The New Negro of the Pacific: How African Americans Forged Cross-racial Solidarity With Japan, 1917-1922 • by Yuichiro Onishi

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The New Negro of the Pacific: How African Americans Forged Cross-Racial Solidarity withJapan, 1917-1922Author(s): Yuichiro OnishiSource: The Journal of African American History, Vol. 92, No. 2 (Spring, 2007), pp. 191-213Published by: Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20064179.

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THE NEW NEGRO OF THE PACIFIC:HOW AFRICAN AMERICANS FORGEDCROSS-RACIAL SOLIDARITY WITH

JAPAN, 1917-1922Yuichiro Onishi*

In late 1918 William Monroe Trotter, finding President Woodrow Wilson'sFourteen Points to be JimCrow writ large, called for the inclusion of a "FifteenthPoint"?the abolition of race-based polities in all nations. He was determined tomake white supremacy a global issue at the upcoming Paris Peace Conference.Throughout Wilson's presidency, Trotter, one of the founders of the NiagaraMovement (1905) andNational Equal Rights League (1909), denounced theadministration's refusal to resolve racial injustices against African Americans,and fought hard for black equality. In his mind, as long as JimCrow remained atthe core of theAmerican polity, therewas no hope for postwar democracy andinternationalism, especially since both were used as principles with which tocreate the new structure of world governance called the League of Nations. Atthat time,while the 1917 East St. Louis race riot still horrified and enraged manyAfrican Americans, Trotter insisted that peace and justice would nevermaterialize for U.S. African Americans and colonized people all over theworld ifthe white supremacist conception of Wilsonian liberal democracy waslegitimized.1Trotter's opinions about war, peace, democracy, white supremacy, andWilsonian foreign policy resonated loudly in the black public sphere as the PeaceConference approached. To project a new political mood, intellectuals andprominent leaders in the United States mobilized around the image of adetermined, assertive, and militant African American?the New Negro.However, those who identified with themovement informed by the idea of theNew Negro were various. The New Negro movement enlisted support from theicons of African America with diverse ideological tendencies such as W. E. B.Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Madam C. J.Walker, and JamesWeldon Johnson, as well as leading voices of black radicalism, including HubertHarrison, A. Philip Randolph, Chandler Owen, Cyril V. Briggs, and HarryHay wood. These constituents of the New Negro movement were individualswhose lives, political identities, and global visions were transformed by rampant*Yuichiro Onishi is an Assistant Professor in theDepartment ofAfrican American and African Studies and intheAsian American Studies Program at theUniversity ofMinnesota inMinneapolis.

191


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192 The Journal ofAfricanAmericanHistoryracial violence and state repressions, labor radicalism, Caribbean and southernblack migration, the First World War, the Russian Revolution, Irish nationalism,and prospects for African liberation. Through grassroots organizing, politicalwritings, soapbox oratory, and public meetings, despite differences in politicalorientations, they converged at various moments, especially in the yearssurrounding World War I. The participants in the New Negro movementcultivated a political space that was informed by black nationalism,vindicationism, and Marxism, and presented a sharp critique of whitesupremacy.2

Although Wilson's vision of a "new world order" appealed to a wideaudience and certainly influenced prominent African American leaders, NewNegro intellectuals and activists' political outlook was markedly different.During the years between 1917 and 1922, they were challenging the dominantcategories thatwere used to communicate the universal human experience suchas the ideas of freedom and democracy, and were atwork in fashioning their owndistinct idioms within the black public sphere. Indeed, the formation of a newpolitics was strategic and historically contingent; and the application of theconcept of the New Negro showed remarkable flexibility and creativity,transgressing boundaries of class and nation, as well as myriad strains within theAfrican American intellectual tradition. What is most striking about NewNegroes' call for a new politics during the wartime and immediate postwarperiods was that it animated diverse political actors to navigate the politics ofrace at local and global levels in order to carve out a space of resistance.Specifically, I argue in this essay that theNew Negro discourse helped to create anew form of human struggle based inwhat political theorist Cedric J.Robinsoncalls the "Black radical tradition." The participants in this new movementstepped into a "culture of liberation," as Robinson states, and "crossed thefamiliar bounds of social and historical narrative" emerging out of sharedhistorical experience with racial capitalism.3 "This was a revolutionaryconsciousness that proceeded from the whole historical experience of Blackpeople," Robinson emphasizes, "and not merely from the social formations ofcapitalist slavery or the relations of production of colonialism."4 At the core ofthis revolutionary consciousness was, according to historian V. P. Franklin, "thecultural objective of black self-determination, which operated in a dialecticalrelationship with white supremacy."5This essay is concerned with the emergence of such a revolutionaryconsciousness in the midst of political mobilization around the concept of theNew Negro, and how the longstanding intellectual tradition of black protestintersected in an unlikely fashion with Japan's struggle to achieve racial equalitywith the "white" nations. During and after the Paris Peace Conference, thediverse constituents of the New Negro movement utilized the case of Japan'srace-conscious defiance against the United States, the British empire, and the


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How AfricanAmericans Forged Cross-Racial SolidaritywithJapan, 1917-1922 193French empire. They projected the image of Japan as a race rebel and a racialvictim and helped construct the iconography of the Japanese as theNew Negro ofthe Pacific. Such a work of political imagination proved effective innurturing thedistinct ethos of black self-determination among intellectuals and activists withvarying ideological and political orientations who worked with concepts of raceand nation and enabled the black public sphere to become productive for thearticulation of black radicalism. Indeed, this forging of cross-racial solidaritywith Japan was all about politics. The trans-Pacific alliance was based on seeingJapan as "a racialized political group rather than a biologically determined racialgroup."6As historian ikhil Pal Singh brilliantly rgued inBlack Is a Country:Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy, "black intellectuals andactivists recognized that racial belonging operates at scales that are both smallerand larger than the nation-state, and voiced visions of communal possibility thatconsistently surpassed the conceptions available in the prevailing idioms of U.S.political culture."7In recent years Reginald Kearney, Ernest Allen, Jr.,Gerald Home, RobinD. G. Kelley, Elizabeth Esch, George Lipsitz, Penny M. Von Eschen, VijayPrashad, Sudarshan Kapur, and other historians have established the theoreticalfoundation for the trans-Pacific study of black radicalism. These scholarsemphasize the importance of Asia in the formation of the black radical traditionin the 20th century, and explored how African Americans' imagined and realsolidarities with peoples of Asia produced an uncompromising critique of whitesupremacy.8 All of them exhibit sensitivity toward African Americans'determination to struggle forfreedom and advancement; as Cedric Robinson hasobserved, "the raw material of the Black radical tradition, the values, ideas,conceptions, and constructions of reality from which resistance wasmanufactured."9 However, the existing literature does not elaborate on theprecise role that the Japanese played in shaping a new form of struggle based inthe black radical tradition in theWorld War I era, even though in themargins ofthe discourses of leading New Negroes such asMarcus Garvey, Hubert Harrison,Andrea Razafkeriefo (Andy Razaf), Cyril V. Briggs, Chandler Owen, andA. Philip Randolph, the symbolic significance of Japan often crops up.

Moreover, the analysis of the location of Japan in black liberation theory andpractice receives scant attention in the recent study of New Negro radicalism.10Although Japan never occupied these leaders and intellectuals' politicalimaginationfor a sustained period of time, it did informtheir creativeruminations on the radical possibilities and transnational dimensions of the blackfreedom struggle.


