“The Civil Rights Movement & American Policy Towards Decolonization” Presented to the 3 Annual Wepner Symposium On the Lincoln Legacy and Contemporary Scholarship Dr. Stephen J. Schwark, Professor of Political Science and Co-­‐Director of Global Studies, UIS rd
By Orlando Patterson tells us that freedom first emerged as a value in the slave societies of ancient Greece. Slavery—
in Patterson’s words—“social death”—inspired the veneration of its opposite. Even more ironically, Patterson’s research suggests that one of the meanings of freedom that emerges in these societies included the power to possess others—ion other words, to become a slaveholder. (Orlando Patterson, Freedom, Volume 1, Introduction and Chapters 3 and 4) As we meet at this conference to discuss the continuing significance of Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation th
Proclamation, I am struck by the contrast between “emancipation” and “liberation”. In the 20 century we have seen a variety of “liberation” movements, fronts and organizations. Emancipation is different—it involves a decision by a power holder to surrender their control. In the cases we are looking at, the focus is not on freeing slaves, but on the decision of imperial powers to give independence to their colonies. In fact, in this paper I want to consider the interaction of three historic developments in the first two decades after World War II: (1) the Cold War (2) the decolonization process (3) the civil rights movement in the United States. While the two international factors have often been discussed, it is the connection between the domestic politics of race and these foreign policy issues that I want to particularly focus on. My colleague, Dr. Matthew Holden, is particularly interested in how contemporary political science—in my case, the study of foreign policy and international relations—can shed light on the issues raised by emancipation. In the pages below, I will use a number of concepts from these subfields of the discipline that help explain the impact of the US civil rights movement on American policies toward the imperial powers and the newly-­‐independent states. The first of these concepts is what Bhagat Korany calls “intermestic politics”: the rise of issues and groups that manage to erase the divide between what is “domestic” and what is “foreign” or “international” (Bhagat Korany in nd
Louise Fawcett, ed., The International Politics of the Middle East, Oxford University Press, 2 Ed, 2009) . A second concept is the theoretical approach of “constructivism”, which argues that the foreign policy of states is less the result of external constraints and opportunities, and the more the result of the ideas policymakers carry around in their heads. A third concept, developed by Joseph Nye, is what he calls “soft power”: the idea that an often overlooked power of states is their ability to influence other states “to like what they like”—the power of cultural and ideological attraction. ( Joseph Nye, Soft Power, 2004) Fourth, another Nye concept that we will employ is that of “transnational actors”—like “intermestic politics”, transnational actors cross borders and connect societies without going through governments. Finally, drawing on the work of Robert Putnam and others, we will employ the concept of policymakers caught in a “two level game”, simultaneously trying to deal with both domestic and international challenges, trying to make linkages where they can use them to their advantage, or to separate the games when they present problems. (Robert Putnam, etal,) We are interested in explaining the “how” and the “why” of decolonization—that process which from 1945-­‐65 ended up more than doubling the number of independent states. The traditional “Realist” interpretation of international politics emphasizes the role of power (especially military power) in explaining such major developments as this. Here the argument is that the world wars—and especially World War II—so weakened the imperial powers that they made the decolonization process almost inevitable. Some Realist scholars might also mention that the two new superpowers that emerged after the war—the US and the Soviet Union—were in principle at least opposed to colonialism, and these states, in fighting the Cold War, pressured the colonial powers to release their dependencies. Finally, some might even mention the growing power of non-­‐European states: Japan’s early victories in World War II against British, French, Dutch and American forces reverberated around the developing world. In the postwar world, Vietnam and Algeria demonstrated their ability to make colonialism so costly that the French were compelled to let them go. While there is obviously some merit to this Realist explanation, there are also many problems with it. One is simply that the weakest of the imperial powers—Portugal—held onto its colonies the longest. The strongest—the British especially—in fact conceded independence more rapidly. The speed of the decolonization process—in particular, the way in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s empires that had existed for centuries simply disappeared, often without much resistance having been offered by the indigenous peoples. Secondly, the role of the superpowers in the Cold War was not always a force in favor of decolonization. While I will be discussing the impact of the civil rights movement on American