"But a local phase of a world problem": Black history's global vision, 1883-1950

Journal of American History

Volumn 86, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 1045-1077

  Kelley, Robin D G ^a  

^a NEW YORK UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 20244387203     PISSN: 00218723     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2568605     Document Type: Review

References (312)

1. For an overview of the recent efforts to internationalize United States history, see the introduction to this issue: David Thelen, "The Nation and Beyond: Transnational Perspectives on United States History," Journal of American History, 86 (Dec. 1999), 965-75.
2. For a discussion of the importance of international perspectives for black intellectuals, see Lisa Brock, "Questioning the Diaspora: Hegemony, Black Intellectuals, and Doing International History from Below," Issue: A Journal of Opinion, 24 (no. 2, 1996), 9-12.
3. Chancellor Williams, The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D. (Chicago, 1987), 20. The first edition was published in 1974.
4. See, for example, Stuart Hall, "Cultural Identity and Diaspora," in Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, ed. John Rutherford (London, 1990), 222-37;
5. Michael Hanchard, "Identity, Meaning, and the African-American," Social Text, 24 (1990), 31-42;
6. Kobena Mercer, Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies (London, 1994);
7. Gina Dent, ed., Black Popular Culture (Seattle, 1992);
8. and E. Frances White, "Africa on My Mind: Gender, Counter Discourse, and African-American Nationalism," Journal of Women's History, 2 (Spring 1990), 73-97.
9. See Vincent Carretta, ed., Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth Century (Lexington, Ky., 1996);
10. Henry Louis Gates Jr., ed., The Classic Slave Narratives (New York, 1987);
11. Valaurez B. Spratlin, Juan Latino, Slave and Humanist (New York, 1938);
12. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and William L. Andrews, eds., Pioneers of the Black Atlantic: Five Slave Narratives from the Enlightenment, 1772-1815 (Washington, 1998);
13. and Adam Potkay and Sandra Burr, eds., Black Atlantic Writers of the 18th Century (New York, 1995).
14. The literature on the African diaspora, not surprisingly, is extensive and well established. Some of the more general works produced during the last thirty years include Robert Weisbord, Ebony Kinship: Africa, Africans, and the Afro-American (Westport, 1973);
15. Martin L. Kilson and Robert I. Rotberg, eds., African Diaspora: Interpretive Essays (Cambridge, Mass., 1976);
16. Franklin Knight, The African Dimension in Latin American Societies (New York, 1974);
17. Joseph E. Harris, ed., Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora (Washington, 1982);
18. Jacob Drachler, ed., Black Homeland/Black Diaspora: Cross Currents of the African Relationship (Port Washington, N.Y., 1975);
19. St. Clair Drake, Black Folk Here and There: An Essay in History and Anthropology (2 vols., Los Angeles, 1987, 1990);
20. John P. Henderson and Harry A. Reed, eds., Studies in the African Diaspora: A Memorial to James R. Hooker (1929-1976) (Dover, Mass., 1989);
21. Sidney J. Lemelle and Robin D. G. Kelley, eds., Imagining Home: Class, Culture, and Nationalism in the African Diaspora (London, 1994);
22. Vincent Thompson, The Making of the African Diaspora in the Americas, 1441-1900 (London, 1987);
23. Robert Farris Thompson, Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy (New York, 1983);
24. Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, Mass., 1993);
25. John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World (New York, 1992);
26. Michael Conniff and Thomas J. Davis, Africans in the Americas: A History of the Black Diaspora (New York, 1994);
27. Ronald Segal, The Black Diaspora (New York, 1995);
28. and Robin D. G. Kelley and Tiffany Patterson, "Unfinished Migrations: Reflections on the African Diaspora and the Making of the Modern World," African Studies Review (East Lansing) (forthcoming, Winter 2000).