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194 The Journal ofAfricanAmericanHistoryNEGOTIATING THE COLOR LINE INTERNATIONALLYDuring the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, as Woodrow Wilson set out toensure that the League of Nations was modeled after his "Fourteen Points,"William Monroe Trotter's demand for global racial justice, the inclusion of a"Fifteenth Point," was included in the negotiations. However, itwas the Japanese

delegation that put the issue on the table in Paris and demanded the antidiscrimination clause be included in the shaping of the new internationalcommunity. Acknowledging that diplomacy at the conference, especially itsdeliberations, negotiations, and decisions, would be dictated by Anglo-Americanpowers, the Japanese sought to attain equality with the imperial powers of theWest and did so by invoking the language of racial equality. Yet, however muchTrotter's "Fifteenth Point" resembled at the level of semantics the racial equalityclause submitted by the Japanese delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, theJapanese government was only remotely interested (at best) in attacking thestrongholds of white supremacy. It pursued its own imperial ambitions andcolonial interests by demanding the control of the islands in the South Pacific,especially theMarshalls, theMarianas, and Carolines, as well as the Germanconcessions in Shantung, China. Nonetheless, Japan's race-conscious diplomatic

maneuver did shake up the nature of the debate and incited strong oppositionfrom the British and American delegations.11 In fact, as the debate unfolded andbecame contentious, the racial equality clause ironically became an effective toolto strengthen Japan's position within the global racial polity in attaining "white"imperial power status.At the Paris Conference the demand for racial equality was defined as one ofJapan's key issues, although some of the political leaders back home feltapprehensive about asserting power on the international stage. It became a salientissue for the Japanese government as public opinion became ever more critical ofthe dominance and arrogance of theAnglo-American powers. The leaders of theJapanese delegation, Baron Makino Nobuaki and Viscount Chinda Sutemi, thustook this issue to Colonel Edward M. House, President Wilson's most trustedadvisor, to figure out a way to accommodate the Japanese concern. In talks withMakino and Chinda in early February 1919, House remained attentive to theJapanese demand and believed that the problem of the color linewas "one of theserious causes of international trouble, and should in some way be met."12 In theend, both parties decided to introduce the racial equality clause by way ofseeking an amendment to the religious freedom article (Article 21) in thecovenant of the League of Nations. On 13 February 1919, the Japanese presentedthefollowingdraft:

The equalityofnationsbeinga basic principleof the eague ofNations, theHigh ContractingParties agree to accord as soon as possible to all alien nationals of states, members of the


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How AfricanAmericans Forged Cross-Racial SolidaritywithJapan, 1917-1922 195League, equal and just treatment in every respect making no distinction, either in law or infact, on account of their race or nationality.13The delegates representing the British empire and theUnited States opposedthe amendment. They argued that Japan's demand for racial equality was directedat achieving unrestricted Japanese immigration to countries such as Britain,

Australia, Canada, and the United States. Lord Robert Cecil of the Britishdelegation and Australian Prime Minister William Morris Hughes organizedstrong opposition. Cecil declared on the floor that the proposal was divisive andwould lead to "interference in the domestic affairs of State members of theLeague." For the same reason, he added that the International Council ofWomen's demand for gender equality would not be considered in drafting theCovenant of the League ofNations.14After repeated negotiations and revisions, the Japanese delegation droppedall the referential connections between "race" and "equality" and presented arevised version that endorsed "the principle of equality of nations and justtreatment of their nationals." Italy and France as well as other countries,including China, Greece, Serbia, Brazil, and Czechoslovakia, all voted for thisrevised amendment on 11April 1919. By 11-6, itwas passed. However, Wilson,presiding as the chair of this session, did not honor the result. He declared that"[i]n the present instance there was, certainly, a majority, but strong oppositionhad manifested itself against the amendment and under these circumstances theresolution could not be considered as adopted." The Japanese did not pursue thefight for racial equality at the last session of the League of NationsCommissions.15

When the racial equality clause was introduced inParis, it took a life of itsown within the context of imperialist diplomacy. It generated Anglo-Americanapprehension and their determination to protect the international system of whitesupremacy. While Lord Robert Cecil cast Japan as a troublemaker in theinternational community for introducing the contentious race question, WoodrowWilson insisted that issues of race and racism should "play no part in thediscussions connected with the establishment of the League."16 The response ofthe delegates from the white-dominated nations was aimed to dissemble. Theirdetermination to reject the racial equality clause was intertwined with theirunwillingness to give up domestic and colonial interests in themaintenance ofwhite supremacy. During the Paris Peace Conference in May 1919, The

Messenger's A. Philip Randolph and Owen Chandler, leading New Negroactivist-intellectuals and socialists, explained the logic of colonial and racialdomination in thisway: "Those who hold vested property interests and privilegesunder a given social system will resist with desperate determination any assaultupon that system by the advocates of a new, a different social doctrine."17

Although these Western leaders at the Paris Peace Conference sought tosuppress the debate surrounding the problem of the color line, the global nature


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196 The Journal ofAfricanAmericanHistoryof racial discourse was a social and political fact that could not be denied. Amidstcontradictions, the great powers had vested interests in shaping the discourse ofrace, especially since theywere interested in rationalizing their claims to controlGermany's former colonies inAfrica and Asia. Even when they eschewed adirect reference to the language of racial equality, the debate was racial at everyturnbecause of colonialism and imperialism.

Certainly, the Japanese were responsible for introducing the racial equalityproposal, but, in reality, they had no interest in trumpeting the right of colonizedand racially oppressed people for self-determination. While the Japanesedelegation raised the banner of racial equality, the Japanese colonial governmentsuppressed Koreans' struggle for self-determination and tightened the grip ofcolonial rule.Moreover, the Japanese government was concerned with the futureof Germany's former colonies and eager to spread its political, military, andeconomic influences in China. When the Chinese learned that the Germanconcessions in Shantung had come under the Japanese control, intellectuals andstudents gathered at the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Peking on 4 May 1919 andchallenged the legitimacy of Japanese and Western imperialism. Commonlyknown as theMay Fourth Movement, an outburst of political and intellectualactivities awakened the people struggling to seek radical approaches to create anew nation. Nationalist China debated the crisis of modernity and struggled todefine its own path toward peoplehood and nationhood. The anti-imperialistChinese nationalists opposed the decisions made at the Paris Peace Conferenceand mobilized protests locally and internationally. On the day of the signing ofthe Versailles Treaty, Chinese students in Paris took direct action. They blockedthe Chinese delegates from entering the signing ceremonies. Consequently, thetreatywas signed without their presence on 28 June 1919.18

AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE PARIS PEACE CONFERENCELike the Japanese, African American intellectuals and leaders also looked tothe Paris Peace Conference as a political opportunity in the ongoing struggle for

peace, racial justice, and self-determination inAfrica and throughout theAfricanDiaspora. W. E. B. Du Bois was one of the leaders determined to make thepresence of peoples of African descent known in the international arena.Convinced that the Pan-African Congress would be an ideal vehicle tocommunicate Africans and African-descended peoples' desire for politicalrepresentation to great powers participating inpeace talks, he worked tirelessly toorganize this historic conference. With the help of Blaise Diagne, a Senegaleseleader and a high commissioner of French West Africa who was a close friend ofFrench Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, the organizers of the Pan-AfricanCongress acquired permission to hold the conference in Paris. Diagne presided aspresident, while Du Bois served as a secretary. The Pan-African Congress


