African-American self-determination
refers to efforts to secure
self-determination
for African-Americans and related peoples in North America. It often intersects with the historic
Back-to-Africa movement
and general
Black separatism
, but also manifests in present and historic demands for self-determination on North American soil, ranging from autonomy to independence. The freedom to make whatever choices as a free American, and willfulness to do for self are often a key demand for advocates of African-American self-determination.
[
citation needed
]
As U.S. state
[
edit
]
Edwin P. McCabe in Oklahoma
[
edit
]
Former Kansas State Auditor
Edwin P. McCabe
joined the migration of thousands of African-Americans to the
Oklahoma Territory
in 1890, and then promoted African-American migration to the territory. By 1892, from the city of
Langston
, he geared his promotion toward the goal of a black-majority state that would eventually send two African-American senators to Congress in Washington, D.C., and to guarantee a black majority in every congressional district of the new state. He helped populate at least twenty-five new black-majority towns in the territory to the goal of black-majority statehood, even as white racial sentiments soured against African-Americans in the territory enough to implement segregation in the territory's laws by the time Oklahoma Territory was merged with the
Indian Territory
to become the state of
Oklahoma
in 1907. In the end, neither a black majority nor McCabe's dreams of a governorship over a black-majority state were realized.
[
citation needed
]
Oscar Brown Sr.
[
edit
]
The
National Movement for the Establishment of a 49th State
was established by Chicago-based businessman
Oscar Brown, Sr.
, who sought for the formation of a state within the union on U.S. soil which could be populated and governed by African-Americans, and which could apportion the benefits of the
New Deal
more equitably to African-Americans. Eventually, the organization fizzled out before the eventual 49th state, Alaska, was admitted to the Union in 1959.
[
citation needed
]
Republic of New Afrika
[
edit
]
The
Republic of New Afrika
was an organization which sought three key goals:
- Creation of an independent
African-American
-majority country situated in the
southeastern United States
, in the heart of black-majority population. A similar claim is made for all the black-majority counties and cities throughout the
United States
.
- Payment of several billion dollars in
reparations
to African-American descendants of slaves by the
US government
for the damages inflicted on Africans and their descendants by
chattel enslavement
,
Jim Crow segregation
, and modern-day forms of
racism
.
- A
referendum
of all African Americans to determine their desires for citizenship; movement leaders say they were not offered a choice in this matter after emancipation in 1865 following the American Civil War.
Established in 1968, the RNA attracted a number of members, including
Robert F. Williams
,
Betty Shabazz
and
Chokwe Lumumba
. The organization persists to this day.
American Communist support
[
edit
]
During the USSR
[
edit
]
The idea for outright independence was also adopted by American communist activists. Throughout US history, several revolutionary organizations have sought to promote control of the region as a separate political nation within the United States. The black liberation activist
Cyril Briggs
wrote a number of editorials starting in 1917 which called for a "colored autonomous state" on U.S. soil, first in the publication
Amsterdam News
and later in the publication
The Crusader
which he founded in 1918.
[1]
The
Communist Party USA
(CPUSA) later adopted the suggestion that African Americans in the "Black Belt" region constituted an oppressed nation, and that they should be allowed to vote on self-determination, as had populations following World War I under rules of the
League of Nations
. After fierce debate in the Sixth World Congress of the
Communist International
(Comintern) in 1928, the CPUSA officially adopted a plan for self-determination for an African-American nation in the region.
[2]
Although
Josef Stalin
was the leader of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
at the time and
the architect
of the Comintern's line on the
national question
, the Black Belt national proposal drew its roots from the thinking of
Vladimir Lenin
, who identified what he described as an African-American nation in the southern US.
[2]
American activist
Harry Haywood
is generally recognized as the principal theoretician of the CPUSA's Black Belt line.
[2]
Leon Trotsky
engaged with members of the
American Socialist Workers Party
on reaching the Black population. He had correspondence with
C.L.R. James
on the question of self-determination and expressed support for Black Americans seeking equal rights and an autonomous state.
