Cyril Briggs

Cyril Valentine Briggs (born May 28, 1888 , Nevis ; † October 18, 1966 , Los Angeles , California ) was a West Indian American / African-Caribbean American writer and communist activist. Briggs is best known as the founder and editor of The Crusader, a New York weekly magazine of the New Negro Movement of the 1920s, as well as the founder of the African Blood Brotherhood , a small, but historically influential, radical organization that set out toPromote Pan-Africanism .

Life

youth

Cyril Valentine Briggs was born on May 28, 1888 on the Caribbean island of Nevis . His father, Louis E. Briggs , was a white plantation overseer; his mother, Mary M. Huggins , was of African-Caribbean descent. As provided by the racial caste system in colonial Nevis, the multiracial Briggs was considered " Colored " even though he had a very light skin. And although he received a good education, because of his origins, he was not approved as part of the ruling elite.

As a youth, Briggs worked as an assistant in the library of a local cleric, where he first came across political works critically examining imperialism . He later decided to become a writer himself and took jobs with the St. Kitts Daily Express and the St. Christopher Advertiser . He was valued for his talent and in his late teenage years received a scholarship to study journalism at university. However, he ultimately turned down this opportunity by emigrating to the United States (July 1905) to follow his mother, who had previously emigrated there.

Journalistic career

Not much is known about the first seven years in America, as he hardly mentions it in his very brief autobiographical notes.

Briggs first writing assignment in America came in 1912 with the Amsterdam News .

In 1917, shortly after Hubert Harrison founded the Liberty League and The Voice , Briggs founded the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), one of the pioneering groups of African-American groups. His goal was to push back the lynching and racial discrimination and to enforce voting and civil rights for African Americans in the southern states . Among other things, he demanded self-determination. The group protested at first against an American involvement in the First World War .

African Blood Brotherhood

In 1918 the African Blood Brotherhood introduced The Crusader magazine . In this magazine, she supported the Socialist Party of America and helped publicize lynching and discrimination. Briggs hoped that President Woodrow Wilson would support campaigns for voting rights for African Americans in the southern states after numerous veterans had excelled in the war. But the so-called "boll weevil" politicians (after the cotton boll beetle ) of the conservative Southern Democrats opposed any change. Disillusioned with socialist and progressive efforts, Briggs joined the United States Communist Party in 1921 . His leadership of the ABB thereby gained Marxist tendencies. For example, he called for control over the means of production by African-American workers in industry and agriculture.

Briggs also became the leading advocate of racial separatism. Briggs saw American white-black racism as a form of “hatred of the unlike” that “derives its virulence from the firm belief in the white man's thinking that races are unequal - the belief that there are superior and inferior races and that the former are marked with a white skin and the latter with a darker house and that only the former are able and proficient and are therefore only fit to vote, govern and to inherit the earth ”. Briggs reminded his readers that racial antipathy is a two-way street and that "the Negro dislikes the white man almost as much as the white man hates the Negro" (the Negro dislikes the white man almost as much as the latter dislikes the Negro).

Briggs suggested that a "new solution" should emerge, in which the African Americans should realize that "saving his race and an honorable solution to the American race problem is the call for action and a decision to move forward against pretend battles leading, dreaming, and undecided 'leaders'. "In contrast," nothing more or less than independent, separate existence should be brought into being - a "Government of the (Negro) people, for the ( Negro) people and by the (Negro) people ”(Rule of the Negro people, for the Negro people and by the Negro people).

Briggs' Marxist attitudes toward separatist rule caused a falling out with Marcus Garvey , founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). While the ABB Marxists turned against Garvey's nationalist movement, they did not see the slogan " Africa for Africans" as an invitation to capitalist development. Briggs wrote, "Socialism and Communism [were] in practical application in Africa for centuries before they were even advanced as theories in the European world" (Socialism and Communism were practically applied in Africa centuries before they were known as theories in the European world were).

Garvey believed that Briggs was trying to destroy the government and brought several lawsuits against him.

Briggs supported the Irish War of Independence because he believed that “the Irish struggle for freedom is the greatest epic in modern history. It is a struggle that should have the sympathy and active support of every lover of freedom and every member of an oppressed group. "

Membership in the communist party

Briggs joined the Communist Party of America in 1921 after being asked, through direct mediation by Rose Pastor Stokes of the CPA and Robert Minor of the rival United Communist Party , to join the organization, which had been an underground organization until then. Briggs later recalled in a letter to the historian Theodore Draper that his motivation for joining the communist movement was related to the policy of Soviet Russia towards its national minorities and the explicitly anti-imperialist foreign policy of the young Soviet state.

In his correspondence with Draper, Briggs made it clear that the founding of ABB preceded both his personal connection with the communist movement and the influence of Soviet politics:

“You are fairly correct in assuming that the Communist Party was not part of the initiative to organize the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood also received no inspiration from the Communist Movement. It was certainly in existence before I had my first contact with Communists through visits from Rose [Stokes] and Bob [Minor] to my office at 2299 Seventh Avenue, New York. Nor did the communists inspire the ABB program they saw.
"After myself, Dick Moore, and other members of the Supreme Council joined the CP, we tried and succeeded in establishing a close relationship between the two organizations."

Briggs remained an active member of the Communist Party (CPUSA) throughout the 1920s. In 1925 the African Blood Brotherhood was dissolved and replaced by a new organization, the American Negro Labor Congress . Briggs was appointed as the new National Secretary of the new organization sponsored by the Communist Party.

