Where Are the Black Voices on Egypt and Tunisia?

For much of U.S. history, African Americans have been a strong dissenting voice on foreign policy, whether it was the settlement of free blacks in Liberia, the U.S. occupation of Haiti, British rule in India, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or African liberation movements such as the struggle against apartheid. As early as 1900, Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. Du Bois were lending their support to groups like the Pan-African Association (pdf), which linked the fate of Africans under colonialism with the treatment of African Americans at home.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s principled opposition to the Vietnam War won him harsh rebukes. Life magazine called his April 1967 speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi." In the 1960s, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Black Panther Party drew parallels between Israel's policies and South African apartheid.

...the Congressional Black Caucus has said little so far about Tunisia and Egypt, arguing that events have moved too fast and admitting that the overwhelmingly Democratic group wants to avoid making statements that might appear anti-Obama.

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