Facing the Rising Sun

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Facing the Rising Sun Page 24

by Gerald Horne


  42 Sven Saaler, “Pan-Asianism during and after World War I: Kodera Kenkichi (1916), Sawayanagi Masataro (1919) and Teichi Sugita (1920),” in Saaler and Szpilman, Pan-Asianism: A Documentary History, vol. 1, 255–60, 259. Even at this early stage, African Americans were making distinctions between Japanese and Chinese migrants. The Negro journalist T. Thomas Fortune, for example, was willing to entertain the idea of restriction of Chinese immigration. See “Fortunes and the Homesteads,” Hawaiian Star, 30 December 1902, 5.

  43 “Jap or Negro Labor?,” Freeman (Indianapolis), 9 March 1907, 3.

  44 “Japanese Colony in Texas?,” Washington Bee, 29 February 1908.

  45 R. W. Thompson, “Short Flight,” Freeman (Indianapolis), 24 July 1909, 6.

  46 “Jap Waiters Succeed Negroes,” Kansas Baptist Herald, 11 November 1911, 3.

  47 John T. Campbell, “Justice to the Negro,” Freeman (Indianapolis), 13 July 1907, 1.

  48 “Patriotism,” Freeman (Indianapolis), 29 April 1911, 3.

  49 “The Week in Society,” Washington Bee, 24 October 1908, 5.

  50 “In the Musical Circles,” Freeman (Indianapolis), 23 May 1908, 1.

  51 “Dr. B. T. Washington,” Washington Bee, 29 March 1913, 1.

  52 “Japanese Honor Dr. Washington,” Freeman (Indianapolis), 26 April 1913, 3.

  53 Japan-American Diplomatic Relations in the Meiji-Taisho Era (Tokyo: Pan-Pacific Press, 1958), trans. Michiko Kimura, 295, 299, 209, 211, 265, 266, 267. In 1898 Mary Crawford Fraser, then visiting Japan, reported “a new treaty” between Mexico City and Tokyo that had just been signed. Mrs. Hugh Fraser, Letters from Japan: A Record of Modern Life in the Island Empire (London: Macmillan, 1899), 42, 72–173. In a presentiment of the Pacific War, she was stunned to encounter “anti-foreign feeling” during her journey there. “We are occasionally met by scowling faces in the streets. . . . Once or twice stones have been thrown at the carriage.” She was born in Rome to parents who were U.S. nationals and married a British diplomat.

  54 Inazo Nitobe, The Japanese Nation: Its Land, Its People and Its Life (New York: Putnam’s, 1912), 90, 289. See also William Allan Reed, Negritos of Zambales, Department of the Interior, vol. 2, part 1, Ethnological Survey Publications (Manila: Bureau of Public Printing, 1904).

  55 John de Forest, The Truth about Japan (Boston: World Peace Foundation, 1912), Massachusetts Historical Society.

  56 Ryutaro Nagai, “The White Peril,” 1913, in Saaler and Szpilman, Pan-Asianism: A Documentary History, vol. 1, 164–68, 165, 166.

  57 Nick Chiles, “Benjamin Tillman,” Washington Bee, 24 May 1913, 2.

  58 Benjamin Tillman, “The Race Issue and the Annexation of the Philippines,” Speech in U.S. Senate, 29 January 1900, University of South Carolina, Columbia.

  59 Introduction to Saaler and Szpilman, Pan-Asianism: A Documentary History, vol. 1, 1–41, 24.

  60 “Doings of the Race,” Cleveland Gazette, 31 May 1913, 2.

  61 “Are We a Race of Cowards?,” Broad Axe (Chicago), 28 November 1914, 4.

  62 Owen M. Waller, “Waller against ‘Negro,’” St. Paul (MN) Appeal, 22 September 1917.

  63 Gerald Horne, Black and Brown: African Americans and the Mexican Revolution, 1910–1920 (New York: New York University Press, 2005). Cf. Horst Von Der Goltz, My Adventures as a German Secret Agent (New York: McBride, 1917); Thomas J. Tunney, Throttled! The Detection of the German and Anarchist Bomb Plotters (Boston: Small, Maynard, 1919); Franz von Rintelen, The Dark Invader: Wartime Reminiscences of a German Naval Intelligence Officer (London: Cass, 1998); and Henry Landau, The Enemy Within: The Inside Story of German Sabotage in America (New York: Putnam’s, 1937).

