PAN-AFRICANISM & NEGRITUDE.   Term Paper ID:26113 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines two movements for political & social action among different African populations, how they view themselves & their relationship to Africa & the struggle for power & rights.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examines two movements for political & social action among different African populations, how they view themselves & their relationship to Africa & the struggle for power & rights. Paper Introduction: Different circumstances produce different forms of political action, and the plight of black people in different parts of the world has produced different movements for rights and autonomy given the differing political conditions in which the people find themselves and the different specific goals they themselves develop. Pan-Africanism and Negritude are terms applied to certain movements having ideas in common about the way different African populations should view themselves and their relationship to the world. Both approaches have been active and influential in the Caribbean region and in South America where a large black population resides. The two approaches have certain things in common even as they have their differences, and an examination of some of the writings on the subject as well as a specific study of how the movements have devel Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. The Negritude movement is onlyone manifestation of Pan-Africanism, and it is not even the first literaryexpression of these concepts. Intellectual Origins of the African Revolution. Washington, D.C.: Black Orpheus, 1972.Maingot, Anthony P. Different circumstances produce different forms of political action,and the plight of black people in different parts of the world has produceddifferent movements for rights and autonomy given the differing politicalconditions in which the people find themselves and the different specificgoals they themselves develop. For some populations, notably those speakingPortuguese and Spanish, this is a particular burden given the ascendancy onthe international scene of English and French, adding one more layer ofdependence, here on translation. The Golden Age of Black Nationalism 185 -1925. Jahannescan talk about "Africa America" as a mystery, a foundation, a force, a fulcrum for the realization of future development of America and for people of African descent everywhere. Theyspeak different languages. The first such rejection came in 1825 when SimonBolivar organized the Congress of Panama and refused to invite either theUnited States or Haiti because "they each present special inconveniences."The U.S. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, 1992.Stuckey, Sterling. Pan-Africanism has been thought ofas a movement conceived and developed by Africans living outside of Africa,but it is in fact a worldwide movement affecting Africans in every part ofthe world. DuBois's form of Pan-Africanism could not get a foothold. It has beenexpressed even in Africa itself, where it generally takes the form of armedresistance to slavery and colonialism. Links between the United States and different Pan-African andNegritude movements around the world have been developed because of sharedinterests, shared concerns among blacks, and the fact that Americanliterary and political influences helped form or give direction to themovement in its formative period. Both approaches have been active and influential in the Caribbeanregion and in South America where a large black population resides. Different forms of black nationalism had beenproposed since early in the nineteenth century. Africans in Brazil. The Negritude Poets. Pan-Africanism inthis hemisphere has been faced with the need to overcome this sort ofprejudice in order to include all black populations in this part of theworld in the movement. A second movement was Negritude, which started as a literary movementof the 193 s and extended into the 195 s among French-speaking African andCaribbean writers (then living in Paris) as a protest against Frenchcolonial rule and the policy of assimilation then in force. It is a movement by the blackpopulation to recover and reclaim its history, culture, and nationalidentity, and "pan" movements come to populations after a war or amigration, whether forced or otherwise. Garvey did this with a peculiar vision ofPan-African nationalism at a time when W.E.B. At the time when Garvey came to America, the Pan-African movement wasin its formative stage. There was also a call forunity among the nations of Africa that extended in spirit to blackpopulations everywhere. He was one of theleaders in the movement seeking an African homeland, and he achieved aninternational following because of his particular abilities as a showman aswell as an organizer. Marcus Garvey was an important figure in black America in the erabetween the two World Wars, and he organized a black movement that hadconsiderable influence over subsequent black movements. New York: The Viking Press, 1975.Kesteloot, Lilyan. Even then,most of the Negritude writers of the Caribbean and other regions remainedunknown for the most part in the English-speaking world (Kennedy xix-xxi). The African American Encyclopedia: Volume 3. The Pan-African movement and the movementcalled Negritude have been strengthened in this century as American blackshave started looking back to Africa for their roots and for politicalsupport for the Civil Rights Movement here. In Haiti, Papa Doc Duvalier represented the worstexample of what could happen. At the same time, Pan-African movements everywherefelt that their interests and needs were