Framing a Radical African Atlantic: African American Agency, West African Intellectuals and the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 201
Author(s):  
Zumoff
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
International Trade ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
West African ◽  
Union Committee ◽  
African Intellectuals ◽  
African Atlantic

scholarly journals Framing Black Communist Labour Union Activism in the Atlantic World: James W. Ford and the Establishment of the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers, 1928–1931

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Weiss
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
International Trade ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Early Phase ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Black Atlantic ◽  
Black Workers ◽  
Labour Unions ◽  
Union Committee ◽  
Union Activism

AbstractThe International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers (ITUCNW) was a radical trans-Atlantic network for the propagation of black proletarian internationalism, established by the Red International of Labour Unions in 1928. Its key mastermind was James W. Ford, an African American communist labour union activist who was in charge of the organization and its operations until the autumn of 1931. This article critically highlights Ford's ambitions as well as the early phase of the organization. Both in terms of its agenda and objective as well as in its outreach among black workers in the Black Atlantic, the ITUCNW and its main propagators stressed the “class-before-race” argument of the Comintern rather than the pan-Africanist “race-before-class” approach. This is not surprising as the ITUCNW was one of the organizations that had been established when the Comintern and the RILU had started to apply the “class-against-class” doctrine, which left no room for cooperation between communists and radical pan-Africanists.

The Road to Moscow: On Archival Sources Concerning the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers in the Comintern Archive

2012 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 361-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Weiss
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Chronological Order ◽  
The Road ◽  
Documentary Sources ◽  
Main Emphasis ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Union Committee ◽  
African Atlantic

Abstract:This article is a critical assessment of the documentary sources of the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers (ITUCNW) available at the Comintern Archives in Moscow. The organization was the key platform within the Comintern Apparatus to establish an African-Atlantic network of radical activists and organizations in Africa and the Caribbean during the first half of the 1930s. The article addresses the current status of available archival sources for assessing and analysing the objectives, intensity, extent and impact of the organization and its key activists, namely James W. Ford, George Padmore and Otto Huiswoud. It reflects on past and present presentations and evaluations of the ITUCNW's activities and provides a short outline of the chronological order of the organization. In addition, the transfer of its records from Hamburg to Moscow is discussed. The main emphasis is laid on the presentation of the various documentary sources available in Moscow, including reports, resolutions and correspondence.

African American Journalists in World War II West Africa: The NNPA Commission Tour of 1944–1945

2021 ◽  
pp. 002190962110549
Author(s):  
Oliver Coates
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
West Africa ◽  
American West ◽  
West African ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Economic

The National Negro Publishers Association (NNPA) Commission to West Africa in 1944–1945 represents a major episode in the history of World War II Africa, as well as in American–West Africa relations. Three African American reporters toured the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Liberia, and the Congo between November 1944 and February 1945, before returning to Washington, DC to report to President Roosevelt. They documented their tour in the pages of the Baltimore Afro-American, the Chicago Defender, and the Norfolk Journal and Guide. Their Americans’ visit had a significant impact in wartime West Africa and was widely documented in the African press. This article examines the NNPA tour geographically, before analyzing American reporters’ interactions with West Africans, and assessing African responses to the tour. Drawing on both African American and West African newspapers, it situates the NNPA tour within the history of World War II West Africa, and in terms of African print culture. It argues that the NNPA tour became the focus of West African hopes for future political, economic, and intellectual relations with African Americans, while revealing how the NNPA reporters engaged African audiences during their tour.

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