8 - “The Dark Skin[ned] People of the Eastern World”: Mittie Maude Lena Gordon’s Vision of Afro-Asian Solidarity

Summary

Mittie Maude Lena Gordon, founder and president of the Peace Movement of Ethiopia (PME) in Chicago, was a working-class black intellectual who advocated Afro-Asian solidarity during the 1930s and 1940s. Drawing on a long tradition of black internationalism, she pursued an alliance with Japan in the years leading up to World War II. Her political vision, however, contradicted the ideas of mainstream black leaders of the period. Although Gordon had limited formal education she developed inventive strategies to communicate with her mostly working-class audience. Black nationalist women such as Gordon were the most ardent supporters of recruiting Japan as an ally, even if they disagreed on the concrete political projects that should underpin Afro-Asian solidarity. Gordon opposed black migration to Japan’s conquered territory of Manchuria, preferring a ‘return to Africa.’ In Gordon, readers encounter an organic intellectual with a distinct class position, who searched for practical ways for people of color to bring white empire to an end.