Malcolm X, Black Separatists and the American Communist Party

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Following the Civil War, the Southern States were forced into a period of Reconstruction, whereby black Americans, through their right to vote, dominated the State Legislatures and political scene. The minority whites, appalled at this revolutionary change in the power structure, organized into “Night Riders” that would raid “uppity” blacks and use lynchings, whippings and other forms of intimidation to take back political control in the South.

 

The result was the formation of “Jim Crow” laws which enforced separate physical facilities for blacks and whites. Also, “poll laws and taxes” were used to disqualify large portions of black voters during elections.

 

Martin Luther King sought to address these issues through a movement to eliminate “separate facilities” for blacks and dismantling voting barriers in the South. He drew upon the “non-violent: protests of Henry David Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi as  his model for ending discrimination.

 

Malcolm X, on the other hand, was an advocate of black separatism. Drawing upon the teachings of Elijah Muhammad and the “Nation of Islam”, Malcolm sought to establish a separate political and physical entity for Black Americans. A state within the state as it were. His plan involved black Americans physically moving to a designated area and then declaring their Independance as a new nation. Black Separatism was not a new idea in American politics:

 

“Indeed, black separatism’s specific goals were historically in flux and varied from group to group. Martin Delany in the 19th century and Marcus Garvey in the 1920s outspokenly called for African Americans to return to Africa, by moving to Liberia. Benjamin “Pap” Singleton looked to form separatist colonies in the American West. The Nation of Islam calls for several independent black states on American soil. More mainstream views within black separatism hold that black people would be better served by schools and businesses exclusively for black people, and by black local politicians and police.” (source)

 

 

The American Communist Party, which also controlled many of the civil rights movements that circled Martin Luther King, were also heavily involved in the black separatist movement as early as 1918.

 

“The inspiration for what would become the African Black Brotherhood began with the appearance of a monthly journal. Journalist Cyril Briggs left the Amsterdam News to start the monthly magazine The Crusader in 1918. The first issue, published by the Hamitic League of the World, espoused African nationalist politics, but within a Marxist and Afro-Marxist  context. Editorials endorsed a separatist African-American state, with government control of the means of production. Briggs demanded African-American independence from the United States, in conformance with the principles of President Wilson’s Fourteen Points proposal as applied to former African colonies of European governments. The same issue of The Crusader endorsed A. Philip Randolph’s campaign for New York State Assembly on the Socialist Party ticket. The Brotherhood viewed independence of the black community in the United States as a prerequisite to equality. Only with genuine political power, which included control of the means of production, including the land, could African Americans obtain genuine equality. Briggs proposed a “new solution”: “nothing more or less than independent, separate existence” was called for — “Government of the (Negro) people, for the (Negro) people and by the (Negro) people.” (source)

 

 

They were also advocating the same principals as the 1960s Communist “Black Panther Party” during the same time period:

 

In response to these attacks, The Crusader advocated armed self-defense. Politically, Briggs drew comparisons between government attacks on white and black radicals. He identified capitalism as the underlying cause of oppression of poor people of all races. While endorsing a Marxist analysis, The Crusader advocated a separate organization of African-Americans to defend against racist attacks in the United States, and likened this to Africans’ combating colonialism abroad.

 

In September 1919, The Crusader announced the formation of the African Blood Brotherhood, to serve as a self-defense organization for Blacks threatened by race riots and lynchings. The ABB also organized inside the UNIA-ACL and advocated a policy of critical support for Marcus Garvey. ABB leaders Briggs and Claude McKay participated in the UNIA’s 1920 and 1921 international conferences in New York. At the second conference, McKay arranged for Rose Pastor Stokes, a white leader of the Communist Party, to address the assembly. (ibid)

 

 

These early Black Separatists were merged with the American Communist Party:

 

As the Communist Party developed, it regularized its structure along the lines called for by the Communist International (Comintern). Semi-independent organizations such as the African Blood Brotherhood with its divergent Afro-Marxist political theories were anathema to the Comintern  and its Soviet leaders, who believed all communist and Marxist-Leninist organizations should be unified in a single communist party and platform in each nation under Moscow’s overall direction and control. In the early 1920s the African Black Brotherhood was dissolved, with its members merged into the Workers Party of America and later into the National Negro Labor Congress. Many early ABB members, however, went on to be key CP cadres for decades. (ibid)

 

 

Communism’s roots in the opposing Desegregation movement also went back aways:

 

“W. E. B. Du Bois — one of America’s foremost black intellectuals and a leading figure in the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People(NAACP) — had strong ties to Africa. In 1919 he organized the first Pan-African Congress (see Pan-African Congress of 1919). During the 1920s he traveled to Africa. Yet for most of his life, Du Bois rejected Black Nationalism. In the 1920s he opposed Marcus Garvey and the UNIA. During the 1930s, as Du Bois grew more radical, he turned to socialism and internationalism rather than to Black Nationalism. But during the harsh anticommunism of the Cold War era, Du Bois lost his faith in American society. In 1961 he abandoned the United States and settled in Ghana, where he died two years later, shortly after taking Ghanaian citizenship.”  (Source)

 

 

In fact, Malcolm X referred to himself as a Communist.(Source), But it is also possible that he was being blackmailed by the Communists for his homosexual practices and tendencies:

 

“In Boston, Little held a variety of jobs and found intermittent employment with the New Haven Railroad. Between 1943 and 1946, he drifted from city to city and job to job. He left Boston to live for a short time in Flint, Michigan. He moved to New York City in 1943. Living in Harlem, he became involved in drug dealing, gambling, racketeering, robbery, and steering prostitutes.  According to biographer Bruce Perry, Little occasionally engaged in sex with other men, usually though not always for money. In a Michigan boarding house, he raised rent money by sleeping with a gay transvestite. Later, in New York, Little and some friends raised funds by being fellated  by men at the YMCA  where he lived. In Boston a man paid Little to undress him, sprinkle him with talcum powder…”  (Source)

 

 

“the Communist party and the Black Muslims had imagined a black state within America. Malcolm helped the Muslim prepare the ground for this separate nation, expanding their following from 400 to about 40,000.” (source)

 

 

Communism bred the radicals that now rule our country. Radicals that have sold out our interests to Communist China and Russia in exchange for political power and blind ambition. Sadly, both political parties are now under their influence. Leading us into a Chinese and Russian dominated “New World Order”. Heaven help all of us when this goal is fully achieved.

 

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