he followed Nietzsche’s critique of Christian asceticism and other-worldliness as he explained its degrading effect on African Americans from the time of slavery to the present. Echoing Zarathustra’s plea to forget the fantasies of redemption in a great hereafter and “remain faithful to the earth,” Newton sought “to convince Black people that their rewards were due in the present, that it was in their power to create a Promised Land here and now.” He believed with Nietzsche that the idea of “God” was a damaging historical fiction which reduced man’s sense of power and self-worth: “The more he
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