The formation of the Congress of Afrikan Peoples (CAP) in 1970 was an important advance for the Black nationalist movement in the U.S., particularly the cultural nationalist and Pan Africanist sectors of the movement.
CAP united activists and local nationalist organizations into one nationwide organization. CAP cadre chapters did extensive mass work and organizing, with CFUN, now as the CAP-Newark chapter, remaining as the organization’s strongest base of mass activity and struggle. At the same time, CAP continually sought to unify various class forces in the Black movement around the common struggle for Black Power. It played a leading role in efforts to build a broad national Black united front. Through its mass work and united front work, CAP developed as a major and influential force in the Black Liberation Movement.
CAP represented a move to a higher political level from CFUN, to a militant Pan Africanism. It stood for the “liberation of Black people throughout the world, based on Self-determination, Self-respect, Self-reliance and Self-defense.”
As CAP’s work and experience developed and expanded between 1970 and 1974, it more and more consistently saw this struggle as a revolutionary struggle for political power and against imperialism. CAP began to revise the Kawaida doctrine to place it in a more political context and began to criticize some of its more narrow cultural nationalist aspects. CAP also began to understand more deeply the nature and role of classes in the Black Liberation Movement. This came about through a process of drawing lessons from its own experience and in studying various nationalist and African socialist theories, incorporating into its thinking new and more advanced ideas while discarding some of its erroneous ones.
This process ultimately led CAP to recognize in 1974 that Black liberation would only be won through a revolutionary struggle for self-determination and equal rights, led by the multinational working class and its party, as a component part of the struggle for socialist revolution in the U.S.; and that Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought was the only scientific theory for making revolution.
The Congress of Afrikan Peoples was called together initially at a convention of Black nationalists and Pan Africanists in Atlanta, Georgia, on September 6, 1970. This historic meeting was a continuation of the tradition of international gatherings of Pan Africanists, which began with the four meetings called by W.E.B. DuBois and the fifth one in 1945 in Manchester, England, in which the phrase “Pan Africanism” was first put into common circulation. More recently, it was a continuation of the Black power conferences in the U.S.
The 1970 meeting was attended by 3,500 people, including 2,700 delegates representing 220 organizations. It drew its participants mainly from a base of Black nationalist and Pan Africanist forces around the country, and its purpose was to unify them into a nationwide organization. In addition, the meeting was an attempt to forge a broad united front including not only Black nationalist and Pan Africanist forces, but also Black elected officials and leaders of the major civil rights organizations.
The broad united front character of the gathering was seen in the diversity of speakers. They included Hayward Henry, chairman of the National Black Caucus of the Unitarian-Universalist Church, who was elected chairman of CAP at this meeting; Ralph Abernathy, chairman of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC); John Cashin, founder and chairman of the Black National Democratic Party of Alabama; Kenneth Gibson, mayor of Newark; Jesse Jackson, National Director of Operation Breadbasket of the SCLC; Whitney Young, Jr., National Director of the Urban League; Louis Farrakhan, national spokesman for the Nation of Islam; Howard Fuller (Owusu Sadaukai), Director of the Malcolm X Liberation University and also speaking for Stokley Carmichael; Richard Hatcher, mayor of Gary, Indiana; Ambassador El Hajj Abdoulaye Toure, representative to the U.S. from Guinea; Evelyn Kawanza, representative in the U.S. for the Zimbabwe Action group; Raymond Mbala, member of the Revolutionary Government of Angola in Exile (GRAE); Roosevelt Douglas, member of the Organization of Black People Union in Canada; Julian Bond, Georgia state legislator; Imari Obadele, President of the Republic of New Afrika (RNA); and Amiri Baraka, founder and chairman of the Committee for a Unified Newark and soon to be program chairman for the Congress of Afrikan Peoples.
Many of these figures did not actually join CAP since the organization was established out of the congress, but participated in the congress in the tradition of the Black power conferences. Their attendance and support for the congress showed the strength of the nationalist movement in gaining support from diverse sectors of the Black movement generally.
The ideological and political thrust established for the Congress of Afrikan Peoples at the Atlanta convention was to work for the liberation of African people and people of African descent throughout the world. It raised a militant Pan Africanist call and put forth a direction for the Black Power movement, which was defined as having four ends: Self-determination, Self-sufficiency, Self-respect and Self-defense. A founding document of CAP stated:
Self-determination: To govern ourselves rather than be governed by others. That means politically, economically and socially, whatever we see as necessary, we do as a free people. We will therefore build and develop alternative political, social and economic institutions locally, nationally and internationally, viewing each of these levels of activity as part of an organic process each complementing the other.
Self-sufficiency: To provide all the basic necessities for sustenance and growth and survival of our people, i.e., food, shelter, clothing, etc., based on the principle of Ujamaa (cooperative economics).
Self-respect: To build and develop a worldwide revolutionary culture and appropriate values, images and forms that legitimize our thoughts and actions. Only when we have a revolutionary culture that affirms before the world our legitimacy can we respect ourselves.
Self-defense: Acceptance of common sense policy to struggle against those who struggle against us, and to make peace with those who make peace with us.
These Four Ends of Black Power we see not only as the priorities of Africans on the American continent or in the Western Hemisphere, but we recognize these four points as major priorities for Africans all over the world. By direct extension of this reasoning, we move to the position that all Black people are Africans and that as Africans we are bound together Racially, Historically, Culturally, Politically, and Emotionally.[1]
During the four-day session, 11 workshops were held on the subjects of Black technology, economics, education, communications, creativity, community organization, history, law and justice, political liberation, social organization, and religion. These workshops were designed to produce proposals for new “alternative institutions” based on the African value system.
Amiri Baraka led the Political Liberation Workshop that passed the main political resolution and laid out how CAP saw the goals and strategy for the Pan Africanist movement. Baraka put forth the view that the continent of Africa, the “racial, historical, cultural, political and emotional home” of the Afro-American people, must be unified as a continental state, and that a unified and independent Africa would serve as a “power base,” speeding the total liberation of people of African origin all over the world. Eventually Black people in all corners of the globe should work for “International Black Unity,” or the linking of all African nations. In the U.S., Baraka put forward the concept of building a “Black nation” and forming a Black political party as a preliminary organizing vehicle.
The political party we want to set up, that is set up, should be a model for the nation becoming. The Black political party must be an example of how we want the nation to be now, not in the future. We should not live as if we believe what white boy says: that we would never be liberated. We must live on the one hand as if we were liberated people of a high value system; then more Black people will be magnetized to it and the larger our nation becoming will be.
The building of an independent Black political party, or World African Party, was viewed in the context of developing alternative institutions, alternatives to the ones which enslave Black people. A nation was seen as an institution, the party as a “replica, except for the extent of its realized power, of the nation becoming.” It would be a vehicle to create a new Black value system and to actually organize the Black masses to take political power.
In laying forth CAP’s political strategy, Baraka criticized the idea that revolution could be made “instantly” and emphasized the need to go among the masses and organize them at a grass roots level. He stressed the need to become skilled at organizing, saying, “You cannot achieve political power by talking bad to white people. You can only achieve political power by organizing well enough to take political power, and this is the point.” He pointed out that there could be no revolution without the people “because it is the people themselves who are the only ones that have the power to make revolution.” He also criticized as unrealistic those views that called for Blacks to repatriate to Africa or separate to some territory in the U.S. The majority of Blacks in the U.S. will not physically return to Africa, he stated, and though it was possible that the South would be a “strategic battleground” of Africans in America, it was first necessary to raise the political consciousness and organize the people before any such move was possible. Baraka instead called for raising Black political consciousness, organizing first in the cities with major Black populations and in the intensely populated Black rural areas of the South.
