The Congressional Black Caucus and Foreign Policy

The Congressional Black Caucus and Foreign Policy
Author: Raymond W. Copson
Publisher: Nova Publishers
Total Pages: 62
Release: 2003
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781590337011

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) has been involved in the shaping of foreign and domestic policy issues since 1971, although it is more known for the role it has had in domestic affairs. As a minority within Congress, in order to be recognised and dealt with, the CBC has worked in coalition with other Members to achieve some of its aims. A certain pragmatism and willingness to give some leeway has been necessitous -- yet often times CBC members will risk arrest by protesting US foreign policy to call attention to its own agenda. For the most part, the issues that the Caucus has dealt with in areas of foreign policy were: (1) During the 1970's, African issues and particularly southern Africa, (2) by the 1980's, broadened to include Haiti and Haitian refugees, other Caribbean issues and defence budget. This comprehensive book shows the CBC's 25 year struggle to sway US foreign policy in order to achieve a favourable outcome of its goals. Some of the successes that the CBC is responsible for are the Rhodesia and South African sanctions, aid to Africa, as well as favourable change in Haiti. Major challenges that the CBC faces in years to come, are also discussed.

Congress and U.S. Foreign Policy

Congress and U.S. Foreign Policy
Author: Ralph G. Carter
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2021-06-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1538151243

Leading scholars in the study of congress and US foreign policy address congress’s vital role in determining how and why the US chooses it's international policy agendas. They address key aspects of congressional activism, assertiveness, and acquiescence in an era of divided government and polarized politics.

Just Permanent Interests

Just Permanent Interests
Author: William L. Clay
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2000-02-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781567430417

From the Reconstruction of the 1870s to the Presidential politics of the 1980s, Representative Clay looks at African-American politicians and chronicles the founding of the Congressional Black Caucus, its high points and its low moments. b/w photographic insert.

Congressional Record

Congressional Record
Author: United States. Congress
Publisher:
Total Pages: 1356
Release: 1964
Genre: Law
ISBN:

The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published daily when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record began publication in 1873. Debates for sessions prior to 1873 are recorded in The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (1789-1824), the Register of Debates in Congress (1824-1837), and the Congressional Globe (1833-1873)

In This Land of Plenty

In This Land of Plenty
Author: Benjamin Talton
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2019-08-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 0812251474

On August 7, 1989, Congressman Mickey Leland departed on a flight from Addis Ababa, with his thirteen-member delegation of Ethiopian and American relief workers and policy analysts, bound for Ethiopia's border with Sudan. This was Leland's seventh official humanitarian mission in his nearly decade-long drive to transform U.S. policies toward Africa to conform to his black internationalist vision of global cooperation, antiracism, and freedom from hunger. Leland's flight never arrived at its destination. The plane crashed, with no survivors. When Leland embarked on that delegation, he was a forty-four-year-old, deeply charismatic, fiercely compassionate, black, radical American. He was also an elected Democratic representative of Houston's largely African American and Latino Eighteenth Congressional District. Above all, he was a self-proclaimed "citizen of humanity." Throughout the 1980s, Leland and a small group of former radical-activist African American colleagues inside and outside Congress exerted outsized influence to elevate Africa's significance in American foreign affairs and to move the United States from its Cold War orientation toward a foreign policy devoted to humanitarianism, antiracism, and moral leadership. Their internationalism defined a new era of black political engagement with Africa. In This Land of Plenty presents Leland as the embodiment of larger currents in African American politics at the end of the twentieth century. But a sober look at his aspirations shows the successes and shortcomings of domestic radicalism and aspirations of politically neutral humanitarianism during the 1980s, and the extent to which the decade was a major turning point in U.S. relations with the African continent. Exploring the links between political activism, electoral politics, and international affairs, Benjamin Talton not only details Leland's political career but also examines African Americans' successes and failures in influencing U.S. foreign policy toward African and other Global South countries.

