Black nationalism is a type of nationalism
or pan-nationalism in the United States which
seeks to promote, develop and maintain a black
national identity for people of black ancestry.Black
nationalist activism revolves around social,
political, and economic empowerment of black
communities and people, especially to resist
assimilation into white American culture (through
integration or otherwise), and maintain a
distinct black identity.
== Early history ==
Martin Delany (1812–1885), an African-American
abolitionist, was the grandfather of black
nationalism.Inspired by the success of the
Haitian Revolution, the origins of Black and
indigenous African nationalism in political
thought lie in the 19th and early 20th centuries
with people like Marcus Garvey, Benjamin "Pap"
Singleton, Henry McNeal Turner, Martin Delany,
Henry Highland Garnet, Edward Wilmot Blyden,
Paul Cuffe, etc.
The repatriation of African-American slaves
to Liberia or Sierra Leone was a common black
nationalist theme in the 19th century.
Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement
Association of the 1910s and 1920s was the
most powerful black nationalist movement to
date, claiming millions of members.
Garvey's movement was opposed by mainline
black leaders, and crushed by government action.
However its many alumni remembered its inspiring
rhetoric.According to Wilson Jeremiah Moses,
black nationalism as a philosophy can be examined
from three different periods.
giving rise to various ideological perspectives
for what we can today consider black nationalism.The
first period of pre-classical black nationalism
began when the first Africans were brought
to the Americas as slaves through the American
Revolutionary period.The second period of
black nationalism began after the Revolutionary
War.
This period refers to the time when a sizeable
number of educated Africans within the colonies
(specifically within New England and Pennsylvania)
had become disgusted with the social conditions
that arose out of the Enlightenment's ideas.
From this way of thinking came the rise of
individuals within the black community who
sought to create organizations that would
unite black people.
The intention of these organizations was to
group black people together so they could
voice their concerns, and help their own community
advance itself.
This form of thinking can be found in historical
personalities such as; Prince Hall, Richard
Allen and Absalom Jones, James Forten, Cyrus
Bustill, William Gray through their need to
become founders of certain organizations such
as African Masonic lodges, the Free African
Society, and Church Institutions such as the
African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas.
These institutions served as early foundations
to developing independent and separate organizations
for their own people.
The goal was to create groups was to include
those who so many times had been excluded
from (exclusively) white community and government-funded
organizations.
The third period of black nationalism arose
during the post-Reconstruction era, particularly
among various African-American clergy circles.
Separated circles were already established
and accepted because African-Americans had
long endured the oppression of slavery and
Jim Crowism in the United States since its
inception.
The clerical phenomenon led to the birth of
a modern form of black nationalism that stressed
the need to separate blacks from non-blacks
and build separate communities that would
promote racial pride and collectivize resources.
The new ideology became the philosophy of
groups like the Moorish Science Temple and
the Nation of Islam.
By 1930, Wallace Fard Muhammad had founded
the Nation of Islam.
His method to spread information about the
Nation of Islam used unconventional tactics
to recruit individuals in Detroit, Michigan.
Later on, Elijah Muhammad would lead the Nation
of Islam and become a mentor to people like
Malcolm X.
Although the 1960s brought a period of heightened
religious, cultural and political nationalism,
it was black nationalism that would lead the
promotion of Afrocentrism.
=== Prince Hall ===
Prince Hall was an important social leader
of Boston following the Revolutionary War.
He is well known for his contribution as the
founder of Black Freemasonry.
His life and past are unclear, but he is believed
to have been a former slave freed after twenty
one years of slavehood.
In 1775 fifteen other black men along with
Hall joined a freemason lodge of British soldiers,
after the departure of the soldiers they created
their own lodge African Lodge #1 and were
granted full stature in 1784.
Despite their stature other white freemason
lodges in America didn’t treat them equal
and so Hall began to help other black Masonic
lodges across the country to help their own
cause.(To progress as a community together
despite any difficulties brought to them by
racists).
Hall was best recognized for his contribution
to the black community along with his petitions
( many denied) in the name of black nationalism.
In 1787 he unsuccessfully petitioned to the
Massachusetts legislature to send blacks back
to Africa(to obtain “complete” freedom
from white supremacy).
In 1788, Hall was a well known contributor
to the passing of the legislation of the outlawing
of the slave-trade and those involved.
Hall continued his efforts to help his community,
and in 1796 his petition for Boston to approve
funding for black schools.
Despite the city’s inability to provide
a building, Hall lent his building for the
school to run from.
