Early years and education

Egbuna was born in Ozubulu, Anambra State, Nigeria. He studied at the University of Iowa and Howard University, Washington, DC, moving in 1961 to England, where he lived until 1973.

Political activism in Britain

In London, Egbuna was a member of a group called the Committee of African Organisations that had roots in the West African Students' Union, and which organised Malcolm X's 1965 visit to Britain.^[1][2] Egbuna participated in events organized by the Caribbean Artists Movement,^[3] and in 1966 his play Wind Versus Polygamy was performed at the World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal,^[4] where the Pan African Players and the Negro Theatre Workshop (founded in London by Pearl Connor) represented the United Kingdom.^[5] He became a pioneer of the Black Power movement in Britain,^[6] forming the Universal Coloured People's Association (UCPA) – "the first avowed Black Power group in Britain in August 1967, following Stokely Carmichael's visit" – and speaking at a major anti-Vietnam war rally in October that year.^[7] Egbuna also participated in the Antiuniversity of London.^[3][8]

In August 2020, Egbuna's son, Obi Egbuna Jr, spoke candidly to Bryan Knight's Tell A Friend podcast about his father's political activism and the fight against racism in the Britain of the 1960 and 1970s.^[9]

Being heavily influenced by Marxism, Egbuna stressed the importance of an international struggle against capitalism, as a part of the global struggle against racial oppression. In a speech from 1967 at Trafalgar Square, London, Egbuna stated: "Black Power means simply that the blacks of this world are out to liquidate capitalist oppression of black people wherever it exists by any means necessary."^[10] On 10 November 1967, he launched the Black Power Manifesto, published by the Universal Coloured People's Association. As spokesperson for the group, he claimed they had recruited 778 members in London during the previous seven weeks.^[11] In 1968 Egbuna published a pamphlet entitled Black Power or Death.^[12]

Egbuna also saw the socialist and communist student movements of the 1960s as problematic to the Black Power cause. Although ideologically rooted in a similar Marxist intellectual tradition, he saw the student organisations as "socialist snobs" who decree from "the premise that only they have read and can understand Marx".^[13] This intellectual snobbery was, according to Egbuna, "doing a great harm to the cause they claim to be upholding" by ignoring race as a key reason for oppression of black workers:

Nobody in his right mind disputes that the fact that the White worker is a prey to capitalist exploitation, as well as the Black Worker. But equally indisputable is the fact that the White worker is exploited only because he is a worker, not because he is white, while in contrast, the Black Worker is oppressed, not only because he is a worker, but also because he is Black.^[14]

During the 1960s, many sympathisers of Black Power left their socialist and communist student organisations and subsequently started their own Marxist-orientated Black Power organisations, such as Black Socialist Alliance.

As a consequence of the Race Relations Act 1965, incitement of racial violence had become illegal in the United Kingdom. Several members of Egbuna's UCPA were fined under this act. Egbuna was later that year imprisoned accused of threatening to kill police and certain politicians.^[10]

Later years

Egbuna's last novel, The Madness of Didi, was published in 1980. He died in Washington, DC, on 18 January 2014, aged 75, and a tribute to his life and work was held on Saturday, 1 March 2014, at the Rankin Memorial Chapel, Howard University, Washington, DC.^[15]

Egbuna's papers are held at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, at the New York Public Library.^[16]