Responding to race riots and lynchings during the Red Summer of 1919, Harlem activist and journalist Cyril V. Briggs founded the African Blood Brotherhood for African Liberation and Redemption (ABB), a radical group.

ABB not only advocated armed self-defense and self-determination but also coalesced with the Communist Party USA, fusing black nationalism and communism. With never more than 3,000 members, many of them Caribbean nationals, it boasted a core of intellectuals, including Jamaica-born writer Claude McKay. Until its demise in the 1920s, ABB was a paramilitary organization. Locally based affiliates, known as posts, received orders from and reported to a central command or Supreme Council in New York City. Posts helped protect and uplift their northern, southern, and West Indian communities.