Black nationalism is the name given to revitalization movements among black Americans, emphasizing their African origins and identity, their pride in being black, their desire to control their own communities, and sometimes the desire to establish a black nation in Africa or some part of the United States.
The exact origins of black nationalist movements are lost in the largely unwritten history of blacks in early America, but it is clear that such movements began as protests against the brutal and dehumanizing conditions of SLAVERY. A few records indicate that early African protest against slavery conditions had overtones of black nationalism.Organized black nationalist movements appear to have begun with Paul Cuffe (1759-1817), a black sea captain.
Between 1811 and 1815 he made the first attempt to establish a black American colony in Africa, transporting several dozen people to Africa. Early in the 20th century W. E. B. DU BOIS developed a sophisticated rationale for a Pan-African movement that would join blacks in America and Africa. But not until after 1910 did a mass movement emerge with black nationalism as its central theme.
The leader of this new movement, Marcus GARVEY, recruited thousands into his Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Its goals included a black nation oriented toward Africa but controlled by black Americans. The UNIA developed the first major black capitalist enterprises, including restaurants, grocery stores, hotels, and a steamship line. Because of antagonism from whites and mismanagement at the top, this movement failed, but it was soon followed by a number of Africa-oriented movements, the most important of which was the Nation of Islam, known inaccurately as the Black Muslims.
Beginning in the 1930s under the leadership of Elijah MUHAMMAD, the Nation of Islam grew to a membership of about 100,000 in the 1960s. Along with Islamic and Christian ideas it emphasized black pride, the central role of the male in the family, the importance of economic self-sufficiency, and a way of life that has often been equated with middle-class morality. It exchanged the goal of a separate nation outside the United States for one of independence and autonomy within the United States.
Perhaps its best-known leader was MALCOLM X.By the late 1960s many themes of black nationalism became part of the life-style of ordinary black Americans, particularly young people. These ideas persist today in colleges and universities, many of which have developed courses in black studies.