"Back-to-Africa movement.

Attempts to transport free African-Americans and slaves from the United States back to Africa and other areas grew into a full-scale movement with the establishment of the American Colonization  Society in 1817 and the advoacy of Martin Robinson Delany during the late 1800s.The idea was later associated with the Marcus Garvey movement in the 1920s and remained a point of reference for Black Nationalism during the the late 1900s. The American Colonization Society settled its first group of 80 former slaves and free blacks in Liberia in 1820. The society's motives were questioned by various blacks who believed it wished primarily to remove free African Americans as an obstacle to the enslavement of all blacks in the United States.Despite this, African-Americans continued to emigrate under the auspices of the American Colonization Society settled its first group of 80 former slaves and free blacks in Liberia in 1820.The society's motives were questioned by various African-Americans who believed it wished primarily to remove free African Americans as an obstacle to the enslavement of all blacks in the United States.Despite this,blacks continued to emigrate under the auspices of the American Colonization Society.In 1847,enough had settled in Liberia for them to declare independence from the organization. The passage of the Fugitive Slaves Act in 1850 further encouraged African-Americans to emigrate if possible and by approximately 7,500 African Americans had left the United States for Liberia. Martin Robinson Delany,a physician who along with Frederick Douglass coedited the abolitionist newspaper the North Star,was among those free African Americans who distructed the American Colonization Society. In 1852, Martin authored The Condition,Elevation,Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States,calling for the emigration of blacks to South America and the West Indies. His book was among the first to present a detailed analysis of the African-American presence in the United States.Throughout the 1850s, he participated in several emigration conferences.In 1859, Martin traveled to Liberia to visit Alexander Crummell, a black priest and educator who had emigrated to the settlement in 1853.From Liberia, he went to Nigeria where he signed a treaty with the government allowing Africa-Americans to settle there.Returning to the United States,Martin began the process of organizing and emigration party to Nigeria when the Civil War started and he was commissioned as a major,becoming the highest-ranking black officer in the Union army.Following the Civil War,he worked with the Freedman's Bureau in South Carolina and participated in politics but remained ambivalent about African-Americans staying in the United States. Alexander Crummel,whom W.E.B.Du Bois would eulogize in The Souls of Black Folk,remained in Liberia until 1872 with periodic trips back to the United States.While in Liberia,he published The Relations and Duties of Free Colored Men in America to Africa in 1861 and The Future of Africa in 1862.Alexander was also instrumental in the development of the country's school system and upon his return to the United States advocated for African-Americans a balance of industrial and higher education.Bishop Henry Mcneal Turner of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME)Church was more conservative than radical when elected to the Georgia legislature in 1869 and 1870. His own expulsion from the legislators to deprive blacks of racial equality,and steady increase in the murder of African-Americans by lynching,all served to convince Henry that it would be a mistake for African-Americans to depend on the U.S. government for protection or recognition as America citizens with rights equal to those of whites.After delivering before the Georgia legislature a speech in which he refused "to cringe before any party,nor stoop to beg them for my rights,"Henry began advocating emigration in 1870. He turn noted Haiti,New Mexico,and Africa as a possible destination for African-Americans. In 1876,he took a controversial position as vice president of the American Colonization Society.Upon the society's discontinuation,he established the International Emigration Society in 1892.He made at least four trips to Africa during the 1890s,helping some 22 African-Americans to settle in 1895 and 325 more in 1896.In addition,he established AME churches in Liberia and Sierra Leone.At the beginning of 1900,some 12,00 African-Americans had relocated to Africa.Neither the Trinidadian Henry Sylvester Williams nor W.E.B. Du Bois adopted Henry's call for emigration to Africa at the first Pan African Congress in London in 1900.Delegates to the congress were concerned primarily with fostering cooperation among and an awareness of people of African descent no matter where they were.The two concepts became more linked,with the rise of Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association just after World War I.With the publication and worldwide distribution of his newspaper, the Negro World,and the establishment of a shipping fleet,the Black Star Line,Marcus took Pan-Africanism from proposal to reality.While the Black Star Line was used mainly as a cargo and cruising line rather than one offering permanent transport to Africa,Marcus did popularize the notion of a return to Africa values and "Africa for Africans."In the 15th article of his Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World,he put "on record our most solemn determination to reclaim the treasures and possession of the vast continent of our forefathers."Through such statements generally addressed the conditions of those blacks living countries colonized or occupied by white governments,journalists intenterpreted and reported them as advocating the the emigration of all African-Americans to Africa.Critics like George Schuyer and Asa Philip Randolph ridiculed Marcus as the promoter of a seemingly preposterous idea.Marcus himself sought permission to establish to a small settlement of  technologically trained blacks in Liberia but was denied.Following his deporation from the United States for charges of mail fraud,he returned for a time to his native Jamaica and then moved to England without once visiting Africa before his death in 1940.