{"title":"American Defender of One Nigeria: James Meredith, the Nigerian Civil War and the Politics of American Intervention in the Global South","authors":"Ajibola A. Abdulrahman","doi":"10.1177/00219347231222644","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Following the Biafran allegations of genocide against the Nigerian government during the Civil War, pro-Biafran groups emerged in the United States to pressure the American government into political intervention in the form of recognizing the Biafran republic. In response, African-American Civil Rights hero James Meredith counter-balanced the pro-Biafran groups, and advocated for one Nigeria in the United States. By analyzing public speech, correspondences, fact-finding mission reports, congressional hearing testimonies, and oral interviews, this paper examines Meredith’s pro-One Nigeria (Pan-African) activism during the Nigerian Civil War, and promotes a nuanced understanding of the international dimension of the Nigerian Civil War. This study proposes an episode of transnational history of the global black liberation movement of the long sixties, and demonstrates that Meredith’s pro-one Nigeria activism during the Nigerian Civil War was influenced by his background as a Civil Rights leader and his pan-African ideology.","PeriodicalId":47356,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Black Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7000,"publicationDate":"2024-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Black Studies","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00219347231222644","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ETHNIC STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Following the Biafran allegations of genocide against the Nigerian government during the Civil War, pro-Biafran groups emerged in the United States to pressure the American government into political intervention in the form of recognizing the Biafran republic. In response, African-American Civil Rights hero James Meredith counter-balanced the pro-Biafran groups, and advocated for one Nigeria in the United States. By analyzing public speech, correspondences, fact-finding mission reports, congressional hearing testimonies, and oral interviews, this paper examines Meredith’s pro-One Nigeria (Pan-African) activism during the Nigerian Civil War, and promotes a nuanced understanding of the international dimension of the Nigerian Civil War. This study proposes an episode of transnational history of the global black liberation movement of the long sixties, and demonstrates that Meredith’s pro-one Nigeria activism during the Nigerian Civil War was influenced by his background as a Civil Rights leader and his pan-African ideology.
期刊介绍:
For the last quarter of a century, the Journal of Black Studies has been the leading source for dynamic, innovative, and creative approach on the Black experience. Poised to remain at the forefront of the recent explosive growth in quality scholarship in the field of Black studies, the Journal of Black Studies is now published six times per year. This means a greater number of important and intellectually provocative articles exploring key issues facing African Americans and Blacks can now be given voice. The scholarship inside JBS covers a wide range of subject areas, including: society, social issues, Afrocentricity, economics, culture, media, literature, language, heritage, and biology.