being ignored as the Africanstates took up more and more time and concern (Nascimento and Nascimento121-122). Whileassimilation may have been based theoretically on a belief in the equalityof all, it still assumed the superiority of European culture andcivilization over that of Africa. A century ago a small group of African-American and African-Caribbean writers and teachers collectively developedthe basis of what would be the African-consciousness movement. InPortuguese, "Negritude" means "blackness." In Brazil, Negritude refers notonly to the historical movement of that name but also is a term used toencapsulate the essence of the black struggle worldwide: It indicates the fight for our people's dignity and the courageous statement of our human protagonist in the face of those who deny it (Nascimento and Nascimento 1 3). Pan-Africanism is an old dream that has been held by Africans livingoutside of Africa for generations. Many of Garvey's ideas have been rejected as thecivil rights movement has altered course over the years, but it is time toreconsider and to examine some of the important and valuable ideas setforth by Garvey. New York: Archon Books, 1978.Nascimento, Abdias Do and Elisa Larkin Nascimento. Black nationalism has a long history as a politicalmovement and had a particular power in the U.S. Garvey's nationalism had all the trappings and appurtenances of nationhood, except that the nation it had in mind was somewhere else and had nothing to say about Garvey's plans for it (Draper 51-52). They noted that the issues involved extended far beyondspecific regions to concern the whole black race. The New Black Vote. They started a small newspapercalled The Black Student in which they discussed the problems thenpreoccupying them. Slavery and colonialism havestrained but not broken the cultural ties between Africans in Africa andthose who now live in the Western world. There are particular ties between Pan-African movements in the New World and the U.S. Blacknationalism has been described as "the conglomeration of efforts of blacksto resolve problems of cultural identity and sociopolitical weakness asblacks" (Bush 2 9). The movement was started when a group ofuniversity students from Africa and the West Indies grouped themselvesaround Lйopold Sйdar Senghor, a Senegalese; Aimй Cйsaire, a native ofMartinique; and Lйon Dumas from Guyana. Subsequently, the United States would be admitted, butHaiti was not. He was involved in a typographical union and printers' strike in19 7 and 19 8, after which it was difficult for him to find employment inJamaica. . In the past, Haiti is a country whose membership in the hemisphere wasrejected because it had a majority black population. Thus, J.A. The U.S. Thismovement included Americans like W.E.B. Impetus was given to the Pan-African movement by the independence ofthe African nations in this century. Black nationalism emergedin response to the desire to escape from the confines of the majority andracist society in the United States, and often the movement looked toAfrica as the homeland of blacks and as a possible place where a new blacksociety could be created, as was indeed attempted in Liberia. The organizationhad a slow start but became in time a major force as it stirred theimagination of the black masses. "Africa-America." Vital Speeches of the Day (September 1, 1988), 695-699.Kennedy, Ellen Conroy. havesympathy for the plight of Haitian blacks because of a perception that bothhave been the victims of Western imperialism, colonialism, anddiscrimination (Maingot 65-67). Garvey and DuBois were indeed rivalsand enemies, and each criticized the other in harsh terms (Draper 5 -51). would occupy Haiti from 1915 to 1934, leaving alegacy of resentment that continues to this day. because they share thehemisphere in which they live, if for no other reason. It is usually thought of as a twentieth-century phenomenon. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1993. Many "free" and slave blacks became dedicated to theidea of liberation with the American Revolution and the Haitian Revolt,leading many to desire unity in their ranks and control over their owndestinies as well as independence from an oppressive and racist society.This coincided with the development of the United States after theRevolution: It was obvious to black leaders that their people were not meaningfully included in the new nation, particularly since the great majority of them were still slaves (Stuckey 3). They shared with these writers the international racialawareness called Negritude, and they in turn had been influenced byAmerican poets of the Harlem Renaissance. was seen as having imperialistic inclinations, and Haiti was madeup of Africans. Withina decade of the founding of the movement, black poets in French were makingan impact on English-language readers. New York: Viking, 197 .Jahannes, Ja A. Blacks in the U.S. In the latter part of the century black nationalism wasinfluenced by Darwinian science and by Victorian conceptions of virtue.The turn of the century was the era of Booker T. What may have started with more of a cultural base wouldbe extended into history to become a major political tenet, a precursor ofthe Black Power movement in the United States and other movements revivinga sense of individuality on the part of black people and a sense of theirown history and culture as being important. The Rediscovery of Black Nationalism. Africa America spans the hemisphere from Nova Scotia to Scotia Sea. Abdias Do Nascimento and ElisaLarkin Nascimento note the importance of Negritude to the black communityin Brazil as well as the accompanying influence of Pan-Africanism. It