7 - “The Sword of Damocles”: Présence Africaine and Decolonization in the Face of the Cold War

Summary

For many, independence from the conflict between the two world superpowers was as important as freedom from colonization under France or Britain. This chapter charts the possibilities that key African American and francophone black intellectuals explored in tandem through their connections to the journal and publishing house Présence Africaine in the years from 1956 through 1960. The work of thinkers such as Aimé Césaire, Richard Wright, Frantz Fanon and W. E. B Du Bois directly shaped the relationship between the Republics of the United States and France and formed contemporary notions of the relationship between politics and culture in staking civic rights claims in the Western framework. Here, the thought of these black thinkers - distilled from congress transcripts, journal articles, private correspondence and published monographs – is mapped out in terms of US State Department and French Colonial Office surveillance of their efforts and each country's approaches to decolonization. Not only does this illuminate the work of understudied figures such as Alioune Diop, Christine Yandé Diop, Mercer Cook and James Ivy but it also shows the ways that their work directly shaped the relationship between the Republics of the United States and France as well as contemporary notions of citizenship rights.