African Americans -- History; Slavery -- United States -- History
Although Langston Hughes had been confident that the American dream could
be made to include his people, thousands upon thousands of other
Afro-Americans, especially among the lower classes, were extremely
dubious. In 1916, Marcus Garvey came to Harlem, and before long his
Universal Negro Improvement Association had opened chapters in urban
centers all across the nation. As mentioned previously, Garvey did not
believe that blacks could be taken into American society. Hundreds of
thousands, who apparently agreed with him, followed his banner. Whatever
was the actual number of members of the U.N.I.A., the movement gained
more grass-roots support than had any other organization in Afro-American
history. While the nation was willing to tolerate the Afro-American folk
spirit, the people, themselves, did not believe that they would be
accepted.
Although Garvey's movement was by far the largest black nationalist
organization in America, it was not the only one. In Chicago, Grover
Cleveland Redding was preaching a Back-to-Africa philosophy of his own.
He organized the Abyssinian Movement and urged Negroes living on the
south side of Chicago to return to Ethiopia. On Sunday, June 20, 1920,
Redding led a parade through the Chicago streets. He sat astride a white
horse and wore what he claimed was the costume of an Abyssinian prince.
At the corner, of East 25th Street and Prairie Avenue he stopped the
procession, poured a flammable liquid on an American flag, and burned it.
A Negro policeman, who attempted to break up the demonstration, was shot
by one of Redding's followers. In the course of the melee, a white
storekeeper and a white soldier were killed. Redding and another Negro
were later executed for their part in the affair.
In 1925 Noble Drew Ali came to Chicago and established the Moorish
American Science Temple. Actually, he had previously attempted to
organize other temples in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. He
claimed that American Negroes were of Moorish descent and, instead of
being really black, were olive-hued. His movement had a banner which
carried a Moorish star and crescent on a field of red. He also claimed
that American Negroes, being Moors, had an Islamic heritage rather than a
Christian one, and he endeavored to spread his particular version of that
faith throughout the Afro-American community. By 1927 Ali had established
branches in Pittsburgh, Detroit, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Lansing, and
elsewhere. He wrote his own version of the Koran which combined passages
from the Moslem Koran, the Christian Bible, and some of the writings of
Marcus Garvey.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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