I know you’re probably thinking, “Kimberly, WTF can anybody learn from violent racists?!”
A helluva lot more than you think.
Now, before you grab your pitchforks and try to “cancel” me, this is NOT about espousing their beliefs. It’s about understanding how we got here, as that information will be key to figuring out how we fight back. (Spoiler: protesting won’t be enough.)
So buckle up ‘cause we’ve got a lot of history to comb through.
Per usszzz, this post might have typos. And if you’re reading this via email, consider downloading the Substack app. It’ll read this post to you if that sounds enticing.
The first confusing meeting
In my late teens, I did a lot of odd jobs to earn some cash, including babysitting both kids and pets.
I remember being interviewed by a Black couple who needed support with their youngin’. I don’t remember much from that conversation, except for one thing they told me:
“If you’re out with our child, do not let white people touch our baby.”
Wait, what?
Just the white people?
I meaaaan, I could certainly understand not wanting anybody to touch your baby. But only the white ones can’t?
So… what, I’m just supposed to go about slapping the white hands, “No touchy for you!”
And what about people who have one white parent and one Black parent? Are they too white to touch.
Chiiiiiile, I’m sure confusion showed on my face since they responded quickly informing me they were Black nationalists.
My young mind questioned quietly… so do Black nationalists hate white people like white nationalists hate Black people?
I didn’t wanna be around that energy, so I declined the work.
While some may argue otherwise, my original assumption about what Black nationalism is was incorrect.
According to the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Institute at Stanford, Black nationalism in the 1960s promoted economic self-sufficiency, race pride for African Americans, and Black separatism.
The roots of this movement trace back to abolitionist Martin Delany (b. 1812) and Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey (b. 1887).
Delany, credited with coining the Pan-African slogan “Africa for the Africans,” founded and edited the Black newspaper, the Mystery, from 1843 to 1847, and later co-edited Frederick Douglass’ anti-slavery paper The North Star from 1847 to 1849.
He also wrote the novel Blake; or, The Huts of America, about an enslaved man instigating rebellion—an idea that stood in stark contrast to the “Christian endurance” narratives written about by white abolitionists Harriet Beecher Stowe and William Lloyd Garrison.
Delany understood that pacifism wasn’t an adequate response to the violence of slavery.
And that turned out to be true, as it was violence and war that facilitated the end of chattel slavery in the U.S.
(And no, I’m not about to tell everybody to go get violent. Stick with me here. I’m getting us on the same page before we break down the learnings.)
The second confusing meeting
Garvey was an entrepreneur and the founder of both the People’s Political Party (in Jamaica) and the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).
The UNIA “aimed to achieve Black nationalism through the celebration of African history and culture. Through the UNIA, Garvey also pushed to support the ‘back to Africa’ movement and created the Black Star Line to act as the Black-owned passenger line that would carry patrons back and forth to Africa. He also fostered restaurants and shopping centers to encourage Black economic independence.”
This past Sunday in my Film Club, we watched Mosiah—the first-ever narrative film about Garvey written by and starring Samuel Lee Fudge. (If you missed it, the film is available for rent or purchase on Prime. If you’re boycotting Amazon, then you shoulda joined me for the screening in my Patreon on Sunday. 😂)
In this short film, Samuel brings to life Garvey’s trial, where the government charged him with mail fraud over the sale of Black Star Line stock. The prosecution’s case? A single piece of physical evidence…an empty envelope.
The film also highlights one of Garvey’s most controversial moments: his secret 1922 meeting with Edward Young Clarke, the then-leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
Reports say that he wanted to discuss their shared opposition to miscegenation (aka “race mixing”), compare views on social equality, and seek their support for his vision of a separate Black nation.
When the public found out about that chat, it did not go over well.
Shoot, I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t have received it well either.
Garvey reportedly thanked white people for Jim Crow laws because he believed they kept white folks away from Black people.
Except it didn’t.
‘Cause when we built our own out of necessity, they burned it down, buried it in water, stole it through “Urban Renewal,” etc.
Both self-reliance through separation and co-existing through integration led to violence. Why? Because our mere existence is a threat to white terrorism.
Garvey also said, “I regard the Klan, the Anglo-Saxon clubs and white American societies, as far as the Negro is concerned, as better friends of the race than all other groups of hypocritical whites put together.”
Ummmm, excuse me?
The group that hunted Black people, even children, for sport and strung them up in trees were better friends of the race?
Immigrating to a country and then praising the people who have been violently oppressing the folks who look like you is hella suss.
Nah, buddy.
I just can’t get with that Kanye energy… and neither could W. E. B. DuBois and A. Phillip Randolph who launched a “Garvey Must Go” campaign in response.
Now keep in mind, by this point, Garvey had millions of Black followers (and not in the social media sense) rallying behind his vision of Black liberation, which included dream of a separate, parallel society built on Black-owned business and industry.
So was a cancellation campaign the best approach? With what I know today, I can’t say.
There are two things that I do believe:
First, we need both the Malcolm X + Garvey + Delaney + Nat Turner energy and the Martin Luther King, Jr + W. E. B. DuBois + A. Phillip Randolph energy for what lies ahead of us, which I will explain further shortly.
Second, when we zoom out to examine why Garvey was frustrated and what influenced his comment about the Klan, we start to see the bigger picture.
He acknowledged the failures of Reconstruction, blaming white politicians who made promises and did not keep them.
Case in point: 40 acres and a mule.
In The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey compiled by his wife Amy Jacques, Garvey says:
“Instead of pointing the Negro to Africa, as Jefferson and Lincoln did, they sought to revenge him, for the new liberty given him, by imprisoning him in the white man's civilization; to further rob his labor, and exploit his ignorance, until he is subsequently ground to death by a newly developed superior white civilization.”
Garvey felt we needed a separate place where we could be supported so that we could thrive given the political climate.
And with the number of people I know leaving the U.S. right now, I totally get that.
As for the Klan, he saw them as “honest” in one sense: they knew exactly who they were, they said who they were, and they stood on that business in every way.
Ok, Mr. Garvey… except for the fact that the only reason they even had business to stand on was the foundation of lies that brought their racist community together in the first place.
What united them and fueled them? Messaging…propaganda.
Ironically, propaganda was the same weapon that would be used against Garvey to convict, jail, and deport him.
And that brings us to the first of several lessons we can learn from white terrorism.
It’s about messaging. And no, I’m not saying we need to lie to each other.
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