Elombe Brath
{{Short description|Pan-African activist}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Cecil Elombe Brath
| birth_date = September 30, 1936
| birth_place = New York City, US
| death_date = {{dda|2014|5|19|1936|9|30}}
| death_place = New York City, US
| spouse = Helene Nomsa Brath
| children = 6
| relatives = Kwame Brathwaite (brother)
}}
Cecil Elombe Brath (September 30, 1936 – May 19, 2014)[http://www.elombebrathfoundation.org/elombe-brath-s-legacy "Who Was Elombe Brath?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180121071519/http://www.elombebrathfoundation.org/elombe-brath-s-legacy |date=2018-01-21 }}, Elombe Brath Foundation. was a Pan-African activist, born in New York City of Barbadian heritage, who is best known for founding the Patrice Lumumba Coalition. He was an influential activist, recognized by Stokely Carmichael as the "Dean of Harlem Nationalists"{{cite web|last1=Boyd|first1=Herb|title=Tribute to Elombe Brath|url=http://t.amsterdamnews.com/news/2013/jun/10/tribute-to-elombe-brath/|website=Amsterdam News|accessdate=February 7, 2015|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150207232847/http://t.amsterdamnews.com/news/2013/jun/10/tribute-to-elombe-brath/|archivedate=February 7, 2015}} and by Dudley Thompson, an "Icon of the Pan-African Movement".{{cite web|title=Elombe Brath|url=http://www.wadupam.org/elombe-brath|website=World African Diaspora Union|accessdate=February 7, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181130030449/http://www.wadupam.org/elombe-brath|archive-date=November 30, 2018|url-status=dead}}Pryce, Vinette K., [https://www.caribbeanlifenews.com/stories/2017/10/2017-10-06-vkp-inside-life-cl.html "Son of Barbados honored by Harlem street name"], Caribbean Life, October 3, 2017.
Biography
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, where his father had migrated from Barbados in the 1920s. Brath grew up in Harlem and Hunts Point, and attended the High School of Industrial Art (now Art and Design), later winning a college scholarship to the School of Visual Arts.
In 1956, he was among the co-founders of the African Jazz-Art Society & Studios "to reclaim jazz as music of contemporary African traditions that should be controlled by black artists", and in 1962, he began working as a graphic artist for ABC Television, remaining there until his retirement in 1999.
Brath fought to eliminate the usage of the term "negro" and, in 1961, launched a "Black is Beautiful" campaign with a series of Afrocentric fashion shows featuring African-American women who were known as the Grandassa Models{{cite web|last1=Ra|first1=Amun|title=Happy Natural Day|url=http://happilynaturalday.com/consciousness/ajass-and-the-grandassa-models-origins-of-the-black-is-beautiful-movement/|accessdate=February 7, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120829144404/http://happilynaturalday.com/consciousness/ajass-and-the-grandassa-models-origins-of-the-black-is-beautiful-movement/|archive-date=August 29, 2012|url-status=dead}} and sported large afros.
In 1975 Brath founded, with Irving Davis, the Patrice Lumumba Coalition,{{cite web|title=Patrice Lumumba Coalition|url=http://africanactivist.msu.edu/organization.php?name=Patrice%20Lumumba%20Coalition|publisher=African Activist Archive|accessdate=February 7, 2015}} which supported the right to self-determination for Angolans, South Africans, and Namibians and other African liberation movements. In 1976, the Coalition released a policy memo calling for the support of the Zimbabwe Liberation Army.{{cite web|last1=Patrice Lumumba Coalition|title=Southern Africa Must Be Free! USA Subversion Must Be Exposed!|url=http://kora.matrix.msu.edu/files/50/304/32-130-1DE1-84-PLC%208-25-76%20opt.pdf|website=African Activist Archive|publisher=Michigan State University|accessdate=February 7, 2015}} They garnered attention for a 1977 boycott of Ipi Tombi, a Broadway musical that purportedly misrepresented life under apartheid.
Brath was the host of the New York City radio show Afrikaleidoscope on WBAI,{{cite book|editor=Minter, William |editor2=Gail Hovey |editor3=Charles Cobb Jr.|title=No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists Over a Half Century, 1950–2000|date=2007|publisher=Africa World Press|page=199|isbn= 9781592215744}} and often organized events and panels in the city to bring attention to African politics and current events.
In 2003, Brath cofounded the World African Diaspora Union (WADU) to advocate for the unification of the African Diaspora politically, culturally, and economically with Africa. WADU was officially launched in 2004.{{cite web|title=World African Diaspora Union|url=http://www.wadupam.org/about|accessdate=February 7, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170601013151/http://www.wadupam.org/about|archive-date=June 1, 2017|url-status=dead}}
The great thinkers whom Brath counted as influences — Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Carlos A. Cooks, and his cousin Clennell Wickham — waged a political battle on behalf of working-class blacks in colonial Barbados.{{cite web |url=http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/uptown/harlem-mourns-death-activist-elombe-brath-article-1.1800926 |title=Harlem mourns death of Elombe Brath, lifelong warrior in battle for pan-African empowerment |work=New York Daily News |date=May 21, 2014 | accessdate=February 7, 2015 |author=Ransom, Jan}}
Brath died in Harlem at the age of 77.
Legacy
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
External links
- Dred-Scott Keyes, [https://vimeo.com/96959919 "“Tribute To An Ancestor-Elombe Brath"] (A look at the life of activist/artist Elombe Brath). Vimeo.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Brath, Elombe}}
Category:American people of Barbadian descent
Category:African-American activists
Category:Activists from Brooklyn
Category:American pan-Africanists
Category:Activists from New York (state)