Jacobo Rincón, a working-class Dominican, confronts a U.S. Marine. Photo: Juan Pérez Terrero.
By Amaury Rodríguez
May 2, 2023
During the 1965 US military invasion of the Dominican Republic, the Dominican people found support among friends and allies as an outpouring of solidarity poured in from all around the world. Launched by President Lyndon B.Johnson, the military intervention crushed the 24 of April popular revolt that sought to restore Juan Bosch to power after being overthrown by a right-wing military coup in 1963.
In the US, Black people mobilized en masse to reject the military intervention alongside their refusal to fight in the ongoing war in Vietnam. Historians focused on Dominican society have written very little or nothing about that particular moment of solidarity not for lack of evidence–plenty of it exists–but because the events of ‘65 in Santo Domingo were somehow forgotten or overshadowed by the larger conflict in Vietnam.
For the African-American community, America’s military involvement in both Vietnam and Santo Domingo sparked widespread anger and political dissent as fighting for voting rights and equality intensified in the American South.
At the same time, the Civil Rights movement was facing internal dissent regarding tactics and strategies. It was Washington's warmongering policies in the 1960s that pushed the younger generation of activists to challenge the old guard old of what later became one the most important social movements from the mid-twenty century.
In a sense, the debate represented a generational break in the political direction of the movement in the midst of the Vietnam war and the deepening political, moral and social crisis in the United States. The divergence of opinions was clear, as shown by Black Dialogue magazine, representative of the Black radical tradition and the nascent Black Arts Movement.
Published quarterly in San Francisco, California, Black Dialogue emerged in 1965 to reclaim the political legacy of Malcolm X, assassinated that same year in February. Among the initial editorial board were Arthur A. Sheridan, Aubrey Labrie, Abdul Karim, Edward S. Spriggs, Malvin Jackmon, Saadat Ahmad and Glen Miles.
Source: JSTOR
The July-August 1965 issue of Black Dialogue published an article critical of US foreign policy entitled “Santo Domingo: US Wins Another Battle” signed by Abdul Karim. In it, the author provided a brief outline of Dominican history and the role of colonialism in the evolution of the socioeconomic and political dependence of the Caribbean nation. Karim concludes by saying that the revolutionary fervor and the desire for change and social transformation embodied in communism and the Cuban model of that time will continue to inspire oppressed people despite military aggression from Washington. He ends the article with a quote from a Dominican Constitutionalist fighter interviewed by American journalists: “it is possible that you may win this battle but you will lose the war.”
In that same issue of Black Dialogue magazine, an editorial titled “Vietnam” appears with references to the military intervention in Santo Domingo, which partly illustrates the internal division within the civil rights movement; on one side were the radical and revolutionary sectors that advocated a structural transformation of the capitalist system, and on the other, liberals and reformists willing to sit at the table with the power elites to demand concessions while keeping mum on Washington’s aggressive foreign policy. In the end, what was at stake was the class orientation of the movement.
Maintaining an internationalist political line all throughout, the editorial criticizes the United States imperialist policy, calling Black activists and and organizations to get involved in the anti-war movement:
Black Dialogue, along with millions of other American people, is vigorously opposed to the United States military presence in Vietnam. We believe that our government action in that country is insane, unrealistic, inhumane, and immoral. We believe the vicious and completely unnecessary killings of untold thousands of Vietnamese people and hundreds of American G.I. ‘s are without justification— and fault certainly must be placed somewhere (someone is responsible!) We believe that our country is the villain in this human tragedy and therefore urge all Black People to actively oppose the U.S.’s continued military action.
Briefly, the editorial recounts the internal divisions within the civil rights movement, issuing a sharp critique of conservative positions within the movement dominated by liberals while expressing solidarity with both Vietnamese and Dominicans under military assault by US forces:
There was a time when Black Americans were reluctant to speak out in opposition to United States Foreign Policy (or anything else other than ‘civil rights’)—we didn’t want to antagonize White People—because, after all, our ‘own’ problems were not yet solved and we thus did not wish to incur any ‘unnecessary’ obstacles. But that time has now passed and we know that it is our duty to criticize— to oppose such actions as are today being practiced by our government in Vietnam and the Dominican Republic.
In the following paragraph, the editorial characterizes President Johnson as a hypocrite and emphasizes the contradictions within a social movement whose liberal leadership keeps silent in the face of imperialist crimes while denouncing racist crimes in the US:
We find it impossible to believe that President Johnson, his speeches to the contrary, is so concerned about the peasants in Vietnam that he will send troops thousands of miles across the world to defend their freedom while here at home, in Bogulusa, in Selma, his own home state of Texas, Black lives and their freedom are constantly imperiled—about this situation—the president merely makes speeches. Moreover, we do not believe that our freedom can or should be won or granted at the expense of the people in Vietnam, in the Dominican Republic or in the Congo or anywhere else. A life in Vietnam or the Congo is just as valuable as a life in Selma or one in Bogulusa. And, after all, what is the use for all the civil rights in the world if the world is to be destroyed. Destruction—total destruction, we believe is the logical outcome of our military posture (escalation) in Vietnam.
The editorial reflected Black peoples’ widespread anti-war sentiment at the time. With that said, Black Dialogue had a mandate to move the movement in a different direction. Thus, the editorial board offered a different perspective on the civil rights movement in that the writers, artists, intellectuals and activists associated with Black Dialogue and the Black Arts Movements were willing to chart a new, combative and internationalist course away from the conciliatory political orientation of mainstream liberal leaders of the movement:
This magazine recently took a non-scientific—but representative— poll of one hundred Black San Franciscans to determine whether or not they supported Johnson’s Vietnam war. This group was comprised of every segment of the Black population. Eighty-three unequivocally opposed the U.S. action; five were in favor of it; and twelve didn’t know. (apparently the Gallup and Harris never ask these people). Black Dialogue feels that this attitude is pervasive throughout the Black communities and again urge our “official leaders’ King and Farmer, Wilkins and Young to YELL loudly—or will the vietnamese people one day be able to say, ‘O the Black Americans, they are nothing more than ‘white liberals’. We also call on Carl Rowan, director of the United States Information Agency and a Black Man, whose job it is to explain away these atrocities—to resign his post in protest of our war policies.
Finally, the Black Dialogue editorial concludes with a question that is also a suggestion on how to organize against the military draft in African-American communities:
And why Black Soldiers should you fight the Vietnamese when it is Americans who won’t let you walk the Mississippi streets like a man with the complete protection of the law due any man?
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Nelson Santana contributed to this article.