By not disclosing all the stipulations outlined by Barclay, Gordon managed to convince her supporters that with the promise of land in Liberia, black residents would soon be able to begin the process of leaving the United States. In addition, when Allen arrived in Mississippi in 1937, the PME was in the process of sending a small delegation to Liberia to assess conditions in the country and begin negotiations with Liberian officials.61 Therefore, when Allen began organizing in Mississippi, she emphasized these developments to convince Thomas Bernard and other black Mississippians that the PME and its leaders were making tangible steps toward realizing their goals. Over the course of her time in Mississippi, however, the PME’s plans for relocating to Liberia began to fall apart. In October 1938, two PME representatives—black Chicagoans Joseph Rockmore and David J. Logan—traveled to Liberia to meet with officials to sort out logistics for relocating.62 They returned to the United States, however, with more stipulations from President Barclay. In addition to agricultural skills, President Barclay now requested that each emigrant bring at least one thousand dollars to establish himself or herself in Liberia.63 Much like Barclay’s earlier requests, these new stipulations were unreasonable for PME activists—most of whom were unemployed and on government relief during this period. Yet, they remained optimistic even in the face of these obstacles, maintaining the belief that emigration to West Africa would soon be realized.
FIGURE 9. Liberian President Edwin Barclay. George Grantham Bain Collection, LC-B2-6416-4, Library of Congress.
Maintaining a deep sense of urgency, Allen pled with local residents in Mississippi to join the PME, which she described as the “only safe way to Africa.” “I tried very hard,” she later noted, “to make my people see that our time is winding up in this western world.”64 Her efforts were fruitful. Bernard was convinced, and like Reverend Green, he agreed to become a member of the organization. Shortly thereafter, he and Allen established new PME chapters in Mississippi, which attracted an estimated three hundred members. Much like her experiences with Green, Allen played an instrumental role in Bernard’s quick transition from member to leader. By 1942, Bernard was not only a member of the organization but also a local organizer in Matherville who in turn went on to help establish more chapters of the PME in the neighboring state of Alabama.65
Local residents’ descriptions of Bernard during this period reveal much about how he utilized the organizing tradition among everyday black people in the rural South. One anonymous local resident complained to federal authorities that Bernard’s involvement in the PME incited some tensions in Matherville. According to the informant, “T.H. Bernard was constantly agitating the colored folks in that vicinity against white people.” “He possessed a typewriter in his home, carried a little black satchel, and carried on considerable correspondence with some peace organization in Chicago, Illinois,” the individual added. Interestingly, the only surviving photo of Allen shows the activist also holding a black satchel, symbolically forging a connection between the two organizers who worked in tandem during the Depression era. Described as a “whiteman hater” by one of his neighbors, Bernard engaged in door-to-door canvassing, attempting to solicit help “in obtaining freedom of the [N]egroes from the slavery of the whites.”66 Another anonymous black resident later recounted that during the process of canvassing, Bernard called for a militant response to racial oppression, attempting to enlist help to “actively revolt against white people” in the area. The individual also claimed that Bernard carried a gun.67
These descriptions about Bernard’s activities provide a glimpse into the diverse protest strategies that PME activists employed during their political work. Whereas Allen centered her political activism on convincing local black residents to join the PME, advocating for black political self-determination, and insisting that black emigration was imminent, Bernard may have desired an immediate overthrow of the white power structure. If, in fact, the FBI informant looked askance at Bernard’s alleged militant approach, others seemed to embrace it. During the late 1930s, Bernard’s door-to-door canvassing garnered considerable support in the local community, and within months of joining the movement, he had established two PME branches, consisting of “about 300 members” in Wayne County, Mississippi.68 One local white resident later observed, “[Bernard] wielded considerable influence with his fellow [N]egroes.”69
Together, Bernard’s chapters in Matherville and Green’s PME chapter in Long provided crucial spaces for black men and women to become involved in nationalist politics, drawing widely on the networks of churchgoers and using the church as the central meeting place. The extent of the utilization of the church and the overtly Christian ethos mark striking differences between PME chapters in the South and the organization’s main chapter in Chicago. While Gordon and PME leaders in Chicago promoted a syncretic version of Islam based on the teachings of Noble Drew Ali, PME activists in the South toned down their Islamic rhetoric—evidence of the activists’ flexible organizing strategy. In addition, the PME’s weekly meetings in the South mirrored a typical church service. These weekly meetings, generally held immediately after church services, began with a prayer and the reading of biblical scriptures. For example, in Florida, William Butler, a deacon of the Mount Carmel Freewill Baptist Church in Toddsville, later recalled that PME organizer William Ferguson shared information about the organization shortly after the pastor had delivered his sermon.70 Another local resident, Rosa Boyd, recalled the same organizer showing up at Allen Chapel, a Methodist church in Hicksville, Florida, asking the pastor for permission to address the congregation at the conclusion of the service.71
These examples offer glimpses into how PME activists in the South skillfully used black churches as platforms from which to spread their nationalist ideas and recruit new members while downplaying their Muslim connections. Notwithstanding the tensions that often existed between black churches and black activists, these examples also illustrate the inextricable relationship between black religion and politics and reveals that black churches had a profound impact on the development of the PME’s nationalist movement in the South.72
With access to this crucial meeting space as well as an introduction and tacit endorsement from the local minister, Allen and other PME organizers shared their nationalist ideas hidden from white interference and control. Local leaders used the meetings to not only bring members of the community together—through prayer, bible study, and quiet reflection—but also discuss key issues and keep local residents abreast of current developments. Reflecting the legacy of oral traditions in African and African American cultures, PME leaders used these meetings to read aloud from newspaper articles and letters from Gordon.73 Many of Gordon’s letters contained references to international developments—an indication that Gordon wanted to make sure that her followers did not lose sight of global freedom struggles of the era. For example, in a 1942 letter to Bernard, Gordon reflected on the challenges that Indians endured under European colonialism and staunchly declared, “When India is free all colonial people and subjects throughout the world will be free.” “It will cost much bloodshed,” she predicted, “but it WILL COME.”74 In a subsequent letter to Tommie Thomas, a PME organizer in Arkansas, Gordon emphasized the link between the challenges facing African descended people and the plight of Indians. “The India situation is somewhat connected,” she argued, “and the complete freedom of India will bring complete freedom to the American black people, because the same men are holding them in slavery.”75
While the caste system in British India was not entirely the same as the racial hierarchy in the United States, and the racial demographics in both countries were vastly different, Gordon recognized that the struggle against white supremacy in the United States was intertwined with the larger struggle against white imperialism worldwide.76 Her comments allude to the overlapping histories, shared struggles, and political solidarity between Indians and African Americans.77 Linking local and national concerns to global ones, Gordon used he
r letters as a way to disseminate her black internationalist ideas to Southern followers. In this way, the PME’s weekly meetings provided an intellectual space for local blacks, many sharecroppers and tenant farmers, to engage black internationalist discourse at the grassroots level.
FBI Surveillance and Black Radical Politics
The PME’s success in the Jim Crow South during the late 1930s can be attributed, in part, to its leaders’ ability to evade federal authorities. Many of Allen’s activities went undetected by federal officials, who were far more preoccupied with suppressing communism than monitoring the activities of a black nationalist woman.78 Ironically, despite one local resident’s complaints about Bernard, FBI officials did not begin to investigate the PME in the South until the outbreak of World War II—when they became aware of Gordon’s efforts to dissuade her followers from fighting in the war and her growing interest in Afro-Asian solidarity. Although Gordon remained committed to black nationalism, she also endorsed an internationalist vision that called for political collaborations with other people of color across the globe. Much like Madame C. J. Walker—the first African American female millionaire who had established the International League of Darker Peoples (ILDP) in 1919 with Marcus Garvey and other notable black leaders—Gordon espoused a commitment to the “confraternity among all dark races,” believing that the plight of blacks in the United States was linked to that of all nonwhites globally.79
In May 1934, Gordon sent a letter to Kenji Nakauchi, then Japanese Consul General in Chicago, introducing her organization and requesting his support. “We are seeking the assistance and cooperation of your people in this our darkest hour,” she wrote. “We have suffered untold misery in America over three hundred years and now our condition is far worse than ever,” she continued. Gordon requested a “private interview” and assured Nakauchi that she would be willing to “meet on [his] own terms.”80 In another letter to Sadao Araki, a Japanese military general, Gordon requested a truce between the PME and “the dark skin people of the East[ern] world.”81 Making it clear to Araki that she and her supporters were “not [enemies] to the Japanese,” Gordon called for peace and unity between the two groups. “This war is between the white man and the Japanese and we are not included,” she added.82 This letter, sent to Nakauchi right after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, drew the attention—and certainly the ire—of federal authorities, who were determined to squash pro-Japanese movements in black communities.83
In the months to follow, FBI officials sent informants to PME meetings in Chicago where they began to build a case against Gordon. Their investigations led them to the Jim Crow South, where FBI officials set out to interview several PME leaders and activists who frequently corresponded with Gordon—as well their neighbors and friends. Though interested in determining if Gordon or other PME leaders were popularizing pro-Japanese sentiments in the South, FBI officials also desired to learn more about the PME’s connections to Africa. When they arrived in Mississippi, FBI agents uncovered a world of grassroots black nationalist activists organizing in rural areas. By 1941, the PME boasted 733 official members in Mississippi—individuals who had purchased a PME membership card for ten cents each and likely attended meetings on a frequent basis. An estimated 351 of these individuals were women and approximately 346 were men (the sex of thirty-six individuals is unknown).84 Members could be found in various parts of the state—from Bolivar County in the Delta to the central Mississippi counties of Attala and Madison. Most PME members—an estimated 179 individuals—resided in Bolivar County, 105 in Attala County, and 135 in Madison County. These figures capture the widespread geographical reach and effectiveness of PME organizers, who used a range of tactics and strategies to recruit new members and sell their nationalist vision(s) during the 1930s.
PME women organizers’ emphasis on building relationships and developing local leaders played a vital role in propelling the movement to state and regional prominence. Celia Jane Allen’s relationship with Joella Johnson provides a striking example of this correlation. Sometime in 1938, Johnson, a forty-eight-year-old wife and mother of two, made the decision to join the PME.85 Born in Mississippi in 1890, Johnson was residing in Long, Mississippi, during the Depression when she crossed paths with Allen during one of Allen’s public talks on emigration. In Mississippi and across the Southern region, Allen had been taking her message to “churches, schools, on the streets and in hundreds of homes” in an effort to convince local black residents that emigration to West Africa was a logical response to the challenges facing black Americans and a necessary step toward universal black liberation.86 Later recounting her activities, Allen expressed deep despair over the conditions of black southerners: “Hundreds of the poor people were being driven from their farms. . . . Conditions are such that many children are not able to go to school for the lack of shoes, clothing and food.” “I have met so many of them,” she continued, “and have had the opportunity to get them to sign the [emigration] petition or [recite] our one prayer.”87 Moreover, she added, “I tried very hard to make my people see that . . . the PEACE MOVEMENT OF ETHIOPIA, which was founded and led by Mme. M.M.L. Gordon, is the only safe way to Africa, which means freedom and justice.”88
Perhaps Joella Johnson was one of the individuals that Allen described—one of the many black southerners “being driven from their farms.” For much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Mississippi was, like other states in the Southern region, largely agricultural. In the aftermath of slavery, sharecropping became the primary means by which Southern farmers earned a living. However, for freedmen and women, tenant farming only created a cycle of unending dependency and debt with little prospect for land ownership.89 During the 1930s, conditions became even more dismal, despite, and ironically because of, the federal government’s attempts to boost the economy with the implementation of the New Deal.90 Policies such as the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), intended to increase failing crop prices, made payments to landowners to reduce their crop production. The act required landowners to share the payment with their tenants and sharecroppers, but few did, resulting in the displacement of thousands of land tenants, sharecroppers, and small landowners—most of them being African Americans.91 As landowners began to eliminate their small plots and as farms became more mechanized, the systems of land tenancy and sharecropping began to decline in the region. Allen’s encounter with Johnson in 1938, then, coincided with the beginning of a major shift in the Southern economy, and Johnson must have been affected by these developments.92
Johnson’s interview with FBI officials in 1942, though rife with contradictions, offers some important clues on why she joined the movement. Importantly, Johnson admitted to FBI officials that she was already familiar with the PME before she met Allen. She credited a woman activist by the name of “Mrs. Brooms” from Chicago who first told her about the organization and its goals. Yet, a careful reading of the FBI records reveals that it was Celia Jane Allen who left a lasting impression on Johnson.93 From the outset, Johnson denied membership in the PME and tried, to little avail, to maintain a level of secrecy about her involvement in the political movement. In one instance, she informed FBI officials that she was unable to read and write even though she had numerous letters in her possession.94 Though Johnson blatantly denied any knowledge of Allen’s nationalist agenda, she did admit to hearing Allen publicly “say something about Africa.” In addition, while she suggested to FBI agents that she hardly knew anything about the organization or Allen for that matter, she admitted welcoming Allen into her home for two nights.95
Understandably, Johnson was not forthcoming with FBI officials. Nonetheless, her actions are quite revealing. Her carefully crafted responses, which attempted to downplay her intelligence, interest in the organization, and knowledge of its leaders, affirm her close affiliation with the organization. Certainly, Johnson wanted to protect the organization and its leaders—so much so that was she was willing to withhold crucial inform
ation. Her refusal to admit her full involvement in the PME was a survival strategy. She was not oblivious to the consequences of her political actions or the reprisals that might have followed if she disclosed too much information.96
Cognizant of the racial hierarchy that circumscribed the lives of black men and women, as well as the looming presence of the state, Johnson strategically withheld valuable information from white FBI officials and played into their preconceptions.97 In so doing, she covertly challenged the social order, and by claiming to be oblivious of Allen’s activities, Johnson attempted to ensure the future success of the PME’s emigration campaign. Not only was Johnson knowledgeable about Allen’s activities, but other sources reveal that she was drawn into the movement on account of Allen’s recruiting efforts.98 The two days that Allen spent in Johnson’s home could not have been coincidental. Similar to her earlier experiences with Reverend Green, Allen may have identified Johnson as a potential leader of the movement. Therefore, Allen’s request for a place to stay was, in all likelihood, also an attempt to build a relationship with Johnson and her family, as well as an opportunity for Allen to help groom Johnson for future leadership roles in the organization.
Set the World on Fire Page 12