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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:'Poking Holes in the Sky': Professor James Thaele, American Negroes, and Modernity in 1920s Segregationist South Africa
Authors:Kemp, Amanda D.
Vinson, Robert TrentISNI
Year:2000
Periodical:African Studies Review
Volume:43
Issue:1
Period:April
Pages:141-159
Language:English
Geographic terms:South Africa
United States
Subjects:segregation
African National Congress (South Africa)
politicians
History and Exploration
Ethnic and Race Relations
Politics and Government
Law, Human Rights and Violence
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/524725
Abstract:In 1920s South Africa, white segregationists justified accelerated racially discriminatory legislation by casting blacks as 'uncivilized primitive natives' undeserving of full citizenship rights. Africans often countered this discourse by pointing to African Americans as proof of black capacities to modernize. Black South African leaders often associated themselves with African Americans to further legitimize their respective political activities. This article explores this phenomenon with the example of James Thaele, the American-educated president of the ANC (Cape Western provincial branch), one of the most actively militant organizations in the late 1920s. Previous scholars have viewed Thaele's flamboyant dress and hyperbolic language as evidence of a curious eccentric. Instead, the present authors show that Thaele's dress and language were important performative tools that subverted white modernity narratives. Black America was an indispensable aspect of Thaele's attempts to 'poke holes in the sky', a colloquial term for subverting segregationist discourse. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French.
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