Movement Matters : American Antiapartheid Activism and the Rise of Multicultural Politics

ISBN-13: 9780415978118 / Angielski / Twarda / 2005 / 214 str.

Hostetter L. Hostetter

Opis

American organizations that opposed apartheid in South Africa extended their opposition to racial discrimination in the US into world politics. The antiapartheid movement mobilized public opinion with familiar political symbols while increasing African-American influence in the formulation of US foreign policy.

Three conflicts in particular shaped American antiapartheid activism: the debate between those holding an integrationist vision of the civil rights movement versus the advocates of a Pan-Africanist view as expressed in the Black Power movement; the tension between the antiracist credibility American leaders sought to project to the world and the anticommunist thrust of American foreign policy which led to a tacit alliance with South Africa; and the dispute over whether nonviolence or armed liberation provided the best strategy for ending apartheid.

Three antiapartheid organizations that debated and dealt with these conflicts were the American Committee on Africa (ACOA), the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and TransAfrica. Novels, plays, movies and music provided a bridge for Americans who strove to understand the struggles of those who lived under apartheid. By extending the moral logic of the civil rights movement, the antiapartheid movement was able to invoke the themes of equality and freedom central to the American civil religion.

Spis treści

Introduction: Through the Glass Starkly: Americans Confront Apartheid  1. "For the Freedom Struggle is One:" The American Committee on Africa  2. Liberation in One Organization: The American Friends Service Committee  3. Black Power on Embassy Row: TransAfrica  4. Lost in the Stars: Apartheid and American Popular Culture  5. If They're Not Free, We're Not Free: Antiapartheid Activism and the Integration of American Civil Religion.  Conclusion: Now Face to Face? Opposing Apartheid, Proposing Multiculturalism

O autorze

David Hostetter is Director of Research and Programs at the Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies at Shepherd University.