The Red and the Black – The Russian Revolution and the Black Atlantic

The conference The Red and the Black – The Russian Revolution and the Black Atlantic will be held at the Institute for Black Atlantic Research (IBAR), University of Central Lancashire, Preston, on the 13-15 October 2017, to mark the centenary of the Russian Revolution.

The Russian Revolution was not only one of the most critical events of the twentieth century in its own right but an inspirational event across the ‘black Atlantic’ as a blow against racism and imperialism. For colonial subjects of European empires internationally as well as black Americans, the Russian Revolution promised the hope of a world without oppression and exploitation.

This conference aims to build on the growing scholarship and literature in this area to explore the impact the revolutionary events in Russia during 1917 made across the African diaspora and the subsequent critical intellectual influence of Marxism and Bolshevism on the current of revolutionary ‘black internationalism’ in its aftermath.

Keynote speaker: Professor Winston James (University of California, Irvine) Dr Cathy Bergin (University of Brighton), Prof Hakim Adi (University of Chichester).

Special performances from Linton Kwesi Johnson, Tayo Aluko and David Rovics.

Event organisers: Olga Tabachnikova, David Featherstone, Christian Høgsbjerg and Alan Rice.