Anti-Americanism among African Americans

This article is part of a series about
Black power
History Black Arts Movement Black is beautiful Black power movement Black Power Revolution Kwanzaa Raised fist events of 1968 and 1972
Ideologies African socialism Africana womanism Afrocentrism Anti-Americanism Black anarchism Black feminism Black leftism Black nationalism Black pride Black separatism Black supremacy Intercommunalism Pan-Africanism
Organizations African People's Socialist Party Assata's Daughters Black Guerrilla Family Black Liberators Black Liberation Army Black Panther Militia Black Panther Party Black Radical Congress Black Revolutionary Assault Team Black Riders Liberation Party Black Women's Defense League British Black Panthers Conscious Community Five-Percent Nation George Jackson Brigade Huey P. Newton Gun Club League of Revolutionary Black Workers Lowndes County Freedom Organization May 19th Communist Organization MOVE Nation of Islam National Joint Action Committee New Black Panther Party Republic of New Afrika Revolutionary Action Movement Revolutionary Black Panther Party SNCC Symbionese Liberation Army US Organization Weather Underground
People Angela Davis Assata Shakur Donald DeFreeze Elaine Brown Eldridge Cleaver Fay Bellamy Powell Fred Hampton George Jackson Gloria Richardson Hakim Jamal Huey P. Newton John Africa Malcolm X Marcus Garvey Martin Luther King, Jr. Maulana Karenga Malik Zulu Shabazz Michael X Max Stanford Obi Egbuna Robert F. Williams Rosa Parks Stokely Carmichael Wadsworth Jarrell
Works A Taste of Power Black Power and the American Myth Ten-Point Program The Diary of Malcolm X Revolutionary Suicide
Related Anarchism Black Lives Matter Black Power gang Black Power in the Caribbean Black Power in Montreal Communism Feminism Hutu Power New Left Political hip hop Red Power movement Socialism The Troubles United States civil rights movement White power Youth rights
Category
v t e

Anti-Americanism has been a recurring theme among several influential African American political organizations and activists due to racism against African Americans domestically,^[1] and against other non-white people internationally.^[2] African-American anti-Americanism can be contrasted with African-American patriotism, although the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive antonyms.

The African-American community is unique compared to Afro-Caribbean or Afro-Brazilian peoples in that "unique natural population growth resulted in a slave population that was already about four-fifths American-born by the late 18th century; after the end of the slave trade in 1808 the number of African-born slaves in the South faded to statistical insignificance."^[3]: 587 Revolutionary Anti-Americanism, as manifested by politically active African-American elites, was rare in the 19th and earliest 20th century, in part because African-Americans of the era were educated at institutions that manifested the paternalistic and elite worldviews of the high-caste WASPs who contributed to their establishment.^[4]: 26 Some early African-American nationalism was integrated with the idea of the African diaspora and the concept of pan-Africanism, developed by Alexander Crummell, Martin R. Delany, and Henry McNeil Turner, among others.^[5]: 186

Several African-American radical and underground movement organizations professed anti-Americanism.

The Black Panther Party's founder Huey P. Newton criticized American nationalism.^[7] Furthermore, the party believed that the destruction of the United States was a prerequisite for a world revolution.^[8]

In 1966, the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) published a document titled "World Black Revolution", in which the organisation advocates for the destruction of the United States, along with Europe and the Soviet Union, which they considered equally as imperialistic and white supremacist as the United States.^[9]

The Black Guerrilla Family rejected patriotism for the United States^[10] and called for the overthrow of the American government.^[11]

In Blood in My Eye (1972), George Jackson calls for the destruction of the United States,^[12] stating^[13]

"We must accept the eventuality of bringing the U.S.A. to its knees; accept the closing off of critical sections of the city with barbed wire, armored pig carriers crisscrossing the streets, soldiers everywhere, tommy guns pointed at stomach level, smoke curling black against the daylight sky, the smell of cordite, house-to-house searches, doors being kicked in, the commonness of death."

Studying patriotism towards the United States among African Americans, Micah E. Johnson identified a subset of the African American population which he termed "subverters".^[1] Johnson describes subverters as African Americans who reject patriotism for the United States, due to the racial inequality present in the country.^[1]

During the study, one subverter expressed^[1]

"American patriotism glorifies a world that doesn’t exist. The idea is that all Americans benefit from their rights to liberty, life, and justice for all, but this is a false ideal because everyone isn’t allotted to those rights in America. I’m not patriotic because I don’t feel there is anything to love about this country that globalizes imperialism and capitalism crippling every nation it comes across."

In a 2022 survey of 1,000 American adults by YouGov, 12% of African American respondents described themselves as "not very patriotic", while 9% of African American respondents described themselves as "not patriotic at all".^[14]

• African-American culture
• African-American history
• Afrophobia – Fear or hatred of African peoplePages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Black genocide in the United States – Characterization of the past and present treatment of African Americans
• Discrimination based on skin color#United States – Form of prejudice or discriminationPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Discrimination in the United States
• Negrophobia – Fear, hatred or extreme aversion to Black people and Black culturePages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Racism against African Americans
• Racism in the United States
• Hoteps – Afrocentrist group of African Americans
• Slavery in the United States
• Slave rebellion and resistance in the United States
• Double consciousness – Internal conflict of society's oppressed
• Black Consciousness Movement – South African anti-apartheid movement, 1960s
• Black is beautiful – Cultural movement started in the 1960s by African Americans
• Black Lives Matter – Social movement originating in the US
• Black nationalism – Ideology that seeks to develop a Black national identity
• Black power – Political and social movement, slogan, and ideology
• Black Power movement – African-American social, political & cultural movement in the United StatesPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
  • Black Panther Party – US political organization (1966–1982)
• Black separatism – Movement for separate institutions
• Black supremacy – Belief in superiority of black people
• Afrocentrism – African ethnocentrism
• Anti-racism – Beliefs, actions, movements, and policies adopted or developed to oppose racism
• Critical race theory – Intellectual movement and framework
• Woke – Political slang term
• African Americans in France
• African diaspora – Spread of people with African heritage
• Back-to-Africa movement – Political movement in the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries
• American Colonization Society – 19th-century group in the United States
• The Black Jacobins – 1938 book by C. L. R. James
• Jihad vs. McWorld – 1995 book by Benjamin Barber
• American exceptionalism – Idea of the United States as unique nation