G-SEC WORKING PAPER No.15
Building a New Racial World Order:
Intersection of Pan-Asianism and Pan-Africanismin the Post-WWI World
Keiko Araki∗
May, 2007

Abstract
This paper explains how Pan-Asianists in Japan and Pan-Africanists in the United States
sympathized with each other in the post-WWI world.
Major black leaders in the post-WWI period, such as Marcus Garvey, adopted
Pan-Africanism as a key concept to uplift the status of blacks in US society. Garvey sought tobuild a progressive nation-state in Africa, which would represent the whole black population.
Inspired by the rule of self-determination formalized after WWI, he tried to substantiate blacks
as a ‘nation’ and elevate them as a whole. Garvey considered Japan as a model for theupcoming black nation-state and a leader of all darker races.
On the other hand, Japanese intellectuals found racism and colonialism to be decisive defects
in the democracy highly advocated by European nations. Frustrated with their own lower
status in world politics, these intellectuals attacked European and American treatment of blacks.
Although those who later became Pan-Asianists regarded African Americans and Africans as
backward people, they identify their international situation with the status of black people.
Moreover, they claimed to represent all the colored people oppressed by the European-centeredworld. The idea would later justify their imperial activities in Asia.

Keywords: Pan-Africanism; Pan-Asianism; Race; Colonialism∗

Part-time Instructor at Tokai University and Waseda University. E-mail: oakland309jp@yahoo.co.jp

“Our point is that Pan-Africa belongs logically with Pan-Asia.”- W. E. B. DuBois, Dark Princess 1

Introduction: Pan-Asianism and Pan-Africanism

This paper explains how Pan-Asianists in Japan and Pan-Africanists in the United States
sympathized with each other in the post-WWI world.

Pan-Africanism was considered an

ideology for emancipation, while Pan-Asianism is mainly referred to in relation with Japaneseaggression in Asia.

However, in the Post-WWI era, they shared the same worldview in which

they were both victims.

We will see both tried to build a new racial world order where theywould hold appropriate positions.
To define Pan-Africanism and Pan-Asianism is a difficult task because both contain avariety of ideas and actual movements.

According to P. Olisanwuche Esendebe,

Pan-Africanism, with some simplification, is “a political and cultural phenomenon that regards
Africa, Africans and African descendants abroad as a unit. It seeks to regenerate and unify
Africa and promote a feeling of oneness among the people of the African world.
the African past and inculcates pride in African values.” 2

It glorifies

Major black leaders in the

post-WWI period adopted Pan-Africanism as a key concept to uplift the status of blacks in US
society.

1
2

Believing the destiny of black people lay in Africa, they aimed to decolonize the

DuBois (1995), p.20.
Esendebe (1994), p.5.

2

continent and to eventually overthrow the racial hierarchy in which Europeans were always on
the top and blacks were always on the bottom.
Marcus Garvey sought to build a progressive nation-state in Africa, which would represent
the whole black population. Inspired by the rule of self-determination formalized after WWI,
he tried to substantiate blacks as a “nation” and elevate them as a whole.

Marcus Garvey, as

well as other prominent black leaders in the United States, looked to Japan as, first, a model
nation for black people and, second, as a leader of colored peoples because it was the only
non-white nation that was recognized as an independent actor in world politics.
In their turn, some Japanese Pan-Asianists paid special attention to the Garvey movement
because of its accusations of European colonialism and international racism, which they alsodenounced as decisive defects in the democracy highly advocated by the West.

Frustrated with

their own low status in world politics, these intellectuals attacked European and American
treatment of blacks.

Although they regarded black people, especially Africans, as more

backward people than themselves, they identified their international situation with the status ofblack people.

Moreover, they claimed to represent all the colored people oppressed by theEuropean-centered world.

The idea would later justify their imperial activities in Asia during

the Pacific War.
Yoshimi Takeuchi, a pioneer scholar of this field, who uses the term “Asianism” instead of“Pan-Asianism” to describe this political trend, suggests that Pan-Asianism does not exist as anindependent factor but as an accompanying tendency to various ideologies.

However, he seesat least one common tendency; “its directivity toward Asian unity irrespective of using the act

3

of aggression as its means.”3

A lot of intellectuals and political leaders shared a sense of

Pan-Asianism from the latter half of the 19th century through the end of WWII.

Much

scholarly attention has been paid to Pan-Asianism in the 1930s and 1940s, as an indispensable
part of the Pacific War, and, in regard to this paper’s field of interest, there are several excellent
works dealing with the Pacific War as a race war. 4

However, not much scholarly work refers

to Pan-Asianism’s relationship with people of African descent before the 1930s.5
By focusing on the Garvey movement, this paper shows how these two groups actuallyshared the same ideal in the midst of the transformation of the international order.

I think the

post-WWI period is crucial for the development of these ideas because the advocates foundwords, rhetoric, and reasoning to express and justify their demands.

Pan-Africanism and

Pan-Asianism were already international phenomena but, under the effect of WWI, they went
beyond their own categories and contained broader visions.

Marcus Garvey’s Pan-African Nationalist Movement

Marcus Garvey was a Jamaican black activist who organized the first black mass movementin the United States in 1917.

He proposed an “imagined community” of Africans at home andabroad by transforming the notion of black “race,” which had been degraded in the European
3

Matsumoto (2000), pp.10-11. In his opinion, the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was certainly
one of Asianism’s varieties, but it should be seen not only as a consequence of Asianism but also as adeviation from it.
4 Thorne (1985); Dower (1986); Horne (2004).
5 Pioneer works on relationships between the Japanese and African Americans including the pre-1930s
era are below. Kearney (1998); Gallicchio (2000)

4

racial order, into a “nation,” to gain a fair and respectable position in world politics in an era
when the principle of self-determination was justified.6 WWI caused the transformation of theinternational order and changed its main actors from empires to nation-states.

