HOWARD BROTZ The Black Jews of Harlem.M18347S- o For my mother and 10 the memory of my father Copyright © 1964 by The Fee Pra af Gener [A Division of The Manian Company Prine in th Unite Sats of America All rig in this Bok are srw. No azt of this book tay be ted oF rprodied nay sinner whatoeet (ridlot wien permiaon exept fa the ease of bet {Qtions enbotind in ite artiles and reviews For information, area he Free Pros of Glencoe [A Divison of he Macilan Company ‘he Crowell Coliee Puieing Company (8 Fith Arenas, Now York it atrary of Congres Catal Card umber: 38040 Colier Mena Canad, Lid, Toni, OntarioACKNOWLEDGMENTS. aur nvrunest in the Black Jews began with a study ofthis ‘group which I made when I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago. I should like to acknowledge the generous help given to me at that time by Professors Herbert Blumer, Everett Hughes, Edward Shils, and the late Professors E, Franklin Frazier and Louis With. In the preparation ofthe present manuscript Ihave benefited much from conversations with my colleagues at Smith College, particularly Professors Stanley Elkins, Margaret Shook and Richard Slobodin. Professors Joan Bramwell, Donald Sheehan, and Leo Weinstein read the manuscript snd made many suggestions from which I profited. They are, of course, in no way responsible for any errors this, work might contain or the point of view it puts forth. Finally, itis with much pleasure that I make the long overdue acknowledgment of the very great debt T owe Rabbi Wentworth A. Matthews, the leader of the Com- rmandment Keepers Congregation, who gave most gen- exously of his time, his hospitality, and who became a good friend, Without his many Kindnesses this study could never have been made. Although it is always per plexing to be held up to @ sociological magnifying glass, where everything that one docs and says is being ob- aont Acknowledgments served, 1 should ike to take this ceasion to clear up Sonera | the one real misunderstanding that may arse. This Is that it has een impossible for me to follow Rabbi Matthew's wage regarding the word Negso. To this, how ver, I would say to him that whenever I use the term Negro, means almot, f not quite, what he means by | Ethiopian Hebrew. HB Northampton, Massachusets hoes a Je 1963 1. Beginings 1 TL, The World ofthe Commandment Keepers 5 | Nego Is the Name of Thing 6 Not Black But Comely 8 | The Anthropology of the Black Jews » | Cluny, the Religion ofthe Gentes 22 Hebvew Is Not s Language ofthe Sweet 95 | Strity Kosher ” The Cabaltic Sconce ofthe Howe of lel = No Niggertons We Celebrate All Jewish Holidays ss Fathers and Sons “ Jeva tn Bayon “ IIL The Blak Jews and Thelr Farer Brethrenx Contents | IV, Variety and Dissent Within Nogro Leadership ‘The Protest Against Logal Inequality SelGHelp: The Quest for a Negro Community Booker T. Washington Negro Culture and History ‘The Black Jews: What’ in & Name? Marcus Garvey: Political Nationalism ‘American Communism and the Forty.niath State ‘The Black Muslims V. Negro Nationalism and the Solution to the ‘Negro Problem Notes Index of Names © 2 na 8 a 88 * 104 10s ne 133 “a THE BLACK JEWS OF HARLEMBEGINNINGS AS RARLY As 1900, Negro preachers were traveling through the Carolinas preaching the doctrine that the so-called [Negroes were really the lost sheep of the House of Israel There is no reason to think, however, that such reflections did not begin much earlier, in fact during slavery itsof when the more imaginative and more daring ofthe slaves began to wonder about the very human question of who they really were and where they really came from. In 1800, 4 well-planned insurection of slaves, under the Teadeship of sve named Gabriel, was dcovered neat chon, Vigina, Fanlin Fears acca of ib eed ace tat Call ct ely set Lave, bon en Cceeptional pen ainda by the thoroughness of is hing ut fn adion made ae ofthe Bible fo Impress upon the Negroes that they as the Israelites could | throw off the yoke of svery and tat God woud come to thelr ald" | pam tants ecu nocimea on | stdy chat th pe of ral Protest which be { Care the vligous wadton af the sve, and which | F2 ‘The Black Jews of Harlem its essence conceived of itself as return to the literal word of God, revealed in both Testaments and accessible in the vernacular to all who could read, elicited on its fringes an eccentee tradition in which the Old Testament not only became held in honor equal to that of the New but fa fact became more venerated and even opposed to the New Testament where they came in conflict. This was rot, to be sure, a tradition in the literal sense with the continuity of an established orthodoxy. It is rather to be understood as series of ttompts, beginning in the seventeenth century, to think through and act upon eon- clusions drawn from reflection on the Bible which the freedom of this tradition permitted and stimulated and which kept recurring so long as the Biblical cosmogony enjoyed an wndisputed status in popular opinion. In this tradition one may distinguish two foct that correspond to the two subject matters of the Bible itself namely, law and narrative. The first comprehended what the Bishop of Exeter in 1600 complained of in his diocese as “Jewism.” Extreme Puritans who contended that the “old dlspensation” was binding had reverted to such prac- tices as circumcision and the seventh-day Sabbath. Ia 1685, Mary Chester was prosecuted for “teaching the dis- LUnction of meats” Some of the followers of the Puritan John Traske, to avoid perseention, settled ja Amsterdam. where they joined the synagogue. Akin to this was a pro- posal to conduct the government by a council of seventy ‘members in imitation of the ancient Sanhedrin.” ‘The other focus, arising out of a fascination with the narrative of the Bible, comprehended a vast and mis- cellaneous array of speculations about history ia which a Beginnings the text of the Bible was invoked in the most curious ways. In these speculations we soe the firs intellectual, in contrast with moral or political, impact of the enlighten- ‘ment or the “publication” of science upon the popular mind and the problem in it which stil plagues us today. ‘This is the transformation of science or philosophy into popularized pseudo science by halfedueated people— which not merely degrades science but, in the extreme, ‘an even threaten to supplant it. Indeed, the use of the Bible to prove crackpot historical theories that were “pro- jected” in the atmosphere surrounding the establishment of the Royal Society might be called the popular social science or natural history of the seventeenth century ‘One line of thowght was concerned with origins and with the fate of the ten lost tribes of Isracl. In 1650 there appeared a book by Thomas Thorowgood called Jewes in America, or, Probabilities that the Americans aro of that Face. This was followed two years later by a book of Hamon L'Estrange the elder called Americans No Tewes, or Improbabilties that the Americans Are of That Race; this proposition was still being waitten about at least as late as 1836" Another line of thought was oriented toward the future fn predictions about the restoration of the Jews. In 1650, for example, Thomas Tany, a London silversmith, dis- covered that he was a Jow of the tribe of Reuben and announced the imminent rebuilding of the Temple at Jerusalem with himself as High Priest In the next cen- ‘ony this theme acquired a new lease of life in the career of Richard Brothers (1757-1824).' Brothers, a former ‘aval lieutenant, contended that he was a deseendant of‘ ‘The Black Jeus of Horlem David and the nephew of God and announced on May 12, 1792, that the time was come for the fulfillment of the prophecies of the seventh chapter of Daniel. In the year 1798 the complete restoration of the Jews was to take place, Jerusalem was then to become the capital of the world, and Brothers was to be revealed as the prince and ruler of the Jews and the governor of all nations Although Brothers it is true, was placed for @ time in @ Iunatic asylum, he did have a number of respectable supporters—including one member of Parliament-and many people sold their goods preparing to accompany him to his New Jerasalem which was to be built on both sides of the River Jordan. Brothers is also of interest as the principal founder of the theory of Anglotsralisa (which did have seventeenth-century antiipations). In 41822 he published his Correct Account of the Incasion of England by the Saxons, proving thatthe English were the descendants of the lost ten tribes of Israel’ This theme, which is stil alive in England and even in America, hhad a considerable development in the nineteenth cen tury, As Joseph Jacobs has shown, this theory rests upon an extremely literal interpretation of the Old Testament prophecies which are seen as fulfilled in the facts of English history. For example, it i pointed out among other things that in the prophecies Israel will change his ‘name (Hos. 1:9), be numberless (Hos. 1:10), dvell in fslands (Isa, 24:15) to the north (Jer. $:12) and west (Isa, 24:15) with colonies and be the chief of the nations ke was further prophesied that the isles (the term for which in the Hebrew original means “coasts” or “distant lands") woud become too small for Issel (Isa, 49:19) and 5 Beginnings that Israel should be a nation and a company of nations (Gen. 35:11). As Jacob states it, the Anglo-sralites at the tum of the century trlumphantly asked, “What na- tion save England corresponds to all these prophetic signs?” ‘This much may suffce to show the prototypes of the Judastic” impulses which were to recur and he trans: formed into a new pattern among Negroes. But one other point remains to be discussed. On the whole, these seven: teonth- and eighteenth-century developments look at frst sight very much like the doings of fanatics, mystics, and franks, who were concemed merely with things which, 4 the words of Locke, “were in thelr own nature indif ferent.” That isto say, their use of the Bible did not seem to be connected with any explicit social or politcal ques: tion, But alienation from the established conventions and ‘opinions of society—no matter how indifferent these estab lished opinions may seem from an impartial standpoint— ‘an never be wholly politically neutral; this ofcourse is all the more so when they are regarded as the foundation of 4 social order, One is immediately reminded of the in- vocation of the Bible in the Army Debates of 1647 to justify a redistribution of property and a natural right to politiesl equality as well as of the religious passion of the Independents in the Parliamentary Army who looked with admiration on the fact that Samuel had hewed Agag to pileces* All this Is very much intertwined with what was dis- ‘cused above asthe “eccentric tradition” in radical Protes- tantism, And future research might show that even among, the spectlative eccentrics mentioned, there was a much6 The Black Jews of Harlem ‘greater degree of alienation from the political institutions of the soeety than might sem at fist sight to be the case. Certainly if one looks at the writings of the one man in this tradition who appears to have been a genuine lunatic, samely, Richard Brothers, one sees that mixed in with his prophecies about the millennium isa praise of the French Revolution as a judgment of God, The second book of his, A Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times, is subtitled “Containing, with other great and remarkable things, the sudden and perpetual fll of the Turkish, Ger- ‘man, and Russian Empires.” In this work, published in TOT, he asserted that the death of Louis XVI as well as the perpetual sbolition of the French monarchy was prophesied im the seventh chapter of Daniel; and at @ time when England was at war with republican France, hhe waites in an open letter to the Prime Minster, “Wil England continue this war any longer against « people that has the judgment of God in thei favor?” These ex- amples suggest tht a rejetion of the established political order may be as essential an element in the prototypical forms of what re-emerged among Negroes as is the free tse of the Bible itself We see then that in the world centered upon a veneras ton forthe Bible as the literal word of God lay both the ‘contents of and the freedom for the kind of innovation by Negroes in America which is the subject of this book— specifically the freedom to move from an admiration of the Old Testament patriarchs to the view that they were ‘one’s very own ancestors. The slaves, of course, did not Ihave the external freedom to travel or openly to propagate 1 doctrine which, as we shall see, had acute antislavery 7 Beings implications, But they did have what Frazier apdy called the “inviuble institution” of the Negro church, that re- ligious life that the slaves managed to create which they did not share with their masters? Even ifthe radical in ovations with which we are familiar today and which might have come out of this unsuperintended world merely Bickered and died without any evidence of social effets, one is nonetheless bound to give due respect to the Impress that the Old Testament had upon the folk cexltute ofthe Negro. The parallelis that he was able to draw between his own bondage and that of the ancient Hebrews who had once before been rescued from bond age bas had, as is readily familar, a powerful part in the ‘content of his song. As we shall se, the inward dignity that he was able to acquire by conceiving of himself as 1 descendant of the patriarchs is a central theme of the Black Jews. 1, then, the primary vehicle of the view that the Negroes are really the Hebrows of the Bible layin their ‘own Protestant religious tradition, there were two stimull precipitating this view present among Negro preachers ‘around the tum of the contury. The fist was the re- ‘rudescence of popularized racism among Souther ex tremists in novel, plays, tracts, and spoechmaking. The decade 1900-1910 witnessed the publication of such books a8 The Negro a Beast: or, In the Image of God (1900) tnd The Negro, a Menace to Ciciliztion (1907). Between 1901 and 1909, Ben Tillman made countless speeches to Chautauqua audiences in all parts of the country, ex- pounding the view that the Negroes were “akin to the tmonkey” and “an ignorant and debased and debauched8 The Black Jous of Horlem race." In Woodward's judgment this upsurge of out spoken racism probably reached a wider audience during these ten years than ever before, not merely inthe South ‘bt in the nation as & whole: As will be apparent from ‘Chapter IL, this racism supplied the grounds, n fact the very terms, ofthe counterracism at work, expressed in the View that the so-called Negroes are not a race but the __ chosen people, as well a of a number of variant counter racist themes which emerged in Negro opinion during this period” ‘The second such stimulus was provided by Booker T. Washington's opinions, current around the tum of the century, that Negioes would be well advised to model themselves upon Jews in a number of respects but par ticularly with regard to the inward pride possessed by the Jewish people throughout history. This may be more important than. i seems in view of the tremendous im- press, as we shall point out, that Washington's entire point of view about the Negro's need for self-perfection ‘made upon most ofthese sect leaders, In one of his pub- lished statements about Jows, he sas: We have a very bright and stiking example in the history af the Jows in ths and other countries, There I, pethaps, no face tat has siflered 50 much, not s0 much in America a fa Some of the counties in Europe, But dese people have clung together They have ad 4 certain amount of unity, rie, ind love of racer and; asthe years go an, they willbe mare End more influential in thie country” conntry where they were once despised, and lked upon sith scorn and derision Wis largely because the Jewish race has had faith in isl. Unless the Neg leas more and more to fmitat the Jew in these matters have faith in himeif, he cannot expect t have any high degre of success ° Beginnings In more popularized forms this quickly degenerated into 1 simple admiration of the Jews for being able to make money! Da you know the reson why 2 Jew moves into a colored neighborhood? Its because he hows that colored flls dont te their brains, Only small minority of ws use our minds [And if you donit stop snd use your own brain and think for Yoel em ew i for ou a ak age ree But to put aside any further discussion of these ulti; imate roots and influences, organized congregations styling themselves “Black Jews" do not appear until about 1515, n Washington, Philadelphia, New York, and smaller cites ‘in the East. The sect in Washington, called the Church of Salnts_of Christ, was under the leadership of 7. Plummer who claimed to be the impersona- ind-Father Abraham, by which name he was From Jones's deserption there seems to have been litle more “Jewish” about it than the fact that the members commemorated the Passover and baad Sabbath services on Saturday.” ‘The group in Philadelphia, called the Church of God, under the leadership of Prophet Chery, exhibits in a clear-cut form the doctrine that the so-called Negro is rmisnamed and that the true Jews are black. In Fauset's sccount of the set, he describes how Cherry will prove to his congregation that “black folk are not Negroes, ‘oons, niggers, or shines,” and he calls out to “all ‘niggers’ to get the hell out of tho place!” The ritual and practices in this church, which the members believe on the basis of Scripture wrong to calla synagogue, consist of certain» ‘The Black Jous of Harlem Klosyneratic inventions that the prophet has prescribed ‘on the authority of Seripture. Among these are the fact that he may carry a staff and opens the services by giv- Ing six successive beats on a huge drum.” Although the members study Hebrew and Cherry keeps a Yiddish and Hebrew Bible on his pulpit, one of my informants—who had moved from Philadelphia to New York in order to join the main sect there—said that Cherry never had any “Temple Worship,” that is, a service in Hebrew. It was only in New York that the Negro leaders came in close contact with Jows whose Judaism was based of course rot only upon the letter of the Bible but also upon the coral law and the commentary of the Talmudic tradition. 1 was, indeed, through such contact that these leaders acquired a model for their religion. Harlem at that time was still in lage part a neighborhood of Jewish immi- grants for whom these leaders undoubtedly worked oc- casionaly as shabbos goyim [non-Jews who are employed by orthodox Jows to perform certain minor services for them on the Sabbath, such as turing off lights] or fnitors in synagogues. During the period 1919-1991 there are reeords of at Teast eight Black Jewish cults that originated in Harlem, the leaders of whom were all acquainted and in several cases associated with each other from time to Ume as congregations would rise, spit, collapse, and reorganize. “Several of the “rabbis” took “Jewish” names: Mordecai Herman, Ishi Kaufman, Israel ben Yomen, Israel ben Newman, Simon Schur2; and they differentiated them- selves from each other in their interpretations or simple Knowledge of orthodox Jewish law and custom. A few n Beginnings permitted the eating of pork while most made its prohibi tion a central commandment. Some acknowledged Jesus 8 4 Black Jew who was lynched by the Gentiles” Some ofthe leaders and ther followers simply were using thelr new identity as a basis of getting handouts from Jows. |A few were engaged in outright criminal activity. Among these the most famous was Elder Robinson, who ran a ‘baby farm’ in New Jersey, and who was subsequently imprisoned for violation of the Mann Act. As today’s leader of Harlem’s Black Jews put it, “It sure took a long time to live that one down.” Perhaps the most interesting and important ofall these carly figures was a man named Amold Ford, whose origins and ultimate destiny are shrouded in the usual obscurity that attends new prophets. The testimony of those who ‘knew him personally is that he was a man of unusual in- teligence. Its certain that he studied Hebrew with some {immigrant teacher and was a key link in transmitting ‘whatever approximations there are to Talmudic Judaism in the practices of these sees. Like many of the Black Jews, he was attracted to the “Back to Africa” movement (see Chapter IV, pp. 99-104) of Marcus Garvey which had such a spectacular rise during the early twenties. He was the musieal director of Liberty Hall, the headquarters of the Garvey movement in New York. Carveyism did not coincide exactly with his own outlook, for Garvey re- jeoted his counsel to adopt Judaism as the Negro’s re- Tigion, Nonetheless, n its militaney, its glorification of Dlacknes, its elevation of Africa as the source of all clvilization, Garveyism articulated much of what these people were thinking and seeking; and when the GarveyB ‘The Black Jous of Harlem ‘movement collapsed, the netionalistic Impulse beneath It survived in these religous sets. Legend or hearsay has it that Ford, tring of Judaism, emigrated in the early thirties to Africa where he became a Muslim and where he subsequently died. As this was in the midst of the depression and passage money would be rather searce, it is equally possible and even more plausible that he ‘emigrated not to Africa but to Deteoit, and that the W. Fard, Ford, or Farrad who founded the Islamic cult in that city and Amold Ford were one and the same." This, of course, can be only speculative In any event, with the disappearance of Ford from the New York scene, the mantle has fallen and remains to “the present day on the shoulders of Wentworth A. Mat ‘group singe 1950, had the usual difficulties of making thew, who t the vocal and most charming leader of aren’ rer Mack Jor competion, Ths i he Commandment Keepers Congregation of the Living God or as they often refer to themselves from the name of their lodge, the Royal Order of Ethiopian Hebrews, the nd D fur, Tne. The nucleus of Matthews group Tas Been, like Garvey himself, West Indian, West Indians who lad enjoyed greater freedom and independence tended to look down pon the Souther Negro, a least unt fainy recently, as servile and lacking in reserve, diglty, and self-control, Whenever Matthew ruses the term "Negro," which he always pronounces in a derisive manner, or “the colored people in tis county,” ts a way of distinguishing themscles from Negroes, he tvokes this regional distinction, The_Commandment ‘Keepers, which has been in existence asian incorporated B Beginnings ‘ends meet during the depression, Since then it was con tinuously located on the second floor of a building at 128th Street and Lenox Avenue until 1962, when it moved to 1 West 125rd Street. There is a branch in Brooklyn, Ted by a colleague and disciple; there are several schis rmatle ofshoots futher down Lenox Avenue Apart from the fact that the older people were West Indians, the group compared with other individuated sects in Harlem is not very distinctive with regard either to the socioeconomic characteristics of is members or to its internal strcture. The Black Jews are working people. OF the women, who constitute between 6 and 70 per cent ofthe members who come regularly to services (ap- proximately 200), the oller ones are day workers, the ‘Younger anes work in semisklled occupations in the com- ‘merce and light industry in New York. A few ofthe tnen have skilled trades about which Matthew speaks with pride, As forthe structure of the group, it is tightly-Knit community which is firmly led by Matthew for whom the members have a great deal of respect and trust. Although not everyone in the congregation participates ‘equally in its social and religious Iife, for those who do 0 most intensely, the group is very much the center of their whole world and there is sufficient activity to war- rant their coming to the synagogue three or four times a week. There are several subassociations for charitable and social work. We shall defer until later a discussion of what satisfactions the Black Jews get from joining this sect Matthew regards himself and generally regarded as the leader of Harlem's Black Jews. Considering the rela tively small size of the group, which is only about 1000,“ ‘The Black Jeus of Horlem Matthew is a wellknown figure and has been frequently written about in the Jewish press, the Negro press, and the press in general. The Commandment Keepers is not only the largest Black Jewish sect but also the most in- * teresting-by virtue of the contacts with the Jewish com> ‘munity which they alone have had! and their elaborate development of both belief and situal. Except where otherwise indicated, all of the following remarks about Black Jews refer to the Commandment Keepers. ‘THE WORLD oF THE COMMANDMENT KEEPERS ss: ns cntarren we present a sketch ofthe main thoughts, Deliefs and practices ofthe Commandment Keepers, Sine ‘we want this tobe essentially a sketch ofthe way in which they themselves see their place in the world, we present it with as little commentary as possible. ‘The Black Jews contend that the so-called Negroes in America are really Ethiopian Hebrews or Falashas who Ihad boon stripped of their knowledge of their name and. religion during slavery. The term Negro, they further ‘contend, is « word invented by the slavemasters and im- posed upon the slaves together with the white man’s religion in order to demorali8 them; and they did this by instilling in the slaves the view that they had no gods, rio ancestors, no principles of right and wrong—nothing worthwhileof their own, 1s16 ‘The Black Jews of Harlem ‘During slavery they took away our name, language, relision, anil sionce, as Hess were the only ossesions the sla had Sd they were pumped full of Chretansty to make them more oaile, The word Negro is a badge of slavery which comes from the Spanish word niger meaning bck thing. Those who lemfy Gremselves. with: Negrocs kentfy themselves with ‘lack things, not human beings. ‘Though some sty thatthe trord Neg comes from the Niger River, people are named Ter land, not water, All so-called Negroes are the lost sheep ‘Sf the House of Israel which ean be proved from seripture and they all have birthmarks thot ienBfy ther tribe. Jacob was a ‘luck man because he had smooth skin® “The corollary ofthis is that i is impossible fora person who acquiesces in the white man’s definition of him as a ego to have any’ pride or dignity; for both respect and self-respect depend upon having a “house of your own “The Commandment Keepers thus conceive of themselves ‘as a“lighthouse in a sea of darkness.” One of the objects fof the Willing Workers Go-Forward Cluba group of ‘women within the sect who perform such social services as visiting the sick, preparing refreshmentsis: “To go forward dato the highways and hedges, endeavoring ‘to spread the ight of the glorious gospel of our God, end abo ff the truthfulness of the anthropology of the race of people mown in the Wester Hemisphere as the Negro Race: An interview with a new member ofthe sect gives some {dea of what it meant for him to have recovered his true name and religion, In answer to the question, “What do you say if someone calls you a Negro?" he replied: + ail uc extents are tad om sates sector tera Matibew or f the member of the g0p u The World of the Commandment Keepers 1 someone calls me a Negro, Let them know what Tam so they will Know what they are too. During slavery and dark: ‘est they tok our name aay from us. But all nations have Inames-Negro is not the name of a nation. If we'd Bnd out bout the people that Jesus spoke about, the last sheep, he Incest the House of Israel, When a man is lost and doesnot © Know his mame, i ike amnesia gweard his nationality. I spoke fon ret corners, wrote a book called "Marks of Lost Race” xpladning the war through sriptutes. There sere to of ‘This badly went buck to his wile, but [ could go back to iy wile. The sprit got me, Well one night Matthew's name tras revealed to me aa I came up here, Later on 1 brought tile, When Istand belore the Torah and ck “Our fathers and mothers, and what we have lost, made me new person Tf you would know yoursl, you wouldat prosper. We smut fllow the Lave of