As we mark the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world waits to see if the Iran deal will come to fruition and thus avoid war. Once again, the debate about nuclear weapons appears at the forefront. At the same time, inside the U.S., the #BlackLivesMatter movement continues to make clear it will no longer be politics as usual as activists organize, protest, and fight every day to destroy institutional racism. However, it is no coincidence that these events are all happening simultaneously as they have always been and continue to be inextricably linked.
On April 1, 1961, the prominent black writer James Baldwin, who had recently become a member of the advisory group of SANE (National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy), was one of the headlining speakers at a Washington, D.C., rally of peace activists on "Security Through World Disarmament." When asked why he chose to speak at such an event, Baldwin responded:
"What am I doing here? Only those who would fail to see the relationship between the fight for civil rights and the struggle for world peace would be surprised to see me. Both fights are the same. It is just as difficult for the white American to think of peace as it is of no color ... Confrontation of both dilemmas demands inner courage."
Baldwin considered both problems in the same breath because "racial hatred and the atom bomb both threaten the destruction of man as created free by God." Like so many before him, James Baldwin connected peace, freedom, and colonialism and argued that nuclear weapons were a critical link in that chain.
Since 1945, musicians, artists, peace activists, leftists, clergy, journalists, and ordinary citizens inside the black community protested the use of nuclear weapons.
Indeed, if we look back at many of the individuals who activists look up to today, one will see that these leaders consistently fought on multiple fronts: W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, Bayard Rustin, Dr. King, Coretta Scott King, Malcolm X, and the Black Panther Party all saw a connection between colonialism, racism, and the bomb. While the hashtag is new, the idea of course is not, and similar to activists today, when past leaders discussed "black lives" they meant the larger nonwhite world and African diaspora.
To Paul Robeson, "Black Lives Matter" meant not only speaking out about racism in the U.S., but highlighting where the U.S. obtained its material to build nuclear weapons: the Belgian-controlled Congo.
To W.E.B. Du Bois, "Black Lives Matter" meant not only forming the NAACP or writing the Souls of Black Folk, but also getting millions to sign the "Ban the Bomb" pledge to stop another Hiroshima in Korea.
To Bayard Rustin, "Black Lives Matter" meant not only organizing the March on Washington, but also traveling to Ghana to stop France from testing its first nuclear weapon in Africa.
To Lorraine Hansberry, "Black Lives Matter" meant not only "A Raisin in the Sun," but "Les Blancs," her last play about nuclear abolition.
To Congressman Ronald Dellums, "Black Lives Matter" meant not only bringing jobs and education to Oakland, but also making sure President Reagan did not build the MX missile.
Now, 70 years since the first atomic bomb was dropped, many of the same fights remain, and the connections must be made. President Obama has proposed spending $1 trillion over the next 30 years on nuclear weapons. What could $1 trillion do for West Baltimore or East St. Louis? How many schools could be built? How much infrastructure could be repaired?
Conversely, if the Iran deal is finalized, how many nonwhite lives around the world will President Obama have saved by preventing war? Perhaps now is the time to once again merge these movements as so many black activists did in the past. For we must fight each and every day to stop police brutality, economic inequality, and white supremacy.
But as Dr. King consistently argued to young civil rights activists, "what will be the value of having established social justice in a context where all people, Negro and White, are merely free to face destruction by atomic war?"
Vincent Intondi is an Associate Professor of History at Montgomery College and Director of Research for American University’s Nuclear Studies Institute in Washington, D.C. He is the author of the book, African Americans Against the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons, Colonialism, and the Black Freedom Movement (Stanford University Press, 2015).
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