‘SEA KAFFIRS’: ‘AMERICAN NEGROES’ AND THE GOSPEL OF GARVEYISM IN EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY CAPE TOWN

Abstract

This article demonstrates that black British West Indians and black South Africans in post-First World War Cape Town viewed ‘American Negroes’ as divinely ordained liberators from South African white supremacy. These South-African based Garveyites articulated a prophetic Garveyist Christianity that provided common ideological ground for Africans and diasporic blacks through leading black South African organizations like the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA), the African National Congress (ANC) and the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU). This study utilizes a ‘homeland and diaspora’ model that simultaneously offers an expansive framework for African history, redresses the relative neglect of Africa and Africans in African diaspora studies and demonstrates the impact of Garveyism on the country's interwar black freedom struggle.