With much travail, there finally came forth, as an embodiment of the extreme of race-consciousness, an organization called the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. This clan lays claim to a million members in the United States, the West Indies, South America and South Africa, and announces as its final object the establishment of a black empire in Africa. Connected with the U.N.I.A. are the Black Star Line, capitalized at $10,000,000, and the Negro Factories Corporation, capitalized at $2,000,000. Just what these astonishing figures mean in actual cash it is impossible to say, but this much is certain: the Black Star Line already owns three of the many vessels which—say the prophets of the movement—will some day ply among the Negro lands of the world.
To cap the climax, the U.N.I.A. held in New York City during the month of August, 1920, “the first International Negro Convention,” which drew up a Negro Declaration of Independence, adopted a national flag and a national anthem, and elected “a Provisional President of Africa, a leader for the American Negroes, and two leaders for the Negroes of the West Indies, Central and South America.”
The best testimony of the nature of this new movement is to be found in an astonishing pamphlet called the “Universal Negro Catechism,” and issued “by authority of the High Executive Council of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.” In this catechism one discovers such items as the following, under the head of “Religious Knowledge”:
Q. Did God make any group or race of men superior to another?
A. No; He created all races equal, and of one blood, to dwell on all the face of the earth.
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Q. What is the colour of God?
A. A spirit has neither colour, nor other natural parts, nor qualities.
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Q. If ... you had to think or speak of the colour of God, how would you describe it?