The essay explores how, from the early fifties, the United States public diplomacy and soft power practices, namely through the USIS Yugoslav periodical Pregled [Horizons] and the Yugoslav Voice of America broadcasts, conceptualized the African American struggle for freedom and civil rights for the Yugoslav public. On the heels of recent historiographical inquiries, the article traces the trajectories, common places and justifications of the African American iniquitous treatment and civil rights struggles as inspired by American nationhood moral ideals and liberal traditions. These “languages of freedom” point finally to two evident contradictions: the Yugoslav intermediate position between East and West and its selective acceptance/rejection/reuse of American public diplomacy propaganda.
