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Contents
Acknowledgments ...................................................................v
List of Tables
...................................................................xii
1 . INTRODUCTION
..................................................
Afro-American Studies:,Who, What, Why, for Whom

Intellectual History ..............................................
William 'Edward Burghart DuBois
.......................
Carter Godwin Woodson
................................
Edward Franklin Frazier
..................................
Langston Hughes
............................................
The Disciplines
.................................................
The Movement
................................................
Innovation
......................................................
Experimentation
.............................................
Institutionalization
..........................................
The Text
.........................................................
Biology and Race
.............................................
Political Economy and Class
..............................
Society and Nationality
.....................................
Ideology and Consciousness
................................
1
1
6
7
9
11
12
14
15
16
17
19
22
22
23
24
24
2. AFRICA BEFORE AND AFTER THE SLAVE TRADE:

THE AFRO-AMERICAN HERITAGE
................................ 31
Africa: The Continent and Its' People .....................

Production
......................................................
Politics
..........................................................
Religion
..........................................................
Education
.......................................................
Women and the Family
.................................
Culture
..........................................................
The European Penetration
..............................
Colonialism and Imperialism in Africa ......................
32
34
36
36
37
37
38
39
43
3. COLONIALISM AND THE SLAVE TRADE
........................ 49
Why the Slave Trade

......................................
Aspects of Capitalist Slavery
..........................
The Demands for Markets
...........................
The Struggle for Land
......................................
The Struggle for Labor
.....................................
The Source of Profit
.......................................
The Impact of the Slave Trade ...............................
4. THE SLAVE EXPERIENCE:
THE MELTING POT OF AFRICAN PEOPLES
51
54
54
54
55
56
59
......................... 67
The Institution of Slavery

..................................
Social Organization
..........................................
Religion and Slavery
..........................................
Mechanisms Strengthening Slavery ........................
Mechanisms Weakening Slavery
.......................
67
70
72
74
74
5. THE RURAL EXPERIENCE:

THE EMERGENCE OF THE AFRO-AMERICAN NATIONALITY ..... 81
Tenant Farming
................................................
Peonage
...........................................................
Middle-Class Aspects of the Agricultural
Experience
...........................................
The Church
........................................................
Disfranchisement and social repression
.................
Organized Resistance ...........................................
Decline of Rural Life : Outmigration ............................
83
85
86
87
88
91
95
6. THE URBAN EXPERIENCE:

THE PROLETARIANIZATION OF AFRO- AMERICANS .............. 99
The Urbanization of Blacks ....................................
The "New Negro"
...........................................
The Proletarianization of Blacks
......................
Changes in Social and Cultural Life ...........................
Resistance
.......................................................
7. BLACK WORKERS AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT
101
104
107
111
114
.............. 121
Black People in the Work Force ...........................

Scabs
............................................................
"Shit-Work"
......................................................
Labor Reserve
.................................................
Black Workers and Organized Resistance .................
122
123
124
124
128
128
Early National Unions: NLU, CNLU, and the Knights ...

Craft Unionization: AF of L
.................................
"One Big Union": The Wobblies
...........................
A National Black Union.- The Brotherhood ................
Radicalism: American Negro Labor Congress and
Unemployed Councils
.....................................
Industrial Unionization: CIO and the Black Community
Reactionary Forces: AFL-CIO Merger .....................
Black Militancy
................................................
Black Revolutionary Union Movement:
DRUM, the League, BWC
.................................
The Contemporary Scene
....................................
8. THE BLACK MIDDLE CLASS
130
130
132
133
135
137
137
140
142
................................... 147
The Slave Period ................................................

The Rural Period ................................................
The Urban Period ...............................................
Business
........................................................
The Professions
...............................................
Government and the Black Middle Class ................
The Future of the Black Middle Class ......................
9. BLACK CULTURE AND THE ARTS
.............................. 167
Traditional African Culture

..............................
The Slave Period
............................................
The Rural Period
............................................
The Urban Period
............................................
The Arts Movements ........................................
The 20s: The Harlem Renaissance ..................
The 30a and 40s: The WPA Artists and the Be Bop
Musicians
.................................................
The 60s: The Black Arts Movement ..................
Black Culture and Imperialism
......................
10. RELIGION AND THE BLACK CHURCH
147
151
153
155
157
159
161
168
170
172
175
176
177
178
182
183
............................ 189
The African Connection

..................................
The Slave Period
.............................................
The Rural Period
...........................................
Social Stability
...........................................
Economic Cooperation
..............................
Education
.................................................
Arena of Politic al Life ...................................
The Urban Period ..............................................
Secularization
...................................
Storefront Churches .....................................
Black Religious Cults
..................................
The Contemporary Situation ...................................
191
192
194
195
196
196
196
198
198
199
200
201
11. BLACK WOMEN AND THE FAMILY
................................. 207
The Slave Period

............................................
Rural Period
...............................................
The Urban Period
............................................
12. EDUCATION AND THE SCHOOL IN THE BLACK
COMMUNITY
......................................................
The Slave Period
....................................
The Rural Period
..........................................
The Urban Period
.........................................
Elementary and Secondary Education .............
Higher Education .......................................
208
212
217
227
229
232
236
238
241
13. BLACK POWER AND THE U.S. POLITICAL SYSTEM ............ 247
Slavery, The Struggle for Human Rights ................
Rural Period: The Struggle for Civil Rights ..............
Urban Period: The Struggle for Equal Rights ...........
248
251
255
14. CIVIL RIGHTS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY ....... 265
Legal Action ......................................................
The National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People
.......................................
The Urban league
...................................
Mass Struggle .................................................
Congress of Racial Equality
...................
Southern Christian Leadership Conference ........
Student Non-violent- Coordinating Committee ...
Electoral Politics .............................................
15. NATIONALISM AND PAN-AFRICANISM
268
269
271
272
273
274
280
284
........................... 291
The Historical Basis for Black Nationalism ...............

The Historical Basis for Pan-Africanism .................
Ideological and Political Character of Nationalism .....
The Slave Period
...............................................
The Rural Period
...........................................
The Urban Period
..............................................
The Role of Malcolm X
..............................
Politics
.........................................................
Culture and Art
............................................
The Black Nation
.........................................
Two Lines on Pan-Africanism in Africa ................
Two Lines on Pan-Africanism in the United States ..
The Prospects for Pan-Africanism and Nationalism ...
292
293
294
296
298
301
303
304
307
308
311
311
313
16. MARXISM AND THE BLACK LIBERATION
...................... 319
International Marxist Theory ..................................

U.S. Marxist Movements .......................................
Current Tasks.,
...................................................
Toward a Scientific Approach to Black Liberation ........
17. EVERYONE HAS A ROLE TO PLAY
Summary
The Future
Bibliography
320
324
336
337
............................... 345
....................................................
..................................................
......................................................................
345
348
353
APPENDICES
Selected Scholarly Journals .................................
Bibliographical Tools in Afro-American Studies .......
Index ................................................................
374
375
377

RBG Communiversity Mirror
Contents
ONE
1. INTRODUCTION
..................................................
Afro-American Studies:,Who, What, Why, for Whom

Intellectual History ..............................................
William 'Edward Burghart DuBois
.......................
Carter Godwin Woodson
................................
Edward Franklin Frazier
..................................
Langston Hughes
............................................
The Disciplines
.................................................
The Movement
................................................
Innovation
......................................................
Experimentation
.............................................
..........................................
The Text
.........................................................
Biology and Race
.............................................
..............................
.....................................
................................
1
1
6
7
9
11
12
14
15
16
17
19
22
22
23
24
24
Introduction
You have to be careful, very careful, introducing the truth to the Black man
who has never previously heard the truth about himself, his own kind, and
the white man.... The Black brother is so brainwashed that he may even
be repelled when he first hears the truth.
Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 1965
Afro-American Studies is an academic field that combines general intellectual history,
academic scholarship in the social sciences and the humanities, and a radical
movement for fundamental educational reform. This chapter will summarize the general
scope and content of the field and introduce the approach used in the remaining
1
chapters.
AFRO-AMERICAN STUDIES: WHO, WHAT, WHY, FOR WHOM
Afro-American Studies covers the entire American hemisphere, including North, Central,
and South America, the Caribbean, and northern countries like New Foundland and
Greenland. In this text the main focus will be on the United States, but it should always
be kept in mind that there are nearly 103 million Black people of African descent
throughout the Americas, of which only 27% are in the U.S.A., while 47% are in Brazil.
There is a great deal of diversity in this Black population spread throughout the
hemisphere, but there is one general point of unity. All of these Black populations derive
from an African origin. Black people come from Africa as compared to white people who
come from Europe.
In the world experience of Africans, subjugation by hostile people and migration have
led to great crises. First, as a result of their subjugation, their past has been distorted or
simply omitted from the libraries and curricula. Second, the living descendents of
Africans who live outside Africa are faced with an identity crisis because they have been
stripped of their cultural heritage and forced to use languages which are not conducive
to maintaining links with Africa.
In the United States today, there is also a crisis of identity in terms of what name to use
for African descendents. It can be thought of as a naming crisis. Table 2 lists eight
names that have been used since the 18th century. Many have been omitted, especially
the derogatory names like "nigger," "jigaboo," "spade, "coon,"darky," "spook,"
"swartzes," "blackie," etc. These types of negative names can be found for all
nationalities in the United States.
Rationales exist for these diverse names, although each must be viewed within its
historical context. For example, the term "African" was used during the 18th century
because slaves were still being brought from Africa itself. This was a direct form of
naming. After the mid-twentieth century victorious struggles that liberated most African
countries, some Black people in western countries chose to call themselves "Africans" to
identify with both their origins and the contemporary politics of African liberation. It is the
same term, but each historical context and the material condition of the people
generated its own meaning.
2
Table 1
BLACK PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT IN THE AMERICAS
Region - Country
North America
Total Population (000's)
% Black
U.S.A.
234,193
11.9
Mexico
75,702
1.0
Canada
24,882
0.1
2,058
65.0
154
60.0
Nicaragua
2,812
9.0
Honduras
4,276
2.0
Costa Rica
2,624
2.0
El Salvador
4,685
0.1
Guatemala
7,714
0.0
131,303
37.0
Ecquador
8,811
6.0
Venezuela
17,993
5.5
Peru
19,161
3.0
Colombia
27,663
2.0
Bolivia
5,883
2.0
Uruguay
2,916
0.5
Paraguay
3,526
0.4
Argentina
29,627
0.1
Chile
11,486
0.1
5,945
99.0
Barbados
256
97.0
French Guiana
66
95.0
2,255
93.0
317
90.0
Central America
Panama
Belize
South America
Brazil
Caribbean
Haiti
Jamaica
Guadeloupe
3
Marinique
312
90.0
Dominican Republic
5,762
84.0
Cuba
9,796
62.0
Trinidad & Tobago
1,176
57.0
850
43.0
Guyana
Table 2
NAMES AND THE IDENTITY CRISIS : SELECTED 1984
ORGANIZATIONAL EXAMPLES
Name
AFRICAN
COLORED
NEGRO
NONWHITE
MINORITY
AFRO-AMERICAN
AFRICAN-AMERICAN
BLACK
Organizational example
African Methodist Episcopal Church
National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People
3
National Council for Negro Women
Journal of Non-white Concerns in
Personnel and Guidance
National Organization of Minority
Architects
Association for the Study of Afro-American
Life and History
DuSable Museum of African American
History
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists
The critical issue is the power to define. Some focus more on the practical character of
names, the difficulty of making a change, and status recognition based on existing
societal norms. A different focus makes naming a matter of political control, a critical
principle of self-determination. The difference can be demonstrated with the name
"Negro." DuBois argued in the 1920s that the name "Negro" was acceptable, as long
as it was capitalized. Richard Moore, in his book The Name Negro: Its Origin and Evil
Use (1960) condemns the name and argues that a preferred name is "Afro-American"
(although he disagrees with the hyphen). His point is that Black people must name
4
themselves, because "dogs and slaves are named by their masters; free men name
themselves!"
In the 1960s, the issue of naming was one of the important struggles reflecting a
cultural identity crisis. Faced with white racism, the Civil Rights Movement was an
expression of "Negroes" fighting to integrate themselves into white society. By 1966,
this struggle was transformed into a liberation movement for Black people. The Nation
of Islam, mainly represented by Malcolm X, carried out widespread publicity to
convince the "so called Negro" to become "Black." Black became popular, a positive
affirmation of self. This was a symbolic victory for the masses of people, since for
4
historical reasons the Black middle class was brown or tan in skin color. Black was a
replacement for subordination to white that was reflected in the terms "nonwhite" and
"minority."
"Afro-American" and "African American" were more historically specific terms to
describe a synthesis of Africa with America and to replace "Negro" and of course
"colored." ("Colored" is really a misnomer since if you were not colored you'd be
colorless and that means invisible. The issue has always been what color!) This field
of study thus is called Afro-American Studies. In the early campus struggle against
white racism to set up programs, it was named Black Studies, and many programs
retain their original name. Also in use are Africana Studies and Pan African Studies.
In addition to the general issue of who is being studied and what they are to be called,
the issue of who is the constituency for an Afro-American Studies program should be
considered. This is linked to the special purposes Afro-American Studies serves in the
general academic curriculum. In general, Afro-American Studies has two main
objectives:
1. to rewrite American history and reconceptualize the essential features of American
society;
2. to establish the intellectual and academic space for Black people to tell their own
story.
Afro-American Studies is also important because of its impact on affirmative action.
Blacks constitute only 4.3% of faculty and only 8.8% of students in U.S. higher
education. The presence of an Afro-American Studies program encourages Black
employment and attendance. On virtually every campus, the activities of Black faculty
members are related to Afro-American Studies and Black students are likely to enroll
in at least one course before they graduate. Black students need to be tied into
scholarship on the basis of an anti-racist affirmation of their own experience as part of
the overall human condition. Further, their study must be the basis for reinterpreting
5
the overall American experience, especially correcting the centuries of racist
distortions and omissions. White students, believing liberal generalities at best and
racist stereotypes at worst, are the most ignorant of the Black experience. Their gain
from Afro-American Studies is essential if recurring crises of racial ignorance and
conflict are to be avoided. Apart from students, there are many others who would
benefit, from Afro-American Studies. For instance, everyone who desires to work in
government - whether it is making or implementing policy - should have knowledge of
the Black experience. All future legislators, administrators, and most mayors should be
required to take Afro-American Studies because much of their legislative and policyimplementing activities deal with Black people. Similarly, people in business or labor
should take Afro-American Studies. Blacks constitute a growing market for business,
and they are an essential component of the trade union movement (Blacks are even
more unionized than whites when you compare them industry by industry). This
general text in Afro-American Studies is designed to meet people's need to understand
the Black experience. Before considering the specific content of that experience, one
should have some grasp of the broad field of Afro-American Studies. We thus turn to a
5
discussion of Afro-American intellectual history, Afro-American scholarship within the

traditional academic disciplines, and the radical movement for Black Studies in the
1960s and 1970s.
We will then discuss the conceptual framework that is used in this text to analyze the
Black Experience. The conceptual framework is both a model for unity in AfroAmerican Studies and the basic structure of the chapters that follow.
INTELLECTUAL HISTORY
Afro-American intellectual history in the U.S.A. Is being rewritten and even now is only
partially being given the academic attention that it deserves. It is the history of Black
men and women fighting to establish professional careers as scholars, journalists,
writers, etc. They had to fight against racism and discrimination. For these reasons
this is a history that mainstream white scholarship has not included.
The institutional concentration of a Black intellectual tradition took place in graduate
education and dissertation research. This was supplemented by newspapers,
magazines and journals, and specialized organizations. Blacks who got higher
degrees have been overwhelmingly in the social sciences, education, and the
humanities. Further, most of their research has been on the Black experience. Harry
Greene, in Holders of Doctorates Among American Negroes (1946), lists all Black
6
doctorates between 1876 and 1943. Of 77 dissertations in the social sciences, 56%
were on the Black experience; 67% out of 71 in education; 21% out of 43 in language
and literature; and 15% out of 26 in psychology and philosophy. This graduate
research has been a point of tension between intellectual currents within the Black
community and the academic mainstream. It is therefore one of the most intense and
dynamic indicators of, how important and deepIy rooted is the desire of Black people
to study the Black experience.
The overall written record of Black intellectual history is perhaps most easily traced in
journals that specialize in some aspect of Afro-American Studies. (See Appendix A
form a list of the top 26 journals in Afro-American Studies.) This began with the
Journal of Negro History, founded by Carter G. Woodson in 1916, and includes
Phylon, founded by W.E. B. DuBois in 1940. The number of journals has expanded
greatly since the 1960s, even though aspects of the Black experience have been
increasingly integrated into mainstream journals. The growth of these journals is proof
of a continuing commitment to the field. Afro-American Studies is a field anchored in a
professional journal literature, just as are all other recognized fields in the
contemporary academic setting.
Table 3
DATE OF FOUNDING OF BLACK STUDIES JOURNALS
No.
6
7
Percent
Pre-Black Studies Movement 1916-1961

Early Black Studies Movement 1967-1974
Recent Black Studies Movement
7
9
10
26.9
34.6
38.5
There are also a number of published bibliographies that give a codified view of the
entire field. These range from A Bibliography of the Negro in Africa and America by
Monroe Work (1928, 700 pages) to Blacks in America: Bibliographical Essays by
James McPherson, et al. (1971, 430 pages). The most recent reference tool is Black
Access: A Bibliography of Afro-American Bibliographies by Richard Newman. (See
Appendix B for a list of key bibliographies.)
We will highlight the contours of this intellectual history by briefly discussing four key
individuals: W. E. B. DuBois, Carter G. Woodson, E. Franklin Frazier, and Langston
Hughes. DuBois and Woodson, both trained in history, were mainly broad generalists
who focused on the role of race in history, especially for Black people in the United
States. Hughes and Frazier, of a later generation, made outstanding intellectual
contributions. Hughes was trained in the humanities and Frazier was in the social
sciences. One of the critical similarities among these intellectuals is that they all
produced a paradigmatic text of the Black experience. A paradigmatic text is a
coherent survey of the main aspects of the Black experience throughout the dynamic
historical stages, from Africa to the Afro-American present. It constitutes an overall
treatment of the Black Experience.
William Edward Burghart DuBois (1868-1963)

W. E. B. DuBois was a world-class intellectual of the late 19th and first half of the 20th
century, and clearly the most dominant Black intellectual of all time. He was educated
at Fisk University and Harvard University, the best Black and white institutions of
higher education. One example of the racism he faced was that Harvard admitted him
as a college junior, only giving him two years credit for his four years of study at Fisk.
After two years of study at the University of Berlin, he went on to be the first Black
8
Ph.D. in the social sciences in the U.S.A.
His work is best exemplified by two sets of conferences that made a great impact in
terms of both understanding the Black experience and changing the world for Black
people. DuBois was a leading force in the five major Pan-African Congresses held to
develop a world-wide movement for African liberation (see Chapter 15). He was also
the leading figure in the Atlanta University Conferences held between 1898 and 1930
to summarize research and public policy regarding the conditions of life for Black
people in the U.S.A. during the early decades of the 20th century. The proceedings of
7
each Atlanta University Conference were published, and together they constitute the
beginning of modern applied research on the Black experience. This work was the
early origin of Black Studies.
DuBois lived 95 years, and he published during 80 of those years. His contribution can
be seen in the breadth of his research concerning the Black experience.
Selected Works by DuBois
AFRICA
The World and Africa (1947)
SLAVERY
The suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of
America 1638-1870 (1896)
John Brown (1909)
Black Reconstruction in America (1935 )
RURAL
The Negros of Farmville, Virginia (1898)
The Negro Landholder of Georgia (1901)
The Negro Farmer (1906)
URBAN
The Philadelphia Negro (1899)
He had hoped to culminate all of his research in a major encyclopedia. He proposed

an Encyclopedia Africana in 1909, but he could not secure funding. He planned an
Encyclopedia of Colored People in 1934, but was only able to publish a preparatory
volume by 1944. In 1959, he was invited by Kwame Nkrumah, President of Ghana
(West Africa), to work on the Encyclopedia Africana. He was working on the project
when he died in 1963. His entire dramatic story, nearly a century long, was recorded in
9
two autobiographical volumes, Dusk of Dawn (1940) and The Autobiography of W E.
B. DuBois (1968).
Perhaps the most important contribution made by DuBois was his relentless search for
truth and his untiring devotion to the cause of clarifying the meaning of his people's
experience. In 1903, he published a major collection of essays, The Souls of Black
8
Folk. From then on he was a critical interpreter of the Black experience. He went on to
write several works of fiction, including a trilogy of novels called The Black Flame
(1957, 1959, 1961).
DuBois led the life of an intellectual and an activist. He founded Crisis, the journal of
the NAACP, and was its editor from November, 1910 to July, 1934. In 1940, he
founded the academic journal Phylon (Greek for race) at Atlanta University and edited
it from 1940 to 1944. His life epitomized academic excellence and political activism.
Carter Godwin Woodson (1875-1950)

Carter G. Woodson is known as the father of Black history. He not only made major
contributions through his scholarly research, but he also was the key organizer in
building a Black history movement. He was educated at Berea College, the University
of Chicago, Harvard, and the Sorbonne (University of Paris), getting the Ph.D. from
Harvard University in 1912. His parents were ex- slaves, and he didn't enter high
school until he was twenty years old.
Woodson made great contributions to research about Blacks, both by creating new
data sets and by analyzing existing data.
Selected Works by Woodson

AFRICA
African Heroes and Heroines (1939)
SLAVERY
Free Negro Owners of Slaves (1924
Free Negro Heads of Families (1925)
The Mind of the Negro As Reflected in Letters Written During The Crisis
1800-1860 (1926)
The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 (1915)
RURAL
The Rural Negro (1930)
URBAN
A Century of Negro Migration (1918)
The Negro as a Businessman (1929)
9
10
The Negro Wage Earner (1930) with Lorenzo Greene

The Negro Professional Man and the Community (1934)
INSTITUTIONS
The History of the Negro Church (1921)
The Miseducation of the Negro (1923)
Woodson wrote the first general history that became a standard reference, The
Negro in Our History (1922). Woodson published nineteen editions of this work. He
also published an extensive study guide, The African Background Outlined (1936),
which included a focus on Africa as well as the Black experience in the United States.
At the time of his death, he was writing a projected six-volume, comprehensive
historical study of the Black race. He maintained a stubborn allegiance to the facts, to
rigorous historical methods, and to a desire to expose racist lies and distortions in the
scholarly study of the Black experience.
No one person has created an intellectual movement comparable to the Black history
movement organized by Carter G. Woodson. In 1915, he organized the Association
for the Study of Negro Life and History. The following year, he began to publish a
scholarly journal, The Journal of Negro History. He went on to found a publishing
company, Associated Publishers, and by so doing completed the task of organizing
professional resources for Black history. There was an organization, with a newsletter
and an annual meeting; a professional journal for scholarly articles; and a publishing
company for books.
He also took Black history out of the classroom into the Black community by founding
Negro History Week, now Black History Month and Black Liberation Month. This was
the major project that helped to spread an appreciation for Black history among the
broad Black population, especially since the activity was based in schools and
churches. Woodson combined academic scholarship with a broad commitment to
community education. He fought against racism and for the development of a healthy
Black consciousness rooted in a firm grasp of the historical record.
Edward Franklin Frazier (1894-1962)

E. Franklin Frazier was the most renowned Black social scientist of the 20th century.
Further, he was elected president of the American Sociological Association (1948),
indicating his white colleagues held him in the highest regard as well. He was
educated at Howard University, Clark University, University of Copenhagen, and the
University of Chicago where he earned a Ph.D. in sociology in 1931. Utilizing the most
advanced research techniques of his time, he was a preeminent analyst of the
changing patterns of race relations in both the United States and the world.
10
1
1
His books made strong contributions to understanding many aspects of the AfroAmerican experience.
Selected Works by Frazier
AFRICA
Race and Culture Contacts in the Modern World (1957)
SLAVERY
The Free Negro Family (L932)
URBAN
The Negro Family in Chicago (1932)
Negro Youth at the Crossways (1940)
Black Bourgeoisie (1955)
INSTITUTIONS
The Negro Family in the United States (1939)
The Negro Church in America (1964)
His major research was on the family. Frazier shared the puritanical values of his
generation, and so his research is conditioned by a Black middle-class bias
concerning proper behavior. While his work remains quite controversial, his analysis is
comprehensive, historical, and based on the documentary testimony of Black people
themselves.
The entire scholarly literature concerning Black people was summarized by Frazier in
his major work, The Negro in the United States (1949). With the keen perception of a
research social scientist, he brought together widely diverse information and organized
a coherent pattern of structural change and institutional development, from the slave
experience to the urban experience.
Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
Langston Hughes could justifiably be called the Afro-American poet laureate of the
1
20th century. He not only won critical acclaim for his writing in virtually every genre,
2
but he also wrote a newspaper column that had great popular appeal among the
masses of Black people. Moreover, he translated other Black writers into English from
Haitian French, Cuban Spanish, and Creole from New Orleans. Langston Hughes is
known all over the world.
Selected Works by Hughes
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WORKS
I Wonder As I Wander (1956)
11
The Big Sea (1940)

GENERAL WORK
The Book of Negro Folklore (1958) with Arna Bontemps
A Pictorial History of the Negro in America (1956) with Milton Meltzer
The Poetry of the Negro 1746-1949 (1949) with Arna Bontemps
POETRY
The Weary Blues (1926)
Shakespeare in Harlem (1942)
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
The Panther and the Lash (1967)
PLAYS
Mulatto (1935)
Tambourines to Glory (1963)
NOVELS
Not Without Laughter (1930)
Simple Speaks His Mind (1950)
Simple's Uncle Sam (1965)
SHORT STORIES
The Ways of White Folks (1934)
Something in Common and Other Stories (1963)
Langston Hughes was both a poet and a political voice in the Black community. His
orientation is clear from this 1934 essay entitled "Cowards from the Colleges," in which
he commented on the political weakness of the Negro college And how change must
come from students:
More recently, I see in our papers where Fisk University, that great center
of Negro education and of Jubilee fame has expelled Ishmael Flory, a
graduate student from California on a special honor scholarship, because
he dared organize a protest, against the University singers appearing in a
Nashville Jim-crow theatre where colored people must go up a back alley
to sit in the gallery. Probably also the University resented his organizing,
through the Denmark Vesey Forurn, a silent protest parade denouncing
the lynching of Cordie Cheek who was abducted almost at the very gates
of the University.
Hughes then made a prediction that was to come true nearly thirty years later in the
southern students' sit-in movement (see Chapters 12 and 14):
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3
Frankly, I see no hope for a new spirit today in the majority of the Negro
schools of the South unless the students themselves put it there.... the
younger teachers, knowing well the existing evils, are as yet too afraid of
their jobs to speak out, or to dare attempt to reform campus conditions.
But Langston was also deeply mindful of the deep historical heritage that could serve
as the basis for a strong Black consciousness. This was true even in the very first
poem that he published, which was in the Crisis edited by DuBois:
THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS (1921)
I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in
human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans,
and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden, in the sunset.
I've know rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
Langston Hughes wrote this poem when he was only nineteen years old. He went on
to capture the essence of the hopes and dreams, as well as the trials and tribulations,
of Black people.
THE DISCIPLINES
The second major source of intellectual work that makes up Afro-American Studies
consists of the established disciplines of academic scholarship in the humanities and
social sciences. There is also much to learn about the Black experience from scholars
in the sciences and mathematics. This can be investigated further in the work by
James Jay, Negroes in Science: Natural Science Doctorates, 1876-1969 (1971),
Virginia K. Newell, et al., eds., Black Mathematicians and Their Works (1980), and
1
Ivan Van Sertima, ed., Blacks in Science: Ancient and Modern (1983). But the main
4
focus here is on the study of society.
Sociology has been a leading disciplinary contributor to the field of Afro-American
Studies. Sociology also exemplifies the limitations of the established disciplines.
Frazier (1968) and Lyman (1973) demonstrate that sociology did not embark upon a
program of empirical research dealing with the Black experience until the 20th century.
Vander Zanden (1973) notes that sociological literature (and presumably courses
based on that literature) reflected three themes: "(1) a description and documentation
13
of Black disadvantage within American life; (2) an attack upon racist notions of black
biological inferiority; and (3) an interpretation of Black disadvantages as derived from
White prejudice and discrimination"
Pettigrew (1980), in summing up the historical development of the sociology of race
relations, makes a penetrating critique of its limitations:
In documenting black and other minority disadvantages, sociological work
has emphasized static description far more than dynamic process; and it
has stressed the reactive and pathological features of black life more than
its proactive healthy features. Moreover, in attacking white racist notions
and demonstrating white culpability, the literature has often focused on the
individual level and such phenomena as prejudiced personalities at the
expense of the institutional, and societal levels and such critical
phenomena as group discrimination.
Sociology merely typifies what has happened in other mainstream disciplines. In
general, the mainstream disciplines have focused on the Black experience by
emphasizing race relations from the point of view of the interests of white people. They
have lacked a theoretical perspective that is dynamic and is focused on the politics of
social change. The mainstream disciplines thus were unprepared to deal with both the
intellectual concerns of Black people and the political actions of the masses of Black
people.
One of the key features of Afro-American Studies is that it was created precisely for
this reason. The tension between theory and practice is at the heart of the field. This
tension is most clearly revealed in the two phrases, academic excellence and social
responsibility. On the one hand, universal standards of scholarship guarantee that
Afro-American Studies will earn and maintain its right to be a permanent part of
university life. On the other hand, it must maintain a positive moral posture regarding
the quality of life in the Black community.
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5
THE MOVEMENT
The current phase of, Afro-American Studies has been nurtured by a radical social
movement in opposition to institutional racism in U.S. higher education. But many
people had called for it earlier. Arthur Schomburg, a collector of Black books after
whom the famous collection of Black materials in New York is named, put it this way in
1913:
We have chairs of almost everything, and believe we lack nothing, but we
sadly need a chair of Negro history. The white institutions have their chair
of history; it is the history of their people and whenever the Negro is
14
mentioned in the text books it dwindles down to a foot note. . . . .

Where is our historian to give us, our side view and our chair of Negro
Historv to teach our people our own history. We are at the mercy of the
"flotsam and jetsam" of the white writers....
We need in the coming dawn the man, who will give us the background for
our future, it matters not whether he comes from the cloisters of the
university or from the rank and file of the fields. We await his coming....
By 1915, Carter G. Woodson had his activities going. And by the mid-1960s, a mass
movement rising to meet this challenge was raging in the United States. Students had
played a strong role in the Civil Rights Movement, and young activists were the main
basis for the Black-consciousness developments. (See Edwards (1970), Gurin and
Epps (1975), Orum (1972), and Tripp (1982).
Emerging from this context, the Black Studies movement has gone through four main
stages of development:
Innovation - The origin of the movement came through social protest and disruption of
the university. Blacks sought to attack and to change the policies and practices of
institutional racism.
Experimentation - The initial actors in the protests for Black Studies sought to bring the
general rhetorical orientation of the national movement within local campus
administrative and cultural style. Many different types of academic structures and
programs were developed on a trial and error basis.
Crisis - When the post-1960s fiscal and demographic shift hit higher education (less
money and fewer students) Afro-American Studies was challenged for immediate
results. It was faced with the prospects of diminished status and decreased resources
(as was becoming common for all academic structures in the social sciences and the 1
humanities).
6
Institutionalization - The strategic orientation for Afro-American Studies was developed
in 1977 as "Academic Excellence and Social Responsibility." Under this banner, a set
of professional standards began to put the field on a permanent academic foundation.
Innovation
Several case studies have been done that helps to shed light on the innovation phase
of the movement. Orrick (1969) describes the context of the first Black Studies
program at San Francisco State University. Baraka (1984) sums this up:
Nathan Hare was . . . at San Francisco State during that period and he and
15
Jimmy Garrett helped put together the first Black Studies program in the
country. Humanitarian California? No, some niggers with guns had just
walked into the California legislature.
He is referring to the emergence of the Black Panther Party, which had a tremendous
influence on the militancy of the Black student movement and its drive to create Black
Studies on the campus (see Chapter 12). In this same context, Walton (1969) presents
a documentary case study of the emergence of Black Studies at Merritt College in
Oakland, California.
The case of Cornell University is described by Donald (1970) and Edwards (1980).
Edwards tittles the chapter "Black Power and War Come to Cornell," because Black
students were attacked by a cross-burning, Ku Klux Klan reign of terror and responded
with an armed take-over of a campus building. This was the subject of a Newsweek
cover story, which depicted armed Black students defending themselves against racist
attacks and demanding Black Studies. This was not in a working-class community
college; this was in the ivy league schools! Not the 1860s but the 1960s.
At the Black colleges, the situation was somewhat different because the AfroAmerican intellectual tradition had been based there. Here the contradiction expressed
itself in generational terms and in challenging what was called the "predominantly
Negro college" to become a Black university. Mays (1971) tells his version of the
struggle at Atlanta University. The essence of that struggle was contained in a
statement the Trustees of Morehouse, Spelman, and Atlanta University signed after
being held captive by a group of students and faculty for nearly thirty hours:
We, the undersigned, resign from the Board of Trustees of the schools
within the Atlanta University Center. Our purpose in resigning is to enable
the black community to control their own education and toward this end an
entirely new process of control must be established. We recognize and
support the necessity of Black Power in education, and so we step aside.
This act will release us from all responsibility and leaves the schools in the
hands of an interim committee of alumni, faculty and students to be
elected from those respective groups.
This phase of the Black Studies movement was summed up in two collections of
articles. The Negro Digest (March 1967, March 1968, and March 1969) published
three special issues under the guest editorship of Gerald McWorter. The articles in
these issues presented a critique of institutional racism and a vision of what a Black
university that would be in a position of providing an alternative might be like. The
proceedings of a conference at Yale University, Robinson (1969), were nationally
significant because the Ford Foundation joined Yale in pulling together the leading
activists of Black Studies with a leading group of white mainstream scholars. This
conference resulted in greater mainstream legitimacy for Black Studies. It provided a
16
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useful critique of the mainstream and several examples of the types of scholarship to
be developed in the field, and it led to a substantial investment in the field by the Ford
Foundation.
Experimentation
The experimentation stage of Black Studies was marked by both its origins and the
diversity of the academic mainstream. Most of the colleges and universities developed
programs as a function of three things: (1) a demographic imperative (large Black
student population or Black community that provided a demand); (2) a curriculum void
(no courses being taught that dealt substantially with the Black experience); and (3) a
protest movement (specific agitation to mobilize students to fight for Black courses). It
follows that the nature of these three things, in conjunction with the overall local
conditions, would produce a diversity of activity.
In general, Afro-American Studies includes the following variety of administrative
structures:
1. Department: full academic units with academic majors, and a secure budget;
2. Institute/Center: a permanent, research-oriented special program with minimum
financial support;
3. Program: formally organized program of activities with no permanent status;
1
8
4. Committee: informally organized program with no permanent security.

Each of these types of structures must be evaluated in terms of how it meets the
needs of the local campus. In general, however, the critical question is the extent to
which there is some multi-year commitment so that Afro-American Studies is secure
from immediate political pressures and can be focused mainly on the academic
performance of its faculty and students.
Three key works summed up this experimentation stage of Black Studies: Ford (1973), Blassingame (1971), and Cortada (1974). These works were reactions to the
diversity and apparent loss of academic quality that many attached to Black Studies
because of its political origins. Each attempts to define a program that would be
acceptable to the mainstream. At the same time, new forms of organization were
developing to further develop the movement into something new, something that might
help to transform all of higher education in the United States. An example of this is the
Institute of the Black World, led by Vincent Harding. Black Studies scholars also were
beginning to develop a professional literature discussing the character and future of
the field (e.g., Frye (1976), Butler (1981), and Sims (1978)).
The institutionalization of the field is the current stage of Afro-American Studies, one
likely to carry into the 21st century. This involves the issues of curriculum, program,
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professional standards, and theoretical coherence to the field.

Curriculum - A core curriculum model has been widely adopted as the academic
foundation of the field, The Hall Report. This curriculum model is designed to provide a
coherent framework for major and minor programs of study. As a field it covers the
social sciences, historical analysis, and the humanities. There are several levels: an
introductory course, survey and advanced courses in the substantive areas, and an
integrative senior seminar in which the many aspects of Afro-American Studies are
pulled together in a review of the current research in the field.
Program - Many activities have developed as regular features of Afro-American

Studies at most colleges. One of the most important ones is the expansion of Negro
History Week into Black Liberation Month. Carter G. Woodson founded Negro History
Week in 1926 in the context of a virtually total racist denial of the contributions of Black
people to world history. As a result of the 1960s, the issue was popularized and Negro
History Week was turned into Black History Month. This was carried even further by
the national television production of "Roots" by Alex Haley watched by millions of
people. The question became, history for what? This led to the origin of Black
Liberation Month. Here is the explanation developed by Peoples College:
Black Liberation Month is our attempt to unite with the founders and
supporters of Negro History Week, and join their emphasis on study with
our emphasis on struggle. Moreover, the concept of Black Liberation Month
18
2
0
more accurately reflects the needs of our movement, particularly the need
to build on the massive participation of people in the upsurge of struggle
during the 1960's.
Carter G. Woodson, noted Afro-American nationalist historian, founded
Negro History Week in 1926. In addition to the newspaper column of J. A.
Rodgers, this was the major source of information that Black people had
about their history. Every year in schools, churches, civic and political
organizations, Negro History Week has been a time for historical reading
and discussion.
We believe that Negro History Week has made a great contribution to mass
awareness of Black History. Moreover, the recognition of Negro History
Week has caught on, and has become an intellectual tradition in the 20th
century Afro-American experience. However, times have changed
considerably since 1926. In political and cultural terms, the time has come
to transform our orientation: from Negro to BLACK, from History to
LIBERATION, from Week to MONTH.
The revolutionary upsurge of the 1960's is our most recent historical
experience of massive militant protest. It continues to be a rich source of
lessons for current and future struggles. BLACK LIBERATION MONTH
unites with Woodson's effort, but does so by raising it to a higher level
based on the lessons of the 1960's.
In sum, our study of history must be linked with the revolutionary history of
the Black liberation movement. Our goal is not simply to symbolically
institutionalize a change in our yearly calendar of events, but to use this
month as one more way to raise the consciousness of the masses of
people about the historical nature of exploitation and oppression, to unite
people around a correct political line, and to mobilize people to actively take
up the struggle for Black liberation.
Professionalism - The development of Black Studies has been mainly a reaction to the
racism and conflict Blacks have experienced in other disciplines and areas of the
university. So it is particularly important to indicate the affirmative action taken by
Black scholars to impose high quality professional standards on Black Studies.
Professional achievement is a function mainly of research and publication, acceptance
and approval of one's work in professional organizations that decide future
developments, and productive organization of graduate level programs of study. In
short, Black Studies is consolidating around professional journals, professional
organizations, and graduate programs. Achievement is being judged on the basis of a
shared value-orientation in the field. This is clearly spelled out in a 1981 study by
McWorter, "The Professionalization of Achievement: Ranking of Black Studies
Programs."
Theory - Another aspect of the development of Black Studies is the theoretical

2
coherence of the field. Alternative theoretical models that serve to organize ideas and
1
guide research have been clarified. George (1984) deals with four models of race
relations theory, including the ethnic group model, the caste model, the colonial model,
19
and the Marxist model.

Different theories are most clearly found in the alternative texts that have developed in
the field. Each text is an expression of a basic position in Afro-American
Studies. There are three fundamental points of unity: the central theme of Black
Studies is "ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY"; AfroAmerican intellectual history is the foundation of the field; and Africa remains an
important reference for the historical origin of the Afro-American experience and for
comparative analysis as well. But some differences do exist.
Karenga, (1982) provided a text based on his nationalist theory of Kawaida:

The seven basic subject areas of Black Studies then are: Black History; Black
Religion; Black Social Organization; Black Politics; Black Economics; Black Creative
Production (Black Art, Music and Literature) and Black Psychology... this conceptual
framework is taken from Kawaida theory, a theory of cultural and social change.
Asante (1980) put forward a theory called "Afrocentricity," which consciously attempts
to build on Kawaida. Mumford (1978) presented a Marxist analysis. He focuses on
making historical analysis of class and class struggle the basis for understanding the
Black experience. His analysis especially concentrates on slavery, the
lumpenproletariat, racism, and Africa.
Our text is based on a paradigm of unity for Black Studies, a framework in which all
points of view can have the most useful coexistence. While maintaining a dynamic
process of debate, everyone involved can remain united and committed to the field.
This includes Marxists, nationalists, pan-Africanists, and old-fashioned civil rights
integrationists as well. Further, our specific orientation is anti-racist, anti-sexist, and
anti-capitalist. We are basing our analysis on most of our Black intellectual tradition
and that leads us, as it did Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, and W. E. B. DuBois, to
a progressive socialist position. This text, therefore, has a definite point of view, but it
presents the basis for clarity, understanding, and dialogue between different schools of
thought and different disciplines.
THE TEXT
This section is designed to introduce you to the specific conceptual framework of this
text and its organization into chapters. A conceptual framework involves the
clarification of theoretical ideas on the basis of which one proceeds to do an analysis.
In a text that introduces the entire field of Afro-American Studies, it is necessary to
have a conceptual framework that is inclusive of the entire subject matter. The
conceptual framework focuses on two questions: What is the Black experience? How
20
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2
does it change?
The Black experience is the sum total of the content of Black peoples lives. There are
four main levels of this experience, as can be see in Table 4.
Biology and Race
On the biological level, the overall key variables are race, age, and gender. All
biological traits are controlled by a genetic code found in every cell of a person's body.
This genetic code is inherited from one's biological parents. A race or gender group is
defined as a human population sharing specific physical traits (e.g., sexual organs for
gender and skin color for race). A great controversy continues to rage in scientific
circles regarding the relative importance of the view that human behavior is biologically
determined versus the view that people become who they are as a result of sociohistorical forces. This is known as the "nature versus nurture" debate.
Table 4
BASIC ASPECTS OF THE BLACK EXPERIENCE
Level of Human Reality
BIOLOGY
POLITICAL ECONOMY
SOCIETY
CONSCIOUSNESS
Key Black Studies Concept

RACE
CLASS
NATIONALITY
IDEOLOGY
There is little convincing evidence that biological differences between races make a
social or historical difference. Racial differences Almost always are put forward to
explain inequality, where one racial group has a lower standard of living and less
power. An argument of biological inferiority rationalizes the group's being on the
bottom. The logic is that they are inferior, and they therefore belong on the bottom.
This is not a scientific discussion of race, but RACISM, which is an ideology of racial
inferiority. White racism is the overall position that Blacks are inferior and whites are
superior. An example of how silly this is can be seen in South Africa, the most racist
country in the world. The South African government restricts the freedom of everyone
who isn't white. However, when the Japanese became economically powerful (as they
are now in the automobile, steel, electronics, and computer fields), the racist white
2
South Africans reconsidered. They wanted excellent trade relations with Japan so they 3
decided to make the Japanese honorary white people!
On the level of political economy, the central concept is class. Economic activities
involve the production, distribution, and consumption of scarce material things needed
for human survival and that otherwise serve human wants. Class is a historical
relationship between groups of people. It is a relationship of power that determines
who works, what they get from it, and what impact they can have on the society at
large. There is a ruling class in every society, although different types of societies are
21
not organized in the same way. In feudal Europe royal families made up the ruling
class. In traditional African society, this was often the case as well. This is class rule
based on heredity. In a capitalist society, heredity is much less important. Some
mobility in and out of the ruling class occurs despite the status of one's family by birth.
The overwhelming majority of adults in the U.S.A. get up every morning and go to
work. They have to do this because only by doing so will they earn an income
necessary for their families' survival. Therefore, political economy is a universal feature
of the human experience.
There are two major aspects of society: culture and social institutions. Culture refers to
values and life style, whereas social institutions refer to roles and collective forms of
social interaction. These are not temporary phenomena, but are permanent features of
a society that are reproduced and transmitted across generations. Nationality
(sometimes called ethnicity) is the particular identity of a group based on its culture
and social institutions. Historically, such identity is correlated with economic
interdependence and a common language. The issue of nationality is one of the key
issues of the Afro-American experience in the U.S.A.
How each of these three aspects of the human experience is known, thought about,
and discussed is the focus of consciousness. This is the experience of the abstract,
mental images that enable one to make choices and realize human freedom regarding
the physical and social worlds. While the "brain" is a physical reality, it works as a
"mind" full of ideas, conceptions, imagination, opinions, beliefs, etc. There can be no
"mind" without a "brain," although it is possible to have a damaged brain or be mentally 2
4
ill and to be what people call "out of your mind"
The most formal organization of one's consciousness is the realm of ideology.
Ideology is a set of beliefs that serve to define physical, social, mental, and spiritual
reality. Everyone in society has an ideological orientation, but only trained and
disciplined thinkers have a comprehensive and coherent, ideological orientation.
The Black experience is the complex sum total of all aspects of the human experience
as lived by Black people. The Afro-American experience has a beginning and a
definite logic of change as can be seen in Figure B.
Historical change in the Afro-American experience has alternatively represented social
cohesion and social disruption. Social cohesion is an established and relatively stable
pattern of social life that is transmitted across generations. This is not social life
without conflict, but rather social life that can be taught to the next generation. Social
disruption occurs when these patterns are broken and people have to adjust to a new
environment, to a new set of relations, to a new way of life. Of course, out of every
experience of disruption emerges a new form of social cohesion. This dynamic pattern
of change, historical periodization, is universal for all Black people in the U.S.A. Every
22
person and family can locate their own experience within this pattern (see p. 26).
The overall framework constitutes a paradigm of unity in Afro-American Studies. This

figure defines a logical space for the entire field of Afro-American Studies. The
columns are historical stages marked with letters, and the rows are aspects of the
Black experience marked with numbers. Each box (e.g., A-1 or G-4) is a logical
connection of experience within a specific historical context. With this analytical tool, it
is possible to have a conception of the entire field and begin to identify boxes and sets
of boxes to codify and sum up existing research, as well as to chart the path for
additional new research.
This is the basis for the organization of the chapters in this book. Chapters 2 and 3
deal with columns A and B. Chapter 4 deals with column C, Chapter 5 with column E,
and Chapter 6 with column G, Chapters 5, 6, and 9-13 include columns D and F where
appropriate. Chapters 7 and 8 deal with row 3, mainly G-3. Chapters 9, 10, 12, and 13
all deal with row 2, again mainly G-2. Chapter 11 takes an aspect of row 4 (gender)
and relates it to other rows, especially row 2. Chapter 14 deals with rows 1 and 2,
Chapter 15 deals with rows 1, 2, and 4, and Chapter 16 with rows 1, 2, and 3. In
general, the above connection between the paradigm of unity and the chapters is
suggestive because no chapter is confined to the specific limitation of a box. But the
paradigm is the basis for locating a topic of debate or discussion in such a way that it
is comprehensible across ideological lines.
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5
Figure B
HISTORICAL CHANGE AND THE BLACK EXPERIENCE
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6
Each of the following chapters should be read in relationship to the paradigm of unity.
Each of the chapters has a set of key concepts, a set of study questions, and a list of
supplemental readings. All aspects of the chapter should be part of your study, but you
should concentrate especially on anything you are not familiar with or have not really
understood in the past. You also should be using a dictionary along with this text so
that you can build your vocabulary. This is essential because learning the field of AfroAmerican Studies means learning new concepts so that your ideas can be expressed
in a clear and precise manner.
The field of Afro-American Studies is an exciting Intellectual Adventure, an experience
that will open new worlds of knowledge to both Blacks and whites. Welcome aboard!
KEY CONCEPTS
Academic discipline
Black Liberation Month
Historical periodization
Identity
Ideology
Intellectual history
Nationality
Paradigm
Political economy/Class
Race/Racism
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. What is Afro-American Studies?
2. Discuss and compare the intellectual origins of Afro-American Studies in the work of
DuBois, Woodson, Frazier, and Hughes.
3. How did the movement for Black Studies develop? Describe the four stages
(innovation, experimentation, crisis, and institutionalization).
4. What is the paradigm for unity in Black Studies? Explain historical periodization,
aspects of society, social cohesion and social disruption.
SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS
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1. W. E. B. DuBois, The Autobiography of W. E. B. DuBois: A Soliloquy of Viewing My

Live from the Last Decade of Its First Century. New York: International Publishers,
1968.
2. Vincent Harding, There Is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America. New
York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1981.
3. Langston Hughes, A Pictorial History of the Negro in the United States. New York:
Crown, 1956.
4. Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Ballantine Books, 1981
(first published in 1965).
5. Richard Wright, 12 Million Black Voices: A Folk History of the Negro in the United
States. New York: Viking Press, 1941.
TWO
2. AFRICA BEFORE AND AFTER THE SLAVE TRADE:
THE AFRO-AMERICAN HERITAGE
................................ 31
Africa: The Continent and Its' People .....................
Production
......................................................
Politics
..........................................................
Religion
..........................................................
Education
.......................................................
.................................
Culture
..........................................................
The European Penetration
..............................
Colonialism and Imperialism in Africa ......................
32
34
36
36
37
37
38
39
43
Africa Before and After the Slave Trade: -The Afro-American Heritage
25
Toward a Paradigm of Unity in Afro-American Studies

Social Traditional
Rural
Slavery
Cohesion
Africa
Life
LOGIC OF
CHANGE
Social
Slave
Emancipation - Migrations
Disruption
Trade
Ideology
UNITS OF Nationality
ANALYSIS
Class
Race
Urban
Life
-
A1
B1
C1
D1
E1
F1
G1
A2
B2
C2
D2
E2
F2
G2
A3
B3
C3
D3
E3
F3
G3
A4
B4
C4
D4
E4
F4
G4
The great-brained Ape

Who stood erect and talked to his fellows
Who planted seed and first boiled Iron
And civilized a World.
Night fell, silent and noisome night, ghost-haunted, Earthquake tore,
flood roared, serpent and insect bit;
Fever raged, starvation reigned; but Africa lived;
Africa lived and grew, fared far and flourished,
Vitalized mankind.
Until the Devil rose and ruled in Europe and America,
Worshipping Greed, proclaiming God, enchaining His children;
Preaching Freedom, practicing Slavery Making
Africans the niggers of the World.
To be mocked and spit upon,
To be crucified! Dead and buried!
But Africa is not dead; she never died; she never will,
She writhes in sleep; this third century of her degradation
She struggles to awake.
W. 'E. B. DuBois, "I Sing to China:' 1959.
Hardly a day passes without some mention of Africa in the newspapers, radio, and
television. But such discussion of Africa - especially about the struggle for independence,
liberation, and revolution - has not always been the case. Prior to the liberation struggles of
the late 1950s, the most widely presented image of Africa in the mass media and in the
31
textbooks was that seen in Tarzan movies - "primitive" and "savage" people who ate nice
white missionaries (and each other) but who were so inferior that they could always be
beaten single-handedly by Tarzan. Of course this view was symbolic of the colonial
domination of Africa. Many Black people in the United States accepted this myth of Africa's
26
inferiority and refused to identify with the continent of their ancestors.

Today, however, this has changed considerably. The upsurge of Africans for liberation
was linked to the struggle of Black people for freedom in the United States during the
1960s and 1970s. Most Black people today accept the rich heritage of their ancestral
continent - a heritage of culture and struggle. The task today, however, is to approach the
study of Africa scientifically and not fall victim to an analysis which replaces the old set of
myths and distortions with a new set. This chapter will present some basic issues regarding
the African heritage of Afro-American people.
AFRICA: THE CONTINENT AND ITS PEOPLE
Africa has a long, long history. It is widely accepted by scholars that it is the continent
where human beings first evolved. Archaeologists (scientists who study early societies
using artifacts like skeletons, kitchen utensils, and tools uncovered through excavations or
digging) and anthropologists (scientists who study the origin and nature of people) have
provided evidence of, human- like beings in Africa that are millions of years old. However, 32
we are interested in taking up those aspects of Africa which are most immediately
connected to the lives of those African masses, the ancestors of Afro-Americans, who were
brought as slaves to the United States. This is our point of departure, though African history
is also an important subject for study. In addition, we are concerned with the contemporary
situation on the African continent - the struggles for liberation which have a great
significance for our current lives.
Africa is the second largest continent in size in the world, second only to Asia. Including
its larger islands, Africa is three times the size of Europe and four times the size of the
United States. The whole of Europe, India, China, and the United States could be held
within its borders. It is about 5,000 miles long (from North to South) and about 4,600 miles
wide. Its 11,700,000 square miles cover one-fifth of the total land surface of the world. The
equator cuts across the middle of Africa and the entire continent falls mainly within the
warmer tropics. It is bound on the North by Mediterranean Sea, on the West by the Atlantic
Ocean, and on the East by the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.
Africa is one of the world's richest continents, a fact which highlights its long history of
being exploited since today its people are among the world's poorest. It produces over onefifth (20%) of ten of the world's most important minerals - 77% of the world's diamonds,
67% of the gold, and 35% of the platinum. These minerals are especially needed by the
industrially advanced countries. Southern Africa is a focal point for imperialist rivalry
primarily because much of the rich mineral resources of Africa are concentrated in this
region. For example, South Africa ranks first in the world's production of chrome, silver, and
manganese and second in diamonds; Zaire is first in diamonds and fifth in copper, tin, and
silver; Zimbabwe is second in the production of chrome, silver, and copper; and Zambia is 33
third in the world's production of copper.
Africa is under populated, in large measure because of the impact of the slave trade. The
slave traders preferred able-bodied men and women between the ages of fifteen and thirtyfive, which had the effect of depleting millions in the prime of their child-bearing years.
Walter Rodney has pointed out that this in part led to a stagnation in population growth, as
indicated in Table 5.
27
While population growth in Europe and Asia led to economic development, Africa's
population stagnation has resulted in low productivity. The population loss related to
slavery led to the disruption of farming routines and often to the abandonment of land.
When the population was reduced beyond a certain point, there simply were not enough
people to harness nature. This loss of population and its negative effects on economic
development is something from which Africa has never really recovered. Africa is still a
relatively sparsely populated continent. Although it constitutes approximately 22% of the
world's land area, its population in 1982 was only about 513 million people or just over 11%
of the world's population.
Table 5
ESTIMATE OF WORLD POPULATION, 1650-1900 (IN MILLIONS)
1650
1750
1850
Africa
100
100
100
Europe
103
144
274
Asia
257
437
656
Source: Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, p. 97
1900
120
423
857
That the continent of Africa is not a single unit but is a continent of great cultural
diversity is indicated by the fact that there are approximately 1,000 separate and distinct
African languages. The fact that European languages such as English, French, and
Portuguese are spoken widely in Africa and are often "official" national languages sharply
illustrates the impact of European colonialism on the continent.
We will look at pre-colonial Africa using six categories that you will notice are the
themes of some of the following chapters: production, politics, religion, education, women
and the family, and culture.
Production
Agriculture was the basis of life in Africa and therefore had a determining influence on all
aspects of society. Agricultural work was a communal or collective undertaking in which
every adult was expected to contribute to and share the products on an equitable basis.
Production, though done collectively, was still on a lower level technologically because
there were no modern agricultural tools or machines (e.g., tractors). Manufacturing did not
28
34
develop as rapidly as in Europe and other places. Products consisted of housing, cloth,
pottery, jewelry, art, weapons, and agricultural tools.
There was trade but it was a secondary source of material goods. Markets existed where
traders came and brought firearms, gunpowder, hats, beads, and dried fish in exchange
for perfume, salt, and slaves. Cattle sometimes was used instead of money, which was not
used widely because most of what was needed was self-produced and not purchased.
Recently, the African past has often been glorified to the extent of making slavery and the
slave trade purely a consequence of Europeans in Africa. This substitutes myth for fact.
Africans did have slaves. For example, the pyramids of Egypt were built with slave labor.
Slavery in Africa, however, was different from slavery in the West Indies and in the United
States. In Africa, a slave was treated as a human being. It was when slavery become a tool
of capitalism in which goods are produced primarily for sale on the market, and not just for
personal use, that slavery assumed the brutal and inhumane character as in the United
States.
Click here to view map of Africa
35
Politics
Because the politics of a society is based on its economic development, political
organization throughout Africa took on many different forms. Large kingdoms arose only
where there was a big enough economy so that a great deal of wealth could be
accumulated. There were several large and significant centralized governments in Africa
like those of Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. The governments of these
kingdoms were used to collect taxes and mobilize armies. They were also important in
increasing the capacity to produce food, clothing, and shelter, and in stimulating
manufacture and trade.
In general, however, the real power often rested with elders or chiefs of each local village,
and not with the king. In addition, the family or kinship group was usually the basis of
government or political authority. Governments or states were not as necessary in early
36
Africa. In those societies, the exploitation of one group of people by another had not
developed to a significant extent, and political power was not needed to rule over the
exploited.
Religion
African religion was a complex and all-encompassing social institution that involved
philosophical views, belief in the supernatural, and rituals' It was a pervasive aspect of
life. Religion played both a positive and a negative role in African society. On the one hand,
it was an integral part of the social life of the people and facilitated the cooperation and
discipline needed to aid the group's survival. On the other hand, it often exercised a
conservative influence on social development since it changed slowly, if at all.
According to Walter Rodney, religion slowed down the development of Africans' capacity
to produce food, nothing, and shelter: "Belief in prayer and in the intervention of ancestors
29
and various Gods could easily be a substitute for innovations designed to control the
impact of weather and environment" Rodney is referring to the religious practice called
ancestor-worship, a belief that the spirits of dead relatives are always around to protect and
provide. Food and drink were always put on the ground for these spirits before it was
consumed. As in other societies, this belief in some otherworldly or supernatural force with
power over weather, life and death, health, and everything else reflects a pre- scientific
understanding of nature and society.
Education
Education reflected the needs of African society. The process of education took place
with groups of young people under the supervision of an older person. Boys and girls were
taught separately those practices and customs important for their assuming the sex-role
responsibilities of adults. The high point of the educational process was their initiation into
adulthood, or the "rites of passages." Thus, the main aspect of this educational process is
that it was based on the accumulated practical experience of the people. It was passed
from generation to generation by the oral tradition and apprenticeship relationships. There
were also formal, institutions of education. The University of Sankore at Timbuktu and
others were renowned intellectual centers to which scholars from other parts of Africa, Asia,
and Europe came for study. These universities reflected the advanced development of a
political state with the power to mobilize surplus wealth for education.
37
Research suggests that in many ways the role of women in early African society was
equal to men, even in armed battle. Gustavas Vassa, a West African who was taken to
Barbados as a slave in the 1700s, wrote in, his account of life in Africa: ". . . even our
women are warriors, and march boldly out to fight along with the men!' This observation is
identical to what one would find in the current liberation struggles in Africa. Between men
and women, however, there was a division of labor. Men were usually the hunters and
farmers. Women also engaged ii4 agricultural work, but when networking with the men in
this, they engaged in weaving and spinning cotton, dying the cloth, and making clothing. It
is important to note, however, several ways in which women were oppressed in early
Africa. The "council of elders" was made up exclusively of men. Men did not have to obey
the same strict rules as women in relationships with members of the opposite sex. Men
were even assigned more living space in the household. These kinds of practices
undoubtedly led to attitudes and practices of male supremacy which women and men,
especially in the contemporary African liberation movements, have struggled to abolish.
The family was the basis of social organization in pre-colonial Africa. It performed
essential economic, and political functions. Often families grouped together in clans for
cooperation in various aspects of social life, like farming or war. Communalism - a society
which -has a low stage of -technological development, no classes, and a collective
Approach to the production and distribution of food, clothing, and shelter - developed in all
38
parts of Africa. However, even during the pre-colonial period, a class structure was
developing in Africa. There were Africans who owned slaves, and they were in a different
class than the slaves themselves. In some places, there was a privileged "royal family" who
comprised a privileged elite in relationship to the African masses.
30
Culture
As a rich source of cultural tradition, Africa has long inspired Black people in the United
States. This is reflected in many ways. Historically, many names of early Black institutions
(e.g., the African Methodist Episcopal Church) symbolized the link with Africa. Creative
artists have often written about Africa, as in Countee Cullen's poem "Heritage" ("What is
Africa to Me") and Langston Hughes's "I've Known Rivers." More. recently, artists like Gil
Scott-Heron have taken up the theme of struggle with songs like "What's the Word Johannesburg," about the liberation struggle in South Africa. Similarly, Bob Marley has
popularized a political link with Africa through Reggae music.
Music, literature, dance, and sculpture are concentrated expressions of a people's
culture. Thus, they are usually prominent in most societies. As Vassa says, "We are almost
a nation of dancers, musicians, and poets." Every great event was reflected and
communicated in artistic performances, especially in dance and song. Musical instruments,
such as drums, xylophones, and harps, were developed in Africa. The bronze sculptures of
Benin, Vassa's home, have been widely recognized for their greatness. In fact, African art
was copied by such artists as Picasso in creating modern art like cubism.
The research of such scholars as linguist Lorenzo Turner and anthropologist Melville
Herskovitz has demonstrated that Africans brought this rich cultural heritage to America.
Once here, African culture interacted with the culture of other peoples. Under these
conditions, a new cultural pattern emerged. It was a culture that contributed to Black
people's struggle for survival under very challenging conditions.
THE EUROPEAN PENETRATION

Considering such well-developed African societies, one must wonder how European
slave traders and colonizers were able to penetrate the continent of Africa. The key to
understanding this is that Africa and Europe were at different stages of socioeconomic
development. Despite the fact that Africa was. more advanced than Europe at an earlier
period, Europe by the beginning of the slave trade had surpassed Africa, especially in the
capacity of its economy to produce goods like ships and guns. When a stronger
socioeconomic system comes into contact with a system at an earlier and weaker stage of
development, the weaker one will suffer. This is what happened when Europe penetrated
into Africa.
Initially, Africa interacted with Europe on the basis of trade, not of slaves but of other
goods. This was the first step in "how Europe underdeveloped Africa." Briefly, because
Europe was a capitalist society using manufacturing and large-scale machine production,
its capacity to produce was greater. The manufacture of cloth is a good example. During
the 18th century new inventions, like the power-loom and the use of water power,
revolutionized cloth production in Europe. This enabled Europe to produce enough cloth to
supply its own needs and to export large quantities, to Africa and elsewhere.
European manufacturers even copied and produced colorful African cloth patterns and
flooded Africa with this cloth. African cloth producers were unable to compete with this
31
39
cheaper, machine-produced cloth since they were still producing by hand. Africans thus
turned to mining gold, securing slaves, and producing other goods that could be traded for
cloth produced in Europe. As a result African manufacturing was neglected and the process
of technological advancement was slowed in cloth production and in many other sectors of
the economy (like iron manufacture) Continued trade with Europe only pushed Africa
further behind Europe.
When we discuss the stunting of technological development in Africa, this is not to

suggest that there were no significant achievements. The pyramids of Egypt and the
granite stone buildings of Zimbabwe are outstanding examples of skill and technological
capacity. There are, many other examples of early African superiority in culture and
technology. The key point is that only the continued development of Europe's system of
production into its capitalist stage - and not race or genetic inferiority - led to Africa's being
dominated by Europe. In other words, Europeans' use of the gun eventually overcame, the
fierce resistance of Africans using the spear.
The most destructive trade, however, was the slave trade. Millions of the continent's
most productive men and women were carried off to produce goods and services that
would benefit neither themselves nor Africa. The social disruption caused by the many
years of the slave raids and slave trade left long-lasting damage to African societies.
There is considerable controversy about the impact of the slave trade on Africa,
especially regarding the number of slaves exported from Africa. Estimates of the number
exported to the New World range from one hundred million to a few million. Recent
estimates of ten million tend to underestimate the extent of the slave trade. Just as the
40
number of slaves exported from Africa is underestimated, so too are the mortality rates the numbers of Africans who died on the voyage from Africa to the Americas. While some
recent studies suggest that only 9 out of every 100 died, earlier studies of the slave trade
show that the number of slaves who died was as high as 33 out of every 100 If, we take
into account the number of Africans who died in slave raids and of foreign diseases
imported to Africa by slave traders, any estimate of the number of slaves imported into the
Americas must be multiplied several times to be accurate about the depopulation of Africa.
Most of the slaves exported came from coastal West Africa - from the areas now called
Senegal, Gambta, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Benin, and Nigeria. One study indicates that 81
% of the slaves exported by the British between 1690 and 1807 came from this area. There
were some important variations, however. For example, 40% of the slaves imported into
South Carolina between 1733 and 1807 came from Angola in southern Africa. Though the
slave trade was concentrated in the coastal areas, it had a negative impact on the continent
as a whole. As Walter Rodney has pointed out, "European trade goods percolated into the
deepest interior, and (more significantly) the orientation of large areas of the continent
towards human exports meant that other positive interactions were thereby ruled out:
32
41
How were the slaves secured? Outright kidnapping of slaves by Europeans and African
traders occurred at the beginning of the slave trade and lasted throughout its 450 year
history. But very early after the first raids, the slave enterprise became more of a trade than
a raid. That is, Africans, especially chiefs, cooperated with Europeans in securing other
42
Africans to be taken away as slaves. The key to understanding this is as Walter Rodney
states: the Africans who sold other Africans were a privileged class who "joined hands with
the Europeans in exploiting the African masses." Thus, the slave trade furthered the
33
development of classes in Africa by enabling a small elite group of Africans to accumulate

wealth, luxury, and power (including firearms) at the expense of, the masses of African
peoples. European countries even established trading forts on the West Coast of Africa
where slaves could be brought from the interior and stored until slave ships arrived to make
their purchases.
The prices paid for slaves reflected the different modes of production in Africa and in
Europe. This is important to keep in mind when we read that slaves were often purchased
for a few bars of iron or a few yards of brightly colored cloth. In 1695, for example, a
healthy African could be purchased for eight guns or 600 pounds of iron. This may seem
cheap but not when we consider that in Africa such large quantities of iron could not be
produced without considerable time and expense and the guns could not be manufactured
at all. Thus, the price that was obtained for slaves was really a reflection of how long it took
Africans to produce the goods that were traded for slaves and not how much it cost to
manufacture them in Europe.
We must also note the impact of firearms on Africa. If one state obtained firearms in
exchange for slaves, it was stronger than its neighbor. A neighboring state was often forced
into slave trading in order to secure guns to protect itself. Thus, it is correct to assess the
full impact of the European penetration into Africa by including these patterns of violence
and disruption introduced by the slave trade. Economic development usually demands
peaceful conditions. The slave trade stimulated social violence and increased fear and
distrust among people, all of which had a negative impact on economic development in
Africa.
Who were the major slave trading countries? England carried 44.6% of all slaves as
compared to 29% carried by Portugal and 16% carried by France. The United States
carried 5% of the total while Holland carried 3.4% and Denmark carried 1.7%. Thus the
capitalist countries of Europe were the principal slave traders. This is an important fact that
will be discussed in greater detail in the next chapter. In East Africa, Arab traders carried
out a slave trade secondary in importance to the European trade.
Where were Africans taken as slaves? Phillip Curtin in The Atlantic Slave Trade: A
Census calculated that between 1701 and 1807, 42% of all the slaves exported from Africa
went to the Caribbean Islands and 49% went to South America. The most significant finding
is that less than 5% of the total exports came to the United States. The bulk of these
43
430,000 slaves came between 1730 and 1770 - before most settlers from Europe.
COLONIALISM AND IMPERIALISM IN AFRICA

As capitalism continued to develop in Europe and in the United States, its need for slaves
decreased. After the Industrial Revo0lution, Europe became more interested in the valuable
raw materials of Africa. As Walter Rodney has stated:
Both openly and by implication, all the European powers in the
34
nineteenth century indicated their awareness of the fact that the

activities connected with producing captives were inconsistent with other
economic pursuits. That was the time when Britain in particular wanted
Africans to collect palm produce and rubber and to grow a agricultural
crops, for export in place of slaves; and it was clear that slave raiding
was violently conflicting with that objective in Western, Eastern, and
Central Africa.
The slave trade was abandoned because it no longer suited the capitalists' needs.
This was why Europe's relationship to Africa shifted from slave trading to colonialism.
Kwame Nkrumah put it correctly: "Colonialism is, therefore, the policy by which the 'mother
country,' the colonial power, binds her colonies to herself by political ties with the primary
object of promoting her own economic advantages." He went on to point out:
Such a system depends on the opportunities offered by the natural
resources of the colonies and the uses for them suggested by the
dominant economic objectives of the colonial power. Under the
influence of national aggressive self-consciousness and the belief that
in trade and commerce one nation should gain at the expense of the
other, and the further belief that exports must exceed imports in value,
each colonial power pursues a policy of strict monopoly of colonial
trade, and the building up of national power.
The French Premier Jules Ferry, in a speech to the Chamber of Deputies in 1885,
clearly articulated the main reasons Europe acquired its colonies: "The nations of Europe
desire colonies for the following three purposes: (i) in order that they may have access to
the raw materials of the colonies; (ii) in order to have markets for sale of the manufactured
goods of the home country; and (iii) as a field for the investment of surplus capital." Many
years later, Nkrumah, whose country underwent colonialism, spelled out the colonial
policies the Europeans used to ensure their success in achieving these goals: "(i) to make
the colonies non-manufacturing dependencies; (ii) to prevent the colonial subjects from
acquiring the knowledge of modern means and- techniques for developing their own
industries; (iii) to make colonial 'subjects' simple producers of raw materials through cheap
labor; (iv) to prohibit the colonies from trading with other nations except through the 'mother
country."'
44
Colonialism was but a form of imperialism. "Imperialism," as Ralph Bunche succinctly
puts it, "is an international expression of capitalism:' Briefly, imperialism. is a stage of
capitalism in which a few capitalists own or monopolize the wealth (factories, banks, land,
and the like) in a country, and because they have exhausted all of the most profitable
investments at home, these monopolists can only expand their profits by turning to, the rich
raw materials, land, and people of other parts of the world. The main reason for this is that
advanced capitalist countries, because of the constant struggle for profits, cannot continue
to develop based on their own resources. Hence, these countries are forced into a new
kind of struggle with each other in which they annex overseas territory as part of their
"empire."
35
The impact of imperialism and colonialism on colonized people was very destructive.
Economically, the people were forced, often at gunpoint, to work in imperialist-owned
mines, plantations, and factories for starvation wages. Politically, imperialist nations
arbitrarily drew political boundaries and instituted a system of political rule using their own
administrators or indigenous puppets to guarantee that power remained in the hands of the
"mother country." Socially, the cultural and social life of the indigenous people was
suppressed. Missionaries and educators played key roles in consolidating imperialist
colonial domination. As Nkrumah has written:
The stage opens with the appearance of missionaries and anthropologists,
traders and concessionaires, and administrators,. While "missionaries" with
"Christianity" perverted implore the colonial subject to lay up his "treasures
in Heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt," the traders and
concessionaires and administrators acquire his mineral and land resources,
destroy his arts, crafts, and home industries.
One of the most significant tools of colonialism was racism. Colonialism usually involved
Europeans as the colonizers and people of color as the colonized. As a rationalization for
exploitation and oppression, the ideology of racism was developed which branded the
45
colonized people as racially inferior and subhuman, having no rights that the colonizers had
to respect. Their only right, in the eyes of the imperialists, was the right to be exploited.
It is against this long history of exploitation and oppression by colonialism, imperialism,
and racism that we must understand the daily discussion in the U.S. mass media regarding
Africa. While it is not often presented to us as it really is, Amilcar Cabral, an assassinated
leader of the African revolution, points to the real story behind the headlines we read about
and hear: "The destruction of colonialism and the struggle against imperialism constitutes
one of the outstanding characteristics of our times." It is. this struggle against an
international system of imperialism and such evils as colonialism and racism that are
caused by it that, says Cabral, links the struggle of African peoples to the struggle of
freedom-loving and justice-loving people all over the world. It is partly because of their rich
heritage of culture and struggle that Afro-American people are profoundly -interested in,
influenced by, and indeed, form an integral part of this same struggle now being valiantly
fought in Africa.
KEY CONCEPTS
African Heritage
Colonialism
Cultures
Geography
Imperialism
Liberation struggles
Population/Depopulation
Slave Trade
Slavery
Wealth
36
46
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. Compare the various features of the African continent to Europe, to the U.S.A., and to
the Soviet Union.
a. land
b. population and peoples
c. natural resources
d. industrial production e. cultural diversity
2. Discuss life in pre-colonial Africa using six key aspects of social life in all societies:
production (food, clothing, shelter), politics, religion, education, women and family relations,
and culture.
3. What is colonialism? Why was Africa dominated by European colonialism by 1900?
4. What is the liberation struggle in southern Africa all about (specifically South Africa and
Namibia)? Use current newspapers and magazines to research this question. What is the
significance of these struggles for Afro-Americans and the U.S.A. in general?
1. Abdul Rahman M. Babu, African Socialism or a Socialist Africa? London: Zed Press,
1981.
2. George M. Fredrickson, White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American and South
African History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
3. Henry F. Jackson, From the Congo to Soweto: US. Foreign . Policy toward Africa since
1960. New York: Quill, 1984.
4. Bernard M. Magubane, The Political Economy of Race and Class in South Africa. New
York:- Monthly Review Press, 1979.
5. A. Temu and B. Swai, Historians and Africanist History. A Critique. London: Zed Press,
1981.
37
THREE
3. COLONIALISM AND THE SLAVE TRADE
........................ 49
Why the Slave Trade

......................................
Aspects of Capitalist Slavery
..........................
...........................
......................................
.....................................
.......................................
The Impact of the Slave Trade ...............................
51
54
54
54
55
56
59
Colonialism and the Slave Trade

LOGIC OF
CHANGE
Social
Cohesion
Traditional
Africa
Slavery
Rural
Life
Urban
Life
Social
Disruption
Slave
Trade
Emancipation
Migrations
Ideology
A1
B1
C1
D1
E1
F1
G1
A2
B2
C2
D2
E2
F2
G2
A3
B3
C3
D3
E3
F3
G3
A4
B4
C4
D4
E4
F4
G4
ANALYSIS
Class
Race
The slave trade kept the wheels of metropolitan industry turning; it

stimulated navigation and shipbuilding and employed seamen; it raised
fishing villages into flourishing cities; it gave sustenance to new industries
based on the processing of colonial raw materials; it yielded large profits
which were ploughed back into metropolitan industry; and, finally, it gave
rise to an unprecedented commerce in the West Indies and made the
Caribbean territories among the most valuable colonies the world has ever
known.
Eric Williams, From Columbus to Castro, 1970.
In 1694 the ship "Hannibal" dumped 320 of its cargo of 700 slaves overboard during the
Middle Passage. Thus 43% of its cargo was brutally murdered on the voyage from Africa to
the "New World." In 1781, the captain and crew of the ship "Zong" tossed 133 slaves
overboard before landing because the voyage from Africa had left them too ill to bring a
good price. This barbaric method enabled the owners to collect the insurance. These
38
49
horrors were common during most of the slave trade.

