Fighting the “global war for freedom”: Black Nationalism, Marxism, and early Black Feminist Thought in African American Rhetoric from 1915 until 1954

By fighting for their rights now, American Negroes are helping to make America a moral and spiritual arsenal of democracy. Their fight against the poll tax, against lynch law, segregation, and Jim Crow, their fight for economic, political, and social equality, thus becomes part of the global war for freedom.

–A. Philip Randolph, “Why Should We March?” (1942)

In the early twentieth century, a segregated political and social environment in America led to “new developments in the political character and protest organizations of African American people” and created an insurgency of “protest ideologies and formations” (Marable and Mullings 219-20). These “protest ideologies and formations” produced radical ideas and inspired arguments that not only demanded equality and opportunity, but defiantly and boldly questioned, challenged, and indicted all aspects of the American social and political system. African American speeches and essays from 1915 until 1954 call for the “complete dismantling of institutional racism, the democratization of the U.S. state and the fundamental redistribution of economic wealth and resources throughout society” (Marable and Mullings 222). Heavily influenced by Communism and the Labor movement(s), African American rhetoric during this period explores the connections between race, class, gender and power in American society and demands the immediate reconstruction of American society and its institutions. Constructed within theoretical frameworks of Black Nationalism, Marxism, and early Black feminist thought, significant arguments from this period explore and reclaim the African identity, analyze the subjected position of the African American woman as a woman and a worker, and attempt to reconcile tension between the prejudiced Labor movement, white progressives and African American workers.

                Encouraging unity amongst African Americans and all Africans “at home and abroad,” Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) sought to organize all individuals of African ancestry as a unified and distinct culture, civilization, and continent—an “Africa for the Africans.” In a passionate address, Garvey’s “Explanation of the Objects of the Universal Negro Improvement Association” expresses militant and bold Black nationalism and, for “the common purpose of bettering their condition,” he argues for total unity amongst all Africans: “The great problem of the Negro for the last 500 years has been that of disunity. No one or no organization ever took the lead in uniting the Negro race [...] If anything praiseworthy is to be done, it must be done through unity. And it is for that reason that the UNIA calls upon every Negro in the United States to rally to its standard. We want to unite the Negro race in this country. We want every Negro to work for one common object, that of building a nation of his own on the great continent of Africa.” Moreover, Garvey claims Africa—not America— as the ideal Motherland, the African American’s rightful home, and reintroduces the notion of “returning” to Africa and reclaims the African American’s African identity. Establishing a sense of pride and respect for one’s distinctive African identity and culture, Garvey and the UNIA encourage an unwavering and unashamed concept of racial pride amid white America’s incessant physical and psychological violence and acts of terrorism against the African American community. As a result of such threatening hostility, his “Appeal to the Conscience of the Black Race to See Itself” urgently calls upon the need for a nation of their own: “The Negro needs a nation and a country of his own, where he can best show evidence of his own ability in the art of human progress [...] The race needs workers at this time, not plagiarists, copyists, and mere imitators; but men and women who are able to create, to originate and improve, and thus man an independent racial contribution to the world and civilization” (249-50). Interestingly, Garvey challenges the notion of American democracy and liberty as a wholly “Western” ideal, demanding America to respect and uphold an African American’s rights as an African citizen. The UNIA’s “Declaration of Rights of the Negro People” declares “all men, women, and children of our blood throughout the world free citizens, and do claim them as free citizens of Africa, the Motherland of all Negroes” (243). Thus, Garvey uses the African American’s status as an African in calling for justice and equality and presents a unique approach quite different from African American rhetoric in previous historical periods by demanding full equality and just treatment for the African American on the grounds of his/her rights as an African—not American—citizen.

                Another significant argument that arises from this historical period emphasizes the power of the African American woman in shaping and determining the social and political success of the African American community, but, also focuses on her marginalized status as an African American woman worker. Such arguments acknowledge that black women’s work—domestic and physical labor—is not recognized as “work.” The African American woman, thus, receives the lowest wages and is largely without the support of the Labor movement and labor unions. In Elaine Ellis’s “Women of the Cotton Fields,” she notes the similarities between the position of the African American woman workers, particularly field workers, with the position of the laboring slave woman, arguing that the current economic and social system is a continuation of American slavery due to its exploitation of black women’s labor. As she details its characteristics, depicting it as a slave/caste system, Ellis argues that African American women’s exploited role as poor laborers enforces such labor to be generational, like slavery, as it determines and influences the future occupations of their children; most children of poor laborers, as Ellis points out, will become poor laborers as well and such traits mimic the legal nature of American slavery— the child of a slave follows the condition of the mother. Therefore, the African American woman’s labor and body (reproduction) is exploited, as she is laborer and “breeder” to future laborers: “But it is from her loins, no less than from the earth itself, that the world’s greatest cotton industry has sprung. A slave, and a breeder of slaves, hundreds of thousands of her kind have been crushed in its gigantic and merciless machinery. And as long as the tenant system continues, she must be sacrificed to greed [...] for children, as well as women, generally represent a labor that does not have to be paid” (Ellis 301). Black women—as exploited workers and breeders—provide the labor to maintain an exploited, limitless source of labor. Furthermore, Naomi Ward’s “I Am a Domestic” gives personal insight into the struggles of a domestic worker, and like Ellis, she compares such [exploited] work to American slavery. In her essay, Ward recounts how white women continue to practice behavior based on conventions of antebellum black-white women power structures. White women do not use the domestic workers last names, referring to them by their own last names, and use the term “my” worker or “my” Negro to denote possession and further dehumanize and objectify the domestic worker (Ward 303-05).