Between Homeland and Motherland

Between Homeland and Motherland
Author: Alvin B. Tillery, Jr.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 215
Release: 2011-03-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0801461014

In Between Homeland and Motherland, Alvin B. Tillery Jr. considers the history of political engagement with Africa on the part of African Americans, beginning with the birth of Paul Cuffe’s back-to-Africa movement in the Federal Period to the Congressional Black Caucus’ struggle to reach consensus on the African Growth and Opportunity Act of 2000. In contrast to the prevailing view that pan-Africanism has been the dominant ideology guiding black leaders in formulating foreign policy positions toward Africa, Tillery highlights the importance of domestic politics and factors within the African American community. Employing an innovative multimethod approach that combines archival research, statistical modeling, and interviews, Tillery argues that among African American elites—activists, intellectuals, and politicians—factors internal to the community played a large role in shaping their approach to African issues, and that shaping U.S. policy toward Africa was often secondary to winning political battles in the domestic arena. At the same time, Africa and its interests were important to America’s black elite, and Tillery’s analysis reveals that many black leaders have strong attachments to the "motherland." Spanning two centuries of African American engagement with Africa, this book shows how black leaders continuously balanced national, transnational, and community impulses, whether distancing themselves from Marcus Garvey’s back-to-Africa movement, supporting the anticolonialism movements of the 1950s, or opposing South African apartheid in the 1980s.

The Congressional Black Caucus

The Congressional Black Caucus
Author: Robert Singh
Publisher: SAGE Publications, Incorporated
Total Pages: 260
Release: 1998
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

The Congressional Black Caucus has grown both in size and in prominence in its short lifetime. Robert Singh considers the actual impact of the CBC on public policy in this new volume for the Contemporary American Politics series. Singh argues that while the CBC forcefully articulates the concerns of African Americans, it has not only proven an ineffective interest lobby for their issues, but has become increasingly irrelevant as a labor union for its own members. Drawing on extensive data, The Congressional Black Caucus provides the first coherent and balanced overview of both the electoral and institutional forces, which together shape the CBCÆs fortunes. The Congressional Black Caucus will be of considerable interest to scholars and students in the areas of legislative process, race and politics, public policy, and political sociology.

African American Perspectives on Political Science

African American Perspectives on Political Science
Author: Wilbur Rich
Publisher: Temple University Press
Total Pages: 457
Release: 2007-01-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1592131093

Race matters in both national and international politics. Starting from this perspective, African American Perspectives on Political Science presents original essays from leading African American political scientists. Collectively, they evaluate the discipline, its subfields, the quality of race-related research, and omissions in the literature. They argue that because Americans do not fully understand the many-faceted issues of race in politics in their own country, they find it difficult to comprehend ethnic and racial disputes in other countries as well. In addition, partly because there are so few African Americans in the field, political science faces a danger of unconscious insularity in methodology and outlook. Contributors argue that the discipline needs multiple perspectives to prevent it from developing blind spots. Taken as a whole, these essays argue with great urgency that African American political scientists have a unique opportunity and a special responsibility to rethink the canon, the norms, and the directions of the discipline.

The Congressional Black Caucus

The Congressional Black Caucus
Author: Sherice Janaye Nelson
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2021-12-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 166571428X

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is the first racial caucus established in the Western world. The CBC was founded in 1971 after the historic Civil Rights Act of 1965 and the 1970 Census; both of which allowed voting districts to be redrawn—especially in the South where Blacks were denied constitutional rights. This burden and opportunity to speak of, advocate for, and legislate around the disparities in the lives of Blacks as citizens of the United States was, and continues to be the mission of the Caucus. CBC members understand that they are descriptive representatives as well as symbolic representatives charged with producing substantive legislation. They are a symbol of full Black citizenship; their individual elections, the creation, and the sustained legislative power of the Caucus symbolizes the collapse of dual sovereignty. A symbol many are bound to defecate with the inflation of states rights that will in-turn nullify the elections of many Black legislators. The author reviews the legislative accomplishments, the legislative influence, and global impact the Congressional Black Caucus has made since its founding by focusing on how it has used legislative activism to improve the lives of the oppressed and forgotten. The work asserts that a racialized government structure has made the work done by the CBC appear as one step forward and two steps backward. Therefore, a historical review and subsequent analysis is imperative to truly understand how a racialized structure established obstacles the original thirteen members had to face, while understanding how those current obstacles hinder the CBC members of today.