The television series "Roots" excited much interest in this phase of Afro-American history.
The narrative of Gustavus Vassa, an African slave writing in the 18th century, is vivid as an
eyewitness account of these horrors: forced capture; a long voyage with men, women, and
children packed like sardines below a ship's deck; attempts to seize control of the ship
punished by death; suicides as means of escape; torture; and, finally, induction into a life of
slavery.
The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the coast, was the
sea, and a slave ship, which was then riding at anchor, and waiting for its
cargo. These filled me with astonishment, which was soon converted into
terror, when I was carried on board. I was immediately handled, and tossed up
to see if I were sound, by some of the crew; and I was now persuaded that I
had gotten into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me. Their
complexions, too, differing so much from ours, their long hair, and the
language they spoke, (which was very different from any I had ever heard)
united to confirm me in this belief...
I now saw myself deprived of all chance of returning to my native country, or
even the least glimpse of hope of gaining the shore, which I now considered as
friendly; and I even wished for my former slavery in preference to my present
situation, which was filled with horrors of every kind, still heightened by my
ignorance of what I was to undergo. I was not long suffered to indulge my grief,
I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in
my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life: so that, with the
loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low
that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste anything. I now
wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the
white men offered me eatables; and on my refusing to eat, one of them held
me fast by the hands and laid me across, I think the windlass, and tied my feet,
while the other flogged me severely...
At last, when the ship we were in, had got in all her cargo, they made ready
with many fearful noises, and we were all put under deck, so that we could not
see how they managed the vessel. But this disappointment was the least of my
sorrow. The stench of the hold while we were on the coast was so intolerably
loathsome, that it was dangerous to remain there for any time, and some of us
had been permitted to stay on the deck for the fresh air; but now that the whole
ship's cargo were confined together, it became absolutely pestilential. The
closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the
ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself,
almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon
became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought
on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died - thus falling victims to
the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers. This wretched
situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now became
insupportable; and the filth of the necessary tubs, into which the children often
fell, and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of
39
50
the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable. Happily
perhaps, for myself, I was soon reduced so low here that it was thought
necessary to keep me almost always on deck; and from my extreme youth I
was not put in fetters. In this situation I expected every hour to share the fate of
my companions, some of whom were almost daily brought upon deck at the
point of death, which I began to hope would soon put an end to my miseries...
At last, we came insight of the island of Barbadoes...
We were conducted immediately to the merchant's yard, where we were all
pent up together, like so many sheep in a fold, without regard to sex or age....
We were not many days in the merchant's custody, before we were sold after
their usual manner, which is this: On a signal given, (as the beat of a drum,)
the buyers rush at once into the yard where the slaves are confined, and make
choice of that parcel they like best. The noise and clamor with which this is
attended, and the eagerness visible in the countenances of the buyers, serve
not a little to increase the apprehension of terrified Africans, who may well be
supposed to consider them as the ministers of that destruction to which they
think themselves devoted. In this manner, without scruple, are relations and
friends separated, most of them never to see each other again...0, ye nominal
Christians! might not an African ask you - Learned you this from your God, who
says unto you, Do unto all men as you would men should do unto you? Is it not
enough that we are torn from our country and friends, to toil for your luxury and
lust of gain? Must every tender feeling be likewise sacrificed to your
avarice...Surely, this is a new refinement in cruelty, which, while it has no
advantage to atone for it, thus aggravates distress, and adds fresh horrors
even to the wretchedness of slavery.
WHY THE SLAVE TRADE?
But why the slave trade in the first place? And of what significance was the result of the
slave trade, especially the institution of slavery in the United States? Few popular
discussions provide sufficient answers to these all important questions. The usual practice
is to dismiss the slave trade and slavery as the result of "man's inhumanity to man" natural events that we are now too "civilized" to practice again. Or slave trade and slaves
are blamed on the "inherent evilness of the devil - the white man." Both of these
explanations fall far short of explaining what actually happened in history and why. The
story is much more complex than that. In this chapter we will look at some of the factors
which caused the trade in Africans. In the next chapter we will discuss the slave system of
the antebellum South.
The slave trade involved several important factors. The slavers were, for the most part,
European and American merchants. The source of slaves was Africa, though slaves were
taken from other continents as well. The destination to which most slaves were taken was
the so-called "New World" - especially the West Indies. It is very important for us to place
the slave trade in international perspective if we are to understand it properly.
Eric Williams (1970) indicates the extent to which slave trading was an international
venture:
The Negro slave trade became one of the most important business
enterprises of the seventeenth century. In accordance with sixteenth-century
precedents its Organisation was entrusted to a company which was given the
sole right by a particular nation to trade in slaves on the coast of West Africa,
erect and maintain the forts necessary for the protection of the trade, and
40
51
transport and sell the slaves in the West Indies. Individuals, free traders or
'interlopers,' as they were called, were excluded. Thus the British incorporated
the Company of Royal Adventurers trading to Africa, in 1663, and later
replaced this company by the Royal African Company, in 1672, the royal
patronage and participation reflecting the importance of the trade and
continuing the fashion set by the Spanish monarchy of increasing its revenues
thereby. The monopoly of the French slave trade was at first-assigned to the
French West India Company in 1664, and then transferred, in 1673, to the
Senegal Company. The monopoly of the Dutch slave trade was given to the
Dutch West India Company, incorporated in 1621. Sweden organised a
Guinea Company in 1647. The Danish West India Company, chartered in
1671, with the royal family among its shareholders, was allowed in 1674 to
extend its activities to, Guinea. Brandenburg established a Brandenburg
African Company, and established its first trading post on the coast of West
Africa in 1682. The Negro slave trade, begun about 1450 as a Portuguese
monopoly, had, by the end of the seventeenth century, become an
international free-for-all.
As early as the 15th century, England passed from raising sheep and producing wool, an
agricultural activity, to manufacturing cloth. This signaled the beginning of capitalist
production. It is in capitalist production that we can locate the basic cause of the slave
trade.
Feudalism, the system that preceded capitalism in Europe, was based on the ownership of
land by landlords, and their exploitation of serfs, who owned no land and had to work for
these landowners to survive. The production and trade of goods and clothing was
monopolized by a few skilled craftsmen and merchants. Because of the increase in
international trade, production had to be carried out on a much larger scale. This system
was not able to produce the increased amount of goods and was therefore replaced by
manufacturing, a system in which many craftsmen still producing goods by hand were
brought together in a single "manufactury" or factory. This enabled each craftsman to
52
specialize in performing a single task in production (e.g. putting the heel on all the shoes
produced, instead of working on the entire shoe). This division of labor and specialization
increased the amount of shoes, cloth, and other goods produced.
But commerce and trade kept expanding, especially overseas, and more and more goods
were needed. The old manufacturing system was no longer sufficient. Machines were
invented to speed production, and large-scale industries, based on the use of these newlyinvented machines, steam, and water power, were developed. It is in this historical context
that we can see how Africa and the slave trade were connected to this history-making
process. The slave trade was caused by the development of capitalism. It also made an
important contribution to the continued development of capitalism.
41
53
ASPECTS OF CAPITALIST SLAVERY.

This contribution to capitalism's development was made on two continents - Europe
(especially in England) and North America (in the United States). Let us look briefly at
some of the aspects of this relationship: markets, land, labor, and profit.
54
Mercantilism was the economic theory which guided England. This theory stated that the
possession of gold, silver, and other precious metals was the basis of the wealth of nations.
Therefore, trade became important as England and other nations struggled to monopolize
sources of precious metals and to export (or send to other countries) more goods than they
42
imported (or received from other countries).

It was this need for precious metals and their shortage in Europe that led to a period of
exploration and discoveries. While many historians distort the real motivation, Christopher
Columbus who "discovered" America in 1492 was very clear on why he undertook the trip:
"Gold is a wonderful thing! Whoever possesses it is lord of all he wants. By means of gold
one can even get souls into Paradise." Most of the great discoveries we read about in
geography and history - Vasco da Gama, Sir Francis Drake, and even Estavanico (Little
Stephen), the Black Spanish explorer who discovered New Mexico - should all be
understood as part of the struggle of European countries to find gold so that one nation
could be stronger than another. Later, however, as capitalism developed further and the
techniques of production improved (more skilled labor, better machines, bigger ships, faster
communications, electrical power, etc.), foreign lands were needed not so much for gold
but as markets to sell the manufactured goods which could not be sold at home.
England is a small island, about the size of New York. In order for it to develop, it needed
(and still needs) both sources of raw materials for its factories and markets for the goods it
produced. Colonialism became the key mechanism by which capitalist countries like
England, France, Belgium, Germany, Portugal - and later the United States - acquired and
maintained control over foreign territory and workers for exploitation. By exploitation we
mean when workers are paid less than their work is worth. This always happens under
capitalism because, as Malcolm X put it bluntly: "show me a capitalist and I will show you a
bloodsucker!"
No continent escaped the domination of British colonialism. As the British were once fond
of saying (until the peoples of the colonies rose in revolution and threw off the shackles of
colonialism)., "The sun never sets on the British Empire." It was the colonization of
America - especially the United States and the West Indies - that paved the way for
capitalism's rapid development in England. These colonies were ideal for mercantilism.
They provided a lot of wealth and required very little investment. Colonial Virginia's
tobacco, Carolina's rice, the sugar of the West Indies, and New England's timber and tar for
ships were important goods that were exported exclusively to England. These colonies
were forbidden by England to trade with any other countries (so smuggling became
popular). They also were prohibited from manufacturing any item that competed with a
product made in England (like iron). On top of all of this, gold and silver mined by Indians
55
and Africans were also a great source of wealth.
In providing all of this wealth, these colonies served the mother country well. It was to break
this colonial exploitation by England that the American people (as others before and after
them) declared in 1776: "GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH!"
If the lands colonized in the Americas were to yield a profit, labor was needed. The ruling
class of England first attempted to supply the labor from England by using indentured
43
servants. Indentured servants were given free passage to America in ex-change for their
pledge to work for a set number of years (usually four to seven or until they were 21). This
was very similar to slavery. This source of labor, however, was insufficient. Slavery became
the answer. The first instance of slave trading and slave labor in the New World involved
not Africans, but Indians. As if taking the lands of the Native Americans were not enough,
the colonizers enslaved them. Excessive work, insufficient diet, and diseases of European
origin resulted in almost total genocide (the systematic killing of a national group) of the
Native American population.
It was to Africa and the slave trade that England finally turned in order to obtain the labor
needed in America. Other kinds of labor proved too scarce or too costly. The origin of Black
slavery, according to Eric Williams in Capitalism and Slavery, "can be expressed in three
words: in the Caribbean, Sugar; on the mainland, Tobacco and Cotton." He went on to add,
"The reason [for slavery] was economic, not racial; it had to do not with the color of the
laborer, but the cheapness of the labor."
The population of Africa was abundant and could be purchased cheaply. Besides, racism an elaborate set of lies and distortions that branded Black people as inherently inferior was developed to facilitate economic exploitation of the slaves by the capitalists. As Eric
Williams pointed out, "The features of the man, his hair, color and dentifrice [teeth], his
'subhuman' characteristics so widely pleaded, were only later rationalizations to justify a
simple economic fact that the colonies needed labor and resorted to Negro labor because it
was cheapest and best." We will return to the important issue of racism in almost every
chapter in this text.
In addition to supplying an all important labor force for the development of the Americas,
56
the slave trade itself yielded great profits. To one influential mercantilist in the 18th century,
slaves were "the fundamental prop and support" of the English colonies. Another described
the slave trade as "the first principle and foundation of all the rest, the mainspring of the
machine which sets every wheel in motion." Why this glowing tribute? It was because the
slave trade not only provided the population of workers for the plantations and mines of the
Now World, but it also made big profits for both the slave traders and those who provided
them with goods and services. Eric Williams in Capitalism and Slavery cites many
examples of ship owners' making double their money in profits on the sale of slaves. The
slave trade was perhaps the most abundant source of quick and substantial profits during
this period of history.
The overall importance of all of this can be brought together by discussing the triangular
trade. As stated in Capitalism and Slavery:
In this triangular trade England - France and Colonial America equally supplied the exports and the ships; Africa the human merchandise; the
plantations the colonial raw materials. The slave ship sailed from the home
country with a cargo of manufactured goods. These were exchanged at a
profit on the coast of Africa for Negroes, who were traded on the plantations,
44
at another profit, in exchange for a cargo of colonial produce to be taken

back to the home country. As the volume of trade increased, the triangular
trade was supplemented, but never supplanted, by a direct trade between
home country and the West Indies, exchanging home manufactures directly
for colonial produce.
The triangular trade thereby gave a triple stimulus to British industry. The
Negroes were purchased with British manufactures; transported to the
plantations, they produced sugar, cotton, indigo, molasses and other tropical
products, the processing of which created new industries in England; while
the maintenance of the Negroes and their owners on the plantations provided
another market for British industry, New England agriculture and the
Newfoundland fisheries. By 1750 there was hardly a trading or a
manufacturing town in England which was not in some way connected with
the triangular or direct colonial trade. The profits obtained provided one of the
main streams of that accumulation of capital in England which financed the
Industrial Revolution.
Thus we see the close connection between the slave trade and the development of
capitalism in Europe. Capitalism represents an increased use of machinery and increased
demanded for more raw materials. This led to the colonization of the Americas to secure
land (raw materials), and to the slave trade which supplied the needed labor. The profits
from the sale of slaves and slave-produced products were accumulated by merchants.
They then used these profits as capital to build bigger and better factories to further exploit
the workers and peasants of Europe. The exploitation of African and European workers
was two sides of the same coin.
In addition, important inventions of the Industrial Revolution (when the use of machines in
production became widespread in all industries), like Watts' Steam engine and several
inventions in the textile industry, were financed by slave-trade profits. Huge banking
fortunes, like Barclays Bank, also began with the slave trade.
Most significant, however, is the fact that the trade in slaves was the key aspect of the
triangular trade in which the increasing demand for goods led to the expansion and further
development of capitalist industry in Europe. It is important to understand the historical
though costly contribution of Africans and Afro-Americans to the modern world of capitalism
through the slave trade.
45
57
58
THE IMPACT OF THE SLAVE TRADE

The colonial relationship between England and America must first be emphasized before
we can understand the importance of the slave trade to the development of the United
States. America was colonized to serve the needs of the English ruling class. Economically,
it provided England with land for agricultural production, valuable raw materials, a market
for English goods, and a profitable place in which to invest. Politically, England dominated
America. There was taxation without American representation and the laws were made in
England to serve its own economic interests.
To make the best use of its colonial empire, English capitalism implemented a colonial
division of labor which enabled each colony to specialize and produce more of certain
goods. The West Indies specialized in sugar, which was shipped to England and the
mainland colonies. The mainland colonies supplied England with tobacco, cotton, rice,
indigo, grains, fish, and naval supplies, to mention a few.
As capitalism expanded in England, the demand for all of these goods increased. It was for
this reason, particularly in the southern colonies and in the West Indies which were best
suited for large scale plantation agriculture, that slavery expanded, along with the slave
trade which supplied slave labor.
We pointed out in the previous chapter that England and other capitalist countries in
Europe were the main slave traders. But American merchants were also deeply involved in
the slave trade, contrary to what many scholars say. Their involvement, however, was not
46
59
as great as England's because the American merchants were part of a young capitalist
class. Most had not had the time to make enough money to build the large ships required
for the voyage to Africa. England thus supplied the American colonies with most of its
slaves, just as it dominated other markets.
Though not extensive, the trade involving American merchants and Africa was
concentrated in New England - Rhode Island and Massachusetts. For example, 93% of the
exports of the American colonies to Africa between 1768 and 1772 were sent from New
England. This specialization developed because New England with its harsh winters and
rocky soil was less suited to plantation agriculture than other colonies, and it depended on
shipping, shipbuilding, and fishing to pay its debts to England. Slaves became an important
article of commerce in New England's trade. New Englanders played a major role
transporting slaves between West Indian Islands and between the West Indies and the
United States.
New England merchants also engaged in a triangular trade: from New England, ships
sailed with food - especially fish - and other goods to be exchanged in the West Indies for
rum. The rum was then taken to Africa and, exchanged for slaves who were brought back
to the West Indies and exchanged for more sugar, rum, and molasses.
Two important factors stand out in New England's involvement in the slave trade. First, the
slave trade had the same impact on the development of capitalism in New England that it
had in England. The slave trade stimulated the development of industries which supplied
the slave traders with the goods they exchanged for slaves. The manufacture of rum, for
example, became the largest business in New England before the American Revolution.
Rum was so abundant and so cheap that it became the main item to be traded for slaves
on the coast of Africa. In fact, it was so important that the price of slaves was often stated in
quantities of rum!
New England benefited as much from the services it provided the slave traders as from
direct involvement. In addition to its rum, its ships were widely used in the trade. Because 60
the economies of the West Indies were forced to produce sugar for England, they had little
time or land to grow food. Thus, fish from New England was its principal food item. As
Lorenzo Greene summarizes:
The effects of this slave trade were manifold. On the eve of the American
Revolution it formed the very basis of the economic life of New England:
about it revolved, and on it depended, most of her other industries. The vast
sugar, molasses, and rum trade, ship-building, the distilleries, a great many of
the fisheries, the employment of artisans and seamen, even agriculture - all
were dependent upon the slave traffic.
The second important contribution of the slave trade is that it provided the source of capital
from which many important and wealthy Americans accumulated their fortunes and gained
prestige. Senators, governors, judges, philanthropists, newspapermen, scientists,
educators, and many others were slave traders or profited from the trade. Josiah Franklin,
Benjamin Franklin's stepbrother, was a prosperous merchant who not only sold slaves at
47
his tavern but also permitted other traders to show their slaves there. He was hardly alone,
for as Lorenzo Greene points out:
There was no stigma attached to trading in Negroes before the

Revolution...Wealthy slave merchants, like the industrial captains of the
present era, were successful men - the economic, political and social
leaders of their communities - and were regarded by their fellows as worthy
of emulation.
Southerners may have gained their wealth and position from the exploitation of slave labor,
but it was New Englanders who reaped the real profits from the sale of slaves. T'he most
important people were the capitalists who used the profits from their slave trade- related
activity to finance the textile industry. The first industry to use machines and water power
on a large scale, the textile industry moved the United States into the age of industrial
capitalism.
The Brown family of Rhode Island was one of the leading families of merchants in the
United States. The Browns were involved in shipping to all parts of the world, importing
molasses and distilling it into rum, making candles which they monopolized, banking,
insurance, and real estate. Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island was named after
them for their financial support.
61
But few people know (and those who know don't tell) that the Browns were also slavetrading merchants. Part of their fortune was made by selling Africans into slavery or by
supplying goods to those who did. In 1736, Captain James Brown was the first Providence
merchant to enter the slave trade. 'One of his sons, Moses Brown, became interested in
textile manufacturing. The Brown family money financed experiments by Samuel Slater an
English mechanic, who, using now inventions from the textile industry in Europe, perfected
the first water-power mill. It pushed the United States into the first stage of its Industrial
Revolution.
In 1814, Francis Cabot Lowell organized a group of New England merchants - the Cabots,
Amorys, Lowells, Jacksons, Higginsons, Russels, Lees, and Lawrences who initiated the
second stage in America's Industrial Revolution. They developed the method of the big
corporation for mass production, integrating the manufacture of cloth - from the processing
of raw cotton to the finished product under one roof. This new system of large scale
machine industry revolutionized cotton textile production, and the amount of cloth produced
increased almost 30% between 1815 and 1833.
Only a, few of the Boston Associates, as this group of capitalists was called, were directly
involved in the slave trade. But, almost without exception, they were merchants who
depended on the slave trade, selling rum, insurance, and other goods and services to the
slave traders. These merchants played leading roles in the American Revolution which
declared that all men were created equal, shaped the U.S. Constitution (pre-Civil War)
which condoned slavery in the antebellum South, and were key leaders in the early period
of U.S. history.
48
62
One important fact to remember about the rise of capitalism is that it was during this
process that the two great classes of our own time emerged: the bourgeoisie or capitalist
class and the proletariat or working class. By bourgeoisie we mean the class of capitalists
who own the means of producing goods and services (factories, banks, land, mass media,
etc.) and employ or buy the labor-power of workers for wages. By proletariat we mean the
working class of people who own no means of production of their own and who are forced
to sell their labor-power for wages in order to get enough money for food, clothing, shelter,
and other necessities.
Why is it important to mention these two classes in a chapter on the slave trade? Because
most discussions on television or radio or what we read in our textbooks and in the
newspapers fail to tell us where this ruling class - capitalists like the Mellons, DuPonts,
Rockefellers, Fords, etc. - came from. Did they 'always exist? Did they just fall from the
sky? Of course not. Like everything else, the ruling class in this country and in every other
country in the world has a history. Our point here is that the capitalist class that rules the
United States has its roots in the slave trade, which was one of the important sources of
profit from which this class accumulated the wealth that financed the early industrial
development of the United States.
It was the accumulation of wealth from the slave trade and other forms of exploitation (like
paying workers low wages in factories and employing child labor for pennies a day) that
enabled these early capitalists to build more factories, start banks, open newspapers to
advertise their products and to shape public opinion in their interest, support universities to
train new personnel, elect presidents and Congresses, and fight wars. All this was done in
an effort to build their empire, to consolidate their control and domination over the United
States and much of the world. It is important that we understand the relationship of Black
people's history to this process, since any solution to today's problems must be based on
an accurate and thorough assessment of this history
But the significance of the slave trade extends beyond these important economic factors.
The slave trade was the historical process that forcibly transported millions of Africans
throughout the world, and concentrated a significant number in the Black Belt section of
southern United States. Table 6 (below) indicates the growth of the slave population from
1790 to 1860.
The slave trade thus set the conditions for the subsequent development of the AfroAmerican experience. African influences in social life (institutions like religion and the
church) and cultural life (language and artistic activity like music and dance) were
transported during the slave trade. The slave trade also had important ideological
63
ramifications. Racism, a set of beliefs which sought to justify the enslavement of Black
people for exploitation and oppression, was born during the slave trade and nurtured during
slavery in the antebellum South. Thus, the Afro-American experience of which the slave
trade is an integral part is a complex set of experiences with many aspects that we will
systematically examine in the remaining chapters of this book.
49
TABLE 6
GROWTH OF SLAVE POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES
1790 - 1860
Census Year
Number
1790
1800
1810
1820
197,624
893,602
1,191,362
1,538,022
28.1
33.3
29.1
1830
1840
1850
1860
2,00,043
2,487,355
3,204,313
3,953,760
30.6
23.8
28.8
23.4
Decennial
Increase
Census Year
Number
Decennial
Increase
Source : E. Franklin Frazier , The Negro in the United States, p. 39
KEY CONCEPTS
Accumulation of wealth
Bourgeoisie/Capitalist class
Capitalism
Division of labor
Feudalism
Indentured servants
Industrial Revolution/, Manufacturing
Mercantilism/Commerce
Proletariat/Working class
Triangular trade
STUDY QUESTIONS
64
I. What is the triangular trade thesis on the slave trade as presented by Eric Williams?
2. What were the similarities and differences in the way the rising capitalist class in England
and in the United States were connected to the slave trade
3. What impact did the slave trade have on England?
4. What impact did the slave trade have on the United States?
50
1. Jay A. Coughtry, The Notorious Triangle. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981.
2. W. E. B. Dubois, Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of
America. Now York: Social Science Press, 1954 (first published in 1896).
3. Lorenzo J. Greene, The Negro in Colonial New England, 1620- 1776. New York:
Atheneum, 1968 (first published in 1942).
4. C. L. R. James, "The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery: Some Interpretations of Their
Significance in the Development of the United States and the Western World." In Amistad
1: Writings on Black History and Culture, edited by John A. Williams and Charles F. Harris.
New York: Vintage Books, 1970.
5. Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery. New York: Capricorn Books, 1966 (firsted
published in 1944).
51
FOUR
4. THE SLAVE EXPERIENCE:
THE MELTING POT OF AFRICAN PEOPLES
......................... 67
The Institution of Slavery

..................................
Social Organization
..........................................
Religion and Slavery
..........................................
Mechanisms Strengthening Slavery ........................
Mechanisms Weakening Slavery
.......................
67
70
72
74
74
The Slave Experience:

The Melting Pot of African Peoples
LOGIC OF
CHANGE
Social
Cohesion
Traditional
Africa
Slavery
Rural
Life
Urban
Life
Social
Disruption
Slave
Trade
Emancipation
Migrations
Ideology
A1
B1
C1
D1
E1
F1
G1
A2
B2
C2
D2
E2
F2
G2
A3
B3
C3
D3
E3
F3
G3
A4
B4
C4
D4
E4
F4
G4
ANALYSIS
Class
Race
52
When "in his cups," Master Epps was a roystering, blustering, noisy fellow,
whose chief delight was in dancing with his "niggers," or lashing them about the
yard with his long whip, just for the pleasure of hearing them screech and
scream, as the great welts were planted on their backs. When sober, he was
silent, reserved and cunning, not beating us indiscriminately, as in his drunken
moments, but sending the end of his rawhide to some tender spot of a lagging
slave, with a sly dexterity peculiar to himself.
Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave, 1853.
67
He might plead his cause with the tongue of Frederick Douglass, and the nation
listened almost unmoved. He might labor for the nation's wealth, and the nation
took the results without thanks, and handed him as near nothing in return as
would keep him alive. He was called a coward and a fool when he protected the
women and children of his master. But when he rose and fought and killed, the
whole nation with one voice proclaimed him a man and brother. Nothing else
made emancipation possible in the United States. Nothing else made Negro
citizenship conceivable, but the record of the Negro soldier as a fighter.
W. E. B. DuBois, Black Reconstruction in America, 1935.
The first Black people in North America were not slaves. Evidence indicates that prior to
Columbus's laying claim to the new world in the name of the Spanish Queen Isabella, African
explorers crossed the oceans. In addition, several Black people were with Columbus in 1492.
By the 17th century, however, most Blacks in the Americas found themselves in the institution
of slavery.
53
THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY

Slavery is basically a system of political economy in which the production process is carried
out by slaves, human beings owned as property by other human beings. Slaves work under
direct coercion, and the product of their labor is owned entirely by their owner. Frederick
Douglass captured the essence of slavery in 1846:
Slavery in the United States is the granting of that power by which one man
exercises and enforces a right of property in the body and soul of another. The
condition of a slave is simply that of the brute beast. He is a piece of property - a
marketable commodity, in the language of the law, to be bought or sold at the
will and caprice of the master who claims him to be his property; he is spoken
of, thought of, and treated as property. His own good, his conscience, his
intellect, his affections, are all set aside by the master. The will and the wishes
of the master are the law of the slave. He is as much a piece of property as a
horse. If he is fed, he is fed because he is property. If he is clothed, it is with a
view to the increase of his value as property. Whatever of comfort is necessary
to him for this body or soul that is inconsistent with his being property is carefully
wrested from him, not only by public opinion, but by the law of the country. He is
carefully deprived of everything that tends in the slightest degree to detract from
his value as property.
Slavery has existed at every period in world history until very recently, but its existence has
not always had the same economic character. Two questions must be answered to correctly
analyze any particular cause of slavery: (1) what other systems of labor exist in the society in
addition to slavery? and (2) what system of labor is dominant? In this way we can make a
distinction between ancient slavery (e.g., in Greece and Egypt where free farmers coexisted
with slaves, but slavery was dominant) and antebellum slavery in the United States (which
coexisted with free farmers, but was dominated by the industrially-based capitalism of the
urban North). The historical dominance of capitalism in the United States made antebellum
slavery the most barbaric system of slave labor. Not only did the slaves produce for the direct
consumption of their owners, they were also forced to feed the gluttonous machines (textile
mills) of both New England and "old" England with their products (cotton). The average
productive life of slaves in cotton has been estimated at seven years during the height of King
Cotton. The textile mills consumed the cotton and the plantations consumed the slaves!
Solomon Northup, a slave, described a typical day in the life of a cotton slave:
When a new hand, one unaccustomed to the business, is sent for the first
time into the field, he is whipped up smartly, and made for that day to pick
as fast as he can possibly. At night it is weighed, so that his capability in
cotton picking is known. He must bring in the same weight each night
following. If it falls short, it is considered evidence that he has been laggard,
and a greater or less number of lashes is the penalty...
The hands are required to be in the cotton field as soon as it is light in the
morning, and, with the exception of ten or fifteen minutes, which is given
them at noon to swallow their allowance of cold bacon, they are not
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permitted to be a moment idle until it is too dark to see, and when the moon
is full, they often times labor till the middle of the night. They do not dare to
stop even at dinner time, nor return to the quarters, however late it be, until
the order to halt is given by the driver...
No matter how fatigued and weary he may be - no matter how much he
longs for sleep and rest - a slave never approaches the gin-house with his
basket of cotton but with fear. If it falls short in weight- if he has not
performed the full task appointed him, he knows that he must suffer...
This done, the labor of the day is not yet ended, by any means. Each one
must then attend to his respective chores. One feeds the mules, another the
swine - another cuts the wood, and so forth; besides, the packing is all done
by candle light. Finally, at a late hour, they reach the quarters, sleepy and
overcome with the long day's toil. Then a fire must be kindled in the cabin,
the corn ground in the small hand-mill, and supper, and dinner for the next
day in the field, prepared. All that is allowed them is corn and bacon, which
is given out at the corncrib and smoke-house every Sunday morning....
When it is "done brown:' the ashes are scraped off, and being placed upon a
chip, which answers for a table, the tenant of the slave hut is ready to sit
down upon the ground to supper. By this time it is usually midnight. The
same fear of punishment with which they approach the gin-house,
possesses them again on lying down to get a snatch of rest. It is the fear of
oversleeping in the morning. Such an offense would certainly be attended
with not less than twenty lashes. . . .
An hour before day light the horn is blown.... Then the fears and labors of
another day begin; and until its close there is no such thing as rest. He fears
he will be caught lagging through the day; he fears to approach the ginhouse with his basket-load of cotton at night; he fears, when he lies down,
that he will-oversleep himself in the morning. Such is a true, faithful,
unexaggerated picture and description of the slave's daily life, during the
time of cotton-picking, . . .
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Slavery in the historical experience of Black people is very important because it lasted for
250 years, and we are only 120 years or so away from it. Moreover, all subsequent historical
experiences of Black people have been influenced by the mark of slavery. It is a difficult moral
problem for Black and white people to look at slavery, but it is a necessary process if one is to
have a full historical understanding of the United States. Just as we must understand the
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atrocities of the Vietnam War committed by the, U.S. government in order to understand life in
the United States today, so must we understand the system of slavery if we are to understand
the origin and initial development of the United States in general and Black people in
particular.
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While we are treating slavery as one of the three main historical experiences of Black
people, it too developed in stages. The first stage marks a difference between slavery in the
upper colonies (New England and New York), where slaves were mainly used for domestic
work and some manufacturing, and in the lower colonies, where slaves were used in
agricultural work. The second stage marks a shift from the southeastern region where slaves
produced rice, indigo, and tobacco to the fertile delta region of Mississippi, central Alabama,
and southeastern Georgia where cotton was grown. The third main stage of slavery occurred
when cotton became King and dominated the entire economy of the South. It was a
fundamental feature of the entire U.S. economy as well. Based on this changing pattern in the
demand for slave labor, the geographical distribution of slaves changed from an initial
concentration in the southeastern coastal area (e.g., South Carolina and Virginia) to the
western part of the South (Mississippi). This stretched the concentration of Black people in a
half moon- shaped pattern creating the Black Belt South (which to some limited extent still
exists today, though no longer is it the main concentration of Black people).
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
The social organization or division of labor of slaves during the reign of King Cotton must be
considered as well. On the plantation, there was a difference between house slaves an field
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slaves, sort of like the difference between service workers (maids, janitors, hospital orderlies,
etc.) and production workers (workers who produce commodities for sale or goods for
consumption, like automobile and steel workers). James Stirling, writing in. 1857, described the
differences between house and field slaves:
In judging of the welfare of the slaves, it is necessary to distinguish the different

conditions of slavery. The most important distinction, both as regards numbers
and its influence on the well-being of the slave, is that between house-servants
and farm or field-hands. The house-servant is comparatively well off. He is
frequently born and bred in the family he belongs to; and even when this is not the
case, the constant association of the slave and his master, and master's family,
naturally leads to such an attachment as ensures good treatment....
The position of the field-hands is very different; of those especially, who labour
on large plantations. Here there are none of those humanizing influences at work
which temper of the system , nor is there the same check of public opinion to
control abuse. The "force" is worked en masse , as a great human mechanism, or
if you will ,as a drove of human cattle.
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There was also a difference between life on the plantation and the life in the city. The
structure of the plantation was monolithic ( all power being in the hands of the landowner ) and
mostly limited to what was on the plantation. However, in the city there was great diversity and
density so that life was more cosmopolitan. In the city, there was a difference between the
slaves owned by individuals and those owned industrially by a company (e.g., a railroad).
Though industrial slavery was quite limited, it did provide the loosest form of social control and
it is here that the emergence of independence and initiative by Black slaves can be seen most
clearly.
These differences were the concrete basis that led to different forms of social and cultural
life. Close, constant, and brutal supervision forced field slaves to develop an "underground"
social life in addition to a few customs allowed to flourish on key holidays. House slaves were
close to the social life of white people so that assimilation could take place (e.g., actual
participation in the religious practices of their owners and, when going among field slaves,
mimicking "white folks" with clothes, speech, and behavior borrowed from their owners). In the
city, since the paternalism of the plantation was impossible, slaves had the time to develop
limited patterns of free associate on in illegal institutions that developed in alleys and poorer
parts of town (especially in New Orleans and Charleston).
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RELIGION AND SLAVERY
The debate over slavery and religion among white people, and the impact of religion on
Black people, are major aspects of the social and cultural experience of slavery. If slaves could
be baptized, then they were human beings after all; if they were less than human they should
not be brought into the "Kingdom of God." So as slaves were either baptized or got access to
the bible (which of course meant the learned how to read), they took on a new social and
cultural identity. In addition to worshipping with their masters in some cases, slaves were able
to express their identity in developing their own forms of worship and devotion
Thus, the church and religion provided the main basis for the independent development of
Black social life: (1) to deal with the bible someone, usually a Black minister, had to read; (2) to
deal with religion meant that Black people developed and/or reinforced. Values that dictated
forms of family life, interpersonal relations, and a general sense of justice and fair play. In other
words, the religion was the moral basis for the development of the first forms of education and
indigenous forms and values regarding family life.
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MECHANISMS STRENGTHENING SLAVERY

In analyzing the slave system of the antebellum South, it is necessary to make a distinction
between those mechanisms that held slavery together, and those that tended to weaken
slavery. The slave system was held together by the dominant influence of the slave plantation
owners. They had the support of the northern industrialists, as well as the capitalist powers in
England, who needed cotton for the textile mills. The local and state governments as well as
Congress were dominated by the slave owners. In this way, the slave system was totally
protected by the economic and political organization of power. All social and cultural
institutions also served the slave system. Except for a few cases (mainly the New England
Quakers and the social reformers who became forces desiring the peaceful abolition of the
slave system), the churches, schools, mass media, and artists joined in support of the slave
system.
MECHANISMS WEAKENING SLAVERY
We must also be aware of the developments that tended to weaken the slave system. They
included the following:
Hiring out - This practice enabled slaves to find jobs and pay the bulk of their wages to their
owner. This developed initiative and independence in slaves and resulted in a desire for
freedom. A few slaves even purchased their own freedom in this way.
Industrial slavery - As pointed out, this practice was the opposite of the close paternalistic
supervision of plantation life. Supervision was impersonal and allowed slaves greater freedom,
though not necessarily better conditions of life or a higher standard of living.
Manumission - This is simply the process whereby a slave owner willfully freed a slave. Much
of this was done to free the offspring of a slave owner and one of his female slaves.
Running away - This was the practice of slaves secretly leaving their owners for a free state in
the North or Canada. The most famous pattern was the "underground railroad," a network of
people who would provide shelter and assistance to runaway slaves. Harriet Tubman and
Sojourner Truth were important leaders in this form of resistance to the slave system.
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Race mixing -The sexual exploitation of Black women was the usual form of amalgamation of
Blacks and whites. This created a color status group of mulattoes, who threatened the rigidity
of the color line of Black people on one side and white people on the other.
Slave revolts - This form of collective resistance represented an armed insurrection by the
slaves themselves. Most were small and unsuccessful, but a few are of great historical
significance. In the summer of 1822, Denmark Vesey organized a slave revolt around
Charleston, South Carolina. Between 6,000 and 9,000 were said to be implicated in the plan to
attack Charleston. The leaders, however, were betrayed and arrested. When slaves tried to
rescue them, state troopers converged upon them. During their executions, federal troops were
brought in to protect the city.
Slave revolts continued throughout this period. In 1831, Nat Turner, a deeply religious man,
along with six other slaves began their crusade "to take up Christ's struggle for the liberation of
the oppressed." They began by killing Turner's master, and within twenty-four hours they were
joined by some seventy slaves who killed all slaveholding whites in the twenty mile area
(approximately sixty in all). Soon hundreds of soldiers swarmed the countryside, slaughtering
over one hundred slaves and hanging the leaders of the revolt. As Herbert Aptheker writes,
The South was panic-stricken. Disaffected or rebellious slaves were, in the winter
of 1831, arrested, tortured or executed in other counties of Virginia, in Delaware,
Maryland, North Carolina (where at least three slaveholders died from fear!),
Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and
Louisiana.
This did not stop the slave revolts. They took place not only on land but also on the high
seas. For instance, Joseph Cinque, a native African, freed a whole shipload of slaves; Madison
Washington, a slave bound from Richmond to the New Orleans slave market, rose up with
others, liberated the ship, and sailed into Nasseau, New Providence.
Armed attacks - This form of collective resistance represented a militant attack on slavery from
outside the slave system. The most famous was undertaken by John Brown, who in 1859
gathered a small band of both Blacks and whites and seized a federal arsenal at Harper's
Ferry. They were defeated when hundreds of troops moved against them, but their actions, like
those of militant slaves before and after them, were a part of a process that ended the formal
institution of slavery.
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Many others spoke out militantly over the years. In 1843, Henry Highland Garnet exhorted
slaves to rise up in resistance:
If you would be free in this generation, here is your only hope. However much
you and all of us may desire it, there is not much hope of redemption without the
shedding of blood. If you must bleed, let it all come at once - rather die freemen,
than to be the slaves....
Brethren, arise, arise ! Strike for your lives and liberties. Now is the day and the
hour. Let every slave throughout the Land do this, and the days of slavery are
numbered....
Let your motto be resistance resistance resistance No oppressed people have
ever-secured their liberty without resistance. What kind of resistance you had
better make, you must decide by the circumstances that surround you, and
according to the suggestion of expediency.
Echoing Garnet, Frederick Douglass some fifteen years later exclaimed:
If there is no struggle there is no progress... This struggle may be a moral one,
or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be
a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it, never
will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out
the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will-be imposed upon them, And
these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they
oppress.
By 1863 Douglass was urging Blacks to rise up and join the war effort:
A war undertaken and brazenly carried on for the perpetual enslavement of
colored men, Calls logically and loudly for colored men to help suppress it. Only
a moderate share of sagacity was needed to see that the arm of the slave was
the best defense against the arm of the slaveholder... Action! Action! not
criticism, is the plain duty of this hour. Words are now useful only as they
stimulate to blows. The office of speech now is only to point out when, where,
and how, to strike to the best advantage. There is no time to delay. The tide is at
its flood that leads on to fortune. From East to West, from North to South, the
sky is written all over, "Now or never." Liberty won by white men would lose half
its luster. "Who would be free themselves must strike the blow." "Better even die
free, than to live slaves." This is the sentiment of every brace colored man
amongst. us.... By every consideration which binds you to your enslaved fellowcountrymen, and the peace and welfare of your country; by every aspiration
which you cherish for the freedom and equality of yourselves and your children;
by all the ties of blood and identity which make us one with the brave black men
now fighting our battles in Louisiana and in South Carolina, I urge you to fly to
arms, and smite with death the power that would bury the government and your
liberty in the same hopeless grave....
The chance is now given you to end in a day the bondage of centuries, and to
rise in one bound from social degradation to the plane of common equality with
a other varieties of men. Remember Denmark Vesey of Charleston; remember
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Nathaniel Turner of Southampton; remember Sheilds Green and Copeland, who

followed noble John Brown, and fell as glorious martyrs for the cause of the
slave. Remember that in a contest with oppression, the Almighty has no
attribute which can take sides with oppressors. The case is before you. This is
our golden opportunity. Let us accept it, and forever wipe out the dark
reproaches unsparingly hurled against us by our enemies. Let us win for
ourselves the gratitude of our country, and the best blessings of our posterity
through all time. Collective resistance continued to be the theme of many
militants before during, and long after the war. The historical experience of
slavery is one of repression and acquiescence, but it is also one of resistance
and rebellion.
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KEY CONCEPTS
Ancient vs. antebellum slavery
Hiring out
House vs. field slaves
Plantation vs. urban slavery
King Cotton
Manumission
Slave revolt
Social organization
Three stages of slavery
Underground railroad
STUDY QUESTIONS
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1. What were the main features of the political economy of slavery in the United States during
the early 19th century?
2. What experiences did slaves have, based upon different occupations within the plantation
system? Of what significance were these differences in influencing or shaping the capacity of
Blacks to resist and to struggle to abolish slavery?
3. Compare the factors that tended to strengthen slavery with those that weakened it.
4. What are the similarities and differences in the methods of struggle against slavery waged
under the leadership of people such as: Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, Frederick Douglass,
John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Henry Highland Garnet?
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1. John Blassingame, The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1973.
2. Eugene Genovese, From Rebellion to Revolutions: Afro-American Slave Revolts in the
Modern World. New York: Random House, 1979.
3. Nathan Huggins, Black Odyssey: The Afro-American Ordeal in Slavery. New York:
Pantheon Books, 1977.
4. Leslie H. Owens, This Species of Property: Slave Life and Culture in the Old South. New
5. William L. Van Deburg, Slavery and Race in American Popular Culture. Madison- University
of Wisconsin Press, 1984.
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5. THE RURAL EXPERIENCE:

THE EMERGENCE OF THE AFRO-AMERICAN NATIONALITY ..... 81
Tenant Farming
................................................
Peonage
...........................................................
Middle-Class Aspects of the Agricultural
Experience
...........................................
The Church
........................................................
Disfranchisement and social repression
.................
Organized Resistance ...........................................
Decline of Rural Life : Outmigration ............................
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86
87
88
91
95
FIVE
The Rural Experience:
The Emergence of the Afro-American Nationality
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LOGIC OF
CHANGE
Social
Cohesion
Traditional
Africa
Slavery
Rural
Life
Urban
Life
Social
Disruption
Slave
Trade
Emancipation
Migrations
Ideology
A1
B1
C1
D1
E1
F1
G1
A2
B2
C2
D2
E2
F2
G2
A3
B3
C3
D3
E3
F3
G3
A4
B4
C4
D4
E4
F4
G4
ANALYSIS
Class
Race
Peonage . . . was defined thus by a judge: "It is where a man in consideration of

an advance or debt or contract, says, 'Here, take me, I will give you dominion
over my person and liberty, and you can work me against my will hereafter, and
force me by imprisonment, or threats of duress to work for you until that debt or
obligation is paid.'" Experience has shown, too, that the judge might have added,
"Until I, the planter, shall say that the debt has been paid."
Carter G. Woodson, The Rural Negro, 1930
The end of the slave period was followed by a period in which the experiences of Black
people were both similar to and different from what they had been. The Civil War and the
Reconstruction were the years of emancipation. It was a period of transition in which great
social, political, and economic upheaval destroyed some aspects of slavery but allowed other
aspects to continue (not entirely in form, but in essence).
From the 1870s to the 1930s, the dominant experience of Black people in the United States
81
was in the rural Black Belt area of the South. In 1890, a quarter of a century after the end of
the Civil War, four out of every five Black people still lived in rural areas of the United States.
Ten years later in 1900, nine out of every ten were in the South. And between 1890 and 1910,
three out of every five Blacks worked in agriculture.
This is the period in which Black people were molded into a definite nationality, a people
sharing social, cultural, economic, and political experiences, as well as suffering under a
brutal system of social control and repression. Of course the common experience of slavery
laid the foundation for this, but it was in the rural period that the full expression of this national
development and national oppression took place. It is necessary to emphasize that this
development was stunted because of repression and social control.
Our focus here is, not on the chronological history of this period, but rather is to analyze the
major aspects of the social content of this experience.
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TENANT FARMING
The most basic aspect of a people's experience is the way they produce and consume
whatever is necessary in order to survive, or in other words, their economic life. In the rural
experience Black people were "apparently" free, but they continued to be oppressed by an
economic system that compelled them to work in virtual bondage. The mechanism by which
Black people were kept in servitude was the tenant system.
In theory, the tenant system was simply a contractual arrangement by which a landowner
would exchange the use of land and perhaps tools, seed, and "furnishings" for either cash or
a share of the profits and/or produce (crops). Charles S. Johnson, Edwin Embree, and Will
Alexander describe this system more fully:
Tenants may be divided into three main classes: (a) renters who hire land for a
fixed rental to be paid either in cash or its equivalent in crop values; (b) share
tenants, who furnish their own farm equipment and work animals and obtain use
of land by agreeing to pay a fixed per cent of the cash crop which they raise; (c)
share-croppers who have to have furnished to them not only the land but also
farm tools and animals, fertilizer, and often even the food they consume, and who
in return pay a larger per cent of the crop.
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Table 7 (below) outlines the typical arrangements for each type of tenancy.
At this level, such an economic arrangement appears to be a free exchange in which the
economic partners have the freedom to enter on arrangement or to leave it. As has been
pointed out, "Normally it is regarded as a step on the road to independent ownership."
However, this was not the situation in the South where traditions and practices ensured
exploitation. Emerging from a legacy of slavery, the economic partners were quite unequal.
Rather than being partners, they can more correctly be defined as the oppressor and the
oppressed.
In the first place, the overwhelming numbers of Blacks were sharecroppers and not renters or
even share tenants. Moreover, Black farmers/workers were usually illiterate, had very limited
experience in making contracts, and were very dependent upon the landowner for credit to
survive from crop to crop.
Analyzing the tenancy system in the 1930s, Johnson, Embree, and Alexander wrote:
It is to the advantage of the owner to encourage the most dependent form of
share cropping as a source of largest profits...landlords, thus, are most
concerned with maintaining the system that furnishes them labor and that keeps
this labor under their control....The means by which landowners do this are: first,
the credit system; and second, the established social customs of the plantation
order.
Table 7
TENANCY
TYPES OF TENANCY
Share Cropping for Half and
Half
Share Renting for Third and

Fourth
Cash or Standing Renting
LANDLORD FURNISHES
Land
House
Fuel
Tools
Work Stock
Feed for Stock
Sees
One half of Fertilizers
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Land
House
fuel
One fourth or one third of
Fertilizers
Land
House
Fuel
TENANT FURNISHES
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Labor
One half of Fertilizers
Labor
Work Stock
Food for Stock
Tools
Seed
Three fourths or two thirds of
Fertilizers
Labor
Work Stock
Food for Stock
Tools
Seed
Fertilizers
LANDLORD GETS
One half of crop
One fourth of crop or one third

fixed amount in cash or cotton
of crop
TENANT GETS
One half of crop
Three fourths or two thirds of

entire crop less fixed amount
crop
They go on to describe the way the system functioned to keep Blacks indebted:
As a part of the age-old custom in the South, the landlord keeps the books and
handles the sale of all the crops. The owner returns to the cropper only what is
left over of his share of the profits after deductions for all items which the
landlord has advanced to him during the year: seed, fertilizer, working
equipment, and food supplies, plus interest on all this indebtedness, plus a
theoretical "cost of supervision." The landlord often supplies the food - "pantry
supplies" or "furnish" - and other current necessities through his own store or
commissary. Fancy prices at the commissary, exorbitant interest, and careless
or manipulated accounts, make it easy for the owner to keep his tenants
constantly in debt.
The landowner was -able to manipulate the farmer so that the initial credit extended to the
farmer nearly always resulted in the farmer's going further and further into debt. The
landowners also manipulated the law to enact "measures which compelled the employee to
remain in the service of his employer." Indebtedness thus became the basis of what turned
out to be forced labor, or what is called peonage.
PEONAGE
Carter Woodson described in his 1930 study how the tenancy system gave rise to peonage:
Peonage developed as a most natural consequence of things in the agricultural
South. The large planters constitute a borrowing class. It is customary for
financial institutions to advance for a year sufficient money to cover the
expenses of the landlord and his tenants, the amount being determined on the
basis of one tenant for each twenty acres. The landlord, then, must hold his
tenants by fair or foul means. If they desert him he is bankrupt. Authority,
therefore, must be maintained with overseers using whips and guns to strike
terror to the tenants who are kept down in the most debased condition. Negro
women are prostituted to the white "owners" and drivers; and children are
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permitted to grow up in ignorance with no preparation for anything but

licentiousness and crime.
Often landowners or their agents would go from town to town hiring farm laborers with the
Understanding that they would pay them wages and advance them provisions from the
"company store." Woodson recounted an investigator's report of what would then befall them:
"The laborers arrive and at the outset are indebted to the employer, who sees
that they trade out their wages at the commissary, and in many instances, by
a system of deductions and false entries, manages to keep the laborer
perpetually in debt. If the laborer hap, a family, so much the better for the
employer; they must live out of the commissary and if the laborer runs away
his family are detained at the camp. To enforce the payment of such debts
young children have been withheld from their parents. If the victim escapes
the law is invoked. He is arrested under false pretenses, cheating, swindling,
and false promises. There is usually no actual trial. The arresting officer in
collusion with the planter induces the victim to return to work rather than go to
jail," and "so he returns to bondage with a heavier load of debt to carry, for
the cost of pursuit and arrest is charged to him. Often no process is issued
for arrest, but the employer arrests without process, returns the prisoner to
his labor camp and inflicts severe chastisement. Many of the labor contracts
contain provisions to the effect that the laborer consents to allow himself to
be locked in a stockade at night and at any other time when the employer
sees fit to do thus."
Peonage in its most extreme form could be seen in the chain gang. Woodson described the
process:
The unusual prosperity of the country and, of course, of the South,
necessitated a large labor force. To supply this need it became customary to
fall back on convict labor. The first step in such peonage was the
"benevolent" practice of the white men who would volunteer to pay the fines
of Negroes convicted of minor crimes, and thus get them out of jail. The next
step was to assure, by physical restraint, the working out of the debts thus
incurred. Finally came the cooperation of justices, constables, and other
officials in providing a supply of this forced labor by "law."
Though peonage may not have been practiced by the majority, it did exist in areas of
Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina where rich planters had the political and
social wherewithal to enforce it.
Describing the conditions of the Black agricultural experience, Johnson, Embree, and
Alexander wrote in the 1930s:
For many years, even after Emancipation, black tenants were the rule in the
cotton fields and the determination to "keep the Negro in his place" was, if
anything, stronger after the Civil War than before.... the old "boss and black"
attitude still pervades the whole system. Because of his economic condition,
and because of his race, color, and previous condition of servitude, the rural
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86
Negro is helpless before the white master. Every kind of exploitation and abuse
is permitted because of the old caste prejudice.
MIDDLE-CLASS ASPECTS OF THE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIENCE

The other side of the rural experience was that it did enable Black people to own some things,
while in the slave period they were virtually propertyless. Moreover, while rural farmers didn't
own much, they at least had the possibility of getting out of debt, purchasing a few pieces of
farm equipment a little land, and a decent house, and even saving money. Thus, while the
rural tenancy experience was in the main one of forced labor based on indebtedness (and in
its most severe form, peonage), there was also a "middle-class" aspect to it that makes these
people quite different from the wage worker in the industrial city. Farmers were poor, but they
were usually in day-to-day managerial control of their farm lands, even if they were only
sharecropping. This control was the crucial factor in making the farming experience "middle
class" in that authority and control of work is a middle-class experience,
Black tenants had two choices, to go into debt or to increase their property holdings. To the
extent that the tenant sank into debt, the life of a tenant took on the character of a modern
worker using land and tools owned by someone else to make a living. On the other hand, to
the extent that the tenant was successful and was able to buy land, equipment, and livestock,
life became more secure and independent. This type of self-employment is one of the
traditional bases for the middle class in a capitalist society. Of course all of this was controlled
by the repression of the southern culture of white supremacy and by the terror of the lynch
87
mob. The general pattern was for the tenant to go into debt, but aspire to success. Therefore,
while their objective conditions were approximating an agricultural working class, their
consciousness held out for a middle-class type of life.
THE CHURCH
As will be more fully described in a later chapter, the rural experience was the historical period
in which the social and cultural organization of Black people was developed. This must be
viewed in relationship to the economic character of the Black Belt, and to the forms and
methods of social control and violent repression experienced by Black people. During the
rural period the development of the Black church remained the major factor in the overall
development of the Black community. The church was the central social- institution in which
all forms of social life were organized and regulated. This included moral and social codes for
family life, recreational behavior, orientations towards the problems faced by Black people,
and the solutions to those problems. This is both to the credit and discredit of the church,
because while objectively it is what held Black social life together, it was most often held
together for survival rather than forms of active resistance for positive social change (though
positive changes were made in some cases). Hence, the church was simultaneously the
social basis for two kinds of leadership: militancy and "uncle tomism."
DISFRANCHISEMENT AND SOCIAL REPRESSION
Under slavery the social control of Black people was total and was fully reinforced by all levels
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88
of law, from the federal government to the smallest county or town government in the South.
The Civil War resulted in the emancipation of the slaves, and new federal legislation was
passed giving Black people the right to vote. This newly acquired political enfranchisement
was short-lived however. Robert Allen provides some of the reasons for this:
Black Reconstruction was made possible because Northern businessmen and
politicians supported enfranchising the ex-slaves. This, however, was an
alliance of convenience in which the businessmen and politicians used black
people as pawns in their attempt to consolidate the economic and political
control of the white North over the white South. Black men were given the
vote, not so much out of sense of racial justice as to offset the political power
of the white South. After all, the North had won the war and Northern leaders
were anxious to ensure that their national political hegemony was firmly
established. They believed this could be accomplished by allowing the
freedmen to exercise the franchise within the framework of the Republican
Party. After about ten years, when the North was well on the road to achieving
economic penetration of the South, black people were abandoned by their socalled friends.
Once northerners secured their economic and political dominance of the South, they left white
Southerners alone to deal with Blacks.
From at least 1890 onward, Black disfranchisement was a leading issue, and it helped reunite
the white South, which had been divided over the agrarian reform movement that pitted poor
whites against wealthy landowners and industrialists. "'Political niggerism," as Paul Lewinson
said, "was an issue on which the vast majority of Southerners thought alike." There were two
problems, however. One, the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution specifically stated that
the right to vote could not be denied "on account of race, color, or previous condition of
servitude. Two, any scheme to disfranchise Blacks had to be carefully formulated so that
whites would not also be excluded.
The devices for the political disfranchisement of Black people were soon developed.
Lewinson describes the new tactics that were instituted throughout the South:
They perpetuated, in the first place, certain devices of the statutory election
codes: A poll tax or other taxes must be paid by the applicant for registration.
Registration was to take place months in advance of polling time, and a receipt
for taxes paid must be shown to either registration or election officials, or to
both. It was left to the officials, actually though not necessarily in law, to ask for
these receipts, so that the Negro voter, unused to preserving documents, could
often be disfranchised through sheer carelessness on his part.
Among the new features introduced was the property qualification. This ran to
two or three hundred dollars. One or more alternative qualifications might be
offered by the would-be voter. Crude literacy - reading and writing - was one.
Another was a sort of civic "understanding," tested by the ability to interpret the
State or Federal constitution to the satisfaction of the election officer. "Good
character" might also qualify, when supported by sworn testimonials, or by
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89
evidence of steady employment during a specified preceding period, or by an

affidavit giving the names of employers for a period varying from three to five
years. The property and literacy qualifications cut out large numbers of
Negroes automatically; the alternatives could easily be manipulated by the
officers in charge.
In addition, residence requirements were greatly extended throughout the
Southern States, and the list of crimes involving disfranchisement diversified
until it included petty larceny, wife beating, and similar offenses peculiar to the
Negro's low economic and social status. To, safeguard whites of low
intelligence or small property, the so-called "grandfather clauses" were
devised. For a period of years after the adoption of the respective constitutions,
permanent registration without tax or other prerequisites was secured either to
persons who had the vote prior to 1861 and their descendants; or to persons
who had served in the Federal or Confederate Armies or in the State militias
and to their descendants. This exemption from tests obviously ran only for
whites.
The poll tax, property qualifications, literacy and civic tests, good character and residency
requirements, disqualifications for petty crimes, and the grandfather clauses effectively
blocked the possibility of Blacks' engaging in electoral politics.
The social repression of Black people took on further ominous overtones with the violent
genocidal practice of lynching. Table 8 provides data on the incidences of lynching. These
data, of course, only give a glimmering of an idea of the extent to which Blacks were lynched
since their lynchings often went unrecorded.
Moreover, most data on lynchings were based on a fairly limited definition of lynching:
Any assemblage of three or more persons which shall exercise or attempt to
exercise by physical violence and without authority of law any power of
correction or punishing over any citizen or citizens or other person or persons
in the custody of any peace officer or suspected of, charged with, or convicted
of the commission of any offense, with the purpose or consequence of
preventing the apprehension or trial or punishment by law of such citizen or
citizens, person or persons, shall constitute a 'mob' within the meaning of this
Act. Any such violence by a mob which results in the death or maiming of the
victim or victims thereof shall constitute 'lynching' within the meaning of this
Act: Provided, however, That 'lynching' shall not be deemed to include
violence occurring between members of groups of lawbreakers such as are
commonly designated as gangsters or racketeers, nor violence occurring
during the course of picketing or boycotting or any incident in connection with
any 'labor dispute'...
Many were lynched under circumstances not covered by this definition. The Commission on
Interracial Cooperation in 1942 pointed to two cases highlighting the complications of defining
lynching:
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90
A man is out fishing. He discovers a body on the bank of a creek. It is clearly

evident that the man was murdered. Maybe his body is riddled with bullets his feet wired together, his hands tied behind him, his head bashed in. There
have been no reports of any trouble in the county. Was he lynched or was he
murdered?
Another man has an altercation with his employer over a lost tool, or the
amount of wages due him, or failure to carry out orders. His body is found
one day. It is evident from its condition that the man was put to death. Did he
meet his death at the hands of three or more persons? Was he suspected or
accused of a crime? Were the officers of the law forewarned of his danger
and did they act in collusion with the killers?
Table 8
LYNCHINGS OF WHITES AND BLACKS, 1882-1946
Period
Whites
Blacks
Total
1937-1946
2
42
44
1927-1936
14
136
150
1917-1926
44
419
463
1907-1916
62
608
670
1897-1906
146
884
1,030
1887-1896
548
1,035
1,583
1882-1886*
475
301
776
Totals ......
1,291
3,425
4,716
* Indicates 5 year period. The other intervals are 10 year periods.
Source : Based n Jessie P. Guzman and W. Hardin Huges, Negro Year Book, p.307
As vague as the definitions may have been, it was clear to Black people that they lived under
the constant threat of being killed.
Lynching was not only a specific method of murdering particular individuals, but also was the
basis for developing a pervasive climate of terror and fear that became the cornerstone of the
southern way of life. The logic was clear: Black people would be afraid of being lynched and
therefore would observe the code of conduct informally prescribed by the dictates of white
supremacy.
91
ORGANIZED RESISTANCE
In all societies in all stages of history, where there is oppression there is resistance. Black
people were not completely docile; they found many ways to resist and rebel. Throughout the
Black Belt South individuals and families have resisted attacks, in some cases in courageous
armed confrontation with lynch mobs. However, more significant than this is the pattern of
collective resistance.
The Messenger recognized the importance of collective resistance in its 1919 proposal to
resist lynching, which it saw as the "arch crime of America." It proposed two methods of
76
resistance. The first was the use of physical force:

We are consequently urging Negroes and other oppressed groups confronted
with lynching or mob violence to act upon the recognized and accepted law of
self-defense. Always regard your own life as more important than the life of the
person about to take yours, and if a choice has to be made between the
sacrifice of your life and the loss of the lyncher's life, choose to preserve your
own and to destroy that of the lynching mob....
The Messenger wants to explain the reason why Negroes can stop lynching in
the South with shot and shell and fire...A mob of a thousand men knows it can
beat down fifty Negroes, but when those fifty Negroes rain fire and shot and
shell over the thousand, the whole group of cowards will be put to flight...
The appeal to the conscience of the South has been long and futile, its soul
has been petrified and permeated with wickedness, injustice and lawlessness.
The black man has no rights which will be respected unless the black man
enforces that respect.... In so doing, we don't assume any role of anarchy, nor
any shadow of lawlessness. We are acting strictly within the pale of the law and
in a manner recognized as law abiding by every civilized nation. We are trying
to enforce the laws which American Huns are trampling in the dust, connived in
and winked at by nearly all of the American officials,, from the President of the
United States down...
Whenever you hear talk of lynching, a few hundred of you must assemble
rapidly and let the authorities know that you propose to have them abide by the
law and not violate it... Ask the Governor or the authorities to supply you with
additional arms and under no circumstances should you Southern Negroes
surrender your arms for lynching mobs to come in and have sway. To organize
your work a little more effectively, get in touch with all of the Negroes who were
in the draft. Form little voluntary companies which may quickly be assembled.
Find Negro officers who will look after their direction...When this is done,
nobody will have to sacrifice his life or that of anybody else because nobody is
going to be found who will try to overcome that force.
The second form of resistance that The Messenger proposed was economic force:
Now one of the best ways to strike a man is to strike him in the
pocketbook...Negroes are the chief producers of cotton. They also constitute a
big factor in the South in the production of turpentine, tar, lumber, coal and iron,
transportation facilities and all agricultural produce. They should be thoroughly
organized into unions, whereupon they could make demands and withhold their
labor from the transportation industry and also from personal and domestic
service and the South will be paralyzed industrially and in commercial
consternation...
Industrially, let the farmers organize farmers' protective unions. Let the lumber
workers, moulders, masons plasterers and other Negro workers on railroads
and in mines organize into unions, quietly and unostentatiously. Be prepared
to walk out in concert, every man and woman who does any form of work. Let it
be known that we are down to plain business, free from any foolishness or
play.
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92
Let every Negro in the South begin to work on this program by agitating for it in
the lodges, churches, schools, parlor and home conversation and while at work
in factory or field. Write also to us about any detail in entering upon this
work. If this program is pressed, a year from now, we can call out of the fields,
the factories and the mines between a million and two million Negroes, who will
initiate the true work of making America a real "land of the free and home of the
brave."
While The Messenger's program of physical and economic resistance was a specific
response to lynching, organized resistance to economic oppression had been going on for
some time even though it was plagued with problems.
In the aftermath of Reconstruction and as a reaction to the Depression of 1873, which was
particularly hard on the agrarian South, white farmers had organized the Southern Alliance of
Farmers. Theoretically, the material basis for an alliance was there. Though Blacks faced
greater economic hardship, both Blacks and poor white farmers suffered under the tenant
system.
But as Robert Allen points out, the alliance between the two groups had been thwarted in the
antebellum period:
Although there was much to recommend an alliance between black and white
farmers, several historical factors had contributed to a deep rift between the two
groups. In the first place, many of the poor white farmers were hostile towards
blacks, tending to regard them as economic enemies. The explosive advance of
the cotton plantation system in the decades prior to the Civil War had seriously
undermined the independent small farmers. Unable to compete with the large
planters in cotton production they were inexorably pushed out of the fertile
regions or forced to emigrate to the frontier. Many of these ousted farmers
became the "poor, white trash," "hillbillies," and "crackers" of the mountains and
other inhospitable regions of the South. The class of poor rural whites was
thereby swelled by the growth of the slave plantation system. However, in the
hysterical racist atmosphere cultivated by the big planters, the poor whites were
prone to identify their distress not with the slave system but with the slaves
themselves. The unquestioning acceptance of white supremacy demanded by
the planters and their allies combined with the formers' custom of employing
poor whites as harsh overseers between master and slave contributed
immensely to racial antagonisms. The historic hostility between impoverished
rural white and black populations thus has roots that reach back into the
antebellum period.
This "historic hostility" continued to obstruct any possibility for an alliance, even during the late
1800s when economic conditions worsened for both. Allen pinpoints the reasons for the
failure of the two groups to ally:
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93
[H]istorically, two contradictory dynamics were at work among the white

farmers of the late nineteenth century, one pushing them toward economic and
political alliance with similarly exploited-black farmers, and the second, based
on white supremacy, moving them to economic and political hostility toward
black farmers.
Despite this hostility, the whites who had formed the Southern Alliance and had excluded
Black members realized they needed the support of Black farm workers. They thus helped
organize a separate Black organization, the Colored Farmers' National Alliance and
Cooperative Union.
Some historians have contended that the Colored Alliance "was little more than an
appendage" to the Southern Alliance, but there were differences in their approaches. In 1891,
the Colored Alliance began working on a plan for Black cotton pickers to strike for higher
wages. The president of the Southern Alliance reacted by declaring that Blacks were trying
"to better their conditions at the expense of their white brethren." The white Alliance was not
about to support any radical action that would threaten the interests of white farmers, and it
consistently undermined Black efforts to act independently. As Allen points out:
Underlying this dispute was a difference in class interest between the two
groups. Many of the white farmers, especially the leaders of the agrarian revolt
were farm owners and their ideology tended to be that of a landowning class.
Between white and black farmers, who were overwhelmingly sharecroppers
differing only in degree from landless farm workers, there was a smoldering
class conflict not altogether unlike the contemporary conflict between farm
owners and farm workers...
Black farmers thus were caught in a position of economic and racial conflict
with white farmers and their political representatives. However... the black
farmers lacked a truly independent organization through which they could
develop and articulate their own program. Instead they were reduced to
subservient status in the agrarian reform movement.
94
Although the Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Cooperative Union built up a
membership of over one million Black farmers, its fate was set by the betrayal of white farm
leadership.
Later, a more revolutionary approach was undertaken by organizations like the Southern
Farm Tenant Union and the Sharecroppers Union, most active in the 1930s and 1940s. The
organizations built a membership of Black and white farmers, and were militant enough to
even engage in armed struggle to protect its membership from the "southern justice" of
sheriffs and lynch mobs.
THE DECLINE OF RURAL LIFE: OUTMIGRATION
In the end, the overall dynamic character of industrial capitalism significantly reduced the
demand for agricultural labor and increased the demand for industrial labor. The boll weevil
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95
that invaded the South during the 1920s and 1930s and led to the deflation of land values
helped speed the process of agricultural decline. Particularly during World Wars I and II when
the war industries were at their peak, Black people left the South and headed North. This
exodus is one of the major social disruptions of Black social life, in many ways equal to the
Civil War and Reconstruction.
80
KEY CONCEPTS
Alliance of farmers (white vs. Black)
Black Belt
Disfranchisement
Emancipation experience (Civil War vs.
Reconstruction)
Farming/Agriculture
Lynching
Peonage/Indebtedness
Resistance (physical force vs.
economic force)
Sharecropping
Tenancy
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. What are the different forms of tenancy? Describe the relationship between each type of
tenant and the landowner.
2. Compare peonage to the middle-class aspects of tenant farming.
3. What political and violent methods were used to control and repress Black people during
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96
the rural period? Compare these methods with those that were used during slavery.
4. How did Black people organize resistance to fight against exploitation and repression
during the rural period?
1. Leon F. Litwack, Been in the Storm so Long. The Aftermath of Slavery. New York: Random
House, 1979.
2. Edward Magdol, A Right to the Land: Essays on the Freedmen's Community. Westport:
Greenwood Press, 1977.
3. Jay R. Mandle, The Roots Of Black Poverty.- The Southern Plantation Economy after the
Civil War. Durham: Duke Uni- versity Press, 1978.
4. Roger L. Ransom and Richard Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences
of Emancipation. New York: Cam- bridge University Press, 1977'
5. Theodore Rosengarten, All God's Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1975.
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83
6. THE URBAN EXPERIENCE:

THE PROLETARIANIZATION OF AFRO- AMERICANS .............. 99
The Urbanization of Blacks ....................................
The "New Negro"
...........................................
The Proletarianization of Blacks
......................
Changes in Social and Cultural Life ...........................
Resistance
.......................................................
101
104
107
111
114
SIX
The Urban Experience:
The Proletarianization of Afro-Americans
LOGIC OF
CHANGE
Social
Cohesion
Traditional
Africa
Slavery
Rural
Life
Urban
Life
Social
Disruption
Slave
Trade
Emancipation
Migrations
Ideology
A1
B1
C1
D1
E1
F1
G1
A2
B2
C2
D2
E2
F2
G2
A3
B3
C3
D3
E3
F3
G3
A4
B4
C4
D4
E4
F4
G4
ANALYSIS
Class
Race
The white man turned ...... I'm from up North," he said.... "They need men up
there - good men - all they can get. If Big Mat speaks for this family tell him they
can use him and all the other able menfolks in his house:' . . .
The man reached back in his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills. It was more
money than Chinatown had ever thought was in the world. The permanent grin.
almost left his face as the man shucked off a ten-dollar bill and gave it to him....
"The freight train will stop at Masonville Junction at midnight. That's tonight.
That's where you boys board her for the North."...
Hiding his cheek under one big hand, Mat listened to them tell about the crazy
jackleg. Not one muscle in his body moved, though Chinatown was waving the
bill under his nose....
"What on your mind, Mat?" He took his hand away from his face. A long purple
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99
welt blossomed on his cheek....

