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Black separatism

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Black separatism is a movement to create separate institutions for people

ofAfrican descent in societies historically dominated by whites,

particularly in the United States. Black separatists also often seek a

separate homeland. Black separatists generally think that black people

cannot advance in a society dominated by a white majority.

In his discussion ofblack nationalism in the late nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries, the historian Wilson Jeremiah Moses observes that

"black separatism, or self-containment, which in its extreme formadvocated the perpetual physical separation of the races, usually referred

only to a simple institutional separatism, or the desire to see black people

making independent efforts to sustain themselves in a proven hostile

environment."[1]

Scholars Talmadge Anderson and James Stewart further make a

distinction between the "classical version of Black separatism advocated

by Booker T. Washington" and "modern separatist ideology." Theyobserve that "Washington's accommodationist advice" at the end of the

nineteenth century "was for Blacks not to agitate for social, intellectual,

and professional equality with Whites." By contrast, they observe,

"contemporary separatists exhort Blacks not only to equal Whites but to

surpass them as a tribute to and redemption of their African heritage."[2]

Anderson and Stewart add, moreover, that in general "modern black

separatism is difficult to define because of its similarity to black

nationalism."[2]

Indeed, black separatism's specific goals were historically in flux and

varied from group to group. Martin Delany in the 19th century and

Marcus Garvey in the 1920s outspokenly called for African Americans to

return to Africa, by moving to Liberia. Benjamin "Pap" Singleton looked

to form separatist colonies in the American West. TheNation of Islam

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calls for several independent black states on American soil. More

mainstream views within black separatism hold that black people would

be better served by schools and businesses exclusively for black people,

and by local black politicians and police.

Some individual mainstream black separatists supported anti-

segregationists and integrationists within the African American

community.[citation needed] They generally hold that black people can and

should advance within the larger American society and call on them to

work to achieve that through personal improvement, educational

achievement, business involvement, and political action. Martin Luther

King, Jr., who was a key speaker and leader in the political effort to

overthrow segregation in the 1960s, and Malcolm X, who until May 21,1964 was known as a black separatist from theNation of Islam, may

personify the opposition between the two views.

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