@article{von der Goltz2024,
  author    = {von der Goltz, Anna},
  title     = {›Black Is Beautiful‹. Radical Chic, Chromatic Politics, and Constructions of Race in the Campaigns of the West German Christian Democrats in the 1970s},
  journal   = {Zeithistorische Forschungen - Studies in Contemporary History},
  volume    = {20},
  number    = {3},
  publisher = {ZZF - Centre for Contemporary History: Zeithistorische Forschungen},
  address   = {Potsdam},
  doi       = {10.14765/zzf.dok-2823},
  pages     = {400 -- 425},
  year      = {2024},
  abstract  = {This article examines the appropriation of the slogan ›Black is beautiful‹, which had its origins in the US Civil Rights movement, by the West German Christian Democrats in the 1970s - and thus by a party led by white men. The analysis brings into conversation histories that have mostly been treated separately: the political history of the Federal Republic and the Christian Democrats; the history of political chromatics and political communication; and the history of racism and anti-racism in Germany after 1945. While the focus is on a specific election campaign that ran from 1972 to 1976, the aim is to address larger issues: the first decade of the Christian Democrats in opposition at the federal level and their struggle to appear ›modern‹ in a period of rapid change; and constructions of race in a society that had banned the word ›Rasse‹ from its political vocabulary. One conclusion is that the ›Black is beautiful‹ campaign was in many ways a typical product of the Federal Republic in the 1970s. The ways in which the Christian Democrats dealt - or did not deal - with ›race‹ in this instance reflects a general reluctance among West Germans to acknowledge the more subtle forms that racism has taken since 1945, other than state-sanctioned discrimination.},
  language  = {en}
}