The Structures of Diaspora (26 June 2026)

[LLM Report]

The half-century spanning 1880 to 1930 constitutes the most structurally volatile and intellectually fertile period in the history of the modern Black diaspora. Following the catastrophic collapse of Reconstruction and the formal codification of American apartheid via Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the foundational premises of African American citizenship were systematically dismantled. Confronted by a domestic regime of racial terror, labor peonage, and complete political disenfranchisement, Black intellectuals, journalists, and organizers could no longer operate under the provincial illusion that their struggle was confined to the boundaries of the American republic. Instead, they were forced to reconceptualize the globe, executing an ideological pivot that transformed the international arena from a theater of elite appeal into a battleground of institutional survival.