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“There came a point in my life … where I realized that almost every narrative, whatever it came from, that dealt with an African country was pretty much a rewriting of ‘Heart of Darkness.’”
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Marcus Mosiah Garvey, born in Jamaica in 1887, created the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Committees League (UNIA-ACL) in 1914. Garvey and his supporters adopted Pan-Africanism, which advocated conscious identification with Africa, political and economic resistance to European domination and racism, and solidarity across the African diaspora with the African continent. Slavery, colonialism, racism, and discrimination in the Americas and across the diaspora shaped this philosophy.
The largest Pan-African organization of the 20th century, the UNIA connected the needs and interests of afrodescendant people in the diaspora to Africans on the continent because of their shared identity. Garvey’s philosophy also stressed the need for global economic interdependence to liberate Africans from European colonists. Women helped start and grow the UNIA. Women including Garvey’s wives, Amy Ashwood and Amy Jacques, Adelaide Casely-Hayford, and Henrietta Vinton Davis set the blueprint for Garveyite women as leaders in the UNIA.
The organizational structure of the UNIA, I suspect, contributes to its historical omission from discussions of Black feminism. Garvey established New York as the major seat of the organization in 1918, after arriving in the United States in 1916. The UNIA would eventually found local branches that spanned continents. Garvey was designated “Provisional President of Africa” at the UNIA’s First International Convention in August 1920, while the UNIA Constitution bestowed additional high official posts on a number of male signatories, including Gabriel Johnson, G. O. Marke, J. W. H. Eason, and R.H. Tobitt.
Local branches would reflect this structure by electing prominent men of their communities to the presidency. Similarly, men would dominate in the hierarchies for the UNIA’s other endeavors including the newspaper The Negro World, edited by people such as T. Thomas Fortune, and the Black Star Line, which was overseen by Garvey as its first president and Jeremiah Certain as its first vice president.
>>> Click Here to Listen to “Marcus Garvey: 20th Century Pan-Africanist” <<<
Nonetheless, despite the predominance of men in the organization’s senior echelons, Black women had a leadership role in the UNIA from the outset. For example, Amy Ashwood, Garvey’s first wife, is credited for the organization’s dual-gender structure of separate but parallel women’s and men’s auxiliaries such as the Ladies Division, which later became the Black Cross Nurses, and the Universal African Legions. Ashwood also was an editor for the Negro World.
Garvey’s second wife, Amy Jacques, transformed from his personal secretary into a vital leader within the organization. In her role as associate editor the Negro World, she introduced a page, “Our Women and What They Think,” through which she encouraged UNIA women to work both as political agents and helpmates to their men. When her husband was imprisoned, Jacques-Garvey edited and published two volumes of Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey to raise funds and salvage his reputation. However, Garvey’s wives were not the only women leaders in the UNIA and Garvey movement. Other influential women include Henrietta Vinton Davis and Maymie Lena Turpeau De Mena. Their leadership at the international level attests to the breadth of influence women had in early Pan-Africanism.
Women also made up the rank and file of some local chapters, however histories give more detail about their leadership responsibilities as chapter presidents or secretaries. Due to the UNIA’s gender-segregated structure, women influenced one another and their broader communities in the promotion of black pride, economic empowerment, and self-determination for afrodescendant individuals from within these organizations. One such group was the Women’s Universal African Motor Corps:
The Universal African Motor Corps was a female auxiliary whose units were affiliated with local divisions and associated with the paramilitary African Legion, the membership of which was exclusively male. While the head of the Motor Corps, who was given the title Brigadier General, was a woman, the officers and commanders of the units were men. Members of the Corps were trained in military discipline and automobile driving and repair.
The Black Cross Nurses were another women-led group that left a profound impact on the Black Atlantic. Similar to the Black club women of the U.S., this group of mostly middle-class women carried out social welfare programs centered on the uplift of the poor and working class.