Until his death in 1807, Hall continued to
work for black rights in issues of abolition,
civil rights and the advancement of the community
overall.
== The Free African Society ==
In 1787 Richard Allen and Absalom Jones black
ministers of Pennsylvania and formed the Free
African Society of Pennsylvania.
The goal of this organization was to create
a church that was free of restrictions of
only one form of religion, and to pave the
way for the creation of a house of worship
exclusive to their community (which in 1793
they were successful in doing, creating the
St. Thomas African Episcopal Church).
The community included many members who were
notably abolitionist men and former slaves.
Allen following his own beliefs that worship
should be out loud and outspoken left the
organization two years later.
With the re an opportunity to become the pastor
to the church but rejected the offer leaving
it to Jones.
The society itself was a memorable charitable
organization that allowed its members to socialize
and network with other business partners,
in attempt to better their community.
Its activity and open doors served as a motivational
growth for the city as many other black mutual
aid societies in the city began to pop up.
Additionally the society is well known for
their aid during the yellow fever epidemic
in 1793 known to have taken the life of many
of the city.
== African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ==
The African Church or the African Episcopal
Church of St. Thomas Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
was founded in 1792 for those of African descent,
as a foster church for the community with
the goal to be interdenominational.
In the beginning of the church's establishment
its masses were held in homes and local schools.
One of the founders of the Free African Society
was also the first Episcopal priest of African
American descent, Absalom Jones.
The original church house was constructed
at 5th and Adelphi Streets in Philadelphia,
now St. James Place, and it was dedicated
on July 17, 1794 other locations of the church
included: 12th Street near Walnut, 57th and
Pearl Streets, 52nd and Parrish Streets, and
the current location, Overbrook and Lancaster
Avenue in Philadelphia’s historic Overbrook
Farms neighborhood.
The church is mostly African American.
The church and its members have played a key
role in the abolition/anti-slavery and equal
rights movement of the 1800s.
“Since 1960 St. Thomas has been involved
in the local and national civil rights movement
through its work with the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP),
the Union of Black Episcopalians, the Opportunities
Industrialization Center (OIC), Philadelphia
Interfaith Action, and The Episcopal Church
Women.
Most importantly, it has been in the forefront
of the movement to uphold the knowledge and
value of the black presence in the Episcopal
Church.
Today, that tradition continues with a still-growing
membership through a host of ministries such
as Christian Formation, the Chancel Choir,
Gospel Choir, Jazz Ensemble, Men’s Fellowship,
Young Adult and Youth Ministries, a Church
School, Health Ministry, Caring Ministry,
and a Shepherding Program.”
== 
Nation of Islam ==
Wallace D. Fard founded the Nation of Islam
in the 1930s.
Fard took as his student Elijah (Poole) Muhammad,
who later became the leader of the organization.
The basis of the group was the belief that
Christianity was exclusively a White man's
religion, while Islam was the way for black
folk; Christianity was a religion that, like
slavery itself, was forced upon the people
who suffered at the hands of the whites during
their enslavement.
The beliefs of the members of the Nation of
Islam are similar to others who follow the
Quran and worship Allah under the religion
of Islam.
Founded on resentment of the way Whites historically
treated people of color, the Nation of Islam
embraces the ideas of black nationalism.
The group itself has, since the leadership
of Elijah Muhammad, recruited thousands of
followers from all segments of society: from
prisons, as well as from black pride and black
nationalist movements.
Members of the Nation of Islam preached that
the goal was not to integrate into White American
culture, but rather to create their own cultural
footprint and their own separate community
in order to obliterate oppression.
Their aim was to have their own schools and
churches and to support each other without
any reliance on other racial groups.
The members of the Nation of Islam are known
as Black Muslims.
As the group became more and more prominent
with public figures such as Malcolm X as its
orators, it received increasing attention
from outsiders.
In 1959 the group was the subject of a documentary
named The Hate that Hate Produced.
The documentary cast the organization in a
negative light, depicting it as a black supremacy
group.
Even with such depictions, the group did not
lose support from its people.
When Elijah Muhammad died, his son took on
the role as the leader of the Nation of Islam,
converting the organization into a more orthodox
iteration of Islam and abandoning beliefs
that tended toward violence.
This conversion prompted others to abandon
the group, dissatisfied with the change in
ideology.
They created a “New” Nation of Islam in
order to restore the aims of the original
organization.The Southern Poverty Law Center
classifies the Nation of Islam as a hate group,
stating: "Its theology of innate black superiority
over whites and the deeply racist, antisemitic
and anti-LGBT rhetoric of its leaders have
earned the NOI a prominent position in the
ranks of organized hate."
