The Multidimensional International Activism of the National Council of Negro Women, 1944–75

This presentation combines historical methodologies with the resource mobilization, political opportunity structure, and organizational culture frameworks of Sociology, Political Science, and Business Studies, to reveal a nuanced account of the National Council of Negro Women’s (NCNW) international activism. While this organization’s foreign interests and work has been well noted, it is often overwhelming attributed to the global interests of Mary McLeod Bethune––NCNW’s first president-elect. While Bethune represents an important component, particularly as it relates to the genesis of this development, this one-dimensional explanation fails to consider a broader, more elaborate range of actors necessary in sustaining this course from the 1940s onward. It also tells nothing of the making and re-making of alliances and relationships that were fundamental in aiding the Council in establishing an International Relations Department that was funded by the American government in 1975. In interrogating the NCNW as a Social Movement Organization, this paper argues that the Council’s international pursuits were often fruitful and rational, all while being unsystematic, uneven, and heavily influenced by the availability of political opportunities.  As an organization, the NCNW was ardently committed to accomplishing its goals of gaining greater political power and increasing access to institutional centers. It was equally dedicated to drawing larger membership and support, to illustrating and centering African American women’s interests and legitimacy in foreign relations, and to achieving equality and democracy for the world’s People of Color. A few of the Council’s strategies to be discussed in this presentation include the leadership’s coordination, and often times, unquestioned, support of the agendas of state and private agencies, the incorporation of the international extensions of its affiliates as part of its own achievements, and the proposed and completed educational and goodwill tours of groups of NCNW women to Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean.