India Currents: African Americans and Desi Americans Have Long History of Working Together

For centuries, the African American and South Asian communitites have worked together in solidarity in support of each other’s civil rights.
 
 
According to India Currents‘ conversation with historian Vivek Bald, South Asian immigrants of the late 1800s were warmly accepted into American society by the African American community, and intermarriage between the two groups was common. 
 
Civil Rights activists of both communities in the 20th century quickly drew parallels between the African American struggle for equality in the United States and the imperialistic domination of India by Great Britain.  
 
“It just does not make sense for the Allied leaders of the Western world to make beautiful speeches about freedom and liberty and democracy with India still in chains and Negroes still jim-crowed,” famous poet Langston Hughes said.  
 
You can read about the South Asian Americans involved in the civil rights movement and the Black Bengalis of Harlem in India Currents.