The East Is Black: Cold War China in the Black Radical Imagination

by Robeson Taj Frazier

During the Cold War, several prominent African American radical activist-intellectuals—including W.E.B. and Shirley Graham Du Bois, journalist William Worthy, Marxist feminist Vicki Garvin, and freedom fighters Mabel and Robert Williams—traveled and lived in China. There, they used a variety of media to express their solidarity with Chinese communism and to redefine the relationship between Asian struggles against imperialism and black American movements against social, racial, and economic injustice. In The East Is Black , Taj Frazier examines the ways in which these figures and the Chinese government embraced the idea of shared struggle against U.S. policies at home and abroad. He analyzes their diverse cultural output (newsletters, print journalism, radio broadcasts, political cartoons, lectures, and documentaries) to document how they imagined communist China’s role within a broader vision of a worldwide anticapitalist coalition against racism and imperialism.

Genres: China, History, Nonfiction, Politics

328 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Taj Frazier is Assistant Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California.

Reviews

[Carlos Martinez · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author has done some brilliant historical digging, making this book a must-read for someone with my particular set of interests. The stories of WEB Du Bois, Shirley Graham Du Bois, Robert and Mabel Williams and many others are told with depth and sensitivity.

Criticisms: large parts of the book are weighed down with impenetrable postmodern meanderings that had me on the brink of giving up on it a couple of times. And it's a bit disappointing that the author fails to see any continuity between pre-1978 (or indeed pre-1971) China and the reform period (or indeed post-Nixon visit period).

If you're interested in both Chinese revolutionary history and the US black liberation struggle, you should definitely read it.

[Renato Rojas · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author while trying to remain as objective as possible still manages to insert his own liberal ideology (especially in the final chapter), however he does overall show undeniable truth that the Chinese Mao era influenced Black radicalism and vice versa in a generally positive manner. Particular interest is the sections on Vicki Garvin, someone who is left out of a lot of Communist history. In her teaching of English at the Shanghai Foreign Languages Institute she sought to make Chinese English language students "Red and Expert", using Black American literature as well as an analysis of the two line struggle in Black Social Movements and having her students write reports of their findings. I give this book a 4 star because the last chapter arguing for a sort of horizontalist approach to neoliberalism just seems so out of place not to mention just straight bone headed.

[Daphne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find it quite liberal at times as it is supposed to be an objective academic monograph, but the author seems to have an anti-China anticommunist sentiment. The information on the Dubois', the Williamses, and Vicki Garvin were goo though

[Kristine · Rating 4 out of 5]

❗️📒📕⏳💭❔

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before receiving this book, if someone would have told me that there was a book about black American radicals in Communist China, I would have responded with something like, "why?"
This is an interesting history. I completely understand why black Americans dabbled with radicalism, socialism, and communism. American capitalism sucked for them - some say it still sucks for poor Americans. Sadly, however, Chairman Mao seemed to really only want the publicity of helping people so that he could rub America's nose in it. As soon as Nixon provided Mao with a geostrategic opportunity, Mao jumped at it and, in effect, also gave these decent people the finger. Nixon and Mao were savvy political operators, but they sure as heck didn't care about radical black Americans.

[Lakendrick Richardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was phenomenal. The author gave an exceptional analysis of transnational solidarity between Communist China and radical blacks from the Civil Rights era. The author does a very good job at displaying the shared struggle between two unlikely groups through there national and international struggle for recognition.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came back around to this book on my second read through. It’s very important for understanding the global reach of Maoism and for connecting African American radicals with China.