foreign policy towards both colonial powers and the new states, in fact the Cold War cut both ways on American policy. While the US certainly sought to win the support of new states like India and Pakistan, the imperial powers were in fact our oldest and closest allies. As we shall see in the brief look at the American role in the emancipation of Indonesia, American pressure on the Netherlands came very late in the day. (Robert McMahon, Colonialism and Cold War, Cornell University Press, 1981) Finally, while the growth of Third World nationalism reflects both power and ideas, as noted above, the rapid independence of African states in 1960 and afterward came to a number of states that had hardly fought for it. Robert Jackson and Daniel Philpott offer an alternative explanation to Realism, one based on the constructivist theory that emphasizes the role of ideas. As Jackson notes, in the 19th century colonialism was taken for granted—it was based not only on power but also legitimacy. (Jackson, “the Weight of Ideas in Decolonization: Normative Change in International Relations” in Goldstein & Keohane, Ideas and Foreign Policy, Cornell University Press, 1993, pp.114-­‐5) In order for states to be accepted as a part of the community of nations they had to demonstrate to the leading (western) powers that they were in fact “civilized” (capable of governing themselves). Non-­‐western states like the Ottoman Empire and Japan had passed muster and were recognized as sovereign. But in other areas, colonialism, was seen as an agent of civilization. This international norm began to change during World War I and its aftermath, with the rise of “national self-­‐determination” as a competing principle for international legitimacy. With the creation of the League of Nations, the victorious powers created a “mandate” system that was to be applied to the dependencies of the defeated powers. The mandates were ranked according to their level of development, and the theory (although not necessarily the reality) was that the mandatory powers were to rule these dependencies with the interests of the native people in mind. After World War II the United Nations included a Trusteeship Council which once again applied only to the colonies of the defeated powers, but which gave native peoples more rights, and required the trustee powers to prepare these dependencies for self-­‐government, if not independence. While the UN’s trusteeship system did not apply to British or French colonies, the independence of India, Pakistan and Burma soon after World War II gave them access to a forum (the UN General Assembly) where they could press for the rapid decolonization of these colonies. The initial step in this process came in 1960, when UN General Assembly Resolution 1514 “Granting Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples” was passed which (according to Jackson) created a “categorical entitlement to become independent states” (Jackson, pp. 115, 124) From this new perspective, a lack of preparation for self-­‐government was not be used as an excuse to delay the freeing of colonies. By 1970, colonialism had moved from a norm to a crime. (Jackson, p. 125) Daniel Philpott makes a similar argument related to British decolonization policy. Most strikingly, he argues that the British government (including the Labor Party) came out of World War II determined to use their empire to assist in colonial development. (Philpott, Chapters 8-­‐9) Philpott refers to the “reputational social process of ideas” as being critical in the British case. The British had based their justification for empire on the ideal that they were preparing their colonies for self-­‐government. When it became apparent that holding on to the empire might require the sustained use of force, this was a blow to their reputation that British policymakers were not prepared to accept. While they had hoped for a gradual process of decolonization, by the late 1950’s the Conservative British government of Harold McMillan abandoned that policy for a rapid transfer of power. So the focus on ideas as an explanation for the timing of decolonization rests in part on the replacement of the earlier norm of “civilization” by the new norm of “self-­‐determination” as a requirement for independence. Jackson and Philpott also stress the importance of the rise of Third World nationalism—
another idea—as well as the support for these developments in a portion of the British Labor Party. (The classic study of the rise of nationalism in the developing world is Rupert Emerson, From Empire to Nation, Beacon Press, 1960) But both authors also emphasize that another important idea was at work here—changing notions about racial equality, both within states and internationally. As Jackson notes, race had long stood for “political non-­‐competence” (Jackson, p. 135; for a similar view, Philpott, p.160) During World War II a British government official had joked that giving self government to colonial peoples was like giving a 10 year old “a latch key, a bank account, and a shot gun.” (Philpott, p. 177) Yet in fighting a war against Nazi ideology that had emphasized Aryan supremacy, the Allied powers in World War II found themselves emphasizing the high moral ground of “racial equality”. Though African-­‐
