The seeds are sown: The impact of Garveyism in Zimbabwe in the interwar years

International Journal of African Historical Studies

Volumn 35, Issue 2-3, 2002, Pages 335-361

  West, Michael O ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 33746158760     PISSN: 03617882     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3097617     Document Type: Article

References (115)

1. See, for example, A. Abu Boahen, ed., UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. VII: Africa Under Colonial Domination, 1880-1935 (London, 1985), Chs. 12, 22-29;
2. Melvin E. Page, ed., Africa and the First World War (London, 1987);
3. Journal of African History 19, 1 (1978), special issue on World War I and Africa;
4. Ibrahim Abdullah, "Rethinking the Freetown Crowd: The Moral Economyof the 1919 Strikes and Riot in Sierra Leone, " Canadian Journal of African Studies 28, 2 (1994), 197-218;
5. Walter White, Rope and Faggot: A Biography of Judge Lynch (New York, 1929);
6. William M. Tuttle, Jr., Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919 (New York, 1970);
7. Roy May and Robin Cohen, "The Interaction Between Race and Colonialism: A Case Study of the Liverpool Race Riots of 1919, " Race &Class, 16, 2 (1974), 111-26;
8. Jacqueline Jenkinson, "The Glasgow Race Disturbances of 1919, "Immigrants and Minorities 4, 2 (1985), 43-67.
9. Ian Duffield, "Pan-Africanism and the Idea of an Independent Black State in Africa, 1911-1923, " in Thomas J. Barron, Owen Dudley Edwards, and Patricia J. Storey, eds., Constitutions and National Identity (Edinburgh, 1993), 218-37.
10. W. F. Elkins, "'Unrest Among the Negroes': A British Document of1919, " Science & Society, 32 (1968), 66-79;
11. Theodore Kornweibel, Jr., "Seeing Red": Federal Campaigns Against Black Militancy, 1919-1925 (Bloomington, 1998).
12. George Padmore, Pan-Africanism or Communism?: The Coming Struggle for Africa (London, 1956);
13. Imanuel Geiss, The Pan-African Movement: A History of Pan-Africanism in America, Europe, and Africa, trans. Ann Keep (New York, 1974);
14. P. Olisanwuche Esedebe, Pan-Africanism: The Idea and Movement, 1776-1963(Washington, D.C., 1982).
15. On blacks and the communist movement generally, see Padmore, Pan-Africanism or Communism?;
16. Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (London, 1983);
17. Roger E. Kanet, "The Comintern and the 'Negro Question': Communist Policy in the United States and Africa, 1921-1941, " Survey, 19, 4 (1973), 86-122;
18. Sheridan Johns, "The Comintern, South Africa and the Black Diaspora, " Review of Politics 37, 2 (1975), 200-234;
19. Woodford McClellan, "Africans and Black Americans in the Comintern Schools, 1925-1934, " International Journal of African Historical Studies26, 2 (1993), 371-88.
20. On African Americans and communism specifically, see Harry Haywood, Black Bolshevik: Autobiography of an Afro-American Communist (Chicago, 1978);
21. Nell Irvin Painter, The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: His Life as a Negro Communist in the South (Cambridge, Mass., 1979);
22. Mark Naison, Communists in Harlem During the Depression (New York, 1983);
23. Robin D. G. Kelley, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1990);
24. Mark Solomon, The Cry was Unity: Communists and African Americans, 1917-36 (Jackson, Miss., 1998).
25. On black South Africans and communism specifically, see Naboth Mokgatle, The Autobiography of an Unknown South African (Berkeley, 1971);
26. Martin Legassick, Class and Nationalism in South African Protest: The South African Communist Party and the "Native Republic, " 1928-34(Syracuse, 1973);
27. Robin D. G. Kelley, "The Religious Odyssey of African Radicals:Notes on the Communist Party of South Africa, 1921-34, " Radical History Review 51 (1991), 5-24;
28. Pieter C. van Duin, "'Workers of all Colours Unite': South African Communism, the White Working Class, and the Ideology of Proletarian Non-Racialism, 1917-1943, " South Asia Bulletin: Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 15, 2 (1995), 64-71;
