Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Sullivan Sommer
Guest: Dr. Kenja McCrae, Associate Professor of History, Clayton State University
Subject: "Essential Soldiers: Women Activists and Black Power Movement Leadership" (NYU Press, 2025)
Date: September 22, 2025

This episode explores Dr. Kenja McCrae’s groundbreaking book Essential Soldiers, which reframes our understanding of women’s activism and leadership within Black Power and Pan-African cultural nationalist organizations in the 1960s and 1970s. Dr. McCrae uncovers the “Kazi leadership” model and demonstrates how Black women’s grassroots work, often overlooked, was both innovative and central to movement success.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Personal Origins and Influences

• Connection to Ta-Nehisi Coates (03:12–07:25)
  • Dr. McCrae explains how reading Coates’s Between the World and Me illuminated the contrast between men's and women's paths into Black activism, and how her own experience at Spelman College informed her focus on Black women’s interpretations of nationhood and leadership.
  • “My similar experiences were through the lens of my womanhood… we thought we were inventing the proverbial wheel.” (05:40, McCrae)

Defining Central Concepts

• Kawaida—Philosophy and Practice (07:38–18:20)
  • Pronunciation correction: “It’s ‘ka-wa-ida.’”
  • Kawaida, developed by Maulana Karenga and the US Organization, is an African-centered value system that gave rise to Kwanzaa.
  • Cultural nationalism vs. revolutionary nationalism: Swahili’s adoption as a lingua franca, unity through aesthetics and folkways.
  • Explains how Kawaida philosophy focused on tradition and reasoning, providing an everyday value system for living.

Quote Highlight

• “Kawaida philosophy was a larger value system that had other elements that included Kwanzaa… a framework intended for African Americans to use in freeing themselves from oppression.”
  (10:36, McCrae)

The Four Kawaida-Influenced Organizations

• US Organization, Committee for Unified Newark/Congress of African People, The East, and Ahediana (18:20–22:52)
  • US Organization as vanguard (founded 1965, California); others from Newark, Brooklyn, and New Orleans.
  • Organizational definitions are contested, but inclusion is based on direct embrace of Kawaida principles.

Quote Highlight

• “Sometimes an organization… said we disavow Kawaida and cultural nationalism… but if people are interested and pick up the book, they’ll see my rationale.”
  (22:17, McCrae)

Research Methodology – Oral History

• Importance of Interviews and Archival Challenges (24:23–33:47)
  • Emphasis on oral history owing to a paucity of written archival materials.
  • About 30 interviews conducted, mostly with women whose contributions are often not visible in traditional documents.
  • Dr. McCrae reflects on her mentor’s generosity with archives and her desire to similarly preserve her interview materials for future researchers.

Quote Highlight

• “I knew I’d have to dust off my oral history, you know, chops and get to work… the value would be in interviewing all these women… their contributions often didn’t show up in the written archival documents.”
  (29:56, McCrae)

Kazi Leadership: A New Model

• Definition and Impact (34:06–43:12)
  • “Kazi” means “work” in Swahili.
  • Kazi leadership is described as a collaborative, service-oriented leadership enacted by women, often unofficial but vital.
  • Draws on parallels with “servant leadership,” yet distinct owing to its African-centered commitment and feminist context.
  • Women led by “doing the work,” frequently without formal recognition, focusing on cause over title.

Memorable Moment

• “Twice I come across this idea. No, I was just… a soldier, like sleeping in the barracks and getting up and just… doing what needs to be done.”
  (41:28, McCrae)

Notable Quote

• “They’re leading because the work needs to be done… not leading to ‘be the leader,' just to serve the people, to serve the cause.”
  (39:58, McCrae)

Media and Movement: The Black Press

• Black News & Women’s Voices (43:12–50:45)
  • Black News, run from the East organization, was a neighborhood paper, not an official organ, but a key outlet for activism and culture.
  • Oral histories illuminated the contributions of specific women, their activism around hair politics, and support networks invisible in official documents.
  • The newspaper’s activist role went beyond covering news—documenting incidents ignored by mainstream media and fostering political action.

Art, Culture, and Self-Determination

• Centrality of Arts, Education, and Bookstores (50:45–58:16)
  • Explains why art, culture, and literacy were considered as essential (not “frivolous”) to Black Power and Cultural Nationalist agendas.
  • Arts linked directly to community integrity, political mobilization, and literacy—especially through women’s organizing of schools and theaters.
  • Names Amina Baraka for pivotal role in integrating art, education, and critique of exploitative practices.

Notable Mention

• “The art was very central to asserting a sense of personal integrity and group integrity and self determination… the art and the culture and the politics are all inseparable to these activists.”
  (54:13, McCrae)

Contemporary Lessons: Kazi Leadership Today

• Epilogue Application (58:16–68:11)
  • Dr. McCrae calls for a reconsideration of hierarchical leadership in favor of a “service leadership” model grounded in African-centered communal values.
  • Kazi leadership’s emphasis on doing—“don’t talk about it, be about it”—balances individual and collective responsibility, prioritizes decentralization and resilience.
  • Advocates for models focusing on care, accountability, and sustainable community rather than top-down control.

Memorable Quote

• “Kazi is the blackest of all, right, do the work… models of leadership that center care… not only inspire us to be much more resilient… but foster community building and provide models of excellence, rather than just rhetoric.”
  (65:45, McCrae)

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On the gendered experience of Black activism:
  “While Ta-Nehisi Coates was talking about his manhood… my similar experiences were through the lens of my womanhood.”
  – Dr. Kenja McCrae, (05:40)

• On the scope and meaning of Kawaida:
  “Kawaida philosophy was a larger value system… intended for African Americans to use in freeing themselves from oppression.”
  – Dr. Kenja McCrae, (10:36)

• On the rationale for oral history:
  “I knew I had to get in the trenches and interview, interview, interview, and really learn oral history methodologies to even get at the subject.”
  – Dr. Kenja McCrae, (29:33)

• On Kazi leadership:
  “They’re leading because the work needs to be done… not leading to ‘be the leader,’ just to serve the people, to serve the cause.”
  – Dr. Kenja McCrae, (39:58)

• On women as unrecognized leaders:
  “A lot of times women were remembered as a leader, but… they weren’t formally appointed to a leadership role… they just did the work.”
  – Dr. Kenja McCrae, (41:07)

• On the integration of art and activism:
  “The art was very central to asserting a sense of personal integrity and group integrity and self determination… the art and the culture and the politics are all inseparable.”
  – Dr. Kenja McCrae, (54:13)

• On lessons for today:
  “Models of leadership that center care for people, accountability… foster community building and provide models of excellence, rather than just rhetoric.”
  – Dr. Kenja McCrae, (65:45)

Timestamps for Major Topics

• Book’s Roots and Coates’s Influence: 03:12–07:25
• Definition and Origins of Kawaida: 07:38–18:20
• The Four Organizations in Focus: 18:20–22:52
• Research Methods and Oral History: 24:23–33:47
• Introducing Kazi Leadership: 34:06–43:12
• Women, Press, and Black News: 43:12–50:45
• Art and Cultural Activism: 50:45–58:16
• Epilogue: Kazi Leadership in Contemporary Context: 58:16–68:11

Conclusions and Takeaways

• Essential Soldiers reframes the narrative of Black Power through women’s collaborative, service-driven, unheralded leadership.
• Kawaida and Kazi leadership provide models for contemporary organizing—centering care, resilience, and accountability.
• Dr. McCrae’s oral history work offers a vital archive that reclaims voices and stories left out of more official histories and demonstrates the ongoing relevance of women’s grassroots leadership for present-day movements.