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Books by Wilson
Jeremiah Moses
Golden Age of Black Nationalism,
1850-1925 (1988) /
The Wings of Ethiopia
(1990)
Alexander
Crummell: A Study of Civilization and Discontent
(1992) /
Destiny & Race: Selected Writings, 1840-1898
(1992)
Black
Messiahs and Uncle Toms: Social and Literary
Manipulations of a Religious Myth (1993)
Liberian Dreams: Back-to-Africa
Narratives from the 1850s
/
Afrotopia: The Roots of African American
Popular History
(2002)
Creative Conflict in African American Thought (2004)
* *
* * *
Basic Background
Reading on Afrocentrism
By
Wilson J. Moses Ph. D.
Joseph
Ephraim Casely Hayford
Everyone deserving of the name, African American
intellectual, should try to become familiar with the
thought and writings of Joseph Ephraim Casely
Hayford (1866–1930), member of the Fante
ethnic group, editor of the Gold Coast Leader,
lawyer, educator, and ethnologist. He was a
supporter of Pan-African nationalism, and a bridge
between Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois,
both of whom respected him very highly. He was Du
Bois’s exact contemporary and his intellectual
equal, a point that Du Bois readily acknowledged. Du
Bois knew that Hayford was the first to offer a
critical assessment and rejection of Du Bois’s “two
souls paradigm,” on intellectual grounds, and with a
reasoned argument. Every Negro intellectual, wither
Francophone, Anglophone, or Lusophone, should read
Hayford’s
Ethiopia Unbound, which is of parallel
importance to Du Bois’s
The Souls of Black Folk, which
used to be the backbone of any program in African
Studies.
Edward Wilmot Blyden
The
other most neglected figure among American Negro
intellectuals is Edward Wilmot Blyden
(1832 - 1912). Born in the West Indies to people,
putatively of the Igbo ethnic origin, he became a
leading figure in the histories of Liberia and
Sierra Leone. His contemporary, William J. Simmons,
says he knew 32 West African languages, in addition
to Arabic, Latin, Hebrew. He taught Classical Greek
at Liberia College in the 1860s, despite the fact
that his fellow faculty member Alexander Crummell
had studied those languages at the University of
Cambridge. (Crummell taught mathematics). The great
Afrocentrist pioneer, Dusé Mohamed Ali, instructed
Marcus Garvey to study Blyden’s writings and
arranged for Garvey to have access to the library of
the British Museum for that purpose. Shortly before
Blyden’s death, Du Bois asked Blyden to be on the
Board of his planned “Encyclopedia Africana.”
Francis J. Grimke hosted a dinner for Blyden during
his farewell tour of the United States. He was
supported by Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, and
thousands of humble working Negroes celebrated his
name, acknowledging him as their world leader.
Alexander Crummell
The
third, and most egregiously neglected Pan African
intellectual black nationalist is Alexander Crummell
(1819-1898). Born in New York, brought up as an
Episcopalian, as a youth he was introduced to Greek,
Latin, and biblical languages thanks to the support
of his father, who was born in Africa, a member of
the Temne ethnic group. He received his bachelors
degree, and passed his examination in classical
Greek at the University of Cambridge in England. In
1853, he took up missionary work in Liberia. His
sermons and addresses are classic illustrations of
the Christian Afrocentrism that later characterized
the Garvey Movement. He was a solid advocate of
African American political rights. Gravitating
towards high church ritual, he anticipated Elijah
Muhammad’s hostility to grass roots black religion,
which he viewed as a plantation survival and part of
a slaveholder’s conspiracy to undermine the moral
and intellectual development of African Americans.
Crummell’s prolific writings include three books:
*
Africa and America: Addresses and Discourses.
Springfield, Massachusetts: Willey, 1891.
* The Future of Africa: Being Addresses,
Sermons, Etc., Delivered in the Republic of Liberia.
New York: Charles Scribner, 1862.
* The Greatness of Christ and other Sermons.
New York: Thomas Whittaker, 1882.
* There are ten reels of microfilm containing the
bulk of his unpublished writings
Also see Wilson J. Moses. Alexander
Crummell: A Study of Civilization and Discontent
. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
* * * *
*
BIBLIOGRAPHY
In
1951 Magnus J. Sampson edited some of Hayford’s
writings under the title,
West African Leadership: Public speeches
delivered by the Honourable J. E. Casely Hayford.
Among Hayford’s many publications, the following
are most readily available at major university
libraries:
*
The Truth About The West African Land Question
(1898. Reprinted, 1913. Reprinted London: Cass,
1971)
*
Gold Coast Native Institutions: With Thoughts Upon A
Healthy Imperial Policy for the Gold Coast and
Ashanti (1903. Reprinted London: Cass, 1970,
ISBN 0-7146-1754-7)
*
Ethiopia Unbound: Studies in Race Emancipation
(1911. Reprinted London: Cass, 1969, ISBN
0-7146-1753-9)
*
Gold Coast Land Tenure and the Forest Bill
(1911)
*
William Waddy Harris, the West African reformer
(1915)
* United West Africa (1919)
There are articles on Casely Hayford, Edward Wilmot
Blyden, and Dusé Mohamed Ali, at
http://wikipedia.org/
The
standard work on Blyden is by Hollis R. Lynch.
Edward Wilmot Blyden: Pan-Negro Patriot, 1832-1912
(London: Oxford University Press, 1967; repr.
1970).
For
connections between Blyden and Bishop Turner, read
Edwin Redkey,
Black Exodus: Black Nationalism and Back to Africa
Movements, 1890-1919 (New Haven CT, Yale
University Press, 1969).
Blyden’s works include:
* Africa for the Africans
*
African Life and Customs
* West Africa Before Europe
* The Call of Providence to the Descendants of Africa in America
*
Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, London,
* The Elements of Permanent Influence
* Liberia as a Means, Not an End. Liberian Independence Oration
* The Negro in Ancient History, Liberia: Past, Present, and
Future, Washington
* The Origin and Purpose of African Colonization
* A Vindication of the African Race; Being a Brief Examination
of the Arguments in Favor of African Inferiority
* Report on the Falaba Expedition 1872
* Liberia at the American Centennial
* America in Africa, Christian Advocate
* The Negro in the United States
*
* * * *
Wilson Jeremiah Moses (Ph. D., Brown, 1975) is
Ferree Professor of History at the Pennsylvania
State University. He has been Director of Africana
Studies programs at Brown University, Southern
Methodist University, and Boston University. He has
taught at the Free University of Berlin, the
University of Vienna, and Harvard University, and
has lectured widely at other American, European, and
African Academies and Universities.
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updated 15 December 2007 |