The New Negro of the Pacific: How African Americans Forged Cross-Racial Solidarity with Japan, 1917-1922 Author(s):

Yuichiro Onishi Source: The Journal of African American History, Vol. 92, No. 2 (Spring, 2007), pp. 191-213 Published by: Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20064179 . Accessed: 20/02/2011 21:56
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=asalh. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of African American History.

http://www.jstor.org

THE NEW NEGRO OF THE PACIFIC: HOW AFRICAN AMERICANS FORGED SOLIDARITY WITH CROSS-RACIAL JAPAN, 1917-1922
Yuichiro Onishi*

Movement (1905) and National Equal Rights League (1909), denounced the
refusal to resolve racial injustices against African Americans, and fought hard for black equality. In his mind, as long as Jim Crow remained at the core of the American polity, there was no hope for postwar democracy and since both were used as principles with which to internationalism, especially administration's create the new structure of world

Monroe Trotter, finding President Woodrow Wilson's to be Jim Crow writ large, called for the inclusion of a "Fifteenth Point"?the abolition of race-based polities in all nations. He was determined to make white supremacy a global issue at the upcoming Paris Peace Conference. presidency, Trotter, one of the founders of the Niagara Throughout Wilson's Fourteen Points

In late 1918 William

of Nations. At called the League governance that time, while the 1917 East St. Louis race riot still horrified and enraged many never African Americans, Trotter insisted that peace and justice would materialize forU.S. African Americans and colonized people all over theworld if the white supremacist opinions conception about of Wilsonian liberal democracy was legitimized.1 Trotter's Wilsonian Conference prominent

foreign policy

Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Madam C. J.Walker, and James as as Weldon voices of well black Johnson, radicalism, including Hubert leading A. Chandler and Harry Harrison, Owen, Cyril V. Briggs, Philip Randolph, individuals Hay wood. These constituents of the New Negro movement were whose lives, political identities, and global visions were transformed by rampant
* Yuichiro Onishi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of African American Studies Program at theUniversity ofMinnesota in Minneapolis. and African Studies and

image of a New determined, assertive, Negro. those who identified with the movement informed by the idea of the However, New Negro were various. The New Negro movement enlisted support from the icons of African America with diverse ideological tendencies such as W. E. B. States mobilized African around the and militant American?the

approached. leaders in the United

war, peace, democracy, white supremacy, and resonated loudly in the black public sphere as the Peace To project a new political mood, intellectuals and

in

theAsian American

191

192

The Journal ofAfrican American History

racial violence and state repressions, labor radicalism, Caribbean and southern black migration, the First World War, the Russian Revolution, Irish nationalism, and prospects for African liberation. Through grassroots organizing, political and writings, soapbox oratory, public meetings, despite differences in political at various moments, in the years they converged especially in the New Negro movement I. The participants surrounding World War a political that was cultivated informed by black space nationalism, a sharp critique and and of white vindicationism, Marxism, presented orientations,
supremacy.2

vision of a "new world to a wide order" appealed Although Wilson's audience and certainly influenced prominent African American leaders, New outlook was markedly intellectuals and activists' different. Negro political were 1917 the between and the dominant 1922, they years During challenging the universal human experience such categories that were used to communicate

remarkable showed Negro flexibility and creativity, as as well of class and boundaries nation, myriad strains within the transgressing is most African American intellectual tradition. What striking about New new a call for politics during the wartime and immediate postwar Negroes' concept of periods was that it animated diverse political actors to navigate the politics of race at local and global levels in order to carve out a space of resistance. I in this essay that theNew Negro discourse helped to create a argue Specifically, new form of human struggle based in what political theorist Cedric J. Robinson in this new movement calls the "Black radical tradition." The participants stepped familiar historical into a "culture of of bounds social liberation," as Robinson and historical narrative" states, and "crossed the emerging out of shared was a revolutionary "This capitalism.3 the whole historical experience of Black

as the ideas of freedom and democracy, and were at work in fashioning their own distinct idioms within the black public sphere. Indeed, the formation of a new of the politics was strategic and historically contingent; and the application the New

New

intellectual tradition of black protest and how the longstanding Negro, intersected in an unlikely fashion with Japan's struggle to achieve racial equality and after the Paris Peace Conference, the with the "white" nations. During diverse constituents of the New race-conscious defiance against utilized the case of Japan's Negro movement the United States, the British empire, and the

this revolutionary consciousness was, according to historian V. P. Franklin, "the in a dialectical cultural objective of black self-determination, which operated white with relationship supremacy."5 of such a revolutionary is concerned with the emergence This essay in the midst of political mobilization around the concept of the consciousness

with racial experience that proceeded from consciousness "and not merely from the social formations of emphasizes, people," Robinson or the relations of production of colonialism."4 At the core of capitalist slavery

How African Americans Forged Cross-Racial Solidarity withJapan, 1917-1922 193 French empire. They projected the image of Japan as a race rebel and a racial victim and helped construct the iconography of the Japanese as theNew Negro of the Pacific. Such a work of political imagination proved effective in nurturing the distinct ethos of black

self-determination among intellectuals and activists with and political orientations who worked with concepts of race varying ideological and nation and enabled the black public sphere to become productive for the articulation of black radicalism. Indeed, this forging of cross-racial solidarity was all about politics. The trans-Pacific alliance was based on seeing with Japan Japan as "a racialized and political group rather than a biologically determined racial

Race

As historian Nikhil Pal Singh brilliantly argued inBlack Is a Country: group."6

"black intellectuals and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy, are both smaller at that that scales racial activists recognized belonging operates and larger than the nation-state, and voiced visions of communal possibility that

in the prevailing idioms of U.S. consistently surpassed the conceptions available culture."7 political In recent years Reginald Kearney, Ernest Allen, Jr., Gerald Home, Robin D. G. Kelley, Elizabeth Esch, George Lipsitz, Penny M. Von Eschen, Vijay Prashad, Sudarshan Kapur, and other historians have established the theoretical foundation

Hubert Harrison, and Briggs, Chandler Owen, of often A. Philip Randolph, up. crops Japan significance in of the location of the black liberation and Moreover, analysis Japan theory practice receives scant attention in the recent study of New Negro radicalism.10 these leaders and intellectuals' political Although Japan never occupied Andrea Razafkeriefo (Andy Razaf), the symbolic Cyril V. ruminations on the radical possibilities freedom struggle. and transnational dimensions of the black

the existing literature does not manufactured."9 However, in that the role precise shaping a new form of Japanese played the black radical tradition in theWorld War I era, even though such as Marcus Garvey, the discourses of leading New Negroes

toward African of them exhibit Americans' sensitivity supremacy.8 All determination to struggle for freedom and advancement; as Cedric Robinson has radical tradition, the values, ideas, observed, "the raw material of the Black was which of from and constructions resistance reality conceptions, elaborate on

radicalism. These scholars for the trans-Pacific study of black in of the the black of Asia formation radical tradition the importance emphasize in the 20th century, and explored how African Americans' imagined and real solidarities with peoples of Asia produced an uncompromising critique of white

the

struggle based in in the margins of

imagination for a sustained period of time, it did inform their creative

194

The Journal ofAfrican American History

NEGOTIATING

THE COLOR LINE INTERNATIONALLY

at the conference, that diplomacy its community. Acknowledging especially deliberations, negotiations, and decisions, would be dictated by Anglo-American powers, the Japanese sought to attain equality with the imperial powers of the West and did so by invoking the language of racial equality. Yet, however much Trotter's clause Japanese colonial "Fifteenth Point" resembled at the level of semantics submitted by the Japanese delegation government was only remotely interested (at best) in attacking the It pursued its own imperial ambitions and strongholds of white supremacy. at the Paris Peace the racial equality the Conference,

as Woodrow set out to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, Wilson During was ensure that the League modeled of Nations after his "Fourteen Points," Trotter's demand for global racial justice, the inclusion of a William Monroe was the Japanese it "Fifteenth Point," was included in the negotiations. However, on in the table Paris and the the anti issue demanded that put delegation new in the the be of discrimination clause included international shaping

interests by demanding the control of the islands in the South Pacific, as well as the German the Marianas, the Marshalls, and Carolines, especially in Shantung, China. Nonetheless, concessions Japan's race-conscious diplomatic maneuver did shake up the nature of the debate and incited strong opposition In fact, as the debate unfolded and from the British and American delegations.11 became contentious, the racial equality clause ironically became an effective tool to strengthen Japan's position within the global racial polity in attaining "white" imperial power status. At the Paris Conference

the demand for racial equality was defined as one of some of the political leaders back home felt Japan's key issues, although on It became a salient the international about power stage. asserting apprehensive issue for the Japanese government as public opinion became ever more critical of the dominance Japanese took this issue to Colonel and arrogance of the Anglo-American powers. The and Makino Viscount Chinda Baron Nobuaki delegation, Edward M. leaders of the Sutemi, thus most trusted

advisor, Makino

President Wilson's House, to accommodate the Japanese concern. In talks with in early February remained attentive to the and Chinda 1919, House line was "one of the of the color the believed that and demand problem Japanese some causes and should in of international trouble, serious way be met."12 In the to figure out a way

to introduce the racial equality clause by way of end, both parties decided an to in the the religious freedom article (Article 21) amendment seeking covenant of the League of Nations. On 13 February 1919, the Japanese presented

thefollowingdraft:
Parties agree

The equality of nations being a basic principle of theLeague ofNations, the High Contracting
to accord as soon as possible to all alien nationals of states, members of the

How African Americans Forged Cross-Racial Solidarity with Japan, 1917-1922 195
equal and just treatment in every respect making League, fact, on account of their race or nationality.13 no distinction, either in law or in

The delegates representing the British empire and the United States opposed the amendment. They argued that Japan's demand for racial equality was directed at achieving unrestricted Japanese immigration to countries such as Britain, of the British United States. Lord Robert Cecil the and Australia, Canada, delegation and Australian

Women's

strong opposition. Cecil of the in the domestic affairs of State members would lead to "interference same International Council of he that the added For the reason, League." demand Covenant of the League for gender equality would of Nations.14 not be considered in drafting the

Prime Minister William Morris Hughes organized declared on the floor that the proposal was divisive and

After repeated negotiations and revisions, the Japanese delegation dropped and presented a all the referential connections between "race" and "equality" revised version that endorsed "the principle of equality of nations and just treatment of their nationals."

apprehension and their determination to protect the international system of white cast Japan as a troublemaker in the Lord Robert Cecil supremacy. While international community for introducing the contentious race question, Woodrow Wilson insisted that issues of race and racism should "play no part in the discussions connected with the establishment of the League."16 The response of nations was aimed to dissemble. Their the delegates from the white-dominated to reject the racial equality clause was intertwined with their determination to in the maintenance of and colonial interests domestic unwillingness give up

at the last session of Nations of the League fight for racial equality Commissions.15 When the racial equality clause was introduced in Paris, it took a life of its own within the context of imperialist diplomacy. It generated Anglo-American

presiding as the chair of this session, did not honor the result. He declared that "[i]n the present instance there was, certainly, a majority, but strong opposition the had manifested itself against the amendment and under these circumstances resolution could not be considered as adopted." The Japanese did not pursue the

as other countries, as well Italy and France all voted for this and Czechoslovakia, including China, Greece, Serbia, Brazil, on was it 11 April 1919. By 11-6, revised amendment passed. However, Wilson,

in May the Paris Peace Conference 1919, The supremacy. During and Owen New A. Chandler, Randolph leading Philip Negro Messenger's the logic of colonial and racial and socialists, explained activist-intellectuals white in this way: "Those who hold vested property interests and privileges a under given social system will resist with desperate determination any assault upon that system by the advocates of a new, a different social doctrine."17 domination

leaders at the Paris Peace Conference these Western sought to Although of the the the color the debate line, suppress surrounding global nature problem

196 of racial discourse was

The Journal ofAfrican American History the great powers since they were a social and political fact that could not be denied. Amidst had vested interests in shaping the discourse of interested in rationalizing their claims to control in Africa and Asia. Even when they eschewed a

contradictions, race, especially former colonies Germany's

for self-determination. While the Japanese racially oppressed people of banner racial the the raised colonial delegation government Japanese equality, and tightened the grip of suppressed Koreans' struggle for self-determination the Japanese government was concerned with the future colonial rule. Moreover, former colonies and eager to spread of Germany's the Chinese economic influences in China. When concessions its political, military, and learned that the German

direct reference to the language of racial equality, the debate was racial at every turn because of colonialism and imperialism. Certainly, the Japanese were responsible for introducing the racial equality proposal, but, in reality, they had no interest in trumpeting the right of colonized and

to create a the people struggling to seek radical approaches activities awakened new nation. Nationalist China debated the crisis of modernity and struggled to and nationhood. The anti-imperialist define its own path toward peoplehood Chinese nationalists and mobilized protests locally and internationally. On the day of the signing of the Versailles Treaty, Chinese students in Paris took direct action. They blocked the the Chinese delegates from entering the signing ceremonies. Consequently, treatywas signed without their presence on 28 June 1919.18 opposed the decisions made at the Paris Peace Conference

in Shantung had come under the Japanese control, intellectuals and in Peking on 4 May Peace 1919 and students gathered at the Gate of Heavenly and of Western the imperialism. Commonly legitimacy Japanese challenged an outburst of political and intellectual known as the May Fourth Movement,

AFRICAN AMERICANS
Like

AND THE PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE

intellectuals and leaders also looked to the Japanese, African American as a the Paris Peace Conference political opportunity in the ongoing struggle for inAfrica and throughout the African peace, racial justice, and self-determination one was to make the Du the B. Bois of leaders determined W. E. Diaspora. of peoples of African presence that the Pan-African Convinced descent known in the international arena. to would be ideal vehicle Congress desire for political communicate Africans and African-descended peoples' he in worked tirelessly to to talks, powers peace great participating representation a Senegalese With of the Blaise this historic conference. Diagne, help organize leader and a high commissioner of French West Africa who was a close friend of Georges an

the organizers of the Pan-African Clemenceau, Congress acquired permission to hold the conference in Paris. Diagne presided as served as a secretary. The Pan-African Congress president, while Du Bois French Prime Minister

How African Americans Forged Cross-Racial Solidarity withJapan, 1917-1922 197 attracted fifty-seven delegates from fifteen countries and on 19 February 1919 the Pan-African Congress did not the future of Africa.19 However, discussed on and racism head and demand the colonialism, imperialism, right of challenge Africans to struggle for self-determination and self-government, as promised in theWilsonian great powers natives of Africa, program of internationalism. The adopted resolutions simply asked to "establish a code of laws for the international protection of the

Andrea

in the Congress' As historian Manning Marable demands were noted, "Nowhere to to Africans the asked self-determination."20 grant right Europeans complete at home, namely Meanwhile, leading voices of the New Negro movement A. Philip Randolph, Chandler Owen, Cyril V. Briggs, Hubert Harrison, and

similar to the proposed international code for labor." Moreover, it urged great powers to oversee "the application of these laws to the political, social and economic welfare of the natives" through a permanent organization.

