U.S. political and social movement aimed at developing economic power and community and ethnic pride among African Americans. It was proclaimed by Marcus Garvey in the early 20th century, when many U.S. black nationalists hoped for the eventual creation of a separate black nation in Africa. In the 1960s and '70s, Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X preached the ideal of black nationalism as an alternative to assimilation into the predominantly white culture of the U.S.

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