Americans fought in segregated units, they did fight and make a real contribution to the Allied victory. During the war on the home front, African-­‐American leaders pushed for greater equality as well. We will examine the post-­‐World War II civil rights movement later in this paper, but here we will note Jackson’s comment that “There is a definite parallel between the extension of domestic citizenship across racial lines in Western countries and the extension of membership in the society of states to non-­‐Western countries or peoples.” (Jackson, p. 136) As Philpott concludes, without these evolving ideas , decolonization would have taken far longer than it did. (Philpott, p. 72) Before we begin to look more closely at the relationship between civil rights at home and decolonization, we will look briefly at British and American attitudes toward empire at the end of World War II, and at American policy towards Indonesian independence in the early days of the Cold War. Both of these issues cast further doubt on the Realist explanation for decolonization. William Roger Louis is of the pre-­‐eminent historians of the British Empire. His study, Imperialism at Bay, focuses on the way in which the events of World War II affected that empire, with special attention paid to the relations between the United States and the United Kingdom. While Louis makes clear that President Roosevelt was opposed to empire in general, he makes the interesting analogy between the way FDR treated Churchill about British control of India with the way he dealt with Democratic politicians in the South and the rights of African-­‐Americans—with words rather than deeds. (Louis, p. 9) In fact as already noted in Jackson and Philpott, Louis argues that the war revived the “British imperial mission” (p. 15) and that it brought about the “moral regeneration of British purpose in the colonial world” (p. 105). From these comments it is clear that as the war ended Great Britain was determined to hold onto to its Empire. While the US State Department was interested in creating a UN agency to deal with dependencies, the US military (especially the Navy) was determined to control bases in the Pacific that had been controlled by the Japanese as League of Nations mandates, and that they had used effectively in the war. While we shall argue that the UN did indeed come to play a critical role in the decolonization process, it was not because of the power of the Trusteeship Council, which had authority only over a few territories. But, as Louis tellingly concludes, by the end of World War II American policy had moved a great deal towards supporting the colonial powers and the more modest goal of “self-­‐government”, rather than as colonial nationalists wanted, independence (a goal that was backed by the Soviet Union) (Louis, pp. 532-­‐535) Robert McMahon’s Colonialism and Cold War: The US and the Struggle for Indonesian Independence, 1945-­‐49 (Cornell, 1981), offers an excellent example of the way in which the forces of the Cold War and decolonization pushed and pulled American foreign policy in opposite directions. Shortly after World War II the Indonesian nationalist leader Sukarno complained to the British general who handled the surrender of Japanese forces in Indonesia, “Is liberty and freedom only for certain favored peoples of the world? Indonesians will never understand why it is, for instance, wrong for the Germans to rule Holland if it is right for the Dutch to rule Indonesia. In either case the right to rule rests on pure force and no on the sanction of the populations.” (McMahon, p. 95) But when the Dutch government insisted on the return of colonial control after the war, the US seemed to feel that the value of the Netherlands in Europe (and helping to oppose the Soviet Union there) outweighed either the principle of self-­‐
determination or a concern for the opinion of the newly-­‐independent states like India (which raised the issue of Dutch imperialism in the UN). American policy certainly worked to encourage a compromise diplomatic settlement, but the US continued to provide the Netherlands with Marshall Plan aid even after the Dutch began to use force against the nationalists in 1948. Only reluctantly, when it became clear that nothing else would do did the Truman Administration use Marshall Plan aid as a “stick” to pressure the Dutch to grant Indonesia its freedom at the end of 1949. And this was despite clear evidence that the Indonesian national movement was not linked to communism or the Soviet Union (McMahon, Chapters 8-­‐9) In turning to the Cold War and civil rights, before we discuss its specific effects on American policy towards decolonization, it is important to note that the Cold War was a competition for power and ideas. The bipolar division of the world—alliances, spheres of influence, etc.