Conference, many of them identified with powerful states and interest groups that In particular, could challenge supremacy. they were global white deeply influenced by the revolutionary moment precipitated by the First World War, Revolution. the 1917 Russian the energies of absorbed They especially Bolshevism and anticolonial nationalist struggles elsewhere and looked for an alternative route to struggle for black self-determination. In their writings, many articulated an anticapitalist perspective on world politics and synthesized itwith an anticolonial outlook.21

the imperialist scramble for colonial possessions, and liberal internationalism. They showed interest in the the hypocrisy of Wilsonian outcome of the Peace Conference and interpreted events abroad through their own distinct race-based, the eve of the Peace systems. On ideological of colonialism

all based in Harlem, developed Razafkeriefo, strategies to include the local and global problems of the color line at the peace talks. At public meetings the fiiture and on street corners these activist-intellectuals continually discussed in Africa,

1918, Hubert Harrison, a socialist Shortly after the armistice inNovember intellectual from St. Croix and one of Harlem's most important orators, writers, I era, offered a critique of the system of and activists during the World War international diplomacy and peacemaking based on race and class:

[W]hen Nations go to war, they never openly declare what theyWANT. They must camouflage theirsordidgreed behind some soundingphrase like "freedomof the seas," "self
determination,"

are the real objects of theirbloody rivalries. When thewar is over, the mask is dropped, and then theyseek "how best to scrambleat the shearers' feast." It is then thattheydisclose their
real war table.22 aims.... Africa's hands are tied, and so tied, she will be thrown upon the peace

"liberty,"

or "democracy."

But

only

the ignorant millions

ever think that those

Harrison and

aptly pointed out the relevant underpinnings of the Peace Conference in Africa and the racial politics of of Nations: the League colonialism

198

The Journal ofAfrican American History

March 1919 also shared imperialism. An editorial in The Messenger published in ambition and of the of Harrison's colonial power critique imperial workings relations inworld affairs, arguing "if the peace conference does not break up in a war, itwill be followed by wars, at no distant date." With sarcasm, the editorial are peace conferences and piece "There What conferences."23 noted, characterized the politics of New Negro leaders and intellectuals was their refusal to accept theWilsonian prescriptions for the creation of a new international civil society. Unlike

in the Pan-African Congress the participants in Paris that adopted New echoed the uncompromising modest resolutions, Negro activist-intellectuals antiracist and anti-imperialist position of the revolutionary black organization Briggs, W. A. Domingo, of the Peace Richard B. Moore, and Grace Campbell.24 In December

called the AfricanBlood Brotherhood(ABB), whose members included CyrilV. 1918 the AfricanBlood Brotherhoodpresentedthefollowingdemands on theeve
Conference: be to all nations "that the full rights of citizenship be granted to all that all discrimination because of Color be made illegal, that extended and tribes within the African

people of Color, self-determination

Marcus

in late 1918, leaders. As Paris prepared to host the Peace Conference Africans of African that and descent declared peoples "hope Garvey at her in white brothers Peace the succeed will impressing upon Japan Conference the essentiality of abolishing racial discrimination."26 late 1918 and early 1919 numerous New Indeed, Negro throughout conscious intellectuals looked Loving, to Japan approvingly. On 5 January 1919, retired Major an African American informer who worked for the U.S.

continent and throughout theWorld, and that the exploitation of Africa and other to people of Color herewith cease."25 When the Japanese countries belonging on of "color" the the international introduced stage, this question delegation war critics and politically action took on powerful meanings among Harlem's

Walter Howard Army's Harlem

American

and busily organized meetings in other's local each projects and points. They participated converged on to same their articulate the shared stage peacemaking perspectives frequently in the immediate aftermath of World War I. Many of them entered the debates and African Caribbean activists at various over war, peace, disarmament, and global commitment to help establish what Marcus counter Wilson's plan for the League

the political radicalization in Intelligence Branch, recognized Military and reported that "New York 'soap box orators' are beginning to invade observation was this city, and their presence carry some significance."27 Loving's an not overstatement. Despite ideological and political differences, U.S. African

racial justice, and communicated their to Garvey called the "Racial League"

of Nations.28

December Madam

World Democracy held in At the National Race Congress for Washington in

Trotter, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, 1918, for instance, William Monroe Rev. Shaw of M. A. C. J. Boston, and seven other leaders were Walker,

How African Americans Forged Cross-Racial Solidarity withJapan, 1917-1922 199 to represent the African American peace delegation, although participants of thismeeting, in the end, excluded women from taking part in the delegation.29 elected

Marcus

(UNIA) organized a Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association A. B. Wells-Barnett, which included Ida of its own, Philip Randolph, delegation on 2 January 1919, with Marcus in and Eliezer Caddet.30 Moreover, Garvey and black financial assistance formed from Madam leaders a C. J. Walker, Harlem's called short-lived

attendance

treasurer; A. Philip Randolph, secretary; and Gladys Flynn, assistant secretary. an to American African submit and Randolph peace proposal, They agreed overall thrust of their peacemaking strategy in the editorial

the prominent organization International League of Darker Peoples (ILDP).31 Among the elected officers for the ILDP were Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., president; Isaac B. Allen, first C. J.Walker, vice president; Lewis G. Jordan, second vice president; Madam

In the March 1919 issue of TheMessenger, Randolph described the draftedit.32

titled "Internationalism": Carry the Negro problem out of theUnited States, at the same time thatyou present it in the does notwant the United States. The mere fact thatthe country Negro problem carried out to to is that it be carried there. Monroe Trotterhas caught evidence William ought Europe strong thepoint and gone to Europe to embarrass thePresident of theUnited States,who has been making hypocriticalprofessions about democracy in theUnited Stateswhich has not existed method of dealingwith problems is the and does not exist-The international method of the
future.33

Harlem

war."34 Indeed, UNIA members paid close attention to the mainstream media's view of Japan's role in the upcoming Peace Conference, citing a New York Times are suggesting that Japan and article which reported that "Japanese newspapers China raise the race question ... with the object of seeking an agreement to the effect that in the future there shall be no further racial discrimination throughout the world." comments discussed also cited the newspaper, Garvey's weekly in Tokyo, who said "plans are being seriously for an immediate alliance with China so that the two nations may work assertiveness and interpreted it as a The Negro World, of the U.S. ambassador

[NJegroes and the whites unless their demands for justice are recognized and that with the aid of Japan on the side of the Negroes, they will be able to win such a

government closely monitored black leaders' political activities in and noted, in particular, cross-racial solidarity between African America to the Bureau of Investigation and Japan in the proposed projects. According war will be between next that the the report, Garvey allegedly "preached

The U.S.

in harmony at the [Peace] Conference."35 The Garveyites welcomed Japan's

hopeful sign:
This report is very suggestive. In itcan be seen immediate preparationby theyellow man of Asia for thenew war that is tobe [waged]?the war of the races.This isno timefor the Negro

200
to be found wanting anything. He must so that when the great clash

The Journal ofAfricanAmerican History

department, be found.36 prepare himself, he must be well equipped comes in the future, he can be ready wherever in every he is to

them to express their desire of liberation from white a journalist and Pan-Africanist who later supremacy.37 John Edward Bruce, worked closely with Marcus Garvey, for instance, wrote a short story in which Armageddon," enabled Japan and the United States were were and Hawaii... Philippines at war and Japan triumphed. Bruce wrote, "The lost to America and the flag of Japan waved fortifications from American the lately occupied by proudly troops."38 The real and imagined encounters between Japan and African America authorities. Officials in the Bureau the concerns of U.S. of heightened

the coming "war of the races" and at times invited to their meetings to reinforce the idea of a race war. Indeed, as Japanese speakers Gerald Home and Reginald Kearney argue, such a vision of "a coming of racial The UNIA rallied behind

of she played an important role in the International League branch because instrumental in arranging a meeting with She was especially Darker Peoples. S. Kurowia, the publisher of the Tokyo newspaper Yorudo Chobo and one of the Japanese representatives selected to participate in the Paris Peace Conference.39 The report of the Bureau of Investigation indicated that the International League of Darker Peoples held a conference on 7 January 1919 "in honor of S. Kurowia, of the Japanese Peace Conference," during which the participants resolved to "the abolition of treaties unfavorable of color discrimination, freedom of immigration, revision for Africa, of economic self abolition barriers, In 1918-1919

of the International League that some members of commented Investigation Darker Peoples were actively propagating ways "to unite with the darker races, such as the Japanese, Hindus, etc.," while imagining the "broader movement," come to in their their aid where "Japan may struggle for [e]mancipation." Madam C. J.Walker, too, had come under the surveillance of the Army's Intelligence

demand

supporters of the organized African American campaign for peace and global racial justice converged politically, even though many participants did not necessarily share the same politics. determination for Africa."40 agree with New Negro the race-conscious worldview

of Garveyites and some of the other too activist-intellectuals. However, they interpreted the problem of the race question to the existing world system in racial terms and globalized challenge the international politics promoting white supremacy. Both Randolph incensed with the imperialists' use of systematic and Owen were especially to consolidate their suppression of the race question at the Peace Conference once as to Harrison what them Hubert described solidify empires, which enabled one In in March editorial published the "international Color Line."41 1919,

