Cecil Elombe Brath (September 30, 1936 – May 19, 2014)"Who Was Elombe Brath?"
, Elombe Brath Foundation. was a

Pan-African Pan-Africanism is a worldwide movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all Indigenous and diaspora peoples of African ancestry. Based on a common goal dating back to the Atlantic slave trade, the movement exte ...

activist, born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

of Barbadian heritage, who is best known for founding the Patrice Lumumba Coalition. He was an influential activist, recognized by

Stokely Carmichael Kwame Ture (; born Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael; June 29, 1941November 15, 1998) was a prominent organizer in the civil rights movement in the United States and the global pan-African movement. Born in Trinidad, he grew up in the Unite ...

as the "Dean of Harlem Nationalists" and by Dudley Thompson, an "Icon of the Pan-African Movement".Pryce, Vinette K.
"Son of Barbados honored by Harlem street name"
''Caribbean Life'', October 3, 2017.

Biography

He was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York, where his father had migrated from Barbados in the 1920s. Brath grew up in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...

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 The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by ...

. 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 ABC Television most commonly refers to: *ABC Television Network of the American Broadcasting Company, United States, or *ABC Television (Australian TV network), a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia ABC Television or ABC ...

, 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 Black is beautiful is a cultural movement that was started in the United States in the 1960s by African Americans. It later spread beyond the United States, most prominently in the writings of the Black Consciousness Movement of Steve Biko in ...

" campaign with a series of Afrocentric fashion shows featuring African-American women who were known as the

Grandassa Models Grandassa Models were a part of a Black is Beautiful movement started by Kwame Brathwaite and Elombe Brath which centered on natural Black beauty. They attracted African American females who represented their standards of "Black is Beautiful" and ...

and sported large afros. In 1975 Brath founded, with Irving Davis, the Patrice Lumumba Coalition, 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. They garnered attention for a 1977 boycott of ''

Ipi Tombi ''Ipi Tombi'' (also produced as ''Ipi N'tombi'', both corrupted transliterations of the Zulu ''iphi ntombi'', or "where is the girl?"), is a 1974 musical by South African writers Bertha Egnos Godfrey and her daughter Gail Lakier, telling the stor ...

'', a Broadway musical that purportedly misrepresented life under

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

. Brath was the host of the New York City radio show ''Afrikaleidoscope'' on

WBAI WBAI (99.5 FM) is a non-commercial, listener-supported radio station licensed to New York, New York. Its programming is a mixture of political news, talk and opinion from a left-leaning, liberal or progressive viewpoint, and eclectic music. ...

, 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 The African diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from native Africans or people from Africa, predominantly in the Americas. The term most commonly refers to the descendants of the West and Central Africans who were e ...

politically, culturally, and economically with Africa. WADU was officially launched in 2004. The great thinkers whom Brath counted as influences —

Marcus Garvey Marcus Mosiah Garvey Sr. (17 August 188710 June 1940) was a Jamaican political activist, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African ...

Malcolm X Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Is ...

, Carlos A. Cooks, and his cousin

Clennell Wickham Clennell Wilsden Wickham (21 September 1895 – 6 October 1938) was a radical West Indian journalist, editor of Barbadian newspaper ''The Herald'' and champion of black, working-class causes against the white planter oligarchy in colonial Barbado ...

— waged a political battle on behalf of working-class blacks in colonial

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...

. Brath died in Harlem at the age of 77.

Legacy

In 2017, Elombe Brath Way was named in his honor.

References

External links

* Dred-Scott Keyes
"“Tribute To An Ancestor-Elombe Brath"
(A look at the life of activist/artist Elombe Brath). Vimeo. {{DEFAULTSORT:Brath, Elombe 1936 births 2014 deaths American people of Barbadian descent African-American activists People from Brooklyn American pan-Africanists Activists from New York (state) High School of Art and Design alumni 21st-century African-American people