International solidarity is at the heart of our hopes for fundamental, humane change in the US. There can be no revolution in values or in fact if progressive Americans wrap themselves in the myth of “exceptionalism” and stand aside from the global struggles leading the fight against imperialism and for peace and justice. We need to become comrades, standing together—shoulder-to-shoulder against a common enemy and toward a common goal. We join, then, a voluntary association characterized by enthusiasm and joy at being part of something larger than ourselves. We’re not allies, functioning in service to, but rather comrades, acting in solidarity with. The biggest obstacle to authentic comradeship in US history—the third rail of American radical politics—is and always has been white supremacy, and tepid work toward International Solidarity and Black freedom. Comradeship in America emerges only from an unconditional embrace of Internationalism and Black Liberation. We are joined in conversation with Martha Biondi, the Lorraine H. Morton Professor of African American Studies and Professor of History at Northwestern University, author of The Black Revolution on Campus;   To Stand and Fight: the Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City,  and most recently, We Are Internationalists: Prexy Nesbitt and the Fight for African Liberation

and Prexy Nesbitt, a Chicago organizer, engaged scholar, and activist who built (over several decades) international solidarity with African liberation movements fighting against colonialism and apartheid in Mozambique, Angola, and South Africa.