Her archrival Amy Ashwood, however, attended the event as one of only two women speakers at the Fifth Pan-African Congress. In addition to chairing the Congress’s first session, Ashwood provided a report to attendees in which she reinforced her commitment to anticolonalism and feminist politics. “Very much has been written and spoken of the Negro,” she remarked, “but for some reason very little has been said about the black woman.” “She has been shunted into the social background to be a child-bearer,” Ashwood added, “This has been principally her lot.”131 Her comments resembled those of Jacques Garvey, who had also written at length about the unique challenges facing black women in the diaspora. Though disheartened that she could not be there in person, Jacques Garvey nonetheless extended her full support for the gathering: “You know my heart is with you all,” she reminded Padmore.132
While Amy Jacques Garvey was physically absent from the Fifth Pan-African Congress, she was certainly not absent from the discourse surrounding Pan-Africanism, anticolonial politics, and black women’s rights. Jacques Garvey put pen to paper to address the concerns facing people of African descent across the globe. From 1944 to 1948, she found a public platform from which to articulate these ideas in The African: A Journal of African Affairs, the official periodical of the Harlem-based organization called the Universal Ethiopian Students Association (UESA). Established sometime during the early 1930s, the UESA was a Pan-Africanist organization composed mostly of student-activists from various parts of the globe, including historian John Henrik Clarke, African nationalist Nnamdi Azikiwe, high school history teacher Willis N. Huggins, and journalist David Talbot.133 Inspired by the UNIA, the leaders of the UESA, many of whom were former Garveyites, articulated a commitment to Pan-Africanism, black nationalism, and anticolonial politics.
In the aftermath of Garvey’s 1927 deportation, leaders of the UESA sought to build upon Garveyism even as they articulated a distinct political vision for the new organization and its members. Similar to the UNIA, the UESA called for the complete liberation of Africa from white colonial rule and emphasized the significance of education as a means of improving the lives of black men and women across the globe. During the thirties, members of the UESA led a series of campus protests across the United States and held community debates on colonialism and imperialism in Africa. Reminiscent of the UNIA’s School of African Philosophy, the UESA also held evening summer courses for members of the community on African history and culture.134 Even as the organization drew inspiration from Garvey’s UNIA, the UESA certainly reflected the time period in which it gained political traction. Against the backdrop of the 1935 Italo-Ethiopian Crisis, members of the UESA endorsed modern Ethiopianism and joined a range of other black organizations in defense of Ethiopia.135 In a booklet entitled “The Truth of Ethiopia,” published in 1936, members of the UESA outlined the history of the conflict and called on people of African descent to join forces in opposition to European powers.136 Huggins, who facilitated much of the UESA’s educational ventures, lectured frequently on African history and colonialism and raised funds for the Friends of Ethiopia, an organization he founded to aid Ethiopia during the 1935 crisis.137
During the 1940s, Amy Jacques Garvey and a cadre of black nationalist women found a space in the UESA’s The African newspaper to engage in national and political discourses of the period.138 In 1944, at the same moment in which she was promoting the Greater Liberia Bill, Jacques Garvey joined the editorial board of The African, thereby expanding her political influence in the Black diaspora. By the time Jacques Garvey began writing for the newspaper, it had acquired international prominence and had been circulating in black communities across the globe, including Nigeria, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and the Gold Coast. In 1937, the year of its debut, The African attracted a significant readership of more than 30,000. No doubt some of these readers included individuals who once read Marcus Garvey’s Negro World and The Blackman during the 1920s and early 1930s. In one letter to the editorial board, for example, Stanley Davis, an activist residing in Harlem, described The African as “the only thing which seems to satisfy my soul in the form of Journalism since the Blackman magazine by the late Hon. Marcus Garvey.”139 Given the overlapping publication dates and similarities between The African and the UNIA’s New Negro World, it is also likely they attracted some of the same readers—black men and women who embraced the newspapers’ anti-imperialist, nationalist, and anticolonial bent. In the case of The African, colonial authorities went to great lengths to ban (or delay) the circulation of the newspaper in various places, including the Congo, South Africa, and Trinidad.140 Despite their efforts, The African remained in consistent circulation in communities across the African diaspora until 1948—four years after the New Negro World folded. From 1944 to 1948, Jacques Garvey contributed articles to The African on a range of issues affecting black men and women.
