American Africans in Ghana: Black Expatriates and the Civil Rights Era (The John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture) - Softcover

Gaines, Kevin K.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807858935 ISBN 13: 9780807858936

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, 2008

Synopsis

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 Muhammad Ali--visited or settled in Ghana. Kevin K. Gaines explains what attracted these Americans 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.

Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's president, posed a direct challenge to U.S. hegemony by promoting 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 along with their allies in the United States waged a fundamental, if largely forgotten, struggle over the meaning and content of the cornerstone of American citizenship--the right to vote--conferred on African Americans by civil rights reform legislation.

About this title

Book Description:

"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

From the Inside Flap:

When Ghana became one of the first sub-Saharan African nations to gain independence from colonial rule in 1957, 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. 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.

About this edition

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0807858935
• ISBN 13: 9780807858936
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 360