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Beginning as the Chesters in 1957, Little Anthony and the Imperials are a legendary Doo-Wop rhythm and blues/soul vocal ensemble founded in Brooklyn, New York by tenor Clarence Collins, Countertenor/Falsetto and principal singer Jerome Anthony “Little Anthony” Gourdine, Ernest Wright, bass Glouster “Nate” Rogers, and tenor Tracey Lord. The teenage boys were born in the early 1940s and attended Boys’ High School in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.

The group changed its name in 1958 and began producing a string of chart hits, including their first hit, “Tears On My Pillow” (1958) on the End label. It entered Billboard’s Top 100 chart and peaked at #4, spent 19 weeks on the Top 100. It also reached #2 on Billboard’s R&B Singles chart selling more than one million copies. The flip side of the record, “Two Kinds of People,” also became a hit as well.

The ensemble briefly separated in 1961 but reunited in 1963. In 1964 they released, “I’m on the Outside Looking In” which was a Billboard Top 20 Pop hit, peaking at # 15. During that same year, “Goin’ Out of My Head” entered the Billboard Hot 100 at #75 and peaked #6. Additionally, the song peaked at #8 on Cashbox magazine’s R&B chart.

In 1965, Little Anthony and the Imperials released another hit, “Hurts So Bad.” This single entered Billboard’s Hot Top 100 chart and peaked at #10 for one week before spending eight additional weeks in the Top 100. It also reached #3 on Billboard’s R&B Singles chart.

A decade later, in 1975, Little Anthony and the Imperials released the album Hold On on Avco’s label. While the musical composition was appealing, it was not a financial success.

In 1993, Little Anthony and the Imperials were awarded the Rhythm and Blues Foundation’s Pioneer Award. Six years later in 1999 they were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame. They were inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2006. The following year, 2007, they were inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame. In 2009, Little Anthony and the Imperials were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In 2008 the ensemble released the album You’ll Never Know and performed on the Late Show with David Letterman. However, Tracey Lord, one of the original members, died on March 19, 2008, at 68. 

As of 2021, all of the still living original members of Little Anthony and the Imperials are in their eighties with plans to perform at the Willwood Convention Center in Willwood, New Jersey, on October 16, 2021.

The Spingarn Medal is the highest honor of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Since 1915, it has been awarded annually for the highest achievement of a living African American in the preceding year or years. The twofold purpose of the award, according to the NAACP, is to call the attention of the American people to the existence of distinguished merit and achievement among Americans of African descent and to stimulate the ambition of African American youth.

The award was established in 1914 by Joel Elias Spingarn, chairman of the NAACP Board of Directors and one the organization’s first Jewish leaders, who wished, in his words, “to perpetuate the lifelong interest of my brother, Arthur B. Spingarn, of my wife, Amy E. Spingarn, and of myself in the achievements of the American Negro.” Spingarn joined the NAACP in 1913 after resigning his professorship at Columbia University over free-speech issues. He was instrumental in establishing the NAACP’s New York office, and he sponsored the award in an attempt to counter the negative depiction of Black people as criminals that was common in newspapers of the time.

The committee established to select Spingarn Medal recipients initially consisted of John Hope, president of Morehouse College, and John Hurst, bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Spingarn, who was white, insisted the awards committee include prominent white individuals so as to ensure attention would be drawn to awardees in the mainstream press. Former president William H. Taft and Oswald Garrison Villard, grandson of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, were later named to the awards committee.

The first recipient of the Spingarn Medal was Ernest E. Just, professor of biology at Howard University. The list of Spingarn awardees reads as a veritable Who’s Who of African Americans in fields such as politics, the military, medicine, arts, entertainment, and sports. Awardees include W. E. B. DuBois, George Washington Carver, Mary McLeod Bethune, Marian Anderson, Paul Robeson, A. Philip Randolph, Thurgood Marshall, Ralph Bunche, Jackie Robinson, Duke Ellington, Colin Powell, and Sidney Poitier. Eleven women have won the Spingarn Medal. Two awardees received the medal posthumously. No award was made in 1938.

Upon Spingarn’s death in 1939, he left an endowment of $20,000 to enable the NAACP to continue giving the award in perpetuity. Today the awardee is selected by a nine-person committee with the presentation of the medal taking place at the NAACP’s annual convention.

The Shady Rest Golf & Country Club in Scotch Plains, New Jersey is the oldest African American golf club in the United States. It was the mecca of black middle-class society in New Jersey from the 1920s to the 1960s with members traveling from as far as the Carolinas to enjoy its amenities.

The land, previously the Ephraim Tucker Farm, was a 31-acre plot which was sold to the Westfield Golf Club whose members then converted it into a nine-hole golf course, keeping the farmhouse as its new clubhouse. On September 21, 1921, a group of black investors known as the Progressive Realty Company, Inc., including Scotch Plains resident Henry Willis Sr., purchased the club and renamed it the Shady Rest Golf and Country Club.

