Fighting for Africa: The Pan-African Contributions of Ambassador Dudley J. Thompson and Bill Sutherland

73 Pages·2010·0.42 MB·English

by  Robert Johnson

University Press of America®, Inc.
publishing across academic disciplines since 1975
Fighting for Africa captures the commitment and contributions of two men who dedicated
their lives to the fi ght to free Africa from colonialism and racism. Ambassador Dudley
The Pan-African Contributions of Ambassador
Thompson, though born in the West Indies, became a British barrister. Thompson lived

in Africa, where he provided essential legal services to Jomo Kenyatta when he was a Dudley J. Thompson and Bill Sutherland
defendant in the infamous Mau Mau trials of the 1950s and when Kenyatta became the
FIGHTING
president of independent Kenya. In addition, Ambassador Thompson drafted the consti-
tution for newly independent Tanzania and served as legal advisor to its president, Julius
Nyerere. Bill Sutherland, born in the United States, took an early stand against war and FOR AFRICA
militarism in the 1940s and, as a result, was imprisoned by the United States government
with other peace advocates of the period, such as David Dellinger. Upon release from
prison, Bill Sutherland emigrated to pre-independence Gold Coast, where he worked as Edited by Robert Johnson, Jr.
an advisor to President Kwame Nkrumah.
Both men were very instrumental in the early Pan-African movement and participated in
the 1945 conference in Manchester, England. There they worked with such Pan-African
greats as Amy Garvey, W.E.B. Du Bois, C.L.R. James, and George Padmore.
Fighting for Africa is a seminal text for college, university, and legal audiences in that it
chronicles the development of the concept of Pan-Africanism and applies its tenets to the
processes of de-colonization and nationalism (nation-building) in Africa. The text will
be indispensable to students and scholars throughout the African Diaspora who desire a
clear understanding of Pan-Africanism as both a philosophy and practicum.
Robert Johnson, Jr. is a professor of Africana studies at the University of Massachusetts-
Boston, a playwright, and an attorney. He has published extensively in the fi eld of African-
COVER IMAGE
American history, most notably Race, Law and Public Policy: Cases and Materials on Law
MUST BE FULL BLEED, 300 DPI AND
and Public Policy of Race, 3rd Edition; Shona (with Gary N. Van Wyk); Why Blacks Left
America for Africa: Interviews with BlaEcQk EUxApaLt riTaOtes , T1H97E1– T19R99IM; N aSnItZucEke tO’s FPe oTpHleE o f BCOoloOr:K
Essays on History, Politics and Community; and Returning Home: A Century of African-
American Repatriation.
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Fighting for Africa
The Pan-African Contributions
of Ambassador Dudley J.
Thompson and Bill Sutherland
Edited by
Robert Johnson, Jr.
UNIVERSITY PRESS OF AMERICA,® INC.
Lanham (cid:129) Boulder (cid:129) New York (cid:129) Toronto (cid:129) Plymouth, UK
Copyright © 2010 by
University Press of America,® Inc.
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Printed in the United States of America
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ISBN: 978-0-7618-4791-5 (paperback : alk. paper)
eISBN: 978-0-7618-4792-2
(cid:2) ™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of American National Standard for Information
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ANSI Z39.48-1992
Africa unite:
‘Cause we’re moving right out of Babylon,
And we’re going to our Father’s land, yea-ea.
How good and pleasant it would be before God and man, yea-eah!
To see the unification of our Africans, yeah!
As it’s been said a’ready, let it be done, yeah!
We are the children of the Rastaman;
We are the children of the Iyaman.
Bob Marley
(“Africa Unite” from Survival album)

Contents
Preface vii
Introduction 1
Pan-African Consciousness 2
Pan-African Movements 4
Ambassador Dudley J. Thompson 11
Early Life and Development 11
Pan-African Activism 20
Maturation of Pan-African Thought 43
Bill Sutherland 45
Early Life and Development 45
Pan-African Consciousness and Activism 46
Conclusions 53
Bibliography 57
Index 61
v

Preface
Over the past fifteen years I have had the opportunity to interview two of the
giants of Pan-Africanism: Ambassador Dudley Thompson and Bill Suther-
land. I first met Ambassador Thompson at an event at the Caribbean Cultural
Center in Roxbury, Massachusetts. He had been invited to give a talk about
reparations in the African world. Because I had an academic interest in the
subject, I attended, and that meeting opened my eyes to his illustrious career
as a Pan-African attorney. Furthermore, the fact that he was speaking in the
heart of Boston’s black community, rather than at a university, revealed the
true depth of his commitment to the African diasporic community. From that
initial meeting in 1993, I have met with Ambassador Thompson and obtained
his story through face-to-face and telephonic interviews.
I first met Bill Sutherland in Roxbury, Massachusetts when I was invited
by Muriel and Otto Snowden (founders of Freedom House) to their home to
hear Bill talk about his life in Ghana, West Africa. The fact that Muriel and
Otto, two pillars of Boston’s Black community, hosted the talk was enough
to draw a sizable crowd from Boston’s black leadership. To our surprise we
learned that Bill was the brother of Muriel. As a young professor I pursued a
series of interviews with Bill Sutherland and when he arrived in Dar Es Sa-
laam, Tanzania, East Africa in 1972 I conducted an extensive interview with
him, but unfortunately lost the tape. So, when I unexpectedly met him at the
African Studies Conference in Nashville, Tennessee in 2000 I conducted the
short interview that is contained in this book.
At last I have been able to organize these interviews during my sabbatical
in Charlotte, North Carolina. I owe a great deal of gratitude to many friends
in Charlotte who provided love and support for my work. In particular I
acknowledge the generosity of Valerie Todd and the Todd family and Jason
Palmer. Without their support this project could not have been completed.
vii

Introduction
Pan-Africanism, an evolving concept of African unity and self-help, has been
a part of the African consciousness for over three centuries. From the first
day, when African men and women were taken from Africa into slavery, until
the present, they have never forgotten their connection to the ancestral home.
Despite the separation of time and inhumane conditions, significant propor-
tions of the African population in the diaspora never ceased viewing them-
selves as a displaced people or recognizing their responsibility to the struggle
to free Africa from slavery, colonialism, and neo-colonialism.
This book is a series of interviews with two leading Pan-African activists
and thinkers of the past century, Dudley J. Thompson and Bill Sutherland.
They are from two different parts of the world, Panama/Jamaica and Glen
Ridge, New Jersey and in the proud traditions of earlier Pan-Africanists,
developed a clear Pan-African consciousness and engaged in sustained work
on behalf of Africa.
How do we put the contributions of these men into the historical context
of Pan-Africanism? The answer to this question will lie, in part, upon how
we define the concept. Tony Martin, the world’s leading authority on Marcus
Mosiah Garvey, defines Pan-Africanism “ . . . as the attempts by African
peoples to link up their struggles for their mutual benefit.”1 At the heart of
this definition is the notion that, regardless of where African people are found
in the world, they are children of Africa and therefore possess a profound re-
sponsibility to the continent and its offspring. This conceptual notion of unity
and concerted action has been expressed in the literature of intellectuals as
well as in the pop culture of the masses. The former expression was ably rep-
resented in the five congresses that began in 1900, and culminated in the 1945
gathering that involved the leading black thinkers of the era. Peter Tosh, on
the other hand, one of the greatest pop artists of the twentieth century, defined
11