The “Black Man’s Bible”: The Holy Piby, Garveyism, and Black Supremacy in the Interwar Years

The Afro-Athlican Constructive Gaathly was an Afrocentric religious movement begun by Anguillan preacher Robert Athlyi Rogers during the interwar period. Its sacred text, the Holy Piby, represented a new truth reserved for people of African descent that promised to liberate them from oppression. More importantly for the purpose of this work, the Holy Piby charged followers with reclaiming Africa, overthrowing white rule, and taking their place as the greatest nation on earth. Despite its brevity, Rogers’s movement was indicative of a significant historical moment in the Alantic world, one in which multiple new Black religions emerged to challenge white supremacy and negotiate the status of people of color. In the global conversations about race and progress, nationalism and identity, economics and politics, and religion and self-determination, Rogers was able to articulate what amounted to a Black supremacist ideology embedded within a religious framework.