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History Battle of Black Race for Liberty and Justice

Khalid Elhassan May 12, 2020 34 min

Deacons for Defense - Deacons for Defense and Justice — Black demonstrators arriving in Franklinton, Louisiana, after a two day march from Bogalusa. Face 2 Face Africa

28. A Black Teen in China

Christian missionaries in China. Sixth One

Edward Allen Carter, Jr., was born in California in 1916 to an African American father and an East Indian mother. His parents, Christian missionaries, took him with them first to India, where he grew up, and then to China, which used to be a huge missionary magnet.

An upbringing in India and China, viewed at the time as the epitomes of the mysterious and exotic Orient, added layers of complexity to Carter. Blacks were very thin on the ground in China, which set him apart. While it would not be quite accurate to describe Edward as a social misfit, his background, the restrictions imposed by his religious parents, and the environment in which he grew up, all combined to form him in a different mold.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.