Episode 345 – Blackness in Japan, Part 3

This week, we’re talking about political and cultural exchange between black communities and Japan in the 20s and 30s, as well as how one prominent black leader found himself bamboozled by Japan’s pro-empire propaganda in the 1930s.

 

Sources

Horne, Gerald. Facing the Rising Sun: African Americans, Japan, and the Rise of Afro-Asian Solidarity.

Here’s the collection of materials related to Hikida Yasuichi from the W.E.B. DuBois papers.

Here’s a link to Reginald Kearney’s fantastic paper “The Pro-Japanese Utterances of W.E.B. DuBois.”

A fantastic NPR article on the Philadelphia Royal Giants and their legacy.

Images

One of many letters from Hikida Yasuichi to W.E.B. DuBois. From the University of Massachusetts archives.
The Philadelphia Royal Giants on tour in Japan. From NPR and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
DuBois with professors from Tokyo’s major universities. From the University of Masachusetts archives.