Mercer Cook: A Life in Motion

ABSTRACT: This article traces the intellectual trajectory and trans-national engagements of a key African American scholar and diplomat: Dr. Will Mercer Cook (1903–1987). From the 1930s to the 1960s, Mercer Cook was the foremost American authority on Black Francophone life and culture. His decades-long research, travels, and personal relationships with notable Black Francophone writers, politicians, and intellectuals, by the 1960s rendered him an ideal candidate for diplomacy posts in recently independent African nation states (The Gambia and Niger). Although not much work has alluded to his significance in the field of African diaspora studies, Cook was a central figure that connected an American public, and American educational and cultural institutions, to the Black Francophone world. This profile will highlight the significance of his work in the context of African American transnational engagements in the first half of the twentieth century.