wasafter this that he returned to Jamaica with great enthusiasm and foundedthe organization for which he would become known (Williams 643-644). The problemfacing Garvey was that his proposed nation was in Africa while hisconstituency was in America, and Garvey's "African Republic" was actuallyset up in New York and not in Africa: There was not a single African in what amounted to his African government-in-exile. Poets and writers of the region have alsohad an influence, though it has been more limited because, as noted, theyare virtually unknown outside their local regions. Ithas used different approaches depending on the political climate of thecountries where African people live in large numbers. Garveyism was the successful version in thiscentury, and it made "nationhood" the highest ideal of all peoples and thenstated that blacks needed a nation and country of their own. There were thus different strains of Pan-Africanism with differentleaders and emphasizing different aspects of African culture. Kesteloot states that Negritude can be defined as follows: "it is onone level the Black man's way of thinking, acting, living, and creating"(Kesteloot 32). The disassembling of the system ofcolonialism left the new governments of Africa with enormous problems andresponsibilities for the building of new states. In the 196 s the Civil RightsMovement in the United States forced a new black self-awareness to come tofruition and extended the idea of Negritude into new areas. If you want to find Africa America you have to go to the source of her connectedness, that is the blood and legacy of Africa (Jahannes 695).This is a clear statement of a Pan-African view of the connectedness ofnations through the back population. Works CitedBush, Rod. There,he attended college lectures and was much influenced by the writings ofBooker T. The cultural emphasis of Negritude can be seen in the works of anumber of writers and artists from the 193 s on, with the purveyors of themovement being primarily those who wrote in French in different parts ofthe world--the Caribbean, Africa, and the Indian Ocean among them. Garvey was born in 1887 and first followed in his father's footstepsas an apprentice printer, becoming in time a journeyman and foreman in thattrade. The imposition of European languages isitself an act of neocolonialism that the movement has yet to overcome(Nascimento and Nascimento 125-126). The decade before the Civil War was the high-water mark of classicalblack nationalism. . He traveled and worked in Costa Rica, Panama, and elsewhere inCentral and South America before making his way to England in 1912. San Francisco: Synthesis Publications, 1984.Draper, Theodore. . Thetwo approaches have certain things in common even as they have theirdifferences, and an examination of some of the writings on the subject aswell as a specific study of how the movements have developed in Brazil willshow the nature of those similarities and differences. Pan-Africanism and Negritude are termsapplied to certain movements having ideas in common about the way differentAfrican populations should view themselves and their relationship to theworld. Garveyismwas more completely a Pan-African viewpoint seeking an African-ruled nationfor all blacks, while Negritude was a movement promoting African culture. They then started avigorous assault on the doctrine of cultural assimilation and created a newsense of importance in African sources after three centuries of exile as away of recovering their personality and of leaving aside western ways ofthinking and feeling. The works of these writers wasrelated not to the African poetry of English-speaking countries but to thework of contemporary black West Indians and poets from the FrenchCaribbean. DuBois, Africans who had beenthrough the period of slavery and who were now freed and reconsideringtheir ties to both their area of origin and the country in which they nowresided (Nascimento and Nascimento v-vii). Washington and other black writers of the period, works whichintroduced him to the early Pan-African movement. Different leaders in the Caribbean have been important to the Pan-African movement, some because they promoted its interests, and some forless savory reasons. both before and after theCivil War because of slavery and all the evils that institution visited onblacks in America. "Haiti and Aristide: The Legacy of History." Current History (February 1992), 65-69.Moses, Wilson Jeremiah. Garvey was a native of Jamaica who started a Universal NegroImprovement Association (UNIA) in that country in 1914, and his firstmanifesto called on all people of African heritage to establish a"Universal Confraternity." He met with hostility or indifference, and twoyears later he came to New York and revived the UNIONS. Washington and W.E.B.DuBois, who hoped to establish a black technocracy called the "TalentedTenth" (Moses 26-27). The Pan-Africanmovement has been strong in Africa itself over the last century or more andis one element linking Africans in Africa with those dispersed around theworld due to the slave era. The Ideological Origins of Black Nationalism. In this fashion, they created one single mystiqueand elaborated the notion of Negritude, which would have a great impact onsubsequent history (Kesteloot 31). . He came into contactwith African nationalists such as Casely Hayford and Attoh Aduma. Boston: Beacon Press, 1972.Williams, Michael W. Among the problems facing Pan-Africanism are differences thathave been imposed on black populations by the fact that they reside indifferent parts of the world far from their origins as a people. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.