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How AfricanAmericans Forged Cross-Racial SolidaritywithJapan, 1917-1922 197attracted fifty-seven delegates from fifteen countries and on 19 February 1919discussed the future of Africa.19 However, the Pan-African Congress did notchallenge colonialism, imperialism, and racism head on and demand the right ofAfricans to struggle for self-determination and self-government, as promised intheWilsonian program of internationalism. The adopted resolutions simply askedgreat powers to "establish a code of laws for the international protection of thenatives ofAfrica, similar to the proposed international code for labor." Moreover,iturged great powers to oversee "the application of these laws to the political,social and economic welfare of the natives" through a permanent organization.As historian Manning Marable noted, "Nowhere in the Congress' demands wereEuropeans asked to grant Africans the right to complete self-determination."20Meanwhile, leading voices of theNew Negro movement at home, namelyA. Philip Randolph, Chandler Owen, Cyril V. Briggs, Hubert Harrison, andAndrea Razafkeriefo, all based inHarlem, developed strategies to include thelocal and global problems of the color line at the peace talks. At public meetingsand on street corners these activist-intellectuals continually discussed the fiitureof colonialism inAfrica, the imperialist scramble for colonial possessions, andthe hypocrisy ofWilsonian liberal internationalism. They showed interest in theoutcome of the Peace Conference and interpreted events abroad through theirown distinct race-based, ideological systems. On the eve of the PeaceConference, many of them identified with powerful states and interest groups thatcould challenge global white supremacy. In particular, they were deeplyinfluenced by the revolutionary moment precipitated by the First World War,especially the 1917 Russian Revolution. They absorbed the energies ofBolshevism and anticolonial nationalist struggles elsewhere and looked for analternative route to struggle for black self-determination. In theirwritings, manyarticulated an anticapitalist perspective on world politics and synthesized itwithan anticolonial outlook.21

Shortly after the armistice inNovember 1918, Hubert Harrison, a socialistintellectual from St. Croix and one ofHarlem's most important orators, writers,and activists during the World War I era, offered a critique of the system ofinternational diplomacy and peacemaking based on race and class:[W]henNations go to war, they never openly declare what theyWANT. They mustcamouflagetheir ordidgreed behind some soundingphrase like "freedomof theseas," "selfdetermination," "liberty," or "democracy." But only the ignorant millions ever think that thoseare therealobjects of their loodyrivalries.When thewar isover, themask isdropped, andthenthey eek "how best to scrambleat the shearers' feast." It is then thatthey isclose theirreal war aims.... Africa's hands are tied, and so tied, she will be thrown upon the peacetable.22

Harrison aptly pointed out the relevant underpinnings of the Peace Conferenceand the League of Nations: colonialism in Africa and the racial politics of


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198 The Journal ofAfricanAmericanHistoryimperialism. An editorial inTheMessenger published inMarch 1919 also shared

Harrison's critique of imperial ambition and the workings of colonial powerrelations inworld affairs, arguing "if the peace conference does not break up inawar, itwill be followed by wars, at no distant date." With sarcasm, the editorialnoted, "There are peace conferences and piece conferences."23 Whatcharacterized the politics ofNew Negro leaders and intellectuals was their refusalto accept theWilsonian prescriptions for the creation of a new international civilsociety.Unlike the participants in the Pan-African Congress in Paris that adoptedmodest resolutions, New Negro activist-intellectuals echoed the uncompromisingantiracist and anti-imperialist position of the revolutionary black organizationcalled theAfricanBlood Brotherhood ABB), whose members included yrilV.Briggs, W. A. Domingo, Richard B. Moore, and Grace Campbell.24 InDecember1918 theAfricanBlood Brotherhood resentedthefollowing emandson theeveof the Peace Conference: "that the full rights of citizenship be granted to allpeople of Color, that all discrimination because of Color be made illegal, thatself-determination be extended to all nations and tribes within the Africancontinent and throughout theWorld, and that the exploitation ofAfrica and othercountries belonging to people of Color herewith cease."25 When the Japanesedelegation introduced the question of "color" on the international stage, thisaction took on powerful meanings among Harlem's war critics and politicallyconscious leaders. As Paris prepared to host the Peace Conference in late 1918,Marcus Garvey declared that Africans and peoples of African descent "hopeJapan will succeed in impressing upon her white brothers at the PeaceConference the essentiality of abolishing racial discrimination."26

Indeed, throughout late 1918 and early 1919 numerous New Negrointellectuals looked to Japan approvingly. On 5 January 1919, retired MajorWalter Howard Loving, an African American informerwho worked for theU.S.Army's Military Intelligence Branch, recognized the political radicalization inHarlem and reported that "New York 'soap box orators' are beginning to invadethis city, and their presence carry some significance."27 Loving's observation wasnot an overstatement. Despite ideological and political differences, U.S. AfricanAmerican and African Caribbean activists busily organized meetings andconverged at various points. They participated in each other's local projects andfrequently shared the same stage to articulate their perspectives on peacemakingin the immediate aftermath ofWorld War I.Many of them entered the debatesover war, peace, disarmament, and global racial justice, and communicated theircommitment to help establish what Marcus Garvey called the "Racial League" tocounter Wilson's plan for theLeague ofNations.28At theNational Race Congress forWorld Democracy held inWashington inDecember 1918, for instance, William Monroe Trotter, Ida B. Wells-Barnett,Madam C. J.Walker, Rev. M. A. Shaw of Boston, and seven other leaders were


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How AfricanAmericans Forged Cross-Racial SolidaritywithJapan, 1917-1922 199elected to represent theAfrican American peace delegation, although participantsof thismeeting, in the end, excluded women from taking part in the delegation.29Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) organized adelegation of its own, which included A. Philip Randolph, Ida B. Wells-Barnett,and Eliezer Caddet.30 Moreover, on 2 January 1919, with Marcus Garvey inattendance and financial assistance from Madam C. J. Walker, Harlem'sprominent black leaders formed a short-lived organization called theInternational League ofDarker Peoples (ILDP).31 Among the elected officers forthe ILDP were Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., president; Isaac B. Allen, firstvice president; Lewis G. Jordan, second vice president; Madam C. J.Walker,treasurer; A. Philip Randolph, secretary; and Gladys Flynn, assistant secretary.They agreed to submit an African American peace proposal, and Randolphdrafted t.32n theMarch 1919 issueofTheMessenger, Randolph described theoverall thrust of their peacemaking strategy in the editorial titled"Internationalism":

Carry theNegro problemoutof theUnited States, at thesame timethatyou present it intheUnited States.Themere fact that thecountry oes notwant theNegro problemcarriedout toEurope is strong vidence that t ught tobe carried there.WilliamMonroe Trotterhas caughtthepoint and gone toEurope toembarrass thePresident of theUnited States,who has beenmaking hypocritical rofessionsabout democracy in theUnited Stateswhich has not existedand does not exist-The internationalethod ofdealingwithproblems is themethod of thefuture.33The U.S. government closely monitored black leaders' political activities inHarlem and noted, in particular, cross-racial solidarity between African Americaand Japan in the proposed projects. According to the Bureau of Investigation

report, Garvey allegedly "preached that the next war will be between the[NJegroes and thewhites unless their demands for justice are recognized and thatwith the aid of Japan on the side of theNegroes, theywill be able towin such awar."34 Indeed, UNIA members paid close attention to themainstream media'sview of Japan's role in the upcoming Peace Conference, citing aNew York Timesarticle which reported that "Japanese newspapers are suggesting that Japan andChina raise the race question ... with the object of seeking an agreement to theeffect that in the future there shall be no further racial discrimination throughoutthe world." The Negro World, Garvey's weekly newspaper, also cited thecomments of theU.S. ambassador inTokyo, who said "plans are being seriouslydiscussed for an immediate alliance with China so that the two nations may workinharmony at the [Peace] Conference."35

The Garveyites welcomed Japan's assertiveness and interpreted it as ahopefulsign:This report sverysuggestive. In itcan be seen immediate reparationby theyellowman ofAsia forthenewwar that s tobe [waged]?the war of theraces.This isno timefortheNegro


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How African Americans Forged Cross-Racial Solidarity with Japan, 1917-1922 201

Belgians, though. There may be Memphis and Waco [Texas] burnings ofNegroes. Hush Don't raise the race issue "42 Here, the editors commented on theabsence of a serious discussion about the problem of global white supremacy.What they presented, by way of linking the genocide in the Belgian Congo withthe campaigns of white terror in the United States, however, was not only, asAmy Kaplan explains, "a counter-map of theUnited States" that condemned therole of the United States as an imperial power, but also a map of anticolonialism.43 When lines drawn from one locale to another were connected, theircognitive map revealed the nexus of race and empire.

Thus, when the Japanese introduced the racial equality clause during theLeague of Nations Commissions meeting in early 1919, Randolph and Owenresponded with enthusiasm and engaged in the anticolonial and anti-imperialistpractice of cartography. For them,mapmaking was a kind of intellectual activitythat involved the ability to expose the arrogance of thewhite race.44 They wroteinMarch 1919:

Japan raised the race issue and threw a monkey-wrench into the league of white nations whichwell nigh knocked the peace conference to pieces. Itwas successfully side-tracked, however.This questionwould not bear the slightest xaminationby theAmerican peace commissionwhich has its vexatious Negro problem and which excludes Japanese immigrants y agentleman's agreement. or couldGreatBritain face the issuewith herWest Indian coloniesandher IndiaAustralia, a Britishdominion,excludes bothNegroes andAsiatics.

Randolph and Owen integrated the symbolic significance of Japan's struggle forthe racial equality proposal to develop a counter-map of Wilsonian liberalinternationalism, rendering visible the white supremacist underpinnings ofdebates and discussions that ensued at the Paris Peace Conference. In theirpolitical imagination, Japan functioned as a devise and possessed "thecartographic power" to communicate and represent the interconnectedness of theproblems of racism, colonialism, and the racial politics of immigration.46AlthoughRandolph and Owen identified ith Japan in thewake of theappearance of the racial equality clause at the Paris Peace Conference, that didnot mean that they looked to Japan as the leader of the "colored world" in thefuture race war, as some of the Garveyites did. Inspired by a Marxistinterpretation of theworld capitalist system, both were grounded in class analysisand well armed with theoretical insights to scrutinize the Japanese imperialiststate and colonial projects in Asia. Even as they expressed enthusiasm forJapan's diplomatic strategy that exposed the real face of colonial powers and thewhite supremacist elements inWilsonian internationalism, they remained critical,arguing that Japan was not interested in challenging the "international ColorLine," let alone putting pressures on the United States to end the practice of JimCrow. In theMay-June 1919 issue of The Messenger, Randolph and Owen


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202 The Journal ofAfricanAmericanHistoryincluded a lengthy cautionary note to explain the significance of Japan's raceconscious intervention inworld politics:

A word of warning, however, to the unsuspecting and to those not thoroughly versed in socialscience. The Japanese statesmen are not in the least concerned about race or color prejudice.The smugand oily Japanesediplomatsare no differentromWoodrow Wilson, [David] LloydGeorge or [Vittorio]Orlando. They do not suffer rom race prejudice. They teach in theRockefeller Institute, ine and dine at theWaldorf Astoria,Manhattan or Poinciana, dividefinancial melons inWall Street, ride on railways and cars free from discrimination. They carenothing for even the Japanese people and at this very same moment are suppressing andoppressing mercilessly the people of Korea and forcing hard bargains upon unfortunateChina.47

Hubert Harrison, likewise, understood that what concerned Japan was theattainment of a "white" imperial power status. Japan was no different from othergreat powers of theWest. He explained, "The secret of England's greatness (aswell as of any other great nation's) is not [BJibles but bayonets?bayonets,business, and brains. Ask Japan: she knows."48 Many of theNew Negro activistintellectuals critically assessed the significance of Japan's invocation of the racequestion on the world stage, unlike Marcus Garvey who rallied the masses toprepare for the imminent race war between the United States and Japan.Harrison, Randolph, and Owen eschewed such rhetoric and instead placed thepolitical guarantee in the socialist struggle. Although socialists Randolph andOwen generally did not cast themselves with the communist camp and thesupporters of revolutionary Marxism, nor with Garveyites, to expose theimperialist and white supremacist underpinnings ofWilsonian internationalism,their political position during this critical juncture was undeniably formulatedand refined at the nexus of socialism and black nationalism.

DISARMAMENT DISSENTERSNew Negro intellectuals' international outlook and revolutionaryconsciousness remained salient in the aftermath of the 1919 Paris Peace

Conference, and their commentary on Japan continued to appear in themarginsof their political discussions. When great powers of the West and Japancongregated to set the general framework for a new diplomacy in the AsianPacific during the Washington Conference of 1921-1922, these writersdeveloped sharp criticisms of the underlying imperialism and white supremacy ofthe new international system.

At this conference theUnited States, Great Britain, Japan, and France, alongwith other nation-states such as Italy, theNetherlands, Belgium, and China, helda series of talks to establish the terms of disarmament and the basis of a neworder in the Asian Pacific. As in the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, the UnitedStates assumed world leadership and challenged the older structure of great


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How AfricanAmericans Forged Cross-Racial SolidaritywithJapan, 1917-1922 203power diplomacy. Its primary objective was to abrogate the foundation of theimperialist "scramble" for territories, resources, and colonies and replace itwithan America-led "Open Door" policy, which would guarantee great powers'access to the Chinese market. The U.S. government called upon world leaders toorganize a consortium thatwould foster international cooperation and enable theWestern nations to derive power and wealth from the trade with China.

Meanwhile, the Western powers excluded the new Soviet Union fromparticipating in this consortium, and forced Italy, Japan, Germany, and China tofall in line and accept subordinate roles within this newly reorganizedinternational system.49

The Washington Conference reminded Japan of its tenuous status as a "greatpower." The combination of diplomatic pressures, the need to secure foreignmarkets for domestic economic growth, and the desire to retain great powerstatus influenced the Japanese decision to concede to theU.S.-led reorganizationof East Asian affairs. By the end of the conference, the Japanese had come toaccept the new era of imperial diplomacy and gave up much of itswartime gains,including its control of the Shantung peninsula in China. The American andBritish diplomats also pressured the Japanese into accepting an unequal ratio ofcapital ship tonnage in the name of disarmament, which subsequently weakenedJapan's naval power in theAsian Pacific. In the end the Japanese agreed to theliquidation of "all existing treaties between the powers and China [and] replacedthem with the Open Door principles so long espoused by theUnited States."50Contrary to Western leaders' rhetoric of liberal internationalism, the mainpurpose of the conference was not to guarantee peace in the postwar AsianPacific, but to figure out ways to exploit China. This new diplomacy in theAsianPacific intensified the contest for supremacy in the region, and Japan struggled tomaintain its statuswithin this globalized racial polity.

