Free Radical: Ernest Chambers, Black Power, and the Politics of Race

2—Man of the People

41 T he civil rights and black power struggles began unfolding in the United States contemporaneously with anticolonial organizing in Africa, and by the mid-1940s they had become chrysalises of the fullblown movements. By some accounts these efforts reinforced each other, as news of valor and boldness in liberation work traveled from west to east and from east to west across the Atlantic, symbiotically infusing confidence into activists and warriors. Africanists, like Chambers, considered the various locations where the black freedom struggle took root merely as alternate theaters in the same war. To understand what Chambers did to help break the reign of repression in Africa’s most notorious colonial regime, one must go back to the early days when Chambers was fresh out of the army and still a very young man. His pan-Africanist perspective was published in a 1961 letter he sent to the Omaha World Herald when he was in his early twenties. Under the Administration of Westerners, whites have grabbed control of much of the natural resources of Africa, bans have been placed on education of Natives, racial discrimination rivals the American tradition, natives are forcibly kept from political participation , many are exiled . . . for refusing to accept a subservient role.1 Despite his youth, Chambers was a fervent scholar. He had read a great deal of African history and would have been drawn to explore the life and 2— Man of the People FREE RADI CAL— 4 2 work of W.E.B. Du Bois. Du Bois led black intellectuals toward an understanding of the international character of the black freedom struggle. He helped found the African National Congress in South Africa (1912), while insisting on political and social equality for black people in the United States. Chambers would also likely have read works from intellectuals like Kwame Nkrumah, George Padmore, and others who demanded that colonialism and segregation end on both sides of the Atlantic.2 As a teenager Chambers learned about McCarthyism and noted the public hysteria over communism. Paul Robeson, who was called on to defend himself before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, created a contradiction for young black Americans. Robeson’s alleged unAmericanness related to his confrontation with racism in America and colonialism in Africa. Robeson’s works, published by the Council on African Affairs, pointed to America’s “pro-imperialist” support for the establishment of European trusteeships over African states, and criticized U.S. compromises over racist rule in South Africa. Chambers spoke in support of Robeson while a student at Creighton, and his early writings on racism alluded to these issues. Robeson’s message, “Can we oppose white Supremacy in South Carolina and not oppose that same vicious system in South Africa ”, resonated with Chambers.3 For Chambers comparisons between racist regimes in Africa and America were not theoretical but lucid and real. He had personally witnessed two major uprisings in the late 1960s in Omaha. The first incident occurred in the summer of 1966. It began at a grocery store parking lot where community youths were socializing. Police officers arrived and warned the teenagers present to disperse. When the young people argued that they were not doing anything wrong, police used what community members described as excessive force. In return, the youths pelted the officers with rocks and bottles. In the end sixty young people were arrested. Later that night, a few store windows were broken in protest. Police administrators sent multiple units into North Omaha to contain the community folk who walked in the streets demonstrating against the arrests.4 In spite of an apparent invasion of the community by armed men, the people refused to give over the streets to police. On the third night, the governor brought in 150 National Guardsmen to quell the “milling and rock throwing crowd,”5 which according to local white historians “ended the first wave of racial trouble in Omaha.”6 For African Americans, this incident was not the first wave of racial trouble, nor was it the first racial riot the community had endured. Racial A MAN OF THE PEOPLE— 4 3 trouble defined many aspects of community members’ relations with white Omaha. African Americans considered the massive influx of police officers for searches, and violent white marauders, as well as a lynching that had occurred within living memory as race riots. The latest event di...