Ras the Exhorter was a Caribbean-American black nationalist leader who was based out of Harlem, New York City during the 1930s. He became a popular leader of the African-American community, and his pan-Africanist movement sapped the strength of the rival CPUSA.
Biography[]
Ras was born in the Caribbean, but he later moved to the African-American community of Harlem in Manhattan, New York City, where he became a community leader. A short, squat man, he was said to have a staccato West Indian accent, and he was known to be a powerful orator; he was inspired by Marcus Garvey's black nationalist ideology, and he was also an avowed pan-Africanist. Ras was infuriated upon seeing blacks and whites together, claiming that white men used white women to control black people. During the 1930s, he called on the blacks of Harlem to chase the whites out of the neighborhood, and he became a major rival to the Communist Party USA, which sought to mobilize Harlem's black community in support of the anti-capitalist class struggle instead of an anti-white supremacist and black nationalist struggle. Most of Harlem's community leaders went against the CPUSA and came to support Ras, and he nearly came to have a monopoly in Harlem. His followers were accused of being hoodlums, and they used violence as a means of action, unlike the CPUSA. During a brawl with CPUSA members in the early 1930s, he confronted black CPUSA member Tod Clifton and refused to kill him, saying that he would spare him because he was black, and because he had the capacity to "get smart and get tired." Ras believed that brothers were the same color and that whites and blacks could not be brothers (saying that blacks were the sons of "Mama Africa"), called for the unity of blacks from the American South, Trinidad, Barbados, Jamaica, South Africa, and the rest of the African diaspora, argued that young and educated blacks should not "go over to the enslaver" and betray their own mother, claimed that he was building a glorious movement of black people, claimed that white money bled black bloodd and was therefore unclean, claimed that the black CPUSA members and the black nationalists were fighting in the street because of the white enslaver, argued that the white CPUSA leaders promised blacks with white women in exchange for party membership, claimed that an African in Africa would be a "black king" rather than being accused of being a rapist in America, claimed that he was respected in Japan, India, and all the "colored countries", claimed that his movement would "organize black", claimed that, if blacks recognized themselves inside, they would become "the kings among men", that he recognized black possibilities, that he would not sacrifice his "black brother" to the "white enslaver", and that whites never have to ally with blacks and that they would turn against blacks in order to get what they want. Ras would go on to gain more popularity in Harlem as the CPUSA failed to appeal to racial consciousness due to its focus on economic disparities instead of racial ones, but the CPUSA took advantage of a speech made at Tod Clifton's funeral (after he had been shot dead by an NYPD detective) to provoke race riots in Harlem to further their own goals. During the riots, Ras (now calling himself "the Destroyer") rode on horseback with a spear and shield, dressed in the costume of an Abyssinian chieftain with a fur cap and an animal-skin cape, and he called on black looters to stop looting and join him and his movement in bursting into the armory and getting guns and ammunition. Ras called on his followers to lynch one a black former CPUSA member, declaring "No more Uncle Toms." However, the man escaped from Ras' followers, and Ras continued to lead the riots, commanding his followers to burn out the whites. He speared several policemen with his spear, and he escaped after he was shot at by one of the policemen.