Draft:Bill Sutherland (Pan-Africanist)

Bill (William) Sutherland (December 24,1918 - 2 January, 2010) was an African American pacifist and Pan African activist. In the 1940s he spent four years in prison for being a conscientious objector during World War II. Much of his adult life was focused on supporting civil rights struggles in the United States and peaceful liberation movements in Africa. In 1953 he helped found the American Committee on Africa, which in 2001 merged with other organizations to become Africa Action. He was also active in the Congress of Racial Equality, Americans for South African Resistance, Peace Brigades International, and several other organizations.

Biography
Sutherland’s parents were Dr. Willliam Henry Sutherland and Mrs. Reiter Thomas Sutherland. He had two siblings Reiter and Muriel. His father was a dentist, and he was raised in Glen Ridge, a predominantly white New Jersey suburb. The Sutherlands were connected to an African American extended family tracing its lineage to Scipio Vaughan of South Carolina, an enslaved and skilled ironworker who not only purchased his freedom but sent two of his sons back to Yorubaland in present-day Nigeria to form a prominent branch of his family. The Nigerian and American family have maintained connections through the present day.

While he recounts instances of racism, he and Muriel were high achievers in academics and successful in extra-curricular activities. When young, his father took him to hear a lecture by an Indian Nationalist describing Gandhi and the movement for the independence of India. As a young man he began to link civil rights in the United States with the anti-colonial movement and non-violent action and civil disobedience remained an influence throughout his life.

Upon graduating from Bates College in 1940, he joined the American Friends Service Committee's student peace service for a summer stint. He was later imprisoned for four years at the Lewisburg Federal Correctional Facility in Pennsylvania for refusing to serve in the US military during World War II on conscientious objector grounds. Sutherland’s time as a Conscientious Objector to war was documented in the film “The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It.”

During his imprisonment, he would befriend other pacifists with whom he would later organize for nuclear disarmament such as David Dellinger, Ralph DiGia and George Houser. In 1951, in the early days of the Cold War, Sutherland, DiGia, Dellinger, and Quaker pacifist Art Emory constituted the Peacemaker bicycle project, which took the message of nuclear disarmament to both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Sutherland moved to Ghana (then known as the Gold Coast) in 1953 in coordination with War Resisters International. He was an active supporter of Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's Pan-Africanist leader. During his time in Ghana, Sutherland worked under the then Finance Minister, Komla Gbedema and served as an unofficial ambassador who worked to build bridges between Africans and African Americans. As an influential member of the African American expatriate community and an ardent Pan Africanist, he helped make numerous connections. William Minter, editor of AfricaFocus Bulletin wrote, “Sutherland’s contacts helped spark the formation of Americans for South African Resistance (AFSAR)," set up in 1952 to support the Defiance Campaign in South Africa. Meeting Jacob Nhlapo, editor of the Bantu World in the fall of 1951, Sutherland heard of the plans for the campaign. He was given a list of contacts in South Africa, including Walter Sisulu of the African National Congress (ANC). Returning to the United States, Sutherland successfully urged George Houser and Bayard Rustin, his colleagues at CORE, to organize a group to support the Defiance Campaign. He was key in arranging the important 1957 meeting between Nkrumah and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King who were invited to Ghana to celebrate independence from Britain.

In a conference paper “Nuclear Imperialism and the Pan-African Struggle for Freedom 1959-1962,” Dr. Allman, Professor Emeritus Washington University credits Bill Sutherland and Bayard Rustin for their work with Ghana’s President Nkrumah in developing a Pan-African vision that was both anti-colonial and anti-nuclear weapons.

In 1954 he married Efua Theodora Sutherland, a Ghanaian playwright, director, dramatist, children's author, poet, educationalist, researcher, child advocate, and cultural activist. They had three children – scholar, educationalist and cultural activist Esi Sutherland-Addy, architect Ralph Sutherland, and lawyer and educator Amowi Sutherland Phillips.

In 1963 Sutherland moved to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where he held a number of government posts including Advisor to the Tanganyika Delegation to the General Assembly of the United Nations and Refugee and Resettlement Officer in the Vice President’s office. He helped develop the Pan-African Freedom Movement for East and Central Africa (PAFMECA), later renamed the Pan-African Freedom Movement of East, Central and Southern Africa (PAFMECSA). The group campaigned for the independence of the countries of East and Central Africa.

Sutherland continued to connect with leaders throughout Africa such as Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, Agostinho Neto, Nathan Shamuyarira, Joshua Nkomo, Sam Nujoma, along with peers in the civil rights and Pan African movements such as Bishop Desmond Tutu, Bayard Rustin, C.L.R. James, George Padmore, Jesse Jackson.

In 1974 he re-joined the American Friends Service Committee as an international representative. He worked with several of the liberation movements in eastern and southern Africa at that time such as Namibia, Zimbabwe (then Northern Rhodesia), South Africa, stating, "I'm a person who believes in nonviolence on principle. And true nonviolence is a spiritual force that the people can have, which can be the most powerful thing going." Because Sutherland was someone who connected people and ideas, his role with the AFSC at that time was to garner support for the liberation struggles in the Front Line States.

Sutherland was the recipient of many prestigious awards for his activism and peacemaking, including receiving an honorary doctorate from Bates College, his alma mater, in 1983. In 1984 he was named a Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy Institute of Politics for his work. In 2009 he received the War Resisters League Peace Award. At Sutherland’s death, Bishop Tutu sent a tribute noting that, “the people of Africa owe Bill Sutherland a big thank you for his tireless support.”