AGAINST

AFROCENTRISM
TUNDE ADELEKE

".. an intellectually challenging look at the field of Afrocentrism and the role

African American scholars have played in developing the subject. This book

is a must-read for those who want to go below the surface and explore the

field from a new and provocative viewpoint" —Abel A« Bartley

Director of Pan-African Studies Program, Clemson University, and author of Keeping the Faith:
Race, Politics, and Social Development in Jacksonville, Florida, 1940-1970
3 0S.8H
A<l3^
 Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2020 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/caseagainstafrocOOOOadel
The Case against Afrocentrism
 '■

• i
The Case
against
Afrocentrism

Tunde Adeleke

University Press of Mississippi Jackson

www.upress.state.ms.us

The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of

American University Presses.

I wish to acknowledge the following journals for permission to include

versions of previously published articles: the International Journal
of African Historical Studies for adaption of my 1998 article, “Black
Americans and Africa: A Critique of the Pan-African and Identity
Paradigms,” in chapter 3; the Canadian Review of American Studies
for the use of portions of my 1999 award-winning article, "Who Are
We? Africa and the Problem of Black American Identity,” in chapter
1; and the Western Journal of Black Studies for excerptions from my
2005 article, “Historical Problematic of Afrocentric Consciousness,”
in chapter 4.

Copyright © 2009 by University Press of Mississippi

All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America

First printing 2009

00

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Adeleke, Tunde.
The case against Afrocentrism / Tunde Adeleke.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60473-293-1 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Afrocentrism. 2. Pan-
Africanism. 3. African diaspora. 4- Africa—In popular culture. 5. Af¬
rican Americans—Race identity. 6. Blacks—Race identity. I. Title.
DT15.A35 2009
305.896—dc22 2009008846

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

This book is dedicated, with love and affection, to my children
Tosin, Toyin, and Chinyere, and with gratitude from the entire
Adeleke clan, to James Ekere Usen, and Ayo Saddique, exemplars of
true friendship, and finally, in loving memory of my senior brother,
Raufu Bawa Alabi Adeleke “Bawan Allah,” patriarch of the Adeleke
family, Omo Mewu, Oroki, Sun re O
 V

' \
Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction: Afrocentric Essentialism 3

1. Africa and the Challenges of Constructing Identity 23

2. Conceptual and Paradigmatic Utilizations and Representations

of Africa 59

3. Essentialist Construction of Identity and Pan-Africanism 94

4. Afrocentric Consciousness and Historical Memory 134

5. Afrocentric Essentialism and Globalization 151

Conclusion 172

Notes 190

Bibliography 202

Index 218
 V

■ V
Preface
The decision to write this book was made, rather subconsciously, in
1992 at the Annual Symposium in the Humanities jointly organized
and hosted by the College of Humanities, the Center for African Stud¬
ies, the Department of Black Studies, and the Columbian Quincen¬
tenary Committee of the Ohio State University. The theme of that
symposium was "The Black Diaspora: The African Experience in the
Americas.” The event—which attracted scholars from Africa, Great
Britain, Canada, the West Indies, Europe, and Latin, Central and South
America—was an occasion to reexamine the Diaspora in the five hun¬
dredth year of Columbus’s “discovery,” an epochal stage in the constel¬
lation of events and developments that were critical to the making of
the black Diaspora. Among the delegates from Africa, Europe, North
America, and the Caribbean was a euphoric undercurrent of satisfac¬
tion at what had been accomplished despite overwhelming odds and
adversity. The dominant mood was one of celebration. I presented a
paper titled "The Diaspora: Dialectics of Enduring Contradictions,”
which interrogated what I then saw as some of the ambivalences and
contradictions that have characterized the relationship of continental
Africans and blacks in the Diaspora.
I envisaged the conference as more than just an occasion to cel¬
ebrate the Diaspora. In my judgment, it should go beyond celebrat¬
ing the social, economic, political and cultural developments of blacks
over these centuries and showcasing their intellectual worth and
wealth, beyond interrogating the relations between Diaspora blacks
and dominant groups in their respective locations. The conference
should be an opportune moment for critical introspection, a time to
reexamine Diaspora blacks and continental Africans in relation not
only to the outside “Other” but also, more significantly, to the inner
“Self.” Therefore, I decided to focus my paper not on the traditional
and popular binaries—Europeans versus Africans/Blacks, exploiter-
exploited, and superior-subordinate— but on a completely differently
and often invisible but unacknowledged binary: continental Africans
versus black Americans. What kinds of contradictions and ambiva¬
lence have informed their relationship over these centuries? How have
continental Africans and blacks in America, for example, dealt with,
and conceptualized, each other through history? What forces, factors,
and circumstances shaped the relationship? In other words, rather
X PREFACE

than embrace the progressive, triumphalist, and celebratory frame of

analysis and mood that seemed to dominate discourse on the subject,
and was pervasive at the conference, I chose to identify and interro¬
gate instances of tension and contradiction in the relationship. These
tensions and contradictions, in my judgment, belie the dominant,
prevailing, and overarching ethos of mutuality and kinship. Bad judg¬
ment! In a conference where everyone seemed enamored to the theme
of mutuality, cooperation, and highlighting of successes and triumphs,
the introduction of a paper or discussion on issues of differences and
contradictions was troubling and disturbing, and it unleashed a storm
of angry rebuke and condemnation.
Within this context, and in hindsight, my paper was counterintui¬
tive, for it introduced negativism and pessimism into an optimistic
and celebratory context. It injected themes of contradiction and con¬
flict into discourses meant to be overwhelmingly positive and celebra¬
tory. It was like striking a match into a powder keg. The explosion was
deafening. Before I could conclude my presentation, several hands
went up, and for the next half hour or so, I endured repeated verbal
assaults. Critics questioned my intellectual credentials and judgment
for daring to suggest that the relation between Africans and blacks in
Diaspora was characterized historically by anything other than har¬
mony and consensus. A keynote speaker, then president of a histori¬
cally black institution, could barely restrain herself as she launched
into verbal tirades. A fellow panelist, an African from Ghana, began
his presentation with a public apology to the audience. I felt isolated.
Not one voice came out in my defense. Shortly after the end of the
session, however, several attendees approached me to say how much
they agreed with me and proceeded to share corroborating experienc¬
es from their respective institutions and countries. I was at a loss for
words to articulate my disgust at these intellectual cowards. But there
was this remarkable young black American woman who introduced
herself as the granddaughter of one of the black American leaders
who had conspired against the Jamaican and Pan-Africanist Marcus
Garvey in the 1920s. This was an issue I had discussed in my presenta¬
tion. She proceeded to say how she desperately wanted to share her
perspective but was scared by what she had just witnessed happen
to me. This experience only emboldened me. To have been subjected
to such vicious rebuke for daring to present an alternative viewpoint
strengthened my resolve to pursue the theme further. But first, I had
to reexamine my sources and ascertain for myself whether or not I had
 PREFACE xi

misread or misrepresented the sources. I hadn’t. The entire episode

convinced me that this cloak of hypocrisy, this homogenizing ethos
and consciousness that seemed to dominate discourse on Africa and
black Diaspora history and relationship had to be confronted and de¬
constructed. No credible understanding of history can come out of a
paradigm that discourages critical discourses.
The experience of this conference and my determination never to
be silenced resulted six years later in my critically acclaimed study
UnAfrican Americans: Nineteenth Century Black Nationalists and the
Civilizing Mission (University Press of Kentucky, 1998). This book, The
Case against Afrocentrism, is a continuation of this critical discourse.
The drive toward essentializing race and ethnicity, especially in the
last two decades, has reinforced a culture of intellectual intolerance,
the type that Molefi Asante underscored in his call for intellectual vig¬
ilance. As he pontificated in Afrocentricity, “Our collective conscious¬
ness must question writers who use symbols and objects which do
not contribute meaningfully to our victory. How could a black writer
be allowed to use symbols which contradict our existence and we not
raise our voices? Afrocentric criticism must hold especially account¬
able the works of Africans, continental or diasporan ... The times are
surely different and we must now open the floodgates of protest against
any non-Afrocentric stances taken by writers, authors, and other in¬
tellectuals or artists” (emphasis added).
This is a declaration designed not to facilitate critical discourses
but to stifle opposing views and nurture a monolithic intellectual cult.
That day, at the Columbus conference, I felt drowned in the flood¬
gates of protests unleashed by the intellectual police. In the end, they
failed. The African and black American experiences are too complex
to be subsumed under a single intellectual rubric. The essays in this
book further underscore this complexity. They illuminate deep and
pervasive ambivalence and paradoxes in the relationships of conti¬
nental Africans and Diaspora blacks, relationships defined concomi¬
tantly by claims and affirmations of affinity and consanguinity, within
a problematic and subversive context characterized by undercurrents
of historically and culturally mediated tension and dissonance. Con¬
sequently, The Case against Afrocentrism calls for reconceptualizing
constructs and paradigms that have traditionally been the underpin¬
nings of a unifying essentialist worldview.
■ V

"v
Acknowledgments
This book has benefited, directly and indirectly, from the contributions
of many individuals, institutions, and organizations. Over the past de¬
cade and a half, I have had the opportunity to encounter scholars who
shared their perspectives and engaged me in critical discourses that
helped to refine the ideas and themes in this book. Chapter 1, “Africa
and the Challenges of Constructing Identity," is a revised and expand¬
ed version of a paper I first presented at the 2005 Nordic Association
for American Studies Conference hosted jointly by Vaxjo University,
Vaxjo, and the Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona, Sweden.
I am grateful to Gunlog Fur for the invitation and to the discussants at
the conference for their insightful comments and suggestions. Chap¬
ter 3, “Essentialist Construction of Identity and Pan-Africanism,” is
also an expanded version of a paper titled “Pan-Africanism: A Call for
Re-Conceptualizing,” which I presented at the 2007 AfriKanistentag
Conference in Vienne, Austria. Special thanks to Norbert Cyffer, my
former colleague at the University of Maiduguri, Nigeria, now of the
Center for African Studies, University of Vienna, for inviting me to
speak at the conference, and also to all the commentators and discus¬
sants. I also want personally to acknowledge, with gratitude, Kwame
Opoku for his stirring critique of my session at the Vienna conference
and for challenging everyone to rethink racial categorization, espe¬
cially the problematic use of the term “Black.” Chapter 5, "Afrocentric
Essentialism and Globalization,” grew out of two papers presented at
international conferences. The first was the 2002 “Cultural Citizen¬
ship: Challenges of Globalization” conference held at Deakin Univer¬
sity in Melbourne, Australia, at which I presented a paper titled "Black
Americans and the Global Context.” Many thanks to Michael Leach for
the invitation and to the commentators of my session, whose critical
comments I found immensely helpful. The second was the 2004 spe¬
cial session of the Collegium for African American Research (CAAR)
held at the Austrian Association for American Studies Conference in
Salzburg, Austria. I am indebted to Christopher Mulvey and Hanna
Wallinger, then CAAR president and secretary respectively, for invit¬
ing me to present my work on Gloracialization.
This work also benefited from my brief visit to the World History
Institute of the Capital Normal University (CNU) in Beijing, China, in
the spring of 2007.1 had the privilege of meeting and exchanging ideas
xiv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

and perspectives with a wonderful group of historians who challenged

me to rethink and refine the theoretical underpinnings of this study. I
owe my visit to the initiatives of two individuals. First, my friend and
colleague here at Iowa State University, Xiaoyuan Liu, who first sug¬
gested that I seriously consider visiting China, and then proceeded
to put me in contact with his alma matter, CNU. Xiaoyuan not only
facilitated my visit but also took time out of his busy research trip to
China to introduce me to facets of Chinese hospitality and culture.
The second was Professor Xu Lan, director of the World History Insti¬
tute, who was very receptive to the idea of hosting a scholar in African
American Studies and worked hard to secure an official invitation. I
delivered a series of lectures to students and faculty of the Institute
on the theme “Black Americans and the Challenges of Race, Ethnicity
and Identity.” I gained and learned much from the comments and per¬
spectives of the students and faculty. The entire trip was intellectually
rewarding and culturally enriching. I was overwhelmed by the gener¬
osity and hospitality of the entire faculty and students, especially Pro¬
fessors Xu Lan, Zhao Junxiu, Liang Zhanjun, and Zhou Gang. I would
be remiss if I did not acknowledge the incredible and selfless efforts
of the student hosts who sacrificed long hours to ensure that I had a
most endearing visit and experience—Huang Minghua (Eileen), Li Jun
(Vicky), Wang Fei, and Hou Zhongzhen. Eileen was simply incredible.
I was both awed and humbled by her incredible encyclopedic atten¬
tion to details of Chinese history and civilization, as we meandered
through crowds of tourists in Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City,
the Summer Palace, Imperial Gardens, and, most unforgettably, as we
breathlessly ascended the Great Wall. She never lost a beat.
I would also like to thank my good friend and compatriot Ikponwosa
Ekunwe (aka Silver), political scientist and researcher at the University
of Tampere, Finland, who has been a steady and reliable host during
my numerous visits to Finland. He remains an invaluable intellectual
resource. Silver has consistently challenged my thoughts about, and
thereby enriched my understanding of, more recent developments
and trends in the African Diaspora, especially in relations to recent
African migrations to Scandinavia and the Nordic countries. To break
the monotonous routine of academic conference, I could always count
on Silver for sumptuous Nigerian dishes and critical African cultural
reenactments. I have fond memories of watching a Finnish musical
group, decked in African attire and led by a Nigerian, perform tradi¬
tional Nigerian Igbo highlife music.
The Case against Afrocentrism
■ V
Introduction

Afrocentric Essentialism

In a lengthy presidential address delivered to the National Emigra¬

tion Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, in August 1854, Martin R. Delany
(1812-1885) emphasized the pervasiveness and virulence of racism in
the United States and urged black Americans to consider immigrating
to external locations such as Africa and the Caribbean, where they
would have unfettered opportunities to develop and realize their full
potentialities.1 In Delany s judgment, race had become perhaps the
single most critical factor in human relations, both within the Unit¬
ed States and on the international scene. As he poignantly declared,
“It would be duplicity longer to disguise the fact that the great issue,
sooner or later, upon which must be disputed the world’s destiny, will
be a question of black and white, and every individual will be called
upon for his identify with one or the other.”2 Accenting the color line,
Delany proposed a Manichean construction of domestic and interna¬
tional relations—blacks against whites, Europeans against non-Euro¬
peans. Since, in his judgment, coexistence on the basis of equality and
freedom appeared inconceivable, blacks needed their own domain
of independence and nationality elsewhere, preferably in Africa. For
Delany, the continued quest for integration in America had become a
culturally destructive option that potentially could also jeopardize and
possibly obliterate the African identity of blacks.3
To his nineteenth-century contemporaries, Delany was the quin¬
tessence of blackness. In Delany’s makeup, according to a biographer,
there was no compromise with whites. This reputation of Delany as
uncompromisingly anti-white, and a consistent advocate of the col¬
or line is widespread and entrenched. Yet, Delany was not born and
raised with this disposition. He started out a believer in the promises
of the American Dream and fought fervently against separatism. By
the early 1850s, however, he had come to a critical crossroads. Disillu¬
sioned with the lack of change and apparent invincibility of racism, he
began to spearhead and galvanize the emigration movement. It was in
this capacity as leader and president of the emigration movement that
4 INTRODUCTION

he convened the Cleveland convention of 1854. After the convention,

he spent the next eight years crusading for emigration. In his writings
and speeches, Delany drew attention to the ubiquitous nature of rac¬
ism and to what he perceived as a more sinister and troubling real¬
ity: a conspiracy by American whites and those he referred to as their
“Anglo-Saxon cousins” to subordinate, subjugate, and exploit Africans
and blacks in the Diaspora ad infinitum.4 Race became, in Delany’s
judgment, the engine dynamo of global development, with the white
race occupying the top echelons of the societal ladder, a position
that conferred benefits and privileges of immense proportion, while
blacks, and people of color generally, were confined to a life of depri¬
vation and degeneration. In Delany’s judgment, the reality mandated
racial solidarity on the part of oppressed blacks. In order to conquer
oppression and escape perpetual subordination, blacks had to unite
and forge a common front. He committed himself to the pursuit of
black unity and separatism from 1852 until the outbreak of the Civil
War in 1861 compelled him, once again, to reverse course and embrace
integration.
Almost fifty years after Delany’s speech, W. E. B. Du Bois published
his seminal work The Souls of Black Folk (1903), in which he echoed
Delany’s racialized worldview by characterizing “the problem of the
twentieth century” as “the problem of the color line, the relation of
the darker to the lighter races of man in Asia and Africa, in America
and the islands of the sea.”5 Du Bois’s declaration proved prophetic.
No issue dominated international relations in the twentieth century,
and shaped the relationships between peoples in different parts of the
globe, particularly in the regions he identified, as prominently as race.
Many analysts have in fact ventured the prediction that, judging by
the state of contemporary race relations, particularly the ascendance
of ethnocentric and cultural jingoistic consciousness on a global scale,
race and, ipso facto, the color line, would indeed become the substan¬
tive problems of the twenty-first century.6 Although he too empha¬
sized the color line, Du Bois cautioned against overemphasizing race,
given his dualistic construction of the black American. He portrayed
blacks as a people formed of the dual experiences and heritages of Af¬
rica and America, and constantly tormented by the conflicting values
and ideals emanating from this duality. As he explained,

One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two
thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body
 NTRODUCTION 5

. . . The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this

longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a
better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves
to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much
to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a
flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message
for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a
Negro and an American.7

Thus, Du Bois warned against sacrificing one identity and heritage for
the other. Both possessed intrinsic essence and validity and should,
therefore, be acknowledged and respected. Both Delany and Du Bois
underscore the primacy of the color line as an essential dynamic of
American history, but they had radically different considerations in
mind. For Delany, separation was a major consideration: the creation
of an independent black nationality in Africa. Du Bois was a little am¬
bivalent. Although he too emphasized race and racial consciousness,
the complexity and duality of the Negro was an equally compelling
consideration. While race mattered to Du Bois, and he eventually be¬
came active in Pan-Africanism, his analysis took due cognizance of,
and accented, the American dimension of the Negro identity.8 Both
Delany and Du Bois would go on to use their racial convictions to
support paradigms that advanced Pan-African consciousness and
movements designed to unify all blacks and peoples of African de¬
scent upon a platform of economic, social, and political struggle and
regeneration.
The concept of the color line that Delany and Du Bois emphasized
has a deep historical pedigree. Some scholars trace its origin back to
the dawn of enslavement in the New World. In fact, color was the
defining essence of the South’s “peculiar institution” from its incep¬
tion in the seventeenth century to its demise in the mid-nineteenth
century. The color line defined and shaped the relationship between
masters and slaves. It conferred human qualities and attributes to the
former while depicting the latter as subhuman.9 Despite its historical
depth, the color line has, however, been conceived and understood
essentially in terms of a demarcation paradigm, that is, a concept that
validates racial boundaries. There have not been any serious attempts
to probe its deeper ramifications. There are indeed critical but ne¬
glected dimensions and implications of the color line that significantly
shaped the attitudes and orientations of those within the parameters
6 INTRODUCTION

of the line, especially in relation to others deemed external, and by

implication hostile, to the racial group.
The concept of the color line implies the imperative of racial unity
and consensus within the parameters of a distinctive racial category.
Put differently, the color line is much more than acknowledging racial
boundaries. It is also an affirmation of the pertinence of racial unity
and consensus, of the need to further, within the racial group, mono¬
lithic and homogeneous values—a condition deemed fundamental to
the struggles and survival of the race in what is perceived as a hostile
world environment. Everyone within the racial group is therefore ex¬
pected to subscribe to a particular worldview, to remain faithful to
what are perceived to be the needs, interests, and aspirations of the
group. This mandates avoidance of actions or utterances that would
seem to compromise or erode racial solidarity. At all times, members
are expected to contribute positively to furthering the corporate in¬
terests of the racial group, and to be prepared and willing to defend
the race regardless of the issues and circumstances. In essence, the
color line is premised on absolute allegiance and devotion to one’s
racial group. This dictates an orientation to society and reality defined
by alienation, racial and ethnic exclusivity, and an almost paranoid
disposition that dichotomizes society and reality into conflicting and
irreconcilable entities.
Delany boldly and more forcefully proclaimed and defended this
broader dimension of the color line in his writings and speeches than
did Du Bois. His analysis of American and global relations in the late
1850s and early 1860s underscored a rigid racial demarcation and con¬
struction of social, historical, and political realities. Delany discerned
a global order in which whites/Europeans sought black subordination.
To escape this fate, he called for emigration and the creation of an
independent black nationality.10 In a letter soliciting support for his
emigration scheme addressed to Dr. James McCune Smith, Delany
wrote,

The present state of the political affairs of the world more than at any pe¬
riod since the establishment of international policies among Christian
governments—which policies comprehend and imply all nations and peo¬
ples, whether civilized or heathen—call for and imperatively demand our
attention as descendants of Africa in whole or part . . . One of the most
prominent features in the present conflicts, struggles, and political move¬
ments among the nations of the world seems to be: Which can reduce us
 INTRODUCTION 7

to a condition the best adapted to promote their luxury, wealth, and ag¬
grandizement, to which as a race, for centuries we have contributed more
than any other race.11

Nothing was more important for Delany at this phase of his career
than to convince blacks of the supreme importance of, and imperative
for, constructing a countervailing platform of struggle based strictly
on racial demarcation. To him, race mattered more than anything else,
and he urged all blacks to unite in the spirit of his 1854 declaration.
The color line was, therefore, conceived not only to draw attention
to the potency of race as a factor in determining public policies but
also to underscore the necessity and establish modalities for racial sol¬
idarity. Equally significant, it was meant to affirm and defend a group's
corporate identity built upon race and ethnicity. This broader dimen¬
sion of the color line has, however, proven to be more idealistic and
visionary. Though racism mandated the color line, its very essence and
existence depended on the attainment of balance or harmony with¬
in a racial group. In other words, the color line doctrine affirms the
indispensability of racial harmony and consensus to the sustenance,
strengthening, and survival of the racial group.
History, however, has shown a consistent muddling of the color
line. In order to sustain the line, its advocates suggest, blacks must
exhibit cohesiveness built on shared feelings of love and confraternity.
Some observers contend that the ascendance of racism and the prob¬
lematic state of black America (measured by economic poverty, social
and political subordination and marginalization, problems of drug ad¬
diction, teenage pregnancy, unemployment, the alarming rate of ho¬
micide, and so forth) accord legitimacy to the color line. In essence,
these negative and destructive circumstances and factors have become
unifying elements that authenticate the color line. It becomes incum¬
bent on all blacks to rally behind the line. Actions or movements that
seemed to efface the color line, or even compromise its authenticity,
were often frowned at and vociferously opposed. For many, therefore,
toeing the line, faithfully advancing, and defending, at all times and
under all circumstances, the interests and problems of blacks became
the litmus test of racial identity. It is this allegiance that establishes
one’s authenticity as a black person. It' is also what distinguishes an
authentic black person from an “Uncle Tom.”12
The conviction of confraternity evokes anger and resentment to¬
ward those who, either through actions or utterances, appear to com-
8 INTRODUCTION

promise or undermine the interests and aspirations of the race. Racism

is presumed to be of such potency as to obviate any basis for disrupt¬
ing or muddling of the color line. Intraracial problems and contradic¬
tions are expected to be kept within rather than made issues of public
discourses that could potentially damage the image of the race and
thereby provide the other group (that is, the racial enemy on the other
side of the color line) ammunition with which to further malign and
mistreat the race. The mandate of racial solidarity stands indissoluble,
even in circumstances when the conditions and complexities of the ra¬
cial group clearly demand critical introspection and self-criticism. In
this respect, the color line accents racial censorship and discourages
actions or comments that are critical of blacks, especially if such criti¬
cisms could become subjects of public discourse. Such self-criticisms,
however justified, are discouraged because they present the outside
world with the image of a black community in crisis and disarray,
thus compromising the struggle at critical moments when the entire
race was expected to stand together in harmony and unison. A good
illustration is the responses of some black nationalists and scholars
to the publication of Keith Richburg’s Out of America: A Black Man
Confronts Africa. Published in 1997. the book immediately provoked
anger and resentment among black Americans and Africans. In radio
and television talk shows and on network news, angry respondents
lambasted Richburg, accusing him of maligning and misrepresent¬
ing Africa and of displaying ignorance of African history. Many called
him a black racist, an Uncle Tom, someone who manifested profound
self-hatred and confusion on identity.13 Members of a group referred
to as “mainstream African American middle class” dismissed Rich¬
burg as “a self-serving Uncle Tom looking to make good with his white
bosses.”14 Former chair of the African American studies department,
Temple University, Molefi K. Asante, found the book “offensive and
obscene.” He described Richburg as someone “caught in the spiral of
psychic pain induced by ... ‘Internal inferiorization.’”15
Although today the color line is not officially proclaimed as vehe¬
mently as in the past, it nonetheless remains a defining characteristic
of the black American struggle. Black militants of the 1960s civil rights
struggles—Black Muslims, the Black Panthers, and Black Power-
embraced the color line. Black Power advocate Stokely Carmichael
based his Pan-African philosophy on racial demarcation. The Black
Panthers spearheaded a movement that emphasized racial divisions.
This was and remains true of the Nation of Islam. In fact, Nation of
 INTRODUCTION 9

Islam leader Elijah Mohammed and his successor Louis Farrakhan

never made secret their advocacy of, and commitment to, the color
line, justified largely on pathological and negative characterizations of
whites. Mohammed’s speeches are replete with calls for constructing
and strengthening the color line. His "truth” about the black situation
in America is unambiguously racial and racist. As he declared, “We,
the Black men are of God. Our oppressors whoever they may be are of
the devil. Their nature is evil! They are incapable of doing well.”16 De¬
scribing "the nature of the white man,” Farrakhan, on the other hand,
refers to, “the Caucasian” as “a vessel made for dishonor. He’s like a vile
olive branch grafted in. He ain’t natural, he’s not a natural branch, he's
grafted in among the peaceful people. This is a graft that is a sucker."17
The essentialization of race is not isolated to radical fringe elements
within the black struggle. Racial essentialism or, more appropriately,
the existentialization of color is an integral and critical component of
revolutionary black idealism, the best example of which is Afrocen-
trism.
Molefi Asante, a leading advocate of the Afrocentric genre, articu¬
lates and advocates the color line in clearly unambiguous terms in his
writings.18 In one of his books, Afrocentricity (1989), Asante empha¬
sizes the need for the development and defense of what he terms the
“collective consciousness” of blacks. He stresses the importance of
racial unity and harmony, for, in his judgment, blacks remain dogged
and threatened by self-abnegating and destructive, hegemonic, Euro¬
centric values. As he warns, “There can be no effective discussion of a
united front, a joint action, and a community of interest until we come
to good terms with collective consciousness, the elementary doctrine
of economic, political, and social action.”19 Underlining the essence
of the collective consciousness, he writes, "Our collective conscious¬
ness must question writers who use symbols and objects which do not
contribute meaningfully to our victory. How could a black writer be
allowed to use symbols which contradict our existence and we not raise
our voice?" (emphasis added).20 In this last sentence, Asante clearly es¬
tablishes the importance of intellectual vigilance on the part of blacks
against black writers who betrayed the color line. As constructed by
Asante, Afrocentricity represents the intellectual articulation of the
color line in all its broader ramifications and implications. But Afro¬
centricity goes beyond authentication of the color line. Its broader in¬
tellectual premise or raison d’etre was to challenge and deconstruct
Eurocentric denial, and misrepresentations, of black/African history
10 INTRODUCTION

and culture. It advanced a construction of the black/African cultural

and historical experiences designed to provide order, rationality, and
essence where none had been acknowledged by Eurocentric histori¬
ography. It also sought to reverse the negative Eurocentric portraits
and renditions of the black and African cultural and historical experi¬
ences. In consequence, Afrocentric scholars have made, and continue
to make, certain claims about African/black history and culture that
often ignore or compromise historical reality, assertions that are so¬
cially and therapeutically utilitarian but historically misleading and
inaccurate.21
Historically, the human drive for essentialist ethos has resulted
from, and reflected, the inequality of the human historical encounters.
The doctrine of white superiority, affirmation of Eurocentric distinc¬
tiveness and distinction, European claims of special and dominant sta¬
tus, assertions of Anglo-Saxon purity and superiority, and advocacy of
white solidarity are all part of the historical edifice and repertoire of
European hegemony.22 Over time, this hegemonic disposition repro¬
duced its own contradiction and antithesis. Borrowing from and mir¬
roring the tradition of the hegemonic class, subordinated, oppressed,
and exploited groups soon develop “political” and "oppositional” con¬
sciousness.23 In the black American context, this consciousness un¬
leashed countervailing ethos of resistance that crystallized into some
forms of essentialism—racial, cultural, or ethnic. Thus, the binary of
hegemony-subordination, empowerment-powerlessness, eventually
resulted in counterhegemonic essentialist ethos meant to validate and
reflect the claims, aspirations, and values of the subordinated and
powerless group. Therefore, it could be argued that hegemony is not
the exclusive preserve of the dominant powerful class. Subordinated
groups have the capacity to develop hegemonic and essentialist ide¬
ologies of self-promotion and racial and cultural validation. I focus in
this book on the latter type of essentialism, offering an exposition and
critique of the cultural, social, historical, and identitarian implications
of the essentialist tradition in contemporary black cultural nationalist
thought as theorized in Afrocentricity. This work is neither a history
of Afrocentricity nor a discussion of the ideology. The focus is not
on Afrocentricity per se. The last decade has witnessed outpourings
of critical expository, revisionist, and neorevisionist writings on the
subject.24 What I offer is a critique and deconstruction of the social,
cultural, historical, and intellectual ramifications and implications of
Afrocentric essentialism. The term “Afrocentric essentialism” refers to
 INTRODUCTION 11

the use of Africa to advance a monolithic and homogeneous history,

culture, and identity for all blacks, regardless of geographical location.
Race is a central defining element of Afrocentric essentialism. It is in
fact the glue that binds other elements of Afrocentric essentialism
such as culture and ethnicity. In Afrocentric essentialist thought, Af¬
rica is the embodiment of what are characterized as immutable identi-
tarian elements that unite all blacks: race, ethnicity, and culture. These
elements, especially culture and ethnicity, according to Afrocentric
essentialist scholars, have not been fundamentally impacted by centu¬
ries of separation from Africa and acculturation in America. Put dif¬
ferently, ‘Afrocentric essentialism” refers to the monolithic construc¬
tion of the black American and African Diaspora experiences, the
location and interpretation of these experiences within a Pan-African
historical and experiential paradigm. Though Afrocentric essential¬
ism embodies racial essentialism, it is much broader. Race is just a key
defining element, the glue that binds Afrocentric essentialism. Both
racial essentialism and Afrocentric essentialism seem synonymous
and interchangeable, but the latter is much broader. Algernon Austin
provides this apt definition of racial essentialism:

Racial essentialism means that groups are seen as possessing an essence—

a natural, supernatural, or mystical characteristic—that makes them share
a fundamental similarity with all members of the group and a fundamen¬
tal difference from non-members. The essence is understood in racialist
thinking as being immune to social forces. It does not change with time or
social context. In essentialist thoughts, blacks in the United States share
a fundamental similarity with blacks in the African nation of Malawi, for
example, and blacks today share a fundamental similarity with blacks in
ancient Nubia thousands of years ago.25

Austin’s definition underscores this use of race to construct a mono¬

lithic identity across historical time and space with disregard for his¬
torical change. Afrocentric essentialist thought acknowledges the
centrality of race. Owing to its problematic character as identitarian
construct, however, leading Afrocentric scholars now deemphasize
race and highlight ethnicity, broadly and vaguely represented by the
concept "Africa.” Africa became a much more reliable identitarian
construct that embodies something that binds all blacks, something
much more substantive than race—culture, which, despite centuries
of separation, had supposedly survived almost intact among blacks in
12 INTRODUCTION

Diaspora. Being African (ethnicity) became the essential defining ele¬

ment around which to organize and combat Eurocentric hegemony.
Hence, while some Afrocentric scholars acknowledge the social and
political construction of race and thus its limited value and dimin¬
ished status, and elevate Africa as the essential factor, Afrocentrism
actually embodies race and nurtures racialist consciousness. Again
invoking Austin:

Afrocentrism is a racial ideology because it ideologically constructs a heri¬

table essential difference among human populations. Within Afrocentric
theory, people who are of the African Cultural system are presented as be¬
ing fundamentally different from people outside this system. These differ¬
ences are passed on to the descendants of people within this African Cul¬
tural System so that centuries later the descendants of Africans are said to
be culturally African. Because these cultural differences are not influenced
by social forces, they remain present in the same form over millennia.26

This continuity is best represented in Afrocentric depiction of con¬

tinental Africans and all blacks in Diaspora as one people who share
identical historical and cultural experiences. Afrocentric scholars con¬
sider this monolithic construction of the African and black historical
and cultural experiences critical to survival and success in their his¬
torical and existential struggles against forces of white/European his¬
torical and cultural hegemony. They construct a historical continuum
of shared interests, experiences, and challenges unifying Africans and
blacks in Diaspora. This is evident in the works of Asante, Marimba
Ani, Maulana Karenga, Nairn Akbar, Amos Wilson, and John Henrik
Clarke, among many others.
A defining characteristic of Afrocentric essentialism is the Man-
ichean conception of history. Afrocentric scholars represent history
as an arena of irreconcilable conflicts between diametrically opposed
cultures—black versus white. They advance a racialized paradigm that
delineates boundaries of historical and cultural conflict between blacks
and whites.27 Their affirmation of a uniform and homogeneous Africa
and black Diaspora history and culture underscores certain critical can¬
nons of Afrocentric essentialism: the development of a countervailing
African epistemology as the modus vivendi for black empowerment
and regeneration; the proclamation of a monolithic African identity
for all blacks regardless of geographical location; the advancement of
the cultural essence and superiority of black and African cosmology;
the development and propagation of the “stolen legacy” thesis, a the-
 INTRODUCTION 13

ory that attributes the core values of western civilization to the over¬
riding influence of ancient civilizations of Africa, particularly Egypt.
This theory has become an article of faith among Afrocentric scholars
who have used it to advance what some critics depict as a hegemonic
universal Afrocentric historiography.28 Furthermore, Afrocentric es-
sentialist thought underscores the historical depth and authenticity of
a positive African consciousness among blacks. Finally, there is also a
deemphasizing of New World (metropolitan) influences, conscious¬
ness, and acculturation among blacks; that is, the denial of the essence
and validity of the New World (American) consciousness and identity
among blacks.
To understand Afrocentric essentialism fully, it is imperative that
the tradition is appropriately contextualized within the historical dis¬
course of black alienation and resistance. From slavery to the present,
blacks have had to struggle against the forces and manifestations of
Eurocentric essentialism. Enslavement, racism, and segregation (Jim
Crow) were all built on affirmations of white superiority and corre¬
sponding claims of black inferiority. As slaves, blacks were deemed
subhuman, items to be owned, bought, and sold by whites. As free,
they were deemed primitive and inferior, not deserving of close as¬
sociation with the “superior” white race. Historically, Eurocentric
essentialism engendered misery, alienation, subordination, deper¬
sonalization, dehumanization, and subjugation. Whether in slavery
or freedom, it nurtured in blacks alienated consciousness, provoking
resistance and ultimately the development and articulation of a com¬
bative countervailing essentialist worldview: Afrocentric essentialism.
The roots of Afrocentric essentialism can in part be traced to the nine¬
teenth-century black resistant traditions of abolitionism, moral sua¬
sion, colonization, and emigration. Modern representations of Afro¬
centric essentialism are in the "militant” ethos and movements of the
black struggle from Pan-Africanism to Black Power and Black Pan¬
thers. Modern attempts to revive Pan-Africanism is premised on the
conviction that continental Africans and blacks in Diaspora are one
people who share identical problems and challenges and are threat¬
ened by, and vulnerable to, the hegemonic machinations of the old
racial enemy (whites/Europeans). This explains the racial/Afrocentric
essentialist construction of the struggle and the location of Africa as
the foundation, the edifice of black resistance.
In modern times, early centralization of Africa abounded in Marcus
Garvey's philosophy and movement, in the writings and speeches of
the “radical” activists of the civil rights struggles such as Stokely Car-
14 INTRODUCTION

michael and Malcolm X, and in the writings and speeches of the late
West Indian scholar-activist Walter Rodney. Rodney offered a sound
knowledge of African history as a prerequisite for any meaningful and
effective confrontation with Eurocentric historiography and world¬
view and emphasized the imperative of using historical knowledge
to rescue blacks from cultural imperialism. African history became
a weapon for combating and deconstructing what he termed “Euro¬
pean cultural egocentricity.”29 At the roots of Afrocentric essentialism
lie African history, African cosmology, African identity, and African
epistemology. From the early slave resistance and anti-slavery aboli¬
tionism through nineteenth-century emigration movements to the
present, the black struggles reflected and entailed efforts, directly or
indirectly, aimed at deconstructing ethos of Eurocentric essentialism.
This is reflected in the insurrectionary tradition of Nat Turner and
Denmark Vesey; the quasi-historical efforts of the pioneers of black in¬
tellectual resistance such as William C. Nell, James W. C. Pennington,
Robert Benjamin Lewis, James Theodore Holly, William Wells Brown,
George Washington Williams, and Martin Delany; the moral suasion
ethos of the early nineteenth-century black abolitionist movement
spearheaded by the likes of William Whipper and Lewis Woodson;
and the nationalist and colonization schemes of the nineteenth cen¬
tury. In different ways, therefore, these efforts constituted attempts to
confront and challenge the hegemonic order that had been validated
and legitimized by Eurocentric racial and cultural essentialist ethos.
The doctrine of white supremacy that justified Europe’s claim to cul¬
tural and civilizational supremacy also shaped the historical relation¬
ships of whites and non-whites and legitimized the subordination and
dehumanization of the latter.
Over time, however, the failure of blacks to overcome the experi¬
ential impacts of Eurocentric essentialist ethos compelled many to in¬
voke black and African essentialism in response. Thus, racism became
a critical element in the development of essentialist ethos. The role of
race in the construction of white essentialist ethos laid the founda¬
tion for the countervailing development of black and African essen¬
tialism. Although there were several occasions in the eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries when race appealed to blacks as a potential
framework of constructing resistance and affirming and validating
self/identity, the mid-nineteenth-century upsurge of black national¬
ist and emigrationist consciousness was a major point of maturation,
and gradual crystallization, of Afrocentric essentialist consciousness.
 INTRODUCTION 15

Delany’s epochal racial essentialist declaration of 1854 noted above

was perhaps a critical turning point in the evolution of Afrocentric
essentialism. The entire speech amplified the growing disillusionment
of blacks with the failure of integration. Delany would go on in his
writings and struggles to give greater substance and strength to "Afro-
centric essentialist” values that future generations of black nationalists
and activists would invoke. He emphasized the imperative of an Afri¬
can-centered epistemology and insisted on a trans-Atlantic nexus of
struggle that united Africans and blacks across the Diaspora as people
with shared history, culture, identity, challenges, and problems. He
used race (that is, the fact of blackness) as the basis of delineating dis¬
tinct boundaries of historical encounters and struggles and advanced
a monolithic interpretation of black history, while also advocating an
Africa-black Diaspora unity built on a common platform of struggle.
This book is a critical interrogation of the cultural and intellectual
implications and ramifications of Afrocentric essentialism. As defined
above, the concept “Afrocentric essentialism” refers to the monolithic
construction of the black experience, the location and interpretation
of the black experience within a Pan-African historical and experi¬
ential paradigm, and perspective, as a countervailing force against
the hegemonic influences and impact of Eurocentric essentialism.
Afrocentric essentialism is predicated largely on the convictions that
“Afrocentric consciousness” is deep-rooted among blacks in Diaspora
and that this consciousness of Africa had always been positive and
endearing. From this came the Afrocentric call for Pan-African soli¬
darity and for using Africa as the platform of commonality, identity,
culture, and struggle. A major defining character of Afrocentric essen¬
tialism is the racialization and ethnicization of the black experience;
however, the drive toward essentializing the black and African histori¬
cal and cultural experiences resulted in what many describe as a de-
historicization process.30 In other words, the need for a homogeneous
and monolithic African and black Diaspora worldview led to deem¬
phasizing of the historical process. Afrocentric scholars have found it
necessary to deny or deemphasize the processes of historical change
and transformation in America. They deem constructing an essential¬
ist tradition of history and culture profoundly critical to group sur¬
vival and empowerment in the context of what they perceive as the
ever-present and potent threat of Eurocentric hegemony. Although in
recent years there has been increased scholarly attention to Afrocen¬
tric historicism, little attention has been given to examination of the
16 INTRODUCTION

intellectual, social, and cultural ramifications and contradictions of its

essentialist projection of black history, especially in relation to issues
such as identity, Pan-Africanism, globalization, the historical process,
and the historical representations and utility of Africa. For example,
as already stated, Afrocentric essentialism projects Africa as a unify¬
ing framework for all blacks. The basis of this “African-centeredness”
is the belief that blacks in the Diaspora had historically harbored a
deep and positive consciousness of Africa and a strong desire to iden¬
tify with the continent. It is this claim of historical depth and potency
of African consciousness among blacks in the Diaspora that inspired
a corresponding assertion of historical continuity and confraternity,
and advocacy of reconnection with the continent and reactivation of
Pan-Africanism. There are pertinent but often neglected paradoxical
questions relating to Afrocentric amplification of the “African roots of,
and African influence on, western civilization,” and the supposed im¬
mutability of African culture, while denying or deemphasizing the ac-
culturative influence of the New World: How is it possible that a peo¬
ple whose legacies, according to Afrocentric scholars, so profoundly
shaped Western tradition, would remain uninfluenced by Western
contacts? How were they able to retain the original African identity
and culture intact (that is, remain essentially African)? These ques¬
tions underscore the central paradoxical and philosophical problem¬
atic of Afrocentric essentialism—the claim of cultural originality and
exclusivity in a context of historical and cultural contacts, exchanges,
and hegemony!
Afrocentric essentialist scholars depict Africans and blacks in the
Diaspora as a community of like-minded, historically and culturally
congruent people, whose shared history and culture not only tran¬
scended space and time but also defied the process of change. The two
are considered one, united by commonality of interests, aspirations,
and challenges; a people whose shared identity had not been affected
by the historical process of change and transformation, despite centu¬
ries of geographical and historical separation. Certain key essentialist
ideas derive from such narrow racial, cultural, or ethnic construction
of the black Diaspora and African experiences. First, the utility of race,
blacks and continental Africans defined as one people united by racial
identity and shared struggles; a people whose historical experiences
were shaped by the fact of race (color), in consequence of the negative
and dehumanizing experiences of their encounters with whites and
Europeans. Second, the depiction of Africans and Diaspora blacks as
 INTRODUCTION 17

a people of shared “African” culture, the reality of historical separa¬

tion and transplantation notwithstanding. African cultural retentions
in the New World are projected as historically rooted and, therefore,
evidence of the permanence and indestructibility of the African es¬
sence. In Afrocentric essentialism, therefore, all blacks share one Af¬
rican identity regardless of historical experiences and geographical lo¬
cations. Thus, historical time and space appear irrelevant and inconse¬
quential. Here, Afrocentric essentialist scholars reject the Du Boisean
duality construct and any suggestion of New World impact on iden¬
tity. In their judgment, the American experience never significantly
affected the identity and consciousness of the real African person.
The Afrocentrist is not tormented or influenced by warring ideals.31
The third is the construction of what I characterize as a gloracialized
worldview against globalization. Advocates of Afrocentric essential¬
ism reject globalization and the prospect of global cultural citizenship
and affirm instead ethnic and racial identity and consciousness.32 It
should be noted, however, that Afrocentric suspicion of globalization
is much older than the advent of globalization. It is rooted in what
some of the pioneers of black historiography characterized as the he¬
gemonic character of "universal history.” It is rooted in their represen¬
tation and rejection of universal history as Eurocentric and destruc¬
tive to blacks, and in their Eurocentric construction of global history.
The advent of globalization has only strengthened Afrocentric suspi¬
cion and provoked some of the most virulent anti-globalization ideas.
Even as many applaud globalization as obviating and transcending
the restrictive parameters of the nation state, thus affording greater
opportunity for human interactions and intercultural communica¬
tion, Afrocentric scholars portray globalization as anti-black. They
perceive globalization as essentially an enlargement of the power of
the hegemonic nation-state and therefore pernicious. This problema-
tizes the conflict between globalization and the nation-state. In other
words, the nation-state remains a problematic entity, the shrinkage
of its traditional boundaries of political influence notwithstanding.
Afrocentric essentialist scholars suggest that it is not possible to em¬
brace globalization without first confronting and resolving the contra¬
dictions and limitations of the nation-state. In Afrocentric essentialist
construct, therefore, the global arena is an extended domain of the
problematic nation-state. Thus, in the Afrocentric genre, globaliza¬
tion reflects continuation of Eurocentric hegemony and essentialism,
hence the need for a countervailing Afrocentric essentialist response
18 INTRODUCTION

and vigilance—which comes in the form of gloracialization. I define

gloracialization as the consciousness of racial distinctiveness, devel¬
oped and projected on a global scale, unifying all blacks, regardless of
geopolitical location, drawn together by perceived threats emanating
from European global cultural expansion. This highest and global ex¬
pression of black racial consciousness is considered the most potent
and formidable force with which to negate the cultural hegemonic im¬
plications of globalization.33
Ironically, Afrocentric scholars erect boundaries of distinct histori¬
cal experiential performances within the larger context of American
national historical performance, and often at odds with it. The he¬
gemonic nature of the larger context of historical performance led
blacks to search for, and construct, their own space within which
they are able to perform and tell their own story, while highlighting
the limitations and hegemonic character of the dominant space. This
justified establishment of distinct epistemological and cosmological
boundaries outside of the dominant domain. A major problematic is
how blacks are able to construct and navigate distinct cosmological
and epistemological spaces while living within a Eurocentric space.
To understand black history and culture, Afrocentric scholars insist,
one must do so within an African-centered epistemology to the ex¬
clusion of the acculturative impact of New World geopolitical space.
However, Afrocentric essentialism goes beyond just a platform. What
makes it distinctive today is not the platform character but the use of
the platform as the basis of constructing a homogeneous and mono¬
lithic worldview for all blacks and Africans regardless of geographical
locations and historical and cultural experiences. As emphasized, Af¬
rocentric essentialism underscores historical and experiential unifor¬
mity and conformity for Africans and all blacks across historical time
and space, without due acknowledgment of the historicity of time and
space. That is, both time and space are treated as static and ahistorical
entities, and not the conduits of historical and cultural transforma¬
tions. Africa is at the heart of Afrocentric essentialism; it is the very
basis and foundation for a common identity, historical and cultural
experiences and affinity, the substructure for constructing uniform
and unifying experiential discourses of historical, cultural, and identi-
tarian homogeneity.
This appeal and utilization of Africa as a weapon and the basis of
struggle goes back to the early nineteenth century. Enslavement and
dehumanization were based on the negative portraits and rendition
 INTRODUCTION 19

of the African background and connection. Initially, this elicited re¬

jection of, and alienation from, Africa. The early-nineteenth-century
black abolitionist and moral suasion ethos were designed to affect dis¬
tance from Africa and achieve full integration in America.34 By the
mid-nineteenth century, for many blacks, Africa was becoming an
attractive and acceptable basis of constructing a countervailing plat¬
form of struggle. For key nineteenth-century black nationalists, Africa
became the basis of a counteroffensive against Eurocentric hegemony.
Though for them, the underlying objective of constructing a counter¬
identity and experience based on Africa was to reshape and reform
the American condition.35 Paradoxically, the essentialization of Africa
reflected, in some sense, recognition of historical process and trans¬
formation. Even as they constructed a monolithic racial platform of
struggle, the activism of nineteenth-century black nationalists mir¬
rored ambivalence that itself implied some recognition of the histori¬
cal process and transformation. In the postmodern context, however,
the essentialization of Africa has come to mean deemphasizing and
deessentializing of the historical process. Afrocentric essentialism
underscores the fragile, porous, and shallow character of New World
enculturation. To bridge the divide created by the historical process or
transplantation, and New World acculturation, Afrocentric scholars
felt it necessary to deemphasize the historical essence of both trans¬
plantation and acculturation. That is, transplantation, in Afrocentric
genre, represents just a geographical act, not a culturally transforming
process. Enslavement simply took Africans from one locale to another
without any lasting transformation and impact. Afrocentric essential¬
ism thus exhibits the following attributes: the tendency to impose uni¬
form identity on all blacks, the tendency to advance uniform culture,
regardless of geographical locations or historical experiences, and
the tendency to locate all blacks within a monolithic epistemological
and cosmological tradition. Afrocentric essentialists associate black
Americans, cosmologically and epistemologically, with Africa, as op¬
posed to the western epistemological and cosmological traditions. On
the basis of the above, Afrocentric scholars advocate reaffirmation of
Pan-Africanism as a viable platform and framework of constructing
and demonstrating unifying experiential challenges. Thus, Afrocen¬
tric essentialism underscores the color line—black separation and
alienation—even in the context of a broadening globalization of the
human experience.
20 INTRODUCTION

Although Afrocentric essentialism is deep-rooted in history, the

emergence of Afrocentricity in the modern world represents its ideo¬
logical maturation, the highest point of Afrocentric essentialism. The
historical underpinning of contemporary Afrocentric essentialism is
the perceived onslaught on blacks in the post-civil rights era, as in
attacks on, and reversals of, the gains of the civil rights struggles.
This has caused alienation, resulting in calls for strict delineation of
the racial and cultural lines, affirmation of black distinctiveness and
uniqueness, cultural conflicts, dissonance and divergence, as opposed
to convergence and compatibility. The hegemonic character of main¬
stream historical experience led many blacks inexorably to affirmation
of Afrocentric values and distinctiveness. Thus, rejection and nega¬
tion led to affirmation of, and quest for validation in, Africa.
The hegemony-subordination binary within which the black
American experience unfolded problematized the Self-Other identi-
tarian nexus and consciousness. Afrocentric scholars reject the iden¬
tity problematic that Du Bois represented in dualistic and conflicted
terms. While Du Bois emphasized acknowledging the validity of the
Self-Other dichotomy, Afrocentric scholars affirm the Self (Negro)
while invalidating the Other (American). While Du Bois presented
both in historical relational terms as mutually reflective and reinforc¬
ing, Afrocentrists present one as the negation of the other, both per¬
petually at odds. Du Bois described both as engrossed in a conflict of
mutuality, with shared historical and cultural experiences. Afrocen¬
trists underscore distinctiveness, conflict, and negating values.
In a recently published provocative study, Debra J. Dickerson at¬
tempts further deconstruction of the racial underpinning of the cultur¬
al black nationalist worldview. She wrote The End of Blackness (2004)
in order to prove and promote “the idea that the concept of‘blackness,’
as it has come to be understood is rapidly losing its ability to describe,
let alone predict or manipulate, the political and social behavior of
African Americans. Given its strictures and the limitations it places
upon the growth and free will of those to whom it refers, it diminishes
their sovereignty as rational and moral actors.”36 She advocates “updat¬
ing” blackness so that blacks “can free themselves from the past,” and
stop “defining themselves out of America.”37 Dickerson underscores
the depth of racialist consciousness and convictions among blacks and
the degree to which such disposition has informed, and continues to
shape, black American history and experience. She emphasizes the
negative, constricting, and circumscribing influence of race-conscious
 INTRODUCTION 21

disposition and how it is both limiting and undermining the possibili¬

ties and potentialities of blacks. Dickerson’s “gauntlet thrown down to
the black powers that be,” echoes much of the strictures against the
stranglehold of racialist consciousness among blacks. She articulates
in profoundly effective and powerful terms the debilitating effect of
racial thinking. Unfortunately, as powerful and potentially influential
as Dickerson’s work is, the fact remains that racialist consciousness
has taken such a strong hold among blacks that it has become synony¬
mous with the very survival and success of the race. Especially in the
times of "compassionate republicanism,” to be race conscious became
a defining essence of being “a real black person.” In other words, race
consciousness and racial solidarity have become countervailing strat¬
egies of struggle and survival. There is nothing wrong with being race
conscious. It is a manifestation of one’s awareness and responsiveness
to the realities of daily life. The problem, however, is in using such con¬
sciousness as the basis of existential aspirations and struggles; of al¬
lowing race to define and determine, and thereby limit, one’s choices,
aspirations, visions, and goals. It is ironic that a construct that is wide¬
ly acknowledged for its fragility and artificiality was, and remains, key
to defining the character of a people’s conception of self and construc¬
tion of history. It seems equally ironic also that at a time when many
are questioning the utility of race, some blacks are heavily dependent
on it as a unifying experiential construct and the basis of constructing
boundaries and frameworks for existential struggles.38 Undoubtedly, it
is the virulence and potency of racism in America that has provoked
and reinforced black people’s affinity to race as a viable means of exis¬
tential validation.
This book illuminates the social, intellectual, and political repre¬
sentations, challenges, and limitations of Afrocentric essentialist con¬
sciousness among black Americans. The many complex dimensions of
essentialist ethos are identified and analyzed in relation to identity, his¬
torical memory, conceptions, and perceptions of Africa; relations be¬
tween blacks in Diaspora and continental Africans; and the responses
of blacks to the challenges and implications of the expanding terrain
of human encounters and experiences. I interrogate the prominence
of Africa as a construct and frame of historical and cultural reference
in black essentialist ethos. I contend that very often the construction
of Africa entailed a dehistoricization process that deemphasizes and
diminishes the essence of history. Put differently, in order to construct
and defend an essentialist construction of the black experience, Afro-
22 INTRODUCTION

centric essentialist scholars often ignore or deemphasize the dynam¬

ics of history. I have written this book, first, to develop and analyze
Afrocentric essentialism as a comprehensive and dynamic agency in
black history and, second, to probe its many-faceted representations
in, and impacts on, black American history and consciousness. Most
important, this book is meant to illuminate Africa’s problematic, con¬
flicted, and ambiguous role, underscoring the contradictions and limi¬
tations of Afrocentric essentialist thought. I aim to suggest that while
theoretically Afrocentric essentialism seems like a logical response to
alienation and the deepening crisis of black impoverishment, it re¬
mains historically weak as a means of understanding, or mirroring
into, the historical realities of the black experiences in America and
the entire Diaspora.
1

Africa and the Challenges

of Constructing Identity

In The Roots of African-American Identity (1997), Elizabeth Raul

Bethel identifies two critical events that shaped black American con¬
sciousness and identity in the nineteenth century. The first was the
Haitian revolution of 1791-1804, which resulted in the overthrow of
French plantocratic hegemony by black slaves. The revolution repre¬
sented, for blacks in the United States and elsewhere, both a “model
of political agency and racial achievement” that was denied to them
and the potency and possibilities of nationalism in the context of New
World experience. It consequently nurtured optimism on the pros¬
pect of transcending enslavement.1 The second was the 1807-8 federal
legislation prohibiting ships flying under the United States flag from
engaging in the importation of slaves. Blacks welcomed this as signal¬
ing an end to the long sufferings brought upon Africans by enslave¬
ment and the transplantation process. This enthusiastic and joyous
response betrayed a growing consciousness of affinity with Africans.
The legislation thus induced optimistic expectations about the future
of Africa and her descendants abroad, and many blacks began to envi¬
sion eventual reunification with a lost African identity.2
The two developments, according to Bethel, “provided fertile psy¬
chosocial environments in which memories of the past intersected
with realities and opportunities of the moment.”3 This intersection
induced ambivalent nationalist consciousness, which in turn nur¬
tured an equally ambivalent conception of identity. Blacks saw the
anti-slave-trade legislation as a positive development that they hoped
would terminate the nightmarish experience of dislocation and dehu¬
manization that enslavement and transplantation entailed. The Hai¬
tian revolution exemplified the ultimate potential of New World na¬
tionalism. Celebrating these positive developments, however, entailed
coming to grips with an existential problem of self-definition—"Am I
an American or am I a Negro? Can I be both?”4
24 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY

