Peace Was the Glue: Europe and African American Freedom

Scholarship on the African–American diaspora in Europe has focused heavily on culture and tends to neglect the way that African Americans contributed to, as well as absorbed, political ideas and engaged in activism in these nations. Many European countries developed strong peace movements because of their uncomfortable position between two hostile superpowers during the Cold War. These movements played a pivotal role in uniting the strands of the civil rights and anticolonial movements internationally, and in supporting anti-war initiatives during the Vietnam era. Strategies and tactics emanating from African–American sources found a common language in a global discourse of peace.