Encyclopedia of the African diaspora: origins, experiences, and culture, 3 volumes

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE

AFRICAN DIASPORA

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE

AFRICAN DIASPORA Origins, Experiences, and Culture

z Volume 1 A–C

Carole E. Boyce Davies, Editor

Santa Barbara, California Denver, Colorado Oxford, England www.abc-clio.com

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Copyright © 2008 by ABC-CLIO, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Encyclopedia of the African diaspora : origins, experiences, and culture / Carole E. BoyceDavies, editor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-85109-700-5 (acid-free paper) ISBN 978-1-85109-705-0 (ebook) 1. African diaspora-Encyclopedias. 2. Africans-Migrations-Encyclopedias. 3. African Americans-Encyclopedias. 4. Blacks-Encyclopedias. 5. Africans-Encyclopedias. 6. Africa-Civilization-Encyclopedias. I. Boyce Davies, Carole. DT16.5.E53 2008 305.896003—dc22 2008011880 12 11 10 09 08 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Production Editor: Anna A. Moore Production Manager: Don Schmidt Media Editor: Ellen Rasmussen Media Resources Manager: Caroline Price File Management Coordinator: Paula Gerard ABC-CLIO, Inc. 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116–1911 This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an ebook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Manufactured in the United States of America

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Contents

z Volume 1 Contributors, xiii Advisory Board, xxiii About the Editors, xxv Acknowledgments, xxvii Introduction, xxxi Maps, lix

A

Africanus, Sextus Julius (ca. 160–ca. 240), 58 Afrocentricity, 59 Afro-Cuban Literature, 62 Afro-Cuban Music, 65 Afro-Fusion Dance, 68 Ahimsa, 70 Aidoo, Ama Ata (1942–), 71 Akara, 72 Alexis, Jacques Stéphen (1922–1961), 73 Algerian Revolution, 73 Ali, Duse Mohamed (1867–1944), 75 Ali, Muhammad (1942–), 76 Al-Jahiz (776–868), 77 All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP), 78 Alpha Kappa Alpha, 79 Alves, Miriam (1952–), 81 Ambar, Malik (ca. 1550–1626), 82 Amo, Antonius Guilielmus (Wilhelm) (1703–ca.1753), 83 Ananse, 84 Anastácia (1741–?), 85 Angelou, Maya (1928–), 86 Anikulapo-Kuti, Fela (1938–1997), 87

Abakuá, 1 Abolitionism in the African Diaspora, 3 Abu-Jamal, Mumia (1954–), 8 Abyssinia/Ethiopia, 9 Achebe, Chinua (1930–), 10 Adivasi, 11 Africa, 12 African American Vernacular English (AAVE), 17 African American Women, 19 African Americans and the Constitutional Order, 20 African Ballet, The, 28 African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), 28 African Canadian Film, 30 African Diaspora Film, 31 African Diaspora Performance Aesthetics, 32 African Diasporic Sociology, 33 “African” in African American History, 41 African Matrix Culture, 53 African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, 54 African Union (AU), 55 v www.abc-clio.com

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Ansina (1760?–1860), 90 Antonio the Ethiopian (?–1550), 91 Argentina: Afro-Argentines, 92 Arias, Aurora (1962–), 98 Aristide, Jean-Bertrand (1953–), 99 Art in the African Diaspora, 100 Asantewaa, Yaa (ca. 1830–1922), 117 Àshé, 118 Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), 120 Atlantic World and the African Diaspora, 121 Axum, 133 Azikiwe, Nnamdi (1904–1996), 134

B Baartman, Sarah (1788–1816), 137 Babalawo, 138 Babu, Abdulrahman Mohammed (1924– 1996), 139 Bahamas, 140 Bahamas: Liberated Africans, 141 Baker, Ella J. (1903–1986), 142 Baker, Josephine (1906–1975), 142 Bambaataa, Afrika (1957?–), 144 Baraka, Amiri (1934–), 145 Barbados: African Cultural Elements, 147 Basquiat, Jean-Michel (1960–1988), 150 Batouala, 151 Bava Gor (14th Century?), 152 Belize: African Communities, 153 Benedetto the Moor, Saint (ca. 1524–1589), 155 Benin, 156 Bennett, Louise (1919–2006), 160 Bethune, Mary McLeod (1875–1955), 162 Bethune-Cookman University, 163 Bibb, Henry (1815–1854), 164 Biko, Stephen (1946–1977), 165 Black Aesthetic, 166 Black Arts Movement, 167 Black Churches and African American Spirituality, 170 Black Churches in the United States, 174 Black Cinema, 179 Black Consciousness Movement, 182

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Black Marxism, 184 Black Panther Party, 185 Black Paris/Paris Noir, 187 Black Populism (1886–1898), 189 Black Power Movement in the United States, 190 Black Seminoles, 193 Black Seminoles at Red Bays, Bahamas, 194 Black/Africana Studies in the United States, 195 Black/Blackness: Philosophical Considerations, 198 Blocos Afros and Afoxés, 203 Bluefields, 204 Blues: A Continuum from Africa, 205 Blyden, Edward Wilmot (1832–1912), 212 Boggs, James (1919–1993) and Grace Lee Boggs (1915–), 214 Bois Caiman and Boukman, 215 Bolivia: The African Presence, 216 Boulogne, Joseph Chevalier de Saint-George (1739?–1799), 222 Brand, Dionne (1953–), 223 Brathwaite, Kamau (1930–), 224 Brazil: Afro-Brazilians, 225 Briggs, Cyril V. (1887–1966), 230 Brixton, 231 Brodber, Erna (1940–), 232 Brooklyn, 233 Brown, Elaine (1943–), 234 Butler, Octavia Estelle (1947–2005), 235

C Cabral, Amilcar Lopes (1924–1973), 237 Cachoeira, 239 Calalu/Callaloo, 241 Calypso, 241 Campbell, Grace P. (1883–1940), 245 Canada and African American Refugee Settlements, 246 Canada and the African Diaspora, 247 Candomblé, 256 Cannes Brûlées, 257 Cape Verde, 259 Capitalism and Slavery, 263

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Contents | vii Caribbean Black Power, 265 Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), 269 Caribbean Migrations: The Caribbean Diaspora, 270 Carnival, 287 Carver, George Washington (1864–1943), 289 Casely-Hayford, Joseph Ephraim (1866– 1930), 290 Central America: African Footprints, 291 Central Asia and the Caucasus: The African Presence, 294 Centro de Estudos Afro-Orientais (CEAO), 296 Césaire, Aimé (1913–2008), 297 Césaire, Suzanne (1915–1966), 299 Chile: Afro-Chileans, 300 China and Japan: African and East Asian Relations, 302 Christian, Barbara (1943–2000), 305 Christophe, Henri (1767?–1820), 306 Clarke, Austin (1934–), 306 Clarke, George Elliot (1960–), 308 Clarke, John Henrik (1915–1998), 309 Clarke, Leroy (1938–), 310 Cleaver, Eldridge Leroy (1935–1998), 311 COINTELPRO, 312 Collins, Merle (1950–), 313 Colombia: Afro-Colombians, 314 Colored Farmers Alliance, 320 Combahee River Collective (CRC), 321 Condé, Maryse (1937–), 323 Confiant, Raphaël (1951–), 324 Cook, Mercer (1903–1987), 325 Cooper, Anna Julia (1859–1964), 326 Corrido, 327 Cox, Oliver Cromwell (1901–1974), 328 Coyolillo/Coyoleños, 330 Creole, Creolity, Creolization, 332 Creole Incident, 334 Cromanti, 335 Cruz, Celia (1924–2003), 337 Cruz, Manoel de Almeida (1950–2004), 338 Cuba: Afro-Cubans, 338 Cuban Intervention in Angola, 347

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Cuban Revolution and the African Diaspora, 348 Cugoano, Ottobah (ca. 1757–ca. 1791), 350 Index, I-1

Volume 2 Contributors, xiii Advisory Board, xxiii About the Editors, xxv Acknowledgments, xxvii Introduction, xxxi Maps, lix

D Da Silva, Benedita (1942–), 353 Dalits: The Black Untouchables of India, 354 Damas, Léon-Gontran (1912–1976), 355 Dance in the African Diaspora, 356 Dance Theatre of Harlem, 366 Dangarembga, Tsitsi (1959–), 368 Danish West Indies: Oldendorp’s 18thCentury Findings, 369 Danticat, Edwidge (1969–), 373 Davis, Angela (1944–), 375 De Almeida, José Lino Alves (1958–2006), 376 De Oxóssi, Mãe Stella (1925–), 377 Decolonization, 378 Delta Sigma Theta, 379 Dessalines, Jean-Jacques (1758–1806), 380 La Diablesse, 381 Diaspora Literacy, 382 Diaspora Vibe Gallery, 383 Diasporic Marronage, 384 Diop, Cheikh Anta (1923–1986), 387 Domingo, Wilfred Adolphus (1889–1968), 389 Dominica, 390 Dominican Republic, 391 Douglas, Aaron (1899–1979), 397 Douglass, Frederick (1818–1895), 397 Dracius, Suzanne (1951–), 398

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Dravidians, 399 Drum, 401 du Sable, Jean-Baptiste Pointe (1745–1818), 402 DuBois, William Edward Burghardt (1868– 1963), 404 Dunham, Katherine (1909–2006), 405

E East African Community (EAC), 407 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), 409 Ecuador: Afro-Ecuadorians, 411 Edgell, Zee (1940–), 416 El Moudjahid, 417 Elder, Jacob Delworth (1914–2004), 418 Environmental Justice, 419 Equiano, Olaudah (1745–1797), 420 Esmeraldas, 422 Europe and the African Diaspora, 423

F Falucho (?–1824), 427 Fanon, Frantz (1925–1961), 428 Febres, Mayra Santos (1966–), 430 Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), 431 Feminism: Black Feminist Movement in the United States, 432 Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora, 436 FESPACO and African Film Festivals, 442 Filhos de Gandhy, 443 Fisk University, 445 Florida Memorial University, 446 Flying Africans, 447 Fourah Bay College, 448 France and the African Diaspora, 449 Francois, Elma (1897–1944), 452

G Garifuna, 455 Garvey, Amy Ashwood (1897–1969), 456 Garvey, Amy Jacques (1895–1973), 458 Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940), 459 Geographers, Arab/African, 463 Gerima, Haile (1946–), 464

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Germany and the African Diaspora, 465 Ghana, 469 Gilroy, Beryl Agatha (1924–2001), 470 Glissant, Edouard (1928–), 472 Goodison, Lorna (1947–), 473 Grenada, 474 Griots/Griottes of West Africa, 478 Grito de Yara, 480 Guadeloupe, 480 Guillén, Nicolás (1902–1989), 482 Guimarães, Geni (1947–), 483 Gumbo, 484 Guyana, 485

H Haile Selassie I (1892–1975), 491 Hair, 493 Haiti, 495 Haitian Revolution, 502 Hampton Institute/Hampton University, 504 Harlem, 506 Harlem Renaissance, 507 Haywood, Harry (1898–1978), 509 Health in the African World, 510 Heath, Roy (1926–), 522 Hector, Leonard Tim (1942–2002), 523 Highlife, 525 Hilliard, Asa G. (1933–2007), 527 Hip-Hop, Cuban, 528 Hip-Hop, Latin American, 529 Hip-Hop Culture in the African Diaspora, 531 Holiday, Billie (1915–1959), 537 Honduras and Nicaragua: Miskito Indians, 539 Hopkinson, Nalo (1950–), 540 Horton, James Africanus Beale (1835–1883), 541 Howard University, 542 Hughes, Langston (1902–1967), 544 Huiswoud, Otto (1893–1961), 545 Hurston, Zora Neale (1891–1960), 546

I Ibeji, 549 Ibo Landing, 550

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Contents | ix Ilê Aiyê, 551 Incense, 552 India and the African Diaspora, 553 Indian Ocean and the African Diaspora, 562 Indians and the African Diaspora in the Caribbean, 569 Indigo, 571 Indonesia and Africa, 571 The Institute of the Black World, 573 Iraq: The African Presence in Early Iraq, 574 Irmandade de Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte, 576

Latino, Juan (ca. 1516–1606), 622 Lawrence, Jacob (1917–2000), 623 Legba, 625 Légitime défense, 626 Liberia, 627 “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” 629 Lincoln, Abbey (1930–), 630 Lincoln University, 632 Lino Alves de Almeida, José (1958–2006), 633 Locke, Alain (1886–1954), 634 Lorde, Audre (1934–1992), 635 L’Ouverture, Toussaint (ca. 1744–1803), 637 Lovelace, Earl (1935–), 639 Lumumba, Patrice Emery (1925–1961), 640

J Jackson, George Lester (1941–1971), 579 Jamaica, 580 James, Cyril Lionel Robert (1901–1989), 583 Jazz, 585 Jazz and Blues Singers, Black Women, 588 Jerk Seasoning, 591 Jim Crow, 591 Johnson, J. Rosamond (1873–1954), 594 Johnson, James Weldon (1871–1938), 595 Johnson, Linton Kwesi (1952–), 596 Jones, Claudia Cumberbatch (1915–1964), 598 Junkanoo, 599

K Kali, 601 Kalimba, 602 Kappa Alpha Psi, 603 Keens-Douglas, Richardo (1953–), 604 Kenyatta, Jomo (1889–1978), 605 Kincaid, Jamaica (1949–), 608 King, B. B. (1925–), 609 King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929–1968), 610 KRS-ONE (1965–), 611 Kwanzaa, 613

L Lam, Wilfredo (1902–1982), 617 Lamming, George (1927–), 618 Langston, John Mercer (1829–1897), 619 Langston University and HBCUs, 620

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M Maceo y Grajales, Antonio (1845–1896), 643 Macumba, 643 Mahdi Rebellion, 644 Makandal, François (?–1758), 645 Malcolm X (1925–1965), 647 Male Revolt, 649 Mandela, Nelson Rolihlahla (1918–), 650 Mandela, Winnie (1936–), 651 Maran, René (1887–1960), 653 Marassa, 654 Marley, Robert Nesta (Bob) (1945–1981), 655 Maroon and Marronage, 657 Marshall, Paule (1929–), 659 Marshall, Thurgood (1908–1993), 660 Marson, Una (1905–1965), 661 Martinique, 662 Mau Mau, 664 Mbari Club, 665 M’bow, Amadou Makhtar (1921–), 666 McKay, Claude (1889–1948), 667 McRae, Carmen (1920–1994), 668 McWatt, Tessa (1959-), 669 Medici, Alessandro de (1510–1537), 670 Mestizo, 671 Mexico: African Heritage, 673 Middle Passage, 679 Miseducation and Contemporary Urban Black America, 683 Montgomery Bus Boycott, 685 Moore, Queen Mother (1898–1997), 687

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Moore, Richard B. (1893–1978), 688 Morehouse College, 689 Morejón, Nancy (1944–), 690 Morrison, Toni (1931–), 692 Mos Def (1973–), 693 Movimento Negro Unificado, 694 Mtoro bin Mwinyi Bakari (1860–1927), 696 Mulatta, 697 Mutabaruka (1952–), 698

Okpewho, Isidore (1941–), 727 Old Hige, 728 Olodum, 729 Optiz, May Ayim (1960–1996), 730 Ortiz, Fernando (1881–1969), 731 Osun (Oxum/Ochun/Oshun), 732 Oya, 734

P

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Volume 3 Contributors, xiii Advisory Board, xxiii About the Editors, xxv Acknowledgments, xxvii Introduction, xxxi Maps, lix

N Nascimento, Abdias do (1914–), 699 Nation of Islam, 702 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 704 National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO), 705 National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA), 707 Négritude, 708 Netherlands Antilles and the African Diaspora, 710 Netherlands East Indies: African Soldiers, 712 Newton, Huey Percy (1942–), 714 Nichols, Grace (1950–), 716 Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–1972), 717 Notting Hill Carnival, 718 Nova Scotia and the African American Diaspora, 720 Nubia, 721

O Obeah, 725 Ogou/Ogoun, 726

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Pacific: The African Diaspora, 735 Padmore, George (1901–1959), 740 Palcy, Euzhan (1957–), 741 Pan-Africanism, 742 Panama: Afro-Panamanians, 743 Pattillo, Walter Alexander (1850–1908), 748 Payada, 749 People with Their Feet On Backward, 751 Peru: Afro-Peruvians, 751 Petwo, 753 Phi Beta Sigma, 754 Philip, Marlene Nourbese (1947–), 755 Philosophers and the African American Experience, 756 Photography and the African Diaspora, 762 Portalatin, Aida Cartagena (1918–1994), 766 Présence Africaine, 766 Primus, Pearl E. (1919–1994), 767 Prince, Mary (1788–?), 770 Prince Hall Masons, 771 The Provincial Freeman, 772 Puerto Rico: Afro-Puerto Ricans, 773 Pushkin, Alexander Sergeevich (1799–1837), 780

Q Quilombhoje, 783

R Rada, 785 Raizales, 786 Randolph, Asa Philip (1889–1979), 787 Rap/Rappin’, 788 Rapso, 791 Rastafarianism, 792 Rayner, John Baptis (1850–1918), 795 Reagon, Bernice Johnson (1942–), 796

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Contents | xi Reggae, 797 Reparations, 798 The Republic of New Africa, 799 Ribeiro, Esmeralda (1958–), 801 Robeson, Paul (1898–1976), 802 Rodney, Walter (1942–1980), 803 Rogers, Joel Augustus (1880–1966), 805 Rolling Calf, 807 Ross, Jacob (1956–), 807 Rufino, Alzira (1949–), 808

Spiritual Shouter Baptist Religion, 857 Sport and the African Diaspora, 860 Sri Lankan African Diaspora, 862 Steelpan, 863 Stono Rebellion, 867 Sugar Cane and the African Diaspora, 868 Suriname: The Ndyuka Maroons, 870 Sutherland, Efua Theodora (1924–1996), 873 Swahili, 874 Sweet Honey in the Rock, 879

S

T

Salsa, 811 Salt and the African Diaspora, 813 Salvador da Bahia, 817 Samba, 818 Samba Schools, 820 Samedi/Baron Samedi, 821 San Mateo de Cangrejos, 822 Sancho, Ignatius (1729–1780), 822 Sankofa, 823 Santería, 824 Santiago de Cuba, 828 Schomburg, Arturo Alfonso (1874–1938), 830 Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 831 Scott, Hazel (1920–1981), 832 Seychelles Islands, 833 Shadd Cary, Mary Ann (1823–1893), 834 Shakur, Assata Olugbala (1946–), 835 Shakur, Tupac Amaru (1971–1996), 836 Shange, Ntozake (1948–), 837 Shango, 839 Siddis in North Karnataka, India: Biomedical Status, 840 Signifying, 842 Simone, Nina (1933–2003), 843 Sistren, 844 Sojourners for Truth and Justice, 845 Soukous, 848 Soul Music, 849 Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 852 Soyinka, Akinwande Oluwole (1934–), 854 Spelman College, 855

Tango, Candombe, Milonga, 881 The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA), 883 Thiong’o, Ngugi wa (1938–), 884 Thomas, Piri (1928–), 886 Till, Emmett (1941–1955), 887 Tolson, Melvin Beaunoris (1898–1966), 889 Tonton Macoutes, 890 Tosh, Peter (1944–1987), 891 Transatlantic Slave Trade, 892 Transition, 898 Tribe and Tribalism, 899 Trinadade, Solano (1908–1974), 901 Trinidad and Tobago, 902 Trinidad and Tobago: African Impact on the Social Order, 907 Tropiques, 914 Truth, Sojourner (ca. 1797–1883), 915 Ture, Kwame (1941–1998), 916 Turkey: Afro-Turks, 918 Turner, Nat (1800–1831), 920 Tuskegee Institute/Tuskegee University, 921 Tynes, Maxine (1949–), 922

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U Uncle Tom and Tom Shows, 923 United Kingdom: The African Diaspora, 925 The University of Woodford Square, 930 Uruguay: Afro-Uruguayans, 932

V VanDerZee, James (1886–1983), 939 Van Sertima, Ivan (1935–), 940 Venezuela: Afro-Venezuelans and the Afro Descendientes Movement, 941

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Veracruz, 954 Vieux-Chauvet, Marie (1916–1973), 955 Virgin Islands, 956 Vodoun, 959

W Wailer, Bunny (1947–), 967 Walcott, Derek Alton (1930–), 968 Walker, Alice (1944–), 969 Walker, David (1785–1830), 970 Walker, George William (1873–1911), 971 Walker, Sheila Suzanne (1944–), 972 Ward, Frederick (1937–), 973 Warner-Vieyra, Myriam (1939–), 974 Water Mama/Mami Wata, 975 Wells-Barnett, Ida B. (1862–1931), 976 West African Students Union (WASU), 978 West India Regiments, 979 Western Hemisphere African Diaspora Network (WHADN), 980 Wheatley, Phillis (ca. 1753–1784), 981 Williams, Chancellor (1898–1992), 982 Williams, Egbert Austin (1874–1922), 983

Williams, Eric Eustace (1911–1981), 984 Williams, Henry Sylvester (1869–1911), 985 Wolof, 987 Women and Islam, 988 Woods, David (1959–), 991 World Congress of Black Writers and Artists, 992 Wright, Richard (1908–1960), 993

Y Yaad Hip-Hop, 995 Yanga and Cimarronaje in Mexico, 996 Yemoja/Olokun, 997

Z Zami, 999 Zanj (Zinj, Zang), 1000 Zanzibar and the Southwest Indian Ocean in the African Diaspora, 1003 Zeta Phi Beta, 1006 Zobel, Joseph (1915–2006), 1007 Zouk, 1008 Zumbí of Palmares (1655–1695), 1009 Index, I-1

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Contributors

z Simone A. James Alexander Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey

Keshia Abraham Florida Memorial University Lawrence Abraham Florida International University, Miami

Williams H. Alexander Virginia State University, Petersburg

Tomi Adeaga University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany

Omar H. Ali Towson University, Towson, Maryland

Opal Palmer Adisa California College of the Arts, San Francisco and Oakland

Andrea Allen Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Kwame K. Afoh N’COBRA, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Michael Alleyne George Washington University, Washington, DC

Ivor Agyeman-Duah Embassy of Ghana, Washington, DC

Patricia Alleyne-Dettmers University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Funso Aiyejina University of the West Indies, Saint Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka University of Kansas, Lawrence

Jeannette Allsopp University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus

Chiji Akoma Villanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania

Giselle Liza Anatol University of Kansas, Lawrence

Folashade Alao Emory University, Atlanta

Juan Angola Maconde FUNDAFRO, La Paz, Bolivia

Jessica M. Alarcón Independent Scholar, Miami, Florida

Molefi Kete Asante Temple University, Philadelphia

Delores P. Aldridge Emory University, Atlanta

Kwaku Asare Independent Scholar

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Uche Azikiwe University of Nigeria, Nigeria

June Bert-Bobb Queens College, Queens, New York

Chukwuma Azuonye University of Massachusetts, Boston

Dhoruba bin Wahad Independent Scholar, Ghana

Mariam Bagayoko University of Versailles Paris, France

Yaba Amgborale Blay Lehigh University, Philadelphia

Julius Bailey University of Redlands, Redlands, California

Nemata Blyden George Washington University, Washington, DC

Phyllis Baker Miami Dade College, Miami

Yvonne Bobb-Smith Independent Scholar, Trinidad and Tobago

Sharada Balachandran-Orihuela University of California—Davis, Davis, California

Rosabelle Boswell Rhodes University, South Africa John K. Brackett University of Cincinnati, Ohio

Ivan Banks New Jersey City University, Jersey City, New Jersey

Brian Brazeal University of Chicago, Illinois

Sarah Barbour Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Pam Brooks Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio

LaShonda Katrice Barnett Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York Michael Barnett University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica Kanika Batra Janki Devi Memorial College and University of Delhi, Delhi, India

La Tasha A. Brown University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom Linda Spears Bunton Florida International University, Miami Joan Hamby Burroughs Florida A&M University, Tallahassee

Pascal Becel Florida International University, Miami

Kim D. Butler Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey

Dixie-Anne Belle Florida International University, Miami

Leana Cabral Spelman College, Atlanta

Jesse Benjamin Kennesaw State University, Atlanta, Georgia

Horace Campbell Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York

Brett A. Berliner Morgan State University, Baltimore

Kathy Campbell East Tennessee State University, Johnson City

Celeste-Marie Bernier University of Nottingham, England

Ben Carrington University of Texas at Austin

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Contributors | xv Joan Cartwright FYIICOM, Ford Lauderdale, Florida

Darrell Davis Afro-in Books and Things

Jorge L. Chinea Wayne State University, Detroit

Paula de Almeida Silva Alexis Brooks de Vita Notre Dame University, Notre Dame, Indiana

Veve A. Clark (deceased) University of California, Berkeley

Pietro Deandrea Università degli Studi di Torino, Torino, Italy

George Elliott Clarke York University, New Haven, Connecticut

Milagros Denis Hunter College, New York, New York

Christine Cohn American University, Washington, DC

Diarapha Diallo-Gibert University of Virginia, Charlottesville

Amanda Conrad University of Kansas, Lawrence Carolyn Cooper University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica Vincent O. Cooper University of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands María de Jesús Cordero Utah State University, Logan Alexandra Cornelius-Diallo Florida International University, Miami Sandra Courtman University of Sheffield, England Julie Crooks Independent Filmmaker, Toronto, Canada Iréne Assiba d’Almeida University of Arizona, Tucson

Gloria Harper Dickinson The College of New Jersey, Ewing Ronald Donk Royal Netherlands Institute of South Eastern, Asian and Caribbean Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands Joseph Dorsey Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana Jocelio dos Santos Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA), Bahia, Brazil Kate Dossett University of Leeds, Leeds, England Marcia Douglas University of Colorado, Boulder

Yvonne Daniel Smith College (emerita)

Dawn Duke University of Tennessee

William A. Darity Jr. Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

Quince Duncan Costa Rica

Carole Boyce Davies Florida International University, Miami

Jessica Durand Florida International University, Miami

Dalia Davies Journalist, MTV & Trace Magazine

Esma Durugönül Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey

Jonelle A. Davies Savannah College of Art and Design

Erika Denise Edwards Florida International University, Miami

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Constance Ejuma Actress, Silver Springs, Maryland

Janice Giles Florida International University, Miami

Jacob D. Elder (deceased) Trinidad and Tobago

Angela Gillam Evergreen State University, Olympia, Washington (emerita)

Jason Esters Lincoln University, Pennsylvania

Delia C. Gillis Central Missouri State University, Warrensburg

Michael Ezra Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California

Philippe R. Girard McNeese State University, Lake Charles, Louisiana

Richard Fantina University of Miami, Miami Gérard Alphonse Férère Retired Scholar, Boca Raton, Florida

Chege Githiora School of Oriental and African Studies, London

Eve Ferguson Florida International University, Miami

David Gold California State University, Los Angeles

Odile Ferly Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts

Randi Gray Kristensen George Washington University, Washington, DC

Rev. Raul Fernandez Calienes Saint Thomas University, Miami Gardens, Florida

Jeffrey Green Independent Scholar, England

Giovanna Fiume University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy

Jean-Germain Gros University of Missouri, Saint Louis

Nicola Foote Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, Florida

Carla Guerron-Montero University of Delaware, Newark Beverly Guy-Sheftall Spelman College, Atlanta

Camille F. Forbes University of California, San Diego

Miriam Gyimah University of Maryland–Eastern Shore

Charles H. Ford Virginia State University, Petersburg

Kathleen Gyssells University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

Meredith Gadsby Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio Pramod B. Gai Karnatak University, Dharwad, India

Philipa Hall University of Central Lancashire, Lancashire, England

Jesus Chucho Garcia Afro-Venezuelan Network, Caracas, Venezuela

Veronique Helenon Florida International University, Miami

Marybeth Gasman University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Marco Polo Hernandez North Carolina Central University

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Contributors | xvii Gerise Herndon Nebraska Wesleyan University, Lincoln

Anthony B. Johnson Grambling University, Grambling, Louisiana

Nefertari Patricia Hilliard-Nunn Makare Publishing, Gainesville, Florida

Nadia I. Johnson University of Miami, Miami, Florida

Jesse Hingson Honorary Consul of Belize

Newtona (Tina) Johnson Tarnue Johnson East West University, Chicago, Illinois

Rita Honotorio Nucleo Cultural Afro-Brasiliero, SalvadorBahia, Brazil

Justin M. Johnston Independent Scholar

Rosalyn Howard University of Central Florida, Orlando Delridge Hunter Medgar Evers College, Brooklyn, New York Scot Ickes University of South Florida Joseph E. Inikori University of Rochester, Rochester, New York Siga Fatima Jagne Pro-Poor Advocacy Group, Bakau, The Gambia

Earnestine Jenkins University of Memphis, Tennessee Lee M. Jenkins University College, Cork, Ireland

Safietou Kane Florida International University, Miami Annette I. Kashif Associate Professor

Sean Kheraj York University, Toronto, Canada

Shihan De Silva Jayasuriya King’s College London, University of London

Cheryl Jeffries Florida International University, Miami

Kenneth Julien University of Trinidad and Tobago

Tricia Keaton University of Minnesota

Monica Jardine State University of New York, Buffalo

Régine Michelle Jean-Charles Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Christina Violeta Jones Howard University, Washington, DC

Martin Klein University of Toronto, Canada Marie H. Koffi-Tessio Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey Kwasi Konadu Winston-Salem State University, WinstonSalem, North Carolina Perry Kyles University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Beverly John Chicago State University

Renee Larrier Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey

David J. Johns Columbia University, New York

Angela Michele Leonard Loyola College, Baltimore, Maryland

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xviii | Contributors

Khadijah O. Miller Norfolk State University, Norfolk, Virginia

Jeremy I. J. D. Levitt Florida International University, College of Law, Miami

Shamika Ann Mitchell Temple University, Pleasantville, Pennsylvania

Dominique Licops Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

Julie E. Moody-Freeman DePaul University, Chicago

Hollis Urban Liverpool University of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas Nia Love Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts Antonia MacDonald-Smythe St. George’s University, Grenada, West Indies

Paula Moreno-Zapata University of Cambridge and Colombia Jo-Ann Morgan York University, Toronto, Canada

Elizabeth MacGonagle University of Kansas, Lawrence

Sharon Morgan Beckford Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York

Marcia Magnus Florida International University, Miami

Anthony Ugalde Muhammad Miami Dade County Public Schools, Miami

Tony Martin Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts

Sharron Muhammad Howard University, Washington, DC

Karen J. Matthew Florida International University, Miami

Michelle Murray Florida International University, Miami

Janis A. Mayes Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York

Claire A. Nelson Inter American Development Bank, Washington, DC

Babacar M’bow Broward County Libraries Division, Florida Penda M’Bow Universite Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal

Caryn E. Neumann The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

Cher L. McAllister Temple University, Philadelphia

Claire Newstead University of Nottingham-Trent, United Kingdom

Christopher McCauley University of California, Santa Barbara

Charles Muiru Ngugi Truman State University, Kirksville, Missouri

John H. McClendon III Michigan State University

Beatrice Nicolini Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy

Pellom McDaniels III Emory University, Atlanta

Mario Nisbett University of California, Berkeley

Erik S. McDuffie University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Brian Meeks University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica

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Nkiru Nzegwu Binghamton University, Binghamton, New York

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Contributors | xix Marie-José N’Zengou-Tayo University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica Khonsura G. K. Ofei (Aaron J. Wilson) Independent Scholar Aaron Ogletree Florida International University, Miami Femi Ojo-Ade Saint Mary’s College, University of Lagos, Nigeria Fred Oladeinde WHADN, Washington, DC Amy Abugo Ongiri University of Florida, Gainesville Roberto Pacheco Florida International University, Miami Melina Pappademos University of Connecticut, Wood Hall Prakash Patil J/N Medical College, India David W. H. Pellow North Carolina Central University (emeritus) Sharon M. Peniston Independent Scholar Charles Peterson College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio Francoise Pfaff Howard University, Washington, DC Esther Phillips University College of Barbados, Barbados Tiffany D. Pogue Florida International University, Miami

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Marc Prou University of Massachusetts, Boston Matthew Quest Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island Diego Quiroga Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Quito, Ecuador Carlos A. Rabasso Rouen School of Management Groupe Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Rouen, France Fco. Javier Rabasso Rouen School of Management Groupe Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Rouen, France Kara Rabbitt William Paterson University, Wayne, New Jersey Chaman Lal Raina Florida International University, Miami Louis D. Ramos Independent Scholar Paulette A. Ramsay Runoko Rashidi Independent Scholar Thelma Ravell-Pinto Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York Rhoda Reddock University of the West Indies Lorriane Rivera-Newberry Independent Scholar Nicole Roberts University of the West Indies Florence Bellande Robertson Independent Scholar

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xx | Contributors

Martin S. Shanguhyia West Virginia University, Morgantown

Maria Soledad Rodriguez University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus Sybil Rosado Benedict College, Columbia, South Carolina

Malik Simba California State University, Fresno

Gregory Rutledge University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Kerry Sinanan University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom

Amon Saba Saakana Karnak House, London

Walter Sistrunk Michigan State University, East Lansing

Alicia M. Sanabria Independent Scholar, Brazil

Zipporah Slaughter Broward Community College, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Leslie Sanders York University, Toronto, Canada Meshak Sangini Langston University, Langston, Oklahoma

Fouzi Slisli Saint Cloud State University, Saint Cloud, Minnesota

Rick Santos Nassau Community College, Garden City, New York

Andre L. Smith Florida International University College of Law, Miami

Chris Saunders University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

Valerie Smith Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers

Mark Q. Sawyer Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles

Yushau Sodiq Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas Augusto Soledade Florida International University, Miami

Jason M. Schultz Georgia State University Library, Atlanta

Maboula Soumahoro Barnard College, New York City

Ralph Schusler Florida International University, Miami

Andrew Stafford Independent Scholar

Daryl Michael Scott Howard University, Washington, DC

John H. Stanfield, II Indiana University, Bloomington

Hillary Scott The University of California, Berkeley

Michelle Stephens Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts

Paula Marie Seniors Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia Macheo Shabaka American Association of Professional Ringside Physicians (AAPRP)

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Andrea Stone University of Toronto, Canada Kaila Adia Story University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky

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Contributors | xxi Ida Tafari Florida International University, Miami

W. van Wetering Free University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Clarence Taylor Baruch College, City University of New York

Nadege Veldwachter University of California, Los Angeles

Clyde Taylor New York University, New York

Lucie Viakinnou-Brinson Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, Georgia

Furukawa Tetsushi Otani University, Kyoto, Japan

Rinaldo Walcott University of Toronto, Canada

Noelle Theard Florida International University, Miami

Carlton Waterhouse Florida International University, Miami

Rose C. Thevenin Florida Memorial University, Miami

C. S’thembile West Western Illinois University, Macomb

H. U. E. Thoden van Velzen University of Amsterdam and Utrecht

Alan West-Durán Northeastern University, Boston

Gregory Thomas Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York

Derrick White Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton

Valeria Thompson-Ramos Independent Scholar, North Carolina

Dessima Williams Independent Scholar, Grenada

Antonio D. Tillis Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana

Ian Williams Fitchburg College, Fitchburg, Massachusetts

Neila Todd Ministry of Education, Trinidad and Tobago

Regennia N. Williams Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio

Neri Torres Ife Ile Dance Company, Miami

Deborah Willis Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, New York

Charles Tshimanga University of Nevada, Reno

Ludger Wimmerlbucker University of Hamburg, Germany

Horen Tudu Independent Scholar

Graeme Wood The American University in Cairo, Egypt

Elizabeth Turnbull Florida International University, Miami, Florida

Gloria-yvonne University of Illinois, Chicago

Grace Turner College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia

Mary Zeigler University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee

Ineke van Kessel African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands

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Advisory Board

z G ENERAL E DITOR Carole Boyce Davies, Florida International University M ANAGING E DITOR Babacar M’Bow, International Programs, Broward County Libraries, Florida L OCAL C OEDITORS ( FROM F LORIDA A FRICANA S TUDIES C ONSORTIUM ) Keshia Abraham, Florida Memorial University Veronique Helenon, Florida International University Babacar M’Bow, International Programs, Broward County Libraries, Florida Linda Spears-Bunton, Florida International University Rose C. Thevenin, Florida Memorial University I NTERNATIONAL A DVISORY B OARD Edmund Abaka, University of Miami Cecil Abrahams, University of Missouri, Saint Louis Kofi Anydoho, University of Ghana, Legon Boubacar Barry, Universite Cheik Anta Diop, Senegal Hillary Beckles, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Jesse Benjamin, Kennesaw University, Georgia Kamau Brathwaite, New York University Abena Busia, Rutgers University Monica Carillo, LUNDU Centro de Estudios y Promocion Afroperuanos, Peru Linda Carty, Syracuse University Julio Ceasar Tavares, Universidade Federale Fluminense, Brazil Kassahun Checole, Africa World Press, New Jersey Shimmer Chinodya, Independent Scholar, Zimbabwe Maryse Condé, Guadeloupe Shihan da Silva, The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA), India Yvonne Daniel, Smith College (emerita) Lino de Almeida, Nucleo Cultural Afro-Brasiliero, Brazil (deceased) Dieudonne Ghanammankou, Ediciones Monde Global, France Michael Hanchard, Johns Hopkins University xxiii www.abc-clio.com

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xxiv | Advisory Board

Joseph Harris, Howard University (emeritus) Marco Polo Hernandez Cuevas, ALARA/North Carolina Central University Asa Hilliard, Georgia State University (deceased) Percy Hintzen, University of California, Berkeley Siga Jagne, Pro-Poor Advocacy Group, The Gambia Maureen Warner Lewis, University of the West Indies (emerita), Jamaica Janis Mayes, Syracuse University Ali Mazuri, Binghamton University Ahmadou Mahtar M’Bow, Retired Director-General of UNESCO Penda M’Bow, University Cheikh Anta-Diop, Senegal Brian Meeks, University of the West Indies, Jamaica Molara Ogundipe, Arkansas State University Isidore Okpewho, Binghamton University Trevor Purcell, University of South Florida, Tampa (deceased) Runoko Rashidi, Independent Scholar, United States Rhoda Reddock, University of the West Indies, Trinidad Charles Rowell, Callaloo and Texas A & M University Beverly Guy Sheftall, Spelman College Faizia Shereen, University of Dayton Muniz Sodre, University of Rio de Janeiro (emeritus), Brazil Robert Stam, New York University John Stanfield, Indiana University John Stewart, University of California, Davis Nana Wilson Tagoe, School of Oriental and African Studies, London Clyde Taylor, New York University Furukawa Tetsushi, Otani University and Japan Black Studies Association, Japan Michael Thelwell, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Gregory Thomas, Syracuse University Dudley Thompson, lawyer and former ambassador of Jamaica Antonio Tillis, Purdue University Nelia Todd, Ministry of Education, Trinidad and Tobago Wangui wa Goro, Nottingham University, United Kingdom Rinaldo Walcott, University of Toronto, Canada Sheila Walker, Afrodiaspora, United States Leo Wilton, Binghamton University Paul Zeleza, University of Illinois, Chicago E DITORIAL A SSISTANTS Jessica Alarcon, African–New World Studies, Florida International University (graduate student) La Tasha Amelia Brown, African–New World Studies, Florida International University (graduate student) Sabrina Collins, African–New World Studies, Florida International University (graduate student) Safietou Kane, African–New World Studies, Florida International University (graduate student) Karen J. Matthew, Public Health, Florida International University (graduate student) www.abc-clio.com

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About the Editors

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Carole Boyce Davies is professor of African–New World Studies and English at Florida International University and served as director of African–New World Studies for three terms between 1997and 2006. From Trinidad and Tobago, she has worked and studied in Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, Brazil and the United States. In 2000–2001, she was Herskovits Professor of African Studies and Comparative Literary Studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of Migrations of the Subject. Black Women, Writing Identity (1994) and Left of Karl Marx. The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones (2008). She has coedited several critical collections on African Diaspora literatures, most recent, The African Diaspora. African Origins and New World Identities (1999) and Decolonizing the Academy. African Diaspora Studies (2003). Managing Editor Babacar M’Bow is originally from Senegal. He curates international art exhibitions and develops museum management policy with an emphasis on African Diaspora cultures, cultural institutions building, and community cultural patrimony. He also supervises international conferences and symposia for Broward County Libraries Division. A well-known curator of African and African diaspora art one of his recent works is as curator and editor of Benin: A Kingdom in Bronze. The Royal Court Art (2005). Local Contributing Editors Keshia Abraham was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and is a world traveler who identifies as a diasporic African. She is a popular professor at Florida Memorial University, in Miami, Florida, and specializes in literatures of the African Diaspora. She is also an independent scholar and a cultural worker committed to international education and social change. xxv www.abc-clio.com

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xxvi | About the Editors

Veronique Helenon is from Martinique and studied in France. She is an assistant professor at Florida International University who specializes in African Diaspora history. A specialist on the African Diaspora in Europe, she has published essays on areas of African diaspora history and is completing a manuscript on colonial relationships between African and the Caribbean. Linda Spears Bunton is an associate professor of education in the College of Education at Florida International University. Her areas of specialization are literature, language literacy, and the African American experience. Her new book is A Literacy of Promise The African American Experience (2008). Rose C. Thevenin is originally from Haiti and is an associate professor of history and college historian at Florida Memorial University. Her areas of specialization are African American History and Black social movements. She is an executive member of Association of Black Women Historians and has published in works such as Diasporic Africa: A Reader (2006).

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Acknowledgments

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or a project of the magnitude of the Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora, gratitude is owed to a variety of people who assisted in various ways in its conceptualization, execution, and realization. I will identify these both chronologically and in order of importance to the history of this project. First of all, Babacar M’bow, a knowledgeable cultural programmer, coordinator of International Programs and Exhibits of Broward County Libraries, whom I met soon after being contacted by the publishers, was instinctively conscious of the importance and the need to pursue this project to its end. We worked together on the proposal to submit to ABC-CLIO, and he was an invaluable resource, because of his knowledge of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization (UNESCO) General History of Africa project, having seen it grow from its inception under the leadership of Mahtar M’bow, then director general of UNESCO. Babacar M’Bow assisted in myriad ways in the development and execution of this project, serving as managing editor for the encyclopedia, contacting contributors and giving shape to its conceptual and technical aspects. In this regard, International Programs, Broward County Libraries, Fort Lauderdale, Florida is also acknowledged. The encyclopedia’s formidable research assistant, Karen Matthew, very competently took up the project at a critical time when it was stalling and worked meticulously, in a very professional, reliable and mature way, to reorganize the encyclopedia files, finalize entries, reestablish contacts with contributors, format and submit entries, and bring this project to completion. I am sure that we would not have been able to complete this encyclopedia successfully without her diligence and steady professionalism. A major debt of gratitude is owed to Ms. Matthew for her work in this regard. The International Advisory Board is acknowledged for encouraging, advancing, and supporting the realization of this project by their experience and by their intellectual understanding that this was a doable project. The first major related event we had was a symposium that allowed us to create the international advisory board and a local advisory board. The idea of creating large subject essays on

F

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xxviii | Acknowledgments

various African Diaspora topics came out of this April 2003 meeting, as well as a variety of fruitful discussions on how to proceed. From this point, we created a logo and literature with which to promote the project, and we attended major conferences to begin the process of disseminating materials. Jonelle A. Davies is acknowledged for her work in designing the logo for the Encyclopedia’s promotion. The staff of the Florida International University (FIU) Studio of Digital Arts (SODA) who created and managed the project’s Web site, especially Rob Yunk, have been wonderfully responsive as we have moved the project through its various stages. SODA understood the importance of the project and the ways in which we could promote it on the World Wide Web. Two graduate students in the African New World Studies program, Safietou Kane and Sabrina Collins, were tasked with promoting and disseminating information on the project and attended the African Studies Association conference in Boston in 2004. Sabrina Collins served as the first research assistant and began the process of receiving and organizing entries. La Tasha Amelia Brown worked during one summer on the encyclopedia assisting Sabrina Collins at a critical time. A major international conference, “The African Diaspora Knowledge Exchange” was held at Florida Memorial University in 2005 at which many of the subject essays were presented. Safietou Kane was the primary student liaison on this conference and helped receive subject essays ahead of time. The format intended was to provide an opportunity for authors of subject essays to present their work for critical feedback. This proved to be a very successful approach as it allowed the audiences (including teachers from south Florida) to review the material presented and ask the kinds of questions to which those knowledgeable in the field were able to respond. The late Mr. Thirlee Smith, Jr., of Miami-Dade Public Schools and leading supporter of the Florida Statute on Teaching African American Studies (1994 Florida Legislature, Section 1003.43 [g]), ensured that his teachers had access to the content aspects of African Diaspora material at various conferences. We encouraged all the graduate students at FIU, and in graduate programs around the country, to contribute entries on the African Diaspora. We acknowledge the significant contributions and support of Dr. Karl S. Wright, Dr. Sandra Thompson, faculty, staff and students of Florida Memorial University who hosted our various conferences and assisted with this project. We thank all the graduate students who contributed, especially Jessica Alarcon, who came into the program as a new student and immediately offered assistance. Then a pre-dissertation fellow in the AfricanNew World Studies (ANWS) program (2006–2007), Yaba Blay of Temple University, also provided links to other graduate students who could contribute their research to the encyclopedia. Rosa Henriquez, the program coordinator of ANWS, also steered potential contributors, interested individuals, and others with questions to the appropriate individuals who could help or answer their questions. In the process of executing this project, ANWS received a grant from the Ford Foundation, which led to the creation of the Florida Africana Studies Consortium (FLASC), which formed the kind of academic community in south Florida that supported intellectual and community work on the African Diaspora. All the conferences we organized in the succeeding period were done with the assistance and collaboration of FLASC. Many FLASC members served on the local advisory

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Acknowledgments | xxix board of the Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora, and the encyclopedia became a place where these faculty could publish their work. FLASC then has to be recognized for its help in ensuring that this project was successfully realized. In this regard as well, the Ford Foundation is acknowledged for providing the financial support for the African Diaspora Knowledge Exchange Conference. During my tenure as director of ANWS at FIU (1997–2000; 2001–2006), the ANWS program and the College of Arts and Sciences provided space for advancing African diaspora projects such as this one which began to have impact nationally. We acknowledge them for that support. We are pleased that this project came out of the south Florida community proving that there is an intellectual community that could produce an encyclopedia of this magnitude. All the writers of entries are acknowledged for their understanding of the need for this encyclopedia, for contributing their work, but above all for patience and for responding promptly (at times) to requests for information, corrections, and updates. Several entries, at the end, could not be accommodated because of space allocation. We thank those contributors nevertheless. Angela Leonard of Loyola University in particular reached out to us at a critical stage in the project’s history, offering support and contacts for entries, as she terminated a related project. Veronique Helenon, assistant professor of history in ANWS, is recognized as well for instinctively expecting a quality program and demonstrating this by her contributions to this project. And in particular, the south Florida community members who encouraged this work’s completion. Out of this has come other related works on the African Diaspora. Jesse Benjamin, on the international advisory board, is recognized for consistent support of this project, often going beyond normal expectations, pursuing leads diligently, finding contributors for some areas not often covered and finally assisting with responding to queries in the final editing stage, always in a professional and politically committed manner. The Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora project was presented at three African Diaspora conferences (the Association of the World Wide African Diaspora [ASWAD] in Rio de Janeiro in 2005; The African Diaspora in Asia [TADIA] Conference in Goa, India, in January 2006; and the African Literature [ALA] Conference in Ghana in 2006). We thank the audiences of these presentations for feedback. Finally, all of the people who helped in various unrecognized ways, whether by informing colleagues, circulating flyers, offering verbal support, or dropping by to help at critical times, to make this project happen are also acknowledged. In particular, the scholars and activists from Ecuador are offered special recognition and thanks for responding rapidly to the need for an Afro-Ecuadorian entry. Thanks are due to Chucho Garcia, Diego Quiroga, Edson Leon, Catherine Walsh for finding ways to strategically fill this gap, knowing that a project like this is larger than individual/personal dramas and that what is most important is for these communities to be recognized. Above all, the staff at ABC-CLIO are acknowledged for their vision, patience, and understanding at the various turns in the completion of this encyclopedia. Carole Boyce Davies, General Editor

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Introduction

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T HE A FRICAN D IASPORA AND THE A FRICAN WORLD To study the African Diaspora is, indeed, to study the world. This is the first realization to which any scholar of the African Diaspora comes very early in the process, for at least two reasons: (a) Africa is the birthplace of human civilization, and from there human beings migrated to various locations worldwide; and (b) African peoples in our contemporary understandings (continental Africans and African-descended peoples) exist globally, following a series of subsequent migrations. While all migrations do not necessarily create a diaspora, what is particular to diaspora creation includes, first of all, a migration, but second, some historical, emotive, political, economic, and cultural connections to that homeland and a consciousness of that interaction. The study of the African Diaspora has involved various generations of scholarship, various disciplinary approaches, various conceptual formulations, and various identifications and interrogations of what and/or who constitute/s the African Diaspora. The Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora then attempts to account for as many of these peoples and communities as possible within its limited space and organizational abilities. All we claim to do at this point is to present as much of the available research as is possible, making connections as we exchange knowledge about who African Diaspora peoples are and where they live, and as we try to understand the kinds of cultural transformations they have engaged in; to document their leading ideas; to provide future researchers with information that can lead to further inquiry. By these means, we already recognize that each contribution, such as this three-volume one, merely adds to the developing knowledge about the African Diaspora. As we make additional connections, we prepare for a further expansion of the discourse. As we recognized in the production of this work, a three-volume encyclopedia merely scratches the surface. This Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora engages the contemporary, covers the emergence of new levels and discourses of blackness, and deliberately extends to include areas such as the African Diaspora in the Indian xxxi www.abc-clio.com

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Ocean and other areas of the world, such as the Mediterranean, often not covered in African Diaspora projects. We recognize at the outset that an encyclopedia of this type at its best can offer only snapshots of the phenomenon, its people, and the processes it describes. As we bring this project to a close for publication, we acknowledge that much has to be left out; much more needs to be included. The range and the staff, for example, of the more than 25 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Compton’s Encyclopedia, or World Book Encyclopedia are perhaps closer to what is needed. The difference in access and coverage has already been identified in the institutional dominance of European studies and the general marginalization or subordination of Africana Studies in the various academic structures. Decolonizing the Academy: African Diaspora Studies (2003) is one of the places that discusses this issue. What is represented here must be seen as a selection that moves toward a more complete rendering at some later date, if that is ever an attainable goal. We say this knowing that no encyclopedia can ever claim complete coverage, as it will always have to be updated at a later time when more information is available. Encyclopedias, like anthologies, are often seen as creating canons—as definitive, when in reality they contain only a selection of the available material based on access, time, resources, reach, and, of course, the force of scholarly knowledge production and the nature of publication arrangements. The range of other particular encyclopedias emphasizes the point about coverage, as each geographical region as well as several particularized groups, fields, and subject areas have produced, or require, their own encyclopedia. There are already several encyclopedias of U.S. African American history, biography, and major events, perhaps largely because African Americans in the United States have been at the forefront of making their voices heard, establishing their presence through the various media available; and clearly, U.S. capitalism has often marketed itself via media. The African American Encyclopedia (ed. Michael Williams), which appeared first as five volumes in 1993 and now appears as ten volumes, and the Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History (1996, supplement in 2001; ed. Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith, and Cornel West) indicated the growing nature of the knowledge base and the trepidation at the thought of leaving out important information. All editors also indicate a number of other challenges, including space limitations, difficult choices, timelines, authors’ schedules, changes in subjects’ lives, and the sense that some people’s favorite subjects may not be covered. The new edition of the Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History: The Black Experience in the Americas (2005, ed. Colin Palmer and Howard Dodson) is a six-volume set described as updating the 1996 edition. With Schomburg Library collaboration, it attempts to be more expansive and contemporary and moves away from a U.S.-centered approach to include more on the Americas in general. It moves the definition of African American outward, extending the coverage to the rest of the Americas. Still, as already indicated, the African American field has been fairly well covered by such early works as the Ebony Black America: Pictorial History (1973) and The African American Almanac, now in its ninth edition in 2003 (formerly The Negro Almanac). And there are particular works, such as the two-volume Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia (1993, ed. Darlene Clark Hine with Ros-

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Introduction | xxxiii alyn Terborg Penn and Elsa Barkley Brown) and The Encyclopedia of Black Studies (2005, ed. Molefi Asante and Ama Mazama). More particular regional encyclopedias provide more detailed coverage than general field encyclopedias. The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century African History (2002, ed. Paul Zeleza) includes entries that provide important documentation of places, regions, countries, and language groups, as well as topical and thematic essays. But the editor chose not to include biographical entries. The Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara, although it continues the error of dividing Africa into upper and lower Sahara, is four volumes, with John Middleton as editor in chief. The introduction by the then-leading African historian J. F. Ade Ajayi, who served as a primary local editor, indicates the difficulty in attempting such a project, some of which we share. The two-volume Encyclopedia of Contemporary Latin American and Caribbean Cultures (2002, ed. Daniel Balderson, Mike Gonzalez, and Anne M. Lopez) lists entries under various countries. And Enciclopedia Brasileira da Diaspora Africana (2004, ed. Nei Lopes) is a very important and useful reference guide that covers Afro-Brazilian culture but reaches into the rest of the African Diaspora as well, thereby demonstrating the magnitude of the field for the Brazilian audience, though entries are very short, sometimes only a few lines long. The ambitious Encyclopedia of Diasporas: Immigrant and Refugee Cultures Around the World (2004, ed. Melvin Ember, Carol R. Ember, and Ian Skoggard) is a two-volume compilation of essays divided into Volume I: Diaspora Overviews and Topics and Volume II: Diaspora Communities, attempting by these means to cover the larger communities of world peoples. Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American Experience (1999, ed. Henry Louis Gates and Anthony Appiah; CD version is Microsoft’s Encarta Encyclopedia Africana) began as an attempt to complete the Du Bois encyclopedia project but ended up dealing more with the relations between Africa and the Americas. The updated version was extended to five volumes, signifying in its more expansive coverage the point I made earlier about size and relational work. D EFINING AND C ONCEPTUALIZING THE A FRICAN D IASPORA The term African Diaspora refers to the dispersal of African peoples all over the world. The word diaspora comes from the Greek diaspora (dia, meaning “through,” and spora, which refers to the process of sowing) (1). Thus, it refers to dispersal of seeds as well as the result of the dispersal. The implication of “through” in the first part of the word also gives a metaphorical sense of the movement aspects of diaspora, that is, “through different routes.” In this reading, then, the Diaspora can be seen as a kind of harvest of peoples, cultures, and knowledge that comes initially out of Africa—a demographic globalization, and internationalization, of African peoples created through centuries of migration. Indeed, African Diaspora peoples have been the products or the recipients of this economic globalization, often the demographic/human resource engine through the expropriation of their labor for the advancement of current economic and communications structures now defined as globalization (2). As a result, it has a different intent and political identity than the globalization created for economic oppression. The dispersal that created the African diaspora occurred through (a) voluntary means (economic and

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pre-Columbian exploratory journeys); (b) trade, servitude, and military expeditions (early Indian Ocean trade journeys from the sixth century); (c) forced migrations (transatlantic slavery over at least four centuries in the modern period, from the 15th to the 19th centuries); and (d) induced migration, the more recent 20th- and 21st-century migrations of African peoples based on world economic imbalances. These have resulted, thereby, in the relocation and redefinition of African peoples in a range of now-international locations (3). While one aspect of the definition of the African Diaspora is fairly constant in terms of its association with dispersal or scattering, there is a plurality of interpretations of the nature of the result of that dispersal, that is, what constitutes the African Diaspora. Some would argue that this plurality is in fact a good thing, as it allows for multiple perspectives, which engender further research and additional subjects of study. Others see forced exodus as the most important constitutive element in diaspora creation. As far as the Atlantic end of the Diaspora, in terms of numbers, in this encyclopedia Inikori has argued that the conservative Curtin statistics of 11 million people moved via transatlantic slavery, and the more generous 19 million people, are not a source for debate, as the numerical basis for the forced migration (which of course does not include the uncountable numbers lost in passage) is enough to make the arguments about demographic shifts as well as the transformation of the economic patterns on both sides of the Atlantic, but largely benefiting Europe and America (4). A number of scholars over the years have provided definitions and the history of the use of the term African Diaspora. George Shepperson’s (1993) “African Diaspora: Concept and Context” documents the usage of this particular combination and provides much of the language that is used still to define the African Diaspora, identifying the origin of the use of the term to refer to the Jewish Diaspora (5) and therefore also emphasizing the “homeland” element. The first usages of the term for African peoples he identifies as being linked to the rise of black political organizing during the immediate decolonization period beginning in the 1950s, particularly around the time of the First International Congress of Negro Writers and Artists in 1956 and the International Congress of African Historians held in Dar es Salaam in October 1965. Clearly, the use of the term African Diaspora is linked to decolonization activity and therefore has political intent, and that is to account for the “status and prospects” of various peoples of African descent scattered around the world, who are often denied their humanity. Thus, one sees at least two broad tendencies in African Diaspora studies: (a) to account for dispersal mainly from a common source in Africa; and (b) to account for those communities that have migrated in various directions and thereby have reconfigured identities in those now-home locations. By these means, one often has a sense of studying (a) Africa and the Diaspora or the continent and the dispersal and/or (b) the African Diaspora itself as a unit that includes the continent and the various intra-African migrations and movements. We propose to bring these two tendencies together in this Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora. Shepperson (1993) is careful to point out, however, that although usage of the expression African Diaspora began in the mid-20th century, the concept’s usage is

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Introduction | xxxv older than its 20th-century definition, extending all the way back to the Biblical reference that “Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her hands” (Psalm 68:31). Shepperson credits Edward Wilmot Blyden with his 1880s “Ethiopia Stretching Out Her Hands unto God: or, Africa’s Service to the World” as one of the first places to see the conceptualizing of the African Diaspora in an intellectual approach. For him, though, African Diaspora is a framework for comparative study; it must be approached through different languages. It cannot be a mere statistical rendering but must engage ideas, and it must not deal solely with dispersal outward, as it “loses much of its force if it is limited to dispersal in an outward direction only” (Shepperson 1993, 44). But even before Blyden, in the U.S. context, David Walker’s 1829 Appeal was directed to the Coloured Citizens of the World, and thus already embodied a consciousness of political challenge of oppression that would be echoed later in Fanon but was definitely imbued with the sense of an African Diaspora in its conceptual framing. Brent Hayes Edwards, The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism (2003), then, is a very important intervention, as it addresses the particular ways in which Diaspora has been put to use for political, emotive, and cultural reasons. But one must also consider the disjunctures, as did Appadurai (2006), as well as the differences in terms of application. In this particular case, the political connections between the Anglophone and Francophone diaspora become importantly identified via the political organizing of George Padmore (Trinidad/United Kingdom/Ghana) and Garame Kouyate (Ivory Coast/Paris). Thus, in terms of the first tendency, the concept of the African Diaspora is much older than its contemporary formulation. If we accept that, based on archaeological evidence, the birthplace of human beings is Africa, and that humankind from there began its dispersal around the world, then we can argue logically that the African Diaspora is the first constituted formulation of human migration. Therefore, some aspects of African cultures have touched all societies. While this may seem too loose and floppy a category, too totalizing in a way, one still must consider the credible historical research in this area. Chancellor Williams (1976), in The Destruction of Black Civilization, for example, identifies the early migrations from the “Ethiopian empire which once extended from the Mediterranean to the north and southward to the source of the Nile” (44) in present-day Ethiopia, based on a series of human and natural disasters. Thus, there are particular historical movements, periods, and places that allow us to identify specific communities—cultural, social, economic, and political formulations in our contemporary realities. Nkiru Nzegwu’s subject entry, “Art in the African Diaspora,” seems to follow this logic as it identifies seven formulations of the African Diaspora and insists that the categories received from European scholarship have been arbitrary and indeed limit our fuller understandings of African Diaspora as it relates to creativity and the arts, at least. More expansive than the five phases of Colin Palmer, she identifies seven phases, as follows: the Paleolithic; the Egyptian Diaspora; the Kemetic; the Kushite phase; the Atlantic; the colonial and anticolonial phase; and the postcolonial phase. In this way, art-related creations for those earlier periods, she argues, also fall under African Diaspora. Importantly, then, in her formulation she would want to include the Egyptian or Ethiopian Diaspora.

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The intellectual work of the premodern African Diaspora can be traced to the universities in Alexandria, Egypt; to the University of Timbuktu and Djenne in the actual republic of Mali; and to the various centers of learning of the West African kingdom of Ghana (University of Kumbi-sahel) that were burned by the Almoravids in the 14th century. The library of African/Diaspora studies, then, eventually must address this earlier information even as it extends into the contemporary. Thus, temporally, as the research has moved in two directions: backward to the early historical periods, as Afrocentrists do, and forward to embrace new formations of African Diaspora; spatially, it can address the range of existing communities worldwide; and conceptually it can examine the nature of epistemological contributions of the African Diaspora. While we acknowledge the existence of a preslavery migration to the Americas, as Van Sertima (2003) asserted, the more contemporary African Diaspora, which constitutes our second tendency, can be more firmly identified in the period after European enslavement and forced migration of Africans to the New World. Following the work of the first Pan-Africanists, such as Edgar Wilmot Blyden (1886) in his famous speech in Liberia College, 20th-century studies of the African Diaspora have made major contributions toward the understanding of the dispersal of African peoples. Such early and mid-20th-century scholars as Anna Julia Cooper, W. E. B. DuBois, Melville Herskovits, Carter G. Woodson, and Katherine Dunham (United States); J. J. Thomas, George Padmore, Una Marson, and Fernando Ortiz (Caribbean); Casely Hayford, Funimalayo Ransome Kuti, and Cheikh Anta Diop (Africa); and Nina Rodrigues and Abdias do Nascimento (Brazil) have helped to provide frameworks of analysis as well as documented research and activism that advanced possibilities or studies of various aspects of the African Diaspora. Ruth Simms Hamilton’s (1995) “Conceptualizing the African Diaspora” works theoretically within the framework of world systems analysis. She defines the African Diaspora as a social formation that includes a “global aggregate of actors and subpopulations differentiated in social and geographical space, yet exhibiting a commonality based on shared historical experiences conditioned by and within the world ordering system” (Hamilton 1995, 394). She deploys three historical characteristics to identify the Diaspora as distinct from other groups: a. Geosocial displacement and the circularity of a people (the historical dialectic between geographical mobility and the establishment of “roots”) b. Social oppression: relations of domination and subordination (conflict, discrimination, and inequality based primarily, although not exclusively, on race, color, and class) c. Endurement, resistance, and struggle: cultural and political action (creative actions of people as subjects of their history; psychocultural and ideological transformations; social networks and dynamics). Hamilton’s work offers important categories for situating a range of African Diaspora movements, histories, and cultural transformations; above all, it includes the issues of dominance and subordination but also resistance. Her diaspora as a “field of action” predates “unit of analysis” formations and identifies a more dynamic praxis as it also includes a range of literary, cultural, and political movements. www.abc-clio.com

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Introduction | xxxvii The field of African Diaspora studies thus promises an engaging and rewarding study for scholars of the African Diaspora. In the contemporary moment in the academy, the study of the African Diaspora has continued with a surge in intensity as manifested in a series of texts, conferences, journal articles, and academic programs at the end of the 20th century and into the 21st century. And a range of post-1960s scholars in the academy have maintained a solid interest, which has led to this contemporary articulation. For example, “Interrogating the African Diaspora,” which was the theme of a graduate seminar at Florida International University (2003–2006) will have an impact on the next generation of scholars. A 2006 conference entitled “Diaspora Hegemonies” at the University of Toronto tried to account for some of the complexity in the field in its recent incarnations, raising a number of questions about what and who is privileged in African Diaspora studies. And an issue of the journal Radical History has the special theme of contemporary reconceptualizations of the African Diaspora. H ISTORICAL B ACKGROUND AND G EOGRAPHICAL R ANGE OF THE C ONTEMPORARY A FRICAN D IASPORA The trans-Saharan passage and the opening up of the Arabian Peninsula, as well as the circum-Indian Ocean geography, located a range of African peoples in what is now called the African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean (6). Although the Atlantic Diaspora (the 14th through the 21st centuries) has been studied more extensively, scholars have begun to advance the study of this earlier migration to the Indian Ocean (from the fifth century onward), ensuring that this migration was driven not so much by enslavement but more often by sailors, merchants, and soldiers, some of whom became members of royalty and attained political and military leadership, as did Malik Ambar in India. Thus, earlier migrations across the Mediterranean Sea, the Eritrean (Red) Sea, and the Indian Ocean, as both free and enslaved people from approximately the sixth century, must now be a central understanding of the formation of the contemporary African Diaspora. The long history of forced migration that displaced African peoples across Europe and the Americas via transatlantic slavery from the 15th century onward has been well addressed. Historians of the African Diaspora have continued to document the ways in which this transatlantic slave trade displaced and disrupted the lives of peoples of numerous already-intact African nations, locating them in the New World for the services of plantation systems (7). Subsequent industrial developments in the Americas (the 15th to the 19th centuries) were facilitated, with slavery abolished in the various New World locations only in a sliding 19th-century date arrangement based on decisions in the various colonizing centers of power (French, Spanish, English, American, Portuguese) from 1838 to 1888 (8). The history of Euro-American imperialism’s border transgression and its larger assumption of control of human and physical resources, unlimited space and movement, serves as one contextual background for the Atlantic African Diaspora. In the development of triangular trade routes through the “Middle Passage,” the economics of slavery and colonialism facilitated the rise of European modernity. We can conclude, then, that contemporary notions of globalization have always been economic, and that globalization has used African peoples’ labor in its processes. Preexisting frameworks of operation that ensured www.abc-clio.com

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European control of the world’s resources were put in place with the rise of European modernity. The result of all these processes of free and forced migration was the appearance of Africans in the Americas, in Europe, and in Asia, and the simultaneous recreation of sociocultural practices in these various locations, making Africans essentially a global people. Africans moved from a range of political formations from the precolonial nations, empires, and other smaller ethnic political structures (often misnamed “tribes” by anthropologists) (9). This relocation of African peoples to different geographical locations often meant subordination or dispossession. So, even though some, such as Gwyn Campbell (at the TADIA converence in Goa in 2006), would make hard distinctions between the nature of the Atlantic African Diaspora and the Indian Ocean Diaspora, suggesting that the latter is not a “victim Diaspora,” today in India, African Indians—or Indo-Africans who describe themselves more particularly as Siddis or Habshis—still live visibly oppressed by the state and its elites, located as “backward tribes” and later “scheduled tribes” and accorded few benefits of citizenship (Caitlin-Jairazbhoy and Alpers 2004; Prasad 2005). Still, there are other groups whose lives remained consistently debased in their new locations. The condition of African peoples in the Americas is an example. Following enslavement in the Americas, the most glaring of inequities continued as a period of colonialism in which Africans as colonial subjects were powerless, until formal political independence some 300 years later, to fully represent their rights both in Africa and the Americas. Postindependence nation-states have often been neocolonial systems, which were therefore not reliable protectors of rights, because within them were already imposed race- and class-based hierarchies that subordinated sometimes majority populations (10). In many countries, these peoples remained disenfranchised under various colonialisms (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Arab, and Asian), without the means to return to their native lands and subject to horrendous conditions violating every tenet of human rights and with no other legitimate recourse but to fight for those rights. Throughout the Americas, the abuse of labor, the denial of rights, and beatings, maimings, and other forms of physical brutality accompanied the processes of colonialism that succeeded plantation slavery. The work of historians of the African Diaspora has been fundamental in backgrounding and detailing the nature of these movements. Joseph Harris’s lead in this area has been absolutely pivotal in the development of the field. From the late 1970s and through the Howard University conference that produced the landmark Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora (Harris 1982), Harris has maintained the African Diaspora as a subject of study and as its own unit of analysis, pushing as well for an expanded scope beyond the Atlantic Diaspora. This recent phase has also been advanced by work such as Colin Palmer’s “Defining and Studying the Modern African Diaspora” (1998), which led into the 1999 American Historical Association conference, “Diasporas and Migrations in History,” raised a number of questions about definition, and identified five major African diasporic streams: the first dispersal, which Palmer estimates occurred about 100,000 years ago and constituted the beginning dispersal of humankind; the second, taking

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Introduction | xxxix place about 3000 BCE with the movement of Bantu-speaking peoples from the region around west Africa to other parts of the continent; the third, the trading Diaspora to parts of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, which began around the fifth century; the fourth, the transatlantic migration of enslaved Africans, from the 15th century; the fifth, after the 19th century and continuing to the present day, the movement of Africans and peoples of African descent and their resettlement in various societies. For this reason, the framework that Tiffany Patterson and Robin D. G. Kelley (2000) used is “Unfinished Migrations: Reflections on the African Diaspora and the Making of the Modern World” (11), which provided a conceptual overview of the logic of the Diaspora as a process still in formation as it summarized the important literature and theoretical positions advanced in African Diaspora up to the end of the 20th century. The work of a variety of other historians has been critical, such as Michael Gomez’s Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South (1998); Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora (New Approaches to African History) (2004) (12); and Black Crescent: The Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas (2005). Earlier, Darlene Clark Hine and Jacqueline McLeod, from another conference, produced the book Crossing Boundaries: Comparative History of Black People in the Diaspora (1999), which provided useful additions to the library of African Diaspora Studies. And Gwendolyn Midlo Hall’s “Making Invisible Africans Visible: Coasts, Ports, Regions and Ethnicities” in her Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas: Restoring the Links (2005) provides a good analysis of the various studies of the African Diaspora in the Americas and ends up identifying from her related databases the various movements of African Diaspora peoples and their ethnic origins. P OLITICAL M OVEMENTS AND P ROJECTS : A FRICAN P EOPLES , D IASPORA , PAN -A FRICANISM The African Diaspora is also understood as a political and cultural category. At the political level, its primary ideological formations have been expressed as PanAfricanism, a political philosophy articulated through a variety of congresses and projects. For some scholars, such as Tony Martin, the rudiments of Pan-Africanism exist in the yearnings of Africans displaced via transatlantic slavery to return to their homelands. Thus, the flying back stories are seen as a kind of proto-PanAfricanism, as are some of the myths, legends, songs, and spirituals, and also spiritual possessions and chants that talk about wings and homes and heaven and have continued to give African entities and practices presence in other diasporic locations. From the start, there has been a logic linking Diaspora to Pan-Africanism as St. Clair Drake (1993) identifies in his analyses of the relationships between these two discourses. Thus, Diaspora can be seen as condition, Pan-Africanism as political project. The primary motivation of Pan-Africanism can be summarized as follows: Because a range of capitalist policies and projects have produced African peoples who live all over the world, how, then, can we represent their rights fully if the various nation-states in which they live do not always guarantee those rights? How can we produce a political system that coordinates these rights? What political projects

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need to be advanced in a coordinated way? How are African citizenship rights to be internationally understood alongside issues of nation-state sovereignty, jurisdiction, and the rights and duties of citizens who are located everywhere in nationstates to which they may have primary loyalty? One such formation (13) would create usable policies for transcendence of limitations of geographies, nation-state boundaries, and ethnic and linguistic differences for progressive social transformation of the lived realities of African peoples globally. Kwame Nkrumah’s vision of Pan-Africanism on the continent, Malcolm X’s vision of an Organization for Afro-American Unity (OAAU) as linked to, and expressed at, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) meeting in Cairo additionally attempted to make some of these connections (14). In similar ways, Kwame Toure’s All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party describes itself in terms of the practice of Pan-Africanism already identified. But even before that, the work of Marcus Garvey and his “Africa for the Africans” and “Back to Africa” constructs critiqued the oppressed conditions of black peoples in the Diaspora as it articulated the possibility of a conceptual (if not a physical) return and began the process of instituting economic systems that could ensure that that possibility would become the reality that it is for many today. The problematic knot, though, is the extent to which African peoples can give primary or sole allegiance to the nation-states in which they live, particularly when those nation-states often do not identify or respect their human rights. The “Constitutive Act of the African Union” (July 2001) begins its preamble with a direct assertion concerning African peoples, invoking generations of PanAfricanists as follows: INSPIRED by the noble ideals that guided the founding fathers of our Continental Organization and generations of Pan-Africanists in their determination to promote unity, solidarity, cohesion and cooperation among the peoples of Africa and the African States (15). All the research reveals that these Pan-Africanists were members of the worldwide leadership community of African Diaspora and African continental peoples with a commitment to working toward the liberation and advancement of the continent and its dispersed peoples (16). The African Charter (written in Banjul, The Gambia) consistently refers to African peoples in the plural, thus leaving in the possibility of including a multiplicity of peoples across the continent of Africa. This definition of African peoples is an advance in the sense that it allows space for a definition of African peoples in a broad continental and Diaspora sense. And beyond that, the African Union’s acceptance of the Diaspora as its sixth region (2005) has meant the possibility of some sort of political assertion for the African Diaspora. The full articulation of this structure has yet to be fully worked out; movement toward this goal has been deliberate and careful. The African Union, replacing the OAU, in its Constitutive Act took into consideration The Lusaka Summit Decision on the “establishment of a strategic framework for a Policy of Migration in Africa” and gestures therefore toward the development of a definite future relationship with the African Diaspora (17).

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Introduction | xli Through the African Union Diaspora Conference in Washington, D.C., in December 2002, two objectives were established: the development of “capacity building projects by Diaspora Civil Society organization in the Western Hemisphere Diaspora,” and the development of a “plan of ongoing collaboration with the African Union including a plan of action and a hemispheric steering committee” (18). One of the most important resolutions of this conference was the creation of a coordinating body for the African Union Western Hemisphere Diaspora, accepted unanimously by the meeting on December 19, 2002. This body had as one of its initiatives the proposal of an African Diaspora component of the African Union and its representative bodies, particularly the Pan-African Parliament (Article 17) and the Commission (Article 20) of the Constitutive Act of the African Union (19). Since then, the African Union has taken significant steps toward operationalizing the African Diaspora within its framework. The Executive Council, in its third extraordinary session held in Sun City, South Africa, May 21–24, 2003, took several decisions, among which was convening a technical workshop held in Portof-Spain, Trinidad, in June 2004 for the elaboration of a framework and recommendations on the relationship between the African Union and the Diaspora (20). The definition of Diaspora that came out of this workshop and was finally approved in 2005 reads as follows: “Peoples of African origin living outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship and nationality and who are willing to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the African Union. It includes communities created by the movements and cultures of persons from the continent of Africa and their descendants throughout the world — Asia, The Pacific, Europe and the Americas including United States and Canada, the Caribbean, South and Central America” (AU Web site, www.africanunion.com). The operational definition interestingly includes willing membership in the African Diaspora, as opposed to generic descent or other historical connections, and therefore becomes a kind of 21st-century political definition different from the initial usage of the term African Diaspora. In this encyclopedia, African peoples are defined as those who have historical origins in Africa, irrespective of time period and current geographical location. In this way, descendants of those who were displaced from the continent forcibly and voluntarily in the Indian Ocean migrations, those moved forcibly during the period of transatlantic slavery, and those who have migrated more recently for economic, educational, social, and other reasons, also have claims to the status of African peoples or African-descended peoples as used in Latin America. African peoples in this understanding refer to peoples of African origin, comprising a variety of African ethnicities, on the continent of Africa and in the international African community termed African Diaspora. A number of contemporary nation-states and regions have also begun to claim their own Diasporas. The Jamaican Diaspora and the Haitian Diaspora have already had a major impact on the politics and economics of their home communities, particularly in the areas of remittances, often more than the gross domestic product of these countries, and have increasing impact on the politics of their home countries, such as the right to vote and the choices for political leadership. And while the trade and circulation of people and commodities brings people,

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places, and things into contact, at times in diaspora that can be collaborative or conflictual, at other times they can lead to heightened articulations of particular nation-state diaspora. In a related manner, a number of larger nation-states (such as India) are recognizing their communities abroad as essential to the full access of all their human and material resources. And work is taking place on specific African nation-state Diaspora created by contemporary migration, such as the Somali Diaspora by Issa Farah, a young Somali scholar in Australia. His research, presented at La Trobe University, Australia seminar (March 2007) identifies at least 1 million Somalis in Diaspora with significant populations in North America (the United States, from as early as 1915 based on photographs taken in Chicago, and Canada), Europe (England, Scandinavia, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and France), Middle East (United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia), Australia, and New Zealand. Regional definitions are also being articulated as in the African Diaspora in the Andean region of South America and the Caribbean Diaspora. The Caribbean is already well recognized as a place for the practice of overlapping or intersecting Diaspora as say the Indian and African communities but also the African and native Carib, Arawak and Taino communities as well. In Canada as well, African Diaspora work on indigeneity (to a lesser degree in the United States, though work on the Black Seminoles in Florida in relation to maroon communities is increasing) means recognizing the importance of native peoples and the ways they have been dispossessed of their land even as Africans claim their diasporic existence in those same expropriated lands. This poignant articulation from Native Americans has to be consistently readdressed by African Diaspora peoples, also themselves exploited, so as to avoid the errors of settlers in the Americas and Australia who assumed appropriated land to be theirs. By these means, earlier collaborations between Native peoples and Africans can be maintained. While these competing claims to geographical location can make for conflict, they can also make for collaboration as oppressed groups struggle against these earlier and contemporary imperialist projects that have indeed driven and in some cases created these Diaspora. Andrea Smith, in Conquest, Sexual Violence and North American Indian Genocide (2005), describes well how these issues of imperialism are and were carried through sexual violence and often literally on the backs of women. Another work, Greg Thomas’s Sexual Demon of Colonial Power (2007), indicates a similar set of arguments of the intersection of sexual constructions and indeed sexual exploitation in advancing colonial projects. But resistance has also overlapped or intersected. The importance of Indian ahimsa or nonviolence, as advanced by Mahatma Gandhi, who gained his understandings of oppression in apartheid South Africa, had a significant impact on the Indian anticolonial struggle as it challenged offensive traditional practices, like child marriages. Gandhi, in turn, influenced Martin Luther King and his particular strategies to resist white racist dominance, as manifested in Jim Crowism and segregation in the United States. And a politicocultural movement like the Afro-bloco, Filhos de Gandhy in Salvador-Bahia, Brazil, also demonstrates the logic of diasporic collaborations in their appropriation of the meaning of Gandhi for carnival production. In making a political statement against Brazilian demonization of Afro-Brazilian cultural practices the Afro-bloco movement initially articulated itself as coming out in

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Introduction | xliii peace, and therefore used Gandhi paraphernalia and iconography, combined with the symbology of the Yoruba-derived Candomblé. And African and Indian cultures converge, even as political allegiances diverge. Thus, the tassa, an African drum is played by both Africans and Indians: both Trinidadians and Siddis (Afro-Indians). Food like roti and curry are now staples of the Eastern Caribbean and Guyanese (Afro-Caribbean) diet, and the exchanges continue based on close proximity as in the pejorative “douglarization.” “Dougla,” a word that is even worse than “mulatto” (which means “little mule”) in various languages ranging from Persian to Hindi, means among other things according to Shalini Puri in a lecture at Florida International University (Interad, Summer 2006), “bastard,” “stain,” “blot,” “polluted,” “dirty,” and other terms even more offensive. It is a formation that some still embrace to challenge logics of single belonging and interpret miscegenation in terms of what their dual heritages mean in this particular version of hybridity. Many who use “dougla” as definition are not fully aware of this historical meaning of the term and embrace it in a way similar to how some reappropriate other offensive terms used to describe black people. The existence of self-identified Indo-Africans or Siddis provides alternative political readings of this particular blend. So in terms of political projects, as Michael Hanchard’s experimental Global Mappings Atlas of the African Diaspora demonstrates (21), we can chart the influences and collaborations of political movements across the African world and understand more fully how these movements and their primary actors begin to have an impact on diverse geographical locations. S OCIOCULTURAL P ROJECTS : C OMPLICATING THE A FRICAN D IASPORA S TORY The question of how best to identify African Diasporan peoples and their cultures continues to be a source of important scholarly debate. Zeleza, using Appadurai’s framework of flows, identifies demographic, cultural, economic, political, ideological and imagistic flows. The hyphenated logic is one that has been followed by a number of communities as they attempt to account for these dual heritages, such as U.S. African Americans, African Caribbeans or Afro-Caribbeans, and Afro-Latin Americans, at the start of the 21st century. Afro descendientes (African descendants) is the agreed-upon descriptor. Some sort of connection to the African continent is assumed in terms of direct and discernable historical lines, physiognomy, and clearly recognized sociocultural practices. Thus, in the field of anthropology, the early work of Herskovits and his contemporaries has been preeminent as it led to a variety of discussions about how to recognize and/or measure African cultural patterns and practices and how to name African communities worldwide. Though this early work of Herskovits has been criticized by subsequent generations of anthropologists for operating on the basis of some versions of African essentialism and/or for making too easy conclusions (J. D. Elder, personal communication, 2003) based on not enough research, the idea of identifying aspects of African culture in New World cultures has not died. For many in the Caribbean and Latin America, this kind of work was one of the only sources for claiming a history and human identity that was being erased or denied by dominant cultural formations.

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The follow-up work by scholars like Yale University’s Robert Farris Thompson provided a bridge into the contemporary period of cultural studies work and specificity to more general contemporary assertions. Thus, the study of Africanisms and/or African cultural retentions, raised through the group of anthropologists who worked on this throughout the early and mid 20th century, is not as important today in terms of proving one-to-one correspondences and equivalences that held sway in the early 20th-century period of African Diaspora research. Thus, questions of transformation or re-elaboration continue to be addressed substantially in the Americas. In the contemporary early 21st century, the task of building one-to-one correspondences via the study of Africanisms has been replaced by discussions of representation and transformation. Tendencies in the field still demonstrate that the nature of these latter movements and the meaning of African-generated cultural practices are worth fighting for in many locations, particularly as a people’s culture is the place from which they can begin to assert their freedom. Indeed, current discussions about creolization, syncretism, and even hybridity assume some combination of African cultural forms with either European or indigenous/native American patterns. But as the work of Olendorp shows, as discussed in this encyclopedia, creating hybrid cultures was precisely the project of enslavers in the immediate postenslavement period. Hybridity and creolity have long antecedents in the range of created “blood” and proportional categories such as mulatto, creole, octoroon, and others by which the slaving class tried to literally “breed” ideal and complicit and interesting variations of Africans as they similarly did animals and grafted plants. What connects the Diaspora continues to be a fundamental issue. For some it is related sociocultural formations; for others it is history, the human chain of slavery, and above all contemporary realities of subordination; and for others political practice. The definition of blackness is therefore an aspect, though not an equivalent, for these African diasporan definitions. A consciousness of racial identification and oppression generated from enslavement and other forms of subordination is one of these connecting points (Hanchard 1990, 1991) that have been present from all the early attempts to examine the status of African peoples. Though disparagingly called “victim Diaspora” by scholars like Robin Cohen in his Global Diasporas: An Introduction (1997) some of these points of connection generated for political effect have found their bases in prior or present situations of oppression and the need to effect some sort of political solidarity in order to challenge these. In his global Diaspora frame, Cohen also attempts some classification of Diaspora communities, not specifically African Diaspora communities, but ranging from Chinese to Sikhs and Zionists. Works such as The African Diaspora. African Origins and New World Identities (1999, ed. Isidore Okpewho, Carole Boyce Davies, and Ali A. Mazrui) include contributions from a range of African Diaspora locations in the Americas and pursue such issues as theater, art, photography, music, and literature. In this regard, the cultural studies work of scholars like Stuart Hall (2006) and Paul Gilroy (2006) becomes important as they engage the idea of membership. Gilroy favors the “routes” model over the “roots,” preferring to look at contemporary formations rather than

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Introduction | xlv some difficult-to-prove historical connections (Gilroy 1993). Stuart Hall wisely sees both the political strategy in the construct as well as its articulation possibilities and difficulties. But it is precisely in culture, as expressed in music, literature, and art, where some of these connections have been most visible. The lyrics of Peter Tosh, “No matter where you come from/as long as you are a black man/you are an African,” resonates with the logic of African Diaspora and Pan-Africanism. The wide-range exportation and dissemination of reggae music and the culture, lifestyle, and politics of Rastafarianism with Bob Marley as a leading exponent are also critical signs of the mobility of African diasporic cultural practice. However, recent DNA work, as championed by Henry Louis Gates of Harvard University, has seemed to be able to make some direct connections using scientific evidence. By sampling continental African peoples, researchers have created a database for subsequent matches with people in the African Diaspora (as in Oprah’s Roots, a television inquiry into the genealogy of the African American talk show host Oprah Winfrey, aired in January 2007). Pretty soon one may know with some scientific certainty, using some definite types that already exist in DNA databases collected on the continent, what has been relegated so far to speculation based on physiognomic appearance. This brings a bit more certainty to genealogical studies like the oral history work of Alex Haley in Roots. In this regard, new scientific work gives a kind of contemporary restatement of the kind of early scientific work undertaken by Cheikh Anta Diop in his carbon dating projects (described in Civilization and Barbarism) as far as the original human Diaspora in Africa is concerned T HE F IELD OF A FRICAN D IASPORA S TUDIES The field of African Diaspora studies can be seen through the generations of intellectual projects and their products. These have ranged from initial and individual or group scholarly research of people like Edward Blyden, J. J. Thomas, Melville Herskovits, and, more contemporaneously, Joseph Harris, Michael Gomez, Sheila Walker, Robert Farris Thompson, Darlene Clark Hine, and Colin Palmer in each generation. These individual projects have produced disciplinary studies of various communities that have then made some connections to the larger field of African Diaspora studies. The second major way in which the field has advanced has been scholarly conferences of specific institutions or organizations, which have been able to produce their collections as already described. For example, at Florida International University, the conferences that produced the African Presence in the Americas (1995) and Decolonizing the Academy. African Diaspora Studies (2003) attempted to intervene in the production of knowledge, all challenging the Eurocentric assumptions of knowledge of U.S. and European institutions, but also those in the Caribbean, Africa, Latin America, Australia, Asia, all formed as auxiliaries for maintaining European hegemony. Each conference brings forward additional connections as for example did The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA) Conference in Goa, India, in January, 2006 (22) with an earlier publication The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean (2003) edited by Shihan de S. Jayasuriya, whose work also appears in this encyclopedia. The Conferences of Intellectuals of the African Diaspora (CIAD I

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and II, Senegal 2004 and Salvador Bahia 2006) have papers as well as declarations available online at the African Union Web site (www.africanunion.org). The ASWAD Conferences and formation of an association to do some of this work similarly advanced the field in innumerable ways. The first tangible product of ASWAD has been Diasporic Africa. A Reader (2006, ed. Michael Gomez). A FRICAN D IASPORA L ITERATURES AND C ULTURES While we have not presented a large subject essay on literature, we point here to some important references, this perhaps because literature has been one of the most popular ways by which African diaspora knowledge has been advanced. The best place to find the presentation and discussion of a range of African diaspora literatures is the journal Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters (see “Calalu/Callaloo” entry) which for the last forty years, under the leadership of Charles Rowell, has indeed presented creative and critical work in literature from a wide range of African Diaspora communities. And for many years, Presence Africaine has served this function in francophone letters. The more recent creation of journals like Diasporas, though, has advanced the discussion of the larger field of Diaspora studies in general, specifically targeting the Diaspora as an area of study and the variety of overlapping or intersecting Diaspora that have an impact on these various world communities. In a similar way, Wadabagei: A Journal of the Caribbean and Its Diaspora has supported the development of a Caribbean Diaspora knowledge field. But a variety of particular journals, like Caribbean Quarterly, and the work of scholars like Maureen Warner-Lewis in her study of language and culture, have maintained an ongoing space for the discussion of a variety of diasporic subjects as they manifest themselves in the Caribbean. A range of professional organizations like the African Literature Association, the Caribbean Studies Association, and the American Historical Association and their publications also provide a place for discussing aspects of the African Diaspora as they pertained to those fields. Encyclopedia production is another strand in this process, pulling together a range of scholars and their research but also creating that necessary library of materials that advance a field. The Congress of Negro Artists marked the beginnings of this phase of African Diaspora intellectual and creative work in the middle of the 20th century, as already established. And formed in the late 1970s, the African Literature Association, through its conferences and publications, has been a place where African Diaspora literature has been consistently addressed. Thus, literature has been one of the foremost ways by which Diaspora identities have been articulated and a primary area in which this field of African Diaspora studies has taken shape. Some of the best pieces of literature have confronted this issue directly. The definition of “African Literatures” in the plural that comes out of journals like Presence Africaine and the African Literature Association refers to the range of genres and types of African literature one finds on the continent and other parts of the world. A vast field, with its specialized encyclopedias, bibliographies, yearbooks, journals, and numerous publications, has been documenting these literatures. While not including a large subject entry on African diaspora literatures, we have included salient writers, themes, concepts and texts in most categories. There are several

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Introduction | xlvii dictionaries and encyclopedias of African-American and African literatures. Still, we can point to some classic African Diaspora texts that have engaged the themes of African Diaspora directly. Equaiano’s Travels. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789) as well as Mary Prince’s The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself (1831) are among the first. Ayi Kwei Armah’s Two Thousand Seasons (1973), Kamau Brathwaite’s The Arrivants (1967), Ama Ata Aidoo’s Dilemma of a Ghost (1965), and Anowa (1970), Earl Lovelace’s Salt (1996), Grace Nichols’s I Is a Long Memoried Woman (1983), Paule Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow (1983), Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (1982), Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), and Okepwho’s Call Me by My Rightful Name (1994), Sandra Jackson-Opoku’s The River Where Blood Is Born (1997), are some texts that have addressed African Diaspora themes. A helpful reference is Killam and Rowe, The Companion to African Literatures (2000), which offers larger coverage of major categories of African diaspora literatures, and Mark de Brito’s The Trickster’s Tongue. An Anthology of Poetry in Translation from Africa and the African Diaspora (2006), an ambitious collection of poetry. A range of helpful and related concepts have come out of these literatures as we develop frameworks for doing relational work. Literary reimaginings have come through the work of writers like Ishmael Reed, Fred d’Aguiar, and Alice Walker. Aimé Césaire has talked about unboundedness in his no-fence island, expressed in his long poem, Cahier, and Edouard Glissant has developed the idea of errance or wandering. He has also advanced the discussions of creolization as conceptualized by Kamau Brathwaite, whose tidalectics is as fluid a construct as is Antonio BenítezRojo’s repeating island imagery, both driven by water, by the sea. In this way, Gilroy’s “Black Atlantic,” a theoretical rearticulation of Farris Thompson’s “Black Atlantic Civilizations,” provides tremendous theoretical mileage (Gilroy 2006). Discourses of migrations in history and literature continue to drive research on Diaspora. And rememory makes literature one of the central places where creative articulations take place. Aboriginal Australians have a theoretical and cultural category called “dreaming” that is worth invoking here as it has to do not only with the flow of the imagination in storytelling but also in art, history, and movement, in terms of life experience. Thus, for African Americans, concepts like polyrhythms and improvisation, as articulated in jazz or quilting, have had great utility in vernacular theory and signifying. Rinaldo Walcott’s (2003) call for a Diaspora reading practice that allows for the “uncovering of the histories, memories, desires, free associations, disappointments, pleasures, and investments we bring to any given texts” (118) resonates with “diaspora literacy” (Clark) or “cultural fluency” (Mayes). In the same way, as far as music in the African Diaspora is concerned, we have included a range of African Diaspora music forms—blues, jazz, hip-hop, highlife, salsa—though not a single entry on music. The vastness of the field forbids reduction and synthesis. A related project to which one can refer is The African Diaspora: A Musical Perspective, which includes a range of essays on different aspects of African Diaspora musical forms, genres, and styles. The field of ethnomusicology is a rich one, and through it much of the early African Diaspora work was carried out. Work done by Alan Lomax, J. D. Elder, Alan Waterman, and others

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documented a range of forms that demonstrated how African rhythmic patterns could be subjected to structural analysis. Recent DVD collections such as “Songs of the Orisha Palais, Trinidad and Tobago” (2005) could only be credibly mounted and sustained with that earlier sustaining work already in place. In this regard, Maureen Warner-Lewis’s work in linguistics has also been amazingly solid. Her Trinidad Yoruba (1996) and earlier Guinea’s Other Suns (1991) have been formidable in documenting African religions in the Caribbean at a time when African Diaspora work was not the popularly engaged in research field that it is today. In this contemporary period, one can identify a range of academic programs and departments dedicated to the study of the African Diaspora, some of which have doctoral programs, like the University of California, Berkeley, one of the first programs to specifically offer an advanced degree in African Diaspora Studies. Approximately 25 programs (see the www.africandiasporastudies.com) have an Africana studies program or do Diaspora work in other departments. Courses like Spelman College’s two-semester “African Diaspora and the World,” attempt to give a general coverage of the African Diaspora akin to the Western civilizations courses that are staples of the major universities, in order to provide students with knowledge of the major historical, philosophical, artistic, and scientific developments of the African world. Therefore, work on African Diaspora communities within the larger construct of African Diaspora, can be advanced. Quite a number of scholars have engaged with or are engaging with Afro-Brazilian communities in various ways, and Afro-Brazilians themselves are beginning to be the major and best articulators of their own history and culture. Work on the Caribbean has also become a very dynamic field advanced by scholars and associations internationally. For example, the Australian Association of Caribbean Studies held a February 2007 conference in Melbourne, “Mo(ve)ments: Local, Regional, Global in Caribbean Popular Culture,” that covered issues of migration and thereby of Diaspora. In this regard, the work of Linda Heywood, Maureen Warner-Lewis, and J. D. Elder has deliberately engaged Diaspora as a theoretical framework, and, as already indicated, the work on the Caribbean Diaspora (by Harry Goulbourne, Winston James, Stuart Hall, Beryl and Paul Gilroy, Alrick Cambridge, C. L. R. James, John La Rose, Claudia Jones, Amon Saba Saakana) as it relates to Caribbean communities in the United Kingdom has often offered theoretical leadership in articulating this construct, as have a range of scholars in the United States. The broadening of the definition of Afro-America to include the north and the south brings back into focus the African Diaspora communities throughout South America. As already indicated, work on Asia and the Maghreb is also increasing, and work on Australia is another area that will likely soon be advanced. Besides the premodern migration that produced black Aboriginal inhabitants in Australia, from 1888 to 1901, black convicts are reported to have entered Australia—a group of 13 black convicts arrived with the first shipment. Often they were those convicted for minor crimes and a kind of debt peonage. And in the early 1900s there was reportedly a Sydney branch of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association. Documents of letters of representatives sent overseas are available in the Garvey archives, and this is an area well worth a fuller exploration.

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Introduction | xlix Overlapping or intersecting diaspora allows further relational work that looks at Indian, Jewish, Arab, Asian, Native American, Aboriginal, Latin American, and Caribbean Diasporas as these overlap or extend the boundaries of the African Diaspora. This is another area that is going to be very significant in the future. And a new African Diaspora, created by Africans migrating for economic reasons to various metropolises and other continents in the 20th century, is another key area for research. By some counts, more Africans have crossed the Atlantic in this period than in the earlier transatlantic slavery period. The products of some of these overlapping or intersecting Diaspora have been often named, misnamed, and claimed under douglarization, creolity, mulatto consciousness, hybridity, mestizaje, concepts that are also presented in this Encyclopedia. WOMEN AND THE A FRICAN D IASPORA The question of gendering the African Diaspora is one that is long in being fully articulated from the early work of conferences like the Michigan “Black Woman Writer in the African Diaspora” in 1985. Audre Lorde’s work in building an international community for black women has articulated in Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States the kind of black women’s Diaspora politics that parallels earlier work by Pan-Africanists to create a Zami community. Lorde’s essay “Sisterhood and Survival,” available in Sister Outsider, provides the impetus for a black woman’s Diaspora. And as she stated in an interview with Pratibha Parmar and Jackie Kay, Lorde (1988) also believed some kind of international network of black women was absolutely essential. Throughout the 1980s, the journal Sage had an African Diaspora orientation in terms of the kind of research it included from black women internationally. In this regard, Beverly Guy-Sheftall’s essay “Feminism and Black Women and the African Diaspora,” which is included in this encyclopedia, provides some important connections between women as political and intellectual organizers throughout the 20th century. A conference organized by Rosalyn Terborg-Penn at Howard University, out of which was produced Women in Africa and the African Diaspora (1989; ed. Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, Sharon Harley and Andrea Benton Rushing), has also been significant, recalling as it does the work of Filomena Steady in The Black Woman Crossculturally (1989). Both contexts have influenced at least two generations of scholars studying women and the African Diaspora. Describing itself as producing concepts, methodology, and projected guidelines for studies of women and the African Diaspora, Women in Africa and the African Diaspora included a nice range of scholarship on Latin American, Brazilian, African American, Caribbean, and African women and often used a quilting metaphor for the Diaspora. See also In Praise of Black Women, Volume 4: Modern Women of the Diaspora (2003). Writings of Black Women of the Diaspora by Lean’ tin L. Bracks (1998) also used the quilting metaphor, but applies it specifically to literature. Daughters of Africa. An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from the Ancient Egyptian to the Present (1992; ed. Margaret Busby) is an expansive and ambitious project. Earlier, Chinosole had spoken of “matrilineal Diaspora” and Grewal et al. had produced a collection of creative works titled Charting the Journey.

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Similarly, Black Women’s Diasporas, the second volume of International Dimensions of Black Women’s Writing (1994; ed. Carole Boyce Davies), is perhaps one of the only places one can see the formation of black women’s Diasporas in practice. Another would be Miriam DeCosta-Williams’s edited collection Daughters of the Diaspora: Afra-Hispanic Writers (2003). In 2002, Judy Byfield organized a conference at Dartmouth College on the subject of “Gendering the African Diaspora: Gender, Culture and Historical Change in the Caribbean and Nigerian Hinterland.” One of its general aims was to “encourage the production of scholarship that both extends and challenges our current writing of African and Caribbean women’s history/cultures, and integrates gender analysis more systematically into our conceptualization of the African Diaspora.” And the two Yari Yari Pamberi international black women’s writing conferences at the turn of the century hosted by New York University brought together black women writers from all over the world. Since then, not much has happened in an organized way on this topic, and this area of study requires further development. Individual works of a new generation of scholars, like Michelle Stephens (Black Empire: The Masculine Global Imaginary of Caribbean Intellectuals in the United States, 1914–1962, 2005) and Michelle Wright (Becoming Black: Creating Identity in the African Diaspora, 2004), have challenged the masculinist constructions of black internationalism as they have cleared the ground for the study of new African Diaspora identities that are appropriately gendered. Thus, Jane Ifekuwingwe’s Scattered Belongings. Cultural Paradoxes of “Race,” Nation and Gender (1999) and Meredith Gadsby’s Sucking Salt: Caribbean Women Writers, Migration, and Survival (2006) advance the discourse on black women’s identity in migration as earlier articulated by Carole Boyce Davies in Black Women, Writing and Identity. Migrations of the Subject (1994). Gadsby’s own research into salt and the African Diaspora is included in this encyclopedia. More recently, Katherine McKittrick’s Demonic Grounds. Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle (2006) uses Sylvia Wynter’s formulation to advance the study of the geographies of women in the Diaspora. It is important to point out then, that although there have been a fair number of works on black women, the work has often dealt with individual/national or regional specifics like the United States or the Caribbean. Confronting the contributions of black women as a larger category not limited to specific national boundaries is what seems to be appearing in this new round of scholarship. This Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora, although it does not specify a section on women in the African Diaspora, covers the issue of women in specific entries. It includes proportionately a large number of entries on and by women and includes subjects not often covered in general works on black women, like an entry on the 1950s black women’s activist organization, Sojourners for Truth and Justice. Early work on specific African Diaspora communities, particularly in the United States, has, for the most part, marked this discussion. Audre Lorde’s “Zami” formation has already been mentioned as one model in which issues of black women’s sexuality have migrated across the African Diaspora from Carricacou and the Eastern Caribbean, its places of origin, to the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and even South Africa in terms of Lorde’s organizational

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Introduction | li schema. By these means, submerged discourses of black female sexuality that challenged heteronormatives began to be articulated. Gloria’s Wekker’s “Mati” work has also articulated another version, this time coming out of Suriname and the Dutch Caribbean; in many ways it is a sexual-cultural formation that is related to, although not identical to, black lesbian constructions in the United States. And though Ifi Amadiume resists the limitation of the meaning of her work to issues of sexuality in the European-American sense, her discussion of some aspects of African gender constructions in Male Daughters, Female Husbands (1987) has opened up issues of gender in the African context, with variations by Ronke Oyewumi (The Invention of Women, 1997) in her subsequent work. A 2006 special issue of Feminist Africa, guest edited by Rhoda Reddock, was subtitled “Diaspora Voices” and included a range of essays from scholars in the African Diaspora. In her introductory essay, Reddock brings together for analysis the passing of the African Protocol on Women in relation to the passing of the African Union’s African Diaspora definition, both in 2005, to underscore an African Union recommitted to gender equity and to solidifying its ongoing relationship between the continent and the Diaspora. As far as black gay communities are concerned, work on the U.S. black gay experience has been advanced by the work of poet/activist Essex Hemphill and the filmic interventions of Marlon Riggs, such as “Black Is Black Ain’t.” Dwight McBride’s work on James Baldwin and in advancing a more inclusive Africana Studies in general has done some of the kind of institutional work that allows the field to be cleared and that is required to advance this discourse. More substantial work has been produced for a special issue on GLBT literature and culture for the journal Callaloo (vol. 23, issue 1, 2000). An edited collection by Thomas Glave on literature of Caribbean/Antillean Gay communities, titled Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from the Antilles, is described as the first anthology of lesbian and gay writing from the Caribbean. For scholars who discuss the question of essential identities, one has to always place the dialectics of Diaspora in the foreground. Although the idea of the home and exile is one formation raised by Elliott Skinner in the Harris book, Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora, some would argue that this borrows too much from the Jewish Diaspora. Although a consciousness of homeland is critical, often returning to a homeland, as in the case of Palestine, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, can be laden with conflict as it means dispossessing people who are already occupying that place and who have similar claims. Diaspora discourse can look relationally at a range of communities, even as it evokes some older historical realities. Thus, what does it include? What does it exclude? What are the erasures and disclosures? What are the loci of contradictory or contestatory understandings of Diaspora? These are still questions worth pursuing. S COPE OF T HIS E NCYCLOPEDIA Producing the Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora has been a daunting task. It was driven by the fact that many colleagues and community supporters were clear that this was a project that needed to be done and therefore they were supportive of its intent. We began with a meeting of consultants from a range of areas across

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the African Diaspora in order to develop a pool of intellectuals that we could engage, call on, and encourage to contribute subject essays in their specialization areas. That group decided on the pattern we have used, which covers subject entries of major aspects and disciplines of the African Diaspora; people, represented by selected biographies and coverage of ethnic groups that have contributed to the African Diaspora or had significant impact on the advancement of the discourse; regional and country essays on some critical areas of the African Diaspora; and topical essays on African Diaspora concepts. Entries were organized in terms of places (geography), people (personalities), movements (e.g., Pan-Africanism), theories (e.g., Négritude) in a straightforward A to Z order. Each entry also provides cross-references: at the end of each entry is a “See also” listing that provides researchers with a way of finding additional material on a topic. We developed a Web site (www.africandiasporastudies.com) to update contributors on the project, solicited entries at major conferences, and created entry format models, which included original research and full coverage of the field in well-documented and concise entries, including recent discoveries and theories. A list of recommended readings for further research accompanies entries. In terms of scope, the volumes are international in reach, covering the five continents with documented African Diaspora communities. We had excellent coverage from Latin American communities like Colombia, Bolivia, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, calling on young scholars from those areas, like Paula Moreno-Zapata (Colombia), to contribute recent work, or Leana Cabral, the niece of Amilcar Cabral, also a young scholar-activist, to do an entry on Cape Verde. More experienced scholars like Marco Polo Hernandez Cuevas on AfroMexico or Quince Duncan on Costa Rica were contacted to contribute their research. Juan Angola Maconde of Bolivia entered this project after the ASWAD conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2005. And we have identified the important contribution on Afro-Ecuadorians. All of these scholars have provided knowledge of their research on their own communities. Many of these scholars have been working on their own communities in isolation and are pleased to have a location for collaborative research. The Indian Ocean Diaspora was also well covered because of the advances in the knowledge of scholars like Shihan De Silva from that area and the TADIA (The African Diaspora in Asia) organization which hosted its first conference in Goa in January 2006. Subject essays from expert scholars in their fields, including Nkiru Nzegwu on art and the African Diaspora, Joseph Inikori on the political economy of the African Atlantic system, Monica Jardine on the Caribbean migration, and Brian Meeks on Caribbean black power have been important contributions. Many of these subject essays were presented at a conference held at Florida Memorial University in 2005. In this regard, we also encouraged and solicited entries from graduate students, allowing them by these means to have a publication profile and benefiting from the fact that they are usually the ones doing the freshest work in the field. Part of this has been advanced through the creation of FLASC—the Florida Africana Studies Consortium, which has been one of the umbrellas for this project as has African–New World Studies at Florida International University.

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Introduction | liii The purpose of this publication, as we have indicated, is to provide in one place a well-documented and readily accessible body of information about the most important historical, political, economic and cultural relations between people of African descent in the world community. What connects such a diverse group of people and wide-ranging locations across time and space? How they have affected and been affected by their environments? How have they created and re-created cultural forms and movements? For hip-hop we decided to go with a general subject entry on hip-hop culture in the African Diaspora and then a second entry on hip-hop in Latin America. We also decided on a few exponents of the tradition, like Mos Def, rather than the proliferation of artists that one could end up having. Perhaps a future “Encyclopedia of Hip Hop Culture” will be planned at some later date. We, the editors of this encyclopedia, envisage a library of African Diaspora materials as one similarly encounters materials on other area subjects. The audience includes students, journalists, policy makers, activists, scholars, libraries, international organizations, and all those with an interest in the African Diaspora. Our editors at ABC-CLIO have been helpful in this process, making sure that we had balance and distribution, and even providing a grid by which we could check off where each contribution came from, thereby ensuring a more even coverage. Biographies were the hardest entries to make decisions about, though the easiest submissions to receive. Though these entries tended to be shorter than most, we had to make selections carefully about what to include so the biographical entries did not go on ad infinitum. And of course everyone had his or her own list of people he or she thought should be included. At one time someone submitted his entire family for inclusion. For major contributors — scholars-activists-theoreticians like C. L. R. James—we allotted a bit more space, as they were often difficult to limit to a short 500-word entry without doing a disservice to what these people represented. The discipline that was enforced by our publisher limited entries to those who had a significant impact on the African Diaspora itself rather than on a single nation or community. The African Diaspora then and its subformations, like the “Black Atlantic” or the “Black Pacific,” as units of analysis, have allowed the kind of academic inquiry that will also have impact on policy and on people’s understandings of themselves in the world. This is therefore one area that does not remain as a singly academic enterprise, for in our increasingly globalized world, “Diaspora literacy,” a term developed by Veve Clark and included in this volume, becomes an important way of reading the world. Although we have attempted to obtain entries on a wide range of African Diaspora forms and manifestations that display cultural connections, we are conscious of the need to expand the knowledge base in a range of areas. We have included subject essays or shorter entries on health, sports, carnivals, hair, dance, music, and religion. For scholars in the field, a number of subject areas still remain underresearched. These include style and fashion in the African Diaspora, body, sound, food, architecture, “livity” or lived experience, and language. New work is being done on the relationships of Diaspora to transnationalism and on theories of Diaspora. Additional work on contemporary African Diasporas in places like

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Australia and the South Pacific needs to be done. Some work on the Arabian Peninsula and the Mediterranean is being carried out. As we connect the nodal points of the African Diaspora via various knowledge exchanges and publications like this one, we advance understanding of world communities in that still unfinished process of reclaiming the epistemologies and thereby the humanity of African Diaspora peoples. Ideally, a web-based project that can be infinitely updated is perhaps the direction that one can pursue in the future (23). Carole Boyce Davies Editor

R EFERENCES Appadurai. 2006. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” In Theorizing Diaspora, ed. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur, 26–48. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Baptiste, Fitzroy A. 1998. “African Presence in India —I and II.” African Quarterly 38 (1998): 76–90, 91–126. Brah, A. 1996. Cartographies of Diaspora. Contesting Identities. London: Routledge. Byfield, Judith. 2000. “Introduction: Rethinking the African Diaspora.” Special issue on Diaspora. African Studies Review 43:1 (April):1–9. Caitlin-Jairazbhoy, Amy, and Edward Alpers, eds. 2004. Siddis and Scholars. Essays on African Indians. Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press. Clifford, James. 1994. “Diasporas.” Cultural Anthropology 9:3:302–338. de Silva, Shihan Jayasuriya, and Richard Pankurst, eds. 2003. The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean. Lawrenceville, N.J.: Africa World Press, 2003. Diop, Cheikh Anta. 1991. Civilization or Barbarism. Brooklyn, New York: Lawrence Hill Books (Paris: Presence Africaine, 1981). Drake, St. Clair. 1993. “Panafricanism and Diaspora.” In Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora, 2nd ed., ed. Joseph E. Harris, 451–514. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press. Edwards, Brent Hayes. 2003. The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Gilroy, Paul. 2006. “The Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of Modernity.” In Theorizing Diaspora, ed. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur, 49–80. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Gomez, Michael A. 2005. Reversing Sail. A History of the African Diaspora. New York: Cambridge University Press. Gomez, Michael, ed. 2006. Diasporic Africa: A Reader. New York: New York Univeristy Press. Grewal, Shabnam, Jackie Kay, Liliane Landor, Gail Lewis and Pratibha Parmar. 1988. Charting the Journey: Writing by Black and Third World Women. London: Sheba Feminist Publishers. Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo. 2005. Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas. Restoring the Links. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.

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Introduction | lv Hall, Stuart. “Epilogue: Through the Prism of an Intellectual Life.” In Meeks (2007): 269–291. Hall, Stuart. 2006. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” In Theorizing Diaspora, ed. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur, 233–247. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Hamilton, Ruth Simms. 1995. “Conceptualizing the African Diaspora.” In African Presence in the Americas, ed. Carlos Moore, Taunya Saunders, and Shawna Moore, 393–410. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Hanchard, Michael. 1990. “Identity, Meaning and the African American.” Social Text 24:31–42. Hanchard, Michael. 1991. “Racial Consciousness and Afro-Diasporic Experiences. Antonio Gramsci Reconsidered.” Socialism and Democracy 3 (Fall): 83–106. Harris, Joseph E., ed. 1982. Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press. Harris, Joseph. 2003. “Expanding the Scope of African Diaspora Studies: The Middle East and India, a Research Agenda.” Radical History Review 87 (Fall): 157– 68. Hesse, Barnor, ed. 2000. Un/settled Multiculturalisms: Diaspora, Entanglements, “Transruptions.” London: Zed Press. Hine, Darlene Clark, and J. McLeod. 1999. Crossing Boundaries. Comparative History of Black People in Diasporas. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hintzen, Percy C. 2007. “Diaspora, Globalization and the Politics of Identity.” In Meeks, Culture, Politics, Race and Diaspora. The Thought of Stuart Hall, 248–268. Jamaica: Ian Randle. Jalloh, Alusine, and Stephen E. Maizlish, eds. 1996. The African Diasporas by Joseph Harris, Alusine Jalloh, Joseph Inikori, Colin A. Palmer, Douglas B. Chambers, Dale T. Graden. Arlington, Texas: Texas A & M Press. Killam, Douglas, and Ruth Rowe, eds. 2000. The Companion to African Literatures. Oxford: James Currey and Bloomington: Indiana University Press. McKittrick, Katherine. 2007. “I Entered the Lists: Diaspora Catalogues.” XCP: Cross-Cultural Poetics 17:7–29. Meeks, Brian, ed. 2007. Culture, Politics, Race and Diaspora. The Thought of Stuart Hall. Kingston: Ian Randle. Morehouse, Maggi M. 2007. “The African Diaspora: Using the Multivalent Theory to Understand Slave Autobiographies.” Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education: An International Journal. 1:3 (July-September): 199–216. Palmer, Colin. 1998. “Defining and Studying the Modern African Diaspora.” American Historical Association Newsletter 36 (6 September): 21–25. Patterson, Tiffany, and Robin D. G. Kelley. 2000. “Unfinished Migrations: Reflections on the African Diaspora and the Making of the Modern World.” African Studies Review 43 (1 April): 11–45. Prasad, Kiran Kamal. 2005. In Search of an Identity. An Ethnographic Study of the Siddis in Karnataka. Bangalore, India: Jana Jagrati Prakashana. Rashidi, Runoko, and Ivan van Sertima, eds. 1999. African Presence in Early Asia. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.

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Shepperson, George. 1993. “African Diaspora: Concept and Context.” In Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora, 2nd ed., ed. Joseph E. Harris, 41–49. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press. van Kessel, Ineke. 2006. “Conference Report: Goa Conference on the African Diaspora in Asia.” African Affairs (Oxford) (June). Van Sertima, Ivan. 2003. They Came Before Columbus. The African Presence in Ancient America. New York: Random House. Walker, Sheila S., ed. 2001. African Roots/American Cultures. Africa in the Creation of the Americas. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield. Williams, Chancellor. 1976. Destruction of Black Civilization. Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D. Chicago: Third World Press. Zimba, Benigna, Edward Alpers and Allen Isaacman, eds. 2005. Slave Routes and Oral Tradition in Southeastern Africa. Maputo, Mozambique: Filsom Entertainment, Lds. N OTES 1. Thanks to Greek Diaspora writer Konstandina Dounis at LaTrobe University in Melbourne, Australia, and Dean Kalimniou, an expert in languages and a lawyer in Melbourne for providing details of usage in the Greek language and as it pertains to the Greek Diaspora. This information benefits from a seminar in diasporas that I gave at LaTrobe University in February 14, 2007, at which I fortuitously met Konstandina. 2. Lawrence M. Friedman. 2001. “Erewhon: the Coming Global Legal Order.” Stanford Journal of International Law Summer: 2–11; International Monetary Fund. 2000/2001.Globalization: Threat or Opportunity. Issues Brief. International Monetary Fund offers some discussion of the economic implications. See also Globalization and Its Discontents by Saskia Sassen and Anthony Appiah (New Press, 1999). 3. A useful study of some of the theories of African diaspora is Maggi M. Morehouse, “The African Diaspora: an Investigation of the Theories and Methods Employed When Categorizing and Identifying Transnational Communities,” African American Studies, University of California, Berkeley (n.d.), http://istsocrates.berkeley.edu/~african/morehouse.pdf. 4. Interview for “African Diaspora Knowledge Exchange” conference, Florida Africana Studies Consortium (FLASC), Florida Memorial University, Miami, May 2006. Available on FLASC, DVD Series \#1, 2007. 5. Indeed, the Encyclopedia Americana (Danbury, CT: Scholastic Library Publishers, 15 editions, 22 volumes), under its entry on “Diaspora” indicates, “See Jews.” 6. See, for example, Joseph E. Harris, “Expanding the Scope of African Diaspora Studies: The Middle East and India, a Research Agenda,” Radical History Review 87 (Fall 2003): 157–168; Fitzroy A. Baptiste, “African Presence in India — I and II,” African Quarterly 38:2 (1998): 76–126; African Presence in Early Asia, edited by Runoko Rashidi and Ivan Van Sertima (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1999); and Slave Routes and Oral Tradition in Southeastern Africa, edited by Benigna Zimba, Edward Alpers, and Allen Isaacman (Maputo, Mozambique: Filsom Entertainment, 2005). The most recent contribution in this area has been the conference “The African Diaspora in Asia,” held in Goa, India, in January, 2006. See

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Introduction | lvii Ineke van Kessel, “Conference Report: Goa Conference on the African Diaspora in Asia,” African Affairs (Oxford) (June, 2006). See also the work The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean, edited by Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya and Richard Pankurst (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2003). 7. See, for example, essays in The African Diaspora by Joseph E. Harris, Alusine Jalloh, Joseph Inikori, Colin A. Palmer, Douglas B. Chambers, Dale T. Graden (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996); Michael A. Gomez, Reversing Sail. A History of the African Diaspora (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas. Restoring the Links (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005). 8. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, created to ensure the protection of rights and freedoms, was very clear about the need to make a statement on slavery. 9. Cheikh Anta Diop’s Precolonial Black Africa (Independent Publishers Group, 1990) and the range of Diop’s publications are reliable sources of this information based on substantial research. See also Chancellor Williams, The Destruction of Black Civilization (Chicago: Third World Press, 1987). 10. Examples of the most egregious of these include apartheid in South Africa, U.S. segregation laws, and Brazil’s official processes of “racial democracy,” which functioned to disenfranchise the majority African-derived populations. 11. This entire issue of African Studies Review on African Diaspora includes essays on Brazil and the Indian Ocean, which, along with the introduction by guest editor, Judith Byfield, “Rethinking the African Diaspora,” are important resources in the field of African Disapora studies. 12. See also his recent edition of papers from the first Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora conference, Diasporic Africa: A Reader (New York University Press, 2006). 13. See Carole Boyce Davies and Babacar M’bow, “Towards African Diaspora Citizenship: Operationalizing an Already Existing Geography.” In McKittrick, Black Geographies (South End Press, 2007). 14. February 1965: The Final Speeches. 15. See Web site of the African Union www.african-union.org. 16. A range of Pan-African activists, thinkers, and strategists from the continent and the African Diaspora met repeatedly in Pan African congresses beginning in 1900 and continuing throughout the century to produce the independence of Africa from colonial rule, to produce independent states, and to secure a place for a range of displaced African Diaspora peoples. These include W. E. B. DuBois, Anna Julia Cooper, Sylvester Williams, George Padmore, C. L. R. James, Marcus Garvey, Edgar Wilmot Blyden, Casely-Hayford, Kwame Nkrumah, and others. DuBois, who was at the first Pan African congress, retired to Ghana; he died and was buried there. Padmore was Nkrumah’s assistant and a major architect of PanAfricanism as articulated by Nkrumah in Ghana. 17. African Union Program Summary, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (CM/Dec. 614 [LXCIV]). 18. See: http://democracy-africa.org/articles/diaspora02.html. 19. See: www.au2002.gov.za/docs/key oau/au act.pdf.

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20. See: http://www.whadn.org/. 21. This site, which is now closed, was available at http://diaspora.northwest ern.edu. 22. See the conference report, “Goa Conference on the African Diaspora in Asia” by Ineke van Kessel, African Affairs, June 6, 2006:1–4. 23. The late Lino de Almeida suggested that it be housed in a place like Brazil.

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Abakuá lodges, called potencias, juegos or tierras (meaning “powers,” “games,” or “lands”), have served many functions in addition to their strictly ritual purposes. They have organized dockworkers, constituted mutual aid societies, formed economic networks, conspired in revolutionary movements, and structured organized crime syndicates. The association of Abakuá with the independent organization of Africans and Afro-Cubans made the latter threatening to colonial and postindependence precommunist Cuban governments, and its members were subject to continued police persecution and even deportation to Africa. Abakuá moved from Regla to Havana when a group from a Cabildo de Nacíon (an organization of Africans of a single ethnicity) bought the secrets of Abakuá from its Efik founders. Abakuá’s secrets must be bought in order for new potencias to be founded. From Havana, Abakuá spread throughout Cuba despite the vigorous and violent efforts of the police to stop its growth. A great scandal erupted among members of Abakuá when the secrets were sold to a group of white Cubans by Andres Facundo de los Dolores Petit in 1863. The fact also caused great consternation among the Cuban police, who were shocked that white Cubans would desire (and

Abakuá is a semisecret male society in Cuba whose history on the island stretches back into the 19th century and the slave trade and which is related to the secret society called Ekpe or Ngebe in Nigeria and the Cameroons. Modern Abakuá is apparently derived from the secret leopard societies of the Efik of Old Calabar. It seems to have been brought by a group of enslaved Efik to the Cuban town of Regla, across the bay from Havana, sometime in the first third of the 19th century. Members of Abakuá, also known as ñáñigos, are best known for their public processions, in which titleholders bear ceremonial staffs, drummers play, and dancers don the outfits of íremes (also called diablitos, “little devils”). These checkered costumes with their distinctive conical headdresses are unmistakably similar to body masks from the Cross River region of Southeast Nigeria and the Cameroons. Abakuá is also famous for its ideographic system of communication, in which members and officeholders are identified by stylized drawings called firmas; complex messages can be conveyed among members through elaborate and beautiful ideograms, each element of which bears a specific meaning. 1 www.abc-clio.com

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Practitioners of Cuba’s Afro-Caribbean “Abakua” brotherhood participate in a ceremony August 20, 2001, in Guanabacoa, just outside Havana. During the ceremony, three men were ascended to new positions, and ten were initiated into the secret religious society. Abakua is one of three Afro-Caribbean religions widely practiced on the island. (Reuters/Corbis)

pay dearly for) admission to an African secret society. In fact, there is evidence that Europeans, including slave traders, were members of Abakuá’s predecessor institutions in Old Calabar. Abakuá potencias are highly structured organizations, with 13 offices to which titleholders (called obones) are appointed and 12 minor stations that regulate the rank-and-file membership. The no-longer-secret mythology of Abakuá involves a woman named Sikán, who caught a fish that was, in fact, the spirit of the deceased king Tanzé. She thus appropriated the power of the Efik kings. Sikán was killed by a man who used her skin and the skin of the fish to con-

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struct a sacred friction drum and established the secret society, initiating its first titleholders. The sounding of the friction drum, the head of which is moistened with the blood of sacrificed animals, is the holiest mystery of Abakuá and is performed in the sanctum sanctorum of Abakuá potencias prior to their public processions. Brian Brazeal See also Cuba: Afro-Cubans. F URTHER R EADING Courlander, Harold. 1994. “Abakwa Meeting in Guanabacoa.” Journal of Negro History 29: 461–470.

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Abolitionism in the African Diaspora | 3 Palmié, Stephan. Forthcoming. “Ekpé/Abakuá in Middle Passage: Time, Space, and Units of Analysis in African American Historical Anthropology.” In The Atlantic Slave Trade in African and African American Memory, ed. Ralph Austen and Ken Warren. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Thompson, Robert F. 1983. Flash of the Spirit: African American Art and Philosophy. New York: Random House.

z Abolitionism in the African Diaspora Enslaved Africans and their descendents throughout the Diaspora were granted emancipation by colonial and newly formed governments over the course of the 19th century. Although the legal mechanism for freedom came through constitutional change, presidential decree, or the passage of congressional or parliamentary bill, it was the actions of the enslaved, in conjunction with free black and white abolitionists, that culminated in the abolishment of slavery. A broad range of tactics was used: armed rebellion, threat of force, escape, petition, self-manumission, public protest, disruption of production, destruction of property, and application of pressure through electoral politics. By the early 16th century, slavery had developed into an international system of exploitation that formed the basis of the modern world’s industrial economy. Slave raiding in Saharan East and West Africa fueled the demand for enslaved men, women, and children in both the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic worlds. Although thousands of slaves were taken each year from East Africa to various ports in the Middle East and South Asia as early as the 10th century, the majority of those held in bondage for their labor were kidnapped from West Africa and then transported to different parts of the Americas starting in the 16th century.

