Winning Our Freedoms Together: African Americans and Apartheid, 1945–1960 by Nicholas Grant

Abstract

Reviewed by: Winning Our Freedoms Together: African Americans and Apartheid, 1945–1960by Nicholas Grant Thomas J. Noer Winning Our Freedoms Together: African Americans and Apartheid, 1945–1960. By Nicholas Grant. Justice, Power, and Politics. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017. Pp. xviii, 306. Paper, $32.95, ISBN 978-l-4696-3528-6; cloth, $90.00, ISBN 978-1-4696-3527-9.) Historians strive for relevance, making a connection between their study of the past and current issues and events. Given the recent resurgence of white supremacist parties and individuals in the United States and Europe, this study of the interaction between black Americans challenging segregation and black South Africans attempting to resist the imposition of apartheid speaks directly to the present. Many historians have examined the relationship between the American civil rights movement and the struggle against apartheid, but Nicholas Grant's book offers a number of new perspectives on the issue. First, he focuses on the era before 1960, while most others have concentrated on later decades. Second, he examines some unique areas neglected by other scholars: travel, consumer magazines, political prisoners, and gender. The result is an extremely interesting but disjointed book. The author has some fascinating material and analysis but often fails to connect individual chapters into a unified narrative. The author states clearly his main argument: "Although limited by the dual forces of racism and anticommunism, activists in both countries collaborated to critique and challenge the ties that existed between the United States and apartheid governments" (p. 2). The first section examines the impact of the Cold War on U.S. foreign policy toward South Africa and on black leaders in the United States. Grant documents the awareness of the systematic racism in South Africa within the American black community but notes that many American black leaders were reluctant to openly challenge U.S. policy. Many feared that criticism of foreign policy would lead to charges of being pro-communist and that a focus on foreign affairs might erode efforts for racial equality at home. As a result, the most outspoken critics of the American response to apartheid were often radical groups and leaders rather than mainstream civil rights activists. Grant is very good on the reciprocal relationship between white South Africans and U.S. segregationists. He notes how both saw the other as potential allies in their efforts to restrict racial equality. South Africa launched a successful effort to sell apartheid to America as an alternative to radicalism and [End Page 1050]communism, while white leaders in the U.S. South hailed Pretoria's efforts as a model to restrict black activism at home. As the author notes, "White supremacist and anticommunist ideologies were folded into each other" (p. 42). This is not a new topic, but the author does an excellent job of documenting the interactions between black people in both nations and white supremacists in each country. The rest of the book moves away from foreign policy and the Cold War to examine a number of areas of contact between black people in the two nations. The results are rather mixed. The chapter "Crossing the Black Atlantic: Travel and Anti-Apartheid Activism" ranges from a discussion of musician Miriam Makeba, to the debate over Paul Robeson's passport, to a nine-page critique of the 1951 movie based on Alan Paton's novel Cry, the Beloved Country(1948). The next chapter concentrates almost exclusively on the white-owned but black-targeted magazine Zonk!. Much of this section is interesting but unclear on the significance of the material. The final three chapters focus on political prisoners and gender issues. South African political prisoners were symbols of a "heroic masculinit[y] that politically empowered black men," while "black women in the United States and South Africa drew on their domestic experiences in order to move beyond the private sphere and publicly challenge race and gender discrimination" (pp. 140, 159). These chapters have some fascinating material but too often lapse into jargon. Grant's intent is to move away from the focus on governmental leaders and policies and to look at the history of opposition to white supremacy from the ground up. In...