Race and US Foreign Policy

The African-American Foreign Affairs Network

Mark Ledwidge

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781136653513
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Politica

African-Americans' analysis of, and interest in, foreign affairs represents a rich and dynamic legacy, and this work provides a cutting edge insight into this neglected aspect of US foreign affairs.

In addition to extending the parameters of US foreign policy literature to include race and ethnicity, the book documents case-specific analyses of the evolutionary development of the African American foreign affairs network (AAFAN). Whilst the examination of race in regard to the construction of US foreign policy is significant, this book also provides a cross disciplinary approach which utilises historical and political science methods to paint a more realistic appraisal of US foreign policy. Including analysis of original archival evidence, this theoretically informed work seeks to transcend the standard mono-disciplinary approach which overestimates the separation between domestic and foreign affairs.

The unique approach of this work will add an important dimension to a newly emerging field and will be of interest to scholars in ethnic and racial studies, American politics, US foreign policy and US history.

1 Introduction

African-Americans’ analysis of, and interest in, foreign affairs represents a rich and dynamic legacy dating back to the Haitian Revolution (22 August 1791),¹ and includes the Berlin Conference (1884–85), Belgium’s colonisation of the Congo (1885),² the Versailles Peace Conference of 1919,³ the formation of the United Nations Organisation in 1945⁴ and the African independence struggle. African-Americans’ analysis and engagement with foreign affairs has been largely obscured, because of the assumption that African-Americans have almost exclusively directed their activities towards obtaining domestic equality.⁵ According to Benjamin Bowser, ‘Black writers and leaders have always made the association between their domestic circumstances and foreign affairs, especially regarding Africa and the Caribbean. This tradition has been developing since World War One as a by-product of black urbanisation and increasing knowledge and awareness of Africa and African issues.’⁶

This book seeks to establish five claims: first, African-Americans were interested in international affairs and US foreign policy; second, African-Americans conceptualised and organised around their view of international relations; third, African-Americans’ conception of international relations was not solely derived from white America’s conception of foreign affairs nor the government’s conception of foreign affairs; fourth, African-Americans’ unique political position in US society as a racially oppressed group defined their approach to foreign policy issues; finally, the American state’s response to the African-American Foreign Affairs Network (AAFAN) reflected the marginalised status of African-Americans. This book argues that a small group of African-Americans formed foreign affairs networks prior to the First World War (WWI) dedicated to the liberation of African people worldwide. It highlights the evolution of the African-American Foreign Affairs Network between 1900 and 1968 by examining the origins, rise and influence of AAFAN through in-depth case studies, ranging from the discussions surrounding the formation of the League of Nations in Paris (1919–20) to African-Americans’ attempts to promote their interests in relation to the formation of the United Nations (1944–45). It also provides insight into the decline of AAFAN (1947–68), and examines its strategies and tactics as well as its internal divisions. There will also be discussion of AAFAN’s success in gaining increased access to the foreign affairs establishment and diversifying traditional conceptions of foreign affairs.

This book aims to enhance our knowledge of American political development regarding how power is distributed in a racialised political system. Its priority is the study and analysis of AAFAN in order to establish its membership, ideological parameters, foreign policy proposals and success in achieving its aims. There will be no historical insight into the activities of the US foreign policy establishment as a whole, except where they relate to the activities of AAFAN. This book explains the relationship between rigid structures, such as racial inequality and the maintenance of Anglo-American political hegemony, within the domestic and international arenas. It also extends the parameters of foreign policy to include race and ethnicity within the nucleus of US foreign policy scholarship and consequently expands our knowledge of AAFAN’s attempts to move from the political margins (before 1919) in order to promote the interests of African-Americans.⁷ The study will assess the degree of elasticity of Western democracy by determining whether a subordinate racial group was provided adequate opportunities to meet its interests. It also indicates that a small cadre of African-Americans demonstrated their commitment to the redemption of African people by attending the 1900 Pan-African Conference in London.⁸

This project demonstrates that African-Americans’ fight for political freedom was not exclusively focused on attaining racial equality within the domestic arena.⁹

Benjamin Bowser argued: ‘since the turn of the century, there have been over 100,000 books, magazine and newspaper articles published in the US alone on issues related to race.’¹⁰ Indeed, ‘virtually every institution in American life has been widely covered – described, criticized, defended and analysed … [however] … there is one area in which the impact of racial assumptions has not been widely discussed – foreign policy.’¹¹ Indeed, despite the recent scholarship of Dudziak, Layton, Plummer and Von Eschen, African-Americans foreign affairs activities are still relatively unknown in mainstream academia. This book examines a (still) neglected topic, i.e. African-Americans’ interest in foreign affairs.¹²

This book provides insight into the political behaviour of a racially marginalised group by demonstrating African-Americans’ interest ‘in global issues … [as] … social scientists and the general public have … underestimated the scope and discounted the richness of this aspect of the Black experience.’¹³ W. E. B. Du Bois envisaged the colour-line as the main problem of the twentieth century.¹⁴ This book examines the role of the colour-line in the formation of US foreign policy. Like Plummer, it

does not place official policy makers at the centre of its narrative. Some … [scholars] … will read that displacement as, at worst, an indication that the work lacks legitimacy as a study of the history of foreign relations … Part of the difficulty lies in the field’s tendency to ground itself in the world view of policy makers, to conflate its own authorial voices with those of official Washington, and see as both normative and neutral the clearly ethnocentric commitments of elite national leadership.¹⁵