Consciousness of African ancestry combined with the exigencies

of the American experience to present, in the words of Bethel, “a
continuing challenge to identity for African Americans, and it never
would be entirely resolved.”5 This challenge mirrored a critical di¬
lemma, that is, double consciousness, which many critics have since
identified as the hallmark of black American identity. This dilemma
involved critical existential inquiries into the very nature and char¬
acter of the black American experience designed to ascertain the ex¬
tent to which the American experience could be deemed positive and
satisfying. The critical inquiry is as follows—To what degree has the
American experience satisfied the yearnings by blacks for acknowl¬
edgment as full-fledged citizens of America, with their interests, aspi¬
rations, and values represented, articulated, advanced, and defended
within the framework of the larger society? Put differently, has the
American experience been positive and satisfying enough to nurture
and sustain in blacks a faith in, and a sense of identity with, the larger
society? The absence of a correspondence, the reality of divergence,
between the aspirations, interests, and values of blacks, and those of
the larger society, has been a defining character of black history and
has informed conceptions and perceptions of black identity. There is,
however, an added factor of equal importance in shaping black Ameri¬
can identity—the denial and denigration of the black historical expe¬
rience, ancestry, and heritage. This perceived lack of correspondence
between black values, interests, and aspirations, and those of main¬
stream white society, has consequently configured and complicated
the identity problem.
Blacks manifested double consciousness on identity from the very
earliest of times. Many retained memories of Africa, while struggling
to be acknowledged as Americans. Rationalizing the identity question,
“Who am I?”, consumed the attention of blacks, and Bethel is right
in suggesting that the question may never be satisfactorily answered.
Attempting to answer the question has provoked some of the most
contentious debates in the annals of the black experience. The credit
for identifying the focus of the modern context of the debate belongs
to W. E. B. Du Bois, whose formulation captured the essence of the
identity dilemma. His statement that “one ever feels his two-ness,—an
American, a Negro: two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled striv¬
ing; two warring ideals in one dark body” underscores the status of
the black American as a product of complex historical and cultural
experiences.6
 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY 25

Du Bois, however, portrayed both experiences as vital to the forma¬

tion of identity and cautioned against sacrificing one for the other, for
each possessed intrinsic essence and validity. As he contended, the
Negro “wishes neither the older selves to be lost.” The Self (Negro)
and the Other (America) are intrinsically and inherently essential,
each with unique contributions to the world.7 Du Bois thus conferred
both historical reality and permanence to the double consciousness.
He soon immersed himself in the struggles to validate both identi¬
ties: the struggle for the integration of blacks into the United States
as full-fledged citizens and the struggle by blacks to contribute to
the defense and furtherance of the interests of Africa. The civil rights
movement of the 1960s also exemplified this double consciousness
as black Americans fought for integration (that is, American citizen¬
ship), while culturally and politically embracing and identifying with
the struggles and challenges of the African continent.
The historical validation of the notion of double consciousness has
not won universal acclaim and acceptance. It remains the subject of
intense controversy among scholars, precisely because of its bearings
on ihe identity question. The notion of double consciousness is central
to modern discourses on black American identity, and responses to it
betray conflicting interpretations of identity. A few years back, Gerald
Early, former chair of African American Studies at Washington Uni¬
versity in Saint Louis, Missouri, invited a select group of scholars to
respond to the Du Boisean duality paradigm. Published as Lure and
Loathing: Essays on Race, Identity, and the Ambivalence of Assimi¬
lation (1994), their responses betray the complexity and conflicting
perceptions of identity among black Americans. A few respondents
rejected the duality paradigm, denying its historical potency, while
strongly counterpoising a monolithic identity construct grounded in
African cosmology. Some accepted and validated the notion of double
consciousness and thus acknowledged the legitimacy of the Afro and
African American construction of identity. Some others embraced a
more neutralist formulation and attempted to situate identity within
a cosmopolitan and universal construct—humanity, western civiliza¬
tion, and so forth. Advocates of this “universal” construct perceive
black identity as neither essentially African nor essentially American
but as the product of a broader and complex human experience. Final¬
ly, there are those who situate black identity squarely within a Euro-
American cultural context.8
26 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY

The above conflicting conceptions suggest fundamental differences

on the significance and relevance of Africa. Historically, Africa had
constituted a challenge to black Americans, precisely because in or¬
der to define themselves, they had to deal with the reality of their Af¬
rican background.9 The fundamental challenge has been to establish
whether blacks are Americans who had completely shed all trappings
of their African ancestry, or Africans, residents in an alien and hostile
environment, who somehow managed to retain their Africanness, de¬
spite centuries of separation from Africa and acculturation in a New
World environment. The responses have been diverse and conflicting.
Afrocentric scholars such as Molefi Asante, Maulana Karenga, and
Marimba Ani (aka Dona Marimba Richards) proclaim the centrality
of Africa to the construction of black American identity and insist
upon identifying black Americans as quintessential^ Africans.10 These
scholars deemphasize the transforming consequences of New World
transplantation and acculturation, suggesting a certain shallowness
and superficiality to Euro-American cultural impact and, as one critic
put it, affirming the “purity, homogeneity and primordiality of African
cultural influences among Afro-Americans.”11 The essentialization of
Africa in Afrocentric essentialist thought therefore represents a rejec¬
tion of the Du Boisean duality construct.
The true Afrocentrist is supposedly someone who is rid of double
consciousness. Afrocentrism presumes the possibility of expelling or
submerging one of the warring ideals—the Euro-American. Marimba
Ani has no scintilla of doubt that blacks in the Diaspora are Africans.
The retentions of Africanism in music, religion, family structure and
norms, and burial practices clearly separate blacks from whites ethni¬
cally and culturally. As she put it, "Africa survives in our [i.e., black
Americans’] spiritual make-up; that it is the strength and depth of Af¬
rican spirituality and humanism that has allowed for the survival of
the African-Americans as a distinctive cultural entity in New Europe;
that it is, our spirituality and vitality that defines our response to Eu¬
ropean culture; and that response is universally African.”12
In Afrocentric epistemology, however, Africa is much more than
an identity construct. Affirming African identity also represents a
strong statement of protest. The late Amos Wilson unambiguously
proclaimed this protest dimension. To assert the “Afrikan” identity, he
argued, is to assume a radical posture against injustice. As he proudly
declared, “I love the challenge of being Afrikan in today’s world; it’s
 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY 27

wonderful! I love digging in my heels against the impossible odds of

being black in America. What greater challenge could we have in life
today than to be Afrikan?”13 Africa thus acquires a utilitarian function
far beyond representing identity. Critics deem the zero-sum stance on
the African identity of black Americans that Afrocentrists maintain as
grossly reductionistic and absolutist. W. D. Wright, for instance, does
not believe that blacks are “hundred percent” African in character. He
acknowledges the complex cultural, national, and ethnic factors in¬
volved in forging the black American identity.14
The Afrocentric absolutist stance on the African identity of black
Americans has provoked a countervailing school that totally rejects
Africa and posits instead slavery and the American experience as more
substantive foundations for constructing the black American identity.
Attempts to impose a racial and color line in the social, academic,
political, and cultural spheres provoked widespread resentment that
compelled interrogation of the complexity of the American and black
Diaspora experiences. Many blacks object to being stamped with a ra¬
cial label or being confined behind a racial boundary line. The mono¬
lithic Afrocentric construction of black history, identity, and culture
provoked challenges from black politicians, academics, community
activists, entrepreneurs, artists, and athletes, who rejected the simpli¬
fying and confining character of race and embraced a more complex
and mainstream construction of identity. In the universities, and in
the field of education in general, there are calls for a nuanced and rep¬
resentative paradigm that captures the complexity of the African and
black Diaspora experiences. Many have come to realize the artificial¬
ity of race and its social and political character. This slavocentric or
Americentric perspective has been articulated and defended more re¬
cently by the black American playwright Douglass Turner Ward, and
former Washington Post Africa bureau chief, Keith Richburg. Among
the most recent proponents of the anti-Afrocentric identity paradigm,
Turner and Richburg, in different contexts, called for deemphasizing
Africa and situating black American identity instead within the context
of slavery. In his provocative book, Out of America: A Black Man Con¬
fronts Africa, Richburg rejects African identity and strongly implores
black Americans to turn inward to their American experience to vali¬
date their identity.15 In a keynote address to the Southern Conference
on Afro-American Studies in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in February of
1995, Ward boldly proclaimed himself a slavocentric and urged blacks
28 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY

to locate their identity in the enslavement experience. Between the

two extremes of Afrocentrism and slavocentrism lie other perceptions
on identity, ranging from the universalistic and humanistic to the ex¬
istentialist. Essentially, these other perspectives represent attempts to
anchor identity to some supposedly neutral ideals and values that are
deemed neither essentially African nor essentially American.16
The differences and controversies generated by these conflict¬
ing perspectives are played out fairly regularly in the media and in
scholarly publications and debates. Consequently, this chapter will
not delve deeply into the modern debate. Rather, I hope to highlight
something glaringly missing in contemporary discourses on black
American identity—the historical context. Since Africa is critical to
modern configurations of the identity debate among black Americans,
it is pertinent to ascertain the depth and strength of the African con¬
sciousness of black Americans by examining how they historically re¬
sponded to, and defined, their African connection. Did Africa occupy
a central place as Afrocentric epistemology suggests, or was Africa
subordinated to a greater identity? How crucial was Africa to black
American conception of identity? What role did blacks assign Africa
in their struggles, and how did they define themselves in the contexts
of the struggles? Answering these questions would require a critical
examination of the historical antecedents of the current controversies
on identity.
I have chosen two critical historical epochs during which black
Americans grappled with the identity question. The first is the moral
suasion epoch (1830-1849), which was essentially integrationist in as¬
piration, and the second is the emigration phase (1850-1864, 1878-
1880s), which has been characterized as essentially a separatist and
nationalist phenomenon. The first is associated with the phase of or¬
ganized black abolitionism, the second with an organized quest for an
independent black nationality abroad. Both epochs provide insights
into the construction of identity and considerations of the place and
relevance of Africa to the process. In the moral suasion phase, the
more neglected of the epochs, the focus will be on the debate and
controversies generated by the adoption of moral suasion as abolition
strategy by leading blacks in the 1830s.
Moral suasion has often been characterized as a conservative move¬
ment whose purpose was to reconcile blacks to mainstream American
values and, in the process, attain the rights and privileges of American
citizenship.17 Although it is true that the moral suasion crusade en-
 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY 29

visioned integration, the debate it unleashed entailed spirited argu¬

ments on identity. The debate centered around attaining some con¬
sensus on the identity of blacks and, most significantly, on how best
to affirm and realize that identity. This debate revealed that though
advocates of moral suasion shared a consensus on identity, they dis¬
agreed sharply on strategies. The African identity did not feature at
all in the debate. On the other hand, the emigration phase focuses
on the ideologies, policies, and schemes of leading black nationalists.
Africa featured prominently in this latter phase. Emigration has been
defined and analyzed almost exclusively in the context of national¬
ism and Pan-Africanism.18 While this is true to a significant degree,
black American nationalist consciousness, especially in the emigra¬
tion phase, was also about the quest for self-definition and identity.
The impulse for emigration developed out of the anguish felt over the
intractable problems of identity and self-knowledge. Out of the emi¬
gration debate grew and developed a self-definition that shaped, and
continues to shape, the identity discourse today. As an ideology of the
abolitionist crusade, moral suasion assumed prominence in the 1830s.
Since the motivation and underlying impulse for moral suasion de¬
veloped against the backdrop of the enslavement experience, a brief
examination of slavery and its bearings on identity is pertinent at this
juncture.

Slavery and the Challenge of Identity

To understand the fascination of black Americans with Africa, and

the ambivalent and contradictory consciousness Africa provoked, and
continues to provoke, among them, one needs to examine the very
foundation of hegemony that slaveholders constructed. Enslavement
and acculturation in the New World entailed a conscious and system¬
atic process of simultaneous deconstruction and construction of iden¬
tity.19 Sometime in the early 1700s, a “slave owner Willie Lynch” ad¬
dressed fellow slave owners on how best to tame and transform blacks
into docile and perfect slaves. Widely publicized as "How to Make a
Slave,” "Lynch’s” speech, which supposedly began circulating in 1712,
described in great detail how slave owners could break the spirit and
obliterate the humanity of their slaves. “Lynch” had no qualms about
his barbaric, inhuman admonitions, for in his schema, slaves belonged
alongside horses. He offered planters a strategy of stripping slaves of
a sense of worth or any quality that might pose a threat to the smooth
30 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY

functioning of the South’s “peculiar institution.” The speech was in¬

deed a recipe for deconstructing whatever identity slaves had and im¬
posing in its place an identity that was amenable to slavery. Widely cir¬
culated today among black scholars, the authenticity of this document
is indeed questionable. It is not dated, and there is no information on
the publisher. In other words, the document could well be a hoax, and
I am convinced it probably is. This notwithstanding, its basic prem¬
ise of the need to transform blacks into perfect slaves, from human
to subhuman identity, is consistent with a practice that, according to
modern scholars, was prevalent among antebellum southern planters.
As a North Carolina planter once admitted, “It is a pity that agreeable
to the nature of things Slavery and Tyranny must go together and that
there is no such thing as having an obedient and useful slave, without
the painful exercise of undue and tyrannical authority.”10 Frederick
Douglass, the famous “graduate of the peculiar institution" gave elo¬
quent testimony to the brutalities and inhuman character of slavery
in his epic autobiography.21 On the authority of historian Ira Berlin,
we do know that in 1727, some fifteen years after “Lynch’s” document
supposedly surfaced, one Robert “King” Carter, considered the rich¬
est planter in Virginia, purchased a handful of African slaves from a
trader who had been trading on the Chesapeake. The transaction was
a familiar one to the great planter, Berlin suggests, because “Carter
owned hundreds of slaves and had inspected many such human car¬
goes, choosing the most promising from among the weary, frightened
men and women who had survived the transatlantic crossing.”22 Writ¬
ing to his overseer from his plantation on the Rappahannock River,
Carter explained the process by which he initiated Africans into their
American captivity; “T named them here & by their names we can
always know what sizes theyr are of & I am sure we repeated them so
often to them that every one knew their name & and would readily
answer to them.’ Carter then forwarded his slaves to a satellite planta¬
tion or quarter, where his overseer repeated the process, taking ‘care
that negros both men and women I sent. . . always go by the names
we gave them.’”23
This process of renaming, according to Berlin, "marked Carter’s
initial endeavor to master his new slaves by separating them from
their African inheritance.”24 Clearly, the deconstruction of the Afri¬
can identity and background was central to the acquisition of mastery
over the slaves, and it began with the practice of stripping slaves of
 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY 31

their African names and renaming them. This loss of name was only
the beginning of “the numerous indignities Africans suffered at the
hands of planters.”25 The process of de-Africanization entailed skills
and language. According to Berlin, “Since many of the skills Africans
carried across the Atlantic had no value to their new owners, planters
disparaged them, and since the Africans’ ‘harsh jargons’ rattled discor¬
dantly in the planters’ ears, they ridiculed them.” Thus began “the slow,
painful process whereby Africans became African Americans.’’26
The capture and enslavement of Africans and their forcible trans¬
plantation to the New World were traumatic experiences that would
transform many of these slaves into chattels, items of commerce,
property to be bought and sold. Olaudah Equiano gave a vivid and
captivating rendition of this trauma and transformation in his epic
autobiography.27 But we also see the essence of his Igbo identity as he
takes us into the inner workings of his society—the values, norms,
and institutions that defined identity and personhood, and how these
were trampled upon and destroyed by slavery. For Equiano, and the
thousands, if not millions, of slaves taken from Africa, enslavement
struck at the very root of existential consciousness. The auctioning of
the slaves and the “scrambling” by planters in Barbados underscored
for Equiano and many others a critical stage in the process of decon¬
structing and reconstructing identity. The deliberate mixing of slaves
of different ethnicities during the Middle Passage constituted a tell¬
ing stage in the deconstruction of the captives’ ethnicity. This would
continue in the New World. As the likelihood of meeting, and being
in the midst of, one’s ethnic kin grew slimmer, slaves found them¬
selves among strangers, with no means of effective communication.
Suspended in this condition, the slave’s gravitation from ethnicity to
race began. The only language of communication with other slaves
was embedded in the institution of shared misery—the violence and
dehumanization of slavery built solely on the color of the skin. Denied
the familiarity, comfort, and reassurance of indigenous ethnicity by
being kept among strangers with whom there was little verbal com¬
munication, slaves inadvertently gravitated toward, and embraced, the
familiarity and comfort offered by color. Shared trauma, violence, and
dehumanization became the glue that sustained and impressed upon
slaves the practicality of color as the basis of identity. But this process
was not just mechanical and uncoordinated, neither was it completely
a choice that the slaves freely made. In fact, the Europeans themselves
32 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY

coordinated and choreographed the process of singling out color as

the new identity for blacks by defining the very nature and qualities
of blackness.
When Europeans made the epochal decision to turn to Africa for
slave labor, it was a conscious decision that would entail negating the
identity and humanity of a people in order to impose a new identity
tailor-made for the drudgery of enslavement. Though the slave raids,
capture, and enslavement traumatized the captives, these experiences
represented the first stage in what would become a complex process
of transformation and transmutation from Igbo, Wollof, Mandinka,
Fante, Yoruba, Asante, Hausa, and so forth, into something negative
and distasteful: a slave, black, nigger, and so on. The dehumanizing ex¬
periences of the Middle Passage pushed these slaves further along the
path of deconstructing their indigenous identities. Such deconstruc¬
tion was deemed essential to the success and future of slavery, for the
institution could thrive best upon a people completely traumatized
and stripped of a sense of worth and identity, of the unity, comfort,
and reassurance that indigenous values represented and offered. In
the judgment of slave owners, this is the only condition that would en¬
able blacks fully and responsibly to embrace their new roles as slaves.
Slavery thus constituted an affront on the personality and identity of
slaves—two crucial existential factors. The rupture of capture and
transplantation was the first telling blow on the personality. The im¬
position of slave status completed that depersonalization process as
enslavement, in theory and practice, reduced the slave to something
less than human.
Thus, the making of a slave society was also the unmaking and re¬
making of a people’s consciousness of self. Slaves came to America
not as “Africans” but as Mandingo, Fulani, Yoruba, Fulbe, Asante,
Fante, Hausa, Ibo, and so forth. They became "Africans” in the New
World. As James Campbell underscores, in the eighteenth century,
Africa was the basis of collective identity for blacks. In fact, since co¬
lonial times, "African” was an accepted term for referring to blacks in
North America.28 Blacks accepted this collective identity. It was from
the onset a problematic identity, however, constructed and conferred
for a specific purpose—for a more effective management and control
of slaves. The construct “Africa” gave blacks a collective identity, in
an environment where one was desperately needed. From the begin¬
ning, therefore, it was clear that the only unifying attribute blacks pos¬
sessed, aside from race, and perhaps because of it, was shared mis-
 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY 33

ery and oppression. Becoming “African” exemplified this collective

identity of negation and negativism. In a curious way, what masters
constructed as a collective identity for effective control eventually be¬
came, for slaves, a countervailing construct for affirming a collective
identity that would facilitate group solidarity and survival. However,
from the master’s point of view, the African identity exemplified nega¬
tive and debilitating qualities such as backwardness, inferiority, and
primitivism. For blacks, on the other hand, being African exemplified
unity, albeit within a collective identity of negation, shared miseries,
failures, objectification, and depersonalization. Thus, even as Africa
served as the basis for group solidarity and survival for blacks, it was a
troubling and troublesome identity.
From the very beginning, therefore, the experience of slavery un¬
derscored the need for collective self-definition and self-affirmation. It
also entailed an existential challenge to negotiate and affirm an iden¬
tity that became a foundation for group survival. In their daily ordeal,
blacks continually confronted certain existential questions: Who are
we? Why are we treated differently? These questions arose logically
out of the dehumanizing experience they were subjected to. They
searched for answers to these questions, convinced that such answers
would not only explain their ordeal but also point the way to a clearer
knowledge of identity. Knowing and affirming identity was considered
critical to the success of the struggle for freedom. Enslavement was
thus a constant struggle over a contending, complex, and troublesome
consciousness of identity. There was a conscious effort on the part
of the slave masters to purge blacks of any sense of positive identity,
especially one that would negate and compromise the structure and
foundation of the institution of slavery.29 Whether blacks arrived in
the New World with their indigenous values and identities intact, or
lost them in the process of transplantation and enslavement, the ex¬
perience that they were subjected to on the plantations raised crucial
questions of identity. Slavery was built on a denial and negation of
whatever collective existential ethos these slaves brought with them.
Blacks were enslaved, according to pro-slavery ideology, because they
were primitive and inferior. Slavery thus assumed the character of a
civilizing process. The African identity (that is, being black) was con¬
sidered evil, an identity to be shunned and avoided.30 The accultura¬
tion process that slavery entailed became a medium of being “civilized”
in European values. For slaves, therefore, enslavement became the
foundation for a new identity. Though overwhelmed and challenged
34 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY

by this experience and consciousness, many blacks stuck to positive

memories of Africa, and often invoked “Africa” in crucial moments
of their struggles. Thus, Africa became a rallying point, and the basis
of self-definition. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centu¬
ries, free blacks in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts
adopted the name “African” for their institutions—churches, schools,
and fraternal societies.31 This is indicative of a consciousness of affin¬
ity with Africa. This expression of African consciousness served as the
framework for the advancement of the black struggle for freedom and
equality.
Slavery nurtured in blacks what Samuel Dubois Cook termed “a
tragic conception of history,” contrived to destroy any desire for self-
fulfillment.32 The de-tribalization or de-Africanization process began
on the slave ships of the Middle Passage. Through a deliberate process
of intermingling slaves of different ethnic and linguistic origins, slavers
hoped to prevent the emergence of any corporate sense of identity
that would threaten the stability of slavery. As Eric Lincoln describes
it, “History was suspended, and that part out of which all status and
all relationships derive, and which constitutes the only sure reality in
African cosmology, was summarily denied or leached away. American
slavery offered ‘no place to be somebody.’”33
The process of discrediting and nullifying the African heritage and
inducing self-abnegating consciousness in blacks intensified on the
plantations. Pro-slavery ideologists unleashed a barrage of negative
propaganda aimed at controlling the slave’s consciousness. As Leon¬
ard Curry surmised, “White superiority—and, hence, the ‘innate’ in¬
feriority of Negroes—was ... a concept requiring neither scientific
nor theological justification, nor documentation by evidence. It was
a given, a timeless verity applicable to all societies in all ages.”34 To
solidify the institution of slavery, slaves must first be made both to
acknowledge the poverty and nullity of their backgrounds and to in¬
ternalize consciousness of helplessness and vulnerability that would
render them totally dependent on the masters for almost anything,
including self-definition and identity.35
Slavery thrived on what Charles Mills aptly terms a “racial con¬
tract”; one that “establishes a racial polity, a racial state, and a racial
juridical system, where the status of whites and nonwhites is clearly
demarcated, whether by law or custom. And the purpose of this state .
.. is, inter alia, specifically to maintain and reproduce this racial order,
securing the privileges and advantages of the full white citizens and
 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY 35

maintaining the subordination of nonwhites.”36 Fortunately, or unfor¬

tunately (depending on your status), this “partitioned social ontol¬
ogy, this "universe divided between persons and racial subpersons”37
(to borrow Charles Mills’ descriptions) did not function as expected.
Masters never achieved the total domination they sought over slaves.
Despite the efforts of the slave owners to attain total control and regu¬
lation of slave lives, slaves were able to develop their own world that
“was influenced but by no means totally controlled by the Slavehold¬
ers’ regime.”38 Though some blacks internalized self-abnegating val¬
ues and became “good slaves,” many others rebelled, becoming what
Kenneth Stampp termed “troublesome property.”39 For the latter, the
challenge of self-definition, of asserting and affirming one’s identity,
became a daily preoccupation.
In their struggles to transcend the boundaries of enslavement and
counteract imposed and debilitating conceptions of identity, many
blacks espoused emancipatory, counterestablishment ideas and de¬
veloped positive self-conceptions. Examples of such counterestablish¬
ment and positive conceptions of the self abound in the numerous
Nat Turners, Denmark Veseys, Gabriel Prossers, David Walkers, Paul
Cuffees, and Lott Carys that the institution of slavery nurtured.40 By
1830, however, the year blacks inaugurated the convention movement
and the beginning of organized black abolitionism, it had become
clear to perceptive blacks that violence, or any radical confrontational
approach to slavery and racism, was at best suicidal. The brutal and
savage responses of southern whites to slave insurrections, both real
and imagined—the surge of anti-black violence and pogroms, begin¬
ning in Cincinnati in 1829, and spreading to other northern cities—
clearly demonstrated the depth and virulence of racism. They also un¬
derscored the relative powerlessness of blacks.41 Leading blacks con¬
fronted a dilemma. On the one hand, they perceived the specter of a
nation rife with racism and bigotry, and seemingly determined to keep
blacks permanently degraded. On the other hand, the surge of reform
movements in the North compelled attention and inspired hope and
optimism in many blacks. In the Second Great Awakening, from 1825
through 1835, liberal and reform-minded whites in New York and New
England unleashed religious evangelical crusades aimed at radically
transforming society into a better place for all, with slavery coming
under close scrutiny and criticism.42
Utilizing the weapon of moral suasion, these reformers, the rank
of which included Charles G. Finney of New York, Benjamin Lundy
36 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY

of Baltimore, James Birney of Alabama, and Lyman Beecher of New

England, endeavored to change society for the benefit of all, regard¬
less of race or ethnic backgrounds, convinced that societal evils re¬
sulted not from any innate deficiencies or inabilities but from moral
failures—failures that, in their Judgment, individuals possessed the
moral capacity to undo.43 As one authority put it, they “believed in a
new, more immediate relation between man and God and man and his
fellow creatures—one that emphasized perfectibility rather than in¬
ability, activity rather than passivity, benevolence rather than piety.”44
The reformers had strong faith in the individual’s capacity both to at¬
tain perfection and actively and positively to transform society. They
consequently conferred on the individual a moral responsibility to
partake in actually changing and redressing societal wrongs.45 Reject¬
ing orthodox Calvinism, they “minimized original sin and preached
instead the doctrine of free will. Sin was voluntary, and thus every
individual could do good and become good.”46
The surge of religious evangelism inspired hope and optimism in
blacks. Instead of folding their arms in resignation, or succumbing to
fatalistic ethos, or even escaping to Canada or some safe haven abroad,
blacks portrayed themselves as a people with the capacity to assist in
transforming America. As white abolitionists including William Lloyd
Garrison, the Tappan brothers, Arthur and Lewis, Simeon S. Joycelin,
Benjamin Lundy, and John Greenleaf Whittier armed themselves with
the weapon of moral suasion and nonviolence, and mounted frontal
attacks against slavery, blacks felt encouraged to invoke the long-tried
tradition of self-help, cooperative activities, and economy that had
shaped the reform efforts of eighteenth-century free blacks in New
York and Pennsylvania. They officially launched the convention move¬
ment and proclaimed moral suasion as their guiding principle. Since
the prevailing ideology exalted the individual, blacks, individually and
collectively, became actively energized and projected themselves as
active agents of change. They hoped to accomplish this, however, by
first changing themselves and their communities with the weapon of
moral suasion. Moral suasion thus became the underlying ideology of
the black convention movement, and the convention itself provided
the forum for further enunciation of, and debate on, moral suasion.
In moral suasion, blacks found an ideology that, they hoped, could
reform their communities, while peacefully and nonconfrontationally
convincing whites to accept them as full-fledged citizens of the United
States. The moral suasion debate was thus inspired by the need to af-
 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY 37

firm and secure a cherished identity—becoming full-fledged American

citizens. Blacks, according to James Oliver Horton, saw themselves as
“special Americans, dedicated to the spirit of American liberty as few
others were. They were not alienated Americans even though for them
American society was alienating. They were not discouraged Ameri¬
cans, even though the racial restrictions were discouraging. They were
committed Americans, determined to improve the country’s treat¬
ment of its people.”47

Moral Suasion

The moral suasion phase witnessed the origin and development of or¬
ganized black abolitionism. For the first time, free blacks took the mo¬
mentous step to organize and deliberate on how to change their con¬
dition. The need for organized efforts by blacks could in fact be traced
to John Ruuswurm’s clarion call to blacks in the founding edition of
his Freedom’s Journal in 1827. Ruuswurm was Jamaican-born and the
first black to graduate from an American college (Bowdoin College).
Freedom’s Journal became the first black newspaper published in the
United States. Its first editorial stressed the importance of blacks as¬
suming more active roles in articulating and projecting their cause. As
the editorial put it, “We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have
others spoken for us.”48
Although Ruuswurm and his coeditor Samuel Cornish talked in
terms of journalistic representation, by the late 1820s, the rising tide
of anti-black sentiments and pogroms would induce other black lead¬
ers to recognize the urgency of organized movement. The immediate
factor was the outbreak of anti-black violence in Cincinnati, Ohio, in
1829. Alarmed by the sudden increase in the free black population of
the city, whites decided to enforce the provisions of the Ohio Black
Code, which required free blacks to post a bond of five hundred dol¬
lars as guarantee of good behavior and providence. Violence erupted,
compelling many free blacks to flee the city.49 The resurgence of vio¬
lence, not only in Cincinnati but in other cities such as New York,
Philadelphia, Boston, Charleston, Pittsburgh, Washington, Baltimore,
and Providence, impressed on blacks the need for organized response,
thus inaugurating the convention movement in 1830.50 Between 1830
and 1835, blacks met in five different conventions to deliberate on how
best to bring about positive changes in their experiences of racism,
marginalization, and rejection.51 Not being acknowledged as full-
38 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY

fledged members of the American polity was a major motivation. The

denial of the American identity was, therefore, a key factor in the rise
of organized black abolitionism.
Several studies underscore the centrality of identity to the conven¬
tion movement. Bethel describes it as “the first mass civil rights move¬
ment in the United States.”52 By the 1800s, the vast majority of the black
American population was American-born, with little recollection of
Africa. Whatever knowledge or consciousness of Africa that existed
was colored by pro-slavery propaganda and values, which served to
alienate many blacks from, rather than endear them to, the continent.
Africa was not a place to cherish or with which to desire identifica¬
tion. Many blacks perceived themselves as “negative Americans” or
“aliened Americans,” people denied any positive self-definition and
knowledge.53 The need to define and assert an identity, therefore, be¬
came a central focus of the black abolitionist crusade.
Though brought together by the desire to organize and fight back in
the face of overwhelming adversity, the platform that black abolition¬
ists produced betrayed a deep sense of wanting to be acknowledged
as Americans. These early conventions clearly revealed a strong inte-
grationist consciousness.54 Though some blacks embraced emigration
and colonization as avenues of escaping the ugly and harsh realities of
their lives, the vast majority refused to give up. Delegates overwhelm¬
ingly rejected and condemned colonization and invoked passages of
the Constitution and Declaration of Independence in justification of
their claims to American citizenship. For most blacks, colonization or
permanent relocation to another country was anathema. It was tanta¬
mount to a voluntary relinquishing of identity.
The rising tide of anti-black violence notwithstanding, many blacks
retained strong faith in the potency of moral suasion to bring about
meaningful change. The ambition of every black person was to tran¬
scend the boundaries and limitations created by slavery and racism
and be identified as an American citizen with all the accompanying
rights and privileges. For example, in Philadelphia, the city with the
largest concentration of free blacks in the country, blacks remained
“convinced that although the path to acceptance and accomplishment
in America was strewn with obstacles, it was the road to be taken.”55
To achieve this end, however, blacks had to subscribe to, and incul¬
cate, values and goals that the mainstream society had identified as
constituting the distinguishing characteristics or essence of being
American—industry, thrift, economy, education, and moral upright-
 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY 39

ness. These values became the constituent elements of moral suasion.

As they enthusiastically declared at the second convention in 1832,
"We yet anticipate in the moral strength of this nation, a final redemp¬
tion from those evils that have been illegitimately entailed on us as a
people. We yet expect by due exertions on our part ... to acquire a
moral and intellectual strength, that will inshaft the calumnious darts
of our adversaries and present to the world a general character, that
they will feel bound to respect and admire.”56
The first five Negro national conventions, therefore, embraced
these moral suasion values, convinced that the cultivation of these val¬
ues would open wide the gate to full America citizenship. Moral sua¬
sion was a crusade for identity. Blacks were denied American identity
in Constitution and in practice. They were either slaves or free blacks,
but not citizens, not Americans. Being a slave, or not being one, de¬
fined their identity. The establishment in effect imposed a slavocentric
construction of identity on blacks. Blacks were good only as slaves,
or in subordinate positions. In fact, many pro-slavery preachers af¬
firmed that blacks had been chosen and set aside by providence to be
slaves.57 Getting out of this restrictive slavocentric mold became the
preoccupation of the early black conventionists. Black abolitionism,
therefore, was a search not just for freedom but also for a sense of
identity. Even if free, the life experience of blacks was still very much
shaped by the fact of belonging to a race for whom enslavement was
deemed appropriate. Moral suasion was aimed at breaking out of this
slavocentric identity and establishing the basis for the affirmation of
American identity. What is unique about this period was the consen¬
sus among blacks on the desirability of the American identity. There
was hardly any black person who did not envision or desire to become
an American citizen in the practical sense of it. Moral suasion was
essentially the strategy devised for attaining this goal. It set the guide¬
lines or framework for the realization of a cherished identity.
Prominent leaders such as William Whipper and the Reverend
Lewis Woodson spearheaded the moral suasion crusade. They strong¬
ly asserted their claim to American identity. In consonance with the
dictates of moral suasion, they acknowledged that the primary reason
for the denial of the American identity to blacks was largely shortcom¬
ings in the black condition, that is, situational deficiency, and declared
a commitment to addressing those deficiencies. Race was not consid¬
ered a significant factor. In defining themselves, therefore, black lead¬
ers espoused an ideology that emphasized the possibility of attaining
40 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY

American identity. They projected themselves as Americans held back

and down by deficiencies in their condition, deficiencies that could be
remedied through moral suasion.
Although oppressed, alienated, and marginalized, blacks felt they
shared a lot in common with whites and, therefore, worked hard to
bridge the gap. In defining themselves as Americans, these leaders
invoked certain universalistic ideals that they claimed united them
with whites. The crusade for moral suasion symbolized an affirma¬
tion of American identity, a determination to be fully American, a
demonstration of compatibility with classic American traditions and
values. Moral suasion was consequently as much an explanation for
black subordination as an affirmation of identity. It was an integrative
and optimistic ideology, influenced by faith in the potency of universal
values, values that supposedly impacted humanity regardless of race.
Advocates therefore defined progress as the result of the triumph of
those values. The proliferation of those universal values would eventu¬
ally acquire for blacks the long-denied American identity.
The first three conventions were held in Philadelphia, Pennsylva¬
nia. The proceedings and declarations emphasized the primacy and
efficacy of moral suasion. Blacks pledged to be industrious, economi¬
cal, thrifty, and morally upright.58 Controversy surfaced at the fourth
convention in 1834 in New York. According to one source, disagree¬
ment developed between the New York and Pennsylvania leadership
over moral suasion. The more radical and race-conscious New York
leadership began to question the efficacy of moral suasion. To prevent
a radical change in the focus of the convention, the venue was quickly
moved back to Pennsylvania the following year. The 1835 convention,
the last of the early national conventions, established the American
Moral Reform Society, the framework for propagating moral sua¬
sion.59 The founding of this society underscored the determination of
blacks to become fully American through peaceful character reform,
and William Whipper became the prime mover and spiritual leader of
the moral suasion crusade.
Information on Whipper’s early life is sparse. Born in 1804 in Little
Britain, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, by 1828 he had settled com¬
fortably in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and become one of the most
successful black businessmen in the state. Though victimized by the
prevailing climate of racism, Whipper, undoubtedly influenced by his
economic success, developed strong faith in the potency of industry to
break through racial barriers. Imbued with a strong sense of identity
 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY 41

as an American, Whipper believed that the denial to blacks of Ameri¬

can citizenship was only temporary and that with the success of moral
suasion they would become fully integrated. He assumed the respon¬
sibility of providing blacks with the ideological guidance, and he be¬
lieved that character reform would satisfactorily resolve the problem
of black identity.
For Whipper, the resolution of the question of whether blacks were
Americans or not lay in certain divinely given universal ideals. Though
human destiny and the relationships between individuals and among
groups are shaped by the functioning of those ideals, one’s identity
also has a lot to do with behavioral inclinations. In essence, blacks
had a choice in determining how they defined themselves and how
others responded to and perceived that self-definition. Underlining
his universalistic inclination, Whipper fully embraced the Garrisonian
precept, "My country is the world, my countrymen are all mankind.”60
He presented himself as color-blind, one who saw every human being
as brethren. With this outlook, Whipper defined black subordination
as the failure of blacks to live up to the dictates of moral suasion and,
in consequence, the failure by the entire society to fully embrace and
live according to those universal ideals.61 Once these deficiencies were
remedied, the problem of black identity would become resolved, as
the barriers separating the races would disappear and whites would
recognize and acknowledge blacks as fellow citizens. Whipper pro¬
claimed, “God’s moral ethics” as the foundation on which to build the
black struggle, the legitimizing factor against which to measure de¬
mands by blacks for citizenship and equality.62
The notion of "God’s moral ethics” underlined his belief in a uni¬
versal standard, based upon the idea of one God, one humanity. Black
leaders accepted the notion of the existence of an overriding divine
moral order, one that mandated a uniform standard of morality for
humanity, regardless of race or geographical location. As a strong be¬
liever in universalism, Whipper maintained that “virtues” and moral¬
ity, rather than the color of the skin, or some other primordial factor,
should differentiate people.63 These moral and virtuous qualities re¬
sulted from adherence to those divinely established universal moral
standards. One concept dominated his thought: reason. He described
reason as “the noblest of all goals that brings man closer to God.” Rea¬
son allows human beings to rise above, and transcend “physical in¬
flictions that are offspring of passion”—for example, pains and grief
resulting from racism and slavery. Reason was, in effect, a weapon for
42 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY

neutralizing the painful and crippling effects of slavery. It generates

stoical quality in human beings, enabling them to transcend, and con¬
sequently ignore, earthly pains and suffering. It also motivates people
to seek solutions in “something higher than human power”—God’s
moral power.64
Whipper challenged humanity to perfect its reasoning capacity,
and move closer to God, a situation that instantaneously neutralizes
all physical pains and suffering associated with slavery, racism, societal
inequities, and other forms of man’s inhumanity to man. Once rea¬
son predominates, government actions and policies are transformed
as they bear the imprints of divinity, resulting in universal peace and
love.65 Consequently, though Whipper acknowledged the existence of
discrimination, his explanation of its causes pointed not to race, or
policies of particular individuals, but to humanity’s deviation from the
path of reason. To be guided by reason, he opined, is to be propelled
by love, eventuating in universal peace and harmony.66
Color became irrelevant as a factor in the denial to blacks of Amer¬
ican citizenship. Since the key problem emanated from moral failures,
the proffered solution tended to deemphasize race. Racial distinction
and prejudices originated, according to Whipper, “in the spirit of self¬
ishness, cultivated and sustained by a religious and moral delinquency
in principle, in utter disregard of the divine will... and every element
that is calculated to cement the interest of society in one universal
brotherhood.”67 He consequently rejected the notion of a racially ex¬
clusive movement. Once reason prevailed, blacks would attain Ameri¬
can citizenship. The doctrine of universal brotherhood would prevail
in the aftermath of the reign of reason. Society would become color¬
blind, and black identity as Americans would be an acknowledged
fact.
Whipper's ideas and convictions provoked angry response from
blacks who felt that race and racism occupied prominent places in the
struggle for identity. Since blacks and whites shared separate paths
and experiences, the black struggle ought to reflect this separation.
Those who espoused this view urged blacks to adopt clearly a concep¬
tion of the self that reflected divergence from whites. Blacks were not
Americans and could never become fully American until universal-
ism was abandoned and the distinct experience and identity of both
races were acknowledged. In order to become fully American, blacks
must first begin by acknowledging racial and cultural distinctiveness.
In essence, the struggle for universalism and the American identity
 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY 43

must first be waged on a racially distinct platform. Those who advo¬

cated this separatist perspective belonged to the more “radical” New
York leadership group, including the likes of Samuel Cornish, William
Hamilton, and Samuel Hardenberger. Despite their desire for reform,
these leaders rejected Whipper’s universalism.
Cornish called upon the Moral Reform Society to evolve a clear
and definite plan, identify concrete goals, and develop a definite strat¬
egy for attaining them, rather than engaging in what he perceived as
a spurious and deceptive universalism that was “destined to influence
nobody.”68 The problems of “the poor, proscribed, down-trodden and
helpless people” deserved more time and efforts. Societal reality re¬
vealed, Cornish observed, that some people occupied comfortable
positions, sustained by the exploitation and subordination of others.
Universalism blurred both this reality and its fundamentally racial
character.69 Cornish’s paper, The Colored American, therefore pushed
for a racially exclusive strategy and ideology. Whipper objected, and
denounced separatism as a measure destined to erode the moral le¬
gitimacy of the reform movement. He implored blacks, as members
of the human family, who are also susceptible to universal values, to
join forces with, rather than oppose, whites in the quest for a better
society.70
Cornish disagreed, and accused the Moral Reform Society of as¬
suming national responsibilities instead of zeroing in on critical black
problems. Putting it bluntly, he charged Whipper with endeavoring to
“elevate whites to the neglect of blacks” and also make blacks “beasts of
burden” by placing the entire nation on their shoulders. He proposed
a redefinition of the society’s mission to emphasize issues pertaining
solely to “the proscribed colored people.”71 It should be emphasized
that Cornish was not opposed to the American identity. He equally
cherished this identity and believed that blacks were as entitled to it
as whites. He disagreed, however, with Whipper on strategy, that is,
the means for attaining that identity. Given what he perceived as the
depth and pervasiveness of racism, Cornish considered universalism
unrealistic. In order to attain the citizenship status of whites, blacks,
in Cornish’s view, had to adopt, and proceed on, a separatist platform.
In other words, Cornish urged blacks to situate their quest for the
American identity on a solid foundation of racial distinctiveness.
Thomas Sidney, another respondent to the moral suasion debate,
quickly declared his opposition to universalism. “In an effort for free¬
dom,” he argued, “there are several important and indisputable quali-
44 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY

fications, which the oppressed alone possess.” He identified two inter¬

related qualifications as the most critical. First, a sense of actual suf¬
fering and, second, a determination to end suffering. Sidney insisted
upon a convergence of both the feeling (that is, consciousness) and
the purpose (that is, reaction) of those who suffer in order to effect
any meaningful and effective strike for freedom. Put differently, to
struggle effectively and legitimately against oppression, one had to
have experienced oppression. Consequently, in the estimation of Sid¬
ney, blacks alone possessed the moral legitimacy to organize against
slavery. Underlining the necessity for a racially exclusive movement,
Sidney linked the elevation of a people to “the inward rational senti¬
ments which enable the soul to change circumstances to its own tem¬
per and disposition.” It “is not measured by dependent upon external
relations” (or forces). In his view, “the relative position and the relative
duties and responsibilities of the oppressed and the oppressors” con¬
stituted the only ground upon which to predicate any argument for or
against “complexionally distinctive organization.” Whenever a people
are oppressed peculiarly, he noted, “distinctive organization or action
is required on their part to destroy oppression.” Creating a distinct
identity was crucial to Sidney, and he implored blacks to adopt the
name “Colored American,” a term Whipper had vehemently opposed
on the ground that it undermined universalism, favoring instead the
appellation “Oppressed American.” Sidney, like Cornish, advocated a
racially distinctive platform.72
Whipper was not the only focus of the moral suasion controversy.
Another contributor, whose views perhaps generated even more heat,
was the Reverend Lewis Woodson. A fugitive from Virginia, Woodson
rose rapidly through the ranks of Philadelphia black leaders. His was
equally a success story. He owned several barber shops and assisted in
establishing and running the only colored school in Philadelphia. As
a member of both the religious community and the elite black intel¬
ligentsia, Woodson would have had difficulty isolating himself from
the controversies surrounding moral suasion. Furthermore, his deep
commitment to the black struggle rendered such an isolationist pos¬
ture unlikely. His approach seemed, in the estimation of contempo¬
raries, critical of Whipper. On closer examination, however, his ideas
tended to complement Whipper’s. In a seven-part series titled, “Moral
Work For Colored Men,” he underlined the peculiarity of blacks and
the need for special attention and strategies: “The relation in which we
have for generations been held in this land, constitutes us a distinct
 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY 45

class. We have been held as slaves, while those around us have been
free. They have been our holders, and we the held. Every power and
privilege have been invested with them, while we have been divested of
every right. The distinction of our classification is as wide as freedom
and slavery.”73 He too approved of the moral reform efforts, strongly
believing that blacks were miserably deficient in education, morality,
and industry and, therefore, needed to be elevated in order to justify
any claims of American citizenship. Writing under the pseudonym
"Augustine,” Woodson acknowledged black deficiencies but stopped
short of endorsing a racially exclusive movement. Like Sydney, he too
welcomed the sympathy and support of whites, while emphasizing the
prime responsibility of blacks.74
In its totality, Woodson’s strategy paradoxically seemed to steer
blacks in the direction of Whipper’s universalism. He praised whites
and expressed faith and optimism in the inevitability of change. He
perceived a flexible and malleable society, one that was susceptible
to moral arguments. Colored persons of healthy state of morals, he
observed, attracted the respect and admiration of whites and were
encouraged, rather than discriminated against, thus underscoring
the situational imperative of prejudice. In his words, “I have noticed
that the intelligent Colored man of polished manners, and pleasing
address, is always well received and well treated, while some others,
who are even wealthy, but who had paid no attention to the cultivation
of the manners and habits of polished society, were rejected.” He too,
like Whipper and many others, placed greater burden on blacks. To
benefit from the reform impulse of American society, and attain the
much sought after American citizenship, blacks had to demonstrate
both the will to improve, and also take the first tentative steps in that
direction.75
Woodson’s most contentious views resulted from his notion of the
dual character of humanity—that it was possible for blacks to succeed,
even in the most prejudiced environment. The oppressive legal system
was not the problem, he intimated, but the demeanor and condition of
human beings, especially blacks. The most direct path to an inclusive
society, therefore, remained the cultivation of pleasing manners and
unquestionable integrity. However violent or virulent racism was, it
would crumble once confronted by a colored man of a healthy state
of morality. The immortal side of man, that is, his inherent divine
nature, allowed him to live and escape the evil effects of cruel laws.
Though every individual possessed this divine quality, it is, however,
46 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY

functional and effective only in those who invoke it, and invoking it
entailed a conscious effort to live according to the tenets of moral
suasion. Prejudice, consequently, was most pronounced, he believed,
whenever blacks were immoral, corrupt, and illiterate. Such negative
qualities induced mistreatment from whites and a disposition on their
part against integration. He referred to his personal experience in jus¬
tification of the notion that "condition and not color” was the major
cause of prejudice. He outlined the following as the "qualifications” for
the admission of blacks into “polished society”: hard work, polished
manners, and physical and material condition. When these qualifica¬
tions are achieved, he suggested, “a man slides into his proper circle
with ease.”76
The subject of emigration featured prominently in Woodson’s dis¬
course on moral suasion. Since one of the goals of moral suasion was
economic elevation, Woodson believed that the acquisition of land
would best facilitate this objective. He thus urged blacks to emigrate
from densely populated and racially tense environments to the "West,”
identified as comprising Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio, where, according
to him, land and other avenues of economic advancement abounded.
The West was the new frontier for blacks, with promises of a more
comfortable and desirable life. Such economic development would fa¬
cilitate integration.77
He envisioned America as a liberal and open society, compelled
to engage in discriminatory practices by the deficiencies and failures
of blacks. His strong objection to “political action,” or actions aimed
specifically at the repeal of repressive laws, underscored an unflinch¬
ing faith in moral suasion. He deemed such actions misdirected ef¬
forts. Bad laws did not originate slavery and racism. The twin evils
were, he argued, products of an unrighteous and corrupt mind, or,
as he put it, of “the corrupt moral sentiment of the country.”78 Once
the moral sentiment was purified, slavery and all accompanying evils
would disappear. He thus elevated man’s moral quality to a height of
prominence—the key determinant of human action and societal con¬
dition. The condition of this moral impulse influenced societal values
and institutions. This led him to yet another conclusion; “that a moral¬
ly good man cannot do a physically bad deed,” suggesting a correlation
between morality and virtue. There is undoubtedly a strong element
of Whipperian universalism in Woodson’s moral interpretation of hu¬
man actions. His ultimate goal, it seems, was to reform the “corrupt¬
ing element” in the moral fiber of society, and slavery would cease as
 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY 47

“the great source from whence it springs would be dried up.”79 Both
he and Whipper saw blacks as the major source of the corrupting ele¬
ment. Overall, Woodson advanced a very optimistic philosophy. He
saw American identity as very much within the grasp of blacks. He
did not perceive any conspiracy or concerted efforts by whites to deny
blacks access to citizenship. The problem, in his judgment, was that
blacks had yet fully to explore and exploit all available possibilities.
The debate and controversies over the implications of moral sua¬
sion notwithstanding, blacks remained faithful to the basic premise
that moral improvement would result in the realization of American
citizenship. It is no exaggeration to suggest that in this early phase of
the black abolitionist crusade, most blacks sought American national¬
ity and identity and were optimistic that a gradualist, reform-oriented
platform would lead eventually to the desired goal. Though blacks dis¬
agreed on the exact character of the platform, they shared a consen¬
sus on the goal—American citizenship. Moral suasion thus remained
entrenched, even as blacks began to organize politically vocal state
conventions in the 1840s. They hinged everything on the potency of
reason, on man’s presumed desire and inclination for progress, on the
reality, and compelling force of universal values, and perhaps most
significantly, on a strong faith in humanity, guided by universal, divine
values. Given this faith in the inevitability of change, blacks jettisoned
confrontation in favor of cooperation. Even when they acknowledged
extraneous circumstances, they often emphasized their own failures.
Moral suasion was supposed to serve as a dynamic, intertwining ide¬
ology that would ultimately bridge what was deemed an ephemeral
racial schism.
Paradoxically, it would take the success of moral suasion to reveal
its deficiency as a reform strategy. By the late 1840s, the number of
morally upright and economically elevated blacks in Philadelphia and
other parts of Pennsylvania had more than doubled. Evidence from
other parts of the country—Boston, New York, Cincinnati—clearly
revealed determined efforts on the parts of blacks to cultivate habits
of thrift, industry, economy, and temperance, and they achieved suc¬
cess measured by the wealth and economic successes of individuals
and organizations.80 Their rewards, however, came in the form of op¬
position, resentment, and increased anti-black violence. In his study
of Philadelphia, Bruce Laurie underscores the economic efforts and
accomplishments of the city’s black population and the correspond¬
ing negative and violent reactions of whites.81 Other studies reveal
48 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY

that this trend was not isolated to Philadelphia. In several northern

cities, wherever blacks manifested the desire and determination to
conquer economic poverty as a step toward political elevation, they
encountered violent responses from whites. Perpetrators of violence
targeted wealthy blacks and symbols of black economic power.82 One
study describes the Moyamensing riots of 1842 in Philadelphia as "one
of the prime examples of whites denouncing blacks for their degrada¬
tion while simultaneously destroying those institutions which sought
to eradicate that degradation.”83 It dawned on many that the key factor
was not condition but race, and, consequently, some blacks concluded
that no matter how hard they worked to cultivate moral suasion, the
chances of integration remained bleak. At a gathering in Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania, these blacks voiced their frustration over the failure of
moral suasion. According to them, “The barrier that deprives us of
the rights which you enjoy finds no palliative in merit—no consola¬
tion in piety—no hope in intellectual and moral pursuit—no reward
in industry and enterprise.” They underlined the fact that they were
denied opportunities of elevation “because we are not ‘white.’”84 Moral
suasion then gave way to immediatist and political strategies.
The failure of moral suasion clearly impressed on blacks the prob¬
lematic of identity. The upsurge of anti-black movements, violence,
and policies suggested a stronger racial dimension to identity. This
affected a shift in black consciousness. Many became fully aware of
the place of race in the denial to them of the American identity. This
did not, however, lead to a total abandonment of moral suasion. Moral
suasion became part of a broader platform of protest. The conventions
of the 1840s, both state and national, emphasized both moral and po¬
litical agenda. Though moral suasion failed, blacks did not relinquish
their claim to American identity. By all available criteria that whites
had used to claim that identity, blacks continued to press their own
claim.
A strong declaration of affinity with America and a desire to be
acknowledged in theory and practice as Americans characterized the
proceedings of the 1840s conventions.85 Henry H. Garnet perfectly
captured the feelings of other blacks in a speech delivered at the Sev¬
enth Anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1840. After
affirming that blacks had satisfied all criteria for American citizen¬
ship, he declared, “With every fiber of our hearts entwined around
our country, and with an indefeasible determination to obtain the
possession of the natural and inalienable rights of American citizen,
 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY 49

we demand redress for the wrongs we have suffered, and ask for the
restoration of our birthright privileges.” He repeated the same theme
in his epochal speech at the Buffalo convention three years later in
which he told the slaves, “forget not that you are native-born Ameri¬
can citizens, and as such, you are justly entitled to all the rights that
are granted to the freest.”86 In an address to the people of the state of
New York, black delegates to the state “Free Suffrage Convention” of
1845 declared, “We love our native country, much as it has wronged
us . . . We are citizens-, this we believe would never have been denied,
had it not been for the subserviency of the people of the free states to
slavery” (emphasis added).87
Blacks were hopeful and optimistic that a combination of reform,
petition, and peaceful protest would eventually convince whites to
concede their citizenship rights and privileges. In the conventions of
the 1840s, black leaders implored their respective communities and
constituencies to continue to cultivate those same moral suasion ide¬
als as keys to American citizenship. The underlying objective was to
demonstrate to whites that there was nothing inherently wrong with
blacks and that, given the right conditions, blacks were fully capable
of self-improvement. This, they believed, would facilitate integration.
By the late 1840s, however, it became clear that the combination of
moral suasion and political activism had not changed white percep¬
tions and dispositions and that the quest for citizenship and American
identity remained as elusive as it had ever been. But the failure of moral
suasion alone would not induce blacks to turn completely away from
their aspiration of attaining American citizenship. Subsequent devel¬
opments, however, underlined the centrality of race and impressed on
many the futility of integrationist aspiration and the elusive character
of the American identity. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was one of
such developments. Under the provisions of the law, the federal gov¬
ernment pledged its resources and assistance to the apprehension and
return of fugitive slaves. This law convinced many that racism was
pervasive and perhaps even permanent, and that blacks had no safe
haven from slavery. The hope of becoming American became even
dimmer. The law sharpened the debate on identity and convinced
many of the need for a new identity external to the American context.
Emigration became an attractive option for some, and Africa became
the obvious choice. It should be emphasized, at this juncture, that the
moral suasion debate, this very critical discourse on black American
quest for, and affirmation of, identity, did not feature Africa. The dis-
50 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY

putants disagreed on strategies, but there was never a dispute on their

objective—American citizenship.

