Independent Lens (1999)

Episode Overview

In 1960s Montreal, a unique convergence of exiled American activists, Caribbean intellectuals, and local Black communities turned the city into a quiet engine for global Black liberation. While the world watched the U.S. civil rights struggle, Montreal offered a safer haven for radical thought and organizing. Here, figures like Stokely Carmichael and others found room to refine ideas of Black Power, pan-Africanism, and anti-colonial resistance. The city’s bilingual, international character allowed these movements to cross borders, influencing struggles from Quebec to the Caribbean and Africa before the ideas ever reached mainstream attention.