ABSTRACT
The centrality of eradicating legal racial discrimination in the African-American freedom struggle partially accounts for a decidedly domestic focus in the systematic examination of African-American politics. As Hanes Walton has noted, “Few words by political behavioralists on international politics have ever included, in any fashion, black groups and individuals as forces and actors.” 1 Unfortunately, students of politics tend to equate the lack of African Americans in formal positions of authority in the foreign affairs apparatus with apathy by the Black community toward global issues, an oversight further compounded by concentration on the nation-state in the study of international relations. Therefore, the full extent of African-American participation in global affairs is often overlooked. The emigrationist societies formed during the late 1700s to return to Africa reflect early Black interest in international affairs. Emigrationist ventures undertaken by Paul Cuffee, Martin Delany, and Bishop Henry Turner continued throughout the 1800s. Also during this century, the propaganda techniques employed in England by Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells-Barnett attest to the historical importance that African-American leaders placed on the international arena. The activities of early Pan- Africanists such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Anna Julia Cooper, and Marcus Garvey, echoed by latter-day Black Power advocates (1965–1975), allude to the continuity of African-American global interest. Similarly, Malcolm X placed the African-American freedom movement in an international context as evidenced by his meeting with the Organization of African Unity (OAU). In addition, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) activists' opposition to the Vietnam War and their various global forays reflected a concern about international politics that pervaded the Black Power movement. 2
