INTRODUCTION
As a prolific student of African American politics, Hanes Walton
laments that Black nationalism is the most misunderstood of American
ideologies. He asserts that this confusion stems from the overall problem
confronting the characterization of Black political thought, in general,
and nationalism, in particular (Walton 1985).
Many scholars have attempted to grapple qualitatively with the contours of
this latter ideology, and there also have been several recent attempts to
operationalize and measure empirically attitudinal support for Black
nationalism. Quantitatively though, scholars have not yet reached a
consensus as to what precisely constitutes Black nationalism and its
manifestations. Further, they have not come to agreement as to whether
Black nationalism is directly correlated with non-Black antipathy.
Finally, they have not yet broached the question of whether Black support
for Black nationalism is a direct consequence of life experience. By
examining support for Pan-Africanism, we attempt to address these
questions. We find that Pan-Africanism should be considered a distinct
form of Black nationalism, particularly when juxtaposed against Black
separatism. We find that support for Pan-Africanism is correlated with an
increased willingness to engage in coalitions with other non-Blacks.
Finally we find that support for both Pan-Africanism and Black separatism
is conditioned by life experiences.
THE LITERATURE
Scholars have recognized that at the elite level, actors have
articulated support for very different forms of Black nationalism (Bracey et al., 1970; Bush
1999; Essien-Udom 1971; Henderson 2000; Robinson
2001; Stuckey 1987; Van DeBurg 1997). The statist, capitalist-centered
conception of Marcus Garvey, for example, is very different from the early
nationalist conceptions of the African Blood Brotherhood, whose members
were more socialist in orientation (Van DeBurg
1997). Even before the Black Panther Party made a turn toward
Maoism, its focus on politics and class was very different from the
cultural focus of the United States. And Harold Cruse is probably the most
prominent supporter of the pendulum thesis—the idea that mass Black
political ideology shifts between integrationist and nationalist polls
depending on the context of the time (Cruse
1984).
A number of scholars have begun to address these questions empirically
using a combination of large-N surveys and longitudinal datasets. The 1993
National Black Politics Study (NBPS) has been the most important dataset
for research in this area. Using it, Brown and Shaw found that Black
nationalism at the mass level cohered around at least two
dimensions—one based on community concerns (or on Black empowerment
politics) and another based on the desire to be autonomous or separate
from the larger community (Brown and Shaw,
2002). Michael Dawson, one of the primary investigators of the NBPS
came to somewhat similar conclusions (Dawson
2001), finding support for economic nationalism, community
nationalism, and Black separatism. Dawson's work is particularly
helpful as he traces not simply support for Black nationalism but also the
relationship between Black nationalism and other prominent Black political
ideologies. As Black nationalist thought does not occur in an ideologic
vacuum, it is crucial that we consider the influence other ideologies
exert on Black nationalism and vice versa. However, indicating the
complexity of measurement issues using the same dataset, Davis and Brown
(2002, pp. 239–253) argue that Black
nationalism is uni-dimensional, and furthermore, intolerant.
This is the second major area of disagreement. There has been vigorous
debate as to whether or not Black nationalists are inherently hostile
toward White Americans and thus likely to be antagonistic toward all
outgroups. Along with Davis and Brown, Jennifer Hochschild (1995) has reached this conclusion. However, there is a
counter view that Black nationalism is a complex ideology and while its
adherents likely share a resentment of White racism, there are differing
strains of it that are receptive and hostile to aligning with other racial
and ethnic minorities (Brown and Shaw, 2002, pp.
22–44).
Finally there is another thread that is indirectly related to
questions of dimensionality and intolerance. We referred to Harold
Cruse's pendulum thesis above. Errol Henderson (2000) argues that support for Black nationalism at the
elite level is cyclical and most likely to occur in periods of racial
retrenchment, American interventionism, and war; economic factors have
little to no bearing. These contentions contradict Dean Robinson's
(2001) qualitative conclusions that elite
expressions of Black nationalism are so shaped by the particularities of
each historical period and material context that generalization across
periods is highly problematic if not implausible.
The quantitative work on Black nationalism, therefore, revolves around
three questions. First, how do Black citizens as a whole understand Black
nationalism? Does their support indicate that Black nationalism is a
uni-dimensional ideology or a multi-dimensional ideology? This question is
important because answering it gives scholars in general, and those
interested in empirically studying the concept in particular, a better
handle on Black nationalism (as an independent variable) as it relates to
behavior and attitudes. Second, is Black nationalism another form of
racism?1
Researchers have examined whether
those sympathetic to Black nationalism, akin to other nationalisms, are
intolerant of intragroup differences among African Americans (e.g.,
gender, sexuality), as well as xenophobic toward other racialized groups
such as Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian Americans (Brown and Shaw, 2002; Dawson
2001; White 1990). Evidence for such
clashes range from the patriarchal and homophobic rhetoric that Louis
Farrakhan and some nationalists have been accused of using to the tensions
that emerged between Korean storeowners and Black empowerment advocates in
New York and Los Angeles (Kim 2000; West 1998; White
1990).
This question ties into larger questions regarding
nationalism broadly considered as an ideology that veers almost inexorably
into xenophobia (
Nairn 1977). Third, is support
for Black nationalism a partial function of collective memory? If indeed
Black nationalism is a function of material context, this provides support
for scholars' theories, and also adds a level of complexity to the
first two questions; there may very well be times in which the dominant
form of Black nationalism is racially intolerant, just as there may be
times in which nationalism is largely one-dimensional.
