Black Nationalism
Black Nationalism is a political and social movement advocating for the establishment of a separate black nation. It emphasizes the need for self-determination, economic empowerment, and cultural pride within the black community. Black Nationalism has historically sought to challenge systemic racism and oppression, promoting solidarity and autonomy for people of African descent.
6 Key excerpts on "Black Nationalism"
eBook - ePubAn Afrocentric Manifesto
Toward an African Renaissance
- Molefi Kete Asante(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Polity(Publisher)
...They are Eurocentric and European ideologies that have been bought into by many black adherents. To call them “black political ideologies” is a stretch of the imagination. Those ideologies are based essentially on the writings and philosophies of European theorists and philosophers about white people. Conceivably, Black Nationalism is the only true black ideology since it finds its source in the early writings and discourses of Africans who resisted enslavement and racism. One can argue that this ideology, admittedly with many variants and interests, reflects the authentic sentiment of the overwhelming majority of black people in the United States. It is a healthy and meaningful assertion of black humanity. The second problem is that, even if one accepts Dawson’s ideological classifications, his discussion of the nature of the relationships between the classifications and their roles in the political lives of African Americans appears incomplete. For example, to say that Black Nationalism is “the second oldest” (Dawson, 2002, p. 21) ideology in the black community is to mis-state the nature of the early affirmation of culture and resistance to racism articulated by the first Africans to land in the English colonies. All indications from history are that the earliest enslaved Africans felt a burning need to return to Africa and to escape the horrible condition of servitude to which they had been brutally subjected. They were not interested in some “radical egalitarianism” with whites. This radical egalitarian type of thinking would come only after many years when some Africans had moved away from the daily routine of surviving whippings, abuse, rape, violence, and degradation during the enslavement and when they had been introduced to European concepts of equality...
eBook - ePubBlack Internationalist Feminism
Women Writers of the Black Left, 1945-1995
- Cheryl Higashida(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- University of Illinois Press(Publisher)
...This meant that Black liberation could not be achieved “simply” through integrating African Americans into the liberal-democratic, imperialist U.S. nation-state. Instead, Black liberation was predicated on the right of African Americans in the Black Belt region of the South, where they formed a majority, to secede as their own nation under the correct historical conditions. In the post–World War II years this was not “a slogan of immediate action” but a “guiding principle” of “the present practical struggle for full Negro rights, in behalf of which there must be established both the broadest Negro unity and the broadest Negro and white alliance.” 67 Black liberation, by this definition, was not separatist (nor narrowly integrationist) but was internationalist in its centrality to and reliance on interracial—and transnational—working-class movements. Hence I use the term nationalist internationalism to describe the views of those of the Black anticolonial Left who championed self-determination for all oppressed nations, including African Americans, to bring about worldwide socialism. The global understanding of race and social justice of these radicals reflects their diasporic backgrounds and itinerant careers. For example, Claudia Jones and Rosa Guy were born in Trinidad; Paule Marshall’s parents emigrated from Barbados to New York; Audre Lorde’s parents emigrated from Grenada. For Black Leftists, travel was a politically fraught matter that carried the pain of having one’s mobility circumscribed and determined by the racist and repressive state through imprisonment, deportation, and the revocation of one’s passport—but also the promise of pan-African and Third World solidarities generated through international conferences, trips, and expatriate living...
eBook - ePubCritical Race Consciousness
The Puzzle of Representation
- Gary Peller(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Browne, 1968 Like integrationism, nationalism among African Americans has taken various forms and has been associated with divergent worldviews. 2 The long tradition dates back to antebellum proposals by Martin Delany and others to colonize parts of Africa as a homeland for American Blacks. 3 Some form of nationalism was manifest in Booker T. Washington’s self-help and separatist ideas of Black advancement. 4 Black Nationalism in its modern, urban form can be traced among the poor to the organizing efforts of Marcus Garvey in the 1930s 5 and the Black Muslims since, 6 and among the middle class to W. E. B. Du Bois’ critique of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP’s) policy of integrationism in the 1930s. 7 There is little doubt, however, that Black Nationalism had its most complete and sophisticated theoretical development, as well as its greatest mass appeal, during the 1960s and early 1970s, when it was articulated as an alternative worldview to integrationism and as part of a program of radical social transformation by (among others) Malcolm X, 8 Eldridge Cleaver, 9 Kwame Ture, 10 Amiri Baraka, 11 Harold Cruse, 12 the Black Panthers, 13 and quickly expanding factions of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). 14 I will discuss Black Nationalism with specific reference to the ways in which it was articulated in the late 1960s and early 1970s. My goal is not to provide a complete social history or philosophical account, but instead to sketch out, in general form, the ways in which nationalists opposed the understanding of race embodied by integrationist ideology. The controversy in the mid-1960s over the slogan “Black Power” exemplifies the contrast between integrationists and Black nationalists. I begin the introduction to nationalism with a brief analysis of the issues at stake in the Black Power idea...
