Professor Brenda Gayle Plummer, a historian who specializes in the intersection of race and U.S. foreign relations, has an article published today on foreignaffairs.com, titled “Civil Rights Has Always Been a Global Movement: How Allies Abroad Help the Fight Against Racism at Home.” The timely article addresses the current protests that have erupted on both a national and a global scale after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. Professor Plummer lays historical groundwork for our current moment in the article, citing a long precedent for African American outreach and activism overseas. She states “Although the long history of African American engagement on the international stage is often absent from conventional narratives about U.S. foreign policy, it has shaped contemporary global understandings of race in profound ways and has complicated – when it has not outright undermined – official U.S. government messaging about American values.”
To read the full article, see Foreign Affairs.