29. For an excellent corrective, see Earl Lews, "'To Turn as on a Pivot': Writing African Americans into a History of Overlapping Diasporas," American Historical Review, 100 (June 1995), 765-87. My purpose is not to reassess the field but to make a modest claim that black historians, many of whom operated relatively independent of the mainstream historical profession, had already developed an international or transnational approach to history by the early part of the twentieth century. For reassessments of the field,
30. see Darlene Clark Hine, ed., The State of Afro-American History: Past, Present, and Future (Baton Rouge, 1986);
31. August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, Black History and the Historical Profession, 1915-1980 (Urbana, 1986);
32. Charles Wesley, "Creating and Maintaining an Historical Tradition," Journal of Negro History, 49 (Jan. 1964), 13-33;
33. Robert L. Harris, "Coming of Age: The Transformation of Afro-American Historiography," ," Journal of Negro History, ibid., 67 (April 1982), 109-21;
34. Vincent Harding, "Beyond Chaos: Black History and the Search for the New Land," in Amistad, ed. John A. Williams and Charles F. Harris (2 vols., New York, 1970, 1971), I, 267-92;
35. Elsa Barkley Brown, "Polyrhythms and Improvisation: Lessons for Women's History," History Workshop Journal, 31 (Spring 1991), 85-90;
36. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, "Beyond the Sound of Silence: Afro-American Women in History," Gender and History; 1 (Spring 1989), 50-67;
37. Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, "Dual Heroisms and Double Burdens: Interpreting Afro-American Women's Experience and History," Feminist Studies, 15 (Fall 1989), 573-90;
38. Benjamin Quarles, "Black History Unbound," Daedalus, 103 (Spring 1974), 32-48;
39. Sterling Stuckey, "Twilight of Our Past: Reflections on the Origins of Black History," in Amistad, ed. Williams and Harris, II;
40. Peter H. Wood, "'I Did the Best I Could for My Day': The Study of Early Black History during the Second Reconstruction, 1960 to 1976," William and Mary Quarterly, 35 (April 1978), 185-225;
41. and C. Vann Woodward, "Clio with Soul," Journal of American History, 56 (June 1969), 5-20.
42. The literature on nineteenth-century black leadership and the question of emigration is extensive, which says something about the centrality of black transnational movements and the fragility of black citizenship and black peoples place in the "imagined community" of United States nationalism. For just a sampling of key works, see Martin Robison Delany, The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered (1852; New York, 1968);
43. Dorothy Sterling, The Making of an Afro-American: Martin Robison Delany - African Explorer, Civil War Major, and Father of Black Nationalism (1971; New York, 1996);
44. Victor Ullman, Martin R. Delany: The Beginnings of Black Nationalism (Boston, 1971);
45. Cyril E. Griffith, The African Dream: Martin R. Delany and the Emergence of Pan-African Thought (University Park, 1975);
46. Peter Hinks, To Awaken My Afflicted Brethren: David Walker and the Problem of Antebellum Slave Resistance (University Park, 1997);
47. Wilson Jeremiah Moses, ed., Classical Black Nationalism: From the American Revolution to Marcus Garvey (New York, 1996);
48. Wilson Jeremiah Moses, The Golden Age of Black Nationalism, 1850-1925 (New York, 1978);
49. Wilson Jeremiah Moses, Alexander Crummell: A Study of Civilization and Discontent (New York, 1989);
50. R. J. M. Blackett, Beating against the Barriers: Biographical Essays in Nineteenth Century Afro-American History (Baton Rouge, 1986);
51. Lamont Thomas, Paul Cuffe: Black Entrepreneur and Pan-Africanist (Urbana, 1986);
52. Sheldon Harris, Paul Cuffe: Black America and the African Return (New York, 1972);
53. Howard H. Bell, ed., Black Separatism and the Caribbean, 1860 (Ann Arbor, 1970);
54. Floyd Miller, The Search for a Black Nationality: Black Emigration and Colonization, 1787-1863 (Urbana, 1975);
55. Vincent Harding, There Is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America (New York, 1981);
56. Nell Irvin Painter, Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas after Reconstruction (New York, 1977);
57. and Sterling Stuckey, Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America (New York, 1987).
58. Of course, the formation of white elite groups such as the American Colonization Society supported emigration as a strategy to eliminate black people and hence their claims to citizenship, so we have to keep in mind that black opponents to emigration may not necessarily feel a part of American nationalism and the nation-building process. In addition to the works cited above, see Douglas R. Egerton, "'Its Origin Is Not a Little Curious': A New Look at the American Colonization Society," Journal of the Early Republic, 5 (Winter 1985), 463-80.
59. H. Ford Douglass quoted in Sterling, Making of an Afro-American, 157.
60. Carter G. Woodson, "Fifty Years of Negro Citizenship as Qualified by the United States Supreme Court," Journal of Negro History, 6 (Jan. 1921), 1.
61. On the question of black citizenship, emigration, and nineteenth-century political movements after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, see, for example, Painter, Exodusters;
62. Hollis R. Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden: Pan-Negro Patriot, 1832-1912 (London, 1967);
63. William E. Bittie and Gilbert Geis, The Longest Way Home: Chief Alfred C. Sam's Back-to-Africa Movement (Detroit, 1964);
64. Robert A. Hill, "Chief Alfred Sam and the African Movement," in Pan-African Biography, ed. Robert A. Hill (Los Angeles, 1987);
65. Edwin S. Redkey, Black Exodus: Black Nationalist and Back-to-Africa Movements, 1890-1910 (New Haven, 1969);
66. and V. P. Franklin, Black Self-Determination: A Cultural History of African-American Resistance (Brooklyn, 1992).
