Kathleen rooney and miles harvey talk about how they approach Historical Research for fiction and nonfiction work, at 6 00 p. M. On the civil war, scott hartwig, discussing his research on the battle of antietam. At 8 00 p. M. , Patrick Allitt discusses richard nixon, his National Security adviser henry kissinger, and their key Foreign Policy initiatives. And former u. S. Senator sam nun, watch American History tv this weekend on cspan3. Up next on American HistoryTv University of minnesota professor sage matthew discusses how world war i affected africanamericans. She says that the promise of a better life because of military service in the war was largely denied by the reality of jim crow america. The National World war i museum and memorial in kansas city, missouri hosted this talk. It lasts about an hour. Good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon, good afternoon, thank you for coming to this session. My name is chad williams. It is my great pleasure and honor to serve as chair for this Plenary Session on africanamericans and the great war. Id like to first start off by thanking the program committee, especially lionel kimable for allowing the opportunity to put this session together. I want to give a big thanks to the entire executive board, especially executive secretary sylvia cyrus, and certainly last but not least sala president evelyn brooks for her support and this conference and this Plenary Session in particular. This theme for this years conference recognizes the centennial of the end of the First World War. The war would define the 20th century and still continues to reverberate today. Modernity, in its most destructive form, the war shattered empires, fractured nations and destroyed old ideas of progress, enlightenment and civilization. Over 20 Million People died between 1914 and 1918, and millions more after 1918 as the fires lit by the war continued to burn. World war i is traditionally cast as a european affair. Frequently minimized, treated as tangential as the impact on africanamericans in particular. The great war transformed black america. An argument can be made that the First World War was the seminal event for africanamericans in the 20th century, one that set the course of black social, political and Economic Life from its aftermath to the present, whether we think about black migration, civil rights organization, pan african, and radical black internationalist movements, the new negro renaissance and of course the experiences of africanamerican soldiers and veterans. The war was a moment of profound disjuncture, trauma and possibility. And i believe that is in seeing the war as a moment, a possibility, that we can begin to truly appreciate what the war meant. For africanamericans and what it can mean for us today. President Woodrow Wilson framed americas participation in the world to make the world safe for democracy. Africanamericans seized upon this to transform the war into a battle to make democracy a reality for their everyday lives. Black people did not need the war to remind them that they were, indeed, citizens worthy of democracy. However, the war created the conditions and provided the opportunities for black people to mobilize their citizenship and democratic consciousness, and demand that america be true to its promise and potential. They faced considerable resistance as the virulence of White Supremacy stands as one of the wars most defining features. Nevertheless, in ways large and small, subtle and spectacular, africanamerican men and women determined that after the war things would never be the same. We are fortunate to have with us this afternoon a remarkable collection of historians whose work individually and collectively has advanced our knowledge of what world war i meant for africanamericans and people of african descent, specifically related to issues such as the origins of the war and its connection to africa and the african diaspora, the war and the Long Civil Rights Movement, global racial violence and the meaning of war itself and the battles over memory, commemoration and historical erasure. So it is my great pleasure to introduce our panelists for this session. Our first panelist, perhaps needs no introduction, but he is always more than worthy of one. Of course the challenge for me is to keep it succinct because we could be here for quite some time. David lewis is the University Professor and professor of history emeritus at New York University, i hope you wont mind me saying this but i consider professor lewis to one of the greatest historians this country has ever produced, thats not hyperbole. I wouldnt mind that at all, thank you. Sorry to embarrass you like that. Hes authored and edited over a dozen books covering a wide span of United States, european, african and middle eastern history, his two volume biography of w. E. B. Duoi as i received the pulitzer. He has received other numerous awards, the most noble being the National Humanities award being awarded in 2009 and he shows no signs of slowing down. His most recent book, the improbable wendell willkie, the businessman who saved the Republican Party and conceived a new world order has been published by w. W. Norton and he has plans to follow this up with a book on slavery and the making of america. Hopefully. Our next panelist, adrian lynn smith is associate professor of history at duke university, where she holds secondary appointments in african and africanamerican studies and gender sexuality and feminist studies. She specializes in modern u. S. History, africanAmerican History, and histories of the United States and the world. Her 2009 book freedom struggles, africanamericans and