Biography of Dr. Anthony Monteiro

Dr. Anthony Monteiro: Scholar, Public Intellectual, and Peace Activist

Dr. Anthony Monteiro is a distinguished American scholar, public intellectual, and a leading contemporary exponent of the work and legacy of W.E.B. Du Bois. His career spans over five decades, dedicated to advancing the study of democracy, racial justice, and the interconnected freedom struggles of African Americans and the formerly colonized world. His work is particularly significant for its focus on renewing the vital intellectual and political dialogue between the African American and Indian civilizational traditions, a dialogue pioneered by figures like Du Bois, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr Monteiro was born in Philadelphia on October 31, 1945. He attended Lincoln University for his undergraduate education where he was exposed to ideas of the anticolonial movements and the American civil rights movement. As a young man he joined the Communist Party of USA and spent many years working in solidarity with African liberation movements under the leadership of Henry Winston.

He went on to pursue a PhD in sociology. A former professor of African American Studies at Temple University, Dr. Monteiro is recognized for his scholarship that positions W.E.B. Du Bois not only as the father of modern sociology but as a seminal thinker for understanding modernity, democracy, and civilization. He has argued that Du Bois’s analysis of the colorline and the Black Proletariat provides an indispensable framework for comprehending both American society and the broader world system. Dr. Monteiro’s intellectual work is informed by his extensive history of international activism and solidarity. In the 1970s and 80s, he served for 15 years as Executive Secretary of the National Anti-Imperialist Movement in Solidarity with African Liberation (NAIMSAL), where he worked closely with global leaders in the anti-apartheid and peace movements. His travels across Africa, including as a delegate to the Sixth Pan-African Congress in Tanzania, and his advocacy at the United Nations, cemented his worldview in Pan-African and Afro-Asian solidarity.

In 2012, he founded the Saturday Free School for Philosophy and Black Liberation in Philadelphia, a public institution that brings Du Bois’ ideas in engagement with the Philadelphia community as well as students. Under his leadership, the Free School has organized city-wide intellectual campaigns, most notably the “Year of W.E.B. Du Bois” (2018) and the “Year of Mahatma Gandhi” (2019), explicitly linking these two transformative traditions. The year of Gandhi included events at churches, trade-unions, libraries and other public institutions to explore the historic link between the Afro American and Indian freedom struggles. The Year of Gandhi culminated in a major Philadelphia address by Rev. James Lawson, the chief strategist of nonviolence for the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, directly linking Gandhian satyagraha to the American freedom struggle. 

A cornerstone of this international work was his collaboration with the esteemed Indian diplomat and peace activist, Padma Shri Enuga Sreenivasulu Reddy, then Director of the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid. Together, they campaigned to isolate the apartheid regime and secure the freedom of Nelson Mandela. This partnership places Dr. Monteiro within a direct lineage of the 20th-century Indian and African American collaborative struggle against racism and colonialism, a history he actively seeks to rekindle and advance. 

Dr. Monteiro’s work builds on the non-violent tradition of societal change in the US. Through his writing and public conferences he has fostered a space where the “intercivilizational dialogue” between the African Americans and Indians is actively practiced. Dr. Anthony Monteiro is positioned to participate in a crucial dialogue in India today. His tour represents a dynamic re-engagement with the shared history of struggle of the Indian and African American peoples, and renewing its relevance for contemporary world challenges. His tour will explore how the linked legacies of Du Bois, Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi can inform the struggle for democracy and peace in our time.