In his address to the founding assembly, Baraka also linked the struggle for Black political power directly to the question of the land or territory.
Like Malcolm said, you want some land, look down at your feet. The African concept of who owns the land is who is standing on it. Who uses it owns the land. ... If somebody could sell you the concept of an absentee landlord, you’re really a sucker – they could be on the moon and sell you the land! The land belongs to the people who are standing on it. And if there is enough of you standing on it, you ought to claim it.
The firm revolutionary nationalist orientation was a strength in the Ideological Statement and Baraka’s addresses to the convention and Political Liberation Workshop. Baraka expressed clearly the aim of the newly forming organization to mobilize and organize the Black masses to win political power through revolutionary struggle. The goal of self-determination articulated the demand of the Black masses to govern themselves. The concept of Pan Africanism was an expression of the unity of the Afro-American people’s struggle with the liberation movements on the African continent. And the idea of building a Black political party was an attempt to organize at a higher level, unifying the various Black nationalist and Pan Africanist organizations to establish a unified presence.
The idea that Blacks should build a “World African State” was one dominant trend of thinking in the Pan Africanist movement. It had a revolutionary content in opposing the imperialist and colonial enslavement of Africans and people of African descent and calling for independence. But it was idealist in calling for the formation of a single state overreaching geographic and historically constituted boundaries. The idea of “nation-building” was also prevalent in the national movement. It arose from the fact that Black people were forged as a distinct nation in the Black-belt South and an oppressed nationality elsewhere in the U.S., and that their national rights and demands are denied under the capitalist system.
The idea that Blacks have a distinct national identity and must build a movement for national liberation was revolutionary. The weakness in CAP’s thinking was not linking the existence of a nation to a specific territory. There were elements of the tendency of cultural-national autonomy, or seeing the building of an “autonomous” nation on a national-cultural basis with separate Black institutions; rather than calling for self-determination in the territory of the Black-belt South, and local or regional autonomy in areas of Black concentration in the North.
The strategy for forming the Black political party also combined different political tendencies. Baraka emphasized correctly that revolution was basically a question of the people organizing themselves to seize political power, and much attention must be given to the tactics of mass political organizing and struggle. At the same time, the necessity to actually rely on the masses in the struggle for political power was not fully grasped. There continued, as there had been in the Gibson campaign, a tendency to rely on the electoral process as the means for achieving Black political power. This was evident in a paper on the strategy for forming the Black political party that was issued soon after the Atlanta congress. It stated that the party would be the mechanism for the “total transfer of power from Europeans and the European controlled to Africans,” and that “elections are the simplest way of transferring power to Africans in America.”[2]
The idea that the “white man is the enemy” and had to be overthrown was another prevalent concept in the Black nationalist movement that was put forth at the CAP founding congress. It arose from the struggle against white racism and chauvinism, but didn’t distinguish between the masses of exploited white working people who are an ally of the Black Liberation Movement and the white ruling class. This anti-white orientation was the basis for Baraka opposing Marx and Lenin because they were white and “European revolutionaries” as opposed to third world revolutionaries.
These initial strengths and weaknesses in the political thinking and outlook of CAP reflected the historical origins and development of the forces it represented. CAP attempted to bring together, synthesize and formulate a new Black nationalist ideology that would combine the spectrum of views in the Black Liberation Movement on how self-determination could be achieved. CAP’s origins and thrust were nationalist, combining within the organization various nationalist trends of thinking.
The significance of the Atlanta congress was that it succeeded in its goal of forming a nationwide Pan Africanist organization. The Congress of Afrikan Peoples was not seen as the formation of a Black political party, but as a preliminary step and the beginnings toward building that party.
Another step in this direction was the decision to hold the first National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, which would try to move towards the formation of the national Black party.
The congress was also a major achievement in bringing together a broad united front of forces within the Black Liberation Movement. Thousands of progressive and anti-imperialist Blacks were brought together to discuss the way to achieve self-determination and political power for Blacks in the U.S.
The significance of the congress was heightened by the fact that on that same weekend the Black Panther Party was also holding a major national gathering, the Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention in Washington, D.C. This meeting drew some 6,000 people, including Third World revolutionary, white revolutionary and anti-imperialist groups and individuals from across the United States.
Both the CAP congress and the Panther convention showed that the revolutionary nationalist forces in the Black Liberation Movement were attempting to organize at a higher level. The events of that weekend also showed that while the Black Liberation Movement had been split, the groupings represented at both meetings had a common revolutionary thrust, putting forth the call for Black liberation and self-determination. While the Panthers put forth a clear anti-imperialist position and saw the need to unite the revolutionary forces of all nationalities, and CAP’s position was Pan Africanist and cultural nationalist, there was a common basis to build unity between the two trends.
Baraka put forth a call at the CAP congress to establish a Black National Liberation Front, and set up a body to consolidate the Congress of Afrikan Peoples with all the various Black revolutionary movements in the U.S., including the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, the Black Panther Party and the Republic of New Afrika. The move to unify the cultural nationalist and Pan Africanist forces in the movement was thus extended to these other revolutionary nationalist groups.
The congress also called for establishing alliances with other Third World organizations and “people of color.” Resolutions were passed in support of the Organization of African Unity, the Non-Aligned Conference in Zambia, and to raise money for the Tanzania-Zambia railroad project, among others. The congress also recognized the Republic of New Afrika as an African nation and the right and efforts of the RNA to organize a plebiscite among people living in the subjugated national territory in the South. These were concrete steps to implement the principle of third world unity and support for liberation movements in Africa and in the U.S.
A further significance of the Atlanta congress was that it brought about a final break with Karenga’s US organization. Prior to the congress, a growing antagonistic relationship between CFUN and US had developed. Karenga and his representatives were unable to attend the Black Power Continuations Committee meetings that planned the CAP conference. When the decision to hold the Atlanta meeting was made and the reasons made clear, Karenga ordered CFUN not to go ahead with the plans and opposed the Atlanta meeting. Karenga then sent people to the conference to intimidate its callers, but this did not work. While CAP still upheld the Kawaida doctrine, CFUN, back in Newark following the conference, announced the formal disconnection of any alliance with the US organization.
After the Atlanta founding meeting, the national Congress of Afrikan Peoples was organized with chapters in 17 cities including Newark, Albany, Brooklyn, New York City, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Chicago, Gary, Detroit, San Diego, and later Houston and others. These chapters were organized as cores of cadre, which were seen as the foundation for the organization and for the work of eventually forming a Black political party.
The local chapters were organized by affiliating various locally based nationalist organizations which had attended the founding meeting and also organizing new activists into the chapters. For example, in Newark, the Committee for a Unified Newark became the Newark chapter of CAP; in Chicago, the Institute for Positive Education became a chapter; in Brooklyn, the East; in San Diego, the San Diego chapter of the US organization and in New York, the Movement for Bronx Unity.
The National Executive Council consolidated the organization’s work on a national level. Nationally, the Congress of Afrikan Peoples prepared to carry out the mandate of the founding Atlanta meeting to call a Black political convention in Gary.
The CFUN/CAP-Newark chapter carried out the most developed local work of the various chapters and in effect served as a model for the other chapters and a center of the organization’s activities. It continued and expanded the various mass community programs such as the Afrikan Free School and was involved in many local community struggles.
One of the well-known struggles waged by the CFUN/CAP-Newark chapter during this time was for the building of a low- and moderate-income housing development called Kawaida Towers. As a result of the mass struggles for community control and more community programs in Newark in the late 1960’s, the New Jersey Community Affairs Department funded a proposal by the Temple of Kawaida (a corporation set up by CFUN) to build a 16-story, nonprofit housing development. However, at the formal ground breaking, the government used a racist white politician, Anthony Imperiale, to create a reactionary movement to stop the building. The government and Imperiale said they were opposed to the building because it was to be in the North Ward of Newark, whose population was about 60% Italian, even though the section in which Kawaida Towers was to be built was a well-mixed area with a great many Blacks and Puerto Ricans.
