World War II ended with two totals: Total victory for the Allies and Total change in the social and political structure and alignment of the world. Europe was in ruins, national independence drove inspired Asian and African nations, but US emerged as a superpower with a political, social and economic model for prosperity. But America was not alone, Soviet Union surfaced as the second superpower with equally advanced alternative modernity. This made Soviet Communism the main rival of Americanism.[1] This was when international perception of American democracy became very important in order for US to achieve two goals, first to maintain world leadership, and second to be attractive for the newly independent nations.
However, it was soon realized that for the US to be a world leader, mere military and economic might was not sufficient. Promoting democracy was becoming more and more difficult given the international attention which was making the situation embarrassing for US diplomats. The rhetoric of American model of democracy had to demonstrate its reflection in practical daily life of Americans, including African Americans who did not enjoy the same rights and privileges as white Americans did. American racial issues attracted world attention after the Jimmy Wilson case in 1958[2] and became an issue of international debate mainly because America was not just a country, but a world leader and a model for others, a nation that fought Fascism and its value of racial discrimination, and could not be expected to allow the very practices within its own borders. Racial discrimination was not just exercised against civilian black Americans, but also members of the armed forces as well as non-white foreign dignitaries[3] visiting the United States. The brutal murder of George Dorsey an army veteran and his friends or the blinding of Sergeant Isaac Woodard were not accidents, they meant to convey a message; they meant to “put the returned Negro veteran in his place” as published in Pittsburgh Courier, and repudiate the “commitment to equality and democracy sealed in blood,” in the words of Dudziak[4]. American race issue affected the image of the US throughout the world, an image that was to be safeguarded through foreign policy initiatives for over two decades from 1940s to 1960s, initiatives that lacked congress support and southern backing completely. A good example of lack of Congress interest was the 1945 Permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission which was kept alive by Truman through Executive Orders after Roosevelt initiated it in 1941. Following his own Doctrine of 1947 which regarded containing Soviet Communism as the US mission, Truman aimed at safeguarding the international perception of American values in the face of Soviet Communism at any cost.[5]
It is impossible to exaggerate the role that the international media played in changing the focus of US foreign policy towards civil rights. While cases of racial discrimination were being covered throughout Europe, Asia and Africa, serious questions were being raised on the commitment of America to its long propagated values of equality and America’s ability to lead the world. Indian papers compared the treatment of black Americans to the British treatment of Indians, while a Chinese paper for instance considered American race issues a problem of internal US politics on one hand, but on the other differentiated between “domination” and “leadership” emphasizing the moral superiority in addition to military might for the latter.[6] Attempts aimed at rescuing foreign dignitaries through honorary white status had further negative impact, as it reinforced having racial discrimination as a value but trying to treat guests differently.
The role of international media was negative for the most part; appeals taken to the United Nations by civil rights activists didn’t render any practical results, but added to US officials’ embarrassment. In the midst of so much negativity towards the US image, State or Federal Court decisions that overturned patterns of discrimination had positive effects on foreign relations and on the international front, Dutch made the useful suggestion of turning the story around if it couldn’t be stopped to “counteract the impression.”
American officials took the Dutch suggestion quite seriously in their Cold War diplomacy efforts of the two decades to come.[7] These included United States Information Agency (USIA) efforts in spreading the word about history of slavery in the country and role of democracy in allowing for reconciliation between slaves and the freemen, thus arguing in favor of the progress that the US society has made as an attempt towards justifying present cases of racial discrimination if seen in the context of past evil period of slavery[8], as well as presenting US as an open and humble nation that acknowledges its problems and sins and asks for redemption. When such measures did not prove adequate, State Department officials relied on spreading the word through African Americans and increased African American presence as personnel of US embassies.[9] In addition, failing to balance the flow of information that negatively affected the image of the US, officials decided to cut on the amount and means of flow of such information. These steps included restrictions imposed on civil rights activists’ international travels, through passport seizures, visa denials or program cancellations. The subjects of these experiments were many including Louis Armstrong, Robeson, Dubios, William Patterson, and prominent entertainer Josephine Baker. But still something was missing, which was finally realized in a 1952 report on US information program. The realization was that in order for the US to have better stories to tell, US society needed to undergo deeper social change.[10] The impact of expansion of American influence and power in the world had become inevitable on internal politics and culture; civil rights needed attention because lack of it was wrong, was damaging economy and American foreign policy.
