by Mary Green, By fighting for their rights now, American Negroes are helping to make America a moral and spiritual arsenal of democracy. Their fight against the poll tax, against lynch law, segregation, and Jim Crow, their fight for economic, political, and social equality, thus becomes part of the global war for freedom.<\/i>\u2013A. Philip Randolph, \u201cWhy Should We March?\u201d (1942)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/span><\/p>\n In the early twentieth century, a segregated political and social environment in America led to \u201cnew developments in the political character and protest organizations of African American people\u201d and created an insurgency of \u201cprotest ideologies and formations\u201d (Marable and Mullings 219-20). These \u201cprotest ideologies and formations\u201d produced radical ideas and inspired arguments that not only demanded equality and opportunity, but defiantly and boldly questioned, challenged, and indicted all aspects of the American social and political system. African American speeches and essays from 1915 until 1954 call for the \u201ccomplete dismantling of institutional racism, the democratization of the U.S. state and the fundamental redistribution of economic wealth and resources throughout society\u201d (Marable and Mullings 222). Heavily influenced by Communism and the Labor movement(s), African American rhetoric during this period explores the connections between race, class, gender and power in American society and demands the immediate reconstruction of American society and its institutions. Constructed within theoretical frameworks of Black Nationalism, Marxism, and early Black feminist thought, significant arguments from this period explore and reclaim the African identity, analyze the subjected position of the African American woman as a woman and a worker, and attempt to reconcile tension between the prejudiced Labor movement, white progressives and African American workers.<\/p>\n Encouraging unity amongst African Americans and all Africans \u201cat home and abroad,\u201d Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) sought to organize all individuals of African ancestry as a unified and distinct culture, civilization, and continent\u2014an \u201cAfrica for the Africans.\u201d In a passionate address, Garvey\u2019s \u201cExplanation of the Objects of the Universal Negro Improvement Association\u201d expresses militant and bold Black nationalism and, for \u201cthe common purpose of bettering their condition,\u201d he argues for total unity amongst all Africans: \u201cThe great problem of the Negro for the last 500 years has been that of disunity. No one or no organization ever took the lead in uniting the Negro race [\u2026] If anything praiseworthy is to be done, it must be done through unity. And it is for that reason that the UNIA calls upon every Negro in the United States to rally to its standard. We want to unite the Negro race in this country. We want every Negro to work for one common object, that of building a nation of his own on the great continent of Africa.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Another significant argument that arises from this historical period emphasizes the power of the African American woman in shaping and determining the social and political success of the African American community, but, also focuses on her marginalized status as an African American woman worker. Such arguments acknowledge that black women\u2019s work\u2014domestic and physical labor\u2014is not recognized as \u201cwork.\u201d The African American woman, thus, receives the lowest wages and is largely without the support of the Labor movement and labor unions.\u00a0<\/p><\/span><\/div>\n Moreover, Claudia Jones\u2019s \u201cAn End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman\u201d gives an \u201canalysis of gender within the African American community from a Marxist perspective\u201d (Marable and Mullings 316). Like Julia Anna Cooper and Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson, Jones emphasizes the significant role women play in the African American community: \u201cThe bourgeoisie is fearful of the militancy of the Negro woman, and for good reason. The capitalists know, far better than many progressives seem to know, that once Negro women undertake action, the militancy of the whole Negro people and thus of the anti-imperialist coalition, is greatly enhanced\u201d (316).\u00a0<\/p><\/span><\/div>\n Lastly, influenced by Marxism and the growing power of the Labor movement(s) in the United States, a critical focus of African American rhetoric during the early twentieth century concerns the interconnections of race and class; such rhetoric expresses a linked understanding of the position of poor, white workers and the position of African American workers. Similar to Ellis and Ward\u2019s argument, African American labor organizers and activists compare the social, political, and economic position of workers to that of a slave, revealing how the current state of organized labor functions as a generational, caste system (Herndon 284-85). <\/p>\n Labor organizer and African American activist Angelo Herndon argues that the Labor movement, particularly Marxist and Communist ideology, understands the intersection of racial and class inequality and addresses both struggles: \u201cI heard myself called a \u2018nigger\u2019 and \u2018darky,\u2019 and I had to say \u2018Yes, sir\u2019 to every white man, whether he had my respect or not. I had always detested it, but I had never known that anything could be done about it. And here, all of a sudden, I had found organizations in which Negroes and whites sat together, and worked together, and knew no difference of race or color. Here were organizations that weren\u2019t scared to come out for equality for the Negro people, and for the rights of the workers\u201d (286-87). <\/p>\n However, despite Herndon\u2019s exclamation of racial cooperation within the movement and regardless of the similar economic situation of poor white workers and African Americans, Dr. Abram Harris, in his essay \u201cThe Negro Worker: A Problem of Progressive Labor Action,\u201d exposes the blatant racism within the Labor movement and among white progressives, and argues, like Jones, that it is in the collective self-interest of white and black workers to establish solidarity. He warns of establishing a \u201cbi-racial\u201d movement, claiming a divided movement will consequently endanger its overall success in obtaining \u201cwork and wage\u201d equality (276-78). Yet, while on trial for \u201cinsurrection,\u201d Herndon\u2019s speech before a Georgia jury argues that African American and white workers will come together in organizing and demanding economic justice and equality: \u201cAnd it seems that this question is left up to the Negro and white workers to solve, and they will solve it by organizing and demanding the right to live, a right that they are entitled to. They have built up this country, and are therefore entitled to some of the things that they have produced. Not only are they entitled to such things, but it is their right to demand them\u201d (284). Therefore, Herndon argues that the similar struggles of white workers and African American workers will unify and strengthen a collective movement for social, racial, and economic equality, as all workers will come together to achieve common goals. <\/p>\n Works Cited<\/b><\/p>\n Garvey, Marcus. \u201cExplanation of the Objects of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.\u201d New York City. July 1929. <\/p>\n Marable, Manning, and Leith Mullings. Ed. Let Nobody Turn Us Around: An African American Anthology. 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefied Publishers, Inc., 2009. <\/p><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Mary Green, Student, University of Memphis By fighting for their rights now, American Negroes are helping to make America a moral and spiritual arsenal of democracy. Their fight against the poll tax, against lynch law, segregation, and Jim Crow, their fight for economic, political, and social equality, thus becomes part of the global war […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
Student, University of Memphis
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\nontinue to practice behavior based on conventions of antebellum black-white women power structures. White women do not use the domestic workers last names, referring to them by their own last names, and use the term \u201cmy\u201d worker or \u201cmy\u201d Negro to denote possession and further dehumanize and objectify the domestic worker (Ward 303-05).\n
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