Revy
15th December 2009, 21:55
Here's some articles for reference:
Marcus Garvey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Garvey)
Garveyism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garveyism)
UNIA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Negro_Improvement_Association_and_Africa n_Communities_League)
Black Star Line Steamship Corporation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Star_Line_Steamship_Corporation)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Liberia)Back-to-Africa movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-to-Africa_movement)
History of Liberia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Liberia)
Garvey and others in this movement promoted the idea of going back to Africa just like the Zionists promoting the idea of going back to Palestine. The similarity between the two movements was noted by many and Garvey himself. This led to the movement sometimes being called Black or African Zionism.
Despite Garvey being painted as a black radical, he associated himself with white racist groups, something which shocked the black community.
If I recall correctly, the African Blood Brotherhood, a black communist organization (fulfilled a similar role in the early 20th century as the Black Panther Party of the '60s and early '70s), tried to get involved in the UNIA but were denounced by Garvey as "traitorous Bolsheviks". In fact, Garvey owned a corporation.
On the subject of Liberia (a state founded by migrants from the black diaspora), whose capital city was named after a white American President:
The Americo-Liberians had been cut off from their African cultural inheritance by the conditions of slavery, and were entirely acculturated to contemporary Euro-America society. They were of mixed African and European ancestry and therefore generally lighter-skinned than the indigenous blacks. Crucially, they had absorbed beliefs in the religious superiority of Protestant Christianity, the cultural superiority of European civilization, and the aesthetic superiority of European skin color and hair texture. They created a social and material facsimile of American society in Liberia, maintaining their English-speaking, Americanized way of life, and building churches and houses resembling those of the Southern U.S. The Americo-Liberians never constituted above five percent of the population of Liberia, but they controlled key resources that allowed them to dominate the local native peoples: access to the ocean, modern technical skills, literacy and higher levels of education, and valuable relationships with many American institutions, including the American government. Ironically, one aspect of American society that the Americo-Liberians recreated was a cultural and racial caste system—however in this case with themselves at the top instead of the bottom. To them, their society must have seemed radically different from the USA because it rejected the ubiquitous Western belief in immutable racial hierarchy, which had led the colonists to despair of life in the USA. They, on the other hand, believed in racial equality, and therefore in the potential of all people to become 'civilized' through evangelization and education. Like many white missionaries before and after them, they were frustrated by the natives' lack of interest in becoming 'civilized.' Some local people assimilated into Americo-Liberian society, often by marriage. Some entire coastal tribes became Protestants and learned English, but most indigenous Africans kept to their traditional languages and religions. Pretty soon, Liberian society was arranged in layers, with an Americo-Liberian ruling elite living rather prosperously, sending their children to America for (often racially segregated) high school and college education, and keeping the indigenous peoples excluded from all political and economic leadership.Liberian politics even mirrored that of America's, it was dominated early on by the Republican Party and the True Whig Party. And of course, its flag was almost identical to the flag of the US.
Marcus Garvey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Garvey)
Garveyism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garveyism)
UNIA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Negro_Improvement_Association_and_Africa n_Communities_League)
Black Star Line Steamship Corporation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Star_Line_Steamship_Corporation)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Liberia)Back-to-Africa movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-to-Africa_movement)
History of Liberia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Liberia)
Garvey and others in this movement promoted the idea of going back to Africa just like the Zionists promoting the idea of going back to Palestine. The similarity between the two movements was noted by many and Garvey himself. This led to the movement sometimes being called Black or African Zionism.
Despite Garvey being painted as a black radical, he associated himself with white racist groups, something which shocked the black community.
If I recall correctly, the African Blood Brotherhood, a black communist organization (fulfilled a similar role in the early 20th century as the Black Panther Party of the '60s and early '70s), tried to get involved in the UNIA but were denounced by Garvey as "traitorous Bolsheviks". In fact, Garvey owned a corporation.
On the subject of Liberia (a state founded by migrants from the black diaspora), whose capital city was named after a white American President:
The Americo-Liberians had been cut off from their African cultural inheritance by the conditions of slavery, and were entirely acculturated to contemporary Euro-America society. They were of mixed African and European ancestry and therefore generally lighter-skinned than the indigenous blacks. Crucially, they had absorbed beliefs in the religious superiority of Protestant Christianity, the cultural superiority of European civilization, and the aesthetic superiority of European skin color and hair texture. They created a social and material facsimile of American society in Liberia, maintaining their English-speaking, Americanized way of life, and building churches and houses resembling those of the Southern U.S. The Americo-Liberians never constituted above five percent of the population of Liberia, but they controlled key resources that allowed them to dominate the local native peoples: access to the ocean, modern technical skills, literacy and higher levels of education, and valuable relationships with many American institutions, including the American government. Ironically, one aspect of American society that the Americo-Liberians recreated was a cultural and racial caste system—however in this case with themselves at the top instead of the bottom. To them, their society must have seemed radically different from the USA because it rejected the ubiquitous Western belief in immutable racial hierarchy, which had led the colonists to despair of life in the USA. They, on the other hand, believed in racial equality, and therefore in the potential of all people to become 'civilized' through evangelization and education. Like many white missionaries before and after them, they were frustrated by the natives' lack of interest in becoming 'civilized.' Some local people assimilated into Americo-Liberian society, often by marriage. Some entire coastal tribes became Protestants and learned English, but most indigenous Africans kept to their traditional languages and religions. Pretty soon, Liberian society was arranged in layers, with an Americo-Liberian ruling elite living rather prosperously, sending their children to America for (often racially segregated) high school and college education, and keeping the indigenous peoples excluded from all political and economic leadership.Liberian politics even mirrored that of America's, it was dominated early on by the Republican Party and the True Whig Party. And of course, its flag was almost identical to the flag of the US.