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It is estimated conservatively that, between 1519 and 1867, 11,569,000 Africans were taken to the Americas: 38.5 percent to Brazil, 17.5 percent to Spanish Americas, 28.1 percent to British America (including 6.45 percent to British North America and later the United States), and the remaining 15.9 percent to the French, Danish, and Dutch Americas. In the Americas, Africans and their descendents carried out plantation, domestic, mining, and skilled craft work under constant threat of violence to themselves or their loved ones: whipping, branding, beating, rape, shackling, severing of appendages, and deprivation of food, water, sleep, and shelter. Africans resisted slavery in West Africa en route to the slave ships, in the “factories” that housed slaves, on board the slave ships, upon arrival to the New World, and thereafter. There were at least 493 known cases of slave revolts on Atlantic slave ships between Africa and the Americas. As early as 1522, an African slave revolt was recorded on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (modern-day Dominican Republic and Haiti); another revolt was recorded in New Spain (modern-day Mexico) in 1537. Although most slave revolts were quickly suppressed, they could not be contained indefinitely. Among the largest slave rebellions in North America was the American Revolution itself (1775–1783). Thousands of African Americans were granted their freedom by fighting on either the side of Parliament or the side of the Patriots. Tens of thousands more freed themselves during the chaos of the Revolutionary War. In parts of the African Diaspora, manumission was perceived to be tied to religious conversion. Before they were caught, some of the converted Angolan slaves (from the Kingdom of Kongo) who revolted in Stono, South Carolina, in 1739 had begun marching to Florida with the expectation that Spanish colonists would receive them as fellow Catholics. In the next century, one of the ways in which enslaved Africans set themselves free in parts of the Eastern Hemisphere was by converting to

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Islam. Although mostly isolated, promises of emancipation with Muslim conversion were made in the Islamic world. Force of arms, not religious conversion, however, proved a far more practical and, ultimately, persuasive tactic in creating the conditions for the abolishment of slavery. In addition to organizing slave uprisings in Jamaica, Colombia, and Brazil, many slaves ran away and formed maroon societies (palenques in Spanish; quilombos in Portuguese) in difficult-to-reach areas. Under the leadership of Ganga Zumba, the Quilombo dos Palmares in northeastern Brazil at the turn of the 17th century included as many as 20,000 runaways and their children. Most maroons, however, were smaller—like the Palenque de San Basilio in northern Colombia, with a population onesixth the size of Palmares. Some settlements in the Caribbean and South America formed treaties with local planters, promising to return future runaways. The arrangement provided a kind of circumscribed freedom. But it would take more than 300 years from the time when the first Africans were forcibly brought to the shores of the New World for the slave trade and then slavery itself to be outlawed by ruling governments. Slavery was inconsistently abolished during the 19th century, beginning with Haiti (in 1804) and ending with Brazil (in 1888). In some countries, after slavery was outlawed, it was reinstituted and then later abolished. For instance, although in 1794 France’s National Assembly approved the abolition of slavery in its Caribbean holdings, Napoleon Bonaparte reinstated it in 1802. Slavery was finally abolished during France’s Second Republic in 1848. Within some Western nations and their colonies, slavery was partially abolished. Several states in the northeastern United States abolished slavery in the last decades of the 18th century (first Vermont in 1777, then Pennsylvania in 1780, then Massachusetts in 1783). Gradual emancipation laws were passed that freed children born to enslaved parents, but it

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would take the U.S. Civil War (1861–1865) for slavery to be made illegal nationwide. In Latin America, calls for abolition came with independence movements during the early 19th century. But despite discussion of Enlightenment principles of universal freedom that circulated among leaders of independence movements, with few exceptions calls for abolition were not translated into law upon state formation. Generally, where and when abolition was enacted, as was the case with the British Parliament’s Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, it was accompanied with a transitional status and period for those in bondage. Former slaves were made into “apprentices,” or freed only after reaching a certain age—and without compensation, unlike their former masters. In most of Latin America, it took at least one generation following independence for slavery to be abolished. During the 85 years between abolition in Haiti and Brazil, slavery was finally made illegal in the following places: Chile (1823), the Central American Federation (1824), Mexico (1829), Britain’s Caribbean holdings and Canada (1833), Uruguay (1846), France’s Caribbean holdings (1848), Colombia and Panama (1850), Ecuador (1852), Venezuela (1854), Argentina (1853), Peru (1855), Bolivia (1861), Suriname and the Netherlands’ Caribbean holdings (1863), the United States (1865), Paraguay (1870), Puerto Rico (1878), and Cuba (1886). Abolition took different forms, depending on local circumstances. Slave population density and the ratio of slaves to whites, favorability of topography to escape, strength of the plantation overseers, and strength of the local free black population were all factors that shaped the course of abolitionist struggles in the Americas. In virtually all cases, the process was simultaneously led, although not necessarily coordinated as such, by slaves and free black men and women. White abolitionists played a key role in emancipation movements—serving as repre-

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Abolitionism in the African Diaspora | 5 sentatives, often with particular legal expertise; as propagandists; as financial backers; and as part of networks of political support either through antislavery organizations and electoral parties or as individuals. Nevertheless, abolition would not have been realized had it not been for the ongoing pressures on slave masters generated by the enslaved, and no single event had a greater impact on the antislavery struggle in the Americas than the Haitian revolution. Beginning with a massive slave revolt in 1791 and ending with independence from France in 1804, the Haitian revolution served as the defining event for emancipation in the Western Hemisphere. Haiti, the first black-led republic, became a point of reference—the example of a successful slave revolt leading to general emancipation—for slaves and slave masters alike. For inspiration, the former drew on the success of Haiti under the leadership of Toussaint L’Ouverture. Denmark Vesey, a former slave from the West Indies who bought his freedom, planned a slave insurrection in South Carolina in 1822 using Haiti as a guiding example. Likewise, in 1829 the African American propagandist David Walker wrote his Appeal . . . to the Coloured Citizens of the World, urging armed rebellion based in part on the experience of former slaves in Haiti. By contrast, slave masters became fearful precisely because of what had happened in Haiti—leading to even greater systems of control. Laws were passed that forbade slaves to learn to read and write and punished those who attempted to instruct them; further restrictions were made on the ability of any black person—free or slave—to move outside his or her immediate locale; all the while, local white militias were strengthened to monitor African American communities. Besides slaves, who made their own demands, among the first to call for the abolition of slavery in colonial North America were white members of the Society of Friends—the Quakers. Based on religious and moral convic-

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tion, white Quaker communities were known to purchase slaves for the purpose of manumitting them. Other nonviolent avenues were pursued using legal and political pressure. During the American Revolution, petitions were carried by African Americans in Boston seeking freedom; in Charleston, South Carolina, slaves appropriated the language of freedom permeating the era and paraded in the city chanting, “Liberty! Liberty!”; and in Pennsylvania, antislavery societies were formed, bringing black and white abolitionists together for the first time to organize broader support. Despite the antislavery efforts of the 1770s and 1780s, the abolition of slavery was not incorporated into the U.S. Constitution. Instead, a compromise was met in which slaves in individual states counted as three-fifths of free citizens for the purposes of apportionment of representatives to Congress. Although the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 did make slavery illegal in new states to be formed north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi, and while the Constitution outlawed the Atlantic slave trade beginning in 1807, the slave population continued to grow. By the first decade of the 19th century, more than one million Africans were enslaved in the United States. Slavery was not restricted to the South but had become an integral part of the social and economic fabric of the nation as a whole. And despite having been made illegal in certain northern states, slavery was not fully abolished in the North for decades; New York did not abolish slavery until 1827. More rebellions and conspiracies followed as the institution of slavery itself expanded. It would take nearly two generations following the Revolution for abolitionism to develop into a full-fledged movement. By the early 1830s, in the wake of Walker’s Appeal, Nat Turner’s slave rebellion in southern Virginia, and the Second Great Awakening (an evangelical movement in the Northeast that helped to spur a number of reform movements beginning in the 1820s), a discernible antislavery

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movement emerged. Grounded in free northern black communities and centered on the newly formed American Antislavery Society (AAS) in Massachusetts and its leader, William Lloyd Garrison, a white abolitionist, the movement began to make the antislavery cause a broader public issue. Frederick Douglass, who had escaped slavery in Maryland, became the 19th century’s most prominent African American, toured the North to build support for the abolitionist cause. By 1838, the AAS had more than a quarter of a million members. Douglass’s agitation and that of other speakers, the publication of Garrison’s newspaper, The Liberator, and the widespread circulation of antislavery pamphlets and petitions forced national proslavery politicians to react. In 1836, Congress adopted a “gag rule” forbidding petitions about slavery on the floor of the House of Representatives. Southern mail was censored in reaction to the spread of abolitionist literature, and the movement’s leaders were physically attacked, some murdered. Over the next decades, abolitionists used third parties to build the movement: first with the Liberty Party, followed by the Free Soil Party, and then with the Republican Party—the party in power that prosecuted the war that ended slavery. On the eve of the Civil War, the number of slaves in the nation had grown to nearly 4 million men, women, and children of African descent (five times the number at the founding of the nation). The actions of black men and women who left plantations en masse for the ranks of Union armies profoundly shaped the direction of the war; eventually it prompted the U.S. president to call for partial emancipation. Contrary to popular belief, Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 freed slaves only in the Confederate-held areas of the country. The proclamation may be understood as a military tactic designed to create further agitation among slaves in rebel territory; it did nothing to free slaves in the Union in and of itself. It did help the process of emancipation already under way by helping to trans-

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form the war’s meaning—from a war to preserve the Union to a war of liberation. African Americans were critical agents of change both as combatants in the war and as citizens during Reconstruction following the war. Through Union Leagues, African Americans supported the Republican Party, whose Radical members—that is, abolitionists who believed in political equality for African Americans—had been gaining political influence in Congress. The role of African Americans during the war, the lasting imprimatur of Lincoln’s proclamation, and the strength of such Radical Republicans as Thaddeus Stevens in Congress, led to the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment on December 18, 1865, abolishing slavery. In South America, abolitionism took a less dramatic and organized form, although slave resistance involving thousands placed constant pressure on colonial and newly independent governments. Although in 1850 the slave population in Peru, at 19,000 (down from 50,000 at the time of Peru’s independence in 1825), was relatively small compared to slave populations in the United States (nearly 4 million), Brazil (2 million), and Cuba (370,000), it still constituted an important factor in the economies of Lima and other agricultural zones along the coast. Enslaved people of African descent worked in the countryside carrying out plantation labor and in the mines of the continent, although a number of urban areas had large slave populations. Out of a population of 206,000 in Rio de Janeiro, for instance, 79,000 were slaves. In Ecuador, the black population was largely concentrated in the northwest Pacific coastal province of Esmeraldas; in Colombia, most slaves were located in the area of Chocó on the Atlantic coast, although there were significant numbers on the Caribbean coast in the area of Cartagena, a primary slave trading entrepôt in the Americas. With the notable exception of Brazil, where the abolition of slavery was particularly protracted and included sustained international

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Abolitionism in the African Diaspora | 7 pressure, by the mid-1850s slavery had been largely abolished in South America. The abolition of slavery in Ecuador, as in Peru and other Andean nations, took decades to complete after independence. In Ecuador and Peru, it began in 1821 with declarations of abolition by independent leaders, notably General Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín. Afro-Peruvians and Ecuadorians took advantage of the outbreak of war—in the same way that Southern African Americans would forty years later—to advance emancipation. Like Lincoln in the 1860s, Generals San Martín and Bolívar issued calls for emancipation as a military tactic. Bolívar had received military aid from Haiti’s president Alexandre Pétion in 1817 in his struggle for independence from Spain, with the promise that slavery would be abolished should he succeed. However, AfroColombians and their counterparts further south did not wait but instead joined the ranks of the independence movements to move forward general emancipation. During the interval between the first declarations of emancipation and the time of abolition nationally in the 1850s, slaves in Peru and Ecuador, often with the help of their free black counterparts, contributed to the weakening of slavery. They did so through their efforts to secure manumission and better treatment, as well as through open rebellion. In 1851, a slave revolt in the Chicama Valley destabilized the surrounding plantation authorities. That same year, slavery in Ecuador was abolished with the signing of the Urbina Decree and ratified by the Convention of Guayaquil the following year. Slavery in Peru was finally abolished by decree in 1855 when political rivals at war began to appeal to slaves, again for military support by fighting on their side in return for freedom. Slavery and slave trading of Africans and their descendents have continued through different means. African slave trading between Africa and India continued at least into the 1860s; Brazil did not officially end slavery until

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1888; and in Africa proper, forms of bondage continued in northern Nigeria into the 20th century. Despite the abolition of slavery by all the former European colonial powers and new nation-states that subsequently emerged across the globe, at the dawn of the 21st century, forms of labor expropriation continue. Two hundred years after the abolishment of the slave trade by the U.S. and British governments (Parliament passed the Anti-Slavery Trade Act on March 25, 1807, prompting celebrations on its 200th year anniversary), and more than 150 years after the ending of slavery in much of the Americas, its practice persists in parts of Central America, the Caribbean, East Asia, Eastern Europe, and East Africa. Slavery and other slavelike forms of labor (including prostitution and sweatshop rings) thrive even as they are officially outlawed by governments and condemned by most citizens. Omar H. Ali See also African Americans and the Constitutional Order; Argentina: Afro-Argentines; Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Diasporic Marronage; Ecuador: Afro- Ecuadorians; Haiti; Haitian Revolution. F URTHER R EADING Berlin, Ira, et al. 1992. Slaves No More: Three Essays on Emancipation and the Civil War. New York: Cambridge University Press. Blanchard, Peter. 1992. Slavery and Abolition in Early Republican Peru. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources. Brown, Christopher L. 2006. Moral Capital: Foundation of British Abolitionism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Dubois, Laurent, and John D. Garrigus. 2006. Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 1789–1804: A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Genovese, Eugene D. 1979. From Rebellion to Revolution: Afro-American Slave Revolts in the Making of the Modern World. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. James, C. L. R. 1989. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. 2nd ed. New York: Vintage Books. Landers, Jane G., and Barry M. Robinson. 2006. Slaves, Subjects, and Subversives: Blacks in

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8 | Abu-Jamal, Mumia (1954–) Colonial Latin America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. McKivigan, John R., ed. 1999. Antislavery Violence: Sectional, Racial, and Cultural Conflict in Antebellum America. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. Peabody, Sue, and Keila Grinberg, eds. 2007. Slavery, Freedom, and the Law in the Atlantic World: A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Price, Richard, ed. 1996. Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas. 3rd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Scott, Rebecca, et al. 1988. The Abolition of Slavery and the Aftermath of Emancipation in Brazil. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Stewart, James B. 1997. Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery. New York: Hill and Wang.

z Abu-Jamal, Mumia (1954–) Considered the world’s most renowned political prisoner, Mumia was born Wesley Cook on April 24, 1954, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and was given the Swahili name Mumia in high school by a Kenyan teacher. He added Abu (“father of ”) and Jamal when his first son, Mazi Jamal, was born, on July 18, 1971. The FBI opened a file on him at a very early age, while he was organizing demonstrations to have his high school, Benjamin Franklin High School, renamed for Malcolm X. In 1969, he became lieutenant of information for the Philadelphia branch of the Black Panther Party and wrote articles for the party’s national newspaper. He then became one of the targets of COINTELPRO (the COunter INTELligence PROgram). As a journalist, during the 1970s, he covered the violent repression suffered by the antiestablishment MOVE community created by John Africa. On August 8, 1978, following years of brutal police treatment, a massive attack was mounted against MOVE by the Philadelphia Police Department and the City, creating the

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MOVE 9 and finally ending with the dropping of a C-4 bomb on their communal house on May 13, 1985. Six adults and five children were killed. Abu-Jamal, who had covered the MOVE trials and demonstrations in 1979, was soon nicknamed the “Voice of the Voiceless” for his exposure of police brutality and his open criticism of local police and political leaders’ corruption. In 1981, as an award-winning Pennsylvania journalist, he became president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists. His drawing closer to MOVE increased the exasperation of Philadelphia police and politicians and earned him dismissal from his job as a radio journalist. He then became a freelance journalist, driving a taxi at night to make ends meet. At an early hour on December 9, 1981, AbuJamal, who had just dropped a client off in South Philly, was involved in a shooting in which he was very seriously injured and in which Officer Daniel Faulkner was shot and killed with a 44-caliber gun, according to ballistic experts. Despite his denial, the subsequent slapdash investigation involved contradictory police reports about Abu-Jamal’s alleged confession, the dismissal, threatening and bribery of key witnesses, and the violation of his most elementary human rights. On July 3, 1982, he received the death penalty, delivered under pressure from the well-known “Hanging Judge” Sabo, a member of the Fraternal Order of Police. Such world leaders and legal groups as Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, the European Parliament, the Detroit and San Francisco city councils, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School, the National Lawyers Guild, the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus, and Amnesty International all detailed the many violations of U.S. and international law that were committed and denounced both the unjust trial of 1982 and the postconviction relief appeal of 1995.

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Abyssinia/Ethiopia | 9 Since 1995, new defense evidence exposing Abu-Jamal’s frame-up has been consistently rejected by the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, preventing the higher courts from reviewing relevant affidavits. In November 2001, his appeal was therefore denied, and on December 18, 2001, the federal district court changed his death sentence to life in prison with no possibility of parole but upheld his conviction, considering that, although there was no evidence of innocence, the issue of racist jury selection and the instructions given to the jury by Judge Sabo were worthy of review by the federal court of appeals. Since both sides appealed—Abu-Jamal because he wants his conviction overturned and the prosecution because they want him dead—the matter will have to be settled in the federal district court of appeals, the final stage before turning to the state supreme court. Since 1982, the fight for a new trial that will set him free has been long and arduous, but the evergrowing international mobilization has already succeeded in stopping two death warrants signed in 1995 and 1999. For the 23 years that Abu-Jamal has been the resident of SCI Greene, Pennsylvania, locked up 23 hours a day in an inhumanly small cell and denied contact visits with his closest relatives, he has been the most vocally talented death-row inmate hell has ever sheltered. His writings include Live from Death Row; Death Blossoms: Reflections from a Prisoner of Conscience (1996); Faith of Our Fathers: An Examination of the Spiritual Life of African and African American People (2003); We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party. He is also a radio commentator, delivering his weekly phoned-in chronicles, which are posted at www.prisonradio.org, on a network of radio stations. Diarapha Diallo-Gibert See also Black Panther Party; COINTELPRO; Malcolm X (1925–1965). F URTHER R EADING Abu-Jamal, Mumia. 1996. Live from Death Row. New York: HarperPerennial.

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Abu-Jamal, Mumia. 2004. We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Amnesty International. 2001. The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Life in the Balance (Open Media Pamphlet Series). London: Open Media. Bisson, Terry. 2001. On a Move: The Story of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Farmington, PA: Plough Publishing House. Death Penalty Information Center. June 1998. The Death Penalty in Black and White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides. www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article (accessed November 25, 2007). Edgington, John, dir. 1996. A Case for Reasonable Doubt (Video). HBO.

z Abyssinia/Ethiopia Abyssinia, which is known today as Ethiopia, was a land of great history, power, and rich culture. Ethiopia is a federal democratic republic with nine regions. It is bordered by Eritrea and Djibouti in the north, Sudan in the west, Somalia in the east, and Kenya and Somalia in the south. There are many ethnic groups in Ethiopia: the Oromo, the Amhara, the Tigrawot, and others. Many kingdoms and emperors have ruled Abyssinia over time; the last emperor, Haile Selassie I, was overthrown by the military in 1974. After the long, brutal, military rule of M. Mengistu, the country won back its freedom in May 1999. Ethiopians speak different languages: Amharic, Tigrinya, Oromunga, Guaraginga, and English as the official language. Ethiopia’s population is 73 million, with three major religions: Islam, 45–50 percent, Christianity, 35– 40 percent, African religions, 12 percent, and others, 3 percent. The literacy level in Ethiopia is very low, and 50 percent of the population lives below poverty level. Seventy percent of the citizens engage in farming and produce coffee for export. Abyssinia/Ethiopia is famous worldwide for its Axumite kingdoms; it has never been

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colonized by European powers except for Italy’s attempt between 1936 and 1942. Christianity was introduced to Abyssinia in the fourth century, Judaism in the sixth century, and Islam in the seventh century. Ethiopia attracts many tourists today because of its nice weather and its beauty. Addis Ababa, the capital, is the headquarters of the African Union. Yushau Sodiq See also Africa; African Union (AU); Axum; Rastafarianism. F URTHER R EADING Corona, Laurel. 2001. Ethiopia. San Diego, CA: Lucent Books. Kurtz, Jane. 1991. Ethiopia: The Roof of Africa. New York: Dillon Press. Marcus, Harold G. 1994. A History of Ethiopia. Berkeley: University of California Press.

z Achebe, Chinua (1930–) Chinua Achebe is one of the most influential voices of the 20th century, recognized as one of the first African novelists encountered across the Diaspora. As a teacher, novelist, poet, essayist, and statesman, Achebe traverses the fields of art, culture, and ideas while exhibiting craftsmanship in various genres with quiet confidence and an unyielding desire to speak truth to power. He is both a celebrated African intellectual and a global citizen in the sense that his writings not only address peculiar political and cultural realities in Africa but also resonate around the world with his artistry and candid vision. His novels have been translated into more than 50 languages; his first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), has surpassed 40 translations alone. Achebe was born on November 16, 1930, in Ogidi, southeastern Nigeria. His father was a lay worker in the Anglican Church in the early days of Christianity in that part of the country, and

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Achebe experienced firsthand the confusions and anxieties driving the transformation of his Igbo society by western education and religion. He attended a primary school run by the United Kingdom–based Church Missionary Society; from 1944 to 1947 he attended the elite secondary school Government College, Umuahia, and proceeded to University of Ibadan, where he obtained his bachelor’s degree in 1953. From 1954 to 1966, Achebe worked in the media industry as a journalist, a radio talk-show producer, and, most important, the founder and director of the Voice of Nigeria. In 1958, motivated by what he saw as the denigration of the African in novels by the English writers Joyce Cary (Mister Johnson) and Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness), Achebe published his first novel. In Achebe’s first novel, Things Fall Apart, he vividly portrays a complex and pulsating African society that is rich in tradition and values. The novel effectively exposed the deleterious agenda of colonialism; it also inspired a new generation of African and African Diasporic writers who wanted to celebrate their humanity and cultures. It was followed by No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), and A Man of the People (1966). In Achebe’s novels, the abundance of proverbs, folktales, and songs drawn from Igbo oral tradition established a new African narrative paradigm that such novelists as Elechi Amadi, Flora Nwapa, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and John Munonye would follow. Yet, celebratory of Igbo oral forms as Achebe’s novels are, some also show his sense of disappointment with the performance of the African elite who took over from the European colonizers. Achebe has also published children’s books, collections of short stories, lectures (Home and Exile, 2000), and six volumes of poetry, including one in Igbo (Aka Weta, 1982), which he coedited with Obiora Udechukwu. In February 1990, an international symposium was convened at University of Nigeria, Nsukka, to celebrate the life and works of Achebe on his 60th birthday. Unfortunately, a month after the symposium, Achebe was in-

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Adivasi | 11 volved in an automobile accident in Nigeria while traveling to catch a plane that would take him to the United States for a speaking engagement at Stanford University. The accident left him partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. Beyond his pioneering and influential contribution to African literature, Achebe’s essays on African literary criticism are famous for their rhetorical elegance and poignancy of thought. His first two collections of essays, Morning Yet on Creation Day (1975) and Hopes and Impediments (1988), not only articulate what may be regarded as his artistic credo but also, by implication, advance his views on what African literature ought to be about. Achebe has also been involved in African Diaspora alliances, forging friendships with such noted African American writers as James Baldwin and Toni Morrison and Caribbean writer Michael Thelwell, and inspiring a host of writers as well. In 1999, he was appointed United Nations goodwill ambassador for the Population Fund, and in 2000 he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Achebe continues to teach and write at Bard College, New York, where he has been the Charles P. Stevenson Professor of Literature since September 1990. In 2007 Achebe won the Man Booker International Prize for fiction. Chiji Akoma See also Africa. F URTHER R EADING Booker, M. Keith, ed. 2003. The Chinua Achebe Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Egejuru, Phanuel A. 2002. Chinua Achebe: Pure and Simple, an Oral Biography. Lagos, Nigeria: Malthouse Press. Gikandi, Simon. 1991. Reading Chinua Achebe: Language and Ideology in Fiction. New York: Heinemann Education Books. Ihekweazu, Edith, ed. 1996. Eagle on Iroko: Selected Papers from the Chinua Achebe International Symposium, 1990. Ibadan, Nigeria: Heinemann Education Books. Lindfors, Bernth, ed. 1997. Conversations with Chinua Achebe. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

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Ohaeto, Ezenwa. 1997. Chinua Achebe: A Biography. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

z Adivasi “Adivasi” is the collective term for an assortment of indigenous Africoid and Australoid tribal populations located within the Indian subcontinent. The word means “old people” (adi, “origin,” and vasi, “dweller”) in Sanskrit. Adivasis are those original inhabitants of South Asia who precede the Dravidian settlement of South India, which dates back to 2000 BCE, and the various waves of Aryan, or Indo-European, invasions into northwest India that began around 1500 BCE. Most scholars and anthropologists identify Adivasis as pre-Dravidians, and they are regarded as members of the African Diaspora. This designation includes all major tribal groups that originate from the prehistoric dispersal of Africans (including Australoids) into India approximately ten thousand years ago. Furthermore, it includes the present-day diminutive Africoid populations found on the Andaman and Nicobar islands. Likewise, as a consequence of the geographic isolation from the mainstream Hindu/Aryan society, most Adivasi tribal groups have maintained the integrity of their African/Austric language, culture, and genetic composition for several thousand years despite widespread attempts at cultural colonization and enslavement on the part of Indo-European mainstream society. Historically, the particular tribal groups that were subdued under the racist infrastructure of the Brahmins ultimately became part of the Dalit, or black untouchable, outcasts of India. More generally, with regards to the caste system, the Adivasi tribes function outside the racially based social order known as Brahmanism, yet they are designated as scheduled castes or tribes according to the reservation or

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“affirmative action” classification system created by the Indian government. In the context of the global African presence, Adivasi tribes suffer from political and economic struggles similar to those that plague the indigenous black communities of postapartheid South Africa and the aboriginal inhabitants of Australia. Based on geographical and linguistic affinities, Adivasis can be grouped into two major categories, the Kolerians and the protoDravidians. The Kolerians are an assemblage of black Austro-Asiatic tribes who mainly inhabit the eastern portion of the Indian subcontinent. This includes the Munda, the Santals, the Ho, the Oraon, and various closely related tribes. In terms of culture, language, and phenotypes, the Kolerians bear prominent similarities to the Melanesians, Oceanic Negroids, and Australian Aboriginals. The proto-Dravidians live mostly in the jungles of southern and western India and in the hill-strewn country of Central India. They are recognized by anthropologists as the first occupants of southern India. This tribal membership includes the Irula, the Kadir, the Kanikar, and the Paniyan, as well as various closely related tribes. Centuries later, a large segment of this population merged with the Dravidian immigrants to create classical Dravidian civilization, while a smaller segment remained in the forests and jungles to preserve the culture and lifestyles of their proto-Dravidian ancestors. Linguistically, the proto-Dravidians are related to such modern Dravidian languages as Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam. Horen Tudu See also Dalits: The Black Untouchables of India; Dravidians; India and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Ghurye, G. 1969. Caste and Race in India. Bombay, India: Popular Prakashan. Risley, H. H. 1891. The Tribes and Castes of Bengal, vols. 1, 2. Calcutta, India: Bengal Secretariat Press.

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Africa For most modern historians, Africa derives its name from the Phoenician Afryqah, meaning “colony,” as transliterated into Roman Latin. In this Eurocentric formulation, the name applied to the area surrounding Carthage, the “new city,” which became the colony of Tyre. The word’s root is afir, meaning “city,” and relates to the mystical name Ophir of the Bible, whose antecedents go deeper into history, suggesting Assyrian and/or Semitic origin. Rome’s conquest of Carthage around 146 BCE resulted in the word’s transliteration to the Roman Latin form Africa; it was first introduced as Africa Nova, “new Africa,” and Africa Propria, the “original territory of Africa.” Under Emperor Augustus’s rule, the Roman Empire’s provinces were reorganized, and Africa was given Proconsularis status. As such, a proconsul who reported to the Roman senate uniquely governed the province. In light of its strategic and economic importance to Rome, the size of the province was greatly increased, extending westward to today’s Algiers, eastward to Libya’s Tripolitania, and southward to cover the southern reaches of today’s Tunisia. However, if we relocate our analysis to the peoples of the continent, we see the name Africa inscribed at the heart of their linguistic productions, hence dismantling the myth of a European linguistic creation. In this location, several interpretations that are all somewhat related appear among Africans. These similarities are not surprising, as most African languages originated from the ancient Proto-Kordofanian. For some of us, Africa means “AF-Ra-Ka-Flesh of Ra’s double.” According to this version, Afu represents an infinite number of flesh in one finite form, as opposed to Af-Ra, the Flesh of Ra (the Flesh of God). As such, Af-ra-ka originated from a Hamic Ethiopian expression used by Ethiopians to describe Heru (Osiris). For others, the name derives from the old Egyptian language n’fr, meaning “good,” “beautiful,” “perfect.” In

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Africa | 13 any case, variants of the word can be found in many African languages from East to West Africa. These include Afra, mphura, ifra, afar, and so forth. These words are still present in several African languages and in individual communities. Afar (“people of east Africa”), Nefertari, and Snefru come to mind; translation with an addition of the Greek suffix ca gives Afri-ca, “land of perfection.” The continent of Africa is the second largest of the planet Earth after Asia. Its landmass is about 30,221,532 square kilometers (11,668, 545 square miles), meaning that it covers 6 percent of the total surface of Earth. The continent is bordered on the north by the Mediterranean Sea, on the south by the Indian Ocean, and on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. The equator crosses it in the middle, making it the only continent with several climate areas ranging from the temperate north to the temperate south. Africa is the cradle of the human race; from there, humans spread out to cover planet Earth. According to Cheikh Anta Diop (1983), humanity was born in Africa, where the separation of the human from the animal took place. This important event took place about 5.6 million years ago. It is in Africa, and on no other continent, that we have found all the fossil specimens: the two varieties of Australopithecus, robustus and gracilis; Homo habilis; Homo erectus; the Neanderthal that is the ancient Homo faber; and Homo sapiens sapiens— the twice intelligent human. This last specimen was born in Africa 120,000 years ago. This humanity was born below the equator, below the Kenyan latitude—meaning below a latitude in which the flux of ultraviolet radiation is such that any human organism born in it is necessarily pigmented and black. Thus, it would not have been possible for the first humanity to survive had it not been pigmented black, nature having created nothing by accident. Hence, pigmentation has a protective function, protecting the organism against the ultraviolet radiation that otherwise would have completely destroyed all the organism’s cells.

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Humanity developed in Africa from 120,000 years ago to 40,000 years ago and left Africa to populate the rest of the world via two routes. The first was through the Suez isthmus, which explains the existence of fossil specimens in Palestine, although they are much more recent than the African specimens. The second is through Gibraltar, where early travelers left traces in the cave paintings. Only southern Europe, toward the warm seas of the Crimea, the south of France, and the south of Spain, was habitable. Here, we found the negroid humanity that lived in Europe 40,000 years ago. As it was necessary to be black to survive in the African climate, so was it equally necessary, in the cold climate where there was no ultraviolet radiation, to have a light skin to survive. Hence, the black human depigmented, and his morphology changed, to adapt to the climatic conditions of the cold regions. Hence, the first type of “white,” all ideology apart, appeared 20,000 years ago during the Solutrean era—that is, the Cro-Magnon. Hence, the first inhabitant of Europe is a black person—the Grimaldi man, if we limit ourselves to Homo sapiens sapiens. This is the process by which the white came out of the black, and subsequently all the other races, by indirect filiations. Therefore, this humanity that was born in Africa and populated Earth, and that was necessarily negroid and born at the source of the Nile River, had 120,000 years to come down from Uganda to populate the Nile Valley and hence Egypt. From this region, at the end of the Paleolithic Era, black Africans migrated to populate the continent. Remains of cattle dating back 10,000–9,000 years have been found in this region. The black population covered the Sahara as far as the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, as evidenced by the Caspian Negroid paintings of the Sahara and the first representations of the Libyans in Egyptian iconography. Evidence of civilization has been attested to at several archeological sites, characterized by the consumption of fish and mollusks in the high plateau of the south of Kenya and the north of Tanzania.

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Around 8000 BCE, polished tools began to appear. In Zambia, in the massif of the Aïr, in Iwo Elery (Nigeria), in Khartoum (Sudan), all over the continent, human presence popped up to testify to the long occupation of the continent by blacks. In West Africa, the Nok civilization began in 3500 BCE and lasted until 200 CE; it was followed by the Ifa civilization. In East Africa, the ceramic of Camble found in the cave of Elmenteita east of Victoria-Nyanza is dated at 6000 BCE. Demographers estimate that the population of ancient Egypt must have been seven to eight million. Egypt is fundamental to any presentation of black Africa. Egypt arose at the end of the 15th century BCE to conquer the kingdoms of Kush and Nubia and expanded its control beyond Napata on the 4th cataract (C. Williams) before succumbing to the conquests of the Persians in 525 BCE and Alexander in 332 BCE. However, despite their control of this part of the continent, the interior of the continent remained mostly unknown to these various invaders. In the seventh century BCE, Pharaoh Necho ordered an expedition similar to that of the Hannon (Carthage) of the fifth century BCE, but neither yielded substantial information on the hinterland of Africa. The Arabs entered Africa in 639/642 BCE and founded Kairouan in 670 BCE, hence controlling all what is today called North Africa. Morocco served them as a platform for the invasion of Spain. This highlights the active African presence in world history and the primary role it played through kingdoms such as Kush, for example, in its conquering of Egypt in the seventh century BCE and the rise of the Nubian Twenty-Fifth Dynasty. The decline of pharaonic Egypt was succeeded by the rise of Nubia in the constitution of the kingdom of Meroë that followed the kingdom of Napata in the sixth century BCE. Meroë was the kingdom through which the iron industry expanded throughout Africa up to Tchad, the Benoue, and the Gulf of Guinea. The great Bantu migrations carried the iron in-

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dustry to central and austral Africa. This highlights Africa’s advance from the age of stone to that of iron without passing through the age of bronze. The first organized African empires developed around the eighth century. Among the sites of development were the regions of the Senegalese River and the Bight of Benin because of their then-humid climate and the presence of salt and gold. Some of these early empires were: the kingdom of Aoudagost (Mauritania), the Tekrour kingdom (Senegal), the Mandingo kingdoms at the south of the upper Niger, the Mossi kingdom in the Bight of Benin, the Songhai kingdom, around Gao (Mali), and the kingdom of Ouagadougou to the Sarakolle between Senegal and Niger, which monopolized the gold trade. It is this kingdom that later became the empire of Ghana, which reached its zenith in the 11th century and was destroyed by the Arab Almoravids’ capture of Kumbi Saleh in 1077. On the ruins of the Ghana empire, Africans rebuilt the kingdom of Sosso, which assumed the leadership of the resistance of Islamic expansion in the 12th century. However, the inability of Sosso to subdue the Mandingo and its subsequent defeat by the army of Sundjata Keita at the battle of Kirina in 1235 gave rise to the most powerful state West Africa has ever witnessed: the Mali empire. The Mali empire was born from the ancient Mandingo empire. Under the dynasties of the Keita in the 13th century, it expanded rapidly by using Islam as an instrument of centralization. The title of Mansa was introduced to designate the ruler, and under the rule of one of the Mansa—Kanka Moussa, who ruled from 1307–1332—the empire expanded from the actual Republic of Gambia to the Bight of Benin. The empire of Mali maintained international relations with such other parts of Africa as Egypt and the Trypolitan regions. It left an indelible mark on the memory of West Africans, surviving until the 17th century, when it was replaced by the Songhai kingdom,

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Mosque in Djenne, Mali, West Africa. (Corel)

the capital of which was Gao, on the banks of the Niger River. The Songhai kingdom was destroyed by the Moroccan expedition of Sultan Ahmed el-Mansour in 1591. Between the Niger and Chad, in the north of today’s Republic of Nigeria, powerful kingdoms arose between the ninth and 10th centuries. Of particular interest is the Hausa states’ confederation of 14 cities regulated by an aristocratic organization that later regrouped to form the kingdom of Kebbi. This kingdom survived until the 19th century, when it was conquered by the Fulani. In the region of Chad, several kingdoms also developed to control the trade between Nubia and the desert. These include the kingdoms of Kanem, Bornu, and Baguirmi. The Bornu rose to prominence by creating the most powerful army in black Africa and being the first to use firearms, which they bought from the Arabs. These factors allowed the Bornu to conquer most of the desert zones. Other kingdoms in these regions in-

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cluded the Christian kingdom of Ouadaï, the kingdom of Darfur, and Kordofan, which survived until the 16th century, when the Arabs conquered them all. It is worth noting that, throughout this period, Europe had no contact with Africa that was not through the Arabs. Arab travelers and scholars, such as Ibn Batuta, provided most of the information Europeans received about Africa. Maritime discoveries of the 15th century were targeted less toward Africa than toward India, which was the destination of explorers. To reach India, they had to circle Africa, which was just a stop on the way to the Indies. It is only after the establishment of the first trading posts (comptoirs) of the 15th century that the Portuguese realized that the continent contained riches of its own (gold, spices, ebony wood, and Africans) worthy of exploitation. In 1420, the Portuguese reached the islands of Madera, in 1424 the Cape of Boador, and in 1445 the Senegal. In the following years, they

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reached Sierra Leone and the Bight of Benin. In 1462, Bartholomeo Dias reached the island of Madagascar and hence completed the European journey around Africa. Although these contacts cannot be described as the beginning of what would follow later—colonizing Africa hadn’t yet been spoken of—mercantile activities were at the heart of the project. In this context, the Portuguese, Spanish, French, British, and Dutch established trading posts all around the continent. In this first period of contacts at the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th centuries, Europeans’ main interests were gold, ivory, and spices. However, these interests would quickly mutate to the most inhuman crime against humanity: the slave trade. There is a kind of malediction in the coincidence that the arrival of the Portuguese in Africa coincided with the discovery of the Americas in 1492; the main thrust of this coincidence was the need for labor, which in turn would generate the Mahaafa—that is, the slave trade. Although slavery had existed in several societies across time, it is the triangular trade, because of its specific focus on a particular race and its rationale based on intellectual, cultural, and religious justification, that made it the most horrendous crime against humanity known to recorded history. Legitimized as early as 1518, for the next three centuries the capture and trading of Africans toward the Americas wreaked havoc on the African coasts of the Atlantic Ocean. From the 17th century on, the whole of Europe at some point or other monopolized the privilege of engaging in this activity: from the years 1543–1834, first the Portuguese and then the Dutch, British, and French fought for the privilege of asiento—the permission given by the Spanish government to other countries to sell slaves to the Spanish colonies. The fight for asiento led to the European war of succession in Spain, the outcome of which conceded asiento to the British in 1713. Thus, all the nations of Europe participated in the slave trade; it is that which made

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the fortunes of such cities and ports as Liverpool, Nantes, and Bordeaux. The European trade in African human beings also reawakened the Arabic slave trade. On all the coast of Africa, from Senegal to the Congo, the consequences for the African peoples were catastrophic. The slave trade depopulated Africa and redirected Africa’s economy exclusively toward the activities of warfare and razzias. It is estimated that between 12 and 20 million people were taken from Africa to the Americas, for a total population of 40 million, in the 19th century. Therefore, the slave trade ruined Africa economically, scientifically, demographically, and culturally as its most able bodies were taken away (Rodney 1981). Although Africans visited several parts of the world long before the so-called European discoveries of peoples and their land, it is from the genocidal, forced, and brutal dispersal of millions of Africans into foreign lands during the African slave trade that the African Diaspora mostly emerged. Hence, to the African Union, the African Diaspora “consists of people of African origin living outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship and nationality and who are willing to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the African Union.” The union’s constitutive act declares that it shall “invite and encourage the full participation of the African Diaspora as an important part of our Continent, in the building of the African Union.” Although Africa thought of a possible time to heal the wounds sustained over four hundred years of slavery, Europe was busy devising other methods of subjugation and oppression: colonialism. The proliferation of European claims on African territories from the 1880s set in motion another century of domination, oppression, and genocide of Africa by European nations. By 1884–1885, all the culprit nations of Europe sat around a table like vultures, tearing Africa to pieces. The psychological and cultural havoc this criminal act wreaked on the peoples of Africa has not yet

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African American Vernacular English (AAVE) | 17 been fully appreciated. The destruction of kinship, cultural patterns, and social organizations and the economic exploitation, forced labor, and genocide remain a field of study to which generations of African scholars will devote their lives. Despite these attempts to erase Africans from the map of human geography, they survived and through heroic struggles for decolonization regained their sovereignty. Today, the continent of Africa is composed of 53 states: Algeria, Angola, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania (currently suspended for coup d’état), Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Rwanda, São Tomé and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Western Sahara (SADR), Zambia, and Zimbabwe. These states are united under the continental organization the African Union (AU). Neocolonialism, corrupt leadership, an unjust system of international trade, the burden of a debt that impedes any meaningful development, and the new rise of imperialism are but a few of the challenges that lie ahead. However, just as it has overcome 400 years of slavery and 100 years of colonialism, Africa is still standing, searching for a future of its own choosing. Babacar M’bow See also African Union (AU). F URTHER R EADING Diop, C. A. 1983. The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books. Diop, C. A. 1988. Precolonial Black Africa. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books. Diop, C. A. 1991. Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books.

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Rodney, Walter. 1981. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Washington, DC: Howard University Press. UNESCO. 1989–1999. General History of Africa, vols. 1–8. Los Angeles, CA: UNESCO / University of California Press. Williams, Chancellor. 1987. The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C to 2000 A.D. Chicago: Third World Press.

z African American Vernacular English (AAVE) A language referred to historically with numerous references: Negro Dialect, Substandard Negro English, Nonstandard Negro English, Black English, Vernacular Black English (VBE), Black English Vernacular (BEV), Afro-American English, and now also referred to as African American English (AAE), African American Language (AAL), Black Talk, Ebonics, and Spoken Soul. Such a variety of nomenclature is indicative of the controversy surrounding its history. African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is an ethnic variety of the language spoken in the United States by many African Americans whose African ancestors were formally colonized in America from the 16th through the 19th centuries. The term “vernacular” applies to the unmonitored, everyday speech spoken in a local community; it contains and is defined by socially stigmatized grammatical elements and linguistic structures that contrast with the official standard. African American Vernacular English differs in some way from community to community, but shared patterns of pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar identify it all as AAVE. Beginning with the 1960s introductory works of J. L. Dillard and William Labov, AAVE has been the focus of more studies and more published work than any other ethnic or social

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18 | African American Vernacular English (AAVE)

variety of American English. Since then, such linguists as Guy Bailey, John Baugh, Salikoko Mufwene, Geneva Smitherman, John Rickford, and Walt Wolfram have generally focused on four central questions: (1) Is AAVE a dialect, or is it just slang produced in an unsuccessful attempt at standard American English? (2) Did AAVE originate from remnants of early American and British English or from creole structures from West African languages? (3) Is AAVE converging with—becoming more like—or diverging from—becoming less like—other varieties of American English? (4) What influence does AAVE have on education and culture? The longest-standing explanation for the origin of AAVE lies in the Anglicist hypothesis, which argues that slavery wiped out most, if not all, African linguistic and cultural tradition and that the apparently distinctive features of AAVE come from English dialects spoken by British peasants and indentured servants. Some scholars, taking an Africanist stand, contend that the African American vernacular bears the vivid imprint of the African languages spoken by slaves who came to this country in waves from the 17th to the 19th centuries. For the creolist hypothesis, the central question is whether AAVE was ever as different from Standard English as the “creole” varieties spoken today in such places as Jamaica, Trinidad, Guyana, and Barbados, or whether it was ever influenced by them. Both the creolists and Africanists believe that, since the Gullah language of coastal South Carolina and Georgia is a confirmed creole, and since Africans settled in these sites in great numbers before moving inland, then this serves as proof that the resulting AAVE must have creole origins. Although it is certain that AAVE is changing, the question arises about whether it is changing to become more like mainstream Anglo-American English or changing to become more distinctive from it. Some sociolinguists agree that, when social relationships ameliorate between black Americans and white Americans, then the two groups begin to pick www.abc-clio.com

up features from one another, with AAVE incorporating mainstream characteristics (convergence); but when social relationships between the two groups degenerate, then AAVE speakers choose grammatical and especially vocabulary features that identify them as belonging to an AAVE community. Studies of AAVE have shown it sharing characteristics with White Vernacular English for some features in an older generation while diverging from nearby White Vernacular English in a younger generation. The Ebonics debates of the late 1990s revived the 1960s deficit-or-difference arguments that linguists thought had been resolved. Proponents of the deficit theory maintained not only that the vernacular was grammatically insufficient to communicate adequately but also that its use inhibited the effective thought and communication processes of its speakers. Regional and social dialect studies proved these varieties to have differences that were consistent with language systems and also proved that social and ethnic dialects persist because they contain means by which a community can maintain its cultural connections. The Oakland School Board Resolution recognized that the distinctive language of African American children was a valid linguistic system by which to educate and communicate. Mary Zeigler See also Creole, Creolity, Creolization. F URTHER R EADING Green, Lisa J. 2002. African American English: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge University Press. Rickford, John. 1999. African American Vernacular English. Malden, MA: Basil Blackwell. Rickford, John, and Russell Rickford. 2000. Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English. New York: John Wiley. Smitherman, Geneva. 2000. Talkin That Talk: Language, Culture and Education in African America. New York: Routledge.

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African American Women | 19

African American Women “African American women” is a term for women of African descent born in the United States, used interchangeably with “black women”; often refers to women whose descendants were enslaved and/or oppressed by the racist, sexist, classist American system. African American women’s contribution to the development, discussion, and definition of the African Diaspora has been maintained by the vigor of their work ethic. African American women have worked individually and collectively in every cultural, religious, social, political, and historical movement in the United States and abroad. Moreover, African American women have diligently persevered to maintain a connection to the African continent through their roles as gatekeepers of tradition. The main themes found in the work of African American women include identity politics, nationhood or nation building, development of the youth, autonomy, independence, self-definition, and self-defense/survival. African American women’s epic memory, as well as their own intentional efforts to connect to their “sisters of Africa,” caused them to maintain connection to women of color throughout the Diaspora. This is evident in their struggle to maintain an honorable, respectable, and accurate image. Hence, African American women’s Diasporic connection is vast. All historical accounts demonstrate their tenacity and desperation to quickly ascertain respect, honor, and a place for themselves (see Harley 1978, Lerner 1972, or Giddings 1984). Despite the dehumanizing system of enslavement, African American women worked to sustain their humanity. These often-unnamed women maintained the connection to the continent through their survival skills, which were taught, retained, and even continued through epic memory. Several early activists include Nannie Helen Boroughs, Anna Julia Cooper, Maria W. Stewart, and Charlotta A. Bass. These women were

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educators, orators, writers, artists, and workers. Their life’s work was solely for the benefit of their race. As “race women,” their goal was to uplift people of African descent and destroy the oppressive yoke on the necks of African people, not just in the United States but throughout the globe. This is further exemplified through such women as Sarah Mapps Douglass, Sadie Alexander, Ruth Bennett, and Fannie Barrier Williams, who worked within their communities as well as with white organizations and individually in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. The value of national organization is illustrated in the African American woman’s contribution to the African Diaspora. The National Association of Colored Women (NACW) organized officially in 1896 in Washington, D.C., as an avenue for women of substantial means to assist those African American women in need of economic, educational, cultural, social, and historical assistance. Although a national organization, the NACW made its largest contributions through the work of local clubs located throughout the United States and served as a model for future national and international organizing among African American women, as is evident in the National Council of Negro Women established by Mary McLeod Bethune. Pivotal organizers and leaders of the NACW include Mary Church Terrell of Washington, D.C.; Ida B. Wells Barnett of Chicago, Illinois; Josephine St. Ruffin Pierre of Boston, Massachusetts; Frances Ellen Watkins Harper of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Mary McLeod Bethune of Daytona, Florida. The minutes of their inaugural meeting contains a discussion of the women debating the proper name for the organization that reflects their diasporic connection. Other organizations include the Order of the Eastern Star (Queen Esther Chapter), organized in 1875 in Washington, D.C., and collegiate sororities, beginning with Alpha Kappa Alpha, organized in 1908 at Howard University. Cultural and religious expressions can be found in the poetry of Frances E. W. Harper

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and Sonia Sanchez, in the music of Billie Holiday and Lauren Hill, and in the rap lyrics of Queen Latifah. Moreover, the fiction and nonfiction writings of Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, bell hooks, Patricia Hill Collins, and Katie G. Cannon all illustrate the Africanisms of African American women. Khadijah O. Miller See also Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Feminism: Black Feminist Movement in the United States. F URTHER R EADING Giddings, Paula. 1984. When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America. New York: Bantam Books. Harley, Sharon, and Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, eds. 1978. The Afro-American Woman: Struggles and Images. Baltimore: Black Classic Press. Lerner, Gerda, ed. 1972. Black Women in White America: A Documentary History. New York: Vintage Books.

z African Americans and the Constitutional Order I NTRODUCTION AND E ARLY C ASES The juridical and racialist concept that “a slave cannot be a white man, and every man of color was descendant of a slave” had its origins and development within the changing world political economy between the 16th and 19th centuries. European colonialism in the “New World” was, in part, based on the vital use of African labor. European planters had to create a racist legal superstructure in response to the political economy of a race-based slave commodity production. This essay gives a brief overview of major cases that reflect an immense body of case law, statutes, and canonical beliefs about liberty and inequality. The first case within this overview is Gregson v. Gilbert (better known as the Zong case, 1781). It concerns the transatlantic slave trade.

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The Zong was a slave ship owned by Gregson and insured by Gilbert. It sailed from West Africa to Jamaica on September 6, 1781, with 470 slaves. During the Middle Passage, an alleged viral epidemic occurred, which killed black and white alike. This led Captain Collingwood to jettison 131 sickly slaves overboard. Gilbert, the insurer, refused to pay the damages for loss of slave property owned by Gregson because he felt that Collingwood had committed insurance fraud. Chief Justice Lord Mansfield ruled in favor of Gilbert. Lord Mansfield would deliver an even more important decision in 1772 when he ruled in Sommersett v. Stuart that James Sommersett, a black slave residing with his owner in London, must be a free man, since England had no statutory law of slavery. Mansfield declared that slavery “ . . . is so odious, that nothing . . . but positive law” can support it. However, in the New World, the demand for “black gold”—the euphemism used by white planters for the labor power of African slaves— led to positive statutory law. As early as 1640, the colony of Virginia used case law to mark the boundaries of “white over black.” A Virginia court ruled that a runaway indentured servant, “ . . .a negro named John Punch shall serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural Life here or elsewhere.” Numerous cases followed concerning racial differences in legal treatment in the areas of fornication, use of arms, religion, property and commerce, political power, and manumission. Moreover, by the 1660s these cases were supported by statutes. Arguably, the most significant statute was the so-called “law of the womb.” In 1662, Virginia passed a statute that stated, “Children got by an Englishman upon a Negro woman shall be bond or free according to the condition of the mother, and if any Christian shall commit fornication with a Negro man or woman, he shall pay double the fines of a former act.” During the colonial period, the political economy of slavery birthed a racialist legal superstructure that was repres-

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African Americans and the Constitutional Order | 21 sive and negative as it mediated white over black. Slavery and racism in the age of the American Revolution led to the long, hot summer of 1787 in Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson declared for life, liberty, and property and thus created an American Constitution that in Article I, Section 2, defined white males as political power brokers and used the three-fifths ratio to further exploit black men in the interests of white men. Every third slave could be counted as a white man, thus enhancing the hegemony of the slavocracy. If Southern planters received leverage in this clause, then Northern merchant capital was assured that liberal idealism would be recognized in Article I, Section 9, which said that Congress could abolish the “immoral” transatlantic slave trade in 1808. However, the planter class drove a hard bargain in Philadelphia and extracted the greatest compromise from Northern delegates when both regional ruling classes agreed upon Article IV, Section 2. This clause stated, “No person held to Service or Labour in one state, under the Laws thereof, escaping to another, shall be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party in whom such Service or Labour may be due.” This last compromise between Northern and Southern elites would go a long way in propelling the young nation into the catastrophic American Civil War. B EFORE AND AFTER THE C IVIL WAR In the three decades leading up to the Civil War, merchant capital issued their clairon de guerre by achieving the “first emancipation” in the post-Revolutionary War period. The first emancipation involved the eradication of slavery throughout the Northern and Eastern colonies. Through statute or case law, the mass manumission movement was achieved by the late 1820s. Massachusetts led this movement with the case of Commonwealth v. Jennison in 1783. The slave, Quaco Walker, escaped from his master, Nathaniel Jennison, and with the

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help of the antislavery lawyer Levi Lincoln and the state attorney general, Robert Paine, persuaded Chief Justice William Cushing to declare that the state’s constitution, the Declaration of Rights, protected Mr. Walker “with rights and privileges wholly incompatible and repugnant to [slavery’s] existence.” Legal controversies concerning black slaves resisting slavery occurred on international waters as well as in the New Republic. The most famous case initiated by events on the high seas was the Amistad case in 1841. Fifty-four Mende Africans, led by their headman, Cinque, successfully revolted on the Spanish slave ship Amistad. The ship was involved in the illegal African slave trade to Cuba. Since the captain had been killed during the revolt, the Mende were unable to force the ship’s pilot to steer the ship back to West Africa; instead, the pilot, via subterfuge, steered the ship into American waters near Long Island, where it was seized by U.S. authorities. The Spanish government demanded the return of the rebels. The Amistad Committee, composed of black and white abolitionists, hired John Quincy Adams, the former president of the United States, to represent the Mende freedom fighters. In March 1841, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Mende by declaring that they were free men, illegally enslaved, and had a natural right to reclaim their freedom. Slave resistance characterized by flight from slave states to northern free states increased sectional conflict. This conflict involved dual systems of law between the North and the South. One legal system favored freedom over property, while the other favored property over freedom. The North Star of the underground railroad, abolitionism, and individual courage laid the basis for runaway slave litigation and the conflict of laws. Her Maryland slave-owner permitted the slave Margaret Morgan to live with personal freedom in Pennsylvania. Ms. Morgan moved to Pennsylvania, married, and had children. Subsequent to these events, her master died, and his heirs claimed Morgan as

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property and hired the slave-catcher Edward Prigg to go to Pennsylvania to retrieve Margaret and her children. The conflict of law involved the state of Pennsylvania’s personal liberty law that deemed all children born in the state to be free, while Maryland slave law still worked under the “law of the womb.” In 1842, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act, based on Article IV, Section 2, took precedence over state personal liberty laws. Justice Storey, who delivered the proslavery decision, created a loophole for antislavery states by saying that Pennsylvania was not required to enforce federal law. It would be very difficult for slave-catchers to locate, arrest, and return slave resisters without the help of the local state authorities. The Prigg v. Pennsylvania loophole closed with the Compromise of 1850 and its newly improved fugitive slave statute. The law created federal commissioners throughout the North to hear runaway slave cases and paid commissioners ten dollars if they ruled in favor of reenslavement and only five dollars if they ruled in favor of freedom. The 1850s witnessed the greatest legal tragedy in American law when Dred Scott claimed that his presence as a resident in the free North with his master made him a free man upon the death of his master. In 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney rejected this claim and declared that “black men had no rights in which white men were bound to respect.” The Dred Scott case, John Brown’s raid at Harpers Ferry, and the election of Abraham Lincoln were the final events that created the apocalyptic Civil War. The Civil War ushered in the destruction of American slavery, and with the political clout of Radical Republicans, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were added to the Constitution. The victorious Radicals used congressional power and passed the antiKu Klux Klan acts of 1871 and 1879 and the Civil Rights Act of 1875. During Reconstruction, the federal authorities, in a losing battle with the Klan, attempted to prosecute perpe-

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trators of racial violence. The Klan as Redeemers used terrorism to reclaim their political powers by the mid 1870s. In the disputed election of 1876, Northern reactionary politicians permitted “home rule” to white supremacist segregationists. In a series of cases, the U.S. Supreme Court reduced the freed people to a voteless, powerless, second-class citizenry. Without federal protection, the South became the “land of the tree, home of the grave” for African Americans. In U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876), the U.S. Supreme Court stated that Klan terror that resulted in the murder of African Americans was not a federal crime. Between 1890 and 1905, African Americans were lynched on the average of one every three to four days. Cruikshank legalized and legitimized this racial holocaust by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). Homer Plessy was a black man whose skin was so light that he could pass for white. Plessy claimed that, when the City of New Orleans segregated its public transportation, it denied to him his most precious property. That property was his appearance as a white man, and his white appearance opened up the golden door of opportunity in America. If he were forced to sit in the black section of street cars, his equal protection of the law under the Fourteenth Amendment would be denied. Chief Justice Brown, ignoring this argument and the call for a “color-blind” Constitution by his fellow dissenting justice, John Marshall Harlan, declared that equality before the law does not mean social equality, thus creating the constitutionally sanctioned “separate but equal” doctrine. S EGREGATION AND J IM C ROW During the age of segregation, a wide variety of cases revealed a different angle to the conflict of laws. Because the Fourteenth Amendment gave African Americans citizenship, equal protection of the laws, and the due process of law, while the Fifteenth Amendment gave blacks the right to “possibly” vote, Southern states developed Jim Crow devices as legalized

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These nine African-American youths, known as the Scottsboro Boys, were imprisoned in Scottsboro, Alabama after being falsely accused of raping two white women in a freight car. Here, the young men are pictured conferring with civil rights activist Juanita Jackson Mitchell in 1937. The boys’ convictions were overturned in Powell v. Alabama (1932), when the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the defendants, who had not been given adequate time to prepare a defense, were denied due process. (Library of Congress)

by the Plessy case. Jim Crow forced federal authorities to investigate the “shadow of slavery within the shadow of the plantation.” Federal authorities sought to investigate any overt violations of equality within the separate spheres of white over black. By the 1920s, with the challenging litigation initiated by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, federal courts begin to remove the overtly harsh realities of Jim Crow. In Bailey v. Alabama (1911), the Supreme Court struck down the state’s peonage law. In the case of Buchannon v. Warley (1917), the Court stated that it is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment for the city of Louisville, Kentucky, to segregate African Americans and thus to assure that only white individuals in their communities could covenant and exclude. In the famous Scottsboro Boys cases (Powell v. Alabama, 1932; Norris v. Alabama, 1935), the Court said that it is unconstitutional to exclude African Americans from juries and that every individual has a right to a competent lawyer. The Scottsboro cases are significant because

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both the NAACP and the Communist Party worked together to save the nine boys from a wrongful charge of rape, which carried the penalty of death by state execution. In Brown v. Mississippi (1936) and Chambers v. Florida (1940), the Court ruled that it violates the constitutional rights of a black defendant to use the rack and the torture chamber to extract confessions. And in a series of cases out of Maryland (the Murry case, 1936), Missouri (the Gaines case, 1939), Oklahoma (the Sipuel and McLaurin cases, 1948), and Texas (the Sweatt case, 1950), the Supreme Court declared that the responsibility of those respective states was to educate their black college students in the state of their birth. Many segregationist states provided black students with out-of-state scholarships so they could attend college in the nonsegregated North. The Court said that states must either build separate professional schools of truly “equal” quality or admit African Americans to the states’ own white professional schools (law, medicine,

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dentistry, etc.). These Court decisions would make it too costly to maintain Jim Crow. Once the NAACP won cases equalizing black teachers’ salaries with those of their white counterparts, the cost of Jim Crow became prohibitive. The legal strategy of making it too costly to maintain separate facilities was developed by Charles Hamilton Houston, the dean of Howard University Law School. Houston organized the law school around the judicial philosophy that lawyers should be “social engineers” who would fight for social justice. The most noted student of the law school was Thurgood Marshall, who later became a justice of the Supreme Court. During the 1940s, NAACP’s social engineers won cases before the U.S. Supreme Court that struck down white primaries (Smith v. Allwright, 1944), ruled illegal segregation on interstate transportation (Morgan v. Virginia, 1946), and said that court-enforced racial housing covenants were unconstitutional (Shelly v. Kramer). Amicus curiae briefs from the State Department and the Justice Department supported the Court’s position, handed down in 1948. This support by the federal state had to do with the emerging Cold War and the propaganda of Communist Russia, which argued that it was hypocritical of the United States to claim that they were the leader of the free world when lynching, rape, and Jim Crow were as American as apple pie. The secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, said and understood that the United States could not win the hearts and minds of Third World people when their counterparts were treated as second-class citizens in the United States. Ultimately, this understanding led President Truman, in 1948, to issue the document “To Secure These Rights,” which was the clarion call for a federal attack on Jim Crow. The federal state continued to argue in support of the social engineers in the famous 1954 case of Linda Brown v. Board of Education-Topeka, Kansas. Chief Justice Earl B. Warren clearly stated that separate schools deeply scar and injure and thus had a

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“ . . . detrimental effect upon the colored children,” and that therefore such separate but unequal schools violate the U.S. Constitution. C IVIL R IGHTS AND B EYOND The overturning of the infamous Plessy decision, coupled with the explosion of the Civil Rights Movement in the late 1950s and 1960s, changed the entire mind-set of African Americans. They had always known they had God on their side; now they had an equally powerful secular weapon—the law, and constitutional law at that. In the 1960s, there occurred a series of case victories, progressive congressional legislation, and executive orders that continued the transformation of the legal status of African Americans. In a series of cases, the high Court initially protected civil rights activists as they used sit-ins, pray-ins, and wade-ins to desegregate lunch counters, churches, and public pools. In 1964, President Johnson issued Executive Order 11246, which forbade job discrimination and required “affirmative action” by corporations receiving federal contracts. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. The U.S. Supreme Court validated this legislation in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. U.S. (1964), Katzenbach v. McClung (1964), South Carolina v. Katzenbach (1966), and Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. (1968). The NAACP pushed the Court to continue the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education, and in 1970 the Court did just that. In Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education (1969) and in Carter West Feliciana Parish School v. Board (1970), the Court mandated no more deliberate speed for school boards who attempted to obstruct the principles of Brown but full speed ahead, even if it meant busing, to achieve racial balance in America’s schools. The Court’s aggressive approach was supported in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971), when it ordered 13,000 students bused. These victories in the South were tempered by the Court’s reluctance

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African Americans and the Constitutional Order | 25

Mrs. Nettie Hunt and daughter Nickie on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954. Hunt holds a paper announcing the Brown v. Board of Education decision to ban segregation in public schools. (Library of Congress)

to do likewise in the northern and western areas of the country. In the 1973 Denver case Keyes v. School District No. 1, the Court refused to order a citywide desegregation plan that limited, on a school-by-school basis, any plan for racial balance. The Court said that each school must be guilty of “intentional” efforts at school segregation. This conservative legal trend continued in 1974 in the case of Milliken v. Bradley, when a court-ordered, citywide suburban plan in Detroit was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court. The high Court reasoned that local suburban schools should not be included arbitrarily, even if the goal was noble. The end of the Civil Rights Movement, coupled with the election of conservative president Richard M. Nixon, signaled a major shift in public policy support for desegregation. With the help of Nixon’s Supreme Court appointees, the Court became known as the Nixon Court

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or the Burger Court (after Warren Burger, the chief justice appointed by President Nixon). Under Burger’s direction, the Court slowly began to chip away at the legal progress recently achieved. However, the Court did initially uphold the anti-job discrimination clause, Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, in Griggs v. Duke Power (1971). However, the Court reversed and modified the Griggs ruling in the 1976 case of Washington v. Davis. Both cases involved the interpretation of the new 1972 legislation, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, which strengthened Title VII. The anti-job discrimination and affirmative action requirements of Executive Order 11246 divided the nation over such ideological terms as “reverse discrimination” and “preferential treatment.” The Court addressed these issues first in Regents of University of California v. Bakke (1977).

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Alan Bakke claimed he had been denied his rightful place in medical school admissions because he was “bumped” by less qualified minority students so that the university could increase minority student enrollment. The Burger Court ruled in favor of Bakke because the medical school had a quota program that was unconstitutional. However, the Court did suggest that race could be a variable in assessing medical school admissions. The Court was grappling with stare decisis, or the legal idea that case logic should follow from previous case logic. This idea makes law predictable and understandable. Following the case logic of the more liberal Warren Court, the Burger Court reluctantly upheld certain affirmative action programs. In 1979 and 1980 respectively, the Court upheld a private corporation’s preferential treatment program that helped minority workers gain new skills (United Steelworkers of America v. Weber), and a congressional program that set aside 10 percent of federal funds for minority-owned businesses (Fullilove v. Klutznik). The conservative leaning of the Burger Court eventually appeared in the case of Mobil v. Bolden (1980), when the Court established the intentional or “motivation” legal principle to ferret out individuals who discriminate. To prove discrimination, the intentions of the discriminator must be proved. This was a decisive change from the results-oriented Warren Court. That Court assumed that, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, then it must be a duck. The difficulty in proving intent would protect racists who went “underground.” However, the victory of Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election further solidified the country’s slide into the abyss of conservatism. This abyss was revealed in 1982, when the Reagan administration filed an amicus curiae brief in support of the closeted white racist Bob Jones University. Because the university practiced discrimination, their tax-exempt status was withdrawn by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The uni-

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versity challenged the IRS ruling; the Court, however, ruled against the university as the nation split along antagonistic racial lines either in support of the administration and Bob Jones University or against them. During the Reagan years, an assault on affirmative action forced the federal courts to address “reverse discrimination” as ideology. Reagan’s Justice Department began to file amicus curiae briefs in support of white men or white businesses who felt threatened by black progress initiated by affirmative action programs. Turning history on its head, conservatives argued that the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned all forms of discrimination, especially against white men. Conservatives gained several victories when the Supreme Court ruled that seniority programs that protected white men at the top cannot be modified to protect newly hired minority workers when budgetary downturns lead to layoffs (Firefighters v. Stotts, 1983; Wygant v. Jackson, 1986). However, the Court continued to support narrow “quota numbers” and “outreach” remedies in cases of egregious, intentional discrimination (United States v. Paradise, 1987, and Johnson v. Transportation Agency, 1987). By the late 1980s, the Supreme Court was split between those who favored color-specific remedies to rectify discrimination (Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun, Stevens, and Powell) and the four who did not (Rehnquist, O’Connor, Scalia, and White). With Powell’s retirement, President Reagan was able to appoint Anthony Kennedy, who promptly joined the conservative Court bloc to rule against or overturn affirmative action programs (Martin v. Wilks, 1980; Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 1989; Ward’s Cove Packing Company v. Antonio, 1989; and Richmond v. Croson, 1989). These cases overturned voluntary affirmative action programs; limited the right to file a case of discrimination against an employer; displaced the burden of proof from white racists to the person discriminated against, in proving intent to

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African Americans and the Constitutional Order | 27 discriminate; and ruled that a systemic history of discrimination cannot be used as a guide in assessing intentional discrimination. However, Justice White broke with his conservative fellow travelers in two cases that upheld the power of federal courts to order strong remedies. These were: tax increases to address schools in poverty-stricken neighborhoods in Missouri v. Jenkins, 1990; and the Metro Broadcasting v. Federal Communication Commission case, 1990 in which the Court upheld affirmative action goals to increase the number of minority broadcast owners and stations. The conservative mood in politics created a context for turning the clock back, in a legal sense, on the achievements of the civil rights period. President Reagan’s appointment of Clarence Thomas to replace Thurgood Marshall was a manifestation of this new mood. The “liberal” black man who helped kill Jim Crow was replaced by a “conservative” black man who, through his decisions, would help to maintain the last vestiges of the system of racial privilege. Reagan also replaced the liberal William Brennan with the conservative David Souter and supported elevating William Rehnquist to chief justice upon the retirement of Burger. This Court quickly ruled that schools be released from judicial oversight when they began to dismantle Jim Crow, Board of Education of Oklahoma City Public Schools v. Dowell (1991) and Freeman v. Pitts (1992). Finally, with Justice Souter writing the opinion, the Court further diluted minority political power in Johnson v. DeGrandy (1994). In this case, the Court said that the Voting Rights Act does not require Florida’s reapportionment plan to increase black and Hispanic voting power. The social impact of this conservative legal chill under the Bush administration was ultimately revealed in two cases concerning the University of Michigan. In Gratz v. Bollinger (2003), the Supreme Court struck down the use of race as evaluative variable in the university’s affirmative action admission plan to diversify the

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undergraduate class. However, the Court upheld the use of race as an evaluative variable in the law school in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003). Obviously, race and class converged in these two cases. The children of the black proletariat, in general, would be limited in their education opportunity, while the children of the black bourgeoisie, in general, had found judicial support and therefore opportunity. In conclusion, the Supreme Court by the 1990s had developed tiered standards for their use of strict scrutiny or a lesser standard vis-àvis racial discrimination. The application of these standards would be, and is today, driven by the reactionary “intent rule” rather than by the previous progressive “results rule,” which recognized racism when it “walked like a duck, quacked liked a duck, and looked liked a duck.” Attempting to litigate and thus prove the intent to discriminate by closeted racists would be a difficult task and remains so today. Malik Simba See also “African” in African American History. F URTHER R EADING Bell, Derrick. 1980. Shades of Brown: New Perspectives on School Desegregation. New York: Teachers College Press. Cortner, Richard C. 1986. A “Scottsboro” Case in Mississippi: The Supreme Court and Brown v. Mississippi. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Freeman, Alan David. 1978. “Legitimizing Racial Discrimination through Antidiscrimination Law: A Critical Review of Supreme Court Doctrine.” Minnesota Law Review, 62 (6). Goldberg, Suzanne. 2004. “Equality without Tiers.” Rutgers Law School (Newark) 77. Higginbotham, Leon, Jr. 1978. In the Matter of Color: Race and the American Legal Process: the Colonial Period. New York: Oxford University Press. Miller, Loren. 1966. The Petitioners: The Story of the Supreme Court of the United States and the Negro. New York: Pantheon Books. Nieman, Donald G. 1991. Promises to Keep: African Americans and the Constitutional Order, 1771 to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press.

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28 | African Ballet Spann, Girardeau A. 1993. Race against the Court: The Supreme Court and Minorities in Contemporary America. New York: New York University Press.

z African Ballet The African Ballet, or Les Ballets Africains, as it is officially known, is one of the most celebrated performing arts companies specializing in traditional African dance. The company began in Paris in 1952 under the direction of Keita Fodeba, a choreographer originally from Guinea. Six years later, in 1958, it settled in Africa as the national dance company of Guinea. Les Ballets Africains is dedicated to touring, embarking on long tours throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. As a result, the company carries the enormous responsibility of representing African culture to the world, meeting a demand reminiscent of the insatiable appetite for African art that existed in the early 20th century. The company has enjoyed a warm reception from audiences around the world, and its energy and drumming have been especially well received by critics in Britain and America. The size of the company typically ranges from 35 to 40 members, who come from various areas of Guinea. Members are well versed in the diverse traditional dances of other tribes. The dancers typify African standards of beauty in body and movement: muscular and curvaceous forms are valued above the current Western svelte ideal. Movements are executed without restraint and tense formality but as if the dancer were possessed and liberated by dance. In the same way that the Zulu people are known for war dances, dancers from Guinea and Mali are especially known for their athletic, acrobatic dancing. But Les Ballets Africains is far more than a troupe of gymnasts. The company’s productions fuse traditional African dance, music, oral culture, and acrobatics across vari-

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ous genres, from comedy to drama. The dancers perform to the strong percussive rhythms of such traditional Guinean drums as the djembi, the doudoun, and the kenkeni, as well as flutes and, of course, voices. Even in the company’s most acrobatic sequences, it remains true to principles of African dance by honoring the spiritual and sociohistorical roots of the art. In contrast to classical ballet dancers, dancers of Les Ballets Africains are rarely erect in posture or turned out. They do not elongate the spine; neither do they attempt to cultivate lightness through pointe work or stylized leaps. Rather, they realize the body’s fullest potential on earth and in the air without being bound to a restrictive, cumbersome technique. Again, unlike most ballet companies, Les Ballets Africains does not recycle an extensive repertoire but devotes its resources to producing one show, which will then tour extensively. The productions themselves tackle social issues from an African viewpoint. Past productions explore environmental issues (The Bell of Hamana), education as a means to success (Silo, the Path of Life), and the necessity of bequeathing a positive legacy (Heritage). Ian Williams See also Dance in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Les Ballets Africains. 2002. 50 Year Golden Jubilee. CD, DVD, and videocassette. McFarland, WI: World Music Incorporated. World Music Incorporated. “Les Ballets Africains: African Culture for the Modern World.” www.lesballetsafricains.com (accessed April 22, 2005).

z African Blood Brotherhood (ABB) Begun in 1918 in New York as a secret, centralized organization open to all persons of

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African Blood Brotherhood (ABB) | 29 African descent, the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB) promoted the liberation of Africans and fought for the redemption of and rights for black Americans through armed selfdefense, while later embracing Marxist-Leninist ideologies. Claiming 50,000 members and 150 branches (figures inflated from at most 3,000 members), the ABB functioned as an independent organization until it dissolved into the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) in 1924. The ABB represented the merger of revolutionary socialism and militant black nationalist struggles during the early 1920s. Although a small propaganda organization working most actively in Harlem, its influence reached well beyond its core. The roots of the ABB lie in the history of Caribbean migration to urban centers in the United States during the early 20th century. Most notably in Harlem, Caribbean immigrants engaged in political activism, denouncing Western imperialism and proclaiming a vision of Pan-African liberation. One of these immigrants, a journalist from Nevis named Cyril Briggs, helped create and run the ABB. Briggs used his skill as a journalist to propagate ideas of race—first Pan-African liberation and later multiracial class struggle—through founding and editing The Crusader, which quickly became the official organ of the organization. The ABB included such other Caribbean immigrants as Richard B. Moore, its leading orator; Otto Huiswoud; W. A. Domingo; and black Americans Lovett FortWhiteman and Grace P. Campbell, the only female founding member. These individuals composed an organization that envisioned itself in the vanguard of Pan-African revolutionary socialism. In 1921, the ABB reached its height, receiving its greatest public attention that June concerning its involvement in a race riot in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Local members there helped lead armed self-defense of the black community against violent white supremacist mobs. For their actions, mainstream press reports blamed

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the ABB for the violence. Later that summer, organization leaders in Harlem tried and failed to take control of a conference conducted by the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Both organizations argued for selfreliance in the black community through business and institution building, but it was the UNIA’s mass membership that ABB leaders coveted. The ABB leadership was expelled from the conference, leading to sharp divisions between the organizations. By October, the organization had adopted a political program, fusing race-first initiatives and revolutionary Pan-Africanism with the support of MarxistLeninist ideologies. The program emphasized solidarity with liberation struggles in Africa against European colonialism based on elite, civilizationist ideas of that era. It suggested that coastal Africans lead the military struggle, for they were seen as more able and more developed than interior peoples. The program culminated with support of Soviet Russia, which in its public posturing denounced Western imperialism in Africa. By 1924, most ABB leaders had become full members of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), and the once secret, autonomous organization dissolved into an open party front advancing Lenin’s call for the self-determination of oppressed nationalities. This ideology led, a few years later, to the CPUSA’s advocacy of a separate nation for blacks in the American South. Jason M. Schultz See also Briggs, Cyril V. (1887–1996); Campbell, Grace P. (1883–1943); Huiswoud, Otto (1893– 1961); Pan-Africanism. F URTHER R EADING Briggs, Cyril. 1987. The Crusader. Ed. Robert Hill. Los Angeles: University of California. Bush, Rod. 1999. We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in the American Century. New York: New York University Press. James, Winston. 1998. Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America. New York: Verso.

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30 | African Canadian Film Kornweibel, Theodore, Jr. 1998. “Seeing Red”: Federal Campaigns against Black Militancy, 1919–1925. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

z African Canadian Film In the early years of African Canadian filmmaking, the term “cinema of duty” was coined by film critic Cameron Bailey to denote the socially rooted documentary films made by African Canadian filmmakers in the 1970s and early 1980s. Largely excluded from making feature films or experimental cinema, black filmmakers used the documentary form to foreground stories that were largely informed by a black Diasporic experience. Given the perpetually nascent history of African Canadian film and the dearth of films grounded in black subjectivity, the attraction to documentary is not surprising. The first filmmaker of African descent in Canada was actually an African American. William Greaves (Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice, 1989; From These Roots, 1974; Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey, 2001) came to Canada from New York City in 1952 and served as a writer and director at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). He worked under the tutelage of NFB founder John Grierson, regarded as the father of modern documentary filmmaking. Grierson promoted the documentary’s power both to inform society and to affect it. NFB filmmakers used the documentary as a visual pedagogical tool. In the 1970s, such Caribbean immigrant filmmakers as Claire Prieto (Black Mother, Black Daughter, 1989; Older, Stronger, Wiser, 1990; Home to Buxton, 1987) and Roger McTair (Home Feeling: Struggle for a Community, 1983; Jennifer Hodge: The Glory and the Pain, 1992) made films that asserted their presence as new immigrants of African descent in Canada. Hav-

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ing emerged from a postcolonial Caribbean reality with a clear vision of the counternarratives they could and would tell in a new Diasporic place and space, they made films that were both rich in intimate cultural nuances and embedded with strong political consciousness. At the same time, such Canadian-born black filmmakers as Jennifer Hodge de Silva (Home Feeling: Struggle for a Community, 1983; Myself, Yourself, 1989; A Day in the Life of Canada, 1989) and Sylvia Hamilton (Black Mother, Black Daughter, 1989; Speak It! From the Heart of Black Nova Scotia, 1992) were drawn not only to the possibilities of locating their films within a black Canadian historical experience and subjectivity but also to the possibility of crossing and blurring boundaries to speak to other communities within the broader Canadian landscape. The 1980s were prolific years for black film production, but the movement was still primarily documentary, which many filmmakers regarded as the only cinematic discourse available to them. In 1989, a small group of black filmmakers formed the Black Film and Video Network (BFVN), which would serve as an activist organization working to correct existing gaps in the range of cinematic practices accessible to African Canadian filmmakers. As a result of the BFVN’s political efforts, black filmmaking in Canada began to emerge from the strict confines of the “cinema of duty” documentary to embrace dramatic fiction, the avant-garde and auteur-driven filmmaking. The Canadian Film Centre (CFC), founded by director Norman Jewison, had recently become a training ground for Canadian feature filmmakers. The BFVN joined a lobbying effort, persuading the center to create training opportunities for black filmmakers and other filmmakers of color. In the 1990s, African Canadian filmmaking made the much-anticipated shift to feature filmmaking as Clement Virgo (Save My Lost Nigga’ Soul, 1993; Rude, 1995; The Planet of Junior Brown, 1997; Love Come Down, 2000) and Steven Williams (Variations on the Key 2 Life, 1994; Soul Survivor, 1995) became the first

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African Diaspora Film | 31 African Canadians to graduate from the CFC’s Feature Film Project. Both Virgo and Williams took narrative and style cues from African American filmmaker Spike Lee and from the African American gangster or “hood” genre films (Boyz n the Hood; New Jack City) that were popular at the time. Despite such gestures to African American popular culture, Rude (1995) and Soul Survivor (1995), Canada’s first black-directed feature films, began to explore, mainly through black male–centered narratives, notions of black rage, alienation, and hopelessness. Although the films were not foregrounded in any radical or subversive representation of black life, they remain important efforts by the filmmakers to construct a new African Canadian film aesthetic. Black Canadian filmmaking in the 21st century has continued to shift from a strictly mimetic form of documentary filmic expression toward a kind of hybrid black Canadian cinema that experiments, often in short films, with avant-garde, documentary, and dramatic forms. A third generation of filmmakers led by David “Suds” Sutherland (My Father’s Hands, 1999; Love, Sex and Eating the Bones, 2003), Charles Officer (When Morning Comes, 2000; Short Hymn, Silent War, 2002) and Alison Duke (Raisin’ Kane, 2000), among others, continue to challenge mainstream Canadian cinema through their willful rearticulations of African Canadian identities within the changing landscape of contemporary Canadian culture. Julie Crooks See also African Diaspora Film; Black Cinema; Canada and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Bailey, Cameron. 1990–1991. “A Cinema of Duty: The Films of Jennifer Hodge de Silva.” CineAction! 23: 4–12. Bailey, Cameron. 1997. “Displace.” Revue Noire (Summer): 30–38. Walcott, Rinaldo. 2003. Black Like Who: Writing Black Canada. Toronto: Insomniac Press.

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African Diaspora Film “African Diaspora film” refers to the wideranging cinematic, aesthetic, and production practices employed by filmmakers of African descent throughout the world. Not only has African Diaspora film become increasingly important as a way in which people of African descent imagine the world and present it to others, but it also has been used to create a dialogue across borders in relationship to questions of identity, history, and racial and economic justice. The term refers to a diverse group of filmmakers situated in locales as varied as Haiti, Germany, Canada, France, the United States, Jamaica, and Brazil, who work in a variety of genres and styles ranging from comedy to drama, from documentary and narrative film to experimental and avant-garde film. Although thematic concerns are as diverse as the filmmakers who constitute the category, some common themes include the struggle against racism and exploitation, migration, heritage issues, dislocation, self-determination, alienation, and the search for belonging. Historically, there has been an emphasis on cinematic realism as an attempt to counteract the misrepresentation and erasure of people of African descent from dominant film traditions. African Diaspora film has thus been used to create a visual record of people of African descent that documents a political and historical reality that has been excluded from the existing historical record visually and narratively. Such an erasure has also provoked some filmmakers of African descent to experiment with aesthetics, representation, and form less as a reaction against realism than as an attempt to tell stories that are not able to be told within the existing narrative structures and aesthetic conventions of mainstream filmmaking. African Diaspora filmmaking has existed almost from the earliest days of film history. One of the first important films was the short African American comedy The Railroad Porter, which was directed by William Foster in 1910. George and Noble Johnson opened

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the Lincoln Motion Picture Company in Los Angeles in 1915 in order to create films for an African American audience. Oscar Micheaux, who would become one of the most prolific directors of African descent throughout the early part of the 20th century, created his first film, The Homesteader, in 1918 by raising money through soliciting donations door to door. The possibility for an African Diaspora cinema has thus always been tied to the financial situation of the population from which it springs. Waves of migration and economic prosperity are the primary factors that influence the emergence of African Diaspora film traditions throughout the world. Consequently, the economic and political rise of North African immigrants in France gave birth to the Beur cinema movement, just as the social and political rise of Caribbean and African migrants in the United Kingdom produced such filmmakers as Ngozi Onwurah, Isaac Julien, and Maureen Blackwood and the Black Audio and Sankofa Film Collectives. Political and liberation movements have also been a significant factor driving African Diaspora filmmaking. Such filmmakers as Charles Burnett, Haile Gerima, and Julie Dash have been influenced by liberation movements within their national context as well as throughout the world. Increasingly, such filmmakers as Raoul Peck, Spike Lee, and Euzhan Palcy have found success working across national boundaries and funding from a mixture of mainstream and independent sources. Amy Abubo Ongiri See also African Canadian Film; Black Cinema; FESPACO and African Film Festivals. F URTHER R EADING Cham, Mbye B., and Claire Andrade-Watkins, eds. 1988. Blackframes: Critical Perspectives on Black Independent Cinema. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Guerrero, Ed. 1993. Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

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Martin, Michael T., ed. 1995. Cinemas of the Black Diaspora: Diversity, Dependence, and Oppositionality. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Reid, Mark A. 1997. Postnegritude Visual and Literary Culture. Albany: State University of New York Press.

z African Diaspora Performance Aesthetics African aesthetic qualities—namely, rhythmic dynamism, antiphony (call and response), repetition, improvisation, wholism, asymmetrical balance, coolness, and syncopation—link African Diaspora communities to Africa. The pervasive presence of these qualities in African New World performance venues reflects the continuum of African traditions and values in a New World context. Among the diverse ethnolinguistic groups in Africa, aesthetic commonalities constitute an ethnophysical language, texts written and sounded by bodies in motion. The conjunction of African and New World sensibilities affirms the pervasive influence of African aesthetic traditions in the diaspora. Performance styles, like rap and hip hop, are shaped by African-derived aesthetic qualities. The artist/performer continually re-envisions and redesigns structure to respond to contemporary forms of domination and provide channels to resist oppression. In carving out a rhythm, dancers define the contexts that determine how they will be portrayed and identified. As such, New World Diaspora performers make themselves subjects of history. In the performance arena, they are activists, fluidly crafting and shifting the images of the self to suit expressed needs. Unlike post-Enlightenment and enslavement eras, when Africans were defined to suit the socioeconomic agenda of colonization, contemporary performers create images to repre-

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African Diasporic Sociology | 33 sent their varying and fluid locations within the Diaspora. Steady rhythm, like a drum’s, replicates the heartbeat and Nature’s cycles. Rhythmic nuance pervades Diaspora landscapes. Like the Yoruba and Ndebele languages, whose singsong melodies make conversation art, performers create tapestries of song-dance-chant (i.e., word, song, dance, poetry, and storytelling). Bodies moving rhythmically in ritual celebrations of birth, puberty, marriage, initiation, and death change the energy of a space and the moods of viewers and participants. For example, when dancers perform the traditional dance of welcome, the Fanga, their feet score quarter and eighth notes in the dust. In urban Diaspora venues, dancers beat old rhythms on New World stages with hip-hop and break-dance forms, although the sounds of dancers returning quickly to the ground differ; a soft thud in the African and Caribbean context contrasts with sharper resonance on wood or concrete in the United States and Canada. Nevertheless, the rhythmic score remains relatively unchanged. Rhythmic impulse, beat, syncopation, and timing provide verve and edge and lure audiences into the vortex of Diaspora dance, song, jazz music, and poetry. The “feeling sense” becomes palpable and dynamic through multiple, layered, syncopated rhythms. Like rhythmic dynamism, call and response, or antiphony, enlivens the performance space as it invites audience participation and thereby creates an active community of participants. Antiphony in performance allows audiences to participate in African and African Diaspora culture. Call and response plays an integral role in galvanizing viewers and performers. Participation in performance facilitates communal experiences, just as repeated refrains help intensify performance and emphasize an African aesthetic. In improvisation, performers move beyond scripted melody, movement, time, or word to create something new based on mastery of

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craft, intuition, and heightened sensibilities. In the spontaneity of the moment, artists bring technique and lived experiences to bear on performance in the creation of their most authentic and autonomous selves during improvisation. The individual strengths and differences that become recognizable in the process of improvisation add to rhythmic dynamism and intensity in an African aesthetic mode. C. S’thembile West See also Dance in the African Diaspora; Griots/Griottes of West Africa; Hip-Hop Culture in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Gottschild, Brenda Dixon. 1996. Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance: Dance and Other Contexts. Westport, CT: Praeger. Gottschild, Brenda Dixon. 2003. The Black Dancing Body: A Geography from Coon to Cool. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Holloway, Joseph E., ed. 1990. Africanisms in American Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Welsh-Asante, Kariamu. 1993. The African Aesthetic: Keeper of the Traditons. Westport, CT: Praeger. West, C. S’thembile. 1994. “African Aesthetics: A Pervasive Presence in U.S. Culture.” In Babu’s Magic: Dance, Rhythm, Culture: An African Perspective, 17–32. Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota Dance Alliance. West, C. S’thembile. 1998. “Dianne McIntyre: A Twentieth Century African American Griot.” In African Dance: An Artistic, Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, ed. Kariamu WelshAsante, 131–143. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.

z African Diasporic Sociology African Diasporic sociology is the study of African descent peoples as globally distributed

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populations and their identities, institutions, movements, status systems, communities, societies, and world regions. Just how the construction of basic social status—incorporating such political and economic issues as race, ethnicity, immigrant status, language, gender, class, religion, and sexual orientation—influences the demographic, cultural, ecological, and socially unequal character of the globalization of African descent peoples is a growing issue in world sociology. This definition, held by African Diaspora sociological thinkers, at least in the United States, varies from conventional sociological definitions. Historically, American sociologists have a long tradition of conceptualizing African descent people in the United States as a homogenous, reified category in an assimilationist paradigm with no reference to the historical and contemporaneous cultural pluralism of African descent peoples. Many years ago, anthropologist John Szwed described this strange double standard in sociological and anthropological research of students of race and ethnicity in the United States. He acknowledged a first-generational presence of cultural distinctiveness among white and other non-African-descent immigrants but a resistance to doing the same when the subject is African descent peoples— especially those African descent peoples whose ancestors were enslaved on U.S. soil. From the pre–World War II years through the 1980s, this bias regarding the assimilation of African descent peoples was a sustained belief of Chicago School sociologists, who have had a profound impact on the professionalization of the sociology of race relations in American sociology. Principally, Chicago sociologist Robert Ezra Park, and especially his student E. Franklin Frazier, viewed African descent peoples as a population on the path of cultural accommodation in an otherwise structurally segregated America. More than likely, not a few of the case studies Frazier used to write and publish regarding the “Negro” family in Chicago and the “Negro” fam-

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ily in the United States in the 1930s involved Caribbean and perhaps even African families or African American families of former slave origin. These Caribbean and/or African members of the family tree were homogenized and labeled Negro or mulatto in the Chicago School framework, which thus ignored internal cultural pluralism within the racialized box to which African descent peoples were consigned. And this is true of other examples of quantitative and qualitative studies coming out of the 1930s and 1940s, such as Arthur Raper’s Preface to Peasantry, St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton’s Black Metropolis, and Hortense Powdermaker’s After Freedom, which were premised on reified homogenized boxes of African descent peoples which, if the archival data is available, more than likely could be pluralized through historical reconstruction of demographic sections of survey instruments and of the contents of personal and family case studies found in surviving research papers in special collections. Probably besides the Frazier papers at Howard University, the extensive research materials, such as survey instruments and case studies, which Charles S. Johnson used in his numerous quantitatively and qualitatively based studies of African descent peoples’ experiences, are housed in the collection of his private papers at Fisk University. As much as the Chicago School of African descent peoples’ assimilation reigned during the 1930s and 1940s and well beyond that time period, attempts at explicit sociological examinations of African Diasporic patterns, such as Melville Herskovits’s The Myth of the Negro Past, Ira De A. Reid’s The Negro Immigrant, and Zora Neale Hurston’s numerous insightful, culturally grounded African Diasporic studies, were ignored or ridiculed for decades and have yet to get the attention they deserve. P RE -1970 S A FRICAN D IASPORA S OCIOLOGICAL T HINKERS The intellectual grounding of African Diaspora sociology requires the search for pre-1970s his-

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African Diasporic Sociology | 35 torical progenitors of African Diasporic sociological thought who conform to the criteria of being sociological thinkers in sociology and sociologically oriented thinkers in other disciplines and in non-academic life who were in terms of focus, cross-societal and comparative internally within societies in examining the demographics, identities, institutions, movements, networks, and communities of African descent peoples. We could consider such thinkers as Edward Blyden, Harry Johnston, William E. B. DuBois, Thomas Jesse Jones, James Aggrey, Zora Neale Hurston, Paul Robeson, Melville Herskovits, James Byrce, Donald Pierson, Kwame Nkrumah, Charles S. Johnson, Maurice Evans, Walter Rodney, Philip Mason, Michael Banton, St. Clair Drake, Leo Kuper, Ira De A. Reid, Bronislaw Malinowski, Anna Cooper, Edith Clark, C. L. R. James, Hubert Harrison, Frantz Fanon, J. E. Casely-Hayford, and E. Franklin Frazier as major pre-1970s classical figures in crafting African Diasporic sociology. The contributions to African disaporic sociology of these key classical, sociologically oriented theorists, as well as numerous others, have been ignored or undervalued for a number of reasons. First, some of these sociological thinkers have been easily ignored or marginalized by mainstream academic sociology because they are not professionally credentialed sociologists and worked in nonacademic contexts. And even those Diasporic sociological thinkers who held credentials in sociology or a related field found their contributions ignored or dismissed because of their color, regardless of hue. The most well known example of racial exclusion is, of course, William E. B. DuBois, who was ignored by mainstream American sociology during the long course of his life. Zora Neale Hurston, the most prolific African American anthropologist of her day, could not find an academic job in the historically black college sector because of the male-centered attitudes of African American male social scientist

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gatekeepers, who preferred to exclude women from their ranks altogether while at best tracking them to fields such as social work and library science. Another reason the work of many of these thinkers has been lost through time is that, in a few cases, they were whites who crossed the racial etiquette line of their day in their anticolonial, Pan-African, and otherwise sympathetic views of African descent peoples. Take Sir Harry Johnston as a case in point. Well before he became a renowned host of DuBois and other Pan-Africanists in England during the first twenty years of the 20th century, Johnston was the first British colonial administrator of Uganda in the 1880s and fancied himself an anthropologist and sociologist to such an extent that he helped to organize the African Studies Society of England, a forerunner of the Royal Institute for Anthropological Research and well before Bronislaw Malinowski established the British School of Social Anthropology at the London School of Economics in the 1920s. Johnston would write the first colonial historical interpretation of Uganda, the first British historical account on the founding of Liberia, and even dabbled in ornithology and Bantu linguistics before he went into forced retirement from the British Colonial Service around 1903. Shortly after he went into retirement, his big game–hunting friend from his East Africa days, President Theodore Roosevelt, asked him to come to America in the aftermath of a serious race riot. Almost forty years before the Carnegie Corporation commissioned Gunnar Myrdal to come to America to do a study on the so-called “Negro problem” in America, An American Dilemma, Roosevelt commissioned Johnston to come to the United States to do a comparative study of African descent peoples in the United States and in other areas of the Western Hemisphere based on his knowledge of Liberians and East African peoples. The book Johnson published in 1910, The Negro in the New World, is actually an impressive African

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Diasporic sociological text that was banned in this country because of its sympathetic viewpoint toward African descent people, especially in the South. For instance, Johnston’s impression of George Washington Carver as being on the same level as the finest Oxford University professors did not sit very well with U.S. censors in 1910. The tendency to study some African Diasporic sociological thinkers from national standpoints has minimized many of the contributions of these progenitors of African Diasporic sociology. When we think about the work of British sociologist Michael Banton, who profoundly influenced the study of race relations in Britain for at least two post– World War II generations, we usually think about the empirical work he did on African descent populations and their racialization status in England, without realizing that Banton began his career in the 1950s as an African urban sociologist with a focus on Freetown, wrapped conceptually in a Chicago School of Sociology race cycle framework that he learned from Edward Shils of the University of Chicago as an undergraduate at the London School of Economics, where Shils was on leave. It was more than convenient for Banton to focus on Freetown, since many of the racial problems faced by African descent peoples in England after World War II, during the increase in migration of colonial and ex-colonial African descent peoples, greatly impacted the long-standing Sierra Leonean Diasporic community in Great Britain. So, starting in Sierra Leone first and working his way back to England gave Banton a valuable intercontinental context to frame emerging race relations problems in Britain, which began to occur in the 1960s in a much more widespread way than in the past. Banton, along with Pierre van den Berghe (Race and Racism, 1967), attempted to develop a comparative model of race relations, which was actually a comparative model that considered white settler societies in relation to racialized African descent populations in the United States,

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South Africa, and Brazil. E. Franklin Frazier is another example of the tendency to consider the work of a thinker in national rather than international terms. We tend to consider Frazier an authority on African American issues in the United States, forgetting his travels to and observations on Bahia, Brazil, in the late 1930 and early 1940s, the result of which was that he locked horns with Melville Herskovits over African retentions. He claimed that such homeland retentions did not exist in the United States, while Herskovits begged to differ and provided much empirical data to the contrary. But, more importantly, after World War II, during the 1950s, Frazier became much more of an internationalist, as shown in the publication of his Race and Culture Contacts in the Modern World (1965). He even held a post in UNESCO in Paris for a number of years during the 1950s and was blocked by the FBI in his efforts to return just before his death in the early 1960s. Frazier’s Race and Culture Contacts in the Modern World is a very interesting attempt to globalize Chicago Sociology ideas about race relations. Frazier also attempted to globalize his ideas on race relations at the 1954 University of Hawaii race relations conference hosted by his University of Chicago classmate Andrew Lind, who modernized the sociology department at the University of Hawaii and organized the conference to demonstrate the global value of the Chicago race relations paradigm. The conference papers offer a rare window of globally contexted race relations sociology prior to the societal and world impact of the Brown decision, passed down just before the conference, and the Montgomery bus boycott, which occurred months after the conference. And then there were Frazier’s glowing observations in the early 1960s about the rise of new African leaders in contrast to the dysfunctions of the African American leadership class, and his collaborative work with Caribbean social scientists on the economic conditions of the Caribbean. Frazier’s Black Bourgeoisie, pub-

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African Diasporic Sociology | 37 lished in 1957, also has to be reconsidered in an international context. When we put The Black Bourgeoisie next to Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, published in 1952 in French, the texts are strikingly similar in their critiques of the dysfunctions of status of the African descent peoples, oppressed but in different societal contexts. The two works read similarly, since Frazier and Fanon may have been in the same intellectual circles in Paris in the early 1950s and thus greatly influenced each other. We should also remember that The Black Bourgeoisie was never meant to be published for American audiences. Like Francophone Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, Frazier’s Black Bourgeosie was written in the form of a French styled essay that was geared toward a French audience. Without Frazier’s permission and to his horror, an American publisher translated Black Bourgeoisie from the French and distributed it in the United States, and the rest is history. Frazier would be ostracized by angry African middle-class publics. Another Chicago School alumnus of the same era as Frazier was Charles S. Johnson, another sociologist of African descent experiences who has been interpreted purely from the standpoint of American sociological ideas, such as those of his alma mater. There is much evidence, documented in the editor’s introductory essay to Johnson’s critique of the AmericoLiberian elite in Liberia, Bitter Canaan, that Johnson’s West African ethnographic experiences in the late 1920s greatly impacted how he interpreted the oppressive plight of African descent peoples in the rural South during the 1930s. One can see glimmerings of Johnson’s political economy approach to African descent peoples family and community issues, with the plantation as the basic exploiting institution, in his Shadow of the Plantation, published in the mid-1930s in Bitter Canaan, in which the exploitation of native Liberians by the AmericoLiberian elite and by the Firestone Rubber Company is articulated.

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I NSTITUTIONALIZING A FRICAN D IASPORA S OCIOLOGY Intellectually rooting African Diasporic sociology is important because there is so much untapped theoretical and methodological worth in classical studies that up to this moment have not been properly mined, for it is only recently that there has been interest in the value of studying the experiences of African descent peoples well beyond social problems orientations and not just for the sake of doing essentialist racialized research. The work done at Michigan State University by Ruth Sims Hamilton, the first sociologist to establish a formal African Diaspora sociology research program in a major American research university, did much to move us away from assuming that African Diasporic sociology is research into social problems only. Sims Hamilton encouraged thick descriptions, detailed narratives that document the deep structures and processes of the normative, and therefore more whole, lives of peoples of African descent. Such thick descriptions, particularly in their comparative perspectives within and across societies, also assist in breaking down caricatures and homogenous conceptions that have overly simplified the study of African descent peoples in this country and abroad. An important and fascinating example is the area of families in African Diasporic research. This area of research encourages the telling of stories in the reconstruction of family histories and structures. This is an area of research that is influenced by the personal and political ideologies of the researcher. Frazier’s interpretations of the African descent peoples family in terms of class, sexual behavior, moral character, and propensity to break the law speaks of a scholar reared very much in a puritanical, working-class family in the United States, who had a personal disdain for the African descent peoples’ lower class. The stress on the social pathologies of families headed by single females and on the pathologies of the African American lower class was the major conceptual outcome of Frazier’s worldview.

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On the other hand, family studies coming out of the Caribbean by M. G. Smith, Melville Herskovits, and Edith Clarke, and Charles S. Johnson in the United States, took issue with Frazier’s puritanical approach. These scholars considered the variety of family structures and functions in communities without making moral judgments. When we read the accounts of African descent families in other societies, we have a much clearer idea about which way to go in understanding much better historical sociological trends in African descent family structure variations in the United States and in other societies with sizeable African descent populations. We should add that this comparative African descent family literature, comparative both in the sense of being cross-societal and in the sense of internally analyzing different social organizational forms of family structures, is also important for understanding family configuration trends occurring in white and other nonAfrican descent family structures in the Western Hemisphere and perhaps even in various European nations. This observation brings up another most important point about African Diasporic sociological research. There are good reasons why so much stress is placed on thick description and narrative details in much African Diasporic sociological reasoning. It is indicative of what happens when a population has been neglected and marginalized in social analysis and the work that needs to be done to bring such ignored populations into the center field of analysis. This historical neglect by sociologists of the normative study of African descent peoples both in this country and throughout the African Diaspora has been so extensive that we have very little theory and methodological construction work that is culturally grounded. Meanwhile, much of what we do know about African descent people remains wrapped in the garments of classical and contemporary western sociological thinking. The racialization of sociological epistemologies, theories, and methods is such that,

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although there is the obvious tradition of applying Eurocentric concepts and methods to explain and measure the experiences of African descent and other peoples of color, the hierarchical politics of such knowledge production simply do not encourage us to reverse this oligarchy in knowledge definition and production and to use the experiences of African descent and other peoples of color to explain and to measure what is going on in white populations. We should point out here, as alluded to earlier, the growing importance of comparative African descent family literature is to explain the growth of family structure differentiation in white populations, such as the growth of female-headed families among the white middle class as well as among poor white women. Another example would be DuBois’s concept of double consciousness, a reflective rather than an empirically grounded concept that has become quite popular these days. In double consciousness, according to DuBois, African Americans have a public dimension of themselves, a presentation seen by whites—and a private dimension, hidden from view but seen and experienced by members of their community. This concept is also a powerful Diasporic sociological concept describing the experiences of a Diasporic person in two societies, one abroad and one at home, such as West African J. E. Casely-Hayford’s early-twentieth-century experience in London, which was chronicled in Ethiopia Unbound and inspired by DuBois’s double consciousness concept. But DuBois’s double consciousness concept also has great serendipitous value for explaining the life experiences of any oppressed, marginalized, ignored, or stigmatized population—non-African descent people of color, women, children, the disabled, the poor, and religious minorities. African Diasporic sociological research should not only serve the function of documenting the presence and the important of long-neglected, globalized populations, but should also explore patterns and trends that are potentially generalizable to other populations.

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African Diasporic Sociology | 39 One of the most exciting things about the promise of African Diasporic sociological reasoning is that it is by its nature multidisciplinary, with much room for the interdisciplinary borrowing and synthesis of epistemologies, concepts, and methods. The multidisciplinary meaning of African Diasporic migration studies allows us to do such creative things as consider African descent Diasporic peoples cultural carriers and blenders who bring all sorts of things with them. They bring socially and culturally situated, operationalized, abstract concepts such as music, visual art, religious beliefs, architecture, health and wellness beliefs and practices, education and learning beliefs and practices, and literary forms, which become the blueprints for constructing networks, institutions, and communities whereever they settle, by force or voluntarily. It is interesting to observe how, say, the indigenous musical ideas African descent migrants bring with them are reshaped in their new areas of settlement with the musical ideas of other populations and how such ideas are remolded as African descent people pick up and go to other parts of a country or to another country altogether. Sociologists and sociologically thinking scholars in the other social sciences and in the humanities, such as Carolyn Cooper, have explored the Western Hemispheric and now global cultural paths cross-fertilized by African descent peoples’ musical forms, such as jazz, blues, hip hop, and reggae, as African descent musicians hailing from different societal backgrounds settle or pass through Havana, New York City, London, Lagos, and other cities. This fascinating creation and blending of abstract cultural blueprints and paradigms, brought by African descent migrants as culturally grounded ontologies for constructing the social networks and communities that produce and transform such cultural baggage, has been mostly studied in the area of African descent religions, particularly the way in which Yoruba religious beliefs have come to influence so much African descent religion in the Western Hemisphere. And as Mechel Sobel demonstrated a

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number of years ago, African religious beliefs have had lasting influences not only on the shaping of African descent religion in the United States but also on the shaping of early colonial and dominant early-nineteenth-century forms of white Christianity. New ways of understanding the migration of African descent ideas as cultural baggage via the religious art give us tools to examine the work of African American artists such as Romare Bearden, which displays some interesting African descent influences, such as the influences of Caribbean and African religious practice in what has been described oversimply as “African American art forms.” A Diasporic pattern in African descent art that appears and reappears in the paintings of Afro-Brazilian, Caribbean, and African American art has yet to be examined closely—such as the hiding of one or both eyes or the absence of eyes in the paintings of many African descent artists. In general, we really do not have a good, comprehensive text on the sociology of African descent art. When such a text is written, by virtue of the rich history of trans-societal migrations of African descent peoples and their mixtures with other peoples and their aesthetic cognitive style, it would have to have a Diasporic perspective to enjoy any degree of accuracy. Methodological innovations are sorely needed that capture the complex experiences of African descent peoples. Roy Bryce Laporte’s cutting-edge work on Caribbean immigrants in the United States is supplemented by his brilliant though highly ignored Schomburg Library exhibit, in which the tools of historical visual sociology and anthropology via photographs are used to chronicle intergenerational, transnational, and in many cases culturally and nationality mixed African descent families in the United States, some dating back to the early 19th century. V ISION AND I MAGINATION IN A FRICAN D IASPORA S OCIOLOGICAL R ESEARCH A more important theory-and-method, nutsand-bolts issue is the matter of vision and

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imagination and their importance in African Diasporic sociological work—and any sociological work, for that matter. In Diasporic research, it is essential to move away from stagnant, closed-system conceptions of social organization and human development and to view institutions, communities, and especially societies as porous constellations of complex social organizations with all kinds of visible and invisible networks that crisscross societal boundaries and involve intricate interactional processes and structures among people of similar and dissimilar social and cultural backgrounds, structured more or less in numerous vertical and horizontal power and privilege relationships. In Diasporic research, it is also important to understand how flexible and varied social identity can be, often contradicting or ignoring the conventions of the sociologically constructed boxes in which we confine people. Thus we proceed with analyses that may fit the norms of academic research communities but do not fit the lives of the people we are studying. Vision and imagination is also meant in the sense not only of reconstructing the past and the presents of African Diasporic experiences but also of conceptualizing alternative futures, that is, being visionary; for example, as in the public sociology of Howard Thurman and particularly Martin Luther King, Jr. King’s influential just society ideas among native South Africans, Afro-Brazilians, and African descent peoples in Great Britain and throughout Europe point the way to the promise that prophetic and otherwise visionary social analysis holds for African Diaspora sociological analysis. From Thorstein Veblen to Robert Lynd to Alvin Gouldner, C. Wright Mills, Joe Feagin, and Michael Burwoy, there is a long, reflective tradition of critiques of academic sociological knowledge production and its uses in broader society. If African Diaspora sociology is to grow and to flourish as a field, it is important to encourage a reflective dimension of African Diaspora sociology that critiques the

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production of knowledge about African descent experiences and dissects, ethically and morally, the use of African descent research in fashioning colonial and state policies. The reflective critiques offered by C. L. R. James, Paul Robeson, Carter G. Woodson, Anna Cooper, William E. B. DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, Hubert Harrison, Frantz Fanon, Walter Rodney, and E. Franklin Frazier could be used to fashion such a needed reflective tradition in African Diaspora sociology. But well beyond issues of theories, data, methods, vision, imagination, and ethical and moral reflection is the matter of reflective and empowering practice; that is, the scholarship of engagement and transformation as a mode of public sociology. And we must always ask ourselves the question, What is this research for, since we are entering a day in which there is growing legitimate space for the sociologist who is a scholar of engagement and transformation as well as a competent academic theorist and methodologist. For those who wish to be public sociologists in African Diaspora sociology, it means participating in efforts to improve and empower decent standards of living, the sustainability of quality physical and living environments, and advocating for the dignity of the voiceless, the marginalized, the stigmatized, and the abused and oppressed who have allowed us as sociologists to come into their lives, their institutions, their communities, and their societies to make differences that are still there and that deepen once we leave. There must be a concern for searching for ways to engage in peace, justice, and reconciliation work as public sociologists in Africa Diaspora sociology who are aware of the chronic need for peace, justice, and reconciliation, not only between whites and those of African descent, no matter their national or continental contexts, but also among African descent peoples of different nationalities and cultures conflicting increasingly in the growing pluralism of African descent communities and institutions in many urban and rural areas around

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”African” in African American History | 41 the world. Given its focus on populations produced and restricted through oppressive ideologies and practices, it is important for African Diasporic sociology to have a powerful ethical and moral public sociological dimension rather than to settle for the easier route of remaining in the cloistered, mountainous terrain of a sociology concerned merely about getting the data and going back home to the inner chambers of the ivory tower. John H. Stanfield, II See also Art in the African Diaspora; Cox, Oliver Cromwell (1901–1974); DuBois, William Edward Burghardt (1868–1963); Hurston, Zora Neale (1891–1960). F URTHER R EADING Banton, Michael. 1967. Race Relations. New York: Basic Books. Bryce-Laporte, Roy S. 1983. Caribbean Immigration to the United States. Washington, DC: Research Institute on Immigration and Ethnic Studies, Smithsonian Institution. Frazier, Edward Franklin. 1965. Race and Culture Contacts in the Modern World. Boston: Beacon Press. Frazier, Edward Franklin. 2004. The Economic Future of the Caribbean. Dover, MA: Majority Press. Harrison, Hubert H. 2001. A Hubert Harrison Reader. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Herskovits, Melville J. 1941. The Myth of the Negro Past. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1990. Johnson, Charles Spurgeon. 1987. Bitter Canaan: The Story of the Negro Republic. Introductory essay by John Stanfield. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books. Johnston, Harry Hamilton, Sir. 1910. The Negro in the New World. New York: Johnson Reprint Corp, 1969. Pierson, Donald. 1967. Negroes in Brazil : A Study of Race Contact at Bahia. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Twine, France Winddance. 1998. Racism in a Racial Democracy: The Maintenance of White Supremacy in Brazil. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Van den Berghe, Pierre L. 1978. Race and Racism: A Comparative Perspective. New York: John Wiley.

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Winant, Howard. 2004. The New Politics of Race: Globalism, Difference, Justice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

z ”African” in African American History I NTRODUCTION “African” American history is implicitly a study of people of multiple identities, nationalities, and ethnicities. It is a record of voluntary, but mostly involuntary, sojourners whose journeys across the Atlantic Ocean began “before Columbus came to the ‘New World’.” The history of the word “African” in African American history, therefore, starts before the land referred to as America was fully cartographed and hence before the United States was nationally constituted. Moreover, the phrase “African American history,” with “African” as the key word, is relatively recent and also ironic, given that “peoples of Africa have traditionally embraced an ethnic identification [i.e., Yoruba, Akan, or Malinke] in contradistinction to a trans-ethnic, regional or continentally based one” (Palmer 2000, 29). By the same token, the word “African” establishes the Diasporic nature of this history. Through the Diasporic prism, the African’s American history becomes a history of bridges imaginary and real, chronological and temporal, between people of African descent from at least two ethnic communities, or between at least two distinct continents, or between at least two global territories. Such traditional topics as plantation societies, sites of protest and resistance, the rise of Jim Crow and lynching Negroes as a social event, black soldiers and the World Wars, the civil rights era and affirmative action, remain integral to any African American history course. Yet to focus on the “African” not only internationalizes the history

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of America but also places African American history in globalization studies. The African Diasporic perspective, coupled with gendered analyses, new conceptualizations of an Atlantic world, and transnationality—that is, the global dispersal of peoples who at some time originated from communities on the African continent and eventually reached the Americas in various capacities from captives, laborers, seamen, explorers, mistresses, and soldiers to stowaways but who may be able to claim multiple nationalities—introduces a new way of looking at and reinterpreting traditional historical themes, an alternative approach to the study of the world’s peoples, and enlarges the study of African American history. From a global angle, black nationalism becomes an international, Pan-Africanist/anticolonial movement; America’s urban communities become ever-changing multiracial, multiethnic, intraand interdiasporic conclaves; war becomes a global phenomenon; and human beings or indigenous groups are recognized in U.S. foreign policy with Africa and with other formerly Euro-colonial countries. Concerted attention by the mainstream American historical establishment to the “African” in African American history is roughly only four decades old. Today, this history is taught with the “African” as the main subject, and the geographic context includes all nations where African Diasporans reside and share similar life experiences with African Americans. Ideologically, though, the story of Africans in America remains a history of changing identities and nomenclature; from “coloreds,” then “Negroes,” to “blacks,” then “Afro-Americans,” and now “African Americans.” B ACKGROUND It must be said that this area of history was never only concerned with African Americans in North America. The first writings of this history were not by trained historians; in fact, the history of the African in African American history would be recorded by a diverse collective

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of formally trained, interdisciplinary scholars, amateur and self-proclaimed historians, and, simply put, passionate devotees of the study of African peoples in world history. Among the earliest recorders of “Africans” in North America were former African captives in the 18th century, free African Americans in the mid-19th century, and the first of a budding lineage of formally trained scholars after Reconstruction. The pre-Emancipation reflections of enslaved Africans (Olaudah Equiano, Venture Smith, Phillis Wheatley, Ignatius Sancho, etc.), found generically in so-called slave narratives and poetic verse, while individually unique, express the authors’ identification with Africa as their motherland, recount the horrific Middle Passage to America, and consciously detail aspects of their regionally distinct enslavement in a “New World.” These early involuntary immigrants implicitly identified themselves as members of a world community. With the rise of the American abolitionist and antislavery movements during the antebellum period, slave narratives multiplied but became more locally and nationally rooted. To this growing body of personal testimonies, however, were added appeals, speeches, journalism, grade books, and histories by seminal black intellectuals and activists of the 19th century (e.g., David Walker, William Wells Brown, Martin Robison Delany, Edward Wilmot Blyden, J. W. C. Pennington, George Washington Williams, Edward Austin Johnson, W. E. B. DuBois, Ida B. Wells-Barnet, Maria Stewart, and Anna Julia Cooper). Their works deliberately (though at times scantily and inaccurately) covered ancient African civilizations, traditional African societies before Europeans began exploring West Africa and trading with and in Africans. Those individuals whose careers extended beyond Reconstruction and into the 20th century also addressed and linked European imperialist policies in Africa to antiblack/racist practices in America. For this interdisciplinary crew of amateur and formally trained scholars, what dictated one’s disciplinary affiliation and professional acceptance by

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”African” in African American History | 43 other members of this loosely formed group was demonstration of a broad “historical vision”—an acute and passionate interest in the “African” within and beyond America’s borders. In the first two decades of the 20th century, this “Africanist” emphasis (i.e., historical vision) gained momentum, largely stimulated by the post-Reconstruction scholarship of Williams (e.g., History of the Negro Race in America, 1619–1880: Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, as Citizens, 1883), and DuBois (e.g., The Suppression of the African Slave Trade, 1896, and The Negro, 1915). Joining their ranks were Carter G. Woodson, Monroe Work, Benjamin Brawley, C. L. R. James, Charles H. Wesley, Arthur Schomburg, George Padmore, and Rayford Logan. Unavoidable was their sense of a world in crisis, as more than 200,000 black enlistees fought in a Great War that would only advance and enhance the cause of European global domination. Nevertheless, each one of them shared a sense of responsibility for collecting, compiling, and disseminating knowledge about African Americans before their captivity in the Americas, about America’s African roots, and about the America the African captives built. Like their predecessors, the “Africanist-American historians” of the 1930s and 1940s stayed internationally informed and were opposed to Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. They wrote about such contemporaneous issues as fascism and European imperialism as well as slavery and viewed them as kindred, global economies and political systems that oppress the masses. Reasoning that the modern nation state was founded on the exploitation of black labor, C. L. R. James, DuBois, and Padmore used the writing of history to advocate for interracial and international working-class solidarity. These writers, in essence, inaugurated the study of types of resistance and rebellion by and for “Africans” in African American history. Against a contemporary backdrop of routine lynching of black men as a Caucasian social event and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, this research would be

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furthered by Herbert Aptheker, John Hope Franklin, Eugene Genovese, and others from the 1940s onward. Within these two decades, Franklin, Woodson, Quarles, and the everprescient DuBois (with Black Folk Then and Now in 1939) would become recognized and respected officially as pioneering the formal study of African American history. Their comprehensive texts are still models of African American historiography (i.e., how to write and what to include in the study of Africans in America). For example, Franklin’s From Slavery to Freedom, now in its eighth revised edition, has outdistanced others, becoming “as much a historical document and artifact as it is a history of our civilization” (Hine 2000, 18–19). Interrogated and surveilled, many historians of the 1940s and 1950s were undaunted by the rise of the Cold War, the red scare, the permanency of Jim Crow and segregationist policies and practices, and treatment on the home front of World War II veterans. Instead, the changes during this era (e.g., the United Nations’ passage of a declaration of human rights, the liberation of Ghana and struggles for decolonization throughout Africa, the first International Congress of Negro Writers and Artists, etc.) ushered them to incorporate a radical and politically activist voice into their scholarship and into the way they approached their subject. For Franklin, the “African” would remain both front and center, subject and plot, always a survivor rather than a victim in U.S. history. Herbert Aptheker (professed Marxist and card-carrying Communist) would subvert the myth of the passive, docile slave and would also internationalize the study of black resistance. Additionally, during these decades, anthropologists Melville and Frances S. Herskovits published multiple comparative studies of “African cultural survivals” in the Americas, in folklore, music, dress, religious rituals, dance, foodways, and language, which resulted from their extensive travel throughout the Americas and Africa. On the heels of the Civil Rights Movement, Africanist American historians began to push

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for curricula reform and scholarly inclusion. Their shouts were heard by an equally marginalized group of Africanist historians and other academic affiliates. With a mutual interest in the “global dispersal” of African peoples, the likes of Joseph Harris, Joseph Inikori, Colin Palmer, George Shepperson, St. Claire Drake, Tony Martin, Albert Raboteau, Elliott Skinner, Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, Filomena Chioma Steady, and a few other, equally prolific, possibly inadvertent supporters (e.g., Herbert Klein, Joseph Miller, Robert Farris Thompson, Jan Vansina, Sidney Mintz, Richard Price, Edward Ayers, Richard Lobban, Linda Heywood, etc.) would inaugurate their own discipline of the study, primarily, of the “modern African Diaspora.” Although the parameters of this phase start at the 15th century with the Atlantic trade in African captives, they extend up to the present day. Of this modern era, Kim Butler adds that the African-Atlantic is only one of three territorial streams (“African-Asian/Indian Ocean, and African-continental [those migrating within the continent, itself]”); moreover, “the reality of human experience further subdivides and complicates these large categories” (Butler 2000, 127). It has proven to be an industrious area of study, but Michael Gomez, J. Lorand Matory, Sheila Walker, Earl Lewis, Jane Landers, Winston James, Robin Kelley, Sylvia Frey, Douglas Chambers, Judith Carney and a host of other interdisciplinary luminaries that dot the pages of this essay, have secured for it a place in American history. R ECENT T RENDS AND T ENDENCIES Today many specialists in African American history consciously write from a Diasporic “standpoint,” indicating a mindfulness of the significance of the ideological position of the person who is telling the history. In the DuBois and Franklin tradition, these works center Africans as agents, conduits, and critics of their own story, their own past, their own memory, and their own historical imagination. Instead of the predominant “Eurocentric” perspective

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that repeats the thoughts and ideas of European planters, merchants, and traders about Africans and the Atlantic slave trade, more recent accounts of the African Diaspora intentionally try to position the African and African American as both the primary subject and the primary voice. Structurally, these narratives begin on the African continent and with a discussion about African ethnicities. By doing this, the authors are able to speak of the variety of cultural practices, thoughts, and the weltanschauung that each group brought to America. Knowledge of the cultural and ideological history of these peoples makes easier the presentation of the worlds that Africans created singly and with whites once they arrived on American shores. Stressing that Africans did not come to America as “blank sheets” experiencing a sudden amnesia regarding the world they left behind, scholars detail the inextricable connection between the growth of the Americas and the arrival of African peoples to it—in this instance North America. They demonstrate the idea of a “standpoint” by narrowing their focus and study to the voice of the “African” in American history. Three recent, comprehensive texts of African American history that start with Africa before 1500, before moving to causes of the global dispersal of Africans are these: Africans in the Americas: A History of the Black Diaspora, ed. Connif and Davis (1994); Passageways: An Interpretative History of Black America, ed. Palmer (1998); and To Make the World Anew, ed. Kelley and Lewis (2000). These texts provide a general discussion of European expansion, imperial trade policies, strategies of economy, systems of labor, and patterns of and location of African resettlement. More precisely, they address the consequences of human displacement first within and then beyond the West African coast. To speak of displacement is to speak of the raw dehumanization (the shackles, whippings, brandings, rapes, physical entrapment, the instigated ethnic wars), suicides, infanticides, mutinies, African agency,

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”African” in African American History | 45 greed, and naïveté as well as European trickery, greed and risks. Some of these works allude to memorable and tangible retentions (for example, key words, speech patterns, food preparations), as well as the collective psychological trauma brought on by the Middle Passage experience of “social death” (as theorized by Orlando Patterson); but they stop short of presenting African Americans as victims or advancing the “woe unto me” thesis. E NSLAVEMENT AND A FRICAN I DENTITIES : T HE C OLONIAL AND A NTEBELLUM P ERIODS AND B EYOND Colonial studies of Africans in the New World, from the 1970s, have focused on interactions between Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans. Peter Wood, Allan Kulikoff, Russell R. Menard, and Edmund Morgan are among the historians whose regional microstudies (of mostly Virginia, Maryland, and South Carolina) look squarely at paradoxes of race relations in early America; at Africans’ cultural contributions in foodways, horticulture, and the creolization of language; at spatial arrangements between masters and enslaved, as well as how they perceived each other; and at the pervasive (racist) ideology of slavery and its ramifications on a majority enslaved and “unknown” population. Stretching this topic with more comparative analysis of “the slave community” and “slave life” were John Blassingame, Leslie Howard Owens, and an overview text by Philip Foner. Although subtle, these were early Diasporic studies with authors pointing to retentions and survivals in African American communities. Daniel C. Littlefield, Mechal Sobel, and Sterling Stuckey sustained the study of enslaved “Africans” in the 1980s. In the 1990s, this research would appear as the precursor not only of macro-regional examinations of slavery but also of histories that became categorically qualified as studies of “the Black/Atlantic World,” discussed later in this essay. It must be stated though, that the publication of Ira Berlin’s 1980 AHR essay, “Time,

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Space, and the Evolution of Afro-American Society in British Mainland North America,” was a seminal moment. Berlin’s article made explicit the need for and importance of a focus on the “African” in African American history; he firmly rooted the complex study of the “modern African Diaspora” in the “American historical establishment.” Berlin’s essay illuminates the multiple ethnicities behind the term “African” as the Asante, Fulani, Ibo, Twi, and Yoruba. Berlin underscores the Middle Passage as a period of ethnic exchanges in language, customs, hopes and memories. Because of this shared experience, these groups would bond as Africans when they reached American shores; they would later become African Americans, now a people forced to share a similar plight, forced to share a collective identity, and subject to, inadvertently, a shared collective and historical memory. Although close to Ira Berlin’s focus on African identities, Michael Gomez’s Exchanging Our Country Marks: the Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South (1998) extends through the 1830s. He describes and emphasizes the diversity of West Africans (i.e., from Senegambia, Sierra Leone, and Bight of Biafra) and West Central Africans (i.e., from Angola but mainly Congo); and the diverse ethnic groups (e.g., from Senegambia—the Mandingo and Bambara, from the Bight of Biafra—mainly Igbo) that were represented among the enslaved Africans in North America, especially in British-dominated colonies: Virginia and Maryland, South Carolina and Georgia. He also offers information about early transports to French Louisiana (mostly Bambara from Senegambia), and about the Ewe-Fon from the Bight of Benin. To survive their enslavement and later American racism, Africans retained and made use of strong memories of their home communities, aided by their “country marks” (which were facial scars), by maintaining their faith in and practice of Islam (a substantial number of Africans were Muslims) or by weaving into

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Christian thought and worship various African religious traditions, and by turning to familiar organizational strategies to plot revolts (as in the case of Denmark Vesey’s 1822 slave insurrection). Eventually, however, Africans’ similar experiences, due to the common pressures of enslavement, led to a collective, racial identification. Ergo, from the 1990s to the present, African American historians have asserted two key points: (1) that racial slavery linked people of African descent historically to one another regardless of the different places of their enslavement and regardless of the variation among legal codes and practices in different places; and (2) that, while the history of African Americans’ individual identities is complex and complicated, it does not trump how they are viewed collectively, as a single race. R ESISTANCE , A NTI -C OLONIALISM AND C IVIL R IGHTS : PAN -A FRICAN S TRUGGLES Pioneering work on diverse locations and techniques used by Africans to resist captivity and oppression—from the Angolans’ rebellion at Stono Bridge, South Carolina, the Haitian Revolution, Nat Turner’s Rebellion, legal petitions or “freedom cases” in New England and New York, the mutiny aboard the Amistad led by Joseph Cinque, flight through the underground railroad conducted by Harriet Tubman, to the formation of maroon communities in the Carolinas and Florida—as documented by Joseph Carroll and Herbert Aptheker before the mid1940s, has been updated by John Hope Franklin, Gerald Mullin, Peter Wood, and Eugene Genovese. Today, resistance is typically examined with a comparative, “Diasporic” lens. Through this approach, scholars have detected a “discourse of resistance” of loosely used terms, labels, and categories, such as slave, servant, peasant, laborer, worker, specie, chattel, and property. Works by Terence Ranger, Paul Lovejoy, and Michael O’Malley critically examine this lexicon. The meaning and use of these terms during the era of transatlantic slavery were com-

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plicated by the geography, laws, and economies of those countries that were involved in the transatlantic trade. Resisters who took to the seas and navigated beyond national borders instantly acquired new identities as “transnationals.” One group, the emigrationists, desired to “return to the motherland.” Martin Delany, Paul Cuffee, and a significant number of black participants in white-orchestrated “Negro colonization” schemes, such as the American Colonization Society, are most representative of this yearning in the 19th century. Early black nationalist agendas, amply detailed by historians Wilson Moses and Robert Hill Jr., reemphasize the international perspective in African American history. In the early 20th century, Marcus Garvey’s UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) was the largest “back to Africa” movement up to that time, with its multifaceted, visionary agenda espousing self-determination, racial pride, and black economic independence. Garvey founded the Black Star Line Steamship Company, delegated leadership responsibilities to individuals to ensure the growth of a strong black community on foreign soil, that is, America; and preached proemigration in numerous public forums. Selfconsciously Diasporic, Garvey’s Pan-African ideology, “Africa for the Africans,” reached and appealed to Southern black migrants from sharecroppers’ fields who sought service jobs and industrial labor in Northern cities; to black veterans of World War I who returned home to joblessness, race discrimination, and the denial of political rights; and to African Americans who desired confirmation and recognition of their collective and individual contributions to national and world history. Resistance struggles in America have always embodied an international dimension, as the African American pursued the rights of citizenship at home and abroad. In Souls of Black Folk (1903), W. E. B. DuBois reflected that the American Negro has a “double consciousness.” This problem, reworded today, involves (at

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”African” in African American History | 47 least) a dual identity: one as an American and the other as an “African” American. At the turn of the 20th century, black American religionists (in particular, Reverend Herbert and Bessie Mae Payne of the National Baptist Convention, and Bishop Henry McNeal Turner of the African Methodist Episcopal Church) traveled to South Africa and found themselves having “to leverage their American citizenship to overcome South Africa’s informal ban on foreign people of African descent entering and remaining in the country.” This ban turned into a formal South African policy of deportation or refusal to admit in 1906 (Vinson 2004, 1, 3). As detailed by Robert Vinson, between 1910 and 1915 the South African government codified a series of segregationist laws (the Native Regulation Act and the Mines and Works Act in1911, the Native Land Act and the Immigration Act in 1913) that mirrored contemporaneous Jim Crow legislation in the United States (Vinson 2004, 1, 3, 4). South Africa’s policies forced its black American guests to confront, metaphorically and legally, the common ground on which they stood with black South Africans. Despite the ocean that divided them, theirs was a shared, familiar history of persistently enduring degradation, racial rejection, poverty, poor health care, joblessness, residential confinement, sentencing inequities and, simply put, third- or lower-class status. From exposure to “American Negroes”—directly and through circulated material that featured Booker T. Washington, Langston Hughes, Florence Mills, Lena Horne, Jesse Owens, Marian Anderson, and more, black South Africans could realize the fallacy of the Afrikaner’s national status. The most elusive struggle for black South Africans was an ideological one, being viewed as “the White Man’s Burden” (the belief that, with the assistance of benevolent whites, it would take Africans two thousand years to evolve from barbarianism to civilization). So, too, for African Americans, the civil rights struggle constantly confronted racial stereo-

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types. As described by A. Leon Higginbotham, “the precept of [African Americans’] inferiority” extends back (a) to “African” American chattel slavery; (b) to the constitutional descriptive of enslaved Africans as three-fifths of a person; (c) to former chief justice Roger B. Taney’s juridical position in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) that African Americans were “beings of an inferior order,” and “had no rights which white men were bound to respect”; and (d) in the 21st century, to the dilution of their enfranchisement by means of discarded and miscounted ballots, malfunctions in mechanical and manual ballot systems, disqualification at the polls, names unlisted on Election Day at assigned voting precincts, or by the occasional practice of gerrymandering. Recent publications about black nationalism and resistance movements underscore the pivotal role of race in the history of American foreign relations. They plant African anticolonial struggles within the long tradition of black Americans’ civil rights protests and raise consciousness and understanding of relationships that have been formed between Africanists on both sides of the Atlantic. Works by Penny von Eschen, Brenda Plummer, and James H. Meriwether reveal the African Americans’ solidarity with Africans in their common struggles against white supremacy and racial exclusion at all levels of society. Empathy with African revolutionary struggles echoes throughout black Americans’ engagement in the antiapartheid movement. Support dates back to 1948 with the creation of an apartheid state, accelerates in the 1970s as the Vietnam War ends, and swells in numbers in 1986 when the Congressional Black Caucus and friends (black and white) convinced a Republicancontrolled Congress to pass the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act. It is a thorny and lengthy history, though, with international events that criss-cross chronologically. It includes the radical socialist voices of W. E. B. DuBois and Paul Robeson, who refused to temper their criticism of racial discrimination

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at home and abroad; the unsung heroism of William Alphaeus Hunton Jr. (executive director of the Council of African Affairs, 1931– 1955); the moderate but steady support of Walter White (executive secretary of the NAACP, 1931–1955); Rosa Parks, whose refusal to vacate her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, in 1955 launched Martin Luther King Jr.’s career as the preeminent leader of America’s Civil Rights Movement; African American voters, whose political strength helped John F. Kennedy’s bid for the presidency in 1961; and the 1960s emergence of Malcolm X in the Nation of Islam. Although most African Americans during the 1950s and 1960s were fixated on their own crusade against race discrimination and its physically violent repercussions, many young people of African descent identified with the revolutionary strides of the Mau Mau rebels in 1952, who rose up against British rule in Kenya; with those who died in the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa; with the militant arm of the African National Congress in South Africa in 1961; and with the insurgents in the 1976 Soweto uprising. In fact, members of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) met with Sékou Touré (then president of colonized Guinea) in 1964. In the 1970s, African Liberation Committee activists met with Amilcar Cabral (later leader of the independent state of Guinea-Bissau). Witnesses to these cross-Atlantic events— one of the more tragic being the murder of President Patrice Lumumba in January 1961, less than one year after the Congo gained independence from Belgium in June 1960— African Americans channeled their support against European colonialism in Africa through TransAfrica, established in 1977, under the direction of Randall Robinson. This Pan-African movement pushed for the release of Nelson Mandela as a symbolic victory over the racist psyche of imperialism for South Africans, as well as for African Americans over racial injustice at home.

