Throughout the 20th century, the fight for liberation took many shapes—armed resistance, intellectual rebellion, spiritual resilience, and organized political action. Among the many global figures who embodied these struggles, Ho Chi Minh stands out as a model of how to wage a people-centered revolution against empire. While he led the Vietnamese people to independence, his philosophy and praxis speak volumes to the ongoing struggle for Black liberation.

Black revolutionaries today and in the past—whether from the Harlem Renaissance to the Black Panther Party, from Ghanaian independence to Haitian resistance—have much to learn from Ho Chi Minh’s revolutionary legacy. Not because Vietnam and the Black world are the same, but because their enemies were, and in many ways, still are: racism, colonialism, capitalism, and imperialism.

Let’s dive deeper into how his leadership provides not just inspiration, but concrete strategies for Black liberation.

1. Early Life of Global Consciousness: Ho’s Time in the West

Before Ho Chi Minh became a revolutionary icon, he was a global traveler and laborer. In the early 1900s, he worked as a kitchen assistant in Boston and New York, spent time in Harlem, and became deeply interested in the struggles of African Americans. He also witnessed labor struggles in France and the horrors of Western colonialism in Algeria.

During this time, Ho came into contact with anti-colonial thinkers, Black radicals, and socialists, including Garveyites, Pan-Africanists, and international communists. His writings in the 1920s sharply criticized U.S. racism. In Le Paria, a French newspaper for colonial subjects, Ho condemned the lynching of Black Americans and police violence with the same fury he later applied to French imperialism in Indochina.

This early exposure led Ho to develop a global anti-colonial identity, which made him unique among many national leaders of his time. His struggle for Vietnamese independence was never just Vietnamese—it was always connected to a broader battle against white supremacy and colonial domination.

Black revolutionaries—especially during the Black Power era—echoed this global consciousness. Figures like W.E.B. Du Bois, Malcolm X, Kwame Ture, and Angela Davis made the same connections between racism at home and imperialism abroad. Ho lived this perspective decades earlier.

2. Revolutionary Education: Learning from Lenin, Adapting for the People

Ho Chi Minh joined the French Communist Party in 1920 after realizing the colonial question was largely ignored by mainstream Western liberalism. He later studied at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East in Moscow. But what set Ho apart was his ability to adapt Marxist-Leninist theory to Vietnamese conditions.

He knew Marxism couldn’t just be copied and pasted. Vietnam was not industrialized. The masses were mostly peasants, not factory workers. So he tailored revolutionary strategy to agrarian reality—something that Amílcar Cabral, the Guinea-Bissau revolutionary, also emphasized decades later in Africa.

Black revolutionaries in the U.S. and Caribbean often faced a similar dilemma: how to apply socialism to communities shaped by chattel slavery, Jim Crow, and colonial plantations, rather than European industrial capitalism. Ho’s approach says: start with theory, but build from your people’s lived reality.

His slogan—“national liberation, class liberation, and human liberation”—unified the economic with the racial and the human. That’s a framework Black revolutionaries can continue to use.

3. Grassroots Organizing: From the Villages to Victory

One of the most powerful aspects of Ho’s legacy is his commitment to mass political mobilization. He didn’t just build a military movement—he built a people’s movement. Through literacy campaigns, land reform, political education, and constant community engagement, the Viet Minh turned oppressed peasants into empowered revolutionaries.

Ho’s organizing principle was clear: “Serve the people.” That phrase was later adopted by Mao Zedong in China and deeply resonated with the Black Panther Party in the U.S., who made it central to their survival programs.

The Panthers’ free breakfast programs, health clinics, and educational initiatives were direct applications of this philosophy. They weren’t just fighting the police—they were building alternative institutions. Like Ho, they understood that a revolution is not only about destruction but construction.

This model stands in contrast to spontaneous rebellion. Ho showed that long-term political education and disciplined organization are essential to sustain struggle over decades—not just moments.

4. Guerrilla Warfare and Psychological Resistance

The Vietnamese revolution wasn’t just a war of bullets—it was a war of ideology and will. Ho and his comrades used guerrilla tactics not simply to outfight the French and Americans, but to outlast and outthink them.

They understood that revolution is psychological warfare: demoralize the enemy, empower the oppressed, and shift the political terrain in your favor.

In the Black world, this has parallels in the tactics of resistance used by everyone from Toussaint Louverture’s Haitian forces to the Deacons for Defense in the U.S. South. Guerrilla warfare requires discipline, support networks, and political clarity—not just rage.

Ho’s use of “people’s war” gave poor peasants and workers a sense of dignity and power. That same principle applies to organizing in inner cities, rural towns, and colonized nations: the oppressed must believe they can win.

5. Internationalism as Principle, Not Just Tactic

Ho Chi Minh built alliances with China, the Soviet Union, Cuba, and anti-colonial movements worldwide. But his solidarity with Black people was particularly striking.

He once stated:

“American imperialism is the common enemy of the peoples of the world and the American Negro people.”

He wasn’t trying to co-opt the Black struggle—he was acknowledging its central role in the global fight against empire. This idea was later echoed by Che Guevara, who also saw Harlem and the Mississippi Delta as frontlines of global revolution.

Black revolutionaries today still grapple with how to form global alliances. Ho’s example teaches that solidarity is not about symbolic gestures—it’s about shared strategy, mutual aid, and ideological unity across borders.

6. Revolutionary Morality: Leadership by Example

Ho Chi Minh lived a life of simplicity and humility. He wore peasant clothes, ate simply, and never sought wealth or power for himself. He wrote poetry, lived modestly, and demanded discipline and ethics from revolutionary cadres.

This wasn’t for show. He understood that revolutionaries must live the future they are trying to build. That means no corruption, no exploitation, no ego.

In the Black liberation tradition, this resonates with figures like Ella Baker, who emphasized collective leadership and accountability. It stands as a contrast to some post-independence African leaders who betrayed the revolution for personal gain.

Ho’s legacy reminds us: Revolutionary integrity is part of revolutionary victory.

Conclusion: Carrying the Flame Forward

Ho Chi Minh once said, “When the prison doors are opened, the real dragon will fly out.” That dragon was not just Vietnam—it was the will of the oppressed worldwide.

Today, as Black people across the globe continue to fight systemic racism, police brutality, mass incarceration, and economic exploitation, the lessons of Ho Chi Minh remain alive:

Build from the bottom, not the top. Adapt theory to real life. Stay disciplined and organized. Link local struggle to global solidarity. Never lose the moral center of the movement.

The Vietnamese people showed that victory is possible against all odds. Black revolutionaries, armed with similar clarity and commitment, can continue that tradition—not by copying Ho, but by learning from him, and applying those lessons to new frontlines of freedom.