aac; hen well have «bow of oor ‘un and they wil recognize ws. Just Ike with your name, IF they elled you jackass, We sbould fd ou nate and declare itto the worl Race prejudice was built up from slavery and in. fat there wore dark nations which hated Israel too aa_much a8 the Iwi. Its ot race prejudice bet nation prejudice. Cod mar-~ Tied Israel and said, "T dont want you to bother with these ‘ther nations But tough your dsobedlence, you see Whats fhe rele” God marted Israel so the oer nations were jealous When Israel wil stand up with #6 own mame, others tl atop hating. Rabbi Matthew i the only man thats got something that ‘benefited our peopl. T'broke up my ome to come up her fs something. No til we turn back like Rabbi Matthew will our trouble cease. They say_ we have advanced since ive bt ee ln bck fe wh Ba eta Yo ‘nc leader and let him poot out the way and lt him take the burdens he knows hw The Gentiles cect men to exercie Authority over you But the one who grows up feat among, Jou ike Rabi Mathew Tet him be your servant T fel ete [Etc being with Rabi because {have come beck to my cis:baa emma mma i eye ‘On what basis do the Commandment Keepers conclude that the so-called Negroes are really the Hebrews of the Bible? The members of the sect are devoted readers of the Bible, and know many long passages of it by heat. ‘What from their own point of view isthe scriptural proof of their identity? There are essentially two main points ‘The first is that Jacob was black because he had a smooth skin “as the black man invariably is,” and hence the patriarchs were black. Solomon was also black, and Mat- thew contends that the Biblical phrase in The Song of Solomon 1:5, in which Solomon says, “I am black but j comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,” should be correctly translated as black and comely. (Indeed, the Hebrew does permit either alternative.) The second point is that they fre the descendants of the union between King Solomon “nd the Queen of Sheba who founded a line of Ethiopian Hebrew kings from Menelik I down to Haile Selassie, the Lion of Judah, who is covertly a Hebrew: + OF the tree sons of Nosh, Shem and Ham were black and ‘only Jepheth, the anesstor of the Gentes was white. ‘Thus | King solomon was a black man, After the Queen of Sheba | Tbeeume his wife in'a mariage ceremony taking six months, fe returned to Ethiopia pregnant with dhe understanding that {he child fs boy, woud be retumed to Jerusalem for bar cca feontrmation]" At the age of twelve Menelik, the on, did. come back and remained in Jerasalem until be was eedoy- ve Hs father, realizing that designs were being made ‘Upon the young finer’ fe, gave him a company of men with ‘Wom to go to Ethiopia, The priests who accompanied the ‘Joung prince deceived Solomon snd carried wway with them AIL Hedrow-Yidish terms in fh aps andthe naretine are wor cul no by he members he oop » The World of the Commandment Keepers the original tables of the law instead of the copy which the King had prepared. They are to be found this vory day at ‘Atum. MencikT was the fst king of Israel in Ethiopia from ‘whom Haile Selasie~the Lion of Judah—tracs his descent in An ubraken line of 613 kings. Haile Seusic's connection with the Coptic Chureh is due to Aiplomatie pressure from Britain which requested in 186, lifter the Ethiopian Teslan War, that all Kings coming to the Ethiopian throne be Coptie Chistans. However th court at ‘Addis Ababa is closed for business on Friday aftersoons and All day Saturday, no choszer (pork) i eaten in his palace, ted he follows the Falasha rita. Haile Seas the present King of the House of Israel and this is proof that David shoul ever lck-a black man fo ait upon the Sone of Israel, When Monson’ overan the county, Hale Selase stopped at Jenu- Jalon to pray in Hebrew before proceeding to the League of Nagons, [eis fom Addis Abubs that I derive my auhoriey ax het of the Back Je in the United States. We are Africans or Ethioplan Hebrews ‘A third point, which obviously goes beyond the ques- tion of mere identity, is Matthew's insistence that Noah, in Genesis 9:25, did not curse Canaan to be a servant of servants because Noah was drunk and God does not use intoxicated people to execute his curses {IE ANTIROPOLOGY OF THE BLACK JEWS Matthew has expounded his views on the origins of the Black Jews in a small handbook for members, and these views are now presented in their entirety. ‘The Amhropology of the Ethiopion Hebrews and thei Relationship to the Feirer Jes In ender to speed slong to a quick vnderstanding, T must treat Urlelly the history of the sons of mon, from Adam, of» The Black Jous of Harlem ‘whom itis only necessary to say that when Gnd decided on the necessity of man's existence, He didnot choose to make {black man, or 4 white man: He simply decided to make tman-tot white nr Blck-from the dust of the earth, i whom He encased the reproductive power of all olor, all specs, tl shades of all races aad eventyal nationalities. From Adar to Nouh, there were only two classes of men, known as the Seas of Got and the sons of tens a Godly and an wngodly ‘gop. In other words, x carl and. spiitoalminded ace Of the sons of men, both from Adam “The two clases eventually met in Noah and his wife: Noah vrata son of the Godly (a son of God), he chose a wife from The daughters of men (the camal-minded), and to the time Df the food he had three sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth ‘Ate the Bood Ham took the lead. Nimrod, one of his descen dats, erated the Hea of a tower ar de landmark of thei fapital that if they became lost upon the face of the earth they might have something to Took for as a guide, and ako 155 Seu aga fre Aloo, They el ame of thote tower, oF ely, Babel. Some have Said that Babel means, ‘confusion hut thi snot so; dhe Word means “Coming to Got. “Tas Cush sove in power, Alia the entire continent, tnlud ing Fay, became the center of the words cultural and re Tigios education, and ths Ham secored for himself and hie Dlsterty forall tine, mamne-Ploneers of the Wer Civil ‘After the fll of Cush etme Egypt, under Mier the second son of Ham, ito power He and Shem amalgamated by inter {nite and the Mesopotamians were produced, an intereace tetween Shem and Haun. After his camo Abrabain, the sn of ‘Tera he marred his sister Sarah who war the daughter of Ths father but not of is mother, She war barre to hi, but ter many year she conceved by aid of a Hamitic god (Prise) and brought forth Iaae who, in tara, manled Re beces, his uncles davghter. When she also, after many years, enced, se trough forth ews, oe land hy all ve {ikea hairy garment while the oer was plain and smooth, 28 the blk moan Invariably i. Tho Bist, the red and hairy one tras ealled Esau the plain and smooth brother was called Jacob, This same Jacob, by four wives, begot twelve sons. 3 The World of the Commandment Keepers ‘After twenty years is ne was change from Jaco to sae ‘[niatomtely Me ons bocnne Ge sa oe Arey nt no Repo he te rnd ad iy eas They engl greatly with the Egyptian by ner rugs, and thu Shen and Ham were marge nf one {Gs people Of toe who lft Egy there were sx hundred rosttnd Yootmen, tice as many women, thee or for tes ‘= many of the halfbresd ands owt of eilren, All howe wth had Teached maturity Before leaving Egypt died inthe Sildseres exept Jesh snd Caen ven Moves the pretest hall elton ed here But befor coming cat of Egypt Stokes nd ed fo Median n Eduepia ony to Seome serves, toe Hin Pot whe gtr he vena Sn beg to son. "Those two boys were as much Ethiopians a twas possible to be becnne they wore crated out of the all Sod born Sn theland as they were acts ofthe Te of Lathe ret ‘bse Mss thir father was of tbe of Levi and ofthe ouchold of lasek. They of necsty had tobe Black boots thal father wr black, a was thor moter They wee the fe Eitlpian Heb ofthe Tbe of Levey were ball Hoe ha omit ld gon edly prove de dlzet conection all along the age ofthe two eaten peoples ‘that ever lived i the earth, but I must hasten along. a “This get admintoe of wo great people lft Egypt, tased tn the wilderness forty yer, and nally ene toto te land Canaan Evenly Bav ono Jot ofthe Tribe of udahy (Gone the Bron of Ista, in ane hx aon Solomon Suereded hun ‘When Solomon came to the throne, hs fame spread the rid org, and ts Ue Queen of Sicha, wits tang wes anda Queen ofthe Sou te beng aloof the cilsen ai ackel ope ofthe wives of Jacobs She ao came to payer feepects sod to ule hor pain ef the Kinglow wt fo ing Suomen: Eventually she became the wife of Solon, the son that was bom to them war Mendic the ist The ne of the Falah ae counted from Menei st to Melk the pest who was the unde of hi Imperal Mafey alle Se AES, the ithe Lin othe Tbe of Jah 1 te roughiy calcisted that before the ar there were about a lion2 ‘The Black Jous of Harlem flash Jos in Ethiopia (about eth of the population of TSrmaign): however, since the war they lave buen greatly Fede and fear i etertined fr thy cootiuedexstence. is loco, NW thre ave aout ie toad iets 0 the ath avd wi th pre, ay calm ths shrious he lage A the ental Contepton, 1 West ied Street, NX. thee arc about ight ened registred At 494 Franklin Ave rookie ar alsa gouly number In Piel, Media, Prtsbergh end Sharon as are goody groups, also at Young {gyn and Ferrel, Oko, Chiag IL, Calle, Va St. Thomas, Viiv and Jamaica, Wi neat Wis claimed by those that hey ae among he odet fares ofthe Jon or Hebraic race spon the faze ofthe earth, and Ghat tise the oly anes rete thir King Sk upon the Thnoe of Dav an eb of ulti ort he ot tar on thelr money, Ost hnner and customs ae sily Puede: we te sly Kesered Our Gren are ttf Spo de Hebrew laguage and to live fn Beeping with all he ‘Sinmandnents of the Almighty Tam the only rabbi with credentials from hop snc tial by ah the Chief Rabbs of the Fuasas and the Na- {inal Copte Church of Se Michael, The National Church ‘Sot son the evétence ofall ter soli odes in pia but none are ever bared or hindered. Religions Draco: ae ay ce in Ethiopia on the USA, Thos fi ine forthe two Beat peole to come togeher and stand for the tru dace ofthe onenes of God ; ‘My prayer i hat peace may s0pn come to the earth, a gd to all men aan eteral ico for lel, the Sec othe Reema: “The primary grounds on which the Black Jews seem to repudiate Christianity i that i is not their own. Judaism {s the ancestral heritage of the Ethiopians, Christianity 2 ‘The World of the Commandment Keepers fs the religion of the Gentiles, which in this sect meas Whites. In theory this might be assumed to result in a feeling of indifference toward Christianity as merely the religion of another nation, and as the members of the sect, look most inwardly to thelr own ritual this might seem to be the case. But the rejection of Christianity, no matter ‘what freedom from preoccupation with i the high point oftheir rituals may provide, is hardly an indifferent matter for these people; and Matthew's sermons constitute a self conscious and running attack on Christianity not merely as an erroneous doctrine but also as the religion of |oup which is doomed to an apocalyptic destruction: “This isthe Gentile age and sf coming o an end as id all other ages. The antedilvian age wae ended by a food. The Stone age ended with the fall of Babel Then there was the ‘medieval age which closed when the isacites broke away faom Faypt. The patriarchal age ended with the fll of the Bath Hamikdash Temple]. Cod predicted that he would never again destroy the earth by water but by fe soe has placed the ‘tomie bomb in the hands of the Gentle ‘who know only how to make machines and instruments of destruction In this wn ‘godly world which is filled with idolatry, the Gentiles have hind thelr day. The uter destruction which wil be wrought Dy an atomic war in the year 2000 will leave no one on earth and will usher inthe theocratic agewhen God wil rae and ‘he Chien of Tare! will retin to thee county [variously refered to as Ethiopia or Ital) Judaism is thas not simply “their” religion but the true religion, the religion of « chosen people (Christianity volts the Ten Commandments, keeps the Seb- bath on the wrong day, and is full of idolatry. It was with [szal that God made the covenant and iti Terael who wall the resurected when the Messiah comes. Only Israel hes the CCabbalistic Science, We are the elect of ere,* The Black Jous of Harlem One woman in the sect, who evidently had some doughts of her own on the subject, looked not upon ‘Africa or Ethiopia or Israel but rather upon America as the land belonging to the Jews; her rejection of Chris Hanity is most explicitly connected with expectations about a new distribution of ethnie power: 1 want to tell you something that 1 dont think you know. rin we Jews must sick together although think the Jos de mug tao much over Tare: Boose every, continent be iingr te a eertan race of people. Asa forthe Asati, Afeca Hee Aeseans Now thi the land forthe Jews because Th were the fst people bere? Indians, Look onan Ina Wey Seng aad what will you see? The face of a Jew. Europe Teka e Gonttes because if you wanted to pot «maa Jalesatdnt you put hin ina place with Kite soit? ‘it consider you site, by the Way. Thi war wont be over until the Europeans are back im Euro an this why tht ing tobe another war: the arr bir revelation tht wa prope 3395 years Sep and wil do the tick. ‘Tn the mst beneficial thing there, because gives as fend und rah You could get sunt t00 i you went ‘hago the beach, We can take the sun, When somo English ‘Aisionats were up with the Ess, they tld the that seats become’ Christans, they would go to bell They Maid that they lve t go toa place where there was & ite heat Teer gtople are lucky, You haven't been pumped full of cutie ike we were. But even i slavery our Negro Gita had nothing to do wth Jess. You know, Go Down Mose, Crosing the Jordan. fic sry there are nly twenty milion colored peopl this county Thate ne. There are atleast forty milion snd Sve talon passing 2 wht, “Intertwined with such doetsinal and apocalyptic rellec- tions is a moral objection to Christianity of, to be more a Po The World of the Commendment Keepers precise the Christianity with which they are faruiar This is its hallowing of meekness which, asthe following semark by Matthow shows, s immediately perceived ia 1 racial context. se could get redemption by the sacice of one man, it would be a good thing, But «lot of black men were Iyached for that’s what happened to Jesusmand they aze not marys tnd hey should be, But Jesus was not Christian he wa Je of the tbe of Juda Anvd he was blac, ad in lad 80 fy cat Lwas one of the fist to sete that. When the Gentiles 5 at at fen ms Back thy op hi Lord lated to this the constant contempt and ridicule which ‘Matthew shows for eestatc religion that consumes itself fn other-wordly orientation. ‘Some people think that with fuith they can do_ anything [then ical eetatic prayer), that you can jump off a build fig ad ot get hurt. That ist faith Thats faith without oosledge! Sure you ean jump off» building. The fll wont Ihre you hat tr that sudden stp. Some people think tat thy dont have to lea to read-"de Laws spi will enter im fand hell be able to see" [again ridiculed religious estasy] ‘We need shat kept the Je live for S000 Years Ths i more than a few precepts or an oly tongue. We need knowledge ‘One might ask, however, knowledge of what and for what? As we shall see, this includes Hebrew, the rles of kosher foods, and the Cabbaliste Seienceof the House of Isrsel, One might also expect it to Include the Lav in the ‘most comprehensive sense. But here a slight perplesity arises. The closer they get to the conception of themselves, ts the bearers of the Law, the closor they get to Deuter ‘onomy 28 with its prophetic injunction thatthe Children% The Black Jes of Herlem of Israel, if they disobey the Law, will be r-enslaved and ferried across the sea in ships, Thus, while in one way this confirms their identity as Hebrews to themselves, it tako shifts the cause of slavery onto the Negro himself. With a few exceptions this problem tends to be passed ‘over in silence. Hebrew, as the Black Jews contend, is the Lords an ‘guage, the sacred language spoken by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, ther language which was stolen from them during slavery. And they hold it in all the awe and reverence that they would grant to thei most sacred pos My grandfather, hey el me, wat af pure Aca tsk, and sa Sou he He gage nae we Bad Goon te language tnd tligton of ur masters, But as Jeremiah sy, “Can the Ethiopan chang his skin? Can the [puri ange his spots? We ae Ethiopians only they ve co bn odd are Tvetbeen ber sinc 10951 gt ed of Christian of going from church to church, Go the spit was right Jost found this by myself because I watted Hebrew. Like I was reaching, ‘out and discovered this. Besides, as one of the teachers in the Hebrew school stated at the commencement exercises, with her finger pointed to the windaw, "Hebrew is nota language of the street” All the new members immediately learn the words “Shalom” and “Shalom Aleichem,” which they thence a ‘The World of the Commaniment Keepers forth use in greeting each other, and begin to study Hebrew in evening clases, (The children come in the afternoon after school where they are taught by Mat- thew.) The male members are each given a Hebrew same; when they are sufficiently advanced they can be then called to the alter to read « portion of the Torah or to recite the blessing of the Torah. While some read the words of the Torah very haltingly, others read with greater ease, Everyone, of course, Knows the blessing, ‘which is soon learned by rote; and some of the Hebrew songs are transliterated ‘The Black Jews proudly assert that they are strietly Irsher. They use kosher salt and kosher soap and there {s no question that apart from Hebrew, the most im- portant single meaningful religious element for these peo- ple is observance of the rule agninst eating of unkosher foods. In this sect these are pork, erabs, catfish, and lob sors as well as duck, frankfurters, and bear. All of these are regurded as unhealthy. We are the healthiest congregation on Manhattan Island Decatse we don eat pork I didnt need to get vaccinated for smallpox because thre ist any pork in my blood. Of cours, tome of you have been here only a few years ad sill have ¢ Jot of pork in your sytem Alo, the reason we dot have ev thoughts because we eat clea food ‘One member said that she used to love bacon but today cannot even stand the smell of it, although another, as Matthew told the congregation with great amusement,2 The Black Jous of Harlem {id not realize for three years after joining that bacon Is pork. Matthew has obviously been questioned by Jews bout his inelusion of duck on this list, which is perfectly faceeptable to orthodox Jews. His answer was that the fowan is unclean and the duck is a member of the same family ‘The kosher rules extraordinary preoccupation with dese, physical and mental. Matthews lectures on Cabbalistc Science are, fs we shall ee, heavily focused on the problem of going. ‘mad in the middle of the night. And in general the sub- ject of heath is one to which he frequently turns in the Inost varied contexts in a major respect part of an Sometimes a litle thing ean get the best of you. The tuber culos bacillus enters your nose, infeets your taches, lobes, fngh ermverse clon, Kidneys. Fst you have a cold, then bronehits, then, chronic bronchitis, then you start coughing fall hows ofthe nlght,dhen staré spting blood, We might laa dhe gonseoceus germ, You know there was atime when you couldnt discos these things openly. “The woman who, apart from Matthew, is the chief teacher, in telling me how she got into the organization, stated: {was sick for nearly year because I kept an ie bag on my fae for such a Tong tie that 1 eae my face. The doctor told te to Keep it on fortwo Bours ata time and I even slept with twas practically Bnd in ane eye, but the rab went down, to the deg store ad got something and washed my eye out ‘with ie aL an se moch better nom, Twas very sick for Tray year, ide get out of that bed for eight mons. But the stents came up here and took thee lessons from me right in my roam, » The World of the Commandment Keepers All in all, the importance which the kosher rules have for these people and the very great self-consciousness they have about thelr diet stems from the conviction that all their life they had been eating poison, imposed on thea oth by the ignorance of what is a proper det and by their poverty. Obviously, some of the items they taboo are seavenger foods. (On Monday evenings the group is constituted as the Ethiopian Hebrew Rabbinical College and Matthew lee- tures on a variety of subjects. His choice of topic is in fact somewhat informal, but he did outline the following curriculum: Cums of he Ethiopian Hebrew Rabincal College of the foyal One of Eibpan Haters ted the Gonna ‘Met Keepers Comet ofthe Living God I Tircsear Cour forall Pld Worker nclodng Revival is, Dengan of el. Prophets und Exon ‘The twelve pines ofthe doctrines of the cur Ihwse of Te a Elmentry Hebre Bible poetry (The Pins) Prophet Ui allio oth King to come Hamu of he Prophecies ofthe font ret prophet tuned alah Frntah Eas, snd Beside , Mints scram Calter and dere sid-Crammar Pace»” ‘The Black Jews of Harlem The Adeenced Course Sudy of the chomesh (The five books of Mose). b ‘Advanced. decorum and manner of speech in mized Snewetine 4 Ha peentatin of Jesh history 5 Geography and topography ofthe Holy Ind ©. Cheonlogy of sacred wring The mam and characteristics of the congestion of oi 8. iq 8, Thorac. 10. Natural history of sacred writings. “This is divided into four terms, comprising two yeas Special Shepherd and Teachers Course 1. The study of the Mishnah. ‘The apocrypha. Jewish ancient history. Hebraic ancient history. ‘The enti works of Josephus. ‘The Israelites and their related people. Isracitsh ancient and medieval history. ‘Topography of the counties connected with sacred watings. inal Term Jewish months and their sxipural proofs Talmudic Legal. Clerical Legals Etiquette im general peinclpes, Parliamentary rales. Levtcal Priesthood and Temple worship 7. Special Talmud Torah information emeper at ‘Tho World of the Commandment Keepers 8. Elementary Greek, Latin, French, Advanced Hebrew, and Sociology. 8, Coticates are given to those who complete the course ‘An elicient sod abe staff of teachers tnuiottined at all times to accommodate all stadents, ‘Members study for many years. Each year there is an annual commencement exercise and qualified students are awarded the degrees of BD, D.D,, and M.ILD, (Master of Hebrew Doctrine). This i one of the most festive cere- ‘monies of the group. Many of the members wear their caps and gowns, which they own, There are speeches by Matthew (who on this evening is addressed not as Rabbi but as Dean), the faculty, and the leading students, This 1s followed by entertainment and refreshments, During the period 1 was with the group, Matthew's lectures to the students of the Rabbinical College dealt principally with the Cabbalistic Science of the House of Israel. Some extracts from these lectures are as follows: Years ago T gave a complete course in cabbalitic scence 1am a doctor of metapyscs and studied mental telepathy ean tell your thoughts. I tok seven years to complete the course: learned how to stop rain, heal the sick. T was in Charlottesville, Virginia, and ad, “T hear a voice speaking to me right now," Then I sd, “Mother Jolson, pase yo see Mother Hubbard right now" When T got back to New York saw Mother Johnson who sul "T was working on my laundry ‘when T heard the rab’ voice to go see Mother Hbbard and Rata od thing I went beese she was in toubleIs that ‘conjuring? Is that sorcery? ‘Conjure, by the way, a good word. Means compel. Here, 1 take this match and strike it and compa it to ght, The [Negroes call tcunjur, the whites call it conor. ‘The Domb i a matter of conjuring, ad so are all the fores. The ‘word init so bad. Bue the poor Negso from Africa war made2 ‘The Black Jeus of Herlem lea by the Gentle master. That was the oly secret he had {Ind the Gentle taught him tobe afaid of “spirits” ‘Cabbalsie sence Is one of tho branches of mental tlep ay, These who thought it conjuring hada das cell in thee ‘Binds This ban angele scence has nthing todo with ab. Tits foot, spintealim, which ix « micarage of « spitaal thing, or conjuring spirits owt ofa graveyard. Lucifer fel into AW of darkness and tats the word the spiritualist pene trate, They set you aginst your best sends, ead you into the Imumbers racket. Use dit and Sith: deed tans finger, grave {due Cobbeltc things are parchment. The science of Israel fr big thing. Its why we se tle [prayer shawls], can ‘le, aed incense, The Catholic flatly imitate us. After this one, you cam go out anywhere and make good. ‘Now I want you to take this down in your notebooks, The angel world of cabbalistic science 1s based primary on fcc foundations and seven elements of spit, The twelve Founsations ave heavens: open heaven, the heaven of Tighy the heaven of datknes, the starry heaven, the heavens of the fim and toon, the angele heaven (consisting of fallen angels in holy angels), tind dimension heaven, the heaven of the {htone of God, the heaven of myriads, Ue heaven ofthe had ‘or solid, te sft or lguld, and the gaseous. ‘The seven spins Se wind water, re, Me or energy ight, power or fore, mind ‘or intalligence, As Matthew then expounded, Cabbulistic Science is set of sceret Hebrew formulae, unknown to the Gentiles, ‘by means of which one can achieve the following: cure sheumati, restore sigh, bring back life to dead babies, keep oneself from going crazy in the middle ofthe night, change the bad minds of people to good and tern enemies Into friends. This is performed through the help of four angels who work in three-hour shifts around the clock: rine to twelve twelve to three, and so on, In order to get fa response from the right angel one las to call his name in Hebrew during the time in which he is on his shift a The World of the Commenment Keepers Tie ae four cal angle othe une and four anges wh are the eto fatto, dwarven Bad gee fur ange se Gave Mitre Owe tot alr, The Cont misono th sanyo ‘Sine el them Cabrel Mca, Un sn Rafael Gr ‘eth thy won work Now ow ty woe Gare the God of darts ue wrk fm st ph and ay Now yor eter sine Ga bat SE ete fy ote al i °hen Cet You mr ean ser Bec ge oak sO at hat ree peo singe mame Gore {oie tinct no nr bund to ee nes be ‘Rnd aa eno te an Yul ows Beate gag Sy" ose Kae ey toon pret th oat pe an on cae prt Fie we Ifyou me harony bean pray an ser fo im at ie Nppch Gln be nae oe oon (he dy] orf laf eng huh Cae, Yon be fra Wa ns en Cl ae Se bn sort Yor nt hah Sopnd nh sn ‘She's the feminine side of life. Start your business a new tom, fran rw ith th oon You wold wnt fe aytog ne lou Garr when the moon hd ag Aine dk hal hangs nd Marl ome ou He rota and ens pied dy or nt tne Bop ne Amy and Navy an they all ome bck Ix tee sk Ome os ry wet he Youle doa dee dik jou ob ine tah be ex dy Cap Ore eye, Gol a oF acre rane ood te, the se Sent, een tht man ot get Sa rel doe to cr kw: Cont ae you. Changes ad mind of pole goo Maker es ed ‘Bhd tbat shat wok sp You: Ova” ‘The Black Jous of Harlem Alestoys the power of evil diseases, evil dhoughts, the force of sharp or blnt Instrument. Imeribo his name on any metal THe will work for you better than voodoo. Israel cae ot on top all through the ages becase ovr mea knew how to call {Gka'Do you thik the three Hebrew boys who went into the ery fares went in saying "Lave Jenur” [here mimicked a Southern Negro]? They went into the Furace anointed with the off of life, which we cant take up tonight, and they tell tne that sven they came out they didnt even snl of smoke. Bo you thik Daniel ered "Lawdy Jes save me when he twas thzown to the ons? fare ithe physician. He works frm thece to six, Call pon kim to give you ealing. I ave given sight Sister ‘lr nearly blind. T told her one of thse days Tim going to pve you sight, Well one day when I fet fa the right mood, Fiveat over to ber house in Jersey, washed my hands, poured ‘my blood into both eyes, and in Jess than teen days she ‘ald walk around by herself, We asked her, "Can you see?” She sath “A Mle dark but Ican see" Then along came the fv spit, a Mr: Su, and she and Me. G— arranged to fave ber put inthe hospital. They operated and when they took off the bandages, hey marked on her record sroxr next ‘Thats the result of interfering with the work of God "To cure rheumatic, utter Rafael over a jar of honey. But belt Known, nobody here has faith in sorcery, superstition, and tetcherfe if people are crazy, we pra thom out. We live on Cardh and we ty in our religious devotion to make instant ‘Contac with the favisile ovoeld around us. ‘Many journalists who have written about the Black Jews have commented upon the “Amens,” “Halleluihs,” and handclapping interspersed throughout the service, ‘concluding from these that this was “ordinary Negro wor- ship.” In addition, one writer had quoted Matthew as ‘saying, “We are in de House of de Lawd.” All this in furiates Matthew, and justly so. In the first place, his 35 The World of the Commendment Keeper pronunciation of English is standard, and whatever dialect, there is in the group is not Southern but West Indian, And dialect ono, the ordinary speech of the older mem- bers is practically the language of the King James Bible. In the second place, although some expression of enthu siasm is permitted, what is so markedly characteristic of their worship (which a contrast with a Holiness service ‘would immediately make clear), i its restraint and s0- briety, There is no swooning, shrieking, screaming, run- ring up and down the room in a state of "possesion" all of which Matthew regards as “niggeritions.” A female Visitor to the service, as I once saw, began to indulge in emotional shrieks but was cut off abruptly when all the ‘members tumed around to stare. As will be realled frm Matthews lecture on Cabbaistic Science, a most imm- Portant dimension of Matthew's attack on Christianity consists of a ridicule of the language and gestures of a Southern country Negro in the act of religious ecstasy Which he constantly mimics with superb skill to the de- light of his flock. Whatever enthusiasm there is in the sect Is the preserve of the women, AE one high point in the service all the men walk around the synagogue ‘numberof times, led by Matthew whois carrying & Torah, hile the women sing a hymn (usually “Round the Walls of Jericho Here We Come"). When the men are called to the Torah, they manifest complete reserve and dignity. ‘The service on the whole is ordered and punctual, WE CELEBRATE: ALL JEWS HOLIDAYS ‘The Black Jews have their weekly services on Friday nights and Saturdays, hoth moming and afternoon, and,96 The Black Jews of Harlem as stated in a poster outside the synagogue, they celebrate all Jewish holidays, f somewhat in their own way. This fs in addition to such festivities as bur-mitzeahs [con firmations} and weddings. The Saturday momiig service, ‘which I shall deseribe briefly, begins about 10:90. There is a mezucah [miniature scroll] over the door to the synagogue, which each member touches with his hand and then kisses as he enters, The men, who sit in the front, all wear yarmulkes skull caps], and some have beards. The women, who sit behind the men, wear a Dlue and white or slid white uniform with a headdress, the Revivalists and Mothers have the Hebrew letters for Zion embroidered on thele headdresses. The service be sins with a hymn sung by the adult choir. Then everyone rises the men put om their talesim [prayer shawls), and all sing the prayer Shema (Hear O Israel]. The rabbi an- ‘ounces the page of Philli's Prayer Book on which the service begins, although most of the members know. ‘The rabbi reads along, altemating between Hebrew and English of the biliagual test, up to the point where itis indicated that the scroll Is to be removed from the ark, [At thie time, members who wish to do s0 “pledge con- ‘uibutions to Torah (a dollar) for the purchase of « new scroll, Then the rabbi removes the scroll from the ark, takes the covering off and drapes it over a qualifed shep- hherd hoy (one of the youngest), blesses the Torah, and the heart of the ceremony commences, ‘The men fle up one ata time to the altar to recite the blessing of the Torah, The rabbi asks each in turn in Hebrew, “What is your name?” Each replies, also in He- ‘brew, my name is A, son of B, tribe of (one of the twelve), a The World of the Commanciment Keepers son of Isaac, son of Jacob, son of Abrahatn, son of Terah, ‘Then each recites the blessing and departs from the pulpit. Alter this, two readers recite respectively in Hebrew Exodus 19 and 20 (the Ten Commandments) from the Torah, after which al ise and reete the blessing again. ‘The men march around the synagogue three times, the ‘number three variously explained by the rabbi as standing for past, present, and future, or Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The rabbi, carrying the Torah, heads the line while the congregation sings “Trusting in the Lord” or a song about the Children of Israel on thelr route out of Eaypt, ‘of which a few lines are So the sign of the fre by night And the sign of the cloud by day; Hov'ing oer, Just before As they jourmey on thelr way. Shall a guide and a leader be, ‘Till the wilderness be pa For the Lord our God in His own good time Shall ead us to the light at Tas After the singing of a few other hymns, the service is Drought to a close with the Kaddish [which is the Mourners Prayer], which the entire congregation stands up to recite, the singing of the Hebrew hymn Adon Olam, fm the musical version used by Reformed Jews, and a ‘ceremony called dismissal. This {s said in Hebrew by Matthew on the Sabbath, by others on week nights, while all stand with bowed heads and both hands raised and clap once at its conclusion, The afternoon service, which resumes after lunch, is similar excopt that a different set of hymns is sung and8 ‘The Black Jous of Harlem in addition there i a sermon of up to an hour's length, testimonial from the members on the importance of the sermon, and the tithing service which is the colletion of the week's dues. After the dismissal Matthew wishes all “Gut Wook" (a good week), and the group disperses slowly. “The high point ofthe year isthe Passover festival and the following may make it clear why this is so Harlem's Orthodox Jews, the Commandment Keepers, who axe celebrating Passover at their synagogue, wore tod by Tabb Wentworth Arthur Matthew that he hud found much food for thought in comparing the exodus of the Israelites fom Egypt sith the Hberaton of Negro slaves in this county ‘He sid i¢ was “the purpose of Gad to fee the Itutes 20 that thy could gjve the world the foundation for all god fovemment through the eliciency of the Torah” He added, So ene day the despised so-alled Negro wll again Fie in power through righteousness."* Passover is the occasion for the grandest festivity of the ‘group. The Brooklyn branch joins with the main Harlem ‘congregation to celebrate the Seder [Passover meal] on the fist night, and during the rest of Passover week— which is celebrated as love week-the synagogue is over- flowing with visiting frends. The first night begins as a prayer service; at the conclusion of the one which I ob- served Matthew stated: Fv thousand seven hundred and seven years ago our fre fathers were delivred from slavery Thi the week When the mast and the serene bathe eglals and the maror Teoogias to servant ses Elo humat Being, knowing that in velit there iW one mater above all seme have ite tov thn othr, that a preps of God x The Worl of the Commandment Keepers At eleven o'clock Matthew summoned the elders to sit around the seder table, setup as a high table in front of the congregation, and he announced that no one who was not circumcised would be allowed to sit in the font row. He then passed out Haggadahs (the narrative of Pass- ‘over] to those seated around the table. The table was ‘covered with ritual foods: horseradish, wine, matzohe [unleavened bread], a miature of liver and wine, hard boiled eggs, scallions, salt water, and lamb, It was a handsome sight and everyone in the audience eraned hie neck to look as « newspaper photographer took a picture of i. After reading the blessing over wine from the Hage ada, Matthew then instructed one of the litle boys to ask, “Why is this might diferent from all other nights?” Matthew then told him that on all other nights we may eat leavened or wnleavened bread but on this night only unleavened bread; on all other nights we may eat any species of herbs but on this night bitter herbs; on al ther nights we do not dip even once, but on this night twice: on all other nights we eat and drink either siting a lan {ng but on this night we all lean. Matthew then cut up, the horseradish into small pieces and distributed it among the congregation, urging everyone to partake, “It will purify the body.” Since it was very strong, the group sneezed, choked, and teared to the thorough amusement ofall, Matthew then pat the matzohs ito pillow, broke ‘one; and those inthe fist row reached into the pillow for the broken one. Brother D=—, who got it, thereby be came a favorite son. He sat down at the seder table and Matthew told him what a blessing it was, pointing to© The Black Jous of Harlem the other favorite sons seated around the table. Then he leaned on Matthews arm and the latter said a blessing ‘over him. After finishing, Matthew said, “I know one of you wil betray mi.” Matthew called for lamb and invited Brother D— to have some, Inadvertently they both put their hands in the bowl atthe sume time. The congrega- tion at once stood up and the situation was filled with tension while Matthew asked God to nullify this action ‘Then dinner wis served-conssting of lamb, matzohs, and wine, which had been prepared by the Willing Workers, who alo distributed the plates of food. ‘After dinner, visiting clergymen were invited to ad- ess the congregition and the evening ended at a faltly late hout. During the rest of the wook there is some re ligious service every night, but nothing quite so elaborate as the Seder. “The religous beliefs of the sect were codified by Mat thew as “The Twelve Principles of the House of Israt” Prineiple No, 1, The New Creatin.—Gen. 1:1, 5) Ez, M6; a, 25-1, 12, Ex, 36:28, 25, a 14:6, 31; Jer. 91:8; Joe 2:58-09; Mal 12 Principle No. 2 The Obsereance of All the Laws of God, ‘Gieen to Us Through Moree Our Teocher.~Gen, 21,8 Ex 31:18, $2, 15, 16; Deut 29:29; Isa. 98:13, 14; Da, 7.95, Ex 8:16, Num. 15:32, 8, Psalm 1, Ee 46:1 Principle No.3. Divine Healing Ex, 225, Ex. 15:26, Psalm Gb2.1, 3 Is. Set, 5; Psalm 41:3, 4; Jer. 8:22, 2 Chron. ts a The World of the Commandment Keepers Principle No. 5. Tithes and Oferings; the Early Duty of the People of God~Gen, 14:18, 30, 35:2, 2: Lev. 2730, 32, Mal. 38, 12; Neh. 10:57, 9, Dent. 14:21, Hag. 1:1, Principle No. 6 The Eating of Kothered Foods According to. Toraaks Law.—Lew. 1:1, 1; Deut. 14:2 % lea 6545, 6:17 Principle No. 7. Beerlating LifeGem. 5:24; 2 Kings 211; Hos, 13:15, 14; Fea 49:6, 9, LISSI7, Fro. 7s, 3 633 Principle No. 8. Absolute Holiness Acconding to the Law of God—Gen. 17:1; Exod. 9:5; Deut, 14:2, Ex. 10:6) Lev 10:10, 20:7; Peal 86:2; Isaiah 63; 35:8 Principle No. 9, The Resurection ofthe Dead (Black Ire), Hos 13:13, 1; Bara S11, 13; Job M4514, 15, 1026, Isaiah 35:10; Ezek. 37 Principle No. 10, The Restoretion of Isael—Isa, 1:9; Jer, ‘30:17 18; 97:2; Jol 2:95; Isa 11:10, 1,135 Jor 31:31, 34 Principle No, HL. The Coming of the Mesiah.Deut. 18:15, 1, 19; Mal. 3:1; Isa, 41:2, 3 4; Ise. 8:6, 7 Principle No. 12. The Thoocratic Age—Cen, 499-10, Is, 1; 5:8.10 {Selected by Rabbi W. A. Matthew, fist in all the word to select these tire keys to a systematic std of the Holy Scriptures, because he had the welfare of his people at het.) ‘When Matthew uses the term Negro to refen to other Dlack men—which he generally pronownees in a contemp: ‘uous way as "Nee-gro”—he is referring for the most part citer to what may be called a Sambo in the act of 2e- ligious frenzy or to a stereotype of a lazy, ignor “mean” Negro. As my acquaintance with the group pro- agressed, it became clear that their repudiation of rime, Aelinqueney, and shiftlessness was in every way as im: portant to them as the knowledge oftheir name.2 ‘The Black Jous of Harlem People lear Negro habits, We have to emphasize cetaln stones This ges gy sd elespet, hich makes am example The is fr efamle, play wits Neos. Bat Tall dan Rerp your things ym school. Apologize quickly FE someting goes wrong nad dnt talk ack to your teacher Dan act uplke Negroes” Among the Negros there were nscenous objets and other cay the Ie is the proudest boast of the Commandment Keepers that the group is completly fre of erime or juvenile de- linqueney. The children are in the Hebrew school in the ‘afternoons where they are taught by Matthew, and al though he is very affectionate toward them, he nonethe- less demands and gets respect from them. Furthermore, at least half of his sermons, to take a rough estimate, are concerned with delinquency and have the intention of ‘supporting authority, particularly patel, in the family 1 wl eae for my tet Proverbs 19:24 “If the cil has @ sehelious spit drve tout wit 4 ro.” And in olden tines, {the cild nas unmanageab, the cool had the power toe ago nade Kn ch ory Treat inte paper aboot» Negro pelleewoman taking a white Sroman oj Gouly ste othe way aon. But ths a Tee dv he mats er ween inte td she war getting tventy dollars 4 week for support whi ‘Se was spening am heel ac ot taking care af the boy “The father wanted to tke care of hi, bt she dd want to ive up her trey doles week The cd bectme wi and {hoy teed the the, Thats the way shouldbe: Chien Is be panied, bu its ot aways necessary to use a tap Rak my fo sos: Lever id hand on the during thee ‘iba evelpment You have to have patience If nt aways The dlrs aut Some moter jut dont know how to ake Car hk cee. hey ell Joo [peeing ‘Sr inofectual woman whining), “come to the ta fice, instead Of "wn Dun’ YOU AxGwin, WHEN TOU WME 2 The World of the Commandment Keepers ‘ALE, AND HAVING Mano, Wit o's YOU coal” And there fe some parents who always take the side ofthe child aginst the teacher. No wonder they learn to disobey. If you cant handle you children, give them tome. And there wont be any ‘marks on them either Tm a juvenit ofcer of this precinct, {nd i cant handle thom, Til ake them tothe police station, ‘ne policeman told me that theres more law on the end of his night stick than in all the books. People aze always co planing about the policeman, but he har wife and eile too. The worst thing eat can happen i hat wen you ae ou, someone comes ito your howe and destroys your furniture oF ‘mugs you, puts bullet through your head. Or when you're ‘in your house you hear a knocking on the door. searmes, Detter the eld should be dead right now. ‘You chikren don't have to play with the riff rlf on the steet People wil sy that Tin not democrat, Welldemeraey dost mean that"you have to have criminals for fend Twas walking down the stret nd grabbed a boy who was standing onthe curb, would have been hlled by a car and he swung at me. Thats gratitude, Look around when somebody ‘tabs you you may Tere von ant, YoU £2 on YOUN LIE Ifa child did that to me, shake him up propery. The ethortation in behalf of what one may call old- fashioned morality goes hand in hand with the ascetic oF temperate standards of personal behavior upheld by the group. These acquire fortification from the fact that the atmosphere of the sect in an overall way stands for self ‘restraint, Their entire religious worship, in the emphasis* it gives to ritual as opposed to the expression of enthu- sasm, inthe frst instance constitutes a discipline for these people and, as has heen said above, i self-consciously contrasted by them with the abandon that they identify as the hall mark of lower-class Negro religion, The sel imposition of food taboos are equally a restraint. And, to“ ‘The Black Jews of Harlem tum to habits of deportment, there is great sobriety in dress. Matthew and the older men dress almost entirely in black, It was interesting to notice among the new fe ‘nuts the gradual disappearance of famboyant and highly colored elothing, and the lage-brimmed hats for men that fre so common in Harlem, And allthis is done without a ‘word being said, for there is no explicit rule about i. The Black Jews abstain from whiskey but sherry i permitted Although nothing was ever said about smoking, I never saw anyone indulge in it {EWS 1 BABYLON ‘The Black Jews, in contrast with the Muslims, are too small in number to sustain the kinds of communal enter prises that the latter have built up, such as restaurants Regardless of size, the Black Jows are uninterested in that ind of radical withdrawal from the outside world which has induced the Muslims to form private elementary schools. The educational institutions of Black Jews, which have broadly sinilar aims, are supplementary tothe pub- lie schools, achievement in which is esteemed. Matthew, furthermore, values the few contacts he has had with Jewish educational and religious institutions where he has from time to time been invited to speak. There i, of ‘outs, «great deal of informal cooperation in the group. For years Matthew would transmit request telephoned 0 him for domestic help ta the women in the group. The one cooperative project that is so characteristic of the group is the settlement in suburban Babylon, LL, which 30 ‘many of them have their hearts set on. As one member pat it 6 The World of the Commoniment Keepers 1f the exo people would gt some lind somewhere an build up nie botes endure & center where the were ct ‘eine up and do good howsckeeing twill show the lower thas he way. Yocant do ssthng in the sams Here nthe US when the white people get rel ofa hose, thcy mane sor toh uy tn he lf rae ele The eed tran har to taka ou ignge and heey payne fe Teepe him down. The only way for lop fo bul ae bomes forte colored people an pt the pape who’ kw te ha t,t owl wt a he tes and teach te other pesore how to appreciate then, Theres ‘nobody to tell them that. aaa an Through ts incorporated Inge, the Royal Order, the soup bought tat of land, plots of which ae then ‘old to ndvidal memes forthe erection of ingle family dling titty experince a all amount of vandalism. ‘The windows in oot of the hoses were isle, Dit ple Hoo pp th Netw cx great vale n the projet a4 way of geting the children out of the shims. vee‘THE BLACK JEWS AND THEIR FAIRER BRETHREN sm ree ht gered and sie hs ct he Tbr Delete sold Nepc oe the den itr of th erie of nl er th comin hye so nore dopant upon etc with Jos than ere Meola Engin Patan the seat tary dan eee Noo Msn pall wo. ith Srtotor Msi Nevetiea, Jv he Sew York ste the nf ts the preset ey SSCIGDS hong meet i ot ation for, hat ifm te pit of view ov mune a oy. At ePaper etre weet tones each atta morng, AoW of Se eee oe as uay everest oro ag ad they woh ade tesnpegston poten abou he pts abd el of Ge Panes cree no tnt ne ed Eee Tonsh pmiaton ie mewpaen “6 " ‘The Black Jews and Their Fairer Brethren area. Fleeting and even impersonal as these contacts have been, they have had a significant effect upon the life of this sec, for they have provided an entre for observing, and getting information about Jowish lif, Asa result, the Black Jews have been able to fashion a ritual which, not- withstanding all that it preserves of their former exper fence, nonetheless approximates much more the orthodox. ‘model than does that of the Black Muslims (who have dispensed with virtually any ritual). For a Negro to tell a Jew that he too is really a Jew puts him in a position where no matter how fantastic his elaim may seem he is taken seriously and wondered at. The natural response of 4 Jew is to try to figure out how they became Jews in the first place. As may be readily imagined, there has been ‘much speculation in an attempt to account for them on the basis ether of descent or of some regularized conver- sion, One theory, for example, somewhat suggested by the fact that so many of them were from the West Indies, is that they were descendants of slaves of Sephardic Jewish slaveholders inthe West Indies (who, in fact, did « hot Judaize their slaves). By far the most important of these external speculations in its effect on the sect was the idea that they might be Falashas. These are in fact people living in Ethiopia practicing a peculiar if not prim. itive form of Judaism. They have no knowledge either of = Hebrew (they use Ge'ez, as do their Christian compatriot, 8 the language of their prayers), or of the oral Law. Their prescriptions are drawn entirely from the Penta. teuch. They practice circumelsion, observe the Sabbath with strictness, and observe the commandments rega ing ritual cleanness; but then too so do many other Eth6 The Black Jews of Harlem copians whose Chaistianity, which is highly syneretisti, retains many Judaic elements, The Falashas know nothing Of the postexiic history and celebrate none of the post- tlic Jewish feasts," For many years it was thought that they were Hebrews who after the fist enle became sep rated in their southward migration from the main body of Jews and from whom they remained permanently ext fff? Ullendost questions this and it may be of some in- terest to quote his scholaely judgment in detail: ‘The present writer feels convinced that all the evidence avilable points to the concasion that the Falashas are de- Sendants of those elements inthe Aksumite Kingdom who re- ‘Sted ‘conversion to Chalstianty. In that ease thei so-called Judaism merely the reflection of those Hebraic and Jo aie practices sad Beliefs which were implanted on parts of sorteeest Arabia in the Sst post-Christian centuries and sub- quently brought ito Abyssinia IF this opinion i correct then the religios pater ofthe Falashas~even though 8 will Mave undergone some change inthe past 1,600 years—may well Ino toa considerable extent the religious syncretism of the Dre-Chvstian Adstinite Kingdom. Its in their ving testimony Bite Judatzed civilization of the soath Arabian insignis nd theft wellnigh complete coliral ascendancy over the ‘Gosh and other strata of the cxginal African population of Ethvopi that we mast sek the vale and great interest of the Flash tray and notin their rehabilitation as Tong lst tebe of Trae (which i historically qulte unwarranted) Like thelr Chuistion fellow-Eebsopians, the Faashas are stubborn herent to fstized HebraleJowsh belies, practices, and ‘isto which were transplanted from South Arabia Into the fiom of Africa and which may here be studied in the av ‘Bose suroundlings and atmoephere of a Semiized country? Tn the early twenties (when the Black Jewish sects were forming in New York), by corincidence, Jews a ‘America and England learned that the Falashas in Bhi * The Black Jews and Their Fairer Brethren opia were experiencing poverty and persecution, and formed an organization, the Pro-Falasha Committe, to sive them aid. In the course of its work, the leader of this organization in New York, Dr. Jacques Faitlovieh, Jeamed of the existence ofa Black Jewish congregation in [New York and called on Arnold Ford to find out if they ‘were Falashas, Even though they had already evolved the ‘entity as Ethiopian Hebrews, i is my gues tht up to ‘his point they had never heard ofthe term Falashas~for neither had many other people. Dr. Faitlovich left them ‘with the view that they were “misled.” Nonetheless, out ofthis interchange the very knowledge that there were people in Ethiopia whom the Jewish community recog: nized as Jews and who were called Falashas immediately became their most treasured insight. It was, so to speak, the “missing link” which for them fundamentally seted ‘the question of thei identity ina scentife manner. As with this, so has it been with other elements of practice and belief, Every question put to them by a Jew of the sort, "Do you do this?" "Do you eat kosher meat?” “Do you people have your own mohel (ritual e- cumcisor? “Are you Sephardic?—questions ariiag out ‘of the same curiosity that Jews would have about the customs of Jews whom they might meetin foreign lands has provided information, terms, and rues from which the leaders, who were very eager to learn, gleaned some thing about what they were supposed to do or be, te feels ofthe safction ta the tears a with ‘The net result of all this, given this erratic way of quiring @ new religion, is what amazingly looks at fst2 The Black Jews of Harlem Toa ny fami wth otis oan Ko a ee See ee eee [eee night but practically the rest of the week as well in the synagogue! ‘But whatever the appearance of the worship may be on fist sight, upon prolonged observation the syneretstic character ofthe religion becomes evident. At work in the Passover seder, for example, was a re-enactment of the st The Black Jews and Their Fairer Brethren drama of the Last Supper, which isnot part of the tradi ‘ional seder celebration. But it is the essence ofthis mode of “Judaizing” that the Black Jews are unaware of the syneretism involved. The Ethiopian Hebrews think they se orthodox Jews and it would be @ misunderstanding of ther behavior not to respect the sincerity of this belie ‘The one feature of their service where Matthew explicitly states he deviates from orthodox Jewish practice, since he has obviously been questioned about this, s the use of a male and female choir with piano accompaniment, which he frankly admits they like. One point which makes the panoply of beliefs and practices so curiously compli: cated is that Ethiopian Christianity and folklore fs itelf, 88 mentioned above, a Judaie-Cheistian syncretism. Thus, ‘odd details that may be gleaned about the practices of [Bthiopians, which include circumcision and the diferen- tiation between clean and unclean aniials, in a strange way “ft” into their pattern of belies. And Haile Selassie, ‘one must remember, is indeed called the Conquering Lion ofthe Tribe of Juda. AAs for what the Jewish world thinks of this sect, T ould say fist that most of the visitors who come to the services come with good will and if they are somewhat uraled by a number of the details, such as being as- signed a tibe when they come to the Torah, they still Jeave it inthe same spit in which they came, Tt must be recalled that no matter how they may view the service the phenomenon of Negroes wanting to be Jews cannot help but make some appeal to Jewish solidarity. Of course, ny number of waiters have attacked the sect as outright frauds; but to look at them in this way seems to me mis52 The Black Jews of Harlem taal to pt them much further ito the Jewish work thn hy ely ae and ses sight of the rail messing wrth beef On the other hand, thoy have Bad inet of Jowsh champions some of whom ti te Ne vealy-Fanst oersosou ikon chen arena Jui, til others who ae jut ranks. Many fhe women worked fr Jewidh Fis among whom hoy apnea ery goo septation. Matthew, stool Te tales ht itermarige with white Jews would be veo even present codons in Amerie, woud ike sa he be pane sme Kind of ofc region STUD Ghict Ratt of ares “ortodor Josh com: itty! by. « conrad rabbi coun, Ym pubs ater he bas expressed reseatment atthe fact Ut septation for membership fa his ounell bas not resermrowe. However, somo years ago, the Jewish Put Commitee in sep tis reqoest for ancl ranean, ent a itor tothe Hebrew School and did Sf otk charge af the edaaton of the eile po- Site they be taht by the Cmte’ teachers. Ma Mh ete thier on the grounds tat he was tach ae and could ot permit “Asner Besar hough the Commitee did snd «supa of Merete Jews individually oe collectively, ether weet os would wath wo go farther im accepting eg a eat more tothe pnt, assting the Black ‘Pate and and opprtnis of curse a tera Je thre sit stars incon content, cot Tei or aed In gener! there has never een any mae irr aed by te Jowsh community 1 35 Rel owed to convert to Judaism. One fry s The Black Jews and Their Fer Brethren actualy joined the Institutional Synagogue when it was il fanctonng in Harlem tity ears ago ut thi ithe nly Instance of ths sor at latin New York, that has tone to my stetion Obvionly, any real demand that they moaify thelr practices would be rejected because it would mean the disintegration ofthe sect Given thee prwtance which i bases community Ia the ves of ts member, any rolainship with them would thus have to ava cols with their belts. Although they can tot simply be bracketed together with other historia croleJowsh rus, there an extraordinary opemes, ptcalaly onthe pat of Matthew, to relationships with Jos, and, with all the perplesis of thelr belts, « de See to bo a Jow that Jows might wish to take into ac- count, provided won is propered to Bar cxiain questions To be mum menbenhp on a rabbinic rune is one ng ed al Mate le Be wa indeed to put himself nto sch an embarassing positon tea wits prvn ot the pct ever a mumber of the children are studying Hebrew in the high schools of New York, and itis conceivable that scholarships might Ie pol to tho cildren to ited Jw summer carpe EL spect tebe lhl bc ges Ns omen toward obtaining or furnishing, better quarter. Thee fetes noed hardly raise any doctrinal ismet ‘As for what the rank and fle hk about Jes, they are cn the con ind Jose on the other han wher and this bing about, ony the lat, a strange ambiguity For what is worth, 1 asked members whether the fl clo to white Jows than to white Contes er re same typical replies:oo ‘The Black Jews of Harlem 1 do not know. [have to prefer white Jews because they belong to me. The Gentes, I don't know [shrug]. But | preter to have delings with wate Jews. I went the chicken matket the other day and said something in Hebrew and. Berle Innghed. And T'sld, “Bernle, you dont know what I said” ‘Then I said something in Yiddish and German, I can jst Speak. 