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P UBLIC H ISTORY The desire to passionately connect to Middle Passage survivors and to Africa as the motherland has exploded into imaginative museum exhibits and into a heritage/tourism industry. For those who can pay the passage, carefully crafted study tours offer on-site, popular history. Their purposes vary, from the academic to the vacational. For other sojourners, these are opportunities to psychically reclaim a lost identity, to come to know the feelings of an uprooted people, to listen to the rhythmic sounds of percussion beats and to learn the intricacies of traditional African dance styles, and to broach, vicariously, the emotional trauma of captivity. Academic institutions and private travel agencies have endorsed this form of popular history by sponsoring 12 to 30 day trips (by air and by sea) to transatlantic slave trade sites along the West African coast (e.g., Ghana, The Gambia, Mali, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire); some programs go to coastal ports in England, France, and Portugal to stress and visually point to Europe’s reliance on the trade in African captives to ensure presence, participation, and viability in a global economy, and to show how the cities in the Western world, in effect, became Diasporic sites of displacement for many Africans (Leonard 2004). Today, African Diasporans journey to postapartheid South Africa. These “study-on-site” programs have gained legitimacy by insisting that the travelers make the effort to attend scheduled tours of such historically significant locations as Soweto townships, Johannesburg, and Robben Island, Cape Town (e.g., Langa Pass Office and the Court Building), Durban, and Pretoria. Public history study tours, in particular tours of Southern plantations, are now a commercial enterprise. This growing industry has an academic agenda as well. Formal tours of plantations are often viewed as visits to “sites of memory.” Such sites as Monticello, Mount Vernon, Carter’s Grove in Williamsburg, and Stratford Hall (all in Virginia), Northampton

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”African” in African American History | 49 (Lake Arbor, Maryland), Stagville (Durham, North Carolina), Nina and Evergreen Plantations (New Orleans, Louisiana), McLeod (St. James Island, South Carolina), Magnolia Hill (Natchez, Mississippi), and the Hermitage (Savannah, Georgia), for example, have restored, reconstructed, or mapped out the “slave quarters” and sheds (blacksmith’s shop, distillery, meat house, dairy, etc.) on these grounds where African captives once slept, ate, worked and were beaten. Work by archaeologists and anthropologists (e.g., Michael Blakey, Laurie Wilkie, Cheryl LaRoche, John Vlach, Jerome Handler, Theresa Singleton) at sites in North America and the Caribbean has unearthed a variety of artifacts—tools, pottery, jewelry, clothing, utensils, and more—that the enslaved populations made and used every day. Where graves have been disturbed or bodies exhumed, there is cultural evidence that Africans retained memory of how they traditionally honored their dead. Scholars have also determined typical diets, work habits, type of physical labor performed, and the degree of violence in the everyday lives of enslaved peoples. Locating where Africans lived in relation to the plantation’s main house, or “big house,” has enabled historians to understand the degree of daily interaction between African Americans and whites. Actual structure of some slave quarters has been linked to architecture in certain African villages and to African Diasporic communities in the Americas (i.e., in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, St. Kitts, etc.). Confirmation of these structures has been found in slave narratives and recollections passed down generationally. In this vein, the public history tours of these sites serve as opportunities to resurrect, learn, and view African American history through an intimate lens. Recent archaeological digs in the North on former plantations (Salem, Massachusetts; Shelter Island on Long Island, New York; and Morris County, New Jersey, for instance) and in cities—Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Wilming-

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ton, Delaware; lower Manhattan, New York (in particular the African Burial Ground); Georgetown, Washington, D.C.—have resulted in similar evidence. Northern sites of memory include Underground Railroad stops. The National Underground Railroad Project, sponsored by the National Parks Service, has been instrumental in mapping out the various locations throughout the country where “runaway slaves” traveled, and some stayed, to escape captivity. Equally educational are the thoroughly researched and conceptualized interactive African American history exhibits at national and state museums under the direction of Spencer Crew and Fath Davis Ruffins. G ENDER /WOMEN Single volumes, such as Hines and Thompson’s A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America (1998), as well as new gendered approaches to comprehensive histories of African America, have unveiled previously unseen points of commonality among women of the African Diaspora. Gender-specific questions applied to traditional themes (e.g., female socialization, sexual violation, labor exploitation, motherhood and childrearing) or, for instance, resistance studies by Barbara Bush, L. Virginia Gould, Jennifer Morgan, and Rosalyn TerborgPenn, result in debunking myths about the roles of women in planter societies and document, instead, how these women resorted to creative strategies of survival. When a gendered and Diasporic analysis informs the historiography, we find expressions of empathy and sisterhood, “shared standpoints” (discussed earlier) a common, comparative “African feminism” (propounded by Filomena Chioma Steady in The Black Woman Cross-Culturally), and an evolving “black feminism” with assertions now of a “womanist consciousness” (a concept initially associated with writer Alice Walker, and now with Elsa Barkley Brown, Clenora Hudson, and others) that empowers black women to study themselves in relation to both black men and nonblacks. Scholars advance these points using

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a range of diverse materials: primary sources, fiction, academic papers, personal narratives, such anthologies as Margaret Busby’s Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent: From Egyptian to the Present (1992) and such collected essays as those by Rosalyn Terborg-Penn et al., Women in Africa and the African Diaspora (1987). Additionally, biographical accounts of Tituba, Elizabeth Lange (founder of the Oblate Sisters of Providence), Adelaide Smith CaselyHayford, Amy Jacques-Garvey, and Claudia Jones, to name a few, by Elaine G. Breslaw, Diane Batts Morrow, Adelaide M. Cromwell, Ula Taylor, and Carole Boyce Davies, respectively, have exposed mixed identities, border crossings (real and imaginary), and some black women’s preferred nationalities. C ULTURAL /I NTERDISCIPLINARY S TUDIES Today, we owe much of our knowledge and understanding of Diasporic themes in African American history to an interdisciplinary generation of historians doing cross-disciplinary research and scholarship. Research by John Vlach, Theresa Singleton, Lawrence W. Levine, Charles Joyner, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, and others continues to illuminate African retentions, borrowings, and adaptations in African American architecture, folklore, speech, music, use of the natural landscape, dance, and religion. History relies on anthropologists and archaeologists to help elucidate migratory processes, occupations, and nutritional habits and to explain everyday lifestyles. Moreover, African American history is benefiting from geneticists using DNA analysis to mark the Diasporic scattering of African peoples throughout the globe, as well as the racial pairings that have resulted from these resettlements. Interdisciplinarity has exposed the open sharing of cultures among Africans, Europeans, and indigenous Americans. Still needed, however, is more explanation of the ways in which knowledge is transmitted and received (as reflected on by Earl Lewis) or how culture “travels” and

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is transformed (as studied by James Clifford). Clearly, for African Diasporans, theirs has been a history of more obliteration than retention— a history of erasures of entire language systems, economic structures, and even sacred practices. To identify cultural survivals, historians are resorting to previously shunned forms of evidence, such as memory. They are examining the role and processes of memory and asking, What is remembered, and how is that memory triggered? They are reassessing the value of oral traditions (especially myths, legends, and songs), personal interviews, and ethnographies to delve deeper into the African past for meanings that will assist in the teaching and understanding of modern African Diaspora. They are incorporating local and popular histories into more hagiographic studies. According to Earl Lewis, a number of “interrelated questions” about identity formation, black communities, urban migration, group and individual consciousness, and “othering” remain barely explored from the post-Reconstruction era onward. He urges historians to study America’s cities, which he describes as “trans-geographical” because they are inhabited by “African-descended immigrants” who have come to America from Puerto Rico, Cuba, Brazil, Jamaica, and other “impoverished hamlets and towns” throughout the Americas. When they reach the United States, they encounter other African Diasporic descendants (Lewis 1995, 786). Combined, they show that African Americans are people with a history of “overlapping Diasporas” and with “intra-Diasporic” experiences—meaning that, like any migrant, they will bring their life experiences with them into a new community. Since they are entering communities of “other” African Diasporans/descendants, their past experiences will be shaped by their interactions with individuals in their new Diasporic communities. Historians, therefore, are turning to research by anthropologists, sociologists, demographers, and ethnographers to understand the experiences of Haitians in Florida, Cape Verdans in Massa-

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”African” in African American History | 51 chusetts, Caribbeans in New York, or Guineans throughout the United States. T HE B LACK /ATLANTIC WORLD Steady growth of interest in the Diasporic dimension of the “African” in African-American history is evident in the renaming of disciplinary programs and departments at major universities and colleges to Africana Studies, Black Studies, Black-Atlantic Studies, Comparative Ethnic Studies, or Africology. History of the “black Atlantic” and the “Atlantic World,” more than the others, are kindred fields that have continued to expand, categorically, since the late 1980s. Geographically, each encompasses Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Chronologically, each covers the 16th through the 19th centuries. Topics often receive comparative treatment and cover migration, imperial governments, slavery, race, language, trade networks and means of economy, women, physical landscape, and sociopolitical movements. Among the typically labeled “Atlantic World” historians are David Northrup, Philip Morgan, James Walvin, Jack Greene, David Richardson, and W. Jeffrey Bolster, whose Diasporic contribution to African American history takes us to racially integrated sites of labor on the open seas with mariners, sailors, pirates, enslaved persons, and merchants. The tendencies among these scholars, many of whom initially specialized in European, British, African or Economic/Business history, is (1) to replace the general term “West Africa” by differentiating between the names of African ethnicities before and after they arrived in the Americas, as well as by identifying Africans’ places of origin; (2) to shift the historical perspective from one that looks backward at African transports to the Americas to one that starts on Africa’s shores; (3) to emphasize the value and utility of quantification, that is, the approximate numbers of African “exports” between the 15th and 19th centuries, by age, sex, price, ethnicity, ship, voyage, and so forth; (4) to trace the paradoxical concurrence of institutionalized slav-

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ery of African Diasporans and freedom for European immigrants to the Americas; and (5) to show the diversity of African experiences in the new Atlantic World. In this vein are statistical data of enslaved transportees gathered by Philip Curtin and David Eltis; records of slave ships in the W. E. B. DuBois Transatlantic Slave Trade Database Set; John Thornton’s controversial Africa and Africans in the Making of the Americas, 1400–1800 (1998), which attributes “agency” to the African elite in shaping the development of the transatlantic slave trade; Patrick Manning’s writings on the demographic impact on African societies of the exportation of African captives; and Joseph Miller’s tome of the inhumanity of the Middle Passage and the “real” economic beneficiaries of the transatlantic trade. These two paradigms—conceptual approaches to the study of African Americans— continue to evolve and call for us to rethink how we view the “African” in America. The appearance of Exchanging Our Country Marks by Michael Gomez (discussed earlier) and Paul Gilroy’s The Black Atlantic (1993) exemplify this point. Gilroy’s seminal publication stirred up a wind gust of numerous written and live debates over the contours of the “black Atlantic,” over the usefulness of this paradigm, over the parochial lens of American scholars, and over the appropriateness of the phrase “black Atlantic” for the study of all of the varied streams of African displacement, dispersal, and resettlement. For Colin Palmer, the reference to the Atlantic Ocean alone is extremely problematic for a people “whose memories are still haunted by an ocean that is associated with the travail of their ancestors” (Palmer 2000, 31). To others, Gilroy oversimplifies the term “black” by evading the racial, regional, and historical complexities of African Diasporans. Leaping beyond Gilroy’s routes/roots thesis, Earl Lewis, Robin Kelley, Tiffany Patterson, Brent Edwards, Michael I. West, Kim Butler, and Herman L. Bennett, in variously titled papers, now talk in terms (some already

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mentioned) of “overlapping Diasporas,” “border crossings” “dispersed communities,” or “traveling cultures.” Moreover, “history” as a field of study is too limited to fully conceive, explain, or outline the complexity of Africans’ multidirectional movements around the globe. These authors assert that African Diaspora specialists must be “multipositional” to capture the diverse roles played by Africans themselves. A multipositional standpoint will assist scholars in the way they approach and study individuals with “multiple identities that change over time” and that change because of changes in society and in political affairs; and it will enable the historian to assess and better understand what occurs when individuals physically relocate from one residence to several other “Diasporic communities” in one lifetime (Butler 2000, 127). N EW D IRECTIONS Today, the Internet makes possible the rapid digitization of rare archives, the steady uploading of scholarly papers, teleconferencing, and distance learning classes. As we zoom out our lens, we will gaze upon an entire globe on which new markers light up daily to signify the steady resettlement of African Diasporans. The “African” in contemporary African American history does not denote, necessarily, a direct connection to an African past but rather to a continuous, collective genealogy of mixed identities that stretch backward and forward in time and space and anchors the inter- and transnational dimension in Americans’ everyday lives. Angela Michele Leonard See also Creole, Creolity, Creolization; DuBois, William Edward Burghardt (1868–1963); Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887– 1940); Haiti; Pan-Africanism. F URTHER R EADING Bagwell, Orlando, and Susan Bellows, prods. 1998. Africans in America. 4-part series, 4 hours, 52 minutes. Videocassettes. Boston: WGBH.

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Butler, Kim D. 2000. “From Black History to Diasporan History: Brazilian Abolition in an AfroAtlantic Context.” African Studies Review 43 (April): 125–139. Clifford, James. 1994. “Diasporas.” Cultural Anthropology 9 (August): 302–338. Dent, Jonathan, writer and prod. 1993. Digging for Slaves: The Excavation of Slave Sites. 50 min. Videocassette. BBC-TV. Dodson, Howard, and Sylvaine A. Diouf, comps. and eds. 2005. In Motion: The African American Migration Experience. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Also see: www.inmotionaame.org/home.cfm. Ernest, John. 2004. Liberation Historiography: African American Writers and the Challenge of History, 1794–1861. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Hampton, Henry, prod. 1987. Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years (1954–1965). 14 parts. Videocassette. Blackside Production / PBS. Harris, Joseph, ed. 1982. Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora. Washington, DC: Howard University Press. Hine, Darlene Clark. 2000. “Paradigms, Politic, and Patriarchy in the Making of a Black History: Reflections on From Slavery to Freedom.” Journal of Negro History 85 (Winter-Spring): 18–21. Kelley, Robin D. G. 1999. “‘But a Local Phase of a World Problem’: Black History’s Global Vision, 1883–1950.” Journal of American History 86 (December): 1045–1077. Kellner, Douglas. 2002. “Theorizing Globalization.” Sociological Theory 20 (November): 285–305. Leonard, Angela M. 2004. “In the Matter of Race, Memory, and Transformation: The Use of Sacred Sites to Teach Social Justice.” Religion and Education 31 (Spring): 59–79. Lewis, Earl. 1995. “To Turn as on a Pivot: Writing African Americans into a History of Overlapping Diasporas.” American Historical Review 100 (June): 765–787. Moses, Wilson M. 1998. Afrotopia: The Roots of African American Popular History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Painter, Nell. 2005. Creating Black Americans: African American History and Its Meanings, 1619 to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press. Palmer, Colin A. 2000. “Defining and Studying the Modern African Diaspora.” Journal of Negro History 85 (Winter-Spring): 27–32.

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African Matrix Culture | 53 Shearer, Jacqueline, and Paul Stekler, writers and dirs. 1990. Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads (1965–1985). 8 parts. Videocassette. Blackside Production / PBS. Slavery and the Making of America. 2004. 4-part series, 4 hours, DVD. New York: Thirteen / WNET. Vinson, Robert. 2004. “Citizenship over Race? African Americans in American-South African Diplomacy, 1890–1925.” World History Connected 2, viewed July 15, 2005, www.history cooperative.org/journals/whc/2.1/Vinson.html; updated version of Safundi: Journal of South African & Comparative Studies 13/14 (April), www.safundi.com.

z African Matrix Culture “African matrix culture” refers to people, cultural activity, values, and morals that are derived from continental African cultural traditions. The use of “African matrix” is in accord with the definition of “matrix” in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary; that is, something within which something else originates or develops. The development of African matrix cultures is intimately tied to the history of African peoples who were enslaved and transported to the New World. Under the horrendous circumstances of enslavement and plantation life, people from different linguistic and religious backgrounds were able to forge positive, distinctive, syncretic, and long-lasting cultures. This process has led to the creation of African matrix cultures in new environs. The old were the traditional African cultural expressions, and the new were those cultural forms that contained fragments from varied traditional African cultures, African descendants born in the New World, indigenous populations of the Americas, and the European colonizers. Enslaved Africans in the New World created cultural manifestations that contained elements from the past that were preserved in the

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collective memory and elements from the New World. The preservation of cultural identity and resistance to attempts to destroy their culture played instrumental roles in this process. “Matrix,” therefore, not only implies origin but also a process of flux and change. The development of formations of African matrix culture inherently implies not only a unilateral direction but also bilateral influences from and to Africa, which produced African matrix culture. During and after the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, many people of African descent from various parts of the New World returned to the African continent as merchant marines, traders, and freemen. These movements of people have led to two-way interactions, renewal, and influence to and from continental African cultural traditions. The term “African matrix,” or “Matrice Africana” in the Portuguese language, has its roots in Afro-Brazilian cultural, militant, and intellectual discourse. The concept includes all components of cultural traditions and actions that trace their inspiration to Africa, including dance, music, religion, cuisine, oral traditions, literature, art, hairstyles, theater, clothing, martial arts, poetry, textiles, film, carnival, crafts, body posture, expressive body movements, and linguistic styles. These are cultural traditions that are passed on from within the family, schools, and religious or spiritual places of worship, as well as from community elders. Alicia M. Sanabria See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Cuba: AfroCubans. F URTHER R EADING Gomez, Michael A. 1998. Exchanging Our Country Marks. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Quilombo Niger Okan. 2000. “Culture and Community Development in Salvador: Consultative Meetings and Formulations of Strategies for Afro-Brazilians.” Report Presented to the Ford Foundation: 2.

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African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church The African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church was formed as a protest against the treatment of African Americans by the white members of the St. George Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. In November 1787, Bishop Richard Allen led a group of African Americans out of the predominantly white church after they had been pulled from their knees while praying during the service because the seats previously designated for blacks were needed for white members. This event catalyzed the formation of the independent African Methodist Episcopal Church. Officially established in 1816, the word “African” in the title identified the new denomination’s African heritage. The AME Church and its leaders maintained the strong Methodist commitment to John Wesley’s philosophy. However, the AME Church felt a special commitment to spreading the Christian gospel to African Americans and people of African descent around the globe. Early in its history, the AME Church sent such missionaries as David Smith and William Paul Quinn to perform missionary work in the West and South. In Canada, the AME Church worked among escaped slaves, founding the British Methodist Episcopal Church in 1856. Missions to the South after the Civil War are credited with transforming the AME Church from a small Northern community to a national church and the largest black Methodist denomination. In 1820, Bishop Daniel Coker of the AME Church established the first American Colonization Society (ACS) colony in Liberia. However, Richard Allen and many of his supporters distrusted the ACS and began to see Africa as a reminder of a perceived black inferiority and a lack of readiness to become full American citizens. Still, the AME Church retained the name “African” while the word “African” was removed from thousands of black schools,

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churches, and benevolent societies across America. Although the 1830s saw a marked decline in emigration and association with Africa in the AME Church, there remained continuity in the church’s commitment to evangelical work at home and abroad. Foreign missions began early in the church’s history. In 1820, an AME missionary, Daniel Coker, spent his career evangelizing Africans in Liberia and Sierra Leone. In the 1830s, the AME Church sent Scipio Beanes and Richard Robinson to establish AME Churches in Port au Prince, Haiti. Led by Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, in the 1880s and 1890s there was renewed interest in international missionary work. In 1896, the AME Church accepted the Ethiopian Independent Church of South Africa into the denomination. The South African Church would become the largest of the AME Church’s foreign branches. The first permanent AME mission in Africa was begun in Liberia in 1878 by Samuel Flegler. Flegler, as well as his successors Clement Irons, S. J. Campbell, and, in the 1890s, William H. Heard, all made fleeting efforts to evangelize Africans. In 1915, the total AME membership in Liberia was 436. The AME Church had slightly better success in Sierra Leone. In 1885, the Freetown membership was in sharp decline, so the leadership requested an official affiliation with the AME Church to boost its sagging numbers. The AME Church sent J. R. Frederick to establish the congregation. Along with Edward Blyden, Frederick instituted the Dress Reform Society, which encouraged the acceptance of traditional African clothing and language— a departure from previous missionary philosophies in the church that emphasized the importance of embracing Western dress and culture. In 1888, another AME missionary, Sarah Gorham, opened a small mission 75 miles inland at Magbele. By 1891, the Sierra Leone Church had more than 500 members. Women played a large role in the AME Church’s missionary efforts. From the inception of the Women’s Mite Missionary Society

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African Union (AU) | 55 in 1874, led by Mary A. Campbell, its first president, the organization raised money for local societies and missionary work in Haiti, Santo Domingo, and West Africa. AME Churches exist throughout the Caribbean, often giving scholarships for study in the United States. Julius Bailey See also Black Churches and African American Spirituality; Black Churches in the United States; Liberia. F URTHER R EADING Angell, Stephen W. 1992. Bishop Henry McNeal Turner and African American Religion in the South. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992. Campbell, James T. 1998. Songs of Zion: The African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States and South Africa. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Dodson, Jualynne E. 2002. Engendering Church: Women, Power, and the AME Church. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.

z African Union (AU) O RIGIN The African Union (AU) is a continental organization founded on July 9, 2002, as a successor body to the Organization for African Unity. This multifaceted organization has both a leadership function and an administrative one. The AU is essentially a pan-African organization aiming to broaden its reach in a globalizing world. The AU was inaugurated in Durban, South Africa. The launching of the organization essentially replaced the Organization of African Unity (OAU), an organization that spearheaded the struggle for Africa’s liberation from colonialism. Representatives of 32 governments originally established the OAU on May 25, 1963, in Addis Ababa. A further 21 states have joined gradually over the years; South Africa became the 53rd member in 1994.

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The AU was established in response to the need to amend the OAU charter to meet current global and economic realities (Fratianni et al. 2003). Beginning with the entry into force of the Abuja treaty, which established the African Economic Community, the OAU became inadequate to address African concerns in Africa and the Diaspora and was seen to be operating on the basis of two legal instruments. The economic and political dimensions of the organization were essentially in conflict. The summit of Assembly of Heads of State and Government in July 1999 in Algiers, initiated by Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, was instrumental in the formation of the AU. Among other things, the purpose of the extraordinary summit was to amend the OAU charter to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the OAU, to establish an AU in conformity with the ultimate objectives of the charter of the OAU, and to further the provisions of the treaty establishing the AEC. The AEC is a consequence of the Abuja treaty, which itself is the result of commitments that were made in the Lagos plan of action and the final act of Lagos. The enabling AEC treaty, which was signed by OAU heads of states and government in June 1991, has been in operation since May 1994. G UIDING P RINCIPLES Whereas the guiding principles of the OAU were focused on nationalism and liberation from colonialism, the AU’s guiding principles are geared toward development. The underlying principles of the OAU were to promote the unity and solidarity of African states; to coordinate and intensify their cooperation and efforts to achieve a better life for the peoples of Africa; to defend their sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence; to eradicate all forms of colonialism in Africa; and to promote international cooperation. Correspondingly, the goals of the AU build on the main goals and gains of the OAU, which include achieving greater unity and solidarity between the African countries and the peoples

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of Africa and defending the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence of its member states. However, in addition to these objectives, the AU is expected by charter to accelerate the political and socioeconomic integration of the continent, to promote and defend African common positions on issues of interest to the continent and its peoples, and to encourage international cooperation. The AU, while recognizing the United Nations charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, seeks to promote peace, security, and stability on the continent and also to encourage democratic principles and institutions. The goals of the AU also include fostering popular participation in government, good governance, and protection of rights in accordance with the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other relevant human rights instruments. The AU charter is more international in outlook, deferring to the necessary conditions that enable the continent to play its rightful role in the global economy and in international negotiations. Clearly, the AU seeks to redefine African identity using a modern framework (Abebe and Ahluwalia 2002). The AU seeks also to promote sustainable development at the economic, social and cultural levels as well as the integration of African economies. In addition, the AU will promote cooperation in all fields of human activity to raise the living standards of African peoples. The agenda is quite ambitious; for example, the AU further seeks to coordinate and harmonize the policies between the existing and future Regional Economic Communities (RECs) for the gradual attainment of the objectives of the union and to advance the development of the continent by promoting research in all fields, particularly in science and technology. The RECs include the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the South African Development Community (SADC), Union du Maghreb Arabe (UMA) in North Africa, the Economic Community for Central

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African States (ECCAS), and others. These economic communities traverse difficult frontiers with respect to ethnopolitical conflicts. Economic progress in an unsupervised conflict environment might be problematic. However, recent changes in the AU charter with respect to interference in other countries in cases of grave “circumstances” are encouraging. The AU charter further envisages work with relevant international partners in the eradication of preventable diseases and the promotion of good health on the continent. The agenda mirrors Nkrumah’s four-point program of action for African unity: (1) a common foreign policy for Africa; (2) common continental planning for economic and industrial development in Africa; (3) a common currency, monetary zone, and central bank; and (4) a common defense and security system with an African high command (Hadjor 2003, 97). M EMBERS The membership of the AU includes all African countries except Morocco. Morocco is not a member because it considers Western Sahara a part of Morocco. The Polisario Front is the main liberation movement in Western Sahara. In November 1984, the Polisario Front’s SADR (Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic) was recognized by the OAU. Thereafter, Morocco withdrew from the OAU. The AU has also created room for African Diaspora participation by making the Diaspora the sixth region and soliciting representation. T HE O RGANS OF THE A FRICAN U NION The organs of the AU include the Assembly; Executive Council; Permanent Representatives Committee; Commission; Specialized Technical Committees; Pan-African Parliament (PAP); Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC); Court of Justice; Peace and Security Council; and Financial Institutions. The Assembly is the ultimate organ of the AU, and it comprises heads of state and government. The Assembly is the most important decision-

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African Union (AU) | 57 making body of the AU. It meets yearly and functions by consensus or by a two-thirds majority. The Assembly elects a chairperson from the group of heads of states and governments at the beginning of each ordinary session. This appointment lasts for one year and is renewable. The Executive Council is a group of ministers of foreign affairs or other ministers with the responsibility of dealing with the AU. The Executive Council is subordinate to the Assembly. The Permanent Representatives Committee includes permanent representatives and other attachés to the AU. This committee is involved in the nomination and appointment of commissioners and the selection and appointment of consultants. The committee also follows up on the implementation of summit decisions. The chairperson of the AU chairs the Commission. The Specialized Technical Committees essentially deal with such ministerial issues as rural economy and agricultural matters; monetary and financial affairs; trade, customs, and immigration matters; and matters of science, technology, transport, communications, education, and culture, among other things. The Pan-African Parliament (PAP) consists of elected representatives nominated from five regions of Africa. This organ is a civil society participation organ. The Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) is an advisory council composed of professionals and civic representatives. The Court of Justice has jurisdiction over human rights abuses and operates in a legal or statutory framework. The Peace and Security Council has 15 members, who monitor and “intervene” in conflicts. A council of elders advises the council. Financial institutions include the African Bank, the African Monetary Fund, and the African Investment Bank. WORKING L ANGUAGES The working languages of the AU include Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Kiswahili, and any other African language.

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S YMBOLS The flag of the AU consists of a broad green horizontal stripe at the top, followed by a narrow band of gold. The flag also has a broad white stripe bearing the emblem at its center, followed by a narrow gold band and a broad green stripe at the bottom. The color green symbolizes unity; gold symbolizes Africa’s wealth and bright future; and the color white represents Africa’s innate purity and desire for global friendship. The emblem has palm leaves on either side of the outer circle, representing peace; gold representing wealth; and green for Africa’s hopes and aspirations. A plain map of Africa signifies African unity, and small interlocking rings stand for African solidarity and the blood shed for Africa’s liberation. Lawrence Abraham See also Africa; Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–1972); Pan-Africanism; Western Hemisphere African Diaspora Network (WHADN). F URTHER R EADING Abebe, Zegeye, and Pal Ahluwalia, eds. 2002. African Identities: Contemporary Political and Social Challenges. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Abraham, Lawrence. 2002. “The African Union’s Missing Link.” Africa Analysis (October). African Union. (www.africaunion.org/AU%20symbols/ausymblos.htm) African Union. Official Web site. Accessed December 7, 2007, at www.africa-union.org/. African Union. Summit 2003 (www.au2003.gov.mz/) in Maputo, Mozambique Bhatia, Michael V. 2003. War and Intervention: Issues for Contemporary Peace Operations. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Department of Foreign Affairs, Republic of South Africa. African Union in a Nutshell. Accessed December 6, 2007, at www.dfa.gov.za/au.nepad/au_nutshell.htm. Fratianni, Michele, Paolo Savona, and John Kirton, eds. 2003. Sustaining Global Growth and Development: G7 and IMF Governance. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Hadjor, Buenor K. 2003. Nkrumah and Ghana: The Dilemma of Post-Colonial Power. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.

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58 | Africanus, Sextus Julius (ca. 160–ca. 240) Mbendi Information for Africa. African Union. Updated December 6, 2006. Accessed December 6, 2007, at www. Mbendi.co.za/oroau.htm. OAU/AU Summit: June 28, 2002–July 10, 2002 (www.au2002.gov.za/docs/key_oau/au_ act.htm).

z Africanus, Sextus Julius (ca. 160–ca. 240) An intellectually versatile North African convert from paganism to Christianity, Julius Sextus Africanus (Gk. Sextos Ioulios Aphrikanos) was born about 160 in Aelia Capitolina in the precincts of present-day Libya in Roman North Africa. His name clearly identifies him as a native of Africa and so, too, do references to him and his works by contemporary and later writers; a few sources, however, attribute Roman ancestry to him. A well-traveled man of ideas, Africanus was at one time or another during his checkered career a diplomat, a soldier, a scientist, an architect, a historian, a philosopher, and a writer. As a writer, he dazzled the intellectual and literary world of the third century with his originality, brilliance, and creative energy. Although we know very little about his personal life, there is enough in the scattered references in his surviving writings, as well as in such works as Eusebius’s Church History, to give us a fair, albeit tantalizing, picture of this extraordinary polymath. Existing records indicate that Africanus may have served as a soldier under Septimus Severus during his campaign against the Osrhoenians in 195 CE. Thereafter, he sojourned in the court of the Christian king of Edessa, Abgar IX (179–216), where he became acquainted with a man who would become one of his principal mentors, Bardesanes (or Bar Daisan), a skilled archer and erudite author

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of The Book of the Laws of the Countries, a powerful and highly influential refutation of the claims of astrology. Drijvers’s (1966) comments on Bardesanes’s accomplishment in this book reveals the extent to which his association with Africanus helped to launch the younger writer in his career as a polymath. From Edessa, Africanus’s quest for knowledge took him to Armenia, to Phrygia, and ultimately to Alexandria, where he was attracted by the reputation of Heraclas, the newly appointed teacher of the introductory studies at the Christian School. At Alexandria, he became acquainted with Origen, a fellow North African, and came under the influence of the writings of Clement of Alexandria, whose Stromata—a chronological study of human history from the creation to the time of writing—was to influence and form the model for his own major contribution to historiography—the Chronografiai (Chronology), otherwise known as Chronicles, discussed below. After his studies at Alexandria, Africanus moved to Emmaus in Palestine. From there, in 214, he was sent as an envoy to the court of the emperor Alexander Severus in Rome, where he successfully solicited funds for the restoration of the town Emmaus, which had fallen into ruins. But even before the completion of this task, Africanus was recalled to Rome, where he had been commissioned to design a library for the emperor. Located in the Pantheon near the baths of Alexander, the library was an imaginative transformation of what was once a pagan sanctuary into a center for Christian literacy and scholarship. There he subsequently undertook the research out of which he produced his 24 books of “magic girdles” (The Embroideries), which he dedicated to the emperor himself. Thereafter he returned to Palestine, where he wrote his two extant letters on doctrinal and biblical issues and other, lesserknown and presumably lost works. Africanus was a polymath whose wideranging interests inevitably encompassed the burning issues of religion and history, which

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Afrocentricity | 59 dominated the intellectual climate of his age (Grant 1970, 208). Africanus was a very prolific writer whose reputation, over the centuries, as the father of Christian chronography, stems mainly from the enormous influence of his Chronografiai, or Chronology, a monumental history in five books that traces the march of human civilization (over 5,723 years) from the Creation (5499 BCE by his reckoning) to the year CE 217, later extended to CE 221. He is also well known for the Embroideries (Gk. Kestoi), an encyclopedic compilation of miscellaneous information on various sciences—agriculture, mathematics, natural history, botany, medicine, military sciences, and so forth—backed up with interesting anecdotes and illustrations. Two of his letters on biblical philology and criticism have survived intact, one written to his Alexandrian colleague, Origen, the other to an addressee known only as Aristides. Only fragments of the two major works have survived. Chukwuma Azuonye See also Europe and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Africanus, Julius. 1980. Chronicles, trans. S. D. F. Salmond. In Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 6. Edinburgh, UK: T & T Clark. Africanus, Julius. 1980. “Letter to Arisitides,” trans. S. D. F. Salmond. In Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 6. Edinburgh, UK: T & T Clark, 125–127. Africanus, Julius. 1980. “Letter to Origen.” trans. F. Crombie. In Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 385. Drijvers, J. W. 1966. Bardaisan of Edessa. Assen, Holland (quoted in Grant 1970, 209). Grant, Robert M. 1970. Augustus to Constantine: The Emergence of Christianity in the Roman World. New York: Barnes and Noble Books. Vieillefond, J. 1932. Jules Africain: Fragments des Gestes. Paris.

Afro Descendientes Movement See Venezuela: Afro-Venezuelans.

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Afrobeat See Anikulapo-Kuti, Fela (1938–1997).

z Afrocentricity T HE C ONTEXT “Afrocentricity” is a term, popularized in a series of books and articles by Molefi Kete Asante, that introduces both a critical theory and an intellectual practice characterized by an approach to phenomena and texts that seeks to discover the subject place of Africa, Africans, or African values and traditions. Thus, Afrocentricity is a perspective that advances the idea that people of African descent who have been moved off of philosophical, physical, economic, social, religious, and political terms can achieve a degree of sanity only by returning to a centered place within the context of their own historical experiences. It was originally propounded in the book Afrocentricity, first published in 1980. Asante argued that Africans must be seen as subjects in their own story, not simply as appendages to Europe or Europeans. The best means of achieving what is called centrality in history and practice is through a concentrated effort to redefine, reorient, and redirect the common approach to African experiences. Emphasis is placed on the orientation to data rather than on the collection of data. According to Afrocentrists, it is possible to teach anyone the discipline of centering, in which the African becomes subject instead of being seen as an object on the fringes of European culture. Africans are historical actors on a par with any other cultural actors in history and should never be relegated to the periphery of anyone else’s experience. T HE A FROCENTRIC PARADIGM Numerous Afrocentrists have articulated the view that Afrocentricity is applicable to all data

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relating to African people transnationally and transgenerationally, whether historical, cultural, linguistic, or economic, because its unifying trait in all venues is the place of African reality in human discourse. Such a position for Afrocentricity has launched it as a paradigm in the manner written about by Thomas Kuhn and Ama Mazama in the sense that its critique has rendered much of the information and many of the explanations prior to its appearance as contradictory, off center, or unconscious. The African presence in the world as free and independent people calls into being a paradigm that comprehensively transforms the ideas of culture, civilization, behavior, criticism, and experiences. Intellectual and psychological baggage retained from the marginalizing experience of enslavement and colonization must be jettisoned in the light of the new paradigm. Other writers have characterized Afrocentricity as a perspective that is concerned with orientation to facts. This is self-consciously a perspectivist position in which the Afrocentrist wants to know the position of the researcher, reviewer, critic, theorist, or scholar as well as the place of Africa in the discourse. In the first instance, it is a matter of determining if the person who is actually making the study, analysis, or criticism is properly centered in his or her reality. Thus, the key for the Afrocentrist is the movement from the periphery to the center of a discourse, text, or cluster of experiences. Other principles of Afrocentrists, as established by themselves in scores of articles, conference papers, and books, are: the elimination of pejorative language in relationship to Africa and Africans; the use of terms derived from the classical languages of Africa when citing historical data; the avoidance of sentimentalism in literary and political language due to the desirability of intense concentration on centering the subject; the expression of positive African images as models of intellectual practice; the reservation of the most severe criticism for those authors who marginalize

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the African experience as a demonstration of self-hatred or crass careerism; and the privileging of African explanations for African issues in discourses on African peoples. In effect, Afrocentricity is generally opposed to theories that dislocate Africans. A FROCENTRICITY AND E UROCENTRICITY Afrocentricity is not the counterpoint to Eurocentricity, but it is a particular perspective for analysis that does not seek to occupy all space and time, as Eurocentrism has often done. For example, to say “classical music,” “classical theater,” or “classical dance” and mean by those terms European music, theater, and dance is a totalizing reference that demonstrates the imposition of Europe on the rest of the world. Europe occupies all of the intellectual and artistic seats and leaves no room for others. The Afrocentrists argue that this notion of hegemony is a Eurocentric idea; Afrocentricity is clearly no reverse of this type of imposition. In fact, Afrocentricity argues that there should always be a pluralism in philosophical views, without hierarchy. All human cultures must be centered, and all people must be subjects of their own reality. L OCATION In the Afrocentric view, the problem of location takes precedence over the topic or the data under consideration. The argument is that the objective of scholarship, research, and practice must be to discover ways to recenter the African person. Or, if one is engaging a text, the aim becomes the discovery of the African agency within the text. Consequently. it becomes necessary to examine all data from the standpoint of Africans as subjects, that is, as centered beings, human agents, rather than from the vantage point of objects in the European’s frame of reference. WAYS TO G RASP FACTS The four ways of grasping facts, according to the Afrocentrists, are through a series of ques-

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Afrocentricity | 61 tions in the realms of cosmology, aesthetics, epistemology, and axiology. These ways of approaching issues are mediated by seven general fields of study: social, cultural, linguistic, communicative, economic, religious, and political. Thus, a person might advance axiological knowledge by examining any one of these general fields. F IVE G IVEN A SSUMPTIONS Afrocentrists usually identify five key assumptions of the idea. In the first place, on the part of the researcher there must be a conscious awareness of a victorious focus in regard to African phenomena. The investigator or researcher seeks to discover the element of agency in any situation where African people are involved in an effort to determine how they express their subject position. It is not enough to know that white men met at Independence Hall to discuss the Constitution. The Afrocentrist must also seek to discover the nature of the African’s presence during the constitutional discussions. Thus, one seeks the element of victorious agency in the direst of situations. The second assumption is the relevance of a selfconscious and self-determining image, that is, how Africans see themselves and how Africans are seen. The third assumption is that the most effective way to locate the Afrocentric ideal is to discover forms rooted in African cultural perspectives, perceptions, and values. The fourth assumption is that Africans share with others the benefits, rights, and just claims of life, freedom, justice, harmony, balance, and reciprocity. Finally, it is assumed that the consciousness of victory, that is, awareness and recognition of Africans as agents and subjects in all historical arenas, is legitimate within the context of human discourse and action. C ONTEMPORARY I SSUES The driving force behind critical Afrocentricity is the metaphors of location and dislocation. They become tools of analysis for events, situations, texts, buildings, dreams, and literature.

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A person may be seen as displaying various forms of centeredness or decenteredness. To be centered is to be located as an agent instead of “the Other,” for example. Such a critical shift in thinking means that the Afrocentric perspective provides new insights and dimensions to the understanding of phenomena. Contemporary issues in Afrocentric thinking have involved the explanation of psychological misorientation and disorientation, attitudes that affect Africans who consider themselves to be Europeans or who believe that it is impossible to be African and human. Severe forms of this attitude have been labeled extreme misorientation by some Afrocentrists. Additional issues have been the influence of a centered approach in education, particularly as it relates to the revision of the curricula in American schools. Hundreds of articles have been published examining social welfare, political institutions, psychological issues, crime and punishment, Pan-Africanism, gender, international politics and policies, and religion. Indeed, the Afrocentrist is interested in everything. Leading Afrocentrists include scholars such as Mark Christian, Reiland Rabaka, Daryl Zizwe Poe, Maulana Karenga, Ama Mazama, C. T. Keto, Linda James Myers, Mekada Graham, Wade Nobles, Katherine Bankole, and Kariamu Welsh. In fact, the numbers of scholars who are writing and researching in this vein continues to grow. Key international centers for Afrocentric scholarship can be found in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Paris, France; Hamburg, Germany; London, England; Lagos, Nigeria; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Accra, Ghana; and Dakar, Senegal. In the United States, there are more than 100 schools teaching children from the Afrocentric point of view. Afrocentricity is a prominent theoretical perspective used in the training of doctoral students in African American studies. Molefi Kete Asante See also Diop, Cheikh Anta (1923–1986); Hilliard, Asa G. (1933–2007); Kwanzaa.

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62 | Afro-Cuban Literature F URTHER R EADING Asante, Molefi Kete. 1983. “The Ideological Significance of Afrocentricity in Intercultural Communication.” Journal of Black Studies 14 (1): 3–19. Asante, Molefi Kete. 1990. Kemet, Afrocentricity, and Knowledge. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Asante, Molefi Kete. 1991. “The Afrocentric Idea in Education.” Journal of Negro Education 60 (2): 170–180. Asante, Molefi Kete. 1991. “Afrocentricity and the Human Future.” Black Books Bulletin (8): 137– 140. Asante, Molefi Kete. 1992. “African American Studies: The Future of the Discipline.” The Black Scholar 22 (3): 20–29. Asante, Molefi Kete. 1993. “The Movement toward Centered Education.” The Crisis Magazine (April/May): 18–21. Asante, Molefi Kete. 1998. The Afrocentric Idea. Rev. and expanded ed. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Asante, Molefi Kete. 1999. The Painful Demise of Eurocentrism: An Afrocentric Response to Critics. Trenton, NJ: Africa World. Asante, Molefi Kete. 2003. Afrocentricity: The Theory of Social Change. Chicago: African American Images. Banks, Reginald, Aaron Hogue, and Terri Timberlake. 1996. “An Afrocentric Approach to Group Social Skills Training with Inner-City African American Adolescents.” Journal of Negro Education 65 (4): 414–423. Bekerie, A. 1994. “The 4 Corners of a Circle: Afrocentricity as a Model of Synthesis.” Journal of Black Studies 25 (2): 131–149. Bernal, Martin. 1996. “The Afrocentric Interpretation of History: Martin Bernal Replies to Mary Lefkowitz.” Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (Spring): 86–94. Collins, Donald, and Marc Hopkins. 1993. “Afrocentricity: The Fight for Control of African American Thought.” Black Issues in Higher Education 10 (12): 24–25. Dei, G. J. S. 1994. “Afrocentricity: A Cornerstone of Pedagogy.” Anthropology & Education Quarterly 25 (1): 3–28. Ekwe-Ekwe, Herbert, and Femi Nzegwu. 1994. Operationalising Afrocentrism. Reading, UK: International Institute for Black Research. Henderson, Errol Anthony. 1995. Afrocentrism and World Politics: Towards a New Paradigm. Westport, CT: Praeger. Hoskins, Linus A. 1992. “Eurocentrism vs. Afro-

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centrism: A Geopolitical Linkage Analysis.” Journal of Black Studies 23 (2): 247–257. Kershaw, Terry. 1992. “Afrocentrism and the Afrocentric Method.” Western Journal of Black Studies 16 (3): 160–168. Mazama, Ama, ed. 2003. The Afrocentric Paradigm. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Myers, Linda James. 1988. Understanding an Afrocentric World View: Introduction to an Optimal Psychology. New York: Random House. Sanders, Cheryl J. 1993–1994. “Afrocentricity and Theological Education.” Journal of Religious Thought 50 (1): 11–26. Schiele, Jerome H. 1994. “Afrocentricity: Implications for Higher Education.” Journal of Black Studies 25 (2): 150–169. Schiele, Jerome H. 1996. “Afrocentricity: An Emerging Paradigm in Social Work Practice.” Social Work 41 (3): 284–294. Warfield-Coppock, Nsenga. 1995. “Toward a Theory of Afrocentric Organizations.” Journal of Black Psychology 21(1): 30–48. Winters, Clyde Ahmad. 1994. “Afrocentrism: A Valid Frame of Reference.” Journal of Black Studies 25 (2): 170–190. Wonkeryor, Edward Lama. 1998. On Afrocentricity, Intercultural Communication and Racism. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.

z Afro-Cuban Literature In the broadest sense, Afro-Cuban literature defines the body of literary works by Cuban writers of African ancestry. This literary trajectory is multigenre and includes works by AfroCubans residing on the nation-island and those abroad. Thematically, Afro-Cuban literature generally interrogates the social, political, and cultural histories of peoples representing geographical spaces and cultures that have traversed the landmass known today as the Republic of Cuba. The historical interrogation by means of literary production consists of a chronology spanning from the New World Encounters to the present time. Central to these works is the interfacing of the politics of race, place, gender, oppression, identity construc-

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Afro-Cuban Literature | 63 tion, self-actualization, and countless other themes. It is this mélange of thematic discourses that enriches this body of literature, for its scope ranges from the universal to the culturally specific. The first recorded traces of blackness in Cuban literature can be found in the late-19thcentury writings of slave and free black poets such as José del Carmen Díaz, Antonio Medina, Gabriel de la Concepción Valdéz (Plácido) and Juan Francisco Manzano. The latter is regarded as the first black to publish a book of poetry with his Poesía lírica (1821). Additionally, his autobiography, first published in English and in London as Life of a Negro Poet (1840), is regarded as the first published Cuban slave narrative. Subsequent to Manzano, probably the next black 19th-century poet to receive attention by literary scholars is Plácido. Unlike Manzano, Plácido’s poetic lyricism is noted for revolutionary poetic voices that speak against slavery and the oppression of people of African descent in Cuba. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of scholarship on this poet and his works. It is of importance to mention these early writers of the 19th century, for they emerge as the first examples of Afro-Cuban writers, and their works begin the trajectory of Afro-Cuban literature. Noted as one of the progenitors of poesia negra (black poetry), Marcelino Arozarena (1912–) published his first poetic pieces in the 1920s and is among the “first wave” of 20thcentury Afro-Hispanic writers. His corpus of poetic works attests to his dedication to amass poetic collections that centered the cultural expressions and sensitivities of Africa and people of African descent. His first collection, Canción negra sin color (1966), is a compilation of poems written from 1933 to 1960. The included selections linguistically, socially, and culturally resonate the experiences of Cubans of African heritage. His final collection, Habrá que esperar, was published in 1983. Probably the most celebrated Afro-Cuban poet of the first half of the 20th century is

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Nicolás Guillén. This highly anthologized poet is the first black recipient of the Cuban National Prize for Literature. Guillén’s most noted poetic works express the cultural nuances of Afro-Cubanness through quotidian representations. His first volume of poetry, Motivos de son (1930), comprises works that address the plight of blacks and mulattos in Havana. Through poetic devices such as onomatopoeia, Guillén poetically manipulates linguistic patterns of black Cubans, exposing the rich musicality of popular language. In selections like “Búcate plata,” Guillén confronts official language construction in order to render a revolutionary verbal linguistic pattern that inscribes a marker of cultural and ethnic identity, while addressing the complexities of poverty and marginalization among black Cubans. His other collections of poetry thematically range from an exaltation of African elements in Afro-Cuba, as found in Sóngoro cosongo: poemas mulatos (1931), to a stark criticism of the involvement of the United States in Latin America, displayed in selected poems in West Indes, Ltd., to the poet’s preoccupation with global oppression, found in La paloma de vuelo popular (1958). Guillén’s final collections of poetry, La rueda dentada and El diario que a diario (both published in 1972), employ elements of humor as well as continue to promote the cause of social justice. Subsequent to Guillén, Nancy Morejón (1944–) is the next recognized Cuban writer of African ancestry. Considered a daughter of the Cuban Revolution, Morejón wrote her first lines of poetry in the wake of the revolution. Morejón’s work has been the subject of countless scholarly articles worldwide and has been published in an array of literary journals, magazines, anthologies, and histories. Her poetic volumes are numerous and include Mutismos (1962); Amor, ciudad atribuida (1964); Richard trajo su flauta (1967); Parajes de una época (1979); Cuadernos de Grenada (1982); Piedra púlida (1984); and Paisaje célebre (1993). To date, Morejón is the most researched of the

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Afro-Cuban writers, as her poetry intellectually inspires the scholarship of academic researchers in Latin American literature, African Diaspora literature, Spanish American literature, black studies, and women’s studies. Her signature poem, “Mujer negra,” which poetically chronicles the plight and history of AfroCubans through the gaze of the black woman, is highly anthologized and internationally recognized by scholars and lovers of poetry alike. Other contributors to the continuing trajectory of Afro-Cuban literature include, but definitely are not limited to, the following writers, activists, journalists and revolutionaries. Marta Rojas (1931–) is a journalist by trade whose contributions to Afro-Cuban literature result from her accounts as a correspondent in Vietnam, Nicaragua, and Cambodia. Her works, which result from journalistic experiences of war and international sociopolitical strife, include El juicio del Moncada and Escenas de Viet Nam. Her novels include El columpio de Rey Spencer and Santa lujuria o papeles de blanco. Georgina Herrera (1936–) is a poet whose work attests to the many hardships of growing up poor and black in Cuba. Her first poems were published when she was 16 years old, appearing in local newspapers in Havana. Personal tragedies such as the death of her mother when she was 14 and the circumstances of being fatherless inspire her poetic lyricism. Herrera’s poetic works include G.H. (presumed to be her initials, 1962), Gentes y cosas (1974), Granos de sol y luna (1974), Grande es el tiempo (1989), and Gustadas sensaciones (1997). Tomás Fernández Robaina (1941–), currently the director of the Cuban National Library in Havana, published his first work, Bibliografía de estudios afroamericanos, in 1961. Specifically regarding Afro-Cuba, he has published La prosa de Guillén en defensa del negro cubano (1982), Bibliografía de temas afrocubanos (1986), and El negro en Cuba, 1902–1958 (1994). The latter work is a sociohistorical account of Afro-Cuba from the beginning of the 20th century to the onset of the

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Cuban Revolution. Pedro Pérez-Sarduy (1943–) is an Afro-Cuban poet, writer, journalist, and broadcaster. His volumes of poetry are Surrealidad (1967) and Cumbite and Other Poems (Havana, 1987, and New York, 1990). Sarduy is the coeditor of two collections of critical essays, AFRO-CUBA: An Anthology of Cuban Writing on Race, Politics and Culture (1993) and AfroCuban Voices on Race and Identity in Contemporary Cuba (2000). Additionally, he published his first novel, La criadas de Havana (2001), which is based on anecdotes and stories told to him by his mother of pre- and postrevolutionary Havana. Jesús Cos Causse (1945–) is currently a poet in residence at Casa del Caribe in Santiago de Cuba. Cos Causse is a poet and journalist whose poetic works include Con el mismo violín (1970), Leyenda de amor (1986), Como una serenata (1988), Concierto de Jazz (1994) and Los años, Los sueños (1995). Excilia Saldaña (1946–1999) is a lauded Cuban short story writer, poet and author of various children’s books. Saldaña, despite her publication record, has not received merited attention by literary critics, scholars and historians. To her credit, Saldaña has more than 20 published works, including the prize-winning La noche, a children’s book that garnered the La Rosa Blanca Prize in 1989. Other works include Soñando y viajando, El refranero de la víbora, and her first bilingual anthology, In the Vortex of the Cyclone: Poems. Saldaña is the 1998 winner of the coveted Nicolás Gullén Award for distinction in poetry. The aforementioned represent the “second wave” of Afro-Hispanic writers who have made indelible contributions to the continuance of Afro-Cuban literature. Soleida Ríos (1950–) is a part of the new generation of Afro-Cuban writers. She is considered a poet for social justice and equality in contemporary Cuba. Her collections include De la sierra (1977), De pronto abril (1979), Entre mundo y juguete (1987), and El libro roto (1995). Finally, Víctor Fowler (1960–) is an additional representative of the new generation of Afro-Cuban writers. His contributions in-

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Afro-Cuban Music | 65 clude volumes of critical essays and poetry. His collection of essays includes La maldición: Una historia del placer como conquista (1998), Rupturas y homenajes (1998) and Historias del cuerpo (2001). Fowler’s collections of poetry are El próximo que venga (1986), Confesionario (1993), Descencional (1996), Caminos de piedra (1999) and Malecón tao (2001). Additionally, he published an anthology of erotic poetry, La eterna danza, in 2000. In conclusion, the trajectory of Afro-Cuban literature is steeped in the historical plights and configurations of people of African descent in Cuba and beyond. Included are those writers like Fowler, whose work can be viewed as more universal in focus, in addition to those who use the power of the printed word to launch social and political protest. However, like the writers that constitute other national or ethnic groupings of literary production, Afro-Cuban literary voices represent disparate degrees of receptivity and acceptability both at home and abroad. It is hoped that sustained growth and global circulation of this rich corpus of literature will yield more conference topics, academic presentations, published articles, monographs, and translations on black writers in Cuba and their literary works. Antonio D. Tillis See also Afro-Cuban Music; Cuba: Afro-Cubans; Guillén, Nicolás (1902–1989); Salsa. F URTHER R EADING De Costa-Willis, Miriam. 2003. Daughters of the Diaspora. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle. Ellis, Keith. 1988. “Images of Black People in the Poetry of Nicolás Guillén.” Afro-Hispanic Review 7 (1–3): 19–22. Jackson, Richard. 1997. Black Writers and the Hispanic Canon. New York: Twayne. Mullen, Edward. 1998. Afro-Cuban Literature: Critical Junctures. Westport: Greenwood Press.

z

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Afro-Cuban Music Virtually all of Cuba’s music seems to have varying degrees of African influence. Conversely, Cuba’s African influences have been so intertwined with Europe’s that the subsequent transculturation has made the issue of cultural purity exceedingly difficult to trace, if not suspect. Music of African origins can be seen as a form of social and collective memory born, of course, from slavery, colonization, and neocolonial domination, as well as subtler forms of racism and discrimination that persist today, despite a revolutionary regime that claims to have eradicated differences of class, gender, and race. The powerful presence of African religions and music in Cuba has historical and demographic antecedents: more than three quarters of all the slaves shipped to Cuba were brought there in the 19th century, mostly due to the Haitian revolution of 1791–1804, which created the first black republic of the Americas and shifted the Caribbean’s major sugar production to Cuba. Secondly, Cuba was one of the last countries in the hemisphere, excepting only Brazil, to abolish slavery (in 1880 formally, in 1886 in practice). From the ritual music of the Yoruba, BantúCongo, and Abakuá to son, rumba, Latin jazz, and rap, Cuba’s musical genres are one of the most creative and profound examples of AfroDiasporic dialogue in history. In the United States, there have been many Cuban musicians and performers, black (Mario Bauzá, Machito, Mongo Santamaría, Chano Pozo, Celia Cruz, Dámaso Pérez Prado) as well as white (Don Azpiazú, Desi Arnaz, Chico O’Farrill, Gloria Estefan, Arturo Sandoval) who have played or made significant contributions to Afro-Cuban music. Even non-Cubans have been great disseminators of this music; for example, Dizzy Gillespie, Al McKibbon, Cal Tjader, Stan Kenton, Xavier Cugat, Tito Puente, Johnny Pacheco, and Poncho Sánchez. Cuban musical genres can be described as the increasing recognition and influence of

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Afro-Cuban forms and genres. The danzón was the first of these; its public launching in 1879 is credited to Matanzas composer Miguel Faílde (1852–1921), though clearly danzones existed before that date. The danzón’s origins are the English country dance, which crossed the English Channel and became the French contredanse, played on piano, flute, and violin. This in turn became the Spanish contradanza and influenced the Cuban habanera. Through the movements of Africans of the Haitian independence (1791–1804), both Haitian and Afro-Cuban rhythms were incorporated into the contradanza. Although banned by Spanish colonial authorities during the Ten Years’ War (1868–1878) as a blatant symbol of Cuban nationalism, the danzón quickly became the musical-cultural emblem of the country from 1879 to 1920, when it was surpassed by the son. The traditional danzón has a marchlike introduction (A), followed by a clarinet or flute section (B), returns to the intro (A), then a slow, songlike part dominated by the violins (C), returns again to the intro (A), and closes with a rapid section (D), yielding an overall structure of ABACAD, which was later simplified to ABAD or ABD. Danzones have often been called sound collages because in either the (B) or (C) sections, show tunes, opera arias, sones, or jazz melodies have been inserted. Danzones were originally only instrumental, but sung versions, called the danzonete, emerged in 1929. In the 20th century, the (D) sections often incorporated sones. Some of the great danzón composers were Antonio María Romeu (1876–1955), and the brothers López, Orestes (1908–2008), and Israel (1918–), nicknamed “Cachao,” creators of the danzón-mambo, which eventually led to the cha-cha-chá, the mambo, and the descarga (jam sessions). The Son. The son gives more importance to the lyrics than the danzón and was sometimes based on satirical guarachas from the 19th century and Congolese-derived rhythms. Although the son began in Oriente Province in the 19th century, it was not until it became popular in

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Havana (by the early 1920s) that it began to be considered the national musical genre. Originally, the son was played on guitar and/or tres, marímbula (replaced by the bass), bongo, maracas, claves (two wooden sticks). Trumpets were added in the 1920s and, later, other brass and piano. The son has an opening melodic part with fixed lyrics, called the largo. The second section, called the montuno, has an improvising sonero (singer) answered by a chorus singing a repeated phrase. Four rhythmic planes characterize the son: (1) an ostinato and melody (played by the guitar, tres, or piano); (2) an improvisation section, played by the bongos or congas; (3) a fixed pattern on clave and maracas; and (4) a syncopated figure (bass), which gives harmonic foundation for the vocal part. The son, along with the rumba, is among the primary sources of salsa music. Some of the great son composers were Ignacio Piñero (1888– 1969), Miguel Matamoros (1894–1971), and Arsenio Rodríguez (1911–1971). The Rumba. Rumba, which grew out of the tenements of Matanzas and Havana, is considered the most African of the island’s genres, yet it is in part derived from the rumba flamenca of Spain. It is a secular music and performed only with percussion. Played with three drums or cajones (boxes), catá (a wooden cylindrical instrument played with two sticks), and claves. Other percussion can be added, such as chékeres and shakers. The voices follow a call-andresponse format. There are three principal rumba genres; the first and the most popular is the guaguancó, which has deeply influenced salsa music. It is a reenactment of courtship and sexuality, in which the male dancer pursues the female, seeking the vacunao (vaccination; or pelvic thrust) of the female at the opportune moment. It usually begins with the clave and the “la-le-leo” syllabifications, as if to announce that the party is about to begin (diana). There are three drums: the salidor, which sustains the basic rhythm, an intermediate one called los tres golpes (three beats), and the quinto, which improvises.

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Afro-Cuban Music | 67 The Columbia. The columbia is rurally derived and faster than the guaguancó rhythm. This variant is only danced by males (for the most part). The movements show some influence of the íremes (little devils) of the Abakuá religion, but principally the columbia is defined by mimetic gestures of daily life: riding a bike, playing baseball, imitating a lame person, using a hat as a prop, and so forth. It usually begins with rapid percussion, and then the singing begins, with a lament-like expression (lloraos). The Yambú. The third form is the oldest, the yambú. Some date it to the beginning of the 19th century. There is no vacunao in the yambú, and it is the slowest of the three genres. It begins with onomatopoeic singing (diana), or intro. The movements often imitate the moves of older people, but still the dancing is sensual. Some of the steps seem to have come from the Spanish zapateo and other couple dances of Hispanic traditions but also from the calenda and other African-based dances. After 1959, the Cuban revolutionary government tried to make rumba the national dance for several reasons. Rumba was clearly associated with Afro-Cubans, so it was a way of affirming blackness within a nationalist and revolutionary project but with the understanding that said blackness would not detract from social unity. Rumba’s practitioners revealed a clear class background (most AfroCubans were poor), and rumba expressed a collective spirit, one of social solidarity. It was also a beautiful entertainment spectacle, lending itself to folkloric presentation with an equally strong appeal for tourists. Although rumba is widespread (the verb rumbear is synonymous with partying), it is difficult to dance to, making other dance forms (casino, salsa, timba) more popular. Latin Jazz. During the 1940s and 1950s, new hybrid genres also emerged: Latin jazz (AfroCuban jazz), the mambo, and the cha-cha-chá. Afro-Cuban jazz drew from Afro-Cuban rhythms (rumba, son, ritual music) and U.S. jazz. The two major creative sources were

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Frank Grillo, or “Machito” (1909–1984), and his Afro-Cubans, as well as the fortuitous collaboration between Dizzy Gillespie (1917– 1993) and legendary percussionist-composer Luciano “Chano” Pozo (1915–1948). Machito’s trumpeter-arranger was Mario Bauzá, the creator of “Tanga” (1943), a 17-minute suite that features several genres, including the mambo, the bolero, and the rumba, and is considered the first Latin jazz composition. The GillespiePozo partnership produced such memorable work as “Manteca” and “Cubana Be/Cubana Bop.” Arturo “Chico” O’Farrill (1921–2001) was the other major Cuban composer-arranger who advanced Afro-Cuban jazz to new levels of sophistication. These traditions have been built upon since the 1970s with the likes of the group Irakere, Chucho Valdés, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Paquito D’Rivera, and Arturo Sandoval. Mambo. Though the word “mambo” had currency before the 1950s, it was Dámaso Pérez Prado (1916–1989) who made it a worldwide craze. The López brothers (Orestes and Cachao) had written danzones with a new rhythm called danzón-mambo, but Pérez Prado took these new rhythms, added a second set of percussionists and an array of jabbing horn writing and interesting piano riffs, not to mention his trademark grunts, and created a sound that was unmistakably his. In Cuba, however, the mambo was never as popular as it was abroad; the 1950s were dominated by the cha-cha-chá. Cha-Cha-Chá. This genre, which grew out of the danzón and danzón-mambo, was also influenced by the French charanga groups (flute, violin, piano, and percussion). Its creator was Enrique Jorrín (1926–1997). Its gentle tempo (compared to the furious and sometimes difficult mambo) and lack of syncopation (compared to the son) made it an easier genre for dancing. Although it no longer reigns as it did in the 1950s, the cha-cha-chá is still a popular genre, kept alive by groups like Orquesta Aragón and Melodías del 40. Since the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power, Afro-Cuban music has

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continued to thrive, although in the initial years the government made greater efforts to support classical music and Nueva Trova, the New Song Movement, ballads with a social message. Cuban dance music, still based on the son, rumba, and salsa, is now called timba and has incorporated more aggressive horns, more jagged rhythms, and a singing style that has slight rap inflections and ever-greater erotic and audacious dance moves. The Buena Vista Social Club craze of the late 1990s sparked world interest in Afro-Cuban music, but it was that of a bygone era and often ignored the excellent Cuban music still being created by composers who are younger than 80—such timba groups as Los Van Van, NG La Banda, and Charanga Habanera, as well as Cuban rappers. Cuban classical composers have also used Afro-Cuban rhythms and themes. Amadeo Roldán (1900–1939) and Alejandro García Caturla (1906–1940) often used the poetry of Afro-Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén, and Ernesto Lecuona (1895–1963) wrote exquisite piano pieces that reveal an intimate view of AfroCuban roots. Unlike that of the United States, Cuba’s African heritage, musically speaking, is central to defining Cuba’s national and cultural identity. This was not always so but certainly has been true since 1920 with the rise and consolidation of the son. Even so, in the period from 1914 to 1936, comparsas (which feature the conga rhythms and dances) were banned during carnival. In the eastern part of Cuba, the tumba francesa and the tajona, brought over by French-Haitian mestizos, were important aspects of Afro-Haitian cultural contact with Afro-Cuban traditions. Equally significant is the fact that 1936 was also the year in which the batá drums used in the sacred music of Regla de Ocha were first exhibited publicly in Cuba in a nonritual setting. Much has changed since then, and Afro-Cuban music, both ritual and secular, is now considered quintessentially Cuban. Alan West-Durán

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See also Abakuá; Afro-Cuban Literature; Cuba: Afro-Cubans; Hip-Hop, Cuban; Cruz, Celia (1924–2003). F URTHER R EADING Daniel, Yvonne. 1995. Rumba, Dance and Social Change in Contemporary Cuba. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press. Evora, Tony. 1997. Orígenes de la música cubana. Madrid, Spain: Alianza Editorial. Fernández, Raúl. 2002. Latin Jazz. San Francisco: Chronicle Books / Smithsonian Institution. Moore, Robin. 1997. Nationalizing Blackness: Afrocubanismo and Artistic Revolution in Havana, 1920–1940. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Ortiz, Fernando. 1993. La africanía de la música folklórica de Cuba. La Habana: Editorial Letras Cubanas.

z Afro-Fusion Dance Fusion has been a recurrent approach to dance that, historically, seems to be the driving force of many dance artists in the African Diaspora. The blend may not always be termed fusion by some artists, but it undoubtedly represents the methodology of the leading exponents of African Diaspora dance. The inherent objective of the Afro-fusion approach to dance is to establish a coherent dance idiom that adequately captures the experience of a multicultured dancing body. The symbiotic relationship of opposites becomes the context from which to draw the creative impulse. The definition of such a model becomes the instigating event for memory and the prerogative and locus for imagination, recollection, and approach to dance, dancing, and the creation of dances. “Fusion” brings in its etymology the symbiotic quality that reflects the interactive nature of an artistic creative process. “Fusion” emerges as a defining term to represent the creative working mode to generate choreographic ideas and

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Afro-Fusion Dance | 69 dance material, to access embodied histories, to assess the artistic outcome, and to structure expression in dance. In The Black Dancing Body: A Geography from Coon to Cool, Gottschild interviews various dance artists about their definitions of black and white dance. The responses speak to the attitudes of the artists themselves toward fusing forms in order to reach a personal aesthetic voice and a sense of identity. Fusion may come as a natural personal response to the pressure of disempowerment. In Salvador, Bahia, quadrille, samba and the ever changing, spontaneous street dances in secular manifestations were the more influential forms of social dance and interaction that established early notions of performance—culturally, aesthetically, and socially—apart from other modes of living tradition, learning movement and social behavioral patterns. The quadrille fueled a sense of representing what is not lived on a daily basis, through the imaginative replacement of the individual in an adverse environment; samba was reliving history, while the street dances were an exercise of contemporaneity. The shaping of the artistic self draws on the continuous dialogue and negotiation within the Afro-Brazilian and the worldly body. For example, an Afro-Brazilian descendant living in the United States who assumes that her or his Afro-Brazilian condition already addresses complex issues of hybridity and fusions, both African and otherwise, can be presented with the opportunity to make artistic choices and develop an aesthetic preference that would be outlined differently if she or he were to create dances in Brazil. Intertextuality, therefore, is a leading principle in fusion, and the intrinsic operating system that places acquired bodily text in a chronological order—text is acquired as the experience is lived—available for potential access and reference. Regionality and nationality are the underlying constructs of identity that the quadrille, the samba and street dances help set up. These ideas play an important role, particularly in the

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northeastern Brazilians’ process of demarcating the geographical, psychological, and emotional reach of the self. An understanding of micro and macro structures is a useful tool in accessing the complex web of personal experience, thus assisting the potential of reliving a comparative history. Samba as the national dance of Brazil, with origins in the Congo-Angola region, reenacts and rearticulates the history of slavery, rape, disempowerment, and partial annihilation. However, samba, like capoeira, articulates as well the history of resistance through deception, survival through rebellion, strategy through fusion, and empowerment through dance. The case of samba is no different from many other cases throughout the Americas and the Caribbean. Names such as calenda, chica, batuque, and calypso are “variations of a common theme.” (Crowell Jr. 15) A dance that was initially associated with a marginalized group developed national status due to the “more dialectical conception of cultural transmission.” In the case of samba, the standards of normalization and authenticity echo the original form, despite the development of variations due to forces of regionality and even politics, as in governmental strategies to support an ideology that erases and covers fundamental issues of social, political, and economic scope and the significance of the African contribution in Brazilian society. The function of samba remains rooted primarily in representing sexual play and modes of male-female interactions. Within the Roda de Samba in Brazil, the guiding rules of the samba aesthetic call for fluid hips, eloquent feet, and subtle shoulders, and a strong sense of improvisation, which are all traits inherited from Africans that set the model for the sambista—the samba dancer. The objective investigation of the creative process in dance as a method in which to identify and articulate the practice of creating contemporary artistic dances in the African

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Diaspora surfaces as a natural route in the pursuit of a dance career. Various contemporary dance artists look inward to find ways to innovate and advance the understanding of our shared humanities, thus fusing forms to produce an Afro-fusion. Augusto Soledade See also Dance in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Crowell, Nathaniel Hamilton, Jr. 2002. “What Is Congolese in Caribbean Dance?” In Caribbean Dance from Abakuá to Zouk: How Movement Shapes Identity, ed. Susan Sloat, 15. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Desmond, Jane. 1997. “Embodying Difference: Issues in Dance and Cultural Studies.” In Meaning in Motion: New Cultural Studies in Dance, ed. Jane Desmond. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Gottschild, Brenda Dixon. 1997. “Some Thoughts on Choreographing History.” In Meaning in Motion: New Cultural Studies in Dance, ed. Jane Desmond. North Carolina: Duke University Press. Gottschild, Brenda Dixon. 2002. “Crossroads, Continuities, and Contradictions: The AfroEuro-Caribbean Triangle.” In Caribbean Dance from Abakuá to Zouk: How Movement Shapes Identity, ed. Susan Sloat, 5. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Gottschild, Brenda Dixon. 2003. The Black Dancing Body: A Geography from Coon to Cool. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kincaid, Jamaica. 1997. My Brother. New York: Noonday Press.

z Ahimsa The word “ahimsa” is from the Sanskrit and means “not to hit, not to strike, not to kill, not to destroy, and not to injure.” It is harmlessness, abstinence from killing or giving pain to others in thought, word, or deed. The word “ahimsa” is the antonym of himsa, which means killing, slaughter, and destruction. There are said to be three kinds of himsa: personal, verbal, and

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mental. Ahimsa as a philosophy of life was referred to in the fifth verse of the tenth chapter of the Bhaghavad Gita, the sacred text of the Hindus. Manu, the first lawgiver of the Hindus, uses the word in his Manu Smriti, in the context of ethics and social integration (Manu Smriti 10–63, 5–44, 6–75). Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, has preached in his sermons “Ahimsaparmo-dharma”—that ahimsa is the highest form of dharma. “Dharma” can be translated loosely as “religion,” but dharma in Hinduism and Buddhism refers to the way life is to be lived in its integrated form, the principles that enable a meaningful life lived with dignity and honor. The philosophic idea upholding the doctrine of ahimsa is found in the Upanishads, the scriptural writings that form the core spiritual thought of Vedantic Hinduism. The religion of Jainism shares the doctrine of ahimsa with Bhagvatism/Vaishnavaism and Buddhism and is permeated with the influence of Hinduism. Mahatma Gandhi applied the concept of dharma in his own life to achieve India’s independence from the British Empire. India became independent on August 15, 1947. Born in Gujarat, India, Gandhi was a devout Hindu Vaishnavite. He studied law in England and became a barrister-at-law. Although traveling in South Africa, he endured humiliating treatment because he was not white. He was ejected from the first-class coach of a train by the British ticket supervisor, although he had purchased a first-class ticket. This incident was a turning point in the life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, as he was then known. He mounted a protest against this kind of humiliation and discrimination, but his methods were nonviolent ones. That methodology is known as the way of ahimsa. Later, people called him Mahatma, which means “Great Soul,” because he adopted this concept in his personal and political life. Ahimsa is associated with Buddha from the religious point of view, but Gandhi used it in

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Aidoo, Ama Ata (1942–) | 71 his political struggle against the British. Using the doctrine of ahimsa, Gandhi developed satyagraha, the philosophy and practice of nonviolent resistance, which involved protesting for the right cause, fasting, and peaceful demonstration, to free India from foreign rule. These ideas appealed to the masses, and Indians followed Mahatma Gandhi without regard for caste, creed, color, or religion. Ahimsa became a peaceful instrument not only for Indian independence; it was later applied by Martin Luther King Jr. in his fight against racial discrimination in the United States. Chaman Lal Raina See also Filhos de Gandhy; India and the African Diaspora; King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929– 1968). F URTHER R EADING Apte, Vaman Shivram. 1993. The Student’s Sanskrit-English Dictionary, 3rd rev. ed., 73, 639. Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass. “Early History of Vaishnavaism.” 1993. In The Cultural Heritage of India, vol. 4, ed. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, 129. Calcutta, India: The Ramakrishna Mission, Institute of Culture. Manu. Manu-smriti. Calcutta, India: University of Calcutta, 1924.

z Aidoo, Ama Ata (1942–) Ama Ata Aidoo, internationally acclaimed novelist, playwright, poet, short-story writer, and critic, is Ghana’s foremost woman writer. Born Christina Ama Ata Aidoo in 1942 in what was then the Gold Coast under British colonization, she is a writer whose works highlight the issues and problems facing African women in Africa and their relationship to the West. Aidoo was born in Abeadzi Kyiakor to a chief and thus grew up in a royal household, which entailed a very traditional background. However, both her father and her grandfather

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(who was killed by the British) were highly political individuals and therefore afforded her not only a rich cultural background but also a politically conscious one. Aidoo attended the prestigious Wesley Girls secondary school in Cape Coast and then the University of Ghana at Legon, where she studied drama from 1961 to 1964, earning a B.A. degree in English. At Legon, Aidoo began writing her first play, The Dilemma of a Ghost, which was performed before publication in 1965. The play, like Aidoo’s subsequent works, confronts the conflict of the African who is influenced by Western civilization and, as a result, is torn between adhering to Western ideals and his African culture. In the 1960s, Aidoo also worked with Efua Sutherland, another African woman writer and the founder of the Ghana Drama Studio. She later served as a research fellow at the Institute for African Studies during 1964–1966, and she participated in an advanced creative writing seminar course at Stanford University as well as the Harvard International Seminar. She has also taught in Kenya, Ghana, Zimbabwe, and the United States. In 1983, she served as Minister of Education under the regime of Jerry Rawlings and resigned in 1984. Politically vocal and controversial, Aidoo has expressed her dissatisfaction and disappointment with the post-independence era of Ghana and other African countries, critiquing the neocolonization of the continent by its own people, the prioritization of nationalistic issues over the woman question and the lack of regard for African women’s literary production. She is also critical of what she calls the brain drain of Africa, where African intellectuals opt to live abroad and in effect deprive the continent of valuable human resources. For Aidoo, it is critical that African people maintain residence and active involvement in their countries’ development. Such political grounds, as well as issues of Diaspora, resonate in her next play, Anowa

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(1970), and in the rest of her works. Like The Dilemma of a Ghost, Anowa confronts painful issues in Africa’s past, particularly that of the slave trade, but Aidoo goes further as she grapples with issues of patriarchal domination and African feminism. As do the foregoing plays, her subsequent works explore and problematize gender inequality, nationalism, colonialism, and imperialism. Her works include the first collection of short stories, No Sweetness Here (1970); her novels, Our Sister Killjoy or Reflections from a Black-Eyed Squint (1977), and Changes: A Love Story (1991); her two books of poetry, Someone Talking to Sometime (1985) and An Angry Letter in January (1992). Her most recent work is a collection of short stories, The Girl Who Can and Other Stories (1996). Aidoo has also written the critical works “To Be an African Woman—An Overview and a Detail” (1988), “The African Woman Today” (1992), and other important essays. Aidoo has also authored a children’s book, The Eagle and the Chicken and Other Stories (1987). Miriam Gyimah See also Ghana. F URTHER R EADING Aidoo, Ama Ata. 1999. “Unwelcome Pals and Decorative Slaves.” In Emerging Perspectives on Ama Ata Aidoo, ed. Ada Uzoamaka Azodo and Gay Wilentz, 11–24. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Allan, Tuzyline Jita. 1991. “Afterword.” In Ama Ata Aidoo, Changes: A Love Story, 171–196. New York: Feminist Press. “Ama Ata Aidoo.” 1992. Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 117, 32–40. Detroit: Gale Publishers. James, Adeola. 1990. “Ama Ata Aidoo.” In In Their Own Voices: African Women Writers Talk. London: N. H. Heinemann. Odamtten, Vincent. 1994. The Art of Ama Ata Aidoo: Polylectics and Reading against Neocolonialism. Gainesville: Florida University Press.

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Akara Akara/acara/acaraje is a fried cake or fritter native to West Africa, where it is a common breakfast staple or fast food that reached the African Diaspora via the transatlantic slave trade. In some recipes, black-eyed peas are used; when they are not available, any other clear and related bean will do—cow peas, for example. Usually the beans are soaked overnight so that the top skin is removable. Then the beans are ground, seasoned with salt and other spices of choice, and then deepfried. In Brazil and West Africa, grinding machines specific to the task are now used to produce it in the kind of mass quantity required. In Salvador-Bahia, where it is called acaraje, it is the popular fast food or snack made by baianas, the now-folkloric black women of Salvador-Bahia, who dress in the traditional white lace tops and large flowered skirts still maintained in Candomblé; they sit with trays and cooking implements at strategic corners of the city, making and selling acaraje. Acaraje is sold from mid-afternoon to late nighttime, made fresh and on the spot, deep-fried in dende or palm oil and then sliced and served with various assorted sides like vatapá, a dried shrimp paste, and pepper sauces to taste. Akara, acara, or acaraje is now a popular snack or side dish, fast food, or party appetizer in Brazil and the Caribbean, as it is in West Africa. In the Eastern Caribbean, flour can be used as the base and various other ingredients like salted codfish added, or it can be made sweet with pureed overripe bananas or plantains. Acaraje is also the special food of some Orisha, such as Oya-Iansa in Brazil. Carole Boyce Davies See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians. F URTHER R EADING Allsopp, Richard. 1996. Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Algerian Revolution | 73 Lopes, Nei. 2004. Enciclopedia Brasileria da Diaspora Africana. São Paulo, Brazil: Selo Negro Edicoes.

z Alexis, Jacques Stéphen (1922–1961) Haitian author Jacques Stéphen Alexis was born in Gonaïves to an affluent provincial family. His father, Stephen Alexis, was also a well-known writer and politician. The younger Alexis grew up in Haiti. He started his medical studies there and was also involved in literary activities, creating a literary magazine, La Ruche, with René Depestre. He was very active during the 1946 revolution that ousted Haitian president Elie Lescot (1941–1946). Awarded a scholarship to pursue further studies, Alexis specialized in psychiatry in France. During his stay in that country, he joined the Communist Party and became involved in politics. Alexis came back to Haiti in 1957 after the publication of his first novels (Compère Général Soleil and Les arbres musiciens). Although practicing medicine, he continued to write and theorized the idea of marvelous realism (influenced by Alejo Carpentier). Politically committed, he founded the Parti d’Entente Populaire (People’s Solidarity Party). Finding himself under suspicion by the Duvalier regime, he fled the country, seeking refuge in Cuba, where the Cuban revolution had just gained power. From there, he traveled extensively to the Soviet Union and China. After his return to Cuba, he decided to launch an expedition to Haiti in an armed attempt to overthrow the Duvalier regime. In 1961, he landed in the northwest region of Haiti but was arrested and beaten to death while in prison. His novels have been translated into many languages.

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Jacques Stéphen Alexis’s fiction addresses political and social issues in Haiti. Though politically committed, his work does not subscribe to traditional Marxist aesthetics; rather, Alexis developed an aesthetic research based on Alejo Carpentier’s concept of marvelous realism. His major works include an essay, “Du Réalisme Merveilleux des Haïtiens” (Haitian Marvelous Realism), published in Présence africaine (No. VIII-IX-X, 1956), and the novels Compère général Soleil (1955, English translation: Comrade General Sun, 1999), Les Arbres musiciens (1957), L’Espace d’un cillement (1959, In the Blink of an Eye, 2002), and Romancero aux étoiles (1961). Marie-José N’Zengou-Tayo See also Haiti. F URTHER R EADING Coates, Carroll. 1999. “Introduction.” In Jacques Stéphen Alexis, Comrade General Sun, i–xlviii. Charlottesville, VA: CARAF Books. Dash, J. Michael. 1975. Jacques Stéphen Alexis. Toronto: Black Images. Dash, J. Michael. 1981. “A Prophetic Vision of the Past: Jacques Stéphen Alexis and ‘Le Réalisme Merveilleux.’” In Literature and Ideology in Haiti, 180–201. London: Macmillan.

z Algerian Revolution The Algerian Revolution was one of the bloodiest and longest wars of national liberation in the 20th century and a defining moment for African liberation struggles and Third World liberation. It started officially at midnight on October 1, 1954, as a series of explosions rocked the country, and about 30 incendiaries and commando attacks targeted police and military installations. It ended in July 1962 with the independence of Algeria. As the jewel in the French crown, Algeria was considered by generations of Frenchmen as a French possession. More than a million Frenchmen and women

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had settled in Algeria since the 19th century, occupying the best farmland and subjugating the local population. When the anticolonial war erupted, both the settlers and the colonial administration were caught by surprise. The Algerian Revolution was spearheaded by the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) and its armed wing, the Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN). It involved a massive mobilization of the Algerian population. From a group of ragtag maquisards numbering in the hundreds and armed with an assortment of hunting rifles and old French and German light weaponry, the ALN had evolved by 1957 into a disciplined fighting force of nearly 40,000. About 30,000 were organized as conventional military units and were stationed on the Algerian borders with Morocco and Tunisia. They were used primarily to divert French manpower from the areas where guerrilla activity was taking place. Most of the fighting was done by internal units numbering between 6,000 and 25,000, most of them irregulars. The ALN successfully applied hit-and-run tactics following classic rules of guerrilla warfare. Using ambushes and night raids and avoiding direct contact with the superior French firepower, the internal forces targeted army patrols, military camps, police stations, and settlers’ farms and factories. They also sabotaged transportation and communication networks. The guerillas engaged the enemy and swiftly merged with the population in the cities and the countryside. As they gained control in the mountainous areas of the Aurès and the Kabylia and areas around Constantine, Oran, and south of Algiers, the FLN/ALN established a simple and effective military administration to collect taxes and food, to recruit fighters, and to identify safe houses. Algerians all over the country also initiated underground social, judicial, and civil organizations and gradually built their own state infrastructure. To increase international attention to their struggle, the FLN brought the conflict to the cities. The most notable event in this urban

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campaign was the Battle of Algiers. It began on September 30, 1956, when three women placed bombs at three locations in Algiers, including the downtown office of Air France. By the spring of 1957, the ALN was carrying out an average of 800 shootings and bombings per month. The campaign culminated with the FLN’s call for a general strike to coincide with the UN debate on Algeria in 1957. General Jacques Massu was instructed to use whatever methods were necessary to restore order in Algiers. Using paratroopers, he broke the strike and systematically destroyed the FLN’s infrastructure in the city. The FLN, however, had succeeded in showing its ability to strike at the heart of French Algeria and in rallying a mass response to its appeals among the urban Algerian population. Using mobile troops and aerial bombardment, the French military applied the principle of collective punishment to villages that were suspected of harboring rebels. The French army also initiated its infamous program of cadrillage (fencing off), and moved large segments of the rural population, often whole villages, into concentration camps under military supervision. Between 1957 and 1960, more than 2 million Algerians were forcibly removed from their villages and resettled in camps, where many found it impossible to reestablish the economic and social environment they needed to subsist. Thus, hundreds of villages were emptied and their orchards and croplands destroyed. The disruptive social and economic effects of this massive population transfer program continued to be felt for generations afterward. Against overwhelming odds and over an eight-year period, the Algerians managed to fight the French army to a standstill and forced it to leave. The Algerian Revolution became, therefore, a landmark in the history of anticolonial struggles. There was not one occupied territory in Africa, Frantz Fanon noted at the time, that did not modify its future prospects in the light of the Algerian war. The Algerian Revolution, he wrote, shook “the colonial equilibrium in Africa to its foundation.” It “awakened and

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Ali, Duse Mohamed (1867–1944) | 75 emboldened” the African populations. For the first time, the prospect of national liberation in that continent seemed achievable. After independence, the Algerian government continued to provide considerable support for liberation movements across the world. Guerrilla groups as diverse as the Palestinian Fatah movement, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) were trained in Algeria. The Algerian government was also steadfast in its support of liberation groups in Angola, Mozambique, and South Africa. Even today, valuable insights and guidelines are frequently drawn from the Algerian Revolution. On the one hand, the top brass of the U.S. Defense Department organized special screening sessions of Gillo Pontecorvo’s feature film The Battle of Algiers, according to media reports, as soon as the insurgency in Iraq started gaining momentum in 2003. The film is also popular with the Israeli military establishment. On the other hand, the Algerian Revolution will undoubtedly always be an inspiration to such populations as the Palestinians and the Iraqis, who still have to deal with colonial armies and racist settlers in their towns and villages.

England, where he lived with a French captain by the name of Duse, from whom he got the name. Ali first came to prominence with the publication of a book, In the Land of the Pharaohs, which was publicized through the formation of his journal, The African Times and Orient Review. The journal was truly panAfrican in content and seems likely to have been influenced by Williams’s The Pan-African (contrary to Peter Fryer’s [Fryer 1984, 288] assertion that it was the first journal to be published in Britain by and for black people). In the first issue, Ali clearly set out the purpose of the journal: The recent Universal Races Congress . . . clearly demonstrated that there was ample need for a Pan-Oriental PanAfrican journal at the seat of the British Empire which would lay the aims, desires, and intentions of the Black, Brown, and Yellow races—within and without the empire—at the throne of Caesar. . . . For whereas there is an extensive Aryan-Saxon Press devoted to the interests of the Anglo-Saxon, it is obvious that this vehicle of that information may only be used in a limited and restricted sense in its ventilation of African and Oriental aims. Hence, the truth about African and Oriental conditions is rarely stated with precision and accuracy in the columns of the European press. . . . The voices of millions of Britain’s enlightened dark races are never heard . . . discontent is fermented by reason of systematic injustice and misrepresentation. (Geiss, 221– 222).

Fouzi Slisli See also Fanon, Frantz (1925–1961). F URTHER R EADING Fanon, Frantz. 1988. Towards the African Revolution: Political Essays. New York: Grove Press. Harbi, Mohammed. 1984. 1954: La Guerre Commence en Algérie. Brussels: Éditions Complexe. Horner, Alistair. 1987. A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954–1962. New York: Penguin Books.

z Ali, Duse Mohamed (1867–1944) Ali was born in Egypt of Sudanese parents. At the age of nine, his father sent him to study in

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It is apparent that at the outset of the journal there was an engagement with the racial and political issues of the day, and the “Pan-African, Pan-Oriental” perspective of which Ali spoke was reflected in the titles of the first issue: “Hindu Treatment by the Borden Government,” “The Race Problems of Hawaii,” “The Negro

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Conference at Tuskegee Institute” (the vocational school at which Booker T. Washington was principal), “Report of First Universal Races Congress,” and so on. Ali did not see himself as isolated, nor did any of the early pan-Africanists. Ali kept up the level of information in the journal with graphic photographs of Africans being mob-hanged in the United States, along with a chronology of murders suffered by Africans there. In September 1912, the journal ran a eulogy on the death of British-born composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and in the Christmas issue of the same year, it ran an interview with Harriet Tubman, the antislavery freedom fighter, still alive at more than 100 years of age. The journal also advertised a lecture bureau offering speakers on Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Tripoli, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast (Ghana), Nigeria, and others. And in a later issue, the journal published the first article written by Marcus Garvey in England, entitled “The British West Indies in the Mirror of Civilization. History Making by Colonial Negroes.” It should be noted here that Ali’s journal was based at 158 Fleet Street, the heart of the newspaper industry in Britain. Ali’s journal, with intermittent breaks, functioned until 1918. It must be said, however, that, despite an obvious predilection for things panAfrican, Ali himself was involved in European literary criticism and played the part of Othello. He also played a prominent role in the context of politicizing the condition of the African, according to Geiss, by supplying information to Labour M.P.s. Ali later left England for the United States for business interests and also worked with Marcus Garvey on his Negro World. He left the United States in 1931, was refused permission to land on what was then the Gold Coast, and went on to Nigeria, where he settled and lived until his death in 1944. Amon Saba Saakana See also Europe and the African Diaspora; PanAfricanism; United Kingdom: The African Diaspora.

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F URTHER R EADING “Foreword.” 1912. The African Times and Orient Review. July, iii. Fryer, Peter. 1984. Staying Power. The History of Black People in Britain. New York: Pluto Press. Geiss, Imanuel. 1974. The Pan-African Movement: A History of Pan-Africanism in America, Europe and Africa. New York: Methuen.

z Ali, Muhammad (1942–) Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Clay), the threetime heavyweight champion of the world, has served as a pivotal link between Africa and the United States. Throughout his 20-year boxing career to the present, Ali has devoted his energies to religious, political, and humanitarian causes worldwide that have positioned him as a vital symbol of the African Diaspora whose work and impact transcend national boundaries. Several forces portended Ali’s understanding of himself as a citizen of the Diaspora whose fate was intertwined with the lives of people of color around the globe. The most critical was his father, who had been influenced by the teachings of the black nationalist Marcus Garvey. Although Ali’s father never proposed moving the family back to Africa, he was outspoken about racism in the United States and made clear to his son the difficulties of being black in America. These lessons were magnified when, as a teenager, Ali learned of the lynching of Emmett Till. In his autobiography, Ali explains the racial killing as a key event in his forming racial consciousness. Ali began attending Nation of Islam meetings in 1958 as a 16-year-old. The organization became the bedrock for his self-awareness of himself as both a racial subject and a Diasporic one for the next 20 years. Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam, taught his followers that African Americans in the United States were a lost tribe of Africans that had to reconnect with the motherland both culturally

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Al-Jahiz (776–868) | 77 and spiritually in order to make sense of the North American wilderness to which they were transported during the Middle Passage. Shortly after Ali became the heavyweight champion in 1964, he traveled through Muslim countries in Africa and received a hero’s welcome. The trip signified Ali’s understanding of himself not only as a black nationalist but also as a symbol of worldwide Islam. It was the first of many trips to Africa for Ali, and his bond with the continent’s citizens continues to the present. Ali’s ultimate positioning of himself as part of the larger, Diasporic world was his refusal to be drafted into military service for the Vietnam War. When Ali was classified as draft eligible in 1966, he told reporters that he would not be a part of a war that seemed to him to be another case of a white-dominated country interfering with the sovereignty of a nonwhite one. His opposition to the war brought a heavy price. A federal court found Ali guilty of draft evasion and sentenced him to five years in prison. Ali appealed the case, but until his situation was resolved, he found himself banned from boxing. No state athletic commission would license him; as a convicted felon, his passport was revoked. This prevented him from fighting inside or outside the United States. In 1971, the Supreme Court overturned Ali’s conviction. Again free to box, Ali pursued the heavyweight championship of the world, and Africa would be the site of one of the most glorious moments of his career. In 1974, Ali recaptured the title from the heavily favored George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire. It was the first heavyweight championship match ever held on the continent. Ali’s victory was an important symbolic moment because it seemed to represent not only the righteousness of his views on race and politics but also because it aroused a spirit of unity between Africans and African Americans. Michael Ezra See also “African” in African American History; Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940); Nation of Islam; Till, Emmett (1941–1955).

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F URTHER R EADING Bingham, Howard, with Max Wallace. 2000. Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight: Cassius Clay vs. The United States of America. New York: M. Evans. Hauser, Thomas. 1991. Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times. New York: Touchstone. Marqusee, Mike. 1999. Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties. London: Verso. Remnick, David. 1998. King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero. New York: Random House.

z Al-Jahiz (776–868) Abu Uthman Amr Ibn Bahr al-Kinani alFuqaimi al-Basri was known throughout Muslim history by his nickname, Al-Jahiz (“Google-Eyes,” due to his pronounced eyes). AlJahiz, who is said to have been of African descent, was born into a poor family in what is now contemporarily known as Iraq. He displayed intelligence at an early age but worked as a fisherman until early adulthood. He would go to the local mosques and listen to the leading scholars of the day lecturing on philology, lexicography, theology, and poetry. With the introduction of paper (which replaced the more expensive parchment) a few years before Al-Jahiz’s birth, and the founding of Baghdad, the transmission and acquiring of knowledge made gaining an education affordable and easy for many in the Muslim world. Al-Jahiz read Arabic translations of Hellenistic literature and sciences, including Greek philosophers, and he had a special interest in Aristotle. In 816, he moved to Baghdad to be a part of the famous Islamic intellectual institution called Bayt al-Hikma (the “House of Wisdom”). His intellectual output was amazing. He wrote more than 200 books (only 30 of which have survived) on the subjects of poetry, Arabic grammar, and diet and is widely known for his wit and prose writings.

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The views put forth by Al Jahiz in his Kitab alHayawan (Book of Animals) on the effect of environment on animals, along with the struggle for existence, seemed to be the precursor observations for the concept of evolution. He wrote a book in response to the racial issue at the time, entitled The Superiority in Glory of the Black Race over Whites, or The Book of Glory of the Blacks over the Whites. His other works are The Book of Misers, The Book of Animals, The Merit of the Turks, In Praise of Merchants and Dispraise of Officials, The Superiority of Speech to Silence, and The Book of Eloquence and Rhetoric. After 50 years in Baghdad, Al-Jahiz moved back to Basra, where he died in A.D. 868 at the age of 93. Legend says that his death was caused by an accident: a pile of books fell on him in his home library. Darrell Davis See also Iraq: The African Presence in Early Iraq. F URTHER R EADING Rashidi, Runoko, and Ivan Van Sertima, eds. 2001. “African Presence in Early Asia.” Islam: Empire of Faith, documentary. Public Broadcasting Station. Rogers, J. A. 1996. World’s Great Men of Color. Volume 1: Asia and Africa, and Historical Figures Before Christ. New York: Touchstone. (Original published in 1946.)

All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) The All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) is a product of the relentless struggle within the Pan-African movement for ideological clarity, a scientific and precise objective, and revolutionary, mass, Pan-African political organization. Guided by its Nkrumahist-Touréist ideology, the A-APRP seeks to educate and organize the masses of exploited and oppressed Africans living, suffering, and struggling in

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more than 113 countries in the world, in order to release and channel their disorganized energies into a revolutionary mass energy capable of attaining Pan-Africanism: the total liberation and unification of Africa under scientific socialism. Pan-Africanism is a historically determined necessity. The emergence of the Pan-African movement in the 16th and 17th centuries ushered in concrete efforts at building mass, all-African organizations. The Pan-African movement assumed its modern organizational expression and form in 1900 with the convening of the first Pan-African Conference, spearheaded by Henry Sylvester Williams, Bishop Henry Waiters, and W. E. B. DuBois; and, later, the South African Native Congress, led by Jabavu; the Universal Negro Improvement Association, led by the Honorable Marcus Garvey; the National Congress of British West Africa, led by Joseph Casely-Hayford; and the Liga Africana of the Portuguese Colonies of Africa and South America, led by Jose de Magalhaes. In 1919, W. E. B. DuBois, recognizing the necessity for continuity, organized the first Pan-African Congress. Between 1919 and 1945, five PanAfrican Congresses were held. The Fifth Pan-African Congress, cochaired by Dr. W. E. B. DuBois and Kwame Nkrumah, marked the beginning of a new period, one that saw the intensification of the mass phase of the African revolution and the emergence of new forms of revolutionary, mass, Pan-African political organizations adequate to the task of struggling for political independence. This process gained intensity and speed with the organization of the Democratic Party of Guinea (PDG) in 1947, under the leadership of Ahmed Sékou Touré, and the Convention People’s Party of Ghana (CPP) in 1949, under the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah. In less than a decade, mass parties spread to every corner of the African world. Three watershed events occurred in 1957 and 1958: the attainment of independence by Ghana and Guinea and the convening of the first All-

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Alpha Kappa Alpha | 79 African People’s Conference in Ghana, signaling the birth of a new phase in the African revolution. In the short 12 years after the Fifth PanAfrican Congress, the objective and subjective conditions had ripened, making it possible to firmly and irrevocably root the Pan-African movement in Africa, its only true home. The building of the A-APRP began to take concrete expression and form in 1968 with the creation of the first A-APRP Work-Study Circle in Guinea under the leadership of Kwame Ture and later in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, England, France, and several countries in Africa. Since 1968, the A-APRP has recruited Africans born in more than 33 countries. It has also developed a worldwide support base. Its ideology is Nkrumahism-Touréism, which takes its name from the consistent, revolutionary, socialist, and Pan-African principles, practices, and policies followed, implemented, and taught by Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah and Ahmed Sékou Touré: Nkrumahism–Tureism includes: The primacy of Africa; The integrity and dignity of the Revolutionary-African Personality; Humanism, egalitarianism and collectivism; Dialectical and historical materialism; The Absolute Harmony Between Revolution and Religion; The necessity for permanent, mass, revolutionary, Pan-African political education, organization and action. The All-African People’s Revolutionary Party recognizes that African People born and living in over 113 countries around the world are one People, with one identity, one history, one culture, one Nation and one destiny. We have one common enemy. We suffer from disunity, disorganization and ideological confusion. And we all have only one scientific and correct solution, Pan-Africanism: the total liberation and unification of Africa under scientific socialism. For Nkrumah, when achieved, the aspirations of Africans and Peoples of African descent everywhere will be fulfilled. The only program of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party is “Build the A-APRP.” This

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is accomplished first through a strategy that includes politically educating and organizing cadres from the ranks of the revolutionary African intelligentsia, initially college students and women, to serve as the spark of the African revolution; and solidifying alliances with progressive and revolutionary movements and organizations in Africa and the world. Membership in the A-APRP is open to all Africans who accept its objectives and ideology. Macheo Shabaka See also Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–1972); PanAfricanism; Ture, Kwame (1941–1998). F URTHER R EADING Nkrumah, Kwame. 1970. Class Struggle in Africa. London: Panaf Books.

z Alpha Kappa Alpha Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., founded on the campus of Howard University on January 15, 1908, is the oldest Greek letter organization of black women. The sorority was established during the era of racial uplift and the club movement not only to foster friendship, sisterhood, and scholarship among black women but also to serve its community and the rest of the world. In 1908, nine women were recognized as the founders of the organization they chose to call Alpha Kappa Alpha. Seven sophomores were later added to the number. Four years later, when the organization sought greater official status and permanence locally, nationally, and later internationally, it was incorporated on January 29, 1913, and added four members, the incorporators, to its founding body. As a result, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority officially regards these three groups as among its 20 founders; they are also referred to as “the 20 pearls.” Also known as AKA, the sorority established its purposes as (1) to cultivate and encourage high scholastic and ethical standards, (2) to

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promote unity and friendship among college women, (3) to study and alleviate problems concerning girls and women, (4) to maintain a progressive interest in college life, and (5) to be of service to all mankind. The colors of the sorority are salmon pink and apple green; its official symbol is the ivy leaf, with the separate letters A, K, and A individually written at the tip of each leaf; the motto is By Culture and by Merit, and the official flower is the pink tea rose. The official organ of the sorority is The Ivy Leaf, and a national convention of the sorority body, called the boule, meets every two years. The national headquarters is in Chicago, Illinois. Membership in Alpha Kappa Alpha is divided into five categories and is granted in two ways. There are undergraduate, graduate, associate, general, and life and/or honorary members. All members become a part of the organization by going through a membership intake process in either an undergraduate or a graduate chapter. The sorority has more than 912 chapters and 170,000 members and is divided into 10 regions: North Atlantic, Mid-Atlantic, South Atlantic, Great Lakes, Southeastern, Central, South Central, Midwestern, Far Western, and International, the last of which comprises chapters located in the U.S. Virgin Islands and in countries outside the United States, such as Korea, Germany, and Liberia. The supreme basileus is the official national leader of the sorority. One of Alpha Kappa Alpha’s foci is “service to all mankind”; to this end, the organization has actively created programs and activities that exemplify and fulfill this purpose. Within the nearly 100 years of its existence, the organization has initiated programs such as the Mississippi Health Project, the Continuing Health Project, the Cleveland Job Corps Center, the Reading Experience, the Ivy AKAdemy, the Leadership Training Program, and Black Family Month. The Alpha Kappa Alpha Mobile Clinic was created to provide such services as immunization, care for sickle-cell anemia patients, dental work, birth

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control, and health education, among others. Another of its Continuing Health Programs included the opening of a National Health Office in New York City in 1945. Alpha Kappa Alpha joined with the U.S. Department of Labor during 1965–1997 to create the Cleveland Job Corps Center to prepare disadvantaged and educationally underserved young women to become employable workers, homemakers, and responsible citizens. The Reading Experience, another community service program established by Alpha Kappa Alpha, was designed to alleviate some of the learning problems affecting all Americans. Some of the programs established in furtherance of the Ivy AKAdemy are Read Alouds, Brain Bowls, Black Jeopardy, Project Uplift, Teen Summit, and monthly leadership conferences. The AKAdemy provides evening and Saturday programs to meet the needs of children. Important to Alpha Kappa Alpha is the place of the black family. During the month of February, which has been designated as Black Family Month, an emphasis is placed on unity within the family and the community. Other programs AKA has sponsored include nonpartisan lobbying, the African Village Project (in which the organization helped build wells in remote villages in Africa), support for medical research, the Urban League, the NAACP, and various social programs. Miriam Gyimah See also Delta Sigma Theta; Kappa Alpha Psi; Phi Beta Sigma; Zeta Phi Beta. F URTHER R EADING Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated. 2004. Home Page. www.aka1908.com/history.asp?t=overview .htm, May 15. Parker, Marjorie H. 1999. Past Is Prologue. The History of Alpha Kappa Alpha 1908–1999. Selfpublished. Ross, Lawrence C., Jr. 2000. The Divine Nine: The History of African American Fraternities and Sororities. New York: Kensington.

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Alves, Miriam (1952–) | 81

Alves, Miriam (1952–) Miriam Aparecida Alves was born in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1952. A social worker by profession, she is currently known in Brazil and abroad as her country’s leading Afro-Brazilian female poet. She is a prolific writer of poems and short stories; her works have been published in Portuguese, English, and German. Alves became famous as one of the key writers of the Cadernos Negros (Black Notebooks) series. In 1982, five of her poems were published in Cadernos Negros 5, the fifth in a series of annual publications done collaboratively by Afro-Brazilian writers. This was the start of a career of continuous publishing in this collection. That same year, Alves joined Quilombhoje, a conglomerate of black writers who gathered during the 1980s for literary readings, debates, and discussions. To date, her poems and short stories appear in Cadernos Negros 5, 7 to 13, 17, 19 to 21, Cadernos Negros: Os Melhores Poemas (Black Notebooks. The Best Poems), Cadernos Negros: Os Melhores Contos (Black Notebooks. The Best Short Stories), and Cadernos Negros 24 to 26 (Ribeiro and Barbosa, 2003, 142–143). In Cadernos Negros 8 (1985), Alves defines the literary project that forms the very basis of this series. The collaborative policy among contributing writers that guarantees yearly production in many ways arises out of that ideological stance of racial and social consciousness that, together with activism, does much to link this literature to the activities of local militancy (Alves 2002, 13). Even as she contributed to this series, Alves produced two poetic anthologies of her own. Momentos de Busca came out in 1983, and Estrelas no Dedo in 1985. This confirms her ability to stand alone, even while, without a doubt, her main readership comes from the Cadernos Negros series. Alves’s literary production is widely distributed in many anthologies, journals, and collections. Most of her work is available in Portuguese, and some of it has been translated into English. Important among

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these is a bilingual anthology that she organized and coedited entitled Enfim . . . Nós/Finally . . . Us: Contemporary Black Brazilian Women Writers (edited by Miriam Alves and Carolyn R. Durham; Colorado Springs: Three Continent Press, 1995). Other important anthologies in which her work can be found include: Fourteen Female Voices from Brazil: Interviews and Works (edited by Elzbieta Szoka; Austin, Texas: Host Publications, 2002); Negro Brasileiro Negro: Revista do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico National 25 (Rio de Janeiro: IPHAN, 1997); Moving Beyond Boundaries. International Dimension of Black Women’s Writing (edited by Carole Boyce Davies and Molara Ogundipe-Leslie; London: Pluto Press, 1995); Callaloo, vol. 18, number 4 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1995); Poesia Negra Brasileira: Antologia (organized by Zilá Bernd; Porto Alegre: AGE:IEL:IGEL, 1992); Pau de sebo: Coletânea de Poesia Negra (organized by Júlia Duboc; Brodowski: Projeto Memória da Cidade, 1988); A Razão da Chama: Antologia de Poetas Negros Brasileiros (organized by Oswaldo de Camargo; São Paulo: GRD, 1986); O Negro Escrito (organized by Oswaldo de Camargo; São Paulo: Secretaria de Estado da Cultura, 1987); and Axé: Antologia da Poesia Negra Contemporânea Brasileira (organized by Paulo Colina; São Paulo: Global, 1982) (Ribeiro and Barbosa 2003, 142–143). She has also written a collection of essays Poeticas-brasileiras (Alves 2002). The stance of literary militancy with which this writer aligns herself is further consolidated by her own commitment to strengthening the resolve of women in general and promoting the publication and awareness of women writers like herself. Her own experiences within the black movement and the publishing world have pushed her in this direction. Other valuable essays that give insight into the nature of ideology behind her literary criticism are: “Discurso temerário,” in Criação Crioula Nu Elefante Branco: I Encontro de Poetas e Ficcionistas Negros Brasileiros (organized

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by Cuti, Miriam Alves and Arnaldo Xavier; São Paulo: Secretaria do Estado da Cultura, 1987); and “Axé Ogum,” in Reflexões. Sobre a Literatura Afro-Brasileira (Quilombhoje/ Conselho de Participação e Desenvolvimento da Comunidade Negra, 1985). Dawn Duke See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Quilombhoje. F URTHER R EADING Alves, Miriam. 1985. “Miriam Alves.” In Cadernos Negros 8, 13. Contos. São Paulo, Brazil: Edição dos Autores. Alves, Miriam. 1995. “Finally . . . Us: Why?” In Enfim . . .Nós/Finally . . . Us, ed. Miriam A. Alves and Carolyn R. Durham, 17–27. Colorado Springs, CO: Three Continent Press. Alves, Miriam. 2002. “Cadernos negros (número 1): estado de alerta no fogo cruzado.” In Poéticas Afro-Brasileiras, Maria do Carmo Lanna Figueiredo and Maria Nazareth Soares Fonseca, 221–240. Belo Horizonte: Editora PUCMinas, Mazza Edições Ltda. Boyce Davies, Carole. 1998. “Afro-Brazilian Women, Culture, and Literature: An Introduction and an Interview with Miriam Alves.” Macomere 1: 57–74. Ribeiro, Esmeralda, and Márcio Barbosa, eds. 2003. Cadernos Negros Volume 26. Contos Afro-Brasileiras. São Paulo, Brazil: Quilombhoje.

z Amankwatia II, Baffour See Hilliard, Asa G. (1933–2007).

z Ambar, Malik (ca. 1550–1626) Historically, there was a small but steady medieval slave trade between Africa, south Arabia, and India. Malik Ambar was an Ethiopian boy

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who got caught up in this trade but used his opportunities to become the ruler of an Indian kingdom. Born in southern Ethiopia, he was enslaved and sold into slavery in Yemen. While in Yemen, he converted to Islam, took a Muslim name, and was given training in finance. He was taken to India by a slave-dealer in the 1570s and sold to a minister of the king of Ahmadnagar. By the 1590s, he was the leader of a group of soldiers that probably included a number of Africans. In this period, there were quite a few African slave soldiers in India. About this time, the struggles for power were quite intense, and Ambar became an independent factor in several kingdoms. By 1602, he had returned to Ahmadnagar, where he seized power in a coup and named himself regent. The king was imprisoned. Ambar ruled for more than 20 years during a period when the Mughal empire was expanding its control over north and central India. Ambar effectively resisted that expansion, defeating the armies of three Mughal rulers. He also reformed tax and land use policies. He constructed mosques and was the patron of a literary and cultural renaissance. He built a tomb of black stone for himself. Under Ambar’s rule, Ahmadnagar was a very cosmopolitan state, with bureaucrats of Arab, Persian, and Brahmin origins. His personal bodyguard, however, was composed largely of Afro-Indian slaves. African slave soldiers were common in the Arab and Indian world. Although they often rose to important command positions, it was rare for one of them to become a ruler, but times of conflict often open up opportunities for leaders of ability. Contemporaries often commented on his African origins, sometimes unfavorably, but they do not seem to have influenced his ability to carry out policies and defend his kingdom. Martin Klein See also India and the African Diaspora; The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA).

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Amo, Antonius Guilielmus (Wilhelm) (1703–ca.1750) | 83 F URTHER R EADING Harris, Joseph E. 1971. The African Presence in Asia. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

z Amo, Antonius Guilielmus (Wilhelm) (1703–ca. 1753) Described by some sources as a Guinea-Afro, Antonius Guilielmus Amo—notable African scholar, philosopher and poet of the first half of the 18th century—was born near Axum, in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), in 1703. In 1707, he was brought to Amsterdam and given to the Duke Anton Ulrich of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel who in turn handed him over to his son, August Wilhelm. The young Amo was given the names of his masters (who doubled as foster parents) when he was baptized in 1708. August Wilhelm ensured that Amo received the best possible education and in 1727 sponsored him to Halle University in Germany, from which he graduated in law (1729) with a Latin disputation, or thesis, entitled De jure Maurorum in Europa (which has yet to be traced). In 1730, Amo went on to further studies at Wittenberg University. Within the same year, he completed his dissertation and obtained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. After the publication of his thesis in 1733, he was made Professor of Philosophy at Wittenberg. In 1734, he returned to teach psychology, natural law, and the decimal system at his alma mater, Halle University. He moved from there in 1739 to Jena University, where he remained until May 1740. Little more is heard of him until his celebrated return to his native Axum in 1753. Within a very short life span, Amo rose from slavery, with the help of his benevolent patrons, to become one of the most accomplished classical scholars of the German Renaissance and a celebrity in high society. Amo probably died in the 1750s, but in an account

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of his life, the date of his death was curiously recorded as May 29, 1734. He has been honored by the academic council of Jena University for his scholarly accomplishments. His most notable works are: the philosophical treatise Tractus de arte sobrie et accurate philosophandi (Treatise on the Art of Philosophizing Soberly and Accurately (Halle, 1738); his inaugural lecture at Jena, “The Frontiers of Psychology” (1739); and two earlier theses, Dissertatio. . . . (Wittenberg, 1734) and Disputatio Philosophica . . . (Wittenberg, 1734). Although Amo also wrote poetry in the neoclassical style, only one fragment has survived—a praise poem addressed to Dr. Moses Abraham Wolff, ca. 1736, written in German in standard alexandrines (Jahn, 1968). His selfdefining signature closing follows: From Anton Wilhelm Amo, From Guinea in Africa, Magister Legens of Philosophy And the Liberal Arts. Chukwuma Azuonye See also Germany and the African Diaspora; Philosophers and the African American Experience. F URTHER R EADING Azuonye, Chukwuma, and Steven Serafin, eds. Forthcoming. The Columbia Anthology of African Literature. New York: Columbia University Press. Dathorne, O. R. 1974. The Black Mind: A History of African Literature. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Gikandi, Simon, ed. 2003. Encyclopedia of African Literature. New York: Routledge. Herdeck, Donald E. 1974. African Authors: A Companion to Black African Writing, Volume 1: 1300–1973. Washington, DC: Inscape. Irele, F. Abiola, and Simon Gikandi, eds. 2004. The Cambridge History of Africa and Caribbean Literature. 2 vols. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Jahn, Janheinz. 1968. Neo-African Literature: A History of Black Writing. New York: Grove. Jahn, Janheinz, Ulla Schild, and Almut Nordmann. 1972. Who’s Who in African Literature:

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84 | Ananse Biographies, Works, Commentaries. Tübingen, Germany: Horst Erdmann Verlag.

z Ananse Spider-trickster, hero of the folktales from the Akan ethnic group (Ghana), Ananse (also spelled “Anancy,” “Anansi,” “Annancy,” “Nancy,” “Nansi”) has remained one of the protagonists of Afro-Caribbean lore, and he is still employed in various ways by contemporary Ghanaian, Caribbean, and black British writers. Like other human and animal tricksters from all over the world, the Akan spider (also present under different names in several West African groups’ tales) profanes all ethical and religious beliefs by being selfish, mean, hypocritical, vulgar, and sexually exuberant—his only goal being the satisfaction of his own biological needs. At the same time, though, Ananse helps focus attention on the nature and limits of the taboos he breaks, thus creatively regenerating them. When he is sentenced to death by the sky-god Nyame for one of his mischievous tricks, Ananse tells his son Ntikuma to dig a tunnel underground, dive into it and make an appeal for his father’s life: believing that he is hearing the voice of the earth goddess Asaase Yaa, Nyame will free Ananse. In this case, the spider-trickster ridicules the supreme deity but at the same time brings to the fore the validity of the balance between earth and sky, Asaase and Nyame, female and male elements—a fundamental principle in Akan society. Ananse here assumes a role as link between the physical and the supernatural dimensions, but sometimes he becomes a creator or, better, a catalyst of creation, thanks to the etiological endings of his tales. Further functions carried out by his tales include enabling children to develop autonomy and peer relations, acting as a safety valve for social attrition, and entertaining. Ananse’s importance to Ghanaian authors became particularly evident during the inde-

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pendence period, when the national policy of recovering traditional cultures led many playwrights (such as Efua Sutherland, Joe De Graft, Martin Owusu, and Yaw Asare) to include the African oral culture in their plays. The disillusionment of the following historical phase was conveyed by the Ghanaian novelist Ayi Kwei Armah in his Fragments (1969), in which Ananse becomes symbolic of the greed for material wealth that is corrupting the ideals of independence. Ananse’s multifaceted nature, then, allows various, if not opposed, forms of borrowing by today’s writers. The Middle Passage transported Ananse to many Caribbean areas: his presence is registered in the stories told by Africans in Barbados, Belize, Costa Rica, Curaçao, Haiti, Jamaica, Suriname, Trinidad, and the Virgin Islands, amongst others; in the United States, he survived as the African American female trickster “Ann Nancy” (or “Aunt Nancy”) from South Carolina and Georgia. In the ruthless context of Caribbean plantations, Ananse sheds his godlike qualities and acquires more earthly features. His subtle cunning, the art of the weak, is used not only to ensure sheer survival, but also to deceive and overthrow the powerful. In the entertaining storytelling sessions among enslaved Africans, Ananse’s outwitting of bigger animals could be seen as a vicarious rebellion against slave-owners and overseers. Yet, the rawness of slavery kept the tales firmly anchored to an extreme realism: sometimes Ananse is defeated; he also outwits weaker creatures; his cruelty could occasionally end up being identified with the overseer’s. Once again, his facets include extreme opposites, and the spider-trickster may represent, for Africans, their hero, object of hatred, and scapegoat all at the same time. Generally speaking, Ananse shows how cunning and indirection are the necessary tactics for surviving in a racist and dangerous environment. From the start of the 20th century, Walter Jekyll, Martha Warren Beckwith and Philip Sherlock successfully popularized “Anancy tales” in print. Laura Tanna’s Jamaican Folktales and Oral Histories, a result of tale-

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Anastácia (1741–?) | 85 collecting fieldwork from 1974 to the early 1980s, proves how the tradition is still alive. The emergence of Ananse in Caribbean written literature coincided with the recognition of the literary dignity of folk forms, pioneered by the popularization of tales and poems in “dialect” by Louise Bennett through books, drama, radio, and television. Such contemporary Caribbean authors as Vic Reid (1949) have also creatively developed Ananse’s folkloric features into new forms. Some depart from the misogyny that often characterizes Ananse lore to infuse the spider’s adventures with a genderoriented significance, as in Velma Pollard’s poem “Anansa” (1988). The “Anansean technique,” a transformation of Ananse’s metamorphic powers (traditionally, he can change from spider to man and modify his own shape) into a linguistic technique, namely a prose that erodes any fixed polarization, thus merging different characters, reality and dream, can be found in the novels by the Guyanese Wilson Harris and Ghanaian Kojo Laing. And Edward Kamau Brathwaite (Barbados) identifies such a transformative potential with the attitude of disruptive creativity that poetry should always have toward its language. Andrew Salkey published three volumes of stories wherein the spidertrickster is confronted with such contemporary issues as nuclear weapons or the Vietnam war, whereas Roy Heath turns him into the bizarre simpleton protagonist of his two novels, Kwaku (1982) and The Ministry of Hope (1997). Finally, black British authors such as John Agard, Maggie Harris and Beryl Gilroy employ Ananse as an image capable of reactivating a link with their Afro-Caribbean roots. Pietro Deandrea See also Bennett, Louise (1919–2006); Brathwaite, Kamau (1930–); Ghana; Jamaica; Middle Passage. F URTHER R EADING Agard, John. 2000. Weblines. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Bloodaxe. Pelton, Robert D. 1980. The Trickster in West Africa—A Study in Mythic Irony and Sacred

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Delight. Berkeley: University of California Press. Salkey, Andrew. 1973. Anancy’s Score. London: Bogle-L’Ouverture. Sutherland, Efua Theodora. 1975. The Marriage of Anansewa. Harlow: Longman. Tanna, Laura. 1984. Jamaican Folktales and Oral Histories. Kingston: Institute of Jamaica Publications. Tiffin, Helen. 1982. “The Metaphor of Anancy in Caribbean Literature.” In Myth and Metaphor, ed. Robert Sellick. Crnle Essays and Monograph Series No.1: 15–52. Adelaide, Australia: Centre for Research in the New Literatures in English.

z Anastácia (1741–?) Among the women and men active in the AfroBrazilian movement, much is discussed and speculated about the identity and history of Escrava (slave) Anastácia. From the little historical evidence recorded, it can be said that this great martyr was one of the many examples of Afro-Brazilian resistance to the brutal system of slavery. Her martyrdom started on April 9, 1740. On this date, a ship named the Madalena arrived in Rio de Janeiro from Congo with 112 Bantu men and women to be sold as slaves in Brazil. Among the captured people was a young woman named Delmira, Anastácia’s mother. Due to her extraordinary beauty, Delmira was bought for 1,000 mil réis immediately. As were many enslaved black women, this young woman was raped by a white man. On May 12 of the following year, Anastácia was born in Pompeu, a small town in the midwestern part of Minas Gerais State. Her blue-green eyes became a mark and a resistance symbol of the sexual-racial violence endured by all black women. In time, this history of gender-racespecific violence repeated itself. After a heroic fight, Anastácia, too, was raped by the son of a slave overseer. The unusual and remarkable part of this story was Anastácia’s incredible

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resistance and her refusal to acquiesce to violence. Despite all adversarial conditions, never did she “allow” herself to be touched. Her defiant attitude caused the rage of the white masters, who punished her further. Anastácia was forced to wear an iron yoke and a mask covering her mouth. This mask, in addition to other brutal physical abuse and unsanitary conditions, debilitated Anastácia’s health. She fell victim of gangrene and was taken to Rio de Janeiro, where she died. Her body was buried at Rosário’s Church. Unfortunately, years later, the church was destroyed in a fire that consumed the few remaining documents that could have shed light on the history of Escrava Anastácia. Nowadays, Anastácia is revered by blacks and whites alike, particularly by Catholic communities, who want to have her sanctified by the Roman Catholic Church. In contemporary Brazil, Escrava Anastácia represents the resistance to dehumanization and the sufferings Afro-Brazilian peoples endured during the slavery system. Ricardo Santos See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians. F URTHER R EADING Lopes, Nei. 2004. Enciclopedia Brasileria da Diaspora Africana. São Paulo, Brazil: Selo Negro Edicoes. Oliveira, Eduardo de. 1998. Quem É Quem na Negritude Brasileira: Volume 1. São Paulo, Brazil: Secretaria Nacional de Direitos Humanos do Ministério da Justiça. Revista Suingando 1.4.

z Angelou, Maya (1928–) Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Ann Johnson, is a best-selling author, poet, civil rights activist, stage and screen director, producer, historian, educator, and beloved African American figure. Her broad array of life experiences has led to her production of several lit-

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erary works, including a six-volume autobiography and four volumes of poetry. Internationally recognized and critically acclaimed, her work addresses the self and its maneuvering within and beyond the boundaries of race, class, and gender. Although she was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Vivian Baxter Johnson and Bailey Johnson in 1928, Marguerite experienced much of her early childhood in the rural town of Stamps, Arkansas, where she and her brother, Bailey, lived with their grandmother, Mrs. Annie Henderson. As a child, she was curious and observant, early soaking up the folk culture of the African American South. From her grandmother, Marguerite learned courage and was able to rise above experiences of racism and discrimination. During a brief return to St. Louis to live with her mother, she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. Following the trauma, she lived in voluntary silence for nearly four years, choosing to speak only to Bailey. Having been sent back to Stamps, eightyear-old Marguerite met Mrs. Bertha Flowers, a friend of the family, who introduced her to literature as a means of drawing on her inner creative power to heal herself. It was thanks to Mrs. Flowers’ tutoring and encouragement that Marguerite developed her love of reading and performance and rediscovered her self-esteem. It is mainly Angelou’s storytelling abilities that have garnered her international fame. Her technique is marked by her use of symbolism to comment on larger social issues, her vivid imagery, and a lyrical writing style. In addition, she shares her experiences of historical events through her autobiographical narratives I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970), Gather Together in My Name (1974), Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas (1976), The Heart of a Woman (1981), All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986), Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now (1993), Even the Stars Look Lonesome (1997) and A Song Flung Up to Heaven (2002). Because of her skill in creating poetry

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Anikulapo-Kuti, Fela (1938–1997) | 87 for the people, she has also been invited to write, in the court poet tradition, such classic poems as “A Pulse of the Morning” for fellowArkansan president Clinton’s inauguration and, for the United Nations’ 50th anniversary, “A Brave and Startling Truth.” A number of poetry collections and children’s books are also available, some titled for her classic poems, like Phenomenal Woman (1995) and And Still I Rise (1978). A book on the joy of cooking and entertaining in the company of friends is Hallelujah! The Welcome Table: A Lifetime of Memories with Recipes (2004). These works and others are marked by their distinct realism and are simultaneously triumphant and full of hope. In addition to social issues, Angelou explores themes similar to those of other women writers of the African Diaspora, engaging what she terms the “tripartite of crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power.” Among her many accomplishments, Maya Angelou has toured with the monumental black opera Porgy and Bess in Canada, Africa, and Europe. As an activist, she worked as an organizer to raise funds for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. She had ties with Martin Luther King and Malcolm X (Long 2005). She joined the Harlem Writer’s Guild, performing and writing in theatre. She is fluent in West African Fante, Arabic, Italian, French, and Spanish. With several honorary degrees, she has also been appointed to various presidential commissions, the board of the American Film Institute and the Directors’ Guild. Currently she lives in North Carolina, where she has been the Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem and is still a sought-after and well-paid speaker on the lecture circuit. Jessica Durand See also African American Women; Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Sutherland, Efua Theodora (1924–1996).