Emigration and Nationalism

Martin Delay, the acclaimed black nationalist and advocate of an in¬

dependent black nationality and identity, was initially a staunch ad¬
vocate of moral suasion. He had in fact been among the most forceful
advocates of the ideology and had spent the years 1847-49 propagat¬
ing the doctrine to free black communities in the North.88 Delany
strongly believed that blacks were as qualified as, if not more qualified
than, whites for American citizenship. This optimism sustained the
integrationist and moral suasion phase of his career. The passage of
the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, however, destroyed this optimism. The
law revealed a radically different America than he had hoped for. It
established America, in his judgment, as a land "for whites only” and
stripped blacks not only of considerations for citizenship but, most
critically, of any protection, thus rendering them vulnerable to per¬
petual subordination. He described the law as a violation of the con¬
stitution, saying it debased blacks “beneath the level of the recognized
basis of American citizenship.”89 Blacks were now clearly an alien peo¬
ple. There was consequently an urgent need for a new identity. Delany
assumed the responsibility of helping blacks map out strategies and
modalities for realizing this new identity. In several publications, he
defined this new identity as African and Pan-African.90 The depth and
pervasiveness of racism convinced him that blacks had no hope of
attaining American identity. This conviction led him to a racial es-
sentialist construction of the black struggle. For Delany, “a question of
Black and White” became “the great issue, sooner or later,” that would
determine "the world’s destiny.”91
Delany exhorted blacks to reclaim their African heritage as the ba¬
sis of a new identity. They were not only black but also Africans, and as
Africans, they shared historical and cultural experiences with Africans
on the continent. Since America was irredeemably racist, blacks could
never be accorded their cherished American identity. Delany soon be¬
gan to spearhead and galvanize the emigration movement. Between
1850 to the outbreak of the Civil War, he urged blacks to relinquish the
never-ending search for the American identity. The creation of a new
black nationality in Africa would serve as the solid foundation for a
new black identity. His travels in Africa from 1859 to 1861 bolstered his
 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY 51

faith in the possibilities and future of a black nationality and identity

based on Africa. He returned in early 1861 and began to campaign vig¬
orously for emigration. He proclaimed his resolve to relocate to Africa
and urged wealthy and enterprising blacks to consider relocating and
assuming the African identity.92
Opponents of emigration such as Frederick Douglass objected
strongly to externalizing the struggle. Douglass portrayed emigration
as a dangerous distraction. In fact, the struggle between Douglass and
Henry H. Garnet on African nationality and emigration was, in es¬
sence, a debate on conflicting consciousness of identity.93 Garnet, like
Delany, advocated a new nationality in Africa based on the develop¬
ment of a cotton economy. Douglass strongly opposed emigration,
which he viewed as tantamount to voluntarily relinquishing all claims
to American citizenship. He reminded blacks of the role and sacri¬
fices of their forebears in helping to develop the American wilderness.
Consequently, Douglass insisted, blacks had as much right to nativity
as any white person.94 He emphasized the possibility of a cultural plu¬
ralistic America in which blacks could remain, and still maintain their
distinct identity, values, and institutions. Few emigrationists shared
Douglass’s optimism. In fact, Delany maintained that it was impos¬
sible to have an America in which blacks would be integrated with
their racial/cultural distinctiveness intact. By the late 1850s, he had
come to the conclusion that the quest for full integration and Ameri¬
can identity jeopardized the racial and cultural essence of blacks.95
Emigration, a movement that developed in response to rejection
and the failure to realize one identity, was soon redirected at the reaf¬
firmation of another identity—the racial and cultural essence of being
African. Preserving the racial and cultural distinctiveness of blacks
became a matter of life and death for Delany. In his judgment, coexis¬
tence with whites threatened the racial and cultural heritage of blacks.
In essence, the price of integration, if it was possible to become fully
American, would be a sacrifice of one’s African identity. In Delany’s
estimation, blacks would have to commit cultural suicide, cease being
black and African, in order to be fully accepted as Americans. This
was too high a price to pay for American citizenship.96 Nothing, he
insisted, was worth sacrificing his blackness and African identity for.
He offered emigration to blacks as the key to remaining black and Af¬
rican. In his strong defense of, and articulation of the imperative of,
the African identity, Delany set the tone for future Afrocentric dis¬
course. Despite his sense of alienation and depth of nationalism, Dela-
52 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY

ny soon abandoned his quest for, and advocacy of, the African iden¬
tity. By 1863, with the progress of the Civil War, he saw prospects for
the American identity and nationality in the war, and joined Frederick
Douglass, Henry H. Garnet, and other black leaders in supporting the
Union cause. He exhorted blacks to focus inward and strengthen their
faith in American nationality and identity.97
The ease with which Delany abandoned emigration and the quest
for the African identity underscored the strength of his American
consciousness and desire for American identity. But his expectations
and those of blacks in general would be disappointed. The revolution
of rising expectations that the Civil War engendered soon collapsed.
Though the war destroyed slavery, and the reforms of the subsequent
Radical Reconstruction era (1866-1876), particularly the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth Amendments, conferred citizenship and the franchise
on blacks respectively, including the promise of legal equality, imple¬
mentation of these constitutional reforms and guarantees proved dif¬
ficult. The vast political landscape that Reconstruction opened up for
blacks soon shrank as conservatives and defenders of the antebellum
status quo gradually and viciously fought their way back to positions
of authority in the South. By the end of Reconstruction in 1877, blacks
were citizens in name only. The rights and privileges they had won
were compromised and revoked. In other words, the Civil War and
Reconstruction failed to resolve the problem of black identity. By the
late 1870s, it was obvious that blacks remained alien to the American
nation and would be accommodated only in subservient and subordi¬
nate roles. The return to power in the South of members of the ancient
regime in consequence of the Compromise of 1877 sealed the fate of
blacks. The “redeemers,” as they fondly referred to themselves, as¬
sumed power with a vengeance, determined to undo every vestige of
radical Reconstruction and return blacks to the status they had occu¬
pied, and roles they played, before the war. This development brought
to the fore, once again, the age-old question of black identity.
Blacks, many of them among the most optimistic of the civil war
and Reconstruction era, turned outward in a desperate search for a
separate and external identity. Again, many turned to Africa, includ¬
ing Martin Delany. But the activist phase of Delany s African iden¬
tity search was over. It would be left to two other black nationalists
to propagate and vigorously pursue the realization of the African/
black nationality and identity in the post-Civil War epoch: Alexander
 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY 53

Crummell and Henry McNeal Turner. Both men emphasized the ur¬
gency of developing a strong African identity.
After he and other blacks were forced out of the Georgia legisla¬
ture by whites, Turner denounced his American identity and enjoined
blacks to embrace Africa as a viable alternative identity.98 He was very
critical of integration-minded blacks such as Booker T. Washington,
whose brand of nationalism suggested enduring faith and hope in the
possibility of realizing the American dream and identity. Turner ex¬
pressed the same degree of concern over the possibility of blacks los¬
ing their identity. He stressed the urgency of an independent black na¬
tionality, and a new African identity.99 Like Delany, Turner envisioned
a dark and gloomy future for blacks in America. Africa provided the
basis for regeneration and for the construction and consolidation of
a new nationality and identity. He made several trips to Africa in the
1890s in pursuit of his black nationality scheme.100 In his own response,
Crummell proposed a Pan-African Christian community of Africans
and blacks in the Diaspora. He expressed pride in his African ances¬
try and declared a commitment to the development and redemption
of Africa. His writings and public lectures underscored experiential
and identity linkages between Africa and black Diaspora. He implored
black Americans to become more actively involved in the elevation
and development of Africans. He soon moved to Liberia, West Af¬
rica, and immersed himself in the spread of literacy, Christianity, and
“civilization” among the indigenous people.101 All three men (Delany,
Crummell, and Turner), at different times, went to Liberia and trav¬
eled extensively in other parts of the west coast of Africa.
Thus, leading nationalists of the nineteenth century strongly af¬
firmed their African identity. Being black and of African heritage
mattered the most to them. They considered the African heritage and
identity worth affirming and defending in the context of rejection and
alienation in the United States. They all espoused a Pan-African con¬
struction of identity, which they believed unified all blacks, regardless
of geographical location. This Pan-African identity became the means
of combating the ever-threatening Eurocentric cultural hegemony.
Prompted by the elusive character of the American nationality and
identity, these black nationalists mobilized Pan-African consciousness
and sought the realization of a new nationality and identity through
cooperative endeavors between Africans and black Americans. In dif¬
ferent ways, Delany, Crummell, and Turner, attempted to make Pan-
54 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY

Africanism the basis of responding to the challenges of blacks in Af¬

rica and the Diaspora.
A critical examination of the history of Pan-Africanism, particu¬
larly of the strategies devised by nineteenth-century black nationalists
for actualizing the Pan-African ideal and solidifying African identity,
reveals a deep cultural distance and alienation from Africa, a con¬
sequence, no doubt, of the acculturation process in the New World.
While these nationalists declared interest in assuming African iden¬
tity, once in Africa, their utterances and activities betrayed ambigui¬
ties with respect to the projected African identity. It became clear that
the Pan-African construction of identity was not as deep-rooted and
strong as the expressions and rhetoric suggest. In other words, there
was a certain superficiality to the Africa identity construct. These na¬
tionalists manifested a much stronger attachment to their elusive and
cherished American identity.
From the birth of organized abolitionism in the early nineteenth
century to the present, Africa had always served black Americans as
the basis of articulating identity and an inspiration in the struggle for
freedom and survival. The tendency by modern Afrocentric scholars
to inject some mutuality or consensual ethos into the historical rela¬
tionship of Africans and blacks in Diaspora misrepresents the reality.
Such tendency ignores the complexity of the relationship. A critical
look at the crucial nineteenth century would illuminate the contra¬
dictions and disharmony within black American nationalist and Pan-
African thought. While blacks in Diaspora espoused Pan-African ide¬
als and expressed a desire to identify with Africans, their activities
betrayed cultural alienation from Africa. Though they acknowledged
being black and of African ancestry, culturally, Delany, Crummell, and
Turner distanced themselves from Africa. Their expression of cultural
identity was unambiguously Eurocentric. They opted for shaping Af¬
rica according to the Eurocentric images that had shaped their own
acculturation.
Delany, Crummell, and Turner were in Africa in the crucial period
from 1850 to the 1890s, when European relationships with Africa be¬
gan to change from “cooperation” to confrontation and occupation, a
change that led inevitably to formal colonialism. During this momen¬
tous epoch, Europeans debated what to do with Africa and how to go
about implementing this new aggressive policy. Whether by design
or not, these black nationalists embraced this new aggressive policy.
During a visit to Britain in 1861, Delany advocated the use of force
 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY 55

against Africans to stem the tide of what he presented as an endemic

crisis among indigenous African states, a crisis that he insisted inhib¬
ited the orderly and peaceful flow of civilization. He urged European
missionaries to resocialize Africans away from what he perceived as
barbaric indigenous traditions and modes of living.102 Similarly, Turner
also characterized Africans as barbaric and backward people in need
of the civilizing touch of external forces.103 Crummell referred to Afri¬
cans as barbaric, restless, violent, and crude people against whom the
use of indiscriminate force was legitimate. Crummell advocated vio¬
lence as a potent weapon for controlling what he characterized as the
wild barbarism of indigenous Africa, and he implored the British not
to be restrained by democratic considerations. In his view, no price
was too high for Africans to pay in return for the benefits of European
civilization. He advocated systematic reeducation of Africans in An¬
glo-Saxon values.104 There was, therefore, a discrepancy between the
rhetoric of African and black confraternity, nationality, and identity
that these nationalists popularized, and their distant, condescending,
and hegemonic attitudes toward Africans.
The implications of their contradictions and ambivalence for the
notion of identity are clear. Visiting and living in Africa exposed all
three to realities that challenged the romanticized images and expec¬
tations that undergirded their quest for African identity. Most signifi¬
cantly, as I argued elsewhere, exposure to African realities revealed
their unAfricannesss. They saw and realized their own cultural differ¬
ence and distinctiveness.105 They realized that, though of African an¬
cestry, they had become culturally different and that the acquisition of
African identity was more complex and problematic. In other words,
exposure to Africa confirmed their American and Anglo-Saxon es¬
sence. Though driven by rejection and alienation to seek the African
identity, these nationalists soon realized that culturally they shared
more in common with Americans and Europeans than with Africans.
They realized how difficult it was to presume that simply relocating to
Africa made one an African. Though they initially proclaimed African
and black identity, as they became conversant with Africa, they soon
realized that the basis of their identity and affinity with Africa was
purely racial, not cultural. The realization of cultural distance from
Africa and the feeling of alienation from African tradition and customs
necessitated strengthening and reaffirming the cherished but elusive
Euro-American identity. With renewed vigor, all three embarked upon
the difficult task of reasserting cultural affinity with Euro-America.
56 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY

Without really saying it, their denunciations and negative charac¬

terizations of Africans revealed that they did not see themselves as
wholly African. They envisioned themselves as blacks with strong
American, European, and Anglo-Saxon cultural connections. But
then, there was a problem. What was the benefit of being black and
Anglo-American in an epoch when European imperialist ideology de¬
fined all blacks (that is, peoples of African ancestry) as primitive and
inferior? Delany, Crummell, and Turner felt challenged to legitimize
and justify their claim to Anglo-American identity. To do this, it was
necessary both to emphasize distance from Africa and to close the
cultural gap with Europe, a gap established by the ideology of white
supremacy. They found the answer in the very institution that had
brutalized and dehumanized them—slavery. Invoking religious his-
toricism, they theorized that the enslavement of Africans was divinely
inspired and sanctioned as a foundation for the fulfillment of God’s
purpose for Africans. Enslavement brought many out of “dark” Africa
into close proximity with Europeans. Socialized and acculturated in
superior European values, these blacks would now return to Africa as
bearers of light and civilization to those still languishing in barbarism.
Furthermore, enslavement closed the cultural gaps with Europe. Con¬
sequently, black Americans could no longer be classed in the same
cultural category with indigenous Africans. As Delany emphasized,
though involuntary and evil, slavery bred an educated, enlightened,
and civilized black American population destined for greater respon¬
sibility and greatness in Africa.106 All three nationalists shared Dela¬
ny ’s interpretation of slavery. For Crummell, slavery was the “Fortu¬
nate fall,” an embodiment of positive experience.107 In Turner’s view,
slavery was “the most rapid transition to civilization for the Negro.’’108
He predicted that in the future the world would become more ap¬
preciative of slavery.109 I have done a more exhaustive analysis of the
religious historicist contents of nineteenth-century black nationalism
elsewhere.110
Edward Wilmot Blyden was another nationalist who used Africa to
propagate the myth of African inferiority and backwardness and also
rendered a positive construction of slavery. In an address titled “The
African Problem and the Method of Its Solution,” which he delivered
at the seventy-third anniversary of the Colonization Society in Wash¬
ington, D.C., January 19,1890, Blyden acknowledged the civilizational
and historical accomplishments of Egypt, in contrast to the darkness
and backwardness of the interior of Africa. He characterized indig-
 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY 57

enous Africans as backward and primitive people who have resisted

the touch of superior European civilization. Blyden, who was then the
principal of Liberia College, a post he assumed in 1880, urged black
Americans to come to Africa and heed her cry for help. He then pro¬
vided a providential rationalization of slavery. God sanctioned slavery
largely for the preservation and civilization of a portion of Africa so
that the preserved would return to uplift those left behind. According
to him,

The Negro race was to be preserved for a special and important work in
the future. Of the precise nature of that work no one can form any definite
conception. It is probable that if foreign races had been allowed to enter
their country they would have been destroyed. So they brought them over
to be helpers in this country and at the same time to be preserved. It was
not the first time in the history of the world that a people have been pre¬
served by subjugation to another. . . . Slavery would seem to be a strange
school in which to preserve a people; but God has a way of salting as well
as purifying by fire.

Blyden’s positive rendition of slavery was popular among black nation¬

alists. Africa, Blyden continued, was enveloped in darkness and primi¬
tivism, while the Americas were opened and developed. The solution
to Africa’s problem lay in colonization. In fact, Africans desperately
called for it in their cry, "Come over and help us.” Further emphasizing
the need for colonization, Blyden declared, “It is a significant fact that
Africa was completely shut up until the time arrived for the emancipa¬
tion of her children in the western world.” He presented himself as a
messenger sent by Africans to convince black Americans to come to
Africa and help rescue them from barbarism.111
Enslavement, therefore, was a necessary price to pay for the benefits
of western civilization. Though this redefinition of slavery was done
partly to bridge the cultural gap between Europeans and black Ameri¬
can nationalists, it was in essence an exercise in identity construction.
Being part of the enslavement experience amounted to a nullification
of the African identity they initially proclaimed affinity with. What
was most significant for Delany, Crummell, Turner, and Blyden was
that slavery had brought them closer to the American identity. What
this reveals is that despite their criticism of Euro-American values
and influences, and a determined search for a new identity, these na¬
tionalists failed to project any consistency on the crucial question of
58 AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY

identity. Their nationalist values and schemes betrayed cultural am¬

biguities. They were driven by alienation in America to seek African
identity, only to be driven by revulsion and cultural alienation from
Africa to assert and reaffirm their Euro-American identity. They per¬
ceived themselves no longer as Africans but as products of a historical
experience mandated by slavery, an experience that had transformed
them culturally into something different from Africa. Delany, Crum-
mell, and Turner exhibited a complex and troubling consciousness of
identity, exemplifying Du Bois’s duality construct.
The search for a rational answer to the existential question “Who
are we?” preoccupied blacks. Their response was unambiguous:
Americans. Failure to achieve this identity, however, led many to em¬
brace Africa. But their profession of affinity with Africa and Africans
betrayed ambivalence and evoked conflicting passions of love, dislike,
confraternity, and distance.
2

Conceptual and Paradigmatic Utiliza¬

tions and Representations of Africa

Africa has been a crucial component of black Diaspora struggles from

the very beginning. How blacks in Diaspora perceived, conceived, and
utilized Africa is a reflection of both the prevailing and dominant im¬
ages and constructions of Africa, and the dynamics of the ever-chang¬
ing experiences of blacks over historical time and space. Five para¬
digms/perspectives defined and shaped black Diaspora perceptions
of, reactions to, and utilization of Africa. These paradigms reflect the
functions Africa served and continues to serve (negatively and posi¬
tively) in the black Diaspora struggle through historical times. They
provide insights into how blacks conceptualized, utilized, and re¬
sponded to Africa. They are civilization, cultural-nationalism, black
nationalism and Pan-Africanism, instrumentalism, and Afrocentric-
ity. These paradigms are not necessarily mutually exclusive, neither
are they spatially and temporally confined. In fact, as this chapter will
demonstrate, there is a very thin line between them, suggesting a mu¬
tually reinforcing relationship.

Civilization

The first encounter between Europe and Africa brought two funda¬
mentally different civilizations together, neither of which really under¬
stood the other. This lack of mutual understanding and appreciation
bore the seeds that would germinate in estrangement and eventual
hegemony of one over the other. Europe eventually became the domi¬
nant and domineering power. In a bid to strengthen their hegemony,
Europeans felt compelled to deny the historicity of civilization in Af¬
rica and to denigrate and demonize Africans. This was accomplished
largely through the intellectually fraudulent practice of denying the
reality of civilization in Africa and through deliberate misrepresenta¬
tion of the historical realities of the continent and its peoples. Initially,
this misrepresentation of African history and civilization grew out of
a genuine sense of awe, mystification, and ignorance the Europeans
60 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA

felt at encountering a civilization about which they knew absolutely

nothing and one that was particularly striking for its exoticism. En¬
countering these strange, exotic, and enigmatic African civilizations
and cultural realities undoubtedly mystified the Europeans. Later,
such misrepresentation and denigration of Africa became deliberate
and conscious. The strangeness and exoticism of Africa became, for
the Europeans, a reflection of its essential inferiority and lack of sub¬
stance. This set the stage for future flowering of racist and aristocratic
ideological thoughts that legitimized exploitative and hegemonic in¬
stitutions and experiences such as slavery and colonialism. The civili-
zational paradigm thus became the earliest structure within which the
Europe-Africa encounter was defined and analyzed. For Europeans,
the alleged absence of civilization in Africa justified the subordination
of Africans and blacks in Diaspora. Over time, however, blacks used
the civilizational paradigm as a medium of resistance and construct¬
ing identity.
The supposed absence of civilization in pre-European Africa, and
the alleged primitive, backward, and heathenish nature of its indige¬
nous societies, coupled with the negative connotations of blackness in
European thought, provided justifications for the enslavement of Afri¬
cans. From the mid-eighteenth century on, pro-slavery advocates de¬
veloped powerful ideological justifications of slavery based on alleged
cultural and historical poverty of Africa. James Walvin contends:

in the eighteenth century, it was important for slave owners to deny the
claims of black humanity and to resist demands that they convert and
Christianize their slaves. To admit slaves to the brotherhood of the church
was to accord them an equality that might conflict with the claims that they
were people destined by origins and race to a humbler, less-than-human
role in life. Of course plantocratic ideology is best seen in its starkest form
in the daily, brutal operation of their properties, and took its most clearly
defined form in the legal system they erected around them. There was,
however, a more public and metropolitan aspect of that ideology, in the
form of pro-slavery tracts and pamphlets, growing in volume as the eigh¬
teenth century advanced ... Time and time again, these plantocratic tracts
turned to the issue of colour and race. The African connection, the reality
of blackness (race) became the sustaining pillar of slavery. Several deroga¬
tory terms manifest the disdain with which Europeans regarded peoples of
African ancestry. Terms such as “moors" “blackamoors” and “Ethiopians”
evolved and over time gave way to the generic “Negroes” or “blacks.”1
 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA 61

In Walvins view, “the transmutation of the African from a subject of

cultural curiosity, viewed as inferior and beyond the pale, to being re¬
garded as an object, a non-person, was the story of plantation slavery
and its consequences for African enslavement and transportation.”2
The denial of African civilization thus pushed people of African de¬
scent into the abyss of depersonalization and objectification. They be¬
came objects, chattels, to be owned, bought and sold, and people with
whom the “superior” Europeans should have the minimal of contacts,
except in the relationship of superior-subordinate. Walvin provides
ample evidence of this relationship in his study, Questioning Slavery
(1996). In one example, in 1772 one Samuel Estwick proposed a law to
preserve the British from the stain and contamination of blacks. He
was a strong believer in the hierarchical ordering of races into groups
and subgroups, with Africans and their descendants at its lowest level
of creation.3 European scholars theorized and pamphleteered in de¬
fense of slavery, often supporting their contentions with bogus theo¬
ries and scientific postulations. Again, in Walvin’s view, “their theories
justify enslavement, and helped to create an intellectual and social cli¬
mate that gave a veneer of respectability to long held prejudices about
black humanity—here are people so far beyond the pale of civilized
behavior that it was folly to think of conferring full citizenship rights
on them . . . slavery was presented as a civilized force; shaping un¬
civilized beings into useful and productive workers.”4 Corroborating
the above, George Frederickson contends, “prior to the 1850s, black
subordination was the practice of white Americans, and the inferior¬
ity of the Negro was undoubtedly a common assumption, but open
assertions of permanent inferiority were exceedingly rare. It took the
assault of the abolitionists to unmask the cant about a theoretical hu¬
man equality that coexisted with Negro slavery and racial discrimi¬
nation and force the practitioners of racial oppression to develop a
theory that accorded with their behavior.”5
The presumed and alleged inferior and backward condition of Af¬
rica served as the building block for developing this racist and hege¬
monic theory. As Frederickson further argues, in order to justify slav¬
ery “as a necessary system of race relations, the proslavery theorists
of the 1830s and 1840s developed an arsenal of argument for Negro
inferiority which they repeated ad nauseam. Heavily emphasized was
the historical case against the black man based on his supposed failure
to develop a civilized way of life in Africa. As portrayed in pro-slavery
writings, Africa was, and always had been, the scene of unmitigated
62 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA

savagery, cannibalism, devil worship, and licentiousness.” In pro-slav¬

ery ideology, therefore, blacks “were much better off in slavery than
they had been in Africa.”6
This early denigration and objectification of Africans challenged
the “African consciousness and disposition” of eighteenth-century free
blacks in Pennsylvania, New York, and other northern states, who, still
conscious of their African background and heritage, utilized Africa in
identifying institutional structures of survival and struggle. The word
“Africa” appeared in several of their institutions; strongly projecting
Africa as their pillar of support and identity. By the late eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries, however, under the onslaught of anti¬
slavery and abolitionist criticisms, a strong pro-slavery ideology
emerged, sustained by deliberate and forceful attacks on Africa and
her descendants in the Diaspora. This denial and denigration of Af¬
rican historical heritage became the legitimizing basis of white supe¬
riority and black inferiority. Blacks were denied citizenship, equality,
and access to social, economic, and political resources. Thus the civi-
lizational deficiency of Africa served to tighten the knot of bondage
and subordination on all blacks. Pro-slavery ideology depicted Africa
as a primitive and problematic continent and African descendants
in Diaspora as inferior, and thus inheritors and reflectors of Africa’s
cultural decadence. Racists and paternalistic solutions were proposed
ostensibly to uplift Africans and their descendants through the intro¬
duction to both civilizational values and conditions from Europe. Of
particular significance was the portrayal of the institution of slavery as
a civilizing process for the enslaved African descendants. Removing
blacks from “primitive” Africa and enslaving them in Christian white
societies elevated them on a higher pedestal of civilization.7
The experience of enslavement and the indoctrinating effect of pro¬
slavery ideology would, over time, induce in blacks an alienated and
paternalistic disposition toward Africa. Many of them began to es¬
pouse a variant of Eurocentric diffusionist thought—the civilizational
export thesis—that is, the conception of Europe as the source from
where civilization came to Africa, a theory that tied Africa’s develop¬
ment and civilization to the infusion of ideas and values from “civi¬
lized” Europe. Europe was the center of civilization and progress, while
the rest of the world, particularly Africa, represented zones of inertia
and cultural sterility, and therefore in need of the infusion of civilized
values and institutions from the European center.8 This export thesis
acquired its earliest manifestation in the colonization movement of
 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA 63

the early 1800s. The American Colonization Society was founded in

1816 to facilitate the relocation of free blacks to Liberia in West Africa.
The society was inspired, some suggest, by altruistic considerations.
The founders hoped to secure a place where free blacks would have
opportunities to realize their potentialities to the fullest, while also
serving as bearers of civilization and progress to the rest of Africa.9
In this latter goal, the society reflected the dominant perception of
Africa as backward and primitive. From the 1820s through the 1840s,
the society tried to persuade free blacks to relocate to Liberia. It did
not achieve much success since the majority of blacks saw coloniza¬
tion as essentially a pro-slavery institution designed to rid society of
the disturbing presence of free blacks.10 However, some blacks soon
embraced the scheme, and became convinced of its underlying prem¬
ise of Africa as a primitive and backward place, of Africans as a people
in need of civilization, and of black Americans as ideal agents for the
transfer of civilization to Africa. This denigration of Africa provided
black Americans with a sense of self-exaltation and emancipatory
consciousness.
Although still considered backward in relation to Europeans, shar¬
ing a geopolitical and cultural space with Europeans situated blacks
on a civilization pedestal above indigenous Africans. Many blacks
therefore gladly and enthusiastically accepted designations as agents
and bearers of civilization and culture to primitive Africa. But there
was another troubling dimension. According to advocates of colo¬
nization, Africa offered the ideal and authentic basis of identity for
identity-hungry and deprived black Americans who, because of inher¬
ent deficiencies, were deemed incapable of coexisting with whites on
the basis of equality. The American identity, and all its accompanying
rights and privileges, were reserved for whites only. The colonization
society, and the African alternative it dangled, offered blacks two fun¬
damental imperatives: identity and self-exaltation. The entire coloni¬
zation doctrine convinced blacks that they were going back to Africa
no longer as they had come, primitive and savage, but as changed and
civilized beings who were now culturally superior to Africans. It also
assured them that colonization was a step toward rediscovering their
lost African identity. This dual consciousness explains many of the
conflicts that would later develop between black Americans and in¬
digenous Africans in Liberia. Colonization thus offered solutions to
Africa’s civilizational challenges in the early eighteenth century. If im¬
mersion in Euro-American values was the route to civilization, then
64 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA

the only conceivable means by which Africa would become civilized

was through colonization, which would transfer those elements of
Euro-American civilization to the continent. Colonization, therefore,
represented the earliest representation of the modernization theory.
Colonization thus encouraged and nurtured paternalistic and racist
assumptions about, and postures toward, Africa. Africa and Africans
were perceived more like objects to be shaped and reshaped into
configurations determined and defined by others. Black Americans
who equally imbibed this perception of Africa assumed paternalistic
postures towards the continent. Many blacks embraced colonization,
which they then draped in quasi Pan-African robes, imploring blacks
in Diaspora and Africans, by virtue of shared heritage and identity, to
cooperate in pursuance of mutual interests. They conceived this coop¬
eration within the racialist and paternalistic ethos of the era and ad¬
vanced a linear trajectory of influences from black Diaspora to Africa.
In other words, black American subscription to colonization implied
acceptance of Eurocentric conceptions of Africa’s problems and the
suggested solutions.
Paul Cuffee (1759-1811) and Lott Cary (1780-1828) are two of the
earliest black American promoters of colonization and the Pan-Afri¬
can genre. A Quaker of mixed Negro and Indian heritage, Paul Cuf¬
fee supposedly developed interest in Africa early in life and became
concerned with alleviating Africa from degradation. As he once de¬
clared, “The travail of my soul is that Africa’s inhabitants may be fa¬
vored with reformation.”11 Convinced that indigenous Africans lacked
civilizational attributes and habits, Cuffee sought to encourage blacks
to colonize Africa and assist in promoting habits of industry, sobriety,
and frugality among the natives. He was undoubtedly a product of
his time, for his vision of Africa was shaped by the larger and prevail¬
ing Eurocentric conceptions and depictions of Africa. Consistent with
prevailing disdain for African traditions, Cuffee advocated the eradi¬
cation of facets of African traditions that he deemed primitive. He
found the African practice of carrying loads on the heads particularly
distasteful. As he averred, “Instead of carrying loads on their heads,
how much better would it be if the colonists had a wagon on which
to haul the loads.” Removing this and other primitive practices would
facilitate "mercantile relations . . . between Africa and America.” The
eventual outcome would, he hoped, supplant the obnoxious slave
trade with other economic activities, such as “whale fishery on the
western coast of Africa.” Living at a time when British abolitionists
 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA 65

were involved in the establishment of the colony of Sierra Leone, Cuf-

fee turned to the British for permission to take a few black Americans
to Sierra Leone. His colonization plan would, he reasoned, rid Afri¬
cans of the slave trade and replace it with badly needed “civilization
and Christianity.”12
Lott Cary was licensed to preach by the First Baptist Church of
Richmond, and almost immediately he began to speak in favor of
missionary activities in Africa. His efforts led to the formation of the
Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society in 1815. Blacks in Rich¬
mond conceived their missionary scheme within providential dynam¬
ics, according to which God sanctioned the enslavement of Africans
so that those brought to the New World would become converted to
Christianity and civilized. Transformed from savages to civilized be¬
ings, these blacks would then return to evangelize to the rest of Af¬
rica. This mission spirit energized blacks in other states, resulting in
the creation of African mission societies in Philadelphia, Virginia,
New York, and Georgia. These facts clearly suggest a developing con¬
sciousness of affinity with Africa and concern for resolving Africa’s
problems, albeit derived from a negative Eurocentric construction of
Africa. Embracing the prevailing negative depictions of Africa, these
blacks saw themselves as destined by providence to be the saviors and
redeemers of Africa. It is within this context that Cary’s mission was
later endorsed by the American Colonization Society. Like Cuffee, he
became a convenient conduit for the transmission of superior Euro¬
pean civilizational values to Africa. Cary was endorsed by the Baptist
Board of Missions in 1819 and also by the Colonization society. Be¬
fore his departure for Africa, Cary delivered a farewell speech in the
meetinghouse of the First Baptist Church in Richmond. His speech
reflected the prevailing paternalistic and racist conception of Africa
and disdain for the continent. According to him, “I am about to leave
you and expect to see your faces no more. I long to preach to the poor
Africans the way of life and salvation. I don’t know what may befall
me, whether I may find a grave in the ocean, or among the savage men,
or more savage wild beasts on the coast of Africa.”13
Although Cary, Cuffee, and other black colonizationists betrayed in
their utterances and writings genuine concern for Africa and the slave
trade, and declared a commitment to alleviating Africa’s problems and
ridding the continent of “barbarism,” they framed their solutions with¬
in the paternalistic and racist ethos of the age, by endorsing a scheme
(colonization) that the majority of blacks rejected for precisely the
66 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA

reasons that Cuffee and Cary embraced and advocated it—that Af¬
rica was primitive and backward and that blacks are not Africans but
Americans who were denied their rights and privileges. Thus, shar¬
ing the same perceptions of Africa, one group used that perception
to advance missionary and colonization scheme while the vast major¬
ity, skeptical of colonization, used the same perception to insist upon
American citizenship. This missionary and paternalistic conception of
Africa induced a dualistic interpretation of the relationship of blacks
to Africans: the former, elevated and civilized; the latter, still trapped
in decadence and primitivism. In a speech endorsing colonization as
a solution to Africa’s problems, delivered in Philadelphia in October
of 1877, in the aftermath of the collapse of Reconstruction, renowned
journalist John Edward Bruce made this remark: “one hundred and
fifty millions of our people are on the other side of the broad Atlantic,
groveling in darkness and superstition; five millions are on this side
surrounded by all the advantages that could be desired in the march
toward civilization. It is our duty to carry to those benighted, dark¬
ened minds a light to guide them in the march toward civilization.”14
Although colonization was not popular among blacks, the concep¬
tion of Africa as a primitive place was widespread. But there were other
blacks who equally embraced Eurocentric perceptions of Africa while
rejecting colonization. Though they acknowledged Africa’s “primitive,”
nature, these blacks vehemently opposed any scheme that entailed re¬
moval from the United States. The ambiguity represented by the ac¬
ceptance of a racist portrayal of Africa while rejecting colonization
surfaced in a speech by the Reverend Peter Williams Jr. at St. Philips
Episcopal Church. In his judgment, “Africa could certainly be brought
into a state of civil and religious improvement without sending all the
free people of color in the United States there. A few well-qualified
missionaries, properly fitted out and supported, would do more for
the instruction and improvement of the natives of that country than a
host of colonists.” He ridiculed the contention that colonization would
help improve the character and condition of black Americans. It was
illogical, he argued, to envisage improving a people by sending them
“far from civilized society.” “What is there in the burning sun, the arid
plains, and barbarous customs of Africa, that is so peculiarly favorable
to our improvement?” he asked sardonically. Emphasizing the Ameri¬
can identity of blacks, Williams declared, “We are natives of this coun¬
try, we ask only to be treated as well as foreigners. Not a few of our
fathers suffered and bled to purchase its independence. We ask only
 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA 67

to be treated as well as those who fought against it. We have toiled to

cultivate it to its present prosperous condition; we ask only to have
equal privileges with those who came from distant lands; to enjoy the
fruits of our labor.”15
In their reactions to the condition of black alienation and margin¬
alization, future advocates of emigration would reflect the same racist,
paternalistic, and Eurocentric constructions of Africa. They would not
only embrace the Eurocentric worldview but also concede Europe's
preeminent claim to civilization. Consequently, many exhibited dis¬
dain for, and alienation from, Africa. Like the Europeans, they too
proposed paternalistic and racist solutions for Africa’s alleged civili-
zational deficiencies.16 As described later in this study, these blacks
turned the civilization-export thesis, to which they had subscribed,
on its head, counterpoising the civilizational preeminence of Africa
over Europe. At a convention in Michigan in 1843, blacks laid down
in detail evidence not only of the antiquity of civilization in Africa but
also of the preeminence of African civilization over European. This
evidence not only enhanced their self-worth but also provided strong
grounds for demanding radical change in their condition—demands
for citizenship and equality.17

Cultural-Nationalism

Culture constituted a central component of the civilizational para¬

digm. To be civilized meant that one possessed a vibrant culture and
cultural heritage. Africa, and by extension, her descendants in Diaspo¬
ra, were denied a viable cultural heritage. Since Africa presumably did
not produce a civilization, it seemed logical to conclude that Africans
lacked a vibrant culture. Plantocratic ideology denied the existence of
African culture. Africa was depicted as a place without a culture and
Africans as a people without a cultural heritage. This nullification of
African culture held sway for decades. When it became implausible
for pro-slavery advocates to continue to deny blacks and Africans a
cultural tradition and heritage, they switched to characterizing Afri¬
can culture as intrinsically barbaric and primitive. They represented
African culture and lifestyles as the lowest in the scheme of human
development. Spokespersons resorted to ethnophaulisms to describe
African peoples and their cultures. This denial of African culture be¬
came the legitimizing weapon of domination. Such a culture was not
endearing to black Americans, and many of them became alienated
68 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA

from Africa and searched desperately for identity in Euro-American

culture. Just as with the concept of civilization, “culture” evoked both
endearing and alienated responses in black Americans toward both
Africa and Europe. Both consciousnesses developed for the same
end—affirmation and defense of an identity, the definition of which
changed and often vacillated between Europe and Africa. At times,
some black leaders found conceding that Africa was indeed primitive
necessary in order to affirm their own cosmopolitan New World iden¬
tity. This pattern of denial and denigration of African culture occurred
even as many blacks invoked and utilized their African heritage to
fashion values and institutions of survival under slavery. At other
times, they found that contesting Africa’s alleged primitivism and
demonstrating Africa’s cultural worth and authenticity eroded the le¬
gitimacy of European hegemony in the New World. Affirming African
cultural worth thus became for some a weapon of pride, of enhanced
self-conception, and of psychological, if not cultural, emancipation
from the domineering and alienating Euro-American geopolitical and
cultural contexts. African culture thus served as a weapon of struggle,
of self-definition, and of counterhegemonic identity construction. Au¬
thenticating African culture enabled blacks to reject and contest both
Euro-American cultural influence and essence and its claim to uni¬
versality and superiority. In the beginning, therefore, the denigration
and denial of African culture and the alienation slavery induced only
further forced blacks to embrace Africa as the basis of their cultural
and institutional apparatus of survival and identity. Soon, however,
the ideology would have the negative effect of alienating blacks from
Africa. Many blacks became publicly disdainful of African culture and
sought cultural meaning and identity in Euro-America.
A strong sense of alienation and distance from Africa and an equal¬
ly strong determination to demonstrate cultural affinity with Euro-
America propelled the struggle for integration, especially from the
rise of organized black abolitionism in the 1830s to the mid-i8sos and
beyond. A consciousness of distance from African culture informed
the integrationist and cultural-pluralistic genres. While the former
sought integration in the United States, in preference over emigration
to Africa, the latter envisioned a cultural pluralistic America where
all races would coexist, while each maintained its cultural identity
and values. Neither sought identification with Africa; however, the
hardening of racism and the alienated consciousness it engendered
 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA 69

compelled many blacks to fall back upon and exalt African culture,
extolling the virtues of her traditions, as a counterweapon of struggle
and a means of affirming a counterhegemonic protest identity. These
cultural nationalists now found African culture a potent weapon of
struggle and began to espouse some degree of economic, political, and
cultural independence for blacks.
At various times in the black Diaspora experience, individuals and
groups invoked cultural-nationalist strategies. Rejection and margin¬
alization induced negative and alienated consciousness in blacks, and,
as integration proved elusive, they developed positive attitudes toward
Africa. This was reflected in declarations of pride in African culture,
affirmation of the uniqueness, wealth, and even superiority, of African
culture; and pride in a positive rendition of African historical heritage.
Although such glorification of Africa was most pronounced in the late
nineteenth century, it existed much earlier, as in William Whipper's
eulogy to the British abolitionist, William Wilberforce. In this eulogy,
delivered in Philadelphia on December 6, 1833, Whipper unambigu¬
ously proclaimed the antiquity of civilization in Africa. According to
him,

to have established the fact that Africa was once the cradle of science—the
seat of civilization—and her sons as its early votaries and boasted cultiva¬
tors, who in their search after wisdom and scanned the “azure pathway
of the heavens” and laid the foundation of some of the most abstruse sci¬
ences, they might only have referred to the Ptolemaic age or to that mam¬
moth receptacle of their collected wisdom, the Alexandrian library, that by
the decree of Omar was consumed by fire.... the light of its conflagration
was followed by an age of darkness; and its incensed smoke appears in its
fall to have brought down barbarism and superstition. Let history mourn
the event.18

In 1833, Whipper was just condemning slavery, and there is no indica¬

tion that he meant his exaltation of Africa for anything other than to
negate and debunk prevailing racist contentions that had been used to
legitimize slavery. Whipper was more interested in using this adula¬
tion of Africa to advance the cause of freedom and equality in Ameri¬
ca. Robert Benjamin Lewis, a black Bostonian, wrote Light and Truth
(1844,) in which he identified Ethiopia as the fountain of many civiliza¬
tions in antiquity and highlighted the accomplishments of prominent
70 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA

blacks in antiquity. Then there was James W. C. Pennington’s A Text

Book of the Origin and History of the Colored People (1841). An ex-slave
who became a minister and abolitionist, Pennington attacked and
contested many of the false ideas that have been used to justify enslav¬
ing the Negro. Through such exposition, Pennington hoped to facili¬
tate integration. In his own writings, George Washington Williams, a
graduate of Howard University, focused on the African background of
black America. He discussed the ancient kingdoms and states in Af¬
rica, including the Yoruba, Asante, Benin, Liberia, and Sierra Leone,
underscoring their civilizational and cultural worth. This particular
tradition of exalting African culture as a protest culture became more
and more pronounced in the second half of the nineteenth century.19
As indicated in the previous chapter, Martin Delany spearheaded
the emigration crusade of the 1850s. He rejected Europe’s claim to
civilizational preeminence and provided evidence of the antiquity of
civilization in Africa. Contesting the hamitic theory, Delany described
ancient Egyptian civilization as authentically Negroid. As he asked
rhetorically, “Who were the builders of the everlasting pyramids, cata¬
combs, and sculptors of the sphinxes? Were they Europeans or Cauca¬
sians, Asiatic or Mongolians? ... Among what races of men, and what
country of the globe, do we find traces of these singular productions,
but the African and Africa? None whatever. It is in Africa the pyra¬
mids, sphinxes and catacombs are found; here the hieroglyphics still
remain.” And, he continued, “Is it not known to history that Egypt was
the cradle of the earliest civilization, propagating the arts and scienc¬
es, when the Grecians were an uncivilized people, covering their per¬
sons with skins and clothing, anterior to the existence of the she-wolf.”
Further, he opined, “It is also the glory of the black race to know that
they have had these qualities in sufficient measure to build a great po¬
litical fabric long before the whites, imparting to them the first germs
of civilization and enlightening the world by their wisdom.” Delany
extolled the virtues of indigenous Africa in several of his writings and
pronouncements; yet nothing compares to that of his lecture titled,
"The Moral and Social Aspect of Africa.” Here Delany rejected claims
of African inferiority. He invoked his three thousand miles of travels
in Africa and acquaintance with all facets of African social and moral
life. In the lecture, he showered praises on indigenous Africans, all in a
bid to convince black Americans of the potentialities and prospects of
emigration to Africa. Referring to Africans, he wrote, “The language
of the people is a good sign of its civility, and the African language is
 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA 71

derived from fixed roots, it is not a jargon ... the people speak clearly
and well . . . The people are very polite.” He described Africans as a
people of high moral standard and praised their institutions, cultures,
industry, values, and mode of living.20
Other blacks also wrote forcefully in defense of African civilization,
underscoring both the antiquity of civilization in Africa, and Africa’s
immense contributions to world civilization. Instead of Europe, there¬
fore, these blacks projected Africa as the quintessence of civilization.
This positive rendition also entailed the exaltation of African culture
as the basis of self-affirmation and definition and the foundation for
staging a counterstruggle against Eurocentrism. In other words, Af¬
rican history and culture became the substructure for constructing a
strong nationalist consciousness. Juxtaposing Africans and Europeans
as equal contributors to building the New World, and invoking Provi-
dentialism, Blyden wrote, “To take their place as accessories in the
work to be done God suffered the African to be brought hither, who
could work and would work, and should endure the climatic condi¬
tions of a new southern country, which Europeans could not." In his
judgment, since both Africans and Europeans contributed equally to
the development of the New World, they both deserved the glory and
celebration. As he emphasized, "Englishman, Hollander, and Hugue¬
not, Nigritian and Congo came together. If Europe brought the head,
Africa furnished the hands for a great portion of the work which has
been achieved here.”21
The ambivalent responses of blacks to African culture predomi¬
nated in the nineteenth century. This ambivalence reflected the influ¬
ence of European thought. For much of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, the values of Euro-American socialization and accultura¬
tion shaped black American conception of Africa. This conception
manifested ambiguity, often changing with the vagaries of racism.
These blacks had become reflections of the acculturation process in
European thought. Perhaps without realizing it, they became deeply
enmeshed in European thought and unable to develop and sustain a
clear-cut independent policy; however, the exaltation of African cul¬
ture was more rhetorical than substantive in the nineteenth century
and earlier. By the mid-twentieth century, blacks became more force¬
ful in embracing Africa and began to move beyond rhetoric to practi¬
cal manifestations of African culture in their lifestyles. Regardless of
how good they felt about Africa, however, they were not willing to live
independently of America. Hence, their ideology reflected a crisis of
72 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA

identity that confirmed their essentially American character. By the

twentieth century, there was a move toward reviving African culture,
giving it the respectability it deserved. Thus, African culture acquired
attraction in the wake of the civil rights movement. The rise of the
countercultural movement led blacks to embrace African culture and
lifestyles in an unprecedented manner. African culture became weap¬
on of protest, affirmation of a counteridentity, and rejection of Euro-
American culture. The Afro hairstyle, dashiki outfit, name change,
celebration of Kwanza—all became African cultural artifacts of pro¬
test and identity. African cultural identity is today very strong among
black cultural nationalists who assume a posture of cultural defiance
and rejection of Euro-American culture.
In order effectively to debunk European claims to civilizational pre¬
eminence, black leaders confronted the issue squarely and promptly.
Delany, Crummell, and Turner countered Europe’s conception of civi¬
lization with a more culturally constructed version, one that exalted
African cultural attributes. For example, Crummell viewed civiliza¬
tion as encompassing “not only the elements of technology and ma¬
terialism” but also “personal responsibility ... the honor and freedom
of womanhood, allied with the duty of family development... an ele¬
vated use of material things.”22 Turner, on the other hand, constructed
civilization as the contemplation of “the fraternity, civil and political
equality between man and man ... regardless of his color or national¬
ity.”23 Both definitions were meant to highlight attributes lacking or
deficient in western societies—what was wrong with, and missing in,
Western civilization—an acknowledgment of its imperfections. De¬
spite western economic and technological advancement, nineteenth
century black nationalists advanced a conception of civilization that
seemed to privilege attributes that they associated with Africa. They
underlined other culturally constructed values that are conspicuously
missing in, and perhaps even alien to, western civilization: political
equality, social equality, respect for rights and privileges of fellow be¬
ings, civility, justice, courtesy, and so forth. They invoked aspects of
civilization that the Europeans neglected or overlooked in order to
counter Europe’s claim to a monopoly of civilization.
At different times, these nationalists attempted to illuminate posi¬
tive aspects of Africa, primarily to debunk the myth of the “dark con¬
tinent” and enhance black American chances of becoming accepted as
the equals of whites. They aimed their constructions of a progressive
African culture primarily at qualifying, not necessarily invalidating,
 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA 73

the universalistic and absolutist claims of western civilization, quali¬

fication that many hoped would erode the cultural chauvinism and
ethnocentrism that characterized European thought. The moral, ethi¬
cal, and cultural authority of Africa became a positive force against
Eurocentric claims and pretensions of both civilizational and cultural
superiority. Aside from the positive reaction that Eurocentric propa¬
ganda generated among blacks, compelling many to seek integration
into the Euro-American world, these blacks also evinced a negative
attitude and response toward Africa. Many blacks became disdainful
of African values, believing that these could be replaced entirely with
Euro-American culture and values. Many of them actively advocated
the obliteration of indigenous African cultural norms and values that
were deemed primitive by Euro-American standards. Paul Cuffee, for
instance, was averse to the African practice of carrying loads on the
head.24 Decades later, in an effort to justify Europe’s civilizing mission,
Delany identified several African practices that he deemed abhorrent
and advised their displacement with European habits; among them
was the African practice of sitting and eating on the floor. He deemed
this a mark of inferiority and primitivism. Crummell equally loathed
African languages and dialects, which he depicted as symbols of prim¬
itivism.25 Succumbing to Eurocentric socialization, many blacks be¬
came disdainful of African culture and norms and adopted distant and
standoffish postures vis-a-vis the continent. In the judgment of these
black Americans, Africans practiced customs and traditions that were
indeed barbaric and primitive and had to be civilized. The primitive
and decadent character of Africa compelled many black Americans
to seek their identity, both cultural and national, within a Eurocentric
mold.

Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism

In proslavery thought, the denigration of African culture and con¬

comitant denial of African civilization justified the denial to blacks of
Americans citizenship. The alleged absence of civilizational heritage
and cultural worth in consequence of the African ancestry provided
grounds for black subordination, depersonalization, and denial of
American citizenship, with all its accompanying rights and privileg¬
es. Blacks became, in the words of Delany, “a nation within a nation,”
an alienated minority whose only option, in the judgment of many,
was the creation of an alternative black nationality abroad.26 The first
74 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA

challenge therefore that blacks confronted immediately on arrival

in the New World, derived from their suspension in what one may
characterize as a nationality void. By the mid-nineteenth century, af¬
ter struggling unsuccessfully for integration as full-fledged members
of the American nationality, many black leaders embarked upon an
earnest search for this alternative nationality, spurred on by a strong
conviction in the benefits and potentialities of shared African ancestry
and heritage. It should not be forgotten, however, that this search for
a black nationality external to the United States, this manifestation of
national consciousness, derived from the conception of Africans and
blacks in Diaspora as one people united by shared cultural and histori¬
cal heritage, was the product of rejection and alienation.
Consciousness of African civilization and of the utilitarian worth
of African ancestry and nationality surfaced very early in the black
American struggle. The use of Africa for identification of churches,
fraternal societies, and self-help organizations exemplified one of the
earliest invocations of Africa for the construction of a countervailing
corporate national identity. This was particularly noticeable among
free blacks in New York, Pennsylvania, and New England in the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They began with using Af¬
rica as identity construct, and over time the prospect of using Africa
as the basis of constructing a national identity gained popularity. The
invocation of African ancestry and shared historical experience as the
basis of rallying all blacks and Africans behind a consensual perspec¬
tive of the struggle surfaced very early in the black experience. An
early representation and articulation of Africa as the rallying point of
"nationalism” can be found in the writings of Henry H. Garnet, Martin
Delany, James W. C. Pennington, and William Wells Brown.
During a trip to Jamaica, Henry Garnet came to the realization that
the conditions of West Indian blacks were in some ways similar to
those of blacks in the United States. This led him to the conviction
that emphasis on the struggle in America was too narrowly focused.
He advocated a broadly based international movement to promote
unity within the entire black world, from Africa to the Caribbean.
Thus, Garnet saw Africa as the rallying point of a trans-Atlantic strug¬
gle for blacks. In furtherance of this, in the summer of 1858, Garnet
and several other blacks and interested whites founded the African
Civilization Society, and Garnet was elected its first president.27
Garnet was not just advocating unity between blacks in Diaspora
and Africa, he was also interested in a program of economic relation-
 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA 75

ship that would help strengthen the two and create the foundation
for mutual development. He proposed the development of a cotton
economy in Africa, the success of which, he hoped, would undermine
cotton and slavery in America. By 1859, he was convinced that the
founding of a powerful nation in Africa "would do more to overthrow
slavery, in creating respect for blacks. The African Civilization Society
which he helped found, became the vehicle for the advance of com¬
merce and civilization in Africa.” In a speech delivered in i860 at the
Cooper’s Institute, New York, Garnet outlined the objectives of the
African Civilization Society to include Christianizing and civilizing
Africa through the medium of black emigrants, overthrowing idolatry
and superstition, destroying the slave trade, and establishing civil gov¬
ernment.28
Delany was perhaps the most vocal and articulate advocate and
defender of African nationality in the second half of the nineteenth
century. He was very conscious and proud of his African ancestry
from youth, and a major part of his life was spent in the pursuit of in¬
tegration. As suggested earlier, when it became obvious to him in the
1850s that blacks would never be granted full citizenship and equality,
Delany fell back upon his African ancestry for succor. In several of his
publications, he offered the resources of Africa as the foundation for
an independent black nationality, especially in the 1850s when mean¬
ingful equality and integration seemed far-fetched in the aftermath
of the Fugitive Slave Law and the Dred Scott decision (1857). Africa
offered the only hope; by relocating to Africa, blacks would be among
their own kind. Delany saw other potentialities the African landmass,
natural resources, and population offered: abundant land for agricul¬
tural projects, cheap labor for cultivating the land, the ideal climate
and soil for producing a strong cotton economy that would challenge
and undermine that of the American South.29 Thus, Africa offered the
edifice for a grand black nationality that would serve as the rallying
point for all blacks. This perspective became more pronounced from
the 1850s through the 1880s, with the rise of emigration and back-to-
Africa movement. I have already mentioned Henry McNeal Turner
and Alexander Crummell, who were both instrumental in advocating
emigration, and the moral, economic, and cultural transformation of
indigenous Africa into the black man’s “city on a hill.”30 This scheme
assumed greater urgency after the collapse of Reconstruction and the
gradual erosion of the rights that blacks had won in the aftermath of
the Civil War. Disillusioned by the dramatic turnaround in the 1880s
76 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA

and 1890s as returning “Bourbon” politicians frantically sought to re¬

turn blacks to the antebellum status quo, blacks again embraced Af¬
rica, as the foundation for a future independent and affluent black na¬
tionality. While Delany was active in the 1850s and 1860s, Turner and
Crummell dominated the late nineteenth and early twentieth centu¬
ries. Although riddled with contradictions, their nationalism reflected
their complex historical and cultural experiences, and although they
did not succeed in sponsoring emigration of any magnitude, by articu¬
lating a nexus between blacks in Diaspora, the Caribbean, and Africa,
these nationalists are credited with laying the foundation for Pan-Af¬
ricanism.
Thus, just as Africa served as the rallying cry of nationalism in the
early nineteenth century, so did it become the substructure of Pan-
Africanism in the twentieth century. In advocating the emigration of
blacks to Africa, John Edward Bruce, a powerful advocate of Pan-Afri-
canism in the early twentieth century, outlined the benefits that Africa
offered to blacks—ancestral heritage, meaningful freedom, and the
opportunity fully to realize potentialities and the economic resources
for economic development. As he declared,

I shall endeavor to show tonight why the colored American should emigrate
to Africa—first, because Africa is his fatherland; second, because, before
the war, in the south He was a slave, and in the north a victim of prejudice
and ostracism; and third, because since the close of the war, although He
has been freed by emancipation and invested with enfranchisement, He is
only nominally free, and lastly, because He is still a victim of prejudice, and
practically proscribed socially, religiously, politically, educationally, and in
the various industrial pursuits.31

Bruce went on to outline the necessity for emigration. According to

him, “First, then he should emigrate to Africa because it is his father-
land. Africa is a country rich in its productions, offering untold trea¬
sures to the adventurer who may go there. It has a peculiar claim upon
the colored American in this country, and that claim is just and as
equitable as any could be.”32 The Pan-African philosophy &nd move¬
ment of Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican-born advocate of black inde¬
pendence and emigration, preceded the emergence of the Pan-Afri¬
can Congress tradition. Enraged by what he perceived as a worldwide
European conspiracy to degrade and exploit blacks, Garvey arrived
in the United States in 1916, armed with an organization that he had
 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA 77

founded in Jamaica—the Universal Negro Improvement Association

(UNIA).33 He also came armed with a strong conviction of the im¬
perative of unity among blacks in Africa and the Diaspora in order to
effectively combat and survive the onslaught of European economic,
political, and cultural hegemony. Almost immediately, Garvey’s ap¬
peal and message struck a responsive cord among the masses of black
Americans. As one writer suggests, “Garveyism represented the sub¬
terranean counter-point of the elite Pan-African Congress tradition
that was controlled and organized by black intellectuals.” Garvey ap¬
pealed to the masses. As one authority contends, he “brought the no¬
tion of the links between the black world and Africa to a mass audi¬
ence, creating a new working-class Diaspora consciousness. By linking
the entire black world to Africa ... Garvey made the American Negro
conscious of his African origins and created for the first time a feeling
of international solidarity between Africans and peoples of African
descent.”34 Garveyism, the Pan-African Congress tradition and move¬
ment of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries marked the
highest expression of black nationalism.
Apprehensive of the rising tide of Europe’s global imperialism, and
the tenacity of racism, blacks in Diaspora, led by Henry Sylvester Wil¬
liams of Trinidad, inaugurated the Pan-African Congress movement,
which brought Africans and Diaspora black representatives together
to deliberate on crucial matters arising from their common African
heritage.35 The unifying factors were the negative experiences that
characterized their relations with Europeans, out of which developed
ethos of mutuality that further strengthened the Pan-African bond.
It was the black American W. E. B. Du Bois who captured the defin¬
ing character of the epoch in his often-quoted identification of the
problem of the twentieth century as “the problem of the color-line,
the question as to how far differences of race—which shows them¬
selves chiefly in the color of the skin and the texture of the hair—will
hereafter be made the basis of denying to over half the world the right
of sharing to their utmost ability the opportunities and privileges of
modern civilization.”36
Essentializing the color line constituted a strong clarion call for
unity among peoples of African descent against those on the other
side of the racial divide. Du Bois's publications highlighted the posi¬
tive accomplishments of blacks and the contributions of Africa to civi¬
lization. A scholar par excellence, the massive force of his scholarship
provided compelling evidence of African civilization and culture. His
78 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA

The World and Africa (1947) was written “to remind readers of the
crisis of civilization, and how critical a part Africa had played in hu¬
man history, past and present.”37 Du Bois used his scholarship to fight
both the internal war against black subordination, and the external
force of European imperialism in Africa. By demonstrating the his¬
torical and civilizational worth of African history, Du Bois simultane¬
ously weakened the ideological edifice of imperialism. Underscoring
the importance and imperative of African independence, he urged the
nations of the world to “respect the integrity and independence of the
free Negro states of Abyssinia, Liberia, Haiti and the rest, and let the
inhabitants of these states, the independent tribes of Africa, the Ne¬
groes of the West Indies and America, and the black subjects of all na¬
tions take courage, strive ceaselessly, and fight bravely, that they may
prove to the world their incontestable right to be counted among the
great brotherhood of mankind.”38
Essentially, both Garveyism and the Pan-African Congress tradi¬
tion were built on shared African ancestry and historical experienc¬
es; that is, Africa was the rallying point, the very nexus and nerve of
Pan-Africanism. The Pan-African Congress movement met five times
between 1900 and 1945. The combined efforts of Diaspora blacks
and Africans brought pressure to bear on European powers, result¬
ing in accelerating the process of decolonization in Africa.39 The Pan-
African tradition did not end with Africa’s independence. Africa and
her descendants abroad continued the tradition, albeit with reduced
vigor and a lack of consensus on goals, focus, and strategies. The last
Pan-African congress was held in Kampala, Uganda, in 1993; however,
a Pan-African Movement summit took place in January 2007 orga¬
nized by the World Africa Diaspora Union. This was preparatory for a
2008 Pan-African celebration of the 108th anniversary of the launch¬
ing of the Pan-African Movement. Africa continues to serve blacks
in Diaspora as the basis of constructing a solid platform of struggle
against the forces of domination and exploitation.
Consciousness of shared African ancestry was the basis, the under-
lying force, of the Pan-African tradition. Shared negative experiences
of racism and colonialism became the precipitating force. "Both rac¬
ism and colonialism were justified, again, as with slavery, on negative
characterizations and vilification of Africa and Africans. According
to this reasoning, blacks were subordinated because of the facts of
African primitivism and cultural and civilizational sterility. Advo¬
cates of black nationalism and Pan-Africanism built their ideology
 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA 79

and movement, that is, their appeal for black unity across Atlantic
space, largely on African considerations: shared culture, history, and
experience. Like their nineteenth-century predecessors, twentieth-
century Pan-Africanists based their cause on realities of Africa; what
Africa meant, represented, and offered. Pan-Africanism represented
a corporate construction of identity and struggle based upon shared
experiences—historical and cultural. Blacks in Diaspora invoked this
corporate Africa-centered identity, in order to present a united front
against domination and exploitation. Many scholars have character¬
ized this corporate consciousness as historically deep-rooted and
pervasive, best represented in the thoughts and schemes of Du Bois,
Henry Sylvester Williams, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Martin Delany, Al¬
exander Crummell, Henry McNeal Turner, Marcus Garvey, Stokely
Carmichael (aka, Kwame Toure), and Malcolm X. Pan-Africanism be¬
came instrumental in the decolonization of Africa and in the national¬
ist upsurge in black Diaspora—for example, the civil rights movement
of the 1960s. Many black Americans, like Malcolm X, and Stokely Car¬
michael, believed in invoking Pan-Africanism and internationalizing
the civil rights movement by tying it to the plight of Africans, since
both supposedly shared identical problems and challenges.40 Thus,
Africa occupied a central and elevated platform in the nationalist and
Pan-Africanist paradigm. Africa was the center of and the very foun¬
dation upon which rested the superstructure of historical and cultural
experiential unity that nurtured the corporate ethos that the militants
of the 1960s advocated. “Of all our studies,” Malcolm X once observed,
“History is best qualified to reward our research.” Here, Malcolm em¬
phasized the importance that historical knowledge of Africa offered
to the struggles of black Americans. He urged black Americans to at¬
tain strong grounding in African history as the means and vehicle of
reclaiming themselves and of expunging seeds of self-denigrating con¬
sciousness implanted in them by Europeans. He was very emphatic on
broadening the parameters of the civil rights movement to include the
struggles of Africans, for success in one was inconceivable without the
other. He presented a positive rendition of ancient African civilization
and history, one of a glorious accomplishment before the advent of
Europeans. The European misrepresentation of African history and
culture implanted inferiority and self-hate in blacks. To reverse this,
blacks must turn to Africa and reclaim their legacy and heritage. As
he reasoned, “Why should the black man in America concern him¬
self since he’s been taken away from the continent for. Three or four
80 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA

hundred years?—Having complete control over Africa, the colonial

powers of Europe projected the image of Africa negatively ... it was
negative to you and me, and you and I began to hate it ... in hating
Africa and in hating the Africans, we ended up hating ourselves.”41
Stokely Carmichael, a leading advocate of Black Power militant
ideology and Pan-Africanism in the 1960s, also offered knowledge
of Africa to blacks as the most potent weapon of freeing themselves
from subordination. He implored blacks and Africans to unite and
strengthen Pan-African ties. Success was inconceivable without a
strong Pan-African framework. He defined Pan-Africanism as “the
highest political expression of black Power.” Black Power and Pan-
Africanism seemed inextricably tied. As he argued, "Black Power
means that all people who are black should come together, organize
themselves and form a power base to fight for their liberation. That’s
black power.” Furthermore, he insisted, “Were an African people and
Africa belongs to all African people. It is our homeland!. .. We must
ask ourselves what relationship Africa has to us while we are here in
the western hemisphere. We must ask what our relationship to Af¬
rica is and how do we survive here at the same time.” Pan-Africanism
enabled Carmichael to tie Africans and black Americans as a people
with a “Common enemy, common problems . . . Victims of imperial¬
ism, racism.” The Pan-Africanism that he espoused and propagated as
a medium of struggle and freedom for all blacks had “Mother Africa
as its sine qua non’.’42
It is, therefore, clear that Africa served dual functions for blacks in
Diaspora in both domestic nationalism and external Pan-Africanism.
For the former, it was a weapon of struggle and survival, of blunting
the edges of the negative and debilitating impact of the ideology of
subordination and depersonalization, of proffering a counterhege-
monic identity and culture in the face of denial and objectification.
For the latter, Africa functioned as the foundation for trans-Atlantic
unity, for generating the unity needed to combat perceived common
threats, problems, and challenges confronting all blacks. A more de¬
tailed analysis of the Pan-African paradigm is provided in the next
chapter.

