In December of 1971 the Black Panther Party expanded to Australia. This might seem an odd place for a quintessentially African American political force, but as Jacynda Ammons reveals in this expansive work, Aboriginal Australians had long looked to the example of African Americans in their fight against white supremacy. Against a background of Australia's history of colonization and racialization, We Are Black, Too traces Aboriginal Australians' adoption of strains of Black activism from Marcus Garvey through the Civil Rights Movement and ultimately the Black Panther Party. In 1971 an International Section of the Black Panther Party was established in Algeria, but as Ammons shows, it was not until the demise of this section and a "split" within the party in the United States that a chapter of the Black Panther Party was formed in Australia. Tapping archival research from the United States and Australia, and in light of the emphasis on international activism by Huey P. Newton and the Oakland Panthers, We Are Black, Too explores the links between the American and Australian chapters of the BPP. As it brings to light these unexpected connections, the book adds to our understanding of both the Black Panther movement and Aboriginal activism in Australia. And as it expands the larger analysis of "transnational blackness" and the global Black Diaspora, it offers powerful insights, and holds valuable lessons, for the activism and internationalism of African Americans today in movements of global solidarity to end systemic racism.
Jacynda Ammons is Academic Program Director of Liberal Arts and Assistant Professor of History at National Park College.
"Provocative, impressive, and exhaustively researched, this thoughtful study chronicles the Australian Black Panther Party's short-lived history, traces the group's protests and organizing as a local community rights unit, and showcases the Party's international activists' triumphs on the world stage. A must-read for scholars and activists alike." -Jakobi Williams, From the Bullet to the Ballot: The Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party and Racial Coalition Politics in Chicago "Ammons's extended timeline, fine use of underutilized primary sources from Australian archives, and expanded geography of envisioned and actualized Black Power from Marcus M. Garvey, Jr. to the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense constitute some of the most fascinating aspects of her study."-Bertis D. English, Civil Wars, Civil Beings, and Civil Rights in Alabama's Black Belt: A History of Perry County
