One of the extraordinary events of the twentieth-century has been the emergence of Black modernities across the oceanic divide. These modernities took on particular historical forms as well as singular cultural configurations. Invariably, in their formation, realization, and actualization's, whether in Africa or in the African Diaspora, they have constituted themselves as historical discourse, usually across the Atlantic, about cultural identities, historical survivals, invention of traditions, and the formulation of new nationalities. At the center of these reciprocal exchanges and interactions in the Black world has been the "New Negro" modernity, which orchestrated the deeper strains of the cultural splay of Black historical avant-gardes globally. "New Negro" modernity and modernism found its perfect realization in the Harlem Renaissance (1924-30). Through one of its eminent figures, Langston Hughes, the Harlem Renaissance had a profound impact on Black modernist cultural formations. In contrast to these complex diasporic and African exchanges, the effect of the influence and impact of United States modernity on the making of South African modernity resulted in something very spectacular and very unique: the transformation of a whole national culture, and the re-vitalization and re-invigoration of the national consciousness of Africans in South Africa. This anthology consists of contributions by African American scholars, writers and artists (Ishmael Reed, Joyce F. Kirk, John Higginson, Robert Hill, Gregory A. Pirio, Sonia Sanchez, Robin D.G. Kelley, Molefi Kete Asante, David H. Anthony, Houston A. Baker, Elliott Butler Evans, Sterling Plumpp, Stanley Crouch, Garth Fagan, GregTate, Cedric J. Robinson, Primus St. John, Dolores E. Cross, Gerald Horne and Sidney J. Lemelle); and African scholars, writers and artists (Mazisi Kunene, Ntongela Masilela, Bernard Makhosozwe Magubane, Nomazengele A. Mangaliso, Alosi J.M. Moloi, Keorapetse Kgositsile, Es'kia Mphalele and Cecil Abrahams) jointly examining the historical conjuncture between United States and South African modernity.