Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Revisiting Black Nationalism and the National Question
Ken Morgan
24 Jan 2018
🖨️ Print Article
Revisiting Black Nationalism and the National Question
Revisiting Black Nationalism and the National Question

“Economic disparities, police brutality, inequalities et al. go together with capitalism.”

I was privileged to learn from and work with Harry Haywood. Most if not all readers of the Black Agenda Report know his legacy and history in the black struggle. If not, please do check him out.

He viewed blacks as an oppressed nation in the Black Belt South and an oppressed minority in the North. The black struggle demanded its independence for true liberation. Haywood said that the merits of black nationalism required “an independent course for the movement; to shake off the dead hand of liberalism, paternalism, gradualism, and dependency.” It needed a revolutionary program consistent with sentiments of the black masses. Haywood's view necessitated that the black independent struggle for self-determination is necessary to connect with the revolutionary working-class movement to bring about U.S. socialism -- and to end black oppression.

Haywood said that it was not enough to just talk about whether you desire integration or separation. Both maintain their issues.

Black nationalism isolated and detached does not bring about black liberation. Turning money over to the black community that originates and stays in the black community is a pipe dream if you understand imperialism. Developing black businesses as a way forward is yet another empty basket.

“Different groupings and formations today have adopted pieces of Haywood’s worldview.”

Black community organizing with only the aim of making things better is temporary at best. The movement to end police brutality is an example.

Malcolm X got it right. Economic disparities, police brutality, inequalities et al. go together with capitalism. Malcolm still did not say what must replace it. He was moving on that track.

On the integration end, there continues to be a trend that wrongly places the black petty bourgeois at the helm. Dissing Trump and voting for Bernie Sanders draws us no closer to black liberation. How many of us think that we will obtain true equality through these methods?

We in the black left still grapple with trying to put black liberation on a proper course using black nationalism. Different groupings and formations today have adopted pieces of Haywood’s worldview. I suggest that we thoroughly examine Haywood’s premise, and emulate it according to today’s current environment.

Yes, building black anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and anti-racist formations put us in the right direction. Getting together to do joint work around common goals remains essential, but is limited.

It looks like we have to help to build or re-build the revolutionary working class movement. That is, if Harry Haywood’s view is followed. As the most oppressed and the vanguard of the working class movement, we learned our lessons. Why not apply them?

Dr. Morgan can be reached at kmorgan2408@comcast.net.

#Black Liberation Movement

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

The Unknown History of Black Uprisings
Keeanga-Yamahia Taylor
The Unknown History of Black Uprisings
01 July 2021
Historian Elizabeth Hinton’s book reveals that, in the late sixties and early seventies, there were hundreds of local rebellions against white viol
Rock-A-Bye Baby: The Anesthetizing Effects of Political Concessions
 joshua briond
Rock-A-Bye Baby: The Anesthetizing Effects of Political Concessions
01 July 2021
The response to Black rebellion are all distinct types of “reforms” to politically sedate Black surplus populations and sustain white settler-capit
BAR Book Forum: Cisco Bradley’s “Universal Tonality”
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Cisco Bradley’s “Universal Tonality”
16 June 2021
Jazzman William Parker’s work is a bold art of resistance to capitalism, colonialism, racism, and the runaway train that is our present-day America
“New Bones” Abolitionism, Communism, and Captive Maternals
Joy James
“New Bones” Abolitionism, Communism, and Captive Maternals
09 June 2021
Joy James uses poet Lucille Clifton's image of “new bones” to reflect on a series of revolutionary anniversaries in 2021 and the nature of pol
The authors set out to reconstruct King’s critical theory of racial capitalism.
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Jared A. Loggins and Andrew J. Douglas’ “Prophet of Discontent”
06 May 2021
The authors set out to reconstruct King’s critical theory of racial capitalism.
Reaching Beyond “Black Faces in High Places”: An Interview With Joy James
George Yancy
Reaching Beyond “Black Faces in High Places”: An Interview With Joy James
03 February 2021
White supremacist culture is a permanent site of predatory consumption, extraction and violation.
Return to the Source: Democracy is Dead
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
Return to the Source: Democracy is Dead
20 January 2021
By what stretch of the imagination can the US be a democracy when ordinary citizens have virtually no influence over what their government does?&…
Caste Does Not Explain Race
Charisse Burden-Stelly, PhD
Caste Does Not Explain Race
06 January 2021
The celebration of Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste reflects the continued priority of elite preferences over the needs and struggles of
Freddie Gray and Why the Wealth of Sports Franchises Matter
Gustavus Griffin
Freddie Gray and Why the Wealth of Sports Franchises Matter
06 January 2021
A significant portion of sports franchise wealth can be traced directly to the oppression and displacement of Black and Brown bodies.
Racial Capitalism, Black Liberation, and South Africa
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
Racial Capitalism, Black Liberation, and South Africa
16 December 2020
The phrase racial capitalism first emerged in the context of the anti-Apartheid and southern African liberation struggles in the 1970s.

More Stories


  • Protest with BLM sign and Palestine flag
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Black People Won't Be Silenced About Israel
    06 Dec 2023
    As the US continues to conflate every criticism of Zionism with anti-semitism, the predicable happens once again. Black people are used as an avatar of anti-Jewish sentiment. This tactic will not…
  • Poster of Al Fatah through the streets of Algiers. Palestine Poster Project
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    MESSAGE: The Palestine National Liberation Movement AL-FATEH to Africa
    06 Dec 2023
    Al-Fateh’s communique at the 1969 Festival of Pan-African Culture offered a brilliant analysis of the overlapping histories of European colonialism and white supremacy in Africa and Palestine.
  • More than 6 million Congolese now shelter in IDP camps.
    Maurice Carney
    D.R. Congo’s Challenges: Elections, Rwanda’s War of Aggression and Critical Minerals for Green Transition
    06 Dec 2023
    The ongoing crisis is a result of converging forces determined to pursue their own interests by controlling the affairs within the Congo and subjecting the masses to inhumane conditions.
  • Kenya Parliament
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: National identity and Foreign Domination, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, 1982
    06 Dec 2023
    Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o reminds us that the primary contradiction in Africa is imperialism and its meek comprador bourgeoisie enforcers.
  • Symone Sanders
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Black Media Misleaders Do the Democrats' Dirty Work
    29 Nov 2023
    Over a year in advance, the Black Misleadership Class has kicked their efforts to corral Black people into the Democratic party, despite the Dems’ apathy toward Black politics or the concerns of…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us