Podcast Summary: New Books Network

Episode: Martha Biondi, "We Are Internationalists: Prexy Nesbitt and the Fight for African Liberation" (U California Press, 2025)

Date: November 8, 2025

Host: New Books Network (Interviewer: B)

Guest: Dr. Martha Biondi (C)

Overview of the Episode

This episode features historian Martha Biondi discussing her new book, We Are Internationalists: Prexy Nesbitt and the Fight for African Liberation. The interview explores how Nesbitt's activism mapped and propelled the American left's engagement with African liberation, blending biography and movement history. Biondi unpacks Nesbitt's Chicago roots, transnational consciousness, and the broader ideological shifts within solidarity activism from the 1970s to the 1990s. The conversation investigates overlooked narratives in the U.S. anti-apartheid movement, the challenges of postcolonial transitions, and the enduring lessons for contemporary activism.

Major Discussion Points and Insights

1. Introducing Martha Biondi and Her Work

• (02:18) Biondi introduces herself as a scholar of social movements and Black political thought, with a particular emphasis on how anti-racist movements reshaped U.S. institutions and debates in Black radicalism. This book is a chronological continuation of her previous works, now focusing on the 1970s to 1990s.
  • “This book… follows up on many of the concerns of my earlier works, which have examined how anti racist social movements have sought to reshape US institutions and policies.” (02:20)

2. Why Biography?

• (03:41) Biondi explains her choice to use Nesbitt’s life as a lens, calling it an effective way to humanize sprawling social movements. Nesbitt’s activism connects local, national, and international efforts, allowing the book to pivot through different scales of action while maintaining narrative focus.
  • “Focusing on Prexy Nesbitt helped me bring a whole chapter of the American left and the black freedom struggle… into sharper focus.” (03:45)
  • “Prexy’s the through line, but it’s really the story of a social movement.” (04:45)

3. Prexy Nesbitt’s Formative Years and Influences

• (05:06–08:35) The podcast explores Nesbitt’s upbringing in Chicago’s Black middle class, steeped in social justice ideals and global consciousness:
  • Raised in a multi-racial, multigenerational building, exposed to political and cultural luminaries.
  • Attended progressive schools (Francis Parker and Antioch College), catalyzing activism and internationalism.
  • Formative experiences in Tanzania (junior year abroad) spark life-long solidarity with African liberation.
  • Family background: Parents and uncles committed to education, labor activism, and civil rights.
  • Encounters with figures like Robert Hayden, Mahalia Jackson, and Paul Robeson.
  • Early international experiences: summer in Sweden as a teenager, relationships that lasted a lifetime.
  • “Prexi also received a very progressive, innovative education… Both institutions tended to attract both progressive and like minded students and faculty. He credits both institutions for really setting him on a particular life path.” (05:24)
  • “The poet Robert Hayden was like a member of the family. Mahalia Jackson was a close friend of his mother’s.… He met Paul Robeson…” (09:40)

4. Chicago as a Crucible for Local and International Solidarity

• (06:25) Nesbitt’s activism bridges local issues (labor, churches, city policy) and transnational solidarity, with deep ties to organized labor and political networks in Chicago.
  • Influences major political shifts, such as persuading Mayor Harold Washington to support anti-apartheid divestment.
  • “Prexi, I think, truly embraced a commitment to both local and transnational or international organizing… building these relationships, sustaining these relationships were key to his success as an organizer over the long haul.” (07:16)

5. Pan-Africanism vs. Internationalism

• (11:06) The book highlights internal debates within Black American and leftist activism regarding the best frameworks for solidarity with Africa:
  • Pan-Africanists focus on racial-ethnic affinity and historic links.
  • Internationalists emphasize broader anti-imperialist, socialist, and anti-war alliances.
  • Nesbitt sides with the latter, at times clashing with Black nationalists suspicious of socialist African leaders.
  • “Prexi very much identified with the latter outlook and as a result he did sometimes clash with black nationalists who were suspicious of the left, including the African left…” (12:32)