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F URTHER R EADING Angelou, Maya. 2004. The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou. New York: The Modern Library. Long, Richard. 2005. “Thirty-Five Who Made a Difference: Maya Angelou.” Smithsonian 84 (2). Perry, Carolyn, and Mary Louise Weaks, eds. 2002. The History of Southern Women’s Literature. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Showalter, Elaine, Lea Baechler, and A. Walton Litz, eds. 1993. Modern American Women Writers. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

z Anikulapo-Kuti, Fela (1938–1997) Son of a renowned Christian minister and a mother considered one of the first African feminists, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Fela was born Fela Ransome-Kuti in 1938. As a result of his espousal of African culture, he later changed his name to Anikulapo, meaning “one who has captured death in his pouch and therefore can never die.” Besides his own fame, he was related to other well-known personalities: His grandfather was the first African to record in Europe, in the 1920s. His cousin, Wole Soyinka, won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986. His older brother, the late Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, was Nigeria’s health minister and a professor of pediatrics, and the younger Beko, also a medical doctor, is at the forefront of civil rights struggle in Nigeria. After enjoying a privileged childhood, Fela was sent to England in 1958 to study medicine. Within weeks of arrival, however, he had changed his mind and enrolled in Trinity College of Music, from which he graduated in 1961. He formed his first band, Koola Lobitos. He returned home in 1962 and from then until his death evolved musically and politically into one of the icons of African culture and activism. During his first visit to the United

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Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Nigerian musician and social activist who created Afro-beat. Anikulapo-Kuti had a major impact on music across the African diaspora as he challenged entrenched military dictatorship and bourgeois values among Africa’s neo-colonial elite. (David Corio/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

States, he came into contact with the Black Power Movement and read Yosef ben-Jochannan’s Black Man of the Nile. He was the creator of Afrobeat, the rhythm that combines elements of traditional and highlife music with jazz, Afro-Cuban beat, and Brazilian samba, all coalesced into a pulsating beat with a message for revolution similar to that of the Jamaican Bob Marley, to whom Fela is often compared in terms of black consciousness and relevance. In his prolific career, Fela released 77 albums. Always a thorn in the side of military dictators, he appeared in court 356 times and was imprisoned by Nigeria’s military regimes 3 times. He once led his own political party, Movement of the People. Fela’s legacy is his timeless message for Africa and Africans. Some critics fault his music for what they consider lack of organization: The tracks on his records go on and on

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endlessly. However, an African would understand that Fela’s rhythm remains authentic, marked by spontaneity and a certain genius that refuses to be imprisoned in some laiddown system that, in essence, stultifies the musician’s expressive talent. The message is as important as the music. Fela was a true revolutionary who did not fear the gun-toting soldiers who regularly threatened to snuff the life out of him for daring to tell them, and all of us, the truth. It is useful to refer to the lyrics of some of Fela’s songs. “Shuffering and Shmiling” (1977) analyzes the character of our follow-follow people, tied to the tails of the free-spending, hedonistic, hypocritical leaders. In “Archbishop na miliki, Pope na miliki, Imam na igbaladun” religious profligates are joined by rampaging rulers who take God’s name in vain and commit murder in the name of justice and patriot-

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Anikulapo-Kuti, Fela (1938–1997) | 89 ism. “Coffin for Head of State” (1981) recounts Fela’s experience in the hands of unknown soldiers commanded to destroy the man’s property, to ruin his life, and eliminate his dear mother. Significantly, all is done in the names of Jesus and Allah. “Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense” (1986) is the quintessence of Africanity founded upon Culture, a philosophy that Fela himself called Blackism. With his usual talent for using a seemingly simple symbolism to enter the core of our problematic society and reveal its deepest character, Fela invokes the necessity for teaching and learning. Teachers enjoy respect because, without them, we would be ignorant of the past, wallow in present inertia, and lack the imagination to prepare for a future based upon the lessons of both past and present. Besides, teachers are the major builders of a nation, since they train today’s children to whom tomorrow belongs. Fela extends the connotation of teacher beyond the classroom; indeed, ultimately, the teacher is the government. In Africa, these teachers, the epitome of irresponsibility, teach nonsense; therefore, one would do best to reject their vocation. More elements of the communal tragedy: African governments, incompetent teachers, have willingly become students of two masters, Corruption and Tradition, and Europe. Oyinbo, the European, teaches Africans “many many things,” particularly Democracy and Civilization. One significant lesson is how to be a “Gentleman” (1973), that is, a senseless and shameless ape or parrot. He, the pseudo-civilized, is joined by his “Lady” (1977) all bleached until her face resembles a rainbow, claiming equality to all men, and affecting the mannerisms of her civilized superiors met on the movie screen or on the pages of Cosmopolitan and Playboy magazines. Fela convinced us that, as long as Zombies (1976) are saddled with the responsibility of protecting lives and property and actualizing the government’s policy, Nigeria would never shake the shackles of neocolonialism. When he

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realized that the (in)famous FESTAC (Festival of African Culture) extravaganza was another show of shame, Fela opted out and released the track that became the protest song of victims of official brutality and bestiality: “zombie no go think unless you tell am to think.” Fela’s home, dubbed Kalakuta Republic, was razed by the police and army. The shrill voices of the singers and the horns, the call and response deftly done between Fela’s enraged saxophone and the thumping bass guitar, and the feverish rhythm of the percussion all come together to manifest the anger and urgency, the despair and disgust of the downtrodden whom Fela embraced. The thrilling piano and organ, played by the abami eda himself in extended solos, carry us away in flights of ecstasy, with improvisation and spontaneity serving as the hallmark of freedom, representing the kind of incentive and originality required of a people interested in progress. In the aftermath of the Kalakuta debacle came “Sorrow, Tears, and Blood” (1977), with the sound more subdued, the horns moody, especially the baritone sax reaching deep down into the gut of a people left for dead by the oppressors. In that one song, Fela has predicted the people’s lot and the extraordinary work to be done if ever real change would come. Not only sorrow, blood and tears constitute the reality here; there is also Fela’s frustration at the people’s docility, at their readiness to flow with the tide, to expect the best in the worst scenario, and to fear even their own shadow. Nobody wants to die, even as death is in the very air that we breathe. Toward the end of his life, Fela refused to participate in the ballyhooed struggle against the military monsters and their civilian stooges, because he was disgusted with the people’s docility. Fela’s iconoclastic image, his sense of consciousness, and his revolutionary standpoint resonate in the music of Bob Marley and serve as antecedent to that of younger Nigerians, such as Lagbaja, Dede Mabiaku, and others. The distinction is that these followers lack his

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cultural commitment and his unique rebelliousness. This latter quality is probably more visible in some personae of the hip-hop community, hitting society in the face with their subversive attitude and rejection of the mores of a society from which they feel marginalized. Of course, here again there must be a distinction, for Fela was not a materialist. Fela’s Afrobeat found complementarity with other African-based rhythms, and it is no surprise that he collaborated on various occasions with Stevie Wonder, Roy Ayers, and Dizzie Gillespie, among others. Great African jazz musicians and his contemporaries Manu Dibango (Cameroun) and Hugh Masekela (South Africa) continue to play his music. Fela’s eldest son, Femi, and one of the youngest, Seun, have taken up the torch from their departed father, who died of AIDS in 1997. Their emergence into the limelight would serve as consolation to those unable to forget the revolutionary icon. Fela’s motto was, “Music is the weapon of the future.” One would say that the future is now. Hopefully, the sons will carry forward the message and rekindle the fire of their legendary father. Femi Ojo-Ade See also Afro-Cuban Music; Black Power Movement in the United States; Highlife; Jazz; Marley, Robert Nesta (Bob) (1945–1981); Samba. F URTHER R EADING Olaniyan, Tejumola. 2004. Arrest the Music! Fela and His Rebel Art and Politics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Olorunyomi, Sola. 2002. Afrobeat: Fela and the Imagined Continent. Lawrenceville, NJ: Africa World Press. Schoonmaker, Trevor. 2003. Fela: From West Africa to West Broadway. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Veal, Michael E. 2000. Fela, the Life and Times of an African Musical Icon. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

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Ansina (1760?–1860) Ansina was the nickname of one of General José Gervasio Artigas’s most trusted officers and companions, who even followed the Uruguayan caudillo (leader) and founder of the Uruguayan nation into political exile in Paraguay. Ansina fought with Artigas for the independence of the Banda Oriental (Uruguay) and later the republic in the 1810s and 1820s. He stayed faithful to Artigas until the latter’s death in 1850. Ansina himself lived out the remainder of his life in Paraguay, where he died in 1860. Ansina was born the son of enslaved Africans in Montevideo, possibly in 1760; he worked as a water porter as a child; as a young man, he moved to the campaña (countryside). Later, he took a job aboard a whaler bound for the Falklands/Malvinas Islands; however, the whaling vessel was in fact a pirate ship preying on whalers. Ansina managed to escape the pirates and make his way to Brazil, where he was sold into slavery. General Artigas later purchased the slave’s freedom, and Ansina remained by his leader’s side through numerous battles and political conflicts, which culminated in their banishment. Ansina first followed Artigas to Curuguaty and later to Ibiray (where Artigas died). Like Artigas, Ansina never returned to his beloved Uruguay; he died in exile in the city of Guarambaré in the company of his friend and fellow AfricanUruguayan soldier, Sergeant Manuel Antonio Ledesma (La Biblioteca Artiguista 2005). As was the case with his Argentine counterpart, Falucho (Antonio Ruiz), another black hero of independence in the River Plate, controversy exists over Ansina’s true identity. Was he the “faithful payador of Artigas,” Joaquín Lenzina or Lencina? Or was he, instead, Manuel Antonio Ledesma? The consensus is that Ansina was in fact Lenzina and not Ledesma, although distinguished Uruguayan scholars Carlos Rama and Mario Petillo disagree (Rama 1968; Petillo 1936).

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Antonio the Ethiopian (?–1550) | 91 The confusion stems in part from the fact that both soldiers were black and achieved a certain degree of notoriety fighting for independence; moreover, both soldiers dutifully followed their leader, General Artigas, into exile in Paraguay in 1820. A further cause of confusion may well be that Ledesma, as noted above, took in his friend and comrade in arms, Lenzina. Ansina is a nationalist icon in Uruguay whose patriotic verses have been compiled and recited by young and old alike in the Republic of Uruguay for generations: “¡Patria Oriental del Uruguay!/ ¡Tierra del charrúa y del mar!/ Realistas y portugueses ¡ay/ Pronto nos verán regresar [Fatherland of Uruguay!/ Land of the Charruas and the sea!/ Royalists and Portuguese (in Brazil), oh!/ One day you’ll see us return (to reclaim our homeland)]” (quoted in Antón 1994, 49). A statue dedicated to Ansina, nobly figured sitting down with a long spear in his right hand, can be found in Montevideo. As Petillo observes, the collective spirit of AfroUruguayan patriots is symbolized by one man: Ansina or Joaquín Lenzina (Petillo 1936, 15). Ansina became a national symbol of the heroism and fidelity of African Uruguayan recruits in the armies of Uruguayan independence and beyond. Roberto Pacheco See also Falucho (?–1824); Uruguay: AfroUruguayans. F URTHER R EADING Antón, Danilo. 1994. Uruguaypirí. Montevideo, Uruguay: Rosebud Ediciones. Biblioteca Artiguista, La. “Ansina y Lensina. El verdadero Ansina,” www.artigas.org.uy/artigas_ansina_lensina_01 .html (accessed April 18, 2005). Petillo, Mario. 1936. El último soldado artiguista: Manuel Antonio Ledesma (Ansina). 2nd ed. Montevideo, Uruguay: Imprenta Militar. Rama, Carlos M. 1968. “Los afro-uruguayos.” Caravelle 11: 53–109.

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Antonio the Ethiopian (?–1550) Blessed Antonio da Noto, an African Muslim, was captured and sold as a slave to Giovanni Iandavula, citizen of Avola (near the city of Noto, today in the province of Syracuse), where he was initially assigned to take care of his master’s flock. He converted to Christianity, was baptized, and received a Christian name. In charge of raising cattle, producing cheese, and meeting the laborers’ needs, he lived his life in penance: he often would fast despite the hard labor; the little he slept, he did on a haystack; he would wake at midnight and flail himself with a spiked rope and was often found raptured in prayer. Helping the poor, he could not stand blasphemy—whenever he heard it, he would hit himself on the chest and pray to God in tears for forgiveness—so much so that those who were around him would refrain from blaspheming to avoid his reaction. His devotion to the “crown of our Lady” and to the rosary could be traced back to the use of the Muslim rosary (al-salahat or al-comboloya) that was surely well known to him. Such a rosary was made from a string with forty knots (or palm seeds around the crown) and was used for divination purposes. He became a monk in the monastery of Santa Maria di Gesù, yet his inclination for a hermitical lifestyle grew, following the example of Corrado Confalonieri and Guglielmo da Scicli in the area. After 38 years of hard work in the fields between Avola and Noto, his reputation as a miracle worker grew and “gave him papers and freedom to go where he pleased” (Daça 1611, 160). Once again a free man, Antonio spent his life serving and helping the poor, the sick, the suffering, and the prisoners in Noto. There, old and ill himself, he died on March 14, 1550, as all the town’s bells rang incessantly without human intervention, and he was buried in the monastery of the minor friars of Noto (Guastella 1991, 75).

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After the earthquake in 1693, his remains were moved to the new monastery of Santa Maria di Gesù, which, abandoned at the end of the 18th century, became an orphanage for girls in 1866. Almost forgotten, the wooden chest with his relics is still kept there. Blessed Antonio seems to be a precursor of Benedict in building a paragon of black sanctity, of a Franciscan lay brother. They have been worshipped together since the early 17th century, both in Spain and in the New World. Both Moors share the same destiny of missionaries in the New World: they can often be found on the very altars from Lisbon to Ouro Preto (in the Brazilian region of Minas Gerais). At the start of the 19th century, the manuals of faith made for the use of colored people put Antonio da Caltagirone, “called the black Saint, because of his color” (Grégoire 1818, 89–92), back to back with “Benedetto from Palermo, called the Moor because of his color” (Grégoire 1818, 93–103). Antonio is portrayed with a Franciscan habit and a halo. In his hands, he holds the stone that he used to hit himself with whenever he heard blasphemy. His effigy can be found in Franciscan churches all over Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, and Mexico. Giovanna Fiume See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Colombia: AfroColombians; Europe and the African Diaspora; Mexico: African Heritage; Venezuela: Afro-Venezuelans. F URTHER R EADING Daça, A. 1611. Quarta parte de la chronica general del nuestro Serafico Padre San Francisco y su Apostolica Orden, l. III. Valladolid, Spain. Fiume, G. 2005. “Antonio Etiope e Benedetto il Moro: il Santo scavuzzo e il Nigro eremita.” In D. Ciccarelli and S. Sarzana, eds., Francescanesimo e cultura a Noto, 67–100. Palermo, Italy: Biblioteca franscescana. Grégoire, M. 1818. Manuel de piété à l’usage des hommes de couleur et des noirs. Paris. Guastella, S. 1991. Fratello Negro. Antonio di Noto, detto l’Etiope. Noto.

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Argentina: Afro-Argentines One of the biggest misconceptions throughout the African Diaspora is that African people no longer exist in Argentina. Although small in numbers today, Afro-Argentines have greatly contributed to the formation of the nation. The majority of Africans arrived in Argentina as slaves, as they did in the rest of Latin America (though they have been documented to have arrived alongside Spanish conquerors); they created safe havens within which their African culture could survive in cofradías, or religious brotherhoods, and in African nation societies from the 7th to the 19th centuries. Afro-Argentines mixed with European and indigenous cultures to create the tango, payada, carnival, and synchronized religious beliefs. As free citizens in the 19th century, their autonomy allowed them to publicly express their African heritage in black newspapers and poetry as well as to support each other in mutual aid societies. During the late 19th century, the black population declined sharply. Reasons such as the end of the slave trade, conscription into the army, disease, low birth rates, and miscegenation have been advanced as the cause of their supposed “disappearance” by the 20th century. Today, Afro-Argentine groups such as Africa Vive are committed to promoting their history, though their biggest challenge is for whites to recognize it and Afro-Argentines to accept it. Therefore, Africa Vive must continue the process of correcting the lies and myths about Afro-Argentine culture and history. H ISTORY AND O RIGINS The call for African slaves in the River Plate (or Rio de la Plata) area occurred shortly after South America had been colonized in the 16th century. The constant demand for labor in Upper Peru and the need of porteños, or residents, in Buenos Aires for field and domestic workers contributed to the first importation of Afro-Argentines in 1558. Although Africans began arriving in Argentina as slaves in 1534,

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Argentina: Afro-Argentines | 93 two years before the founding of Buenos Aires, Pedro Gomes Reynel, a Portuguese, received the first official asiento, or contract of public law in which an individual or company could bring Africans into the area in 1558 (Chace 1971, 14). That year, he brought 600 slaves to River Plate. Throughout most of the 16th and 17th centuries, porteños continued to request the Cabildo and governors of Buenos Aires to bring in more slaves. Their main purposes for slaves were to harvest crops, to erect or repair buildings, and to serve as domestic servants (Chace 1971, 17). In response, a contraband trade developed to fulfill the demands of the porteños. Because of this, it is difficult to know with accuracy how many Africans entered Argentina. For example, between 1588 and 1597, 14 slaves landed from Brazil under license, but the authorities captured 233 illegal entries (Chace 1971, 18). In another example, of 12,778 slaves recorded as having entered Buenos Aires between 1606 and 1625, only 288 did so legally (Andrews 1980, 24). Besides illegal slaves, precious goods from Europe also entered the Buenos Aires port, making the trade more tempting. Although the Portuguese were notorious for bringing in contraband ships, the English and Dutch also participated. Evidence from the Archivo de Indies at Seville revealed that “there were more than 15 sail of Dutch and English smugglers trading to Buenos Aires in 1611,” and it was alleged that the governor received a “contribution” of 10,000 pesos every time a slave arrived (Chace 1971, 19). The origins of the slaves brought to Rio de la Plata have traditionally been designated as eastern Africa, or where the Portuguese dominated in trade, Angola, the Congo, and Mozambique. Other known areas were South and East Africa and, of course, Brazil. George Reid Andrews surprisingly noted that, of the slaves imported to Argentina between the years of 1742 and 1806, a large portion derived from West Africa (Andrews 1980, 27). Furthermore, he attributes the origin of the large number of

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West Africans to Bahia, a port city in Brazil, from where they were later sold to Buenos Aires. Although large numbers of slaves entered the Buenos Aires port legally and illegally, they did not remain there. Most went to such interior cities as Cordóba and Mendoza, as well as to such countries as Paraguay, Chile, and Upper Peru. Between 1612 and 1615, official reports state that 3,463 Africans entered the city and 4,515 left for the interior (Andrews 1980, 25). By the mid-18th century, Buenos Aires had grown into a prominent port city, the combined effect of Spain’s decision no longer to transport goods overland from Panama to Chile, the decline of the silver market, and the renewal of asientos for Portuguese, French, and English companies. Over a span of 200 years, roughly, it has been estimated that 75,000 Africans entered the ports of the Rio de la Plata, or an average of 340 slaves per year (Chace 1971, 108). The slave trade officially ended in 1813 but was reopened briefly again under General Juan Manual Rosas in 1831. This slave trade was revoked two years later under the pressure of the British antislavetrade movements. Interestingly enough, as late as 1853, 100 Africans were known to have been brought to Patagonia, the southernmost area of Argentina (Andrews 1980, 57; Sales de Bohigas 1974, 83). Colonial Argentina was largely dependent upon slave labor. Population data prior to the 18th century is scarce due to the lack of an official census. The establishment of the Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata in 1776, however, required the viceroy Vértiz to take a census. Census information compiled in the years 1778 through 1836 reveals that Afro-Argentines accounted for a sizable minority of the Buenos Aires population. Of the 24,363 individuals enumerated by the 1778 census, 7,236, or 29.7 percent, were black (Andrews 1980, 66–67; Pacheco 2001, 34); however, the proportion of the city’s population of Afro-Argentines fluctuated over time. The interior, in comparison,

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also comprised a large black population due to the internal slave trade. Ten interior cities and the territories surrounding their jurisdictions combined contained about 60,000 Afro-Argentines in 1777 (Chace 1971, 101). Data from the beginning of the 19th century continued to show a sizable black population in Argentina. The nature of slavery within Argentina continues to be of interest to many scholars. Within the city, black slaves often were used to show elite status. Slaves in colonial Argentina were very expensive. Afro-Argentines served as domestic servants and artisan slaves. Female servants worked as wet nurses and laundresses. As in other slave institutions in the Americas, masters would hire out (rent) their labor to others who wanted cheap labor (Andrews 1980, 33). On hiring-out expeditions, black slaves in the city were exposed to a multitude of freedoms. Many slaves, both male and female, became street vendors selling empanadas, produce, and various products for the household. Afro-Argentines who earned enough money bought their freedom. Free Afro-Argentines and slaves in the city dominated in such lower-paid occupations as pest exterminators, aguateros or water sellers, bakers, factory workers, and dockhands. In the city, Afro-Argentines were granted some opportunities to move around on their own (Andrews 1980, 37–38). The countryside, on the other hand, allowed slaves even more freedom. The interior mainly produced two products—wheat and cattle— during the colonial period. The labor required for these jobs was less intensive than the plantation systems of the Caribbean or Brazil. Rural slaves were defined as horsemen whose mobility was limitless and unchecked by authorities (Andrews 1980, 38). Black slaves worked alongside whites and mestizos as salaried peons, blurring racial and social distinctions. Few large estancias existed in rural Argentina. The largest slaveholders in the 17th century were the Jesuits, who refused to enslave Indians. On these estancias, some black slaves became do-

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mestic servants like those in the cities, while others were trained as skilled craftsmen: tanners, carpenters, blacksmiths, brick makers, masons, and harness makers (Chace 1971, 148). Afro-Argentines did not permeate the entirety of Argentina at the same time. Areas such as Tucúman and Mendoza continued to rely upon sedentary indigenous labor well into the 16th century. By the 18th century, the indigenous populations had sharply declined; in response, black labor increased to meet the demands of labor. As the 18th century came to a close, Buenos Aires found itself in a very strong economic position. Many slaves had been manumitted by their own cash payment or by service in the military. Certain characteristics determined the likelihood of a slave’s achieving manumission. In general, more females, mulattoes, and slaves over 40 years of age acquired freedom than did their younger, male, and/or dark-skinned counterparts (Andrews 1980, 44–45). Yet, even in their freedom, few climbed into high socioeconomic positions. Such preexisting laws as Régimen de castas, Siete Partidas, and the Royal Pragmatíca of 1776, instituted by the Spanish, consigned to stagnation the race mixture and economic advancement of blacks and mulattoes. By the beginning of the 19th century, the conservative culture that had successfully conquered the New World had changed. As the colonies grew economically stronger, their autonomy increased. No longer did they find Spanish patriarchal control necessary. The Creole elite, in particular, wanted independence because they realized that their social mobility would continue to be limited by Peninsular presence. In 1810, no longer satisfied with colonial rule, Argentina became the first colony to declare independence. For the next 20 years, wars of independence ravaged Spanish America until the colonies freed themselves from Spanish domination. Influenced by the ideology of the Enlightenment, a new emphasis on the individual emerged. The teachings of the

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Argentina: Afro-Argentines | 95 Enlightenment challenged people to question authority. The Enlightenment also declared equality among men. A new culture arose that was distinctly nationalistic and American. This Creole consciousness rejected the conservative attitudes that characterized Spanish rule. Their ideas changed the legal conceptions of the individual. People of color also realized the legal benefits of liberalism. By the end of the 19th century, slavery had been abolished in all Latin American countries. Soon after the slave trade was abolished by Great Britain in 1807, Buenos Aires moved to abolish slavery (Mirow 2004, 143–145). Argentina enacted the Law of Freedom by the Womb in 1813. This law freed all children of slaves, though certain limitations applied to them. Such freed children were known as libertos, and the law insisted that they stay with their mothers until they married or reached 20 years of age. Until a liberto obtained complete freedom, the child had to serve his or her mother’s owner up to the age of 15, after which the child was paid one peso a month. The causal decline of slavery was still in effect. Municipal census data for the period between 1810 and 1827 reveal that, in 1810, 82.9 percent of the black population lived under the control of white households. This number had decreased to 73.7 percent by 1827. Black families also gained more autonomy. In 1810, 68.4 percent of black families lived under the control of white households. By 1827, this percentage had decreased to 51.5 percent. Nevertheless it would take until 1853 for Argentina to officially abolish the institution, though Buenos Aires continued to have slaves until 1861 (Andrews 1980, 52–23, 57). W HITENING AND THE D ECLINE IN B LACK P OPULATION Unlike the successes gained in the first half of the 19th century, the latter half of the century revealed a sharp and detrimental decline in the total black population. This decline has been attributed to both political and social transfor-

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mations. By 1860, the Unitarian Party had gained control of the country after fighting the Federalists, their political enemies, for almost 30 years. Leaders such as Domingo Faustino Sarmiento wanted to modernize Argentina and looked to the United States, England, and France as models. Their desires coincided with the “export boom.” The United States and Europe entered into their Second Industrial Revolution and looked to Latin America to supply raw materials. As Argentina’s connections with Europe strengthened, it adopted popular scientific racism, which held that a modernized country could only be a white country. One response was the call for white immigration. Between the years 1880 and 1900, almost a million Europeans arrived in Argentina. By 1900, the country’s dependence on black labor and the army had been replaced by white immigrants. Culturally, Argentina also became “whitened.” Public displays of African culture such as the carnival, religious celebrations, and brotherhoods were attacked by the government. Surprisingly, the black middle class also promoted whitening. They wished to separate themselves from the poor working class, who still acknowledged their African heritage. To be admitted into the white middle class therefore “required the complete rejection of African culture and the wholehearted embrace of European models of civilization and progress” (Andrews 1980: 124,123–129). Added to these social and political changes, the wars throughout the colonial and early national periods decreased the black male population; the decline of the slave trade, low birth rates, and miscegenation contributed to the decline of the black community—so much so that by 1900 many believed that blacks no longer existed in Argentina. That, however, was a lie. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, miscegenation served to lighten the complexion of the country’s black population. Given the preexisting scarcity of black males, prospective black brides often married white

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grooms, many of whom were European immigrants. Interracial marriages became common. The children of such unions often had lighter skin, which gave them access to better education and employment opportunities, thereby facilitating their ability to pass themselves off as white. The 20th century has paid little, if any, attention to the Afro-Argentine population. The Afro-Argentine population continued to decline, though its numbers rose slightly due to the immigration of Cape Verdeans. These Africans originated on the islands of San Vicente, Santo Antão, San Nicolao, Fogo, and Brava (Pacheco 2001, 114). They immigrated to Argentina during the late 1930s and early 1940s in search of economic opportunities. The majority of Cape Verdean arrivals were males, who worked as fishermen, loaders, seamen, cooks, and waiters. The few women who came were employed mainly as domestic servants. Most of these immigrants settled in the areas surrounding Buenos Aires, such as Dock Sur. Somewhere between 8,000 and 10,000 Cape Verdeans live in Argentina today (de Liboreiro 1999, 56). The total numbers of AfroArgentines are not known, although estimates range from none to 2 or 3 million; of course, the definition of “black” would have to be taken into consideration. Regardless of the population size, the cultural contributions of Afro-Argentines define Argentina’s national culture. C ULTURAL F USIONS AND C ONTEMPORARY T RENDS Afro-Argentines have creatively fused their African past with indigenous and European cultures since their arrival in Argentina. They created the tango, the payada, and the carnival, as well as synchronized religious beliefs, which are still celebrated today. The tango has been referenced in documents since the early 19th century. It evolved from the traditional dance known as the candombe. The candombe originated with slaves of different African nations

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who gathered to perform their traditional dances on holidays such as Corpus Christi, the Feast of the Epiphany, and festivals. Over time this dance evolved into comprasas in the carnival, milonga, and tango (Pacheco 2001, 130– 131) Another art form popularized by the black population was the payada. Known as payadors, these singers improvised their lyrics while playing a guitar. It originated in the interior of the country and quickly spread to the cities. The improvisational nature of the payador invites comparisons to freestyle competitions between rappers. The one with the best spontaneous responses wins the competition. The most famous payador was Gabino Ezieza (1858–1916), who started his career at age fifteen. He is well remembered, and his statue is one of three black statues in Buenos Aires today (Coria 1997, 106). The carnival, which implemented AfroArgentine dances in 1771, was a constant reminder of the African origins. During this celebration, members of diverse African nations (groups of Africans who shared the same ethnicity) donned distinctive clothing to identify themselves and united to dance in the streets. Beginning in 1900, 10 to 15 AfroArgentine groups with names such as Estrella de Sur, Flor de Cuba, Tenorios del Plata, Habitantes de la Luna, or names that reflected their African heritage, such as Los Negros Monyolo, participated in the festivities every year (Andrews 1980, 131). By 1930, the parades and street festivals had stopped, while the carnival itself officially ended in the 1970s. Throughout Argentina’s colonial past, slaves synchronized their African religious beliefs with Catholicism. Syncretism took many forms, including the veneration of saints, such as Saint Benito of Palermo, who was known as “el Moro” (Ortiz Oderigo 1974, 33). Cofradías, or religious brotherhoods, afforded free blacks and slaves social interaction under the control of the Church. To maintain membership, members had to pay dues, participate, and live

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Argentina: Afro-Argentines | 97 a Christian lifestyle. The benefit of joining a cofradía was a guaranteed funeral with a set number of dedicated masses (Andrews 1980, 139–141). Black literature and the black press also served as media in the black community during the latter half of the 19th and the early 20th centuries. Such black poets as Casildo Thompson and Horacio Mendizábal wrote about social injustice and black pride (Lewis 1996, 5). Thompson is known for his polemical poem “Canto al Africa” (“Song to Africa”), published in 1877, in which he described the tragedy of the slave trade. Horacio Mendizábal’s well-known poems “Alerta!” and “Conmemoración de la Batalla de Cepeda” acknowledged the Afro-Argentine military hero Colonel José María Morales. “Alerta’s” last line, “Recordad las espléndidas glorias, Do mis padres supieron morir” (“Remember the splendid glories, Where my fathers found out how to die”), revealed both Morales’s heroic role and his black heritage (Lewis 1996, 38). Black soldiers had served in Argentine armies since the founding of the country. Mendizábal wanted to recognize blacks’ role in the army. In addition, newspapers wrote about issues within the black community. Class struggles and the debate over assimilation were some of the issues that affected the black community. Well-known newspapers were La Broma and La Juventud. C ONTEMPORARY R EALITIES In the 20th century, blacks sought to preserve their African heritage. La Protectora (1877– 1936), a mutual aid society, provided free medical care and free burials for its members (Coria 1997, 89–90). The Shimmy Club, located in Buenos Aires, opened in 1924 and closed in 1973. Every first Saturday of the month and during carnival, blacks and whites gathered and celebrated, dancing the candombe, the rumba, and other popular dances. A number of organizations, such as Agru-

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pación Patriótica, 25 de Mayo, el Circulo Social Juvencio, la Asociación de Fomento General, and San Martin also existed in that period (Ruchansky 2003:1). Moreover, the Argentine government has made efforts to acknowledge their African past. In 1950, the Capilla de los Negros in Chascomus became a national site. In the 19th century, blacks gathered in this chapel to celebrate their religious festivals and/or to be treated for such infectious diseases as yellow fever, cholera, and smallpox. In the 21st century, an important group, Africa Vive, a nonprofit organization founded by Maria Lamadrid, an Afro-Argentine, continues to promote and preserve the memory of Afro-Argentines in the making of the Argentine nation. For example, it has sponsored the program Primeras Jornadas Culturales Afroargentinas at the National Archives in Buenos Aires. Erika Denise Edwards See also Chile: Afro-Chileans; Ecuador: AfroEcuadorians; Uruguay: Afro-Uruguayans. F URTHER R EADING Andrews, George Reid. 1980. The Afro-Argentines in Buenos Aires, Argentina 1800–1900. Madison: University of Wisconsin–Madison. Andrews, George Reid. 2004. Afro-Latin America 1800–2000. New York: Oxford University Press. Bernand, Carmen. 2000. “La Población Negra en Buenos Aires (1777–1862).” In Homogeneidad y Nación con un Estudio de Caso: Argentina, Siglos XIX Y XX, 93–140. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Castro, Donald S. 2001. The Afro-Argentine in Argentine Culture: El negro del Acordeón. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellon Press. Celton, Dora E. 1993. La poblacion de la provincia de Córdoba a fines del siglo XVII. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Academia Nacional de la Historia. Celton, Dora E. 2000. “La venta de esclavos en Córdoba, entre 1750–1850,” In Cuadernos de Historia, 5–20. Córdoba, Argentina: Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Chace, Russell E. 1971. “The African Impact on Colonial Buenos Aires.” Ph.D. diss., University of Santa Barbara.

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98 | Arias, Aurora (1962–) Coria, Juan Carlos. 1997. Pasado y presente de los Negros en Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial J. A. Roca. de Liboreiro, M. Cristina. 1999. No Hay Negros Argentinos? Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Dunken. Frigerio, Alejandro. 2000. Cultura Negra en el Cono Sur: Representaciones en Conflicto. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Ediciones de la Universidad Católica Argentina. Lewis, Marvin. 1996. Afro-Argentine Discourse: Another Dimension of the Black Diaspora. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. Martin, Alicia. 1998. “El carnaval y la cuestió inter-étnica en el Buenos Aires de fin de siglo XIX.” In La herencia cultural africana en las Américas, ed. Beatriz Santos, 131–141. Montevideo, Uruguay: Ediciones Populares para América Latina. Mirow, M. C. 2004. Latin American Law: A History of Private Law and Institutions in Spanish America. Austin: University of Texas Press. Ortiz Oderigo, Nestor. 1974. Aspectos de la Cultura Africana en el Rio de la Plata. Buenos Aires : Editorial Plus Ultra. Pacheco, Robert. 2001. “Invisible but Not Forgotten: The Afro-Argentine and Afro-Uruguayan Experience from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries” (Master’s Thesis, Florida International University). Peña, Gabriela. 1997. “La evangelización de indios, negros y gente de castas en Córdoba del Tucumán durante la dominación española” (master’s thesis, Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades, Universidad Católica Córdoba). Picotti, Diana. 2001. El Negro en La Argentina: Presencia y negación. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editories de América Latina. Pistone, J. Catalina. 1996. La esclavatura negra en Santa Fe. Santa Fe, Argentina: Los Talleres Graficos de Imprenta Lux S.R.L. Rufer, Mario. 2001. “ Práticas sociales y relaciones de poder: Los esclavos y la aplicación de la justica en Córdoba en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII” (master’s thesis, Facultad de Filosofia y Humanidades, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba). Runchanksy, Emilio. n.d. “Negros en Buenos Aires? Fe de erratas.” www.uruguay.com/LaOnda/LaOnda/101– 200/121 (accessed April 25, 2005). Sales de Bohigas, Nuria. 1974. Sobre esclavos, reclutas y mercaderes de quintos. Barcelona, Spain: Editorial Ariel.

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Schávelzon, Daniel. 2003. Buenos Aires Negra: Arqueología histórica de una ciudad silenciada. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Emecé Editores. Solomianski, Alejandro. 2003. Identidades secretas: la negritud argentina. Rosario: Beatriz Viterbo Editora.

z Arias, Aurora (1962–) Poet, essayist, short-story writer, and novelist, Aurora Arias was born and resides in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where she works as an astrologist. She has been very active in women’s groups, notably as columnist and coeditor of the feminist review Quehaceres in Santo Domingo. To date, she has published two collections of poems: Vivienda de pájaro (Bird’s Habitat) and Piano lila (Lavender Piano). Arias has also published two books of short stories: Invi’s Paradise y otros relatos (Invi’s Paradise and Other Stories)—whose title story won the second prize at the Casa de Teatro Short Story Contest in Santo Domingo in 1994—and Fín de mundo y otros relatos (World’s End and Other Stories). Several of her poems and short stories appeared in literary journals and anthologies in the Dominican Republic and abroad. Arias also has one unpublished novel and one unpublished collection of short stories; she is currently working on her second novel. The main themes of Arias’s work are the city, the urban underworld, and the condition of women and youth in the conservative 1980s Dominican Republic. The reassertion of the indigenous and African presence in the country, combined with the depiction of a postmodern society, certainly distinguishes Arias’s fiction among national contemporary writing. Furthermore, her stories denounce the living conditions of the Dominicans since the 1980s and the social consequences of a booming (sex) tourism industry. Arias’s fiction reflects the social changes undergone since the 1980s. No longer focusing on

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Aristide, Jean-Bertrand (1953–) | 99 women’s confinement, many stories now underline the fate met by independent, professional Dominican women who face loneliness for challenging traditional gender roles. In this respect, Arias’s fiction shares many similarities with that of Puerto Rican Mayra Santos Febres. Arias’s writing is fundamentally urban, portraying postmodern hippies rebelling in various ways against social, political, and intellectual oppression in their pseudo-democracy. In stark contrast to the colonial city of tourist brochures, a capital riddled with poverty, decay, crime, and corruption emerges from her fiction. Moreover, in some stories the protagonists fully embrace their indigenous and African ancestry and resort to it to resist 1980s authoritarianism and conservatism. Thus the author undermines the official rhetoric of Dominicans as proud, direct descendents of the Spanish conquistadors. Odile Ferly See also Febres, Mayra Santos (1966–). F URTHER R EADING Adams, Clementina R. 1998. “Aurora Arias.” In Common Threads: Afro-Hispanic Women’s Literature, 113–119. Miami: Ediciones Universal. Arias, Aurora. 1987. Vivienda de pájaro. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Editora Gente. Arias, Aurora. 1994. Piano lila. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Editora Buho. Arias, Aurora. 1998. Invi’s Paradise y otros relatos. Montreal: CCLEH, Colección Crítica Canadiense sobre escritoras Hispanoamericans. Concordia University. Arias, Aurora. 2000. Fín de mundo y otros relatos. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico. Cocco de Filippis, Daisy. 1988. “Aurora Arias.” In Sin otro profeta que su canto, 183–86. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Taller. Pereyra, Emilia. 2000. “Aurora Arias, la chica astral.” In Rasgos y figuras, 119–124. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Dujarric.

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Aristide, Jean-Bertrand (1953–) Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a charismatic priest of Haiti’s poor, served three times as his country’s president (1991, 1994–1996, 2001–2004). He was born on July 15, 1953, to a family of peasants of moderate means outside Port-Salut in southwestern Haiti. When he was still an infant, and after the death of the father, the Aristide family moved to the capital, Port-au-Prince. Educated by Salesian priests, Aristide studied in Israel, Greece, and Canada, where he earned a Master’s degree in psychology and a Ph.D. in theology. He was ordained a priest on July 3, 1982. In 1985, he was assigned to the St. Jean Bosco parish in one of Port-au-Prince’s slums. Jean-Bertrand Aristide married Haitian American lawyer Mildred Trouillot in February 1996. They have two daughters. Aristide quickly acquired a reputation for courage, as he delivered fiery sermons targeting dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier (“Bébé Doc”) and his henchmen, the Tontons Macoutes. This earned him the hatred of Duvalier and his successors, who ruled Haiti during the period of instability that followed Duvalier’s departure (1986–1991), and made Aristide the target of up to seven assassination attempts. On September 11, 1988, as Aristide was preaching mass at St. Jean Bosco, armed gunmen assaulted the church, killing 13 before setting the building on fire (Aristide miraculously escaped). Haiti’s Catholic hierarchy, which resented Aristide’s revolutionary message and his sympathy for liberation theology, expelled Aristide from the order in December 1988 (Aristide renounced the priesthood in October 1994). When presidential elections monitored by the international community were held on December 16, 1990, Aristide won a decisive first-round victory with 67.48 percent of the vote. Political controversy plagued Aristide’s first presidency (February 7 to September 30, 1991; October 15, 1994 to 7 February 7, 1996) with criticism focused mostly on Aristide’s human rights shortcomings. Raoul Cédras, whom

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Aristide had appointed as interim commander in chief, overthrew Aristide in a September 29 coup, and Aristide flew to Venezuela and exile and then settled in Washington, D.C., in 1993. U.S. forces landed in Haiti on September 19, 1994, and Aristide returned on October 15. He left office at the end of his first term in February 1996, then returned for a five-year term in February 2001. Aristide’s second presidency was marked by economic and political turmoil. Opposition parties, accusing Aristide’s supporters of electoral fraud, boycotted the 2000 presidential elections, then denounced Aristide’s presidency as illegitimate. They also accused Aristide of sponsoring political assassinations, either through the Haitian National Police or through paramilitary groups known as chimères (chimaeras). Due to political instability, foreign donors canceled most of the funds pledged following the 1994 U.S. intervention. Following a spreading rebellion, at the prodding of his former French and U.S. supporters, Aristide left Haiti on February 29, 2004, for initial exile in the Central African Republic, claiming he had been abducted by U.S. troops. Following Aristide’s departure, four major power centers emerged in Haiti: remnants of Aristide’s chimères, Philippe’s troops, French and American peacekeepers, and Gérard Latortue, chosen by a committee representing Haiti’s various political parties to become interim prime minister. The current president is Rene Preval, elected in 2005, who had been the president from 1996–2001 but was deposed by a military coup. Jacques-Edouard Alexis is prime minister. Meanwhile, Aristide continues to live in exile in South Africa and maintains that he is the legal president of Haiti and that he was deposed and forced into exile by the United States of America. Philippe R. Girard See also Haiti. F URTHER R EADING Aristide, Jean-Bertrand. 1989. La vérité en vérité. Port-au-Prince: Le Natal.

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Aristide, Jean-Bertrand. 1993. In the Parish of the Poor. New York: Orbis Books. Aristide, Jean-Bertrand, and Christophe Wargny. Tou moun se moun: tout homme est un homme. Paris: Seuil, 1992. Published in the United States as Jean-Bertrand Aristide: An Autobiography (New York: Orbis Books, 1993). Danner, Mark. 1993. “Haiti on the Verge.” NY Review of Books, November 4, 25–30. Danner, Mark. 1993. “The Fall of the Prophet.” NY Review of Books, December 2, 44–53. Girard, Philippe. 2004. Clinton in Haiti: The 1994 U.S. Intervention in Haiti. New York: PalgraveMacmillan. Wilentz, Amy. 1989. The Rainy Season: Haiti since Duvalier. New York: Simon and Schuster.

z Art in the African Diaspora The conventional understanding of African diaspora art rests on two false assumptions. The first is that this art refers solely to the creative works of blacks in the New World, specifically African Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, and Afro-Latino/a (Visona et al, 2001), and occasionally to Europe (Powell 2000). The second is that it arose in the 16th century following the enslavement and transportation of Africans to the New World. These two mutually reinforcing assumptions severely limit the historical and geographical scope of Africa’s Diaspora. By underscoring a 16th-century time line, they invalidate the idea that Africa’s Diasporic art is as old as human history. Yet, if Africa is the cradle of humanity, then African Diaspora art really began when the first wave of Homo sapiens sapiens left the continent for other regions of the world. Although this line of reasoning may seem to rob the term of its meaningfulness, since it would apply to the art of all cultures, this entry avoids that epistemological pitfall by limiting “African Diaspora art” just to the creative products and skilled handiwork of black peoples living outside the continent whose

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Art in the African Diaspora | 101 African ancestry is historically documented or recorded in their own cultural memory. Adoption of the deep evolutionary time line exposes the error of the Hegelian, and all other, accounts of history propagated to accord civilizational primacy to Europe and to justify the transatlantic slave trade. Owing to the involuntary nature of two of Africa’s major dispersals—the Arab and the European slave trade—the emphasis of this entry is on artistic works that were created by skilled African labor and those of Africans’ progeny rather than strictly on individual creativity. Mindful that slavery denies the personhood of victims, and knowing that the workshop production system of the institution transferred to owners the creations of their enslaved workers, it is crucial to challenge any definition of art that elides the creativity of those whose originality and creative energies were appropriated. As well, it is equally important to recover the art and the effaced ingenuity, inventiveness, and skill of enslaved African craftsmen and women and their progeny. From the beginning of recorded history, African Diaspora art encompasses the labor and creative expressions of peoples known by different names in different parts of the ancient world, notably Egyptians, Colochians, Canaanites, Kushites, Nubians, Ethiopians, Sabeans, Abyssinians, Sudanese, Muslims, Moors, Zanj, Habashis or Habshees, and Siddis. It incorporates a range of media from goldsmithing, metalwork, painting, textile (appliqué, quilting, weaving, headwear), woodwork, wood, metal and stone sculptures, inlays, mosaic glass designs and glass manufacture, multimedia installations, basketry, pottery, enameling, ivory carving, mural painting, leatherwork, beadmaking, graphic art, calligraphy, and architecture. African Diaspora artworks are products of multiple regional and cultural influences that shape the lives and experiences of their creators in different epochs of history. In the early years of recorded history, Ptah, the ancient Egyptian deity of creativity, was the pa-

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tron of the arts, and Kemetic concepts of maat (truth), mrrwt (love), and hotep (peace) became the key ideological determinants of art (Obenga 1995, 15). Later, cultural influences from Nubia, Babylon, Hyksos, Hatti, Mitanni, and Assyria of modern-day Iraq, Hittites of modern-day Syria and Turkey, Persia of modern-day Iran, Greece, and Rome seeped into this aesthetic vision. Islam and Christianity also played powerful roles in sponsoring art in Asia Minor and the New World. The Arab and European slave trades spawned a range of distinctive artistic movements and traditions from the Andalus to India and to the Americas. There were Moorish art in Spain, Ethiopianism and Harlem Renaissance in the United States, Rastafarian-inspired art in Jamaica, Obeah art and Mas carnival in Trinidad, the Indigentia movement and Vodun-inspired art in Haiti, and Santería and Candomblé-inspired art in Cuba and Brazil. Once the defining trait of this art, which is the subjectivity of African peoples, is centered, seven main phases of the African Diaspora become visible. The first was the Paleolithic and Neolithic phase, spanning 40,000 to 4000 BCE; the second phase was the Egyptian move into Asia Minor, from 3500 BCE to CE 500 (CE means Common Era and BCE is Before Common Era); the third was the Kemetic move into Greece, or the Egypto-European phase, from 501 to 599 CE; the fourth or Indo-Arab phase, from 600 to 1600 CE; the fifth or Atlantic New World phase, from 1500 to 1900; the sixth or colonial/anticolonial phase, from 1901 to 1970; and the seventh or postcolonial phase, from 1971 to 2005. T HE F IRST P HASE : R OCK A RT AND C AVE PAINTINGS , 40,000–32,000 BCE The first migration out of Africa began in Paleolithic times, between 33,000 and 22,000 BCE, with the movement of the Grimaldi Negroid and their lithical (stone) industry or Aurignacian culture into Europe. The Negritos or Negrillos also spread through the Eastern

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Horn-Arabian route to Arabia and Asia. The appearance of the Cro-Magnon man—the prototype of the white race—occurred 10,000 years later, around 20,000 BCE (Diop’s chronology 1991, 23). Scholars have traced this African Aurignacian culture and its art to France, Belgium, the entire upper Danube basin of Austria, northern Romania, Poland, Moravia, and Bosnia (Diop 1991, 15, 44). Prior to the evolution and emergence of the European Cro-Magnon man, the Grimaldi Negroids were the creators of the rock engravings and cave painting that go back to 35,000 to 20,000 BCE. Examples are the Dancing Sorcerer drawings in the Cave of the Three Brothers in France (Diop 1991, 14), the statues known as the Aurignacian Venus statuette (Bolle and Vallois, Les Hommes Fossils, 325, cited in Diop 1991, 48), the Headless Venus of Sireuil, Dordogne, the Venus of Willendorf (in the Museum of Natural History, Vienna), the Negroid Aurignacian Head from the Saint-Germainen-Laye Museum, and the Aurignacian industry of Siberia, near Lake Baykal (Diop 1991, 46–49). The rock engravings and cave paintings of large animals, hunters, and sorcerers bear witness to the magical rites and practices of peoples that had long since disappeared. The distinguishing feature of this first African Diaspora Aurignacian art is the reproduction of negroid features and tightly curled hair on the figurative pieces (Diop 1991, 45). The movement from Africa to the Arabian Peninsula and Asia Minor continued throughout the Bronze Age and resulted in the establishment of the Sabean culture, an ancient civilization situated in northern Ethiopia, a branch of which later moved into the Arabian Peninsula and settled along the western seaboard of the Red Sea up to Yemen. This migration resulted in the same Aramaic language being spoken by black peoples on both sides of the Red Sea. The artistic practices of these black Sabeans in the Arabian Peninsula are considered African Diaspora art as well. Because of the historical obscurity of this long pe-

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riod of human evolution through the age of metal (8000–4000 BCE), minimal attention will be devoted to it until more archeological images become accessible to African art historians. In the meantime, the rest of the entry will focus on the period that comes under recorded history or writing. T HE S ECOND P HASE : K EMETIC A RT IN A SIA M INOR , 3500 BCE TO CE 500 The second phase of African Diaspora art began after the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt and the territorial expansion of the kingdom by successive warrior pharaohs, from Senwosret (Sesostris) I of the 2nd Dynasty to Thutmose III (1501–1447 BCE) of the 18th Dynasty (Diop 1991, 85). At the height of Pharaoh Thutmos II’s reign, the Egyptian empire stretched from the Eastern Mediterranean (Crete, Cyprus, and the Cyclades) to Western Asia and comprised Hatti (Khetta), Mitanni, Amourrou, Kadesh, Syria, Akkadia, and Babylonia (Obenga 2004, 504–521; Diop 1991, 85). In this second phase of the creation of African Diaspora art, Africans continued as the civilizing force and the initiator of artistic trends. Conquered states in the Syria–Palestine region and neighboring cities and peoples were under the authority of Egyptian governors, who engaged in the construction of elaborate palaces and colossal temples to Amon. The Egyptian architects, builders, craftsmen, and artists who settled in the colonies to execute the new structures created the Kemetic Diasporic art. Over time, these Egyptian settlers and their progeny became branches of the Sumerians, Chaldeans, Canaanites, Colchians (on the Armenian side of the Black Sea), Peloponnese, and southern Greeks, who were described as negroid (Diop 1991; Davidson, 1991, 52–53; Diop 1974, 106; Herodotus and Diodorus, cited in Davidson 1991, 59). According to Herodotus, these Chaldeans and Colchians had black skins and woolly hair and practiced circumcision like the Egyptians and Ethiopians (i.e., Kushites). Although the Colchians were identified as de-

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Art in the African Diaspora | 103 scendants of Pharaoh Senwosret I’s soldiers, the Chaldeans of Mesopotamia were described as descendants of Egyptian astronomer-priests who were part of a complex religious system (Obenga 2004, 547; Herodotus and Diodorus, cited in Davidson 1991, 53; Diop 1991, 278– 282). These Egyptian astronomers probably undertook the modifications of the ancient ziggurats of Mesopotamia and Iran to resemble Djoser’s step-pyramid at Saqqara (2681–2662 BCE). Because Egypt was the dominant high civilization of the time and, by Phoenician account, the seat of perfection (Moscow Museum Papyrus, No. 120, 2, 20 translated by Obenga 2004, 254), its art, religion, and aesthetics circulated internationally and influenced the arts, crafts, and artistic canons of its neighbors and subject peoples. By the 1st Dynasty in 3200 BCE, the Egyptians had invented their canon of human proportion as displayed in the statue of Menkaure and his wife Queen Khamerernebhy (2515 BCE) and in the Sphinx (2500 BCE). The Stele of Iri-Iru-Sen from Abydos in the 11th Dynasty states that Egyptian master artists had long invented a range of high, incised, round, and basrelief models. The canon of proportion and the principles of grid layout were in use by 3200 BCE and allowed for exact anatomical representation of the human body and for rendering motion. Colors, inlays of paste, and color symbolism gave the figures an illusion of life (Obenga 2004, 589–595; Diop 1991, 291–301). These artistic canons, techniques, and principles were dispersed throughout the Egyptian diaspora and defined Kemetic stylistics in sculpture, metalwork, and painting. Other distinguishing markers of diasporic Egyptian art were sphinxes, colonnades, obelisks, black figures, and the woolly, kinky hair such as appears on the Greek marble sculpture The Rampin Head, 560 BCE (in the Louvre in Paris), and on the limestone sculpture Darius and Xerxes Giving Audience, 490 BCE, in the Treasury in Persepolis. Egyptian artists and their progeny in Asia Minor continued the

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practice of carving historical events in bas reliefs on stelas and producing colossal monuments. They also produced vases, disks, cylinder seals, musical instruments, and jewelry. They created statues with mosaics and gold inlays in special pieces, and they deployed the pyramidal form throughout the region. As the superior culture in the region, temples, sphinxes and obelisks, critical markers of Egyptian culture, proliferated in the region. Because of the vast economic advantages imperial pharaonic rule offered (Diop 1991, 93), the Phoenicians, Hittites, Syrians, and artists in principalities and towns such as Cyprus, Arwad, Nisrona, Kodshe, Simyra, Naharin, Djahi, and Joppa all adopted the Egyptian principles of art. Ancient Egypt was the major importer of art and artistic products and materials. Egyptian diaspora art was created in three principal ways: through the importation of Egyptian works of art, artistic styles, and aesthetics to the region; by expatriate Egyptian artists and their progeny working in the diaspora; and lastly, after the fall of Egypt to invaders, by enslaved Egyptian artists and craftsmen conscripted to work in Persia (525 BCE), Greece, Rome, and Turkey. T HE T HIRD P HASE : E GYPTO G REEK /E UROPEAN A RT, 650 BCE–599 CE Prior to the fall of Egypt, ancient Greek art benefited tremendously from Egyptian art following the establishment of Egyptian colonies in Greece around 650 BCE. Before this influx, there were no monumental architecture and sculptures in stone in Greece (Janson 1986, 111). The Egyptian founders of Athens and other Greek cities came with their gods and knowledge of rituals, spatial configuration of temples, sacrifices, processions, and festivals to honor these deities (Bernal 1987, 116; Davidson 1991, 61). They initiated the construction of large-scale temples and stone sculptures to honor these gods and goddesses, which the Greeks adopted, resulting in the diffusion of Egyptian religion, art, and architecture in the

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form of statues of Egyptian gods and goddesses and temples throughout Greece and southern Europe. These celestial entities were Anubis (Hermes), Hathor (Isis, Athena), Osiris (Dionysus), Amon (Zeus), Aten (Apollo), and Horus (Perseus), as well as the oracles of Dodona and Delphi, founded by Egyptian women. The statues of the “black Demeter of Phigalia in Arcadia, the black Aphrodite of Arcadia and Corinth, the black virgin of Saint Victor of Marseilles, and the black virgin of Chartres” all trace their roots to the Egyptian mother goddess, Isis (Bernal 1987, 116; Diop citing Raymond Furon, 1985, 21). The temples of Isis at the Acropolis (Bernal 1987, 116), of Hera at Samos, of Artemis, and of Apollo at Dodona, and later temple complexes such as the Acropolis, all followed Egyptian architectural guidelines and elements of design (Davidson 1991, 63) right down to the peristyle columns, colonnades, clerestory space, terraces, and ramps that evoked the temples of Luxor (1390 BCE), Karnak, and Hatshepsut (1480 BCE). Egyptian colonists in southern Greece ushered in the canon of human proportion and related principles of art to Greece and the rest of Europe. On this ideological framework, artists and craftspersons were children of Ptah, the patron deity of the arts, hence exceptional beings (Obenga 2004, 527). Artists adhered to the conventions revealed by Iri-Iru-Sen’s stele, in which the representation of a seated or standing human form utilized a line perpendicular to the ground line as well as a grid layout. The grid technique was also used to define motion and to correctly position the arms, the clenched fists, and the forward thrust of the left leg, to project poise and dignity (Obenga 2004, 591). This Egyptian canon of human proportions became the basis of the Greek sculptural tradition and governed the creation of the kore and kouros sculptures of the archaic and early classical periods. Examples of these works include the Standing Youth (Kouros), 600 BCE, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New

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York, and the Female Figure (Kore), 650 BCE, in the Louvre in Paris. In 450, the Greek master sculptor Polykleitos slightly modified this 3,000-year-old Egyptian canon of human proportion and grid technique and named it after himself. Since then, Eurocentric scholars have overstated Polykleitos’s contributions, claiming that they displayed greater expressive gestures and motions (Stokstad 1995, Janson 1986). Operating from a skewed ideological mindset, they missed the 12th-Dynasty works that displayed an “awareness of the fragility of life . . . in the careworn and very human portraits” (Hawass 2005, 20). They ignored the sculpted portraits of nonroyal personages that did not adhere to the strict precepts of royal representation. This gloss concealed the fact that the putatively “new” stylistic features of Polykleitos conformed to a genre of millenniaold Egyptian models of representation. Given the strong Egyptian roots of the archaic and early classical Greek art, these works could appropriately be described as AfroGrecian or Kemetic-Helladic art. Though the artworks of these Egyptian settlers are now part of the national artistic heritage of Greece, just as the ones they created in Assyria and Sumer were classified as Assyrian and Sumerian, it does not mean that these artworks and architecture cannot be classified as African Diaspora art. The assignment of the “African Diaspora art” appellation to a corpus of ancient Greek art speaks to an early but long history of African settlements and influence in Greece that modern Eurocentric history elides. To recognize and acknowledge this massive Egyptian influence on Greek art before the Macedonian conquest of 332 BCE is merely to recognize the anteriority and regional dominance of an ancient Egyptian African civilization and its influence on other world civilizations. After Alexander’s conquest of Egypt in 332 BCE, a large number of Egyptian master artists and master builders were forcibly deployed to work in Greece for the glory of Greece. This fact should alert us that not all Greek artworks and

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Art in the African Diaspora | 105 those of other invaders of Egypt (Persian, Roman) were created by their own artists; many were created by African master sculptors (or Egyptian craftsmen). T HE F OURTH P HASE : T HE A FRICAN E LEMENTS OF I SLAMIC A RT, CE 600–1600 The area covered in this phase stretches from Spain through Arabia to India and was unified by Islam, which prescribed nonrepresentational art. At its moment of expansion in the seventh century, there were no significant sculptures or architectural forms in Arabia and Africa was central to this process (Janson 1986, 243). A building boom of mosques, qibla, and madrassas followed, resulting in the mass enslavement of blacks by Arab jihadists and traders. The Arab slave trade was at its core an economic enterprise that responded to the huge demand for slave labor in Andalusia, Syria, Arabia, Baghdad, Persia, Mughals (1526– 1858), and the Ottoman Empire. Enslaved Africans were deployed to military, domestic, and agricultural services, subsequently creating sizable African Diaspora communities in Andalusia-Spain, Arabia, Iraq (Zanj), Persia, and India (Alpers and Caitlin-Jairazbhoy 2007, Segal 2001, Irwin 1977, Kobishchanow 1965). High officials of the religion relied on architects and master builders from Egypt, the Magreb, and elsewhere to construct these buildings. Some of these master builders, architects, mosaic tile manufacturers and designers were freemen; the rest were enslaved craftsmen, builders, and laborers whose labor was deployed in the construction of elaborate architectural structures, the surviving ones of which were the Great Mosque of Damascus, built 706–715; the Great Mosque at Samarra, located northwest of Baghdad and built in 848–852; the Mosque at Cordova, begun in 786; the Alhambra and the Palace of Lions in Granada, begun in 1238 and completed in 1492; and others. Some of the enslaved Africans were skilled artisans and craftsmen before they arrived at their destinations. Some

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ended up in artisanal workshops of blacksmiths, silversmiths, glassblowers, and masons and eventually became, with Arabs of African descent, master craftsmen, master sculptors, and master builders (Segal 2001, 115). Because the labor of these enslaved Africans belonged to their masters, their originality and creativity were never identified or acknowledged. From the seventh century onward, the bulk of African Diaspora art in the Andalus and the Arabian Peninsula was created essentially by enslaved peoples. The idea of enslaved Africans working in Syria, Arabia, Baghdad, and Granada in the early years of Muslim rule is hardly far-fetched (Hunwick and Powell 2002, 121–143; Toledano 1988, 3–53; Gordon 1989, 48–78). In early CE 700, the caliph in Baghdad had 7,000 enslaved Africans, who constituted the bulk of the infantry of the Abbasids’ army (Segal 2001, 41). Under the same Abbasid dynasty, a large contingent of enslaved East Africans was in Basra, working in the salt mines, developing the irrigation systems, and laboring on the plantations of lower Mesopotamia (Segal 2001, 43). By 751, there were more than 4,000 Zanj military slaves in Mosul (Bacharach 1981), and many more were deployed in other sectors of the economy, especially in metal workshops, to produce the necessary military hardware—swords, spears, and daggers—required by the army. In Bahrain and Oman, for example, the pearl industry depended on African divers (Gordon 1989, 49– 50). In Syria and in Spain in the 10th century, Syrian trendsetters of African descent such as Ishrag as Suwada, a black woman grammarian and prosodist, and Ziryab (CE 789–857) of the caliphate court of Damascus, moved to Spain and set the styles that artists and artisans reproduced (Segal 2001, 80). Ethiopian and Sudanese women who were the concubines of sultans of Mecca became patrons of the arts on the accession of their sons to the throne (Segal 2001, 111–114). As Valide Sultan, these women approved and sponsored the building of

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mosques, mausoleums, schools, and baths that conformed to their taste (Segal 2001, 111), while the master builders, craftsmen, and skilled artisans (many of whom were of African descent) executed the projects with African slave labor. Under Ottoman rule, the cities of Mecca and Medina were controlled by the Aga, black eunuch administrators who commissioned opulent homes for themselves that were built with enslaved African labor (Segal 2001, 51, Burckhardt 1829, 278–79). In Andalusia, Spain, in Baghdad and Medina, skilled African and non-African labor and the labor of Arabs of African descent were also deployed in the creation of elaborate calligraphic cursive scripts, silk weaving, production of spectacular mosaic designs, colorful illuminated manuscripts, and carpets. In some cases, this utilization of African expertise occurred after the training of the newly imported or older black slaves in artisanal workshops (Segal 2001, 38). The highly prized slaves from these schools, the names of most of whom are lost to us, produced a variety of objects that accorded with Islamic and Indo aesthetics, displaying abstract geometrical motifs, floral motifs, or cursive scripts of Quranic verses. In the Indian subcontinent, African Diaspora art is linked to two categories of peoples of African descent: the military administrators and their descendants, and the sailors and traders who were engaged in the vibrant Indian Ocean trade and who stayed on in India around the main ports, from Kerala in the south to Gujarat in the north (Mampilly 2001). These Africans and their descendants were known as the Habashis or the Siddis. They were principally from Abyssinia or the Red Sea region of Ethiopia, Sudan, and Somalia; others were from farther south along the East Coast of Africa to southern Africa (Gordon 1989, 126). As early as 1100, Abyssinian Sidis had established a kingdom in Janjira and Jaffrabad in western India (Segal 2001, 71) and commissioned a number of buildings, of which the Janjira Fort and the Sidi Palace at Murad were

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their strongholds (Mampilly 2001). During the reign of Queen Raziya (1236–1240), a Habashi, Jamal al-Din Yaqut, became the most important courtier in the kingdom of Delhi before he was killed by his rivals. Ibn Battuta recalled that, at Alapur, north of Delhi, the governor was “the Abyssinian Badr” (Mamphilly 2001). A Habashi, Malik Sarwar, became vizier to the sultan of Delhi, Muhammad B. Firuz, in the late 1300s. In 1394, Sarwar became governor of the eastern province with his capital at Jaunpur, and was succeeded by his son, Mubarak Shah, who in 1402 was succeeded by his brother, Ibrahim Shah, who then ruled for 38 years. The latter was famed for the art and scholarship he encouraged in his court and the sultanate and for the many impressive new buildings that distinguished his reign (Segal 2001, 72). The same was the case in the state of Bengal, which in the 15th century had 8,000 black soldiers and from 1486–1491 had Habashi military commanders as its rulers. After they were overthrown in 1491, these African soldiers moved to Gujarat and Deccan. In the 16th century, Sultan Bahadar of Gujarat (1526–1537) had 5,000 black soldiers, and Shaykh Sa’id, a soldier of learning and taste, supervised the building of the beautiful mosque in Ahmadabad (Segal 2001, 73). Another Habashi general, Malik Ambar (1550–1626) was born in Harer, Ethiopia, and governed Ahmadnagar from 1607 to 1626, during its golden age as a center for art (Segal 2001, 73–75). He commissioned public gardens and buildings, recommending the use of black stone for their construction. During this period, lions (alluding, perhaps, to the Apedemek cult of Ethiopia) were represented as overpowering the elephant, a symbolical reference to the conquest of India by foreigners (Goetz 1963, 238). Ambar established an air of religious tolerance in the Deccan, built Christian churches, patronized Hindu festivals, and still kept his Muslim faith. Habashis, Arabs, and Persians dominated the sultanate’s small businesses, which mainly manufactured silk, paper,

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Art in the African Diaspora | 107 swords, axes, and guns (Segal 2001, 75). Ambar’s egalitarian land reform system also won him much support. Canals and irrigation schemes were built to improve trade and agriculture, and lower rates of taxation were applied to the poorer areas. Other important Habashi statesmen were Chingiz Khan, prime minister to the sultan of Ahmadnagar (Segal 2001, 73); Yaqut Sabit Khan; Khayrat Khan; Ikhtiyar-ul-Mulk; Siddi Ambar, who was personal assistant to the vizier of Hyderabad. The extraordinarily high number of African soldiers in India during this period is indicative of the equally large number of African nonmilitary personnel in the manufacturing and domestic service sector whose presence went largely unreported. Although the travelogues and literary writings of such itinerant Muslim scholars as Ibn Battuta reveal that there were black slaves in Andalusia, Arabia, and the Ottoman Empire, these historical records speak much more clearly about the military, social, and political activities of black African men and women. They yield little information on African Diaspora art or creative activities, though this does not mean that none existed. We know there were African master builders, architects, calligraphers, tile designers, mosaic specialists, and gold- and metalsmiths in different parts of the Islamic world. The very pervasiveness of Africans as laborers may explain why their presence and activities were insignificant to the scholars of the time, whose focus of interest was on the gains of Islam, not on racial matters. However, the high rate of enslavement of Africans, the rapid pace of mosque and masjid construction, and the recurrent wars of various Muslim rulers tell us that an extraordinarily large pool of labor was required to keep the Islamic world going. This labor was crucial to produce such grandiose mosques as the Alhambra, Cordoba, and Constantinople mosques; to continually produce military equipment (swords, axes and spears) for the constantly warring armies; and to keep pace

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with the rapidly growing economy. Free and enslaved African men and women were used in diverse sectors of the economy, principally in the manufacturing, artisanal, agriculture, and domestic sectors (Segal 2001; Toledano 1998, 57; Harris 1971; Burckhardt 1829). As with other African diasporas of involuntary dispersal, the art of this diaspora was created in four distinct ways. The first was by skilled slave labor in the following types of workshops: mosaic tiles, glassware, metalware, heavy brocade, carpet making, and architectural construction. The second was by the children of black women and local men; the third is by the children of enslaved African men and local women who became artists and produced artworks that, properly speaking, are African Diaspora art; and the last is through the decisions of planners and arbiters of taste whose heritage is African. Although the bulk of the African dispersal was involuntary, there were some voluntary migrants, principally explorers, traders, and adventurers (Irwin 1977; Kobishchanow 1965) and carpenters, builders, and craftsmen. In his pioneering work on Africans in Asia (1971), Harris highlighted the presence of Indian architects and common laborers of African descent, though he did not focus on the arts. The initiators and designers of some of the mosques, mausoleums, and artifacts on the Indian subcontinent, especially in Janjira, Jaffrabad, and the Deccan, were Habashi military administrators, their children with local or African women, and the children of enslaved Sudanese, Abyssinian, and Ethiopian women who were concubines of Arabian and Indian men (Segal 2001, 50–51). Such Indian rulers as Sultan Firuz (1397–1422) had Habashi women in their harems (Segal 2001, 72–73). Islam effaced the identity of Africans once they adopted Muslim names. This effacement did not invalidate their African heritage; rather, it concealed their contributions to art, since their ethnicity and race were unacknowledged. Moreover, once their children were assimilated

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into this Muslim culture, their art and creative contributions were effectively obscured by a religious ideology that portrayed them as totally Arab. Still, centuries after this Arabization process began, the legacy of the African presence in the regions is strongly visible in the high number of black-skinned Arabs and less so in their genetics. T HE F IFTH P HASE : A RT IN THE C REATION OF THE ATLANTIC N EW WORLD D IASPORA , 1500–1900 Our knowledge of African Diaspora art is skewed toward the Atlantic rim because this is the region where the archaeology of art in the Africa Diaspora has been most advanced. Although it is natural always to think of Africans in the New World as slaves, a significant number were not slaves. Some were freemen and women who had bought their own freedom or had been granted it by their European owners or husbands. Generally, there were two types of African labor in the slave colonies of the Americas: skilled and unskilled. Although scholarly focus is typically on unskilled labor, blacksmiths, sword smiths, silversmiths, stonemasons, tailors and dressmakers, builders, tile makers, ironworkers, and carpenters made up the skilled labor force and formed the backbone of the colonial economy (Lockhart 1975, 85). Most of the technical and artistic products in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and British colonies were manufactured and created by Africans. Examples of these skills and design innovations in the United States were the elegant Gourd-Bodied Fiddle of St. Mary’s County, the quiet dignity of the Virginia Slave drum, the pictorial composition of Henry Cudge’s walking stick, the fine craftsmanship of the Red River Valley Slave-Made Desk, and the pots of Dave the potter. The fact that the labor and artistic contributions of Africans in the Americas were controlled by tradesmen and/or plantation owners did not mean that their creativity was killed. Advertisements in newspapers and gazettes re-

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vealed that many enslaved African artists were highly skilled and were sought after for the sophisticated works they produced as goldsmiths, silversmiths, gunsmiths, ornamental ironworkers, dressmakers, and leatherworkers (Vlach 1991, 161–172). In the course of their creative work, they sometimes managed to inscribe on the landscape different geometric, zoomorphic, and skeuomorphic designs of Africa. The African builders of 18th-century Brazilian churches introduced their own images and aesthetic preferences, replacing grapes (a symbol of Eucharistic wine) with pineapples and white virgins with brown-skinned ones (Drewal 1996, 265; Pescatello 1975, 238). The Afro-Brazilian Muslim architect and builder Mestre Manoel Friandes (1823–1904) created a distinctive class of works by embedding Arabic scripts into the walls of Lapinha Church and utilized decorative tiles to give the church a decidedly Islamic feel. Only when opposition was anticipated would Africans in the Diaspora camouflage African symbols or keep them to themselves, as did Harriet Powers with her appliquéd Pictorial Quilt (1895–1898), which evoked the asafo regimental flags of Dahomey. By arbitrarily separating creativity and labor, Eurocentric scholarship worked to deprive enslaved Africans of their creativity and creative vision. The separation suggests that enslaved Africans did not create any works because creativity belonged to Europeans, and African labor was simply utilized to realize their white masters’ aesthetic visions. But nothing could be further from the truth. Such AfroBrazilian architects as António Francisco Lisboa, or Aleijadinho (1738–1812), designed and built numerous churches, including six chapels on the hillside of Congonhas do Campo, between 1795 and 1798; with other African builders and craftsmen, he transformed the Catholic architectural landscape in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. Aleijadinho also produced a massive body of wood and stone sculptural works. Afro-Brazilian painters Manuel de Cunha (1737–1809) and Raimundo

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Art in the African Diaspora | 109 da Costa e Silva (18th century) painted biblical scenes for their patrons. In the United States, the artistry, creativity, and skill of African master craftsmen were regularly chronicled in newspaper ads by white owners desperate to retrieve their runaway artist or eager to fetch a handsome price for the sale of one. These craftspeople (including quilters) were artists in their own right, as was the very successful AfroBrazilian builder Friandes, who designed and built the Church of Lapinha, the Ordem Terceira de São Francisco, and numerous commercial buildings in Salvador-Bahia. It does not matter that the creative works of these artists may conform to European aesthetics, as did Joshua Johnson’s (1795–1825) portraits, Robert Scott Duncanson’s (1821–1872) landscapes, Edward Mitchell Bannister’s (1828– 1901) paintings, Henry Ossawa Tanner’s (1859–1937) subject studies, and Edmonia Lewis’s (1843–1911) marble sculptures. What matters is that their mastery of European stylistics expanded their creativity, originality, or skill and allowed them to create new African Diasporan genres and to produce masterful paintings of landscapes, sculpt human forms, or build and beautify churches, commercial buildings, and plantation homes. In different American slave societies, African craftspeople were creators, producing exquisite quilts, baskets, pottery, ironworks, and carvings and extraordinarily beautiful cabinets, grilles, balustrades, and gold and silver works that today are assigned a white provenance (Perry 1992, Lockhart 1975. Africans bequeathed to the colonial slave societies of the Americas an art legacy and a tradition of artistry uniquely their own. In a telling account of the basket-making tradition in the Low Country of the Southern United States, Africans from the Senegambia region of West Africa revitalized and passed on their historical memories in an unbroken line of art and creative production. Ekoi, Igbo, Yoruba, and Angolans did the same in Cuba through the African religions of Santería and Palo Monte,

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Vodun in Haiti, and Candomblé, Macumba, and Umbanda in Brazil. African rites of creativity were also bequeathed through community associations or cabildos, as well as through such associations as the Ejagham and Abakuá in Cuba and Brazilian brotherhoods and sisterhoods. These religious and community arenas spurred the re-creations of artifacts, masked figures, and decorations that contained the vibrancy of BaKongo, Akan, Yorùbá, Fon, Igbo and Efik ritual objects and markings. Òrìsà worship, which lay at the heart of Santería (Cuba) and Candomblé (Brazil) religions, inspired the creation of altars, drums, and strip woven cloth, or panos da costa. The Haitian omphor inspired vèvè spiritual writings and markings, and the winti ceremonies of the Surinamese Djuka inspired iconography that is found on Saramankan doors and drums. The aesthetics that emerged in these re-creations found expression in such multilayered, complex ceremonials as the carnival of Trinidad and Brazil and the tambo musical raves of 18th-century Buenos Aires. Although most free and enslaved African artists of the period were in trades and did their creating as craftswo/men, a few were in the easel-painting tradition, producing landscapes and portraits. In the United States, there were G.W. Hobbs in 1785 (Jeffries 1992, 5), as well as Johnson, Bannister, Duncanson, Lewis, and Tanner (Perry 1992). In Argentina in the 1870s, a vibrant art scene existed among AfroArgentinians even as the larger society represented the country as the only European nation in the hemisphere. Two notable painters, Blanco de Aguirre and Bernadino Posadas, were active in the Buenos Aires black community in 1878 (Andrews 1980, 195). Prior to the Haitian revolution, fairly wealthy planters commissioned works of art from freed slaves and mulattoes (Alexis 1995, 59). Shortly after Haiti’s independence in 1819, art classes began in the Lycee Petion as well as in Henry Christophe’s national schools in the north. In the mid-1800s, the Haiti government signed a

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concordat with the Vatican that resulted in an educational policy that discriminated against local art forms and aesthetics and emphasized the training of Haitian children in European academy-style art (Alexis 1995, 59). Fifty years later, in 1915, Normil Charles and Archibald Lochard opened an art school at Port-auPrince. T HE S IXTH P HASE : A FRICAN WORLD A RTISTS IN THE C OLONIAL D IASPORA AND D ECOLONIZATION P ERIOD, 1901–1970 When W. E. B. DuBois declared race the dominant issue of the 20th century, he did not envision the fierce cultural battle of identity that would erupt to check Eurocentrism. The Ethiopian defeat of Italy in 1896 at the Battle of Adwa reverberated in the African Diaspora world, keenly evoking the Haitian revolution of 1804 and, in more ways than one, reenergized the spirits of downtrodden African peoples worldwide after Europe had colonized Africa. The African American artist Meta Warrick Fuller (1877–1968) celebrated this epochal event in an emotionally charged sculpture titled Ethiopia Awakening (1914). Like her other sculptures, this piece captured the ideals of the future rather than past generations and proclaimed the inception of new African global resistance movements. By the 1920s, the African Diaspora of the Americas—the United States, Haiti, and Cuba—was becoming a dynamic site of artistic activity as artists mined African art forms, ideas, stylistics, and values. Harsh living conditions in the Americas had given birth to Pan-Africanism, an ideal that enjoined African peoples to join political forces, to visually tell their stories and knit their histories and legacies into one. From 1916 onward, the “Africa for Africans” slogan of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association electrified artists’ imaginations in the United States and the Caribbean. Artists in numerous countries rose to this challenge, producing paintings, drawings, and sculptures that spoke to the spirit of the times. The phenomenal ma-

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Meta Warrick Fuller’s The Awakening of Ethiopia, about 1910. (Schomburg Center/Art Resource, NY)

terial destruction caused by the two world wars emboldened African Diasporans to politically challenge the moral and political authority of European high culture. These challenges were picked up by politically conscious artists for whom the transnational Pan-African dialogues between W. E. B. DuBois, Alioune Diop, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Albert Lithuli, Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, George Padmore, Aimé Césaire, Leopold Sedar Senghor, C. L. R.

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Art in the African Diaspora | 111 James, and Chancellor Williams initiated an expansive way of thinking about African identity and African solidarity. In 1925, suitably energized by his meeting with African students at Oxford in 1907–1910, Alain L. Locke articulated the idea of the New Negro and admonished black artists in the United States to reclaim their legacy and embrace “the uniquely creative possibilities of their own natural racial heritage” (Wardlaw 1990, 60; Gaither 1990, 21). His theoretical articulations and the art of politically committed artists resulted in the artistic movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. In Haiti, Jean Price Mars initiated a similar project. He urged Haitian artists to look to their African heritage and to exalt the traditions that came with the slave trade, and the Indigentia movement was born (Alexis 1995, 60–61). African Diaspora artists in Europe and the Americas responded to this call to deploy their work in struggles of cultural affirmation. In the United States, Aaron Douglas (1899–1979), the leading visual arts exponent of the Harlem Renaissance, painted the series titled Aspects of Negro Life (1934), which employed a stylistic language influenced by African art, patterns, and designs. His work was the first to place New World slavery within the broad framework of Diasporic history (Wardlaw 1990, 63). Hale Woodruff (1900–1980) continued this theme with The Amistad Murals, borrowing the Mexican muralists’ style of representation to depict African American history, while Sargent Claude Johnson (1887– 1967) turned to African masks for his Baule-inspired Copper Masks (1935) series that became iconic works (Gaither 1990, 21). In the 1930s, Lois Mailou Jones (1905–1998) heeded Locke’s charge and consciously engaged Africa in a series of paintings that defined the black experience, notably Ascent of Ethiopia (1932) and Africa (1934); and in the 1940s, Jacob Lawrence produced his narrative series of African American history: Toussaint L’Ouverture, John Brown, the Migration Series, and Harriet Tubman. In Haiti, artists Pétion Savain,

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Georges Ramponneau, Rigaud Benoit, Wilson Bigaud, Marie-Pascal Jean-Claude Garoute (Tiga), later Luce Tuenier, Hector Hyppolite, and Edouard Duval-Carrié of Le Centre d’Art, and Phillipe Doddard celebrated the African elements of their culture. They drew extensively from African cosmologies, symbols, and imageries informing Vodou spiritual practices and in some cases affected a style of work that was thought to be primitive and African. The Vodou-inspired stylistic trend is evident in Hyppolite’s paintings Grand Maitre and Maitresse Ezilie (1948) and in Duval-Carrié’s work as well. In this struggle of cultural affirmation, two seemingly opposed artistic trends defined the early-20th-century period. The first is the overtly African stylistics of traditional works, and the second is the European appropriation of African stylistics to create the abstract style of modernism. The unwary may dismiss the abstract works of African Diaspora artists as Eurocentric; however, given that modernism is rooted in African forms, sensibilities, and style, the abstract works of African Diaspora artists cannot be represented as derivations of European art. Many of these artists were committed to the principle of cultural affirmation and so studied African plastic forms and symbolic meaning in museums, historically black colleges, and personal collections (Wardlaw 1990, 60). They, too, went to the source, even as they studied the experimentations of their European peers. Reversing the trend of the previous decades, artists such as Herman (Kofi) Bailey, Tom Feelings, John Biggers, and Arthur Carraway went on cultural pilgrimages to West Africa, subsequently moving to the region in search of artistic and cultural identity. In Cuba, new interpretations emerged in the art of Wifredo Lam. Although his work had been passed off as surrealist and rooted in European aesthetics, Lydia Cabrera and Ferdinado Ortiz highlight the Afro-Cuban dimension of Lam’s art. They draw compelling connections between his works and the spiritual allegories of

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Santería and Palo Monte of his mother’s AfroCuban heritage. Furthermore, when Lam’s works are viewed in relation to the works of Afro-Cuban artists of the time, notably Roberto Diago (1920–1957), Mateo Torriente (1910–1966), and Augustín Cardenas (1927), art theorists have argued that Lam was probably the dominant influence on European surrealism rather than the other way around (Mosquera 1996, 228–229). Because of the strong presence of African culture in Salvador-Bahia, cultural expression was the primary artistic goal of the multitalented artist and Òrìsà devotee, “Master Didi” (Deoscoredes Maximiliano dos Santos) of Brazil. He dipped into the liturgical mysteries of the Candomblé to create an assortment of Òrìsà-inspired, sacred sculptures that preserved his Ketu-Yorùbá history. His multimedia sculptures underscore the relationships between Africa’s religious life and Diasporan existential realities. Textile artist Abdias do Sacramento Nobre, or “Master Abdias,” also adhered to this precept as he retranslated centuries-old Yorùbá aso oke (strip woven cloth) into the Brazilian pano da costa, producing Alaká cloth in Orixás colors (de Carvalho 1990, 22–31). Surinam Maroon carver Awagi Anikil created intricately designed, basrelief Saramaccan doors, drums, stools, trays, and calabashes that evoke the epigamic adinkra petrographs/designs of the Akan of Ghana and Ivory Coast. The return of Edna Manley (1900–1987) to Jamaica in 1922 revitalized the local art scene. Married to the dominant political statesman and proponent of Jamaican independence, her superbly executed sculptures took on the volumetric mass distinctive of some African sculptures and fused it with Jamaican archetypes. These new forms of sociopolitical sculpture gave Jamaican art a distinct character and achieved for it what her husband, Norman Manley, did for the country. With other artists of the time—Carl Abrahams, Albert Hine, and Cecil Baugh—she also strove to create a Jamaican

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national aesthetic. Artists in Trinidad and Tobago also extended this principle to their art, as is evident in the inventive copper masks of Ken Morris, which affirm the African roots of his Afro-Caribbean culture. Sundiata Stewart, too, obtained spiritual influence from African sculpture, which he treated as the mother of his art. Although it may seem that the African Diaspora was disconnected from Africa, extensive contacts occurred between the artists of the two regions, renewing and reinforcing the ties that bind them. In Europe, from the 1920s onward, African artists who went to study in Britain and France linked up with African Diaspora artists and devised strategies to fight racially related but different political battles. Nigerian artists Aina Onabolu (in the 1920s) and Ben Enwonwu (from the late 1930s) asserted their independence from the emergent modernist art of Europe, which they saw as uninspiring, powerless copies of their fathers’ art. Unlike their African Diaspora peers, however, most of the African artists who trained and produced art in Europe were primarily concerned with combating the racist European narrative that Africans could not draw or paint realistically. They produced naturalistic and semi-naturalistic works of their sociocultural environment—portraits, festivals, cultural ceremonies, landscapes—that showed the humanity of Africans. These visual proofs established not only that African artists could draw realistically but also that African art cannot be emasculated by tendentious labels of authenticity and timelessness. Their most eloquent contribution to the debate was that African art is a dynamic, creative practice, involving change, rupture, and synthesis. The works of Enwonwu, Uzo Egonu, and Emmanuel Jegede of Nigeria, Garvin Gantes of South Africa, Papa Ibra Tall and Iba N’Diaye of Senegal, Kofi Antubam and Vincent Kofi of Ghana, and Gerard Sekoto from South Africa, underscored this point. For them, artistic expressiveness is the outcome of sociopolitical

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Art in the African Diaspora | 113 concerns impacting artists’ lives and the political choices they make in response. They drew from their tradition whenever necessary, and as legitimate heirs of that heritage, they modified the artistic forms they borrowed to accord with their personal vision and to preserve their individuality. Contact between Africa and Africans in the Diaspora continued and linked the politics of one region to the other. Artists from Africa, the Caribbean, and South America traveled to the United States, Canada, Britain, and France for a variety of reasons and for protracted periods of residency. From 1950 to 1970, the United States went through a socially altering, cataclysmic event that profoundly reshaped the art. For black artists, African liberation struggles, Ghana’s independence in 1957, the rapid decolonization process that followed in Africa, and the rise of the Civil Rights Movement unleashed a flood of creativity and declarations of black pride. Black artists in the United States formulated their own aesthetic principles and created their own organizations. Attuned to the power of organizations to engender transformations, Margaret Burroughs, Jack Jordan, and a few others formed the National Conference of Artists (NCA) in 1959 to advance the professional skills of members and to nurture black art. At the time, African American artists were excluded from mainstream art institutions, and so the NCA created a space to nurture and promote their art. Some African American women artists in California understood the importance of integrating mainstream galleries and museums and so formed local and regional art organizations to press their case. In 1962 in Los Angeles, printmaker Ruth Waddy founded Art West Associated; artist and curator Evangeline J. Montgomery established the San Francisco branch in 1967 upon her return from Nigeria. Like other political organizations concerned with African American visibility and self-definition, both associations displayed considerable savvy in protesting the exclusion of black artists from

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the Los Angeles County Museum and the Oakland Museum. Focusing on the positive, the two associations highlighted the works of black artists in exhibitions, books, and catalogues, and, through their activities, pierced the veil of invisibility that white America had cast over their art. By 1968, Montgomery had become the ethnic art consultant of the Oakland Art Museum and curated the first in a series of significant exhibitions in a major art museum, New Perspectives in Black Art. In 1970, she followed this up as a consultant to a major survey exhibition of African, African American, and European art, Dimensions in Black, organized by the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art. On the east coast, in 1963, artists Romare Bearden and Norman Lewis established the Spiral group to advance discussions on the relationship of black artists to the civil rights struggle. A year later, the Weusi (Swahili for “blackness”) Artist Cooperative was formed and projected a black national stance. In 1968, members of the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC) formed AfriCobra (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists) in Chicago following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.; and three years later, in 1971, reacting to the sexism of the Black Nationalist Art Movement, Faith Ringgold, Kay Brown, and Dindga McCannon founded Where We At: Black Women Artists. In 1968, Benny Andrews and a number of New York artists (Vivian Browne, Ed Taylor, Henri Ghent, Norman Lewis, Romare Bearden, Raymond Saunders, and others) had protested the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s lack of black input in the planning of the exhibition Harlem on My Mind and for the country’s apartheid structure. The lack of representation in art publications was a crippling barrier to the professional advancement of black artists. Knowing that lack of publication would write black artists out of history, in 1966 Waddy published the first book ever to showcase the prints of black artists. Three years later, African American artist and art historian Samella Lewis followed up with a

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two-volume book that comprehensively summarized and categorized the works of black artists in America. Under the auspices of the Oakland Art Museum, Montgomery produced a definitive catalogue on Sargent Claude Johnson in 1971. These books and catalogues, as well as the presence of these women art activists, writers, and curators, created the necessary space for highlighting African American art. Much more important is that they provided the opportunity for the recognition of such women artists as Elizabeth Catlett, Mildred Howard, Betye Saar, Artis Lane, Margo Humphrey, Yvonne Tucker, Varnette Honeywood, Carol Ward, and many more. Radical changes were under way in 1969 following the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. and the race uprisings in America’s major cities. The earlier ideological stance of reclaiming African heritage gave way to a militant black arts philosophy that reflected the turbulent realities of the United States in the late 1960s. This philosophy defined a prescriptive rule of representation, and its urban aesthetics defined an artistic style that is exclusively figurational, composed of bright colors, lettering within works to clarify their visual message or content, and focused on such themes as family unity, celebration of heroes, and acknowledgement of black heritage (Schmidt Campbell 1985: 57). A major body of black artists’ works during this period speaks to a militant style, exemplified by Roy Lewis’s Wall of Respect (1967), Joe Overstreet’s New Jemima (1964), Faith Ringgold’s socially satirical works of Die and The Flag Is Bleeding (1967), David Hammons’s Injustice Case (1970), and Jeff Donaldson’s Aunt Jemima (& the Pillsbury Dough Boy) (1964). The politically conscious nature of these works collectively destroyed the tradition of the docile, colonized black, replacing it with a fiercely audacious, confrontational black. Nevertheless, many artists of the period, notably Sam Gilliam, Norman Lewis, Mel Edwards, Richard Hunt, and Adrienne Hoard, found the official aesthetics

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creatively stifling and repudiated it in their work. As the racial struggle intensified and the senseless killings of radical black activists and innocent blacks continued to rise, a number of black artists became disenchanted with the corrosive impact of the racial struggle on their art. They left the United States for less toxic environments. Some left under duress. Some, like Elizabeth Catlett, were stripped of their citizenship. Countless others emigrated to other countries and settled there permanently, notably Khadejha McCall and Russell Gordon in Canada, Herbert Gentry in Sweden, and William H. Johnson in France. These migrations created a transnational pool of artists in a global African world who entered into conversation with artists from other regions of the world and were fully conscious of their African ancestral heritage and mined its artistic traditions for their contemporary art. T HE S EVENTH P HASE : N EW M IGRATIONS A RT, 1971–2005 The post–civil rights period in the United States and the post-independence era in the Caribbean and Africa brought about greater cultural exchanges among African peoples worldwide. Rastafarianism, reggae, and the music of Jimmy Cliff, Bob Marley, and Peter Tosh were instrumental to these exchanges and brought about a flexible definition of the African identity, which was celebrated in numerous ways. Evidence of this can be found in the performance art of Houston Conwill, which captured the spirit and character of Dogon cosmology in the evocative forms of his Juju Boxes. The paintings and sculptures of Osmond Watson created new ways of seeing and speaking to a global black audience about cultural upliftment using the iconic images of Rasta priests and priestesses. Trinidadian painters LeRoy Clarke and Shengé Pharaoh and Afro-Brazilian painter Abdias do Nascimento produced inspired works that gave expression to the hidden spiritual values of African heritage as well as the deeper beliefs

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Art in the African Diaspora | 115 and hopes of Caribbean people. They reinterpreted spiritual forces, divinities, magical ideas, and fragments of memory into contemporary visual language. They explored issues of assimilation and of multiplicity of identities and cultures as well as the reinvention of new selves in their works. The works of Herman Ba Charles and sculptors Samuel Walrond and Franco Tempro profusely comment on the Caribbean experience and subject matters that include the importance of mothers and their children, slave ships, dancing couples, and religious character. At the other pole of creative styles were artists who were affected by the sociopolitical issues of the day and tried to find a visual language for expressing them. Jamaican painter David Boxer was one such Caribbean artist. Deeply affected by the political violence that wracked the country in the 1970s, he produced a series of disturbingly intense paintings, including Shopping Cart with 8 Hands that shocked Jamaican audiences. Africa’s post-independence period is marked by new global migrations of its professional class as an economic downturn has devastated the continent. This exodus resulted in the creation of new African Diasporas in regions where there were older African Diasporas—Britain, Europe, United States, the Arabian Peninsula, some Caribbean countries, and Canada—as well as in regions where there was no significant historic African presence—China, Australia, New Zealand, and countries in Southeast Asia. African artists of the old and new Diasporas met and beneficially collaborated as they crisscrossed national boundaries. In these new waves of migration, the Ghanaian-born painter Nii Ahene Mettle-Nunoo became a resident of Santa Cruz and extended kente colors and adinkra petrographs into the artistic landscape of the Virgin Islands. South African artists escaping apartheid, such as Dumile Feni and Louis Maquebela, relocated to the United States. Sudanese artist El Salahi moved to France, while Rashid Diab moved to Spain. Nigerian-born artists Emmanuel Jegede, Sokari Douglas Camp,

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and Yinka Shonibare and Ugandan-born artist Magdalene Odondo became major British artists, profoundly reshaping and enriching the corpus of British art. In the United States, such artists of the recent African Diaspora as Skunder Boghossian, Amir Nour, Acha Debela, Outtarra, Wolde Wosene, Victor Ekpu, and Khalid Kodi entered into visual dialogues with the art and stylistics of artists of the African Diaspora such as Charles White, Howardina Pindell, John Dowell Jr., and Clarissa Sligh. The result of these visual dialogues has greatly energized American art and has ensured that Kushite and Ethiopic stylistics, nsibidi petrographs, chi wara, and Baule plastic shapes are now a normal part of the American art landscape. Transnational migration was not limited to Africans or to Africa. The global economic reality of the 1990s ensured that migration was part of the everyday reality of Africans of the older Diaspora. From St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, Ademola Olugebefola migrated to the United States, drawing heavily from Senufo plastic forms, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Yorùbá metaphysics to reshape his Harlem-based art. In a reverse move, Valerie Maynard left New York for an extended residency period in St. Thomas before returning to Maine to work extensively with stylized African and Caribbean art motifs. Jamaican-born Kofi Kayiga migrated to Boston after periods of residency in England and Uganda. His vivid abstract paintings contemporize the allegorical symbolism of Baganda and Rastafarian metaphysics. California artist Arthur Carraway moved to Ghana, where he lived and worked for many years, intermittently traveling extensively to the Congo and Tanzania to compose a visual language that consisted of superimposing adinkra and nkisi patterns and Makonde forms in color-saturated canvases. New York sculptor Mel Edwards easily expands his creative horizon through occasional visits to West Africa to produce works that speak in the same register as the works of Sudanese artist Amir Nour. Haitian-Canadian artist Roland Jean confronts the ubiquity of Renaissance Europe

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with Vodun vèvè styles, challenging us to see the dependency of Europe’s glory on African Diasporans and Africa. San Francisco artist Cheryle Riley etches an audacious Bakuba abstract design on her massive Bakuba Griffith Table. Technological advances in the form of ease of transportation and the World Wide Web have deeply furthered the vibrancy and cross-fertilization processes of African Diaspora artists in the millennial age. Nkiru Nzegwu See also Africa; “African” in African American History; Diaspora Vibe Gallery; Haiti; The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA); Trinidad and Tobago. F URTHER R EADING Alexis, Gerald. 1995. “Caribbean Art and Culture from a Haitian Perspective.” In Caribbean Visions: Contemporary Painting and Sculpture, ed. Samella Lewis and Mary Jane Hewitt, 59– 68. Alexandria, VA: Art Services International. Alpers, Edward A., and Amy Caitlin-Jairazbhoy. 2007. Sidis and Scholars: Essays on African Indians. Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press. Andrews, George Reid. 1980. The Afro-Argentines of Buenos-Aires 1800–1900. Madison: University of Wisconsin, Bacharach, Jere L. 1981. “African Military Slaves in the Medieval Middle East: The Cases of Iraq (869–955) and Egypt (868–1171).” International Journal of Middle East Studies 13, 471–95. Bernal, Martin. 1987. Black Athena. The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization. Vol. 1. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Brown, Evelyn. 1966. Africa’s Contemporary Art and Artists. New York: Division of Social Research and Experimentation, Harmon Foundation Inc. Burckhardt, John Lewis. 1822. Travels in Nubia, 2nd ed. London: John Murray. Burckhardt, John Lewis. 1829. Travels in Arabia, vol. 1. London: John Murray. Davidson, Basil. 1991. African Civilization Revisited: From Antiquity to Modern Times. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. de Carvalho, Vania Bezerra. 1990. “Abdia do Sacramento Nobre or ‘Mestre Abdia’” (translated from Portuguese by Maria Rohrer). International Review of African American Art 9:1:22–31.

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Diop, Cheikh Anta.1974. African Origin of Civilization. New York: Lawrence Hill Books. Diop, Cheikh Anta. 1991. Civilization and Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology. New York: Lawrence Hill Books. Drewal, Henry John. 1996. “Signifyin’ Saints: Signs, Substance, and Subversion in AfroBrazilian Art.” In Santería Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art, ed. Arturo Lindsay, 263–89. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution. Gaither, Barry. 1990. “Heritage Reclaimed: An Historical Perspective and Chronology.” In Black Art, Ancestral Legacy: The African Impulse in African-American Art, ed. Alvia J. Wardlaw, 17–34. New York: Dallas Museum of Art / Harry N. Abrams. Goetz, H. 1963. “Indo-Islamic Figural Sculpture.” Ars Orientalis 5, 238, figs. 9, 15, 16, 34, 40, 43. Gordon, Murray. 1989. Slavery in the Arab World. New York: New Amsterdam. Harris, Joseph E. 1971. The African Presence in Asia. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Hawass, ZaHi. 2005. Tutankhamun: The Golden Age of the Pharaohs. Washington, DC: National Geographic. Hunwick, John, and Eve Troutt Powell. 2002. The African Diaspora in the Mediterranean Land of Islam. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener. Irwin, Graham W. 1977. Africans Abroad: A Documentary History of the Black Diaspora in Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean during the Age of Slavery. New York: Columbia University Press. Janson, H. W. 1986. History of Art: The Western Tradition. New York: Prentice Hall. Jairazbhoy, R. A. 1972. An Outline of Islamic Architecture. New York: Asia Publishing House. Jeffries, Rosalind Robinson. 1992. “Arthur Carraway and Houston Conwill: Ethnicity and ReAfricanization in American Art.” PhD. diss., Yale University. Karnouk, Liliane. 1988. Modern Egyptian Art: The Emergence of a National Style. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press. Kobishchanow, Yu. M. 1965. “On the Problem of Sea Voyages of Ancient Africans in the Indian Ocean.” Journal of African History 6 (2): 137– 141. Lewis, Samella, and Mary Jane Hewitt. 1995. Caribbean Visions: Contemporary Painting and Sculpture. Alexandria, VA: Art Services International.

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Asantewaa, Yaa (ca. 1830–1922) | 117 Lockhart, James. 1975. “Africans in SixteenthCentury Peru.” In The African in Latin America, ed. Ann M. Pescatello, 80–97. New York: Random House. Mampilly, Zachariah Cherian. 2001. “The African Diaspora of the Indian Sub-continent.” TheSouth-Asian.com, September 2001. www.thesouth-asian.com/Sept2001/Indo-African_dias pora3.htm. (accessed January 1, 2008) Mosquera, Gerardo. 1992. “Africa in the Art of Latin America.” Art Journal 5 (4): 30–38. Mosquera, Gerardo. 1996. “Elegguá at the (Post?) Modern Crossroads: The Presence of Africa in the Visual Art of Cuba.” In Santería Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art, ed. Arturo Lindsay, 225–258. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. Nzegwu, Nkiru. 2000. “Memory Lines: Art in the Pan-African World.” IJELE: Art Journal of the African World, 1, 2. www.ijele.com/ijele/vol1.2/ nzegwu2.html. (accessed January 1, 2008) Obenga, Théophile. 1995. A Lost Tradition: African Philosophy in World History. Philadelphia: Source Edition. Obenga, Théophile. 2004. African Philosophy: The Pharaonic Period: 2780–330 BC. Trans. Ayi Kwei Armah. Dakar, Senegal: Per Ankh. Perry, Regina A. 1992. Free Within Ourselves: African-American Artists in the Collection of the National Museum of American Art. Washington, DC: National Museum of American Art. Pescatello, Ann M. 1975. “Epilogue.” In The African in Latin America, ed. Ann M. Pescatello, 237– 243. New York: Random House. Powell, Richard. 1973. Black Art: The Years Since 1920. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Riggs, Thomas, ed. 1997. St. James Guide to Black Artists. Detroit: St. James. Schmidt Campbell, Mary. 1985. Tradition and Conflict: Images of a Turbulent Decade 1963– 1973. New York: Studio Museum in Harlem. Segal, Ronald. 2001. Islam’s Black Slaves: The Other Black Diaspora. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Stebich, Ute. 1990. “Black Art in the Caribbean.” In Black Art, Ancestral Legacy: The African Impulse in African-American Art, ed. Alvia J. Wardlaw, 87–96. New York: Dallas Museum of Art / Harry N. Abrams. Stokstad, Marilyn. 1995. Art History, vol. 1. New York: Prentice Hall / Harry N. Abrams. Toledano, Ehud R. 1998. Slavery and Abolition in the Ottoman Middle East. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

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Visona, Monica Blackmun, Robin Poynor, Herbert M. Cole, and Michael D. Harris. 2001. A History of Art in Africa. New York: Prentice Hall/Harry N. Abrams. Vlach, John Michael. 1991. By the Works of Their Hands: Studies in Afro-American Folklife. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. Wardlaw, Alvia J. 1990. “A Spiritual Libation: Promoting an African Heritage in Black Colleges.” In Black Art, Ancestral Legacy: The African Impulse in African-American Art, ed. Alvia J. Wardlaw, 53–74. New York: Dallas Museum of Art / Harry N. Abrams.

z Asantewaa, Yaa (ca. 1830–1922) Yaa Asantewaa, who led the last Asante war against the British in 1900 in what is popularly called the Yaa Asantewaa War, was a queen of Edweso, one of the traditional component states about 10 miles from Kumase, the capital of the famous 19th-century Asante Kingdom or Empire. Her leadership of the war has made her an iconic figure, cited regularly in African historiography and among gender activists. She was ranked one of the five most influential figures in the last century, according to a BBC Africa Service poll in 1999. Yaa Asantewaa was born about 1830 at Besease, near Edweso, to mother Nana Ataa Po or Nana Teepo of the royal Asona matrilineal clan and Kwaku Ampona from Ampabame, near Besease. Her only brother, who became chief of Edweso, was called Kwasi Afrane Panin. Described as Joan of Arc in 1950 by the London Daily Mirror, Yaa Asantewaa was in her early 70s when she led the war. The British had taken the king of Asante, Nana Osei Agyeman Prempeh I, and 55 of his chiefs and relatives to exile in the Seychelles Island in a bid to weaken their resistance to colonial rule. When the British captain Hodgson summoned the remnants of the monarchy to a

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meeting in Kumase on March 28, 1900, he demanded to have the Golden Stool. Believed by the Asantes to have been commanded from the skies in the early 1700s by Okomfo Anokye, the first traditional prophet of Asante, the Golden Stool has symbolized the kingdom’s soul and greatness since Osei Tutu, the first king, who died in 1717. To sit on the Golden Stool, as Hodgson demanded as the representative of Queen Victoria, was considered sacrilegious, for it was sat upon only on the coronation of an Asante king, an Asantehene. At a despondent meeting to discuss the demand, Yaa Asantewaa, the only woman among the chiefs, gave her famous speech: How can a proud and brave people like the Asante sit back and look away while the white man took away their king and chiefs, and humiliated them with a demand for the Golden Stool? The Golden Stool only means money to the white man; they have searched and dug everywhere for it, I shall not pay one predawn (eight British pounds and two cents) to the Governor. If you, the chiefs of Asante, are going to behave like cowards and not fight, you should exchange your loin clothes for my undergarments (Montu mo danta mma me na monnye me tam). (Agyeman-Duah 1999, 21) Soon after this statement, war ensued, and Yaa Asantewaa became its automatic leader and commander in chief. She built a personal army of more than 4,000 and appointed field commanders. The war lasted from April 2, 1900, to March 1901. The British suffered initial casualties and had reinforcement from as far away as Nigeria, its other colony. Eventually, the British managed to win through superior technology, search-and-burn tactics, and financial rewards to Asante’s war traitors. Yaa Asantewaa was arrested at Sreso Tinpomu, a small village south of Kumase, on March 3, 1901, where she had taken refuge. A

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prisoner of war, she was taken to Kumase and eventually sent to Mahe in the Seychelles Islands, where she joined Nana Prempeh and other Asante exiles. She passed away in the Seychelles Islands in 1922 at about 90 years of age. Ivor Agyeman-Duah See also Ghana. F URTHER R EADING Adu Boahen, A. 2003. Yaa Asantewaa and the Asante-British War of 1900–1. Accra, Ghana: Sub-Saharan Publishers. Agyeman-Duah, Ivor. 1999. The Asante Monarchy in Exile: The Exile of King Prempeh I and the Yaa Asantewaa War of 1900. Kumasi, Ghana: Center for Intellectual Renewal. Akyeampong, Emmanuel, and Pashington Obeng. 1995. “Spirituality, Gender, and Power in Asante History.” International Journal of African Studies 28 (3): 481–508.

z Àshé Àshé (sometimes spelled àxé, ache, and ase, and sometimes used as an equivalent of the Christian church’s “amen”) has been described as “the most important religio-aesthetic phenomenon to survive transatlantic slavery almost intact” (Abiodun, 1994). Indeed, àshé is still one of those African Diasporic theoretical concepts that, while it has currency among large portions of the population, remains unaccounted for, unnamed/misnamed or ignored in intellectual discourses. A preliminary recognition is that it is a concept that clearly had/has migratory capability. Àshé is one of those African diaspora forms that consistently escapes full meaning. In Afro-Brazilian ritual discourse, according to Dicionário de Cultos Afro-Brasileiro, àxé is described as the dynamic force of the divinities, power of realization, vitality that individualizes in objects like plants, metals, stones and

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Àshé | 119 other sacred objects interred under the central post of the terreiro (conserved sacred space where candomblé is practiced). Thus, it functions as the spiritual security of this space, representing a well of energy of all the orishas from which one may draw. These objects are then called àxés. A number of ritual offerings of sacred plants, sacrificial blood used in a variety of ceremonies, and a variety of ritual acts known only to initiates consistently revitalize the functioning of the àxé. Significantly, houses of Candomblé in Brazil are called ile àxé (“home of àxé”). As a cultural definition, then, àxé moves across two large discursive fields: that of spirituality and that of creativity, with its meanings and associations of what it is to be human in the world, questions of existence, the power to be, dynamic force in all things. Àsé is also sometimes used synonymously with medicine, charm, protection. Robert Farris Thompson, in The Flash of the Spirit, links àshé directly with the presence of the orishas and defines it as “the power-to-make-thingshappen, with the orishas as embodiments of àshé.” The importance of àshé in this particular articulation is as it relates directly to creativity, to dance, and to the power of the word, a mysterious force that makes words manifest or come to pass. For the Yoruba, a person with àsé (aláse), a person with authority, is one with innate metaphysical power, who by virtue of this power maintains an awesome control over spiritual realms and, by extension, over social ones. Àsé, then, is a kind of “voiced power”— a “manifest power” that bridges the areas of philosophy and creativity. Individual orishas possess àsé specific to their own energies and histories. Rowland Abiodun, in “Understanding Yoruba Art and Aesthetics: The Concept of Ase,” similarly identifies its enigmatic and affective nature, speaking particularly to its meaning as “creative power in the verbal and visual arts,” making a link between Yoruba culture and similar manifestations in African American culture, linking it with the spirit and the Holy Ghost in the black church.

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Àshé then migrates transatlantically, across the poles identified separately as secular/sacred or profane/religious. For Abiodun, àshé is identified in four basic ways: (1) It is loosely translated as “power,” “authority,” “command,” “scepter,” “the vital force” in all living and nonliving things. (2) A second interpretation is “the coming-to-pass” of an utterance, a logos proforicos. (3) To devotees of the orisa, àsé “inhabits and energizes the awe-inspiring space of the orisa, their altars (oju-ibo), objects, utensils, and offerings, including the air around them.” (4) Finally, “Ase also pertains to the identification, activation, and use of the energy believed to reside in all animals, plants, hills, rivers, human beings, and orisa. Potent medicinal preparations (oogun) may be taken orally or absorbed into the bloodstream through small cuts in designated places such as the lips. An efficacious use of ase also depends on verbalized, visualized, and performed characteristics of those things or beings whose powers are being harnessed” (Abiodun 1994, 72). Voice, then, is central to àshé, as through it one is able to make àshé come to life. Thus it simultaneously has a relationship with antiphony, or call and response, and what Abiodun identifies as iluti (which also means “teachability,” “good hearing,” “communicatability”), that other ubiquitous aesthetic principle in African Diaspora cultures. For it is through this logic of antiphony/call and response that both art and àshé have efficacy. So, without àshé, nothing can happen. However, the core of the individual must be developed by àshé—“this possibility of realization”—and àshé can be weakened or increased, has permanent recycling capability, to the extent that one is conscious and able to take the appropriate steps to accomplish this. In the Christian church, some see àshé as equivalent to spirit, or the Holy Ghost. The emphasis here is on “spirit work,” in particular the more active process verb “working” rather than a passive reception process.

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120 | Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) See also Black Churches and African American Spirituality; Brazil: Afro Brazilians; Candomblé; Santería. F URTHER R EADING Abiodun, Rowland. 1994. “Understanding Yoruba Art and Aesthetics: The Concept of Ashe.” African Arts 27 (3): 68–78, 102. Baker, Houston. 1991. Workings of the Spirit. The Poetics of Afro-American Women’s Writing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Barnes, Sandra T., ed. 1989. Africa’s Ogun: Old World and New. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Cacciatore, Olga Gudolle. 1977. Dicionário de Cultos Afro-Brasileiros. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Forense Universitária, 1977: 56. Gray, John, Comp. Ashé:, Traditional Religion and Healing in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Diaspora. A Classified International Bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1989. Murphy, Joseph. 1994. Working the Spirit: Ceremonies of the African Diaspora. Boston: Beacon Press. Thompson, Robert Farris. 1984. Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy. New York: Random House.

z Asia and the African Diaspora See The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA).

z Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) Founded in 1915 by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the author of The Mis-Education of the Negro (1915), as the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, its name was later changed to the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History and is now the Association for the Study of African American

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Life and History. These name changes follow some of the recent advances in naming the U.S. African American community. The oldest African American learned society in the United States, an organization comprised of scholars, teachers, and laypeople interested in all aspects of the black experience, ASALH has more than 50 branches in the United States and approximately 1,500 current members. Through its scholarly periodical, The Journal of African American History (formerly the Journal of Negro History), ASALH has greatly influenced the direction of black history since 1916, creating a field of study once said not to exist. In 1937, the Negro History Bulletin pioneered the study of minority history in American primary and secondary schools, laying the foundations for multicultural education. Beginning in 1926, ASALH evolved into an organization dedicated to promoting public and popular history as well as scholarship. Woodson established Negro History Week, which later became Black History Month, to promote the achievements of peoples of African descent in the United States and abroad. Shortly thereafter, the association changed its structure to include branches consisting primarily of teachers and laypeople. In 1976, ASALH formally expanded Negro History Week to a month and renamed the celebration Black History Month. In the late 1960s, with the rising interest in black studies and the leadership of Charles Harris Wesley, ASALH experienced a second golden age. Attendance at its annual meetings swelled to more than 3,000, and its membership and branches are reputed to have reached 25,000 and 118, respectively. Daryl Michael Scott See also African Americans and the Constitutional Order; “African” in African American History. F URTHER R EADING ASALH. 2004. Before Brown, Beyond Boundaries: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.

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Atlantic World and the African Diaspora | 121 Painter, Nell Irvin. 2005. Creating Black Americans: African American History and Its Meanings, 1619 to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press. Woodson, Carter G. 2006. The Mis-Education of the Negro. Booktree Press. (Original published in 1915.)

z Atlantic World and the African Diaspora The term “Atlantic world” as a historical concept connotes a process of integration, the evolution of interconnections among the economies and societies in the Atlantic basin (Western Africa, Western Europe, and the pre-Columbus peoples of the Americas). It is this all-encompassing process of interconnectedness that makes the Atlantic world a unit of historical analysis. The common forces that directed the socioeconomic process in the Atlantic basin from the 15th century to the 19th also made the Atlantic world the center of the globalization process during the period. Recent scholarship has examined the formation of composite cultures out of the mixture of cultural elements from the societies in the Atlantic basin (Okpewho, Davies, and Mazrui 1999; Walker 2001). These studies have provoked some lively debates, among which two stand out. One concerns the survival and spread of African cultural elements brought by enslaved Africans in the Americas (Hall 2006). The other, somewhat related debate is the process of creolization (the creation of hybrid cultures, essentially the mixture of African and European cultural elements). The most recent focus of this debate concerns the location of the process, Africa or the Americas (Heywood 2002). The African Diaspora, as a historical construction, is a unit of Atlantic world history. African Diasporic studies may have expanded to include the migration of African peoples across the globe (Harris 1982; Drake 1987,

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1990), but the forced migration of Africans to the Americas was the original focus and remains the main focus. Because of the centrality of Africa and African peoples to the common forces that pulled together the economies and societies in the Atlantic basin, the African Diaspora is also central to the history of the Atlantic world, a fact sometimes expressed dramatically with the use of the term “Black Atlantic” (as in the work of Robert Farris Thompson and Paul Gilroy). The common forces that shaped the evolution of interconnectedness in the Atlantic basin from the 15th century to the 19th arose from economic processes in the first instance. Market processes involving production, transportation, and sales created opportunities whose exploitation induced migration, forced and free, setting the stage for the interaction of peoples and cultures. The economic processes led ultimately to the creation of an integrated Atlantic economy, which provided the foundation for the development of all other elements that constitute the history of the Atlantic world. This subject essay examines the economics and politics of the evolution of this economic foundation. The 19th-century Atlantic economy was characterized by two main features, integration and hierarchy. By the late 19th century, the major markets in the Atlantic basin had been integrated to constitute the 19th-century Atlantic economy. Atlantic-wide division of labor influenced the level of production and consumption for masses of producers spread across the Atlantic basin, even in remote regions. But the economies and societies that constituted the Atlantic economy were not equal. In structure, technology, and income, the Atlantic economy was hierarchically arranged, with a few dominant economies at the top and a mass of dominated economies at the bottom. Within the individual economies and societies, economic and political inequality among social groups was also a common feature. Our examination of the evolution of

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the economic foundation of Atlantic world history focuses on the historical processes that produced these defining features. Although economic foundation is the subject of the article, it should be stressed from the onset that the hierarchical structure of the 19th-century Atlantic economy was not the product solely of market forces. Politico-military factors played a major role at every stage of the process. A political economy approach, therefore, informs this analysis to some degree. T HE D EVELOPMENT OF AN I NTEGRATED E CONOMY In 1440, on the eve of the Portuguese exploration of the Atlantic coast of Africa (Blake 1977), the economies and societies in the three main regions of the Atlantic basin operated in isolation from one another. Only indirect trade relations, through the intermediation of North African and Middle Eastern merchants, existed between Western Europe and Western Africa. The economies in all three regions remained precapitalist and preindustrial. Although the market economy had developed significantly in Western Europe and, to a lesser extent, in Western Africa, subsistence production remained extensive and dominant in all three regions, more so in the Americas. The collapse of the Mediterranean-based world trade in the 14th century, following the mid-century epidemic plague and the crisis of feudalism in Western Europe (Abu-Lughod 1989) considerably weakened the forces propelling trade expansion and the geographical spread of the market economy in Western Europe. This, in part, was the push factor in the 15th-century West European expansion overseas. By 1500, regular seaborne contact between Western Europe, Western Africa, the East Indies, and the Americas had been established; Portugal had been trading with Western Africa for about five decades; and the colonization of the Americas by Western Europe was in progress. By the second quarter of the 16th century, the major centers of civilization in the

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Americas (the Aztec and Inca empires) had been subjugated by the Spaniards, who began in earnest to exploit the silver mines of the conquered territories. Portuguese colonization of Brazil followed. Subsequently, northwest European powers—England, the Netherlands, and France—established their own American colonies in territories that the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas had assigned to Spain. From the 16th century, seaborne trade in spices and textiles was also established between Europe and the East Indies. The early Portuguese trade in West African gold, the subsequent expansion of Spanish American silver exports to Europe and Asia, and East Indian seaborne exports of spices and textiles to Europe were the beginning of the shift of the center of gravity in world trade from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. But the trade in Spanish American silver (though important in the early development of the market economy in Western Europe and Asia) and in East Indian spices and textiles was not large enough to stimulate extensive and sustained development of the division of labor within and between the economies of the Atlantic basin and those of the East Indies, given the high cost of seaborne and inland transportation before the Industrial Revolution. This is indicated by the overall value of Atlantic commerce in the 16th century, which grew from £3.2 million (sterling, annual average) in 1501– 1550 to £9.5 million in 1551–1600 (Inikori 2002, 202, Table 4.8). On the other hand, before the Industrial Revolution revolutionized the production of mass consumer manufactures and the transportation of products over long distances, trade with Asia was a one-way traffic supported largely by bullion exports, as Western Europe could not offer products that, in price and quality, appealed to Asian consumers. As late as the 1780s, European exports to India were less than one-third of European imports from India. In 1780–1790, the annual average value of European imports from India was £7,331,569 (sterling), and that of exports

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Atlantic World and the African Diaspora | 123 was only £2,393,610 (Chaundhuri 1983, 817). Before the English East India Company took control of the administration of the province of Bengal in 1765, the company paid for its imports from India largely with bullion exports from England, varying between £700,000 and £1 million annually (Chaundhuri 1983: 814– 815). As Chaundhuri (1983: 819) put it, even in the late 18th century, “there was no export market in India for European manufactures and the [English East India] Company was perfectly capable of supplying the entire demand for Indian imports at home [that is, in India].” Thus, the development of an integrated economy embracing extensive regions of the world occurred first in the Atlantic basin following the expansion of Atlantic commerce from the mid-17th to the 19th century. The driving force for that development came largely from the plantation and mining zones of the Americas. As Adam Smith emphasized, the division of labor is limited by the extent of the market. The predominance of subsistence production and self-sufficiency in the economies of the Atlantic basin in the 15th century arose from limited opportunity to trade. The plantation and mining economies of the Americas were the first large-scale specialized producers of commodities in the Atlantic world. At their peak in the 18th and 19th centuries, the plantation complex, especially the sugar economies of Brazil and the Caribbean, which combined agriculture and agro-industry in one operation, employed full-time millions of workers producing goods that must be marketed across the Atlantic. The degree of specialization and the overall scale of production reached their highest level first in the Caribbean in the 18th century and later in the cotton states of the United States in the 19th. Large-scale specialization in commodity production for Atlantic commerce in the New World plantation and mining zones created markets, which stimulated a second round of large-scale specialization in the production of goods and services

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for Atlantic commerce in other regions across the Atlantic. The third round in the growth of specialization and the geographical spread of the division of labor in the Atlantic world occurred within the domestic economies in the region. Wherever specialization in the production of goods and services for export to Atlantic markets occurred, a domestic market was created for producers within the domestic economy, as long as all of, or the bulk of, the goods needed to satisfy specialized export producers’ needs were not imported from elsewhere. The overall expansion of the process over time can be viewed from the growth of commodity production for Atlantic commerce in the Americas, which increased from approximately 8.0 million pounds (sterling, f.o.b. annual average) in 1651–1670 to 39.1 million pounds in 1781–1800, and £89.2 million pounds in 1848–1850 (Inikori 2002, 202). In the Americas, regions that were not well suited for plantation agriculture and possessed no silver or gold mines took advantage of the large-scale specialization in the plantation and mining zones to move out of subsistence production by using their endowed resources to fulfill part of their economic needs. It was through this channel that the Middle Atlantic and New England colonies were integrated into the Atlantic economy from the colonial period to the postcolonial period. The middle colonies (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware) produced and sold foodstuffs and shipping services to the plantation economies. The New England colonies (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire), which had been dominated by subsistence agriculture because their climates and soil were not suited for plantation agriculture, employed their endowment of deep natural harbors and forest resources to integrate into the Atlantic economy by producing and selling ships, shipping and other commercial services, and fish to the plantation economies in the Caribbean and the South. The expansion of cotton production for export in the U. S. South

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from 1790 to 1860 raised the integration process to a new level, with the rapid increase in migration and settlement of the Western lands to produce foodstuffs for markets in the South and Northeast provided by the explosive growth of the cotton economy. The tripartite interregional specialization between the South, the Northeast, and the West, and the growing volume of domestic trade to which it gave rise, induced investment in internal transport improvement (turnpike roads, canals, and, ultimately, the railroads), which created an efficient national market effectively linked to the Atlantic world market (North 1961). Similar developments occurred in Brazil and Spanish America, but to a lesser extent (Inikori 2002, 210–214). In Western Europe, production for export to Atlantic markets had similar effects. In the first instance, West European imperial countries (Spain, Portugal, England, and France) created de facto colonial common markets with their American colonies. But the distribution of the American products in Europe by the imperial powers and their import of manufactures from other European countries for domestic consumption and re-export to their American colonies integrated the colonial common markets into one quasicommon market centered on the Atlantic. Thus, the trade of Spain and Portugal with other European countries depended largely on their American colonies that supplied the bulk of the products they exported in their European trade. The European trade of England and France shared somewhat similar characteristics. After its Atlantic carrying trade was forcefully reduced by England and France from the mid-17th century, the Netherlands moved into the re-export trade of the colonial powers, helping to distribute their colonial re-exports in Europe. The available evidence strongly supports the inference that trade within Western Europe in the 18th and early 19th centuries was largely influenced by the multiplier effects of Atlantic commerce (Inikori 2002, 201–210). The level of

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business over time is indicated by the total annual average value of Atlantic commerce during the period (excluding the multiplier effects in the Americas and in Europe), which expanded from £20.1 million (sterling) in 1651– 1670 to £105.5 million in 1781–1800, and £231.0 million in 1848–1850 (Inikori 2002, 202, Table 4.8). Through a combination of two major factors (its naval power and the unique role of its American colonies in intra-American trade), England’s economy was far more involved, absolutely and in relation to its size, in the Atlantic economy than any other economy in the Atlantic basin during the period. Political processes in England from the late Middle Ages to the 17th century, interacting with the country’s overseas trade, created socioeconomic and political structures that ensured a singleminded employment of England’s naval power to defend the interests of British traders and shippers in the Atlantic basin (Inikori 2002, 36–38). England’s military victories in the Anglo-Dutch wars in the 17th century, the Seven Years’ War with France in the 18th century, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, 1793–1815, were particularly important in this regard. England’s naval power was also important in helping to secure economically advantageous treaties with Spain and Portugal, especially the Methuen Treaty of 1702 with Portugal. Among other things, this military advantage allowed England to secure and hold on to the plum territories in the Americas. Hence, the share of British America in the value of commodities produced in the Americas for Atlantic commerce grew from 5.3 percent in 1651–1670 to 50 percent in 1781– 1800, and 61.4 percent in 1848–1850 (Inikori 2002, 181, computed from Table 4.4). Furthermore, through the intra-American trade of British America, Spanish and French American territories were drawn into the British colonial common market. The integration of the Spanish and Portuguese American colonial common markets into that of the

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Atlantic World and the African Diaspora | 125 British was completed through England’s export and import trade with Spain and Portugal, which, for all practical purposes, was part of Spanish American and Brazilian trade. Thus, the evidence is clear that, from the last quarter of the 18th to the mid-19th century, England completely dominated the Atlantic economy; no other European power came even close. It has been argued by historian Eric Williams that the intensive involvement of England in the Atlantic economy was a critical factor in the successful completion of England’s industrialization process. The evidence is clear that the large and expanding Atlantic markets for England’s manufactures were largely responsible for the technological developments of the Industrial Revolution. This is why these technological changes occurred in Lancashire, the West Riding of Yorkshire, and the West Midlands (regions that exported most of their output to Atlantic markets during the period) while East Anglia, the West Country, and other southern counties that lost their European markets to local proto-industries under mercantilist policies stagnated. This is a vindication of Adam Smith’s vent-for-surplus theory and the more recent, sophisticated version, termed “endogenous growth theory.” Consistent with Smith, endogenous growth theory expresses technological development as a function of market size and rate of expansion (Inikori 2002, 123–155; Grossman and Helpman 1990, 1991; Romer 1994). American economic historians have also shown that technological development in the United States followed England’s pattern (regions with access to large and growing markets led in invention and technological innovation) (Engerman and Sokoloff 1997, 284–286). The Industrial Revolution in England, in turn, became a major factor in the emergence of an integrated Atlantic economy in the 19th century. As W. Arthur Lewis articulated the issues, England’s industrialization posed two challenges to the rest of the world: imitate England and industrialize. or take advantage of in-

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dustrialized England’s growing demand for raw materials and foodstuffs and expand production of primary commodities for export (1978). Most Western European countries did the former; the United States did both (North 1965, Chapter 7, 673–705); but Latin America and the Caribbean did the latter, a development due largely to the political power structures inherited from the colonial period, with dominant large landholders and mining magnates, whose interests were tied to the export of primary commodities in exchange for imported cheap manufactures. Thus, the international division of labor between industrial and nonindustrial, politically independent nations first emerged in the Atlantic basin in the 19th century. Industrialized England made other contributions. As its mechanized factory industry slashed the cost of producing mass consumer manufactures, its capital goods and technology revolutionized the transportation of products over long distances within nations and across the seas. British iron and steel and British capital helped in the construction of modern harbor facilities and railroads that integrated distant regions of the Americas into the Atlantic economy; the steel and steamships brought down freight costs in ocean transportation; and refrigeration technology made it possible to transport perishable foodstuffs over long distances, a development particularly important for Argentine beef trade in the 19th century. All this integrated the economies of the Atlantic ever more tightly. T HE A FRICAN D IASPORA , L ABOR , AND THE ATLANTIC E CONOMY Now, what was the role of the African Diaspora in the developments so far outlined? Mining and plantation agriculture in the Americas were large-scale enterprises requiring coordinated gang labor. Given the extremely low population densities of the Americas at the time, the abundance of land and the widespread dominance of subsistence production, to

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which it gave rise, made wage labor unavailable, at least at prices that would make those enterprises economical. Nor did demographic and socioeconomic conditions in Western Europe compel sustained large-scale migration to the Americas in the 17th and 18th centuries. The region could send only a few indentured servants induced to migrate by the prospect of securing land and settling down as small-scale, independent cultivators at the expiration of their contracts. Although coerced Native American labor was helpful in Spanish American silver mining, it proved unsuccessful in plantation agriculture and gold mining. Ultimately, it was millions of enslaved Africans and their descendants who provided the gang labor that made possible large-scale commodity production for Atlantic commerce in the Americas. They were the forced, large-scale, specialized producers of commodities for Atlantic commerce for 400 years, particularly during the period 1650–1850. Between 1501 and 1650, the labor of Diasporic Africans and their descendants produced between 54 and 69 percent of the total value (f.o.b.) of commodities produced in the Americas for Atlantic commerce; the proportion rose to 80 percent in the 18th century and was still as high as 69 percent by the mid-19th century (Inikori 2002, 197, Table 4.7). Given the evidence, we can agree with Adam Smith that “It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased” (cited by Drayton 2002, 100). Because of the importance of African labor in the globalization process in the Atlantic world, much of the cooperation among merchants from all corners of the Atlantic occurred on the African coast. In particular, British traders, when they were not exporting directly to all regions of the Americas, often operated as wholesalers on the African coast, selling full shiploads of African captives to exporters from Europe and the Americas, irrespective of the imperial laws of the European powers against such transactions. The records

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of the English Royal African Company show numerous such sales to French exporters. Indeed, the African coast was a de facto free-trade area for all traders from Europe and the Americas throughout the period. It is no exaggeration to say, as Drayton recently wrote, that “Africans, as labor, capital, and currency, shaped the terms of integration over four hundred years” (Drayton 2002, 100). T HE D EMAND FOR S LAVE L ABOR A pertinent question to ask is why demand for slave labor in the Americas focused exclusively on sub-Saharan Africa from the 16th to the 19th century. Why, for instance, was Europe not a source of supply, particularly since Europe had been the main source of supply for the North African and Middle Eastern slave markets for centuries? The explanation rests with a combination of market and political processes. Because individuals do not willingly offer themselves to be sold into chattel slavery, nor do parents knowingly sell their children for enslavement as chattels, slave trading is essentially a trade in stolen “goods,” with considerable disruptive effects on economies and societies. For this reason, rulers with the politico-military capacity to do so go to great lengths to keep capture and enslavement beyond the borders of their state as a matter of political expediency. As has been argued elsewhere, the development of a large-scale trade in captives for sale into chattel slavery depends on two critical conditions: (1) the existence of a market for slaves and a developed transportation system capable of transporting slaves to that market relatively cheaply, and (2) the existence of weakly organized communities whose members can be captured and sold at little cost to the captors. For communities to avoid capture and enslavement, they first must have governments strong enough to prevent internal breakdown of law and order under the pressure of large-scale export demand for captives. Without effective control of overseas exporters and complete elimination of local

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Atlantic World and the African Diaspora | 127 kidnapping for export sale, internal personstealing engenders a cycle of intracommunity social conflict that exposes members to capture and export. Second, they must have governments strong enough to inflict considerable punishment on external aggressors who may be tempted to capture and sell their subjects to profit from the market demand. It cannot be overemphasized that, for as long as there is market demand at relative price levels that justify supply efforts, somebody is going to do what it takes to meet the demand (Inikori 2003, 172). The existence of a large market for slave labor in the Americas and the development of an efficient transportation system by European traders met the first critical condition. The general prevalence of political fragmentation in the African coastal societies and their hinterlands satisfied the second. When the Portuguese arrived on the African coast in the mid-15th century, the major centralized states in Saharan Africa (Mali, Songhay, KanemBorno) were in the interior savanna. What is referred to here as Atlantic Africa (Atlantic coastal societies and their hinterlands) contained a large number of small, kin-based, autonomous political units (Diagne 1992, 23–45; Wondji 1992, 368–398; Izard and Ki-Zerbo 1992, 327–367; Barry 1992, 262–299; Barry 1998). The kingdom of Benin (in southwest Nigeria) and the Kongo kingdom (in WestCentral Africa), which were in the process of territorial expansion and the consolidation of centralized political power in the 15th and 16th centuries, were the exception. The Ife kingdom (southwest Nigeria) in the hinterland may also be mentioned. Beyond these, all of Atlantic Africa was characterized by small, kin-based political units during the period of study. For example, a map of the Gold Coast (southern modern Ghana) drawn by the Dutch in 1629 shows 43 independent political units (Daaku 1970, 144–145, 199; Boahen 1992, 422, counts 38). Before the Dahomean conquest in the early 18th century, the small area that consti-

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tuted the Kingdom of Dahomey (the modern Republic of Benin) had five independent political units: Allada, Whydah, Popo, Jakin, and Dahomey (Akinjogbin 1967, 11). In neighboring Yorubaland, before the rise of Oyo in the 17th century, there were more than a dozen independent political units (Smith 1988). As long as European trade in Atlantic Africa remained largely in African products, these small political units experienced little conflict and were able to cope. As European demand shifted radically to captives, they could neither effectively prevent the internal breakdown of law and order as rampant kidnapping by bandits escalated nor deal severely with external invaders. Even the Kongo state was not strong enough to deal effectively with the situation (Hilton 1985, 58, 69–70, 178–179; Vansina 1992, 566, 569; Vansina 1989, 1990). The emergence of such relatively strong states as Asante, Dahomey, and Oyo did provide protection for peoples incorporated into those states. But the vast majority of Africans, who lived outside those states, remained exposed to capture and export. With the collapse of the Oyo empire in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the people of Yorubaland in southwest Nigeria became part of the latter group. Africans without strong states to protect them devised several strategies to protect themselves, including movement to hilltops and other natural defensive territories (Diouf 2003, several chapters). But the evidence shows they were effective only in limited cases; hence, people from politically fragmented communities constituted the bulk of the captives exported. It is important to note that the combination of demand and the prevalence of political fragmentation also led to the export of captives from medieval and early modern Europe to the Middle East and North Africa. There was a great difference, of course, both in scale and in the global impact, owing to the capitalistic character of the markets served by the slave economies of the Americas. Ultimately, the spread of politico-militarily well-matched

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states across Europe (the Norman state in England, the Frankish state and its successors in Western continental Europe, the Ottoman empire in the Balkans and the Middle East, and the Russian empire) ended the trade in European captives, as the rulers of these states realized that it would be politically costly to them at home to export each other’s citizens, even war captives (Inikori 2003, 172–176). It was this political self-interest of the rulers in Europe, not the ideological unwillingness of Europeans to enslave other Europeans (Eltis 1993, 2000), that prevented the export of European captives for enslavement in the Americas. Just as the people in Africa at this time did not see themselves as Africans, the people in Europe had no strong pan-European identity to prevent the export of European captives by other Europeans. Thus, with Europe and the Middle East ruled out as shown, and Asia precluded by transportation cost, sub-Saharan Africa alone happened to fall into the combination of factors needed to support large-scale export of captives to the Americas. This fact leads to a related question: Who controlled the export of captives from Africa to the Americas: rulers and indigenous traders in Africa, or traders from Europe and the Americas? Some have argued that the European traders could not match the military strength of the states in Western Africa during the period; in consequence, European trade on the African coast was controlled by indigenous traders in Africa and their governments (Thornton 1992; Eltis 2000). This claim is difficult to substantiate given the preponderance of evidence to the contrary. First, the evidence is unambiguous that the economies of Western Europe had a clear commercial advantage at the point of seaborne contact in the mid-15th century. For this reason, traders and producers in Atlantic Africa responded to the changing needs of the European economies, which is always the case when economies at radically different levels of commercial development are brought together. This is reflected in the

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changes over time in what Atlantic Africa produced and sold to the European traders. Initially, European demand was largely for African products (gold, the driving force for Portuguese exploration to Africa), red pepper, hides and skins, ivory, woods. As yet, the economies of Western Europe had little need for enslaved African labor beyond the limited numbers taken to Portugal and Spain and to islands off the African coast. In response to this demand, Atlantic Africa produced and sold these products. When the colonization of the Americas led to a radical shift in European demand to captives by the mid-17th century, that demand interacted with the politicomilitary conditions earlier shown in this article to sustain the supply of millions of captives for export to the Americas. Then, about 200 years later, the needs of Western European economies changed once again, back to African products, the so-called legitimate commerce of the late 19th century. Atlantic Africa responded as previously, and raw cotton, palm produce, cocoa, woods, gold, diamonds, and other products were produced and sold to European traders in rapidly expanding quantities. The pace of growth was such that one writer in the early 20th century thought there was an “economic revolution in British West Africa” (McPhee 1926). Second, there can be no doubt that the small, kin-based political units in Atlantic Africa possessed no military power that could withstand the firepower of the European traders and the mercantilist governments that stood behind them in their struggle for commercial supremacy in the age of mercantilism, when international trade was treated as a form of war. Competition among the European traders, on the one hand, and among the African trading subregions/wards, on the other, imposed some restraint on actions capable of raising the cost of doing business. But no one with sufficient knowledge of the extensive archival evidence can be deceived by such cooperative gestures necessitated by cost and profit considerations.

