By Dr. Conrad W. Worrill (October 1, 2008)
One of the biggest challenges African
people face in
There are far too many African people
in this country who think what is good for other people should be good for us.
Nothing could be further from the truth. We can only determine what is good for
us by reestablishing Black Nationalist thinking and developing a Black
Nationalist program of action. This is the missing link to the liberation of
African people in
Black Nationalism is a tradition that
emerged in the early nineteenth-century among those Black leaders who
understood the need for African people in
These nineteenth-century Black
Nationalist leaders such as Denmark Vessey, Nat Turner, David Walker, Henry
Highland Garnet, James T. Holly, Martin R. Delany, Pap Singleton, Edwin McCabe,
and Henry McNeal Turner understood that African people in America were a
“nation within a nation” and should organize to collectively struggle for the
liberation of Black people in this country and throughout the world.
During this era there were some Black
Nationalist leaders before, and after the Civil War, who led movements for
people of African ancestry to leave this country and establish a homeland
somewhere else. These proposals included Africa,
Other Black Nationalist leaders led
movements for Black people to control the towns where they lived and others who
led movements to the western region of this country to establish all Black
towns in
The core of this Black Nationalist
tradition has been to defeat and overthrow the system of white supremacy, seize
control of land (somewhere) and to achieve self determination for the oppressed
Black masses.
The Black Nationalist tradition has
always been opposed to integrations, assimilation, and accommodation as a
solution to the problems of people of African ancestry in
Black Nationalists have been
historically clear that people in power don’t teach powerless people how to get
power. And they certainly don’t give power away, even though, when challenged,
they may give up some concessions.
As Black Nationalism emerged in the
twentieth-century, the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey and the establishment of
the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and the African Communicates
League (ACL) became the leading spokesman for Black Nationalist ideas and organizing.
Garvey used his varied skills to
become on of our true twentieth-century freedom fighters. Garvey arrived in
Perhaps Garvey’s greatest
contribution to the upliftment of our people, through Black Nationalism, was
his ability to find a formula for organizing African people around the African
principle: the greatest good for the greatest number.
This was reflected in the First
International Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World, in
In this context, Garvey and the
UNIA/ACL had established an economic arm, the Negro Factories Corporation, with
cooperative stores, restaurants, steam laundry ships, tailor shops, dressmaking
shops, millinery stores, a doll factory to manufacture Black dolls and a
publishing house. Also, Garvey formed a Steamship Corporation.
The Black Nationalist tradition was
continued in the twentieth-century through the Nation of Islam and the Honorable
Elijah Muhammad who utilized many of the Garvey and UNIA/ACL organizing tactics
and strategies.
It was during the 1960s Black Power
explosion that the Black Nationalist tradition reemerged through the influence
of Malcolm X who adopted Black Nationalism as the political philosophy,
economic and social philosophy of the organization of Afro American Unity in
1964 after he left the Nation of Islam.
Finally, the Black Nationalist
tradition, today, is spearheaded through the African Centered Education
Movement. The mass acceptance of Kwanzaa, African Liberation Day, Buy Black
Campaigns, the Reparations Movement, and Controlling Our Own Communities
Campaigns are all part of the ongoing Black Nationalist tradition.
Without vigorous Black Nationalist
thinking and an aggressive Black Nationalist program of action, we will
continue to chase false dreams created by our oppressors. We must put an end to
this!
Once Black Nationalism is understood
by all Black people, it will be the foundation upon which the true liberation
of people of African ancestry in
Conrad Worrill
National Chairman
National Black United Front (NBUF)
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