Brothers and Strangers: Black Zion, Black Slavery, 1914–1940
Ibrahim Sundiata
In an account based on extensive archival research, including work in the Liberian National Archives, Sundiata explains how Garvey’s plan collapsed when faced with opposition from the Liberian elite, opposition that belied his vision of a unified Black World. In 1930 the League of Nations investigated labor conditions and, damningly, the United States, land of lynching and Jim Crow, accused Liberia of promoting “conditions analogous to slavery.” Subsequently various plans were put forward for a League Mandate or an American administration to put down slavery and “modernize” the country. Threatened with a loss of its independence, the Liberian government turned to its “brothers beyond the sea” for support. A varied group of white and black anti-imperialists, among them W. E. B. Du Bois, took up the country’s cause. In revealing the struggle of conscience that bedeviled many in the black world in the past, Sundiata casts light on a human rights predicament which, he points out, continues in twenty-first-century African nations as disparate as Sudan, Mauritania, and the Ivory Coast.
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About Ibrahim Sundiata
Reviews for Brothers and Strangers: Black Zion, Black Slavery, 1914–1940
Tony Martin
Journal of African American History
"Brothers and Strangers is an illuminating, politically charged. . . history of ethnic and class conflict in Liberia."
Minkah Makalani
Journal of Colonialism & Colonial History
"Brothers and Strangers thoughtfully engages the usefulness of diaspora as a theoretical template for deciphering the histories and interests of African peoples long separated by oceans and time."
Claude A. Clegg III
Journal of American History
"A thoughtful history. . . . It is an honest and frank discussion about the role of race, ethnicity and class in the Pan-African narrative. Its comprehensiveness, its attention to detail, and its clarity of thought make this work a substantial contribution to African, African American, and Atlantic history."
Lester P. Lee
The Americas
"Writing with the command of a scholar deeply versed in the topics at hand, Sundiata provides a rich and thoughtful assessment of Liberia, black America, and the relationship between these transatlantic communities during a quarter century of contestations over charges of slavery, struggles over black rule, and the nature of transatlantic black linkages.What makes Sundiata’s book such worthwhile reading is that he tackles the topics with incisive interpretation and analysis. The book is thus a powerful commentary on the state of relations among Africans and the diaspora."
James H. Meriwether
African Affairs