Briggs was named a member of the leading Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1929 . He remained an influential figure in the party hierarchy until the emergence of the moderate Popular Front . Briggs was ultimately expelled from the CPUSA at the end of the 1930s and accused of cultivating a “Negro nationalist way of thinking” in open opposition to the party's new line that promoted integration.

Briggs was granted permission to rejoin the CPUSA in 1948 after party leader Earl Browder was ousted. He remained active in the organization for the rest of his life and also participated in its activities on the west coast.

death

Briggs died on October 18, 1966 in Los Angeles, California .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Minkah makalani: For the Liberation of Black People Everywhere: The African Blood Brotherhood, Black Radicalism, and Pan-African Liberation in the New Negro Movement, 1917-1936. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 2004: 60.
2. ^ ^{A b c d} Makalani, For the Liberation of Black People Everywhere : 61.
3. ↑ Today part of the Marcus Garvey Papers at the University of California , Los Angeles (UCLA): Makalani, For the Liberation of Black People Everywhere : 60, 107.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Briggs, Cyril (1888-1966). BlackPast.org.
5. ^ African Blood Brotherhood, (1919-1925), Organizational History.
6. ↑ “its virulence from the firm conviction in the white man's mind of the inequality of races — the belief that there are superior and inferior races and that the former are marked with a white skin and the latter with dark skin and that only the former are capable and virtuous and therefore alone fit to vote, rule and inherit the earth. "
7. ^ "The salvation of his race and an honorable solution of the American Race Problem call for action and decision in preference to the twaddling, dreaming, and indecision of 'leaders'."
8. ↑ Barry Sheppard's "The Sixties: A Political Memoir".
9. ^ "The Irish fight for liberty is the Greatest Epic of Modern History. It is a struggle did shouldhave the sympathy and active support of every lover of liberty of every member of an oppressed group. " Rte.ie .
10. ^ ^{A b} "Letter to Theodore Draper in New York from Cyril Briggs in Los Angeles, March 17, 1958." Corvallis, OR: 1000 Flowers Publishing 2007: 1.
11. ^ "You are quite correct in assuming that the Communist Party had no part in initiating the organization of the Brotherhood. Nor did the Brotherhood or its inspiration to the Communist movement. It was certainly already in existence when I had my first contact with the Communists, through the visits of Rose [Stokes] and Bob [Minor] to my office at 2299 Seventh Avenue [New York City]. Nor did the Communists inspire the ABB program you have seen. "
    " After I, Dick Moore, and some other members of the Supreme Council joined the CP, we sought to and succeeded in establishing a close relationship between the two organizations. "Briggs to Draper, March 17, 1958: 3.
12. ↑ Joel Seidman with Olive Golden and Yaffa Draznin (eds.): Communism in the United States - A Bibliography. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1969: 66.
13. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} William L. Van Deburg (ed.): Modern Black Nationalism: From Marcus Garvey to Louis Farrakhan. New York, NY: New York University Press 1996: 34.

Works

• "The American Race Problem". In: The Crusader. [New York], vol. 1, no.14 (September – December 1918).
• "The African Blood Brotherhood". In: The Crusader. vol. 2, no.10, June 1920: 7, 22.
• "The Negro Convention". In: The Toiler. [New York], vol. 4, whole no. 190, Oct. 1, 1921: 13-14.
• "The Negro Question in the Southern Textile Strikes." In: The Communist. vol. 8, no. 6, June 1929: 324-328.
• "The Negro Press as a Class Weapon." In: The Communist. vol. 8, no. 8, August 1929: 453-460.
• “Our Negro Work.” In: The Communist. vol. 8, no. 9, September 1929: 494-501.

literature

• Kathleen M. Ahern: Drafting a Revolutionary Pushkin: Cyril Briggs and the Creation of a Black International Proletariat. In: South Atlantic Review. vol. 73, no. 2 Spring 2008: 113–129. In JSTOR
• Minkah Makalani: For the Liberation of Black People Everywhere: The African Blood Brotherhood, Black Radicalism, and Pan-African Liberation in the New Negro Movement, 1917-1936. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 2004. PhD dissertation.
• Louis J. Parascandola: Cyril Briggs and the African Blood Brotherhood: A Radical Counterpoint to Progressivism. Afro-Americans in New York Life and History. January 2006.
• Wilfred D. Samuels: Five Afro-Caribbean Voices in American Culture, 1917–1929: Hubert H. Harrison, Wilfred A. Domingo, Richard B. Moore, Cyril V. Briggs, and Claude McKay. University of Iowa 1977. PhD dissertation.
• Mark Solomon: The Cry Was Unity: Communists and African Americans, 1917-1936. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi 1998.
• Michelle Ann Stephens: Black Empire: The Making of Black Transnationalism by West Indians in the United States, 1914–1962. New Haven, CT: Yale University 1999. PhD dissertation.
• Theman Ray Taylor: Cyril Briggs and the African Blood Brotherhood: Another Radical View of Race and Class in the 1920s. Santa Barbara, CA: University of California at Santa Barbara 1981. PhD dissertation.
• William L. Van Deburg (ed.): Modern Black Nationalism: From Marcus Garvey to Louis Farrakhan. New York, NY: New York University Press 1996.