Furthermore,

any country without a “strong,” centralized government had no voice to be heard in the world.
Japanese politicians, well recognizing this fact, built a new nation-state through the Meiji
Restoration and gained full membership in world politics.
The concept of race is socially and historically constructed in the particular context of eachsociety.

It has been utilized, with other factors, such as gender and class, when a nation-state

formed itself by defining who should be the authentic “nation” and who should not.7

Thus,

racial categories in one particular society cannot be applied to other societies, as we can see thecategory of“colored” has been used differently in the United States than in South Africa.

However, as in Anthony Marx’s use of the United States, South Africa, and Brazil as examples,
we can see a common phenomenon: that people of African descent belong to the lowest social
stratum in each society.8

This kind of global racial order was partly due to the myth of Social

Darwinism, which was widely accepted in the late 19th century.

It believed that blacks werehereditarily inferior to white people, so blacks did not deserve independence, justifying
European colonization of Africa.

Homogenized and degraded, people of African descentrealized the necessity of African redemption in order to uplift their own status in the New
World.
6

I would like to borrow Professor Benedict Anderson’s concept of “imagined communities” to describe
Garvey’s attempt, even though his movement neither accomplished an actual nation-state nor involved all
the “black” people in the world in a real sense, because he intended to build a nation-state in Africa thatwould be a back-up of all the black people in the world.
7 Goldberg (2002).
8 Marx (1998).

5

Thinking blacks were degraded because they did not have a nation-state that could protect
them as their back-up, Garvey tried to make a “nation” for all black people scattered throughout
the world.

The anthropological notion of “nation” that spread in the 1960s, meaning a groupof people who share “a way of life” such as languages and customs, did not necessarily apply inthe early 20th century when “nation” indicated a group of people who were the subject of anation-state.

Garvey treated blacks as a “nation” not for sharing a way of life but to be“subjects” of a possible nation-state in Africa.
His horizons were not limited within the US, but expanded to the Atlantic world composedof Africa, Europe, the West Indies, and the Americas, where black people resided.

Accordingto Garvey, black people needed a “strong” nation-state which was politically independent,
economically thriving, and militarily self-defensive, so that it could represent and protect all theblack people in the world.

The black nation would then be recognized as a main actor ininternational relations.
He looked for land where blacks could build a nation-state, but he did not mean to bring all
the black people back to the nation-state.
empire.

His image of the black nation-state was rather that ofWhat was needed was a developed black nation-state that would receive full respectfrom other nation-states and speak for all the black people living in other areas.

Garveyestablished an imagined black community, “the Republic of Africa,” appointed himself
provisional President, and decided on the national flag and national anthem.

The Republic

even possessed “Universal African Legions,” which were symbolically meaningful, as blackmasses had a sense of racial pride when they saw the legions marching in parades.
He launched a black-owned shipping business, Black Star Line (BSL), to achieve a self-help

6

community among blacks.

Incorporated in Delaware, the BSL sold stock only to black people,

for five dollars per share, with a maximum of 200 shares per person.9

Believing in “progress”

in human history and the theory of “survival of the fittest”, he tried to develop an independent
economy among blacks.

In his opinion, blacks could receive respect from other races if they

made a contribution to social evolution:

When we can as a race settle down to business with honesty of purpose, we will beon the way to the founding of a permanent and strong position among the nations andraces of the world.10

According to him, each nation or people was classified not by color but by what they
achieved, or more precisely, contributed to human civilization.11 Garvey felt that blacks’
failure to contribute since the ancient era caused their degradation in the modern world, andwhat they needed in order to avoid discrimination was to achieve civilization.
accept the notion that blacks were inherently inferior.

He did notBlacks, who were currently in theposition of backwardness, used to be far ahead of others in the era of ancient civilization in
Egypt.

This degraded position was temporary and could be improved by self-help efforts.

In Garvey’s view, there were differences in degree of “civilization” within the same race.
As one of the objects of the UNIA was “to assist in civilizing the backward tribes of Africa,”
advanced blacks in the “New World” were expected to lead the whole race.

9

In the post-WWI

Certificate of Incorporation of the Black Star Line, Inc., in Hill, ed. (1983-), vol.1, pp.441-43.
Editorial Letter by Marcus Garvey, January 31, 1919, in Hill, ed. (1983-), vol.1, p.352.
11 Negro World, September 17, 1921 in Hill, ed. (1983-), vol.4, p.39.
107

era in New York, there appeared a type of black people called “New Negroes,” who equipped
themselves with self-respect and self-dependence as a result of the “Great Migration” from theSouth to the North, being transformed from “Old Negroes,” which was “more of a formula thana human being - a something to be argued about, condemned or defended, to be ‘kept down,’ or‘in his place,’ or ‘help up’.” 12These “New Negroes” were the supporters of Garvey’s

movement in northern cities.
Japan played a unique and vital role in his conception as a model for the future nation of
blacks.

It was the first non-white nation to defeat a white imperial state, in the Russo-Japanese

War in 1905, and became the third biggest nation in marine industry in the world after WWI - itbecame one of the Big Powers.

Garvey regarded the Japanese and Chinese states as the

back-ups of those immigrants in the United States, stating “[t]he Japanese and Chinese are notlynched in this country because of the fear of retaliation. Behind these men are standingarmies and navies to protect them … but Negroes, representing an undignified and unorganizednation, are lynched….”13
While the yellow race was placed under the white race in Social Darwinism, the Japanese
victory over white Russia revealed its falseness.

