Black-Palestinian Solidarity: 1968 / 2018

Part of Qalandiya International IV Collateral Events

BLACK-PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY: 1968 / 2018

on Thursday, October 18th at 6pm

at Wood Auditorium Avery Hall, Columbia University 1172 Amsterdam Ave, New York

The late 1960s saw the emergence of a militant Black-Palestinian solidarity, epitomized by the meeting between members of the Black Panthers and members of the Palestinian Liberation Movement at the Pan-African Cultural Festival in Algiers in 1969. Fueled by anti-imperialism, they saw their struggles as revolutionary, militant, and internationalist. Fifty years on, new forms of solidarity and new politics on the ground have emerged. How should we understand these solidarities across different historical moments, sites, and racial formations?

Panel presentations and discussion:

‘Spirit in Opposition’: Malcolm X, the Black Panthers and the Question of Palestine by Hamzah Baig, Yale University

Black Power for Palestine: Solidarity Politics Then and Now by Robyn Spencer, City University of New York

Iterations of the Racial State by Nadia Abu El-Haj, Barnard College and Columbia University

Moderated by: Lila Abu-Lughod and Nora Akawi, Columbia University

The panel discussion will be followed by the video presentation Visions of Liberation and Solidarity: 1968 / 2018, with archival material on key moments of solidarity between African-American and Palestinian political movements from 1968 to the present.

Researched by Meitha Al Mazrooei, Che Gossett, A. Firestone, and Adrien Zakar, and edited by Hicham Faraj. Commissioned by the Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University and Studio-X Amman at Columbia University GSAPP and the Columbia Global Center in Amman, with advisors Nora Akawi and Lila Abu-Lughod.

The event is co-sponsored by the Center for Palestine Studies, Studio-X Amman at Columbia University GSAPP and the Columbia Global Center in Amman, the Institute for Research on African American Studies, and the Heyman Center for the Humanities.