—reflected the distribution of power. But the second element—the ideological contest between democratic capitalism and socialism—was important especially in the newly independent states, as well as in existing colonies. This aspect of the Cold War gave a special role to what we have earlier called “soft power”. The attractiveness of one’s society and values, its ability to handle the problems of modern life effectively, was apparent to Realist diplomats like George F. Kennan, who ended his famous essay on “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” with a ringing peroration about how the Cold War represented a challenge to America to be an example to others. One can only imagine, that in a world overwhelmingly populated by people of color, that race relations in the US would be either a significant asset or detriment in its attempts to use “soft power” ion the Cold War. Having finally arrived at the heart of our topic, the next section of the essay will focus on the interplay between the American civil rights movement and American foreign policy towards the developing world between 1945 and 1963. Covering this period focuses on the presidential administrations of Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy. It has the benefit of covering the time period during which the civil rights movement became increasingly important on the American political agenda, as well as the epoch-­‐setting UN Resolution on decolonization that occurred in 1960. For those who like historical symmetry, our essay concludes roughly with the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation. The main sources for our analysis are the works of three historians: Mary Dudziak, Thomas Borstelman, and Penny von Eschen. Dudziak’s Cold War Civil Rights and Borstelman’s The Cold War and the Color Line (as well as his earlier study of Truman’s foreign policy towards South Africa,Apartheid’s Reluctant Uncle) are fascinating and innovative studies of what we have earlier called “intermestic politics”—in this case using race as the issue that erases the boundaries between domestic and foreign policies. In Dudziak’s case, while the international focus is the Cold War competition with the Soviet Union, Borstelman’s analysis pays much more attention to American policy in the Third World (although, again,, in the light of the Cold War). Von Eschen, on the contrary, in her study Race Against Empire, looks at the rise of a “pan-­‐African” movement that included black intellectuals in the US, Great Britain, the Caribbean, and Africa, in support of winning greater freedom for blacks in western societies as well as freeing colonies in Africa. What is distinctive about von Eschen’s work is its transnational approach, looking at the movement of private individuals that crossed international borders, trying to influence both governments and international organizations. As von Eschen notes, during World War II leading African-­‐American intellectuals and organizations like the Council on African Affairs (CAA) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) emphasized the connection between racism, colonialism and slavery, and arguing that freedom for African colonies could work to improve the domestic condition of black Americans (von Eschen, pp. 3-­‐5)As Walter White, then head of the NAACP observed, black Americans felt a “kinship with other colored—and also oppressed—peoples in the world. “ (von Eschen, p. 7) Paul Robeson argued that “our fight for Negro rights here is linked inseparably with the liberation movements of the peoples of the Caribbean, Africa and the colonial world in general.” (von Eschen, p. 20) The Truman Administration, like the Roosevelt administration before it, faced a domestic dilemma similar to its international one: choosing to support the rights of greater equality for blacks against segregationist Southern Democrats, just as internationally they faced the dilemma of supporting decolonization and the new states as against the imperial powers who were their Cold War allies. (Borstelman, Chap. 2 this and other comparisons the organizing theme of his book). This analysis is similar to work by political scientists on the idea of the intersection of domestic politics and foreign policy as a “two-­‐level game”, which analyzes how policymakers try to act strategically in both domestic and international politics simultaneously. It is not always clear that American policymakers saw these games of “racial politics” as linked, but there is at least some evidence that occasionally they did. Each president—Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy—resolved these dilemmas differently, reflecting their different domestic needs (the importance of the black vote in contrast to support by white southern Democrats) and assessment of foreign policy threats (the importance of wooing newly independent states like India versus Cold War concerns that required supporting Cold War allies like Great Britain and France. Another factor, certainly, was how long colonial control might last, as well as the nature of the nationalist opposition—was it likely to be more friendly to the US or the Soviet union?) According to Dudziak and Borstelman, Truman, based largely on domestic electoral considerations, recognized the potential critical role of the black vote in his attempt at holding on to the presidency in 1948. In part because of this, Truman made permanent the wartime Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC), and used an executive order to de-­‐segregate the military in 1948. Truman was nominated for the presidency in 1948 behind a Democratic platform that was far more liberal on civil rights than any in the past, even though it led to a walk-­‐out by Strom Thurmond and other “Dixiecrats” who ran their own candidate for president in November. (Dudziak, pp, 24-­‐6; Borstelman, Chapter 2) And Truman was rewarded for these efforts by receiving 70% of the black vote in the election. (von Eschen, p. 113) But Truman was forced to deal with the external effects that continuing discrimination against American blacks had on the US image in world politics. The Soviet