Carlos Moore

Carlos Moore (born 4 November 1942) is a writer, social researcher, professor and activist, dedicated to the study of African and Afro-American history and culture. Moore holds two doctorates, in Human sciences and in Ethnology from the Paris Diderot University, and speaks five languages. At various periods he lived in France, Africa, the United States of America, Brazil and the Caribbean

Moore is widely recognized for his outspokenness against racism, defense of pan-Africanism, his scholarly work and for writing the authorized biography of the Nigerian singer, saxophonist and activist Fela Kuti, Fela, Fela: This Bitch of a Life (1982), which inspired the stage musical Fela!

Biography Early years He was born Charles Moore Wedderburn in Lugareño (part of Minas in Camagüey Province of Cuba to working-class Jamaican parents. His biological father, Whitfield Marshall, was from Trinidad and Tobago and his mother, Winifred Rebecca Wedderburn, was from Jamaica. However, until his tenth birthday, Carlos Moore grew up with his mother and stepfather, Victor Moore, also from Jamaica, until the family disintegrated.

In 1958, to escape the civil war and in search of better opportunities, Moore at the age of 15 emigrated to New York City with his stepfather and siblings. In New York, Moore lived with his stepfather and his stepmother Gladys King, a native of Costa Rica. He attended high school, while being doubly impacted by the civil rights movement on the surge in the United States and the struggles for decolonisation of Africa. Moore, who was already a friend of Diop's, became his personal assistant on pan-African projects, also serving him as interpreter/translator. At the time, Diop ran the radiocarbon laboratory of the Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire (IFAN) in Dakar, Senegal.

Years later, Moore was a personal consultant for Latin American affairs to the Secretary General of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), Dr. Edem Kodjo.

Between 1986 and 1988, Moore was a visiting professor in the department of sociology at Florida International University. In 1987, he organized the conference Negritude, Afro Cultures and Ethnicity in the Americas with the participation of renowned intellectuals such as Aimé Césaire, Maya Angelou, Leopold Senghor, Alex Haley, Victoria Santa Cruz, Rex Nettleford, Lélia Gonzalez, Manuel Zapata Olivella, Rex Nettleford, and Abdias do Nascimento. In 1988, Lincoln University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, invited him as Professor of Negritude, Race and Diaspora Studies.

In the period between 1990 and 1994, Moore taught international relations courses at the University of the Antilles and Guyana, with branches in Martinique, Guadeloupe and Guyana, and from 1996 to 2002, he was a senior lecturer of Latin American affairs at the Institute of International Relations of the University of the West Indies, at Trinidad and Tobago. In 2009, the book was reissued in the US by Lawrence Hill Books, including a foreword by Gilberto Gil and an introduction by Margaret Busby, and was subsequently published in a Nigerian edition by Cassava Republic Press, with an additional prologue by Lindsay Barrett. The Broadway musical Fela! (2009–2011) was inspired by Moore's biography, as recognized in the settlement of a copyright dispute over stage production rights.

The 2019 documentary film My Friend Fela (Meu amigo Fela), made by Joel Zito Araújo, explores the complexity of Kuti's life "through the eyes and conversations" of Moore.

In recent years, Moore has been living with his family between Brazil and Guadeloupe, writing about global racism, particularly racism in Brazil.

Personal life Moore's first wife, Shawna, was from the US, and they had a son together, Kimathi. Moore's second wife, Ayeola, a dancer and painter, whom he married in 1992, is from Guadeloupe.

Selected bibliography

Were Marx and Engels Racists? – The prolet-Aryan outlook of Marx and Engels, Chicago: Institute of Positive Education, 1972. Accessed 4 February 2013. Castro, the Blacks, and Africa, Los Angeles: Center for Afro-American Studies, University of California, 1988. African Presence in the Americas (with Tanya R. Sanders and Shawna Moore, eds), Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1995. Pichón – A Memoir: Race and Revolution in Castro's Cuba (Foreword by Maya Angelou), Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books/Chicago Review Press, 2008. A África Que Incomoda: sobre a problematização do legado africano no quotidiano brasileiro, Belo Horizonte, Brazil: Editora Nandyala, 2008, 2010. Preface to the book Discurso sobre A Negritude by Aimé Césaire, Belo Horizonte, Brazil: Editora Nandyala, 2010. Racismo & Sociedade, Belo Horizonte, Brazil: Editora Nandyala, 2012. .

Fela Kuti biography – editions and translations Fela, Fela: Cette Putain de Vie (French edition), Paris, France: Éditions Karthala, 1982. Fela, Fela: This Bitch of a Life (first English-language edition), London, United Kingdom: Allison & Busby, 1982. Fela: This Bitch of a Life (revised English-language edition, with Foreword by Gilberto Gil and Introduction by Margaret Busby), Chicago, United States: Lawrence Hill Books/Chicago Review Press, 2009. Fela: This Bitch of a Life (with Preface by Gilberto Gil, and Prologue by Lindsay Barrett), Abuja, Nigeria: Cassava Republic Press, 2010. Fela, Esta vida Puta (Portuguese translation by Bruno Madeira: Preface by Gilberto Gil), Belo Horizonte, Brazil: Editora Nandyala, 2011. Fela, Questa bastarda di una vita (Italian translation by Marco Zanotti), Arcana, 2012. Fela, This Bitch of a Life (translated to Japanese by Junko Kikuchi), Tokyo, Japan: Kenbukkusu, 2013. Fela Kuti: This Bitch of a Life (German translation), Berlin: Haffmans & Tolkemitt, 2013.