Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-17T18:52:04.864Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“TRUE TO OUR NATIVE LAND”: Distinguishing Attitudinal Support for Pan-Africanism from Black Separatism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 June 2005

Lester K. Spence ,
Todd C. Shaw  and
Robert A. Brown
Lester K. Spence
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science and of African and Afro-American Studies, Washington University in Saint Louis
Todd C. Shaw
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science and of African American Studies, University of South Carolina
Robert A. Brown
Affiliation:
Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Emory University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

There have been several recent attempts to operationalize and measure empirically attitudinal support for Black nationalism. However, scholars have not yet reached a consensus as to what precisely constitutes Black nationalism and its manifestations. Our work addresses three critical questions. First, is Black nationalism a uni-dimensional or a multi-dimensional construct? Second, is Black nationalism another form of xenophobia? Third, is support for Black nationalism a function of time? Some scholars note that Black nationalism takes on the character of its material context and that it cannot be easily subsumed into a trans-historical ideology (Reed 2002; Robinson 2001). We indirectly test these hypotheses by examining the relationship between two components of Black nationalism—Black separatism and Pan-Africanism. To test these hypotheses, we analyze data from the 1979–1980 National Survey of Black Americans (NSBA). Overall, we establish the determinants of support for Black separatism and Pan-Africanism while distinguishing these ideologies' similarities and differences.

Keywords

Public OpinionBlack NationalismPan-AfricanismBlack Politics
Type
STATE OF THE ART
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , March 2005 , pp. 91 - 111
Copyright
© 2005 W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Allen, Robert L. (1990). Black Awakening in Capitalist America: An Analytic History. Trenton, NJ: African World Press.
Anderson, Benedict (1991). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London and New York: Verso Press.
Berry, Mary Frances and John W. Blassingame (1982). Long Memory: The Black Experience in America. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Black Radical Congress, National Council (1999). The Freedom Agenda of the Black Radical Congress. Baltimore, MD.
Boston, Thomas D. (1988). Race, Class and Conservatism. Boston, MA: Unwyn Hyman.
Bracey, John H., Jr., August Meier, and Elliot Rudwick (1970). Black Nationalism in America. Indianapolis, IN: The Bobbs-Merril Company.
Brown, Robert A. and Todd C. Shaw (2002) Separate nations: Two attitudinal dimensions of Black nationalism. Journal of Politics, 64: 1–22.Google Scholar
Browning, Rufus P., Dale Rogers Marshall, and David H. Tabb (1997). Racial Politics in American Cities. New York: Longman.
Bush, Rod (1999). We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in the American Century. New York: New York University Press.
Carmichael, Stokley and Charles Hamilton (1967). Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America. New York: Vintage Press.
Clarke, John Henrik (1974). Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa. New York: Vintage Books.
Clarke, John Henrik (1991). Notes for an African World Revolution: Africans at the Crossroads. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.
Cruse, Harold (1984). The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual. New York: Quill Press.
Cunnigen, Donald (1999). Bringing the revolution down home: The Republic of New Africa in Mississippi. Sociological Spectrum, 19: 63–92.Google Scholar
Davis, Angela (1992). Black nationalism: The sixties and the nineties. In Michele Wallace (Ed.), Black Popular Culture, pp. 317–324, Seattle,WA: Bay Press.
Davis, Darren and Ronald Brown (2002) The antipathy of Black nationalism: Behavioral and attitudinal implications of an African American ideology. American Journal of Political Science, 46: 239–252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawson, Michael (1994). Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African American Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Dawson, Michael (2001). Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary African-American Political Ideologies. Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press.
Dawson, Michael, Ronald Brown, and James S. Jackson (1993). National Black Politics Study [Computer File]. ICPSR version. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago; Detroit, MI: Wayne State University; Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan [producers], 1994. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1998.
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1940). Dusk of Dawn: An Essay toward an Autobiography of a Race. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903 [1997]). The Souls of Black Folk, edited by R. Gooding-Williams. Boston, MA and New York: Bedford Books.
Edmunds, Ben (2004). What Went On. Available at http://www.books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,6761,615183,00.html. Accessed October 26, 2004.
Esedebe, P. Olisanwuche (1994). Pan-Africanism: The Idea and Movement, 1776–1991. Washington, DC: Howard University.