While popular opinion regards Pan Africanism and feminism as incompatible, Garveyite women practiced community feminism, which focused on the collective needs and ambitions of women within their unique community. They highlighted women’s responsibilities as nurturers and caregivers as well as activists and leaders, adopting a vision of the self as communal, interdependent, and relational. Contrary to western feminist notions of women in patriarchal societies, community feminism contends the helpmate role benefits society and provides women the ability to exercise influence over men.
As “race women,” the UNIA’s helpmate-leaders occupied the traditional role of wives and caregivers while also participating as leaders in Pan African political and social movements. Nevertheless, despite their major contributions to the UNIA, women members often experienced marginalization or sexism from the Garvey movement’s male adherents. This sexism and misogyny resulted in part from the historical construction of women’s role within nationalist movements as one in which they must reinforce patriarchal power dynamics. Ultimately, this created atmosphere in which women had limited leadership opportunities in the UNIA due to the deprioritization of initiatives centered on them and their issues.
However, UNIA women did not accept sexist standards without push back, choosing to advocate for greater representation and equality within the larger organization, particularly through women’s divisions. For example, Amy Jacques Garvey emphasized equality between men and women. In addition, Jacques-Garvey confronted masculinist notions of the intellectual inferiority of women through her “Our Women and What They Think” column in the Negro World. Further, she took on a leadership role and maintained UNIA affairs during Garvey’s incarceration, including compiling and publishing volumes of his writing and speeches in Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey.
The emphasis on militant masculinity propogated by Garvey indicates the tensions between centering Black nationalism and pursuing women’s rights. UNIA women navigated these challenges through open critique of the patriarchal aspects of Pan Africanism. For example, during the Fifth Pan-African International Congress in 1945, Amy Ashwood Garvey, along with fellow Jamaican Alma La Badie, were the only two women presenters. Garvey used the opportunity to call out the absence of women’s issues and voices. Additionally, the resolutions proposed by the West Indies delegation were the sole clauses propositioned about women’s issues including equal pay for equal work, employment opportunities for married women, and raising the age of consent.
Despite the patriarchal structure of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, women played a crucial role as leaders in the organization and as advocates for women’s issues. Women like Amy Ashwood, Amy Jacques, Adelaide Casely-Hayford, Henrietta Vinton Davis, and Maymie Lena Turpeau De Mena set the blueprint for Garveyite women as leaders in the UNIA.
While sexism and misogyny persisted within the organization, UNIA women pushed back against these attitudes through open critique and advocacy for greater representation and equality. The community feminism practiced by Garveyite women emphasized the collective needs and ambitions of women within their unique community. Ultimately, the contributions of UNIA women to the organization and to the broader Pan-African movement demonstrate the importance of recognizing the diversity of leadership roles and perspectives within social and political movements.
The post Women of the Universal Negro Improvement Association appeared first on Blackfeminisms.com.
I’m very happy and honored to be the Keynote Speaker to the 38th Annual Kickoff Brunch for the University of New Mexico’s celebration of African American History Month. I want Read more
The post *The South*: The Past, Historicity, and Black American History (Part 1) first appeared on Society for US Intellectual History.
Rice University’s Academic Quadrangle will undergo a major redesign that will include moving the Founder’s Memorial statue of William Marsh Rice to a new location within the quadrangle.
William Marsh Rice was an oil and cotton tycoon, who when he died was said to be the richest man in Texas. He left the bulk of his estate to establish the Rice Institute for Literature. His will stipulated that only White students were allowed to enroll. From its founding in 1912 to 1965, no Black student was permitted to enroll. The university eventually won litigation allowing the educational institution to overrule the “Whites only” stipulation in its founder’s last will and testament.
The board of trustees of Rice University has decided the relocated statue will be presented with historical context and information about the university’s founder, including his ownership of enslaved people. A new monument of similar prominence will commemorate the beginning of the university’s integration a half-century after its opening.
“The board believes that the founding gift of William Marsh Rice is an essential landmark in our history, and the philanthropy of William Marsh Rice should be recognized,” the board’s statement said. “In addition, we acknowledge our founder’s entanglement with slavery, which is in stark contrast to the modern vision and values of our university.”