A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen of TheMessenger did not always

and Owen expressed their indignation in this way: "There must be no Randolph more Belgiums. of innocent Africans There may be Congo massacres by

How

African

Americans

Forged

Cross-Racial

Solidarity

with Japan,

1917-1922

201

and Waco [Texas] burnings of though. There may be Memphis race the editors commented on the the Don't raise Hush! issue!"42 Here, Negroes. about the problem of global white supremacy. absence of a serious discussion in the Belgian Congo with What they presented, by way of linking the genocide the campaigns of white terror in the United States, however, was not only, as Belgians, the Amy Kaplan explains, "a counter-map of the United States" that condemned of anti States as an imperial power, but also a map role of the United lines drawn from one locale to another were connected, their colonialism.43 When the nexus of race and empire. revealed cognitive map introduced the racial equality clause during the Thus, when the Japanese in early 1919, Randolph and Owen of Nations Commissions meeting League in the and and anticolonial with enthusiasm anti-imperialist engaged responded practice of cartography. For them, mapmaking was a kind of intellectual activity that involved

in March 1919:

the ability to expose

the arrogance

of the white

race.44 They wrote

into the league Japan raised the race issue and threw a monkey-wrench to pieces. It was conference the peace well nigh knocked successfully

of white

nations

which

This question would not bear the slightestexamination by theAmerican peace commission which has its vexatious Negro problem and which excludes Japanese immigrants by a Nor could Great Britain face the issuewith herWest Indian colonies gentleman's agreement. and her India Australia, a Britishdominion, excludes both Negroes andAsiatics.

side-tracked,

however.

integrated the symbolic significance of Japan's struggle for Randolph and Owen a counter-map to develop of Wilsonian the racial equality proposal liberal the white of internationalism, supremacist rendering visible underpinnings In their that ensued at the Paris Peace Conference. debates and discussions functioned as a devise and possessed "the Japan imagination, political cartographic power" to communicate and represent the interconnectedness problems of racism, colonialism, and the racial politics of immigration.46 of the

insights to scrutinize the Japanese imperialist state and colonial projects in Asia. Even as they expressed enthusiasm for the real of the that face and colonial powers strategy exposed Japan's diplomatic white supremacist elements in Wilsonian remained internationalism, they critical, the "international Color arguing that Japan was not interested in challenging Line," let alone putting pressures on the United States to end the practice of Jim and well armed with theoretical Crow. In the May-June 1919 issue of The Messenger, Randolph and Owen

that did appearance of the racial equality clause at the Paris Peace Conference, not mean that they looked to Japan as the leader of the "colored world" in the future race war, as some of the Garveyites did. Inspired by a Marxist interpretation of theworld capitalist system, both were grounded in class analysis

with Japan in thewake of the Although Randolph and Owen identified

202 included a lengthy cautionary note to explain intervention inworld politics:

A word science.

The Journal ofAfrican American History the significance of Japan's race

conscious

The smug and oily Japanese diplomats are no different from Woodrow Wilson, [David] Lloyd or not race do from suffer Orlando. They [Vittorio] George prejudice. They teach in the Waldorf Astoria, Manhattan or Poinciana, divide wine and dine at the Rockefeller Institute,
financial nothing oppressing China.47 melons for even Street, ride on railways and cars free from discrimination. They care are suppressing the Japanese and at this very same moment and people of Korea and forcing hard bargains the people unfortunate upon mercilessly inWall

to the unsuspecting and to those not thoroughly versed of warning, in social however, statesmen are not in the least concerned The Japanese about race or color prejudice.

well

as of any other great nation's) is not [BJibles but bayonets?bayonets, she Ask and brains. knows."48 business, Many of theNew Negro activist Japan: the intellectuals critically assessed significance of Japan's invocation of the race to Garvey who rallied the masses question on the world stage, unlike Marcus prepare for the imminent race war between the United and Owen eschewed such rhetoric and and Japan. instead placed the socialists Randolph and camp and to expose the the States

that what concerned Japan was the likewise, understood Harrison, attainment of a "white" imperial power status. Japan was no different from other great powers of theWest. He explained, "The secret of England's greatness (as Hubert

Randolph, in the socialist struggle. Although political guarantee not cast themselves with the communist Owen did generally nor with Garveyites, supporters of revolutionary Marxism,

Harrison,

internationalism, imperialist and white supremacist underpinnings of Wilsonian their political position during this critical juncture was undeniably formulated and refined at the nexus of socialism and black nationalism.

DISARMAMENT
New intellectuals' Negro salient remained consciousness

DISSENTERS
outlook of the and 1919 revolutionary Paris Peace

international

in the aftermath

developed sharp criticisms of the underlying imperialism and white supremacy of the new international system. At this conference the United States, Great Britain, Japan, and France, along with other nation-states such as Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and China, held a series of talks to establish the terms of disarmament and the basis of a new order States in the Asian assumed Pacific. As in the 1919 Paris Peace and challenged world leadership the United Conference, the older structure of great

and their commentary on Japan continued to appear in the margins Conference, When of the West and Japan of their political discussions. great powers a new in the Asian diplomacy congregated to set the general framework for of Conference these writers the Pacific 1921-1922, Washington during

How African Americans Forged Cross-Racial Solidarity with Japan, 1917-1922 203 power Its primary objective was to abrogate the foundation of the diplomacy. for territories, resources, and colonies and replace itwith "scramble" imperialist an America-led guarantee great powers' "Open Door" policy, which would to the Chinese market. The U.S. that would a consortium

government called upon world leaders to foster international cooperation and enable the organize to derive power and wealth from the trade with China. Western nations the new the Western Soviet Union excluded from powers Meanwhile, and to in forced China this and consortium, Italy, Japan, Germany, participating fall in line and accept subordinate roles within international system.49 Conference The Washington The combination this newly reorganized

access

power." markets

in the Asian Pacific, but to figure out ways to exploit China. This new diplomacy Pacific intensified the contest for supremacy in the region, and Japan struggled to maintain its status within this globalized racial polity.