Instrumentalism

Instrumentalism is essentially a historiographical genre that grew out

of the fight to combat Eurocentric historiography and its misconcep-
 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA 81

tions about, and misrepresentation of, the African historical heritage.

From the 1830s on, history assumed a position of potency as a weapon
in the ideological arsenal against anti-slavery thoughts and movement.
Historians were active in contributing their “scholarship” to proving
the lack of historical heritage in Africa; the inherent inferiority of all
blacks, and the marginality of the black presence to American and New
World history and development. The denial of African history provid¬
ed legitimacy to slavery and racism. Denied a historical tradition and
heritage in Africa, blacks were logically regarded as a people without
culture and civilization. Just as historical and other scholarships were
marshaled to objectify, depersonalize, and dominate blacks, a few
blacks began to mobilize the limited and modest historical knowledge
at their disposal to dispel several of the historical fallacies of Euro¬
centric scholarship. The use of evidence of African historical wealth
and civilization to counter Eurocentric claims became forceful among
free blacks in the second half of the nineteenth century. According to
Earl Ofari, “A few blacks examined the positive dimensions of black
history. To them it was a source of pride and a means of combating
the racist myths about blacks in Africa and America perpetuated by
whites. Henry Garnet must be included among this group of pioneer
black historians.”43
In an address before the Female Benevolent Society in Troy, New
York, in February of 1848, Garnet dealt at length with the history of
ancient Africa. He placed the blame for the destruction of African
institutions on western society and went on to describe the Ethiopi¬
ans and Egyptians as blacks who had originated science and learn¬
ing. Africa had produced an enlightened and orderly society while the
Europeans were still groping in ignorance and superstition. “At this
time when these representatives of our race were filling the world with
amazement,” he argued, “the ancestors of the now proud and boasting
Anglo Saxons were among the most degraded of the human family.
They abode in caves under ground, either naked or covered with the
skins of wild beasts.” Garnet was very insistent upon the Negroid na¬
ture and origins of ancient Egypt. As he contended, “Ham was the first
African. Egypt was settled by an immediate descendant of Ham, who
in sacred history is called mesraim—menes. He rejected the claim of
ancient Egyptians as Caucasians. He credits the Egyptians with civili¬
zation, arts sciences.”44
Several nineteenth-century black intellectuals wrote and published
to underscore the antiquity of civilization in Africa and rehabilitate
82 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA

African history from obscurity, among them Delany, Pennington,

William Wells Brown, and George Washington Williams. Collectively,
they used evidence of African history and African cultural wealth to
assert their humanity, worth, and claim to citizenship and win rec¬
ognition as contributors to world history and progress.45 In several
of their writings, we find seeds of a future Afrocentric genre. Delany
had no doubt about the African origin of ancient Egyptian civilization.
As he quizzed rhetorically, “Who were the builders of the everlast¬
ing pyramids, catacombs, and sculptors of the sphinxes? Were they
Europeans or Caucasians, Asiatic or Mongolians? . . . Among what
race of men, and what country of the globe, do we find traces of these
singular productions, but the African and Africa?” His answer was
unequivocal and emphatic, “None whatever. It is in Africa the pyra¬
mids, sphinxes, and catacombs are found; here the hieroglyphics still
remain. Among the living Africans traces of their beautiful philosophy
and symbolic mythology still exists.” He also emphasized the antiquity
of civilization in Africa, declaring, “And is it not known to history that
Egypt was the ‘cradle of the earliest civilization,’ propagating the arts
and sciences, when the Grecians were an uncivilized people, covering
their persons with skins and clothing, anterior to the existence of the
she-wolf." He published comparative studies of African and European
civilization and found Africa preeminent and superior.46
It was not until the early twentieth century that a sustained move¬
ment to use African history as the basis and weapon of struggle began.
Two individuals helped lay the foundation of and advanced this move¬
ment: Du Bois and Carter G. Woodson. They were both preceded by
G. N. Grisham, professor and principal of a high school in Kansas City,
Missouri, described as “one of the ablest educators and most practical
philosophers in the country.” In a speech he delivered during a recep¬
tion to the graduate club at the residence of Professor Kelly Miller in
Kansas City, on December 28, 1897, Grisham emphasized the impor¬
tance of historical scholarship as a weapon of resistance, and urged
black scholars to rise up to the challenge of developing a revolutionary
epistemological weapon. “In the social organism,” Grisham argued,

every kind of human power has its special place, and every grade of intel¬
ligence has its function. Men of will trace with their swords the bounds of
empire, or as statesmen enter the affairs of nations; men of feeling fashion
the cults of picture with pen or brush half-uttered yearnings of races; men
of scholarship have likewise their functions of scholarship in the higher
 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA 83

sense of the word. The scholar is the interpreter of civilization, as well as its
guide. In him is renewed the spirit of the past, in him are the aspirations of
the future, which color the best deeds of the present.

Furthermore, he continued,

The Negro scholar must do something for his race. He can and should offer
defense against unjust criticism and wrong. He should in his exalted per¬
sonality, furnish a standard for building aspiration, and his superior intelli¬
gence and keen foresight should offer guidance over the thousands of mor¬
al, social and political difficulties that throng the dark and devious pathway
of the people. The race has a right to look to him for helpful suggestions,
for kindly, sympathetic criticism, for a clear outline of policy and for the in¬
spiration which can come alone from those lofty reaches of thought enable
them to contemplate the depths from the standpoint of the heights.

Grisham believed firmly that “the Negro scholar must form the con¬
nection between his race and civilization,” for “in him they breathe its
spirit, think its thought, grapple with its difficulties, and aid in the so¬
lution to its problems. The Negro scholar must not confine himself to
Negro questions. He must, in action, manifest the breadth of Terence.
... mankind, humanity.” Thus, Grisham placed immense responsibility
on the Negro intellectual. His call was essentially for an instrumental¬
ist history, one specifically designed for enhancing the self-esteem and
elevation of blacks. To generate this type of scholarship, blacks had to
turn to their own history and heritage in Africa. The tradition of re¬
habilitating African history that Delany and other nineteenth-century
free blacks inaugurated flowered in the early twentieth century.47
Long before Grisham's admonition, black lecturers routinely re¬
ferred to the glory and achievements of Africa. In an address in 1832,
David Nickens declared that “all the now civilized world is indebted
to Africa for the arts of civilization.”48 In numerous publications, free
blacks underlined the historical accomplishments and worth of Af¬
rica. Examples include Pennington’s Text Book of the Origin and His¬
tory of the Colored People (1841) and William G. Allen’s The Origin and
History of the Africans (1850). For blacks, demonstrating the historical
and cultural worth of Africa became a potent weapon of waging an
intellectual battle against the forces of oppression and alienation. This
became more structured, organized, and historically more credible
from the late nineteenth century on. Carter G. Woodson, Du Bois,
84 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA

and members of the New Negro History movement researched Afri¬

can history to demonstrate the wealth of that history and in the pro¬
cess reversed the debilitating impact of Eurocentric historiography on
black consciousness. In his African Heroes and Heroines (1939), Wood-
son underscored the accomplishments of African leaders, portraying
them as positive historical actors. His more enduring legacy was in the
organizational efforts to encourage scholarship in African history in
order to counteract and uproot entrenched fallacious ideas about the
African and black historical past. In 1915, Woodson founded the As¬
sociation for the Study of Negro Life and History (now Association for
the Study of African American Life and History—ASAALH), followed
closely by the Journal of Negro History. The purposes of this journal
were “the collection of sociological and historical data on the Negro,
the study of peoples of African blood, the publishing of books in this
field, and the promotion of harmony between the races by acquainting
the one with the other.”49 The last of the objectives clearly underscores
the essentially integrative dynamics of Woodson’s scholarship. The
prime objective of encouraging scholarship in African history was to
facilitate mutual understanding between the races as a prelude to the
integration of blacks. Woodson’s organizational efforts had African
historical reconstruction as its underlying dynamics. Scholars were
encouraged to research African history and expose and debunk the
myths of Eurocentric scholarship and historiography. Their combined
efforts led to the flowering of studies and interests in African history
and the publication of books and articles that developed an enhanced
sense of historical worth and positive self-image among black Ameri¬
cans. Today, Woodson’s ASAALH and his journal remain among the
leading organizations and media of disseminating knowledge and
scholarship about the African historical experience.50
Marcus Garvey used African history to develop and sustain a posi¬
tive self-image in his followers. As he asked rhetorically,

But, when we come to consider the history of man, was not the Negro a
power, was he not great once? Yes, honest students of history can recall
the day when Egypt, Ethiopia and Timbuktu towered in their civilizations,
towered above Europe, towered above Asia. When Europe was inhabited
by a race of cannibals, a race of savages, naked men, heathens and pagans,
Africa was peopled with a race of cultured black men, who were masters in
art, science, and literature; men who were cultured and refined. ... Black
men, you were once great; you shall be great again. Lose not courage, lose
 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA 85

not faith, go forward. The thing to do is get organized; keep separated and
you will be exploited, you will be robbed, you will be killed. Get organized
and you will compel the world to respect you.sl

Garvey offered his followers knowledge of African history as the basis

and foundation for Pan-African unity, for uplifting blacks worldwide.
He built his Universal Negro Improvement Association on the prin¬
ciple of pride in African race, culture and heritage. His slogan was
"Africa for Africans,” meaning that “Negro peoples of the world should
concentrate upon the object of building up for themselves a great na¬
tion in Africa.” Garvey here trumpets the African nationality idea
and scheme that nineteenth-century nationalists like Delany, Turner,
and Garnet had earlier espoused. Exploited, alienated, and dejected,
Garvey offered blacks in Diaspora hope in a return to, and reconstruc¬
tion of, Africa for all Africans at home and abroad. Africa provided
Negroes the basis of a “Country and government of their own” and the
opportunity to “make our own impression upon a world of injustice
and convince men by the same means or methods of reasoning as oth¬
ers by their strength do.” Diaspora blacks had no alternative route to
elevation, respectability, recognition, than through a return to Africa.
As Garvey insisted, “if you must be heard and respected you must have
to accumulate, nationally, in Africa, those resources that will compel
unjust man to think twice before he acts.”52 This tradition of using Af¬
rican historical scholarship as a weapon of struggle and response to
domination and objectification blossomed in the 1960s. As part of the
civil rights movement, some black historians began advocating a new
combative historiography, one that would mobilize African history in
the service of the black revolution. This instrumentalist history would
scathingly indict, and totally reject, Eurocentric historiography, while
enhancing the self-esteem of blacks. Knowledge of African history,
instrumentally constructed, became crucial to the social agenda of
the instrumentalists. Among the leading advocates of this historiog¬
raphy were Vincent Harding and Sterling Stuckey, both of whom were
skeptical of mainstream historiography and advocated a distinct black
American history, one that is critical and condemnatory of main¬
stream ideas and values and is designed specifically for advancing the
black struggle.53 Understanding and reconstructing Africa’s historical
and cultural foundations became the nerve center of the new instru¬
mentalist historiography. Here we see the microscopic beginning of
the construction of African history and cosmology as the substructure
86 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA

for black Diaspora epistemology and cognitive development. African

history became an arm of the black liberation movement in the 1960s.
Knowledge of African history became sine qua non for self-liberation
for blacks. It thus became a central component of black epistemologi¬
cal struggle that later flowered into the Afrocentric genre. Informed
knowledge of Africa became a crucial weapon of liberation scholar¬
ship against colonialism and neocolonialism. Many scholars, partic¬
ularly those of Marxist persuasion, sought to use African history to
construct a liberation ideology against foreign domination. A lead¬
ing example was the late Walter Rodney, whose scholarship remains
among the most combative of black liberation epistemology. As he
once declared, “One of the major dilemmas inherent in the attempt
by black people to break through the cultural aspects of white impe¬
rialism is that posed by the use of historical knowledge as a weapon
in our struggle. We are virtually forced into the invidious position of
proving our humanity by citing historical antecedents; . . . the white
man has already implanted numerous historical myths in the minds of
the black peoples; and those have to be uprooted, since they can act as
a drag on revolutionary action in the present epoch.’’54
Rodney urged the study of African history directed at “freeing and
mobilizing black minds.”55 He went on to a successful career as one
of the most prolific African historians and scholars of his generation
who researched African history and used their findings to debunk and
derail long-entrenched myths and misconceptions that had served to
legitimize European domination and exploitation of blacks and Afri¬
cans. Rodney’s study of the Upper Guinea Coast enabled him to chal¬
lenge and debunk prevailing Eurocentric notions about slavery in tra¬
ditional African societies.56 His study of imperialism in Africa resulted
in his iconoclastic work, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972).
Written from a Marxist perspective, the book traces the historical,
social, economic, political, and cultural development of Africa before
the denuding and devastating encounter with Europe and the inau¬
guration of a systematic underdevelopment of the continent. Rodney
found in African history ample solid evidence to negate the misrep¬
resentations of Eurocentric scholarship. Underscoring the'functional
use of African history, Rodney declared, “an overall view of ancient
African civilizations and ancient African culture is required to ex¬
punge the myths about the African past, which linger in the minds of
black people everywhere. This is the main revolutionary function of
African history in our hemisphere.”57
 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA 87

The instrumentalist tradition of using African history as the medi¬

um of developing and sustaining a revolutionary liberation pedagogy
intensified and by the mid-1980s had developed into the Afrocentric
paradigm, characterized by bold and combative scholarship, predi¬
cated on the color line.

Afrocentricity

The Afrocentric perspective, perhaps the most forceful today and pre¬
mised on centering Africa as the foundation of black Diaspora epis¬
temology, developed logically from the instrumentalist tradition. Its
roots can be traced to the efforts of such nineteenth-century “intel¬
lectuals” as Pennington, Delany, and Williams, down to the tradition
of Du Bois and Woodson. Although the terminology is twentieth-
century, its fundamental tenets surfaced much earlier. By the second
half of the twentieth century, however, it had become more structured
and ideological. This ideological character reflected a conviction that
America was irredeemably racist. Afrocentric scholars urged blacks to
turn to Africa and recapture their lost identity. Afrocentricity became
even more combative and ideological in the 1980s under the Reagan
counter-civil rights policies. Among its leading scholars today who
have published extensively in the field and endeavored to popularize
a rehabilitationist and redemptionist African historical and cultural
studies as a means of black development and mental and psychologi¬
cal emancipation are Molefi Asante, Maulana Karenga, Nairn Akbar,
Marimba Ani, the late John Henrik Clarke, and Chancellor Williams.
These scholars reject Eurocentric construction of knowledge and what
many perceived as the universalistic thrust of western epistemology.
Afrocentricity portrays Africans as historical actors and Africa as
the basis of self-definition and identity for blacks in Diaspora. Afro¬
centricity uses African history and values, indeed the entire African
cosmology, as the foundation of black Diaspora identity and the basis
of self-affirmation.58 This paradigm has become a weapon of defense
against what is perceived as an ever-threatening and debilitating can¬
cer of Eurocentrism. Premised on a Manichean conception of reality
as a theatre of unending cultural wars between the races, Afrocen¬
tricity offers re-Africanization to all blacks as the only viable weapon
of resistance, survival, and eventual triumph. As "Africans who have
lived amidst Europeans on the land of the ancestors of the Native
Americans,” and have in consequence been exploited materially and
88 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA

psychologically, and whose historical heritage has been misrepresent¬

ed and maligned, Asante offered black Americans strong grounding
or centering in African history as the foundation for liberation from
Euro-American cultural and political domination and exploitation.
Reestablishing connections with Africa became for blacks an essential
step toward empowerment.59 The attempt to claim universality for the
African worldview is a critical dimension of this paradigm. This is a
curious contention given the vehement rejection of the universalistic
claims of Eurocentric cosmology. For example, Nairn Akbar, a psy¬
chologist and leading Afrocentric scholar, advocates making the Afri¬
can worldview the foundation for a liberation social science pedagogy.
Such attributes of African cosmology as emotionalism, esoterism,
irrationality, and the unity of body and spirit are, according to him,
capable of infusing education with a humane and moral imperative.
When applied as the foundation of scholarship, the African worldview
becomes an instrument for eradicating the evil consequences of the
materialist and objectivist inclinations of positivist cosmology—such
evil consequences as slavery and racism.60
Afrocentric scholarship is heavily reliant on Africa as its founda¬
tion for reversing the debilitating impact of Eurocentric education on
blacks. Africa provided blacks with a rich antiquity of history, cul¬
ture, and civilizations, the very basis of identity, and a rallying point
for group/corporate initiatives against Eurocentric emasculation.
Afrocentricity attracted scholarly interest and has acquired quite a
following within black communities because it spoke directly to the
frustrations and alienation of blacks. It mirrors the feeling that blacks
have of alienation from, and rejection by, mainstream America. It un¬
derscores a deeply felt conviction that the interests and aspirations of
blacks are not central to or represented by the dominant white society
and government. The conservative slant in contemporary American
politics, coupled with attacks on and erosion of the gains of the civil
rights movement and affirmative action reinforced black alienation.
Neither does the international global context offer any solace.
Since the negation of African civilization and culture had served to
justify the subordination and alienation of blacks, it was deemed im¬
perative to contest vigorously those negative portraits and images in
order to affirm, albeit philosophically and psychologically, an African
identity and homeland. Reversing the centuries-old “tragic conception
of their history” was critical to blacks’ sense of worth and self-esteem.
Afrocentric scholars are convinced that blacks could never benefit
 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA 89

from American identity. In Afrocentric epistemology, to be both black

and American seem contradictory and antagonistic. Afrocentrists
portray America as an arena of conflict between two irreconcilable
worldviews, each propelled by distinct values, products of the age-old
contest over history, civilization, and culture. Afrocentric historiog¬
raphy, therefore, emerged primarily to challenge claims of European
preeminence in history, civilization, morality, and culture. Afrocentric
scholars are determined to bring this battle over history and civiliza¬
tion to its resolution in the affirmation of Africa’s superiority. They ad¬
vanced what some critics perceive as an Afrocentric universal history
that situates Africa at the apex of global historical development. They
then coupled this history with a mythic construction of identity for
blacks that completely ignored the historical transformation of almost
four centuries of New World enculturation.61
Asante believes that to undo the psychological damage of Eurocen¬
tric miseducation, black education must be grounded in a philosophy
that affirms blacks as “active historical agents.” This is the underlying
rationale of Afrocentrism—a paradigm that offers blacks an empow¬
ering and regenerative consciousness of history. To do this effectively,
the Afrocentric scholar must contest claim of European superiority
and offer blacks an ennobling version of history. Like nineteenth-cen¬
tury black leaders, modern Afrocentrists reject the contention that
Africa had no history and civilization. They focus on two key chal¬
lenges. First, reconstructing and validating a homeland and history.
Second, affirming a countervailing African protest identity. The Af¬
rican identity, as black psychologist Amos Wilson acknowledged, is
essentially and functionally a protest identity. To be African is to em¬
body and reflect anti-European ethos.
The late Senegalese scholar Cheikh Anta Diop is the philosophical
godfather of Afrocentrism. His writings serve as reference points for
the genre. He focused his research on solidifying the utility of ancient
Egypt to Afrocentric historiography. He advanced not only Negroid
origin of ancient Egyptian civilization but also its influence on classi¬
cal Greece. Blacks needed Egypt to provide the same foundation and
reference point that the classical Greco-Roman world provided for
Europe. According to Diop, “For us the return to Egypt in all fields is
a necessary condition to reconcile African civilization with history, to
be able to build a body of human sciences and to renew African cul¬
ture ... a look toward ancient Egypt is the best way of conceiving and
building our cultural future.”62 Agreeing with Diop’s contention, As-
90 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA

ante writes, “Afrocentrism reestablishes the centrality of the ancient

Kemetic (Egyptian) civilization and the Nile Valley cultural complex
as points of reference for an African perspective in much the same
way as Greece and Rome serve as reference points for the Western
world.”63 Asante presents ancient Egyptian civilization as the founda¬
tion of Africa’s classical civilization and the progenitor of European
civilization. By focusing on ancient Egypt, blacks, Amos Wilson ar¬
gued, “are trying to take back what European historiography has sto¬
len, completely falsified, to erase the new false identities it placed on
the Afrikan Egyptian people.”64
Afrocentric scholars such as Molefi Asante, Marimba Ani, Nairn
Akbar, Maulana Karenga, and the late John Henrik Clarke focus on
proving three key facts: the antiquity of history and civilization in Af¬
rica, the superiority and influence of African civilization over Europe¬
an, and the universality of the African worldview. In this respect, they
turned historiography on its head, replacing Eurocentric diffusionist
theory with an Afrocentric one. Africa, instead of Europe, became the
epic center of world civilization. Africa’s pride, ancient Egypt, influ¬
enced European civilization, through its nurturing of Greek science
and philosophy. Hence, the Greeks, considered progenitors of west¬
ern civilization, were supposed to have studied in and borrowed copi¬
ously from ancient Egypt.65 The exaltation of Greek science and phi¬
losophy without due acknowledgment of Egyptian influence led many
Afrocentrists to invoke the theory of the “stolen legacy.” This theory
is discussed in detail in George G. M. James’s Stolen Legacy (1954), a
book that has become a standard text of the Afrocentric genre. The
underlying purpose of the Stolen Legacy, as the author contends, is
“an attempt to show that the true authors of Greek philosophy were
not the Greeks; but the people of North Africa, commonly called the
Egyptians; and the praise and honor falsely given to the Greeks for
centuries belong to the people of North Africa, and therefore to the
African continent. Consequently, this theft of the African legacy by
the Greeks led to the erroneous world opinion that the African con¬
tinent has made no contribution to civilization, and that its people
are naturally backward.”66 The denial, or deemphasizing, o'f Egyptian
influence on Greece, the proclamation of European superiority, and
the corresponding devaluation of African history and civilization have
compelled Afrocentrists to advance the “stolen legacy” thesis, depict¬
ing Western civilization as the product of “stolen” ancient Egyptian
and African legacies. The Alexandrian conquest of Egypt is identified
 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA 91

as a key point in this theft and pillage. Leading Greek philosophers al¬
legedly accompanied Alexander on his rampage of Egypt and pillaged
the ancient libraries of the Egyptian temples.67
The instrumentalist and utilitarian underpinnings of history man¬
dated Afrocentric mythologizing. To strengthen their case, many
Afrocentrists found it necessary to mythologize and deny historical
facts. For example, some Afrocentric scholars claim complete immu¬
nity from the acculturation process, especially as it impacts identity.
Du Bois had proclaimed the black American as a product of dual cul¬
tural and identity experiences.68 Du Bois’s contention is applauded by
many as a perceptive and more accurate reflection of the historical
reality. Afrocentrists, however, disagree. Anxious to deny any lasting
metropolitan influence on blacks, they contest Du Bois’s duality para¬
digm, proclaiming instead the permanence and immutability of the
African identity. Asante, for example, insists he was never afflicted by
any consciousness of double identity. Contesting the Du Boisean du¬
ality, Asante affirms, "1 was never affected by the Du Boisean double¬
consciousness. I never felt ‘two warring souls in one dark body’ nor
did I experience a conflict over my identity.”69 The true Afrocentrist,
therefore, according to him, retains his/her Africanness intact. Afro-
centricity thus constructs an ahistorical identity as a weapon of em¬
powerment, to fill a void created by the denial of American identity.
According to Yaacov Shavit, a major problem of Afrocentric univer¬
sal history is the attempt to split the duality of the black American,
to magnify one dimension of identity (African) and deny the other
(American).70 By mythologizing identity, Afrocentrists were able to
impose a unified identity on all black people, ignoring the multiple,
complex historical and cultural experiences. A detailed and exhaus¬
tive analysis of the problematic of Afrocentric identity is provided in
the next chapter.
By exalting ancient Egypt, Afrocentrists continue a tradition that
nineteenth-century blacks had inaugurated. The novelty of Afrocen-
tricity, however, lies in its ethnocentric and cultural jingoistic over¬
tone, a trait that has provoked the most criticisms. To enhance black
self-esteem, Afrocentrists advanced a monolithic construction of
black Diaspora identity, a romanticized view of the African past (pre-
European), a past of harmony, of advanced cultural and civilizational
achievements. They depict Africa as a continent inhabited by people
who are morally and ethically superior to all others. In his scathing
criticism of Afrocentrism, Shavit rightly observes that Afrocentrists
92 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA

use “strategies of cultural self-affirmation to offset a sense of collec¬

tive inferiority by boosting national self-esteem or express a sense of
collective superiority.”71 But the Afrocentric ideology was not directed
solely at enhancing black self-esteem but also at eroding the cultural
arrogance of whites. Thus, Afrocentric historiography advances black
superiority and produces some of the most ridiculous theories in
history. A case is point is Leonard Jeffries’s dichotomy between the
superior Sun (Africans) people and the inferior Ice (whites) people!71
Thankfully, this theory has crawled quietly into obscurity. At the root
of Afrocentric mythology, Shavit contends, is the desire for antiq¬
uity to establish originality and distinctiveness, a desire undoubtedly
driven by the denial of African antiquity. A claim to antiquity, Shavit
concludes, is “an important tool in a vanquished nation’s struggle for
pride, dignity and status.”73
Egypt provided Afrocentrists with the basis for affirming antiq¬
uity. But Egypt became the basis not only of proclaiming the gene¬
sis and evolution of culture in Africa but also of constructing what
Shavit terms a grand scale universal history. Afrocentrists use Egypt
to affirm the diffusion of African culture both “among black and non¬
black people around the globe.”74 "Ancient Egyptian history was thus
searched,” he suggests, “in the hope of finding within it the origins of a
black centered philosophy, a foundation for group unity and identity, a
source of resistance to alien domination, and a basis for independence
and creativity.” This resulted in the postulation of what Shavit called
"a Greek dependency theory,” the logic of which reads thus: If Greece
is the alma mater of western culture, and if it could be proven that
Greek culture was heavily influenced by Egypt, then, it could be ar¬
gued that western civilization was a direct and legitimate descendant
of non-whites. In Afrocentric historiography, Egypt is represented as
the cradle of science, philosophy, and mathematics, the place to which
Greek scholars trooped to study, before returning to shape western
civilization.75
Historian Clarence Walker attributes Afrocentric celebration of
ancient Egypt as the primal site of world civilization to a problematic
conflation of two concepts—life and civilization. The claim that life
began in Africa is often mistaken for another—that civilization began
in Africa. The truth of the former, Walker suggests, did not necessarily
establish the latter. He offers the possibility that civilization could have
had multiple origins. Furthermore, Walker seriously questions the
Negroid construction of ancient Egyptian civilization. Afrocentrists,
 UTILIZATIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICA 93

he argues, tend to read too much of racial essentialism into ancient

Egypt. Walker proffers a much more complex origin of ancient Egyp¬
tian civilization, one that includes Mediterranean and Asia Minor
influences. He accuses Afrocentrists of “a selective reading of Egyp¬
tian cultural production as biological,” and applying modern racial
categories to a context (ancient Egypt) that did not recognize those
categories. These five paradigms and perspectives exemplify, reflect,
and nurtured the seeds of racial/cultural essentialism. Africa and ele¬
ments of African realities enabled blacks to construct a countervailing
essentialist worldview as a platform of struggle.76
3

Essentialist Construction of Identity

and Pan-Africanism

In July 1992, at a symposium organized by the African Students Union

of Tulane University, a black American male asked the panelists, all of
them Africans, to suggest how black Americans and Africans could
best develop and sustain a viable Pan-African relationship as a strategy
against threats posed by the political and cultural dominance of white
Americans and Europeans. In April 1993, the Pan-African Movement
U.S.A. (PAMUSA) held its annual convention in Atlanta, Georgia. The
conference focused attention on the necessity and strategies for re¬
vamping Pan-Africanism. In December 1993, the epochal Seventh Pan-
African Congress took place in Kampala, Uganda. Delegates from the
United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean met with Africans to
deliberate on how to develop and sustain a strong Pan-African con¬
nection. In the last two decades, delegations of black Americans have
met on several occasions with African leaders to discuss modalities
for mutual cooperation and struggle. The most recent took place in
December 2006 in Lagos, Nigeria. What was tagged “The Black Heri¬
tage Summit” “brought together intellectuals and academics as well as
creative and cultural entrepreneurs, in a three-day meeting designed
to build bridges of understanding and create a sustainable platform
for cooperation and collaboration between Africans on the continent
and in the Diaspora.”1 A Pan-African Movement Pre-Summit meeting
took place on May 5, 2007, at Howard University, Washington, D.C.
This pre-summit was in preparation for the subsequent Pan-African
Movement (PAM) Summit in Kingston, Jamaica, July 11-18, 2007. The
goal of the Jamaica summit was to forge a strong Diaspora union and
create an “all African government in Africa as a mandate' of Pan-Af¬
ricanism." Representatives of various Pan-African organizations and
communities, including the UNIA, the Rastafari Movement, Repub¬
lic of New Africa (RNA), and the All African Peoples Revolutionary
Party (AAPRP), met at Howard University to support the creation of
an Afrikan Diaspora Union (ADU) as “historic and sacred mission to
 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N-A F RICA N IS M 95

re-integrate former enslaved Africans as part of a continental union

of Africans." Warning against what he termed “a new scramble for Af¬
rica,” in his opening address, Elombe Brath urged creation of a strong
Diaspora union to protect mutual interests of Africans and blacks in
Diaspora and prevent recolonization.2
Radical cultural-nationalists bemoan what they perceive as the lack
of unity among black Americans and Africans, owing in large part,
they suggest, to the lack of sufficient awareness and appreciation of
shared historical experiences, cultural values, and interests. Most
critically, they lament the failure of black Americans and Africans to
acknowledge the commonality of their problems and challenges. Not
only do Africans and black Americans share historical ties, common
interests, and identity, but also, according to the cultural-nationalists,
they confront common problems emanating largely from a common
foe—Euro-Americans.3 This is referred to generally as the Eurocen¬
tric threat, a threat of cultural alienation, annihilation, and perpetual
domination. This threat supposedly embraces every facet of black
American and African lives—cultural, social, economic, and political.
Eurocentrism is depicted as an ideology designed to create a world
order of white supremacy, sustained by the pains, miseries, and sub¬
ordination of blacks, and Pan-Africanism is proposed as the tool for
dealing with this threat. As Dona Marimba Richards implores, “We
must retrieve and create our own myths. We must turn our spiritual¬
ity, our ethos, our Africanness into a political tool. We must harness
the energies that lie dormant and diffused throughout Pan-Africa, and
forge them into a powerful political force for liberation and self-deter¬
mination.”4 Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristics of Euro¬
centrism are its glamorization of its own historical heritage and expe¬
riences and its negation of the historicity of blacks, inducing in many
blacks the loss of a sense of history, cultural heritage, and identity,
rendering them vulnerable to Euro-American cultural manipulation
and domination.5 Pan-Africanism emphasizes the unity of Africans
and blacks in Diaspora in a joint struggle, a struggle ordained by the
pains of the deep historical wounds inflicted by slavery, racism, co¬
lonialism, and neocolonialism. Memories and knowledge of the suc¬
cess of an earlier cooperation between Africans and Diaspora blacks,
a cooperation that was instrumental to the dismantling of colonialism
have reinforced faith in Pan-Africanism. Many black Americans today
associate progress with reactivation of the old Pan-African coopera¬
tion. According to this conviction, in combination, Africans and black
96 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PAN-AFRICANISM

Americans would more effectively withstand the hegemonic threat of

Euro-Americans in the United States and vestiges of neocolonialism
and neoimperialism in Africa.
The Pan-African and identity paradigms are most forcefully ex¬
pounded and defended in Afrocentricity—the intellectual arm of
the cultural-nationalist and politico-nationalist struggles within the
American university system. According to Molefi Asante, a leading
Afrocentric scholar, Africans and blacks in Diaspora share a “collective
consciousness,” one that has not been impacted by history of separa¬
tion. Furthermore, he insists, “We have one African Cultural System
manifested in diversities . . . We respond to the same rhythms of the
universe, the same cosmological sensibilities, the same general histor¬
ical reality as the African descended people ... All African people par¬
ticipate in the African Cultural System.” Invoking Maulana Karenga,
Asante contends, “Our Africanity is our ultimate reality.” Furthermore,
he constructs a strong “Pan-African” world based on the essential Af-
ricanness of blacks in America. He rejects any notion of difference
between continental Africans and blacks in America. As he reasoned,
“There are some people around who argue that Africans and African-
Americans have nothing in common but the color of their skin. This is
not merely an error, it is nonsense. There exists an emotional, cultural,
psychological connection between this people that spans the ocean
and the separate existence ... we are not African-Americans without
Africanity; we are an African people, a new ethnic to be sure, a com¬
posite of many ancient people, Asante, Efik, Serere, Touculur, Mande,
Wolof, Angola, Hausa, Ibo, Yoruba, Dahomean, etc.”6 W. D. Wright's
description of the “Pan-African” sweep of Afrocentric essentialism is
worth quoting at length:

Africa, for Asante and the Africancentrists, is not simply the African con¬
tinent. It is wherever there are what they describe as black African people,
which would apply to the aborigines of Australia, the black people of the Fiji
Islands, New Guinea, and Hawaii and it would apply to the black people in
India, the Middle East, Africa, and any place in the Western Hemisphere.
Thus, for Asante and other Africancentrists "place”, “location”, “context”,
“African centrality” of “African cultural centrality”—terms of the philoso¬
phy/methodology—have no boundaries, except what is called the "African
world”, which is global.7

As highlighted in the previous chapter, there are several problems

with the identity and Pan-African paradigms. The depiction of black
 ESSENTIAUST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N-A F RICA N IS M 97

Americans and Africans as one people united by cultural attributes

and historical experience is seriously flawed at the levels of both the¬
ory and practice. Can black Americans truly claim African identity?
Do black Americans and Africans really share common interests and
challenges? Have both been drawn together historically by shared ex¬
periences? In other words, has there always been a “Pan-African” tra¬
dition? If yes, how old? These are pertinent questions whose answers
compel a reconceptualization and reassessment of the historical or
traditional representation of the relationship and experiences of Af¬
ricans and black Americans, as well as a critical interrogation of the
Pan-African and identity contentions of Afrocentricity.
Afrocentricity emphasizes similarities in the historical and cultural
experiences of black Americans and Africans and implores both to
unite in the spirit of Pan-Africanism. Advocates of this Pan-African
strategy maintain that black Americans and Africans confront simi¬
lar problems and challenges—economic marginalization, political
domination, and cultural alienation in the United States; political in¬
stability, poverty, and neocolonialism in Africa—problems directly or
indirectly linked to Eurocentrism. Afrocentric scholars presume a cer¬
tain antiquity to Pan-Africanism and trace its roots to the nineteenth
century and beyond. They depict Pan-Africanism as a movement in¬
formed by a deep consciousness of mutuality—that black Americans
and Africans had always been drawn together by common interests
and that they had always stood together in furtherance of those inter¬
ests. The identity claim is a critical underpinning of the Pan-African
construct—the contention that Africans and blacks in Diaspora are
one people who share cultural (and, some even suggest, ethnic) attri¬
butes, centuries of separation notwithstanding. Undoubtedly, Asante
is a leading advocate of Afrocentric Pan-Africanism. His numerous
publications, especially the earlier ones written in the 1980s, testify to
the depth and strength of his faith in Pan-Africanism.8 Asante identi¬
fies Eurocentrism as a major threat to blacks in America. According
to him, this problem has been with blacks since the dawn of history
and has remained intractable in spite of emancipation and the gains
blacks accomplished through the decades. Eurocentrism remains a
potent threat to the cultural, social, economic, and political survival
of blacks.9 Eurocentrism has destroyed African culture, de-African-
ized the consciousness of blacks, retarded their economic and cul¬
tural development, and remains a potent threat to the cultural, social,
economic, and political existence of blacks. To combat this, Asante
and his ideological cohorts propose Afrocentricity, which he defines
98 ESSE N Tl A LI ST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N - A F RICA N IS M

as “a frame of reference wherein phenomena are viewed from the per¬

spective of the African person . . . (and which) seeks in every situa¬
tion the appropriate centrality of the African person.” This solution
entails strengthening black American knowledge and awareness of
African historical and cultural heritage by making Africa the foun¬
dation of black American epistemology. The objective is to instill in
blacks an awareness of their African identity and culture as a defensive
weapon against a pervasive and domineering Eurocentric worldview.
Afrocentricity involves resocialization designed to rid black American
consciousness of the “tragic conception” of their history, culture, and
heritage. It is supposed to bring blacks closer to Africa as they develop
in knowledge of Africa.10
There are three critical implications of Afrocentric epistemology.
First, the depiction of blacks in Diaspora as essentially African in iden¬
tity, culture, and ethnicity de-emphasizes the transformative nature
of the New World experience. Second, deep-seated alienation from,
and suspicion of, mainstream American society and its values justifies
rejection of the mainstream as essentially and inherently hegemon¬
ic, and consequently culturally antagonistic to the existential needs
of blacks. The third is the representation of Africa as the source and
foundation for a countervailing black epistemological and pedagogical
paradigm, perennially at odds with the mainstream. The Afrocentric
critique has thus far been built on two critical forces: race and culture.
The two represent the trajectory of the Afrocentric response, from
a Pan-African construction of race to a Pan-African construction of
culture. For long, race served as the defining and unifying construct.
Africans and people of African descent in the Diaspora supposedly
share racial identity. Blackness, the basis of oppression, became the
underpinning of identity and the framework for unity in a struggle
against a racially defined and equally monolithic Euro-American es¬
tablishment and world order. The color line became the defining and
distinguishing character of the black struggle in all its dimensions—
politics, economics, education, and culture. Race was also the medium
not only for understanding the nature of the challenges and struggles
of blacks but also for constructing an effective counteroffensive. The
racial line allowed for no consideration of neutrality. To be neutral in
this struggle was tantamount to identifying with the enemy and op¬
pressor.
Asante is not the sole proponent of the cultural-nationalist per¬
spective. Others, including Maulana Karenga, Na’im Akbar, Amos
 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N-A F RICA N IS M 99

Wilson, Dona Marimba, and the late Bobby Wright and John Henrik
Clarke, have all contributed to explicating and defending the Afrocen¬
tric perspective. In numerous articles and books, Karenga established
and defended the historicity of the African and black Diaspora expe¬
rience, and continues to contribute to scholarly discourse on issues
critical to the experience. His most enduring contribution, however,
lies in the area of culture. He is credited with founding Kwanza, which
has become a popular event among black Americans.11 Amos Wilson’s
scholarship strikes at the very heart of Eurocentric historiography, ex¬
posing its misinterpretations of, and damages to, the historical con¬
sciousness and heritage of blacks.12 Dona Marimba has equally been
critical of the influence of Eurocentric civilization. Her seminal work
Yurugu (1994) is a massive exposition of the hegemonic character of
the European worldview. She is also among the most ardent defend¬
ers of the identity paradigm.13 Psychologists Na’im Akbar and Bobby
Wright emphasize the denigrating and hegemonic effects of Eurocen¬
tric values on the mental and psychological balance of blacks.14 Some
Afrocentrists portray the late Vivian Gordon as perhaps the best rep¬
resentative of the Black Womanist perspective, a critique of feminism.
Though aware of the contributions of other black feminists such as
bell hooks, Alice Walker, and Patricia Hill Collins, who have also been
critical of the Afrocentric tendency to essentialize race to the neglect
of sex and class, Afrocentrists applaud the perspective advanced by
such Afrocentric critics of feminism as Vivian Gordon, Kariamu
Welsh Asante, and Dona Marimba.15 In fact, Gordon’s book Black
Women, Feminism, and Black Liberation: Which Way? (1991) remains
the reference source on the black womanist perspective for many Af¬
rocentric scholars and students. Gordon argues that black women and
white women had nothing in common besides gender, and that gender
oppression, however real, did not constitute a sufficient basis for black
women to cooperate with white women. In terms of interests and cul¬
ture, the two are incompatible, she insists. She denies that black wom¬
en had any business participating in feminism. Gordon characterizes
the location of gender at the core of the struggle as a ploy to hoodwink
black women into an engagement that would eventually result in cul¬
tural suicide. Regardless of how vocal white women are against gen¬
der discrimination, they constitute part of the white power structure
that has exploited, and continues to exploit, blacks. In other words,
white women constitute an arm of the white cultural war against all
blacks. As wives, sisters, and mothers, white women perform crucial
100 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N - A F RICA N IS M

functions in the inculcation and perpetuation of racist values and thus

perpetuate white cultural hegemony. Gordon consequently deems co¬
operation with white women dangerous for black women. Instead, she
advises black women to forge greater ties with their male counterparts
in the United States, and with African and Third World women with
whom they share common interests and challenges. Gordon’s Pan-
African paradigm, like that of Asante and other Afrocentric scholars,
advances a conspiratorial theory that discerns threat to blacks in con¬
spiracies allegedly concocted by “Others”—white Americans and Eu¬
ropeans.16
All the scholars cited above subscribe to, and defend, the Pan-
African and identity paradigms. They are intellectual Pan-Africanists
whose writings underline conflict, divergences, and discord between
two opposing worldviews, African and European. Asante, however,
remains the most vocal and accomplished defender of both para¬
digms. His spirited defense is encapsulated in the ideology of Afro-
centricity. As indicated, Afrocentricity developed as a response to the
intellectual challenges and perceived threat of a mainstream histori¬
ography that was deemed Eurocentric. It is premised on a reconstruc¬
tion of African history and the experience of peoples of African de¬
scent abroad with a view to debunking prevailing historical fallacies
and misrepresentations. Its ultimate objective is to build and enhance
black self-esteem and induce positive self-conception. Confronting,
combating, and debunking entrenched Eurocentric assertions and
values that have served to denigrate, objectify, and negate the black
historical experience is central to Afrocentric epistemology. Asante
has written articles, books, and pamphlets on virtually every aspects
of the black experience. His writings, along with those of other Afro¬
centric scholars, are critical and revisionist, reconstructing the Afri¬
can and black Diaspora experience from an “African perspective,” a
context that identifies Africans and blacks as historical actors, high¬
lighting the positive accomplishments and realities of their history.17
The entire Afrocentric paradigm is shaped by a strong faith in the po¬
tency of Pan-Africanism. Afrocentricity seeks to strengthen cultural
awareness and unity among blacks in the United States'and also to
infuse in them knowledge and appreciation of their historical identity
and heritage as a distinct group. It proposes Africa as the source of
self-definition, self-affirmation, and identity for blacks in the United
States and throughout the Diaspora. In essence, Afrocentricity iden¬
tifies African culture and values as the solid foundation upon which
 ESSENTIAUST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N-A F RICA N IS M 101

to build a strong resistance against the onslaught of Euro-American

cultural and political hegemony.18 Asante emphasizes "confraternity
and continuum” as the defining character of the relationship between
Africans and black Americans, a relationship he portrays as essen¬
tially and historically Pan-African. He conceives of Pan-Africanism
as “a political perspective and a political ideology as well as a social
theory. The one does not negate the other. Actually, when we speak of
the political dimension of the concept, we are also talking about how
Africans see themselves as social units.” Afrocentricity represents the
social expression of the Pan-African ideology. Its primary function is
to bring to fruition the “collective consciousness” that is the essence of
Pan-Africanism. The attainment of this Afrocentric consciousness by
blacks constitutes the foundation for the flowing of Pan-Africanism.
Asante stresses the importance of this collective consciousness. It is
the level at which Africans and blacks in Diaspora manifest “shared
commitment, fraternal reactions to assault on (their) humanity, col¬
lective awareness of (their) destiny.” This "Afrocentric state” combines
awareness with action. As he contends, “there can be no effective dis¬
cussion of a united front, joint action, a community of interests until
we come to good terms with collective consciousness, the elementary
doctrine of economic, political, and social action.”19
Thus, Pan-Africanism is a central component of the Afrocentric
paradigm. Afrocentrists are proud of their supposed state of mental
decolonization, a consciousness born of a radical revision and rein¬
terpretation of African and black history. The entire Afrocentric para¬
digm is geared toward the development and defense of a new histo¬
riography focused on Africa, one that articulates a history more in
sync with the African and black experience. As discussed in the last
chapter, in Afrocentric historiography, Kemetic Egypt serves as the
cornerstone of African and indeed, via Greece, world history. This his¬
tory is definitely positive and capable of enhancing black self-esteem.
The glorious and accomplished character of the African historical past
is a dominant theme in Asante’s writings. Asante is not just defending
the historicity of the African and black experience, but, in terms of
heritage, accomplishments, and contributions to humanity’s growth,
he situates that experience at par with, if not above, Western/Europe¬
an civilization. Most significantly, his works underscore the depth and
ubiquitous nature of the Pan-African ethos; however, as many critiques
have pointed out, though psychologically therapeutic, such history is
essentially bad history, steeped in myth-making and dubious claims of
102 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N-A F RICA N IS M

originality.20 Asante’s “African perspective” sustains a romanticized,

abstract, and idealized Africa and emphasizes a nonexistent harmony
and consensus. There is emphasis on glorious accomplishments while
neglecting to deal critically with the contradictions and ambivalence.
Many scholars have criticized the Afrocentric rendition of African and
black history, particularly its tendency to romanticize and misrepre¬
sent the African and black American past, and to elevate ideology over
scholarship.21 As Sidney Lemelle contends, “Anyone who has seriously
studied African history . . . realizes that a multitude of attitudes and
cosmologies produced many African cultures—none of which were
‘universal.’ Africa is made up of people from different ethnic, religious,
and linguistic groupings.”22 In correcting historical fallacies, therefore,
Afrocentric historicism tends to assert pseudohistorical claims, create
myths, and engage in a reductionism that oversimplifies the complex¬
ity of the African and black Diaspora experiences. The Pan-African
and identity constructs represent two critical areas of such oversim¬
plification and reductionism. Afrocentric writers and scholars have a
tendency to view Pan-Africanism, rather uncritically, as a movement
that reflected the inherent unity and harmony of Africa and black
Diaspora relationship. Afrocentric Pan-Africanism rests on the pre¬
sumption of a harmonious historical relationship unifying Africans
and Diaspora blacks. Both supposedly share an unbroken chain of his¬
tory, culture, and identity. A survey of the historical development of
that relationship is pertinent in order to ascertain the profundity and
authenticity of the Pan-African and identity paradigms as defined and
defended in Afrocentric historiography.
There is no consensus on the definition of Pan-Africanism. Some
scholars portray it as essentially a politico-nationalist phenomenon
contrived to affect the unity of Africans and blacks in Diaspora in a
common struggle for mutual advancement and redemption. Others
emphasize its cultural dimension, portraying it as the expression of a
trans-Atlantic black cultural unity. There is agreement, however, on
several of its essential elements. P. Olisanwuche Esedebe identifies the
following essential attributes: the notion of Africa as a homeland for
persons of African descent, solidarity among Africans and peoples
of the African Diaspora, belief in a distinct African personality, re¬
habilitation of Africa’s past, pride in African culture, and the hope of
a united and glorious African future. He defines Pan-Africanism as
“a political and cultural phenomenon that regards Africa, Africans,
and African descendants abroad as a unit. It seeks to regenerate and
 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N-A F RIC A N IS M 103

unify Africa and promote a feeling of oneness among the people of

the African world. It glorifies the African past and inculcates pride
in African values.”23 The notion of shared identity between blacks in
Diaspora and Africans and efforts toward mutual upliftment, devel¬
opment, and defense of mutual interest are at the heart of Pan-Afri¬
canism. The contention that blacks in Diaspora and Africans share
historical experiences and ought to unite in the face of compelling
and overwhelming adversity is historically rooted. As this study has
shown, from the very dawn of the black American experience, blacks
had nursed and nurtured this feeling, frequently invoking African val¬
ues and institutions in defense of their struggles. In the nineteenth
century, free blacks in cities such as New York, Boston, and Philadel¬
phia frequently invoked African values in their struggle for survival.
Many were propelled by the feeling of affinity with Africans to ad¬
vocate programs for mutual elevation. Pioneers of this “Pan-African”
tradition included Paul Cuffee, and Lott Cary, whose contributions
are discussed in chapter 2. Both men expressed interests in helping to
redeem Africa from poverty and moral degradation. As demonstrated
in chapter 2, Cuffee was one of the earliest to draw a linkage between
the experience of black Americans and Africans. In his estimation,
blacks, regardless of geographical location, could not hope for mean¬
ingful advancement unless and until Africa was developed. He urged
black Americans to engage in partnership with philanthropists and
governments in the United States and Britain for the development of
Africa.24 Cary also took up the cause of Africa, insisting that black
Americans had a responsibility to contribute to the development of
the continent.25 Both men saw promise for the future of Africans and
black Americans in the encouragement of colonization and commerce
in Africa. They invoked the African linkage as a means of nurturing
a sense of responsibility toward Africa among black Americans and
inspiring a commitment to the development of the continent.
Other blacks emphasized the African connection as a means of
generating a collective consciousness among blacks; a conscious¬
ness considered crucial to group survival in a hostile environment.
One such was David Walker, who is acclaimed by some as the father
of black nationalist theory. His Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the
World (1829) has been described as one of the earliest articulations of
Pan-African consciousness among black Americans.26 Walker wrote
the book not only as a critique of slavery and racism but also to inspire
a collective sense of obligation and responsibility among blacks for
104 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N - A F RICA N IS M

mutual salvation. Other blacks, among the more enlightened and edu¬
cated, manifested their African consciousness by engaging the intel¬
lectual biases of their times—the denial and denigration of the black
and African historical past and heritage and the negation of the black
Diaspora historical contributions. This group included James W. C.
Pennington, William Wells Brown, William C. Nell, George Washing¬
ton Williams, and Martin Delany.
The second half of the nineteenth century was perhaps the most
critical phase in the development of the Pan-African consciousness.
Prompted by the elusive character of the American Dream, leading
blacks mobilized Pan-African consciousness and sought the realiza¬
tion of a new nationality and identity through cooperative endeavors
between Africans and black Americans. As discussed earlier, the height
of this Pan-African tradition came in the mid-nineteenth century with
the emigrationist tradition spearheaded by Martin Delany. Frustrated
by the persistence of racism, Delany began to advocate a return to
Africa and the development of a black and African nationality. From
1852 to the outbreak of the Civil War, he persistently advocated a new
nationality for blacks built on cooperation between blacks in Diaspora
and Africa, who supposedly confronted debilitating Eurocentric chal¬
lenges to their existence.27 Delany drew the racial boundary line, de¬
lineating the struggle as one between blacks and whites. Race was in
fact the basis of his Pan-African ideology. This is evidenced in his 1854
address before the emigration convention cited in the introduction
to this study. The “great issue . . . upon which must be disputed the
world’s destiny,” he opined, “will be a question of black and white.”28
As established, for much of the 1850s and early 1860s, Delany steered
the emigrationist and black nationality movement, along with such
other black nationalists as Henry H. Garnet, James Theodore Holly,
William H. Day, and M. H. Freeman. Their plan was to resettle a few
wealthy and enterprising free blacks in Africa who would develop a
strong economy patterned on the cotton-rich South. The success of
this economy, they hoped, would eventually undersell American cot¬
ton on the international market, rendering slavery uneconomical and
superfluous. Most critically, this nationality would serve as the ral¬
lying point for blacks throughout the world in their struggle against
domination and exploitation. Delany traveled to Africa in 1859 and
spent a little over a year visiting communities in Liberia, Sierra Leone,
and other parts of the west coast.29
 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N-A F RIC A N IS M 105