Throughout the period of the Washington Conference, Chandler Owen,A. Philip Randolph, Cyril V. Briggs, and Andy Razafkeriefo were vocal critics ofthe terms of disarmament and international agreements to institute a new order inthe Pacific. They argued that imperialists' pursuit of power and property interestsencouraged the drive toward aggressive militarism and the reconstitution ofglobal white supremacy in the Asian Pacific. In particular, they emphasized thatthe combination of militarism and international capitalism strengthened thecolonial system of exploitation and subjugation based on race and class. In apoem published in the January-February 1922 issue of The Crusader magazine,published by the communist-affiliated frican Blood Brotherhood,AndyRazafkeriefo condemned the white supremacist objectives of the conference ondisarmament through the creative use of carefully plotted rhymes:


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204 The Journal ofAfricanAmericanHistoryTHEREASONThe conference is quite ill at easeIn regards to theirfriends, the Chinese.There's no country finerTo exploit than China?The Japsmust not get all the cheese.51

Razafkeriefo clearly showed his understanding of theways inwhich theAngloAmerican alliance vied for white supremacy in the Asian Pacific. His poemsimultaneously mocked and exposed the arrogance and anxiety of the whiteworld. The resistance expressed to Japan's demand for racial equality, especiallyWestern nations' militantly defensive posture toward Japan's assertiveness in theinternational system, served theNew Negro intellectuals well. It enabled them tooffer an analysis of the role of race in the reconstitution of white supremacy inthePacific and its implications forAfrican-descended people in thewider world.Unlike Razafkeriefo's poem that relied on the creative use of language, The

Messenger's December 1921 editorial went straight to theMarxist critique ofimperialism and colonialism. Randolph and Owen explained that an emphasis on"scrapping of some battleships" among the "Five Powers"?the United States,Great Britain, Japan, France, and Italy?at theWashington Conference concealedthe real aims of international capitalist states: the exploitation of the resourcesand people of China in the name of the "Open Door" policy.

Our readers should understand that this conference is not called to disarm. Itwas called toparcel out, divide up, and emasculate China with a sort of gentlemen's agreement as to thespheresof influence. hat isall which ismeant by the"open door" and theFar East orPacificquestion. Open the door toAmerica, Great Britain, France and Japan to go into China and robthe helpless people of their iron, coal, and oil.52

Moreover, Randolph and Owen argued that the conference on disarmament was,in fact, designed to arm the world in a new way. They specifically pointed to theproliferation of weapons ofmass destruction; "What about poison gas, airplanes,submarines and torpedo boats? These are themodern, more deadly instruments ofwar. A ton of Lewisite gas ismore deadly than the entire American [N]avy."53The editorial explicitly stated that conditions for disarmament could never befound in theworld capitalist system as long as a "bone of contention in traderoutes, commerce, concessions, spheres of influence, underdeveloped territories,weaker peoples, cheap land, and cheap laborwill ever exist... ,"54Above all, Andy Razafkeriefo's poem best represented the blackcommentary on the dangers of militarization and the absence of real disarmamentthroughout the world. Like other creative writings that appeared in The Crusader,Razaflkeriefo's voice not only contained the energies of New Negro radicalism,


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How AfricanAmericans Forged Cross-Racial SolidaritywithJapan, 1917-1922 205but also the internationalist perspectives of black intellectuals. In the followingpoem published in the January-February 1922 issue, he used a complex system ofrhyme patterns to produce particular sound and literary effects.

DISARMAMENTO, Gentlemen why not disarmThe hordes who daily do us harm,Who ply their trade relentlesslyOn sufferingHumanity?Disarm the bed-bug,Disarm the flea,Disarm themosquito,The cootie and bee.Disarm the barbers of their tonguesAnd back-yard songsters of their lungs.But while there's money to be gotBy sending olksofftobe shot;Justkeep your side-arms at your hipsAnd holdon tothosebattleships.For, my last pair of socks, I'll betThat we are booked formore wars yet.55In this poem Razafkeriefo adopted complex musical forms and styles andused humor to communicate the dangers of continued armament and how itthreatened world peace. He was amaster at capturing the ethos of ordinary black

working people. Instead of naming weapons of mass destruction and explicitlycriticizing Western powers formaking theworld unsafe for people of color, henamed insects, especially those that bite, sting, and suck and cause ill feelings,harm, and pain, to convey the grievances of black people. The lyrics showedevidence of musical styles of the work songs composed by enslaved and freeblack workers as they performed daily activities.56The poem avoided denouncing the imperialist and white supremacistunderpinnings of theWashington Conference directly in politicized language, aswith Randolph and Owen. Instead, it relied on what historian Lawrence W.Levine called "black laughter," which "provided a sense of the total blackcondition not only by putting whites and their racial system in perspective, butalso by supplying an important degree of self and group knowledge."57 Thehumor embedded in his poem possessed an explanatory power much like thestreet corner oratory thatmany of the leading New Negro leaders and activists,


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206 The Journal ofAfricanAmericanHistoryespecially Hubert Harrison, performed and perfected during this period. Thepoem syncopated the rhythm, especially through carefully plotted rhymes, andprojected African Americans' desire to disassociate themselves from aggressivemilitarism, which buttressed the relentless expansion of colonial and whitesupremacist powers.New Negro activist-intellectuals' protests against the disarmamentconference also emphasized the impact ofmilitarization on the home front. Theysuggested that the imperialist club's obsession with world domination severelydamaged the civilian sector of the U.S. economy and contributed to an increasein living costs and taxes, which burdened ordinary working people, especiallyracially aggrieved populations. Chandler Owen, for instance, explained that the"apparent desire for peace, however, is not found to be themotivating cause ofthe conference by students of world politics. We find, on the contrary, that theburdens of taxation formaintaining armies and navies have soared so high that itis no longer possible to shift all of those loads on theworking people, but anyfurther assessment must, as theywill, fall upon wealth. This, to say the least, isnot a rosy anticipation." Owen concluded that "if each of them [imperialistpowers] continues to pile up this huge burden upon the tired and bending backsof theworking people, itmust plan to face civil war at home?the revolt of thepeople?a revoltwhich may metamorphose into a revolution and sweep away thevery foundations of the old order of society?the tottering system of capitalism,and its foster child, a dogged but doddering imperialism."58Like Owen, Cyril V. Briggs of The Crusader and the African BloodBrotherhood dreamed of "the revolt of the people," especially the black workingclass. However, Briggs's position was qualitatively different from that ofRandolph and Owen. As an advocate of revolutionary Marxism, he offered anunwavering commitment to black self-determination locally and globally, anticolonialism, and African liberation.59 Moreover, Briggs looked beyond nationalborders, recognizing that the coming unity between and among Germany,Mexico, and Japan could be used as a weapon, as historian Gerald Home argued,"to exploit the natural security weaknesses of white supremacy."60 While U.S.officials repeatedly expressed their fears that Jim Crow and rampant racialviolence at home could erode support among African Americans and in turnstrengthen their ties with "allies" abroad such as Mexico and Japan, Briggspresented a different option. During the period of "gathering war clouds"between the United States and Japan, as well as between theUnited States and

Mexico, he emphasized that instead of waiting for the coming of "a war to forceacceptance of the doctrine ofwhite superiority upon Japan" or the "eventuality ofwar between white United States and colored Japan," Briggs presented thefollowing statement: "Not tofight against Japan orMexico, but rather tofill theprisons and dungeons of the white man (or toface his firing squads) than toshoulder arms against other members of darker races"61 As a leader of a


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How AfricanAmericans Forged Cross-Racial SolidaritywithJapan, 1917-1922 207militant and revolutionary black organization, whose aims were to challengewhite supremacy and capitalism through armed resistance and establish thefoundation for independent black states in the African Diaspora, Briggsdemanded an uncompromising struggle against racism, imperialism, andcolonialism in the postwar world.

Writing in thewake of the "Red Scare" and "Red Summer of 1919," Briggs,Harrison, and other New Negro leaders consistently communicated theinternationalist conception of black freedom. They were convinced that the antiimperialist struggle started at the local level and regarded themerging of blacknationalism and revolutionary socialism as themotor of revolutionary change.

With this inmind, in December 1922 Briggs presented the antiwar, antiracist,and anti-imperialist position of New Negro radicalism, urging African Americansnot to be accomplices in thewhite supremacist project.The Negro who fightsagainst eitherJapanorMexico isfighting or thewhiteman againsthimself,for thewhite race against the darker races and for the perpetuationof whitedomination of the colored races, with its vicious practices of lynching, jim-crowism,segregation nd other ormsofoppression inoppositionto theprinciple dvocated by Japan fRace Equality, and there are things that,we are convinced, no loyal Negro will do.

