The East Side Freedom Library and the Ramsey County Historical Society invite you to the next book presentation in our “History Revealed” series.

Thursday, February 6th, 2020, 7pm

Yuichiro Onishi is a Professor in both the Asian-American and African-American & African Studies departments at the University of Minnesota and a member of the East Side Freedom Library’s Board. His path-breaking book, TRANSPACIFIC ANTIRACISM, now in paperback, explores the dynamic processes out of which social movements in Black America, Japan, and Okinawa formed Afro-Asian solidarities against the practice of white supremacy in the twentieth century. Relying on sources in Japanese as well as English, Onishi engages grassroots activism, such as the Black GI coffee house movement in Okinawa during the Vietnam War, and the work of intellectual activists, such as Hubert Harrison and W.E.B. DuBois. This book also presents the work of a group of Japanese scholars who shaped the Black studies movement in post-surrender Japan. These cases of Afro-Asian solidarity make known political discourses and projects that reworked the concept of race to become a wellspring of aspiration for a new society.

By studying anti-imperialist movements since World War I in three different places — the United States, Japan, and Okinawa — TRANSPACIFIC ANTIRACISM examines the underlying aspirations of multiple oppressed peoples, and their efforts to develop emancipatory ideas and connect themselves in their struggles for freedom, regardless of their nationality or ethnicity. The “internationalized” Black Radicalism presented in this book embraces a multi-ethnic solidarity in search for an alternative, more democratic, society. Join us for an important presentation and conversation.

Free and open to all

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