“We intend for the Academic Quadrangle to both fully acknowledge the history of our founding and founder, and to mark and celebrate the important evolution and growth of our university over time,” said Rob Ladd, chair of the board of trustees. “We believe the redesign will allow us to move forward as a community.”
The university has already implemented another recommendation that the Founder’s Memorial statue “should no longer be used as an iconic image of the university in its publicity.”
Myrlie Evers-Williams, the long-time civil rights leader and former chair of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), is donating her personal archives to her alma mater, Pomona College in Claremont, California.
A native of Vicksburg, Mississippi, she attended what is now Alcorn State University in Mississippi, where she met her future husband Medgar Evers. After Medgar Evers was appointed field secretary for the NAACP in Mississippi in 1954, the couple worked together on voting rights campaigns and efforts to end school segreation. In 1962, their home was firebombed. On June 12, 1963, Medgar Evers was assassinated while standing in the driveway of his home.
After two all-White juries failed to reach a verdict in trials of the suspected murderer of her husband, Myrlie Evers moved to California. (Medgar Evers’ murderer later was convicted of the crime in 1994.) She earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology at Pomona College. Myrlie Evers ran unsuccessfully for Congress and then worked in advertising and directed community affairs for the Atlantic Richfield Inc. She later served on the Los Angeles Board of Public Works. In 1995, she was elected chair of the NAACP.
Now 90 years old, Evers-Williams has donated her extensive archives to Pomona College. The collection focuses on her life after moving to California in 1964; the Mississippi state archives are home to the Medgar Wiley and Myrlie Beasley Evers Papers, covering their early years in that state.
The collection, consisting of more than 250 linear feet of documents, ephemera and artifacts, contains thousands of items. Included are photos of her with presidents ranging from Kennedy to Carter to Clinton; buttons, pamphlets and photos from her own 1970 run for Congress; transcripts and correspondence from her 2007 testimony before Congress; and correspondence related to her preparation for the second Obama inauguration, where she gave the invocation. Personal items include her Pomona College ID card, a hardhat from her time as a Los Angeles Public Works Commissioner and the dress she wore while performing piano at Carnegie Hall, fulfilling a lifelong dream.
Pomona College will preserve the collection for both academic and, in time, public access through The Claremont Colleges Library, where archivists are organizing and cataloguing the material spanning six decades.
The Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Columbia University in New York has announced that it will acquire the archives of Tania León, the noted composer, conductor, and educator. Her orchestral work Stride, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic in celebration of the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, was awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Music.
A native of Havana, León left Cuba in 1967 and settled in New York. She found work at the Harlem School of the Arts as a substitute pianist for dance classes and later became the music director of the Dance Theater of Harlem. She has been visiting professor at Yale University, the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, the University of Kansas, Purchase College, and the Musikschule in Hamburg, Germany, among others.
Alejandro L. Madrid, who has written her biography Tania León’s Stride, A Polyrhythmic Life (University of Illinois Press, 2022), writes: “I have no doubt that Tania León is one of the most important and accomplished composers of her generation. Her music has influenced several cohorts of composers in the U.S., Latin America, and Europe, while also serving as a bridge to positively acknowledge and accept the music and culture from Latinx composers as a serious interlocutor in European and American concert halls. At the same time, her advocacy and commitment to the advancement of marginalized communities of people of color has led to her pioneering work as a musical activist.”
This year’s Race & Justice Imperative—a series of conversations with Black political leaders put on by the DC-based newspaper The Hill—came at an auspicious moment for Black power. More Black Americans were elected in 2022 than ever before, and the Congressional Black Caucus now boasts 57 members, a record. But the overwhelming consensus from the people who spoke, a mixture of Congresspeople, academics, and advocates, was that representation is not enough. It is crucial, they said, to keep up the momentum, even when an election isn’t right around the corner.
LaTosha Brown, cofounder of the Black Voters Matter Fund
“There’s no such thing as an off year,” said Brown. “It is going to take us literally being relentless.”
Brown and Albright described the waves of voter suppression bills that they said have been introduced in 49 states and passed in 20 as important threats to counter—Albright described them as a “slow-motion insurrection.” They said that the bills were a response to Black strength at the polls.