The plans for Kawaida Towers included a day-care center, theater, closed circuit TV, security, central air conditioning, balconies, an arts workshop, and library. The fact that these services could be delivered in a low- and moderate-income housing development infuriated the reactionary forces. The state blocked the development because it did not want to see “militants” doing anything that the community at large would see as constructive.
A series of physical, legal and bureaucratic obstructions took place over the next three years. The struggle involved demonstrations throughout the city and state exposing the racist trade union bureaucrats who refused to let workers in their unions go through Imperiale’s picket lines. It also included numerous physical confrontations with the police and other racist whites, and continuous legal struggles in court, Newark’s city council, and state agencies.[3]
CAP also continued to do cultural work. The Spirit House Movers performed plays promoting nationalism and Pan Africanism.
The organization also did work in support of African liberation. It held demonstrations against Portuguese colonialism in Africa, and helped recruit workers and professionals to go to Tanzania to help “nation building” there. CAP also organized fund raising and material aid collections to combat the effects of famine in the Sahel Desert of western Africa.
For a number of years, CAP organized annual Delegates Receptions in New York. These were receptions for African ambassadors and representatives from African liberation struggles. There would be a dinner followed by speeches and a program. The receptions were mass programs that were attended by hundreds of people, and were aimed at building ties between African countries and Afro-Americans.
CAP also continued to publish Black Newark, and for a while in 1973 the paper was published biweekly.
In addition to its work among the Black masses, CAP also did extensive united front work in the national Black movement. In organizing the first National Black Political Convention held in Gary, Indiana, in 1972, and then the National Black Assembly, CAP sought to forge a broad front with nationalist, Pan Africanist forces like itself, mass forces, local and national Black elected officials, civil rights groups and leaders, educators, cultural workers and other elements in the Black community and movement. CAP’s united front work was aimed at unifying these various sectors around building a broad, nationwide movement that could actually challenge the “white power structure” that was responsible for the oppression of the Afro-American people.
CAP played an active role in trying to unite the Black movement, articulate the common aspirations for Black power and promote the basic revolutionary thrust of this common sentiment.
CAP gained more experience in working with diverse class forces, including firsthand experience in the arena of national Black politics. It began to learn more about the nature of different classes in the Black movement, particularly the petty bourgeois and bourgeois Black elected officials.
CAP played a leading role in the organizing for the first National Black Political Convention. The Convention followed in the tradition of the Black political conventions dating back to before the Civil War in the North, and during Reconstruction in the South, where delegates representing Black people gathered to define their political needs and demands. The Gary Convention was held with the 1972 presidential elections in mind, as a means for Blacks in the U.S. to issue a platform that presidential candidates would have to address. This would be reflected in a progressive document shaped by the convention, the Black Political Agenda. The Black Political Agenda was also to serve as a basis for ongoing mass organizing and a direction for Black politics.
The Convention drew over 8,000 people, including 2,776 delegates and 4,000 alternates from 43 states. Various Black politicians and elected officials, nationalist and militant organizations of diverse types, national civil rights organizations, the Black Panther Party, businessmen, entertainers, and local community groups with varying ideological outlooks and commitments were all in attendance.
The leadership of the Convention was shared by Amiri Baraka, CAP program chairman; Richard Hatcher, mayor of Gary and one of the most progressive of the Black politicians at that time; and Charles Diggs, congressman from Detroit and at that time the Chairman of the House Committee on Africa. The three were chosen at the Convention to represent the unity of the Black nationalists (Baraka), local Black elected officials (Hatcher) and national Black elected officials (Diggs).
The Gary Declaration stated, “The American system does not work for the masses of our people and it cannot be made to work without radical fundamental change. Indeed, this system does not really work in favor of the humanity of anyone in America.
... Both parties have betrayed us whenever their interests have conflicted with ours (which was most of the time), and whenever our forces were unorganized and dependent, quiescent and compliant.... None of the Democratic candidates and none of the Republican candidates – regardless of their vague promises to us or to their white constituencies – can solve our problems or the problems of this country without radically changing the system by which it operates.
The Gary Declaration introduced the Black Political Agenda, “not only for the future of Black humanity, but is probably the only way the rest of America can save itself from the harvest of its criminal past.”
The Black Political Agenda, as well as numerous resolutions Passed at the Gary Convention, put forth a host of demands; some were very radical and others were reformist in their thrust, but in general the Agenda was a progressive and militant document.
Internationally, the document called for the destruction of the racist settler colonies in Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Angola, South Africa, Southwest Africa, and Rhodesia, opposition to the Zionist state of Israel and support for the Palestinian struggle for self-determination. It also “recognized the importance of the models provided by Tanzania and the People’s Republic of China for fundamental political and economic transformation of African and third world countries” and supported “self-determination for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.”
The Agenda recognized the right of the Republic of New Afrika to ̶hold plebiscites” in the Black-belt, to “determine whether the inhabitants of these areas wish to be part of an independent New African Nation ... or wish to remain under the captive sovereignty of the United States.” It called for local government in Washington, D.C. It demanded that the legislative bodies of the U.S. government reflect that Black people make up 15% of the population, and urged community control over the police and schools.
It demanded the release of all Black political prisoners including Angela Davis, H. Rap Brown, Imari Obadele, and the Black draft resisters. It demanded a termination of “political surveillance of Black people by the CIA and FBI,” and demanded curtailing of the “defense, and space budgets by 50%” and transferring this money to “programs of social, education, economic and political development.” It condemned the Nixon Administration as “racist” and urged bilingual education programs where needed, and called for a minimum income of $8,500.
The Convention also passed a resolution sponsored by the Congress On Racial Equality that opposed forced busing. The resolution condemned the ”false notion that Black children are unable to learn unless they are in the same setting as white children” and demanded “quality education in the Black community” instead of forced busing. The resolution saw that busing could be used as a “tool” but stressed that the main issue was Black control over education. The resolution reflected the sentiments of the Black masses for community control and against the bourgeois-integrationist line as promoted by the ruling class as well as certain forces in the Black community like the NAACP.
The Gary Convention was significant not only because of the Black Political Agenda it produced, but also because it was marked by a sharpening of struggle between the nationalist and Pan Africanist forces of which CAP was a leading force, and certain Black elected officials.
This struggle had begun prior to the Convention itself. In a 1971 conference of Black elected officials in Washington, D.C., various Black politicians had put forth ideas on a “Black Strategy for ’72.” Percy Sutton, for example, pushed for the “nationalization” of the Black vote through having a Black presidential candidate. Mayor Richard Hatcher called for a national fund raising mechanism to support Black candidates. Amiri Baraka, in contrast, spoke up on the need for a national Black convention as a focus for Black interests. In the context of the 1972 election year, Baraka stressed the need to voice nationally the priorities of Black people and form some kind of continuing mechanism or structure for the Black political movement. Baraka further called for convening a mass convention, one that could truly represent the interests of the Black masses and not just an elite of politicians.
Many civil rights leaders and Black elected officials tended to oppose the idea of a convention because of its mass character and independent thrust from the Democratic and Republican parties. Thus, while many elected officials did attend the Gary Convention and great efforts were made to forge a united front between the Nationalist-Pan Africanist forces and the politicians, many other elected officials did not attend.
The Congressional Black Caucus actually opposed the Convention and tried to sabotage it, but the call went out over their signature. At the last meeting in preparation for Gary, Carl Stokes and Gus Hawkins, leaders of the Caucus, raised questions about the wisdom of having such an event at the time scheduled. Hawkins implied that it was incorrect to have it before the presidential primaries, meaning that the Caucus could already make their commitments to the Democratic or Republican parties prior to the Convention itself.
