa-Rey will address the daily existence of Palestinian women living under Israeli occupation, the impact of the U.S. and Israeli-led boycott of Hamas leadership, and U.S.-based activists addressing the conflict. She will also discuss her personal experience living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as an American woman of color.

For nearly the past two years, Okazawa-Rey has been the Feminist Research Consultant at the Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling, with offices in East Jerusalem and Ramallah, where she is assisting in establishing a community-based feminist research unit and teaching feminist research methods to local women. Okazawa-Rey’s work in Palestine is an extension of her longstanding commitment to anti-militarist activism and to activist scholarship. She also is a professor at Fielding Graduate University and professor emerita of social work at San Francisco State University.

Source: Scripps College.

Black Feminist Solidarity with Palestine

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Black Feminist Solidarity with Palestine 〰️

The third Annual Walter rodney Speaker Series:

Pan-African/Palestinian Solidarities

April 23, 2015

Panelists: Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Jesse Benjamin, Bana Ghadbian, Ismail Khalidi, and Jasbiri X

Location: Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library

Flyer for Pan-African/Palestinian Solidarities event.

Maya Angelou Reads Rachel Corrie's Email

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Maya Angelou Reads Rachel Corrie's Email 〰️

Maya Angelou Reads An Email by Rachel Corrie at the Rachel’s Words event to honor the life of Rachel Corrie in 2012.

Source: “Maya Angelou stood with Palestinians, but Israeli military uses her for Black History Month hasbara” by Adam Horowitz 

Poet, author, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) stood in solidarity with the Palestinian people when she honored the late Rachel Corrie (April 10, 1979 – March 16, 2003), a 23-year-old American peace activist from Olympia, Washington, who was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer on March 16, 2003, while undertaking nonviolent direct action to protect the home of a Palestinian family from demolition.

The video below was produced to be part of the Rachel’s Words event to honor the life of Rachel Corrie in 2012.

Leaving Olympia

An email by Rachel Corrie, January 2003

Maya Angelou is reading Rachel’s email in the video above.

We are all born and someday we’ll all die. Most likely to some degree alone.What if our aloneness isn’t a tragedy? What if our aloneness is what allows us to speak the truth without being afraid? What if our aloneness is what allows us to adventure – to experience the world as a dynamic presence – as a changeable, interactive thing?

If I lived in Bosnia or Rwanda or who knows where else, needless death wouldn’t be a distant symbol to me, it wouldn’t be a metaphor, it would be a reality.

And I have no right to this metaphor. But I use it to console myself. To give a fraction of meaning to something enormous and needless.

This realization. This realization that I will live my life in this world where I have privileges.

I can’t cool boiling waters in Russia. I can’t be Picasso. I can’t be Jesus. I can’t save the planet single-handedly.

I can wash dishes.

Source: Rachel Corrie Foundation

The Committee of Black Americans for Truth About the Middle East

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The Committee of Black Americans for Truth About the Middle East 〰️

An Appeal by Black Americans Against United States Support for the Zionist Government of Israel by The Committee of Black Americans for Truth About the Middle East (C.O.B.A.T.A.M.E.)

November 1, 1970 | Published in the New York Times

Sources: pgs. 106-109 of Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color by Michael R. Fischback

Source: Black for Palestine

Image of statement by The Committee of Black Americans for Truth About the Middle East (C.O.B.A.T.A.M.E.) in the New York Times. Source: Black for Palestine.

“On November 1, 1970, a hard-hitting statement titled, “An Appeal by Black Americans Against United States Support for the Zionist Government of Israel” by The Committee of Black Americans for Truth About the Middle East (C.O.B.A.T.A.M.E.) denouncing Israel, hailing the Palestinians, and opposing U.S. military aid to Israel appeared in a full-page advertisement in the New York Times.”

An excerpt of the statement reads:

“We, the Black American signatories of this advertisement, are in complete solidarity with our Palestinian brothers and sisters, who, like us, are struggling for self-determination and an end to racist oppression…We stand with the Palestinian people to their efforts to preserve their revolution, and oppose its attempted destruction by American Imperialism aided by Zionists and Arab reactionaries.”