In order to weigh in on these questions we tackle what we believe to
be an unexplored dimension of Black nationalism—Pan-Africanism. As
we show below, Pan-Africanism has played a very important role in
political activity at both the elite and the mass level. However, there
have been no attempts to measure support for it quantitatively, nor have
there been attempts to distinguish support for it from other forms of
Black nationalism. We hypothesize that while Black separatism and
Pan-Africanism share nationalist principles, separatists are hostile
toward alliances with other communities of color, whereas Pan-Africanists
are receptive to such alliances. We believe that differing mass
constituencies, political climates, as well as collective memory
contexts matter in determining support for Black separatism
vs. Pan-Africanism, though the more racially conscious and less
affluent are attracted to both.
To test these hypotheses, we analyze data from the 1979–80
National Survey of Black Americans (NSBA). Our reason for using this
dataset is that, unlike other attitudinal studies examining Black
nationalism in the 1980s and 1990s (see Davis and
Brown, 2002; Dawson 1994; Gurin et al., 1989; Tate et al.,
1988), the 1979–1980 NSBA uniquely permits us to establish
this critical period immediately following the height of the Black Power
Movement as an ideological baseline for subsequent expressions. In this
regard, we can fill an empirical lacuna in our historical knowledge and
speculate on what laid the attitudinal groundwork for current movements
(such as the growing reparations movement). We can also qualify the
conclusions of those who lament the late 1970s as a period of Black
demobilization and, by extension, one of ideological incoherence (Dawson 1994; Reed 1999;
Smith 1996). Prior to our analysis, we will
discuss the reasons why and the ways in which Black separatism and
Pan-Africanism converge and diverge as nationlist ideologies, as well as
delineate the factors that shape both.
PAN-AFRICANISM AND BLACK SEPARATISM: SHARED
VERSUS DIFFERING PRINCIPLES
When civil rights leader and author James Weldon Johnson first wrote
the above verse over one hundred years ago, for a hymn later revered as
the “Negro National Anthem,” he may have presented his
audience with a poetic ambiguity. By loyalty to “our native
land,” did he mean the American soil upon which the African American
identity was borne or did he mean their ancestral motherland of Africa? In
either case, sympathetic thinkers have interpreted this ambiguity to mean
that the Black freedom struggle is bound not only to the “Black
nation” in North America—Black American nationalism—but
also to the unity of all of Africa's descendants “at home and
abroad”—Pan-Africanism. Contemporary evidence for this
connection between a Black endorsement of nationhood in America and
uniting with African people abounds in the activities of several cultural
and political grassroots movements. By the late 1980s, many of the same
Black youth who used rap music lyrics, t-shirts, and baseball caps to
popularize new forms of Black nationalist iconography also displayed
pan-African solidarity by supporting the Free South Africa Movement or by
avidly embracing the new group identity of “African American”
(Henderson 1996; Lemann
1993; Martin 1991; Watkins 2002). There are other examples. While a
million Black men responded to the 1995 call from Black nationalist leader
Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam to gather in Washington, DC to
reaffirm Black values like self-help (McCormick and Franklin, 1999; West 1998), years earlier many of these same men
joined other African Americans to respond to Afrocentrism's call for
rediscovering African values by enrolling their children in schools with
African-centered curricula or embracing African-inspired fashions or art
(Karenga 1998; Robinson
2001; Walters 1993).2
Findings from the 1993–1994 National Black Politics
Study attitudinally corroborate these activities in that those respondents
who strongly supported the leadership of Farrakhan or Black autonomy
principles were also more likely to have an affinity with Africa and its
culture (Brown and Shaw, 2002; Dawson 2001).
Having said this, there is at least one important caveat that explains
why there is not always an association between sentiments of Black
American nationhood and unity among Africa's descendants. While many
Pan-Africanists may sympathize with Black nationalism or calls of national
self-determination, not all Black nationalists are necessarily
Pan-Africanists (Esedebe 1994; Walters 1993). For example, Harold Cruse believed
strongly in the idea of a Black cultural nation, but he argued firmly that
this nation was to be found totally within the confines of the United
States (Cruse 1984). Also, in 1996, Louis
Farrakhan, following the Million Man March, took a “World Friendship
Tour” among African nations to show pan-Islamic solidarity, yet
Pan-African sympathizers considered many of these regimes as authoritarian
and brutal (Robinson 2001).3
To be fair, it is important to note that Pan-Africanism itself
is a multi-dimensional construct. Without even taking ideological
considerations into account (pragmatic vs. scientific
vs. international socialism, for example), there are, as Ali
Mazrui notes, different levels of Pan-Africanism based on geographic scope
(West Hemispheric vs. Global Pan-Africanism, for example) (Mazrui 1977). Understand then that we acknowledge the
complexity of Pan-Africanism as an ideology and are treating it as
uni-dimensional only for lack of space.
