Black nationalism is a stage to be transcended toward universal consciousness

Evidence

[T]he emotional expression of group-feeling which puzzles so many whites and leads them to deplore what they call “black chauvinism” is not a morbidly inherent trait of the Negro, but rather the reflex expression of a life whose roots are imbedded deeply in Southern soil. Negro writers must accept the nationalist implications of their lives… . [T]hey must accept the concept of nationalism because, in order to transcend it, they must possess and understand it. And a nationalist spirit in Negro writing means a nationalism carrying the highest possible pitch of social consciousness. It means a nationalism that knows its origins, its limitations, that is aware of the dangers of its position, that knows its ultimate aims are unrealisable within the framework of capitalist America; a nationalism whose reason for being lies in the simple fact of self-possession and in the consciousness of the interdependence of people in modern society. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1387

Categorization

• DEFINE: Wright’s definition of Black nationalism as self-possession oriented toward a universal consciousness that Black writers must pass through, not rest in.
• XREF: connects to: Black nationalist self-help rhetoric surges when civil rights declines — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 244