Moorish Science Temple of AmericaThe Moorish Science Temple of America is an American national and religious organization founded by Noble Drew Ali (born as Timothy Drew) in the early 20th century. He based it on the premise that African Americans are descendants of the Moabites and thus are "Moorish" (sometimes also spelled "Muurish" by adherents) by nationality, and Islamic by faith. Ali put together elements of major traditions to develop a message of personal transformation through historical education, racial pride, and spiritual uplift.
African-American literatureAfrican American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. It begins with the works of such late 18th-century writers as Phillis Wheatley. Before the high point of enslaved people narratives, African-American literature was dominated by autobiographical spiritual narratives. The genre known as slave narratives in the 19th century were accounts by people who had generally escaped from slavery, about their journeys to freedom and ways they claimed their lives.
Anti-racismAnti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate actions which are intended to provide equal opportunities for all people on both an individual and a systemic level. As a philosophy, it can be engaged in by the acknowledgment of personal privileges, confronting acts as well as systems of racial discrimination and/or working to change personal racial biases.
HistoryHistory (derived ) is the systematic study and documentation of the human past. The period of events before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of these events. Historians seek knowledge of the past using historical sources such as written documents, oral accounts, art and material artifacts, and ecological markers.
Pan-AfricanismPan-Africanism is a worldwide movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all indigenous and diasporas of African ancestry. Based on a common goal dating back to the Atlantic slave trade, the movement extends beyond continental Africans with a substantial support base among the African diaspora in the Americas and Europe.
Nadir of American race relationsThe nadir of American race relations was the period in African-American history and the history of the United States from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 through the early 20th century, when racism in the country, especially anti-black racism, was more open and pronounced than it had ever been during any other period in the nation's history. During this period, African Americans lost access to many of the civil rights which they had gained during Reconstruction.
LiteratureLiterature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, poetry, and including both print and digital writing. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, also known as orature much of which has been transcribed. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment, and can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role.
BostonBoston (USˈbɔːstən), officially the City of Boston, is the capital and largest city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the Northeastern United States. The city boundaries encompass an area of about and a population of 675,647 as of 2020. The city is the economic and cultural anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area known as Greater Boston, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) home to 4,941,632 people as of 2020, ranking as the eleventh-largest MSA in the country.
Marcus GarveyMarcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. (17 August 1887 10 June 1940) was a Jamaican political activist. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL, commonly known as UNIA), through which he declared himself Provisional President of Africa. Ideologically a black nationalist and Pan-Africanist, his ideas came to be known as Garveyism. Garvey was born into a moderately prosperous Afro-Jamaican family in Saint Ann's Bay and was apprenticed into the print trade as a teenager.
Black nationalismBlack 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.