"Git the stuff packed," Big Mat said. "We goin' to be at MasonviU6 Junction
'fore midnight.'.' . . .
Saturday morning Big Mat went to the mill a changed man. A- borning in him
was a new confidence....
Through the long, hot hours he would do twice as much work as anybody else.
In competition with white men, he would prove himself...
Without slowing between molds, they took tests of the steel. The sweat ran
into Big Mat's wide-mouthed gloves and made small explosions when it fell on
the hot test steel. Big Mat did not flinch. Alone he held the spoon steady. It took
two hunkies to hold up a spoon. He smiled behind his expressionless face. His
muscles were glad to feel the growing weight of the steel. The work was nothing.
Without labor his body would shrivel and, be a weed. His body was happy. This
was a good place for a big black man to be.
William Attaway, Blood on the Forge, 1941.
It is not only the long house, the small pay, and the lack of privacy - we often
have to share a room with the children - that we maids find hardest to bear. It is
being treated most of the time as though we are completely lacking in human
dignity and self- respect. During my first year at this work I was continually
hopeful. But now I know that when I enter that service elevator I should park my
self-respect along with the garbage that clutters it. Self- respect is a luxury I
cannot retain and still hold my job. My last one was a good example of this....
Lucille and I both met our Waterloo in the following fashion. I had cooked a huge
dinner for many guests - we always had company besides the ordinary family of
five - and it was 9:00 P.M. before we two sat down to our meal, both too tired to
eat.
Suddenly the bell rang furiously and Lucille came back, flushed with anger. "She
say to put the cake right on the ice!"
Soon the bell rang again. "Is that cake on the ice?" called out Mrs. B I sang out. "We've just started our dinner, Mrs. B - Later I said to Lucille: "Does
she think we're horses or dogs that we can eat in five minutes - either a coltie or
a Kiltie?" (Kiltie was the d6g.) Lucille, who loved such infantile jokes, broke into
peals of laughter.
In a second Mrs. B - - was at our side, very angry. She had been eavesdropping in the pantry. "I heard every word you said!"
"Well, Mrs. B - - we're not horses or dogs, and we have been e4fing only five
minutes!"
"You've been a disturbing influence in this house ever since you've been here!"
Mrs. B - - thundered. "Before you came Lucille thought I was a wonderful woman
to work for - and tonight you may take your wages and go. Tomorrow, Lucille,
your aunt is to come, and we shall see whether you go too!" . . .
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100
Jobless, and with only $15 between us and starvation, I still felt a wild sense of
joy. For just a few days I should be free and self- respecting! ...
Naomi Ward, "I Am a Domestic," 1940.
Black people had the opportunity to begin moving out of the South in large numbers and they
did. They moved to the cities of the North and the South, but particularly important was the
move out of the South, and eventually to the cities of the West. The great migrations occurred
during the two world wars when there was a great demand for unskilled labor in northern
industries. Harold Baron captures the essence of what took place during this period:
This new demand for black workers was to set in motion three key
developments: first, the dispersion of black people out of the South into
Northern urban centers; second, the formation of a distinct black proletariat in
the urban centers at the very heart of the corporate-capitalist process of
production; third, the break-up of tenancy agriculture in the South. World War II
was to repeat the process in a magnified form and to place the stamp of
irreversibility upon it.
This is the basis for the Black community that we know today
THE URBANIZATION OF BLACKS
Between 1910 and 1940, the proportion of the Black population residing in urban areas of the
United States increased from 28% to 48.2% (side diagrams below). When the census was first
taken in 1790, Black people were found in large numbers in only four cities: New York,
Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston. After Emancipation, Blacks began migrating to northern
as well as southern cities, but it was World War I that witnessed the mass migrations to
northern cities. "Hostilities in Europe," wrote Baron, "placed limitations on American industry's
usual labor supply by shutting off the flow of [European] immigration at the very time the
demand for labor was increasing sharply due to a war boom and military mobilization." Blacks
thus were drawn into the steel, meat-packing, and auto industries, of northern cities and into
shipbuilding and heavy industry of southern cities. Though post- war demobilization brought
heavy unemployment for Black people, a strong economic recovery and very restrictive
immigration laws in the early 1920s encouraged a second migration out of the South. E.
101
Franklin Frazier notes in The Negro in the United States:
During and following the War there was a great demand for unskilled labor to fill
the gap created when immigrants returned to Europe and immigration from
Europe ceased. At the same time economic conditions in the South growing out
of the tenancy system tended to "push" the Negro out of the South. During 1915
and 1916, crop failures, floods, and the ravages of the boll weevil resulted in the
widespread disorganization of the plantation economy. In a study which was
designed to measure the relative strength of the "pull" of northern industries and
the "push" of southern agriculture, Lewis concluded that the "pull" of the North
was primarily responsible for the migrations.
World War I I gave further impetus to the "pull" of northern cities (see Figures D and E and
Table 9 below). During and following World War II, Blacks for the first time were drawn in large
86
numbers to the west coast where defense industries were located.

In 1950, only 40% of the Black population lived on farms and the number of acres operated
declined 37% to 25.7 million acres. Moreover, in 1950 the United States Census Bureau
reported that for the "nonwhite" population - 95% of which was Black - only 18.4% were
employed as farm workers, with 38% as "blue collar workers" (mainly industrial) and 34% as
"service workers." This transformation of the social form of the Black community - from a pre
dominantly agricultural laboring class in the rural South to an integral sector of the industrial
proletariat more concentrated in the urban North - is one of the most significant social
tranformations in the history of the United States.
87
102
88
103
By the 1970s Black people had become an urban people. In 1890 whites were twice as likely to
be in cities, passing the 50% mark by 1920. However, the World War I and World War II
migrations to the city by Black people, as well as other subsequent developments (sub
urbanization of whites, increased fertility/birth rates and lower mortality/death -rate for Blacks,
etc.), have resulted in Black people today being more urbanized than whites.
THE "NEW NEGRO"

This new urban experience, in combination with their experience in World War I, produced a
new response by Black people in the 1920's.
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104
TABLE 9 CITIES WITH A BLACK POPULATION OF 100,000 OR MORE 1940, 1930, 1920,
1910, and 1900.
CITY
1940
1930
1920
1910
1900
( NORTH )
New York
458,444
91,709
60,666
Chicago
277,731
44,103
30,150
Philadelphia
250,880
84,459
60,613
Detroit
149,119
5,741
4,111
Washington
187,266
94,446
86,702
Baltimore
165,843
84,749
79,258
St. Louis
108,765
43,960
35,516
New Orleans
149,034
89,262
77,714
Memphis
121,498
52,441
49,910
Birmingham
108,938
52,305
16,575
Atlanta
104,533
51,902
35,729
Source: E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro in the United States, p. 230.
There was a new confidence and determination, which can be seen in this editorial W. E. B.
DuBois wrote for The Crisis in 1919:
We return from the slavery -of uniform which the world's madness demanded us to don
to the freedom of civil garb. We stand again to look America squarely in the face and
call a spade a spade. We sing: This country of ours, despite all its better souls have
done and dreamed, is yet a shameful land.
It lynches.
And lynching is barbarism of a degree of contemptible nastiness unparalleled in
human history. Yet for fifty years we have lynched two Negroes a week, and we have
kept this up right through the war.
It disfranchises its own citizens.
Disfranchisement is the deliberate theft and robbery of the only protection of poor
against rich and black against white. The land that disfranchised its citizens and calls
itself a democracy lies and knows it lies.
It encourages ignorance.
It has never really tried to educate the Negro. A dominant minority does not want
Negroes educated. It wants servants, dogs, whores and monkeys. And when this land
allows a reactionary group by its stolen political power to force as many black folk into
these categories as it possibly can, it cries in contemptible hypocrisy: "They threaten
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us with degeneracy; they cannot be educated."

It steals from us.
It organizes industry to cheat us. It cheats us out of our land; it cheats us out of our
labor. It confiscates our savings. It reduces our wages. It raises our rent' It steals our
profit. It taxes us without representation. It keeps us consistently and universally poor,
and then feeds us on charity and derides our poverty. '
It insults us.
It has organized a nationwide and latterly a worldwide propaganda of deliberate and
continuous insult and defamation of black blood wherever found. It decrees that it shall
not be possible in travel nor residence, work nor play, education nor instruction for a
black man to exist without tacit or open acknowledgment of his inferiority to the dirtiest
white dog. And it looks upon any attempt to question or even discuss this dogma as
arrogance, unwarranted assumption and treason.
This is the country to which we Soldiers of Democracy return. This is the fatherland for
which we fought! ... But by the God of Heaven, we are cowards and jackasses if now
that that war is over, we do not marshal every ounce of our brain and, brawn to fight a
stern", longer, more unbending battle against the forces of hell in our own Ian
We return.
We return from fighting.
We return fighting.
Make way for Democracy!
A new term developed for this confident and determined Black - the "New Negro."
In 1920, The Messenger outlined the aims of the "New Negro" so that the general public
would have a "definite and clear portrayal":
In politics, the New Negro, unlike the Old Negro, cannot be lulled into a false
sense of security with political spoils and patronage. A job is not the price of his
vote. He will not continue to accept political provisory notes from a political
debtor, who has already had the power, but who has refused to satisfy his
political obligations. The New Negro demands political equality. He recognizes
the necessity of selective as well as elective representation. He realizes that so
long as the Negro votes for the Republican or Democratic party, he will have only
the right and privilege to elect but not to select his representatives. And he who
selects the representatives controls the representatives. The New Negro stands
for universal suffrage.
A word about the economic aims of the New Negro. Here, as a worker, he
demands the full product of his toll. His immediate aim is more wages, shorter
hours and better working conditions. As a consumer, he seeks to buy in the
market, commodities at the lowest possible price.
The social aims of the New Negro are decidedly different from those of the Old
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Negro. Here he stands for absolute and unequivocal "social equality." He realizes
that there cannot be any qualified equality. He insists that a society which is
based upon justice can only be a society composed of social equals. He insists
upon identity of social treatment.
It went on to specify the methods for achieving these goals:
First, the methods by which the New Negro expects to realize his political aims
are radical. He would repudiate and discard both of the old parties - Republican
and Democratic. His knowledge of political science enables him to see that a
political organization must have an economic foundation. A party whose money
comes from working people, must and will represent working people. Now,
everybody concedes that the Negro is essentially a worker. There are no big
capitalists among them. There are a few petit bourgeoisie, but the process of
money concentration is destined to weed them out and drop them down into the
ranks of the working class. In fact, the interests of all Negroes are tied up with the
workers. Therefore, the Negro should support a working class political party. He
is a fool or insane, who opposes his best interests by supporting his enemy. As
workers, Negroes have nothing in common with their employers. The Negro
wants high wages; the employer wants to pay low wages. The Negro wants to
work short hours; the employer wants to work him long hours. Since this is true, it
follows as a logical corollary that the Negro should not support the party of the
employing class. Now, it is a question of fact that the Republican and Democratic
Parties are parties of the employing or capitalist class.
On the economic field, the New Negro advocates that the Negro join the labor
unions. Wherever white unions discriminate against the Negro worker, then the
only sensible thing to do is to form independent unions to fight both the white
capitalists for more wages and shorter hours, on the one hand, and white labor
unions for justice, on the other, It is folly for the Negro to fight labor organization
because some white unions ignorantly ignore or oppose him. It is about as logical
and wise as to repudiate and condemn writing on the ground that it is used by
some crooks for forgery.
As a consumer, he would organize cooperative societies to reduce the high, cost
of living.
The social methods are: education and physical action in self defense. That
education must constitute the basis of all action, is beyond the realm of question.
And to fight back in self defense, should be accepted as a matter of course...
Finally, the New Negro arrived upon the scene at the time of other forward,
progressive, groups and movements - after the great world war. He is the product
of the same world wide forces that have brought into being the great liberal and
radical movements that are now seizing the reins of political, economic and social
power in all of the civilized countries of the world.
His presence is inevitable in these times of economic chaos, political upheaval
and social distress. Yes, there is a New Negro. And it is he who will pilot the
Negro through this terrible hour of storm and stress.
Most of this energy was generated in and focused on the urban environment - with mixed
results, as will be seen later in the chapter.
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THE PROLETARIANIZATION OF BLACKS

The urban experience for Black people was similar to that of any other formerly rural and poor
people. The city was a relatively small place where large numbers of people lived and therefore
social and cultural activities were intensified. Moreover, the economic basis for all of this was
significantly different from the rural experience.
Black people were transformed into wage workers with little opportunity to be self-employed or
to own the means of making a living (like a piece of land) in an independent way. In the city
virtually everyone worked for someone else. Unlike white workers, however, Blacks in the city
were the "last hired and the first fired" so that the vicious pattern of rural discrimination
persisted in a new form in the urban environment.
Initially, there continued to be jobs that were occupied by Black people only. As Harold Baron
has pointed out :
In industry generally the black worker was almost always deployed in job
categories that effectively became designated as "Negro jobs.". . . The
superintendent of a Kentucky plough factory expressed the Southern view:
"Negroes do work white men won't do, such as common labor; heavy, hot, and dirty
work; pouring crucibles; work in the grinding room; and so on. Negroes are
employed because they are cheaper. . . . The Negro does a different grade of work
and makes about $.10 an hour less." There was not a lot of contrast in the words of
coke works foremen at a Pennsylvania steel mill: "They are well fitted for this hot
work, and we keep them because we appreciate this ability in them.". "The door
machines and the jam cutting are the most undesirable; it is hard to get white men
to do this kind of work."
Certainly there was a limit beyond which black people couldnt go, at least in large numbers. In
other words, there was a job ceiling that existed in both the North and the South, as Baron aptly
describes:
In the North there was some blurring of racial distinctions, but they remained strong
enough to get the black labor force off quite clearly. While the pay for the same job
in the same plant was usually equivalent, when blacks came to predominate in a
specific job classification, the rate on it would tend to lag. White and black workers
were often hired in at the same low job classification; however for the whites
advancement was often possible, while the blacks soon bumped into a job ceiling.
In terms of day-to-day work, white labor was given a systematic advantage over
black labor and a stake in the racist practices....
In the South, where four-fifths of nation's black population still lived at the end of
the 1920s, the situation of black labor was to all appearances essentially
unchanged.... Black workers were concentrated in stagnant or declining plants,
such as sawmills, coal mines, and cigar and tobacco factories. The increased hiring
of blacks in such places was chiefly a reflection of the fact that the jobs had no
future and the employers were not able to attract white workers. Black employment
in textiles was severely limited, as in South Carolina, where state law forbade
blacks to work in the same room, use the same stairway, or even share the same
factory window as white textile workers.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s as Blacks continued to migrate to the cities, they were forced
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into "Negro jobs," which became workplace ghettos. St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton
described the situation in their 1945 study:
....the bulk of the Negro population became concentrated in the lower- paid,
menial, hazardous, and relatively unpleasant jobs. The employment policy of
individual firms, trade-union restrictions, and racial discrimination in training and
promotion made it exceedingly difficult for them to secure employment in the
skilled trades, in clerical or sales work, and as foremen and managers. Certain
entire industries had a "lily-white" policy - notably the public utilities, the electrical
manufacturing industry, and the city's banks and offices.
Ira De A. Reid, who was on the Social Security Board, further detailed the plight
of Black workers:
Blind alley occupations for workers who have latent capacity for other jobs is, the
rule rather than the exception among Negro workers. For the Negro there is little
encouragement and less opportunity for promotion. Success stories of rises from
laborer to superintendent and manager are few. Opportunities for training are
even more restricted. Apprenticeships are few and other opportunities for trade
training rare. Schools do not see the wisdom of training Negro pupils in skilled
crafts because there is no opportunity for placing them after they have been
trained. Employers will not hire them because they have no training. The vicious
circle continues when a privileged few do received the training or the required
apprenticeship only to find that white workers refuse to accept them as fellow
workmen. Strikes have been waged on this account. Union workers have been
known to walk off the jobs when a Negro fellow unionist was employed.
Baron takes us one step further and analyzes the process by which Black people were
proletarianized during this period:
As the size of the black population in big cities grew, "Negro jobs" became
roughly institutionalized into an identifiable black sub-labor market within the
larger metropolitan labor market. The culture of control that was embodied in the
regulative systems which managed the black ghettos, moreover, provided an
effective, although less-rigid, variation of the Jim Crow segregation that continued
with hardly any change in the South. Although the economic base of black
tenancy was collapsing, its reciprocal superstructure of political and social,
controls remained the most-powerful force shaping the place of blacks in society.
The propertied and other groups that had a vested interest in the special
exploitation of the black peasantry were still strong enough to maintain their
hegemony over matters concerning race. At the same time, the variation of Jim
Crow that existed in the North was more than simply a carry-over from the
agrarian South. These ghetto controls served the class function for industrial
society of politically and socially setting off that section of the proletariat that was
consigned to the least desirable employment. This racial walling off not only was
accomplished by direct ruling-class actions, but also was mediated through an
escalating reciprocal process in which the hostility and competition of the white
working class was stimulated by the growth of the black proletariat and in return
operated as an agent in shaping the new racial controls.
This general pattern of restricting Black people to working-class jobs - and the lowest level of
these jobs at that - is known as the proletarianization of Blacks.
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Not surprisingly, racial tension was quick to emerge in the urban areas, as employers promoted
competition for jobs and used Black workers as strikebreakers against the white working class.
"When the conflict erupted into mass violence," Baron observes, "the dominant whites sat back
and resolved the crises in a manner that assured their continued control over both groups."
During the depression years, Black people were in dire economic straits in the industrialized
urban areas as millions were thrown out of work:
In the first years of the slump, black unemployment rates ran about two- thirds
greater than white unemployment rates. As the depression wore on, the relative
position of the black labor force declined so that by the end of the decade it had
proportionately twice as many on relief or unemployed in the Mid-Atlantic States,
and two and a half times as many in the North Central States. In the Northern
cities only half the black men had regular full-time employment. In the larger
cities, for every four black men in full- time regular employment there was one
engaged in government-sponsored emergency relief The differential in the South
was not as great, for much of the unemployment there was disguised by marginal
occupations on the farms.
But, as Baron points out, "Two somewhat contradictory results stood out for this period. First,
whites were accorded racial preference as a greatly disproportionate share of unemployment
was placed on Black workers. Second, despite erosion due to the unemployment differential,
the black sub-sectors of the urban labor markets remained intact." Thus, despite the fact that
Black people suffered disproportionately during the Great Depression, they continued to adhere
as a permanent part of the urban work force, albeit at the lowest levels.
As the country geared up for World War II, initially "the black unemployed had to stand aside
while the whites went to work." However, increased military mobilization finally swept Blacks
back into the industrial work force:
The vast demand for labor in general, that had to turn itself into a demand for
black labor, could only be accomplished by way of a great expansion of the black
sectors of metropolitan labor markets. Training programs for upgrading to skilled
and semiskilled jobs were opened up, at first in the North and later in the South....
World War I had established a space for black laborers as unskilled workers in
heavy industry . During World War II this space was enlarged to include a number
of semi-skilled and single-skilled jobs in many industries.
World War II marked the most-dramatic improvement in economic status of black
people that has ever taken place in the urban industrial economy. . , .
Occupationally, blacks bettered their positions in all of the preferred occupations.
The biggest improvement was brought about by the migration from South to North
(a net migration of 1,600,000 blacks between 1940 and 1950). However within
both sections the relative proportion of blacks within skilled and semi-skilled
occupations grew. In clerical and lower-level professional work, labor shortages in
the government bureaucracies created a necessity for a tremendous black
upgrading into posts hitherto lily-white.
Though Blacks continued to face severe discrimination in employment following World War
II, the overall structure of the Black work force had been significantly altered (see Chapter 7).
During the first half of the 20th century, Black men had been able to move from strictly unskilled
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labor positions into some skilled labor jobs, mainly as operatives. Black women, particularly
later during the 1960s and 1970s, moved from domestic positions into service positions.
On the whole, the discrimination that Black people confronted in the northern cities during
the first half of the 20th century was less than that of the rural experience, but in some respects
it was greater. There was more apparent social equality, the work paid more, and there was a
great deal more to do in the course of normal everyday life. However, life was cold and
impersonal, prices were higher, and there was much greater relative deprivation. In the city a
poor Black person was closer to wealth though without it. It was easier to be without something
in the South because Black people there were quite distant from the general wealth of the
middle and ruling classes (except for the domestic servants, who were similar to the house
slaves), and because of the legacy of slavery.
. The main process of life in the cities had to do with the increased industrialization of Black
workers. This process represented:
1. an increase in the skill level of Black workers;
2. an increase in the pay of Black people, especially since both world wars resulted in Black
women getting factory jobs too, making a great deal more money than they had ever made
before (though it should be noted that Black women were pushed out of their jobs immediately
following both wars);
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3. an increased association with white workers on a more equal basis, resulting in positive
association in comparison with the more blatant racism and oppression that had been the
common experience in the South.
The most important aspect of the urban experience for Black people was their
proletarianization.
CHANGES IN SOCIAL AND CULTURAL LIFE
The northern urban experience also meant that social and cultural life was quite different.
Urbanization brought about the functional differentiation of social life in which the church
ceased to be the main and central social institution. In the city, each social and cultural activity
had its own institution that was more often than not divorced from the church. Either the activity
was set up by the government (like public education and public assistance programs), or it was
simply the activity of private enterprise (e.g., recreation - movies, bowling, dance halls, bars,
etc. - and insurance, health care, death benefits, etc.).
The cultural life of Black people took a tremendous leap forward in the city, both in quantity
and quality. Immediately after the World War I migrations, while the automobile and predepression prosperity of the U.S.A. created the "roaring 20's," Black people in Harlem had a
112
cultural renaissance (rebirth). In every decade since, Black art and culture have advanced in
waves. (See Chapter 9, "Black Culture and the Arts.") All of this has two tendencies: (1) more
and more Black people have assimilated the dominant culture, become proficient, and in some
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cases, expert; and (2) the mass culture of Black people has changed to express the urban
working-class experience (rather than the rural tenant experience) and has achieved a
universal appeal that has continued to make a significant impact on all U.S. culture and most
peoples throughout the world.
In the city Black people faced discrimination in housing so that segregated Black
neighborhoods were formed This approximated the rural experience in the South so closely
that in Chicago, for example, the South Side was called Chicago's Black Belt. In 1919, Walter
F. White observed:
Much has been written and said concerning the housing situation in Chicago and
its effect on the racial situation. The problem is a simple one. Since 1915 the
colored population of Chicago has more than doubled, increasing in four years
from a little over 50,000 to what is now estimated to be between 125,000 and
150,000.... Already overcrowded this so called "Black Belt" could not possibly hold
the doubled colored population. One cannot put ten gallons of water in five-gallon
pail.
Although many Negroes had been living in "white" neighborhoods, the increased
exodus from the old areas created an hysterical group of persons who formed
"Property Owners' Associations" for the purpose of keeping intact white
neighborhoods .... Early in June the writer, while in Chicago, attended a private
meeting ... Various plans were discussed for keeping the Negroes in "their part
of the town," such as securing the discharge of colored persons from positions
they held when they attempted to move into "white" neighborhoods, purchasing
mortgages of Negroes buying homes and ejecting them when mortgage notes fell
due and were unpaid and many more of the same caliber. The language of many
speakers was vicious and strongly prejudicial and had the distinct effect of
creating race bitterness.
In a number of cases, during the period from January 1918 to August 1919, there
were bombings of colored homes and houses occupied by Negroes outside of the
"Black Belt." During this period no less than twenty bombings took place, yet only
two persons have been arrested and neither of the two has been convicted, both
cases being continued.
Writing in 1945, St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton described what took place in Chicago in the
intervening years:
The Job Ceiling subordinates Negroes but does not segregate them. Restrictive
covenants do both. They confine Negroes to the Black Belt, and they limit the
Black Belt to the most rundown areas of the city. There is a tendency, too, for the
Negro communities to become the dumping ground for vice, poor-quality
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merchandise, and inferior white city officials. Housing is allowed to deteriorate

and social services are generally neglected. Unable to procure homes in other
sections of the city, Negroes congregate in the Black Belt...
They went on to analyze how segregated housing led to further social and
cultural segregation:
The conflict over living space is an ever-present source of potential violence. It
involves not only a struggle for houses, but also competition for school and
recreational facilities, and is further complicated by the fact that Negroes of the
lowest socioeconomic levels are often in competition with middle class whites for
an area. Race prejudice becomes aggravated by class antagonisms, and classfeeling is often expressed in racial terms.
Residential segregation is not only supported by the attitudes of white people
who object to Negro neighbors - it is also buttressed by the internal structure of
the Negro community. Negro politicians and businessmen, preachers and civic
leaders, all have a vested interest in maintaining a solid and homogeneous Negro
community where their clientele is easily accessible. Black Metropolis, too, is an
object of pride to Negroes of all social strata. It is their city within a city. It is
something "of our own" It is concrete evidence. of one type of freedom - freedom
to erect a community in their own image. Yet they remain ambivalent about
residential segregation: they see a gain in political strength and group solidarity,
but they resent being compelled to live in a Black Belt.
Chicago's Black Belt merely exemplified what was happening to Black people in urban areas
throughout the United States.
Based on this geographical concentration, new ways were developed to oppress Black
people through city agencies organized on geographical lines. In the areas of public education,
police protection, parks and public recreational facilities, water and sewage disposal, garbage
collection, public health, and public transportation, Black people were confronted with
discrimination that was not compensated for by the existence of a Black community. By coming
to the city, Black people did not escape oppression; they merely had to face it in a new form.
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RESISTANCE
Black people fought against these new attacks against them. While geographic
concentration enabled the ruling class to orchestrate new forms of oppression more effectively,
it also enabled Black people to fight back with more intensity, more force. Throughout their
urban experience, Black people have combined political pressure with such techniques as
boycotts, picketing, marches, demonstrations, and occasional violence to achieve their ends.
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Table 10 provides some examples of the means by which Black people in Chicago fought and
the outcome of their struggles from 1929 to 1944.
Table 10
THE STRUGGLE FOR JOBS IN CHICAGO
Campaigns
Date
Groups Involved
"Spend Your
Money Where
You Can Work"
Campaign
(directed
at stores in the
Black Belt)
1929
Sponsored by Negro
Professionals -and
Businessmen. (Led
Boycott;
by white Race
picketing,
Radicals, with broad
community support)
Successful:
2,000 jobs in Black
Belt stores
51st Street
Riot (directed
at white
laborers)
1930
Spontaneous
outburst, by laborers
Successful
1929 - 38
Picketing;
Consolidated Trades
political
Partial success with
Council - group of
pressure ; some advent of New Deal
Negro artisans
violence
1937
Negro Labor
Relations League group of young men
and women; some
cooperation from
Urban League and
Politicians
Threat of
boycott
1937
Negro Labor
and women; some
cooperation from
Urban League and
politicians
Conference;
Eight managers
implied threat of
appointed
boycott
Fight for
Skilled Jobs
on
Construction in
Black Belt
(directed at
AFL building
trades unions)
Fight for
Branch
Managers with
Daily Times
Fight for
Branch
Managers,
Evening
American
Technique
Violence
99
Outcome
Six
managers appointed
after one week
campaign
115
Campaign for
Motion Picture
Operators in
Black Belt
1938
(Directed
against AFL
Unions)
Negro Labor
and women; some
cooperation from
Urban League and
politicians
Ten operators
Picketing; threat
appointed after short
of boycott
campaign
Campaign for
Telephone
Operators (
directed
against phone
company)
Negro Labor
and women; some
cooperation from
Urban League and
politicians
Treat that all

Negros would
remove
telephones
Drive for Negro

Milkmen
(directed
1929 - 39
against major
dairies and
AFL unions )
Fight begun by Whip;

revived in 1937 by
Council of Negro
Organizations and
Negro Labor
Relations League
Threat of
boycott; attempt Unsuccessful due to
to organize
lack of community
"Milkless
support
Sunday"
Campaign for
bus drivers and
1930 - 44
motormen on
transit lines
"United front with

strong leftwing
influence; campaign
aided by FEPC
Demonstrations;
threat of
Successful in
boycott; strong securing a few
political
positions
pressure
1937 - 39
Unsuccessful ; threat
not carried out fully
Source: St. Clair Drake and Horace R- Cayton, Black Metropolis, p. 743.
Elsewhere Blacks also took up militant means. The 1935 riot that broke out in Harlem
marked "the first time blacks moved ion and employed violence on a retaliatory basis against
white storeowners," as Baron observed. It was a technique that was to be used in later years.
Another one of the ways to struggle was based on the concentration of buying power. Black
people used their money to force merchants to hire Black people by shopping only where Black
people worked. During the 1920s, Black bourgeois leaders organized "Don't Buy Where You
Can't Work" campaigns to gain jobs in white firms operating in the ghettos. Later, the Doctrine
of the Double-Duty Dollar was preached, often from the pulpit. St' Clair Drake and Horace
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Cayton described -in 1945 the meaning of this doctrine and its importance to the Black
community:
It is Sunday morning in the "black belt " The pastor of one of the largest churches
has just finished his morning prayer. There is an air of quiet expectancy, and then a most unusual discourse begins. The minister, in the homely, humorous style so
often affected by Bronzeville's "educated" leaders when dealing with a mass
audience, is describing a business exposition:
"The Business Exposition at the Armory was one of the finest achievements of our
people in the history of Chicago. Are there any members of the Exposition
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Committee here? If so, please stand. [A man stands.] Come right down here where
you belong; we've got a seat right here in front for you. This man is manager of the
Apex Shoe Store - the shoes that I wear.. We can get anything we want to wear or
eat from Negroes today. If you would do that it would not only purchase the
necessities of life for you, but would open positions for your young folks. You can
strut as much as you want to and look like Miss Lizze [an upper-class white
person], but you don't know race respect if you don't buy from Negroes. As soon as
these white folks get rich on the South Side, they go and live on the Gold Coast,
and the only way you can get in is by washing their cuspidors. Why not go to
Jackson's store, even if you don't want to buy nothing but a gingersnap? Do that
and encourage those girls working in there. Go in there and come out eating. Why
don't you do that?"
This is the doctrine of the "Double-Duty Dollar," preached from many Bronzeville
pulpits as a part of the weekly ritual. Church newspapers, too, carry advertisements
of all types of business from "chicken shacks" to corset shops. Specific
businessmen are often pointed out to the congregations as being worthy of
emulation and support, and occasional mass meetings stress the virtues of buying
from Negroes - of making the dollar do "double-duty": by both purchasing a
commodity and "advancing The Race." The pastor quoted above had been even
more explicit in an address before the Business Exposition crowd itself:
"Tomorrow I want all of YOU people to go to these stores. Have your shoes
repaired at a Negro shop, buy your groceries from a Negro grocer ... and for God's
sake, buy your meats, pork chops, and yes, even your chitterlings, from a Negro
butcher. On behalf of the Negro ministers of Chicago I wish to commend these
Negro businessmen for promoting such an affair, and urge upon you again to
patronize your own, for that is the only way we as a race will ever get anywhere."' .
..
This endorsement of business by the church simply dramatizes, and brings the
force of sacred, sanctions to bear upon, slogans that the press, the civic
organizations, and even the social clubs repeat incessantly, emphasizing the duty
of Negroes to trade with Negroes and promising ultimate racial "salvation" if they
will support racial business enterprises....
To the Negro community, a business is more than a mere enterprise to make profit
for the owner. From the standpoints of both the customer and the owner it becomes
a symbol of racial progress, for better or for worse.
In addition to these consumer boycotts, mass protests were organized in many different
ways. For instance, in January of 1941, A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of
Sleeping Car Porters, an all-Black union, called for a massive march on Washington. The
March on Washington Movement received sufficient support to force President Roosevelt to
establish a Fair Employment Practice Committee in exchange for calling off the march.
"Although this movement was not able to establish a firmly-organized class base or sustain
itself for long," Harold Baron maintains, "it foreshadowed a new stage of development for a
self-conscious working class with the appeal that an oppressed people must accept the
responsibility and take the initiative to free themselves." The March on Washington Movement
triggered off a long history of marches on Washington that continue to this day.
Lastly, and most importantly, since Black people were becoming workers, the fight against
discrimination was aimed at racist practices by both industry and segregated unions. This took
its most advanced form in the 1930s with the development of the Congress of Industrial
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Organizations (the CIO) and campaigns in such basic industries as steel and automobile
production. In the next chapter, we will take up in more detail the experiences of Black people
as industrial workers in urban centers.
KEY CONCEPTS
Consumer boycott
"New" Negro
Double Duty Dollar
Push/Pull
Ghetto
Proletarianization
Migration
Urban Black Belt
"Negro jobs"/Job ceiling
Urbanization/Suburbanization
STUDY QUESTIONS
I. Why did Black people migrate to the cities, particularly the northern industrial cities? How was
the agricultural experience of Black people similar to and different from the industrial
experience?
2. What kinds of jobs did Black people get in the city?
3. What were the major forms of discrimination and oppression experienced by Black people in
the city?
4. How did Black people fight back during this period?
1. Constance McLaughlin Green, The Secret City: A History of Race Relations in the Nation's
Capital. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967.
2. Theodore Kornweibel, Jr., In Search of the Promised Land: Essays in Black Urban History.
Port Washington: Kennikat Press, 1981.
3. Hollis R. Lynch, The Black Urban Condition: A Documentary History, 1866-1971. New York:
Thomas Y. Crowell, 1973.,
4. Gilbert Osofsky, Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto. New York: Harper and Row, 1966.
5, Allen H. Spear, Black Chicago: The Making of a Negro Ghetto 1890-1920. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1967.
102
118
7. BLACK WORKERS AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT
.............. 121
Black People in the Work Force ...........................

Scabs
............................................................
"Shit-Work"
......................................................
Labor Reserve
.................................................
Black Workers and Organized Resistance .................
122
123
124
124
128
103
Early National Unions: NLU, CNLU, and the Knights ...

.................................
...........................
A National Black Union.- The Brotherhood ................
Radicalism: American Negro Labor Congress and
Unemployed Councils
.....................................
Reactionary Forces: AFL-CIO Merger .....................
Black Militancy
................................................
Black Revolutionary Union Movement:
DRUM, the League, BWC
.................................
....................................
128
130
130
132
133
135
137
137
140
142
SEVEN
Black Workers and the Labor Movement

LOGIC OF
CHANGE
Social
Cohesion
Traditional
Africa
Slavery
Rural
Life
Urban
Life
Social
Disruption
Slave
Trade
Emancipation
Migrations
Ideology
A1
B1
C1
D1
E1
F1
G1
A2
B2
C2
D2
E2
F2
G2
A3
B3
C3
D3
E3
F3
G3
A4
B4
C4
D4
E4
F4
G4
ANALYSIS
Class
Race
104
"I may not be a red," he said as he banged on the bar, "but sometimes I see
red '"
"What do you mean?"
"The way some of these people a man has to work for talks to a man, I see
red. The other day my boss come saying to me that I was laying down on
the job - when all I was doing was thinking about Joyce. I said, 'What do you
mean, laying down on the job? Can't you see me standing up?'
"The boss said, 'You ain't doing as much work as you used to do: "I said, 'A
Dollar don't do as much buying for me as it used to do, so I don't do as
much for a Dollar. Pay me some more money, and I will do more work!"
"What did he say then?"
"He said, 'You talk like a red.'
"I said, 'What do you mean, red?'
"He said, 'You know what I mean - red, communist. After all this country has
done for you Negroes, I didn't think you'd turn out to be a red:
"I said, 'In my opinion, a man can be any color except yellow. I'd be yellow if
I did not stand up for my rights.'
"The boss said, 'You have no right to draw wages and not
work.'
"I said, 'I have done work, I do work, and I will
work - but also a man is due to eat for his work, to have some clothes, and a
roof over his head. For what little you are paying me, I can't hardly keep
body and soul together. Don't you reckon I have a soul?' I said.
"Boss said, 'I have nothing to do with your soul. All I am concerned about is
your work. You are talking like a communist, and I will not have no reds in
my plant.' ....
"'Well, if you fire me, I will be a red for sure, because I see red this morning.
I will see the union, if you fire me,' I said.
"'Just go and do your work", he said, and walked off. But I was hot, pal! I'm
telling you! But he did not look back. He didn't want to have no trouble out of
that union!' .
Langston Hughes, "When a Man Sees Red:' 1940.
Deep in the gloom of the fire-filled pit
Where the Dodge rolls down the line,
We challenge the doom while dying in shit
While strangled by a swine....
For hours and years with sweated tears.
Trying to break our chain....
But we broke bur backs and died in packs
To find our manhood slain....
But now we stand for DRUM's at hand
To lead our freedom fight,
And now till then we'll unite like men
For now we know our might....
And damn the plantations and the whole Dodge nation....
For DRUM has dried our tears....
And now as we die we have a different cry
For now we hold our spears!
UAW is scum....
OUR THING IS DRUM!!!
Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement, "Our Thing is DRUM," 1968
105
121
As we have consistently pointed out, the role of Black people since the beginning of
slavery in the United States has been to work, to produce goods, and to provide services.
This, of course, is the task forced on the vast majority of people in the U.S.A. - white,
Puerto Rican, Chicano, Native American, various nationalities from Asia (Chinese,
Japanese, Filipino, etc.), and Black people. As with other oppressed nationalities, Black
people have worked under the double oppression of being exploited as workers and
oppressed as Black people. For Black women, there has been a triple oppression: as a
worker, as a Black, and as a woman. The most important social content of Black history
reveals the struggle against these attacks. Finally, it is only when all of these aspects of the
suffering of Black people are fought, when Black people and all oppressed and exploited
people unite to overthrow all forms of oppression, that freedom, justice, and equality will be
achieved by all people. This is the most important lesson to learn from Afro-American
Studies.
BLACK PEOPLE IN THE WORK FORCE

The experiences of Black workers reflects the general trends of the overall U.S. economy.
This means that up to the 20th century, most industries needed a great deal of workers,
especially unskilled workers. For Black people, of course, this meant agricultural work until
World War II. However, during the 1940s and 1950s, the use of tractors and other
machines, the rural electrification program, and the use of chemical fertilizers meant that
the need for agricultural labor was drastically reduced. While technological innovation was
occurring in industry as well, it has not had the effect of significantly reducing the need for
labor. Some writers use scare tactics and try to prove that industrial workers are obsolete
and no longer needed because of automation. (For this view applied to Black people, see
Sam Yette, The Choice, and Sidney Wilhelm, Who Needs the Negro.) But by examining
occupational statistics, and by taking up discussions with working- class people, this view is
easily proved absurd.
106
122
We can generally date the origin of the Black industrial worker to the early 20th century,
especially after the World War I migration to northern cities. By this time, some advances
had been made by Black males in industrial employment. Particularly important are the
struggles to gain employment in basic industry, like automobile and steel production, and
the struggles to gain full membership in the trade unions. A significant difference exists in
the experience of men and women Black workers. During World War II , Black women
workers made a slight shift from domestic service household work into low-level clerical
jobs and industrial factory jobs. After the war, both Black men and women faced the
perennial experiences of Black workers, "the last hired, and the first fired'"
Black workers have been used in three main ways: as scabs to break strikes, as low-status
labor for "shit work," and as a labor reserve.
123
Scabs
A scab is a person who agrees to work on a job when the regular workers are out on strike.
Workers strike (i.e., refuse to work) when they are not paid enough or when they don't have
proper health conditions in the work place, retirement benefits, etc. At various times,
especially during the working-class militancy of the early trade-union experience, Black exsharecroppers were used as scabs. The main force behind this was the economic
necessity of getting a better job, and the fact that most of the working-class organizations
were as racist as the capitalist factory owners. The history of the trade union movement is
both positive and negative. While Black people have often gotten their start in an industry
as scabs, once inside an industry the Black worker has become more of a trade unionist
than the average U.S. worker.
107
"Shit Work"
Once hired, Black workers get assigned to the worst jobs. Most workers call undesirable
jobs, dirty and dangerous jobs, "shit work:' This is particularly hard for Blacks since even
these jobs are often the best jobs available for Blacks. The low status of Black employment
is suggested by a list of over twenty-five jobs at least 15% -Black (i.e., jobs with a high
concentration of Blacks). Table 11 is dominated by service jobs, indicating another
mechanism that keeps Black workers in low-income levels.
Labor Reserve
In response to a recurring imbalance between the demand and supply for industrial
workers, capitalists try to keep a reserve of labor to call up when necessary. This labor
reserve is the general source for scabs and people to do the shit work. In the meanwhile,
the labor reserve is usually channeled into four main areas:
Armed Forces - In World War I and II, Blacks were discriminated against in the armed
forces so they worked in jobs left open when white males went to war. However, the postVietnam period has radically reversed this trend. There is now a high concentration of
Blacks in the armed services, as indicated in Table 12.
Now, over one-third of those in the army are Black and over one-fifth of those in the armed 124
forces are Black. But Blacks have been getting the same treatment inside the armed
service as in the general society. They are underrepresented in the officer corps (i.e.,
leadership positions). Moreover, while in 1979 Blacks were 32.2% of the army, Blacks were
51.2% of the army prison population. Also, one can easily make the case that during the
Vietnam War, Blacks were being used as cannon fodder until the Black liberation
movement fought for change (see Table 13). The fact that Black soldiers reenlisted at more
than three times the rate for whites (66.59% to 20%) after their first term of service might be
explained by the difficulties Blacks have in finding employment outside the military.
Unemployment - This is the main context for the accumulation of the labor reserve, Since
the end of World War 11, Black people have suffered with an unemployment rate twice that
of whites (see Table 14). According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, during the first
quarter of 1984, there were 1,949,000 Black people a majority of teenage Blacks out of
work. Many will never hold a job unless major changes, occur.
Social Welfare - The government has a few programs by which people who qualify receive
a monthly government check. These are either to support someone who has worked
(social security, , health benefits, veterans benefits, etc.) or to protect those who can't find a
job (unemployment compensation, aid to dependent children, etc.). Black people are
disproportionately recipients of family/children support, as indicated in Table 15, but they
are often cut out of others.
Table 11
SELECTED OCCUPATIONS WITH HIGH % OF BLACKS, 1980
108
125
Occupation
% of Black and Other
Moderate household cleaners and servants
5304
Nursing aides, orderlies and attendants
28.8
Cleaning service workers
27.5
Laundry and dry cleaning operatives
25.6
Taxicab drivers and chauffeurs
25.3
Postal Clerks
24.2
Textile operatives
22.6
Key punch operators
21.8
File clerk
21.6
bus drivers
19.9
Sewers and stitchers
19.9
Fork lift and tow motor operators
19.4
Packers and wrappers (except meat and produce)
19.2
Freight and material handlers
19.0
Social and recreational workers
18.6
Cooks (except private household)
18.4
Vocational and educational councelors
17.7
Crane ,derrick and hoist operators
17.6
Farm laborers, wage workers
16.9
Guards
16.8
Construction laborers
16.6
Gardeners and groundskeepers
16.3
Childcare workers (except private household)
16.2
Cutting operatives
16.1
Machine operatives
16.1
Dressmakers and seamstresses (except factory )
15.9
Assemblers
15.2
Source : US Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1981, pp. 402404
Table 12
HOW BLACK IS THE UNITED STATES MILITARY
Army
Date
1942
1964
1972
1981
Enlisted
6.2
11.8
17.0
33.2
Officer
0.3
3.3
3.9
7.8
All services
Total
5.8
10.9
15.0
29.8
Enlisted
9.7
12.6
22.1
Source : Data derived from Martin Binkin, et al, Blacks and the Military,p.42
Table 13
109
Officer Total
126
1.8
8.7
2.3 11.1
5.3 19.8
VIETNAM WAR COMBAT DEATHS, BY RACE

Number of Deaths
Blacks
Total
837
4,156
3,163
26,435
Date
1961-66
1967-72
% Blacks
20.1
12.0
Source : Martin Binkin, et al, Blacks and the Military,p.76

Table 14
ANNUAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATES , 1955-1980
Male
Female
Year
Black
White
Ratio B:W
Black
White
1955
1967
1977
1978
1979
1980
8.8
6.0
12.4
10.9
10.3
13.3
3.7
2.7
5.5
4.5
4.4
6.1
2.37
2.22
2.25
2.42
2.34
2.18
8.4
9.1
14.0
13.1
12.3
13.1
4.3
4.6
7.3
6.2
5.9
6.5
Ratio
B:W
1.95
1.98
1.92
2.11
2.08
2.02
Source: National Urban League, The State of Black America, 1983, pp103-104
John Reid reports in the Population Bulletin :
Nearly one of every five blacks is on welfare, according to figures derived
from spring 1982 study of the nation's largest cash welfare program, Aid to
families with Dependant children. This study also indicates that some 40
percent of all black families with children under 18 are getting AFDC benefits,
compared to 6.8 percent of white families with children
Prison - The average number of inmates in Prisons and jails is Over 50,000. About 26% of
the overall Prison population is Black, but over 40% of the local jail inmates are Black.
127
In general this labor reserve, consisting of the poor recruits into the armed forces, the
unemployed, the welfare recipients, and the prisoners, is used to support the economic
system and to keep wages down. As the work force is threatened by economic crisis,
tensions mount between employed workers and this labor reserve. However, it has been
the history of organized struggle by the employed worker in trade unions that has
been
at the heart of the working-class struggle for better living and working conditions. The main
reason for this is that the employed worker is the productive source of wealth in the society.
Workers constitute the logical source of resistance to how this wealth is distributed.
The oppression faced by Black workers has been met with struggle, both in the form of
spontaneous rebellion and organized resistance. At times, this has been mainly the efforts
110
of Black workers themselves. At other times, there have been efforts of workers united,
Black and white, in trade unions or militant rank- and-file organizations of workers. The
most advanced form of struggle occurs when the concrete economic issues that face all
workers are united with the overall political questions that face all people in the society, and
workers of all nationalities unite to lead the fight against all oppression. This requires an
advanced form of political organization rooted in the working class.
Table 15
BLACK WELFARE RECIPIENTS
(Aid to families with dependant children, 000's)
Year
1975
1977
1979
Number of recipients
3,420
3,523
3,428
% black
44.3
43.0
43.9
Source : U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1981, p. 346
BLACK WORKERS AND ORGANIZED RESISTANCE

Beginning in 1866, the working class in the United States has had a, national organization
of one sort of another, as can be seen in Table 16. Even with these unions, there has been
a long struggle for immigrants, women, and Blacks to be accepted as full-fledged union
members. What follows is an abbreviated history of the major national unions and other
labor organizations in terms of their relationship with Black workers.
Early National Unions: N.LU, CNLU, and the Knights
The first major national organization was the National Labor Union, founded in 1866. A. C.
Cameron, one of the NLU organizers, attempted to confront directly the issue of Black
workers in an address before the national convention by declaring that the
128
... interests of the labor cause demand that all workingmen be included
within its ranks, without regard to race or nationality; and ... the interests of
the workingmen of America especially require that the formation of ... labor
organizations should he encouraged among the colored race and that they
be invited to cooperate with us in the general labor undertaking.
Table 16
NATIONAL FORMS OF UNION ORGANIZATION
Type of Organization
"One Big Union"
Dates of Existence
1866-1872
1869-1895 (1949)
Name
National Labor Union
Noble Order of the Knights of
Labor
111
Craft Unions
Industrial Unions
Craft and Industrial Unions
1905-1920's (present) Industrial workers of the world

1881-1955
American Federation of Labor
Congress of Industrial
1937-1955
Organizations
1955-present
AFL-CIO
But than convention failed to act upon this and others' advice. The best the NLU ever
managed to do was later to adopt a resolution encouraging Black workers to organize
separate unions that could be affiliated with the NLU. This policy of separate or dual
unionism clearly was not designed to promote class solidarity or racial unity. Black workers
were left to continue pushing for entry into the union on an equal basis or to form their own
separate unions. They chose to do both.
In 1869, Black workers formed the Colored National Labor Union. Isaac Myers, the CNLU's
first president summed up it's position:
Labor organization is the safeguard of the colored man. But for real success
separate organization is not the real answers The white and colored ... must
come together and work together... The day has passed for the establishment
of organizations based upon color.
While the CNLU was open to all workers, it fell into the reformist trap of believing that labor
and capital could learn to live and grow together. In failing to see the irreconcilable conflict,
the. CNLU sealed its fate. Both it and the NLU soon tell into decline. The radical
organization of workers into a national organization
129
began with the Knights of Labor. Formed in 1869, the year that the CNLU called for the
unity of workers "without regard to race or color," the Knights of Labor was initially
committed to trans- forming this expression of solidarity into a reality. From the ranks of the
militant Knights of Labor rang the slogan, "An injury to one is a concern for all." In many
cities throughout the country, including the South, Blacks were a major part of the
membership. The Knights also managed to conduct a number of mass campaigns and
marches showing a militant solidarity between Black and white workers. William Z. Foster
summed up the Knights of Labor in The Negro People in American History:
Despite the white chauvinist attitude of many of its officials, the Knights of
Labor represented the highest stage of Negro-white unity yet achieved by
the workers, as well as the most effective stand of the working class against
the offensive of the employers. The organization began to decline after
1886'from a variety of causes. Among these were the destructive influence
of the large influx of nonworking class elements - farmers, professionals,
etc. - who came into the order; tendencies of the leadership to play down
and even betray strikes and other militant working class actions; trends
toward purely opportunist political activities; disruptive activities by ...
anarchists, and involvement of the organization in the prevailing "cheap
money" quackeries. Especially destructive, was the hostility of the rival
112
national craft unions, which were strongly opposed to the organization form
of the order. By 1895, after 10 years of its greatest activity, the K. of L. was
no longer the key labor organization of the working class
For the bulk of the working class involved in unions, the American Federation of Labor,
founded in 1881, replaced the Knights of Labor. The AF of L was a national federation of
craft unions that proved to be an exclusive organization consolidating the most reactionary
sectors of the working class. Though Samuel Gompers, its founder, initially declared that
the AF of L did "not want to exclude any workingman who believes in and belongs to
organized labor," the AF of L failed miserably in its practice. In the beginning, rather than
rooting itself in the principle of solidarity, it took the position that Black workers had to be
included because their exclusion would make it easier for employers to use them as
strikebreakers. Its position did not improve as the years wore on. Ira De A. Reid
summarized the AP of Us relationship with Black workers:
What then is the official position of the American Federation of Labor,
toward the organizing of Negro workers? It comprises a number of
resolutions urging organization against efforts of radicals at organization;
segregated organization of Negro workers in certain occupations through
local and federal labor unions; a few pleas for organization; the
employment at various times of a few Negro organizers; and a total
inability, if not unwillingness to compel international unions to remove from
their constitutions Negro exclusion clause$, or Buffer expulsion from the
Federation.
130
Its preoccupation with the interests of white workers rather than the working class as a
whole, and its concentration on organizing the skilled to the exclusion of the unskilled,
meant that it failed not only Black workers but the entire working class.
The Industrial Workers of the World, founded in 1905, took a very different approach. As
the ideological heir of the better aspects of the Knights of Labor, this was a major radical
union that included all sectors of the working class. The ideological character of the class
struggle was clearly put: "The working class and the employing class have nothing in
common." The IWW (or Wobblies as they were generally called) was to be "one big union"
of the working class, regardless of race, creed, color, or sex.
131
Philip, Foner indicates the IWW's relationship to the Black worker:
...at no time in its history did the IWW ever establish segregated locals for
black workers, even in the deepest South. Wherever it organized, members
113
132
were brought together in locals regardless of race or color. In fact, the

Industrial Workers of the World is the only federation in the history of the
American labor movement that never chartered a single segregated local.
It was just this kind of policy that led W. E. B. DuBois to write: "We respect the Industrial
Workers of the World as one, of the social and political movements in modern times that
draws no color line."
The Wobblies were perceived by the capitalist class as a major threat to their rule for
several reasons. First, the Wobblies were syndicalists, a political position that workers can
directly seize control of the state mainly through the use of the strike. Second, their policy
of actively recruiting Black workers on an equal basis left open the real possibility that Black
and white workers would unite to overthrow the capitalist class. The government thus set
about to systematically destroy the Wobblies. At the height of the IWW's efforts to organize
the waterfront in 1917, the government began moving in. It eventually arrested IWW
leaders all over the country and imprisoned them, some for as many as twenty years. It
was a move from which the Wobblies never really recovered. The mounting "Red Scare"
and further governmental repression decimated the ranks of the IWW. By 1923, "the IWW
was only the shell of an organization," as Foner put it. The government had successfully
managed to stem the tide of organizing workers, especially Black workers, into industrial
unions.
A National Black Union:
The Brotherhood Not only did the Wobblies present a threat during this period, but the
possibility of an independent Black labor movement loomed large, particularly in the early
1920s when Black workers threatened to secede from the AF of L because of its continued
indifference to their concerns. In 1924, A. Philip Randolph was able to capture some of this
remaining impetus when he launched the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters at a public
rally in Harlem, which at the time was hailed as "the greatest mass meeting ever held of, by
and for Negro working men." The first organizing drive was in Chicago, but organizing
efforts swept the
country as Black militant, porters rode the rails. It was eventually supported by the NAACP,
the National Urban League locals, some churches, and the Colored Women's Economic
Council, which formed auxiliaries to stage rallies and to aid porters who were harassed,
beaten, and fired by the Pullman Company. Even some of the AF of L leadership supported
the Brotherhood. As Foner has pointed out, "Worried about the influence of Communists in
the Negro working class, they saw the brotherhood, whose leadership was bitterly anti133
Communist, as a bastion against the American Negro Labor Congress!'
By 1928, the Brotherhood had sufficient strength that its members voted to strike Pullman.
At the last moment, Randolph called off the strike largely at the counsel of William Green
the President of the AF of L. Randolph was roundly criticized by militants within and outside
the Brotherhood, but he defended his position on the basis that the future of the
114
Brotherhood lay with the AF of L. The following year the Brotherhood had its own
convention and a constitution, and it went on to become the first successful national Black
union. For many, it was the symbol of an important response to racism as well as a force of
cohesion for Black workers in organized labor.
Radicalism: American Negro Labor Congress and Unemployed Councils
There were other, more radical forces at work. In 1925, the same year that Randolph was
establishing the Brotherhood, the American Negro Labor Congress was organized to unite
"Negro workers -and class-conscious white workers in a common struggle against racial,
social and economic oppression." Its purposes were clearly stated:
The American Negro Labor Congress stands for a militant and
uncompromising struggle against all forms of white ruling class terrorism:
lynchings, etc. against the attempts of the employers to set one group of
workers against the other in order to continue more easily their exploitation
of both black and white workers. The American Negro Labor Congress
stands for the right of workers to organize for self-defense.
It called upon all workers to unite to form militant industrial unions and to fight against U.S.
imperialism:
The Negro masses throughout the world are the victims of one of the most
monstrous systems of exploitation the world has known. In Africa, the West
Indies, the United States, etc. our lot is that of an oppressed and exploited
denial of education, are some of the methods used by the landowners and
employers, in collusion with the banks, courts and police, to enslave the
Negro masses.
These terrible conditions, which face the Negro not only in the South but
throughout the imperialist world, call for effective organization and militant
methods of struggle on the part of the Negro workers and farmers, in
alliance with the class-conscious white workers.
It is futile to expect the wavering, treacherous middle-class Negro leaders
to give militant leadership to the struggles of the masses. Such leadership
can only come from the workers in the factories and shops who constitute
the membership of the American Negro Labor Congress. Only through
trained, intelligent and, courageous working-class leadership can the
Masses resist oppression and achieve real emancipation.
Every Negro worker And farmer should join the American Negro Labor
Congress. Every class-conscious white worker should give it his support.
Hailed by the Daily Worker, criticized by the Black press as Communist-inspired, and
condemned by the AF of L, the American Negro Labor Congress received a great deal of
public attention. It Was not, however, very successful in bringing large numbers of Black
and white workers together in a united front against the segregated trade unions, much less 134
against the capitalist class. By 1930, it was superseded by the League of Struggle for
Negro Rights.
115
As the Depression deepened, Blacks and whites joined to set up Unemployed Councils to
demand relief, unemployment insurance, and jobs. The policy of the Unemployed Council,
as stated by Angelo Herndon was:
. . .to carry on a constant fight for the rights of the Negro people. We realize
that unless Negro and white workers are united together, they cannot get
relief The capitalist class teaches race hatred to Negro and white workers
and keep it going all the time, tit for tat, the white worker running after the
white worker, and the capitalist becomes the exploiter and the robber of them
both. . . . It is in the interest of the capitalist to play one race against the
other, so greater profits can be realized from the working, people of all races.
It so happens that the Negro's skin is black, therefore making it much easier
for him to be singled out and used as a scapegoat....
But the Unemployment Council points out to the Negro and white workers
that . . . the solution can only be found in the unity and organization of black
and white workers. In organization the workers have strength.
Herndon, a Black Communist Party worker (the Unemployed Councils were mostly under
the leadership of the CP though Communists and non-Communists alike participated in
them), was arrested in Atlanta for leading a demonstration of the unemployed and was
prosecuted for insurrection. At his trial, Herndon declared:
But I can say this quite clearly, if the State of Georgia and the City of Atlanta
think that by locking up Angelo Herndon, the question of unemployment will
be solved, I say you are deadly wrong. If you really want to ,do anything about
the case, you must go out and indict the social system. . . . There are
thousands of Negro and white workers who, because of unemployment and
hunger, are organizing. If the state wants to break up this organization, it
cannot do it by arresting people and placing them on trial for insurrection,
insurrection laws will not fill empty stomachs. Give the people bread. The
officials ... know now that the workers are going to organize and get relief.
The state's reaction was to sentence Herndon to life on the chain gang. Other prosecutions
followed as the state moved to put down the working class.
The 1930s witnessed many other battles involving workers. One that was to have particular
relevance to the future of Black workers was the battle over industrial unionism. The crafttrade union was the dominant form of organization inside the AF of L and had long served
to effectively prevent Black workers from being unionized. Those who were unionized
suffered from all forms of discrimination. There were, however, some industrial unions
within the AF of L (e.g., the United Mine Workers and the International Ladies' Garment
Workers' Union) that had organized all workers on the worksite. A struggle emerged
between these two trends, representing not only the two objectively based sectors of the
working class (craft versus mass-production industrial workers), but also two basic political
trends (reactionary narrow interests versus interests, for progressive social and political
changes). The rift broke out at the 1935 convention, after which the dissident group formed
the Committee for Industrial Organization as a minority bloc within the AF of L. After some
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135
struggle, they were purged and subsequently they set up the Congress of Industrial
Organizations in 1937.
In a real sense, the radical wing of the labor movement was again given vitality in the
early days of the CIO. The Communist Party gave leadership to the organizing effort. It led
the working class in pitched battle against both the sell-out trade unionism pushed by the
leadership of the AF of L, and the repressive practices of the capitalist class and its state
during the severe crisis of the Great Depression. The old southern slander against the
trade union movement again dripped from the lips of every reactionary in the country: "labor
unions + strikes = communism + atheism + social equality with the Negro!" The CIO was
not to be deterred however. The historical importance of this new organization of industrial
unions is summarized by Philip Foner:
All workers gained substantially from the organizing drives of the CIO, but
black workers perhaps gained the most. Before the establishment of the CIO
barely 100,000 blacks were members of American trade unions; by 1940,
there were roughly 500,000. Before the rise of the CIO, the presence of a
black union official at union events was a rare occurrence; in 1939-40, it was
commonplace. A body of militant black union officials had come into being.
As spokesmen for hundreds of thousands of black union members, tlify
occupied a strategic position in influencing union policies.
At the same time the CIO was being formed, a number of prominent Blacks came together
and created the National Negro Congress. "For the first time in the history of black
Americans;' Foner writes, "a 'united front of all Negro organizations,' from old-line
Republican to Communist, had joined together, rejected Red-baiting, and stood ready to
help in solving the urgent problems of the Negro people, among which the organization of
black workers stood foremost." Though it officially supported both the CIO and the AF of L, 136
it actively sought an alliance With the CIO, which it saw as the best hope for fighting
discrimination against Black workers.
The National Negro Congress, however, ultimately did not speak for the entire Black
community. The Black community became split over the issue of unionization. One side
was tied to capital and focused on racism in the unions to argue against unionization. The
other side argued that since the advancement of Blacks was only possible in the trade
union movement, whatever problems existed had to be fought rather than to jump in bed
with capital. There are many examples of this kind of a split. The major industrial giants,
like Ford in Detroit, contributed funds to local churches in order to gain the support of
ministers to fight the efforts to organize Black workers into an industrial auto union. Also,
local Urban Leagues often took a pro-capital position because of the composition of their
boards and the relationships they had developed in fund raising for the League, though
this local practice was in contradiction to the national policy which was hardly ever strongly
anti-union.
Reactionary Forces: AFL-CIO Merger
During the late 1930s and 1940s, despite the efforts of' the Nation al Negro Congress
137
and others, reactionary forces operating in the interest of capital increased their attacks on
the CIO. The most backward anti-Communist propaganda was directed at the CIO. This
was made more complex by organized labor's positive relationship with Franklin D.
117
Roosevelt and its support of his policy concerning World War 11.
By 1948, there was a hardening of the right in trade union leadership, and a
consolidation of the right-wing leadership in the CIO itself. After the war, the AF of L
continued with blind patriotism to support the "cold war policies;" of the United States. The
CIO was not far behind. In 1949, the CIO expelled eleven progressive unions, with almost
one million workers, on the grounds that they were Communist-dominated.
These expulsions smoothed the way for the merger of the AF of L and the CIO in 1955.
With the leadership of the AFL-CIO in the hands of the "labor lieutenants of capital," this
merger had serious repercussions for Black workers. Now there was no radical national
trade union organization that took a clear and antagonist stand against capital. Black
workers would have to depend on the militancy of rank-and-file workers or outside
organizations to push for their rights.
Black Militancy
Anticipating the reactionary direction the trade union leadership was taking, Black
workers formed the National Negro Labor Council in 1951, amidst anti-Communist hysteria.
The NNLC was dedicated to addressing the needs and rights of Black workers. It filled a
void created by the absence of the National Negro Congress, which had ceased to exist
after the war, and by the NAACP's failure to criticize labor leaders who were in the process
of ridding the unions of their radical elements. From the beginning, the NNLC made it clear
that its main purpose was to assist unions in bringing an end to job discrimination and
racism within the unions. However, when the NNLC attempted to cooperate with union
leaders, it was rebuffed. Black appeals to elect Black
officers were met with charges of "racism in reverse." The ' NNLC conducted many
important struggles, including militant strikes and campaigns to win jobs, to stop brutal
police killings of Blacks, and to gain the right to use public transportation and facilities. In
1956, however, the NNLC was called before the Subversive Activities Control Board to
defend itself against charges that it was a Communist-front organization. Faced with an
enormous legal defense bill that it could not pay, the NNLC voted to dissolve itself. Thus
the NNLC died, the victim of, as Foner put it, "intimidation, Red-baiting, and other kinds of
political and economic pressure: Once again, the government, at the behest of the capitalist
class, succeeded in repressing Black workers' attempts to organize themselves to fight
against racism. While the NNLC failed to change the AF of L or CIO,. it did set, a new tone
138
of Black militancy to inspire others.
On the heels of five years of experience with the AFL-CIO during which Black workers
made very little progress, Black trade unionists were determined to assume a more militant
role. After a particularly galling rejection of Black demands, Randolph went before the
NAACP convention to ask for the creation of a national Negro labor committee. In May of
1960, the Negro American Labor Council was born. It was an autonomous organization of
Black trade unionists working within the AFL-CIO to pressure it to take concrete action
toward eliminating racism. 'Its efforts were hardly welcomed by the AFL-CIO. The following
year, the AFL-CIO Executive Committee censored Randolph for creating, as George
118
Meany (the president of the AFL-CIO) put it, "the gap that has developed between
organized labor and the Negro community." Black response was quick to follow. Roy
Wilkins of the NAACP summarized the position of the Black community: "If such, a gap
exists it is because Mr. Meany and the AFL-CIO Executive Council have not taken the
required action to eliminate the broad national pattern of anti-Negro practices that
continues to exist in many significant sections of the American labor movement . . "
Black people were no longer content to wait for organized labor to act upon their
demands. They were taking matters into their own hands. The NALC, with the -cooperation
of the NAACP, - SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), CORE (Congress of
Racial Equality), and SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee), led the 1963
March on Washington to demand jobs and an end to discrimination in industry and the
unions (see Chapter 14). The Civil Rights Movement was in high gear, and promises of
change were fast forthcoming from the unions.
The next years witnessed a closer relationship between Black people and organized
labor as both struggled for the passage of the i964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting
Rights Act. But sharp divisions were occurring between more militant Blacks and white
liberal labor leaders as organized labor's position hardened.
In June 1966, "Black Power" came to national attention. While essentially reformist in
that it proposed no fundamental change in the U.S. political and economic system, "Black
Power" did become the rallying cry for many. For some, it portended the beginning of a new
revolutionary struggle.
In 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. was still calling for a closer union of labor and civil rights
forces:
Today the union record in relation to Negro workers is exceedingly uneven,
but the potentiality for influencing union decisions still exists. In many of the
larger unions the white leadership contains some men of ideals and many
more who are pragmatists. Both groups find they are benefited by a
constructive relationship to their Negro membership. For those compelling
reasons, Negroes, who are almost wholly a working people, cannot be
casual toward the union movement. This is true even though some unions
remain incontestably hostile.
...
To play our role fully as Negroes we will have to strive for-enhanced
representation and influence in the labor movement.... We allowed ourselves
to accept middle-class prejudices toward the labor movement.... In shunning
it, we have lost an opportunity. Let us try to regain it now, at a time when the
joint forces of Negro and labor may be facing an historic task of social
reform.
But growing disillusionment, among civil rights activists and increasing hostility between
unions and poverty-stricken Blacks, Puerto Ricans, and other minorities were leading many
to the position that social reform was simply not enough. The riots that erupted in Detroit,
Newark, Cleveland, and many other cities in the summer of 1967 could not be blamed on
Black people. The root of the problem was clearly economic and social conditions that
could be changed only through revolutionary struggle and not by mere reform.
119
139
Black Revolutionary Union Movement: DRUM, the League, BWC

In 1968, the labor movement began to feel the full impact of this new revolutionary thrust
when DRUM (Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement) burst on the scene at a Chrysler
plant in Detroit. Its revolutionary goals were made clear in its constitution:
We ... understand that there have been previous attempts by our people in
this country to throw off this degrading yoke of brutal oppression, which
have ended in failure. Throughout our history, black workers, first slaves and
later as pseudo-freedmen, have been in the vanguard of potentially
successful revolutionary struggles both in all black movements as well as in
integrated efforts.... Common to all of these movements were two things,
their failure and the reason why they failed. These movements failed
because they were betrayed from within or in the case of the integrated
movements by the white leadership exploiting the racist nature of the white
workers they, led.... At this point we loudly proclaim that we have learned
our lesson from history and we shall not fail. So it is that we who are the
hope of black people and oppressed people everywhere dedicate ourselves
to the cause of liberation to build the world anew, realizing that only a
struggle led by black workers can triumph our powerful reactionary enemy...
We recognize our struggle is not an isolated one and that we have common
cause with the black workers in this racist nation and throughout the world.
For this reason it is incumbent upon us to foster, join with, initiate and lead
other black workers in our common struggle. By being in the forefront of this
revolutionary struggle we must act swiftly to help organize DRUM- type
organizations wherever there are black workers, be it in Lynn Townsend's
kitchen, the White House, White Castle, Ford Rouge, the Mississippi Delta,
the plains of Wyoming, the tin mines of Bolivia, the rubber plantation of
Indonesia, the oil fields of Biafra, or the Chrysler Plants in South Africa.
140
Needless to say, our line is the hard line. We are in a life and death struggle
that has been raging savagely for 5 centuries. A struggle between master
and slave, rich and poor, black and white, beast and prey, management and
worker. A struggle which has shown no quarter to the black man and which
we now wage and give no quarter. The ruthless land vicious nature of our
enemy has brought us to a point where we are now prepared to be as
ruthless and vicious, if not more so. All that the honkey has acquired, has
been acquired through his exploitation of our people with his brutal tactics of
murder, enslavement, mayhem, and rape. Our line is one of consistent
struggle in which we support everything the enemy opposes and oppose
everything the honkey supports.
Within a year, DRUM was joined by similar Black caucuses, which eventually united to form
the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. The league, which sought to unite Black
workers, Black students and intellectuals, and unemployed Black youth, was to be "the
vanguard of the liberation struggle in this country." The League believed that Black workers
had to break the control of racist unions and form their own revolutionary caucus within
each union, made up of unemployed Blacks as well as workers. The League became the
symbol of not only Black-worker insurgency, but also radical politics on the shop floor for all
workers. Not since the 1930s had workers organized with such radical politics against the
capitalist factory owners.
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120
While the following incident occurred after the demise of the League, it was undertaken by
former League members and reflects the general posture of League tactics. James
Geschwender describes what happened:
Two workers, Isaac Shorter and Larry Carter, climbed a ten-foot wire fence,
lowered themselves into a six-foot-square wire cage, and turned off the
electricity --- stopping the assembly line at the Jefferson Avenue assembly
plant for thirteen hours on July 24, 1973. Five thousand workers were made
idle and the production of 950 cars lost. Shorter and Carter presented a, list of
four demands, (1) Thomas Woolsey, utility superintendent, should be fired; (2)
no reprisals; (3) this should be guaranteed in writing; and (4) the guarantee
should be signed in their presence and in front of their fellow workers. These
demands apparently struck a receptive chord -in a number of workers as a
crowd gathered around the cage shouting encouragement and supplying,
food and other forms of aid.... All accounts agree that a jubilant crowd carried
Shorter and Carter off on their shoulders when they came out of the cage at
7:11 p.m. after winning all demands. Both management and UAW
representatives had previously attempted without success to talk the two
workers out of the cage. When all other efforts failed, Chrysler, capitulated
Woolsey had been a subject of previous controversy. He had been transferred
within Chrysler because of worker discontent, had been the subject of five
grievances and had been accused of racism and abusive behavior stimulating
an earlier work stoppage. Workers accused Woolsey of abusing workers and
using racist epithets, for example, calling a man a "black son-of-a-bitch.' . .
Woolsey had about 300 workers, 90 percent of whom were black, under his
jurisdiction. Workers had collected 214 signatures on a petition demanding
that Woolsey be fired. After four months of ineffectual protest, Shorter and
Carter resorted to direct action. Shortly after the shutdown began the United
Justice Caucus (UJC), rank-and-file caucus within UAW Local 7, spread the
word about what was happening and helped to rally supporters....
Isaac Shorter and Larry Carter addressed a victory celebration sponsored
by UJC on July 29. Shorter did most of the talking and announced that he was
a socialist who was "working to change the total structure of the capitalist
system by scientific socialism
He expressed the need for a vanguard
party to lead the workers and indicated that the union was a part of the
problem rather than a vehicle for its solution. He received an ovation in
response to his statement that "Workers of the world must unite."
The practice of the League inspired a new optimism in the radical movement - at that
time called the "New Left" - and led to broader efforts to organized in working-class centers
of employment. But the League did not survive the 197'Os due to organizational problems
of leadership, their differences over political orientation, and the limitations of 'being located
in only one city, Detroit. This organizational thrust led directly into the Black Workers'
Congress, a national organization building on the experience of the League and including
radicals from the former student group, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.
This led to a greater Black presence in the left (see Chapter 16), but not a great deal of
121
organizing took place among Black workers.

In the working class, the dramatic results of the league, and of similar efforts around the
country by the small but militant Black caucus movement, were to increase the number of
Black workers in certain industries. There also was an increase of Blacks in positions of
responsibility, including Black foremen and Black union stewards. Blacks became part of
the system, co-opted into low-level leadership positions in both management and the trade
unions.
The increased gains of Blacks in the trade union movement, energized by the mass
mobilizations of Black people during the 1960s, led to a new organization of Blacks within
the trade union movement. The Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) was organized
in 1972. Sparked by the refusal of AFL-CIO leadership (especially George Meany) to
oppose the election of Richard Nixon, Blacks in the trade union movement united in the
CBTU "to focus the, influence and bring to bear the power of the nation's three million Black 142
workers, both in national politics and in union affairs." The specific grievances were: (1)
underepresentation of Blacks in top leadership positions in the trade unions; (2)
discriminatory hiring practices that keep Blacks in insecure employment; (3) discrimination
on the job without protection from the trade union officials; and (4) failure of trade union
leadership to take seriously the policy concerns of their Black members.
But the CETU was definitely within the trade union movement. The major leader of
CBTU, William Lucy of APSME, is very clear on this:
We are not a separatist organization. We are not negativists. We are still
trade unionists. We're not interested in civil rights. Other people are taking
care of that. We're not interested in changing people's attitudes. This has
nothing to do with right and wrong, with sin and evil. Power is what creates
equals and demands respect.
143
CBTU membership comes from over forty unions, inside and outside of the AFL-CIO
structure, including steel, auto, meat cutters, teamsters, government employees, and a
variety of other service workers.
This historical sketch of Black workers and trade unions is an extremely important part
of the Black experience, but it is usually not included in general texts in Afro-American
Studies. The same omission is frequent in American history and world history courses.
Since most Black people have been working people at every historical stage, it is
necessary and appropriate to spend a chapter dealing with this subject. Further, since
white people are also workers, the discussion of the Black experience in the trade unions is
an important part of the overall American experience.
Blacks have participated in trade unions more than any other organization, except the
Black church. Trade unions were designed to improve the standard of living and working
conditions facing workers, even though this has seldom been done adequately for Black
122
workers. This chapter should be read in relationship to Chapters 14, 15, and 16.
KEY CONCEPTS
Caucas
Craft unions vs. industrial unions
Labor reserve
Last hired, first fired
Scab
Social welfare
Strike
Unemployment
Unionization
Working class
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. Discuss the negative experiences Black workers have to suffer. How are these similar to
or different from the experiences of white workers?
2. Have trade unions ever taken a strong position against racism and segregation in
support of Black workers? Give concrete examples.
3. What are the main lessons for today that can be drawn from worker struggles of the
1930s? 1960s?
4. Discuss the pros and cons of separate Black organizations in the trade union movement.
Give concrete examples.
1. Harold Baron, "The Demand for Black Labor." Radical America 2 (March/April, 1971): 26.
2. James A. Geschwender, Class, Race, and Worker Insurgency: The League of
Revolutionary Black Workers. Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press, 1977.
144
3. William H. Harris, Keeping the Faith: A. Philip Randolph, Milton P. Webster, and the
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, 192537. Urbana: University of Illinois -Press, 1977.
4. John F. Keller, Power in America: The Southern Question an . the Control of Labor.
Chicago: Vanguard Books, 1983.
5. Sterling D. Spero and Abram L. Harris, The Black Worker. The Negro and the Labor
Movement. New York: Atheneum, 1968.
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EIGHT
8. THE BLACK MIDDLE CLASS
................................... 147
147
151
153
155
157
159
161
The Slave Period ................................................

The Rural Period ................................................
The Urban Period ...............................................
Business
........................................................
The Professions
...............................................
Government and the Black Middle Class ................
The Future of the Black Middle Class ......................
The Black Middle Class

LOGIC OF
CHANGE
Social
Cohesion
Traditional
Africa
Slavery
Rural
Life
Urban
Life
Social
Slave
Emancipation
Migrations
124
Disruption
Ideology
ANALYSIS
Class
Race
Trade
A1
B1
C1
D1
E1
F1
G1
A2
B2
C2
D2
E2
F2
G2
A3
B3
C3
D3
E3
F3
G3
A4
B4
C4
D4
E4
F4
G4
Matt said, "Let ins break it down for you. White folks invented these
debitramp balls so that their darling little heifers could git a good shot at the
prize bull in the pasture..."
He chuckled, "But colored folks just do these things cause they see white
folks doing them. It ain't no investment like it is with white folks. All the money
ends up in Whitey's hands again. To the dance teacher, to the beauty
peoples, to Mr. Waldorf. It's just some more white folks' foolishness that don't
git Black folks nowheres except in debt. Like Santa Claus and Easter bonnets,
it all ends up in Charlie's pockets."
John Oliver Killens, The Cotillion, 1971
The Black middle class is a small part of the Black community, but it has more and lives
with less hardship than the majority of Black people. Middle-class people have smaller
family units, higher incomes, more homeownership, more education, jobs with more
authority and independence, more and higher quality consumption of necessity items and
luxury items, etc. The fact is that some Black people have always lived better than most.
But it is also true that the Black middle class has been very insecure at every stage of
Black history. Middle-class privilege has been rooted more in the shifting character of
status than in the firmer base of economic ownership.
THE SLAVE PERIOD

The overwhelming reality of the slave system was that all Black people had the same basic
class position, that of being a slave. This class did not own anything; most importantly, they
did not own themselves. Therefore, in strict terms, most Blacks were in the same class
during slavery. However, the objective differentiation that did matter was in the technical
division of labor.
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147
The basic distinction between house slaves and field slaves was the difference between
service work in the house and production work in the field. Some specialized production by
skilled craft workers took place near the slavemaster's house (e.g., the blacksmith) but the
main production was done as field work. Field slaves worked collectively (though not with a
high level of interdependence, as later developed in assembly line factory-production) and
had more limited contact with whites. House slaves were fewer in number and often
developed very close ties with their white masters. This close association became the first
basis for status distinctions among Blacks in the United States: an aristocracy based on
color and style. The more "white blood" (the lighter in skin color), the higher the status; the
more one was able to "mimic white behavior" (through hand-me-down clothes, speech,
etc.), the more status one had.
House slaves were conditioned to have commitment and loyalty to the slavemaster. This
point is dramatically made by Malcolm X in a 1963 interview on the radio in Philadelphia:
The house Negro was the one who lived in, the master's house, ate the
master's food, at the master's table usually - after the master had finished with
it. He dressed like the master, which means he wore the same type of clothing
that the master did, but usually it was clothing handed down to him by the
master. He identified the master's house as his own. If the master said, "We
have a fine house here," the house Negro would say, "Yes, our house is a fine
house." Whenever the master said, "We," he said, "We." If the master said,
"We have good food on our table," the house Negro would chime in and say,
"Yes, we have plenty of food, boss, on our table." The house Negro would
also identify himself so closely with his master that when the master was sick
the house Negro would say, "What's the matter, boss, we's sick?" When the
master was sick he was sick. If the master's house caught on fire the house
Negro would fight harder to put the flames out or keep the flames from
enveloping the master's house than the master would himself.
The other group of privileged Blacks within the slave system was called "freedmen." Some
free Blacks owned land, but as E. Franklin Frazier pointed out in the The Negro in the
United States, most were only subsistence farmers:
In 1830 the free Negroes owned about 32,000 acres of land valued at
$184,184, and by 1860 both the acreage and the value of the farms owned
by free Negroes had doubled. Since nearly half (43%) of the farms owned by
the 1,200 free Negro farm owners contained 25 acres or less, it may be
assumed that these farms were used for subsistence rather than for
commercial enterprises.
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148
Ira Berlin notes the slave system was so threatening to free Blacks that they were often
uncooperative and decidedly conservative with respect to the well-being of their fellow
Blacks who were in slavery:
Standing a step above the slave, free Negroes simply had too much to lose
to take the lead in breaking the bonds of servitude. They too suffered the
pains of white oppression, but free Negroes could look down to slavery as
well as up to complete freedom. They could see how their status might
degenerate, and they knew that whites needed only the flimsiest excuse to
take their liberty. Having learned to squeeze a few precious benefits from
their caste status, they were not about to surrender them without a guarantee
of something better. Freedom within the context of slavery gave free Negroes
something to protect and transformed them into a conservative caste. The
general insecurity of free Negro life, the sure knowledge that free Negroes
suffered whenever whites felt threatened, and their growing material
prosperity reinforced that conservatism.
Berlin goes on to point out that the conflict between free Blacks and Black slaves was
caused by slavemasters who were interested in preventing Black unity against the slave
system:
'Whites promoted these differences between free Negroes and slaves, just
as they tried to divide field hands and house servants, unskilled bondsmen
and slave artisans. They gladly rewarded free Negroes who informed on
slaves, just as they almost always freed slaves who revealed impending
insurrections.
Some free Blacks were slaveowners themselves. Much of this can be explained by the fact
that they often purchased their family members and friends. However, like white
slaveowners, some Blacks did own slaves for their own economic advantage. Berlin
provides further insight into how an economic system based on slavery functioned to divide
Blacks:
Economic success in the South depended largely on the ownership of
slaves, and free Negroes were no more exempt from this than whites.
Although most free Negro slaveholders were truly benevolent despots,
owning only their families and friends to prevent their enslavement or
forcible deportation, a small minority of wealthy freemen exploited slaves for
commercial purposes. This small group of free Negroes were generally the
wealthiest and best-connected members of their caste...
Slaveholding free Negro planters identified...closely with the Southern ideal.
Andrew Durnford, who owned a Louisiana plantation which he worked with
some seventy-five slaves, was finely attuned to the planter ideology and
considered himself a patriarchal master in the best tradition. Although he
raided endlessly against the seeming incompetence and indolence of his
"rascally negroes" he took pride in his role as their protector as well as their
owner. When Norbert Rillieux, a French-trained free Negro engineer who
had invented a new method of refining sugar, offered Durnford $50,000 for
use of his plantation to test the vacuum process, the planter turned him
down, noting that he could not "give up control of his people." Durnford's
people of course were slaves and he treated them as such despite their
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149
similar complexion. With the exception of his personal body servant, he

never showed any interest in releasing them from bondage. In 1835,
Durnford traveled north to Virginia to purchase additional hands for himself
and his white mentor, John McDonogh. During his trip, he confronted,
perhaps for the first time, the Southern distaste for slave traders, as
opposed to those who bought and used slaves, and he consciously
manipulated that idea to obtain lower prices. Yet, throughout his lengthy
discussion with McDonogh on what he called "Negro traders," he showed
not the slightest understanding that the term when applied to him might
have two additional meanings, for Durnford literally was a Negro trader and
some blacks might consider his actions treasonable. These possibilities
were lost on Durnford because he fully identified with the white slaveowning
elite. Many wealthy freemen, like Durnford, considered themselves more
white than black, no matter what their precise racial heritage. They showed
little sympathy for the slave and had few qualms about the morality of
slavery. Durnford's Northern-educated son, who urged amelioration of slave
conditions - not emancipation - had no greater sense of identification with
blacks than his father. He supported African colonization for slaves - but not
for himself - spoke of colonization as reparation, and lauded the plan to
return blacks to "the land of their fathers."
128
These few Black slaveowners wanted to retain their class privilege.

An additional group with special standing was the skilled craft workers (or artisans). Slaves
were the dominant skilled craft workers in many areas of the South, and as such they were
accorded certain privileges. Some free Blacks were skilled craft workers in both the North
and the South. Marcus Christian provides an example of the artisans in his study of Black
ironworkers in Louisiana:
Working alongside the slave ironworkers, though not allowed to associate
with them socially, were the free Negro and the f.m.c. - free man of
color. For almost the entire life of the colony, slaves, free Negroes, and
free people of color had practically monopolized the labor situation. The
free men of the race naturally had the better part of the situation since they
worked for themselves. For generations they had apprenticed their sons to
expert mechanics in the building trades. In fact, a thorough knowledge of a
particular trade had been the means by which many of them had gained
their freedom.
While slaves were sometimes able to use their status as artisans to help them gain their
freedom, some free Blacks were able to use their position as craft workers as a stepping
stone to other businesses and professions. Most self-employed artisans were eventually
absorbed into large-scale industrial production. Those who work in the building trades or
who do specialty work in wood, glass, metal, and cloth can trace their heritage back to the
artisans of the slave period.
129
150
In general, privilege under slavery existed mainly in the form of status. There were status
distinctions between house slaves and field slaves and between those who were skilled
craft workers and those who weren't. The main class distinction was between slaves and
free Blacks, and secondarily between those few Blacks who owned land and slaves and
those who did not.
THE RURAL PERIOD
The Civil War and Reconstruction transformed the class relations in the United States,
especially (but not exclusively) in the South. For Blacks, the main thing was the end of
slave class relations. After some experimentation, wage labor (paid by the hour) was
rejected due to the mass resistance and independence of the newly freed slave workers.
What developed in conjunction with the Black Codes, however, was a semi-slave, semifree system of tenant production (see Chapters 5 and 13). The tenant system had within it
different class positions in which Blacks were able to maintain some level of privilege.
The main basis of class privilege was ownership of farm land. Black people did manage to
buy 15 million acres by 1915. Black people knew that the economic basis of independence
was the ownership of land and there were tremendous efforts to acquire and maintain
151
ownership, even though success was slow in coming. In The Negro in the United States,
Frazier described what happened during the rural period:
The number of Negro farm owners in the South gradually increased until
1910 when they owned 24.5 per cent of the farms operated by
Negroes. But during the following 20 years tenancy among Negroes as
among whites steadily decreased until by 1930 only one out of five Negro
farmers in the South was an owner. In 1929 Negro owners of farms
produced only 3.8 per cent of the cotton in the South, whereas 28.6 per cent
of the entire cotton crop was produced by Negro tenants. During the
decade, 1930 to 1940, there were important changes in the rural Negro
population both in respect to numbers and land tenure. The number of
owners continued to decline; but there was also a decline of almost 200,000
in the number of tenants...As a result there was a small increase in the
proportions of owners among Negro farm operators as compared with a
much higher increase in this class among whites. In 1940 there was about
the same number of Negro land owners as in 1900; and they represented
the same proportion among farm operators in 1940 as in 1900. On the
other hand, while the number of Negro tenants and croppers had decreased
through migrations, the proportion of tenants among farm operators had
remained the same. However, it should be noted that the portion of
croppers among these tenants had increased during the four decades.
130
Since World War II, there has been an increasing decline in the number of people engaged
in agricultural production, especially among Blacks. The pattern of ownership has
increased within the general pattern of decline - there are fewer Black farm operators and
owners, but a relatively higher proportion of farms are owned, as indicated in Table 17.
Lester Salamon demonstrates that the Black-owned farms are concentrated in the Black
Belt:
Much of this black-controlled land is concentrated in a relative handful of
states. As of 1969, for example, Mississippi alone accounted for almost one
quarter of the black farm landowners in the region. Four states - Alabama,
Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina - account for almost 60
percent of all black farm landowners and 52 percent of all black-controlled
land...
Black-owned land is not only concentrated among a handful of states, but
also is concentrated (within) them...[O]nly 492 of the more than 1,000
counties in the South contain as much as 2,000 acres of black-owned land.
And of these counties, 92 contain in excess of 20,000 acres each.
Although blacks constitute only slightly over 6 percent of all farm landowners
in the South as a whole, therefore, they comprise a much more substantial
proportion of all landowners in these several states. In Mississippi and South
Carolina, for example, over 20 percent of all farm landowners are black. In
Alabama,. Louisiana, and North Carolina, about 10 percent are black. In
none of these states, however, is the acreage held by blacks proportional to
the number of black landowners. This pattern points to one of the central
characteristics of black-owned farms in the South: their relatively small size.
Only in Missouri, where there are few black-owned farms, does the average
size of the farms of black full owners reach even 60 percent of the average
size of the farms of all full owners. Else where, black fully-owned and partowned farms are typically only about half as large as all full-or part-owned
farms. As a consequence, in every state black landowners account for a
significantly smaller share of the land owned by all landowners than they do
of the number of landowners...
Table 17
131
152
17 MINORITY OWNERS OF FARMS IN THE SOUTHERN UNITED STATES (000'S)
1950
1964
1978
Total
Full Owner
Part Owner
559
185
61
141
71
36
52
31
15
% Owners (Full &

Part)
34.5
55.2
83.7
Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1981, p. 662.
132
The vicious system of racial/national oppression (called "Jim Crow") that was set up during
the rural period was met by increased desires and appeals for Black unity. Robert Higgs
explains how the Black middle class reacted:
Perceiving that such an appeal to racial solidarity might be turned into
private profits, increasing numbers of blacks established business
enterprises. DuBois estimated that about 5,000 blacks operated businesses
in 1890. The National Negro Business league, an organization founded by
Booker T. Washington, estimated that the number reached 20,000 in 1900
and 40,000 in 1914, but these figures are probably overstatements. Most of
these enterprises were small - so small that they could be operated with little
or no hired help - and most involved retailing or personal services. Grocery
stores, restaurants, saloons, pool rooms, barber shops, undertakers, real
estate agencies, and boarding houses were common. Of the 1,906 black
businesses surveyed in 1899, only 12 represented investments of $50,000
or more; and 79 percent of them involved capital sums of less than $2,500.
The largest enterprises included insurance companies, banks, newspapers,
and real estate agencies, but even they were small by the standards of the
white world
The older mechanism of status continued to operate, especially in this period of freedom
within the rigid limitations of segregation. The main additional criteria were homeownership
and living by the moral codes set by the church. The minister and church leaders regulated
status as an institutional resource to mold the Black community into a cohesive whole,
albeit one controlled by those "anointed with the blessing of status." (See Chapter 10.)
THE URBAN PERIOD

It was primarily in the city that the Black middle class developed, beginning as far back as
antebellum slavery but taking full shape during the 20th century. The economic bases of
the Black middle class in the city were the professions and ownership of business and real
estate. Over the years, the professions have replaced business as the main avenue of
upward mobility. Moreover, professionals now are more likely to be employed by large
corporations than to be self-employed as they were in the past.
133
153
Educational attainment has emerged as an important status mechanism. The old-line

status mechanisms were transformed in importance. While proximity to whites (especially
color and speech) was still positive source of status, distance from whites was no longer as
negatively regarded as it had been. In fact the old adage "if you're Black get back!" was
replaced in the 1960s by another old adage "the blacker the berry the sweeter the juice."
One of the important indicators of how Black social protest is good for the mental health of
Black people is that during the 1960s Black people began to change their value orientation
toward skin color. The slogan was "Black is beautiful," and styles changed to an Africaninspired aesthetic.
The socioeconomic characteristics of the Black middle class since the 1960s have
approximated those of the white middle class. This has led to the debate over how best to
analyze the Black community - on the basis of race, class, or both. Milton Gordon uses the
term "ethclass" to suggest that an understanding of white ethnics might best be based on
ethnicity and class, and James Geschwender borrows from this and coins the expression
"race-class" to suggest that the Black experience might best be understood in terms of race
and class. William Wilson, in his book The Declining Significance of Race, makes the
argument that the Black middle class in many ways has virtually achieved parity with
154
whites, especially in educational achievement and job entry of the upwardly mobile. The
masses of poor Blacks, however, are trapped in the working class and a structural
underclass with little if any hope for a life of gainful employment. He argues that while some
Blacks are moving up, most are locked into a life of poverty. He cites the following
occupational description:
The most dramatic changes in black mobility occurred during the decades of
the 1950s and 1960s. Whereas 16.4 percent of black males were employed
in middle-class occupations in 1950, 24 percent held such jobs in 1960 and
35.3 percent in 1970. Whereas 21.3 percent of black males were in
essentially working-class jobs in 1950, 26.6 percent were so employed in
1960 and 29.4 percent in 1970. Finally, whereas 62.1 percent of all black
employed males were in basically lower-class jobs in 1950, 50.7 percent held
such jobs in 1960 and only 36.4 percent in 1970.
However, given the austerity of the 1970s, the economic insecurity of the Black middle
class has proven itself as it is now "catching hell" in this economic downturn of the 1980s.
In order to capture the essence of the Black middle class in the city, we will review briefly
the experience of Blacks in business and the professions.
134
Business
Black people have engaged in commercial enterprises (mostly small businesses) for some
time in the city environment. The owner of a small business is self-employed, with few if
any paid employees other than family members. Black small businesses have been mostly
in retail trade (e.g., a grocery or clothing store) or in the services (e.g., hair care and
catering). This has been the main basis for what has been called "Black Capitalism"
The growth of Black businesses between 1863 and 1913,can be seen in Table 18. Black
businesses continued to grow, although their character was transformed along with the
overall development of the Black community. E. Franklin Frazier points this out in Black
Bourgeoisie with a discussion of Black business development in Chicago:
One may get a notion of the nature of Negro business in the North by
considering first the situation in Chicago. During the fifteen years prior to the
mass migrations from the South, the number of Negro businesses reached
500. The majority of these enterprises were in the service field, with barber
shops and moving and storage establishments forming the majority of the
enterprises. It was the mass migrations from the South during and following
World War I that created the Negro market in Chicago which Negro
businesses sprang up to serve. Conspicuous among the Negro businesses
were the two banks and four insurance companies. During the Depression the
two Negro, banks failed and many of the larger business establishments were
wiped out. At the same time the smaller businesses increased in number
because unemployed Negroes with small savings opened small stores as a
means of securing a living. In 1938 there were about 2,600 Negro businesses
in Chicago. Of the ten most numerous establishments there were 287 beauty
parlors, 257 groceries, 207 barber shops, 163 tailors, cleaners, and pressers,
and 145 restaurants. The remaining five most numerous types of business coal and wood dealers ,taverns, undertakers, shoe repairing and dress
making - were represented by less than 100 establishments
Table 18
BLACK BUSINESSES, 1863-1913
135
155
Year
1863
1873
1883
1893
1903
1913
Total Number of Businesses

2,000
4,000
10,000
17,000
25,000
40,000
Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, The Social and Economic Status of the Black
Population in the United States, p. 78.
136
Since the 1960s there has been a dramatic growth of Black businesses. From 1969 to
1982, there was a 119% increase in the number of businesses and a 278% increase in the
gross sales (see Table 19). Of the 357,000 Black businesses in 1982, the top 100 included
companies in manufacturing (13), industrial supply (14), energy distribution and sale (9),
construction and contracting (13), automotive sales and service (29), publishing and
entertainment (9), and other consumer sales (14). It is interesting that only 24 of the
largest 100 have headquarters in the South, while Chicago has 8 and New York 13.
Blacks are also involved in financial institutions. As of 1981, there were 46 Black banks,
employing 1,943 people and with assets of $1.3 billion. The top 10 Black banks had 52.2%
of these assets. There were 38 Black insurance companies, employing 7,240 people and
with assets of over $725.8 million. The top 10 Black insurance companies held 87.4% of
the assets. Overall, although Black businesses are growing, most are quite small and
marginal. Lenneal Henderson sums up the general picture in nine points:
(1) Almost 95% of black-owned firms operated as sole proprietorships rather
than as partnerships or corporations;
(2) Most black-owned businesses operated with no full-time, paid employees,
other than the owner...;
(3) Less than 1% (0.3%) of all black-owned firms had gross receipts of more
than $1 million with an average of $37,392 in gross receipts;
(4) In 1977, the 231,203 black-owned firms accounted for over $8 billion in
gross receipts, less than 2% of the more than $4 trillion generated by
American business in the same year;
(5) ...the largest increase in the number of black-owned firms between 1972
and 1977 occurred in the finance, insurance and real estate category (28%).
The 54% increase in black bank ownership largely accounts for this increase;
(6) Another perspective on black business enterprise is demonstrated by the
Black Enterprise annual survey of the 100 leading black firms in America.
These 100 firms reported total sales which increased from $473 million in
1972 to $1.9 billion in 1981, or nearly 25% of the total sales of all black-owned
firms. Compared to 1972, manufacturers and three strongly consumeroriented categories, automobile dealerships, entertainment and publishing
firms, gave way to increases in the representation of energy distribution and
sales companies, and computer and information processing firms. However,
median sales among the top one-hundred black firms rose 582%, from $2.35
million in 1972 to $13.7 million in 1981. Subtracting inflation from this
precipitous increase, these firms experienced about a 300% increase in sales
volume in ten years;
(7) The geographical distribution of black-owned enterprises indicates that the
South Atlantic states host the largest number of firms and that the states of
California, Illinois, Texas, New York and Ohio account for more than 30% of
137
156
all black-owned firms in America. Like the black population, black-owned firms
continue to urbanize. Twenty-six cities had more than 1,000 black-owned
enterprises in their jurisdictions in 1977...;
(8) The top 100 black industrial firms accounted for some $1.5 billion in sales
and employed 17,827 persons. When related to aggregate employment of
black-owned firms in 1977, black-owned firms are labor-intensive without
being employment-intensive; that is, black-owned firms employ a tiny
proportion of the total number of blacks in the work force but their industries
tend to require more labor than automated processes;
(9) As Robert Hill indicates:
A major reason why black businesses have been lagging behind
the U.S. businesses over the past decade is because they have
been disproportionately impacted by periodic recessions and
soaring interest rates...the devastating effect of the 1974-75
recession on black businesses is reflected in the sharp declines
in the following businesses between 1972 and 1977:
a. The number of auto dealerships and service stations fell by
24% - from 6,597 to 5,002.
b. The number of hotel and other lodging facilities declined by
21% - from 2,196 to 1,733.
c. The number of food and eating establishments fell by 10% from 26,000 to 24,000.
d. The number of intercity transporting firms fell by 9% - from
8,881 to 8,008.
Table I 9
BLACK-OWNED BUSINESSES, 1969-1982
Year
Number
Gross Sales (millions)
1969
163,073
4,474
1972
194,986
7,168
1977
1982
231,203
357,000
8,645
16,900
Source: Derived from National Urban League, The State of Black America, 1983, pp. 158
and 383; U.S. Bureau of the Census, The Social and Economic Status of the Black
Population in the United States, p. 78; and Black Enterprise, June 1983.
138
The Professions
The professional sector of the middle class is highly skilled, enjoys work conditions that
allow for relative independence on the job, and receives material rewards reflected in
relative comfort and the consumption of luxuries. Black professionals developed in two
waves, paralleling the general development of the middle class, though very few
professionals existed before the Civil War. First to develop were the traditional professions
of teaching and the ministry. Then came the more bureaucratic and technical professions
in medicine and law.
Table 20 indicates that the main category is teaching. The historical dominance of the
clergy is rapidly being matched by doctors, lawyers, and judges. These professions,
however, are not equal for Black women. Black women are 78.9% of the 1980 teachers,
but only 5.9% of the Black clergy, 23.8% of the Black doctors, and 31.4% of the Black
lawyers and judges.
At the technical level of the professions, special attention has to go to the Ph.D. level of
education. Many professions (especially in scientific research, technical fields, and higher
education) require the Ph.D. degree. Blacks, however, are not getting Ph.D.'s in every field.
They are mainly in education. From 1973-1976, of 2,253 Ph.D.'s awarded to Black men
158
over 58% were in education; out of 1,177 Ph.D.'s awarded to Black women 66% were in
education. Both Black men and Black women had about 23% of their respective number of
Ph.D.'s in psychology, social sciences, and the humanities.
Table 20
BLACKS IN SELECTED PROFESSIONS, 1890-1980
Teachers
Physicians and Lawyers and
Clergy
(except college)
Surgeons
Judges
1890
15,100
12,159
909
431
1910
29,432
17,495
3,077
798
1940
63,697
17,102
3,524
1,052
1960
122,163
13,955
4,706
2,180
1970
235,436
12,850
6,106
3,728
1980
362,937
16,045
13,243
15,133
Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, The Social and Economic Status of the Black
Population in the United States, p. 76 and Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1981, p.
402
Year
139
The overall structure of the Black middle class is reflected in its occupational composition.
As indicated in the census of individuals in Table 22, the percentage of Black males in the
middle class has remained relatively constant. However, within the Black middle class,
there has been a shift from farmers to professionals, with a slight decline in the percentage
of individual shopkeepers (self-employed individuals in retail trade). The pattern for Black
women is somewhat different. Women were 43% of the employed middle class in 1973.
Further, in 1979, of all employed Black women 0.1% were farmers, 0.4% were in business,
but 14.2% were professionals. Thus, while 14.7% of Black women were in these main
middle-class occupations, only 11.8% of employed men were. The main difference is the
tendency of women to be more often, in the professions and men to dominate in farming
and business.
Table 21
BLACKS EARNING THE PH.D. DEGREE, 1866-1976
Year
1866-1919
1930-1939
1950-1959
1970-1976
Number
23
179
1,197
6,226
159
Source: Derived from John P. Davis, ed., The American Negro Reference Book, p. 564 and
National Urban league, The State of Black America, 1980, p. 89.
Table 22
SECTORS OF BLACK MIDDLE CLASS AS PERCENT OF TOTAL BLACK EMPLOYED
MALES, 1958-1979
1958
1963
1968
1973
1979
Total (000s)
3,821
4,229
4,702
5,13
5,779
Farmers
5.8
3.4
2.0
1.1
.6
Shopkeepers Professionals
1.0
3.2
.9
4.9
.8
6.6
.8
8.2
.7
10.5
Total
10.0
9.2
9.4
10.1
11.8
Source: Based on employment data in U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Handbook of Labor
Statistics (December 1980), pp. 46-48, and earlier editions.
140
Government and the Black Middle Class

Another critical aspect of the Black middle class is the role played by the government. In
general, the state has been the major agent in the development of middle-class Blacks and
their ideological orientation. Not only does this reflect the general trend of U.S. state
monopoly capitalism, but it is central to understanding the particular history of Blacks since
the Civil War, from the Freedmen's Bureau to affirmative action programs. The role of the
government has been two-fold:
1. The government as a source of jobs: This is key for the Black professional, as well as all
employed Blacks, in that over 15% of Black workers were classified by the 1980 census as
government workers. A major turning point was the passage of the Fair Employment
Practice Commission bill that opened new opportunities during and after World War II.
Hence, the government - both directly (as employer) and indirectly (through legislation
regarding employment in general) - has been a source of jobs.
Statistics in a 1976 study for the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education by Harvard
University economist Richard Freeman reveal the importance of government employment:
Over all, about 51% of all male Black college graduates are employed by
governments - either federal, state, or local - compared to about 25% of
college-educated white males.
Although the largest number are teachers, there are high proportions of
Blacks employed by governments in other fields as well - about 28% of Black
lawyers, compared to 14% of lawyers overall. 47.5% of personnel and labor
relations professions, compared to 25% overall, and 24% of all Black men who
are managers, which is about double the overall proportion.
Freeman also reports that 72% of Black women college graduates work for some branch of
government.
2. The government as a source of capital: Again the history of Black business activity can
be seen in relation to government action. The great fiasco of the Freedmen's Bank during
Reconstruction is an example, but the government has really been involved since the Nixon
administration (1968-1974) with special legislation and executive guidelines to channel both
public and private funds into the hands of Black entrepreneurs. While the majority of
businesses started by Blacks may be independent of direct government intervention, it
appears that a majority of those that are successful are helped with funds (grants, loans,
etc.) and/ or technical assistance.
141
160
A critical factor is investment capital for Black businesses. In 1983 the U.S. Government
Small Business Administration made $29.2 million in loans to minority businesses, and
$205 million in loan guarantees. However, this is quite small when one considers the
support by the federal government for large corporations. Black Enterprise sums up the
problem in the early 1980s:
The fundamental problem of minority business is the lack of access to capital
- and proper funding when capital is available. The Reagan Administration
has declared its intention of getting out of the direct lending process and
limiting its support to loan guarantees. This avoids the basic issue of capital
formation in a black community where a middle class capable of accumulating
wealth for investment is still in its formative stages.
The lack of Administration support for minority business can be attributed to
a general conservative mistrust of race-sensitive programs and a macroeconomic view of free enterprise that has not been particularly sensitive to
small business. The federal government could improve the chances of
survival of many small businesses - both white and minority - by
demonstrating the same level of concern for them that it has shown to large
multinational corporations. That requires a willing ear and a look back at
history.
THE FUTURE OF THE BLACK MIDDLE CLASS
There is now a definite consolidation of the Black middle class on the basis of economic
161
resources. However, most of the economic activity is marginal and directly linked to a
segregated Black community as the consumer market. This is particularly true for smaller
businesses. Otherwise, governmental policies (affirmative action and policies to support
minority contracts) have served as a foundation and source of capital and jobs. The future
of the Black middle class is based on answers to several questions: Will the segregated
market of the Black community continue to exist? Can Black businesses and professionals
sell their products and services to whites? Will the government remain a source of jobs
and capital?
The other side of the story returns us to the issue of status. In the urban experience, the
Black middle class more than ever has developed a social process of creating illusion to
maintain high status privilege. Frazier is at his best on this subject. The second half of
Black Bourgeoisie is entitled "The World of Make Believe." He states:
This world of make-believe, to be sure, is a reflection of the values of
American society, but it lacks the economic basis that would give it roots in
the world of reality. In escaping into a world of make-believe, middle-class
Negroes have rejected both identification with the Negro and his traditional
culture. Through delusions of wealth and power they have sought
identification with the white America which continues to reject them. But these
delusions leave them frustrated because they are unable to escape from the
emptiness and futility of their existence.
142
There is no doubt that the Black middle class tries to mimic the ruling class in this society.
This is the meaning of various Black colleges claiming to be the "Black Harvard," or the
way social and fraternal organizations consume luxuries in order to achieve status when
they don't have the material equality rooted in class terms. This pattern of delusion seems
to be increasing rather than decreasing due to the changing demand for Black labor. When
Black colleges were founded, there was the need for skilled labor and managers to rule
over the Black community. Now that the supply of such people has started to exceed
demand, particularly in this period of an economic downturn and political crisis, the Black
middle class continues its antics of conspicuous consumption and desperately seeks status
to maintain privilege.
The Black middle class has been a dynamic sector of the Black community, but this
dynamism must be understood as having a dual character. Given the relative advantage of
having more education, economic resources, and the status resources to make dealing
with white people easier, the Black middle class acted as Black leadership whenever the
Black community was threatened by white people. During the rural period and early city life, 162
this remained true. In fact, because it too was oppressed by racism, this Black middle class
had its own reasons for providing militant leadership. This will be demonstrated in Chapters
14, 15, and 16.
During the slave and rural period, the Black middle class was potentially a revolutionary
class because its own class interests were consistent with the overall desire by Blacks to
destroy the system of racism and oppression. Further, it was the Black middle who
provided the professional services and retail shopping within the Black community. There
were also psychological benefits to the Black community in that one Black person doing
well was shared by all - middle class advancement of a few was good for "race pride."
However, as the few Black businesses grew, they often became the same as other large
businesses paying their workers low wages. Further, the recent transformation of the Black
professional has meant, that the government has a large number of Blacks managing the
apparatus of welfare and social control. In this way the Black middle class has become an
instrument for government and business to control the Black community.
143
163
144
This is the main political tension that currently exists for the Black middle class: to lead the
Black struggle against racism or to serve the corporate/government interests by controlling
the masses of Black people. It seems obvious that part of the answer rests with the
objective economic basis of the Black middle class. "Whoever pays the piper calls the
tune!" On the other hand, the very survival of the Black middle class depends upon its
willingness to include the entire Black community when it prepares to fight (either to win
more gains or in defense from racist attacks) because only with Black unity can a fight
against racism be won. The study of this dynamic process is an important part of Black
Studies.
KEY CONCEPTS
Black capitalism/
Monopoly capitalism
Class/Power
Farm ownership
Free Blacks (freedmen)
Higher education
Middle class
Professions
Sole proprietorship vs.
corporations
Status/Prestige
Upward vs. downward mobility
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. Discuss the origins and historical development of the Black middle class over the three
main periods of the Afro-American experience (slave, rural, and urban).
2. What is "Black capitalism"? How is it differentiated from monopoly capitalism in the
United States today?
3. What are similarities and differences between the Black middle class and the masses of
working-class Black people?
4. What historical role has the Black middle class played in the Black liberation struggle,
and what contribution can it make today?
145
164
1. Stephen Birmingham, Certain People: America's Black Elite., Boston: Little, Brown and
Company 1977.
2. Black Enterprise Editors, "The Top 100 Black Businesses: Annual Report." Black
Enterprise [Every June].
3. James E. Blackwell, Mainstreaming Outsiders: The Production of Black Professionals.
Bayside: General Hall, 1981.
4. George Davis and Glegg Watson, Black Life in Corporate America. Garden City: Anchor
Press, 1982.
5. Richard B. Freeman, Black Elite: The New Market for Higher Educated Black Americans.
New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976.
146
165
NINE
9. BLACK CULTURE AND THE ARTS
.............................. 167
168
170
172
175
176
177
Traditional African Culture

..............................
The Slave Period
............................................
The Rural Period
............................................
The Urban Period
............................................
The Arts Movements ........................................
The 20s: The Harlem Renaissance ..................
The 30a and 40s: The WPA Artists and the Be Bop
Musicians
.................................................
The 60s: The Black Arts Movement ..................
Black Culture and Imperialism
......................
178
182
183
The Black Culture and the Arts

LOGIC OF
CHANGE
Social
Cohesion
Traditional
Africa
Slavery
Rural
Life
Urban
Life
Social
Disruption
Slave
Trade
Emancipation
Migrations
Ideology
A1
B1
C1
D1
E1
F1
G1
A2
B2
C2
D2
E2
F2
G2
A3
B3
C3
D3
E3
F3
G3
A4
B4
C4
D4
E4
F4
G4
ANALYSIS
Class
Race
147
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:

To make a poet black, and bid him sing!
Countee Cullen, "Yet Do I Marvel," 1925.
All I can say is that when I was a boy we always was singin', you know,
just hollerin'. But we made up our songs about things that was happenin'
to us at the time, and I think that's where the blues started.
Son House of Mississippi, 1971
I don't think I'm singing. I feel like I am playing a horn. I try to improvise
like Les Young, like Louis Armstrong, or someone else I admire. What
comes out is what I feel. I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune
to my way of doing it. That's all I know.
Billy Holiday, Hear Me Talkin' to Ya, 1955.
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Black culture is of major significance in the study of the Afro-American experience.
Historically, considerable controversy has existed around the question of the origins and
content of Black culture. Even in this period of the deepening social, political, and economic
crisis of monopoly capitalism, Black culture continues to be a significant source of cohesion
among Black people.
In general, culture is the sum of values and behavioral preferences that make up a people's
life-style and approach to the activities of everyday life. The most profound manifestation of
culture is in common and routine daily activities, such as talking and communicating,
childrearing, cooking, dressing, and recreation. When these daily activities, values, and
behavioral preferences are concentrated in a conscious process of creative expression,
they become cultural forms of the highest order, what we will call the arts - music, literature,
sculpture, painting, dance, photography, etc.
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Culture is a key aspect of the development of a nation. This is also true of Afro-Americans
as a distinct nationality. Its development reflects the similarities and differences between
Black people and the entire society. It also reflects the similarities and differences especially differences based on class - that exist among different groups of Black people.
Culture (in form and content) is historical and Black culture is no exception. Just as the
historical stages of the Black experience reflect changes in the mode of material
(economic) production, so cultural change reflects changes in the mode of cultural
production. In other words, similar factors are involved in how Black culture is produced:
What technology is used? What numbers of people with what kinds of skills are involved?
Who owns what? And who works for or with whom? The mode of cultural production is thus
dependent on the mode of material production. Furthermore, the historical development of
Black culture reflects the same historical periods as all other aspects of the Black
experience. It is especially important to begin with Africa.
TRADITIONAL AFRICAN CULTURE
The development of Afro-American culture has its roots in sub-Saharan Africa before the
slave period. The pattern of cultural development in Africa reflects both similarity and
diversity. African societies were similar in that most were pre-literate (had no formal written
language) and therefore relied heavily on the oral tradition. Moreover, many African
societies were relatively small and, therefore, generally developed strong social controls
(as opposed to legal codes) to regulate behavior in such areas as property rights and
sexual relations.
The level of cultural development among groups in Africa varied according to the level of
technological development, which reflected different concrete conditions and stages of
development. Some societies in Africa had some of the highest levels of technology in the
world. For example, a society in East Africa had a method of forging iron a thousand years
before the process was discovered in Europe in the 19th century. Most societies, however,
were less technologically developed than Europe, particularly in the crucial area of
weaponry. Europeans thus came to dominate Africa and to retard its technological
development further. Similarly, African cultural development was fundamentally altered by
European imperialism and colonialism.
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The African arts were more advanced and more developed before European colonialism
than after. The pattern of "cultural borrowing" that took place between Europe and Africa
underscores this. The impact of African art can be seen, for example, in 20th century
modern Europe art, which reflects West African sculpture done before colonialization. The
art of the Dan, Bakota, and Baule (among others) was discovered by the modern artists in
the first showing of "primitive" art in Paris. This exposure had a major impact on the
development of the cubist school of art (led by Picasso and others). The colonial
domination of African societies, however, stifled African cultural development. It was only
with the demise of European colonialism that African culture began to flower once again.
A new African culture has emerged, especially in African countries that have fought wars of
national liberation. African culture is not now limited to the pre-colonial "tribe" but reflects
the emergence of new national culture. For example, instead of separate "tribal" or ethnic
cultures, we now have the emergence of new Mozambican culture.
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There has been considerable discussion about the necessity of reconstructing "traditional"
African culture. A study of the current developments in Africa, however, will reveal two
important considerations regarding culture: (1) the continuing role of cultural aggression
and cultural genocide as part of imperialist domination in Africa; and (2) the role of cultural
resistance as a weapon in the fight to end imperialism and the use of culture in
consolidating new post-colonial African nations. The latter involves creating a genuine
national culture, a new national unity that transcends the many religious, ethnic,
geographical, and other differences that imperialism has been able to use to further divide
and weaken African peoples.
The important point to remember with respect to Afro-American culture is that Africa had a
rich cultural heritage, which African people brought with them to the Americas during the
slave trade. Africa thus provided the basis for what was to develop as Afro-American
cultures.
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THE SLAVE PERIOD

Afro-American culture which emerged under slavery, however, was not based solely on
African cultural tradition. Those who hold such a position today fail to reflect on the
fundamental transformation of Africans becoming Afro-Americans - a new people with
profound historical and symbolic links to Africa, but with a new material reality and a new
cultural reality.
Cultural "creolization" best describes this process of transformation. Creolization is a
process in which two people and two cultures interact, with one people taking on the
characteristics of the resulting (cultural) synthesis. For Black people in the United States,
this cultural creolization has involved two complex and dynamic aspects:
1. Among Africans themselves, a creolization process developed as Africans captured from
different places and from different cultural backgrounds were forced to live together under
the conditions of the slave trade and slavery. A process of mutual cultural exchange and
synthesis took place.
2. Almost simultaneously, this dynamic mixture of African cultures was interacting and
exchanging with European cultures, which were themselves varied because of the different
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national identities and cultural patterns of the oppressive slave traders and plantation
owners, (British, French, etc.).
Thus, this process of creolization or cultural transformation (which Africans were going
through within the institution of slavery in the Americas) has two distinct yet inter-related
dimensions, two ways in which Africans were being transformed into Afro-Americans. One
was the loss or continued survival of African cultural traits. The other was the adoption and
internalization of the new cultural expression in the Americas. Both led to the development
of Afro-American culture.
This process of creolization was determined by the conditions of forced labor and total
social control under slavery. Thus, we can identify a continuum, based on structural
features of the slave system, that reflects degrees of creolization or cultural transformation
among Black people during slavery.
Runaway slave communities - The maroons of Jamaica and the "geeche" or "gullah"
people of the Sea Islands off the Georgia and South Carolina coast preserved African
cultural traits to the most significant degree. Creolization still characterized these areas, but
because of historical isolation, these areas have appeared to be "most African" over the
years. This was the main point proved ,by the work of linguist Lorenzo Turner and
anthropologist Melville Herskovitz.
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Field Slaves - The conditions of working from "can't see in the morning to can't see at
night," the terror of the overseer's whip, and segregated social life on the plantation
nurtured key cultural developments The social organization of slaves lent itself to the
development of distinct culture, which John Blassingame describes:
The social organization of the quarters was the slave's primary environment
which gave him his ethical rules and fostered cooperation, mutual
assistance, and black solidarity... The slave's culture or social heritage and
way of life determined the norms of conduct, defined roles and behavioral
patterns, and provided a network of individual and group relationships and
values which molded personality in the quarters. The socialization process,
shared expectations, ideals and enclosed status system of the slave's culture
promoted group identification and a positive self-concept. His culture was
reflected in socialization, family patterns, religion, and recreation.
Recreational activities led to cooperation, social cohesion, tighter communal
bonds, and brought all classes of slaves together in common pursuits.
House slaves - These conditions were conducive to the greatest degree of cultural
assimilation, meaning that so much of the slaveowner's culture was borrowed by the house 171
slaves that they became the most "Euro-Americanized" of all Afro-Americans.
Urban slaves - The city was the center of cosmopolitan and dynamic cultural interaction,
and the lives of slaves reflected this. There was a great deal more freedom of movement
for the slaves in the city, and two lines of cultural development resulted: the sacred and the
profane, or the culture rooted in the church and that rooted in the barroom.
Music is the best example of the cultural diversity that emerged during the slave period.
Many other aspects of cultural life (sculpture, African languages, traditional African religious
rituals, and so forth) were prohibited and were penalized. Music, however, flourished.
Many communities of runaway slaves maintained the drum and the basic features of
traditional African music. Even when they had no drums, they would practice "patting juba."
Patting juba involved, as Solomon Northup described it, "striking the hands on the knees,
then striking the hands together, then striking the right shoulder with one hand, the left with
the other - all the while keeping time with the feet, and singing... " The field slave was the
collective author of many spirituals. Spirituals might be thought of as the Africanization of
Christian cultural expression based on the painful experience of being a slave. Field slaves
also sang folk songs reflecting their secular life, as Blaissingame points out:
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The secular songs told of the slave's loves, work, floggings, and expressed
his moods and the reality of his oppression. On a number of occasions he
sang of the proud defiance of the runaway, the courage of the black rebels,
the stupidity of the patrollers, the heartlessness of the slave traders and the
kindness and cruelty of masters.
House slaves were frequently used to entertain the slave master, and for this reason they
were taught to perform European music as white people did it. Urban slaves were caught in
the dynamic cultural explosion of the city, and they began to develop the rudiments of jazz.
In addition to music, slaves relied on the oral tradition, much as their African ancestors did.
Blassingame outlines the use to which folk tales were put in the slave environment:
Primarily a means of entertainment, the [folk] tales also represented the
distillation of folk wisdom and were used as an instructional device to teach
young slaves to survive. A projection of the slave's personal experience,
dreams, and hopes, the folk tales allowed him to express hostility to his
master, to poke fun at himself, and to delineate the workings of the...system.
At the same time, by viewing himself as an object, verbalizing his dreams and
hostilities, the slave was able to preserve one more area which whites could
not control. While holding on to the reality of his existence, the slave gave full
play to his wish fulfillment in the tales...
This slave culture, synthesizing elements of African cultures, Euro-American cultures, and
the slave experience, was the foundation for the Afro-American national culture that
emerged during the rural period.
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154
THE RURAL PERIOD

After the Civil War and Reconstruction, a distinct national culture emerged that unified the
Afro-American people, especially in the Black Belt South. This new national culture of the
Afro-American people was conditioned by the structural constraints of the new historical
period. The economic and political repression of the rural tenancy period kept Black people
poor, uneducated, and relatively stationary on the land. In this sense, it was a restrictive
and limited social world. On the other hand, it was not slavery, and the intimate control of
plantation life by slaveowners and overseers did not exist. There was some degree of
freedom.
The oppressive character of the economic and political structures of Black rural life and the
little freedom that did exist provided the context in which Black culture developed in the
rural period. A two-sided, dialectical character to the Black experience developed: (1) the
individual tenant farmer's family life that revolved around the yearly cycle of farming, and
(2) the collective life of the community on Saturday (market day) and Sunday (church). A
contradiction existed between the isolated individual life on the farm and the collective
cultural experience for the entire community on Sunday at church. Everyday, cultural life
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was molded by the poverty of subsistence farming, while collective cultural development
took place around the church and included food preparation, music, recreation, moral
training, ritual observance of life stages (christening, baptism, marriage, and funerals), etc.
In general, then, the family was associated with both aspects of this dialectical cultural
existence. It reflected both the necessities and the freedom of tenant farming and rural life.
The development of a nation has generally reflected the drive of an emerging bourgeois
class to control its own market, to run its own turf (so to speak), and to facilitate its own
development. Correspondingly, national culture is dominated by this class as well.
Imperialism and racism stunted the development of the Afro-American nation, especially in
blocking the development of a Black bourgeoisie. Because of this, the Black church, as a
social institution that did develop, has played a very important role in the Afro-American
nation. The Black preacher emerged as a personification of the cohesiveness and national
unity of Black people. The preacher was one of the main vehicles for the spread of AfroAmerican culture and Afro-American national conscious ness, especially among the Black
middle class or petty bourgeoisie. In addition, the church was the basis for the collective
expression of Afro-American national development in the area of economic life, because it
was through the church that mutual aid societies and the like developed. This role of the
church in Afro-American national development is the basis for the continued pivotal role of
the church among Black people.
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While the Black church was the main expression of the rising bourgeois cultural domination
over the Black community during this period, it was not the only cultural dimension. The
masses of people were not all socially organized into families that participated in the
"morally righteous" context of the church. There were the unattached individuals whose
cultural lives revolved around the more immediate pleasures and emotions of the beer hall,
cafe, and brothel. This might be summed up as the contradiction between Saturday night
and Sunday morning, with a significant number of people (especially males and especially
before marriage) participating in both. This cultural contradiction is manifested musically in
blues and gospel music, both of which fully emerged during this period.
THE URBAN PERIOD
The urban period brought decisive, qualitative changes in the economic and political
conditions of Black people. It also introduced new developments in Afro-American culture.
Not only did the general cultural life of Black people change, but for the first time full-blown, 175
self-conscious arts movements developed among Black people. How was the urban
experience different from the rural period such that new cultural forms could emerge? First,
the seeds of Black urban culture did exist during slavery and the rural period. However, the
mode of cultural production was limited by the overall class relations, social context, and
technological possibilities. The urban period, beginning around World War I, gave Black
culture greater access to the American mainstream and the mainstream greater access to
it. Second, when Blacks moved en masse to the city there was no immediate transition, but
rather one that took several generations to develop. There were three major forces which
operated to transform Black culture during this period.
Migration and urbanization - World War I caused mass migrations of Blacks out of the
South, which led to the concentration of Blacks into ghettos of northern urban centers. City
life was less centralized and less intimate than rural life had been, and Black culture
reflected this greater variety. Through the radio, movies, night clubs, and just being in the
city, Black people had more access to and were more influenced by the cultural patterns of
other nationalities (and in turn exercised considerable influence on other cultures).
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Proletarianization - The daily work experience of Black people was transformed from mainly
agricultural work on the farm to factory work in large industries alongside white workers and
to the urban service sector (as maids, pullman porters, etc.). The new conditions, and the
newer forms of struggle which emerged, provided new experiences on which the cultural
and artistic creativity could draw. In addition, industry's need for a better trained labor force
meant that Black people had greater access to education. A more literate population and
cultural artists who were skilled in various crafts resulted.
Commercialization - Black culture and the arts ceased to be something developed by
Blacks for their own personal consumption and enjoyment. Its products became
commodities, products of the capitalist system available to anybody who had money
enough to pay. With soul food, the commercialized form was the restaurant. With dance, it
was night clubs. With music, there were the big bands, night clubs, and the recording
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industry. And with writing, an outpouring of poems, novels, short stories, books, and
magazines. In the slave period, Black culture was essentially underground. During the rural
period, it was isolated and intimate. In the urban period, however, Black culture was seized
by capitalism and subjected to the impersonal forces of the market. It is a market over
which Black culture artists and the masses of Black people have had little control.
THE ARTS MOVEMENTS
Music, literature, painting, etc., as we have said, represent the most concentrated forms of
cultural expression - the arts. An art movement consists of artists and patrons (supporters)
who are united by sharing common interests, themes, and general social rapport. The unity
is ideological (how they view the world), political (how they apply these beliefs in analyzing
their concrete problems), and sometimes organizational.
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Three art movements have emerged among Black people during the urban period that
reflect the impact of the changes outlined above. The Harlem Renaissance emerged during
the post-migration, post-war period of radical nationalist protest; the WPA (Works Progress
Administration) and the Be Bop period developed amidst the revolutionary turbulence of the
Great Depression and World War II; and the Black Arts Movement developed on the heels
of the Black Power Movement in the 1960s. These powerful cultural arts movements
among Black people developed in the context of the most intensive period of Black people's
struggle for liberation. How well any particular movement reflected the sentiment and
aspirations of the struggling masses must be investigated, however, and not assumed. Let
us briefly assess these arts movements by analyzing the concrete conditions in which they
emerged, their content and form, and their relationship, appeal, and impact on the masses
of Black people.
The 20s: The Harlem Renaissance
The 1920s were prosperous times. After a brief period of postwar decline, the U.S.
economy soared because of the immense profits earned from the first imperialist war. Black
people, as recent arrivals in northern industrial centers, enjoyed this prosperity as well,
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though the postwar riots and numerous lay-offs revealed that the city was not free from
oppression for Blacks.
As a concept, the "New Negro" accurately sums up what was happening to Black people.
"New" described the migration out of the South, urbanization of Black people into northern
ghettoes, and the proletarianization of rural southern Black farmers. "New Negro" also
described a wide range of new subjective and ideological developments. There was greater
social class stratification of Black people. This included the emergence of a new, more
assertive middle class that was critical of the accommodationism of the "old Negro" (e.g.
Booker T. Washington's leadership). With the NAACP, the Urban League, and the Garvey
movement all emerging between 1909 and 1917, there was the tremendous flowering of
the organized struggle of Black people for liberation.
"New Negro" thus became the credo of the movement of Black writers, artists, musicians,
actors, intellectuals, and their patrons which emerged during this period. The cultural
expression of this "New Negro" was authentic and widespread. No longer was Black
cultural expression isolated and shunned. Artists like Langston Hughes were inspired to
expose the life and culture of Black people in a way that had not been done before.
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The Harlem Renaissance was not only a movement of the city, but a particular city - New
York, the country's biggest and most Cosmopolitan city. This was the first modern art
movement of the Afro-American. As such, it had the major task of defeating the racist
notion that Blacks were culturally inferior. However, the new Black artists, reflecting their
middle-class backgrounds, did not feel bound to the masses in their task of artistic creativity
and production. In this sense, the Harlem Renaissance was petty bourgeois elitism at its
height. On the other hand, the artists had to face the capitalist market with their work.
Publishing companies and other cultural businesses bought up their products, massproduced them, and circulated them. Increasingly, this contradiction between the work of
the artist and the work of the cultural business began to transform Black art into a more
commercial product. The mediating social organization was the salon gathering of artists
and patrons, or the parties "downtown" frequented by the literary establishment to which
some young Black artists would be invited. In this setting, wealthy patrons would meet
young Black artists whom they would sponsor, thus providing them with income other than
what they were paid from competing in the market place.
The Harlem Renaissance was the work of a few talented and highly educated Black
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people, their white publishers and promoters, and a few others who could afford "Black
culture." Thus, while it had an impact on this key sector of the Black population, the Harlem
Renaissance was practically unknown to the vast majority of Black people and had little
direct impact on solving the problems with which they were most concerned.
The 30s and 40s: The WPA Artists and the Be Bop Musicians
The Great Depression laid bare the racist rule of the rich and threw many working people
out on the street to starve and die. All working people suffered, but Black people suffered
even more because they were the very last hired and the very first fired. This was
devastating proof that the North offered no sanctuary from racism and class exploitation.
Rather, life in the northern cities merely represented another, perhaps even more vicious
manifestation of oppression because it had held out the hope of being different. Black
artists were affected as well, since the income derived from selling their art "products" dried
up like everything else. This shattered the social organization of the artists that grew up
during the Harlem Renaissance. This was not limited to New York, but was spread from
coast to coast.
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Two forces external to the Black community had a tremendous impact on the development
of the arts movement of this period. First, the federal government set up an unprecedented
welfare program under Franklin D. Roosevelt that included the hiring of artists. Black artists
in every part of the country got WPA (Works Progress Administration) jobs. This changed
the social relations of cultural production. Before, the artist had worked as an individual,
possibly supported by a sponsor, but the key relationship was with a large capitalist firm
that took over the commercial aspects of production. Under the WPA, artists began working
collectively (often with social scientists), and the government was the employer (actually
acting as a large impersonal employer in the name of the entire country). Many people got
work, and a lot of work got done.
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Second, the overall condition of the masses of people led to a rapid increase in
revolutionary political activity, including a significant (at that particular time) role played by
the Communist Party, USA. Major developments were the unionization of Black workers
into the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations), the organization of the unemployed in
the Unemployed Councils, and militant Black-white unity in the Black Belt South (Southern
Negro Youth Congress, Southern Tenant Farmers Union, and the Sharecroppers Union).
This raised economic and revolutionary change as the fundamental question facing both
Blacks and whites. This was a political question that made a profound impact on artists,
particularly Black artists. As Richard Wright put it: "Today the question is: Shall Negro
writing be for the Negro masses, moulding the lives and consciousness of those masses
toward new goals, or shall it continue begging the question of the Negroes' humanity?" The
question was answered as the years wore on.
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Whereas Alain Locke could say the the New Negro in the 1920s was "radical on race
matters, conservative on others," Black people in the 1930s and 1940s were increasingly
radical on all matters. Black people and their artists began to understand that racist
discrimination was a product of capitalism and imperialism. They thus became active as
leaders and participants in campaigns for radical and revolutionary changes. These themes
of revolutionary class struggle pervaded the work of many Black artists. The best examples
of this new proletarian consciousness among Black writers were Richard Wright and
Langston Hughes. As cultural artists, they sought (1) to apply the theory, insights, and
lessons of the world revolutionary struggles to the concrete problems of Black people; (2) to
expose Black people's experiences with racism and poverty in the United States, and to
relate this to the common problem of exploitation facing the entire working class, thereby
developing the cultural basis for unity of action among Blacks and whites; and (3) to
contribute to the development of a united front of all exploited and oppressed peoples for
the revolutionary overthrow of imperialism as a necessary step in the total liberation of
Black people.
Richard Wright perhaps best summarized this new revolutionary perspective:
It means that a Negro writer must learn to view the life of a Negro living in
New York's Harlem or Chicago's South Side with the consciousness that
one-sixth of the earth surface belongs to the working class. It means that a
Negro writer must create in his readers' minds a relationship between a
Negro woman hoeing cotton in the South and the men who loll in swivel
chairs in Wall Street and take the fruits of her toil.
Perspective for Negro writers will come when they have looked and
brooded so hard and long upon the harsh lot of their race and compared it
with the hopes and struggles of minority peoples everywhere that the cold
facts have begun to tell them something.
Langston Hughes dramatically spelled out the nature of the revolutionary task of Black
writers in a speech at the First American Writers' Congress in 1935:
Negro writers can seek to unite blacks and whites in our country, not on the
nebulous basis of an interracial meeting, or the shifting sands of religious
brotherhood, but on the solid ground of the daily working-class struggle to
wipe out, now and forever, all the old inequalities of the past.
Furthermore, by way of exposure, Negro writers can reveal in their novels,
stories, poems, and articles:
The lovely grinning face of Philanthropy - which gives a million dollars to a
Jim Crow school, but not one job to a graduate of that school; which builds
a Negro hospital with second-rate equipment, then commands black
patients and student-doctors to go there whether they will or no; or which,
out of the kindness of its heart, erects yet another separate, segregated,
shut-off, Jim Crow Y.M.C.A.
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Negro writers can expose those white labor leaders who keep their unions
closed against Negro workers and prevent the betterment of all workers.
We can expose, too, the sick-sweet smile of organized religion - which lies
about what it doesn't know, and about what it does know. And the halfvoodoo, half-clown, face of revivalism, dulling the mind with the clap of its
empty hands.
Expose, also, the false leadership that besets the Negro people - bought
and paid for leadership, owned by capital, afraid to open its mouth except
in the old conciliatory way so advantageous to the exploiters.
And all the economic roots of race hatred and race fear...
And expose war. And the old My-Country-Tis-of-Thee lie...
We want a new and better America, where there won't be any poor, where
there won't be any more Jim Crow, where there won't be any lynchings,
where there won't be any munition makers, where we won't need
philanthropy, nor charity, nor the New Deal, nor Home Relief.
We want an America that will be ours, a world that will be ours - we Negro
workers and white workers! Black writers and white!
We'll make that world!
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And in the world of the performing arts, Paul Robeson, one of the foremost actors and
singers of his time, asserted what was in the hearts of many:
When I sing "Let My People Go," I want it in the future to mean more than
it has before. It must express the need for freedom not only of my own
race. That's only part of the bigger thing. But of all the working class here, in America, all over. I was born of them. They are my people. They
will know what I mean.
Unlike the artists of the Harlem Renaissance who tended to focus on the culture of the
bourgeoisie, the cultural artists of the Depression era were much more in touch with the
sentiment and aspirations of the masses of Black people. They pointed out that a total
restructuring of American society was necessary if Black people were to be free. They
actively lent their talent and skills to achieve this aim.
On the heels of the Depression and as a reaction to the turbulence of the war years, Be
Bop arrived on the scene. The key aspect of the Be Bop experience was that it was a
cultural revolt. The "hipster" was in revolt: beards, dark glasses (even at night), beret,
esoteric speech, and a militant political attitude, spiced with a love for "art." These were
Black people who had been emancipated from the South, and who were bitter about being
kept from realizing their full humanity. Their cultural revolt represented withdrawal into
closed little circles. But it also represented a new cultural energy that swept through the
arts and won Afro-American culture and art respect throughout the world. As A. B.
Spellman put it:
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The bebop revolution saw the jazz musician adopting an entirely different
social posture...Here, for the first time, a black artistic vanguard assumed
whole styles of comportment, attire and speech which were calculated to be
the indicia of a group which felt that its own values were more sophisticated
than, if not superior to, the mores of the American society at large. The
music and the manner developed concomitantly, which indicates that the
musicians were aware that each musical innovation was a new way of
commenting on the world around them.
This is true of no one more than the musician Charlie "Bird" Parker, the father of Be Bop:
Parker spoke through his horn like a man who, after getting along for years
on a diet of basic English, had suddenly swallowed the dictionary, yet
miraculously managed to digest every page. Where others had played in
and around arpeggios on a single chord for four beat, he would involve two,
three, or four; where they had given an impression of brisk motion with their
little flotillas of eight notes, Parker would play sixteenths. Where tonal
discretion had been the better part of their technical valor, Parker threw
conventional tonal beauty out of the window to concentrate more fully on
matter rather than manner.
Be Bop improvisation was a cultural parallel to the theory of relativity, and Bird's voice had
an impact like the atomic bomb.
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The 60s: The Black Arts Movement

