Nemata Blyden: African Americans and Africa

Recent trends, including rising immigration levels, globalization, and the United States’ first African American president, have raised the importance of recognizing the identity of “African Americans” and their relation to the African continent. Elliott School Associate Professor of History and International Affairs Nemata Blyden discusses this relationship between African Americans and Africa by mapping overlapping diasporas from the era of slavery to the present day in her new book Africans Americans and Africa. Through studies of works by African American individuals ranging from ex-slave and poet Phillis Wheatley to civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois, Nemata Blyden accentuates the evolution of a distinctly African American identity. The book addresses fundamental factors in the study of diverse identities as a result of association with African American history and culture.