American Africans in Ghana: Black Expatriates and the Civil Rights Era

by Kevin K. Gaines

Overview

In 1957 Ghana became one of the first sub-Saharan African nations to gain independence from colonial rule. Over the next decade, hundreds of African Americans--including Martin Luther King Jr., George Padmore, Malcolm X, Maya Angelou, Richard Wright, Pauli Murray, and Muhammed Ali--visited or settled in Ghana. Kevin K. Gaines explains what attracted these expatriates to Ghana and how their new community was shaped by the convergence of the Cold War, the rise of the U.S. civil rights movement, and the decolonization of Africa.

Posing a direct challenge to U.S. hegemony, Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's president, promoted a vision of African liberation, continental unity, and West Indian federation. Although the number of African American expatriates in Ghana was small, in espousing a transnational American citizenship defined by solidarities with African peoples, these activists waged along with their allies in the United States a fundamental, if largely forgotten, struggle over the meaning and content of the formal American citizenship conferred on African Americans by civil rights reform legislation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807867822
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	12/30/2012
Series:	The John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	360
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Kevin K. Gaines is director of the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies and professor of history at the University of Michigan. He is author of the award-winning Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture during the Twentieth Century.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

The product of a decade of research on both sides of the Atlantic, this study is destined to be known as a classic of the new intellectual history of diaspora. Gaines unearths the complex and shifting roles of African American and Caribbean artists and activists in Nkrumah's Ghana during the early years of independence. With its breathtaking cast of characters—expatriates, exiles, pilgrims, transients—this book gives unprecedented insight into both the promise and the challenge of Pan-Africanism.—Brent Hayes Edwards, author of The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism

Gaines's book is groundbreaking in many respects. He shows that the expatriates were not disengaged from what was happening in the United States; on the contrary, their perspective was shaped invariably by their location in Nkrumah's Ghana. They understood freedom and liberation not in national terms but in global terms, linking the struggles in the United States with anticolonial movements around the world. Gaines looks at how these transnational intellectual exchanges shaped black politics and culture on both sides of the Atlantic, providing ample evidence to challenge contemporary nationalist notions of diaspora as cultural unity to show, instead, that diaspora is made through engagement, travel, exchange, and struggle.—Robin D. G. Kelley, Columbia University

American Africans in Ghana is much more than a story of U.S. black expatriates in Ghana, although that remains a central theme. It is also a study of transnational intellectual and social movement amidst the tumult of three historical processes: the United States' post-World War II pursuit of global hegemony, the modern struggle for black equality within the United States, and the movement for African decolonization. Above all, the book demonstrates the fruition of the decades-long development of a transnational black radical activist tradition, as many of its major protagonists converged upon independent Ghana. Ever attuned to contingency and contradiction, Gaines explores how modern black radicalism negotiated the complexities and strictures of U.S. Cold War intrigues on the one hand, and the perils and possibilities of postcolonial state-building on the other hand.—Nikhil P. Singh, University of Washington

Editorial Reviews

Gaines has written an excellent and important book.”—The Nation

“In American Africans in Ghana, Kevin Gaines offers a richly detailed portrait of the community that gathered in Ghana around Nkrumah. He skillfully connects the lives of the 'returnees' with the wider history of the civil rights era in the United States and the politics of the cold war.”—The New York Review of Books

“Inspiring. . . . A valuable addition to the debate about the history of Pan-Africanism in Africa.”—Journal of African History

“Gaines’s signal achievement is that he skillfully has placed this narrative in the broad context of black internationalism. . . . Gaines has demonstrated how the expatriate experience is linked to the expansive history of antiracist and anticolonial thought and practice in the African diaspora. He has written a book that is indispensable for a complete grasp of that history.”—Journal of American History

“A superb, scholarly text on pan-Africanism. Gaines gives a detailed analysis of the interconnections between African American and Caribbean activists and the pioneers of African decolonization in Ghana. The author leaves no stone unturned. . . . Essential.”—CHOICE

“Highly recommended for all academic libraries.”—Multicultural Review

“This is an important book that opens up new dimensions in the Pan-African history of the relationships established between Africa and the African diaspora in the modern period.”—American Historical Review

“Gaines has written a detailed and engaging book which explores a neglected aspect of US foreign policy, joining a small but significant cadre of authors dedicated to highlighting the racial dimensions of US foreign policy.”—Modern African Studies

“A superb, scholarly text on pan-Africanism. Gaines gives a detailed analysis of the interconnections between African American and Caribbean activists and the pioneers of African decolonization in Ghana. The author leaves no stone unturned, providing details about Western complicity in the death of Lumumba, the silencing of black intellectuals during the Cold War, and African American activism in the anti-apartheid movement. Gaines profoundly discusses the intersection of the Civil Rights Movement, political decolonization, and US foreign policy. In the process, he charts the course of numerous distinguished personalities in the contemporary US.” — CHOICE

“Contributes to various subfields of African American history, including the modern Civil Rights Movement, African American-centered Pan-Africanist thought, African American intellectual history, Afro-diasporic consciousness, and the vital, enduring African American-African political connection.”—Journal of African American History

From the Publisher