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View the page of Wendell Nii Laryea Adjetey

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By contending that twentieth-century global Black liberation movements began within the U.S.-Canadian borderlands as cross-border, continental struggles, Wendell Nii Laryea Adjetey discusses the revolutionary legacies of the Underground Railroad and America’s Great Migration and the hemispheric and transatlantic dimensions of this history.

Image courtesy of interviewee. December 12, 2023

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The speaker discusses the long journey of writing a book that stems from their experiences working in youth gang intervention and prevention in North Toronto, along with their pursuit of a doctorate starting in 2012. Their work involved engaging with black communities struggling with intractable issues related to race and poverty, raising questions about why some communities overcome challenges while others do not. The speaker's doctorate research revealed troubling historical patterns of systemic oppression faced by people of African descent, which they argue are often manufactured by colonial and imperial structures.

The book aims to examine the dynamics of black organizing and the state's violent measures to suppress black self-determination. The speaker highlights counterintelligence programs, particularly COINTELPRO, which aimed at surveilling and undermining black civil rights activists throughout the mid-20th century. They reveal that the U.S. government considered black nationalism and organizing as significant domestic threats, justifying extensive surveillance and violent suppression of black social movements.

The discussion includes themes of identity and empowerment among black communities, especially from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. The speaker notes a strong interest in African history, with black activists and intellectuals seeking knowledge to inform their own understanding of racial identity and history. In summary, the speaker's work is concentrated on exploring the historical and ongoing struggles for black empowerment, identity, and the systemic forces that have worked against these movements.

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00:00.145 --> 00:03.685
So this book has been in the makings for many, many years.

00:03.785 --> 00:05.725
Um, I started my doctorate in 2012.

00:06.225 --> 00:09.725
Um, but before pursuing my doctorate, I, I worked in,

00:09.725 --> 00:11.485
youth gang intervention,

00:11.545 --> 00:13.005
and prevention in North Toronto.

00:13.545 --> 00:16.445
Um, and it was over the course of that work in terms

00:16.445 --> 00:20.045
of community organizing, engaging various, stakeholders,

00:20.305 --> 00:22.685
certainly elders in the community, working very closely

00:22.715 --> 00:25.045
with our young people, where I realized

00:25.045 --> 00:29.445
that there were some very seriously intractable issues,

00:29.745 --> 00:32.245
in inner city, sort of post-industrial environments

00:32.245 --> 00:36.365
that were very racialized, very black, working poor,

00:36.745 --> 00:40.165
first generation, immigrants or,

00:40.265 --> 00:42.485
or multi-generation Canadians,

00:42.485 --> 00:43.925
but who were of African descent.

00:43.925 --> 00:47.205
And so I was asking many questions, how is it that,

00:47.495 --> 00:49.405
there are certain challenges that,

00:49.405 --> 00:52.285
other communities have managed to surmount,

00:52.465 --> 00:55.685
but people of African descent have been managed in the

00:55.685 --> 00:56.845
same successful way?

00:57.145 --> 00:59.725
And so the course of asking questions while I was working,

00:59.925 --> 01:01.565
I decided to pursue my doctorate.

01:01.565 --> 01:04.325
And it was over the course of pursuing my doctorate that I,

01:04.525 --> 01:07.165
I was able to gain a much deeper

01:07.345 --> 01:10.085
and sometimes even troubling sort of understanding

01:10.305 --> 01:12.805
of the various, challenges that people

01:12.805 --> 01:16.285
of African descent endured after, slavery.

01:16.745 --> 01:18.765
Um, and in fact that many

01:18.765 --> 01:22.365
of these challenges were very much sort of manufactured,

01:23.665 --> 01:26.965
in many ways sort of structured by, an imperial

01:26.985 --> 01:30.165
or colonial, entity that wanted,

01:30.565 --> 01:33.805
a particular outcomes for, for black, communities.

01:34.425 --> 01:36.845
For a history book, you're dealing mostly

01:36.915 --> 01:38.285
with archival materials.

01:38.305 --> 01:42.485
Um, but given that I wanted to explore, certain aspects

01:42.545 --> 01:46.525
of, of North American history, history of course,

01:46.555 --> 01:49.165
that encapsulates the United States, Canada, the Caribbean,

01:49.465 --> 01:51.765
and certain transatlantic connections,

01:51.925 --> 01:54.725
I wasn't only dealing with archival material,

01:54.785 --> 01:57.005
but I was also dealing with classified material.

