Cyril Briggs and the African Blood Brotherhood: a radical counterpoint to progressivism

Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, Jan, 2006 by Louis J. Parascandola

Perhaps the greatest legacy of Briggs and some other ABB members occurred, however, in 1928 at the Sixth World Congress held in Moscow in 1928. It was at this meeting that a controversial proposal regarding "the Negro question" was proposed in which the Cominern (the international arm of Soviet Russia's Socialist party), declared that blacks in the American South had the right of "self-determination" as "a subject nation." (21) Briggs was at the forefront of this radical movement toward black self-determination. Though the objective, of course, was never achieved, this was the first serious attempt by the communists to address the endemic racial discrimination in the United States and link it specifically to the capitalist system (22)

The connection between capitalism and the oppression of blacks made the Communist Party much more appealing to many blacks and opened the floodgates for them to join the party after the financial crisis in 1929; black involvement in the communist party would reach its peak in the late 1930s. The ABB left a lasting mark on American politics, not the least of which was that if legislative reform measures do not reach into all strata of society, then those who feel beleaguered and oppressed will seek other means to redress their situation. This message was not lost on later black radicals such as Malcolm X, himself of West Indian heritage, who felt entitled to strive for their cause "by any means necessary." (23)

NOTES

(1) Louis Parascandola is an Associate Professor of English at Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus. The author wishes to thank Dr. Pat Palmieri for her comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

(2) The information on the ABB and the Workers' Party, including their origin, number of members, and even membership itself, is often conflicting. The secret nature of these groups and their amorphous nature (e.g. trying to distinguish, for example, between the Workers' Party, the Communist Party of America, and the Communist Party) did not always allow accurate information. In many cases, it is virtually impossible to unravel their tangled histories. Ironically, it is often the government files while investigating the groups that have provided the most information on them and preserved some of these materials.

(3) Kelly Miller quoted in Winston James, Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America (New York: Verso, 1998): 2.

(4) Quoted in Keith S. Henry, pg. 29, "Caribbean Migrants in New York: The Passage from Political Quiescence to Radicalism" Afro-Americans in New York Life and History (July 1978): 29-44.

(5) James, 50-91.

(6) Calvin B. Holder, pg. 9, "The Causes and Composition of West Indian Immigration to new York City, 1900-1952" Afro-Americans in New York Life and History (Jan. 1987): 7-26.

(7) Quoted in Robert A. Hill, introduction and editor, The Crusader 3 vols. (New York: Kraus, 1987): xi.

(8) Theodore Kornweibel Jr., "Seeing Red": Federal Campaign against Black Militancy, 1919-1925 (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1998): 132.