What is the difference between nationalism and pan africanism

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. But the real intent was stated by the reactionary Henry Clay of Kentucky: "to rid our country of a useless and 7. 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. Their efforts were not in the interest of Blacks or the working class in the U.

Nevertheless, by the s there was a great deal of interest in emigration whether to Africa, Canada, the West Indies, or South America. Most, however, chose to offer militant resistance by remaining in the United States and fighting to overthrow slavery. 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. 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 s, 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 mids 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. 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 and , the - Black population of Kansas increased, from to 43, 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 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 , Africa was increasingly under attack by imperialist colonialism.

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 , 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 , was most important because for the first This laid the basis for the African independence struggle in the s and s 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. 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.

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 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. DuBois is leader, which declares vehemently for social and political equality, viz.

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. 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 s. The most recent explosion of the nationalist and Pan-Africanist movement came on the heels of the Civil Rights Movement of the s.

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 Intro Afro-American Studies - eBlack Studies 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 s.

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.

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 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? 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 s. While it sounded revolutionary, it was essentially reformist in content.

This reformism was further elaborated in Carmichael. More importantly, the Black Power Conferences of Newark and Philadelphia proposed no fundamental changes in the U. 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 , sought "to free Black people from colonial and imperialist bondage everywhere and to take whatever steps necessary to achieve that goal!

It is that black people of the world darker races, black, yellow, brown, red, oppressed peoples are all enslaved by the same forces. He argued that Africa had a glorious past and that Africans had deeply influenced Western civilization. He believed that Africa had to be freed from colonial rule if African Americans were to be liberated, and his work sought to end the caricatures of blacks as the "clown of history, football of anthropology, and the slave of industry" p.

The Great Depression hurt Africa greatly. Employment, especially in rural areas, was scarce. Many migrated from the countryside to urban areas, and the populations of cities swelled. These areas became overcrowded and poverty was rampant. The European powers were ill-equipped to combat these developments because resources and attention were focused on World War II. This furthered discontent and Africans became more disorderly. Access to the complete content on Oxford Handbooks Online requires a subscription or purchase.

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