67. Ian Tyrrell, "Making Nations/Making States: American Historians in the Context of Empire," Journal of American History, 86 (Dec. 1999), 1015-44.
68. Peter Novick exposes the deep racism of the profession at the time in Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The "Objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge, Eng., 1988), 21-108, esp. 72-80.
69. Arnold Temu and Bonaventure Swai, Historians and Africanist History: A Critique (London, 1981), 1-12.
70. Charles Wesley, "Three Basic Problems in Human Relations" (c. 1950), in Charles H. Wesley, Charles H. Wesley: The Intellectual Tradition of a Black Historian, ed. James L. Conyers Jr. (New York, 1997), 191;
71. see also L. D. Reddick, "A New Interpretation for Negro History," Journal of Negro History, 22 (Jan. 1937), 18-19.
72. In one respect, the late Earl E. Thorpe made a similar observation long ago when he argued that black historians do not have the same investment in the "theme of national progress" as mainstream white historians, and yet he chided black historians for not conforming to mainstream historical scholarship: Earl E. Thorpe, Black Historians: A Critique (New York, 1971), 191-92.
73. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (London, 1991).
74. George Washington Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, 1619-1880: Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens (1883; 2 vols., New York, 1968).
75. Meier and Rudwick, Black History and the Historical Profession, 3.
76. Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, I, 110.
77. For a sampling of this work, see William Wells Brown, The Black Man, His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements (New York, 1863);
78. Drusilla Dunjee Houston, Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire (Oklahoma City, 1926);
79. George Wells Parker, "The African Origins of the Grecian Civilization," Journal of Negro History, 2 (July 1917), 334-44;
80. and George G. M. James, Stolen Legacy (New York, 1954).
81. See also Drake, Black Folk Here and There, I, 309-32;
82. Dickson D. Bruce Jr., "Ancient Africa and the Early Black American Historians, 1883-1915," American Quarterly, 36 (Winter 1984), 684-99;
83. and Bruce Dain, "Haiti and Egypt in Early Black Racial Discourse in the United States," Slavery and Abolition (London), 14 (Dec. 1993), 139-61.
84. A recent polemic dismisses all claims that Egyptians were Africans and that the ancient Greeks derived many of their ideas from ancient Egypt: Mary Lefkowitz, Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History (New York, 1996). An immensely important work corrects many of Lefkowitz's errors and offers a balanced account of a very long history of African American scholarship on African history and its relation to the rise of European civilization:
85. Wilson Moses, Afrotopia: The Roots of African American Popular History (New York, 1998).
86. Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, I, 22.
87. Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, Ibid., 85-114.
88. Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, Ibid., 110.
89. Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, Ibid., 103-4.
90. John Hope Franklin, George Washington Williams: A Biography (Chicago, 1985), 180-279.
91. See Hazel Carby, Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist (New York, 1987);
92. Kevin Gaines, Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill, 1996);
93. Willard Gatewood, Black Americans and the White Man's Burden, 1898-1903 (Urbana, 1975);
94. and Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917 (Chicago, 1995).
95. W. E. B. Du Bois, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870 (1896; Baton Rouge, 1969), 70-71, 80-95, 152, esp. 70.
96. The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870 (Ibid., 152.
97. W. E. B. Du Bois, The Negro (New York, 1915);
98. the quotation from it is taken from an excerpt titled "The Negro Problems," in W. E. B. Du Bois: A Reader, ed. David Levering Lewis (New York, 1995), 48-49.
99. Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (Chapel Hill, 1944).
100. This is not to say that Williams himself was the first to establish the link between modern New World slavery and the rise of capitalism; see William A. Darity, "The Williams Abolition Thesis before Williams," Slavery and Abolition (London), 9 (May 1988), 29-41.
101. W. E. B. Du Bois, "The Color Line Belts the World," in W. E. B. Du Bois, ed. Lewis, 42;
102. Du Bois, "Negro Problems," 49.
103. Du Bois elaborates on this argument in his seminal essay, W. E. B. Du Bois, "The African Roots of War," Atlantic Monthly, 115 (May 1915), 707-14.
104. Benjamin Brawley, A Social History of the American Negro, Being a History of the Negro Problem in the United States, Including a History and Study of the Republic of Liberia (New York, 1921), 366;
105. for overviews of this period, see Wolfgang Abendroth, A Short History of the European Working Class, trans. Nicholas Jacobs and Brian Trench (New York, 1972), 69-76;
106. Roderick Bush, We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in the American Century (New York, 1998), 83-112;
107. Theodore Kornweibel, No Crystal Stair: Black Life and the Messenger, 1917-1928 (Westport, 1975);
108. and Winston James, Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America (London, 1998).
