AFRICAN AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS AND GERMANY

Posted on | November 24, 2008 | No Comments

AFRICAN AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS AND GERMANY

Exhibition at the German Historical Institute, Washington, DC
November 15, 2008 – January 15, 2009

When Barack Obama addressed more than 200,000 enthusiastic Berliners this year, the German press evoked not only the memory of John F. Kennedy’s famous visit to the city in 1963 but also that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. the following year. Surprisingly, however, neither King’s visit in September 1964 nor the role of Germany in the history of the African American civil rights movement has so far received any noticeable public or scholarly attention.

This exhibition shows how Germany emerged as a critical point of reference in African American demands for an end to segregation and for equal rights. It traces the encounter between African Americans and Germany from the mid-1930s until the late 1970s by focusing on the experience of black GIs in Germany, Martin Luther King’s visit to Berlin in 1964, the German student movement’s connections to the Black Panther Party, the Angela Davis solidarity campaigns in East and West Germany, and the GI movement in the Federal Republic in the 1970s.

Supported by Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, NY) and the Humanities Council of Washington, DC

For more information see: http://www.ghi-dc.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=536&Itemid=263
By illustrating the largely untold story of African American GIs and the transnational implications of the African American Civil Rights movement, this exhibition hopes to advance a more nuanced and sophisticated sense of how America’s struggle for democracy reverberated across the globe.

It presents the first results of a joint research initiative of the German Historical Institute, Vassar College, and the Heidelberg Center for American Studies at the University of Heidelberg which features conferences, publications, and the production of a digital archive on “African American Civil Rights and Germany” that includes documents, images, and oral histories.

If you would like to contribute to this effort by sharing your own experience or for further information, please visit: http://projects.vassar.edu/africanamericansoldiers

We also welcome requests for guided tours for individual groups, as well as high school and university students.

The exhibition was planned, researched, and written by Maria Höhn (Vassar College) and Martin Klimke (GHI Washington/Heidelberg Center for American Studies, University of Heidelberg)

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