Definitions
Thus, it is important we begin our examination of the intrinsic
commonalities and differences between Pan-Africanism and Black nationalist
separatism by defining both. According to Esedebe, Pan-Africanism rests
upon the following broad principles: “Africa as the homeland of
Africans and persons of African origin, solidarity among people of African
descent, belief in a distinct African personality, rehabilitation of
Africa's past, pride in African culture, Africa for Africans in
church and state, and the hope for a united and glorious future of
Africa” (Esedebe 1994, p. 4). Debate has
raged for decades among scholars as to how much, if any, African Americans
have retained of their ancestral African culture—this includes the
legendary Herskowitz versus Frazier debate (Holloway
1990). However, it is likely true that Africa remains a vital and
contested element of Black Americans' political imagination (Berry and Blassingame, 1982; Walters 1993; White 1990). A
multitude of ideological strands have comprised the matrix of this
likewise multi-dimensional ideology—from Ethiopianism to Negritude
to Pan-African socialism to contemporary Afrocentricity (Van DeBurg 1997). However, we are going to focus upon
a form of Diasporic Pan-Africanism where one believes that, at the very
least, African Americans ought to identify with Black people in Africa,
with other Black people in the diaspora (especially the Caribbean and
South America), and with expressions of African culture among Black
Americans.
Examining the literature on Black nationalist separatism, it is clear
that a debate rages as to its causes as well as the very origins of the
concept of the “Black nation” (Holden
1973). There is a limited consensus among scholars that there are
at least two fundamental aspects to nationalism: a group of people who
share either enough cultural or territorial characteristics to be
considered a “nation”; and/or a group of people who desire
autonomy, unity, and loyalty within a pre-existing nation-state (Smith 2001). The desire for autonomy, unity, and
loyalty are likewise present in Black nationalism writ large. Focusing
specifically on autonomy, Dawson asserts that Black nationalism means
“support for African-American autonomy and various degrees of
cultural, social, economic, and political separation from White America.
It is important to note here that the goal of most forms of Black
Nationalism is not the creation of a separate state. Race is seen as the
fundamental category for analyzing society, and America is seen as
fundamentally racist” (Dawson 2001, p.
20). While we agree with Dawson that it is wrong to assume all forms of
Black nationalism are separatist, it is also true that those
manifestations of Black nationalism that have garnered the largest mass
followings in the twentieth century—from Marcus Garvey's United
Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) to Elijah Muhammad's Nation of
Islam—called for at least a strategic if not permanent separation
between Blacks and Whites. For the purposes of this article, we define the
Black separatist component of Black nationalism as supporting the
following actions: stressing one's Black identity over one's
American identity; believing that Whites seek to oppress African Americans
racially; and calling for Black political independence as one solution. We
stress that our “Black separatist” definition in no way
defines the breadth of Black nationalism, especially since we think
Pan-Africanism is also a nationalist ideology. We only use this definition
in order to accentuate the commonalities and the differences between
various forms of Black nationalism.
Shared Principles: Nationalist Linkages
As we stated in the introduction, there are various points in African
American history when explicit linkages have been made between Black
separatism and Pan-Africanism. In fact, various schools of Black
American-centered nationalism were inextricably linked to elements of
Pan-Africanism in the thinking and activism of such leaders as Rev. Henry
Highland Garnett and his antislavery/African-emigration appeals;
Marcus Garvey and the UNIA; Malcolm X and his Organization of
Afro-American Unity; Imari Obadele and the Republic of New Afrika; and
Maulauna Karenga and The Organization US (Clarke
1974; Cunnigen 1999; Sales 1994; Stuckey 1987).
Stokely Carmichael once remarked to the Sixth Pan-African Conference:
“Pan Africanism is the highest political expression of Black
Power” (Walters 1993, pp.
59–68).
Underlying each of the above exemplars were the nationalist principles
of cultural ties to Africa (as opposed to America), antiracism, political
self-determination, and economic self-determination. How were African
cultural ties apparent? By the late 1960s, African cultural ties were
apparent for a great deal of cultural cross-fertilization occurred between
Black Nationalism and cultural nationalism or the focus upon the African
ties of the Black American “nation.” A series of historic,
pan-African arts and cultural festivals, which were attended by African
American delegations, helped to foment such linkages. They began in 1969
with the First Pan-African Cultural Festival held in Algiers and later
with the 1977 Second World Festival of Black and African Arts and Culture
held in Lagos. Within the United States, a new Black Arts Movement fueled
this rediscovery and celebration of an African ethos. In turn, proponents
of the Black Power Movement wore dashikis, learned African languages such
as Swahili, established African-inspired rituals, religions, and holidays
such as Kwanzaa, and assumed or gave their children African names. Stokely
Carmichael, one of the chief articulators of Black Power, even married
South African singer Mariam Makeba (nicknamed ‘Mama Africa’)
and became Kwame Ture. He and other former Black Power advocates not only
moved to Ghana as disciples of Kwame Nkrumah, but founded the All-African
Peoples Revolutionary Party as a pan-African extension upon Black Power
(Esedebe 1994; Van DeBurg
1997; Walters 1993).
Overall, it is difficult to overestimate the enormous, reciprocal
inspiration the African decolonialization struggle and the Black
Liberation Movement lent to each other during the 1950s and 1960s. Black
Power advocates fervently admired Afro-Caribbean and African leaders
Walter Rodney of Guyana, Frantz Fanon of Martinique, Jomo Kenyatta (and
the Mau Mau) of Kenya, Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Julius Nyerere of
Tanzania, and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana (Clarke
1991; Dawson 2001; Meriwether 2002). “Internal colonialism”
became a paradigm Black nationalists and other radicals borrowed from the
African anticolonial struggle to analyze the plight of the “Black
colony” in the United States (Allen 1990;
Carmichael and Hamilton, 1967). The Black Power
Conventions of the late 1960s and into the 1970s, which culminated in the
1972 Gary Convention, were replete with references to Black “nation
time” right next to calls for Black Americans to be relevant to the
broader African condition (Smith 1996).