Garvey did not overlook this evidence andclaimed that blacks could also overturn the existing racial order; “what the yellow race did theblack race could also do.”14 The existence of the Japanese state helped him to overcome theview of absolute and fixed racial order.

12

Locke (1968), p.3.
Negro World, March 29, 1919, in Hill, ed. (1983-), vol.1, p.397.
14 Report by Bureau Agent Harold Nathan, February 8, 1922, in Hill, ed. (1983-), vol.4, p.492.
13

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The prejudice of the world is not so much against skin - it is not so much against
color - it is against what you have not done.

They were prejudiced against theJapanese 70 years ago … Since the Japanese have achieved what has happened?

Our

proud and haughty President has issued an invitation from the White House to nationsof equal standing to come and meet in Washington to discuss the question ofdisarmament.15

One noticeable incident occurred in Texas.

The Chicago Defender published an editorial

titled “Texas and the Yellow Peril,” which introduced a story of two Japanese families who
faced white opposition when they attempted to move to Texas.
they were “toldOn their arrival at the station,[by members of the American Legion and prominent citizens] that it would be

dangerous for them to attempt to settle on the property purchased.”

The editorial shows

sympathy with the Japanese’ suffering from color prejudice while noticing that the Japanese aredifferent from blacks. The Japanese person “has behind him an army and a navy that could
prove mighty ‘awkward hands’ in a row.”16
The same incident was introduced in a Japanese-American newspaper, Nichi-bei Shu-ho(Japanese-America Commercial Weekly), published in New York.

According to the report,

those families agreed to go back to California after long talks with the Texans, reportedly with asettlement of $10,000, including compensation and the actual cost they had already paid for theland.17 It is imaginable that blacks, who faced the risk of lynching in the South without any

15

Negro World, September 17, 1921, in Hill, ed. (1983-), vol.4, p.39.
Chicago Defender, January 15, 1921.
17 Nichi-bei Shuho, vol. 1018 (January 15, 1921).
16

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kind of talk or compensation, saw the Texan treatment of Japanese as reflecting the existence ofthe mighty Japanese nation behind them.

Japan as the Champion of Darker Races(1) The Japanese Proposal of the Anti-Discrimination Bill at the Paris Peace Conference

The Japanese proposal of the Anti-Discrimination Bill in the Peace Conference in 1919 gave
an impression to blacks that Japan was the guardian for all the darker peoples. The proposal
was considered as an objection by a leading nation of color against the white-dominant world
system.

The Japanese government spoke for other nations and peoples of color.

American Black people’s hope of Japan was embodied in the formation of the International
League of Darker Peoples (ILDP).

It was actually organized by Rev. R. D. Jonas, a white

preacher, to collect information on black radicals in Harlem in the middle of 1918.

The trueintention of Jonas is not clear, but, in an interview by an agent in the Bureau of Investigation, hesaid the real purpose was “to band the negroes together against the inroads of Socialism and
Bolshevism.”18 It was reported that behind him, there were “a majority of the Methodist
preachers who realize that Bolshevism or even Socialism means the overthrow of religion.”
They intended to let Jonas “mingle with” blacks, discuss their ideas in sympathy and get

18

Report by R. W. Finch, February 11, 1919, OG258421, RG65, U.S. National Archives and Record
Administration (NARA).

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information that would “form a basis for a counteracting program of lectures and literature on
the part of the preachers.”19 Jonas also worked as an agent for the British as an informer onblack activities in the United States while also giving information to the Bureau of Investigationin the United States.
Significant black leaders, such as Madame C. J. Walker, Chandler Owen, Adam Clayton
Powell, Sr., and Phillip Randolph, as well as Garvey, held a meeting to launch the ILDP inorder to organize black delegates for the coming Peace Conference in Paris and to make an
impact on it.

The permanent aim of the organization was “to maintain a permanentinternational council of darker peoples” for the sake of non-white people in the world.20
Members of the ILDP visited the editor of the Yorozu Choho, a daily newspaper publishedin Tokyo, Ruiko Kuroiwa, who accompanied the Japanese delegation in Paris and stayed at the
Waldorf Astoria Hotel on January 7th on his way to Europe.

Asked for cooperation, Kuroiwa

reportedly replied in a non-committal way:

Japan has always had at heart these things you propose.

Your great President, Mr.

Wilson, has urged the world to meet in a spirit of fraternity and equality to promoteworld-wide liberty and justice.

The people of my country have accepted theinvitation in the broadest sense.

However, the same report informs us that Kuroiwa went further in endorsing “cooperation

19
20

Report by R. W. Finch, February 12, 1919, OG258421, RG65, NARA.
World Forum, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 1919, in 10218-296(3) 273X(50), RG165, NARA.

11

between the Japanese and the dark people of Asia and Africa.”21 The ILDP prepared andprobably handed a petition to Kuroiwa.

The petition has not been found, but a copy of thecover letter is stored in the Madame C. J. Walker Collection at the Indiana Historical Society.
It is written in Japanese under the name of Jonas, with English sentences of almost the samecontents attached above the leaders’ names on the margin of the letter. 22 The ILDP gave out anotice to hold a mass meeting with “the Japanese Envoy en route to Peace Conference” on
January 16, 1919 but we do not know who the Japanese speaker was.23
The Japanese proposal, after amending it to a less offensive statement by avoiding the word
“race,” gained a majority vote, 11 out of 17.

However, President Wilson, who had strongly

opposed the proposal with the British delegates, ruled that it needed unanimous approval andrejected it.

The Messenger, a black socialist magazine, states “Japan raised the race issue andthrew a monkey wrench into the league of white nations which well nigh knocked the peace
conference into pieces.

