sakaisettlersocr

on starvation wage ..." (36)
In the fields tens of thousands of Afrikan farm
families during the 1930s were driven not only off the land,
but out of the South altogether. As we have seen, this was
clearly not the result of "blind economic circumstances,"
but was the genocidal result of imperialist policy (as
enacted by the most liberal settler administration in U.S.
history). The social disruption and de-population were no
less significant for Afrikans than for other dispersed colonial
peoples, such as the Palestinians.
The militant struggle on the land and the turn of
Afrikan workers toward revolution was not only blunted
by violent repression; increasingly the Afrikan masses were
involuntarily dispersed, scattered into the refdgee camps of
the Northern ghettoes, removed from established positions
in industries and trades that were an irreplaceable part of
the modern Nation. It was not just a matter of dollars, important
as income is to the oppressed; what was happening
ravaged the national culture. The "sea" of Afrikan society
was stricken at its material base.
*Interestingly enough, the 1934 AAA and the entire program
was administered by FDR's Secretary of Agriculture,
Henry Wallace. This man was later to become the darling
of the CPUSA, and the 1948 Presidential candidate of the
CPUSA-led "Progressive Party."
4. Neo-Colonialism
& Leadership
The U.S. Empire has had a long and successful
history of applying neo-colonialism to hold down the oppressed.
In Latin America and in New Afrika during the
mid-1800s the U.S. Empire utilized neo-colonialism prior
even to the advent of world imperialism. But in the 1920s
and early 1930s U.S. imperialism's neo-colonial instruments
lost control over the Afrikan masses. In order to
re-establish pro-imperialist leadership over Afrikan
politics, U.S. imperialism had to forge new neo-colonial
instruments. These neo-colonial instruments were not only
traditional but also radical and even socialistic in outward
forin, and had the special task of controlling the modern
forces of Afrikan trade-unionism and Afrikan socialism
that had arisen so widely.
We should remember that the essence of neocolonialism
is an outward form of national selfdetermination
and popular democracy concealing a submissive
relationship with imperialism on the part of the
new bourgeois forces. As Amilcar Cabral pointed out
almost twenty years ago concerning.neo-colonialism:
"The objective of the imperialist countries was to
prevent the enlargement of the socialist camp, to liberate
the reactionary forces in our countries which were being
stifled by colonialism and to enable these forces to ally
themselves with the international bourgeoisie. The fundamental
idea was to create a bourgeoisie where one did
not exist, in order specifically to strengthen the imperialist
and the capitalist camp. "(3 7)
The U.S. Empire had literally done exactly that in
the 1870s. The neo-colonial stage known as Black
Reconstruction had qualitatively changed and enlarged the
New Afrikan petit-bourgeoisie. This class, even in defeat
by the Euro-Arnerikan planter capitalists, were to a degree
held up by and patronized by U.S. imperialism - and they
retained like a religion their loyalty and dependence upon
the Federal government. Washington, D.C, was their Mecca
or Rome. Indeed, the Federal Government was for 111
many years the prime employer of the Afrikan petitbourgeoisie.
Many Afrikan politicians of the 19th Century were
consoled by Federal patronage jobs for the lost glories of
Reconstruction. U.S. Senator Blanche Bruce from
Mississippi was the last Afrikan in the Senate. When his
term ended in 1881, Mississippi politics were back under
planter control and he was replaced. For his loyal example
the Empire awarded him the position in Washington of
U.S. Register of the Treasury (for the next thirty-two years
that post would be reserved for loyal Afrikan leaders).
Even Frederick Douglass was not immune to the
ideological bent of his class. He was appointed U.S. Marshall
for the Distfict of Columbia, and later in his life was
U.S. Consul to Haiti. Small wonder that the former radical
abolitionist spent years preaching how Afrikans should
always remain loyal to the Republican Party, Northern
capital and the Federal Government.
By 1892 the Federal offices in Washington
employed some 1,500 Afrikans. While most of these jobs
were as cleaning women and the lowliest of clerks, a trickle
of professional and official positions were reserved for
hand-picked Afrikan petit-bo.urgeois leaders. Washington,
D.C. was then the "capitol" in exile of Afrikans, the
center of "Negro society."' Some eight bureaucratic positions
with status eventually were reserved for them: D.C.
Municipal Judge, Register of the Treasury, Deputy
Register, Assistant District Attorney for D.C., Auditor of
the Navy Department, Chief Surgeon at D.C. Freedman's
Hospital, Collector of Customs at Georgetown and U.S.
Assistant Attorney-General.
In 1913 a journalist light-heartedly labelled these
eight "the Black Cabinet." But what began in jest was
eagerly taken up by petit-bourgeois Afrikans in
seriousness. The custom began of regarding the "Black
Cabinet" as the representatives to the U.S. Government of