Revolutionary TransNationalism: The Revolutionary Action Movement, the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, and the Black Power Movement in the United States and Brazil, 1961-1972

Abstract

This thesis investigates the role of transnational interactions and solidarity as central components to the Black Power movement in the United States and Brazil. Beginning with Brazilian artists and political radicals traveling and dialoguing with African American radicals in the United States and Cuba, chapter one traces the development of Black Power ideology in Brazil during the military dictatorship. Chapter two explores Robert F. Williams and the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) as architects of Black Power Revolutionary Transnationalism. They put the revolutionary potential of African Americans into the context of the decolonizing world and as a result influenced the development of an Afro-Brazilian RAM cell that would further challenge the military dictatorship. The final chapter highlights the centrality of transnational worker solidarity to the Black Power movement. As black workers gained power via unions in Brazil, their counterparts in the United States faced exclusion. But, during the dictatorship, the League of Revolutionary Black Workers called for solidarity and the organization of autoworkers in Brazil.