Louis Farrakhan currently leads the group.
== Elijah Muhammad ==
Elijah Muhammad was famously known as the
successor of Wallace Fard, the founder of
the Nation of Islam.
He was born in Georgia on October 7, 1897.
He led the group from 1934-1975, being very
well recognized as one of the mentors to other
famous leaders such as Malcolm X.
He lived until February 25, 1975 in Chicago,
and the leadership of the organization passed
to his son.
== 20th century ==
=== Marcus Garvey ===
Marcus Garvey encouraged African people around
the world to be proud of their race and see
beauty in their own kind.
This form of black nationalism later became
known as Garveyism.
A central idea to Garveyism was that African
people in every part of the world were one
people and they would never advance if they
did not put aside their cultural and ethnic
differences and unite under their own shared
history.
He was heavily influenced by the earlier works
of Booker T. Washington, Martin Delany, and
Henry McNeal Turner.
Garvey used his own personal magnetism and
the understanding of black psychology and
the psychology of confrontation to create
a movement that challenged bourgeois blacks
for the minds and souls of African Americans.
Marcus Garvey's return to America had to do
with his desire to meet with the man who inspired
him most, Booker T. Washington but unfortunately
Garvey did not return in time to meet Washington.
Despite this, Garvey moved forward with his
efforts and two years later, a year after
Washington's death, Garvey established a similar
organization in America known as the United
Negro Improvement Association otherwise known
as the UNIA.
Garvey's beliefs are articulated in The Philosophy
and Opinions of Marcus Garvey as well as Message
To The People: The Course of African Philosophy.
=== Malcolm X ===
Between 1953 and 1964, while most African
leaders worked in the civil rights movement
to integrate African-American people into
mainstream American life, Malcolm X was an
avid advocate of black independence and the
reclaiming of black pride and masculinity.
He maintained that there was hypocrisy in
the purported values of Western culture – from
its Judeo-Christian religious traditions to
American political and economic institutions
– and its inherently racist actions.
He maintained that separatism and control
of politics, and economics within its own
community would serve blacks better than the
tactics of civil rights leader Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. and mainstream civil rights
groups such as the SCLC, SNCC, NAACP, and
CORE.
Malcolm X declared that nonviolence was the
"philosophy of the fool," and that to achieve
anything, African Americans would have to
reclaim their national identity, embrace the
rights covered by the Second Amendment, and
defend themselves from white hegemony and
extrajudicial violence.
In response to Rev. Martin Luther King's famous
"I Have a Dream" speech, Malcolm X quipped,
"While King was having a dream, the rest of
us Negroes are having a nightmare."Prior to
his pilgrimage to Mecca, Malcolm X believed
that African Americans must develop their
own society and ethical values, including
the self-help, community-based enterprises,
that the black Muslims supported.
He also thought that African Americans should
reject integration or cooperation with whites
until they could achieve internal cooperation
and unity.
He prophetically believed that there "would
be bloodshed" if the racism problem in America
remained ignored, and he renounced "compromise"
with whites.
In April 1964, Malcolm X participated in a
Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca); Malcolm found
himself restructuring his views and recanted
several extremist opinions during his shift
to mainstream Islam.
Malcolm X returned from Mecca with moderate
views that included an abandonment of his
commitment to racial separatism.
However, he still supported black nationalism
and advocated that African Americans in the
United States act proactively in their campaign
for equal human rights, instead of relying
on Caucasian citizens to change the laws that
govern society.
The tenets of Malcolm X's new philosophy are
articulated in the charter of his Organization
of Afro-American Unity (a secular Pan-Africanist
group patterned after the Organization of
African Unity), and he inspired some aspects
of the future Black Panther movement.
=== Stokely Carmichael ===
In the 1967 Black Power, Stokely Carmichael
introduces black nationalism.
He illustrates the prosperity of the black
race in the United States as being dependent
on the implementation of black sovereignty.
Under his theory, black nationalism in the
United States would allow blacks to socially,
economically and politically be empowered
in a manner that has never been plausible
in America history.
A black nation would work to reverse the exploitation
of the black race in America, as blacks would
intrinsically work to benefit their own state
of affairs.
African Americans would function in an environment
of running their own businesses, banks, government,
media and so on and so forth.
Black nationalism is the opposite of integration,
and Carmichael contended integration is harmful
to the black population.
As blacks integrate to white communities they
are perpetuating a system in which blacks
are inferior to whites.