The Civil Rights Movement with its underlying cultural goal of assimilation was aborted by
the reactionary repression Blacks underwent in the form of assassination, imprisonment,
and racist ideological attacks. The Civil Rights Movement had been the hope of a large and
developing number of aspirants to middle-class life. When it failed, many of these young,
middle-class youths formed the social base for a new nationalist movement against
America. While this had a political aspect, it also had a cultural aspect. "Black power"
became a rallying cry for the newborn nationalist who began to defect from the Civil Rights
Movement, particularly after the death of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. In this
context the Black Arts Movement was born.
The "Black power" concept and the Black Arts Movement reflected the particular plight of
the Black middle class that was previously revealed during the Harlem Renaissance. It
desired and had fought for full integration into the "mainstream." But having been barred by
pervasive racism, it was forced to become more nationalist and seek its advancement in
ambivalent unity with the masses of Black people.
Black power fell short of pointing out that the problems of Black people resulted from racist
oppression and capitalist exploitation. Similarly, the Black Arts Movement defined the
problems of Black people more as the result of "European American cultural insensitivity" 183
and not primarily as the result of the operations of the capitalist system. The solution
proposed by the Black Arts Movement (and Black power) was essentially reformist: "A
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cultural revolution in arts and ideas." This cultural "revolution" was to be rooted in a new
aesthetic, the Black aesthetic. The writer Larry Neat articulated its purpose:
The motive behind the Black aesthetic is the destruction of the white thing,
the destruction of white ideas, and white ways of looking at the world. The
new aesthetic is mostly predicated on an Ethics which asks the question:
whose vision of the world is finally more meaningful, ours or the white
oppressors? What is truth? Or more precisely, whose truth shall we
express, that of the oppressed or of the oppressors?
Neither the Black Arts Movement nor the Black Power Movement understood, however,
that such a cultural revolution was impossible without revolutionary change in the existing
capitalist economic and political system. Thus, the Black Arts Movement was more like the
Harlem Renaissance than the arts movement of the Depression. In fact, Alain Locke's
description of the Renaissance in the 1920s, "radical in form but not in purpose," comes
close to an accurate description of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s.
BLACK CULTURE AND IMPERIALISM
It is important to note that as Black cultural expression has increased in quantity and artists
have become more expert, there has also been a tremendous increase in the appeal of
Black art. The major single feature that has contributed to this dissemination of Black
culture in the last fifty years has been, of course, the mass media: advertising, radio,
television, film. Through the mass media, the various forms of Black cultural expression
become accessible to the broad masses of people, although it is clear that the content of
this expression is very tightly controlled by the capitalists owners. Hence, Black cultural
expression as it is presented to us today - via theatre, film, music, newspapers, magazines,
paperback novels - as popular as it is, is almost entirely devoid of any social content. That
is, on the whole, it lacks a concrete analysis of the real content and cause of the problems
facing Black people and any orientation toward struggle to change these conditions.
In order to understand why this is so, it is necessary to understand the growth of monopoly
capitalism and imperialism, and its effect on Black people and Black culture. "Imperialism
and the Black Media" written by the National Coordinating Committee of the "Year to Pull
the Covers Off Imperialism" Project, outlines the relationship between monopoly capitalism
and the mass media:
In brief, the pattern of ownership of the mass media is identical to the
pattern of monopoly capitalism in the U.S. economy. Ownership is
characterized by "media monopolies" and is concentrated among a few
large corporations. Heavily represented in the ownership of media are large
financial institutions, that serve to bring the mass media under the
ownership and control of the same elite U.S. ruling class that owns the rest
of the economy.
A small ruling class owns almost all of the newspapers, magazines, films, music, theatres,
and radio and TV stations in this country as well as abroad. As owners, they control the
165
184
content of what is released in the media. True, there are occasional exposes or
documentaries, but the media by and large do not present in any meaningful sense the
content of the lives of the masses. The media have performed and continue to perform as
they do because, as stated in "Imperialism and the Black Media,"
It is not in the interest of U.S. monopoly capitalism and imperialism to allow
a true picture of the lives of the masses of people - Black, Asian, Chicano,
Native American, Puerto Rican, white - to be presented in this country.
Such truth would provide too great a push to the already on-going struggle
of the people to end their exploitation and oppression at the hands of U.S.
imperialism.
In discussing Black culture and the arts, we must remember one thing: imperialism cannot
afford for the cultural lives of the masses of people to be outside the realm of its control.
Hence, we must understand Black culture and art in two ways: (1) its relationship to the
concrete experiences of the masses of people, which is a history of racist oppression and
exploitation; and (2) the continuous manipulation and control by capitalists. It is this
analysis that can correctly explain in a comprehensive way the development of the culture
of Black people in the United States and make it a component part of the struggle for
liberation.
KEY CONCEPTS
African cultures (tribal, colonial, national)
Art
Be Bop
Black Arts Movement
Commercialization
Creolization
Cultural imperialism
Culture
Harlem Renaissance
Oral tradition
STUDY QUESTIONS
185
1. Discuss the impact of colonialism, imperialism, and racism on the culture of traditional
Africa. What are the parallels and contrasts in the development of Afro-American culture?
2. What is "creolization"? How does it explain the transformation of Black culture in the
United States from African to Afro-American? Illustrate how this process operated in the
United States, and show how the conditions of slavery influenced the "creolization"
process.
3. What social and economic forces shaped Black culture and artistic production during the
rural period? the urban industrial period?
4. Discuss the three arts movements (Harlem Renaissance, WPA and Be Bop, and the
1960s Black Arts Movement) that emerged among Afro-American people in the urban
166
period.
1. Houston A. Baker, Jr., The Journey Back: Issues in Black Literary Criticism. Chicago:
2. William Ferris, ed., Afro-American Folk Art and Crafts. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1983.
3. Leroi Jones and Larry Neal, eds., Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing.
New York: William Morrow, 1968.
4. Samella Lewis, Art: African American. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1978.
5. Eileen Southern, The Music of Black Americans: A History. New York: W. W. Norton,
1971.
167
186
168
169
TEN
10. RELIGION AND THE BLACK CHURCH
............................ 189
191
192
194
195
196
196
196
198
198
199
200
201
The African Connection

..................................
The Slave Period
.............................................
The Rural Period
...........................................
Social Stability
...........................................
..............................
Education
.................................................
Arena of Politic al Life ...................................
The Urban Period ..............................................
Secularization
...................................
Storefront Churches .....................................
..................................
The Contemporary Situation ...................................
Religion and the Black Church

LOGIC OF
CHANGE
Social
Cohesion
Traditional
Africa
Slavery
Rural
Life
Urban
Life
Social
Disruption
Slave
Trade
Emancipation
Migrations
Ideology
A1
B1
C1
D1
E1
F1
G1
A2
B2
C2
D2
E2
F2
G2
A3
B3
C3
D3
E3
F3
G3
A4
B4
C4
D4
E4
F4
G4
ANALYSIS
Class
Race
170
On Sunday mornings the women all seemed patient, all the men seemed
mighty. While John watched, the Power struck someone, a man or woman;
they cried out, a long, wordless crying, and, arms outstretched like wings,
they began the Shout. Someone moved a chair a little to give them room,
the rhythm paused, the singing stopped, only the pounding feet and the
clapping hands were heard; then another cry, another dancer; then the
tambourines began again, and the voices rose again, and the music swept
on again, like fire, or flood, or judgment. Then the church seemed to swell
with the Power it held, and, like a planet rocking in space, the temple rocked
with the Power of God. John watched, watched the faces, and the
weightless bodies, and listened to the timeless cries. One day, so everyone
said, this Power would possess him; he would sing and cry as they did now,
and dance before his King.
James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain, 1953
The relation between religion and political radicalism is a confusing one. On

the one hand, established religious institutions have generally had a stake in
the status quo and hence have fostered conservatism. The other-worldly
orientation of the masses, particularly as expressed in the more
fundamentalist branches of Christianity, has been seen as an alternative to
the development of political radicalism. On the other hand, as the source of
both universal humanistic values and the strength that can come from
believing one is carrying out God's will in political matters, religion has
occasionally played a positive role in movements for radical social change.
Gary Marx, Protest and Prejudice, 1969
189
Speaker: Let a new earth arise!
Congregation: Let a generation full of courage rise and take control!
Speaker: In the Union of South Africa (USA) to the United States of America
(USA)!
Congregation: Let a new earth arise!
Speaker: Let the dirges disappear!...
Congregation: Stop bank loans in South Africa! Stop redlining against
Blacks and the poor!
Speaker: Let a generation of men and women rise and take control!
Congregation: No Sowetos over me, No more Sowetos over me, No more,
no more!
Speaker: From the USA to the USA!
Congregation: No more Bakkes over me, No more Bakkes over me, No
more, no more!
Speaker; Let a new earth arise!
Congregation: No more auction blocks for me! No more police brutality!...
Speaker: "For my people everywhere!"
Congregation: Rise up, fight for what is right! Rise up and fight!
Congregation: This land is my land! I built it with my hands!
Speaker: Let a generation of men and women rise and take control.
Congregation: Stand up, fight for your rights! Stand up and fight!
Speaker: Come out to the picket line!...
171
Congregation: We make our stand to defend our rights and fight for
liberation.
Congregation: Same struggle. Same fight!
All: SAME STRUGGLE, SAME FIGHT!
Chicago Committee for a Free Africa, "New Wine in Old Bottles: A
Responsive Reading on the Black Church and Struggle," 1978.
172
The church has been the most important social institution in the Black community. This
means that the ideology of religious beliefs (particularly Christianity), the social organization
of the church, and the community leadership of the minister have combined to represent
the main organized social form of historical stability.
Religion is a set of ideas, ideological beliefs, in which the beginning of the world and all
subsequent historical and social phenomena are the result of actions by one or more
Supreme Beings (God, Allah, Jehovah, etc.), which exist outside of the material world. But
the concrete historical conditions that Black people have faced, and still face in their day-today lives, call for changes in "the here and now." Thus, religion and the Black church have
been historically confronted with a contradiction: to believe that "God helps those who help
190
themselves" and to get fully involved in the struggle for Black liberation, or to wait for some
"Supreme Being" to solve the problems that Black people face.
However "otherworldly" in its focus, the church exists "down here on the ground" with other
aspects of the society, economy, politics, culture, etc. Our analysis of the church and
religion must therefore take into account the concrete conditions within which they exist. In
this way, we discover that the main forms of the Black church and the religious experience
of Black people have changed during the three main periods of Afro-American history: from
the invisible institution during slavery to the small rural church, to the large urban church
and the storefront church. Let us look at these in greater detail, beginning with religion in
Africa.
173
THE AFRICAN CONNECTION

The impact of African religious practices on Afro-American religion had been the subject of
an intense debate. There are two schools of thought. E. Franklin Frazier and others argued
that the manner in which Africans were captured and enslaved in Africa and slavery in the
Americas practically stripped the slaves of their African social heritage, religion included.
This was a deliberate process by the slave traders and slaveowners, who could more easily
maintain control over culturally disoriented and dehumanized slaves. On the other hand,
Lorenzo Turner, a Black linguist, and Melville Herskovitz, a white anthropologist, attempted
to show that African survivals could be discovered in almost all aspects of Black life in the
United States. Included among these survivals in religion, for example, were the "call and
response" interaction between preacher, choir, and congregation; "shouting," which results
191
from "possession" by the supernatural; and the practice of immersing the body in water
(baptizing). All have been found in parts of Africa and in some Black churches in the United
States.
Subsequent research has indicated that the brutal experiences of enslavement and the
"middle passage" did not completely erase all of the African cultural heritage of AfroAmericans. Arthur Fauset, sociologist and student of Black urban religious movements,
maintained:
Common sense requires us to believe that everything cultural which the Negro
brought over with him from Africa could not have been eradicated from his
heritage, despite the centuries since he left Africa, the thousands of miles
which have separated him from the ancestral homeland, and the eroding
influences of an overwhelming and inescapable super-culture.
174
Even Frazier admitted in The Negro Church in America: "Those slaves who were largely
isolated from the whites engaged in religious practices that undoubtedly included some
African Survivals." However, he quickly added that "there was a determined effort on the
part of whites to prevent any resurgence of African religion." Always fearful of the
possibility of slave revolts, whites even passed laws to prohibit African religious practices.
These new conditions of slavery in the New World were significant factors in determining
what would remain of this cultural heritage as Black people struggled for survival in the
United States. Thus, the religious practices of Black people are best understood by looking
at them in the concrete social context of the Afro-American experience in the United States
as it has historically evolved.
THE SLAVE PERIOD
Although Frazier incorrectly argued that slaves suffered a total loss of African culture, he
was the leading scholar recognizing the pivotal social role that the Black church has played
in the Black experience since slavery. The slave trade represented a profound disruption in
social life of the Black people. During slavery, the Christian religion to some extent provided
a new and vitally necessary basis of social cohesion. It helped to create group solidarity
and a structured social life among Black people.
While Quakers, Presbyterians, and Catholics were the first to try and recruit Blacks, it was
mainly the Baptists and secondarily the Methodists that slaves responded to and joined.
Several factors accounted for this:
1. Baptist and Methodist preachers were mainly uneducated and poor like the slaves, and
their appeal appeared to be more genuine and inviting.
2. The emotionalism of Baptists and Methodists provided more of an outlet for the pent-up
feelings and emotions of the oppressed slaves than did the more reserved practices of
other denominations.
3. The decentralized political structure of the Baptist denomination, with each church
operating as an autonomous unit under the leadership of a local preacher, gave more real
involvement to the members and proved more appealing than the centralized structure of
the Methodist Church.
In addition to providing social cohesion among slaves, religion was a bridge to the white
world. House slaves and slavemasters often worshipped together, either in special sections
of white churches or in special services in the slaveowner's house. Not only did religion
provide slaves with a link to white society, but, as Frazier pointed out, it also "tended to
break down barriers that isolated them morally from their white masters... Thus, despite the
vast gulf in the status that separated master and slave, participation in the same religious
services drew the Negroes out of their moral isolation in the white man's world."
175
192
Slavemasters, however, deliberately used religion to reinforce slavery. First, they passed
laws which overruled the view of many Christians that only a heathen could be enslaved
and that once baptized a slave was free. Second, the bible was used to teach slaves a
submissive orientation and a "divine, God-given" justification for their condition as slaves.
Slaves were the "cursed children of Ham" and destined always to be oppressed workers "Hewers of wood and drawers of water." If slaves accepted their lot and were obedient,
hardworking, and truthful, they would be rewarded in heaven, the world after death. Third,
slavemasters used religion to further social distinctions between "house slaves" (who were
more assimilated and shared the religious practices, beliefs, and interests of the master)
and the "field slaves" (who remained more African in orientation). It was always in the
slavemaster's interest to keep slaves divided as much as possible. Because preachers
functioned with the blessings of the master, they often became a useful tool of social
control.
193
Since plantation owners did not allow organization to develop openly among the slaves, an
underground church - what E. Franklin Frazier calls "the invisible institution" - emerged.
There, the religious practices of the slaves flourished beyond the watchful eyes of the
slaveowner and overseers. An ex-slave wrote describing a typical underground church:
Our preachers were usually plantation folks just like the rest of us. Some
man who had a little education and had been taught something about the
Bible would be our preacher... When we had our meetings of this kind, we
held them in our own way and were not interfered with by the white folks.
In the underground church, preachers usually were called to their positions by some
religious experience that indicated they were God's chosen leaders. Preachers, however,
were always ultimately under the control of whites. Thus, under slavery there was never
really an independent Black church, except those established by free Blacks.
176
Slavery also defined the status of free Blacks. In white churches, even free Blacks were
denied equality and continually were subjected to racist abuse. In 1787, Richard Allen and
Absalom Jones, faced with vicious discrimination in Philadelphia, led a group of Black
people in establishing the first Black denomination - the African Methodist Episcopal
Church (AME). Others followed in their footsteps and formed independent Black churches,
most notably the African Methodist Episcopal Church Zion (AMEZ). The AME and AMEZ
churches today are two of the largest Black denominations, performing missionary work, in
Africa, Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
Resistance was a central aspect of the church during slavery. Slave spirituals spoke of the
fight against slavery. As the theologian James Cone pointed out:
The basic idea of the spirituals is that slavery contradicts God; it is a denial
of his will... They rejected white distortions of the gospel, which emphasized
the obedience of slaves to their masters. They contended that God willed
their freedom and not their slavery. That is why the spirituals focus on
biblical passages that stress God's involvement in the liberation of
oppressed people. Black people sang about Joshua and the battle of
Jericho, Moses leading the Israelites from bondage, Daniel in the lions' den,
and the Hebrew children in the fiery furnace. Here the emphasis was on
God's liberation of the weak from the oppression of the strong, the lowly and
downtrodden from the proud and mighty. And blacks reasoned that if God
could lock the lion's jaw for Daniel and could cool the fire for the Hebrew
children, then he could certainly deliver black people from slavery.
The "sweet chariot" that would "swing low" referred to the underground railroad, a
clandestine escape route for slaves organized by Harriet Tubman and others and
supported by Black churches in the South and North. Men like Nat Turner, Gabriel
Prosser, and Denmark Vesey were either inspired by biblical passages or used their roles
and skills as preachers to organize armed resistance against the institution of slavery. It is
therefore not surprising that Black churches and Black preachers were declared illegal by
the laws of many states after the slave revolts of the early 1800s.
177
194
THE RURAL PERIOD

In the rural period, the end of slavery provided conditions under which the "invisible
institution" of the slaves merged with the institutional churches of the free Blacks. In
addition to the AME and AMEZ churches, the other major Black denominations were: the
Colored Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church, which was established in 1870 and changed
its name to Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in 1956; the National Baptist Convention,
USA, which was established in 1880 and became the largest Black denomination; and the
National Baptist Convention of America, which split off from the National Baptist
Convention, USA. These and other. new church institutions increased in both size and
importance. During the rural period, Black churches made significant contributions to social
stability, economic well-being, education, and political life in the Black community.
Social Stability
The moral life of captured Africans was disrupted and subjected to the economic dictates of
slavery. Thus, family life, moral values, religious beliefs, and social practices were
corrupted and negated. The Black church in the post-Civil War period helped to foster a
new sense of community and to evolve a system of beliefs and values that sustained the
development of stable families, social practices, and moral values. Charles S. Johnson, in
his 1934 study of the Black rural church, summarized its role as a social institution:
It is in a very real sense a social institution. It provides a large measure of
the recreation and relaxation from the physical stress of life. It is the agency
looked to for aid when misfortune overtakes a person. It offers the medium
for a community feeling, singing together, eating together, praying together,
and indulging in the formal expressions of fellowship. Above this it holds out
a world of escape from the hard experiences of life common to all. It is the
agency which holds together the subcommunities and families physically
scattered over a wide area. It exercises some influence over social
relations,. setting up certain regulations for behavior, passing judgments
which represent community opinion, censuring and penalizing improper
conduct by expulsion.
Almost a decade later, he wrote:
Among rural Negroes the church is still the only institution which provides
an effective organization of the group, an approved and tolerated place for
social activities, a forum for expression on many issues an outlet for
emotional repressions, and a plan for social living. It is complex institution
meeting a wide variety of needs.
Table 23
178
195
FIVE MAJOR BLACK DENOMINATIONS

Denomination
National Baptist
Convention, USA
National Baptist
Convention of America
AME Church
AME Zion Church
CME Church
Number of
Members
Number of
Churches
Number of
Pastors
Sunday School
Members
5,000,000
26,000
27,500
2,407,000
2,668,000
11,398
7,598
2,500,000
1,166,000
770,000
444,493
5,878
4,082
2,523
5,878
2,400
1,792
363,432
199,250
115,424
Source: John P. Davis, ed. The American Negro Reference Book, 1966, p. 402.
179
Black people pooled their meager resources to build their own churches after slavery.
"Mutual aid societies" and "sickness and burial societies" also emerged. These early efforts
at capital accumulation also helped to lay the basis for church-supported businesses,
newspapers, banks, and insurance companies.
Education
The first independent Black schools were established by Black preachers while the Civil
War was still being fought. Immediately after the war, millions of dollars were raised to
support Black education through church suppliers and programs. Black church-supported
colleges were also a response to the need of Black churches for an educated ministry,
though many Black people other than ministers were trained.
Arena of Political Life
During Reconstruction, Black preachers became important elected and appointed political
leaders. After the Hayes-Tilden sellout forced Black people out of politics, the Black church
became the most available center for Black political activity. Here, individual preachers
could struggle for power, and the masses could voice their choice for leadership through
voting, committee work, and holding various church offices.
Black preachers emerged as the personification of the cohesiveness and national unity of
Black people. They were leaders in all phases of community life. They motivated Black
people to build schools and to contribute to denominational colleges; they encouraged
homeownership and even helped some to become homeowners; they provided leadership
in civic activities; and they often served as the main link between the Black community and
white officials.
180
196
During the slave and rural periods, Blacks were molded into an Afro-American nation. As
the main social institution during these periods, the Black church reflected the
contradictions inherent in the Black experience. On the one hand it was a progressive
institution insofar as it served as a motivating force behind liberation struggles. On the other
hand, it was a conservative force that encouraged people to accept their condition as a
means of dealing with their oppression.
While Black churches were centers of resistance throughout much of the slave period and
early rural period, many churches became quite conservative in the rural areas. Writing on
the rural church in 1941, Charles S. Johnson declared:
It is an inescapable observation that the rural Negro church is a
conservative institution...its greatest present value appears to be that of
providing emotional relief for the fixed problems of a hard life. As one
woman put it, "It just seem like I can stand my worries better when I go to
church."
Based on his study of Black rural church people, he concluded in Shadow of the Plantation:
The dominant attitude was one of unquestioning belief in and reliance upon
God as a protection against everything that was feared, and an answer to
everything that could not be understood...
Just as God brought droughts, rain, pestilence, disease for a purpose both
local and inscrutable, there was no appeal from his elections, whether with
respect to the incidence of contagion or the exigencies of the cotton crop.
All is mystery colored by a faith and fatalism which tended to dull both
striving and desire.
Benjamin Mays, in his 1938 study, referred to these attitudes as "traditional, compensatory
ideas," which were reflected in sermons, prayers, and church school literature after
1914. Describing these ideas, he maintained:
They are conducive to developing in the Negro a complacent, laissez-faire
attitude toward life. They support the view that God in His good time and in
His own way will bring about the conditions that will lead to the fulfillment of
social needs. They encourage Negroes to feel that God will see to it that
things work out all right; if not in this world, certainly in the world to come.
They make God influential chiefly in the beyond, in preparing a home for
the faithful - a home where His suffering servants will be free of the trials
and tribulations which beset them on the earth.
181
197
Though Black people in the northern urban areas may have been receiving different
messages, the masses in the rural areas were being given a hefty dose of otherworldly
ideas to compensate for their tribulations.
182
As conservative as the church may have been in the rural period, it did play a very
important role in the development of the Afro-American nation. As a social institution, it was
the backbone of the Black community. In addition, the church was the basis for the
collective expression of Afro-American national development in the area of economic life.
This was especially the case since imperialism and racism stunted the development of a
Black bourgeoisie. The political life of the Black community emanated from the rural church.
The pivotal role of the church in Afro-American national development is the basis for the
continued key role of the church among Black people.
THE URBAN PERIOD
Migration, urbanization, and proletarianization had a profound impact on the institutional life
of Black people. The Black church, the center of social life in the rural South, was not
immediately available to meet the needs resulting from the new, cold, and impersonal life in
the city. In response to this new environment and the transformation of the Black
198
experience from rural to urban and from farm to factory, the Black church was also
transformed in several significant ways.
Secularization
The Black churches added more social programs to deal with the conditions of Black
people "on this side of Jordan." More importantly, many churches and ministers became
actively involved in the struggle for Black liberation. They joined the struggles for jobs and
housing and fought against lynching.
Many of the prohibitions like those against dancing, card playing, and other recreational
activities were dropped (certainly in part because they were being increasingly ignored).
Religious music was also secularized with the emergence of gospel music. This music is
not as religious and otherworldly as the spirituals, the "sacred folk songs" which arose
during slavery. Instead, gospel - a synthesis of spirituals and blues - symbolized the efforts
of Black people to use their traditional religious heritage in coming to grips with their
changing life and the problems they confronted in the real world.
183
Storefront Churches
In order to compete with the large and varied institutions which characterized urban life,
many Black churches became large impersonal bureaucracies. Many churchgoers,
especially the newly-arrived migrants from the South, desired a more intimate church
experience and joined one of the many smaller churches housed in rented stores or
houses. Many southern preachers even followed their members North as they migrated
and set up shop in their new communities.
Writing in the 1940s, Vattel Daniel described these new urban churches:
These "storefront" churches, as, the name suggests, are generally conducted
in unrented or abandoned stores, though some may be found in run-down
houses. They are located in the poorer and deteriorated areas of Negro
communities. They often owe their existence to the initiative on the part of a
"Jack-leg" preacher, that is, a semiliterate or an uneducated preacher, who
gathers about him the poorer Negroes who seek a religious leader in the
city...
The "storefront" church represents an attempt on the part of the migrants,
especially from the rural areas of the South, to re-establish a type of church in
the urban environment to which they were accustomed. They want a church,
first of all, in which they are known as people. In the large city church they
lose their identity completely and as many of the migrants from the rural South
have said, neither the church members nor the pastor know them personally.
Sometimes they complain with bitterness that the pastor of the large city
church knows them only as the number on the envelope in which they place
their dues. In wanting to be treated as human beings, they want status in the
church which was the main or only organization in the South in which they
had status...
In these small "storefront" churches the Negro migrant could worship in a
manner to which he had been accustomed. The sermon by the pastor is of a
type to appeal to traditional ideas concerning hell and heaven and the
imagery which the Negro has acquired from the Bible. Much emphasis is
placed upon sins of the flesh, especially sexual sins. The preacher leads the
singing of the spirituals and other hymns with which the Negroes with a folk
background are acquainted.
184
199
Storefront churches were historically necessary responses to the inadequacy of established

denominations in meeting the spiritual needs felt by Black people from the South in the
urban industrial environment.
Storefront churches usually maintained traditional beliefs and practices, Black religious
cults abandoned conventional beliefs about God and about Black people. Two kinds of
cults stand out: 1) the "holiness" cults, and 2) the salvation" cults.
The "holiness" cults seek to restore a purer form of Christianity through the sanctification
(or Purification) of their members. Father Divine's Peace Mission Movement and Daddy
Grace's United House Of Prayer for All People are examples of this type of cult.
The beliefs and practices of the United House of Prayer for All People were described by
Arthur Fauset in 1944:
[T]he cult represents a Christian sect of the holiness type, believing in
conversion, sanctification, and the intervention of the Holy Spirit, etc. There are
the usual taboos.
Actually, however, the beliefs boil down to a worship of Daddy Grace. God
appears to be all but forgotten. The followers concentrate their thoughts on His
"great man," Grace...
The United House of Prayer for All People has meetings every night and all
day Sunday.
The distinguishing characteristics of the practices of this cult are their extreme
physical frenzy, and the use to which these frenzies are applied in raising
money for carrying on their work...
Allusions to sex motives are numerous in a moment of comparative tranquility,
I heard a preacher call out to the followers, who were chiefly women, "Who has
the best thing you ever did see? I mean the best feeling thing you ever did
feel? You feel it from your head to your feet. You don't know what I mean?
Makes you feel good. Makes everybody feel good"...
Followers are encouraged to dance ecstatically, but always with members of
the same sex. Frequently the dancer falls to the floor and lies there, many
minutes...
While these things are happening, time is taken to make collections, invite
members to purchase food at the canteen, or to place on sale various Daddy
Grace products which are an essential part of the spiritual exposition. Thus
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Daddy Grace soap will cleanse the body, or reduce fat, or heal, according to
the individual need. Daddy Grace writing paper will aid the writer in composing
a good letter. Has the follower a cold or tuberculosis? The Grace Magazine
will, if placed on your chest, give a complete cure.
In general, these holiness cults were characterized by a religious frenzy called "shouting" or
"getting happy" and prohibitions on alcohol, gambling, and the like.
The "salvation" cults seek salvation through escape from being identified as Christian. They
develop a mark of distinction by rooting their beliefs and practices in a religious tradition
(often Islam) that is not common to Black people in the United States. The Moorish Science
Temple of America, founded by Timothy Drew around 1913, is an example of a salvation
cult. Its origin and practices were outlined by Fauset:
186
Somewhere in his life he [Timothy Drew] came upon two facts which radically
influenced his thinking:
He encountered some forms of oriental philosophy and was impressed with its
racial catholicity. The fruits of his research have been compressed into the
Holy Koran of the Moorish Holy Temple of Science, which is not to be confused
with the orthodox Mohammedan Koran.
He became obsessed with the idea that salvation for the Negro people lay in
the discovery by them of their national origin, i.e., they must know whence they
came, and refuse longer to be called Negroes, black folk, colored people, or
Ethiopians. They must henceforth call themselves Asiatics, to use the generic
term, or, more specifically, Moors or Moorish Americans...
Complete emancipation through a change of status from "Negro" to "Asiatic"
promised an easy way to salvation...
In connection with the services in the temple the following practices are
especially to be noted, for they are quite distinct from practices to be observed
at most Negro religious services.
When sitting in the temple, men and women are segregated...
Exclamations from the congregation are few and almost inaudible; there is a
complete absence of that emotionalism which is considered characteristic of
Negro services...
There is no baptism or communion and little singing. There are few hymns, and
these are mostly chants. Members must pray three times daily, at sunrise,
noon, and at sunset. When praying, members stand facing the east (Mecca),
and raise their hands but do not prostrate themselves.
All Moorish Americans must obey the laws of their (American) government.
"Radicalism" is forbidden.
Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam, established years later, is another example of a
salvation sect.
Generally, cults and sects reflect Black people's dissatisfaction with their exploitation and
oppression as well as their genuine desire to seek a way out of these conditions. People
will try anything, regardless of how slim the possibilities of success are, to alleviate
oppressive conditions.
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201
THE CONTEMPORARY SITUATION

The last two decades have revealed several trends in Black religion. Black people have
become more differentiated - socially, culturally, and economically. Black religious practices
likewise have become more varied. Religion has generally become less important among
Black people. This is because the church has had to compete with other institutions and
activities. It is also because of the historical and continuing failure of the church to deliver
Black people from the valley of exploitation and oppression to the mountaintop of freedom
and liberation.
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Two contradictory forces have shaped the recent activity of the Black church. One, the
struggle for Black liberation since 1954 has had a great impact. As the masses of Black
people got more involved in struggle, so too did the Black church. Black preachers got up
off their knees and into the streets - if for no other reason than to keep up with their
constituency and to save their jobs. Two, the rise of the new Black middle class has greatly
influenced the church. This new middle class has more of an interest in business, politics,
and securing government appointments and grants. Therefore, it is often solely interested
in the organized power of the Black church to achieve these aims.
All of the important ideological forces in the Black liberation movement over the past few
years have had an impact on the Black church. Writing on the role of religion in liberation
struggles, Gary Marx observed in the 1960s:
The quietistic consequences of religion are all too well known, as is the fact
that only a relatively small segment of the Negro church is actively involved.
On the other hand, the prominent role of the Negro church in supplying much
of the ideology of the movement, many of its foremost leaders, and a place
where protest can be organized, can hardly be denied.
Like most ideologies, both religious and secular, Christianity contains many
themes, which, if not in contradiction, are certainly in tension with one
another...One important strand of Christianity stresses acceptance of one's
lot and glorifies the after-life. However, another is more concerned with the
realization of Judaeo-Christian values in the current life...When one's
religious involvement includes temporal concerns and acceptance of the
belief that men as well as God have a role in the structuring of human affairs,
then, rather than serving to inhibit protest, religion can serve to inspire and
sustain it.
The work of Martin Luther King, Jr. and others clearly represented the latter strand, the
"social gospel" tradition. This has also been referred to as Black liberation theology.
Reverend King addressed his fellow clergy who were critical of protest activities in his letter
from a Birmingham jail in 1963:
[B]asically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here...Moreover, I am
cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit
idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere...
You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham...It is unfortunate
that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more
unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community
with no alternative...
You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws...One
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202
may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying
others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and
unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws...I would agree with
St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."...
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for
freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the
American Negro...If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the
Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations
are taking place...
I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour.
190
Indeed, many churches did become involved in issues of social justice and were active in
the Civil Rights Movement.
Later in the 1960s, some preachers advocated Black power. The National Committee of
Negro Churchmen declared in 1966:
The fundamental distortion facing us in the controversy about "black power"
is rooted in a gross imbalance of power and conscience between Negroes
and white Americans. It is this distortion, mainly, which is responsible for the
widespread, though often inarticulate, assumption that white people are
justified in getting what they want through the use of power, but that Negro
Americans must, either by nature or by circumstances, make
their
appeal only through conscience...We are faced now with a situation where
conscienceless power meets powerless conscience, threatening the very
foundations of our nation...
We deplore the overt violence of riots, but we believe it is more important to
focus on the real sources of these eruptions. These sources may be abetted
inside the ghetto, but their basic causes lie in the silent and covert violence
which white middle-class America inflicts upon the victims of the inner city.
The hidden, smooth and often smiling decisions of American leaders which
tie a white noose of suburbia around the necks, and which pin the backs of
the masses of Negroes against the steaming ghetto walls - without jobs in a
booming economy; with dilapidated and segregated educational systems in
the full view of unenforced laws against it; in short: the failure of American
leaders to use American power to create equal opportunity in life as well as
in law - this is the real problem and not the anguished cry for "black power."...
When American leaders decide to serve the real welfare of people instead
of war and destruction; when American leaders are forced to make the
rebuilding of our cities first priority on the nation's agenda; when American
leaders are forced by the American people to quit misusing and abusing
American power; then will the cry for "black power" become inaudible, for the
framework in which all power in America operates would include the power
and experience of black men as well as those of white men.
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203
Others (e.g., Reverend Albert Cleage in Detroit and the Black Christian Nationalist
Movement) incorporated nationalist and pan-Africanist practices and beliefs. Anti-imperialist
consciousness also surfaced with the opposition of many ministers to the war in Vietnam, in
their protest against the role of U.S. imperialism in exploiting and oppressing people of
Africa, and in their support for the African liberation struggles.
While some churches currently are involved in the struggle for Black liberation, many more
are pulling Black people from the struggle and more into religious fanaticism, escapism,
and a "wait and God will take care of everything" mentality. The Black church continues to
make contributions to the freedom struggle. Today, however, it falls far short of the decisive
contributions it made during slavery and even during the recent period of the civil rights
struggles. Thus, the Black church comes closer to repeating the role that E. Franklin
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Frazier described some twenty years ago in The Negro Church in America: "[T]he Negro
church and Negro religion cast a shadow over the entire intellectual life of Negroes and
have been responsible for the so-called backwardness of American Negroes."
Given the worsening social conditions of Black people in the United States, the role of such
an influential institution as the Black church must be strongly criticized. The solution to this
dilemma is clear if we study and correctly understand the lessons of Black people's
struggles in the 1950s and 1960s. We must reclaim the Black church for the struggle and
rekindle its fighting heritage. The Black church must "get up off its knees and back into the
streets" with the same fighting spirit with which the masses of Black people have historically
fought for freedom and justice. In short, to use the language of the Church itself, "heaven,"
if it comes, will not come without a successful struggle for freedom and liberation for Black
people right here on "earth."
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KEY CONCEPTS
African survivals
Black liberation theology
Call and response
Church denominations
Cults/Sects
Invisible institution
Religion
Secularization
Spirituals/Gospels
Storefront church
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. In what ways did the Christian religion help the slaves? Help the slavemasters?
2. How did the Black church serve as the central institution in the Black community during
the rural period?
3. How did urbanization transform Black religious practices?
205
4. What are the main themes of Black liberation theology?
1. James H. Cone, For My People: Black Theology and the Black Church. Maryknoll: Orbis
Books, 1984.
2. Philip S. Foner, ed., Black Socialist Preacher. San Francisco: Synthesis Publications,
1983.
3. Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The Invisible Institution in the Antebellum South.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.
4. George E. Simpson, Black Religions in the New World. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1978.
5. Cornel West, Prophesy Deliverance!: An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity.
Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1982.
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ELEVEN
11. BLACK WOMEN AND THE FAMILY
................................. 207
208
212
217
The Slave Period

............................................
Rural Period
...............................................
The Urban Period
............................................
Black Women and the Family

LOGIC OF
CHANGE
Social
Cohesion
Traditional
Africa
Slavery
Rural
Life
Urban
Life
Social
Disruption
Slave
Trade
Emancipation
Migrations
Ideology
A1
B1
C1
D1
E1
F1
G1
A2
B2
C2
D2
E2
F2
G2
A3
B3
C3
D3
E3
F3
G3
A4
B4
C4
D4
E4
F4
G4
ANALYSIS
Class
Race
Since her arrival on these alien shores, the black woman has been subjected to the
worst kinds of exploitation and oppression. As a black, she has had to endure all the
horrors of slavery and living in a racist society; as a worker, she has been the object of
continual exploitation, occupying the lowest place on the wage scale and restricted to
the most demeaning and uncreative jobs; as a woman ,she has seen her physical
image defamed and been the object of the white master's uncontrollable lust and
subjected to all the ideals of white womanhood as a model to which she should aspire;
as a mother, she has seen her children torn from her breast and sold into slavery, she
has seen them left at home without attention while she attended to the needs of the
offspring of the ruling class.
Today, the Afro-American woman sees her children afflicted by dope addiction, the
lack of a decent education and subjected to attacks by a racist society, legal
lynchings, cannon fodder for America's imperialist wars of aggression, populating the
prisons of this nation, etc. In addition, besides suffering the common fate of all
oppressed and exploited people, the Afro-American woman continues to experience
the age-old oppression of woman by man. In the home, she becomes the "slave of a
slave." By giving men a false feeling of superiority in the home or in relationships with
women, certain aspects of capitalist tension are alleviated. Men may be cruelly
exploited and subjected to all sorts of dehumanizing tactics on the part of the ruling
class, but at least they can take out their frustration on someone else - their women.
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207
Frances Beal, "Slave of a Slave No More," 1975.
The particular problems and concerns of Black women must be discussed not as isolated
questions, but as a part of the problems faced by all Black people. Over 52% of all Black people
in the United States are women. Women play a special role in bearing children and in the family,
and increasingly are becoming sole heads of households. However, Black women face greater
discrimination than any other group in this society - in income, in job opportunities, in education,
in holding political office, and in other areas of social life.
The oppression of Black women has its historical roots in the foundation and development of
capitalism and imperialism in the United States. This special oppression is based on three
things:
1. Most Black women are workers and are subjected to economic (class) exploitation at the
hands of the rich. Black women have always worked and this more than anything else has
shaped the experience of Black women in the United States. In fact, the work experiences of
Black women make their concerns somewhat different from those of the women's liberation
movement which seeks to get white women into the work place. Both Black and white
women, however, share the demand of equal pay for equal work.
2. Black women, as do the masses of Black men, suffer from many forms of racist national
oppression, like job discrimination and the denial of basic democratic rights.
3. Black women, like all women, face male supremacy (sexism) which attempts to put women
into subordinate roles in a male-dominated society. This is reflected in the role of women in the 208
Black family. In short, the oppression of Black women grows out of the same system of
capitalism that exploits and oppresses the masses of Black people and everybody else, and it is
buttressed by patriarchal ideology. The particular content of this oppression has been
transformed as the experiences of Black people have changed from slavery to the rural
experience to the urban experience. These three periods provide the historical framework for
our analysis of Black women and the family.
THE SLAVE PERIOD
There was full employment for Black people during slavery. It is estimated that half of the slaves
in the United States in 1860 were women. Their labor was exploited in three main sectors of the
economy: in the fields, in the household, and in industry.
As field slaves, women's main activity (like men's) was to produce crops (first tobacco and sugar
and later cotton), which were pivotal to the early development of the United States. As house
slaves, women (more so than men) were used as domestic servants, keeping the slaveowners'
houses, cooking their food, and raising their children. Women were also exploited in many
195
industries in the South. Robert Starobin reported in his 1970 study of industrial slavery:
Slave women and children comprised large proportions of the work forces in
most slave-employing textile, hemp, and tobacco factories. Florida's Arcadia
Manufacturing Company was but one example of a textile mill run entirely by 35
bondswornen, ranging in age from fifteen to twenty years, and by 6 or 7 young
slave males. Young slaves also operated many Kentucky and Missouri hemp
factories...Slave women and children also worked at "light" tasks in most tobacco
factories; one prominent tobacco manufacturer, who employed twenty slave
women "stemmers," six boys, and a few girls, used for the arduous task of
"pressing" the tobacco only ten mature slave males in the entire factory.
Slave women and children sometimes worked at "heavy" industries such as
sugar refining and rice milling...During the height of the rice milling season, one
large steam rice mill added fifty bondswomen to the normal work force of fortyeight bondsmen, while another steam rice mill supplemented twelve slave men
with ten boys and girls.
Other heavy industries such as transportation and lumbering used slave women
and children to a considerable extent. In 1800, slave women composed one-half
of the work force at South Carolina's Santee Canal. Later, women often helped
build Louisiana levees. Many lower South railroads owned female slaves, who
worked alongside the male slaves. Two slave women, Maria and Amelia, corded
wood at Governor John A. Quitman's Mississippi wood yard. The Gulf Coast
lumber industry employed thousands of bondswomen.
209
Iron works and mines also directed slave women and children to lug trams and to
push lumps of ore into crushers and furnace.
In the view of many factory owners, women cost less to maintain. Because they could work
faster in certain jobs, they also produced more than men in industries like textiles. For women
who were field slaves and industrial slaves, long hours of housework (cooking, sewing, etc.)
were usually added to a full day of production work.
The necessity of (forced) work left little time to raise a family. However, stable family relations
did develop among slaves, though these were always subject to the economical and political
dictates of the slave system. The common plight of oppression and exploitation suffered by
slave men and slave women created a concrete basis for equality, as well as developing strong
and independent Black women. Some slaveowners respected the mother/father/child
relationship because this often increased the slave family's economic efficiency (and
discouraged rebellious male slaves from running away).
196
Many, however, broke up families in order to profit from the sale of slaves. Solomon Northup, a
slave himself, described a familiar scene during the slave period:
The same man also purchased Randall. The little fellow was made to jump, and
run across the floor, and perform many other feats, exhibiting his activity and
condition. All the time the trade was going on, Eliza was crying aloud, and wringing
her hands. She besought the man not to buy him, unless he also bought herself
and Emily. She promised, in that case, to be the most faithful slave that ever lived.
The man answered that he could not afford it, and then Eliza burst into a paroxysm
of grief, weeping plaintively. Freeman [owner of the slave-pen] turned round to her,
savagely, with his whip in his uplifted hand, ordering her to stop her noise, or he
would flog her...
She kept on begging and beseeching them, most piteously, not to separate the
three. Over and over again she told them how she loved her boy. A great many
times she repeated her former promises - how very faithful and obedient she would
be; how hard she would labor day and night, to the last moment of her life; if he
would only buy them all together. But it was of no avail; the man could not afford it.
The bargain was agreed upon, and Randall must go alone.Then Eliza ran to him;
embraced him passionately; kissed him again and again; told him to remember her
- all the while her tears falling in the boy's face like rain.
Freeman damned her, calling her a blubbering, bawling wench, and ordered her to
go to her place, and behave herself, and be somebody. He swore he wouldn't
stand such stuff but a little longer. He would soon give her something to cry about,
if she was not mighty careful...
Despite these difficulties, the slave family played an essential role. As John Blassingame
concluded in The Slave Community, the slave family "was primarily responsible for the slave's
ability to survive on the plantation without becoming totally dependent on and submissive to his
master."
In The Negro Family in America, E. Franklin Frazier described the special role of the mother in
the slave family:
Among the vast majority of slaves, the Negro mother remained the most stable and
dependable element during the entire period of slavery...Most of the evidence
indicates that the slave mother was devoted to her children and made tremendous
sacrifices for their welfare. She was generally the recognized head of the family
group. She was the mistress of the cabin, to which the "husband" or father often
made only weekly visits. Under such circumstances a maternal family group took
form and the tradition of the Negro woman's responsibility for her family took root.
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210
Two main forms of oppression based on sex were suffered by slave women. First, female
slaves were subjected to the grossest sexual abuse. According to Frederick Douglass, "the
slave woman is at the mercy of the fathers, sons, or brothers of her master," not to mention the
slaveowners themselves. Rape and unwanted pregnancies became the common plight for slave
women. Forcing Black women to become "breeders" to reproduce the supply of slave labor,
especially after the end of the slave trade, was the most extreme form of this sexist oppression.
Second, Black female slaves who were forced to work in production could spend very little time
with their families. As a house slave, many a slave woman was forced to become a "mammy" to
the children of her oppressors while her own children were neglected.
Black women were actively engaged in the struggle to overturn slavery. There were individual
struggles, like those recounted by an ex-slave whose mother provided a model for her struggle
out of slavery:
Ma fussed, fought and kicked all the time. I tell you, she was a demon. She said that
she wouldn't be whipped, and when she fussed, all Eden must have known it. She
was loud and boisterous, and it seemed to me that you could hear her a mile
away...With all her ability for work, she did not make a good slave. She was too
high-spirited and independent. I tell you, she was a captain.
The one doctrine of my mother's teaching which was branded upon my senses was
that I should never let anyone abuse me. "I'll kill you, gal, if you don't stand up for
yourself," she would say. "Fight, and if you' can't fight, kick; if you can't kick, then
bite."
211
There were also collective efforts, like those of Harriet Tubman. She was called the "Black
Moses" because of her role as a leader in the underground railroad, a secret escape route to
the North used by many slaves. Free Black women like Frances Ellen Watkins Harper were
active in the abolitionist movement in the North, traveling and speaking to mobilize support for
the struggle against slavery. Thousands of other Black women, whose contributions have yet to
be recorded, undoubtedly played active roles in this struggle.
Black women were also active in the struggle against the special oppression of women. Many
white women were inspired by the fight against slavery. The struggle against slavery and the
women's rights movement had a common enemy. The same arguments regarding the human
rights of slaves were applied by women in the struggle against their own oppression, especially
as they demanded the right to vote and full equality in politics, education, employment, and
marriage. Black women who were militant anti-slavery activists played active roles in the
women's movement.
Sojourner Truth articulated the thoughts of many Black women:

198
I've been lookin' round and watchin' things, and I know a little mite 'bout Woman's
Rights, too. I come forth to speak 'bout Woman's Rights, and want to throw in my
little mite, to keep the scales a-movin'...
Now, women do not ask half of a kingdom, but their rights, and they don't get 'em.
When she comes to demand 'em, don't you hear how sons hiss their mothers like
snakes, because they ask for their rights; and can they ask for anything
less?...But we'll have our rights; see if we don't; and you can't stop us from them;
see if you can. You may hiss as much as you like, but it is comin'. Women don't
get half as much rights as they ought to.... I wanted to tell you a mite about
Woman's Rights, and so I came out and said so. I am sittin' among you to watch;
and every once and awhile I will come out and tell you what time of night it is.
Indeed, Sojourner Truth continued to speak out on women's rights. In 1867 as Black men were
gaining their civil rights, she declared:
There is a great stir about colored men getting their rights, but not a word about
the colored women; and if colored men get their rights, and not colored women
theirs, you see the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be just
as bad as it was before. So I am for keeping the thing going while things are
stirring; because if we wait till it is still, it will take a great while to get it going
again...I want women to have their rights. In the courts women have no right, no
voice; nobody speaks for them. I wish woman to have her voice there among the
pettifoggers...
I have done a great deal of work; as much as a man, but did not get so much pay.
I used to work in the field and bind grain, keeping up with the cradler; but men
doing no more, got twice as much pay...We do as much, we eat as much, we
want as much...What we want is a little money...When we get our rights, we shall
not have to come to you for money, for then we shall have money enough in our
own pockets; and maybe you will ask us for money. But help us now until we get
it. It is a good consolation to know that when we have got this battle once fought
we shall not be coming to you any more...
I am glad to see that men are getting their rights, but I want women to get theirs,
and while the water is stirring I will step into the pool. Now that there is a great stir
about colored men's getting their rights is the time for women to step in and have
theirs...[M]an is so selfish that he has got women's rights and his own too, and yet
he won't give women their rights. He keeps them all to himself...
Not only did women not get their rights, but Black men soon lost most of theirs in the rural
South.
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THE RURAL PERIOD

In the rural period, Black women assumed roles in the system of agricultural production that
were similar to those of Black men. They were sharecroppers under the tenant system that
emerged to replace slavery. Freed from the restraints of slavery, northern industrial capital
rapidly expanded into southern railroads, lumber, and cotton and tobacco
manufacturing. Because of racist exclusion, job opportunities outside the tenant system were
severely limited for Black men, and only 3.1% of Black women were employed as workers in
manufacturing and mechanical trades (and 55% of these women were dressmakers outside the
factories). The main jobs of Black women outside of agricultural were in traditional areas of
"women's work": 43% of black women were employed in domestic service and 52% - almost all
of the remainder - were employed in agriculture.
Angela Davis comments in her work on women:

During the post-slavery period, most Black women workers who did not toil in the
fields were compelled to become domestic servants. Their predicament, no less
than that of their sisters who were sharecroppers or convict laborers, bore the
familiar stamp of slavery. Indeed, slavery itself had been euphemistically called
the "domestic institution" and slaves had been designated as innocuous "domestic
servants." In the eyes of the former slaveholders, "domestic service" must have
been a courteous term for a contemptible occupation not a half-step away from
slavery.
Domestic service carried with it the special burden of sexual harassment. Davis describes what
that historically has meant for Black women:
From Reconstruction to the present, Black women household workers have
considered sexual abuse perpetrated by the "man of the house" as one of their
major occupational hazards. Time after time they have been victims of extortion
on the job, compelled to choose between sexual submission and absolute poverty
for themselves and their families.
The end of slavery caused significant changes in the family. The new economic conditions in
the rural South gave the Black family a boost of a strange sort. The survival of the family now
depended on its own ability to produce under the brutal tenant system. For Black men, this
meant directing the family as an economic unit and exercising more leadership and authority in
the family than was possible under slavery. In The Negro Family in America, Frazier described
this transformation from the slave system to the tenant system:
When conditions became settled in the South the landless and illiterate freedman
had to secure a living on a modified form of the plantation system. Concessions
had to be made to the freedman in view of his new status. One of the concessions
affected the family organization. The slave quarters were broken up and the
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Negroes were no longer forced to work in gangs. Each family group moved off by
itself to a place where it could lead a separate existence. In the contracts which
the Negroes made with their landlords, the Negro father and husband found a
substantial support for his new status in family relations. Sometimes the wife as
well as the husband made her cross for her signature to the contract, but more
often it was the husband who assumed responsibility for the new economic
relation with the white landlord. Masculine authority in the family was even more
firmly established when the Negro undertook to buy a farm. Moreover, his new
economic relationship to the land created a material interest in his family. As the
head of the family he directed the labor of his wife and children and became
concerned with the discipline of his children, who were to succeed him as owners
of the land.
The Black family also developed a set of values and ideas to meet their new conditions. Ideas
about sexual relations, illegitimacy, and marriage reflected the legacy of an oppressive slavery
and the immediate social needs which existed. As Charles S. Johnson reported in his 1934
study, many "marriages" were quite stable as economic and social units, but many Blacks saw
no need to seek the legal sanctions which had not been necessary under slavery. Neither was
illegitimacy a recognized concept. All children "born out of wedlock" were accepted without
stigma and treated on an equal basis by the family and community. Frazier further explicated
the Black family that evolved on the heels of slavery:
Many of the ideas concerning sex relations and mating were carried over from
slavery. Consequently, the family lacked an institutional character, since legal
marriage and family traditions did not exist among a large section of the population.
The family groups originated in the mating of young people who regarded sex
relations outside of marriage as normal behavior. When pregnancy resulted, the
child was taken into the mother's family group. Generally the family group to which
the mother belonged had originated in a similar fashion. During the disorder
following slavery a woman after becoming pregnant would assume the
responsibility of motherhood. From time to time other children were added to the
family group through more or less permanent "marriage" with one or more men.
Sometimes the man might bring his child or children to the family group, or some
orphaned child or the child of a relative might be included. Thus the family among a
large section of the Negro population became a sort of amorphous group held
together by the feelings and common interests that might develop in the same
household during the struggle for existence.
214
Part of the oppression of Black women during this period grew out of the conditions of rural life. 215
Because every available hand was necessary for economic survival, large families were the rule
in the rural South. This imposed a tremendous and oppressive burden on Black women. Black
201
women continued as full-time field hands and as full-time housewives and mothers. However,
they received no wage payments directly. The resulting economic dependency on men was the
concrete basis for the development of ideas about male supremacy (or male chauvinism) that
exist even today in this society. Moreover, the male supremacist notion that because women
are childbearers they must also single-handedly bear the burdens of childrearing and
housework took even firmer hold in this period. Charles S. Johnson, in discussing perceptions of
the ideal wife of the rural period, pointed to a man who specified three attributes: "She must be
able to work, she must be good looking, and she must be willing to acknowledge him as head of
the house." It was a clear articulation of the male supremacist view that the man must be
dominant. It is a view that held throughout the rural period and operates to an unfortunate extent
even today - in both Black and white families.
Because of the continuing oppression of Black people throughout the rural period, Black women
were active in many aspects of the struggle for freedom.
Enfranchisement - Some women (e.g., Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Mary Church Terrell, Ida
Wells Barnett, and Mary McLeod Bethune) formed Black suffrage clubs and participated in the
women's suffrage campaigns.
Anti-lynching campaigns - Between 1900 and 1914, there were more than 1,079 recorded
lynchings of Blacks in the South. Women like Ida Wells Barnett crusaded against lynching. As a
newspaper editor in Memphis, she wrote an anti-lynching pamphlet called The Red Record
(1895) which resulted in attacks on her newspaper. Her life was threatened and she was
eventually forced to leave Memphis, but not before defending herself and going about her work
with a six-shooter strapped to her side. As she put it: "I felt that one had better die fighting
against injustice than to die like a dog or a rat in a trap. I had already determined to sell my life
as dearly as possible if attacked. I felt if I could take one lyncher with me, this would even up the
score a little bit." Driven out of the South, she went to Chicago to continue her militant work for
Black people's freedom.
The lynchings, as well as the sexual abuse of Black women and attacks on the morality of Black
people, motivated women to form the National Association of Colored Women in 1896. The
NACW unified Black women and led to the proliferation of women's clubs that addressed not
only lynching, but also the social educational, and welfare needs of Black people.
Social uplift programs - Many women dedicated their careers to improving the social conditions
of Black people. During the Reconstruction period, hundreds of Black women went South to
216
help establish schools and other institutions designed to aid ex-slaves. Violence was often
leveled against Black schools and teachers, especially with the defeat of the Reconstruction
governments. But women continued to push for the education of Blacks. Mary McLeod Bethune
became one of the most well-known educators, and served as an administrator and advisor in
202
Black youth programs during Roosevelt's "New Deal." Countless women in women's clubs and
church organizations also volunteered their time to improve health, child welfare, railroad travel
and prison conditions, as well as to build community institutions.
Black liberation movement - During this period, the struggle for Black liberation increased its
level of organization. The Niagara Movement (1905) led to the NAACP (1909) and the Urban
League was formed in 1911. Organizations of Black women, like the National Association of
Colored Women, played an important role in founding the Niagara Movement and were
important forerunners of other freedom organizations.
THE URBAN PERIOD

World War I, which spurred the migration of Black people from the rural South to the city, also
pulled Black women off the farms and into the industrial work force. Their experience in the
industrial work force during this period was aptly described by Eugene Gordon and Cyril Briggs:
203
217
In 1917...women were used to replace men, either wholly or partly, in many

industries. White women so employed were paid less than the men had been
getting, while Negro women received still lower wages. In addition, the Negro
women were assigned to the heaviest and most hazardous jobs in the war
industries, and to the more menial and grueling work in other lines, such as
textiles and clothing factories, food industry, wood-product manufacture, etc...
Negro women, tormented by the memory of the drudgery and humiliations of
farm and domestic service, happily imagined themselves firmly planted in the
industries, with their relatively better conditions. Then came the end of the World
War, the collapse of war-time "prosperity" which, because of the
correspondingly high cost of living, was confined mainly to the munition barons
and other war profiteers and 100 percent "patriots." The crisis of 1921 led to
wholesale firing of workers, with the women, and, particularly the Negro women
workers, the first to be discharged. Hand in hand with the mass firing went the
slashing of wages for those still employed, and the replacement of women
workers with the demobilized men at greater speed up and a resultant increase
of profits for the employers.
Only in the laundry industry, notorious for its high speed-up, low pay and terrible
working conditions, and in certain departments of textiles, etc., with similarly bad
reputations, were the Negro women able to hold their own.
By 1930, only 5.6% of all Black women were employed in manufacturing and mechanical
industry (as compared to 25% for Black men). But more Black women had moved into the
service sector: over 64% in 1930.
World War II drew more Black women into the war-related industries, but once again many were
dropped when the war ended. It was clear, however, that service and industrial work had
replaced agricultural and domestic work as the main areas of employment for Black women,
with service the primary source.
In 1970, of the 2.7 million Black women in the labor force, 25% were service workers (maids,
etc.), 21% were clerical workers (like office clerks and secretaries), 16% were operatives (like
factory workers), and 18% were private household workers (like maids and cooks). The special
oppression of Black women (as compared to white women) is revealed in statistics showing the
overrepresentation of Black women in certain occupations (and underrepresentation in certain
others). Though they are only 11.4% of the female work force, Black women comprise 65% of
218
all maids, 63% of all household cooks, 41% of all housekeepers, and 34% of all cleaning service
workers. Conversely, Black women represent only 4% of all women lawyers and doctors and
5.5% of all women college teachers. Clearly, Black women (along with Black men) have
provided U.S. capitalism with essential labor in some of the hardest, lowest-paying, and dirtiest
jobs of all the necessary "shit work" of an advanced capitalist society.
We can also use similar statistics to illustrate the triple oppression of Black women in 1980.
204
Class (economic) exploitation, racism, and sexist oppression have combined to put Black
women at the bottom rung on most measures of social equality: below white males, Black
males, and white females. Table 24 illustrates this.
Table 24
THE TRIPLE OPPRESSION OF BLACK WOMEN, 1980
White Males Black Males
Income
Mean income for full-time
workers
Education
College (1 or more years)
Occupation
Professional
Clerical and Sales
Blue Collar
Service
Unemployment (1981)
White
Females
Black
Females
21,023
14,709
12,156
11,230
37.9
22.1
28.8
20.6
15.8
12.0
45.3
7.7
6.5
7.8
10.3
56.3
17.0
15.7
16.9
42.3
13.7
18.4
6.9
13.2
33.1
15.3
34.4
15.6
Source: Based on data in National Urban League, The State of Black America, 1983, pp. 113,
142, and 152-53.
The integration of Black women into the urban economy has had a dramatic impact on her role
as a worker and on her role in Black family life. First, the necessity of working reduces the time
that Black women have to discharge their role as parents. This is even more so with Black
women who are single heads of households. Second, the urban economy has provided Black
women with the economic basis of their independence. This has freed many Black women from
their dependence on Black men that emerged during the rural period. But this has also
increased competition between Black men and Black women. The historical and continuing
male-supremacy ideology, on the one hand, and the objective economic independence of Black
women, on the other, have in part set the basis for a struggle.
Black women (and women in general) are punished by existing sexist practices because of their
role in the biological division of labor relating to childbirth. For example, an adequate system of
sex education, birth control, and family planning is not provided in this society (witness the
debate over sex education in the schools and the use of federal funds for abortions). Many
young Black women have also been irreversibly sterilized without their knowledge as the price
for seeking abortions or family planning assistance! An adequate system of paid maternity
leaves is not available. In effect, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that such paid leaves
would cost the corporations too much of their profits. The following year, because of the
importance of the issue and the pressure of the women's movement, Congress was forced to
pass a bill amending Title VII. It mandated that in situations where men were compensated for
205
219
disabilities, women should receive compensatory pay for pregnancy leaves. However, this
applies only to employers who award any disability payments. Low-cost or free daycare
facilities still are not available. The point here is that the resources of this society are not
allocated to meet the special needs of Black women or women in general - needs which are
essential to the very functioning of the society.
Any analysis of Black women must also take into account the historical imbalance in the ratio of
Black women to Black men, especially in the urban period. Every census since 1840 has
registered more women than men in the Black population. In 1970, there were 1.1 million more
Black women than men. Further, this varies by locale. The pattern for any particular region,
state, or city is a function of the demand for Black labor in that local (i.e., the available
employment opportunities). For example, the ratio of Black men to Black women in Chicago
dropped from 104.5:100 in 1920 to 88.7:100 in 1940 as the demands for Black women workers
increased leading up the World War II. In a society where marriage is the norm, this presents a
special problem for Black women.
There has been considerable controversy over the concept of the Black matriarchy, or femaledominated family. As we have pointed out, concrete conditions have given rise to the increasing
independence of Black women. But the concept of "Black Matriarch" has been overemphasized
and often discussed without attention to important facts. Joyce Ladner points to one obvious
error in these discussions:
The matriarchy has been defined as: "...a society in which some, if not all, of the
legal powers relating to the ordering and governing of the family-power over
property, over inheritance, over marriage, over the house are lodged in women
rather than men." The standards which have been applied to the so-called Black
matriarchy depart markedly from this definition. In fact, it has been suggested
that no matriarchy (defined as a society ruled by women) is known to exist in any
part of the world.
She also outlines another fallacy in the Black matriarchy thesis:
A popular theme projected by social scientists and in the popular literature is that
Black men have been psychologically castrated because of the strong role Black
women play in the home and community. Moreover, it is often assumed that the
male's inability to function as the larger society expects him to is more a function
of his having been emasculated by the woman than the society. Although the
scars of emasculation probably penetrated the Black man more deeply than the
injustices inflicted upon the woman, there has, however, been an overemphasis
upon the degree to which the Black man has been damaged. Some writers on
the subject would have us believe that the damage done is irreparable. They also
refuse to place the responsibility on the racist society, but rather insist that it is
caused by the so-called domineering wife and/or mother.
206
220
For Ladner, the position of the Black man is the fault of the system and not Black women.
Lastly, the matriarchal thesis can be faulted because it does not take into account the fact that
most Black families consist of both parents, as do most white families. In 1982, 85% of white
families and 55% of Black families had two parents. It is among the very poor that the majority
are single-parents, for both Blacks and whites, as indicated in Table 25.
The continuing oppression of Black people, and especially Black women, has meant that Black
women have continued to be on the front lines of all aspects of the Black liberation struggles
throughout the urban period. In the 1930s, Black women were active organizers for CIO unions
like the Steelworkers and were active in organizations like the National Negro Congress. Black
women led militant protests and demonstrations against unemployment, against discrimination
in housing and jobs, and for social welfare legislation. During the civil rights struggles of the
1960s, women like Fannie Lou Hamer of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party inspired
oppressed people all over the world by standing up to racist political repression in the South and
fighting for her rights. Unheralded, but persistent women like Ella Baker were active in such
organizations as the NAACP and SCLC (the Southern Christian Leadership Conference). She
was a veteran civil rights worker who guided the spontaneous student sit-in movement toward
organizing the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960.
As the more radical orientation of the Black liberation movement emerged, women were active
militants in such organizations as the Black Panther Party, in community struggles, in organizing
opposition to war in Vietnam, and in building anti-imperialist support among Black people for the
liberation struggles in Africa. Black women have played and are continuing to play leading roles
in developing the anti-imperialist and revolutionary orientation of the Black liberation struggle in
the United States.
221
Table 25
PERCENT SINGLE-PARENT FAMILIES AMONG VERY POOR
(UNDER $4,000 PER YEAR) BLACKS AND WHITES, 1960-1975
Year
1060
1970
1975
Black ( % )
36
70
83
White ( % )
23
47
63
Source. U.S. Bureau of the Census, The Social and Economic Status of the Black Population in
the United States, p. 108.
207
Currently, there are significant developments that must be taken into account in discussing
Black women and the family. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of families
headed by Black women. According to the 1984 Statistical Abstract of the United States,
whereas, in 1970 approximately 28% of Black families were headed by women, in 1982
approximately 41% were headed by women. Moreover, in 1982, 47% of all Black children (as
compared to 15% of white children) under eighteen were living in female-headed households.
Since 1977, over 50% of all newborn Black children were born into families headed by women.
Black women and these families suffer a greater share of oppression in terms of income and
employment. In 1981, the median income of Black female-headed households was $7,921 as
compared to $13,076 for whites.
In addition, the social decay characteristic of advanced capitalism in crisis is increasing the
divorce rate among Blacks. All of these forces are beginning to undermine the possibility of
strong family relationships. This is especially serious in view of the historical role that the Black
family has played in the survival and struggle of Black people for liberation.
The same social crisis, however, also contains its positive seeds. It is creating a greater
objective need for and interest in the struggle for Black liberation and social change among
Black women who bear a disproportionate burden of the current crisis. The crisis is laying the
basis for a collective approach to solving problems that more and more Black women are
experiencing along with the entire society.
222
It is becoming increasingly clear to Black women that their liberation cannot be achieved under
capitalism nor in isolation from the masses of working-class Black people. This is a fundamental
difference, which distinguishes most Black women from many feminists in the women's
liberation movement. Many women (both white and black) in the women's liberation movement
in the United States basically accept the capitalist system and simply work toward integrating
women into that system on an equal basis. Though they may understand the oppressive nature
of patriarchy, many do not see that the capitalist system itself ensures the exploitation of people.
This is not how the masses of Black women have analyzed their situation and have plotted the
course of their struggle.
in summary, Black women face conditions of oppression and mounting problems that are similar
to but also different from Black men. But Black women will continue to go forward to uphold their
rich legacy as active fighters for the full freedom of all Black people and an end to their own
special "triple oppression". As Frances Beal put it:
The history of our people in this country portrays clearly the prominent role that
the Afro-American woman has played in the on-going struggle against racism and
exploitation. As mother, wife and worker, she has witnessed the frustration and
anguish of the men and women and children in her community and on the job. As
revolutionary, she will take an active part in changing this reality. The slave of a
slave is a creature of the past. I doubt very seriously, given our history of
resistance and struggle. whether working class and poor Afro-American women
are going to exchange a white master for a Black one.
208
223
KEY CONCEPTS
Family
Female-headed household
Male supremacy/Sexism
Marriage/Divorce
Matriarchy/Patriarchy
Motherhood
Population sex ratio
Sterilization/Abortion
Triple oppression
Women's rights movement
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. What role have Black women played in the economy? Compare the work experience of Black
women to white women and Black men in each historical period.
2. What is the "triple oppression" of Black women? Illustrate this concept using historical
examples and statistics.
3. What is the current status of "matriarchy" in Black family life? Discuss the historical relevance
of this concept.
4. How have Black women contributed to the Black liberation struggle? In what ways have Black
women been involved in the struggle against the oppression they face?
1. Angela Y. Davis, Women, Race and Class. New York: Vintage Books, 1983 (first published in
1981).
2. Mari Evans, Black Women Writers (1950-1980): A Critical Evaluation. Garden City: Anchor
Books, 1984.
3. Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith, eds., All the Women Are White, All the
Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies. Old Westbury: The
Feminist Press, 1982,.
4. La Frances Rodgers-Rose, ed., The Black Woman. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1980.
5. Phyllis A. Wallace, Linda Datcher, and Julianne Malveaux, Black Women in the Labor Force.
Cambridge: MIT Press, 1980.
209
225
TWELVE
12. EDUCATION AND THE SCHOOL IN THE BLACK
210
COMMUNITY
......................................................
The Slave Period