Designed to provide a recreational facility to its members during a time of intense racial segregation, many African American residents from surrounding New Jersey communities were able to partake in the clubs’ activities such as golfing, croquet, skeet shooting, horseback riding, and tennis. A Place For Us was its motto as many prominent black activists such as W.E.B. DuBois lectured there. And as a result of its location, just thirty miles west of New York City and its inclusion in The Negro Motorist Green Book, the clubhouse became a haven for many prominent black entertainers such as Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Billy Eckstein, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughn, Chick Webb, and Billie Holiday. They all came to perform there while enjoying the exclusivity that Shady Rest provided. In addition, Ora Washington and Althea Gibson, the first African Americans to win a grand slam title, honed their skills on its tennis pavilion.

The golf course was home to the first National Colored Golf Championship held in 1925 and sponsored by the United States Colored Golfers Association which had been founded earlier that year and led by its president, B.C. Gordon. Gordon was also the president of Shady Rest. Its head professional golfer, John Shippen, served as its groundskeeper. In 1896, Shippen was the first African American professional golfer to play in the U.S. Open. Shippen, an African American of Jamaican descent, played in five U.S. opens before settling in Scotch Plains in 1931 and managing Shady Rest until his retirement in 1960.

In 1964, after a legal battle, the township of Scotch Plains gained ownership of the Club and made the grounds public and racially integrated. It also changed the name to the Scotch Hills Golf and Country Club. The Club House still survives. When under a threat of demolition in 2013, local residents formed The Preserve Shady Rest Committee and raised money to have the clubhouse renovated and restored. It now includes a small museum dedicated to John Shippen and his contribution to golf history. Shady Rest is currently on the list of endangered landmarks in New Jersey in anticipation of being declared a historical landmark.

Composer, guitarist, pianist, storyteller Bukka White was born Booker T. Washington White on November 12, 1906, in Houston, Chickasaw County, Mississippi, to Herman and Sarah Farr White. He got his initial start in music, learning the violin with Cajun and blues tunes, and the guitar from his father. White’s mother and legendary blues guitarist B.B. King’s grandmother were sisters.

In 1919 when White was 13, he left for Chicago, where he played on the streets with a blind guitarist. At the age of 14 he returned to Clarksdale, Mississippi, where he stayed with an uncle. During that time, he contacted Delta blues legend Charley Patton, who taught him the rudimentary music theory for improvisation on the guitar and fiddle, and introduced him to other instruments. In addition to music, White pursued careers in sport, playing in Negro League baseball and, for a time, taking up boxing. He later served in the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1944.

In 1930 White met and impressed Ralph Limbo, a talent scout for the Victor label and traveled to Memphis for his first recordings, singing the blues and gospel material. However, Victor only released four of the 14 songs White recorded that day. In 1937, Bukka recorded “Pinebluff Arkansas'” and “Shake ‘em on down” for the Vocalion label in Chicago. During the music session in Memphis, Tennessee police knocked at the door to arrest him for allegedly shooting a man in self-defense. While awaiting the trial, he jumped bail and headed for Chicago, making two recordings before being apprehended and sent back to Mississippi to serve three years at the Mississippi State Penitentiary called Parchman Farm. While he was serving time, White’s record “Shake ’em on down” became a hit.

In 1939 White, while still at Parchman, recorded for folklorist Alan Lomax’s American Music Project which eventually was housed at the Library of Congress. White’s album recorded for Lomax and called Sky Songs, Vols. 1-3, included more than 60 minutes of Blues. “Parchman Farm Blues” was one of the songs. The improvised songs allowed White to tell stories about the dusty street corners, dirt roads, juke joints, and jails that felt like home to him.

By 1970, White was still performing on the blues festival circuit.  He often experimented with new material but his fans waited to hear him play “Parchman Farm Blues.”  In 1973 White released the album Big Daddy which was a commercial and critical success for the 67-year- old bluesman. It was also his last album.

Bukka White died of cancer on February 26, 1977, in Memphis, Tennessee. He was 70. However, he was posthumously celebrated in 1990 by being inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. On November 21, 2011, the Recording Academy announced the addition of White’s “Fixin’ to Die Blues” to its 2012 list of Grammy Hall of Fame Award.

Zhou Enlai’s first tour of Africa, popularly known as Zhou’s “Safari,” was a series of state visits to ten independent African countries, undertaken between December 1963 and February 1964 by the Chinese Premier. These visits, which occurred during a period when many countries were gaining independence from colonial power, marked the first time any high-ranking Chinese Communist leader had traveled to Africa.

Zhou’s original plan was to visit every country on the continent that had established formal diplomatic relations with Beijing. He traveled at the head of a delegation of more than fifty people, including China’s foreign minister, Chen Yi. The delegation began its tour in Egypt, which in May 1956 had become the first African country to recognize the Communist government of China. During the journey, the itinerary was amended several times to add Tunisia, whose government planned to recognize Communist China; remove Tanganyika, which was in the midst of the Zanzibar Revolution; and add Ethiopia, despite the fact that it did not recognize the Beijing regime until 1970.

