Bringing the Marginalized into Conversations about American Raciality - Erin Kane - Keely Gaeta - Emily Norris

W.E.B. Du Bois

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F I

W.E.B Du Bois was a man of great accomplishments. In addition to being an American civil rights activist, leader, sociologist, educator, and historian, Du Bois studied transpacific race contact. Becoming exceedingly interested in Black consciousness in Japan, Du Bois argued that Japan was taking steps towards anti-imperialist nationalism against the underlying white supremacy of imperialism and colonialism, His pro-Japan stance in the context of the country's shedding of the "foolish modern magic of the word 'white'" transcended the country's growing controversy of militarism and expansionism.

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C.L.R. James

E S

C.L.R James echoed Du Bois' praise for Japan's breaking loose of centuries deep white oppression. James was "one of the foremost important Afrodiasporic revolutionary thinkers of the twentieth century". Similarly to Du Bois, James was a historian. Proficient in the studies of growing strength of the pro-Japan tendency in race-pride and religious organizations within the Black community in the mid 20th century, James recognized the significance of proclaiming his support for Japan's next-level mindset. Du Bois and James were both growing aware to "the power of race not just to move the masses through the realms of the local and the global but also to fundamentally alter all existing categories of radicalism". For the Black community, Japan represented a somewhat ideal society, one free of the chains of white supremacy. 8