Historians say the Midwest played a key role in black liberation movements around the world

The Midwest played a central role in the growth of the black freedom movement in the 20th century. Eric S. McDuffie, a professor of African American studies and history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said it was an important place to nurture and spread the ideas of political activist Marcus Garvey both in the United States and around the world. .

In his new book, “The Second Battle for Africa: Garveyism, the American Heartland, and Global Black Freedom,” McDuffie explores Garvey’s influence on the growth of black internationalism and radicalism and the Midwest We considered the importance of

McDuffie said the book is deeply personal and tied to his family’s history and Midwestern roots. He is interested in history, politics, and world events, and grew up outside of Cleveland in a family from St. Kitts Island, Canada, and the United States. His great-grandfather was once a Garveyite who introduced Garvey at a 1923 Detroit rally.

Garvey, who grew up in Jamaica around the turn of the 20th century, advocated for black self-determination and autonomy, the end of colonial rule in Africa, racial pride, and connections between Africa and the African diaspora. His ideas emerged during a period of global upheaval after World War I. He founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association. The association had six million members worldwide in the 1920s and was the largest black protest movement in history at the time.

“Garveyism has been the most powerful social, political, cultural, and spiritual force in the black world since the early 20th century. Not only in the Midwest and the United States, but also in the African world, including the Caribbean. “There are so many movements, organizations and institutions across Africa and beyond that have been directly or indirectly inspired by Garveyism,” McDuffie said. “You can’t talk about black people in the 20th century without talking about Garvey.”

The Midwest is especially well suited to serve as a center of black political activity, McDuffie said. He described the region as a “dialectic of opportunity and oppression.”

Blacks saw the North as the promised land of freedom from slavery. they could vote. Midwestern cities were manufacturing centers, with automobile factories, steel mills, and rubber factories, and millions of people from all over the world worked in these industries. Black men can earn higher wages than in other areas, McDuffie said.

“What makes this case stand out is the way black people found unique political and economic opportunities not found anywhere else in the world,” he said.

Because of their political and economic power, UNIA chapters in Midwestern cities became the largest and most influential chapters in the world, especially Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland, McDuffie wrote. Chicago became home to the Johnson Publishing Company and the Third World Publishing Foundation, important publishers of black literature, magazines, and news, as well as Malcolm X College.

At the same time, the Midwest was also a scene of vicious racial oppression and violence, including lynchings, Ku Klux Klan activity, laws restricting black civil liberties, and a white settler colonialist perspective, McDuffie said. said.

“These forces came together, and then Garvey spoke of racial pride, national self-determination, and a free Africa. That served to radicalize black people in unique and important ways,” he said.

Some black supremacist politics embraced black settler colonialism, anti-communism, capitalism, and heteropatriarchy in Africa. McDuffie said they sometimes collaborated with white supremacists on the common ground of racial segregation and the colonization of Liberia for black people who wanted to live freely in Africa.

Although some of Garvey’s ideas had a right-wing bent, they went beyond the ideological scope of Black Thought, McDuffie said. Many activists inspired by Garvey rejected those ideas in favor of more left-wing views.

“Most people appreciated his encouragement of pride, the promotion of institution building and self-government, and his anti-colonial message,” McDuffie said.

Women played important roles in grassroots community activities and UNIA leadership roles, promoting the empowerment of black women. McDuffie wrote about the influence of Malcolm X’s mother, Louise Little, who was born in Grenada and later lived in Nebraska and Michigan. Ms. McDuffie said she was instrumental in cultivating a black radical perspective in her children, laying the foundation for the work of Malcolm X, who maintained a lifelong connection to the Midwest, especially Detroit.

He also wrote about James Stewart, who succeeded Garvey as UNIA president and moved his headquarters to Cleveland and then to Liberia. Garveyism influenced independence movements in Africa and the Caribbean. This inspired new movements such as Rastafarianism and the Nation of Islam, which was founded in Detroit. Garveyism was also important in the formation of the civil rights movement and the Black Power movement, McDuffie said.

The continuing influence of Garveyism can be seen today in the field of African American studies, established as a result of activism in the 1960s and ’70s, and in the Black Lives Matter movement, he said.

“Given the unique intersection of opportunity and structural violence against Black people, it is no coincidence that Ferguson, Missouri and Minneapolis were the places where Black Lives Matter truly went global,” McDuffie said. Ta. “There is a tendency among scholars to ignore the Midwest when talking about Africa’s global diaspora. I really want to highlight the importance of the Midwest in shaping black life in the 20th century. .”