[4][5][6] She was a former member of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, and a supporter of Marcus Garvey.
[8] As early as 1933, they petitioned President Franklin D. Roosevelt to repatriate them, arguing that the cost would be lesser than the "charity" they received in the United States to survive.
[7] A year later, in 1934, they started working with Methodist preacher Earnest Sevier Cox, the author of White America, who was also a proponent of repatriation, and Senator Theodore Bilbo.
[5] They declined, retorting that some of their constituents, who were still plantation owners, needed the workforce, and the bill would contradict their belief in states's rights, as it would require federal funding for the journey.
The raid, which occurred in October 1942, also included members of two other pro-Japanese African-American organizations: the Brotherhood of Liberty for the Black Man of America and the Temple of Islam.