Date of Award

1-1-2023

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Latin American, Caribbean and U.S. Latino Studies

Content Description

1 online resource (vi, 253 pages)

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Alejandra M Bronfman

Committee Members

Glyne Griffith, Walter Little

Keywords

Black Culture, Black Politics, Garveyism, Harlem Renaissance, West Indians, Black nationalism

Subject Categories

Caribbean Languages and Societies

Abstract

ABSTRACT This dissertation tells a new story of Harlem black radicalism by inserting four West Indian migrants' experiences in advancing and enriching conversations on Harlem’s black radicalism, on Garveyism and on black politics during the interwar period and Harlem Renaissance era in Harlem. These four men include Hubert Harrison of St. Croix, Wilfred A. Domingo and Marcus Garvey of Jamaica and Cyril Briggs of Nevis of St. Kitts-Nevis. It writes a new history of Harlem black radicalism that inserts these four West Indian thinkers into the conversation and brings all these thinkers together under one history. This dissertation makes a unique contribution to the study of black internationalism. It analyzes how difference and the internationalization of black spaces in the U.S. and particularly Harlem helped to contribute to black radical politics in Harlem with a focus on how the experience of black west Indian migrants contributed to black Harlem radicalism. I examine the impact of violence and us white supremacy on black migrants. Furthermore, I center Harlem as an international space, where adaptation to new experiences and contexts led to new and distinct perspectives that aided in black politics of this time. I argue that between 1900 and 1942, “the problem of the color line” (i.e. violence and white supremacy) in the U.S. became an immense issue in West Indian migrants struggles for upward mobility and justice in the U.S., coming to be inscribed on most aspects of their black lives. Their exposure to U.S. violence and oppression and incompatible solutions for uplift for them however led to them reshape understandings of race and class and who they were and contributed to them turning to one another for guidance and each’s later adherence to race first politics. I argue that as migrants, their experiences of the U.S. and New York City helped reshape their identities and contributed to them constructing new political identities and to new and unique forms of black radicalism. Importantly, however, they drew from one another in their responses to these new experiences to create these multiple forms. As I argue their reactions as migrants, both as a collective and apart, came to have an important impact on black politics of this time. This was shown in their interpretations of concepts like constructing/writing a new black history, nationhood, self- determination, self-defense and self-reliance and their extension into the black politics overall of Harlem. Further, in this dissertation, I argue that each went from distinct West Indian idealisms as migrants with an ambivalence to radicalism which merely asked for democracy and representation to race-first politics and radicalism. While some would expand on race-first, each were guided in important ways by the early race-first radicalism of Harrison. In this dissertation, I look at and link their individual contributions to Harrison and each other’s politics in the U.S. between 1900 and 1942. This project relied on a content analysis of archival data and secondary sources. Archival documents were characterized by the Negro World, Messenger and Crusader newspapers and documents published between 1900 and 1942. Secondary sources were characterized by biographies and histories of the lives of these men and of these times. I look at the histories of these individuals in the first five chapters, weaving their ideas into different points in the history of their lives. In doing this I locate and identify the issues of importance to these different West Indians and their newspapers and the points where they evolved and changed and how this contributed to black radicalism in Harlem. I locate the introduction of key ideas in the newspapers of this period within the contexts in which they emerged. I layer context onto this to highlight the history surrounding and their significance to the introduction of these ideas.

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