The Back to Africa Movement began in the early 19th century as a to way return former slaves to their supposed native land, regardless of where they were born. The most prominent organization involved in the movement was the American Colonization Society, which met with mixed success and tapered off toward the end of the 19th century. By the 20th century, however, it was revived under a new guise by the efforts of Marcus Garvey, who saw African roots as a source of pride and encouraged all people of African descent to return to their ethnic homeland, where they would govern themselves. Although relatively few African Americans emigrated, the Back to Africa Movement provides a useful lens for examining the evo-lution of the long civil rights movement in the United States.

The goal of importing slaves into the Americas was to provide free labor for the production of cash crops like sugar, cotton, and tobac-co. While slave labor did wonders for the pocketbooks of wealthy planters, the use of an enslaved labor force became increasingly contro-versial over the 18th and 19th centuries. As population of free blacks grew due to owners freeing slaves, successful escape, and slaves pur-chasing their freedom and the freedom of their families, their presence in the United States presented new challenges for the young nation. By the 19th century, the U.S. was home to a growing population of free blacks, especially in the Northern states where slavery was illegal. Some of these former slaves, like Frederick Douglass, were active abolitionists.

Although Tennessee was a slave state until the Civil War, it had a strong abolitionist tradition. Tennes-see abolitionists Elihu Embree and Benjamin Lundy of Greeneville both had roots in the pacifist Quaker tradi-tion, which opposed slavery on moral grounds. East Tennessee was less dependent on slave labor than Middle and West Tennessee, because its geography did not lend itself to large-scale plantation production.

Regardless of where one stood on the slavery question, however, the presence of an increasing popula-tion of free blacks was problematic. Slave owners were concerned that the presence of free blacks would en-courage or assist their slaves in escape or rebellion, especially in the aftermath of Gabriel Prosser’s execution in Virginia in 1800. Prosser was an enslaved blacksmith who was hanged after it was discovered that he was plan-ning a large slave rebellion near Richmond in 1800. In 1831, another Virginia slave, Nat Turner, led a rebellion that led to the deaths of 60 whites and over 100 blacks. The commonwealth executed Turner and 56 other blacks accused of being co-conspirators. Slave owners who freed their slaves were concerned about how their slaves would fit into a society that had no place for free blacks. This was in part due to the prevailing pseudosci-entific racial theories that claimed blacks were inferior and lacked the capacity to live among whites as equals. One of the solutions to this situation was to send the “Africans,” as slaves were called regardless of their place of birth, back to Africa. The vast majority of slaves had been born in the United States, as importation of slaves declined until it was banned in 1808.

The “Back to Africa” Movement, as it came to be known, can be divided into two phases. The first phase was led primarily by groups like the American Colonization Society (ACS), an organization begun in 1817 by a group of whites interested in helping to transport free blacks to Liberia, a West African nation established in 1820 to

“Am I Not a Man and a Broth-er?” Popular anti-slavery image. (1837)

THE BACK TO AFRICA MOVEMENT:

FROM THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY TO MARCUS GARVEY

serve as home for Black Americans who wished (or were required by the terms of their freedom) to return to Africa. The ACS was founded by clergymen and abolitionists who believed blacks would have a better chance at a

quality life in Africa. While some supports of the ACS shared these concerns, colonization was also favored by slave owners who wished to free their slaves but were concerned about the impact of a large free black population. One such slave owner Tennessee iron magnate Montgomery Bell. Bell came to believe that slavery was a great moral wrong, and wanted to free his slaves but was con-cerned about their fate after his death. Bell sent sev-eral groups of his former slaves to Liberia at great personal expense.

The ACS operated through the early 20th century, but struggled to find widespread support

among blacks, many of whom chose to move North despite the discrimination they faced from white workers who feared they would be replaced by black workers who were paid less. By 1867, the ACS had

only transported 13,000 blacks to Africa due to expense and lack of interest; most of the colonists were former slaves who were freed on the condition that they leave the country. According to census data, there were 4.8 million blacks in the U.S. in 1870. Despite its early lack of support, however, the idea of colonization became more popular among blacks during the post-Civil War period known as the Jim Crow Era.