109. Although World War I marked a significant turning point in black internationalism, it should be clear from this essay that African Americans had long-standing interests in and identifications with the broader black diaspora. See, for example, Elliott Skinner, African Americans and U.S. Policy toward Africa, 1850-1924: In Defense of Black Nationality (Washington, 1992);
110. Brenda Gayle Plummer, Rising Wind: Black Americans and U.S. Foreign Affairs, 1935-1960 (Chapel Hill, 1996);
111. Penny Von Eschen, Race against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937-1957 (Ithaca, 1997).
112. Harding, "Beyond Chaos," 277;
113. Hubert Henry Harrison, When Africa Awakes: The "Inside Story" of the Stirrings and Strivings of the New Negro in the Western World (New York, 1920), 96-97, 103.
114. For background on Harrison, see Gaines, Uplifting the Race, 234-46;
115. James, Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia, 123-34; and Jeffrey Perry's forthcoming biography of Harrison.
116. William H. Ferris, The African Abroad; or, His Evolution in Western Civilization; Tracing His Development under Caucasian Milieu (2 vols., New Haven, 1913);
117. J. A. Rogers, World's Great Men of Color (1947; 2 vols., New York, 1972);
118. J. A. Rogers, The Real Facts about Ethiopia (1936; Baltimore, 1982);
119. Houston, Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire;
120. Jacqueline Goggin, Carter G. Woodson: A Life in Black History (Baton Rouge, 1993);
121. Meier and Rudwick, Black History and the Historical Profession, 1-71;
122. Thorpe, Black Historians, 108-33.
123. Monroe N. Work, "The Passing Tradition and the African Civilization," Journal of Negro History, 1 (Jan. 1916), 34-41;
124. Monroe N. Work, comp., A Bibliography of the Negro in Africa and America (New York, 1928);
125. Thorpe, Black Historians, 137-39.
126. James, Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia, 198-214;
127. Rogers, World's Great Men of Color, II, 449-53;
128. Elinor Des Verney Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg: Black Bibliophile and Collector - A Biography (New York, 1989);
129. Thorpe, Black Historians, 145-46;
130. Arthur A. Schomburg, "The Negro Digs Up His Past," in The New Negro: An Introduction, ed. Alain Locke (New York, 1926), 231-37;
131. Arthur A. Schomburg, Military Services Rendered by the Haitians in the North and South American Wars for Independence (Nashville, 1921);
132. Tony Martin, ed., African Fundamentalism: A Literary and Cultural Anthology of Garvey's Harlem Renaissance (Dover, Mass., 1991), 316-20;
133. John Henrik Clarke, "The Influence of Arthur A. Schomburg on My Concept of African Studies," Phylon, 49 (no. 1, 1992), 4-9.
134. Harry Washington Greene, Holders of Doctorates among American Negroes: An Educational and Social Study of Negroes Who Have Earned Doctoral Degrees in Course, 1876-1943 (Boston, 1946).
135. Dorothy B. Porter, "The Negro in the Brazilian Abolitionist Movement," Journal of Negro History, 37 (Jan. 1952);
136. Dorothy B. Porter, Afro-Braziliana: A Working Bibliography (Boston, 1978);
137. Dorothy B. Porter, "David Ruggles: An Apostle of Human Rights," Journal of Negro History, 28 (Jan. 1943).
138. For background on Dorothy Porter Wesley, see Arthur C. Gunn, "Dorothy Burnett Porter Wesley," in Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, ed. Darlene Clark Hine with Elsa Barkley Brown and Rosalyn Terborg-Penn (2 vols., Brooklyn, 1993), I, 1247-48.
139. John Wesley Cromwell, The Negro in American History (Washington, 1914);
140. Laura E. Wilkes, Missing Pages in American History (Washington, 1919);
141. Brawley, Social History of the American Negro;
142. Carter G. Woodson, The Negro in Our History (Washington, 1922). There were very few black women in the profession, and those who did write - either from inside or outside of the academy - were often marginalized and dismissed by leading black male scholars, including Woodson himself. The fact that so few black women wrote on broad international or transnational themes probably says more about their treatment in the profession than about their particular scholarly interests.
143. Charles Wesley, "Recollections of Carter G. Woodson," Journal of Negro History, 58 (Spring 1988), 148;
144. Francille Rusan Wilson, The Segregated Scholars: Black Social Scientists and the Development of Black Labor Studies, 1895-1950 (Charlottesville, forthcoming).
