Ratoon
In 1969, there was a slight crack in the monolithic hegemony in the PNC and PPP’s organizational dominance on campus when Ratoon, a radical group comprised of academics and students, was established. The birth of this grouping led to a more multi-racial dynamic presence among students and faculty. Professors Clive Thomas, Josh Ramsammy and Omawale, and students Bonita Harris and Zinul Bacchus were prominent in this group.
Ratoon, like the ASCRIA possessed its own monthly publication. At its organizational height it published and circulated an estimated 3,000 copies of its newspaper. Apart from its absorption in the university, Ratoon challenged, with a strident anti-imperial voice, foreign penetration of the economy while providing support for labour struggles in which ASCRIA was also quite influential. Like ASCRIA and IPRA, Ratoon had its own limits. Clive Thomas clarified its activist hub and limits. He states Ratoon was a
“cultural group, yes, but also a politically-ideological group, in the most basic sense, in that we feel that we are fighting against centuries of the mystique, effects and wrong headedness of an alien ideology…we are not a political party, in our sense of the definition, We are no Office seekers..”
In other words, this was multiracial composition of students and faculty in one organisation representing a new dimension in university politics. This multiracial composition and unity was not long afterwards tested, as Zinul Bacchus discloses, with the visit of famed black power leader, Stokeley Carmichael (Kwame Ture). On his visit to Guyana in 1970 as a guest of Ratoon, Carmichael (later Kwame Ture) told a Queens’s College audience that Black power was only for people of African desc...
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... signaled a serious fall-out with the ruling political party. As if this were not enough, it was accompanied by ASCRIA’s criticism of the government response to striking workers in the bauxite industry. Kwayana likewise resigned from his position of Chairman of the state-controlled Guyana Marketing corporation in 1971.
By 1972, the breach between the PNC and ASCRIA was so pronounced that policemen searched the home of Kwayana for “guns, ammunition and explosives.’ The actions of Eusi Kwayana and ASCRIA are not to be underestimated as a crucial break with the old politics. This fallout had been simmering for a while even though, as David Hinds indicates, “between 1964 and 1971, the society supported the PNC on the basis of African solidarity.” According to Edward Greene, the formal split between ASCRIA and the PNC was announced in April 1973 by ASCRIA.
Stewart’s essay “The Field and Function of Black Studies”, he implies that black history is dominated by continuing challenges by its critics and the weak attachment of many scholars to the black studies movement and to black studies units even when the research of such scholars examines the black experience (pg. 45). Statistics show that 70.2 percent indicated that the number of full-time faculty members who have appointments outside black studies and another academic units is stable, proving the fact that black studies has established a beachhead in higher education. This statistic demonstrates how things have been stable in terms of growing the teachings of black studies, which causes challenges. A challenge that can be seen from this issue, is the lack of financial support available to faculty and students. Small budgets are provided to Black Study departments at many universities, therefore, making it difficult to purchase materials and hire more educated, experienced staff
For almost two hundred years, Historically Black Colleges and Universities or HBCUs have played a pivotal role in the education of African-American people, and negro people internationally. These schools have provided the majority of black college graduates at the Graduate and Post-Graduate level; schools such as Hampton University, Morehouse University, Spellman University and Howard University are four universities at the forefront of the advanced education of blacks. For sometime there has been a discussion on whether or not these institutes should remain in existence or if they are just another form of racism. There were also concerning the quality of education provided at these institutions. In my opinion, from the evidence provided in our own world today, HBCUs are very important and significant in the education of black people throughout the nation, and are essential to our society.
In short, despite the diplomatic radicalization of the PNC's foreign policy in the 1970s, it was true that Guyana’s United Nations voting record between “1966-69 was identical to the US position.”
Ogbar, Jeffrey. Black Power Radical Politics and African American Identity. Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 2004, 124.
