Paper abstract:

This paper focuses on past relations between U.S. Black internationalist women and Soviet Eurasian communities for their meaning for transnational history, feminist knowledge, and local struggles for justice. Black Internationalist intellectuals shared knowledge globally and formed alliances across nations and continents. However, the existing archives often hold fragmented traces (if any) of Black women and queer people’s experiences in Soviet Eurasia, i.e. Central Asia and East Europe. Even less is known about Eurasian communities’ perceptions of Black sojourners. Against these gaps and absences, my paper reflects on the meaning and value of past relationships, encounters, and exchanges for histories of gender knowledge in both the former Soviet spaces and the U.S. The term "decolonizing" means thinking beyond imperial knowledge production. In this sense, I explore past legacies and their role in spanning diverse regions and challenging multiple imperialisms. Drawing on my exploration of the archive, my paper focuses on how Louise Thompson Patterson, Claudia Jones, Eslanda Robeson, and Audre Lorde, among many others, traveled to Soviet Eurasia and tackled the problems of their times and imagined alternative futures that could secure survival for everybody. My reflections address both the limitations and possibilities that past exchanges hold for the current and the future.