senator, theodore bilbo, one of his possible legislative ideas was the greater liberia act. this act was something that bilbo proposed to provide an opportunity for african americans to move to africa. [laughter] many called it the "back to africa" program. it was a way for bilbo to remove african-americans from everyday american life. what was unique about this plan is that he partnered with black -- a black nationalist group. the universal negro improvement association, which was marcus garvey's group, to collect signatures of people who would be willing to move to africa to start anew. one thing you will notice from this petition is that the handwriting is the same on every line. you can see, maybe someone wrote it out and copied names from a phone book. but really, we think this was the presentation copy so you could read handwritings. a lot of african-americans supported this initiative. they felt at the time, there was no way to get equal rights in the united states. and this was across the country, not just in mississippi. they thought this was their only opportunity t

senator, theodore bilbo, one of his possible legislative ideas was the greater liberia act. this act was something that bilbo proposed to provide an opportunity for african americans to move to africa. [laughter] many: the "back to africa" program. it was a way for bilbo to removed african-americans from everyday american life. what was unique about this plan is that he partnered with black flash lowest group. -- black nationalist group. the universal negro improvement association, which was marcus garvey's group, to collect signatures of people who would be willing to move to africa to start anew. one thing you will notice from this petition is that the handwriting is the same on every line. you can see, maybe someone wrote it out and copied names from a phone book. but really, we think this was the presentation copy so you could read handwritings. a lot of african-americans supported this initiative. they felt at the time, there was no way to get equal rights in the united states. and this was across the country, not just in mississippi. they thought this was their only way