The East Side Freedom Library invites you to Samora Machel: The Struggle Against Colonialism, featuring Allen Isaacman and Barbara Isaacman authors of the new book, SAMORA MACHEL: A LIFE CUT SHORT, in conversation with Rose Brewer and August Nimtz, Jr.

Register here to join this event on Zoom or watch it live streamed to ESFL’s Facebook page.

Samora Machel (1933–1986), the son of small-town farmers, led his people through a war against their Portuguese colonists and became the first president of the People’s Republic of Mozambique. Machel’s military successes against a colonial regime backed by South Africa, Rhodesia, the United States, and its NATO allies enhanced his reputation as a revolutionary hero to the oppressed people of Southern Africa. In 1986, during the country’s civil war, Machel died in a plane crash under circumstances that remain uncertain.

Allen and Barbara Isaacman lived through many of these changes in Mozambique and bring personal recollections together with archival research and interviews with others who knew Machel or participated in events of the revolutionary or post-revolutionary years. Allen is the Regents Professor of History at the University of Minnesota and Extraordinary Professor at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. He is the author of seven books exploring African history. Barbara Isaacman is a retired criminal defense attorney in Hennepin County. She worked with the Mozambican Women’s Movement and taught at the law faculty of the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane while living in Mozambique in the late 1970s.

Rose Brewer and August Nimtz, Jr., are models of scholar-activists. Dr. Brewer is Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of African American and African Studies at the University of Minnesota. She has won many teaching awards, has worked on curricular transformation, and has published widely in both academic and activist platforms. Dr. Nimtz is a Professor of Political Science and African American and African Studies at the University of Minnesota. He has published widely in African American political thought, and he has been active in building bridges between local communities and Cuban activists.

Please join us for what is certain to be a lively and productive conversation.

Free and open to all