....................................
The Rural Period
..........................................
The Urban Period
.........................................
Elementary and Secondary Education .............
Higher Education .......................................
227
229
232
236
238
241
Education and the School in the Black Community

LOGIC OF
CHANGE
Social
Cohesion
Traditional
Africa
Slavery
Rural
Life
Urban
Life
Social
Disruption
Slave
Trade
Emancipation
Migrations
Ideology
A1
B1
C1
D1
E1
F1
G1
A2
B2
C2
D2
E2
F2
G2
A3
B3
C3
D3
E3
F3
G3
A4
B4
C4
D4
E4
F4
G4
ANALYSIS
Class
Race
"It seems to me," said Booker T.,

"It shows a mighty lot of cheek
To study chemistry and Greek
When Mister Charlie needs a hand
To hoe the cotton on his land,
And when Miss Ann looks for a cook,
Why stick your nose inside a book?"
"I don't agree," said W. E. B.,
"if I should have the drive to seek
Knowledge of chemistry or Greek,
I'll do it. Charles and Miss can look
Another place for hand or cook.
Some men rejoice in skill of hand,
And some in cultivating land,
But there are others who maintain
The right to cultivate the brain."
Dudley Randell, "Booker T. and W. E. B.," 1952.
227
The historical development of Black people's educational experiences reflects the operation
211
of economic, political, and social forces of the capitalist society in the United States. The
level of social and economic development of a society sets standards for the skills people
must obtain in order to lead productive lives and contribute to the maintenance of that
society. In class society, the main factor determining who obtains a given skill-level is the
political factor of who rules. The level of technological development and resulting division of
labor are important factors and grow in importance over the long-run.
It is popularly believed that education's main purpose is to benefit the masses of people by
training them for jobs and facilitating upward mobility. Our analysis, however, reveals that
the primary function of education in the United States is to serve the interests of the ruling
class through achieving two main objectives: (1) to train a disciplined and skilled labor force
which can take its place in the existing order and contribute (mainly its labor power) to the
maintenance and expansion of the capitalist system; (2) to indoctrinate the youth of the
society in the ideas, beliefs, values, and practices which are also important to maintaining
the existing socioeconomic order.
Samuel Bowles, in his study of the educational system, has written:

That educational systems in capitalist societies have been highly unequal is
generally admitted and widely condemned. Yet educational inequalities are
taken as passing phenomena, holdovers from an earlier, less enlightened
era, which are rapidly being eliminated.
The record of educational history in the U.S., and scrutiny of the present
state of our colleges and schools, lend little support to this comforting
optimism. Rather, the available data suggest an alternative
interpretation...(1) that schools have evolved in the U.S. not as part of a
pursuit of equality, but rather to meet the needs of capitalist employers for a
disciplined and skilled labor force, and to provide a mechanism for social
control in the interests of political stability; (2) that as the economic
importance of skilled and well educated labor has grown, inequalities in the
school system have become increasingly important in reproducing the class
structure from one generation to the next; (3) that the U.S. school system is
pervaded by class inequalities, which have shown little sign of diminishing
over the last half century; and (4) that the evidently unequal control over
school boards and other decision-making bodies in education does not
provide a sufficient explanation of the persistence and pervasiveness of
inequalities in the school system. Although the unequal distribution of
political power serves to maintain inequalities in education, their origins [of
these inequalities] are to be found outside the political sphere, in the class
structure itself and in the class subcultures typical of capitalist societies.
Thus, unequal education has its roots in the very class structure which it
serves to legitimize and reproduce. Inequalities in education are a part of
the web of capitalist society, and likely to persist as long as capitalism
survives.
Black people have always been the most negatively affected by these inequalities in the
educational system.
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228
Control over the educational system is maintained by the ruling class in several ways:
1. The ruling class makes sure that the trustee boards of colleges and universities are
"dominated by merchants, manufacturers, capitalists, corporation, officials, bankers," as
several studies conclude.
2. The ruling class insures that the ideas which are taught in universities are those which
reinforce and do not threaten the existing capitalist social order. This is done through
funding only selected projects and through selective hiring and firing (e.g., denying
employment and tenure to faculty with radical ideas, as has happened with many activists
in the Black liberation movement).
3. The ruling class maintains close ties between the universities and the government (which
it also closely administers). The government provides billions of dollars for war-related
research and other needed functions and draws heavily on university faculty for its staff.
For Black people, of course, the twin objectives of education and the operation of the three
mechanisms listed above are qualitatively influenced by the history of racist oppression and
economic exploitation that Black people have faced. Thus, the educational experiences of
Black people must be evaluated in that context.
THE SLAVE PERIOD
Education during the period of slavery was shaped by the main aim of the brutal institution
of slavery: to exploit the greatest amount of wealth and profits from the forced labor of
slaves. To accomplish this main economic aim, it was necessary to make the slave
plantation a self-sufficient unit, capable of producing all or most of its own needs. Thus,
under slavery Black people received "on the job training" in many skill areas. In addition to
229
using slaves as field hands and domestic labor, "The masters found it easier and cheaper
to have their slaves trained in carpentry, masonry, blacksmithing, and the other mechanical
trades," as Sterling Spero and Abram Harris state in The Black Worker. This training can be
seen in the quantity and quality of what the slaves produced.
As Booker T Washington observed:
In most cases if a Southern white man wanted a house built he consulted a
Negro mechanic about the plan and about the actual building of the
structure. If he wanted a suit of clothes made he went to a Negro tailor, and,
for shoes he went to a shoemaker of the same race. In a certain way every
slave plantation in the South was an industrial school.
Despite the fact that racist scholars would have us believe that slaves were lazy and
incompetent, the woodwork, ironwork, and brick masonry is lasting testimony to the
capacity of slaves to learn, use, and improve on existing skills.
230
In addition to "worldly" work-related training, religious instruction was important in the
213
education of slaves, in part because it allowed some people to learn to read. Largely at the
urging of missionaries, some slaveholders finally agreed to religious education. They did so
for several reasons. First, some "Christian" slave owners felt a "moral" duty to provide
religious instruction, if for no other reason than to "humanize" Black people. Second and
probably more important, slaveholders quickly learned that religious training often made
slaves more hardworking, obedient, and submissive than they would ordinarily be. The
most loyal slaves, according to the testimony of many slavemasters, were those who could
read the bible. Reading, however, proved to be a double-edged sword, particularly as the
years wore on.
Black people themselves also played a major role in providing their own education during
slavery. Although slaveowners used a variety of techniques to mold the slaves into loyal,
submissive, and efficient workers, slaves were able to develop and transmit a set of beliefs,
ideas, values, and practices which were different from what the slaveowners intended.
Such themes as the hatred of the slaveowners and their power, the importance of the
family, the significance of learning and education, and the value of freedom were among
the "illegal" lessons that slaves learned and taught. The main educational mechanisms
among slaves were the family, the peer group, the underground church, songs and stories,
and the slave community itself.
Opportunities for education also existed for free Blacks in the North. One of the best known
schools for Blacks was New York's African Free School, opened by the manumission
society in 1787, which served as a model for schools in other northern cities.
Thus, some slaves were "educated" through work-related training, through religious
instruction, or through their own efforts. But, regardless of how " they" learned, educated
slaves were a dangerous contradiction under slavery. If slaves could read work
instructions, they also could read and spread the word about the revolutionary struggles of
Toussaint L'Ouverture and the defeat of slavery in Haiti in 1791. Slaves who read passages
in the bible about obedience and submissiveness also drew revolutionary implications
about the necessity of overthrowing slavery.
In fact, it was the growing struggles of the slaves for freedom - a struggle in which many
"educated" slaves and free Blacks were active, participants - that caused slaveowners to
rethink the policy of education for Black people during slavery. As the slave revolts
increased in the United States after 1820, most southern states passed laws prohibiting the
teaching of slaves and preventing them from association with free Blacks. The North
Carolina law forbidding any person, whether Black or white, to teach slaves was typical:
Whereas the teaching of slaves to read and write, has a tendency to excite
dissatisfaction in their minds, and to produce insurrection and rebellion, to
the manifest injury of the citizens of this State: Therefore:
I. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of North
Carolina:...That any free person, who shall hereafter teach, or attempt to
teach, any slave within the State to read or write, the use of figures
excepted, or shall give or sell to such slave or slaves any books or
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231
pamphlets, shall be liable to indictment...and upon conviction, shall, at the

discretion of the court, if a white man or woman, be fined not less than one
hundred dollars, nor more than two hundred dollars, or imprisoned; and if a
free person of color, shall be fined, imprisoned, or whipped, at the discretion
of the court, not exceeding thirty-nine lashes, nor less than twenty lashes.
II. Be it further enacted: That if any slave shall hereafter teach, or attempt to
teach, any other slave to read or write, the use of figures excepted, he or
she may be carried before any justice of the peace, and on conviction
thereof, shall be sentenced to receive thirty-nine lashes on his or her bare
back.
In several states, it even became illegal for parents to teach their own children to read.
Note, however, that it was not illegal for slaves to learn "figures," obviously because that
skill would help the slaveowners keep track of their, human chattel and property.
In My Bondage and My Freedom, Frederick Douglass summed up the southern mindset
that overcame earlier interests in educating Black people:
"[l]f you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell;" "he should know nothing
but the will of his master, and learn to obey it." "Learning would spoil the
best nigger in the world;" "if you teach that nigger - speaking of myself how to read the bible, there will be no keeping him;" " it would forever unfit
him for the duties of a slave;" and "as to himself, learning would do him no
good, but probably, a great deal of harm - making him disconsolate and
unhappy." "If you learn him how to read, he'll want to know how to write;
and, this accomplished, he'll be running away with himself." Such was the
tenor of Master Hugh's oracular exposition of the true philosophy of training
a human chattel; and it must be confessed that he very clearly
comprehended the nature and the requirements of the relation of master
and slave.
Douglass went on to describe how many Black people reacted to this:
"Very well" thought I; "knowledge unfits a child to be a slave." I
instinctively assented to the proposition; and from that moment I
understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom... the very
determination which he expressed to keep me in ignorance, only rendered
me the more resolute in seeking intelligence.
Throughout the slave period, slaves and free Blacks alike strove to educate themselves.
THE RURAL PERIOD
The defeat of the slaveowners and the southern agricultural system by the rising northern
industrial capitalists brought great changes as the tenant system replaced slavery. This
new "freedom" of Black people required the development of social institutions that could
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provide the kind of "social control" that the institution of slavery had provided. Education
used as a training ground for leadership became the vehicle of control. Black colleges
became, a key mechanism used to train a sector of the Black population in the skills of
social control.
Still, Black people were anxious to be educated. Slaveowners had paid considerable sums
to finance the education of their own children and to employ "educated" assistants to help
maintain their economic and political power. After slavery, Black people actively sought
education as one of the most important tools for liberation. As Booker T. Washington
observed, it appeared "a whole race was trying to go to school."
There were four main sources of educational experiences for Black people during the
agricultural period:
The Black community - From the beginning of the Civil War, Black people arranged to have 233
lessons offered. Schools were set up with teachers as soon as an area was captured by
the Union Army. Almost $1.2 million was contributed in taxes and tuition and by Black
church organizations. Black soldiers gave their army pay to help establish schools, such as
Lincoln University in Missouri. In South Carolina, the Black-majority state legislature during
Reconstruction passed a bill which established the first system of tax-supported public
education for all citizens. Many Black people who could already read and write offered
invaluable services in establishing schools in the South.
Civic and church organizations - Religious organizations and churches contributed to
216
meeting the educational needs of the ex-slaves. The American Missionary Association
opened schools in several areas and later assisted in the founding of several colleges,
among them Fisk (1866), Talladega (1867), and Hampton (1868). More than sixty-five
societies were organized to support Black education between 1846 and 1867. Between
1862 and 1874, sixteen of these contributed almost $4 million. These organizations also
assisted in recruiting teachers and providing school supplies.
Government-sponsored - The government played the major role in orchestrating the
development of education for Black people during Reconstruction. From 1866 to 1870,
almost half of the $11 million allocated to the U.S. Freedmen's Bureau, created to "assist"
the former slaves, went to support Black schools. According to DuBois: "For some years
after 1865, the education of the Negro was well nigh monopolized by the Freedmen's
Bureau..." Howard University established in 1866 is the best example of a Black college
organized by the government. Still, there was a tremendous shortage of funds to finance
education. A good deal of the money for financing education ultimately came from northern
industrialists.
Northern industrial capitalists - Northern industrial capitalists donated funds to raise the
educational and skill levels of people in the South because it was in their interest to do so.
During and following the Civil War, northern industrialists established their great
monopolies. By the latter part of the 19th century, however, people (especially in the North)
began to rise up against this class and its business methods. The capitalists desperately
needed to redeem themselves, and the South seemed like a good place to channel their
efforts. As, Henry Bullock put it:
Southern workers were still not strongly organized; industrial peace
prevailed in the region, and the growing population offered a good source of
cheap labor. With its tax base still impaired, the South became a good outlet
for charitable expressions that could possibly repair the image of the
industrial class then being shattered by rising class conflict in Northern
cities. It presented industrialists with a good opportunity to regain public
acceptance while remaining true to their class ideology of rugged
individualism. Through charitable contributions to the South's institutional
life, they could help the Southern people help themselves, increase labor
value where wage scales were kept lower by custom, and open greater
consumer markets for the many manufactured products then being created
through their industrial leadership. Most attractive of all must have been the
appealing recognition that the region's educational leadership had passed to
those who identified with the industrial class - to a breed of men who not
only spoke the language of this class but also shared its basic aspirations.
Thus, many of the leading capitalists gave millions of dollars toward education: Slater
(cotton textiles), Rockefeller (oil), Pea-body (retail), Carnegie (steel), Morgan (steel and
finance), Baldwin (railroads), and Rosenwald (retail, Sears). While their funds were
important in increasing educational opportunities, they did much to reinforce the prevailing
pattern of racist discrimination against Blacks. For example, they gave Black schools only
2/3 of the allocations given to white schools, they supported racist legislation pertaining to
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civil rights and education, and their monies upheld segregated educational facilities in the
South.
Apart from these charitable donations, industrial capitalists had other ways of supporting
education for Black children. Their reasons for doing so were just as self-interested. Horace
Mann Bond provides insight into the company town and its educational policies in his
description of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company, a subsidiary of U.S. Steel in
Westfield, Alabama.
The Tennessee Company began at once to build up complete industrial and
housing units, fitted with hospitals, welfare centers, and schools, by which
means it was frankly hoped to regularize the uncertain Negro labor. It was
officially stated that this was not a philanthropic movement: "The Steel
Corporation is not an eleemosynary [charitable] institution," and its first object
was "to make money for its stockholders."...
The paramount difficulty which the Tennessee Company found, after its
acquisition by United States Steel, was the ignorance, and poor educational
facilities of Negro workers. Especial attention was given to "dilapidated
buildings" in Jefferson County, and to the "inadequate pay offered teachers
(which) failed to attract men and women competent to train the youthful
mind."
The Tennessee [C]ompany made an agreement with the authorities of
Jefferson [C]ounty by which the company was to build and equip a sufficient
number of school houses in the neighborhood of its plants and mines. The
county authorities agreed to turn over to the company the annual
appropriations received from the State for teachers' salaries. The result was
that the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company was able to operate an
educational system for its workers, using State funds, but supplementing
them, free of any regulation from local school officials...
Confessedly not "an eleemosynary" institution, it is probably true that "in
building 'model' company towns, the companies have one leading motive,
namely, to cut down labor turnover while at the same time continuing to pay
low wages." It is further alleged that the policies of the Corporation in giving
decent living and educational quarters to Negroes were in line with a careful,
long-range policy to keep Negro and white workers apart, and labor
subordinated, by exalting the Negroes as competitors of the whites...
One interesting reflection of the status of the Negro as indicated by
educational opportunities provided in the T.C.I. schools is the fact that the
system provided education only up to the high school level. Apparently it was
believed that this moiety of education sufficed for the industrial purposes to
which the Company intended to set its Negro labor.
Company schools were clearly designed to fill the needs of the particular industry rather
than the broader educational needs of Black people.
During the rural period, a significant controversy developed between Booker T Washington
and W. E. B. DuBois, particularly over the issue of what educational policy would be most
advantageous to Blacks. Washington argued for industrial or vocational education its the
major focus. DuBois advocated the education of a "talented tenth" that would provide the
broader intellectual leadership and training needed by the masses of Black people.
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While the debate centered on education, the two also had different social-political
philosophies. Washington's go-slow accommodationist philosophy ("Blacks should not
demand full social equality"), in combination with his emphasis on industrial training, was
preferred by the industrial capitalists. They were seeking not only to produce more efficient
Black workers but to reestablish a good relationship with southern whites. DuBois's militant
agitation for full equality and his emphasis on struggle would have continued the conflict
between Black and whites and slowed down the economic expansion of northern capital in
the South. DuBois's program also would have secured political power for Blacks in some
areas of the Black Belt South. Thus, Washington and "the Tuskegee machine" were fully
supported by the ruling class (e.g., he was given a private train to use by Carnegie).
DuBois, on the other hand, was forced to resign his teaching position at Atlanta University
because its funding was threatened as a result of his militant stands.
Historically, racist discrimination has always characterized the education of Blacks in the
South. This can be demonstrated by analyzing discrepancies in the allocation of federal,
state, and local funds for teachers' salaries, school books, supplies, and buildings. For
example, in North Carolina, considered one of the more "enlightened" states, during 192425 about $6.7 million was spent on new buildings for rural white children while only
$444,000 was spent for Black children. During most of the rural period, Blacks in the North
fared little better, particularly when separate (and unequal) public schools were
established. Inadequate facilities and diluted academic programs plagued students in
Black schools, while vicious discrimination faced those few students who attended mixed
schools.
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THE URBAN PERIOD
The migration, industrialization, and urbanization that characterized the Black experience
after World War I had a marked effect on the education of Blacks. The spread of largescale machine industry in the South and in the North ended the Washington-DuBois debate
over industrial (handicraft) training vs. academic training. Neither Washington's nor
DuBois's visions would be realized. Henceforth, at least in higher education, the goal was
to train Black students to become like white bourgeois students who saw education not in
terms of enlightenment but as a means of acquiring money. Writing about Black colleges in
1957, E. Franklin Frazier observed in Black Bourgeoisie:
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Unlike the missionary teachers, the present teachers have little interest in
"making men," but are concerned primarily with teaching as a source of
income which will enable them to maintain middle-class standards and
participate in Negro "society." It appears that the majority of them have no
knowledge of books nor any real love of literature. Today many of the
teachers of English and literature never read a book as a source of
pleasure or recreation. They go through a dull routine of teaching literature
or other college subjects to listless students, many of whom cannot read.
The second and third generations of Negro college students are as listless
as the children of peasants. The former are interested primarily in the
activities of Greek letter societies and "social" life, while the latter are
concerned with gaining social acceptance by the former. Both are less
concerned with the history or the understanding of the world about them
than with their appearance at the next social affair...So teachers and
students alike are agreed that money and conspicuous consumption are
more, important than knowledge or the enjoyment of books and art and
music...
Thus it has turned out that Negro higher education has become devoted
chiefly to the task of educating the black bourgeoisie. . . . the present
generation of Negro college students (who are not the children, but the
great grand-children of slaves) do not wish to recall their past. As they ride
to school in their automobiles, they prefer to think of the money which they
will earn as professional and business men. For they have been taught that
money will bring them justice and equality in American life, and they
propose to get money.
For most Blacks, however, the road to higher education, whether in Black or mixed schools,
was closed throughout most of the urban period, as it had been in the rural period.
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Elementary and Secondary Education

Apart from the church, the public school was the main institution that Black families came
into contact with in the urban North. Several problems confronted Black people in the new
educational environment. School attendance had not been mandatory in the South, the
curriculum had not been as rigorous in the South, and most students were underprepared.
White teachers and students reacted negatively to the different cultural backgrounds of
rural, southern Black students. All of this made the situation very difficult. The concentration
and overcrowding of Black people in urban ghettos and extreme poverty combined with the
above difficulties to make school segregation the prevailing pattern in the urban North. This
was called de facto segregation because it was segregation in fact based on housing
patterns and not segregation by law, or de jure segregation, as existed in the South.
Numerous protests against school segregation took place. Given the history of the U.S.
government and Supreme Court in legitimating the racist denial of equal rights to Black
people, the federal government became the main target of Black efforts to secure these
rights. Thus, increased protests and demonstrations and increased legal challenges in the
courts became the dual tactics used in the fight to end racist discrimination in education.
In May 1954, the Supreme Court ruled on cases initiated by Black people and the NAACP
Legal Defense Fund in four states - Delaware, Kansas, South Carolina, and Virginia - which
challenged the denial of admission to public school under state laws permitting racist
discrimination.
The NAACP brief argued:
The substantive question common to all is whether a state can, consistently
with the Constitution, exclude children, solely on the ground that they are
Negroes from public schools which otherwise they would be qualified to
attend. It is the thesis of this brief, submitted on behalf of the excluded
children that the answer to the question is in the negative: the Fourteenth
Amendment prevents states from according differential treatment to
American children on the basis of their color or race.
The court's decision in the school desegregation cases (called Brown et al. v. Board of
Education because those suing were listed in alphabetical order) read: "We conclude that
in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate
educational facilities are inherently unequal." The Supreme Court, however, dodged the
issue of establishing a timetable for desegregation and hid behind the phrase "with all
deliberate speed." Howard Moore stated quite baldly what that meant:
In one of the most humanistic passages in American legal literature, the
Court rhapsodized, "To separate them from others of similar age and
qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as
to their status, in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a
way unlikely ever to be undone." Yet, the Courts lacked the mettle to order
the immediate remedy of so monstrous an injury...There was absolutely no
constitutional warrant for the gradual implementation of the Fourteenth
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Amendment in the area of public education. It was rank concession to white

racism.
Although there were dramatic changes in the areas of public facilities and accommodations
following the Brown decision (largely through the struggle of Black people in the streets),
local and state officials have continued to procrastinate. Some twenty-five years after the
ruling that "Separate and unequal" facilities should end, over 66% of Black students in the
United States are still found in schools that are more than 50% Black and minority.
What makes these schools undesirable is not that they are majority Black, but that they are
located in inner-city areas, where most are under funded and without the resources needed
to provide the best possible education for Black students. The key to Black education in the
cities rests with the economics of inner-city public schools. While an overall budget crisis is
affecting all schools, inner-city schools where Black students are concentrated are being hit
the hardest. Several tactics have emerged to confront this situation:
Busing - Some Black people support this alternative because the few good schools with
sufficient funds are located outside the Black community, and transporting Black students
to these schools is seen as one way of providing them access to good education. Most
public schools, however, are not providing quality education. This alternative leaves this
basic problem untouched and, in fact, does very little for most students. Busing is another
example of a government-dictated program, which, like the Bakke decision, inflames racial
tensions unnecessarily while not solving the main problem.
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Independent educational institutions - These emerged as an alternative to the miseducation
of Black students in public school systems. They differ from the private schools initiated by
white parents to avoid school desegregation. They include several types: from Montessori
schools (which stress developing a child's own initiative in teaching) to the "freedom
schools," which have been especially popular among Black nationalists. But these schools
must charge tuition. Therefore they do not offer a real alternative for the masses of Black
students trapped in poor public schools systems, which their families' tax dollars continue to
support.
Community control - Black people have also fought for control over schools and districts
which are supported by their taxes. Many of these institutions have a student population
that is majority Black, but Black parents, residents, teachers, and administrators have been
systematically excluded from decision-making regarding curriculum, teacher hiring and
accountability, discipline, etc. Preston Wilcox, a leading Black educator in New York city,
has written this about the movement for community control of the public schools:
The thrust for control over ghetto schools represents a shift in emphasis by
black and poor people from a concern with replicating that which is
American to a desire for reshaping it to include their concerns. There is less
concern with social integration than there is with effective education...
[B]lacks have begun to recognize that the educational system probably has
no intention of educating black Americans to promote their own agendas.
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The system's preference is for Americans of color to develop pride in white

America. What is really feared is collective action by blacks in the economic
and political spheres...
The thrust, then, for control of schools serving black communities is
essentially a surge by black people to have their concerns incorporated into
this society's agenda. Any honest examination of the school system will
reveal that social class and social caste factors operate to keep black and
poor students uneducated....
Two inseparable outcomes will mark the success of this venture: the
degree to which black and poor kids invest themselves in the learning
process (instead of allowing themselves to be taught that they are slow
learners) and the degree to which the local school unit becomes an agent
for local community change (not just changing students).
This alternative, because it focuses on the tax-supported schools where more Black
students are, and because it involves the Black community in a collective struggle for
power, has the greatest potential for improving the quality of education in the public school
system.
Higher Education
The recent period in higher education for Black people has been shaped by the militant
struggle of the Black liberation movement in the 1960s. This had two major consequences:
an increase in the number of students and an increase in programs designed to serve
needs of Black people. The Black liberation movement demanded and received a sizable
increase in the enrollment of Black students in higher education and an increase in Black
faculty and staff employment. The dramatic increase in Black college students reflected the
basic change in black community over the last seventy years. The 1910 census reported
that 30.4 % were illiterate , 90% were living in the South, and 60% of the Black men were
employed in agriculture. In 1916, the office of education reported only 2,132 students at 31
Black colleges. By 1940 though still "over three-fourths of all Blacks lived in the South,
close to two thirds lived in rural areas there, and just under half were still engaged in
agriculture," 34% of Black people had moved to central cities. These mass-migrations to
southern cities and the industrial North resulted in 58,000 students at 118 Black colleges by
1940.
By 1969, the U.S. census reported that 55% of Blacks lived in central cities, about 50%
lived in the North, and only 4% remained employed in agriculture. Correspondingly, in 1964
there were about 200,000 Black college students, and over triple this ten years later in
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1974. This increase in the number of Black college students thus reflects fundamental
changes in U.S. society and Black people's situation in it.
Higher education for Blacks can be further understood by describing three specific forms of
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educational institutions: the private college, the land grant university, and the urban
community college. Private schools were set up in the 1850s and 1860s to produce a Black
petty-bourgeois elite, particularly in the fields of education, religion, social work, law,
medicine, and business. Of all Black college graduates in 1900, 37% were teachers, 11%
were ministers, 4% were doctors, 3% were lawyers, and only 1.4% were engaged in
farming. This was the "talented tenth" DuBois spoke of While these schools were the only
avenue for higher education at one time, they now account for little more than 10% of all
Black students.
Another group of schools were set up in the 1890s as a result of the second Morrill Act of
Congress. This act set up the land-grant college system to help spread technological
innovation and training to aid U.S. agricultural production. This was also the heyday of
Booker T. Washington's vocational education philosophy. By 1940, while 22.3% of Black
students were still majoring in education, 23% were also majoring in agriculture, industrial
arts, and home economics. The situation changed after the World War II. By 1955-56, over
two-thirds of graduates from the publicly-controlled Black colleges were graduating with
degrees in education. Another change occurred in the late 1960s. Degrees in education fell
to 50%, and degrees in the social sciences (social work) rose to 17% and in business to
9% in 1967.
The newest educational institution is the urban community junior college. The community
college was created due to advances in skill requirements for the job market. The
paraprofessional, clerical, and technical jobs needed more than high-school trained
persons. This reflected both the inadequacies of high schools and the special skills needed
for jobs. These schools actually began after World War I, but it wasn't until the late 1960s
that they boomed. While 18% of all U.S. students are enrolled in community colleges, 32%
of Black students are enrolled in them.
The Black liberation movement fueled a militancy among these Black students who were
admitted to colleges and universities. It led to the successful struggle of Black Studies,
which was to serve as a base for an educational experience relevant to the history and
aspirations of Black people for freedom (see Chapter 1).
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Because these militant demands were made during the period of the Vietnam War, there
were sufficient financial resources for the U.S. ruling class to make these concessions. But
the last few years have witnessed a decline in the economic prosperity of U.S. imperialism.
One result is belt-tightening in higher education and attempts to cut back or cut out the
gains made by Black people during the past ten years. The recent decision of the U.S.
Supreme Court in the Bakke case is a most obvious example. Commenting on the Bakke
case, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote:
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I fear that we have come full circle. After the Civil War our government
started several "affirmative action" programs. This Court in the Civil Rights
Cases and Plessy v. Ferguson destroyed the movement toward complete
equality. For almost a century no action was taken, and this non action was
with the tacit approval of the courts. Then we had Brown v. Board of
Education and the Civil Rights Acts of Congress, followed by numerous
affirmative action programs. Now, we have this Court again stepping in, this
time to stop affirmative action programs of the type used by the University of
California.
The impact is becoming clear. There has already been a decline in Black enrollment, not
only in medical schools but also in law and other professional schools. Mary Frances Berry
sums up the empirical trends as follows:
In medical schools between 1969 and 1974 total enrollment increased from
37,690 to 53,354. in 1969 there were 1,042 blacks (2.8%) enrolled, and in
1974, 3,555 (6.3%). In law schools there were 2,128 blacks out of 68,386 in
1969 (3.1%), and 5,304 out of 118,557 in 1978 (4.5%). These numbers are
significant because nationally blacks constituted only 1.8% of the lawyers in
1976 and only about 2% of the physicians. After 1974, however, black
enrollments in medicine and law and other professional fields declined. First
year enrollments in medicine as an example were 7.8% in 1974-75, 6.8% in
1975-76, and 6.7% in 1976-1977. In the Fall of 1982, only 5.8% of medical
students were black. Between 1977 and 1978, first year enrollments of
blacks in medicine decreased by 1.9% while white enrollments increased
2.5%.
In 1976-77, blacks were 5.3% of the first year law enrollments, but by 197778 and 1978-79 they were down to 4.9%. In graduate fields other than first
professional degrees in 1980 there were 59,929 (5.4%) blacks among, the
total 1,096,455 master's and doctoral students, a 3% decline from 1978.
These statistics indicate that the enrollment of black students in graduate and
professional programs generally increased substantially between 1968 and
1976 with some leveling off and have been declining since 1978. It should
also be noted that the gap between blacks and whites in fields of graduate
and professional endeavor is still enormous. For example, in the 1980-81
academic year, blacks received only 24 of the 2,551 Ph.D.'s awarded in
Engineering and only 32 of 3,140 doctorates in the Physical Sciences.
The Bakke Case merely legitimated what was already an objective trend in declining Black
enrollments in graduate and professional programs.
Thus, Black people in the 1980s clearly understand that educational opportunities, though
fought for and won, have not been the keys to liberation that many once believed.
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Education for Black people still reflects the oppression that Black people suffer at the hands
of the dominant economic and political forces in this society. It is important, therefore, that
we escalate the struggles against attacks on affirmative action and the fight for community
control of schools, Black Studies, and other educational activities that seek to contribute to
the liberation of Black people.
KEY CONCEPTS
Affirmative action
Bakke Decision
Black educational institutions
Brown decision
Busing
Community control
De jure vs. de facto school
segregation
Liberal arts education
Literacy
Vocational education
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. What educational experiences have characterized the three periods of Afro-American
history?
2. What kinds of struggles have Black people waged for greater educational opportunities
and what impact have they had?
3. Does education result in upward social mobility? If yes, why? If no, why not?
4. What produces academic excellence in Black students?
1. Horace Mann Bond, Negro Education in Alabama: A Study in Cotton and Steel.
Washington, D.C.: Associated Publishers, 1939.
2. W.E.B. DuBois, The Education of Black People: Ten Critiques, 1906-1960. Edited by
Herbert Aptheker. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973.
3. Geneva Smitherman, Talkin'and Testifyin'. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977.
4. Thomas L. Webber, Deep Like the Rivers: Education in the Slave Quarter Community,
1831-1865. New York: W. W. Norton, 1978.
5. Meyer Weinberg, A Chance to Learn: A History of Race and Education in the United
States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
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THIRTEEN
13. BLACK POWER AND THE U.S. POLITICAL SYSTEM ............ 247
Slavery, The Struggle for Human Rights ................
Rural Period: The Struggle for Civil Rights ..............
Urban Period: The Struggle for Equal Rights ...........
248
251
255
Black Power and the U.S. Political System

227
LOGIC OF
CHANGE
Social
Cohesion
Traditional
Africa
Slavery
Rural
Life
Urban
Life
Social
Disruption
Slave
Trade
Emancipation
Migrations
Ideology
A1
B1
C1
D1
E1
F1
G1
A2
B2
C2
D2
E2
F2
G2
A3
B3
C3
D3
E3
F3
G3
A4
B4
C4
D4
E4
F4
G4
ANALYSIS
Class
Race
It's got to be the ballot or the bullet. The ballot or the bullet. If you're afraid to
use an expression like that, you should get on out of the country, you should get
back in the cotton patch, you should get back in the alley. They get all the
Negro vote, and after they get it, the Negro gets nothing in return.
Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks, 1965.
Seek ye the political kingdom, and all else will come unto you.
Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah, 1959.
Black people have always viewed politics and the struggle for political power as one of the
most important paths to liberation. Black voters have been important in the election of
major white officials for a long time, especially at the national level since the 1960s. There
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has also been an increase in the number of Black mayors and other elected officials, and
more appointments at the federal, state, and local levels. But the problems that Black
people face in the United States - unemployment, inflation, decaying cities, poor health
care, police brutality, and many others - are no closer to solution now than they, were
before the increase in Black political officials. In fact, the situation for the masses is getting
worse not better.
How are we to approach the political dimension of the Black experience? Generally, legal
relations - the law and the government (state) - reflect existing power (class) relations. That
is, the law, has always served the interests of that class which dominates or rules the
society at any particular time. Government is an arena of the struggle for power and wealth
that is going on at all times. The government served the slaveowners and under capitalism
it serves the capitalists. These fundamental laws of U.S. politics can help us to understand
the role that the government has historically played in (and against) the struggle for Black
liberation.
In the political arena, this struggle has changed forms as the main political problem facing 248
Black people has changed. During the slave experience, Black people fought to be defined
228
by the political system as human. In the rural period, the main political fight was for civil
rights (for voting, office-holding, etc.). During the, urban period, Black people have had
legally defined equal opportunity but still face a disproportionate burden of poverty and
racist discrimination in all areas of life.
SLAVERY: THE STRUGGLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Because slavery was so important to the economic development of this country, the
protection of the institution of slavery for the slaveowners and the regulation of the slaves
assumed the highest priority of governmental bodies - federal, state, and local. Thus,
beginning with Virginia in 1661, many colonial state governments passed laws which
defined Black people as sub-humans. They put them into the same category as "working
beasts, animals of any kind, stock, furniture, plate, books, and so forth," as Maryland's law
stated. These laws recognizing the slavery of Blacks passed in southern states, like South
Carolina (1682) and Georgia (1749), and in northern states - Massachusetts (1641),
Connecticut (1650), Rhode Island (1652), and New York (1665).
The absolute necessity of controlling slaves through laws of repression is best illustrated by
the slave codes passed by northern and southern states. These codes regulated many
aspects of slave life - travel, marriage, religion, etc. The most important function, however,
was to maintain the slave production system of forced labor.
The interest of state traders and slaveowners was reflected in all of the laws of the period.
When the Declaration of Independence was drafted in 1776, New England slave-trading
merchants joined with southern slaveowners to delete a passage condemning slave
trading, despite the opening assertion that "all men are created equal." Similarly, when the
U.S. Constitution was drawn up in 1788,it was clear that there was a greater concern for
property rights than human rights.
Three different provisions in the Constitution upheld the institution of slavery, thereby
reflecting the interest of slave traders and slaveowners: 1) the importation of slaves was
legalized for at least twenty more years, after which Congress could, if it wished, pass a law
prohibiting it; 2) fugitive slaves had to be turned over to slaveowners who claimed them; 3) 249
Blacks in slavery were to be regarded as three-fifths of a person. This "three-fifths
compromise" grew out of a dispute between outherners and northerners over
representation and taxation. The South wanted to count slaves for purposes of increasing
representation in Congress, but it did not want to count them for purposes of determining
direct taxes. Northerners saw this as an obvious attempt to increase the power of the South
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while escaping its fair share of taxes. The three-fifths compromise which resulted served
the political and economic interests of whites from both region. All of these provisions
strengthened the rights of the slaveowners and laid the legal basis for the dehumanization
of the masses of Black people. (After the 1793 invention of the cotton gin spurred cotton
production and increased the need for slave labor, a significant, though unsuccessful,
movement developed to amend the Constitution and permit slave trading after 1808.)
Congress, the President, the Supreme Court, and governmental bodies at the state and
local levels all served the interest of slaveowners. The Supreme Court, which was
dominated by southerners, was particularly useful to slaveowners in the pre-Civil War
period when their power was being challenged. In 1859, for example, the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled in the Dred Scott decision that Black people "had no rights that the white man
was bound to respect." This decision ruled that slaves who managed to get to one of the
non-slave states were not free, but should be returned to the slave master. It also deprived
free Blacks (both in non-slave and slave states) of citizenship rights under the U.S.
Constitution. This decision led to attempts to enslave free Blacks and resulted in increased
resistance to slavery.
Frederick Douglass, who had been invited to give a Fourth of July speech in 1852, outlined
what a sham U.S. democracy really was:
Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak
here to-day? What have I or those I represent, to do with your national
independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural
justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?...
I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high
independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The
blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common - The rich
inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by
your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and
healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours,
not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the
grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous
anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean,
citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day?...
Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will,
in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is
fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible which are disregarded
and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the
emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery - the
great sin and shame of America!...
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to
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him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to
which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your
boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity;
your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants,
brassfronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery;
your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your
religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception,
impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a
nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more
shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States, at this very
hour.
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies
and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out
every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of
the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for
revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
In 1776, British colonialism was the main problem facing the American colonies and this
united northern industrial capitalists and merchants with the slaveowners of the South into
the common cause of the American Revolution. By the 1850s, however, this had changed.
The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 had revitalized the Cotton Kingdom; cotton
production increased from 3,000 bales in 1770 to 1.35 million bales in 1840 (a bale = 1,000
pounds). Also between 1790 and 1830, northern industry, especially cotton textiles, made
rapid advances because of new inventions and production techniques. The South,
however, continued to prefer England as the market for its cotton and as the source of
manufactured goods. This restricted the growth of northern factories and of the northern
industrial capitalists.
Thus, two wings of the ruling class representing two different kinds of property and social
systems - slave and industrial - came more and more into open conflict. This economic
conflict was the basis of the slavery-related political struggles during the pre-Civil War
period. The conflict involved such important issues as whether the tariffs (fees) charged on
imports and exports would be high (so northern textile capitalists could keep the South's
cotton in the United States and keep British manufactured goods out). Another question
was whether new states admitted into the union' would be slave states (which would
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increase the political power of the South) or free states. This latter issue was at the root of
several important political compromises which sought a peaceful solution to this growing
conflict. But such compromises (e.g., Missouri Compromise in 1820) were insufficient. Only
the Civil War could resolve whether the northern industrial capitalists or the slaveowners of
the South would dominate the federal government and use it as an instrument to further
their very different and opposed economic interests. The northern industrial capitalists won.
THE RURAL PERIOD: THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS
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Emancipating the slaves was an historical and political necessity, the only way in which the
northern capitalists could defeat their slaveowning enemies in the Civil War. But solving
one problem often leads to other problems. While emancipation gave the North important
Black allies in beating the South, it also upset the labor system in the South and unleashed
a powerful movement to establish full democratic rights. Genuine democracy (not
bourgeois or capitalist democracy where everyone can vote but the rich continue to rule)
would have restricted some of the activities of the wealthy northern capitalists. Thus,
reestablishing a system of labor in the South became one immediate aim of government
during the Reconstruction period. Reconstructing a political system under the firm control of
the northern capitalists became the other.
The "Black Codes" clearly illustrate how state and local governments reestablished the
labor system. The purpose of these "Black Codes" was to institute new conditions of
exploitation as similar to slavery as possible. Mississippi was so bold as to almost
completely re-enact its old "Slave Code." W. E. B. DuBois summarized the workings of the
Black Codes in Black Reconstruction in America:
...the Black Codes were deliberately designed to take advantage of every

misfortune of the Negro. Negroes were liable to a slave trade under the guise of
vagrancy and apprenticeship laws; to make the best labor contracts, Negroes
must leave the old plantations and seek better terms: but if caught wandering in
search of work, and thus unemployed and without a home, this was vagrancy,
and the victim could be whipped and sold into slavery. In the turmoil of war,
children were separated from parents, or parents unable to support them
properly. These children could be sold into slavery, and "the former owner of
said minors shall have the preference." Negroes could come into court as
witnesses only in cases in which Negroes were involved. And even then, they
must make their appeal to a jury and judge who would believe the word of any
white man in preference to that of any Negro on pain of losing office and caste.
The Negro's access to the land was hindered and limited; his right to work was
curtailed; his right of self-defense was taken away, when his right to bear arms
was stopped; and his employment was virtually reduced to contract labor with
penal servitude as a punishment for leaving his job. And in all cases, the judges
of the Negro's guilt or innocence, rights and obligations were men who believed
firmly, for the most part, that he had "no rights which a white man was bound to
respect!"
While the federally sponsored Freedmen's Bureau conducted essential relief work among
free slaves, its most important function, spelled out in Congressional legislation, was to
organize and regulate a system of labor contracts, within the context of the emerging tenant
system.
While this exploitative labor system was being established in the South, northerners were
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busy trying to consolidate their political victory. The importance of the ex-slaves to the
North's strategy was reflected in the three Reconstruction Amendments to the U.S.
Constitution. These amendments abolished -slavery (the 13th), put the federal government
behind the rights of the freed slaves (the 14th), and guaranteed Black males the right to
vote (the 15th). A close reading of these amendments - for example, section 3 and, 4 of the
14th amendment - reveals that the amendments were also aimed at consolidating the
defeat of the slaveowners by disfranchising and barring from office the leaders of the
Confederacy or anyone who had voluntarily aided the Confederacy and by refusing to pay
any of the debts the South had incurred during the war.
During this Reconstruction period, Black people fought for and won many democratic
rights. Blacks voted and were elected to federal, state, and local political offices. Laws
creating the first tax-supported public education system and other progressive measures
were passed in legislation where Black people were in a majority (South Carolina) or
played a leading role.
The next stage of the relationship of Black people to the U.S. government during the rural
period was based on the changing interests of northern capitalists. The North had used
their alliance with the ex-slaves to consolidate their victory over the southern slaveowners.
The main problem now facing them was the disruption of the smooth and peaceful
operation of capitalist exploitation by the newly enfranchised Blacks and a growing radical
movement among workers, farmers, and small manufacturers. Thus, northern capitalists
ended their alliance with Black people in the Hayes-Tilden Sellout of 1877. Federal troops
were withdrawn from the South and political power was given back to the ex-slaveowners.
This time northern capitalists were overseeing the entire process. As William Z. Foster
pointed out:
The Northern bourgeoisie, who were beginning to develop monopoly
capitalism, betrayed the Negro people by making a bargain with Southern
reaction, because they had accomplished their major objectives through the
revolution. That is, they had preserved the Union and smashed the menace of
the cotton planters, thus forever removing them as a dangerous obstacle in
their economic and political path. With this done, they had no further concern
about the Negro people, except to make sure that they were kept in a position
where the Northerners themselves could participate in their super-exploitation.
It was consistent with the "serve the rich" role the U.S. government was playing that these
same federal troops were used to suppress the 1877 national railroad strike in which Black
and white workers stood together.
In the late 1800s, the federal government gave over a billion acres of publicly-owned land
to the railroads and to mining and land corporations but only a few acres to homesteaders.
Millions of dollars of public funds were distributed to wealthy bondholders. Black and white
farmers fought against this increasing domination of big business which resulted in low
prices for farm products and high prices for transportation and manufactured goods. This
farmers' revolt led to the Populist Movement, which elected local, state, and federal officials
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and almost won the U.S. presidency in 1896. These officials supported such radical
policies, as public ownership of monopolized railroads, telegraphs, and telephones, an
income tax system, and reforms to benefit workers.
The high level of militant unity which developed among Black and white farmers during the
rural period was a significant threat to the ruling class. Thus, all branches of government
participated in the repression of Black people and in maintaining them as a super-exploited
sector among the workers on the farms and in the factories of the South. The Civil Rights
Acts of 1870-71 were repealed in 1894. Two years later, the Supreme Court ruled in PIessy
v. Ferguson that segregation was legal under the rubric of separate but equal. It thereby
legitimized the discrimination against Black people enacted by state governments in the
South (e.g., the poll tax, grandfather clause, and the all-white primary - see Chapter 5).
Ralph Bunche, in his analysis of the political status of Blacks, described the effects of these
moves to disfranchise Blacks:
Small wonder that the Negro, continually turned away from participation in the
only real elections [primaries], and denied registration by "impartial" registrars,
frequently made no effort to vote...
The severe rebuff given to the high hopes of Negroes in the period of reaction
following Reconstruction led to disillusionment and ultimately to an attitude
approaching resignation and fatalism. The last quarter of the nineteenth
century was a period of decreasing political activity for Negroes, and black
leaders sought to discover a new line and a new direction. This quickly took the
form of a philosophy of conciliation, which involved a recognition of the
supremacy of the dominant white population and of the inferior caste status of
the Negro. The philosophy of the Negro in this period reveals itself as a
somewhat strange admixture of futility and hope, and it was given its proper
refinement through the lips of Booker T. Washington. The political aspirations
of the Negro came to be regarded as chimerical, and he was directed to other
channels of activity, such as the economic, in which he would be able through
thrift, industry and vocational skill to win for himself strength and respect in the
community. The Negro reluctantly accepted his removal from political affairs
and attempted to make the best of it.
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Some, of course, continued to struggle. The main fight of Black people during the rural
period was to restore their fundamental civil rights, a struggle that continues today (as we
will discuss further in Chapter 14).
THE URBAN PERIOD: THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS

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The migration, urbanization, and proletarianization (factory work) of Black people beginning
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during World War I led to a dramatic transformation of all aspects of Black life. Black people
became highly concentrated in urban areas and involved in most sectors of the industrial
economy. Thus, a new basis for the political development of Black people was laid.
Because U.S. imperialism needed Black workers in the northern industrial economy, the
federal government was compelled to end the more blatant forms of oppression. However,
it left the content of oppression intact. Black people were given some civil rights on paper,
but they had to continue the fight for full equality in practice in the political and economic
system. This became the main focus of struggle during the urban period.
Because of the mass protest movements and revolutionary struggles during the Great
Depression (see Chapter 16), the federal government was forced to institute a system of
social insurance (unemployment insurance, welfare, social security, etc.) and to recognize
the right of workers to organize trade unions. Both of these benefited Black people who
were mostly workers. Black people initiated plans for a massive March on Washington
Movement to protest discrimination just as the United States geared up for World War II. A.
Philip Randolph outlined the goals of the March on Washington Movement:
When this war ends, the people want something more than the dispersal of
equality and power among individual citizens in a liberal, political democratic
system. They demand with striking comparability the dispersal of equality and
power among the citizen-workers in an economic democracy that will make
certain the assurance of the good life - the more abundant life - in a warless
world...
Thus our feet are set in the path toward [the long-range goal of] equality economic, political and social and racial. Equality is the heart and essence of
democracy, freedom and justice. Without equality of opportunity in industry, in
labor unions, schools and colleges, government, politics and before the law,
without equality in social relations and in all phases of human endeavor, the
Negro is certain to be consigned to an inferior status. There must be no dual
standards of justice, no dual rights, privileges, duties or responsibilities of
citizenship. No dual forms of freedom...
But our nearer goals include the abolition of discrimination, segregation, and
jim-crow in the Government, the Army, Navy, Air Corps, U.S. Marine, Coast
Guard, Women's Auxiliary Army Corps and the Waves, and defense industries;
the elimination of discrimination in hotels, restaurants, on public transportation
conveyances, in educational, recreational, cultural, and amusement and
entertainment places such as theaters, beaches and so forth.
We want the full works of citizenship with no reservations. We will accept
nothing less.
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For Randolph and others, the method of achieving these goals involved struggle on the part
of the masses: "Therefore, if Negroes secure their goals, immediate and remote, they must
win them and to win them they must fight, sacrifice, suffer, go to jail and, if need be, die for
them. These rights will not be given. They must be taken."
Because these protests weakened the attempt of U.S. imperialism to fight a war and grab a
bigger share of the world, the federal government reacted with a series of executive orders
to reduce racist discrimination: the Fair Employment Practices Committee (1941), the
President's Committee on Civil Rights (1946), and the integration of the armed forces
(1948). The mass protest activities continued, and limited measures restricting
discrimination in housing and ending the all-white primaries also resulted.
Other avenues were also pursued. In 1951, the United Nations was petitioned on behalf of
Black people in the United States:
The responsibility of being the first in history to charge the government of the
United States of America with the crime of genocide is not one your petitioners
take lightly. The responsibility is particularly grave when citizens must charge
their own government with mass murder of its own nationals, with
institutionalized oppression and persistent slaughter of the Negro people in the
United States on a basis of "race," a crime abhorred by mankind and prohibited
by the conscience of the world...
Seldom in human annals has so iniquitous a conspiracy been so gilded with the
trappings of respectability. Seldom has mass murder on the score of "race"
been so sanctified by law, so justified by those who demand free elections
abroad even as they kill their fellow citizens who demand free elections at
home. Never have so many individuals been so ruthlessly destroyed amid so
many tributes to the sacredness of the individual. The distinctive trait of this
genocide is a cant that mouths aphorisms of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence even
as it kills...
Your petitioners will prove that the crime of which we complain is in fact
genocide within the terms and meaning of the United Nations Convention
providing for the prevention and punishment of this crime...
We shall offer proof of economic genocide, or in the words of the Convention,
proof of "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring
about its destruction in whole or in part."
Further we shall show a deliberate national oppression of these 15,000,000
Negro Americans on the basis of "race" to perpetuate these "conditions of
life." Negroes are the last hired and the first fired. They are forced into city
ghettos or their rural equivalents. They are segregated legally or through
sanctioned violence into filthy, disease-bearing housing, and deprived by law of
adequate medical care and education. From birth to death, Negro Americans
are humiliated and persecuted, in violation of the Charter and the Convention.
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They are forced by threat of violence and imprisonment into inferior, segregated
accommodations, into jim crow busses, jim crow trains, jim crow hospitals, jim
crow schools, jim crow theaters, jim crow restaurants, jim crow housing, and
finally into jim crow cemeteries.
We shall prove that the object of this genocide, as of all genocide, is the
perpetuation of economic and political power by the few through the destruction
of political protest by the many. Its method is to demoralize and divide an entire
nation; its end is to increase the profits and unchallenged control by a
reactionary clique. We shall show that those responsible for this crime are not
the humble but the so-called great, not the American people but their
misleaders, not the convict but the robed judge, not the criminal but the police,
not the spontaneous mob but organized terrorists licensed and approved by the
state to incite to a Roman holiday.
All these efforts set the stage for the Civil Rights Movement and the massive political
protests that forced a flurry of governmental action, starting with the 1954 decision of the
Supreme Court which declared that discrimination against Black people was
unconstitutional.
The 1960s was a high tide of struggle in the Black liberation movement. Two distinct trends
developed among Black people in the political arena: one was reformist, the other
revolutionary. The Voting Rights Acts of 1965 and the voter registration projects funded by
monopoly capitalists increased the number of Black voters. This led to a greater emphasis
on a reformist program for Black liberation. Electing Black politicians was seen as the most
important way to achieve freedom for Black people. The number of these politicians
increased on the local, state, and federal levels and such organizations as the
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Congressional Black Caucus and National Black Political Assembly were formed.
The Congressional Black Caucus is a coalition of Black Congresspersons who basically
accepted the U.S. political and economic system. Louis Stokes, a member of the
Congressional Black Caucus, clearly articulated its reformist position:
We comprehend the game and we are determined to have some meaningful
input in the decisions of the legislative branch of the federal government...
If we are to be effective, if we are going to make a meaningful contribution to
minority citizens and this country, then it must be as legislators. This is the
area in which we possess expertise - and it is within the halls of Congress that
we must make this expertise felt.
Their purpose was to "move not against the current, but in fact with it, in seeking to make
democracy what it ought to be for all Americans." Congressperson Ron Dellums (D,
California) is the only registered socialist in Congress.
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The National Black Political Assembly was rooted in a very different set of assumptions.
Convening in Gary, Indiana in 1972, delegates from grassroots organizations declared: "A
Black political convention, indeed all truly black politics, must begin from this truth: The
American system does not work for the masses of our people, and it cannot be made to
work without radical fundamental change." For those attending the National Black Political
Convention, the United States was "a society built on the twin foundations. of white racism
and white capitalism." They maintained that "the only real choice for us is whether or not
we will live by the truth we know, whether we will move to organize independently, move to
struggle for fundamental transformation, for the creation of a new direction, towards a
concern for the life and the meaning of Man." The National Black Political Assembly which
emerged from this convention, however, eventually betrayed its origins and these truths. It
made the crucial error of allying itself with Black officials, who had exhausted their capacity
to lead. The National Black Political Assembly ultimately merely served as a bridge to lead
people back into electoral and reformist politics.
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Despite increasing numbers of Black politicians, there has been no real long-term
improvement in conditions facing Black people. E. Franklin Frazier explained why in his
study of the Black bourgeoisie:
The political leaders who have emerged as a consequence of the new role of
Negroes in the political life of America are men and women with a purely
middle-class outlook...Their political affiliation or leadership has no relation to
the needs of the Negro masses.
Except in the case of a crisis such as that created by the Depression when the
Negro masses changed their political affiliation, the Negro politician may even
mobilize the masses to vote against their economic interests. In his role as
leader, the Negro politician attempts to accommodate the demands of the
Negro masses to his personal interests which are tied up with the political
machines. He may secure the appointment of a few middle-class Negroes to
positions in the municipal government. But when it comes to the fundamental
interests of the Negro masses as regards employment, housing, and health,
his position is determined by the political machine which represents the
propertied classes of the white community.
At best, reformist politicians and electoral politics seek to achieve Black liberation without
fundamental changes in U.S. capitalism and capitalist democracy, a system in which the
few rich continue to rule. Electoral politics prevents the masses of people from seeing that
those capitalists who dominate the U.S. economy also dominate the political process,
regardless of which political party is in office.
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For reformists, the ballot and the courts offer the solution to the problems of Black people.
Dr. Ralph Bunche of Howard University warned in 1935:
The inherent fallacy of this belief rests in the failure to appreciate the fact that
the instruments of the state are merely the reflections of the political and
economic ideology of the dominant group, that the political arm of the state
cannot be divorced from its prevailing economic structure, whose servant it
must inevitably be.
He went on to amplify his point:
The confidence of the proponents of the political method of alleviation is based
on the protection which they feel is offered all groups in the society by that
sacred document the Constitution...This view ignores the quite significant fact
that the Constitution is a very flexible instrument and that, in the nature of
things, it cannot be anything more than the controlling elements in the American
society wish it to be. In other words, this charter...can never be more than our
legislatures, and, in the final analysis, our courts, wish it to be.
He also explained exactly why the courts failed to provide justice:
It is only inadvertently that the courts, like the legislatures, fail to reflect the
dominant mass opinion. It must be futile, then, to expect these agencies of
government to afford the Negro protection for rights which are denied to him by
the popular will...In the first place, American experience affords too many proofs
that laws and decisions contrary to the will of the majority cannot be, enforced.
In the second place, the Supreme Court can effect no revolutionary changes in
the economic order, and yet the status of the Negro, as that of other groups in
the society, is fundamentally fixed by the functioning and the demands of that
order. The very attitudes of the majority group which fix the Negro in his
disadvantaged position are part and parcel of the American economic and
political order.
By the 1960s, this sort of analysis was embraced by increasing numbers of Black people.
The struggle in the 1960s produced a more militant and radical program for Black
liberation. Many Black people pointed to the historical role that the entire political system
has played in helping to exploit and oppress Black people and concluded as Malcolm X did:
"This so-called democracy has failed Black people." Articulating the lessons of the struggle,
Malcolm X declared in a speech in Cleveland in 1964:
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This is not even a government that's based on democracy. It is not a

government that is made up of representatives of the people. Half of the
people in the South can't even vote...Half of the senators and congressmen
who occupy these key positions in Washington, D.C., are there illegally, are
there unconstitutionally...
So, what I'm trying to impress upon you, in essence, is this: You and I in
America are faced not with a segregationist conspiracy, we're faced with a
government conspiracy... You don't have anybody putting blocks in your path
but people who are a part of the government. The same government that you
go abroad to fight for and die for is the government that is in a conspiracy to
deprive you of your voting rights, deprive you of your economic opportunities,
deprive you of decent housing, deprive you of decent education. You don't
need to go to the employer alone, it is the government itself, the government
of America, that is responsible for the oppression and exploitation and
degradation of black people in this country...This government has failed the
Negro.
It was on this basis that the revolutionary sector of the Black liberation movement emerged
and struggled for basic and fundamental changes in U.S. society and attracted widespread
support in the 1960s and 1970s.
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The Black Panther Party was perhaps the most visible in the struggle during those years.
By 1970, the Panthers were calling for a new constitution:
For us, the case is absolutely clear: Black people have no future within the
present structure of power and authority in the United States under the present
Constitution. For us, also, the alternatives are absolutely clear: the present
structure of power and authority in the United States must be radically changed
or we, as a people, must extricate ourselves from entanglement with the United
States...
WE THEREFORE, CALL FOR A REVOLUTIONARY PEOPLE'S
CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, TO BE CONVENED BY THE AMERICAN
PEOPLE, TO WRITE A NEW CONSTITUTION THAT WILL GUARANTEE AND
DELIVER TO EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN THE INVIOLABLE HUMAN RIGHT
TO LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS!
We call upon the American people to rise up, repudiate, and restrain the forces
of fascism that are now rampant in the land and which are the only real
obstacles standing between us and a rational resolution of the national crisis.
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We believe that Black people are not the only group within America that stands
in need of a new Constitution. Other oppressed ethnic groups, the youth of
America, Women, young men who are slaughtered as cannon fodder in mad,
avaricious wars of aggression, our neglected elderly people all have an interest
in a new Constitution that will guarantee us a society in which Human Rights
are supreme and Justice is assured to every man, woman, and child within its
jurisdiction. For it is only through this means that America, as a nation, can live
together in peace with our brothers and sisters the world over. Only through
this means can the present character of America, the purveyor of exploitation,
misery, death, and wanton destruction all over the planet earth, be changed.
The Black Panthers did not just propose the formation of a new constitution. Throughout
this period, they engaged in an all-encompassing revolutionary struggle. The government's
reaction was to set about to systematically destroy the Panthers, killing some, imprisoning
others. The 1970s witnessed increasing governmental repression.
More recently the Bakke case and other cases involving attacks on affirmative action reveal
that the government is again orchestrating the efforts of the ruling class to reverse the
gains of the Black liberation struggle. Learning the lessons of the last years of struggle
(especially since 1954), more and more Black people now see the dead-end nature of
reformist politics. More and more Black people also see the futility of relying on the existing
government to solve the many problems facing Black people, problems which that same
government has helped to create. It is our view that only a fundamental and basic
revolutionary change in the existing political system will guarantee the democratic rights
and freedom that Black people and the masses of people in the United States have fought
for since the American Revolution.
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KEY CONCEPTS
Civil rights/Black Codes
Equal rights
Genocide
Government
Hayes-Tilden betrayal
Human rights/Slave Codes

Law/Legal relations
Supreme Court
Three-fifths compromise
Voting
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. What protection did slaves get from the U.S. Constitution? How and why was slavery
supported?
2. What were the three Reconstruction Amendments? What obstacles to voting did Blacks
face during the rural period?
3. Compare the political meaning of the March on Washington movement (1941), the
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genocide petition to the United Nations (1951), and the Constitutional Convention called by
the Black Panther Party (1970).
4. What are the strengths and weaknesses of an electoral approach to Black liberation?
Why has an increased number of Black elected officials not ended the exploitation and
oppression that the masses of Black people have faced?
I. Rod Bush edl, The New Black Vote: Politics and Power in Four American Cities . San
Francisco: Synthesis Publications, 1984.
2. Walton Hanes, Jr., Black Politics. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincot, 1972.
3. Albert Karnig and Susan Welch, Black Representation and Urban Policy. Chicago:
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4. Ira Katznelson, Black Men, White Cities. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.
5. Michael Preston, Lenneal Henderson, and Paul Puryear, eds., The New Black Politics.
New York: Longman, 1982.
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SNCC , early 1960s
243
14. CIVIL RIGHTS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY ....... 265
Legal Action ......................................................
The National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People
.......................................
The Urban league
...................................
Mass Struggle .................................................
Congress of Racial Equality
...................
Southern Christian Leadership Conference ........
Student Non-violent- Coordinating Committee ...
Electoral Politics .............................................
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269
271
272
273
274
280
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FOURTEEN
Civil Rights and the Struggle for Democracy