[3]
Given the CPUSA's proposal on the national question, it enjoyed large-scale party growth in the US South. But the party was also involved in organizing agricultural workers and supporting African-American civil rights, which most Black US Americans considered more important. In Alabama, for instance, the Party organized the
Sharecroppers' Union
(SCU) in 1931, which grew to "a membership of nearly 2,000 organized in 73 locals, 80 women's auxiliaries, and 30 youth groups."
[4]
The SCU was openly organized by Alabama communists, and while it drew substantial support from the African-American community, it was subject to a harsh crackdown by state and non-state actors.
[5]
Nevertheless, it helped lead a strike of agricultural workers for higher wages.
"[T]he SCU claimed some substantial victories. On most of the plantations affected, the union won at least seventy-five cents per one hundred pounds, and in areas not affected by the strike, landlords reportedly increased wages from thirty-five cents per hundred pounds to fifty cents or more in order to avert the spread of the strike."
[6]
During the same period, the CPUSA also alienated much of the African-American working class by excoriating other self-determination organizations such as the Movement for a 49th State and the back-to-Africa-oriented
Peace Movement of Ethiopia
for not toeing the party line on self-determination.
[7]
In 1935, the CPUSA abandoned its line on national self-determination for the Black Belt. It wanted to attract coalition support from middle-class African-American groups in the Northeast as a part of the Party's "Hands Off
Ethiopia
" campaign. It launched this effort after Italian forces under
Mussolini invaded Ethiopia in the same year
.
[8]
The CPUSA criticized the invasion as part of the colonial enterprise.
Haywood and similar members tried to promote the Black Belt national question in the 1950s, without success. Communists did not officially support this concept again until the
New Communist Movement
of the 1970s and 1980s. After being expelled by the CPUSA, Haywood joined the
October League
(OL), which eventually became the
Communist Party (Marxist?Leninist)
in the United States. Both the OL and the CP (ML) adopted the old CPUSA line calling for self-determination for residents of the Black Belt.
[9]
Other New Communist Movement groups, like the
Communist League
and the
Revolutionary Workers Headquarters
, also took up the Black Belt line.
In the 21st century
[
edit
]
In the 21st century, several communist organizations have continued to uphold the Black Belt national question. Chief among them is the
Freedom Road Socialist Organization
(FRSO), which continues to organize around the line.
[10]
The FRSO publishes several pamphlets and statements on the African-American national question in the Black Belt.
[11]
They uphold the right of national self-determination by the region.
[12]
The
Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
is another revolutionary organization upholding the right of self-determination for residents of the Black Belt.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Haywood, Harry (2012).
A Black Communist in the Freedom Struggle: The Life of Harry Haywood
. University of Minnesota Press. pp. 104?106.
ISBN
978-0816679058
.
- ^
a
b
c
Sherman, Vincent (2012).
Nations Want Liberation: The Black Belt Nation in the 21st Century
http://return2source.wordpress.com/2012/06/24/nations-want-liberation-the-black-belt-nation-in-the-21st-century/
- ^
Brotherstone, Terence; Dukes, Paul (1992).
The Trotsky Reappraisal
. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 184?192.
- ^
Kelley, Robin D.G. (1990).
Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression
. University of Chicago. p. 52.
ISBN
978-0807842881
.
- ^
Kelley, Robin D.G. (1990).
Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression
. University of Chicago. pp. 34?56.
ISBN
978-0807842881
.
- ^
Kelley, Robin D.G. (1990).
Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression
. University of Chicago. p. 55.
ISBN
978-0807842881
.
- ^
"Self-determination and the "Black Belt"
"
. Socialist Worker.
- ^
Kelley, Robin D.G. (1990).
Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression
. University of Chicago. p. 122.
ISBN
978-0807842881
.
- ^
Elbaum, Max (2006).
Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che
. Verso.
ISBN
1844675637
.
- ^
Staff (February 11, 2014). "Racism, national oppression of African Americans at the core of Jordan Davis killing",
Fight Back! News
- ^
Freedom Road Socialist Organization (May 2006).
The Third International and the struggle for a correct line on the African American National Question
http://www.frso.org/docs/2006/2006nq.htm
Archived
2006-06-18 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
Freedom Road Socialist Organization (March 2012).
FRSO Program: Immediate Demands for U.S. Colonies, Indigenous Peoples, and Oppressed Nationalities
http://www.frso.org/about/5congress/oppnat-demands.htm
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