The release of the first draft of the Greater Liberia Bill ignited excitement among black nationalist women leaders, who saw it as a tangible step forward in the struggle for black liberation. As Gordon later explained, “[The bill] will determine whether emancipation is to remain half completed or if the freedmen are to be returned to their homeland. . . . It will determine whether the Negro is permitted to work out his own culture.”85 Yet, the bill included a number of unexpected stipulations that Gordon and her supporters rejected, thereby underscoring the ideological tensions between Bilbo and his black nationalist collaborators. The Greater Liberia Bill included a clause that granted the U.S. government military control over the West African territories for a period of two years after emigrants arrived to “preserve public peace and order during the transition.” According to the bill, “the President shall immediately provide for and proceed to the military occupation and policing of such territories, which territories shall become one jurisdiction to be known and designated as the United States Territory of Greater Liberia, under a military governor and government, pending the establishment of civil government by Congress.”86 Ironically, though not surprisingly given Senator Bilbo’s involvement, the bill that black nationalists envisioned as a step toward securing full economic and political autonomy for black people included a clause that would grant the United States the right to occupy Liberia and other nearby countries. In addition, the Greater Liberia Bill included a proposition that would displace indigenous Liberians. It granted the U.S. president the right to appoint a commissioner “who shall be the custodian of all forests, flora, and fauna” of the proposed United States Territory of Greater Liberia.87
Clearly compromising what Gordon and other PME leaders had in mind, these stipulations immediately became a source of contention. In a letter to Bilbo dated March 7, 1939, Gordon, writing on behalf of the PME’s executive council, asked the senator to revise the bill, which they believed had deviated far from the original plan. She reminded Bilbo that the purpose of the bill was to ensure that black people would be free from “white boss rule” and thus have the ability to “live in our new country completely independent of such.”88 To that end, she questioned the need for white military officials yet suggested that black men were more than capable to serve in this capacity as needed. She also expressed discomfort in the idea that African American emigration could result in the displacement of indigenous Liberians. “To set the natives aside in a separate corner of the country as the Indians were done in America will create hatred between us and them,” she argued. She went on to reflect on the kind treatment the PME delegation received during their earlier visit to Liberia and expressed concern that the Greater Liberia Bill, as drafted, would sever relations between African Americans and Liberians in general. “It is the great hope of the [nationalists] to live together among the natives as one big family,” she concluded.89
Not surprisingly, her critiques fell on deaf ears. Senator Bilbo refused to oblige, arguing that regardless of the particulars, black nationalists would ultimately accomplish their goals.90 Gordon eventually acquiesced, recognizing that little could be done to change the specifics of the bill and reasoning that after two years of military rule, nationalists would have full autonomy in West Africa. There is no doubt that Gordon’s acceptance of these terms signaled the activist’s decision to compromise for the sake of progress, but they also capture the complicated nature of her politics. Though she felt uneasy about white military control or policies that would displace indigenous Liberians, she did not consider the full implications of how an influx of African Americans into Liberia might impact Liberians in general. While deeply committed to anticolonial politics, Gordon, like many other black nationalists and internationalists during this period, was often complicit in promoting imperialist and civilizationist ventures. The complexities surrounding the Greater Liberia Bill underscores how black nationalism and anti-imperialism often stood side-by-side with imperialistic and hegemonic aspirations.91
As news of the Greater Liberia Bill spread across the nation, black nationalists from various organizations lent their support for the bill. From their base in Jacksonville, Florida, a group of followers of Laura Adorker Kofey, the former UNIA organizer who had been assassinated in 1928, extended their well wishes in a letter to Senator Bilbo. “Prayerful wishes for your continued interest and courageous efforts in this cause so thoroughly misrepresented by an element of our visionless misleaders,” they wrote.92 Similarly, G. E. Harris, president of the Garvey Club—a New York–based division of the UNIA that remained loyal to Garvey after the contentious 1929 convention in Jamaica—extended his group’s support for the Greater Liberia Bill. “Ten thousand Negroes of the Universal Negro Improvement Association,” he explained, “assembled in mass meeting, endorse your proposed repatriation bill.”93 While black nationalists certainly supported Bilbo’s proposal, some tried to distance themselves from the Mississippi senator. During the summer of 1938, Ethel Waddell, Ethel Collins, and other black nationalist leaders convened at a UNIA convention in Toronto, Canada, where Marcus Garvey insisted that the bill for black emigration should be considered separately from Bilbo the person. “Regardless of how good or how bad a man may be himself,” Garvey argued, “whenever he brings something that appeals to a race or group it is up to that particular group to grasp that particular thing and carry it for their own good.”94 Therefore, he and others resolved that the Greater Liberia Bill was far too important to abandon on account of the senator and his many offensive public remarks. Instead, they were convinced that with careful and strategic political organizing, Bilbo’s proposal had the potential to improve the socioeconomic conditions of blacks in the United States and across the globe.
As Bilbo prepared to introduce the Greater Liberia Bill before Congress, black nationalist women did most of the legwork, engaging in a nationwide grassroots campaign to promote the bill.95 In Chicago, Gordon revived a pro-emigration petition in order to secure more signatures of support.96 Garveyites Peter M. Easley, S. Campbell, and Leroy Edwards followed suit, circulating a pro-emigration petition in favor of the bill.97 Ethel Waddell and others in the PME, Inc. offered their full support to Bilbo, promising to do “what ever we can do to push the amendment to the Relief bill or whatever steps you think advisable.”98 During a short visit to Clarksville, Tennessee, which coincided with her organizing efforts in Mississippi, PME organizer Celia Jane Allen actively promoted Bilbo’s emigration bill. Speaking before a crowd of churchgoers and local community leaders at a local African Methodist Episcopal Zion church, Allen championed the “colonization of American [N]egroes in Liberia.”99 Writing to Bilbo in June 1938—weeks after Gordon had made contact with the senator—Allen insisted, “I want to do all that I can do in the fight” for black emigration.100
Allen’s correspondence with the senator during this period further exemplifies how women activists often engaged in performative acts aimed at coaxing their white political allies as a strategic effort to attain their goals. Allen, who grew up in the Jim Crow South, fully understood this performative culture.101 Though Allen was in the process of facilitating a nationalist movement in the Southern region during the late 1930s, the PME organizer skillfully downplayed her political agency and influence in letters to Senator Bilbo. Feigning uncritical admiration, Allen described the senator as the “greatest and strongest friend that the [N]egro has ever had.” Seemingly embracing a patriarchal vision of the masculine protector and a paternalistic racial view, Allen added, “I am depending on you to save me.”102 Gordon followed suit, describing Bilbo and Cox as “the greatest friends the Race has, at this time” in a letter addressed to Bilbo. “The membership [of the PME] holds you in the highest place of any white man in this country,” Gordon added.103
Yet, writing to William Fergerson, a PME leader residing in Florida, Gordon made her intentions quite clear. In a 1939 letter to Gordon, Fergerson had expressed deep frustration over Bilbo’s overtly racist comments a
nd questioned the rationale behind an alliance with the senator. After first reminding Fergerson “to be careful” with what he expressed in writing since “letters often go astray,” Gordon reminded Fergerson that Bilbo and other white supremacist collaborators were solely a means to an end and nothing more. “When we have to depend on the crocodile to cross the stream,” she carefully explained, “we must pat him on the back until we get to the other side.”104 Her comments to Fergerson illuminate the strategic, yet questionable, means by which Gordon maintained her alliances with influential white supremacists like Bilbo. She recognized the need to perform the characteristics of the “Old Negro”—the accommodating and submissive cultural performance—if she hoped to attain her goals. “We have served our purpose as slaves here,” she later argued, “[and] the longing for our ancestral country and people have always been prevalent in our minds.”105
On the afternoon of April 24, 1939, Gordon and her supporters in Chicago set out for the nation’s capital in order to witness Senator Bilbo’s formal presentation of the Greater Liberia Bill. With limited financial resources, the activist had somehow managed to arrange travel for an estimated five hundred PME supporters to come along.106 Gordon’s initial plans of arranging transportation by bus or train had fallen through due to lack of funds. As an alternative, she coordinated rides for as many supporters as she could accommodate in twenty-one tightly packed trucks and cars—some of which broke down during the ten- to twelve-hour commute.107
FIGURE 12. Members of the Peace Movement of Ethiopia emerging from the Capitol building on April 24, 1939. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library.
Despite these challenges, PME members arrived at the Capitol building just in time for Bilbo’s presentation. “Mr. President, with the patience and kind indulgence of my colleagues,” Bilbo began, “I trust I may be permitted at this time to discuss for a little while what is, in my judgment, the greatest, most important, and far-reaching problem that has ever or will ever confront the American people for solution.” “It is important in the highest degree,” he insisted, “because it involves the welfare and perpetuity of two races, the white race and the black race, which are now trying to live side by side in the same domain and under the same government.” Occupying half of the Senate gallery seats, Gordon and her supporters listened intently to Bilbo for more than three hours as he outlined the terms of his bill, often quoting Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. “It is to us of special significance that Thomas Jefferson was the first man of great prominence to be identified with a repatriation movement in this country,” Bilbo stated. “This man Jefferson, the father of the party to the principles of which a majority of the Senate subscribes,” he continued, “wrote more learnedly and truthfully about the Negro than any other man of his time.” With characteristic racist overtones, Bilbo insisted that “without a proper solution both races will be destroyed and will be succeeded by a mongrel race, and . . . the white race will suffer the loss of all that is dear and precious, high and noble in our civilization.”108 It must have seemed like an eternity, and one can easily imagine that Gordon and her supporters were uneasy with the tone of the senator’s lengthy speech even though they accepted the basic premise of his message—the need for racial separatism.
Despite his passionate presentation, Senator Bilbo’s “Back to Africa bill” received a chilly reception from some of his colleagues. Though it does not appear that most of the Senate walked out, as some newspapers erroneously reported, the critical questions some senators raised after Bilbo’s speech suggest that they were not fully persuaded.109 Senator James Davis, a Republican from the state of Pennsylvania, questioned Bilbo on the specifics of the bill—asking how much land the Liberian government had committed and inquiring about the amount of financial support that black Americans would receive once in Liberia.110 Though Bilbo had a prompt response—assuring Davis that black Americans would obtain financial support and the basic necessities in Liberia, including land and property—the Greater Liberia Bill failed to receive the support Bilbo, Earnest Sevier Cox, and other white separatists had anticipated.
Moreover, the newspaper coverage, or lack thereof, spoke volumes. In the immediate aftermath, few black newspapers mentioned the controversial senator and his bill—an indication that their editors were unsympathetic to the cause or did not consider these developments newsworthy. In the months leading up to Bilbo’s presentation, several race leaders had openly denounced the bill and the black men and women supporting it. Not surprisingly, black media outlets, including the NAACP’s Crisis and the National Urban League’s Opportunity, made no mention of the developments—almost certainly intentionally.111 The few black newspapers that did cover the story emphasized the role of Mittie Maude Lena Gordon, identifying her as the originator of the pro-emigration campaign years earlier.112 Writers were fascinated by the unlikely alliance between this outspoken black nationalist leader and the notorious white supremacist. Though a few newspaper articles were quite critical of Gordon—in one instance, describing her as “buxom, well-heeled and loquacious” fanatic of Marcus Garvey—she welcomed the public attention, using it as an opportunity to vigorously defend her nationalist views and, to Bilbo’s surprise, to openly denounce white supremacy.113
In the immediate aftermath of Bilbo’s failed presentation, Gordon held an impromptu interview with members of the white press. “You people don’t want us,” she boldly declared to a group of white reporters, “and we don’t want you.” Referencing the sexual abuse that black women endured at the hands of white slaveholders, Gordon unapologetically blamed white people for the “problem” of race mixing. “Some day the man you elect [as president of the United States] is going to be a black man because you can’t tell the difference,” the activist mockingly remarked. “And it’s simply going to be the price you’re paying for the sins of your forefathers,” she continued. Without mincing words, she added, “All of you know—I do, if you don’t—that in days gone by your male ancestors used to raise their white children in the front yard and their black children in the back yard.”114
Gordon’s public critique of white people effectively marked the end of her alliance with Senator Bilbo. By one newspaper account, the senator was deeply embarrassed by Gordon’s display.115 Perhaps, in this impromptu moment, driven by anger and frustration, she chose not to perform—as she often did in her earlier writings. No doubt she had already come to the conclusion that her attempt to secure federal legislation through Bilbo’s support was now unlikely. Clearly offended by Gordon’s expressive display and harsh criticism of white America, especially her blaming of white men for the race problem, Bilbo tried to form his own delegation of black nationalist leaders in the ensuing months, hoping to limit Gordon’s influence and also hoping that he might garner more control of the pro-emigration campaign.116 He turned to a group of male leaders in the fragmented UNIA.117
“She’s the 1939 Moses”
In the aftermath of Gordon’s break from Bilbo, several mainstream civil rights leaders and black journalists criticized the black nationalist woman leader—much as they had done before. Writing to black journalist Lester Walton on the day the bill was introduced, Claude Barnett of the Associated Negro Press criticized Gordon and her supports for traveling to Washington, D.C. in support of the Greater Liberia Bill. “They are a crude, ignorant lot,” he wrote, “reminding one of the early Garvey days.”118 Ralph Matthews, a writer for the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper, expressed similar views, comparing Gordon and her followers to those who were involved in the “Hunger Marches” in cities across the nation and other parts of the globe during the early 1930s. Initiated by labor organizers and, in many cases, backed by the Communist Party, the Hunger Marches represented grassroots efforts among the unemployed to demand government aid following the onset of the Great Depression.119 In Matthews’s view, however, those who participated in these marches were simply “bedraggled” me
n and women begging for food to eat and a place to stay. By comparing Gordon’s PME to the Hunger Marches, Matthews argued that their efforts were guided solely by economic desperation. No doubt reflecting his own elitism, Matthews went on to describe Gordon and her mostly working-class supporters as “misfits in a complex economic system.” He facetiously concluded that all they wanted was a “pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”120
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