THE QUEST FOR BLACK POWER: ALUTA CONTINUIA Compiled and Edited by Marc Imhotep Cray, M.D. (aka RBG Street Scholar) Essays on the History of Black Nationalism / Pan-Afrikanism Preface It is quite clear that Afrikan people in America continue to be miseducated. This problem is discussed in a variety of ways in conversations every day in our communities throughout America. The time is ripe to heed the long-standing, and most often overlooked, calls for Afrikan Unity, Cultural Development, Education and Social Transformation. Such is what this book most fundamentally represents. Contrary to the prevailing, misinformed assumptions, RBG (Black Nationalism / Pan- Afrikanism) as an ideology, interaction and academic process is not a rabid assertion of Black supremacy. Unlike white Nationalism and American patriotism, RBG (Black Nationalism / Pan-Afrikanism) and its proponents do not seek to humiliate, exploit, or oppress any person or people. Rather, RBG / (Black Nationalism / Pan-Afrikanism) is a positive affirmation of the cultural, political, social, economic and moral identity and concerns of African people. In its most rudimentary forms, it reacts to the brutally violent and repressive conditions under which African people have and continue to live. White supremacy / racism create an environment where whites are necessarily viewed with suspicion, but we are not anti- white. We are Afrikan/ Black on purpose and Black folks must first and foremost be beholden to each other. The most basic expression of RBG (Black Nationalism/ Pan-Afrikanism ) thought is that Black / Afrikan people in America and throughout the diaspora are bound by the common history and experience of historical chattel and present day mental slavery, suffering and death under the boot heel of white supremacy / racism. Most importantly, RBG is about self-reliance, self-respect and self-defense toward the total liberation and unification of all Afrikan people that desire to defend, define and develop in our own image and interest. In keeping with the spirit of Sankofa ("return and get it" a West African Symbol of Adinkra Wisdom representing the importance of our learning from the past) you should keep in mind that in the societies of our Afrikan ancestors and current kinsman the oral tradition was / is the method of choice in which history, stories, folktales and spiritual beliefs were /are passed on from generation to generation. Webster's dictionary defines "oral" as, "spoken rather than written," and it defines the word "tradition" as, "transmittal of elements of a culture from one generation to another especially by oral communication." It is the power of the Afrikan oral tradition integrated with written documentation that sits at the core of this compilation. We believe that the ultimate end of intellectual growth and development for students of Afrikan decent in 21st America should first and foremost be a deeper overstanding and a fuller appreciation of Afrikan people’s rich history and continuing struggle for individual and collective self-definition and political economic development as a Nation within a Nation. Reading, thinking and reflecting with close attention to this book’s scholastic guidance you learn to see more, understand more and uncover more, thus prepare yourself for a richer, more selfless and more meaningful contributions to self and kind. As you read / study these essays please keep in mind, education is not eternal and timelessly written in stone, but should be situated historically, socially, intellectually, written and read at particular times, with particular intents, under particular historical conditions, with particular cultural, personal, gender, racial, class and perspectives at center. Through multimedia learning we can see ideology in operation. Thus, this compilation is provided to encourage and enhance critical reading, thinking and writing based in the Afrin Idea A CAPSULE OF WHAT’S INSIDE/ Black Nationalism/ Pan-Afrikanism Black Nationalism (BN) advocates a racial definition (or redefinition) of black national identity, as opposed to multiculturalism. There are different Black Nationalist philosophies but the principles of all Black Nationalist ideologies are 1) Black unity, and 2) Black self-determination/political, social and economic independence from White society. Martin Delany is considered to be the grandfather of Black Nationalism. Inspired by the apparent success of the Haitian Revolution, the origins of Black Nationalism in political thought lie in the 19th century with people like Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Henry McNeal Turner, Martin Delany, David Walker, Henry Highland Garnet, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Paul Cuffe to name a few.. The repatriation of black American slaves to Liberia or Sierra Leone was a common Black Nationalist theme in the 19th century. Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association of the 1910s and 1920s was the most powerful Black Nationalist movement to date, claiming 11 million members. Although the future of Africa is seen as being central to black nationalist ambitions, some adherents to black nationalism are intent on the eventual creation of a separate black American nation in the U.S. or Western hemisphere. According to Wilson Jeremiah Moses in his famous work Classical Black Nationalism, Black Nationalism as a philosophy can be examined from three different periods giving rise to various ideological perspectives for what we can today consider what Black Nationalism really is. The first being pre-Classical Black Nationalism beginning from the time the Africans were brought ashore in the Americas to the Revolutionary period. After the Revolutionary War, a sizable number of Africans in the colonies, particularly in New England and Pennsylvania, were literate and had become disgusted with their social conditions that had spawned from Enlightenment ideas. We find in such historical personalities as Prince Hall, Richard Allen, and Absalom Jones a need to found certain organizations as the Free African Society, African Masonic lodges and Church Institutions. These institutions would serve as early foundations to developing independent and separate organizations. By the time of Post-Reconstruction Era a new form of Black Nationalism was emerging among various African-American clergy circles. Separate circles had already been established and were accepted by African-Americans because of the overt oppression that had been in existence since the inception of the United States. This phenomenon led to the birth of modern Black Nationalism which stressed the need to separate and build separate communities that promote strong racial pride and also to collectivize resources. This ideology had become the philosophy of groups like the Moorish Science Temple and the Nation of Islam. Although, the Sixties brought on a heightened period of religious, cultural and political nationalism, Black Nationalism would later influence afrocentricity Marcus Garvey Marcus Garvey encouraged black people around the world to be proud of their race and to see beauty in their own kind. A central idea to Garveyism was that black people in every part of the world were one people and they would never advance if they did not put aside their cultural and ethnic differences and unite. Black people, Garvey felt, should love and take care of other black people. The principles of Garveyism are race first, self-reliance and nationhood. Race first is the idea that black people should support other black people first and foremost, self-reliance is the idea that black people should be politically and economically self-reliant (it was important to Garvey that black people develop businesses owned and operated by black people and that they patronize these businesses) and nationhood is the idea that black people should create a United States of Africa which would safeguard the interests of black people worldwide. To disseminate the UNIA's program, Garvey founded the Negro World newspaper and to encourage black economic independence, he founded the Black Star Line in 1919 as well as the Negro Factories Corporation. The UNIA also initiated the Universal African Legion, a paramilitary group, the Black Cross Nurses, the African Black Cross Society and the Black Cross Trading and Navigation Corporation. Garvey attracted millions of supporters and claimed eleven million members for the UNIA. Marcus Garvey, however, did not advocate that all black people should leave the United States to emigrate to Africa (a strong United States of Africa would protect the interests of all black people everywhere in the world so a physical migration of all black people in the West was unnecessary and, in some cases, undesirable). Although Marcus Garvey was an ardent supporter of racial separatism (he encouraged black people to separate themselves from whites residentially, develop their own all black businesses and schools, and preached against inter-racial marriage as 'race suicide'), he made it clear that he held no hostility towards whites and believed in the equality of all human beings. Garvey set the precedent for subsequent black nationalist and pan-Africanist thought including that of Kwame Nkrumah (and several other African leaders) the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X and most notably, Carlos Cooks (who is considered the ideological son of Marcus Garvey) and his African Nationalist Pioneer Movement. Marcus Garvey's beliefs are articulated in The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey. Malcolm X Between 1953 and 1965, while most black leaders