DaMareo Cooper, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, agreed. He compared the current political climate to the backlash that occurred in the second half of the 1800s when the newly won right of African Americans to vote was made subject to various unfair limitations in an attempt to suppress the group’s newfound political power. He also agreed that mere representation was not enough.
“It’s good that we’re getting people into positions at higher levels of government,” he said. “But the policies that get created [are] also critical.”
The nature of what these policies could be was discussed by Alicia Garza, principal of the Black Futures Lab and co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network. One of the Black Futures Lab’s projects is the Black Census, which she described as the largest survey of Blacks in 158 years. She said that for many of its respondents, it was the first time they had been asked what policies they wanted to see enacted.
According to Garza, the Census’s findings paint a very different picture of Blacks than the one that she says was publicized during the 2022 midterm elections, when Blacks were often portrayed as highly concerned about crime, which led to overly punitive public policy. Garza said that the survey showed that Blacks were actually predominantly concerned about the economy, then white nationalism, then voting rights, and then abortion rights. When the full Census is finished, Garza’s group plans to release a Black Agenda legislative road map that will impact policy. And although she’s happy to see more Black people in political roles, she said that it was important that they serve the actual agendas of Black people.
Another area where policy is being highly contested is education, particularly in Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis has cracked down on Critical Race Theory, DEI positions at universities, and the College Board’s proposed curriculum for an Advanced Placement African American Studies class. Adriane Shropshire, executive director of BlackPAC, traced the fights back to Glenn Youngkin’s 2021 campaign for the governorship of Virginia and argued that the damage is deeper than ignorance—it deprives younger people of a chance to develop empathy—empathy that will surely be necessary for the cause of racial justice to advance.
Dr. Darrick Hamilton, Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy at the New School and founding director of the Institute for the Study of Race, Power and Political Economy discussed economic plans that could help close the racial wealth gap. He emphasized that no one plan was a silver bullet, but that a combination of forward-looking policies, like baby bonds, which would give newborns a nest egg that they could later use to pay for college, purchase a home, or start a business, and backward-looking policies, like reparations, could make a difference.
Ultimately, however, the speakers emphasized that without continued energy and involvement, little progress is likely to be made, even with more Black representatives than ever.
“We do a disservice,” said Shropshire, “by focusing on Election Day as if it’s the only day when democracy happens.”
Jon Edelman can be reached at [email protected].
Don’t question Angela Davis’ manuscript, Toni Morrison warned her publishing colleagues. Davis was not “Jane Fonda” but, rather, “Jean d’Arc.”
The post Morrison and Davis: Radicalizing Autobiography appeared first on Public Books.
"He regarded with skepticism and clarity the temptations to make racial identity the foundation of our humanity."
The post Leon Forrest: “Make a Way Out of No Way” appeared first on Public Books.
Black students have lower six-year completion rates for degrees or certificate programs than any other racial or ethnic group, according to a recent Lumina Foundation-Gallup 2023 State of Higher Education study.Dr. Courtney Brown
These outcomes are a result of racial discrimination, high higher education costs, and several external responsibilities, the study found. Black student enrollment as a whole has fallen over the last decade.
A minority of Black Americans (35%) have associate degrees or higher, which may be an issue for career mobility and general well-being because even the well-paying jobs that do not require a degree may still require certification and training.
Black students in less racially diverse programs are more likely to feel discriminated against, physically and psychologically unsafe, and disrespected, which prompts them to abandon higher ed, the study found.
Black respondents in short-term credential programs (32%) reported feeling discriminated against at least occasionally compared to those in associate’s (16%) and bachelor’s programs (14%). And Black students at private for-profit institutions are more likely (34%) to report discrimination than those at public (17%) or private, not-for-profit institutions (23%), according to the study.
“The data is sad and distressing, but the fact that we now have the data, we can’t hide and say we don’t know anymore,” said Dr. Courtney Brown, vice president of strategic impact and planning for the Lumina Foundation.
