Scholarship on Black internationalism that emphasizes Black American engagements with Africa has traditionally centered on Ghana, Liberia, South Africa, and Tanzania but has rarely engaged Sudan. Yet, Sudan looms large in the historical imagination of African Americans, especially through Afrocentric views that trace Black origins to Nile Valley civilizations. Although Sudan gained independence on January 1, 1956, Ghana’s independence more than a year later, on March 6, 1957, is erroneously cited as the first in sub-Saharan Africa; and has since become the focal point of African American diaspora. Tounsel therefore investigates why African Americans may have been drawn to one African nation in a way that did not extend to another (3). To answer this question, Tounsel examines African American engagements with Sudan from the early twentieth century through the twenty-first century, using African American newspapers, personal diaries, memoirs, and official government and diplomatic records.

Bounds of Blackness argues that Black Americans engaged Sudan through literary, cultural, and diplomatic channels, thereby shaping narratives of independence in both Sudan and South Sudan. It examines how Sudan figured in African American conceptions of racial pride and diasporic belonging (5). African American opinion on Sudan was not uniform. Tounsel’s longue durée approach allows him to trace the changes in racial solidarity over time. Three main forces shaped African American views of Sudan: British and Egyptian colonialism; Sudan’s Arab heritage and claims of Arab dominance over indigenous Black populations; and, finally, US foreign policy.

The book unfolds in six chapters. Chapter One examines how graduates from Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute contributed to British Sudan’s agricultural (cotton) scheme in the early twentieth century. Their migration was framed as racial uplift, but also an opportunity for African Americans of a certain class to display their cultural and masculine superiority. Tounsel situates this migration alongside Tuskegee Institute’s collaboration with European colonial enterprises in other parts of Africa. Chapter Two draws primarily on African American newspapers to examine discourses on Sudan from the early 1920s to independence in 1956. Here, Tounsel shows the dichotomy in racial politics: writers recognized Sudan’s Blackness under British-Egyptian rule but cautioned against the Arab makeup of the north and how Arabs allegedly dominated indigenous Blacks of the south. While African Americans celebrated Egypt as evidence of ancient Black achievement, they were equally alarmed that Egyptian (Arab) control of Sudan threatened the freedoms of Black Southerners. Thus, Black American critique of colonialism in Africa was not limited to European powers but also extended to non-European states such as Egypt. In Chapter Three, Tounsel examines the work of African American foreign service workers in Sudan, including Andrew Brimmer, Valerie McCaw, and Madison Broadnax, who provided economic, agricultural, and cultural resources, expertise advice, and led the forefront of Sudan–US diplomatic relations in the early years of independence (68). Their careers illustrate the possibilities and constraints of African Americans within US foreign policy circles.

Chapter Four turns to the First Sudanese Civil War (1955–1972) during which many African Americans recast Northern Sudanese elites as the new oppressors of the South. While some African American newspapers focused on supporting Southern Sudan, others rejected the Arab-Black binary in Sudan, citing other social factors as the cause of the war. African American opinion was also divided on Israel’s support for South Sudan. Some viewed Israel’s support as strategic in advancing Black liberation, while others condemned it as threatening Black sovereignty. Chapter Five focuses on how religion permeated African American opinion on Sudan during the Second Civil War (1983–2005). The Nation of Islam supported Khartoum as a Muslim state, while Black Christian organizations such as the Christian Solidarity International (CSI) mobilized for Southern Sudan (126), showing how religion shaped solidarity. The Nation of Islam’s rejection of Arab exclusion from “Blackness” expanded diasporic possibilities yet minimized the suffering of other Black people in the South (134). Chapter Six follows the careers of Black diplomats, Susan Page and Susan Rice, who helped shape US engagement with newly independent South Sudan. Tounsel argues that their work fell outside racial solidarity, reflecting state interests rather than diasporic identification.

Tounsel ultimately succeeds in writing a rich history of US–Sudan relations that centers African Americans as central actors who shaped diplomatic narratives and public discourse (172). By focusing on Sudan, Tounsel expands the geography of diasporic politics. In some rare instances, however, Tounsel risks casting African Americans as saviors, particularly in his portrayal of the Tuskegee men, the diplomats and experts who supposedly traveled to Sudan “for the purpose of helping the Sudanese” (89). The African American focus of the work opens the window for further research to interrogate how Sudanese or Arab actors also engaged with and viewed African American diplomats and activists. Were African Americans always perceived as allies, interlocutors, or collaborators with Western interests?

Bounds of Blackness makes a significant contribution to the study of Black internationalism by examining solidarity beyond race. Sudan remains embroiled in political crisis, and debates over racial solidarity and global responsibility are as contested as ever. Tounsel’s work, therefore, remains relevant today and draws attention to the selective and contingent nature of solidarity, showing how it is shaped by racial, religious, national, and imperial forces globally.