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Republic of New Afrika

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Republic of New Afrika

The Republic of New Afrika (RNA) was founded in 1968 as an American social movement based in Black Nationalism; it had three goals:

Contents

  • Creation of an independent African-American-majority country situated in the southeastern United States, in the heart of an area of black-majority population.
  • Payment by the federal government of several billion dollars in reparations to African-American descendants of slaves for the damages inflicted on Africans and their descendants by chattel enslavement, Jim Crow laws, and modern-day forms of racism.
  • A referendum of all African Americans to determine their desires for citizenship; movement leaders say they were not offered a choice in this matter after emancipation in 1865 following the American Civil War.

    • The vision for this country was first promulgated by the Malcolm X Society on March 31, 1968, at a Black Government Conference held in Detroit, Michigan. The conference participants drafted a constitution and declaration of independence. Its proponents lay claim to five Southern states: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina; and to the black-majority counties adjacent to this area in Arkansas, Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee and Florida.

    History

    The Black Government Conference was convened by the Malcolm X Society and the Group on Advanced Leadership (GOAL), two influential Detroit-based black organizations with broad followings. The attendees produced a Declaration of Independence (signed by 100 conferees out of approximately 500), a constitution, and the framework for a provisional government. Robert F. Williams, a controversial human rights advocate then living in exile in China, was chosen as the first president of the provisional government; attorney Milton Henry (a student of Malcolm X's teachings) was named first vice president; and Betty Shabazz, widow of Malcolm X, served as second vice president.

    The Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika (PG-RNA) advocated/advocates a form of cooperative economics through the building of New Communities—named after the Ujamaa concept promoted by Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere. It proposed militant self-defense through the building of local people's militias and a standing army to be called the Black Legion; and the building of racially based organizations to champion the right of self-determination for people of black African descent.

    The organization was involved in numerous controversial issues. For example, it attempted to assist Oceanhill-Brownsville area in Brooklyn to secede from the United States during the 1968 conflict over control of public schools. Additionally, it was involved with shootouts at New Bethel Baptist Church in 1969 (during the one-year anniversary of the founding) and another in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1971. (It had announced that the capital of the Republic would be in Hinds County, Mississippi, located on a member's farm). In the confrontations, law-enforcement officials were killed and injured. Organization members were prosecuted for the crimes.

    The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) listed the Republic of New Afrika as a seditious group due to its racism and advocacy of secession. It conducted raids on its meetings, which led to violent confrontations. It repeatedly arrested and prosecuted certain RNA leaders noted above. The group was a target of the COINTELPRO operation by the FBI, as well as Red Squad activities of Michigan State Police and the Detroit Police Department, among other cities.

    Notable members

  • Robert F. Williams was a black nationalist elected as the first president of the Republic of New Afrika.
  • Milton Henry, also known as "Brother Gaidi Obadele," was one of the primary founders of the Republic of New Afrika. He was elected as the first vice president of the founding administration in 1968.
  • Betty Shabazz, widow of Malcolm X, was elected as second vice president of the first administration in 1968, working alongside Williams and Henry.
  • Chokwe Lumumba, formerly Edwin Finley Taliaferro of Detroit, was elected as second vice president in 1971. He later became an attorney, working in Michigan and Mississippi in public defense. After settling in Jackson, Mississippi, he was elected to the city council there. He was elected as mayor in 2013, dying in office in February 2014 of natural causes.

    • Leaders

  • Robert F. Williams, President in Exile (1968-1971)
  • Imari Obadele, President (1971 - 1991)
  • Dara Abubakari, Acting President (1975-1980)
  • Kwame Afoh (1994-2000)
  • Demetri Marshall (2000-2002)
  • Ukali Mwendo (2002-2005)
  • Alvin H. Brown
  • New Africa House, an academic building and former dormitory on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, was established following a black student takeover of the dorm in the spring of 1970, in a protest against the lack of African-American studies and faculty.
  • Terry Bisson's 1988 novel Fire on the Mountain is an alternate history exploring the US after the success of John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859. In Bisson's version, there is a widespread slave revolt throughout the South, culminating with the region's secession and the founding of a nation of Nova Africa. It encompassed states of the Deep South, as envisioned by the above movement.

    • References

    Republic of New Afrika Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA