Race Against Empire by Penny M. Von Eschen.

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                                                                                                                                   Pettett

        In her book Race Against Empire, Penny M. Von Eschen writes of the African diaspora embraced by African Americans in the United States.  Von Eschen discusses the anticolonialistic sentiment that began around the year 1937, and changed its course by 1957.  Her study begins with a description of the roots of the diaspora at the time of World War II, and concludes with the dissintegration of the diaspora during the Cold War years.

        In the 1930’s, African American authors and intellectuals began to voice a feeling of concern over the colonization occurring in Africa, Asia, and the Carribean.  This concern was sparked by the global awareness that was brought about through advancements in communication and other technologies.  People were able to travel from country to country more easily, which allowed for a better understanding of what was going on in the world outside of the United States.  Von Eschen asserts that the growth of the black press was the driving force in the idea of the African diaspora.  

        Newspapers such as the Pittsburg Courier and the Chicago Defender began to have correspondance with people familiar to the colonization and oppression of African nations, along with other nations by the European imperialist countries.  These newspapers dramatically grew in size during the World War II period.  Also, black intellectuals of the time such as W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Robeson, George Padmore, Max Yergan, and Alphaeus Hunton began to voice their dissatissfaction with colonization, imperialism, and the direction that American foreign policy was headed in.  These men argued that the United States foreign policy affected domestic civil rights.  They said that a change in civil rights needed to occur globally.

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        The end of World War II brought about the United Nations.  The black intellectuals used this international stage to express their feelings of anticolonization and antiimperialism.  Many of the intellectuals felt that the United States was begginning to assume the role of  the “dominant world power” a distinction the European nations had held for so long.  The men spoke of decolonization and the rights of individual nations to make their own future and form their own governments.  

        Organizations that were vocally opposed to colonization began to form to express their beliefs.  One such group that arose was the CAA, ...

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