also pressured the Japanese into accepting an unequal ratio of capital ship tonnage in the name of disarmament, which subsequently weakened Japan's naval power in the Asian Pacific. In the end the Japanese agreed to the liquidation of "all existing treaties between the powers and China [and] replaced so long espoused by the United States."50 them with the Open Door principles to leaders' rhetoric of liberal internationalism, the main Western Contrary was not to of the in the postwar Asian conference purpose guarantee peace British diplomats

of East Asian affairs. By the end of the conference, the Japanese had come to accept the new era of imperial diplomacy and gave up much of itswartime gains, in China. The American and including its control of the Shantung peninsula

reminded Japan of its tenuous status as a "great of diplomatic pressures, the need to secure foreign for domestic economic growth, and the desire to retain great power status influenced the Japanese decision to concede to the U.S.-led reorganization

the period of the Washington Chandler Owen, Conference, Throughout A. Philip Randolph, Cyril V. Briggs, and Andy Razafkeriefo were vocal critics of the terms of disarmament and international agreements to institute a new order in the Pacific. encouraged that global white supremacy in the Asian Pacific. In particular, they emphasized the combination of militarism and international capitalism strengthened the and subjugation based on race and class. In a colonial system of exploitation poem published They argued that imperialists' the drive toward aggressive pursuit of power and property interests and the reconstitution of militarism

Razafkeriefo

African Blood Brotherhood, Andy published by the communist-affiliated

the white supremacist objectives of the conference use of carefully plotted rhymes: the creative through condemned on

in the January-February

1922 issue of The Crusader

magazine,

disarmament

204

The Journal ofAfrican American History

THE REASON
is quite ill at ease In regards to their friends, the Chinese. There's no country finer To exploit than China? The conference The Japs must not get all the cheese.51 Razafkeriefo

world. The Western

clearly showed his understanding of the ways inwhich the Anglo American alliance vied for white supremacy in the Asian Pacific. His poem the arrogance and exposed and anxiety of the white simultaneously mocked

offer an analysis of the role of race in the reconstitution of white supremacy in the Pacific and its implications for African-descended people in the wider world. Unlike Razafkeriefo's December Messenger's poem that relied on the creative use of language, The 1921 editorial went straight to the Marxist critique of

resistance expressed to Japan's demand for racial equality, especially nations' militantly defensive posture toward Japan's assertiveness in the international system, served theNew Negro intellectuals well. It enabled them to

and Owen explained that an emphasis on imperialism and colonialism. Randolph some United States, "scrapping of battleships" among the "Five Powers"?the theWashington Great Britain, Japan, France, and Italy?at Conference concealed the real aims of international capitalist states: the exploitation of the resources and people of China in the name of the "Open Door" policy.
Our parcel readers should understand up, and that this conference China with is not called to disarm. It was called as

to

Great Britain, the door to America, question. Open the helpless people of their iron, coal, and oil.52

meant by the"open door" and theFar East or Pacific That is all which is spheresof influence.
France and Japan to go into China and rob

out, divide

emasculate

a sort of gentlemen's

agreement

to the

and Owen argued that the conference on disarmament was, Moreover, Randolph in fact, designed to arm the world in a new way. They specifically pointed to the of mass destruction; "What about poison gas, airplanes, proliferation of weapons submarines and torpedo boats? These are themodern, more deadly instruments of war. A gas ismore deadly than the entire American [N]avy."53 The editorial explicitly stated that conditions for disarmament could never be found in the world capitalist system as long as a "bone of contention in trade ton of Lewisite

throughout the world. Like other creative writings that appeared in The Crusader, Razaflkeriefo's voice not only contained the energies of New Negro radicalism,

routes, commerce, concessions, territories, spheres of influence, underdeveloped weaker peoples, cheap land, and cheap labor will ever exist... ,"54 best Razafkeriefo's Above the black all, Andy poem represented on of militarization and the absence real the disarmament of commentary dangers

How African Americans Forged Cross-Racial Solidarity with Japan, 1917-1922 205 but also the internationalist perspectives in the January-February of black intellectuals. In the following 1922 issue, he used a complex system of particular sound and literary effects.

poem published

rhyme patterns to produce DISARMAMENT

O, Gentlemen! why not disarm The hordes who daily do us harm, Who On ply their trade relentlessly suffering Humanity? the bed-bug, the flea, themosquito,

Disarm Disarm Disarm Disarm

The cootie and bee.

the barbers of their tongues And back-yard songsters of their lungs. But while there's money to be got

By sendingfolksoff tobe shot;

And hold on to thosebattleships.

Just keep your side-arms at your hips

For, my last pair of socks, I'll bet That we are booked formore wars yet.55

In this poem Razafkeriefo forms and styles and adopted complex musical the dangers of continued armament and how it humor to communicate threatened world peace. He was a master at capturing the ethos of ordinary black of mass destruction and explicitly working people. Instead of naming weapons used criticizing Western powers for making the world unsafe for people of color, he those that bite, sting, and suck and cause ill feelings, named insects, especially to and convey the grievances of black people. The lyrics showed harm, pain, evidence of musical

with Randolph called Levine

Instead, it relied on what historian Lawrence W. a sense of the total black laughter," which "provided condition not only by putting whites and their racial system in perspective, but also by supplying an important degree of self and group knowledge."57 The an explanatory power much humor embedded like the in his poem possessed and Owen. "black street corner oratory that many of the leading New Negro leaders and activists,

styles of the work songs composed by enslaved and free as black workers they performed daily activities.56 The poem the imperialist and white avoided denouncing supremacist of Conference the directly in politicized underpinnings Washington language, as

206

The Journal ofAfrican American History

especially Hubert Harrison, performed and perfected during this period. The poem syncopated the rhythm, especially through carefully plotted rhymes, and to African Americans' desire disassociate themselves from aggressive projected militarism, which buttressed the relentless expansion of colonial and white supremacist powers. New activist-intellectuals' Negro

conference

dreamed of "the revolt of the people," especially the different However, position was Briggs's qualitatively an As of and Owen. advocate Randolph revolutionary Marxism, locally and unwavering commitment to black self-determination Brotherhood class. colonialism, borders, Mexico, "to exploit and African

into a revolution and sweep away the revolt which may metamorphose people?a the old order of of foundations very society?the tottering system of capitalism, a and its foster child, dogged but doddering imperialism."58 of The Crusader Like Owen, and the African Blood Cyril V. Briggs black working from that of he offered an

not a rosy anticipation." Owen concluded that "if each of them [imperialist powers] continues to pile up this huge burden upon the tired and bending backs of the working people, itmust plan to face civil war at home?the revolt of the

the conference by students of world politics. We find, on the contrary, that the burdens of taxation formaintaining armies and navies have soared so high that it to shift all of those loads on the working people, but any is no longer possible further assessment must, as they will, fall upon wealth. This, to say the least, is

suggested damaged the civilian sector of the U.S. economy and contributed to an increase in living costs and taxes, which burdened ordinary working people, especially for instance, explained that the racially aggrieved populations. Chandler Owen, "apparent desire for peace, however, is not found to be the motivating cause of

the disarmament protests against on the home front. They the impact of militarization also emphasized that the imperialist club's obsession with world domination severely

the period of "gathering war clouds" presented a different option. During between the United States and Japan, as well as between the United States and that instead of waiting for the coming of "a war to force he emphasized Mexico,

argued, supremacy."60 While U.S. that Jim Crow and rampant racial officials repeatedly at home could erode support among African Americans and in turn violence abroad such as Mexico and Japan, Briggs strengthen their ties with "allies" the natural security weaknesses their fears expressed of white

liberation.59 Moreover, Briggs that the coming unity between recognizing and Japan could be used as a weapon, as historian Gerald Home

globally, anti looked beyond national and among Germany,

acceptance of the doctrine of white superiority upon Japan" or the "eventuality of war between white United States and colored Japan," Briggs presented the or to to statement: "Not but rather the Mexico, fight against Japan fill following than to prisons and dungeons of the white man (or toface his firing squads) shoulder arms against other members of darker races"61 As a leader of a

