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.