The Panthers Are Coming: A Two-Act Play about the October, 1968 Visit of the Black Panthers to Halifax, and its Impact on African Nova Scotian Activism for Social Justice and Equality.
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Date
2014-04
Authors
Firempong, Kwesi
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Publisher
Mount Saint Vincent University
Abstract
This thesis examines the impact of the 1968 visit of the Black Panthers to Halifax on African Nova Scotian activism for social justice and equality. The study uses an arts informed research approach with a stage play as the process and representation of the inquiry. The 1960s were turbulent times for Black people all over the world, and the radical activism that had erupted in the US and Africa had infected African Nova Scotians too. Blacks in Nova Scotia were undergoing racism in education, employment and housing, and the impending Panther visit, coupled with growing resentment among younger African Nova Scotians created a potentially explosive social crisis in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The African Nova Scotian leaders, coming from disparate ideological stands were able to put their differences behind them, uniting to prevent any violence, winning socio-economic concessions for Blacks in Nova Scotia, and bringing African Nova Scotia’s existence into national and international lime light. Such unity, which I argue, was based on a strategic essentialism of Blackness has many implications for present day African Nova Scotians in their continued activism for social justice.
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Keywords
Black Panthers , Activism - Nova Scotia , African Nova Scotians