In an essay published in part of the 25th anniversary volume of SOULS, an open access, peer-reviewed journal of Black Studies, Zachary Mondesire, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Pardee School, examines how Black internationalist movements have understood global struggles for justice and why some contemporary crises receive greater attention than others. Titled “On the Black International Gaze,” the essay asks a provocative question: why has Black internationalist solidarity mobilized so powerfully around Palestine while often engaging more cautiously with conflicts in places such as Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo?

Mondesire argues that the answer lies in what he calls “Jim Crow epistemology”—an inherited framework shaped by the history of segregation, anti-colonial struggle, and apartheid. This tradition has helped generations of activists identify and respond to injustice across borders by drawing parallels between racial oppression in the United States and inequality elsewhere. Yet Mondesire suggests that these same frameworks can make contemporary African conflicts more difficult to interpret. “Solidarity often begins from analogy rather than encounter,” he writes, noting that modern conflicts in Sudan and the Congo involve complex struggles over sovereignty, state power, and governance that do not fit neatly into familiar narratives of colonizer and colonized.

Tracing the evolution of Black internationalism from the anti-apartheid movement to present-day activism, Mondesire examines figures ranging from W.E.B. Du Bois and Ralph Bunche to Ta-Nehisi Coates, Briana Joy Gray, and the leaders of TransAfrica. He argues that the end of apartheid marked a significant turning point, as grassroots movements increasingly gave way to professional advocacy organizations and diplomatic institutions. As a result, Mondesire writes that “the dissolution of the anti-apartheid movement coincided with the decline of a participatory imagination,” changing how solidarity was organized and expressed.

A central focus of the essay is Sudan, where Mondesire contends that existing frameworks have struggled to make sense of conflicts that lack a clearly identifiable external oppressor. The ongoing crisis, he argues, reveals the limits of inherited approaches to Black internationalism. “The compass of Black Internationalism, long guided by U.S. foreign policy and its effects, now finds itself without a true north,” he writes. Rather than abandoning international solidarity, Mondesire calls for a renewed approach that takes contemporary African political realities seriously and embraces the complexities of postcolonial governance and state-building.

Looking ahead, Mondesire proposes a framework he terms“Pan-African geopolitics,” one that moves beyond familiar binaries and pays closer attention to the institutions, political actors, and regional dynamics shaping Africa today. Ultimately, he argues for “a Black Internationalism capable of taking African interests seriously”, one that remains connected to the movement’s historic commitments while adapting to a rapidly changing global landscape.