Essien-Udom, E. U. (1971). Black Nationalism: A Search for an Identity in America. Chicago, IL and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Fairchild, Harold, Russell Stockard, and Philip Bowman (1982) Impact of Roots: Evidence from the National Survey of Black Americans. Journal of Black Studies, 16: 307–318.Google Scholar
Feagin, Joe R. and Hernan Vera (1995). White Racism: The Basics. New York: Routledge.
Franklin, Vincent P. (1992). Black Self-Determination: A Cultural History of African-American Resistance. Brooklyn, NY: Lawrence Hill Books.
Gibson, James L. and Gregory A. Caldeira (1992) Blacks and the United States Supreme Court: Models of diffuses. Journal of Politics, 54: 1120–1145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gurin, Patricia and Edgar Epps (1975). Black Consciousness, Identity, and Achievement. New York: Wiley.
Gurin, Patrica, Shirley J. Hatchett, and James S. Jackson (1989). Hope and Independence: Blacks' Response to Electoral and Party Politics. New York: Sage Foundation.
Hall, Raymond L. (1978). Black Separatism in the United States. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.
Hanchard, Michael (2003) Acts of misrecognition: Transnational Black politics, anti-imperialism and the ethnocentrisms of Pierre Bourdieu and Loic Wacquant. Theory and Society, 20: 5–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, Fredrick C. (2001). ‘It takes a tragedy to arouse them’: Collective memory and collective action during the Civil Rights Movement. Paper presented at the Theorizing Black Communities Conference: New Frontiers in the Study of African-American Politics. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester, May 5–6, 2001.
Hawkins, Douglas and L. Paul Fatti (1984) Exploring multivariate data using the Minor Principle Components. Statistician, 33: 325–338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henderson, Errol A. (1996) Black nationalism and rap music. Journal of Black Studies, 26: 308–339.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henderson, Errol A. (2000). War, political cycles, and the Pendulum Thesis: Explaining the rise of Black Nationalism, 1840–1996. In Lawrence J. Hanks (Ed.), Black and Multiracial Politics in America, pp. 337–376. New York and London: New York University Press.
Hochschild, Jennifer (1995). Facing Up to the American Dream: Race, Class, and the Soul of the Nation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Holden, Matthew (1973). The Politics of the Black “Nation”. New York: Chandler Publishing.
Holloway, Joseph E. (1990). Africanisms in American Culture. Bloomington, IN and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press.
Jackson, James S. and Gerald Gurin. National Survey of Black Americans, Waves 1–4, 1979–1980, 1987–1988, 1988–1989, 1992 [Computer File]. Conducted by University of Michigan, Survey research Center. ICPSR version Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [producer and distributor], 1997.
Jacques-Garvey, Amy comp. (1986). The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey. Dover, MA: Majority Press.
Jennings, James (1992). The Politics of Black Empowerment: The Transformation of Black Activism in Urban America. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.
Johnson, James Weldon and Rosamond Johnson (1900). “Lift Ev'ry Voice” in Norton Anthology of African American Literature, p. 769. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.
Kadalie, Modibo M. (2000). Internationalism, Pan-Africanism, and the Struggle of Social Classes. Savannah, GA: One Quest Press.
Karenga, Maulana (1998). Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community, and Culture. Los Angeles, CA: University of Sankore Press.
Kelley, Robin D. G. and Earl Lewis (2000). To Make the World Anew: A History of African Americans. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Kim, Claire Jean (2000). Bitter Fruit : The Politics of Black-Korean Conflict in New York City. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Lemann, Nicholas (1993). Black nationalism on campus. The Atlantic, January, pp. 31–47.
Lorenzo, Morris, Joseph McCormick II, Maurice Varney, and Clarence Lusane (1995). Million Man March: Preliminary report on the survey. Wellington Group/OMAR and the Howard University Political Science Department.
Marable, Manning (1990). Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction of Black America, 1945–1990. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press.
Martin, Ben L. (1991) From Negro to Black to African American: The power of names and naming. Political Science Quarterly, 106: 83–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, Tony (1986). Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Dover, MA: Majority Press.