Michael Hunt, Michael Krenn and Thomas McCarthy argue that US foreign policy has endorsed a form of white hegemony.¹⁶ Roediger’s racial thesis¹⁷ like Hacker’s suggests that America is ‘inherently a white country: in character, in structure, in culture … black Americans create lives of their own. Yet, as a people, they face boundaries … set by the white majority.’¹⁸ Given the historical evidence, we would expect whites to dominate the formation and execution of US foreign policy. Certainly, US academics have overwhelmingly focused on the activities of elite Euro-Americans or produced research from their perspective.¹⁹ While the twentieth century witnessed the rise of a US foreign policy establishment,²⁰ less widely recognised has been the rise of the AAFAN.²¹

Structure of the Book

Chapter 1 provides an introductory overview of the book by mapping its structure, form and substance. It contains a brief summary of each case study. The aim of each sumary is to identify the existing level of knowledge about AAFAN from 1900 to the late 1960s. In addition to mentioning the methodological approach used in this book, there is a discussion of the four theoretical models that have been selected for testing in relation to the historical evidence.

Chapter 2 focuses on the activities and evolution of AAFAN between 1900 and the early 1920s, examining the Pan-African Conference (1900), the Pan-African Congress (1919) and the Universal Negro Improvement Association’s (UNIA) conventions (1920s). It highlights the actions and activities of early Pan-Africanist’s such as H. Sylvester Williams, Marcus Garvey and W. E. B. Du Bois.

Chapter 3 provides a detailed account of African-Americans’ activities relating to the Italo-Ethiopian War²² (1935–37), which catapulted foreign affairs to the forefront of the minds of African-Americans and set the stage for successive mobilisations in relation to foreign affairs.²³ Chapter 4 examines the role and the views of the AAFAN and America’s entry into the Second World War (WWII). Chapter 5 examines African-Americans attempts to fashion and use the United Nations Organisation (UNO) to highlight domestic and international racial inequalities 1944–45. Chapter 6 address AAFAN’s activities during the early Cold War period and the impact of anticommunism on their transnational activities. Chapter 7 explores Malcolm X and Martin Luther King’s efforts to influence US foreign policy during the 1960s. Chapter 8 examines the theoretical implications of the historical evidence and considers which theory best explains that evidence.

Chapter 2: The Forging of the African-American Foreign Affairs Community

This chapter addresses the formation of the AAFAN and identifies the gaps in the existing knowledge regarding the development of AAFAN²⁴ from 1900 through the1920s. African-Americans interest in foreign affairs in 1900 was derived from an earlier interest in Africa.²⁵ For example, the Berlin Conference and Europe’s assault on African sovereignty disturbed some African-Americans and prompted them to see racism as a global phenomenon.²⁶ Significantly the great migration (1915–25) from the South to the North provided African-Americans with increased freedoms which enabled greater participation in political activities.²⁷ By the early 1900s, African-Americans established a number of significant interest groups,²⁸ including the Niagara Movement, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).²⁹ These organisations were dedicated to reforming domestic and international race relations,³⁰ they championed a multiplicity of views and agendas³¹ before proceeding with the examination of AAFAN’s ideological and structural parameters. This section considers what principles assisted in the birth of the AAFAN.

African-Americans tendency to view international events though a racial lens was a result of white America’s oppressive colour-line, plus their disdain for racial inequality. Indeed, African-Americans’ racial consciousness was shaped by the brutal system of enslavement that consigned all Africans to a subordinate role within US society.³² The alleged inferiority of Africans provided the basis and justification for Euro-Americans’ enslavement of African people.³³ Racism justified the post-slavery system of segregation enacted in the American South and the de facto segregation that existed in the North. In short, American racism forced African-Americans to live separate and unequal lives in relation to white America. Hence race assumed a primary basis for black organisational activities; although inter-racial organisations existed prior to the 1960s civil rights struggle in America, this was the exception rather than the rule.

In brief, African-Americans’ racial consciousness was a product of American history that had been shaped by a rigid and hierarchical colour-line³⁴ founded on Euro-American hegemony.

Ideological Diversity of AAFAN

The structural parameters of AAFAN reflected the complexities facing a marginal group attempting to effect changes from below whilst operating in a hostile socio-political and economic environment dedicated to maintaining the status quo. The AAFAN was not a structured organisation like the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).³⁵ As AAFAN was not a formal organisation,³⁶ the activities of individual African-Americans and their organisations regarding foreign affairs were stimulated on a case-by-case basis by particular international issues. In short, the marginal status of black America hampered their organisational capacity. Regarding the composition of the AAFAN, Plummer indicates that ‘the black foreign policy audience initially sprang from a core of politicians, clergy, press, intellectuals, and cadres from Christian, social welfare and peace organisations. It was later joined by conventional civil rights groups and organisations.’³⁷ Although Plummer utilises ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction
• 2. The forging of the African-American Foreign Affairs Community
• 3. A case study of the Italo-Ethiopian War 1934–36
• 4. From isolationism to globalism: African-Americans’ response to US entry into the Second World War 1939–41
• 5. African-Americans and the formation of the United Nations Organisation 1944–47
• 6. Human rights, racial reconstruction and the Cold War 1950–60
• 7. Malcolm and Martin and the shadow of US foreign policy
• 8. Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index