1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910807212703321

Autore

Von Eschen Penny M (Penny Marie)

Titolo

Race against empire : Black Americans and anticolonialism, 1937-1957 / / Penny M. Von Eschen

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca, New York : , : Cornell University Press, , 1997

©1997

ISBN

0-8014-7170-2

1-322-52322-3

0-8014-7171-0

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (274 pages) : illustrations

Disciplina

325/.3/08996073

Soggetti

African Americans - Politics and government

African Americans - Race identity

Anti-imperialist movements - United States - History - 20th century

African diaspora

Pan-Africanism - History - 20th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 191-251) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- PREFACE -- INTRODUCTION -- CHAPTER ONE. THE MAKING OF THE POLITICS OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA -- CHAPTER TWO. DEMOCRACY OR EMPIRE? -- CHAPTER THREE. TO FORGE A COLONIAL INTERNATIONAL -- CHAPTER FOUR. THE DIASPORA MOMENT -- CHAPTER FIVE. DOMESTICATING ANTICOLONIALISM -- CHAPTER SIX. HEARTS AND MINES -- CHAPTER SEVEN. REMAPPING AFRICA, REWRITING RACE -- CHAPTER EIGHT. NO EXIT: FROM BANDUNG TO GHANA -- CONCLUSION -- NOTES -- INDEX

Sommario/riassunto

During World War II, African American activists, journalists, and intellectuals forcefully argued that independence movements in Africa and Asia were inextricably linkep to political, economic, and civil rights struggles in the United States. 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.Race against Empire tells



the poignant story of a popular movement and its precipitate decline with the onset of the Cold War. Von Eschen 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.Exploring the relationship between anticolonial politics, early civil rights activism, and nascent superpower rivalries, Race against Empire offers a fresh perspective both on the emergence of the United States as the dominant global power and on the profound implications of that development for American society.