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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.

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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

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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