Black liberation is an example for us all
Justice that waits to become convenient is not justice at all.

The world loves the language of justice until justice becomes disruptive. We praise resistance once it is safely in the past, while refusing to recognize it in the present. Once its leaders can be quoted without discomfort and its demands no longer interrupt power, liberation becomes something to celebrate rather than confront. But when Black resistance insists on action in the present, when it disrupts comfort, challenges authority, or refuses politeness, it is quickly reframed as excessive, divisive, or inconvenient.

This contradiction is not accidental. Black liberation movements have shaped how resistance is organized across the globe, laying the groundwork for struggles against colonialism and authoritarian rule. Yet despite this legacy, Black resistance  continues to be treated as a footnote in global advocacy; acknowledged intellectually but abandoned politically. 

Black liberation is not undermined because it lacks clarity or moral grounding. It is undermined because dominant narratives recast Black resistance as disorder rather than justice, allowing the world to praise liberation in theory while refusing to defend it in practice. 

Black freedom as a threat: the history

Black liberation movements have always understood a sobering truth: oppression is not accidental, it is organized. Early examples like the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) proved this on a world stage. 

When enslaved Black communities in Haiti overthrew French colonial rule and founded the first Black republic, they shattered the myth of imperial permanence. The reaction from the world’s powers was swift and punitive. Haiti’s independence was met with “great fear and rejection” by surrounding slaveholding nations, which sought to isolate the new republic and stifle its example. 

In 1825, under the threat of French warships, Haiti was forced to pay an indemnity of 150 million francs to former slaveholders—a crushing “independence debt” that took well over a century to pay off. 

Fast forward to the 20th century, and Black liberation movements in America and Africa continued to unsettle the status quo. Black figures hailed as heroes today were once vilified in their time, now honoured in the name of racial justice. For example, the renowned Martin Luther King Jr. was deeply unpopular during his life: by 1966, 72% of Americans held an unfavorable view of him. 

Likewise, activists like Malcolm X and organizations like the Black Panther Party were derided as dangerous radicals. We often forget that the civil rights movement praised now was widely seen as too “extreme” in its day. Black resistance frightened those in power not simply because of its message, but because it threatened to upend structures of racial and economic control. 

Black resistance  was unforgivable until its victories could be neatly folded into history textbooks.

Intersectional resistance: from Harlem to Hebron

Black liberation movements were never just about one people in one country. Black resistance sought to redefine resistance itself as a global, interconnected project. 

Throughout the 20th century, Black activists built bridges with anti-colonial and freedom movements worldwide. Notably, the Black Panther Party was housed and found purpose in newly-independent Algeria, united under a common banner for liberation. 

This solidarity was born of a recognition that systems of oppression—be it racism, colonialism, or apartheid—operate across borders and often in concert. Black liberation leaders saw common cause with people fighting colonial rule in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, and vice versa.

Nowhere is this kinship more enduring than in the relationship between Black liberation and Palestinian resistance. Pro-Palestinian and Black activists drew parallels not because the histories were identical, but because the structures of oppression felt familiar: military occupation, segregated spaces, surveillance, and the branding of resistors as “terrorists” or criminals. 

In the 1960s, Black Panthers like Stokely Carmichael described Palestine as “the tip of Africa,” framing the Palestinian struggle as a natural extension of anti-colonial fights in the Global South. Many African nations, having shed colonial shackles themselves, were quick to support the Palestinian cause; when Yasser Arafat declared an independent Palestinian state in 1988, “half of the countries that immediately recognized it were African or Caribbean.”

Nelson Mandela later distilled this bond in a famous pronouncement: “Our freedom will be incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinian people.” From Harlem to Hebron, oppressed communities have exchanged lessons and support. 

Black activists and Palestinian activists have often spoken in the same language of liberation, reminding the world that state violence and resistance are globally connected. Solidarity, in this sense, is not merely emotional; it is analytical and practical.

When Black causes become a footnote

If Black resistance paved the way for so many other movements, why are Black causes pushed to the periphery? Today, even as social justice rhetoric has become mainstream, Black-led struggles are too often treated as an afterthought. Nowhere is this more evident than in the world’s response to African crises and Black struggles outside the spotlight.

Take Sudan. In 2019, massive protests in Sudan toppled a 30-year dictatorship, a breathtaking example of people-power. Yet Sudan’s ongoing pain—including the devastating war that erupted in 2023—has been largely relegated to “the world’s largest humanitarian crisis” that few talk about. As Sudanese writers have observed, Sudan has been reduced to a “mere footnote” in global activism, with performative mentions that signal virtue more than commit to action. 

The pattern repeats across the African continent. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), conflict fueled by global greed for minerals has killed millions over decades, making it one of the deadliest wars since World War II. Yet this tragedy unfolds with minimal international outrage or coverage. 

The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council recently blasted world leaders for the “level of global neglect” faced by civilians in eastern DRC, calling it a neglect so egregious it “should shame” those in power. 

Dr. Denis Mukwege, the Congolese Nobel laureate, similarly urged western nations to drop their double standards, noting how the swift, forceful response to crises elsewhere is absent for African lives, leaving Africans communities feeling as though their suffering is “totally forgotten” by the world. 

That is also the case within the United States—which is often vocal about democracy and rights abroad—Black resistance is met with discomfort when it challenges American complacency. The resurgence of open white supremacist and neofascist movements has been answered by Black-led movements like Black Lives Matter, which demand a true reckoning with racism. 

Yet instead of universal support, these modern Black resistances face familiar accusations: too radical, too divisive, too “political.”

 In 2020, as protests against police brutality swept the U.S., there were calls to pacify and marginalize the movement. US society and officials alike dusted off their old playbooks, creating terms like “Black Identity Extremists” to monitor Black activists as if they were a domestic enemy. 

All of this underlines a harsh reality: Black causes are celebrated only so long as they don’t disturb the existing order.

Beyond selective solidarity: learning from Black resistance

The world loves to champion resistance heroes of the past, to name boulevards after them, to quote their most uplifting lines. But true homage to Black liberation movements means learning the lesson they have taught time and time again. 

Justice is not a passive endeavor, and solidarity is not selective. Black resistance, in all its forms, shows that organized and  collective action is the engine of real change. It teaches that dignity must be defended consistently, not just when convenient. Most importantly, it warns us that silence is political. To remain neutral or indifferent in the face of oppression is to side with the status quo.

If we genuinely want to honour the legacy of Black liberators, we must break out of our transactional, comfort-driven approach to activism. That means refusing to treat Black struggles—whether in Sudan, in Congo, or in Ferguson—as peripheral issues. It means amplifying the voices of Black and African activists on the ground and following their lead, rather than waiting to mourn tragedies after it’s too late. It means acknowledging that an Western (and white) life  is not worth more than any other life, and acting on that belief in how we allocate attention, aid, and political pressure.

Above all, becoming more vocal and committed to current Black causes requires that we embrace resistance not just once it’s safe and over, but while it is risky and urgent. 

History is not meant to comfort us. It is meant to confront us.  To praise Black liberation in retrospect while undermining Black resistance in the present is not enlightened or neutral; it is hypocrisy.

Justice that waits to become convenient is not justice at all.