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This forum, edited by Nicholas Grant and Elisabeth Engel, examine the cultural spaces and interactions that shaped the worldview of African Americans in the aftermath of the Civil War. Each of the articles reconsiders the relationship between African Americans and the African continent. Adding to scholarly work that has sought to complicate Paul Gilroy’s framework of the black Atlantic, contributors examine the creative work that shaped the African diaspora while also tracing how black diasporic identities have developed over time. All articles build on research that has traced the global contours of the US South, and document how Jim Crow had a profound influence on the ways in which race was discussed around the world. Bringing black responses to American segregation into conversation with the field of colonial history, contributions also trace how the transnational politics of Jim Crow informed the operation of imperial power as well as the politics of anticolonialism.