IAD Spring 2025 Seminar Series:

In the 1960s and 1970s, in response to holdouts of colonial power in southern and Portuguese Africa, self-described African national liberation movements took form. These organizations engaged in military and diplomatic efforts to achieve independence, usually with the goal of seizing state power. These groups were surprisingly successful at mobilizing western support, especially from civil society organizations ranging from moderate to militant left groups. Supporters organized American speaking tours for liberation movement representatives; for example, in 1973, Cape Verdean guerrilla leader Amilcar Cabral spoke at Syracuse University. Supporters also channeled aid money to development projects run by the liberation movements. This talk will explore the methods of connection with African liberation movements, looking at how they worked together to attract western support, and what that support entailed. This paper will argue that this period constituted a unique moment of political, intellectual, and strategic connection between a small set of African political formations and an equally small set of western formations. It therefore sheds new light on the history of aid and development politics.

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