Black Revolutionary: William Patterson and the Globalization of the Freedom Struggle & Libya

Africa World Now Project

[Originally produced in 2017]

William Patterson, a leader of the Communist Party USA, was an eminent civil rights attorney who spearheaded defense of the Scottsboro Nine, Black youth in Alabama framed on phony rape charges in 1932.

Patterson was a radical visionary who understood that African world struggle for freedom has in essence a struggle for human rights. Not human rights as practiced and theorized from a racialized, elitist Westernized perspective, but from a holistic, communal position.

In this regard, Patterson, much like Sylvia Wynter, seeks to restore to our conception of human life the framework of a direction, a telos.

In the mid 1930's Patterson went to Cuba to set up the Cuban International Labor Defense and to organize support for those fighting the dictatorship of Batista.

In 1951, We Charge Genocide: the Crime of Government, a petition on behalf of African descended persons in the United States charging the U.S. government with the crime of genocide was published by the Civil Rights Congress and was presented to the United Nations General Assembly in Paris by Patterson and to the United Nations Secretariat in New York by Paul Robeson.

For this act, Patterson was charged with contempt of Congress because he refused to divulge the names of contributors to the Civil Rights Congress and its bail fund as well as the names of the organizations to which he belonged. Patterson served ninety days in the Federal House of Detention in New York and in the Federal Penitentiary at Danbury, Connecticut on contempt charges in 1954-55.

In May of 1969, he joined the defense team of attorneys for Huey P. Newton of the Black Panther Party. He served as a trustee of the Angela Davis Legal Defense Fund and of the National Legal Defense fund.

Taking a moment to impress upon you the deep visionary perspective and impact of the We Charge Genocide petition, on preparing and submitting, Patterson stated: “To me, it seemed clear that the Charter and Conventions of the UN had to be made the property of Black America…It could be made the instrumentality through which the ‘Negro Question’ could be lifted to its highest dimension.”

Today, we will listen to Gerald Horne reflect on the life and work of William Patterson, through a discuss of his book, which was published by University of Illinois Press and released Oct 2013, titled Black Revolutionary: William Patterson and the Globalization of the African American Freedom Struggle.

Gerald Horne is the John and Rebecca Moores Professor of History at the University of Houston.

After Dr. Horne, we turn our attention to the situation and conditions of African Migrants in Libya. Joining us for this discussion is Mwiza Munthali, executive producer, human rights activist, and international journalist who recently caught up with Nunu Kidane.

Ms. Nunu Kidane is the Director of Priority Africa Network and editor of AfricaMoves: A Pan African Migration Platform which hosts regular consultations on migration policy around Africa and the diaspora. Ms. Kidane is founder and current steering committee member of the Pan African Network in Defense of Migrants’ Rights (PANiDMR) and the Black Immigration Network (BIN). In 2012, Nunu Kidane received award from the White House as "Champion of Change" for work with African diaspora communities.

Our show was produced today in solidarity with the native, indigenous, African and Afro-descended communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana; and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all people.