01:57.265 --> 02:01.205
And so submitting, petitions to us,

02:01.205 --> 02:03.645
federal government and various national security bodies,

02:04.025 --> 02:07.005
but also in Canada, getting a sense of what are some

02:07.005 --> 02:09.285
of the secrets in the bowels of,

02:09.905 --> 02:12.765
of these very powerful entities, especially

02:12.765 --> 02:14.245
where black people are concerned.

02:14.335 --> 02:17.965
Black, civil rights, black, activism,

02:17.965 --> 02:21.605
black leadership, black youth mobilization, et cetera,

02:22.155 --> 02:23.645
over the course of the 20th century.

02:23.705 --> 02:25.285
And I'm, I'm working on a new book now

02:25.285 --> 02:29.125
that will look more specifically on sort of this push

02:29.145 --> 02:32.285
and pull dynamic of black organizing,

02:32.525 --> 02:36.245
revolutionary organizing, and very sort of violent,

02:37.425 --> 02:41.525
draconian measures, employed by, sort of a state

02:41.545 --> 02:44.205
or imperial apparatus to suppress,

02:44.295 --> 02:45.965
black self-determination.

02:46.105 --> 02:48.325
So in the context of the United States,

02:48.335 --> 02:52.605
especially in the post World War II period, we see frankly,

02:53.025 --> 02:55.805
the deployment

02:55.865 --> 03:00.485
of sophisticated counterintelligence measures, measures

03:00.485 --> 03:03.525
that, you know, the US national security apparatus had

03:03.525 --> 03:05.165
created to dual

03:05.265 --> 03:07.885
or existential struggle, with the Soviet Union.

03:08.035 --> 03:12.285
Some of those policies were adapted for, the,

03:12.345 --> 03:16.125
the gravest or greatest threat in the United States,

03:16.225 --> 03:19.325
the greatest domestic threat, which the FBI identified

03:19.325 --> 03:22.125
as black people, specifically black nationals

03:22.125 --> 03:24.965
and black organizing, which was not at war

03:24.965 --> 03:26.205
with the US government at all,

03:26.345 --> 03:29.445
but it was certainly at war with forms of racial injustice,

03:29.745 --> 03:31.005
and resisting injustice

03:31.105 --> 03:33.765
and organizing black power black communities.

03:34.305 --> 03:38.565
And so through the, through these classified materials,

03:38.625 --> 03:41.925
it, it became very clear that, these policies of,

03:42.265 --> 03:44.365
of counterintelligence were counterinsurgency

03:44.365 --> 03:46.885
because, black communities, especially the males

03:47.425 --> 03:49.605
in black communities, were effectively marked

03:49.665 --> 03:51.045
for death or social death.

03:51.425 --> 03:53.525
And this was across border phenomenon

03:53.525 --> 03:55.085
that was not just playing on the United States,

03:55.105 --> 03:56.805
but certainly in Canada,

03:56.905 --> 03:59.365
and other jurisdictions, in the Americas

04:00.105 --> 04:02.885
Counterintelligence program, cointelpro,

04:02.885 --> 04:06.805
which basically ran from like the mid 1950s to the early

04:07.325 --> 04:11.485
1970s, surveilled,

04:11.735 --> 04:15.885
black activists, normally black nationals.

04:15.885 --> 04:18.445
So whether members of the Black Panther Party or,

04:18.465 --> 04:21.325
or even, a luminary like Malcolm X

04:21.425 --> 04:24.525
or MLK, both black men

04:24.525 --> 04:27.205
and black women at Seville Black youth,

04:27.365 --> 04:29.045
I write about members of Black Panther Party.

04:29.165 --> 04:31.205
I write about, various black nationalists

04:31.265 --> 04:33.445
or Pan-Africanist in the United States and Canada

04:33.465 --> 04:37.765
and the Caribbean and Africa, who came in the crosshairs

04:37.765 --> 04:39.245
of the counterintelligence program,

04:39.985 --> 04:41.405
in, in North America.

04:42.145 --> 04:45.165
And, by looking at these various,

04:45.165 --> 04:46.725
black nationalist organizations

04:46.725 --> 04:49.245
or Pan-Africanist organizations,

04:49.245 --> 04:53.205
by looking at the various tactics deployed to infiltrate,

04:53.485 --> 04:54.805
sabotage, undermine

04:54.805 --> 04:58.885
or neutralize these various persons slash personalities

04:59.105 --> 05:03.325
and organizations, it became very clear that,

05:03.645 --> 05:05.725
a state objective, from the top down,

05:06.305 --> 05:08.685
top down objective, was

05:08.725 --> 05:10.485
to use violent measures including

05:10.845 --> 05:12.405
assassination or extermination.

