>I wouldn't want anyone to get the idea that he was downplaying
>the struggle in America, because he has in no way tried to
>make it seem like there has been less struggle there. He's
>interested in why West Indians have (apparently? perhaps?
>possibly?) played more of a role from a Pan-African
>perspective.

I appreciate immensely the work that African-American leaders have done, and I fully realize the sacrifices that these brothers and sisters made. You can't put a value on the work of Vernon Johns, Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy, Medgar Evers, the SCLC, SNCC, etc. These folks were all essential to the movement. ESSENTIAL. We all owe the freedom that we have to these people and the individuals who were willing to put their ideas in motion. I am FROM Mississippi. My grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles have told me all kinds of stories from their 1st-hand viewpoints of the civil rights movement. My mother (who grew up in Jackson) remembers vividly the day after Medgar Evers was shot and killed. These people put in countless hours for the betterment of Black people IN AMERICA, and some gave the supreme sacrifice. I am not downplaying their importance one iota...but I can't say they were Pan-Africanist in their thinking either.