Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Grant
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Cold War ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Activism ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Black South Africans

This chapter provides an overview of racial politics in the United States and South Africa in the 1940s and 1950s. It traces how African Americans and black South Africans have historically configured their struggles as being interconnected, while documenting how anticommunism limited opportunities for transnational black activism between both countries during the early Cold War.

South Africa, the United States, and the Racial Politics of the Cold War

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Grant
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Cold War ◽  
South African ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Activism ◽  
South Africans ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Political Economic

This chapter examines the relationship between anticommunism and transnational black activism. The racial politics of the United States and South Africa became even more closely interconnected during the early Cold War. The political, economic and military ties that were established between the U.S. and South African governments at this moment dramatically reshaped how African Americans and black South Africans engaged in one another struggles. As the apartheid state positioned themselves as a key bulwark against the spread of communism in Southern Africa, black activists on both sides of the Atlantic mobilized to challenge this relationship.

Crossing the Black Atlantic

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Grant
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
African Americans ◽  
South African ◽  
Black Atlantic ◽  
State Repression ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Black South Africans ◽  
The U.S

This chapter explores how trans-Atlantic travel provided an important avenue through which black activists related to one another’s struggles. It also demonstrates how the U.S. and South African governments worked to regulate and restrict transnational black travel during the early Cold War. Focusing in on the lesser-known transatlantic journeys of Canada Lee, Sidney Poitier, and Z. K. and Frieda Matthews, the chapter argues that these individuals acted as important cultural translators that physically connected the struggle against racism in both countries. Finally, by tracing the international opposition to the removal of Paul Robeson’s passport, the chapter shows how experiences of state repression could be negotiated in ways that further strengthened bonds of solidarity between African Americans and black South Africans.

scholarly journals Testing the inescapable network of mutuality: Albert Luthuli, Martin Luther King Jr and the challenges of post-liberation South Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan A. Boesak
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
The United States ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Faith Commitment ◽  
The World ◽  
Ethical Stance ◽  
Martin Luther King

The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, 50 years ago on 04 April 1968, has been recalled in the United States with memorial services, conferences, public discussions and books. In contrast, the commemoration in 2017 of the death of Albert John Mvumbi Luthuli, 50 years ago on December 1967, passed almost unremarked. That is to our detriment. Yet, these two Christian fighters for freedom, in different contexts, did not only have much in common, but they also left remarkably similar and equally inspiring legacies for South Africa, the United States and the world in the ways they lived their lives in complete faith commitment to ideals and ways of struggle that may guide us in the ongoing struggles to make the world a more just, peacable and humane place. For South African reflections on our ethical stance in the fierce, continuing struggles for justice, dignity and the authenticity of our democracy, I propose that these two leaders should be considered in tandem. We should learn from both. This article engages Martin Luther King Jr’s belief in the ‘inescapable network of mutuality’, applies it to the struggle for freedom in South Africa and explores the ways in which South Africans can embrace these ethical ideals in facing the challenges of post-liberation.

scholarly journals A Suitable Paradigm: the Indian Founding and the world

Jus Cogens ◽  
2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Fowkes
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
The United States ◽  
Constitutional Democracy ◽  
Paradigm Case ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
South Africans ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Do So

AbstractWhat is the relevance of the Indian case for South Africa? And what should South Africans, and the rest of the world, make of the claim in Madhav Khosla’s India’s Founding Moment that we should recognize India as ‘the’ paradigm case for modern constitutional democracy? The constitutional projects of India and South Africa are naturally connected, but Khosla’s book helps to bring out what is perhaps the most important of the connections. Both are founded on an insistently democratic constitutionalism, in places where most inhabitants had long been told they were not suited or ready for democracy. Both display the conviction that boldly giving the vote to all, in these circumstances, is a powerful way to construct a democracy. This idea is crucial for understanding many aspects of both constitutions. This makes India a natural paradigm case for South Africa and many others. The stronger claim, that it is ‘the’ paradigm case and should succeed the United States to this status, can become more complicated once one tests it out globally (like the US claim). Finland and Ireland are especially strong and earlier examples of what Khosla sees as ground-breaking in India. Latin America’s somewhat different post-colonial trajectory makes India a more imperfect paradigm there. But that said, treating India and its founding as paradigmatic may well be the single best step to take for a more balanced view of the constitutional world, and this book’s elegant erudition makes it a real scholarly pleasure to do so.

Forgiveness: An Interview

PMLA ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 117 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Kristeva ◽  
Alison Rice
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
Julia Kristeva ◽  
Japanese Americans ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Aboriginal Children

This interview with julia kristeva, conducted on 25 april 2000, focuses on forgiveness, a topic that is receiving considerable attention worldwide. Numerous nations around the globe have recently extended apologies to specific groups of people, including South Africa, to victims of apartheid; Britain, to the Maori people; Australia, to stolen aboriginal children; the United States, to Native Americans, Japanese Americans, and African Americans; and Germany, to victims of the Holocaust. This remarkable international proliferation of requests for forgiveness for wrongdoing and of attempts to make amends has not escaped the attention of prominent literary critics and philosophers.

English in South Africa: parallels with African American vernacular English

English Today ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liesel Hibbert
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
South African ◽  
The United States ◽  
African American Vernacular English ◽  
Vernacular English ◽  
American Vernacular ◽  
South African Politics

A comparison between Black English usage in South Africa and the United StatesThere has been a long tradition of resistance in South African politics, as there has been for African-Americans in the United States. The historical links between African Americans and their counterparts on the African continent prompt one to draw a comparison between the groups in terms of linguistic and social status. This comparison demonstrates that Black South African English (BSAfE) is a distinctive form with its own stable conventions, as representative in its own context as African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is in the United States.

The Racial Politics of Division

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Gosin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Belonging ◽  
Interethnic Relations ◽  
Cuban American ◽  
Ethnic Tensions

The Politics of Division deconstructs antagonistic discourses that circulated in local Miami press between African-Americans, “white” Cubans, and “black” Cubans during the 1980 Mariel Boatlift and the 1994 Balsero Crisis. In its challenge to discourses which pit these groups against one another, the book examines the nuanced ways that identities such as “black,” “white,” and “Cuban” have been constructed and negotiated in the context of Miami’s historical multi-ethnic tensions. The book argues that dominant race-making ideologies of the white establishment regarding “worthy citizenship” shape inter-minority conflict as groups negotiate their precarious positioning within the nation. The book contends that the lived experiences of the African-Americans, white Cubans, and Afro-Cubans involved disrupt binary frames of worthy citizenship narratives, illuminating the greater complexity of racialized identities. Foregrounding the oft-neglected voices of Afro-Cubans, the book highlights how their specific racial positioning offers a challenge to white Cuban-American anti-blackness and complicates narratives that placed African-American “natives” in opposition to (white) Cuban “foreigners,” while revealing also how Afro-Cubans and other Afro-Latinos negotiate racial meanings in the United States. Focusing on the intricacy of interminority tensions in Miami, the book adds dimension to modern debates about race, blackness, immigration, interethnic relations, and national belonging.

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