Pan-African Connections

Book excerpt: Pan-African Connections brings to the reader a combination of Reflections and Testimonies from writers, politicians, activists, colleagues; with essays on intellectual activism, the building of Pan-African institutions and the voices of women in Panafricanism. Stories abound from writers such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Anyang' Nyong'o about Locksley Edmondson, who is featured here, who like Walter Rodney, lived and worked on the African continent physically, but also engaged it politically, culturally and intellectually in teaching and research. The lives and work of these scholars embodied precisely the bringing together of African, Caribbean and African-American Studies in the intellectual arena. Through this generation of intellectual/activists, the rubric of Panfricanism remains one of the key areas of academic and political inquiry in Africana Studies.