The Long Vendetta: Paul Robeson, Black Freedom, and the Warfare State – Jordan Camp

In this talk, Jordan T. Camp examines the state surveillance and repression of Black freedom leaders. He offers a new trajectory of U.S. state formation during the Cold War and a historically grounded analysis of racism and counterinsurgency. Linking the violent 1949 Peekskill, New York attack on Black activist Paul Robeson to counterinsurgency programs, he demonstrates the relationship between the build-up of the largest warfare state on the planet and what he terms a “long vendetta” against the Black radical internationalist tradition.

Jordan T. Camp is Director of Research at the People’s Forum, Visiting Scholar in the Center for Place, Culture and Politics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and Co-Director of the Racial Capitalism Working Group in the Center for the Study of Social Difference at Columbia University.