1 litle you know. Yer. They'e naturally closer to me, They were entrusted with the Lave before it came to, not the Gentil T now plenty of white Jows- But some Genules are very nice. ‘worked for a family out on Long Island before [came here, nd I raised thelr boy since he was baby. They'e Souther folk and they're uted to black people, you know. Always had them around to do the servant work. Wel, they were very he to me, In fact was privileged to go to his sister's wed. ting. (One older man said to me Ever since they operated on me, my spine and stomach have bboen giving me trouble, They operated the wrong way. They sould have done it up and down but they cot me scros. ‘A Gentle doctor did. There was a Yaddsh doctor there who told me it was a bad job. He came over to me one Shabboth, Saw ine reading my Bible, Wel, 1 do read the Bible every ‘day, but {told him tat Iwasa Jew and this was my day for reading the Bible, Soe tld some ater doctor, "You see that Tallow over there, hes a Jews" He was a good doctor to, [Several weeks late, this man said to me:] Ethiopia would be 4 big county today if you people [that i, whites] adit ext up. And occasionally the Black Jews forget that they are Jews ‘when complaining about the fact that "the Jews" own all for most of Harlem! ‘The obverse of this ambiguity in identification is seen {n their relations with Negroes outside tho sect. The ser vices are freely open to all vistors. Matthew is very s The Black Jews end Their Fairer Brethren friendly to them, sts them at ease immediately, inform- ing them politely that “we keep our hats on here,” and always invites them to return. On ane occasion Matthew went out of his way to explain to the Christians in the audience, who are never referred to as Gentiles, that "we sre not Negroes. But I have a black skin, I have wide nostrils, thick lips, and when something goes wrong, I sty ‘Naa’ too.” During Passover week clergymen of other sects who were old friends and acquaintances of Matthew ‘would visit the services. One was the archbishop of the Black Copties, who believe thatthe so-alled Negroes are really Hamites. As is customary, he was invited to the pulpit to address the congregation. In the course of his remarks he stated, “And don't forget, we are not Negroes. We are Egyptians.” This, on the night when the Children of Israel were celebrating their fight from Pharaoh, was ‘00 much even for the ustal reserve ofthe Black Jews. Many commentators, prticularly Jewish ones, who pro- ject onto the group their own experiences, have auto- ‘matially assumed that the Black Jews carry a “double burden” of discrimination—both race and religion, This {s simply not true: although they often answer in the af- frmative when asked whether they experience “anti-Sem- ‘tim too, Lam not sure they really understand what is fnvolved in this question. Far from feeling diseriminated against for being Jewish, they feel the pride of having xocovered their trae heritage. If here is any discriminating visdvis other Negroes, itis they who do it; and as far 8 practical social relations are concerned the Negro world regards them, as one may expect, as another one of the ‘many curious sects which abound in Harlem, To the ques-56 ‘The Black Jeus of Harlem tion “Do you have any contacts with colored people out- side the group?” two older members replied None. They dont speak my language. But fel friendly to certain groups. The only way Igo anywhere is they have & program. They patronize us and we go to theirs. We aze all mixc2 up here so we can't shun them. But I belong only to the Royal Order of Ethiopian Hebrews ‘A new member, whose reply accurately indicates where the sect rally ests in Negro opinion, answered ‘Yes. They kind of scorn at me, They scorn at my sons too Make fan of mes He ty to cal imelf Jew.” But st doesnt bother ine because I know myscl. Most ofthe people 1 know ‘ste outside the group, tT dont eatin their homes But if solidarity with other Negroes seems to be com- plicated, it at least has an objective basis as contrasted ‘with their parallel thoughts sbout Jews. To some degree fellow-Jewishness, by virtue of it artciality, is even a barvier to real trust and friendship with Jews or, perhaps, conceals the real basis of such friendships where they arse. My own rapport with the sect did not really de- velop until I realized that they wore far more interested in outrages committed against Negroes than in any events within the Jewish world. Nonetheless, as verbal as this solidarity is, i {8 not without a sociologically interesting ‘effect on the fate of the sect. From thelr strit ideological position, they would assert that the true Jews are black and the white Jews are frauds, “the product of intermat riage.” This has boen voiced by some of the sects. Matthew, in addition, has responded to his failure to be accredited by the orthodox Jewish community of New York with the a ‘The Black Jews ond Their Fever Brethren assertion that the Black Jews are the only really kosher congregation in New York and that 80 per cont of the White Jews are Reformed, eat pork, and have changed their names! On the nights when Jewish vistors are-not present there isa good deal of ths in addition to general ntiowhite hostility, Yet, all thie notwithstanding, th iota of solidarity which exists among them and Jews, and par ticulaly the desire to be accepted by Jews as legitimate Jews, has blunted and diluted the racialist content of the ‘sec’ beliefs. The invitation that has been offered to them, 40 to speak, by the Jewish world to prove that they are $alashas bas put them ina position where they feel com- polled, before this extemal tribunal, either to maintain that they have a provenance different from that of other Negroes or at leat to be silent about their ral belief, which is that all so-called Negroes are really Falashas. ‘The reluctance to face the Jewish world with complete ‘andor in these respects has been the cause of all the misunderstanding about the sect and between the sect land the Jewish world. As for the Negro worl, the result ofall this is that the Black Jews have signally failed or Ihave been uninterested in developing these belie§ into as rilitantly an antiwhite popular ideology as the Black Muslims have done. The fact that they are much more pious than the most vocal Black Muslims is also @ factor ~ in its own right which isnot tobe disregarded. Earlier I raised the possibility that the key founder of the Black Muslims in this country was a man who had “graduated” from Black Judaism. If this be the ease, he correctly foresaw that Judaism did not offer any real pos- sibilities ag the basis of an antiwhite racial movement.58 The Black Jews of Herlem ‘The existence of Jews presented insuperable difficulties ‘Among other things, anti-Jowish sentiment among Ne- 700s fs hardly conducive to @ mass conviction that they azo Jows. Even if this did not exist, the mere presence of Jews in the society, whose claim to be such cannot be really disregarded, poses a tremendous obstacle to the ‘opinion thatthe true Jews are black, Now orthodox Mus- ims in this country have denounced the Black Muslims with perhaps greater vigor than any Jew has cared to ‘exert with regard to the Black Jews; and given the no- toriety which the Black Muskins have acquired, this i not hard to understand, But it has in no way impeded ‘the growth of the movement. In fuct, I doubt whether very many of the members have ever seen an orthodox Muslim. They are not welcome at their services. The re- sult i that the Black Muslims, in propagating the view that the so-alled Negroes are really Muslims, have not Ihad the kind of interferences which the Black Jews have Ihad, Stil for many years the two seets were forall prac- tical purposes completely parallel, Present in oth was the same mythology about a recovery of the ancestral “religion which had been stolen from them by the whites ‘which was used to suppor, in behavior, a firm and steady repudiation of the white man’s stereotype of the lower- class Southern Nogro's ways, mentality, and habits. Wf one new nothing more about these sects than the fact that the Black Muslims abstain from, as harmful foods, com: bread and black-eyed peas, which were the stereotyped. staples of the rural Negro’s diet, one would have a substan: tial key as to the aim ofthese sects. Inthe past five years, however, the Black Muslims have attracted the leader: 2 The Block Jews ond Their Farer Brethren ship of intellectuals who do not seem to be pious people ‘bat who see in the movement a political force and talk to the Negro masses in politieal terms. These leaders, as fs perhaps well known today, have raised the anthashite overtones implicit in their rejection of Christianity to a blatant attack on white society not merely or even par ticularly because of its adherence to a false religion but rather, as they contend, because the country will eventu- ally belong to them. Their militancy, organization, and numbers have given them notoriety and have made whites fear them, which has by no means been distasteful to them, But of equal or even greater interest is their at- tack on Negro leadership, in demanding social integration, {or “pushing themselves where they are not wanted.” ‘This attack, as well as those autonomous institutions and activities they have developed such as schools and res- tourants—make it impossible not to see the autoemancl | patory impolse which is the fundamental dive behind all these nationalistic seets—Black Muslim, Black Jewish Black Coptic. We now turn toa diseusion of this impulse and its future in Negro society,VARIETY AND DISSENT WITHIN NEGRO LEADERSHIP xno teaoeasiar has typically heen classifed into two polar types of behavior: accommodation and protest, This dichotomy, for example, was a central element in Gunnar Myrdal’ analysis of the Negro problem.’ Accommodation ‘means that, at lest in public statements, the leadership accepted or didnot challenge the fabric of sogrogation— on the basis either of prudential considerations of what could be realistically demanded in a glven situation for the good of the Negro community or of private content- ‘ment with private gains from segregation. The second type of leadership, conversely, took and still takes the form of public attack upon, certainly, the legal ass of segregation but also upon the whole idea of segregation itself. Much ofthe polemics of ths second type of leader- ship was concemed, as may be expocted, with an attack ‘upon the accommodating leadership within the Negro world. Without question this dichotomy “ts” @ certain o a Varlety ond Dissent Within Negro Leadership phase of tension and confit within Negro society. It re flects the way in which the actors, or some ofthe actors, involved in these internal conflicts might have viewod them. One easily recognizes in the very dichotomy itself the point of view, for example, of those Negro writers and {intellectuals who attacked Booker T. Washington for his Atlanta spoech of 1895, in which he stated, “In all things which are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers... .” The question that arises, however, is how can one ft into this polarity the Garvey Buck-to-Africa ‘movement and the nationalist religious sects? To call ‘them accommodating because they pursue and even de- ‘mand certain features of a separated social fe sooms to ‘miss the entire point of their militant attack on white society. To eall them protest leadership, which they in- deed are, is to bracket them together with a point of view within Negro society between which there is mutual ‘opposition. The leaders of the NAACP have not been admirers ofthe Black Muslims, Such 2 classification would thus minimize and ultimately obscure the importance of the tension as seen from the point of view of the actors themselves. This suggests that there may be & more com- prehensive dimension involved which as a baslsof class fication corresponds more precisely with what is going on today in Negro thought and opinion, This dimension, 1 suggest, fs that on which a deeper set of tensions and conics is to be located. This is e tension between the {quest for autonomy-moral, cultural, poliieal~of the American Negro asa people or a community and the quest, for the right to be integrated as individuals into a rnlt- racial, universalistic society. The fact that conflict ofee ‘The Black Jews of Horlem this sort has been so late in becoming, so to speak, re spectable is one of the interesting features of changing. ‘American. Negro society. With this dimension in mind, ‘we now tum to an examination of the major divisions about poliey in Negro opinion. Tux PROTEST AGAINST LEGAL, EQUALITY ‘The one sphere of Negro life which i antonomous, that 4s, as autonomous as any voluntary institution can be in a political society, i the church, While the Negro church is segregated, in a erveal measure it has been and stil is self-segregated or self selected; i i to this, indeed, that it owes its strength es the integrating institution of Negro society, During slavery, when unsupervised meetings of ‘any kind among slaves were viewed with suspelon, Ne- sgroes had to obtain permission to conduct their own se ices fn “thelr own way.” In the North the Negro church ‘owes its origin to a withdrawal from white churches of free Negroes who refused to be segregated inthe gallery.” From then onward it ha offered an easy avenue for leader- ship, given that tradition of Protestantism which has been rmost prevalent among Negroes, as well as an overall sphere of independence which Negroes themselves ‘anced and controlled. To be sure, ertiism of segrega- tion has included attacks on the exclusionst practices of white churches. There have been, in the recent past, oc- casional “kneel-ins.” But as far as the Negro masses are concerned this is very much on the surface of things. In the sharpest contrast to segregation in public schools, there would be no support in Negeo society forthe self liquidation of the Negro church, no matter how logically @ Variety and Dissent Wihin Negro Leedership the proponents of such a policy might justify se, Charles §. Johnson aptly summarizes the role that this institution had in Negro society ‘locked of from vietaly all ether channels of expression, members ofthis race have found inthe church their gwn out sanding social instttion. It has provided a substi for po ical organization and has furnished ¢ channel for socal as ‘wel as religious expression; it has been the center for Facet Face tlations, for communication, foe recreation, and fr phys ‘alas well ar paychologeal escape from thei troubles. It has ‘ben welcomed by Negroes im areas where pysial separation ia worship was not demanded” But with the exception of this one sphere, the axis of the main stream of Negro protest and certainly that which is most voeal today has been tumed in another direction Far from being concerned with the preservation of auton: ‘mous Negro institutions, this protest has been so focused ‘upon combating legally tmposed segregation that any proposal to justify slf-separation is viewed, ist, as abject ssurrender to the deepest wishes of racist bigots and, second, a8 a rationalization for advantages which one was privately enjoying behind “the walls of segregation” and. ‘which were created by those walls. Such, for example, ‘would be the position of an incompetent Negro func- tionary in a segregated institution who is protected from hhaving to compete with qualified whites by the existence of segregation. Akin to this the position of a Negro who, as the agent ‘of a white, is able to exercise power over other Negroes Now itis true, on the one hand, that segregation can indeed ereute vested interests of this sort, although itis6 The Black Jous of Harlem rot without significance that no Negro, whatever his private vested interests, could publicly advocate and de- fond legal segregation. On the other hand, it is also true, fs such erities of “integeationism” as the Black Muslims hhave voiced, that the Negro world Is permeated with self contempt and feelings of inferiority visA-vis whites, and that itis an indication of the weakness of the Negros position, of his lack of self-xespect, that he should re- ‘gard association with whites qua whites as more “prestige worthy” than association with other Negroes. We shall take up the issues raised by these polemics in due course. For the moment it sufices to emphasize that the pri- mary reason why legalist protest has acquired its shape and direction and has been so indiferent, not to say ‘antagonistic, to the idea of a voluntary community as a social goal fs thatthe Negro has had in these respects no fundamental freedom of choice, The decisive fact in the history of the Negro in America has been his inequality In public law. The Negro community has always been @ segregated community. It was not preceded by a volun tary community for the same reason that there was no voluntary emigration of Negroes to the New World, There has been thus nothing clear and unambiguous to vetur. ta or to sustain thom as a basis for cohesion. Between. this and the massive structure of legal inequalities which face the Negro, he has not been even remotely in a posi tion to be concemed about his disappearance as a people; and Garvey's apprehensions about “race suicide” have, ‘as we shall see, an altogether diferent context and mean- Ing, In this context it is understandable why the type of protest under diseussion not only has been set in motion 6s Vary and Dison Wuhin Negro Leetehip bythe legal inoquaity—which infact unis all N apinion-but in ston has been focused s0 predomt tly upon law and the aquisition of legal rights as the primary and even exclusive lever of social change. ‘This becomes even more understandable when one izes that forthe pat half century the context of Negro thought and sapration has been one not merely of legal subordination but, rather of something which i infact nore demoralizing. This hasbeen setback in public ae “This setback may be identi asthe series of three S- ree Cour decisions, comprising the Slughterhovse Cases of 1573, the Chil Rights Cases of 1883, and the Plesoyv. Perguson Caso of 158, in which the Negso pogresivey Tost ground that he had won after the Gil War In the fst decison, the Supreme Court held that the privilegerandimmunites clawse of the Four teenth Amendment referred only to federal citizenship {oompdlng such. right a fon wom to vonports) and hott state ctiznship. In the secon, the Court decared. the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which hed proibited tvimination in places of public acommodaton, uncont- tutional, And in the third, the Court enuncited the do: tine of separate Dut equal” which legitimated rial dix crimination in lw The satus ofthis doctrine as reveral of «gain that had already been won; namely, the Fourteenth Amend iment, and is effect as such upon race relations was, one say sass, insfciently appreciated before the schol Aesogreation cae of 1954 when the Supreme Court ex plisily reexanined i in thi light” Before thi one re- falls that opinion inclined tothe view that the Flesy6 The Black Jeu of Herlem Case as well as the whole fabric of castike legislation that this hastened and solidified were simply an exten- son of sentiment originating in slavery and which had heen temporally suppressed by force of arms during the Reconstruction period" To some degree this was en- couraged by a radically depoliticized point of view within the social sciences at the tum of the century, of which immer is the example, a view that not merely taught ‘that one cannot legislate against the mores but in addition perceived law and political action in general as emerging, ‘ut of the subsdeliberative mores: In our southern states, before the civil war, whites and ‘ick had formed habits of action and ecing toward each ‘other. They lived in peace and concord, and each one grew up in the ways which Were tadtional and eustomary. The civil War abolihed loa rights and left the two races to Tea how to live together ander other relations than before. The whites have never been converted from the old meres... The to ‘ow have not yet made new mores, Vain attempts have boon ‘nade to control the new order by legislation. The only result {the proof thet leyisaton cannot make mores.” Certainly from the vantage point not merely of con- temporary thinking about constitutional law but of the new insights and new information of recent research on race relations, it becomes clear how deeply the “separate Dut equal” doctrine nullifed that moderate formula for the Negr’s acquisition of evil rights which had been voiced from the days of Lincol’s frst expectations about the post-Civil War situation* This formula, of which the Fourteenth Amendment was the keystone, fa that racial neyatives—that is, the racal eategory as such—would dis appear from public law, which would then leave the way o Variety and Dissent Within Negro Leadership ‘open for Negroes as they became qualified to avail them- selves positively of rights enjoyed by others so qualified. Besides posing legal challenges, much of this would in- volve “testing out” of situations in the sphere of what is regarded 6 private social life. And if law cannot in. a fundamental sense compel civility in this sphere, the cffect for sich civility of the illegal status of any public rules forbidding itis enormous. The prohibition of such public rules as illegal is a moral judgment about them. ‘As such it deprives private action which eonfits not with the leter ofthe law but with its sprit of a public sanction. In putting @ oor under what ean be publily done, it thus affects the moral atmosphere én which private or “social” ‘ction takes place. This atmosphere in turn influences the rate and direction of change. In permitting testing, it in- vites i One successfully tested situation becomes a prece- dent established in opinion which then raises the foor ‘upon which further testing can take place. It by such graes as “segregation.” Now one may grant that such a ‘community was historically rooted in and is sustained by discrimination. The fact remains, nonetheless, that for the foreseeable future not all but most Negroes will lead a separated socal life if for no other reason than itis rooted in pattoms of marriage. Yet, as stated earlier, the main stream of Negro protest~because of the existence of seg- regation statutes and practices the effect of which, in tum, has been to inflame a kind of doctrinaire commit. ment to an assimilationist thesisfound itself unable to argue simultaneously against Jim Crow and for the needs2 The Black Jee of Harlem ‘of a Negro community. But this means that it has trapped itself into a rhetoric where iti forced to eonjin its quest for the individual rights of Negroes to the premise that ‘any co-existence among Negroes qua Negroes is dead ing (because segregated) and hence a deprivation of equal rights. One can imagine the impression that this point of view as asserted by Negroes makes on whites ‘They may reasonably ask why Negroes should feel ashamed to lie next door to other Negroes. The effect, of course, on the Negro masses who cannot escape the ‘urban ghettos and who are implicitly being insulted by this point of view is that they cam eome to look upon such leaders not as seeking a juvidically defensible right to live where they wish but rather as desiring to run away from the Negro community. Indeed, this point of view depr ciates willy-nilly the efforts of Negroes to improve the ‘quality of the life they lead with each other by “passing the buck" forall problems to segregation ‘As we shall se, all this has been voieed by the Black ‘Muslims who have reacted to the doctrinire aspects of integrationism by an equally doetrinaire policy of ant sssimilationism or radical withdrawal, which at the same time seems to be oblivious to the importance of crucial ‘vil rights and equalities. They nonetheless are of terest for opening a demand for what is a re-examination ‘of a leglist formula. They also point toward the under- standing that the quest for community and the quest fr individual rights, far from being in conflict, can be seen to supplement each other when one transoeads the plane ‘on which these appear as polarities 7” Veroty and Dissent Within Negro Lead SHLE-HELE: THE QUEST FOR A ECHO mp Booxsn T. Wasuincrox. The career of Booker Washington, including not only what he did and said Dut also the way sn which he came to be regarded by” Negeo intellectuals, represents an interesting. and im- portint example of the way in which « definite impulse toward self-help became distorted by the politica facts of his time, Washington was the only leader ever produced by Negro society who enjoyed the respect of both the politically mute Negro masses, then concentrated in the rural South, and the leading whites, both in polities and business, to whom he became the spokesman for Negro alfairs. He was the closest approximation which Nogro society produced to the Jewish shtadlen or Court-Jew of the pre-emancipation period. As such he had an influence and prestige in Negro affars which no single individual had ever possessed or, as Profesior Frazier had pointed cout, will ever posses again a a result ofthe urbanization of the rural Negro and his acquisition of civil rights. ‘Washington's life work centered around his foundation of the Tuskegee Institute, In which, as the fist such in- stitution offered by’ Negroes, he saw his race on trial His wark at Tuskegee was an application of the thesis that the Negro could and should make himself wanted by making himself useful: In this adres I sui that the whole future of the Negro rested langey pon the question as to whather or nt he should take himeel, dough his sil, intelligence, and character, of uch undeniable value to the commnity in which he Hved ‘hat dhe community could not dispense with his presence. T“ ‘The Black Jews of Harlem said that any individual who lenmed to do something better than anybody else—leamed to do a common thing in an un ‘common manner-had solved hie problem, regardless of the ‘olor of hi skin, and that in proportion asthe Negro learned to produce what other people wanted and must have in the se proportion would he be respected» ‘The clients of Washington's social work were the freed- sen from the plantation and thelr children who, as he says touchingly in his autobiography, were so backward that they did not know how to care for their bodies, how to use a toothbrush; and, having been brought up on a dict of fat-pork, com bread, and black-eyed peas, di not even know what constituted a healthy det, His abject ‘was to train these people to develop vocational skills and the personal habits ofa free man so that “they would be sre of knowing how to make a living after they had lft 1us” His work was guided by a