Proudly We Can Be Africans : Black Americans and Africa, 1935-1961

The mid-twentieth century witnessed nations across Africa fighting for their independence from colonial forces. By examining black Americans' attitudes toward and responses to these liberation struggles, James Meriwether probes the shifting meaning of Africa in the intellectual, political, and social lives of African Americans. Paying particular attention to such important figures and organizations as W. E. B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King Jr., and the NAACP, Meriwether incisively utilizes the black press, personal correspondence, and oral histories to render a remarkably nuanced and diverse portrait of African American opinion. Meriwether builds the book around seminal episodes in modern African history, including nonviolent protests against apartheid in South Africa, the Mau Mau war in Kenya, Ghana's drive for independence under Kwame Nkrumah, and Patrice Lumumba's murder in the Congo. Viewing these events within the context of their own changing lives, especially in regard to the U.S. civil rights struggle, African Americans have continually reconsidered their relationship to contemporary Africa and vigorously debated how best to translate their concerns into action in the international arena. Grounded in black Americans' encounters with Africa, this transnational history sits astride the leading issues of the twentieth century: race, civil rights, anticolonialism, and the intersections of domestic race relations and U.S. foreign relations. Ethiopia : The Italo-ethiopian War And Reconceptualizing Contemporary Africa, 1935-1936 -- In World War And Cold War : Configuring Anticolonialism And Internationalism, 1941-1950 -- South Africa : Apartheid And Nonviolent Resistance, 1948-1953 -- Kenya : The Mau Mau And Revolutionary Violence, 1952-1956 -- Ghana : African Independence, 1957-1958 -- The Year Of Africa : Lows, Highs, And Corners, 1960 -- Congo : Independence, Black Nationalism, Leftism, And Splintering, 1960-1961. James H. Meriwether. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [307]-323) And Index. Acknowledgments 10 Introduction 16 Notes 262 Prologue 26 Notes 264 1. Ethiopia 42 Notes 266 2. In a World War and Cold War 72 Notes 276 3. South Africa 105 Notes 285 4. Kenya 139 Notes 293 5. Ghana 165 Notes 298 6. The Year of Africa 196 Notes 306 7. The Congo 223 Notes 313 Epilogue 256 Notes 320 Notes 262 Selected Bibliography 322 Index 340 In the mid-20th century nations across Africa fought for their independence from colonial forces. This work probes the shifting meaning of Africa in the intellectual, political and social lives of African Americans In the years before Italy's invasion of Ethiopia, few black Americans felt they could learn or gain much from contemporary Africans.