Carol Anderson. Bourgeois Radicals

In recent years, scholars Gerald Horne, Penny Von Eschen, and others have documented the rich history of progressive leftist African American anticolonial politics in the World War II era, particularly the Council on African Affairs (CAA) featuring the formidable W. E. B. Du Bois and the prominent entertainer/activist Paul Robeson. The venerable National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), esteemed for its U.S. domestic civil rights work, rarely features in histories of black transnationalism, particularly efforts toward African and Asian decolonization. This is partially because Du Bois himself, in his contemporary claims that the NAACP’s anticolonial politics began and ended with his stormy second tenure (1944–1948), became the historiographical father of subsequent scholarly narratives that minimized the NAACP’s internationalism. By shifting the focus from Du Bois to NAACP executive director Walter White and his deputy Roy Wilkins, Carol Anderson, with characteristic brio and panache, argues for a surprisingly steadfast NAACP anticolonialism to emphasize that black anticolonial, anti-imperialist politics included not just a communist-friendly progressive black left, but also more moderate, anti-communist black liberals. By not conflating communism and anticolonialism, Anderson’s illumination of “bourgeois radicals”—the anti-communist, anticolonial NAACP—broadens studies of black transnationalism that often centered on the progressive black left to include more moderate blacks who equally engaged decolonization struggles.

Bourgeoisie · Colonialism · Communism · Decolonization · Historiography · Internationalism (politics) · Left-wing politics · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Transnationalism · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Gender Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies