Join Haymarket Books and HotHouse Media for a conversation about US solidarity for the fight to end apartheid and colonialism in Africa and lessons for our movements for liberation today. Sylvia Ewing and Martha Biondi moderate a panel discussion featuring Prexy Nesbitt, Basil Clunie, Cheryl Johnson-Odim, Lisa Brock, and Anne Evens.

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We Are Internationalists: Prexy Nesbitt and the Fight for African Liberation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2025) This book tells the transnational story of the Chicago anti-apartheid and anticolonial solidarity movement through the organizing work of Prexy Nesbitt. From the 1960s to the 1990s, he built upon multiple international networks to combat imperialism and racism locally and globally.

Link to book to preorder
 

***This in person event will be live-streamed through Haymarket Books. Register through Ticket Tailor to receive a link to the video conference on the day of the event. We ask that all in-person attendees wear masks in the event space during the program for the health and well-being of the speaker and other guests. We will have a reception afterwards with light refreshments.***

Speakers:

A lifelong organizer, Prexy Nesbitt was a key leader of US solidarity work with African liberation struggles from the 1960s through the 21st century. Nesbitt founded several pivotal internationalist organizations, including the Mozambique Solidarity Network, the Chicago Committee for the Liberation of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea Bissau, the Chicago Coalition for Illinois Divestment from South Africa and the Chicago Committee in Solidarity with Southern Africa. Nesbitt worked for Mayor Harold Washington, the World Council of Churches, several unions and taught for many years at Columbia College in Chicago.

Martha Biondi is the Lorraine H. Morton Professor of Black Studies and Professor of History. A scholar of 20th century African American history, Biondi’s teaching and research focus on social movements and Black politics. Her book, The Black Revolution on Campus, tells the story of the Black student movement of the late 1960s and the rise of Black Studies and affirmative action on college campuses across the country. She is the author of We Are Internationalists: Prexy Nesbitt and the Fight for African Liberation.

Sylvia Ewing is a Chicago-based journalist with a long history in broadcast television and other platforms. She's an organizer, teacher and poet who worked for many years on solidarity organizing for southern Africa.

Lisa Brock is an historian of the African Diaspora who taught for many years at Columbia College Chicago where she founded and built the Chicago Anti-Apartheid Movement Collection. She directed the Arcus Center for Social Justice at Kalamazoo College. Lisa was active in the antiapartheid and broader solidarity movement in southern Africa.

Basil Clunie, a transplanted New Yorker, worked for many years at Northwestern University. He was active in the Chicago divestment and Free South Africa Movement and traveled to South Africa as an election observer as part of the historic 1994 elections.

Anne Evens heads Elevate, a nonprofit that works to promote equitable access to clean, safe, and affordable heat, power, and water for people—no matter who they are, or where they live. Evens was active in the antiapartheid movement and lived for several years as a "cooperante" in Mozambique.

Cheryl Johnson-Odim is an historian of Africa who spent her career as a professor, dean and provost in Chicago-area colleges and universities. She was a leader in the divestment and Free South Africa campaigns in Chicago.

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This event is sponsored by Haymarket Books and HotHouse While all of our events are freely available, we ask that those who are able make a solidarity donation in support of our important publishing and programming work.