‘The Klu Klux Klan: It Is War!’ by Cyril V. Briggs from The Crusader. Vol. 3 No. 5. January, 1921. Organ of the African Blood Brotherhood.

‘The nation-wide mobilization under the Christian Cross and the Stars and Stripes of cracker America into the Klu Klux Klan is as plainly an act of war as was the German mobilization in 1914. And the consequences of this latter mobilization will be quite as serious to the races living in North America as the German mobilization proved to be to the peoples of Europe.

‘It is war, and war of the cracker element of the white race against the entire Negro race. Whether the Negro race meets the issue courageously·, demonstrating its essential humanity, or in cowardly surrender to the enemy, it will be war just the same – war against the Negro race. Whether other elements of the white race will be eventually drawn into the cracker onslaught against our rights and lives remains to be seen. History indicates its extreme likelihood. The only certainties are: (1) that it is war, (2) that the white government of the United States will take no effective steps to protect us in our rights, (3) that the white North and our so-called white friends will continue to be apathetic to our wrongs or at best maintain a benevolent neutrality and (4) that in the eventuality of further immigration from the South even this benevolent neutrality will not stand the strain of the resulting economic competition but will be metamorphosed into active hostility as at East St. Louis, Washington, Chicago, etc.

‘The Klu Klux Klan aims at our virtual re-enslavement, since it purposes to rob us of the few of the most elementary right: of human beings and American citizens which through half a century of battling we have been able to wrench from the unwilling hands of the white majority in the United States. It proposes to nullify every reward that we had hoped for as a result of our mistaken, but none the less hearty and loyal, pacification in the last war. As in the face of this menace to his life and liberties, the American Negro is absolutely innocent of any definite racial aims or unity of purpose, it is practically impossible for even the most acute observer and careful diagnostician of the race pulse to predicate in exactly what way the American Negro will react to this twentieth century revival of the Klu Klux Klan, with all that that infamous organization stood for in reconstruction days. We confess we do not know how the race will meet this peril. However, we do know how it would be met by Real Men. And as we know that the Negro race is essentially human, we can assume that it will react accordingly.

‘It is war to the hilt against our rights and liberties, and against our very existence! With us it will be: a fight for life as well as for rights. And to the race fighting against mighty odds for its existence the use of any and every weapon at hand is not only permissible but compulsory. With the murderer clutching at our throats, we cannot afford to choose our weapons, but must defend ourselves with what lies nearest, whether that be poison, fire or what. As soon as it is demonstrated that the United States Government will not protect us in our rights, right then we must take steps to protect Ourselves. The odds are mightily against us, but run or stand, the results are likely to be the same and if we must die, let us with our brilliant poet, Claude McKay, resolve:

‘”If we must die, let it not be like hogs /Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot /While ’round us bark the mad and hungry dogs /Making their mock at our accursed lot. /If we must die, oh, let us nobly die, so that our precious blood may not be shed in vain; then even the monsters we defy /Shall be constrained to honor us though dead. /Oh, kinsmen! /We must meet the common foe; /Though far outnumbered, let us still be brave, /And for their thousand blows deal one death blow! /What though before us lies the open grave? /Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, /Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!”

‘What’s the difference whether in France or in the United States? In a white man’s war or in self-defense?’

The Crusader was published in New York City between 1918 and 1922, becoming the paper of the The African Blood Brotherhood for African Liberation and Redemption and the earliest Black Communist publication in the US. Founded by Cyril V Briggs, who had arrived to the city from the Caribbean in 1905, at first it was the journal of the Hamitic League of the World, a Pan-African group led by George Well Parker. Increasingly in sympathy with the Russian Revolution and new Communist International, in October 1919 the paper announced the African Blood Brotherhood and its adherence to Marxism. In June 1921, The Crusader officially became the journal of the ABB and the Black publication of the US Communist movement. Antipathy with Marcus Garvey’s movement led the Communist Party, at the insistence of Claude McKay, to withdraw support and Its last issue was in January, 1922. The African Blood Brotherhood with dissolve into the Workers Party of America with many activists joining the American Negro Labor Congress in 1925.

PDF of full Issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/crusader/v3n05-jan-1921-crusader-r.pdf