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Atlantic World and the African Diaspora | 129 The European traders frequently agreed among themselves to fix prices. More to the point, whenever they felt the need to let the African rulers and traders know who had commercial and military power, the European traders demonstrated their military superiority mercilessly. This happened frequently on the Gold Coast (modern southern Ghana). The total burning of Cape Coast town in 1803 by British company officials following a trade dispute may be taken to illustrate. The naval officer, Captain W. Brown of HMS Rodney, sent by the British Government to investigate the matter, condemned the action of the British company officers in no uncertain terms, holding them totally responsible for the disruption of peace on the Gold Coast (Inikori 1996, 76–77). Even the one-sided evidence of English traders concerning a series of actions by them in southeastern Nigeria in the 18th century shows that they did not believe that the rulers and traders of the Nigerian port towns had the right or the capacity to dictate the terms of the trade. Among the many atrocities they committed, as documented by a recent researcher (Sparks 2004, 16–19, 25), what is particularly instructive is their ability to force the Nigerian traders to supply captives for export whenever local problems slowed trade: “the English captains tried every means to force them to trade” (p. 18). Sparks continues: One tactic was called rowing guard. English captains put boats into the river to stop Efik canoes. They captured the traders, and then held them hostage until they agreed to sell slaves at a reasonable price. They could also cut the Efik off from their supply of slaves by barring their passage upriver. (p. 18) The encounter between the rulers of the Kongo Kingdom in West-Central Africa and the Portuguese traders is even more telling. As long as copper dominated the early trade, Kongo rulers had little problem with the Portuguese traders

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and priests. But when Portuguese demand shifted to captives, law and order in the kingdom broke down, for the state was unable to prevent rampant kidnapping of people by some individuals within the kingdom. To solve the problem, the Kongo rulers tried to stop the Portuguese from trading in the kingdom and asked the king of Portugal to recall his traders and send only priests and technicians (Hilton 1985, 58). However, the Kongo state was unable to enforce this policy, and the Portuguese traders remained in Kongo and continued to trade in captives. As the sociopolitical crisis engendered by the trade in captives escalated in West-Central Africa and Kongo was invaded by external bandits, the government was unable to expel them and had to seek help from the king of Portugal (Hilton 1985, 69–70). Then came the destabilizing threat from the slaveraiding and slave-trading Portuguese colony of Angola in the 17th century. Frustrated and helpless, the kindom’s rulers mobilized all the resources at their disposal to confront the Portuguese on the battlefield in 1665. They suffered a crushing defeat. The king and the entire nobility were killed. With that, centralized authority in Kongo dissolved (Hilton 1985, 148– 149, 178–179; Vansina 1992, 566, 569). Thus, the preponderance of evidence shows beyond reasonable doubt that the changing needs of European economies and European traders controlled Africa’s Atlantic commerce during our period. However, to say that the European traders were in control and that African political and economic entrepreneurs responded to the changing needs of West European economies, as the evidence makes clear, does not imply that the individuals and communities that responded were not trying to serve their own self-interests. All it means is that those self-interests could be served in several ways, but the realistic choices that could be made at the time were dictated by the conditions created by changing European demand (a common phenomenon in trade relations between societies at significantly different levels

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of politico-military and commercial development, as the British historian K. G. Davies [1974, xi] pointed out several decades ago). W ESTERN A FRICA AND THE ATLANTIC E CONOMY Western Africa’s contribution to the formation of the 19th-century Atlantic economy, shown earlier in this article, was made at a considerable cost to the economies and societies in the region. The process of market development and the growth and geographical spread of the market economy in Western Africa had been going on for centuries before the Portuguese established regular seaborne trade between the region and Western Europe in the mid-15th century. That process was centered in the interior savanna of West Africa, the Niger Bend in particular. Atlantic Africa traded gold, kola nuts, and other primary commodities with the more politically and economically developed societies of the interior savanna in exchange for the latter’s manufactures and re-exports from the Sahara and the Mediterranean. The early European trade in African products, particularly gold, intensified and extended the commercializing process and the development of the market economy in Western Africa. Although the shipment of captives was involved from the very beginning, from the 1440s to the early 17th century the numbers in most regions were not large enough to seriously disrupt the trade in products (Daaku 1970, 149). In those early decades, the product trade generated the type of effects shown earlier for the Americas and Western Europe. The Gold Coast (modern Ghana) may be taken for illustration. The addition of European gold purchases on the coast to the preexisting exports to the interior savanna increased gold production, and the multiplier effect gave rise to overall population growth and increased urbanization. There is clear evidence that, in the 200 years from the mid-15th to the mid-17th century, many new towns and villages were founded in and around the gold-producing areas. Division of labor be-

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tween town and country developed as manufacturing concentrated in the towns, giving rise to the growth of trade between town and country (Kea 1982). This stimulated market expansion and the extension of the market economy, offering profitable opportunities for investment in land and agriculture. These opportunities were exploited by rich merchants who had accumulated huge wealth from the trade in gold and other products. Beginning in the 16th century, these wealthy trading families moved northward to invest their wealth in large-scale forest clearing and the creation of farmlands, developments that stimulated the rise of a land market in modern Ghana (Wilks 1977; Kea 1982, 85–91). It was at this time that the site on which the town of Kumasi was later built was purchased for the gold equivalent of £270 (sterling). For the forest-clearing task, the Asante entrepreneurs purchased labor brought from other African regions by the European traders (Kea 1982, 105–106). The commercializing economies in West Africa suffered a major setback when the European traders shifted their demand massively from products to captives as large-scale exploitation of the New World resources required slave labor. This development occurred at different times in the African subregions, depending on when they became heavily drawn into the trade in captives. In the area of modern Ghana, it began in the mid-17th century. Dutch officers on the Gold Coast reporting to their employers in the Netherlands were very precise, dating the process to 1658. In about 1730, they noted that “that part of Africa which as of old is known as the ‘Gold Coast’ because of the great quantity of gold which was at one time purchased there by the [Dutch West India] Company as well as by Dutch private ships, has now virtually changed into a pure Slave Coast.” (Inikori 1992, 106–107). This radical change in the character of Western Africa’s seaborne exports produced farreaching consequences for the position of African economies in the evolving Atlantic

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Atlantic World and the African Diaspora | 131 economy. As mentioned earlier, West Africa’s coastal regions and their hinterlands had exchanged primary products, such as gold and kola nuts, for the manufactures of the savanna economies and some re-exports from North Africa and the Middle East. The growth of the Atlantic slave trade severely weakened this interregional flow of goods. In the first place, the interior economies ceased to be the source of manufactures for the coastal consumers. Instead, the dense interior populations became the source of captives brought to the coast for sale to the Europeans, who supplied in exchange the manufactures needed by the coastal communities and their immediate hinterlands. Whereas the exchange of manufactures and primary products between Atlantic Africa and the interior stimulated further production and trade in both regions, leading to the extension of the division of labor and the market economy, the violent seizure of people, just like the stealing of goods, did not involve any market exchange with victim communities, in the first instance. It therefore did not stimulate further production and trade in the victim regions. As the captive-taking regions sold their captives to middlemen, who took them to the European exporters, some market transaction did grow, but largely in the coastal communities and their immediate hinterlands. Because the exchange of captives for imported goods did not involve directly the production of goods for market exchange, there was a major break in the circuit of production and market exchange. Added to this was the adverse effect of the sociopolitical conflicts engendered by the sale of captives, and the attendant population loss, on the growth of local and interregional specialization and trade. All these conditions favored the growth of enclave economies in the coastal regions. Again, evidence from the Gold Coast (modern Ghana) indicates the magnitude of the adverse effect. The commercializing process and the growth of the market economy associated with the several centuries of gold production, noted earlier, were all reversed. There was gen-

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eral depopulation and deurbanization; peasant production for market exchange declined; craft production moved from urban centers to the countryside, thus ending the division of labor between town and country, reestablishing the integration of agriculture and manufacturing, and promoting the propagation of subsistence production at the expense of production for market exchange. Archaeological evidence and contemporary written accounts confirm orally transmitted histories, which indicate that certain districts in modern Ghana were more urbanized and populous in the 17th century than they were in the late 18th or early 19th centuries (Kea 1982). The retardation of market development and the prolonged dominance of subsistence production in Western Africa meant that the economies of the region were not, properly speaking, integrated into the circuit of production for market exchange in the Atlantic world in the mid-19th century, despite the fact that “Africans, as labor, capital, and currency, shaped the terms of integration over four hundred years” (Drayton 2002, 100). After being held back for 200 years, the process of market development in Western Africa resumed again following the ending of the transatlantic slave trade and the growth of trade in products from the middle decades of the 19th century. By this time, the economies of Western Africa that had been ahead of the New World economies in development in the 15th century were now far behind, relegated to the very bottom of the Atlantic economy, where they faced the uphill task of competing in the emerging global economy, a task not helped by the onset of European colonial domination from the second half of the 19th century. Joseph E. Inikori See also Capitalism and Slavery; Middle Passage; Transatlantic Slave Trade. F URTHER R EADING Abu-Lughod, Janet L. 1989. Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250–1350. New York: Oxford University Press.

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132 | Atlantic World and the African Diaspora Akinjogbin, I. A. 1967. Dahomey and Its Neighbours, 1708–1818. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barry, Boubacar. 1992. “Senegambia from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century: Evolution of the Wolof, Sereer and ‘Tukuloor’.” In General History of Africa. Vol. 5, Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, ed. B. A. Ogot, 262–299. Berkeley: University of California Press/UNESCO. Barry, Boubacar. 1998. Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Originally published 1988, in French; translated by Ayi Kwei Armah). Blake, John W. 1977. West Africa: Quest for God and Gold, 1454–1578: A Survey of the First Century of White Enterprise in West Africa, with Particular Reference to the Achievement of the Portuguese and Their Rivalries with Other European Powers. London: Curzon Press. Boahen, A. A. 1992. “The States and Cultures of the Lower Guinea Coast.” In General History of Africa. Vol. 5, Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, 399–433. Berkeley, University of California Press/UNESCO. Chaundhuri, K. N. 1983. “Foreign Trade and Balance of Payments, 1757–1947.” In The Cambridge Economic History of India. Vol. 2, c. 1757-c. 1970, ed. Dharma Kumar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Daaku, Kwame Yeboa, 1970. Trade and Politics on the Gold Coast, 1600–1720: A Study of the African Reaction to European Trade. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Davies, K. G. 1974. The North Atlantic World in the Seventeenth Century. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Diagne, P. 1992. “African Political, Economic and Social Structures during This Period [1500– 1800].” In General History of Africa. Vol. 5, Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, ed. B. A. Ogot, 23–45. Berkeley: University of California Press / UNESCO. Diouf, Sylviane A., ed. 2003. Fighting the Slave Trade: West African Strategies. Athens: Ohio University Press. Drake, St. Clair. 1987, 1990. Black Folk Here and There, 2 vols. Los Angeles: Center for AfroAmerican Studies. Drayton, Richard. 2002. “The Collaboration of Labor: Slaves, Empires, and Globalizations in the Atlantic World, ca. 1600–1850.” In Globalization in World History, ed. A. G. Hopkins. New York: W. W. Norton.

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Eltis, David.1993. “Europeans and the Rise and Fall of African Slavery in the Americas.” American Historical Review 98: 1399–1423. Eltis, David. 2000. The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Engerman, Stanley L., and Kenneth L. Sokoloff. 1997. “Factor Endowments, Institutions, and Differential Paths of Growth among New World Economies: A View from Economic Historians of the United States.” In How Latin America Fell Behind: Essays on the Economic Histories of Brazil and Mexico, 1800–1914, ed. Stephen Haber, 284–286. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Grossman, Gene M., and Elhanan Helpman. 1990. “Trade, Innovation, and Growth.” American Economic Review 80 (2): 86–91. Grossman, Gene M., and Elhanan Helpman. 1991. Innovation and Growth in the Global Economy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo. 2006. African Ethnicities in the Americas: Restoring the Links. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Harris, Joseph E., ed. 1982. Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora. Washington, DC: Howard University Press. Heywood, Linda M., ed. 2002. Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hilton, Anne. 1985. The Kingdom of Kongo. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Inikori, Joseph E. 1992. “Africa in World History: The Export Slave Trade from Africa and the Emergence of the Atlantic Economic Order.” In General History of Africa. Vol. 5, Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, ed. B. A. Ogot, 74–112. Berkeley: University of California Press / UNESCO. Inikori, Joseph E. 1996. “Measuring the Unmeasured Hazards of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Documents Relating to the British Trade.” Revue Française d’Histoire d’Outre-Mer 83 (312): 53–92. Inikori, Joseph E. 2002. Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England: A Study in International Trade and Economic Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Inikori, Joseph E. 2003. “The Struggle against the Transatlantic Slave Trade: The Role of the State.” In Fighting the Slave Trade: West African Strategies, ed. Sylviane A. Diouf. Athens: Ohio University Press.

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Axum | 133 Izard, M., and J. Ki-Zerbo. 1992. “From the Niger to the Volta.” In General History of Africa. Vol. 5, Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, ed. B.A. Ogot, 327–367. Berkeley: University of California Press / UNESCO. Kea, Ray A. 1982. Settlement, Trade, and Polities in the Seventeenth-Century Gold Coast. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Lewis, W. Arthur. 1978. The Evolution of the International Economic Order. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. McPhee, Allan. 1971. The Economic Revolution in British West Africa. 2nd ed. London: Frank Cass. (Originally published 1926.) North, Douglass C. 1961. The Economic Growth of the United States, 1790 to 1860. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. North, Douglass C. 1965. “Industrialization in the United States.” In The Cambridge Economic History of Europe. Vol. 6, The Industrial Revolution and After: Incomes, Population and Technological Change (II), ed. H. J. Habakkuk and M. Postan, 673–705. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ogot, B.A., ed. 1992. General History of Africa.Vol. 5, Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press / UNESCO. Okpewho, Isidore, Carole Boyce Davies, and Ali A. Mazrui, eds. 1999. African Diaspora: African Origins and New World Identities. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Romer, Paul M. 1994. “The Origins of Endogenous Growth.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 8 (1): 3–22. Smith, Robert. 1988. Kingdoms of the Yoruba. 3rd ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Sparks, Randy J. 2004. The Two Princes of Calabar: An Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Odyssey. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Thornton, John K. 1992. Africa and Africans in the Making of the AtlanticWorld 1400–1680. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vansina, Jan. 1989. “Deep-Down Time: Political Tradition in Central Africa.” In History in Africa, Vol. 16, 341–362. Vansina, Jan. 1990. Paths in the Rainforests: Toward a History of Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa. London: James Currey. Vansina, Jan. 1992. “The Kingdom of Kongo and Its Neighbours.” In General History of Africa. Vol. 5, Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, ed. B. A. Ogot, 546–587. Berkeley: University of California Press / UNESCO.

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Walker, Sheila S., ed. 2001. African Roots/American Cultures: Africa in the Creation of the Americas. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Wilks, Ivor. 1977. “Land, Labour, Capital and the Forest Kingdom of Asante: A Model of Early Change.” In The Evolution of Social Systems, ed. J. Friedman and M. J. Rowlands. London: Duckworth. Williams, Eric. Capitalism and Slavery. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1944. Wondji, C. 1992. “The States and Cultures of the Upper Guinean Coast.” In General History of Africa. Vol. 5, Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, ed. B. A. Ogot, 368–398. Berkeley: University of California Press / UNESCO.

z Axum The city of Axum was the center of a vast trading empire for most of the first millennium CE. It is held by Ethiopians to house the Ark of the Covenant and the original tablets of the Ten Commandments, given by Yahweh to Moses as described in Exodus 20:1–17. Axum is located on the Shiré plateau in central Ethiopia. According to archeologists (Butzer 1981), Axum began as a ceremonial center in the first century CE. By the fourth century, it had flourished as the center of a trade network that stretched from Athens to Arabia and the Nile and brought in goods from as far away as China and India. During its heyday from the third through the sixth centuries, Axum exported gold, ivory, ebony, frankincense, myrrh, slaves, and civet cat musk (used in making perfumes). These luxury goods were exported through the ancient port of Adulis, modern-day Zula. By the mid-sixth century, environmental degradation and political factors had led to the decline and fall of the Axumite empire. Its spiritual importance was revived in the 14th century with the compilation of the Kebra Nagast, the preeminent work of Ethiopian religious literature. This work identified Axum

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as the seat of the Ark of the Covenant and the home of the Ethiopian Davidic monarchy. It is firmly believed by all members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, an ancient Christian denomination to which most of Ethiopia’s Semitic Amharic population ascribes, that the Ark of the Covenant was brought to Axum by Menelik I, the only son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The Bible recounts the encounter and romance of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba in Kings 10:1–13 and 2 Chronicles 9:1–12. The Kebra Nagast elaborates that the Queen of Sheba bore a son named Menelik, who returned to Jerusalem and absconded to Axum with the Ark of the Covenant. Thus, the Ethiopian Semites became God’s chosen people, and Menelik became the successor to the Kings of Israel and Judah and heir to the Davidic monarchy. Further proof is adduced by the fact that Solomon’s temple at Jerusalem was sacked by the Babylonians, but the Ark of the Covenant was never found. This story is endlessly repeated in Ethiopian art, prayer, and literature to this day. Most archeologists and historians contend that this is mere folklore, that Sheba was actually the Arabian kingdom of Saba on the other side of the Red Sea from Ethiopia and that Ethiopians adopted Judeo-Christian traditions only after the fourth century. But the story of the Ark of the Covenant as told by the Kebra Nagast remained the cornerstone of the Ethiopian monarchy, nation and church into the 20th century. The last emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie I, claimed direct descent from King David and adopted the Davidic title King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah. He was assassinated in 1974 by communist forces led by Colonel Haile Mengistu, and thus the Davidic monarchy in Ethiopia ended. But the Ark of the Covenant, according to Ethiopians, remains in Axum, in a tent guarded by an old Orthodox monk armed with a halberd. Brian Brazeal

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See also Abyssinia/Ethiopia; Haile Selassie I (1892–1975). F URTHER R EADING Holy Bible. Authorized King James Version. Iowa Falls, Iowa: World Bible Publishers, Exodus 20: 1–17, 1 Kings 10:1–13, 2 Chronicles 9:1–12. Brooks, Miguel, ed. 2002. Kebra Nagast (The Glory of Kings). Asmara, Eritrea: Red Sea Press. Budge, E. A. Wallis. 2000. The Queen of Sheba and Her Only Son Menyelek a/k/a the Kebra Nagast. Chicago: Research Associates School Times Publications. (Originally published 1932 by Oxford University Press.) Butzer, Karl W. 1981. “The Rise and Fall of Axum: A Geo-Archeological Interpretation.” American Antiquity 46 (3): 471–495. Kobichanov, Yuri M. 1979. Axum. Ed. Joseph Michels, trans. Lorraine Kapitanoff. University Park: University of Pennsylvania State Press.

z Azikiwe, Nnamdi (1904–1996) Nnamdi Azikiwe, also known as Zik of Africa, was among the first advocates for Pan-Africanism and African Renaissance who focused on the need to lead Old Africa, which had been overwhelmed by colonialism, to a New and United Africa free from the shackles of colonial masters. To build a New Africa, he suggested five principles: spiritual balance, social regeneration, economic determination, mental emancipation, and political resurgence. The first president of Nigeria, Azikiwe was born on November 16, 1904, in Zungeru, Niger State, into the family of Obededom Chukwuemeka Azikiwe and Racheal Chinwe Azikiwe. He attended various schools in Nigeria and resided all over Nigeria, which enabled him to speak the three main Nigerian languages, Igbo (his mother tongue), Hausa, and Yoruba. In 1920, he was influenced by the political philosophy of Reverend James Aggrey. After an unsuccessful attempt to stow away on a ship to America in 1924, his retired father gave him his life savings for his journey to America.

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Azikiwe, Nnamdi (1904–1996) | 135 In the late 1920s, in the United States, Azikiwe changed schools frequently due to financial difficulties. He attended Storer College in West Virginia for two years (1925–1927); Howard University in Washington, D.C. for another two years (1927–1929); and Lincoln University in Pennsylvania (1929–1930), from which he received a Bachelor’s degree in political science. His classmates included Thurgood Marshall, the late Supreme Court justice. In the summer of 1930, he was admitted to Columbia University to study journalism, with a scholarship from the Phelp Stokes Fund; later, he obtained a Master’s degree in religion and philosophy at Lincoln University (1932). In 1934, he registered for the Ph.D.; his thesis, “Liberian Diplomacy, 1847–1932” was published as Liberia in World Politics (1934). Influenced by Marcus Garvey’s ideas, he wrote an essay in the 1930s that was published in the Negro World while he was a student in the United States. Azikiwe returned to Nigeria in the mid-1930s and became involved in politics, forming the NCNC Party, and was actively involved in Nigeria’s fight for independence. His dream was finally realized on October 1, 1960, when Nigeria became an independent nation, and he was sworn in as the first indigenous governor general and commander in chief of the federation. In 1963, Nigeria became a republic, and Azikiwe became its first president. He was forced out of office in 1966 by a deadly coup d’etat. He played a significant role in ending the Nigerian Civil War, which lasted from 1967 to 1970. Azikiwe founded the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP) in 1978. His 1979 and 1983 bids for the presidency were unsuccessful amid suspicions of riggings by NPN, the ruling party. Also an active journalist, Azikiwe served as a university correspondent for the Baltimore AfroAmerican (1928–1934), as a general and sports correspondent for the Philadelphia Tribune

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(1928–1934), as editor in chief of the West African Pilot (1937–1945), as a correspondent for the Associated Negro Press (1944–1947), and as a correspondent for Reuters (1944–1946). He was also an active athlete, successful in such events as welterweight boxing, high jump, crosscountry, swimming, and soccer. A prolific writer, Azikiwe published more than 30 books and booklets on such issues as economic reconstruction, world politics, poetry, Pan-Africanism, the Nigerian civil war, and African history, and some of his poetry and speeches, such as Zik: A Selection of the Speeches of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and the Future of Pan-Africanism (1961); Meditations: A Collection of Poems (1964); The Realities of African Unity (1965), and History Will Vindicate the Just (1983). Azikiwe received numerous honorary degrees from Nigerian, American, and Liberian universities, and his portrait adorns the 500naira note and an international airport. A state university and a stadium in Nigeria are named after Dr. Azikiwe. He retired from active politics and withdrew to his country home in Nsukka, where he lived until May 11, 1996, when he passed away at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital. He was buried on November 16, 1996, at his country home in Onitsha. It should be noted that he was born four years after the dawn of the 20th century and died four years before the twilight of the same century. Uche Azikiwe See also Africa; Decolonization; Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940); Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–1972); Pan-Africanism. F URTHER R EADING Adi, Hakim. 1998. West Africans in Britain, 1900– 1960: Nationalism, Pan-Africanism, and Communism. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Azikiwe, Nnamdi. 1970. My Odyssey: An Autobiography. New York: Praeger.

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exhibited for entertainment purposes. The contract also stipulated that Saartjie would receive a portion of the earnings from her exhibitions and would be allowed to repatriate to South Africa in five years. Englishmen and women paid to see Saartjie Baartman’s semi-nude body in a cage. Only four feet six inches high, her miniature frame was not the main attraction. It was her buttocks that became the fascination of Europe. In September 1814, when Saartjie arrived in Paris, her guardian Hendrik Cezar sold her to a Parisian who showcased wild animals. Réaux knew of the rumored fascination that French men and women had for Khoisan women’s figures and felt that, by exhibiting Saartjie’s body around Paris, he would make a fortune. Réaux was right; he began to exhibit a semi-nude caged Saartjie as a one-woman spectacle, along with a baby rhinoceros. The Saartjie Baartman exhibition created such a French fascination that renowned naturalist Georges Cuvier asked her guardian, Réaux, if he would allow her to be illustrated and studied in the name of science. Réaux agreed, and in March 1815, Saartjie was studied by French anatomists, zoologists, and physiologists. After her examination, Cuvier determined that the Hottentot Venus (Sarah/Saartjie

Sarah, or Saartjie, Baartman, called the Hottentot Venus, was a Khoisan woman born in 1788 in Kaffraria, in the interior of Cape Colony in South Africa. She is an important figure in African Diasporan history because her body would be used by European anatomists to judge the stages of Western evolution, by forming conclusions about black women’s bodies and sexuality. One of six siblings, Saartjie’s parents died when she was very young. Her mother died when she was only two years old, and her father, who was a drover of cattle, was killed by a neighboring Khoisan man when she was an adolescent. Saartjie married a Khoisan drummer and had one child, who died shortly after birth. Renamed Saartjie Baartman, when the region became occupied by Dutch colonizers, she became a domestic servant to Peter Cezar, a Boer farmer. On October 29, 1810, Saartjie “signed a contract” with a friend of Cezar’s, an English surgeon named Alexander Dunlop, and Cezar’s brother, Hendrik Cezar. The conditions of the contract were that she would travel with the two men to England and Ireland, where she would perform domestic duties and would be 137 www.abc-clio.com

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Baartman) was the missing link between humans and animals. She was also a grotesque exaggeration of the female form, which to him made her and all other African women hypersexual, lewd, and promiscuous by physiology. Upon her death in 1816 from smallpox complicated by alcohol poisoning, Cuvier obtained her remains from local police and dissected her genitalia, brain, and breasts and also made a plaster cast of her body to be put on display at the Musée de l’Homme, where they were housed for more than 150 years. After requests and protests from South Africans, Baartman’s remains were finally returned to her home in South Africa in the postapartheid period and accorded an appropriate burial on August 9, 2002. Kaila Adia Story See also Atlantic World and the African Diaspora; Capitalism and Slavery. F URTHER R EADING Gottschild, Brenda Dixon. 2003. The Black Dancing Body: Geography from Coon to Cool. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. hooks, bell. 1992. “Selling Hot Pussy: Representations of Black Female Sexuality in the Cultural Marketplace.” In Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press. Whiting-Sharpley, T. Denean. 1999. Sexualized Savages, Primal Fears, and Primitive Narratives in French. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Willis, Deborah, and Carla Williams. 2002. The Black Female Body: A Photographic History. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

z Babalawo A Babalawo, or “Father of Secrets/Mysteries,” is a high priest of Orunmila, the witness of destiny in the Yoruba indigenous faith called IFA. The Yoruba are an ethnic group who can trace their lineage to Oduduwa, the progenitor of the Yoruba race. Ile-Ife, in Southwest Nigeria, is

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the original home of the Yoruba and the Ifa tradition; however, ancient empires such as Oyo and Benin are not to be overlooked in their importance in the historiography of the Yoruba. Echoes of the Yoruba culture can be found in the music, dance, clothing, food, language, and, most particularly, in the religions of the Diaspora and can sometimes be found hiding behind syncretic masks. Babalawos have made it on the journey through the Diaspora and have carried the Ifa tradition with them. The Ifa pantheon is structured in pyramidal strata, with Olodumare as the Supreme Being (God), Orunmila as the intercessor between the Orisa (divinities) and Olodumare, and the Orisa as the liaison for humans. In the Ifa tradition, one’s ancestors are also given reverence. Babalawos are key in communicating with Orunmila and the Orisa. This form of communication is done through a process called divination. A babalawo is able to divine through the use of such divination tools as a divining tray, called an opon ‘fa; a divination tapper, called an iroke; and 16 palm nuts, called ikin, or through the use of the opele—a divining chain. Through the patterns revealed by the ikin or opele, the babalawo is able to convey a story that relates to the life and situation of the client. One becomes a babalawo through a ceremony of initiation. Once initiated, in the first couple of years one carries the title of OmoAwo or Awo Kekere (a young priest) until he progresses and becomes more adept in the art of divination. The title of Babalawo is reserved for men; however, women of equal rank are called Iyalawo (“Mother of Secrets”) or, more commonly, Iyanifa (“Mothers in Ifa”). The Araba Agbaye is the worldwide leader of babalawos and is the representative of Orunmila on Earth. The current Araba Agbaye is Chief Adisa Makoranwale Aworeni, and he presides over the worldwide spiritual temple of Ifa in Oke Itase, located in Ile-Ife, Nigeria. Every June, which is the Yoruba New Year, a major festival is held in Ile-Ife in honor of Ifa. Jessica M. Alarcón

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Babu, Abdulrahman Mohammed (1924–1996) | 139 See also Santería. F URTHER R EADING Aluko, Chief Adedoja E. 2004. The Sixteen (16) Major Odu Ifa from Ile-Ife. Miami: Indigenous Faith of Africa, Inc. Falade, Fasina. 1998. Ifa: The Key to Its Understanding. Lynwood, CA: Ara Ifa Publishing.

z Babu, Abdulrahman Mohammed (1924–1996) Abdulrahman Mohammed (A.M.) Babu was a major leader of the 1964 Zanzibar revolution and minister of economic planning and foreign affairs (1964–1972) in Julius Nyerere’s Tanzania during the Ujamaa socialist years. An inspiring class-struggle Pan-Africanist, his charismatic speeches, prolific writing, and international community organizing were in the forefront of popularizing the idea of the second liberation of Africa from oppressive postcolonial regimes. Babu was a product of the Swahili coast and the Indian Ocean world, where mixed African and Arab ancestry was common. Still, the background to the Zanzibar revolution would be marked by the history of the East African slave trade and Arab-owned clove plantations, which exploited African migrant labor. Zanzibar was governed by the Sultan of Oman, an early neocolonial protectorate of Britain and, later, of the United States. After studying abroad in Britain, participating in Fenner Brockaway’s movement for colonial freedom, and being active in radical journalism among African students, Babu returned to help organize the Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP) with Ali Muhsin and, later, the Umma Party with Ali Sultani Issa. He also spearheaded popular associations of journalists, youth, and workers. Babu was instrumental among a cadre of activists who charted a path from Islamic modernism to Pan-African-

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ism and Third World Marxism. He was among the first African freedom fighters to visit Communist China and become a Maoist. A.M. Babu was jailed for sedition for criticizing U.S. and British imperialist influence in Zanzibar in 1962 but emerged to agitate for a popular revolt leading to the Zanzibar revolution in 1964. U.S. foreign policy, fearing that Babu would influence his island nation to become another Cuba, engineered behind the scenes the federation of Zanzibar and mainland Tanganyika led by Julius Nyerere. Babu, joining his cabinet, became the strongest intellectual opponent of the formidable Nyerere. Contributing to the radicalization of Nyerere’s foreign policy, he also criticized his Ujamaa socialist policies of domestic development. A.M. Babu facilitated foreign relations with communist and radical nationalist states, criticized American Cold War trade unionism, and established close relations with African American radicals Malcolm X and Amiri Baraka. Concerned with Nyerere’s insufficient development of the nation’s industrial autonomy and his wholesale nationalization of whatever industry existed, and particularly critical of the seizure of the largely Indian-owned textile industry, Babu was instrumental in getting aid from China to build the Tanzania-Zambia railway. Babu was arrested in 1972 on false charges of plotting the assassination of President Karume of Zanzibar. Never convicted, he remained in jail until 1978, when he was liberated by an international campaign. In prison, he wrote his classic work, African Socialism or Socialist Africa? (1981). He subsequently taught at San Francisco State University and Amherst College in the United States and at Birkbeck College in London. In 1994, Babu, as elder statesman, convened the Seventh Pan-African Congress in Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda. An advocate of multiparty democracy, he briefly stood as a candidate for vice president for the NCCR Mageuzi opposition party in Tanzania’s 1995 elections. Before he died in 1996, Babu was known as a fighter

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for the second liberation of Africa from corrupt postcolonial regimes and globalization. Matthew Quest See also Swahili; Zanzibar and the Southwest Indian Ocean in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Babu, Salma, and Amrit Wilson, eds. 2002. The Future That Works: Selected Writings of A.M. Babu. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Campbell, Horace. 1996. “Abdulrahman Mohammed Babu 1924–1996: A Personal Memoir.” African Journal of Political Science 1.2 (December): 240–246. Mamdani, Mahmood. 1996. “Babu: A Personal Tribute.” Review of African Political Economy 69 (23): 322–324. Sheriff, Abdul, and Ed Ferguson, eds. 1991. Zanzibar under Colonial Rule. London: James Currey. Wilson, Amrit. 1989. U.S. Foreign Policy and Revolution: The Creation of Tanzania. London: Pluto Press.

z Bahamas In more than 300 years of colonial history, enslaved and free peoples of the African Diaspora were major contributors in developing today’s Bahamas. The first permanent European settlers arrived in 1648 from Bermuda. It is uncertain when the first Africans were brought to these islands. In 1656, however, some enslaved and all free blacks from Bermuda were banished to Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas in retribution for a planned slave revolt. It is not known where these people settled, but this was the first community of free blacks in the Bahamas. In a 1768 report, Governor Thomas Shirley assessed Bahamians as “great Numbers of the inhabitants being Blacks, Mulattoes and Persons, who live by Wrecking and Plunder and are People of a very bold daring Spirit, which makes it highly necessary to have a proper force

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to enable the Civil power to put their Laws in execution” (Colonial Office Series 23/8:3–5). The Bahamas were a haven in the 1780s for Loyalist refugees from the American Revolution. They brought their thousands of slaves, but also making the journey were many free blacks seeking new lives. After the British ended the slave trade in 1807, the Bahamas became home to several thousand Africans rescued from ships the Royal Navy intercepted. In the 1820s, groups of Black Seminoles found refuge in the Bahamas to escape reenslavement after Florida became American territory. In the Bahamas, as elsewhere, the enslaved actively negotiated the most desirable conditions for themselves. Bahamian plantations were not profitable for long. Often, slaves were left to manage the daily operations of a plantation. In 1828, the more than 300 slaves of absentee planter Lord John Rolle staged the Bahamas’s largest slave uprising. Slaves on Lord Rolle’s five plantations on Exuma Island protested against plans to relocate them because they could not harvest their subsistence crops. Pompey, of Steventon plantation, led a delegation to the governor in Nassau. They were imprisoned at first, but the abolitionist governor ruled that they be allowed to return to Exuma with the right to work part time for themselves. By the 1890s, their descendants were recognized as the legitimate owners of this land. After full emancipation in 1838, there was extensive internal migration among the Bahamian islands. Andros, the largest island, attracted many new settlers because of the potential for involvement in the expanding sponging industry. Most workers were not paid in cash and so were perpetually in debt. In the late 1800s, thousands of black Bahamians migrated to places like south Florida and Cuba to get cash-paying jobs. During both world wars, the U.S. and British colonial governments signed agreements to contract Bahamian agricultural and construction workers. The second agreement, locally known as “the

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Bahamas: Liberated Africans | 141 Project” or “the Contract,” remained in effect until the early 1960s. Through these migrations, Bahamians of African descent have made contributions in a wider context. Two of the most notable were James Weldon Johnson, whose mother was Bahamian, and Sidney Poitier, who was born in the United States to parents who were temporary migrant workers. Grace Turner See also Bahamas: Liberated Africans; Black Seminoles at Red Bays, Bahamas; Creole Incident; Junkanoo. F URTHER R EADING Craton, Michael, and Gail Saunders. 1992. Islanders in the Stream: A History of the Bahamian People, 2 vols. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Johnson, Howard. 1996. The Bahamas from Slavery to Servitude, 1783–1933. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Johnson, Whittington. 2000. Race Relations in the Bahamas, 1784–1834. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press.

z Bahamas: Liberated Africans With the abolition of the slave trade by the British parliament in 1807, Africans rescued from slaving ships were resettled in British colonies as Liberated Africans. As free people within the African Diaspora, they maintained a strong sense of community. They served as apprentices initially, then were totally free. The Bahamas, British Guiana, and Trinidad were Caribbean colonies designated for their resettlement. Africans redirected to the Bahamas were originally on slave ships headed for Cuba or the United States. Between 1811, with the landing of the first group, and 1860, when the last group arrived, at least 6,000 Liberated Africans were settled in the Bahamas. Many were small-scale farmers

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who sold their produce in the Nassau market, while others worked as tradespeople. A number of them enlisted in the West India Regiments, which were composed of free black troops from the West Indies and Africa. Most were settled on New Providence, although other settlements were established on several Bahamian islands. In 1825 a village named Headquarters (later renamed Carmichael) was established for Liberated Africans who had completed their apprenticeships. This village was 10 miles (16 km) southwest of Nassau. These settlers chose to relocate to an area immediately south of Nassau for better access to employment opportunities in the town. This neighborhood was formally laid out as Grant’s Town. Today, this area, along with the later Bain Town, are commonly known as Over the Hill, from their location south of the hill forming Nassau’s southern limit. Until the early 20th century, this community had ethnic neighborhoods of Nangos (Yoruba) and Congos. A second village, Adelaide, was laid out in 1831 on the south coast, 16 miles (26 km) southwest of Nassau. It was to accommodate 157 Africans rescued from the Portuguese slaver Rosa. Among these apprentices was Abul Keli, an Ibo nobleman of Muslim faith who was literate in Arabic. He wrote at least three letters to the governor that were translated and published in the weekly newspaper, The Bahama Argus. In the first one, he introduced himself and thanked the benevolent sovereign who allowed him to be freed. In the other two, he offered the governor advice as one “basha” to another, but he also recorded his exasperation at being treated like a slave. Gambier, the third Liberated African village on New Providence, is on the north coast, 9 miles (14.5 km) west of Nassau. One of the settlers there was Elisah Morris, a participant in the 1841 slave mutiny aboard the Creole. Others of these 135 former slaves who remained in the Bahamas most likely settled in Gambier or one of the other Liberated African settlements.

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Today, both Adelaide and Gambier remain distinct communities. Since the mid-1830s, Liberated African villages have had the services of churches (the earliest are Anglican/Episcopal; the later, Baptist) as well as elementary schools. Grace Turner See also Bahamas; Creole Incident; Junkanoo; West India Regiments. F URTHER R EADING Adderley, Rosanne M. 1996. “New Negroes from Africa: Culture and Community among Liberated Africans in the Bahamas and Trinidad 1810–1900.” PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania. Eneas, Cleveland W. 1976. Bain Town. Nassau, Bahamas: Cleveland W. Eneas. Johnson, Howard. 1996. The Bahamas from Slavery to Servitude, 1783–1933. Gainesville: University of Florida Press.

z Baker, Ella J. (1903–1986) Born December 13, 1903, in Norfolk, Virginia, Ella Baker was the most important female leader of the modern Civil Rights Movement. As a veteran grassroots organizer of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), she went on to play a critical role in the formation of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). After graduating from Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1927, Baker moved to New York City. In 1930, she cofounded the Young Negro’s Cooperative League in Harlem while working at the public library on 135th Street. In 1938, she began traveling throughout the South as the NAACP’s field director, recruiting members and forming new chapters of the organization. Returning to the North, in 1951 and 1953 Baker ran as an independent candidate

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for the New York City Council on the Liberal Party ticket. Over the course of the 1950s, she pressed the NAACP’s mostly conservative and maledominated leadership to sponsor direct action campaigns and to work more closely with the newly formed Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC). However, she grew critical of the patronizing manner in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders of the SCLC conducted themselves. In 1960, in the wake of the Greensboro sit-ins, Baker worked with students and other young people to help them to assume greater political and organizational autonomy—out of which the SNCC was formed. For this, she is referred to as the godmother of SNCC. She was also known for developing “group-centered leadership.” In an effort to assert the black community’s political independence, in 1964 she helped to found the MFDP. Baker remained politically active through the 1970s, serving as an inspiration and a model for younger generations of activists. She passed away on her birthday, December 13, 1986. Omar H. Ali See also African American Women; Black Power Movement in the United States; Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Ture, Kwame (1941–1998). F URTHER R EADING Grant, Joanne. 1999. Ella Baker: Freedom Bound. New York: Wiley. Ransby, Barbara. 2003. Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

z Baker, Josephine (1906–1975) Josephine Baker, an American-born dancer and singer, was the best known of the coterie of African American entertainers who emi-

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Baker, Josephine (1906–1975) | 143 grated to France after World War I due to the lack of opportunity in America. The French were enchanted with this woman, whose exotic dancing they mistakenly thought represented primitive African dance. She achieved a level of fame, fortune, and acceptance in France that would have been virtually impossible in the United States. Baker was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 3, 1906. Since her childhood was particularly harsh, she ran away from home at the age of 13 to be a dresser for a vaudeville act called the Dixie Steppers. After working as a dresser for several road shows, she landed a role in the chorus line of Sissle and Blake’s Shuffle Along, as well as in their Broadway show, Chocolate Dandies. Her style of dancing and comic timing brought her many admirers, among them Caroline Dudley, who hired her in 1925 to travel to Paris to be a part of La Revue Negre. Baker was an instant hit in Paris. Her dark good looks and sensuality struck a chord with sophisticated Parisians, who had developed a taste for all things African. After the successful run of La Revue Negre and a European tour, she returned to Paris, where she became a star of the Folies Bergère. During this period, Baker also recorded songs, developed into a popular nightclub performer, and acted in movies. Baker hoped to succeed in the United States, but success repeatedly eluded her. Reviewers panned her 1936 Ziegfield Follies act. A 1951 tour was derailed when her outspoken comments regarding the racial restrictions she experienced led to a war of words with powerful journalist Walter Winchell. Baker returned to France eager to do something toward ending racial inequality. Baker epitomized the Jazz Age in Paris. While this accomplishment is quite impressive, it is not the only reason that she is celebrated. During World War II, Baker, who became a French citizen in 1937, jeopardized her life and health in order to spy for her adopted country. For this service she was awarded the Legion d’Honneur and the Rosette de la Resistance.

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Josephine Baker, a young African American dancer from the United States, was the star attraction in the 1920s at the Folies Bergères in Paris. She challenged the dominant aesthetic of that era by providing an alternative body language that had a major impact on contemporary dance. (Library of Congress)

During her U.S. tour in 1948, Baker decided to take a stand on racism by insisting on nondiscrimination clauses in her contracts. As a result of her work for racial equality, Baker was invited to participate in the 1963 civil rights march on Washington. Even on a personal level, she attempted an experiment in racial harmony: she adopted 12 children of various ethnic backgrounds who became her “rainbow tribe.” They resided at Baker’s chateau in the Dordogne, which she tried unsuccessfully to convert into a model community of brotherhood. Baker, however, never gave up her first love and remained a consummate entertainer until her death on April 12, 1975. Her lasting popularity was manifested at her military funeral at the Church of the Madeleine in Paris, which was attended by 20,000 people.

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144 | Bambaataa, Afrika (1957–) See also Black Paris/Paris Noir; Dance in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Baker, Jean-Claude, and Chris Chase. 1993. Josephine: The Hungry Heart. New York: Random House. Baker, Josephine, and Jo Bouillon. 1977. Josephine. Trans. Mariana Fitzpatrick. New York: Harper and Row. Haney, Lynn. 1981. Naked at the Feast: A Biography of Josephine Baker. New York: Dodd, Mead. Rose, Phyllis. 1989. Jazz Cleopatra: Josephine Baker in Her Time. New York: Doubleday.

z Bambaataa, Afrika (1957–) Afrika Bambaataa is recognized for spreading rap and hip-hop culture throughout the world. Due to his early use of drum machines and computer sounds, Bam (as he is affectionately known) was instrumental in changing the way rhythm and blues and other forms of black music were recorded. His creation of electro funk, beginning with his piece “Planet Rock,” helped fuel the development of such other musical genres as freestyle or Latin freestyle, Miami bass, electronica, house, hip house, and early techno. Bam is also recognized as a humanitarian and a man of peace who has applied elements of Afrocentric, spiritual, and health-conscious teachings to his philosophy. He is also a historian on hip-hop roots, tracing the culture back to the times of the African Griots. At a time when DJs—hip-hop and otherwise—were recognized for the distinctive records they played, Bam was called the Master of Records and was acclaimed for the wide variety of African Diaspora music and break records he presented to the hip-hop crowd, which included go-go, soca, salsa reggae, rock, jazz, funk, and African music. He is responsible for premiering to hip-hoppers the following records and songs that are now staples in rap

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and hip-hop culture: “Jam on the Groove” and “Calypso Breakdown” by Ralph McDonald; “Dance to the Drummer’s Beat” by Herman Kelly; “Champ” by the Mohawks; themes from The Andy Griffith Show and The Pink Panther; “Trans-Europe Express” by Kraftwerk; and hundreds of others. In November, 1973, he reformed a street group, moving them away from street gang culture and calling them the Zulu Nation (inspired by his wide studies on African history at the time). He was joined by five b-boys (break dancers) whom he called the Shaka ZULU Kings, a.k.a. ZULU Kings; there were also the Shaka Zulu Queens. As Bam continued deejaying, more DJs, rappers, break dancers, graffiti writers, and artists followed his parties, and he took them under his wing and made them members of his Zulu Nation. There were many DJ sound system and MC battles, in which rappers from Bam’s Zulu Nation would compete against each other musically and lyrically. Later, Bam also jointly promoted Shows with Kool Herc under the name Nubian Productions. Recordings beginning around 1980 include “Death Mix” and “ZULU Nation Throwdown,” and Bam’s parties had spread to places like the Audubon Ballroom and the T-Connection. Around 1982, hip-hop artist Fab 5 Freddy was putting together music packages in the largely white, downtown Manhattan new wave clubs and invited Bam to perform at one of them, the Mudd Club. It was the first time Bam had performed before a predominantly white crowd. In the autumn of 1982, Bam and other members of the Zulu Nation (which included Grand mixer D.ST, Fab 5 Freddy, Phase 2, Mr. Freeze, Dondi, Futura 2000, and Crazy Legs, to name a few) made the first of many trips to Europe. Visiting Le Batclan Theater in Paris, Bam and the other hip-hoppers made a considerable impression on the young people there, something that would continue throughout his travels as he began to spread hip-hop culture around the world. Bam’s second release, around 1983, was “Looking for the Perfect Beat” and then, later,

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Baraka, Amiri (1934–) | 145 “Renegades of Funk,” both with the group Soul Sonic Force. Bam also made a landmark recording with James Brown, titled “Unity.” It was admirably billed in music industry circles as “the Godfather of Soul meets the Godfather of Hip Hop.” Around October 1985, Bam and other music stars worked on the antiapartheid album Sun City with Little Steven Van Zandt, Run-D.M.C., Lou Reed, and numerous others. During 1988, Bam created The Light with Afrika Bambaataa and Family featuring Nona Hendryx, UB40, Boy George, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, and Yellowman. In 1990, Bam was named one of Life Magazine’s “Most Important Americans of the 20th Century.” He was also involved in the antiapartheid work Hip-Hop Artists Against Apartheid for Warlock Records. He teamed with the Jungle Brothers to record the album Return to Planet Rock (The Second Coming). Dark Matter Moving at the Speed of Light was released in 2004. Around this same period, Greenstreet Records, John Baker, and Bam organized a concert at Wembley Stadium in London for the ANC (African National Congress) in honor of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison. The concert brought together performances by British and American rappers and also introduced both Nelson and Winnie Mandela and the ANC to hip-hop audiences. Tony Muhammad See also Hip-Hop Culture in the African Diaspora; Rap/Rappin’; Rapso. F URTHER R EADING Chang, Jeff. 2005. Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Fricke, Jim, Charles Ahearn, Experience Music Project. 2002. Yes Yes Y’All: The Experience Music Project Oral History of Hip-Hop’s First Decade. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press. Vibe Magazine. 1999. The Vibe History of HipHop. New York: Three Rivers Press (Crown).

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Baraka, Amiri (1934–) An award-winning poet, playwright, and activist, Amiri Baraka rose to prominence during the revolutionary fervor of the Black Power Movement—the alternative to the Civil Rights Movement that sought more direct action, even violent self-defense, to effect equality for African Americans—becoming the preeminent artist-intellectual for the Black Arts Movement, the artistic wing of black power. On October 7, 1934, in Newark, New Jersey, Baraka was born into the middle-class household of social worker Anna Lois Jones (née Russ) and postal worker Coyette LeRoy Jones, who named him Everett LeRoi. His family pedigree was populated by teachers and ministers, and Baraka easily navigated Newark’s educational institutions. Thus, after spending his formative years in Newark, the precocious Baraka attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he studied philosophy, religion, and German, although English literature received most of his focus. Indeed, Baraka benefited greatly from the influence of celebrated poet and critic Sterling A. Brown while at Howard. Baraka, who considered careers ranging from medicine to the ministry, left Howard at age 19 and enlisted in the U. S. Air Force for three years (1954–1957), ultimately leaving with a dishonorable discharge. Exposed to French symbolist poets at Howard and yet drawn to the vitality of Beat writers, Baraka moved to Greenwich Village in New York after leaving the military. He published and edited avant-garde poetry and periodicals, becoming one of the most promising poets in a short period of time. He founded and co-edited the literary journal Yugen with Hettie Cohen, whom he married in 1958; thrived on the rebelliousness of the Beat counterculture, as symbolized by his interracial marriage; and even won a one-year stint as a Whitney Fellow (1960–1961). Still, Baraka soon grew weary of the political limitations bohemia imposed on him.

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This ideological disillusion became a total break with the Beat community when Baraka, traveling to Cuba with other artists and intellectuals in 1960 at Fidel Castro’s behest, saw how grassroots movements could initiate a successful revolution. Baraka had found his calling: the unification of high aesthetics and artistic functionality to combat racism, which he and other like-minded thinkers considered a challenge of near-cosmic proportions. Still writing as LeRoi Jones, he began breaking with the traditions and ideologies that had structured his life to this point. In 1967, he became a Muslim and cast off what he considered his “slave name” in favor of Imamu Ameer (“blessed prince”) Barakat, eventually settling on Amiri Baraka. Most importantly, Baraka showed increasing hostility toward standard, Westernized aesthetics, as he demonstrates in his novel The System of Dante’s Hell (1965). He soon favored an experimentalist black aesthetic infused with the vernacular and blues and jazz idiom he knew exceedingly well. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, Baraka had been reborn as a black nationalist revolutionary, artist, and activist. Baraka reached the height of his creativity and critical success in the 1960s, a decade in which he wrote volumes of poetry, plays, essays, reviews, critical studies, short stories, and political tracts prolifically, much of it reflecting his support of black nationalism and the black aesthetic. Following Fidel Castro (1959), Baraka’s pro-Castro anthology, and “Cuba Libre” (1960), an essay recounting his trip, he published Preface to a Twenty-Volume Suicide Note (1961), the poetry volumes Black Magic: Sabotage—Target Study; Black Art: Collected Poetry, 1961–1967 (1969), a short story collection entitled Tales (1967), and various essay collections and critical studies, like Blues People (1963), Home: Social Essays (1966), and Black Music (1967). By 1966, Baraka had divorced himself from his first wife and Greenwich and moved to Harlem. Baraka was even more prolific as a playwright, with works like Dutchman (1964),

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which won an Obie award, The Baptism (1964), The Slave (1964), The Toilet (1964), A Black Mass (1966), Great Goodness of Life (1967), Madheart (1967), and Slave Ship (1967). He won a Guggenheim award in 1964. In Harlem, he founded the Black Arts Repertory Theatre; returning to Newark, he founded the Spirit House (a.k.a. Heckula Community Centre), variously described as a community theatre, workshop, community center, and arts institution. Because of his trenchant activism, Baraka was also arrested, indicted, and eventually acquitted for possession of firearms. His lectures and poetry readings demonstrated his charisma and command of the performative, which often lent a dynamism to his presence ripe for the countercultural climate. As the federal government arrested many of the black power leaders or drove them into exile, Baraka himself moved from black nationalism to socialism (Marxism) and Pan-Africanism in the 1970s and pursued change through a more normative engagement with political processes. Baraka continued to publish poetry, plays, essays, and critical studies. Some of the more noteworthy include the books of poetry Why’s, Wise, Ys (1995) and Funk Lore: New Poems (1984–1995) (1996); the play The Sidney Poet Heroical: In 29 Scenes (1979); and the edited or co-edited critical studies and anthologies Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women (1983) and The LeRoi Jones / Amiri Baraka Reader (1991). Controversy has followed Baraka as well. In September 2002, his composition and reading of a post-9/11 poetic critique of America, “Somebody Blew Up America,” engendered widespread criticism, charges of antiSemitism, and attempts to remove him from his post as poet laureate of New Jersey. Later works include Eulogies (2002) and Tales of the out and the Gone (2007). justice and a black aesthetic remain major themes of Baraka’s art and politics as he struggles against the legacy of slavery and racism, and as critics and historians try to come to terms with his ongoing legacy. Gregory Rutledge

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Barbados: African Cultural Elements | 147 See also “African” in African American History; Black Arts Movement. F URTHER R EADING www.amiribaraka.com (accessed January 2, 2008) Benston, Kimberly. 1976. Baraka: The Renegade and the Mask. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Bernotas, Bob. 1991. Amiri Baraka. New York: Chelsea House. Harris, William J. 1985. The Poetry and Poetics of Amiri Baraka: The Jazz Aesthetic. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. Lacey, Henry C. 1981. To Raise, Destroy, and Create: The Poetry, Drama, and Fiction of Imamu Amiri Baraka (Le Roi Jones). Troy, NY: Whitston. Sollars, Werner. 1978. Amiri Baraka / LeRoi Jones: The Quest for a “Populist Modernism.” New York: Columbia University Press. Watts, Jerry Gafio. 2001. Amiri Baraka: The Politics and Arts of a Black Intellectual. New York: New York University Press.

z Barbados: African Cultural Elements I NTRODUCTION Barbados is a tiny island of 166 square miles, 21 miles long and 14 miles wide, and is the most easterly of the Windward Islands in the Caribbean chain of islands, located at latitude 13° north and longitude 59° west. The island, which is of coral, is mostly flat. It has a population of approximately 260,000 people and is known to be one of the five most densely populated areas in the world. While the official language is English, a nonstandard variety known as Bajan dialect is spoken by the majority of the population who are of African descent. Politically, the island is a parliamentary democracy and gained its independence from Britain in November 1966. Its main export was once sugar, but most of the sugar factories have been

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closed, and the island’s main source of revenue is tourism. Barbados is noted for a number of cultural artifacts that reveal without any doubt its strong African heritage. Settled by the British in 1627, Barbados remained solely under British dominance throughout its history but was forced, as were most of its Caribbean neighbors, to become part of the transatlantic slave trade with the advent of the sugar revolution in the 17th century, when the main crop changed from tobacco to sugar. Consequently, because of the influx of West Africans forcibly brought to the plantations and who soon outnumbered their British masters, there are also strong linguistic and cultural retentions. F OOD NAMES One of the major influences of the African Diaspora is seen in certain Barbadian food names and in the foods themselves. For example, there is the dish known as conkie (also called cankie) and known in other Caribbean territories as dukuna, which is a small pudding made of a mixture of grated coconut, cornmeal, sweet potato, raisins, spices, sugar, and essence, usually wrapped in a plantain or banana leaf and steamed. The word cankie, known better in Barbados as conkie, is derived from Twi (Asante) ka kye, “cake,” and Fante, which gives the word dukuna (Allsopp 1996, 134). This dish is usually eaten on holidays of national significance in Barbados, for example, Independence Day and Heroes Day. The national dish of Barbados is cou-cou, which is a food name and dish known throughout the Caribbean. It is made from cornmeal, okra, and butter (to which peas are sometimes added), boiled and stirred with a cou-cou stick until the mixture is stiff enough to be shaped into a ball. It is usually served with flying fish to form the national dish of Barbados. It is said to be prepared in Barbados today almost exactly the same way as it was done in some parts of Africa. Its etymon is said to be Twi kuku, “a species of yam.” There is also Twi

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kuku (from English), “a cook.” The spelling coucou is now well established in Barbados, as the meal is historically most associated with this island. The word has also become the base of other words and phrases, such as cou-cou stick, a smooth, flat piece of wood about one foot long and two inches wide with rounded edges that is used to stir and shape the cou-cou into a ball. There is also ball of cou-cou and turn-cou-cou; the latter is found in Trinidad as well. A third typically Barbadian dish with possible roots in West Africa is jug or jug-jug, which is a dish traditionally served at Christmas. The main ingredient is pigeon peas. The peas are boiled with small amounts of salted meat and pork added; when tender, the water is poured off, and the peas are then minced together with seasonings. Guinea-corn flour is added to the stock and cooked briefly. All the ingredients are then combined and cooked for about a half an hour until thick and sludgelike. The dish is probably of West African origin; a possible etymon is Igbo nju, “full measure” + gbu, “boil, cook.” It may have originated with the transplanted Africans who may have found that they had nothing but pigeon peas, some scraps of meat, and guinea-corn flour from which to produce a meal. M USIC AND M ASQUERADE C HARACTERS One of the strongest influences of the African Diaspora in Barbadian culture lies in the traditional music of Barbados, known as tuk, and the band that plays this type of music, the tukband. The tuk-band and tuk music are good examples of the creolization of Barbadian culture, for it derives from the 18th century British regimental fife-and-drum band. However, at that time in Barbados, there were about a hundred Africans who were drummers and trumpeters in the militia set up by the British. They would have been chosen to perform such roles because they had already come out of an African tradition. The resulting mix of the European with the African, as well as of folk songs and hymns together with the sophisticated

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syncopated rhythms of the “kittle,” or snare drum, is a classic example of creolization. The word tuk is possibly of Scottish origin, coming from the word touk, meaning “to beat or sound an instrument,” so that “touk of drum” meant “beat of drum.” When the music of the British marching band merged with the African-based rhythms of gospel music and Barbadian folk songs, the result was quite unique, yielding anything but marching music. The tuk-band was usually associated with the Landship, another notable example of creolization, coming out of the growth of Friendly Societies in 19th-century Barbados and originally modeled after the British Navy, as its members parade in naval uniforms; in some cases, female members wear nurse uniforms. The movements of the Landship are meant to simulate the movements of a ship at sea and its crew, but this is done by dance movements such as the “Wangle low,” a kind of limbo clearly of African origin. The Landship is referred to as the “engine” of the tuk-band. When the tuk-band operates on its own, a number of traditional dancers usually accompany it, such as the “tilt-man,” who performs on very high stilts meant to dazzle the audience; and the “donkey man,” a masquerader dressed in a costume shaped like a legless donkey. The legs are supplied by the dancer who simulates riding a very active animal. The costume originated in Africa and symbolizes the importance of the donkey in the sugar cane crop during the time of animal-drawn carts. There is also the “Mother-Sally,” usually a man dressed in woman’s clothing with a well padded behind, which he moves very rhythmically and exuberantly, to the delight of the crowd. These dancers represent a fusion of African and European traditions, and that is typical of the process of creolization. NATIONAL H EROES The best-known and possibly the most controversial national hero of Barbados is Bussa, whose statue occupies pride of place in the cen-

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Barbados: African Cultural Elements | 149 ter of the island, which is known as the Bussa roundabout, situated on the ABC Highway, which runs from the airport to the west coast of the island. Bussa, or Busso(e), was the head driver on Bayley’s Plantation in the parish of St Philip. He has been identified as one of the leaders of the Slave Rebellion of 1816 and the “alleged primary leader”; however, no specific historical evidence has been found to confirm this status, even though he is so identified within the island’s folk tradition, according to Hilary Beckles (1989). The claim has been made that Busso(e) was born in Africa, but there seems to be no firm evidence to support this. There were apparently several slaves called Busso, which was the form of the name found in 18th- and 19thcentury Barbados, who were actually born in Barbados, and the suggestion has been made that the slave leader of 1816 could probably have been a Busso who was a slave boy on Bayley’s Plantation in 1759, many years before the Rebellion of 1816. Given the vagueness that surrounds the facts of Busso’s birthplace and the level of his participation in the rebellion, it is difficult to identify his African Diaspora connections, but what seems certain is that he was an enslaved African who worked on Bayley’s Plantation, that one Busso was involved in the Rebellion of 1816 and that he certainly was killed during the struggle, possibly the one that took place on Bayley’s Plantation on the morning of Tuesday, April 16, 1816. Based on oral tradition, then, Busso was declared a National Hero in 1998. It is perhaps more what Busso symbolizes—the struggle for freedom from miserable slavery and the willingness to stand up for his belief in that freedom—that prompted the government of Barbados to name him one of Barbados’s National Heroes. The Emancipation Monument at the Saint Barnabas roundabout is popularly referred to as the Bussa Statu, or just Bussa, but Karl Broodhagen, the sculptor who created it, really intended it to be a symbolic figure of a “slave in revolt” rather than the representation

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of any one individual. No one really knows exactly what Bussa (Busso) looked like. F OLK T RADITIONS One of the main folk traditions in Barbados that was influenced by the African Diaspora but has now died out is the satiric “tea meeting.” During the period of slavery and later emancipation, it was noted that the enslaved Africans were particularly good at manipulating language. They developed what Roberts (1997, 45) calls a performance culture in which speechifying or the use of elaborate language in speeches that they delivered for their own entertainment became the norm. That gave rise to what became known as the “tea meeting.” In late-19th- and early-20th-century Barbados, tea meetings were the regular Sunday night entertainment event of the working-class population. There was usually a master of ceremonies, and, while those attending sipped tea or ate buns, the ladies often sang duets or quartets while the men indulged in lengthy displays of oratory with prepared speeches full of memorized Biblical quotations, Latin phrases, malapropisms, and classical allusions. The West African Diasporic retentions identified here are among the most typical and the most outstanding, and they have been chosen for that reason. Jeannette Allsopp See also Transatlantic Slave Trade. F URTHER R EADING Allsopp, Richard, and Jeannette Allsopp. 1996. Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Beckles, Hilary. 1989. White Servitude and Black Slavery in Barbados, 1627–1715. Nashville: University of Tennessee Press. Carrington, Sean, Henry Fraser, John Gilmore, and Forde Addinton. 2003. A-Z of Barbados Heritage. Oxford: Macmillan Education. Roberts, Peter A. 1997. From Oral to Literate Culture: Colonial Experience in the English West Indies. Mona, Jamaica: The Press University of the West Indies.

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Baron Samedi See Samedi.

z Basquiat, Jean-Michel (1960–1988) Jean-Michel Basquiat lived a very short but prolific life. He is one of the greatest artists to come out of the 1980s art movement called neoexpressionism, a modern art form that started as a response to the minimalism and conceptual art movements of the 1970s. JeanMichel Basquiat was born on December 22, 1960, into an African Diasporic middle-class family in Brooklyn, New York. His father, Gerard Basquiat, was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, while his Brooklyn-born mother, Matilde, was a second generation Puerto Rican. Matilde noticed and encouraged her son’s art abilities when he was quite young. In 1977, Jean-Michel used these abilities to graffiti the streets and subway trains with clever aphorisms signed with his tags, “SAMO8” and “ SAMO Shit,” which stood for “same old shit.” A year later, Jean-Michel left home and dropped out of school just one year before he would have graduated. Basquiat got by selling hand-painted postcards and T-shirts on the street. He gained a little fame by appearing regularly on a public-access cable show. In 1981, an Artforum article about him was written by artist and poet Rene Ricard. It was entitled “The Radiant Child,” and it shone a light on his artwork and helped him grow in recognition in the art community. His work was also featured in gallery exhibitions shows alongside Keith Haring and Barbara Kruger. Although he took on many subjects, much of Basquiat’s work involved such themes as the critique of racism, class, and poverty, and at times the history and condition of people of

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the African Diaspora. Basquiat is connected to hip-hop culture, not only because he was a young black youth living in hip-hop’s birthplace, New York, but because of the way he made an art form of one of the key components of hip-hop culture—graffiti. In Basquiat’s version, he performed his art like a DJ, mixing historical happenings with the present. Some of these mixings would include elements and symbols of the African Diaspora with his own creativity, thus creating his own symbolic universe. He also mixed different media, including photocopying with paint, screen-printing with drawing. Like an emcee, Basquiat filled his art pieces with vernacular language, repeated images, and chanted words in list form, crossing out words and letters not only to attract and control the viewer’s eye but also to create a rhythm in the composition. Like hip-hop today, white patronization of black art is a fiery discourse that was sparked by Basquiat’s cooptation by art dealers. Basquiat was befriended by pop artist Andy Warhol, and the two collaborated on a number of pieces. Commission-hungry art dealers hyped Basquiat’s career and uncompromisingly marketed him as one of the greatest artists of the time, taking unfinished pieces from his apartment. This 27-year-old life of excess proved too much for Jean-Michel Basquiat; he died on April 12, 1988, of a heroin overdose. His work had been seen in exhibitions across the globe, from New York to California to Japan to Europe and Africa, and is now in the collections of major owners and galleries. Jonelle A. Davies See also Art in the African Diaspora; Haiti; HipHop Culture in the African Diaspora; Puerto Rico: Afro-Puerto Ricans. F URTHER R EADING Brooklyn Museum. Street to Studio: The Art of Jean Michel Basquiat www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/basqui at/street-to-studio/ (Accessed January 2, 2008) Mayer, Marc, ed. 2005. Basquiat. Edited for the

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Batouala | 151

Haitian American painter Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1988. (Julio Donoso/Corbis Sygma)

Basquiat exhibition organized by the Brooklyn Museum. New York: Merrell.

z Batouala The book Batouala, a True Black Novel tells the story of the life and death of a mythical village chief—the incidents in his daily life and his relationship with his wives, friends, and the representatives of colonial power. The action is set in Central Africa, where the writer, René Maran, lived for 13 years. Because of its description of local lore, customs, and beliefs (cosmogony, rituals of circumcision, excision, burial, dowry, etc.), the book has ethnographic value. Published in 1921, Batouala was awarded the highest French literary distinction, the

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Goncourt prize, only two years after Marcel Proust won it. The book became a landmark in French and Francophone literature, for it was the very first time a writer of African descent had been awarded such a prize. The book as well as the prize had an impact that was political, ideological and literary: it provoked a polemical debate at the French National Assembly and an outcry in the literary and colonial worlds and was banned in the colonies because of its severe indictment of the French colonial system in Central Africa. The preface equated the colonial presence with a destructive force and denounced the extreme and inhuman exploitation that had led to a drastic decrease in the indigenous population. Maran’s position as a black man denouncing colonial exactions made him dangerous in the eyes of the colonial authorities, and he soon resigned his position. The

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fact that he was himself part of the system he denounced enhanced his credibility. In the African American world, the award was perceived as proof of France’s attachment to its famed principles of equality, fraternity, and human rights. DuBois praised René Maran for his indictment of French colonialism, and Alain Locke saw the prize as proof that the French were more liberal in terms of race relations than the Americans. Maran became a reference and a personality who rallied many people of the black Diaspora in Paris: the Nardal sisters and the founders of Negritude— Senghor, Césaire, and Damas—and such prominent African Americans as Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Bennett, Jessie Fauset, W. E. B. DuBois, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Countee Cullen, and Claude McKay. Maran was also a close friend of Alain Locke. Batouala is the first book written in French by a black man challenging the myth of colonization directly from the point of view of the colonized. It reverses the gaze in presenting the opinions of Africans on colonization and Westerners. The latter are no longer superheroes devoting themselves to the advancement of “backward” people, as the official propaganda proclaimed, but mere humans subjected to the gaze of their so-called inferiors. “The natives” associate the white man’s presence with misery and slavery, make merry when he is away, and criticize his personal habits. The only white appreciated in the book is the one who chose to espouse the habits and lifestyle of the country and therefore “went native.” Maran’s goal was to prove that, contrary to the myth of colonialist ideology, Africans, like all humans, were endowed with feelings, traditions, and a moral system; their system simply differed from that of Westerners. However, Maran’s depiction of Africans raised many criticisms. The Africans’ thoughts and actions in Batouala confirmed colonialist preconceptions by making them appear lazy, barbaric, and preoccupied with sex and celebrations; the circumcision ceremony recalls an orgy, and the

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vocabulary clearly expresses the writer’s disgust. Novelist and critic Maryse Condé and researcher Keith Cameron note the sexist representation of African women. Batouala was translated into English, Spanish, and Russian in 1922 and into Dutch in 1941. Marie H. Koffi-Tessio See also Césaire, Aimé (1913–2008); Damas, Léon-Gontran (1912–1976); DuBois, William Edward Burghardt (1868–1963); Haiti; Hughes, Langston (1902–1967); Locke, Alain (1886–1954); McKay, Claude (1889–1948); Négritude. F URTHER R EADING Campbell, James T. 2006. Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa, 1787–2005. New York: Penguin. Kesterloot, Lilyan. 1991. Black Writers in French: A Literary History of Negritude. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press. Young, Robert J. C. 2001. Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

z Bava Gor (14th Century?) Bava Gor is thought to have been an Abyssinian who came to India. He is depicted with other Afro-Indian Muslim saints and is central to a cluster of saints that includes his brother, Bava Habash, and his sister, Mai Mishra. According to one legend, Bava Gor was sent on a holy mission from Mecca to India. He is believed to have been a Muslim Abyssinian military commander who was ordered by the Prophet to fight against a female demon of Hindustan. The Afro-Indians in Gujarat believe that they are the descendants of the African soldiers and their wives who accompanied Bava Gor during his mission. Bava Gor provides an identity for the Afro-Indians in Gujarat who consider him their ancestral saint. These Afro-Indians use terminology common to to both Hindus and Muslims, such as Samadhi (“shrine”), Pujaviddhi (“shrine rituals”), Urs

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Belize: African Communities | 153 (death anniversary of a Pir, or Muslim saint). Of all the shrines dedicated to the cult, the tomb of Bava Gor in Ratanpur is the most important dargah (“shrine”) that remains an important pilgrimage site. At the shrine of Bava Gor, the fire at which he is supposed to have meditated for 12 years is kept burning continuously. Another myth, however, states that Bava Gor is the inventor of the beadcraft in the region. The commerce in agate beads, nevertheless, stems from the Indus Valley civilization. Bava Gor seems to have initiated the agate trade between East Africa and India, which led to the opening up of seams in places like Ratanpur (“gem city”) in Gujarat. Bava Gor’s brother, Bava Sabun, is believed to have traveled to Africa and Arabia selling the finished beads. A salient feature of the syncretic saint cult is the existence of both female and male spheres. The dargahs of the female saints are cared for by female Afro-Indians, and the dargahs of the male saints are cared for by Afro-Indian men. Men are not allowed to enter the most sacred part of the dargah of a female saint. Drumming and dancing, or goma (from ngoma, the Swahili word for “dance” and “drum”), is central to the ritual activity of these Afro-Indians. The type of dance varies depending on whether it is performed having been possessed, or not having been possessed, or to fulfill a vow, or during Urs. As ritual specialists, Afro-Indians are mediators between humans and the supernatural. Many are engaged in the maintenance of shrines and related ritual activities. AfroIndians consider themselves to be the owners of the dargah of Bava Gor and have defended their claim to it. Their clientele, devotees, and cult adepts stem from heterogeneous social and economic backgrounds and include Muslims, Hindus, and Parsis. Shihan De Silva Jayasuriya See also India and the African Diaspora; Siddis in North Karnataka, India: Biomedical Status; The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA).

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F URTHER R EADING De Silva Jayasuriya, Shihan, and Richard Pankhurst, eds. 2003. The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.

z Belize: African Communities Located in Central America and nestled between Mexico, Guatemala, and the Caribbean Sea, Belize is home to two Afro-Caribbean cultures, the Creoles and the Garinagu. The Creole and the Garinagu are descendants of African people who were introduced to this region by slavers and colonizers beginning in the 15th century. Both groups share an African heritage, but their experiences with slavery and resistance against slavery and colonization have shaped their culture, religion, and language in distinct ways. In Belize, the term “Creole” denotes an ethnic group whose members share an African and European ancestry but who may be mixed with any number of other racial and ethnic backgrounds. Creole, the ethnic group, is distinguished from Kriol, a language that most Belizeans, regardless of ethnicity, speak. The designation Creole was used in the early 1700s after the British baymen brought African slaves via Jamaica to British Honduras, the former name of Belize, to cut logwood, which was used as a dye in Europe, and mahogany, valued in England for furniture construction. From the colony’s inception, the population of Creoles was greater than that of whites, and this continued even after the abolition of slavery and self-government, but the British cultivated a relationship between themselves and the Creoles through work, education, religion, and language; therefore, the British maintained social, political and economic dominance. The Creoles’ majority status, as well as the Creole elite’s associations with the British, led to their dominance in civil service and

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politics, but for the vast majority of Belizeans, British slavery and colonization used law to censor and disband African languages and traditions—such as songs, dance, drumming, waking the gone—and used education to teach that England, the Anglican Church, and English traditions were the epitome of civilization. The history and sociology of the formation of Creole identity away from Africa toward Britain encouraged ethnic tensions that worked to keep the Creoles and the Garinagu peoples, two black cultures, apart. G ARINAGU The Garinagu throughout Central America and Belize are descendants of shipwrecked and runaway African slaves and Arawak and Carib Indians who lived on the island of Saint Vincent. Referred to as Garifuna in Belize, the term “Garinagu” signifies the nation of people who speak Garifuna. Persecuted by the British, French, and Spanish, the Carib Indians and escaped African slaves joined forces—through marriage and through militaristic arts—to fight British and enslavement in the 1600s and 1700s. Resistance against the British continued into the late 1700s, when the British exiled the Garinagu to the island of Roatan off the coast of Honduras. In the early 1800s, Garifuna people migrated to the southeastern shores of British Honduras. Here, they began to settle in increasing numbers, despite British Honduran settlers’ attempts to hinder and then limit their migration for fear they would incite slave rebellion. While the British settlers eventually allowed the Garinagu to settle permanently because they provided the settlement with workers for the logging camps and with needed agricultural products, they were successful in keeping the Creoles and Garinagu apart by labeling the latter as cannibals and dangerous; attempts were even made through legal means to fine parties that associated with any Garifuna. Isolated from the main settlement in Belize City, Garinagu culture and the Garifuna language flourished. Ethnic tensions between

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the Creoles and Garinagu, created by the British during slavery, continued in the Belizean society and worked to prevent intermarriage and to encourage discrimination. Since self-government and independence, several significant movements have sought to celebrate black people, their African ancestry, and their language and culture. In the early 1900s in Belize, Samuel A. Haynes formed the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and both the UNIA in Belize and the Black Cross Association promoted Garveyism. In the late 1960s, Evan X. Hyde, influenced by the Black Power Movement as a student in America, introduced the tenets of this movement and challenged the government, which was headed by premier George Price, a mestizo, who had emerged as the leader of the nationalist movement. Modeled on the black nationalist movement in the United States, the United Black Association for Development (UBAD), led by Hyde, fed the poor, held private and public meetings that promoted the message “black is beautiful,” and educated black men and women about their oppression by a racist and classist government. UBAD itself no longer exists, but the vision of the group and its leader, Evan X. Hyde—of empowering black people; challenging racial oppression, imperialism, and neocolonialism; and connecting the struggles of black people and nonwhite people—remains in his publications, in his newspaper Amandala, and in his involvement with the University of Belize to incorporate the history and cultures of African and Maya, Creole, and Garinagu peoples into the Belizean education curriculum. Furthermore, the Belizean government’s acknowledgement of the importance of the Garinagu to the nation was made evident in the late 1970s, when November 19, Garifuna Settlement Day, was declared a public and bank holiday in Belize. In the early 1980s, the National Garifuna Council was formed; but even before then, from as early as the 1920s, such Garifuna individuals as Thomas Vincent Ramos, Dr. Theodore Aranda,

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Benedetto the Moor, Saint (ca. 1524–1589) | 155 Mrs Phyllis Cayetano, and countless others celebrated and promoted Garifuna culture and pride. Belize is famous for its punta and brukdown music. Punta was brought to Belize by the Garifunas, and bruk-down roots lie with the Creoles. As Caribbean nationals, Belizeans also enjoy the music of calypso, soca, and reggae. The Belizeans have intertwined music into their celebration of various holidays. Julie Moody-Freeman See also Creole, Creolity, Creolization; Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940). F URTHER R EADING Bolland, O. Nigel. 2003. Colonialism and Resistance in Belize: Essays in Historical Sociology. 2nd rev. ed. Benque Viejo del Carmen, Belize: Cubola Productions and Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago: University of West Indies Press. Cayetano, Sebastian, and Fabian Cayetano. 1997. Garifuna History, Language, and Culture of Belize, Central America, and the Caribbean. Belize City, Belize: Cayetano Publishers. Hyde, Evan X. 1995. X Communication: Selected Writings. Belize City, Belize: Angelus Press. McClaurin, Irma. 1996. Women of Belize. Gender and Change in Central America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Shoman, Assad. 1994. Thirteen Chapters of a History of Belize. Belize City, Belize: Angelus Press.

z Benedetto the Moor, Saint (ca. 1524–1589) Saint Benedetto the Moor was likely born in 1524 in Sicily, in San Fratello (within today’s province of Messina) to two African slaves, Cristoforo Manasseri and Diana Larcan. Set free at birth, according to the hagiographic tradition, he joined the hermitical group of Geronimo Lanza and wandered from Santa Domenica to Platanella, from Mancusa to Monte Pellegrino. In 1562, the Holy See ordered him to join a convent, and Benedetto

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chose the monastery of Santa Maria di Gesú on Mount Grifone, outside Palermo. There he lived until his death in 1589, and his untainted body is still kept there. The most prominent of the city’s gentry came to him in flocks, begging him to predict their future, to read their hearts, and to explain to them complicated passages of the scriptures. More than anything else, they came to him to be healed of illness and injuries and for help with life’s troubles. It was said that he could multiply food, foretell the future, and raise the dead. His images, his tomb, and his relics performed the same miracles after his death. Indeed, immediately after his death, there were calls for an early initiation of the canonization process at the local level. The first phases of the canonization trials (in 1620 and 1625–1626) stumbled over the strict limits and regulations imposed by Pope Urbano VIII on the canonization of new saints. However, the monk—known by the people as “the holy slave”—was worshiped so widely that in 1652 the Senate of the city included him among the patron saints. Thus a black man, the son of African slaves, became the most important protector of Palermo, although he had not yet been recognized by the church as sanctified. The trials kept going throughout the two centuries of the early modern era, until Pope Pio VII solemnly proclaimed the canonization in 1807. Fraternal organizations named after him exist in Seville, Cadice, and Lisbon, and also in Lima, Mexico City, Vera Cruz, and Rio de Janeiro, where altars and churches were named after him, masses were celebrated for him, and episodes of his life were shown in miracle plays. Every year, several fraternal organizations raised alms to celebrate his feast. Called San Benito di Palermo in the Hispanic area, Sao Benedito o Preto or even Sao Ditinho in the Portuguese area, he helped missionaries in evangelizing the African slaves because he demonstrated the epitome of sanctity, centered on humility, obedience, and love between races and social classes.

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St. Benedetto, an Ethiopian (thus were called African blacks to be distinguished from North African Moors), could represent a valid alternative to St. Elesbao, the black emperor and proud instrument of divine wrath who exterminated the white enemies of Christianity. The meek and ascetic Benedetto taught slaves how they could “reach heaven through the path of suffering” without subverting the public order. Indeed, portrayed holding the infant Jesus in his arms, he hinted at the need for love—in such a condition of racial disproportion as there was in colonial plantations and mines—between master and slave; the same way the black monk loved the white child at whom he gazed so adoringly, in this same way would the black wet-nurse love the white baby for whom she cared. Benedetto’s story has unfolded over a vast geographic arena, both because of Sicily’s place within the Spanish empire and its position as the outpost of European Christianity, next to the coast of Africa. His devotion survived in the village that was his birthplace and in the district of Santa Maria di Gesú in Palermo and extended to Central and Latin America, where it is now very widespread, partly because of the syncretism performed by the slaves who were deported into the Americas: in a black saint, son of slaves, they have kept the memory of the distant African deities that even today are remembered with long processions and the characteristic music of drums and maracas, singing, and plentiful libations of rum. Giovanna Fiume See also Europe and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Fiume, Giovanna, ed. 2000. San Benedetto il Moro. Santiti, agiografia e primi processi di canonizzazione. Il santo patrono e la citta San Benedetto il Moro: culti, devozioni, agiografie di eti moderna. Venice, Italy: Marsilio. Fiume, Giovanna. 2002. Il Santo moro, I processi di canonizzazione di Benedetto da Palermo. Milan, Italy: Franco Angeli.

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Fiume, Giovanna, 2006. “Benedict the Moor: From Sicily to the New World.” In Saints and Their Cults in the Atlantic World, ed. Margaret J. Cormack, 16–51. Charleston: University of South Carolina Press.

z Benin The Republic of Benin, formerly known as Dahomey, is a small country of about 43,000 square miles (110,000 square kilometers). It is located on the West African coast, on the Atlantic, and is surrounded by Nigeria to the east, Togo to the west, and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. With a population of nearly 7 million inhabitants, the country is comprised of several ethnic groups, paramount among them the Adja, the Batombu, the Dendi, the Fon, and the Yoruba. The most widely spoken national languages are Fon and Yoruba in the south and Baatonu and Dendi in the north. French is the country’s official language. Though a small nation, Benin has a rich culture, a successful political system, and a tradition of vital intellectual life. Economically, Benin is essentially an agricultural country. The production of cotton is the country’s main source of revenue, but there are also cassava, corn, palm oil, peanuts, and yams—crops that grow well in Benin’s tropical climate, which is hot and humid in the south, semiarid in the north. The few industries that exist are connected to agricultural production and to such relatively scarce natural resources as limestone, marble, and timber. These have contributed in establishing textile and cement industries and food processing. It is said that the country also has small offshore oil deposits, which might boost its economy in the future. For the moment, however, Benin imports foodstuffs, capital goods, and petroleum products. It exports cotton, shea nuts, palm products, and cocoa. Its main trading partners are

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Benin | 157 Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, and Niger in West Africa, and France, China, and Thailand in the rest of the world. Benin’s economy remains weak in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) and per capita income, but there are plans to develop agriculture and to attract more foreign investments. The facts that Benin was granted a “debt reduction” from the G8 and was a recipient of the U.S. Millennium Challenge Account Funding in 2005 have generated renewed confidence in the potential for further development. The government is putting an emphasis on tourism, hoping to responsibly exploit the natural beauty of the country. Traveling through Benin, one must pass through Cotonou, which, like many metropolitan cities in West Africa, has its share of noise, pollution, traffic congestion, and seeming chaos. Once outside of Cotonou, however, the visitor can see Porto-Novo, a city built at the end of the 17th century that still preserves the traditional structures of the royal palace, which once housed the rulers of the kingdom of Porto-Novo. There are also streets of old colonial buildings with their high ceilings and banks of windows. Further along the Atlantic coast are Ganvié, the largest village on stilts in Africa, and Ouidah, the ancient port that served the slave trade for more than two centuries and contains an impressive memorial monument—“The Door of Non-Return”— facing the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. Ouidah is also one of the strongholds of the Vodoun religion, with its Temple of the Python located just opposite the Catholic Cathedral—a sign of national religious tolerance, as Benin people like to point out. Inland, near the center of the country, is Abomey, a historical town that was the heart of the kingdom of Dahomey. In the north of the country is Parakou, the main city. This region offers wonderful sites for visitors, from the animal park of the Penjari to the Tanougou Falls at the foot of the Atakora Mountains, and the tatas of the Somba people, magnificent, castle-like, adobe dwellings constructed in a unique architectural style.

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The complex history of Benin is figured in the designation of its capital city. Officially, Porto-Novo is the capital of Benin and was, at one point in history, the seat of government. But in fact, Benin prides itself in possessing four capital cities: Porto-Novo, still the official and administrative capital; Cotonou, the economic capital that harbors the government; Ouidah, the religious capital; and Abomey, the traditional and historical capital. The original land of Dahomey was the seat of several kingdoms: Djougou, Kandi, Nikki, and Parakou to the north; Allada, Porto-Novo, and Savi in the south. In the center was the actual kingdom of Dahomey (1645–1900), its capital city Abomey. Dahomey was first among equals, the equals being the most powerful and prestigious kingdoms in the country. The kingdom was particularly known for its involvement in the transatlantic slave trade and for the strength of its army and its fierce female warriors, called Amazons. European imperialism arrived in Dahomey in force at the end of the 19th century, when the French occupied the country. They overcame the resistance of its last independent monarch, Béhanzin, who was sent to exile in Martinique. They replaced him with AgoliAgbo, who was deported to Congo a few years later. The colony of Dahomey was officially established in 1894. The conquest proceeded through a series of protectorate contracts signed by diverse local kings. The northern part of the country was the last region to be conquered. Finally, in 1904, Dahomey was made part of the AOF (Afrique Occidentale Française, or French West Africa). The 60 years of French colonial rule in Dahomey were similar to the rule in the rest of the French empire in sub-Saharan Africa. The French created the foundation for Western style nation-states: transport infrastructure, a public education system, a bureaucratic administrative structure. They also made French the country’s lingua franca and pursued their “mission civilisatrice” by which they intended

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to “civilize” their African subjects. The seriousness of that intention was brought into question by the empire’s institutionalized racism, which officially denigrated African civilization and practically excluded Africans from positions of real authority. One unintended consequence of the French agenda in Dahomey was the creation of a native intelligentsia. Because of its comparatively high level of education, during the colonial days Dahomey was known for the number and quality of its intellectuals. It was called “Le Quartier Latin de l’Afrique” (the Latin Quarter of Africa), after the neighborhood of the Sorbonne in Paris. The official French empire broke up in the two decades following World War II. Dahomey became a republic on December 4, 1958, and gained full independence from France on August 1, 1960. After independence, Dahomey was the scene of turbulent but nonviolent political unrest. The political road was arduous and, between 1963 and 1972, Dahomey suffered through several military coups. Different political models were tried out: a succession of civilian and military regimes, one-party as well as multi-party systems, a three-man council in which each member was to be president on a rotating basis, and 18 years of a military, Marxist-Leninist regime headed by Lieutenant Colonel Mathieu Kérékou. It was during his rule that the name of the country changed from Dahomey to Benin. After Kérékou’s long and repressive regime, the country was ready for change and, in the 1990s, a national conference was convened, at which representatives of all sectors of society, from the political class to the civil society, from religious leaders to trade unionists, gathered to rethink the political direction of the country. This peaceful, revolutionary act is unparalleled and has not been successfully duplicated anywhere in Africa, despite several attempts. The national conference ended Marxism as a state policy, rewrote the constitution, and organized free elections that, in 1991, made Nicéphore Soglo the president of a new democracy. President Soglo then lost

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the 1996 elections to Kérékou, who then won a second turn in 2001. This time, he had to run the country as a democratic, civilian regime. In March 2006, a new president, Boni Yayi, was chosen, his election facilitated by a constitutional rule setting upper age limits for the office of president, making Soglo and Kérékou ineligible. Thus, Benin is now a democracy where the citizens enjoy a striking freedom of speech and where the civil society is actively engaged in the affairs of the country. In gender relations, women are still struggling for equality, but considerable gains have been made. A few ministries are headed by women, who also do considerable work in diverse NGOs geared toward women and children, improving their education, making them aware of their legal rights, and creating cooperatives where their work is valorized while providing a muchneeded income. Benin women are known throughout the region for their expertise in the import-export business and as skillful traders in the numerous markets that attract local and international clients. Neither a rich nor a politically strategic nation, Benin yet has achieved domestic success in politics and communal relations that might be the envy of any African country. Africa has been regarded as somehow an isolated continent, outside of the modern “globalized” world system. Yet, it was the epicenter of the first great movement of globalization, the transatlantic slave trade, which carried millions of Africans to the New World. The consequences of this trade, which even now cannot be measured or imagined, are everywhere apparent in West Africa and in the lands of the Diaspora, North and South America. Culturally, of course, this traffic was never one way. If Ouidah was the port of embarkation of more than one million Africans for enslavement in the Americas, including the United States, the Caribbean, Brazil, Cuba, and Haiti, it is also the port through which numerous freed slaves, from Brazil especially, came back to Africa in the beginning of the 19th cen-

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Benin | 159 tury. Called “the Returnees,” or the Aguda, or the Afro-Brazilians in Benin, they brought back Brazilian culture to Benin, just as they had taken Benin culture to Brazil and especially to Bahia. New identities were constantly being constructed, being created from both sides of the Atlantic where the blacks of the Diaspora borrowed from African customs and traditions, just as Africans have in turn borrowed from Diasporic traditions. In Benin, it is not unusual, for instance, to see the Brazilian influence in architecture, in food, in clothing and fashion, and in such cultural ceremonies as the carnival. The strongest link between Benin and the Diaspora, however, is probably religion, specifically the Vodoun religion, which, coming from the Fon of Dahomey/Benin, now forms a common heritage between Africa and the Americas. Vodoun is no doubt still alive in Benin among the Fon, the Yoruba, and other groups, but it is also present in the United States, notably Louisiana, New York, and Miami, Florida. It is famously established in Haiti, where it affects not only religious institutions but also many cultural and political forms. The Vodoun religion, in its Yoruba variant called Orisha, also reached the shores of Cuba, where it became Santería, and Brazil, where it became Candomblé. “Vodoun” is a word in the Fon language meaning “spirit,” but also “God” and “divine image”; it has come to refer to everything that is sacred. Indeed, the word “Vodoun” designates the deities as well as a set of religious beliefs, with their symbols, arts, prayers, chants, esoteric acts, rituals, and ceremonies. A fullfledged religion, Vodoun has an impressive pantheon of deities and has little to do with the distorted versions of “voodoo” that appear in Western pop culture. In the 1990s, President Soglo encouraged Benin to reclaim a part of its past that had been largely repressed. January 10 was proclaimed the day of Vodoun, and a worldwide festival-cumconference called Ouidah 1992 was organized. The name of the gathering was Retrouvailles

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Amériques-Afrique: Premier Festival Mondial des Arts et Cultures Vodoun (“Africa and the Americas Meet Again: First World Festival of Vodoun Arts and Cultures”). Artists, intellectuals, and religious leaders came from different countries in Africa as well as from Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, Europe, and the United States. The event was intended to reunite Africans from the Continent and from the Diaspora, to create a chain of solidarity among blacks the world over, to celebrate the creativity of black artists and writers, and to emphasize the cultural dimension of development. Again in 1994, Benin organized in Ouidah the launching of the UNESCO–Slave Route Project. Ouidah was chosen to host the conference because its shores had witnessed a ruthless slave trade beginning in the 16th century. Indeed, Ouidah was the center of the area known as the Slave Coast. One objective of the conference was to revive the collective memory of the slave trade, but also to transcend—without forgetting—its painful history and, in spite of it, to create new linkages between Africans of the Continent and those of the Diaspora. And of course, in a globalizing world, diasporas have not ended. If anything, they are increasing, and Benin also participates in what is now called “the new Diasporas,” that is, people from Africa in general and from Benin in particular who have migrated to the larger, global world. They have settled throughout the West—in France primarily, but also in other parts of Europe, the Caribbean, North America, and even Asia, where they now form new communities. These new communities continue vital interchanges with their African source, a practice that has been a primary characteristic of the African Diaspora since its beginnings. Iréne Assiba d’Almeida See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Haiti; Middle Passage; Transatlantic Slave Trade; Vodoun. F URTHER R EADING Ahanhanzo Glélè, Maurice. 1974. Le Daxome. Paris: Nubia.

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160 | Bennett, Louise (1919–2006) Akinkogbin, I. A. 1967. Dahomey and Its Neighbors: 1708–1818. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bay, Edna G. 1981. La République du Benin. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larosse. Bay, Edna G. 1998. Wives of the Leopard: Gender, Politics, and Culture in the Kingdom of Dahomey. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Cornevin, Robert. 1962. Histoire du Dahomey. Paris: Editions Berger-Levrault. d’Almeida-Topor, Hélène. 1984. Les Amazones du Dahomey. Paris: Rochevigne. Djossou-Ségla, Ariane. 1997. Promotion de la femme au Bénin. Cotonou, Benin: Fondation Freidrich Ebert. Herskovits, Melville J. 1938. Dahomey: An Ancient West African Kingdom, 2 vols. New York: J. J. Augustin. Law, Robin. 2004. Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving “Port,” 1727–1892. Athens: Ohio University Press. Mann, Kristin, and Edna G. Bay, eds. 2001. Rethinking the African Diaspora. The Making of a Black Atlantic World in the Bight of Benin and Brazil. London: Frank Cass Press. Ronen, Dov. 1975. Dahomey between Tradition and Modernity. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Verger, Pierre. 1968. Flux et reflux de la traite des négres entre le Golfe du Bénin et Bahia de Todos os Sontos. Paris: Mouton.

z Bennett, Louise (1919–2006) Described as Jamaica’s leading comedienne, Louise Bennett’s play with language is her greatest asset. Born on September 7, 1919, in Kingston, Jamaica, to a widowed seamstress, Bennett’s artistic ability was cultivated by her mother and grandmother, who were her nurturers. Bennett recalls that her knack for storytelling and performance developed at an early age. Steeped in the oral tradition, Bennett spent many years researching Jamaican folk tales and witnessing oral traditions, weddings, wakes, and religious ceremonies. Although

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Bennett’s literary career spans five decades or more, beginning in the 1950s, it took her more than a decade to gain “some level” of recognition. In 1962, she was included in the Independence Anthology of Jamaican Literature, albeit not in the poetry section. More than a decade later, after years of neglect and orchestrated exclusion from the literary scene, Bennett received the Order of Jamaica (1974). Finally, Bennett has received the long-overdue respect and recognition she justly deserves. For her invaluable contribution to Jamaican Arts and Culture, in 2001, on Jamaican Independence Day, the Honorable Louise BennettCoverly, or Ms. Lou, as she is affectionately called, was awarded the Order of Merit (O.M.) by the Jamaican government. Bennett is best known for her collection of poetry Jamaica Labrish (1966). As the term labrish suggests, the poems adopt a kind of storytelling format. Bennett engages in “direct” dialogue with her readers. The poems in this collection address issues ranging from politics, urbanization, war, and poverty to present economic and social conditions affecting individuals. Although the poems speak primarily to a Caribbean (Jamaican) sensibility, they possess a global agenda and are universal in scope and representation. In the poem “Colonisation in Reverse,” Bennett addresses the issues of mass migration of Jamaican people. Defining migration as a form of colonization, Bennett contends that England is receiving its just deserts, for Caribbean peoples are colonizing England in reverse. The migrants are engaging in foreign occupation as they populate the mother country. This occupation returns Britain’s foreign occupation of Caribbean countries, which were claimed as colonies. Symbolically, the following poem in this collection is titled “America.” This juxtaposition demonstrates that England is no longer the object of desirability for self-exile. Instead, America occupies that position. Aunty Roachy Seh (1993), a collection of radio monologues, is Bennett’s representation

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Louise Bennett, one of the most important oral storytellers in the Caribbean, sitting at the entrance to her Jamaican home in 1963. (Esther Anderson/Corbis)

of the Creole language in print. Aunty Roachy, undoubtedly a female narrator/storyteller, commands authorial presence and respect in the sentence “Aunty Roachy Seh.” The female narrator affirms the role as the culture-bearer who promotes the continuance and survival of oral cultures and traditions. The poem “Hero Nanny” evokes this image of the strong, fearless, warrior woman, whose womanpower remains intact despite attempts to obliterate her from history. Bennett also has many recordings to her repertoire, including Children’s Jamaican Songs and Games (1957), Jamaican Folk Songs and Stories (1966), and Lawd the Riddim Sweet (1999). Louise Bennett received her early education in Jamaica and was also awarded a British

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Council Scholarship for her study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. In 1960, Bennett received the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, bestowed by Queen Elizabeth II, for her outstanding contribution to the arts and culture of Jamaica. Other awards that Bennett has received include the Norman Manley Award for Excellence in the field of the arts, the Institute for Jamaica’s Musgrave Silver and Gold Medals for distinction in the field of arts and culture. York University in Toronto, Canada, awarded Bennett the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters in 1998. Five years earlier, she received a honorary doctorate from the University of the West Indies. Widowed in 2002, Bennett had been married to the late Eric Winston Coverly, also a theater personality. This union produced a son. A cultural icon, Bennett has destigmatized the social stigma attached to Caribbean dialect, according it significance and a space among other languages. She died in 2006 and was accorded a state funeral in Jamaica. Simone A. James Alexander See also Creole, Creolity, Creolization; Jamaica. F URTHER R EADING Alexander, Simone A. James. 2001. Mother Imagery in the Novels of Afro-Caribbean Women. Columbia: Missouri University Press. Bennett-Coverly, Louise. 1957. Children’s Jamaican Songs and Games. Sound recording. New York: Folkways. Bennett-Coverly, Louise. 1966. Jamaican Folk Songs and Stories. Sound recording. Kingston, Jamaica: Sangster’s Book Stores. Bennett-Coverly, Louise. 1966. Jamaica Labrish. Kingston, Jamaica: Sangster’s Book Stores. Bennett-Coverly, Louise. 1979. Anancy and Miss Lou. Kingston, Jamaica: Sangster’s Book Stores. Bennett-Coverly, Louise. 1993. Aunty Roachy Seh. Ed. Mervyn Morris. Kingston, Jamaica: Sangster’s Book Stores. Bennett-Coverly, Louise. 1999. Lawd the Riddim Sweet. Sound recording. Kingston, Jamaica: Sangster’s Book Stores. Cooper, Carolyn. 1995. Noises in the Blood: Orality, Gender and the “Vulgar” Body in Jamaican

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162 | Bethune, Mary McLeod (1875–1955) Popular Culture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

z Bethune, Mary McLeod (1875–1955) Mary McLeod Bethune, an activist-educator, leader, and “Race woman,” fought for black equality in the United States. She provided a school and social services for blacks and built coalitions to challenge racial discrimination. Her life story reflects black America’s history and demonstrates her progressive leadership and her philosophy of social change. On July 10, 1875, Mary Jane McLeod was the first freeborn child in a family of former slaves in rural Mayesville, South Carolina. Ten years later, she began her formal education miles from her home. In 1888, she traveled to Scotia Seminary in North Carolina for secondary schooling. By 1894, she entered Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois, for training as a missionary, graduating and returning to the South to teach. She married another teacher, Albertus Bethune, in 1898 and gave birth to a son the following year, yet she maintained her dream to educate black southern girls. By 1904, Bethune had founded Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls in Florida, and to keep her institution afloat she created viable networks in the surrounding community. Her curriculum included vocational and academic education, leadership skills, black heritage, and later teacher training. Merging with a college in 1923, her school was renamed Bethune-Cookman College, and Bethune became its president. As an activist, Bethune served as president of several black women’s federation clubs in Florida (1917–1920) and southeastern states (1920–1925) and of the National Association for Colored Women (1924–1928). These groups

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provided social resources and educated the masses on voting, legislation, and civil rights. By 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her to an advisory committee for overseeing policy in the new National Youth Administration (NYA), which provided jobs for unemployed and out-of-school youth. A year later, the president made her director of the NYA’s Negro Affairs department. In these positions, as she increased opportunities nationwide for black youth and established a special fund for black graduate students, her image as a “Race woman” excelled. Bethune sought other ways to increase federal black representation by organizing New Deal appointees into an ad hoc “black cabinet” to pressure the Roosevelt administration about civil rights issues. In the late 1930s, this group conducted black national conferences on Capitol Hill. Developing resolutions calling for equitable treatment for African Americans and demanding federal intervention at state levels to guarantee equality, their conference work preceded the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s. In 1935, Bethune founded and became president of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW). Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the group tracked discrimination practices in federal programs. Bethune extended NCNW activities internationally, participating in the Pan American Union and meeting with foreign embassy ambassadors at NCNW headquarters. Over time, she developed a political friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt, inviting her to participate in NCNW and NYA conferences and raising the First Lady’s race consciousness about discrimination against African Americans. Bethune served as an NYA Director until the agency’s demise in 1943. By 1949, Bethune had retired from presidential positions at her college and the NCNW. On May 18, 1955, Bethune died of heart failure. She was buried on her college campus. Gloria-yvonne See also Bethune-Cookman University.

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Mary McLeod Bethune fought fiercely to achieve social, economic, and educational opportunities for African Americans, particularly for African American women. (Library of Congress)

F URTHER R EADING McCluskey Audrey, and Elaine Smith, eds. 1999. Mary McLeod Bethune: Building a Better World, Essays and Selected Documents. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Smith, Elaine. “Mary McLeod Bethune and the National Youth Administration.” In Clio Was a Woman: Studies in the History of American Women, ed. Mabel E. Deutrich and Virginia C. Purdy, 149–177. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1980.

z Bethune-Cookman University Located in Daytona Beach, Florida, BethuneCookman University (formerly Bethune Cookman College) began as a historically black, church-related college that was founded in 1904 by Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, the leg-

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endary champion of racial justice, women’s empowerment, and youth development until her death in the mid-1950s. This private liberal arts institution admits a diverse array of promising secondary school graduates and adult learners. Its faculty’s central charge is teaching; along with that, faculty members present and publish their scholarly research. Students can be trained in the areas of Arts and Humanities, Business, Education, General Studies, Nursing, Science, Engineering and Mathematics, and Social Sciences. Extracurricular outlets for students include service and social organizations, religious programs, honor societies, academic area clubs, and intercollegiate and intramural athletics. At football games, the halftime program features stellar performances by the Marching Wildcats, who have appeared not only on television talk shows and commercials but also on the big screen, in the popular movie Drumline (2002). The history of Bethune-Cookman University is to be understood within the framework of African Americans’ post-slavery era quest to acquire formal education. Named in its earliest days the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls, B-CC, as it was called then, was widely known as the school that began with $1.50, five little girls, and faith in God. One day in 1920, Ku Klux Klan night riders encircled the campus; but instead of hiding in fear, Mary McLeod Bethune called all the students out of their dormitories onto the campus grounds to pray and sing spirituals. This response succeeded in driving the KKK away. A few years later, in 1923, Bethune merged the school with Jacksonville’s Darnell Cookman Institute for boys; with this merger, the school became a co-ed high school. The Cookman Institute of Jacksonville was primarily for boys, but there had been some girl students; one of its former students, Dr. Mary Alice Smith, who is more than eighty years old, still works at Bethune-Cookman. By 1931, the school had become a junior college and had acquired its current name. By

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1941, Bethune-Cookman College was offering state-approved baccalaureate programs in teacher education and liberal arts fields. Typical of the black colleges sponsored by mission societies who were more supportive of black leadership development, B-CC gave higher priority to the liberal arts than to the industrial arts curriculum typical of the TuskegeeHampton model. That model emphasized training teachers to mold black students for the lowest-paying manual jobs of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The campus’s Bethune Museum, a popular tour site for visitors to coastal Florida, is situated within Dr. Bethune’s home, an officially designated national historic landmark. After a tour of the building, visitors purchase a copy of Mary McLeod Bethune’s famous and inspiring Last Will and Testament, which she bequeathed to the entire black community. At her death, this visionary woman was buried on campus; her gravesite receives many visitors. Ever since the presidency of Dr. Bethune, B-CC has urged its students to “enter to learn, and depart to serve,” with placards bearing this message posted in the archways of the administration building. With the 2004 appointment of Dr. Trudie Kibbe Reed, B-CC marked its centennial year, boasting the institution’s first female president since its founding by Dr. Bethune. Dr. Kibbe Reed became the fifth president of the College. Today, Bethune-Cookman boasts a student population of nearly 3000 students, the highest enrollment in its history. As to funding, Bethune-Cookman maintains its black self-help tradition. It has major funding relations with the United Negro College Fund (UNCF); the UNCF was founded when Dr. Bethune merged B-CC’s funding campaign in 1944 with Tuskegee’s. Along with corporate and foundation contributions and the approval of its master’s degree in transformative leadership, on February 14, 2007, Bethune-Cookman officially announced its upgraded status as a university. Both “college”

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and “university” are now used as the school introduces the exclusive use of “university.” Annette I. Kashif See also “African” in African American History; Bethune, Mary McLeod (1875–1955); Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Anderson, James. 1988. The Education of Blacks in the South, 1869–1935. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Bethune Museum Foundation Tour, Centennial Journal 1/05, Catalog, 2002–2006. www.uncf.org/webfeature/archives

z Bibb, Henry (1815–1854) Former slave and African American abolitionist, activist, and orator, Henry Bibb was born into slavery on May 10, 1815, in Shelby County, Kentucky. His father was state senator James Bibb, and his mother, Mildred Jackson, was a slave on a plantation owned by Wilard Gatewood. As is typical of many slave narratives, Bibb noted that, as a child, he saw most of his seven siblings sold to different plantations, and he rarely saw his mother. He himself was sold several times to various plantation owners in Kentucky. Bibb married a slave woman in the 1830s but was furious when his wife’s owner forced her into prostitution. More fiercely dedicated to securing his freedom than ever, Bibb made several attempts to escape, and in 1837 he succeeded. Not content with his individual freedom, Bibb made several failed attempts to rescue his family from slavery. After the first attempt, six months after Bibb’s initial escape, they were caught and sold to a plantation owner in Vicksburg, Ohio. During the next attempt, the family was captured after being attacked by wolves, after which Bibb was sold to a group of Native Americans.

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Biko, Stephen (1946–1977) | 165 He escaped to Detroit in 1842, where he briefly attended school. It was there that he joined the antislavery movement. In 1851, Bibb and fellow activist and former slave Josiah Henson established the Refugee’s Home Colony for escaped slaves in Canada. Recognizing the need for a public voice for the experiences of escaped slaves, Bibb also published Voice of the Fugitive, the first African American newspaper in Canada. Through the Voice, Bibb encouraged free African Americans to come to Canada, extolling the country as a safe haven for the oppressed. Although the paper was short-lived, contributors included Martin Delaney. While on a lecture tour in Boston, Bibb met Mary Miles, whom he married in June 1848. In 1849, the Anti-Slavery Society published The Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, which, along with Frederick Douglass’s and Harriet Jacob’s narratives, is widely considered one of the most reliable autobiographies. In a way, Douglass’s account of his ascension from slave to fully realized man is straightforward, whereas Bibb’s account retains the heartache of a man yearning to move forward but struggling with making that journey alone. He continuously and painfully reaches back to save those he loves. Bibb was considered a brilliant and skilled orator who was adept at presenting both the horrible details and the inherent contradictions in the institution of slavery. He castigated the Fugitive Slave Act; in 1842, Bibb began lecturing on slavery along with Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown. Concerned about the condition of people of African descent through the world, Bibb worked with the Liberty Party in Michigan, served as president of the North American Convention of Colored People, and formed the American Continental and West India League to Unite Free Negroes, a Pan-African society. Bibb died during the summer of 1854. Jason Esters See also Canada and the African Diaspora.

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F URTHER R EADING Bibb, Henry. 2001. The Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb: An American Slave. Introduction by Charles J. Heglar. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. (Originally published 1849.)

z Biko, Stephen (1946–1977) Founder of the Black Consciousness Movement and martyr for South African civil rights, Stephen Biko was born December 18, 1946, in King William’s Town, Eastern Cape, South Africa. Biko began his activism as a teenager at his first school, Lovedale. Following the arrest of his brother for political activism, Biko was soon expelled for his own revolutionary activities. After his expulsion, Biko enrolled in St. Francis College, a Catholic boarding school in Natal that was also politically liberal. He graduated in 1966 and entered the University of Natal Medical School. There, he became involved in the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), a multicultural, somewhat moderate organization that petitioned for the rights of South African blacks and advocated a gradual approach to equality. Biko became disenchanted with the NUSAS’s mostly white leadership, claiming that “the whites [were] doing all the talking and the blacks listening.” Believing that blacks should have their destiny in their own hands and lead the way through their oppression, Biko, along with Barney Pityana, Aubrey Mokoena, Patrick Lekota, and Saths Cooper, founded the all-black South African Students’ Organization (SASO) in 1969. As its president, he asserted that the institutional racism to which blacks had been subjected caused psychological oppression as well as physical oppression. The evolution of black leadership and the increased reliance of the black masses on themselves would be the only remedy for the second-class citizenship afforded by the apartheid system. This philosophy came to be known as black consciousness.

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The SASO established health clinics in rural areas, literacy programs for the large numbers of South Africans with little or no education, and industrial training to encourage economic empowerment. In 1972, the Black Peoples’ Convention (BPC) was set up to act as a political umbrella organization for the adherents of black consciousness. In 1973, the government restricted Biko’s movements, not allowing him to leave his hometown. They also prevented him from publishing his ideas and giving public addresses. Clearly, the South African government recognized him as a dangerous political figure who could potentially spark an uprising. Biko responded by operating covertly, establishing the Zimele Trust Fund in 1975 to help political prisoners and their families. He was arrested four times over the next two years and was held without trial for months at a time. On Aug. 18, 1977, he and a fellow activist were seized at a roadblock and jailed in Port Elizabeth. Not formally charged with any specific crime, Biko was arrested under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act. This act allowed for the indefinite detention, for the purposes of interrogation, of any person suspected to be a terrorist or to be in possession of information regarding activities of terrorists. Twenty-six days after his arrest, Biko died in prison from massive head injuries, clearly the victim of deadly abuse while in police custody. In his death, Biko became a martyr for black nationalists in South Africa and an international symbol for the dismantling of the apartheid system. Jason Esters See also Black Power Movement in the United States; Mandela, Nelson Rolihlahla (1918–). F URTHER R EADING Deneberg, Barry. 1991. Nelson Mandela: “No Easy Walk to Freedom.” New York: Scholastic. Welsh, Frank. 1999. South Africa: A Narrative History. New York: Kodansha International.

z www.abc-clio.com

Black Aesthetic The Black Aesthetic is based upon the premise that black people, particularly African Americans and, by extension, other Africans on the Continent and in the Diaspora, have an experience and a cultural heritage that set them apart and that they express in a certain manner. The singular word “aesthetic” is deliberately chosen by the proponents of this critical construct in explicating black culture. The plural form, “aesthetics,” is more common and is used to represent all kinds of thought processes and attitudes based on individualism. The black aestheticians paid homage to revolutionaries in politics, psychiatry, literature, sports, and dance. Those precursors were acclaimed for preparing the ground, for creating a new consciousness upon which the black aestheticians would build. The list of references is diverse: W. E. B. DuBois, Carter G. Woodson, Claude McKay, Paul Robeson, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Frantz Fanon, Miriam Makeba, Nina Simone, Katherine Dunham. The black aesthetic rejects the notion of art for art’s sake. One of the first people to use the term was Hoyt Fuller, and it came out of frustration and anger at the way the American mainstream incessantly downgraded the quality of black creativity. In essence, the black aesthetic is the critical and creative arm of black nationalism and black power. It has been a long, tortuous road from the double consciousness and hybridity enunciated by W. E. B. DuBois in the early 20th century to the singleminded consciousness of black not only as beautiful but as human, as valuable as any other culture, and with its own expressiveness. The Black Aesthetic is better understood as part of the Black Arts Movement that, according to Larry Neal, is the aesthetic and spiritual sister of Black Power. The movement’s birth is linked to LeRoi Jones (later, Amiri Baraka) who, upon the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, moved from Manhattan to Harlem.

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Black Arts Movement | 167 LeRoi Jones’s poem “Black Art” made the statement on the meaning of black creativity: “we want poems that kill.” A metaphor it was, but also a statement of fact; for black people in America were in the trenches, fighting against police brutality and a system bent upon eliminating any black opposition. For black aestheticians and black power advocates, armed struggle was a necessity, and poetry and drama—literary expression—were invaluable weapons. As part of the movement, black journals were established: Journal of Black Poetry, Black Scholar, Negro Digest/Black World, Black Dialogue, and Soulbook, among others. Freedomways and Liberator, two national magazines, also encouraged black artists often rejected by mainstream publications. There were two major publishing houses for books, Third World Press and Broadside Press. The latter published poetry only, showcasing the works of Don L. Lee (Haki Madhubuti), Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, and others. Besides individual collections, anthologies appeared, offering the notion of collectivity in poetic expression. Examples are: For Malcolm X, Poems on the Life and the Death of Malcolm X, The Black Woman, and Black Fire. The theory of the Black Aesthetic is discussed at length in The Black Aesthetic (1971), an anthology edited by Addison Gayle Jr. The text is significant for reviewing the historical underpinnings of the project and philosophy and for underscoring the shared engagement of theorists and artists. As earlier indicated, one important fact of black art is the participation of both artist and audience; thus, critic and creator come together to make art as an essential experience of existence. The Black Aesthetic began to lose impetus and impact in the early and mid-1970s. Hoyt Fuller, one of the avant-garde, died in 1971. Nonetheless, its legacy remains important in the history of black struggle. It advocated the pride of blackness; knowledge of self and community; commitment to survival as human beings with a past, a present, and a future; and

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positive representation of black identity. It emphasizes the necessity to develop a set of criteria for properly evaluating black artistic talent. It symbolizes the determination to create a revolution through the creative process and to use performance as statement of black culture. At the core of the project is love: of black people, of black culture, of black life. Femi Ojo-Ade See also Baraka, Amiri (1934–); Black Arts Movement; Black Power Movement in the United States; Black/Blackness: Philosophical Considerations; Malcolm X (1925–1965). F URTHER R EADING Addison, Gayle. 1971. The Black Aesthetic. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Baker, Houston, Jr. 1987. Blues, Ideology and AfroAmerican Literature: A Vernacular Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kentridge, William, et al. 2006. Beautiful/Ugly: African and Diaspora Aesthetics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Wright, W. D. 1997. Black Intellectuals, Black Cognition, and a Black Aesthetic. New York: Praeger.

z Black Arts Movement The Black Arts Movement was a major creative movement in the United States during the black power struggle of the 1960s and 1970s. More broadly, however, the term “black arts” refers to a general and comprehensive category that speaks to the full and diverse character of Africana creative culture and historic development throughout the Diaspora. Highly attractive Africana forms and modes fall under this rubric and tradition, if they are performed or executed self-consciously, with a creative flair and virtuosity, to attract attention or entertain audiences. Simply put, black arts evolved through a long history, rooted in a creative heritage that affirms black humanity.