Union was only too eager to seize upon examples like the lynching of returning black veterans, but the racism faced by African and Caribbean diplomats travelling to the UN or to Washington, DC,. Was equally damaging. Perhaps most embarrassing to the Administration, the National Negro Congress and the NAACP petitioned the New UN Human Rights Commission in protest against American segregationist policies. In the words of one black activist, the US was guilty of nothing less than genocide. (Dudziak, pp. 20, 27, 43, 65; von Eschen, p. 116) The Truman Administration responded to these international attacks on treatment of its black citizens by trying to emphasize to foreign audiences the progress that was being made to deal with these problems. The State Department and the US Information Agency issued reports like “To Secure These Rights” in 1947 and “The Negro in American Life” in 1950 which followed the same approach: they admitted the troubled past of race relations in the US, but stressed that blacks were making strides in access to better education, a better standard of living, etc. The State Department sent black delegations overseas that were prepared to testify to foreign audiences about their support for America, while denying passports to black critics like Paul Robeson, Pauline Baker, and others. (Dudziak, pp. 62, 68) Von Eschen makes the critical argument that many blacks responded to the Cold War by rallying around the Truman Administration’s foreign policies, rather than continuing the World War II focus on pan-­‐
Africanism and opposition to imperialism. In particular, she argues that Walter White, then head of the NAACP, made a “strategic” deal with the Truman Administration, agreeing not to criticize the President’s foreign policy in exchange Truman’s willingness to support a domestic civil rights agenda. (von Eschen, pp. 97, 109) This, in turn, led to a split in the African-­‐American community between those who focused on decolonization and criticized American continuing support for Britain and France, and those who took (as von Eschen says) a more “nationalist” position. White agreed to join Truman’s “President’s Committee on Civil Rights”, as well as to participate in a State Department “Town Hall America Around the World” tour in 1949. (von Eschen, p. 112) In contrast, W.E.B Du Bois was indicted in 1951 as an “unregistered foreign agent”. (von Eschen, p. 137) The most significant achievement in civil rights of the later years of the Truman Administration was in the judicial realm rather than by legislation. The Administration acted as a “friend of the court” in a number of cases challenging the segregation of public schools in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. These cases ultimately bore fruit during the Eisenhower Administration in the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education case in 1954. Of particular relevance to our argument is the supporting letter by Secretary of State Dean Acheson, who argued that racially discriminatory policies were a “constant embarrassment” and that discrimination against blacks “jeopardizes… our moral leadership” (Dudziak, pp. 90, 101) It is not surprising that almost immediately after the Court announced its decision in Brown, the Voice of America gave it wide publicity, and that one US diplomat in Africa called it the “greatest event since the Emancipation Proclamation”. (Dudziak, p. 109) Yet Eisenhower himself was not a proponent of the decision. (Dudziak, p. 130; Borstelman, Chapter 3) Three years later, in Little Rock, Arkansas, Eisenhower found himself compelled to send in federal troops to enforce a court-­‐ordered desegregation of Lille Rock High School against the attempts of Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus to prevent it. The Soviet Union attacked the US for hypocritically expressing concern about the fate of Hungarian freedom fighters the previous year, while the Arkansas National Guard was denying access to high school of a handful of young black Americans. (Dudziak, pp. 119, 123) As Dudziak notes, the segregationist Governor of Georgia Eugene Talmadge compared Eisenhower’s decision to send in federal troops to Soviet Premier Khrushchev’s decision to invade Hungary. (p. 136) Yet internationally, Eisenhower’s action won widespread support. Borstelman, the historian who constantly makes the analogies between racial politics at home and abroad, believes that unlike Truman, Eisenhower was more concerned about winning black support abroad (in the new Third World states) than at home. (As a popular Republican war hero he had less need for either black votes or Southern Democrats than either Truman or Kennedy, he was nevertheless more successful at winning white southern votes than any Republican candidate for many years.) Yet Eisenhower and his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles were hostile to the rise of Third World neutralism, as reflected by the absence of official US representatives at the Bandung Conference held in Sukarno’s Indonesia in 1955. (US Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. went of his own accord; von Eschen, pp. 167, 170) Nevertheless, in 1956 Eisenhower found himself acting internationally in a way analogous to the Little Rock situation a year later: he threatened to use force against his allies Britain, France and Israel, when they unilaterally launched an attack on the Third World