But as argued earlier, the outbreak of the Civil War unsettled Dela-
ny’s plans as he became seduced by the liberal and democratic promis¬
es of the War. The next phase of Pan-Africanism occurred in the 1880s
and 1890s, led by Henry Turner and Alexander Crummell. These na¬
tionalists advanced Pan-Africanism as the framework for construct¬
ing a powerful and successful African-Black Diaspora struggle. They
were all driven by the failure of the promises of the American Dream,
to which they had subscribed, and concern over the global advance
of racism and imperialism. Their contributions to black nationalism
and Pan-Africanism are discussed at length in previous chapters and
exhaustively elsewhere.30
A next major phase in the growth of Pan-Africanism coincided with
the emergence to prominence of Marcus Garvey in the early twenti¬
eth century. Garvey espoused a strong cultural-nationalist brand of
Pan-Africanism. He appealed to race and envisioned a glorious future
for blacks in Africa. The appeal to return to Africa generated a mas¬
sive response. Garvey offered a strong organizational base within his
UNIA. The promise of a future in an independent Africa was alluring
to a black American populace entrapped in a vicious circle of poverty,
violence, and despair. Like Delany and Turner, Garvey emphasized the
racial boundary line and expressed disdain and hatred for imperialism
and for European values and influences.31 Garveyism flowered within
the same historical epoch as other Pan-African traditions, most no¬
tably the Pan-African Congress Movement. As mentioned earlier,
Du Bois was part of the intellectual movement among blacks in the
early twentieth century with a strong Pan-African overtone—the
New Negro History Movement, a movement spearheaded by a “New
Negro,” an intellectual and dynamic personality, emboldened by the
resilience and entrenchment of racism to resist with the weapon of
history. There were determined efforts to rediscover the African heri¬
tage, to reaffirm its historicity and authenticity, and, more critically, to
define an identity.32 Du Bois emphasized the roles and contributions
of blacks in American society and challenged the hegemonic thrust of
American historical scholarship. Along with Carter G. Woodson and
members of the New Negro History Movement, Du Bois launched
a strong intellectual defense of the historical wealth, resources, and
heritage of blacks in Africa and abroad. Du Bois would later move
from his intellectual defense of African and black American history to
become a force in the evolution of Pan-Africanism as a movement.
106 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N-A F RICA N IS M

The Pan-African Congress tradition that began in 1900 (some trace

its origin to the late 1890s and beyond) achieved tremendous success
in harmonizing Diaspora blacks with Africans in a joint struggle for
mutual advancement against colonialism, racism, and imperialism.
Five Pan-African Congresses resulted from this tradition, spanning
the period from 1900 to 1945. These congresses were organized by
representatives of Africans and Diaspora blacks including Du Bois,
Henry Sylvester Williams, Edward Wilmot Blyden, George Padmore,
Kwame Nkrumah, and J. E. Casely-Hayford. They were all drawn to¬
gether by the consolidation of colonialism and the global trajectories
of imperialism and racism. Shared experiences and the conviction
that all blacks confronted similar problems shaped the deliberations
of the congresses.33 After the Fifth Congress in 1945* no congress was
held until the Sixth in 1974 in Tanzania.
This postcolonial congress revealed the growing complexity of the
Pan-African movement. Though the common enemy (and rallying
point), colonialism, was politically dead, it was clear to some that a
new foe had emerged. A controversy ensued between two perspec¬
tives, one defended by an American delegate, the other, a Marxist per¬
spective advocated by Walter Rodney. The black American delegation
came to defend a race agenda and platform, insisting that Africans and
Diaspora blacks confronted similar challenges emanating from rac¬
ism. According to a spokesman, “There is nothing metaphysical about
defining the white race as the traditional enemy of the black race.”34
Walter Rodney, a West Indian who had studied African history at the
University of London, and was then lecturing at the University of Dar
es Salaam, in Tanzania, had profound knowledge of, and familiarity
with, the crises of African political economy and leadership. Rod¬
ney was a Pan-Africanist of a completely different ilk. He envisioned
Pan-Africanism “not as a utopian blueprint of a priori racial unity,
but rather as the means of forging empirical criteria for assessing
the social bases of contemporary African and Caribbean states and
the function of their structural integration within the world capital¬
ist system.” Rodney warned of the pitfalls of “romantic visions” about
contemporary Africa. In stern terms, he declared, “We fiave allowed
illusions to take the place of serious analysis of what actual struggles
are taking place on the African continent; what social forces are repre¬
sented in the government and what is the actual shape of society.” For
Rodney, therefore, Pan-Africanism “was a critical tool for analyzing
revolutionary new forms for genuine African liberation.” It ought to
 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND P A N - A F RIC A N IS M 107

be directed not solely at some external foe but also at the neocolonial
and domestic exploiters and perpetrators of the moral and political
decadence that plagued Africa.35 For Pan-Africanism to be effective,
Rodney insisted, it had to move beyond race to class analysis. Con¬
sequently, Rodney advocated a Marxist perspective or class analysis
in opposition to the racial perspective proposed by the American
delegation. He wanted Pan-Africanism directed against the exploiter
class, whoever exploited blacks and Africans and circumscribed their
opportunities, regardless of race or color, both within Africa (that is,
indigenous exploiters) and outside.36
A radical divergence on the definition of the basis of Pan-Africanism
also surfaced in the deliberations of the Seventh Congress in Kampala
in 1993. Regardless of the controversial, and increasingly complex,
character of Pan-Africanism, the congress movement did underline
the pervasiveness of the feeling of oneness unifying Diaspora blacks
and Africans. The conviction of shared history, culture, and heritage
supposedly joined the two in the congress tradition. The tradition it¬
self activated the nationalist impulse and movements that eventually
toppled colonialism in Africa and other parts of the world. This suc¬
cess had profound impact on the civil rights movement in the United
States. As argued above, activists such as Malcolm X and Stokely Car¬
michael advocated "Pan-Africanizing" of the black American struggle.
Malcolm saw Pan-Africanism as a means of injecting strength and vi¬
tality into a movement that was becoming increasingly localized and
subverted within the United States. For Malcolm, unity between Af¬
rica and black America was needed for mutual development and re¬
demption.37 For Stokely Carmichael, Pan-Africanism was the “highest
expression of Black Power.” He urged black Americans to unite with
Africans for greater strength and mutual liberation. Underlining the
centrality of Africa, he declared, “We must make Africa our prior¬
ity. We must deal clearly now with Africa and begin to support the
movement for liberation on the continent.”38 There is no doubt there¬
fore that a strong Pan-African consciousness pervaded the outlook
of blacks in the Diaspora. Regardless of the harsh realities they con¬
fronted, black Americans did not forget their African ancestry. This
Pan-African consciousness, however, remained “apolitical” and did
not assume the character of an ideologically driven movement until
the twentieth century.39
A critical examination of the history of Pan-Africanism, particu¬
larly of the strategies devised by leading black American nationalists
108 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PAN-AFRICANISM

for implementing the Pan-African ideal, reveals a deep cultural dis¬

tance and alienation from Africa—a consequence, no doubt, of the
acculturation process in the New World. There existed a critical cul¬
tural gulf between Africans and black Americans submerged beneath
the veneer of Pan-Africanism; a gulf that widened with the passage
of time. As indicated earlier, black leaders such as Paul Cuffee and
Lott Cary acknowledged their African roots, expressed concern for
Africa, and proposed schemes for the economic elevation of Africa.
Cary once declared himself “an African,” observing that “in this coun¬
try (i.e., the United States), however meritorious my conduct, and re¬
spectable my character, I cannot receive the credit due to either. I wish
to go to a country where I shall be estimated by my merits, not by my
complexion; and I feel bound to labor for my suffering race.” Here is a
strong affirmation of his Pan-African consciousness; however, as sug¬
gested above, just before his trip to Africa, Cary delivered a farewell
sermon at the First Baptist Church in Richmond in which he described
his mission as a civilizing one, and expressed fear of finding “a grave
. . . among the savage men ... or wild beasts” that inhabit Africa.40
These are loud echoes of the prevailing racist perceptions of Africa.
Paul Cuffee also dedicated himself to the redemption of Africa. His
ultimate objective was to establish a colony in Africa for the settle¬
ment of black Americans with a view to abolishing slavery, explor¬
ing Africa, and exposing Africans to civilized life. Though both men
expressed pride in their African ancestry and felt a genuine desire to
initiate contacts between black Americans and Africans, Cuffee and
Cary also imbibed the prevailing paternalistic and racist culture and
worldview that later unleashed the colonization impulse. However
forceful their proclamation of interest in, sympathy for, and identity
with Africa, these pioneer “Pan-Africanists” were equally products of
a particular historical epoch, and their ideas reflected the prevailing
cultural biases of that epoch.
From the birth of organized abolitionism in the early nineteenth
century to the present, Africa had always served black Americans
as a basis for articulating identity and inspiration in the struggle for
freedom and survival. The tendency by Afrocentric scholars to inject
some mutuality, or consensual ethos, into the historical relationship
of Africans and blacks in Diaspora, however, misrepresents the reality.
Such a tendency ignores the complexity of the relationship. A criti¬
cal look at the crucial nineteenth century will illuminate the contra¬
dictions within black American nationalist and Pan-African thought.
 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N-A F RIC A N IS M 109

While Diaspora blacks espoused Pan-African ideals and expressed a

desire to identify with Africans, their activities betrayed their cultural
alienation from Africa. Their expression of cultural identity was un¬
ambiguously Eurocentric; they sought to shape Africa according to
the images of Europeans.
By the second half of the nineteenth century, black American na¬
tionalism had entered its “golden age," or what Wilson Moses calls the
“classical age,” a period characterized by the desire to create a black
or African nationality outside the United States.41 This emigrationist
ethos, as Theodore Draper aptly noted, resulted from frustration over
failure to achieve American nationality.42 Emigrationists felt alienated
from the United States. In very strong terms, the “militant” national¬
ists of the epoch rejected America and turned to Africa for the con¬
struction of an identity and nationality they had been denied. They
expected this new nationality to function as the bulwark against a per¬
vasive and ever-threatening Euro-American force. Given the depth of
frustration and alienation from white Americans and European values
and civilization, and the force and vehemence with which they de¬
fined their nationalist platform, it seems logical to expect an equally
forceful and sustained declaration of identity and cooperation with
Africa. Curiously, this Pan-African relationship did not materialize.
As indicated above, all the leading black American nationalists of the
classical epoch—Martin Delany, Alexander Crummell, and Henry
McNeal Turner—began on a solid Pan-African theoretical platform
only to relapse into a state of historical amnesia. They, especially Dela¬
ny and Turner, set out on a strong anti-American and anti-European
note, and declared a determination to unite with Africans in order to
develop a black nationality. Both men drew the racial boundary line
clearly, identifying Euro-Americans as threats to black cultural, emo¬
tional, and physical survival. Almost immediately, however, the two
proceeded to contradict and subvert the goal they had defined. Instead
of cooperation with Africans, they embraced European platforms and
policies. They identified salvation for Africa with the programs of the
European powers and seemed to have forgotten the threats Europeans
and white Americans allegedly posed to blacks and Africans. In other
words, they immersed themselves in the rising tide of imperialism and
colonialism and embraced policies that were designed to effect the
cultural alienation of Africans, the rape and pillage of the economic
resources of the continent, and blatant violation and destruction of
African sovereignty and territorial integrity.43
110 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N - A F RIC A N IS M

Late nineteenth-century black American nationalism was there¬

fore not reflective of the true spirit of Pan-Africanism. The same
blacks who expressed sympathy for Africa and initially declared a
commitment to black and African development and liberation also
harbored strong hegemonic aspirations toward Africa. They com¬
bined black nationalism and Pan-African ideals with hegemonic and
imperialistic aspirations.44 It is plausible, therefore, to contend that
Pan-Africanism, if defined as a relationship of consanguinity, shared
values, and aspirations, is not historically rooted as Afrocentric essen-
tialists suggest. If Pan-Africanism is conceived not just as a statement
of intent, an expression of desires and goals, but more in terms of the
actual implantation of values and expressed desires and goals—that
is, the praxis, as opposed to the theoretical postulations—then what
nineteenth-century black nationalists espoused was Pan-African in
name only. In other words, Pan-Africanism as "a political and cultural
phenomenon that regards Africa, Africans, and African descendants
abroad as a unit... (and) seeks to regenerate and unify Africa and pro¬
mote a feeling of oneness among the people of the African world” is a
twentieth-century phenomenon, more appropriately reflected in the
congress movement. For example, the Seventh Pan-African Congress
affirmed "a global calling to advance the cause of liberation, freedom
and unity of African peoples at home and abroad,” underscoring a re¬
lationship of mutuality between two or more peoples drawn together
by shared experiences, and on the basis of which they construct a
common platform of struggle for change.45 Put succinctly, the concep¬
tion of Pan-Africanism as a movement to “create a common identity
between the Africans and Africans in Diaspora in order to achieve
unity of purpose” was purely idealistic and visionary until the con¬
gress tradition.46
It is in the congress movement that we observe serious attempts to
adhere faithfully to the mutuality ethos of Pan-Africanism. The most
critical attribute of Pan-Africanism is the conviction that the shared
cultural and historical experiences of Africans and Diaspora blacks
constitute the basis of mutual struggle for advancement and devel¬
opment. In the past, especially in the second half of the nineteenth
century, black American nationalists did not seriously consider indig¬
enous Africans partners with whom they could engage in a common
cause, their anti-European rhetoric notwithstanding. The notion of
mutuality was rarely sustained to any great depth during the nine¬
teenth century. Black American nationalism manifested a curious
 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PAN-AFRICAN ISM 111

cultural fluidity and constantly shifted between admiration for, and

revulsion against, both Africa and Euro-American cultural values. In
essence, there has to be a distinction between the rhetoric of mutual¬
ity and the reality of contradiction and alienation that informed black
American perception and treatment of Africa.
Acknowledgment of the role of black Americans in the ideological
justification of imperialism has serious implications for the Pan-Afri¬
canism that is at the heart of Afrocentricity. It is necessary to reexam¬
ine the conceptual framework and acknowledge the historical limita¬
tions of Pan-Africanism. Those who define Pan-Africanism as a move¬
ment predicated historically on mutuality, consensus, shared identity,
and interests between Africans and Diaspora blacks misrepresent and
possibly misunderstand its history. The actual practicalization of the
ideals of mutuality, shared identity, and cooperation between the two
is a twentieth-century phenomenon inspired by colonialism and the
global advance of imperialism. Colonialism made real unity and coop¬
eration between Africans and Diaspora blacks possible and sustained
that relationship through the anti-colonial phase to independence.
Colonialism energized Pan-Africanism and strengthened Du Bois,
George Padmore, Kwame Nkrumah, and others in their resolve and
struggle. They stuck together, Africans and blacks in Diaspora, regard¬
less of obvious cultural differences. In combination, they generated
the force that ultimately toppled colonialism.
The demise of colonialism unfortunately also marked the begin¬
ning of the end of Pan-Africanism as a movement. When statesmen
like Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania tried
to strengthen Pan-Africanism in the aftermath of independence, they
came up against the forces of parochialism and national sovereignty.
Other African countries, Nigeria included, refused to surrender their
newly won sovereignty for a continental supra-sovereignty. The forces
of regionalism, ethnocentrism, “tribalism,” religious nationalism, and
fanaticism have assumed preeminence in post-colonial Africa.
The belief in shared identity that some Diaspora blacks emphasized
was based largely on shared experiences, struggles, and challenges,
and not necessarily on shared ethnicity or culture. Black nationalists
did acknowledge cultural distance from Africa. Cuffee and Cary la¬
mented Africa’s cultural decadence. They were prompted by a convic¬
tion of cultural difference from, indeed superiority over, Africans to
initiate schemes designed to facilitate the economic development and
cultural transformation of the continent. Later generations of black
112 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N - A F RICA N IS M

nationalists would echo similar convictions, sometimes in a much

more forceful manner. The notion of shared identity, consequently,
derived purely from shared historical experience emanating from rac¬
ism, marginalization, and domination, and not from any deep con¬
viction of ethnic or cultural consanguinity. Even as they embraced
and uplifted Africa, and prioritized her problems and challenges,
nineteenth-century black American nationalists and Pan-Africanists
clearly did not regard Africans as culturally similar to themselves.
This fact played a greater role in shaping the ambivalence that black
American nationalists and Pan-Africanists of the epoch manifested
to a degree that rendered superfluous the whole notion of brotherli¬
ness and identity central to Pan-Africanism. The point is that Pan-Af-
ricanism was steeped in contradiction from its historical beginnings,
a contradiction that was perhaps most evident in the second half of
the nineteenth century. By the second decade of the twentieth cen¬
tury, however, the Congress movement, to a significant degree, had
minimized this contradiction. Africans became part of the Pan-Afri¬
can movement as partners of Diaspora blacks in ways the nineteenth-
century nationalist context and tradition did not permit. Although
they harbored equally condescending and Anglo-Saxon biases against
Africans, just as their nineteenth-century predecessors had, organiz¬
ers of the Congress movement refused to embrace imperialism or en¬
gage it in any compromising manner. Du Bois, George Padmore, and
Henry Sylvester Williams embraced Africans as partners in a common
struggle and were unequivocal in their condemnation of colonialism
and imperialism, their intellectual and ideological ambivalence not¬
withstanding.
As it developed in the twentieth century, Pan-Africanism priori¬
tized cooperation between Diaspora blacks and Africans for mutu¬
al advancement. The two were drawn together by consciousness of
shared historical experiences and identity. The combative outlook of
the twentieth-century Pan-Africanists was a reaction to the advance¬
ment and global trajectories of imperialism. The new breed of Pan-
Africanists were alarmed by the consolidation of colonialism in Africa
and the racial ramifications of imperialism. These developments has¬
tened the transition of Pan-Africanism from consciousness to move¬
ment. The movement, and expression of mutuality and struggle built
on the notion of brotherliness, was indeed positive.
Modern proponents of Pan-Africanism in the Diaspora, Afrocen-
trists and others, ignore the state of decline and decadence in Africa
 ESS E NT IA LI ST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PAN-AFRICANISM 113

that is obviously detrimental to Pan-Africanism. Holding meetings

and pronouncing lofty declarations are not enough if the foundations
for realistically achieving the objective are nonexistent. How can black
Americans and Africans revive Pan-Africanism as a weapon of strug¬
gle, survival, and advancement today if internally both are chronically
dysfunctional and divided on the notion of identity? Black American
advocates of Pan-Africanism ignore the existence of a conservative
stream that is vehemently opposed to Pan-Africanism, one that sees
black American problems as essentially internal and favors a solution
that is localized. Douglass Turner Ward, the black American play¬
wright, and Keith Richburg, former Washington Post Africa bureau
chief, are among the many members of this group. In essence, there
is a strong voice against essentializing the African connection even
among black Americans.
As this study has shown, Pan-Africanism did at some point possess
a noble history and goal, and manifested a certain degree of consisten¬
cy. Africans and Diaspora blacks did come together, drawn by shared
experience and a genuine sense of identity and mutual obligations to
forge a common struggle. This was the Congress tradition (1900-1945)
that accelerated the political decolonization of Africa. Indeed, this was
perhaps the zenith of the Pan-African tradition. Pan-Africanism has
since become a shadow of its former self. All talks about regenerating
it have been rhetorical and intellectual posturing devoid of any seri¬
ous attempts to grapple with its challenges and contradictions. The
contradictions are of two dimensions. The first relates to the internal
postcolonial realities of Africa. The second refers to the complex and
problematic character of the identity problem in Africa and among
black Americans. Though the movement was of Diaspora origin, Af¬
rica remained the centerpiece of Pan-Africanism. As Carmichael put
it, “Although Pan-Africanism has its origin among the Africans of the
Diaspora, Mother Africa is its sine qua non" He went on to argue,
“Africans on both sides of the Atlantic contributed immensely to the
ideology, but only in Africa will we see its fruition. Unity of Africa is
prerequisite for complete liberation of blacks" (emphasis added).47
Pan-Africanism is about Diaspora blacks rallying to the defense
of Africa. It is about continental Africans treating each other as one,
and most important, as human beings. It is also about Africans and
Diaspora blacks united in a common struggle. It is about a conscious¬
ness of identity, of Africans and peoples of African descent relating to
each other on the basis of mutual respect. More than anything else,
1 14 ESSENTIA LI ST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PAN-AFRICANISM

it is about conditions in Africa. A critical look at this African focus is

crucial if present calls for reactivating Pan-Africanism are to be taken
seriously. The African context is presently problematic, and until this
is addressed, attempts to reactivate Pan-Africanism would remain
essentially sloganeering. Pan-Africanism cannot be built on a trun¬
cated and dysfunctional foundation. A combination of circumstances
renders the notion of shared experiences between Africans and black
Americans problematic. Perpetrators of the ills plaguing Africa and
black America—racism, ethnocentrism, corruption, unemployment,
exploitation, marginalization, and poverty—are fundamentally differ¬
ent. There is no basis for unity on the grounds of shared problems,
challenges, and enemies as was the case in the past. The problems may
be similar, but the perpetrators, that is, the enemies, are not necessar¬
ily similar. The basis, therefore, for the kind of mutuality suggested by
Afrocentric scholarship is nonexistent under present circumstances.
Africans are being discriminated against, oppressed, denied basic hu¬
man rights, killed, and maimed by fellow Africans. Many observers
continue to perceive the ghosts of colonialism and neocolonialism
in Africa’s present predicament. They characterize the resilience of
tribalism, the nagging cancer of ethnicity and ethnocentrism, and the
undemocratic and destructive character of the military as enduring
legacies of colonialism. While this is true to some degree, it is difficult
to contend, as was fashionable in the immediate postindependent era,
that all of Africa’s problems are caused solely by colonialism and its
relics or by indigenous leaders controlled by external interests. Many
of the causes of the present dysfunctional state of many African coun¬
tries are in fact direct consequences of the policies of the indigenous
leadership. For example, the policies of the last Nigerian military jun¬
ta, especially in the years under Ibrahim Babangida and his successor,
Sani Abacha, had little to do with neo-colonialism. Neither of these
men could be regarded as the internal stooge of a foreign power. In
fact, Abacha perpetrated his reign of terror despite foreign opposition
and condemnation.
There is need to see Pan-Africanism as a dynamic process, taking
cognizance of changing historical time and space, and political con¬
texts in both Africa and the Diaspora. The two critical factors of time
and space ought to be reexamined. In the context of contemporary call
for reactivation of Pan-Africanism, it is often forgotten that the histor¬
ical context and time have changed. The historical circumstances that
galvanized blacks in the nineteenth century—racism, colonialism—
 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PAN-AFRICANISM 115

have changed significantly. Blacks no longer confront a clear-cut ra¬

cially definable “colonial enemy” around which to organize. Further¬
more, though pertinent, racism has become more complex. The racial
enemy of the past—Europeans—is not the only racial enemy of today.
In other words, racism is no longer a subject of just black versus white,
as Delany put it in the nineteenth century, or as Du Bois concurred
half a century later in his “problem of the color line” assertion. The
essence of what critics call “tribalism” in Africa, and among Africans,
is as virulent, if not more virulent, than racism. It has all the hallmarks
and vestiges of racism, only this time, it is perpetrated by blacks upon,
and against, blacks. It is violent, sadistic, virulent, demeaning, and ob¬
jectifying.
The two key rallying points of traditional Pan-Africanism, racism
and imperialism, are now much more complex. Imperialism itself has
changed. There are now in African countries mini-imperial or micro¬
imperial designs reflected in regional hegemonic drives, and internal
Africa-on-Africa “colonial” subjugations that provoke cries for separa¬
tion and independence. Furthermore, the role of Africa as a rallying
point of Pan-Africanism has become problematic. Nothing illustrates
this better than the recent failed efforts by leaders of the Africa Union,
successor to the Organization of African Unity (OAU), to agree on
a platform and program of continental unity beyond the rhetorical
framework of the Union. Prodded largely by Colonel Ghadafi of Lib¬
ya, at their meeting in July 2007 in Accra, Ghana, which was chaired
by then President John Kuffour of Ghana, African leaders discussed
the need for a continental government for Africa. Some advocated a
kind of “United States of Africa.” The goal of African nations speaking
with one voice and represented by one government was an impera¬
tive Kwame Nkrumah raised in the immediate aftermath of Ghana’s
independence in 1957. Then, Nkrumah believed that Ghana’s political
freedom was meaningless as long as other African countries were still
politically shackled. He envisioned a continent-wide political union
that would guarantee one political voice. But it failed, then, just as
now, largely because most other African political leaders were simply
unwilling to give up national sovereignties, and thus, their political
power bases, for a continental government. Put differently, the vision
of continental unity continues to falter because it conflicts with na¬
tionalism. The reality is that African political leaders who assembled
in Accra to discuss continental unity are ruling over dysfunctional
states—countries that are factionalized along ethnic, religious, linguis-
116 ESSENTIA LI ST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N - A F RICA N IS M

tic, and regional lines. Without first achieving national unity, without
first successfully unifying and harmonizing the discordant elements
and forces in their respective countries, it seems an illusion for the
leaders to envision a continental union.
Africa is not ready for the kind of role required of a successful re¬
activation of Pan-Africanism. Furthermore, there is need to construct
Pan-Africanism not just as a racialized framework, as has tradition¬
ally and historically been the case, but in the Rodneyan perspective,
as a means of self-examination and interrogation of the internal cri¬
ses, challenges, and contradictions within Africa and among blacks
in Diaspora. Reconceptualizing Pan-Africanism would also entail ac¬
knowledgment of the complexity of the African and black Diaspora
worlds. There is no one African and black Diaspora experience. There
are multiple global black experiences, with complex and divergent
cultural and identitarian implications. Race has lost its value as a uni¬
fying construct. Any call for Pan-Africanism has to consider these re¬
alities, in addition to a new and global phenomenon that William Ack-
ah alludes to in his study “Pan-African Americanism”—that is, how
the changing political economy and dynamics of the black American
condition itself renders any monolithic and essentialist construction
of the black experience problematic.48 While blacks may share racial
identity, economic realities have injected a class dimension that belies
racial essentialism. Those blacks who are economically successful, and
many who are politically successful, do not embrace the essentialist
model. The Michael Jordans, Michael Jacksons, Shaquille O’Neals,
Kobe Bryants, Tiger Woods, Colin Powells, Condoleezza Rices, Oprah
Winfreys, Whoopi Goldbergs, and Barack Obamas (to identify a few)
who are living and reflecting the "American Dream” are manifestly
opposed to, and reject racial and cultural essentialism. Furthermore,
the realities of post-colonial Africa, and post-civil-rights America are
complex and fundamentally different and do not allow clear identifi¬
cation of the enemy in strictly racial terms.

The Identity Construct

The second critical dimension to Afrocentricity is the claim of Afri¬

can identity—that is, the insistence upon defining black Americans as
Africans. The identity paradigm rejects any definition of black Ameri¬
cans other than as Africans, sometimes spelled with a “k.” This convic-
 ESSENTIAL I ST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PAN-AFRICANISM 117

tion is based on the elements of African traditions and values (or what
some scholars call “Africanism") found among blacks in Diaspora. The
implication is that, centuries of enslavement and separation notwith¬
standing, blacks in Diaspora retain essential aspects of their African
cultural identity. The identity paradigm defines black Americans, and
indeed the entire black Diaspora population, as Africans, racially, eth¬
nically, and culturally, centuries of exposure to, and acculturation in,
Western/European values and civilization notwithstanding. At crucial
moments in the history of the black American experience, the identity
paradigm has been invoked by individuals and groups to advance the
cause of freedom and upliftment.
Dona Marimba is a leading proponent of the African identity para¬
digm. In her Let the Circle Be Unbroken (1980) Marimba represents
black Americans and blacks in the Caribbean and South America as
Africans because they retained so much of indigenous African tradi¬
tions in their music, religion, and lifestyles. According to her, Africans
and blacks in Diaspora are united by the three essential ingredients
of identity—spirituality, ethos, and worldview. These unifying African
elements are supposedly immutable and should form the basis of re¬
constituting and reaffirming shared identity. As she contends,

Until we learn that it serves our objectives to emphasize the similarities,

the ties, the unifying principles, the common threads and themes that bind
and identify us all as African we will continue to be politically and ideologi¬
cally confused . . . Africa survives in our spiritual make-up; that it is the
strength and depth of African spirituality and humanism that has allowed
for the survival of African-Americans as a distinctive cultural entity in
New Europe; that it is our spirituality and vitality that defines our response
to European culture; and that that response is universally African.49

Thus, Afrocentric essentialism constructs a monolithic identity for all

blacks regardless of geographical locations and historical experiences.
As Algernon Austin argues,

Afrocentrism . . . ideologically constructs a heritable essential difference

among human populations. Within Afrocentric theory, people who are of
the African Cultural system are presented as being fundamentally different
from people outside this system. These differences are passed on to the de¬
scendants of people within this African Cultural System so that centuries
1 18 ESSENTIA LI ST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PAN-AFRICANISM

later the descendants of Africans are said to be culturally African. Because

these cultural differences are not influenced by social forces, they remain
present in the same form over millennia.50

The identity claim is based on historical linkage, heritage, and cultural

retentions. The contention is that blacks in the United States are Afri¬
cans and should vigorously and consciously exhibit this Africanness in
their lives—modes of thought, dress, culture, and lifestyle.51 This per¬
spective deemphasizes the Du Boisean identity construct that asserts
a complex black American identity. As argued above, in his epochal
book, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Du Bois described black Ameri¬
cans as peoples of dual identities who are constantly battling with, are
in fact tormented by, the conflicting demands of their dual identities.
This duality has formed a basis for critical discourses on black Ameri¬
can identity. Many regard it as accurate and perceptive in its acknowl¬
edgement of the complexity of the nature and history of blacks. Du
Bois insisted on validating both dimensions of the duality. According
to him, in his quest for “self-conscious manhood” and attaining ‘“a bet¬
ter and truer self’ blacks would not Africanize America, for America
has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his
Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro
blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it pos¬
sible for a man to be both a Negro and an American.”52
While acknowledging the American experience, Afrocentrists re¬
fuse to recognize it as a constituent element of black identity. Black
Americans, Afrocentrists contend, remain essentially Africans, despite
centuries of sojourn, experience, and enculturation in the New World.
Black Americans were supposed to have come out of slavery and the
American experience with their African identity intact. This is a direct
contradiction of the Du Boisean perspective. It is my contention that
Du Bois’s insight was much more realistic. Regardless of the degree
of African cultural retentions, regardless of how far black Americans
went in changing their names and wearing African clothes, they re¬
main, in large part, products of the American historical experience,
an experience that significantly shaped their identity. This experience
has left its mark indelibly on black American culture and identity. In
essence, Du Bois’s recognition of the dual historical and cultural expe¬
rience is far more accurate.
The black experience in the Diaspora was culturally transforma-
tory and revolutionary. It is impossible to ignore this complex histori-
 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PAN-AFRICANISM 119

cal reality, as leading Afrocentrists do in a bid to impose a superficial

and problematic Pan-African identity. It is noteworthy that many
black Americans remain skeptical of the potency, or even relevance,
of a paradigm that situates their identity outside America. In fact, the
debate among black American intellectuals on the pertinence of the
African connection is heated. On the one extreme are the group iden¬
tified in chapter 1, slavocentrists who argue that the black American
identity should have America rather than Africa as its foundation.
They identify slavery, rather than Africa, as the substantive force in
the shaping of the black American experience and identity. For the
slavocentrists, the experience of slavery was more potent than the fact
of African ancestry. This is the antithesis of the Afrocentric perspec¬
tive. A leading advocate of this view is the black American playwright,
Douglass Turner Ward, who raised the issue in his keynote address
delivered to the Southern Conference on Afro-American Studies in
Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He distinguished between two identity para¬
digms, “slavocentric” and “Afrocentric.” While acknowledging black
American connections with Africa, Ward insisted that what shaped
the black American identity was slavery rather than Africa, and since
enslavement was essentially institutionalized here in America, the
study of the black American experience and, consequently, the deter¬
mination and definition of identity should focus on, and begin with,
the American experience! Ward accorded preeminence to slavery and
the American identity, in direct contradiction to the prevailing and in¬
creasingly popular Afrocentric paradigm. In other words, he supports
deemphasizing the Pan-African paradigm. He is not alone in this con¬
viction. Keith Richburg, also identified earlier, thanked God profusely
that his ancestors “got out" of Africa. On identity, he wrote, “Thank
God that I am an American.” Furthermore, reflecting on his stay in Af¬
rica, “I know now that I am a stranger here. I am an American, a black
American, and I feel no connection to this strange and violent place.”
Specifically on the concept “African-American” he emphasized, “You
see? I just wrote ‘black America.’ I couldn’t even bring myself to write
‘African American.’ It’s a phrase that, for me, doesn’t roll naturally off
the tongue: ‘African American.’ Is that what we really are? Is there any¬
thing really ‘African’ left in the descendants of those slaves who made
that torturous journey across the Atlantic?” Richburg prefers “black
America,” thus accenting race and slavery as the cornerstone of iden¬
tity. He is puzzled why black “sons and daughters of America’s soil”
would “reaffirm an identity that . . . never existed in the first place.”
120 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PAN-AFRICANISM

Though many scholars, including this writer, disagree with Ward’s and
Richburg’s nullification of the African background, they have little ob¬
jection to acknowledging the Euro-American dimension of identity.
Ward and Richburg represent an extreme position. Most critiques of
the Afrocentric and Pan-African paradigms do not jettison the Afri¬
can background. They acknowledge its pertinence and object solely
to the preeminence it is given. Many critics describe the tendency to
overemphasize the African connection, at the expense of the complex
American and Diaspora experience, as perhaps the most critical flaw
of the Afrocentric and identity paradigms.53
Aside from the two polarities, there are other contending perspec¬
tives on the identity of black Americans. The Du Boisean perspec¬
tive seems to be the most popular and current, since it acknowledges
the pertinence of both experiences and underscores the complexities.
This is the Afro-Americanist perspective. Another discernible per¬
spective is the universalist. Universalists acknowledge both the Afri¬
can and American experiences but would exalt neither. They maintain
that because blacks in Diaspora have been socialized among people of
European ancestry, they inherited universal values, values that were
neither distinctly African nor distinctly Euro-American. They suggest
that black Americans share more in common with the broader hu¬
manity than with Africa and should identify themselves primarily as
human beings. This group, however, tends to lean more toward the
American identity. Members tend to be very critical and resentful
of the Africanist/Afrocentric perspective. Reacting against what he
termed “invented ethnicity,” economist Glenn Loury affirms, “In my
view, a personal identity wholly dependent on racial contingency falls
tragically short of its potential because it embraces too parochial a
conception of what is possible, and what is desirable.”54 Contending
that blacks are only “partially” descended from Africa, cultural critic
Stanley Crouch urged blacks to construct their identity within a much
broader framework. He insisted that “Euro-American ancestry, far
more than anything from Africa itself, also fuels the combination of
ethnic nationalism and evangelical liberation politics domestic Ne¬
groes bring to high-pitched rhetoric over the issue of Nelson Mandela
and his struggle.”55 In the same vein, actress and comedienne Whoopi
Goldberg retorted, “call me an asshole, call me a blowhard, but
don't call me an African American, please. It divides us, as a nation
and as a people, and it kinda pisses me off. It diminishes everything
I’ve accomplished and everything every other black person has accom-
 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PAN-A F R 1C A N IS M 121

plished on American soil.”56 In essence, there is a strong voice against

essentializing the African connection among black Americans. This
underscores a potent crisis of identity among Black Americans and
negates the notion of a monolithic African identity.
Rhett Jones, former director of the Race and Ethnicity Research
Center at Brown University, has addressed perhaps the most critical
dimension of the problematic of identity: the absence, among black
Americans, of an ethnic identity with Africa. He advanced what
amounts to a neo-Frazierian position. According to him, slavery ac¬
complished the total destruction of the ethnic identity of black Ameri¬
cans. The terrible experience of the Middle Passage and the brutal hor¬
rors of slavery eliminated any sense of ethnic identity among blacks.
The rapid growth of the black American population meant that Africa
was soon only a memory for the majority of black Americans. Knowl¬
edge of their ethnic affiliation and where they came from in Africa was
soon lost. Perhaps the first batch of slaves brought in kept this knowl¬
edge; however, as the years progressed, such knowledge of language
and culture became fuzzy and distant as the slaves became enmeshed
in the reality of new sociocultural and ethnic formations. The loss of
this ethnic identity consequently left black Americans clinging to the
broader geographical construct "Africa.” Unfortunately, there is no
ethnic group called "African” in Africa. This is significant. The word
“Africa” is a geographical construct and bears no ethnic connotation.
There are thousands of ethnic/linguistic groups in Africa, among them
Yoruba, Grebo, Hausa, Igbo, Xhosa, Zulu, Shona, Ewe, Fante, Asante,
Hutu, Tutsi, and literally hundreds of others. Ethnicity is central to
the construction of identity. In other words, the claim of identity is
only validated on the basis of an ethnic affiliation. Underscoring the
peculiarity of the black American condition, Jones argued that unlike
in Brazil and Cuba, where the importation of African slaves contin¬
ued well into the late nineteenth century, providing the strong force of
African retentions in culture, music, and arts that is noticeable today,
“comparatively few slaves were brought to the United States beyond
the third quarter of the eighteenth century—the bulk of the slave pop¬
ulation was, therefore, American not African born. By 1775 the vast
majority of blacks in British North America were the grandchildren
of persons born in the new world. As a result, few black Americans
had a sense of African identity, although may identify with Africa.”
Consequently, Black Americans share racial, rather than ethnic, iden¬
tity with Africa. Very often, however, racial identity is mistaken for, or
122 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N-A F RICA N IS M

used synonymously with, ethnic identity, and the emphasis given to

racial identity often beclouds the lack of ethnic identity.57
In his Racial Healing: Confronting the Fear Between Blacks and
Whites (1995) Harlon Dalton further underscores the centrality of
ethnicity to the definition of identity. According to him, “Ethnicity is
the bearer of culture. It describes that aspect of our heritage that pro¬
vides us with a mother tongue and that shapes our values, our world
view, our family structure, our morals, the food we eat, our mating
behavior, our music. . . .”58 If Dalton’s contention is valid, and if one
equally accepts Rhett Jones’s claim that black Americans lack ethnic
identity with Africa, then the Afrocentric claim of African identity
becomes even more problematic. Black Americans have no mother
tongue. Though African influences may reflect in their value systems,
worldviews, family structure, music, or religion, the African essence
and character is less dominant and pervasive than Dona Marimba and
other Afrocentrists claim. The black American worldview and value
system is an admixture of African and New World experiences. It is
interesting to note that even among Afrocentric or “Africancentric”
scholars, there is now a growing concern over the absolutist stance of
Asante and Marimba on the subject of identity. In rejecting Asante’s
‘Too percent African parentage” thesis, one “Africancentric” scholar
contends, “To Asante all black people in this region of the world are
Africans.... In Asante’s Africancentric perception and philosophical
or theoretical project, there are not significant distinctions between
Africans and people of African descent . . . ignoring, or down-play¬
ing—and even suppressing—a lot of historical, cultural, and social
reality.” Essentially, he continues, Asante accepts "only an African par¬
entage for blacks in America,” while completely blacking out the Euro-
American parentage.59
There is also unmistakable variance between the claim of African
identity on the one hand and black American ability and willingness
to reflect this “Africanism” in their lifestyles. In other words, there is
much more to being African than simply changing one’s names or
dressing in African attire. Being African has to do with acknowledg¬
ing the force and authority, and living according to the dictates, of
African culture. Most blacks, especially Afrocentrists, are incapable
of fully committing themselves to the power and authority of African
culture. While they claim certain facets of African culture, they have
yet to understand, yet alone acknowledge, the sovereign power of Af¬
rican culture. In laying claim to African identity, Afrocentrists merely
 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N-A F RICA N IS M 123

emphasize the aesthetics of African culture—names, dress, festivals,

even food—while ignoring perhaps the most significant factor in the
making of the African identity, the “legislative” authority of African
culture.
Culture is a powerful authority in Africa. It makes demands and
imposes obligations that no man-made law can undermine or chal¬
lenge. In fact, it is culture that shapes the most critical aspects of iden¬
tity. A good example of this is the area of parental responsibility. It is
tradition, not law, that defines and establishes the basis and extent
of parental responsibility among Africans. Those raised in Western
society may find this restrictive and oppressive. Child rearing among
Africans is the responsibility of the family, both immediate and ex¬
tended. This responsibility is perpetual, that is, until the child is able
to assume a position of independence. Legal definitions of adulthood
have no bearing on parental responsibility. As children grow up, they
are socialized not only to recognize their place in the extended fam¬
ily network but also, and most important, to acknowledge that they
equally owe a responsibility to the family, immediate and extended.
The concept of responsibility is extended and perpetual. There is no
point at which a parent or child can “legally” terminate this responsi¬
bility or relationship. This is what distinguishes the African ethos of
responsibility and deepens and strengthens mutuality. Parents, chil¬
dren, the extended family network are all united and reassured by a
strong sense of mutuality. Certain actions are consequently taboo in
the African context—for example, acknowledging the legal determi¬
nation of the limit of responsibility, sending the aged to retirement
homes, and requiring children who should otherwise be in school to
work in order to contribute to housekeeping expenses and pay their
tuition while living with their parents. One is not suggesting that all
black Americans subscribe to these practices. Undoubtedly, there are
families, black American and even white, that replicate the African
model. It is sufficient, however, to know that there are practices, both
attitudinal and cultural, that are deemed normative and appropriate
in American society to which blacks subscribe, that are inconceivable
in an African cultural context. In other words, the American cultural
context permits and normalizes tendencies that a true African would
not embrace. That black Americans subscribe to Euro-American cul¬
tural patterns, even as they retain facets of African values, underscores
the complexity of the identity problem. Though of African ancestry,
black Americans are also Americans, and, consequently, they need to
124 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N - A F RICA N IS M

acknowledge and come to terms with the fact that it is impossible to

turn their backs completely on the America experience and its cul¬
tural ramifications.
Reacting to the rising African and black consciousness movement
in America in the 1960s, African nationalist Tom Mboya described
black affirmation of African identity as superficial. “What makes it
unrealistic,” he argued, “is the thought that you can easily throw off
American culture and become African. For example, some think that
to identify with Africa means to wear a shaggy beard or a piece of
cloth on one’s head or a cheap garment on one’s body. I find here a
complete misunderstanding of what African culture really means.”
Mboya’s definition of African culture is worth quoting at length: “Our
culture is something much deeper. It is the sum of our personality and
even our attitude toward life. The basic qualities that distinguish it are
our extended family ties and the codes governing relations between
old and young, our concept of mutual social responsibility and com¬
munal activities, our sense of humor, our belief in a superior being,
and our ceremonies of birth, marriage and death. Those things have a
deep meaning for us, and they pervade our culture, regardless of tribe
or clan. They are qualities that shape our lives.”60
Aside from the cultural problematic of black American affirmation
of African identity, there is also the equally problematic character of
identity among Africans. If there is a crisis of identity among black
Americans, there is an even greater crisis of identity among Africans.
Without resolving this crisis, talks of forging Pan-African linkage with
blacks across the Atlantic are delusive. How can Africans talk seriously
about shared identity with Diaspora blacks when they themselves do
not wholly identify with their compatriots? How can Africans abroad
talk about togetherness and identity with black Americans, when
these Africans nurse mutual resentment toward each other based on
ethnicity, religion, or some other primordial factor? Put differently,
how can Pan-Africanism be revived in Africa where ethnocentrism
and micro-nationalism have eroded the very foundation upon which
Pan-Africanism could have thrived? It is no exaggeration to venture
the suggestion that some Africans feel more at ease and comfortable
with foreigners than with fellow Africans, particularly of a different
ethnic background. This is a reality that black American advocates of
Pan-Africanism, particularly Afrocentrists, have refused to acknowl¬
edge. There is consequently a far deeper crisis of identity among Afri¬
cans than is acknowledged by Afrocentrists. Ethnic cleansing, the sort
 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PAN-AFRICANISM 125

of barbaric human carnage witnessed in Rwanda, Burundi, Congo,

Zaire, or Somalia, and the state of mass misery and impoverishment
prevalent in Nigeria, Kenya, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and other African
countries, are not manifestations of ethos of mutuality among Afri¬
cans, nor are they indicative of a pervasive consciousness of shared
identity, an essential attribute of Pan-Africanism.
The old romanticized perception of Africa that ignores the reality of
ethnic, cultural, and linguistic divergence and contradictions (not just
complexity) continues to shape the resurgence of Pan-African con¬
sciousness among black Americans. Black Americans acknowledge
the complex nature of African society. What they have had difficulty
coming to terms with is the fact that, besides the complexity, there are
serious contradictions. The popular contention that Africa is peopled
by complex cultures, languages, and ethnic groups who share under¬
lying and unifying cultural attributes remains valid. Though Africans
speak different languages and belong to different religious domina¬
tions and ethnic groups, they equally share certain common values.
In other words, there are certain cultural traits that are indeed truly
“African.” Nevertheless, there is a more realistic perspective of look¬
ing at Africa today. Though Africans share certain unifying attributes,
they remain a divergent and chronically divided people. The reality of
Africa today does not justify the enthusiasm and faith of proponents
of the Pan-African paradigm. Realistically, in its present condition,
Africa cannot be a viable component of any Pan-African movement
or tradition. Pan-Africanism essentializes brotherhood, cooperation,
love, and togetherness. In other words, it engenders a mutuality de¬
fined by cultural identity, interests, ethos, and worldview.
In the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, Africa served as a rallying point of
Pan-Africanism. During these times the whole continent was under
colonial rule, and Jim Crow was on the rise in the United States. The
problems that Africans and black Americans confronted were indeed
identical and unambiguously clear: racism and colonialism. The en¬
emy was easily identifiable. Everyone agreed on the definition and
identity of the enemy—European imperialists and white Americans.
Consequently, it was possible for Africans, black Americans, and West
Indians to unite in the true spirit of Pan-Africanism. The situation in
Africa today is different. Colonialism ended in most African countries
over fifty years ago. It has been replaced by a new demon, however,
an indigenous demon that is racially identifiable as black. The current
state of political instability, economic decadence, corruption of epic
126 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N-A F RICA N IS M

proportions, systematic looting of state treasuries by the political elite,

crisis of legitimacy reflected in the almost complete collapse of the
nation-state, the ascendance of ethnocentric and micro-nationalistic
sentiments are all perpetrated by indigenous leaders. Among the ca¬
sualties are the concepts of nationhood and identity.
Political analysts agree that most black African states today are
mere conglomerates of conflicting, diverse, and mutually resentful
ethnic and linguistic groups and that loyalty has shifted from the na¬
tion-state to the ethnic or linguistic enclave. The State in Africa seems
to have lost all legitimacy and is held together by the sheer force of
terror and intimidation. In the last decade and half in Nigeria, Togo,
Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo,
Kenya, Ethiopia, and Cameroon there have been persistent calls from
alienated minority groups for greater autonomy and independence.
Even in Nigeria, where a bloody civil war almost ripped the country
apart in the 1960s, one hears loud echoes of secessionist aspirations,
particularly from the southeastern part of the country. The genocidal
policies and ethnic cleansing in Burundi, Rwanda, Somalia, Liberia,
Zaire, and Ethiopia were, and in some places still are, perpetrated by
Africans upon fellow Africans. Though some of these problems have
their roots deeply buried in the colonial past, and may relate to the
ghost of neo-colonialism, the intensity and degree of all these prob¬
lems have been exacerbated by the policies of African leadership. An
example is ethnicity, popularly known as tribalism, which has become
perhaps the deadliest cancer to eat away at the very fiber of African na¬
tionhood. According to a leading authority, “In Africa [tribalism] has
a colonial origin and its function was tied to the nature and purpose
of colonialism.” Though of colonial origin and contrived to facilitate
domination and exploitation, ethnicity was soon perpetrated and de¬
veloped by indigenous African leaders to facilitate the dominance and
hegemony of one ethnic group or region over the others.61 The result
is the almost total meltdown of any bond holding the ethnic groups
together. No one could have predicted the state of moral and political
decadence in Africa today, much of it the result of the inept, ethno¬
centric, and selfish policies of its leadership. With the exception of a
few countries, the entire continent is engulfed in some form of dic¬
tatorship, ethnic conflict, political persecution, instability, economic
decay, and corruption of the worst kind. Africans are today perhaps
the most oppressed and saddened peoples in the world. The revolu¬
tion of rising expectations generated by independence has since given
 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PAN-AFRICANISM 127

place to despair and nightmare. As George Ayittey, a leading author¬

ity on African political economy, surmised, “Various actors foreign as
well as domestic, participated, wittingly or not, in the devastation of
Africa. It is easy for African leaders to put the blame somewhere else,
for example on western aid donors or on an allegedly hostile interna¬
tional economic environment.... Certainly, donor blunder and other
external factors have contributed to the crisis in Africa, but in my view
the internal factors have played a far greater role than the external
ones” (emphasis added).62
Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka of Nigeria authored a scathing review
of the state of political and moral decadence in Africa, with emphasis
on Nigeria. His book, The Open Sore of a Continent (1996), should be
read by anyone who professes an iota of interest in the future of Africa
and in the relationship between Africa and blacks in Diaspora. La¬
menting the nonexistence of nationhood in Africa, Soyinka observes,
"the essence of nationhood has gone underground and taken refuge in
that primary constituency of human association, the cultural bastion.
And the longer the dictatorship lasts, the more tenacious becomes the
hold of that cultural nationalism, attracting to itself all the allegiance,
social relevance and visceral identification that once belonged to the
larger nation.” “The African nation,” Soyinka continues, “alas, is mostly
viewed through the goggles of [rulership], in studied contrast to the
far more organic, comprehensive apprehension of that word when ap¬
plied to entities like France, Sweden, Japan, Italy, South Korea.” For
Nigeria, he continued, "and this is certainly true of the Ghanaian, the
Senegalese, the Malian, Kenyan, Malawian, and Zairois—the bound¬
aries of a communal identity are today set much more narrowly. The
sights of the average nationalist are sadly contracted.”63
Regardless of how much one reads about Africa, and the volume
of information one acquires from the media, one can never fully un¬
derstand and appreciate, from the outside, the full extent of the trag¬
edy that Soyinka, Ayittey, and others highlight. Consequently, black
Americans who advocate Pan-Africanism, believing that they con¬
front similar problems and challenges with Africans, and assuming
that all is well with Africa, or that African problems are caused by
external forces, are mistaken. They seem unwilling to confront the
stark reality of internal structural violence and contradictions within
Africa, realities that challenge and negate the concepts of harmony
and consensus at the heart of Pan-Africanism. The fact is, Africans are
not one and monolithic. They are not harmonious. Though Africans
128 ESS ENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N-AFRICAN ISM

confront challenges that are not fundamentally dissimilar to those of

black Americans, the sources are different. Acknowledging this reality
is fundamental to developing a Pan-African relationship. The sugges¬
tion by the late Walter Rodney that Pan-Africanism be turned inward
at the domestic despoilers of Africa remains even more relevant today.
It would amount to self-delusion for black Americans and Africans to
pretend that they share identical problems that are consistent with the
traditional “black-against-white” framework, or that whatever prob¬
lems they each confront could be easily resolved with a reactivated
Pan-Africanism. The Seventh Pan-African Congress held in Kampala
in December 1993 was largely a cooperative effort that involved repre¬
sentatives of blacks in Diaspora and Africans (from ordinary citizens
to trade unionists, social critics, and political leaders). The delibera¬
tions and declarations of the Congress clearly betray a conservative
orientation, the rhetoric of nationalism and Pan-Africanism notwith¬
standing. Delegates identified the goal of Pan-Africanism as “libera¬
tion of Africa from foreign exploitation, dispossession, and domina¬
tion.” They evoked the traditional Pan-African notion of a commonal¬
ity of threat. According to a declaration of the Congress, "changes in
the world political and economic structure pose threat to Africa and
to African people scattered across the planet. Africa and her peoples
are as a result confronted with new levels of violence, fascism, and
re-colonization. Pan-Africanism has evolved and must continue to
evolve as a movement for liberation and unity in these perilous times.”
This declaration underlines the resilience of the old romanticized view
of Pan-Africanism and of the corporate conception of the relation¬
ship of black Americans and Africans. This suggests that the delegates
remain unwilling to acknowledge the problematic and complexity of
African and the black Diaspora nexus and challenges.64
Pan-Africanism cannot be meaningful if it is spearheaded and
guided by the current African political leadership, those directly re¬
sponsible for undermining the very foundation upon which a viable
Pan-African tradition could have thrived. The policies of African po¬
litical leadership since the dawn of independence have been demon¬
strably against the Pan-African spirit. Consequently, more than ever
before in its history, Pan-Africanism needs to develop as an instru¬
ment of self-criticism, directed as well against internal and indigenous
obstacles to African and black Diaspora unity, progress, and survival.
Though the neocolonial and neoimperial external factors remain po¬
tent, it is equally significant to zero in on, and critically deal with, the
 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N-A F RICA N IS M 129

indigenous factors. While from a distance, African problems may ap¬

pear to black Americans as essentially neocolonial, those problems
appear to Africans in their true domestic character and essence and
are not consistent with the traditional racialized perspective. The real¬
ity is one of blacks against blacks, Africans against Africans. Though
recolonization is certainly a threat to Africa’s independence, contrary
to the declaration of the Seventh Congress, it is not entirely an ex¬
ternal threat. Paradoxically, recolonization as a possible solution to
Africa’s current crises is increasingly gaining currency even among
Africans.
In the last three decades, Africans who are victims of and witnesses
to corruption and violence, political instability, economic destruction,
and cultural genocide, have engaged in debates on how to resolve the
intractable African-on-African oppression. Many have come to the
rather disturbing admission that perhaps political independence was
premature. For instance, in the heat of the crises, corruption and mor¬
al decadence that punctuated the life span of Nigeria’s Second Repub¬
lic, a prominent politician and governor of one of the states lamented
the state of moral and political decline and publicly expressed pref¬
erence for the return of the British! Though few took him seriously,
and many probably questioned his sanity, he expressed a feeling, albeit
unpopular, that many other Nigerians identified with. While the no¬
tion of a return to classical colonialism is anachronistic, Africans have
been known to express support for some form of "internal colonial¬
ism.” During the 1994 African Studies Conference in Toronto, a special
session was devoted to the subject of recolonization. The renowned
Africanist Ali Mazrui suggested the possibility of some of the po¬
litically stable and economically viable countries in Africa recoloniz¬
ing the weaker and poorer ones. Regardless of one’s position on this
subject, recolonization represents the antithesis of Pan-Africanism.
It amounts to an acknowledgment of the demise and irrelevance of
Pan-Africanism as a strategy. Some may detect in Mazrui’s sugges¬
tion echoes of a Pan-African solidarity, akin to Nkrumah’s advocacy
of continental unity. This correlation is baseless. Nkrumah dedicated
his life to the search for a political order that would safeguard the cor¬
porate existence of African states. He envisioned a "United States of
Africa—great and powerful, in which the territorial boundaries which
are the relics of colonialism will become obsolete and superfluous,
working for the complete and total mobilization of the economic
planning organization under a unified political direction.” He called
130 ESS ENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PAN-A F RICA N IS M

for the surrender of national sovereignty to a continental sovereignty.