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B LACK A RTS IN A FRICA It seems natural, then, to begin a discussion of black arts with its ancient record. As far back as 8000 BCE, black arts existed in the rock paintings and engravings of caves throughout Northern, Central, and South Africa. These early records of black arts give us depictions of ancient African dances, performances, body adornments, and masquerades. Even though the drawings on these cave walls are silent as to their purpose, it seems likely that Africans used them as part of ritual rites of passage and record keeping. The extensive data that establish the Nile Valley as the location of ancient African civilizations also establish Nubia, Meroë, Kush, and Kemet (Egypt) as major contributors to the early development of creative forms and modes of black arts, especially in music, dance, sculpture, literature, architecture, and theatrical performances. Rich evidence of early creative activity exists in the pottery, monuments, and temples throughout the Nile Valley. One creative form of this classic black arts functioned as a highly sophisticated language known as Medu Neter (hieroglyphics). This ubiquitous visual form kept the records of significant social, political and religious events, often revealing spiritual and moral truths. In the western region of ancient Africa, thousands of years later, Africans created an ancient Nigerian civilization known as the Nok. The inhabitants of this ancient civilization developed advanced forms of metalwork and pottery embodying the values of creativity, spirituality, and functionality. The technical and creative achievements of the Nok in black arts seem to parallel, if not extend, those found in the Nile Valley, specifically in the iron and ceramic industries. The black arts of ancient Ghana, followed by those of Mali, Songhai, and Benin, existed as ornate work in gold, bronze, wood, stone, and textiles. They also developed rich oral and ritual performance traditions. In Southern Africa, black arts existed in ancient Zimbabwe as classical stone architecture with

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unique masonry work. Subsequent civilizations throughout Africa developed black arts in highly functional forms of creative expression that affirmed political authority, supported everyday needs, and sustained spiritual and religious beliefs. B LACK A RTS THROUGHOUT THE D IASPORA The black arts have had worldwide influence, traveling from continent to islands to continent in their most potent musical forms as spirituals, blues, jazz, gospel, rhythm and blues, and most recently in their most multidimensional form, hip-hop. In South America, black arts forms evolved within the new context, located among both Native American and European culture. In some cases, black arts of South America survived and thrived on their own terms in independent Suriname and French Guiana Maroons societies such as the Saramaka, Kwinti, Matawai, Paramaka, Aluku, and Nnduka. Africans who escaped European enslavers took isolation with very limited dealings with the outside world except to disrupt plantations and, much later, under more serene conditions, to trade and work. They developed both religious and celebratory black arts forms and distinctive styles of architecture, music, dance, sculpture, textile and body adornment reminiscent of their African heritage. Throughout South America and the Caribbean, the black arts developed into the carnival ritual celebration and performance. In Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Haiti, black arts heritage influenced the development of popular dances such as the rumba, salsa, marenge, tango, cha cha, and others. These dances alluded to the spiritual dance between Oshun and Shango that was introduced to these islands through the religious practices of enslaved Africans. Religion continues to play a major role in the development of black arts throughout the Americas and the Caribbean, especially in the Vodoun and Santería performance tradition of Haiti and Cuba, respectively. By the 1920s in America, the time of the Harlem Renaissance, there was a clear effort on

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Black Arts Movement | 169 the part of creative artists and intellectuals alike to develop an authentic African American form of black arts. Alain Locke and W. E. B. DuBois represented two sides of the issue on the content and direction of creative expression. They were at the forefront of intellectual debates, arousing both admiration and contention. Aaron Douglass, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Zora Neale Hurston were a few who were instrumental in defining black arts of this period. The black arts of the Harlem Renaissance also encouraged the emergence of the Négritude movement in France. T HE B LACK A RTS M OVEMENT The watershed 1960s and 1970s Black Arts Movement was considered by Larry Neal to be the sister of the Black Power Movement. It boldly established a relevant nationalist direction and content for all verbal and nonverbal forms and modes of creative expression. This movement was led and shaped by the writings of activist-intellectuals such as Maulana Karenga, Amiri Baraka, Larry Neal, and Addison Gayle Jr. Visual art groups such as Spiral and Africobra, as well as the music of John Coltrane and James Brown, to name a few, contributed to the mood and spirit of this movement. Romare Bearden and a group of visual creatives formed Spiral to develop a collective view of and approach to black arts that would speak to the civil rights struggles of the time. Unfortunately, some members thought and felt this idea was an imposition on their individual creative voice and soon abandoned the idea, and the group fell apart. Africobra did articulate a creative ideal for black arts, which they referred to as “horror vacui” (“fear of empty space”). This idea encouraged painters to fill up the space of the canvases using striking colors and bold patterns reflective of the common African dress style. Poets also encouraged writers to draw from the verbal styles that developed in African American speech. Donaldson, with the support of his students at Howard University, convened the first conference in

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1970 to organize the preservation and direction of black arts. Some refused to accept any terms or definitions of black arts, embracing a Eurocentric idea that rejected all forms of cultural— and for that matter, racial—categorization of their personal expression. They saw no purpose to advance black arts but to escape and deny it as a valid category. In contrast, the emergent African-centered movement continued to advance the definition and category of black arts, expanding it and reconceptualizing it so that it included not just African descendants in America but the Pan-African world. It also encouraged a return to creative modes and forms that draw from the wealth and resources of ancient and classical Africa. It advanced a new creative ideal for black arts that valued the creation of functional modes and forms that were both beautiful in technique and morally effective or good for the African community. Khonsura G. K. Ofei (Aaron J. Wilson) See also Afrocentricity; Afro-Cuban Literature; Art in the African Diaspora; Black Aesthetic; Black Power Movement in the United States; Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Harlem Renaissance; Hip-Hop Culture in the African Diaspora; Jazz; Maroon and Marronage; Négritude. F URTHER R EADING Ani, Marimba. 1992. Let the Circle Be Unbroken : The Implications of African Spirituality in the Diaspora. Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press. Dallas Museum of Art. 1989. Black Art Ancestral Legacy: The African Impulse in AfricanAmerican Art. New York: Dallas Museum of Art / distributed by H. N. Abrams. Donaldson, Jeff. 1988. “CONFABA-Conference on the Functional Aspects of Black Art (May 7– 10, 1970).” The International Review of African American Art 1 (15): 27–30. Forman, Murray, and Mark Anthony Neal, eds. 2004. That’s the Joint: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader. New York: Routledge. Jahn, Janheinz. 1989. Muntu: African Culture and the Western World. New York: Grove Press. (Originally published in 1961.) Powell, Richard J. 1997. Black Art and Culture in the 20th Century. New York: Thames and Hudson.

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170 | Black Churches and African American Spirituality Powell, Richard J. 2002. Black Art : A Cultural History. 2nd ed. London: Thames and Hudson. Price, Sally, and Richard Price. 1999. Maroon Arts. Boston: Beacon Press. Proctor, Bernardine B. 1989. Black Art in Louisiana. Lafayette: Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Southwestern Louisiana. Visona, Monica Blackmun, Robin Poynor, Herbert M. Cole, and Michael D. Harris. 2001. A History of Art in Africa. New York: Harry N. Abrams. Welsh-Asante, Kariamu. 1993. The African Aesthetic: Keeper of the Traditions (Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

z Black Churches and African American Spirituality African Americans are the recipients of ancient methods and knowledge. As they came into contact with Christianity, African people had to locate a rational and spiritual space that could satisfy and accommodate both world views. Both ideologies accepted a belief in an almighty God and the notion of a spiritual world. For African people, however, it required a reevaluation and reinterpretation of the spirit world that both believed in. These similarities assisted in the blending and merging of the African and Christian cosmologies and facilitated the development of “Africanized Christianity.” It was not a complete fit, however, in that in Christian thought the (spiritual) revelation is fixed, and in African thought there is a continuous stream of revelations being given to the faithful. African mysticism includes, but is not limited to, such divinations as throwing and reading of shells, selecting objects from the diviner’s basket, and the assessment of the selection process. Also employed are dreaming and the interpretation of dreams, speaking in and interpreting tongues, seeing visions, hearing

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voices, using healing herbs, and the use of various spirit mediums to gain or to give information. African American mysticism, as expressed in the Christian Church context, is not expressed as such. Many are not even aware of the link it has to ancient African heritage. “The Pentecostal experience,” as it manifests itself in the United States, adapted and incorporated an enormous number of “Africanisms” and spiritual practices of the African ancestors: speaking in tongues, shouting, dancing, passing out in the spirit, spirit possessions, visions, and prophecies are used as sources to channel and interact with spiritual forces. The African American mystical ethos is part and parcel of a spirit-driven domain. People and aspects of human affairs are regulated and influenced by the spirit world. This preoccupation with superhuman agency became a prime cause for deep metaphysical beliefs and expressions. These beliefs and various terms of engagement uphold the notion that Almighty God is extremely powerful, highly potent, and able to affect the lives of people. This power is believed to be fully accessible and can become physically expressible. These very strong beliefs set the stage for a highly developed faith faculty that is central and key to any powerful mystical tradition. For African Americans, these beliefs blended and synchronized with Christian ideology; the result is what is termed an “Africanized Christianity,” which draws heavily on African cosmology and African expressions. For many African people, religious rituals were a major part of the day, to appease and satisfy spirits, who had various preferences in terms of food, drink, colors, duties, and so forth. This level of devotion made a good Christian. Additionally, Africans were able to make “contact” with the supernatural by utilizing various spiritual disciplines. The oral tradition was a primary way of gaining access to the spirit world. Using sound and movements, such as singing, praying, dancing, preaching, drumming, and music making, one is allowed to enter this realm. These, along with good in-

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Black Churches and African American Spirituality | 171 tentions and a sanctified heart, served as triggers to spirit possessions. A NCESTORS An understanding of the importance of the ancestors is vital to any analysis of African and African American spiritual thought. The “living dead,” or ancestors, are those relatives who obtained levels of high regard and character in life. It is believed that they maintain their status after death. It is felt that these “souls” have the ability to influence the course of events and can provide assistance to the living. It is therefore important to remember their names, character, and good deeds. In the African American church experience, ancestors are reverenced in a number of ways. In some churches, they are remembered by having their pictures placed in the edifice. Their names are called during special occasions and remembered at such special events as Founder’s Day and candlelight services and by the placement of their names on windows and other places in the church. Accepting the role of parenthood is also a way to keep the family name alive and to honor and reverence the ancestors. Many Africans believe it is the ancestors that come to one when one dies, to rejoin and guide one through the transition from life into the invisible world. These beliefs are very much a part of the African American belief system as well. There is an African American saying: “Old folks are almost ghosts.” This expresses the importance of the old people or senior members of the community. In some African societies, it is required that one obtain permission from the oldest member before one is allowed to address the group. In the African American church, this is similarly practiced rhetorically.

an ultimate goal, to become one with spirit. Spirit possession is one of the most spectacular and powerful expressions of traditional African spirituality. It is an awe-inspiring moment in which the supernatural interacts with the human form. Spirit possessions in African American communities generally occur within the black church experience, especially Pentecostal or Full Gospel churches. It is believed that it is a sign that the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost is in the presence of the individual or congregation. A spirit possession can be related to an “outof-body experience.” The devotee’s, or “saint’s,” personality temporarily leaves the body or is subdued, and the body is occupied by another entity. During the possession, the worshiper may shake, scream, tremble, run, dance, speak, or exhibit a combination of these behaviors. At this time, the person may be endowed with supernatural abilities to heal, to prophesy, or to warn. The individual may pass out, leaving her or him in a partial or temporary unconscious state. Spirit possessions fulfill a very special need for a deep and intimate relationship or merging with the spiritual realm. Possession is a very intense experience; in some cases, it may appear contagious, moving from one worshiper to another. Drumming, music, song, and a powerful message can facilitate spiritual possessions, serving as conduits to alternate states of consciousness. Drumming and music significantly affect the brain through the central nervous system. High and low frequencies allow energy to be transmitted to the brain. Rhythmic and repetitious sound affects the electrical activity of the brain by activating the theta and beta levels. Spirit possessions can be amplified and intensified by accompanying “power words.”

S PIRIT P OSSESSIONS The phenomenon of possession is accepted in many African societies and in parts of the African Diaspora. Possession is believed to be the ultimate spiritual experience, or certainly

P RAYER M EETINGS AND D EVOTIONAL S ERVICES Prayer meetings and devotional services are essential elements of the African American mystical/church experience. They are the heart and

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soul of the renewal and maintenance process. They keep one in touch with the divine and allow for fellowship and communion with “sisters and brothers in the Lord.” They are the keys that sharpen spiritual senses by making these contacts. These sessions are led by “prayer warriors,” as they are termed in the Pentecostal churches. These are usually “seasoned saints” with a high degree of church or spiritual credibility. Most are good and strong singers, very spiritually grounded, good with words, and inspirational, and they generally have very strong personalities. These warriors are highly skilled communicators with a depth of knowledge and insight in the movements of the “spirit.” A song or prayer initiates prayer meeting, for example, in the Church of God in Christ. An opening song or chant may go something like this: “Father in Jesus’ name, Father in Jesus’ name, Lord help us in Jesus’ name. Father in Jesus’ name, Father in Jesus’ name, Father in Jesus’ name, Lord Help us in Jesus’ name.” This song is a “call to worship,” a call for God to come among the saints. It is a song of invocation and a song of invitation. Additionally, it brings the attention of the worshipers into the divine presence of God. It is a signal to stop dwelling on worldly and personal affairs and to center one’s attention on the Lord. The prayer warriors then proceed to pray. After the prayer is over, someone usually sings a spontaneous song. For example, “Come and go with me to my father’s house, to my father’s house, to my father’s house. Come and go with me, to my father’s house, there is joy, joy, and joy,” or “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine, this little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine, this little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine. Let it shine, shine, shine.” The prayers, songs, and praise take the worshipers to deeper and deeper levels. Each round goes higher and higher, until the saints are caught up in a rapture of spiritual ecstasy. If this is assisted by skilled musicians, the service is enriched, and the spiritual experience is

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heightened. Music and spirituality are and have been the African’s major power source. In many Baptist churches, it is the deacon who leads the congregation into song and prayer. The deacon usually “lines a hymn,” and the worshipers follow him in the song he selects. This is an example of the call-and-response methodology used in Africa. After the song, the selected deacon then leads the church members into prayer. A song, a prayer. A song, a prayer. This is continued until this part of the service is completed. In some churches, there is a time allotted in the devotional service for testimonials. This is open to all present to share with the church what God has done for them that week or what challenges one has faced. This part of the service is used to edify the body of God. It helps to build the faith of the listener, who hears all that God can do and has done in people’s lives. It also makes the audience aware of what is going on with the members. This person is able to get the support needed in everyday life. Prayer activates the miraculous in our lives. Traditional African thought embraces naturebased religious systems. Africans intuitively understand the interconnectivity that unites all things. They are keen observers of the weather, the sky, and natural forces. They recognize energy forces in animals, people, and the spirit world. For many Africans, life is a walking prayer, and they hold the belief that sacredness can exist in many domains of existence. FASTING Fasting is another spiritual discipline utilized in the Full Gospel or Pentecostal black churches. The saints are quick to tell a person, “Great things happen when you fast and pray.” It is also called “turning your plate down.” This means that one does not eat. The pastor or other church leader calls a fast. Then the members themselves initiate other fasts according to individual needs. Some people fast until 12:00 noon; others fast until 6:00 p.m. For really strong needs, some may fast for

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Black Churches and African American Spirituality | 173 three days and three nights. During the fasting periods, fasters generally give up sex and unnecessary “worldly” activities in addition to food. Fasting is one of the most powerful spiritual disciplines. When one makes the sacrifice of not eating and not giving in to the pleasures of the flesh, something amazing happens. The focus is turned toward the spiritual aspects of life. Fasting can cause an elevated shift in consciousness. During a fasting period, it is not uncommon for some to have out-of-body experiences; many are caught up between various dimensions of space and time. They meet and commune with divine spirits; they experience profound visions and dreams. Fasting is serious business. When fasting is coupled with prayer, something great is going to happen. Fasting has side benefits; it allows the digestive system to rest and causes impurities and toxins to leave the body. Additionally, it is a wonderful tool for weight control. T HE P REACHER The preacher is a combination of a griot (a storyteller, in African terminology) and a priest and is usually the most outstanding spiritual figure in the group. This person is masterful in his or her oratorical abilities. He or she is a great translator and interpreter of spiritual truths. The preacher has revelation knowledge and, in some cases, many other spiritual gifts, such as healing, singing, or the gift of discernment. The preacher is highly inspirational, charismatic, and prolific. The black preacher usually has some notable status in the community, is highly anointed (spiritually gifted), and has the uncanny ability to cause a tremendous movement in people. The preacher can energize the group. This is the man or woman of words. These words, with accompanying sounds, movements, and inflection, are infectious. This, along with a special delivery style, causes such spiritual excitement that many shout, transform, and surrender their lives to God. The

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preacher at his or her best is an oratorical genius. In the African American spiritual tradition, preachers tend to be lively, vehement, dramatic, and spiritually charged. The preacher in the black church uses call and response, similar to various African ethnic groups: “Can I get an amen?” The audience will say, “Amen!” “Can I get I thank you, Lord?” The audience will say, “I thank you, Lord!” “Can I get a hallelujah?” The audience replies, “Hallelujah!” The black preacher and the black church have been the most viable and important social institutions outside the family, in the forefront of the effort to gain civil rights, the enhancement of education, and social uplift. A high degree of community and civic leadership has come from the pulpit. The black preacher serves as counselor, consoler, therapist, healer, and fortune-teller. A great deal of African American mysticism resides in the office of pastor/preacher. One of the most mystical expressions of the office of the black preacher is the call into the ministry. Sometimes this happens in a dream, sometimes in a vision, and sometimes as a prophecy. However it comes, the call into ministry is a profound moment in which something deeply metaphysical occurs, causing us to examine this phenomenon and its strong mystical links. D REAMS African Americans, along with many other peoples, are profoundly interested in and intrigued by dreams. Many view dreams as messages from God, especially those inescapable and compelling “big dreams.” In African American history, there are several instances of dreams that had a profound effect on people’s lives and hence on history. For example, Harriet Tubman, in her work with the Underground Railroad, is reported to have received her routes and plans in dreams. So, it is no accident or surprise that Martin Luther King framed his message within the metaphor of the dream, as this faculty is deeply implanted in

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African American cosmology and resonates with its community. African Americans are usually concerned with sacred, or revelation, dreams. A deceased family member may come in a dream with a warning or a directive. Revelations are also presented in dreams by the living. The abilities to see into the future and to see what is occurring in other places and in various dimensions are accepted beliefs. African Americans believe that dreams can show one the future and one’s sins. If your life is out of order, dreaming is a way to restore order and psychological and spiritual equilibrium. It is also believed that dreams can be used to reveal healing methods for the ill and the dispirited. These methodologies and practices assisted African American people down the long road of slavery, segregation, humiliation, Jim Crow, and no laws at all to protect them. Thus, it is imperative that one should not forget the power of the Africans’ and African Americans’ abiding faith and beliefs.

Glazer, N., and D. P. Moynihan. 1970. Beyond the Melting Pot. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Herskovits, M. J. 1958. The Myth of the Negro Past. Boston: Beacon Press. Holloway, Joseph E. 1990. Africanisms in American Culture. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press. Hurston, Zora Neale. 1981. The Sanctified Church: The Folklore Writings of Zora Neale Hurston. Berkeley, CA: Turtle Island Foundation. Kinney, Esi Sylvia. 1971. Black Life and Culture in the United States. Ed. Rhonda Goldstein. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell. Levin, L. W. 1977. Black Culture and Black Consciousness. New York: Oxford University Press. Parrillo, V. N. 1990. Strangers to these Shores: Race and Ethnic Relations in the United States. 3rd ed. New York: Macmillan. Richards, D. M. 1980. Let the Circle Be Unbroken: The Implications of African Spirituality in the Diaspora. Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press. Thornton, John. 1998. Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press.

z

Phyllis Baker See also “African” in African American History; Black Churches in the United States; Griots/Griottes of West Africa.

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F URTHER R EADING Berry, Mary Frances, and John W. Blassingame. 1983. Long Memory: The Black Experience in America. New York: Oxford University Press. Courlander, Harold. 1939. Haiti Singing. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Crahan, M. C., and R. W. Knight, eds. 1979. Africa and the Caribbean: The Legacies of a Link. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Dunham, Katherine. 1983. Dances of Haiti. Los Angeles: Center for Afro-American Studies, University of California Los Angeles. Finn, Julio. 1991. The Bluesman: The Musical Heritage of Black Men and Women in the Americas. New York: Interlink Books. Fontana, David. 1994. The Secret Language of Dreams: A Visual Key to Dreams and Their Meanings. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. Frazier, E. F. 1963. The Negro Church in America. New York: Schocken Books.

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Outside of the family, churches have been the most important primary institutions in the black community. The conversion of African slaves in the United States to Christianity has its origins in the Great Awakening of 1740. During this period, itinerant ministers from Europe such as George Whitefield and Gabriel Tennent traveled the countryside of the English colonies in North America preaching the gospel. Newspapers reported that revival meetings in the North, South and the western frontier conducted by “New Light” Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists attracted a swarm of people, including free blacks and those in bondage. People of African origins were attracted to the revivals for several reasons. First, the itinerant preachers’ stress on reaching God through

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Black Churches in the United States | 175 an experience was similar to the West African sacred cosmos that remained familiar to people of African origins. Secondly, revivalists’ willingness to allow blacks to participate attracted a large number of human beings in bondage. One of the most important reasons for conversion to Christianity among African Americans was the black preacher. Because the Baptists and Methodists did not require formal education, it was easier for blacks to become preachers. In fact, several Southern states became so alarmed at the ordination of black preachers that Baptist churches were forced to constrain blacks from becoming ordained ministers. In fact, those in bondage could not preach without the permission of their masters, and their religious duties were limited. The Methodists also limited blacks to becoming lay preachers. Nevertheless, these lay preachers were able to minister to African Americans and helped attract both free blacks and slaves to Christianity by fostering an African American Christianity. Separate Black congregations emerged in the middle and late 18th century, thanks to the growing number of black Christian converts. Although blacks were first allowed to worship in white-controlled churches, they were usually relegated to separate pews. However, as the number of black members in white-controlled churches grew, either whites abandoned these institutions, allowing black members to gain control of them, or pastors of white-controlled churches created separate services for their black congregants. Both cases led to the emergence of independent black congregations. It is believed that the first black Baptist church was formed in 1758, was named the African Baptist Church, and was located on the plantation of William Byrd in Mecklenberg, Virginia. The second church, Silver Bluff Baptist Church, was established in South Carolina in the 1770s. The longest-lived black church, the First African Church of Savannah, was established around 1775 when a black preacher by the name of George Leile was ordained, which allowed him

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to conduct the sacraments. As these congregations grew, splits occurred that led to the establishment of more black Baptist congregations. After several decades of trying to create a national association of black Baptists, a group of black Baptist preachers formed the National Baptist Convention in 1895. Its goal was to do extensive foreign missionary work. It created the National Baptist Publishing House, gaining the right to supply National Baptist Convention churches with Sunday school supplies. After a split in 1915, the NBC was incorporated as the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. Another major split occurred in 1961 when the Rev. Gardner C. Taylor from Brooklyn, New York, challenged the Rev. Joseph Jackson of Chicago for the presidency of the group. Taylor, who was supported by Martin Luther King Jr. and other ministers active in the Civil Rights Movement, criticized Jackson, who had been president of the NBC, USA, Inc. since 1953, for not supporting the movement. In fact, Jackson was quite critical of King and the civil rights leadership. Despite the opposition’s effort to take power, Jackson regained control of the convention in 1961 after a physical battle between his supporters and those of Taylor. However, many of the civil rights activists in the NBC left and formed a new organization called the Progressive National Baptist Convention. The origins of black Methodism were also rooted in a desire among blacks for independence in the 1790s. Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and other black members of the St. George Methodist Church in Philadelphia walked out of the church in protest after they attempted to worship in the new gallery of St. George but were removed by white trustees of the church. Even before the walkout, Allen, Jones, and other black Philadelphians had expressed a yearning for an independent black church. They had organized the Free African Society in the 1780s, which began conducting religious services soon after it was founded, indicating the desire among blacks in Philadelphia for religious independence.

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Richard Allen, who was a former slave and had gained the right from the Methodist leadership to preach among blacks in Philadelphia, helped organize the first African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1794, naming the new congregation Bethel AME Church. The charter of incorporation of Bethel restricted membership, preachers, and other church leaders to those of African origins. It was another 10 years before the members of Bethel gained control of the property of the church from the Methodist Conference. By 1816, after a long struggle with white Methodists over the control of Bethel, the church, along with other black Methodist congregations that had separated from white Methodist churches, established an independent conference. Because the new independent denomination encouraged blacks to organize black Methodist churches throughout the country, black Methodism significantly increased. Moreover, agents were sent throughout the North to invite people of African origins to join the African Methodist Episcopal movement. Numerous AME churches were established in northern cities, attracting thousands of members in the first few years of their existence. African Episcopal Methodism also managed to win converts in several Southern and border states, although their numbers were much smaller compared to the North. They also later organized churches in the Caribbean and Africa. As Northern free black communities emerged, such predominantly white denominations as the Presbyterian and Protestant Episcopal bodies established black churches that shared space with the Baptist and African Methodist Episcopal churches. John Gloucester, a former slave whose owner was a Presbyterian minister and had educated his slave for the ministry, worked for the Presbyterian Evangelical Society (PES) in Philadelphia in the early part of the 19th century. Eventually, PES created a black Presbyterian church for Gloucester. In 1847, James Gloucester, the son of John, created a Presbyterian mission in

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Brooklyn that eventually became Siloam Presbyterian Church. Despite the formation of a few black Presbyterian churches, Presbyterianism failed to gain wide support among blacks because of the church’s support of slavery. Moreover, Presbyterianism’s more mundane form of worship and lack of emotionalism did not attract large numbers of people of African origins. Black Anglicanism or Episcopaliansm has its origins in the yearning for freedom among blacks in Philadelphia. After Absalom Jones left St. George Methodist Church, he established St. Thomas African Episcopal Church. However, like Presbyterianism, Episcopalism did not increase significantly among African Americans, mainly because of its reliance on reading scripture and citing catechism and the stipulation that ordination be linked to seminary training. The Reconstruction period witnessed the establishment of hundreds of independent black churches across the South. Former slaves broke away from white-dominated religious institutions and created their own religious bodies. In South Carolina before the Civil War, 42,000 blacks were affiliated with Methodist churches. However, by the time the Civil War ended, only a few hundred blacks remained members. A year after the Civil War ended, Baptists in some Southern states had organized black Baptist associations. These associations helped establish black Baptist churches and assisted black Baptist congregations to survive. The establishment of black churches by the freedmen and freedwomen was, in part, a response to the humiliation fostered by racially separate seating and other racist treatment by white leaders and parishioners. Missionaries from various denominations went south to bring both social and spiritual assistance to the freedmen and freedwomen. The AME missionaries helped organize AME churches. However, it was the Baptists who were the clear winners in organizing new congregations. There were several reasons why

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Black Churches in the United States | 177 there were more Baptist Churches organized than AME institutions. By the middle of the 19th century, the AME churches required educational training for the ministry, whereas the Baptists had no such requirement. The Baptists were also decentralized and less hierarchical, which made it easier for churches to be established. The Baptists also were more open to emotional participatory services than was the AME church. Many black churches in both the North and the South were influenced by the social gospel during the late 19th century and transformed themselves into “institutional churches.” These institutional churches adopted a social and racial uplift agenda, offering a variety of social services, including educational, recreational, and spiritual. Black churches offered educational programs that taught former slaves to read and write. These “Sabbath schools” hired black teachers, taught students how to read and write, and attempted to instill moral values in students through the use of biblical scriptures. The schools also established libraries, providing reading material for students. Black churches were more than institutions of supplication; they became establishments of social uplift. By the early 20th century, the “institutional church” had spread to the South in urban areas. These churches, like their counterparts in the North, offered numerous outreach services that attracted many African Americans, including schools that taught reading and writing, industrial education, literary societies, recreational facilities, and a host of cultural activities. Besides offering educational and social services, black churches were also the center of political activity in black communities. Not only were black ministers the spiritual leaders of the black community, they were often political leaders as well. During Reconstruction, ministers were members of state constitutional conventions, served in the state legislatures, and were elected to Congress and state and local office. Black churches hosted Republican Party and union league meetings.

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Exterior of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York City. (Bettmann/Corbis)

By the late 19th century, new forms of Christian institutions appeared in opposition to what some contended was the growing secularization of churches. The Holiness-Pentecostal movement emphasized John Wesley’s concept of a second blessing by God, a belief that by divine grace one can reach sanctification. Holiness-Pentecostals also contended that believers also must try to live a life like Christ. They also argued that one must be baptized by the Holy Spirit, which is manifested by glossolalia, or speaking in tongues. In 1906, William J. Seymour, an African American Holiness minister, began preaching on Azusa Street in Los Angeles, stressing the importance of speaking in tongues. He launched the Pentecostal movement when he attracted a large number of worshipers who claimed to have been baptized by the Holy Spirit and were able to speak in tongues. One person who attended the revival on Azusa Street was Charles Harrison Mason, who accepted the tenets of HolinessPentecostalism, including speaking in tongues.

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Mason and Charles Price Jones founded the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), which today is the largest black Pentecostal organization in the United States with more than three million members and thousands of churches throughout the nation. Although there are other Holiness-Pentecostal organizations, including the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith, COGIC membership far outnumbers these bodies. Black ministers and black churches have played a major role in the modern Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement. One important organization of the Civil Rights Movement was the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a group organized by Martin Luther King Jr. soon after the successful Montgomery bus boycott. Made up mostly of ministers, SCLC was the “ministerial wing” of the movement, which initiated many campaigns throughout the South in the 1950s and 1960s, including the Birmingham campaign of 1963. By the late 1960s, some black ministers and theologians, influenced by the Black Power Movement, began advocating “black theology.” The proponents of black theology hold that Christianity was always used by people of African origins as a religion of liberation; however, by the late 19th century, the black church had adopted the approach of accommodation as they prospered and moved away from its revolutionary origins. Black theology’s proponents call for a return to the revolutionary form of Afro-Christianity as a means of fighting racism. Black churches and black ministers continue to play a major role in fighting for social justice. However, there has been a major challenge to the traditional activist role of black churches launched by ministers who are involved in the word-faith movement. The wordfaith phenomenon involves ministers and churches across racial lines, but some of the most prominent ministers in the movement are African American, such as T. D. Jakes, Fredrick Price, “Bishop” Bernard Jordan, and

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Creflo Dollar. Proponents of word-faith have espoused, in large part, “prosperity gospel.” These pastors, who operate “megachurches”— churches with congregations exceeding 20,000—have moved away from a message of social justice to one of motivation and selfempowerment. They claim that if believers “say it, do it, receive it, and tell it,” they will receive what they desire, including financial wealth and physical health. The so-called faith formula of the word-faith movement differs from the civil rights religious community’s argument that racial and class oppression are the reasons for inequality in the United States. Instead, word-faith proponents, using television ministries and reaching huge audiences, put the onus on the individual to change her or his life in order to be successful. The faith formula has worked well for Price, Jakes, Dollar, and other word-faith ministers, who have accumulated tremendous wealth and enjoy opulent lifestyles. They wear expensive suits and jewelry, live in multimillion-dollar houses, drive Rolls Royces, and travel to speaking engagements in privately-owned jets. But the flaunting of wealth, according to advocates of the prosperity gospel, has a purpose. They claim to be living testaments that the faith formula works, and those who are willing to adopt it will also receive the blessing of God. The emergence of the word-faith movement among black Americans indicates a major divide within the black church community. The stress on becoming prosperous and accumulating wealth among proponents of the movement is in contrast to such black clergy as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who have embraced the black liberation-oriented theology. Indeed, world-faith televangelists have publicly condemned gay marriage and abortion rights and have championed such conservative issues as George W. Bush’s faith-based initiative. The black churches have been on an evolutionary path. No matter their orientation, they remain vital institutions in black America. Clarence Taylor

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Black Cinema | 179 See also African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church; Black Churches and African American Spirituality. F URTHER R EADING Bear, Hans A., and Merrill Singer. 1992. AfricanAmerican Religion in the Twentieth Century: Varieties of Protest and Accommodation. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. Campbell, James T. 1998. Songs of Zion: The African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States and South Africa. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Lincoln, C. Eric, and Lawrence H. Mamiya, 1990. The Black Church in the African American Experience. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Luker, Ralph E. 1991. The Social Gospel in Black and White: American Racial Reform, 1885– 1912. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Montgomery, William. 1993. Under Their Own Vine and Fig Tree: The African-American Church in the South, 1865–1900. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Universty Press. Raboteau, Albert J. 1978. Slave Religion: The Invisible Institution in the Antebellum South. New York: Oxford University Press. Smith, Drew R., ed. 2003. New Day Begun: African American Churches and Civic Culture in PostCivil Rights America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Taylor, Clarence. 1994. Black Churches of Brooklyn. New York: Columbia University Press. Winch, Julie. 1988. Philadelphia’s Black Elite: Activism, Accommodation, and the Struggle for Autonomy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

z Black Cinema Early black cinema arose from two dominant motives. One was the impulse of all peoples and cultures to enjoy their own image as reflected on the screen and in other media. The other was to give the lie to the demeaning images perpetuated against black people everywhere in an era of European imperialism. This double motive was at work when William Fos-

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ter, a theatrical agent, produced and directed the first black film, The Pullman Porter, in Chicago in 1910. Porter was followed by a steady stream of black independents, such as Peter Jones, who made documentaries in Chicago during World War I. The most important independent black filmmaker was Oscar Micheaux, a man of large entrepreneurial ambition and vision. These qualities helped Micheaux extend his creativity from novels to film direction, and to write, produce, and direct the first feature film made by a person of African descent, The Homesteader (1918). Micheaux went on to create 40 or so more feature films, making him the force figure of the movement he dominated. That movement was referred to as race movies, which signified black filmmakers’ pride in realizing admirable self-images outside of Hollywood, where black creative control was strictly forbidden. In the years from 1910 to 1950, more than 150 black-oriented film companies were started, and more than 500 “race” films were produced in the United States. Most of these films were dedicated to polite Negritude, frontparlor gestures of an uptight black bourgeoisie. When Micheaux made one strong, antiracist, antilynching movie, Within Our Gates, the response was so hostile that he allowed the movie to get lost; it remained so until the late 1980s, when a print turned up in Spain. Hollywood had other ideas about how to portray black life on the screen. During these “classical” years of U.S. moviemaking, the classical portrayal of African people ranged from Sambo to Bosambo, the servile character Paul Robeson was connived into depicting in the colonialist propaganda movie set in Africa, Sanders of the Rivers. The range of stereotypes stretched beyond those neatly captioned in Donald Bogle’s memorable book Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks. But as far as offering people of African descent a useful or enlightening reflection of themselves, their use is limited only to matters of political and sociological interrogation. These movies invite

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James Baldwin’s trenchant query, “Why did White people need to invent ‘the nigger’ in the first place?” This split between race movies and Hollywood coon cameos lasted until mid-century, when the backwash of World War II created countercurrents against European imperialist domination. Such “Negro interest films” as Pinky and Home of the Brave, from the 1949– 1951 period, broke from the mean-spiritedness of earlier caricatures and embraced left-liberal paternalism of the sort that marked the advent of Sidney Poitier’s heroic efforts to bring some dignity to the screen as a conscientious black man. The making of independently conceived, black-oriented films went into hiatus, only to be revived on the impetus of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. At precisely this moment, liberated black film images gained a foothold in Africa. Black American William Greaves’s documentary, First World Festival of Negro Arts (1965), captured an important moment of creative synergy on film and regarding film. Major artists from the African Diaspora, including Katherine Dunham, Leopold Senghor, Duke Ellington, and Langston Hughes, gathered in Dakar, Senegal, to inspire each other and to set a new pace for black creativity and an example of Diasporic exchange. Among the offerings was Ousmane Sembene’s feature film La Noire De (Black Girl), which established Sembene, already an accomplished novelist, as the leading proponent of a new beginning for African screen representation. The cinema in Africa that followed Sembene’s example was a committed one, born in a time of new African independence and African revolutions. Those films that were not explicitly anticolonial or protests against corrupt African leadership and neocolonialist tendencies, or attacks on Western chauvinism and racism, were devoted to affirming the values of the African cultural personality. Some of the film directors of this wave of liberating cinema were Med Hondo, Souleymanne Cisse, Cheick

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Oumar Sissoko, Djibril Diop Mambety, and Ababacar Samb. These pioneers were followed by a wider generation of directors from many countries: Gaston Kabore, Safi Faye, Idrissa Ouedrago, Jean-Marie Teno, Mweze Ngangura, Ben Diogaye Beye, Flora Gomes, Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda, Fanta Nacro, Dany Kouyate, Kwa Ansah, Henri Duarc, Pierre Yameogo, Tsitsi Dangerembga and Desire Ecare, to name just a few. This deepening and enriching development taking place on the African continent belongs to a process of decolonization, in which even the completion of a sincerely motivated film on a continent where native-born Africans were once forbidden to take up the camera is a gesture of self-determination. A struggle for self-determination was meanwhile going on in the United States. From the late 1960s on, black directors led by Melvin Van Peebles broke into Hollywood filmmaking, with fierce iconoclasm in the case of the maker of Sweet Sweetback, and with slick, pulsating, urban style in the case of Gordon Park’s Shaft. But the stylistics of both these films were appropriated and pirated in black exploitation movies pimping the revolution of reconstructed group identity that was going on in black America. At the same time, a less widely publicized but artistically accomplished black independent movement challenged the formulaic pandering of blaxploitation. These more committed film directors came mostly out of the universities, especially the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), where a collective spirit infused several newcomers, who came to be respected as The LA Film Rebellion. Haile Gerima, Julie Dash, Charles Burnet, Larry Clark, Ben Caldwell, Zeinabu Davis, Billy Woodberry and Teshome Gabriel were the nucleus of this group. But they were not alone among U.S. independents and creative forces. On the East Coast, Kathy Collins, Bill Gunn, Michelle Parkinson, and St. Clair Bourne raised the flag of independent screen representation. Many of these directors completed films of historic and

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Black Cinema | 181 artistic distinction, films that advanced the black aesthetic tradition taking shape as part of the Black Arts Movement. Haile Gerima’s Sankofa, Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, and Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep are landmark films of this tradition. Black cinema from the Caribbean has been essentially a phenomenon of the neocolonial era. Before the historic success of Euzhan Palcy’s Sugar Cane Alley in 1983, the biggest impress from the region was made by The Harder They Come, the reggae and ganja social epic of Jamaica. While scores of filmmakers of the region struggle to find niche and market, a few have climbed to international prominence. Palcy became the first black woman to direct a film in Hollywood (A Dry White Season). Raoul Peck from Haiti has made important feature films in Haiti, the United States, Europe, and Africa, notably Lumumba and Sometime in April. The internationalism of the Caribbean film scene is further demonstrated by the career of Sara Maldoror, born in France but with one parent from Guadeloupe, who nevertheless has made films in the Caribbean, France, and Africa. The vitality of this internationalism also reflects the fact that black world cinema has yet to unlink itself from the pressure of imperialism and colonialism at work since its beginnings. The compressed market for African films is in Europe and North America more than among African filmgoers—which means that the filmmakers cannot ignore the tastes and psychic needs of these foreign consumers of their self-images. Two African film versions of Bizet’s opera Carmen have been praised in the West for transcending African flavor in the interests of “universality.” A wave of revitalized cinema from post-apartheid cinema in South Africa struggles to free itself from the hegemony of Eurocentric vision and practice. Meanwhile, a large amount of filmic representation of African reality is funded and directed to the ideological tune of foreign evangelical Christian missionary societies.

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The Ellisonian complexity of the cinema landscape is illustrated by the scene in Europe. In the UK, France, and other countries, one finds such film artists as Horace Ove and Menelik Shabazz, born in the West Indies, working in London at the same time as Britishborn directors Isaac Julien and Ngozi Onwurah. The colonized have found their way to the former motherlands, shuttle back and forth between the former colonies and the metropole, refashioning identities refracted by class, gender, biracialism, religion, and fast-shifting histories, and make movies that reflect or illuminate global transformations. The 21st-century scene in the United States remains in its way both untypical and representative. The number of black actors and actresses like Morgan Freeman, Halle Berry, Don Cheadle, and Angela Bassett, featured in varied and yeasty roles not confined solely to race has been unprecedented. There have also been a large number of movies casting mostly blacks and developing “homeboy/homegirl” themes, drawing heavily on popular culture and hiphop styles and personalities. This last development manifests an unusual situation in black world filmmaking, one not seen since the black exploitation era—a body of films succeeding financially on a market base of black audiences. Credit for proving this marketability once again belongs to the prolific Spike Lee, the most influential U.S. black film director since Melvin Van Peebles. A century of black cinema offers a timepoint for celebration that the obscene denigrations projected at the height of Western imperialism have been largely overcome and replaced by enterprising efforts by black film creators from many quarters of the globe. At the same time, that moment gives pause for reflection that black cinema remains controlled by a globalized and neocolonial order still inhibiting the full, unfettered representation of African self.

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182 | Black Consciousness Movement See also FESPACO and African Film Festivals; Gerima, Haile (1946–); Palcy, Euzhan (1957–). F URTHER R EADING Bakari, Imruh, and Mbye Cham, eds. 1996. African Experiences of Cinema. London: British Film Institute. Cham, Mbye B., ed. 1992. Ex-Iles: Essays on Caribbean Cinema. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Diawara, Manthia, ed. 1993. Black American Cinema: Aesthetics and Spectatorship. New York: Routledge. Martin, Michael T., ed. 1995. Cinema of the Black Diaspora: Diversity, Dependence, and Oppositionality. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

z Black Consciousness Movement The Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa arose in the late 1960s and flourished in the early and mid-1970s. It emerged under the influence of the Black Power Movement in the United States and the ideas of Stokely Carmichael in particular, and as a result of the deepening crisis under apartheid. The main political organizations, the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), had been banned by the state in 1960 and then had gone underground, where they had tried to launch an armed struggle, but in a climate of harsh repression, they were not able to achieve anything significant. Black consciousness started as a legal, above-ground movement that aimed to raise black selfesteem and to empower Africans by overcoming the psychological dependence produced by white oppression. The person who mainly articulated the ideas of black consciousness was the charismatic and highly intelligent Stephen Biko, then a student at the University of Natal’s medical school. Though inspired by what he read of the Black Power Movement, he recog-

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nized that conditions in South Africa were very different from those in the United States and drew on his own African heritage in developing the ideas of black consciousness. He wanted South African blacks to have pride in themselves and to identify with Africa instead of Europe, and with other Africans in the Diaspora. The origins of black consciousness lie in the late 1960s when, under the leadership of Biko, a group of university students, most from colleges for Africans set up by the apartheid regime, refused to participate any longer in the multiracial and antiapartheid National University of South African Students (NUSAS) and set up their own organization, the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO), for black students. They no longer wanted to be dependent on the whites in NUSAS and saw the struggle against apartheid as one that should be under black leadership. From the beginning, the Black Consciousness Movement defined “black” as including not only black Africans but also those who, in apartheid terminology, were called Coloureds (those of mixed descent) and Indians (those of Asian origin). For proponents of black consciousness, “black” included anyone who was oppressed under apartheid. The aim was psychological liberation, and the liberalism of whites was rejected. Those whites who opposed apartheid, whether liberals or communists, now had to face the fact that those in the Black Consciousness Movement were no longer prepared to work with them. The jailed Nelson Mandela and others who had been active in the multiracial Congress Alliance of the 1950s also rejected black consciousness as a race-based philosophy. To such a charge, Biko replied that black consciousness was a necessary stage in the process that would lead eventually to the overthrow of apartheid and the advent of a nonracial society. In the early 1970s, a number of black consciousness organizations were established, most notably the Black Peoples’ Convention (1972), which operated on the political front, and Black Community Programmes, which promoted health and welfare work in the very

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Black Consciousness Movement | 183 deprived black communities. The ideas of black consciousness spread rapidly through such communities, especially in the urban areas, finding a response especially among the youth, many of whom did not know of the ANC and PAC and now began to grow in confidence. Though black consciousness did not take the form of an organized political force, from the early 1970s the movement and its leaders began to be subject to repression, as the state became aware that black consciousness posed potentially a serious challenge to the system of apartheid. A number of black consciousness leaders, including Biko, were restricted, and others were put on trial. Biko himself used one of those trials to articulate the ideas of black consciousness when he gave lengthy evidence. The state believed that the ideas of black consciousness played a significant role in the resistance shown by the youth of Soweto in June 1976 after the police opened fire on them, and some historians writing subsequently have accepted that black consciousness helped give the youth of Soweto and elsewhere the necessary confidence to confront the state in what is often seen as the first step toward the end of apartheid. When news of a possible link-up between Biko and the ANC in exile reached the authorities the following year, they determined to act against Biko as the main architect of black consciousness. In August 1977, he was arrested and then detained and tortured. After the most brutal treatment, he died in police custody on September 12, 1977, to become the martyr of black consciousness. The following month, all the black consciousness organizations were banned. In 1978, the Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO)—Azania being the name that many black consciousness supporters preferred for South Africa—was formed to continue the work of black consciousness, and it has survived to the present but has never achieved a mass following. Most of the most active supporters of black consciousness joined other organizations in the late 1970s and early 1980s; most of those who

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went into exile became members of the ANC, which had an effective armed wing, and some the far less organized PAC. Other black consciousness supporters came under the influence of Mandela and others in the prison on Robben Island and were converted there to the ideas of the ANC. By the early 1980s, the dominant resistance to apartheid came not from supporters of black consciousness but rather from those who supported the philosophy of the ANC, based on the idea that South Africa belonged to all who lived in it, black and white. As Biko had anticipated, black consciousness had been but a phase of the South African struggle, but it is widely accepted today that it was both a necessary and an important one, which began the process leading to the overthrow of the apartheid system. Chris Saunders See also Biko, Stephen (1946–1977); Black Power Movement in the United States; Ture, Kwame (1941–1998). F URTHER R EADING Hirschman, D. 1990. “The Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa.” Journal of Modern African Studies 28 (1). Karis, T., and G. Gerhart, eds. 1997. From Protest to Challenge: A Documentary History of the African Politics in South Africa, vol. 5. Pretoria, South Africa: UNISA Press. Maphai, V. 1994. “The Role of Black Consciousness in the Liberation Struggle.” In The Long March: The Story of the Struggle for Liberation in South Africa, ed. I. Liebenberg et al. Pretoria, South Africa: HAUM.

z Black Feminist Movement in the United States See Feminism: Black Feminist Movement in the United States.

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184 | Black Marxism

Black Hair See Hair.

z Black Hermit See Antonio the Ethiopian (?–1550).

z Black Marxism The term “Black Marxism” is closely associated with the black radical tradition. However, it is not synonymous with black radicalism, nor does it seek to encapsulate it, nor is it the same as Marxism itself. Instead, Black Marxism is a historical and theoretical perspective through which scholars, activists, revolutionaries, visionaries, and cultural critics who appreciate the usefulness of Marxist critiques of society can properly examine or apply Marxist ideologies and analyses within the context of the African Diasporic experience. In other words, Black Marxism does not just describe the practice of Marxism by someone who is black, but it is really the amalgamation of the black radical tradition and the Marxist ideal of economic equality and the revolutionary, transformative power of the common laborer. In this way, Marxism has influenced political and social revolutions among the African people of the United States, Britain, Haiti, the West Indies, and Africa. Therefore, Black Marxism is the observation and application of Marxist ideas in a racially oppressive environment. The Black Marxist has had the difficult task of navigating between two theoretical positions for revolution. As far as protest ideologies go, the Marxist analysis of class, history, equality, and nation building reads differently from the

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racial and cultural analysis normally associated with black nationalists. Though they see the usefulness of racial and cultural critique, Black Marxists often reject the cultural essentialism of black nationalists, who assert a unified “black” identity that does not account for differences in class, country, or gender. They also must combat the shortsightedness of traditional Eurocentric Marxists, who see racial oppression as merely a product of “capitalist exploitation,” which will disappear with the rise of the proletariat and the assimilation of Marxist principles. Marxism places the working class in the position of the primary revolutionary agent and necessarily assumes that a proper class analysis unites the proletariat into a revolutionary force. Yet, achieving unilateral class solidarity in environments clouded by historical, cultural, and institutional racism is a daunting task. In addition, the fact that America’s system of capitalism is founded on racial oppression complicates the extraction of class solidarity even further. The psychosocial need for people of African descent to affirm their cultural identity as people of African descent is at times at odds with the Marxist insistence on solidarity over racial lines. Though Marxism admittedly speaks to and at times answers questions about the economic and social disparity that has occurred in capitalist society, it does not meet all the needs of African American or African Diasporic peoples. When it comes to being an ideological panacea, many black writers explore Marxism as a remedy for some of the symptoms but not a perfect cure. In fact, such African-American journals as The Messenger were staunch supporters of socialism, left-wing politics, and trade unions. Many African American writers have seen Marxism or socialism as appealing alternatives but have also critiqued their effectiveness in racist environments. The list would include such scholars as W. E. B. DuBois and Claude McKay. Richard Wright’s association with left-wing literati influenced his membership in the Com-

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Black Panther Party | 185 munist Party. Although Wright saw that the “Negro” was a product of oppressive ideology, he also understood that institutional racism and its resulting socioeconomic disparity perfectly positioned blacks to engage in radical proletarian struggle. Wright argued that black writers should concentrate on the material condition of black life, which also called for an embrace of the proletariat perspective held by black workers. In the view advanced by Wright at this time, nationalism was not a final goal but rather an intermediate one. However, Wright quickly became disenchanted with the Communist Party’s unilateral agenda and its reticence toward addressing the specific concerns of African Americans in America. Precisely how the writer makes the transition from a nationalist perspective focusing on African American cultural life to a more fully fledged revolutionary solidarity remained a question that Wright never fully answered, even for himself. Though Wright broke from the party in 1942, Jerry Ward notes that Wright’s experience with Marxism sharpened his perspective on writing about racial discrimination and class problems. In the most comprehensive study of the subject to date, Black Marxism: The Making of Black Radical Tradition, Cedric Robinson (2000) attempts to reconstitute “historical, cultural, and moral materials” among the several African peoples enslaved, and to place Marxist ideals in a properly corrective perspective. Thus, Marxism and black radicalism can be seen as contributing significantly to each other’s formation. Such organizations as the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB) and even the United Negro Improvement Association influenced the recruiting strategies and direction of the American Communist Party. On the other hand, the ABB was a black revolutionary nationalist organization but became influenced by socialism as Caribbean members developed a Marxist consciousness. Inversely, the move toward Marxism by C. L. R. James, a central figure in the Caribbean Left, was directly influenced by his involvement with the

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Trinidad Workingmen’s Association, and he then adopted a Trotskyist position. Still, many who see themselves as Marxists see even the term “Black Marxism” as an unnecessary combination. Jason Esters See also African Blood Brotherhood (ABB); James, Cyril Lionel Robert (1901–1989); Jones, Claudia Cumberbatch (1915–1964). F URTHER R EADING Freedman, Carl. 1983. “Overdeterminations: On Black Marxism in Great Britain.” Social Text, No. 8. Winter: 142–150. Holcomb, Gary. New Negroes, Black Communism, and the New Pluralism. Book review. American Quarterly 53 (2): 367–376. Horne, Gerald. 1986. Black and Red: W. E. B. DuBois and the Afro-American Response to the Cold War, 1944–1963. Albany: State University of New York Press. Maxwell, William J. 1999. New Negro, Old Left: African-American Writing and Communism between the Wars. New York: Columbia University Press. Robinson, Cedric J. 2000. Black Marxism: The Making of Black Radical Tradition. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

z Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP) was organized by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in October 1966. They devised the Ten Point Platform and Program, which demanded self-determination, employment, an end to the robbery of the black community by capitalist exploitation, housing, and education. The program also demanded exemption from military service; an end to police brutality; freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county and city jails; trial by a jury of one’s peers; land; bread; clothing; justice; and peace. Newton and Seale adopted the symbol of the black panther from the Lowndes County Free-

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dom Organization and rationalized that the panther was a fierce animal who would not attack unless provoked. The organization demanded “all power to the people” to raise the consciousness of the community and to characterize the call for self-determination through local community control. Reasons for joining the BPP included a genuine desire to uplift the race and serve the community, an opportunity to cultivate organizational skills and to express support for spouses and significant others. The BPP’s Central Committee governed policy, administered official decisions of the BPP, and developed rules of discipline guiding the conduct and behavior of its members. Kathleen Cleaver, wife of BPP minister of information Eldridge Cleaver, was the only woman to serve on the BPP’s Central Committee, which she did as communications secretary in 1968. In 1971, Elaine Brown served as deputy minister of information and later became the only chairwoman of the BPP, from 1974 to 1977. The BPP catapulted into the national media on May 2, 1967, when 24 BPP men and 6 women converged on the steps of the California state capitol building to protest a proposed guncontrol bill prohibiting the carrying of loaded weapons within city limits. Newton’s encounter with police officers on October 28, 1967, during a vehicle stop resulted in a stomach wound and the death of police officer John Frey. Newton’s subsequent imprisonment yielded a massive “Free Huey” movement, spearheaded by Kathleen Cleaver and Eldridge Cleaver. Although support for Newton’s release yielded increased nationwide membership in the BPP—to 30 chapters in the United States and internationally in 1969— Newton was convicted and released in 1971. In 1968, the BPP formed temporary unsuccessful coalitions with the PFP, as its most prominent leaders, including Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, Bobby Seale, and Huey P. Newton, launched unsuccessful political campaigns. The BPP also launched a short-lived merger

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with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Eldridge Cleaver escaped to Cuba after a shootout with Oakland police in 1968 and was later joined by his wife Kathleen; the couple later traveled to Algiers to establish the international section of the BPP in 1970. BPP chief of staff David Hilliard assumed leadership of the BPP. The BPP dropped the term “self-defense” from its name in 1968 to emphasize its transition from a paramilitary stance to one of servicing the community through social programs. These programs were termed “survival programs” and include its free breakfast program, free sickle-cell anemia testing, free food, liberation schools, free busing to prisons, free medical services, free shoes, and free pesticides. More than any other program, Free Breakfast for Children served as the signature of the BPP. Women mainly facilitated and implemented the Free Breakfast for Children program and volunteered to serve and donate food in addition to soliciting donations door-to-door from businesses and the local community. A typical day in the BPP was fraught with paper sales, community outreach measures, and political education classes. By 1969, women had proliferated among the leadership of the BPP in such chapters as Boston, Chicago, and Connecticut. Nationwide violent confrontations between BPP members and police drew the attention of the federal government, which instituted 233 of its 295 counterintelligence efforts, known as COINTELPRO, to neutralize and discredit the BPP. Panthers in every locale were constantly stopped, arrested, and beaten en route to and from breakfast programs, rallies, offices, and homes. In 1970, Black Panther trials throughout the United States reached their zenith, as BPP members faced indictments on criminal conspiracy, murder, attempted murder, and assault charges. In 1970, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) chief J. Edgar Hoover declared the organization the greatest threat to the internal security of the United States. From April to De-

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Black Paris/Paris Noir | 187 cember 1969, police raids of BPP residences— including searches, seizures of BPP property, and arrests—occurred in Oakland, San Francisco, Chicago, Salt Lake City, Indianapolis, Denver, San Diego, Sacramento, and Los Angeles. In December 1969, police killed Chicago BPP members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. Although BPP men and women were accorded similar punishments when arrested, brutal treatment had more serious consequences for pregnant BPP women. The courts usually set bail excessively high for BPP members. For example, 21 members of the New York chapter were arrested in 1969 for allegedly trying to bomb the Botanical Gardens in New York. Bail for each person was set at $1 million. Most of the “Panther 21” spent two years in prison after a 15-month trial and the 90minute deliberation of a jury that acquitted them of all 156 counts. In 1971, Newton consolidated the BPP’s nationwide chapters in Oakland, as the organization prepared for its major foray into local electoral politics through voter registration projects and political rallies. In 1972, the BPP launched two unsuccessful political campaigns, Bobby Seale’s for mayor and Elaine Brown’s for the city council. Two BPP women, Audrea Jones and Ericka Huggins, were elected to the Berkeley Community Development Council in 1973; other BPP women also launched political campaigns in Oakland and Chicago. In 1972, chapter consolidations, combined with disaffection, expulsions, and disillusionment, decimated the BPP. Bobby Seale resigned from the BPP in 1974, and Newton exiled himself to Cuba amid criminal felony charges. Elaine Brown assumed leadership of the BPP from 1974 to 1977, increasing BPP women’s visibility and leadership roles. Brown also launched another unsuccessful bid for a seat on the Oakland City Council in 1975 and served as California governor Jerry Brown’s delegate at the 1976 Democratic Party National Convention. Brown and BPP men and women campaigned and mobilized the Oakland community to

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elect Oakland’s first African American judge, Lionel Wilson, in 1977. Brown resigned from the BPP upon Newton’s return in 1977. Although Newton never officially disbanded the BPP, its last program, the Oakland Community School, closed in 1982. Rose C. Thevenin See also Brown, Elaine (1943–); COINTELPRO. F URTHER R EADING Ballagoon, Kuwasi. 1971. Look for Me in the Whirlwind: The Collective Autobiography of the New York 21. New York: Random House. Brown, Elaine. 1992. A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story. New York: Pantheon Books. Heath, G. Louis. 1976. Off the Pigs: The History and Literature of the Black Panther Party. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. Jones, Charles E., ed. 1998. The Black Panther Party Reconsidered. Baltimore: Black Classic Press. Matthews, Tracy Ann. 1998. “No One Ever Asks What a Man’s Place in the Revolution Is: Gender and Sexual Politics in the Black Panther Party, 1966–1971.” Ph.D diss., University of Michigan. Newton, Huey P. 1995. To Die for the People: Selected Writings and Speeches. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Writers and Readers. Newton, Huey P. 1995. Revolutionary Suicide. With J. Herman Blake. New York: Writers and Readers. O’Reilly, Kenneth. 1989. Racial Matters: The FBI’s Secret File on Black America, 1960–1972. New York: Free Press. Seale, Bobby. 1991. Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton. Baltimore: Black Classic Press.

z Black Paris/Paris Noir The concept and practice of “Black Paris,” or “Paris Noir,” refers to the artistic, social, and cultural lifeways and life-worlds of blacks (in its most inclusive sense) repositioned on Parisian soil. In this context, Paris becomes significant to the African Diaspora as a critical

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space allowing for a complex black modernity, cosmopolitanism, and border crossings seemingly unavailable elsewhere to the same depth and magnitude (DuBois 1919; Fabre 1993; Stovall 1996; Jules-Rosette 1998; Julien 2000; Diawara 2003; Edwards 2003). “Black Paris” lies, then, at the nexus of pan-Africanist and Diaspora discourses that point to a contingent solidarity and differences among blacks in French society in ways that transform “Black Paris” into a synecdoche for black internationalism. While the origins of the nomenclature “Black Paris” remain somewhat obscure, it is most closely associated with anthropologist Eslanda Goode Robeson (the wife of Paul Robeson), who authored two articles titled “Black Paris” in 1936. The concept has gained currency through a variety of transatlantic writings on the presence and import of blacks in Paris (and the world) that span the 1920s to the present. These English- and French-language documents simultaneously heralded and fashioned what would be conceptualized as “Black Paris” then and now. Accordingly, “Black Paris,” as a discursive formation, would prove essential to consequential ideologies and organic intellectualism indicative of the New Negro or Harlem Renaissance (1920s) and Négritude (1930s) movements. A “Black Paris” consciousness, moreover, led to defining political and cultural events predicated on shared sensibilities, (s)kinship, and social exclusion. This would include the Pan-African Conference in 1919, the weekly literary salons (Cercles d’Amis) hosted during the interwar period by the Martinican intellectuals Paulette and Jane Nardal, and the First International Conference of Negro Writers and Artists (Le Congrès des Écrivains et Artistes Noirs) in 1956, organized by Alioune Diop, the Senegalese scholar, politician, and founder of the publishing house and journal Présence Africaine. A loaded set of ascriptions has been used to describe those constituting “Black Paris,” including “nationals,” “expatriates,” “exiles,” and

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“immigrants,” each referencing the many ways that blacks have been received and perceived in France. What is often overlooked in these identity politics is a growing second and third generation of African-origin peoples who may self-understand as French and for whom France is their contested home. The lived realities and legacies of slavery, race terror, and colonization, and the mythos of Paris itself, explain migration to this Diaspora city. In the politics of this migration, the phenomenon of African Americans leaving the United States for Paris inheres in a broader celebratory narrative of immigrant upward mobility rarely acknowledged, that is, persons perceived as welcomed expatriates in France. However, Africans and African descent groups with whom France shares a direct and violent history of oppression have encountered a more hostile reception and are often demonized as minions or “immigrants.” Currently, a wealth of scholarly and nonscholarly activities enlivens both historical and contemporary realities identified with or as “Black Paris.” These include literary and visual production, academic courses, virtual and actual study abroad programs, heritage tourism, and cultural and political associations and salons organized and run by blacks living in Paris or translocally. It is impossible to list here the array of persons emblematic of “Black Paris.” Nevertheless, in its scope, “Black Paris” broadly refers to black experiences in what is represented as a City of Light. Trica Keaton See also Cook, Mercer (1903–1987); Europe and the African Diaspora; France and the African Diaspora; Harlem Renaissance; Négritude; Présence Africaine. F URTHER R EADING Cook, Mercer. 1939. “The Race Problem in Paris and the French West Indies.” The Journal of Negro Education 8 (4): 673–680. Diawara, Manthia. 2003. We Won’t Budge. New York: Basic Civitas Books.

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Black Populism (1886–1898) | 189 DuBois, William Edward Burghardt. 1919. “The Colored American in France.” Crisis 17 (February): 167–168. Edwards, Brent Hayes. 2003. The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Fabre, Michel. 1993. From Harlem to Paris: Black American Writers in France, 1840–1980. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Gondola, Ch. Didier. 2004. “But I Ain’t African, I’m American! Black American Exiles and the Construction of Racial Identities in TwentiethCentury France.” In Blackening Europe: The African American Experience, ed. H. RaphaelHernandez. New York: Routledge. Jules-Rosette, Bennetta. 1998. Black Paris: The African Writers’ Landscape. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Julien, Eileen. 2000. “Terrains de Rencontre: Césaire, Fanon, Wright on Culture and Decolonization.” In The French Fifties, ed. Susan Weiner. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Robeson, Eslanda Goode. 1936. “Black Paris I.” Challenge (January): 12–18. Robeson, Eslanda Goode. 1936. “Black Paris II.” Challenge (June): 9–12. Stovall, Tyler. 1996. Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

z Black Populism (1886–1898) Black Populism was the largest political movement of rural African Americans in the last two decades of the 19th century. In the years following the collapse of Reconstruction in 1877, black men and women began to organize what became a broad movement in the South for economic and political reform. Distinct from the white Populist movement, between 1886 and 1898 black farmers, sharecroppers, and agrarian laborers carried out an array of tactics to advance their material interests. Among the movement’s principal leaders were the Rev. Walter A. Pattillo of North Carolina, John B. Rayner of Texas, and Oliver Cromwell of Mississippi. At its height in the early 1890s, black

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Populism comprised more than 1 million African Americans. As the movement asserted itself and grew into a regional force in the mid-1880s, it met fierce resistance from the “Southern Democracy”—the white planter and business elite that, through the Democratic Party and its affiliated network of courts, militias, and newspapers, maintained tight control of the region. Despite such opposition, African Americans carried out a wide range of activities: establishing farming cooperatives; raising money for schools; publishing newspapers; lobbying for better legislation; mounting boycotts against business monopolies; carrying out strikes for better wages; protesting the convict-lease system, segregated coach boxes, and lynching; demanding that black jurors be empaneled in cases involving black defendants; promoting political reforms and federal supervision of elections; and running independent and fusion campaigns. Black Populism found early expression in various agrarian organizations, including the Colored Agricultural Wheels, the southern Knights of Labor, the Cooperative Workers of America, the Farmers Union, and, most notably, the Colored Farmers Alliance, which served as the largest of the agrarian organizations. Limited in their attempts to implement political and economic reforms in the absence of exercising electoral power, black Populists came together with white Populists to launch an independent political party, the People’s Party, simultaneously making use of the Republican Party in fusion campaigns. Black Populists and Republicans in North Carolina took control of the state legislature in 1894, briefly ushering in a “Second Reconstruction.” The new government instituted key political and economic reforms even as it came under fire. In East Texas, African Americans, together with white independents, won a number of offices. As in North Carolina, the resurgence of reform politics in Texas was met by armed opposition from the Democrats and their white supremacist backers. Georgia, which witnessed

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some of the most bitter antagonism, came to the movement and became a battleground where insurgent black Populists, including Henry S. Doyle, risked their lives to support the People’s Party. By the late 1890s, under relentless attack— propaganda campaigns warning of “Negro rule,” physical intimidation, and the murdering of leaders and foot soldiers—Black Populism had been crushed. Although the movement was ultimately destroyed, marking the end of organized political resistance to the Southern Democracy in the late 19th century, Black Populism nevertheless stands as the largest independent political uprising in the South until the modern-day Civil Rights Movement. Omar H. Ali See also African Americans and the Constitutional Order. F URTHER R EADING Ali, Omar H. Forthcoming. Black Populism in the New South, 1886–1898. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Gaither, Gerald H. 1977. Blacks and the Populist Revolt: Ballots and Bigotry in the “New South.” Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.

z Black Power Movement in the United States A legitimate claim can be made that black power, as an act and an attitude of struggle and resilience against white racist oppression, has existed from the time of contact, and conflict, between Africa and Europe. Thus, the antislavery movement, the struggle for African independence, and Pan-Africanism, among others, would come under the umbrella of black power. Common to all those movements is the element of protest. It has always been a question of power, in the hands of white masters jealously guarding and refusing to share it. However, the nomenclature of black power has

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been initially defined for particular organizations in the black liberation struggle of the 1960s, in a particular space, the United States of America. This is significant because, since slavery, that country has been the epicenter of various cataclysms and revolutionary processes as far as black people are concerned. Given the complexity and diversity of black experience in the United States, it is impossible to give one all-encompassing definition of black power. The epithet “black” poses no problem, understood as it is as a chosen identity by those who have survived slavery, and modern-day colonialism, being the object of someone’s else gaze, now deciding to use a word to assert their presence. “Black” is the product of a naming reclamation that moved from the earlier “African” through the pejorative “nigger” to “negro” to “colored” and “of color” and then to “Afro-American,” “AfricanAmerican,” and finally back to “African.” The word, capitalized, connotes in itself a position of power, of defiance, a determination to seize control of one’s destiny in a racist society. The use of the term “power” is also deliberate. Frederick Douglass, the black abolitionist, insisted that “power concedes nothing without demand.” Black theologian James Cone states that it means freedom, self-determination, dignity. According to James Boggs, it is the ability to reconstruct the total society. Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture) calls it the ability to define oneself and one’s relationship to society, the struggle for the right to create black terms through which to define black people as they reclaimed their history and identity from cultural terrorism. Power connotes control, change, decision, and choice; it entails the transformation of object to subject. It means that black people are no longer satisfied to be defined by the white mainstream from its pedestal of superiority; that the age of doling out a pittance for hard labor is over, and that black people are now determined to be masters, no longer servants. Black power is associated with the 1960s in the United States, that period of turmoil and

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Stokely Carmichael, head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, speaks against the draft at the University of California–Berkeley on October 29, 1966. (AP Photo)

protest when issues of rights became the big bone of contention and racism was seen as the cancer that needed to be excised from the national soul. Critics usually include several elements in the definition: the nonviolent and the violent, the moderate and extremist, the compromising integrationist and the rigidly separatist. Other aspects are: an attempt to destroy American political and economic institutions; to rid the Civil Rights Movement of liberal whites; to make black people proud and dignified; and to resist white supremacy. According to Charles V. Hamilton, the intellectual who defined black power, those in the movement can be placed into four categories: political bargainers, moral crusaders, alienated reformers, and alienated revolutionaries. While it is relevant to acknowledge the work of all those in the four categories on behalf of black people, certain critics would deem it problematic to place them all under the umbrella of black power conceptualized in terms of a revolutionary process. Indeed, what dis-

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tinguishes Martin Luther King Jr. from Malcolm X, the Congressional Black Caucus from the Black Panther Party, and Bayard Rustin from Stokely Carmichael is the notion of compromise and collaboration on one hand and that of total control and rejection of compromise on the other. In support of this distinction is the fact that the term itself was coined and brought into usage by the latter individuals and groups. Another form of categorization has been suggested: black power pluralists, counter-communalists, and separatists. The first category believes that power in the United States is divided among various ethnic groups playing according to the same accepted rules. The challenge is, therefore, for black people to make others accede to their legitimate demands. The way forward would be to eschew the traditional capitalistic individualism and to create and use group power for their common benefits. Unlike the first category, the counter-communalists reject capitalist values and wish to replace them,

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as well as the institutions and beliefs of the system. The separatists also disvalue the existing system and seek to establish new values in the black community. Separatists go beyond devaluation to arrive at the final state: a separate and distinct black nation. They refuse to work within a racist system geared toward dehumanizing and exploiting black people. The line between the counter-communalists and separatists is often blurred, for there is fluidity between the two tenets. For example, the Black Panther Party’s avowal of the illegitimacy of American government, and its decision to take up arms against it, tacitly made for the possibility of a separate black state or, at least, control of a black community enjoying autonomy. The popularly recognized Black Power Movement in the United States includes several prominent figures. One of them is Stokely Carmichael, later known as Kwame Ture (1941– 1998). A fiery, articulate orator, Kwame Ture coauthored Black Power, The Politics of Liberation in America (Vintage, 1992) with Charles Hamilton. The text is essential reading on black power from a revolutionary perspective. The authors define white racism, individual and institutional, overt and covert, as one reality leading to black power. Another existential fact is black colonial condition in a society where white power rules supreme, with black bourgeoisie playing the colonial politics of co-optation and collaboration. In that setting of exploitation, black people must wake up, reorient, and redefine themselves. They must know their history, their roots, develop an awareness of their cultural heritage, and have a clearer notion of the role they can play in the world. Black people must refuse to assimilate into middle-class America, whose values are racist and anti-humanist. The authors define black power as “a call for black people [in the United States] to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community.” They must create new values on free people, not free enterprise. The accusation of reverse racism is stoutly rejected as a blatant lie. Ture and Hamilton, how-

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ever, consider the matter irrelevant to the black power project; black people, they affirm, cannot and shall not offer any guarantees. The old language of patience and progress, of love and suffering, is rejected and replaced by one of defiance and determination to forcefully attain freedom. This is where the philosophy of Frantz Fanon, Martinican psychiatrist and author (The Wretched of the Earth, Présence Africaine, 1963) is chosen as applicable to black power struggle: Black people have a right and a responsibility to use counterviolence against the violent oppressor. Martin Luther King’s nonviolence and integration thus symbolize submission, a bourgeois program of metaphorically or physically leaving the ghetto of Harlem for the skyscrapers of Manhattan. Ture and Hamilton agree that coalition with other groups may be useful; but the identity of the partner and the terms and modalities of the objectives must be decided by black people. Black and white people can work together, but black people must be in charge. The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was no doubt one of the best known, most visible and—from the viewpoint of mainstream society—most notorious organs of the movement. A knowledgeable and committed scholar-activist, Huey Newton had a wellexplicated agenda for the party and for ameliorating the condition of the black community. He rejected the existing American system and advocated the construction of a new, socialist structure by any means necessary, in line with the statement by Malcolm X, whose name was synonymous with black power and who was gunned down in 1968. Born in 1936 and son of a carpenter, Bobby Seale was once a jazz drummer. He is perhaps best remembered as one of the original eight defendants in the Chicago Conspiracy Trial of 1969, when the Democratic Party convention was thrown into turmoil. Seale, in his usual fiery, expletive-laden form, declared that, if the police got in the way of the march, they should be killed and sent to the morgue slab. While Newton was minister of defense, Seale was

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Black Seminoles | 193 chairman. Both of them oversaw the growth of a party committed to the black community, and then its demise as it was embroiled in violence and infiltrated by agents. Over the years, they shed the demeanor of the panther, wary, alert, with eyes at the back of its head, not attacking unless attacked; society expected the panther to be the aggressor and, out of that premise, gunned it down at every opportunity. Many a panther was sent to death by police bullet. Some changed their identity. Such was the case of Eldridge Cleaver, whose book Soul on Ice (Dell, 1967) helped make him a famous black power leader. He became a right-wing advocate and died in 1998 as an ally of Republicans. Still the Black Power Movement has had major impact in music, art, and politics around the world and has had resonated with those confronted by oppressive racist practices. Femi Ojo-Ade See also Black Panther Party; Black/Blackness: Philosophical Considerations Caribbean Black Power; Newton, Huey Percy (1942–); Ture, Kwame (1941–1998). F URTHER R EADING Collier-Thomas, Bettye, and V. P. Franklin, eds. 2001. Sisters in the Struggle: African-American Women in the Civil Rights–Black Power Movement. New York: New York University Press. Fanon, Frantz. 1963. The Wretched of the Earth. Paris: Présence Africaine. Hamilton, Charles, and Stokely Carmichael. 1992. Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America. New York: Vintage. Joseph, Peniel E., ed. 2006. Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights–Black Power Era. New York: Routledge.

z Black Seminoles From the 17th to the 19th centuries, enslaved Africans fled the plantations of Georgia and the Carolinas, seeking freedom in Spanish Florida. In 1693, a royal Spanish decree was is-

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sued that promised sanctuary to all enslaved persons who reached St. Augustine, Florida, on the condition that they adopt the Catholic religion. The Spanish granted these newly freed Africans plots of land two miles north of St. Augustine, where they established the first legally sanctioned black community in North America: Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, also known as Fort Mose. By offering enslaved Africans sanctuary, the Spaniards could bolster their defenses and, at the same time, undermine the stability of the plantation system, which was threatening to overtake their sovereign territory. Some of the runaway Africans allied themselves with the Seminole Indians of Florida. In most historical accounts, these Africans are considered “slaves” of the Seminoles. It was however, a very different kind of association, more analogous to peonage or tenant farming than the chattel slavery they suffered on the plantations. The Africans were required only to pay a tribute, a portion of their harvests, to the Seminole leaders and enjoyed substantial autonomy in their own separate communities, known generally as “Black Towns.” The African–Seminole alliance developed from a mutual interest in securing their Florida haven. Seminole Indians fought to retain their land and livelihood, while Africans fought against a return to enslavement. It was this alliance that led to a new identity for the Africans as “black Seminoles.” Their ethnogenesis was forged during a complex period in Florida that included power struggles between various European powers and diverse agendas of several Native American nations in the southeastern United States. In the early 19th century, the Anglo-American offensive into Florida accelerated, particularly after the 1819 annexation of Florida by the United States. From 1821 to 1837, an estimated 150 to 200 Black Seminoles and other runaways escaped from Florida, boarding canoes or wreckers at Cape Florida for the journey to freedom in the Bahamas. Many, however, did not escape.

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The Indian Removal Act of 1830 forced the massive relocation of many Native American nations and their African associates to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. A $56 million reparations agreement from the United States government to the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma in 1991, payment for lands seized in Florida, led to a legal battle between the Seminole nation and Black Seminole descendants in Oklahoma. The Seminole nation sought to exclude black Seminoles from the reparations settlement, despite the 1866 treaty that specifically included the Black Seminoles as full members of the nation. Descendants of Florida’s Black Seminoles now make their homes in Oklahoma, Texas, Mexico, and the Bahamas. Rosalyn Howard See also Bahamas; Bahamas: Liberated Africans; Black Seminoles at Red Bays, Bahamas; Maroon and Marronage. F URTHER R EADING Giddings, Joshua. R. 1858. The Exiles of Florida: or, The Crimes Committed by Our Government against the Maroons, Who Fled from South Carolina and Other Slave States, Seeking Protection under Spanish Laws. Columbus, OH: Follett, Foster. Howard, Rosalyn. 2002. Black Seminoles in the Bahamas. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Hudson, Charles M., ed. 1971. Red, White, and Black: Symposium on Indians in the Old South. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Katz, William L. 1986. Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage. New York: Atheneum. Landers, Jane G. 1996. Against the Odds: Free Blacks in the Slave Societies of the Americas. London: Frank Cass. Littlefield, Daniel F., Jr. 1977. Africans and Seminoles from Removal to Emancipation. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Mulroy, Kevin. 1993. Freedom on the Border: The Seminole Maroons in Florida, the Indian Territory, Coahuila, and Texas. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press. Porter, Kenneth W. 1996. The Black Seminoles: History of a Freedom-Seeking People. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

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Black Seminoles at Red Bays, Bahamas In 1821, more than 100 Black Seminoles migrated to the Bahamas to escape re-enslavement in Florida, the newest U.S. territory. They formed communities as free people at Red Bays on Andros Island and in the Berry Islands. Colonial officials only discovered the larger group of 97 on Andros Island in 1828 and assumed they were slaves being smuggled into Cuba. The governor ruled that they were to remain free, as they were not registered in the colony as slaves. Since 1819, when Spain ceded Florida to the United States, Seminole chiefs led several delegations to the Bahamas to seek assistance from the British colonial government. Seminoles were allies of the British in the War of 1812. In the Bahamas, they always received a polite reception but nothing more. Facing this desperate situation, a group of Black Seminoles took matters in their own hands and arranged passage to the Bahamas aboard a wrecking vessel. On Andros, the largest Bahama island, they chose to settle on the west coast, about 50 miles (80.5 kilometers) from all other settlements on the east coast. This isolation certainly helped them evade detection by colonial officials. Little is known about the settlement in the tiny Berry Islands, but Black Seminole settlers were apparently the only inhabitants of those cays. They lived very much like other Bahamians, by subsistence farming, cutting timber and dyewoods, collecting sponges, and salvaging wrecks. After a devastating hurricane in 1866, the government encouraged Red Bays residents to relocate to a more protected spot further inland. Many villagers also chose to move to other parts of Andros. Red Bays remains a distinct community today. Residents are descendants of the original Black Seminole settlers. Craft artists from Red Bays are renowned for a distinctive straw-

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Black/Africana Studies in the United States | 195 work style that combines elements of African and Native American cultural traditions. Grace Turner See also Bahamas; Black Seminoles. F URTHER R EADING Howard, Rosalyn. 2000. Black Seminoles in the Bahamas. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

z Black Women and Feminism in the African Diaspora See Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora.

z Black Women Jazz and Blues Singers See Jazz and Blues Singers, Black Women.

z Black/Africana Studies in the United States Africana studies, black studies, African-American studies, Afro-American studies, Africology, Pan-African studies, Afro-Caribbean studies, and African World Studies are but different names for academic units that focus on the systematic investigation of people of African descent in their contacts with Europeans, their dispersal throughout the Diaspora, and the subsequent institutionalization of racism and oppression as a means of economic, political, and social subordination. Africana studies and black studies are the terms

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increasingly used interchangeably by those who identify with the new or emerging discipline. Because of the new and evolving nature of Africana studies as an intellectual enterprise, there continues to be debate about whether Africana studies is a discipline in the traditional sense or an area of inquiry to which one brings tools from selected disciplines and applies them to a particular subject matter. While debate continues over its status as a discipline, there is consensus that Africana studies/black studies began as a systematic field of study in the late 1960s in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement and in the midst of pervasive campus unrest. From the outset, it had both an academic and social mission. Although contemporary Africana/black studies as an interdisciplinary curriculum is a product of the sixties, it draws much of its academic content from earlier times. The academic units vary in size, structure, emphasis, and resources, but there is common understanding of the human predicament that resulted in the transformation of African people into an enslaved people. Students of the 1960s were confronted with an absence or distortion of the black experience in the higher education curriculum and a sense of cultural alienation generated by the predominantly white colleges and universities they entered. First, students demanded black recognition in the form of an increase in black faculty and staff, black programs, more black students, necessary financial aid, and black history courses. But it quickly became clear that black history was merely a beginning and that a broader demand would and did emerge for a comprehensive interdisciplinary curriculum with history at its center. Contrasted to its tumultuous beginnings, Africana studies has become entrenched in academe and reflects signs of growth and maturation in its fourth decade. Though the Africana studies movement addressed some very real shortcomings—such as paucity of black faculty, omission and distortion of curricular content, and programmatic resources in the academy—only in the last

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decade has it began to be responsive in its sensitivity to the unique experiences of women of African descent in America, on the continent or throughout the Diaspora. Throughout the United States, Africana men and women speak to the existence of racism in women’s studies and sexism in black studies in courses on campuses, in professional organizations, and in scholarly publications. It is important to note, however, that black women do have a rich legacy in these areas, though they have been numerically smaller as well as reluctant to voice their own accomplishments. Nonetheless, black women have been actively involved in the initiation, continuity, and development of Africana/black studies. Black women students and black women faculty, along with black women community activists, joined with their male peers (their brothers in the struggle) in those protests and other efforts that contributed to the establishment of what is now emerging as a distinct discipline of Africana studies. Those women, like their male counterparts, understood the amazon tasks before them across the nation in the accomplishment of meaningful Africana studies with strong academic foundations within higher education. While in a distinct minority, numerous women were founders of black studies units at their institutions and, like men, they have provided leadership as program directors or as department chairs and are doing so in even greater numbers in the new millennium. Black women have also been significant as leaders in efforts to professionalize the discipline. They are among those persons who have served in the top leadership positions of the major organizations for Africana studies: the National Council for Black Studies (NCBS), the Association for the study of African American Life and History (ASALH), and the African Heritage Studies Association (AHSA). Such names as Bertha Maxwell Roddy, Carlene Young, Delores P. Aldridge, and Charshee McIntyre are to be recognized along with those of William

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Nelson, James B. Stewart, James Turner, John Henrik Clarke, and Leonard Jeffries for their strong leadership initiatives in national organizations. In fact, it was during the administrations of Young and Aldridge that much debate occurred over the uniformity of a name for this new discipline. They advocated Africana studies as the name. As relevant as leadership is to the development of a discipline, perhaps as important if not more so is the scholarship of its members. There have been numerous specialized journals and other research outlets. These include but are not limited to the Journal of Black Studies, Western Journal of Black Studies, International Journal of Africana Studies, Black Scholar, and the Journal of African American Studies. Both women and men have contributed significantly, though the men have been more visible with their scholarship in the kinds of models and paradigms set forth that were not gender specific. Though much of the work of the women has not been gender specific either, it has tended to be more specific in conceptualizing and analyzing issues. And, as a result, the work of women, with the exception of a few, has enjoyed less prominence. In Africana studies, as in all academic disciplines, different schools of thought contribute diverse perspectives to the collective enterprise. There is, however, always an overarching worldview and a set of values as part of a disciplinary matrix that includes concepts, theories, and research methods shared among schools of thought. One value that links different schools of thought within Africana studies is the commitment to producing a perspective that reflects the beliefs, values, culture, and interests of peoples of African descent. The terms “Africancentered” and “Afrocentric” (or “Africentric”) have been used by some in contemporary discourse to convey this value. These terms are used in a general rather than limited sense, such that Afrocentric or African-centered thought is solidly embedded within a historical tradition, one that can be understood by recognizing in-

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Black/Africana Studies in the United States | 197 ternal dialectics and contradictions over a span of time within the field and the society. Thus, it may be argued that, far from being an ideological position, Afrocentric or African-centered thought exists regardless of whether or not it is called Afrocentric or African-centered. Good pedagogical approaches associated with Africana studies instruction at the undergraduate level are designed to expose students to the ideas, philosophical orientations, and benefits of the variety of schools of thought. Instructional strategies are designed to transmit critical analytical skills that allow students to make their own sense of the world. Instruction is generally delivered through organized units, usually departments, programs, centers, or institutes using faculty with various types of affiliations within the institution. The range and orientation of instruction generally reflect the mission, faculty expertise, and general focus of the academic unit, for example, African American or Diasporic studies. Africana studies courses are often included in general education curricula, increasing the numbers and variety of students in classes. Among opportunities offered in Africana studies for students, in addition to classroom exposure to a variety of professors and perspectives, are stimulating learning activities conducted away from campus. Study abroad opportunities in Africa and the Caribbean are offered, as well as field experiences in local community service agencies. Unique teaching models and strategies have been employed to provide students in Africana studies with a wide range of intellectual and personal experiences at home and abroad. In addition, there is a growth of graduate programs. At the dawn of the 21st century, the United States can be characterized by a great number of individuals with different cultural origins. This changed demographical makeup, particularly with the numerical explosion of Spanishspeaking people (Hispanics or Latinos) and the growing visibility of women, demands a new look at the academic marketplace. As the trail-

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blazer for advocacy of the inclusion of many different kinds of experiences into the educational landscape, black/Africana studies has a pivotal role in multicultural education. There is no question that women, minorities, and the disabled need to be represented in all institutions and reward systems of this country. They deserve their representation, since they have also been excluded from the narration of a complete history of this country. Their entry in significant numbers to the university came as a result of the civil rights struggle but was a more welcomed inclusion than black studies, which trailblazed for them. These groups and programs were generally sustained with less formal resistance or acrimony and often were provided greater allocation of resources. Nonetheless, at some point a critical analysis of the evolution of these groups, as a presence in the university and voice in the sociopolitical arena, must include acknowledgement of a debt. The debt is one owed to the sacrifice of life, position, and property sustained by African Americans that brought about a change in the status quo and opened the doors of the university to those who had not previously been allowed entry. According to a study in 1992 under the auspices of the National Council for Black Studies, among some of the major challenges facing the field during the nineties and into the 21st century are these: 1. Movement toward a common name 2. Distinction between the work of scholars in Africana studies per se and that of scholars in longer-standing disciplines who study the experiences of peoples of acknowledged African descent 3. Ongoing assessment of intellectual products 4. Development of more specialized journals and other research outlets 5. Creation of additional graduate programs

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6. Integration of Africana studies content more systematically into the K–12 curriculum 7. Inclusion of women in a more systematic fashion in all facets of the discipline 8. Provision of leadership in the multicultural movement while operationalizing Afrocentricity with greater clarity Delores P. Aldridge See also Afrocentricity; Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH); Pan-Africanism. F URTHER R EADING Aldridge, Delores P. 1992. “Womanist Issues in Black Studies: Towards Integrating Africana Women into Africana Studies.” The Afrocentric Scholar 1 (1): 167–182. Aldridge, Delores P., and Carlene Young, eds. 2004. Out of the Revolution: The Development of Africana Studies. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Alkalimat, Abdul, ed. 1990. Paradigms in Black Studies. Chicago: Twenty-First Century Press. Anderson, Talmadge, ed. 1990. Black Studies: Theory, Method, and Cultural Perspectives. Pullman: Washington State University Press. Ani, Marimba 1994. Yorugu, an African-Centered Critique of European Culture, Thought and Behavior. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Asante, Molefi. 1980. Afrocentricity: The Theory of Social Change. Buffalo: Amulelfi. Asante, Molefi. 1987. The Afrocentric Idea. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Hare, Bruce, Alfred Young, James Stewart, and Delores P. Aldridge. 2001. “Africana Studies: Past, Present, and Future.” In The Disciplines Speak: A Continuing Conversation: Rewarding the Scholarly Professional and Creative Work of Faculty, ed. Robert M. Diamond and Broynwyn E. Adam, 125–151. Washington, DC: American Association of Higher Education. Stewart, James B. 2004. Flight in Search of Vision. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Turner, James E., ed. 1984. The Next Decade: Theoretical and Research Issues in Africana Studies. Ithaca, NY: Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University.

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Black/Blackness: Philosophical Considerations The use of the word “black” as a racial designation has a rather complex history. In certain periods of African American history, “black” assumed a derogatory connotation, and at other times it became a positive name for people of African descent to celebrate with pride. The phenotype associated with being black has been a matter of distress and humiliation for quite a number of people. “Good” hair and the right (light) complexion, in the eyes of more than a few, afforded a degree of cultural acceptability and social status that nappy, coarse hair and black skin could not provide. The first African American woman to become a millionaire through her own efforts, Madame C. J. Walker gained her wealth from selling “racial” cosmetics and hair-straightening products designed to approximate how white people typically look and minimize distinctive African features. For a long time, for numerous people of African descent, blackness was a badge of shame and racial embarrassment. Many with fair complexions frowned on marriage and social intercourse with those of darker complexion, thus reproducing intragroup color hierarchies. In the history of African American cultural life, however, and despite its negative connotations, blackness as racial identity has been more than just the object of scorn and self-contempt. In contrast to the prior scenario, the slogan “Black is beautiful,” which was often associated with 1960s African American cultural and political activity, emerged as a clarion call of racial redemption through the rejection of white standards of beauty and cultural perspectives. Both the Black Arts and the Black Power Movements jointly affirmed and intimated the need for selfrespect by specifically embracing forms of “black” racial identity and consciousness. Instead of straightening one’s hair, the adoption of the Afro hairstyle and other African-oriented

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Black/Blackness: Philosophical Considerations | 199 cultural symbols as manifestations and crucial components of popular culture were attempts to implement a “black” standard of beauty, or what more broadly became known as a uniquely “black” aesthetic for Afro-Americans. Afro-American writers ventured to create poetry, novels, and drama that raised consciousness about the significance of “blackness” as a source of beauty and strength. African American popular culture also gave additional expression to pride in blackness by means of the performing arts and musical recordings. Therefore, on the one hand, while the writer and dramatist Lorraine Hansberry brought considerable public notice to the “Young, Gifted and Black,” on the other hand, one of the high points in the Afro-American music recording business came from the race-conscious innovations of rhythm and blues artist James Brown. His song “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” attracted the attention of Afro-American youth in search of racial self-respect. In addition to the aforementioned cultural and political movements, this song captured the racial imagination and vision among several generations of African Americans during the late 1960s and into the decade of the 1970s. While the 1960s ushered in a wave of black dignity, we must not yet overlook the fact that racial pride is not restricted to the affirmation of the concept of blackness. In the decades before the 1960s, the term “Negro” also had been the source of racial esteem among Afro-Americans. The nomenclature of “Negro” likewise has a history that is checkered with both positive and negative receptions within the Afro-American community. In the heyday of the Black Power Movement and the Black Arts Movement, “Negro” became associated with having a slave name and a servile mentality; consequently, the name “Negro” was rejected for “black,” specifically in terms of its function as the most appropriate form of racial signifier. Prior to the Black Power and Black Arts Movements, the Harlem Renaissance, along with such organizations as the African Blood

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Brotherhood (ABB) and the Garvey movement, avidly promoted what was specifically “black” pride long before the 1960s, ushering in what came to be known as the new Negro movement. For instance, Marcus Garvey’s black nationalist organization adopted the name “Negro” for its organizational title, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). With these developments, among others, the name “Negro” was invested with the values of newfound race consciousness and collective self-worth. Before the advent of the new Negro movement, the name “Negro” was often written in the lower case, and hence we see the rise of a countrywide effort to capitalize “Negro” as a symbolic referent to racial dignity. Until the arrival of black consciousness as a communitywide expression, with its essential links to the Black Power and Black Arts Movements, the name “Negro” remained for many years the most widely used racial description. The tradition of valuing the name “Negro” as the primary racial designation among the older generation did not terminate with the rise of the Black Consciousness Movement. The etymology of the word “black” points us in the direction of the Middle English adjective blak, which in turn is derived from the Old English blæc, which means “dark.” Some linguists think that blæc is linked to the Old Norse word blakkr, which means “having a dark hue.” Additionally, it is believed that blakkr is also connected to the Old Saxon word blac, with its particular denotation linked to the noun “ink.” Given that ink is a dark substance, this is consistent with the other, previously mentioned definitions. What is transparent is that the color black is semantically tied to darkness. Still, there have been notable figures in African Diaspora communities who were indistinguishable in phenotype from white people. However, if we relinquish the presumption that blackness is limited to color, then the etymology of the word “black” cannot give us the complete picture required for blackness as racial designator.

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The limits of the etymology of the word “black” are centered on an analysis based on three philosophical considerations: First, we must consider the etymology of “Negro” as well as its historical use as racial designator, and especially with the expressed purpose of determining its relationship to blackness as a racial category. Second, we should explore the possibility that blackness as racial designation perhaps could have a function distinct from that of color. Third, if “Negro” and “blackness” are both racial designators, then the definition of race is in order. Subsequently, the definition of race must be based on a historical account of the terms “blackness” and “Negro” in their capacities as racial designators. A H ISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE C ONCEPT OF N EGRO The advent of the African slave trade with Portugal and later with Spain is the basis for the word “Negro” coming to operate as a racial designator. “Negro,” as used in the English language, derives from the Portuguese and Spanish term Negro (pronounced neh grô) for “black.” Given their dark complexion, Africans, during the slave trade, were presumed to be a black race, as opposed to the white (European) race, and as a matter of course they were subject to one of the most monumental social transformations in world history—namely, their skin color became the ideological rationale for the social category “race,” and correspondingly it also marked the status of Africans as slaves. The transition from the original Portuguese and Spanish Negro to the English word “Negro,” some scholars think, first took the form of the Middle English word neger, and that followed from the Old French word neger, which in turn derived from the Spanish Negro. The romance languages of Portuguese, Spanish, and French, linked as they are to Latin, perhaps find the origin of the various forms of “Negro” in the Latin nigr or nigre. As with “black,” the etymology of “Negro” points to color, not race. The history of the slave trade

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and slavery transformed “Negro” into a racial signifier. Hence, blackness in terms of race is a social category, and subsequently race itself is not a natural (biological) category. The key point here is that social categories are not usually defined according to natural or physical features. The defining feature of a social category is its social function, not its physical properties. Yet it is transparent that phenotypic (physical) description nevertheless plays an important role in the definition of race. Phenotypic description serves as the means for defining racial groups and with the explicit purpose of granting a social place and role for such groups. Of course, the social place and role (for example, as slaves) is based on how they are described—that is, the claim that Africans are a black race and are thus suitable for slavery. Phenotypic description appears to be concerned with the issue of natural/biological features and in kinship with anatomy and physiology. The difference between anatomy/physiology and phenotypic description is that the former ignore (abstract away from) the social features of human existence, while phenotypic description is pivotally focused on human beings as social groups. The similarity is only an appearance, and in essence we have two fundamentally different exercises. The popular complaint “I was discriminated against because of my skin color” captures only the apparent aspect of racism. The fundamental cause of racism is rooted in the social practice of exploitation and oppression, to which skin color is a means. Exploitation and oppression linked to slavery are not restricted to white racism. In the course of world history, the practice of slavery and, more broadly, social group distinctions preceded by several centuries the start of the Portuguese and Spanish slave trade and the enslavement of Africans. The Greeks, for example, viewed those that could not speak Greek as barbarians, and thus barbarians justifiably could be subject to enslavement. No less a personage than the Greek philosopher Aristotle presented arguments in favor of slavery.

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Black/Blackness: Philosophical Considerations | 201 However, slavery, for Aristotle, was not an issue of race but rather one of culture and Greek identity. In Europe, as well as in Africa, there developed vast empires, and consequently groups that were thought to be substantially different in culture were conquered and subordinated to the power of the ruling empires. Such empires were established by means of warfare. In Africa, various ethnic groups had different identities, languages, and cultures, and they, as with the Greeks and other European groups in Western history, often experienced the institution of slavery. The great West African empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai are only a small representation of African expansionism via armies and military strategy. As early as Egypt (Kemet) and its dynastic rulers, we see that forced labor was no small part of the social relations of production. African internal (domestic) slavery, where Africans enslaved other Africans, was often the outcome of warfare; slave status was the plight of prisoners of war. Nonetheless, we know that neither Africa nor Europe divided people along the lines of race before the Portuguese and Spanish trade in African slaves. African slavery in Africa did not render racial distinctions between slave masters and slaves. Under the confluence of the European slave trade and slavery, Africans became Negroes, and, in turn, Negroes were a black race. This was specifically justified by their dark complexion. Just as we observed previously that black as color signified dark hue, so accordingly does Negro in Portuguese and Spanish. The fact is that “Negro” and “black” share the same meaning and refer to the same thing; they are synonymous racial designators. Yet if Negro and “black” are equivalent terms in Portuguese/Spanish and English, respectively, then we must presume that Negro is an adjective that describes “dark” items—in this case, a specified Negro people. However, we know that Negro somehow became a noun, and Africans were referred to as “Negroes” rather than the grammatically correct form,

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“Negro people.” The transformation of the adjective “Negro” into the noun “Negro” symbolizes the negation of black humanity and the emergence of African dehumanization over the course of several centuries. It follows that this change in the status of “Negro” as nomenclature was not just a matter of language (semantics), but at root it was a reflection of the material reality of African slavery, with Africans now in the throes of white supremacy. Before the slave trade and slavery, Africans did not self-consciously identify as a black race. Therefore, “Negro” as an adjective operating synonymously with “black” (in the corresponding syntax) was actually a foreign intervention. Additionally, when “Negro” became a noun, this further expressed the import of an outside viewpoint toward African identity that subordinated the humanity of Africans to capitalist interests in gaining profits from the racist trade in African slaves. With regard to the material conditions of white supremacy, there was an intense push for the reification of African Americans from their status as social beings, or what can be more simply stated as their reduction from humans to property. In its linguistic usage, “Negro” as noun openly reflects and represents the material reality of this reification of African Americans into chattel, that is to say, things to be bought and sold as commodities on the capitalist market. Although it is true that capitalism advanced a form of democracy beyond the restraints of feudalism, and specifically in the United States outside the realm of colonial mercantilism, it was nevertheless a kind of bourgeois democracy of a particular type. Bourgeois democracy in the United States was founded on slavery, which simply meant that white workers sold their labor power in the form of a commodity, while black people as chattel were reduced to commodities. Despite whatever status white people obtained after arriving from Europe, they came voluntarily in search of freedom, while African Americans in the antebellum period came at the expense of it.

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D EFINITION OF B LACKNESS AS R ACE : P HENOTYPIC D ESCRIPTION AND G ENOTYPIC C LASSIFICATION The complexity of providing a definition for race is due to the fact that it is a social category, which depends on the description of human physical features such as skin color. Phenotypic description (description of physical features) thus appears to be a matter of biology. Nevertheless, scientific advances in both the natural and social sciences demonstrate that race is not strictly a natural category or biological phenomenon. It is true that dark skin does in fact denote the presence of melanin, yet not all black people have the same amount of melanin. In terms of how race relations emerged in the United States, blackness as racial designator does not completely correspond with skin color. However, while slavery is the foundation for racial distinctions via phenotypic description, differences in skin color (amounts of melanin) among black people are also the direct result of slavery. Through the slave master’s rape of black women (or what came to be known as miscegenation) a sizeable number of African Americans were not physically black in skin color or African in phenotype. There were occurrences where Afro-Americans were even indistinguishable from whites. The procedure of phenotypic description was put into place for the absolute separation of the races; yet, since it functioned according to a physical gauge of what was black and white, and in view of growing phenotypic similarity between certain Afro-Americans and whites, which was precisely due to miscegenation, this measure was inadequate as a means for absolute racial differences. And absolute differences were necessary to maintain a strict color line of race separation in slavery and for segregation in the United States. Ironically, from Thomas Jefferson to Strom Thurmond, the defenders of strict racial distinctions and separation were often the perpetrators of race mixing in its most intimate form.

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Genotypic classification was the stopgap measure around the dilemma of miscegenation and phenotypic likeness between the races in the United States. Genotypic classification acknowledges that absolute racial separation fails when phenotype is the sole criterion. The infamous Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case of 1896 highlights this point. Plessy challenged the Louisiana law that segregated seating on trains. The need to establish racial segregation on absolute grounds became problematic, since Homer Plessy had a phenotype that was identical to any person said to be white. Plessy was 7/8 white, and the 1/8 black portion could only be determined by his genealogy (genotypic classification), not merely by his phenotype. The use of genotypic classification, or what became popularly known as the “one drop rule” prevailed as the ultimate grounds for Homer Plessy and more generally for race distinctions in U.S. law. One drop of African “blood” was decisive because it determined that any measure of African ancestry was sufficient grounds to confirm one’s status as a black person. Across the Americas, numerous categories were created to account for varying degrees of racial mixtures. Slavery had already used genotypic classification, since more than a small number of white men had black children by slave women. Under these circumstances, black could not be just a concern about the color of one’s skin and phenotype. Herein is how black as color and black as race designator derive distinctive functions. Given that genotypic classification renders black as a racial designator and not just a reference to color, then all African Americans are black, not by virtue of color but due to their African ancestry. This is no different from the way “Negro” functions on the one hand as color and on the other as race in Portuguese and Spanish. “Black,” like “Negro,” is not just a matter of color; it is also, more importantly and crucially, a signifier of race. Therefore any reference to “black people” is the equivalent of the former nomenclature “Negro people,” though we must be careful to

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Blocos Afros and Afoxés | 203 note that the term “Negro people” is not semantically the same as the word “Negroes.” This follows, since the latter as a noun reflects the dehumanization of African people into commodities, chattel, or things. Therefore, if black is to remain consistent as an improvement on the word “Negro,” it must be engaged as an adjective that describes people, persons, men, women, children, or humanity. “Black,” then, should not be used in abstraction from its role as an adjective and hence not in the form of a noun. Reference to black people as “the blacks” replicates the problem attached to the use of “Negroes” as racial signifier connoting dehumanization. Blackness as a concept is a racial designator that originates as a social category of historical and cultural significance. Its affirmation is a collective source of racial respect. John H. McClendon III See also “African” in African American History; Black Arts Movement; Black Power Movement in the United States; Middle Passage; Transatlantic Slave Trade. F URTHER R EADING Elliot, Joan Curl. 1992. “Madame C. J. Walker (1867–1919): Entrepreneur, Philanthropist.” In Notable Black American Women, ed. Jessie Carney Smith, 1184–1188. Detroit: Gale Research. Gatewood, Willard B. 1990. Aristocrats of Color: The Black Elite, 1880–1920. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Gayle, Addison. 1971. The Black Aesthetic. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Janken, Kenneth R. 1993. Rayford W. Logan and the Dilemma of the African American Intellectual. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. McClendon, John H., III. 2004. “On the Nature of Whiteness and the Ontology of Race: Toward a Dialectical Materialist Analysis.” In What White Looks Like: African American Philosophers on the Whiteness Question, ed. George Yancy. New York: Routledge. McClendon, John H., III. 2005. “Act Your Age and Not Your Color: Blackness as Material Conditions, Presumptive Context and Social Category.” In White on White, Black on Black, ed.

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George Yancy. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Moore, Richard B. 1992. The Name “Negro”: Its Origin and Evil Use. Baltimore: Black Classic Press. Nemiroff, Robert, ed. 1970. To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words. New York: Signet. Rachames, Louis. 1967. “The Sources of Racial Thought in Colonial America.” Journal of Negro History 52 (4): 251–272. Wolf, Kenneth Baxter. 1994. “The Moors of West Africa and the Beginnings of the Portuguese Slave Trade.” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 24 (3): 449–469.

z Blocos Afros and Afoxés Blocos afros and afoxés are small carnival organizations that contribute to the popular nature of street carnival in Brazil, particularly in the city of Salvador. The largest of these organizations can boast more than 1,000 members, but most comprise between 25 and 400 individuals organized to parade on either official or unofficial parade routes during carnival. Historically, Salvador’s carnival clubs were known as blocos and were generally formed around a profession, a place of work, or a neighborhood. Each bloco had its own musicians, who played a range of Brazilian music using wind but especially percussive instruments. The vast majority of participants within most groups were male, although this began to change after 1970. Increasingly, from the 1970s a significant number of blocos adopted African Diaspora themes and identified themselves as “blocos afros.” These themes were central to their identity and informed their dress, their choice of music and dance, and even what neighborhoods they passed through. In 1973, the first official bloco afro emerged, Ilê Aiyê. Yet, there was ample precedent for African-oriented carnival organizations dating back to the late 19th

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century. Moreover, especially in the 1930s and 1940s, the older batucadas—small, workingclass African-Bahian “samba schools”—also embraced African and African-Bahian themes and musical heritage. After 1973, however, the innovation of the blocos afros was the uncompromising racialization of their raison d’etre and their explicit, often critical engagement with the politics of race, culture, and class in Salvador. Afoxés are similar to the blocos afros in that they are another important African-Bahian contribution to Salvador’s carnival. Afoxés are closely linked to the city’s institutions of Candomblé, an African-Bahian religion that draws heavily on West African ritual and cosmology. The afoxés typically employ secular songs, rhythms, and ceremonies of the ritual houses of Candomblé known as terreiros (rather than those with religious significance). Traditionally, within their mobile enclosure the afoxés kept very close to their cultural roots, honoring their African heritage. Performative roles in the older established afoxés include a king and queen, chosen in certain cases from the best dancers and singers, indicating the importance of such talents within the ritual itself. Beneath the king and queen are prestigious positions within the honor guard, with everyone dressed in elaborate costume. In some cases the afoxés also honor the presence of their caboclo, or Indian protector. Atabaque drums are central to the ritual of the afoxé, and samba, too, plays an important role. There are various rituals associated with the public appearances of an afoxé, especially at the outset, typically to bless and protect the collective. The most famous afoxé in Salvador’s carnival (and certainly the biggest, with more than 8,000 all-male affiliates by the late 20th century) is that of the Filhos de Gandhy, who, according to some of the older members, actually started out as a bloco but gradually become an afoxé as their instrumentation and ritual took on more and more of the ritual of Candomblé. Scot Ickes

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See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Carnival; Filhos de Gandhy; Ilê Aiyê; Olodum. F URTHER R EADING Risério, Antonio. 1981. Carnaval Ijexá—notas sobre os blocos e afoxés do novo carnaval afrobaino. Salvador, Bahia: Editora Corrupio.

z Bluefields A Nicaraguan town at the mouth of the Escondido River on the Caribbean Sea, and an important trading point in the region, the town, and the wider Atlantic coast region on which it sits, Bluefields has always been physically and politically isolated from the rest of Nicaragua and until 1893 belonged to the British Protectorate of Mosquitia, ruled by the Miskitu Indians. It is multiethnic, multilingual, and Protestant, with strong Anglo-American affinities. The town is strongly associated with black Creole culture, and approximately two-thirds of Nicaragua’s Creoles live there. The town also contains small settlements of Garifuna, as well as Miskitu, Sumu, and Rama Indians. Settlement at Bluefields began during the 1630s, when Puritans from the English Providence Company established slave plantations there. In 1787, the English settlers were forced to evacuate the Mosquito Coast; however, the free colored population claimed local nationality and refused to leave. They were joined by slaves who ran away from their masters and remained on the coast. This black population was augmented by free colored merchants and adventurers from Jamaica, and, after emancipation (1834), by freed slaves from throughout the Caribbean. In the first four decades of the 19th century the black community flourished. An elite group of blacks filled the vacated positions of the English settlers, becoming the leading merchants to the indigenous community and influential advisers to the Miskitu king. During the 1840s, two interrelated events

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Blues: A Continuum from Africa | 205 culminated in Bluefield’s becoming the capital of the Mosquitia and triggered a dramatic increase in Creole political power in the area: the British decision to post a consul general in Bluefields and the subsequent transfer of the principal residence of the Miskitu king from Wasala to Bluefields in 1845. In the late 19th century, Bluefields became a commercial and productive boomtown, with U.S. coconut, banana, rubber, timber, and mining companies using the town as a base. The Creole’s English-based education, reinforced by the arrival of the Moravian Church in 1849, reinforced Creole dominance, as it qualified them for clerical and middle management positions. Mestizo immigrants, casual indigenous wage-workers, and unskilled West Indian migrants did the heavy labour. In 1893, the Mosquito Coast was incorporated into the Nicaraguan state. Mestizos ousted Creoles from government and administration, Spanish replaced English as the region’s official language, and teaching in other languages was forbidden. Designed to create national unity, these policies fuelled hostility to the “Spaniards” among the Creoles, and generated resistance. This period is referred to as “the overthrow” by Bluefields Creoles. During the 1980s, Bluefields was the site of Creole opposition to the FSLN (Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional) government, a result of economic policies that undermined Creole status in the ethnic hierarchy, and perceived Sandinista racism, which culminated in interethnic violence. Relations with the FSLN improved following the autonomy process, and Bluefields became the capital of the South Atlantic Autonomous Region. This has given Creoles renewed access to the levers of regional power, although the defeat of the Sandinista government has significantly reduced the reach of these local institutions. Nicola Foote See also Garifuna; Honduras and Nicaragua: Miskito Indians.

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F URTHER R EADING CIDCA (Corporacion Universitaria De La Costa) Development Study Unit, ed. 1987. Ethnic Groups and the Nation State: The Case of the Atlantic Coast in Nicaragua. Stockholm: University of Stockholm. Gordon, Edmund T. 1998. Disparate Diasporas: Identity and Politics in an Afro-Nicaraguan Community. Austin: University of Texas Press. Sujo Wilson, Hugo. 1998. The Oral History of Bluefields/Historía Oral de Bluefields. Managua, Nicaragua: CIDCA.

z Blues: A Continuum from Africa Blues is the oldest form of musical expression in its lyrical and musical forms. What makes blues so distinct and ancient are the three minor tones AAB, which can be heard from Congo to Ethiopia. The format is so flexible that it permits lyric poets to render their songs in any manner they choose. This form of rendering could be heard throughout the U.S. antebellum South. With a tone that is likened to sadness, blues has mistakenly been referred to as “sorrow songs” in the classic The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. DuBois (1903). The apparent sadness is only coincidental, in that blues was often used for social commentary by the local lyric poets of the plantation communities of the South. Where did this mistake come from, and why was it not discovered until Davis Ware and W. C. Handy brought it to light at the turn of the 20th century? Blues orthodoxy is responsible for this misnomer. According to blues orthodoxy, because least favored people were assigned the black position within the U.S. slave systems, there were no conditions and/or corresponding circumstances that allowed the black as slave to sing blues during the time of slavery in the United States. It further states that there probably were many musical forms present during slavery that would become the progenitors of blues

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later—that is, after slavery was officially banned. Blues orthodoxy asserts that circumstances did not permit blues music to develop until the Civil War—the War of Black Liberation—brought about the abolition of slavery and Reconstruction. Blues were not historically ready for invention until that point. That would only come later, after slavery was defeated and overthrown. This position or form of analysis is referred to as blues orthodoxy. Mommy dead, and pappy gone Dey lef ’ me lone in dis worl’ Nothin’ but a slave Mammy tol’ me, mammy tol’ me When she were on her bed adyin’ De hahd luck Devil driver Will sho’lly keep you down Well, ahm leavin’ town one mawnin’ Whackin stick won’ make me stay De mo’ he agougin’ an’ squatch me De further he drive me’ way. (Cunard 1970, 249) A notion of the late development of blues presupposes that slavery could exist without slaves having the ability to write lyrics and sing songs about being slaves while they existed within the system, truly a case of social death (Patterson 2007, 10). Nothing is further from the truth. George P. Rawick edited 44 volumes of slave narratives, collected as Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers Project, 1936–1938. In them, it is revealed that the slave, in the person of the lyric poet, sang songs in which literal meaning simultaneously served as metaphor. Put differently, each song soon became a metaphor. As metaphor, each has offered a greater understanding of the impact of slavery on the cultural and aesthetic development of the African in the United States. As the foregoing song indicates, they sang songs that spoke directly to what the master was like. Early lyrics were basic in their language usage, very utilitarian while making very profound commentary on social intercourse.

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This can be referred to as a blues continuum, a position counter to that of blues orthodoxy. The blues continuum is a polity of culture whereby those who occupied the least favored position in American culture and aesthetics established an art form during American slavery that served as the “pedagogy of the oppressed.” Within black music, an aesthetic arose that has continued to mature during the process of blues development. The blues continuum has served as a teaching tool, thereby the pedagogy of the oppressed. Song was the primary means used by African slaves to communicate and educate in the United States. As the least favored people, it was important for them to engage in an open dialogue about their oppression without the worry of a master learning what was happening. It was through these songs and other art forms that the African American avoided a social death envisioned for the ancients. The slave, in the person of the lyric poet, often did not sing his social commentary as metaphor. The lyric poet sang in the most literal language to express the factual nature of the oppression the slave faced. The lyrics spoke to what the master was like. The early lyrics were very basic and minimalist. Subjugation was omnipresent as an expression in parables. It was a language that spoke directly to how things happened as a norm in that particular slave community. The lyrics (language) were governed by the particular in the process of slavery. This very nature of the lyric poet eventually made the lyrics change. With the revolts, attempted revolts, aborted revolts, and increased escapes of slaves from their masters from the 1830s onward, socially commenting on things was no longer enough. Lyric poets kept up the commentary and the dance music. Criticisms were not enough. There was a desire for new words—that is, new lyrics that spoke about routes of escape, about how each community could organize a passive resistance, like a slowdown in picking cotton, a plague of illnesses, an accidental burning of the

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Blues: A Continuum from Africa | 207 fields, killing of the overseers and their children. Things of that nature became the popular lyrics of the field slave. Metaphors and parables became the means of communicating the new codes of expression. What better way to communicate these new lyrics of resistance and escape than the use of the white man’s own tool? The language of liberation, freedom, and independence became the new tool, the new language of the lyric poet. Some adapted, others did not. The new lyrics spoke of escapes and freedom. Jubilee songs were taken up by more progressive lyricists who saw freedom songs as more an affirmation of self for the slave than the old repertoire. The last of these freedom songs went like this: Abe Lincoln freed the nigger And I ain’t goin’ to git whipped any more. With the gun and the trigger I git my ticket Leavin’ the thicket, And I’m a-headin’ for the Golden Shore. Errors arose when collectors decided out of convenience and ignorance to combine the black hymns/shouts/spirituals/sanctified songs, freedom songs, and blues in their publications. If they, for those who were aware, had clearly distinguished one type from the other, maybe this longstanding error about blues origin would never have occurred. At that point, the black hymns and freedom songs were recast as Negro spirituals. Blues was never intended to be placed in the category of black hymns, so it was omitted altogether. With the hymnlike reference assigned by 20th-century scholars to old 18th- and 19th-century shout/spiritual compositions, the original interpretations, and with them their old meanings, were left to wander into oblivion—into the world of nothingness, as if these people were living within a culture of poverty. Freedom songs called jubilee songs by the slaves, the least favored people of society, were

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not intended to celebrate some God force. In other words, the employment of some biblical texts to communicate was more utilitarian than religious. They were instructional in design and inspirational in delivery. These were the resistors, the troublemakers, the radicals, and the militants, with some pacifists among these intellectuals who used song, rhyme, and rhythm to spread the word about freedom. Using the old format of lyric poets who sang social commentary in its fullest, these resisters expanded upon it. Remember, these lyric poets were in the likeness of Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Josiah Henson (Tubman’s fellow traveler on the Appalachian freedom trail) and Nat Turner. They were to take social commentary to the level of activists’ propaganda for liberation. Innovation was in lyrics and style. New lyrics employed the language of the Holy Bible as metaphors for liberation and parables of instruction. In time, freedom songs and black hymns converged, as more ministers of the gospel became more influential as Christian leaders and took over the movement. The basis of this reactionary movement was the new indirect power of the new faith, Christianity. It was through biblical words written in an archaic English language that Christianity won its converts. That language lent more to transcription and revisionism musically and lyrically than the archaic language replete with African tones, textures, and rhythmic syncopations sung by the lyric poet. A rewriting of these transcriptions of the songs of liberation assumed a strong European influence in their new arrangements. On the other hand, the 20th-century transcription of blues occurred without losing the African minor tones, scales, and chord structure in its delivery. This type of transcription has kept blues alive in its original form. Retaining the original has permitted blues, or black music, to continue as a stream that transforms the aesthetics of world music. As a world-class music, blues has changed forms throughout the struggle of the African American. Each generation has created a new

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genre to reflect the movement of the African American’s social history. This reflection has been a pedagogy of an oppressed people adapted to provide new energy as the struggle for freedom and equality continues. This is the blues continuum. We must understand that blues did not materialize when David Ware and W. C. Handy discovered it in the rural South of Texas and Mississippi. It had long been around. Their contribution was to simplify black songs they heard into a musical form suited for commercial production under a market economy. That simplification and discovery were simply natural progressions under an arrangement that has seldom allowed black people to enjoy the fruits of their labor as ordinary citizens of a democratic, class-based society. When this point is appreciated, the role of blues will be understood as a continuum, paradoxically transforming time into eternity. To discover how blues elements may have been transported from Africa to the United States is to examine a process that is a widespread custom in the Sudan, whereby smiths attached to the Dogons are grouped in threes: a child, an adult, and an old man; each of them strikes the anvil in turn, thus reproducing by their rhythmic action the present, the past, and the future, and linking them together by an abridgement of time played on three notes. This abridgement of time, or continuum, built on the three tones or notes, AAB, contributed to an artistic evolution and transformation of American aesthetics. What we saw during the slavery period were adjustments to the circumstances. Often, roles had to be compressed into a few individuals because of the casualty resulting from the slavers’ buying and selling of human flesh. Many people’s relatives were lost forever; African culture had to continue. Those who were conscious retained as much of the old culture as they could. Lyric poets found ways of perpetuating the African forms as real human entities; they became performers, storytellers, poets, preachers,

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songsters, gamblers, and vagabonds, and sometimes all these wrapped into one, the lyric poet. The more strident, the more militant, and the more rebellious in songs the lyric poets became, the more they became a threat to the plantation system, to the old slave, and to the old master class. When they were discovered, the reaction was swift and deadly. The lyric poet learned quickly: update the message and change the language. The most convenient document was the one lying around the house of the master. New songs soon reflected this source. They became teaching tools, ways of learning how to read and write. The Bible became the source of subversion. It also became a foundation for the propagation of the culture of whiteness and a theory of the inferiority of black people, the least favored. Until the composing and recording of freedom songs, lyric poets had played the roles of entertainer and commentator of the slave, the least favored people, the black. Their songs were more a reflection of the happening of the day—how things were going, so to speak. When the situation permitted, they commented on the local social politics of the agrarian South. Such a role was vital to the social life of the slave. That, along with the erotic language so commonly used by lyric poets, made them prized by any local community that had the pleasure of housing them. Around the 1830s, the role of many lyric poets began to change. Blues language started to become more militant, but in surreptitious ways, because of the slaves’ fear that the most favored wanted to make permanent each position in relation to the other. The role of the African had become so vital to the development of Southern agriculture that permanence was thought to be the only way to keep the African from leaving the plantation and other farm-related work. The U.S. civilization was growing and developing fast, but the African was suffering in bondage. Something radical was called for. The slave needed an uplifting of the spirit and freedom of the person.

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Blues: A Continuum from Africa | 209 What better tool to perform this role than the stories in the Holy Bible? Were they not like the present position of the African slave in the Americas? This resource carried a two-edged sword. A cry for liberation meant a conversion to the foreign religious practices. The contradiction did not discourage the new lyricists, because they wrote songs using the teachings of Moses as a source of inspiration. Lyric poets who thought that politics was not in their purview as songsters were moved into the background of popular life. There, they kept the old tradition alive. They lived by their wits to survive, and they did. That is why we are here now. To the question, Can there be life without song for the enslaved African in the New World colonies? the answer is no. For the African in the United States there was a desire for the slave to sing, and a strong cultural tradition brought from Africa was available to carry out this desire. All types of songs, some their own, others taken from somebody else— all spoke in some way to the themes of freedom, liberty, equality, and justice. Toward the end of the Civil War, the War of Liberation, the rolling stone process could be dated as having begun in earnest as a form of social movement. Unnamed black men who were lyric poets, free spirits, vagabonds, and other free men took to the road permanently. They were the new American nomads. Because of their omnipresent readiness to travel, these nomads became the official embodiment of a human rolling stone. The so-called rolling stones, never really understood, were lyric poets on a mission. Their charge was to correct errors perpetuated at the time, that there was no black music before spirituals. They set about to expose and communicate a music that had been hidden from public access, that is, hidden from the most favored, for more than two centuries before black liberation. Being out of the view by the most favored critics who create the public view of black culture, blues was claimed to have never existed before spirituals. In fact, blues was an un-

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wanted cultural reference point that those practicing the culture of whiteness would not acknowledge. The songs’ existence was denied. The existence of the oldest original black musical tradition was denied. Their own people, who called themselves Christians, turned against the lyric poets and successfully kept their existence from white America and fearful African Americans. The propagation of their nonexistence made the lyric poets fight hard to overturn this lie. The songs they sang along the way gave specific evidence of their existence. The lyrics of the past reveal why songs that appear in this discourse were omitted from publications on the development of early black music. The lyrics were too risqué, honest, and critical of eugenics, that is, white racism and chauvinism. The only thing that they might have wished for was a concentration of the population so that they might develop real audiences. This required urbanization. Urbanization of blues began in small “colored” towns in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas and grew as such townships as Atlanta, Charleston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Baton Rouge, Jacksonville, New Orleans, and San Antonio sprang up into larger towns that became cities. During the 1920s, as the lyric poets became more urbanized, their tastes in music reflected their new urbanity. Many lyric poets, being survivors, adjusted their styles (inclusive) and diction to reflect and complement these changes in taste. The 1920s found women singers more successful than their male counterparts. Such singers such as Mamie Smith, Ma’ Rainey, Bessie Smith, Alberta Hunter, and Menphis Minnie come to mind. Men who sang blues and made the adjustments with diction became jazz balladeers. Women were placed in the position of blues singers. Men who retained their rural diction continued to dominate the country sound of blues. Women who presented a more urbane sound received wider acclaim. Following the lead of Bessie Smith and Alberta Hunter, artistically

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and aesthetically speaking, many more musicians began to perform their songs in more sophisticated forms. Country blues continued to sound like this composition: The Blues Come fum Texas 1. The blues come fum Texas Lopin’ lak’ a mule, The blues come a-walkin’ Lak’ a na-chul fool. 2. Blues run a rabbit, Run him a solid mile. When the blues ketch him, He holler lak’ a baby chile. Chorus. Woke up this mawnin, Blues all round my bed. Went to eat breakfast, Blues all in my bread. Good mawnin’, blues, How do you do? Good mawnin’, blues, How do you do? He say, “I’m feelin’ fine, How is you?” Country musicians, who had been the mainstay of black entertainment in the rural areas of the country towns of the South, fought through the changes as they struggled to retain their forms. That was often difficult to do. What those who worked through the lean periods did was to rely more on dance music, especially the slow, dry screw songs, played by a guitar rather than a banjo, reserved for people who were ready to get down toward the end of the evening. A good guitarist could do well financially before the evening was over—that is, if a fight did not break out before he could collect his pay for the gig, for the evening. What was performed reflected an attempt to complement the new entertainment wishes of the constituent audience. The demands of the urban dwellers, wanting all things new, forced performers to invent new acts and modernize new arrangements of old music. With a strong urge to satisfy their cus-

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tomers, a pattern began whereby younger musicians of each generation discovered that the music they grew up hearing was unique in that it was transformable without losing the essence of its sound and form. Often unaware of what this music was, they learned that it could be performed in many different styles and retain its essence. The beauty of the sound would remain unique, although surface appearance would be different. Urbanization allowed a changing music to be standardized by Hart Wand and W. C. Handy, a student of black culture and the music that culture produced. Handy took what white men considered a monopoly enterprise, the songs of black musicians, and popularized them by simplifying them into recognizable musical forms that he would copyright. Handy discovered a few wells of black cultural expression that were uniquely African American, universal, and marketable. All these wells needed were the proper capping. Handy provided a cap, that is, a new mode of music, for musicians who were totally unaware of blues. This discovery paralleled what the arrangers of spirituals provided for the new choral singers who sang a capella arrangements of old jubilee slave songs. The modified Dorian scale was simplified. The variety of scales used by slaves and their immediate offspring was relegated to the minority position in black music. By utilizing a Dorian-related scale, referred to as the blues scale, Handy popularized a standardized musical form that would attract musicians, composers, and band leaders such as Leon Bix Beiderbecke, George Gershwin, and Paul Whiteman to black music. Handy would go further by establishing a music that musicians would crave to sing and play throughout their musical histories. The new technologies, called the record disc and the radio, would make all of this possible. With a limit of three minutes to perform on a disc, songsters would now have to organize their arrangements and compositions into a compact form of delivery.