145. Benjamin Brawley, A Short History of the American Negro (New York, 1913);
146. Benjamin Brawley, The Negro in Literature and Art (New York, 1918);
147. Benjamin Brawley, A Short History of the English Drama (New York, 1921);
148. Benjamin Brawley, The Negro Genius: A New Appraisal of the Achievement of the American Negro in Literature and Fine Arts (New York, 1937);
149. Benjamin Brawley, Africa and the War (New York, 1918);
150. Meier and Rudwick, Black History and the Historical Profession, 2.
151. Carter G. Woodson, Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 (Washington, 1915);
152. Carter G. Woodson, The History of the Negro Church (Washington, 1921);
153. Carter G. Woodson, A Century of Negro Migration (Washington, 1918).
154. Du Bois, Negro;
155. W. E. B. Du Bois, Africa, Its Place in Modern History (New York, 1930);
156. W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Folk, Then and Now (New York, 1939);
157. and W. E. B. Du Bois, The World and Africa: An Inquiry into the Part Which Africa Has Played in World History (New York, 1947).
158. Benjamin Brawley, Social History of the American Negro, 172-212;
159. Carter G. Woodson, The African Background Outlined;
160. or, Handbook for the Study of the Negro (Washington, 1936);
161. Carter G. Woodson, African Heroes and Heroines (Washington, 1939).
162. For an insightful discussion of Du Bois's and Woodson's interest in Africa, see Sterling Stuckey, Going Through the Storm: The Influence of African American Art in History (New York, 1994), 120-37.
163. On Charles Wesley, see Francille Rusan Wilson, "Racial Consciousness and Black Scholarship: Charles H. Wesley and the Consciousness of Negro Labor in the United States," Journal of Negro History, 81 (nos. 1-4, 1996), 72-88;
164. Wilson, Segregated Scholars;
165. Meier and Rudwick, Black History and the Historical Profession, 79;
166. a special issue dedicated to Wesley's life and work, ed. Janette Hoston Harris, Journal of Negro History, 83 (Spring 1988);
167. Charles Wesley, "The Struggle of Haiti and Liberia for Recognition," Journal of Negro History, ibid., 2 (Oct. 1917), 369-83;
168. Charles Wesley, "Remy Ollier, A Mauritian Journalist and Patriot," Journal of Negro History, ibid., 6 (Jan. 1921), 54-59;
169. Charles Wesley, "The Negro in the West IndiesJournal of Negro History, ," ibid., 17 (Jan. 1932), 51-66;
170. Charles Wesley, "The Neglected Period of Emancipation in Great Britain, 1807-1823Journal of Negro History, ," ibid. (April 1932), 156-78;
171. Charles Wesley, "The Emancipation of the Free Colored Population in the British Empire," Journal of Negro History, ibid., 19 (April 1934), 137-70;
172. and two previously unpublished essays, Charles Wesley, "The Changing African Historical Tradition," in Charles H. Wesley, ed. Conyers, 3-30;
173. and Charles Wesley, "The Negro in the United States and Canada," Charles H. Wesley, ibid., 45-77.
174. Brawley, Social History of the American Negro;
175. Woodson, Negro in Our History (1922).
176. For the quotation from the preface to the fourth edition, see Carter G. Woodson, The Negro in Our History (New York, 1927), ix-x.
177. The tone of Schomburg's review might have something to do with Woodson's failure to acknowledge his debt to Schomburg's extensive collection of rare books: "A charitable appreciation for those who helped Dr. Woodson with rare prints, engravings, etc., would not have in any way harmed him in the preface." Arthur Schomburg, review of Negro in Our History
178. by Woodson, Negro World, Nov. 4, 1922;
179. reprinted in Martin, ed., African Fundamentalism, 153-56.
180. See also James, Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia, 206-9.
181. Brawley, Social History of the American Negro, 2-5;
182. Woodson, Negro in Our History (1922), 2-58, esp. 44.
183. Flora L. Shaw (Lady Lugard), A Tropical Dependency (London, 1906), 17,
184. quoted in Brawley, Social History of the American Negro, 2.
185. Woodson, Negro in Our History (1922), 16.
186. Brawley, Social History of the American Negro, 2-3;
187. Woodson, Negro in Our History (1922), 58;
188. Ivan Van Sertima, They Came before Columbus (New York, 1976);
189. Leo Wiener, Africa and the Discovery of America (3 vols., Philadelphia, 1920-1922), I.
190. A significant figure in this regard is the pioneering Africanist William Leo Hansberry; see Kwame Wes Alford, "A Prophet without Honor: William Leo Hansberry and the Origins of the Discipline of African Studies (1894-1939)" (Ph.D. diss., University of Missouri, 1998).