strong and explicit belief in the virtues of country and small-town life and the view that im large cities the lower clases were not only physi cally weakened and degraded by vices but als “tempted to live by their wits” More than this, his plans began with the recognition that 85 per cent of the Negeoes in the Gulf states depended upon agriculture for their living His goal was thus the preparation of teachers, in the broad sense of the word, who would transmit not only their skills but also their energy to theso rural masses. He avoided a curriculum which might cause his students to lose sympathy with country life and encourage them to ‘migrate to the cities. It is for this reason that he not only justified his very practical ewriculum but also siw ‘danger in ambition which would estrange potential 78 Variety and Dissent Within Negro Leadership Negro leaders from divect instruction ofthe rural masses, Beyond this, he did not think that Negroes would always. he tied to the soil. is standard of what he regarded a pleasant race re= lations was in fact an equal partnership: “In general, 1 found the relations [In Tuskogee] between the two races pleasant. For example, the largest, and T think at that time the only hardware store in the town was owned and operated jointly by a eolored man and a white man. This copartnership continued until the death ofthe white part ner." Within this framework he was very much a “race man,” who always spoke of "my race” with pride and, though it may seem but « small point, spelling the word [Negro in his books with a eapital “N” ata time when this was by no means universal usage. His rejection of col- ‘nization as a solution for the race problem, for example, Dogins with the following rellection: Somebody al conceived the idea of colonising the colored. people, of getting territory where nobody lived, puting the ved people there, and ting them be a national by them Selves, Thee ae two objections to that, Fst, you would have to build one wall t Keep the colored people i, and another Wall to Keep the white people out IF you were to baild ten tral around Ain today you eo not Keep the white people ‘ont, expecaly ar long as there was a hope of finding gold ere If he were not averse to pointing out the shortcomings of his race in their present stage of progress from slavery {order to indicate its needs, he certainly did not fail to point out the contributions that the Negro had made in the past and would make in the future. He could Took Jack upon the period of slavery, for all its injustice, as aEo The Black Jews of Harlem school of civilization, Having passed through this school, the American Negro was in his view fundamentally bet- ter off than his African kinsman who had never been ft- tered and never soquired civilization. But behind this comparison lay the expectation that the American Negro ‘ltnately could go to Afsiea asa missionary or teacher to do social work and to bring toi the benefits of civilization Hee was opposed to legal segregation as degrading to both races and thought thatthe distranchisement of the Negro ‘was unjust and would be a "sin that at some time we shall have to pay for." In The Future of the American Negro, fist published in 1899, he asserted not only thatthe same tests and qualifications for the franchise should be ap- plied to both blacks aad whites alike but also that the black should give up none of his rights. Although he saw no wrong in the disfranchisement of ignorant and im- poverished ex-slaves who, he thought, should not have Teen given the franchise in the frst place, he did think they should then be provided with the education which would prepare them forthe franchise Let the very bt eustional opportunites be povided fr ‘oh rae a a to ths an elton law that shal be ‘sble of unjust dcriminaton, tthe same tne providing tian poprtn te Sprit secre eatin, prope to carat hy wil be hen dg of cies. Any tthe couse wl tate fom one all your izes ttetet the St, and hope ad ston to econo iliget hess std trpayon, aod wef and seus etic, ay Gite cute wl Ce the white earns of Lousiana to» body ‘The impression which has been permitted to grow about him that he was a compromiser who not only as pre- 7 Variety and Dissent Within Negro Leadership pared for the time being to give up equality but even scoepted the white doctrine of the Negro’ “place” isin complete contradiction with what he actually did and said. Perhaps the most familiar evidence for this isthe statement in his Atlanta Exposition Address of 1895: "In all things that are purely social we can be ax separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress" Given his published views on the mpracticabilty of assimilation as a solution to the race problem in a milieu in which descent from a Negro clas sifes one as a Negro, this sentence, far from justifying legal and political inequality, was nothing more than a Southern Negro’ way of telling Southern whites in broad daylight: we don't want to marry you, To regard his stress on duties and qualifications in itself as an indication ‘of compromise isto invoke a conception of democracy or ‘equality which abstracts, in a legalist sprit, from the ‘question of the qualitative level at which this equality is to be maintained and sought. ‘The fundamental explanation, however, for the image curently held of him is the failure to appreciate the following fact. It was Washington's misfortune and, in- deed, the misfortune of the whole nation, that the political fabric justifying his fath in this moderate program for the preparation of the Negro for both work and citizen ship, collapsed within twenty years after its inception in 1881." Washington, it will be recalled, stood for an edu ‘ational and property qualification upon the right of suf frage that would be impartially applied to white and black alike But thie was precisely the standpoint of Wade Hampton and the Souther conservatives* Such men"8 ‘The Black Jews of Harlem not only regarded the extension of the suffrage to the ‘qualified Negro as part of their duty and responsibility to the Negro; in addition they saw in an alliance of the ‘educated and propertied of both races « basis for subor- ‘ination of racial antagonism to the solidarity of a com- ‘mon class interest in areas that were heavily populated by Negroes. As late as 1901, in the debates in the consti- tutional convention of Alabama which disfranchised the Negro, the former governor Oates gave voice to that tradi tion, In Woodward’s account: “The indiscriminate enranchisement of poor whites, believed Oates, was as vicious ae the blanket disfranchisement of ll Negroes, “the better element” of whom he would encourage fo vote, “Il isnot ¢ racial question,” declared the Governor, thereby. denying the very premise of the whole movement. [As forthe Tow wsite man, "T would not trust ien as quickly { Tvould negro of intelligence and good character" So long as these men had been in control, Washington's program for the Neg, far from being @ compromise, could realistically hold out to the Negro the promise of fan increasing measure of civie equality. What he did not ‘count on, certainly at the beginning of his career, was the political collapse which induced Southern conservatives to desert the Negro as a means of subordinating class conflict among whites. Once this took place he became not so much « compromiser—for he never abandoned! his sgoals-as a petitioner (though, from his own point of view, far in advance of Southem Negro apathy) in a situation le respect for the Negro. From his pri- vate correspondence: “I am almost disgusted with the colored people of Georgia. I have been corresponding 7 Variety and Distent Within Negro Leadership with leading people in the state but cannot stir up @ single colored man to take the lead in trying to head off this [disfranchising] movement. I eannot soe that they are doing a thing through the press... 1 is a question how far I can go and how far I ought to go in fighting ‘these measures in other states when the colored people themselves sit down and will do nothing to help them- selves. They will not even answer my letters” But in the context of the post-Plesay collapse and as seen from the point of view of Northern Negro intellectuals, who in ‘many ways were far zemoved from Washington's imme- diate problems, this tended to be forgotten and his pro- ‘gram seemed only to urge Negroes to aequire qualifications at a time when qualified Negroes were being depressed into an inferior caste. The result ofthis is that his sober and necessary goals forthe Negro became seen as opposed to the quest of the Nogro's civil rights, In addition, Washington's educational aims offended those Negroes who had made a mark inthe world of arts and letters. To them his description of the Nogro asin need of tutelage in the elementary practical arts was in- sulting and one likely to have a depressing effect upon the level of aspiration among Negroes. In the polemics ofthe time it was asserted that his program ignored the reeds of “the talented tenth” whom the intellectuals wanted to see leave the South and take up the cause of Negro rights. Washington's educational policy, to be sure, ‘was an explielt reaction against the classical education Which Norther idealists had brought to te freedmen im- mediately after the Civil War, which he regarded as use- less for them. But his views on this matter, far from being0 The Black Jews of Harlem rounded in any anthintellectualism, or in a desire to train Negroes to be dutiful servants, or still less in any. ‘opposition to civil rights, were the result of a single- rminded refusal to be deterred by any other consideration than that of the most urgent needs of the mass of rural Southern Negroes, These needs, in his view, were for the formation of habits, the habits ofa fee man, which would ‘enable the Negro to become independent and sel-sufi- cient in both bis inner life as wel as is work. In his view this requited a moral discipline and training, beginning with training in elementary habits of personal cleanliness, to bring into being energy and self-control Reasoning less from a theory than from his own obser- vations, he concluded thatthe effect of a purely intelle tual education upon people who had had no opportunity to Acquire these habits in their home lives would be diss twous. They would not acquire these moral habits for which a purely intellectual education is no vehicle, And without them the motivation to acquire this education would be the spurious one of the prestige it could confer as an attribute of whites, a motivation that would easily be satisfied by the mere symbols of education. The total result would then be an absence ofthe moral habits which tre the ground of self-respect on the one hand anda halt feducation or psewdo-education on the other. Washing tons aim was to raise the standard of the Negro people fs 4 whole, by creating a large class of yeomanry who ‘woul be part of the people and, hence, active models for them, They would be respected and have social au thority in maintaining and difusing the standards for which they stood. As such, Negeo society would be a sr Variety end Dissent Within Negro Leadership coherent society oF sub-sclety that would contain its ‘own sources of motion toward progress. As such, Negro society would be far healthier than if were simply a mass of backward peasants with a small edueatod (or, perhaps, halfeducated) elite, who forall thelr politial {indignation would be so alienated from the mass that they could not be models for them. Hence, they could only influence the mass at all by means of intimidation and ‘deology which are weak devices for producing inwardly accepted habits—a training. ‘Washington correctly foresaw that if American Negro society were in a condition of health, with the standards snd selfrestrants of eWvilization actively pervading the whole, the Negro would be able to face the white, out: wardly and in his own estimation, as an equal or possibly ‘a superior, and this by virtue not of mere law but of {ntrinsteally valuable accomplishments, If American Ne- sg society # not in the pathological condition which aficts almost all the underdeveloped counties today, ‘with thee tiny alienated elites, part of this good fortune fs due to the foundations which Washington laid for his people. If his rhetoric seemed to hallow morality at the permanent expense of intellectual, it must be recalled, first, that he saw the complicated relationship between the towo with a subtlety that few of his contemporaries pos- sessed and, second, that he was engaged in a polemic against powerful prejudices, both Negro and white, in both the North andthe South, Just as there were those who were arguing only for a classical education, there were aso those who were feaeful of educating Negroes at all. If, in steering « course between these two prej82 ‘The Black fews of Horlem dices, he seemed to exaggerate the virtues of modest practicality out of all proportion, among other things, to his own not inconsiderable learning, this was but shetor {eal protection for a policy which coincided in any event ‘completely withthe needs ofthe rural Negro at that time Behind this shetoric there was never any doubt in his rind as to the height of excellence which Negroes, ind vidual oF collectively, could attain, forall he had to do was to look at himself. Necro Coctuws asp Hisrony, The efforts of Negroes to give substance to or even to transcend mere race con- sciousness by becoming aware of their possession of a culture and a history has bad both popular and intellee- thal expressions, OF the former, the myths of the sects ‘which are the subject of this study constitute what is per- Inaps an extreme case. As we have seen, and as we shall farther discuss, they proclaim the recovery of a lost cul ture and a lost national identity and religion as a defiant response to theit situation. Or, to put this in & more ex treme way, they have trled to overcome the pain of not having a unique culture oftheir own-of which a religion and a political history are such characterstically essen- tial elements—by constructing one. But intertwined with the myths of these particular sects are many elements, shared by other Negroes, which are not nearly so hetero- ddox as the total pattern of the mythology, Among these, for example, is the veneration of Ethiopia, which up to the very present has long nourished the Negro masses. As Claude MeKay put it; "To the emotional masses of the ‘American Negro church the Ethiopia of today is the won- erful Ethiopia of the Bible. In a religions sense itis far 2 Variety and Dissent Within Negro Leadership tore real to them than the West African lands from which most of their ancestors eame."* Im addition, we note that until the colonial period ia Africa was ended, Ethiopia was the only historie country fon that continent which had withstood the partition of Africa among the colonial powers. A number of Negro religious and improvement organizations, other than the Black Jews, have had the word Ethiopia in their very rame, The Ethiopian World Federation for example, had vague cultwral and politcal aims, and among other activi ties it conducted clases in the Amharic language. Another clement which is central to the Black Jews but ‘which certainly has found popular expression outside it fs the view thatthe black man in Africa was the erestor ofall civiizationincluding not only material culture but also moral, religious, and philosophical principles. We ‘ote, for example, the publication in 1910 of The Black Man the Father of Ciciiation: Proved by Biblical His- tory by a writer named James Morris Webb. This theme fn seoulariged form became central to the outlook of Marcus Garvey. As suggested earlier, this countervailing ‘acism was a reaction to the upsurge of published and publicly uttered anti-Negro racism which took place in ‘the first decade of this century." (On an intellectual or academic level the book which is ‘almost a program of this quest fora culture #8 W. EB, DuBois! Black Folk: Then and Now, of which the title is a suggestive ohve. In the preface DuBois states that judgment about the future social and political develop- ‘ment of the Negro must depend upon a jadgment about 1s past, and in those respects the prevailing view is that“ The Black Jous of Harlem the Negro has no history. DuBois then accounts how he ‘was awakened from the paralysis of this judgment Franz Boas came to Atlanta University where I was teaching history in 1006 and suid to 2 graduating class: You need not bbe ashamed of your African past ad then he recounted the Ritory ef the black Kingdoms south of the Sahara for thousand years I was too astonished te speak. All ofthis Thad hover heard and I came then to realize ow the silence and feplect of science ca let truth utterly disappear or even be ‘unconsciously distorted ™ Chapter One, “Negroes and Negroids.” opens with a scienife disoussion of race in which DuBois asserts the standard anthropological maxim that there are no pure or homogeneous races and with regard to the ma sory of racial diferentiation-skin colo, hair type, nasal structure—that the races overlap and fade gradually into ‘one another, This then becomes the point of departure of. ‘curious polemic to prove in the ist place that the an ‘cient high civilizations in Afrea were Negro or Negro: In tis Easter Desert dwell the Bej tribes who may nepre- seat descendants of those who in ancient mes. populated Ethiopia snd Egypt. They are black and brown with curly or rial hair and preset nny ofthe same types at American Negroes do today (Of what sace, then, were the Egyplans? They certainly were ot white i any" sease of the modern use of tht word” “pater in cole nor” phystal measrement: in bale por ountenanee; jn language nor socal custome. They seem to fave stood in relationship nearest tho Negro ace in earliest ‘Voluey tn the cighteenth century expressed the bli that the ancent Egyptians were Negroes, oat any rate, strongly Negro Recently, Ripley, in his Races of Europe, agrees wih thir fact 8s Variety and Dissent Within Negro Leadership In Chapter Six, “The Culture of Africa,” he turns from the high civilizations of antiquity to the so-called back ward peoples. The task he sets himself is: “If we could have a scientific study of mankind in Africa the necessity of proving race superiority, without exag; gerated consciousness of color..." The rest of the chapter is then a documentation of the wealth of African culture from the Cape to the Sahara in both material and ‘nonmateial aspects. A principal item is his discussion of ‘on: “Torday has argued, ‘I fel convinced by certain ar guments that seem to prove to my satisfaction that we are indebted to the Negro fr the very keystone of our moder civilization and that we owe him the discovery of fron.””* The tortuous logic beneath this outlook, as contrasted withthe validity ofthe disrete facts, may be sufficiently apparent to make clear why this program never really took hold among educated American Negroes. Curiously ‘enough itis not very different in an overall way from the point of view of DuBois! arch enemy, Marcus Garvey. But there is this difference. When Garvey, addressing the [Negro masses, said that the Negro ivas the source of all civilization, he had in mind a physical model who looked Uke himself and bis audience; and this sentiment was ‘connected to political impulse about the future of Africa. DuBois, by contrast, is much more theoretical and de- tached, Dut to begin by asserting that there are no pure races and to terminate with a racalistor racist catalogue of Negro “culture” isto lay bare the defensiveness and ‘obsession with race that 4s behind this whole point of view. This is indeed the result of arguing against Go bineas and Madison Grant or even Ben Tillnan on the without86 ‘The Black Jews of Horlem premises lad down by them. Allin al, what this shows is the vacuity of racialist “cultural history” as a source of pride. To designate what are really the inventions of ‘mankind as the inventions of a particular “race” is essen tilly to invite the Negeoes to identify themselves with [Neolithic man, in order to acquite politcal seconscious- ness. Furthermore, the educated American Negro has had healthy instinctive avers folk” and the pseudo equalization of cultures to which this leads—and for a very sound reason. If the refutation ofthe racism ofthe tum of the century depends upon the view that all cultures are equal, then the culture which ‘asserts that there are sequal races has the same rank as the culture which asserts the opposite, This to say that if racism cannot he refuted in full cognizance of the in- equality of cultures, then it cannot be refuted at al, ‘When one turns from “culture” or “cultural history” to the politcal history of the Negro in the United States and to various kinds of ethnographic and sociological re search guided by its questions, one is on much firmer ‘ground. For here the American Negro does have a history and an experience that is his own ia clear-cut and mean- ingfl respect. The researches of American Negro scholars {in this sphere have produced solid and important works ‘The contrast between DuBois own impressive study’ of the Philadelphia Negro as well as Washington’ Story of the [Negro, written in collaboration with Robert Park, and the defensive tract noted above is instructive. With respect to this sphere, DuBois’ own maxim that the way in which ‘one looks at the past has bearing on the present and the future makes eminent sense. As one may readily imagine, n to the romantcization ofthe @ Variety and Dissent Within Negro Leadership however, this sphere also is hardly free of “touchy” issues Among these, for example, was the ise as to whether there was «survival of the African cultural heritage with the extremes defended most prominently by Herskovits and Frazier. Herskovits’ attempt to defend the view that the African heritage was not extinguished was interestingly a attempt to defend the dignity of the Negro. For, as he reasoned, the view that the Negro held on to nothing of i own rests on assumptions such as the Negro is so child-like that he easly adjusts, or he voluntarily aban- doned his culture forthe superior customs of his masters. Herskovits thus states that the myth of the Negro past (that is, the belief that the African heritage was lost) “validates the concept of Negro inferiority.” * To allthis Frazier continually pointed out tht the ev ence of these survivals is to be found not in North ‘Ameria but in the West Indies and Brazil” We need not ‘go into Further details hereof this polemic. What is inter- ‘esting in the context of the present discussion is Frazer's awareness that by facing the fact that the enslaved Negro. ‘was a broken man who had lost the inward support of his ld have a more adequate understanding, as to why there were no large-scale revolts, an under- standing which fully preserves the dignity of the Negro but on a deeper and more thoughtful level” Frazier makes it perfectly clear that there was a great deal of opposition to the slave regime but that it took the form of individual escapes. ‘There is now emerging a new and nondefensive mode of reflection about the American Negro’s unique experi culture, one88 ‘The Black Jews of Harlem ‘ence, of which Mr. James Baldwin’ writing isan example. ‘We shall diseuss this inthe final chapter. “Tue Buace Jews: War's nw 4 Nant? The Black Jews partake of this quest for inwardness and show the sig ifcance which satisfactions In ths respeet can have for ‘one's bearing and one's behavior. But they are of interest because of an additional question they raise. Can the [Negro have any fundamental self-respect so long as he ‘conceives of hime asa race? 'As is evident from their own words, the Black Jows are almost wholly nonpokitial, The older men were inspired by Garvey’s Back-to-Africa Movement, and a few stil keep up nominal afiiation with what is lft of the ‘orginization, For the most par the interests and activities ‘of the men, and certainly of the women, are absorbed in their rtuals and in their belief that they have recovered! their true name and language. The one practical activity “with which they are preoccupied is their housing develop tment in Long Island. When I questioned the most vocal female member of the group as to what she thought of the NAACF, she answered. nly God can break down race prejudice, and until Cod sets up the Kingdom of Tnval,therell be no peacesuntil Shilhs The Gentle race isnot gong to have any peace. Thats thy conviction a¢ far as the Bible is concemod. When the ‘Meshigch [Messiah] ‘comes, be wil take care of the twelve {ties of Israel ad they are the ones who wil have the govern sent Her apocalyptic expectations go hand in hand with a private retreat from the world as her additional comments show: % Vortety and Disent Wahia My grandfather had abvays told me that Hebrew was his language. We hid books at home about the Hebrew children and Hebrew people: When I came to this county frm the ‘West Indies, I idht Bnd anyone until someone invited me~ to come up to the synagogue When T came there, T stv placards on the wall with Hebrew on them and I said to the ‘bb, "Do you teach this?” end I began and here Tam. [took — BvateIewons from him and I belewe 1 was the Bat Black froman to teach Hebrew inthe westem hemisphere, Besides bofore I joined, whenever 1 ved in an partment hovse, Ircly ever knew anybody inthe hetwe ‘All my spare time is spent sight here. 1 sow, crochet, study amy Hebrew, becaus if you dont tak it, you akways have t9 keep brushing up. And besides since Ym the teacher, T have to keep ahead ofthe students, never go to movies I dont ‘mean theyre bad for ether people, but I Just dont like them. gro Leadership Even on the privatized level ofthis woman and others Uke her, iis impossible not to see the depth of the desire, when awakened, which the Negro can coine to crave for pride, As we have seen, this is satisfed in this sect by a riyth that gives to its believers an inwardness they never before possessed, In terms ofthis myth they have a new -eonception of themselves as no longer despised pariahs but rather as the chosen people, with @ proud past and a triumphant future. Their blackness, from which they ean- not run away, far from being something to be ashamed of in a white society, becomes the hallmark af a superior nation to which even those who robbed them ofthe self ‘consciousness of their true dentity are bound to look up to, In rejecting what they define as the white man’s r ligion, they express contempt for him by virtue of a con tempt for what he holds most sacred and in so doing they assert a supreme independence of his moral and religious principles, hence of him, To be sire, this all rests on a0 The Black Jous of Harlem myth; anid what i mythical is not so -much the assertion that the so-called Negroes are a chosen people of one designation or another but rather that they were prior to their enslavement in any senso a unified people. One reed but recall the painful fact that the supply of slaves depended upon intertrbal wars or slave-raiding expedi- tions to see what the myth actually cloaks. But if the ‘golden age” prior to enslavement is mythical, nelther the “need forthe satisfaction bestowed by the myth (or some nonaiythical equivalent) nor the perception of those facts about the condition of the Negro which brings this need into existence are mythical, In the concrete case there lies underneath the Black Jews’ aversion to the name ‘Negro not a myth but the realistic insight that the Negro in America as he is socially defined and as he conceives of himself his no inward or positive basis ofslf-enclosure. is tribal or political identities, loyalties, languages, ta ditions, and cultures wore all effaced, which leaves the ‘consciousness of “race” as the unifying factor, To begin for the moment at merely the surface of conventional ‘opinion, the Negro is defined as something negative, to be precise, a “non-white,” na way in which a white is not a “non-black” To be non-white, as is familia, seems to have the “taint” of socially known descent from. non- white blood. Racial categories today are such a normal feature of scientific work in physical anthropology that one can easly