05:12.625 --> 05:16.805
Um, and, you know, political imprisonment

05:17.585 --> 05:21.645
or other means of, of sabotage to,

05:22.105 --> 05:24.965
or neutralization to prevent black people from organizing

05:24.965 --> 05:29.085
their strength, understanding that

05:29.655 --> 05:32.325
after this period of emancipation,

05:32.325 --> 05:34.565
or what I would call sort of quasi emancipation,

05:34.565 --> 05:37.005
because people of African descent and Caribbean

05:37.505 --> 05:40.525
and the, you know, British Caribbean, French Caribbean,

05:40.625 --> 05:42.085
the Danish colonies you name,

05:42.085 --> 05:46.245
and it certainly on the North American mainland didn't enjoy

05:47.525 --> 05:48.575
certain liberties.

05:48.575 --> 05:50.855
They didn't enjoy sort of a full freedom.

05:51.045 --> 05:53.455
They were very much, in, in many ways

05:54.385 --> 05:56.775
still in bondage, in

05:56.775 --> 05:58.685
Terms of their material security, in terms

05:58.685 --> 06:02.445
of their personal protections, in terms of just rights

06:02.445 --> 06:05.725
as subjects of a, of, an imperial crown

06:05.825 --> 06:08.325
or citizens of, of, of republic.

06:08.945 --> 06:13.245
And so I illustrate some key themes that I illustrated

06:14.755 --> 06:18.505
focus on how black people are imagining freedom,

06:19.205 --> 06:21.905
how they're thinking about organizing their strengths,

06:22.125 --> 06:25.145
the ways that they're, trying to connect

06:25.145 --> 06:27.225
with other black people in different jurisdictions.

06:27.605 --> 06:29.585
And so their personal identity

06:29.605 --> 06:32.785
or their sort of ethno racial cultural identity becomes

06:33.015 --> 06:36.425
paramount, and not in an essentialist kind of way,

06:36.645 --> 06:38.585
but their identity becomes paramount

06:38.685 --> 06:40.545
as a defensive bull war.

06:40.645 --> 06:42.585
So now they're sort

06:42.585 --> 06:45.185
of in the late 19th century into the early 20th century.

06:45.245 --> 06:47.505
The book sort of spans 1900 to 2000.

06:47.845 --> 06:50.665
But in the early 20th century, we see that black people are

06:51.245 --> 06:54.225
in black activists, intellectuals, they're just obsessed

06:54.255 --> 06:57.705
with learning as much as they can about African history

06:58.125 --> 07:00.625
and the genesis of the quote unquote race, right?

07:00.625 --> 07:03.505
And so they're learning Hebrew and Latin and,

07:03.765 --> 07:06.265
and Greek right languages that,

07:06.265 --> 07:08.265
most people are not speaking in the West, but

07:08.265 --> 07:09.905
nonetheless, very important in terms

07:09.905 --> 07:12.905
of understanding ancient history in the historical record.

07:13.525 --> 07:16.145
And they're gaining a very different idea in terms of

07:16.805 --> 07:19.185
how the ancient world understood Africa

07:19.245 --> 07:21.985
and black people, that it was radically different than the

07:21.985 --> 07:23.865
very sort of racist imagery

07:23.965 --> 07:25.465
and caricatures that we have today.

07:25.465 --> 07:27.505
And so, some of these key themes of,

07:27.605 --> 07:30.665
of understanding the past, understanding black history,

07:30.665 --> 07:33.025
understanding how African peoples are organizing

07:33.025 --> 07:37.145
and need to organize, in terms of using, race as a,

07:37.145 --> 07:41.825
as a organizing principle, instead of race as something

07:41.825 --> 07:43.945
that is sort of used to grind them into powder.

