Robbie Shilliam

“But Black Power was never simply identity politics. Its aims were not only to set Black men free to compete as individuals in the marketplace and halls of government. Among Legba’s children, whether in South Africa, Louisiana or Oakland, Black Power also sought collective re-humanization against the categorical segregations generated by colonial science so as to refocus struggles upon the self-determination of a beloved community. In fact, the Black Power movement never significantly detached itself from the agape (unconditional love) promoted and practised by the civil rights movement. Blackness was an investment in Black love; its power, at heart, was a soul power. Moreover, lest we forget, the mantra of the Oakland Black Panthers was ‘all power to the people’, not ‘all power to the Black people’. In other words, the liberation of Black peoples was crucial not only in and of itself, but because it would also augur the destruction of a wicked global system. In short, Blackness – as Black love – taught how to know oneself and whakapapa to the world. (68-69)”
― Robbie Shilliam, The Black Pacific: Anti-Colonial Struggles and Oceanic Connections