What "Black Nationalism Debates" Do to Us

[Michael Hoover]

Ernest Allen points out in his generally positive 1977 *Radical 
America* (Jan-Feb, vol. 11, no. 1) review of Dan Georgakas' and 
Marvin Surkin's _Detroit, I Do Mind Dying_ that the authors 
underplay the positive role of black nationalism in the formation 
of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers (LRBW).  Allen, who 
was an active LRBW member, notes that the League (and its 
predecessor, DRUM) were launched on the crest of a mass nationalism
unleashed during the July 1967 Detroit Rebellion.  He maintains that
nationalist sentiment in some form pervaded the organization from top
to bottom.  Allen suggests that the G&S's negative treatment of
black nationalism corresponds to their exaggerating the leadership's
Marxism-Leninism (although he agrees that the majority of LRBW
members accepted the proposition that Marxist theory and practice
were vital to the liberation of African-American workers).
Michael Hoover