"Since 1945, black activists had made the case that nuclear weapons, colonialism, and the black freedom struggle were connected", writes Intondi.Īfrican Americans recognized colonialism "From the United States' obtaining uranium from the Belgian-controlled Congo to France's testing a nuclear weapon in the Sahara", Intondi writes. The black anti-nuclear campaign: airbrushed out of history This singling out of non-white enemies for the use or threat of atomic weapons drew African Americans not only into the nuclear abolition movement, Intondi contends, but into a form of social activism that connected many issues of civil and human rights on a global, rather than national scale. Intondi, published last year and entitled African Americans Against the Bomb, it was the recognition of those bombings as an act of racism that drew African Americans into the nuclear disarmament movement and future wars that kept them there.Īs Intondi explains in his introduction, "Black activists' fear that race played a role in the decision to use atomic bombs only increased when the United States threatened to use nuclear weapons in Korea in the 1950s and in Vietnam a decade later." 'Racism' is probably not the first word that springs to mind as we reflect on these terrible events, and their immediate and ongoign aftermath.īut according to a fascinating book by Vincent J. This month 71 years ago, the US cropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on August 6 and 9 respectively.
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