Internationalisms from Below: From World Wars to Cold Wars to Terror Wars

Session Submission Type: Non-Paper Session: Dialogue Format

Abstract

/ Over the last couple years, the momentum of Black, Indigenous, and undocumented and immigrant rights movements have forged intersectional and inter-national visions within and between diverse peoples and locales. Struggles against the carceral state, pipeline imperialism and immigrant repression have inspired renewed solidarities from among those facing colonialism or militarized repression across the 50 states and beyond. The momentum of Black and Native travels and ties to Palestine have driven the leading edge of ascendant U.S.-based solidarity with a freedom struggle on another continent. As during previous generations, contemporary movements are grappling with the possibilities of internationalism and the challenges of solidarity. A wide variety of actors refuse to cede the ground of geopolitics and globalism to governing parties and elites.

This roundtable brings together scholars who study bottom-up movements across the twentieth century, who are also concerned with parallel concerns here in the twenty-first century. We will discuss how non-elite initiatives with a center of gravity on Black, Native, racialized poor and working-class people faced the politics of war, empire, internationalism and solidarity. As World Wars, Cold Wars and Terror Wars defined geopolitical contexts, how did subaltern activists shape counterpoints and counterpolitics across the eras of 1917, 1946, 1968, 1979, 2011? Our presenters highlight pan-African and pan-indigenous initiatives, and those of military enlistees and conscripts—to interpret how dispossession and diaspora, deployment and delegation shaped diverse internationalisms from below.

Each panelist will speak to their own specific and historical research, toward a broader discussion with the audience about overlapping and contemporary questions. Ebony Coletu will talk about a little-known back-to-Africa movement during the 1912-1917 years, which would quietly inspire Marcus Garvey. Chief Alfred Sam, an Akyem merchant from Gold Coast, advertised land for African-Americans to cultivate and develop factories in West Africa. This Pan-Africanist counter-colony movement on the eve of WWI, was subject to the scrutiny of the Gold Coast Indigenous Rights Protection Society, while positioned against the aggressive efforts of British officials. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz will talk about the 1917 Green Corn Rebellion in Oklahoma, formerly ‘Indian Territory.’ A popular movement of Seminole-led, inter-ethnic internationalism rose up against First World War conscription—uniting Native, Black and Anglo tenant farmers against the elite-led war drive. Tejasvi Nagaraja will talk about U.S. Armed Forces GI activism around 1946—at the crossroads between World War and Cold War, antifascism and decolonization. Many soldiers protested their own deployments at the service of neo-colonialism, while some soldiers held a Pan-Africanist sensibility towards geopolitics. Nick Estes will talk about the convergent anticolonialisms of the U.S. indigenous movement and the Palestinian movement during the 1970s-1980s, as represented by the International Indian Treaty Council and the PLO. Looking beyond only United Nations efforts, he traces meaningful connections made ‘on the ground’ through delegations between Turtle Island and the Middle East. With Robert Vitalis and Christina Heatherton as chair and commentator, the roundtable panelists hope to spark a spirited discussion about the intersections of race and geopolitics, empire and solidarity, past and present. /

Sub Unit

• American Studies Association Annual Meeting

Chair

• Robert Vitalis, University of Pennsylvania

Panelists

• Ebony Coletu, Pennsylvania State University

• Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, California State University-East Bay

• Nick W Estes, The University of New Mexico

• Christina Heatherton, Barnard College

• Tejasvi Nagaraja, Harvard University