It was successfully side-tracked however.”24

After the session, C. D. B. King, one of the Liberian delegates, who later became thePresident of Liberia, asked Georges Clemenceau, the French President, to insert the following
remarks into the official records of the plenary session of the Peace Conference, where Nobuaki
Makino, one of the Japanese delegates, gave a speech. He said he had refrained from making
remarks at the session due to the lack of time at the conference.

21

Report of Capt. Dalrymple, Military Intelligence, April 5, 1919,10218-324/ 1/ 273X(50), RG165,
NARA.
22 Cover Letter of International League of the Darker Peoples, December 30, 1918, Indiana Historical
Society.
23 A Handbill of the International League of Darker Peoples, “inclosure,” RG165, 10218-296 (2) 2-1 273(50), NARA
24 The Messenger, March 1919, p.5.

12

As an African, and the only member of the Negro Race present, I beg your kindpermission to express my sincerest thanks and heartfelt gratitude to my mostdistinguished and honorable colleague, Baron Makino, for his great and admirable
speech just delivered, on the question of the equality of races.25

Behind this sympathy was frustration and hypocrisy the Liberian felt in the midst of aconference where the principles of democracy and self-determination were highly advocated.
The Financial Adviser to the Republic of Liberia, who joined the Conference as one of the
Liberian delegates, reported King’s dissatisfaction with “his isolation from the conference.”26

Liberia is an Ally and not an enemy and we object to being treated as enemies.
We object to this discussion going on at which Liberia is not represented. Liberia’s fateis being determined and she has no voice in the matter.
discussing the responsibilities […].

Liberia wants a voice inEven if a Mandatory is given regarding Liberia,

she at least has the right advanced by President Wilson of self-determination as to what
Government shall have the Mandatory over her.27

The ILDP faded away probably because the Anti-Racial Discrimination Bill was rejected,

25

C. D. B. King to M. Clemenceau, April 30, 1919, RG59, 763.72119/5119, NARA.
H. F. Worley to William A. Phillips, April 23, 1919, RG59, 763.72119/5122, NARA; Contee, (1970),
p.140.
27 Memorandum by H. F. Worley, April 22, 1919, RG59, 763.72119/5122, NARA.
26

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and Madame C. J. Walker, a prominent member, died in March.

Whatever purpose Jonasactually had, it was remarkable that prominent black leaders who would later criticize eachother joined the movement and solidly took action with the Japanese.

(2) Race War

Even after the failure of the Anti-Racial Discrimination Bill, Japan was still admired as theleader of the darker peoples.

Viewing international relations with the racial factor,

African-American leaders presumed that the real purpose of the Washington Disarmament
Conference was to dispossess Japan of her emergent power.

They reminded people that Japanwas doing the same as other European nations and questioned why only Japan was accused.
Their answer was that Japan was a non-white nation.

Regarding Japan as the guard against

European colonialism in Asia, Garvey stated that Asia would never disarm until Asia controlled
Asia.28
Possible race war between Japan and the white race, particularly the United States, typicallyseen in Theodore Lothrop Stoddard’s Rising Tide of Color against White World-supremacy,
was often discussed beginning in the late 19th century. 29 Garvey occasionally mentioned acoming race war stating that black people should stop supporting their old-time masters whensuch a race war occurred.30

Other black leaders shared Garvey’s view and thought it the duty

28

Negro World, November 19, 1921, in Hill, ed. (1983-), vol.4, pp.172-90.
Stoddard (1920); Another example is Pitkin (1921).
30 Negro World, December 3, 1921, in Hill, ed. (1983-), vol.4, pp.204-206.
29

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of black people to be on the side of the Japanese.

The Crusader articulately “defines that duty

as NOT TO FIGHT AGAINST JAPAN OR MEXICO, BUT RATHER TO FILL THE
PRISONS AND DUNGEONS OF THE WHITE MAN ... THAN TO SHOULDER ARMS
AGAINST OTHER MEMBERS OF THE DARKER RACES.” 31

A Chinese student in

Milwaukee responded to the editorial in the next issue, “expressing … deepest appreciation andadmiration” to the editor.

The student states that “[o]ne of the most treacherous methods ofthe white people to dominate the darker races is to intrigue and plot among the dark peoples
themselves … the revolt of the Koreans and the boycott of the Chinese against the Japanese arepartly due to the pernicious influence of the Occidental people.”32
In harmony with the student, Garvey claimed that anti-Japanese agitations in China andKorea had been inspired by Europeans.33 According to him, “white capitalists have gone into
China and have poisoned the minds of the Chinese against themselves and against the Japanese.
They have been subsidizing certain Chinese to fight among themselves, to divide up their soil
into two republics. They have subsidized the Chinese to reject every proposal of Japan.”34
Although he recognized there was conflict between the Japanese and Chinese, he did not go
deeper into the issue, nor did most of the other black leaders.

When the Japanese plan topropose the Anti-Discrimination Bill at the Peace Conference appeared, The Negro World
republished an article (obviously without permission) from The New York Times, stating the billwould probably be submitted through the cooperation of Japan and China.
31

The truth was that

The Crusader, vol.3, no.4 (December 1920), p.12.
The Crusader, vol.3, no.5 (January 1921), p.29.
33 Report by Bureau Agent W. L. Buchanan, February 24, 1922, in Hill, ed. (1983-), vol.4, p.523; Speechby Marcus Garvey, November 13, 1921, in Hill, ibid., pp.172-190; Crusader, vol.3, no.5, January 1921,
p.29; Crisis, vol.21, no.4, February 1921, p.168; Crisis, vol.23, no.3, January 1922, p.103.
34 Speech by Marcus Garvey, Negro World, November 19, 1921, in Hill, ed. (1983-), vol.4, p.187.
32

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the Chinese government did not accept the Japanese offer of cooperation, and the actual aim of
the Japanese was to have an advantage over imperial competition in China.

Seemingly, Negro

World sought to inspire blacks by its provocative title, “JAPAN MOBILIZING THE
SENTIMENT OF YELLOW RACE: Can You Understand This, Mr. Negro?”35
In June 1919, Negro World published an article titled “CHINESE KNOW HOW TO FIGHT
INJUSTICE,” which briefly dealt with the May Fourth Movement and its spread to other areas.
It regards boycott, which the Chinese people undertook against Japanese products, as “aWeapon Negroes Can Use” but does not analyze the cause of the movement. 36

Garveyaffirmed that “[i]n another twenty years Japan and China are going to get together.”

When theChinese delegation declared its demand for self-determination as an independent nation, Garvey
overlooked that the demand was also toward the Japanese; he reduced it to the cry of “Asia for
the Asians,” claiming it should be admitted as well as the principle of “Africa for the
Africans.”37
When the Conference on the Limitation of Armament was to be held in Washington, D.C.,
in November 1921, Garvey sent a telegram to the secretary of the conference appealing not torepeat the mistake made by the Peace Conference, which failed to establish a real world peaceby leaving the weak to be oppressed.38

He visited Washington, D.C., and gave lectures aroundthe area, thinking it to be a good chance to clarify the demands of black people to the world.
However, he doubted the European initiative to proceed to disarmament.
35“Japan knows well

Negro World, November 30, 1919, in Hill, ed. (1983-), vol.2, p.299; New York Times, November 22,
1919.
36 Negro World, June 14, 1919.
37 Speeches by Marcus Garvey, November 13, 1921, in Hill, ed. (1983-), vol.4, pp.174, 186, 187.
38 Marcus Garvey to the Secretary, International Conference on Disarmament, November12, 1921, in
Hill, ibid., pp.167-69.

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that it is a scheme to rehabilitate Europe at the expense of Asia.

But Asia is not going todisarm, not until all the others have completely disarmed.”39
However, Garvey did not mean to give blanket approval to Japan but thought of black
people as an independent voice in world politics.

He suggested that blacks “would be able tohold the balance of power in the world” if they supported Japan.

Although he suggested

cooperation between blacks and the Japanese, Garvey set as his final goal for blacks to stand on
their own legs, on alert for suppression by any group: “[t]hree babies are born; one yellow; one
white; and one black.

Soon the yellow baby gets guns and ammunition and puts on a uniform.

The white baby does the same thing; grows up to manhood. All that time what do you think
the negro baby is doing?
What occurs?

Why standing looking on. Bye and bye a time comes for action.

They shoot that negro, and …. that has been going on ever since America has

been discovered.”He also referred to a race war between blacks and whites if things would

not change, especially in the South, where white mobs frequently lynched blacks.

“The next

war will be between the Negroes and the whites … with Japan to fight with us, we can win sucha war….”40
Garvey actually realized the Japanese imperialistic attitude in Asia.

He claimed that only

blacks could play a role to protect all humanity, “for when we look to the Anglo-Saxon we see
him full of greed, full of avarice, with no mercy, no love, no charity.

We go from the white

man to the yellow man, and we see the same unenviable characteristics in the Japanese.”41

39

Speeches by Marcus Garvey, November 13, 1921, in Hill, Papers, vol. 4, 189.
Bureau of Investigation Reports, December 3, 1918, RG 65, File OG 329359, NARA.
41 Speech by Marcus Garvey, January 1, 1922, (Negro World, January 14, 1922), in Hill, Papers, vol. 4,
326.
40

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However, it is apparent that he did not seriously consider the fundamental problem of JapanChina relations.
He believed the advanced within one racial group should lead the less advanced to uplift thewhole race, so that conscious black people, such as UNIA members and “New Negroes,” should
lead other unconscious black masses.

He seemed to apply this theory to the Asian situation

when talking about their awareness of European colonial intention: “The Japanese has
discovered it, the Sleeping Chinaman, at last, has awakened from his slumber and discovered it
and the sleeping, superstit[i]ous Indian and Hindu Moslem has discovered it, through Mahatma
Gandhi” (emphasis mine).

He continued, identifying the UNIA and Japan: “thank God, theUniversal Negro Improvement Association has discovered it, through the new Negro.”Forhim, since Japan was more advanced than China in regard to “progress” at that time, it was
natural that Japan took the leading position.42

William Pickens would make the point clearer

by identifying the Chinese and black masses: “The Chinese are more nearly like the Negroes;
they are numerous, but loosely organized.

[…]

If China were as well organized as is Japan,

China would be the greatest power represented in Washington today.

For an individual

Chinese is worth as much as an individual Japanese, or more.”43
Other black leaders shared Garvey’s views.

W. E. B. DuBois, a Harvard graduate, who

was a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People(NAACP), thought it was the propaganda prepared by Great Britain that made “the white world
think the only enemy of China is Japan.”44

The Crisis, the NAACP’s organ, compares the42

Speech by Marcus Garvey, February 5, 1922, in Hill, ibid., p.486.
William Pickens to the Negro World, December 17, 1921, in Hill, ibid., p.284.
44 Crisis, vol.23, no.3 (January 1922), p.103.
43

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proportions of holdings in China by Japan and those of European nations and asks “why is it
seemingly the custom to continually speak of ‘Japanese aggression’ and not one word about thehuge holdings of these other nations?”

It concludes that “[t]he world certainly seems to have adouble standard of international justice and it seems quite time that the real aggressors ceasedusing Japan as a smoke screen.”45
DuBois visited Manchuria and Japan at the end of 1936 after traveling mainly in Europe forseven months.

He concluded that one of the characteristics of Manchuria, a colony of Japan,

was “[a]bsence of racial or color caste.
motherland and colony….
why?

[…]

There is … no apparent discrimination between

Nowhere else in the world, to my knowledge, is this true.

And

Because Japanese and Manchoukans are so nearly related in race that there is nor can be

no race prejudice.

Ergo: no nation should rule a colony whose people they cannot conceive as

Equals.”46 Actually, he was courteously treated as a government guest by the Japanese, which
probably made him see only what the Japanese officials wanted him to see.47 After all, he
persisted in his romantic view of inner racial harmony.48
Only socialists held a different view on the issue.

Their organ, The Messenger, claimed

that “[t]he Japanese statesmen are not in the least concerned about race or color prejudice.

Thesmug and oily Japanese diplomats are no different from Woodrow Wilson, Lloyd George orOrlando.

They do not suffer from race prejudice.

45

[…]

They care nothing for even the

According to the data, originally published in the Boston Post, England owned 27.8% of the total landof China; Russia 42.3%; France 3.4%; and Japan 5.6%. The Crisis, vol.21, no.4 (February 1921), p.168.
46 DuBois (1937), pp.83-84.
47 Takemoto (1994), pp.80-85.
48 After WWII, DuBois still sympathized with the Japanese motivation to fight against white Europeans,but did not romanticize it: “[S]o as far as she tried to substitute for European, an Asiatic caste system
under a ‘superior’ Japanese race, … she was offering Asia no acceptable exchange for Western
exploitation.” DuBois (1995), p.86.

19

Japanese people and at this very same moment are suppressing and oppressing mercilessly thepeople of Korea and forcing hard bargains upon unfortunate China.

It is possible, however, byappealing to the race issue[,] to divert the attention of the Japanese people from the abuses of
the Japanese plutocracy.

And that is the real intention of Japanese statesmen and peacedelegates.”49
The article of The Asian Review, “Lynching in America,” was introduced in several black
newspapers such as The Chicago Defender, The California Eagle, and The Messenger. 50
However, the tone of The Messenger was quite different, revealing the “hypocrisy of theJapanese which brutalizes the Chinese, oppresses most shamefully the Koreans, crushes andabuses the Japanese working classes, and disfranchises more Japanese … than the United States
disfranchises Negroes in the South.”

According to the cautious editors of The Messenger, theJapanese article was to “serve the Japanese ruling class in a two-fold manner.

It will inspire

the Japanese masses with the fatalistic determination never to come under the yoke of American
imperialism.

Next, it will create discontent with America on the part of that portion of the

population – Negroes.”With a few exceptions, most black leaders admired Japan and believed in harmony within
the yellow race.

The Japanese proposal of the anti-discrimination bill made a great impact onblack people, who felt represented by the Japanese at the conference.

Young A. PhilipRandolph, a founding editor of The Messenger, who launched the “Garvey Must Go!” campaign
against the Garvey movement in 1922, used to be a core member of the ILDP.

49

Adam Clayton

The Messenger, June 1919, p.6.
The Asian Review, vol.2, no.4 (May-June 1921), p.321; Chicago Defender, July 16, 1921; The
California Eagle, July 16, 1921; The Messenger, vol.3, no.3 (August 1921), p.225.
50

20Powell, Sr., who was a prominent clergyman in Harlem, was also at the center of the ILDP.

It

is remarkable in African-American history that such a wide range of leaders, diverse in theirbeliefs and ages, gathered in hope for Japan as a leader of darker races.

The Japanese Views of Garvey and Black Issues

U. S. Military Intelligence held a lot of reports mentioning the possibility of a race war
between the United States and Japan and sympathetic feelings shared by blacks and theJapanese.

Some Japanese people were reported to have attended meetings of Garvey’s

organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and even gave a speech.
Others had personal contacts with Garvey as well as other UNIA leaders.

In October 1919, aJapanese “was reported to have said that Garvey’s statement about the ‘day of the war of races’
was good agitation for Japan.”An advertisement of a meeting of the Black Star Line says that

“Come and Hear a Japanese delegate to speak about the company.”51
The First International Convention of the UNIA held in August 1920 especially attracted
attention to the Japanese.
the UNIA in vain.52

Several reports mentioned that two Japanese tried to have trade with

One agent in the Military Intelligence pursued information about aJapanese person who was around a cricket club formed mostly by West Indians in New York in

51

A Report by the War Department, October 20, 1919, RG165, 10218-364/12, NARA.
Report by Special Agent P-138, October 21, 1920, OG258421, RG165, NARA; Report by Special
Agent P-138, October 22, 1920 in Hill, ed. (1983-), vol.3, p.62; Report by Special Agent P-138,
November 5, 1920 in Hill, ibid., p.71.
52

21

relation to the Garvey movement.53 It was reported that the Colored People’s Union, an
organization for all the colored races, was established in San Francisco, Los Angeles, andSeattle, in which Japanese, Indian, and black people were active.54 There was not much direct
evidence whether the Japanese and blacks actually worked together but the government always
recognized the possibility and cautiously watched their activities.
The Garvey movement was scrutinized by Japanese residents in California where exclusionof the Japanese was being legitimized.

In Shin-sekai (The New World), a Japanese-American

newspaper published in San Francisco, there appeared a series of eleven columns on the Garvey
movement in January 1921.55 Introducing his ideas and movement by focusing on the UNIA’s
First International Convention, held in August 1920, it praises Garvey’s scheme to build an
independent nation-state in Africa and have an independent economy among blacks.
Lamenting their lack of a leader like Garvey, it affirms that the Japanese in the United Statesshould follow the Garvey movement to develop their community and to be responsible for theirmotherland.

“If such an honest person did such a thing, how would our community beflourishing?

We should blame ourselves, but we do not have a person like Garvey.”56

Masuichi Midoro, a correspondent for Asahi Shimbun, seems to have given the mostobjective description of Garvey and his movement.

After the UNIA convention in 1920, he

visited Garvey’s office in Harlem and had an interview with him.

53

He wrote a series of three

Reports by Special Agent P-138 in October and November, 1920, OG258421, RG65, NARA; Reportsby P-138, BS202600-667, RG65, NARA.
54 J. J. Hannigan, Commandant, Twelfth Naval District, to the Director, Office of Naval Intelligence,
December 3, 1921 in Hill, ed. (1983-), vol.4, pp.236-37; Office of Naval Intelligence, Report of the week
ending March 18, 1922 in Kornweibel ed., (1985), Reel No.23, Flame Nos.686-89.
55 Shin-sekai (The New World), January 4-15, 1921
56 Shin-sekai, January 15, 1921.

22

long articles titled “Yellow Peril or Black Peril: Newly Recurring Fear for White People” in theend of the year.

In the articles, he introduces the Garvey movement and its divided reception;some almost ignore it and others too much exaggerate it.

He rather states that the central issue

is white fear against unity of colored peoples, especially between the Chinese and the Japanese.
Midoro concludes that it would be dangerous either to put too much emphasis on this white fearor to ignore it.57
The contemporary Japanese public opinion and press comments shared the worldview of“survival of the fittest,” disappointment toward Wilson’s idealism, and a sense of humiliationby the United States. 58

Some Japanese political leaders, especially those who advocated

Pan-Asian philosophy, recognized Garvey’s “nationalist” movement.

They sometimes

borrowed Garvey’s philosophy to support their assertion that Asian countries should unite
against European imperialism and make Japan the leader of Asia.
Kokuryū-kai (Black Dragon Society), a Pan-Asianist political group led by Ryōhei Uchida,
was well aware of the racial world structure.

They started an English magazine, the Asian

Review, to dispel the misunderstanding of Europe and America about Asian countries “bymutual exchange of ideas and opinions.”59

Uchida clarifies the object of this English journal“to honestly express the Japanese point of view before the world’s eyes.”60 There was a large
quantity of articles on racial problems in each country, including lynching of black Americans
in the United States, as well as on white domination in world politics.

57

Asahi Shimbum, December 24-26, 1920.
Sawada (1999), pp.79-102.
59 Asian Review, vol.1, no.1 (February 1920).
60 Ajia Jiron (Asia Commentary), vol.4, no.4 (April 1920).
58

23

An article, titled “Coloured and Whites,” states that their “intention is not only to champion
the cause of Japan but of all Asian and African countries.”

In a reply to a white American

reader who, claiming “to love Japan and to admire the Japanese people,” felt uncomfortable
when she had found that the magazine referred to the Japanese as “colored,” which was usuallyapplied to blacks in the United States, the editorial says that when “we employ the word‘colored,’ we refer to the Asian and African peoples including the Negroes also.”

Moreover,the article protests against her description of American blacks as “a bestial and low people,”stating, “[t]here may be undesirable elements among the Negroes, just as there are wickedpersons among the Americans and Europeans.

For the fault of a few to accuse the whole race,

however, cannot be justified by any logic.”

Showing their will to become the voice ofvoiceless people, they tried to impress their readers as the savior of the colored races.61
In the nature of a propagandist journal, the Asian Review introduced Midoro’s article about
Garvey that appeared in Asahi Shimbun in November 1920.

Connecting the black movementwith anti-Japanese sentiments of American people, the original report emphasizes what white
American people are really scared of is a Japan-China alliance rather than a Japanese uprisingbecause China has both human and natural resources, its own civilization, and huge land.
However, the Asian Review completely neglects this point of view and stresses the cooperation
between blacks and Asians, which was not actually mentioned in the original. They attributed
anti-Japanese sentiment in China and Korea to the European and American propagandists, theview shared by Garvey and other African-American leaders.62

61
62

Asian Review, vol.1, no.5, July 1920.
Asahi Shimbun, November 24, 25, 26, 1920; Asian Review, vol.2, no.1 (January 1921).

24

Kametarō Mitsukawa, who joined several political associations and later became a professor
at Takushoku University, paid more attention to the Garvey movement.

He established

Rōsō-kai in 1918 and Yūzon-sha in 1919, both of which were comprised of mainly right-wing
intellectuals, such as Shūmei Ōkawa and Ikki Kita, as well as other ideologues.63

Mitsukawa

was an advocate of Pan-Asianism, pursuing redemption and reconstruction of Asia.

Viewing

world history as a racial conflict between the East and the West, he asserted Asia should beunited against European imperialism.

While his “Asian Monroe Doctrine” remained an

unclear concept at that time, according to Yuichi Hasegawa, it did not necessarily meanintervention in China but rather emancipation of Asia by reorganizing the world.

In this regard,

he also took notice of socialism but paid much more attention to nationalist movements.64
In 1925, Mitsukawa published Kokujin Mondai (“the Negro Problem”), a pioneer work on
this subject that focuses on the Garvey movement, as it puts Garvey’s tricolor (red, black andgreen) Pan-African flag on the title page.

He explains African-American history as theprecondition of the Garvey movement and regards WWI as a watershed to create this new typeof movement.65
He does not hesitate to express his passionate sympathy with black people: “the author has
devoted his mind and body to the struggle to recapture the deprived Asia, while looking forcomrades for a decade.

