For Gordon, the conflict and subsequent break from Bilbo marked a pivotal turning point in her political career and public image—despite the public critiques levied against her by some black journalists and civil rights leaders. Ironically, the same newspaper that published Matthews’s critical article included another piece, which succinctly captured this change. Shifting focus from “The Man Bilbo,” the anonymous writer of the Baltimore Afro-American lauded Gordon as the “1939 Moses” of black people—ironically evoking the same analogy Gordon once used to describe the senator. Displaying a full-length photo of a smiling Gordon—under the capitalized words “She’s [the] 1939 Moses”—the newspaper story included a short description of the black nationalist woman leader credited for leading a group of “500 disciples” to D.C. to lobby in support of the Greater Liberia Bill.121 Symbolically, the newspaper’s declaration underscored a significant shift that was beginning to take place at the national level. Although Gordon hoped to secure federal legislation through the help of a powerful white (male) ally, some members of the African American community had, in essence, selected the leader of their choice. Reminiscent of Harriet Tubman, who led hundreds of enslaved people to freedom through the Underground Railroad, Gordon became a female embodiment of the “Moses” figure.122
Along these lines, many black nationalist activists envisioned Gordon as a messianic figure who, like the biblical Moses, would lead the way to the Promised Land. Mrs. Jowers, a member of the PME in Chicago, expressed this point of view in an original song entitled “You Better Run.” “God called Madam Gordon from the start,” Jowers declared, “He stamped His will upon her heart / He placed his commandments in her mind / And He told her not to leave his children behind.”123 In a new spin on the American patriotic song, the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” Juanita Carter, a young PME member, composed a song that endorsed emigration to West Africa and praised Gordon’s divinely ordained leadership:
FIGURE 13. Mittie Maude Lena Gordon in “She’s [the] 1939 Moses,” Afro-American, April 29, 1939, 24.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the returning of Africans
To the land of Promise for we’ll let her will be done.
All our brother Africans will meet us on the run,
Mother Gordon will lead us home
Mother Gordon is leading,
Mother Gordon is leading,
Mother Gordon is leading, and she will lead us home
Like the Sphinx o’erlooking Egypt tho never a word it speaks
We’ll follow Mother Gordon’s footsteps and always be meek
Mother Gordon will lead us home.
The Rock of [Gibraltar] has through the ages stood,
The winds and storms about it washed as furiously as they could
Behind our leader we will stand four million strong,
For she will lead us home.124
Carter’s song, along with Mrs. Jowers’s comments, repeatedly evoked the “mother” trope often used in black churches to describe the “primary matriarchal figure.”125 By emphasizing Gordon’s role as “mother” and the female embodiment of “Moses,” members of the African American community sought to authenticate and validate the activist’s leadership at the local and national levels.
Although Gordon did not obtain the congressional support she desired, her efforts to pass the 1939 Greater Liberia Bill and uncanny political alliances with white supremacists propelled her status among a community of working-class black nationalists in Chicago. Members and supporters of the PME showered her with praises and gifts in recognition of her hard work and dedication. By one account, local residents threw parties for the black nationalist woman leader, bringing her food, clothing items, and money.126 Others expressed their thanks and appreciation through songs and poetry. In a song entitled “The Land for Me,” one young activist praised Gordon’s vision and unparalleled leadership: “Madam Gordon is leading this Peace Movement Band / To the Bible’s much talked about promised land / When I get there, so happy I’ll be, / For Mother Gordon said ‘it’s the land for me.’ ”127
Expressing similar sentiments in a poem, Albert McCall, a PME activist residing in Chicago, underscored Gordon’s unwavering commitment to black emigration and credited the activist for her many years of struggle. “To build this Peace Movement club it took a long time,” he noted, “But Madam and her helpers did not mind.”128 Re-creating the scene of Gordon at the Capitol building, filled with hyperbolic elements, PME activist J. E. Hart noted, “I saw her running with something in her hand, / T’was a bill made up for the promised land / The news went out from land to land / It seemed to stampede every man.” Addressing those who criticized Gordon’s actions, Hart warned, “You keep on talking you’d better let her alone / What a wonderful leader has been born.” “She stretched her arms across the sea,” he continued, “And made this connection for you and me.”129 Hart’s statement, along with McCall’s, shed light on the respect and popularity Gordon enjoyed among many black nationalist activists in Chicago even as she endured stark criticism from some race leaders and black journalists.