Briggs noted that thosewho would fighton behalfof theUnited States againstJapan or Mexico compromised the very issue that Japan helped tointernationalize during the 1919 Peace Conference?racial equality. His gestureof affinity toward Japan, however, did not mean that he was blind to Japan'simperial ambitions and colonial projects. What he advocated was the war ofblack liberation on the home front, not a race war ina global scale.

NEW NEGRO FEMINISMIn the immediate aftermath of World War I, the iconography of Japan as theNew Negro of the Pacific helped to open another space to critique white

supremacy. However, those who identified with theNew Negro of the Pacific didso within a gendered framework and relied heavily on the tropes of war andmilitarism to articulate a masculinist vision of black freedom. Such a visionembraced traditional gender roles and consequently failed to acknowledge theroles that African Caribbean and American women played in themaking of theblack radical tradition. New Negro leaders and writers' commentary on Japanwas imbued with gendered assumptions that perceived international and domesticpolitics as male-dominated spheres.63 During the years between 1917 and 1922,however, African American women, including Grace Campbell, Ida B. WellsBarnett, and Jessie Fauset, shaped the antiwar, antiracist, and anti-imperialistdiscourse and politics of theNew Negro movement in significant ways. Althoughissues of women's rights did not appear in the pages of The Crusader, women


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208 The Journal ofAfricanAmericanHistoryfigured prominently in the African Blood Brotherhood. Grace Campbell inparticular occupied a position of leadership in the group, and her home was usedas a meeting place and an office. Moreover, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, a toweringcrusader for racial justice and a veteran antiracist and feminist activist, wasnominated twice to represent theAfrican American delegation to the 1919 ParisConference, even though she was, like Trotter, unable to secure a passport totravel abroad.64

Indeed, recent scholarship shows that African Caribbean and Americanwomen's political activism gained momentum in the international context duringthis period. The first and second wives of Marcus Garvey, Amy AshwoodGarvey and Amy Jacques-Garvey, for instance, were especially instrumental inrallying black women to challenge imperialism. According to historian Ula Y.Taylor, Jacques-Garvey's work as the associate editor ofNegro World shows thatshe not only helped build the black nationalist and pan-African movements butalso constructed a distinct black feminist tradition, which Taylor calls"community feminism." Jacques-Garvey made feminism central to theUNIA andinterpreted women as both helpmates and leaders capable of playing a leadingrole in community- and nation-building.65For other women leaders, though revolutionary Marxism did not inform theirpolitics as with Grace Campbell, they considered women's active participation inworld affairs important to the project of racial advancement. Madam C. J.Walkerand Ida B. Wells-Barnett were active in the short-lived International League ofDarker Peoples, and asMichelle Rief shows, the leaders of the club movement?

Mary Church Terrell, Mary Talbert, Addie Hunton, and Margaret MurrayWashington?participated in international organizations such as theWomen'sInternational League for Peace and Freedom, and organized the InternationalCouncil of Women of theDarker Races to synthesize the causes of racial justiceand peace locally and internationally.66 For some, the so-called Japanese questionentered into their political discussions and was taken up as a topic of analysisamong themembership.67Above all, Jessie Fauset, then literary editor of The Crisis magazine,straddled diverse intellectual traditions during theNew Negro era.68Writing inthe wake of the 1917 East St. Louis race riot, Fauset articulated AfricanAmericans' determination to defend democracy in the face of white terroristactions leveled against them. Although the following statement does not makeany reference to Japan, itdoes reflect themood of New Negro radicalism. HereFauset described the nature of white mobs' assault against African Americanwomen, children, and families as a global trend and evoked themotif of the rapeof black women, rather than emphasizing African American men, as the victimsof racial terror.Historian Robin D. G. Kelley noted the symbolic significance ofFauset's narrative strategy that "carried specific historical resonance in light of


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How AfricanAmericans Forged Cross-Racial SolidaritywithJapan, 1917-1922 209the history of sexual terrorism visited upon black women in slavery andfreedom."69 Fauset declared:

A people whose members would snatch a baby because itwas black from itsmother's arms, aswas done inEast St. Louis, and fling t nto blazinghousewhilewhite furies eld themotheruntil themen shother todeath?such a people isdefinitely pproachingmoral disintegration.Turkey has slaughtered ts rmenians,Russia has held itspogroms,Belgium has tortured ndmaimed in the Congo, and Turkey, Russia, [and] Belgium are synonyms for anathema,demoralization, and pauperdom. We, the American Negroes, are the acid test for occidentalcivilization. Ifwe perish,we perish.But when we fall,we shall fall, likeSamson, dragginginevitably with us the pillars of a nation's democracy.70

Moreover, Fauset's narrative conveyed just how the black freedom strugglerepresented the only hope for democratic renewal in the United States and theworld at large. She was convinced that cornerstones of democratization locallyand globally were found inAfrican Americans' struggles for freedom, and theywere the vehicles for rescuing colored humanity from white supremacy.Certainly, she was acutely aware of the "white problem" and interpreted it as asign of themoral and political bankruptcy of so-called Western civilization. Therepeated patterns of racial pogroms in theUnited States and abroad were clearevidence of the white world's "descent to Hell," as Du Bois once put it.71

According to literary critic Jane Kuenz, Fauset's work of fiction, especiallyThere is Confusion (1924), emphasized "the theme that black cultural practicesand black people are surpassing or even replacing white practices and people inthe role of defining national progress."72 During this period Fauset wasindisputably one of the sharpest critics of thewhite supremacist underpinnings ofimperialism and colonialism.Such a radical critique, however, went unmentioned in the pages of leadingNew Negro publications. What dominated instead were idealized images ofAfrican American women. The editors constructed narratives of race progressand race pride that emphasized Victorian gender conventions. Thesepublications, as Kevin K. Gaines noted, "sought a new standard of femininebeauty as part of theNew Negro cultural aesthetic." African American women'scultural and political space for self-representation was narrow, and theirlongstanding struggles against sexual violence were often rendered invisible.73In the context ofwar and revolution, colonialism and imperialism, and statesanctioned white terrorism, the symbolic significance of Japan's fight for racialequality in the international system found its way into New Negro leaders'political imagination and intellectuals' narratives of antiwar, antiracist, and antiimperialist struggles, even as their counter-articulations remained undeniablymale-centered. Appearing in themargins of black political discourse, the trope ofJapan as the New Negro of the Pacific aided activist-intellectuals' efforts tosmear the paint of the black radical imagination in the face ofWilsonian liberaland international democracy. More important, the attitudes of New Negro


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210The Journal ofAfricanAmericanHistoryactivist-intellectuals toward Japan were multifaceted and best characterized asheterogeneous. They all defined their political positions variously andstrategically. Even as they showed differing ideological and political orientations,they converged at critical junctures. Randolph and Garvey, for instance, offeredsimilar arguments, although the Garveyites generally failed to acknowledgeJapan's imperialist aims and activities in the international community. OtherNew Negro activist-intellectuals, including Owen, Harrison, Briggs, and RazafKeriefs, recognized Japan's imperial ascent and expansion, but still used thesymbolic significance of Japan's race-conscious defiance against whitesupremacy to bring the scope and methods of struggles for black selfdetermination at local and global levels into sharper focus. Race functioned asthemainspring of unpredictable creativity thatmade the space of black resistanceproductive for a new politics. Although these New Negro activist-intellectuals'commentary on Japan was not central to the formation of the onto logicalcategoryof theNew Negro during thisperiod between 1917 and 1922, thespectacle of Japan's struggle with global white supremacy proved to be useful asa reference point to convey the visions and tactics of black radicalism.