How African Americans Forged Cross-Racial Solidarity withJapan, 1917-1922 207 militant white revolutionary black supremacy and capitalism and for an independent uncompromising in the postwar world. in the wake and other New aims were organization, whose armed resistance and through states in the African struggle Scare" against and "Red racism, to challenge the establish Briggs and

foundation demanded colonialism Writing

black

Diaspora,

imperialism,

of the "Red

Harrison, Negro internationalist conception of black freedom. They were convinced that the anti imperialist struggle started at the local level and regarded the merging of black nationalism and revolutionary socialism as the motor of revolutionary change. 1922 Briggs presented the antiwar, antiracist, With this in mind, in December and anti-imperialist position of New Negro radicalism, urging African Americans not to be accomplices in thewhite supremacist project.

leaders

Summer of 1919," Briggs, the communicated consistently

The Negro who fights against either Japan orMexico is fightingfor thewhite man against himself, for the white race against the darker races and for the perpetuation of white
domination

segregationand other forms of oppression inopposition to theprincipleadvocated by Japanof

Race Equality, and there are things that, we are convinced, no loyal Negro will do.

of

the

colored

races,

with

its vicious

practices

of

lynching,

jim-crowism,

Briggs noted thatthosewho would fighton behalf of theUnited States against

to the very issue that Japan helped Japan or Mexico compromised internationalize during the 1919 Peace Conference?racial equality. His gesture that he was blind to Japan's of affinity toward Japan, however, did not mean he advocated was the war of in a global scale.

imperial ambitions and colonial projects. What black liberation on the home front, not a race war

NEW NEGRO FEMINISM

In the immediate aftermath of World War New Negro supremacy. However, so within a gendered to articulate militarism embraced of the Pacific I, the iconography of Japan as the to open another space to critique white helped those who identified with theNew Negro of the Pacific did framework and relied heavily on the tropes of war and a masculinist vision of black freedom. Such a vision

was

however, African American Barnett, and Jessie Fauset,

spheres.63 During the years between 1917 and 1922, Ida B. Wells women, including Grace Campbell, the and antiwar, antiracist, shaped anti-imperialist in significant ways. Although discourse and politics of theNew Negro movement issues of women's rights did not appear in the pages of The Crusader, women

imbued with gendered politics as male-dominated

failed to acknowledge traditional gender roles and consequently the and American women played in the making of the roles that African Caribbean leaders and writers' commentary on Japan black radical tradition. New Negro assumptions that perceived international and domestic

208 figured prominently

The Journal ofAfrican American History

women's

in the international context during political activism gained momentum this period. The first and second wives of Marcus Garvey, Amy Ashwood for instance, were especially instrumental in Garvey and Amy Jacques-Garvey, women to black to historian Ula Y. rallying challenge imperialism. According work as the associate editor ofNegro World shows that Taylor, Jacques-Garvey's she not only helped build the black nationalist and pan-African movements but a constructed also feminist distinct black calls tradition, which Taylor "community feminism." Jacques-Garvey made feminism central to the UNIA and interpreted women as both helpmates and leaders capable of playing a leading

twice to represent the African American delegation to the 1919 Paris even though she was, like Trotter, unable to secure a passport to Conference, travel abroad.64 shows that African Caribbean and American Indeed, recent scholarship nominated

in the African Blood Brotherhood. Grace Campbell in a in was of the and her home used group, particular occupied position leadership as a meeting place and an office. Moreover, a towering Ida B. Wells-Barnett, crusader for racial justice and a veteran antiracist and feminist activist, was

Peoples, and as Michelle Rief shows, the leaders of the club movement? Church and Margaret Terrell, Mary Talbert, Addie Hunton, Mary Murray such as the Women's in international organizations Washington?participated Darker International

role in community- and nation-building.65 For other women leaders, though revolutionary Marxism did not inform their as with Grace active participation in Campbell, politics they considered women's to world affairs important the project of racial advancement. Madam C. J. Walker were active in the short-lived International League and Ida B. Wells-Barnett of

for Peace and Freedom, and organized the International League to synthesize the causes of racial justice Council ofWomen of the Darker Races and peace locally and internationally.66 For some, the so-called Japanese question and was taken up as a topic of analysis entered into their political discussions among themembership.67 Above all, Jessie Fauset, literary editor of The Crisis magazine, in straddled diverse intellectual traditions during the New Negro era.68 Writing race riot, Fauset articulated African the wake of the 1917 East St. Louis then

in the face of white terrorist determination to defend democracy the following statement does not make leveled against them. Although any reference to Japan, it does reflect the mood of New Negro radicalism. Here assault against African American the nature of white mobs' Fauset described women, children, and families as a global trend and evoked themotif of the rape Americans' actions of black women, rather than emphasizing African American men, as the victims of racial terror.Historian Robin D. G. Kelley noted the symbolic significance of narrative strategy that "carried specific historical resonance in light of Fauset's

How African Americans Forged Cross-Racial Solidarity with Japan, 1917-1922 209 terrorism visited the history of sexual freedom."69 Fauset declared:
A people whose members would snatch a baby

upon

black

women

in slavery

and

because

itwas

held the mother was done inEast St. Louis, and fling it intoa blazing house while white furies men shother to death?such a people is definitely moral disintegration. until the approaching and Armenians, Russia has held itspogroms,Belgium has tortured Turkey has slaughtered its
maimed demoralization, inevitably

black

from

itsmother's

arms, as

civilization. Ifwe perish,we perish. But when we fall,we shall fall, like Samson, dragging
with us the pillars of a nation's democracy.70

in the Congo, and Turkey, and pauperdom. We,

Russia, [and] Belgium the American Negroes,

are synonyms for anathema, are the acid test for occidental

Fauset's narrative conveyed just how the black freedom struggle the only hope for democratic renewal in the United States and the represented world at large. She was convinced that cornerstones of democratization locally and globally were found inAfrican Americans' struggles for freedom, and they Moreover, were for rescuing colored the vehicles supremacy. humanity from white was aware "white the and of she interpreted it as a problem" Certainly, acutely of so-called Western civilization. The of moral and the political bankruptcy sign repeated evidence

in the United States and abroad were clear patterns of racial pogroms as Du Bois to Hell," once put it.71 "descent of the white world's Fauset's to work of Jane critic Kuenz, fiction, literary especially According "the theme that black cultural practices There is Confusion (1924), emphasized and black people are surpassing or even replacing white practices and people in the this period Fauset was defining national progress."72 During indisputably one of the sharpest critics of thewhite supremacist underpinnings of imperialism and colonialism. in the pages of leading Such a radical critique, however, went unmentioned role of dominated instead were editors constructed narratives idealized images of of race progress

New and

Negro publications. What African American women. The race

Victorian These that emphasized conventions. gender pride a new as standard of feminine Kevin K. Gaines noted, "sought publications, beauty as part of theNew Negro cultural aesthetic." African American women's cultural and political space

for self-representation was narrow, and their were often sexual violence rendered invisible.73 longstanding struggles against In the context of war and revolution, colonialism and imperialism, and state sanctioned white terrorism, the symbolic significance of Japan's fight for racial in the international into New Negro leaders' system found its way and intellectuals' narratives of antiwar, antiracist, and anti

equality political

imagination remained imperialist struggles, even as their counter-articulations in the margins of black political discourse, male-centered. Appearing Japan as the New Negro of the Pacific aided activist-intellectuals' and

undeniably the trope of efforts to liberal Negro

smear the paint of the black radical imagination in the face of Wilsonian international democracy. More important, the attitudes of New

210 The Journal ofAfrican American History activist-intellectuals heterogeneous. toward Japan were multifaceted their political all defined They and best characterized as and

in the international community. Other Japan's imperialist aims and activities New Negro activist-intellectuals, including Owen, Harrison, Briggs, and Razaf Keriefs, recognized imperial ascent and expansion, but still used the Japan's race-conscious defiance of Japan's against white symbolic significance to bring the scope of struggles for black and methods self supremacy levels into sharper focus. Race determination at local and global functioned as themainspring of unpredictable creativity thatmade the space of black resistance these New Negro activist-intellectuals' for a new politics. Although was on not central to the formation of the onto logical commentary Japan

positions variously strategically. Even as they showed differing ideological and political orientations, and Garvey, for instance, offered they converged at critical junctures. Randolph similar arguments, although the Garveyites generally failed to acknowledge

productive

spectacle of Japan's struggle with global white supremacy proved to be useful as a reference point to convey the visions and tactics of black radicalism.

