Description
Book SynopsisIncludes essays that use close readings of speeches, letters, historical archives, diaries, and memoirs of policymakers and newly available FBI files to confront much-neglected questions related to race and foreign relations in the United States.
Trade Review"Several of this collection's chapters and topics will certainly spur new and further research in African American and US diplomatic history.
African Americans in U.S. Foreign Policy will particularly interest those concerned with the history and challenges faced by African Americans involved in the making and execution of US foreign policy."--
H-Net Review"This thought-provoking work reveals the continuing complexity of African American foreign policy elites in shaping and executing American foreign policy. Highly recommended."--
Choice"Sheds light on understudied but timely phenomena at the intersection of race and U.S. foreign relations and does so in new and exciting ways. Expands the chronological and thematic scopes of existing works, making it truly original. I am convinced that this book will intervene in many scholarly conversations for years to come by offering something truly unique."--George White Jr., author of
Holding the Line: Race, Racism, and American Foreign Policy toward Africa, 1953–1961"The essays presented in
African Americans in U.S. Foreign Policy raise important questions and provide insightful answers to them through rigorous archival and interpretive methods. The end result is a book that significantly advances our understanding of African Americans in the U.S. foreign policy-making arena. This outstanding book should be read widely by scholars of history, African American Studies, and political science."--Alvin B. Tillery Jr., author of
Between Homeland and Motherland: Africa, U.S. Foreign Policy, and Black Leadership in AmericaTable of ContentsAcknowledgments vii
Preface: Reflections of a Black Ambassador
Walter C. Carrington ix
Introduction 1
Part I: Early African American Diplomatic Appointments: Contributions and Constraints 1 Blacks in the U.S. Diplomatic and Consular Services, 1869-1924
Allison Blakely 13
2 A New Negro Foreign Policy: The Critical Vision of Alain Locke and Ralph Bunche
Jeffrey C. Stewart 30
3 Carl Rowan and the Dilemma of Civil Rights, Propaganda, and the Cold War
Michael L. Krenn 58
Part II: African American Participation in Foreign Affairs through Civil Society: Religious, Military, and Cultural Institutions in Foreign Policy 4 Reconstructions' Revival: The Foreign Mission Board of the National Baptist Convention and the Roots of Black Populist Diplomacy
Brandi Hughes 83
5 White Shame/Black Agency: Race as a Weapon in Post-World War I Diplomacy
Very Ingrid Grant 109
6 Goodwill Ambassadors: African American Athletes and U.S. Cultural Diplomacy, 1947-1968
Damion Thomas 129
7 The Paradox of Jazz Diplomacy: Race and Culture in the Cold War
Lisa Davenport 140
Part III: The Advent of the Age of Obama: African Americans and the Making of American Foreign Policy 8 African American Representatives in the United Nations: From Ralph Bunche to Susan Rice
Lorenzo Morris 177
9 Obama, African Americans, and Africans: The Double Vision
Ibrahim Sundiata 200
Epilogue: The Impact of African Americans on U.S. Foreign Policy
Charles R. Stith 213
Contributors 225
Index 231