“...We are anti-Zionist and against the Zionist State of Israel, the outpost of American Imperialism in the Middle East. Zionism is a reactionary racist ideology that justifies the expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homes and lands, and attempts to enlist the Jewish masses of Israel and elsewhere in service of imperialism to hold back the Middle East revolution…WE STATE that the Palestinian Revolution is the vanguard of the Arab Revolution and is a part of the anti-colonial revolution which is going on in places such as Vietnam, Mozambique, Angola, Brazil, Laos, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Because of its alliance with imperialism, Zionism opposes the anti-colonial revolution and especially revolutionary change in the Middle East.”

“WE STATE that Israel, Rhodesia, and South Africa are three privileged white settler-states that come into existence by displacing the indigenous peoples from their lands.”

Read the full statement at Black For Palestine.

“We, the Black American signatories of this advertisement, are in complete solidarity with our Palestinian brothers and sisters, who, like us, are struggling for self-determination and an end to racist oppression…We stand with the Palestinian people to their efforts to preserve their revolution, and oppose its attempted destruction by American Imperialism aided by Zionists and Arab reactionaries.”
— The Committee of Black Americans for Truth About the Middle East (C.O.B.A.T.A.M.E.)

The Committee of Black Americans for Truth About the Middle East (C.O.B.A.T.A.M.E.) was co-founded by Paul B. Boutelle (who later changed his name to Kwame Montsho Ajamu Somburu), who served as chair; and co-chairs including writer Patricia Robinson; Lydia A. Williams, Adult Advisor of Youth Unlimited and members of the executive board of the American Committee on Africa; Gwendolyn Patton Woods, prominent civil rights activist, educator, and former national coordinator of the National Association of Black Students in Washington, D.C.; and attorney Robert F. Van Lierop.

Among the signatories of the statement included several Black women organizers such as:

  • Lydia A. Williams, Adult Advisor, Youth Unlimited, Co-Chairwoman of C.O.B.A.T.A.M.E.

  • Gwendolyn Patton Woods, Former National Coordinator of the National Association of Black Students, Co-Chairwoman of C.O.B.A.T.A.M.E.

  • Ella Little-Collins, (1914-1996), who led the Organization of Afro-American Unity after the assassination of her half-brother, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (formerly known as Malcolm X).

  • Una G. Mulzac, (April 19, 1923 – January 21, 2012), was an African American bookseller and founder of the Liberation Bookstore, a prominent African-American bookstore specializing in political and Black Power materials and was located in Harlem.

  • Frances M. Beal and Maxine Williams, members of the Third World Women’s Alliance, a revolutionary socialist organization for women of color active in the United States from 1968 to 1980.

  • Florynce “Flo” Kennedy, radical feminist, lawyer, and founder of the Feminist Party and founding member of the National Black Feminist Organization.

  • Jacqueline Rice of The Third World Task Force of the Student Mobilization Committee.

  • Halima Agila Toure, Editor-at-Large of Journal of Black Poetry.

  • Delores Cayou, Secretary, Black Faculty Union, San Francisco State College.

  • Cynthia Chambers, Member of American Federation of Teachers and Vice-President of Black Resistance Party.

Image of some of the Black women signatories of “An Appeal by Black Americans Against United States Support for the Zionist Government of Israel” by The Committee of Black Americans for Truth About the Middle East (C.O.B.A.T.A.M.E.). From top (left - right): Una G. Mulzac and Gwendolyn Patton Woods. From bottom (left - right): Ella Little-Collins and Florynce “Flo” Kennedy.

Winnie Mandela on Palestine

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Winnie Mandela on Palestine 〰️

Photo: Image of Winnie Mandela.

“Apartheid Israel can be defeated, just as apartheid in South Africa was defeated.”
— Winnie Mandela (2004), Addressing a meeting arranged by a Palestinian solidarity organization in Lenasia, Johannesburg

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (born Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela; September 26, 1936 - April 2, 2018), also known as Winnie Mandela, was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, and the second wife of Nelson Mandela. She served as a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2003, and from 2009 until her death, and was a deputy minister of arts and culture from 1994 to 1996. A member of the African National Congress (ANC) political party, she served on the ANC's National Executive Committee and headed its Women's League. Madikizela-Mandela was known to her supporters as the "Mother of the Nation".