category of theNew Negro during this period between 1917 and 1922, the

NOTES
Stephen R. Fox, The Guardian of Boston: William Monroe Trotter (New York, 1970), 217. in Identity and Social Consciousness, in 1915, 2Ernest Allen, Jr., "The New Negro: Explorations 1910-1922," The Cultural Moment: The New Politics, theNew Women, theNew Psychology, theNew Art & theNew Theatre in America, ed. Adele Heller and Lois Rudnick (New Brunswick, NJ, 1991), 48-68. Also, see Barbara Foley, Making of theNew Negro (Urbana, IL, 2003), 1-69; V. P. Franklin, Spectres of 1919: Class and Nation in the Intellectual Living Our Stories, Telling Our Truths: Autobiography and theMaking of the African-American

Tradition (New York, 1995), 122-25, 147-58. The Making 3Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism: of the Black Radical Tradition, foreword by Robin D. G. on the formation of racial Kelley, with a new preface by the author (Chapel Hill, NC, 2000), xxxi-xxxii; capitalism, see 9-28. 4Ibid., 169. 5V. P. Franklin, Black Self-Determination: A Cultural History of African-American Resistance (Brooklyn, NY, 1992), 6. to examine African American offers an analysis of Cyril V. Briggs's Pan-Africanism 6Minkah Makalani "For the Liberation of Black People intellectuals' trans-Pacific solidarity with Japan. Minkah Makalani,

and Pan-African Liberation in theNew Negro Everywhere: The African Blood Brotherhood, Black Radicalism, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 2004, 75-82. Also, 1917-1936," Movement, Robin D. G. Kelley's most recent work has sharpened my overall analysis of the political imagination of what The Black Kelley calls "renegade black intellectuals/activists/artists." Robin D. G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: Radical Imagination (Boston, MA, 2002), 6. 2004), 44. 8For recent scholarship that explores the nexus of Japan and the Black radical tradition, see Reginald Kearney, 1998); "Afro-American Views African American Views of the Japanese: Solidarity or Sedition? (Albany, NY, of the Japanese, 1900-1945," Ph.D. diss., Kent State University, 1991; and "The Pro-Japanese Utterances of W. E. B. Du Bois," Contributions inBlack Studies 13/14 (1999): 201-217; Ernest Allen, Jr., "When Japan was 7Nikhil Pal Singh, Black Is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy (Cambridge, MA,

The Satokata Takahashi and the Flowering of Black Messianic Nationalism," 'Champion of theDarker Races': Black Scholar 24 (Winter 1994): 23-46; and "Waiting for Tojo: The Pro-Japan Vigil of Black Missourians, 15 (Fall 1995): 38-55; Gerald Home, "Tokyo Bound: African Americans and 1932-1943," Gateway Heritage 16-28; and Race War!: White Supremacy and the Japan Confront White Supremacy," Souls 3 (Summer 2001): Japanese Attack on theBritish Empire (New York, 2004), especially chapter 2; David Levering Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and theAmerican Century, 1919-1963 (New York, 2000), chapter 11; Yukiko

How African Americans Forged Cross-Racial Solidarity withJapan, 1917-1922 211

"Beyond an Alliance of Color: The African American Impact on Modern Japan," positions 11 (Spring to AJurikakei Amerikajin: and Tetsushi Hiromi Furukawa Furukawa, 183-215; 2003): Nihonjin Nichibeikankeishi niokeru sono Shoso [Japanese and African Americans: Historical Aspects of Their Relations] (Tokyo, 2004); Yuichiro Onishi, "Giant Steps of the Black Freedom Struggle: Trans-Pacific Connections Koshiro, Between Black America and Japan for the theoretical and analytical Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting: 2001); George Lipsitz, "Frantic to

1997), 324-53; Penny M. Von Eschen, Race Against Capital, ed. Lisa Lowe and David Lloyd (Durham, NC, 1937-1957 (Ithaca, NY, 1997); Sudarshan Kapur, Raising Up a Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, (Boston, MA, 1992); Robin D. G. Kelley and Betsy Prophet: The African American Encounter with Gandhi Esch, "Black Like Mao: Red China and Black Revolution," Souls 1 (Fall 1999): 6-41; Brent Hayes Edward, "The Shadow 2004). of Shadows," positions 11 (Spring 2003): 11-49; Bill V. Mullen, Afro-Orientalism (Minneapolis, MN,

in the Twentieth Century," Ph.D. diss., University ofMinnesota, 2004. Also, discussion of the dynamics of Afro-Asian unities, see Vijay Prashad, and theMyth of Cultural Purity (Boston, MA, Afro-Asian Connections the Japanese Army," in The Politics of Culture in the Shadow of Join...

Writing and Communism Between Wars (New York, 1999); Foley, Spectres of 1919. theWorld'(New York, 2001), 312-16. nMargaret Macmillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed 12Naoko Shimazu, Japan, Race and Equality: The Racial Equality Proposal of 1919 (London, 1998), 17;Marc Gallicchio, The African American Encounter with Japan and China: Black Internationalism inAsia, 1895-1945 (Chapel Hill, NC, 2000), 21-24. 13Shimazu, Japan, Race and Equality, 20. 14Ibid.,20-21, 24; Gallicchio, Relations 23-28; Walter LaFeber, The Clash: A History of US-Japan The African American Encounter with Japan and China, 24. 30; Gallicchio, (New York, 1997),

9Robinson, Black Marxism, 309. l0For the analysis ofNew Negro radicalism, especially its relationship with revolutionary Marxism, see Winston inEarly Twentieth-Century America (New James, Holding Aloft theBanner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism and the Politics of National York, 1998); Michelle Stephens, "Black Transnationalism Identity: West Indian in the Age of War and Revolution," American Quarterly 50 (September 1998): 592 Intellectuals in Harlem Global in the Intellectuals 608; Michelle Imaginary of Caribbean Stephens, Black Empire: The Masculine J.Maxwell, New Negro, Old Left: African-American United States, 1914-1962 (Durham, NC, 2005); William

122

15Shimazu, Japan, Race and Equality, 24.

The African American Encounter

with Japan and China,

19David Levering Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: The Biography of Race, 1868-1919 (New York, 1993), 567-69, and the Pan-African Congress of 1919" Journal ofNegro Clarence G. Cont?e, "Du Bois, theNAACP, "The Pan-Africanism of W. E. B. Du Bois," inW. E. B. History 57 (January 1972): 13-28; Manning Marable, Du Bois on Race and Culture: Philosophy, Politics, and Poetics, ed. Bernard W. Bell, Emily Grosholz, and James B. Stewart (New York, 1996), 199-202; W. E. B. Du Bois, "Negro in Paris," inWritings by W. E. B. Du Bois in Periodicals Edited by Others, ed. Herbert Aptheker (Millwood, NY, 1982), 127-29; W. E. B. Du Bois, The World and Africa: An Inquiry into the Part Which Africa Has Played in World History (1946; enlarged 576-78; edition New York, 1996), 6-13. 20Marable, "The Pan-Africanism 21The clash between capitalist ofW. E. B. Du Bois," 201. and anticapital ist ideological

l6Shimazu, Japan, Race and Equality, 30. to Radicalism," The Messenger, May-June Menace 17"The 1919, 20. Negro?A D. Spence, The Gate ofHeavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution, 18Jonathan 1981), 154-59.

