Clarence Lang

Thank you for having me, Don.

Good to be here.

Well, thank you for that question, because it gives me an opportunity to say that Black nationalism as a stream of thought predates the 20th century.

It goes back well into the 19th century, some would argue, even earlier.

And as a constellation of ideas, Black nationalism cohered around the idea of Black people as being a people.

They were not just simply, so to speak, Americans of a darker hue, even before that concept existed, but that they were a people that had the right to sovereignty, to self-determination.

And the focus was on the creation of independent, autonomous institutions

to serve and advance their interests.

So it's a longstanding theme.

And certainly in the 20th century, that tradition endured, for example, in the work of individuals like Marcus Garvey, founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, a Caribbean immigrant who helped to codify

and modernize the Black nationalist tradition in the beginning of the 20th century, right?

But it goes back much further than that.

And it was one of, we could say, two broad responses collectively by Black people in response to their conditions in North America or the United States, being more specific.

So there's one tradition of Black people lobbying, struggling to be part of this nation,

Right.

As such, to be full citizens, to have full participation in rights, citizenship and so forth.

And that's a long standing tradition of itself.

But you also have this long standing black nationalist tradition, not always antithetical to those goals, was very much fixated on black people building

based on their own resources and interests, pursuing their interests as a corporate collective sovereign group, including, in some iterations of black nationalism, demands for land-based independence.

So it could take a number of different forms, and so that's one particular trend.