This issue of Moya considers the long history of connections, exchanges, and solidarities between Black people in the United States and South Africa, writes guest editor Sean Jacobs. Released on the eve of South Africa’s seventh democratic elections in a year that Americans also go to the polls, the issue asks: what is required to strengthen and sustain transnational solidarity across and between Black worlds? Why do we need this solidarity, and what forms will it take? The issue also explores how historical exchanges between Black people in the US and South Africa were valuable and complicated, and how they manifest now.

South Africa and the United States have broadly similar histories of racial oppression. Recognising this, Black people in both countries have since the late 1800s forged ties, exchanges, and solidarities that ultimately contributed to greater Black self-determination. As South Africa marks 30 years of democracy, with struggles for racial justice and equality continuing in both countries, Robert Trent Vinson reflects on the shared struggle between the two contexts to solve the problem of the global colour line.