Otto and Hermina Huiswoud: Modern Black Diasporic Radicals
In the history of Black internationalism, few trajectories involve as many sites of political organizing as those of Hermina and Otto Huiswoud.
Hermina participated in organizations spanning from the Harlem Tenants League in New York to the Lenin Institute in Moscow. And while Otto remains principally remembered as the only Black person present at the founding meeting of the Communist Party USA, he also spearheaded recruitment campaigns in the Caribbean, and made his mark as chair of the Vereniging Ons Suriname (“Our Suriname Association”) in Amsterdam after WWII. The symposium brings together an international set of scholars discussing questions to do with the Huiswouds’ relationship to Pan-Africanism, their work for radical publications such as The Negro Worker and organizations such as International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers, their legacy in the contemporary Dutch Caribbean, and their archive at The Black Archives in Amsterdam.
PRACTICAL
Friday 8 September - 9:30 till 17:00 - International Institute of Social History
Saturday 9 September - 10:00 till 17:00 - The Black Archives
PARTICIPANTS
Leslie James, Mano Delea, Guno Jones, Holger Weiss
Margaret Stevens, Mitchell Esajas, Jessica de Abreu, Minkah Makalani
ATTENDING
Please let us know via this link if you are coming to the event
PROGRAM
Friday, 8 September 2023
Location: International Institute of Social History
9.30–10.00am Introductions
Welcome by Leo Lucassen, Pepijn Brandon, Wayne Modest, David Scott
Introductory remarks by Mayaki Kimba
10.00-11.30 Leslie James
Paper Title: Beyond Antagonism: Otto and Hermina Huiswoud as Participants in Caribbean Anti-Colonial Radicalisms of the 1930s
Discussant: Dominque Ankoné
Moderator: David Scott
11.30-13.00 Mano Delea
Paper Title: Traces of Pan-Africanism in the Works and Lives of Otto and Hermina Huiswoud
Discussant: Zawdie Sandvliet
Moderator: David Scott
13.00–14.00 Lunch
14.00-15.30 Guno Jones
Otto Huiswoud, Anton de Kom and the Broader Critical Caribbean Tradition. Cross-Caribbean Critical Interactions and the Limits of Liberation
Discussant: Wayne Modest
Moderator: Pepijn Brandon
15.30–17.00 Holger Weiss
Otto Huiswoud and the Demise of the Red Atlantic
Discussant: David Grantsaan
Moderator: Pepijn Brandon
Saturday, 9 September 2023
Location: The Black Archives
10.00-11.30 Margaret Stevens
From Primitive Accumulation to Cannibalized Dispossession: Standard Oil’s Jim Crow Lago Refinery on “One Happy Island,” 1925 to 1985
Discussant: Carine Zaayman
Moderator: Mitchell Esajas
11.30-13.00 Tour of Black Archives
13.00–14.00 Lunch
14.00–15.30 Mitchell Esajas and Phaedra Haringsma
Presentations on ongoing research by Mitchell Esajas and Phaedra Haringsma, followed by a panel with Mitchell Esajas, Phaedra Haringsma, and Hermine Haman
Moderator: Wayne Modest
15.30-17.00 Roundtable
Moderators: Minkah Makalani and Wayne Modest
Panelists: Mano Delea, Guno Jones, Margaret Stevens, Mitchell Esajas, Jules Rijssen and Wendeline Flores
A symposium organized by: Small Axe, International Institute of Social History, the Tropenmuseum, and The Black Archives