29. Allison Drew, ed., South Africa's Radical Tradition: A Documentary History, 2 vols. (Cape Town, 1996-97).
30. Henri Labouret, "Le mouvement Pan-Nègre aux États-Uniset ses répercussions en Afrique, " Politique Étrangère2, 4 (1937), 312-21;
31. George Shepperson, "Notes on Negro American Influences on the Emergence of African Nationalism, " Journal of African History 1, 2 (1960), 299-312;
32. Jabez Ayodele Langley, "Garveyism and African Nationalism, "Race 11, 2 (1969), 157-72;
33. J. Ayo Langley, "Pan-Africanism in Paris, 1924-36, " Journal of Modern Studies 7, 1 (1969), 69-94;
34. M. B. Akpan, "Liberia and the Universal Negro Improvement Association: The Background to the Abortion of Garvey's Scheme for African Colonization, " Journal of African History 14, 1 (1973), 105-27;
35. Ibrahim Baba Kake, "L'influence des Afro-Américains sur desnationalistes noirs francophones d'Afrique (1919-1945), " Présence Africaine 112 (1979), 48-65;
36. R. L. Okonkwo, "The Garvey Movement in British West Africa, "Journal of African History 21, 1 (1980), 105-17;
37. John Runcie, "The Influence of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association in Sierra Leone, " Africana Research Bulletin 12, 3(1983), 3-42;
38. Rupert Lewis and Maureen Warner-Lewis, eds., Garvey: Africa, Europe, the Americas (Kingston, 1986);
39. Gregory Pirio, "The Role of Garveyism in the Making of Namibian Nationalism, " in Brian Wood, ed., Namibia, 1884-1984: Readings in Namibia's History and Society (London, 1988);
40. Gavin Williams, "Garveyism, Akinpelu Obisesan and His Contemporaries: Ibadan, 1920-22, " in Terence Ranger and Olufemi Vaughn, eds., Legitimacy and the State in Twentieth-Century Africa: Essays in Honour of A. H. M. Kirk-Greene (London, 1993), 112-32.
41. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1957), 45;
42. Nnamdi Azikiwe, My Odyssey: An Autobiography (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970), 66;
43. C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, 2nd. rev. ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1963), 396;
44. E. David Cronon, Black Moses: The Story of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1955), 217.
45. On Garveyism in South Africa, see Robert A. Hill and Gregory A. Pirio, "'Africa for the Africans': The Garvey Movement in South Africa, 1920-1940, " in Shula Marks and Stanley Trapido, eds., The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth Century South Africa (London, 1987), 209-253;
46. Tony Martin, The Pan-African Connection: From Slavery to Garvey and Beyond (Dover, Mass., 1983), 133-53;
47. Robert Edgar, "Garveyism in Africa: Dr. Wellington and the American Movement in the Transkei, " Ufahamu 6, 3 (1976), 31-57.
48. On the relationship between segregationist thought and practices in the United States and South Africa, see George M. Fredrickson, White Supremacy: AComparative Study in American and South African History (Oxford, 1981);
49. John W. Cell, The Highest Stage of White Supremacy: The Origins of Segregation in South Africa and the American South (Cambridge, 1982).
50. On Garveyism, see Cronon, Black Moses;
51. Tony Martin, Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (Westport, Conn., 1976);
52. Judith Stein, The World of Marcus Garvey: Race and Class in Modern Society (Baton Rouge, LA, 1986).
53. But see, too, the projected ten-volume documentary history by Robert A.Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers (Berkeley, 1983- ).
54. On Southern Rhodesia, see T. O. Ranger, The African Voice in Southern Rhodesia, 1898-1930 (Evanston, Ill., 1970);
55. E. P. Makambe, African Protest Movements in Southern Rhodesia before1930: An Ideological Appreciation of the Socio-Political Roots of Protest Movements (Pasadena, 1982).
56. Ian Phimister, An Economic and Social History of Zimbabwe, 1890-1948:Capital Accumulation and Class Struggle (London, 1988), 198, mentions Garveyism, but only in passing.
57. Quoted in Hill and Pirio, "Africa for the Africans, " 220.
58. P. L. Wickins, The Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union of Africa(Cape Town, 1978);
59. Helen Bradford, A Taste of Freedom: The ICU in Rural South Africa, 1924-1930 (New Haven, 1987).
60. While praising the transatlantic blacks, mainly West Indians and African Americans, as "highly cultured" and applauding their contributions tothe movement, Kadalie accused them of trying "their best to use the ICU asan Auxiliary" of the UNIA, an infiltration he claims to have thwarted. See Clements Kadalie, My Life and the ICU: The Autobiography of a Black Trade Unionist in South Africa, ed. Stanley Trapido (New York, 1970), 220.
61. See also Alan Gregor Cobley, "'Far from Home': The Origins and Significance of the Afro-Caribbean Community in South Africa to 1930, "Journal of Southern African Studies 18, 2 (1992), 349-70.
62. David Chanaiwa, The Occupation of Southern Rhodesia: A Study in Economic Imperialism (Nairobi, 1981).
63. Ranger, African Voice, 30-36.
64. National Archives of Zimbabwe (NAZ), S138/ 92: The African Universal Benefit Society, November 1924; resolution signed by L. Morten (Chairman) and J.E. Sinenke (Secretary).
65. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition(Cambridge, 1983);
66. Leroy Vail, ed., The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa (Berkeley, 1989);
67. Leroy Vail and Landeg White, Power and the Praise Poem: Southern African Voices in History (London, 1991).
68. Kalinda apparently was active in various African political and religiousmovements in South Africa's Transvaal province. During the interwar years, itwas not at all uncommon for Nyasalanders, renowned throughout southern Africafor their relative educational excellence, to play leading roles inorganizations dominated numerically by African from other colonies. See NAZ, S138/92: Sub-Inspector, Division of Criminal Investigation Department, Transvaalto Superintendent of British South Africa Police, 22 January 1926; Terence Ranger, "African Attempts to Control Education in East and Central Africa, 1900-1939, " Past and Present 32 (1965), 57-85.
69. Okonkwo, "The Garvey Movement."
70. On the emergence of Manyika identity, see Terence Ranger, "Missionaries, Migrants and the Manyika: The Invention of Ethnicity in Zimbabwe, " in Vail, ed., Creation of Tribalism, 118-50.
71. See Sidney J. Lemelle and Robin D. G. Kelley, eds., Imagining Home:Class, Culture and Nationalism in the African Diaspora (London, 1994).
72. The country's Shona-speaking provinces were called Mashonaland, including Manicaland.
73. Rev. Bertram H. Barnes, "A Campaign against Babel: The Unificationof the Dialects of Mashonaland, " Native Affairs Department Annual (NADA), 6(1928), 45-50;
74. Clement M. Doke, Report on the Unification of the Shona Dialects(Hertford, England, 1930);
75. Herbert Chimhundu, "Early Missionaries and the Ethnolinguistic Factor During the 'Invention of Tribalism' in Zimbabwe, " Journal of African History 33, 1 (1992), 87-109;
76. George Fortune, "The Contribution of C. M. Doke to Written Shona, " African Studies 52, 2 (1993), 103-129;
77. N. C. Dembetembe, "C. M. Doke's Contribution to Shona Linguistic Studies: Dialects, Phonetics and Grammar, " African Studies 52, 2 (1993), 131-40;
78. Diana Jeater, "The Way You Tell Them: Language, Ideology and Development Policy in Southern Rhodesia, " African Studies 54, 2 (1995), 1-15.
79. Language was often a central plank in the invention of tradition, mostespecially "tribal" tradition, in colonial southern Africa. See Vail, ed., Creation of Tribalism.
80. In the post-World War II era another Manyika migrant worker in Cape Town, Maurice Nyagumbo, would also flirt with the Communist Party, though more forsocial than political reasons. Nyagumbo went on to become a leading Zimbabweannationalist, emerging as a top official after independence in 1980. See Maurice Nyagumbo, With the People: An Autobiography from the Zimbabwe Struggle (London, 1980).
81. In contrast to Garveyism, the communist movement advanced very slowlyinto the ranks of the African working class in southern Africa in the interwaryears. There was never any significant, and certainly no institutional, communist presence in Southern Rhodesia. In South Africa, as late as 1927 thewhite-dominated Communist Party had a paid-up membership of just 400, only about50 of whom were African. See Kelley, "Religious Odyssey."
82. On the Rhodesian ICU, see J. R. Hooker, "The African Worker in Southern Rhodesia: Black Aspirations in a White Economy, 1927-1936, " Race6, 2 (1964), 142-51;
83. Michael O. West, The Rise of an African Middle Class: Colonial Zimbabwe, 1898-1965 (Bloomington, 2002), 134-47.
84. Amanda D. Kemp and Robert Trent Vinson, "'Poking Holes in the Sky':Professor James Thaele, American Negroes, and Modernity in 1920s Segregationist South Africa, " African Studies Review 43, 1 (2000), 141-59.
85. NAZ, S1671: Sambo to Chief I. O., Bulawayo, 31 May 1927; Sambo to Agry[Aggrey], 17 March 1927 (quotations from the latter). Aggrey, who died suddenlysome four months after Sambo wrote him, should have been the last person for the ICU activist to so confide in. Dubbed the "Booker T. Washington of Africa" on account of his procolonial views, Aggrey was a critic of Garveyism and staunch racial accommodationist on the order of his mentor, Booker T. Washington. Sambo, by his own account, had briefly encountered Aggrey duringone of two visits Aggrey made to South Africa in 1921 and 1924. See Edwin W.Smith, Aggrey of Africa: A Study in Black and White (New York, 1930);
86. Kenneth King, "James E. K. Aggrey: Collaborator, Nationalist, Pan-African, " Canadian Journal of African Studies 3, 3 (1970), 511-30;
87. Thomas C. Howard, "West Africa and the American South: Notes on James E. K. Aggrey and the Idea of a University of West Africa, " Journal of African Studies 2, 4 (1975/76), 445-465;
