The Unofficial Secretary of State : Claude Barnett and Pan-African Internationalism during the Cold War, 1947-1957

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Edeagu, Ngozi:
The Unofficial Secretary of State : Claude Barnett and Pan-African Internationalism during the Cold War, 1947-1957.
2022
Event: Cold War Disconnections and the Transformation of Internationalisms , June 8-10, 2022 , LMU Munich.
(Conference item: Workshop , Paper )

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As the United States began to see Africa's importance during the Cold War, African Americans played a leading role in the new relationship between Africa and the United States. As “cousins” and “brethren” of those in Africa, “they frequently crafted a discourse positing themselves as suitable consultants and advisers on African issues.” Claude Barnett, founder and Director of the Associated Negro Press (ANP), while understated in discussions of Pan-African Internationalism during the Cold War, stands out as a formidable Pan-African news broker during the height of the Cold War. With over 40 years experience running the ANP, Barnett was conversant with the various ideological movements and political activities in several parts of Africa. Through his news subscription service, which collated news from multiple sources and supplied same in the form of bi- (and later tri-) weekly news releases and features to predominantly African and African American newspapers, he became arguably one of “the leading Pan-Africanists of the twentieth century.” From 1919, the ANP began providing “sketchy but substantial” coverage of Africa to the attention of America’s black reading public, long before it became fashionable to do so. These releases, in particular, criticised European colonialism and drew palpable parallels between the plight of domestic and colonial victims of oppression. This paper traces the neglected role of Barnett as ‘unofficial secretary of state’ within the interstices of the Pan African leadership transfer to Africa in 1945 with the Manchester Pan-African Congress and the “golden age of Pan-Africanism” (1950s-60s). Barnett’s 1947 historic visit to West Africa included Nigeria, which he confessed “was probably more in the minds of the Americans than any other colonies.” Among other aims, he sought the extent to which African leaders were employing communist ideology in their fight against imperialism. Barnett’s projection of himself as an African expert undermined one of his stated goals—amplifying the voices of non-elite colonial Nigerians “fighting effectively for their rights—at a time when Cold War rivalries, decolonization and competing efforts to bring about ‘development’” became entangled.