Essential Soldiers: Women Activists in Pan-African Cultural Nationalist Organization

Essential Soldiers: Women Activists in Pan-African Cultural Nationalist Organization explores the memories and motivations of women who helped mold Pan-African cultural nationalism through challenging, refining, and reshaping organizations influenced by Kawaida, the Black liberation philosophy that gave rise to Kwanzaa. This book focuses on female advocates in the Us Organization, Committee for a Unified Newark and the Congress of African People, the East, and Ahidiana. Emphasizing the years 1965 through the mid-to-late 1980s, the work delves into the women’s developing sense of racial and gender consciousness against the backdrop of the Black Power Movement. 

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Kenja McCray is Assistant Professor of History in the Department of Humanities at Clayton State University and coauthor of Atlanta Metropolitan State College, a campus history.