LOGIC OF
CHANGE
UNITS OF
ANALYSIS
Social Cohesion
Traditional
Africa
Slavery
Rural
Life
Urban
Life
Social Disruption
Slave
Trade
Emancipation
Migrations
Ideology
A1
B1
C1
D1
E1
F1
G1
Nationality
A2
B2
C2
D2
E2
F2
G2
Class
A3
B3
C3
D3
E3
F3
G3
Race A4 B4 C4 D4
E4
F4
G4
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We Shall Overcome
(Words and music arranged by Zilphia Horton, Hank Hamilton, Guy Carawan,
and Pete Seeger)
We shall overcome, we shall overcome, We shall overcome someday Oh,
deep in my heart (I know that), I do believe We shall overcome someday.
We are not afraid, we are not afraid, We are not afraid today. Oh, deep in my
heart, I do believe, We shall overcome someday.
We are not alone...(today)
The truth will make us free...
We'll walk hand in hand...
The Lord will see us through...
(the last two lines are the same in every verse)
This modern adaptation of the old Negro church song I'll Overcome Someday,
has become the unofficial theme song for the freedom struggle in the South.
The old words were: I'll be all right...I'll be like Him...I'll wear the crown...I will
overcome.
Negro Textile Union workers adapted the song for their use sometime in the
early '40s and brought it to Highlander Folk School. It soon became the
school's theme song and associated with Zilphia Horton's singing of it. She
introduced it to union gatherings all across the South. On one of her trips to
New York, Pete Seeger learned it from her and in the next few years he
spread it across the North. Pete, Zilphia and others added verses appropriate
to labor, peace and integration sentiments: We will end Jim Crow...We shall
live in Peace...We shall organize...The whole wide world around...etc.
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265
In 1959, a few years after Zilphia died, I went to live and work at Highlander,
hoping to learn something about folk music and life in the South and to help
carry on some of Highlander's musical work in Zilphia's spirit. I had no idea at
that time that the historic student demonstrations would be starting in the next
few years and that I would be in a position to pass on this song and many
others to students and adults involved in this new upsurge for freedom.
Guy Carawan
The fight for civil rights is a struggle for the democratic rights guaranteed by the U.S.
Constitution. Civil rights are politically defined freedoms, laws that stipulate what groups
and individuals can do to fully participate in the society. The Civil Rights Movement is made
up of individuals and groups who fight for just laws that in both principal and practice serve
to maximize full participation for all people. The Civil Rights Movement thus focuses its
attention on the government. It keys in on the contradiction between what the government
says in theory (as put forth in documents like the Declaration of Independence, the U.S.
Constitution, etc.) and what the government actually does in practice. The historical basis
for the Civil Rights Movement should be understood in the context of the three main
266
historical periods of Afro-American history - slavery, rural, and urban.
Historically, the U.S. government has played an important role in the oppression and
exploitation of Afro-American people. For example, the statement, "We hold these truths to
be self-evident, that all men are created equal" is found in the Declaration of Independence.
But as has been pointed out (see Chapter 13), it was written by slaveowners in the midst of
slavery. Furthermore, when the United States successfully fought a revolution to "free itself
" from British colonialism, Black people were kept in bondage as slaves. The post-Civil War
constitutional amendments (the 13th, 14th, and 15th) established the abstract legal
conditions for Black citizens and, along with the Bill of Rights, they provided the legal basis
for the Civil Rights Movement. The actual movement, however, did not develop until the
20th century, which saw the rise of monopoly capitalism, the migration of Blacks to the
cities, and two world wars in which Blacks fought "to make the world safe for democracy."
During the 20th century, there was a material (economic) contradiction that provided the
driving force for the Civil Rights Movement. The masses of Black people were split between
two ways of life, between two different conditions of oppression - the rural agricultural
experience and the urban industrial experience. In the urban industrial North there was
some "civil rights freedom," while in the rural South, particularly in the Black Belt, the white
minority used the fascist terror of the lynch mob to force Blacks into submission. The
political difference between these two conditions was a matter of the extent to which they
were oppressed.
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The Civil Rights Movement emerged to confront the contradictions in the U.S. political
system. The Civil Rights Movement has been a fight for consistent democracy - a fight
against "second class citizenship," against the government's denying Black people the
political and civil rights that were guaranteed to white citizens.
267
In assessing any movement, it is important to sum up the strategy and tactics of that
movement. Strategy is the formulation of the main long-range goal that the movement
should fight for at a particular stage of development to achieve its main objective. Tactics
are the activities which the movement must undertake to respond to the day-to-day ups and
downs of the struggle. Thus, for Black people, while the forms or tactics of struggle may
change from day to day or year to year (e.g., mass demonstrations vs. petitions), the
overall strategy of the movement - how it expects to achieve total Black liberation - will
remain unchanged.
The strategy of the Civil Rights Movement in the 20th century is reformist and not
revolutionary (though the struggle for civil rights was revolutionary during slavery). It seeks
to solve the problems facing Black people under the existing system by using mechanisms
which the system has deemed legitimate and acceptable. In essence, the Civil Rights
Movement views the U.S. government as positive. "The reason that the government has
historically acted against the interests of Black people," the argument goes, "is not because
the whole system is rotten and racist, and is manipulated by the dominant economic
interests which established it. Rather, racist policies result because good leaders have not
been sensitive enough to the moral implications of the system's discrimination against
Black people. We need only a few reforms or to elect better individual politicians." Thus,
the Civil Rights Movement rules out the need for revolutionary change, a complete and total
restructuring of the society which would end the dominant role played by the rich in the
economy and government. This revolutionary change is not necessary to solve the
problems faced by Black people, they argue.
The tactics of the Civil Rights Movement or any movement must be understood within the
context of its strategy. The tactics of the Civil Rights Movement, its day-to-day activity, are
reformist as defined by the reformist strategy of the movement. That is, its tactics operate
within the confines of accepting the legitimacy of the existing political and economic system
and using ways defined by the system in seeking to bring about and protect the civil rights
of Black people. Its action has been to work both within the system (e.g., lawyers in courts)
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and "outside" (protest marches without permits) to mobilize elites (leaders) and the masses
of people. It sometimes has engaged in spontaneous short run actions, and other times it
has worked through bureaucratic organizations, plodding along in a protracted manner.
The tactics of the Civil Rights Movement have gone through three phases of development.
All tactics have been used at all times, but the following order has been the main
(chronological) trend: (1) legal action, like court challenges, was the main tactic during the
first phase of the modern civil rights struggle, from the emergence of the NAACP through
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the 1950s; (2) mass action was the main tactic employed during the second phase, which
began with the urbanization of Black people during World War II and reached a high point
in the 1960s; and (3) electoral politics has been the main tactic which has emerged in the
1970s for the middle-class activists in the Civil Rights Movement.
LEGAL ACTION
The favorite method of struggle for civil rights has revolved around persuading or forcing
the legal system (courts, legislature, etc.) to recognize and support the "inalienable rights"
of Black people. Two main organizations developed during the almost forty years (19101945) when this legal action was the primary tactic of the Civil Rights Movement: the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Urban
League.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
The NAACP was formed in 1909 through the merger of two motions: the Niagara
Movement and the National Negro Conference. The Niagara Movement was organized in
1905 by W.E.B. DuBois, William Monroe Trotter, Ida Wells Barnett, and other middle-class
but militant Black intellectuals. It was a repudiation of the conservative and stifling
leadership of Booker T. Washington and the Tuskegee Machine, as can be seen in its
founding resolutions:
...we believe that this class of American citizens [Black people] should protest
emphatically and continually against the curtailment of their political rights...
We believe also in protest against the curtailment of our civil rights. All
American citizens have the right to equal treatment in places of public
accommodation according to their behavior and deserts.
We especially complain against the denial of equal opportunities to us in
economic life; in the rural districts of the South this amounts to peonage and
virtual slavery; all over the South it tends to crush labor and small business
enterprises; and everywhere American prejudice, helped often by iniquitous
laws, is making it more difficult for Negro-Americans to earn a decent living...
e refuse to allow the impression to remain that the Negro-American assents to
inferiority, is submissive under oppression and apologetic before insults...
Any discrimination based simply on race or color is barbarous...[D]iscrimination
based simply and solely on physical peculiarities, place of birth, color of skin,
are relics of that unreasoning human savagery of which the world is and ought
to be thoroughly ashamed...
Of the above grievances we do not hesitate to complain, and to complain
loudly and insistently. To ignore, overlook or apologize for these wrongs is to
prove ourselves unworthy of freedom. Persistent manly agitation is the way to
liberty, and toward this goal the Niagara Movement has started and asks the
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269
cooperation of all men of all races.
During its four years, the Niagara Movement carried out a militant program of protest and
struggle against all forms of racist discrimination, especially against lynching.
Upset at the escalation of racist attacks on Black people (lynchings), a group of white
liberals (some of whom were descendants of abolitionists) joined with several Blacks and
issued a call for a National Negro Conference on Lincoln's birthday in February, 1909. Their
document highlighted discrimination against Blacks by the U. S. government and its
citizens:
Besides a, day of rejoicing, Lincoln's birthday in 1909 should be one of taking
stock of the nation's progress since 1865.
How far has it lived up to the obligations imposed upon it by the Emancipation
Proclamation? How far has it gone in assuring to each and every citizen,
irrespective of color, the equality of opportunity and equality before the law,
which underlie our American institutions and are guaranteed by the
Constitution?
If Mr. Lincoln could revisit this country in the flesh, he would be disheartened
and discouraged. He would learn that on January 1, 1909, Georgia had
rounded out a new confederacy by disfranchising the negro, after the manner
of all the other Southern States. He would learn that the Supreme Court of the
United States, supposedly a bulwark of American liberties, had refused every
opportunity to pass squarely upon this disfranchisement of millions,...he would
discover, therefore, that taxation without representation is the lot of millions of
wealth-producing American citizens, in whose hands rests the economic
progress and welfare of an entire section of the country.
He would learn that the Supreme Court...has laid down the principle that if an
individual State chooses, it may "make it a crime for white and colored persons
to frequent the same market place at the same time, or appear in an
assemblage of citizens convened to consider questions of a public or political
nature in which all citizens, without regard to race, are equally interested."
In many States Lincoln would find justice enforced, if at all, by judges selected
by one element in a community to pass upon the liberties and lives of another.
He would see the black men and women...set apart in trains, in which they pay
first-class fares for third-class service, and segregated in railway stations and
in places of entertainment; he would observe that State after State declines to
do its elementary duty in preparing the negro through education for the best
exercise of citizenship.
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Added to this, the spread of lawless attacks upon the negro, could but shock
the author of the sentiment that "government of the people, by the people, for
the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Silence under these conditions means tacit approval...Hence we call upon all
the believers in democracy to join in a national conference for the discussion of
present evils, the voicing of protests, and the renewer of the struggle for civil
and political liberty.
This group was not as militant as the Niagara Movement, but it spoke to liberal concerns
and wanted to do something.
That same year members from the National Negro Conference and the Niagara Movement
joined to formulate the following demands, which laid the basis for the formation of the
NAACP:
As first and immediate steps toward remedying these national wrongs, so full
of peril for the whites as well as the blacks of all sections, we demand of
Congress and the Executive:
(1) That the Constitution be strictly enforced and the civil rights guaranteed
under the Fourteenth Amendment be secured impartially to all.
(2) That there be equal educational opportunities for all and in all the States,
and that public school expenditure be the same for the Negro and white child.
(3) That in accordance with the Fifteenth Amendment the right of the Negro to
the ballot on the same terms as other citizens be recognized in every part of
the country.
Many Black people, including William Trotter and Ida Wells Barnett, were strongly critical of 271
the dominant role that whites played in the formation of the NAACP.
The NAACP has long been one of the major arms of the Black petty-bourgeois (middleclass) elites - as jobs for lawyers and social welfare professionals, as positions of status for
others to speak for the entire Black population, and as a platform for fighting for the kind of
"integration" that has expanded opportunities, especially for the middle class. In its early
days it led many heroic and courageous struggles against many forms of brutal oppression
against Black people. Its legal defense arm has saved many Black people from being
legally lynched. The major national accomplishments of the NAACP have been in filing
court briefs and lobbying for legislation. During the 1960s, this was the focus of these
activities while almost everyone else was out in the streets mobilizing the masses. But in
the 1950s the mass movement was just emerging, and the success of the NAACP in the
1954 Supreme Court School Desegregation Decision struck a responsive cord. It stirred the
hopes and aspirations of the masses of Black people. By 1962, it had 471,000 members in
the 1,500 branches in 48 states. Within the Civil Rights Movement, it is by far the largest
organization, with the most resources and the best developed bureaucracy to ensure its
250
ongoing work.
The Urban League The other organization to emerge during this period was the National
League of Urban Conditions Among Negroes in 1911, a coordinating council of three
organizations: 1) the Committee for Improving the Industrial Conditions of Negroes in New
York, formed in 1906 to address the economic handicaps Black workers faced because of
both discrimination and the lack of industrial training; 2) the National League for the
Protection of Colored Women, organized in 1906 to help Black women migrating from the
South to northern cities and facing problems with housing and employment; and 3) the
Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, formed in 1910 to study the social and
economic conditions of Black people in the cities, to train Black social workers, and to
develop agencies to deal with their needs. This umbrella organization later become the
National Urban League.
The National Urban League reflected the increased migration of Black people to the cities
of the South and North. It also reflected a concern by members of the ruling class that the
problems of these new migrants not get out of hand. The Urban League was composed of
the same kinds of people as the NAACP - the Black middle class, white liberals, and key
representatives of the ruling class. Its first chairperson was Ruth Standish Baldwin, the wife
of a leading railroad capitalist who was one of the main financial supporters of Booker T.
Washington. In fact, the Urban League was an obvious attempt to counter the militancy of
the NAACP with the conservative political line of Booker T. Washington and his ruling-class
supporters.
The Urban League carefully avoided the real political issues facing Black people - lynching,
the straggle against disfranchisement, etc. Rather, it developed itself as a social service
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organization - finding jobs, training social workers, and advocating better schools, housing,
hospitals, and other facilities for the Black Community. The Urban League did not have a
program of struggle, and it failed to have mass appeal and to develop a following among
large numbers of Black people. Because of its ruling-class connections, however, it was
always one of the civil rights organizations called into consult during "crisis" (e.g., when
Kennedy wanted to stop or coopt the 1963 March on Washington).
MASS STRUGGLE
By World War II, Black people were firmly consolidated into the city and into the industrial
work force. The mass protests during the Depression, and U.S. preparations to fight
another war "to make the world safe for democracy," laid the basis for the second stage of
major tactical development in the Civil Rights Movement: mass struggle.
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

273
The first new organization to emerge during this stage of mass struggle was CORE. The
early history of CORE is rooted in middle-class idealism, the reformist approach to
"applying Ghandhian techniques of...nonviolent direct action, to the resolution of racial and
251
industrial conflict in America." The parent group was the Christian pacifist Fellowship of
Reconciliation, and it grew out of student life at the University of Chicago. After an initial
experience with direct action in 1941, a group of fifty people met and formed "a permanent
interracial group committed to the use of nonviolent direct action opposing discrimination."
CORE has gone through three main stages of development. During its first stage, 19421960, CORE was an organization led by an interracial group of integrationists who fought
discrimination using nonviolent direct action. Its nonviolent method was based on a certain
set of assumptions, as articulated in its statement of purpose:
First of all, it assumes that social conflicts are not ultimately solved by the use
of violence; that violence perpetuates itself, and serves to aggravate rather
than resolve conflict. Moreover, it assumes that it is suicidal for a minority
group to use violence since to use it would simply result in complete control
and subjugation by the majority group. Secondly, the non-violent method
assumes the possibility of creating a world in which non-violence will be used
to a maximum degree...The type of power which it uses in overcoming
injustice is fourfold: (1) the power of active good will; (2) the power of public
opinion against a wrong-doer; (3) the power of refusing to cooperate with
injustice, such non-cooperation being illustrated by the boycott and the strike;
and (4) the power of accepting punishment if necessary without striking back,
by placing one's body in the wav of injustice.
Throughout this period, it conducted a number of sit-ins, pickets, demonstrations, and the
like in an attempt to achieve its goal of eliminating racial discrimination.
The early 1960s ushered in a new, stage for CORE, as it led the "Freedom Riders" in a
campaign to protest segregated bus depots in the South. In May of 1961, white mobs
burned a Freedom Rider bus and Klansmen beat Freedom Riders aboard their buses and
in terminals in Alabama. Freedom Riders left Montgomery under the protection of the
National Guard, but they were imprisoned immediately upon entering Jackson, Mississippi.
These actions for the first time brought national attention to CORE's efforts in the South.
After the 1963 March on Washington and the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964,
CORE shifted from a regional focus on de jure segregation in the South to a national effort
confronting de facto segregation in the urban areas. During this period, its membership
became predominantly Black and its leadership shifted to Black people who pursued a
much more militant version of its previous nonviolent direct action campaigns.
In 1966, CORE entered its third stage. Its leadership remained Black and middle class, but
it developed into a Black nationalist organization. Since the late 1960s, it has downplayed
mass action and has concentrated on Black capitalism and government-sponsored
274
community development programs. It was very close to and supportive of Richard Nixon. It
has even tried to recruit Black mercenaries to fight against revolutionaries in Africa.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
252
On December 5, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested when she violated the bus segregation
ordinance in Montgomery, Alabama. As she explained:
I had had problems with bus drivers over the years, because I didn't see fit to
pay my money into the front and then go around to the back. Sometimes bus
drivers wouldn't permit me to get on the bus, and I had been evicted from the
bus...One of the things that made this get so much publicity was the fact the
police were called in and I was placed under arrest. See, if I had just been
evicted from the bus and he hadn't placed me under arrest or had any
charges brought against me, it probably could have been just another
incident.
It was more than just another incident. Four days later, the Montgomery bus boycott began,
and Martin Luther King, Jr. (then only twenty-six) was elected the president of the
Montgomery Improvement Association. Within slightly more than a year, the buses were
integrated.
Following this successful boycott, the SCLC was formed in 1957 to "facilitate coordinated
action of local community groups" in the campaigns of struggle that were spreading
throughout the South. The SCLC was based in the most powerful social institution in the
Black community - the church - and its main source of leadership was the Black preacher in
the South. Led by Martin Luther King, SCLC followed the general strategy of all civil rights
organizations: "achieving full citizenship rights, equality, and the integration of the Negro in
all aspects of American life." To achieve this aim, SCLC adopted some of the tactics used
by CORE: voter registration drives, nonviolent direct action, and civil disobedience. SCLC
is perhaps best known for several campaigns it waged in cities like Albany, Birmingham,
and Selma.
Over 700 people were arrested in a demonstration held in Albany, Georgia in December of
l961 to protest the segregation of the city's public facilities. In July of 1962, King and three
other Black leaders were convicted of failing to get a permit for that demonstration. Mass
275
protests were held, and throughout that summer more demonstrations and arrests took
place.
In April of 1963, the SCLC launched protests of segregated lunch counters and restrooms
in Birmingham, Alabama. A Birmingham minister, Ed Gardner, described the campaign:
253
We invited Dr. Martin Luther King and all his staff into Birmingham and we set
up workshops and got these people orientated into what we had in mind and
into the doctrine of love and nonviolence. These people were to march, go to
jail, and whatever the case might occur in our struggle, they were never to
fight back, whatever happened. And those who weren't willing to undertake
such an undertaking we eliminated, because at that time the segregationists
was armed to the teeth. They were prepared for violence and they could
handle violence. But we caught 'em off guard with nonviolence. They didn't
know what to do with nonviolence, see.
We went out to test all the segregation laws, because when we went to court,
we had to prove that we were segregated and discriminated against. And the
only way we could prove it, we had to try and get put in jail. If we hadn't been
willing to go to jail, then the segregation laws would have stood. Because if no
one had tried it, then you couldn't prove it in court, even if the judge himself
knew it himself, see...The weight of responsibility was on us to prove that we
were segregated and discriminated against...
When Dr. King came to us, he said, "Now what we're going to have to do,
we're going to have to center all our forces here in Birmingham, Alabama,
because Birmingham is the testing ground. If we fail here, then we will fail
everywhere, because every segregated city and every segregated state is
watching which way Birmingham goes. We got to, whatever it takes, break the
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276
back of segregation here. We got to do it." He instructed all of us to be ready

to pay the price. He said, "Some gon' die, but this is the cost. It'll be another
down payment on freedom."
So we had these marches. They were tremendous marches. We would have
these mass meetings, and then we would leave these mass meetings and
march all through the city, one and two o'clock in the morning. Well, the city
couldn't rest.
King was arrested on Good Friday for violating a court injunction against these protest
marches. It was while he was confined over the Easter weekend that he wrote his now
famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" (see Chapter 10).
The following month, the SCLC organized the "children's crusade" in Birmingham, which
recruited elementary and high school students into the movement. Police retaliated with
police dogs, fire hoses, and mass arrests. One SCLC recruit, Andrew Marrisett, recounted
how he became involved in the movement:
What really sticks in my mind then and sticks in my mind now is seeing a K-9
dog being sicced on a six-year-old girl. I went and stood in front of the girl and
grabbed her, and the dog jumped on me and I was arrested. That really was
the spark. I had an interest all along, but that just took the cake - a big, burly
two-hundred-and-eighty-five-pound cop siccing a trained police dog on that
little girl, little black girl. And then I got really involved in the Movement.
That changed my whole way of thinking. I was born a great Baptist. All my life
I'd been through the Sunday School thing and the Bible School and church on
Sunday morning and in the afternoon and at night and prayer meetings and
choir rehearsals and traveling around. I was into that Christian thing, like most
of my people are now, where they're so blindly engrossed,...not really looking
at what was going on around them...
I knew something was wrong, but...I didn't have any idea of the value of being
able to go to every counter in the store, including the lunch counter. I had read
about Greensboro. I knew about the sit-ins when they started here, but it just
didn't ring no bell. So I always tell people that dog incident really rung my bell.
The Birmingham demonstrations signaled a profound change in the direct-action

campaigns in the South. As Bayard Rustin put it in 1963:
277
For the black people of this nation; Birmingham became the moment of truth.
The struggle from now on will be fought in a different context...
255
For the first time, every black man, woman and child, regardless of station,
has been brought into the struggle. Unlike the period of the Montgomery
boycott... the response to Birmingham has been immediate and spontaneous.
Before Birmingham, the great struggles had been waged for specific, limited
goals. The Freedom Rides sought to establish the right to eat while traveling;
the sit-ins sought to win the right to eat in local restaurants; the Meredith case
centered on a single Negro's right to enter a state university. The Montgomery
boycott, although it involved fifty thousand people in a year-long sacrificial
struggle, was limited to attaining the right to ride the city buses with dignity
and respect. The black people now reject token, limited or gradual
approaches. The package deal is the new demand.
On the heels of Birmingham came the March on Washington in August of 1963, and it was
there that Martin Luther King delivered his now famous "I Have a Dream" speech, a part of
which is excerpted:
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand,
signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a
great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in
the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the, long
night of captivity.
But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still
not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by
the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred
years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast
ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later the Negro is still
languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his
own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition...
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to
underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the
Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn
of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope
that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a
rude awakening if the Nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither
rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights.
The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our Nation
until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people...Let us not seek to satisfy
our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We
must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.
We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.
Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force
with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro
256
community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our
white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to
realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is
inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone...
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and
tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you
have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the
storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have
been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that
unearned suffering is redemptive...
I say to you today, my friends that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of
the moment I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American
dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning
of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created
equal."...
With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation
into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work
together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up
for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day...
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every
hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day
when all of God''s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles,
Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the
old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at Last! thank God almighty, we are free
at last!"
For Martin Luther King and many others (both Black and white) the March on Washington
was a symbol of hope - that Blacks and whites could work together, using a nonviolent
approach, to bring about change for Black people. The march had been designed to
broaden the base of support, to bring in white moderates and white labor to address not
only civil rights but also the problems of the working class - unemployment and poverty.
King became the embodiment of that hope.
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In contrast to Martin Luther King and reformism was Malcolm X, who held the revolutionary
notions that the society needed to be restructured and that the necessity of violence to
transform it ought not be ruled out. Not surprisingly, he had a different view of the March on
Washington, which he described in his auto-biography:
Not long ago, the black man in America was fed a dose of another form of the
weakening, lulling and deluding effect, of so-called "integration." It as that
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"Farce on Washington," I call it...

Overalled rural Southern Negroes, small town Negroes, Northern ghetto
Negroes, even thousands of previously Uncle Tom Negroes began talking
"March!"...
Groups of Negroes were talking of getting to Washington any way they could in rickety old cars, on buses, hitch-hiking, walking even if they had to. They
envisioned thousands of black brothers converging together upon Washington
- to lie down in the streets, on airport runways, on government lawns demanding of the Congress and the White House some concrete civil rights
action.
This was a national bitterness; militant, unorganized, and leaderless.
Predominantly, it was young Negroes, defiant of whatever might be the
consequences, sick and tired of the black man's neck under the white man's
heel...
The government knew that thousands of milling, angry blacks not only could
completely disrupt Washington - but they could erupt in Washington...
Any student of how "integration" can weaken the black man's movement was
about to observe a master lesson.
The White House, with a fanfare of international publicity, "approved,"
"endorsed," and "welcomed" a March on Washington...
The next scene was the "big six" civil rights Negro "leaders" meeting in New
York City with the white head of a big philanthropic agency...
Now, what had instantly achieved black unity? The white man's money. What
string was attached to the money? Advice. Not only was there this donation,
but another comparable sum was promised, for sometime later on, after the
March...obviously if all went well.
The original "angry" March on Washington was now about to be entirely
changed...
Invited next to join the March were four famous white public figures: one
Catholic, one Jew, one Protestant and one labor boss.
The massive publicity now gently hinted that the "big ten" would "supervise"
the March on Washington's "mood," and its "direction."
The four white figures began nodding. The word spread fast among so-called
"liberal" Catholics, Jews, Protestants and laborites: it was "democratic" to join
this black March. And suddenly, the previously March-nervous whites began
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announcing they were going.

It was as if electrical current shot through the ranks of bourgeois Negroes the very so-called "middle-class" and "upper-class" who had earlier been
deploring the March on Washington talk by grass-roots Negroes...
Those "integration"-mad Negroes practically ran over each other trying to find
out where to sign up. The "angry blacks" March suddenly had been made
chic...
Who ever heard of angry revolutionists all harmonizing "We Shall
Overcome...Suum Day..." while tripping and swaying along arm-in-arm with the
very people they were supposed to be angrily revolting against? Who ever
heard of angry revolutionists swinging their bare feet together with their
oppressor in lily-pad park pools, with gospels and guitars and "I Have A
Dream" speeches?
The very fact that millions, black and white, believed in this monumental farce
is another example of how much this country goes in for the surface glossing
over, the escape ruse, surfaces, instead of truly dealing with its deep-rooted
problems.
What that March on Washington did do was lull Negroes for a while.
The masses were not lulled for long. less than a month after the March on Washington, four
Black children died in the bombing of a Birmingham church. During the "long hot summer"
of 1964, there was unprecedented racial violence in the cities and against hundreds of
volunteers who had gone to Mississippi to work on voter registration drives and other
projects. On March 7, 1965 (what was to became known as "Bloody Sunday") state
troopers and Dallas county deputies beat and gassed demonstrators marching for voting
rights in Selma, Alabama. The following week, President Johnson announced that he was
sending a voting rights bill to Congress, but the marches continued. So did the violence
against civil rights marchers. More and more people in the Civil Rights Movement were
questioning the nonviolent approach advocated by the SCLC.
During the early 1960s, most of the SCLC campaigns focused on local governments that
denied Black people access to public facilities, though some dealt with voting rights and
voter registration in the South. In the late 1960s, the SCLC organized a massive march to
Washington called the Poor People's Campaign, and later took up the fight against racism
in northern cities like Chicago.
While SCLC was anchored in the church, it revolved around the charisma of Martin Luther
King. Thus, rather than surviving as a major force after King's death in 1968, SCLC became
split as King's lieutenants moved on down separate paths, competing with each other for
the authority of King's leadership and legacy.
Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
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SNCC emerged in 1960 as the organizational consolidation of the spontaneous student sitin movement that had begun in Greensboro, North Carolina when four Black students sat in
at a Woolworth's lunch counter which refused to serve Black people.
SNCC was initially under the ideological and political leadership of King and SCLC. It
advocated "the philosophical or religious ideal of non-violence" as the basis of its
orientation and action and its goal was integration. The students were initially based on the
campuses in the South. However, SNCC activists soon left college campuses and went into
the Black Belt rural South. They directly confronted what remained of the lynching-mob
terror by forming solid links with the rural masses and engaging in direct action.
SNCC went through three stages. From 1960 to 1963, SNCC was based in the South and
developed militant campaigns to focus attention on the denial of democratic rights to Black
people, especially in the rural areas. This was a period of petty-bourgeois, religiously
inspired idealism. It was not the U.S. system but the rejection of Blacks by that system that
SNCC fought against. SNCC activists believed in the American Dream.
The sit-ins they conducted hit the country like a bombshell and spread like a prairie fire. In
a year's time, more than 50,000 students were involved in over 140 places. SNCC's sit-in
tactics set the tone for all civil rights activity during this period. The sit-ins led to the
freedom rides initiated by CORE, with SNCC joining in when they were confronted with
mob violence.
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After the sit-ins and freedom rides, students began to voluntarily leave school to work fulltime for SNCC. They plunged deep into the South. One group focused on the struggle to
desegregate public accommodations. The other stressed the need to register voters and to
struggle for change through the ballot.
The second period of SNCC's development (1963 to 1964) was a time of transition. In
these years, SNCC used the momentum of its successful sit-ins to seize a national platform
and to pull the nation's attention to the deep South. A key participant in the 1963 March on
Washington, SNCC was regarded as a brash, young militant organization (in fact, SNCC
speaker John Lewis was forced to delete the most militant portions of his speech). SNCC
had long since dropped its college appearance and had adopted the denim overalls of the
Mississippi sharecropper as its uniform for struggle.
In February of 1964, SNCC sent out a call for Black and white students throughout the
nation to come to work in Mississippi for the summer. Nearly 1,000 volunteers worked in
Mississippi that summer. During those months, 6 people, were killed, 80 beaten, 35
churches burned, and 30 other buildings bombed. But the nation was forced to look at
Mississippi, a state dripping with the venom of racism.
This period sparked a reconsideration of nonviolence. Bob Moses, a leading SNCC militant
in Mississippi, captured the essence of the struggle within the organization when he said of
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Martin Luther King's philosophy:

We don't agree with it, in a sense. The majority of the students are not
sympathetic to the idea that they have to love the white people that they are
struggling against. But there are a few who have a very religious orientation.
And there's a constant dialogue at meetings about non-violence and the
meaning of non-violence...For most of the members it is a question of being
able to have a method of attack rather than to be always on the defensive.
The great political lesson of this period was learned when SNCC tried to break the
domination of the regular Democratic Party in Mississippi by organizing the Mississippi
Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). After holding legal precinct, district, and state
elections, the MFDP went to the Democratic convention in Atlantic City. The MFDP
delegates had a sound case, but vice-presidential hopeful Hubert Humphrey, acting on
President Johnson's instructions, set up a compromise. The MFDP delegates would have
representative seating, but they would have no voice and no vote. All established civil rights
leaders (King from SCLC, Wilkins from the NAACP, Rustin from the A. Philip Randolph
Institute, etc.) urged acceptance of this compromise. But SNCC, insisting that they had
made too many sacrifices to compromise their principles, rejected the plan.
The grass-roots MFDP delegates stood by SNCC, the youthful militants who had walked
with them down the dusty roads to register to vote. The lesson they all learned was that the
Democratic Party could not be relied upon to contribute to the liberation of Black people. As
one militant put it: "The next logical stop is the call for Black power." It was a step that was
facilitated by SNCC groups that had been emerging in northern cities. There they already
had moved beyond simple support work for the southern struggle and had begun to fight
against racism and oppression in the urban areas of the North.
The third period lasted from 1965 to 1967. A trip to Africa by several SNCC leaders,
discussions with and about Malcolm X, and growing alienation between Blacks and whites
inside SNCC was capped by the Watts riot in August, 1965. The following June, "Black
Power" became SNCC's battle cry in a march led by James Meredith in Mississippi. The
latent nationalism of Black people - who had childhood roots in the rural South, had
relatives still living there, and had continued to experience national oppression in the North
- surged forward.
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By 1967, the Black liberation movement was at an all-time high. SNCC, however, still had
not developed a scientific analysis of this society and did not have a systematic program.
Consequently, it began to rely more on its leading personalities, the media, and its
influence on other organizational forms. Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown (as, heads
of SNCC) became household names in the United States, but there was no coherent
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political plan to carry the movement forward.

During 1967, SNCC developed an anti-imperialist stand on many international issues. It
also sent delegations to Europe, Japan, and the Third World to support "liberation groups
struggling to free people from racism and exploitation." In condemning "expansionist
Zionism backed by U.S. imperialism" after the June War in the Middle East, SNCC
alienated itself once and for all from the liberal philanthropists who had financed the Civil
Rights Movement. The leadership then turned to the Black Panther Party as a new
organizational form, but their relationship was short-lived. SNCC continued, but the staff
was tired, disillusioned, and demoralized by the lack of organization, strategy, and (most of
all) a systematic, coherent political line.
SNCC's major weakness was its consistent lack of a unified line and political education,
which made it more difficult to move forward. This resulted in great gaps developing
between the rank-and-file militants in local projects and its central leadership. Moreover, it
made it difficult for SNCC to consolidate and make shifts of position when necessary. This
was the basis for the other problems. First, because SNCC lacked a revolutionary strategy,
each campaign raised ultimate hopes only to lead to great disappointments, disillusion, and
anger. Second, SNCC depended more on key personalities rather than on organizational
structure and process. Many SNCC leaders thus appeared larger than life, and their
weaknesses became magnified liabilities for the entire organization. Third, SNCC's
program was characterized by bowing to spontaneity, a process of seizing on the objective
motion of people and calling that revolutionary. Moreover, sometimes a major campaign
would start accidentally and be allowed to disrupt ongoing work. Finally, all of these
problems were complicated by SNCC militants' not having the discipline of relating to each
other in the most principled way, particularly in interpersonal relations.
These shortcomings were glaring not because SNCC was a total failure, for it had some
measure of success. SNCC was committed to the masses of Black people, and had no
hesitancy in sinking deep roots among them. It was a bold, fearless army of militant Black
youth, who sought out the most dangerous area to show Black people that it was possible
to fight oppression and win. It had an ability to develop slogans that were adopted by the
masses, to use songs to mobilize and raise the spirit of the masses, to project symbols that
fired the imagination of the Black masses, and generally to use records, still photography,
films, and newspapers in carrying propaganda work deep among the masses. But SNCC
did not survive. Its reliance upon personalities and its failure to develop correct strategy and
tactics lead SNCC away from deepening its ties with the masses of Black people and
building a mass base as the key to the Black liberation struggle.
ELECTORAL POLITICS
Electoral politics as a tactical development of the Civil Rights Movement is a logical and
expected outcome of the previous stages . Two factors laid the basis for this stage. First
because of the reformist nature of the Civil Rights Movement - that is, operating within the
existing political system - voting and voter registration were key tactics. The ruling class,
through various foundations and private and public agencies, pumped millions of dollars
into the voter-registration projects. Black registration in the South almost doubled to a total 284
of about 2 million between 1962 and 1964. Second, the power of the Black vote was
established. In 1960, for example, the election of Kennedy was determined by Black voters.
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Increasingly, Black people sought political office, especially in urban areas where the Black
vote was concentrated. The result has been a significant increase in both Black elected
politicians and appointed officials. White politicians of both parties now seek to influence
and win over Black voters.
Thus, the leadership of the struggle for civil rights has increasingly shifted away from those
advocating mass action and to those who have faith in electoral politics. Such organizations
as the Congressional Black Caucus, the National Black Political Assembly, and the
National Association of Black Local Elected Officials are manifestations of the new electoral
tactic (see Chapter 13).
There is another aspect of the ruling-class strategy to diffuse the militancy of mass struggle
among Black people. Many of those who were leaders in the Mass campaigns of the 1960s
have been coopted into the system as legislators (Julian Bond of Georgia), mayors (Marion
Barry of Washington, D.C.), and even ambassadors (Andy Young, United Nations). These
leaders have adopted the view that Black people have passed the stage of mass protests
and "being in the streets" is no longer the main tactic in the Black liberation movement.
The high points of this phase of the movement are the recent successful electoral
campaigns of Harold Washington (first Black mayor of Chicago) and of Rev. Jesse Jackson
(for president of the United States, placed third in the Democratic National Convention).
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These two elections sparked unprecedented mass involvement by Blacks in voter
registration and turnout. Many political analysts believe that Blacks have become a
permanent part of big city and national politics.
In summation, the main strength of the Civil Rights Movement during its phase of mass
action in the 1950s and 1960s was its orientation toward struggle. Because the masses of
Black people took their demands to the streets, they achieved many concrete gains. On the
federal, state, and local level in all branches of government - executive, legislative, and
judicial - laws and policies were adopted which brought the government's practice more in
line with its promises regarding equality of treatment regardless of race.
This turn away from struggle is the real weakness of the current electoral politics phase of
the Civil Rights Movement. The masses of Black people are now being told that "Blacks
have outgrown the need for street demonstrations; we have become more sophisticated.
Electing Black politicians and relying on them is the most effective path to achieving Civil
Rights." This is not the first time that such a course of action has been advocated. In fact, it
is this question of strategy - accepting a reformist approach to the struggle for the
democratic rights of Black people - that has been the historical weakness of the Civil Rights
Movement in the United States.
The futility of a reformist approach to the solution to Black people's problems can be seen
in the 1980s struggle concerning the Civil Rights Commission. The Civil Rights
Commission was a federal body consisting of commissioners who were appointed by the
President and usually served until they voluntarily resigned or died. The Commission had
no powers other than to inform the public about civil rights and recommend policy to
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Congress and the President. Since it was set up in 1957, the Commission had maintained
an appearance of being bipartisan and independent.
President Reagan proved himself an opponent of this tradition when he began to dismiss
commissioners and to appoint others who shared his ideological beliefs. Further, he made
a move to dominate the Commission, first by appointing a new chairperson, and then by
attempting to appoint a majority of the members. The major civil rights organizations made
vigorous protests and convinced Congress to withhold support from the President. A
compromise was worked but so that now the President gets to appoint half of the
commissioners and Congress the other half. This is a dramatic story of how the President
challenged the major agency in the federal government focusing on civil rights. Though the
Civil Rights Movement influenced Congress to negotiate a compromise, it did not provide
full and adequate defense since the Commission is now highly politicized and is likely to be
challenged again in the future.
This discussion of the fight for civil rights might well end here because it is ending on the
ambiguity of compromise. In this case, it is the compromise of the civil rights forces with a
conservative executive of the federal government. It produced the net effect of moving to
the right. In the 1980s, the fight for civil rights is no longer merely holding onto the things
that were won in the 1960s. We have entered the period of trying to regain the things that
were won in the 1930s. Further, it is this fight for democratic rights that puts Black people at
the heart of people's movements in the United States because all types of interests get
served by making socio-political life more democratic.
KEY CONCEPTS
Civil disobedience
Civil rights/Democratic rights
Electoral Politics
Legal action
Mass action
Mississippi Freedom
Democratic Party
Nonviolence
Reform/Revolution
Second-class citizenship
Strategy/Tactics
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. Discuss the three phases in the historical development of the Civil Rights Movement.
Identify and compare the strategy and main tactics used during each phase.
2. Discuss the origins and initial programs of the five major organizations to emerge during
the modern Civil Rights Movement. What are their main similarities and differences relative
to the strategy and tactics of the overall movement?
3. Compare and contrast the social composition, organizational development, political
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orientation, and program of action of the NAACP and SNCC.

4. Does the Civil Rights Movement lead to reform or revolution? Explain.
1. Clay Carson, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1981.
2. Langston Hughes, Fight for Freedom, the Story of the NAACP. New York: W. W. Norton,
1962.
3. David levering Lewis, King: A Biography. 2d ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1978.
4. Doug McAdam, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930 1970. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.
5. August Meier and Elliot Rudwick, CORE: A Study in the Civil Rights Movement, 19421968. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.
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FIFTEEN
15. NATIONALISM AND PAN-AFRICANISM
........................... 291
The Historical Basis for Black Nationalism ...............

The Historical Basis for Pan-Africanism .................
Ideological and Political Character of Nationalism .....
The Slave Period
...............................................
The Rural Period
...........................................
The Urban Period
..............................................
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Politics
.........................................................
Culture and Art
............................................
The Black Nation
.........................................
Two Lines on Pan-Africanism in Africa ................
Two Lines on Pan-Africanism in the United States ..
The Prospects for Pan-Africanism and Nationalism ...
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293
294
296
298
301
303
304
307
308
311
311
313
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Nationalism and Pan-Africanism

LOGIC OF
CHANGE
Social
Cohesion
Traditional
Africa
Slavery
Rural
Life
Urban
Life
Social
Disruption
Slave
Trade
Emancipation
Migrations
Ideology
A1
B1
C1
D1
E1
F1
G1
A2
B2
C2
D2
E2
F2
G2
A3
B3
C3
D3
E3
F3
G3
A4
B4
C4
D4
E4
F4
G4
ANALYSIS
Class
Race
Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to realize that the Universal Negro
Improvement Association and African Communities league, the organization
which I have the honor to represent, is a worldwide movement that is
endeavoring to unite the sentiment of our people. Our objective is to declare
Africa a vast Negro empire. We can see no right in Belgium's retention of the
Congo. We are going to wait until peace is completely restored, and then will
we work Belgium out. And when we ask Belgium, "What are you doing there?"
America will have nothing to do with it. Under the League of Nations when
Africa revolts America will have to call upon Negroes to fight Negroes,
therefore the League of Nations must be defeated by every Negro in America,
or it will mean that Africa will have to fight the combined nations of the world.
Marcus Garvey, Objects of the U.N.I.A.
Afro-American nationalism and Pan-Africanism have been historically legitimate
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responses by Black people to racist oppression. Nationalism seeks a solution to the
problems faced by Black people as its first priority. It focuses primarily on Black people in
the United States. Some Black nationalists view all white people as the enemies of Black
people. They argue that only complete separation of Blacks from whites will solve the
problems that Black people face. Other nationalists seek unity with nationalists of other
oppressed people of color (Native American Indians, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, etc.) In
general, nationalists make distinctions between the problems facing Blacks and whites and
the solutions for each. In fact, many nationalists argue that a separate Black solution is
needed even for a problem that Blacks share with whites.
Pan-Africanism is similar to nationalism. It holds that all Black people share common
historical links to Africa, that the liberation of Black people is closely tied to the liberation of
Africa, and that Black people should support the freedom struggle of African
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people. More recently, some Pan-Africanists have claimed that freedom for Black people in
the United States cannot be won (and should not be our major goal) until the liberation of
Africa has been completed. The extreme of this view states that all Black people in the
United States should go to Africa.
THE HISTORICAL BASIS FOR BLACK NATIONALISM
The basis for Black nationalism is rooted in the historical experience of Black people. In the
United States, two aspects of the Black experience molded Black people into a distinct
nationality: Their shared material (economic and social) conditions, and the racism they
faced. The foundations for a distinct nationality were laid in the rural Black Belt South
during the slave period. In this sense, the Black Belt South is the national homeland of
Afro- American people. It is in the Black Belt South that Black people have national rights
that can be exercised if the masses of Black people make such demands in order to
resolve the problems they face in the United States.
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During the rural period, the common Black experience was tenancy, a semi-free, semislave experience in which Blacks had control over the work process itself, but did not
control the products of their work. Tenant farmers worked the land and often set their own
work schedules, but they had to give up the fruits of their labor because they did not own
the land. The tenancy system, like slavery, meant the economic exploitation of Black
people.
In order to survive these material conditions, Black people formed cooperative social
relationships. The social life of the Black community was centered mainly around the
church and fraternal Organizations that took the form of mutual aid societies, burial
societies, etc. A common culture, including the development of a distinct dialect (speech
pattern), also flowed out of this shared socioeconomic experience (see Chapter 9 for a
discussion of the creolization process and Afro-American culture). Thus, a common
economic life - based on exploitation and their mutual cooperation to combat it - served as
the material basis for their national existence.
In addition, Black people have always experienced brutal and vicious racism. The main
defense, though it has taken many different forms, has been Black unity. This unity
frequently has been a call for Black nationalism (meaning that Black people should unite as
Black people to fight against their own oppression) and not a call for Black people to unite
with people of other nationalities who are also committed to fighting against the oppression
facing Black people. The appeal of nationalism is facilitated by racism as it forces Black
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people to turn inward toward the strengths of their own community.
It should be pointed out that Afro-American nationalism is fundamentally different from
white nationalism. Black nationalism is the nationalism of an oppressed nationality and
expresses the desire of Black people to be free. White nationalism is chauvinistic, includes
racism, and is never a progressive force. Black nationalism can be positive or negative, but
white nationalism is always reactionary.
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THE HISTORICAL BASIS FOR PAN-AFRICANISM

The historical basis for Pan-Africanism among Afro-Americans is found in the United
States but is conditioned by events in Africa. The reasons for Pan-Africanism are three-fold.
First, racism and repression, which have been the common, everyday experiences of Black
people in the United States, have led to the view that there can be no major change in the
United States, that the hope for a better life lies with Africa. The turn to Pan- Africanism has
become particularly acute when there has been a downturn in the economy and a rise in
political repression).
Second, African countries and personalities have been shining examples of Black
achievement in a world dominated by white racism and imperialism. The most important
person and country in this respect are the late - President Kwame Nkrumah and Ghana.
Nkrumah was trained by Afro-Americans, W. E. B. DuBois and Horace Mann Bond, and
received his political orientation from the decisive 5th Pan-African Congress (held in
Manchester, England in 1945). He guided Ghana to independence (the first Black African
country to gain its independence from a colonial power), and he led independent Africa in
founding the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963. Many Afro-Americans went to
Ghana to help in the development of this newly independent nation. Nkrumah will always
be an important symbol of pan-Africanism the middle of the 20th century.
The third basis for Pan-Africanism among Afro-American people is that Africa offers
opportunity for enterprising Blacks from the U.S.A. Black people in the United States have
acquired technical training and skills which can be of critical importance in the development
of Africa. This cuts two ways: while the African countries can use these technical skills,
Blacks from the United States who go there with these skills can also seek to satisfy their
own individual self-interests (and the U.S. multi- national corporations they frequently
represent) at the expense of Africans.
THE IDEOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL CHARACTER OF NATIONALISM
How can we assess the impact and potential of nationalism as an ideology and strategy in
the struggle for Black liberation and social change? This ideology and political line has
changed as the historical experiences of Black people have changed, but we must ask of
any ideology how it sees the main problem that is faced by Black people. The main
problems facing Black people are racism and economic exploitation caused by capitalism
and imperialism.
There, are three different types of nationalism and each calls for a different response from
Black people engaged in the struggle for freedom: reactionary nationalism, reformist
nationalism, and revolutionary nationalism.
Reactionary nationalism - This is Black nationalism based on a very conservative, procapitalist view. Politically, this has led some nationalists to openly support U.S. imperialism
against the interests of Black people. Examples of this include support for Ronald Reagan,
deep involvement in various Black capitalist schemes, and advertisements in the Black
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nationalist-oriented magazine Black Collegian (distributed "free" throughout the United

States) touting "the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an equal opportunity employer."
This type of nationalism must be exposed, and those advocating it must be defeated in
their attempts to destroy the struggle against imperialism or to lead the struggle astray.
Reformist nationalism - This is based on the view that freedom for Black people is possible
by leaving the basic economic and political system as it is (by either staying within it or
leaving it). Proposals from nationalists of this type include the following: a separate Black
state in the South, Black political and economic control of cities and Black communities,
large and influential businesses which serve the interests of the masses of Black people,
and even mass emigration back to Africa. These nationalists wrongly assume that the U.S.
ruling class would grant these proposals or would allow them to develop without being
dominated. Other nationalists, believing self-cultivation is the solution, have retreated into
health foods, astrology, or prayer. This type of nationalism is a withdrawal from struggle
and confrontation with imperialism. Those who hold this view should be won over to
support the struggle for Black liberation and to get involved in it.
Revolutionary nationalism - This type of Black nationalism maintains that the solution to the
oppression of Black people will come only through their struggle to defeat monopoly
capitalism in the United States. Defeating U.S. imperialism at home is viewed as the most
significant contribution that Black people in the United States can make to the African
liberation struggle. Revolutionary nationalists view the interests of the ruling class as
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diametrically opposed to the interests of Black people.
Thus, while revolutionaries do fight for reforms that serve the immediate needs of the
masses of Black people (e.g., community control of schools, daycare centers, an end to
discrimination in hiring and college admissions, etc.), they recognize that these struggles
must be qualitatively transformed to a struggle to defeat imperialism if Black people are to
gain their freedom. What makes this revolutionary is that it aims at the source which causes
exploitation and oppression of everyone in the society.
Revolutionary nationalism is a positive position for Black people that emphasizes
struggle and relies on the masses of people (as opposed to "great leaders;") for decisive
action. The major problem with revolutionary nationalism is that it has not developed a
model for rebuilding all of U.S. society. Though it has successfully focused on destroying
existing relations of domination and control over Blacks, i has fallen short of providing the
necessary framework for a new socialist society.
Thus, while it provides revolutionary fervor and direction in a short-term sense, it fails to lay
the groundwork for a long-term revolutionary struggle for Black liberation. If the liberation of
Black people is to occur, Black nationalism and pan-Africanism must be combined with
class struggle-in the USA as well as internationally.
This sums up the ideological and political character of nationalism and pan-Africanism. It
is necessary to have a general understanding of these two positions so that their continued
recurrence can be understood within their specific historical context. The historical
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development of these ideological and political stands can be traced best in the context of
the three fundamental stages of historical development of the Black experience.
The Slave Period
During slavery, pan-Africanism and nationalism manifested themselves in tow main trends:
1) emigration, and 2) militant resistance or the position that Black people should stay here
and fight. some black people advocated leaving the United States and going to Africa, but
only a few succeeded. For instance, in 1792 some 1,100 Black people went to Sierra
Leone (where the British had resettled 400 Africans five years earlier), and in 1815 more
joined them under the leadership of a Black petty-bourgeois capitalist named Paul Cuffee.
Given the totally oppressive conditions of the slave system and the fact that many slaves
were born in Africa, this action was a legitimate and progressive response. the main
criticism of these efforts initiated by Black people is that they left the institution of
slavery intact. They thus served the interests of only a few Blacks, mostly middle-class free
Blacks who could make the trip.
During the slave period, various emigration schemes were also pushed by the ruling
class, most notably those led by the American Colonization Society (ACS). The ACS was
founded in 1817 ostensibly so that Black people could develop themselves and Africa.
While Cuffee had emphasized emigration as a self-help program, the ACS for many Blacks
came perilously close to being a deportation scheme which they vigorously opposed.
Though sometimes using ACS resources, Black people carefully distinguished between
emigration and deportation.
As Edwin Redkey put it in his study of nationalist and back- to-Africa movements,
"Colonization was essentially a white man's solution to the race problem and emigration
was a black nationalist answer." John Henry, in a 1977 article, was even more pointedly
critical of the ACS's efforts to repatriate Black people:
This was rationalized as a process to bring 'civilization and Christianity to the
backward primitive condition of blacks in Africa. But the real intent was stated
by the reactionary Henry Clay of Kentucky: "to rid our country of a useless and
pernicious, if not dangerous portion of its population....."
Colonization efforts were intended to eliminate slavery as a backward fetter
on industrial capitalism emerging in the North, to drain away a source of
weakness for the slavocracy of the South (e.g., the slave rebellions), and to
establish a beachhead in Africa for U.S. capitalist interests.
In 1822, the ACS founded Liberia Oust adjacent to Sierra Leone) and helped former slaves
go there. Henry, offers this criticism of the Liberian resettlement scheme and the
colonization effort: in general:
Most people who went there either died, or became part of a Liberian
aristocracy ("Americo-Liberians") who, in turn, forced the indigenous
population into virtual slavery. On the other hand, the efforts by the U.S.
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ruling class, through state governments and the American Colonization

Society, were reactionary because they often forced people to choose
between slavery and emigration. Their efforts were not in the interest of
Blacks or the working class in the U.S., and certainly not in the interests of
the people of Liberia.
Nevertheless, by the 1850s there was a great deal of interest in emigration (whether to
Africa, Canada, the West Indies, or South America). Conditions. for Blacks were rapidly
deteriorating, particularly with the passage of the fugitive slave law in 1850.
Most, however, chose to offer militant resistance by remaining in the United States and
fighting to overthrow slavery. This position was held by such people as Henry Highland
Garnet and Frederick Douglass (see Chapter 4 on "The Slave Experience"). It was the
revolutionary way out of slavery and the main trend during the period. The many slaves
who sabotaged production, plotted slave revolts, escaped to the North, and later joined the
Union army in armed struggle to defeat the slave system all testified to the revolutionary
aspirations of the masses of Black slaves.
It should also be remembered that during the period of slavery
some Black people were living in the urban environment. Facing rejection by the white
society, free Blacks in the North were forced to concentrate on developing separate Black
social institutions. This created a race consciousness based on organized Black unity,
particularly in churches, fraternal societies, businesses, and publications.
It is important to point out the difference here between race consciousness and
nationalism. During the slave period, the main thing was race consciousness - Black versus
white - with the historical identity of being an African accepted as a possible alternative to
being a slave in America. Only after several generations - when there was a material and
subjective basis for "national" identity --was race consciousness fully transformed into
nationalism. The modal forms of nationalism developed most fully in the rural period.
THE RURAL PERIOD
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Pan-Africanist and Black nationalist thoughts and actions began as direct responses to
racist oppression. Generally speaking, when time are particularly bad the conditions are
ripe for some form of Pan-Africanism. When times have been relatively good, there is an
upsurge of Blacknationalisrn.
During the rural period, a consistent pattern of emigrations developed as a response to
oppression and hard times. With the collapse of Reconstruction in the late 1870s, there
was an emigration movement led by Blacks from South Carolina who tried to organize an
exodus to Liberia. Though their scheme failed, it did mark the beginning of emigrationist
efforts initiated in the South.
Emigration schemes reached a peak in the mid-1890s when the cotton economy failed
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and Black people were disfranchised and subjected to unprecedent violence. The idea of
going to Africa was particularly popular among Black peasants, who were eager to go
anyplace that offered a sanctuary from the oppression they were experiencing.
Bishop Henry Turner of the A.M.E. Church in Georgia was one of the main advocates of
emigrationism and inspired much enthusiasm among Black people of the South. But his
efforts were doomed by transportation problems, reports of a harsh life in Africa,
inadequate financial backing, and a lack of interest on the part of the Black middle class
and the educated Black elite. Chief Alfred C. Sam from Ghana faced similar problems when
he later went to Oklahoma and tried to organize an emigration plan for Black people who
had become disillusioned by the racism and economic subjugation they experienced in the
Southwest.
Just as emigration "back to Africa" was a resettlement scheme, so too was the-Black
town movement. This movement was led by enterprising and ambitious people who wanted
to use the all- Black town as the basis for economic and political power. More- over, they
saw collective unity as a protection from racist oppression. A movement to Kansas (by
"exodusters" as they were called) was led by Pap Singleton. This was a major attempt to
escape repression in the South. Between 1860 and 1880, the - Black population of Kansas
increased, from 840 to 43,000. Around the turn of the century, Edwin P. McCabe organized
a movement of Black people to Oklahoma. Over twenty-five Black towns were founded
there, including Langston (the first) and Boley. He had visions of making Oklahoma an allBlack state and becoming its governor or senator. Racism and an inhospitable economic
environment soon dashed those dreams and led many to later embrace Chief Sam's
emigration scheme.
During fairly good times, there is a tendency for bourgeois aspirations to dominate. The
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bourgeois nationalist perspective was reflected in Booker T. Washington and those who
organized the National Negro Business League in 1900. While these efforts engaged a
small group of leaders, another form of nationalist action emerged during the rural period
that involved the masses of Black people. This was the development and consolidation of
national institutions.
During slavery, there was a clearly defined limit to Black social life, based on (1) the
objective limitations of life requiring long hours of forced labor, and (2) the legal-violent
methods of social control to keep Black people powerless and unable to collectively deal
with problems. The social life that did develop was significant but quite restricted. After the
Civil War, however, new conditions allowed for a more developed collective social life. In
this context Black people discovered that there was strength in unity: both the negative
reason to protect oneself from enemies, and the positive reason to unite with people whose
cultural tastes and behavioral preferences were the same as one's own. The church and
fraternal organizations were the two main social institutions to develop during this period.
The first major political manifestation of Pan-Africanism during the 20th century was
based on the historical links of Black people to Africa and was a reaction to the rising
imperialist plunder of Africa. Simultaneous with the intensifying oppression of Black people
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in the United States after 1877, Africa was increasingly under attack by imperialist
colonialism. Whereas in 1876 only 10% of, Africa was under the control of the imperialists
by 1900 this had increased to about 90%. As World War I drew to a close, it was clear that
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the imperialists intended to continue and expand their presence in Africa.

Black people were learning the valuable lesson that Black liberation meant fighting
against imperialist oppression. Simply emigrating to Africa would not solve Black people's
problems since imperialism had to be faced there, just as oppression had to be faced in the
United States. The link between what was happening to Black people in the United States
and what was happening to Africans was becoming obvious to increasing numbers of Black
intellectuals. The struggle for Black liberation had to take place not only in the United
States but also in Africa.
The Pan-African Conference, initiated by DuBois and other middle-class intellectuals in
1900, and the Pan-African Congresses that subsequently emerged provided essential
support in the struggle for African liberation. The Pan-African Congresses focused on
demands for self-government, education, freedom of religion and social customs, the return
of land and resources to Black people, protection against the greed of capitalist investors,
and the enrichment of the many rather than a few.
The Fifth Congress, held in 1945, was most important because for the first time it was
composed of a majority of African delegates and took a militant anti-imperialist stand. This
laid the basis for the African independence struggle in the 1950s and 1960s and for the
African liberation movements today. After the Fifth Congress, African students,
intellectuals, and trade union leaders returned to Africa and helped to intensify the anticolonial struggle. Their Afro-American comrades took up the struggle to force changes in
U.S. policy toward Africa.
THE URBAN PERIOD

The urban period of the Afro-American experience resulted from the migration of Black
people to the cities of the North and South and their concentration into factory jobs. The
general crisis of adjusting to an urban/industrial pace, World War I, racial attacks, and the
political fermentation of the post-war crisis all laid the basis for the biggest mass-based
nationalist movement among Black people - the Garvey movement.
Marcus Garvey found6d the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in Jamaica
in 1914 and transplanted it to New York in 1916.. The UNIA was a movement built by the
Black middle class of the cities struggling shopkeepers, preachers, lawyers, and the like and southern sharecroppers who had recently moved to the city. It rapidly grew to several
hundred chapters and had a following estimated by some at several million.
There were two sides to the Garvey movement. On one hand, Garveyism helped to
crystallize the national consciousness of Black people. It sparked a greater interest and
appreciation for the history and culture of Black people, and undoubtedly inspired many
Black people to set their aims higher to equal the past achievements of Black people.
These were very much a part of the UNIA doctrines. On the other hand, Garvey's
emigrationist back-to-Africa plans, which became the main aspect of his program, did not
speak realistically to the problems facing the masses of Black people in the United States.
Domestically, Garvey argued for Booker T. Washington's policies of accommodationism.
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He branded political struggle for full equality as impossible and dangerous, and he asked
the ruling class to reject the "aggressive" program of DuBois and to accept his "reasonable"
program of taking Black people back to Africa. Garvey outlined the objectives of the
movement:
The Universal Negro Improvement Association ... believes in and teaches the
pride and purity of race. We believe that the white race should uphold its racial
pride and perpetuate itself, and that the black race should do likewise....
The Universal Negro Improvement Association seeks ... the creation of an
African nation for Negroes, where the greatest latitude would be given to work
out this racial ideal....
The time is opportune to regulate the relationship between both races. Let the
Negro have a country of his own. Help him to return to his original home,
Africa, and there give him the opportunity to climb from the lowest to the
highest positions in a state of his own. If not, then the nation will have to
hearken to the demand of the aggressive, "social equality" organization, known
as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, of which
W. E. B. DuBois is leader, which declares vehemently for social and political
equality, viz.: Negroes and whites in the same hotels, homes, residential
districts, public and private places, a Negro as president, members of the
Cabinet, Governors of States, Mayors of cities, and leaders of society in the
United States. In this agitation, DuBois is ably supported by the "Chicago
Defender," a colored newspaper published in Chicago. This paper advocates
Negroes in the Cabinet and Senate. All these, as everybody knows, are the
Negroes' constitutional rights, but reason dictates that the masses of the white
race will never stand by the ascendancy of an opposite minority group to the
favored positions in a government, society and industry that exist by the will of
the majority, hence the demand of the DuBois group of colored leaders will
only lead, ultimately, to further disturbances in riots, lynching and mob rule.
The only logical solution therefore, is to supply the Negro with opportunities
and environments of his own, and there point him to the fullness of his
ambition....
This plan when property undertake and prosecuted will solve the race
problem in America in fifty years. Africa affords a wonderful opportunity at the
present time for colonization by the Negroes of the Western world.
Eventually, Garvey capitulated to U.S. capitalism. His position was made clear when he
urged Black people to believe that "white capitalists are Black people's best' friend" and to
stay out of trade unions.
The UNIA's objective was a nation-state. The Black Belt had provided the foundation for
a Black social and political life that many carried with them to the cities. Its objective reality
continued to be a part of Black people's lives and consciousness. The UNIA was able to
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appeal to that consciousness and attract a following of like-mind nationalists.