The Congressional Black Caucus clearly wanted everything to focus on electing a Democratic presidential nominee, with whom they could “cooperate,” giving them legitimacy as the “rep’s of Black people in the U.S.” and possibly even securing cabinet posts for Blacks, etc.
Baraka criticized the Caucus and its “Bill of Rights” in an article, “Toward the Creation of Political Institutions for all African Peoples,” saying, “The Black Bill of Rights is conceived very simply as a bargaining document to secure for the Congressional Black Caucus some goods and services from the white Democratic nominee. It was the feelings of the Political Liberation Council of the Congress of Afrikan Peoples that no elitist self-serving brokerage structure should be allowed to be set up claiming it is dealing with all Black people. All the talk about a Black Strategy for 1972 focused . . . around the concept of who would be the power-brokers in the election year. It seems that many of the would-be activists and militants did not even understand this concept. Or thought about it so disdainfully that they would not see that this is the way the formal institution of Black bourgeoisie sellout nigger politics is perpetuated, by representing itself as the only formalized structure of Black politics, and negotiating with white people, or anybody else, from that false presumption.”
The Gary Convention in the end did not actually call for the formation of a Black political party. To push for it would have caused a split since many of the delegates had strong ties with the Democrats and Republicans and opposed forming a Black political party. The idea was actually never brought to the floor and, instead, Baraka proposed a compromise, to form the National Black Assembly (NBA). This was adopted. The NBA was seen as a united front mechanism to lead the struggle around issues relevant to the Black masses (the Black Agenda). It would function in some ways as a party, calling a convention every two years, endorsing candidates, conducting voter education and registration drives and assessing progress in fighting for the Black demands laid out in the Agenda. The NBA would make recommendations to a biannual convention and to the community at large.
Other differences with certain civil rights leaders and politicians also emerged at Gary. The condemnation of Israeli Zionism and support for Palestinian self-determination was passed by the full convention of 8,000, but was opposed by numerous Black politicians and civil rights organizations that historically received substantial financial support from American Zionist organizations. The Convention’s anti-busing resolution also generated controversy with some of these same elements. Even before the Gary Convention was over, various Black politicians were rushing to place a great distance between themselves and these resolutions.
Nevertheless, the Gary Convention had served notice that growing numbers of Blacks would no longer follow the leadership of the Democratic and Republican parties. The differences between CAP and other revolutionary nationalist and Pan Africanist forces, on the one hand, and the Congressional Black Caucus and Black Democratic and Republican politicians, on the other, grew wider as the 1972 presidential campaign proceeded.[4]
After the Gary Convention, steps were taken to set up the National Black Assembly. The first seating of the Assembly took place in Chicago on October 21-22, 1972. Representatives from various Black organizations and delegates were chosen in proportion to the amount of Black people in each state and the percentage of the total Black population they represented.
CAP saw the function of the Assembly as a component part of the strategy for building a Black political structure or party. The steps projected by CAP were:
1. Creating cadre.
2. Creating circles of operational unity in the local community.
3. Creating circles of operational unity with other nationalist cadre outside the local community.
4. Creating an African Nationalist party.
a. Creating a circle of operational unity with other larger African elements, e.g. national organizations, national caucuses, agencies, etc.
5. National voter registration.
6. Holding a national convention and running candidates.
7. Utilizing those mobilized by the party as a total thrust to control and transform the community. That is, move on the initiation of the platform as the legal will of African communities.[5]
Actually steps 4a and 6 were related, with the National Black Assembly being 4a. The first part of 4 still remained to come into being. Steps 1-3 were carried out mainly by the local CAP chapters.
The Assembly was set up to function somewhat like a congressional body, discussing and passing resolutions on the main issues of the Black communities. Its program was mainly defined by the Black Political Agenda passed at Gary. Local state assemblies were also set up to deal mainly with local issues.
From the beginning, as had been witnessed at Gary, there were differences among the nationalist forces, led mainly by CAP, and the various politicians and bourgeois and petty-bourgeois elements on what the character of the Assembly should be. CAP saw it as a united front mechanism for mass organizing as well as a body to build the Black electoral movement independent from the Democratic and Republican parties. The politicians and some other forces wanted to tie the movement completely to the Democratic Party. This difference widened during the next few years and became an obstacle to the Assembly carrying out fully its original intent.
Still, the Assembly played a positive role in focusing on many of the key issues facing the Black masses and calling for a broad front of forces in the national movement to rally around these issues.
During its first two years as a nationwide organization, CAP became a major force in the Black Liberation Movement and played an active role in both community mass struggles as well as in the national Black movement.
During the next two years, 1973-1974, as CAP developed its work and gained more experience, it moved further and further to the left in its political stand and ideological development, a process which culminated in the organization’s adopting Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought as its ideology in October 1974.
CAP’s motion towards the left and towards Marxism-Leninism was due to a number of factors. There was growing internal struggle in the organization over its orientation and direction. In addition, CAP was influenced through its participation in struggles taking place in the Black Liberation Movement, notably the African Liberation Support Committee (ALSC). CAP’s experience in diverse areas of political work in the mass movement and united front also had brought forth some important lessons, and the organization’s work demanded greater political and theoretical clarity to guide it.
Since the Gary Convention in 1972, there had been developing struggles within the organization against reformism. At the second international conference of CAP in San Diego in September 1972, a struggle sharpened between the Black humanist elements in CAP, from the National Black Caucus of the Unitarian-Universalist Church, and the Kawaida-Pan Africanist elements in the organization.
The Black humanists, or Black Christian-Nationalists as they were also called, were activists in the Black movement who defined “self-determination” mainly as promoting Black businesses, alternative institutions and electoral politics. They did not uphold the Kawaida doctrine, with its core of revolutionary nationalism, but rather stressed “humanism” and more straight-up reformism. Hayward Henry, the first chairman of CAP, was head of the National Black Caucus of the Unitarian-Universalist Church and also a professor of Afro-American Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
At San Diego, the conflict reached the point of a split, with Hayward Henry splitting away, although not formally. Amiri Baraka was elected the new chairman of CAP. By the end of 1973, the Christian-Nationalists and other non-Kawaida elements left the organization.
The split with the Black humanists resulted in the consolidation of the Kawaida-Pan Africanist trend in CAP, and paved the way for a struggle to unfold between right and left-wing elements of this trend.
The organization began to define and revise the Kawaida doctrine to put it in a more consistently political and revolutionary context. CAP now termed its own interpretation of Kawaida as “Revolutionary Kawaida,” incorporating Pan Africanist elements that had been united around at the 1970 Founding Congress. This objectively represented a growing anti-imperialist consciousness in the organization.
One aspect of Revolutionary Kawaida was its emphasis on learning from “African socialist” examples. A great outcry for socialism in Africa existed as a result of the need to fight imperialism and make revolution, and the great negative example of capitalism. In many cases, African nationalists put forward variations of socialism to try to deal with the people’s demand for socialism, but without taking up scientific socialism. These included Nyerere’s Ujamaa (i.e., collective and cooperative economies as the means for the technological and economic advancement of Africa), Toure’s African Scientific Socialism, and Nkrumah’s use of elements of Marxist-Leninist theories. CAP’s “Revolutionary Kawaida” stressed these ideas more heavily. For example, Ujamaa as one of the principles of Karenga’s Kawaida had been defined as the collective economics expressed in “building and developing our own stores, shops, and other businesses.” CAP added to its view of Ujamaa “... to struggle to create Ujamaa, Communalism, Socialism, as a scientific world system for the reorganization of world society and the redistribution of the world’s wealth.”
