Abstract
This article follows the socialist activist Louise Thompson (later Patterson) and the writer Dorothy West on their infamous journey to Soviet Russia to shoot a film about North American anti-Black racism in 1932. The film about the US history of racial oppression was ultimately never made, but the women stayed in the Soviet Union for several months, travelling to the Soviet republics, meeting famous Soviets, and experiencing Soviet modernization. Looking at the travel writings, correspondence, and memoirs of Thompson and West through the lens of intersectionality, this article analyses the women’s distinctly gendered experiences and their experience of socialist women’s liberation movements. It argues that a close reading of the literary writing, travel notes, letters, and memoirs and their biographical trajectories after they returned to the United States reveals how their experiences in the Soviet Union created a feminist consciousness within the two women that crucially altered their political and personal views of Black women’s agency and significantly altered their life trajectories.
Highlights
This article follows the educator and activist Louise Thompson and the writer Dorothy West on their journey to the Soviet Union to participate in a film about North American anti-Black racism, tentatively titled Black and White
These two female members of the Harlem Renaissance and their twenty African-American travel companions were curious about the USSR and its promise of racial equality, which in 1920 Lenin had declared one of the core concerns of communist internationalism (Haas 113)
These analyses frequently conclude that the African-American visitors evaluated their Russian experience solely through their colour consciousness and not necessarily a class consciousness (Haas 120)
Summary
This article follows the educator and activist Louise Thompson (later Patterson) and the writer Dorothy West on their journey to the Soviet Union to participate in a film about North American anti-Black racism, tentatively titled Black and White. These two female members of the Harlem Renaissance and their twenty African-American travel companions were curious about the USSR and its promise of racial equality, which in 1920 Lenin had declared one of the core concerns of communist internationalism (Haas 113). The film, meant to illustrate the racial oppression of African-Americans and propagate the Soviet Union as a model of racial equality, was never produced. The group stayed in Russia for several months and travelled on to Central Asia, collecting first-hand experiences of Soviet modernization
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