become insensitive to the abnormality involved socially defining and treating any group as @ race, let ‘alone one which is as racially heterogeneous as is the ‘Ameriean Negro, Given the fact that people naturally om Variety and Dissent Within Negro Lealership define themselves by their counties or their gods, the emergence of a definition in terms solely of bodily ext teria is something that has to be explained, The sects i proffering such an explanation are thus grounded in a Scientifically correct insight about the condition of the Negro. When Matthew states that "Negro is the name of 4 thing.” he has in fact surmised what Is the key to this whole process. In his lucid account of American slavery, Stanley El- kins has shown that slavery in its beginnings in the United ‘States was neither racial nor chattel bondage. While most ofthe agricultural laborers coming into the colonies were fn fact white indentured servants, there were Negroes among them who were, at least in law, assimilated to thie status” Beginning around 1660, however, a change oc curred inthe character of American slavery which eaused 4 to be diferentiated not merely from Latin American slavery but, perhaps, from any other form of slavery that ever existed. The primary eause of this is that rights in property as contrasted with social duties and restraints acquired a hogemony in the Englishspeaking world Which they never possessed in Latin Amerioa where the church and the monarchy had an authoritative voice on behalf of traditional duty and against the pre-eminence ‘of a capitalist class, The spirit of capitalism, by which 1 ‘mean the emancipation of acquistiveness and rights in property from moral and ethical restraints, triumphed fa the Anglo-Saxon world with a comprehensiveness which ‘was impossible in Latin America, for in the former the ‘church was under the control of the planter class and the ‘monarchy was interested in tobaceo revenues.”92 The Black Jews of Harlem In describing the pre-Civi War situation in the United States, people very commonly oppose the capitalistic [North tothe anticapitalistc, traditional, patriarchal, even feudal” South. This ie perfectly legitimate, as Kenneth ‘Stamp makes clear, for those few plantations whose ‘owners had for personal reasons abandoned commercial goals." But to make these few exceptions the standard for the whole isto overlook the fact that slavery in the South in its predominant mode-a predominance that is veen not rerely in numbers but in the weight of the most influential voice behind Southem policy—was a profitable busines, profitable enough to attract Yenkee capital and energies. ‘The plantation was « capitalistic enterprise in which the interests of the slave had to find an uneasy support as @ species of valuable property but in setting in which the ‘animation of the planter’s money profits was a respect. able sim.” This i not meant to suggost that a society ‘which is pervaded by the spirit of capitalism must neces. sarily culminate in slavery or even wage slavery so long, ts the moral and political restraints upon these can and will arise. And it is indeed the essence of modern capi- talism that it has arisen in a poltial democracy with @ natural rights basis which has been a principal source of the check upon the very freedom i eeated. It docs mean, however, that where slavery gets any kind of foothold at allin such an atmosphere, at least some if not most owners of slaves will have the strongest possible propensity to assimilate their ownership in slaves to property in gen- feral and to demand on the grounds of legal consistency the same measure of rights over their slaves that they ‘possess with regard to their nonhuman property. Should 93 Variety and Dissent Within Negro Leadership they acquire these rights this then can force or at least permit other owners of slaves who may have qualms about treating humans as property, but who are competing with ‘the former in the same system, to follow suit. Even where private sentiment rogards the fll implications of such a legal fabric as morally repugnant and will not act to take advantage of its permissions, the contents of what is publicly legal, particularly when it s backed by powerful Interests, affects the moral authority of these sentiments and the degree to which they can speak out against the Jaw, Such a development took place in the United States. As contrasted with Brazil, where the slave had right to marry, to do some work for himself, to buy his freedom, the slave in America became divested of all those rights" As the legislatures and cours systematically “rationalized” ‘the full implications of what it was to be « chattel-of which process the Dred Scott Case may be seen as the ‘ultimate dedietion-the slave beeame as totally subject to the master’s power as the law, which prohibited murder and severe cruelty but withheld from the slave the right to testify against his master, could allow."" But this oc- curred only with Negroes.” The racial factor, on which an Ideology of inherent inferiority could be built, was a perfect correlate of the transformation of the slave from 2 person with some rights that he could autonomously fsert to a chattel. Racial desoent and chattel statu thus coalesced in law which in tur stabilized public opinion.” As Chief Justice Taney wrote in his opinion in the Dred Scott Case, the Negro “had no rights which the white man ‘was bound to respect.”**o ‘The Black Jews of Harlem “The decisive characteristic of the status of chattel was ‘the legal and conventional deprivation of any right to a ‘change in the status, culminating in emancipation, Bap- tis was at an early date adjudged to confer no such claim ‘which eliminated the opposition that exsted among the planters to the conversion ofthe slaves. (Southern church leaders in fat came to argue thatthe gospel would bring about “good conduct among Negroes."*) Neither did white blood which would have undermined the concep- tion of the female as property which gave the owner ‘property rights in her issue" In this les the origin not ‘only of why the “taint” operates in a one-way direction Dut also of why sexual union between a free (white) female and a Negro (slave) male became so tabooed. As fone may expect, the free Negro, and particularly the free mulatto Negro who was nelther property nor black, was the indigestible element in the system. As the system be. came more and more defensive shortly before the Civil War, itis not surprising to find that the number of mann- risions radically declined, were inhibited by law, were attended with the requirement that the freedman depart the state fora fre state, and proposals to re-enslave the free Negroes were openly advocated. ‘Thus, built into the conventional meaning of the term Negro, which was not even normally capitalized until 1929, was the assoclation between “race” and the status as mere property and ase of presumptions about Negroes ‘which make them seem ft for this status as mere property ‘The most important was that they are children who do not even know of eare to know who their ancestors are, ‘and accordingly have no self-xestraints, Hence they are 95 Variety and Disent Within Negro Leadership not qualified to possess the rights of adult man. Thus cor- related with the objective powerlessness inherent in their status as mere commercial property was the subjective ess of not having the inner support to one's pride and dignity that comes from social memories to oppose to this degradation. All tis, again, stands in stark contrast to the situation in Brazil where not only was the shive, though owned, nonetheless a person with logal and con: ventional rights but where, in addition, the tribal cultures were not wiped out [es also worthwhile to point out that the term Negro has had a different career in Brazil and never became normalized or respectable, being applicable ‘only to unassimilated and lowerclass blacks. In the re- duction of the Negro in North America to a “race” or, as it is sometimes technically described, a social race ly his loss of inner independence as a people which made pos- ‘sible his acquiescence in a los of external independence. It is along these lines that one can understand why re- sistance ofthe slaves to the slave regime, which was eer tainly great enough to produce demands for vigorous enforcement of a fugitive slave law, did not, however, fasue in effective slave revolts such as occurred in Brazil To the extent that the Negro accepted the conception of himself which evolved umder the slave regime, he aequi- sce in that horizon within which his “racial” inferiority ‘was 4 starting point, His reactions to the burden of look- ing at the world through this horizon have heen varied. ‘A primary one, originating in slavery, was to be over: helmed by it and simply to act in accordance with a Joss of both external and inward independence." The Sambo, which as Elkins has pointed out emerged! only6 The Black Jews of Harlem in the United States, was an adaptation to a situation of «person who without rights, property, and power could by playing the part of a child manipulate the power holders to gain things for himself. He could “got away’ with tricks, so long as he played this part, knowing that ‘even if he were caught, he would get only the punish ment of a child.” And, in general, one can link to the Negro’ lack of any genuine independence all those modes of behavior which taken together constitute the stereotype of the demoralized Negro: sexual promiscuity, laziness, tmotionalism in religion, childikeness. As Washington said, slavery was not ealculated to inspire the slaves with 4 love and respect for labor. When this behavior became not merely expected but rationalized into a double moral ‘and legal standard, the way was open to abandon the Negro community to lawlessness." The assumption by white police that Negroes were all children and the in Aiflerence that this would bring about to purely intra Negro erime undermined the moral authority of those Negroes who stood for selfrestraint, Hence, this weak ‘ened the ability of such Negroes to control the demorali zation within their own communities. They would be ridi- cauled for trying to set like whites; and behind this ridicule is the knowledge of what the whites actually thought of them and were prepared to do for them, ‘A second reaction to the opinion of Negroes as racially inferior has been resentment-hatred of whites for weat- ‘ng and regarding them as inferior or a least an intensive self-conscionsness or sensitivity about their racial identity, not unlike that of other minorities. But in the absence of fan inner support such as would be derived, for example, or Variety and Dissent Within Negro Leadership from membership in a nation which could wage effective war against its enemies, there is a tendency for this re- sentment to collapse into self-hatred, A genuinely self sufficient person would be psychologically indiferent to the praise or disrespect of others except as facts to be dealt with in a prudential manner. Without the basis of this self-sufficiency, hatred against being treated as a [Negro can result in hatred of being Negro. The most immediately relevant index ofthis isthe absence of respect, for and trust in Negro authorty~the feeling that if an institution is run by whites itis bette. ‘The third reaction to the structure of opinion about him ‘constitutes all those attempts on the part of Negroes to transcend the horizon altogether that the self-conscious- ness with rail difference brings about. This includes not ‘only the longing for national freedom that came to a head in the Carvey movement and the nationalist religions sects but also all those efforts to supplement race-consciousness by a consciousness of a common culture as defective as all these efforts up to now may have been. In the light of these broad distinctions one can see that the estence ofthe kind of nationalism for which the Black Jews stand flows from their recognition of this fat. Con- nected with but also aver and above the merely legal pos- tion of the Negro in Ameria isthe fact that he faces an ‘opinion about himself that is humiliating. The core of this opinion, from their own point of view, s seen in their aversion tothe very name Negro. As they themselves so long as the so-called Negro accepts the definition of himself as a mere rae, he ean never feel an inward equal- ‘ty with whites. This sso because he is admittug, through6 ‘The Black Jeus of Harlem this concpton of himself, that he has no elt of is town andi dependent fortis npn whites Tis gals th nt mre ely ven we ad Ne, ecupation wth which plays very litle oe i thi ee It rt, ht sujet fortction wich they thnk can only come fom having ones own cle, com ceived af a0 atonal entity, religion, and lngunge Tey be of tome interest to emphasize thi lat pit though we shal return to tater This 30 Desi Shear many student of he Neg pram who would farce wih the impish premie of the Black Jevs that thee are the tne neotry clement of «cle Bot precisely on the bass of thee eters they would argu That the Negro docs not have any rational bast of = common care. Bt to etn fo the Blick Jews we may ty that, sven the crass which moray bein thi set, the ovr {Ma ning les than a tee to purge the Nero Of the remnants ofthe Samo nthe so Tel expt Spposton to estat religon—"wigertion”-ar wll a frente delinquency and the iproveshment of paternal thoy shows very ley what they are tying to di ovine themeles fom, They aze Or seeking 10 2: trolize the werclas Nejad n'a way wich di Connects this ques or excllence rn any overtones af loyalty o sei haved The vehicle of thi the myth rich cuales tem fo bok a the demotion ofthe Neg ler das s deviation not fom white sety Bats othe, rom tren priordal orl tea, deviation which as they contend was xed by white sevety which ened black men ad tuned them nt % Variety and Dissent Within Negro Leadership children, With a feeling of national pride engaged in the support of morality, they have the strongest inducement to repudiate the habits and the whole way of life of the demoralized segment of the Negro lower elas. tn all this they are really following the spirit and the counsels of Booker T. Washington, But there is this diference in orientation, iF not about a matter of fact. For by ex- plicitly despising these habits as things for which shite Society isto blame, they can look at themselves as adult hhuman beings who do not owe their humanity, and this ‘means their fundamental principles of right and wrong, to whites. Having recovered “their own,” they can feel that they have emancipated themselves, Mancos Garvey: Pouincat Namosatasat*" Booker T. ‘Washington addressed himself to the interests of the rural, Southern Negro whom he wished to become sellsuficient and to remain in the South, Marcus Garvey’s following consisted of the urbanized masses who had been drawn to the metropolises of the North during World War I and found in these cites a freedom for the propagation of ntiswhite nationalism that they had never possested in the South. If Washington enjoyed the sober respect of the tural Negro who got a viearious gratification out of the fact that he hed been invited to the White House, Garvey clectrifed the Negro masses by making them proud to be Negroes, not merely for emulating the achievements of whites but also, as he taught, bocause they were superior to whites. The blacker they were, the better. Garvey's ‘rogram failed. But the ideas to which he gave such foree- ful expression, particularly the conception of the Negro as a dignified being whose dignity was fundamentally in-00 ‘The Black Jews of Harlem dependent of white civilization, not only survived but, as ‘we shall see still have a vitality inthe Negro world today. Garvey's main assumption, from which he derived his program, was that race relations in the United States were state of war, Indeed, to judge from the wave of Iynch- {ngs and race riots which followed World War I, this was not altogether hard to lieve, And for Garvey all whites, ‘were fundamentally alike, The white who abstained from joining the Klan did so because he was too cultured; but ‘overtly they all had the same contempt for the Negroes {8 an inferior race. Garvey’s reaction to the racism which hae impated to all whites was his construction in doctrine of « countervailing racism. Black s good and white is bad, ‘of which the primary inference was an extraordinary stress on the importance of racial parity coupled with an attack on “miscegenation and race suicide” That he at ‘once set himself in opposition to light-skinned Negroes is quite evident, It i also not surprising to find that he saw some value for the Negro in the existence of the Ku Klux Klan, on the expedintial grounds that it would drive the Negroes into an awareness that this was really ‘white man's country and hence drive Negroes into that kind of organized activity which would enable them to rescue themselves from their despised condition. He infact ‘went to Atlanta to confer with a leader of the Klan to see if he would support his Back-to-Africa program. Coupled with this countervailing racism was an ine vocation of history to prove that the Negro and Africa ‘were the source of all civilization and culture. This too in its own way was a counterideology against views then ceurent about the racial inferiority of the Nogro a Variety and Dist Wahin Nero Leaderip We are prov of our ri! neage basse out of Africa tas come the clcaton ofthe twentieth century. 1 ve that the twentieth contixy i comipe and abe #0 destroy tel everteles the god that fo be found oh can be traced tothe me whem eur ancestor hell up he toch of ‘lence wen the ret of the word was tl in barbarism.” Also, in his glorification of blackness, Garvey declared that ‘Christ was a black man and sought to change those sym- bolic representations which took whiteness for granted as the ideal. The depiction of angels as black and even the ‘manufacture of black dolls were prompted by his move ment ‘These sentiments, as may be epparent, are the common ‘property of all the nationalistic sets. It will be readily ‘understandable why the Ethiopian Hebrews, in spite of their fallure to persuade the Garveyites to drop the name Negro and to adopt Judaism as their true, ancestral x ligion, were very mich at home in this movement. In fact, the race leader whom Matthew most admire, next to Booker T. Washington, i Garvey. But for Garvey these sentiments were only a propaedeutc for a grandiose polit- {eal goal: "The Redemption of Africa”; and it was indeed the projection of this goal that enabled him to organize shat became a mass movement. Garvey's political ideas~essentally an adaptation ofthe key idess ofthe Jewish thinkers Pinsker and Heral-were, shen one eliminates the melodramatic flourishes, that the ted States was « white man's country forall its pro- fessions of universalist right" As such the Negro could never be more than 2 second-class citizen until he lived in a country in which he controlled the government, that fs, a country which was unambiguously “his” Until that102 The Black Jeus of Harlem time he would never gain the respect of the nations. To this end he organized his Universal Negro Improvement Assocation, to promote emigration back to Africa, and a shipping line, to carry passengers and freight both to Africa and throughout the world of Negro settlement. Asis fami the movement and the man himself after ‘moment of glory came to sordid end, First, the Repub lic of Liberia, which had agreed to his plans fora coloniza tion scheme and a rehabilitation loan, was wnwilling on second thought to be host to a movement which included among its aims the emancipation of native tribes and which thus might cause those features ofits socal struc- ture depending upon the use of compulsory labor to eol- lapse.” It is also possible that there were pressures on Liberia from the colonial powers which were unwilling to see a beachhead of Negro nationalism established any- where in Africa. Second, the financing of his project was completly erratic, Isolated from respectable business and without any real experience, he was sold overpriced and ‘unseaworthy ships; and his ambition and his haste led him fnto dubious practices In corporate Gnance, He was ia fact finaly indicted by the federal government for using the mails to sell fraudulent stock, convicted and, after two years in fall, deported. ‘For many years it was common to see him writen off 18 a glorious erank but one who showed the maladjust rent of the urbanized masses." Today I believe he is no Tonger viewed quite in this way. Without minimizing the genuinely erratic aspects of his program, it is possible— a5 does Edmund Cronon in his excelent study, Black ‘Moses—to see not merely a certain sense that he was as Variety and Dissent Within Negro Leadership ‘making but also some solid achievements and precedents from which the American Negro can and has benefited. In the fist place, tis a misunderstanding to think that hh seriously contemplated the emigration of every Ameri ‘ean Negro back to Africa, Beneath his flamboyant hetorie, ‘hich included the foundation of the Empire of Africa in 1921 and the inauguration of himself as provisional Pres: dent, lay a plan for a modest colonization scheme. It was this that was frustrated by the political situation of his time, a frustration which his ehetoric may have in part abetted, Had he lived twenty-five years later, and hence that much closer to the end of colonialism, he might well hhave become a nationalist leader in his own Jamaica where there would have been a greater congruence be- tween his powers and his ends, To take the Negro popula tion not merely of the United States but of the whole ‘world as his electorate led him into becoming a sens ‘ional propagandist which neutralized not so much pl ring as sober planning, The life of the movement be- ‘came dependent upon immediate results and also upon the fate of one charismatic leader, Even 80, he may have ‘constituted an influence toward national liberation in the former colonial powers that was greater than he realize What was his influence upon American Negro socioty ‘tee? Among the most interesting and important features ‘of his movement were the lessons that could be drawn from his busines enterprises, which included the shipping line, cooperative housing, restaurants, laundries, and so on. The impulie behind these, of course, was the pure split of Booker T. Washington—a man publicly admired by Garvey—but transferred to the urban North and thus08 The Black Jous of Harlem ‘completely disconnected from the imputation of poliieal surrender which Negro intellectuals had foisted upon Washington's advacacy of Negro enterprise after the Ne: agro hid been disfranchised, For Garvey the demonstra- tion by Negroes, both to whites and to thenselves, that they could run a real business was an obvious source of race pride, What Garvey did in fact was to explode ot, perhaps, to correct what has been called by Frazier the ayth of Negro busines which is, as he deseribed it in his Black Bourgeoisie, the view that the Negro could achieve ‘economic salvation through individual entrepreneueship= Garvey's experience certainly bears witness to those very obstacles to entrepreneurship that Frazier thought dec- sivemlack of capital, business tradition, those social con- nections which bear on the success of business enterprise, and the distrust if not ridicule of other Negroes. But on the other hand, it also point tothe fact that an ideology together with an organization can do things which ind vidiual entrepreneurship among Negroes cannot achieve Both Garvey’s failures and successes in business enter prise point respectively to the perils as well as to the possibilities inherent in this combination" We have noted the housing development of the Black Jews, where the group collectively bought tract of suburban realestate, Which partakes of this impulse. As we shall see it is present among the Black Muslims on a much larger scale. Ananicas Conenuxisse axp rue Fonry-xisra Stare, The Communist line in behalf of «self-governing Negro republic in the black belt isa relic of prewar discussion about territorial autonomy that deserves brief mention. ‘The line was shortlved. Te was launched at the Sixth 105 Variety and Distent Within Negro Leadership World Congress of the Communist International, held in Moscow in 1998, as “the right of self-determination of the Negroes in the Black Belt,” and was called off in 1995, to the great relief of Negro Communists, after the United States had recognized the Soviet Union. In subsequent pronouncements about Negro rights, particularly after Russia was invaded, the Daily Worker declared that to fight segregation in the armed forces at this time was appeasement ‘On the whole the anly people who really cared for this line were Communist intellectuals and mainly white ones at that who saw in the idea of a self-governing republic ‘another Birobidzhan. In the Negro world it was received ‘much the same way in which al such schemes emanating from whites, incliding proposals for emigration, have al- ways been received, “We maintain that the mere existence ofthe proposal proves that the idea of separation is upper- ‘ost in the minds of the red brain trust and not the idea of oneness, and in advancing this theory of separation the hand with the southern ring Communists are hand class" ‘The National Movement for the Establishment of the Forty-ninth State was a prewar splinter of Garvey’ ULNILA. which sought to establish not a republic but a state in the unpopulated Southwest, As Myrdal indicated, f never amounted to anything.” ‘Tue Back Musums. The Black Muslims* constitate « culmination and a new development in the progression This ntssly the nts oem name for itl nd Tw thio era ely tose i bes bec o reo ptt of geal rept {Tew people cal Gemslves “Pamplona” or “atin rune “Sosa106 The Black Jous of Herlem ‘of phases thus far outlined. This includes the protest agninst inequality, the self-discipline and enterprise of Washington, the rejection by the Black Jows of Chris: tianty and their assumption ofa preslave nationality and religion, the political orientation of Garvey, and the tum ‘ng from Africa to the United States in raising the demand for teritoril autonomy.” As to this last point, the Mus- lims are admittedly vague and refuse to be drawn into premature specification. The crucial innovation of the ‘Muslims is the political propagation of what amounts to 1 sociological theory about why’ the Negro has no self respect, reminding ane of the propositions if not the tone ofthe Jowish Zionists. This doctrine i not original, itis found explicitly in Garvey’s opinions and implicitly in all the nationalistic sects. In fact, the experience of the mi- nority i so sharp that one may well doubt whether there ‘s any postion that has not been conceived of and thought cover before, Nonetheless, what is novel is the rhetorical emphasis given inthis sect tothe doctrine that the Negro feels inferior bocause he is inwardly enslaved to the idea of white superiority, a rhetoric directed toward creating fn the Negro a kind of mass self-awareness about this condition. ‘As already mentioned, the Black Muslims in their earl- ext phase, when they still called themselves “Moors,” were as apolitical as the Black Jews and Copties. In fact, the Moors exhibited even a hyperintensifcation of one of the apolitical features of these sects, that is, of the magic- cult There was as among the Black Jews a procession of prophets, beginning with Noble Drew Ali, preaching the same type of doctrine about the need for the so-called sor Variety and Dissent Within Negro Leadership [Negro to recover his true name in order to recover his powers, the same preoccupation with disease and poison ‘0x8 foods, The main beliefs of the Moors, for example, as summarized in Fauset's description, were as follows Before you can have a God, you must have a nationality [Noble Drew Ali gave his people «nation (Morvero). There i no Negro, black, colored, or Ethiopian—only “Asti of Moor American ‘The name means everything, by taking the Asiatic’ name from him, and elling him Negro, black, colored or Ethioplan, the Kuropean sipped the Moor of hit power, his authority, Is