191. Woodson, African Background Outlined, v.
192. Cedric Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (1983; Chapel Hill, 1982);
193. Edward Said, Orientalism (New York, 1978).
194. Woodson, Negro in Our History (1922), 71-81;
195. Charles Chapman, "Palmares, the Negro Numantia," Journal of Negro History, 3 (Jan. 1918), 29-32;
196. Brawley, Social History of the American Negro, 76-90.
197. Brawley, Social History of the American Negro, 148-54;
198. Woodson, Negro in Our History (1922), 345-48;
199. Arnett G. Lindsay, "Diplomatic Relations between the United States and Great Britain Bearing on the Return of Negro Slaves, 1783-1828," Journal of Negro History, 5 (Oct. 1920), 391-419.
200. Woodson, Negro in Our History, 138-39n12.
201. Brawley, Social History of the American Negro, 72, 76, 80-84, 341, 366;
202. Woodson, Negro in Our History (1922), 167-70, 279-305;
203. Wesley, "The Struggle of Haiti and Liberia for Recognition," 383;
204. see also George W. Brown, "Haiti and the United States," Journal of Negro History, 8 (April 1923), 134-52;
205. Ben Azikiwe, "In Defense of Liberia," Journal of Negro History, ibid., 17 (Jan. 1932), 30-50.
206. For an excellent discussion of the impact of the United States invasion of Haiti on black intellectuals, see Brenda Gayle Plummer, "The Afro-American Response to the Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934," Phylon, 43 (June 1982), 125-43.
207. See especially Plummer, Rising Wind, 223-27;
208. I. K. Sundiata, Black Scandal: America and the Liberian Labor Crisis, 1929-1936 (Philadelphia, 1980);
209. Cedric J. Robinson, "W. E. B. Du Bois and Black Sovereignty," in Imagining Home, ed. Lemelle and Kelley, 145-57;
210. Skinner, African Americans and U.S. Policy toward Africa.
211. Brawley, Social History of the American Negro, 159, 164-65, 172-212;
212. Woodson, Negro in Our History (1922), 279-305;
213. Woodson, Century of Negro Migration;
214. Fred Landon, "The Negro Migration to Canada after 1850," Journal of Negro History, 5 (Jan. 1920), 22-36;
215. Fred Landon, "Canadian Negroes and the John Brown Raid," Journal of Negro History, ibid., 6 (April 1921), 174-83;
216. Fred Landon, "Canadian Negroes and the Rebellion of 1837," Journal of Negro History, ibid., 7 (Oct. 1922), 377-79;
217. William Renwick Riddell, "Slavery in Canada," Journal of Negro History, ibid., 5 (July 1920), 261-377.
218. Brawley, Social History of the American Negro, 375, 379.
219. See Wilson, Segregated Scholars, especially chapter 6;
220. Jonathan Holloway, "Confronting the Veil: New Deal African-American Intellectuals and the Evolution of a Radical Voice" (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1995);
221. Reddick, "New Interpretation for Negro History," 27;
222. examples of depression-era black labor studies include Lorenzo Greene and Carter G. Woodson, The Negro Wage Earner (New York, 1930);
223. Sterling D. Spero and Abram L. Harris, The Black Worker: The Negro and the Labor Movement (New York, 1931);
224. and Horace Cayton and George S. Mitchell, Black Workers and the New Unions (Chapel Hill, 1939).
225. On the national and international context of the 1930s, see Larry Ceplair, Under the Shadow of War: Fascism, Anti-Fascism, and Marxists, 1918-1939 (New York, 1987);
226. Michael Denning, The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century (London, 1996);
227. Nicos Poulantzas, The Crisis of the Dictatorships: Portugal, Greece, Spain (London, 1976);
228. Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State: Germany, 1933-1945 (New York, 1992);
229. Pierre Broué and Emile Temime, The Revolution and the Civil War in Spain, trans. Tony White (Cambridge, Mass., 1972);
230. Paul Preston, The Coming of the Spanish Civil War: Reform, Reaction, and Revolution in the Second Republic, 1931-1936 (New York, 1978);
231. Ken Post, Arise Ye Starvelings: The Jamaican Labour Rebellion of 1938 and Its Aftermath (The Hague, 1978);
232. and Esmonde Robertson, Mussolini as Empire Builder: Europe and Africa, 1932-1936 (New York, 1977). The African American response to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia is discussed below.
233. 8 W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880 (New York, 1935);
234. C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution (1938; New York, 1963);
235. see also C. L. R. James, A History of Negro Revolt (London, 1938);
236. George Padmore, The Life and Struggles of Negro Toilers (London, 1931);
237. George Padmore, Africa and World Peace (London, 1936);
238. many of the essays in Nancy Cunard, ed., Negro: An Anthology (New York, 1934);
239. Rayford Logan, The Diplomatic Relations of the United States with Haiti, 1776-1891 (Chapel Hill, 1941);
240. and, though they were written a bit later, I would include Williams, Capitalism and Slavery;
241. and Oliver Cox, Caste, Class, and Race (New York, 1948).