In the end, the ten countries visited were as follows: Egypt (The United Arab Republic: December 14–21, 1963), Algeria (December 21–27), Morocco (December 27–30), Tunisia (January 9–10, 1964), Ghana (January 11–16), Mali (January 16–21), Guinea (January 21–26), Sudan (January 27–30), Ethiopia (January 30–February 1), and Somalia (February 1–4).

Zhou’s primary goal in Africa was to raise China’s profile on the continent at a time when it was beginning to challenge the Soviet Union openly over the direction of the global Communist movement. While Zhou received a warm reception in countries with left-wing governments, such as Algeria and Mali, he faced more hostile encounters with leaders who were adamantly anti-communist, especially in Tunisia and Ethiopia.

In response, Zhou consistently asserted that countries with different “political systems” could maintain friendly relations. Rather than focus on the affairs of postcolonial governments, he largely restricted himself to calling for African countries still under colonial rule to win independence. Zhou did, however, employ potentially inflammatory Marxist rhetoric in several of his speeches in Africa. In a farewell address in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, before returning to China, for example, he pledged that China would support “revolutionary struggles” throughout the continent and oppose both foreign intervention and native “reactionaries.”

Another important goal of Zhou’s trip to Africa was to drum up enthusiasm for holding a second Asian–African Conference in Algiers in 1965, a decade after the first Asian–African Conference had been held in Bandung, Indonesia. Zhou was especially concerned to ensure that the Soviet Union not be invited to send a delegation to the conference, since it would make it more difficult for the Chinese government to present itself as the only truly anti-imperialist Marxist power. Zhou made a second, shorter trip to Africa in June 1965 to lobby several African leaders to support his vision for the second Asian–African Conference, but the conference was canceled soon thereafter in the wake of the overthrow of Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella.

The US Armed Forces were segregated until President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981 on July 26, 1948 which desegregated all the military service branches. That segregation during World War II helped create the Riot of Bamber Bridge in Great Britain in 1943. When US forces were sent to Britain that year black soldiers were met with respect and often open arms by the local population. The village of Bamber Bridge, Lancashire, then home to U.S. Army Air Base 569 was one such place. The 1511th Quartermaster Truck Regiment, a logistics unit stationed at the base consisted primarily of black soldiers. The all white 234th US Military Police Unit was stationed on the north side of the village and the two units were known to have had several skirmishes over race relations.

The soldiers of the 1511th were welcomed in local establishments, and this did not sit well with white American soldiers who brought their racist ideals with them. When white military police officers insisted that a local pub owner segregate his establishment, the owner replied he would. However, when the MPs returned the next day, they were met with “Blacks Only” signs at three village pubs, sending a clear message to the MPs that their racism was not welcome. British barmaids told white soldiers to wait their turn when they assumed they would be served before black soldiers.

On the night of June 24, two MPs, Corporal Roy A. Windsor and PFC Ralph F. Ridgeway, entered Ye Old Hob Inn, and attempted to arrest Private Eugene Nunn of the 1511th, citing him for being improperly dressed and without a pass. The soldiers and MPs began to argue. Local townsfolk and women from the British Auxiliary Territorial Service sided with the men of the 1511th and demanded that the MPs leave the black soldiers alone. Private Lynn M. Adams of the 1511th advanced on one of the MPs with a bottle, and Corporal Windsor drew his gun. Sergeant William Byrd of the 1511th was able to defuse the situation and finally persuade the MPs to leave. While they were driving away, Private Adams threw a bottle at the jeep, and the MPs drove to their base to pick up reinforcements to return to the pub to arrest the black soldiers.

As the soldiers of the 1511th walked back to base, they were apprehended by the returning MPs. A fight broke out and MP Carson W. Bozman drew his gun and shot Private Adams in the neck. The soldiers of the 1511th returned to their base and at midnight, armed with rifles and a machine gun truck, arrived at the MP camp in retaliation. The soldiers of the 1511th raided the MPs’ gun room and armed themselves as the two sides began shooting at each other in the darkness. By four o’clock in the morning, the violence ceased. Private William Crossland of the 1511th was killed, and five other soldiers were wounded along with two MPs. There were two trials resulting in 27 out of 32 black soldiers being found guilty of various charges. Most of the sentences were reduced or dismissed, however, because of the overwhelming support of the black troops by the British public.

In June 2013, an anniversary symposium was held at the University of Central Lancashire, that included a screening of the 2009 documentary “Choc’late Soldiers from the USA” to commemorate the Bamber Bridge Riot.

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, the strong through-line that emerges from examining their Asia-focused endeavors is their range and ambition. Whether as a means to benefit from their talents or as an avenue to share their gifts, the extent of Black Americans’ agency and success in interwar Asia merits attention.

Depictions in film and elsewhere of Black Jazz Age artists spreading that new artistic form in post-World War I Europe abound. However, a similar dynamic was also unfolding in the Asian Pacific. Indeed, performing artists formed the largest and most visible group of African Americans in Asia during the two decades between the World Wars.

