Race, Decolonization, and the Cold War: African Student Elites In Moscow

At the height of Africa's decolonization, as new nations and their young leaders emerged with a passion for models of independence and self-determination, the Soviet Union became a key destination for study. In this unique review of African-Soviet relations, Harold Weaver serves as both researcher and personal witness, guiding the reader through the nuanced terrain of students seeking models of effective, radical change. Offering valuable insights to the history and current processes of development and peace, Race, Decolonization, and the Cold War reveals a piece of the past that spotlights significant lessons for the future.

Dr. Harold (Hal) D. Weaver is an Associate at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, and the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. From his early experience in Communist Moscow as a member of an official USSR-USA young adult exchange group, Hal has been a lifelong cultural ambassador. He has traveled the world breaking down barriers and building bridges between cultures, often using film as the medium through The Black Film Project and the China-Africa-Russia Project. A pioneer in Africana studies, he founded and chaired the Africana Studies Department at Rutgers University.

Weaver is also a leading activist-scholar within the Religious Society of Friends. One of the fruits of his Friend’s ministry, The Black Quaker Project, was the publication of Black Fire: African-American Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights (2011), which Hal edited with Paul Kriese and Stephen W. Angell. A member of Wellesley Friends Meeting, Hal is active locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally among Quakers, having served in governance roles with the Quaker United Nations Office, the American Friends Service Committee, Pendle Hill, Cambridge Friends School, and the Friends World Committee for Consultation.

This event is co-sponsored by the NYU Department of Social and Cultural Analysis.