  64 Howard Blum, Dark Invasion, 1915: Germany’s Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America (New York: HarperCollins, 2014), 383, 417; Washington Post, 1 March 1917; Thomas Boghardt, The Zimmerman Telegram: Intelligence, Diplomacy and America’s Entry into World War I (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2012). For more on the notorious “Plan de San Diego,” see, e.g., Charles H. Harris III and Louis S. Sadler, The Plan de San Diego: Tejano Rebellion, Mexican Intrigue (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013).

  65 Senator Williams to Ambassador Aimaro Asto, 27 August 1917, Box 2, John Sharp Williams Papers, University of Mississippi, Oxford.

  66 Congressional Debate, 15 July 1919, Box 5, John Sharp Williams Papers.

  67 Lytle Brown to Chief of Staff, 5 July 1918, 168.7061–30 to 168.7061–71, Air Force Historical Research Agency.

  68 M. Churchill, Colonel, General Staff of War Department, to Chief of Staff, 2 July 1918, 168.7061–30, Air Force Historical Research Agency.

  69 Horne, Race War!, 35–37.

  70 Takao Ozawa v. U.S., 13 November 1922, in Odo, The Columbia Documentary History, 181–84.

  71 “The United States Supreme Court Bars the Japanese from American Citizenship,” Negro World, 25 November 1922, 3. See also Adam Ewing, The Age of Garvey: How a Jamaican Activist Created a Mass Movement and Changed Global Black Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014).

  72 Eleanor Tupper, Japan in American Public Opinion (New York: Macmillan, 1937), 209.

  73 Eric Hotta, “Konoe Fumimaro: ‘A Call to Reject the Anglo-American Centered Peace,’” 1918, in Saaler and Szpilman, Pan-Asianism: A Documentary History, vol. 1, 311–14, 313.

  74 E. Taylor Atkins, Authenticating Jazz in Japan (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001), 12, 50.

  75 W. M. Reicke, “‘Now Ain’t This Awful,’” Savannah Tribune, 9 October 1920, 3.

  76 William Pickens, “Japs United Because of Their Thrift,” Savannah Tribune, 27 November 1920, 1.

  77 “Negroes and Japanese Brought into Comparison,” Savannah Tribune, 15 January 1921, 3.

  78 “Japan on American Lynching,” Topeka Plain Dealer, 4 November 1921, 1.

  79 “Japan Holds Mass Meeting of Protest against Injustices to Negroes in America,” Negro World, 3 June 1922, 7.

  Chapter 2. Harlem, Addis Ababa—and Tokyo

  1 Chicago Commission on Race Relations, The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1922), 59, 61. See also Reto Hofmann, The Fascist Effect: Japan and Italy, 1915–1952 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015).

  2 “. . . Says Japan May Attack America in 1922,” Negro World, 27 August 1921, 7.

  3 “Greetings from Yokohama, Japan,” Negro World, 5 November 1921, 4.

  4 “Greetings from the Orient,” Negro World, 12 November 1921, 4.

  5 “Race War Threatens World,” Negro World, 5 November 1921, 9.

  6 “Disarmament Conference,” Negro World, 12 November 1921, 4.

  7 “Darker Races . . . Want Equality,” Savannah Tribune, 12 January 1922, 4.

  8 Andrew David Field, Shanghai’s Dancing World: Cabaret Culture and Urban Politics, 1919–1954 (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2010), 37, 93.

  9 “Japan and the Darker Races,” Negro World, 12 November 1921, 4.

  10 Robert Poston, “The Little Brown Democrats,” Negro World, 19 November 1921, 4.

  11 “Harrison on ‘Disarmament and the Negro,’” Negro World, 4 February 1922, 5.

  12 “Japanese Statesman Squashes Race Inferiority Complex,” Negro World, 29 April 1922, 3.

  13 “A Request to Discard the Propaganda of Alien Races,” Negro World, 3 November 1923, 1.

  14 “Though Not Liked, Japanese Are Respected, Says Hon. Marcus Garvey,” Negro World, 13 May 1922, 9.

  15 “Japan Scores American Morals,” Negro World, 17 June 1922, 5.

  16 F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (New York: Scribner’s, 1925), 15–16.

  17 “Japanese Problem More Threatening Than Negro Problem, Declares Attorney General,” Negro World, 26 May 1923, 5.

  18 “Jap Birth Rate Trebles That of Whites in State,” Los Angeles Examiner, 21 January 1923, 4.

  19 “Negroes Show Their Sympathy for the Japanese,” Negro World, 22 September 1923, 2.

