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Obi Egbuna

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Obi Egbuna
Born
Obi Benue Egbuna

18 July 1938
Ozubulu, Anambra State, Nigeria
Died18 January 2014(2014-01-18) (aged 75)
Washington, DC, United States
NationalityNigerian
Other namesObi Benue Joseph Egbuna
EducationUniversity of Iowa; Howard University
Occupation(s)Novelist, playwright and political activist
Known forPioneer of the Black power movement in Britain

Obi Benue Egbuna (18 July 1938 – 18 January 2014) was a Nigerian-born novelist, playwright and political activist, most famous for leading the Universal Coloured People's Association (UCPA) and being a member of the British Black Panther Movement (1968–72) during the years when he lived in England, between 1961 and 1973. Egbuna also published several texts on Marxist–Black Power, including Destroy This Temple: The Voice of Black Power in Britain (1971) and The ABC of Black Power Thought (1973).

Biography

Early years and education

Egbuna was born in Ozubulu, Anambra State, Nigeria. He studied at the University of Iowa and Howard University, Washington, DC, moving in 1961 to England, where he lived until 1973.

Political activism in Britain

In London, Egbuna was a member of a group called the Committee of African Organisations that had roots in the West African Students' Union, and which organised Malcolm X's 1965 visit to Britain.[1][2] Egbuna participated in events organized by the Caribbean Artists Movement,[3] and in 1966 the Negro Theatre Workshop (founded in London by Pearl Connor) took his play Wind Versus Polygamy to the World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal.[4] He became a pioneer of the Black Power movement in Britain,[5] forming the Universal Coloured People's Association (UCPA) – "the first avowed Black Power group in Britain in August 1967, following Stokely Carmichael's visit" – and speaking at a major anti-Vietnam war rally in October that year.[6] Egbuna also participated in the Antiuniversity of London.[3][7]

In August 2020, Egbuna's son, Obi Egbuna Jr, spoke candidly to Bryan Knight's Tell A Friend podcast about his father's political activism and the fight against racism in 1960/70s Britain.[8]

Being heavily influenced by Marxism, Egbuna stressed the importance of an international struggle against capitalism, as a part of the global struggle against racial oppression. In a speech from 1967 at Trafalgar Square, London, Egbuna stated: "Black Power means simply that the blacks of this world are out to liquidate capitalist oppression of black people wherever it exists by any means necessary."[9] On 10 November 1967 he launched the Black Power Manifesto, published by the Universal Coloured People's Association. As spokesperson for the group, he claimed they had recruited 778 members in London during the previous seven weeks.[10] In 1968 Egbuna published a pamphlet entitled Black Power or Death.[11]

Egbuna also saw the socialist and communist student movements of the 1960s as problematic to the Black Power cause. Although ideologically rooted in a similar Marxist intellectual tradition, he saw the student organisations as "socialist snobs" who decree from "the premise that only they have read and can understand Marx".[12] This intellectual snobbery was, according to Egbuna, "doing a great harm to the cause they claim to be upholding" by ignoring race as a key reason for oppression of black workers:

Nobody in his right mind disputes that the fact that the White worker is a prey to capitalist exploitation, as well as the Black Worker. But equally indisputable is the fact that the White worker is exploited only because he is a worker, not because he is white, while in contrast, the Black Worker is oppressed, not only because he is a worker, but also because he is Black.[13]

During the 1960s, many sympathisers of Black Power left their socialist and communist student organisations and subsequently started their own Marxist-orientated Black Power organisations, such as Black Socialist Alliance.

Controversy

As a consequence of the Race Relations Act 1965, incitement of racial violence had become explicitly illegal in the United Kingdom. Several members of Egbuna's UCPA were fined under this act. Perhaps most noticeable was Roy Sawh, who in a speech 1968 at Speaker's Corner in London's Hyde Park urged "coloured nurses to give wrong injections to patients, coloured bus crews not to take the fare of black people and Indian restaurant owners to 'put something in the curry'."[9][14] Egbuna himself was later that year sentenced to prison accused of threatening to kill police and certain politicians.[9]

Later years

Egbuna's last novel, The Madness of Didi, was published in 1980. He died in Washington, DC, on 18 January 2014, aged 75, and a tribute to his life and work was held on Saturday, 1 March 2014, at the Rankin Memorial Chapel, Howard University, Washington, DC.[15]

Egbuna's papers are held at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, at the New York Public Library.[16]

Bibliography

Drama:

  • The Anthill: A play (London: Three Crowns Books/Oxford University Press, 1965)

Novels:

  • Wind Versus Polygamy (London: Faber, 1964) (republished in paperback by Fontana as Elina, 1978)
  • The Minister's Daughter (1975; Fontana paperback, 1985)
  • The Madness of Didi (1980)

Short stories:

  • Daughters of the Sun and Other Stories (Three Crowns, 1970)
  • Emperor of the Sea and Other Stories (London: Fontana/Collins, 1974)
  • The Rape of Lysistrata (Nigeria: Fourth Dimension Publishers, 1980)
  • Black Candles for Christmas (Nigeria: Fourth Dimension Publishers, 1980)

Non-fiction:

  • Black Power in Britain (London: UCPA, 1967)
  • Black Power or Death (Black Star, 1968)
  • The Murder of Nigeria: An Indictment (Panaf, 1968)
  • Destroy this Temple: The Voice of Black Power in Britain (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1971)
  • The ABC of Black Power Thought – A Nigro Book (1973)
  • The Diary of a Homeless Prodigal (Nigeria: Fourth Dimension Publishers, 1976)

See also

Further reading

References

  1. ^ Bunce, Robin, and Paul Field, Darcus Howe: A Political Biography, London: Bloomsbury, 2015, p. 30.
  2. ^ adi, Hakim, Pan-Africanism: A History, Bloomsbury, 2018.
  3. ^ a b Slater, Howard (15 August 2017), "Homicidal Melancholics of the World Unite!", Mute.
  4. ^ Walmsley, Anne, The Caribbean Artists Movement 1966–1972: A Literary and Cultural History, London: New Beacon Books, 1992, p. 32.
  5. ^ "Obi B. Egbuna (Obi Benue Egbuna) Biography", jrank.org. Accessed 17 July 2012.
  6. ^ Walmsley, The Caribbean Artists Movement 1966–1972 (1992), pp. 125–126.
  7. ^ Jakobsen, Jakob (2012). "Anti-University of London–Antihistory Tabloid". London: MayDay Rooms.
  8. ^ Knight, Bryan (5 August 2020). "Obligation To Organise (feat. Obi Eegbuna Jr)". YouTube.
  9. ^ a b c A. Sivanandan, A Different Hunger – Writings on Black Resistance, London: Pluto Press (1982), p. 21.
  10. ^ Marshall, Rita (11 November 1967). "Black Power Men Launch Credo". The Times.
  11. ^ "Archive 1966 - 1996 | it40 Sep 20 - Oct 3 1968", International Times.
  12. ^ Egbuna, Obi, The ABC of Black Power Thought – A Nigro Book (1973).
  13. ^ Egbuna, Obi, The ABC of Black Power – A Nigro Book (1968), p. 19.
  14. ^ "Roy Sawh", Sounds from the Park (On the Record Community Interest Company).
  15. ^ Uzor Maxim Uzoatu, "Remembering The Rebel Writer Obi Egbuna", The News (Nigeria), 27 April 2020.
  16. ^ "Obi Egbuna papers 1960–2014", New York Public Library, Archives & Manuscripts.
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