Intimate Direct Democracy
By Modibo Kadalie
Published by On Our Own Authority! Publishing, 2022
186 pages, paperback
From the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, many African people who were enslaved in North America emancipated themselves and fled into vast swamplands and across colonial borders, beyond the reach of oppressive settler-colonialism and the institution of slavery. On the peripheries of empire, these freedom-seeking "maroons" established their own autonomous, ethnically diverse, and intimately democratic communities of resistance. In this new volume, Modibo Kadalie offers a critical reexamination of the history and historiography surrounding two sites of African maroonage: The Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and North Carolina; and Fort Mose in Florida. In these communities of refuge, deep-rooted directly democratic social movements emanating from West Africa converged with those of indigenous North Americans. Kadalie's study of these sites offers a new lens of "intimate direct democracy," through which readers are invited to re-examine their notions of human social history and the true meaning of democracy.
Praise for Intimate Direct Democracy
"Vital reading for anyone interested in the history of the Southeast... and an inspiration to all who envision a liberated future" -Natsu Taylor Saito, author of Settler Colonialism, Race, and the Law
"Modibo Kadalie continues to give history new life and new perspective by raising questions about ecological crises both past and present" -William C. Anderson, author of The Nation on No Map
"Social-ecological communal lifeways and solidarity are indeed possible, even under the worst of conditions. An inspiring must-read, when we most need it!" -Cindy Millstein, editor of Deciding for Ourselves
"Modibo Kadalie... gives voice to truths of American history that are not found in traditional texts" -Yakini Kemp, professor of English, Florida A&M University
"This book is an eye-opening account for anyone who is seeking to learn from the past to understand the present" -Mohamed Haji Mukhtar, professor of history, Savannah State University
