BIGpedia - African Blood Brotherhood - Encyclopedia and Dictionary Online

The African Blood Brotherhood (ABB) was a radical black liberation organization which developed ties to the Communist Party. The group was a propaganda organization built on the model of the secret fraternity, organized in "posts" with a centralized national organization based in New York City. The group's size has been variously estimated between 1,000 and 50,000 members at its peak; the lower end of this spectrum seems most likely.

Contents

1 "The Crusader"

2 The African Blood Brotherhood

3 Conflicts with Garvey and the FBI

4 Fusion with the CPUSA

5 ABB Publications

6 External links

7 Further reading

"The Crusader"

Journalist Cyril Briggs left the Amsterdam News to start the monthly magazine "The Crusader" in 1918. The first issue possessed African Nationalist politics, but within a Progressive context. Editorials endorsed independent African economic development within the free market and called for the national independence articles in President Wilson's Fourteen Points proposal to be extended to African colonies. The same issue also endorsed A. Philip Randolph's campaign for New York State Assembly on the Socialist Party ticket.

At the same time, the magazine called for the right of African Americans to defend themselves against lynching and racist attacks. Racially motivated violence against African-Americans was endemic in the Jim Crow era and large scale attacks by white vigilantes on African-American neighborhoods were not uncommon. Historian Charles Crowe found that between 1898 and 1908 there were 40 major race riots in the South. Large scale attacks occurred in Atlanta in 1906, Springfield, Illinois in 1908, East St. Louis in 1917, Chicago, Phillips County, Arkansas and Omaha in 1919 and Tulsa in 1921.

The African Blood Brotherhood

In response to these attacks, The Crusader advocated armed self-defense. Politically, Briggs drew comparisons between government attacks on white and black radicals. He identified captalism as the underlying cause of oppression of poor people of all races. While endorsing a Marxist analysis, The Crusader advocated a separate organization of African-Americans to defend against racist attacks in the United States, much as Africans were combating colonialism abroad.

In September of 1919, The Crusader announced the formation of the African Blood Brotherhood, which would serve as a self-defense organization for Blacks threatened by race riots and lynchings. The ABB also organized inside the UNIA-ACL and advocated a policy of critical support for Marcus Garvey. ABB leaders Briggs and Claude McKay participated in the UNIA's 1920 and 1921 international conferences in New York. At the second conference, McKay arranged for Rose Pastor Stokes , a white leader of the Communist Party, to address the assembly.

The ABB became highly critical of Garvey following the apparent failure of the Black Star Line and Garvey's July 1921 Atlanta meeting with Grand Kleagle Clarke of the Ku Klux Klan. In June of 1921, The Crusader announced that it had become the official organ of the African Blood Brotherhood. Arguing that the UNIA was doomed unless it developed new leadership, the magazine sought to win the UNIA's membership to the ABB. In seeking to replace the UNIA, the ABB competed with Randolph's socialist publication The Messenger, which had called for Garvey's expulsion from the United States. In return, Garvey called for his followers to disrupt meetings of these oppositional groups.

Conflicts with Garvey and the FBI

Although the disputes with Garvey were real, the conflict was worsened by secret interference by police and government intelligence agencies. Historian Theodore Kornweibel reports that the government began manipulating radical organizations in conjunction with legal prosecution under the pretence of disrupting opposition to World War I. Following the end of the war, the government's campaign continued under the direction of Attorney General Palmer in what is called the first Red Scare. Prefiguring COINTELPRO by fifty years, government agents were secretly planted in the UNIA, ABB and "The Messenger". These agents provided intelligence to the incipient FBI while spreading misunderstandings, sabotaging meetings, and acting as agent provocateurs .

The ABB enjoyed a period of notoriety following the Tulsa Riot of 1921. Tulsa had an ABB chapter and news reports credited the organization with inspiring resistance to racist attacks.

Fusion with the CPUSA

The Crusader ceased publication in February 1922, following Garvey's indictment for mail fraud. Briggs continued to operate the Crusader News Service, providing news material to affiliated publications of the American black press. As cooperation with the Communist Party increased, the ABB ceased to recruit separately.

Poet and ABB member Claude McKay visited the Soviet Union several times in the mid-1920's, writing about conferences of the Communist International for African-American audiences. McKay made significant contributions to the debate on national self-determination in support of national independence for oppressed peoples, if the peoples themselves desire it. Subsequently, the CPUSA adopted a policy of national self-determination for African-Americans living in the "Black Belt" of the American South. The policy was neglected after the Popular Front period began in 1935, but was not formally replaced until 1959.

As the Communist Party developed, it regularized its structure along the lines called for by the Communist International. Semi-independent organizations such as the African Blood Brotherhood were no longer supported. Sometime during the early 1920s the African Black Brotherhood was dissolved, with its members merged into the regular Workers Party of America and later into the National Negro Labor Congress.

ABB Publications

"The Crusader". Edited by Cyril V. Briggs. August 1918 - February 1922. 1395 pages. Reprinted by Tuttle Publishing (August 1, 1987). ISBN 0824037669.

African Blood Brotherhood documents PDF format on Marxist Internet Archive. Retrieved April 10, 2005.

External links

African Americans, Culture and Communism (Part 1): National Liberation and Socialism by Alan Wald. Against The Current. Retrieved April 10, 2005.

The Tulsa Race War of 1921 and the African Blood Brotherhood brief article abstract. Retrieved April 10, 2005.

A new book on blacks and the CPUSA Review of The Cry was Unity by Louis Proyect. Retrieved April 10, 2005.

Black and Red: A Journey Through Communism in the Black Community website. Retrieved April 10, 2005.

Enter the New Negro: State Violence and Black Resistance during World War I and the 1920s, by Shannon King, Binghamton University. Retrieved April 10, 2005.

The New Negro: Explorations in Identity and Social Conciousness PDF document from 1915: The Cultural Moment. eds. Adele Heller and Lois Rudnick. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1991. 48-68. Retrieved April 10, 2005.