As for external responsibilities, the study found that Black bachelor’s students are twice as likely (36%) as other bachelor’s students (18%) to have roles as caregivers or full-time workers.
The study also contains recommendations to help remedy such issues, such as offering campus childcare, increasing financial aid and scholarships, providing more coursework flexibility, appointing more people of color in leadership positions, and making sure policies have zero tolerance for discrimination.
Brown praised Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) as institutions with leaders who look like their students and provide a sense a belonging.
“But it’s not just up to HBCUs – it’s up to all institutions to ensure that they are inclusive, that they don’t discriminate against any individual, that they provide a welcoming environment, and that they’re working to ensure the success of every single student that they enroll,” Brown said.
In 1937, a newspaper trumpeted two speculative fiction stories—“Black Internationale” and “Black Empire”— as dramatically as if they were news.
The post “Black Genius Against the World” appeared first on Public Books.
Guest post by Júlia Palik
In November 2022, the government of Ethiopia and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) signed a peace agreement to end two years of conflict which killed thousands and displaced millions of people. The Pretoria agreement calls for the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) of the TPLF. It stipulates an overly ambitious timeline according to which TPLF fighters have to disarm heavy and light weapons within 30 days of the signing of the agreement. Two weeks after the deal the parties specified that the TPLF is to disarm when foreign forces—i.e., fighters from Eritrea and the Amhara region—leave Tigray. While the TPLF did not disarm by the initial deadline, in early January, TPLF members began to hand in their heavy weapons. Although the process has started, the Tigray presidential spokesperson said that disarmament could take months, if not years to complete.
What can previous DDR processes tell us about the likely outcomes of the Pretoria deal?
DDR programs are generally thought to prevent conflict recurrence, but the global evidence to support this claim is thin. Yet donors continue to fund DDR projects that may not be able to deliver the proposed outcomes.
To better understand the impact of DDR programs, our team has been collecting cross-national data on DDR provisions in peace agreements. While this work is still underway, we’ve learned four key lessons that provide clues about how the TPLF’s DDR process may fare.
While disarmament can theoretically restore the Ethiopian government’s monopoly of violence—and thus make renewed civil war less likely—our research showed that complete disarmament almost never happens. Even if the TPLF hands in most of its heavy weapons, it is unlikely that all of the group’s small arms and light weapons will be collected. Rebel groups tend to keep some of their weapons as security guarantees, but this can lead to conflict recurrence, as was the case in Mozambique. But other cases, such as Tajikistan, show that complete disarmament does not necessarily need to take place for peace to prevail. Given that disarmament is the costliest concession rebels can make, they often require inducements, such as political and military integration or amnesty. The Pretoria agreement is silent about such buy-ins, making it questionable that TPLF will fully renounce its armed struggle in the medium to long term.
Although DDR programs consist of at least three substantially different activities, the Pretoria agreement devotes only one line to demobilization and reintegration. Yet this task is essential, and likely to be especially challenging in the case of the TPLF. The TPLF is not a loosely connected rebel group scattered across the country, but a geographically concentrated entity with decades of governance experience. To break up command and control ties, demobilization programs typically scatter combatants around different areas (which is an incomplete solution in itself, since geographic distance may not automatically create social distance). This is not a viable option for TPLF fighters who have lived and fought in the same place, similar to Moro Islamic Liberation Front fighters in the Philippines. Demobilization and reintegration in the same community where rebels were recruited pose unique challenges. Other programs that have focused less on breaking up command and control ties and more on exploring and utilizing the peacebuilding potential of ex-combatants, may be better suited for this context. There is also speculation that parts of the TPLF might be integrated into the federal army. Although integration has been tried in other places like Nepal, there is little evidence that military integration is an effective peacebuilding strategy. Even if army integration happens, not all TPLF members will be part of a future army. Most of them will need economic, political, and social reintegration support if sustainable peace is the aim.
