We Are Internationalists: Prexy Nesbitt and the Fight for African Liberation

This muscular political biography from historian Biondi (The Black Revolution on Campus) uses the life of activist Prexy Nesbitt to explore America’s long and troubled entanglements in southern Africa as well as the “dynamic and evolving ideological character” of the U.S.-Africa solidarity movement. A Chicago native, Nesbitt (b. 1944) became politically active during the civil rights movement, then later in Mozambique, Angola, and South Africa as an adviser for the Clinton administration. As he moved from street organizer to state consultant, Nesbitt’s sense of injustice expanded and deepened. Biondi shows how Nesbitt’s work overseas informed his pivot from “Black nationalist-inflected Pan-Africanism” to a multicultural, anti-imperial politics that centered socialist policies over “simple nationalism.” In hyper-detailed if sometimes methodical prose, Biondi makes the case that Nesbitt’s template—and specifically his prescient sense of the interconnected nature of anti-imperial struggle—has plenty to teach activists today. Along the way, she spotlights nefarious U.S.-backed efforts in Africa, like those of the 1970s paramilitary group Renamo that bedeviled several nascent African democracies. This rigorous and rousing movement history commemorates an under-celebrated international struggle with an eye to excavating its best lessons. (Nov.)