(Download) "Cyril Briggs and the African Blood Brotherhood: A Radical Counterpoint to Progressivism." by Afro-Americans in New York Life and History " eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Cyril Briggs and the African Blood Brotherhood: A Radical Counterpoint to Progressivism.
- Author : Afro-Americans in New York Life and History
- Release Date : January 01, 2006
- Genre: Social Science,Books,Nonfiction,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 208 KB
Description
The Progressive Era was generally an age of optimism. It was an age in which people believed that it was possible, through legislative reform, to correct societal ills such as poverty, racism, and sexism. However, at the same time, there were many people who had little faith in such idealism, feeling reform would come not through legislation, but only by way of the bullet. One such group was the African Blood Brotherhood for African Liberation and Redemption (ABB), first announced in the pages of West Indian immigrant Cyril Briggs' radical periodical the Crusader. The group was founded in response to the bloody race riots during the Red Summer of 1919 and drew its name from the symbolic blood sharing ceremony performed by some African tribes. The ABB credo, largely manifested from articles within the Crusader, merged black nationalism with Marxism, espousing workers' rights, black liberation, and anti-imperialism. Perhaps its most distinctive characteristic was its support for armed black self-defense. The ABB represents what can happen when groups of marginalized people, seething from long-standing injustices, decide that legislature alone is not enough to reform society. Though the group was short-lived (1919-1924), its impact on black radical American politics in the 1920s and 1930s was profound. It is hard to separate the ABB from West Indian immigration. The leaders were almost all Caribbean; indeed, without its Caribbean members, the ABB would scarcely have existed. Besides Briggs, who was the executive head, other members of its ruling Supreme Council included West Indian Americans (and Harlemites) Richard B. Moore (Barbados), Otto Huiswoud (Suriname), W.A. Domingo (Jamaica), and Grace Campbell (born in Georgia but whose father was Jamaican). There remains considerable question as to whether the organization was founded by the Communist (Workers') Party, but whether or not it was, it soon became affiliated with the group. (2)