|
|
|
Book Review
Canada and the United States
Thomas Borstelmann. The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2001. Pp. xi, 369. $35.00.
|
Thomas Borstelmann ably charts how U.S. leaders in the decades after World War II responded to rising pressures for racial justice both at home and abroad. The contours of Borstelmann's argument are familiar: "The African and African American freedom movements encouraged and reinforced each other . . . The unfolding of national self-determination across Asia and Africa . . . nourished the struggle for equality in America" (p. 2). Still, Borstelmann's skillful synthesis, vivid vignettes, and clear, often clever prose all give his story a fresh appeal. |
1 |
|
Both black activists and American officials understood the rising stakes for the nation in adapting to a world whose once firm racial hierarchies were buckling. In 1947 W. E. B. Du Bois wrote a tract for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), An Appeal to the World, that warned, "It is not Russia that threatens the United States so much as Mississippi; not Stalin and Molotov but [racist senators Theodore] Bilbo and [John] Rankin" (p. 77). Five years later, the U.S. Justice Department conceded as much in a brief for school desegregation filed in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education (1954) case: "It is in the context of the present world struggle between freedom and tyranny that the problem of racial discrimination must be viewed" (p. 93). |
. . . |
There are about 571 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|