iFightSeagullsForBread
The Working Class Hero
The African Blood Brotherhood for African Liberation and Redemption (ABB) was a radical U.S. black liberation organization established in 1919 in New York City by journalist Cyril Briggs. The group was established as a propaganda organization built on the model of the secret society. The group's socialist orientation caught the attention of the fledgling American communist movement and soon evolved into a propaganda arm of the Communist Party of America. The group was terminated in the early 1920s.
During the second decade of the 20th century, a socialist movement for the liberation of American blacks began to develop in the Harlem section of New York City.[1] The movement included a substantial number of immigrants from the British West Indies and other islands from the Caribbean region, who, having been raised and educated as part of a racial majority population in their homelands, had found themselves thrust into the position of an oppressed racial minority in America.[1] As products of the unequal system of colonialism, many of these newcomers to America were predisposed to hostility towards capitalism and the notion of empire-building.[1]
One of these transplants from the Caribbean was Cyril Briggs, born in 1888 on the island of Nevis, who immigrated to Harlem in the summer of 1905.[2] In 1912, Briggs was hired as a journalist by one of the black community's leading newspapers, the New York Amsterdam News. He worked there throughout the years of the First World War.[2] Inspired by the rhetoric of "national self-determination" espoused by President Woodrow Wilson, in September 1918 Briggs launched a monthly publication called The Crusader, to promote the idea of "repatriation" of blacks to a decolonized Africa, a concept similar to the contemporary notion among some European Jews of Zionism and "return" to Palestine.[3]
The Crusader was started by George Wells Parker, a black businessman from Omaha, Nebraska, as the official organ of the Hamitic League of the World, a pan-African nationalist group.[3] Parker published articles in the journal proclaiming that Africa was the cradle of civilization and arguing the superiority of the black race. He contributed financially to the publication, which was essentially a vehicle for his views.[4]
In February 1919, Briggs began to change his ideas, and his new thinking was expressed in articles in the Crusader. He began to draw parallels between the plight of black workers in the United States and impoverished working class whites, who were mostly recent immigrants or their descendants from Europe.[5] Over ensuing months, Briggs began to consider the system of capitalism as the villain, and he argued in favor of a common cause and common action by workers of all races.[5]
The Crusader eventually reached a total readership of 36,000 persons, mostly in Harlem.[6]
Establishment of the organization
The summer of 1919 in America was a time of racial rioting and violence, remembered retrospectively by historians as the "Red Summer." Returning soldiers from European battlefields, including blacks with heightened expectations of freedom and equality and whites seeking a return to civilian employment and the status quo ante bellum, and new immigrant black workers from the rural South formed a volatile mixture which erupted in mob violence in Chicago, Omaha, and cities throughout the Midwest and South.
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 capitalism 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, and likened this to Africans' combating colonialism abroad.
In September 1919, The Crusader announced the formation of a new organization called the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), to serve as a self-defense organization for blacks threatened by race riots and lynchings.
Not long afterwards, Briggs began to forge connections with pioneer black American Communists such as the Surinam-born Otto Huiswoud and Jamaican poet and writer Claude McKay.[7] These in turn connected Briggs and his publication with native-born white Communists including Robert Minor and Rose Pastor Stokes, who took a strong interest in the so-called "Negro Question."[7] Briggs would join the Communist Party himself in 1921.[7]
Conflicts with Marcus Garvey and the Bureau of Investigation
The ABB attempted to organize from inside the UNIA-ACL and advocated a policy of critical support for its leader, 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 1922, 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 convert 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.
In addition to the dispute with Garvey, Briggs and the ABB were targeted for investigation by police and federal law enforcement 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, a government campaign against communists, anarchists, and other radicals was instituted at the direction of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer (himself the victim of two anarchist bomb attacks) in what came to be called the First Red Scare. Government agents were secretly planted in the UNIA, ABB and The Messenger. These agents provided intelligence to the Bureau of Investigation while in some case sabotaging meetings, and acting as agents 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.
During the second decade of the 20th century, a socialist movement for the liberation of American blacks began to develop in the Harlem section of New York City.[1] The movement included a substantial number of immigrants from the British West Indies and other islands from the Caribbean region, who, having been raised and educated as part of a racial majority population in their homelands, had found themselves thrust into the position of an oppressed racial minority in America.[1] As products of the unequal system of colonialism, many of these newcomers to America were predisposed to hostility towards capitalism and the notion of empire-building.[1]
One of these transplants from the Caribbean was Cyril Briggs, born in 1888 on the island of Nevis, who immigrated to Harlem in the summer of 1905.[2] In 1912, Briggs was hired as a journalist by one of the black community's leading newspapers, the New York Amsterdam News. He worked there throughout the years of the First World War.[2] Inspired by the rhetoric of "national self-determination" espoused by President Woodrow Wilson, in September 1918 Briggs launched a monthly publication called The Crusader, to promote the idea of "repatriation" of blacks to a decolonized Africa, a concept similar to the contemporary notion among some European Jews of Zionism and "return" to Palestine.[3]
The Crusader was started by George Wells Parker, a black businessman from Omaha, Nebraska, as the official organ of the Hamitic League of the World, a pan-African nationalist group.[3] Parker published articles in the journal proclaiming that Africa was the cradle of civilization and arguing the superiority of the black race. He contributed financially to the publication, which was essentially a vehicle for his views.[4]
In February 1919, Briggs began to change his ideas, and his new thinking was expressed in articles in the Crusader. He began to draw parallels between the plight of black workers in the United States and impoverished working class whites, who were mostly recent immigrants or their descendants from Europe.[5] Over ensuing months, Briggs began to consider the system of capitalism as the villain, and he argued in favor of a common cause and common action by workers of all races.[5]
The Crusader eventually reached a total readership of 36,000 persons, mostly in Harlem.[6]
Establishment of the organization
The summer of 1919 in America was a time of racial rioting and violence, remembered retrospectively by historians as the "Red Summer." Returning soldiers from European battlefields, including blacks with heightened expectations of freedom and equality and whites seeking a return to civilian employment and the status quo ante bellum, and new immigrant black workers from the rural South formed a volatile mixture which erupted in mob violence in Chicago, Omaha, and cities throughout the Midwest and South.
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 capitalism 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, and likened this to Africans' combating colonialism abroad.
In September 1919, The Crusader announced the formation of a new organization called the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), to serve as a self-defense organization for blacks threatened by race riots and lynchings.
Not long afterwards, Briggs began to forge connections with pioneer black American Communists such as the Surinam-born Otto Huiswoud and Jamaican poet and writer Claude McKay.[7] These in turn connected Briggs and his publication with native-born white Communists including Robert Minor and Rose Pastor Stokes, who took a strong interest in the so-called "Negro Question."[7] Briggs would join the Communist Party himself in 1921.[7]
Conflicts with Marcus Garvey and the Bureau of Investigation
The ABB attempted to organize from inside the UNIA-ACL and advocated a policy of critical support for its leader, 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 1922, 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 convert 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.
In addition to the dispute with Garvey, Briggs and the ABB were targeted for investigation by police and federal law enforcement 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, a government campaign against communists, anarchists, and other radicals was instituted at the direction of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer (himself the victim of two anarchist bomb attacks) in what came to be called the First Red Scare. Government agents were secretly planted in the UNIA, ABB and The Messenger. These agents provided intelligence to the Bureau of Investigation while in some case sabotaging meetings, and acting as agents 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.