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Blues: A Continuum from Africa | 211 The simplification of the structure of the lyric poets’ arrangements and compositions did not take place within the progression of black music without its problems. Before the invention of the phonograph record and the talking box, blues musicians were simply versatile musicians. They performed all types of music. That was not the future of the new blues musicians. They had sung everything, including blues, by catching other acts and copying what was found usable enough to develop into great repertoires. Often, “new” songs were obtained and/or composed that way. Musicians who continued this tradition became folk singers. Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter, Odetta, and Taj Mahal are the best examples of this tradition. The new itinerant musicians who had been playing around the local plantation communities and towns since slavery were the first to take advantage of changes brought on by freeing slaves. These musicians, who learned many songs, kept rural agrarian communities abreast of the latest craze and heard their old favorites as well. These musicians performed a vital role as communicators of music and social relations through an organic form of social intercourse. In times past, to occupy the leisure time, lyric poets entertained the field slaves who came to the gin and to shop. As the music became more accessible to white audiences, many of the old, catchy lyrics were looked upon with disfavor by blacks and whites. The new strivers’ class of African American religious communities often found themselves in agreement with their white oppressors’ belief that these Devil songs with profane language (“curse” words) reflected a base philosophy of these lyric poets. As Christians, they found this a most embarrassing contradiction. However, working-class preachers often found ways of transferring these secular songs into church songs without much difficulty. But this was only part of the problem. The role and presentation of the lyric poet as a social commentator on the lynching of African Americans changed with attempts at

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censorship. The recording censorship of Ebonics-speaking, rural black singers (Ebonics was referred to as “poor diction”) was successfully used to prevent many musicians from getting more than regional exposure until they were discovered in old age. The new, popular blues singers were expected to devote their entire repertoire to commercial, inoffensive blues sung in language understandable by the dominant population. The incentive was money. It is the possibility of making money that the proponents of the late blooming of blues may offer as the basis for the changing relationship of blues to the other music sung by the itinerant musician, the lyric poet. With such a rationale, we may start to date this neo-blues as beginning after the Civil War, or as late into the blues continuum as 1890. Having said this, the same must be applied to all of the other renamed musical genres from the long history of slavery within the United States, including religious and working songs. With an understanding that blues became commercial as early as the end of the Civil War, there is no dismissal of the idea that blues, as the surviving source, by any other name came with the African and was retained by the slave even as it evolved into our present-day music. Blues music is a timeless expression that must never be dated as a recent invention by African Americans in the United States. To show how timeless the music is, remember these lyric poets were often rolling stones—vagabonds, barbers, laborers, farm workers, gamblers, jackleg preachers, and others who traveled from place to place trying to eke out a living while they searched through space-time. They were the transplanted new generation wanderers whose ancestors before them were nomads in Africa. There was borrowing. Borrowing is as natural to blues as it is to preaching. Preachers borrow from each other. So, they are active participants; yet, one does not know the origins of many songs, because as oral tradition, they are as ancient as the man-stealing that contributed

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to the development of slavery. Borrowing secular songs from the lyric poets of plantations was how black music became religious music. These borrowed songs often became church songs at revival time. With the lyric-writing abilities of many preachers of the gospel, new gospel lyrics replaced old Devil songs sung during worship in many black churches. This ability to borrow from secular life is as common as the music itself. In the black experience, regarding the development of music, the tendency of the church has been to borrow from secular life, more so than the reverse. Borrowing was healthy; black music might have lived in obscurity had it not been for borrowing. It was the white discovery of the slave’s religious practices that created their comfort level with religious black aesthetics. On the other hand, they had very little exposure to the secular side that was dominated by blues. In this context, secular music became an artificial creation when the most favored declared all non-Christian music demonic; it became that other music. Slave hymns, shouts, sanctified songs, and spirituals were given over to “old heathens” now baptized as Christians. Only their music would qualify as spirituals. Pressing forward with a new, clearly distinct religious music, the music of Africa, declared pagan, forced its musicians and patrons of traditional faith to recast their works. Recasting took two stereotypical directions: Christianitybred spirituals, and Lucifer-bred blues. Spirituals were legitimate. Blues were outlaw music, with all other secular music finding Christian acceptance according to the content and intent of the song. Only those who had strayed away from Christ into sin were capable of producing the “Devil’s music,” known as Devil songs. With these thoughts, blues were supposed to have been given birth to by spirituals. Nothing could be further from reality than that mythology of the blues orthodoxy. Blues was always here. Blues was as alive during slavery as it is today and will be tomorrow. Delridge Hunter

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See also Danish West Indies: Oldendorp’s 18thCentury Findings; Griots/Griottes of West Africa; Jazz and Blues Singers, Black Women; Truth, Sojourner (ca. 1797–1883). F URTHER R EADING Allen, William Francis, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison. 1998. Slave Songs of the United States. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing. (Original published in 1868.) Courlander, Harold. 1963. Negro Folk Music U.S.A. New York: Columbia University Press. Cunard, Nancy, ed. 1970. Negro: An Anthology. New York: Frederick Ungar. (Original published in 1933.) Hunter, Delridge L. 2000. The Lyric Poet: A Blues Continuum. Brooklyn, NY: Caribbean Diaspora Press. Marsh, J. B. T. 1887. The Story of the Jubilee Singers; with Their Songs. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Patterson, Orlando. 2007. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rawick, George P., ed. 1972. The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, vols 1–9. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. Rawick, George P., ed. 1979. The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Supplement, Series 1. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.

z Blyden, Edward Wilmot (1832–1912) Born in the Caribbean with strong connections to the United States, living most of his life in Africa, Edward Wilmot Blyden stands as one of the most revered leaders in the African Diaspora. Blyden was born of free and literate parents in 1832 on the island of St. Thomas in the Danish Virgin Islands. He was educated mainly by his mother and at the primary school of the Dutch Reformed Church, to which his family belonged. The Blyden family lived in a largely Jewish neighborhood, which was also an English-speaking community. When he was 10 years old, the family moved to Venezuela, re-

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Blyden, Edward Wilmot (1832–1912) | 213 turning two years later. In 1847, the Rev. John Knox, an American, came to the Virgin Islands to become pastor of the church that the Blyden family attended. He took a special interest in young Edward, becoming his mentor and encouraging his natural aptitude. Under Knox’s influence, Blyden decided to become a member of the clergy, and Knox arranged for him to go to college in the United States. Denied admission to Rutgers University in New Jersey, Blyden accepted an offer by the American Colonization Society to go to Liberia. The young idealist, proud of his race and with hopes for a great future in Liberia, set off for the continent of his ancestors. When Blyden arrived in Liberia in 1850, he had preconceived notions of what Africa and Africans were and what they would be in the future. Having known prejudice in his birthplace and later in the United States, Blyden saw in Africa a continent filled with men like himself, in color if not in background and cultural values. He quickly established himself as a champion and spokesperson for Liberia and men of African descent all over the world. His vision was to see Diasporan Africans contribute to Africa, and he encouraged the emigration of blacks from the Diaspora to Africa. He cautioned, however, that Diasporan blacks should recognize the limited role they had to play and not transplant American values to Africa. Blyden’s hope for Africa was always that it should hold its own in the world. He believed that Africa, retarded both by the slave trade and by its own impenetrability, had lagged behind in its development; yet his allegiance was always to Africa and Africans both on the Continent and in the Diaspora. Blyden’s writing, life, and work raised questions of ethnocentrism and Westernization, of modernization as they apply to Africa and Africans. Blyden wanted African cultures and traditions to be preserved in all their richness, but he also wanted Africans to hold their own in the world sphere, which meant that Western

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education was necessary. Though arguable that Blyden was often ethnocentric and paternalistic in his attitude toward indigenous Africans, he was exceptional among his peers in trying to bridge the gap between Africans worldwide but also between Eurocentric, Christian blacks, Muslim blacks, and Africans who practiced indigenous religions. Though guilty of a certain of amount of romanticism in his perceptions and attitudes toward Africa and Africans, he was a man before his time. He managed to rise above many of his Western-oriented prejudices to try to work out a solution, albeit a theoretical one, for Africans. Blyden went out of his way to learn Arabic, Foulah, and other African languages in order to be able to communicate with Africans. He met with African leaders and Muslim scholars and no doubt discussed his views and hopes for Africa with them. It is safe to say, then, that he had an idea of what many Africans wanted for themselves. Blyden’s perception of what was best for Africans and Africa, as a whole, changed time and time again. With each historical or social event that strongly affected Africa, he had a solution, and his views shifted as necessary. Edward Wilmot Blyden lived until he was 80 years old and died in Sierra Leone. Nemata Blyden See also Liberia; Pan-Africanism. F URTHER R EADING Blyden, Edward Wilmot. 1883. The Origin and Purpose of African Colonization: Being the Annual Discourse Delivered at the Sixty-Sixth Anniversary of the American Colonization Society, Held in the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, Washington, D.C., Sunday, January 14, 1883. Washington, D.C. Blyden, Edward Wilmot. 1994. African Life and Customs. Baltimore: Black Classic Press. (Original published in 1908.) Blyden, Edward Wilmot. 1994. Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race. With an introduction by Samuel Lewis. Baltimore: Black Classic Press. (Original published in 1887.) Holden, Edith. 1967. Liberia: An Account of the Life and Labors of Edward Wilmot Blyden as

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214 | Boggs, James (1919–1993), and Grace Lee Boggs (1915–) Recorded in Letters and in Print. New York: Vantage Press. Lynch, Hollis R. 1967. Edward Wilmot Blyden: Pan-Negro Patriot, 1832–1912. New York: Oxford University Press. Lynch, Hollis R., ed. 1978. Selected letters of Edward Wilmot Blyden. Millwood, NY: KTO Press.

z Boggs, James (1919–1993), and Grace Lee Boggs (1915–) Revolutionary theoreticians, authors, and activists, James Boggs and Grace Lee Boggs can accurately be described as two of the most influential leaders in the 20th-century African American freedom struggle. Both read and published widely, and their numerous publications suggest that class struggle and the struggles against racism and other forms of discrimination have shaped the course of world history in countless ways. The lives and works of Georg W. F. Hegel, Karl Marx, and Mao Zedong greatly influenced James and Grace Lee Boggs, and it is not an overstatement to suggest that they, in turn, inspired revolutionary thinking on several continents, including North America and Africa. The couple met in 1952 and married in 1953. Almost from the beginning of their work together, they developed and began to articulate the theories of a new revolutionary age, the age of “dialectical humanism,” in which men and women are challenged to define what it means to be human. After 1953, most of their work was conducted from their home base on Field Street in Detroit, Michigan (now the Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership), but their American family roots were outside the Midwest. James Boggs was born in 1919 in Marion Junction, Alabama. He was one of the four children of Ernest Boggs, a blacksmith and iron

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ore worker, and Lelia Boggs, a cook. In 1937, after graduating from Dunbar High School in Selma, Alabama, he decided to leave the South. Like millions of others in the Depression-era United States, James Boggs secured employment with the Works Progress Administration (WPA). During World War II, he took a job on the assembly line at Detroit’s Chrysler plant, and he remained there for 28 years. At Chrysler, Boggs proved himself to be an excellent worker, and he became a union activist, an “organic intellectual,” and a writer. James Boggs was also a family man. He and his first wife, Annie, a hometown sweetheart from Alabama, had seven children, including one who was born just after their 1952 divorce was finalized. When James met Grace Lee in 1952, both were students in the Johnson-Forest Tendency’s Third Layer School in New York. Grace Lee Boggs, a first-generation Chinese American woman, was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1915. She was one of seven children. Her father, Chin Lee, was one of New York’s most successful restauranteurs, and her mother, Yin Lan, was a wife and full-time homemaker. She received her early education in New York State. She received her B.A. in Philosophy (1935) from Barnard College and later earned her M.A. (1937) and Ph.D. (1940). In 1941, while living and working in Chicago, Grace witnessed the power of grassroots activism, as socialist labor leader A. Philip Randolph mobilized thousands of African Americans in the March on Washington Movement, designed to help them secure jobs in the defense industries. From those humble beginnings, Grace became obsessed with learning more about workers and revolutionary change in America and in the global community. Her association with C. L. R James, the Trinidadian Marxist, and the members of the Johnson-Forest Tendency began in 1942. After she and James Boggs married, they continued to work with C. L. R. James until their break with him in 1962. James Boggs and Grace Lee Boggs— through their work with radical organizations,

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Bois Caiman and Boukman | 215 their writing, and activism—charted a course that others might follow as they challenged perceived injustices in America and elsewhere. Detroit, Michigan, provided them with a window on the world. James Boggs’s interest in and knowledge of domestic and international affairs is clearly evident in The American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker’s Notebook (1963) and Racism and Class Struggle: Further Pages from a Black Worker’s Notebook (1970). The same can be said of the book that the couple co-authored: Revolution and Evolution in the Twentieth Century (1974). The Boggses worked in tandem with others to help usher in a period of tremendous change in world history and culture, a period that included the African independence movement, beginning with Ghana in 1957; the Cuban revolution in 1959; the modern Civil Rights Movement in America in the 1950s and 1960s; and the Black Power and Black Arts Movements of the 1960s and 1970s. In addition to their long association with C. L. R. James, their colleagues also included Malcolm X, Kwame Nkrumah, Ossie Davis, and Ruby Dee, along with countless others who joined them in struggle at the national and grassroots levels in such organizations as the National Organization for an American Revolution (NOAR) and Saving Our Sons and Daughters (SOSAD), a Detroit group dedicated to offering young people positive alternatives to urban violence. Conversations in Maine: Exploring Our Nation’s Future (1978), a book based on their collaborative work with Freddy and Lyman Paine, was born out of their collective concern for the growing feelings of despair among young Americans, especially in the African American community. In 1992, the couple also founded Detroit Summer, described in Grace Lee Boggs’s autobiography, Living for Change, as “an Intergenerational Multicultural Youth Program / Movement to rebuild, redefine, respirit Detroit from the Ground Up.” James Boggs succumbed to cancer in 1993. Grace Lee Boggs continues her work in the

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African American community and is an outspoken advocate for the rights of Asian Americans and women. The James and Grace Lee Boggs Collection, which includes many unpublished speeches and other documents, is housed in the Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University. Regennia N. Williams See also Black Marxism; James, Cyril Lionel Robert (1901–1989). F URTHER R EADING Boggs, Grace Lee. 1998. Living for Change: An Autobiography. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Boggs, Grace Lee, Freddy Paine, Lyman Paine, and James Lee Boggs. 1978. Conversations in Maine: Exploring Our Nation’s Future. Boston: South End Press. Boggs, James. 1963. The American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker’s Notebook. New York: Monthly Review Press. Boggs, James. 1970. Racism and Class Struggle: Further Pages from a Black Worker’s Notebook. New York: Monthly Review Press. Boggs, James, and Grace Lee Boggs. 1974. Revolution and Evolution in the Twentieth Century. New York: Monthly Review Press. James and Grace Lee Boggs Collection (Papers). Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University, Michigan.

z Bois Caiman and Boukman Haitians usually relate the Bois Caiman ceremony as a historical event that started their war of independence, but modern scholarship suggests that details about the episode might owe more to myth than to reality. There probably was not one but two slave gatherings, one held at the Normand de Mézy plantation in Morne Rouge on August 14, which the French uncovered by torturing slave participants, and another one in Bois Caiman held a week later, about which very little is known. According to

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Léon-François Hoffmann’s Haitian Fiction Revisited (2000), details about the second meeting were invented by Antoine Dalmas in his Histoire de la révolution de Saint-Domingue (1793) in order to portray the slave gathering as a bloody, satanic assembly, then reprinted unquestioningly by later historians. Boukman is best known for taking part in the events that sparked the Haitian War of Independence (1791–1804). Boukman, a Voodoo priest born in Jamaica, lived in Saint-Domingue (presentday Haiti) when the island was still a colony of France. In August 1791, Boukman took part in a Voodoo ceremony held at Bois Caiman (literally, “Alligator Wood”) in northern Haiti. Aside from Boukman, participants included fellow slaves Georges Biassou, Jeannot Billet, Jean-François Papillon, and maybe Toussaint Bréda L’Ouverture. Cécile Fatiman, a mambo (female Voodoo priest) and mulatto slave, supposedly slit the throat of a black pig and shared the warm blood with other slaves. Boukman made everyone vow that they would fight against the white slave owners, exact vengeance from slavery, and accept Boukman’s leadership. A tropical storm then broke out, and the participants dispersed. Following the Bois Caiman ceremony, the slave revolt started on August 21, when most plantations surrounding Cap Français (present-day Cap Haitien) were burnt and a thousand white Frenchmen killed. During the ensuing fighting, the French managed to capture Boukman, who was beheaded in Cap Français in November 1791 (the body was burned and the head placed on a pike). Philippe R. Girard See also Haiti; Haitian Revolution; L’Ouverture, Toussaint (ca. 1744–1803); Vodoun. F URTHER R EADING Dalmas, Antoine. 1814. Histoire de la révolution de Saint-Domingue, depuis le commencement des troubles, jusqu’à la prise de Jérémie et du Môle St. Nicolas par les Anglais. 2 vols. Paris: Mame Frères.

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Hoffmann, Léon-François. 2000. Haitian Fiction Revisited. Pueblo, CO: Passeggiata Press. James, C. L. R. 1963. Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. New York: Random House.

z Bolivia: The African Presence I NTRODUCTION The forced avalanche of Africans arriving in the New World, which channeled millions of involuntary deportees to the Americas, has profoundly influenced cultural and social practices throughout the region. Despite the facts that the African presence in the Americas spans 500 years and that Afro-Latin Americans have participated in every stage of their nations’ histories, in many Latin American nations, descendents of Africans continue to be submerged in the profound abyss created by constitutionally mandated neglect. From the 16th through the 19th centuries, many scholars agree that “adopting the years 1518 and 1873 as endpoints, we are dealing with 355 years of African slave trade, resulting in the most massive forced emigration in the history of humanity. At least nine and a half million Africans are estimated to have arrived in Latin America, to labor in six principal areas of production: sugar, coffee, tobacco, cotton, rice, and mining” (Caramés et al. 1992, 469). Historical records refer to the following points of departure along the African coast: Gorée Island, the Guinea Coast, Elmina, Sierra Leone, Whydah, the Gold Coast, the Slave Coast, Loango, and Angola. Multitudes of Africans arrived in North, Central, and South America; in the latter continent, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Uruguay, and Bolivia witnessed the arrival of African slaves after a forced journey lasting up to a year. All of these countries except Paraguay and Bolivia (which lost its access to the sea in

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Bolivia: The African Presence | 217 a war with Chile in 1904) contain coastal regions that facilitated the arrival of large numbers of African slaves, a fact still discernible in the demographic profile of these countries (setting aside the anomalous cases of Chile, Paraguay, Argentina, and Bolivia). T HE C OLONIAL P ERIOD According to historical chronicles, the presence of Africans in Alto Perú (Upper Peru), the original name of colonial Bolivia, begins with the arrival of the first Spanish conquerors in 1532 and extends through colonial independence in 1825. With the 1545 discovery of the “mountain that spewed forth silver” in frigid Potosí, the massive importation of Africans—which would extend over three centuries—began in earnest. Despite the lack of official acknowledgment of African labor in the silver mines, the presence of Africans is documented in Potosí beginning in 1549, only four years after the initial discovery of the rich silver deposits. According to a document dated in this year, “in the company of Juan Albertos and Juan de la Puerta, present in this Potosí colony, to exploit a tin deposit in the aforementioned mountain, together with the Yanacona Indians owned by both individuals, and with three black slaves, furnished by Juan de la Puerta” (Archivo Nacional de Sucre. ANB, Ep Soto, t.1, f.iiii-v). Some 255 years after the arrival of these “three black slaves” in Potosí, the colonizers settled in the torrid Yungas region of Bolivia. In 1804, the parish records of dioceses in the Yungas region of the department of La Paz record the presence of Africans; in Santiago Parish, Coripata, a register contains the following annotation: “In the year of our Lord 1804 on the 30th of May María Luisa Iriondo, a black African slave from the Calacala hacienda, twelve years of age, died on [this] hacienda, in communion with our Church. I, Calixto Mantilla, priest of Santiago parish in Coripata, buried her in the cemetery on the 31st day of the same month” (Archival source: Parish conservatory, Santiago Church, Coripata. Libro 7 de Difuntos; 1804–

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1810, fojas 9). Some of the haciendas in this fertile region were owned by former presidents. Bolivia, located in the heart of South America, has a surface area of approximately 1,099,000 square kilometers (428,000 sq. mi.). It borders Brazil to the north and east, Paraguay to the southeast, Argentina to the South, and Chile and Peru to the west. Bolivia, without access to the sea, is divided into nine departments: La Paz (containing the capital), Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, Tarija, Cochabamba, Chuquisaca (Sucre), Potosí, and Oruro. Two mountain ranges cross the country from north to south. The nation is divided into two main regions. The eastern lowlands have an average elevation of 600 meters (1,969 ft.) above sea level and include the departments of Santa Cruz, Beni, and Pando. The mountainous western region contains peaks reaching 4,800 meters (15,748 ft.) above sea level and is characterized by a cold, dry climate. The departments of Oruro and La Paz are included in this region; within the latter department, the twin provinces of Nor Yungas and Sud Yungas and part of the province of Inquisivi represent a transition to the Amazonian lowlands, at an average elevation of 1,600 meters (5,249 ft.) above sea level. It is in this region that the colonial oligarchy established a hacienda system based on slave labor. This zone of exuberant vegetation was thereby transformed into an Afro-American enclave surrounded by an indigenous population, and the ensuing dialogue between the human population and the environment gave rise to a unique culture with an African cast that continues to this day. Finally, Bolivia contains valleys and flat regions such as Tarija, Sucre, and Cochabamba, with an average elevation of 2,500 meters (8,202 ft.) above sea level. Historical research lists the principal ports of arrival during the slave trade as Cartagena de Indias, Recife, Salvador (Bahía), Río de Janeiro and the Río de la Plata, Panamá, and El Callao in Peru. From these ports of transit, the “ebany figures” arrived in Potosí in the Audencia de Charcas, the original name of the administrative

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Rooftops of Potosí, Bolivia, with snow-capped Cerro Rico in the distance. (James Sparshatt/Corbis)

region now included in Bolivia. Authors such as Bridikhina, Crespo, and Portugal describe the presence of African slaves in the Casa de Moneda (national mint) in Potosí, where they worked the “bloody machines” minting coins for the Spanish crown, melting, laminating, and stamping the macuqinas, as the Spaniards called these coins. These macuquinas—derived from a Quechua word meaning “beaten”—were minted during the period from 1575 to 1773. The Casa de Moneda, which began operation in 1572, stands as one of the world’s most impressive monuments to an economic boom. The splendor of Potosí, one of the “wonders of the world,” could be seen in its streets and stately mansions. Invisible was the arduous labor of eviscerating the mountain in order to obtain the precious metal that cost the lives of so many indigenous and slave laborers. The slaves, who worked in the mines and the Casa de la Moneda, were excluded from the benefits of this economic enterprise. The slaves who worked in the

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mint were effectively prisoners serving a life sentence, which, due to the harsh working conditions, allowed them to live only for a few months. In order to do the work of 4 mules, 20 slaves were required to turn the shafts of the machines that laminated and cut the blanks and minted the coins. The use of mercury during the smelting, the intense cold (far below freezing during the entire year), the lack of adequate food and shelter, and the complete isolation combined to further reduce the life expectancy of the slaves. Thus, a document dated 1622 in Potosí states that: “in this year, with the Vicuñas having conducted eight assaults against the heavily fortified house of Oyanume, on several occasions the Basque musketeers defended the house valiantly, and with many casualties, but in the last assault six Vicuñas lost their lives, and within the house forty Basque noblemen, nineteen Negroes, and many Indians” (Martínez y Vela 1939, 95).

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Bolivia: The African Presence | 219 T HE S ECOND P ERIOD The second period of Afro-Bolivian history begins in 1825 and ends with the revolution of April 9, 1952. These first 127 years of the republic are characterized by the growth of the estates, or haciendas. The transition from colony to republic included a judicial system that favored a supply of free labor for the large estate owners. On the estates, black and indigenous laborers worked in identical conditions; men and women were forced to work for the estate owners in the systems of pongo, mitani, camayo, and correo. Hacienda labor was arduous; men and women were forced to work for free three days of every week for the estate owner. The long workdays began at 7:00 a.m., when the jilacatas (foremen) for both men and women gave the day’s orders. The working day ended at 5:00 p.m. and was supervised by the mayordomos (overseers), who did not hesitate to use whips to enforce the demands for free labor. Those who suffered the whiplashes had no recourse but to continue working. Young children of both sexes also worked alongside the women, beginning at age seven; the work of two children was equivalent to that of one adult, and the children received the same treatment as the adults. Between the ages of 12 and 13, children were forced to produce a full day’s work; boys worked alongside the men on the haciendas. Until 1952, the children of the peons had no access to education, a privilege reserved for the children of the estate owners, the overseers, and city residents. Those providing obligatory domestic servitude as pongos (men) and mitanis (women) carried out their weekly tasks according to rotated lists. Every head of household and his wife served in this function; the shift was from Saturday to Saturday. If one of the parents died, the older children accompanied the surviving spouse. According to the personal recollections of Zenovia Maconde of Coscoma, mitanis brought along to the estate mansions their own utensils, such as pots and pans and other cooking implements; men serving as pongos had to bring along 100–200 pieces of firewood, an axe, and a rope

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to tie up the animals. They were required to work in the chacras (garden plots) to provide the estate family with plantains, yucca, walusa, and other items that formed the diet of the administrators, overseers, and owners. At each shift change, the overseer took an inventory; this included kitchen items, barnyard fowl, and cattle. If a plate or cup was broken, the woman serving as mitani had to replace it; if a chicken, a rabbit, a sheep, or a cow died during the shift, the man serving as pongo was responsible for its replacement. The pongos also worked as apiris, with the task of traveling from the estate to the nearest town, accompanied by the estate owner and/or his wife or an overseer (the latter riding mules), to do the shopping. On the return trip, the apiri carried the goods on his back. If he did not return during the day, the apiri spent the night in a corner of the barnyard. According to the personal recollections of Pedro Angola of Coscoma, the camanis and camayus served for longer periods, ranging from three to six months, during which time they were responsible for drying the coca leaves and coffee beans. The task of packing the coca leaves was assigned to the peons by the overseer and the jilacata; once the bundles reached 50 lbs. each, the peons carried them to town. Punishments When a peon committed a transgression, punishment was exemplary and public. The overseer and the jilacata administered whip lashes. The victim was held aloft by another peon, and the lashes were applied to the bare back. Another punishment was administered by placing the victim’s feet in holes in a wooden door; as the temperature rose, the wood swelled, causing extreme pain. Repeat offenders were expelled from the haciendas; the overseer would require other peons to remove the offender’s personal belongings from the estate. Runaways Due to Mistreatment Due to the harsh treatment by the landowners, the overseers, and the jilacatas, many peons

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fled to other haciendas under cover of darkness. Refuge could not be obtained on neighboring estates; rather, the peons had to find a distant hacienda that would accept them. If it was necessary to travel a great distance, the runaways had to remain hidden during their journey, since punishments for escaping were very severe. Fleeing peons took only the most necessary items, leaving the remainder of their belongings behind. Harsh treatment and forced free labor were abolished in 1952, and the prohibition was made permanent in a law passed on August 2, 1953. Avidly seeking freedom, Afro-Bolivians joined the revolutionary outcry of 1809, participating in the battles of October 25 in Irupana and November 11 in Chicaloma, Sud Yungas. Among the black combatants from El Colpar was Gabriel Soto (Rocabado 2001). A group of Afro-Bolivians from Chicaloma lost their lives fighting García Lanza y Castro (Villanueva 2002). After 107 years of suffocating hacienda labor in the independent republic of Bolivia, Afro-Bolivians served their country in the Chaco war with Paraguay (1932–1935); the Afro-Bolivian Pedro Andverez Peralta was among the distinguished combatants, but even their status as returning war veterans was not sufficient for them to claim their rights as truly free citizens. D EMOGRAPHICS The last Bolivian census in which blacks were tabulated separately took place in 1900. At that time, the Afro-Bolivian population was calculated at 3,939, distributed as follows among the departments: La Paz, 2,056; Potosí, 101; Santa Cruz, 930; Cochabamba, 161; Tarija, 206; Oruro, 35; Beni, 245; Chuquisaca, 205 (Censo General de Población de la República, 11 de Septiembre de 1900, Tomo II). All subsequent censuses, including the most recent census of 2001, have condemned Afro-Bolivians to statistical invisibility by failing to include this category. The national census bureau’s September, 5, 2001, report identifies a total Bolivian population of

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8,274.325 distributed among “whites, mestizos, and indigenous inhabitants.” The census bureau did not include Afro-Bolivians as a separate ethnic group in the census of “multi-ethnic and multi-cultural Bolivia.” A reasonable estimate of the current Afro-Bolivian population (by Juan Angola Maconde) is: first section of Nor Yungas, municipality of Coroico, 2,500; second section of Nor Yungas municipality of Coripata, 1,000; Sud Yungas, Municipality of Chulumani, 1,000; municipality of Irupana, 2,000; province of Inquisivi, 1,000. Resulting from internal migration, in the municipality of Caranavi, 1200; municipality of Alto Beni, 1,800; municipality of La Paz, 2,000. In other departments: Cochabamba, 500; Santa Cruz, 2,800. The total figure is some 15,800 Afro-Bolivians. C ULTURE The most noteworthy aspect of contemporary Afro-Bolivian culture is musical expression. The first African arrivals in the New World, unable to communicate with one another verbally, used drums as a common denominator. Thus the Afro-Bolivian saya is a key component of Afro-Bolivian identity, integrated into the entire Bolivian cultural mosaic. Arriving in Bolivia, Africans acquired a new mother tongue, combining Spanish, African, and indigenous elements. Vestiges of this unique Afro-Hispanic language still remain among the communities’ oldest residents (Lipski 2005). Typical foods derived from the communities’ sparse diet are based on yucca, walusa, plantains, beans, and such spices as cilantro, wacataya, and quirquiña. The most popular dishes are ají de poroto (beans with garlic), pisao de plátano (mashed plantains), ají de chiwa (chiwa and garlic), ají de arvejas (peas and garlic), and fritanga (fried meats). Medicinal practices are based on the native pharmacopoeia, including plants such as cala wala, chinchircoma, solda con solda, raíz de la china, cola de caballo, and similar plants with curative properties. These medicinal plants are widely used by curanderos and midwives. Com-

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Bolivia: The African Presence | 221 munity festivals are based on Christian saints’ days; San Benito is particularly revered among Afro-Bolivians. No African religions have survived in Bolivia. Almost all Afro-Bolivians living in the Yungas earn a living through coca growing. Prominent in Afro-Bolivian handicrafts are mats made from cojoro, prepared from dried banana peels. These medium-sized mats are used to sit upon, and in the past were also used as sleeping mats. M AJOR A FRO -B OLIVIAN F IGURES In the Afro-Bolivian community there is no collective memory of major figures of the past. Seventy years ago, during the Chaco war, the Afro-Bolivian Pedro Andaverez Peralta, born in Corpata, Nor Yungas, and baptized in Santiago Parish, fled the hacienda in Chillamani due to mistreatment and ended up in Chicaloma, Sud Yungas, in the municipality of Irupana. His valor in the defense of his country earned him numerous hero’s decorations, including the national War Medal, the Iron Cross, the National Hero’s Medal, and the Condor of the Andes golden medal, Special Grade. Despite his heroism in defense of his homeland, the national government afforded him no further acknowledgment in terms of his condition as peon on a hacienda. P OLITICAL AND C ULTURAL M OVEMENTS Afro-Bolivian cultural manifestations have always been collective, such as the saya that distinguishes Afro-Bolivians within the pluricultural Bolivian mosaic. These collective manifestations on the one hand reaffirm a distinct Afro-Bolivian cultural identity, while on the other they represent a form of resistance against the official national image of a purely indigenous and mestizo nation that denies the existence of a population of African descent. The lack of official constitutional recognition has significant repercussions in the national sociopolitical context. In the last 23 years of Bolivian democracy, only two Afro-Bolivian women have been elected municipal council members, from 2001 to 2004

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in the municipal of Coripata, Mrs. Inocencia Flores and Mrs. Leonor Inofuentes of the municipal of Caranavi. F UTURE T RENDS Among the most pressing priorities of the Afro-Bolivian population are the following: (1) to achieve a realistic representation in the upcoming Constitutional Assembly, which will draft a new national constitution; (2) to promote the inclusion of Afro-Bolivian history and culture in the national educational curricula, as set forth by the Ministry of Education; (3) in this fashion, to achieve full constitutional and historical recognition for Afro-Bolivians as an integral part of multicultural and multiethnic Bolivia. Juan Angola Maconde See also Argentina: Afro-Argentines; Brazil: AfroBrazilians; Venezuela: Afro-Venezuelans. F URTHER R EADING Agustin, José. 1929. Monografía de las provincias de Nor y Sud Yungas. La Paz, Bolivia: Don Bosco. Angola, Juan. 2000. Raíces de un pueblo, cultura afroboliviana. La Paz, Bolivia: Producciones “CIMA.” Archivo nacional de Sucre. ANB, Ep. Soto.t.1, f iiii–v. Bridikhina, Eugenia. 1995. La mujer negra en Bolivia. La Paz, Bolivia: Librería Editorial Juventud. Carames, Lito, et al. 1992. América, Indios Negros y Blancos. Sociedad el ROURE. Crespo, Alberto. 1977. Esclavos negros en Bolivia. La Paz, Bolivia: Librería Editorial Juventud. Lipski, John M. 2005. A History of Afro-Hispanic Language: Five Centuries, Five Continents. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Martinez y Vela, Bartolome.1939. Anales de la Villa Imperial de Potosí. La Paz, Bolivia: Artística. Recopilación. 1994. Historia oral contemporánea afroboliviana. La Paz: Edición inédita. Rocabado. 2006. “Proclaiming Revolution: Bolivia in Comparative Historical Perspective.” Hispanic American Historical Review 86: 190–191. Villanueva, Jorge. 2002. Héroes Yungueños en la guerra de la Independencia. La Paz, Bolivia: Diseños producciones Britz.

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Boukman See Bois Caiman and Boukman.

z Boulogne, Joseph Chevalier de Saint-George (1739?–1799) A product of French and African parents, Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-George, overcame racial challenges to become a master swordsman and prominent musician/composer in 18th-century France and one of the most celebrated personalities of the Enlightenment. He was born in the French Caribbean colony of Guadeloupe to an enslaved Senegalese woman and an aristocratic French plantation owner, who secured for him privileges in France that were rare for people of color in the 18th century. His accomplishments thereafter included a reputation as France’s greatest swordsman; violin virtuoso, popular composer, and conductor of two of France’s premier orchestras, the Concert des Amateurs and Le Concert de la Loge Olympique; and reception in the Lodge of the Nine Sisters of the Grand Orient of France as the first person of color within the ranks of French freemasonry. He was the toast of the French social world, well received at the influential salons of Paris and patronized by the Court. In 1789, Saint-George fought for the French Revolution as organizer and commander of a regiment of 1,000 free people of color, a unit also led by the mulatto father of Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers. Exceptional as he was, Saint-George was never beyond the snares of racial prejudice. Notwithstanding Enlightenment ideals of freedom and reason, attitudes toward blacks in France were based on two centuries of involvement in slave trading in Africa and the Caribbean and on biological theories that re-

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duced blacks to the bottom of a natural hierarchy, with limited intelligence. The 18th century had seen a growing movement to undermine the rights and privileges of free people of color both in France and its colonies, and government regulations from 1716 to 1778 limited blacks’ mobility in France. Although he was often referred to as “the famous SaintGeorge,” he was equally “the black Don Juan” and simply “the mulatto.” Regardless of his fame and attention, he was never allowed to forget his origins. When Louis XVI wanted to appoint him director of the Paris Opera, three women artists advised the queen that they would never submit to the orders of a mulatto. The position remained vacant. In 1796, Saint-George returned to the Caribbean to greet the Haitian revolution, which had erupted in the late summer of 1791. Accompanying Julien Raimond, the leading champion of people of color in the French world, he found the former colony still in the delirium of emancipation but also beset with factious strife. Disappointed, Saint-George soon returned to France to recover some of the acclaim that had been his constant companion; he became musical director of the Circle of Harmony and once again received praise for his performances. Three years later, in 1799, his own death from abdominal ailments just preceded the end of the century of the Enlightenment that he had helped to glorify. As the product of the Francophone African Diaspora, Saint-George was a unique example in a society that occasionally allowed partial assimilation. But his story equally reveals the possibilities that talent and character can create, even in an unwelcoming environment. Williams H. Alexander See also Guadeloupe; Haitian Revolution; L’Ouverture, Toussaint (ca. 1744–1803). F URTHER R EADING Guédé, Alain. 2003. Monsieur de Saint-George: Virtuoso, Swordsman, Revolutionary, trans. Gilda Roberts. New York: Picador.

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Brand, Dionne (1953–) | 223 Ribbe, Claude. 2004. Le chevalier de Saint-George. Paris: Editions Perrin. Smidak, Emil. 1996. Joseph Boulogne, Called Chevalier de Saint-Georges. Lucerne, Switzerland: Avenira Foundation.

z Brand, Dionne (1953–) Poet, novelist, and essayist Dionne Brand plumbs the consciousness produced by the legacies of slavery and colonialism, with an emphasis on women’s negotiation of these legacies and histories. Particularly in No Language Is Neutral (1990) and Another Place, Not Here (1996), the passion that gives life meaning is the love between women; however, Brand’s focus, in these works as in all her writing, is far reaching and inclusive. Her writing constitutes a sustained and complex meditation on Diaspora, belonging, political struggle, desire, and the possibility of social change. Born in Guayguayare, Trinidad, Brand came to Canada in 1970 to attend the University of Toronto. There, she studied English and philosophy, graduating in 1975; later, she completed an M.A. in philosophy of education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. From her arrival in Canada, Brand involved herself in radical politics, both that of the Black Power Movement and the Left, finally joining the Communist Party. She worked for a variety of community groups and labor unions, including the Immigrant Women’s Centre and the Black Education Project, as well as for the Toronto Board of Education. Brand published four collections of poetry in this period: ‘Fore Day Morning: Poems (1978), Earth Magic (1979), poetry for children; Primitive Offensive (1982), and Winter Epigrams & Epigrams to Ernesto Cardenal in Defense of Claudia (1983). In 1983, with the Canadian aid agency CUSO, Brand served in Grenada and was evacuated following the U.S. invasion. The experience of

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that invasion and the events leading up to it, recollected in Chronicles of a Hostile Sun (1984), profoundly shook Brand’s belief in the possibility of social transformation. Upon her return to Toronto, she returned to university and to writing. A collection of short stories, San Souci and Other Stories (1988) and two collections of oral history, Rivers Have Sources, Trees Have Roots: Speaking of Racism (with Krisantha Sri Bhaggiyadatta, 1986) and No Burden to Carry: Narratives of Black Working Women in Ontario, 1920s–1950s (1991) followed. Land to Light On (1997), set in Canada, is a meditation on belonging anywhere. A collection of essays, Bread Out of Stone: Recollections Sex, Recognitions Race, Dreaming Politics (1994; reissued with a somewhat different selection in 1998) and two novels follow: her first, In Another Place, Not Here (1996)— the title itself a complex commentary on Diaspora’s longing, nostalgia, and brutal reality— maps the social margins in the Caribbean and in Toronto through the story of the love between Elizete and Verlia, one a simple and abused cane worker in the Caribbean, the other a revolutionary intellectual from Toronto. Brand’s lyrical second novel, At the Full and Change of the Moon (1999), is a poignant historical rendering of the Caribbean Diaspora. The genealogical narrative begins with the slave Marie Ursule, who leads a plantation to mass suicide but spares her daughter, Bola, who in turn spawns a multitude. Those who survive spread across several continents and more often merely survive rather than thrive. A collection of essays, Map to the Door of No Return (2001), continues her meditation on Diaspora’s meaning. Loosened from origin, Diaspora’s meaning, in Brand’s view, becomes a mode of knowledge and demands a self-invention, one haunted by history but not determined by it. Brand continues this train of thought in her most recent collection of poetry, Thirsty (2002). Most recently, Brand has turned again to fiction in What We All Long For (2005).

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Brand’s recent work has also been acknowledged with a variety of Canadian literary prizes. Leslie Sanders See also Canada and the African Diaspora; Trinidad and Tobago. F URTHER R EADING Forster, Sophia. 2002. “ ‘Inventory is useless now but just to say’: The Politics of Ambivalence in Dionne Brand’s Land to Light On.” Studies in Canadian Literature/Etudes en Littérature Canadienne 27.2: 160–182. McCallum, Pamela, and Christian Olbey. 1999. “Written in the Scars: History, Genre, and Materiality in Dionne Brand’s Another Place, Not Here.” Essays on Canadian Writing 68: 159– 182. Walcott, Rinaldo. 2003. Black Like Who? Writing Black Canada. 2nd rev. ed. Toronto: Insomniac Press. Wiens, Jason. 2000. “ ‘Language Seemed to Split in Two’: National Ambivalence(s) and Dionne Brand’s No Language Is Neutral.” Essays on Canadian Writing 70: 81–102.

z Brathwaite, Kamau (1930–) Kamau Brathwaite, critic, theorist, and cultural historian, is the Anglophone Caribbean poet whose work is most rooted in the cosmology and cosmography of Africa and its Diaspora. Brathwaite was born in Barbados in 1930; the landscapes and seascapes of his island are etched into his consciousness. Deeply influenced by living and working in Ghana during the years of its early independence, Brathwaite is always reaching back to ancestral Africa even as he moves forward to encounter dread spaces in the African Diaspora wherever they exist. The Caribbean is the epicenter of his visionary world. He acknowledges its emergence from a history of slavery and colonization and recognizes the resulting legacy of psychic fragmentation and dispossession. Brathwaite’s work may be divided into three periods: the early pe-

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riod, in which he experiments with the concept of nation language and initiates what he terms his video style; the middle period, in which he explores his concept of tidalectics; and the current period, in which he defines magical realism in the Anglophone Caribbean. Brathwaite’s engagement with theory inspirited by Caribbean realities of language, history, culture and geography is an important contribution to Caribbean poetics. In his early period, he wrote two trilogies: The Arrivants: A New World Trilogy (1973) and Mother Poem (1977), Sun Poem (1982), and X/Self (1987). In these works, the poet’s imagination is consumed by mythic Africa and its New World transformations, and they inspirit his [re]visioning of a Caribbean identity. Nation Language is the expression of the union of African and New World cultures in the Caribbean and a metaphor of transformation and possibility. In Brathwaite’s middle period, the third trilogy, The Zea Mexican Diary (1993), Barabajan Poems (1994), and DreamStories (1994), is published. In these works, he further develops his video style. Utilizing various computer fonts and sizes of type, words become miniature sculptures on the page, facilitating the reader’s entry into a strangely visceral world. In the landscapes of his imagination, the poet constructs markers of personal and national identity. Central to this project is his concept of tidalectics. Brathwaite patterns the rhythms of his poetry after the ebb and flow of the waves of his island, and this movement mirrors his journey from the present historical moment back to sources and remembered places. Brathwaite’s current period, dominated by Magical Realism, Volumes 1 and 2 (2002), is marked by his identification of the elements of magical realism in the literature of the Anglophone Caribbean. In these collections, Brathwaite moves beyond time and space. He locates the Caribbean in an ever-expanding universe, dread and numinous, even as he suggests that magical realism, rooted in the region’s gods and

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Brazil: Afro-Brazilians | 225 sacred places, is the Caribbean’s reclamation of the cultural and spiritual. June Bert-Bobb See also Barbados: African Cultural Elements. F URTHER R EADING Bobb, June D. 1998. Beating a Restless Drum: The Poetics of Kamau Brathwaite and Derek Walcott. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Brown, Stewart, ed. 1996. The Art of Kamau Brathwaite. Brigend, Wales: Seren Press. Reiss, Timothy J., ed. 2001. For the Geography of a Soul: Emerging Perspectives on Kamau Brathwaite. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.

z Brazil: Afro-Brazilians H ISTORY AND O RIGINS The magnitude of the historical and cultural efforts of Afro-Brasileiros, or Africans in Brazil, has prompted scholar-activist Abdias do Nascimento to make the argument that Brazil is demographically and culturally an African nation. The prevailing backdrop to this contention is the propagated myth of racial democracy or harmony in Brazil and the corresponding notion that the historical development and national culture of Brazil are defined by miscegenation and a general social plasticity. In the accepted narrative of Brazil, the country came into existence with the arrival of Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500. This troubled narrative is guilty of both omission and commission in that it ignores and marginalizes the indigenous and, later, African presence in the country that became known as Brazil. Brazil has the reputation of importing the largest number of enslaved Africans for the longest duration of any colony in the Americas between the early 16th century and the latter part of the 19th century. In almost four centuries, Brazil’s percentage of African captives brought to the Americas rose from 18 percent during the period 1451–1600 to 42 percent in the next

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century (1601–1700); the slight decrease to 31 percent in the 18th century (1701–1810) was eclipsed by 60 percent during the period 1811– 1888. Overall, Brazil received approximately 39 percent of the total number of Africans, however large that final number may be, during the life of the enslavement enterprise. The enslavement enterprise and process require some clarification, for historians and other writers have a tendency more often than not to conflate chattel slavery in the Americas and servitude or forms of “slavery” on the African continent. The issue is not that some Africans actively engaged and profited from the enslavement enterprise. The issue is talking about “slavery” as a shared human phenomenon that differs only in terms of degrees, when those Africans who participated never conceived of a dehumanizing, deculturalizing process and social order as conjured up and executed in the Americas. In other words, it is a question not of degrees of difference in relatively the same (slavery) system but of two different types of systems in thinking and implementation. The Portuguese became associated with the enslavement of Africans as early as 1258 and, as early as 1433, began to transport enslaved Africans to Portugal. Africans had already been enslaved on sugar-producing Portuguese colonies off the coast of westcentral Africa prior to the use of Brazil for the same ends. The Portuguese imported and enslaved Africans in Brazil who came primarily from western Africa (e.g., Guinea, Ghana, Benin, Dahomey, Niger, and Nigeria), westcentral Africa (e.g., the Kôngo-Angola region), southwestern Africa, and the east African coast (e.g., Mozambique). Main ports of entry included Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, and Santos. The principal cultural groups represented by Africans in Brazil include the Yoruba-Nagô (Nigeria, Benin), the Manding (Mali, Guinea), the Hausa (Northern Nigeria, Niger), the FonGege (Dahomey), the Fante-Asante (Ghana), and the Bantu-Kôngo (Kôngo-Angola, Mozambique). The Malês were generally any

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African Muslim in Bahia, and in Rio de Janeiro they were known as Alufá. Nagô is the Brazilian expression for the Yoruba, while Gege applies to the Fon or Ewe-Fon of former Dahomey. The Fante-Asante were called “mina” (as in the “El Mina” castle on the coast of Ghana), though many of this Akan group enslaved in Brazil were not Asante; rather, they were largely non-Akan or Africans to the east, west, and north of the forest-based Asanteman (Asante nation) that controlled much of what is contemporary Ghana at its peak. The preference of the Portuguese to acquire new enslaved Africans as opposed to growing this population locally is telling, for the male-to-female ratio was typically 2:1, adults were more sought after than children, and the average life span of an enslaved person was approximately 15 years (upon arrival in Brazil). Sugar fazendas (plantations) defined enslaved life during the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the latter century there was a focus on importing Africans from the Kôngo-Angola region. Q UILOMBOS AND B LACK C ONSCIOUSNESS One of the key contributions of Africans from this region was the development of quilombos (liberated communities), of which the most notable is Quilombo dos Palmares (the state of Palmares), established around 1608 in northeastern Brazil in the state of Alagoas. Its wellknown leader was Ganga Zumbi, and his death on November 20, 1695, marks the November 20 observance of Dia Nacional da Consciéncia Negra (National Day of Black Consciousness) in Brazil. Residents of Palmares referred to this quilombo as “Angola Janga,” and the term “quilombo” most likely derives from the Kimbundu kilombo, a male initiation camp and military society in Angola. The polity of Palmares had a structure that paralleled those found in west-central Africa and has been described as a gigantic agglomeration of “mocambos” (maroon villages) with central and local councils, and egalitarianism among women and men. Much of the history pre-

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sented on Palmares does not come from any African or descendant of this state. The principal remaining quilombo communities include Calunga in the state of Goias; Rio das Rãs, Bananal, Barra in the state of Bahia; Turiaçu and Frechal in Maranhão, an area that is reported to have 400 quilombos; Oriximiná in the state of Pará; Ivaporanduva in São Paulo; and Mucumbo in Sergipe. E CONOMICS , U RBANIZATION , AND E XPLOITATION IN 19 TH -C ENTURY B RAZIL The exploitation of gold and diamond deposits in the states of Minas Gerais and Goiás during the 18th century coincided with a calculated preference for Africans from the “Costa da Mina” region (contemporary Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria); thus, the northeast of Brazil became dominated by Africans and their culture born of this region. It should be noted that historians or writers sometimes confuse ports of embarkation with ports and areas of origin, and the names of places in Africa with those of sovereigns in terms of determining who came from where. In the 18th century, the primary Brazilian ports per volume were those in Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Recife, and São Luis; therefore, it is not surprising to find a large Yoruba-Nagô and west African coast presence, in addition to a Bantu-Kôngo one, in places such as Salvador and Rio de Janeiro. The 19th century witnessed the development of the coffee industry, which became Brazil’s most profitable export. Certainly, as these industries flourished, the increased demand for enslaved African labor remained high, and the Africans’ indigenous knowledge of mining, metallurgy, cattle rearing, and agriculture suited a plantocracy that concentrated, chronologically, on the production of sugar, diamonds and gold, and coffee. The return of Africans in Brazil to West Africa—Nigeria, Togo, Benin (former Dahomey), and Ghana—from the first half of the 18th century to the 20th century is a phenomenon that, in large measure, is a response to

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Brazil: Afro-Brazilians | 227 many of the issues that characterized 19thcentury Brazil. The 19th century is perhaps the most significant in terms of the extent of events and their implications for the history of Africans in Brazil. During this century, the focal points of enslaved labor were the coffee plantations of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, and the Portuguese court had been transferred to Rio de Janeiro in 1808. Rio de Janeiro replaced Salvador as the capital of Brazil in 1763; almost two centuries later, the capital would become Brasília. The expanding areas of São Paulo experienced numerous revolts and rebellions in the 19th century; however, the greatest number of revolts by enslaved Africans occurred on the plantations of northeast Brazil, particularly in Salvador, Bahia, which had more than 20 between 1798 and 1841. One of the better-known revolts was the Malês rebellion of 1835. The years 1830–1880 were characterized by numerous military conflicts in South America, including the war of the Triple Alliance in 1865–1870, in which Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay fought against Paraguay. In all these military conflicts, large numbers of African troops were deployed. T HE A BOLITIONIST M OVEMENT AND B RANQUEAMENTO The antislavery or abolitionist movement was largely a (white) elite one wherein government officials created antislave trade regulations and imposed related taxes to encourage planters to use European immigrant workers. Europeans were greatly encouraged to immigrate to Brazil to live and work on coffee plantations in the late 19th century. This critical period saw the abolition of slavery in 1888 through the Lei Áurea (“Golden Law”), the mass immigration of whites, the sociopolitical pressure on Africans to marry white (so as to “improve” the race), the denial of voting through literary requirements in the 1891 constitution, and the destruction (by fire) of all historical documents and archives related to the enslavement enterprise, ordered by Rui Barbosa on May 13, 1891.

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At the height of European imperialism in Africa and other parts of the non-Western world, in addition to the emergence of anthropological theories linked to colonialism, Brazilian elites sought to address the complexion of the country by instituting branqueamento, or a national program of “whitening,” which anticipated the gradual disappearance of Africans in Brazil. Presumably faced with a “racial” threat to their social order, the whites in Brazil united in the idea of transforming Brazil into another Europe. For them, the creation of the “mulatto/a”—highly offensive terms that signify the offspring of a mule (African female) and a horse (white Portuguese male)—in the words of Sylvio Romero, was a “condition of victory for the white man.” This “victory” necessitated the disappearance of the African population, occasioned by institutionally encouraging massive European immigration, the destruction of enslavement documents, manipulation of demographic data, restrictions on non-European immigrants, and miscegenation. It is certainly not surprising, then, to find that Gilberto Freyre’s Casa Grande e Senzala (“The Masters and the Slaves or Enslaved Quarters”), as Freyre is arguably the leading apologist for slavery, is one of the works most widely translated into English. Freyre’s ideas find currency in the proposition that Brazil is balanced and homogeneous and hence a harmonious racial democracy. A consequence of the racial ideology of nonracism is its very selfdenial, a posture advanced by Gilberto Freyre and Pierre Verger. Perhaps the more profound consequence of this “non-racism” ideology is that the “black” movement in Brazil expends a great deal of energy attempting to prove to its people that their condition is a function of race, since many believe racism does not exist. C ULTURE The cultural reality of Africans in Brazil is so pervasive that perhaps Abdias Nascimento’s contention that Brazil is culturally and demographically an African nation might be a more

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appropriate way to conceptualize this country. The Africans introduced new foods and dishes, one of which is the national cuisine; linguistically affected the lexicon and pronunciation of Portuguese; produced the musical and dance form of samba, capoeira, and carnival; and perpetuated the African-derived spiritual system of Candomblé, the Xangô (Shango) tradition in Pernambuco, and Macumba, which was Candomblé transformed, in Rio de Janeiro in the 1900s. Macumba developed into Umbanda in the southern parts of Brazil. The large Kôngo-Angola cultural presence makes the argument that Candomblé is of Yoruba origins a difficult one to substantiate, since there are three branches of Candomblé, each linked to specific African cultural “nations.” The GegeNagô branch is based on Yoruba and Ewe-Fon spiritual systems, while the Kôngo-Angola branch is based on Bantu-Kôngo sources. The third branch, Caboclo, requires some clarification. Caboclos are analogous to the Orixas (Orishas) of the Yoruba; and many, particularly in Salvador, Bahia, view these “divinities” as native to Brazil. The state of Bahia is the center of Candomblé in Brazil, and the first Candomblé terreiro, or temple, was founded in Salvador, Bahia, by Iya Nasso at the start of the 19th century. During this period, spiritual practices linked to Candomblé were suppressed, and terreiros were often raided; this persecution continued until the 1970s, when many Candomblé adherents began to practice their spirituality in the open. From suppression to exploitation, Candomblé has since been used for tourism through the performance of “folk shows” in terreiros, and within this triad of spiritual expression there are heated debates on whether or not to discard the Catholic imagery that “masks” Candomblé. A very prominent idea in any discussion of Candomblé, of African culture in Brazil, is the notion of “syncretism.” Often missing from these discussions, however, is the African experience of historical harassment, restrictions, and police persecution, baptisms by force, and

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the proselytizing efforts of the Catholic Church backed by the armed support of the state. In this sociopolitical context, what we have is not syncretism between Catholicism and African spiritual systems but rather a strategy employed by Africans to mask or cover so as to confound and circumvent oppression. It appears that, much as in Haiti and Cuba, both of which had large African populations, a deep synthesis of the main forms and principles of Yoruba, Ewe-Fon, and Bantu-Kôngo traditions occurred, and this composite system was (later) partly informed by the saints of Catholicism. Thus, for example, the Yoruba orixas Obatalá became shrouded with imagery of Senhor do Bonfim, Xangô with São Jerônimo, Yansã with Santa Bárbara, and Ogun with São Jorge. Candomblé is quite distinct from the religious brotherhoods that were affiliated with the Catholic Church since the 17th century and were structured around specific saints, particularly the “black” saints among Africans who participated. These brotherhoods function much like mutual aid societies. One of the most famous brotherhoods is Our Lady of the Rosary, established in 1865 in Salvador, Bahia; one of the most notable sisterhoods is Our Lady of the Good Death, established in 1823. These two fraternal organizations, including the Yoruba Ogbuni society, still exist in Brazil, and the latter organization is led by women. C ONTEMPORARY R EALITIES The severely circumscribed nature of life and living made it so that “free blacks” and “mulattos” were subject to laws that seldom distinguished between them and those enslaved. The abolishment of the enslavement enterprise ushered in no need benefits to Africans in Brazil, and this is one reason why the “black” movement rejects May 13, 1888; rather, they celebrate November 20, which commemorates Ganga Zumbi’s death, as National Black Consciousness Day. Former enslaved Africans were confined to low-paying jobs, poor housing facilities, unemployment, and limited educa-

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Brazil: Afro-Brazilians | 229 tional opportunities, and, as a group, they lacked political and economic power, all behind a façade of racial equality. A good number of Africans found themselves earning their living as housemaids, civil workers, and prostitutes. During the early 20th century, several African-Brazilian publications and organizations were established to propagate cultural and social consciousness as well as to fight against racism and impoverishment. From 1944–1968, the Teatro Experimental do Negro (TEN), founded by Abdias do Nascimento, promoted cultural dignity and consciousness through performances, while others have sought to address racism and oppression by way of musical expression, literature, and carnival. Contemporary cultural-musical groups in this context include Olodum, which pioneered samba-reggae; Ilê Aiyê, which plays heavy rhythms reminiscent of Candomblé ceremonies called Ijexá; and Dida, an all female musical group, all based in Salvador, Bahia. Organizational efforts include the Brazilian Black Front of the 1930s, the National Black Convention of the 1940s, and the Congress of Brazilian Blacks of the 1950s. The level of African-Brazilian activism in the 1970s was informed by the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements in the United States as well as the political independence movements in Africa and the Caribbean. The level of sustained activism during the 20th century has been aimed at prevailing socioeconomic conditions and cultural exploitation, and the statistics alone tell their own story. Africans in Brazil account for more than 80 percent of all prison inmates, form the majority of the residents in the nation’s poorest housing facilities, and constitute most of the homeless population in Brazil’s urban centers, many of which include homeless street children and adolescents who primarily attempt to help feed their families and/or themselves. An average of four children are murdered each day, and approximately 90 percent of the murders go unpunished, since the death squads—

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composed of (retired) police officers—are often hired by wealthy property owners and businessmen. The National Movement of Street Children (MNMMR) in Brazil was established in 1985 as a means of combating the plight of homeless children and adolescents. It is not surprising, then, that only 2 percent of African-Brazilian students attend universities, while 97 percent that do are whites. Seventy percent of those who live below the poverty level are African-Brazilian. One of the more recent strategies to address the sociopolitical and economic discrepancy between African and white Brazilians is the adoption of affirmative action policies, which has been viewed by some as “reverse racism.” Nonetheless, such policies have led to programs in Brazilian universities through a system of “special vacancies” for African-Brazilian students. Ultimately, the present and future of Africans in Brazil will not depend on government accommodations or quotas but rather on a process of disengaging themselves from the mythologies that envelop African-Brazilian life and forging a socioeconomic and psychic space built upon cultural and historical agency. Kwasi Konadu and Paula de Almeida Silva See also Candomblé; Carnival; Centro de Estudos Afro-Orientais (CEAO); Ilê Aiyê; Maroon and Marronage; Mulatta; Nascimento, Abdias do (1914–). F URTHER R EADING Andrade, Manuel. 1989. O Brasil e a África. São Paulo: Contexto. Cardoso, Ciro F. S. 1984. Afro-América: A escravidão no novo mundo. São Paulo, Brazil: Brasiliense. Munanga, Kabengele. 2003. “Políticas de Ação Afirmativa em Benefício da População Negra no Brasil—Um Ponto de Vista em Defesa de Cotas.” Revista Espaço Acadêmico 2: 22. Nascimento, Abdias. 2001. Africans in Brazil: A Pan-African Perspective. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Ribeiro, Darcy. 1995. O povo brasileiro: a formação e o sentido do Brasil. São Paulo, Brazil: Companhia das Letras.

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230 | Briggs, Cyril V. (1887–1966) Valente, Ana L. 1987. Ser negro no Brasil de hoje. São Paulo, Brazil: Moderna.

z Briggs, Cyril V. (1887–1966) Cyril Briggs was a journalist, a political theorist, and an important figure in the “new Negro movement” (also called the Harlem Renaissance) following World War I. Cyril Valentine Briggs founded the Crusader publication as well as the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB). Briggs was one of the first black men to join the Communist Party of America. He was also one of its original and most important members, who produced theory concerning the liberation of African peoples worldwide. Cyril Valentine Briggs was born on the Caribbean island of Nevis on May 28, 1887. He was the son of Louis Briggs, a white man from Trinidad who worked as an overseer on one of the last remaining plantations on Nevis. His mother was a woman of color named Mary M. Huggins. Briggs’s light complexion was a source of contention throughout his life, especially when he engaged and professed black nationalist politics. Briggs considered himself a “race man” and passionately defended his African identity. This earned him the nickname “Angry Blond Negro.” Briggs received parochial school education in the town of Basseterre on St. Kitts. He would continue there after leaving school, working for local newspapers until leaving for the United States in 1905. Briggs continued his work as a journalist in the United States. He worked for the New York Amsterdam News from 1912 to 1918 but ran afoul of the paper’s senior editors, especially in 1918 when he published a number of articles denouncing blacks who supported U.S. involvement in World War I. He was forced to resign and chose to start his own publication, which was called the Crusader.

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The Crusader followed closely in the footsteps of other Harlem-based publications, covering the political and socioeconomic conditions of black Americans and African peoples worldwide. These papers included Hubert Harrison’s Voice, begun in 1917; the Messenger, edited by A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen; and Marcus Garvey’s Negro World, which started in 1918. The Crusader was more militant than any of these papers, calling for armed self-defense against white supremacist violence in the United States and supporting the armed liberation of African people against European colonialism, while showing affinity with Soviet Russia and communist ideologies in its latter years. Briggs used the Crusader as the official organ of the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), which was a revolutionary secret organization. It included members throughout the United States but had its strongest appeal in Harlem. The ABB’s height came when members in Tulsa, Oklahoma, were singled out by racist media and government officials for providing armed self-defense for the black community during a vicious race riot there in June 1921. The organization included a number of Caribbean and American activists of African origin, such as Richard B. Moore, W. A. Domingo, Otto Huiswoud, Claude McKay, and Grace Campbell. The ABB fused revolutionary socialism with black nationalism. They often clashed with Marcus Garvey and his much larger Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) over their politics of race-first capitalism while competing for the hearts and minds of black Americans. The work of Briggs and the ABB attracted the attention of the newly formed, underground Communist Party of America (CPUSA). This resulted in an alliance between ABB and the Communist Party by 1921. Briggs continued his association with the CPUSA throughout the 1920s and 1930s. He edited numerous publications tied to the party’s American Negro Labor Congress

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Brixton | 231 (ANLC). Briggs also continued other work, helping to organize the United Negro Front Conference in 1923. This conference, commonly known as the Negro Sanhedrin, met in Chicago in 1924. Briggs was an active party member until he was expelled, along with former ABB member Richard B. Moore, in 1938. Briggs relocated to Los Angeles in 1944 and rejoined the party in 1948. He served as a local leader during the height of government repression against communist ideologies. Briggs died of a heart attack in 1966. Jason M. Schultz See also African Blood Brotherhood (ABB); Harlem Renaissance. F URTHER R EADING Hill, Robert A. 1986. “Cyril Briggs.” In Biographical Dictionary of the American Left, ed. Bernard K. Johnpoll and Harvey Klehr, 45–47. New York: Greenwood. Hill, Robert A., ed. 1987. Crusader, 1918–1922. 6 vols. New York: Garland. James, Winston. 1998. Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America. London: Verso.

z Brixton An ethnically diverse neighborhood in south London, Brixton boasts a vibrant urban cultural scene and night life, and a renowned street market providing for its numerous immigrant communities. It is most closely identified with London’s then West Indian migrant population (1948–1962) and its descendents. Since the 1950s, Brixton has been the preeminent center of Afro-Caribbean culture and identity in Britain, serving as a magnet for others within the African Diaspora. Afro-Caribbean migrants were initially attracted to Brixton by the availability of cheap housing, easy access to local employment offices, good public transportation links, and its street

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market. The majority of the arrivals were Jamaican, semi-skilled and unskilled, even rural workers—poor, but not drifters. Initially, the Brixton Caribbean community lacked sufficient identity and strong enough organizational bonds to surmount the challenges of the host society. However, an early newspaper, edited by Claudia Jones, The West Indian Gazette, was housed there in the early 1950s. Housing shortages became an immediate problem, and unemployment steadily worsened (ironic, given that they were “invited” to come to Britain to relieve a perceived labor shortage). Racism, white resentment, and cultural insensitivity and hostility took their toll. By the 1980s, unemployment in Brixton hovered around 70 percent. The community’s quality of life deteriorated as crime, too, became a problem. These factors were exacerbated by a police force whose practices in Brixton—raids, stop and search, aggressive harassment—added to the local perception that West Indians were a persecuted minority. On April 10–12, 1981, deeper economic and social tensions tipped over into one of Britain’s biggest urban riots. Primarily young black men (but also a significant number of young white men) attacked the police and burned cars. Looting occurred, although mostly carried out by older white Britons from outside the neighborhood. The subsequent Scarman Report criticized police action in the community but commended police professionalism once the riots had begun. The report further suggested policing, legal, and local government reform and stressed the significance of unemployment, racism, and deteriorating urban conditions as factors behind the riots. Lord Scarman, interestingly, also recommended a period of “positive discrimination” in Britain to redress the racial imbalances in society. Some of these recommendations were taken up, but most were not. Unsurprisingly, Brixton experienced further riots in 1985 and again in 1995. Early-21st-century Brixton still has a relatively high incidence of social problems, but

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improvements have been made between Britain’s black population and the state. As a site of symbolic, cultural, and political importance for Britain’s black British populations, Brixton inspires play and fiction writing and the fine arts, and its venues host a variety of black British performative art forms. Brixton has been home to the Black Cultural Archive since 1981, a flagship museum and cultural center dedicated to documenting the presence and achievements of African-descended people in Britain. Today, Brixton still resonates as a primary site for the African Diaspora community in England. Scot Ickes See also Europe and the African Diaspora; Jones, Claudia Cumberbatch (1915–1964); United Kingdom: The African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Benyon, John, ed. 1984. Scarman and After: Essays Reflecting on Lord Scarman’s Report, the Riots and Their Aftermath. Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press. Patterson, Sheila. 1965. Dark Strangers: A Study of West Indians in London. London: Harmondworth. Scarman, Lord. 1981. The Scarman Report: The Brixton Disorders 10–12 April 1981: Report of an Inquiry. London: HMSO.

z Brodber, Erna (1940–) Born in Woodside, St. Mary, Jamaica, Erna Brodber is a sociologist, historian, novelist, and community activist who focuses on recovering the past and better understanding the present conditions of Diasporic Africans, especially in the Caribbean and the United States, in order to strengthen black initiatives toward social change by building bridges between individuals and groups and between scholars and local communities. Brodber pursued her education in Jamaica, the United States, and Canada,

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earning a doctorate in history from the University of the West Indies. Brodber has held various positions as lecturer and researcher at UWI and in the United States. She has lived in Woodside since 1983 and works as a writer, researcher, lecturer and community builder. As a researcher at the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) in Jamaica between 1975 and 1983, Brodber collected the oral histories of elders in rural Jamaica and published Abandonment of Children in Jamaica (1974), Yards in the City of Kingston (1975), Perceptions of Caribbean Women: Toward a Documentation of Stereotypes (1982), and later for UNESCO, Rural-Urban Migration and the Jamaican Child (1986). Her interest in oral sources is evident in her historical work, which draws on oral traditions, local myths, and archival research. Both Standing Tall: Affirmations of the Jamaican Male–24 Self-Portraits (2003) and The Second Generation of Freemen in Jamaica, 1907–1944 (2004) are based on interviews of 90 people born at the turn of the 20th Century. The latter provides an analysis of various communal and social events and patterns, such as employment limited by racism, migration, courtship and family arrangements, and ancestral anger. With Woodside, Pear Tree Grove, P.O. (2004), Brodber provides a social history of Woodside that contributes to righting the lack of historical knowledge and to community development. This history, as well as the lectures collected in The Continent of Black Consciousness: On the History of the African Diaspora from Slavery to the Present Day (2003) and given during 1996 and 1997 in the context of Blackspace, a center Brodber created for the study of Africa and the Diaspora, exemplify her emphasis on returning knowledge to the community. These essays address comparative slavery, liberation thought and action, Marcus Garvey and the relationships between African Jamaicans and African Americans, the international impact of Claude McKay, George Padmore, and C. L. R. James, an analysis of the concepts of Diaspora and of

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Brooklyn | 233 Africa in novels by Merle Hodge and Paule Marshall, and Brodber’s own methodological approach to oral accounts, myths, and history. Brodber has made Emancipation Day an important celebration in Woodside, through which villagers trace their family histories and better understand the community’s past. Brodber is also the author of three novels, short stories, poetry and critical essays. Her first novel, Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home (1980), is, thanks to its path-breaking use of Creole, folk elements, and experimental structure, a landmark in the rise of Caribbean women’s writing in the 1980s. Her second novel, Myal (1989), and her third novel, Louisiana (1994), are powerful tales that draw on African Diasporic traditions and practices to explore the connections between Diasporic localities. Brodber has received the Musgrave Medal for Literature and Orature (1999) and the Bronze Medal for Poetry and short story writing in the Jamaica Festival of Arts. Dominique Licops See also Afrocentricity; Ananse; Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Creole, Creolity, Creolization; Jamaica; Obeah; PanAfricanism. F URTHER R EADING Cooper, Carolyn. 1990. “Afro-Jamaican Folk Elements in Brodber’s Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home.” In Out of the Kumbla: Caribbean Women and Literature, ed. Carole Boyce Davies and Elaine Savory Fido, 279–288. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Cudjoe, Selwyn R., ed. 1990. Caribbean Women Writers: Essays from the First International Conference. Wellesley, MA: Calaloux Publications. Ellis Russell, Nadia. 2001. “Crossing Borders: An Interview with Writer, Scholar, and Activist Erna Brodber.” inthefray.com/200105/imagine/brodber2/brodber2.html (accessed April 28, 2005). “Erna Brodber,” www.postcolonialweb.org/ caribbean/brodber/brodberov.html (accessed April 28, 2005).

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Brooklyn Brooklyn is now recognized as one of a number of African Diaspora sites, not only because of the large-scale migration of peoples and their concentrated location in one community but also because of the creation of specific cultural identity markers that give it an African Diaspora character. Like its counterpart in England, Brixton, Brooklyn is now home to a large Caribbean community, noted now for its Labor Day Caribbean parade, its Caribbean food stores, newspapers, and community activity. Initially, the Dutch were the first European settlers, via the Dutch West India Company, central to the formation of the African Diaspora through African enslavement and the displacing of the Native American populations in the 17th century. Named originally Breuckelen, it preceded New Amsterdam, which became New York City, was finally incorporated into the developing United States as a result of the American Revolutionary War, and gradually expanded to incorporate what is now all of Kings County. It is one of the five boroughs of New York and is now considered part of the contemporary New York City. Brooklyn is well known for its legendary brownstone row houses, which have been the setting of novels by such authors as Brooklyn’s own Paule Marshall: Brown Girl Brownstones (1959), Praisesong for the Widow (1983), Reena and Other Stories (1983), and The Fisher King (2000). Marshall’s “From the Poets in the Kitchen” in Reena and Other Stories is set in a Brooklyn brownstone. A receiving point for U.S. African-Americans in the South-to-North migration of the 1920s, Bedford-Stuyvesant, has the largest concentration of Caribbean-Americans. A first wave of Caribbean-Americans was the product of the migration of some who had worked on the Panama Canal and were now making the U.S. their home with their families. Succeeding migratory flows peeked in the 1960s and 1970s. Because of these and subsequent migrations, Brooklyn has symbolic resonance in

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Caribbean communities at home, in much the same way that Miami has for Cuban-Americans. As a result, the logic of having African American and now Caribbean elected officials is considered part of the community’s cultural framework, championed by Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman to run for the presidency of the United States in the 1970s, who is descended from a Barbadian family who had migrated to the United States. Chisholm ran for the 11th Congressional District (encompassing Park Slope, Crown Heights, Flatbush, Brownsville, and Prospect Heights), becoming the first African American/Afro-Caribbean woman to become a member of Congress. Noted filmmaker Spike Lee considers himself a Brooklynite and has based his 40 Acres and Mule Productions in the Fort Greene neighborhood. Several of his films, such as She’s Gotta Have It, Do the Right Thing, and Crooklyn were set and shot in Brooklyn communities. Brooklyn is also the home of Medgar Evers College and Brooklyn College, which are attended by many students from New York’s African American and Caribbean communities. Carole Boyce Davies See also Bambaataa, Afrika (1957–); Brixton; Caribbean Black Power; Caribbean Migrations: Caribbean Diaspora; Danticat, Edwidge (1969–); Harlem; Marshall, Paule (1929–). F URTHER R EADING Buff, Rachel. 2001. Immigration and the Political Economy of Home: West Indian Brooklyn and American Indian Minneapolis, 1945–1992. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chisholm, Shirley. 1970. Unbought and Unbossed. New York: Houghton-Mifflin. Kasinitz, Phillip. 1992. Caribbean New York: Black Immigrants and the Politics of Race. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Kurlansky, Mark. 1993. A Continent of Islands: Searching for the Caribbean Destiny. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. Waters, Mary C. 2001. Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Brown, Elaine (1943–) Revolutionary activist, artist, and author, Elaine Brown has been described as “the first woman ever to head a paramilitary organization in America,” the Black Panther Party (BPP), founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in October 1966. Brown rose to the position of BPP “chairman” in 1974 and, when Newton was forced into a three-year exile in Cuba, she became de facto minister of defense of these Panthers until 1977. Her memoir, A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story (1992) documents this period of activisim. Brown begins life in Philadelphia, poor and working-class, then makes her way out to Los Angeles and then Oakland. Under her leadership, the Black Panther Party served black communities in myriad ways before the party was destroyed by COINTELPRO, the counterintelligence program of the FBI. While A Taste of Power was optioned for an HBO film by Motown pioneer Suzanne DePasse, Brown recorded two albums of song: Seize the Time! (1969) and Elaine Brown (1973). Seize the Time! actually provides a pulsating soundtrack for a scene from filmmaker Haile Gerima’s Hour Glass (1971), not to mention Ashes and Embers (1985). Her music would also inspire hip-hop artists—like the Bay Area–based Black Panther F.U.G.I.T.I.V.E.S., who remixed Brown’s music in 2002. Brown’s The Condemnation of Little B: New Age Racism in America (2002) analyzes the situation of U.S. African-Americans (PROUD FLESH 2) in an age of neocolonialism and imperialism, mass impoverishment and imprisonment, which she calls neo-slavery with all its actors (Brown 2002, 207–260). Currently, Elaine Brown serves on the board of directors of the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation as its vice president. She is president of Fields of Flowers, Inc., a nonprofit education corporation committed to building schools for poor children. She is director of political affairs for the National Alliance for Radical Prison Re-

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Political activist Elaine Brown became leader of the militant Black Panther Party in the 1970s. (Corbis)

form. She is a founding and executive board member of Mothers Advocating Juvenile Justice. More recently, she ran unsuccessfully for the position of mayor of Brunswick, Georgia, a predominantly black town with one of the fastest-growing ports in the country. She continues activist work, teaching and lecturing on contemporary issues facing black communities. Greg Thomas See also African American Women; Black Panther Party. F URTHER R EADING Brown, Elaine. 1992. A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story. New York: Anchor Books. Brown, Elaine. 2002. The Condemnation of Little B: New Age Racism in America. Boston: Beacon Press. “PROUD FLESH Inter/Views ELAINE BROWN.” 2003. PROUD FLESH 2: www.africaresource .com/proudflesh/vol1.2/thomas.html. (Accessed January 19, 2008)

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Butler, Octavia Estelle (1947–2005) Octavia Estelle Butler is the celebrated African American author of science fiction novels that address society’s future through issues that include women’s role as society’s leaders, the balance of power between oppressors and the oppressed, and the self-destructive cycle of humanity. Born in Pasadena, California, in 1947 in a three-generation household ruled by her mother and grandmother, Butler is a black woman who holds a prominent position within the even smaller minority of black women who write in the science fiction genre. She began writing at a very young age, happily oblivious at first to the invisible barrier that blocked black women from having any significant contribution to the genre. Many of her novels incorporate traditional elements of science fiction, as can be seen in her

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depictions of alien races and post-apocalyptic societies, but she has also drawn the attention of readers of widely varying races, interests, and cultural backgrounds with her ability to adroitly create works that address the role of black women as the leaders who may be the key to preventing humanity from descending into anarchy. The strong-willed heroines of her Parable and Xenogenesis series, for example, are both feared and revered for their natural and supernatural abilities, even as they feel compelled to make the sacrifices and decisions necessary to ensure the survival of their families and communities. Butler’s protagonists must often make difficult decisions to ensure their autonomy and to prevent society from continuing what she believes to be a self-destructive cycle that will ultimately lead to humanity’s devastation. It is clear that Butler feels that society, particularly the black women of society, must take the lead in preventing humanity’s downfall. Butler clearly believes that if humanity is to make any progress, it will be necessary to leave behind long-cherished belief systems and traditions. Many of her works show how difficult this can be for the African American community. During her prolific career, Butler has published several novels, including Patternmaster

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(1976); Mind of My Mind (1977); the Xenogenesis trilogy, consisting of Dawn (1987), Adulthood Rites (1998), and Imago (1989); the Parable series, which includes Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998); as well as an anthology of shorter work entitled Bloodchild and Other Stories (1996). Her critically acclaimed works have afforded her every major award in the science fiction field, including the Hugo and Nebula awards. She has also received the MacArthur fellowship, an award geared toward creative people who have broken new territory in their fields. Dixie-Anne Belle See also “African” in African American History; Feminism and Black Women and in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Foster, Frances Smith. 1982. “Octavia Butler’s Black Female Future Fiction.” Extrapolation 23: 37–49. Govan, Sandra Y. 1984. “Connections, Links, and Extended Networks: Patterns in Octavia Butler’s Science Fiction.” Black American Literature Forum 19 (Fall): 82–87. Salvaggio, Ruth. 1984. “Octavia Butler and the Science Fiction Heroine.” Black American Literature Forum 18: 78–81.

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later to join the PAIGC and become GuineaBissau’s economic minister; and Agostinho Neto, a founder of the Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). With this group of African students, which also included Mario de Andrade (cofounder of the MPLA) and Mozambiquan Eduardo Mondlane, later leader of the Front for the Liberation and Independence of Mozambique, in April 1950 Cabral cofounded the Center for African Studies (CAS), a loose colloquium of African students that met weekly to conduct seminars on aspects of continental African life and history. By 1951, the organization was under persecution by Portuguese security forces; it disbanded as its leaders were arrested and or fled Portugal. In 1952, Cabral completed his degree and returned to Guinea to work as an agronomist with the Provincial Department of Agriculture and Forestry Services of Guinea. Cabral’s political concerns came to the fore as he attempted to establish a local version of CAS, in the guise of a youth organization, in the Guinean capital of Bissau. The organization’s purpose was discovered by colonial administrators, and Cabral was exiled to Portugal. Given permission to visit his mother annually, in two subsequent visits to Guinea Cabral was able to organize and establish the PAIGC by

Cabral, Amilcar Lopes (1924–1973) Born in Bafata, Portuguese Guinea, on September 12, 1924, Amilcar Lopes Cabral was the son of Cape Verdian parents; his father was Juvenal Cabral, a school teacher, and his mother was Iva Evora, a shopkeeper. Cabral’s parents moved back to Cape Verde in 1928. Cabral was home schooled until the age of 12, when he entered the Infante Don Henrique primary school in 1935; later, he attended the only secondary school in Cape Verde, Gil Eanes Liceu, until 1944. In 1945, he received a scholarship to attend the Agronomy Institute at the Technical University of Lisbon, where his social connections and political activities laid the foundation for his future role in Lusophone Africa’s anticolonial struggles. Though sympathetic to communist organizations, Cabral astutely avoided direct connections but was involved as a student activist in petitions to halt nuclear proliferation and to protect Portuguese students and workers from police brutality. His circle of associates included young Lusophone African students who would later become leaders of Portuguese African anticolonial movements, among them Vasco Cabral, who was 237 www.abc-clio.com

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1959. After four years spent working in Portugal and throughout Lusophone Africa, Cabral and his family moved to newly independent Guinea-Conakry, where he established the nerve center of the PAIGC. Cabral conducted both political and, beginning in October 1962, military operations from Guinea-Conakry, serving as primary theorist, military tactician, ambassador, and spokesperson for the Guinean national liberation struggle. He was assassinated by Portuguese agents on January 20, 1973, in front of the PAIGC offices in Conakry, Guinea. Cabral’s primary contribution to national liberation theory is his analysis of colonized identity and leadership in the context of Marxian class consciousness and national development. For Cabral, the fundamental step in national libratory praxis is the recognition of the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized elites at the level of culture and acculturation. The dominance of the colonizer’s culture over the colonized elite suppresses their ability to construct an identity independent of colonial determination and standards. In the context of colonialism in African societies, Cabral articulates the process of “Re-Africanization” as the re-embracing of an indigenous African identity on the part of elite Africans (beneficiaries of colonial education and employment opportunities). “Re-Africanization” is a sociocultural and political movement away from the colonial center of power toward the core of mass popular life. This movement of consciousness is necessary, as it realigns the elites with the mass populace, whom Cabral understands as having retained their “African” identities due to their marginalization from colonial culture. Unlike the masses, who, in Cabral’s words, “have no need to assert or reassert their identity, which they have never confused,” the elites, as a result of their investment in the colonizer’s culture, “find [themselves] obliged to take up a position in the struggle that opposes the masses to the colonial power.” The mass populace, in the case of

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the African anticolonial struggle, are not the urbanized proletarians of Marxist analysis but the rural peasantry, which Cabral sees as the dominant revolutionary force. This cultural, psychological, and geographic reintegration into mass popular life and consciousness, Cabral termed the “Return to the Source.” This cultural return Cabral sees as fundamental to the empowerment of the national liberation struggle as culture (the proactive process of humankind’s social, psychological, and material valuation and engagement with its circumstances) returns the colonized African to the stage of history. Cabral articulates history and historical agency as the ability of a group to determine, control, and create the conditions of its existence. “Re-Africanization” and “Returning to the Source” open the door for colonized Africans to reestablish control over their “national productive forces.” In short, the goal of the national liberation struggle, with the elements characterized by Cabral, leads to the creation of national consciousness and proactive national development, the opposite of the goal of colonization, underdevelopment. Cabral’s thought places him in line with such dominant theorists of late national libratory theory and praxis as Fanon, Rodney, and Biko and renders his analysis relevant in view of contemporary discussions of globalization, African underdevelopment, and the failures of postindependence African governments. Charles Peterson See also Cape Verde; Pan-Africanism; Rodney, Walter (1942–1980). F URTHER R EADING Cabral, Amilcar. 1974. Return to the Source. New York: Monthly Review Press. Cabral, Amilcar. 1974. Revolution in Guinea. New York: Monthly Review Press. Chabal, Patrick. 1983. Amilcar Cabral: Revolutionary Leadership and People’s War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dhada, Mustafa. 1993. Warriors at Work: How Guinea Was Really Set Free. Niwot: University of Colorado Press.

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Cachoeira | 239 McCulloch, Jock. 1983. In the Twilight of Revolution: The Political Theory of Amilcar Cabral.

z Cachoeira Cachoeira, Bahia, is a colonial town in northeastern Brazil famous for its role in the Bahian war of independence and the strength of its Afro-Brazilian religious traditions. Located in the Recôncavo, the fertile, crescent-shaped region around the Bahia de Todos os Santos, Cachoeira lies 110 kilometers (approximately 68 miles) from Salvador by land and 40 kilometers (approximately 25 miles) by river. Situated on the banks of the Rio Paraguassú, Cachoeira’s first inhabitants were the indigenous Tupinambá peoples. Cachoeira’s first European settlers came with Paulo Dias Adorno in 1561. This Portuguese petty nobleman married a Tupinambá princess, built Cachoeira’s first church (the Igreja de Nossa Senhora d’Ajuda, or Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help) and began clearing land and importing African slaves to grow sugar cane. Cachoeira’s rural district of Iguape, famed for its red clay massapé soils, became home to the largest sugar cane plantations in Brazil in the 18th and 19th centuries. Iguape also had the highest proportion of African slaves to European masters in Brazil at the time. In 1825, the Bahian war for independence from Portugal began. Troops from Cachoeira, including many Afro-Brazilians, were instrumental in this struggle, and Cachoeira became the capital of free Brazil for a week when Salvador was overrun by Portuguese forces. A cholera epidemic in 1855 reduced Cachoeira’s population by one quarter. AfroBrazilians were especially hard hit. An Afro-Brazilian priest was said to have cured cholera on one plantation, using herbal remedies and devotions to the Orixá Omolu. The abolition of slavery in Brazil in 1888 brought

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thousands of Africans and Afro-Brazilians from Cachoeira’s rural districts to its urban center, where they joined its nascent industrial sector of cigar and cloth factories and its service sector working as porters, stevedores, boat hands, muleteers, food vendors, domestics, and prostitutes. They also joined the temples, or terreiros, of Candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian religion whose deities and ritual practices were derived from the religions of the Yoruba and Gbespeaking peoples of West Africa. Cachoeira was home to some of the first houses of this religion in Brazil and remains famous for the strength of its Candomblé throughout Bahia to this day. In addition to its terreiros, Cachoeira had other institutions that maintained African religious practice in Brazil. It had an African Catholic church and cemetery and was home to such African Catholic lay brotherhoods as the Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos (the Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Blacks), the Irmandade dos Martírios (the Brotherhood of the Martyrs), and the Irmandade da Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte (the Sisterhood of Our Lady of the Good Death), which continues its devotions to this day. Cachoeira’s economy depended on sugarcane, tobacco, and manioc, as well as its strategic position in Brazil’s transportation network. Cachoeira sits at the last navigable point on the Paraguassú. Some of the first roads in Brazil linked it to the semi-arid sertão, where cattle were raised for beef and hides, and gold and other mineral resources were mined in great quantity. Goods from the sertão passed through Cachoeira on their way to the Brazilian coast and the ports of the Atlantic world. Slaves and supplies from the coast and beyond passed through Cachoeira on their way to the Bahian interior. Cachoeira also saw some of the first railroads and steamships in Brazil in the later 19th century. The advent of motor roads has eclipsed Cachoeira’s place of pride in the

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Cachoeira, Bahia, Brazil is the home of the Irmandade da Boa Morte (Sisterhood of the Good Death)—one of the oldest sisterhoods in the Americas. (Jan Butchofsky-Houser/Corbis)

fluviomaritime and railroad-based transportation network, and Salvador has partially eclipsed its role as the heartland of Afro-Brazilian religions. But Cachoeira’s institutions keep its traditions strong. Its centennial terreiros maintain Candomblé traditions that are found only there. Its groups of samba de roda keep up a unique and vibrant form of traditional regional music. International tourism, concentrated around the feasts and processions in honor of Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte and spearheaded by African Americans from the United States, have injected a new life and a new stream of revenue into the city and its traditional culture. Brian Brazeal See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Irmandade de Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte. F URTHER R EADING Barickman, B. J. 1996. “Persistence and Decline: Slave Labor and Sugar Production in the

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Bahian Recôncavo, 1850–1888.” Journal of Latin American Studies 28 (3): 581–633. Barickman, B. J. 1998. A Bahian Counterpoint: Sugar, Tobacco, Cassava, and Slavery in the Recôncavo, 1780–1860. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Galloway, James. “The Last Years of Slavery on the Sugar Plantations of Northeastern Brazil.” Hispanic American Historical Review 51 (4): 586– 605. Harding, Rachel. 2003. A Refuge in Thunder: Candomblé and Alternative Space of Blackness. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Reis, Joao Jose. 2005. “Candomblé in Nineteenth Century Bahia: Priests, Followers and Clients.” In Rethinking the African Diaspora: The Making of a Black Atlantic World in the Bight of Benin and Brazil, ed. Kristin Mann and Edna Bay, 116–134. London: Frank Cass. Verger, Pierre. 1976. Trade Relations between the Bight of Benin and Bahia from the 17th to the19th Century, trans. Evelyn Crawford. Ibadan, Nigeria: Ibadan University Press.

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Calalu/Callaloo Calalu or callaloo (sometimes calaloo) is a popular, African-derived, African Diaspora food in the Caribbean, usually eaten as the vegetable component of a lunchtime meal in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Guyana, Grenada, Barbados, and across the Caribbean. Its base is a green leafy vegetable, which in the Eastern Caribbean is the leaf of the dasheen, or taro. In the United States, spinach is often substituted among the Caribbean migrant community. One also adds sliced okra as the other primary ingredient. In this way, callaloo shares similarities with gumbo in New Orleans and caruru in Salvador-Bahia. In the Anglophone Caribbean, coconut milk and various cured salted meats are added to enhance flavor, and in Brazil, palm oil or dende oil is also a major flavoring ingredient. Callaloo is also a popular dish among Afro-Cubans, identified as a Yoruba-identified meal and called calalu or kalulu. The term calulu is also identified as a current Angolan dish among the Bakongos. But the Caribbean indigenous people have cararou in their lexicon as well. Richard Allsopp’s Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage has a detailed breakdown of some of the possible origins of the term. In Jamaica, calaloo does not normally use okra but is a description of the leafy vegetable itself, which becomes a dish of cooked and seasoned greens that accompanies the local delicacy ackee and saltfish. A popular element of any Sunday meal in the Eastern Caribbean, callaloo is cooked in a way in which the greens, okra and seasonings are steamed until they disintegrate. Then it is further reduced to a thick consistency, creating in some restaurant recipes a thinner calalu soup. A hot pepper and salted meats give flavor, and coconut milk is added. The meat is removed before the blending or swizzling takes place. A swizzle stick has been developed to create the mixture, but in modern households, blenders are used. Once this is complete, the meat or crabs are returned to the pot.

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The term “callaloo” has also migrated into popular usage, referring to any mixed-up, confused situation—a huge or giant cook-up of some sort. In some communities, the combination of various ethnicities and races can be identified as a callaloo. A journal has been named after it in the United States: Callaloo: A Journal of African American and African Arts and Letters, founded in 1976 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Its 30th anniversary volume, “Reading Callaloo/Eating Callaloo” (30:1, Winter, 2007) provides several interpretations of and responses to the meaning of “calalloo.” Selwyn Cudjoe at Wellesley College also created a publication company called Calaloux Publications. Poet Eintou Springer from Trinidad has created a wonderful performance piece called “Jazz in mih Callaloo,” which brings together the aesthetics of cooking this Sunday meal accompanied by the music of jazz greats like John Coltrane. Carole Boyce Davies See also Gumbo. F URTHER R EADING Allsopp, Richard. 1996. Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage. New York: Oxford University Press. Lopes, Nei. 2004. Enciclopedia Brasileria da Diaspora Africana. São Paulo, Brazil: Selo Negro Edicoes.

z Calypso Calypso is today considered the music of the Caribbean, although many other forms of music exist therein. It is a topical song of both praise and derision, sung in 2/2 tempo, that entertains and editorializes in the Caribbean in general and in Trinidad and Tobago in particular. Like most musical forms in the African Diaspora, the essential elements for the calypso were brought to the Caribbean in the music of

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enslaved Africans during the era of African enslavement in the Caribbean. Oral history acquired through conversations with calypsonian the Growling Tiger showed that on board the slavers, the enslaved men and women sang songs of derision, satire, and protest, especially when they were brought on deck to eat and to wash themselves (Epstein 1977, 3–17). Such protest songs continued on plantations (Abrahams and Szwed 1983), as the enslaved lamented the oppressed conditions they were forced to face. Pulling from the French, Spanish, and English influences on the island of Trinidad, the enslaved used the calypso as their chief weapon to launch blistering attacks on the plantation system, with their flattery and mimicry of the elite upper class. Such songs of satire, praise, derision, and protest were in keeping with the griot tradition of West Africa, whereby court singers either lambasted or praised their chiefs and reminded them of society’s ideals at official ceremonies and state functions (Hill 1975, 73). The response to the pressures exerted upon citizens throughout the 19th century as the English tried to anglicize the island fostered the development of a political reaction in the evolving form of the calypso. Its lead singers, or chantuelles, at the Cannes Brulees festivals inspired the stickfighters as the masqueraders prepared themselves for the annual carnival revelry. (The stickfight was part of the kalenda ritual where chantuelles chanted. The chants and songs of protest and defiance egged on the stickfighters, who danced and fought among themselves, thereby suppressing their own hatred for the colonial system and acting out their anger.) When freedom rang out in 1838, it was the voice of the calypsonian that first rang out in ecstasy as he sought on behalf of the people to echo the past sufferings and present joy of his people, who were seeking their rightful place in the new society. After emancipation in 1838, in a style that was African in music, content, and character, the calypsonian had to deal with the relation-

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ships between the landed gentry and the landless. In addition, he disseminated gossip, recirculated rumours, spread the news, and resisted the colonials, who terrorized him with their unfair laws and regulations. In the absence of radio and television, the calypsonian thus became the empathetic mouthpiece of the people. In the face of censorship and police control, the calypsonian had to become more creative and observant; thus, he intelligently used all the figures of speech at his command to satirize his political victims in song. (The campaign by the upper classes to silence calypso during the 19th century and from the 1930s to the 1950s included well-directed editorials from the press to the police and authorities, ordinances aimed at censoring articles in newspapers, pamphlets, books, films, calypso records, and publications, as well as licenses for the regulating and control of calypso tents and performances.) Picong humour and wit (picong, derived from the French piquant, meaning “sharp” or “biting,” was a war of words and insults between singers) were the calypsonian’s weapons as he strode from yard to yard (“yards” here means the barrack-type yards in the city of Port of Spain; some sections of certain yards were covered with tarpaulins and coconut branches to initiate the calypso tent) and later from tent to tent (“tent” here means the calypso tent, so called because it was made from coconut branches and thrash) singing and introducing as he went such various forms of calypso as the oratorical or ballad type, the narrative (whereby events of the day were narrated in story form), the extemporaneous calypso (songs composed on the spot), and the double and single tones (4-line songs were described as single tone; 8-line, or 16-bar, songs were called double tone). He also exposed the sexual and political scandals of the upper class and took for himself a nom de guerre that gave his listeners an insight into his personality and his objectives. Thus, the early singers named themselves after such warmongers as the Duke of Marlborough, Lord Kitchener, and Attila the

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Calypso | 243 Hun. Having run the gamut of warriors, they turned to ferociousness and terror with such names as the Mighty Terror, the Roaring Lion, the Mighty Spitfire, the Lord Executor, and the Mighty Panther. By the 1950s, the names gave recognition to melodiousness and became more sophisticated; the calypsonians associated themselves with sweet singing birds like the Mighty Sparrow, the Mighty Robin, and the Mighty Swallow, and later adopted a miscellany of names: Valentino, Black Stalin, Sugar Aloes, Cro Cro, and Chalkdust. Today, however, some—like Nap Hepburn, Prince Galloway, Sean Daniel, and David Rudder—have broken with tradition and kept their baptismal names. In the 1920s, the calypsonian moved from the barrack yards of the city and estates to a covered tent, where he embarked on a new brand of performance, that of the professional singer and entertainer. Patrons, including the governor and parliamentarians of the land, flocked to the calypso tent not only to be entertained in song but also to hear the latest gossip, as well as to understand the feelings of the people on the issues of the day. The tent provided the calypsonian with the opportunity to widen his repertoire in both music and song, to the extent that the calypsonian pulled musical chord structures and cadences from Spanish, French, English, and American traditions while keeping the rhythms of Africa ever alive in the percussive beat of the calypso (Pearse [1956] 1988, 147–148). Because of the calypso tent, political and social commentary, humor, male-female relations, philosophy, smut, and road marches form the different realms of the calypso genre. The tent is today, as it was yesterday, not just a meeting place of singers and patrons but a social institution where the news of the day can be heard, the views of the singers distinguished, and society’s scandals reviewed through entertainment. By the late 1920s and early 1930s, the calypsonian had gone to the United States to make recordings for such recording companies as Decca and Brunswick, using the opportunity

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Slinger Francisco, also known as “Mighty Sparrow” performs at the 2006 Bollywood Music Awards in Atlantic City. (AP Photo/Tim Larsen)

to pull jazz musical chords and movements into his repertoire. When U.S. sailors thronged the island of Trinidad following the LandLease Bases Agreement of 1941, the calypsonian served the U.S. servicemen dishes of sensual but creative smut to cater to the servicemen’s sexual tastes and money. As stevedores and shipworkers moved from island to island in the Caribbean, as communication by radio became more and more a reality, and as migration throughout the area continued, the calypso spread from territory to territory, growing and feeding on the Africans’ presence and the native traditions of Africa, to become by the 1950s the music of the Caribbean. By 1939, following the song contests in the tent, where goods from business men were used as the themes for songs and for prizes, a national Calypso King contest was organized. It was won by the Growling Tiger. Since then, an annual contest has been held, with the Calypso King gaining national prominence and a worthy financial prize. In 1976, with the resurgence

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of many females into the calypso arena—for example, Lady Trinidad, Lady Iere, Calypso Rose, Singing Francine, and Ella Andell—the Calypso King contest was renamed the Calypso Monarch Competition, Chalkdust becoming the first titleholder. Before the 1970s, the calypso as an art form was not accepted by many members of the upper classes. Various forms of reprisals and punishments were often meted out to these singers. In Catholic schools, “every calypso was another wound in Christ’s side and in the Sacred Heart of his mother” (Rohlehr 1972, 8). Today, most members of the upper class and most schools and corporations hold calypso contests for their members and accept the calypso as their very own. Such professional calypsonians as Sparrow, Relator, Bomber, Duke, Black Stalin, and Cro Cro enjoy a much higher standard of living than their earlier fellows Houdini, Pretender, Melody, and Destroyer. Most of today’s professionals live by the art—a great change from 1968, when they were described more in terms of the culture’s bacchanalian tendencies. By the mid 1970s, a great change in the calypso rhythm took place as Lord Shorty, awed by East Indian and African traditional rhythms, introduced a change in the calypso beat to “put some soul into the calypso” (Liverpool 2003, 203). It was the age of soul music from the United States, and calypsonian Shorty, ever mindful of the need to internationalize the calypso, wanted to make calypso as popular in the United States as soul music was then. Hence, by introducing a change into the bass pattern, he made the calypso more danceable. However, Shorty’s aim was not to add American soul music to calypso but rather to fill it emotionally with a beat that would move the “spiritual soul” of the listener. As such, Lord Shorty referred to his new beat as soca, meaning “soul calypso” (soca represents the first two syllables of “soul” and “calypso”). While the old calypso beat was one with a regular bass pulse, the soca or soul calypso saw a change. Still played in cut time (2/2), the bass

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lines are accentuated, and a variety of rhythm patterns blending with the bass lines are executed. The music is therefore more danceable; it has more soul. The style, which started about 1977, is still African (Liverpool 2003, 195–217). Today, as more of the older singers (Kitchener, Blakie, Nap Hepburn, Prowler, Pretender, Growler, and Railway Douglas) have gone to the Great Beyond, such younger bards as Machel Montano, Maximus Dan, and Bungie Garlin emphasize the modern soca elements mainly. Their lyrics are no longer filled satirically with metaphors, similes, and hyperboles but instead modernize sex, hitherto-frownedon vices, passions, women, and violence. The younger singers, too, have vastly increased the speed of the soca rhythms to enable the revelers and patrons to dance and jump to the infectious rhythms at carnival fetes and at the annual carnival masquerade. To many who do not understand its rich history and development, calypso music is simply to make people dance on carnival day, and dance sensually in imitation of the sex act, prompting one singer to state in 1993, “Kaiso sick in the hospital.” To those, however, who understand how, over the years, the music has served to help the enslaved to adjust to their newfound environment, the calypso is a musical bridge that has kept the Africans of the Diaspora in touch with one another and in touch with their ancestors. Hollis Urban Liverpool See also Anikulapo-Kuti, Fela (1938–1997); Blues: A Continuum from Africa; Griots/Griottes of West Africa; Highlife; Rapso; Trinidad and Tobago. F URTHER R EADING Abrahams, Roger D., and John F. Szwed, eds. 1983. After Africa. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Epstein, Dena. 1977. Sinful Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music to the Civil War. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Hill, Errol. 1975. “The Calypso.” In David Frost Introduces Trinidad and Tobago, ed. Michael

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Campbell, Grace P. (1883–1940) | 245 Anthony and Andrew Carr, 73–83. London: Andre Deutsch. Hill, Errol. 1986. Kaiso and Society. St. Thomas, Virgin Islands: Virgin Islands Commission on Youth. Hill, Errol. 1993. “Rituals of power and rebellion: The carnival tradition in Trinidad and Tobago, 1783–1962.” Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan. Hill, Errol. 1994. “Researching Steelband and Calypso Music.” Black Music Research Journal 14 (2): 179–201. Liverpool, Hollis. [1986] 2003. From the Horse’s Mouth: Stories on the History and Development of the Calypso. Trinidad: Juba Publications. Liverpool, Hollis. 2001. Rituals of Power and Rebellion. The Carnival Tradition in Trinidad and Tobago. Chicago: Frontline Distribution International Inc. Pearse, Andrew, ed. [1956] 1988. “Calypso Legends of the 19th Century by Mitto Sampson.” Caribbean Quarterly 4 (3/4). Reprinted in The Trinidad Carnival, 140–163. Port of Spain: Paria Publishing. Rohlehr, Gordon. 1972. “The Development of the Calypso 1900–1940.” University of the West Indies. Unpublished typescript.

z Campbell, Grace P. (1883–1940) Grace Campbell was the first African American woman member of the Socialist Party and the Communist Party of America, an important member of the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), and one of the most overlooked figures in the political milieu of the New Negro Movement. Campbell was born in Georgia in 1883, grew up in Texas and Washington, D.C., and by 1905 had settled in New York City. There, she became active in progressive racial uplift politics, running the Empire Friendly Shelter, a home for young black women with children. She largely financed the shelter herself. Campbell gradually moved away from progressive politics to embrace revolutionary

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socialism, working for the liberation of blacks worldwide. She somehow combined her radical political activities with a successful career as a civil servant in the New York City court system. Supported by her profession, she lived a financially secure and independent (she never married) life. Campbell was first politically active with the Socialist Party, running unsuccessfully for New York State Assembly under its banner in 1918 and 1920. She was endorsed by Chandler Owen and A. Philip Randolph’s Messenger. Their paper claimed she was the first black woman in American history to run for public office on a regular party ticket. Campbell was secretary and the only female member of the Harlembased 21st A.D. Socialist Club in 1918. Her work included running the People’s Education Forum, begun in 1920 and used as a space to debate socialist and black national politics. By 1921, however, Campbell had broken from the Socialist Party and focused most of her political energy toward the secret, militant organization the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB). In the ABB, Campbell’s skills as an organizer began to shine. Campbell played a key role within the organization, serving on its supreme council as director of consumers’ cooperatives. Her worth to the organization cannot be easily measured and has been largely overlooked, for she left no known writings and rarely spoke publicly; however, her value came internally, for she was present at nearly every public and private meeting of the ABB, as many were conducted at her residence in Harlem. When she was ill, meetings for Post Menelik, the ABB Harlem local, were cancelled. Campbell worked tirelessly, collecting dues and booking halls for speeches and events while delegating internal organizational tasks. When the ABB moved toward an alliance with the Communist Party of America in 1922, Campbell hosted branch meetings at her home. She was the first black woman to become a Communist Party member. Campbell continued to be active in the ABB until it formally dissolved into essentially a black

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caucus of the Communist Party of America (CPUSA). She worked on such CPUSA projects as the American Negro Labor Congress (ANLC) throughout the 1920s. By the late 1920s, Campbell had become swept up in internal debate over the party’s adoption of the “Black Belt Theory,” which called for an independent nation for blacks in the American South. Campbell and a few former ABB members opposed this line. This issue split the party, and Campbell joined a faction headed by Jay Lovestone. By 1928, she had become active in the Harlem Tenants League, a major community struggle for rent control against greedy landlords. The project had some success as Harlem communists put internal differences aside. However, by late 1929 factional differences came to a head. Campbell, angered by these developments, left the CPUSA. She died ten years later, in 1940. Jason M. Schultz See also African Blood Brotherhood (ABB). F URTHER R EADING James, Winston. 1998. Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America. New York: Verso. Kornweibel, Theodore, Jr. 1998. “Seeing Red”: Federal Campaigns Against Black Militancy 1919– 1925. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Solomon, Mark. 1998. The Cry Was Unity: Communists and African Americans, 1917–1936. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press.

z Canada and African American Refugee Settlements From the 1820s to the 1860s, more than 20,000 African Americans immigrated to Upper Canada as part of a refugee migration known as the Underground Railroad. While the majority of these migrants spread throughout the British North American colony, settling in such urban areas as Chatham and Toronto, there were several attempts to create block settlements for African

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Americans. These settlements hosted both free and formerly enslaved African Americans who fled the United States to escape the threats posed by Black Codes in several northern states, as well as by the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. These refugees found formal institutional equality in British North America, but as the block settlements grew, they faced increasing prejudice and hostility from the white population. Block refugee settlements in Upper Canada/Canada West largely failed due to internal strife among settlement organizers and a lack of continued financial support. With the outbreak of civil war in the United States, many refugees returned to fight for the Northern army, ultimately depleting the populations of these block settlements. By the end of the Civil War, Canada West had obtained a significant African American population neighboring an ambivalent white population. The first attempt to settle African Americans in Upper Canada occurred following the War of 1812 in Oro Township. Governor Sir Peregrine Maitland granted 40-acre lots to black veterans of the war who had fought for the British. The township failed to attract many settlers due to its remote location. Eventually, most of the black settlers of Oro moved into integrated communities in other parts of the colony. The black refugee migration to British North America had been informal and individually organized by families fleeing northward until the first organized migration was arranged in response to the reinstatement of Cincinnati’s Black Code in 1829. With the financial support of the Quakers of Ohio, a group of African Americans from Cincinnati formed a colonization society and arranged to purchase and settle on land in Upper Canada in Biddulph Township. The Wilberforce Settlement, as it was called, was founded in the fall of 1829 but settled fewer refugees than anticipated because city officials in Cincinnati improved conditions for African Americans out of fear of losing a valuable source of labor. Wilberforce failed to grow and, under financial constraints, was unable to continue land payments.

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Canada and the African Diaspora | 247 The best-known refugee settlement in Canada West was the Dawn Settlement, near the town of Dresden, founded in 1842. The settlement was known for its most famous resident, Josiah Henson. Henson’s life was allegedly immortalized in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Henson, with the aid of a Quaker philanthropist named James Fuller and the British-American Institute, gathered funds to purchase 400 acres of land on which to settle black refugees. The settlement attracted a modest population and had a school, a sawmill, a gristmill, and a rope factory. By 1861, the Dawn Settlement was so riddled with controversy and disagreement among its leaders that many had left, and the settlement was largely abandoned. To the east of the Dawn Settlement, near the town of Amherstburg, yet another attempt to create an African American refugee settlement ended in failure and dissolution. The Refugee Home Society, a group composed of Quaker abolitionists and local preachers, founded the Sandwich Mission in 1846. About 250 settlers moved to the Sandwich Mission on 2,000 acres of land. Like the Dawn Settlement, this attempt at refugee settlement became mired in controversy and allegations of profiteering. The settlement did not grow particularly large. Arguably the most successful block settlement scheme in Canada West was the Elgin Settlement, located southwest of Chatham along the shore of Lake Erie. Reverend William King, an Irish Presbyterian minister, founded the settlement in 1849 and lived there with 15 of his former slaves from Louisiana. The settlement centered on the Buxton Mission of the Presbyterian Synod of Toronto and was financially supported by a stockholding association called the Elgin Association. King established strict rules for settlers regarding how they should settle their land and construct their homes. As a spiritual leader, he stressed temperance and a good work ethic for the black refugees. The Elgin Settlement grew to 9,000 acres with a population of more than 1,000. The settlement boasted three schools, two temperance hotels, a

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sawmill, a gristmill, a potash factory, a pearlash factory, a general store, and a post office. The success of the Elgin Settlement drew the ire of local whites in Chatham, who expressed increasing fears concerning the growth of the black population in Canada West. Edwin Larwill, a local politician, led a movement to block African American migration to British North America, citing the Elgin Settlement as evidence of a threat to white British North Americans. Reverend King and the settlers at Elgin voted as a bloc to remove Larwill from power and put an end to his campaign. The population of the Elgin Settlement went into decline after several settlers returned to the United States to fight in the Civil War. While the settlement never returned to the growth and vibrancy it experienced during the 1850s, the Elgin Settlement, now called Buxton, forms part of a continued African Canadian community in southern Ontario. Sean Kheraj See also Canada and the African Diaspora; Nova Scotia and the African American Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Law, Howard. 1985. “ ‘Self-Reliance Is the True Road to Independence’: Ideology and the ExSlaves in Buxton and Chatham Ontario.” Ontario History 77 (2): 107–121. Thomas, Owen. 1996. “Cultural Tourism, Commemorative Plaques and African-Canadian Historiography: Challenging Historical Marginality.” Social History 29 (58): 431–439. Winks, Robin. 1971. The Blacks in Canada: A History. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

z Canada and the African Diaspora Contemporary Canada is a postmodern nation-state of clashing identities and cultures.

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The clash is managed and worked out legislatively. Thus, numerous Canadians understand their cultural identity claims, and indeed their citizenship, in relation to various nation-state legislative policies. One of the most powerful of those policies is the Multiculturalism Act. In 1971, Pierre Elliott Trudeau introduced the Official Multicultural Policy; in 1980, Brian Mulroney made it an Act of Parliament and enshrined multiculturalism into the constitution. Thus, for some 30-odd years the idea of multiculturalism has become a crucial element of the Canadian psyche. In this regard, Canada is then home to more than 500,000 black Canadians. This number is a difficult one because Canadian census data can sometimes list “African” as a separate category from “black,” thus counting white Africans in the mix. Black African is an ethnicity in that scenario. More than 300,000 blacks live in Ontario, most of them in Toronto; Quebec and Nova Scotia follow in terms of size of a black presence. And in black Canada, Nova Scotia holds a special importance as one of the oldest sites of Black Canadian existence. However, black people have settled all across Canada at different times in Canadian history. While the official narrative of the contemporary nation-state of Canada announces and revels in a scripted and conscripted official multiculturalism, Canadians (since we are largely urban) live an everyday, or popular, multiculturalism (Bannerji, 2000) that is vastly different from the nation’s description of multiculturalism and what it should do. For example, Toronto people crisscross cultural spheres continually, producing moments of cultural translation, creative cultural confusion, and cultural recombination—in short, making the city a genuine creole space. It is within the context of Toronto as a creole city that one can begin to make sense of the various incarnations of the African Diaspora in Canada. Toronto is home to the majority of Africandescended peoples living in Canada. Black Canadians are as heterogeneous a group as we

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might imagine, and when ethnicity complicated by other national designations enters the fray, a rather complex picture of the African Diaspora in Canada unfolds. For now, one can create a particular typology to describe the African-descended groups in Canada: contemporary continental Africans, Afro-Caribbeans, and long-standing African Canadians of at least two generations. It is not too much to stress that the constitution and history of the African Canadian Diaspora is a complex one that cannot be understood outside of the politics of contemporary official Canadian multiculturalism. Official multiculturalism relies on and supports a persistent relationship to a heritage situated outside of Canada’s national boundaries, and black Canadians make use of heritage in ambivalent and ambiguous ways. Simultaneously, the historic and continual denial of a long and unbroken history of an African-descended presence in Canada is sidestepped by official multicultural rhetoric. Official multicultural political rhetoric does not have a discourse for imagining African Canadian existence prior to confederation (1867), but even more so, official multiculturalism can only imagine the African Canadian presence as a recent and immigrant one. And yet African-descended people are reported to have been residents in Canada since the 16th century. Thus, long-standing black Canadians of more than two generations across the country go missing in favor of the more recent immigrant histories. However, the nation continues to deny such a presence and preponderantly promotes recent African-descended migrations, mainly those of the post–World War II migrations, as constitutive of the African-descended presence in Canada. By so doing, long-standing African Canadians of many generations are often made absent by recourse to forms of blackness that largely draw on recent migrations from the Caribbean and now the African continent. Simultaneously, many recent migrants are seduced by the meager acknowledgments of official multicultural-

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Canada and the African Diaspora | 249 ism and engage in a particular kind of chauvinism that aids in the perpetuation of the invisibility of long-standing African Canadians. Or sometimes they participate in the production of a rhetoric that attempts to demonstrate that African-descended resistance to various forms of injustice largely began with the post– World War II migrations, particularly those of the 1960s, the 1970s, and later (see the film Journey to Justice, 2000). Thus, blackness in Canada is immediately positioned along an axis of connectivity and antagonism in history within and across the official narratives of the nation-state of Canada, immigrant histories, and Diaspora connections. The presence of black people in colonial Quebec, loyalists both slave and free in Nova Scotia and Upper Canada (now Ontario), and free persons and fugitive slaves after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in the United States complicates the state narratives of recent arrivals. Canada’s role in the creation of Liberia and Sierra Leone must also be acknowledged, since some of the maroons who ended up in Sierra Leone sojourned in Nova Scotia. Significantly, there exists a body of documentary evidence that dispels the myth of Africandescended people as recent arrivals in Canada. And as mentioned already, Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Ontario are some of the longest unbroken homespaces for African-descended people in Canada. One of the most powerful stories of this African-descended presence is the Thornton and Lucy Blackburn story. This story of ex-African American slaves who sought freedom in Canada has recently been enshrined in the national narrative of the nation. Some of the sites that the Blackburns crossed are now national historic sites, including the site of their home in Toronto. While the written history of African Canadians remains scant and, for the most part, is now being documented, filmmakers have been seizing the ground and creatively documenting the evidence of a historic, African-descended presence for some time. Thus, much of the evidence

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of a long-standing blackness in Canada has been cinematically constructed, making it more accessible to Canadians and others, yet the dominant narrative of recent arrival continues to hold sway in the popular imagination of most Canadians. Such documentaries as Speakers for the Dead (2000), Africville Remembered (1991), Ontario: A History Buried (1994), and Journey to Justice are just some of the films that speak to a nationwide African-descended presence in Canada. These films visualize that which has been made invisible and removed from the collective memory of the nation. In short, then, imaging blackness as Canadian involves both archaeological work and a constant contemporary vigilance. However, there also exist written accounts in the scholarly press concerning such important figures and events as the destruction of Africville, Mary Ann Shadd, Henry Bibb, and Angelique. The longer black Canadian history is still in the process of being uncovered and made more public in Canadian and wider contexts. Blackness in contemporary Canada occupies a very specific place of visuality that is characterized by its Diasporic connectedness to other places in terms of a number of contradictory attachments. Two important places are Jamaica and the United States. These attachments include everything from entertainment to crime. And because of the ways in which blackness is ambiguously positioned in the nation, as mainly a problem, African Canadians have produced for themselves a Diasporic consciousness and sensibility from which they derive a series of transnational identifications with various forms of global blackness. In this way, African Canadians have refused to identify their belongingness solely within the national terms of belonging. Black Canadians are never just Canadian—even when they can’t account for generations outside the nation. The black Nova Scotian poet Maxine Tynes makes strong familial connections with South Africans as a part of her kindred in this fashion. In 1796, Lord Simcoe, the governor of Upper Canada, tried to abolish slavery in what

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is now Canada. He made this move before the British were prepared to do so, and his efforts were thwarted. Lord Simcoe is celebrated in Ontario each year on August 1. August 1 is also the celebration of Emancipation Day in the former Anglo-colonial territories. Additionally, August 1 is the day that the single most outstanding performance element of blackness in Canada, Caribana, happens in Toronto. Thus, Caribana as a festival takes on a series of contradictory and complicated meanings as it prances across the edge of Toronto’s city line, literally at the end of the city, a stone’s throw from Lake Ontario. However, it is no accident that Caribana, which is largely a Caribbean festival, is popularly understood as an Africanderived carnival. Caribana was given to Canada in 1967 as a gift from the multicultural Caribbean for the nation’s centennial celebrations. However, over the last 30 years, Caribana has grown to become not only one of the largest carnivals in the world. It holds a reputation for attracting large numbers of Diasporan Africans, especially African Americans, to Toronto for its festivities. Thus, Caribana has come to be marked by its blackness rather than by its multicultural Caribbean character; however, Caribana remains an excellent example of how Canadian multiculturalism impacts the Canadian landscape. The language of multiculturalism is as intricate a part of Caribana as it is of the national narrative, and thus or despite the blackening of the event, various ethnic and racialized communities are deeply involved and committed to its continued success. In short, Caribana is a uniquely Canadian multicultural creation; that is, multicultural from an everyday or popular point of view. From an official multicultural point of view, Caribana must represent and signal a particular knowable and definable heritage so that it can appear to speak directly for a particular community. In Canada and Toronto, “Caribbean community” usually means “African-descended community,” thus oversimplifying the complexities of both.

