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

By James H. Meriwether

Book Overview

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.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807849979
• ISBN13: 9780807849972
• Release Date: April 2002
• Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Black America's Dynamic View of Africa

Perhaps more than any other region of the world American's image of Africa has changed with time. This book traces the changes in perception and engagement with Africa of the African American community between the years 1931 and 1963. While the book covers a rather short portion of the time that the U.S. has been involved in Africa it chooses the years in which the perception of Africa changes the most in the black community. Using the black press, and speeches by prominent Blacks leaders, James Meriweather contrasts the invasion of Ethiopia in 1931 and the Independence of Kenya, Ghana and the Congo in the early 60's to contrast the changing attitudes toward Africa and how it informed African American's perception of themselves. The author does a good job of pulling together events in both the Americas and the various parts of Africa and explaining how they influenced and related each other. He also avoids any simplistic explanation of black attitudes and delves into the complexities of this ongoing relationship. Especially poignant is author Richard Wright's journey to reconnect with his perceived homeland and the ultimately otherness he starts to feel on this journey of discovery. The desire to belong is in conflict with the feeling of the exotic and unfamiliar that Wright gets on his trip through west Africa. In many ways this is the experience of the larger Black community faces and must deal with. An excellent book that sheds light on a very interesting topic.