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Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Communication Dissertations Department of Communication Spring 5-10-2013 I am a Revolutionary Black Female Nationalist: A Womanist Analysis of Fulani Sunni Ali's Role as a New African Citizen and Minister of In-formation in the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Africa Rondee Gaines Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/communication_diss Recommended Citation Gaines, Rondee, "I am a Revolutionary Black Female Nationalist: A Womanist Analysis of Fulani Sunni Ali's Role as a New African Citizen and Minister of In-formation in the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Africa." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2013. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/communication_diss/44 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Communication at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Communication Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. I AM A REVOLUTIONARY BLACK FEMALE NATIONALIST: A WOMANIST ANALYSIS OF FULANI SUNNI ALI’S ROLE AS A NEW AFRICAN CITIZEN AND MINISTER OF IN- FORMATION IN THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF NEW AFRICA by RONDEE GAINES Under the Direction of M. Lane Bruner ABSTRACT Historically, black women have always played key roles in the struggle for liberation. A critical determinant of black women’s activism was the influence of both race and gender, as the- se factors were immutably married to their subjectivities. African American women faced the socio-cultural and structural challenge of sexism prevalent in the United States and also in the black community. My study examines the life of Fulani Sunni Ali, her role in black liberation, her role as the Minister of Information for the Provisional Government for the Republic of New Africa, and her communication strategies. In doing so, I evaluate a black female revolutionary nationalist’s discursive negotiation of her identity during the Black Power and Black Nationalist Movement. I also use womanist criticism to analyze interviews with Sunni Ali and archival data in her possession to reveal the complexity and diversity of black women’s roles and activities in a history of black resistance struggle and to locate black female presence and agency in Black Power. The following study more generally analyzes black female revolutionary nationalists’ roles, activities, and discursive identity negotiation during the Black Power Movement. By ex- amining Sunni Ali’s life and the way she struggled against racism and patriarchy to advocate for Black Power and Black Nationalism, I demonstrate how her activism was a continuation of a tra- dition of black women’s resistance, and I extrapolate her forms of black women’s activism ex- tant in the movement. INDEX WORDS: Black Nationalism, Nationalism, Black Power Movement, Womanism, Rheto- ric, Provisional Government of the Republic of New Africa, Fulani Sunni Ali, Social Movement I AM A REVOLUTIONARY BLACK FEMALE NATIONALIST: A WOMANIST ANALYSIS OF FULANI SUNNI ALI’S ROLE AS A NEW AFRICAN CITIZEN AND MINISTER OF IN- FORMATION IN THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF NEW AFRICA by RONDEE GAINES A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2013 Copyright by Rondee Gaines 2013 I AM A REVOLUTIONARY BLACK FEMALE NATIONALIST: A WOMANIST ANALYSIS OF FULANI SUNNI ALI’S ROLE AS A NEW AFRICAN CITIZEN AND MINISTER OF IN- FORMATION IN THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF NEW AFRICA by RONDEE GAINES Committee Chair: M. Lane Bruner Committee: Layli Maparyan David Cheshier Shirlene Holmes Akinyele Umoja Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University May 2013 iv DEDICATION This book is dedicated to my parents, to my elders, to my siblings, to my community family, to my ancestors who came before me, and to those generations who will come after me. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Dr. M. Lane Bruner for constantly providing unyielding support as my ad- visor and mentor. You always helped keep me on track and motivated me to push beyond my limits. Thank you to my wonderfully understanding committee members Dr. Layli Maparyan, Dr. Shirlene Holmes, Dr. David Cheshier, and Dr. Akinyele Umoja. A special thank you to the Department of Communication administrative and support staff at GSU. And of course, thank you to my beautifully faithful community of family and friends for always believing, loving, trusting, giving, and understanding my journey and lifting me closer to my potential. Thank you. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ v 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 2 BLACK WOMEN’S RESISTANCE FROM CHATTEL SLAVERY TO THE MID- TWENTIETH CENTURY ............................................................................................ 13 2.1 Black Women’s Strategies Of Resistance In Chattel Slavery .............................. 14 2.2 Black Women’s Strategies Of Resistance In The Late Nineteenth And Early Twentieth Centuries .............................................................................................. 18 2.3 Black Women’s Strategies Of Resistance During The Civil Rights Movement .. 24 2.4 Race Versus Gender ............................................................................................. 33 2.5 The Trifurcation Of Black Women’s Strategies Of Resistance During The Civil Rights Movement .................................................................................................. 39 2.6 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 44 3 THE RADICALIZATION OF LACK RESISTANCE: FROM COMMUNITY ACTIVISM TO BLACK NATIONALISM .................................................................. 49 3.1 The Incompatibilities Between Dominant White Ideology And Black Realities . 51 3.2 Black Mothers Instilling Information In The Urban Kitchen ............................... 58 3.3 Working with the “Man,” Cultural Nationalism, or Revolutionary Nationalism . 69 3.4 Black Women Activists Working in “The System” ............................................. 81 3.5 Cultural Nationalism ............................................................................................. 84 3.6 Black Nationalists’ Struggles with Black Power .................................................. 99 vii 3.7 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 104 4 RACE, REBELLION, RIOT, AND THE FOUNDING OF A SEPARATIST BLACK NATION...................................................................................................................... 107 4.1 Ending Oppression Through An Independent Black Nation .............................. 108 4.2 “I Define Myself as A Black Nationalist” .......................................................... 118 4.3 The Independent New African State Shall Serve The People ............................ 129 4.4 What All Republic of New Africa Citizens Must Do ......................................... 133 4.5 Black People Black Power Equals Black Nationhood ....................................... 140 5 FULANI SUNNI ALI’S RHETORICAL STRATEGIES IN THE REPUBLIC OF NEW AFRICA ............................................................................................................ 145 5.1 Sunni Ali’s New African Enactment of Womanist Modes of Resistance .......... 151 5.2 Testifying Discourse and Engineering Support for African Prisoners of War ... 180 5.3 Liberatory Emergence “In the Belly of the Dog” ............................................... 190 5.4 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 204 6 CONCLUSIONS ....................................................................................................... 208 7 Works Cited .............................................................................................................. 221 8 APPENDIX ............................................................................................................... 239 1 1 INTRODUCTION On October 27, 1981, with several airplanes and helicopters hovering overhead, two army tanks standing in adjacent cow pastures, and over 200 federal, state, and local law en- forcement officers scrambling throughout the yard and bushes, Fulani Sunni Ali (birth name Cynthia Boston), Jerry Gaines, and fourteen children were put under arrest. “It looked like they were ready for war,” said Jerry Gaines in an interview with the Jackson Advocate after they were taken to an FBI center in Gallman, Mississippi, just thirty miles south of the state’s capital in Jackson. At approximately six in the morning, the U.S. government had launched a predawn raid on Gaines’s home. Initially, the charges claimed that Fulani Sunni Ali was wanted in connection with a Brink’s robbery in Rockland County, New York, which took place on October 20, 1981. She was allegedly working with the Black Liberation Army, which included white and black rad- icals, and was working
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