Lastly, economic autonomy constitutes another area of agreement. For
example, Marcus Garvey, who preached a form separatism in the 1920s,
proposed a collective, Pan-African capitalism as a revision upon Booker T.
Washington's conservative economic nationalism (Martin 1986). In the 1940s, Du Bois, as a premiere
Pan-African intellectual, advocated creating Black economic cooperatives
to confront Southern segregation around the same time Rev. Adam Clayton
Powell, Jr., and other Black Harlemites launched “Buy Black”
campaigns (Du Bois 1940; Franklin 1992). And while James Forman and the
National Black Economic Development Conference appealed for reparations to
Black America from White churches as well as solidarity with Africa, Amiri
Baraka's Congress of Afrikan People advocated merging Pan-Africanism
and socialism (Kadalie 2000, pp.
563–564).
“Principle” Differences: Different
Nationalisms
Plainly stated, the central difference between Pan-Africanism and
Black nationalist separatism is that Pan-Africanism explicitly attempts to
forge cross-national relationships. Pan-Africanism represents the
principle of Black solidarity wherever persons of African descent reside,
whereas Black nationalist separatism centers its call for empowerment
within the United States (Esedebe 1994). Thus,
there are distinctions in whether and how each conception implicitly
forges ties across the “Black Atlantic” as well as between
African Americans and other racial minorities. Students of Black attitudes
frame this is as a question of what ideological sentiments encourage
African Americans to have shared affinities with other Blacks in the
African diaspora versus other racialized persons in the United States
(Thornton and Taylor, 1988a; Thornton and Taylor, 1988b).
Are Pan-Africanists more likely to consider a broad array of
“Third World” peoples their allies precisely because they
think abroad in their political and cultural affinities? We think so. To
reiterate an early point, radical strains of Pan-Africanism have often
made linkages to the Third World as an indispensable ingredient of African
liberation. In the mid-1960s, Malcolm X increasingly embraced
pan-Africanism while speaking of a Third World or “Black
Revolution” including Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Increasingly
radicalized members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee made
ties with Africa while also opposing the U.S. war against the Vietnamese.
In the 1970s, the Republic of New Afrika, the Congress of Afrikan People,
and All African Peoples Revolutionary Party aligned with nationalists or
socialists in nations ranging from to Viet Nam to Cuba (Cunnigen 1999; Dawson 2001).
And as recently as 1999 the Black Radical Congress embraced the principle
of “solidarity with peoples of African descent throughout the
African Diaspora” alongside their seeking “alliances with
other people of color to develop unified strategies for achieving
multicultural democracy” (Black Radical Congress 1999, pp. 5–6).
On the other hand, those who support strict notions of Black
separatism consider it necessary first to “close ranks” or
believe that “group solidarity is necessary before a group can
operate effectively from a bargaining position of strength in a
pluralistic society” (Carmichael and Hamilton, 1967, p. 44). African Americans who strictly interpret
this self-determination maxim may conclude that not only must Black
empowerment groups be all Black, but also, all non-Blacks, including other
racial minorities, are at best unreliable allies and at worst,
adversaries. This is in the vein of what has been called “separatist
nationalism,” and recent research has concluded that its adherents
may not see Asian Americans or Latinos as natural allies (Brown and Shaw, 2002). Among the most publicized
examples of separatist clashes with other racial or ethnic groups are the
infamous tussles of Black grassroots activists or Nation of Islam leaders,
such as the vitriolic Khalid Muhammad, versus Korean, Jewish, and Latino
store owners in New York and Los Angeles (Sniderman and
Piazza, 2002). Undoubtedly, such incidents occur against a
political backdrop that at times is rife with subtle and not so subtle
tensions between African Americans and other racial minorities, whether it
is Cubans in Miami or Chicanos in Chicago (Sonenshein
1997).
THE CONSTITUENCIES, CLIMATES, AND COLLECTIVE
MEMORY CONTEXTS OF BLACK IDEOLOGY
At this point, we have theoretically established that Pan-Africanism
and Black separatism share certain principles and thus are inter-related
ideologies. However, due to their differences in focus, they should still
be thought of as distinct components of a broader Black nationalism. What
are the shared and distinct constituencies, political/economic
climates, and collective memory contexts associated with these ideologies?
The following are the key independent variables in our models.
Consistent with the attitudinal findings of previous works, (Gurin et al., 1989; Tate
1993; Dawson 1994), we argue that
racially conscious and lower-income African Americans should largely
support both ideologies. When we refer to group cooperation, group
initiative, and group loyalty, we are referring to a sense of linked fate.
African Americans who are conscious of the individual and collective
experience of being Black should be more likely to support both
expressions of solidarity with Africa and support for Black autonomy. For
example, leaders ranging from Marcus Garvey to Louis Farrakhan, and thus
their adherents, placed paramount value upon the centrality of Blackness
in their ideological conceptions of group well-being (Van DeBurg 1997). Though racial oppression has
truncated the range of material resources available to African Americans,
there are still significant class differences in Black communities (Boston 1988). So, we expect working-class African
Americans or those with a lower socioeconomic status to support both Black
separatism and Pan-Africanism more so than their middle-class
counterparts. Among mass Black publics, it has historically been the
working class and poor who were attracted to Garvey's UNIA, Elijah
Muhammad's Nation of Islam, or the Black Panther Party. Each
proffered visions of Pan-Africanism and/or Black separatism that
argued White America's racial intransigence meant that integration
was not a viable option for most African Americans, most especially those
at the lower rungs of the economic ladder (Bush
1999).