Some artists made a circuit, either around the world with stops in a few Asian cities, or around Asia itself which might include destinations such as Batavia (now Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), Singapore, Calcutta, India, Manila, Philippines, Kobe and Tokyo, Japan, and Shanghai and the then British colony of Hong Kong. Others took up extended residence in a particular city such as musicians Teddy Weatherford in Calcutta, or Bill Hegamin, who arrived in Shanghai in the mid-1920s and went on to make a small fortune performing and operating a studio and music school until interned by the Japanese in 1942. Some combined multiple talents operating as performers, talent scouts, managers, writers, and businessmen while other others focused on performance alone.

The go-go zeitgeist of the 1920s seemed to impel many across the Pacific with the chance to simultaneously experiment and prosper. A decade later, the difficulties of finding work in Depression-era America made the opportunities in Asia all the more attractive. From cities across America performers were recruited: Earl Whaley and his band from Seattle; Teddy Weatherford, a stellar pianist from Chicago; and from Los Angeles, Valaida Snow (whose talent on the trumpet was compared to Louis Armstrong’s, and so impressive that Queen Wilhemina of the Netherlands bestowed upon her a golden trumpet, which the Nazis confiscated in 1941). There was also Buck Clayton and his 14-piece Harlem Gentlemen from the most famous black community in the United States.

Life in Shanghai, the ‘Paris of the Orient,’ was particularly attractive. Pay was good, the cost of living low, and the glamorous, modern hotels, ballrooms and clubs with a vibrant nightlife were all a big draw. In his memoir, Buck Clayton vividly describes the delights of delicious cuisine, custom-tailored wardrobes, regular horseback riding, and the pleasure of hearing bands from all over: Russia, the Philippines, India, the United States, as well as homegrown talent from China. Clayton went on to have a long and successful career performing with some of the best-known names in American jazz, but regarding his time in Shanghai, he wrote in 1986: “I still say today that the two years I spent in China were the happiest two years of my life. My life seemed to begin in Shanghai. We were recognized for a change and treated with so much respect” (emphasis added).

American artists left a mark beyond the impact of their performance alone. Clayton influenced the emergence of Chinese popular music by collaborating with Li Jinhui, often referred to as the ‘Father of Chinese popular music.’ Li worked closely with Clayton in melding American jazz with traditional Chinese music, deriving arrangements that became ‘Chinese jazz.’ Midge Williams was another artist who influenced the emergence of a ‘vernacular’ form of jazz in Japan. During her 1934 stint at the Florida Ballroom in Tokyo, Japanese musicians and singers were enraptured by her style and technique. She provided them ‘master classes’ and made highly regarded recordings singing in Japanese and English, with arrangements by Japanese musicians. Her contributions were viewed by Japan’s emerging jazz community as substantial.

Following World War l, emancipation from imperialism became an important rallying point for the people of Asia and Africa and opportunities for discussion of imperialism and colonization emerged around the world. Even as the United States suppressed African American participation in policy and politics, people in Asia eagerly sought Black Americans’ perspectives on emancipation from white imperialist control.

The Institute of Pacific Relations’ (IPR), formed in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1925 was one of the leading organizations convening international discussions in this era. The IPR, akin to a non-governmental precursor to today’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), offered a connection point to address common concerns and defuse tensions for societies around the rim of the Pacific Ocean. The organization was governed by ‘national councils’ made up of citizens from the United States, Japan, China, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand.

In 1927, even though the Japanese specifically requested that a ‘Negro of distinction’ be included at the IPR’s second conference in Honolulu, the White American hosts determined Black Americans had nothing to contribute to policy discussions involving Asia. For the 1929 conference in Kyoto, Japan the Americans weighed honoring the host’s desire for Black participation vs. creating a precedent that recognized Black Americans did have something to contribute.

Respect for the host won out and James Weldon Johnson—best known today as co-author of ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing,’ (the Black National Anthem)—was invited as the sole Black American among the total 45 U.S. delegates. Johnson’s experience as a former diplomat and his role as Secretary of the NAACP provided him familiarity with both international and U.S. domestic policy questions. Japanese media covered him prominently, presenting him as a ‘world figure’ known for commitment to ‘the emancipation of the non-white races of the world.’ People followed him like a celebrity on the streets of Tokyo and he was accorded the honor of an invitation to a garden party hosted by Emperor Hirohito.

The 1929 conference focused on the theme “the peoples of the Pacific have become the captains of their own destinies.” Certainly, a man as schooled in the political realities facing Black Americans as Johnson was, would have compelling insights on that theme.

For many Black Americans, Japan’s success in modernization was seen as a rebuke to Western imperialism’s premise that only Whites possessed capacity for self-governance and industrial development. When the IPR’s Kyoto conference was held, Japan’s military actions had not yet raised imperialist concerns that their 1931 appropriation of Manchurian territory would. In the coming decade, Japan as an object of admiration or caution, became a prism for discussion of imperialism by African American intellectuals.

