Description
Based upon exhaustive research in all presidential libraries from Hoover to Clinton, the voluminous archives of the African National Congress (ANC) at Fort Hare University in South Africa, along with allied archives of the NAACP, the Ford and Rockefeller fortunes, etc., this is the most comprehensive account to date of the entangled histories of apartheid and Jim Crow that culminated in 1994 with the election of Nelson Mandela as president.
Gerald Horne traces the close ties between Nelson Mandela, Paul Robeson, and W.E.B. Du Bois – among others – and how their working in tandem with the socialist camp (particularly the Soviet Union and Cuba) was the deciding factor (along with the struggles of Africans and their allies on both sides of the Atlantic) in compelling the reluctant retreat of the comrades-in-arms: apartheid and Jim Crow. However, weeks after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the apartheid regime chose to free Mandela and to legalize the ANC and its close ally, the South African Communist Party – while anticommunism, a major ideological weapon of the ruling class in Washington and Pretoria alike, surged – putting the Mandela government in a weakened position in the prelude to the nation’s first democratic elections in 1994 and thereafter.
Also detailed in these riveting pages are the allied struggles in Namibia, Angola, Zimbabwe, Congo, Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique, along with the massive solidarity movement in the U.S. – particularly among unions and students – that contributed mightily to victory.
This is a story well worth studying as we continue to combat anticommunism – and struggle for socialism.
Simbi Mubako –
The narrative is as lucid as that of a novel. It should be required
reading for all who want to understand Africans and the people of
African descent. White Supremacy Confronted is a historical
demonstration of the seamlessness of the struggle for human dignity.
Simbi Mubako, former Ambassador of Zimbabwe to USA
jwendland –
This is one of the most important historical books of the year. Its account of the liberation movements in Southern Africa, the anti-apartheid movement in the US and globally, and the white supremacy-imperialist-capitalist struggle to control the situation is riveting. At 840 some pages it is great for quarantine reading, but it is also a stunning piece of historical writing that demands wide circulation
Victor Mashabela –
I just got hold of this book on Southern Africa and have just finished reading it, what a worthwhile read! I found the book rewarding because it is akin to us “writing our own story”.
The latter portion of the book is most interesting for obvious reasons. For one thing, I feel like one has lived that part. More importantly, perhaps, this is a portion of the story that is still unfolding—further to be shaped. Needless to say, I could not read this latter portion without wondering what this or the other comrade was now doing.
We—all of us–owe Dr. Horne a great debt of gratitude for the tributes he has rendered for the lives of struggle that make up the book!!
A TRULY GREAT WORK!!
Victor Mashabela
Former ANC representative to the United Nations
Present Director of the Department of Trade and Industry of South Africa
American Historical Review –
https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/126/2/768/6365107