While many people focus on Nelson Mandela’s solidarity with Palestine, many overlook Winnie Mandela’s political commitments to Palestine as well. As Adama Munu’s notes in “Reflections on Winnie Mandela's relationship with Palestine.”

”Winnie believed that the struggles in South Africa during colonial rule were a reflection of practices taking place against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and was in direct support of what she believed was an extension of South Africa's fight against inequality, stating in 2004: "Apartheid Israel can be defeated, just as apartheid in South Africa was defeated."  

“This comment came as she addressed a meeting arranged by a Palestinian solidarity organization in Lenasia, Johannesburg, and she was known to be a staunch supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.”

Photo: Meeting between Winnie Mandela with representatives from the Palestinian Embassy (including Ambassador Nofal), the Israeli Apartheid Week SA Team Convenor (Basheera Surty) and BDS South Africa’s Deputy Coordinator (Kwara Kekana). 2015. Photo Sources: BDS South Africa and Africa 4 Palestine.

Photos: Meeting between Winnie Mandela with representatives from the Palestinian Embassy (including Ambassador Nofal), the Israeli Apartheid Week SA Team Convenor (Basheera Surty) and BDS South Africa's Deputy Coordinator (Kwara Kekana). BDS South Africa and Africa 4 Palestine.

Shirley Graham Dubois and Palestine

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Shirley Graham Dubois and Palestine 〰️

On Imperialism, Neocolonialism, and Africa, A Speech by Shirley Graham Du Bois (1970), Speaking at UCLA

Source: Color Collective Press and Abolition Notes

Photo:  Portrait of Shirley Graham (1896-1977), later Shirley Graham Du Bois, by Carl Van Vechten, taken July 18, 1946. Wikimedia Commons.

Sources: Text source and PDF Transcript of “Imperialism, Neocolonialism, and Africa” (1970), A Speech by Shirley Graham Du Bois by Color Collective Press and Abolition Notes:

“Shirley Graham Du Bois (November 11, 1896 – March 27, 1977) was an accomplished writer, educator, and activist who dedicated her life to fighting for civil rights, gender equality, and social justice. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, she grew up in a family of educators and activists.”

“In the 1950s, she became involved in the Pan-African movement and worked to promote unity and independence among African nations from imperialist and neocolonial domination. In the 1960s, Shirley Graham Du Bois was an active participant in the civil rights movement and was involved in the organization of the 1963 March on Washington. She was a member of the Communist Party USA, which was considered a radical organization during the Cold War era, and openly criticized the United States government’s foreign policy and its involvement in the Vietnam War.”

“There can be no stopping of the struggles of people who have been oppressed, who have been dispossessed. And who have suffered from exploitation. They are not going to lie down and accept any piece of the grave. They don’t want that.”
— Shirley Graham Du Bois

“Despite facing criticism and even harassment from government agencies for her political views, Shirley Gra- ham DuBois remained committed to fighting for social justice and equality until the end of her life. She con- tinued to write and advocate for social justice until her death in 1977.”

“...South Africa and Palestine land some 3500 miles apart, but each the concern of the same imperialist interests – each sacrificed in the name of western peoples and British Empire
building.”
— Shirley Graham Du Bois, On Imperialism, Neocolonialism, and Africa (1970)

“On Imperialism, Neocolonialism, and Africa” Speech (1970)

“After returning from Africa, Shirley Graham Du Bois gave this speech at UCLA organized by Nommo (university newspaper), the African-American Studies Center, the Black Student union at UCLA in 1970. In addition to speaking on imperialism, black liberation, and pan-africanism, she was a strong advocate for the rights of Palestinian people and spoke out against Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.”

“Despite facing criticism and even harassment from government agencies for her political views, Shirley Graham DuBois remained committed to fighting for justice and equality until the end of her life.”

She continued to write and advocate for social justice until her death in 1977, leaving behind a powerful legacy as a writer, educator, and activist who dedicated her life to making the world a better place.”

Read the full transcript.

Source: Color Collective Press and Abolition Notes

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