“Jim Crow” is the title given to the period of American history from Reconstruction to the end of the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-20th century, roughly dated 1876-1965. The Jim Crow Era was a period marked by violence toward and oppression of Black Americans. Although slavery was illegal and blacks had been made full citizens by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments (adopted between 1865-1870), Southern states still found ways to deny the rights of citizenship to blacks. Poll taxes, literacy tests, and threats of violence were used to keep black men from voting. The Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) established legal segregation by declaring that “separate but equal” facilities should be available to blacks. Although these facilities were always separate, they were rarely, if ever, equal. Challenging these legal and customary codes carried the risk of violent retribution from the white community. An estimated 2,462 people, mostly black, were lynched in Tennessee from 1882 and 1930. The perpetrators were rarely punished, and Memphis newspapers even published the time and location of lynchings in advance.

Despite the myriad challenges of life in the Jim Crow South, Black Americans formed tight-knit communities that met the needs of their population and offered some protection from adversarial state and local governments. Leaders like Booker T. Washington worked to improve life for blacks through education and outreach. Washing-ton’s Tuskegee Institute, which offered educational and vocational training in central Alabama, helped train blacks in skills that would help them support themselves more efficiently.

American Colonization Society to James Madison. Membership Certificate. 1816.

Cartoon image of Jim Crow, a racist stereotype that came to define the period from 1876-1965. (ca. 1835-1845)

Despite these efforts, some blacks chose to leave the South, moving West or North to the promise of a more secure life with great opportunity for prosperity. For others, the realities of life under Jim Crow made the promises of the ACS even more appealing. Interest in moving to Liberia increased in the late nineteenth century. In the words of one black Arkansas farmer:

We have little or no voice here & our wages are so small we scarcely have enough means to subsist upon. Taxation is so pending [heavy] that we cannot hold any real estate worth mentioning… We feel like chil-dren away from home and are anxious to get home. We are quite sure that the U.S. of America is not the

place for the colored man.

A Mississippi farmer made a similar case in his letter to the ACS in 1890, shortly after Mississippi officially dis-enfranchised black citizens:

We as a people are oppressed and disfranchised we are still working hard and our rights taken from us times are hard and getting harder every year we as a people believe that Affrica is the place but to get from under bondage are thinking of Oklahoma as this is our nearest place of safety.

As blacks grew more interested in emigrating to Africa, however, white property owners grew con-cerned about the impact of a large-scale black exodus on the labor supply. When plantations transitioned from using slave labor to tenant farming and sharecrop-ping after the Civil War, planters still relied on the availability of a cheap, non-mobile labor force. The ACS faced increasing opposition from these property owners, and the cost of transportation to Africa re-mained prohibitive. Though the ACS declined in the early 20th century, the words of the Mississippi farmer, “we as a people,” are prophetic of the second phase of the Back-to-Africa Movement.

The second phase took place in the early 20th century, and was led by Marcus Garvey (1887-1940), a Jamaican-born black rights leader whose efforts

would inspire the civil rights leaders of the mid-20th century. Unlike many civil rights leaders like Booker T. Washington or W.E.B. Du Bois, Garvey believed it was impossible for blacks and whites to live together in har-mony. He came to Harlem in New York in 1916 and established the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1914. A central part of its mission was to instill racial pride in blacks, based on their common African roots. He published a weekly paper, the Negro World, which published articles that celebrated blackness, and re-jected ads from companies whose products promised to make the customer look whiter, whether it was skin bleaching or hair straightening.

One of Garvey’s central goals was the establishment of a black government for all blacks across the world in Africa. He became a proponent of Pan-Africanism, an ideology that encourages solidarity among all people of African descent. He opposed colonial rule and believed that Africa should be governed by and for Afri-cans. Garvey encouraged all people of African descent to go “Back to Africa,” though for totally different reasons than the ACS had. Whereas the ACS had been concerned about the consequences of a free black population for white Americans, Garvey believed that whites were the problem, and that the only way blacks could be truly

Marcus Garvey (1924)

To this end he founded a blacks-only shipping company, The Black Star Line, to help transport blacks to Africa and promote trade. When the company failed, Garvey was accused of mail fraud and jailed. There were almost no grounds for these charges, and it is more than likely that they were politically motivated by Garvey’s many power-ful white opponents. After serving two years in prison, Garvey was eventually deported back to Jamaica.