For much of this and the previous theoretical section, we have drawn
from examples of the 1970s in order to suggest the contextual factors that
laid the ideological groundwork for Black attitudes late in that decade,
and thus for the dataset we utilize. The late 1970s and early 1980s was a
period in which a galvanized Black vote was electing increasing numbers of
African Americans to public office in the wake of the declining, mass
mobilization phases of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. Despite
these gains, issues of police brutality, residential segregation, and
burgeoning Black unemployment challenged these new politicians and
aggravated their Black constituents (Marable
1990; Preston et al., 1987). So, what
bearing would these conditions have upon Black attitudes?
The theory of collective memory posits that the past and more
specifically—memories of the past—serve to link
various members of a society together (Schuman and
Corning, 2000; Schuman and Scott, 1989;
Schwartz 1997). Schuman and Scott (1989) are most helpful, for they discover support for
the idea that the seminal events of a given period exert a powerful effect
upon a generation, particularly on those individuals just reaching
adulthood. Scholars who study nationalism are also helpful. They argue
against elitist conceptions of nationalism by positing that symbols and
myths are translated over time not simply through or by elites but through
communities of people (Anderson 1991; Smith 2001). Collective memory not only structures
their conceptions of that seminal time period, it also has an effect on
their present behavior and attitudes. Taking a cue from Schuman and Scott,
Gibson and Caldeira (1992) find that the
generation of African Americans who became adults sometime during the
Warren-era Supreme Court held a reservoir of support for the Supreme Court
that withstood the transition from a liberal court to a conservative
court. Frederick Harris (2001) also finds that
collective memory has an impact on political behavior of African Americans
and that this impact is mediated by institutions. This represents an
important contribution to the literature as it introduces an element of
intentionality. Collective memories are not something that a generation
simply shares by dint of being born at the same time. A sense of
collective memory—just like linked fate—can be inculcated
either by institutions or by individual behavior. We think of collective
memory as involving both components, a sense of shared living or shared
reality, as well as activity designed to inculcate that sense of shared
living or shared reality. More specifically, we argue that members born
during the Black Power Movement will be more likely to support Black
separatism since the Black Power Movement represented an attempt to build
political, economic, and cultural power for African Americans (Morris et al., 1989). However, those engaged in
explicit behavior designed to inculcate a grander sense of shared history,
one involving the diaspora—such as, for instance, researching their
African American family history—should be more likely to support
Pan-Africanism than Black separatism. Besides, the late 1970s was a period
when African Americans were deeply contemplating Black history and the
African origins of their family genealogy due to the groundbreaking
television docudrama Roots (Fairchild et al.,
1982).
Analysis
As aforementioned, we are using the first wave of the NSBA. As a
probability household survey, NSBA comprised face-to-face interviews
conducted between 1979 and 1980. It was administered to 2,107 individuals
who were at least eighteen years old and who self-identified as African
American. Concerned with major social, psychological, and cultural issues
of Black life, the survey focused primarily upon questions of social
support and health. Yet, there were several questions useful for our
purposes in that they probed attitudes toward various populations,
particularly Africans and West Indians, and asked respondents their
perceptions of Black political life and ideology.
Recall our assumption that Pan-Africanism or closeness to the African
diaspora differs from Black separatism in that, quite simply, the former
will emphasize solidarity with persons of African descent external to the
United States, and the latter will stress identities and institutions of
Black self-determination internal to the United States. One of our
objectives is to demonstrate that although the above two impulses are
interrelated, they are still distinct in kind if not degree. To test our
assumption, we conduct a factor analysis including variables from the
1979–1980 NSBA that relate to African diasporic versus Black
separatist values. In Table 1, we present our
results. Factor analysis (or more accurately Principal Components
Analysis) is an appropriate technique because it allows us to discern
whether groups of variables are linear combinations of underlying,
theoretically relevant dimensions such as closeness to the African
diaspora or a belief in Black separatist values. When more than one
component is extracted in the search for dimensions, we are able to assess
whether a group of variables are correlated more with one presumed
component than another (Hawkins and Fatti,
1984).
Principal Components Analysis of the 1979–1980 National Survey
of Black Americans
THE AFRICAN DIASPORA AND BLACK SEPARATIST
COMPONENTS
The variables we included are the following: close to people in
Africa; close to West Indians; close to Black Americans who take African
names; being Black is more important than being American; Whites want to
keep Blacks down; and Blacks should form their own political party. The
first three variables all measure the affinity African American
individuals have toward other people of African descent or those who value
their ancestral culture enough to assume an African moniker. Well over
half of the sample felt close to African people, and nearly half admired
Black people with African names. This was only a little less true of
respondents' affinity toward Afro-Caribbean persons. Our overall
rationale for including these variables is that they approximate what we
have described as a core sentiment of Pan-Africanism, i.e., identification
with and connection to Africa and the African diaspora is desirable. This
is true whether these peoples are on the continent, in the Caribbean, or
in the United States but assume distinct African retentions such as
clothing or names (Esedebe 1994).
To be sure, the next three variables are interesting in that they hint
at why Black separatism (centered in the United States) seeks to overcome
racial oppression and emphasizes Black political independence.4
We freely admit that these variables do not
constitute the most complete measures possible of Black autonomy. In the
best of all worlds, we would have included several additional variables
that better approximated previous measures of Black autonomy, Black
nationalism, or one's affect toward Africans and African culture.
