Pasifika Black

“Pasifika Black is an exceptionally brilliant, well-researched, and powerful account of how Black and Brown freedom fighters mobilized across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans to challenge racism, colonialism, and white supremacy. It represents the very best of the new scholarship on Black internationalism.” - Keisha N. Blain, co-editor of the #1 New York Times bestseller Four Hundred Souls and author of Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America “Pasifika Black advances and problematizes scholarly conceptions of the ‘Black Pacific’ and ‘Afro-Asian solidarity,’ as well as highlighting histories that have not been included in dominant historical examinations of African Diaspora radicalism and twentieth-century Black internationalist movements. This is a groundbreaking contribution.” - Robeson Taj Frazier, University of Southern California “Pasifika Black enriches an emerging literature tracing underexplored strands of black internationalism in the twentieth century. Swan demonstrates that black Pacific activists actively built solidarity with other African Diaspora subjects in the 1960s and 70s, even as Pan Africanists and internationalists elsewhere focused on struggles in Southern Africa and other more visible locales. In Pasifika Black we learn that political actors in often-overlooked corners of the African Diaspora bolstered local freedom quests and forged international linkages through radical reappropriations of black identity. Swan’s impressive scope and multidisciplinary approach open new vistas on the politics of global liberation.” - Russell Rickford, author of We Are an African People: Independent Education, Black Power, and the Radical Imagination “Serves as a mouthpiece to the many voices that have been silenced as a by-product of the colonialist and Eurocentric attitudes traditionally marking studies on Oceania. Having conducted research in a number of Pacific archives, the scope and depth of Swan’s work is impressive. Moreover, he acknowledges the rich oral traditions of Pacific societies by interviewing key Melanesian figures. It is my hope that Pasifika Black will spark further publications on decolonization in the Pacific from the lens of the inhabitants of the Pacific.” (The Journal of Pacific History)

Quito Swan is Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University Bloomington. He is the author of Black Power in Bermuda: The Struggle for Decolonization and Pauulu’s Diaspora: Black Internationalism and Environmental Justice.