“The Black Man's Burden”: African Americans, Imperialism, and Notions of Racial Manhood 1890–1910

Ethiopia Stretches Forth Across the Atlantic: African American Anticolonialism during the Interwar Period

“…Previous to the rupturing force of World War One, published African American thought about Africa often fell within the framework of uplift and civilizing missions. 4 By the 1930s, a number of social phenomena created the conditions for an unprecedented response when Mussolini's forces invaded Ethiopia; these included black urbanization, a significant African American academic presence, comparatively inclusive New Deal legislation, the crisis of capitalism, and a lively black press. The relative prominence of the Communist Party of the United States and the ascendancy of Mussolini and Hitler in Europe also led to the development of an antifascism in which black and white leftists could make common cause.…”