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24. What Is Africa to Me? This chapter draft, discovered at Syracuse University in the papers of Arna Bontemps, is the only copy known to exist. The title was taken from Countee Cullen’s well-known Harlem Renaissance poem, “Heritage.” More than any other, this chapter was collectively written, but the version that appears here was written by Bontemps. Originally, sections on the Moorish American Science Temple and Nation of Islam appeared in the chapter “And Churches,” the chapter that follows this one. The material on these two organizations was later moved to the essay that appears below and developed more fully. For this reason, information on them was removed from the chapter “And Churches” to avoid repetition. The reader will recognize how these groups are still discussed here as “cults” and their members referred to as “zealots.” In the March 6, 1894, issue of the Chicago Inter Ocean, P. O. Gray addressed a letter to Master Workmen Sovereign of the Knights of Labor, who had complained that the presence of Negroes was impeding the progress of his organization in the South and had expressed a desire to see them sent back to Africa. Mr. Gray said in part: That I, a Negro, should be interested in the future success of the race is very natural. Therefore, I take exception to your proposition to deport the Negro back toAfrica (as being the best way to solve the Negro question) as being contrary to all international law. There was a day when you preached the universal brotherhood of men. . . . Now, I will suggest an easy solution of the whole trouble—that is, for Mr. Sovereign to accept Negroes into the order in the South. . . . But in case you attempt to force the Negro from the country to make it easy for the K. of L. to continue the inculcation of prejudice and inhumanity, you may run against a greater force than the one you bring to bear upon the Negro. . . . Three days later, the Chicago Colored Women’s Club, meeting at the Tourgee Club (named after Judge Albion W. Tourgee, who has portrayed sympathetically in his Bricks Without Straw the lot of southern Negroes under reconstruction), pointed out that Negroes had been residents of this country for 250 years, and were “as much American citizens as anybody.” “If this country is too small for the Knights of Labor and the Negro,” the club members advised, “then let the Knights leave.” Dolinar_Text.indd 194 3/14/13 9:59 AM What Is Africa to Me? 195 The Knights of Labor were not the first to contemplate the repatriation of Negroes. Before the Revolutionary War, many Quakers, for humanitarian reasons, were manumitting their slaves and casting about for some way to return them to their homeland. As early as 1800, the legislature of Virginia, alarmed at Gabriel Prosser’s abortive slave rebellion, had authorized the governor of the state to confer with the President of the United States on the possibility of the colonization of malcontents “dangerous to the peace of society.” Free men of color were increasing in number, and, in the opinion of the slaveholders, setting a bad example for Negroes still in bondage. Their insubordination and independent attitudes were irksome to those in power and authority, and it was thought that they would be much less dangerous if settled at a safe distance in Africa. From time to time slaveowners were assailed by qualms of conscience or became convinced that the institution of slavery was economically unsound, and released their bondsmen. Usually, the owners preferred that those freed be sent away. Thomas Jefferson in 1811 indicated his belief in the desirability of settling American Negroes on the coast of Africa, and in 1814 wrote a letter to Governor Edward Coles of Illinois in which he discussed colonization of Negroes in the West Indies, and particularly in the Negro republic of Santo Domingo. Jefferson was convinced that members of the colored race eventually would drive all white people from the Caribbean Islands. British foes of the slave traffic, such as William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, and Granville Sharp, took practical steps toward colonization in Africa, and it was mainly due to their efforts that 400 Negroes, principally soldiers and sailors who had fought on the British side in the Revolutionary War, and 60 Europeans were settled on the Sierra Leone peninsula in 1787. The Europeans have been described as “mostly women of abandoned character.” Some fugitive slaves who had sought refuge in...

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