popular in the 1960s. The whole civil rights
movement bore a marked resemblance to his philosophy, and undoubtedly it
drew considerable motivation from it. The idea of an all-black mass
organization, with a vast network of local action groups participating in
it, is still alive. He had envisioned a grass-roots black power movement
a quarter of a century before it became popular. Although dozens of such
groups have sprung up across the country, they still lack the kind of
mass mobilization and national coordination which he had planned. His was
to have been a militant, all-black movement without its becoming
anti-white. It was to teach self-reliance to the Afro-American community.
Local control and power were to be used to achieve freedom and civil
rights within a genuinely biracial society.

Chapter 9

The New Negro

Immigration and Migration

During the nineteenth century, the American racial dilemma had appeared
to be a regional problem. The Northern states had abolished slavery early
in the century, and the abolitionists self-righteously condemned Southern
slaveholders while remaining unaware of their own racism. However, the
twentieth century showed that racism was really a national issue.
Thousands of Afro-Americans moved from the rural South into the urban
North, creating a more even distribution of that population throughout
the country. At the same time, there was a fresh wave of voluntary
immigration into America by peoples with an African heritage. Most of
these newcomers also moved into Northern cities. As thousands of blacks
spread into the North and West, the inhabitants there developed
sympathies with Southern racists. Actually, this population shift only
unearthed attitudes which had been there all the time. This gigantic
migration of peoples was symptomatic of the change in the heart of the
black community. It signaled a new dynamism and a new aggressiveness.

The voluntary black immigration which occurred during the twentieth
century was a new and unusual phenomenon. Almost all blacks who had
previously come to America had been brought in chains. Those who came
voluntarily during this century came in spite of their knowledge that
racism would confront them. Their awareness of American racism, however,
was an abstraction and was only partially understood by them.
Nevertheless, they saw America as the land of prosperity and opportunity
at a time when, for many of them, social and economi