African American Civil Rights and Germany in the 20th Century

Conference at Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, NY)
October 1 - 4, 2009

Jointly organized by the German Historical Institute, Washington DC and Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, NY)

Supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)

Conveners: Maria Höhn (Vassar College) and Martin Klimke (German Historical Institute, Washington, DC)

• Conference Program > more (PDF)

• Conference Papers > more

• Conference Release Vassar College > more

• Conference Report > more

• Press > more

"Between Critical Theory and Civil Rights: A Sixties' Journey from Boston to Frankfurt to San Diego"

October 2, 2009 - Vassar College, Poughkeepsie (NY)

Press

Kelly Shout: Vassar, Höhn assemble top Civil Rights scholars, in: The Miscellany News, October 26, 2009.

Peter Köpf: Rassismus, Amerikas größter Exportartikel, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, October 14, 2009.
> View as PDF

Sebastian Moll: Kongress in New York - Bürgerbewegung und Bürgerrechte, Frankfurter Rundschau, October 07, 2009.
> View as PDF

Conference Program

Wednesday, September 30

5:00 pm     Movie Screening - The Negro Soldier (1944)
(Rosenwald Screening Room, Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film)

Directed by Stuart Heisler, United States War Department
Introduced by Mia Mask, Vassar College

6:00 pm     Lecture
(Rosenwald Screening Room)

Fighting in the Jim Crow Army:
A Black Sergeant Remembers Buchenwald
Leon Bass, World War II Veteran, Philadelphia

Thursday, October 1

1:00 – 3:00 pm     Check-in at Hotel

Conference Opening: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Germany
(Villard Room, College Center)

5:00 pm     Welcome Addresses
Maria Höhn, Vassar College / Martin Klimke, GHI Washington
Dean of the Faculty Jon Chenette

5:30 pm     Panel Discussion (Mildred C. Thompson Lecture)
Tracing an Untold History:
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Visit to Cold War Berlin in 1964
Chairs: Maria Höhn / Martin Klimke

Roland Stolte, Marienkirche, Berlin
Alcyone Scott, Midland Lutheran College, Nebraska
Laura Stapane, Oldenburg/GHI Washington

6:30 pm     Exhibition Opening – African American Civil Rights and Germany
(Palmer Gallery, College Center)

Friday, October 2

8:00 – 8:30 am     Breakfast
(Multi-Purpose Room, College Center)

Section I: Transatlantic Journeys
(Multi-Purpose Room, College Center)
Chair: Tyrone Simpson, Vassar College

8:30 am     W.E.B. DuBois and the German Alltag
Kenneth Barkin, University of California, Riverside

9:00 am     Discussion

9:25 am     Tinkering Toward Utopia: German-Speaking Émigrés at the Black Mountain College and the Civil Rights Discourse since 1933
Karl-Heinz Füssl, Technical University of Berlin

9:45 am     Discussion

10:10 am   Medical Apartheid: African American and German Scientists, Civil Rights, and Racial Policies
Harriet Washington, Rochester

10:30 am   Discussion

10:55 am   Coffee Break

Section II: Black Soldiers, Germans, and World War II
(Multi-Purpose Room, College Center)
Chair: Dan Puckett, Troy University

11:15 am   “We are just like you”: Prisoners; Oppressed; Second-Class Men: German Prisoners of War and African Americans in the United States During the Second World War
Matthias Reiss, University of Exeter

11:45 am   Discussion

12:10 pm   Military Desegregation: Civil Rights for Black Soldiers
Maggi Morehouse, University of South Carolina Aiken

12:30 pm   Discussion

12:55 pm   Lunch
(Multi-Purpose Room)

Section III: Debating Civil Rights on Both Sides of the Atlantic
(Multi-Purpose Room, College Center)
Chair: Quincy Mills, Vassar College

2:30 pm     Charging Hypocrisy: African Americans, Nazi Germany and Human Rights
Christina Oppel, University of Münster

3:00 pm     Discussion

3:25 pm     Hate Story to Knife Peace: Black Soldiers in West Germany in the U.S. Press
Christine Knauer, University of Tübingen

3:45 pm     Discussion

4:10 pm     U.S. Civil Rights: Press Coverage and Analysis in West Germany, 1949-1967
Robert Sackett, University of Colorado

4:30 pm     Discussion

4:55 pm     Coffee Break

Matthew Vassar Lecture – Conference Keynote
(Villard Room)

6:45 pm    Welcome
Dean of the Faculty Jon Chenette
Maria Höhn, Vassar College / Martin Klimke, GHI Washington

7:00 pm    Between Critical Theory and Civil Rights:
A Sixties' Journey from Boston to Frankfurt to San Diego

Angela Davis, University of California, Santa Cruz (emerita)

Saturday, October 3

8:00-8:30 am     Breakfast
(Multi-Purpose Room, College Center)

Section IV: Bringing the Cold War Home
(Multi-Purpose Room, College Center)
Chair: Peggy Piesche, Vassar College

9:00 am     You are the Finest and the Sharpest MC I have Ever had. I am Jazzly Yours, Satchmo: Louis Armstrong in East Germany
Helma Kaldewey, Tulane University, New Orleans

9:30 am     Discussion

9:55 am     Creating a New Home: When Black Soldiers Brought Their German Wives to the U.S.
Daniel Lee, University of California, Berkeley

10:15 am   Discussion

10:40 am   Coffee Break

Section V: Framing Civil Rights
(Multi-Purpose Room, College Center)
Chair: Mia Mask, Vassar College

11:00 am   A Reluctant Idealist: Peter von Zahn and the African-American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s
Eli Nathans, University of Western Ontario

11:30 am   Discussion

11:55 am   Democratic Re-Education in Germany and African American Civil Rights: Screening Color Blindness in the Films of the Marshall Plan
Frank Mehring, Free University of Berlin

12:20 pm   Discussion

12:55 pm   Lunch

Section VI: Jazz and Civil Rights in a Divided Germany
(Multi-Purpose Room, College Center)
Chair: Brian Mann, Vassar College

2:30 pm   The African American Civil Rights Movement as Guardian Angel of the Jazz Scene in the GDR
Christian Schmidt-Rost, Free University of Berlin

3:00 pm   Discussion

3:25 pm   From Ally to Threat: Joachim-Ernst Berendt, the African-American Civil Rights Movement, and German Jazz Discourse
Andrew Hurley, University of Melbourne

3:45 pm   Discussion

4:10 pm   Coffee break

Roundtable: Expanding the African American Diaspora
(Villard Room, College Center)
Chair: Manfred Berg, University of Heidelberg

Sunday, October 4

8:00-9:00 am     Breakfast
(Multi-Purpose Room, College Center)

Section VII: The Commodification of Civil Rights
(Multi-Purpose Room, College Center)
Chair: Eve Dunbar, Vassar College

9:00 am     Fashion Icon, Intellectual, Political Prisoner: Angela Davis in the West-German Imagination
Katharina Gerund, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf

9:30 am     Discussion

9:55 am     Patterns and Politics of West German “Afroamericanophilia” in the late 1960s
Moritz Ege, Humboldt University of Berlin

10:20 am   Discussion

10:55 am   Coffee break

Concluding Discussion: History and Memory Across the Atlantic
(Multi-Purpose Room, College Center)
Moderator: Anke Orlepp, GHI Washington

12:45 pm   Boxed Lunch
(Multi-Purpose Room, College Center)

Organizational Note:
-Presentations: 20 min
-Discussions: 25 min
First presentation of each panel incl. 10 min for introduction of panelists