This Pan-African continental sovereignty would present a united front
for Africa vis-a-vis external powers. It would generate the strength
needed to protect all African states from external threats. The rela¬
tionship was such that no state would dominate or exploit the others,
in any form or manner.65 Mazrui's suggestion is fundamentally differ¬
ent. He, in effect, called for the hegemony of some African states over
others. He used the word “colonize,” a construct, and an experience,
that Nkrumah fought strenuously to deconstruct.
Advocates of the Pan-African construct also fail to acknowledge
the reality of African and black American conflict, a reality that is
often overlooked in the spirit of Pan-Africanism. The relationship
between Africans and black Americans is informed by a growing
distrust and resentment, exacerbated by the demographics and chal¬
lenges of the new transplantation. Unlike the forced transplantation of
the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, which brought
Africans to the New World as slaves, the new transplantation is vol¬
untary. It began rather imperceptibly, increasing in intensity in the
last twenty-five years. This phenomenon involves Africans, mostly
professionals—teachers, doctors, engineers, nurses, businessmen,
and students—migrating into a relatively fluid, open, and inviting en¬
vironment in search of employment, economic elevation, and higher
education. The intensity of this migration has opened a new theater of
conflict and tension, especially at a time when opportunities for black
Americans appear to be shrinking in the wake of onslaughts upon, and
the gradual erosion of, the gains of the civil rights movement. Black
Americans perceive the new African migrants as potential rivals and
beneficiaries of resources that, under affirmative action, would have
gone strictly to black Americans. When implementing affirmative ac¬
tion, employers rarely distinguish between continental Africans and
black Americans. Africans and black Americans become competitors
for scarce resources, with the former assuming positions that the lat¬
ter consider theirs by right. In other words, there is a growing nativist
consciousness among black Americans directed against Africans. One
reason this nativist consciousness has remained hidden or controlled
is that those who harbor such convictions are often too scared to pro¬
claim them openly. Many are afraid of being accused of undermining
the “Pan-African” spirit. There are black Americans who espouse Af¬
rocentric ideas and salute an African with “Hotep” and “brother,” while
at the same time exhibiting a nativist consciousness and questioning
 ESS E NTIA LIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N-A F RICA N IS M 131

the appointment of Africans to positions they believe rightly belong to

black Americans. One is not suggesting any degree of depth or univer¬
sality to this consciousness. Suffice it to acknowledge that it does exist.
The depth and pervasiveness of nativism among black Americans has
not been, and may never be, accurately ascertained, given the cloud of
hypocrisy that surrounds it. Nevertheless, it remains a disturbing real¬
ity that should be confronted and acknowledged rather than brushed
aside and ignored.
The growth of anti-African feeling among black Americans has yet
to attract any sustained scholarly interest, and this writer is mindful
of its controversial and explosive nature. There is evidence, however,
that this subject is now attracting both scholarly and popular inter¬
ests. Godfrey Mwakikagile’s recent massive historical interrogation of
the relationship has ignited intense public debate and scrutiny of the
subject.66 My observations and contentions come from personal con¬
versations with African and black American students and intellectuals
in American colleges. My investigations reveal that many Africans are
conscious of a growing resentment from black Americans, particu¬
larly over academic positions. Some black Americans have also quietly
expressed concern, perhaps even alarm, at the challenges posed by the
growing number of African intellectuals. What is particularly intrigu¬
ing is that few are willing to express these concerns openly and confi¬
dently. I have therefore taken the responsibility of bringing this to the
fore, knowing the hazards involved—the likelihood of being clobbered
by both sides!
A few anonymous examples will suffice to corroborate this phe¬
nomenon. During my brief stay at a leading Black Studies Department
in the Midwest, there was a search for a senior-level African historian.
A continental African was invited for interview and eventually got the
job. A senior black American faculty member who had earlier voted to
invite the candidate for interview later expressed regret at the decision,
explaining that he had endorsed the candidate because he thought his
name sounded black American. This particular professor has been to
Africa as a Fulbright scholar and was often quick to demonstrate, es¬
pecially to Africans, pride in his African roots and connections. His
objection and concern, this time around, he confided, was because the
Black Studies Department already had too many Africans! More re¬
cently, at a major southern university, an African director of the Afri¬
can-American Studies Program was hounded out of the institution by
persistent opposition, hostility, and pressure from the black American
132 ESSENTIAUST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PAN-AF RICA N IS M

members of the program’s advisory committee. Their hostile reactions

to his appointment grounded the program and eventually compelled
the African to resign. I witnessed the entire drama. These are not, and
should not be treated as, isolated cases. Let me hasten to add that I am
not unaware of the fact that there do exist harmonious relationships
between the two groups in many other places and contexts. The point,
however, is that the reality of hostility is often denied.
It has been customary to presume a certain harmony between
Africans and black Americans. This seems a logical assumption and
is largely behind the rise in Pan-African sentiments. Though no one
has seriously looked at the phenomenon of discord between Africans
and black Americans, studies on the experience of African emigrants
in the United States clearly reveal the reality of perceptional discord
between them. In his study, Kofi Apraku contends, “Obviously, the
acculturation process and the experiences that black Americans have
gone through in the United States accounts significantly for the per¬
ceived differences between them and Africans. These experiences may
have shaped the differences in perceptions and attitudes between the
two groups.” Apraku’s study reveals that this disharmony predated the
civil rights epoch. African students have always encountered prob¬
lems from black Americans. The relationship between them has not
always been harmonious. There was some degree of mutual resent¬
ment. Apraku believes that the differences in their backgrounds ac¬
count for the animosity. One, the black American, has been the prod¬
uct of enslavement, racism, oppression, and humiliation; the other, the
African, was not. This distinction is not necessarily true of present-
day African migrants, however. The African migrant of today appears
to black Americans to be in a “favored” situation with whites and not
subjected to the degree and intensity of the racism and degradation
that the black American experiences. But this “favored” treatment is
short-lived. According to Apraku, as soon as the situation of the Afri¬
can improves and he begins to manifest a desire to become domiciled
here and goes after a share of the American dream, “he is no longer
African but Black and must be treated as such. He is now exposed to
precisely the problems and experiences of black Americans. He be¬
comes the victim of discriminatory policies and derogatory remarks.”
Put differently, after a time, the African becomes exposed to the same
negative experiences as the black American. He is no longer shielded
from racism and other discriminatory experiences. “When it comes to
racism in the United States,” Apraku contends, “a real racist makes no
 ESSENTIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND PA N-A F RICA N IS M 133

distinction between black Africans, Black Americans, or black Carib¬

bean. To the racist, black is black, whether made in Africa, America or
the Caribbean.”67
Serious limitations to the utilization of Africa as identity and Pan-
Africanism as medium of constructing a monolithic platform of strug¬
gle need to be acknowledged, as well as the complexities of the African
and black Diaspora contexts and experiences. When it comes to con¬
temporary cultural nationalism, the relationship between continental
Africans and blacks in Diaspora is critical and is often invoked as the
basis for a common struggle. To solidify this linkage, cultural nation¬
alists often infer a certain antiquity to this affinity. That is, they claim
that from time immemorial blacks in Diaspora evinced strong and
positive desires to be African and be identified with Africa, that they
manifested and harbored a strong “Afrocentric consciousness.” It is
upon this claim of antiquity of “Afrocentric consciousness” on which
Afrocentric essentialists predicate their affirmation of the Afrocentric
paradigm and worldview.
4

Afrocentric Consciousness and

Historical Memory

Several scholars have documented and exhaustively analyzed the his¬

torical roots of Afrocentric consciousness.1 Based on these studies, it is
reasonable to suggest that Diaspora blacks had historically manifested
strong African consciousness and professed strong affinity for Africa.
Some scholars of the Afrocentric genre affirm not only the histori¬
cal depth of “Afrocentric consciousness” but also a legitimacy derived
from deeply rooted shared historical and cultural ethos of mutuality.2
These scholars have often represented African consciousness among
black Americans as positive and as a deep and authentic manifestation
and representation of the consanguineous ethos that defined black
American conceptions of, and relations to, Africa; molded and nur¬
tured by a host of historical personalities, antecedents and traditions.3
In other words, these scholars invoke history to validate Afrocentric
consciousness. There is, however, some disagreement on the depth
and sincerity of the African consciousness and professions of African
identity. Consequently, I seek in this chapter to examine manifesta¬
tions of Afrocentric consciousness among black Americans, with a
view to ascertaining its depth, potency, and validity as an identitarian
and unifying construct for Diaspora blacks and continental Africans.
The conflicted and contradictory character of Afrocentric conscious¬
ness becomes evident when subjected to critical historical analysis.
Since Afrocentric identity is the product of Afrocentric conscious¬
ness, a working definition of Afrocentric consciousness is necessary. I
define Afrocentric consciousness as a consciousness of affinity for Af¬
rica, sustained by, among others, subscription to African cultural val¬
ues, advocacy and invocation of African ideals and idiosyncrasies, and
the conception of existential realities within an African cosmological
framework. Affirmation of African identity derives logically from this
Afrocentric consciousness. Africa becomes the basis of self-knowl¬
edge and identity, the quintessence of one’s being. This Afrocentric
consciousness, and concomitant identity formation, has increasingly
 AFROCENTRIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND HISTORICAL MEMORY 135

gained popularity among black Americans, especially in consequence

of a deep and pervasive sense of alienation. Afrocentric consciousness,
and the African identity that it advances, are constituents of a very
strong ideological and combative movement that has both intellectual
and popular dimensions. The intellectual is the corpus of scholarship
that defines the structure, essence, strategies, and utility of Afrocen-
tricity. The popular dimension, spurned largely by the rhetoric of the
intellectual, is exemplified by symbolic and aesthetic manifestations
of Afrocentric identity among black youths, many of whom lack in¬
formed knowledge and understanding of the ideology. They embrace
Afrocentricity as a protest countercultural weapon. Ironically, despite
its popularity among blacks, Afrocentricity has a weak and fragile his¬
torical foundation. As this chapter will demonstrate, the Afrocentric
genre was neither consistently defended by nor deeply rooted in the
consciousness of black Americans, its present combative and domi¬
neering character notwithstanding.

Underlying Premises

First, the Afrocentric identity construct is to some degree superficial.

This superficiality derives partly from the fact that the unifying or un¬
derpinning element/factor in black American proclamation of African
identity is race, that is, the fact of being black. Unfortunately, race is a
weak and unreliable construct for identity owing to its socially and po¬
litically constructed nature. Race was the invention of the plantation
economy. It unified all slaves for the purpose of efficient and effective
enslavement. Historically, being black attracted scorn and alienation.
All blacks were linked by the fact of shared oppression to a common
identity, an identity distinguished by the key sociopolitical construct:
race. Consequently, what united blacks was the fact of being black,
and the negative cognitive values and experiences that it engendered.
Second, since all blacks originated from the landmass Europeans
called “Africa” and since, collectively, blacks were referred to as “Afri¬
cans,” the word “Africa” has naturally been adopted as a unifying and
identifying construct. There is, however, a problem with the term "Af¬
rica.” Its essential artificiality and complexity render “Africa” an inef¬
fective identitarian construct. Emerging historiography of the black
Diaspora underscores something that had always been known but had
never been seriously analyzed—the superficiality of race and Africa
as identity constructs. Africa now appears the weakest of bases for
136 AFROCENTRIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND HISTORICAL MEMORY

identity construction for Diaspora blacks. First, it has no ethnic sig¬

nificance, even though many scholars erroneously suggest otherwise.
Second, Africa is a Eurocentric-imposed identity construct. Europe¬
ans referred to transplanted slaves collectively as Africans. European
colonialists referred to those in the continent they appropriated and
occupied collectively as Africans.4 In fact, according to renowned Af¬
rican scholar Ali Mazrui, “the term Africa, the consciousness of be¬
ing African which united Africans was a colonial creation.” The late
Julius Nyerere of Tanzania once argued that “the sentiment of Africa,
the sense of fellowship between Africans, was something which came
from outside.” It was colonialism that generated among Africans “a
sentiment of oneness.” Mazrui elaborates further,

Carried to its logical conclusion this says that it took colonialism to inform
Africans that they were Africans. I do not mean this merely in the sense
that in colonial schools young Bakongo, Taita and Ewe suddenly learned
that the rest of the world had a collective name for the inhabitants of the
landmass of which their area formed a part—though this was certainly one
medium by which Africans were informed by colonialism that they were
Africans. A more important medium was the reaction against colonialism
leading, as it did, to a new awareness of the geographical contiguities . . .
and the new responses that this called out.5

In a recent publication, James Sidbury corroborates Nyerere’s and

Mazrui’s contentions. According to him, “The terms Africa’ and Af¬
ricans’ and the perception that the continent of Africa (or the sub-
Saharan portion of it) comprises a united cultural and/or ‘racial’ unit
are European in origin.” They are both products of plantation slavery
in the New World. Furthermore, he argues, “Britons in England and
America used Africans’ interchangeably with ‘Negroes’ and ‘blacks’ to
refer to the people they purchased and imported into the Americas, as
well as to the American-born (or Creole) descendants of those victims
of the slave trade.”6 Thus, Nyerere, Mazrui, and, more recently, Sid¬
bury all underscore the importance of deconstructing the historically
untenable practice of essentializing and historicizing Africa, on the
basis of which monolithic African identity has been constructed for all
blacks, thus deemphasizing and obscuring the complex, ambivalent,
and diverse nature of the identity problem. As another scholar argues,
the Africa from where the slaves were taken was a far more complex
 AFROCENTRIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND HISTORICAL MEMORY 137

entity than Europe. Slaves represented extraordinary ethnic, regional,

and cultural diversity. Modern researchers continue to underscore
the complexity and diversity of Africa.7 In fact, according to Sidbury,
blacks accepted this imposed "African” identity, and, despite its as¬
sociation with negative and pejorative images, they strove to develop
and construct a countervailing and empowering image of Africa that
would enhance self-esteem. They succeeded in constructing a new
diasporic identity (African) that was, however, radically different from
the ethnic identities in Africa. Their new diasporic identity reflected
the racist context within which they functioned and “was founded
on emerging European perceptions that residents of Africa shared a
‘racial’ essence.”8 However, as another scholar argues, there is now a
“growing awareness of the diversity of Africa’s peoples and cultures
(which) has rendered the term African as problematic as European.
Indeed it powerfully suggested that the diverse peoples brought to the
Americas as slaves from the Gold Coast, the Congo, or Angola (them¬
selves rather crude modern analytical constructs) became African only
after they were jumbled together in America.”9 The concept of Africa
is the creation of what Ali Mazrui terms “tyranny of the map maker.”10
In other words, what gave "Africa” a character was its geographical
framework, and many scholars and politicians acknowledge this fact
by referring to Africa as "geographical designation,” “geographical fic¬
tion,” or “geographical expression.”11
There is another problematic dimension to the concept of Africa.
Along with race, Africa is the center-point of the Afrocentric genre,
which accords it both geographical and ethnic connotations. In other
words, in Afrocentrism, Africa is the unifying construct that binds
Diaspora blacks and continental Africans as one people.12 Yet, histori¬
cally, as this study underscores, Diaspora blacks did not always feel
good about Africa. Since it shared with race the distinction of being a
major consideration for enslavement, many blacks felt alienated from,
and uncomfortable identifying with, Africa. In pro-slavery ideology,
being black (race) was the mark of inferiority; being of African an¬
cestry meant a person without civilizational and cultural heritage. In
combination, race and Africa legitimized black subordination.13 This
reality evoked conflicting responses among blacks. Those able and
willing, through the “blessing” of miscegenation, took the opportu¬
nity to “pass” for whites and affected a distance from being black and
African. For the many that are unable to “pass,” being black and of Af-
138 AFROCENTRIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND HISTORICAL MEMORY

rican ancestry became an imposed identity over which they had little
choice. Others still stood up to the challenge and embraced Africa,
espousing cooperation and unity.
A third underlying premise of this chapter is that, throughout black
American history, the claim of African identity was more utilitarian
than substantive. That is, there was always a function that Africa was
supposed to serve, a goal it was supposed to aid in achieving. This
utilitarian underpinning of Africanism among black Americans has
largely been ignored. In times of dire distress and alienation, many
black Americans turned toward Africa for succor. This utilitarian
function of Africa can be traced to the very dawn of slavery. As several
studies reveal, slaves managed to subvert the debilitating and dehu¬
manizing impact of enslavement by invoking African cultural values
and idiosyncrasies. Slaves developed a world of their own, whose re¬
alities were shaped more by African than European values. It is this
African-derived primary world that enabled the slaves to survive the
destructive force of the secondary world of the masters.14 Beyond this,
throughout the nineteenth century, as this study shows, black leaders
frequently invoked Africa as the source of solutions to critical prob¬
lems of adjustment, accommodation, and resistance.
Fourth, the professions of African consciousness by black Ameri¬
cans, and of interest in and concerns for the plight of continental Afri¬
cans, have historically evolved in reaction to what I call the all-encom¬
passing and all-embracing character of the Eurocentric worldview,
particularly its characterization of all blacks (Diaspora and continen¬
tal Africa alike) as primitive and inherently inferior. That is, the lack
of distinction between the “primitivism” of continental Africans and
the cultural transformation and ipso facto “superiority” of Diaspora
blacks. Judged inferior by association, or ancestral entrapment, many
black Americans sought escape by affirming their superiority over
Africa or by distancing themselves from Africans, while emphasizing
their Euro-American cultural identity.
Affirming their superiority over Africa was achieved implicitly, if
not explicitly, by acknowledging the “primitivism” of Africans and
advocating paternalistic and missionary solutions to the problems of
Africa’s alleged backwardness. As discussed above, some of the pio¬
neers of the black nationalist and Pan-Africanist traditions derived
their ideas and schemes from the prevailing Eurocentric/racist idio¬
syncrasies of the age. For example, Paul Cuffee and Lott Cary, both
of them acclaimed black nationalists and Pan-Africanists, embraced
 AFROCENTRIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND HISTORICAL MEMORY 139

the colonization scheme that was premised on the conviction that

Africa was backward and primitive. As colonizationists, these blacks
envisioned themselves as missionaries responsible for the transfer of
progress and civilization to backward Africa.15 Thus, they were able
to distance themselves from “primitive Africa,” becoming culturally
superior to, and alienated from, Africans.
Many of the leading black American nationalists identified in this
study underscored their disdain for Africa’s primitive nature and pro¬
clivities by proclaiming their Euro-American cultural essence and af¬
filiations. They endeavored to convince themselves, and the Europe¬
ans, of their cultural superiority over continental Africans.16
A fifth underlying premise of this chapter is that there was a cer¬
tain utilitarian consideration to the Pan-African identity schemes
that leading black American nationalists proposed. These schemes
were driven by the conviction that fundamental changes in the black
Diaspora condition depended on substantive transformations of the
African condition. The underlying impulse for this “Pan-African” con¬
sciousness, this acclaimed ethos of trans-Atlantic mutuality, there¬
fore, derived from a desire to reform the black Diaspora condition,
an essentially utilitarian consideration. Transform Africa, civilize the
indigenous people, and create strong political and economic enti¬
ties; these changes would reflect positively upon blacks worldwide
and thereby compel recognition for the rights and privileges of black
Americans and, in the process, radically transform the domestic reali¬
ties of the United States. Pan-Africanism, in part, was meant to serve
as a platform for the eventual realization of the elusive American
identity. This domestic American dynamic of Pan-Africanism was not
always obvious. A strong desire for American identity informed the
rhetoric of Pan-Africanism. No individual manifested this as unam¬
biguously as Martin Delany, the acclaimed ideological guru of Pan-
Africanism. In the concluding section of his seminal publication, The
Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People
of the United States (1852), a book that many have described as his
definitive testament on emigration, Delany qualified his call for emi¬
gration with a strong affirmation of love for his native United States.
Underlining his reluctant endorsement of emigration and the fragil¬
ity of his African nationalism, Delany characterized the relationship
between black American migrants and their host country in Africa
in adoptive terms. As he lamented, “We love our country, dearly love
her, but she don’t (sic) love us ... she despises us, and bids us begone,
140 AFROCENTRIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND HISTORICAL MEMORY

driving us from her embraces; . . . but when we do go, whatever love

we have for her, we shall love the country none the less that receives
us as her adopted children.”17 More important, Delany’s scheme for
an independent black nationality in Africa was designed ultimately
for the transformation of the domestic American order. The political
and economic success of an independent black state in Africa, would,
Delany hoped, debunk the racist ideas that had justified the enslave¬
ment and subordination of blacks and help shape world opinion in fa¬
vor of conceding the rights and privileges of black Americans.18 Other
black nationalists such as Henry Garnet and Henry McNeal Turner
advanced similar schemes.19 In other words, the underlying impulse of
the nineteenth-century Pan-African scheme was to transform Africa
for the primary purpose of effecting a greater transformation of the
American order. This utilitarian character of Pan-Africanism was evi¬
dent in the “nationalist” ideas and schemes of Paul Cuffee, Lott Cary,
and David Walker. In his famous Appeal, a book lauded for its suppos¬
edly militant Pan-Africanist slant, David Walker espoused strong na¬
tionalist aspirations that were undoubtedly and unmistakably Ameri¬
can. Although he also espoused strong “Pan-African” ideals, Walker’s
Pan-Africanism had an equally strong utilitarian underpinning. What
nudged him toward Pan-Africanism was the brutal and debilitating
condition of black America. What he sought the most for blacks was
the realization of the American identity.20
The utilitarian dimension is also evident in the early black protest
tradition. For example, the struggles of free blacks in Philadelphia,
New York, and other northern states from the late eighteenth to the
early nineteenth centuries reflected a utilitarian conception of Africa.
These blacks identified Africa with their institutions and structures
as part of a protest tradition of affirming an identity in response to
the threat of being forced into an identitarian void by the pro-slavery
and racist culture. Another example is the efforts of Absalom Jones
and Richard Allen that laid the foundation for the rise of the African
Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia and other institutions
with the African nomenclature. Rejected by the racist establishment
and denied access to its institutions and structures, blacks invoked
Africa in protest.
A sixth premise is that to essentialize the African identity, as Af¬
rocentric scholars do, is ahistorical, precisely because it ignores the
historical and transformatory character of the transplantation experi¬
ence. This in no way denies the existence of African cultural reten-
 AFROCENTRIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND HISTORICAL MEMORY 141

tions. The point, however, is that the African retentions, in whatever

form or shape, are only partially African in essence. There is an equally
compelling Euro-American, Anglo-Saxon component in the character
and totality of the cultural identity of Diaspora blacks. This hybridism
and complexity is often deemphasized in Afrocentric essentialist dis¬
course.
Seventh, applied to black Americans, two of the cardinal compo¬
nents of identity among Africans are problematic: culture and eth¬
nicity. While there is noticeably a black American culture, which is
only partially African, the black American has, however, been almost
completely cleansed of any trace of African ethnicity. The concept
“African-American" possessed more geopolitical and nationalist than
ethnocultural utility. The prefix “African,” as earlier argued, is more
of a geographical construct, delineating Americans of African an¬
cestry, born of a growing sense of alienation from the American es¬
tablishment. The claim of African identity, therefore, is premised on
a weak foundation—race (being black) or being of African ancestry
(geographically)—and is not necessarily based on culture and ethnic¬
ity. Race, as already indicated, is too weak a foundation for construct¬
ing identity, especially since it is a social and political construct. There
is nothing particularly inherent or genetic about being black. Being
black acquired importance in history primarily because some people
chose to use pigmentation as the basis of dealing with others. In other
words, race assumed significance only because of a conscious and de¬
liberate effort by a group of humans to adopt it as a platform for hege¬
mony and exploitation.

The Utility of Africa

The utilization of race as a weapon of hegemony by whites provoked

conflicting and ambivalent reactions from blacks. First, there was a
tradition of negative reaction to, and outright rejection of, Africa.
One of the earliest manifestations of this occurred during the first
organized efforts by black leaders to deal with the challenges posed
by prosecution, alienation, dehumanization, and outright denial of
American identity in the wake of the Cincinnati race riots of 1829.
These riots inspired organized black abolitionism and the convention
movement. It is revealing to note that African identity and conscious¬
ness was relegated to the background in the National Negro conven¬
tions that were held between 1831 and 1835. Positive affirmation of
142 AFROCENTRIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND HISTORICAL MEMORY

African identity was never a consideration among organizers of the

convention movement. Black American consciousness was unmis¬
takably American. Attaining American identity was the overarching
goal of the conventions. In the ensuing debates and deliberations of
the conventions, black leaders concentrated efforts on how best to
ensure the realization of American identity. They displayed remark¬
able optimism in the face of rejection and brutalization. They wanted
American citizenship. To achieve this, many black leaders advocated
deemphasizing race in favor of universalism. At the 1835 national Ne¬
gro convention in Philadelphia, William Whipper introduced a mo¬
tion, which was seconded by Robert Purvis, that resolved, “That we
recommend as far as possible, to our people to abandon the use of
the word ‘Colored; when either speaking or writing concerning them¬
selves; and especially to remove the title of ‘African’ from their insti¬
tutions, marbles of churches, etc.” The resolution was unanimously
adopted. Whipper’s motion underscored a growing concern over the
separatist and troubling character of the appellation “African.” Whip¬
per was perhaps the leading advocate of the universalist ideology,
which failed to win mass appeal among blacks. Yet, in the ensuing
State conventions of the 1840s, blacks adopted “Colored” rather than
“Africa” as identifying construct; referring to themselves as “people of
color.” This choice of color should not be misconstrued to suggest that
these leaders cherished separatism. Integration was the ultimate goal,
although many came to the conclusion that perhaps the best strategy
for achieving integration was for blacks to reform themselves through
racially distinctive institutions and strategies.21
The threat that the word “Africa” constituted led to efforts to re¬
move it from identifying structures and institutions. In the late 1830s,
the African Baptist Church of Boston, founded in 1806, changed its
name to the “First Independent Church of the People of Color.” The
members justified this action thus: “for the very good reason that the
name African is ill-applied to a church composed of American citi¬
zens.” Samuel Cornish, editor of the Colored American provided the
following justification for this name change; “Many wQuld rob us of
the endeared name, ‘American,’ a distinction more emphatically be¬
longing to us than five-sixths of this nation, one that we will never
yield. In complexion, in blood and nativity, we are decidedly more ex¬
clusively American than our white brethren; hence the propriety of
the name of our people, Colored Americans, and of identifying the
 AFROCENTRIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND HISTORICAL MEMORY 143

name with all our institutions, in spite of our enemies, who would rob
us of our nationality and reproach us as exotics."22
The above represents rejection of “Africa” on the grounds that it
compromised being “American.” To acknowledge being African was
seen as tantamount to relinquishing being American. The name “Afri¬
can” had become an albatross that had to be jettisoned. In later years,
especially in the second half of the nineteenth century, the same rejec¬
tion of and feeling of discomfort with Africa shaped black national¬
ist ideas and schemes. Even when Africa was later accepted and ac¬
knowledged as part of the repertoire of deconstructing Eurocentric
historiography, it served more as the basis of claims for inclusion and
integration in America. As discussed elsewhere, the emigration move¬
ments of the late nineteenth century were very much utilitarian. The
motivating impulse was not so much love for Africa but rejection by
America. These nationalists left few in doubt as to their most cher¬
ished identity.23
In fact, the choice in the 1830s and 1840s was between two con¬
tending conceptions of identity, neither of which represented a posi¬
tive attitude toward Africa—universalism and race. These two per¬
spectives shaped the black abolitionist crusade during its first two
decades (1830-1850). As discussed in chapter 1, the universalists, led
by Whipper, advanced the notion of one humanity. The racialists, led
by the “radical” Samuel Cornish, editor of the Colored American, em¬
braced race as the dividing line and the basis of identity construction.
Regardless of their disagreement, each conceived of its ideology as po¬
tentially the route to American identity. It should be noted that black
affirmation of American identity, and rejection of Africa, predated the
convention movement. As earlier argued, blacks reacted to the colo¬
nization threat of the early nineteenth century with strong affirma¬
tion of American identity and an equally strong rejection of Africa.
The struggle of black abolitionists against colonization and displace¬
ment, and demand for full citizenship, according to one scholar, “led
to a subtle alteration in black self-presentation after 1830.” Convinced
that colonization meant repatriation to Africa and mortgaging of
their American identity, black abolitionist leaders sought to jettison
“Africa” from their institutions and self-identification. Race now be¬
came the preferred basis of self-definition. According to Horton, to
use the word "African” in connection with the identity of American
blacks seemed to reinforce the argument of the increasingly powerful
144 AFROCENTRIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND HISTORICAL MEMORY

group in the American Colonization Society who would use African

colonization as a forum for free colored removal. The term “colored”
was more acceptable. The concept “colored American” became the
preferred identity. As in “We are Americans—colored Americans.”24
At a meeting in Bethel Church, Philadelphia, in January of 1817,
blacks resolved; “Whereas our ancestors (not of choice) were the first
successful cultivators of the wilds of America, we their descendants
feel ourselves entitled to participate in the blessings of her luxuriant
soil, which their blood and sweat manured; and that any measures or
system of measures, having a tendency to banish us from her bosom,
would not only be cruel, but in direct violation of those principles,
which have been the boast of this republic.” At this same meeting, these
blacks established further grounds for distancing themselves from Af¬
rica and in the process provided one of the earliest articulations of the
myth of savage and primitive Africa among Diaspora blacks. This is
unambiguously represented in the following resolution: “that without
arts, without science, without a proper knowledge of government, to
cast into the savage wilds of Africa the free people of color, seems to
us the circuitous route through which they must return to perpetual
bondage.”25
On January 25, 1831, blacks in New York gathered to protest colo¬
nization. They affirmed their American identity, invoking both the
Declaration of Independence and ancestral contributions. According
to them, “The time must come when the Declaration of Independence
will be felt in the heart, as well as uttered from the mouth, and when
the rights of all shall be properly acknowledged and appreciated. God
hasten that time. This is our home, and this is our country. Beneath its
soil lie the bones of our fathers; for it, some of them fought, bled, and
died. Here we were born, and here we will die.”26
At a state convention held October 26-27,1843, in Detroit, Michi¬
gan, blacks vehemently protested colonization and rejected the notion
of inherent inferiority. They designed a positive rendition of Africa
primarily as a weapon of protest. These blacks portrayed Africa as an
enlightened and civilized continent, a fountain of knowledge from
which Europeans drank. This exalted Africa was designed to negate
claims of black inferiority. As they declared:

Our condition as a people in ancient times, was far from indicating intel¬
lectual or moral inferiority. For, we were informed by the writings of Hero¬
dotus, Pindar, Aeschylus, and many other ancient historians, that Egypt
and Ethiopia held the most conspicuous places among the nations of the
 AFROCENTRIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND HISTORICAL MEMORY 145

earth. Their princes were wealthy and powerful, and their people distin¬
guished for their profound learning and wisdom. Two thousand years ago
people flocked from all parts of the known world, down into Africa, to re¬
ceive instructions from those woolly haired and black skinned Ethiopians
and Egyptians. Yes, even the proudest of the Grecian philosophers, histo¬
rians and poets, among whom were Solon, Pythagoras, Plato, Herodotus,
Homer, Lycurgus, and many others, all went down into Africa, and sat at
the feet of our ancestors, and drank in wisdom, until they were taught in all
the arts and sciences of those ancient African nations.

Furthermore, they proclaimed, “The sun of civilization rose from the

center of Africa, and like the bright luminary of the celestial regions,
it casts its light into the most remote corners of the earth, giving arts,
science and intellectual improvement, to all that lay beneath its el¬
evating rays. .. . Therefore, fellow citizens, proscribe us no longer, by
holding us in a degraded light, on account of natural inferiority; but
rather extend to us our free born rights, the elective franchise, which
invigorate the soul and expands the mental powers of a free and in¬
dependent people.” The statement was clearly a positive portrayal of
Africa as a weapon of debunking the myth of inherent inferiority and
justifying claims of political equality and rights.27
In 1852, blacks in Maryland gathered to discuss the prospect of Li¬
beria as a possible place of relocation. In support of colonization, they
adduced two contradictory images of Africa. The first was a positive
elevating image of a rich, wealthy, and industrious place, with insti¬
tutions and facilities of greatness that surpassed America, Asia, and
Europe. As they contended,

Asia could not exceed the variety of the productions of Africa. Europe with
her numerous manufactories and eternal resources, could not cope with
her in physical greatness—America with her noble institutions of power,
facilities of improvement, promises of greatness and high hopes of immor¬
tality, was this day far, very far behind her in natural resources. Nothing
can excel the value of her productions—sugarcane grows rapidly, cotton
a native plant, corn and hemp flourish in great perfections, oranges, cof¬
fee, wild honey, lemons, mahogany ... abound there, mules, horses, oxen,
sheep, hogs, fowls of all kinds, are in the greatest abundance. She holds out
a rich temptation to commerce and a strong inducement to emigration.2"

The second image was of a wretched place controlled by a destructive

barbarous people, desperately in need of the infusion of civilized val-
146 AFROCENTRIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND HISTORICAL MEMORY

ues. These blacks saw themselves as missionaries of progress, Africa’s

own children, returning after a sojourn of cultural transformation in
the Diaspora. According to them, “On the lap of American civiliza¬
tion and around the altars of this Christian land, have been born the
moral elements of civil and Christian power, ordained by heaven [for]
the redemption of Africa. For the last 2000 years, that wretched land
of mystery and crime has been abandoned to the cupidity of the most
cruel barbarism. This makes us bold in saying that emigration is the
only medium by which the long closed doors of that continent are to
be opened; by her own children’s returning, bearing social and moral
elements of civil and religious power.”29 These paternalistic and mis¬
sionary conceptions shaped professions of African consciousness and
identity among black Americans for much of the nineteenth century.
As argued elsewhere, providentialism was a critical ideology of the
colonization movement. God supposedly sanctioned the enslavement
of some Africans so that they would be civilized through contacts with
Europeans and, after regaining freedom, would return to help civilize
and redeem the rest of the continent.30
In New England in 1859, blacks strongly affirmed their American
identity while distancing themselves from Africa. In proclaiming their
right to American identity, these blacks defined themselves as the true
Americans, who embodied quintessential^ American ideals. Realiz¬
ing American identity would amount to fulfilling of America’s ideals
and vision. As they declared,

Our old enemy the colonization society has taken advantage of the present
state of feeling among us, and is doing all in its power to persuade us to
go to Africa; the emigration scheme has new life, and another enemy, un¬
der the name of the African civilization Society has sprung into existence,
and beckons us to a home in a foreign land .. . Our right to live here is as
good as the white man’s, and is incorporated in the Declaration of Inde¬
pendence, in the passage which declares, That all men are created equal,
and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among
these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Then let ys remain here,
and claim our rights upon the soil where our fathers fought side by side
with the white man for freedom. Let us remain here and labor to remove
the chains from the limbs of our brethren ... Yes, let us stay here, and vin¬
dicate our right to citizenship, and pledge ourselves to aid in completing
the Revolution for human freedom, commenced by the patriots of 1776.
We must take our stand in defiance of the FSL and Dred Scot.31
 AFROCENTRIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND HISTORICAL MEMORY 147

In his presidential address to the New England convention, George T.

Downing of Rhode Island reiterated the claims of blacks to American
identity. He described the Negro as the nerve center of American ide¬
als and existence. As he put it,

We have ... an inseparable, providential identity with this country; with

its institutions, with the ideas connected with its formation, which were
the uplifting of man—universal brotherhood ... We are the life of the na¬
tion’s existence; a nation must have issues to exhibit vitality. All of the great
principles of the land are brought out and discussed in connection with the
Negro. But for him, there would be a sameness; the great principles, the
great ethical school of the times, would be closed for the want of a subject.
We are the alphabet, upon us, all are constructed ... Blacks represented el¬
ements for the fulfillment of American mission and destiny—the fraternal
unity of man.32

As blacks became acculturated in America, Africa assumed an essen¬

tially utilitarian function and space in black consciousness. No lon¬
ger in a realistic position to claim African identity, blacks nonetheless
found assertions of African identity a useful part of their repertoire
of cultural resistance, and as the years progressed, that African iden¬
tity became the foundation for establishing claims to the American
identity. In the 1850s, during this onset of the “golden age” of black na¬
tionalism, we observe a very powerful anti-American and anti-estab¬
lishment nationalism that exalted African culture and identity. Yet, as
argued above, even this forceful Africanist nationalism was driven by
strong Americentric/Eurocentric aspirations and consciousness. Tra¬
ditionally, scholars have overemphasized the anti-American, and sup¬
posedly countercultural, essence of black nationalism to the neglect
of the Eurocentric and Americentric underpinnings. It is necessary,
however, to distinguish between real and manifest identities. What
blacks projected in response to alienation and rejection in America
was the African identity as a counteridentity. Africa served to balance
the denial of American identity (a utilitarian role). Many blacks ad¬
vanced a positive African identity as part of the intellectual repertoire
of resistance to Eurocentric historiography. This Africa served as a
protest weapon and platform for exposing the fallacies of Eurocen¬
tric historiography. Proclaiming African identity, backed by proofs of
African historical and cultural wealth, became a potent protest weap¬
on. As Amos Wilson unabashedly admitted, Africa served as a use-
148 AFROCENTRIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND HISTORICAL MEMORY

ful and effective protest weapon, providing a convenient platform for

revolutionary posturing. Being “Afrikan” reinforced him “against the
impossible odds of being Black in America!”33 Identifying with Africa
became the terrain upon which blacks attempted to construct their
American identity. As James Campbell surmised, “As paradoxical as it
may sound, Africa has served historically as one of the chief terrains
on which African Americans have negotiated their relationship to
American society. To put the matter more poetically, when an African
American asks ‘what is Africa to me?’ he or she is also asking ‘What is
America to me?’”34
Nineteenth-century black nationalists constructed a dual cultural
space within which they attempted to rationalize their ambivalent loca¬
tion between Europe and Africa. First, they advanced a positive image
of Africa—as a culturally and historically vibrant and wealthy conti¬
nent to negate Eurocentric historiography and as a counterhegemonic
platform. Second, they portrayed Africa as backward and primitive,
which enabled them to claim and affirm affinity with Euro-America.
This dual cultural space allowed them to accomplish the theatrics of
attacking Europe’s hegemonic claim while emphasizing their African
identity, and acknowledging Africa’s primitive nature while distanc¬
ing themselves from the continent. It amounted to deconstructing
Eurocentric worldview while acknowledging a critical aspect of that
worldview that sustained Europe’s hegemony—the alleged barbarism
of Africa. The dual cultural space allowed black nationalists, therefore,
to condemn Europe’s cultural arrogance while forcefully seeking to
situate themselves within that same cultural world. It was a cry for ac¬
ceptance and for the conferment of American identity. Acknowledg¬
ing Africa’s barbaric nature distanced blacks from the alleged back¬
wardness and civilizational primitivism of Africa, thus establishing
affinity to Europe, at least culturally, and establishing their claim to
Euro-American identity. The dual cultural space implies acknowledg¬
ing the transformatory character of the transplantation experience, at
least culturally, a dimension modern Afrocentric scholars deempha-
size. In this instance, the simultaneous exaltation and, relegation of
Africa served utilitarian purposes. The exaltation debunked the he¬
gemonic claims of Europe. The relegation served to enhance the ap¬
peal of blacks for acceptance and inclusion into the Euro-American
cultural world.35
Furthermore, early-twentieth-century intellectual challenge to Eu¬
rocentric historiography launched by Du Bois, Carter Woodson, and
 AFROCENTRIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND HISTORICAL MEMORY 149

others, though predicated on acknowledgment of African ancestry,

was itself driven by utilitarian aspirations: to establish grounds for in¬
tegration. Proving the historicity of Africa was designed to challenge
the hegemonic Eurocentric order and establish the claims of blacks to
American identity. Put simply, the underlying rationale reads thus: we
are denied American identity, rights, and privileges of American citi¬
zenship largely because our African heritage is maligned, misrepre¬
sented; to overturn this, it is necessary for us to demonstrate the true
nature and character of our heritage. Rehabilitating African history,
therefore, became a weapon of protest, of deconstructing Eurocentric
historiography and establishing the claims of blacks to American citi¬
zenship.
This protest and utilitarian function of Africa became especially
pronounced during the civil rights struggles. Being black and being
proud of it became not just an affirmation of racial identity but also
a slogan of protest against exclusion and segregation. Afrocentricity
combines African cultural appurtenance, molded within a broader
cultural space that defines and, more realistically, exemplifies real
identity and aspirations that are fundamentally Americentric, its bold
and combative professions of African identity notwithstanding. There
is, therefore, a need for a clear distinction between verbal and rhe¬
torical assertions of African identity and emulation of African cultural
and aesthetics ideals, on the one hand, and subscription to cultural,
sociological, and behavioral values and tendencies that are essen¬
tially Americentric, on the other. This distinction will establish, first,
that African cultural and aesthetic patterns were utilized essentially
as protest weapons against a hegemonic and culturally threatening
mainstream and, second, that black American culture is in essence
partially African, partially Euro-American, essentially American, tan¬
gentially African.
The Afrocentric identity is rendered even more tenuous as a mono¬
lithic, all-embracing identity construct for Diaspora blacks by new
studies that reveal complex and multiple levels and layers of black
Diaspora experiences across historical space and time. Some blacks
had positive and endearing experiences within a particular Diaspora
space and time and manifested integrative identity consciousness,
whereas for others, within the same geographical space and histori¬
cal time, the experiences and responses were negative and alienating,
inducing separatist identity consciousness. For others still, the experi¬
ence may not be as clear-cut as to induce certainty on identity.36
150 AFROCENTRIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND HISTORICAL MEMORY

Explanation of the utilitarian and fragile nature of Afrocentric

identity lies in part in something that contemporary cultural national¬
ists who insist on identifying Diaspora blacks as African are reluctant
to admit: the transformatory nature of the transplantation experience.
As Michael Gomez contends, “with the African antecedent in view, it
becomes possible to more fully comprehend the change, the transi¬
tion from a socially stratified, ethnically based identity directly tied to
a specific land, to an identity predicated on the concept of race. There
were specific mechanisms in each phase of the African’s experience—
initial capture and barracoon, transatlantic trek and seasoning—
through which he was increasingly nudged toward reassessment of
identity. The experience of enslavement resulted in the restructuring
of the slave’s identity.”37
Torn away from Africa, denied American identity, suspended be¬
tween two identities—a distant and increasingly fuzzy African one
and a cherished but elusive American one—blacks responded in vari¬
ous ways, pursuing policies and activities that clearly revealed how
they defined themselves. Their responses to Africa were informed by
profound ambivalence and complexity. The ambivalence toward Af¬
rica and the utilitarian, ephemeral, and shallow African conscious¬
ness underscore the problematic of identity. An increasing number
of scholars are now focusing attention on the transformatory nature
of the Diaspora experience. As W. D. Wright argued, “when black Af¬
ricans moved to other parts of the world, they not only moved into
different geographical areas but also into different time and spatial
zones, and into different historical, cultural, and social contexts. In
each geographical and time and spatial zone, they took their origi¬
nal African culture with them, and it also became modified.”38 This
modification underscores a complex global Diaspora history. We
need to acknowledge not just different levels and layers of the African
Diaspora—America, Europe, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, and
the Pacific—but also their complexities. There are profound differ¬
ences, historically and culturally, in the global experiences of blacks.
Yet, the growing realization of the complexities of Africa and the black
Diaspora has not stopped Afrocentric essentialists from extending
their monolithic perspective to the global arena.
5

Afrocentric Essentialism
and Globalization

The last two decades have witnessed a deepening of the crisis of black
American alienation. Reacting to the conservative upsurge that con¬
tinues to erode significant gains of the civil rights movement, black
cultural nationalism, according to some scholars, has assumed a heavi¬
ly “hyper-politicized” character, extending black alienation beyond the
boundaries of the United States into the global arena. Leading black
cultural nationalists portray globalization as a force for perpetuating
the hegemonic aspirations of Europeans, and thus inimical to the racial
and cultural survival of blacks. They are consequently suspicious of,
and opposed to, the prospect of a global cultural citizenship. Against
globalization, they counterpoise cultural isolationism, constructing
the ideal identity for blacks in distinct racial and cultural terms and
proffering what essentially is a global extension of Afrocentrism.
As I have argued consistently, Afrocentricity is premised on a
conflict conception of society and social change. The combination of
political powerlessness, economic impoverishment, and systematic
erosion of the gains of the civil rights struggles has pushed blacks
to the depth of social misery and alienation, and, in the judgment of
Afrocentric scholars, provides proof of the continuing relevance and
potency of race and ethnicity as unifying identitarian constructs. The
crux of Asante’s ideas is the identification of Eurocentrism as the ma¬
jor threat to both Africans and blacks in Diaspora. According to him,
this problem has been with blacks since the dawn of history and has
remained intractable in spite of emancipation and the gains of the civil
rights movement.1
The Afrocentric response to globalization entails the use of African
consciousness to build a racial and cultural monolithic Africa-black
Diaspora world, the creation and envisioning of a unified black world
against the cultural onslaughts of global European hegemony. Molefi
Asante, Maulana Karenga, and other scholars of the Afrocentric
School view the United States as “a hegemonic society, in which the
152 AFROCENTRIC ESSENTIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION

relatively powerful members trace their ways of thinking, their philo¬

sophical foundations, and their canons of knowledge to the cultures of
Western Europe. These people, over the generations, have used soci¬
etal institutions and resources to glorify their Western European cul¬
tural heritage while, at the same time, devaluing through processes of
omission, distortion, and misrepresentation knowledge centred in the
cultures of others in the same society who do not trace their origins
to Western Europe.”2 To combat this hegemonic force, Afrocentric
scholars advocate advancing knowledge of African history and culture
among blacks as a defensive weapon against what is characterized and
perceived as a pervasive and domineering Eurocentric worldview.
Asante’s concepts of centering and location are culturally defined. In
terms of epistemology and pedagogy, the black person or scholar has
to be located and centered within African culture. Knowledge and its
contents and purveyors are validated only within the African cultural
context.3 The end result is a model of identity rescued from the cul¬
tural/historical stranglehold of Eurocentric socialization. A black per¬
son is thus socialized to be suspicious of, and in antagonism against,
western ideas and values. This underscores the continuing relevance
of the color line.
The color line has been a constituent part of, and basis for, Afrocen¬
tric identity and consciousness from the start. Afrocentricity united
Africans and blacks in Diaspora, regardless of historical experiences,
circumstances, and contexts as peoples of one identity and culture.
Their shared experiences of slavery and colonialism derived from
another shared identity—blackness. Consequently, race became the
unifying element, the basis of confraternity, the solid foundation for
constructing a Pan-African framework of struggle, and the common
platform against an enemy that was similarly conceived in essentially
racial terms—Caucasian and Eurocentric. The color line thus upholds
a Manichean depiction of society as a theatre of perpetual conflict
between two irreconcilable foes, each distinguished by racial charac¬
teristics—black and white.
Despite its centrality to Afrocentricity, the color line, as suggested
earlier, is rooted in an earlier phase of black history. Prominent black
leaders of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries advanced the
color line as the platform for constructing an effective defense against
European domination. Delany’s 1854 address before the Negro Na¬
tional Emigration Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, contained perhaps
the most forceful and articulate projection and defense of this strat-
 AFROCENTRIC ESSENTIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION 153

egy. Although Delany would later contradict his own injunction and
endorse European activities in Africa, the color line retained its appeal
as a dynamic force in black-white relations. Many critics identify race
as the central problem of the twentieth century and, some would ar¬
gue, a central problem of the twenty-first century as well.4 This grow¬
ing ascendance and privileging of race compels interrogation of the
global dynamics and implications of Afrocentric essentialism.
Globalization has been identified as among the major dynamics of
change in twenty-first-century history. Although few doubt its reality,
many are very apprehensive of its broader implication for human in¬
teractions. Responses to globalization have consequently been mixed.
Some are apprehensive of its perceived economic and political threats
to the livelihood of millions of workers. Others dread the economic and
political implications of a world order in which the leading industrial¬
ized European nations exercise hegemonic control and influence.5 But
there are also those who welcome globalization as a force that would
lead inexorably to greater human interdependence and interactions,
with the attendant shrinkage of spatial distance and separation. En¬
thusiasts foresee and predict the imminence of a global civilization—
“a discrete world order with shared values, processes and structures.”
Globalization thus portends a world economy, greater international
migrational pattern, and the eventual disappearance of “permanent
settlement and the exclusive adoption of the citizenship of a desti¬
nation country.” Global cities would emerge from “intensification of
transactions and interactions between the different segments of the
world,” and the “de-territorialization of social identity challenging the
hegemonizing nation-states’ claim to an exclusive citizenship a defin¬
ing focus of allegiance and fidelity in favor of overlapping, permeable
and multiple forms of identification.”6
The global context of cultural citizenship suggests the possibility of
transcending the limitations of national citizenship, ethnicity, or other
primordial constructions of identity. Affirmations of sovereignty and
political independence, national distinctiveness, and citizenship are
all attributes of the emergent nation-state. Robin Cohen identifies as
a critical feature of modernity the attempt by leaders of homogeniz¬
ing nation-states to make citizenship an exclusive claim to identity.
This exclusivity is challenged in the postmodernist context. As Cohen
further argues, “the scope for multiple affiliations and associations
that has been opened up outside and beyond the nation-state has also
allowed a diasporic allegiance to become both more open and more
154 AFROCENTRIC ESSENTIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION

acceptable. There is no longer any stability in the points of origin, no

finality in the points of destination and no necessary coincidence be¬
tween social and national identities.”7 This is particularly troubling for
a paradigm (such as Afrocentricity) that esSentializes points of origin
and destination and insists on absolute coincidence between race, cul¬
ture, and identity.
The essence of globalization, therefore, is the expansion of the spa¬
tial parameters of human encounters. This expansive development
effects profound transformation in the hermeneutics of human ex¬
perience as we come to emphasize interactions, impacts, exchanges,
and shared experiences, values that render the rigidity, isolation, and
insularity of a racialized worldview problematic. Globalization entails
acknowledging engagements, contacts, interactions, and encounters
as key historical dynamics of human development, forces that have
hitherto been overshadowed by negative responses and reactions to
the destructive and negative characteristics of the encounters. There
is a widespread belief that the world is becoming one global village
and that technology is breaking down and shrinking spatial distance
and barriers, with the implication that as we get to know more of each
other and as we interact more, we are inexorably led to discover that
commonalities, shared experiences, rather than differences, define the
human experience. Afrocentrists, however, consider this expansion in
the parameters of human encounters pregnant with hegemonic impli¬
cation that would render the global system one of unequal relation¬
ships. In other words, they discern the spectre of a “colonial situation"
within this global framework, where European and superpower domi¬
nance would constitute an ever-threatening force to the survival of
weaker nations and peoples.
If Robin Cohen is right that globalization could potentially circum¬
scribe the political and cultural authority of the nation-state, then Af¬
rocentric scholars view the resultant supra-cultural and cosmopoli¬
tan order as the global trajectory of Eurocentrism. This conjures the
image of a supra-European hegemonic cultural force, with the same
devastating impact that many see in the political-economy of global¬
ization. The Afrocentric paradigm relies heavily on a monolithic and
hegemonic construction of European culture. Europeans, according
to this perspective, have used, and would continue to use, culture as
a weapon of domination. By denying and denigrating African culture
and history, Europeans succeeded in constructing a hegemonic world
order. Afrocentric scholars therefore see nothing in the new global
 AFROCENTRIC ESSENTIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION 155

cultural order to inspire optimism. To the Afrocentric mindset, Eu¬

rope’s cultural threat to blacks is perpetual and absolute. Therefore, a
critical problematic of globalization from the Afrocentric essentialist
perspective is the move toward global cultural citizenship. The global
gravitation toward the evolution of cultural citizenship has strength¬
ened the suspicion of Afrocentric scholars. It should be acknowledged,
however, that the global projection of Eurocentric hegemony is not
of Afrocentric origin but rooted in black American history. As dis¬
cussed in previous chapters, leading nineteenth-century black nation¬
alists such as Martin Delany and Henry McNeal Turner advocated a
racialized platform of struggle against what they perceived as a global
scheme by American whites and those Delany identified as their Eu¬
ropean “cousins” to keep Africans and blacks in Diaspora in perpetual
subordination.8
The conception of cultural citizenship implies human capacity
and willingness to deemphasize or even transcend national or some
other primordial construction of citizenship and identity—be it race,
ethnicity, or religion—coupled with familiarity with, and the capac¬
ity to engage, multiple cultural experiences without being boxed in,
or restrained, by one’s original cultural identity. Afrocentric scholars
who advocate an absolutist and monolithic construction of African
and black Diaspora identity are opposed to, and deeply suspicious
of, any global cosmopolitan construction of identity. From the Afro¬
centric perspective, the global context itself is problematic, since it is
perceived as an extension of the hegemonic domestic American real¬
ity that is deemed detrimental to black identity and consciousness.
Thus, the cultural implications of globalization have given an added
urgency and poignancy to the Afrocentric notion of cultural threat,
since culture is perceived as a critical front in the war against Euro¬
centric hegemony. The cultural agenda of Afrocentricity is to social¬
ize blacks to recognize the dangers of white American and European
cultural values, and regard any notion of intercultural dialogue with
deep suspicion, while developing strong affection for African culture
and privileging it as the essential basis of identity.
Thus, globalization and its implications have compelled Afrocen¬
tric essentialist scholars to invoke a countervailing racialized ideology
for survival against what they perceive as the hegemonic character
and implications of a European-dominated world order. The racial
underpinnings and construction of the black struggle are problematic
in the context of the global expansion of the boundaries of human
156 AFROCENTRIC ESSENTIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION

encounters and the attendant shrinkage of traditional patterns of dis¬

tinctiveness. Afrocentrists deem the global context problematic and
troubling, especially as it impacts the utility of race as both weapon
of struggle and framework for understanding reality. In their judg¬
ment, globalization has rendered blacks more susceptible to western
and European hegemonic interests. To counteract this, they advocate
strengthening and expanding the global parameters of the color line.
Although studies in the last decade and a half underscore the com¬
plexity of the African and black Diaspora historical and cultural expe¬
riences, Afrocentric scholars persist in essentializing African cosmol¬
ogy as the only legitimate and true basis of culture and identity for all
blacks, and therefore the most effective weapon for survival against
Eurocentric threat. In the Afrocentric genre, therefore, globalization
is identified essentially as a disguised European imperialistic force, a
postmodern metamorphosis of nineteenth-century imperialism. The
difference, however, is that this new global imperialism has not as¬
sumed the blatantly racist arrogance and ideological and militaristic
characters of the past. Instead, it is cleverly disguised as an interna¬
tionalist, worldwide phenomenon that potentially could benefit all of
humankind, by shrinking traditional parameters and patterns of dif¬
ferences, alienation, distinctiveness, and separation. Although Afro¬
centric essentialist consciousness had existed among blacks from the
dawn of black American history, the projection of racial essentialism
as a weapon of direct struggle and as a countervailing force against
Eurocentric essentialism and influences is a product of the cultural
nationalist slant of late-twentieth-century black nationalism. Though
not all Afrocentric scholars espouse racial essentialism, the core val¬
ues of Afrocentrism have inspired and nurtured racial essentialist con¬
sciousness and convictions (pan-blackism). The “pan-blackists,” there¬
fore, are also gloracialists who essentialize blackness as both a global
unifying force and a formidable weapon of struggle against what they
perceive and characterize as an equally unified, and racially construct¬
ed and culturally particularistic, European-dominated global order.
The origins of “pan-blackism,” the ideological embodiment of glo-
racialized consciousness, can be traced to the early nineteenth cen¬
tury efforts by black leaders to use both slavery and racism as unifying
constructs. The tradition became much more pronounced in the mid-
nineteenth-century black nationalism and back-to-Africa schemes of
Martin R. Delany, Henry H. Garnet, and others. Frustrated and alien¬
ated, these leaders gave up on integration, convinced that racism was
 AFROCENTRIC ESSENTIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION 157

deeply entrenched, invincible, and unconquerable. Martin Delany’s

writings in the 1850s underscored the global threat that white Ameri¬
cans and Europeans posed to blacks. His analysis of the global threat
and black predicament derived from the dismal and gloomy domes¬
tic American realities.9 These writings established Delany’s enduring
historical reputation as a racial essentialist. Marcus Garvey would
develop this racial essentialism and global construction of the black
struggle further in the 1920s.10 This historical depth notwithstanding,
Afrocentrism exemplifies modern amplification and global projection
of racial essentialism. From its inception, Afrocentricity had relied for
its appeal on the color line. Color occupies a central location in Af¬
rocentric construction and analysis of the problems and challenges
confronting blacks in Africa and the Diaspora. Afrocentric scholars
advocate absolute adherence to the color line as the best guarantee of
the physical and cultural survival of blacks in both the national and
global contexts of white hegemony. In the last ten years, however, with
the growth of globalization, and imminent shrinkage of traditional pa¬
rameters of differentiation, Afrocentric scholars have become almost
schizophrenic in their opposition to the cultural impact of globaliza¬
tion on the black experience.
Several scholars, including the late Chancellor Williams and John
Henrik Clarke laid the groundwork for the cultural projection of a
racialized Manichean global order. In his critically acclaimed study
of how the West “destroyed Black Civilization,” Williams urged the
creation of a “race organization,” which he described as “a nation-wide
organization of Blacks only.” He called on blacks to begin “building
step by step, a race organization so great that it will not only be the
voice of a united people but will carry on efficiently an economic de¬
velopment program to assist their advance on all fronts.”11 Molefi As-
ante is undoubtedly the leading modern philosophical advocate of this
genre. His Afrocentric paradigm embodied the separatist vision in
Williams’s “organization.” As already established, the paradigm within
which Asante envisions the black struggle is unambiguously and es¬
sentially culturally constructed upon African historical and cosmo¬
logical foundations. He calls for cultural vigilance and unity against
an ever-threatening Eurocentric force. Based essentially on race and
culture, such unity, Asante insists, was critical to black survival and
eventual triumph in a world order still dominated by Europeans.12
In his own study, Haki Madhubuti underlines the ever-present
threat of “white world supremacy” and the need for blacks to strive
158 AFROCENTRIC ESSENTIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION

toward “total separation.” He defines this "white world supremacy” as

“the supremacy of whites worldwide finally and undiluted” Madhubu-
ti enjoins blacks to limit contacts with whites in a social and cultural
context and presents a litany of reasons. Primarily, whites have prov¬
en themselves to “be traditionally and historically enemies of black
people." Looking toward the twenty-first century, he urges blacks to
organize themselves “for a future not dependent on the concepts and
visions of others who do not have our best interests in mind.”13 Thus,
these Afrocentric scholars articulate a gloracialized and “pan-blackist”
framework in response to their perception of a disguised global Euro¬
centric threat to black cultural survival. In their judgment, the emer¬
gence of globalization requires a countervailing racially constructed
global force if blacks were to survive its cultural hegemonic essence.
Perhaps no other Afrocentric scholar has defended the paradigm
and condemned the global hegemonic character of Eurocentrism as
fervently and scathingly as Marimba Ani (aka Dona Marimba Rich¬
ards), whose seminal publication Yurugu (1996) is a devastating cri¬
tique and deconstruction of the hegemonic character of Eurocentric
history and culture.14 She is also one of the most powerful defenders of
the absolutist construction of African identity for blacks in Africa and
the Diaspora. Her study of identity deemphasizes the impact of New
World transplantation and acculturation on black culture and identity.
In her analysis, blacks retain their African essence and identity, cen¬
turies of transplantation in the New World notwithstanding.15 In Yu¬
rugu she reaffirms a cardinal Afrocentric conviction: the inherent and
absolute hegemonic character of Eurocentric culture. She calls for the
“de-Europeanizing” of culture. This would render culture much more
relevant to the political needs of blacks. Her book emphasizes the ur¬
gency of racial and cultural vigilance in a global context in which, she
contends, blacks continue, more than ever before, to be threatened by
Eurocentric values and cultural contacts.16
More than any other Afrocentric scholar, Ani underscores the
global, or what she calls the international, character of the Eurocen¬
tric threat. In a rather tragic misrepresentation of European culture as
monolithic, Ani discerns a unified and homogeneous European world
order. According to her, Europeans are driven by the urge to domi¬
nate and fraudulently invoke “universalism” and “internationalism” as
weapons for expansion into, and domination of, other societies. She
warns blacks against embracing "internationalism” of any kind, partic¬
ularly one spearheaded by and involving Europeans. Since European
 AFROCENTRIC ESSENTIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION 159

culture is inherently expansionistic and hegemonic, she urges black

cultural unity and vigilance. In her analysis, two culturally monolithic
worlds confront, and have always confronted, each other: African and
Eurocentric, inherently and diametrically opposed. One, the white,
represents the death and destruction of the other, black. “Europe,” she
writes, “is a culturally homogeneous” entity and thus threatening to
blacks. She wants to dispel any illusions of cultural harmony. Culture,
she insists, is ideological, political, and hegemonic. Furthermore, she
argues, European culture is also "extremely cohesive and well-inte¬
grated” with a deceptive veneer of heterogeneity.17 The world order,
in Ani’s perception, is an arena of perpetual cultural antagonism and
conflict. Black survival is conceivable only in the context of perpetual
opposition to, and vigilance against, and not in association with, Eu¬
rocentric values and influences.
Given the above convictions, Afrocentric scholars are deeply sus¬
picious of a “global context”; especially one in which, as H. V. Perl-
mutter suggests, "multiple cultures are being syncretized in a complex
way. The elements of particular cultures can be drawn from a global
array, but they will mix and match differently in each setting.”18 It is
precisely the “mixing” and “matching” that, according to Afrocentric
scholars, could potentially destroy black cultural originality. The call
for "pan-blackist” cultural vigilance and unity, and the projection of a
monolithic African cultural world and identity, therefore, represent a
response to the cultural implications of globalization. In the Afrocen¬
tric worldview, culture is an arena of irreconcilable conflict and an¬
tagonism between blacks and whites. Blacks are expected to maintain
a respectable distance from, and vigilance against, white cultural con¬
tacts. In Afrocentricity, the notion of “cultural citizenship” suggests
distinct antagonistic cultural zones, in perpetual conflict, with no
grounds for discourses, exchanges, encounters, and influence. Instead
of cultural understandings, Afrocentric cultural worldview underlines
a world of cultural isolation, suspicion, and antagonism, one in which
citizenship is defined not by cultural connectedness or attempts to
discover such connections, but by cultural disharmony and disengage¬
ment, foreclosing dialogue and communication across cultural spaces.
It becomes imperative, therefore, for Africans and blacks in Diaspora
to maintain cultural vigilance. This posture undermines intercultural
communication and dialogue. In the judgment of Afrocentric schol¬
ars, therefore, globalization represents internationalization of the
domestic American cultural war. The probability of a global cultural
160 AFROCENTRIC ESSENTIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION

citizenship deepens Afrocentric distrust of Eurocentric culture. Such

citizenry is emblematic of European hegemony and, therefore, inimi¬
cal to black interests.
Afrocentricity is, therefore, vehemently anti-globalization, pre¬
ferring an isolationist posture for blacks. Advocates emphasize race,
ethnicity, and a monolithic black identity. Afrocentric response to
globalization betrays paranoia and provincialism. Afrocentric schol¬
ars are convinced that embracing globalization would jeopardize and
compromise black cultural distinctiveness and lure blacks into a false
sense of security, while subjecting them to European cultural hege¬
mony. This is logical because, in the Afrocentric worldview, the global
context is an expanded terrain of the racial and cultural war.19 Global¬
ization is thus a euphemism for Eurocentric hegemony. Survival for
blacks in the context of this overarching global hegemony mandates
the adoption of separate and isolationist disposition. As Asante elabo¬
rates in a recent publication, “Eurocentrism in its most extreme form
has generated an entire cacophony of voices that have been arrayed
against the best interests of international cooperation and mutuality.
It has generated a view toward the world of domination, hegemony,
and control. Every aspect of the gross Eurocentrism seems articulated
toward this end, ultimately the subverting of international relation¬
ships.”20
Although he acknowledges that “all people of Europe are not rac¬
ists and imperialists,” Asante insists that “it is very difficult for Euro¬
peans to escape the conditions of their historical realities. They are
like passengers on a giant balloon that contains a captain who is intent
on destruction." Given this construction of Europe, Asante concludes,
“So let me hasten to say that, for Africa, Europe is dangerous; it is
five hundred years of danger for Africans—and I am not talking of
physical or ecological danger (although that history is severe enough),
but psychological and cultural danger. One knows, I surmise, that a
people’s soul is dead when it can no longer breathe its own philosophi¬
cal air and when the air of another culture seems to dominate every
aspect of conscious life.”21
In opposition to the intercultural implications of globalization,
Afrocentric scholars advocate racial distinctiveness, a distinctiveness
preserved through a strict observance of the color line on a global
scale, in which blacks, regardless of sociopolitical experiences and
geographical locations are drawn together to forge a strong global
united gloracialized front. Of course, the emblematic factor besides
 AFROCENTRIC ESSENTIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION 161

race is culture—the assertion that blacks in Diaspora are culturally Af¬

rican. Though some Afrocentrists deemphasize race as an identitarian
construct, due to its problematic character, they embrace and high¬
light culture, arguing essentially that centuries of transplantation had
not fundamentally altered the original African culture. This cultural
continuum therefore constitutes the basis of unity between Africans
and peoples of African descent in the Diaspora who are threatened by
European global domination. Both should expect nothing but cultural
annihilation from any transcultural engagement on the global arena.
But then, culture is as confining and restrictive as race in defining a
monolithic identity for all blacks. In other words, the cultural para¬
digm within Afrocentricity is as confining and restrictive as the racial
one. The cultural line depicts African cultural experience as a unique,
distinct, and original experience that is threatened by Eurocentric
cultural influence. It becomes imperative, therefore, for Africans and
blacks in Diaspora to maintain cultural antagonism and vigilance. The
cultural line consequently erodes any grounds for intercultural com¬
munication and dialogue. The configuration of the cultural line em¬
phasizes the enduring character of Eurocentric cultural threat. The
spectre of a global cultural citizenship deepens Afrocentric distrust of
Eurocentric culture.

