The Helios Biblios Hour : THE NEGROPEAN PART 2

the African Blood Brotherhood, which recruited and trained the first generation of Black socialist cadre in the U.S.
By late 1919 (around the time the ABB was founded), however, Briggs had begun to take more of an interest in Marxism and socialism. Undoubtedly influenced by the lively intellectual milieu of Harlem radicalism, in which political giants like Hubert Harrison regularly lectured on Marxist theory on street corners, Briggs began reading more deeply in Marxism.

Discussing the philanthropy of Andrew Carnegie in The Crusader, Briggs recommended his readers consult Marx's pamphlet Value, Price, and Profit on the true origins of the steel baron's millions. Briggs and the ABB increasingly gravitated toward the Communist (Workers) Party in the early 1920s. The shift entailed moderating some of the group's nationalist militancy in favor of more class-conscious interracial solidarity. Nevertheless, Briggs was able to forge an ideological fusion of black liberation and revolutionary socialism that animated black activists within the Communist Party for years to come and anticipated the Party's own embrace of "self-determination" for African Americans after 1928. African Blood Brotherhood itself -- rather, some new organization seems to be implied. Also interesting is McKay's thinking about internal organization, explicitly based on a 7-step "masonic" progression, from the neophyte to the extremely disciplined 7th Degree, class-conscious organizational leader.