Table Of Content‘Mark Ledwidge has written an important book on African Americans
and US foreign policy. Based on his meticulous research Dr Ledwidge
has produced an original and incisive analysis of how African Americans
engaged with the development of US foreign policy in the twentieth cen-
tury andwere often thwarted in the process. His cases include the Italian
Ethiopian invasion in the 1930s, World War II and the influence of lead-
ing African American activists and intellectuals at the foundation of the
United Nations. He shows the extent to which African American aims
and engagements faced a state dominated by an (oftenunthinking) white
ideology.ByfocusingsoclearlyonthisonedimensionofAfricanAmerican
and USpolitics,Dr Ledwidgebuilds upan impressiveportrait of this key
aspect of American political development. The book will be valuable to
students and scholars of US history, foreign policy race and politics, and
international relations.’
Desmond King, University of Oxford, UK
‘Mark Ledwidge has broken new groundwith this book. Not only has he
established that African Americans were interested and active in US for-
eignaffairs,he hasalsoshown,withthemost meticulousandpainstaking
research in American archives, that they were often far more influential
than was thought, and that the American state was deeply interested in
their activities. Indeed, he shows that unless African American activists
and intellectuals were completely ‘bought in’ to dominant white estab-
lishment foreign policy mindsets, they were placed under surveillance,
denied basic rights to travel abroad, or faced imprisonment. This book is
also timely – with Barack Obama, America’s first black head of state.
Yet, its message may well be quite bleak in regard to President Obama’s
chances of transforming America as African Americans who ‘succeed’ in
US politics tend to be thoroughly assimilated into the ‘mainstream’. The
virtue of Mark Ledwidge’s study is that he shows precisely how the pro-
cesses of white foreign policy elites’ engagement with, or marginalisation
and repression of, African Americans, actually works.’
Inderjeet Parmar, University of Manchester, UK
‘Books can be insightful; and sometimes they address underdeveloped
areas of knowledge. Rarely do they do both. Ledwidge’s book does in
exceptional clarity and detail. Through his examination of the role of the
African American Foreign Affairs Network, Ledwidge illuminates the
complex set of issues connecting race and foreign policy. The book tells
us agreat dealabout that network; still moreabout the natureof the US;
and crucially, still more about the interaction of race and international
politics.’
Stuart Croft, University of Warwick, UK
Race and US Foreign Policy
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.
Mark Ledwidge is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of
Politics, University of Manchester, UK.
Routledge Studies in US Foreign Policy
Edited by Inderjeet Parmar, University of Manchester
and John Dumbrell, University of Durham
Thisnewseriessetsouttopublishhigh-qualityworksbyleadingandemergingscholars
criticallyengagingwithUnited StatesForeignPolicy.Theserieswelcomesavarietyof
approachestothesubjectanddrawsonscholarshipfrominternationalrelations,security
studies, international political economy, foreign policy analysis and contemporary
international history.
Subjects covered include the role of administrations and institutions, the media,
think tanks, ideologues and intellectuals, elites, transnational corporations, public
opinion, and pressure groups in shaping foreign policy, US relations with individual
nations, with global regions and global institutions and America’s evolving strategic
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Theseriesaimstoprovidearangeofbooks–fromindividualresearchmonographs
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UnitedStatesForeignPolicyand TheUSPublicandAmericanForeign
NationalIdentityinthe21stCentury Policy
EditedbyKenneth Christie EditedbyAndrewJohnstoneandHelen
Laville
NewDirectionsinUSForeignPolicy
EditedbyInderjeetParmar,LindaB. AmericanForeignPolicyandPostwar
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ComparingJapanandIraq
America’s‘SpecialRelationships’ JeffBridoux
Foreignanddomesticaspectsofthe
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Neoconservatism andAmericanForeign
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Acritical analysis
DannyCooper
USForeignPolicyinContext
NationalIdeologyfromtheFoundersto
USPolicy TowardsCuba
theBushDoctrine
Since theColdWar
AdamQuinn
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TheUnitedStatesandNATO since9/11
TheTransatlantic Alliancerenewed ConstructingUSForeignPolicy
Ellen Hallams ThecuriouscaseofCuba
DavidBernell
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Theoretical,historical and RaceandUSForeignPolicy
contemporaryperspectives TheAfrican-American ForeignAffairs
EditedbyInderjeetParmar and Network
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Race and US Foreign Policy
ff
The African-American Foreign A airs Network
Mark Ledwidge
Firstpublished2012
byRoutledge
2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,Oxon,OX144RN
SimultaneouslypublishedintheUSAandCanada
byRoutledge
711ThirdAvenue,NewYork,NY10017
RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninformabusiness
©2012MarkLedwidge
TherightofMarkLedwidgetobeidentifiedasauthorofthisworkhasbeen
assertedbyhiminaccordancewiththeCopyright,DesignsandPatentAct
1988.
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproducedor
utilisedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans,now
knownorhereafterinvented,includingphotocopyingandrecording,orin
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TrademarkNotice:Productorcorporatenamesmaybetrademarksor
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AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
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Ledwidge,Mark.
RaceandUSforeignpolicy:theAfrican-Americanforeignaffairsnetwork/
MarkLedwidge.
p.cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.UnitedStates--Foreignrelations--20thcentury--Citizen
participation.2.AfricanAmericans--Politicsandgovernment--
20thcentury.I.Title.
E744.L4252011
323.11960073--dc22
2011005718
ISBN:978-0-415-48211-0(hbk)
ISBN:978-0-203-80618-0(ebk)
TypesetinTimesbyTaylor&FrancisBooks
For all those people whose voices were silenced
Contents
Abbreviations x
1 Introduction 1
2 The forging of the African-American Foreign Affairs Community 24
3 A case studyof the Italo-Ethiopian War 1934–36 45
4 From isolationism to globalism: African-Americans’response to
US entry into the Second World War 1939–41 70
5 African-Americans and the formation of the United Nations
Organisation 1944–47 95
6 Human rights, racial reconstruction and the Cold War 1950–60 115
7 Malcolm and Martin and the shadowof US foreign policy 138
8 Conclusion 161
Notes 181
Bibliography 229
Index 242
Abbreviations
AAFAN African-American Foreign Affairs Network
ANC African National Congress
AUN Association for the United Nations, Inc.
CAA Council of African Affairs
CDAAA Committee to Defend Americaby Aiding the Allies
CFR Council on Foreign Relations
CJC Chicago’s Joint Committee
ERC Ethiopian Research Council
FFF Fight For Freedom
ICFE International Council of Friends of Ethiopia
IEW Italo-Ethiopian War
LON League of Nations
MOWM March on Washington Movement
NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
NCNW National Council of Negro Women
NGO Non-Governmental Organisations
PAC Pan-African Congress
PARA Pan-African Reconstruction Association
PCDE Provisional Committee for the Defence of Ethiopia
RACON (Surveyof) Racial Conditions in the United States
UN United Nations
UNCIO United Nations Conference on International Organisation
UNIA Universal Negro Improvement Association
WASP White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
