Beloved Pan-Africanism: Martin Luther King’s Stride Toward Africa, International Human Rights, and the Black International Tradition

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s significance as a promising Pan-Africanist, that is, an advocate and supporter of African liberation, self-determination, and independence as well as the internationalization of human rights norms, doctrine, and jurisprudence that inform them, has been entirely ignored in the scholarship on King. Not a single book-length manuscript exists on King’s thoughts on, and relationship to, the African continent and its peoples as a whole. Moreover, King’s ideals, ministry, advocacy, activities, initiatives, and influence on Africa, African leaders, and US foreign policy towards Africa are literally unknown and form a critical part of King’s global ministry and the Black International Tradition (BIT). Was King a Pan-Africanist? If so, what circumstances, experiences, and phenomena influenced his Pan-African outlook? What was the nature of King’s range of contributions—ideological, political, material, spiritual, and otherwise—to the anti-colonial, anti-racist, and anti-apartheid struggles in Africa and the Black Diaspora? How did King invoke the binding authority of the law to advocate for black people and peoples?https://commons.law.famu.edu/faculty-books/1042/thumbnail.jp