Transformative and Neo-Afrocentricity

In the last decade and half, a historiographical movement within Af¬

rican American studies has developed that acknowledges the global
imperative and attempts to move black Americans away from an isola-
tive paradigm to one that could potentially facilitate coming to terms
with globalization. While the appeal of Afrocentricity remains strong
within the general black population, it is waning among intellectual
elites in institutions of higher education. Emerging counter-Afrocen¬
tric and neo-Afrocentric studies in the last decade underscore the
complexity of the African and black Diaspora experiences, eroding
the force of the racial and cultural lines.22 This transformational para¬
digm, as some scholars characterize it, is associated with the bour¬
geoning black Atlantic or black Diaspora perspective. This approach
acknowledges the complexity of the black Diaspora experience, argu¬
ing that a monolithic, racialized, and conflict-driven paradigm could
not adequately represent the gamut of the African and black Diaspora
experiences.23
162 AFROCENTRIC ESSENTIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION

There is also a growing awareness of the social character of human

beings and the need to accommodate cross-cultural communication,
engagement, and dialogue. Recent studies present a much more in¬
teractive and complex view of historical encounters, defined by har¬
mony as well as conflict—encounters within and between ecological,
geo-political, and historical spaces that engender both distinctiveness
and shared attributes. Such views inspire a growing awareness of the
greater connectedness of human beings, transcending traditional
boundaries of race, ethnicity, and culture. The language of communi¬
cation is no longer defined by distinct historical and national experi¬
ences, but by transnational experiences and cross-cultural encounters
and exchanges. In Rebecca Martusewicz’s view, “Human beings are
fundamentally social creatures. We come together from unique places
and histories ... As we enter into social relations, into a socially and
discursively organized world or culture; we are shaped and modelled
by it. The meanings, beliefs, and structures that pre-exist us have been
made historically by just such engagement. .. Our understanding of
ourselves and of the community and the larger world is shaped by this
relational context of meaning and the ways that it is exchanged or im¬
posed."24 Essentially, Martusewicz underscores an interactive and in-
tersubjective relational system. In other words, the human historical
experience is, to a far greater degree, shaped by cultural encounters
and exchanges than many are willing to acknowledge. This position is
particularly problematic for black Americans of the Afrocentric per¬
suasion, whose worldview is defined by antagonism, and for whom
culture is a weapon of perpetual conflict.
The emerging transformational historiography challenges Afro¬
centric homogenization. The historiography is spearheaded by schol¬
ars who also acknowledge the centrality of the African heritage while
depicting the black Diaspora as a world of profound transformations,
of complex and conflicting experiences and reactions. Consequent¬
ly, instead of a monolithic black Diaspora world, the transformative
paradigm acknowledges spheres of complex, conflicting, and at times
overlapping Diaspora experiences, at the same time underscoring the
inherent shortcoming of the traditional practice of isolating the black
Diaspora experience into distinct national and geographical zones—
North America, South, Central and Latin America, Europe, Asia, Af¬
rica, and the Caribbean. They offer a macro-Atlantic-and-Diaspora
framework as a more effective theoretical model for highlighting
shared attributes and discovering distinctiveness and complexities.25
 AFROCENTRIC ESSENTIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION 163

This new paradigm has other far-reaching implications, perhaps the

most revolutionary of which is the deconstruction of the prevailing
monolithic construction of African and black Diaspora history and
culture. But perhaps most telling is the deessentializing of racialized
and monolithic perspectives. As Dwayne Williams urges, we need “to
acknowledge that there is no one idea of‘blackness’ or ‘African’ which
could or should control how the histories of the peoples of African de¬
scent are studied ... It is impossible to fully capture the complex and
varied histories of African people with any one definition of Black¬
ness/African identity.”26
This perspective represents a move away from distinctiveness to¬
ward transformation, from narrow cultural provincialism to cosmo¬
politanism, revealing a complex black Diaspora world that invalidates
monolithic constructs of history and identity. The transformational
model for global dynamics facilitates the recognition of historical
discourses, interactions, and exchanges, making it difficult to posit a
distinct, separatist, and isolationist construction of identity. Rather, it
locates identity within a wider context of global interaction that re¬
flects shared attributes and differences for all, including blacks, thus
underscoring the complexities of African and black Diaspora history
and culture.
Although critical of Afrocentricity, the postmodernist transfor¬
mational paradigm affirms the imperative of validating the historical
heritage of Africa and blacks while at the same time acknowledging
the transformative and complex character of the transplantation ex¬
perience. According to Earl Lewis, this entails historicizing “the pro¬
cesses of racial formation and identity construction. Race ... is viewed
as historically contingent and relational, with full understanding of
that process dependent on our abilities to see African Americans liv¬
ing and working in a world of overlapping diasporas (dispersed com¬
munities).”27 It is thus powerfully driven by racial transcendentalism.
It deessentializes race, suggesting the necessity of deconstructing and
jettisoning prevailing racialized constructions of reality. This transfor¬
mative paradigm, according to Stuart Hall, “is defined not by essence
or purity, but by the recognition of necessary heterogeneity and di¬
versity; by a conception of‘identity,’ which lives with and through, not
despite, difference; by hybridity. Diaspora identities are those which
are constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew, through
transformation and difference.”28
164 AFROCENTRIC ESSENTIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION

Jack Greene argues that the transformational approach emphasizes

“the flow and mixture of peoples and cultures and implied a process
of social and cultural formation that, far from being imposed from
the top-down, derived from a continuing process of negotiation or
exchange among the various peoples and cultures involved.”29 Perhaps
the most revolutionary implication of this historiography is its para¬
digmatic shift and reformulation, replacing the nation-state with the
much broader Atlantic or Diaspora construct as the more substantive
framework for analyzing the black experience. Like Afrocentricity, this
captures and highlights shared negative historical experiences (slavery,
colonialism, racism); however, unlike the combative Afrocentric para¬
digm, it acknowledges experiential variations and complexities, and
situates Africa among other contending historical and cultural factors
in the construction of black Diaspora identity. The emphasis here is
on the growing complexity of the Diaspora. It is no longer just in the
United States, Latin America, Europe, and the Caribbean. It is impera¬
tive that we begin to interrogate the complexity of the black experi¬
ence even within these regions. The experiences of blacks in Germany
cannot be deemed identical to those of blacks in Scandinavia, Austria,
Russia, France, Australia, the Middle East, and Asia. In fact, more re¬
cent studies of the Diaspora point toward an even broader conceptu¬
alization beyond the tradition homogeneity-heterogeneity discourse.
The paradigm shift is toward micro-analytical case studies that inves¬
tigate new forms of Diasporas within and without Africa, Diasporas
that grew out of what Leif Manger and Munzoul A. M. Assal describe
as “the decay in the contemporary African post-colonial state.”30 These
case studies focus on Eritrean refugees in Germany, southern Suda¬
nese in the United States, and Somali and Sudanese refugees in Nor¬
way, among many others.31 The global black landscape is complex and
multilayered, the product of what Ruth Hamilton and others call “pro¬
liferations of departures across time and space, conditioned by, and
within, a changing global culture and political economy.” Undoubt¬
edly, there are shared experiences relating to “persistence of oppres¬
sion, racialization, prejudice and discrimination, political disenfran¬
chisement, and hostile social environment.” But, as Ruth Hamilton
and others insist, “Such continuity should not be interpreted to mean
fixed. Collective identities are contested, negotiated, conflictual and
dynamic. They are paradoxical and contradictory, generating internal
‘differences...’ Thus we deliberately use terms such as social identities,
social identity formation, and social identifications to emphasize that
 AFROCENTRIC ESSENTIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION 165

the significance and meaning of group membership are ongoing, and

transient, relational to others and therefore comparative.”32
The black Diaspora is neither monolithic nor culturally isolated
and distinct. Afrocentric construction of an isolationist black world
is inherently contradictory. The construction of a distinct community
“We” is itself a relational construct. “We” cannot exist without “They.”
As Ruth Hamilton underscores, “Even the extent to which the mobi¬
lized actions of a people can be conceptualized as ‘acts for itself’ im¬
plies a contradiction: people stand (act) in opposition to the forces that
have conditioned their existential reality and material circumstances
... At the general and specific levels of African Diaspora formation,
there is variation by geographical location, by generations, by material
and institutional conditions, and by socio-economic and demographic
patterns."33 Underlining the situational and contextual underpinnings
of identity and culture, Anthony Smith writes, “The obstinate fact is
that national cultures, like all cultures before the modern epoch, are
particular, timebound and expressive, and their eclecticism operates
within strict cultural constraints.” Furthermore, he continues, “The
concept of ‘identity’... implies the subjective feelings and valuations
of any population which possesses common experiences and one or
more shared cultural characteristics (usually customs, language or re¬
ligion). These feelings and values refer to three components of their
shared experience: 1. a sense of continuity between the experiences of
succeeding generations of the unit of population; 2. shared memories
of specific events and personages which have been turning-points of
a collective history; and 3. a sense of common destiny.” Afrocentric
essentialist scholars ignore these critical cultural and experiential cri¬
teria in their attempts to construct a uniform and monolithic black
world. A major challenge “in any project to construct a global identity
and hence a global culture,” Smith contends, “is that collective iden¬
tity, like imagery and culture, is always historically specific because it
is based on shared memories and a sense of continuity between gen¬
erations.”34 This generational continuity should not be construed in
isolation from the broader human experiences. It does not, and should
not be construed to, privilege isolation, cultural purity, and specificity.
Afrocentric essentialism is an attempt to build a transnational identity
within a fundamentally flawed, ill-defined, ill-conceived, and prob¬
lematic context. In the context of globalization, transnational iden¬
tities have to come to terms with, embrace, and accommodate mul¬
tiple, multifaceted, and complex experiences that may not necessarily
166 AFROCENTRIC ESSENTIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION

be culturally compatible. Thus, an Afrocentric essentialist attempt to

construct an isolationist black world is inherently problematic and
dysfunctional. Blacks could never exist in isolation, however strong
the bond of “shared memories and ... continuity” and however strong
their “oppositional consciousness.”
The second critical challenge, neo-Afrocentricity, is internal to the
Afrocentric paradigm and developed from efforts by Afrocentric schol¬
ars to respond to some of its critics by broadening its appeal. Among
the most innovative studies is C. Tsehloane Keto's Vision, Identity and
Time: The Afrocentric Paradigm and the Study of the Past (1995)- In
this revisionist study, Keto, a onetime member of the Temple School
of Afrocentricity, proposes a framework that acknowledges the inter¬
active and contributory character of the human experience instead of
the traditional Afrocentric conflict theory. He envisions a truly global
and “multi-centred” perspective that allows for greater intercultural
discourses on a non-hegemonic basis. He represents his paradigm as
“a constituent aspect of a global intellectual movement of liberation
and a step toward the creation of a ‘multi-centred’ and diversity af¬
firming perspective for all the peoples of the world of the future.” This
would allow for greater engagement since it would accommodate all
perspectives (including African, European) without privileging any.
Underlining the global imperative of his perspective, Keto writes:

The African Centred perspective which is an outcome of the Afrocentric

paradigm is a vital contributor to a holistic approach in the study of the
world and its heterogeneous peoples. An African centred perspective
should not be confused with an apologia, or a chauvinist posture tied to
an exclusivist principle that encourages analytical dichotomy of studying
“them" versus studying “us.” Properly applied, the African centred perspec¬
tive liberates all minds and sets an important foundation for a global per¬
spective that does not peripheralize the peoples of Africa, of Europe, of
Asia, of the Americas or of the Pacifk.3S

Keto proposes a nonhegemonic point of intersection of heterogeneous

experiences and paradigms. This paradigm represents not just one he¬
gemonic cultural group but the intersection of many groups of equal
importance, each contributing to, and participating in, a common
pool or tradition of historical encounters.36 This framework therefore
enables Afrocentric and other culturally centered experiences to come
together in a context that acknowledges contributions, differences,
 AFROCENTRIC ESSENTIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION 167

distinctiveness, as well as commonalities. It shifts Afrocentricity away

from separatist and oppositional to interactive and relational concep¬
tions of culture and identity. This shift has the potential to facilitate
intercultural dialogue, a process that enhances mutual awareness of,
and appreciation for, the wealth, diversity, and complexity of the hu¬
man experience.
Although a modest beginning, his paradigm is significant nonethe¬
less in recognizing the interactive and contributory character of the
human experience. Keto’s reformulation is based on the recognition
that no one group or perspective can claim cultural distinction and
preeminence but that all contribute to enriching a common pool of
culture and knowledge. This reformulation, without compromising
the African-centeredness, also opens up the possibility of developing a
paradigm that would command respect and recognition across racial
and cultural and ethnic lines. As he explains,

An Afrocentric paradigm therefore asserts itself in the study and recon¬

struction of the past in two ways. First, it establishes the continent of Af¬
rica as the primary historical core area or center on which to build narra¬
tive about, and to undertake the analysis of, the experiences of peoples of
African descent in Africa itself, Eurasia, the Americas and elsewhere ... At
a more inclusive dimension, the African centered perspective that emerges
from the Afrocentric paradigms seeks to interpret and understand global
events by infusing into the “recognized” conventional guidelines extrapo¬
lated from the experience of the "East” (Asia) and that of the "West” (Eu¬
rope), those additional ingredients whose history is traceable, in part or in
whole, to the African experience.37

Thus, Keto advances Afrocentricity as “a vital contributor to a holistic

approach in the study of the world and its heterogeneous people.” This
suggests some compatibility with the emerging global order. Accord¬
ing to him, “The concern about the humanity of all people is (or should
be) an essential value element in the cosmovision that undergirds an
African centered perspective. The historical pain of oppression should
not blind anyone to the central principle of respect for all humanity
as a guide to theories of interpersonal relations and the study of the
human past.”38
Keto’s framework facilitates the kind of cross-cultural or intercul¬
tural discourse that some scholars advocate. For example, in a keynote
address at an international conference on "Cultural Citizenship and
168 AFROCENTRIC ESSENTIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION

the Challenges of Globalization” in Melbourne, Australia, in 2002,

Inta Allegritti suggested interculturalism as the more appropriate rep¬
resentative paradigm for a postliberal construction of cultural citizen¬
ship in the context of globalization. She envisions interculturalism as
a pedagogy that mediates between, and facilitates discourses across,
cultures. The intercultural perspective, as defined by Allegritti, con¬
structs humans as members of cultures that interact and overlap, thus
facilitating, she contends, transcendence of inherited and imposed
cultural boundaries, instead of isolation in distinct homogeneous cul¬
tural zones. It emphasizes inclusion and recognizes cultural differenc¬
es, while inculcating a sense of belonging. This encourages, according
to Allegritti, “the ethical challenge of living with others.”39
If Afrocentricity is indeed compatible with globalization, as Keto’s
study seems to imply, and could be reformulated to align with other
perspectives, a major obstacle is cleared for a more representative and
truly multifaceted paradigm that mirrors the interactive, complex,
and complementary character of the new global reality. The human
historical drama entails encounters, cultural exchanges, and transfor¬
mations. A viable and productive pedagogy is one that reflects this
multilevel process and educates people to identify with this larger and
broader human family and experience, manifesting greater knowledge
of and appreciation for each other’s unique roles and contributions.
Keto’s reformulation of Afrocentricity is a step in this direction.
The attempt to construct a monolithic racial and cultural identity
for all blacks regardless of historical contexts and experiences has
thus far failed, underscoring the difficulty of homogenizing complex
historical and cultural consciousness and experiences. What makes
the notion of a monolithic and uniform African and black Diaspora
culture problematic is the failure to acknowledge the complexity of
this experience and culture. There is a globalizing trend within black
experience. Regardless of what Afrocentric essentialists say or wish,
there is a divide, an economic and class divide, among blacks, lead¬
ing some to embrace and become immersed in the global economic
force that many others see as threatening to blacks. The Afrocentric
projection of cultural uniformity and the construction of battle lines
at the cultural level entail inherent contradictions. As William Ackah
suggests in his revisionist study, such monolithic construction ignores
the growing cosmopolitanism and internationalism of black American
culture. This culture, he argues, is intimately tied to, and reflective of,
the broader American culture, which nourishes and fosters its growth
 AFROCENTRIC ESSENTIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION 169

and development. Ackah refers specifically to the arenas of sports,

entertainment, economics, and popular culture. Black American ath¬
letes, entertainers, and comedians now exercise considerable cultural,
social, and economic influences abroad, transforming, and even oblit¬
erating, indigenous cultural institutions and values in black commu¬
nities across Africa and the Caribbean. He refers to this phenomenon
as “Pan-African-Americanism.” This force is essentially commercial
in character and orientation, and, like its parent American capitalist
culture, on whose wings it is transported, it is hegemonic, and its ul¬
timate impact on black societies and cultures in Africa and the Carib¬
bean is exploitative and destructive.40
Thus “Pan-African Americanism” exemplifies a shift, “wherein Af¬
rican American culture (assumes) a prominence in relation to other
black cultures globally.” Ackah refers specifically to Africa and the
English-speaking Caribbean, where African American arts, music,
dance, drama, and sports figures are imported through the media of
satellite and television. Bill Cosby, Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan,
and Oprah Winfrey have become iconic household names in these
societies and are used to sell and promote a range of products and
cultural artefacts that have “no positive impact on these societies.”
This spread of African American culture has “unforeseen and nega¬
tive consequences in relation to the range of diversity of African de¬
rived cultural influences globally.”41 Indigenous arts, music, drama,
and sports give way and lose ground to the models represented and
promoted by black Americans. It is ironic, therefore, that while Af¬
rocentric scholars would have us believe that there is a uniform black
American culture in opposition to American and Eurocentric culture,
a variant of that culture (that is, black American) is actually intimately
tied to the apron string of mainstream American culture.
The invocation of the aesthetics of black and African culture to
build a monolithic anti-establishment black culture ignores what
could rightly be characterized as the “moral economy” of black cul¬
ture—a potent force as Ackah describes it in his study. He demon¬
strates how difficult it is to isolate black culture from the broader capi¬
talist dynamics of American society and culture. He thus underlines
a dimension to black American culture that ties it intimately to main¬
stream American culture. This dimension is cosmopolitan in orienta¬
tion and intertwined with the global economic and political fortunes
of the United States. It seems contradictory for Afrocentric scholars
to affirm black cultural distinctiveness and alienation while that same
170 AFROCENTRIC ESSENTIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION

black culture manifests the essential defining character of mainstream

American culture.
The notion of cultural citizenship is central to Afrocentricity. The
unique and distinct character of African culture and its survival in the
New World give blacks an equally unique and distinct cultural iden¬
tity. The alienation of blacks from mainstream America reinforces this
cultural distinction, a distinction that was soon extended beyond the
boundaries of the United States. They construct a racially and cul¬
turally antagonistic Afrocentric citizenry with a pathological disdain
for Eurocentric values. Afrocentricity envisions the black American
as a cultural citizen but one who is not socialized to embrace the ex¬
panded, transnational, and transcultural context of globalization. He
or she is an Afrocentric cultural citizen who perceives European cul¬
ture as monolithic, driven by the single goal of black subordination.
The rebuilding and preservation of black culture is therefore conceiv¬
able only in the context of isolation from the threatening Eurocentric
influence. Afrocentric scholars reject the interpretation of black cul¬
ture as reflective of the larger American experience. The implication
is that blacks in America went through centuries of transplantation
with their original African identity and culture intact. The revision¬
ist perspective proposed by Keto suggests a shift toward a more in¬
clusive construction of the human experience. In this paradigm, the
Afrocentric is no longer a distinctive, isolated perspective but part of
a complex conglomeration of perspectives and experiences, which ac¬
knowledges interactions, exchanges, and influences.
Globalization is, however, threatening to circumscribe and render
superfluous the underlying considerations for Afrocentric essential-
ism. On the expanded terrain of global encounters, cultural contacts
become fundamental in ordering human affairs. Culture has become
the playing field of human relations. Afrocentric essentialists are ap¬
prehensive of the homogenizing prospects of globalization. Cultural
homogeneity, they fear, would erode and possibly obliterate black
distinctiveness. In my judgment, this concern is overblown. Whether
or not globalization results in cultural citizenship upstaging national
citizenship is debatable. Cultural citizenship is certainly a'possibility.
Cultural homogeneity, on the other hand, seems far-fetched. What
globalization portends is a broadening of the spatial boundaries of
intercultural, cross-cultural, or transcultural discourses and engage¬
ments. This is precisely the kind of scenario that, according to H.
V. Perlmutter, multiple cultures would mix and match.42 There is no
 AFROCENTRIC ESSENTIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION 171

doubt, however, that as the arena of human encounter expands be¬

yond the restrictive boundaries of the nation-state, culture would play
a major role in shaping and defining peoples’ interactions and con¬
structions of identity. The notion of cultural citizenship denotes pos¬
sibilities beyond the geographical delineation of the nation-state—a
transnational landscape, and a transnational citizenry that is familiar
with, able to engage, and comfortable with complex and multiple cul¬
tural experiences. Citizens of this transnational landscape would, one
hopes, be able to engage in transcultural dialogue within and across
national boundaries. They would imbibe what Allegritti describes as
"the ethical challenge of living with others.”43 Within the Afrocentric
worldview, however, this transnational and transcultural landscape is
greeted with deep and abiding skepticism.
Conclusion

The use of Africa by blacks in America to construct an essentialist

ideological worldview is grounded in their historical experiences. It
is a reflection of, and a legitimate response to, alienation. It is a his¬
torical and existential quest for validation in the context of objectifica¬
tion and negation. It resulted in the construction and affirmation of a
countervailing monolithic protest identity. Unfortunately, the identity
is one-dimensional and ahistorical and is more reflective of the alien¬
ation of blacks in America than a true representation of the historical
process. That black Americans are of African ancestry is undeniable;
however, that they remain essentially African despite centuries of
separation from Africa is historically flawed. Defenders of Afrocentric
essentialism are reluctant to acknowledge this fact, largely because it
accents the historical essence and cultural relevance of the American
experience. In the Afrocentric essentialist worldview, the American
context is considered fundamentally inconsequential to the making
of black America. Yet, the centralization of Africa notwithstanding,
its role and functions, as this study has shown, have historically been
essentially utilitarian.
Afrocentric essentialism constructs black American relations with
Africa within a monolithic, one-dimensional framework that under¬
scores underlying mutuality and shared values. Drawn together by
the exigencies of history, continental Africans and black Americans
became unified by an existential ethos of shared racial and “ethnic”
identity and experiences. These unifying experiential factors are
grounded in alienation and white hegemony and thus mandate a re¬
lationship characterized by monolithic and homogeneous values and
idiosyncrasies. Yet, despite this mutuality and homogeneity, the his¬
torical relationship has largely been defined by paternalism and utili¬
tarianism, a reflection of the racist and hegemonic character of black
American acculturation. Furthermore, Afrocentric emphasis on the
African identity accents only a dimension of a complex identity. As Du
Bois rightly underscored, New World acculturation resulted in a new
and complex personality and identity that included the American. By
denying or deemphasizing the significance of black American metro¬
politan, New World acculturation, Afrocentric essentialism presents
blacks with a grossly distorted construction of the self, history, and
 CONCLUSION 173

experience that problematizes and further complicates the crisis of

identity. Consequently, the decision by Afrocentric scholars to vali¬
date and privilege the African identity mirrors their frustrations and
alienation. More important, it satisfies the need for existential valida¬
tion. The late Amos Wilson unabashedly established this utilitarian
construction of African identity. For Wilson, being African was em¬
powering. It was the utmost expression and manifestation of counter-
hegemonic disposition. Few Afrocentric scholars are willing to go this
far in boldly acknowledging this cynical character of the utilitarian
nature of African identity. Wilson was unambiguous that feeling, and
being, African exemplified rebellious disposition and validated one’s
essence as a countercultural and counterestablishment character.
The global "Pan-African” projection of Afrocentric essentialism
reflects nostalgia for a tradition that once had relevance at a criti¬
cal historical moment—from the early to the mid-twentieth century
when Africans and blacks in Diaspora struggled against vestiges of
colonialism, imperialism, and racism. They were drawn together and
galvanized by this global, trans-Atlantic experiential linkage. Race was
a critical unifying element largely because the enemy was identifiable
in racial terms—whites/Europeans. Whether in Africa, North Amer¬
ica, or the Caribbean, blacks shared common challenges of racism,
segregation, and imperial domination. But that was then. Modern-day
calls for reactivating Pan-Africanism and the many summit meetings
held are only symbolic and could never evolve into a truly Pan-Afri¬
can relationship. Advocates of reactivating Pan-Africanism fail to take
into consideration historical developments over the last sixty years.
The unifying experiential factors have become too complex. The geo¬
graphical boundaries of imperialism and racism are no longer just “ex¬
ternal” and racially exclusive. The challenges are now within Africa,
within black America, and within black Diaspora. In other words, the
racist and imperial enemy or challenge is no longer just the old, hege¬
monic white and European enemy. For Africa, it is also the indigenous
enemy within. For black Americans, it is the internal complexities and
conflicted constructions of America, as well as conflicted responses
to Africa. For the entire black Diaspora, it is the growing globaliza¬
tion and complexity of the Diaspora context and experiences. Any call
to revive Pan-Africanism that does not take these critical dimensions
into consideration is futile. Pan-Africanism has to deal with the com¬
plex, complicated, and conflicted nature of the African, black Ameri¬
can, and black Diaspora experiences and contexts.
174 CONCLUSION

Throughout black history, Africa played and assumed multiple

roles and functions. At times, blacks found Africa fascinating and en¬
dearing. At other times, they resented Africa and wanted very little
to do with the continent and her peoples. But most important, the
roles and functions black Americans assigned to Africa have largely
been utilitarian: Africa was the instrumentality for realizing equal¬
ity and freedom in America. Contrary to contemporary Afrocentric
essentialist claims, black American did not always view Africa posi¬
tively. Unifying and shared ethos of mutuality did not always exist.
The bond and the relationship had not always been close-knit and
positive. Black American understanding of, and relation to, Africa
had often been determined and driven by the values they had imbibed
in their socialization in the New World. Their conceptions of Africa
shaped their construction of identity, and the debate on identity itself
reveals how profoundly their New World experiences had impacted
their vision of Africa. Furthermore, Africa was not the only significant
historical “other” for blacks in Diaspora. Both the moral suasion and
emigration phases clearly show that although blacks harbored deep
and complex consciousness of identity, they reflected an underlying
desire and quest to belong and be identified not necessarily to and
with Africa but culturally and politically with the United States. In
the moral suasion epoch, being “colored" and of African ancestry was
a unifying experiential and existential factor. Acknowledging African
ancestry was a historical fact that did not always invoke endearing
emotions and consciousness. Moral suasion was more about how to
actualize fully the American identity. For those who emphasized race,
being “colored” suggested not necessarily positive affirmation of Afri¬
can identity but a means of galvanizing the struggle toward becoming
fully American. The mid-nineteenth-century emigration/nationalism
phase was unambiguous in its rhetorical affirmation of the African
nationality imperative. Yet this “African consciousness” illuminated a
deeply felt desire for American identity. Africa was a utilitarian tool
for actualizing this most cherished of identities. Delany, Turner, Gar¬
net, and Crummell did not embrace Africa with the intention of be¬
coming fully immersed in African culture, and fully assuming African
identity, but positioned themselves as exemplars of what Africa was
not and could and ought to be—polished, civilized. They envisioned
themselves in close proximity to the metropolitan culture from which
they had been alienated. Tom Mboya provided this apt summation
 CONCLUSION 175

of the utilitarian character of the Africanist consciousness of black

Diaspora nationalism:

There is a reason for this movement which has far less to do with the Ne¬
gro’s relations to Africa than to America. The "Back to Africa” and separat¬
ist tendencies are always strongest at the very time when the Negro is most
intensely dissatisfied with his lot in America. It is when the Negro has lost
hope in America—and has lost his identity as an American—that he seeks
to re-establish his identity and his roots as an African ... The combination
of progress, aroused hopes, frustration and despair has caused many Ne¬
groes to withdraw into separatism and to yearn for Africa.'

The construction of Afrocentric essentialist ethos today rests on

a deliberate refusal to confront the complexities and paradoxes of
African, black American, and black Diaspora history and relations.
The reality is that Afrocentric scholars use race and ethnicity (Afri-
canness) to construct a problematic, countervailing, and counterhe-
gemonic world. But, as Debra Dickerson suggests, it is time to come
out of this restrictive world of “blackness” and embrace the challenges
and complexities of modernity. Afrocentric essentialism nourishes
a constraining, conspiratorial conception of reality that imprisons
blacks behind a wall of "blackness,” a racialized order whose founda¬
tion is becoming increasingly porous and fragile. There are profound
and compelling considerations for constructing black history not as
an isolated stream, a narrow stream that flows in one direction, but as
part of a larger ocean fed by numerous tributaries. For blacks to tran¬
scend the narrow and suffocating confines of Afrocentric essentialism
requires a willingness to confront the complexities of the black expe¬
rience, especially in relation to both Africa and the black Diaspora.
In other words, there is need for critical interrogation of the ethos of
mutuality. As Laduna Anise contends, ‘“the ultimate expression of col¬
lective identity,’ the claim that ‘all black people are African’... fails to
consider the impact of socialization in different geographical settings.
Collective black identity does not mean all blacks everywhere share
the same values, goals and destinies. All may share in the struggle for
liberation and freedom, but the content of these are most likely to
vary from one social system to another. Black peoples of the world
live in different planes of consciousness as well as environmental and
existential necessities.”2 This does not absolutely nullify the notion of
176 CONCLUSION

mutuality. There is no doubt that Africans and Diaspora blacks share a

collective identity based on race and ancestry; however, the interven¬
tion of history has significantly altered this reality. This intervention
and attendant cultural transformations underline profound disconti¬
nuities that mandate a qualified affirmation of collective identity. From
the nineteenth century to the present, as this study has demonstrated,
black Americans who have been drawn physically to Africa by the lure
of racial identity have often quickly confronted the reality of cultural
divergence and distance.
In the second half of the twentieth century, black American nation¬
alism became, according to some critics, hyperpoliticized.3 This hyper¬
politicization underscores a deepening of the state of black alienation
in consequence of the upsurge of right-wing conservative onslaughts
on the gains of the civil rights movement. The growth of the “prison
industrial complex," the crisis of black impoverishment and margin¬
alization, and the ever-widening gap between the American Dream
and black American aspirations, all contribute to the engine dynamo
of hyperpoliticization, which is reflected in hip-hop, gangster rap, and
other countercultural expressions of black popular culture. Nowhere
is this state of hyperpoliticization more evident and pronounced than
in the development and advancement of Afrocentric essentialism as
the ideological expression and representation of both alienation from
America and a defiant affirmation of a countervailing worldview. At
critical moments in American history, black nationalist consciousness
had developed around essentialist ethos of race, ethnicity, or culture.
Regardless of which ethos assumed dominance, Africa was the nucleus.
Blackness, ethnicity, and culture all derived from the African heritage.
From Martin Delany through Marcus Garvey down to Malcolm X,
Stokely Carmichael, Molefi Asante, and Maulana Karenga, Africa was
the centerpiece of response to what some characterize as “American
Apartheid." Although the centrality of Africa is widely acknowledged,
the essentially utilitarian and problematic nature and implications of
Africa's location is not.
In an age when many are amplifying the complex and multidimen¬
sional character of black and African history and experiences, Afro¬
centric essentialists advance and defend an isolated ahistorism that
both misrepresents and overtly simplifies the complex history and
experiences of both peoples. Emphasis on identity politics in Afro¬
centric essentialism reflects the state of alienation of blacks from the
American socioeconomic and political realities. This condition be-
 CONCLUSION 177

came particularly pronounced under the Reagan-Bush counter-civil-

rights initiatives of the 1980s and 1990s, coupled with onslaughts of
ultra-conservative, right-wing Republicans on Affirmative Action and
other social policies that benefit blacks. Despite the vigor with which
Afrocentric scholars defend the African identity, the fact remains that
it is more of a protest identity for the vast majority who embrace it. It
functions more as a utilitarian weapon of resistance and not necessar¬
ily an expression of genuine desire to become fully African.
As contended in this study, the identity debate and crisis among
black Americans is historically rooted in the emergence of organized
black abolitionism in the early nineteenth century. Despite the claims
of defenders of Afrocentric essentialism, the focus of the identity
search has remained consistent through the ages. From the moral
suasion beginning, to the Thirteenth Amendment that abolished
slavery, through the Fourteenth that conferred citizenship on blacks
and promised them equal protection of the law, to the gains of the
twentieth-century civil rights movement (particularly the Voting and
Civil Rights Acts), blacks have consistently affirmed preference for the
American identity.
The question “Who are we?” remains unresolved, and precisely be¬
cause of its seemingly problematic character, opinions remain sharply
divided among black Americans. Racism and other manifestations of
anti-black consciousness and policies have helped to make the iden¬
tity problem even more contentious. This not withstanding, the re¬
cord does show a utilitarian construction of Africa. Although blacks
manifested African consciousness from the dawn of enslavement,
once they evolved organized structures and movement for concerted
struggles, Africa’s role became largely utilitarian. Even the New York
“radicals” of the moral suasion epoch did not wholly embrace Africa.
They chose instead to adopt race/color as a medium both of protest
and of facilitating the goal of integration—American citizenship. It
was only after the failure of moral suasion that some blacks adopted
Africa and pushed vigorously for an African nationality and identity.
But, as this study has demonstrated, even this adoption was not total.
It was purely utilitarian—the adoption of an African identity as a “pro¬
test identity” to underscore the frustrations of blacks with the elusive
character of American citizenship.
Black Americans have not passionately and consistently embraced
the African identity. What they cherished the most was the Ameri¬
can identity. The nullification of the Euro-American cultural influence
178 CONCLUSION

suggested by Afrocentric essentialist epistemology is not corroborated

by the historical records. Though nineteenth-century black national¬
ists articulated and manifested the Du Boisean duality complex, their
preferred and cherished identity was unambiguously Euro-American.
History underscores a much more complex and ambivalent response
to Africa. At the point of alienation, some blacks embraced Africa,
manifesting “Afrocentric consciousness.” Slavocentrism, on the other
hand, assumed dominance among the hopefuls, those who had cause
to be optimistic. These optimists proudly displayed Americentric
consciousness of identity. Universalism, the espousal of neutralist
conception of identity, represents an affirmation of affinity with, and
subscription to, values that are supposedly universal and color-blind.
Of the contending identity strands, “Afrocentrism” is the most frail
and fragile, the least consistently defended and the most utilitarian,
designed as a means of verbalizing protest against denial of the most
desired and cherished of identities—American identity. It is therefore
imperative to distinguish between embracing and advocating African
identity as a reaction to alienation and marginalization, and an indi¬
rect cry for acceptance, on the one hand, and actually desiring to be
African, on the other. Put differently, we need to distinguish between
the critical factor in the black American quest for, and construction
of, identity and the incidental/utilitarian factor. The former was un¬
doubtedly the American; the latter was the African. The depth and
historicity of the “African consciousness” and identity accented in Af¬
rocentric epistemology is, therefore, misleading.
The nineteenth-century emigration phase shows that blacks ac¬
knowledged their African ancestry (affirmation of racial identity, that
is, being black), while at the same time loudly and clearly exhibited
preference for Euro-American cultural and national identity. The mor¬
al suasion phase was clearly dominated and influenced by strong in-
tegrationist aspirations and values. The underlying objective of moral
suasion was the attainment of American citizenship. Consequently,
the adoption of “color” (race) as a strategy by the likes of Samuel Cor¬
nish and Thomas Sidney did not suggest a total rejection or renuncia¬
tion of American identity. Separatism was a strategic option designed
to facilitate integration.
The advancement of African identity served more as a protest
factor—a means of fighting back, of registering a protest against the
denial of the desired American identity. As Laduna Anise suggests,
we need to analyze black American identity within the discourse of
 CONCLUSION 179

alienation. Do black Americans really want to be African? Or is affir¬

mation of African identity an expression of frustration and alienation?
According to Anise, “It is not easy to escape the ambivalence of the
black American. His experiences tend to compel him to disown the
only land and culture he has known. And it is not certain that he really
does not love America. It seems that it is his alienation from her he re¬
ally hates.”4 It is precisely this alienation that elevated African identity
to the utilitarian role it performs. Amos Wilson’s declaration, noted
earlier, is a clear acknowledgment of this utilitarian character of the
African identity. It is therefore reasonable to suggest that all the iden¬
tity strands identified in this study grew out of integrationist aspira¬
tions. Experience of rejection and marginalization induced alienation,
compelling many blacks, rather reluctantly, to embrace the African
identity and manifest colorphobic Afrocentric essentialist conscious¬
ness and disposition. On the other hand, blacks who felt optimistic
and hopeful manifested integrationist aspirations and advanced the
American identity. Regardless of the conflicting configurations of the
identity consciousness, and regardless of the antagonistic positions of
the Afrocentric essentialist school, one fact stands out: black Ameri¬
can consciousness and constructions of identity have historically been
conceived within an integrationist Weltanschauung.
This interrogation of Afrocentric essentialism, especially the loca¬
tion and utility of Africa, should not be construed to suggest a com¬
plete negation or rejection of the claim of shared experiences and
mutuality between Africa and blacks in Diaspora. There are indeed
shared historical, social, and cultural experiences; however, as Ruth
Hamilton underscores, "To recognize the existence of common and
particular features does not imply cultural unity or the existence of
only one culture of the black diaspora.” It is imperative to accent those
profound differences and complexities. The terrain of history is dy¬
namic and complex, and participants experience complex and pro¬
foundly transforming experiences. Consequently, we need to adopt
what Hamilton calls “a non-essentialist” view of the Diaspora, one that
accents and acknowledges the contextual, situational, and historical
specificities of identity and culture.5 Few understood these “contextual
and historical specificities" better than the late African revolutionary
Amilcar Cabral. "The value of culture as an element of resistance,” he
once argued, “lies in the fact that culture is the vigorous manifesta¬
tion, on the ideological or idealist level, of the material and historical
reality of the society that is dominated . . . culture is simultaneously
180 CONCLUSION

the fruit of a people’s history and a determinant of history.” Further¬

more, Cabral emphasized, “Culture, as the fruit of history, reflects at
all times the material and spiritual reality of the society ... is a social
reality independently of men’s will” (emphasis added).6 Cabral’s con¬
ception of culture underlines complexity and relativism. The accent¬
ing and acknowledgment of the imperative of the historical and mate¬
rial specificities of Africa and black Diaspora are glaringly missing in
Afrocentric attempts to construct a uniform global black world.
It is imperative to view Pan-Africanism as a dynamic construct that
changes with time and space. At some point in the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, Africans and blacks in Diaspora shared cer¬
tain historical and cultural experiences that transcended geographical
space and historical time and made constructing a Pan-African rela¬
tionship and cooperation possible. This is no longer the case today.
The historical contexts, the culture, economic, political, and social
experiences of blacks in the Diaspora and Africans are too complex
and even conflicting. Though there are shared vestiges of racism, Jim
Crow, and neocolonialism, crucial divergent elements also exist. A suc¬
cessful revival of Pan-Africanism has to take these into consideration.
On the subject of Pan-African and global black unity, Afrocentric es-
sentialists confront two critical choices. The first choice—to acknowl¬
edge both the problematic, complex, and conflicted nature of Africa
and the black Diaspora, and the fact that a revival and reactivation
of Pan-Africanism under those circumstances seems improbable-
mandates jettisoning an essentialist worldview. The second option is
to ignore these realities and pretend that they do not exist, or that they
are inconsequential, and thus continue to construct a Pan-African and
global monolithic black world, as essentially a psychological and ther¬
apeutic feel-good-together philosophy.
The analysis in this study is not intended as a total nullification of
the Pan-African and identity paradigms. Though it is difficult for a
revamped Pan-African movement to materialize under present cir¬
cumstances, the Pan-African spirit is presently kept alive by organi¬
zations such as PAMUSA and Randall Robinson’s Washington, D.C.-
based black lobbying group, TransAfrica. They testify to the fact that
though a reactivation of the old tradition may presently seem incon¬
ceivable, organizations and individuals can still function to perpetuate
Pan-African values and advance the interests of African and peoples
of African descent abroad. This can continue while acknowledging
the problematic of both the Pan-African and identity paradigms and
 CONCLUSION 181

working diligently to confront and deal with the myriad and complex
manifestations.
The deconstruction of race has compelled some Afrocentric schol¬
ars to deemphasize the construct and reconsider its centrality in the
black struggle. In the place of race, many now substitute culture as
the key factor, the defining and unifying block for a Pan-African iden¬
tity and consciousness. Instead of blackness, African culture became
the essential defining and unifying element for the construction of
a monolithic African and black Diaspora identity and platform of
struggle. The implication is that centuries of transplantation had not
changed or transformed the cultural heritage of blacks. The presumed
indestructibility of African culture sustains an Afrocentric Manichean
construction of reality and reinforces its combative, isolationist and
separatist character. Given the importance of race in American his¬
tory, it is not surprising that Afrocentric scholars advance a racial con¬
ception of the black experience. Yet race has thus far failed to unify all
blacks, its preeminence in the black experience notwithstanding. The
use of race as a unifying construct has thus far proven problematic
and indefensible.
In both Africa and the black Diaspora, the black experience is much
too complex to support homogeneous and monolithic constructions
of identity and struggles. The Afrocentric essentialist worldview re¬
mains grounded theoretically and historically in a discourse of alien¬
ation that forecloses possibilities of engaging the complexities of the
African and black Diaspora experiences. It is a response to alienation
and hegemony. It seeks to impose a monolithic cultural and historical
experiential paradigm on all blacks. The essential defining and uni¬
fying elements of Afrocentric essentialism—identity, race, culture,
ethnicity—are all derived from Africa. Historically, Africa has served,
and continues to function, as a utilitarian, counterhegemonic identi¬
fying construct. To be African, to claim and affirm African identity,
has become an effective expression of protest against alienation and
rejection in America; however, contrary to Afrocentric essential¬
ist thinking, such disposition is not indicative of a desire to be fully
African. Even those who claim to be African still must deal with the
obvious and glaring contradictions and conflicts that their lived ex¬
periences in America embody. Furthermore, to be African is much
more than just affirming it. There is a cultural dimension that is often
not understood. The claim and affirmation of geographical identifica¬
tion (African American) has often been misconstrued to entail cul-
182 CONCLUSION

tural identification. Black Americans share geographical identification

through ancestral connection with Africans. Yet the black American
is a composite and complex cultural amalgam of both Old and New
World experiences. He is only partially African. Taban Lo Liyong’s
apt summation of the complexity of black identity is worth quoting at
length:

The Negro is a unique creature. He is of Africa; and yet not quite. He is

of Europe; and yet not quite. He is of America; and yet not quite. But he
combines these three disparate strands in his constitution. The confusion
which ensues from this combination is the root of all his problems ... For,
although African slaves were transported to America three or four hun¬
dred years ago, the moment they left the African coast, they were no lon¬
ger African entirely. Europe, America and the sea determined their fates
... Hence the Negro is the joint product of Africa and Europe, in America.
If he calls Africa "motherland,” he must also call Europe "motherland”—or
more appropriately, "fatherland." He has the right to be proud of the old
African empires of Ghana and Songai [sic]. Equally, he must take pride in
French civilization, in English empire, in German greatness, in the Spanish
Golden Age, in classical Italy and classical Greece. Those are the homes
of his other parents. Culturally, he is sub-American and extremely little
African.7

Vehemently opposing a proposed plan of mass emigration of black

Americans to Africa, Tom Mboya conceded to a Harlem audience in
i960 that Africans and black Americans do indeed share experiences
and challenges. Both are engaged in a universal struggle for equality
and human dignity. But he also drew attention to fundamental and
profound differences. African nationalism sought integration, that is,
the molding of diverse ethnic groups into national entities. As he told
the audience, “just as the African must reconcile the differences be¬
tween his tribal and his national identity, so too must the black Ameri¬
can realize to the fullest extent his potential as a black man and as an
American.” In his view, the tension and conflict within black America
between racial and national identities (that is, between Black Nation¬
alism and American nationalism) has induced blacks to adopt a racial-
ized view of reality that turned them toward Africa. Thus, their desire
to identify with Africa was primarily racial and therefore unrealistic,
since their identity is much more complex. They simply could not es¬
cape the American heritage. Identifying with Africa on the basis of
 CONCLUSION 183

race would not actualize the freedom they seek. As he emphasized,

freedom should not be seen “as an act of withdrawal” but as “a major
step in asserting the rights of black people and their place as equals
among nations and peoples of the world." He urged the black Ameri¬
can to “merge his blackness with his citizenship as an American, and
the result will be dignity and liberation.”8
The distinction Du Bois made between the Self (Negro) and the
Other (America) is a more accurate reflection of the reality, and blacks
must take seriously the Du Boisean admonition not to privilege one
identity over the other but to seek the disruption of the Self-Other
binary through merging of the Negro and the American. The ideal is
for the “Self” and the “Other,” “the two warring ideals,” to merge and
attain “self-conscious manhood,” with neither sacrificing its essential
character. Africa can continue to serve utilitarian and protest func¬
tions; however, this neither constitutes nor validates claims of cultural
affinity and identity. Identity is much too complex. It is a product of
complex historical process. Black American identity is a product of a
complex New World acculturation. It should be noted that acknowl¬
edging this is not a denial of African cultural survivals and retentions.
No doubt, African ethos and values survived the transplantation.
But not in their original forms. The black American is a product of
a complex cultural formative process in the New World. Afrocentric
essentialism as expressive of black alienation and protest is justified;
however, it becomes problematic in its larger and broader existential
affirmations that limit and circumscribe black capacity to reflect, en¬
gage, and come to grips with the complexities of the black experience.
Black Americans and blacks in Diaspora do not exist and function
in cultural isolation. They live in an ever-changing, ever-expanding
world. Their capacity to function effectively in this context depends
on their adaptability to changing circumstances. Afrocentric essen¬
tialism, as presently constructed, does not accommodate adaptation.
It obscures and simplifies the nuances of black history and imposes a
narrow, utilitarian historically and culturally skewed racialized iden¬
tity and worldview on blacks, ignoring complex historical and cultural
transformations. It constructs a monolithic and homogeneous Afri-
can/black world on a rather simplified and simplistic representation
of both Africa and Europe that deemphasizes complexities, contradic¬
tions, and conflicted realities.
This interrogation of racial essentialism should neither be con¬
strued to suggest a denial of the relevance or saliency of racism nor
184 CONCLUSION

a validation of America as a deracinated nation. On the contrary, the

problematic and troubling America that Andrew Hacker analyzed in
his iconoclastic study, characterized by alienation and deep racial an¬
tagonism, remains very much a reality. He described America as “Two
Nations, Black and White: Separate, Hostile and Unequal.”9 Afrocen¬
tric scholars regard Hacker’s analysis as true reflection of past, pres¬
ent, and future realities of America. Others, however, disagree and
diminish the import of race, insisting not only that racism has ended
but also that blacks could be, and are in fact being, judged according
to the “contents of their character.”10 Afrocentric scholars reject the
notion that race is on the decline. America, they insist, is very much
a color-driven nation. They view attacks on Affirmative Action and
other civil rights initiatives as symptomatic of the depth of racism in
America. Given this reality, Afrocentric scholars argue, homogeneous
and monolithic constructions of African and black Diaspora histori¬
cal and cultural experiences become sine qua non for survival. In their
judgment, racism is so entrenched that blacks had no choice but to
respond with an equally forceful racially constructed worldview. Race
becomes a countervailing and utilitarian construct for struggle and
survival.
For race to be eradicated or transcended, Afrocentric essentialist
scholars believe there has to be, a priori, an acknowledgment by whites
of the role race has played, and continues to play, in creating and sus¬
taining the historical and systemic structures of white hegemony. They
object vehemently to what they perceive as a deceptive representa¬
tion of whiteness as a neutral, universal, and normative category. They
insist on accenting whiteness as the embodiment of immense power
and privileges. This focus on the political and “cultural dynamics of
whiteness” is due largely to what J. L. Kincheloe and Shirley Steinberg
describe as whiteness’s “phenomenal ability to camouflage itself to the
point it can deny its own existence. Whiteness presents itself not only
as a cultural force or norm by which all other cultures are measured,
but as positionality beyond history and culture, a non-ethnic space.
Thus in a culture where whiteness as ethnicity is erased, critical mul-
ticulturalists receive strange looks when they refer to their analysis
of white culture.”11 Thus far, they contend, race has been analyzed as
having little to do with white people. Instead, race is presented as a
problem of nonwhites and ethnics and problems caused by their dif¬
ference—that is, their difference from white people.
 CONCLUSION 185

