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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 38. Negro Popular Theories - 12. “Back to Africa”
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8o6 ^
An American Dilemma
Most of the Abolitionists prior to the Civil War were critical of the move-
ment, and Garrison pointed out that in the zenith of its activity a great
many more slaves were brought illegally from Africa every year than the
Society had ever sent there during all the years of its existence. After the
Civil War and Emancipation the movement gradually vanished.
Most of the Negroes who went to Africa under the Society’s auspices did
so as part of a bargain with their masters in return for their freedom.® But
there were some free Negroes who considered that colonization would be
preferable to their anomalous and hopeless position in America. Since then
there has always been some discussion among Negroes about the advisa-
bility of colonization.®^ The Garvey movement, referred to in Chapter 35,
shows that the Negro masses are not Immune to the idea. There have
always been Individual whites who have propagandized for it. Recently
Senator Bilbo of Mississippi has made himself the white spokesman for it.
He claims that more than two million Negroes signed a petition to the
President endorsing his proposal, but this is probably a great exaggeration.
In an interview with the present writer, he explained that he will wait for
an increase of Negro support and for favorable circumstances, but when the
question has so matured, he will take it up for more effective political
pressure. Negro intellectuals arc practically united against the back-to-
Africa proposal. And this is understandable. They are entirely American
in their culture 5
they want to stay in America and fight it out here.
The issue is dead at present but it might rise again. Should America
•enter into a period of protracted unemployment after the present War, and
should this unemployment become more concentrated upon the Negro
people—prospects which are not unlikely—then the Negro, who has tradi-
tionally been looked upon by the whites as cheap labor, might increas-
ingly come to be looked upon as a relief burden. It is not beyond possibility
that a large proportion of Southern whites might under certain circum-
stances come to demand the sending away of Negroes from America. And
we know that if the pressure is hard, there will be considerable response in
the Negro masses to Negro leaders who promise to take them back to
Africa.®®
However, under the perspective of present trends, there is also a more
positive aspect of Negro colonization in Africa. Under the moral pressure
ot the present War, American and British statesmen are now making
declarations that equality and liberty will be established in the whole world.
The Atlantic Charter is only one example of a whole trend ot public com-
mitments to the ireedom oi suppressed peoples. Applied to Africa these
vague promises can have no other import than that the imperialistic
exploitation of the Black Continent shall come tc an end after the present
War and that the century-old dreams of a true colonization of Africa will
* See Chapter 8, Section 2, especially footnote 4.
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