In the immediate aftermath of Allen’s short stay in her home, Johnson helped to establish a new local PME chapter and served as the chapter’s “lady president.”99 This provides yet another example of how the organization provided a space for women to serve in visible leadership roles. A survey of the list of officers in PME chapters across the state of Mississippi reveals that all chapters had both male and female officers. One of the local PME chapters in Matherville (“local # 10”), for example, boasted nine officers—three of whom were women serving in varied leadership capacities as president, vice president, and secretary.100 Johnson’s title also underscores how women activists in the PME had to carefully navigate black nationalist spaces. While Johnson was responsible for overseeing both men and women in the local chapter, the very use of the title “lady president” captures the gender politics at play.101 In the PME, the title was used as a way to distinguish between male and female leaders; “lady presidents” in the PME were not confined solely to a woman’s division (as was the case with Garvey’s UNIA). In Johnson’s case, she worked alongside Reverend Green, who served as the chapter’s male president in Long, Mississippi.102 Significantly, Gordon administered organizational instructions to both Johnson and Reverend Green—an indication that their leadership roles were complementary or equal.
Maintaining frequent communication with these local organizers, Gordon offered advice when needed, made suggestions for how the organizers should conduct their affairs, and provided words of encouragement in moments of despair. Writing to Johnson in 1942, Gordon urged her not to become “discouraged because of those who differ with you.” Echoing Garvey, who popularized the slogan during the 1920s, Gordon advised Johnson to “preach ‘AFRICA FOR THE AFRICANS’ everywhere you can.”103 In another letter, after Reverend Green reported acts of white supremacist violence directed against PME members, Gordon followed up with a detailed letter, offering words of encouragement. “We hope you will soon find out the truth about the brutality to some of our members,” she noted. “Tell your people to be of good cheer for those that are suffering now will not have to suffer much longer.” Vaguely referencing recent developments in East Africa and India, Gordon advised the Reverend Green that in only a matter of time, black people would “win our fight without opposition.”104 She expressed similar sentiments in a letter to Sam Hawthorne, a Mississippian who joined the PME in Chicago and later returned to the Southern region to help establish a new chapter. Gordon urged Hawthorne “not to be discouraged because the people are slow to see the light.” “It takes time to wake sleeping people,” she added.105 Reinforcing these views in a letter to Bernard, Gordon optimistically declared, “Everything is working in our favor all over the world. In the very near future . . . the black man will be free.”106 Gordon’s words provided much-needed hope and encouragement when circumstances appeared bleak for black southerners.
The Struggles Within the Struggle
In addition to unwanted attention from the FBI, PME organizers’ political activities in the Jim Crow South were hampered by growing tensions among its leaders. Reflecting on her tenure in the PME, Allen described a strained relationship with Gordon during the early 1940s. According to Allen, Gordon “became [jealous] and envious” of her success in organizing blacks in the Southern region and, in response, started to “press and ignore” her.107 The activist also bitterly complained that she had a “very hard fight with so many preachers and [professors]” while organizing in Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee. Convinced that many of these black “preachers and professors” only opposed emigration because of their desire to “exploit [their] own race,” Allen openly criticized their attempts to block her efforts. “If the poor masses could see why they are trying to block this [emigration] measure,” she argued, “they would ignore that kind and would be too glad to go [to Africa].”108 To a large extent, Allen’s critiques were unsubstantiated, especially considering the assistance she received from local preachers like Revered Green. At the same time, her statements offer a glimpse into the conflicts and class divisions that often existed in black communities regarding the question of emigration.
Political opposition and internal conflicts, however, paled in comparison to the white supremacist violence Allen encountered during this period. In one instance in 1938, while moving from plantation to plantation in an attempt to convince black sharecroppers to sign the PME’s “back-to-Africa” petition, Allen encountered a group of hostile white landowners near Bamboo Road in Leland, Mississippi. Black sharecroppers in the area had expressed a genuine interest in the organization, but when she showed up with plans to organize these men and women, a group of white landowners drove the activist out of town with threats of violence and intimidation.109 Black residents who openly supported the organization and its goals also faced a number of reprisals, in some cases “being beat almost to death.”110 Indeed, political organizing in the Jim Crow South was no easy task, and PME activists during the Depression era had to devise a range of creative strategies and tactics to deal with some of the challenges that they encountered.
In light of such violence, their alliance with a well-known white supremacist was perhaps the most questionable and seemingly paradoxical strategy these activists employed. In the immediate aftermath of the Bamboo incident, Allen wrote a letter to Mississippi Senator Theodore G. Bilbo—unbeknownst to Gordon—asking the senator for a letter “authorizing us to organize in your state, a letter to be shown to any authority questioning our right to organize for this purpose.”111 Her odd request arrived on Bilbo’s desk in June 1938—only months after Gordon had begun corresponding with the senator to secure his support for the passage of an emigration bill. An ardent separatist, Bilbo had committed much of his political career to upholding white supremacy.112 By 1936, he had already developed a reputation as one of the most virulent racist politicians in the country.
While other white separatists certainly maintained the same views, Bilbo stood out. He unabashedly expressed overt racist remarks in public, often using derogatory language to describe African Americans and other nonwhites.113 His politics certainly reflected his racist views. While he supported New Deal policies, he eschewed what he saw as FDR’s attempt to advance “racial egalitarianism.”114 In the late 1930s, he became a major opponent of the federal anti-lynching bill, vowing to fight it until “hell freezes over.”115 Although the senator condemned lynching, he resisted federal intervention, viewing it as the ultimate threat to white superiority.116
On the surface, the collaboration between white supremacists and black nationalists may seem surprising. Whereas white supremacists promoted racial terror and violence, black nationalists openly condemned racial oppression. Moreover, black nationalists rejected the white supremacist belief that members of the white race were biologically superior to blacks. Black nationalists embraced the idea that people of African descent were morally superior to whites—on the basis of their history of suffering.117 This, however, did not prevent some black nationalists from collaborating with white supremacists for a myriad of political reasons. During the nineteenth century, for example, a number of black nationalist figures, including Martin Delany and Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, procured assistance from the ACS.118 Years later, in 1922, Garvey held a controversial meeting with Edward Young Clarke, acting imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, in Atlanta.119 In the years to follow, Garvey maintained close contact and collaborations with several white supremacists—including Senator Bilbo.
Accepting biological notions of race, which have since been repudiated, many black nationalists found common cause with white separatists on the matter of “racial purity.” These men and women could not realize their goals “without the actual biological perpetuation of the race.” Therefore, black nationalists attempted to closely monitor and control black sexuality.120 One of Allen’s surviving letters to Bilbo underscores this fact. “I am tired of looking [at] white ladies and [N]egro men locked arms walking up and down
the street [and] white women pushing half [N]egro babies,” the activist bitterly complained.121 In all likelihood, these occurrences were far less common than Allen suggested. However, by expressing these views to Bilbo, Allen was certainly appealing to the senator’s own hatred for race mixing.
Because black nationalists and white separatists both rejected race mixing and desired racial separatism, they often stood on the same side of the emigration issue. To be sure, black nationalists advocated for voluntary emigration as opposed to compulsory emigration. Nevertheless, some black nationalist leaders attempted to use collaborations with influential white separatists as a means of bolstering their political leverage and thus securing their ultimate goal of racial separatism.122 The questionable collaborations with white supremacists incited much tension and disagreement in black nationalist circles and, not surprisingly, drew sharp criticism from other black activists.
In Celia Jane Allen’s case, her collaboration with Senator Bilbo reflected her understanding of the consonance of their respective racial ideologies, shared interests in emigration, and the value of Bilbo’s enormous power and influence in Mississippi and as a U.S. senator.123 Bilbo was, as his biographer has argued, “the state’s dominant political personality of the era of segregation.”124 His popularity in the state was second to none, and black nationalist organizers were not oblivious to this fact. During the late 1930s, as she began to organize black men and women in the Jim Crow South, Allen used her connection to Bilbo as a recruiting tool. Allen also appeared to be deeply moved by her correspondence with the senator. “It is very encouraging to have the privilege to write a United States Senator,” she later admitted to Bilbo. Alluding to the significance of receiving letters from someone with an official title and position of authority, Allen added, “I am filled with enthusiasm when I read a letter from the U.S.A.”125
By telling local residents in Mississippi that the PME had not only secured land in Liberia but also had the support of the most influential white politician in the state, Allen hoped to win the support of those who might have been skeptical or too fearful to join the movement. Somehow, the very notion that Bilbo supported the PME organizers’ efforts seemed to place some black Mississippians at ease. This certainly was true for Reverend Green. In March 1938, months after joining the PME and helping Allen establish a local chapter, Green wrote to Senator Bilbo to express his enthusiasm for the emigration campaign. “I thank you for the good you are doing for this Black race [of] mine,” Green wrote. After noting that Allen was residing in his home in Long, Mississippi, at the time of his writing, Green went on to ask Bilbo to corroborate the story that Allen had been circulating. “I understand from Mrs. Celia J. Allen [of] Chicago that you give her authority to organize the Black people in the State [of] Mississippi,” Green wrote, “so I would love to read a letter [of] permit from you to be read to my people.”126
Green’s comments to Bilbo in 1938 are quite revealing. While he offered no clear indication as to why he seemed to maintain some skepticism about Allen’s claims, it is evident that he or others in the community maintained some misgivings at the time the letter was written. It is also evident that Allen shrewdly used the PME’s affiliation with Senator Bilbo as a way to somehow authenticate her political activities in the face of local resistance. On one hand, Allen reasoned that some skeptical black residents might be more willing to get on board if they believed that the organization had the backing of a well-known U.S. senator. On the other hand, Allen hoped that the senator’s sponsorship could secure black nationalists some protection from white violence. She reasoned that local whites might refrain from challenging her work if they viewed her as operating within the bounds of white supremacy—rather than in defiance to it.
She must have been disappointed, then, when Bilbo failed to provide the letter of support that she (and Reverend Green) requested.127 Although Bilbo responded to both Allen and Green, he did not mention the letter. Not surprisingly, he used the opportunity to demean the activists, emphasizing what he saw as the benefits of slavery—giving black people access to “the Christian religion and the white man’s civilization”—and reinforcing the need for black men and women to leave the United States. “In this wonderful country of Africa,” Bilbo wrote in his response to Green, “the black man will have a country all his own where he can work out his own salvation without any hardships and discriminations that he has to undergo in this country.”128 In his response to Green and Allen, Bilbo thanked the PME activists for their efforts to advance black emigration and encouraged them to ask other senators to support the idea—all the while evading their questions and requests.
In 1941, Celia Jane Allen wrote a short report of her organizing activities in the South to be included in a PME pamphlet. In the most detailed surviving firsthand account of her activities during this period, Allen constructed a narrative that would circulate across the nation and ultimately end up in the hands of federal officials. After recounting her many speeches to black residents in Mississippi and across the South, the activist expressed a deep sense of satisfaction that she never gave up and, in the end, was “successful in getting many thousands to heed the call and sign their names.”129 In all, Allen worked tirelessly to organize rural blacks in the South for a period of six years.130 While it is impossible to verify the actual numbers, Allen had a meaningful impact in the South. Of the estimated four hundred thousand signatures from black residents in support of the PME’s emigration plans, a significant number came from black residents in Mississippi and neighboring states.131 Far beyond the petitions, however, Allen contributed to keeping black nationalist ideas alive in the U.S. South during a period of economic and racial turmoil. With few options during a global economic crisis, black southerners found hope in Allen’s teachings—hope that their lives would improve by joining forces with the PME.
Despite or perhaps because of her invisibility, Allen managed to sell her Pan-Africanist vision to countless black men and women—as evidenced by the number of individuals she successfully recruited as new PME members and the numerous new chapters she helped to establish in the region.132 Her reliance on the organizing tradition—the slow and long-term grassroots political work that received little attention or fanfare—was especially crucial in this regard. Drawing on the social networks of black churchgoers and using the church as the primary physical space to disseminate her ideas, Allen advocated for racial pride, black political self-determination, and economic self-sufficiency across the U.S. South; built lasting relationships with countless men and women; and played a key role in developing local leaders. Even after she ceased political organizing in the region, she remained in frequent contact with local activists—in one instance, writing Thomas Bernard during World War II to inquire about the well-being of his family.133
Allen’s commitment to relationship building and the development of local leaders helped to propel the PME’s emigrationist movement to regional and national prominence. While Allen’s activities did not dismantle white supremacy, they did leave an indelible mark on the lives of many black men and women in the U.S. South. So significant was Allen’s influence that FBI officials tried, though unsuccessfully, to interview her during the 1940s. She managed to evade them, perhaps with the assistance of the same local residents who withheld information from authorities. Even after Allen went into obscurity around 1942, local activists continued to launch new PME chapters in Mississippi and nearby Alabama.134 Through Allen’s efforts, black men and women like Reverend George Green, Joella Johnson, and Thomas Bernard came to embrace black nationalism as a viable political strategy in response to racial discrimination and exclusion, Jim Crow segregation, and white mob violence. These individuals, in turn, helped to spread black nationalist ideas throughout the South during the 1930s and beyond.
CHAPTER 4
Dreaming of Liberia
WHILE ACTIVISTS IN the Peace Movement of Ethiopia (PME) were working to expand the organization’s influence in the United Sta
tes, they were also attempting to extend their global reach and strengthen their diasporic networks and collaborations. Central to the organization’s mission was a commitment to black emigration to West Africa as a step toward improving social conditions for African Americans and uniting black men and women throughout the diaspora. From the late 1930s onward, PME activists across the country amplified their transnational activism and deepened their internationalist focus. In a 1938 letter to Mississippi Senator Theodore G. Bilbo—the outspoken white supremacist and ardent separatist who had found common cause with the PME—Florence Kenna, a PME member in Chicago, praised the senator for his efforts to advance black emigration to Liberia. “I have read an article in the newspaper,” she wrote, “pertaining to your request to this government to raise money, to send all people of African [descent] back to their home in Africa; to inhabit our motherland.” “I congratulate you,” she continued, “and I do hope that your determination for this program will never cease [until] the millions [of] sons and daughters of Africa be sent back home to serve our God and our maker under our own vine and fig tree.”1 Kenna’s letter of support was one of many that arrived on Senator Bilbo’s desk from black nationalists across the country during the late 1930s.2 These men and women lauded the senator’s efforts to pass the Greater Liberia Bill, dubbed the “Back to Africa bill,” which called for millions of dollars in federal aid to relocate African Americans to Liberia and surrounding territories.3 Arguing that racial separatism would improve the lives of both blacks and whites, Bilbo called on his colleagues in the Senate to back the bill. Civil rights leaders across the country vehemently opposed the bill, arguing that as citizens of the United States, black people had no business relocating elsewhere.
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