God, and every ether worthwhile possession ‘The Moors, to be sure, immediately got into difcuties withthe police in Detroit, but this seemed to be due less to their antiwhite militancy than to the fact that they were suspected of practicing human sscifice. But one has only to compare the account of the Moors as given by Erdmann Beynon, significantly called "The Voodoo Cult among Negro Migrants in Detroit,” with the accounts of the Black Muslims of Lincoln and Essien-Udom to see what a vast change his occurred. In Beynon's paper there is hardly a shred of evidence to suggest that they could ever be a political fore, anything other than an erratic but interesting sect for uprooted people.” Now the more developed “Muslims” preserve all the features of the earlier myths, including the following doctrine: ‘The socalled Negzo i a blood descendant of the original ‘man, Who is better knowing of whom we are than Cod him Sa? He has declared that we are descendants of the Asian Black Nation and af the tbe of Shabaze which came with108 ‘The Black Jews of Harlom the earth when a great explosion divided the earth and the ‘moon sins tion years ago" Nonetheless, in analyzing the pronouncements of the in- tellectuals who have become spokesmen for this move ‘ment, particularly those who travel around the country talking on college campuses, one gets the striking im- pression that these intellectuals believe no more in this Selence fiction than do their audiences, because among other things they hardly refer to it in serious discussions ‘with educated people. They have the same aversion to the name Negro with which we have been familiar this far, and on the grounds that it is a humiliating, non national, racial designation, evolved in slavery and im- posed on them by whites. Nonetheless, one has a strong {impression that what they zeally want to be called is not s0 much "Muslin" as black men, and that they are gradu- ally preparing the way to drop the irrationalites in the ect altogether including, perhaps, the identification as Muslims" Thus a kind of “stratification” in doctrine has emerged, the original name-magic for the primarily old ‘and uneducated, onto which has been superimposed a thoroughly secularized doctrine about the condition of the Negio, its causes and its cure, for those who are younger and more educated. I is certainly on the basis ff the latter that they have been able to augment their membership. ‘This doctrine, when clearly isolated from the mythologi- cal elements that are primarily for internal consumption, is a reworking of Garvey's basic thesis that racial rela- tions are & state of war but focused upon a domestic ‘American contest, Its main tenets are that the Negro in 108 Variety and Distent Within Negro Leadership America is looked down upon as an inferior race—as proved by the fact that whites do not want to itermarry with them. But the Negro, because of all those features of huis history which caused him to be regarded and to regard himself as a “race,” that is, e “non-white,” fels inferior. ‘Ths he i inwardly enslaved toa belief in white superor- ty, that white is good and black is bad, of which the most superficial manifestation is the preference in the Negro world for the white physical model itselt—the dis- dain for kinky hair, the very term “good” hair, the esteem for light skin color, the “blue-vein” societies, and so on. ‘As such he secretly desiees to be white, which leads him to value acceptance by whites as something good in it self. More than this, to the extent that he tiesto delude himself with the view that he is no diferent from any ‘other American, he comes even to demand this acceptance ‘as aright. But the more he demands i, the lst he wil be respected; for over and above the fact that whites will still look at him as a Negie is the fact that people will not respect those who have no self-respect. The Muslim solution to this diagnosis of the Negro’s psychological problem is that the Negro, inthe face of this opinion, should tuen his back on white society, form Is own community from which he excludes whites, and as such recdver his independence and self-respect. Whites are not allowed to visit meetings of the Muslims and intermarriage is ground for immediate exclusion from the sect. What is more, the Muslims have spoken out agenst the mass sit-ins in restaurants and stores, contend- ing that the Negro in so doing is merely foreing himself {nto-a place where he ean spend maney to make a whiteuo The Black Jous of Harlem ‘man richer** The question of whether they think it is right that Negroes be excluded from public institutions 1s not raised in a dialectical manner in the kind of dis: cussions they conduct. Apart from the mythology, which fs similar enough to that of the Black Jews and Copties to make it unnecessary to go into details, the life within the sect is sustained in the frst instance by speeches about the injustice of the white, the weakness of the white, and eventual black supremacy in both the United States and the world. The Muslims, as indicated above, have prudently refrained from committing themselves to Any program requiring immediate results. Another im- portant element, in fact the quintessentially secularized tlement in their altogether secuarized doctrine, is thelr ‘explicit attack om the pariah notion that inthe next world the last will be fst and the first will be last. To this the Muslims say that the world is “this world” This attack distinguishes them very much not only from ecstatic re ligion of the Holiness type but ao from the other na- Lonalistic religious socts such as Black Jews who, while sharing with the Muslims the aversion to extreme emo- tionalism in worship, have by no means gone this far. All in all, then, the Muslims stand for the view that the Negro is at least as good as the white, not because he {sa man too and as such equally entitled to the same rights enjoyed by whites but, rather, because he is black ‘and black is good. The loge of thele doctrine has the in- tention of catapulting the Nogro upward onto a plane where he no longer feck it necessary to disprove to him- self the old ideology’ used to justify slavery, that is, that the shves were not fully human, His new-found self am Variety and Dissent Within Negro Leadership esteem at least seeks to put him above the very need to acknowledge this opinion. As stated above, this is achieved in this sect by hammering away at the theme that the Negro throughout his whole history in the United States hhas been plagued by a feeling of inferiority, and by a iltant antiswhitism centering. around the theme that Whites are enemies and cannot be trusted and hence simed at dissolving the confidence which the Negro has fn the white man, SelP-hate in this sect seems to be cor- rected primarily by hatred of others. This distinguishes the sect not only from Zionism but also from Garveyism which with all its antiwhitism—much of the same as is to he found in this sect—nonetheless had in its majestic political goal a basis of self-sufficient pride that tran- sccnded mere hatred of whites. Thus the militaney of the Black Muslim seems to be founded on a very self-conscious ‘orientation to the opinion of whites aftr all It would be a serious mistake to minimize the potency ‘oftheir outlook, even with these qualications, in creating 4 feeling of independence from white society. The Black Muslims claim that the Negro is “brainwashed,” “men- tally dead,” and their antiwhitism may indeed have the effect that they seek in its use as a kind of “counter brainwashing” But it would be a much more serious mis: take to disconnect the antiswhitism, which i entizely verbal, from thei attempts to lay the basis of sel-sulf- éeney, aot merely by means of a mythology but by the construction of a moral community, in activities and in- stitutions, in which a Negro can trust another Negro ‘And, indeed, as Essen-Udom reports it, the Muslims be- Tiove that “accepting the idea of total separation of theua ‘The Black Jous of Harlem races aids the Negro in ridding himself of the belief that the whites ae solely responsible, and are to be continually Iheld responsible for the Negro’s “degradation and mis- cries?” In shor, to their proposal that the Negro turn his back on white society, they offer him, so to speak, somewhere worthwhile 9 0. The “social” work of the Muslims is not unlike that of the Black Jews although itis much more extensive. Their ‘educational institutions, for example, the various “Uni verstes of Islam,” are fulltime projects. They do not want their children to attend the public schools because they do not want them to be exposed to the “white-man's history.” The sect not only aims in general at the same type of remoralization as do the Black Jews but has in addition sought reerults among ex-riminals and even feonviets As one can imagine, the rules are somewhat Stricter and more comprehensive than in the other sects. Men are searched for weapons before they enter the “temples.” Forication is ground for dismissal from the sect for one year. The separation of the sexes in their temples and schools is severe and is more self-consctously connected with this problem than it is among the Black Jews where they are following Jewish custom. (The lat ‘ter also do not require this separation except during the Sabbath services.) Even ertis of the sect admit that they ate able to control “vice” But as Essien-Udom has pointed fut, the Muslim attitude toward sex, which i an inter tating clue to their whole outlook, is by no means one ‘imply of prudery. Its rather part of a forceful attempt to compel both Negro men and women ofthe lower classes to cease looking atone another through the eyes of whites. a Variety and Dissent Within Negro Leadership A quotation fom an Interview be tes mes tis per fety clea: “Islan makes you npprecite blak wornen Tez my sk wen y ewig th ny te nes 8 most highs degree [Tis apts most ieatatie een noes aie tops omen te tt dnd ch pts Sn wool Bt trae a quer if Ite fo teat her ney and respect ve yan respec, Now we tu othe ral imovaton ofthe sec. This is ts dcon to roa fa the sams and ovata fe inks very mi. Tho sect, wich by vite of iss at cvidenty «god deal fetal tsps, has bought td ebb sm housing bwered et, an pas to erect community centr In way the Musi have tn fact anowored thr chim fortron stony. Te 1 he Negro scion ofthe ct rom which they camot catily escape and which they intend to mak valeNEGRO NATIONALISM AND. THE SOLUTION TO ‘THE NEGRO PROBLEM 1 Tie pnanrous cxarten I sketched some key phases of [Negro protest leadership. This culminated in a discussion ‘of a miltanty anti-whit, nationalistic sect which enunc ates 2 doctrine of radical withdrawal from white society as a solution to the Negro problem. In this final chapter 1 shall deal with the impact that this nationalism might Ihave on Negro opinion and Negro leadership in the im- mediate future, As may readily bo imagined, Negro s0- ity (white socioty, too) is baffled, embarrassed, even afraid of this nationalism, For a group of Negroes them- selves to assert a policy of apartheid and to achieve, more- ‘over, some success with it seems to threaten to overtur, the apple cart. Its not surprising that many students of the Black Muslims, as of the Garvey movement before this, have attempted to “explain them away” as a funda- ‘mentally irrational phenomenon. As they ste this move- ‘ment, i is, indeed, an understandable response to racial discrimination but one which will disappear when dis us 115 Negro Nationaliom-Solution to the Negro Problem crimination disappears and the Negro is completely inte arated into American society." ‘One may easily grant the correctness ofthis conclusion and yet stil maintain the following reservation: in an 4 priori manner it wholly excludes from serious consider tion the possibility that there may be some validity and ‘importance in the insights which the Muslims and the Kindred sects might have about the causes of difiulties which the Negro has in being integrated into American society. Given the outward shell of the doctrines they proclaim, itis, of course, not hard to understand the dis- {nclination to look beneath it. It hardly needs emphasls that few thoughtful people would regard as a solution to the Nogro problem a doctrine that ties to solve an in- feriorty complex by hate, which if acted upon seriously would lead to a racial war that the Negroes would lose and which, in addition, ests upon a palpable mythology that no one—even in the seets—does not see through in Some way. When I asked the leader of the Black Jews, for example, what he thought of the Black Muslims, he replied, They are just Negroes who don't want to admit that they're Negroes.” ‘The question that thus arises is whether beneath or above the surface of the ideology there is some rational apprehension of the broad position of the Negra in Amer {ca which makes sense and which, when separated from the racist and apocalyptic elements of the ideology, might impinge upon Nogro opinion on this rational level. Now fn seeking to understand the issues in the rational dis- cexssions which might emerge, we may recall the thesis that has been the point of departure for this analysis, Be-6 ‘The Black Jous of Harlem ‘cause of legal segregation, the idea of a voluntary Negro ‘community as a need and, hence, a legitimate concern of ‘American Negroes disappeared from respectable discus sion. $o long as Negro life was faced by compulsory, ex- ternlly imposed. segregation, every movement toward the formation of a self-respecting voluntary community that would be the social matrix of the Negro's own im- pulses toward self-improvement was throttled, The ob- jective legal situation brought into being an atmosphere that suppressed the distinction between a compulsory ‘hotto and a voluntary community, for there was, indeed, no choice. As stated earlier, Booker T. Washington was perhaps the one important Negro leader whose program for the Negro embraced the goals of both a voluntary community and civie equality and who clearly saw the interdepen- dence between these aims. We recall his statement in his open letter to the State Constitutional Convention of Louisiana that the permanent disfranchisement of the Negro on a caste-ike basis would “tie the white citizens of Louisiana to a body of death.”* His program, which began almost twenty years before Plessy v. Ferguson, demanded and depended, frit legitimacy within Negro sodlety, upon a political fabric in which the attainment of qualifications would be followed by the attainment of fective rights. When his program was carried on after this political fabric collapsed, the autoemancipatory ele- ments became discredited as "Uncle Tom-ism.” In this process of disereditation, the two goals of his program split into two extremes and have remained, more or les, in this condition to this very day. These extremes are a LIT Negro Nationalism-Solution to the Negro Problem Aoctrinare individualism on the one hand, linked to an assimilationist theory in terms of which the existence of a Negro community ean be described only as “a patho- logical form of an American community,” and an equally octrinaire nationalism of anti-assimilationism which re- ppudiates hope for real civie equality and, hence, any rational political preoccupation with this goal? The classic example ofthe fist is stil the point of view pt forth in Myrdal’s American Dilemma. Myrdal, be- inning his massive work in 1957, looked at the Negro problem, as did many other publicspirited students, within a horizon bounded completely by the post Plessy collapse, Within this horizon the fact of legal segregation was the irreducible point of departure for the analysis of the entire Negro problem, From this point of view, the Negro problem, as Myrdal could say, was not a Negro's problem but a white man’s problem, for the Negro’s poi tion is really determined by the opinions and actions of whites If whites think that Negroes are inferior, then [Negroes will bohave so to conform to this expectation. If whites elevate their opinion of Negroes, or, as Myrdal ‘Pus it, “Tor some reason” mitigate their prejadice, then the behavior of Negroes will change to correspond with these new opinions, and whites will see Negroes in a new light which wil bo the basis of accepting Negroes as soctal equals if not of complete assimilation’ From this point of view the really retionary element is the Negro who does not demand integration because he profits from seg- regation. As mentioned earlier, these might be incom- petent Negro functionaries who have a guaranteed clien- tele so long as segregation exists. Without questioning the118 ‘The Black Jous of Harlem fact that such private motivations cam and do exis, it fs nonetheless interesting to polnt out that the only primary tole that the Myrdal thesis ean assign to Negroes them- selves inthis proces isthe one of obstruction. In a positive direction, that is, toward greater Integration oF assimila- tion, he can demand change, he can adapt to change; but ‘he change must be initiated by whites. The basi changes, as conceived of in the Myedal thesis, from which the changes in the white evaluation of a Negro as a person fare expected to flow, are by and large formal or imper- sonal changes with regard to legal and political equality and equality of opportunity in employment, Myrdal ac- tually says that the original change can as easly be change of Negro standards as of white prejudice But the examples he gives of these standards are family in: ‘comes, standards of nutrition, housing, health, and edu- tation which, as he himself asserts, derive from oppor tunities in employment, If there Is any doubt as to which, in his view is the primary lever of social change, his statement in another context makes this perfectly clear “Teis thus the white majority group that naturally deter- mines the Negro's ‘place.’ All our attempts to reach seien- tie explanations of why the Negroes are what they are and why they live as they do have regularly led to de- terminants on the white side of the race line. ‘One may grant the political truth of this point of view at a time when primary facts were segregation statutes made by white legislators which could be declared uncon- ‘titutional only by white jadges. But looking at this thesis lalmost a quarter ofa century later, one can hardly avoid ecing what it does to radicalize the Negro’s temporal 19 Nesro Natlonaisn-Solution to the Negro Problem dependence upon a speciic set of white determinants ‘to a universal. To the extent that this theory, which ‘was given its form by the existence of segregation statutes, still has a hold in Negro opinion, it has the effect of cor. roding any civic spirit among Negroes on behalf of a Negro community. Tt almost, so to speak, enjoins de- pendence upon white society. The effect of this has been ‘well described by Mr. James Wilon, who soes the power ofthis theory as one of the causes of the phenomena he Provident Hospital, an allNepo instttion in Chic wich filed to overBowing with Negroes Seeking medical Aid has great dfn budge ad mu rly heaiyon white hart. The Jot Newo Appeal, erpanizol to help suppor welfare soviet in the Negro community cx eles et dilly i rain $95000 fom ‘comment 17300 people, The local branch of the NAACY has unth tecenly been unable to create and sstin even a modes Stal {worker to deal with the probes whlch tat ergniation ‘temps to nt on The Un Leste wi foe about fry ers Ine vd ae sev fo Neos hh m0 ‘ther agency otlered, could not n'a typi yar i the ve trae S000 fom Negroes stb Content budget which was fed at between $50,000 and $0000" A though ‘perhaps 000 Negro, avyers lve in" Chicago, the NAACP can arly al more than ree or four win sl nt fn the work of providing lg dees for Negroes Who are the ci of ral panectin. Despite te fc tht Newors tamer abut one ofthe ttt poplation of Chica att fave in thar midst ope of the ost powerfl and ‘wel ganized pole machines inthe Unted Sate, thane ‘ace problems rarely recele lelatve testes even ds gui fm gern autotie. No eecive fr em ‘Sloment practices act ext, medal services ergy Sg feented, and the bowing market ty based on stony Tac) ‘eres1 ‘The Bleck Jews of Harlem This radicalization of the idea of dependence, to the point where it legitimates civic apathy (at least for any other purpose than the self liquidation of the Negro com- ‘munity is one of the two principal elements in the doc- trinaire individualism that emerged in the reaction to legal segregation. The other i its conception that the Negro problem will be solved by intermarriage and ultimate absorption of the Negro as an individual. This thesis ‘obviously nourished by powerful sentiments of opposition torial bigotry. But beyond this itis also guided by what {it regards as the objective view that there is no rational reason why the Negro in America should remain a Negro Stripped of his African heritage, he has no culture, r= ligion, language of his own that has not been acquired from whites, He has nothing pre-American in his culture. (One could say that he isthe quintessential American; and Myrdal could account for whatever differences there are in the ways of Negroes and whites by looking at the Ne- ‘groes as “exaggerated Americans.” (The possibility that ‘whites in some respects may be exaggerated Negroes plays, as one may suspect, no part inthis doctrine.) More than this, it would be alleged that the American Negro is racially so heterogeneous that the term American Negro not even a clearcut racial category. Moreover, given the fact that in the United States anyone is socally defined as & Negro who openly admits to Negro desoent—and the ‘proportions are unimportant will follow that there are many “so-alled” Negroes who are biologically white 'A more important point, however, for the assmllatonist thesis is the primary fact of the cultural tabula rasa, On this bass iti posted that there can be no natural obsta- seg msi bo eve mm 121 Negro Nationalism-Solution to the Negro Problem les or resistances to assimilation with whites from within the Negro world because it is dependent upon the white world for its standards and values. Whatever obstacles there are lie primarily inthe racist antipathies and preju- dices of whites, There are, to he sure, class diferences or educational differences within each race which would make for selective association across racial lines much as they would within them, Where there are no class ot ed: ‘ational differences, there are no cultural differences that are due to race alone. Where social backgrounds are the same, any obstacles to association lie in fear, prejudice, @ state of mind—primaily of whites, but also of ‘Negroes sho react defensively to the prejudices of whites by avoid {ng contact with whites, From this follows the social im: portance on the one hand of propaganda or indoetrination asa means of eadieating prejudice and on the other hand ‘those actions which induce or even compel people to get close enough to one another so that they can see that there are in fat no cultural obstacles to association 1 think there can be very litle seientifle clarity in the study of race relations without recognizing the fact that assimilation, in the radical sense of biological absorption, fs the solution to the Negro problem, as hypothetical ax this may be. If Negroes could be absorbed, that is, if there were no Negroes, there would be no Negro prob- Jem, Its also important to point out that a state can regu- Inte marriage, such as, for example, in setting a minimum age limit. In so doing it may find it necessary to conform to prevalent opinions as to who may marry whom, such 1s the opinions against polygamy and incest. Nonetheles, Jaws and opinions against interracial marriage are as muchie The Black Joe of Harlem an absidgment of eivie equality that is derived from the equality of natural rights of man as isthe presence of any ‘other racial eategory in publ But to sce that biological assimilation is the theoreti «ally elegant solution to the Negro problem is one thing To think that this goal can be brought about by acting directly toward it is another thing which rests on an error of historical fact. It overlooks the fact that assimilation, as a social polly for absorbing culturally and ethnically differentiated minorities into the "host" society, was aimed at peoples who had a choice within their own powers whether to assimilate or not. The Jews are the classi ease In point. From their own point of view their history in the diaspora has been a constant strugle to guard against the temptations placed in their way by the non-Jewish ‘world to give up and become part of the nations. One thas merely to remind oneself of the social privileges in periods of religious persecution that religious conversion ‘would supply. But the situation continued throughout the post-Elightenment period. In erucial respects en lightening despots sich as Napoloon imposed citizenship ‘upon the Jews who did not want it because st meant the destruction of their corporate communal Ife and their {involvement in concer which secularized them and thus ‘weakened their attachment to the ancestral ways. Thus in both periods the privileges of full citizenship were a ‘held out for those who were willing to assimilate and to pay, as it wore, the price of giving up the bass of their minority existence. The situation of the Negroes in Brazil is not fundamentally dissimilar, There the African and pagan culture survived. And there too if the Negro cape gal 413 Negro Nationalm-—Solution to the Negro Problem were only willing to give up his language and seligion and become Christianized, Europeanized, the way was ‘open to high social mobility as well as to intermarage (which ought to be seen, theoretically, as interdeper dent)? He could in fact cease being a "Negro,” the term used in Brazil only for unasinilated blacks ‘The American Negro manifestly has not had this choice. Paradoxically the absence of an African heritage, the fact that in a way the American Negro is less of an immigrant than any other group including the American Indians, has made it not easier but more dificult for him to be sssimilated—as the contrast with Brazil makes immed ately evident. For without this choice, which would give the Negro an objective hasis of showing his reluctance to assimilate except on his own terms and where he chooses, the white, no matter how wildly and with what paranoid fears he may exaggerate this, ses the Negro as completely dependent upon him and wanting to fasten ‘upon him like a starfish, At least from the whites point of view there is no psychological equality between the white tnd the Negro. And jest as this imbalance can distort, Tull, or mutilate love between two individuals, so can it do the sume between the races taken together as wholes Is it any surprise that the Black Jews and the Black Mus- lims have responded to all this with antiwshite invective? But leaving aside these psychological subtleties, let us simply remind ourselves of the social obstacles to in- termartiage and of the fact that while intermarriage is ‘increasing, itis stil statistically insignificant and outside the big cites inthe North practically unheard of. Why so? In the fist instance, one might cite prejudice and I would7 The Black Jews of Harlem include people's desire to have their children resemble them, Beyond this I would also note the point of view (of whites who have no particular taboos, certainly no lsinelination to having extramarital sex relations with Negroes but who are unwilling to bring into the world children who will be Negroes and who will therefore have less freedom than they thernselves possess. To allthis the proponents of the assimilationst thesis might argue that if more people were to intermarry, then the presence of interracial families would shock people out oftheir preju- dices, cause them to become habituated to the normality of tis arrangement, which in turn would bring about an augmentation of the number of intermarriages. However, it should also be mentioned that if the number were rapidly to vise in the immediate futur, prejudices might be shocked in a way which would not disolve them but strengthen them, But to raise some additional problems, would note first of all that from