Mazrui, Ali (1977). Africa's International Relations: The Diplomacy of Dependency and Change. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Meriwether, James Hunter (2002). Proudly We Can be Africans: Black Americans and Africa, 1935–1961. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.CrossRef
Morris, Aldon, Shirley J. Hatchett, and Ronald E Brown (1989). The Civil Rights Movement and Black political socialization. In R. S. Sigel (Ed.), Political Learning in Adulthood: A Sourcebook of Theory and Research, pp. 272–305. Chicago, IL and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Nairn, Tom (1977). The Break-up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-nationalism. London: NLB.
Preston, Michael B., Lenneal J. Henderson, Jr., and Paul Puryear (1987). The New Black Politics: The Search for Political Power, 2d ed. New York: Longman.
Reed, Adolph, Jr. (1999). Sources of demobilization in the new Black political regime: Incorporation, ideological capitulation, and radical failure in the post-segregation era. In A. J. Reed (Ed.), Stirrings in the Jug: Black Politics in the Post-Segregation Era, pp. 117–162. Minneapolis, MN and London: University of Minnesota Press.
Reed, Adolph, Jr. (2002). Black particularity reconsidered. In E. S. J. Glaude (Ed.), Is It Nation Time? Contemporary Essays on Black Power and Black Nationalism, pp. 39–66. Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press.
Robinson, Dean (2001). Black Nationalism in American Politics and Thought. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef
Sales, William (1994). From Civil Rights to Black Liberation: Malcolm X and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. Boston, MA: South End Press.
Schuman, Howard and Amy D. Corning (2000) Collective knowledge of public events: The Soviet era from the Great Purge to glasnost. American Journal of Sociology, 105: 913–956.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schuman, Howard and Jacqueline Scott (1989) Generations and collective memories. American Sociological Review, 54: 359–381.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, Barry (1997) Collective memory and history: How Abraham Lincoln became a symbol of racial equality. Sociological Quarterly, 38: 469–496.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simpson, Andrea Y. (1998). The Tie that Binds: Identity and Political Attitudes in the Post-Civil Rights Generation. New York: New York University Press.
Smith, Anthony D. (2001). Nationalism : Theory, Ideology, History. Malden, MA: Polity Press.
Smith, Robert C. (1996). We Have No Leaders: African Americans in the Post-Civil Rights Era. Albany, NY: State of New York University Press.
Sniderman, Paul M. and Thomas Leonard Piazza (2002). Black Pride and Black Prejudice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Sonenshein, Raphael J. (1997). The prospects for multiracial coalitions: Lessons from America's three largest cities. In D. H. Tabb (Ed.), Racial Politics in American Cities, pp. 333–356. New York: Longman.
Stuckey, Sterling (1987). Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tate, Katherine (1993). From Protest to Politics: The New Black Voters in American Elections. Cambridge, MA and London: Russell Sage and Harvard University Press.
Tate, Katherine, Ronald E. Brown, Shirley J. Hatchett, and James S. Jackson (1988). The 1984 National Black Election Study Sourcebook. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Thornton, Michael and Robert Taylor (1988a) Black American perceptions of Black Africans. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 11: 135–150.Google Scholar
Thornton, Michael and Robert Taylor (1988b) Intergroup attitudes: Black American perceptions of Asian Americans. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 11: 474–488.Google Scholar
Thornton, Michael, Thanh Tran, and Robert Taylor (1997) Multiple dimensions of racial group identification among adult Black Americans. Journal of Black Psychology, 2: 73–97.Google Scholar
Van DeBurg, William (1997). Modern Black Nationalism: From Marcus Garvey to Louis Farrakhan. New York: New York University Press.
Walters, Ronald W. (1993). Pan Africanism in the African Disapora: An Analysis of Modern Afrocentric Political Movements. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.
Walton, Hanes, Jr. (1985). Invisible Politics: Black Political Behavior. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Watkins, S. Craig (2002). “Black Is Black, and It's Bound to Sell!”: Nationalist desire and the production of Black popular culture. In E. S. J. Glaude (Ed.), Is It Nation Time? Contemporary Essays on Black Power and Black Nationalism, pp. 189–214, Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press.
West, Michael O. (1998) Like a river: The Million Man March and the Black nationalist tradition in the United States. Journal of Historical Sociology, 12: 81–100.Google Scholar
White, E. Frances (1990) Africa on my mind: Gender, counter discourse, and African-American nationalism. Journal of Women's History, 2: 73–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar