Building A Pro-Black World

What It Looks Like to Build a Pro‐Black Organization

Liz Derias and Kad Smith

Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone's head. They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children. National liberation, the struggle against colonialism, the construction of peace, progress and independence are hollow words devoid of any significance unless they can be translated into a real improvement of living conditions.

—Amilcar Cabral¹

The conversations that ensued can be found in full in Spring 2022 issue of NPQ.

Amilcar Cabral, Pan‐African leader of the Guinea‐Bissau and Cape Verde national independence struggle, wrote and spoke extensively about the need to fight for tangible, material changes for our communities. For Cabral, the wave of global independence movements by Africans and other (Western‐titled) “Third World” peoples was always about returning power from imperialist and colonial forces to everyday people. Today, this aim for social change workers remains the same, if not more pronounced. Our work is always to build power, not engage in ideological debates that only advance a few.

At CompassPoint (CP), we define power as the capacity (which includes will, resources, time, access, and more) to shape the outcomes of one's circumstances. Our work has been on a six‐year‐long antiracist path that has led to power building rather than challenging ...