Yet, we are using this parsimonious specification for the sake of
subsequent comparability.
Admittedly, these variables speak as
much to an affirmative Black autonomy as they do to the frustrations
embedded in Black separatism. Yet we include each because they approximate
the core separatist sentiment that African Americans are only empowered
when they distance themselves from America; from Whites, who by definition
have racist motives; and from mainstream institutions such as political
parties that invariably will not represent Black interests (
Hall 1978). Note that both components cohere fairly
well (a total of 52% of the variance explained). The first three comprise
what we consider an African Diaspora Component or ADC, and the last three
comprise what we consider a Black Separatist Component or BSC. We label
these components as such because we do not presume they encompass the
entirety of Black nationalism.
Support for the African Diaspora Component
Next, Table 2 presents results from the ADC
and BSC as regressed against various constituent, climate, and contextual
variables. We include a battery of standard control variables to
understand simply the social, economic, or civil characteristics of those
respondents most likely to feel close to other people of African descent
or who stress an African identity. The independent variables we included
(which are all recoded to range between 0 and 1) are seven control
variables: Black Identity in lieu of no common fate/linked fate
measure for NSBA 1979–1980 (it is an index variable of closeness to
poor Blacks, religious Blacks, young Blacks, middle-class Blacks,
working-class Blacks, older Blacks, and elected Blacks); Family Income;
Education (or years of schooling); Age; Female = 1.00; Respondent from the
South = 1.00; and Membership in a National Black Organization = 1.00. In
this respect we replicate the previous work by Dawson (1994), Gurin and her colleagues (1989), and Tate (1993),
where each presumed that Black group attachments, socioeconomic status,
age, gender, region, and Black group memberships are strong determinants
of Black nationalism. Next there are four climate variables to gauge the
individual racial and economic well-being of a respondent as well as her
optimism about Black political influence—Better Off Financially Now
Than Three Years Ago (Better = 1.00; Same = 0.50; Worse = 0.00); Believes
Blacks in the U.S. Have Great Influence (Yes = 1.00); Upset by Bad Racial
Treatment of You or Family in Past Month (Upset A Great Deal = 1.00; Upset
a Lot = 0.75; Upset Only A Little = 0.50; Not Upset From Race Problem =
0.25; Had No Race Problem = 0.00). Again, these variables approximate
respondent assessments of personal and group economic and racial climate.
Lastly, we have a generational variable in order to test whether
respondents who turned sixteen years of age between 1965 and 1975 were
socialized as part of a distinct Black Power Generation = 1.00, and a
variable that assesses the degree to which respondents actively searched
for familial linkages to the diaspora. We expect that our two forms of
nationalism are most salient to those who came of age in a
period—the late 1960s and early 1970s—when declarations of
Black unity and autonomy flourished.
Support for African Diaspora Component (ADC) and the Black Autonomy
Component (BAC), 1979–1980 National Survey of Black
Americans
As indicated in the first column of Table 2,
African Americans who are more Black-identified and belong to members of
national Black organizations are significantly more likely to have an
affinity with other people of/or who strongly identify with African
descent. Consistent with other findings about Black racial identification
(Thornton et al., 1997), it is not surprising
that persons who more eagerly embrace other African Americans, despite
their differing social characteristics, are more likely to embrace people
of African descent. Racial (or cultural) solidarity is very important to
these individuals. Thus, note the coefficient for Black identity remains
strong and statistically significant across both columns of Table 2. Given the number of national organizations
that mobilized for the cause of African solidarity in the late 1970s,
including the umbrella African Liberation Support Committee (and later the
Free South Africa Movement) (Reed 1999; Walters 1993), it is important to note that this
coefficient is positive and significant across the model. We predicted
that family income would be negatively associated with support for
Pan-Africanism. Other studies have confirmed that the working class and
poor, young people, men, and persons outside the South are more attracted
to cultural politics and by extension they identify more with the African
diaspora (Gurin and Epps, 1975; Simpson 1998), although the gender effects are not
always as predicted here (Brown and Shaw,
2002).
Other than the racial treatment variable, none of the other climate
variables is significant. Not surprisingly, persons who endured recent
racial mistreatment had a stronger identification with African heritage
and/or descent. As we indicated in our discussion about race as a
shared basis of experience and/or commiseration for African people,
greater sensitivity to racism makes it more likely that one will, in the
words of Marcus Garvey, see through “African spectacles”
(Jacques-Garvey 1986). Lastly, it appears from
the second column that the more respondents have actively sought out their
diasporic heritage, the more prone they are to support Pan-Africanism.
Support for the Black Separatist Component
Looking at the second column of Table 2, the
coefficients and the direction of the coefficients for the BSC mirror our
findings with the ADC. In line with our hypothesis, those with higher
Black identification are significantly more likely than those with lower
Black identification to support the BSC. Likewise, family income is
negative and significant, suggesting that lower-income persons and younger
people more readily endorse these nationalist values/strategies than
their counterparts. Unlike the ADC, education is also negative and highly
significant. Here education may be serving as a proxy for class, but it
could also be serving as a proxy for information or knowledge. Those with
a higher education may view the idea of Black autonomy as highly unlikely.