Garvey was a working class man, and his radical-ism appealed to many of the poorer blacks in the United States. He faced opposition from whites who rejected his ideas about the superiority (or even equality) of blacks, and were concerned about Garvey’s appeal to the ordi-nary black people who were most oppressed by Jim Crow System. He was also criticized by black civil rights leaders like W.E.B. Du Bois, who helped found the National As-sociation for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and A. Philip Randolph, who went on to or-ganize the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (the first black union) and led the march that convinced Franklin D. Roosevelt to desegregate the armed forces. Although Du Bois respected Garvey’s sincerity, he rejected emigra-tion as the solution, arguing instead that blacks had a place

in an integrated United States. Du Bois did not believe that returning to Africa was either feasible or advisable. Randolph was more sharply critical of Garvey, and called him a charlatan for his schemes and rhetoric.

Garvey continued to fight for his cause until his death in London in 1940. Although he had created many enemies with his ideas, a mass meeting was called in Harlem to honor Garvey at the time of his passing. Though he re-mains a controversial figure, his advocacy of African independence and black racial pride made him an inspiration to the civil rights leaders of the mid-20th century, including Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, who recognized the importance of Garvey’s celebration of blackness. Malcolm X’s father was a member of the UNIA, a Garvey supporter, and a Baptist preacher who ended his sermons with Garvey’s admonition, “Up, you mighty race, you can accomplish what you want!”

Garvey’s legacy has also been honored by Kwame Nkrumah (k-WAH-may nuh-KREW-mah), the leader of Ghana from 1951-1966. Nkrumah considered Garvey to be the spiritual father of Ghana, which was the first black republic to emerge in Africa after the end of colonial-ism. Nkrumah named the Ghanaian soccer team the Black Stars in honor of Garvey, and the black star on Ghana’s flag also honors Garvey.

After the successes of the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-20th century, black interest in emigration tapered off. As conditions in the United States improved for black Americans, the motivation to move to Africa dissipated. While moving the entire black population to Africa was logistically impossible, the message behind Garvey’s dream, that being black should be a source of pride rather than shame, became one of the cen-tral tenets of the Civil Rights Movement.

Advertisement for UNIA meeting from the New-York Tribune, July 29, 1922

Kwame Nkrumah

Suggested Reading:

For more information on black emigration:

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam002.html

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam004.html

Edwin Redkey – Black Exodus (1969) (for teachers)

For information on Marcus Garvey:

Peggy Caravantes – Marcus Garvey: Black Nationalist (2004)*

Jules Archer – They Had a Dream: The Civil Rights Struggle from Frederick Douglass to Marcus Garvey to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X (1993)*

http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/naacp/newnegromovement/ExhibitObjects/MarcusGarvey.aspx

*Appropriate for middle or high school students

Discussion Questions:

What were some of the demographic challenges the ACS hoped to solve by encouraging emigration?

How did Garvey’s motivation for black emigration differ from that of the ACS?

Why did Marcus Garvey and other civil rights leaders disagree on the issue of emigration?

What are some reasons whites might have opposed emigration?

Extensions:

1. Read this letter: http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/naacp/newnegromovement/ExhibitObjects/InterferenceWithImprovementAssociation.aspx

Why might the NAACP claim that the UNIA was “organized for the mischievous purpose of creating antagonism between black and white people”? Do you think that is an accurate statement about the Garvey’s aims? Why or why not?

2. Read this pamphlet:

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/rbaapcbib:@field(NUMBER+@od1(rbaapc+33200))

What sort of barriers were there for African Americans who wanted to vote? Why is voting important (what other rights go along with the right to vote)? Describe how the information in this pamphlet relates to the quotes from the farmers who wrote to the ACS.