In February 2023 World BEYOND War will be holding a weekly discussion each of four weeks of African Americans Against the Bomb with the author Vincent Intondi as part of a small group WBW book club limited to a group of 18 participants. WBW will buy each participant an electronic version of the book (a Kindle, a Nook, or a Google Play version). We’ll let you know which parts of the book will be discussed each week along with the Zoom details to access the discussions.

When: For one hour on four Fridays, February 3, 10, 17, 24, 2023. The time is 19:00 UTC (similar to GMT), at 9 a.m. in Honolulu, 11 a.m. in Los Angeles, 1 pm in Mexico City, 2 pm in New York, 7 pm in London, 10 p.m. in Moscow, and on Saturday at 6 am in Sydney, 8 am in Auckland.

Where: Zoom (details to be shared upon registration)

This is a small group series with limited space of up to 18 people. Sign up to reserve your spot and allow for enough time to receive the book. We look forward to reading and discussing this important book with you!

About the Book: Well before Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke out against nuclear weapons, African Americans were protesting the Bomb. Historians have generally ignored African Americans when studying the anti-nuclear movement, yet they were some of the first citizens to protest Truman’s decision to drop atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Now for the first time, African Americans Against the Bomb tells the compelling story of those Black activists who fought for nuclear disarmament by connecting the nuclear issue with the fight for racial equality.

Intondi shows that from early on, Blacks in America saw the use of atomic bombs as a racial issue, asking why such enormous resources were being spent building nuclear arms instead of being used to improve impoverished communities. Black activists’ fears that race played a role in the decision to deploy atomic bombs only increased when the U.S. threatened to use nuclear weapons in Korea in the 1950s and Vietnam a decade later. For black leftists in Popular Front groups, the nuclear issue was connected to colonialism: the U.S. obtained uranium from the Belgian controlled Congo and the French tested their nuclear weapons in the Sahara.

By expanding traditional research in the history of the nuclear disarmament movement to look at Black liberals, clergy, artists, musicians, and civil rights leaders, Intondi reveals the links between the Black freedom movement in America and issues of global peace. From Langston Hughes through Lorraine Hansberry to President Obama, African Americans Against the Bomb offers an eye-opening account of the continuous involvement of African Americans who recognized that the rise of nuclear weapons was a threat to the civil rights of all people.

Reviews: “This exclusive focus on anti-nuclear activism provides a much-needed addition to the small but growing scholarship on those who opposed nuclear weapons throughout the Cold War and beyond. Intondi’s narrative is detail-oriented yet readable, and examines a vast array of Black voices discussing nuclear weapons within the broader contexts of civil rights, colonialism, and peace. He uses an impressive array of Black newspapers, as well as a large archival base, to cover the anti- nuclear sentiments of clergy, union leaders, civil rights organizers, pacifists, civic leaders, and more.” — Kyle Harvey ― Canadian Journal of History

About the Author: Vincent Intondi is a Professor of History and Director of the Institute for Race, Justice, and Civic Engagement at Montgomery College in Takoma Park, Maryland. From 2009-2017, Intondi was Director of Research for American University’s Nuclear Studies Institute in Washington, DC. Prior to teaching at Montgomery College, Intondi was an Associate Professor of History at Seminole State College in Sanford, Florida. Intondi regularly works with organizations exploring ways to include more diverse voices in the nuclear disarmament movement. His research focuses on the intersection of race and nuclear weapons. He is the author of the book, African Americans Against the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons, Colonialism, and the Black Freedom Movement with Stanford University Press.