Finding pictures

Finding images to use for this assignment was, in one sense, not difficult at all, because I had relatively few to choose from. That being said, it was difficult to actually track anything down that worked well for the effect I was trying to achieve. I used the websites of the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and ArchivesUSA, as well as resorting to images used in Wikipedia entries. The entry titled "Build with Good Bricks" is a scan of an image I found on microfilm at the Library of Congress. That was one of the initial images I knew I was going to use, but choosing the rest was difficult.

The animated map of colonialism was one I was most conflicted about using, because to get the animation to work, I had to link to the actual file, instead of it being embedded directly in my blog; because it is easily the most vague and abstract of the images I used; but also because of its source, has legitimacy (and perhaps accuracy) issues. These issues however, for the purpose of the point I am trying to make, I feel are within reasonable parameters to warrant the image's use to show that colonialism was (and perhaps still is) a considerably problematic issue in the world, especially in areas represented at the Bandung Conference.

The most frustrating part of this exercise was negotiating the Blogger software to make my entries appear as they should. I had to upload the images two (and in some cases three) times before everything appeared as it should and in the correct order. My own technological ignorance aside, however, the process of thinking through this project - how to visually depict something that I am much more used to saying in words, gave me increased respect for the actual possibility of doing credible and worthwhile work presented in an online fashion.

Colonialism and its Discontents, 1492 - 2007

Over the last several hundred years, and based largely in Europe, Western civilizations waged colonial wars of occupation against the populations of much of Asia and the Southern Hemisphere for cheaper access to the natural resources located there. This map is animated to show the color coded geographical scope of European colonial rule, roughly by century. The legacies of colonialism have plagued the twentieth century, resulting in one of the more violent periods in recorded history. Following World War II, a wave of independence movements swept through colonial territories, resulting in the creation of new nations.
(Image source: Wikipedia entry for "Colonialism." Public Domain.)

Asian African Conference at Bandung, Indonesia, 1955

Gedung Merdeka, site of the April, 1955 conference on the Indonesian island of Java. Twenty-nine newly independent, post-colonial nations from Africa, the Middle East and South Asia met to discuss racial, economic, and cultural, issues of mutual interest.
The inclusion of China gave Western leaders reason to fear that Communist influence would dominate the conference. This Cold War context threatened to overshadow the regional importance and even agenda of the conference. Nevertheless, the conference voted to condemn colonialism and racialism in all forms, including both Western and Communist.
(Image: Wikipedia/Indonesian public domain.)

Build with Good Bricks

This editorial cartoon from the Chicago Defender, April 16, 1955 applauds the Bandung Conference as an attempt by Asia and Africa to build successful societies without colonial control. Although official and diplomatic sources from the US were silent, there was an outpouring of support for the Asian-African Conference from the black press. The Defender sent White House Correspondent Ethel Payne on an 11 nation Asian and European tour that began with covering the Bandung Conference.


(Image scanned from Library of Congress Microfilm holdings of the Chicago Defender.)

Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.

Agitator, U.S. Congressman, and Pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, Powell was nicknamed "Mr. Civil Rights" during his tenure in the House of Representatives. Powell consistently positioned himself on the vanguard of the Civil Rights movement and rarely missed an opportunity to embarrass his white colleagues by exposing racism and hypocrisy in the most public way possible.
In the 1950's, as foreign relations increasingly became a legitimate means to both ameliorate domestic racism and bolster support for US policies abroad, the Asian African Conference at Bandung seemed the perfect place, to Powell, to address both US race relations and ideology on the same stage. Over State Department objections, Powell attended the conference as a journalist and observer so that a "person of goodwill" from the United States would be present. Powell's staunch defense of the US and his uncharacteristically amiable version of US race relations garnered him as much criticism as it did praise.
(Image is an un-used portrait made for the cover of Time Magazine by Bernard Safran.)

John Foster Dulles or Satchmo?

This Mischa Richter cartoon from the New Yorker depicts a Washington office where apparent foreign policy elites debate. The caption reads, "This is a diplomatic mission of utmost delicacy. The question is, who's the best man for it - John Foster Dulles or Satchmo?" In the 1950's, the State Department began sending African American entertainers, such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Dizzy Gillespie, on goodwill tours through Asia and Africa. Such attempts at cultural exchange were meant to create a positive image of US race relations to contrast with the negative press coming from the Communist press. This cartoon is evidence of both the tours' success, and the degree to which the line between foreign relations and race relations was perforated by the Cold War. (Image source: Library of Congress. Description.)