Egyptian nationalist Nasser, who had nationalized the Suez Canal. Eisenhower did not feel that he could afford to have the US so blatantly associated with such an imperialist activity, that would be disastrous in terms of the West’s standing with newly independent countries. Domestically, the popular Eisenhower faced few pressures to win black support, but Congress did manage to pass two modest civil rights reforms in 1957 and 1960. But internationally, a more activist Soviet and Chinese wooing of Third World countries increased the dangers internationally. At the same time, as von Eschen notes, by the mid-­‐1950’s Robeson’s Council on African Affairs (devoted to support African decolonization ) had ended, and was supplanted in influence by a more conservative black organization, the American Council on Africa. Black Americans had increasingly turned inward, focusing on civil rights at home, in contrast to seeing freedom at home linked to freedom for African colonies. (von Eschen, pp. 143; 167, 170) As we have noted several times, 1960 is a kind of watershed moment in the history of decolonization. Ghana had become independent in 1957, but with the passage of the UN General Assembly Resolution condemning colonialism, the dam burst. In 1960 alone, 17 countries became independent (Dudziak, p. 153); within the next 6 years, almost 50 more countries became sovereign states. (Philpott, p. 155) To put this number in perspective, more countries joined the UN at this time (66), than had createdthe UN at San Francisco in 1945 (51). 1960 was also the year that saw the election of Democrat John F. Kennedy as President. As a Congressman Kennedy had travelled to Vietnam and witnessed the failure of French efforts to control the colony militarily. In his most notable speech in the Senate he had denounced French colonialism in Algeria, taking criticism from even fellow Democrats for attacking our Cold War ally. Dudziak, like other scholars, suggests that Kennedy was playing the “two level game” even as a presidential candidate; fearful of losing traditionally Democratic southern states, he soft-­‐pedaled plans for civil rights actions, instead hoping to win black votes by stressing the importance of providing aid to the newly independent African states. (Dudziak, p. 155) Both Dudziak and Borstelman stress that Kennedy began his Administration with little commitment to civil rights. When “Freedom Riders” risked their lives to demonstrate their rights to integrated interstate travel in the South in the spring of 1961, the Kennedy Administration feared that the ensuing violence would “embarrass” the President as he sat down to negotiate with Khrushchev in Vienna in early June. (Borstelman, Chapter 4; Dudziak, p. 157) A year later when James Meredith attempted to be the first black student at Ole Miss, Kennedy was forced to send in US marshals when local authorities again resisted federal law. In this case two people were killed, including a French journalist. I had originally intended to have a section of my paper dealing with the Kennedy administration and the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, but in reading Alan Brinkley’s recent biography of Kennedy I discovered that the Administration almost ignored the event (“The president continued to be so worried about losing whit southern support that he avoided even the hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1963, which he acknowledged by a recorded message while he went sailing.”, John F. Kennedy, Times Books, 2012, p. 103) But Kennedy’s strategy of trying to keep the focus on foreign policy and the Cold War could not work, because the “two games” were interconnected. The issue of discrimination against African diplomats travelling on US highways between New York and Washington, DC was especially troubling. As Secretary of State Dean Rusk testified on this issue, we “depended on racial progress throughout Washington and indeed the entire country. We could not expect an African diplomat to gain privileges and services denied black Americans. Nor could we expect him to display his diplomatic passport every time he wanted to eat or get a haircut.” (Dudziak, p. 167) As Roger Wilkins, head of the NAACP noted, “the world-­‐wide move of colored peoples for emancipation and self-­‐determination had given momentum to the civil rights cause in our own country. “ (Dudziak,p. 157) The year 1963 finally forced Kennedy’s hand on civil rights. The continuing violence used by the Birmingham, Alabama police against attempts to de-­‐segregate businesses produced ugly scenes that brought both domestic and international outrage. In June of 1963 Alabama Governor George Wallace dramatically “stood in the schoolhouse door” to resist the integration of the University of Alabama, although the black students were registered after the political theatrics had been made. The preceding month, at the initial meeting of the Organization of African Unity the Ugandan leader Milton Obote had argued that “colonialism and race discrimination are one of the fundamental issues for the future of civilization”. (Dudziak,p. 172) Following the events in Alabama Kennedy finally demonstrated some leadership on civil rights and pronouncing the quest for equal rights for blacks “a moral issue”, and indicating his determination to submit an ambitious civil rights proposal to the Congress. The African response to this was remarkably