Although initially a Party seeking to inspire the independence of the African American community from the control of the government, this image was changed during the course of the movement in the wake of opposition and issues regarding the Party’s image. In the later years of the Party focus was placed on helping the community of Oakland, California in order to gain political ground both on the local and later national level; this was done by educating the community as well as by offering assistance to the African American population, regardless of membership. In the end the Party was successful in making some political ground, but its later approach during the occupation of Merritt College and the public image of the Party’s inner circle brought about its decline and eventual dissolution in 1980. In the examination of the roots of the Party she emphasizes the importance that the Southern migrants had on the future movement; though they did not play as large a role in the Party as the youth did, the ideals and social structures of the old generation greatly inspired the Party and its rise to prominence.
In 1969, at its ninth national convention, the organization of college-age activists known as the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was in disarray. Having formed only nine years earlier, it became the ideological basis for the New Left -- highly critical of the government’s policies on war and most importantly, fervent supporters of racial equality. By its ninth national convention, it had grown to be 100,000 members strong, consisting of various alliances and parties, with over 300 chapters all across the continental United States. During the convention, the turmoil of its own inner-politics and conflict between parties lead to a splintering (Green, “The Weather Underground”). The expulsion of the Worker-Student Alliance and the Progressive Labor party by the Revolutionary Youth Movement was strategic -- a coup...
The Black Panther Party was born to elevate the political, social, and economic status of Blacks. The means the Party advocated in their attempt to advance equality were highly unconventional and radical for the time, such as social programs for under privileged communities and armed resistance as a means of self preservation. The Party made numerous contributions to Black’s situation as well as their esteem, but fell victim to the ‘system’ which finds it nearly impossible to allow Blacks entry into the dominant culture. Thus, the rise and fall of a group of Black radicals, as presented by Elaine Brown in A Taste of Power, can be seen to represent the overall plight of the American Black: a system which finds it impossible to give Blacks equality.
...cy." Western Journal Of Black Studies 28.1 (2004): 327-331. Academic Search Premier. Web. 18 Sept. 2013.
Allen goes on to explain and support his views on black neocolonialism. He does so by illustrating his views of black power, from the original conception of the term, and the history of effort towards giving the black community political influence. Continuing from this ...
5) Online University of the left RSS. “The Forbidden History of the Black Panther Party”. Web. May 07 2014.
When talking about the history of African-Americans at the turn of the twentieth century, two notable names cannot be left out; Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Du Bois. They were both African-American leaders in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s, fighting for social justice, education and civil rights for slaves, and both stressed education. This was a time when blacks were segregated and discriminated against. Both these men had a vision to free blacks from this oppression. While they came from different backgrounds, Washington coming from a plantation in Virginia where he was a slave, and Du Bois coming from a free home in Massachusetts, they both experienced the heavy oppression blacks were under in this Post-Civil War society. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Du Bois were both pioneers in striving to obtain equality for blacks, yet their ways of achieving this equality were completely different. W.E.B Du Bois is the more celebrated figure today since he had the better method because it didn’t give the whites any power, and his method was intended to achieve a more noble goal than Washington’s.
Roebuck, Julian B., and Komanduri S. Murty. Historically Black Colleges and Universities: Their Place in American Higher Education. Westport: Praeger, 1993. Print.
The aspect of African-American Studies is key to the lives of African-Americans and those involved with the welfare of the race. African-American Studies is the systematic and critical study of the multidimensional aspects of Black thought and practice in their current and historical unfolding (Karenga, 21). African-American Studies exposes students to the experiences of African-American people and others of African descent. It allows the promotion and sharing of the African-American culture. However, the concept of African-American Studies, like many other studies that focus on a specific group, gender, and/or creed, poses problems. Therefore, African-American Studies must overcome the obstacles in order to improve the state of being for African-Americans.
At a young age, Malcolm saw the ways in which blacks were seen as inferior, when his father supported an organization that promoted the return of blacks to Africa. Malcolm watched at a young...
Phillip, Mary-Christine. "Yesterday Once More: African-Americans Wonder If New Era Heralds," Black Issues in Higher Education. (July 1995).