CAP started in 1972 to define the “three cutting edges” of “Revolutionary Kawaida,” as revolutionary nationalism, Pan Africanism, and Ujamaa (socialism). The theoretical sources of “Revolutionary Kawaida” were identified as Malcolm X, Nkrumah, Toure, Nyerere, Amilcar Cabral and Mao Zedong.
Additionally there was increasing struggle within the organization to break with the most backward aspects of the Kawaida cultural nationalist doctrine. Some elements in the organization tried to re-raise the most narrow and backward aspects of Karenga’s Kawaida, characterized by cultism and metaphysics. These elements opposed involvement in struggle, even opposing electoral politics and any kind of work in the mass movement to develop a base among the masses. Instead, they stressed narrow cultural nationalist practices including strict health-food dieting and traditional African dress, to recreate a “pregerm Africa” (Africa prior to western colonial contact). They held extreme feudal, male chauvinist practices with regards to women, including polygamy and the general view that the women’s place is subordinate to the man. They also believed that the struggle was to build petty bourgeois Black institutions and become small shopkeepers and producers. Finally, they held to an extreme narrow nationalist view that only Africans have said anything of value to the world.
These views all came under criticism in the organization.
The struggle over these narrow cultural nationalist practices was extended to differences over what kind of organization CAP should be building. At the time, CAP was still characterized by the individual local organizations that had existed before CAP was formed, with its chapters operating with relative autonomy. There was actually substantive divergences in the work and orientation of CAP-East, Brooklyn cadre; CAP-Institute for Positive Education (IPE), Chicago cadre; and CAP-CFUN, Newark cadre, with the leading elements of CAP-East and CAP-IPE stressing more narrow Kawaida nationalism and CAP-CFUN moving more to the left. The rightist elements in CAP wanted to maintain the organization as a loose-knit formation, whereas the more left elements recognized the need for a more disciplined and unitary organization and ideology.
Towards these ends, a study program was carried out in the organization which emphasized the revolutionary aspects of Kawaida and criticized its most backward aspects. There were efforts to consolidate the national organization through putting out one newspaper and the establishment of one publishing house.
As the struggle against the backward and more narrow cultural nationalism was unfolded within the organization, a very similar struggle against narrow nationalism developed within the Pan Africanist section of the Black Liberation Movement as a whole, and in particular within the African Liberation Support Committee. CAP’s participation in the ALSC and the struggle that took place in the ALSC, served to intensify the struggle taking place within CAP and further influenced the organization’s motion towards the left, and ultimately, to Marxism-Leninism.
Starting in May 1972, African Liberation Day became a yearly occasion for Black activists in the U.S. to demonstrate their support for the African peoples’ struggles against colonialism and imperialism, culminating year-long efforts in the Black Liberation Movement. African Liberation Day, set on May 27, the anniversary of the founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), was celebrated as a result of a 1971 trip to Mozambique by Black liberation activists in the U.S., principally Owusu Sadaukai, then the director of Malcolm X Liberation University in Greensboro, North Carolina. These activists spent time with FRELIMO (the liberation movement in Mozambique) and observed close-up the struggle against Portuguese colonialism. The main idea that came out of the trip was that Blacks in the U.S. could support the African liberation struggles in very concrete ways – through fund raising and resources, through agitation and propaganda, and by stepping up the struggle against U.S. imperialism in the U.S. itself.
These ideas led to the formation of the African Liberation Day Coordinating Committee, which organized African Liberation Day demonstrations in Washington, D.C, and other cities across the U.S. on May 27, 1972. Sixty thousand Blacks demonstrated that day (with 30,000 in Washington, D.C, itself). It was one of the most forceful and revolutionary gatherings of its kind to take place in the history of the Black Liberation Movement.
CAP played a very active role in helping to organize the Coordinating Committee. It had two representatives on the first steering committee and utilized its forces as field organizers. CAP’s participation in the Coordinating Committee was a continuation of the African support work that the organization had done since its inception.
Following African Liberation Day 1972, the Coordinating Committee formed into an ongoing, united front organization, the African Liberation Support Committee (ALSC). It brought together the great majority of the major Pan Africanist forces in a militant struggle against colonialism and in support of African liberation movements. Major African Liberation Day demonstrations were held in 1973 and 1974 and a vast amount of educational and fund raising work was done across the country. The ALSC also took up day-to-day mass work in the Black communities around such issues as unemployment and police brutality.
The formation of the ALSC was a significant development in the Black Liberation Movement, as it brought together many different forces around the common goals of African liberation and Black liberation in the U.S. It included a whole spectrum of Pan Africanist and nationalist forces, including Malcolm X Liberation University, (Greensboro, N.C), People’s College (Nashville, Tenn.), Youth Organization for Black Unity (YOBU), Congress of Afrikan Peoples, Stokely Carmichael’s All Afrikan People’s Revolutionary Party (AAPRP), the Pan Afrikan People’s Organization (San Francisco), the Pan African Congress-U.S.A., the Family Ntoto (Oakland), and others. CAP-East and CAP-IPE, though still part of CAP, played a more independent role in the ALSC. Also participating in the ALSC, although to a lesser extent, was the Black Workers Congress (BWC), a Marxist-Leninist organization that had formed out of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit in 1971.
The ALSC was a broad united front formed around a Statement of Principles that declared that their struggle was “anti-imperialist and anti-racist” and that imperialism was the enemy of both Africa and Blacks in the Western Hemisphere (U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean). The Statement of Principles pointed out that Black people in the Western Hemisphere suffered from “problems on the job, . . . continued neglect and cutbacks” in social services and conditions, “political-police-military repression” and “continued onslaughts on efforts to preserve and develop revolutionary culture among Black people.” The Statement of Principles also called for a Black united front of “all social groups and class formations in the Black community in a common struggle.”
As the ALSC brought together a broad spectrum of Pan Africanist and nationalist trends, it became an arena for debate in the Black Liberation Movement over what should be the direction of African support work and struggle for Black liberation generally.
Some of the elements from YOBU/Malcolm X University were developing a more conscious anti-imperialist view and were beginning to take up Marxism. After the ALD demonstration in 1972, these forces began to play a more active and open role in the ALSC. This brought them into conflict with right-wing narrow nationalist tendencies in the ALSC, like Carmichael’s AAPRP, which stood firmly on the “back to Africa” solution for Black oppression in the U.S., as well as some of the more backward cultural nationalists who vigorously opposed taking a consistent anti-imperialist stand.
The main debate in the ALSC centered around whether or not the Black Liberation Movement should adopt a more conscious anti-imperialist orientation, as opposed to a narrow nationalist perspective that viewed white people or white institutions and culture as the enemy. The debate unfolded around the Statement of Principles which was drafted at an ALSC meeting in Frogmore, South Carolina, in June-July 1973.
The right-wing narrow nationalists criticized the Statement of Principles for its open anti-imperialist stand and in particular, its identification of monopoly capitalism as the main enemy of Blacks in the U.S. These elements also opposed the Statement’s recognition of different classes within the Black community, and its use of what they called “Marxist” and “left-wing” language.
The struggle in the ALSC culminated at an ALSC conference held in Greensboro, North Carolina, in February 1974. The narrow nationalist line was defeated at this meeting and the Statement of Principles was upheld. The right-wing nationalists soon after left the ALSC.
The split in the ALSC strengthened the YOBU/Malcolm X University forces. They had represented the left-wing of the ALSC at that time because of their open anti-imperialist stand and their recognition that the imperialist system is responsible for the oppression of Black people in the U.S.
Later in 1974, these forces secretly formed a communist organization, the Revolutionary Workers League (RWL). It included elements from People’s College, Malcolm X Liberation University, African-Americans for Black Liberation in Houston, Black Workers’ Organizing Committee in the San Francisco Bay Area, and YOBU.