                Moreover, Claudia Jones’s “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman” gives an “analysis of gender within the African American community from a Marxist perspective” (Marable and Mullings 316). Like Julia Anna Cooper and Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson, Jones emphasizes the significant role women play in the African American community: “The bourgeoisie is fearful of the militancy of the Negro woman, and for good reason. The capitalists know, far better than many progressives seem to know, that once Negro women undertake action, the militancy of the whole Negro people and thus of the anti-imperialist coalition, is greatly enhanced” (316). However, unlike the rhetoric of African American women before her, Jones examines the status of African American women within the theoretical framework of Marxism and early Black feminist thought; and, although Jones’s essay precedes the work of black feminist scholar Patricia Hill Collins, Jones situates the African American woman within, what Collin’s termed, the matrix of domination. Analyzing the ways in which sex, class, race determines the African American woman’s status and economic position, Jones argues that “Negro women—as workers, as Negroes, and as women—are the most oppressed stratum of the whole population” (317). She reveals how the white American public shapes the images of African American women, constructs and, then, reinforces destructive stereotypes to further maintain dominance and power over African American women: “In the film, radio, and press, the Negro woman is not pictured in her real role as breadwinner, mother, and protector of the family, but as a traditional ‘mammy’ who puts the care of children and families of others above her own” (Jones 319). Furthermore, Jones argues that white women must “realize that the fight for equality of Negro women is in their own self interest, inasmuch as the super-exploitation and oppression of Negro women tends to depress the standards of all women” and, therefore, in self-interest, must “link their own struggles to the struggles for the full democratic rights of the Negro people” (322-24).

                Lastly, influenced by Marxism and the growing power of the Labor movement(s) in the United States, a critical focus of African American rhetoric during the early twentieth century concerns the interconnections of race and class; such rhetoric expresses a linked understanding of the position of poor, white workers and the position of African American workers. Similar to Ellis and Ward’s argument, African American labor organizers and activists compare the social, political, and economic position of workers to that of a slave, revealing how the current state of organized labor functions as a generational, caste system (Herndon 284-85). Labor organizer and African American activist Angelo Herndon argues that the Labor movement, particularly Marxist and Communist ideology, understands the intersection of racial and class inequality and addresses both struggles: “I heard myself called a ‘nigger’ and ‘darky,’ and I had to say ‘Yes, sir’ to every white man, whether he had my respect or not. I had always detested it, but I had never known that anything could be done about it. And here, all of a sudden, I had found organizations in which Negroes and whites sat together, and worked together, and knew no difference of race or color. Here were organizations that weren’t scared to come out for equality for the Negro people, and for the rights of the workers” (286-87). However, despite Herndon’s exclamation of racial cooperation within the movement and regardless of the similar economic situation of poor white workers and African Americans, Dr. Abram Harris, in his essay “The Negro Worker: A Problem of Progressive Labor Action,” exposes the blatant racism within the Labor movement and amongst white progressives, and argues, like Jones, that it is in the collective self-interest of white and black workers to establish solidarity. He warns of establishing a “bi-racial” movement, claiming a divided movement will consequently endanger its overall success in obtaining “work and wage” equality (276-78). Yet, while on trial for “insurrection,” Herndon’s speech before a Georgia jury argues that African American and white workers will come together in organizing and demanding economic justice and equality: “And it seems that this question is left up to the Negro and white workers to solve, and they will solve it by organizing and demanding the right to live, a right that they are entitled to. They have built up this country, and are therefore entitled to some of the things that they have produced. Not only are they entitled to such things, but it is their right to demand them” (284). Therefore, Herndon argues that the similar struggles of white workers and African American workers will unify and strengthen a collective movement for social, racial, and economic equality, as all workers will come together to achieve common goals. 

Works Cited

Garvey, Marcus. "Explanation of the Objects of the Universal Negro Improvement Association."              New York City. July 1929. <http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/

                blackspeech/mgarvey.html>

Marable, Manning, and Leith Mullings. Ed. Let Nobody Turn Us Around: An African American      Anthology. 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefied Publishers, Inc., 2009.