00:00 - So this book has been in the makings for many, many years. I started my doctorate in 2012. but before pursuing my doctorate, I, I worked in, youth gang intervention, and prevention in North Toronto. and it was over the course of that work in terms

00:16 - of community organizing, engaging various, stakeholders, certainly elders in the community, working very closely with our young people, where I realized that there were some very seriously intractable issues, in inner city, sort of post-industrial environments that were very racialized, very black, working poor, first generation, immigrants or, or multi-generation Canadians, but who were of African descent. And so I was asking many questions, how is it that,

00:47 - there are certain challenges that, other communities have managed to surmount, but people of African descent have been managed in the same successful way? And so the course of asking questions while I was working, I decided to pursue my doctorate. And it was over the course of pursuing my doctorate that I, I was able to gain a much deeper and sometimes even troubling sort of understanding of the various, challenges that people

01:12 - of African descent endured after, slavery. and in fact that many of these challenges were very much sort of manufactured, in many ways sort of structured by, an imperial or colonial, entity that wanted, a particular outcomes for, for black, communities. For a history book, you're dealing mostly with archival materials. but given that I wanted to explore, certain aspects of, of North American history, history of course,

01:46 - that encapsulates the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, and certain transatlantic connections, I wasn't only dealing with archival material, but I was also dealing with classified material. And so submitting, petitions to us, federal government and various national security bodies, but also in Canada, getting a sense of what are some of the secrets in the bowels of, of these very powerful entities, especially where black people are concerned.

02:14 - Black, civil rights, black, activism, black leadership, black youth mobilization, et cetera, over the course of the 20th century. And I'm, I'm working on a new book now that will look more specifically on sort of this push and pull dynamic of black organizing, revolutionary organizing, and very sort of violent, draconian measures, employed by, sort of a state or imperial apparatus to suppress, black self-determination.

02:46 - So in the context of the United States, especially in the post World War II period, we see frankly, the deployment of sophisticated counterintelligence measures, measures that, you know, the US national security apparatus had created to dual or existential struggle, with the Soviet Union. Some of those policies were adapted for, the, the gravest or greatest threat in the United States, the greatest domestic threat, which the FBI identified

03:19 - as black people, specifically black nationals and black organizing, which was not at war with the US government at all, but it was certainly at war with forms of racial injustice, and resisting injustice and organizing black power black communities. And so through the, through these classified materials, it, it became very clear that, these policies of, of counterintelligence were counterinsurgency because, black communities, especially the males

03:47 - in black communities, were effectively marked for death or social death. And this was across border phenomenon that was not just playing on the United States, but certainly in Canada, and other jurisdictions, in the Americas Counterintelligence program, cointelpro, which basically ran from like the mid 1950s to the early 1970s, surveilled, black activists, normally black nationals.

04:15 - So whether members of the Black Panther Party or, or even, a luminary like Malcolm X or MLK, both black men and black women at Seville Black youth, I write about members of Black Panther Party. I write about, various black nationalists or Pan-Africanist in the United States and Canada and the Caribbean and Africa, who came in the crosshairs of the counterintelligence program, in, in North America.

04:42 - And, by looking at these various, black nationalist organizations or Pan-Africanist organizations, by looking at the various tactics deployed to infiltrate, sabotage, undermine or neutralize these various persons slash personalities and organizations, it became very clear that, a state objective, from the top down, top down objective, was to use violent measures including

05:10 - assassination or extermination. and, you know, political imprisonment or other means of, of sabotage to, or neutralization to prevent black people from organizing their strength, understanding that after this period of emancipation, or what I would call sort of quasi emancipation, because people of African descent and Caribbean and the, you know, British Caribbean, French Caribbean, the Danish colonies you name,

05:42 - and it certainly on the North American mainland didn't enjoy certain liberties. They didn't enjoy sort of a full freedom. They were very much, in, in many ways still in bondage, in Terms of their material security, in terms of their personal protections, in terms of just rights as subjects of a, of, an imperial crown or citizens of, of, of republic. And so I illustrate some key themes that I illustrated

06:14 - focus on how black people are imagining freedom, how they're thinking about organizing their strengths, the ways that they're, trying to connect with other black people in different jurisdictions. And so their personal identity or their sort of ethno racial cultural identity becomes paramount, and not in an essentialist kind of way, but their identity becomes paramount as a defensive bull war. So now they're sort

06:42 - of in the late 19th century into the early 20th century. The book sort of spans 1900 to 2000. But in the early 20th century, we see that black people are in black activists, intellectuals, they're just obsessed with learning as much as they can about African history and the genesis of the quote unquote race, right? And so they're learning Hebrew and Latin and, and Greek right languages that, most people are not speaking in the West, but nonetheless, very important in terms

07:09 - of understanding ancient history in the historical record. And they're gaining a very different idea in terms of how the ancient world understood Africa and black people, that it was radically different than the very sort of racist imagery and caricatures that we have today. And so, some of these key themes of, of understanding the past, understanding black history, understanding how African peoples are organizing and need to organize, in terms of using, race as a,

07:37 - as a organizing principle, instead of race as something that is sort of used to grind them into powder.

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