The negro American; Turn-of-the-Century Protest

It has been long plume that has gone through Negro history it has been this theme for you know quality of America standing up and living up to the bright promises of the Declaration of Independence. Then too is the essential American dream there is not a light that is not a mark in light because the Negro is a marker to pierce completely. Arthur Benjamin the world's distinguished historian like Negro history that is not the Oxford students of the public schools in a series of talks on the Negro American. It was deadly We B Dubois. That really was the spiritual predecessor of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People because in 1980 by. Which is known as the Niagara and it's known as the Niagara Movement because a group of twenty nine negroes boys met on the Canadian side

to indicate in the United States there was no place free enough for them. And they protested any discrimination any walk of life against the Niagara Movement only stood five years because it was of organization took over every essential element of the political social. Should have complete quality in all American life. Now the new movement also took over the key Dubois himself and he became the editor of its magazine Crisis magazine which nation this is where we meet so much about the boys. He's editor of the crisis and he is the most important of the new jobs in the form

which was basically a white white house rug the grandson of William Lloyd Garrison. These are the these are the people that whose program we know so well. Of course one of the very best it's the breath of any walk of life is a book at the Russian pub. He said very little about. These are the very big political rights social rights in which they would expect

to operate. Therefore use is basically a social worker approach. Secretaries are trained in social work. They speak of the power structure themselves working through persuasion and conciliation working in keeping out of the newspapers points out in the past has pointed out that the jobs for jobs which have never been held before. And sometimes we don't know the extent to which some of these organizations operate because they operate by their very nature close door business. Speaking with city officials and we sometimes go get a bigger contribution because of the way they operate. Now in the early twenties we need a new approach to the solution of the Negro problem and that is the approach

taken the gobby of the black nationalism before coming to the Communists. We would need another approach and that is the guy Marcus Garvey a black nationalist. Now the time the book the Russian the very next 60 comes from Jamaica. This is Marcus Garvey from Jamaica. He never became an American citizen but he's going to be very influential in America. He comes to New York City. He is in Jamaica. This organization takes new life in New York City and we get in 1970 the universal Negro Improvement Association by Marcus Gardner. He begins a Negro newspaper called a negro. Now basically guy for race solidarity race we makea call him a black racist. If you wish.

Glorified everything black and everything that was non-black to him was not up to par. A guy goes to the other extreme of white supremacy and adopts basically a policy of what we might call black supremacy. Now Gabi had a great impact because he reached the manse Garvey was a show we may talk about too brazen a number of people that we could never beat our he was an exhibitionist. He was a very dramatic orator. He had and he had picnics. He was a showman par excellence and he reached the masses such as nobody had ever reached the masses before and therefore we became considerably a figure to reckon with. This was one of his tremendous contributions because he's going to reach people the other day not reached. He's going to reach what we will call for this

and he gives this man a sense of his own worth a sense that very frequently this man has gotten from nobody else. Now he's back to Africa movement was one of the things which captured the attention. But most of the guys do not rate this guy never went to Africa. He did purchase three ships ships ever made a trip to Africa not the provisional president of Africa. This is a tight because he was grandiose in his ideals if nothing else but the back to Africa movement actually nobody is going back to Africa. But it suggests a pride in the African background which had been lacking in Negro life up to that time. It also suggests you see a pride in being black which is in many quarters been lacking up to that

so that we sometimes say Gabi is a black messiah and that he's preaching going back to our home. This actually was not the key thing in the movie. The key thing was this idea of being proud of being a negro being proud of the great which the Negro had in one of his tremendous guesses. And he had was that the negro had a great past in Africa. He was not a scar and Garvey didn't know this but he by intuition he said he said something which were traditional techniques about the glory of Africa before the coming of the Europeans. Now when we moved to the communist in the Negro knowledge this you see comes in the 20s in the 20s when we meet because they also have an approach to the to the problem. Now we could lump the communist socialist together because basically their idea about the laws of economics and control

behavior and control of the government and socialism. Now the sanctions and the combination of the 20s their basic approaches the Carsons race prejudice. What is the feeling of one man to hate another man. It's caused by the capitalists who are determined to keep the workers at each other and say the Communist and the socialist if you like with a capitalist and you will liquidate the agency the force the spirit which keeps the workers and. The workers don't have a country or being a part of the Marxist theory that prejudice animosity between races. This is a capitalistic device to prevent the workers of the United their prostate the socialist in the twenties and across the county. If we liquidate the capitalist system we will liquidate the reason for the existence of

predators and our workers will unite with a common enemy. The boys will see. So the Communist say are these programs of other groups reporting classes are basics or what we need to do is to liquidate a capitalist and bring about the communists as the proletariat par excellence. Who is the man that has nothing with the natural revolutionary who has nothing to lose. Well we say that but he's changed as a nurturer recruit Have we been. Here just waiting to be caught in the middle twenties. We get a communist began to conduct a concerted approach to win. And we get the American Negro labor

Congress founded by the communists in 1920 to win over the Negro workers in the same year we get the international defense the ILB legal to defend workers who ran afoul of capitalist justice or injustice so that you get and you get an approach therefore to win the be over so the Communists make a tremendous effort on the grounds of course that the whole capitalist system is created and past presidents. Now we need the communist and socialist with this one point why they fail to make such a very small negro life by 900. We're going to number fewer than 500. And therefore the question is why did so few negroes. If the Negro is a revolutionary if he is the proletariat

right is it he did not join which we're going to take with the social hour. Well the communists made a few miscalculations about life and one of them was of course the negro was a tremendous individual not about socialism. The negro was not prepared to follow any party line. Now another thing the communists did not sufficiently realizes the basic orientation of the negro was middle class. The negro of the 20s he was not conscious when you spoke to the average negro in the market. If you speak about the proletariat he lived to see when you're talking about. He doesn't think he's going to get rich but revolutionary groups are generally the go revolutionary basically historically he's been very conservative.

He's been on the obstacles and discrimination against. He is not a revolutionary and when you talk about liquidating the existing capitalist system he wonders if he doesn't have in mind liquidating any system he wants to get higher in the pecking order. The Communists did not prove to have the answer at home. These are some of the ideologies which we would meet in the 20s. We have been listening to Professor Benjamin Quarles speaking on the Negro American. The series of broadcast was produced for station WTT are by the Department of Educational broadcasting for the Detroit Public Schools executive producer Frederick E. show. Technical direction. Clifford where. This program was distributed by the national

educational radio network.