Moreover, these songs and poetry underscore the grassroots appeal of the Greater Liberia Bill among many ordinary black men and women who embraced the idea of emigration. In the aftermath of Senator’s Bilbo’s presentation, Gordon received a record number of letters from black men and women across the country, inquiring about the PME and their plans to facilitate emigration to West Africa.130 Even the ACS experienced an increase in letters during this period from black people across the nation inquiring about the “Back to Africa bill.”131 During the summer of 1939, members of the PME in Chicago held a series of public meetings, promoting the Greater Liberia Bill and securing additional signatures from black residents in support of emigration. In October of that year, Gordon issued a call for additional PME organizers to help recruit new members, “arouse the sentiment of the people,” and promote the “Back to Africa bill.”132
During the 1930s, black nationalist women leaders relied heavily on the support of influential white supremacists in order to advance their political goals. These women activists embraced the ideas of biological determinism that dominated the racial discourse of the period. Working within these conceptualizations of race, Mittie Maude Lena Gordon, Ethel Waddell, and others actively pursued alliances with Earnest Sevier Cox and Theodore G. Bilbo. During a period that was particularly marred by racial violence, black disenfranchisement, and Jim Crow segregation, black nationalist women engaged in a series of performative interactions with white supremacists who sought to bolster their political cause. To a large extent, this was certainly the case. However, women’s controversial alliances with white supremacists ultimately failed to yield all of the results they expected.
By 1940, the Greater Liberia Bill began to wane as the United States became increasingly embroiled in World War II. In the aftermath of Germany’s attack of Poland in September 1939 and the immediate military response from British and French allies, it became quite apparent that the passage of the Greater Liberia Bill would not become a reality.133 Moreover, as more nations became embroiled in the global conflict, the United States began to mobilize for war and shift focus from national concerns to global ones—including stimulating the economy and lifting the Depression.134 Reflecting on the war’s outbreak, Gordon expressed deep concern for these developments: “Our hearts are broken, our eyes are filled with tears to think that our brothers and sons, weak from hunger and ragged are being recruited to go back to Europe to another war.” “We hope that this nation will stay out of this war,” she continued, “or at least keep the black man out of it. It is not our war; we have nothing to do with it.”135 While Gordon lamented the outbreak of World War II, other black nationalist women leaders envisioned the war as a moment of opportunity for black activists across the globe.136 From her base in Jamaica, Amy Jacques Garvey launched an international pro-emigration campaign, calling on black men and women across the African diaspora to seize the
moment as an opportunity to secure their individual and collective freedom.
CHAPTER 5
Pan-Africanism and Anticolonial Politics
WRITING IN 1944 to A. Balfour Linton, editor of The African newspaper, the Pan-Africanist leader Amy Jacques Garvey laid out a strategic plan for securing the political, social, and economic freedom of black men and women across the globe. “The Redemption of Africa,” she insisted, “is a solution for the ills of all Africans, those at home and those abroad, and all people of African descent, the world over.” “The nerve center is Africa,” she continued, “and unless, and until, this spinal column is put into working order, the limbs cannot function properly; for it is the nerve center—Africa—that we must get our motivating power.” “Strengthen that, and you automatically strengthen even the far-flung fingers and toes,” she added.1 Jacques Garvey’s statements, which came during a global economic and political crisis of World War II, reflected her unwavering commitment to anticolonialism and Pan-Africanism—the political belief that African peoples, on the continent and in the diaspora, share a common past and destiny.2 As colonial rule spread throughout Africa, Jacques Garvey emerged as part of a vanguard of black nationalist women leaders at the forefront of black liberatory movements. In the 1940s, she launched an international Pan-Africanist movement from her base in Jamaica, aimed at challenging global white supremacy and securing universal black liberation.
As Jacques Garvey fought to eradicate the global color line from her base in Jamaica, a vast diasporic community of black women from all walks of life, many of them involved in black nationalist organizations, were also engaged in anticolonial and Pan-Africanist politics. Amid the sociopolitical upheavals of World War II, Amy Bailey, Ethel M. Collins, Amy Ashwood Garvey, Una Marson, and many other black women activists and intellectuals of the period challenged global white supremacy through various mediums, including journalism, media, and overseas travel. Recognizing that the challenges facing people of African descent in the United States or any other nation-state were deeply intertwined with the experiences of black people throughout the diaspora, these black nationalist women promoted a global black liberationist vision and added distinctive voices to discourses surrounding Pan-Africanism. Through an array of writings and speeches during the 1940s, they exercised their political agency, affirmed their humanity, and demanded equal recognition and participation in global civil society.
While these women embraced Pan-Africanism and were deeply committed to anticolonial politics, they often embraced imperialist and civilizationist views that paradoxically promoted some of the same ideals they rejected. Likewise, even as they advocated women’s rights, many of these women also endorsed a repressive and patriarchal vision of black liberation—one in which men occupied positions of power and authority while relegating women to secondary, subordinate positions. Through their many writings and speeches, which circulated throughout the United States and other parts of the globe, women played a key role in keeping nationalist ideas alive in black public discourse decades after the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) effectively lost its stronghold. Foregrounding black nationalist women’s writings during World War II not only captures the complexities, tensions, and contradictions within nationalist women’s political ideas and praxis but also illustrates how these women shaped and were shaped by black internationalist movements and discourses of the period.
