Black supremacy

Black supremacy is a racial supremacist belief which maintains that black people are inherently superior to people of other races.

Historical usage

Black supremacy was advocated by Jamaican preacher Leonard Howell in the 1935 Rastafari movement tract The Promised Key. Howell's use of "Black Supremacy" had both religious and political implications. Politically, as a direct counterpoint to white supremacy, and the failure of white governments to protect black people, he advocated the destruction of white governments. Howell had drawn upon as an influence the work of the earlier proto-Rastafari preacher Fitz Balintine Pettersburg, in particular the latter's book The Royal Parchment Scroll of Black Supremacy.

The Associated Press described the teachings of the Nation of Islam (NOI) as having been black supremacist until 1975, when W. Deen Mohammed succeeded Elijah Muhammad (his father) as its leader. Elijah Muhammad's black-supremacist doctrine acted as a counter to the supremacist paradigm established and controlled by white supremacy. The SPLC described the group as having a "theology of innate black superiority over whites – a belief system vehemently and consistently rejected by mainstream Muslims".

Groups associated with black supremacist views

Several fringe groups have been described as either holding or promoting black supremacist beliefs. A source described by historian David Mark Chalmers as being "the most extensive source on right-wing extremism" is the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an American nonprofit organization that monitors hate groups and extremists in the United States.