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Race against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937-1957 / Edition 1 - | Diverse Reads

Race against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937-1957 / Edition 1

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Marshaling evidence from a wide array of international sources, including the black presses of the time, Penny M. Von Eschen offers a vivid portrayal of the African diaspora in its international heyday, from the 1945 Manchester Pan-African Congress to early cooperation with the United Nations. Tracing the relationship between transformations in anti-colonial politics and the history of the United States during its emergence as the dominant world power, she challenges bipolar Cold War paradigms. She documents the efforts of African-American political leaders, intellectuals, and journalists who forcefully promoted anti-colonial politics and critiqued U.S. foreign policy.

The eclipse of anti-colonial politics—which Von Eschen traces through African-American responses to the early Cold War, U.S. government prosecution of black American anti-colonial activists, and State Department initiatives in Africa—marked a change in the very meaning of race and racism in America from historical and international issues to psychological and domestic ones. She concludes that the collision of anti-colonialism with Cold War liberalism illuminates conflicts central to the reshaping of America; the definition of political, economic, and civil rights; and the question of who, in America and across the globe, is to have access to these rights.

ISBN-13: 9780801482922

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Publication Date: 04-03-1997

Pages: 288

Product Dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

Age Range: 18 Years

Series: Collectifs

Penny M. Von Eschen is Professor of History and William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of American Studies at the University of Virginia.

What People are Saying About This

Robin D. G. Kelley

"After reading Penny M. Von Eschen's brilliant account of African American efforts to overthrow colonialism in Africa during the 1940s and '50s, no one will be able to write about black politics without considering the international context. In the best tradition of W. E. B. Du Bois, C. L. R. James, and Cedric Robinson, she reminds us, as Malcolm X had three decades ago, that black liberation is 'not just an American problem, but a world problem.'"

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

1. The Making of the Politics of the African Diaspora

2. Democracy or Empire?

3. To Forge a Colonial International

4. The Diaspora Moment

5. Domesticating Anticolonialism

6. Hearts and Mines

7. Remapping Africa, Rewriting Race

8. No Exit: From Bandung to Ghana

Conclusion

Notes
Index