Black nationalism

Black nationalism is a type of racial nationalism or pan-nationalism which espouses the belief that black people are a race, and seeks to develop and maintain a black racial and national identity. Black nationalist activism revolves around the social, political, and economic empowerment of black communities and people, especially to resist their cultural assimilation into white culture (through integration or otherwise), and maintain a distinct black identity. Black nationalists often promote black separatism, which posits the belief that black people should form territorially and politically separate nation-states. Without achieving this goal, some black separatists employ a "nation within a nation" approach, advocating various degrees of localized separation, which may be a response to several centuries of various forms of structural and cultural subjugation in many nation-states. Pan-African black nationalists variously advocate for continental African unity (aiming to eventually transition away from racial nationalism) or cultural unity among the African diaspora, which entails either a return to African or a sustained connection between Africa and American black nations. Rejecting black separatism, some US-based black nationalists conceive the black nation in cultural terms as part of American pluralism. Some black nationalists promote black supremacy, which envisions black superiority over other racial groups. Black nationalists often reject the term and comparisons with white supremacists, characterizing their movement as an anti-racist reaction to white supremacy and colorblind white liberalism as racist. According to the American civil rights advocacy group the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC): The black nationalist movement is a reaction to centuries of institutionalized white supremacy in America. Black nationalists believe the answer to white racism is to form separate institutions — or even a separate nation — for black people. Most forms of black nationalism are strongly anti-white, antisemitic and anti-LGBT.