This 2005 Building Bridges interview of Dr. Gerald Horne delves into the subject of his groundbreaking book, Red Seas: Ferdinand Smith and Radical Black Sailors in the United States and Jamaica. The assertion here is that the legacy of Ferdinand Smith is a worthy successor to the organizing efforts of Marcus Garvey—this assertion alone should make such a comprehensive book about Ferdinand Smith long overdue.

In this interview Horne inspires us to ask a question that is (to me) now obvious, Why are labor movements, organizing on an international scale, behind what we come to expect from multi-national corporations? In this age of the Internet and the so-called “social network,” why are international grass-roots movements so novel?