Inner City Blues
Blues Legacies and the Roots of 1968
Abstract
In this article, I would like to propose an alternative and long view of “1968” which is grounded in black liberation movements, Afrodiasporic cultures, neighborhood-based organizations and sustained and propagated by music and sound. Venturing into this alternative history, I consider the Bronx, Harlem, and Naples, Italy as networks of resistance and nodal junctures for the transmission of Afrodiasporic cultures of opposition. Connecting the mutual influence of global social movements, music and neighborhood-based organizations, my article is also an invitation to start thinking about history through acoustic/musical resonances.
Keywords
Activism in the South Bronx; inter-ethnic alliances; Black liberation movements; Afrodiasporic and creolized cultures; music and ethno-chamber effect; Harlem; Naples; Mediterranean
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University of Naples "L'Orientale" Italy
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7532-4232
Alessandro Buffa holds a PhD in U.S. history with an emphasis on African diaspora, World history, modernity and cultural studies from Stony Brook University. While in New York, he attended graduate seminars in African American cultural history and Black diaspora at the CUNY Graduate Center and Columbia University. He worked as Assistant of Iain Chambers, founder of the Center for Gender and Postcolonial Studies at the University of Naples, L’Orientale. His published work focuses on black culture and music in New York and Naples. He is currently a Research Fellow in English at the University of Naples “L’Orientale.”
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