“We Will Never Go Back to the Old Way Again”: Germany in the African-American Debate on Civil Rights

Abstract

This special edition of Central European History is concerned with how America viewed Germany, and my contribution focuses on how, beginning with Hitler's rise to power, Germany became a point of reference for the emerging American civil-rights movement. By looking at Crisis, published by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and Opportunity, published by the National Urban League, as well as African-American newspapers, such as the Pittsburgh Courier, Chicago Defender, Amsterdam News, Afro-American, Negro Digest, Ebony, and Jet, I will show how the black community discussed developments in Germany, America's struggle against Nazi racism, and the black soldiers' experience in postwar Germany.