| Summary/Abstract |
Scholarship in the field of Black history by scholars such as Carol Anderson, Gerald Horne, and Brenda Gayle Plummer has spurred the remaking of the study of U.S. foreign relations. In the late twentieth century, Plummer was at the forefront of this change; her scholarship drew needed attention to how the field of diplomatic history was traditionally stifled by its preoccupation with presidents, diplomats, and other white male agents of the U.S. state and by its near universal exclusion of African Americans.1 Specialists in U.S. and global Black history such as Keisha N. Blain have since been among the most influential scholars in further democratizing diplomatic history.2 Their scholarship has shown how myriad African Americans identified similarities between their fight against Jim Crow at home and the struggle for decolonization abroad and demonstrated how Black institutions and protest organizations shaped U.S. foreign policy, particularly with emerging African nations. It has shown the reciprocal nature between U.S. racial politics and foreign relations, especially in an era when the United States identified liberal civil rights reform as a way to improve its international image and increase its geopolitical power.
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