eBook - ePubFree the Land
The Republic of New Afrika and the Pursuit of a Black Nation-State
- Edward Onaci(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- The University of North Carolina Press(Publisher)
...But in order to build a nation [black people] must begin by controlling the institutions in [their] communities.” The author of the flyer’s text emphasizes controlling schools and supporting “real black political candidates, black community organizations such as the Welfare Rights Groups, and all Black revolutionary organizations.” 19 Such goals were congruent with the more prevalent emphases of many Black Power–era organizations and initiatives. Yet, in articulating the end goal as the creation of a black nation-state, activists transformed seemingly reformist practices into revolutionary tactics for New Afrikan independence. Though never given one single definition, Black Power always called for African Americans to exercise self-determination through their ability to make choices that reflected their best interests. Whether they endorsed changing one’s name and donning an afro, fighting for the right to live in decent housing, or selecting people who would best represent black people’s interests in institutional politics, activists discussed their goals and decisions in terms of “doing for self” or “controlling our own destiny.” Because New Afrikans defined Black Power as the complete liberation of their people through attaining an independent nation-state and securing reparations, they complicated commonly understood articulations of the slogan and concept. 20 Some New Afrikans held membership with the Black Panther Party, the single most studied Black Power–era organization...
eBook - ePub- Kehinde Andrews, Lisa Amanda Palmer, Kehinde Andrews, Lisa Amanda Palmer(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The Black Panthers envisioned the Black population as part of an intercommunal, global struggle to bring down capitalist society (Newton, 1974). Malcolm X (1971) advocated the Black revolution and aimed to internationalise the struggle to end Western hegemony. These perspectives see the Black population (both within and without) as the colonised subjects of the Western nation state and demand unity with Black people across the globe in order to overthrow the Western empire for true liberation. Black radicalism also recognises that it is not only the children of Africa who are oppressed by Western hegemony. However, it is only in the global struggle that a solid unity can be forged between who Malcolm (1964) calls ‘our Asian brothers and our Latin-American brothers’. Such a perspective is also a hallmark of Pan-Africanism and it is no coincidence that it was Pan-African leaders involved in the Bandung Afro-Asian Conference seeking unity against colonialism in 1955 (Wright, 1954). It is this unity which frames the global understanding of racism that transcends the false construction of nation state political Blackness, which frames political action in the race relations paradigms of individual Western states. Conclusion The hegemonic notion of the nation as a geographic area with an homogenous culture and sense of belonging needs to be abandoned. This monolithic view of the nation conceals how the nation state has been used as a vehicle by the West to dominate and colonise the globe. Further to this the methodological nationalism, which hallmarks sociology, obscures global readings of oppression and inequality, which reinforce the dominance of the West. A Black radical understanding of society is built on the view of Black people as global diaspora, with Africa at the centre. This analysis transcends Western nation state boundaries and produces a Black collectivity aimed at ending neo-colonialism...
eBook - ePubBack to Black
Retelling Black Radicalism for the 21st Century
- Kehinde Andrews(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Zed Books(Publisher)
...It is certainly true that in order to rule the continent Western powers have used strategies to divide and conquer, but simply coming together does not represent revolutionary change. National unity within the colonial nation state was used to control the independence process in the same way that Pan-African unity has been used to bring the continent into the global system of oppression. Unity is not enough; we need clear politics and ideology if a movement is to produce radical change. As dispiriting as this journey from the Pan-African Conference in London to the formation of the AU and NEPAD has been, it is an essential step to charting a truly radical politics of Blackness. Too often we look for the positives in our history and find salvation in the rhetoric rather than the reality. There is not a number of different Pan-Africanisms, there is a clear history, tradition and doctrine that explains the current neo-colonial version of unity. There have certainly been competing ideas and politics for African unity and revolution, but to cast them all in the same mould as Pan-Africanism actually does them a disservice. Pan-Africanism may not be the radical programme it is heralded as being, but there are movements which have radically redefined sovereignty that form the basis for a Black radical approach to nationhood and the liberation of Africa and its Diaspora....