brief observation of {interracial families in Chicago, as contrasted with chil less mixed marriages, they really feel at home in society ‘composed primarily of other interracial families and are not absorbed into either white or Negro society. Is this formation of a curious kind of ghetto really assimilation? Te is not unlike the situation of those social circles in prewar central Europe composed mainly or exclusively of baptized Jews. More important, assimilation, even if it worked, would be a long-term process, beyond the fore seeable future. But what the Negroes want i & greater degree of equality and respect now. Are they to be asked to wait for such historical and sociological predictions about a farof future to work themselves out? More in: cots beh il oe 185 Negro Nationaliom-Solution to the Negro Problem. Portant than even this is the fact that when the entire question is looked at from the standpoint of the present, that is, within the framework of an acting man, asinila tion as an aim, suggested by certain legalistie approaches to race relations, does not salve the problem of the psy- chological imbalance. The Negro still remains, or is forced willy-nilly by this legalism to present himself as @ peti- tioner. He remains in the humiliating position of asking whites to accept him, want him, like him, And to drop ‘once and for allthis wioiterie about intermarriage, what this imbalance relly destroys is the bass of mutual respect and evil contact between equals. So much for the doctrnaire individualism that has been ‘one of the two extreme positions brought into being by the post Plessy collapse. The other has been the doctrinsire nationalism that has ranged from Garvey to the Black Muslims. This has reasorted the idea of comunity but with an antiswhite militancy that puts it out of range of the charge of “accommodation.” The Black Muslims have been called many things but hardly “Unele Toms.” The {common theme binding together this stream of protest i the view that the Negro will never get civie equality in ‘white man’s country and that to gain respect he must either leave it, separate himself within i, or dominate it Just as the fist position, fr all its tendencies toward self Aeprecition, held sight ofa crucial need and right of the American Negro, so does this second stream of protest, for all its bittemess, similarly have a grasp upon some im. portant needs of the Negro. To the fact that the Negro does not have a moral community, they have asserted that this is so because the Negro is not committed to being a138 ‘The Black Jeus of Harlem Nogeo and tat it within the Negr’s own powers to reeover his pie, But they have renponded not with Community but with avec, To the fact ht the Nego feats dependent upon white standards of approval they hve ated the pyeoloi and mor nporance of mar self sly and independence. But they have repnded with wsetnent and cunteraim. Yea Nog tardy fee be fee les re to stain i Ini than awit person dos to blckenhimsel nthe Sen? Finally, othe fact that the Nego dos not have ele of his own, they have serie the dadvantage to whch chs pus the Neo, But then thee respons if Invent cule proclaiming a Sti sent. palm ths facing Negro letdership nthe ftare sswtiler tan on naan! he to ale {moral comment and civic equality that have een equated it tee two extreme: Only in ths way can femutely arn smethng rom the exptene of the Stonalst steam of pote. Specially, the question fing the Negro is whether e can develop apy which treognis Ce facts Fist only through te forma tim of «vont community thatthe Negro ean be a= Silat and hit the Hind of interac’ sconsoumes proce bythe pycholgil inane dicued above Mrouk! dlmih Second, the commaity be a Tolutary one, this ingles that the Negro mate feo Wb leave but freedom ofthis sr tat based on Coment, tobe eetv, must be execbed with ‘Siroraint Final, ia community ito bea gnune community, must possess some, ais of ward. > Nesom, something approving tre” which an 187 Negro Nationaism-Solution to the Negro Problem Seends mere race-consciousness. In short, the Negroes, f they are to acquire equality in more than merely a legal sense but in the sense of equal respect, must transform themselves into a people with sufficient pride so that they will be wooed. White society can and indeed must play 4 crucial role in sustaining the kind of fabric which in aiving the Negro relief from public indignity and in- justice would support a voluntary community. But the primary role in allthis must be played by Negroes them. selves. This flows from the fundamental fact that the self sulficiency which isan element in genuine pride can never be acquired merely from opinions of another or of oneself, ‘but depends, rather, upon objective achievements. Unless the standards of excellence or craftsmanship are present 1s controling criteria in the kind of life one wants to lead, the quest for self-respect could crumble into “other directed” vanity or resentment on the one hand or “inner. directed” delusions of grandeur on the other hand. ‘We conclude with a brief notation of some general de- tails On the level of social action the broad problem is ‘the manifestation by Negroes to themselves that they have some responsibilty for and some power to control the life in their own communities, This obviously. les within limits posed by the fact that a community ofthis sort does not and will not posses economic or politcal autonomy. Negroes, for example, no amore than the mu: nicipalities as a whole in which they live, cannot control the problem of who and how many in-migrants are com: ‘ng to the city from other parts of the country. Mr. ‘Muhammad of the Black Muslims could instruct one of his sectarian, whose relatives had recently moved ia from138 ‘The Black Jows of Harlem the South, to tell them that they would have to leave his apartment as they were overcrowding it and disturbing, his own family life which was his primary responsibility ‘This simple and tough solution to demographic problems, whatever one may think of it is hardly feasible for a community as a whole. But within the limits set by the fact that a community docs not possess the autonomy which only a sel-governing country has, the problem is to find those interstitial spheres where some latitude for autonomous civie action is possible. Urban redevelopment, with egard not merely to public but also to private hous- ing developments and the problem of securing upgraded levels of employment are two spheres where Negro leader- ship could evoke effort toward badly needed goals and jn a manner which makes clear the legitimate interde- pendence between the Negro community and the rest Of society, While a voluntary community is humiliated by imposed segregation which has the effect of keeping. it at the status of a compulsory ghetto, the apprehensions of whites that Negroes moving into an area will “take it over” is connected not merely with irrational fear but with the knowledge that Negroes do not have an equiva Tent choice in a Negro district. The redevelopment of Negro physical communities and the disappearance of barriers to the Negro's residential mobility woukd thus ‘mutually reinforce each other in a positive way. By the same token the existence of job celings which exclude ‘Negroes who have made the effort to acquire qualifications for skilled jobs poisons the whole atmosphere of Negro society by making them lok like fools in the eyes of those ‘who are too demoralized to make efforts, The effect of 189 Negro Nationaiom-Soluton to the Negro Problem ‘exelusionist practices is thus toring into prominence the voice within Negro society of the demoralized and the ‘esteem of those who are aired by’ tis statin that is, those with "ashy" money and with power based on “shady” activities within the Negro world, such as poliey kings, The disolution of this stratifiation is thus « most ‘urgent prerequisite for the formation of a Negro com: ‘munity and, since Negroes cannot work in an independent [Negro economy, one which calls forthe exertion of every form of moral, legal, and political pressure and even economic power as Negroes discover what they collec tively possess in these respects. But then this imposes duties upon Negro leadership to contol the problem of drop-outs in high school and the whole problem of urban demoralization. These two things, once again, can only go Thand in hand, But what of the inwardness binding such # community? Can the Negro possibly have a culture? We have seen in tho case ofthe secs.where the quest for a culture can lead, which is as much to confiem the view thatthe, Negro has no culture or traditions of his own and that every effort to assert the contrary can lead him only to an absurd mystique of one sort or another. But implicit in the view that the Negzo has no culture is the conception of culture as essentially focused upon a distinctive ve- ligion, taking shape within a distinct and autonomous political entity, im a society with its own distinctive lan ‘guage, all comprising an organie whole. Ths is, in short, a cealture of a people or a folk, which may well be the ‘original meaning of the term “colture”-which of all terms in the social selentist’s vocabulary has certainly expe100 ‘The Black Jews of Harlem ‘enced the greatest degree of evisceration, In this sense ‘of the term, the Negra has no culture of his own; but then neither do many other people in the twentieth cen: tury whose “cultures” are penetrated by cosmopolitan science and technology, ideologies, political ideas. The ‘question that then arises is whether the Negro, though lacking a culture in this sense or something) that is derivative from such a culture, still posesses some eal tural elements in common that are suficiently distinctive to be able to give him the basis for some kind of inner co- Tresion. The argument that the Negro lost his Afrkean culture and, hence, has nothing which is not derivative from or dependent upon white culture is ultimately mis leading. For what this point of view does is to elevate the importance of the genesis of something to such « de agree that it loses sight of the importance of the result. Granted that the Negro began his experience in this ‘country in complete subordination to the white man’s Janguage and ideas, this has not prevented him from interacting with this out of his experience in his genuinely ‘unique situation to produce, if not a culture, a style that {shis own, It comes through in the very way in which the nationalistic sects deny that they are Negroes, When the Black Muslims say, “Tt i not the Negroes but the whites ‘who are a race because the whites are racing with time, this selected conjunction of irelevancies to make up some- ‘thing which {snot at all irelevant is something that no white could do or do well wnlss he learned how from & Negro. There are such things as Negro ways. The psy- chological problem of the Negro in America, however, is thatthe mere assertion of this fact eases the specter of 181 Negra Nationaliom Solution to the Negro Problem racism. One has only to utter the term “Negro mentality” to sce where the mater really stand. Mr, James Baldwin, in « provocative article, has stated that the Negro, out of his situation, i the only ane in America who sees the truth behind the myths that white men believe and as such has a moral contribution to make to the perfection of his country.” Perhaps, But what he fails to say is that the Negro has lost the self-confidence to see the truth about himself. I say lst rather than never possessed because I believe Washington, who was at home with plantation Negroes and their humor as well as with educated Negroes and whites throughout the world, and who was altogether proud to be a Negro, possessed this. But the sear lft by the letdown has been reat, indeed, Out ofthis has come a loss of his capacity to turn inward, to reflect on his experience without re- sentment, and even to suspect that he may have something worthwhile of his own to hold onto. Yet, until this is clarified, how can a Negro decide with selfxespoct what tne should assimilate to? White standards, but which ones? Perhaps he might become aware of the fact that there fare certain standards he holds valuable which white men for all men might adopt. Precisely how this inward re- ‘orientation is to be brought about and what would be the result is something the Negro will have to find out for ‘himself because itis «thing that only he ean do, 1 would call i a creative reinterpretation of his experience that ‘ould lead to some kind of creative discovery [As has been stated throughout this whole analysis, the role of white society in sustaining the kind of social and political fabric that would support the Negeo's quest for12 The Black Jous of Harlem self-respect is indispensable. The essence of this fabric is what I would call an open alliance between those ‘whites and those Negroes who stand for excellence or the spirit of craftsmanship. I do not beliove this would bring into existence in the practical future @ society that would be as blind to the mere fact of color as would its Const tution and public law. But it would bring about a situation in which color was subordinated to qualifcations. The active recognition of the obligation imposed upon whites to enable and to encourage Negroes to pursue these with dignity would be the repayment of the unpaid debt the United States owes the Negro, who was, indeed, as the Black Jews correctly say, robbed of his sele-respeet. But in a fundamental sense he can only recover this by him self, And this, I conclude, isthe lesson to be learned from these very strange sects, NOTES 1. E, Franklin Frasier, The Negro in the United States (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1949), p. 87 2. For these details and « good description ofthe phil Biblical and plo Jewish atmosphere of seventeenthcentury England, see Coal Roth, A History of the ews in England, 24 ed. (Orford: Oxford University Pres, 1949), pp. 140, tnd Albert M. Hyamson, A History of the Jews iv England (London: Chatto and Winds, 1908), pp. 164-165. 3. See Cecil Roth, ed, Magne Bibliotheca Anglo-udatea 4 Bibliographical Guide ‘o Anglo-Jewsh History (London: The Jewish Histerical Society of England, 1987) see B. 17 4 See Roth, A History of the Je in England, op. cit, p. 150. 5. Sco Ronald Matthews, English Messiahe (London: Methuen, 1956), pp. 85-136 6. Seo Dens Sart, Blake and Modern Thought (Clasgow: The Dial Pres, 1029), p. 5. Akin to this was the Celtomsnia of the eightoenth century which, going even farther, reversed the whole probles and aseerted that the Patriachs, were Denis 7. Joseph Jacobs, “Anglotsraclism,” The Jewish Encyclo. i, 8. See Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English ‘Speaking Peoples (London: Cassel and Company, 195), Vol 13 i“= 14 The Black Jous of Herlom Tp. 214 A. 8, P, Woodhouse, ed, Purtanom and Liberty (London: Dent, 1838) 8. Frazier, op. et, p. 98. 10, Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South 1877. 1913 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana Stete University Press, 1951), p32 LL Thi, 12. See below, pp. 83, 100 18, Booker T. Washington, The Future of the American ‘Negro (Boston: Small, Maynard and Company, 1902), pp. 1808 14. A statement of Bishop Plummer quoted in Raymond J Jones, A Comparative Study of Relisious Cult Behoior Among Negroes (Washington; Howard University, 1980), p. 103. 1. bid, pp. 100-104, 16, Arthur H, Fauset, Black Gods of the Metropolis Phila alpha: Universty of Pennsylvania Press, 194), p. ST. 17. Ibid, pp. 31-40. 18, See (2. Erie Lincoln, The Black Muslims in Ameria (Bostan: Bescon Pres, 1961), p. 1 1. New York Herald Tribune, April 7, 1947, p 5 +. 1. Edward Ulledoef, The Ethiopians, an Infroduction to Country and People (London: Oxford University Press, 100), pit 2 “Ethiopia” and “Falashas,” Encyclopaedia Britannic, 1947 ed, Jcaues Faitovich, “The Falashas" American Jewish Yearbook (102031), Vol XU, pp. 80-10; "Falashas.” Jewish Encyclopedia 3 Ullendars, op. eit, pp. MME 4 thid, pp: 101, 103, 135 Notes 1. Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma (New York Harper, 194), p. 70 2 See E, Franklin Fazer, The Negro inthe United States (New Yorks ‘The Macmillan Company, 1949), pp. 346, 8. Charles S. Johnson, A Preface to Racial Understanding (New York: Friendship Pres, 1098), pp. 153, 1. See Albert P. Blustein and CC, Ferguson, Deseeregs tion ond the Law (New York: Vintage Book, 192). ‘5 Ibid, p. 58 6 CE Myrdal, op, . 208. "When slavery disappeared, cate remains” 7. Willam Graham Sumner, Fllucays (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1906), p. 77 Hales not inthe original. 8, See Henry V. Jats, Crit of the House Divided (Car den City: Doubleday, 1950), p. 386 9. C. Van Woodward, The Strange Carer of Hin Crow (New York: Galaxy Books, 1957), p. 19. 10. Ibid, p35 LL. W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk (Chicago: McClurg and Co, 1905}, pp, 183185. 12. C. Vann Woodward, Origins ofthe New South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univenity Pres, 1951), p55 18. Booker T. Wathington, Up From Slavery (Garden Clty Doubleday, Page, 110), p. 202 14 Ibi, p10 35. Booker T. Washington, The Future of the American Negro (Boston: Small, Maynard snd Company, 102), p. 158 16. Ibi, p. 148 IT, Washington, Up From Slavery op. et, p- 2. 18. See Woodward, The Sine Career of Tim Crow, op it, pp 4.97, The impression, for example, given by Myrdal op. et, pp. 70.712, among many other writer, that Wash ‘ington started his work after caste had boome a settled fac. ‘They simply filed to sce the fudity and the progress being made in the twenty years between the ead of Reconstruction138 ‘The Black Jews of Harlem and Ply v, Ferguson, Here I believe Mr. Woodward's book ‘contains wholly new insights which the eal students didnot possess 19. Hampton M, Jarell, Wade Hampton and the Negro: The Road Not Taken (Columbia, 8. Cs University of South Carling Press, 1850), pp. 121-124 20, Woodward, Origins of the New South, op. ct, p. 88 21, Washington to Fortune, November 7, 1899, in Booker ‘T, Washington Papers (Division of Manuscript, Library of Congress) as quoted in Woodward, Origin ofthe New South, op. et, p58. 122, See Dull, op. cit, p43. In addition, the most vocal cats of Washington were opposed, if not to capitalism in a “Marist point of view, atleast to capitalist culture and com mercial. To them Washington's emphasis on slf-eiance ‘was rank piistinism; and they had no hesitation in regarding Fis whole program at Tuskegee at sulting the selPintret of Northem businessmen, See DuBois, oc. ct. Soe ako the forceful but historically wild indictment of Washington made by Kelly Mile in Race Adjustment (New York: 1910), pp 1.20 (quoted in Frasier, op. cit, pp. 515546). Certaly ‘Washington in his moderation was much closer to Lincoln ‘than was Frederik Dongle; and Lincoln, contrary #0 Millar’ ‘implication, spoke as seriously about duties In a democracy as hh did about rights ns way the msiunderstanding of Wash ington is curious parallel of the misunderstanding which tok place of Linco, fring fondamentaly from wha is perbaps the same reson; that is, the loss of understanding of what moderation guided by principle relly means, This had for vious reasons diferent results in the Negro and white world In the former Lincoln became an abolitionist, in the Intern ‘opportunist For an interpretation of Lincola which clearly fet out of the dilemma which forces one to cate hin at one ‘ofthese two pole and restores an undentanding of what he really stood fr, see Hany V. Jal, op. ct 13 Notes 23. Claude MeKay, Harlem: Negro Metropolis (New York: E, P. Dutton and Co,, 1940), p. 176 24, See above, p. 8 5S. W. EB. Dubois, Black Folk: Then and Now (New York: Heary Holt, 1980), p vi ‘6. Ibid, pp. 21-23, lies not in the origin 7. Ibid, p92 28. Ibid, p. 98 29, Melville J. Herskovits, The Myth of the Negro Past (New York: Harper, 1912), pp. Sh Frazier, op. cit, pp. SL. Ibid, p. 92. 22. Stanley Elkins, Slavery (Chicago: University of Chi ago Press, 1959), p. 38. ‘3. Ibid, pp. 57-90. 34, Kenseth M. Stampp, The Peellar Institution: Slavery {in the Ante Bellum South (New York: Koop 1956), p. 78. SS. Ibid, p. © 6, Frank Tannenbaum, Slace and Ciison, the Negro én the Americas (New York: Knopl, 1817), pp. 48, 54 ‘St. Stampp, op. eft, p. 14. 38. A good shetch ofthe evolution ofthe racalslave status inlaw isto be found in Frazier, op. ety pp. 22-98. Te cles 2 statement of John H, Russel that the’ year 1682 was “the "per limit ofthe period in which st was possible for Negroes fo come to Virginia as servants and ccquie fredom after a United term.” Ibu, p. 28 "9. South Carolina in 1740 (at did also Georgia and Mis sisipi) ruled that “All negroes, Indians (those now fre ex fepled) --» mulattoes, or mestion, who are or shall hereafter bern the province, and all hee sve and ofspring, orn orto ‘be born, shall be and they are hereby declared to be and re Iain forever heveaftr abrolte slaves and shall fllow the feondition of the mother” Gted In George M. Stroud, A Sketch ofthe Laws Relating to Slavery im the Several States of the United States of Ameria, 24. (Philadelphia: H. Longstet, 1856), pp. 0061 i i18 ‘The Black Jeus of Harlem 40, Gite in Bln and Fergus, op. 4 4 See Semon op p18 18 OF ae 3 ae © Se Samp, op ay 8 44 See stmpp lcucea of inti among ted, pan 1S. See Elin, op, cit, p15 Sc ao Stapp, op oS oy 16. sumyp nts that tn slavery the sven were cr canta pune by the tate for mreing utr sng, See l.'p St Se so Jo Dut dace oO Sate saat of ce nt Caan Ca rutin Toon (Now Ye Untety Pees 1) op oa ‘The at wy of Carey Lama D, Cro, Bk Sone The Soy of Merc Garey an he Unter ge Inproement ation Qn, The Unters oe Oh Fes), ‘8 it p18 {© Sone of Mars Cavey dlered ot Td tte astm Comes of Prop Aan Bod sd Des, = £0, The wom o best no cantina teen te cmiaton pose of ah rei Wr Ne eo Inher nd Edvard Den and he woman Seon We Carey el oe Be mee a ‘onto cn, vey much se ones Si See Gor, op. ay 52. Ss for example, he nection im Myedl op. nt 0, Fran Fra, lick Bowed (New York: The ree Proof Ch, 1879. IS ioe Crono ae 5. Horbat Hil tnd ok Grebe, Cites Gide t Devout: A Stl Sec end Leb Chege St on ie (Benn: Bens Pres, 15559. a So. ie 19 Notes 57. Myzdal, op. alt, p. 814 58, Two thorough studies of the Black Muslims are EU. Essie Udom, Black Nationalism: A Search for an Identity in ‘America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), and C'Eric Lincoln, The Black Muslims in America (Boston Beacon Press 1961). 30. Seo Eidmann D. Beynon, “The Voodeo Cult Among [Negro Migrants in Detroit,” American Journal of Sociology, XLII (May, 1088), S007; Faust, op. ct, pp. 41S. 60. Arthur H. Fauset, Black Gods ofthe Metropolis (Phila: Aelphin: University of Penney Pres, 1964), p. 47 1. Beynon, wid. 2 Lincola, op. elt, pT. 63. Ibid, p. 4 Ibid, p. 20. 665. Essler-Udom, op. lt, p. 112. 65, Mr. Essien-Udom believes that the extent ofthis aspect ofthe sect work, because of is sensational characte, is ex Aggerated out ofall proportion and that the marl tone of the fect infact makes for a slf-seletion among the new rer ‘of people who are inclined toward sellretraint. See Wid, oe. Gr. Thid, p. 89. 1. This, for example, is the conclusion of C. Erie Lincoln, ‘The Black Muslims in America (Boston: Beacon Pres, 1061), pp. 254.55 ‘2 Booker T. Washington, The Future of the American [Negro (Boston; Swall, Maynard and Company, 1902), p. 148, ‘2 CE, Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma (New York Harper, 1944), p. 927. By pathologial, Myrdal meant aot = condition of « Negro community at a partcuar tne or place Dat, athe, ts very existence. Akin to thsi is understanding of race pride es resentment 4 Tid, p. 468. Hi iii| 10 The Black Jes of Horlem 5. Ibid, p. 76 6 Ibid 7 Ibid, p. UL Italie notin original 8. James Q. Wilson, Negro Polis (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1060), p. 5. INDEX OF NAMES 8. Donald Person, Negroes in Breil (Chicago: The Uni versity of Chicago Press, 1912), p. 208. 10. James Baldwin, "Leter freon a Region tw My Mind" The New Yorker, November 17, 1962, pp. 1428. Reprinted in ‘The Five Next Time (New York: The Dial Press, 1963), pp. 1158 Ali Noble Drew, 16h, Baldwin, James, 88,131,140 ben Newnan, lea, 10 5 ‘ben Yomen, Irae, 10 ; Beynon, Erdmann, 107, 1389 Blaustein, Albert P, 135,138, Blydeo, Edward, 198 Boas, Franz, 84 Brothers Richard 3, 6 Cherry, Prophet, 9 Chester, Mary, 2 (Church, Winston S, 198 CGronan, Edm, 108,198 ry Ai rl10 “a Index of Names 1 Dalla, Joho, 198 Douglass, Frederick, 138 DuBois, W. EB, 886,195 Elkins, Stanley, 91, 85,17 Essen-Udom, EU, 10, LL, 198 Faitlovich, Jacques, 4, 194 Fad, W,12 Fauset, Arthur H, 9, 107, 194, 139 Ferguson, CC, 15, 138 Ford, Arnold, 1, «© raver, B. Franklin, 1,7, 14, 138:38 Gabriel, a slave, 1 Garvey, Mares, 116, 64, 83, 85, 88, 97, 99-106, 16S, 11, 114,125,198 Gobineau, JA. Comte de, 85 Gant, Madison, 85 Greenberg, Jack, 138 ale Selassie, 18, 21,51 Hampton, Wade, 77, 136, Herman, Mordesi, 10 Herskovits, Melle J, 87,157 Heel, 101 Ll, Herbert, 138 Jacobs, Joseph, 4, 198 Jaf, Harry V 195 Jarell, Hampton M136 Indes of Names Johnson, Charles S, 63,195, Jones, Raymond J. 9,14 Kaufman 15h, 10 LiEstange, Hamon, 3 Lincoln, Abraham, 65,196 incon, ©, Eri, 107,184 138 MeKay, Claude, 82,137 Matthew, Wentworth A, 1246, 61,101 Matthews, Ronald, 198 Meneli, If, 21 Miler, Kelly, 198 Muhammad, Eijah, 127 Myrdal, Gunnar, 60, 105, 1174, 120,185, 1388. ‘Oates, Governor (of Alabama), 78 Park, Robert, 56 Pierson, Donald, 140 Pins, Leo, 101 humane, Bubop, 8,134 Ripley, W.2, 54 Robinson, Elder, 1 oth, Coc, 133 | Russel John H, 137 ssw, John, 138 eT ——EEE——E——=—E"7 Indes of Names Sours, Dens, 153 Schurz, Simon, 10 Stampp, Kenneth, 92,157 Stroud, Goorge M, 137 Surnne, Wiliam Graham, 66,135 ‘Taney, Chief Justice, 8 ‘Tannenbaum, Frank, 137 ‘Tany, Thomas, 3 ‘Thorowgood, Thomas, 3 ‘Tillman, Ben, 7,85, ‘Terday, E85 ‘Trak, John, 2 Ullendor, Eaward 48,134 ‘Washington, Booker T, 8, 61, 7382, 86, 96, 9, 11, 108, 106, 16, 131, 1348, 108, Webb, Jamer M, 85 ‘Wilson, James Q, 119, 140 Woodward, ©. Vann, 6, 67, 78, 1956.THE BLACK JEWS OF HARLEM Negro Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Negro Leadership By HOWARD BROTZ ‘This perceptive an intriguing Journey ito the lio of an exotic community presents a firsthand sccinnt of the Ingest sect of Negroes who con Sider themselves descendants of the Ethiopian bes and ofthe lest tbes of Ista Dr. rots here Brags us face-to-face with the emits of this seet. He explains ow they’ di erentate theelves from other Negroes, the festent to which they identify with the genera ‘Negro world, and the reasons for thei form apport but lack of entiation wid the Jewish People outside thelr commit. “The author probes beyond beliefs and pea tices nd elas the ie and history ofthis grou tothe maintream of the Ameriean Negiocs quest for community and identity. At the same tine an important contribution is made by place ‘ng this group inside the historical perspective of Avian Jdaistc movements in Protestant, ‘OF gitatestsigneance for all of us at this particlar memnt sn history, wo complementary [als are sen as opposing eachother apolar ‘ation of Negro responses to segregation and ‘cil abuse, ‘At one pole there the ineprssle movement for individ equally in fully integrated siety thcctng 8 ener toward eradeatng ‘ery mane of segregation. Atte the thai quest fora sltespetng Neg com. ‘muni, wich, depeing tty eqully, tee the qu for ntti a math Wishes to seperate it fromthe white wet ot comes lent poo ita inthe ee of he itn atnstc movements, mest oe ty th Hack Muslin The Black feof ei takes ws frst th finding a nt snot nj tents Before the Neg poe ee hates eich are of ope ence he ‘hitefelowcvne aswel I contend tat he ‘oposing gale of wterashet neraon at ‘olor, sclfsspeting community, of whl the ae Jows std the Black sin ae ex oe cnt et he nc ri Yo acheve mot only vc eal It -civie dignity and group pride. ome i ‘ABOUT THE AUTHOR Howard Brte studied atthe Univers of Chi ago and recive is doctors Setlogy fem the London Seta of Eon, He he ght sth nay of Mma dow ches = tg the pst Yen he hes bhoen doing research inthe eld of race slatons fn South Alin He bas pose artes on ainoty groups The meri Journal of Sociology, Pylon, The Jouih Jounal of Se clog, td ce ural