Juneteenth: ‘Liberation Flix’

In honor of Juneteenth, Oppressed Revolutionaries for Worker Power invites you to watch “Soundtrack Track to a Coup d’état” on June 21st at Carver Library (3350 E Commerce St) 1:30pm to 4:30pm and discussion afterwards!

This film is truly unlike any we’ve ever seen. As Africa was rapidly decolonizing, the capitalist countries of the West were conspiring to maintain control over the valuable natural resources of the continent by any means necessary. In the film, Patrice Lumumba rises to the leadership of the independence movement in Congo, eventually being elected president and joining the ranks of Pan African and Non-Aligned Movement leaders. But what is the difference between mere “independence” and “sovereignty?” That question is played out in dramatic fashion and set the playbook for the next several decades of neo-colonialism in Africa.

At the same time in the United States, the Civil Rights Movement was heating up, aiming to fulfill the promise of the Reconstruction Era following the Civil War, but usurped by the ruling class capitulation to Jim Crow counter-revolution. By this time, the question of how Black Liberation relates to Pan African decolonization became paramount – is Black Liberation primarily a struggle for internal democracy and representation within the U.S., or is it better understood as part of the struggle against colonialism and Western capitalist imperialism?

Incorporating many facets of the liberation struggles across the world – from symbolic representation, to revolutionary armed struggle, to counter-revolution – the film weaves through contradictions much like the brilliant jazz soundtrack which gives the film its name. Attentive viewers will take from the film an understanding as fresh today as 60+ years ago, when the events took place. The questions the film asks need to be taken up in our movements to move beyond the genocidal and ecocidal capitalist machine, and towards a future of peace and cooperation.