While these forces played a positive role in the ALSC, they also had some serious weaknesses. Their attempt to apply Marxism to the Black liberation struggle was positive, but their understanding of Marxism tended to be mechanical. This led to certain “workerism” tendencies, such as seeing the Black liberation struggle as mainly a struggle of Black workers and not as a national movement of an oppressed people which included different classes. Although they took up Marxism-Leninism, they did not uphold the Marxist-Leninist position that there is an oppressed Afro-American nation in the Black-belt South with the right to self-determination.
These elements also tended to put down all non-Marxists in the Black movement as narrow nationalist and reactionary, failing to distinguish between revolutionary and reactionary nationalism. They failed to see the dialectical development of these forces, even though they had been Pan Africanists themselves. They did not clearly understand the united front character of the national movements and the task of communists to unite with the progressive and revolutionary struggles of the masses in fighting national oppression, while criticizing reactionary and narrow nationalism.
During the struggle in the ALSC against the right-wing nationalists, these developing Marxists had a sectarian approach towards the many progressive and revolutionary nationalist activists in the ALSC, and did not understand how to win over the different forces in the united front. Their position paper defending the Statement of Principles, presented at the Greensboro Conference by Nelson Johnson and Abdul Alkalimat, attacked without quarter the theoretical positions of most of the people who had initially formed the ALSC! Furthermore, the paper was made to look like an “official” ALSC document, which made many activists feel that a Marxist position was being “mashed” on them in some conspiratorial fashion. The sectarianism of these developing Marxist elements, coupled with their liquidation of the national question,[6] drove many honest nationalists out of the ALSC, in addition to the right-wing elements. Later, as the RWL developed, it would have further problems in building the ALSC. In 1975, under a “proletarianization” line, RWL sent its members into the factories and incorrectly pitted this work against participation in mass organizations and activities. With regards to the ALSC, they began to “abandon ship” – to the point where in late 1975 they proposed dismantling the ALSC so they could build the RWL.
The split in the ALSC intensified the struggle taking place within CAP. CAP stayed in the ALSC, pledging to build it in an anti-imperialist direction. Very soon after the split in the ALSC in April 1974, however, the rightist cultural nationalist elements in CAP split away. This marked a major turning point for the organization. It opened the way for the organization to now criticize more thoroughly various of the backward elements of the Kawaida doctrine and seek out a more scientific theory and method for analyzing society and making revolution.
CAP had begun to integrate elements of Marxism into its political thinking, although it did not yet have a fully scientific outlook. By March 1974, CAP openly put forth that elements of Marxism should be included in “Revolutionary Kawaida.” During this period the papers “Black People and Imperialism” and “National Liberation and Politics” were written, both of which Quoted from Marx, Lenin and Mao Zedong. “Revolutionary Kawaida” was still seen as CAP’s “ideology” – a synthesis of what CAP saw as the most advanced ideas that could point the path forward for the Black Liberation Movement. But CAP’s ideological development had progressed far to the left since the early days when it upheld Karenga’s Kawaida.
Influenced by the RWL forces as well as the Black Workers Congress, CAP began to seriously take up Marxism. As CAP started to study Marxism, it was influenced somewhat by the mechanical and dogmatist tendencies that existed in the RWL. But CAP at this time did not adopt the “left” sectarian line of the RWL forces. CAP tried to maintain ALSC’s united front character and opposed the sectarian attacks on the progressive and revolutionary nationalist forces. CAP also held a relatively more correct view of the Black national question, upholding the right to self-determination for the Afro-American nation and stressing the revolutionary nature of the Black liberation struggle.
CAP’s move towards Marxism-Leninism was reflected in the presentation it made at the historic ALSC conference in May 1974, at Howard University in Washington, D.C. CAP’s presentation, called “Towards Ideological Clarity,” placed the oppression of Afro-Americans in the U.S. in the context of the world struggle against imperialism and utilized Lenin’s teachings on imperialism. The paper also supported the use of scientific theory to guide the struggle. It stated that “Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought is indispensable to our struggle because from it our stand is not only revolutionary, but our viewpoint is international and our method is scientific.” (emphasis in the original) It also stressed the importance of utilizing the “universally applicable scientific method” to the “particularity of our own struggle.”
“Towards Ideological Clarity” attempted to utilize greater elements of Marxism-Leninism to further develop CAP’s view of Black liberation in the U.S. A significant strength of the paper was that it maintained a clearly revolutionary stance on the national question and held an essentially correct view on the relationship between the national struggle and the struggle against capitalism and imperialism. This is something that some of the other Black Liberation Movement forces who had taken up Marxism had not been able to do.
For example, the paper stated that the ”dual aspects of our struggle are national (racial and cultural) and against capital (class),” and that the Black liberation struggle is a struggle for the “acquisition of power.” CAP also upheld the right of self-determination of the oppressed Afro-American nation in the South, including the right to “secede, ask for partition, and build a separate state in the South . . . if we desire this. Or else we must have a socialist ’U.S.A.,’ and a freely entered into union of Socialist States.”
CAP also recognized the existence of classes and class struggle in the national movement, and the need to build a Black united front of various classes and strata.
There were weaknesses in the paper as it was not wholly scientific and still attempted to combine Marxism with cultural nationalism. It still upheld the “three cutting edges” of “Revolutionary Kawaida” – nationalism, Pan Africanism and socialism. In addition, in coming from a nationalist perspective, it advocated the building of a revolutionary Black vanguard party, arguing against forming a multinational vanguard party to lead the U.S. revolution.
CAP’s leftward motion was further influenced and reflected in its participation in the sixth Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) held in June 1974, in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.
For obvious reasons of colonialism, the sixth PAC was the first Pan Africanist conference to be held on African soil. It was the largest of its kind, with representatives from 26 African states, 7 African liberation organizations, and Brazil, the U.S., England, Canada and the Caribbean. Since much of Africa had won political independence between the last PAC in 1945 and the sixth PAC in 1974, a major emphasis of the conference was on neocolonialism, the continuing struggle against imperialism, and the need for class struggle in Africa; as well as the continued need for national liberation from direct colonialism. CAP’s participation in the sixth PAC furthered its own understanding of the need for class struggle. It was clear that imperialism could rule through native agents, as Amilcar Cabral had pointed out. At the sixth PAC, many African governments openly opposed neocolonialism and stated that revolutionary Pan Africanism had to be a struggle against imperialism and for socialism.
The address by the CAP Chairman to the sixth PAC, called “Revolutionary Culture and the Future of Pan Africanist Culture,” attacked imperialism and neo-colonialism, and called Pan Africanism a “commitment to build socialism for African people worldwide and to take on the struggle against imperialism everywhere.” Amiri Baraka’s stand for socialism and his alignment with the liberation movements of Africa, as well as a similar stand taken by Owusu Sadaukai who also attended the conference, did not go unnoticed. It was shot around the world and throughout the nationalist Pan Africanist movement in the U.S.
The other major reason for CAP’s motion towards Marxism-Leninism came out of CAP’s own experiences in doing work among the Black masses and in united front work. Although still a young organization, CAP had already gained considerable experience in diverse areas of political work. It was learning through its own experience the need to distinguish different class forces and interests in the Black community and movement. The organization’s work was developing to a higher level, and demanded a more scientific theory to guide it through the twists and turns of the struggle.
Since Gibson’s election as mayor of Newark, CAP began to see in practice that the election of a Black mayor did not really change the fundamental situation faced by the masses of Black people. Gibson’s election put a Black into a political office that no Black in Newark or the northeastern U.S. had ever before been able to attain. It resulted in more attention and voice given to Black demands, including the gaining of some limited reforms. But it was clear that the election of Blacks into office was not going to solve the oppression of Black people. In fact, Gibson and other Black petty bourgeois and bourgeois politicians had become part of an elite of Black officials that were used to oppose the mass movement and to keep the masses chained to the system of oppression.
