George Padmore
George Padmore (28 June 1903 – 23 September 1959), born Malcolm Ivan Meredith Nurse, was a leading Pan-Africanist, journalist, and author. He left his native Trinidad in 1924 to study medicine in the United States, where he also joined the Communist Party.
Quotes
[edit]- World Imperialism can be divided into two main camps: "The Haves," those who possess colonies, and the "Have-Nots," those who seek to possess.
- Pan-Africanism looks above the narrow confines of class, race, tribe and religion. In other words, it wants equal opportunity for all. Talent to be rewarded on the basis of merit. Its vision stretches beyond the limited frontiers of the nation-state. Its perspective embraces the federation of regional self-governing countries and their ultimate amalgamation into a United States of Africa.
- A Marxist perspective can be most helpful for understanding race and racism insofar as it perceives capitalism dialectically, as a social totality that includes modes of production, relations of production, and the pragmatically evolving ensemble of institutions and ideologies that lubricate and propel its reproduction. From this perspective, Marxism’s most important contribution to making sense of race and racism…may be demystification. A historical materialist perspective should stress that “race” — which includes “racism,” as one is unthinkable without the other — is a historically specific ideology that emerged, took shape, and has evolved as a constitutive element within a definite set of social relations anchored to a particular system of production.
- The white workers must realize that in the present condition of world capitalism one of the aims of the imperialists is to find a way out of their difficulties by using the Negro workers… to worsen the already low standards of the white workers. Because of this the struggles of the Negro workers against the capitalist offensive must be made part and parcel of the common struggle against imperialism.
- George never passed any remarks about the African character — never once did I hear him speak of the African personality, or the difference between Africans and West Indians or the difference between Africans and Europeans. George kept his eyes on the political issues all the time.
External links
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Media related to George Padmore on Wikimedia Commons
