In December of 1971 the Black Panther Party expanded to Australia. This might seem an odd place for a quintessentially African American political force, but as Jacynda Ammons reveals in this expansive work, Aboriginal Australians had long looked to the example of African Americans in their fight against white supremacy. Against a background of Australia's history of colonization and racialization,
We Are Black, Too traces Aboriginal Australians' adoption of strains of Black activism from Marcus Garvey through the Civil Rights Movement and ultimately the Black Panther Party. In 1971 an International Section of the Black Panther Party was established in Algeria, but as Ammons shows, it was not until the demise of this section and a "split" within the party in the United States that a chapter of the Black Panther Party was formed in Australia.
Tapping archival research from the United States and Australia, and in light of the emphasis on international activism by Huey P. Newton and the Oakland Panthers,
We Are Black, Too explores the links between the American and Australian chapters of the BPP. As it brings to light these unexpected connections, the book adds to our understanding of both the Black Panther movement and Aboriginal activism in Australia. And as it expands the larger analysis of "transnational blackness" and the global Black Diaspora, it offers powerful insights, and holds valuable lessons, for the activism and internationalism of African Americans today in movements of global solidarity to end systemic racism.