CAP’s criticisms of Gibson had started to develop almost as soon as he took office. He rapidly capitulated to the Prudential Life Insurance Co., one of the largest finance-capitalist interests in New Jersey. When Prudential opposed the participation of nationalists like CFUN on committees that were set up to oversee the city’s cultural programs, Gibson disbanded the committees.
In 1973, the struggle against Gibson sharpened as racist police and white vigilante gangs in Newark escalated their attacks against the Black community.
When Blacks and Puerto Ricans staged a peaceful march in the Central Ward demanding that the streets be cleaned, police on horseback savagely attacked the demonstration stomping women and clubbing Black youth. CAP and other forces in the community were outraged by this attack. Their outrage increased when Gibson not only refused to take responsibility and investigate the situation, but instead allowed the indictment of two Black policemen who had supported the demonstration and had been attacked by white policemen.
During this same period, racist police shot out the windows of the Afrikan Free School in Newark. While it was certainly not the first time that police and white racists had shot at the CFUN/CAP building, this was a vicious and cowardly attack on a children’s school. Again, CAP demanded an investigation of the attack but none was conducted.
In addition to these police attacks, the vigilante gangs organized by the notorious Anthony Imperiale continued to roam through Newark beating on Black people in the predominantly white North Ward. During the summer of 1973, Imperiale’s gangs, sometimes numbering as high as 40-50 men, beat Black people on a daily basis. They even beat a pregnant woman and firebombed a house with a 96-year old woman living inside. These racists had the unofficial sanction of the police and the mayor, who did nothing to stop them.
CAP waged a campaign to set up a Police Review Board controlled by the community, to monitor the lawlessness and brutality of the police against Blacks and Puerto Ricans in Newark. It also demanded that the police Tactical Squad be abolished. CAP organized thousands of people in this campaign through massive petitioning, mass meetings and confrontations with city officials. Naturally, Gibson was a target of this campaign due to his opposition to the community’s demands.
CAP attempted to analyze the class basis for Gibson’s attacks on the masses of Blacks. CAP drew parallels with the experience in Africa, where the imperialists continued to rule after the defeat of direct colonialism through the use of “native agents.” CAP saw that in a similar way, Gibson had become a spokesman for the oppressor, as part of a new “neo-colonial class” of Blacks. CAP called this class “pseudo-bourgeois” because it did not control or own the means of production but served as the managers and administrators of the white ruling class that oppressed Black people. While CAP’s analysis was not scientific, it showed the organization’s increasing understanding of class differences among Blacks and, in particular, the role of the upper stratum of petty bourgeois and bourgeois Black politicians in perpetuating the system of national oppression.
By 1974, CAP had emerged as an influential force in the mass struggles around police brutality against Black people in several major cities. It also broadened its work to encompass different sectors of the national movement, including prisoners, labor and youth.
Some of CAP’s most developed work was in helping lead the many mass campaigns in the Black and Puerto Rican communities on the East Coast against police brutality. In addition to the campaign for the Police Review Board, CAP played an active role in the resistance to police repression of the Puerto Rican community which led to the 1974 Puerto Rican rebellion in Newark. CAP initiated a Stop Killer Cops campaign in 15 cities, and in 1974 led the largest Stop Killer Cops demonstration, encircling New York City Hall. The organization worked with various youth groups in Brownsville and Bedford Stuyvesant to demand justice for the Claude Reese murder by Brooklyn police. After his funeral, CAP led thousands of people to converge on the police station and prevented the police from attacking the masses that night. The Stop Killer Cops campaign was to go on until late 1975. In July 1975, the Detroit CAP led the masses in militant demonstrations against the police-instigated murder of 15-year old Obie Wynn. For almost two years, the Stop Killer Cops campaign was one of the most effective mass resistance movements to police brutality against the Black masses ever mounted by the left in the U.S. CAP led large demonstrations and did education and organizing work around police brutality in Cleveland, Ohio; South Bend, Indiana; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Long Branch, New Jersey; Wilmington, Delaware; Baltimore, Maryland; Gary, Indiana; and St. Louis, Missouri.
CAP’s work among prisoners was also quite developed by this time. At one time CAP was able to send cadre into the prisons to teach Black studies and actually organized cadre inside the prisons. Hundreds of newspapers were sent into the prisons throughout the country each month and running correspondence was kept up with a great many inmates. In St. Louis, CAP organized demonstrations at the Missouri Penitentiary and worked with the Missouri Nine Defense Committee which formed to support nine prisoners framed for the death of a white guard. The success of CAP’s prison work was pointed out when inmates at Rikers Island actually called the organization in to inform it about their planned rebellion in 1975 so that CAP could help organize it.
CAP organized a multinational taxi drivers’ city-wide strike in Newark to raise rates and improve working conditions. This was the first example of broad, direct labor organizing. It was also an important experience for the organization because it was clear that the white workers were also being exploited. This helped CAP to recognize that there were class distinctions between the masses of white workers, and it is the white ruling class which profits from exploiting workers of all nationalities.
In the summer of 1974, CAP also organized youth working in the Youth Corps and SPEDY[7] programs to fight proposed layoffs and the corruption of the program by local government officials.
In July 1974, CAP organized and led the historic Afrikan Women’s Conference held in Newark. This conference brought together organizations and 700 Black working women, housewives, students and activists from over 28 states. Participants included Black women from the American continents, from the West Indies and African nations. Workshop forums were held in education and social organization, politics, health, welfare and employment, communications and institutional development.
Through participating and helping lead all of these mass struggles and activities, the political understanding of the organization as a whole was raised. CAP began to see more clearly how all of the many manifestations of oppression faced by the masses of people were linked together by a system of class exploitation and national oppression. It began to see more clearly that while certain gains could be won through mass struggle under the present system, only a revolutionary struggle to overthrow the class in power could achieve a fundamental change. CAP also began to see how the struggle of the oppressed nationalities, workers, prisoners, women, and youth were all linked together and had a common interest in fighting the system.
As CAP gained these lessons it became clearer that the enemy of Blacks was not white people in general, but a class of exploiters who lived off the wealth created by the working people of all nationalities and derived extra profits and benefits from a system of national oppression. These lessons were drawn in part from the direct experiences of the organization, and also by studying and sorting out the various nationalist and “African socialist” theories that CAP had adopted and tried to synthesize in its “ideology.” One positive result of the increased study of African socialism was the growing understanding of the nature of classes and their role in society. Some African liberation forces used elements of Marxism in their theories or were Marxists themselves.
Finally, another major factor that led CAP to seek a more scientific theory to analyze class forces in the national movement was the organization’s sharpening struggle with other class forces in united front formations.
In the National Black Assembly, CAP was waging more struggle with the Black petty bourgeois and bourgeois politicians to prevent them from tying the Black movement completely to the Democratic Party and leading it down a fully reformist path. During the Miami Democratic Party Convention in 1972, CAP had seen the sellout of many Black politicians and leading reformist elements. These elements were more concerned with getting a position from the Democratic Party than they were about building a mass political movement of Blacks.
The different viewpoints in the NBA were reflected at the April 1974 second National Black Political Convention held in Little Rock, Arkansas, which was attended by 2,000 people. For one thing, many of the Black politicians and leading reformists who had flocked to Gary two years before did not even show up at Little Rock. This was because 1974 was not a national election year, and there was little “brokerage” to be done.
