African Americans and Asia in the Interwar Period •
Written by Black Hot Fire Network on March 2, 2024
In the following article novelist and independent historian Amy Sommers briefly outlines the experience of African Americans in Asia between World Wars I and II. She argues that African American influence in Asia was situated in four broad categories: the performing arts, international relations, faith, and intellectual exchange.
Black Americans venturing overseas during the interwar period are usually presented as fleeing from Jim Crow oppression east to Europe (think Josephine Baker in Paris). Less known are their experiences in crossing the Pacific. African Americans were active in Asia in the 1920s and 1930s and indeed . . .