Black American Women and Diasporic Politics
The 1940s was an era of significant transformation in the lives of black men and women across the African diaspora. The outbreak of World War II, more than any other development during this period, marked a turning point in global history.3 Concerned about the future of millions of people of color across the globe whose lives would be greatly impacted by World War II, black activists across the diaspora amplified their efforts to end global racism, imperialism, and colonialism.4 On the home front, many black Americans were ambivalent about supporting American military aspirations given the persistence of racial violence, disenfranchisement, and Jim Crow segregation. A. Philip Randolph’s plan for a March on Washington (1941) and the “Double V” campaign (1942), which called for an end to fascism abroad and Jim Crow at home, exposed the racial grievances concerning U.S. foreign policy.5 These developments coincided with the formation of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a multiracial political organization that helped to launch the modern Civil Rights Movement and with the second wave of the Great Migration, in which an estimated one million black southerners relocated to the North and West.6
For black women, in particular, the 1940s was an era of hope and possibility marred by the persistence of racial and gender inequality. After the United States entered World War II, women joined the labor force in record numbers to replace the men who had gone to battle. Certainly, the rapidly expanding labor force improved socioeconomic conditions for many black women, who constituted 600,000 out of one million black workers during the war.7 A significant number of black women who entered the army—an estimated four thousand—joined the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), and more than three hundred became members of the Army Nurse Corps.8Notwithstanding the significance of these opportunities, racial and gender discrimination shaped black women’s experiences during the 1940s. On the war front, American WACs were relegated to segregated living quarters and endured, on a daily basis, gender and racial prejudice in an army dominated by white male officers.9 In the workplace, black women encountered the same racialized and gender-based hierarchy, which consistently placed them at the bottom.10 In addition to poor working conditions and segregated spaces—including bathrooms and separate water fountains—black working women received inferior earnings that were substantially lower than the salaries paid to white employees.
These historical developments profoundly shaped the political activities of black women in the United States. No doubt many found a space in mainstream civil rights organizations, women’s clubs, or leftist groups to challenge racial and gender discrimination and denounce racism and segregation on both national and international levels. For many working-class and impoverished black women, however, grassroots organizations like Mittie Maude Lena Gordon’s Peace Movement of Ethiopia (PME) had a particular appeal and thus provided a significant site for political engagement. By the 1940s, the PME had attracted a substantial following in Chicago and across the nation. Frustrated with developments concerning the failed Greater Liberia Bill, Gordon turned her attention to global concerns during this period. Reflecting her commitment to Pan-Africanism and black internationalism, Gordon advocated black unity and emigration to Liberia while agitating for the end of colonialism in Africa. During the 1940s, she joined a diasporic community of black activists committed to these causes. Writing to a political ally in 1942, she expressed frustration over European imperialism, admitting that “speaking of Italy and Germany controlling Africa has left me bewildered.” “It is the desire of the Nationalist in America as well as Africa,” she added, “that our country be free of all whites.”11
Gordon’s grassroots efforts to build an alliance with Nigerian nationalist Akweke Abyssinia Nwafor Orizu during the early 1940s exemplify her embrace of Pan-Africanism and support for the anticolonial movements of this period. In December 1940, after reading about Orizu in the Richmond Times, Gordon invited him to speak before an audience of PME supporters.12 For ten days in March 1941, Orizu held a series of public meetings with Gordon and her supporters addressing a range of topics, including emigration to West Africa.13 Born in 1920, Orizu later became acting president of Nigeria in 1966.14 At the time of his visit in 1941, he was a college student at the Ohio State University with a desire to build alliances with members of the diaspora.15 He was also a staunch proponent of African liberation from European colonialism, working alongside other African students studying in the United States such as Kwame Nkrumah, future prime minister of Ghana.16 Orizu’s book, Without Bitterness (1944), joined a number of other African nationalist works
openly condemning European colonialism and calling for self-determination.17 Gordon’s desire to meet with Orizu in Chicago exemplifies her growing interest in the Pan-African struggle to end colonialism.
Throughout the United States, many black nationalist women shared Gordon’s political vision, using their writings and speeches to endorse PanAfricanism and anticolonialism. In 1942, Josephine Moody, a member of the UNIA residing in Cleveland, Ohio, wrote an impassioned article entitled “We Want to Set the World on Fire,” which appeared in the New Negro World—a Cleveland-based newspaper modeled after the original Negro World.18 In the article, Moody called for an immediate overthrow of the global white power structure in order to achieve universal black liberation. Reflecting the ethos of the “New Negro Movement,” the antiracist political and cultural awakening that swept the nation and the world during the 1920s and 1930s, Moody demanded a militant and urgent response to global white supremacy.19 “The bleeding wound of Africa is wide open,” Moody argued, “and the nations of the world keep the wound from healing, and we, the Negro must be our own physician to effect a healing of that wound.” The liberation of Africa, Moody continued, would only come by force: “We want to set the world on fire, we want freedom and justice and a chance to build for ourselves. And if we must set the world on fire . . . we will, like other men, die for the realization of our dreams.”20
During the tumultuous years of World War II, the black press provided a crucial platform for black nationalist women in the United States to articulate global visions of black freedom and call for improved conditions for people of African descent. Reminiscent of nineteenth-century journalist Ida B. Wells, activist Florine Wilkes, a member of the UNIA, advocated the end of lynching in the United States. In a 1943 poem entitled, “My Race,” Wilkes expressed deep frustration over the mistreatment of black men and women in the United States:
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