At Little Rock, divergent political views were expressed, ranging from emphasis on the electoral path, to stress on grass roots work, to views which upheld both. Many delegates wanted to form an independent Black political party, but this was tabled based on the recognition that such a party, while not incorrect, would have to be built out of a developing mass base.
Amiri Baraka’s speech at Little Rock openly called for the destruction of capitalism and for socialist revolution as necessary to win Black liberation. He outlined the history and role of capital-’sm and imperialism in carrying out Black oppression. Baraka also criticized those aspects of cultural nationalism that stressed mysticism and over-glorification of feudal Africa. This speech showed CAP’s motion towards Marxism-Leninism taking place.
During this time, the newspaper Black Newark reflected more and more the growing anti-imperialist consciousness of the organization. In March 1974, the name of the newspaper was changed to Unity and Struggle, to reflect CAP’s understanding of the dialectical requirements of revolution. Articles in the newspaper targeted the capitalist and imperialist system as the cause of the oppression of the masses both in the U.S. and internationally.
The drama group, the Spirit House Movers, also was renamed the Afrikan Revolutionary Movers (ARM) and a singing group, the Anti-Imperialist Singers, was formed in Newark. ARM put on plays and skits such as Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean, about the need to fight the repression of the state.
As CAP drew lessons from all these experiences, its scientific understanding of imperialism, revolution, class struggle and socialism increased. After the ALSC conference at Howard University, it was clear to the most advanced forces in CAP that the organization needed to go in the direction of becoming a Marxist-Leninist organization. It became clearer and clearer that the rightist cultural nationalists could not carry the forceful and revolutionary motion that CAP’s revolutionary nationalist history called on it to follow.
Between April 1974, when the rightist cultural nationalists resigned from CAP, and October 1974, the organization moved to take up Marxism-Leninism as its theoretical guide. During this period, new reading lists were issued in the organization on Marxism-Leninism.
The organization also began to abandon many of the social practices identified with its nationalist period. For example, cadre no longer had to wear African dress. CAP also abandoned male chauvinist practices that had been carried out as part of its “African traditionalism” such as holding separate political education classes for men and women. The historical CAP holiday, “Leo Baraka” (the birthday of the Chairman of CAP, Amiri Baraka), was redefined to be an occasion to emphasize cadre development, study Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, and to concentrate on doing education around the woman question.[8] The latter point was stressed because the male chauvinist practices connected to the cultural nationalist period had stifled the participation of women and had resulted in deep-rooted male chauvinism in the organization.
During this time, CAP issued a statement called “CAP Going Through Changes,” published in Unity and Struggle and also as a separate pamphlet that was given out free. This statement tried to give, in a brief and concise form, an explanation of the motion that CAP was going through to embrace Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. It explained how CAP had come to see Marxism as the only scientific theory of revolution. Out of the struggle CAP had waged within and as part of the Black Liberation Movement, it had seen the correctness and strength of Marxism and also seen that many of the revolutionary African leaders like Nyrere, Toure, Nkrumah and Cabral had drawn from elements of Marxism. “CAP Going Through Changes” pointed out that the organization’s motion to adopt Marxism had come through its continuous commitment to struggle to clarify ideologically the direction of the movement.
The pamphlet also summarized the organization’s nationalist history. In doing so, it pointed out how it was essential to uphold the revolutionary character of the national question. This was significant because one of the key ideological struggles taking place in the communist movement at that time was a struggle against chauvinist lines which liquidated the national question under the guise of saying “everything is a class question.” The national struggles in the U.S. in the final analysis are a question of class struggle since they are aimed at the ruling class, but they have their own distinct and revolutionary character. To unleash this potential is a strategic task of the revolution.
One error made in the pamphlet, however, was that in trying to summarize CAP’s nationalism, it didn’t make a clear distinction between the overall revolutionary nationalist thrust and history of the organization, and the various narrow and incorrect theories it held to at various times. It referred very generally to “CAP’s well-known espousal of reactionary nationalist theories,” as if all of CAP’s nationalism had been “reactionary.” It is true that CAP had held to certain narrow and backward nationalist ideas in its history, such as anti-white narrow nationalism. But overall, CAP’s ideological development had been one of first trying to bring together various Black ideological and political trends, progressively trying to adopt the most revolutionary aspects of these and finally coming to Marxism. CAP’s transition actually testified to the commitment of the organization to the masses of people and revolution and to the strength of Marxism.
At CAP’s General Assembly in October 1974, the organization decided to adopt Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought as its guiding ideology. This historic General Assembly stated, “We must go forward in tune with the march of the oppressed people throughout the world carrying a banner and fiery torch of liberation. We must grasp firmly the principles of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought.”
This decision was of tremendous significance in CAP’s own development, important to the Marxist-Leninist movement, and to the development of the Black Liberation Movement. By 1974, CAP had acquired many rich experiences of struggle in the Black national movement. It had emerged as one of the most well-known and respected of the revolutionary nationalist formations, with ties in Black communities in 17 cities in the East and Midwest. It had been active in a wide range of struggles including struggles for political rights on both a local and national scale, against national oppression and discrimination in housing, education, etc., and against police repression in the Black communities. It had also played a prominent role in Africa support work and had helped to build ties between the Black Liberation Movement in the U.S. and liberation movements in Africa. CAP had for many years fought to preserve and develop the cultural traditions of the Afro-American people. And it had helped to raise the revolutionary consciousness of many Afro-Americans.
The motion towards Marxism had come about in part through a critical analysis of the past. CAP’s nationalist and Pan Africanist period prior to taking up Marxism had an overall revolutionary thrust. The organization had promoted in the main a revolutionary nationalist line and had combated some of the most backward and reactionary tendencies in the Black Liberation Movement for a number of years. As such, CAP had helped to construct the contemporary Black Liberation Movement. At the same time, there were aspects of CAP’s line and practice which had been narrow nationalist and there were also reformist tendencies in its past line and work.
CAP’s development between 1970 and 1974 was not as a Marxist-Leninist organization. Its contributions and errors need to be evaluated in that context, as well as in light of the absence of a vanguard communist party to lead the Black Liberation Movement and the weakness and inexperience of the newly-emerging anti-revisionist communist forces.
Thus, as CAP became a Marxist-Leninist organization, it struggled to summarize its past experiences, assess the situation in the revolutionary movement as a whole and carry out an intensive study of Marxist-Leninist theory.
[1] Ideological Statement of the Congress of Afrikan Peoples, adopted by delegates in attendance of the first annual meeting.
[2] Strategy and Tactics of a Pan Africanist Nationalist Party, from the founding congress of the Congress of Afrikan Peoples.
[3] Finally in 1974, the building of Kawaida Towers was ready to be resumed. But in that period, inflation sent prices up 12% – an additional $600,000 was needed to meet the original budget. The Department of Community Affairs refused this money, saying Kawaida Towers should be cut to eight stories and that one- and two-bedroom apartments would be eliminated and replaced with ”efficiency” apartments. This would have made it impossible for working class families to live there. At this point CAP disassociated itself with the project.
[4] At the Miami Democratic Party Convention, members of the Caucus and the majority of the Black delegates threw their support to McGovern. Others, for tactical reasons, gave their vote to Shirley Chisholm and Humphrey. CAP was pushing a different emphasis in the Black delegate caucus: the need for forming a national Black political assembly as a mechanism for the Black power struggle. And while there was a vote taken to form the Assembly, the formation of an independent mass united front was never the politician’s real intent.
[5] Strategy and Tactics of a Pan Africanist Nationalist Party, pp. 16-18.
[6] The Alkalimat/Johnson paper stated openly that there is no Black nation and the Black struggle should be mainly that of workers.
[7] SPEDY was a federally funded program to provide summer jobs for youth.
[8] Later “Leo Baraka” was totally eliminated.