88. Michael O. West, "James Aggrey's Impact on Southern Africans, "Southern African Encounter 3, 1 (1996), 20-23.
89. Kemp and Vinson, "Poking Holes in the Sky";
90. Mary Benson, The African Patriot: The Story of the African National Congress of South Africa (Chicago, 1964), 70-72.
91. A. C. Terry-Thompson, The History of the African Orthodox Church (New York, 1956);
92. Richard Newman, "The Origins of the African Orthodox Church, "in Richard Newman, ed., The Negro Churchman: The Official Organ of the African Orthodox Church, 1923-26 (Millwood, NY, 1977), iii-xxii;
93. Randall K. Burkett, Garveyism as a Religious Movement: The Institutionalization of a Black Civil Religion (Metuchen, N.J., 1978);
94. Theodore Natsoulas, "Patriarch McGuire and the Spread of the African Orthodox Church to Africa, " Journal of Religion in Africa 12, 2 (1981), 81-104;
95. Richard Newman, "Archbishop Daniel William Alexander and the African Orthodox Church, " International Journal of African Historical Studies 16, 4 (1983), 615-30.
96. The metaphor is derived from Wilson Jeremiah Moses, The Wings of Ethiopia: Studies in African-American Life and Letters (Ames, Iowa, 1990).
97. Pirio similarly asserts that "the interconnectedness of the UNIA andthe ICU was as complete in Luderitz [South West Africa] as it was in Cape Town." See Pirio, "The Role of Garveyism, " 261.
98. On the African Orthodox Church in Zimbabwe, see Michael O. West, "Ethiopianism and Colonialism: The African Orthodox Church in Zimbabwe, 1928-1934, " in Holger Bemt Hansen and Michael Twaddle, eds., Christian Missionaries and the State in the Third World (London, 2002), 237-54;
99. Michael O. West, "In Search of Ethiopianism: An Historical Investigator's Personal Odyssey in Zimbabwe, " Journal of African Travel-Writing 1 (1996), 52-63.
100. Southern Rhodesia. Debates of the Legislative Assembly, vol. 10, cols.1979-1980.
101. See, for example, S. K. B. Asante, "The Impact of the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis of 1935-36 on the Pan-African Movement in London, "Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana 13, 2 (1972), 217-27;
102. S. K. B. Asante, Pan-African Protest: West Africa and the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis, 1934-1941 (London, 1977);
103. Cedric J. Robinson, "The African Diaspora and the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis, " Race and Class 27, 2 (1985), 51-65;
104. William R. Scott, The Sons of Sheba's Race: African-Americans and the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935-1941 (Bloomington, 1993);
105. Joseph E. Harris, African-American Reactions to War in Ethiopia, 1936-1941 (Baton Rouge, 1994);
106. Patricia G. Clark, "Stretching Out Their Hands: The South African Reaction to Italy's 1935 Invasion of Ethiopia, " in Harold Marcus, ed., New Trends in Ethiopian Studies: Papers of the 12th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies (Lawrenceville, N.J., 1994), 573-97.
107. For a discussion of the self-help tradition among workers, see Tsuneo Yoshikuni, "Strike Action and Self-Help Associations: Zimbabwean Worker Protest and Culture after World War I, " Journal of Southern African Studies15, 3 (1989), 440-68.
108. As a result of his advocacy of industrial education and black politicalquiescence, Washington's program became highly popular among colonialadministrators and missionaries in Africa, as well as with Americanphilanthropic organizations interested in Africa. The "Tuskegee model"also found favor with many colonized Africans, including colonial Zimbabweans, though for different reasons. See Michael O. West, "The Tuskegee Model of Development in Africa: Another Dimension of the African/African-American Connection, " Diplomatic History 16, 3 (1992), 371-87.
109. West, Rise of an African Middle Class, 144-46.
110. NAZ, S1906: Evidence [of Committee to Investigate the Economic, Socialand Health Conditions of Africans Employed in Urban Areas], 294-95. Makgathoalso represented several other groupings before the committee. See also Reportof Committee to Investigate the Economic, Social and Health Conditions of Africans Employed in Urban Areas (January 1944).
111. Kenneth P. Vickery, "The Rhodesia Railways African Strike of 1945, Part I: A Narrative Account, " Journal of Southern African Studies 24, 3(1998), 545-60,
112. and Part II, "Cause, Consequence, Significance, " Journal of Southern African Studies 25, 1 (1999), 49-71.
113. Arthur Turner, "The Growth of Railway Unionism in the Rhodesias, 1944-1955, " in Richard Sandbrook and Robin Cohen, eds., The Development ofan African Working Class: Studies in Class Formation and Action (London, 1975), 73-98;
114. David Johnson, World War II and the Scramble for Labour in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1939-1948 (Harare, 2000), 141-167;
115. Joshua Nkomo, The Story of My Life (London, 1984).