The African Blood Brotherhood emerged within a socio-political climate influenced by World I, dissention within the white socialist movement, a rift among Harlem's African American and West Indian socialists, a renaissance among Harlem's African American creative intellectuals, and the beginning of a popular and invigorating Marcus Garvey movement.
Briggs, therefore, initiated the African Blood Brotherhood as a revolutionary secret organization along the lines of a fraternal society specifically for men and women of African descent.
Because of the secretive nature of the African Blood Brotherhood not much is known about its historical development.
The African Blood Brotherhood also came to public attention when the Tulsa, Oklahoma post was implicated in the Tulsa riot of 1921.
The purpose and program of the African Blood Brotherhood was the liberation of Africa and people of African descent and the redemption of the African race.
The African Blood Brotherhood also espoused Black Nationalism, which involved the right to self-determination and autonomous nationhood.
Finally, the African Blood Brotherhood formulated an economic analysis of the African American struggle which it linked to colonialism and imperialism.
In addition to these precepts, the African Blood Brotherhood's program also advocated the organization of African American unions, opposition to the Ku Klux Klan, industrial development, higher wages, shorter work hours, better living conditions, education, cooperation with other darker peoples and revolutionary class-conscious white workers, and a united African American front (Foner, 1977, 310; Grigsby, 1987, 90-91; Draper, 1960, 325).
Although the African Blood Brotherhood began as an independent organization, by 1921 it had established close ties with the Communist Party (Foner & Allen, 1987, 17).
What set the African Blood Brotherhood apart, both ideologically and programmatically, from other political organizations of that time was its combination of revolutionary Black Nationalism with Marxism/communism.
Therefore, the uniqueness of the African Blood Brotherhood was its militant Black Nationalism and left-wing communist ideology which none of the previously mentioned organizations in total sanctioned.
The influence of the African Blood Brotherhood on African American social and political thought was primarily its blending of Black Nationalism with socialism and its revolutionary program for the social, political, and economic liberation of African Americans.