6. The African Left’s Influence and Reverse Solidarity

• (13:15–20:14) Contradicting earlier eras, the 1970s saw African revolutionary movements (e.g., FRELIMO in Mozambique, ANC, SWAPO) actively drawing on diaspora support to shape U.S. foreign policy and corporate action.
  • Nesbitt’s family connects personally to figures like Eduardo Mondlane (FRELIMO), thanks to anti-racist advocacy in 1950s Chicago.
  • Dar es Salaam becomes “headquarters” of liberation, intensifying Nesbitt’s involvement.
  • The era’s movements largely socialist-leaning, influenced by their critiques of colonial capitalism and inspired by Cuban internationalism.
  • Quote on the shift of influence: “…the influence is maybe going in the other direction. You see African liberation leaders, leaders of new nation states reaching out right to the diaspora for support, for allyship, for connection, in shaping… US foreign policy, U.S. corporate behavior.” (15:10)
  • "Julius Nyerere opened Dar es Salaam to the leaders of national liberation struggles… Dar es Salaam had become the kind of, you know, headquarters…” (16:41)

7. The U.S. Anti-Apartheid Movement: Reassessing the Narrative

• (20:14–23:19) Biondi and Nesbitt critique the prevailing, narrow narrative of anti-apartheid activism as DC-centered, liberal, and Black-led (i.e., TransAfrica). Instead, they reveal:
  • The movement was broader, more globally integrated, and multiracial.
  • Stronger roles for unions, local grassroots work in the U.S. heartland (not just coasts).
  • Regular communication with African leaders and advocates in Europe/Canada.
  • The effectiveness of regional boycotts, divestment, and sanctions depended on these multifaceted coalitions.
  • “Prexi’s life story cast the US Anti apartheid movement as more globally conscious and in regular communication and coordination with African organizers and leaders and with other African advocates in Europe and Canada.” (22:03)
  • “Grassroots organizing against apartheid happened all over the country, not just on the west coast and east coast, and this included major cities in the Midwest…” (22:56)

8. Reimagining the American Committee on Africa (ACOA)

• (24:21–28:36) The ACOA’s history is reexamined.
  • Standard account is as Cold War-liberal and anti-communist; Biondi shows that by the 1970s Black and leftist activists like Nesbitt shifted its orientation.
  • They pressured the old guard to support socialist-leaning African liberation and to legitimize armed struggle against colonial powers.
  • Nesbitt’s work on the campaign against bank loans to South Africa raised awareness and pressed institutions to divest.
  • “Prexy was part of a generation of black leftists who… sparked an ideological fight within the organization specifically around trying to pressure the longtime leader, George Hauser… away from some of the organization's… anti communist history…” (25:05)

9. Solidarity with Mozambique

• (28:36–32:34) Mozambique’s fight for independence is a focus rarely covered in U.S. activism history.
  • After independence, Mozambique is destabilized by Rhodesia and South Africa, who fund counter-revolutionary violence through Renamo.
  • Internationalist solidarity efforts, including Nesbitt’s role in mentoring American “cooperants” and founding the Mozambique Support Network, bring practical aid, publicity, and people-to-people diplomacy.
  • Nesbitt organizes educational trips and consciousness-raising efforts, exemplifying his “people to people diplomacy.”
  • “Mozambique even ultimately hired Prexi as a special consultant to help publicize their plight and organize pressure on the United States government not to finance this counterinsurgency…” (30:35)

10. Complicating the Triumph Narrative of Apartheid’s End

• (32:34–38:25) While the fall of apartheid is celebrated, Biondi stresses the economic and geopolitical context:
  • South African elites, with Western backing, force significant ANC concessions to preserve white economic power.
  • The timing (collapse of the Soviet bloc, rise of neoliberalism) restricts the ANC’s ability to pursue redistributive policies.
  • International monetary institutions lock in austerity before democracy fully arrives.
  • U.S. activists try to pressure both the ANC and Washington to prioritize labor and equity.
  • Quote: “It happened after the collapse of the Soviet Union and after the fall of the socialist bloc internationally… But it had also been an important source of support for the ANC and also provided it, I think, gave it the potential to imagine an alternative to free market capitalism.” (34:07)
  • “…this moment was a shock doctrine moment where this, both the organized violence inside South Africa and the economic coercion of business elites and of the IMF, I think, cornered the ANC and its allies and they made many concessions.” (37:50)