Africa, which is exploited like Asia; black people, who are oppressed

63

Both Roso-kai and Yuson-sha held members beyond the borders of generation, ideology and gender.
Szpilman (2001), pp.445-47.
64 Hasegawa (2001), pp.266-67, 298.
65 Mitsukawa (1925); This book was completed in 1922 but had been lost during the Kanto earthquake in
1923 until the spring of 1925 when the manuscript was found by chance. The English title, “The Negro
Problem,” is based on the letter of thanks from Amy Jacques Garvey, Garvey’s wife, to Kametaro
Mitsukawa, who apparently sent an autographed copy of the book to UNIA. Amy Jacques Garvey toKametaro Mitsukawa, February 11, 1926, in Hill, ed. (1983-), vol.6, p.340.

25

like yellow people; they inevitably hurt my spirit.”66

Mitsukawa equated Garvey’s “black

African movement” with his “yellow Asian movement” in terms of their common intention “toprove that the world was not created for white people.”

While both of them were victims of

the white supremacy, however, he saw the Japanese as more advanced than blacks, because thelatter were accordingly inspired by the Japanese proposal of the anti-discrimination bill at thePeace Conference.

Furthermore, he considered that there was a difference within blacks intheir level of development.

In the Garvey movement, he stated, “advanced people of African

descent in the New World” were supposed to help “backward Africa” to develop and civilize.
While urging readers to support the movement, Mitsukawa stresses the special task for theJapanese to lead the whole of Asia.
Despite recognizing that American blacks did not comprise a “nation,” he regarded theGarvey movement as a nationalist movement based on the fact that Garvey aimed at withdrawalof Europeans from Africa and establishment of a black nation-state in the motherland.67

On

the other hand, Mitsukawa hesitates to estimate how possible the formation of a black
nation-state would be.

In 1920, two years before he completed the book, Mitsukawa had

introduced the Garvey movement to Japanese readers, responding to UNIA’s first international
convention.

Here, he revealed some doubt about the achievement of the “black Africanism”

prior to the yellow Asianism since Africa had been a real “dark continent” and its residents were“totally ignorant and foolish, only constituting a primitive nation.”

While he did not mean

Garvey’s scheme was imaginary, he thought it could be realized when their African unity

66
67

Mitsukawa (1925), pp.2-3.
Mitsukawa (1925), pp.3-4.

26

included all the people in Africa regardless of race, and when Egyptians and Afrikaners were in
the leading position. 68

He further states that black people should intermarry with other“superior” races and worship other excellent religions.69

On the other hand, in Mitsukawa’sview, African Americans, apart from “savage” Africans, were developed and civilized.70
In his opinion, world peace could never be achieved without resolving racial and national
problems.

He advocates that Japan should go hand in hand with other Asian countries but

stresses that Japan, as “the oldest brother,” should take the leading role.71 In his opinion, theJapanese did not properly handle their responsibility of preserving China from European
forces.72

He realized Japan had its own racial and national problems.

Mentioning that theJapanese acted brutally during colonization of Korea, he optimistically, or rather irresponsibly,
dismisses the issue, by saying “I believe such brutal acts are not seen now.”
colonization of Korea did not seem to be an issue to him.

The Japanese

What he thought the Japanese

needed, in order to attract Korean people’s minds, was “love toward Koreans.”73
Mitsukawa’s slighting of the Korean issue corresponds with Garvey’s attitude toward
Africans.

Both of them saw that racial unity against the European imperialism was mostimportant and failed to recognize diversity within the race.

Hiroko Sato indicates that thepremier fault of Mitsukawa’s book is in Mitsukawa’s ambiguous definition of “blacks” that
includes African blacks, American blacks, and Pacific “natives.”

68

She states that being

Ajia Jiron (Asia Commentaries), vol.4, no.10 (October 1920); Afrikaners are the Dutch-origin white
population in South Africa, who were struggling for independence from the British.
69
Mitsukawa (1925), p.306.
70
Mitsukawa (1926), pp.87-88.
71
Mitsukawa (1926), pp.95-101, 112.
72
Ajia Jiron, vol.3, no.10 (October 1919).
73
Mitsukawa (1926), pp.153-59.

27

unaware of the Garvey movement’s impracticality, due to the lack of knowledge of the realityof Africa and African Americans, he found hope in Garvey’s movement.74

Conclusion

The relationship between African Americans and the Japanese, which has been disregarded
for years, shows the mind-set of the time about race.

Living more than six decades later, we

often fail to see such a racial structure in pre-WWII history, since talking on race ininternational relations was avoided after WWII.75

However, the concept of “race” had been

discussed in world politics with credibility in the early 20th century, when the Japanese claim tobe the leader of colored races found enormous support among African Americans whoconnected their domestic racial problems to the white-dominated world order.

Both Japanese

intellectuals and black leaders utilized the Japanese position confronting white imperialism tojustify their further struggle to make strong nations for themselves in order to achieve
respectable status in world politics.
The Asian Monroe Doctrine was not well accepted in the post-WWI era when the Japanese
foreign policy was still pro-Western, seeking cooperation with the United States and GreatBritain.

In the course of its popularization from the 1930s through the end of the Pacific War,74
75

Sato (1973), pp.34-35
The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in
1948, prohibiting discrimination based on race and other factors, as a response to the Nazi holocaust anddenying that concept of race by a scientific base.

28

it contained and justified a more interventionist attitude toward other Asian nations.

To

understand the history of the Pacific War, it would be helpful to follow the track of
Pan-Asianism, including its early relationship with Pan-Africanism.

Their relationship also

shows how international society was racially organized in the early 20th century.

Both

Pan-Asianists and Pan-Africanists thought it to be useful to bind “Asians” as a collective actor
as well as “blacks” to overturn the old racial world order and rebuild a new one.

When WWI

was over, Pan-Asianists and Pan-Africanists found the words and rhetoric to support theirstruggle against white domination. They situated their movements in the international spherein the same way, and so, sympathized with each other.

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