Abstract
The First World Festival of Negro Arts (FESMAN) was decidedly a product of African independence, reflecting cultural and political aspirations of an emergent world order. It was also decidedly a product of the jet age. While air travel seems commonplace today, the commercial jet airliner was still a novel sign of futurity in 1966. Early stages of commercial jet travel often followed colonial routes into Africa, a postwar extension of Europe’s imperial era. FESMAN offered the opportunity to reimagine air travel for the service of the international community built around independence-era Africa and the African diaspora. This essay examines the trope of air travel as a vital symbol of modernity invoked by FESMAN’s organizers and participants. For example, many American visitors to the festival noted both the speed with which Pan Am jets shuttled them to the once-prohibitively remote continent as well as the shining international architecture of the newly built airport. The trope of air travel is perhaps most beautifully elaborated in American filmmaker William Greaves’ lyrical documentary, The First World Festival of Negro Arts. The film strategically employed the marvel of air travel and its potential as a medium for facilitating the global networks proposed by the festival. Focusing on Greaves’ film and American observations, this essay will explore the ways in which FESMAN proposed a global blackness for the jet age.
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