What is Nationalism vs Pan-africanism- Compare the Similarities and Differences

What is Black Nationalism?
Pan-Africanism?
Compare the similarities
and differences
Nationalism and Pan-Africanism
Toward a Paradigm of Unity in Afro-American Studies

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 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 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.
Intro Afro-American Studies - eBlack Studies 2011

During the rural period, the common Black experience was tenancy, a semi-
free, semi-slave 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 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.
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, pro-capitalist 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 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 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 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. 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
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 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 all-
Black 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 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 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 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 anti-colonial 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. 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 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 Role of Malcolm X
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 non-sectarian
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 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 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 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.

There 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.)
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...
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 counter-revolution.
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 undisciplined and totally lacking revolutionary
potential, they were now seen as potential activists of insurrection.
Revolutionary groups thus began to focus on developing this 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 Pan-Africanist 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 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 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 the call for
a humanistic faith, an earth-oriented, earth-based, people- centered 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 self-determination 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 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 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.
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 All-African
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

What is Black Nationalism? Pan-Africanism? Compare the similarities and differences
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 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" social- imperialists, 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 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 Nguzo Saba
Black Power Race consciousness
Black town movement Red-Black-Green
Emigration/Back-to-Africa movements Pan-Africanism
Nation/Nationalism 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.
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 pan-Africanism?
SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS
1. E. U. Essien-Udom, Black Nationalism. A Search for an Identity in America.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.
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, 1890-1910. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969.
5. Sterling Stuckey, ad., The Ideological Origins of Black Nationalism. Boston:
Beacon Press, 1972.

Editor’s Summary and Commentary
We accept all aspects of our history from the beginning of civilization on the Afrikan
continent, to the present stages of technological development of Afrikan nation-states,
and the continued struggle of Afrikan people throughout the world against tyranny and
imperialist oppression.
With this conception of history, we view the material basis in which history evolved to its
present and ongoing developing modes of history; as Afrikan people relate and interrelate
with one another, other people of color in the Third World, and the European races. This
understanding and materialist outlook of history, notes that dialectically, our present
condition and struggle is based on our past experiences in a continuing development of
an Afrikan history. The New Afrikan experience in America is not separate from the
Afrikan experience on the continent, rather, they are linked in a chain of events which
imposes socioeconomic, political and historical realities encompassing the criteria by
which New Afrikan struggle for independence must be developed.
We call ourselves New Afrikan because of the degree of force breeding and
miscegenation we as a people have suffered, as well the cultural imperialism and the
psychological plunder and rape of our affinity to Afrika - stripping away our Afrikan
language, art and world, outlook, and national oppression, which in our efforts to
combat have created a national heritage rich in resistance based on two ideals of
integration and/or separation. These experiences which left us stripped of our Afrikanist
perspective despite miscegenation and cultural imperialism, encompassing those
experiences into an Afrikan national heritage in Diaspora, creating the New Afrikan
Independence Movement.
This conception of history in a dialectical materialist perspective provides the means to
formulate a program and strategy to conquer racist oppression and national subjugation,
utilizing, the truth of our entire history as a guide to enlighten our practice. For instance,
in terms of a (foreign) policy of Afrikan intercommunalism with our people on the
Afrikan continent, it is essential to know what our relationship had been in history -

providing a substantial foundation to develop principled relations today... For New
Afrikans, it is important to know that slavery did not begin as an American phenomenon,
but rather, American chattel slavery of Afrikans is a direct outgrowth of Afrikans
enslaving Afrikans on the Afrikan continent. Many of our ancestors had been enslaved
by Afrikans due to internecine struggles, border wars of territorial imperative- amongst
tribes and wars of aggression between Afrikan nation-states. The prisoner of wars,
and/or because of denture, were placed in bondage, and often sold or traded.
When the Europeans (Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, British, etc.) made contact with
Northern and Western coastal areas of Afrika, they not only raided villages and
kidnapped Afrikans, but more often and productively (numerically) brought already
enslaved Afrikans from Afrikan chieftains and traders. Hence, for the most part, our
existence in the Western hemisphere is as much a consequence of Afrikan history as
it is of European history.
Thus, as we conceive ourselves in history, we must place responsibility of our
condition in context to the actual historical development leading to our present situation.
In this regards, we don't expect assistance from our Afrikan brothers nations simply
because we are of one people -- only separated by distance -- but because history
demand recompense for a people (New Afrikans) whose existence and suffering is
based on our unfortunate relation in the history of slavery mutual to us all, and the
commonality of our fight against mutual enemy -- imperialism.

This same conception and relation to history is binding on any relationship established with
other past enslaver, such as the Dutch, Portuguese, British, Spanish, etc.
As we struggle against continued U.S. colonization, New Afrikans must have a determined
sense of history in regard to the New Afrikan Nation relationship to the world. Without
this common national consciousness and perception of our existence, based on
history, our practice will continue to be confused and chaotic, without historical
continuity which serves to give practical guidance on the road to independence. As
an oppressed nation, we have a rich history of resistance to bondage; revolts on
slave ships during the middle passage; revolts and rebellions for hundreds of years on
slave plantations; fighting for freedom in the War of Independence, War of 1812, and
Civil War; and fighting in the U.S. Army in the name of U.S. democracy (hypocrisy) can
also be considered part of the national determination to be free.
Intro Afro-American Studies - eBlack Studies 2011. Link to full eBook e-Black Studies

What is Nationalism vs Pan-africanism- Compare the Similarities and Differences

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What is Nationalism vs Pan-africanism- Compare the Similarities and Differences