2/23/2021
The Wesley-Logan Prize in African diaspora history is jointly sponsored by the American Historical Association (AHA) and the Association for the Study of African American Life & History. The prize is awarded annually for an outstanding book in African diaspora history. The AHA Committee on Minority Historians established the prize in 1992 in memory of two early pioneers in the field, Charles H. Wesley and Rayford W. Logan.
2020 Wesley-Logan Prize recipient Benjamin Talton offers a striking study of Mickey Leland. Leland, a former Black Power-era activist, turned U.S. Congressman, marshaled U.S. humanitarian relief to address Marxist Ethiopia's famine and food crises in other Global South countries.
Grounded in Ethiopian and U.S. political and resistance movements, Talton wonderfully weaves together a work of African diaspora, Black internationalism, and African American political histories. Exploring the links between political activism, electoral politics, and international affairs, Benjamin Talton details Leland's political career. He examines African Americans' successes and failures in influencing U.S. foreign policy toward African and other Global South countries during the 1980s.
Benjamin Talton, Temple University
In This Land of Plenty: Mickey Leland and Africa in American Politics (Univ. of Pennsylvania Press)