Another participant in the quest for national self-determination was Trinidad-born Percy Chen. His father, Eugene Chen, became Trinidad’s first ethnic Chinese lawyer. The senior Chen heeded Sun Yat Sen’s appeal to the Chinese diaspora to join the revolution overthrowing the imperial system in 1911. In 1912 Eugene Chen went to China, serving in various capacities, and in 1926 became Foreign Minister.

Percy, whose mother was of African and French ancestry, completed his law training in England in 1922, practiced in Trinidad, then in 1926 followed his father to China. During a period of tension with the British government representatives in Wuhan, and within the Nationalist Party itself, Percy became an aide to his father in China’s Foreign Ministry.

After the 1927 split between the more conservative and leftist wings of China’s Nationalist Party, which Eugene Chen’s side lost, Percy Chen made an epic overland escape to Russia. Eight years later in 1935, his father, retired but still influential, sent Percy on a mission to build an alliance amongst left- and right-wing Chinese to defend against Japan’s looming aggression. During the Second World War, Percy worked in Chongqing as the private secretary of Sun Fo (the son of Sun Yat Sen). In 1947, he moved to Hong Kong and successfully practiced as a barrister, maintaining his role as a connection point between the West and different Chinese political factions.

The Pentecostal movement that began at the Azusa Street Revival held at a Black-led church in Los Angeles in 1906, created the first black denomination founded in the 20th Century. Pentecostalism quickly spread around the United States and then overseas. The evangelist Edward A. Carter Sr. was an example of its international ambition. Carter, a member of the Holiness Church in Los Angeles and his Anglo-Indian wife, Mary, in 1925 moved with their three children to Calcutta to launch a mission. The Carters had great success in attracting converts, but their marriage broke down and in 1927, Carter boarded a ship with the three children, intending to return to Los Angeles. Typhoid fever forced disembarkation in Shanghai. Carter’s younger son, William, required a lengthy hospital stay, leading his elder son, Edward Jr. to ask whether God was offering a suggestion on where Carter should next work.

Carter began preaching at evangelistic meetings at the Chinese YMCA in Shanghai. His fervor attracted standing room only crowds. By 1928, he was traveling to neighboring cities and three Holiness missions had been established in Shanghai. Significantly, Carter ascribed his being Black as part of the source of his success. At a time of strong antiforeign sentiment where just a year earlier, various Westerners including a prominent White missionary, had been killed by Chinese soldiers and citizens in the Nanking Incident, Carter was welcomed to evangelize in provinces beyond the protections of Western-controlled Shanghai. Carter’s statements about this period suggest pride that his identity enabled him to serve where other Western missionaries couldn’t.

Black-led faith connections in Asia also catalyzed exchanges that would eventually shape the 1950s and 1960s Civil Rights Movement in the United States. Mahatma Gandhi’s use of nonviolence to achieve political change in India and its impact on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ‘s nonviolent direct actions are well known. Less familiar is the tilling of the soil that an African American couple undertook twenty years earlier, when they became the first Black Americans to meet Gandhi.

Sue Bailey Thurman and Howard Thurman were arguably the leading Black intellectual couple of the interwar period. Each of them possessed impressive achievements and both were committed to social equality in the United States. In a multi-month period between 1935 and 1936, they led the first African American delegation to India. The ‘Pilgrimage of Friendship to the East,’ enlisted participation by student Christian movements in America, India, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and Burma (now Myanmar). As was true in China for Edward Carter Sr., the Thurmans’ Black identity was seen positively by the people of South Asia. Keenly aware of Indians’ hostility toward white missionaries known for cooperating with colonial oppression, the Pilgrimage’s Indian organizer sought Black Americans in hopes of fostering constructive exchange.

Gandhi impressed the Thurmans deeply. Howard Thurman would spend the rest of his long ministry applying Gandhi’s teachings. In 1944, the Thurmans co-founded the first nondenominational interracial church in the United States, the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco. Howard Thurman’s most famous book, Jesus and the Disinherited was published in 1949 and used the Gospels to show how a nonviolent movement could successfully achieve civil rights in America. It was the book Martin Luther King Jr. carried with him everywhere, influencing his thinking on how to approach the situation in the United States. Today, Dr. King is recognized as one of America’s giants. The seeds leading to the fruitful harvest of his profound achievements were first pollinated by the Thurmans’ 1935-36 pilgrimage to South Asia.

As part of the post-World War I critique of Western imperialism, Japan sought to present itself as a refutation of white supremacy’s claims, while cloaking its own imperial ambitions in language of pan-Asian unity. Two of America’s preeminent writers of the interwar era, W.E.B. Du Bois and Langston Hughes, spent time in, and wrote about, Asia, with differing impacts on their reputations.

Du Bois first began writing about Japan’s rise in 1905 at the time of the Russo-Japanese War. By the early 1930’s, Japan had invaded China’s northeast province, Manchuria, and declared the formation of a separate puppet state, Manchukuo. It has also provoked a military conflict in Shanghai. Yet, Du Bois was still publicly equating Japan and China to sparring relatives engaged in a family fight. His disdain for imperialism as practiced by the West did not extend to Japan. In fact, Du Bois argued that Japan’s actions were understandable in light of what he characterized as China’s disunity and naive engagement with the West.

