Black Manifesto

Prepared by James Forman with the assistance of the League of Black Revolutionary Workers and adopted by the National Black Economic Development Conference (NBEDC) in Detroit, Michigan, on April 26, 1969, the Black Manifesto called on white churches and synagogues to pay $500 million (about $15 per black person) in reparations for black enslavement and continuing oppression. The money would fund projects to benefit blacks, including the establishment of a southern land bank, four television networks, and a black university. The manifesto indicted white religious organizations for complicity in American racism and called on blacks to bring whatever pressure was necessary to force churches and synagogues to comply.

On May 4, 1969, the date set by the manifesto to start disrupting religious institutions, Forman took the pulpit in the middle of services at New York City's Riverside Church and demanded reparations. Riverside Church was selected because of its connections with the Rockefeller family, viewed by the manifesto's authors as classic white oppressors. Some predominantly white churches expressed some sympathy with the aims of the manifesto but primarily increased aid to existing or new programs of their own rather than providing money for the reparations fund. Forman's call did raise about half a million dollars, about $200,000 of which came from Riverside Church alone. Many prominent black organizations, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Baptist Convention, distanced themselves from the call for reparations and urged that money be given to them for related purposes instead.

By mid-May 1969 both the FBI and the Justice Department had begun investigations into the NBEDC. The money raised by the manifesto was used by the Interreligious Foundation for Community Projects for a number of projects, including the funding of Black Star Publications, a revolutionary black publishing house in Detroit, connected to James Forman.

See also League of Revolutionary Black Workers; Reparations

Bibliography

Forman, James. The Making of Black Revolutionaries. Washington, D.C.: Open Hand, 1985.

Haines, Herbert H. Black Radicals and the Civil Rights Mainstream, 1954–1970. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1988.

jeanne theoharis (1996)

BLACK MANIFESTO

Manifesto of Revolution

In May 1969 James Foreman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) presented the "Manifesto to the White Christian Churches and the Jewish Synagogues in the United States of America and All Other Racist Institutions" to the New York meeting of the National Council of Churches. The manifesto, adopted earlier by the National Black Economic Development Conference, was a combination of Marxist ideology and black power rhetoric. As Foreman said in his introduction, the aim was "to bring this [American] government down … [and] liberate all the people in the U.S. and … the colored people the world around.…Racism in the U.S. is so pervasive … that only an armed, well-disciplined, black-controlled government can insure the stamping out of racism."

Reparations

The manifesto demanded that the religious bodies of the United States provide $500 million in reparations for their implication in the "capitalistic and imperialist power structure." Two days later, in what became an ongoing practice through the year, Foreman interrupted the sermon at Riverside Church in New York City to read his demands. Shortly thereafter he made the same presentation to the American Baptist Convention.

Anti-White Racism

The Black Manifesto offended most whites by its anti-white racism as well its demands for reparations for actions done by people long dead, many of whom were not even ancestors of current Americans. That anger was directed, in turn, to those church leaders who, having sensed the frustration in the black community that had led to the stunning race riots in the previous years, seemed willing to use church funds for programs for black improvement. Local opposition to denominational bureaucracies coupled with conservative criticism of the social and theological liberalism of national leaders to weaken the influence of the mainstream churches.

Sources:

"Black Bill Collector," Newsweek, 73 (19 May 1969): 74-75;

"Black Manifesto," Time, 93 (16 May 1969): 94;

Alan Geyer, "May Day in Manhattan," Christian Century (14 May 1969): 671-672;

"James Foreman's Black Manifesto," America, 120 (24 May 1969): 605.