African Americans in U.S. Foreign Policy

Allison Blakely is Professor Emeritus of History at Boston University. Linda Heywood is a professor of African American studies and history at Boston University and author of Contested Power in Angola: 1840s to the Present. Charles Stith is an adjunct professor of international relations and director of the African Presidential Center at Boston University, and the author of Political Religion. Joshua C. Yesnowitz has been a lecturer in American politics and research methods at Boston University and Suffolk University.

• Acknowledgments   viiPreface: Reflections of a Black AmbassadorWalter C. Carrington   ixIntroduction   1Part I: Early African American Diplomatic Appointments: Contributions and Constraints1   Blacks in the U.S. Diplomatic and Consular Services, 1869-1924   Allison Blakely   132   A New Negro Foreign Policy: The Critical Vision of Alain Locke and Ralph BuncheJeffrey C. Stewart   303   Carl Rowan and the Dilemma of Civil Rights, Propaganda, and the Cold War   Michael L. Krenn   58 Part II: African American Participation in Foreign Affairs through Civil Society: Religious, Military, and Cultural Institutions in Foreign Policy4   Reconstructions' Revival: The Foreign Mission Board of the National Baptist Convention and the Roots of Black Populist DiplomacyBrandi Hughes   835   White Shame/Black Agency: Race as a Weapon in Post-World War I DiplomacyVery Ingrid Grant   1096   Goodwill Ambassadors: African American Athletes and U.S. Cultural Diplomacy, 1947-1968Damion Thomas   1297   The Paradox of Jazz Diplomacy: Race and Culture in the Cold War   Lisa Davenport   140 Part III: The Advent of the Age of Obama: African Americans and the Making of American Foreign Policy8   African American Representatives in the United Nations: From Ralph Bunche to Susan Rice   Lorenzo Morris   1779   Obama, African Americans, and Africans: The Double Vision   Ibrahim Sundiata   200Epilogue: The Impact of African Americans on U.S. Foreign Policy   Charles R. Stith   213Contributors   225Index   231

"Several of this collection's chapters and topics will certainly spur new and further research in African American and US diplomatic history. African Americans in U.S. Foreign Policy will particularly interest those concerned with the history and challenges faced by African Americans involved in the making and execution of US foreign policy."--H-Net Review"This thought-provoking work reveals the continuing complexity of African American foreign policy elites in shaping and executing American foreign policy. Highly recommended."--Choice"Sheds light on understudied but timely phenomena at the intersection of race and U.S. foreign relations and does so in new and exciting ways. Expands the chronological and thematic scopes of existing works, making it truly original. I am convinced that this book will intervene in many scholarly conversations for years to come by offering something truly unique."--George White Jr., author of Holding the Line: Race, Racism, and American Foreign Policy toward Africa, 1953–1961