In 1936, Du Bois took an extended trip in Asia, marveling at the wonders of Japan-dominated Manchukuo and reveling in the welcome he was accorded in Japan. In contrast he reviled Western-dominated Shanghai which he claimed evoked a Jim Crow-esque atmosphere. His impressions of Shanghai reinforced his concerns about Western dominance and what he viewed as the placating servility of the Chinese. By contrast, experiences in Manchukuo and Japan buttressed his favorable assessments of Japan.

Three years earlier in 1933, Hughes arrived in Asia as part of a round-the-world trek. He, too, observed American-style segregation in aspects of how Shanghai operated, but drew from them very different conclusions, seeing the Chinese as sympathetic. In Japan, Hughes’s reception could not have been more different than that accorded Du Bois. The Tokyo police brought him in for interrogation: why had he gone to Moscow? Had he served as a courier bringing materials from the USSR? Why was he consorting with leftist Japanese writers and actors? The upshot was Hughes was ordered to refrain from further interactions with Japanese citizens, forced to leave the country, and forbidden to return.

Following Japan’s invasion of China in 1937 with widespread reports of civilian atrocities, Du Bois was still defending Japan. By contrast, Hughes penned a pro-China anti-colonial poem ‘Roar, China!’ Both writers influenced American discussion of Japan and China, but one’s analysis has held up better over the decades than the other. When in the early 1960s Du Bois visited China under Mao, he finally repudiated his earlier assessments.

Even when faced with considerable constraints at home, during the interwar period African Americans engaged in Asia across a range of fields. The best known among them is in the performing arts, but as these examples show, African Americans were also making contributions in international relations, faith, and writing/journalism. Additionally, in the performing arts domain, the scope of participation by Black artists in Asia was often more impactful than is commonly recognized: either by virtue of the effect these performers’ artistry had on Asian creators and consumers of popular culture, or as a jumping off point for the artists’ other interests (such as by honing new aspects of artistic talent or exploring business opportunities).

Twenty years after the United States launched an ill-advised military offensive in the Middle East, President Joe Biden has announced that American soldiers who number about 2,500 will be pulled out of Afghanistan, a process that started in May and is expected to end in September.

The war in Afghanistan is America’s longest ever and has taken more than 300,000 lives, many of whom have been Afghan civilians. A little over 2,000 American soldiers have also lost their lives. All of these are on top of a collapsed national infrastructure and the cessation of the dreams of hundreds of thousands of young Afghans.

In this year that America begins to walk the talk that has been uttered by all the presidents after George W. Bush., it is important to remember the only congressperson who voted against a joint legislature resolution to give the American president an inexhaustible right to do all that they thought to do militarily in response to the September 11 attacks: Barbara Lee of California’s 13th District.

The Authorization for Use of Military Force was passed on September 18, 2001, exactly a week after the saddest day in modern American history. America was a nation wailing and wondering who its enemies were. The foes had not been absolutely faceless but public opinion succumbed to the impression that the enmity was present and pervasive and its ammunition was imaginably dangerous. What happened was what economist Naomi Klein has called the Shock Doctrine – how governments – or better still, free-market apologists – use natural disasters or attacks as bases to assume far-reaching powers that drastically shifts the tectonics of political culture.

In the case of the United States own shock doctrine after the plane crashes, the industry that made the machines and materials for war was hopeful of a brute American response to September 11. They lobbied power to make war happen. In some including Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld and Vice-President Dick Cheney, the military industry could count on men who were the farthest from pacifist.

In all honesty, public sympathies lied with revenge of different sorts and one could make sense of that as a legitimate human response. But what Lee stressed at the time was that American leadership needed to be circumspect lest they cajole the citizenry into irreparable damages. As the sole vote against the bill, Lee said on the floor:

However difficult this vote may be, some of us must urge the use of restraint. There must be some of us who say, let’s step back for a moment and think through the implications of our actions today-let us more fully understand their consequences. We are not dealing with a conventional war. We cannot respond in a conventional manner. I do not want to see this spiral out of control. This crisis involves issues of national security, foreign policy, public safety, intelligence gathering, economics, and murder. Our response must be equally multifaceted.

She would go on to criticize in media interviews, the biggest “blank check” ever handed to an American president. The law effectively gave powers to President Bush that no other president before him had had. This legal reality also translated into public spending. Between 2001 and 2003, the year America invaded Iraq, the defense budget budget grew about 30% from $330 billion to $440 billion.

Seeing how things turned out in Afghanistan, it was hard to forget Lee’s protest vote. Yet when she did it, Lee was the object of scorn and contempt. She recently revealed that she received death threats forcing to toughen her personal security. Her patriotism was questioned and was referred to by several unsavory names. Two decades on, she is not gloating but appreciative of the Biden administration’s efforts to return soldiers home.

“Finally, we are beginning to bring our troops home, which we should have done years ago. Taking them out of harm’s way and using diplomatic [means] and diplomacy tools that we to make sure that we do this right,” she told.

A photo of a Nigerian-American family has gone viral on LinkedIn after it was posted by one of them earlier this month. It was in commemoration of World Siblings day and Dr. Chinyere Okpaleke decided to share the picture of her siblings who all practice medicine.

The picture is the epitome of Black Excellence; that explains why it earned the admiration of almost 170,000 people on the professional networking platform, with about 6000 comments.

The Okpaleke is a family of nine — six girls, their brother, and parents. They are: Lillian Okpaleke, M.D., Okway Okpaleke, M.D., Chinelo Okpaleke, P.A., Nkiru Osefo, M.D., Ifeoma Okpaleke, N.P., Queenate Okpaleke, N.P. and Chinyere Okpaleke.

Their father, Andrew Okpaleke, M.D., is a retired physician of internal medicine who was in the practice for more than 30 years and their mother, Celina Okpaleke, P.A., has been in the field for over 20 years.

Their parents’ profession had an influence on them and their choice of career which they do not regret. Being immigrants from Nigeria, they made a lot of sacrifices for their families to succeed and have the right foundation to thrive. “We are Nigerian, so we have that cultural background of my parents being immigrants and basically sacrificing coming here for a better life,” Chinyere Okpaleke told Good Morning America. “Their idea of wanting us to succeed came across in how they raised us.”

Chinyere, called Dr. Chi by her patients, is a family medicine hospitalist living in Houston. She said if she had the choice of choosing between her family and that of the Kardashians, she will choose hers a million times over because she is proud of what they do; saving lives.

“If I had to choose between The Okpaleke’s Vs The Kardashian’s… I would choose US every single time.”

“I know our parents and ancestors are beyond proud! We are exactly what their sacrifices were meant for! All glory to God,” she added.

The siblings believe the photo they posted on National Siblings Day will give hope to little ones that have big dreams to pursue them. “I’ve had someone say they printed it out and they have it on their refrigerator so their children can see it as motivation,” Dr. Chi said. “It’s very touching. I’m happy that we’re able to shed some light in today’s world.”

A jury in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has found the 45-year-old guilty on all three counts of murder and manslaughter charges. The counts were second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter of African-American man Geoge Floyd.

Chauvin now faces up to 75 years in prison but will await his sentencing per the adjournment of the court.

Earlier in the day, President Joe Biden revealed that he had called Floyd’s family to express his support and wish for “the right verdict”.

“I have come to know George’s family not just in passing. I have spent time with them, I have spent time with his little daughter, Gianna…So I can only imagine the pressure and anxiety they are feeling…I called them.”

Meanwhile, Minnesota declared a state of emergency in anticipation of the verdict.

Earlier civil suit victory

In another conclusion in another lawsuit related to Floyd’s killing, his family will now be paid $27 million in compensation by the city as was settled on Friday, March 12.

The settlement is different from the criminal proceedings that are ongoing against former officer Derek Chauvin and others charged with the eventual demise of the man they accosted for allegedly trying to use counterfeit money. For eight minutes and forty-six seconds that have since been immortalized by the Black Lives Matter movement, Chauvin pinned a knee to the back of Floyd’s head while Floyd pleaded for his life.

Announcing the settlement in March between Floyd’s family and the city of Minneapolis, family attorney Ben Crump said the settlement “sends a powerful message that Black lives do matter and police brutality against people of color must end.” The lawyer who also represents the families of Jacob Blake and Breonna Taylor, victims of police brutality, said the payment to Floyd’s family is the biggest pre-trial settlement ever in a case of wrongful death.

Brighter days

Floyd’s death, which was mourned across the world and sparked a global campaign against anti-Black racism, has also yielded a few positive outcomes for those involved with the man.

For instance, actress and singer, Barbara Streisand revealed at the end of last year that she had gifted some of her shares in the multibillion entertainment conglomerate Disney to Floyd’s 6-year-old daughter, Gianna. The Grammy award-winning singer was quoted as saying: “I sent Gianna videos where I played a little girl in my first television special singing kid songs and my second special a sequence with lots of baby animals”.

Brooklyn Nets star guard Kyrie Irving also bought a house for Floyd’s family in January of this year.

Irving, 28, reportedly gave the Floyd family the funds to purchase the home around five or six months before the new year, sources told Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated, according to ESPN. This gesture added to a string of other philanthropic efforts the NBA champion has earmarked.

Last December too, the global literary and human rights organization PEN gave its Beneson Courage Award to then 17-year-old Darnella Frazier, the young woman who filmed the harrowing last few seconds of the life of Floyd.

PEN America said that Frazier received the award for her “sheer guts” that “changed the course of history in this country”.

The deaf community in the United States is condemning the actions of North Las Vegas police officers who allegedly handcuffed a deaf motorist in the presence of her 11-year-old twins and then made the minors interpret for them, FOX5 reports.