As a testament to the relatively less variance the BSC explains in
contrast to the ADC, none of the other control variables besides age is
significant. Note, however, that those who have a pessimistic assessment
of Black political power and who have recently confronted individual
racial taunts are more likely to endorse the BSC. This subtly confirms the
apprehensions or predictions of those who, for differing reasons, have
readily concluded that Black nationalism is either a logical or a
corrosive outgrowth of Black racial alienation (Hochschild 1995). Lastly, there is a positive and
significant relationship between being a member of the Black Power
Generation and support for the BSC. This suggests that this generation may
still positively support principles of autonomy in the wake of the
previous movement. We now discuss similarities and differences in the
principles endorsed by adherents.
AGREEMENT BETWEEN PAN-AFRICANISM AND BLACK
SEPARATISM
In examining support for various policies and ideas regarding Black
life, where should we expect to see commonalities and differences? Given
that Pan-Africanism is a broad, diasporic ideology, we would expect
Pan-Africanists to agree with Black separatists on the nature (and extent)
of White racism. We would also expect them to agree on the necessity of
group cooperation, initiative, and loyalty. However, we would expect them
to disagree upon the need for diasporic/ethnic alliances. As we have
discussed earlier, not all forms of Black nationalism are inherently
pan-Africanist or center the “Black Nation” in Africa as
opposed to the southern United States; such is especially true with the
form of separatist nationalism our BSC captures. We first examine areas of
agreement.
As presented in Table 3, our central
dependent variables in this case are: Closer to Blacks in Africa than
Whites in America; More racial discrimination now than twenty years ago;
Should vote for Black candidates; Should shop in Black stores. These
variables were chosen because they represent core nationalist values of
Pan-Africanism and Black separatism. The first dependent variable examines
support for ties to Africa in a way that echoes Du Bois's
“double consciousness” (Du Bois 1903
[1997]). The second variable measures the degree to which the
respondent acknowledges the pervasiveness of racism in this post-Civil
Rights and Black Power era. The third variable measures support for Black
political autonomy, and the final variable measures support for a measure
of Black economic autonomy.
Agreement between African Diaspora Component (ADC) and Black
Separatist Component (BSC), 1979–1980 National Survey of Black
Americans
Focusing on the African Diaspora Component and Black Separatist
Component, which we use as independent variables for this analysis, both
are positively and significantly associated with each of the cultural,
racial, political, and economic autonomy variables. Thus both lean in the
expected direction. However, the strength of the coefficients seems to
vary according to the salience of that item. For example, though both
African diaspora supporters and Black separatists agree that they feel
closer to Blacks in Africa than they do to Whites in America, those who
support Pan-Africanist tenets have a stronger relationship as measured by
the size of the coefficient. Inversely, those supporting tenets of Black
separatism more strongly support the idea that Blacks should only shop in
Black stores and only vote for Black political candidates. This is not
surprising based upon previous research that suggests these variables help
to measure core nationalist values (Dawson 1994;
Tate 1993). Of the remaining independent
variables, the Black identity variable suggests those with greater racial
consciousness were optimistic about the state of racial discrimination but
supportive of economic and political autonomy.
Disagreement between the African Diaspora Component and
the Black Autonomy Component
Turning to measures of disagreement, we measure closeness to non-Black
ethnic groups in Table 4. This measure may
indicate the likelihood of Black respondents seeing these other groups as
prospective allies. We are careful not to conclude that this direct
confirmation of group tolerance, even given that tolerance, likely
precedes solidarity sentiments. As aforementioned, Pan-Africanism among
African Americans is an internationalist ideology that implicitly asserts
links not just between Black people within the African diaspora but also
with other people of color. Thus we hypothesized that those endorsing this
ideology would feel closer to other racial minorities. On the other hand,
since Black separatists are strong intra-ethnic identifiers but weak
inter-ethnic identifiers, we expect support for Black autonomy to be
either unrelated to or negatively correlated with non-Black group
closeness. Looking at the results we find support for our hypotheses.
Support for the African diaspora is positively related to closeness to
Latinos or “Spanish Speaking Groups,” Native Americans or
“American Indians,” and Asian Americans where each is coded on
a Likert scale (1.00 = Very Close). Support for Black separatism is
negatively correlated with closeness to both American Indians and Asian
Americans, though the coefficients are small. Akin to the findings of
Thornton and his colleagues (Thornton and Taylor,
1988b) gender seemed to matter in that Black males were more likely
to express closeness to these groups. To a certain extent these overall
findings support our hypothesis that some forms of Black nationalism are
associated with unwillingness to desire solidarity with other groups. Yet,
in our conclusion we will explain why it is very important to qualify such
an understanding.
Disagreement between African Diaspora Component (ADC) and Black
Separatist Component (BSC), 1979–1980 National Survey of Black
Americans
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Quite naturally, the reader may wonder what has become of the dynamic
between Black separatism and Pan-Africanism since the late 1970s. One
answer is that African Americans' identification with the people and
cultures of their ancestral homeland has not abated, and, at certain
moments, this identification has moved further away from the margin into
the mainstream. Whereas 55% of all respondents to the 1979–1980 NSBA
believed that Black children should learn an African language, by 1993
this percentage increased to 73%, according to the 1993 NBPS (Brown and
Shaw, 2002, p. 25). When Nelson Mandela was
released from prison in 1990, he conducted a tour of the United States.
Visiting Tiger Stadium in Detroit, he spoke of how he passed the time
while a political prisoner:
When we were in prison, we appreciated and avidly listened to
the sound of Detroit, Motortown. On reaching Detroit, I recalled some of
the words of the song sung by Marvin Gaye: “Brother, brother,
there's far too many of you dying. Mother, mother, there's far
too many of you crying …” (Edmunds
2004).
