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12 Pan-Africanism THE VEHEMENCE OF white resistance to the expansion of the Afro-American civil rights struggle during the 1950s intensified the ethnic-political consciousness of Afro-Americans throughout the nation. During the mid-1950s, black citizens of Montgomery, Alabama, decided to boycott the local public transit system rather than continue to tolerate the racist seating practices on buses.1 That such an action would occur in the very“heart of Dixie”indicated a new sense of black political assertiveness. The Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 ruling, Brown vs. Board of Education, removed the legal mandate for “separate but equal” schooling in the South. But opposition to the Brown decision showed Afro-Americans that white supremacy in the United States would not be crumble because of judicial mandate alone.2 For example, in Prince Edward County, Virginia, the local white population was so incensed by the Supreme Court ruling that they closed the county’s public schools from 1959 through 1964 rather than desegregate them.3 And because of the international embarrassment caused by the refusal of the governor of Arkansas to obey not only the highest court in the nation but also widely publicized presidential requests, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a racist in his own right and opponent of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, deployed troops from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division to escort nine black teenagers to the formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock.4 The foot-dragging of the federal government regarding domestic violations of black American rights, including lynchings, amplified blacks’ recognition of the tenuousness of “racial progress.” No single public event better highlighted the resilience of white American racism than the brutal murder of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till.5 During the summer of 1955, Till, a native of Chicago, was visiting relatives in Mississippi.Accused by a white woman of whistling at her,Till was shot,dismembered,and discarded in the Tallahatchie River. Even though there was overwhelming evidence against the two white men charged with the vicious crime, they were quickly and routinely acquitted by an all-white Mississippi jury.6 Because of the tenacious efforts of Till’s mother to publicize the crime and the subsequent miscarriage of justice, the brutalized body of young Emmett was presented for public viewing in a 374 Chicago funeral home. Thousands of people came to see the mutilated corpse. But even this media attention did not bring an end to the violence against Mississippi blacks. The feeble responses of the federal government to the Till murder, the slaying of numerous other blacks, white southern “massive resistance” to the Brown decision, and the continued political disenfranchisement of southern blacks only increased skepticism of the United States’ intentions toward its black citizenry. In turn, this skepticism was important to creating the conditions in Afro-America for critically assessing the behavior of the United States toward black people elsewhere. Like that of many black intellectuals who matured during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Baraka’s political coming of age included a growing consciousness of the Afro-American connection to Africa. For many black Americans, this renewed interest in Africa was stimulated by African anticolonial movements as well as the United States’ complicity in the European colonial dominance of Africa.7 In 1956, the Gold Coast became the first European colony in Africa to win its independence. The new free nation of Ghana was led by the highly charismatic Kwame Nkrumah, who gave new vitality to the dream of an emancipated African continent. Nkrumah was popular in black American intellectual circles because of his advocacy of Pan-Africanism. Moreover, he had been educated in the United States at the predominantly black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and later at the University of Pennsylvania.8 According to Harold Isaacs, “What came new out of Africa in the late 1950s for a great many Negro Americans was indeed the chance for the first time to identify in a positive way with the continent of their black ancestors.”9 Black Americans began to write a great deal about Africa and their African ancestry and to participate in events that conveyed their respect for and pride in the new African nations. The late 1950s was a time of black awakening.Although Jones was not yet politically engaged or captivated by the new developments on the African continent, in the late 1950s he began to take steps in that direction. In midFebruary 1961, much...

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