Afrocentric scholars concur with Kincheloe and Steinberg and view

the deracializing of whiteness and camouflaging and deemphasizing
of race as designed to mask societal structural imbalances and project
a false and dubious neutralist construction of reality. They regard as
hypocritical the affirmation of a neutral or objective, color-blind so¬
cial order in the face of glaring racially configured differentiations.
Thus, despite its growing scholarly deconstruction, Afrocentric
scholars continue to invoke race as a potent intellectual and ideologi¬
cal force, the anchor for existential validation. It seems ironic that
such an artificial factor (race) has become for these scholars a unify¬
ing experiential construct and basis for constructing boundaries and
frameworks for existential struggles. The focus of these scholars on
race seems validated by a growing scholarship on the increasing sig¬
nificance of race in America and its growing appeal among blacks as a
medium not just of validation but of signifying a much more realistic
portrait of America. The general consensus is that America is further
from being race neutral and color-blind, that race indeed remains a
major defining factor in American society despite the proclamation of
its apparent demise or invisibility by some critics. In a recent icono¬
clastic study, Joe R. Feagin and Leslie H. Picca attribute this appar¬
ent demise or invisibility of racism to a shift in the theatre of racial
performance from thefrontstage to the backstage where whites seem
more comfortable, among their own, to share racist jokes and innu¬
endos without public scrutiny and recriminations.12 In another study,
Feagin and Hernan Vera contend, “In the United States white racism
is a centuries-old system intentionally designed to exclude Americans
of color from full participation in the economy, polity, and society.
Today, racial prejudice and ideologies still undergird and rationalize
widespread white discrimination against people of color.”13 In a more
recent study, Feagin analyzes the depth of what he terms systemic
racism. According to him, "In the United States racism is structured
into the rhythms of everyday life. It is lived, concrete, advantageous to
whites, and painful for those who are not white. Each major part of a
black and white person’s life is shaped by racism.”14 Corroborating the
above, Farai Chideya writes, “Race is probably the most tangible and
subjective force in our lives.” Citing statistic from the Census Bureau
and other sources, she underlines the racial divide in resources and
opportunity—higher education, employment, income, and life expec¬
tancy.15 Echoing Andrew Hacker, Chideya argues, "Black America and
186 CONCLUSION

white America still live separately. Most whites live in predominantly

white neighborhoods; most blacks live in majority-black ones. Ameri¬
cans of different races still tend not to live together, socialize together,
or chart their paths in this society together.”16 What does this gloomy
social analysis and pessimistic worldview portend for the future of
race relations in the United States? Is the Afrocentric essentialist
worldview immutable? Is essentialism, be it racial or cultural, the per¬
manent solution for addressing the challenges of blacks in America
and the Diaspora? Is there a possibility of moving beyond and tran¬
scending race and the essentialist worldview, or is this approach the
one and only viable strategy for blacks?
Richard Payne believes that it is possible to get beyond race and
suggests the following strategies. First, he urges focusing on the posi¬
tive as opposed to the failures of American society. This, he suggests,
would encourage and motivate Americans to strive for improved un¬
derstanding of each other and common ground. The problem with
this is the temptation to presume a progressive history. Emphasiz¬
ing success may create the impression that things have always been
good—the progressive myth. Payne suggests that getting beyond race
would, over time, erode emphasis on racial identity and categories
as people treat each other regardless of color. Second, he advocates
a “bottom-up” approach to improving race relations, placing greater
responsibility on individuals to move beyond race. This prescription
is problematic. Many prefer the “top-down” approach since racism is
systemic-induced, sustained, and protected from top-down. Third,
Payne urges more attention to how the growing complexity of Ameri¬
can society erodes the force of race. This is a presumption based on
the notion that increasing opportunities to and rise in socioeconomic
status of blacks would obliterate the need to identify with one’s race,
and thus racial identity and consciousness would equally diminish.
In other words, improvements in the social and economic status of
blacks would result in class supplanting race.17 Unfortunately, histo¬
ry belies this assumption. The problem is that, historically, class has
never been potent enough to upstage race in America. Regardless of
improved and elevated economic status, the black middle class has
never been able to completely overcome, experientially, the over¬
arching, pervasive, and negative effects of race. For blacks, race re¬
mains the nondiscriminatory unifier! Deracination from the bottom
up seems far-fetched. But radical socioeconomic reforms that clearly
 CONCLUSION 187

show broad-based equalizing tendencies, instead of token cooptation

of a few, could create conditions that would predispose some blacks
to think less about race. Payne would seem to concur with the school
represented by Debra Dickerson that I discussed in the introducto¬
ry chapter. This school regards race as burdensome and destructive.
Dickerson advocates deemphasizing or completely jettisoning black¬
ness as an identitarian and existential ethos. She urges the "black pow¬
ers that be” to move beyond blackness. Moving "beyond blackness”
is not as simple as Dickerson assumes. In order for blacks to move
beyond blackness, there has to be a corresponding move on the part
of the dominant white society. Deemphasizing race has to be cultur¬
ally rooted, pervasive, and universal. The prospects are presently non¬
existent. Another dimension of class, albeit beyond the scope of this
study, ought to be mentioned: the almost total neglect of class analy¬
sis in Afrocentric essentialist epistemology. The explanation for this
is not far-fetched. Afrocentric essentialist scholars are predominantly
middle class. It would have been extremely difficult to construct an
essentialist worldview rooted in economic analysis without risking
self-implication. Race, ethnicity, and “culture” have become the only
practical and “safe” unifying ethos for Afrocentric essentialist scholars
to invoke without illuminating their “class” culpability in the socioeco¬
nomic malaise of the ordinary people.
On the prospect of overcoming race, Leonard Steinhorn and Bar¬
bara Diggs-Brown are not optimistic. The best we can hope for, they
suggest, is some form of “racial coexistence” that acknowledges the
preeminence of race while striving to confront and challenge the ste¬
reotypes and images that impede cooperation. This "racial honesty”
could, in their view, lead to “mutual understanding and respect” and
eventually to “coexistence marked by reciprocity, trust, and a genu¬
ine commitment to common cause,” out of which presumably a genu¬
ine intercultural model would evolve. Thus, this school considers the
continued quest for integration an illusion. Urging blacks and whites
to abandon integration and pursue the more realistic option of racial
coexistence, Steinhorn and Diggs-Brown write, “Unless there is a pro¬
found and remarkable transformation in this country, however, unless
the peculiar nature of race relations undergoes fundamental changes,
let us not have any illusions that the vast majority of Americans will
ever become truly color-blind. The sooner we acknowledge the per¬
manence of the color line in American life, the sooner we strip away
188 CONCLUSION

the fictional integration behind which the majority hides, the sooner
we can begin an honest accounting of our racial divide and develop an
alternative vision of our collective future.”18
They describe integration as a myth that actually "thwarts progress,
particularly when the very success of promoting the myth becomes a
convenient way to avoid addressing the real problem.” The real prob¬
lem, they suggest, is an endemic racism and segregation. Blacks and
whites may interact, “but rarely do they integrate. Blacks and whites
maintain different neighborhoods, schools, work, faith, entertainment
and social life ... In these areas we go separate ways, or when forced
together, follow what seems like a shadow dance of polite interaction.
This by no means denies the real and meaningful contacts between
some blacks and whites, but these instances are infrequent enough to
be the conspicuous exceptions that prove the rule.”19
Furthermore, they contend, “Black and white Americans wake up
in separate neighborhoods; send their kids off to separate schools, lis¬
ten to different radio stations during the morning commute, briefly
interact on the job but rarely as equals, return to their own communi¬
ties after work, socialize in separate environments, and watch differ¬
ent television shows. This is a day in the life of two Americas.” The
solution, therefore, is racial coexistence. Accepting the racial reality,
Steinhorn and Diggs-Brown argue, may turn out to be very liberating:
“if we stop pursuing an impossible ideal, blacks may be able to focus
more on the realistic one . . . No longer would our leaders be able to
find refuge in integration symbolism and color-blind rhetoric.”20
More recent studies, however, tend to underscore the permanence
of racism and thus reinforce Afrocentric skepticism and, ipso facto,
seem to validate Afrocentric essentialism. Those who celebrate the
demise of racism tend to ignore or underestimate its transformative
and transmogrified nature. According to Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, a new
powerful racial ideology has emerged that combines elements of liber¬
alism with culturally based anti-minority views to justify the contem¬
porary racial order. He calls this color-blind racism, and its defining
elements include abstract liberalism, cultural racism, naturalization,
and minimization of racism.21 There can never be any meaningful in¬
tegrative and harmonious order in America, he suggests, unless and
until there is demonstrable willingness by everyone to acknowledge
the continuing relevance of race. In other words, to overcome race and
affect cooperation across cultures within a framework that promotes
mutual interaction, communication, and exchanges, there has to be,
 CONCLUSION 189

a priori, universal acknowledgment of the potency of race. It is not

possible, Afrocentric scholars contend, to presume a racially neutral
paradigm within a context that glaringly underscores the relevance of
race.
The corroborative contexts and circumstances notwithstanding,
Afrocentric essentialism remains fundamentally a backward-looking
paradigm that, in the postmodern context, seeks to limit and foreclose
the boundaries of human engagement and transcultural discourses
and understanding. Undeniably, Afrocentric essentialism has a role in
offering blacks a countervailing, counterhegemonic alternative to neg¬
ative, demeaning, and degrading experiences in America. This should
be constructed not as a zero-sum paradigm, however, but more prac¬
tically as a possibility among possibilities, a dynamic paradigm that
reflects and responds to the changing and complex dynamics of the
human experience. The challenges of Afrocentric essentialism high¬
lighted in this study—the use of race as the underpinning of African
and black Diaspora experiences, the attempt to impose a monolithic
identity on all blacks, the utilitarian and problematic usages of Af¬
rica, the homogenization of African and black Diaspora experiences,
and the advancement of a zero-sum racialized ethos of mutuality that
subverts critical intraracial discourses—are all reflective of the inher¬
ent ambivalence and, ipso facto, crises of black nationalism and Pan-
Africanism.
Notes

Introduction

1. Delany, “Political Destiny,” 327-67.

2. Ibid., 337-38.
3. Ibid. See also Delany, “Political Aspect"; Delany to Professor M. H. Freeman;
Delany, "Political Events.”
4. Delany, “Political Events.”
5. Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk, 13.
6. Holt, Problem of Race in the 21st Century. Barndt, Understanding and Disman¬
tling Racism.
7. Ibid., 3-4-
8. Ibid.
9. Stampp, Peculiar Institution-, Elkins, Slavery, Davis, Inhuman Bondage.
10. Delany, "Political Aspect,” “Political Events.” See also his "The International
Policy of the World Towards the African Race.”
11. Delany, “Important Movement.”
12. Adeleke, “Color Line as Confining and Restraining Paradigm." See also Adeleke,
“Black Americans and Africa.”
13. Richburg, Out of America.
14. “Richburg Firestorm," 51.
15. Journal of Black Studies, September 1997,129,130-32. Also, Sackeytio, “For a
Self-Denying African-American Journalist,” 53; Egbo, “Self-Denial and Retribution,”
52.

16. Mohammed, Fall of America, 17.

17. Eure and Jerome, Back Where We Belong, 247.
18. Asante, Afrocentricity and The Afrocentric Idea-, Kemet, Afrocentricity and
Knowledge.
19. Asante, Afrocentricity, 30.
20. Ibid., 39.
21. Shavit, History in Black-, Howe, Afrocentrism; Lefkowitz, Not Out of Africa.
22. Blaut, Colonizer’s Model of the World.
23. Morris and Braine, “Social Movements and Oppositional Consciousness.”
24. Shavit, History In Black-, Howe, Afrocentrism. See also Walker, We Can’t Go
Home Again-, Moses, Afrotopia; Ziegler, Molefi Kete Asante and Afrocentricity.
25. Austin, Achieving Blackness, 12-13.
26. Ibid., 128.
27. Shavit, History in Black-, Walker, We Can’t Go Home Again-, Howe, Afrocen¬
trism.
28. James, Stolen Legacy.
 NOTES 191

29. Rodney, “African History in the Service of Black Revolution,” 51. See also
Adeleke, “Guerilla Intellectualism.”
30. Shavit, History in Black; Stowe, Afrocentrisnr, Lefkowitz, Not Out of Africa.
31. Asante, “Racism, Consciousness and Afrocentricity.”
32. Ani, Yurugu.
33. Adeleke, "Gloracialization."
34- Adeleke, “Moral Suasion and the Negro Anti-Slavery Crusade.”
35- Adeleke, UnAfrican Americans. See also his "Constructing a Dual Cultural
Space.”
36. Dickerson, The End of Blackness, “Introduction," 3.
37- Ibid., 4-5.
38. Graves, Myth of Race.

Chapter 1

1. Bethel, Roots of African-American Identity, 82.

2. Ibid., 81-82.
3. Ibid., 81.
4. Ibid., 82.
5. Ibid.
6. Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk, 3.
7. Ibid., 3-4.
8. Early, Lure and Loathing.
9. Bethel, Roots of African American Identity, 25-27.
10. Asante, Afrocentricity. See also his Afrocentric Idea and Kemet. Richards, Let
the Circle Be Unbroken.
11. Howe, Afrocentrism, 233.
12. Richards, Let The Circle Be Unbroken, 1.
13. Wilson, Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness, 40-41.
14. Wright, Black Intellectuals.
15. Richburg, Out of America.
16. Early, Lure and Loathing.
17. Bell, "American Moral Reform Society.” McCormick, “William Whipper."
18. Miller, Search for a Black Nationality; Kinshasa, Emigration vs. Assimilation;
Moses, Golden Age of Black Nationalism.
19. Eyerman, Cultural Trauma.
20. Stampp, Peculiar Institution, 141.
21. Andrews and McFeely, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.
22. Berlin, “From Creole to Africa,” 19.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid., 19.
25. Ibid., 20.
26. Ibid.
192 NOTES

27. Edwards, Equiano’s Travels.

28. Campbell, Middle Passages.
29. Magubane, Ties That Bind, 15-88. Walvin, Questioning Slavery, 49-95- Oakes,
Ruling Race, 3-34-

30. Tise, Proslavery. See also Genovese, World the Slaveholders Made.
31. Reed, Platform for Change, ch. 3. See also Horton, Free People of Color, 152-53-
Nash, Forging Freedom, ch. 4.
32. Cook, “ Tragic Conception of Negro History,” 225-31.
33. Lincoln, Coming Through the Fire, 101.
34. Curry, Free Black in Urban America, 81.
35. Walvin, Questioning Slavery. Oakes, Ruling Race. Jones, Born a Child of Free¬
dom, ch. 1.
36. Mills, Racial Contract, 13-14.
37. Ibid., 16.
38. Kolchin, American Slavery, 133. Also, Walvin, Questioning Slavery, 64-71.
39. Stampp, Peculiar Institution. Also, Kolchin, American Slavery, Walvin, Ques¬
tioning Slavery.
40. Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts. See also his “Consciousness of Negro
Nationality to 1900.”
41. Adeleke, “Primacy of Condition.”
42. Sorin, Abolitionism, 17-37, ch. 3. Mabee, Black Freedom. Stewart, Holy War¬
riors. Gienapp, "Abolitionism and the Nature of Ante-Bellum Reform.”
43. Ibid.
44. Sorin, Abolitionism, 44
45. Ibid., ch. 3. Mabee, Black Freedom, 1-111. Gienapp, “Abolitionism."
46. Mabee, Black Freedom. Also, Simmons, “Ideologies and Programs of the Negro
Anti-Slavery Movement.”
47. Horton, Free People of Color, 158.
48. Aptheker, Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States, vol. 1,
82.
49. Bethel, Roots of African American Identity, 119-26.
50. Ibid. See also Curry, Free Black, 96-111.
51. Bell, Survey of the Negro Convention Movement. Pease and Pease, “The Negro
Convention Movement,” in Nathan I. Huggins, ed., Key Issues in the Afro-American
Experience.
52. Bethel, Roots of African American Identity, 120,130. Horton, Free People of
Color, 158. Reed, Platform for Change, ch. 5.
53. Wright, White Man Listen! 16.
54. Bell, Survey. Reed, Platform for Change, ch. 4. Pease and Pease, “Negro Con¬
vention Movement.” Quarles, Black Abolitionists. Horton, Free People of Color.
55. Nash, Forging Freedom, 103.
56. Bell, Minutes of the Proceedings, 34.
57. Tise, Proslavery, chs. 6,10,13. Walvin, Questioning Slavery, chs. 4-5.
58. Bell, Minutes of the Proceedings.
 NOTES 193

59- Ibid. See also Simmons, "Ideologies and Programs,” ch. 2.

60. McCormick, "William Whipper.”
61. Ibid.
62. The Colored American, July 29,1837, 3.
63. Ibid., September 9,1837, 3.
64. Whipper, "Address on Non-Resistance,” 3.
65. Ibid.
66. Ibid.
67. The Colored American, March 29,1838, 2.
68. Ibid., March 13,1841, 3.
69. Ibid.
70. Ibid., September 9,16,1837, 3; February 10,1838, 3; March 17,1838, 3.
71. Ibid., September 9,1837, 2; March 13,1841, 3.
72. Ibid., March 6,13,1841.
73- Ibid., December 2, 9,1837; January 13, 27,1838; February 10,1838.
74. Ibid., November 3, 1837, 2.
75. Ibid., February 16,1839, 3.
76. Ibid.
77. Woodson, "West," Colored American, February 17, May 3,1838; January 15, Feb¬
ruary 5, March 2,16, July 15, August 31,1839.
78. Ibid., January 15, June 15, August 31,1839, 3.
79.Ibid.
80. Litwack, North of Slavery, ch. 5. Curry, Free Black, 37-48.
81. Laurie, Working People of Philadelphia, 53-66.
82. Litwack, North of Slavery, ch. 5. Richards, “Gentlemen of Property and Stand¬
ing? ch. 2. Curry, Free Black, ch. 6.
83. Simmons, “Ideologies and Programs," 34.
84. Foner and Walker, Proceedings of the Black State Conventions, 1840-1865, vol. 1,
124.
85. Foner and Walker, Proceedings of the Black State Conventions. Bell, Minutes of
the Proceedings.
86. Ofari, “Let Your Motto Be RESISTANCE',' 133-34,149.

87. Foner and Walker, Proceedings of the Black State Conventions, vol. 1, 39.
88. Adeleke, “Race and Ethnicity in Martin R. Delany’s Struggle."
89. Delany, Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny, ch. 17,154.
90. Ibid. See also Delany, “Political Destiny."
91. Rollin, Life and Public Services, 335.
92. Adeleke, "Race and Ethnicity."
93. Ofari, Let Your Motto Be RESISTANCE, chs. 6-7.
94. Foner, Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, 202.
95. Adeleke, "Race and Ethnicity."
96. Ibid.
97. Sterling, Making of an Afro-American, chs. 20-22.
98. Coulter, “Henry M. Turner.” Redkey, "Bishop Turner’s African Dream."
194 NOTES

99. Turner, “American Colonization Society," 44, 52-59, 83-84.

100. Redkey, "Flowering of Black Nationalism." Also, Redkey, "Bishop Turner’s Af¬
rican Dream.”
101. Rigsby, Alexander Crummell.
102. Delany, "Official Report of the Niger Valley Explbring Party," 102-6,133-34-
103. Turner, "Emigration to Africa,” 55, and his "American Colonization Society,”

44-
104. Crummell, "Relations and Duty of the Free Colored Men,” 215-84. See also his
"Duty of a Rising Christian State,” 87; “Progress of Civilization Along the West Coast
of Africa," 107; “Our National Mistakes, and the Remedy for Them.”
105. Adeleke, UnAfrican Americans.
106. Rollin, Life and Public Services, 351-56.
107. Rigsby, Alexander Crummell, 113.
108. Turner, "Question of Race,” 74.
109. Turner, “Emigration Convention," 147.
110. Adeleke, UnAfrican Americans, ch. 6. See also his “Religion in Martin R. Dela-
ny’s Struggle.”
111. Ibid., 570-76, 580, 583.

Chapter 2

1. Walvin, Questioning Slavery, 79-80.

2. Ibid., 80.
3. Ibid., 85.
4. Ibid., 92.
5. Frederickson, Black Image in the White Mind, 43.
6. Ibid., 49, 52.
7. Walvin, Questioning Slavery, chs. 4, 5; Frederickson, Black Image-, Eze, Race and
Enlightenment-, Okoye, American Image of Africa-, Genovese, World the Slaveholders
Made.
8. Blaut, Colonizer’s Model of the World. Also, Eze, Race and Enlightenment. See
also Isaacs, “American Negro and Africa"; Friedman, "Africa and the Afro-American.”
9. Kinshasa, Emigration vs. Assimilation, 35-37. Stewart, Holy Warriors.
10. Kinshasa, Emigration vs. Assimilation, 36-45.
11. Sherwood, “Paul Cuffee," 167.
12. Ibid., 195-96. See also Sherwood, "Paul Cuffee and His Contribution to the
American Colonization Society.”
13. Fisher, “Lott Cary,” 385-89, 391. *
14. Bruce, "Reasons Why the Colored American Should Go to Africa,” 489-90.
15. Williams, "Slavery and Colonization" 59, 60.
16. Moses, Golden Age of Black Nationalism. See also Adeleke, UnAfrican Ameri¬
cans.
17. Foner and Walker, Proceedings of the Black State Conventions, 1840-1865, vol. 1,
193-94-
 NOTES 195

18. Whipper, “Eulogy on William Wilberforce," 73.

19. Thorpe, Black Historians, 33,35, 46-55.
20. Delany, “International Policy of the World Towards the African Race,” 323, 324,
326, 289-92.
21. Blyden, "African Problem and the Methods of its Solution," 575, 576.
22. Crummell, "Civilization as a Collateral and Indispensable Instrumentality.”
23. Turner, “Afro-American Future," 188.
24. Sherwood, “Paul Cuffee,” 194-95.
25. Adeleke, UnAfrican Americans, ch. 3, p. 59, ch. 4.
26. Delany, Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny, 12.
27. Ofari, Let Your Motto Be RESISTANCE, 79.
28. Ibid., 71-102,183-84.
29. Delany, Condition. See also his "Political Destiny of the Colored Race on the
American Continent"; “International Policy”; Delany letter to Dr. James McCune
Smith; Delany to Professor M. H. Freeman.
30. Redkey, “Bishop Turner's African Dream”; see also his Respect Black. Scruggs,
"We the Children of Africa in This Land”; Rigsby, Alexander Crummell.
31. Bruce, “Reasons Why the Colored American Should Go to Africa,” 489.
32. Ibid., 489-90. For more on Bruce Grit, see Seraile, Bruce Grit. Crowder, John
Edward Bruce.
33. Lewis and Warner-Lewis, Garvey. Lewis and Bryan, Garvey. Jacques-Garvey,
Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey.
34. Von Eschen, Race Against Empire, 10.
35. Esedebe, Pan-Africanism-, Langley, Pan-Africanism and Nationalism in West
Africa; Thompson, Africa and Unity.
36. Du Bois, "To the Nations of the World.”
37. Thorpe, Black Historians, 101.
38. Bracey, Meier, and Rudwick, Afro-Americans, 389.
39. Esedebe, Pan-Africanism; Langley, Pan-Africanism and Nationalism.
40. Magubane, Ties That Bind-, Johnson, Black Globalism.
41. Shabazz, Malcolm X on Afro-American History, 63, 65, 55, 73.
42. Carmichael, Stokely Speaks, 183-220, 222, 223.
43. Ofari, Let Your Motto Be, 76.
44. Ibid., 74-79,162-63.
45. Ernest, Liberation Historiography-, Quarles, Black Mosaic; Harding, "Beyond
Chaos”; Harris, "Coming of Age.”
46. Delany, "International Policy," 323. 324-
47. Grisham, "Functions of the Negro Scholar," 629, 630, 632-33.
48. Ofari, Let Your Motto Be, 76.
49. Thorpe, Black Historians, 129; Woodson, Mis-education of the Negro, 110.
50. Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 1-72. Franklin, “On the Evolution of Schol¬

arship in Afro-American History.”

51. Jacques-Garvey, Philosophy and Opinions, 77.
196 NOTES

52. Ibid., 68,13. For a more critical interrogation of Garvey, see Walker, “Virtuoso

Illusionist.”
53. Meier and Rudwick, Black History, 73-238.
54. Rodney, “African History in the Service of Black Revolution,” 51

55- Ibid.
56. Rodney, History of the Upper Guinea Coast.
57. Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, 58.
58. Asante, Afrocentric Idea and Afrocentricity; Keto, Vision, Identity and Time.
59. Asante, Malcolm X As Cultural Hero, 18, 48.
60. Akbar, “Africentric Social Sciences for Human Liberation.”
61. Walker, We Can’t Go Home Again; Howe, Afrocentrism-, Shavit, History in

Black.
62. Diop, African Origin of Civilization. See also his Civilization or Barbarism, 3;
"Africa: Cradle of Humanity”; “Origins of the Ancient Egyptians,” 27-57.
63. Asante, Afrocentric Idea, 9.
64. Wilson, Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness, 25.
65. Howe, Afrocentrism; Shavit, History in Black-, Walker, We Can’t Go Home
Again; Moses, Afrotopia; Lefkowitz, Not Out of Africa.
66. Quoted in Walker, We Can’t Go Home, xix-xx.
67. Shavit, History in Black, chs. 6-7. See also Lefkowitz, “Origins of the 'Stolen
Legacy.’”
68. Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk, 3-4.
69. Asante, “Racism, Consciousness and Afrocentricity.”
70. Shavit, History in Black, chs. 1-2.
71. Ibid., 3.
72. Berger, “Professor’s Theories on Race .’’ Also quoted in Schlesinger, Disuniting
of America, 73.
73. Shavit, History in Black, 23.
74. Ibid., 29.
75. Ibid., 38. Also chs. 4-5. Although not counted among the Afrocentrists, lead¬
ing Afrocentric scholars advance Martin Bernal’s work as incontrovertible intellectual
corroboration of the Greek Dependency theory. Bernal’s work on Egyptian influence
on Greece has become a standard reference source on the Afrocentric genre. See his
Black Athena, vols. 1 and 2, and Black Athena Writes Back.
76. Walker, We Can’t Go Home, 40-41, 44, 46-50.

Chapters

1. Ajayi, “Black Heritage Summit.”

2. Harris, "Jamaica Pre-Summit.”
3. Ani, Yurugu; Asante, Painful Demise of Eurocentrism.
4. Richards, Let the Circle Be Unbroken, 52.
5. Asante, Painful Demise of Eurocentrism.
 NOTES 197

6. Asante, Afrocentricity, ch. 2, pp. 2, 43, 67. It is noteworthy that Asanle did not
acknowledge the “European" as part of this new composite ethnic identity.
7. Wright, Crisis of the Black Intellectual, 106.
8. Asante, Afrocentricity. See also his Afrocentric Idea.
9. See also Asante, Kemet, Afrocentricity and Knowledge.
10. Asante, "Afrocentric Idea in Education,” 171. See also his “On Historical Inter¬
pretations” and "On Afrocentric Metatheory.”
11. Karenga, Introduction to African American Studies. See also his "Corrective
History”; Kawaida Theory, Kwanza.
12. Wilson, Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness.
13. Marimba, Yurugu. Also see her Let the Circle Be Unbroken.
14. Akbar, Chains and Images of Psychological Slavery, Wright, Psychopathic Racial
Personality.
15. Lemelle, "Politics of Cultural Existence,” 335.
16. Gordon, Black Women, Feminism and Black Liberation.
17. Asante, Afrocentricity and Kemet, Afrocentricity and Knowledge.
18. See also T’Shaka, Art of Leadership.
19. Asante, Afrocentricity, chs. 3, 4, pp. 65-69, 26, 30.
20. Hickey and Wylie, Enchanting Darkness, 308-18; Walker, "Distortions of Afro-
centric History”; Lemelle, “Politics of Cultural Existence,” 334-36.
21. Ibid. See also Howe, Afrocentrism; Shavit, History in Black; Walker, We Can’t
Go Home Again.
22. Lemelle, “Politics of Cultural Existence," 336.
23. Esedebe, Pan-Africanism, 4, 5.
24. Sherwood, “Paul Cuffee.”
25. Fisher, "Lott Cary.”
26. Wiltse, David Walker's Appeal.
27. Delany, “Political Destiny of the Colored Race on the American Continent";
Miller, Search for a Black Nationality, Griffith, African Dream.
28. Delany, "Political Destiny,” 335-
29. Miller, Search for a Black Nationality, Griffith, African Dream. See also Delany
and Campbell, Search for a Place-, Delany, Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Des¬
tiny.
30. Adeleke, UnAfrican Americans.
31. Lewis, Marcus Garvey, Lewis and Beyan, Garvey.
32. Hine, State of Afro-American History, Meier and Rudwick, Black History and
the Historical Profession-, Thorpe, Black Historians-, Stuckey, "Twilight of Our Past.
33. Esedebe, Pan-Africanism; Langley, Pan-Africanism and Nationalism in West

Africa.
34. Madhubuti, Enemies, 70.
35. Hill, "Walter Rodney and the Restatement of Pan-Africanism in Theory and

Practice,” 85.
36. "Black Scholar Interviews; Walter Rodney."
198 NOTES

37. T'Shaka, Political Legacy of Malcolm X; Malcolm X, Malcolm X on Afro-Amer¬

ican History, Breitman, Malcolm X; Alkalimat, Perspectives on Black Liberation and
Social Revolution.
38. Carmichael, Stokely Speaks, 202, 205.
39. Drake, “Diaspora Studies and Pan-Africanism," 341-402.

40. Fisher, “Lott Cary,” 389, 39i-

41. Moses, Golden Age; see also his Classical Black Nationalism.
42. Draper, "Father of Black American Nationalism.”
43. Adeleke, UnAfrican Americans.
44. Ibid. See also McAdoo, Pre-Civil War Black Nationalism.
45. Esedebe, Pan-Africanism, 5; Lemelle and Kelley, Imagining Home, 361.
46. Olusanya, "African Historians and the Pan-Africanist Tradition,” 10.
47. Carmichael, Stokely Speaks, 223.
48. Ackah, Pan-Africanism.
49. Richards, Let the Circle Be Unbroken, 1.
50. Austin, Achieving Blackness, 128.
51. Ibid. Asante, Afrocentricity. See also Asante’s “Racism, Consciousness and Afro
centricity.”
52. Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk, 3.
53. Richburg, Out of America, 227-28.
54. Loury, “Free At Last?”
55. Crouch, “Who Are We? Where Did We Come From? Where Are We Going?”
80-94. See also Crouch’s All-American Skin Game, 45-57.
56. Goldberg, Book, 105.
57. Jones, “Why Pan-Africanism Failed,” 54-61.
58. Dalton, Racial Healing, 107.
59. Wright, Black Intellectuals, Black Cognition, and a Black Aesthetic, 38-39.
60. Mboya, "American Negro Cannot Look to Africa for an Escape,” 410, 412. See
also Mboya, “Africa and Afro-American," 246-57.
61. Nnoli, Ethnic Politics in Nigeria, 1, 35-97,140-214.
62. Ayittey, Africa Betrayed, 335-36.
63. Soyinka, Open Sore of a Continent, 139,120,128.
64. "Resist Recolonization!” 364, 357.
65. Mutiso and Rohio, Readings in African Political Thought, 346. Also, Nkrumah,
Some Essential Features of Nkrumaism.
66. Mwakikagile, Relations Between Africans and African-Americans. See also his
Relations Between Africans, African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans. Johnson, Why
Blacks Left America for Africa; Magubene, Ties That Bind: Afro-American Conscious¬
ness of Africa; Meriwether, Proudly We Can Be African. Also Ohaegbulam, "Continen
tal Africans and Africans in America”; Campbell, Middle Passages; Gaines, African
Americans in Ghana; Wamba, Kinship.
67. Apraku, Outside Looking In, 112,113,114,101,115.
 NOTES 199

Chapter 4

i. Moses, Afrotopia; Howe, Afrocentrism; Asante, Afrocentric Idea and Afrocentric-

ity.
i. Asante, Afrocentric Idea and Afrocentricity . See also Richards, Let the Circle Be
Unbroken.
3. Asante, Afrocentric Idea and Afrocentricity. See also his Kemet, Afrocentricity
and Knowledge. Richards, Let the Circle Be Unbroken. See also her Yurugu.
4- Hine and McLeod, Crossing Boundaries-, Wright, Black Intellectuals, Black Cog¬
nition, and a Black Aesthetic, Ackah, Pan-Africanism.
5. Mazrui, “On the Concept of‘We are all Africans,”’ 89, 90. Also Wright, Black
Intellectuals, 41.
6. Sidbury, Becoming African in America, 6.
7. Hine and McLeod, Crossing Boundaries.
8. Sidbury, Becoming African in America, 6-7.
9. Greene, “Beyond Power,” 332-33.
10. Mazrui, "On The Concept of‘We are all Africans,’” 88.
11. Ibid. See also Awolowo, Awo, 27.
12. Asante, Afrocentric Idea-, Richards, Let The Circle Be Unbroken.
13. Walvin, Questioning Slavery, Frederickson, Black Image in the White Mind.
14. Blassingame, Slave Community; Rawick, From Sundown to Sunup.
15. Sherwood, "Paul Cuffee" and "Paul Cuffee and His Contributions to the Ameri¬
can Colonization Society”; Fisher, “Lott Cary.”
16. Adeleke, UnAfrican Americans.
17. Delany, Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny, 203.
18. Ibid. See also his "Political Destiny of the Colored Race on the American Conti¬
nent.”
19. Ofari, Let Your Motto Be; Redkey, “Bishop Turner’s African Dream” and Black
Exodus.
20. Wiltse, David Walker’s Appeal.
21. Bell, Minutes of the Proceedings of the Colored National Negro Conventions;
Aptheker, Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States, vol. 1. Also
Horton and Horton, In Hope of Liberty, 201. Adeleke, "Afro-Americans and Moral Sua¬
sion.”
22. Horton and Horton, In Hope of Liberty, 201. Also Colored American, March 4,

1837-
23. Adeleke, UnAfrican Americans. Also Draper, Rediscovery of Black Nationalism.
24. Horton and Horton, In Hope of Liberty, 201.
25. Aptheker, Documentary History, vol. 1, p. 71.
26. Ibid., 109. Also Liberator, February 12,1831.
27. Foner and Walker, Proceedings of the Black State Convention, 1840-1865, vol. 1,

PP-193-94-
28. Ibid., 45; also vol. 2.
200 NOTES

29. Ibid., 45-46.

30. Adeleke, UnAfrican Americans. Also, Williams, “Black American Attitudes To¬

ward Africa.”
31. Foner and Walker, Proceedings, vol. 2, p. 208.
32. Ibid., 211.
33. Wilson, Falsification ofAfrikan Consciousness, 40-41-
34. Campbell, Middle Passages, xxiv.
35. Adeleke, “Constructing a Dual Cultural Space.”
36. Hine and McLeod, Crossing Boundaries.
37. Gomez, Exchanging Our Country Marks, 154.
38. Wright, Black Intellectuals, Black Cognition, 40.

Chapters

1. Asante, Painful Demise of Eurocentrism, "Preface," 1-8. M Ani, Yurugu.

2. Shujaa, Too Much Schooling, 31.
3. Asante, “Where Is the White Professor Located?”
4. Holt, Problem of Race in the 21st Century, Barndt, Understanding and Disman¬
tling Racism.
5. Holloway, Change the World Without Taking Power; Stiglitz, Globalization and
Its Discontents', Held and McGrew, Globalization/Anti-Globalization.
6. Cohen, Global Diasporas, 155,157.
7. Ibid., 174-75-
8. Adeleke, UnAfrican Americans. See also his "Constructing a Dual Cultural
Space.”
9. Delany, "Political Destiny of the Colored People on the American Continent”;
"International Policy of the World Towards the African Race”; “Political Events”; "Po¬
litical Aspect of the Colored Race of the United States.”
10. Clarke, Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa; Cronon, Black Moses.
11. Williams, Destruction of Black Civilization, 362, 381.
12. Asante, Afrocentric Idea; Afrocentricity, Kemet, Afrocentricity and Knowledge.
13. Madhubuti, Enemies, 187,186,190.
14. Ani, Yurugu.
15. Richards, Let the Circle Be Unbroken.
16. Ani, Yurugu.
17. Ibid., 528-70, 4.
18. Cohen, Global Diasporas, 174.
19. Ani, Yurugu.
20. Asante, Painful Demise of Eurocentrism, vii.
21. Ibid., vii, 7.
22. Gilroy, Black Atlantic; Hall, "What Is ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture?”; Ackah,
Pan-Africanism; Segal, Black Diaspora; Hall, In the Vineyard; Walker, We Can’t Go
Home Again.
23. Hall, In the Vineyard.
24. Martusewicz, Seeking Passage, 108.
25. Ibid., 28.
 NOTES 201

26. Williams, “Rethinking the African Diaspora," 109.

27. Lewis, “To Turn as on a Pivot,” 5.
28. Hall, "Cultural Identity and Diaspora," 235.
29. Greene, “Beyond Power,” 332.
30. Manger and Assal, Diasporas Within and Without Africa, 10.
31. Conrad, “‘We Are the Warsay of Eritrea in Diaspora’”; Abusharaf, “Southern
Sudanese, 140—64; Assal, “Somalis and Sudanese in Norway.”
32. Hamilton, “Rethinking the Diaspora: Global Dynamics," 12, 7, 8.
33- Ibid., 1-40.
34. Smith, "Toward a Global Culture?” 178,179,180.
35. Tsehloane, Keto, Vision, Identity and Time, 64, 22.
36.Ibid.
37. Ibid., 22.
38. Ibid., 23.
39. Intall, "Renovating Australian Citizenship.”
40. Ackah, Pan-Africanism, 91.
41. Ibid., 93, 97.
42. Cohen, Global Diasporas, 174.
43. Intall, "Renovating Australian Citizenship.”

Conclusion

1. Mboya, “Africa and Afro-America,” 256.

2. Anise, "African Redefined,” 446.
3. Watkins, “Black Is Back, and Its Bound to Sell.”
4. Ibid., 448.
5. Hamilton, “Rethinking the African Diaspora: Global Dynamics," 32.
6. Cabral, “National Liberation and Culture,” 141,149. See also Opoku, "Cabral and
the African Revolution."
7. Liyong, "Negroes Are Not Africans," 260-61.
8. Mboya, “American Negro Cannot Look to Africa for an Escape,” 409-14.
9. Hacker, Two Nations.
10. D’Souza, End of Racism.
11. Kincheloe and Steinberg, Changing Multiculturalism, 29-30,
12. Picca and Feagin, Two-Faced Racism.
13. Feagin and Vera, White Racism, ix.
14. Feagin, Racist America, 2.
15. Chideya, Color of Our Future, 7, 25-26.
16. Chideya, Don't Believe the Hype, xiii.
17. Payne, Getting Beyond Race, 193-200.
18. Steinhorn and Diggs-Brown, By the Color of the Skin, 24.
19. Ibid., 30.
20. Ibid., 236.
21. Bonilla-Silva, "New Racism," 271-85. See also, Bonilla-Silva, Racism Without

Racists-, Brown et al., Whitewashing Race; Feagin, Systemic Racism.

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Index

Abacha, Sani, 114 Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World

abolitionism, black, 14, 28, 35, 37, 38, 39, (Walker), 103,140
68, 141, 143, 177 Apraku, Kofi, 132
Accra, Ghana, 115 Asante (ethnic group), 70
Ackah, William, 116,168-69 Asante, Kariamu Welsh, 99
affirmative action, 88,130,177,184 Asante, Molefi K., 8, 9, 12, 26, 87, 88, 89,
Africa, construct of, 135-38 90,91,96, 97, 98,100, 101-2, 122,
Africa Union, 115 151,152,157, 160,176
African Baptist Church of Boston, 142 Assal, Munzoul A. M., 164
African Civilization Society, 74, 75 Association for the Study of Negro Life
African Heroes and Heroines (Woodson), and History, 84
84 Atlanta, Ga„ 94
African identity paradigm, 116-19,121, Austin, Algernon, 11,12,117
124 Ayittey, George, 127
African Methodist Episcopal Church, 140
African Studies Conference, 129 Babangida, Ibrahim, 114
Afrikan Diaspora Union, 94 Baltimore, Md., 37
Afro-Americanist perspective, 120 Barbados, 31
"Afrocentric consciousness," 15,133, Baton Rouge, La., 27,119
134-35, 178 Beecher, Lyman, 36
Afrocentric essentialism, defined, 10-11 Benin, 70
Afrocentricity (Asante), 9 Berlin, Ira, 30-31
Afrocentrism vs. Eurocentrism, 9-10,13, Bethel, Elizabeth Raul, 23, 24, 38
14,17, 87, 88, 89, 90, 97-98, 100,152, Birney, James, 36
158-59,160, 161 black Atlantic/black Diaspora
Akbar, Na'im, 12, 87, 88, 90, 98, 99 perspective, 161
Alexander the Great, 91 Black Muslims, 8
All African Peoples Revolutionary Party, Black Panthers, 8,13
94 Black Power, 8, 13, 80, 107
Allegritti, Inta, 168, 171 black womanist perspective, 99
Allen, Richard, 140 Black Women, Feminism, and Black
Allen, William G., 83 Liberation (Gordon), 99
American Anti-Slavery Society, 48 Blyden, Edward Wilmot, 56-57, 71,79,
American Colonization Society, 63, 65, 106
144 Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo, 188
American Moral Reform Society, 40,43 Boston, Mass., 37, 47,103
Ani, Marimba, 12, 26, 87, 90, 95, 99, 117, Brath, Elombe, 95
122,158-59 Brazil, 121
Anise, Laduna, 175, 178-79 Britain, 54
 INDEX 219

Brown, William Wells, 14, 74,82,104 Destiny of the Colored People of the
Bruce, John Edward, 66, 76 United States, The (Delany), 139
Buffalo, N.Y., 49 Congo, 125, 126
Burundi, 125,126 Congress movement. See Pan-African
Congress tradition
Cabral, Amilcar, 179-80 Constitution, U.S., 38; Fifteenth
Cameroon, 126 Amendment, 52; Fourteenth
Campbell, James, 32,148 Amendment, 52,177; Thirteenth
Canada, 36 Amendment, 177
Carmichael, Stokely, 8, 13, 79, 80, 107, convention movement, black, 36, 37, 38,
113,176 39, 141-42
Carter, Robert "King," 30 Cook, Samuel Dubois, 34
Cary, Lott, 64, 65, 66,103,108,111, 138, Cornish, Samuel, 37,43, 44,142,143,178
140 Cosby, Bill, 169
Casely-Hayford, J. E„ 106 Crouch, Stanley, 120
Charleston, S.C., 37 Crummell, Alexander, 53, 54, 55-56,
Chideya, Farai, 185 58, 75, 76, 79,105,109, 174; and
Christianity, 53,65 civilization, 72, 73; and slavery, 56, 57
Cincinnati, Ohio, 35, 37, 47,141 Cuba, 121
citizenship, American: and Delany, 51; as Cuffee, Paul, 64-65,66, 73,103,108,111,
goal of black abolitionists, 47,48-49, 138,140
50 cultural line, 161
Civil Rights Act, 177 culture, African, 67-73,92,122. See also
civil rights movement, 25, 72, 79,85,88, Egypt
107,130, 151,176, 177 Curry, Leonard, 34
Civil War, 4, 52
civilization, in Africa, 59-67. See also Dalton, Harlon, 122
Egypt Day, William H., 104
Clarke, John Henrik, 12, 87, 90,99,157 Declaration of Independence, 38,144,
Cleveland, Ohio, 3,4,152 146
Cohen, Robin, 153, 154 dehistoricization, 15, 21
Collins, Patricia Hill, 99 Delany, Martin, 3-4, 5,6-7,14,15, 53,
colonialism, 54, 78, 86, 95, 106, 107,109, 54-56, 58, 70, 74, 79, 87, 104-5,
111, 112, 114, 125 109, 115,155, 156-57,174, 176; and
colonization, 38, 57, 62-66, 143, 144, African history, 82; and civilization,
145, 146 72, 73; and color line, 152-53; and
Colonization Society, 56 emigration, 50-52,104,139-40,
color line, 3, 6-9, 19, 98, 152-53,156, 157, 152,156; and moral suasion, 50; and
160,187; and Asante, 9; and Delany, nationalism, 75, 76,85; and slavery,
3, 5, 6,152-53; and Du Bois, 4, 5,6, 56,57
77, 115 Detroit, Mich., 144
Colored American, The, 43,142,143 Dickerson, Debra J„ 20-21,175,187
Compromise of 1877, 52 Diggs-Brown, Barbara, 187,188
Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Diop, Cheikh Anta, 89
220 INDEX

double consciousness, and black Garvey, Marcus, 13, 76-77, 78, 79,84-85,
American identity, 24-25,26,91 105,157,176
Douglass, Frederick, 30, 51,52 gender, 99
Downing, George T., 147 Georgia, 53, 65
Draper, Theodore, 109 Ghana, 111, 115
Dred Scott decision, 75 globalization, 16,17-18,151,153-60,
Du Bois, W. E. B„ 4-5, 6, 20, 77-78, 79, 82, 161, 165,168,170
83,87, 105,106, 111, 112,115, 148, gloracialization, 18,156,158,160
172; duality paradigm, 24-25, 58, 91, Goldberg, Whoopi, 120
118,183 Gomez, Michael, 150
Gordon, Vivian, 99-100
Early, Gerald, 25 Greece, 89, 90,92,101
Egypt, 13, 56, 70, 81,82,84, 89-91,92-93, Greene, Jack, 164
101,144 Grisham, G. N., 82-83
emigration, 14, 28, 29, 49, 67, 75, 76, 109,
143,146,174, 178; and Delany, 3-4,6, Hacker, Andrew, 184,185
50-52, 70, 104, 139 Haitian revolution, 23
End of Blackness, The (Dickerson), 20 Hall, Stuart, 163
Equiano, Olaudah, 31 Hamilton, Ruth, 164, 165, 179
Esedebe, P. Olisanwuche, 102 Hamilton, William, 43
Estwick, Samuel, 61 Hardenberger, Samuel, 43
Ethiopia, 69, 84,126, 144 Harding, Vincent, 85
ethnic cleansing, 124,125 Harrisburg, Pa., 48
ethnic identity, 121-22 Holly, James Theodore, 14,104
Eurocentrism. See Afrocentrism vs. hooks, bell, 99
Eurocentrism Horton, James Oliver, 37,143
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
Farrakhan, Louis, 9 (Rodney), 86
Feagin, Joe R., 185 "How to Make a Slave," 29-30
Female Benevolent Society, 81 Howard University, 94
feminism, 99
Finney, Charles G„ 35 identity, among Africans, 124
First Independent Church of the People imperialism, 86, 105,106, 109,111,112,
of Color, 142 115, 156,173
Frederickson, George, 61 instrumentalist history, 80-87
"Free Suffrage Convention," 49 integration, 4, 15, 51,142, 149, 178,179,
Freedom's Journal, 37 187-88
Freeman, M. H„ 104 interculturalism, 168
Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, 49, 50, 75
Jackson, Michael, 169
Gaddafi, Colonel, 115 Jamaica, 74, 77
Garnet, Henry H., 48, 51, 52, 74-75,81, James, George G. M., 90
85, 104, 140, 156, 174 Jeffries, Leonard, 92
Garrison, William Lloyd, 36 Jones, Absalom, 140
 INDEX 221

Jones, Rhett, 121,122 Michigan, 67

Jordan, Michael, 169 Middle Passage, 31-32, 34,121
Journal of Negro History, 84 Mills, Charles, 34, 35
Joycelin, Simeon S„ 36 Mohammed, Elijah, 9
"Moral and Social Aspect of Africa, The"
Kampala, Uganda, 78, 94,107,128 (Delany), 70
Karenga, Maulana, 12, 26, 87,90,96,98, Moral Reform Society, 40,43
99, 151,176 moral suasion, 14, 28-29, 35-36, 37-41,
Kenya, 125, 126 43, 46-48, 49, 50, 174, 177, 178
Keto, C.Tsehloane, 166,167,170 Moses, Wilson, 109
Kincheloe, J. L., 184,185 Moyamensing riots, 48
Kingston, Jamaica, 94 Mwakikagile, Godfrey, 131
Kufuor, John, 115
Kwanza, 72, 99 Nation of Islam, 8
National Emigration Convention, 3
Lagos, Nigeria, 94 National Negro conventions, 141
Laurie, Bruce, 47 nationalism, black, 29, 53, 75, 76, 77, 78,
Lemelle, Sidney, 102 85, 103, 109, 110, 147, 174, 175, 176
Let the Circle Be Unbroken (Ani), 117 nativism, among black Americans, 131
Lewis, Earl, 163 Negro National Emigration Convention,
Lewis, Robert Benjamin, 14,69 152
liberation movement, black, 86 Nell, William C., 14,104
Liberia, 53,63, 70, 104,125, 126,145 neo-Afrocentricity, 166
Liberia College, 57 neocolonialism, 95, 97, 114, 126
Libya, 115 New Negro History movement, 84,105
Light and Truth (Lewis), 69 New World, impact of/acculturation, 16,
Lincoln, Eric, 34 17, 18, 19, 108,172, 183
literacy, 53 New York, 36, 49, 65, 74
Liyong, Taban Lo, 182 New York City, 40, 42, 47, 103,140, 144
Loury, Glenn, 120 Nickens, David, 83
Lundy, Benjamin, 35, 36 Nigeria, 111, 114,125, 126,127, 129
Lure and Loathing (Early), 25 Nkrumah, Kwame, 111,115,129-30
Nyerere,Julius, 111, 136
Madhubuti, Haki, 157-58
Malcolm X, 14, 79, 107,176 Ofari, Earl, 81
Mandela, Nelson, 120 Ohio Black Code, 37
Manger, Leif, 164 Open Sore of a Continent, The (Soyinka),
Marimba, Dona. See Ani, Marimba 127
Martusewicz, Rebecca, 162 Organization of African Unity, 115
Marxism, 86,107 Origin and History of the Africans, The
Maryland, 145 (Allen), 83
Mazrui, Ali, 129,130,136,137 Out of America (Richburg), 8, 27
Mboya,Tom, 124,174, 182
Melbourne, 168 Padmore,George, 106, 111, 112
222 INDEX

Pan-African Americanism, 169 Republic of New Africa, 94

Pan-African Congress tradition, 76, 77, 78, Richards, Dona Marimba. See Ani,
105, 106, 110,112,113 Marimba
Pan-African Movement Summit, 94 Richburg, Keith, 8, 27,113,119,120
Pan-African Movement U.S.A. (PAMUSA), Richmond, Va„ 65, 108
94,180 Richmond African Baptist Missionary
Pan-Africanism, 13,16,19, 29, 78-79,95- Society, 65
97,100,102-7,110-16,125, 128,180; Robinson, Randall, 180
and American identity, 139,140; and Rodney, Walter, 14,86,106-7,128
Asante, 101; and black nationalists, Rome, 90
53-54, 76; and Carmichael, 80,113; Roots of African-American Identity, The
contradictions in, 112,113,127,128; (Bethel), 23
definition of, 102; and Du Bois, 5; Ruuswurm, John, 37
reconceptualization of, 116; revival of, Rwanda, 125,126
124,173; and Rodney, 106-7,128
Payne, Richard, 186-87 Second Great Awakening, 35
Pennington, James W. C., 14, 70, 74,82, segregation, 13,188
83, 87,104 separatism, 4, 5,43,178
Pennsylvania, 36, 74 Seventh Pan-African Congress, 94,110,
Perlmutter, H.V., 159,170 128
Philadelphia, Pa., 37, 38,40, 44, 47-48, 65, Shavit, Yaacov, 91-92
66, 69, 103, 140, 142, 144 Sid bury, James, 136,137
Picca, Leslie H., 185 Sidney, Thomas, 43-44,178
Pittsburgh, Pa., 37 Sierra Leone, 65, 70,104,125,126
prejudice, and Woodson, 46 slavery, 5,13, 19, 23, 36, 49, 56, 58, 68, 86,
pro-slavery ideology, 61-62,137 95,103,138; as civilizing influence,
Providence, R.I., 37 56-57, 62; defense of, 60-62; and
Purvis, Robert, 142 group solidarity, 33; and identity, 27,
29-35,119,121; and moral suasion,
Questioning Slavery (Walvin), 61 46; renaming of slaves, 30-31
slavocentrism, 27-28, 39,119,178
race, artificiality of, 27,135 Smith, Anthony, 165
racial essentialism, 11,93,156,157,183 Smith, James McCune, 6
Racial Healing (Dalton), 122 Somalia, 125,126
racial solidarity, 6, 7,8,9 Souls of Black Folk, The (Du Bois), 4,118
racism, 13, 35, 49,103,105, 106,132, Southern Conference on Afro-American
183-84, 185, 188; and color line, 8; Studies, 27,119
and Cornish, 43; and Delany, 3, 4, Soyinka, Wole, 127
156; effects of, 21; and essentialism, Stampp, Kenneth, 35
14,183; and Pan-Africanism, 78, 95; Steinberg, Shirley, 184,185
within Africa, 115,173; and Woodson, Steinhorn, Leonard, 187-88
45 Stolen Legacy (James), 90
Rastafari Movement, 94 "stolen legacy" thesis, 12, 90
recolonization, 129 Stuckey, Sterling, 85
 INDEX 223

Tanzania, 106,111 Williams, George Washington, 14, 70,82,

Tappan, Arthur, 36 87,104
Tappan, Lewis, 36 Williams, Henry Sylvester, 77, 79, 106, 112
Text Book of the Origin and History of the Williams, Peter, Jr., 66
Colored People, A (Pennington), 70,83 Wilson, Amos, 12, 26, 89, 90, 99, 147, 173,
Timbuktu, 84 179
Togo, 126 Winfrey, Oprah, 169
Toronto, 129 Woodson, Carter G„ 82, 83, 84, 87, 105,
TransAfrica, 180 148
transformational paradigm, 162, 163-64 Woodson, Lewis, 14, 39,44-47
tribalism, 114, 115,126 World Africa Diaspora Union, 78
Trinidad, 77 World and Africa, The (Du Bois), 78
Troy, N.Y., 81 Wright, Bobby, 99
Tulane University, 94 Wright, W. D„ 27, 96, 150
Turner, Henry McNeal, 53, 54, 55-56, 58,
75, 76, 79, 85, 105,109, 140,155,174; Yoruba, 70
and civilization, 72; and slavery, 56, 57 Yurugu (Ani), 99, 158
Turner, Nat, 14
Zaire, 125,126
Universal Negro Improvement
Association (UNIA), 77,85,94,105
universalism, 17,120,178; and Whipper,
41,42-43, 44, 45, 46, 142, 143
Upper Guinea Coast, 86

Vera, Hernan, 185

Vesey, Denmark, 14
Virginia, 65
Vision, Identity and Time (Keto), 166
Voting Rights Act, 177

Walker, Alice, 99
Walker, Clarence, 92-93
Walker, David, 103,140
Walvin, James, 60-61
Ward, Douglass Turner, 27,113,119,120
Washington, BookerT., 53
Washington, D.C., 37, 56,180
Whipper, William, 14, 39, 40-43,44,45,
47, 69, 142, 143
Whittier, John Greenleaf, 36
Wilberforce, William, 69
Williams, Chancellor, 87,157
Williams, Dwayne, 163
Breinigsville, PA USA
09 September 2009

223776BV00002B/2/P
 marygroye college

3 ns? 00DT5187 8

DATE DUE

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GAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S.A.

A SHOT ACROSS THE BOW OF
PAN-AFRICAN CLAIMS OF A
UNIFIED AFRICAN CULTURE

Postcolonial discourses on African Diaspora history and relations have traditionally

focused intensely on highlighting the common experiences and links between black
Africans and African Americans. This is especially true of Afrocentric scholars and
supporters who use Africa to construct and validate a monolithic, racial, and cul¬
turally essentialist worldview. Publications by Afrocentric scholars such as Moleti
Asante, Marimba Ani, Maul ana Karenga. and the late John Henrik Clarke have
emphasized the centrality of Africa to the construction of Afrocentric essentialism.
In the last fifteen years, however, countervailing critical scholarship has challenged
essentialist interpretations of Diaspora history. Critics such as Stephen Howe, Yaa-
cov Shavit, and Clarence Walker have questioned and refuted the intellectual and
cultural underpinnings of Afrocentric essentialist ideology.

Tunde Adeleke deconstructs Afrocentric essentialism by illuminating and interro¬

gating the problematic situation of Africa as the foundation of a racial ized w orld¬
wide African Diaspora. He attempts to fill an intellectual gap by analyzing the con¬
tradictions in Afrocentric representations of the continent. These include multiple,
conflicting, and ambivalent portraits of Africa; the use of the continent as a global,
unifying identity for all blacks; the de-emphasizing and nullification of New World
acculturation; and the ahistoristic construction of a monolithic African Diaspora
worldwide.

TUNDE ADELEKE is the director of the African and African American Stud¬
ies Program at Iowa State University. He is the author of Without Regard to Race:
The Other Martin Robison Delany (University Press of Mississippi), and UnAfrican
Americans: Nineteenth-Century Black Nationalists and the Civilizing Mission.