revolutionary action movement (ram) - Michael Schwartz Library

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1910 . 10 The Crusader became the ABB's official organ and at its peak had
a circulation of 33,000 .
11
Briggs also circulated The Crusader News Service
which was distributed to two hundred black newspapers .
The ABB's
headquarters were in New York with fifty branches including locations in
Chicago, Baltimore, Oklahoma, Omaha, West Virginia,
the Caribbean,
Trinidad, Surinam, British Guiana, Santo Domingo, the Windward Islands
and throughout Africa .
The African Blood Brotherhood was a Revolutionary Nationalist organization
which applied a
Marxist world view and
the theory of class struggle
to the plight of Black
Americans .
The organization was headed by a
supreme council
led by
Briggs . It was the first black revolutionary
organization to utilize a race and class analysis .
Unlike the Pan-African movement led by Dr . DuBois, this brotherhood
emphasized working-class leadership and consciousness ;
this also distinguished it from Marcus Garvey's movement . As
to the latter, it was differentiated because it felt that a
successful struggle for liberation by the Black millions
inside the United States was possible and necessary and would
itself by a decisive contribution to the liberation of Africa .
In that regard, the Brotherhood's outlook and that of DuBois
were very close . 12
The ABB advocated armed self-defense and took credit for playing
a
leading role in
defending black neighborhoods
in
the Tulsa, Oklahoma race
riot of 1921 . 13
10 Harry Haywood, Black Bolshevik . (Chicago, Illinois : Liberator
Press, 1978), p . 123 .
11 Theodore G . Vincent, Black Power and the Garve Movement . (San
Francisco, Calif . : Ramparts Press, 1971), pp . 75-85 .
12 Herbert Aptheker, ed . A Documentary History of the Negro People in
the Un ited States, 1 9 10-1932 , Vol . II Secausus, New Jersey : The itadel
Press, 1973), pp . 413-420 .
13R . Halliburton, Jr . "The Tulsa Race War of 1921 ." Journal of Black
Studies , March 1972, Vol . 2, No . 3, p . 333 .