Alongside an impressive group of black writers—including Liberian Victoria Johnson Schaack and African American Gladys P. Graham and well-known activists George Schuyler, J. A. Rogers, and George Padmore—Jacques Garvey openly endorsed Pan-Africanism and emphasized a commitment to ending colonialism and imperialism.141 In a 1945 article entitled “Africans at Home and Abroad,” Jacques Garvey argued that the “ties of blood that bind us transcends all national boundaries.” “The differences of languages and dialects,” she continued, “are being overcome as all of us are learning the language of freedom.”142 In “The Coming Era,” Jacques Garvey condemned global white supremacy and called on black men and women across the diaspora to help liberate Africa from the grip of European colonialism. “Thirteen million people of African descent in the United States of America,” she lamented, “[are] denied their manhood rights by a government representing the will of the majority view with interest in the evolutionary drift of civilization.” Drawing a link between people of African descent and those of Asian descent, Jacques Garvey went on to condemn the exploitation of both racial groups, arguing that “the wealth and resources of their lands are also being used [by whites] to the fullest extent.” “Indians have been promised self-government when the war is over,” she added, “[while] India’s manpower is being used as soldiers on the ground and in the air, and her fields and ammunition plants are in full swing on the Indian home front.”143 Jacques Garvey’s comments resembled those of Mittie Maude Lena Gordon, who also emphasized the common experiences of people of African descent and those of Asian descent. At the time of Jacques Garvey’s writing, Gordon remained in a prison cell, where she would serve out her prison sentence until August 1945.144
Jacques Garvey, therefore, used her writings to endorse anticolonial politics and challenge global white supremacy—outside of the grasp of U.S. officials who had managed to silence some black nationalist activists while intimidating others. She appealed to blacks under colonial rule to “be prepared educationally and scientifically to strike a blow for their own freedom.”145 Writing in 1944, Jacques Garvey condemned the ideology of white supremacy, reminding readers that “even [so-called] ‘backward peoples’ have minds . . . and sooner or later these primitive minds . . . will rise to superhuman strength, and build for themselves a ‘Heaven of Hell.’ ”146 While acknowledging the challenges facing people of African descent across the globe—who were “treated as serfs, second rate citizens and objects of exploitation”—Jacques Garvey expressed optimism that “these sacrifices . . . will be compensatory in the perennial struggle of Africa’s people, at home and abroad, for the right to rise without hindrance to their full stature as men, and to control and direct their own destiny.”147 Echoing the rhetoric of self-determination, Jacques Garvey expressed similar sentiments in an article entitled “The Language of Freedom”: “Liberty is a synonym of independence and self-government. And only when we too have created the states, built the nations and erected the governments comparable to those of other men, can we honestly hope to erase the stigma of inferiority.”148 Her words captured the essence of Pan-Africanist thought—
an incisive critique of imperialism and demand for black political rights. These demands, however, often stood side-by-side with civilizationist and even imperialist views. Endorsing racial uplift ideology, Jacques Garvey called on skilled black men and women in the diaspora to “answer [Africa’s] crying needs by taking advantage of every opportunity in the Western World to fit yourself for service in her rehabilitation.” “ ‘To thine own self be true. Enlist now for service,” she added.149
The complexities and contradictions that characterized black nationalist women’s ideas also extended to issues of gender and women’s rights. In one 1945 article, Jacques Garvey advocated an expansion of women’s leadership opportunities while also endorsing traditional ideas concerning gender roles. “Men build houses,” Jacques Garvey explained, “[and] women make homes.”150 Her comments mirrored those of Victoria Johnson Schaack, another black woman writer affiliated with the UESA. Born in Monrovia, Liberia, in 1909, Schaack was the granddaughter of Hillary Johnson, the first native-born president of Liberia.151 Her father, F. E. R. Johnson, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in Liberia, served as a delegate to the 1900 Pan-African Conference in London.152 A highly educated and well-traveled black woman, Schaack attended Monrovia College in Liberia and completed advanced study in various schools across Europe and the United States. An ardent African nationalist and Pan-Africanist, Schaack advocated black unity and implored black men and women to take a stance to prevent “the white man” from “steal[ing] our land and everything else we hold dear.”153 In September 1946, while residing in Boston where she attended a music school, Schaack began writing for UESA’s The African newspaper. A wife and mother, Schaack often penned articles addressing gender roles, women’s rights, and women’s efforts to balance their personal and political commitments.154 Describing them as the “head of the family,” Schaack emphasized black men’s roles as breadwinners and decision makers while describing black women as “mother[s] and home makers.” Yet, Schaack also called on black women to expand their visions beyond the duties of home and family: “To protect primary interest, women must be prepared to correct evils in Community and State. To mend and make over a world out of repair is the major talk of women today.”155 Her comments, like those of Jacques Garvey, shed light on the complexities and contradictions of black nationalist women’s views on gender and women’s rights during the twentieth century.