The incident reportedly occurred when the woman, identified as Andrea “Dre” Hollingsworth, went to her former landlord to collect a rent refund after moving out early. The landlord, however, called the police on her and when they arrived, a confrontation ensued.

In an interview with the news outlet, Hollingsworth said she was unable to effectively communicate with the officers due to her condition, adding that she also did not know why she was pulled over.

“I don’t know, I’m being pulled over and he is interrogating me … I am black, I am deaf, George Floyd just happened,” Hollingsworth, who streamed the encounter on Facebook Live, said. “The police officer pulled my arm … and I was like, ‘whoa, why?’ I have never experienced anything like that in my life.”

Hollingsworth’s twin daughters were in the car during the stop and the officer also ordered them to exit the vehicle. Meanwhile, Hollingsworth said she told the officer the only way they could communicate was through texting and writing but “he just kept on talking.”

In the video, the officer is heard telling the twins their mother is being investigated. One of the girls also tries to explain what their mother is doing in the area. “She is just here because she needs her money back from her friend,” she tells the officer.

The confrontation, however, escalated and Hollingsworth said the officer forcefully made her sit on the curb of the road after she came out of her car. She was later handcuffed while her children watched screaming. From that point, Hollingsworth said she was unable to sign.

“Tell her to put her hands behind her back,” an officer is heard saying in the video. “One of you guys need to talk some sense into her.”

Responding to the incident, the North Las Vegas Police Department said Hollingsworth “initially refused to comply with requests and was briefly detained until police completed their investigation.”

Speaking to FOX5, deaf rights lawyer Andrew Rozynski said the officers making Hollingsworth’s twins interpret for them was illegal. “Requiring an 11-year-old to interpret in a police situation is against the Americans with Disabilities Act. There are regulations in there that expressly prohibit children from being used as interpreters,” he said.

Quite a handful of police departments reportedly have round-the-clock interpreter services to facilitate effective communication in these kinds of scenarios. “There are services out there such as video relay, in which someone can bring up an interpreter on an iPhone or iPad,” Rozynski revealed.

Hollingsworth said the incident likely left her twin daughters scared and devastated. “I never thought this would happen to me because I am not a criminal,” she said. “My kids are afraid because of all the incidents that have been happening recently. They are raised Black in this community, so when they see a police officer, they are also on high alert.”

To prevent future occurrences of such nature, the Black mother said she wants to see reform in the city’s policing. “I really want all of Las Vegas police to change, because it is really scary how deaf people are treated. If my kids weren’t with me, then I would have died that day. My kids saved my life,” she said.

According to Forbes, African-American women are among the fastest group launching and owning businesses. Despite COVID-19 forcing many businesses to close, particularly, Black-owned businesses, African Americans are still winning big.

One such entrepreneur is Tenisha Williams, who is the CEO of Elite Realty Partners, a real estate brokerage firm based in the South Florida area—Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Her firm is the largest Black, woman-owned brokerage in the South Florida area.

Williams’ story is inspirational, braving the pandemic to achieve economic success. Her company raked $100 million in sales within two years. What is more, she and her elite team are not showing any signs of complacency or slowing down. Rather, they are positioning the company to deliver more homes to families.

Williams attributes her success to God’s favor as she could not have managed a thriving business without divine favor. “I cannot attribute the accelerated pace of my business to anything but the favor of God,” she told Sheen Magazine.

“Before I sold one house, I thought of the name ‘Your FAVORED Realtor’, not favorite but favored! It was as if He told me from day one that He was going to favor whatever I touched in this business and order my steps as long as I put in the work and remained faithful. I remember in 2016 telling my former partner, ‘God is going to give us a platform so big because He knows that He can trust us with it.’”

Before venturing into full entrepreneurship, Williams was a county worker but said she did not plan to stay on the job till retirement like her colleagues, who were simply happy to land a position so they could retire and have great benefits. However, it was not until 2017 that she made her final decision not to return to work while she was on a holiday at St. Lucia with her daughter. “While there, I realized that I did not want to go back to work and made up my mind after speaking with my husband,” she said. “From there, two things happened: I found my purpose by loving real estate and made my first 6 figures part-time.”

Williams is more than a CEO. She is also a life coach and uses a chunk of her time to teach, motivate and guide others to achieve their desire goals. Nonetheless, she is sometimes under unimaginable pressure. “Sometimes I cannot sleep at night because my brain will not stop thinking of ways that I can add more value to everyone on the team. I truly am invested in their careers, so I take the responsibility very seriously,” she said.

Williams describes the reality of being the largest Black, woman-owned brokerage in the South Florida area as surreal. She however said there is so much work to be done to change the narrative and diversify the faces in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area as it pertains to real estate.

The real estate guru considers her firm a “ministry” to agents and customers. Over the years, she has witnessed an overabundance of customers and agents break through various hardships and come out on top with the help of her brokerage, she said. “My private coaching sessions sometimes turn into life-changing sessions for me and them. For example, I have had the opportunity to witness agents who did not sell ONE house at their former brokerages, then come onboard with Elite and become our top producers selling millions in real estate,” she said.