Despite his profound status as the most significant black leader of the twentieth century, embarrassingly little is known about Garvey outside of academia. But as anthropologist Joel Augustus Rogers notes in his homage to this iconoclastic figure, Garvey inspired a spirit of hope in people of African descent that the most virulent form of racism could never quench: (more…)
Tag: Black Nationalism
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Contrite acts can never endear the Republican Party to black Americans. For decades, Republicans have naively assumed that blacks will reward them with competitive support for their energetic pandering and they are yet to reap the fruits of their labor. Republicans are unwilling to accept that for black people, voting is an expression of group solidarity. (more…)
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Sen. Theodore G. Bilbo
Sen. Theodore G. Bilbo
3,477 words
The sedition trials of Gordon and others began in 1943. What communications there were with the Japanese prior to Pearl Harbor reflected an interest among blacks for Japan as a rising “colored” nation. The defeat of Russia in 1905 had been observed by restive colored races, and then the fratricide of World War I. (more…)
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Mittie Maude Lena “M. M. L.” Gordon.
Mittie Maude Lena “M. M. L.” Gordon.
5,215 words
During the tumult of the 1930s, there emerged a mass movement among American Negroes to separate from the USA and reestablish their roots in Africa. In contrast to the NAACP and the National Urban League, the Peace Movement of Ethiopia, aka Ethiopia Pacific Movement (EPM), did not receive sponsorship from Jacob Schiff, Lehman, Rockefeller, Carnegie, et al, but subsisted on nickels and dimes from its supporters. (more…)
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4,912 words
4,912 words
Senator Bilbo excerpts from a compilation of fourteen essays by black notables in one of the recent egalitarian books, What the Negro Wants, edited by Rayford W. Logan (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1944). He identifies one of the authors, W. E. B. DuBois, (more…)
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3,011 words
3,011 words
If you’re watching a helicopter combat scene with the opening song in Act 3 of Die Walküre as the soundtrack, then the film is Apocalypse Now. If you’re watching a helicopter combat scene with music by Clem Tholet, John Edmond, or maybe even a disco track, it’s probably a documentary of the Rhodesian Bush War.
The results are familiar to us as what happens when whites are disunited and opposed by our own government. However, (more…)
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Malcolm X (1992)
Spike Lee, Denzel Washington, Angela BassettIn the early 1990s, the pre-release hype and merchandising regarding Spike Lee’s Malcolm X movie was a sight to behold. Every black teen in my Midwestern home city (a major portion of which had been destroyed by the so-called Great Migration of blacks from the Deep South) had a Malcolm X hat. This hat was normally all of one color with a prominent “X” on the crown. (more…)
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3,603 words
Every year, the third Monday of January is designated Martin Luther King Day, and the much-lauded paragon of “passive resistance” and “equality” is praised to high heaven with the aura of sainthood, or even godhood, perhaps only equalled by his South African counterpart, Nelson Mandela. I will not argue here whether desegregation has improved anyone’s lot, blacks included, any more than the dismantling of apartheid did, other than its having intended to create an “inclusive economy,” as the Rockefeller Foundation and others call it, and an expanded consumption market.
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In recent decades, Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) has become a symbol of the possibility of racial egalitarianism and the supposed victory of progressivism throughout the Western world. His birthday, January 15, which is commemorated on the third Monday of each January, has been designated as a federal holiday by the United States government since 1986 (although it was not celebrated in all fifty states until 2000). (more…)
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I saw Black Panther with a friend in Seattle last week. Judging from the reverent silence in the theater — broken only occasionally by our laughter at unintentional bits of humor — it was an all-white audience. The serious tone of Black Panther is a departure from recent Marvel movies, which constantly undercut heroism with ironic humor. But Black Panther is a movie about numinous, magical Negroes, and some things are sacred. God is not mocked. (Unless he is Thor.) (more…)
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Neville (Goddard)
At Your Command: The First Classic Work by the Visionary Mystic Neville
New York: Snellgrove Publications, 1939; Tarcher Cornerstone Editions, 2016 (includes Mitch Horowitz’s essay on Neville’s life and work, “Neville Goddard: A Cosmic Philosopher”)“Can a man decree a thing and have it come to pass? Most assuredly he can!” — Neville Goddard, At Your Command (more…)
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Tied closely with Barack Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012 was the song “We Take Care of Our Own” by Bruce Springsteen. The song was played throughout President Obama’s campaign, during the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, NC, and after the President’s victory speech in Chicago. Mr. Springsteen profited handsomely from this exposure, (more…)
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