1895-1980

(New York,

American

B. Perry, "Introduction," in A Hubert Harrison Reader, 1-30; James, Holding Aloft the Banner of 24Jeffrey "The New Negro," "For the Liberation of Black People 122-34; Allen, 54-60; Makalani, Ethiopia, Everywhere," chapter 2. World Unite inDemanding a Free Africa," The Crusader, December 1918, in The Crusader, 25"Negroes of the vol. 1, ed. Robert A. Hill (New York, 1987), 113.

23"Peace Conference," The Messenger, March "Just Thinking," The 1919, 5. Also, see Andrea Razafkeriefo, vol. 6, ed. Robert A. Hill (New York, 1922, in The Crusader, Crusader, January-February 1987), 1352. Razafkeriefo wrote: "The trouble with all Peace Conferences has been that they have always talked about "pieces" instead of Peace."

perspectives among members of the African intelligentsia is highlighted in Franklin, Living Our Stories, Telling Our Truths, 165-83, passim. 22HubertHarrison, "Africa at the Peace Table," inA Hubert Harrison Reader, ed. JeffreyB. Perry (Middletown, CT, 2001), 211-12.

212 The Journal ofAfrican American History

26Marcus Garvey, "Race Discrimination Must Go," Negro World, 30 November 1918, in The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, vol. 1, ed. Robert A. Hill (Berkeley, CA, 1983), 305; Paul Gordon Lauren, Power and Prejudice: The Politics and Diplomacy (Boulder, of Racial Discrimination

1998), 79. in The Marcus Garvey and Universal 27"Maj. W. H. Loving to the Director, Military Intelligence Division," 1, 338. Negro Improvement Association Papers, in The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro 28Marcus Garvey, "Advice of the Negro to Peace Conference," "Bureau of Investigation Reports," in The Marcus Improvement Association Papers, vol. 1, 302-04; Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, vol. 1, 288; "Announcement in the New York Call," in CO, The Marcus 54; A'Lelia 254-56. Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Bundles, On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam 1, 284; Allen, C J. Walker "The New Negro," (New York, 2002),

The Guardian of Boston, 223-24. 31 For an overview of the International League of Darker Peoples, see Bundles, On Her Own Ground, 257-65. in The Marcus Garvey and Universal 32"Maj. W. H. Loving to the Director, Military Intelligence Division," Negro Improvement Association Papers, vol. 1, 344-46. The Messenger, August 1919, 5-6. Also, see "Peace Terms," The Messenger, March 1919, ""Internationalism," 11. in The Marcus Garvey and Universal 34"Bureau of Investigation Reports," Papers, vol. 1, 305-06. 35Garvey, "Race Discrimination Must Go," in ibid., 305. 36Ibid., 304; also, see "Bureau of Investigation Reports," in ibid., 309-10. Negro Improvement Association

29Bundles, On Her Own Ground, 253-54. in The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association 30"Bureau of Investigation Reports," Papers, vol. 1, 305-06; Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 59; Fox,

37Kearney, African American Views of theJapanese, 59; Home, Race War!, 46-47. 38Kearney, African American Views of theJapanese, 59. 39Bundles, On Her Own Ground, 255, 258. A Report of the Joint Legislative Committee of New York State Legislature, Revolutionary Radicalism: ^ew York Investigating Seditious Activities, vol. 2 (Albany, NY, 1920), 1517. 41 inA Hubert Harrison Reader, 103. Hubert Harrison, "Two Negro Radicalisms," 42"Peace Conference," The Messenger, March 1919, 5. 43 Amy Kaplan, The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of American Culture (Cambridge, MA, 2002), 196. For see 190-97. in the analysis of how W. E. B. Du Bois developed the discourse of anticolonialism Darkwater, ^On the definition of cartography, see ibid., 180-81. 45"Peace Conference," The Messenger, March 1919, 5. The Anarchy of Empire, 180. ^Kaplan,

1919,6. 4?"Japan and the Race Issue," The Messenger, May-June inA Hubert Harrison Reader, 211. 48HubertHarrison, "Africa at the Peace Table," 49LaFeber, The Clash, 128-43. tran. Alvin D. Cox, in The Cambridge History of Ikuhiko Hata, "Continental Expansion, 1905-1941," ^Ibid.; Japan, Volume 6, ed. Peter Duus (New York, 1988), 283. Akira Iriye, After Imperialism: The Search for a New Order in theFar East, 1921-1931 1965), 13-21. (Cambridge, MA, 51 Andrea Razafkeriefo, "The Reason," The Crusader, January-February 1922, inThe Crusader, 6, 1358. 52"The Disarmament 53Ibid. and Disarmament," The Messenger, February 1922,352. 55Andrea Razafkeriefo, "Disarmament," The Crusader, January-February 1922, in The Crusader, vol. 6, 1358. ^Lawrence W. Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom (New York, 1977), 195-96. ^"Labor 1921, 279-80. "Disarmament," The Messenger, November 59Philip S. Foner, American Socialism and Black Americans: From the Age of Jackson to World War II, (Westport, CT, 1977), 309-11. ^Gerald Home, Black and Brown: African Americans and theMexican Revolution, 1910-1920 (New York, 2005), 175. See, especially, chapter 8, for the analysis of how both the "Zimmerman Telegram" and "The Plan of San Diego" helped to strike a major blow to the stronghold of white supremacy at home. 57Ibid., 320. 58Chandler Owen, Conference," The Messenger, December 1921,298.

How African Americans Forged Cross-Racial Solidarity withJapan, 1917-1922 213

61"The Gathering War Clouds," The Crusader, December 1920, in The Crusader, vol. 3, ed. Robert A. Hill (New York, 1987), 942. 62Ibid. the Talented Tenth: Black Leaders and American 63Kelley, Freedom Dreams, 25-59; Joy James, Transcending Intellectuals (New York, 1997). "For the Liberation ^On Grace Campbell, see James, Holding Aloft theBanner of Ethiopia, 114-11; Makalani, see James, Transcending the Talented Tenth, of Black People Everywhere," 120-30; on Ida B. Wells-Barnett, 46-53,76-81. and Amy Jaques-Garvey," inTime 65Ula Y. Taylor, "Intellectual Pan-African Feminists: Amy Ashwood-Garvey ed. Charles M. Payne and Adam Longer Than Rope: A Century of African American Activism, 1850-1950, Green (New York, 2003); Ula Y. Taylor, "'Negro Women Are Great Thinkers As Well As Doers': Amy 12 Jacques-Garvey and Community Feminism in the United States, 1924-1927," Journal of Women's History 104-26; Ula Y. Taylor, The Veiled Garvey: The Life and Times of Amy Jacques-Garvey (Summer 2000): The International Agenda of African American "Thinking Locally, Acting Globally: 1880-1940," The Journal of African American History 89 (Summer 2004): 203-22. Clubwomen, 67Ibid., 215-16. 68JaneKuenz, "The Face of America: Performing Race and Nation in Jessie Fauset's There is Confusion," The see also, Deborah Yale Journal of Criticism 12 (Spring 1999): 89-111; E. McDowell, "The Neglected Dimension of Jessie Redmon Fauset," Afro-Americans inNew York Life and History 5 (July 1981): 33-49. (Chapel Hill, NC, ^Michelle Rief, 2002).

69Kelley, Freedom Dreams, 27. 70Jessie Fauset, "Letter to the Editor," Survey, 8 August 1917, 448. 71W. E. B. Du Bois, "The Souls ofWhite Folk" (1920) inBlack on White: Black Writers on What ItMeans White, ed. David R. Roediger (New York, 1998), 186. 100. 72Kuenz, "The Face of America," 121-23; Kevin K. Gaines, Uplifting 73Makalani, "For the Liberation of Black People Everywhere," Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill, NC, 1996), 243-45.

to be

the Race: