Liberation in transit

In public and scholarly memory, when we think of sites of 1960s political activism, it is often iconic hubs like Berkeley, London, Paris, and Prague that most readily come to mind. ¹ But the Third World also produced major nodes of “global sixties” activism—states that were often linked to and sometimes preceded, or even exceeded, in influence their more famous analogues in the West and East. ² While rarely included in the pantheon of leftwing sixties hubs, Tanzania’s capital of Dar es Salaam was undeniably one such mecca. Between Tanzania’s independence in 1961 and the mid-1970s, the roster of activists drawn to its capital provides a glimpse of its draw: Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davis, Robert F. Williams, Amiri Baraka, Oliver Tambo, Eduardo Mondlane, Che Guevara, Ruth First, Walter Rodney, and Giovanni Arrighi were just some of those who spent time there during those years.