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ETD Abstract Container

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Symbol of Modernity: Ghana, African Americans, and the Eisenhower Administration

Grimm, Kevin E.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1334240469

Abstract Details

2012, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, History (Arts and Sciences).
Throughout the 1950s African Americans believed the decolonizing nation of Ghana gave the world a potent symbol of black ability to wield power fairly, peacefully,and effectively in modern political, economic, and social systems. Black Americans therefore attempted to use Ghana as a symbol of black modernity in the civil rights movement to convince American whites they should abandon the racist assumption that racial and social chaos would erupt upon the granting of full black civil rights. Such transnational racial identifications with Ghana also led numerous African American intellectuals, journalists, leaders, and organizations to pressure, often successfully, the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower to accord more attention and importance to Ghana, and to its leader Kwame Nkrumah. Among other events in the U.S.-Ghanaian relationship during the 1950s, African Americans played a role in causing Nkrumah's 1951 and 1958 visits to the United States and Vice President Richard Nixon's trip to the March 1957 independence ceremonies in Accra. Over the course of the decade African Americans also played a role in shifting American foreign policy in Africa toward at least a balance between European desires and African aspirations. Eisenhower and his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles largely left policy development on Africa to assistant secretaries of state and desk officers until the very end of the decade. African American leaders were constantly in contact with these mid-level officials, who often took black American views into account when thinking about the American approach to Africa. Exploring both the specific symbol of black ability to embrace modernity that African Americans saw in Ghana and African American influence on American foreign policy toward Africa during the 1950s reveals one of the ways race produced positive outcomes in the globalizing Cold War.
Chester Pach, Ph.D. (Advisor)
Robin D. Muhammad, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Katherine Jellison, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Peter John Brobst, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
359 p.
African Americans; African History; American History; History
African Americans; Ghana; Kwame Nkrumah; Dwight D. Eisenhower; U.S. foreign policy; Africa

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Grimm, K. E. (2012). Symbol of Modernity: Ghana, African Americans, and the Eisenhower Administration [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1334240469

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Grimm, Kevin. Symbol of Modernity: Ghana, African Americans, and the Eisenhower Administration. 2012. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1334240469.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Grimm, Kevin. "Symbol of Modernity: Ghana, African Americans, and the Eisenhower Administration." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1334240469

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ohiou1334240469
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© 2012, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.