The migrations that subsequently took place, especially during and following World War
II, significantly altered the Black experience. As the urban experience came to dominate
Black people's lives, the objective reality of the Black Belt South ceased playing such an
important role. Most Black political movements thus have been based in the city, including
the latest stage of the nationalist-pan-African movement that arose in the 1960s.
The most recent explosion of the nationalist and Pan-Africanist movement came on the
heels of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. The nationalist movement came first and
was followed by a Pan-Africanist movement. This nationalism was based on two
converging trends: (1) the rising Black middle class, which reaped the rewards of the civil
rights protests, and which was further encouraged by the Nixon-backed program of Black
capitalism; and (2) the dispossessed Blacks, who saw their faith in the benevolent role of
the federal government betrayed and their dreams shattered with the assassination of
Martin Luther King, Jr., The middle class saw in nationalism a way to further its own
interests. It needed the masses of Black people to make money and gain more power. The
masses of poor Black people, at the same time, saw in nationalism collective protection
from a hostile racist environment.
There are six major issues that should be discussed in summing up the major trends of
nationalism and pan-Africanism since the 1960s.
The most important ideologue of nationalism during this period was Malcolm X. Malcolm
went through important personal and political changes that paralleled the growth and
development of the Black liberation struggle. From a hustling pimp and drug dealer, he was
transformed in prison by the teachings of the Nation of Islam (though he later broke with the
stand-on-the-sidelines policies of Elijah Muhammad). He was attempting to organize a nonsectarian Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAU) when he was assassinated in 1965.
Malcolm provided insistent opposition to the nonviolent, passive resistance philosophy of
Martin Luther King. He proposed armed self-defense as the alternative. Until the last year
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of his life, he was an articulate spokesman for the view that all white people were the
enemies of Black people. In a 1965 interview, he stated his reason for rethinking his views:
I used to define black nationalism as the idea that the black man should control
the economy of his community, the politics of his community, and so forth.
But, when I was in Africa in May, in Ghana, I was speaking with the Algerian
ambassador who is extremely militant and is a revolutionary in the true sense
of the word (and has his credentials as such for having carried on a successful
revolution against oppression in his country). When I told him that my political,
social and economic philosophy was black nationalism, he asked me very
frankly, well, where did that leave him? Because he was white. He was an
African, but he was Algerian, and to all appearances he was a white man. And
he said if I define my objective of the victory of black nationalism, where does
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that leave him? Where does that leave revolutionaries in Morocco, Egypt, Iraq,
Mauritania? So he showed me where I was alienating people who were true
revolutionaries, dedicated to overturning the system of exploitation that exists
on this earth by any means necessary.
So, I had to do a lot of thinking and reappraising of my definition of black
nationalism. Can we sum up the solution to the problems confronting our
people as black nationalism?
When questioned at an OAU meeting in Harlem, he elaborated:

I haven't changed. I just see things on a broader scale. We nationalists used
to think we were militant. We were just dogmatic. It didn't bring us anything.
Now I know it's smarter to say you're going to shoot a man for what he is
doing to you than because he is white. If you attack him because he is white,
you give him no out. He can't stop being white. We've got to give the man a
chance. He probably won't take it, the snake. But we've got to give him a
chance.
We've got to be more flexible. Why, when some of our friends in Africa didn't
know how to do things, they went ahead and called in some German
technicians. And they had blue eyes.
I'm not going to be in anybody's straitjacket. I don't care what a person looks
like or where they come from. My mind is wide open to anybody who will help
get the ape off our backs.
Malcolm was opposed to capitalism and imperialism, and he set the pace for the
development of revolutionary nationalism among young Black people. His complete
identification with and commitment to serving the needs and aspirations of Black people
provided a positive model that many Black people sought to emulate.
Politics
"Black Power" was the most significant slogan to emerge in the nationalist movement of
the 1960s. While it sounded revolutionary, it was essentially reformist in content. The
phrase was first popularized by Stokely Carmichael of SNCC during a march to urge Black
voter registration in Mississippi. This reformism was further elaborated in Carmichael. and
Charles Hamilton's Black Power in 1967:
This book presents a political framework and ideology which represents the
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last reasonable opportunity for this society to work out its racial problems
short of prolonged destructive guerilla warfare.
More importantly, the Black Power Conferences of 1967 (Newark) and 1968 (Philadelphia)
proposed no fundamental changes in the U.S. political and economic system. In fact, the
first conference was chaired by an Episcopalian priest and invitations were mailed out on
"Miss Clairol" stationery (obviously borrowed from the company where his brother was
employed). The main aim of all of these efforts was to get for Black people a bigger piece
of the existing American capitalist pie.
305There were, however, revolutionary aspirations among the nationalists of this period.
The Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), officially organized in 1963, sought "to free
Black people from colonial and imperialist bondage everywhere and to take whatever steps
necessary to achieve that goal!' Its philosophy was further elaborated by a Black
revolutionary activist, Max Stanford:
RAM philosophy may be described as revolutionary nationalism, black
nationalism or just plain blackism. It is that black people of the world (darker
races, black, yellow, brown, red, oppressed peoples) are all enslaved by the
same forces. RAM's philosophy is one of the world black revolution or world
revolution of oppressed peoples rising up against their former slave masters.
Our movement is a movement of black people who are coordinating their
efforts to create a "new world" free from exploitation and oppression of man to
man....
RAM feels that with the rise of fascism, the black man must not only think of
armed self-defense but must also think aggressively.
Our black nation is still in captivity. RAM feels that the road to freedom is
self-government, national liberation and black power. Our slogan is "Unite or
perish."
The League of Revolutionary Black Workers, centered on Detroit's auto industry, attempted
to organize Black workers as the leading revolutionary vanguard. According to
spokespersons: "The League of Revolutionary Black Workers is dedicated to waging a
relentless struggle against racism, capitalism, and imperialism. We are struggling for the
liberation of Black people in the confines; of the US as well as to play a major revolutionary
role in the liberation of all oppressed people in the world:' (See Chapter 7 for a further
discussion of the League.)
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In the manifesto of the Black Revolutionary Party, James Boggs put forward ideas that
reflected the perspectives and activities of several local and regional organizations:
The role of the Black Revolutionary Party is, first, to develop and keep before
the movement, the nation and the world the real meaning and objectives of
the life and death struggle in which the Black community is now engaged;
second, to bring together in a disciplined national organization the
revolutionary individuals who are being constantly thrown up by spontaneous
eruption and the experience of struggle; third, to devise and project, in
constant interaction with the masses in struggle, a long-range strategy for
achieving Black Revolutionary Power in the United States....
The Black Revolutionary Party must be distinguished clearly not only from
the traditional civil rights organizations which have been organized to
integrate Blacks into and thereby save the system, but also from the ad hoc
organizations which have sprung up in the course of struggle, arousing the
masses emotionally around a particular issue and relying primarily on the
enthusiasm and good-will of their members and supporters for their
continuing activity. By contrast, the Black Revolutionary Party must be a
cadre- type organization of politically-conscious individuals, totally committed
to the struggle for Black Revolutionary Power and the building of the Black
Revolutionary Party as the only solution to the problems of Black people.
A revolutionary party cannot be made up of just enthusiastic and
emotionally-aroused individuals. Its essential core must be cold, sober
revolutionaries who are bound together by a body of ideas, recognize the
vital importance of disciplined organization and strong leadership to the
revolutionary struggle, and are convinced that their own future and that of
Black people can be assured only through Black Revolutionary Power...
The Black Revolutionary Party will pay special attention to the
development of the political consciousness and revolutionary dedication of
Black street youth. These youth have no place in the existing society except
as mercenaries, preying on people of color in the far-flung imperialist armies
of the United States or on their own people in the streets of the ghetto. On
the other hand, under the leadership of the Black Revolutionary Party and
imbued with the consciousness of the new society which Black Revolutionary
Power will create, they are the best guarantee of the success of the Black
revolution.
The Black Revolutionary Party will repudiate any tendency to Black male
chauvinism or the tendency to relegate Black women to an inferior position in
the struggle in order to compensate for the emasculation which Black men
have suffered in white America. The extraordinary fortitude which Black
women have brought to the struggle for survival of Black people in America is
one of the greatest sources of strength for the Black Revolutionary Party...
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The most difficult and challenging task is the organizing of struggles

around the concrete grievances of the masses which will not only improve
the welfare of the Black community but also educate the masses out of their
democratic illusions and increase their consciousness that every
administrative and law-enforcing agency in this country is a white power...
The Black Revolutionary Party must devise strategies which give the
masses of Black people a sense of their growing power to improve their
conditions of life through struggle and which enable them to create dual or
parallel power structures out of struggle. Struggle therefore must be on
issues and terrains which enable the Black community to, create a form of
liberated area out of what are at present occupied areas. It is for this reason
that struggles for Community Control of such urban institutions as Schools,
Health, Welfare, Housing, Land and Police are such powerful steps on the
road to Black Revolutionary Power...
Because of the nationalist character of the Black revolutionary struggle,
the Black Revolutionary Party must be O-Black in its membership....
Finally, the Black Revolutionary Party must at times keep before the
movement the need to support the national liberation struggles in Asia, Latin
America and Africa, and the need for international support for the revolution
inside the United States. No revolution was ever successful without
international support. This truth ... is even more relevant today because of
the basic unity which the Black Revolution in the United States has with the
world Black revolution, because of the minority position of Blacks inside the
United States, and because of the world character of -the American counterrevolution.
The Black Revolution in the United States is an integral part of the world
revolution against American imperialism. Racism, like imperialism, is a
totalitarian system for the dehumanization of one people by another... The
revolution against racism and/or imperialism, therefore, is not only to free the
oppressed people or nation from the physical presence of their oppressors
but to destroy the institutions of total dehumanization and to create in their
place totally new relations between people, totally new relations between
people and their institutions, and totally new institutions.
Revolutionary groups used this document as a programmatic statement, particularly on the

role of "Black street youth." Whereas street youth traditionally had been viewed as
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undisciplined and totally lacking revolutionary potential, they were now seen as potential
activists of insurrection. Revolutionary groups thus began to focus on developing this
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revolutionary potential.
Culture and Art
An important characteristic of a nation and of nationalism is a common cultural orientation
which manifests itself in common values and behavioral preferences. This has been an
essential aspect of Black nationalism. Thus, a key slogan that emerged during the 1960s
was "Black is Beautiful." This slogan was part of the process which raised the political
consciousness of Black people. It was, not color alone that was being spoken of, but a
shared historical experience - a history of common oppression (of which racism was an
essential component) and collective resistance and struggle. The Black Arts Movement
also developed during the Black Power period and it served to instill and deepen a
collective consciousness among Black people (see Chapter 9). The rebellion after the
assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968 revealed the depth of this collective or national
consciousness among Black people.
On the other hand, "Black is Beautiful" was a convenient cover for small-time (and some
big-time) entrepreneurs in the Black community. They tried to cash in on the newly
developing national market for 'African dashikis, Afro-combs, hair conditioners, and other
products and artifacts that were in demand as the impact of the nationalist and PanAfricanist movement spread. "Buy Black!" became their rallying cry, a cry that conveniently
fit in with the maintenance of the economic and political system.
The Black Nation

The national question will be explored more fully in the next chapter, which treats the
relationship between national oppression (like the Afro-American nation) and class
exploitation (i.e., the entire working class of all nationalities). In this chapter, the focus is on
the particular problems of Black people as an oppressed nationality and the solutions
proposed by Black nationalists. A separate and independent nation with the right of self
determination (or self-rule) has been a key demand in the program of some nationalists.
This was the meaning of the slogan put forward in the late 1960s and early 1970s - "What
Time Is It? It's Nation Time!" But there have been different views concerning the concrete
existence of this nation.
Both the Nation of Islam (Black Muslims) and the Republic of New Africa made common
territory in the United States a criteria. Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam,
declared in 1959:
If they don't want us to mix with them in their equality, give us a place in
America. Set it aside.... Give us three, four or more states. We have well
earned whatever they give us; if they give us twenty-five states, we have well
earned them. Give us a territory... Demand some earth. We have come to the
point we must have a home on this earth that we can call our own.
The Republic of New Africa later specifically argued for five states in the Black Belt South
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on the following grounds:

We have lived for over 300 years in the so-called Black Belt, we have worked
and developed the land, and we have fought to stay there - against night riders
and day courts, against cultural genocide and economical privation, against
bad crops, and no crops, against terror and ignorance and the urgings of
relatives to come North. In the Black Belt, running through the Five States that
the Republic claims as the National Territory of the Black Nation (Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina), we have met all the
criteria for land possession required of us by international practice,
international law. We have, incidentally, met these tests too in cities of the
North like Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore (though our precise
locations in these cities have shifted through the years).
What the Republic of New Africa says, however, is that we give up our claim to
these cities as, national territory (that does not mean that all Africans have to
move from them) in exchange for the five states of the Deep South.
On March 28, 1971, the Republic of New Africa consecrated land in Mississippi as the "first
African capital of the northern Western Hemisphere." They continued in their efforts "to
array enough power ... to force the greatest power, the United States, to abide by
international law, to recognize and accept our claims to Independence and land."
Stokely Carmichael's All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party (AAPRP) argued for the
acquisition of land in Africa as a Territorial base for Black liberation. Carmichael declared:
In the final analysis, all revolutions are based on land. The best place, it
seems to me, and the quickest place that we can obtain land is Africa. I am
not denying that we might seek land in the United States. That is a possibility,
but I do not see it clearly in my mind at this time. We need land and we need
land immediately, and we must go to the quickest place for it....
To seize any of the countries in Africa today that are dominated by white
people who have physically oppressed us is to confront an armed struggle, a
prolonged struggle.
But once we have seized a base we will be on our way. We will then have to
demonstrate our willingness to fight for our people wherever they are
oppressed. I believe that people basically defend their own kind.... In the
Middle East they [Americans] did it even in 1967 with Israel. People who didn't
have any rights in that country were flying in from all over the world to fight.
There's nothing wrong with our doing the selfsame thing. It can be done and,
most important, we are trying to secure a political ideology as we seek a
state.
For the Congress of African People (CAP), a Pan-Africanist Organization led by Imamu
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Baraka which emerged in 1972 to replace the nationalist Black Power Conferences, a
separate land case was not the basis for the Black nation. CAP conceived the 31ack nation
as more of a cultural entity to which all Black people would belong regardless of location.
The "cultural nation" it proposed was to be based on Nguzo Saba, the seven principles of i
Black value system that had been formulated by Maulana Karenga:
UMOJA (Unity) - the commitment to the principle and practice of togetherness
and collective action on crucial levels, i.e., building and maintaining unity in
the family, community, nation and race: This is the first and foundational
principle because without unity our possibilities as a people are few and
fragile, if existent at all.
KUJICHAGULIA (Self-Determination) - a commitment to the principle and
practice of defining, defending and developing ourselves instead of being
defined, defended and developed by others. It demands that we build our own
lives in our own image and interests and construct, thru our own efforts,
institutions that house our aspirations.
UJIMA (Collective Work and Responsibility)- a commitment to active and
informed togetherness on matters of common interest. It is also recognition
and respect of the fact that without collective work and struggle, progress is
impossible and liberation unthinkable.
UJAMAA (Cooperative Economics) - a commitment to the principle and
practice of shared wealth and resources. It grows out of the fundamental
African communal concept that the social wealth belongs to the masses of
people who created it and that no one should have such an unequal amount
of wealth that it gives him/her the capacity to impose unequal, exploitative and
oppressive relations on others.
NIA (Purpose) - a commitment to the collective vocation of building, defending
and developing our national community in order to regain our historical
initiative and greatness as a people. At the core of this principle is the
assumption and contention that the highest form of personal purpose is, in the
final analysis, social purpose, i.e., personal purpose that translates itself into a
vocation and commitment which involves and benefits the masses of Black
people.
KUUMBA (Creativity) - a commitment to the principle and practice of building
rather than destroying, of positive proactive construction rather than negative
reactive destruction. Inherent in this principle is the commitment to leave our
national community stronger, more beautiful and more effective in its capacity
to define, defend and develop its interests than when we inherited it.
IMANI (Faith) - a commitment to ourselves as persons and a people and the
righteousness and victory of our struggle. Moreover, it is belief in and
commitment to our brothers and sisters, to their defense and development,
and to the fullness of our collective future. Inherent in the principle of Imani is
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the call for a humanistic faith, an earth-oriented, earth-based, peoplecentered faith in the tradition of the best of African philosophies and values.
This "cultural nation" thus -was something less than the demand for the full political selfdetermination that was included in the call for a separate national territory.
Despite this lack of clarity over the concrete basis of the Black nation, or whether it even
existed, the slogan "It's Nation Time!" provided a programmatic orientation for nationalists.
This orientation was reflected, for instance, in the attempts of Black academics to organize
the Black Studies movement and the Black caucus movement within predominantly. white
professional associations (e.g., the American Sociological Association and the African
Studies Asi3ociation). These movements were primarily intended to open up new jobs and
programs for the middle class, and to protect the ones that had been won by the struggle of 310
the masses. Most Black Studies programs and Black caucuses have not provided a
revolutionary analysis of the Black experience or a direction for the Black liberation
struggle.
Outside of academia, one group of nationalists even started a business called
Nationtime, Inc., which manufactured products adorned with red, black, and green - the
colors of the Black nation's flag that had been resurrected from the Garvey movement.
Owners of several large Black businesses in Chicago fly this flag next to the U.S. flag. In
this case, Black nationalism and capitalism stand side by side.
Two Lines on Pan-Africanism in Africa

Pan-Africanism historically has had its greatest impact on the African continent. It was a
unifying ideology that galvanized Africa in the fight against colonial domination during the
days of Kwame Nkrumah. Today, however, Pan-Africanism is undergoing careful analysis
in Africa.
There are two sides to pan-Africanism in Africa. On the one hand, within Africa, there are
pan-Africanists who have embraced imperialism in order to serve their own selfish
interests. Thus, freedom fighters in Africa have recognized that Pan-Africanism can serve
as a tool of imperialism rather than as a tool for African liberation. There is a special danger
311
that the imperialists will use Black people from the United States who may be well-received
because they are Black. As John Henry, a critic of pan-Africanism, put it, "The line that
Afro-Americans are 'really' Africans enables lackeys of the imperialists to operate openly in
Africa and make U.S. imperialism more palatable."
On the other hand, pan-Africanism could be used to unite Africa in its struggle against
imperialism and superpower intervention. The main progressive form of pan-African unity is
emerging in contexts like southern Africa where the liberation fighters have united in the
conduct of armed struggle against white minority rule, imperialism, and sell-out Africans.
This is very different from the very early days when pan-Africanism took the form of mainly
paper declarations. It is in this context of anti-imperialist struggle that revolutionary patriots
will decide the future of pan- Africanism on the continent of Africa.
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Two Lines on Pan-Africanism in the United States

"We are an African People," emerged as the key slogan of the pan-Africanist movement
in the 1970s. Identification with African liberation struggles became particularly important as
the Black liberation movement in the United States faced increasing repression at the
hands of the state. There are two types of pan- Africanists, however.
Some, like Stokely Carmichael and the AAPRP, argue that the hope for Black liberation
lies in Africa. They attribute these notions to the late Kwame Nkrumah. Carmichael has
stated:
Nkrumahism is reality grounded in our African experience....
Were they [critics of Nkrumahism] grounded in the reality of Nkrumahism,
they would know the "total liberation and the unification of Africa under an AllAfrican socialist government must be the primary objective of all Black
Revolutionaries throughout the world. It is an objective which, when achieved,
will bring about the fulfillment of the aspirations of Africans and people of
African descent everywhere." . . . These heretics [critics) of Nkrumahism . . .
see the primary objective of Black Revolutionaries in America as the
transformation of the American society; an obvious conclusion if one has an
a-historical analysis....
We know that any ideology concerning African people, who have been
maliciously scattered all over the world, during the calculated period of the
disruption of our society, must consider all the component parts while
maintaining "the core of the Black Revolution in Africa."
This view suggests that Blacks in the United States should work primarily for African
liberation rather than for their own liberation. The theoretical underpinnings of this sort of
pan- Africanism are faulty, as John Henry points out:In regard to Afro-Americans, Pan Africanism negates historical change in two
major ways: it maintains that they are Africans as they have always been, and
that Africa is the focus of the struggle of black people all over the world and it
has always been. This view relegates the historical struggles of Afro-American
people to being misguided and misinformed, because the goal has been to
transform this country into a just society for all people and not primarily to
transform Africa.
The second type of pan-Africanism argues that there should be a fight against the
oppression of Black people in the United States and in Africa. Imperialism is seen as an
international system headquartered in the United States that exploits Black people "at
home and abroad:' These pan-Africanists and nationalists argue that defeating U.S.
imperialism at home is the basis for the liberation of Black people in the United States and
a contribution to the liberation of Africa, as well as Black people in the "diaspora" (a Yiddish
term which means "to scatter" and refers to Black people dispersed throughout the world by
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the slave trade).
THE PROSPECTS FOR PAN-AFRICANISM AND NATIONALISM

John Henry, who is neither pan-Africanist nor a nationalist, makes these observations
concerning pan-Africanism in Africa:
On the international scale, Pan Africanism can be a positive force if it
contributes to the united front. . . . But the struggle is sharpening up in Africa,
particularly southern Africa, and becoming more complicated. It is especially
complicated because in many cases there is the task of overthrowing
reactionaries in the U.S. camp while also defeating the "wizard of Oz" socialimperialists, who can bribe opportunist elements or mislead honest forces into
vacillating on opposing their superpower hegemonic plans. Pan Africanism as
an ideology won't provide the answers to these complex problems because it
fails to correctly and concretely analyze the forces at work. It does not base
itself on the analysis of different class forces within Africa, or on the fact that
Africa is not an undifferentiated whole but a continent divided. into countries
facing some common problems but also different conditions. It also has no
clear analysis of the nature of different countries, including the Soviet Union.
Clearly Pan Africanism cannot lead the struggle for liberation in Africa.
Nor does he see pan-Africanism leading to Black liberation in the United States:
There are aspects of the Pan Africanist movement that are positive and have
contributed to struggle. Pan Africanism has led to the mobilization of people in
support of African liberation, provided increased awareness of U.S. imperialism
in Africa and promoted the will to fight it. This is clearly the case when we
examine the impact of Pan Africanism on the militant Black youth, and some
Black workers. But ... the development of this movement and the consolidation
of forces within it can turn into its opposite and become a force for reaction.
Pan-Africanism in both Africa and the United States has contributed to revolutionary
struggle insofar as it has focused on imperialism and the fight against national oppression.
However, it has also led away from Black liberation because it has failed to base itself in an
analysis of class forces within the context of national struggles. Thus, in both Africa and the
United States, pan-Africanism has served reactionary as well as revolutionary forces.
Whether it encourages or retards revolutionary action in the future remains to be seen
Nationalism will remain a force in the Black liberation struggle. This is so because of the
escalating racist oppression that Black people will continue to suffer under U.S. capitalism.
In addition, nationalism will continue to be the ideological prop of the aspiring Black middle
class which needs the masses of Black people as allies in its quest for individual
advancement - as customers, as voters, as militant foot soldiers who can "shake up the
establishment."
The main question is whether Black nationalism will be reactionary, reformist, or
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revolutionary. We have the lessons of history to understand that the political character of
Black nationalism can change. Nationalism started out as reformist. The spontaneous
rebellion of the masses during the 1960s led to the development of revolutionary
nationalism (though a few turned toward reactionary politics). The repression of the Black
liberation movement in the early 1970s led to pan-Africanism and again reformism. Black
people today face a deepening social and economic, and political crisis. There is an
increasing need to escalate the struggle against the oppression of Blacks. The future will
reveal whether Black nationalism will return to the forefront of the revolutionary struggle for
Black liberation and social change or be swept aside as incapable of contributing to the
total liberation of Black people.
KEY CONCEPTS
Black-is-Beautiful
Black Power
Black town movement
Emigration/Back-to-Africa movements
Nation/Nationalism
Nguzo Saba
Race consciousness
Red-Black-Green
Pan-Africanism
Self-determination
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. What is nationalism? Pan-Africanism? Compare the similarities and differences between
the two.
2. Compare the theories of Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, James Boggs, Stokely Carmichael,
Maulana Karenga, and John Henry.
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3. What are the differences between reactionary, reformist, and revolutionary nationalism?
4. Is Black nationalism in the U.S.A. likely to survive into the 21st century? How about panAfricanism?
1. E. U. Essien-Udom, Black Nationalism. A Search for an Identity in America. Chicago:
2. Tony Martin, The Pan African Connection. Boston: Schenk- man, 1983,
3. Alphonso Pinkney, Red, Black and Green, Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press,
1976.
4. Edwin Redkey, Black Exodus: Black Nationalism and Back-to- Africa Movements, 1890287
1910. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969.

5. Sterling Stuckey, ad., The Ideological Origins of Black Nationalism. Boston: Beacon
Press, 1972.
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SIXTEEN
16. MARXISM AND THE BLACK LIBERATION
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320
324
336
337
International Marxist Theory ..................................

U.S. Marxist Movements .......................................
Current Tasks.,
...................................................
Toward a Scientific Approach to Black Liberation ........
Marxism and Black Liberation

LOGIC OF
CHANGE
Social
Cohesion
Traditional
Africa
Slavery
Rural
Life
Urban
Life
Social
Disruption
Slave
Trade
Emancipation
Migrations
Ideology
A1
B1
C1
D1
E1
F1
G1
A2
B2
C2
D2
E2
F2
G2
A3
B3
C3
D3
E3
F3
G3
A4
B4
C4
D4
E4
F4
G4
ANALYSIS
Class
Race
Good morning, Revolution :

You're the very best friend
I ever had. We gonna pal around together from now on.
Say, listen, Revolution:
You know, the boss where I used to work,
The guy that gimrae the air to cut down expenses,
He wrote a long letter to the papers about you:
Said you was a trouble maker, a alien-enemy,
In other words a son-of-a-bitch.
He called up the police
And told 'em to watch out for a guy
Named Revolution.
You see,
The boss knows you're my friend.
He sees us hangin' out together.
He knows we're hungry, and ragged,
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319
And ain't got a damn thing in this world And are gonna do something about it.
Langston Hughes, "Good Morning Revolution;' 1932
Marxism is a social theory and a social movement based on an analysis of the
contradictions of the capitalist system. It is the science of the working class. It also serves
as the ideological basis for its revolutionary struggle to destroy capitalism and replace it
with socialism. Marxism as a theory of history provides a theoretical explanation of how a
society develops. Further, as a science, Marxism guides research into the particular details
of how a specific society operates. This is crucial because while Marxism has developed as
an inclusive theory encompassing all available research, it is always based on and
revitalized by the use of what is known in order to pursue and come to terms with what is
unknown.
Two errors are made frequently by those who claim to be Marxists, but are not.
Dogmatism refers to the error of holding a general theory and refusing to take into account
particular details and historical conditions. The opposite error is empiricism. Empiricism
holds onto specific concrete details and ignores previous knowledge that has been
summed up in general theory. In general, Marxism stresses the unity of theory and
practice, study and struggle. Practice is the primary aspect of the contradiction. Any study
of Marxism thus must combine a study of the theory with the social practice of Marxist
movements.
The application of Marxism to Black liberation is both a theoretical and practical task. As
with any theory of social change, its usefulness can only be fully proven with a successful
revolution, led by a workers' party guided by the ideology of Marxism. However, this does
not free us from the responsibility of taking up an analysis of how Marxism as theory treats
the problems faced by Black people; how Marxist movements in the U.S.A. have handled
these practical problems, especially building unity between Black and white workers; and
where the situation stands today.
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The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has
reported that the author whose books are read by more people in the world than any other
is V. I. Lenin, the leader of the 1917 Russian Revolution. Moreover, the majority of people
in the world are living in societies who at, least "claim" to use Marxism. These are some of
the reasons we must study this question of Marxism in a very serious way.
INTERNATIONAL MARXIST THEORY
What is Marxism? It is the collective body of theory developed by Karl Marx (1818-1883)
and Frederick Engels (1820-1895) in the period of revolutionary upheavals of the industrial
working classes in Europe. They continued and developed the work of classical political
economy from England (especially the work of Adam Smith and David Ricardo), classical
German philosophy (especially George Wilhelm Hegel and Ludwig Feuerbach), and the
utopian socialists from France (Saint-Simon and Franois Charles Fourier). The fundamental
concepts of this body of thought include dialectical and historical materialism (which is a
method for studying the dynamic change and development in nature and society); the labor
291
theory of value and class struggle (which explains how labor's exploitation is the source of
profits); and the dictatorship of the proletariat (which solves a society's basic problems by
putting the masses of working people in power) In 1852, Marx commented on the particular
contribution that he made through his studies:
What I did that was new was to prove: (1) that the existence of classes is only
bound up with particular historical phases in the development of production;
(2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the
proletariat; (3) that the dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the
abolition of all classes and to a classless society....
The major works of Marx and Engels include The Communist Manifesto, Civil War in
France, Capital, German Ideology, and Anti-Duhring.
The further development of the science of the working class was carried out by Marxist
theoreticians connected to the successful revolutionary struggle waged in Russia in 1917.
Led by V. I. Lenin (1870-1924), this revolution, more than any other historical event,
brought Marxism out of the realm of theory and speculation into the realm of accomplished 321
historical fact. Lenin made decisive contributions to the science of Marxism. Lenin applied
Marxism to understanding the laws of capitalist development in the historical epoch of
imperialism. He also summed up the main objective laws that govern, the process of
waging class warfare, especially regarding the role of a revolutionary party. His three
essential works are Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, The State and
Revolution, and What Is to Be Done? As a result of the October Revolution in 1917,
Marxism spread rapidly throughout the world. This was directed by the formation of the
Communist International (Comintern), an international organization of communist, parties
from all over the world. While the Comintern was very instrumental in educating
revolutionaries and popularizing the lessons of the October Revolution, it made mistakes in
dogmatically applying the lessons of the Soviet Union to other parts of the world, without
paying sufficient attention to the concrete details of each particular country.
The next major advance was in China. The Marxist party was formed in 1921, and
twenty-eight years later the workers and peasants seized state (political) power under the
leadership of the revolutionary party and Mao Tse-Tung (1893-1976). Mao made significant
contributions to the application of Marxism to China and to post-war developments within
the international Marxist movement. Mao developed and successfully applied the strategic
concept of the United Front in conjunction with the Peoples War. He also was a major
fighter for Marxist principles. He fought the errors of dogmatism and empiricism (see his
book Five Essays on Philosophy) and made a major contribution in fighting revisionism
322
during the Cultural Revolution. More than any other event since the October Revolution in
Russia, the Chinese Revolution of 1949 brought dramatic focus on how Marxism treats the
national colonial question and the process of national liberation struggles by oppressed
nations - particularly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
There are two basic theoretical ideas that identify the future Marxists are fighting for.
Each is based on an exchange between people, and the society as a whole. In other
words, the key issue for each person is: What am I supposed to do and what do I get for it
292
in return?
Communism - This is the theory of "from each according to their ability, to each according
to their need." This is the ultimate view of human society in which people are not pitted
against each other in dog-eat-dog type competition, but rather are organized for maximum
cooperation. Each person would be educated, cultured, and employed for their maximum
contribution to society. Further, each person would get what they need, based on the
overall level of production and wealth in society.
Socialism - This is the theory of "from each according to their ability to each according to
their deed." This theory focuses on an equitable exchange - a fair day's pay, for a fair day's
work. This theory holds that the people in a society must be in control, and not a small
group of capitalists. But we have to make a distinction between utopian socialists and
scientific socialists. The utopian socialists believe in the idea, but they have no analysis of
society that demonstrates who is going to produce the new society, and on what specific
principles it will be constructed. The scientific socialists are Marxists who analyze the
contradictions within capitalist society and focus on the working class as the historical force
destined to produce the new society. Further, rooted in political economy, specific laws of
social development are studied to design a plan to transform society into one based on
cooperation rather than competition.
This distinction is critical. But the complexity of Marxism intensifies when the issues of
class and class struggle are joined with race and nationality. This is called the national
question.
The major Marxist definition of a nation was formulated by Joseph Stalin in his 1913 work
on "Marxism and the National Question":
A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on
the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological
make-up manifested in a common culture.
A nation is not merely a historical category but a historical category belonging
to a definite epoch, the epoch of rising capitalism. The process of elimination
of feudalism and development of capitalism is at the same time a process of
the constitution of people into nations.
However, this cannot be applied dogmatically, since there are four different types of
historical experiences in the development of nations: (1) the nation-states of western
Europe, (2) the multi- national states of eastern Europe, (3) the multi-national states of
Asia, and (4) the colonial nations created under imperialist domination in Asia, Africa, and
Latin America.
Further, the political significance of national movements differs, depending on the
historical context in which it develops. The formation of nation-states in western Europe
was a progressive political accomplishment led by the bourgeoisie. The bourgeois classes
advanced their societies by overthrowing feudalism. However, these same bourgeois
classes developed and became the oppressors of colonized peoples in the Third World.
Therefore, the political character of the nation-states of western Europe was transformed
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into its opposite from being positive to being negative. Each western bourgeoisie helped
create opposites in the Third World. The western bourgeois classes created the colonial
nations, out of which developed progressive national liberation movements.
Lenin was the major Marxist theoretician who analyzed this and developed a
revolutionary solution for colonized nations. His position was summarized by Stalin in 1924:
(a) The world is divided into two camps: the camp of a handful of civilized
nations, which possess finance capital and exploit the vast majority of
the population of the globe; and the camp of the oppressed and exploited
peoples in the colonies and dependent countries, who comprise that majority,.
(b) The colonies and the dependent countries, oppressed and exploited by
finance capital, constitute a very large reserve and a very important source of
strength for imperialism;
(c) The revolutionary struggle of the oppressed peoples in the dependent and
colonial countries against imperialism is the only road that leads to their
emancipation from oppression and exploitation;
(d) The most important colonial and dependent countries have already taken
the path of the national liberation movement, which cannot but lead to the crisis
of world capitalism;
(e) The interests of the proletarian movement in the developed countries and of
the national liberation movement in the colonies call for the amalgamation of
these two forms of the revolutionary movement into a common front against
the common enemy, against imperialism;
(f) The victory of the working class in the developed countries and the
liberation of the oppressed peoples from the yoke of imperialism are
impossible without the formation and the consolidation of -a common
revolutionary front;
(g) The formation of a common revolutionary front is impossible unless the
proletariat of the oppressor nations renders direct and determined support to
the liberation movement of the oppressed peoples against the imperialism of
its "own country," for "no nation can be free if it oppresses other nations"
(Marx);
(h) This support implies the advocacy, defence and carrying out of the slogan
of the right of nations to secession, to independent existence as states;
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(i) Unless this slogan is carried out, the union and collaboration of nations
within a single world economic system, which is the material basis for the
victory of socialism, cannot be brought about;
(j) This union can only be voluntary, and can arise only on the basis of mutual
confidence and fraternal relations among nations.
U.S. MARXIST MOVEMENTS
How does this general summation of Marxist theory in the world context relate to Black
people and the struggle for Black liberation in the United States? The historical experience
of the Marxist movement in the U.S.A. concerning the question of Black people is filled with
errors of all kinds, but it is also filled with shining examples of revolutionary leadership. The
United States is quite obviously an imperialist country in which the imperialists control most
publishing companies, the mass media, and schools. It is usually only the negative side of
the Marxist movement that is reported. Therefore it is necessary to present both sides to
clear up this confusion and enable students of Afro-American Studies to have an objective
scientific grasp of these questions. This is the only way in which we can see both the
positive and negative lessons to learn from the historical involvement of the Marxist
movement in the Afro-American national question. (The "Afro- American national question"
refers to the relationship between the struggle against exploitation of all workers and the
struggle against the oppression of Black people.)
In his major work, Capital (1867), Marx summed up his view of the Afro-American question
in the U.S.A.:
In the United States of North America, every independent movement of the
workers was paralyzed so long as slavery disfigured a part of the Republic.
Labour cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in the black it is
branded.
However, not all socialists agreed with this. The utopian socialists who followed Robert
Owen (1771-1858) and Charles Fourier (1772- 1837) set up experimental model
communities before the Civil War and they all segregated Black people. Moreover, they
incorrectly pushed the abolition of slavery to the background in order to take up the struggle 325
against the wage slavery of workers in the North. On the other hand, the Marxists, led by
Joseph Weydemeyer (1818-1866) a close associate of Marx, set up Communist Clubs with
a constitution recognizing the complete equality of all people regardless of sex or color.
Many members of these clubs fought actively in the Civil War.
After the Civil War, however, the Marxist movement lost sight of Black people in the
U.S.A. In 1864, Marx led the formation of the first international workers' organization, the
International Working-Men's Association (IWA). At its founding convention, the Colored
National Labor Union (CNLU) voted to send a delegate to the IWA. While all other labor
organizations were invited to the 1870 congress of the IWA, the CNLU was not invited. The
IWA had nothing to say about the problems of Blacks in the United States, although the
U.S.A. was one of their main subjects of discussion. The IWA moved to the United States
295
in 1872 where it remained until 1876 when it was dissolved. The main IWA leader in the
United States, Friedrich Sorge, was noticeably silent on the question of Black people. In his
book Socialism and the Worker, written in 1876 as Reconstruction was being wiped out
with a wave of racist reaction, there is not one mention of Black people.
On the other hand, it was also during this period that the first Black socialists emerged.
Peter H. Clark, born in 1829, was a socialist speaker of the Workingmen's Party at a 1877
rally to support the national railroad workers strike. Clearly articulating his socialist views,
he declared:
The top-ready consent of the state and national governments to lend
themselves to the demand of these wealthy corporations cannot be too
severely condemned. Has it come to this, that the President of a private
corporation can, by the click of a telegraphic instrument, bring state and
national troops into the field to shoot down American citizens guilty of no act
of violence?'. . .
The miserable condition into which society has fallen has but one remedy,
and that is to be found in Socialism....
Future accumulations of capital should be held sacredly for the benefit of the
whole community...
Machinery too, which ought to be a blessing but is proving to be a curse to
the people should be taken in hand by the government and its advantages
distributed to all....
Machinery controlled in the interests of labor would afford that leisure for
thought, for self-culture, for giving and receiving refining influences, which are
so essential to the full development of character. "The ministry of wealth"
would not be confined to a few, but would be a benefit to all.
Every railroad in the land should be owned or controlled by the
government. The title of private owners should be extinguished, and the
ownership vested in the people.
As the principal of the Black high school in Cincinnati, he was threatened with the loss of
his job if he didn't reject socialism. Nonetheless, he continued his political work. When the
Workingmen's Party was transformed into the Socialist Labor Party, Clark remained within
the party. Eventually, in 1879, he left the party, not because he had lost faith in socialism,
but because he was dissatisfied with the party's treatment of the problems facing Black
people.
After the turn of the century, especially after the October Revolution in 1917, part of the
socialist movement began moving into the transition to a Communist party. In 1919, two
parties were formed and when they merged in 1921, the Communist movement was born.
The initial organizations did not have a correct analysis and program for Black people, and
thus did not recruit very many Blacks.
Cyril Briggs (1888-1966) was one of the first Black people to join the Communist Party.
Briggs was from the West Indies and had been involved in the left wing of the Garvey
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movement. Briggs believed that the liberation of Black people had to involve the formation
of an independent Black, state, and his idealism led him to various pan-Africanist, back-toAfrica schemes. Inspired by the October Revolution and the position Lenin developed on
the national-colonial question, Briggs in 1917 had formed a revolutionary Black nationalist,
pan-Africanist organization, the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB).
The ABB had sought the following:
To bring about co-operation between colored and white workers on the basis of
their identity of interests as workers;
To educate the Negro in the benefits of unionism and to gain admission for him
on terms of full equality to the unions;
To bring home to the Negro worker his class interests as a worker and to show
him the real source of his exploitation and oppression;
To organize the Negro's labor power into labor and farm organizations;
To foster the principles of consumers' co-operatives as an aid against the high
cost of living;
To oppose with counter propaganda the vicious capitalist propaganda against
the Negro as a race, which is aimed to keep the workers of both races apart
and thus facilitate their exploitation;
To realize a United front of Negro workers and organizations as the first step in
an effective fight against oppression and exploitation,
To acquaint the civilized world with the facts about lynchings, peonage, jimcrowism, disfranchisement and other manifestations of race prejudice and mob
rule.
It specifically had called for armed resistance to lynching and self-determination in states
where Blacks were a majority. At its height, it had about 2,500 members in fifty-six
chapters. During the 1920s, most of the leaders of the ABB (including Briggs, Richard
Moore, Otto Hall, and Harry Haywood) joined the Communist Party, U.S.A. (CP-USA).
They helped formulate what became known as the Black Belt Nation thesis.
The Communist Party faced a difficult situation in the United States during the 1920s.
Black people were being mobilized under the banner of Black nationalism into the Garvey
movement, and the class-struggle line that was mechanically applied by the CP- USA did
not speak to the special problems that Black people faced. In fact, many communists
negated the importance of racism and other forms of the special oppression of Black
people. They dealt with the problems as if they were no different from the problems of
whites. They assumed that the solutions to these problems required no special program.
.
With the direct involvement of Blacks from the CP-USA, the Comintern developed a
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revolutionary position on solving the problem of the oppression of Black people, Its position
was summed up in two resolutions passed during 1928 and 1930. The essence of the new
position was to recognize Black people as an oppressed nation.
The definition of Black people as a nation was the ideological basis on which the
Communist Party developed a program for Black liberation. This program included three
components for the South, where the masses of Black people were concentrated in rural
areas. First, it advocated confiscating the land from white landowners and capitalists and
redistributing it for the use of dispossessed Black farmers. It justified this on the following
grounds:
The landed property in the hands of the white American exploiters constitutes
the most important material basis of the entire system of national oppression
and serfdom of the Negroes in the Black Belt. More than three-quarters of all
Negro farmers here are bound in actual serfdom to the farms and plantations
of the white exploiters by the feudal system of "share cropping." Only on
paper and not in practice are they freed from the yoke of their former slavery.
The same holds completely true for the great mass of black contract
laborers.... These are the main forms of present Negro slavery in the Black
Belt, and no breaking of the chains of this slavery is possible without
confiscating all the landed property of the white masters.
Second, it proposed establishing a single political entity - a state and a government - to
encompass those areas where Black people were in the majority (which in 1930 included
190 countries in 12 states and 50% of the U.S. Black population). The Comintern reported:
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If the right of self-determination of the Negroes is to be put into force, it is
necessary wherever possible to bring together into one governmental unit all
districts of the South where the majority of the settled population consists of
Negroes. Within the limits of this state there will of course remain a fairly
significant white minority which must submit to the right of self- determination
of the Negro majority. There is no other possible way of carrying out in a
democratic manner the right of self-determination of the Negroes. Every plan
regarding the establishment of the Negro state with an exclusively Negro
population in America land of course, still more exporting it to Africa) is
nothing but an unreal and reactionary caricature of the fulfillment of the right
of self-determination of the Negroes, and every attempt to isolate and
transport the Negroes would have the most damaging farmers in the Black
Belt not only to their present residences land, but also to the land owned by
the white landlords and cull Negro labor.
Third, the Comintern upheld the right of self-determination, the "right of the Negro
majority to exercise governmental authority in the entire territory of the Black Belt. . . "
According to it's analysis, "the right of self-determination of the Negroes as the main slogan
of the- Communist Party in the Black Belt is appropriate!' From the Comintern's
perspective, "The slogan of the right of self-determination occupies the central place in the
liberation struggle of the Negro population in the Black Belt against the yoke of American
imperialism"
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The Comintern also made clear the nature of its commitment to Blacks outside the rural
Black Belt South:
The struggle for equal rights for the Negroes is, in fact, one of the most
important parts of the proletarian class struggle of the United States....
The increasing unity of the various working class elements provokes
constant attempts on the part of' the American bourgeoisie to play one group
against another, particularly the white workers against the black, and the
black workers against the immigrant workers, and vice versa, and thus to
promote the divisions within the working class, which contribute to the
bolstering up of American capitalist rule. The Party must carry on a ruthless
struggle against all these attempts of the bourgeoisie and do everything to
strengthen the bonds of class solidarity of the working class on a lasting
basis.
More pointedly, it declared that "it is essential for the Communist Party to make an
energetic beginning now - at the present moment - with the organization of joint mass
struggles of white and Black workers against Negro oppression." ,
It was on the basis of this program that the CP-USA actively sought to carry out Lenin's
1920 instruction to the Comintern that revolutionaries should "render direct aid to the
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revolutionary movements among the dependent and subject nations (for example, in
Ireland, among the Negroes of America, etc.)." As a result, the work of the Party was more
effective and many Black people joined. From 200 members in March 1929, Black
membership increased to over 1,300 by March 1930. This reflected the appeal of the
Party's revolutionary political line on the struggle for Black liberation, the impact of the
economic crisis of the Great Depression on Black people, and the militant revolutionary
actions that the Party carried out among the masses, including Black people.
A major battle field for the Party's work was in the South where 73% of Black people
lived in 1930, mostly in rural areas. This work centered on sharecroppers, tenant farmers,
and general racist terror, like the Ku Klux Klan and lynching. In 1931, the Sharecroppers
Union was organized in Alabama under Communist Party leadership. By 1936,
membership had reached 12,000 with branches in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and
North Carolina. In Arkansas, the Party led Black and white sharecroppers to force local
planters and merchants to give them food. They fought for an emergency program calling
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for a 50% reduction in rents and taxes, a five-year moratorium on all debts and mortgages,
and a cash advance from the government for all small farmers.
The greatest struggle that the Communist Party carried out in the South was the fight to
save the Scottsboro boys. Nine Black youths were charged with raping two white women, a
charge that one of the women later admitted she was forced to make. All were quickly tried,
convicted, and eight were sentenced to die in the electric chair. For four years, the Party
joined with the NAACP, the American Civil Liberties Union, and others in waging an
international battle which saved them from the death penalty and later resulted in their
release.
Another major organization during that period was the Southern Negro Youth Congress,
organized in 1937 at a conference in Richmond, Virginia. The first conference was broadbased. It included representatives from nearly every Black college in the country, young
steelworkers from Birmingham, sharecroppers, boy and girl scouts, churches, and even the 330
YMCA. It was formed in an era of the fascist menace. This concern for a united front
against fascism is reflected in an address by Dr. Mordecai Johnson, who served over thirty
years as the first Black president of Howard University. He stated: "The greatest danger to
democracy is not 'Communism or Socialism but first of all Fascism. A danger not only to
black but to white men." The conference endorsed a "Proclamation of Southern Negro
Youth" that spoke to the national, democratic character of the movement:
We, Negro youth of the South, know that ours is the duty to keep alive the
traditions of freedom and democracy. We know that ours must be a ceaseless
task, to win the status of citizenship for the Negro people.
In the North, the struggle for democratic rights centered on organizing employed and
unemployed workers, especially during the Depression. Black workers were very prominent
in cities throughout the United States. Over 1.3 million workers turned out for a massive
national unemployment demonstration in 1930. The National Unemployed Councils were
organized by the Communist Party in 1930 with local chapters in many U.S. cities. The
councils fought for unemployment insurance, public work at union wages, and food for
school children. They also fought against home eviction and racial discrimination. Over
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400,000 people were mobilized on National Unemployment Insurance Day in 1932, and
several thousands marched in hunger marches organized by the councils. The U.S. ruling
class was forced to establish programs like unemployment insurance as a result of these
mass struggles.
For those workers who had jobs, the formation of the Committee for Industrial
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Organizations (CIO) in 1935 was significant. This union was a break with the policies of the
American Federation of Labor (AFL) which excluded unskilled, Black, and women workers
(see Chapter 7). The CIO had a decisive impact on the unionization of Black workers in
such industries as auto, steel, and meatpacking. In 1930, there were an estimated 100,000
Black union members. By 1950, this had increased to 1.5 million, half in the CIO and half in
the AFL, which did not accept Black workers until the CIO was organized. The Communist
Party played a prominent role in the formation and growth of the CIO, as William Z. Foster
points out in his study of trade unionism:
To the Communists and other left-wingers belongs a great deal of the credit
for the winning of the workers in the basic industries to the trade unions during
1936-1945, and especially for the successful unionization of the Negro
workers. For many years, the Communists were ardent fighters for industrial
unionism, when most of the later-to-be C.I.O. conservative leaders were
altogether cold to the matter. The Communists prepared the ground for the
big drive. The Communists, too, were the most militant of all in supporting the
organization of the Negro workers, and at every stage of the great campaign
they were on hand to see that proper attention was paid to this hitherto
crassly neglected body of workers. And most valuable to the campaign, the
Communist Party had long carried on work among the unemployed and other
groups throughout the trustified industries, and it had its branches in hundreds
of major plants. When the great campaign began, the Communists Party put
all these forces at work with its well- known militancy and devotion....
The generally progressive position taken by the C.I.O. during these years was
very largely due to the influence of Communists and other left-wing forces in
its ranks.
In addition, the Communist Party assumed a leading role in establishing other
organizations which fought for Black liberation. For example, the National Negro Congress,
organized in 1936, was a broad, united-front organization mainly but not exclusively
comprised of Blacks from many different sectors of the society. The Congress condemned
racist discrimination, demanded full rights for Black people, spoke out against fascism and,.
war, and played an active role in organizing Black workers into unions like the CIO. (See
Chapter 7 for additional discussion of the CIO and the National Negro Congress.)
However, the revolutionary line and practice of the CP-USA turned into its opposite.
Black people were betrayed by the CP- USA in several ways. The high points of building
broad unity in mass organizations were marred by the Party cadre's dominating leadership
roles. For example, out of 86 leadership positions in the League of Struggle for Negro
Rights formed in 1930, the Party accounted for 62 (72%).
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There was also considerable racism among the Party rank-and- file membership. The
extent to which the Party was concerned about this can be seen in the case of August
Yokinen. Yokinen, a Finnish immigrant and a member of the Party, was publicly tried in
1931 in Harlem by a 14-person jury (7 Blacks and 7 whites) selected by delegates from
working-class organizations. He was found guilty and expelled from the Party for having
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failed to come to the rescue of several Black workers, who had gone to a dance at Finnish
Hall and had been threatened, and for having made racist remarks about Black people.
Though the trial revealed the Party's desire to deal with its members' racism, it also
exposed the interracial problems that existed. From its inception in 1919 to 1935, the CP
used such disciplinary measures to deal with members who exhibited racist attitudes or did
not adhere to the, Party's position regarding race, but it became increasingly lax during and
after the war years.
The worst betrayal of Black people took place in the late 1930s when Earl Browder, the
General Secretary of the CP-USA, led the Party down the path of revisionism. In 1944, he
actually disbanded the Communist Party and formed the Communist Political Association,
claiming that the goals of the CP-USA had been reached because of "American
exceptionalism". Browderism represented the incorrect view that the United States was a
special place (unlike any other) in which capitalism was enlightened and electoral politics
was a sufficient process for the working class to achieve its aims. The Communist Political
Association, as Wilson Record put it in his study of the Communist Party,
took the position that capitalism in the United States was a progressive force.
Class antagonisms, which were usually inherent in a profit system, had not
developed in the United States. Workers enjoyed political rights and a
standard of living that could not be equalled elsewhere in the world.
Liberalism in the United States had a long and successful tradition that would
serve to steer social change in the right direction. Capitalists had evidenced
a willingness to compromise and share power. Consequently, there was no
need for class struggle or revolution, but only the continual assertion of the
inherent progressive bent of the masses.
In the past, the Association declared, the Communist Party had fought for
the advancement of the working class and for the national liberation and
equal rights of Negroes. Now these goals were a fact, or had the possibility
of becoming a fact under a gradual, slow process of economic and political
development.
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Within a year, Browder was expelled for having abandoned the working class and
Marxist theory, and the Party was reconstituted. The Party admitted its failure to struggle
for the rights of Black people during the war years, but in the meanwhile it had lost much of
its credibility among Black people. Moreover, by 1951 the entire work of the Party in the
South was terminated. This was a capitulation to the ruling-class terror against Blacks in
the Black Belt.
Overall, the liquidation of a revolutionary position on the Afro-American national
question was part of a general process of degeneration into a non-Marxist or revisionist
stand. After Joseph Stalin (1879-1953), Lenin's successor, died, a new group turned
socialism around from within the Communist Party. The national question, the focus on the
particular problems of Black people as an oppressed nation and Black liberation, was
formally liquidated at the 16th convention of the CP-USA in 1957.
Is important to point out that this decision in 1957 was just three years before the
explosion of the sit-ins and a period of militant spontaneous mass struggle. Because of the
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CP-USA's revisionism, the Civil Rights Movement in the deep South had no revolutionary
leadership, and it fell under the leadership of petty-bourgeois (middle-class) reformist
leaders. The revisionist CP-USA fell behind this reformist civil rights leadership, which led
them into the arms of the liberals in the Democratic Party. At the same time, the major
Trotskyist organization (the Socialist Workers Party) was slavishly following Black
nationalism and did not contribute to developing revolutionary politics in the Black liberation
movement.
A major revolutionary upsurge spread all over the world in the middle 1960s. France
faced nationwide strikes by students and workers; Japan faced an upsurge of student and
worker struggle; etc. The major event was the Great Proletarian cultural Revolution started
in China in 1966, which stirred up the revolutionary feeling among young people all over the
world. The United States was no exception.
The Cultural Revolution represented the greatest effort yet in history to transform the
superstructure of a society under socialism, and to fight attempts to defeat socialism from
within and restore capitalism. In sum, the Cultural Revolution in China demonstrated that
class struggle (and struggle against national oppression as well) exists under socialism and
that either socialism will continue to win victories or it will be defeated.
The major symbol of the first stage of the Cultural Revolution was the Red Book of the
thoughts of Chairman Mao. This book had the weakness of substituting quotes for the full
texts of Marxist theory as developed within the Chinese context by the Communist Party
and Mao. But it had the strength of giving concrete expression to revolutionary theory. It
spread among the masses like no previous publication project in history. In the United
States, the Red Book was taken up by militant Black activists, some of whom later formed
the Black Panther Party in northern California. In 1968, Mao reiterated his earlier
recognition of the importance of the Black liberation movement in the worldwide struggle
against imperialism and lent it his support:
The Afro-American struggle is not only a struggle waged by the exploited and
oppressed black people for freedom and emancipation, it is also a new clarion
call to all the exploited and oppressed people of the United States to fight
against the barbarous rule of the monopoly capitalist class. It is a tremendous
support and inspiration to the struggle of the people throughout the world
against U.S. imperialism and to the struggle of the Vietnamese people against
U.S. imperialism. On behalf of the Chinese people, I hereby express resolute
support for the just struggle of the black people in the United States.
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Since the Panthers, there have been two main lines of development of Marxism in the
Black liberation movement. Basically, Marxists came from the factory or from the campus,
but both grew out of the militant Black nationalist revolt of the 1960s. The major
organization connected with Black workers that spread Marxism was the Black Workers'
Congress (BWC). In 1970, some former activists of SNCC and the League of Revolutionary
Black Workers (Detroit) formed the Black Workers Congress. In general, the BWC
maintained:
The political task of the Black liberation movement is complete emancipation
of Black people through a revolutionary union with the entire U.S. working
class, of which it is an important part, to overthrow capitalism and imperialism
in the U.S. In a word, Black Liberation today means freedom for 'Black people
through proletarian revolution.
Moreover, most thought that internationally "the Black masses must line up with the
heroic peoples of the world who have struck blow after blow at imperialism. . . ." However,
there were internal differences concerning how this was to be accomplished. Thus, the
EWC subsequently split into several organizations, and many of the activists were recruited
into major multi-national Marxist organizations. While the BWC never distinguished itself in
any concrete campaigns of struggle, it represented the greatest effort in recent history of
organizing Black people in an explicitly Marxist organization.
The major organization which spread Marxism among Black youth (especially from 1972
to 1975) was the African Liberation Support Committee. ALSC was a coalition of different
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organizations. Within the Black liberation movement, it waged the most significant
ideological and political struggle over Marxism since the 1930s. The main struggle was
against the idealism of the pan-Africanist movement, and for the Consolidation of a strong
anti-imperialist stand under Black Marxist leadership. ,
The overall struggle against the revisionism of the CP-USA has resulted in the formation
of several self-declared Marxist parties or national organizations, all claiming to be the
vanguard of the working class. However, the working class is still characterized by
spontaneity and trade unionism (struggles of reforms); the national movements are still
dominated by petty-bourgeois (middle-class) nationalists; and the national liberation
support movement is dominated by liberals. Overall, there is still a vacuum on the question
of revolutionary Marxist theoretical analysis of the U.S.A. The main errors that are being
made are sectarianism (walling oneself from the rest of the movement by proclaiming
oneself the most correct) and right opportunism (uncritically uniting with everyone and
refusing to fight for revolutionary unity on the basis of revolutionary principles). In sum, the
new Marxist movement is young, and decisive events are yet to develop.
CURRENT TASKS
The further development of Marxist theory and the concrete activity of the Marxist
movement regarding the question of Black liberation are central to the overall process of
revolutionary struggle in the U.S.A. There are several key issues:
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Building the United Front as the strategy for making revolutionary changes - The United
Front is a concept that is based on the unity of action (fighting against the same enemy) of
as many different groups (classes, nationalities, etc.) as possible in the struggle against
imperialism and national oppression. Bill Epton in discussing the Black liberation movement
(BLM) further defines the United Front:
.. the BLM will be a united front comprised of workers, farmers, students, and
sections of the petty-bourgeoisie....
Black women comprise half of the black population and are in a strategic
position to push the revolution forward. There can be no proletarian revolution
in the U.S. unless the power and strength of black women is brought into full
play...
In many respects, other oppressed minorities such as Puerto Ricans,
Mexican-Americans, Native Americans, Asian American and other Hispanic
people have also suffered at the hands of U.S. imperialism to the same
degree and in much the same way that black people have.
Therefore, it is in the fundamental interests of the liberation of the entire
working class that there be unity of all oppressed minorities. Only when the
oppressed minorities can unite with the white workers can the entire working
class unite and achieve its liberation.
Overall what is needed is more class analysis that uncovers the material basis for
different classes, and the political and ideological actions of the different classes - both
Black and white. Who is against U.S. imperialism and who is with it? What evidence is
there that proves it one way or the other?
Building the Black-white unity as the condition for a strong United Front, particularly the
unity of the working class - While the history of the U.S.A. stinks with the vicious odor of
racism and national oppression, the most revolutionary movements have been created by
the unity of the Black and white masses in struggle, particularly in the 1930s. The ruling
class tries to hold this back in many ways, and each of their schemes needs to be exposed.
The backward character of white racism and narrow Black nationalism needs to be
exposed. Progressive examples of unity need to be popularized. Concrete historical and
contemporary bases for this unity need to be fully explained.
The Black Belt and the issue of self-determination - The historical periodization of the
Black experience requires both empirical and theoretical analysis, particularly on the
question of the national character of Black people: Are Black people a nation? Is the fight
for Black liberation still rooted in the Black Belt South? If not, what is the main demand of
the Black liberation struggle? No slavish adherence to the Comintern resolutions and no
bowing to the spontaneity of the Black struggle at any time can replace the application of
Marxism to the objective content of Black history to come up with a correct and
revolutionary line. This is a project of utmost importance.
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The relationship between the Black liberation struggle against U.S. imperialism and the
African revolution - The current developments in southern Africa against white settler
colonialism are fairly easy to understand and unite people against. However, most of Africa
is at a stage where the situation is not so obvious. Blacks are running countries, though
many are still dominated by foreign powers. It is necessary to continue studying Africa in
the context of the entire international situation. Black people in the United States give
particular attention to Africa. If there is no clarity on the situation, this will have a negative
effect on the Black liberation movement.
In sum, Marxism is a theory and practice for revolutionary change. The past
contributions of Black people to the revolutionary struggle in the U.S.A. are generally
agreed upon. The potential in the future is even greater. But our understanding of it needs
to be deepened in order to have the kind of united movement required for the current
demands of the struggle for Black liberation and social change.
TOWARD A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO BLACK LIBERATION

The theory of class struggle holds that the motivating force of history is the class struggle.
Classes are large groups of people united by common interests based upon having the
same relationship to the means of production - land and technology. Some folks own the
land and technology (capitalists) while others must work for them in order to get wages to
live (workers). The class struggle is based on the irreconcilable conflict between the
capitalists efforts to maintain the highest level of exploitation of the workers to reap profits,
and the workers' struggle to increase Wages and get better working conditions. Indeed, this
class struggle is the basis of all struggles in this type of society, because the capitalists
control all the institutions- (government, education, the church, mass media, etc.), and
these same institutions oppress, mistreat, and brutalize the workers.
The capitalist mode of production has developed from its early stage of competitive
capitalism to its mature stage of monopoly capitalism. This is the transition from many small
capitalist firms to a few large firms dominating each industry. Monopoly capitalism is the
dominant character of economic life in the U.S.A.
Black people are organized into classes, as are all people in a capitalist society. The
small minority of Black businesspeople constitute the capitalist class, while the vast
majority of Black people are wage-salaried workers. The Black capitalist is usually a
competitive capitalist, and made to appear insignificant due to the gigantic size of the
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monopoly corporations. However, the objective condition is that some Black people have
large enough businesses to hire and exploit five to seven hundred workers. These workers
create more wealth than they receive as wages. The difference is then realized as profit.
Being a little Black capitalist does not alter the situation. The profit motive is still the driving
force of any capitalist, especially since increasing the exploitation of labor is the basis for
increasing profits.
There is the critical issue of how the capitalists, specifically the monopoly capitalists,
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reap super-profits by compounding the exploitation of Black workers with racism. Racism
does two things: (1) it pits the white masses against Black people because of a perceived
threat to their economic security (and, due to white supremacist propaganda, because of a
perceived threat to their person, children, home, etc.); and (2) it pits the Black masses
against all white people because racism took an almost "apartheid" form until the 1960s
and lingers today for the Black working class. Black people have less work, less pay for
harder work, and poorer living conditions (education, health, housing, and food). Racism
thus pits the two broad masses of working people against each other. in the process, the
ruling class profits even more by this and gets away without answering to any charges.
The only solution that can cure the ills of this society - this center of capitalist system - is
a socialist revolution. Our task is to make a socialist revolution right here in the U.S.A.
There can be no solution under capitalism, although, the bourgeois ruling class will make
every effort to convince us that it is possible. If that doesn't work, it will encourage correctsounding socialist ideologies that fall short of scientific socialism or consciously revise its
basic tenets. All ideologies have a class character - scientific socialism serves the working
class; utopian socialism can easily be used by the ruling class. Romantic dreams are
always preferred over concrete battle plans.
Socialism is a social-economic formation that is designed to overcome the ills of
capitalism. It results from the internal development of the laws of capitalist motion. There
are three major aspects of the general crisis of capitalism.
1. Concentration of capital. An increasingly smaller bourgeois class appropriates wealth
privately - even though wealth is the social product of larger and larger groups of people.
This is the class character of the crisis in the economy. More and more people get less and
less of a share in the wealth produced. This leads to a degeneration of all aspects of social 339
life - food, housing, health, education, etc.
2. Militarization of the state to rule over the masses and maintain order for the ruling class.
This results in foreign wars of aggression (as in Vietnam and Central America) and in
domestic programs (like those of Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan) for repression against
dissent. Political corruption, surveillance of civilians by the armed forces, police repression,
and capital punishment are all indicators of, this rule by the state in the interest of the
capitalist class.
3. Intensification of national oppression. The ruling class separates the Black and white
sectors of the working class in order to prevent the development of a unified and classconscious, multi-national proletariat. It does so in part by embracing Black and white race
theories that reassert old 19th -century racist arguments. Other forms of national
oppression include cut-backs in all government services in the Black community.
The solution of scientific socialism speaks directly to these three aspects of the general
crisis:
1. The abolition of private property by which the reduction and distribution of wealth would
be a public ownership process, centrally planned to systematically provide for the welfare of
all the people. This does not apply to people's personal possessions, but to the decisive
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forces of production and distribution.

2. Dictatorship of the proletariat by which the government apparatus and all agencies,
institutions, and organizations would reflect the interests of the working class- the rule of
the entire proletariat.
3. National liberation and the right of nations to self-determination reflects the solution to
national oppression possible only under socialism. All forms of national oppression can be
stopped as official policy because they serve no material interests as they did under
capitalism. A divided proletariat is good for capitalism; a united proletariat is good for
socialism. Lenin summed up the only correct policy possible:
For different nations to live together in peace and freedom, or to separate and
form different states (if that is more convenient for them), a full democracy
upheld by the working class, is essential. No privileges for any one nation or
any one language, not the slightest injustice in respect of a national minority such are the principles of working class democracy.
These are the basic aspects of scientific socialism for beginning to correct the ills of
capitalism. The struggle for socialism will require a political, social, cultural, intellectual, and
physical struggle before and after the seizure of power by the working class. Witness what
is occurring today in South Africa and Latin America.
A minimum program for day-to-day struggle is summed up in the key concepts of
defense, democracy, and development. Black workers must be defended from the attacks
of monopoly capital. By so doing, the interests of the entire Black community and the entire
working class will be protected. There must be democratic participation of rank-and-file
Black workers inside the trade union movement. This will raise the banner of democracy for
all people in the society who have been denied their rights by the ruling class. There must
be tools of struggle - organizations that mold the Black working class into a fighting classconscious section of the proletariat, and organizations that mold Black youth into a vital
revolutionary force capable of giving concrete material support to the struggle of Black
workers and the struggle for democratic education.
All of this focuses on the Black working class, and represents struggle in the, interests of
Black workers. If the Black workers' struggle moves to a higher level, there will be an
intensification of both working-class struggle, in general, and the Black liberation struggle,
in particular. Black, workers will fight simultaneously against class exploitation and national
oppression.
In summary, Marxism as a social theory and a social movement has played a significant
role in Afro-American history. This has included positive and negative contributions.
However, we believe that on balance it has mainly provided a basis for the masses of Black
people - as Blacks and as working people - to define their problems with great clarity.
Further, with Marxism Black people have had a greater revolutionary potential, because in
Marxism the fight for Black liberation is linked to the fight for socialism. Marxism contributes
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to progress and should be understood by all students.
KEY CONCEPTS
Black Belt Nation thesis
Class struggle
Communism
Communist Party
Dogmatism
Marxism
National question
Revisionism/American exceptionalism
Socialism
Utopian socialism
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. What is Marxism? What have been the main theoretical contributions to its
development?
2. What was the Black Belt Nation thesis adopted by the Com- intern?
3. What contributions to Black liberation have been made by the Communist Party?
Discuss its weaknesses and strengths.
4. What can, Marxism contribute to Black liberation?
1. William Z. Foster, The Negro People in American History. New York: International
Publishers, 1973 (first published in 1954).
2. Harry Haywood, Black Bolshevik: Autobiography of an Afro- American Communist.
Chicago: Liberator Press, 1974.
3, Mark Naison, Communists in Harlem during the Depression. Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1983.
4. Nell Irvin Painter, The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: His Life as a Negro Communist in the
South. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979.
5. Cedric Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Radical Tradition. London: Zed
Press, 1983.
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343
SEVENTEEN
17. EVERYONE HAS A ROLE TO PLAY
Summary
The Future
............................... 345
345
348
....................................................
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Everyone Has a Role to Play

LOGIC OF
CHANGE
Social
Cohesion
Traditional
Africa
Slavery
Rural
Life
Urban
Life
Social
Disruption
Slave
Trade
Emancipation
Migrations
A1
B1
C1
D1
E1
F1
G1
A2
B2
C2
D2
E2
F2
G2
UNITS OF Ideology
ANALYSIS Nationality
310
Class
A3
B3
C3
D3
E3
F3
G3
Race
A4
B4
C4
D4
E4
F4
G4
Black people are oppressed and exploited in the United States. It is the responsibility of all
people of good will, white and Black, to speak out against this. racist terror on the basis of
knowledge and logic. Therefore, the main thing Afro-American Studies is designed to
provide is the knowledge and logic needed to understand and defend Black people, and in
this way make a contribution to the entire society.
Afro-American Studies, as a field, is a partisan activity, an enterprise in which the objective
is not merely to understand the world but also to help make it better. For example, people
study agriculture in order to increase food production. This is a positive goal for all of
society, and it is given support from all aspects of society in recognition of this fact. People
study Afro-American Studies because the Black community must be healed if the United
States is to survive. In this sense ' Afro-American Studies is not only for the Black
community, but, more profoundly, Afro- American Studies is for the entire United States.
In this last chapter, we are raising two basic questions: What should you have, learned by
reading this text? and Where do you go next? Beginning to answer these questions is the
task of this chapter.
345
SUMMARY
The Afro-American experience is rooted in the everyday activities of a people trying to
survive. This consists of how Black people lead their lives under brutal forms of oppression
and how they produce resistance against the racist domination they face. This is the
fundamental dialectical rhythm of history - the struggle to survive and the struggle to
transform history.
The key aspect of society is political economy because this is how a society takes care of
its needs (e.g., food, clothing, housing, -health care, etc.). Also, it is this aspect that defines
class conflict and class struggle. In fact, given certain class relations, people usually focus
on survival. However, there comes a time when chances for survival can't be improved
unless there is a change in the class character of society. This is the turning point - when
people no longer focus on survival, but take history into their own hands.
346
A good example of this is a personal statement from a Black woman who joined the Black
liberation movement in Mississippi. Mrs. Johnnie Mae Walker was a community organizer
for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
311
My name is Johnnie Mae Walker and I live in Hattiesburg Mississippi. I have

lived here all my life. I was born in Forrest County, on May 31, 1934.
I've been a rebel all my days. It started when I first realized that the white man
was doing me wrong. It was picking cotton that did it to me - all day in the sun,
getting up at 3:30 in the morning and going until 8:30 at night - and all for two
dollars a day. That was when I began to hate the white man. Maybe I don't
really hate him but I can't think of another word.
Then when I was eighteen I thought I was really getting up in the world. The big
day came when I went out on a maid's job. I worked at that job harder than I
ever worked at anything in my life trying to keep it. And then the big pay day
came and I got twelve dollars. (I had one child, Carolyn, so three dollars went to
the baby sitter.) I quit because I wasn't satisfied. That twelve dollars disgusted
me. I wished I hadn't worked a day in my life.
I followed this routine of getting a job and quitting, getting a job and quitting,
until 1963 when the movement came to Hattiesburg. This is the time that I fully
realized that what I had felt all along was right. We are being treated unjustly
working hard and not getting paid hardly enough even to survive. This is wrong.
I knew it but I did not know how it could be better, how it could be changed. And
I did not know what I, personally, could do about it.
I still don't know exactly what to do, but I do know how to begin. We have to
stop hating. The reason I hated the white man was because he was on top of
the system. It was the system that I hated. The system kept us from going to
school and getting a good education, kept us from eating well, and having
clothes which is important for our children.
I stopped hating and started understanding., That was my first step toward
freedom.
One Monday night I went to a mass meeting. While I was sitting there Bob
Moses began to talk and he asked a simple question: "What have you to fear?
Death? They've been killing you all along. Job? What job? You don't have a job.
You don't make enough to even feed your families well:' That is when I began
thinking: "He's right. If I'm going to die, I'm going to die for something. The
Negro has never been free."
The COPO called a Freedom Day on January 22, 1964 and I was one of the
first to join the picket line around the county courthouse. On that picket line I
thought I was doing something to help myself and even doing something that
might someday help everybody.
Since that time I've tried to register thirteen times. The registrar failed me every
time but I know I'm qualified. I quit school when I was twelve at the end of the
fifth grade because I hated that rotten school. It was a cold crummy joint 312
nothing but a run down wooden shack. And the teachers were brutal; they
called you stupid and beat you if you didn't understand. But my education didn't
stop. I read and studied on my own and took correspondence courses.
I realized that working for the movement would cause sacrifice. But I am the
sole supporter of my two children so I tried to keep my job as a presser in a dry
cleaning store. But the day came when I had to make a decision: Would I "uncle
tom" to keep that job, that survival ticket, or should I stand up for freedom?
What did I really owe my children? I made up my mind. I went with the
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to Washington, D.C. When my employer
found out, I had no job. Today is February 4, 1965. The lights were turned off
two days ago, the heat goes off tomorrow and the phone gets cut off in a week
but the hell with it. Somehow we'll make out. We borrowed an extension cord
and ran it over to the house next door. They can't keep us down anymore.
Now I work full time for the movement and I'll be with the movement until the
day I die. This is one job I don't intent to quit. My goal is not freedom for the
Negro but freedom for all men.
All of the Afro-American experience is not reducible to class, though all of it is conditioned
by class. Race, nationality, and consciousness exist independently, each with its own
"substance and logic of development." But, the main factor that influences more than any
other the nature of every other aspect of society is class. This is the most controversial
issue in all the social sciences and humanities. ,
Afro-American history can be theoretically summed up as a dynamic process of historical
periodization. This consists of three periods of social cohesion (slavery, rural life, urban life)
and three periods of social disruption (emancipation, migration, crisis). All aspects of the
347
Afro-American experience fall into this historical paradigm. With this paradigm it is possible
to make great progress in theoretical discourse and empirical research. Without such a
basis for intellectual unity, there would be confusion and rampant individualism. The role of
intellectuals is to make the world easier to understand and therefore easier to change. This
requires unity, the opposite of intellectual "do-you-own-thing-ism!"
Every event, person, movement, organization, book, even concepts and language itself
must be understood in relationship to all other aspects of society and in terms of historical
context.
With a paradigm of unity, and with this method, all knowledge of the Black experience can
be synthesized as part of a cumulative process. You must, however, be warned against
relying on this paradigm to replace research for detailed information. Each aspect of society
must be studied on its own terms, because each thing is unique and has its own identity.
But, there is this larger pattern, and it is this pattern that. helps put all of the historical detail
into a coherent picture.
348
THE FUTURE
Black people in the, United States have been at times very optimistic, and at other times
313
very pessimistic about the future. Of course, this reflects a rational response to the shifting
winds of racism. Black people have been quite human in an inhumane condition. At an
earlier point in history (generally before the 20th century), Africa was a reasonable goal in
times of trouble. If it got bad enough in the United States, then Black people could always
go back to Africa and try to make a life there. But this is no longer possible since the
system that oppresses Black people is world-wide. Just as Black people used to think that
getting out of the South would put them closer to freedom, few now think that. The only
place to go is outer space, and with the current development of "star wars, technology" that
is actually not a real possibility either. There is no utopia in which to find a refuge. In fact,
the actual meaning of the word, utopia is "nowhere," so in this sense there never has been
any place to go for ultimate happiness.
The good life is not found, but is made by human beings. The future is produced through
collective human action. The critical issues are: Who will do it? What is it? How will they do
it? In each case, why will they do it? And, of course, when will it be done? We have been
concerned with summing up the historical record and the contemporary conditions of life.
These questions about the future you will have to answer through how you lead your life,
and how you influence others to lead their lives.
This text stops here, but you must go on. We will leave you with one last thought from the
Afro-American poet laureate Langston Hughes:
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain.
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
314
349
Is crowned with-no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in, that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! Of grab the gold!
Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men!
Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, worried, hungry, mean Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today - O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In that Old World-while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home For I'm the one-who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
315
The free?
A dream Still beckoning to me!
O, let America be America again The land that never has been yet And yet must be The land where every man is free.
The land that's mine The poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME Who. made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose The steel of freedom does not stain.
For those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again, America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath American will be!
An ever-living seed,
Its dream
Lies deep in the heart of me.
We, the people, must redeem
Our land, the mines, the plants, the rivers,
The mountains and the endless plain All, all the stretch of these great green states And make America again!
316
351
Bibliography
......................................................................
353
317
Intro to Afro-American Studies

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Rethinking

THEORY IN BLACK STUDIES

Introduction to Afro-American Studies

Abdul Alkalimat and Associates

Introduction to Afro-American Studies

Afro-American Studies:,Who, What, Why, for Whom

2. AFRICA BEFORE AND AFTER THE SLAVE TRADE:

Africa: The Continent and Its' People .....................

3. COLONIALISM AND THE SLAVE TRADE

Why the Slave Trade

The Institution of Slavery

5. THE RURAL EXPERIENCE:

6. THE URBAN EXPERIENCE:

Black People in the Work Force ...........................

Early National Unions: NLU, CNLU, and the Knights ...

The Slave Period ................................................

Traditional African Culture

The African Connection

11. BLACK WOMEN AND THE FAMILY

The Slave Period

The Historical Basis for Black Nationalism ...............

16. MARXISM AND THE BLACK LIBERATION

International Marxist Theory ..................................

Introduction to Afro-American Studies

Afro-American Studies:,Who, What, Why, for Whom

Total Population (000's)

Trinidad & Tobago

discussion of Afro-American intellectual history, Afro-American scholarship within the

Pre-Black Studies Movement 1916-1961

William Edward Burghart DuBois (1868-1963)

He had hoped to culminate all of his research in a major encyclopedia. He proposed

Carter Godwin Woodson (1875-1950)

Selected Works by Woodson

The Negro Wage Earner (1930) with Lorenzo Greene

Edward Franklin Frazier (1894-1962)

The Big Sea (1940)

mentioned in the text books it dwindles down to a foot note. . . . .

4. Committee: informally organized program with no permanent security.

professional standards, and theoretical coherence to the field.

Program - Many activities have developed as regular features of Afro-American

Theory - Another aspect of the development of Black Studies is the theoretical

and the Marxist model.

Karenga, (1982) provided a text based on his nationalist theory of Kawaida:

Key Black Studies Concept

The overall framework constitutes a paradigm of unity in Afro-American Studies. This

1. W. E. B. DuBois, The Autobiography of W. E. B. DuBois: A Soliloquy of Viewing My

Toward a Paradigm of Unity in Afro-American Studies

The great-brained Ape

inferiority and refused to identify with the continent of their ancestors.

Click here to view map of Africa

THE EUROPEAN PENETRATION

When we discuss the stunting of technological development in Africa, this is not to

development of classes in Africa by enabling a small elite group of Africans to accumulate

COLONIALISM AND IMPERIALISM IN AFRICA

nineteenth century indicated their awareness of the fact that the

3. COLONIALISM AND THE SLAVE TRADE

Why the Slave Trade

Colonialism and the Slave Trade

The slave trade kept the wheels of metropolitan industry turning; it

horrors were common during most of the slave trade.

ASPECTS OF CAPITALIST SLAVERY.

imported (or received from other countries).