11. Lessons and Legacy

• (38:25–40:42) Biondi and Nesbitt see victory and disappointment intertwined:
  • The end of apartheid means peace and new opportunity, but is marred by economic compromises.
  • Nesbitt argues that American activists’ chief duty is to curb U.S. imperial and militarist policies from within, reducing support for global austerity and privatization.
  • True internationalism means fighting for democracy and justice at home as well as abroad.
  • “If our goal is to advance peace and social justice in the world, we need to redouble our efforts to forge robust democracy here at home.” (40:19)

12. Writing Amid the Pandemic: Praising Digital Archives

• (40:50–42:19) Biondi gives credit to digital archives and interviews for enabling her research during Covid, specifically highlighting the African Activist Archive at MSU and the Chicago Anti Apartheid Movement Collection at Columbia College Chicago.
  • “Certain technological advances were critical to the completion of this book. So just a shout out to all the librarians and archivists and activists who digitized all these documents and made that possible.” (41:37)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On biography as method:
  “Focusing on Prexy Nesbitt helped me bring a whole chapter of the American left and the black freedom struggle and its aftermath into sharper focus.”
  — Martha Biondi (03:45)

• On Chicago’s influence:
  “Prexi, I think, truly embraced a commitment to both local and transnational or international organizing… Sustaining these relationships were key to his success as an organizer over the long haul.”
  — Martha Biondi (07:16)

• On Pan-Africanist vs. Internationalist debates:
  “Prexi very much identified with the latter outlook and as a result he did sometimes clash with black nationalists who were suspicious of the left, including the African left…”
  — Martha Biondi (12:32)

• On turning the U.S. movement’s lens outward:
  “Prexi’s life story cast the US anti-apartheid movement as more globally conscious and in regular communication and coordination with African organizers and leaders…”
  — Martha Biondi (22:03)

• On the role of labor and the Midwest:
  “Grassroots organizing against apartheid happened all over the country, not just on the west coast and east coast, and this included major cities in the Midwest…”
  — Martha Biondi (22:56)

• On the end of apartheid and missed opportunities:
  “It happened after the collapse of the Soviet Union and after the fall of the socialist bloc internationally... That block... gave [the ANC] the potential to imagine an alternative to free market capitalism... This moment was a shock doctrine moment…”
  — Martha Biondi (34:07, 37:50)

• On lasting lessons for American activists:
  “If our goal is to advance peace and social justice in the world, we need to redouble our efforts to forge robust democracy here at home.”
  — Martha Biondi (40:19)

• Shoutout to archivists and digital history:
  “Just a shout out to all the librarians and archivists and activists who digitized all these documents and made that possible.”
  — Martha Biondi (41:37)

Key Segment Timestamps

• 02:18 – Martha Biondi introduces her background and the genesis of the book
• 03:41 – 04:49 – Why and how to use Prexy Nesbitt’s life as the narrative throughline for movement history
• 05:06 – 08:35 – Nesbitt’s early life, Chicago influences, formative encounters
• 11:06 – 12:56 – Debates: Pan-Africanism vs. Internationalism
• 13:15 – 20:14 – The reverse flow of global Black influence, African liberation struggles, and Nesbitt’s direct ties
• 20:47 – 23:19 – Re-assessing the standard story of the U.S. anti-apartheid movement
• 24:21 – 28:36 – Nesbitt, the American Committee on Africa and shifting movement currents
• 28:36 – 32:34 – Mozambique’s struggle, people-to-people solidarity, Nesbitt’s unique role
• 32:34 – 38:25 – The fall of apartheid, neoliberal aftermath, and ongoing battles
• 38:41 – 40:42 – Success, disappointment, and strategic lessons for today
• 40:50 – 42:19 – Pandemic writing and the importance of archives

Conclusion

This episode offers a sweeping yet intimate account of how one activist’s life story illuminates the broader trajectory and complexity of Black internationalist solidarity. Biondi’s narrative, rich in historical context and personal anecdote, challenges simplistic and insular portrayals of the anti-apartheid movement, highlighting overlooked actors, regions, and ideological divides. The ultimate lesson: the fight for justice abroad is inextricably bound up with struggles for democracy and equality at home—a warning and an inspiration for today’s activists.