Blacks would continue to function in an environment
of being second class citizens, he believes,
never reaching equity to white citizens.
Stokley Carmichael uses the concept of black
nationalism to promote an equality that would
begin to dismantle institutional racism.
=== Frantz Fanon ===
While in France, Frantz Fanon wrote his first
book, Black Skin, White Masks, an analysis
of the impact of colonial subjugation on the
African psyche.
This book was a very personal account of Fanon’s
experience being black: as a man, an intellectual,
and a party to a French education.
Although Fanon wrote the book while still
in France, most of his other work was written
while in North Africa (in particular Algeria).
It was during this time that he produced The
Wretched of the Earth where Fanon analyzes
the role of class, race, national culture
and violence in the struggle for decolonization.
In this work, Fanon expounded his views on
the liberating role of violence for the colonized,
as well as the general necessity of violence
in the anti-colonial struggle.
Both books established Fanon in the eyes of
much of the Third World as one of the leading
anti-colonial thinkers of the 20th century.
In 1959 he compiled his essays on Algeria
in a book called L'An Cinq: De la Révolution
Algérienne.
== Criticism ==
Norm R. Allen, Jr., former director of African
Americans for Humanism, calls black nationalism
a "strange mixture of profound thought and
patent nonsense".
On the one hand, Reactionary Black Nationalists
(RBNs) advocate self-love, self-respect, self-acceptance,
self-help, pride, unity, and so forth - much
like the right-wingers who promote "traditional
family values."
But - also like the holier-than-thou right-wingers
- RBNs promote bigotry, intolerance, hatred,
sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, pseudo-science,
irrationality, dogmatic historical revisionism,
violence, and so forth.
Allen further criticizes black nationalists'
strong "attraction for hardened prisoners
and ex-cons", their encouragement of violence
when other African-American individuals or
groups are branded as "Toms," traitors, or
"sellouts", the blatantly sexist stance and
the similarities to white supremacist ideologies:
Many RBNs routinely preach hate.
Just as white supremacists have referred to
African Americans as "devils," so have many
RBNs referred to whites.
White supremacists have verbally attacked
gays, as have RBNs.
White supremacists embrace paranoid conspiracy
theories, as do their African counterparts.
Many white supremacists and RBNs consistently
deny that they are preaching hate, and blame
the mainstream media for misrepresenting them.
(A striking exception is the NOI's Khallid
Muhammad, who, according to Gates, admitted
in a taped speech titled "No Love for the
Other Side," "Never will I say I am not anti-Semitic.
I pray that God will kill my enemy and take
him off the face of the planet.")
Rather, they claim they are teaching "truth"
and advocating the love of their own people,
as though love of self and hatred of others
are mutually exclusive positions.
On the contrary, RBNs preach love of self
and hatred of their enemies.
(Indeed, it often seems that these groups
are motivated more by hatred of their enemies
than love of their people.)
Nigerian-born professor of History and Director
of the African American Studies program at
the University of Montana, Tunde Adeleke,
argues in his book "UnAfrican Americans: Nineteenth-Century
Black Nationalists and the Civilizing Mission"
that 19th-century African-American nationalism
embodied the racist and paternalistic values
of Euro-American culture and that black nationalist
plans were not designed for the immediate
benefit of Africans but to enhance their own
fortunes.
== See also ==
Back-to-Africa movement
Black nationalist hip hop
Black Power
Black separatism
Black supremacy
Ethnic nationalism
Harry Haywood
Identitarian movement
Pan-Africanism
Reverse racism
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Gavins, Raymond, ed.
The Cambridge Guide to African American History
(2015).
Levy, Peter B. ed.
The Civil Rights Movement in America: From
Black Nationalism to the Women's Political
Council (2015).
Bush, Roderick D.
We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism
and Class Struggle in the American (2000)
Moses, Wilson.
Classical Black Nationalism: From the American
Revolution to Marcus Garvey (1996), excerpt
and text search
Price, Melanye T. Dreaming Blackness: Black
Nationalism and African American Public Opinion
(2009), excerpt and a text search
Robinson, Dean E. Black Nationalism in American
Politics and Thought (2001)
Taylor, James Lance.
Black Nationalism in the United States: From
Malcolm X to Barack Obama (Lynne Rienner Publishers;
2011), 414 pages
Van Deburg, William.
Modern Black Nationalism: From Marcus Garvey
to Louis Farrakhan (1996)
Ture, Kwame.
"Black Power The Politics of Liberation" (1967)
