No Justice, No Peace, No Nukes: The Bomb, De-Colonization, and the Radical Internationalism of African-American Liberalism

Abstract

New books by Vincent J. Intondi and Carol Anderson join an expanding shelf of historical studies on African Americans and international affairs, including important works by Gerald Horne, Brenda Gayle Plummer, Mary Dudziak, and Anderson herself. This rich body of scholarship has enriched both African American history and U.S. foreign relations history. It holds powerful insights for the study of race in global politics and contemporary transnational history. The two books reviewed here make significant contributions. Each adds to our understanding of African American perspectives on the relationship between “domestic” and “foreign” affairs; each sheds light on distinctly African-American efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy. Intondi provides a broad survey of a previously overlooked issue: the role of African Americans in opposing nuclear weapons throughout the post-1945 “atomic age.” Anderson provides a deeply-researched, provocatively revisionist analysis of anti-colonial politics within the African American community during and after World War II. Focusing on the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Anderson seeks to overturn the long-standing view that African-American anti-colonialism was suppressed by the late 1940s as the NAACP abandoned anti-colonial politics in favor of Cold War anti-communism.