NOTESStephen R. Fox, The Guardian ofBoston: William Monroe Trotter (New York, 1970), 217.2ErnestAllen, Jr., "The New Negro: Explorations in Identity and Social Consciousness, 1910-1922," in 1915,The Cultural Moment: The New Politics, theNew Women, theNew Psychology, theNew Art & theNew TheatreinAmerica, ed. Adele Heller and Lois Rudnick (New Brunswick, NJ, 1991), 48-68. Also, see Barbara Foley,Spectres of 1919: Class and Nation in theMaking of theNew Negro (Urbana, IL, 2003), 1-69; V. P. Franklin,Living Our Stories, Telling Our Truths: Autobiography and theMaking of theAfrican-American IntellectualTradition (New York, 1995), 122-25, 147-58.3Cedric J.Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition, foreword by Robin D. G.Kelley, with a new preface by the author (Chapel Hill, NC, 2000), xxxi-xxxii; on the formation of racialcapitalism, see 9-28.4Ibid., 169.5V. P. Franklin, Black Self-Determination: A Cultural History ofAfrican-American Resistance (Brooklyn, NY,1992), 6.6Minkah Makalani offers an analysis of Cyril V. Briggs's Pan-Africanism to examine African Americanintellectuals' trans-Pacific solidarity with Japan. Minkah Makalani, "For the Liberation of Black PeopleEverywhere: The African Blood Brotherhood, Black Radicalism, and Pan-African Liberation in theNew NegroMovement, 1917-1936," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 2004, 75-82. Also,Robin D. G. Kelley's most recent work has sharpened my overall analysis of the political imagination of whatKelley calls "renegade black intellectuals/activists/artists." Robin D. G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: The BlackRadical Imagination (Boston, MA, 2002), 6.7Nikhil Pal Singh, Black Is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy (Cambridge, MA,2004), 44.8For recent scholarship that explores the nexus of Japan and the Black radical tradition, see Reginald Kearney,African American Views of theJapanese: Solidarity or Sedition? (Albany, NY, 1998); "Afro-American Viewsof the Japanese, 1900-1945," Ph.D. diss., Kent State University, 1991; and "The Pro-Japanese Utterances ofW. E. B. Du Bois," Contributions inBlack Studies 13/14 (1999): 201-217; Ernest Allen, Jr., "When Japan was'Champion of theDarker Races': Satokata Takahashi and the Flowering of Black Messianic Nationalism," TheBlack Scholar 24 (Winter 1994): 23-46; and "Waiting for Tojo: The Pro-Japan Vigil of Black Missourians,1932-1943," Gateway Heritage 15 (Fall 1995): 38-55; Gerald Home, "Tokyo Bound: African Americans andJapan Confront White Supremacy," Souls 3 (Summer 2001): 16-28; and Race War : White Supremacy and theJapanese Attack on theBritish Empire (New York, 2004), especially chapter 2; David Levering Lewis, W. E. B.Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963 (New York, 2000), chapter 11; Yukiko


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How AfricanAmericans Forged Cross-Racial SolidaritywithJapan, 1917-1922 211Koshiro, "Beyond an Alliance of Color: The African American Impact onModern Japan," positions 11 (Spring2003): 183-215; Hiromi Furukawa and Tetsushi Furukawa, Nihonjin to AJurikakei Amerikajin:Nichibeikankeishi niokeru sono Shoso [Japanese and African Americans: Historical Aspects of Their Relations](Tokyo, 2004); Yuichiro Onishi, "Giant Steps of the Black Freedom Struggle: Trans-Pacific ConnectionsBetween Black America and Japan in the Twentieth Century," Ph.D. diss., University ofMinnesota, 2004. Also,for the theoretical and analytical discussion of the dynamics of Afro-Asian unities, see Vijay Prashad,

Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and theMyth of Cultural Purity (Boston, MA,2001); George Lipsitz, "Frantic to Join... the Japanese Army," in The Politics of Culture in the Shadow ofCapital, ed. Lisa Lowe and David Lloyd (Durham, NC, 1997), 324-53; Penny M. Von Eschen, Race AgainstEmpire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937-1957 (Ithaca, NY, 1997); Sudarshan Kapur, Raising Up aProphet: The African American Encounter with Gandhi (Boston, MA, 1992); Robin D. G. Kelley and BetsyEsch, "Black Like Mao: Red China and Black Revolution," Souls 1 (Fall 1999): 6-41; Brent Hayes Edward,"The Shadow of Shadows," positions 11 (Spring 2003): 11-49; Bill V. Mullen, Afro-Orientalism (Minneapolis,MN, 2004).9Robinson, Black Marxism, 309.l0Forthe analysis ofNew Negro radicalism, especially its relationship with revolutionaryMarxism, seeWinstonJames,Holding Aloft theBanner ofEthiopia: Caribbean Radicalism inEarly Twentieth-Century America (NewYork, 1998); Michelle Stephens, "Black Transnationalism and the Politics of National Identity:West IndianIntellectuals inHarlem in theAge of War and Revolution," American Quarterly 50 (September 1998): 592608; Michelle Stephens, Black Empire: The Masculine Global Imaginary of Caribbean Intellectuals in theUnited States, 1914-1962 (Durham, NC, 2005); William J.Maxwell, New Negro, Old Left: African-American

Writing and Communism Between Wars (New York, 1999); Foley, Spectres of 1919.nMargaret Macmillan, Paris 1919: SixMonths That Changed theWorld'(New York, 2001), 312-16.12Naoko Shimazu, Japan, Race and Equality: The Racial Equality Proposal of 1919 (London, 1998), 17;MarcGallicchio, The African American Encounter with Japan and China: Black Internationalism inAsia, 1895-1945(Chapel Hill, NC, 2000), 21-24.13Shimazu,Japan, Race and Equality, 20.14Ibid.,20-21, 23-28; Walter LaFeber, The Clash: A History of US-Japan Relations (New York, 1997), 12224; Gallicchio, The African American Encounter with Japan and China, 24.15Shimazu,Japan, Race and Equality, 30; Gallicchio, The African American Encounter with Japan and China,24.l6Shimazu,Japan, Race and Equality, 30.17"TheNegro?A Menace toRadicalism," TheMessenger, May-June 1919, 20.18Jonathan . Spence, The Gate ofHeavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution, 1895-1980 (New York,1981), 154-59.19David Levering Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: The Biography of Race, 1868-1919 (New York, 1993), 567-69,576-78; Clarence G. Cont?e, "Du Bois, theNAACP, and thePan-African Congress of 1919" Journal ofNegroHistory 57 (January 1972): 13-28; Manning Marable, "The Pan-Africanism of W. E. B. Du Bois," inW. E. B.Du Bois on Race and Culture: Philosophy, Politics, and Poetics, ed. Bernard W. Bell, Emily Grosholz, and

James B. Stewart (New York, 1996), 199-202; W. E. B. Du Bois, "Negro inParis," inWritings byW. E. B. DuBois inPeriodicals Edited byOthers, ed. Herbert Aptheker (Millwood, NY, 1982), 127-29; W. E. B. Du Bois,The World and Africa: An Inquiry into thePart Which Africa Has Played inWorld History (1946; enlargededition New York, 1996), 6-13.20Marable, "The Pan-Africanism ofW. E. B. Du Bois," 201.21The clash between capitalist and anticapital ist ideological perspectives among members of the AfricanAmerican intelligentsia ishighlighted inFranklin, Living Our Stories, Telling Our Truths, 165-83, passim.22HubertHarrison, "Africa at thePeace Table," inA Hubert Harrison Reader, ed. JeffreyB. Perry (Middletown,CT, 2001), 211-12.23"Peace Conference," The Messenger, March 1919, 5. Also, see Andrea Razafkeriefo, "Just Thinking," TheCrusader, January-February 1922, in The Crusader, vol. 6, ed. Robert A. Hill (New York, 1987), 1352.Razafkeriefo wrote: "The trouble with all Peace Conferences has been that they have always talked about"pieces" instead of Peace."24Jeffrey . Perry, "Introduction," inA Hubert Harrison Reader, 1-30; James, Holding Aloft theBanner of

Ethiopia, 122-34; Allen, "The New Negro," 54-60; Makalani, "For the Liberation of Black PeopleEverywhere," chapter 2.25"Negroes of theWorld Unite inDemanding a Free Africa," The Crusader, December 1918, inThe Crusader,vol. 1,ed. Robert A. Hill (New York, 1987), 113.


