“America's jazz?” Racial inequality and its influence on the Jazz Ambassadors Program

This paper examines the United States State Department's Jazz Ambassadors Program through frameworks of soft power, cultural appropriation, and racialized representation, questioning whether it served as a legitimate vehicle for cultural diplomacy or functioned primarily as a mechanism for rehabilitating America's international image during the Civil Rights era. Tracing jazz's evolution from its denigration as “primitive jungle music” in the 1920s through its Cold War deployment as “America's original art form,” this study reveals the contradictions inherent in state appropriation of Black cultural innovation. Drawing on discussions of representation and cultural commodification, this study situates the program within the fraught racial landscape that shaped America's most distinctive cultural export. These findings illuminate broader tensions between cultural diplomacy and racial politics, revealing how states exploit artistic production to serve foreign policy objectives while evading accountability for domestic injustice.