positive—according to the US Ambassador to Ethiopia, the people there viewed Kennedy as the “Abraham Lincoln of the Democratic Party”. From the perspective of our paper, it is interesting to note that the first person to testify on behalf of the Kennedy civil rights bill was Secretary of State Dean Rusk. (Dudziak,p. 184) The Kennedy Administration thus started out emphasizing foreign policy and the Cold War, and saw Africa as important in that context. With the end of colonialism increasingly clear, the Administration championed the cause of the newly independent states with Peace Corps volunteers and foreign aid. As William Attwood, Kennedy’s Ambassador to Guinea noted in his memoir about the US need to separate themselves from European rule in Africa, “The heart of the matter was that the South Africans and Portuguese were not only morally wrong, but in the long run, on the losing side.” (Attwood, The Reds and the Blacks, Harper & Row, 1967, p. 55) Such policies reaped some victories, as when Guinea’s Sekou Toure denied Soviet planes re-­‐fueling rights during the Cuban missile crisis. (Dudziak, p,. 165) But by the end of his Administration, as we have seen, Kennedy had been forced to deal with civil rights domestically, even at the cost of splitting his party. The irony, as Borstelman notes, was that by 1963 Kennedy’s early fascination with Africa was waning, to be replaced by a growing concern with the threat of communism in southeast Asia. So what can we conclude about the relationship between the American civil rights movement and US foreign policy towards the decolonization process and the newly independent states? W. E.B. DuBois famously declared that the issue of the twentieth century would be the question of the “color line”. This essay bears that out in a number of respects: changing racial attitudes were a part of the series of “new ideas” that produced both the civil rights movement and decolonization. The understanding by black intellectuals that there was an important linkage between the growing freedom of blacks within states and the freedom of African colonies led to forces on both fronts to push on behalf of the other. In addition to the transnational movement of black activists, the nature of the Cold War particularly lent itself to the importance of “soft power”. American policymakers were increasingly concerned to cultivate the support of new Third World countries. That support was made more difficult by scenes of ugly racial violence and repression. On the other hand, progress on civil rights like the ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, or even Kennedy’s June 1963 speech could be effectively used abroad to convey that the US was dealing effectively with the challenges of a multi-­‐racial society. Added to this we have seen the special role of the United Nations in this process. We have seen the UN as a forum for newly independent countries like India to protest against western policies that supported imperialism in places like Indonesia. In addition, African-­‐American groups petitioned the UN Human Rights Commission, complaining against the discriminatory policies followed by their own government. Thirdly, we have seen the role of African diplomats to the UN who faced racism when they came to the US and travelled here, thus highlighting the discrimination faced by ordinary black Americans. Finally, we have noted the critical role of the UN in creating a new international norm denouncing colonialism. As a final point, the concept of the “two level game” helped to reveal the interconnections between the politics of race both at home and abroad. As we have seen, different American presidents played these games differently. But presidents were not the only ones to play—black activists and African diplomats ended up as players in these games as well. It seems to me that without the civil rights movement, American policy towards decolonization and the new states would have been slower to change. Certainly, decolonization was a contributing factor in the growing success of the US civil rights movement. Bibliography 1. Attwood, William, The Reds and the Blacks, Harper & Row, 1967 2. Borstelmann, Thomas, Apartheid’s Reluctant Uncle, Oxford University press, 1993 3. _________________, The Cold War and the Color Line, Harvard University Press, 2001. 4. Brinkley, Alan, John F. Kennedy, Times Publishers, 2012. 5. Bush, Roderick, The End of White World Supremacy, Temple University Press, 2009. 6. Dudziak, Mary, Cold War Civil Rights, Princeton University Press, 2000. 7. Emerson, Rupert, From Empire to Nation, Beacon Press, 1960. 8. Jackson, Robert, “The Weight of Ideas in Decolonization: Normative Changes in International Relations”, in Goldstein and Keohane, Ideas and Foreign Policy, Cornell University Press, 1993, pp. 111-­‐138. 9. Johnson, Sterling, Black Globalism, Ashgate Press, 1998. 10. Khorany, Bhagat, “Intermestic Politics and the Contemporary Middle East”, in Fawcett, The International Relations of the Middle East, 2nd Ed., Oxford University Press, 2009. 11. Louis, William Roger, Imperialism at Bay, Oxford University Press, 1978. 12. McMahon, Robert, Colonialism and the Cold War, Cornell University Press, 1981. 13. Patterson, Orlando, Freedom, Basic Books, 1991 14. Philpott, Daniel, Revolutions in Sovereignty, Princeton University Press, 2001 15. Von Eschen, Penny, Race Against Empire, Cornell University Press, 1997.