  20
“Japanese Journalists Rebuffed and Insulted in South Africa,” Negro World, 10 July 1926, 2.

  21 “Japanese People Greatly Offended by the Exclusion Act,” Negro World, 7 June 1924, 4.

  22 “Japanese Diet Condemns U.S. Exclusion Law,” Negro World, 12 July 1924, 14.

  23 “Japanese Lining Up Asia for Coming Race Conflict,” Negro World, 5 July 1924, 15.

  24 “Jingoes and Japanese,” Negro World, 3 January 1925, 4.

  25 Jonathan Peter Spiro, Defending the Master Race: Conservation, Eugenics and the Legacy of Madison Grant (Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2009), 224, 232, 233, 141, 338.

  26 Sugita Teiichi, “An Argument for Uniting Greater Asia,” 1924, in Saaler and Szpilman, Pan-Asianism: A Documentary History, vol. 1, 265–69, 267.

  27 T. Thomas Fortune, “Some Dream Hours in Glorious Japan,” Negro World, 14 June 1924, 4.

  28 “Asiatics Meet in Convention to End Domination by Aliens,” Negro World, 14 August 1926, 2.

  29 Haruji Tawara, “Japanese Journalist’s Message to U.S. Negroes,” Negro World, 30 July 1927, 1.

  30 Sakashita, “Lynching across the Pacific,” 184, 187, 190, 191.

  31 Yukiko Koshiro, Imperial Eclipse: Japan’s Strategic Thinking about Continental Asia before August 1945 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 27–28.

  32 Alex Lubin, Geographies of Liberation: The Making of an Afro-Arab Political Imaginary (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014), 61, 74, 75. See also Ian Duffield, “Duse Mohammed Ali and the Development of Pan-Africanism, 1866–1945” (Ph.D. diss., Edinburgh University, 1971).

  33 Ewing, The Age of Garvey, 129, 134; Negro World, 26 March 1927.

  34 J. Lawson to B. D. Amis, 5 April 1932, Reel 234, Delo 3038, Papers of the Communist Party-USA, Library of Congress.

  35 Seth McMeekin, The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany’s Bid for World Power (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010).

  36 Mikiya Koyagi, “The Hajj by Japanese Muslims in the Interwar Period: Japan’s Pan-Asianism and Economic Interests,” Journal of World History 24, no. 4 (December 2012): 849–76.

  37 Selcuk Esenbel, “Abdurresid Ibrahim: The World of Islam and the Spread of Islam in Japan,” 1910, in Saaler and Szpilman, Pan-Asianism: A Documentary History, vol. 1, 195–201, 197.

  38 Renee Worringer, “Hatano Uho: ‘Asia in Danger,’” 1912, in Saaler and Szpilman, Pan-Asianism: A Documentary History, vol. 1, 149–53, 149.

  39 Nakano Seigo, “The Mountains and Rivers of a Fallen State,” in Saaler and Szpilman, Pan-Asianism: A Documentary History, vol. 2, 52–53, 52.

  40 Hosoi Hajime, “Japan’s Resolve,” 1932, in Saaler and Szpilman, Pan Asianism: A Documentary History, vol. 2, 120.

  41 See, e.g., Horne, The End of Empires, 79.

  42 Release, ANP, July 1930, Reel 3, #30, Part I, Series A, Barnett Papers. See also Release, ANP, February 1935, Reel 10, #217, Part I, Series A: “Delegation of Negroes from the southern part of the United States . . . failed in its request for a land grant from the Polish government. . . . [They] said they represented 500 families ready to immigrate into southern Poland from the United States if they are granted homesteads. . . . The delegates left Poland for Romania.” See also Release, ANP, November 1938, Reel 17, #1084, Part I, Series A: In Crimea there was reputedly a Negro colony comprising “dissatisfied elements of the United States, French and English colonies,” as well as “South Africa, . . . Belgian Congo,” and so on. Many were artists and physicians.

  43 Claude Andrew Clegg, An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad (New York: St. Martin’s, 1997), 65, 82, 89.

  44 Revilo Oliver, “The Black Muslims,” 1963, Vertical File, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg.

  45 U.S. v. Elijah Mohamed, alias Elijah Poole, alias Gulan Bogans, alias Mohammed Rassoull, October term 1942, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division of Chicago, Record Group 21, Criminal Case Files, Case no. 33647, Box 1152, National Archives and Records Administration, Chicago.

  46 See, e.g., Allen, “When Japan Was Champion of the ‘Darker Races’”; and Allen, “‘Waiting for Tojo.’” Allen also makes the point that many of these pro-Tokyo organizations formed among Negroes had a view reflecting “millennialism” that stretched back to the days of slavery.