242. I'm obviously not alone in this assessment of Du Bois's and James's works. See, for example, Robinson, Black Marxism;
243. Cedric J. Robinson, "Oliver Cromwell Cox and the Historiography of the West," Cultural Critique, 17 (Winter 1990/91), 5-20;
244. Paul Buhle, Marxism in the United States: Remapping the History of the American Left (London, 1991);
245. and Paul Buhle, C. L. R. James: The Artist as Revolutionary (London, 1988).
246. W. E. B. Du Bois, The Autobiography of W. E. B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century (New York, 1968), 305-6;
247. Ralph J. Bunche, "French and British Imperialism in West Africa," Journal of Negro History, 21 (Jan. 1936), 31;
248. Du Bois, World and Africa, 43.
249. My effort to situate radical black intellectuals in relation to fascism is deeply indebted to Cedric J. Robinson. See Cedric J. Robinson, "Fascism and the Response of Black Radical Theorists" (unpublished paper in Robin D. G. Kelley's possession);
250. Cedric J. Robinson, "Fascism and the Intersection of Capitalism, Racialism, and Historical Consciousness," Humanities in Society, 3 (Autumn 1983), 325-49;
251. and Cedric J. Robinson, "The African Diaspora and the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis," Race and Class (London), 27 (Autumn 1985), 51-65.
252. On the importance of studying African history for African Americans in light of fascism and colonialism during this period, see James Hooker, "The Impact of African History on Afro-Americans, 1930-1945," Black Academy Review, 3 (nos. 1 and 2, 1972), 38-59.
253. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America, 31.
254. C. L. R. James, World Revolution, 1917-1936: The Rise and Fall of the Communist International (London, 1937).
255. See Robin D. G. Kelley, "The World the Diaspora Made: C. L. R. James and the Politics of History," in Rethinking C. L. R. James, ed. Grant Farred (New York, 1996), 103-30;
256. Buhle, C. L. R. James: The Artist as Revolutionary, 7-37;
257. C. L. R. James, Beyond a Boundary (1963; Durham, 1993), 4-46;
258. Robert A. Hill, "In England, 1932-1938," in C. L. R. James: His Life and Work, ed. Paul Buhle (Detroit, 1981 ), 19-22;
259. and Kent Worcester, C. L. R. James: A Political Biography (Oxford, 1993).
260. James R. Hooker, Black Revolutionary: George Padmore's Path from Communism to Pan-Africanism (New York, 1967), 10-37;
261. C. L. R. James, "Notes on the Life of George Padmore," in The C. L. R. James Reader, ed. Anna Grimshaw (Oxford, 1992), 288-95.
262. Padmore developed a friendship with Nancy Cunard, a radical renegade from the British bourgeoisie whose politics were deeply inspired by surrealism and Marxism. Her remarkable 1934 book Negro Anthology dealt with the entire black world; the essays and poetry represented Africa, the Caribbean, and much of Latin America, Europe, and Africa, and much of the work adopted a radical perspective. My instincts tell me that this text was essential for the development of a radical diasporan perspective, but this needs further investigation. On Cunard, see Hugh D. Ford's introduction to the abridged and revised edition: Nancy Cunard, Negro: An Anthology, ed. Hugh D. Ford (New York, 1970);
263. Penelope Rosemont, "Nancy Cunard and Surrealism: 'Thinking Sympathetically Black,'" Race Traitor, 9 (Summer 1998), 46-50;
264. Anne Chisholm, Nancy Cunard (New York, 1979).
265. The most obvious example of work influenced by Padmore is Albert Nzula, I. I. Potekhin, and A. Z. Zusmanovich, Forced Labour in Colonial Africa, ed. Robin Cohen, trans. Hugh Jenkins (1933; London, 1979).
266. Padmore, Life and Struggles of Negro Toilers, 6.
267. See William R. Scott, The Sons of Sheba's Race: African-Americans and the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935-1941 (Bloomington, 1993);
268. Joseph E. Harris, African-American Reactions to War in Ethiopia, 1936-1941 (Baton Rouge, 1994);
269. Plummer, Rising Wind, 37-81;
270. Robin D. G. Kelley, Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class (New York, 1994), 123-32;
271. Robinson, "African Diaspora and the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis," 51-65;
272. S. K. B. Asante, "The Afro-American and the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis, 1934-1936," Race (London), 15 (no. 2, 1973), 167-84.
273. James, "Notes on the Life of George Padmore," 292;
274. Buhle, C. L. R. James: The Artist as Revolutionary, 55-56;
275. P. Olisanwuche Esedebe, Pan-Africanism: The Idea and Movement, 1776-1963 (Washington, 1982), 123-25;
276. J. Ayodele Langley, Pan-Africanism and Nationalism in West Africa, 1900-1945: A Study in Ideology and Social Classes (London, 1973), 338.
