Proudly we can be Africans: Black Americans and Africa, 1935-1961.

By James H. Meriwether. The John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture. (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, c. 2002. Pp. [xiv], 336. Paper, $19.95, ISBN 0-8078-49979; cloth, $49.95, ISBN 0-8078-2669-3.)

This book analyzes the varied and changing attitudes of African Americans toward specific events that occurred in Africa between 1935 and 1961. In these years, blacks moved from a historical view of Africa to a contemporary one. James H. Meriwether's objective is to expand the debate on "the transnational dimension of race and racial politics during the twentieth century," particularly as it relates to African Americans and Africa (p. 5).

With limited knowledge of Africa, black Americans in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries relied on the Western portrayal of a "benighted" continent in need of "salvation" (p. 17). Bombarded with these racist and negative images of Africa, many black Americans turned away from Africa or emphasized their responsibility to "uplift" or "redeem" the continent and its people (p. 12). However, African freedom struggles after 1935 forced African Americans to rethink their association with Africa and transformed black American images of the continent and its peoples. This book addresses the role that Africa played in the black freedom struggle in America, the changing nature of African American identity vis-a-vis Africa, and the reshaping of African American interest in Africa.

The views that African Americans had about Africa and Africans during this time differed. Some felt a close relationship with Africa, some felt that their mutual oppression had created a bond between the two groups, and others felt that three centuries of separation had fundamentally altered or even severed their relationship. Meriwether gauges black American interest about African issues by "the depth of verbal support, ... donations of money or time, [and] the creation of support organizations ..." (p. 3).

African Americans debated how much they should identify with Africa and how they could influence U.S. foreign policy toward Africa. The specific events in Africa that occurred from 1935 to 1961 covered in the book include the Italo-Ethiopian War of 1935-36; Italy's disposition of its colonies in Africa at the end of World War II; the 1948 election of the Afrikaner Nationalist Party in South Africa; the Defiance campaign of 1952-53 conducted by black South Africans; the Kenya Land and Freedom movement of the 1950s, popularly known as the Mau Mau; Ghana's independence in 1957; the 1960 Sharpeville massacre in South Africa; and Congolese independence on June 30, 1960, and the subsequent crisis that ended with the death of Patrice Lumumba.

Primary sources used by Meriwether include the papers of leading civil rights organizations; the papers, portraits, and correspondence of prominent African Americans; official government documents and records; conference proceedings; papers of a former U.S. president; and editorials, opinion pieces, and letters to the editor from approximately a dozen African American newspapers and periodicals. Meriwether does an excellent job of weaving together such sources regarding seemingly unrelated events into a single narrative. His book is well written, well documented, and informative, and it makes a major contribution to the growing body of works on the historical connection between African Americans and Africa.

SYLVIA M. JACOBS

North Carolina Central University