  47 Memorandum, 1939, in Hill, The FBI’s RACON, 515.

  48 William Pickens, “Stimson and Japan—Communists and Congress,” Topeka Plaindealer, 11 December 1931, 2.

  49 William Pickens, “Japan in Manchuria Takes Leaf from Book of ‘Occupation’ in Haiti,” Topeka Plaindealer, 25 December 1931, 1. See also Etusuko Taketani, “The Cartography of the Black Pacific: James Weldon Johnson’s ‘Along This Way,’” American Quarterly 59, no. 1 (March 2007): 79–106.

  50 William Pickens, “‘White Supremacy’ Is Dead,” Kansas City (KS) Wyandotte Echo, 11 March 1932, 1.

  51 “The Case for Japan,” Baltimore Afro-American, 15 January 1938, 4. Particularly in the 1960s, many Black Nationalists and some on the left began to view China the way Japan was viewed decades earlier, as a kind of “champion of the darker races,” with little reference to how China had been viewed previously by African Americans. See, e.g., Robeson Taj Frazier, The East Is Black: Cold War China in the Black Radical Imagination (Durham: Duke University Press, 2015). One scholar has observed that “from 1880–1935 almost every time those of Chinese origin were mentioned in the black press, it was in connection with intrigue, prostitution, murder, the sale of opium or children for money,” not to mention “superstitious practices, shootings or tong wars.” See Arnold Shankman, “Black on Yellow: Afro-Americans View Chinese-Americans, 1850–1935,” Phylon 39, no. 1 (Spring 1978): 1–17, 7. On the other hand, note that the anti-Chinese initiatives in Washington, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 and other proposals to bar Chinese immigration, were greeted with “almost unanimous opposition” in the “black press.” See Jun, Race for Citizenship. See also Edlie L. Wong, Racial Reconstruction: Black Inclusion, Chinese Exclusion, and the Fictions of Citizenship (New York: New York University Press, 2015).

  52 Release, ANP, May 1936, Reel 12, #867, Part I, Series A, ANP News Releases, Barnett Papers.

  53 Release, ANP, August 1936, Reel 13, #640, Part I, Series A.

  54 Kansas City Plaindealer, 17 March 1933.

  55 William R. Scott, The Sons of Sheba’s Race: African Americans and the Ethiopian War, 1935–1941 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993); Joseph Harris, African American Reactions to War in Ethiopia, 1936–1941 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994).

  56 Horne, Race War!, 231–32. See also Richard Bradshaw, “Japan and European Colonialism in Africa, 1800–1937” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio University, 1992), 337, 343.

  57 U.S. v. Leonard Robert Jordan, alias Robert Gordon, Lester Holness, alias Lester Casey, Joseph Hartrey, alias Joseph Ashley, Ralph Green Best, alias Ralph Thomas Best, and James Thornhill, 1942–1943, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, C113–40 and C-113–264, National Archives and Records Administration, New York (this record, however, was retrieved from storage at the National Archives and Records Administration facility in Kansas City, MO).

  58 U.S. v. Mittie Maude Lena Gordon et al., U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, Brief and Argument for the Appellants, 8 June 1943, #8256, National Archives and Records Administration, Chicago.

  59 Release, ANP, May 1936, Reel 12, #854, Part I, Series A, ANP News Releases, 1928–1944, Barnett Papers.

  60 Release, ANP, October 1935, Reel 11, #658, Part I, Series A.

  61 Release, ANP, November 1930, Reel 3, #475, Part I, Series A.

  62 Letters from Emperor Haile Selassie, Dr. W. Martin, and Dr. Tecle Hawariate, in “The Friends of Ethiopia in America,” New York, 1935, University of Virginia, Charlottesville.

  63 Release, ANP, August 1935, Reel 11, #43, Part I, ANP News Releases, Series A, 1928–1944, Barnett Papers.

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nbsp; 64 Release, ANP, May 1936, Reel 12, #1043, Part I, Series A.

  65 Release, ANP, August 1935, Reel 11, #67, Part I, Series A.

  66 Release, ANP, August 1935, Reel 11, #118, Part I, Series A.

  67 Release, ANP, August 1934, Reel 11, #126, Part I, Series A.

  68 Release, ANP, August 1934, Reel 11, #143, Part I, Series A.

  69 Release, ANP, November 1935, Reel 11, #874, Part I, Series A.

 

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