Against the backdrop of World War II, a vanguard of black nationalist women leaders in the United States, Europe, and the Caribbean were at the forefront of an international Pan-Africanist movement aimed at eradicating the global color line. Maintaining a commitment to anticolonialism and Pan-Africanism, these women, from all walks of life, employed a range of political strategies and tactics in their efforts to secure universal black liberation. Through various mediums including journalism, media, and overseas travel, Amy Bailey, Ethel M. Collins, Amy Ashwood Garvey, Una Marson, and many other black women activists and intellectuals fought to advance anticolonial and Pan-Africanist politics while articulating proto-feminism. Reflecting the richness and complexity of their political thought and praxis, black nationalist women’s anticolonial visions often stood side-by-side with imperialist and civilizationist discourses. Likewise, their views on women’s rights and gender roles reflected the diversity of black feminist thought at the time, which was by no means monolithic or always progressive.156
Significantly, these women helped to sustain black nationalist politics, endorsing racial pride, African heritage, black political and economic autonomy, and Pan-Africanism during the tumultuous years of World War II. In the postwar era, black nationalist women in the United States and in other parts of the diaspora amplified their efforts to obtain human rights. In the absence of crucial diasporic newspapers like The African and the New Negro World, black nationalist women remained steadfast in their resolve to disrupt the global color line and found new avenues from which to articulate their views. Moreover, they continued to build transnational alliances, recognizing that their struggles for black rights on the local and national levels were deeply connected with struggles for freedom all across the globe. As many of these women grew older in age, some with failing health, they actively mentored a younger generation of black women who would be ready to carry on the work in their physical absence. Moreover, the global visions of freedom black nationalist women promoted in their writings and speeches during the 1940s remained salient in the decades to follow—no doubt providing a source of inspiration for black activists and intellectuals during the 1950s and 1960s.
CHAPTER 6
Breaks, Transitions, and Continuities
IN A 1956 letter to a political ally, sixty-seven-year-old Mittie Maude Lena Gordon, the founder of the Peace Movement of Ethiopia (PME), insisted that the fight for universal black liberation was far from over. “It seem[s] that all our work is in vain, [b]ut we shall continue as long as we live,” she explained.1 Gordon’s comments captured black nationalist women’s unwavering determination to improve conditions for black men and women throughout the diaspora. During the postwar era, Gordon and other veteran black nationalist women leaders, including Amy Ashwood Garvey, Maymie De Mena, and Amy Jacques Garvey, continued to pursue a host of causes, including black emigration, anticolonialism, and black internationalism. Against the backdrop of the modern Civil Rights and Black Power movements in the United States, rapid decolonization in Africa, and a surge of liberation movements in Latin America, the Caribbean, and across the globe, these women continued to build transnational alliances and employed a range of strategies and tactics in their struggles for civil and human rights.
As veteran women activists grew older, they sought to maintain their political work, inspiring and mentoring a younger generation of black men and women who attempted to carry on the work in the decades to follow. In the United States, Gordon relaunched a grassroots emigration campaign during the postwar era, working alongside younger women activists in the PME. In London, Monrovia, and other locales, Ashwood, in her late fifties, continued the fight against racism and discrimination, forging transnational networks with a diverse group of black activists and intellectuals. From her base in Kingston, Jamaica, Jacques Garvey, also in her late fifties, advocated African liberation and black emigration to Liberia while also attempting to preserve and popularize the ideas of her late husband. Her colleague Maymie De Mena, who by this time was in her early seventies, supported these efforts, working with members of the Harmony Division of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in Kingston. Together, these women worked tirelessly to advance black nationalist and internationalist politics, unwilling to relent during a period of significant political change.
These women laid the groundwork for a new generation of black activists and intellectuals during the 1950s and 1960s.2 In many ways, the Civil Rights–Black Power era represented an extension of the political work that women like Ashwood, Jacques Garvey, De Mena, Gordon, and others had begun several decades prior. Ideological and organizational links tied new black nationalist and internationalist groups to older organizations established during the first half of the twentieth century such as the UNIA, the PME, and the Universal Ethiopian Students Association (UESA). Indeed, a new generation of black activists would draw upon the ideas and legacies of earlier black nationalist women leaders who preceded them. The emphasis on grassroots political organizing, the commitment to Pan-African politics, and the ideals of black political self-determination, racial pride, African redemption from European colonization, and economic self-sufficiency underscore how a diverse group of black activists and intellectuals during the 1950s and 1960s—Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Mary McLeod Bethune, Robert F. Williams, Mabel Williams, Mae Mallory, Malcolm X, and Stokely Carmichael, among them—drew on the ideological foundations and political strategies employed by earlier black nationalists and internationalists.3 Yet the organizational and ideological breaks between older and younger generations of activists were also evident. While yo
unger black activists shared veteran black nationalist women’s anticolonial and anti-imperialist visions, many rejected the call for racial separatism, maintaining the belief that racial equality in the United States was achievable. The historic Brown v. Board of Education ruling (1954) and the Montgomery bus boycott (1955–56) signaled to many black activists and intellectuals—including those closely aligned with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)—that change was not only possible but also imminent. Moreover, veteran black nationalist women’s particular focus on black emigration and their unwavering interest in Liberia marked a significant departure from the priorities of several black nationalist groups of the period. Rather than endorsing black emigration, black nationalist groups such as the Nation of Islam (NOI) and the Republic of New Afrika (RNA) advocated territorial separatism—the establishment of autonomous black communities within the United States.4 While black activists in these groups sought to advance economic self-sufficiency and political self-determination, they lacked the strong inclination to relocate to West Africa. Instead, they set out to empower black communities through various means, including religious expression, armed self-defense, and cultural nationalism.5
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