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212 The Journal ofAfricanAmericanHistory26Marcus Garvey, "Race Discrimination Must Go," Negro World, 30 November 1918, inThe Marcus Garveyand Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, vol. 1, ed. Robert A. Hill (Berkeley, CA, 1983), 305;Paul Gordon Lauren, Power and Prejudice: The Politics and Diplomacy of Racial Discrimination (Boulder,CO, 1998), 79.27"Maj. W. H. Loving to theDirector, Military Intelligence Division," in The Marcus Garvey and UniversalNegro Improvement Association Papers, 1, 338.28Marcus Garvey, "Advice of theNegro to Peace Conference," in The Marcus Garvey and Universal NegroImprovement Association Papers, vol. 1, 302-04; "Bureau of Investigation Reports," inThe Marcus Garveyand Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, vol. 1, 288; "Announcement in theNew York Call," inThe Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, 1,284; Allen, "The New Negro,"54; A'Lelia Bundles, On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times ofMadam C J. Walker (New York, 2002),254-56.29Bundles, On Her Own Ground, 253-54.30"Bureau of Investigation Reports," in The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement AssociationPapers, vol. 1, 305-06; Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and theAmerican Century, 59; Fox,The Guardian ofBoston, 223-24.31For an overview of the International League ofDarker Peoples, see Bundles, On Her Own Ground, 257-65.32"Maj. W. H. Loving to theDirector, Military Intelligence Division," in The Marcus Garvey and UniversalNegro Improvement Association Papers, vol. 1, 344-46.""Internationalism," TheMessenger, August 1919, 5-6. Also, see "Peace Terms," TheMessenger, March 1919,11.34"Bureau of Investigation Reports," in The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association

Papers, vol. 1, 305-06.35Garvey, "Race Discrimination Must Go," in ibid., 305.36Ibid., 304; also, see "Bureau of Investigation Reports," in ibid., 309-10.37Kearney,African American Views of theJapanese, 59; Home, Race War , 46-47.38Kearney,African American Views of theJapanese, 59.39Bundles, On Her Own Ground, 255, 258.êw York State Legislature, Revolutionary Radicalism: A Report of theJoint Legislative Committee ofNewYork Investigating Seditious Activities, vol. 2 (Albany, NY, 1920), 1517.41Hubert Harrison, "Two Negro Radicalisms," inAHubert Harrison Reader, 103.42"Peace Conference," TheMessenger, March 1919, 5.43Amy Kaplan, The Anarchy of Empire in theMaking ofAmerican Culture (Cambridge, MA, 2002), 196. Forthe analysis of how W. E. B. Du Bois developed the discourse of anticolonialism in arkwater, see 190-97.Ôn the definition of cartography, see ibid., 180-81.45"Peace Conference," The Messenger, March 1919, 5.

^Kaplan, The Anarchy ofEmpire, 180.4?"Japan and the Race Issue," TheMessenger, May-June 1919,6.48HubertHarrison, "Africa at thePeace Table," inAHubert Harrison Reader, 211.49LaFeber, The Clash, 128-43.Îbid.; Ikuhiko Hata, "Continental Expansion, 1905-1941," tran.Alvin D. Cox, inThe Cambridge History ofJapan, Volume 6, ed. Peter Duus (New York, 1988), 283. Akira Iriye,After Imperialism: The Search for a NewOrder in theFar East, 1921-1931 (Cambridge, MA, 1965), 13-21.51Andrea Razafkeriefo, "The Reason," The Crusader, January-February 1922, inThe Crusader, 6, 1358.52"TheDisarmament Conference," TheMessenger, December 1921,298.53Ibid.^"Labor and Disarmament," The Messenger, February 1922,352.55AndreaRazafkeriefo, "Disarmament," The Crusader, January-February 1922, in The Crusader, vol. 6, 1358.^Lawrence W. Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thoughtfrom Slavery toFreedom (New York, 1977), 195-96.57Ibid., 320.58ChandlerOwen, "Disarmament," TheMessenger, November 1921, 279-80.59Philip S. Foner, American Socialism and Black Americans: From theAge of Jackson toWorld War II,(Westport, CT, 1977), 309-11.^Gerald Home, Black and Brown: African Americans and theMexican Revolution, 1910-1920 (New York,2005), 175. See, especially, chapter 8, for the analysis of how both the "Zimmerman Telegram" and "The Planof San Diego" helped to strike amajor blow to the stronghold ofwhite supremacy at home.


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How AfricanAmericans Forged Cross-Racial SolidaritywithJapan, 1917-1922 21361"The Gathering War Clouds," The Crusader, December 1920, in The Crusader, vol. 3, ed. Robert A. Hill(New York, 1987), 942.62Ibid.63Kelley, Freedom Dreams, 25-59; Joy James, Transcending theTalented Tenth: Black Leaders and AmericanIntellectuals (New York, 1997).^On Grace Campbell, see James,Holding Aloft theBanner ofEthiopia, 114-11; Makalani, "For the Liberationof Black People Everywhere," 120-30; on Ida B. Wells-Barnett, see James, Transcending the Talented Tenth,46-53,76-81.65UlaY. Taylor, "Intellectual Pan-African Feminists: Amy Ashwood-Garvey and Amy Jaques-Garvey," inTimeLonger Than Rope: A Century of African American Activism, 1850-1950, ed. Charles M. Payne and AdamGreen (New York, 2003); Ula Y. Taylor, "'Negro Women Are Great Thinkers As Well As Doers': AmyJacques-Garvey and Community Feminism in the United States, 1924-1927," Journal ofWomen's History 12(Summer 2000): 104-26; Ula Y. Taylor, The Veiled Garvey: The Life and Times of Amy Jacques-Garvey(Chapel Hill, NC, 2002).^Michelle Rief, "Thinking Locally, Acting Globally: The International Agenda of African AmericanClubwomen, 1880-1940," The Journal ofAfrican American History 89 (Summer 2004): 203-22.67Ibid., 215-16.68JaneKuenz, "The Face of America: Performing Race and Nation in Jessie Fauset's There isConfusion," TheYale Journal of Criticism 12 (Spring 1999): 89-111; see also, Deborah E. McDowell, "The NeglectedDimension of Jessie Redmon Fauset," Afro-Americans inNew York Life and History 5 (July 1981): 33-49.69Kelley,Freedom Dreams, 27.70JessieFauset, "Letter to theEditor," Survey, 8August 1917, 448.71W.E. B. Du Bois, "The Souls ofWhite Folk" (1920) inBlack on White: Black Writers on What ItMeans to beWhite, ed. David R. Roediger (New York, 1998), 186.72Kuenz, "The Face ofAmerica," 100.73Makalani, "For the Liberation of Black People Everywhere," 121-23; Kevin K. Gaines, Uplifting the Race:

Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill, NC, 1996), 243-45.

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The New Negro of the Pacific: How African Americans Forged Cross-racial Solidarity With Japan, 1917-1922 • by Yuichiro Onishi