The Republic of New Afrika (RNA) is a black nationalist organization and micronation in the United States that was founded by black separatists after the civil rights movement in 1968. The vision for this country was first promulgated by the Malcolm X Society on March 31, 1968, at a Black Government Conference held in Detroit, Michigan.
The Black Government Conference was convened by the Malcolm X Society and the Group on Advanced Leadership (GOAL), two influential Detroit-based black organizations with broad followings. At that convention, the nation was named the Republic of New Afrika. A provisional or temporary “pre-independence” government was formed to carry on the political life of the government.
Map of the United States
The Aims and Goals of the RNA
The Republic of New Afrika movement has three primary goals:
- Creation of an independent Black majority country situated in the southeastern United States, in the heart of an area of Black majority population, identified as Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina.
- Payment by the federal government of several billion dollars in reparations to African American descendants of slaves for the damages inflicted on Africans and their descendants by chattel enslavement, Jim Crow Laws, and modern-day forms of racism.
- A referendum of all African Americans to determine their desires for citizenship: movement leaders say their ancestors were not offered a choice in this matter after emancipation in 1865 following the American civil war.
New Afrikan citizens traced boundaries that encompassed a large portion of the South-including South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana-as part of their demand for reparation. New Afrikans also argued for financial restitution for the enslavement and subsequent inhumane treatment of Black Americans. As champions of these goals, they framed their struggle as one that would allow the descendants of enslaved people to choose freely whether they should be citizens of the United States.
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The development of the Republic of New Afrika came out of a conference held in Detroit, Michigan, on March 30, 1968. The conference participants agreed upon a constitution and declaration of independence and the framework for a provisional government.
The RNA elected black leaders from a number of different organizations as provisional government officials. Robert F. Williams, then living in exile in China, was chosen as the first president of the provisional government; attorney Milton Henry (a student of Malcolm X's teachings) was named first vice president; and Betty Shabazz, widow of Malcolm X, served as second vice president.
RNA's Provisional Government and Ideologies
The Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika (PG-RNA) advocated/advocates a form of cooperative economics through the building of New Communities-named after the Ujamaa concept promoted by Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere. The RNA holds internal elections within its Provisional government structure. These selections are part of its self-reliance efforts and are symbolic of its commitment to Black self-determination.
The RNA taught that Blacks may choose to give up their New Afrikan citizenship, may choose dual RNA/USA citizenship, or may opt for exclusive RNA or USA citizenship. Constitution, there were four options that pertained to the political future of the newly freed persons: (1) the right to return to Africa, as they were the victims of warfare and illegal kidnapping; (2) the right to general emigration, as families had been fragmented and scattered throughout the Diaspora; (3) the right to seek admission as citizens into the United States and strive for a multi-racial democracy; and (4) the right to remain on this land, negotiate with the Native Americans, and establish an independent Black nation on this soil, as the ties to our African homeland had been severed.
At no time, however, was a plebiscite or people’s vote held to inform Blacks of these options so that an informed and collective determination could be made with regard to a political future. The RNA claimed rights that belong to human beings throughout the world, including the right to damages, in the form of reparations, due as the result of the enslavement era and beyond, and for social, psychological, and economic damages that had been inflicted for centuries.
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The Republic of New Afrika moved to Mississippi in 1970 where they held a conference and convention to setup a provisional government. The convention was held in Bolton, MS where now United States Congressman Bennie Thompson was then the mayor.
The organization was involved in numerous controversial issues. For example, it attempted to assist Oceanhill-Brownsville area in Brooklyn to secede from the United States during the 1968 conflict over control of public schools. Additionally, it was involved with shootouts at New Bethel Baptist Church in 1969 (during the one-year anniversary of the founding) and another in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1971. (It had announced that the capital of the Republic would be in Hinds County, Mississippi, located on a member's farm.)
In the confrontations, law-enforcement officials were killed and injured. Organization members were prosecuted for the crimes. Queen Mother Moore was a founding member. Chokwe Lumumba, formerly Edwin Finley Taliaferro of Detroit, was elected as second vice president in 1971. He later became an attorney, working in Michigan and Mississippi in public defense. After settling in Jackson, Mississippi, he was elected to the city council there.
Chokwe Lumumba
Following the 1970 election of Imari Obadele as President of the new nation, the center of the struggle for a Black land base in North America was moved to the RNA’s national territory in Mississippi. Again, repression ensued. At an historic RNA land celebration in Hinds County, Miss., the Ku Klux Klan vowed they would not allow the event to take place, and law enforcement erected a barricade in an attempt to prevent the consecration of the RNA’s national capital, named El Malik.
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On August 18, 1971, during a pre-dawn, unprovoked raid ostensibly to serve a warrant on a fugitive who was not present, federal and state law enforcement officials physically attacked the RNA official residence in Jackson, Miss., using Jackson’s infamous Thompson Tank. After officials shot lethal rockets with gas charges through the back bedrooms, some of the occupants who had been asleep roused and exercised their right to self-defense and returned the fire, while others retreated to a bunker under the house.
When the gunfire stopped, the RNA citizens had suffered no casualties, but a police officer lost his life and another officer and FBI agent were wounded. Seven RNA citizens were arrested at the scene as well as RNA President Imari Obadele and three others who were not at the scene of the shooting but were sleeping at the RNA headquarters several blocks away. However, all eleven were charged with either murder or conspiracy, as well as waging war against the state of Mississippi, a scurrilous charge that was later dropped. They were convicted and sentenced to various terms.
Government Repression and COINTELPRO
The FBI and Jackson Police raided the Republic of New Afrika headquarters in 1971 due to suspicion of illegal weapons and militant activity. The raid resulted in a shootout which ultimately led to the death of a police officer and the arrest of several RNA members.
It was not until March 31, 1977, after all his appeals had been exhausted, that the FBI admitted that Imari Obadele in particular, and the Republic of New Afrika in general, were targets of its counterintelligence program, code-named COINTELPRO. The United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (i.e., the Church Committee, named after its chair, Senator Frank Church) described the COINTELPRO as an illegal and unconstitutional abuse of power by the government.
After Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits resulted in the release of once-secret documents, I discovered that the FBI had arranged for highly prejudicial stories against the RNA to appear in the press and had also forged inflammatory letters to spouses, friends, cadres, and supporters of the Republic of New Afrika. One letter suggested that the Republic of New Afrika was “a better group” to join than the Black Panthers. Another document revealed that the FBI sought to provoke the Jewish Defense League into acts of violence against the RNA and interviewed White people in Mississippi sympathetic to the Ku Klux Klan to gauge their willingness to join in any Klan action against the RNA.
Although specific legal records are sparse, the RNA no longer retains ownership of any property since the 1970s.
After several violent run ins with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and police, most of the group's leaders were imprisoned, lessening its influence.
The Republic of New Afrika was seen as an internal threat to the security of the United States and targeted for attack by the US federal government.
This book is the first to tell the full history of the RNA and the New Afrikan Independence Movement. Edward Onaci shows how New Afrikans remade their lifestyles and daily activities to create a self-consciously revolutionary culture, and argues that the RNA’s tactics and ideology were essential to the evolution of Black political struggles.
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