world war i won the honor book award from the black caucus of the American Library association, a brilliant book. She currently is at work on a new project on africanamericans and state violence during the reagan era cold war. Our next panelist, sage matthieu, associate professor in minnesota, africanAmerican History with an emphasis on immigration, war, race, globalization, social movements, and political resistance. Professor matthieu is the author of the 2010 book resistance in canada 1870 to 1955 and the forthcoming book, the glory of their deeds, a global history of black soldiers and the great war era. Professor matthieu has earned several International Awards and is a fellow at the center for american studies, and at harvards w. E. Dubois institute. Shes a faculty fellow in studies for American History. And finally we have professor jeffrey t. Sammens, professor of history at New York University where he teaches a broad range of courses in United States and race and society. Hes the coauthor of beyond the ring, excuse me, the author, the role of boxing in american society, and most recently the 2014 book harlems rattlers and the great war, the undaunted 369th regiment and the africanamerican quest for equality, which he coauthored with john morrow junior and has been rightfully declared the definitive history of the 369th regiment. Hes a former national senator, a fie bet at a kappa, hes received fellowships from the National Endowment of the humanities and schaumburg research if black culture, he has plans to write a book, and im going to hold him accountable to this, writing a book on the heroic and tragic life of Henry Johnson, black americas great war hero of the First World War. So as far as the format for this plenary, each of our panelists will speak for roughly ten minutes, or so, ill try my best to keep them on task. Then ill take advantage of my prerogative as chair to pose some questions to get the conversation going. And then we will take questions from the audience. So were going to be going a little bit out of order on the program and beginning with professor lewis. Thanks very much for that introduction, professor williams. I owe what im going to say to w. E. B. Dubois, in fact, i really am plagiarizing. Its the african roots of the war. Margaret mcmillans the war that ended peace opens with a question which there is as yet no agreed upon final answer, to wit, how could europe have done this to itself . Her splendid book insists that the answer lies with a small number of men, and they were all men, she reminds us, who could have said no. Indeed, there were some notable men and women who did say no to the war. They sally across the pages of adam hawkchiles brilliant to end all wars but as for the men whose opinions mattered, the sovereigns, cabinet ministers, generals and politicians, had they restrained their allies, prioritized diplomacy, sent no fatal ultimatums, given no final mobilization orders, sarajevo would have been yet another balcan incident, not what destroyed a world order. Imagining europes yay saying elites as nay sayers, however, is a counternarrative that determinists would insist flies in the face of the complex system of Spring Loaded adversarial alliances nearly awaiting the triggering incident for the determinists the war was ultimately inevitable. Whatever the proximate causes of the war the european elites sanctioned, the cambridge historian Richard Evans reminds us that the european elites shared, quote, a generally positive attitude wards war, and a collective epistemology based on, quote, notions of honor, expectations of swift victory, and ideas of social darwinism, quotes. The answer, as to how europeans could do such terrible violence to themselves lies to a considerable degree with answers to another question, to wit, what of the consequences to themselves of the terrible violence they perpetrated on noneuropeans . Fair to say few times in history has manifest destiny and asymmetrical power produced such transformational violence in so brief a time. A single generation sufficed for quinine, repeating rifles, and maxim guns to spread european disruption from cairo to the cape in the name of christianity, commerce and civilization. William Edward Dubois says the roots of the war appeared in the may 19th issue of atlantic monthly. His readers were meant to ponder the fateful consequences of what dubois saw as a collision of racial arrogance and geopolitics that made the socalled dark continent the cause of the world war that had repeatedly come with an ace of starting above or below the sahara. Dubois described the european presence in africa as a technologic technological assassination, rape and torture, quotes, in the name of racial superiority. In the 30year span from the berlin west african conference to the war declaration against serbia, africas real estate was partitioned, africans independence extinguished, frans humanity devalued and own values corrupted and europeans own values corrupted by the prerogatives of european of imperial domination. Dubois had in mind Great Britain ice unilateral occupation of egypt at the behest of great banking houses and a front to the french interests that effectively launched the african scramble after 1882. He had in mind the Second World War 17 years later when cecil roads attempted to steal the 75,000 soldiers and civilians dead from Great Britains greatest combat since waterloo, 26,000 of them dead in concentration camps. The institutionalized bar barity in leopolds congo was exception until ale in scale but hardly different than the draconian chad in mali mimicked the belgians, the first genocide was in german south africa