The Pretoria deal’s DDR program has no specific provision related to female combatants or minors recruited by the conflict parties (Article 4 only says that parties shall condemn the recruitment of child soldiers). Yet, both children and women were part of the TPLF. The lack of reference to these groups is problematic since research shows that conflicts characterized by high levels of child soldier recruitment are more likely to recur. While women combatants are rarely seen as threats to peace, sustainable resolution requires that reintegration programs take into account that female ex-combatants are stigmatized and often pushed back to pre-war gender roles when returning to their home communities. In previous demobilization and reintegration efforts (1991-1997), the government (at that time the TPLF-led coalition) did not provide tailored reintegration support to female ex-combatants. The current agreement seems likely to repeat this mistake.
One of the most important findings of research on DDR is that that unless the disarmament process is accompanied by meaningful external security guarantees, groups that are disarming may perceive themselves to be vulnerable, and conflict may recur if they are attacked or pre-emptively attack others. DDR programs are costly. Their implementation requires resources, which are usually covered by external actors (the UN and the World Bank, among others). While, representatives from the government, the TPLF, The Intergovernmental Authority on Development, and the African Union are jointly monitoring the implementation of the TPLF’s disarmament, there is little transparency regarding the funding of these mechanisms and the power the monitoring team has in case of breaches of the deal. Although inclusive national DDR ownership is desired by the UN, it needs financial resources and functioning institutions that are capable of managing donor funding. If the DDR process moves to the demobilization and reintegration components, the Ethiopian government will need to make sure that it is able to design and execute these processes, otherwise ex-combatants will have little incentive to fulfill their parts of the deal.
The Pretoria agreement has put a halt to the violence that devastated Ethiopia for two years. This is a laudable achievement. For guns to remain silent, however, there is a need to build on the initial momentum and complement disarmament with a viable demobilization and reintegration program that benefits combatants and their communities alike.
Júlia Palik is a Senior Researcher at the Peace Research Insitute Oslo.
On Thursday evening, the president of the philanthropic Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Dr. Elizabeth Alexander and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution Dr. Lonnie G. Bunch III came together to discuss the increasingly vital role public institutions play in teaching American citizens their country’s history, particularly the history of Black people.
Dr. Elizabeth Alexander, president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Alexander praised Dr. Marvin Dunn, professor emeritus of psychology at Florida International University, who has pledged to continue teaching his syllabus as originally constructed before the 2022 passage of the Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (WOKE) Act.
“The whole ‘WOKE’ bill says if you teach African American history to people, it will make them feel guilty and, therefore, you can’t teach it,” said Alexander. “Dunn is teaching on his own about lynching in Florida—there were more lynchings in Florida than Alabama. It’s a history that must be told and folks are doing it—but Dunn does it at a risk to himself and the people he teaches.”
Bunch agreed with Alexander’s concerns, calling Florida the “bellwether,” as 42 other states currenting have pending legislation that would prevent nuanced discussion about issues of race and racism in U.S. history.
“What’s amazing to me is, right now, there are 17 million high school and middle school students in parts of the country where that history can’t be taught,” said Bunch. “There’s a shadow over this, a sense that these stories, as important as they are, are not stories all Americans need to know. I’m worried that shadow [is] really effecting university professors and teachers.”
Bunch was the first director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, part of the 19 museums of the Smithsonian Institution, which opened in D.C. in September 2016. Scholars from that institution joined experts from colleges and universities around the country, assisting the College Board for over a decade in the design of their AP African American Studies course, now banned in Florida.
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution Dr. Lonnie G. Bunch III.
Bunch called this moment a “fight for all who care about education and the notion of America as a work in progress.”
“History is always divisive, and people are brave enough to understand that complexity—let’s give them some credit,” said Bunch.
Alexander said, in spite of the legislation in Florida and other states, she remains hopeful. By bringing a social justice focus to the philanthropy of the Mellon Foundation, Alexander said she has the opportunity to support arts, culture, and the teaching of history and humanities in higher education.
“People are doing incredible things. Lifting up under-recognized and under-resourced voices means we’re hearing so many different stories that people hold—and they hold their history forever—but now it’s available to so many more people,” said Alexander. “When you see people’s imaginations catalyzed and ready to go, that’s a hopeful thing all day long.”
Liann Herder can be reached at [email protected].
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