President Truman’s Justice Department set a precedent by providing information thus participating in court proceedings on issues of racial discrimination even if the State was not a party to it. This decision led to a number of anti-discrimination court decisions such as in the cases of Brown vs. Board of Education, Shelly vs. Kraemer, Henderson vs. United States and Sweatt and Mclaurin.
President Eisenhower faced a more visible practical crisis in 1957 when nine African American children wanted to enroll at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, against the wishes of white Americans including Governor Orval Faubus who thought that Little Rock was not yet ready for desegregation. The crisis attracted huge international attention, a major part of which was Soviet political exploitation. The final solution which came through Federal armed intervention could not stop the blow to the US prestige, which was already under pressure due to the Russian space shuttle Sputnik launched ahead of US on October 4, 1957. Positive outcomes however were Supreme Court decision in Cooper vs. Aaron, which reaffirmed the Brown decision and managed to wield the broken image to a degree when the issue was picked by international media. Cooper and Brown cases continued to be the basis for the projection of national policies abroad, while social change still remained a dream at national level, as southerners avoided segregation through legislative delay in desegregation and bureaucratization of the enrollment process.[11]
President Kennedy came at a more critical juncture of diplomatic relations and Cold War tension when the number of independent African countries had increased many times, civil rights movements had found a popular tactic of going into non-violent civil disobedience which attracted world attention, US was caught lying to the Soviets over the U-2 plane crisis, and US had made a failed attempt at overthrowing Fedal Castro in Cuba. There were some positive developments too however. Tolerance towards difference of opinion had increased, McCarthyism was no longer a haunting terror, activists were no longer facing seizure of passports, but Ku Klux Klan was as brutal as ever, which was proved by September 15 bombing of African American church in Brimingham. Kennedy resisted involvement in civil rights in the beginning, but the bombing issue, in the words of Martin Luthar King, infused “moral passion” in him to act. In his June 11, 1963 speech, President Kennedy called for Civil Rights Act, which unfortunately couldn’t be approved in his life. President Johnson stood on his words and passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which formally ended segregation and racial discrimination.
But social change was still a dream. Riots and assassinations of 1960s changed the whole picture. Now, more than ever, all Americans wanted law and order and not social change. After this, civil rights remained on Federal agenda, but not as a determinant of foreign policy, and therefore not seriously pursued.
There are a couple of conclusions to be drawn here. International and local policies interact with and affect each other and therefore no longer can be categorized as internal or external, national or international policies. For advocates of long term social change, international US image changed national racial policies, but fell short of bringing practical social change, mainly because the driving force towards that change was not from and for within, but from and for outside, as rightly acknowledged by Dudziak.[12] Racial policies were focus of attention for as long as they affected US image, which is why the reforms could not hold on and bear sustainable results in that time. There is a lesson in it for rights activists as well. To fight the battle at a world stage gives international dimension and influence to the movement, while at the same time restricting state options under close international watch. For policy makers it is critical to realize that policies are always contextual. They either precede their implementation frame or bring them along for near or distant future implementation. While efforts aimed at safeguarding the US image leading to anti-racial discrimination policies could not bring about immediate social change, they surely initiated the process. Could any American in 1960s imagine an African-American President? And for an Afghan policy maker, it is critical to strike a balance between wishful thinking of being the agent of change and the reactionary attitude of opposing it. The danger is being either on the extreme left as an impatient revolutionary, or on the extreme right as an element that lags even behind society’s natural pace of development. Under international pressure and in order to safeguard the image of Afghan Government less and US government more, constitutional reforms and pro-women’s rights legislation has been introduced in the past 8 years at an unprecedented pace, and with a speed that tends to ignore or underestimate the deep roots of gender discrimination in the patriarchal system. National Action Plan for Women of Afghanistan and the Elimination of Violence against Women are some of the instances. These will not hold long, especially after international forces withdrawal unless the target audience of efforts towards giving awareness, educating, lobbying and advocating change, from those who govern to those who are governed.
[1] Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War, Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge University Press, 2005), p17
[2] Mary Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy, (Princeton University Press, 2008), p 3.
[3] Same p 40
[4] Same p 10
[5] Same p 27
[6] Same p 32
[7] Same p 46
[8] Same pp 49, 51, 53
[9] Same p 58
[10] Same p 61
[11] Same p 150
[12] Same p 14