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Title
Max Rameau interview
Date(s)
- June 1, 2011 (Creation)
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Scope and content
Interview with Max Rameau, the foremost and most publicly known activist with Take Back the Land. He also leads the Center for Pan-African Development and has worked extensively with Brothers of the Same Mind and Cop Watch. At the cusp of the housing crisis, Rameau invited several other South Florida-based black activists to meetings held at Marleine Bastien's office, a group that later became known as the Black Response to the Crisis Group. The group decided to take action by taking over public land and asserting black political leadership over that land. The first action taken was the erecting of the Umjoa Village Shantytown, and later housing liberations and eviction defenses. As Take Back the Land progressed to the national level and took on the shape of a movement, Rameau remained its most vocal proponent and figurehead. He relocated to Washington D.C. to play a stronger role as an alternative voice on the housing crisis. Rameau is a Pan-Africanist by worldview and in political theory, although he no longer frames Take Back the Land as Pan-Africanist or the Black Nationalist Project. Interviewer: Rudo Kemper Length of interview (in minutes): 2:37:00 Miami, FL.