when authorities sanctioned the serial extermination of the nama peoples in nmibia in 1904 and reported in the german press and achieved with a full arsenal of new tools, barbed wire and poisoned a poisoned auk with fers. Dubois tried to make macroeconomic sense out of the horror show. The african roots of the war anticipated lenins highest age of capitalism, duboiss article had economic theories to explain why a monopoly capitalism escaped the contradictions of class warfare and class conflict in overproduction. Instead, though, of channelling the highest stage of capitalism, imperialism would better have been conceived as the highest stage offette no sent rhythm. A collective psychosis in which the compensations of pigment increasingly deformed the humanitarianism of africas occupiers, the eccentric swedish scholar is convinced that the last words in that great literary masterpiece of empire, heart of darkness, exterminate all the brutes, was taken from Herbert Spencers social statics, foundation texts of darwinism. Ideology demanded cold hearted discipline, the forces which are working out the great scheme of perfect happiness, exterminates such sections of mankind to stand in their way, he cat kiezed has victorians, be he human or be he brute, the hindrance must be got rid of, as befit the proconsul of egypt the lords language in the government of subject peoples it was tonier than conrads curts, but he sniffed an englishman need not always inquire too closely. Even as the brute succeeded in making himself heard when in 1885 radical islamists eliminated in sudan and absinians disgraced the italians. They grasped almost nothing of the large political and technological implications for themselves. They missed entirely the 19th centurys most important military legacy for the impending 20th. For major douglas hague, future british expeditious nair force commander and Lieutenant General and lieutenant winston churchill, on that september morning in 1898 it was the empire 50,000 rifle and spear wielding sue suni arabs charging 5,000 troops and their maxim books, the river war described the results. Thus ended the battle, he enthused, the most signal triumph ever gained of armed of science over bar barrians. In the space of five hours the best savage army against a modern european power has been destroyed and dispersed with hardly any difficulty. 10,000 sudanese died, the british suffered 48 fatalities. Adams book to end all wars cites the endorsement of the maxim, a weapon especially adapted to terrify a semicivilized foe. By the time the article appeared maxim guns had terrified civilized foes out of their saddles, entrenched them behind 25,000 miles of barbed wire since the previous september, and killed 25 times the number of sudanese, sudanese dead at androman. The list of african flash points that could have ignited a european firestorm from 1914 were mostly unfamiliar to atlantic monthlys american subscribers, france, england, italy and turkey and tripoli, england and portugal, england, germany and the dutch in south africa, france and spain and morocco, germany and france, and the world at algasiros. Although the war didnt start . 1898, it guaranteed full fledged hostilities between europes major powers in less than a generation. When it came time to play their parts in the tragedy of august 1914, the principal players arrived with diplomatic scripts, decisively revised after frances ambidextrous foreign minister assuaged the pride of his countrys colonial lobby, and secretly sailed to st. Petersburg in summer 1899 to close the loophole in an alliance whose partner left france on the upper nile with little to show for her 5 billion gold franc investment. Binding russia to all of frances Security Issues and vice versa in a dual alliance for the duration of their adversarials adversarys triple alliance. Meanwhile the french ambassador and the British Foreign secretary quietly signed the innocuous sounding addition to the article 4 of 1898 Niger Convention which finally closed the 16year dispute over the egyptian question. By its terms the nile valley became officially british, but with a tacit understanding that the rest of north africa west of the nile was frances for the taking. It lifted enough of the albatross of ang lo phobia to return the enemy front and center to frances security occupations and simultaneously germany moved front and center to britains occupations because of colonial ambitions. Fast forward from 1899 through the series of agreements in spring of 1904, the august 1907 anglo Russian Convention ending the great game between britain and russia in afghanistan and persia to the july 1912 anglo french naval accord and you have Great Britain and the titan abdul alliance that emerged out of africa primed to meet the triple alliance of germany, austria and italy. The men who designed these confrontational alliance possessed an untroubled belief in capacity and an exalted sense of righteousness destined to bring to their own continue men the soes yo logical and tech nological went on a bit long. But thank you. Well, yall, i have the pleasure of having listened to David Levering lewiss remarks and the daunting task of having to follow them. You know, this is probably what like the other girl in Reverend Franklins Church choir after aretha did a solo. I thought i would talk just a few minutes about how one thinks about, or how i have been thinking about the Long Civil Rights Movement and world war i together as someone who wrote a book about african about the black freedom struggles set in 1917 and is now writing a book about the black freedom struggle set in 1985, i apparently have some kind of relatio