The Disappearing of Sister Koko with Prof. D. Boose - Becoming A Black Power Activist

12/07/22 • 30 min

What was happening in the rest of the world as Dorothy Jean McQueen reinvented herself as Sister Koko, and how did it affect her? Prof. D. Boose explores how entwined rising anxieties over the spread of nuclear weapons, poverty, and the Vietnam war, were with the ever-increasing Black Freedom activism in the mid-1960s.

Listen as Sister Koko explains how these international and national events had an impact on her and local Washington, DC, communities. In this episode, Sister Koko turns her attention from Howard University to centering her work with the United Planning Organization, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and Stokely Carmichael. She focused on combating poverty, protesting US involvement in Vietnam, organizing voter registration on a grassroots level, and promoting the idea of Black Power. Yet change remained slow, and Black Freedom fighters increasingly turned to militant action to defend themselves against white supremacy and to make their demands heard.

This episode includes brief profanity and offensive historical language. Listener discretion is advised. Any views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of HumanitiesDC or the project’s funders.

Previous Episode

The Disappearing of Sister Koko with Prof. D. Boose - Howard’s Doorway to Activism

How did Dorothy Jean McQueen become Sister Koko? Explore her memories with Prof. D. Boose as she reflects on being a student at Howard University amidst the March on Washington and organizing for Freedom Summer.

They’ll talk about 1960s era racism and segregation and new community efforts to fight it, especially in protests against discrimination in travel. Hear how these developments encouraged Sister Koko to join the Nonviolent Action Group of Howard University (NAG) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) alongside Stokely Carmichael, and to reinvent herself as Sister Koko.

Next Episode

The Disappearing of Sister Koko with Prof. D. Boose - Black Rebellion

As the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., sparked rebellions across the US, Sister Koko describes her experience of the uprising in DC and how King’s death personally affected her.

She explains the underlying entrenched and long-standing systems of racial oppression, especially poverty, that fueled the outpouring of violence and destruction in April of 1968. She takes us through the streets of DC overrun with troops and the fractured infrastructure that attempted to quell the rebellion. Throughout it all, Sister Koko persisted in her community organizing and her work with Stokely Carmichael in SNCC. But the federal government saw her activism as a threat, a radical for the FBI to keeps tabs on, which led to a suspicious infiltrator and a raid on Sister Koko’s apartment that uncovered a closet of firearms.