277. James, Black Jacobins, 85-86.
278. Kenneth Robert Janken, Rayford W. Logan and the Dilemma of the African American Intellectual (Amherst, 1993), 34-84;
279. Meier and Rudwick, Black History and the Historical Profession, 89;
280. Rayford Logan, "Education in Haiti," Journal of Negro History, 15 (Oct. 1930), 401-60.
281. Janken, Rayford W. Logan and the Dilemma of the African American Intellectual, 74-80, esp. 87;
282. Rayford Logan, "The Operation of the Mandate System in Africa," Journal of Negro History, 13 (Oct. 1933), 423-77;
283. Rayford Logan, "The International Status of the Negro," ," Journal of Negro History, ibid., 18 (Jan. 1933), 33-38;
284. Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston, 1995), 71.
285. Janken, Rayford W. Logan and the Dilemma of the African American Intellectual, 78-79;
286. Logan, "International Status of the Negro," 34;
287. C. L. R. James, "Editorial," International African Opinion (London), 1 (July 1938), 2.
288. While Logan certainly became more radical and ultimately lost faith in any kind of European stewardship system, his positions over time did not change dramatically. See Rayford W. Logan, The African Mandates in World Politics (Washington, 1948);
289. and Rayford W. Logan, "The System of International Trusteeship," Journal of Negro Education, 15 (Summer 1946), 285-99.
290. An example of his sympathy for Marxism can be found in a glowing review: Rayford W. Logan, review of Black Reconstruction in America
291. by W. E. B. Du Bois, Journal of Negro History, 21 (Jan. 1937), 61-63.
292. Janken points out that Logan was willing to work with Marxists and had a great deal of respect for certain socialist reformers: Janken, Rayford W. Logan and the Dilemma of the African American Intellectual, 81-82, 108-112.
293. Herbert Aptheker interview by Robin D. G. Kelley, July 15, 1998, Journal of American History (forthcoming);
294. Deborah Whittle, "Personal Reflections on W. E. B. Du Bois: The Person, Scholar, and Activist by Herbert and Fay Aptheker," in W. E. B. Du Bois: The Scholar as Activist, ed. Rutledge Dennis (Greenwich, 1996);
295. Herbert Aptheker, "Charles H. Wesley: Some Memories," Journal of Negro History, 83 (Spring 1998), 153-54;
296. Herbert Aptheker, "By Way of Dedication. In Memoriam: Carter G. Woodson," in Toward Negro Freedom, by Herbert Aptheker (New York, 1956), 7-9;
297. Herbert Aptheker, "Du Bois as Historian," in Afro-American History: The Modern Era, by Herbert Aptheker (New York, 1971), 47-67.
298. Herbert Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts (New York, 1943), 79-131;
299. Mark Solomon, "Herbert Aptheker's Contribution to African American History," in African American History and Radical Historiography: Essays in Honor of Herbert Aptheker, ed. Herbert Shapiro (Minneapolis, 1998), 10.
300. Herbert Aptheker, "American Imperialism and White Chauvinism" (1950), in Toward Negro Freedom, by Aptheker, 89-90, 93.
301. That essay appeared before C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South, 1877-1913 (Baton Rouge, 1951). Woodward's book also links the rise of Jim Crow to imperialism and foreign investments. I would argue that Woodward's efforts to place southern segregation within an international frame is partly a product of his own radical politics of the 1930s and 1940s, and it is quite possible that he was influenced by his reading of earlier African American historians, if not (heaven forbid!) Aptheker himself.
302. Wilson Record, The Negro and the Communist Party (Chapel Hill, 1951);
303. Vaughn D. Bornet, "Historical Scholarship, Communism, and the Negro," Journal of Negro History, 37 (July 1952), 304-24.
304. For the impact of these events on African American politics, see Plummer, Rising Wind, 167-297;
305. Hollis R. Lynch, Black American Radicals and the Liberation of Africa: The Council on African Affairs, 1937-1955 (Ithaca, 1978);
306. Von Eschen, Race against Empire;
307. and Charles Cheng, "Cold War and Black Liberation," Freedomways, 13 (Third Quarter, 1973), 184-99.
308. The appearance of Présence Africaine (Paris)
309. was important enough for the Journal of Negro History to run an article on its founding and first ten years.
310. Published in 1958 just three years after the Bandung conference and two years after International Congress of Negro Writers and Artists, the essay
311. John Hope Franklin, Race and History: Selected Essays, 1938-1988 (Baton Rouge, 1989), 39, 289.
312. Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the Making of America (New York, 1964), 7-8.