Homage to the Black China Hands
In celebration of Black History Month in the United States and in prelude to the fourth anniversary of the founding of the Black China Caucus (BCC), it is only fitting to pen a piece reflecting on the impact of the BCC as we continue to expand our outreach and growth. Allow me to introduce to some, and reintroduce to others, the Black China Caucus.
Founded in March 2020, what began with a phone call and a dream led to the creation of our non-profit organization through hard work, dedication, and support whose foundation is also built on the legacies of the Black Radicals and their desires for colored solidarity and dreams of Maoist China as a space of possibility and alternatives. The multitude of Black trailblazers in the China space became, through lived experiences, China experts or China Hands. People such as Aubrey Pankey, Eslanda Goode Robeson, Victoria “Vicki” Garvin, Robert and Mabel Williams, W.E.B. and Shirley Graham Du Bois, William Worthy, and the Black Panther Party, to name a few. The background and interests of these Black China Hands ranged from education to journalism, activism to musical performance, and feminism to labor organizing. Yet, each imagined that the New China post 1949 could be a site of alternative models for challenging the racially rigid and systemic discriminatory practices in the United States. They imagined, to borrow from scholar Taj Frazier, “the East is Black”.
Red dreams of China as a space of potential did not end with the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, but a new wave of Black engagement with China was conceived post Richard Nixon’s visit in 1972. Some of these historic and momentous sojourns include the National Medical Association all Black physician delegation in October 1972 whose members included Drs. Emerson Walden (Baltimore, MD), Edmund Casey (Cincinnati, OH), Andrew Thomas (Project 75), W. Montague Cobb (Howard University), Marion Munn (Howard University), Ralph J. Cazort (Meharry Medical College), and Effie Ellis (American Medical Association). While their initial request to be a part of the Nixon delegation was denied, the legacies of Chinese engagement with African Americans persisted as the ten-member delegation dream was made a reality due to the Chinese Consulate in Ottawa, Canada. Their 15-day trip expanded America’s rapidly changing political engagement with China but was rooted in the goals of Black Internationalists who proceeded them. As the US delegation shared information about the state and condition of Black American’s health, they also had first-hand insights into the Chinese medical infrastructure and knowledge about holistic practices such traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). George Braithwaite, a member of the historic American ping pong team that engaged with the new China in 1972, is an example of sports as a means of diplomacy. Activist and future politician Unita Blackwell’s initial trip in 1973 with Shirley MacLaine with a delegation of women to record the documentary The Other Half of the Sky would be a catalyst for her lifelong interest in China. She became active in the US-China Peoples Friendship Association (USCPFA), the primary organization for normalizing the new US-China relations to the American public, and attracted other Black activists including Mose Yvonne Hooks, who traveled to China in 1975, and Kalamu yu Salaam who went to China in 1977 with a delegation of the Black Independent Schools. Following in the tradition of those who preceded them by engaging with the politic of the moment, this new wave also enriched the US-China relationship through the expression of Black excellence in various areas of expertise, be it sports or medicine.
The significance of the how the presence of Black individuals has shaped and enhanced the China space is one that organizations such as the Black China Caucus are proud to continue. In homage to those who preceded us, we honor the paths they carved and the trails they blazed. We proudly speak their names and loudly proclaim all their achievements. They forged new ways of thinking, engaging with, and seeing China not just for Black Americans or Americans, but the larger Black diaspora.
We humbly continue that legacy through providing a new space to continue to amplify Black voices in the China space and raise issues that impact a multitude of communities through our new blog, 博客.
In this inaugural Call for Papers or CFP, we are asking BCC members to review the style guide and send submissions to info@blackchinacaucus.org with subject heading “BCC Blog submission” by April 23, 2024.