Bounds of Blackness

African Americans, Sudan, and the Politics of Solidarity

Christopher Tounsel

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Year: 2024
• ISBN:
  9781501775642
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Afroamerikanische Geschichte

Bounds of Blackness explores the history of Black America's intellectual and cultural engagement with the modern state of Sudan. Ancient Sudan occupies a central place in the Black American imaginary as an exemplar of Black glory, pride, and civilization, while contemporary Sudan, often categorized as part of "Arab Africa" rather than "Black Africa, " is often sidelined and overlooked. In this pathbreaking book, Christopher Tounsel unpacks the vacillating approaches of Black Americans to the Sudanese state and its multiethnic populace through periods defined by colonialism, postcolonial civil wars, genocide in Darfur, and South Sudanese independence. By exploring the work of African American intellectuals, diplomats, organizations, and media outlets, Tounsel shows how this transnational relationship reflects the robust yet capricious terms of racial consciousness in the African Diaspora.

Table of contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The No-Man’s-Land of the Blacks
• 1. Negro Canaan
• 2. Plain Imperialism
• 3. An Atmosphere of Good Relations
• 4. The Great Divergence
• 5. Call to Brotherhood
• 6. A Worthy Cause
• Conclusion: Black Lives Matter in Sudan
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index