While to a certain extent Mandela may be playing to the audience, the
strength of the statement lies in the fact that it was so plausible,
indeed so probable in the minds of listeners. And the reason he spoke in
cities like Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and Detroit in the first place was
not simply because of the strong African American presence in these
cities, but because of the support that African Americans lent to his
cause. Yet and still at the same period, and dovetailing with this
emphasis upon Africa in the 1990s, was the reassertion of Black
nationalist mobilization and leadership as was quite evident from the
Nation of Islam-led Million Man March. The reemergence of the (New) Black
Panther Party, the continued attraction of college students to Black
nationalist rhetoric and ritual, as well as attempts by outwardly Black
nationalist candidates to secure public office suggests that the political
atmosphere in Black America was no less conducive to assertions of Black
political autonomy than it was receptive to a regard for Africa (Jennings 1992; Lemann 1993;
McCormick and Franklin, 1999). In this way what we are studying is not
simply a matter of attitudes, but also the degree to which African
Americans support the notion of national Black politics on the one hand
and transnational Black politics on the other. By “transnational
Black politics” we mean a form of politics that is based on
“… horizontal, non-state-based relationships between
political actors in various nation-states for the purpose of challenging
or overturning policies in one or more nation-states” (Hanchard
2003, p. 22). What we have discovered in our
examination of data from the 1979–1980 NSBA is that Pan-Africanism
was a dimension separate from (although very related to) support for Black
separatism in the late 1970s. It is highly likely that cultural
nationalism—or an emphasis upon the African origins of the
“Black nation”—served as an ideological bridge between
the two (Van DeBurg 1997). But as we
hypothesized, sentiments that ranged from a support for Black political
parties to a regard for African culture did not all fall under a unitary
Black nationalist construct. Instead, they coincided with a complex,
overlapping constellation of nationalist tenets, while comprising distinct
schools of thought. Yet we also discovered that those who embraced our
African Diaspora Component (ADC) were more receptive to alliances with
other people of color than were those who supported our Black Separatist
Component (BSC). With the BSC, we likely discovered a variance of Black
nationalism that has often been labeled Black separatism—one of its
many forms. Its outgroup antipathy was possibly kindled by the slowly
expanding ethnic diversity of America and its communities in the period
after 1965 (Browning et al., 1997).
Our findings are partly consistent with those of Brown and Shaw (2002) who found that in the early 1990s
“separatist nationalism” differs from a more pluralist form of
nationalism, or what they called “community nationalism.” In
the case of the 1979–1980 NSBA, it is those we consider the
Pan-Africanists (the ADC supporters) that are the pluralists, for they
identified with Blacks outside of the United States and other people of
color within the United States. Not only do these conclusions challenge
the view that Black nationalism is unitary, it also suggests that merely
because an African American embraces nebulous nationalist tenets, she or
he is not necessarily xenophobic. Recall the differences between Tables
3 and 4. Quite
literally, the devil is in the details of whether she imagines the
“nation” as broadly comprising an African diaspora aligned
with other racialized communities or more narrowly comprising the Black
American “race,” first and foremost. Though we freely concede
our findings are limited by the age of the dataset, as an antecedent, they
counter Sniderman and Piazza's (2002)
recent conclusions that Blacks who ideologically identified with their
African past and African people were less antagonistic toward other groups
than were Black autonomists. Yet, we must refrain from making any
contemporary conclusions.
Lastly, we are also quite mindful that a cross-sectional dataset is
ill equipped to test the effects of time. Yet, our findings do provide a
limited test of the effects of constituencies, climates, and collective
memory. Predictably, those constituents who were more racially conscious
or had less income/education were more likely to support the
principles of the ADC or BSC. Gender had little bearing upon a
respondent's attraction to African culture or people, but men more so
than women identified with Black separatist/autonomists sentiments.
This is interesting since it was precisely in this 1970s period when
contemporary Black feminism emerged and began to accuse Black nationalism
of exuding sexism and patriarchy (Davis
1992).
With regard to the temporal dimension, we found some confirmation for
Henderson's economic climate versus racial threat findings. A
respondent's financial well-being had no significant effect upon her
support of ADC or BSC. What mattered was whether she believed she or her
family had recently suffered from racial discrimination. Thus, race
clearly was more salient than personal economic evaluations, though being
lower class still mattered. Interestingly, as a subtle challenge to
Robinson's conclusions, a respondent's reflection upon or
experience of the past clearly mattered in determining her support for
either a Black nationalist or Pan-Africanist tradition. Membership in the
Black Power generation—those sixteen years old between 1965 and
1975—had a significant effect upon BSC support while tracing
one's family genealogy was significantly associated with the ADC.
We have empirically established what plausibly laid the groundwork for
the fluidity between mass identification with Africa and with the Black
(American) nation in the 1980s and 1990s. Presuming that the myopia and
conservatism of Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam are now most
representative of contemporary Black nationalist thought may be
problematic (Robinson 2001). To do so might
understate the complex expressions of this fascinating, even if often
contradictory (and some say reactionary), ideology throughout Black
America (Dawson 2001; McCormick and Franklin,
1999). Though the outgrowths of Pan-Africanism and Black nationalism from
the late 1970s must be further explored, we are sure the persistent
question about what constitutes Black Americans' true “native
land”—Africa, a diverse America, and/or African
America—provided fodder for further Black deliberation as well as
debate.