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Caribana in part comes to represent blackness largely because it has attracted a large African American participation in its spectatorship. The cross-border Diasporic identification cannot be easily dismissed. The impact of increased African American spectatorship over the last 30 years has meant that the identity of Caribana has come under tremendous cultural scrutiny, or what we might call “cultural policing.” For example, the place of rap music and hip-hop culture more generally and Jamaican dancehall has been one of the flashpoints for thinking about the future of Caribana as “a Caribbean festival in Canada.” The debate that engulfed Caribana’s organizers concerning rap and dancehall music in the festival pointed to both the limits of Diasporic identification and the need to retain some imagined authenticity concerning claims to heritage in the festival. But the debate also has to be understood in terms of multicultural discourses of heritage, which provide specific boundaries for specific cultural groups. Under the official logic of multiculturalism, calypso is part of carnival, not dancehall or rap music. Those musics lead to other identities. Rap and dancehall music in Caribana is a Diasporic antagonistic moment wrapped in the rhetoric of various claims to ethnicity and territorial native desires. The organizers of Caribana, fearing that rap and dancehall music might swamp the festival, banned the music from official floats in the judging component of the festival. This move highlighted the tensions across African Diasporic connectedness, producing Diasporic antagonism in the public sphere. But most importantly, the move to ban rap and dancehall music highlighted the ways in which various African Diasporic histories are not only complementary but also antagonistic. Recognising the antagonism of Diasporic encounters can pull us away from the brink of producing Diaspora as a sentimental condition. The rap and dancehall music debate in Caribana, and the resolution to ban the musics from official competition, point to the lim-

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Canada and the African Diaspora | 251 its of Diaspora sensibilities as forged only through a sense of belonging premised upon an imagined or real homeland and a larger sense of kin and thus family. L ITERATURE It seems that those working within the realm of the arts—literature, film, and music—can sometimes bring us closest to less sentimental encounters with Diaspora connectedness. The literature of the African Diaspora in Canada is characterized by its continual encounters with an “elsewhere.” This generalization about African Canadian literature should not be understood as a criticism of the literature—that is, as a criticism that suggests the literature fails to address its local or national context, because the literature does that, too. Rather, this generalization is the foundation of what can be called the African Canadian Diasporic consciousness and/or sensibility. It is a Diaspora consciousness and sensibility that is fully aware of other forms of blackness as existing beyond the borders of the nation-state but importantly as somehow tied into how blackness is lived and experienced within the boundaries of the nation of Canada. It is such an acknowledgement that makes African Canadian literature a unique encounter with blackness. Attention or engagement with an elsewhere does not in any way diminish the careful attention that black Canadian literature pays to home. Instead, African Canadian literature troubles narratives of national boundaries as discreet and sealed, and demonstrates the porousness of those boundaries. In short, African Canadian literature turns official multicultural policy’s desire for an “outside of the nation” on its head and demonstrates how a recourse to “outside the nation” can be an effective challenge to the limitations of the national story. Thus, from André Alexis (Childhood, 1998) to Lawrence Hill (Any Known Blood, 1997) to Dionne Brand (In Another Place Not Here, 1997) to Austin Clarke (The Toronto Trilogy, 1967, 1973, 1975) to Mairuth Sarsfield (No

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Crystal Stair, 1997) to Wayde Compton (Performance Bond, 2004) to Makeda Silvera (The Heart Does Not Bend, 2003), African Canadian literature both engages and gestures to somewhere else, all the while embedding itself in the making and remaking of the Canadian nationstate and simultaneously articulating an African Diaspora sensibility and consciousness that is infused with a sense of perspective that crosscuts national designations. In this way, black Canadian literature engages a globality, unlike many other black Diasporic literatures, which are comfortably read within a context of a discrete national literature. Similarly, poets—for instance, Dionne Brand, Marlene Nourbese Phillip, George Elliot Clarke, and Claire Harris—have had a major effect on the Canadian literary scene and its poetics. Brand has been nominated for the prestigious Governor General’s Award twice and won it for her collection Land to Light On (1997), for which she also won the Ontario Trillium Award. Land to Light On is a long poem that exemplifies Diaspora sensibility and consciousness, not to mention a certain kind of international socialist ethic of care. Phillip is a former winner of the Casa de las Americas Prize and the acclaimed author of the collection She Tries Her Tongue Her Language Softly Breaks (1989), a collection of poetry that moves across a number of African Diasporic spaces. Furthermore, across the country such poets as Maxine Tynes in Nova Scotia, Claire Harris in Winnipeg, and Wadye Compton in Vancouver must be considered in terms of any significant African Canadian poetics and the debates on regionalism in the country. Reading such poets within the contexts of regionalism further facilitates how black Canadians situate themselves within other national discourses besides multiculturalism. African Canadian theater finds itself in a similar position of exploring Diasporic links and antagonisms. Ahdri Zhina Mandiela, an acclaimed dub poet, is also a playwright and actor; Mandiela’s groundbreaking play Dark

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Diaspora in Dub premiered in Toronto to rave reviews in 1991. In some ways Dark Diaspora, which is choreopoem, might be understood as the beginning of the contemporary black Canadian theater opening. Since Dark Diaspora in Dub premiered, African Canadian theater has garnered a fair bit of attention. Among its leading practitioners are Djanet Sears, Andrew Moodie, and George Seremba. Both Moodie and Sears have won one of Canada’s most prestigious awards, the Chalmer Award, for their work in 1996 and 1997, respectively. In many of these plays, while Canada is central to the narrative, other Diasporic spaces are intimately woven into the texture and meaning of the play’s text; for example, Moodie’s Riot (1995), set against the backdrop of the 1992 Los Angeles riots and the Toronto Yonge Street riots; Sears’s Harlem Duet (1997), which crosses the U.S./Canadian border; Phillip’s Coups and Calypsos (1999), which crosses Trinidad, England, and Canada; and Seremba’s Come Good Rain (1992), which is set in Uganda. African Canadian drama and its creators are keenly aware of crafting action and narratives that speak beyond the limited borders of Canada. African Canadian theater draws on a wealth of aesthetic and dramatic qualities from which a range of identifications can be made. M USIC Music is, by and large, possibly the richest element of African Diaspora culture in Canada. Caribana’s dominance as a festival is pivotal to this assessment, but musical range and interests are wide and far, and influences run the gamut of African Diasporic musical taste, borrowing and sharing across the spheres of African Diaspora existence and creativity. In Canada, musical tastes cross deeply divided but committed affiliations and attachments in relationship to musical identities and other black ethnicities. Thus, music and musical taste are an intricate element of the identities of various groups within the black Diaspora. But it might

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be argued that music takes privilege as the most sustained African Diasporic link among African-descended Canadians. In early August, Afrofest, a festival of continental African musics, arts, and crafts, happens in the provincial assembly park in Ontario. The musics of Afrofest range from the traditional to the contemporary, and thus all the hybrids are also performed and experienced. The festival is peopled by a multicultural audience who party late into the night to local (that is, Toronto- and Canada-based performers) and visiting African performers. Afrofest is, by and large, a newcomer to the musical richness that characterises African Diasporic sonic life in Toronto and Canada. But the centrality of music to the African Canadian community as a connector and a source of continued political and cultural sharing cannot be overstated. Despite the range of African Diasporic music that exists in Canada, R&B, hip-hop, and dancehall reign supreme among the young black population. Across the heterogeneity that constitutes the African Diaspora in Canada, hip-hop is the most important identifier of the cultural youth taste. While it cannot be denied that hip-hop influence comes directly from the United States, neither can it be denied that Caribbean and, more and more, African musical influences are as important to the very local, Canadian sound of hip-hop in Canada. Music crosses a number of borders for African Diasporic people in Canada that best characterizes their relationship to outer-national desires and affiliations. For example, the R&B diva Deborah Cox hails from Toronto, and, while her major success was found in the United States, Toronto remains a site of inspiration. It was at the Diasporic crossroads of Toronto that Cox credits her musical tastes and styling and thus her entry into the United States (Walcott, 2003). Similarly, rappers like KOS draw on a wealth of African Diasporic musical forms to produce rap music that is unique in sound, tone, and lyric. And continental African youth like K’naan produce hip-hop in multilingual

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Canada and the African Diaspora | 253 rhymes and lyrics, fully placing African at the center of this most contemporary of African Diaspora forms. In fact, K’naan’s first video was shot on location in Africa, reportedly the first hip-hop video shot on the continent by a North American artist. It can be argued that many of these musical manners and practices are forged in the context of the everyday multiculturalisms in Canada. Thus, as Canada hiphop acts come into their own, a specific identifiable sound emerges. This sound, which cannibalizes African American, Caribbean, and African rhythms and forms, evokes the rich tapestry that is the condition of African Diasporic life in Canada. Such rappers and singers as Maestro, Choclair, Rascalz, Kardinal, Daneo, Carlos Morgan, Glen Lewis, Deborah Cox, Jully Black, and Divine Brown are deeply influenced by African-descended cultural and other minoritized ethnic configurations in the nation. Their music is a deeply textured mix of Caribbean, African, and African American– influenced sound with a decidedly important nod to the cultural crossroads that Toronto has become since 1960. F ILM It is post-1960s Canada that has produced the matrix and melange of African Diasporic culture that makes Canada a complex site for studying black Diaspora networks and cultural circulations across it. The claim of newness is an important one for the ways in which newness structures the cultural politics of African Diasporic life in Canada. African Diasporic life crosses numerous aesthetic boundaries that speak to multiple and complex political resonances in Canada. In Clement Virgo’s important and award-winning first feature, Rude (1995), the opening voice-over of DJ Rude announces that she is coming to her audience “from the land of the Zulu all the way to the land of the Mohawk,” and “for the next two nights we steal Babylon’s airwaves and reevaluate their immigration policy” in an attempt to map the complexity of the identifications

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across cultural and political difference that characterize African Diasporic life in Canada. These identifications are not only with other black people but also with other marginalized minorities. Virgo’s Rude and Stephen Williams’s Soul Survivor (1995) marked the African Canadian foray into international feature filmmaking. Both films premiered at Cannes and were well received. But both films’ aesthetic and political insights are flawed, despite underlying interesting Diasporic connections and intersections. In both films, African Diasporic musical forms play an important role in the structure and propulsion of the narrative. These films also highlight their relation to various African American cinematic aesthetic commitments, like the hood film genre. A new crop of filmmakers has emerged, but the cost of feature filmmaking has meant that not many films have been made. Some of Canada’s best black filmmakers work in television. The husband-and-wife team of Jen Holness and David “Sudds” Sutherland made the acclaimed Love, Sex and Eating the Bones, (2003) but they seem to make most of their work for television. In that fashion, work is steady more often, and a living is possible. Black Canadian women have not made many feature films. Christine Brown’s Baby Mother and Dawn Wilkinson’s Devotion are among the few cross-genre films made by African Canadian women. However, documentary filmmaking has been one of the central means through which African Canadian life has reached cinematic audiences. The poet, novelist, and essayist Dionne Brand has made a number of films for the former Studio D (the women’s division) of the National Film Board of Canada. Studio D, but the NFB more generally, has played a leading role in the cinematic presentation of African Canadian life. More recently, Allison Duke’s Raising Kain (2000) brought together the NFB’s commitment to women and racial minority directors in their support of her project. The project followed an independent rap

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act as they released and toured in promotion of their first album. But most important is the role that documentary film has played in documenting the lives of African Canadians, both historical and contemporary. The importance of documentary filmmaking in Canadian national identity as represented by the National Film Board is thus also ambivalently shared by African Canadians as a crucial element of their heritage. Significant to this is the role that Sylvia Hamilton’s documentaries have played in centering long-standing black life and history in Nova Scotia in the nation’s collective history. Such figures as Roger McTair and Claire Prieto have played important roles in ushering projects about black Canadian history through the NFB. The uniqueness of African Diasporic consciousness in Canadian filmmaking is best seen in Virgo’s The Planet of Junior Brown (1997). The film is adapted from Virginia Hamilton’s novel of the same name, which is set in an African American community. But when Virgo and longtime black film critic Cameron Bailey rewrite it, their creole African Diasporic Toronto recenters the narrative as a multicultural, multiethnic, and cross-cultural story. The multicultural, multiethnic, and multiracial cast of the film offers a unique take on the local conditions of African Diasporic life in Canada. It is within the multicultural cityscape that Junior, the brilliant pianist with limited social skills, can count on a cast of multicultural and multiracial friends to look after his artistic and social well-being. African Canadian filmmaking, by and large, deterritorializes Canada, and while doing so brings to bear a critique on the nature of African Canadian existence at home. While there is still little dialogue between African Canadian cinema and African Canadian literature, each art form draws on similar tropes and metaphors to place the lives and the conditions of the lives of African-descended people within a much larger scope of analysis than the nation-state. And while individual artists

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achieve the performative qualities of Diasporic desire, sensibility, and consciousness better than others, what tends to characterize a great deal of the work that comes out of Canada is a continual engagement with an existence that reaches beyond the boundaries of the nationstate, whether as material presence or as an aspect of the interior life. In fact, it might be argued—or at least suggested—that the most successful works achieve their Diasporic consciousness through an engagement with the interior life as a challenge to national limitations. C RIME AND THE M ARGINS When it comes to the interior and material lives of African Canadians, crime figures heavily in their psychosocial lives. Most recently, debates concerning racial profiling have engulfed provincial, municipal, and community leaders. The debate was sparked by an analysis of data collected by the Toronto police and carried out by The Toronto Star; that city’s leading newspaper confirmed that the police overly targeted African-descended people. In a series of reports that demonstrated the ways in which the overpolicing of African Canadian life led to more charges, more incarceration, and more involvement with the law, The Toronto Star report placed the police authorities in a position to have to explain themselves. It is this kind of evidence that can be used to demonstrate how African Canadians come to identify with other black Diasporic peoples. The debate concerning racial profiling was an interesting one because it demonstrated how dominant authorities both homogenize and differentiate when it serves their purposes. One of the ways in which the Toronto police authorities responded to the evidence of racial profiling was to homogenize the African Canadian community and demand that it take on the responsibility of policing its members. Simultaneously, the police authorities also spoke to ethnic and Diasporic difference and antagonisms by singling out Jamaicans as among the leading culprits of criminal activity. In this way, African Canadian communities un-

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Canada and the African Diaspora | 255 willing to identify with any form of “Jamaicanness” could at least distance themselves from the rhetorical media battle. In fact, it is the way the official version of multiculturalism works that allows for a particularly lived complexity of blackness in Canada. Official forms of multiculturalism allow for and encourage a particular kind of holding onto an elsewhereness that is conditioned by an affiliation to a former nation— Nigerian-Canadian, Barbadian-Canadian— thus, black Canadian can at times be an imposition. In this way, for many African-descended Canadians, the claim of blackness as a unifying discourse or even reality is only in regard to resistance (sometimes) to dominant white forces. On other fronts, most African Canadians are self-determining in relation to national or ethnic designations that are not only Canadian. This ambiguous relation to the nation functions both as a way of belonging and as the nation’s very refusal to understand blackness as integral to its own constitution. Such a stance, in part, is why it is difficult for most Canadians to imagine Canadian blackness before confederation or even before the 1960s. Most recently, as the cost of marginalization has made itself felt in the arrival of gang violence on the streets of Toronto, the impact of imagining blackness as recent to the nation can be felt again. As a discourse of culture of poverty and immigrant-ness is utilized to make sense of the crime and violence, the behavior is seen to have been brought from elsewhere. While it is clear that most of those involved have spent either their entire lives or the most significant parts of their lives in Canada, there has been little public debate about how Canadian forms of racism have produced a generation of young, black poor and working-class men who find that crime pays better than service industry employment in a racist society. By not attending to the role that Canada has played in forming these young men, debates about guns traveling from the United States to Canada and other such claims (while valid) take away the emphasis on

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solving the problem of black youth underachieving their immigrant parents. Thus, many urban and poor black youth in Canada identify intimately with urban and poor black youth in the United States. They see themselves as living similar lives of domination in an oppressive society and thus make choices on those terms. Thus, African Canadians are deeply committed to identifying with others across the African Diaspora. They do not do so merely because the nation refuses to contain them or desires to contain them in a particular manner; they do so out of an ethical and political stance that reveals their continued commitment to some kind of African global redress for historic injustices and contemporary ones. A N O NGOING E MERGENT AND D IFFERENT F LOW One of the best sites for the continued exploration of African Diasporic life in Canada is the queer community. Queer life is an excellent barometer of Diasporic connectivity and difference. African Canadian queer life is deeply Diasporic in its identifications and practices with queer life elsewhere. But black queer life is also creole in terms of its expressions and lived articulations in the context of Canadian forms of expressing sexuality. For example, for the last number of years, African Canadian queers in Toronto celebrate Gay Pride by organizing an event called Blockorama, which draws heavily on African American black pride and yet is deeply influenced by Caribbean block party celebrations and Canadian forms of public pleasure, spectatorship, and celebration. Blockorama signals the complexity of African Diasporic communities in Canada as black folk craft lives that range across a number of political, cultural, and social concerns, conditions, desires, and disappointments. African Canadian queer life is an excellent barometer of African Canadian Diasporic identification because it places on the political and cultural agenda a range of concerns that spans the local and the extralocal. This claim is not made to

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dismiss other concerns that span the local and extralocal but rather to boldly suggest that African Canadian Diasporic queer culture is yet another site of effective Diasporic identification that points to the ways in which outernational desires are both fashioned and simultaneously localized. Recently, the group Gays and Lesbian of the African Diaspora (GLAD), which is centrally concerned with the live of continental African queers, has been doing work both at home and reaching back to the continent. I would argue that African Canadian queer life can effectively point us to the multiple forms of uniqueness that African Diasporic life in Canada takes. C ONCLUSION The African Diaspora in Canada occupies a unique position globally because of the political demands of official Canadian multiculturalism. On the one hand, African Canadians identify and make community across their numerous differences, and at the same time, official multiculturalism requires specific national and ethnic differences to be maintained. Thus, African Canadian can be broken down to other differences, like Jamaican Canadian or Nigerian Canadian. These differences of national and ethnic origin have important consequences for political mobilization of the African Canadian community, especially around such difficult issues as alleged African Canadian crime against other African Canadians. Most recently, the issues of gangs in African Canadian communities have demonstrated this difficulty quite well. On the other side of the multicultural divide is the always-hopeful possibility of avoiding homogenizing the African Canadian community into something that it cannot recognize as itself. The challenge of representing and speaking on behalf of the African Canadian community is a daunting one, from which many lessons can be learned. Official multiculturalism works to make any critic doubt the claims that they might make about the community. In short, it is best to think about the African Di-

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aspora in Canada as a set of cultures, always plural and never singular. Rinaldo Walcott See also Canada and African American Refugee Settlements; Caribbean Migrations: Caribbean Diaspora; Shadd Cary, Mary Ann (1823–1893). F URTHER R EADING Bannerji, H. 2000. The Dark Side of the Nation. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press. Bristow, Peggy, Dionne Brand, Linda Carty, Afua Cooper, Sylvia Hamilton, and Adrienne Shadd, eds. 1994. We’re Rooted Here and They Can’t Pull Us Up: Essays in African Canadian Women’s History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Cooper, Afua. 2007. The Hanging of Angelique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montreal (Race in the Atlantic World, 1700–1900). Athens: University of Georgia Press. Govia, Francine, and Helen Lewis. 1988. Blacks in Canada: In Search of the Promise: A Bibliographic Guide to the History of Blacks in Canada. Edmonton, Alberta: Harambee Centres Canada. Walcott, Rinaldo. 2003. Black Like Who: Writing Black Canada. Toronto: Insomniac Press. Winks, Robin W. 1997. The Blacks in Canada: A History. Toronto: McGill-Queens University Press.

z Candombe See Tango, Candombe, and Milonga.

z Candomblé The Afro-Brazilian tradition of Candomblé, similar to Haitian Vodou and Cuban Santería, represents an African-influenced religious system in the Americas that upholds the beliefs in human interaction, involvement, and responsibility in bringing harmony to the universe

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Cannes Brûlées | 257 and into their own lives. The history of Candomblé in Brazil began with the transatlantic slave trade that brought Africans across the Atlantic. Consequently, religious traditions, beliefs, and rituals of Candomblé are an amalgamation of Yoruba, Dahomey, Bantu, and, later on, Christian beliefs. There are two major nations or sects in Brazilian Candomblé, the Ketu and Angola nations. The Ketu nation is the largest nation, and its roots are in Yoruba (Nagô) and Dahomean traditions. The Angola nation of Candomblé is the second largest in Brazil, representing the religious beliefs of the Bantu people, the earliest Africans to arrive in Brazil (Bastide 1978). Overall, the Ketu nation and its Yoruba-influenced cosmologies, ritual language, and religious hierarchical structure are used as the dominant motifs within Brazilian Candomblé practices. Earliest known practitioners of Candomblé were women in the irmandade (sisterhood) of Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte. This sisterhood of Nagô women originated in Salvador and flourished in Cachoeira, both cities in the state of Bahia. Even though they held Catholic masses and processions, they also practiced their Nagô rituals and ceremonies. Candomblé was born when some sisters abandoned the confines of Catholicism in 1830 and started the first terreiro (a house of worship in Candomblé) in Salvador, called Casa Branca, which recognized only their Yoruba deities or orixás (Berkenbrock 1995). Candomblé’s cosmological system centers on the symbiotic relationship between human beings and the orixás. Orixás are deities who may be male, female, or hermaphrodite; they can be divinized ancestors, deified well-known figures, or gods representing natural forces. Each person has a dono da cabeça, an orixá, who is the “master of his or her head.” An orixá influences an individual’s life, and each person has the characteristics of his or her corresponding orixá. The orixás are taken care of at a terreiro, which is the center of activity in Candomblé. It

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is the place where ceremonies, rituals, and the passage of knowledge from the learned to the unlearned occur. In the hierarchy of Candomblé, mãe do santo (Candomblé priestess) or pai do santo (Candomblé priest) are the leaders; it is their responsibility to instruct initiates, to oversee the rituals and the ceremonies for the orixás, to counsel clients, and to care for the balance between humanity and the deities (Elbein dos Santos 1975). Filhat do santo (initiated practitioners) are responsible for helping the mãe do santo perform rituals, in addition to participating in ceremonies and providing obligations to their individual orixá. An obligation is an offering to one’s orixá; they vary according to the individual’s need, request, or level of involvement in the terreiro. Food, animal sacrifices, monetary gifts, and beverages are all forms of obligations (Berkenbrock 1995). Andrea Allen See also Afro-Fusion Dance; Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; De Oxóssi, Mãe Stella (1925–); Santería. F URTHER R EADING Bastide, Roger. 1978. The African Religions of Brazil. Trans. Helen Sebba. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Berkenbrock, Volney. 1995. A experiência dos Orixás. Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Editora Vozes. Elbein dos Santos, Juana. 1975. Os Nagô e a Morte. Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Editora Vozes. Harding, Rachel E. 2003. A Refuge in Thunder: Candomblé and Alternative Spaces of Blackness. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Matory, J. Lorand. 1999. “The English Professors of Brazil: On the Diasporic Roots of the Yoruba.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 41 (1): 72–103.

z Cannes Brûlées Cannes brûlées, also spelled Cannes Brulles or Canbrulees, is basically a popular ceremony

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symbolizing “cane burning,” which Africans devised to celebrate their freedom from slavery in 1838. The exact date of its first enactment and the original prime movers are completely forgotten. However, this black artistic pageant can be dated from 1881, when the British Administration in Trinidad decided to stamp it out, to suppress its communal celebration on the streets of Port of Spain, employing the police force to restrict its performance anywhere on the island. Cannes Brûlées can be examined as (1) a black resistance ceremony, (2) a recreational pageant of Africans, (3) a symbolic celebration of freedom from slavery, (4) the original form of the present nationwide Carnival. Some observers view it as a popular street theater exhibiting African style dance, theater, and music, while others regard it as a boast/exhibitionist antimoralistic duel between European moral codes and African canons of freedom—which it really was in essence. E LEMENTAL F EATURES The elemental features of Cannes Brûlées are highly reflective of the psychological functions of this ceremony, that is, protest and resistance of European domination. Such features included

legedly a Christian sacred ceremony. On this basis, Carnival African style was deemed a savage pagan ceremony enacted in a Christian Roman Catholic society. This was heresy. In an effort to extinguish this African saturnalia (as the whites termed Cannes Brûlées), it was decided to outlaw Carnival totally. In 1881, a Royal Commission under Sir Robert Hamilton outlawed Carnival (Cannes Brûlées) in Trinidad. But kalinda (stick fighting), or bois, continued, and progressively the Africans took over Carnival. Calypso singing and kalinda continued. Finally, African Carnival—highly organized, crude outdoor theaters in tents—sprang up all over the city of Port of Spain, and Carnival became African in art, dance, music, craft, and theater. The upper-class, white capitalists began to invest in Carnival, but the prime movers had become the Africans—singers, dancers, chanterelles, and organizers. By 1940, Trinidadian calypsonians like Tiger, Lion, Atilla, and Radio were in the United States recording their music and making history. Cannes Brûlées had become merely one type of mask in black Carnival, side by side with all the other forms into which the original primitive carnival had evolved, just under two decades after the Cannes Brûlées riots of 1881.

Enacting the African pageant within the white-dominated, prestigious Carnival Processions through the streets in the dead of night Satirizing the ruling class in derisive songs Beating African drums and other noisy percussion instruments Performing African dances condemned by the Europeans as profane Carrying lighted torches at night in a town with wooden buildings Burlesquing the European lifestyles Parading in the streets armed with fighting sticks (bois)

C ANNES B RÛLÉES AS A B ASIS OF C ONTEMPORARY C ARNIVAL From Cannes Brûlées, the contemporary Carnival of Trinidad and Tobago derived the following features:

The white upper class condemned the Africans as pagans for entering Carnival, al-

Out of this body of organizers and recruiters of talent has grown the present Carni-

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Chanterelles—singers/composers of verse and music Organizers of tents—public theaters Mask-makers and designers of costumes Organizers of bands, or groups of masqueraders Entrepreneurs in the entertainment industry

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Cape Verde | 259 val movement. It is based on a variety of “factories,” or mas-camps, which are engaged all year in creating Carnival groups known as bands, in inventing new masks and designing costumes, and in holding concerts at which new calypsos are presented by new entrants to the calypso world, who seek fame as singers in the annual carnival competitions, vying for the attractive prizes provided at government expense for the Calypso Monarch. Thus, out of the despised Cannes Brûlées has emerged the present annual national Carnival of Trinidad and Tobago. The original features are still there: mass music for bands, street processions known as “jump up,” stage competitions in singing, stick-fighting or bois (the ancient kalinda dance), costume competitions and Queen shows, and masquerade (of a sort). Canboulay (Cannes Brûlées) has become socialized and socially approved, and the African elements, once outlawed and suppressed, are now recognized as art. While the Hamilton Commission of 1881 completely banned Cannes Brûlées as a black ceremony in Trinidad, a number of its features survived. For instance, African music, costumed masqueraders, street dancing, even kalinda, or bois (stick fighting), emerged into Carnival during the regime of prime minister Eric Williams in the 1960s. However, the face mask and the lighted torches died out. The demise of two of the most powerful Cannes Brûlées symbols of resistance draws attention to the very important aspect of the hypothesis that Cannes Brûlées was a resistance/protest pageant, employing as its ammunition a very African symbol system in which the fighting stick and the face mask were prominent items. The traditional masks were all African in origin. Trinidad Carnival has joined the world family of massed celebration and revelry to which belong the Mardi Gras of New Orleans, the Mummers Parade of Philadelphia, the Samba Schools of Brazil, the Fantasticals of New Jersey and the lesser-known African type of Saturnalia spread across Europe, about which very little is

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written. The Trinidad Carnival has of late spread across the Diaspora to London’s Notting Hill and to Toronto, Canada, wherever Trinidadian migrants have traveled in search of employment. For students of black protest against racism and oppression of black minorities, the origin and progress of the Trinidad Carnival movement is an exciting subject, aspects of which are fruitful areas of study. Jacob D. Elder See also Carnival; Trinidad and Tobago; Trinidad and Tobago: African Impact on the Social Order. F URTHER R EADING Elder, Jacob Delworth. 1966. “Songs of the Battling Troubadours of Trinidad and Tobago.” Indiana University Folklore Institute 3: 192– 203. Elder, Jacob Delworth. 1968. From Congo Drum to Steelband. (Typescript.) St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago: University of the West Indies. Hill, Errol. 1997. The Trinidad Carnival: Mandate for a National Theater. London: New Beacon Books.

z Cape Verde The Cape Verde Islands are an archipelago of 10 islands and 5 islets that lie 535 miles off the west coast of Africa. The islands and islets are divided into two main groups, referred to by their position with the winds: Barvalento, or windward islands—Santo Antao, Sao Vincente, Santa Luzia, Sao Nicolau, Boa Vista, and Sal— and Sotavento, or leeward islands—Maio, Santiago, Fogo, and Brava. The capital of Cape Verde is Praia. The official language of the island is Portuguese, but Creole, a blend of Portuguese and West African dialects, is the national vernacular language. Catholicism is the most widely practiced religion on all the islands.

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The Cape Verdean soils are of volcanic origin. The climate is extremely dry. The annual temperature remains quite static, with a wet season from August to October and a dry season from November to July. Few natural resources, droughts, and resulting famines have provoked substantial emigration from the islands throughout the Diaspora, as Cape Verde produces only 60 percent of its own food. The population of expatriate Cape Verdeans living abroad and throughout the Diaspora exceeds the island population of 50,000 residents. The largest Cape Verdean Diasporic communities have gathered mainly in the northeastern United States, as well as in Portugal, Brazil, Senegal, and Holland. H ISTORY There is no agreed-upon, exact date or identity of the first arrivals, but the Portuguese were the first to settle in 1462. Although the Cape Verdean Islands were officially uninhabited until the Portuguese explorers arrived in 1456, evidence suggests that African ethnic groups from the Guinea Coast explored the islands prior to their arrival. Diego Gomes is generally associated with “discovering” the islands. The Portuguese used the islands as a refueling station for slave ships, and by 1466, with the establishment of plantations, the need for cheap labor was fulfilled largely by enslaved Africans from Guinea Bissau. However the majority of the enslaved Africans came through Cape Verde in transit to the Americas. The islands were first divided between several Portuguese feudal lords, who established plantations and supervised the slave labor. The social division of Cape Verdean society based on the Portuguese feudal model was clear from the beginning. White landowners occupied the top of the social pyramid, mulattos and a few liberated Africans were in between, and enslaved African laborers were at the bottom. The island of Santiago was used as a slave post, and slave labor was generally used in the

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agricultural cultivation and production of sugar cane, vineyards, maize, guinea rice, and cotton, as well as in the salt mines. The natural conditions of Cape Verde did not allow for large and numerous plantations, a fact that resulted in heightened proximity of masters and the enslaved. This proximity encouraged the creation of a myth that the masters were more humane to enslaved Africans in Cape Verde. Historical accounts reveal the falseness of the assumption of the ironical figure of the “friendly master.” Luis Batalha (2004) offers examples of the inhumane and barbaric treatment slaves endured. “In Fogo some rural properties had dungeons and poles to which slaves were tied and then whipped” (46). He also provides accounts of a cruel owner in Brava who cut off the hands of offending slaves and had others thrown from the cliffs; and another where a pregnant woman was tortured to death by placing burning embers on her stomach. It must also be noted that a tradition of rebellion among Cape Verdeans began during slavery and became a lasting legacy. A community of Africans who escaped slavery lived in the most rural areas of Santiago and Fogo. Portuguese landowners sexually exploited the enslaved African females to increase a cheap and reliable labor force. Scholar Luis Batalha explains that wealthy landowners found having illegitimate children far less expensive and more beneficial than maintaining slaves. As in all other patriarchal, racist colonial societies, African women’s bodies were used to increase the labor force and satisfy men’s sexual appetites. This sexual exploitation, as well as the remoteness of the islands and the difficulty of communication between Portugal and its colonies, influenced the creation of a large Crioulo, or mestizo, population (mixed European and African descent), which eventually approximated 70 percent of the population. The remainder of the population consisted of Africans and about 2 percent white people.

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Cape Verde | 261 Toward the end of the 19th century, following the official eradication of slavery and the devastation of severe droughts, large numbers of Cape Verdeans left the islands to work in New England’s exploitative cranberry and whaling industries. So began the great Diasporic migration. In 1951, in an attempt to quell the rising nationalism, Portugal changed Cape Verde’s status from a colony to an overseas province. In 1956, a nationalist movement, the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC), formed the basis of the independence movement in both countries. Led by revolutionary political theorist Amilcar Cabral, the PAIGC struggled to overthrow Portuguese colonialism. A priority of the independence mobilization period was to intervene in colonialism’s repressive and deliberate erasure of African culture and restore the historic bond between the two colonies of Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau. Cabral stressed the importance of maintaining and reclaiming the native culture, particularly its element of resistance to foreign domination. He firmly believed in the “inalienable right of every people to have their own history” (Cabral 1973, 143). Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau are linked through a common culture, language, and history and have strong historical ties. Guinea declared independence in 1973, and Cape Verde followed shortly after, in 1974. On June 30, 1975, Cape Verde elected a national assembly and became an independent nation. Plans for unity between the two countries were disrupted in 1980, after Guinea-Bissau’s government was overthrown in a coup. The Cape Verdean constitution was adopted in 1982 and revised several times, most recently in 1999. Until 1990, when the Constitution’s amendment allowed a multiparty system, the PAICV remained the country’s only sanctioned political party. The president is the head of state and is elected by popular vote for a five-year term. The prime minister is head of government and

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appoints other ministers and secretaries of state. The prime minister is nominated by the National Assembly and appointed by the president. Members of the National Assembly are elected by popular vote for five-year terms. The judicial system comprises the Supreme Court of Justice, whose members are appointed by the president; the National Assembly; and the Board of the Judiciary and regional courts. Separate courts deliver civil, constitutional, and criminal cases. Situated partway between Europe and South America, Cape Verde has remained a critical refueling hub for ships. The salt mines remain a source of wealth on the island today. Other mineral resources include pozzolana (a volcanic rock used in cement production) and limestone. The economy of Cape Verde is service dominated, with commerce, transport, and public services accounting for more than 70 percent of GDP. Nearly 70 percent of the population lives in rural areas; however, agriculture and fishing contribute only about 10 percent of GDP. Twenty percent of the GDP is in funds and goods sent by expatriated Cape Verdeans. C ULTURE AND L ITERATURE Cape Verdeans have maintained a recognizable and distinct culture on the islands and throughout the Diaspora, mainly through the cultural markers of music, dance, food, and folklore, which have clear African and Portuguese roots. The influence of African culture remains most visible on Santiago. There are four main musical genres: morna, coladerias, funana, and batuco. Morna and coladerias have a strong Portuguese influence, while funana and batuco, accompanied by the rhythms of drums and a fast tempo, have distinct African origins. Developed by unknown poets, morna is the most popular genre. It has vague origins and is characterized by melancholic love songs expressing sentiments of heartache, loneliness, and the hardships inflicted by the natural conditions of the island

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Cape Verdeans in large numbers gather in Praia, Santiago Island, to welcome a visit from PAIGC SecretaryGeneral Aristides Pereira, the first president of independent Cape Verde. A portrait of Amilcar Cabral, founder of PAIGC, appears on one of the banners, January 1975. (UN Photo/Yutaka Nagata)

on the people. The internationalization of Cape Verdean music, most specifically the morna, has resulted largely from the fame of Cesaria Evora, the acclaimed female Cape Verdean singer. In addition to music, Cape Verdeans have also produced folklore and literature rich in Crioulo culture, which has been central to the preservation of oral and folkloric traditions. Literature and poetry were used to construct the identity of Cape Verdeans. The first recorded written art, heavily influenced by European classical ideas, emerged around 1866. As well-behaved colonized subjects, many of the early Cape Verdean intellectuals and poets found inspiration in Portuguese nationalism and detached themselves from their Cape Verdean identity and experience. Poet Eugenio Tavares printed the first piece of creative writ-

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ing on the island in 1916 in two short volumes of “classical” love poetry. His second publication was inspired instead by his Crioulo culture. Written in the traditional mornas style, the work was overtly critical of Portuguese occupation of the island. Following generations of writers and artists have focused thematically on drought, famine, migration, and such political issues as prostitution, corruption, and alcoholism. One of the latest trends in literature is Cape Verdean nationalism and pride in Cape Verde’s African ancestry. Leana Cabral See also Cabral, Amilcar Lopes (1924–1973). F URTHER R EADING Batalha, Luis. 2004. The Cape Verdean Diaspora in Portugal: Colonial Subjects in a Postcolonial World. New York: Lexington Books.

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Capitalism and Slavery | 263 Cabral, Amilcar. 1973. Return to the Source: Selective Speeches of Amilcar Cabral. New York: African Information System. Gerard, Albert. 1968. “The Literature of Cape Verde.” African Arts, 1 (2): 62–64. Lobban, Richard. 1995. Cape Verde: Crioulo Colony to Independent Nation. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Meintel, Deirdre. 1985. Race, Culture, and Portuguese Colonialism in Cabo Verde. New York: Syracuse University Press.

z Capitalism and Slavery Eric Williams’s text, Capitalism and Slavery, originally published in 1944, has proven to be one of the most compelling, controversial, and enduring texts that addresses the effect of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery in the Americas on European growth and development, particularly for Britain and France. No other text has advanced and maintained a similar set of hypotheses on a comparable scale with comparable force, until the appearance of Joseph Inikori’s (2002) Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England nearly 60 years later. Capitalism and Slavery advances three major propositions: 1. Anti-black racism that emphasizes the cognitive inferiority of the African and persons of African descent finds its origins in the transatlantic slave trade and the enslavement of Africans on plantations in the Americas. 2. Parliamentary abolition of the slave trade in 1807 by Britain was motivated by practical considerations rather than a broad humanitarian impulse that suffused the British polity. The West Indies and its slave plantations had lost the significance they formerly held for Britain’s mercantilist strategy of development by the close of the 18th century.

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3. The Atlantic slave trade and the slave plantation system in the West Indies and throughout the Americas were central to European, and especially British, industrialization. The second and third propositions—the two that have drawn the most critical heat over the years—required a subtle argument to integrate them in a single work. Williams contended that the West Indies were an essential stimulus to British growth throughout much of the second half of the 18th century. The decline in the significance of the West Indies was linked to the effects of the American Revolution, which simultaneously severed the North American colonies from the British economic apparatus and reduced the value of the West Indies to British policymakers. In a précis of the analysis of Capitalism and Slavery published in Political Science Quarterly a year earlier, Williams (1943, 67) wrote: In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Britain’s sugar Colonies were the favored plantations of the Empire. By the middle of the nineteenth century they had become nuisances. The history of that decline has been written too narrowly, from the standpoint of the humanitarian attack on Negro slavery. The weakness of the West Indian system was less that it was immoral than that it was unprofitable. Compounding the effects of the decline in profitability of the West Indies plantations on British authorities’ perceptions of the slave trade and slavery was the failure to capture control of Saint Domingue (now Haiti), the prize site of plantation sugar production in the Caribbean, in the aftermath of the black revolution that eliminated French colonial rule. According to Williams, prime minister William Pitt’s enthusiasm for abolition of the trade rose precipitously after the British incursion into Saint Domingue failed to bring the island under British rule.

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Williams’s first proposition is supported by strong evidence that indicates that the image of black people was largely positive in both the arts and literature in European eyes prior to the onset of the extensive enslavement of Africans. He accurately tied the chronological rise of notions of the subhumanity of blacks to European rationalizations for their involvement in the vast trade in darker-skinned peoples from the African continent. The third proposition, that the slave trade and the slave plantation system were central to British economic development, can be explicated readily with Keynes and Hirschman models of economic growth (Darity 1988, 1992). Such mercantilist writers as Josiah Child, Thomas Dalby, Joshua Gee, and Malachy Postlethwayt—the latter a source liberally used by Williams to make his case—invoked, de facto, Keynes’s domestic and foreign trade multipliers, aggregate demand stimuli, and investmentcum-profit-boom effects, as well as Hirschman’s backward and forward linkages, to describe the effects of slavery in the Americas on the British economy into the late 18th century. Williams gave special emphasis to the significance of the slavery system for the development of the manufacturing centers of Manchester and Birmingham, the shipbuilding port city of Bristol, and the slave trading center of Liverpool. The slave trade also functioned as a critical sector and source of funds for consolidation of Britain’s insurance and banking sectors; Williams gives special attention to the cases of Lloyds of London and Barclays Bank. Williams’s argument was not limited narrowly to claims about the initial sources of finance for Britain’s Industrial Revolution. Williams was concerned instead about a wider “hothouse” effect produced by the slave trade, the slave plantations, and the full range of ways they activated and stimulated multiple lines of production in the British economy. Moreover, contrary to the Engerman “small ratios” argument (from which he would later retreat) (O’Brien and Engerman 1991), the slave trade

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was quite large in a comparative, historical sense, a point initially made by Barbara Solow (1985). The abolition thesis, or the second proposition in Capitalism and Slavery, was extracted from Williams’s Ph.D. dissertation, completed at Oxford University in 1938 and entitled “The Economic Aspect of the Abolition of the West Indian Slave Trade and Slavery.” The thesis never has been published in its original form. Indeed, Williams never could find a British publisher for the dissertation and later reputedly went through six publishers in the United States before the University of North Carolina Press agreed to publish Capitalism and Slavery. Colin Palmer has detailed the difficulties Williams faced in bringing the manuscript to publication in his introduction to the 50th anniversary edition of Capitalism and Slavery, also published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1994. Williams characterized his abolition thesis as a direct counter against the ingrained wisdom among Oxford’s imperial historians. Their posture was epitomized, in his view, by one of the members of his dissertation committee, Sir Reginald Coupland, who argued that abolition was primarily the product of a humanitarian crusade led by British evangelicals in the late 18th century. In a narrative appendix at the close of Capitalism and Slavery, Williams indicated that he found rich seeds for the theory that abolition was a product of British strategic self-interest in C. L. R. James’s (1938, 38–41) remarkable study of the Haitian Revolution, The Black Jacobins. James’s analysis ostensibly was drawn from French historians, who had a decidedly more cynical appraisal of British motives for ending the slave trade. It is also noteworthy that James made a parallel argument for the importance of the slave trade and the slave plantation system in the colonies as a stimulus to French economic growth. Williams overlooked the British historians, centered primarily at Cambridge University rather than Oxford, who also had offered an

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Caribbean Black Power | 265 analysis of British abolition quite similar to his own. These included Samuel Taylor Coleridge as early as the 1810s, William Cunningham in the 1890s, and the dean of Cambridge historians, William E. H. Lecky, in the 1910s (Darity 1988). Although Williams (1940) was familiar with some of Lecky’s writings, since he cited Lecky extensively in an essay published in the Journal of Negro History that was awarded the first history prize of $100 at the Association of Negro Life and History annual meeting in New Orleans in October 1939, he apparently missed Lecky’s observations about British abolition. The third proposition, the industrialization thesis, was found at Howard University, where Williams taught after completing his Ph.D. These include a master’s thesis completed in 1938, the year before he joined the Howard faculty, by one of economist Abram Harris’s graduate students, Wilson Elbe Williams. Wilson Williams’s thesis, entitled “Africa and the Rise of Capitalism,” establishes that British mercantilists, particularly the aforementioned Malachy Postlethwayt, were fully aware of and openly articulated the slave trade’s central role in the promotion of British manufacturing and commerce. Harris had also uncovered these themes in the mercantilist literature. In addition, in Wilson Williams’s analysis, the African trade was a source of labor for the colonies that provided raw sugar and raw cotton to British industry, but it also provided key markets for British manufactures, as well as gold for coinage; the slave trade–driven growth of Liverpool, Bristol, and Manchester also is discussed explicitly in this short but densely packed master’s thesis (Darity 1997, 807–812). Thus, Capitalism and Slavery resonates to the present, demanding the attention of historians of the Americas, Africa, and European industrialization.

F URTHER R EADING Darity, William, Jr. 1988. “The Williams Abolition Thesis before Williams.” Slavery and Abolition 9 (1): 29–41. Darity, William, Jr. 1992. “A Model of ‘Original Sin’: Rise of the West and Lag of the Rest.” American Economic Review 82 (2): 162–167. Darity, William, Jr. 1997. “Eric Williams and Slavery: A West Indian Viewpoint?” Callaloo 20 (4): 801–816. Darity, William, Jr. 2005. “Africa, Europe, and the Origins of Uneven Development: The Role of Slavery.” In African Americans in the U.S. Economy, ed. C. Conrad, J. Whitehead, P. Mason, and J. Stewart, 14–19. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Inikori, Joseph. 2002. Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. James, C.L.R. 1938. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. New York: Dial Press. O’Brien, Patrick K., and Stanley Engerman. 1991. “Exports and the Growth of the British Economy from the Glorious Revolution to the Peace of Amiens.” In Slavery and the Rise of the Atlantic System, ed. Barbara L. Solow, 177–209. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Solow, Barbara. 1985. “Caribbean Slavery and British Growth: The Eric Williams Hypothesis.” Journal of Development Economics 17: 99– 115. Williams, Eric. 1940. “The Golden Age of the Slave System in Britain.” Journal of Negro History 25 (1): 60–106. Williams, Eric. 1942. “The British West Indian Slave Trade after Its Abolition in 1807.” Journal of Negro History 27 (2): 175–191. Williams, Eric. 1943. “Laissez Faire, Sugar and Slavery.” Political Science Quarterly 58 (1): 67– 85. Williams, Eric. 1994. Capitalism and Slavery. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. (Original published by the same press in 1944.)

z Caribbean Black Power

William A. Darity Jr. See also Trinidad and Tobago; Williams, Eric Eustace (1911–1981).

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In 1968, the Black Power Movement swept across the Caribbean. The immediate trigger

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was a riot in Jamaica following the banning from the island of black power activist and scholar Walter Rodney. Then a lecturer at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies, the Guyanese-born Rodney was attending a black power conference in Canada when the Jamaican government prohibited him from returning to his job. Caribbean black power briefly rose to a crescendo in the “1970 Revolution” in Trinidad and Tobago, when a mass movement climaxed in an aborted army mutiny against the government of Eric Williams, the famous historian and erstwhile anticolonial nationalist. The upsurge, however, was short-lived: by the middle of the 1970s, almost all the important radical Caribbean movements had switched to a Marxist-Leninist ideology, abandoning, at least overtly, the nationalist and populist insights of Caribbean black power. T HE C ARIBBEAN 1968–1974: T HE A SCENDANCY OF B LACK P OWER The name “black power” came from the effervescent struggle for racial justice in the United States, but the Caribbean movement had multiple roots deriving from a complex interplay of local and international histories. The primary tributary in the 20th century was Marcus Garvey’s Pan-Africanist Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), which was a significant social and political force in Jamaica, Trinidad, and other territories in the 1920s and 1930s. Another powerful local current emerged after the coronation of Haile Selassie as Ethiopian emperor in 1930. The Rastafari movement, deriving its name from Selassie’s original princely title, combined millenarianism with militant Pan-Africanism and biblical prophecy. Rastafari, diverse and multipronged in its organizational form, gradually developed followers among the Jamaican poor and by the early 1960s had spread to other Caribbean territories. There is little doubt, however, that the U.S. movement, followed with immense interest particularly by young people in the Caribbean, was the catalyst that brought these

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nascent trends together. When the Civil Rights Movement made a leftward turn to black power in the mid-1960s, radical trends in the Caribbean found a ready-made slogan under which to organize their own deep dissatisfaction with their societies and governments. Several striking features marked the Caribbean black power scene from roughly 1968 to 1973. In Jamaica, as the previous history might suggest, the movement was centrally influenced by powerful Rastafarian currents that stressed the importance of cultural determination in politics and asserted, against the official Jamaican ideology of peaceful multiracial coexistence, the saliency of race as a determining factor in people’s lives. By design, black power in Jamaica was decentralized, multipolar, and community based. Its ethos was captured in the pages of that essential, radical Caribbean newspaper, Abeng, which served as a popular forum for expressing a range of conflicting views rather than as an organ with a single party line. The various currents of the movement were concentrated around the University of the West Indies at Mona, although they were not exclusively found there. The dominant trends advocated a grassroots/populist notion of the role of intellectuals in the popular movement. In 1967, Garth White expressed such a position at a forum on the future of the radical intellectual forum the New World Movement, which produced the New World Quarterly. White, then a leading radical student at the University of the West Indies at Mona, attacked the view of Lloyd Best, the noted Trinidadian economist and activist, that intellectuals should focus on research that would provide the movement with feasible options. Rather, White argued, intellectuals should become activists, merging their lives with those of the people. In Trinidad, the 1970 black power revolution—by any measure the high point of this period—gave birth to a multiplicity of organizations with competing ideological streams and multiple poles of power. Such black power groups as the United Movement for the Re-

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Caribbean Black Power | 267 construction of Black Identity (UMROBI), based in southern Trinidad, competed with Young Power and the island’s version of the U.S. Black Panther Party. The trade unions brought to the movement their own spectrum of ideological perspectives, with Marxist trends having significant influence in such organizations as Joe Young’s Transport and Industrial Workers Union (TIWU) and George Weekes’s powerful Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU). The Tapia House movement, despite being headed by Lloyd Best, one of the most capable Caribbean thinkers of his generation, stood aside from the mass movement and was subsequently marginalized. It was the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC), a student-led group, that would emerge as the leading force in the marching phase of the movement when young, often unemployed people controlled the streets of Port of Spain and other towns. NJAC started from a radically anti-imperialist and black nationalist ideological position, as elaborated in the pamphlet “Conventional Politics or Revolution?” The best expression of these goals in the Caribbean context is Walter Rodney’s collected essays, The Groundings with My Brothers, in which black power is defined as “(1) The break with imperialism which is historically white racist; (2) the assumption of power by the black masses in the islands; and (3) the cultural reconstruction of the society in the image of the blacks” (1969, 28). Although radically antiimperialist and African centered, Rodney’s views are far from being exclusivist. Similar if distinctive trends emerged on the other islands of the Eastern Caribbean. Forum, a nascent black power discussion and action movement, emerged autonomously in a number of territories, including Antigua, St. Lucia, and Grenada. The Forum’s Antigua branch eventually became the Antigua Caribbean Liberation Movement (ACLM) under the leadership of Tim Hector. Although notoriously unsuccessful in electoral politics, Hector’s ACLM held together and, through the radical

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newspaper Outlet, provided sustained resistance to corruption and venality in Antiguan politics for more than three decades. The greater focus inevitably must be placed on Grenada, where the radical movement gained power through revolutionary insurrection. There, the Joint Endeavour for Welfare, Education and Liberation (JEWEL) emerged out of Forum and operated as a grassroots black power organization based on a broad anti-imperialist, “New Worldist” platform that was wedded to direct political action. The other notable Grenadian black power formation was the Movement for Assemblies of the People (MAP). As the name implied, MAP was heavily influenced by the notion of popular assemblies as alternative political structures to parliament—a notion associated with C. L. R. James, the noted Caribbean scholar and activist. Like JEWEL, MAP supported spontaneous, direct action. The two movements eventually found common ground; in 1974, they came together to form the New Jewel Movement (NJM), united in their opposition to the government of Eric Gairy, Grenada’s repressive and mercurial prime minister. From the very beginning, black power in the Caribbean connected with popular currents and garnered broad mass support. In Trinidad, NJAC initially stood at the head of a broad and popular mass movement. The Jamaican movement, always more inchoate, nonetheless generated Abeng and acted as the stimulus for a process of popular education and mobilization, the effects of which were not completely felt until the mid-to-late 1970s. The 1972 electoral victory of the People’s National Party (PNP), headed by Michael Manley, heralded a peculiarly Jamaican radical movement, albeit one in which anti-imperialism operated within the constraints of the traditional political framework. In Grenada, the two groups that eventually merged to form the NJM were able to organize relatively massive crowds, ranging from the 1972 La Sagesse protest against an English lord’s attempt to privatize beaches to the

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campaign against Eric Gairy’s push for independence from Britain, which was seen as a diversion from the island’s social problems. By the early 1970s, then, black power had become a powerful force in various Caribbean societies. A burgeoning movement guided by notions of black nationalism and wedded to an anti-imperialist sense of autonomous Caribbean development, it was accompanied by populist and community-based notions of political participation and mobilization. More to the point, Caribbean black power in the early 1970s actually had the ability to influence and mobilize large bodies of people. By the late 1970s, however, the political landscape had changed, and black power had declined. With the defeat in April 1970 of the mass movement it had mobilized against the government of Eric Williams, Trinidad’s NJAC retreated from the center to the margins, having lost its status as the country’s primary revolutionary agency. This was due not only to its approach to leadership but also to a new, overwhelmingly “cultural” orientation, which served to reduce its influence in critical sectors, particularly among the unionized working class. The Trinidadian movement, after a continued surge during which the radical guerrilla grouping NUFF emerged and militant action increased among students and workers, went into ebb and then defeat as the twin-island nation settled into the long quiescence of the oil boom of the mid-to-late 1970s. In Jamaica, black power divided into two sections. One section was won to the traditional party system and became the radical cutting edge of Michael Manley’s resurgent PNP. The other section was won to Marxism-Leninism, eventually becoming, in 1978, the Workers Party of Jamaica (WPJ). In Grenada, the early NJM strategy of direct action and mass mobilization carried the movement forward to the 1973 four-island-wide general strike and a lockdown against the Gairy regime. Still, the NJM was unable to remove Gairy from power. When, in February 1974, he proceeded to take the country into independence in the

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face of a strike and against the wishes of the broad popular opposition, it was evident that the movement and its chosen approach to politics had suffered a strategic defeat. This led to the important decision by the leadership of the NJM to shed black power as an ideological and organizational strategy and to embrace a local version of Marxism-Leninism. From 1974, then, with the emergence in Jamaica of the predecessor to the WPJ and the decision of the NJM to adopt Leninism, we can observe the rise, growth, and partial consolidation of Marxist-Leninist organizations throughout the Anglophone Caribbean. This carried with it the implementation of the principles of democratic centralism, hermeticcell systems, and selective membership. If we take Garth White’s notion of the “merging of the intellectual with the people” as one possible interpretation of the Caribbean black power organizational ethos, then the Leninist ethos that replaced it saw the party and its members as above the people, patronizingly leading and guiding them. The Rastafarian movement proceeded on a cultural, multicentered, community-based path. By the late 1970s, the entire Jamaican reggae industry was dominated by Rasta philosophy, and singers were singing “everyone join Rasta bandwagon.” Then, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Dennis Brown, and a host of others brought Rastafarian philosophy to a worldwide audience, with tremendous effect. And in the 21st century, under the banner of Bobo Shanti and other houses, Rastafarianism and such new chanters as Sizzla, Anthony B, and Buju Banton are enjoying a qualitative revival. Brian Meeks See also Black Marxism; Black Power Movement in the United States; Caribbean Migrations: Caribbean Diaspora; Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940); Rodney, Walter (1942–1980). F URTHER R EADING Bogues, Anthony. 2003. Black Heretics, Black Prophets: Radical Political Intellectuals. New York: Routledge.

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Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) | 269 Campbell, Horace. 1988. Rasta and Resistance: From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Dupuy, Alex. 2006. “Race and Class in the Postcolonial Caribbean: The Views of Walter Rodney.” Latin American Perspectives 23 (2): 107–129. Jacobs, Richard, and Ian Jacobs, eds. 1980. Grenada: The Route to Revolution. Havana: Casa de las Americas. Lewis, Rupert. 1997. “Learning to Blow the Abeng: A Critical Look at Anti-Establishment Movements of the 1960s and 1970s.” Small Axe 1 (March): 5–17. Lewis, Rupert. 1998. Walter Rodney’s Intellectual and Political Thought. Barbados, British West Indies: The Press of the University of the West Indies. Lewis, Rupert, and Patrick Bryan, eds. 1994. Garvey: His Work and Impact. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press Meeks, Brian. 1993. Caribbean Revolutions and Revolutionary Theory: An Assessment of Cuba, Nicaragua and Grenada. London: Macmillan Caribbean. Meeks, Brian. 1996. Radical Caribbean: From Black Power to Abu Bakr. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. Meeks, Brian. 2000. Narratives of Resistance: Jamaica, Trinidad, the Caribbean. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. Meeks, Brian, and Folke Lindahl, eds. 2001. New Caribbean Thought: A Reader. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. Rodney, Walter. 1969. The Groundings with My Brothers. London: Bogle L’Ouverture. Rodney, Walter. 1973. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. London: Bogle L’Ouverture. Rodney, Walter. 1981. A History of the Guyanese Working People: 1881–1905. Kingston, Jamaica: Heinemann Educational Books. Ryan, Selwyn, ed. 2003. Independent Thought and Caribbean Freedom: Essays in Honour of Lloyd Best. St. Augustine, Trinidad: Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies. Ryan, Selwyn, and Taimoon Stewart, eds. 1995. The Black Power Revolution 1970: A Retrospective. St. Augustine, Trinidad: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies. Stone, Carl. 1982. The Political Opinions of the Jamaican People 1976–1981. Kingston, Jamaica: Blackett.

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Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) The Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) came to being in 1973 under the Treaty of Chaguaramas, signed in Chaguaramas, Trinidad and Tobago. It succeeded the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) and the failed attempt at federation. Initially, only 4 countries were members: Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. There are now 13 English-speaking members: Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. Dutch-speaking Suriname and, most recently (July 2002), French-speaking Haiti have also become members. There is also a group of associate members: Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Regular meetings of the heads of government are held, at which certain decisions are made. The headquarters is located in Georgetown, Guyana. CARICOM works toward improving standards of living and work in the region, achieving full employment of labor and other factors of production, accelerating and sustaining economic development and convergence, and more. Among its goals are facilitation of free trade and tariff protection for regional goods, and economic development through the Caribbean Development Bank. The organization focuses on a number of issues that affect the region, including air transport, health, regional stock exchange, crime and security, economics, civil society, and e-learning. A number of institutions also function under the CARICOM umbrella: the Assembly of Caribbean Community Parliamentarians (ACCP), the Caribbean Agriculture Research and Development Institute (CARDI), the Caribbean Centre for Development Administration (CARICAD), the Caribbean Community

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Climate Change Centre (CCCCC), the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA), the Caribbean Environment Health Institute (CEHI), the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), the Caribbean Food and Nutrition Institute (CFNI), The Caribbean Food Corporation (CFC), the Caribbean Meteorological Institute (CMI), the Caribbean Meteorological Organization (CMO), the Caribbean Organization of Tax Administrators (COTA), the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM), the Caribbean Regional Organization for Standards and Quality (CROSQ), the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU), the Council of Legal Education (CLE), and the Regional Centre for the Education and Training of Animal Health and Veterinary Public Health Assistants (REPAHA). Other associated institutions include the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the Caribbean Law Institute (CLI), the Caribbean Law Institute Centre (CLIC), the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), the University of Guyana, and the University of the West Indies. CARICOM has been known to hold positions on numerous issues, including security. For example, in December 1996, a drug summit admitted that drug trafficking and such related factors as the smuggling of guns, money laundering, and drug abuse were a major threat to Caribbean security. Further, ideological differences have also been an issue, as is evident in relationships with Cuba and the Maurice Bishop government of Grenada. Karen J. Matthew See also Caribbean Migrations: Caribbean Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Caribbean Community and Common Market. Website. www.caricom.org (accessed January 15, 2008). Hillman, Richard S., and Thomas J. D’Agostino, eds. 2003. Understanding the Contemporary Caribbean. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle.

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Griffith, Ivelaw L., ed. 2004. Caribbean Security in the Age of Terror: Challenge and Change. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle. Richardson, Bonham C. 1992. The Caribbean in the Wider World, 1492–1992: A Regional Geography. New York: Cambridge University Press. Thompson, Alvin O. 1997. The Haunting Past: Politics, Economics and Race in Caribbean Life. New York: M. E. Sharpe.

z Caribbean Migrations: The Caribbean Diaspora E ARLY M IGRATIONS IN THE C ARIBBEAN A MERICAN ATLANTIC The well-known novelist Paule Marshall described how her family had been able to migrate from Barbados to the United States at the end of World War II in the following manner: “The money that my parents used to purchase their tickets to the United States had been given to them by an uncle who had returned to Barbados from a sojourn as a worker in the Panama Canal Zone” (Mortimer and BryceLaporte 1981). Similar migration stories route the several journeys of “free” Afro-Caribbeans over the last century, for, whereas workers from Barbados were encouraged to migrate to Guyanese plantations under the aegis of the British colonial state (Rodney 1981), and Grenadians formed a continuing stream of interisland migration to the Trinidadian oil fields, as many as 100,000 West Indians had migrated (mostly from Jamaica and Barbados) to become workers in the Panama Canal Zone, and many of these had settled in Panama as a distinct black enclave in a Hispanophone Caribbean world. While Western imperial rule had fragmented the Caribbean into divided colonial worlds (Mintz and Price 1985, 219– 250), continuous migrations within the “Caribbean Atlantic”—the island units with

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Caribbean Migrations: The Caribbean Diaspora | 271 adjacent land territory in the Guianas and Venezuela and a northern vision to the United States—had become a critical counterlandscape in the struggle between capital and labor in the Caribbean, a system of escape and return through which the dominated classes mapped mobile interregional routes in their effort to combat the habitual stagnancy of plantation capitalism. Although women had become critical actors in mapping internal routes of migration that moved from plantation to village to colonial town (Young 1958; Reddock 1994), it was fundamentally the Caribbean male, and the black Caribbean male among the dominated classes, who was able to seize the initiative of mobility within the Caribbean Atlantic (Smith 1962), at least until the modern immigration system began to solicit the international migration of women in the 1960s (Sassen 1988; Gordon 1990). Before that event, a culture of regional mobility had been set in motion by the refusal of black males to enter long-term contracts with plantation owners at impoverished wage rates (Adamson 1972; Rodney 1981) and as a part of this resistance, their decision to use the strategy of crossing imperial borders as a weapon of surviving the racial and economic oppression of stagnant colonial orders (James 1998). Embedded in colonial geographies, technologies, and repressions, these early migrations across the Caribbean Atlantic had functioned more like maps of relative freedom in a field of colonial domination rather than as migrating opportunities that carried any real hope of escape from racial oppression and colonial domination. Their construction had nevertheless released a profound Caribbean, and black Caribbean imaginary of mobileness, a firmly held concept (Pastor 1985, 301– 309) that the topography, economics, and colonial history of the Caribbean required the adoption of strategies of survival embracing constant movement in and out of the region. When migrants moved around the region, they accumulated a knowledge of a regional

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Caribbean that encouraged a credible resistance to defining Caribbean nationalism only within the inherited boundaries of the small nation as C. L. R. James consistently described it. Wider cross-border migrations, especially to the United States, stimulated a popular awareness of other international, colonial, and black worlds (Sutton 1987) that served to construct a dynamic narrative of the “inside and the outside” of the Caribbean Atlantic world. While migration within the Caribbean Atlantic remained fractured along racial, gender, and colonial lines, by the turn of the century the dominant direction of the overall movement was increasingly being set by the vast expansion of U.S. capital in the circum-Caribbean region. The more traditional path of migration lay in the migrations of West Indians and Haitians to cut cane in the plantation systems in the Hispanophone Caribbean but the implantation of American military bases across the Caribbean from Puerto Rico to Guyana in the interwar conjuncture had started to draw women as well as men into the consumption culture of American modernity, while employment on U.S. bases, as in American labor processes as a whole, positioned Caribbeans one step closer to seeking legal immigration to the United States. By 1930, the population of foreign-born blacks in the United States, most of them immigrants from the British West Indies, had risen to 98,620 (Kasinitz 1992), or 30 percent of the urban black population in New York State (Foner 1987), and the vast majority of these were headed for Harlem, a vital center of modern “national” life for black Americans migrating from the South and a center of Diasporic culture for black Caribbeans seeking a new life in the United States (James 1998). While crossblack immigration would play a significant role in the construction of a modern urban black culture, both the racial and the legal barriers of the U.S. immigration system had succeeded in keeping the number of foreign blacks who entered the United States as legal immigrants to a tiny percentage of the total U.S. immigration

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movement. Whereas total immigration to the United States, originating mainly from Europe, had reached the remarkable level of 14,061,192 persons between 1861–1920, the permanent legal flow from the Caribbean had risen to only 85,111 persons, or a mere 0.6 percent of the total (Pastor 1985). In the last decade prior to the liberalization of U.S. immigration law in 1966, immigration from the noncolonial Caribbean had doubled (Pastor 1985), but black colonial migration had climbed to only 123, 091, or 4.9 percent of the total flow of legal immigrants into the United States from 1951– 1960 (Kasinitz 1992). T HE T RANSNATIONAL F IELD According to Pastor (1985), it was the punitive imposition by the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act of an annual quota of 100 on the flow of colonial immigrants from the British West Indies that helps to explain why West Indians had rushed to migrate to Britain in such large numbers after World War II. For “before the McCarran-Walter Act went into effect, for every West Indian who migrated to Great Britain, nine went to the United States. After the act the ratio was reversed” (Pastor 1985, 250), and the number of West Indian immigrants in Britain rose quickly to 300,000 by 1962. While the punitive force of U.S. immigration legislation had clearly contained the growth of black West Indian migration, the historic conditions shaping the postwar migrations of West Indians to Britain were similar in important aspects to the modern migration of Puerto Ricans to the United States, for both the British and the U.S. states had used the strategy of encouraging colonial labor migrations as a means of coping with labor shortages created by the war, and representatives of both states believed that the decision to admit colonials as citizens was an effective tool for preserving the continuing colonial relationship between Britain and the West Indies on the one hand and between Puerto Rico and the United States on the other (Flores 1993) The strategy was successful in the

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case of the survival of the colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States, but the political outcome of West Indian migration to Britain became implanted in a more radical global field of decolonization as the powerful Indian nationalist movement refused to cooperate with the British imperial plan to establish a commonwealth association of postindependent nations that would remain tied to British global political hegemony (Chatterjee 1986). Since migrating West Indians had entered Britain as “commonwealth citizens”—that is, as colonial subjects who shared common juridical rights of citizenship with the native English the political fracturing of the British imperial system inevitably intensified a popular demand for the termination of the rights of colonials within a new imaginary of British nation-state nationalism. In the ensuing field of rising anticolonial displacements, more than 168,000 West Indians had rushed to emigrate to England between 1959 and 1962 (Goulbourne 2002, Jones 1964) in anticipation of the termination of commonwealth migration. The system of West Indian commonwealth citizenship was officially terminated in 1962, the same year that Jamaica and Trinidad became the first two Anglophone Caribbean countries to gain independent nation-state status. Reflecting the deep cultural crisis surrounding the severed colonial identity of the West Indian in Britain, the Jamaican-born British cultural theorist Stuart Hall situated the “black immigrant” in a new marginal location that had been created by the rise of an iconoclastic ruling class: British racial nationalism. Pushing the narrative of a “Western” black postcolonial marginality one step further, Gilroy (1993) defined the black British immigrant as a reoccupier of the historic black Atlantic space— in effect, a Diasporan who is being forced to recuperate a long, deep, colonial memory of slavery and its racial terror from his slot of exclusion in the British nation-state. While the dismantling of the system of commonwealth citizenship in Britain had been structured within the formal breakdown of the

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Caribbean Migrations: The Caribbean Diaspora | 273 British imperial system, the capacity of the United States to adopt a global migration policy in the conjuncture of 1965 was severely handicapped by the historic immersion of U.S. immigration in a tradition of racial exclusion and bigotry (Pastor 1985). As the Western European world retreated from colonial rule, the intervention of the black Civil Rights Movement became an indispensable ideological route (Pastor 1985) for opening the possibility that immigrants from “the East and the West”—that is, from Asia and the Caribbean Atlantic—could enter the United States in larger numbers as “free” immigrants. The possibility was written into the modern legislation via the removal of restrictive national quotas, although as Waldinger (1996) has acknowledged, such key provisions of the revised U.S. immigration code as the incorporation of very liberal family unification principles had been designed to encourage continuing flows from Europe to the United States, and from Eastern Europe in particular. The rapid transformation in the racialglobal patterns of U.S. immigration became an unexpected turning point in modern American history, for whereas 75 percent of all immigrants who came to the United States between 1900 and 1965 were from Europe, 62 percent of the immigrants who came after 1968 were from Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, and by 1978, the dominant East-West pattern had increased to 82 percent (Pastor 1985). The contribution from the Caribbean was nothing short of miraculous, for by 1986, 2 million, or roughly 40 percent, of the Puerto Rican people were already living on the mainland as citizens, while the rest of the Caribbean would send at least 1,735,733 legal immigrants between 1960 and 1983 (Pastor 1985, 8). When we consider that the total size of the Caribbean population, including Puerto Rico, was approximately 33 million people in 1980 (Mintz and Price 1985), then roughly 12 percent of the Caribbean people had migrated quickly to the United States by 1986, a level of outflow that meant that the

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Shirley Chisholm, a child of the great Caribbean migration, was an important civil rights leader and the first African American woman to run for Congress in the United States. Chisholm represented the 12th New York District from 1969 to 1983 and became the first African American to run for president as Democratic Party nominee in 1972. She retired in 1982 but returned to public service as ambassador to Jamaica during the Clinton Administration. (Library of Congress)

small Caribbean region had surpassed the historic place of Mexico in sending the most immigrants to the United States in the first two decades of modern immigration reform. Nor can the size of the Caribbean exodus be restricted only to the movement to the United States, for, in addition to the Caribbean populations that had migrated to Britain and to Europe after the war, 309,585 Caribbeans (including 39,880 Haitians, who had migrated mostly to Quebec) had migrated to Canada by 1990 (Henry 1994, 28). The injection into the Caribbean immigration literature of the biblical Diasporan term “exodus” in effect implied

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U.S. Immigration Patterns 1989–2003 2,000,000

All countries Asia Mexico Caribbean Central America South America

1,800,000 1,600,000

Population

1,400,000 1,200,000 1,000,000 800,000 600,000 400,000 200,000 -

1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 Year

Figure 1

that, relative to the size of the Caribbean people, Caribbeans had become the most mobile people in the postwar world economy. Remarkably, this global movement had been accomplished in a conjuncture of decolonization in which the world’s peoples were raising nations throughout the world system. When dispersals of populations are small relative to the size of the large nation, postcolonial theorists have positioned the category of Diaspora “outside of the nation” within a dialectic of history in which the previously colonized seize control of the colonial administrative unit for the creation of a new national history (Chatterjee, 1992). Table 1 (p. 280) diagrammatically represents the position of Caribbean migration in challenging the idea of the inheritance of a

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fixed colonial boundary, for between 15 and 40 percent of Caribbean people from each unit have continued to migrate across the border to the United States and into Canada in the contemporary period. Further, the modern migration movement has expanded more deeply across the region as a whole, becoming as characteristic of older nations like Haiti and the Dominican Republic as of modern nations like Barbados and Grenada. If we take the standpoint that modern Caribbean history exists only in the fixed boundary of the small nation that colonialism left behind, then those who have migrated out of that boundary are simply “outside of the nation.” On the other hand, if we acknowledge that migration movements are embedded within the larger context of struggle

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Caribbean Migrations: The Caribbean Diaspora | 275 over the shifting historical parameters of Caribbean modernity, then postwar Diasporic Caribbeans are migrating “backward in time” to Europe, forward in history within narratives of an associated Caribbean region and disjunctively within the structures of dominance established by U.S. capital for the region as a whole. Thus, both the movement “out” and the groups that reside “in” are situated within a battle to redefine the historical parameters of the Caribbean Atlantic space—contemporary Diasporic practices are therefore engaging a series of dynamic tensions between Diaspora/nation and nation/Diaspora that now exist openly at the center of the struggle for a Caribbean modernity. M IGRATION AND THE B LACK C ARIBBEAN D IASPORIC I MAGINARY Palmer’s (1990) celebrated description of Caribbean immigrants as people who migrate “in search of a better life” strikes at the heart of the construction of the motives and outcomes of expanded Caribbean immigration in the contemporary conjuncture. For, like Mexicans, with whom they are increasingly being compared, Caribbeans are conventionally classified as economic immigrants, people who have entered North American circuits primarily as wage labor, and as immigrants who have managed to sustain high labor-force participation rates within the postindustrial U.S. economy (Waldinger 1996; Kasinitz 1992). Except for Cubans, who have entered the United States since 1960 as officially classified political refugees, the vast majority of Caribbeans enter as “economic and not political immigrants,” for whom any increased sense of collective freedom is at best a by-product but not an intentional motivation of modern migration. While the arrival of the Haitian boat people has punctured the binary separation between the political and economic reasons for contemporary Caribbean migration (Stepick and Foner, 1997), the vast economic differences in wage levels and consumption patterns between the

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United States and the Caribbean and Mexico is encouraging a vision of contemporary immigrants as economic predators whose willingness to work for relatively low wages threatens the standard of living of workers in the advanced country. Despite the well-established narration of U.S. immigration as a search for freedom, the “boat Haitian” has remained an economic immigrant whose journey against tyranny threatens to incite similar migrations across the Caribbean Atlantic. The history of the earlier Caribbean movement to the United States casts an important light on this dispute, for as James (1998) has argued, one of the major historical reasons that drove black Caribbeans to the United States was their desire for a larger racial freedom that many believed they could find in black neighborhoods in the United States. While Anglophile and Europhile Caribbean middle classes tended to scorn the violent racial history of the United States, poorer AfroCaribbeans viewed the move to the north as a second front of anticolonial struggle, a space where blacks could secure an education in black institutions and develop a space of cultural expression that was removed from the oppressive cultural influences of European colonial domination of the Caribbean. By the interwar conjuncture, black immigrants were active in Democratic and Republican state politics; they had joined African Americans and European immigrants in the socialist and communist movements in large numbers and Caribbean artists were participants in such great black cultural movements as the Harlem Renaissance (James 1998). As the economic motives of black migrants became embedded in a larger Diasporic consciousness seeking after a greater black freedom, the Pan-Africanist movement that was organized by the Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey in Harlem in the 1930s mobilized a popular Diasporic movement of Pan-African consciousness that spread across black communities in the United States, produced cells

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in some parts of Africa, and reached as far south in the Caribbean as Guyana and Venezuela. Despite its well-discussed limitations, the dynamic distinguishing the particular expansion of Garveyism was its capacity to politically and culturally mobilize two black migrations, the migrations of blacks from the American South and the Afro-Caribbean movement, in a single camp of black Diasporic action in the black Atlantic world. If earlier black migrations had strengthened the articulation of a Diasporic consciousness linked to the mythical construction of an African homeland, the major challenge in the deployment of the idea of Diaspora in the current conjuncture is that “diasporas usually presuppose longer distances and a separation more like exile; a constitutive taboo on return, or its postponement to a remote future” (Clifford 1994, 304). Modern Diasporic movements, on the other hand, can interact in real time with home communities, and the Diaspora/nation dynamic is now mobilized around frequent visits, the flows of remittances, and the reimagining of a modernizing homeland (Appadurai 1990). As contemporary Diasporans have pushed their way into Western states under a range of modern postindustrial pressures, such theorists have continued to define diasporas as “expatriate minority communities” that are dispersed from an original “center” to at least two “peripheral” places. People who live in diasporan communities maintain a “memory, vision or myth about their original homeland”; diasporans “believe they are not—and perhaps cannot be—fully accepted by their host country”; diasporans see the ancestral home as a place of return when the time is right; diasporans are committed to the maintenance and restoration of this homeland; and, finally, the group’s consciousness and solidarity are “importantly defined” by the continuing relation with an idea of a homeland (Clifford 1994, 304–305). On the basis of these classical criteria of diaspora, modern immigrant Caribbean com-

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munities appear as less than credible Diasporans because many of the post-1966 immigrants are now making preparations to be buried in the place of their settlement; and, migrating at the conjunction of decolonization, modern Caribbeans have injected such sentiments as a great pride in acquiring a U.S. or Canadian passport into the mythology of the “homeland.” Indeed, vacationing Caribbean expatriates can sometimes behave like a special species of tourists as they display the paraphernalia of Western consumption in the poorer Caribbean world—in which many were once poor. Despite the disjunctures that surround the diasporan form in the current conjuncture, modern diasporas are no longer defined by the ideal type of past diaspora, so much as the classical characteristics of exile, separation, and forced rupture have been inscripted in the technologies and political economy of the global system. In an interesting conjunction between the use of the classical and current globalizing concepts of diaspora, Clifford has argued that Caribbean movements to the north have become borderlands of crossing and communication (Clifford 1994). WOMEN , M IGRATION , C ARIBBEAN D IASPORA Within this borderland of capitalist modernity, we discovered “Caribbean Lucy,” named from the portrait of a “lucky” West Indian live-in nanny portrayed by Kincaid (2002) in her biographical novel of the same name. The modern, hypothetical Lucy is a twenty-four-year-old Caribbean woman who has overstayed her visitor’s visa in the United States since 1999 and has been able to find work looking after the two children of a successful female publishing executive who lives in Manhattan. Lucy is a weekday, live-in nanny who is allowed the daily use of a computer that enables her to keep in touch with her family and friends in Guyana and with friends and family in Caribbean communities in England and Canada. Lucy also has relatives in Flatbush, in Brooklyn, the transformation of

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Caribbean Migrations: The Caribbean Diaspora | 277 which from an ethnic-Jewish into a black-ethnic Caribbean neighborhood (Kasinitz 1992) was contemporal with the rapid swelling of the Anglophone and Haitian Caribbean immigrant communities in New York after 1966 (Pastor 1985). Lucy, whose real name is Chandra, is a Guyanese woman of Indian (Hindu) and African parentage who manages to avoid the loneliness of living as an illegal Diasporan by keeping in touch with familiar communities. Since she is paid under the table, and, according to her, well at $10.00 per hour, Lucy (Chandra) can survive without any formal linkages to the U.S. state and with few traceable links to the dominant U.S. society. Lucy is one of the key modern-day Caribbean Diasporan figures, a young woman who has crossed the Caribbean Atlantic border as a noncitizen and who has succeeded in living “outside of the nation” and in elusion of the state. After four decades of the continuous swelling of the Caribbean immigrant community since the liberalization of U.S. immigration law in 1966, the conditions shaping Lucy’s luck have become as embedded in the transnational Caribbean system of dispersal as is her current status, for Lucy’s younger sister, who is a nurse, recently became a Canadian citizen and will sponsor Lucy as a legal immigrant to Canada. Meanwhile, Lucy and her sister contribute between them $550 U.S. dollars per month for the upkeep of their family home on the east coast of Guyana, and the money, as she explains, is used primarily to pay for the education of her three younger brothers and to assist in the mortgage payments of their family’s improved three-bedroom house. Lucy describes the house as having running water, a new stove, and a nice, clean bathroom that her mother is proud of. Lucy’s father is a taxi-driver who owns a second-hand minivan, and her mother, who does not work outside of the home, farms a plot of land adjacent to their house and sells the vegetables that the family does not consume. Her family’s strategy of international migration includes remittance sending, and resource pooling.

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Lucy’s position as one of the key actors in the modern-day Caribbean Diaspora defines a number of key changes in the contemporary Caribbean migration movement, for whereas men had dominated pre-1960 flows to the north, women from the Anglophone Caribbean zone moved to the forefront in the rapid development of the modern Caribbean immigration movement to the United States and Canada after 1966. Thus, in 1980, the male-to-female ratio of immigrants was 85.8 for the entire Anglophone Caribbean region, with Jamaica possessing a gender migration imbalance of 79.7, Trinidad and Tobago 82.3, and Guyana 86.6 (Gordon 1990, 120–121). These imbalanced sex ratios, which have no real parallel in the Hispanophone Caribbean at this period, can be explained by the demand for Caribbean domestic workers in the United States, for as African American women began to access better-paying public sector jobs U.S. households turned to the Caribbean for domestic labor, and 60 percent of the visas issued to the Anglophone Caribbean in 1960 were for domestic workers. In 1966–1967, domestic work was the second class of employment of Caribbean immigrants in New York after crafts and operatives (Gordon 1990, 128), but within two decades of their move, Caribbean women had branched out into other sectors as clerical workers, health aides, nurses, and food service workers (Gordon 1990; Waldinger 1996), and an average of 15 percent of women immigrants remained as domestic labor. While migrating as domestic labor workers put women at the risk of super-exploitation by unkind employers, it allowed Caribbean women to become “principal aliens” who could initiate the migration of their children, husbands, and other family members. Thus, in the Anglophone Caribbean world in particular, modern migration became identified with women’s labor and women’s risk—that is, with the decision of women to internationalize their labor, to migrate alone in the first instance, to enter legal marriages initiated within U.S. immigration

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requirements, and, as Monica Gordon emphasized, to more clearly expect that their household and legal status would become more equal to that of men after migration. While the demand for domestic labor in the United States had shaped Lucy’s capacity to enter the modern transnational migration circuit, it is her situation as a working-class woman in Guyana that explains the manner in which she and her family have perceived and used the strategy of transnational mobility as a weapon of class survival in the modern Diasporic conjuncture. In alignment with gender, class conditions the nature of the use of migration within the Caribbean circuit, for by 1980 the economy of Guyana had begun to register persistent negative growth. As the country became ranked with Haiti as the second-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with a per capita income of $570 USD as compared to Haiti’s of $250 USD, Guyana had become the fifth-heaviest Caribbean migrating country into the United States by 2004. While North American sociologists have tended to assume that strategies of flexible transnationalism belong primarily to privileged, peripatetic males (Ong 1999), in effect the experience of Lucy’s transnational movement is consistent with the increasing global mobility of women from the poorer to the richer regions of the world economy (Sassen 1988) and with specific ideas of the articulation of woman’s progress in the Caribbean. After finishing high school in Guyana, Lucy had secured a job as a clerical worker in a government office, but her salary, which was below $300 USD per month, was, as she explained, barely enough to cover her food and transportation expenses, and she could not afford to attend the University of Guyana. Her Diasporic practice is based on her capacity to use her income of $25,000 USD per year to assist in maintaining a household in Guyana of which she believes she is a member, at the same time that she is able to develop a plan for a future migration to Canada. The system of

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transnational mobility in this instance is premised on family stability operating around three countries. Since women are increasing their presence in the Caribbean Atlantic Diaspora legally and illegally, as white- and blue-collar workers and as temporary and permanent immigrants, it has become evident that the processes driving the transnational movements of women center a major place of migration within the contemporary crisis of Caribbean modernity. Data from a remarkable research project on women’s lives undertaken at the University of the West Indies as the Women in the Caribbean Project (WICP, 1991) demonstrated that women had succeeded in making remarkable social strides in the Anglophone Caribbean at the moment of the departure of British colonialism from the region. Thus, the proportion of women receiving secondary education in Barbados in the 1960s had increased from 15 to 71 percent. The female labor-force participation rate, a crude measure of the number of women available for work outside the home, had jumped from 18 to 44 percent across the Anglophone Caribbean world by 1970; and a decade later, the proportion of women within the Barbadian labor force had reached 42.6 percent, a rate higher than comparable levels in the rest of Latin America and other dependent capitalist regions at that time. While more women were receiving high school and university education and were working outside of the home in the postindependent Anglophone Caribbean zone, the structure of employment continued to favor the movement of men into the more prestigious technical, administrative, and political jobs, while women remained stuck in lower-paying service jobs or in such professional jobs as teaching and nursing, for which they would be paid more if they chose to migrate to the United States or Canada. Paradoxically, in a social context in which women had been unable to acquire greater public cultural and political power at the moment of decolonization the very gains that women had made over the modernization

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Caribbean Migrations: The Caribbean Diaspora | 279 of the colonial economy seemed to be stimulating their migration. Thus, in a study conducted by the University of the West Indies project on Women and Politics in Barbados over the anticolonial period (Duncan and O’Brien 1983), it was found that, although female membership in political party organizations had averaged 26 percent of total membership in the long 30-year period of anticolonial mobilization from 1951–1981, the number of female candidates running for office was as low as 1 to 5 percent of the total. If women lacked political and cultural power and could not be optimistic about achieving more of it, there was no reason for them not to migrate, although Lucy’s life suggests that migration will tend to reinforce the myth of the homeland as that place that continues to center the personality of the peripatetic Caribbean woman. T HE C ONTEMPORARY C ARIBBEAN ATLANTIC M OVEMENT AND THE M ODERN D IASPORA In the spirit of Lucy’s remarkable, self-propelling journey into the U.S. transnational circuit, postwar immigration discourses embraced both the legal and illegal adaptations of individual immigrants in advanced capitalist societies as strategies of living beyond the nation-state (Appadurai 1996). Behind the purely theoretical embrace of diasporas as the free “exemplary communities of the current transnational moment” (Tölölian 1991), there lay the lifting of the Diasporic movement into the domain of conflict with the nation-state as diasporas became larger and the nation-state became interested in containing their transnational, political interests. Theorists of Caribbean Atlantic migrations seemed more prepared to represent modern transnational migrations in a domain of tense interstate conflict, for the historically large modern Cuban exodus had been constructed around the designation of Cubans as anticommunist refugees whose right to refugee status in the United States was, in the final analysis, guaranteed by

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the military dominance of the United States in the Caribbean region. The Cuban movement conditioned a continuing stream of anticommunist refugee movement, for, beginning with the exit of the Cuban bourgeoisie during the land reform movement in 1960 and continuing through a series of crises in 1965, 1973, and 1980, the Cuban migration expanded as the largest refugee movement in world economy. The movement had reached 695,120 by 1983 (Pastor 1985, 8); the size of the Cuban flow reached 287,319 between 1989 and 2004. Still, concerns over maritime security after September 11 have led to a temporary reduction in the scale of the Cuban movement. The Miami experience suggests that it has become increasingly evident that the nature of the political integration of the Cuban exile community into the American political process has remained an exceptional event of the Cold War rather than a model predicting the affinities of ordinary Diasporans in the Caribbean Atlantic space. The Cubans were an exile community expelled by a socialist state, and a community that had failed in its bid to overthrow the Cuban project by military means. On the other side, Caribbean Diasporans are advocating movements for dual citizenship, the idea that those who have left should continue to have political rights in their home communities. By 2000, the Dominican Diasporan community had successfully fought for and won the rights to vote and to run for political office in the Dominican Republic. The Haitian community’s support for Aristide’s first return to Haiti became a legendary instance of binational popular mobilization, and Anglophone Caribbean Diasporans have historically embraced a model of transnational politics linking the mobilization of groups in the United States to political parties in the region. Thus, the demand for dual citizenship often links the rights to vote or to run for office in the home country with a constitutional guarantee of membership in a national space that has not been removed by migration.

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1989

1990

1991

1992

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1994 720,459 104,137 26 374 27 585 734 111 98 26 17,937 591 38,512 583 48 7,362 14,021 16,398 D 83 58 D 360 403 349 5,424 27 D

1995 915,900 126,287 36 406 28 768 1,043 103 87 24 26,466 797 39,604 787 52 9,489 18,386 19,089 23 99 76 D 357 582 606 7,344 35 D

1996 798,378 112,536 D 393 26 641 829 75 93 35 33,587 746 27,053 755 52 7,257 15,057 17,840 20 99 43 D 377 531 581 6,409 37 –

1997 654,451 79,460 26 297 23 602 726 63 55 28 17,375 283 20,387 655 30 3,963 13,449 15,146 D 65 61 D 405 509 414 4,852 46 D

1998 646,568 74,983 20 456 14 401 720 63 76 18 14,132 41 17,864 667 54 3,300 16,532 14,733 23 80 35 3 463 529 444 4,283 27 5

1999

2001 849,807 1,064,318 93,944 111,849 27 55 431 463 25 29 768 931 783 910 72 99 67 70 31 24 20,831 27,703 96 93 17,536 21,313 655 645 51 84 5,746 8,303 22,364 27,120 16,000 15,393 20 22 71 61 53 116 3 4 504 466 601 678 500 563 6,660 6,665 46 33 3 6

2000

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D Disclosure standards not met.

904,292 107,804 23 554 36 686 1,184 156 166 D 13,666 683 45,420 827 49 8,384 10,094 17,241 17 102 65 D 544 634 657 6,577 39 D

1993

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– Represents zero.

All countries 1,090,924 1,536,483 1,827,167 973,975 Caribbean 99,718 126,677 151,805 106,474 Anguilla 43 41 56 46 Antigua–Barbuda 979 1,319 944 619 Aruba 73 83 56 62 Bahamas, The 861 1,378 1,062 641 Barbados 1,616 1,745 1,460 1,091 Bermuda 182 203 146 153 British Virgin Islands 258 105 137 174 Cayman Islands 48 53 23 40 Cuba 10,046 10,645 10,349 11,791 Dominica 748 963 982 809 Dominican Republic 26,723 42,195 41,405 41,969 Grenada 1,046 1,294 979 848 Guadeloupe 38 54 34 50 Guyana 10,789 11,362 11,666 9,064 Haiti 13,658 20,324 47,527 11,002 Jamaica 24,523 25,013 23,828 18,915 Martinique 30 D 25 25 Montserrat 124 172 143 104 Netherlands Antilles 65 80 40 37 Puerto Rico D D 5 D St. Kitts–Nevis 795 896 830 626 St. Lucia 709 833 766 654 St. Vincent/Grenadines 892 973 808 687 Trinidad and Tobago 5,394 6,740 8,407 7,008 Turks and Caicos Islands 78 206 121 59 U.S. Virgin Islands D D 6 D

Region and country of birth

Immigrants Admitted by Region and Country of Birth, Fiscal Years 1989–2001

Table 1

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Caribbean Migrations: The Caribbean Diaspora | 281 While the modern politics of the Caribbean Diaspora has proceeded through enmities and loyalties constructed between the Diasporan communities and the Caribbean nation-states, the scope of social control of the U.S. state over immigrant communities has also been advanced precipitously over a series of major legislative changes in immigration law in 1986, 1991, 1992, and in 1996 at the moment of the writing of social welfare legislation in the United States. Thus, even before the passage of the Patriot Act, the U.S. state had begun to home in on immigrant communities with the objective of containing the size of both legal and illegal immigration movements, as well as requiring the formal acquisition of U.S. nationality as a prerequisite for access to social benefits. According to The Center for Contemporary Migration (1995, 1996, 1997), both measures acting together have had the effect of shifting the discursive political terrain of dual citizenship, for since any substantial benefit in the status of a legal permanent resident has been removed, immigrant organizations have had no alternative but to step up their campaigns urging Diasporans to pursue naturalization, and as a step further in this process of integration into the dominant culture, to solicit their participation in U.S. elections (Kasinitz 1992). The effective demand for an obligatory naturalization has changed the behavior of communities in the Caribbean Atlantic, for as many as 46,154 Caribbeans became naturalized citizens in the United States in 2003 alone, and the total from 1991–2003 (excluding Guyana) is 914,116 (U.S. Census 2004). Conservative readings acknowledge that the objective behind the initiation of the post-1986 immigration reforms has been both punitive and reconstitutive, for their ideal purpose is the more rapid transformation of the Diasporan into a recognizable species of the self-disciplining national subject, an immigrant who would learn in his own lifetime the rules of a practiced nationality. The United States can

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implicitly at least sanction the practice of dual citizenship because immigrants can be returned to a homeland for a growing list of infringements of U.S. immigration law. Between 1993 and 1999, 34,411 Caribbeans were returned to the region for offenses ranging from visa violations to drug trafficking, with the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Haiti receiving the largest amount of deportees (Noguera, 1999). In relation to these major changes in the restructuring of modern diasporas, Tables 1, 2, and 3 represent some of the key statistical and social changes that have developed in the more recent patterns of dispersal in the Caribbean Atlantic from 1986 to 2004. In Figure 1 (p. 274), the heterogeneous category of Asia surpassed Mexico as the fastest-growing statistical category of immigrant movement to the United States by 1992, but the combined flows from Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America have remained the largest movements in the United States. The significance of the relative size of regional movements exists in the larger political and economic context shaping their reproduction, for, beginning with the creation of Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) in 1983, followed by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1995 and CAFTA (Caribbean Free Trade Alliance) in 2005, each of the Caribbean/Latin American migrations has existed within negotiated regional trade agreements in which the cross-border dominance of U.S. capital has centered the linkages of economic modernity in the region. In contrast to migration flows from Asia, many of which have been increasingly interacting with the rising power of Asian nations in the world economy (Arrighi and Silver 1999), Caribbean Atlantic migrations bear the mark of exoduses, sustaining themselves within the prevailing neocolonial dimensions of power in the Western Hemisphere. Approximately 1,735,733 legal immigrants emigrated from the Caribbean to the north from 1960 to 1983, but 1,590,076 legal immigrants migrated from 1989

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282 | Caribbean Migrations: The Caribbean Diaspora Table 2 Household Levels of Select Caribbean Countries (in Percentages) Country

Under $25,000

$25,000 to 49,999

$50,000 to 74,999

$75,000 and over

Median Household Income

Antigua & Barbuda

30

33.2

18.7

18

$38,614

Barbados

30.5

28.7

20.4

20.4

$40,452

Cuba

37.9

27.1

15.9

19.1

$34,670

Dominican Republic

44.8

31.1

13.7

10.6

$28,192

Grenada

30.2

29.1

21.3

19.4

$41,172

Guyana

25.3

29.3

21

24.4

$45,470

Haiti

34.4

33.3

17

15.2

$35,162

Jamaica

29.7

30.9

19.8

19.6

$40,327

St. Kitts-Nevis

29.6

32.1

20.3

17.9

$38,182

to 2004, a number that includes the grant of a specialized amnesty to Haitians. While these data indicate that some of the measures introduced by the U.S. state, such as the reduction in the list of family members eligible for family unification, have begun to contain the swelling of the legal Caribbean exodus, the specter of continuing or rising illegal flows raises the fundamental question whether cross-border migration can be managed within a field of neocolonial economic relations in such a manner that would curb the spontaneous assertion of the movements of the people. Put another way, the growth in the size of the modern Diaspora after 1989 does not seem explainable only in terms of cross-border intransigence of Haitian boat people or Caribbean Lucys, so much as these, as well as the migration of Jamaican nurses, Trinidadian carpenters, and Cuban musicians, must be accounted for by the stable form of a regional political economy that centers the United States as a place of escape from all forms of dependent existences. Across the re-

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gion as a whole, entry into the Diaspora shifts continuously from legal to illegal to temporary to permanent immigration. As Table 1 indicates, the distribution of immigration levels across countries has begun to adopt patterns articulating the crises of growth and political stability of the Caribbean countries. In the 1970s, immigration to the United States from small countries like Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago was increasing at rates of 973.2 percent and 977.3 percent, respectively (Pastor 1985), but levels of Barbadian immigration have consistently declined since 1989, while immigration levels have stabilized for Trinidad and Tobago. On the other hand, the Dominican Republic with 30,492 legal immigrants, Cuba with 20,486, Jamaica with 14,414, Haiti with 13,998, and Guyana with 6,329 legal immigrants became the five Caribbean countries sending the most legal immigrants to the United States in 2004. In each case, political as well as economic forces have converged to intensify the push to leave. The exodus from Cuba had been influ-

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Caribbean Migrations: The Caribbean Diaspora | 283 enced by opposition to the state’s rationing of food as well as by the special historic reception accorded Cuban immigrants in the United States, but the increases in the post-1986 Jamaica movement have been triggered by the demand in the United States for certain categories of immigrant white-collar Caribbean labor, such as nurses, 20,000 of whom had left the region for the United States by 2000 and by heightened levels of political sectarian violence in the Jamaican political system. After years of enclosure, Dominicans were flooding to the north, as the economy was more systematically opened to U.S. influences, while the decisions of the popular classes in Guyana and Haiti to enter U.S. transnational circuits were arising from a range of indicators like negative growth levels, low per capita income, and high levels of state repression and corruption, which ranked these two countries as the two most politically stagnant in the region. In the Guyanese case, the post-1986 migration had radically transformed the racial articulation of the modern flow to the north, for only 9 percent of migration from the Indian/African population of Trinidad to the United States was classified as Asian, while 22 percent of the migration flow from the Indian/African population of Guyana was classified as Asian in 2000. The Haitian boat people had transformed the class nature of modern Haitian immigration to the United States, but if modern immigration was clearly arising from every class level in the Caribbean region after 1980, the relevant question becomes, Are patterns of settlement emerging in the Caribbean Diaspora? Tables 2 and 3 describe two key components of Diasporan settlement: the social class patterns that have developed after immigration and the ideological-racial categories that Diasporans have adapted in their shift from being blacks, whites, and Asians in the Caribbean to the reinscription of these racial identities within the racial hierarchies of the United States. Ten Caribbean Atlantic countries were chosen: the two major Hispanophone sending

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countries, the Dominican Republic and Cuba; the two key Indo-African countries in the Anglophone Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana; five smaller Anglophone Caribbean countries; and Haiti, whose presence has become central in the modern migration movement from the Caribbean. Household income was used because of its sensitivity to collective patterns of immigrant settlement, and four income ranges were defined, from under $25,000 to over $75,000. The results tell an interesting tale of the range and clustering of social class locations in the Caribbean Atlantic Diaspora because, whereas at the lowest end of this scale 25.3 percent of Guyanese households earn less than $25,000, as many as 44.8 percent of Dominican households live on under $25,000; and among these 10 countries, 32 percent live under the official poverty line of $25,000. The range at the upper end is also interesting because only 10.6 percent of Dominican households earn more than $75,000, whereas 24.4 percent of Guyanese do, and the average for these 10 countries is 18 percent. There are significant variations in levels of household income among countries at either extreme of the income range, but, interestingly, these become reduced within the $25,000– 75,000 income range, which is where 50 percent of the Caribbean diaspora live. Thus, 27.1 percent of Cuban and 33.3 percent of Haitian households live within the $25,000–50,000 range, but 17 percent of Haitian households, 15.9 percent of Cuban households, and 20.4 percent of Barbadian households live within the $50,000–75,000 range. One can assume that the differences in the conditions of entry have not significantly impacted economic earnings, since Cuban households do not have the decisive income advantage over Haitians. Indeed, if we sustain comparisons within the middle range, then 50.3 percent of Haitian households, 50.7 percent of Jamaican households, 50.3 percent of Guyanese, and 50.7 percent of the Trinidadian, live in that critical middle Diasporan range.

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284 | Caribbean Migrations: The Caribbean Diaspora Table 3 Self-Identified Racial Categories (in Percentages) Selected Caribbean Countries

Black

White

Asian

Some Other Race

2 or more Races

Antigua & Barbuda

92.2

1.7

0.1

0.2

5.6

Bahamas

82.7

8.0

0.7

0.7

7.4

Barbados

91.8

2.5

0.4

0.5

4.6

Cuba

2.9

87.1

0.2

6.7

3.1

Dominican Republic

8.5

22.8

0.3

58.4

9.0

Grenada

92.7

1.3

0.8

0.8

4.2

Guyana

42.9

2.0

22.1

14.7

16.4

Haiti

84.5

0.9

0.3

0.4

13.8

Jamaica

88.1

1.7

1.3

0.6

8.2

St. Kitts - Nevis

93.7

1.3

----

0.5

4.3

Trinidad & Tobago

68.6

3.5

9.0

2.3

15.7

Source: U.S. Census 2000

Although social scientists conventionally compare black American and black Caribbean household incomes at the lower, under$25,000 level (Kasinitz 1992) and ignore the real differences that exist between a native and foreign-born black middle class, the evidence indicates that modern Diasporan spaces articulate class, cultural, and racial categories in a distinctive manner. Comparisons become less arbitrary if we assume that there are similarities in the locations of immigrant labor (Waldinger 1996) and that concentrated settlement generates categories of identity that tell us something about how the Diasporan cultural process is interacting with the dominant

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culture. Thus, in Table 3 only 2.9 percent of Cubans were willing to classify themselves as black, an indication that the vast majority, or 87.1 percent who declared themselves to be white, were using racial categories as a signal of their political and cultural interests in separating themselves from the political and cultural concerns of black people in the United States. In contrast, the vast majority of Barbadians, Antiguans, and Grenadians, people from St. Kitts and Nevis, Haitians, and Jamaicans declared themselves to be black. Any suggestion that census classifications are simply demarcating black and white skins breaks down in the numbers that fill out “some other race” or

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Caribbean Migrations: The Caribbean Diaspora | 285 “2 or more races,” for as many as 58.4 percent of Dominicans state that they are a member of some other race, while a surprising 31 percent of Guyanese choose a racial category other than black, white, or Asian. While the large number of Dominicans who fill out “some other” appears to be consistent with the proliferation of an enlarging brown Latin ethnic identity in the United States, the Guyanese classifications of neither Hindu nor black nor white appear to be governed by a field of racial and cultural resistance that remains for the moment at least untranslatable and uninterpreted. We should note that it remains untranslatable in Guyana in a context of Hindu/African conflicts and untranslatable in the United States, where continental Indians possess histories of diasporas that are distinct from the Diaspora of the Caribbean Atlantic. While the Caribbean Diaspora has spread across old and new colonial spaces, our focus on the United States allows us to extrapolate three critical articulations of the African Diaspora in the current global conjuncture. In the first place, the acknowledgement of a long history of fought-over movement in the Caribbean Atlantic breaks Caribbean historiography from its exclusive focus on the subordination of the small nation to the large imperial center. In the place of this imperially induced tribal historical project, a long history of fought-for mobileness constructed ideas of strategic movement and flexible migration long before their current invogue position in transnational theories. Secondly, the United States has a privileged position in the construction of the African Diasporan linkages because, as has been argued, black people communicated across imperial boundaries, and Afro-Caribbeans have historically constructed black America as a part of their neighborhood of anticolonial resistance. Although we have not analyzed the complex differentiation of cross-black political and cultural mediations after 1966, writers who (Oxall 1974) have done so described the confrontation between modern politics of the Black Power Movement ad-

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vanced by mobile Caribbeans and the alignments of Caribbean states with U.S. hegemony in the regional system. This article has also been interested in Lucy—that is, in the migration of women in the Caribbean Diaspora and the reimagining of categories of dual citizenship that are making their appearance in the region. Migrating with a mobile nationalism and living in elusion of the state, our modern-day Lucy does more than challenge the category of illegal migration. As a whole, the Caribbean woman is a figure of change in the Diaspora because the conditions of her leaving, entering, and returning challenge the prevailing configurations of state power and gender identity on both sides of the Caribbean Atlantic. We have shown that, in the current conjuncture, categories of dual citizenship have remained legal categories that are being manipulated by states on both sides of the Caribbean Atlantic. Their popular appeal to the peripatetic Caribbean has let an important genie out of the bottle of Caribbean history: the possibility that high rates of transnational mobility can be recuperated for a Caribbean modernity. Monica Jardine See also Caribbean Black Power; Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM); Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940); James, Cyril Lionel Robert (1901–1989); PanAfricanism. F URTHER R EADING Adamson, Alan H. 1972. Sugar without Slaves: The Political Economy of British Guiana, 1838– 1904. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Arrighi, Giovanni, and Beverly J. Silver. 1999. Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Boyce Davies, Carole, and Monica Jardine. 2003. “Imperial Geographies and Caribbean Nationalism: At the Border between ‘A Dying Colonialism’ and U.S. Hegemony.” New Centennial Review 3 (3): 151–174.

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286 | Caribbean Migrations: The Caribbean Diaspora Cornelius, Wayne A., Thomas J. Espenshade, et al., eds. 2001. The International Migration of the Highly Skilled: Demand, Supply, and Development Consequences in Sending and Receiving Countries. San Diego: University of California, San Diego: Center for Comparative Immigration Studies. Chatterjee, Partha. 1982/1986. Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World. A Derivative Discourse. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Clifford, James. 1994. “Diasporas.” Cultural Anthropology 9(3): 302–338. Flores, Juan. 1993. Divided Borders: Essays on Puerto Rican Identity. Houston, Texas: Arte Publico Press. Foner, Nancy. 1987. New Immigrants in New York. New York: Columbia University Press. Gilroy, Paul 1993. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Gordon, Monica. 1990. “Dependents or Independent Workers? The Status of Caribbean Immigrant Women in the United States.” In In Search of a Better Life: Perspectives on Migration from the Caribbean, ed. Ransford Palmer, 115–137. New York: Praeger. Goulbourne, Harry. 2002. Caribbean Transnational Experience. London: Pluto Press. Henry, Frances. 1994. The Caribbean Diaspora in Toronto: Learning to Live with Racism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. James, Winston. 1998. Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America. London and New York: Verso. Jones, Claudia. 1964. “The Caribbean Community in Britain.” Freedomways (Summer): 340–357. Kasinitz, Philip. 1992. Caribbean New York: Black Immigrants and the Politics of Race. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. Kincaid, Jamaica. 2002. Lucy: A Novel. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Mintz, Sidney W., and Sally Price. 1985. Caribbean Contours. Baltimore, MD.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985. Mortimer, Delores M., and Roy S. Bryce Laporte, eds. 1981. Female Immigrants to the United States: Caribbean, Latin American and African Experiences. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Research Institute on Immigration and Ethnic Studies. Noguera, Pedro. 1999. “Exploring the Undesirable: An Analysis of the Factors Influencing

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the Deportation of Immigrants from the United States and an Examination of Their Impact on Caribbean and Central American Societies. Wadabagei. A Journal of the Caribbean and Its Diaspora. 2:1 (WinterSpring): 1–28. Ong, Aihwa. 1999. Flexible Citizenship: the Cultural Logics of Transnationality. Raleigh/Durham: Duke University Press. Oxall, Ivaar. 1971. Race and Revolutionary Consciousness: An Existential Report on the 1970 Black Power Revolt in Trinidad. Boston: Rochester, VT: Schenkman Books. Palmer, Ransford W. 1990. In Search of a Better Life: Perspectives on Migration from the Caribbean. New York and Westport, CT. Praeger. Pastor, Robert A. 1985. Migration and Development in the Caribbean: the Unexplored Connection. Boulder and London.: Westview Press. Pessar, Patricia R. 1997. Caribbean Circuits: New Directions in the Study of Caribbean Migration. New York, N.Y.: Center for Migration Studies. Reddock, Rhoda E. 1994. Women, Labor & Politics in Trinidad Tobago: A History. London and New Highlands, N.J.: Zed Books. Rodney, Walter. 1981. A History of the Guyanese Working People, 1881–1905. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Sassen, Saskia. 1988. The Mobility of Capital and Labor. New York: Cambridge University Press. Sassen, Saskia. 1992. The Global City. New York, London, Tokyo: Princeton University Press. Senior, Olive. 1991. Working Miracles: Women’s Lives in the English-speaking Caribbean. Institute of Social and Economic Research. Smith, Raymond T. 1962. British Guiana. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stepick, Alex, and Nancy Foner. 1997. Pride Against Prejudice: Haitians in the United States. Old Tappan, N.J.: Allyn and Bacon. Sutton, Constance R., and Elsa M. Chaney. 1987/1992. Caribbean Life in New York City: Sociocultural Dimensions. New York: Center for Migration Studies of New York, Inc. Tölölian, Khachig. 1991. “The Nation State and Its Others. In Lieu of a Preface.” Diaspora 1(1): 3–7. U.S Immigration and Naturalization Service. 2000–2006. Annual Reports. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Waldinger, Roger. 1996. Still the Promised City? African Americans and New Immigrants in

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Carnival | 287 Postindustrial New York. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Watkins-Owens, Irma. 1996 Blood Relations. Caribbean Immigrants and the Harlem Community, 1900–1930. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Young, Allan. 1958. The Approaches to Local Self Government in British Guiana. London, Longmans.

z Carmichael, Stokely See Ture, Kwame (1941–1998).

z Carnival The word “carnival” originated from Latin. One explanation is: carne vale, that is, “meat (or flesh) is allowed.” This is a source of confusion; because in romance (Latin-derived) languages, carne means both “meat” and “flesh,” one might deduce that meat is allowed (an allusion to a fasting period, when one can eat only fish), or that flesh is allowed (an allusion to chastity, due to an imminent period of penitence). Another theory is that the word is derived from carne levare, “to suppress or abolish meat,” or “farewell to flesh.” Apparently, both hypotheses are credible. In essence, the Catholic Church, desirous of adopting a policy of austerity and piety, decreed that carnival, a celebration of the flesh, a break from religious seriousness, a time for things of the body and flesh, should be held before Lent. Traditional carnival falls between the beginning of February and the end of March. In the major metropolitan cities like London, Toronto, New York, Miami and across the Caribbean the dates vary based on circumstances like weather, and as in Barbados linked to harvesting as in the Cropover Festival, or Grenada in August.

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Exported to the “New World” during slavery, the festival included gastronomic gatherings that moved from street to street, the revelers pelting passers-by with water, flour, and eggs. It has greatly evolved over the centuries, and its ultimate uniqueness is due to the presence and participation of Africans, with their rich culture of music and dance. It should be noted that, at the beginning, Africans were excluded from carnival, the preserve of privileged Europeans. The process of deracialization was gradual and, by the time it was completed, carnival had become the cynosure of all eyes with its spectacular, colorful images, its expression of the sheer joy of living, and its incandescent display of camaraderie that continue to attract tourists from all over the world. Carnival is celebrated in innumerable countries either during the traditional Catholic period (February–March) or in summer. Notting Hill (London) has been proclaimed by the organizers as the largest street festival in Europe and second-largest in the world (after Rio de Janeiro). The young revelers of London see carnival as theirs; however, the crowd is a motley one, and its antecedents are the festivals of Trinidad and Brazil, whose representatives are seen in the parade. Caribana (Toronto) is touted as the most colorful, and its flavor is largely Caribbean, due to the presence of Caribbean people in the city. Mardi Gras (New Orleans) has carved a niche for itself with its particular sense of revelry, humor, and bacchanalian excess. There, a distinct French and Francophone cultural influence is noticeable, symptomatic of New Orleans’ creole heritage. Trinidadians claim that carnival is Trinidad and Trinidad is carnival, and boast of the unique calypso music, steel bands, and masquerades. As with other sites, the element of pride and pomposity is remarkable in its assumption that it is Trinidad’s carnival that is most imitated throughout the world. Haiti’s carnival is considered the epitome of hedonistic exuberance. With regard to African Diaspora communities, carnival in Brazil should should be more closely examined. One can

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288 | Carnival

Brazilian woman in lavish carnival attire. The annual Brazilian celebration of carnival, marked by four days of parades, dancing, and parties, represents a blend of European and African cultures and is renowned worldwide for the liveliness and creativity of its participants. (Corel)

easily observe in carnivalesque habits continuities and adaptations of African festivals, such as the Yoruba egungun, gelede, and igunnu. This is evident in the general concept of masquerade and the kaleidoscopic nature of the short season of mirth. At its inception, Brazilian carnival was a calm, controlled event marked by the staid outlook of Christian piety even as it was meant to represent a moment of freedom of the flesh. Today, it has grown to immense proportions, and several centers in Brazil pride themselves on the particular quality of their product. This word is used deliberately and will be explained soon enough. Rio de Janeiro, Salvador-Bahia, Recife, and Olinda are all recognized as the most famous carnival spots in Brazil. No doubt Rio is the carnival capital, due to its size; it is the largest in the world. Rio de Janeiro, a cosmopolitan city with the reputation of permissiveness and popular cul-

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ture, has come to be a metaphor for parties, parades, street festivities, a mixture of elegance and exuberance, all subsumed in the image of its famous beach, Copacabana. It is therefore to be expected that the Rio (Carioca, the name of its inhabitants) carnival would prove exceptional in terms of its exuberance and excesses. The Rio carnival started in the 1930s, and its showpiece and symbol, the escolas de samba (samba schools), date back to some 75 years ago, when the first school, Estação Primeira de Mangueira, was founded. The Salvador carnival is not as ostentatious as Rio’s; however, it has a more pronounced African flavor and has evolved from its modest beginnings emphasizing culture and sociopolitical awareness into another money-making machine, mainly for city and state officialdom. Although its international reputation is not as high as Rio’s, Salvador does draw a very large crowd of tourists, and the city annually makes millions. Its inter-

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Carver, George Washington (1864–1943) | 289 nationalization is due to these factors: In 1949, Dodo and Osmar, two white entrepreneurs, invented the trio eletrico (a truck carrying a performing musical group, followed by thousands of dancing and joyous people). Later, when Afro-Bahians were allowed to participate, blocos afros (cultural groups organized for various activities) took charge of parades. Carnival thus became big business, and the government decided to regulate the whole process. Sources of money include beverage sales, costumes, musicians, organizing blocos, media, and finally tourism, with full hotels, overcrowded restaurants, and expensive taxi fares. Given its evolution into big business, carnival is no longer a short season of three days, as it once was. Long before the official dates, there are ceremonies such as lavagens (cleansing), which become yet another occasion for dancing and drinking. There are also out-ofperiod carnivals, such as Miraceta, or Micareme, in the city of Feira de Santana (derived from the French demi-careme and the Portuguese quaresma), and other places have adopted it. All in all, Brazilian carnival is a showpiece of Afro-descendant culture mixed with those of other peoples from Europe and Native America. It is eroticism, pornography, joy, fulfillment of impossible dreams, respite from misery, all mixed into one short season. Just as important, in the new millennium of capitalism, it is as commercial as an automobile factory. Naturally, the samba schools and blocos Afros make money. In Bahia, for example, several blocos, such as Olodum and Ilê Ayê, record carnival CDs and cassette tapes every year, and the financial returns are impressive; nonetheless, it is but a drop in the ocean when compared to the millions made by state and city authorities. Femi Ojo-Ade See also Blocos Afros and Afoxés; Calypso; Filhos de Gandhy; Salvador da Bahia; Samba Schools; Steelpan; Trinidad and Tobago; Trinidad and Tobago: African Impact on the Social Order.

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F URTHER R EADING Hill, Errol. 1972. The Trinidad Carnival: Mandate for a National Theater. Austin: University of Texas Press. Knobil, Marcel. 1996. Images of the Carnival. London: Creative and Commercial Publications. Mason, Peter. 1998. Bacchanal! The Carnival Culture of Trinidad. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

z Carver, George Washington (1864–1943) George Washington Carver was one of America’s greatest educators and scientists. Born of slave parents in Diamond Groove, Missouri, young George Carver showed a deep love and appreciation of the beauty and unity of nature at an early age. He was confined to household chores and gardening because of his illness and frailty in his early childhood. This led him to develop his horticultural talents and an acute affinity toward plants. Carver managed to obtain a high school education while working as a field hand. He was successfully admitted into Simpson College at Indianola, Iowa, after being refused admittance at several other colleges because of his race. He then attended Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (now Iowa State University), where he received a degree in agricultural science in 1894. While in college, he became a member of the YMCA debate club and also a captain of the campus military regiment. He excelled in music and poetry. His poetry was published in the student newspaper, and two of his paintings were exhibited at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. He joined the faculty of Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts upon the completion of his master’s degree two years later, specializing in systemic botany. In 1896, Carver was recruited by Booker T. Washington to become the director of the Department of Agricultural Research at Tuskegee

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290 | Casely-Hayford, Joseph Ephraim (1866–1930)

Normal and Industrial Institute (Tuskegee University). At Tuskegee, Carver began an extensive series of experiments with peanuts in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century that would completely revolutionize the nature of American agriculture. From the peanut, Carver discovered more than 300 uses, ranging from glue to ink. By 1938, peanuts had become a $200 million industry and the chief agricultural output of the state of Alabama. Carver also demonstrated that the sweet potato could yield 100 different products. Carver was awarded the Spingarn Medal in 1923. He was known as an advocate for crop diversification to improve soil conservation. He also became a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in England because of his groundbreaking innovations in the fields of agriculture and soil science. In 1935, Carver was made collaborator in the Division of Plant Mycology and Disease Survey of the Bureau of Plant Industry of the United States Department of Agriculture. Carver was approached by the peanut growers association to serve as a spokesperson, representing the association at a sitting of the United States Congress, to elaborate on his ideas. He donated all his savings in 1940 to fund the setting up of the George Washington Carver Foundation at Tuskegee for research in natural science. This foundation helps today in the advancement of research in natural science at Tuskegee University. After his death on January 5, 1943, Carver’s birthplace was established as the George Washington Carver National Monument in 1951. Over the years, a variety of books written about the life and contributions of George Washington Carver have aimed to inspire young African Americans. Tarnue Johnson See also Tuskegee Institute/Tuskegee University. F URTHER R EADING Edwards, Linda M. 2004. George Washington Carver: The Life of the Great Agriculturalist. New York: Powerplus Books.

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Franchino, Vicky. 2002. George Washington Carver. Minneapolis: Compass Point Books. Kramer, Gary R. 1991. George Washington Carver: In His Own Words. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.

z Cary, Mary Anne Shadd See Shadd Cary, Mary Anne (1823–1893).

z Casely-Hayford, Joseph Ephraim (1866–1930) Joseph Ephraim Casely-Hayford was a lawyer, political figure, and writer who was an advocate and defender of the rights of indigenous people in Ghana (then known as the Gold Coast) and in British West Africa as a whole. His influence in West Africa can rarely be understated, as he is often remembered as the “Moses of West Africa” and the “Uncrowned King of West Africa.” In the Gold Coast, he was viewed as the leader of the educated intellectuals, and for a time he was a member of the Legislative Council. Casely-Hayford was born in 1866 to the Reverend and Mrs. Joseph de Graft Hayford in Cape Coast. His father was a prominent figure in Fanti politics and society. Casely-Hayford was educated at the Wesleyan Boys School in Cape Coast and then went to Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone. He came back to the Gold Coast and became a journalist. He then went to Britain for further studies. He graduated from Cambridge University, then studied law at the Inner Temple in London. He was called to the bar in 1896. After his successful studies in Britain, Casely-Hayford returned to the Gold Coast and started his own law practice. He then started getting involved in politics and joined

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Central America: African Footprints | 291 the Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society, which blocked the British from gaining control of traditional lands in the Gold Coast and kept the native concept of land tenure intact. In 1903, he published Gold Coast Native Institutions, and in 1911 he published Ethiopia Unbound. From 1916 to 1925, Casely-Hayford was an appointed member of the Gold Coast Legislative Council, where he was a staunch defender of the rights of Africans. In 1924, he was instrumental in negotiating the return of Asantehene Prempeh I back to the Gold Coast. As Casely-Hayford’s influence was beyond the borders of the Gold Coast, his most celebrated achievement is the formation of the National Congress of British West Africa, which agitated for autonomy within the British Empire for the Gold Coast, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and the Gambia. Though he and the leaders from the four colonies were unsuccessful, this organization laid the foundation for the independence movement that came roughly two decades later. Casely-Hayford played a major role in the establishment of the Prince of Wales School in Accra, now known as the famous Achimota, which has educated many West African leaders. From 1927 until his death in 1930, he was an elected member of the Legislative Council. Kwaku Asare See also Ghana. F URTHER R EADING Brockman, Norbert. 1994. An African Biographical Dictionary. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Ephson, Isaac S. 1969. Gallery of Gold Coast Celebrities, vol. 1. Accra, Ghana: Ilen Publications.

z Central America: African Footprints Historically, the development of Central American culture is in many ways similar to

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many other areas of Latin America: one observes racial and ethnic diversity on the surface. There is no doubt that a large number of sociocultural formations share the Central American territory, giving live testimony to its rich history. This essay will describe and characterize those cultural formations in which Africans or their descendants play an important role. The Africans and their descendants have contributed to Central America both genetically and culturally. Indeed, from Puerto Barrios (Guatemala) and Belize in the north, south to Darién in Panama, people of African descent take part in the general cultural diversity either through reconstruction of their cultural heritage or by what has been termed mestizaje— miscegenation and cultural blending. PALENQUES AND A FRO -A MERINDIAN M ESTIZOS During the colonial period in Latin America, a considerable number of African slaves were able to escape from the slave plantations. Many groups succeeded in establishing communities in mountainous and jungle areas. They formed their palenques and quilombos in those territories and set up truly independent states that survived for many years. Some of these sociopolitical formations even signed agreements with the colonial regimes and later with nation-states, achieving advantages that allowed them to avoid returning to slavery and to maintain autonomy or relative independence. In South America, there are such outstanding cases as Benkos Biojo in Colombia (1603), who forced the Spanish Empire to grant autonomy to his army of runaway slaves and thereby founded the first free territory of the colonial Americas; Yanga in México (1608), who conducted an impressive revolt against the Spanish regime, forcing them to grant special status and freedom from slavery to his fighters and their families; Bonnie in Guyana (1770), whose 80,000 maroons succeeded in humbling the Dutch.

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292 | Central America: African Footprints

One of the most interesting phenomena of Central America is its racial and cultural diversity. One can easily point to people of Afro-Amerindian descent resulting in anticolonial coalitions. In many of these instances, the cultures are well blended, giving birth to new cultures. Two examples of this are the Miskitos and the Garífunas. The Miskitos are a result of an Afro-Amerindian coalition: Macro-Chibcha Indians and groups of Africans from a slave ship that was wrecked off the Nicaraguan coast, later augmented by runaway slaves. In this case, people of African descent embraced the local culture, adopted new language and customs, and identified as Miskito. At present, the Miskito population numbers more than 60,000 people living on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua. The Garífunas are heirs of the Carib Nation. They originated on the island of St. Vincent in the Caribbean, where black runaway slaves were accepted voluntarily into the Carib Nation and later become an independent clan. Due to the Garífunas’ constant struggle for freedom and their unwillingness to recognize the sovereignty of the conquerors, the British government (1797) exiled most of them to the Honduran coast, specifically the island of Roatán. In time, some were able to return to the Caribbean, but the majority went into the continental territory, signing agreements with the Spanish governor to populate parts of Honduras and later gradually extending to Belize, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. The Garífunas have been able to conserve and develop their language, culture, and identity. Their population is over 100,000, the majority of whom live in Honduras (more than 50 percent); the rest are located in Belize, Guatemala and Nicaragua. A FRO -M ESTIZOS OR M ORENOS The majority of the people of African descent in Central America are the result of an intensive Afro-Hispanic mestizaje, both racially and culturally. This blending tends to produce new

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hybrid cultural forms, in which some original elements are clearly recognizable (e.g., European languages and some African popular beliefs or proverbs), but the culture now contains abundant original elements. Two good examples of these cultural formations are a major portion of the populations of Nicaragua and Panama. Indeed, most of the Panamanian population is Afro-Mestizo. Panama was the first place in continental America at which people of Africa arrived. The slave and maroon population of Panama was enormous. In addition to this, black people from the Caribbean moved into that country during the 19th century. This mass immigration was equivalent to 50 percent of the Panamanian population (Duncan and Powell, 1988). The case of Nicaragua is another good example. Although the number of “Africans” brought into that country during the colonial period was not significant, an intense racial mixture occurred in the Pacific and center of Nicaragua. This process was enhanced by the fact that the colonial authorities used a considerable number of people of African descent in the militias. Toward the end of the 18th century, half the population of the Nicaraguan town of Granada was of African descent. The same can be said of other Nicaraguan provinces, such as New Segovia, León, and Rivas, where the population of black origin constituted at least 40 percent of the total population. Despite the fact that Afro-Mestizos do not have a clearly established self-identification, they are easily recognizable throughout Central America, with the exception El Salvador, where the 5,000 17th-century Afro-Salvadoreños have been completely assimilated. The terms used to identify them range from Blanco Moreno (“Dark Brown”), or just plain Moreno to cholo or Negro, even when the connotation of Negro could be either endearing or derogative, depending on the context. But to be Negro does not always imply African descent and sometimes could simply mean “dark-skinned Spanish.”

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Central America: African Footprints | 293 A FRO -C ARIBEÑOS (C OSTEÑOS ) As a general rule, Afro Caribeños, Costeños, or Creoles, as they term themselves in Nicaragua, are the descendants of Anglo-Caribbean (West Indian) immigrants. Their presence and influence in the Atlantic region of Central America are noteworthy. Although they are roughly 1.3 percent of the total population, they form significant blocks in the coastal zones. AfroCaribeños are also located on the Colombian islands of San Andrés and Providencia and share the same basic Caribbean culture—language, folktales, food, and lifestyle. They identify themselves as blacks. Afro Caribeños immigrated to build the Panama Canal and railroads, first from Haiti and other French colonies, later from Barbados, and finally from Jamaica. With their expertise and physical labor, these countries developed banana and cacao plantations. To give an idea of their impact, in 1902 Panama had a population of 80,000 (including blacks); between 1904 and 1913, almost 40,000 people from the Caribbean entered Panama to work on the canal, plant bananas, and build railroads; in 1911, Costa Rica became the biggest banana producer in the world, with black labor. Thirty-seven years earlier, in 1874, just two years before the beginning of the massive West Indian immigration, 1,000 blacks were reported in the Limon Province of Costa Rica, out of a total of 2,500 inhabitants. By 1892, Limon’s population had grown to 7,484, almost all black and Chinese immigrants. T HE C URRENT S ITUATION The long history of cultural dominance and politics pertaining to the people of the African descent in Central America should lead to some final thoughts on racism and negative ethnocentrisms in the region. These forms of cultural dominance continue today under new appearances and names. Engulfed like a cancer in the Western culture, racism in the form of Europhilia (a fascination for white European

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culture), ethnophobia (a rejection or fear of ethnic diversity), and endophobia (a rejection or despising of one’s own cultural heritage) continues, despite political liberation and the intellectual, economic, and social efforts made by Afro-Caribeños, Afro-Amerindios and Afro-Mestizos, in the form of exclusion from power, invisibility, derogative stigmas, and marginality. Exceptions are recognized. Tracing the footprints of the Africans and their descendants in Central America is part of the process of reconstruction of our common ancestral lore and part of the effort to consolidate universal black consciousness. In the 21st century, this process is possible, despite efforts to the contrary. It is a current challenge for philosophy and ethics, for letters and sciences, and should be placed as priority number one on all agendas. Quince Duncan See also Argentina: Afro-Argentines; Bolivia: The African Presence; Colombia: AfroColombians; Diasporic Marronage; Ecuador: Afro-Ecuadorans; Honduras and Nicaragua: Miskito Indians; Venezuela: Afro-Venezuelans. F URTHER R EADING Andrade Coelho, Ruy Galvao de. 1981. Los Negros Caribes de Honduras. Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Andrews, George Reid. 2004. Afro-Latin America, 1800–2000. New York: Oxford University Press. Banco Mundial. 2000. “La raza y la pobreza. Consulta interagencias sobre afrolatinoamericanos.” Documento de Trabajo N1. 9 sobre Desarrollo Sostenible. Washington, DC: Banco Mundial. Bilbao, Ion, et al. 1979. Darien: indios, negros y latinos. Panamá: Centro de Capacitación Social. Cáceres, Rina. 2000. Negros, mulatos, esclavos y libertos en la Costa Rica del siglo XVII. Ciudad de México, México: Instituto Panamericano de Geografía. Diez Castillo, Luis A. 1981. Los cimarrones y los negros antillanos en Panamá. Panamá. Duncan, Quince. 1994. In Presencia Negra en América Central, ed. Luz María Montiel et al. México: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes.

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294 | Central Asia and the Caucasus: The African Presence Duncan, Quince. 2002. Contra el Silencio. San José, Costa Rica: Euned. Duncan, Quince, and Carlos Meléndez. 1972. El negro en Costa Rica. San José, Costa Rica: Editorial Costa Rica. Duncan, Quince, and Lorein Powell. 1988. Teoría y Práctica del Racismo. San José, Costa Rica: Editorial DEI. Hamilton, Ruth Simms, and Lorein PowellBernard. 1990. “African Identity Lost or Denied: The Case of La Mansión, Costa Rica.” Vol. N1. 2 No.1. Michigan: May. Harpelle, Ronald. “The West Indians of Costa Rica. IPADE. Estatuto de autonomía y su anteproyecto de reglamentación.” Nicaragua, s.f. Moore, Carlos, Quince Duncan, et al. 1995. African Presence in the Americas. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Suazo, E. Salvador. 1997. Los deportados de San Vicente. Honduras: Guaymuras. Valencia Chala, Santiago. 1986. El Negro en Centro América. Quito, Ecuador: Ed.-Abya-Yala.

z Central Asia and the Caucasus: The African Presence The regions of Central Asia, which stretch from the northern Caucasus west of the Ural River to Siberia and the borders of China, offer exciting possibilities to the Africanist in a number of areas. Fortunately, the breadth of Central Asia and its history of continuous invasions and counterinvasions open the field of study to scholars of Chinese, Indian, Iranian, Turkic, Mongolian, Finno-Ugric, and Slavic cultures. The Chinese offer the widest possibility of resources, as this country received the brunt of nomadic invasion from the earliest period through the khanates of Chingis Khan’s descendants. China also has a continuous repository of literatures and a Buddhist tradition spread by Indian missionaries. Chang Ch’ien’s sojourn in Central Asia, documented in the Shih Chi, is worthy of note. The Sui and T’ang

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periods bear witness to the numbers of foreigners, some of whom were “dark skinned,” in statuary and pictures, as well as through Buddhist and Uighur documents. China’s indigenous black founding civilization, the Shang, whose last capital was located in Anyang, should be explored. The Shang’s ties with the southern Siberian Karasuk culture should be explored, as a wide variety of Shang artifacts have been found in Siberia and as far east as the Urals. The Shang were known as Na-Khi (“black man”); it would be interesting to trace the word and its relations to the Tajik word negey, which is used for African peoples, and the historical tribes called nogay/nogai, as well as the Indian naga tribals. Indian texts should be studied with southern Central Asia—covering modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan—as well as southwest China in mind. These areas were subject to Buddhist proselytizing from the first century BCE. Scholars were wide ranging, founding monasteries and bringing back reports of the peoples they met. There are currently several Iranian dialects spoken in Central Asia, of which the most popular is Tajik, spoken in Tajikistan and the historic cities of modern day Uzbekistan as well as by some of the gypsy (luli) groups, who retain the right to travel across the Soviet Republics at will. Inspite of the Russianization of these areas, many of the folk songs and epics have yet to be translated, and mastery of at least one branch of an Iranic or Turkic language will help the scholars pinpoint relationships in an area in which, as in America, place names, tribal divisions, and isolated regions of traditional culture remain. P ROBLEMS The simple visual determination of race and ethnicity will not do in the region of Central Asia, due to the heavy intermixture of various peoples through centuries of intertribal warfare and migration, the trade in Russian and other Slavic slaves during the Muslim khanates,

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Central Asia and the Caucasus: The African Presence | 295 the Russian imperial colonization, and the period of Soviet collectivization in which Muslim and other unwanted ethnic groups—for example, Germans and Koreans in Tashkent— were exiled to Central Asia for the cotton fields. The politically charged term “black” is used by “ethnic” Russians for all Caucasian and Muslim peoples in the region; for this reason, peoples with no historic ties to Africa, India, or a phenotypically “black” look will claim blackness. Further, the degradation of the African continent and its peoples through Soviet encyclopedias and translated movies has made the word “African” a source of scorn throughout some parts of Central Asia, and therefore one cannot expect peoples to claim it; the notable exception are the Ethiopians, sometimes placed among the traditional Turko-Mongol progenitor federation, or Toqquz Oghuz, by historians strengthening their ties to the Islamic faith. The term neger deserves particular attention because it is used to designate the darker members of families and possibly darker subtribes. It is also used to indicate illiteracy and Africanness. Ironically, this is an area that could be explored to determine regional origins among subgroups uncomfortable with the term “African.” It also posits an alternative origin of the European pejorative, and possibly African origin from the Afro-Asiatic root -ngr, meaning “original.” Relation of the word to negey, nagai, naga, nogay and nakhi should be explored. Thus, language is the key to working through the cycles of warfare to find the origins of the peoples styled by Chinese, Roman, and European authors as dasas, dasyus, black deevs, melanchroi, and czerny, or the descendants of black peoples. Most western scholarship focuses upon the region as a cradle of blondness, associating the word arya, or “nobility,” with presumably “white” peoples. Tellingly, the only Chinese support for these assertions is through the small tribe of Wu-sun’s “colored” eyes, which were obviously striking among the other peoples with whom the Chinese dealt. Thus the researcher should not be

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discouraged but should check the works of the adjoining civilizations. The shahnameh, for example, is at pains to relate the Persian- and Turki- speaking peoples and centers the conflict between them on the site of ancient Markanda, current Samarkand, in which region a wall hanging can be found depicting a black man standing beside a white one. Further, as a region of crossroads, the European designations for “black” are particularly suspect, and the same “blacks” whose invasions remained in European mythology with particular horror are likely to be the direct descendants of the “whites” or “Asiatics” who invaded Mesopotamia, the Anatolian peninsula, and Egypt. Conversely, nations of whom modern European scholars take pains to state were “white”—as in the “White Huns,” to distinguish them from the “Black Huns,” who invaded other areas—may well have all been black complected, as the Romans reported. Thus the Chinese, Indian, and Iranian reports are more reliable as to “color,” being closer in complexion to other peoples in the region and for whom black hair color would not occasion mention; it further will clarify whether the ubiquitous terms of black kara and white oq refer to tribal hierarchies, religious distinctions, or actual phenotypes; the “nation” of Scythia, at once referred to as being both black complected and white complected, is a prime example of the difficulties of dealing with Greek and modern European resources; the Turkic and Mongol reports, of which the Uighur are likely to be most reliable, having been longest civilized, will provide details and accuracy of ethnographic data and timelines; for example, the character karajon (literally, “Dear Black”) who is first rival to, and then friend of, the Turkic hero Alpomysh; this may save time for those scholars searching for the truly black Indians/Dravidians, Africans, and Twa of Central Asian lore. Sharron Muhammad See also Dravidians.

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296 | Centro de Estudos Afro-Orientais (CEAO) F URTHER R EADING Colarusso, John. 2002. Nart Sagas from the Caucasus. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Grenet, Jacques. 1982. A History of Chinese Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thompson, E. A. 1999. The Peoples of Europe: Huns. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Torday, Lazlo. 1997. Mounted Archers: The Beginnings of Central Asian History. Durham, NC: Durham Academic Press.

z Centro de Estudos AfroOrientais (CEAO) Centro de Estudos Afro-Orientais (CEAO; Center of Afro-Oriental Studies), is a supplemental organ of the Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas (College of Philosophy and Human Sciences) of the Universidade Federal da Bahia (Federal University of Bahia). It is directed toward scholarship, research, and communitarian action in Afro-Brazilian studies and in favor of the Afro-descendant population, as well in African and Asian languages studies and civilizations. It was created in 1959, at a bubbling political and cultural moment in which Brazil inaugurated a policy of diplomatic and cultural presence in postcolonial Africa. CEAO was conceived as a channel between the university and the Afro-Brazilian community on the one hand, and among Brazil and African and Asian countries on the other. CEAO is composed of the Afro-Brazilian Museum; the Library of CEAO; the Afro-Oriental Bookstore, managed for the Editora (publishing company) of the UFBA; and the Administrative Department of Research and of Extension. The Afro-Brazilian Museum contains pieces of the material culture of African origin or inspiration that are representative of the daily life, technological processes, system of beliefs, artistic manifestations, and verbal tradition in traditional Africa. They are sculptures, masks,

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fabrics, ceramics, adornments, musical instruments, games, and tapestries proceeding from the African continent and acquired in the 1970s by the Department of State or by donation from the diverse embassies of the African countries. There are also objects of Brazilian origin related to the Afro-Brazilian religion in Bahia and its deities and priests. A set of cuts in cedar of monumental dimension (two and three meters high), designed by artist Carybé and portraying 27 Orixás, constitutes one of the most important pieces of workmanship in Brazilian contemporary art. The Library of CEAO is the only specialized library in Bahia in Asian, Afro-Brazilian, and African studies, with prominence of a rare collection about Portuguese colonial Africa. Beyond the conventional quantity, the library possesses clippings on Afro-Brazilian culture from the main periodicals of Salvador since the 1960s. CEAO develops a wide program of education and citizenship directed toward a population of black youth and adolescents, in partnership with the group of black educators Mulheres Quilombolas (Maroon Women). The CEAO promotes courses, seminars, and conferences with visiting professors and researchers as well as academic meetings with local researchers. The CEAO also promotes and organizes events directed toward the black community and facilitates community events. The CEAO develops an active interchange of information and publications with universities and cultural institutions all over the world and promotes the visits of highly qualified specialists and researchers in African and Afro-American studies to the UFBA. Jocelio dos Santos See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Salvador da Bahia. F URTHER R EADING Afro-A’sia. Centro de Estudos Afro-Orientais. V1 (1965—present). Braga, Julio. 1995. Na gamela do feitico: Repressao e resistencia nos candombles da Bahia. Sal-

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Césaire, Aimé (1913–2008) | 297 vador-Bahia: EDUFBA. (Federal University of Bahia) Dzidzienyo, Anani, and Suzanne Oboler. 2005. Neither Enemies nor Friends: Latinos, Blacks, Afro-Latinos. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Sansone, Livio. 2003. Blackness without Ethnicity: Constructing Race in Brazil. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

z Césaire, Aimé (1913–2008) Poet, playwright, politician, and father of the Négritude movement, Aimé Césaire was born on June 26, 1913, in Basse-Pointe, Martinique. A brilliant student, he left the countryside to enter the Lycée Schoelcher in Fort-de-France. Then, in 1931 he left for Paris with a fellowship to study first at the Lycée Louis-LeGrand, then at the Ecole Normale, and finally at the Sorbonne. At the same time that he was receiving a strong education in classic Western literature and philosophy, Aimé Césaire also began what became the core of all his work, the debunking of colonialism. It was during those formative years that he met several African students, among them Birago Diop and Léopold Sédar Senghor. Through his friendship with Senghor, Césaire developed a certain vision of Africa and deepened his understanding of the continent’s legacy across the Atlantic. With the Guyanese LéonGontran Damas, who had been Césaire’s friend since the Lycée Schoelcher, as well as Senghor, he helped revive an old student journal, which was renamed L’Etudiant Noir. Césaire wrote several pieces for this journal, including a 1935 article against French assimilationist policy in which he first coined the term “Négritude.” In 1936, while visiting a friend in Yugoslavia, he wrote overnight most of his masterpiece, “Cahier d’un Retour au Pays Natal,” which was first published three years later in the journal Volontés. In this long

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poem, Aimé Césaire launched a straightforward attack on the colonial situation and denounced its impact on the collective and individual persona. He married fellow Martinican Suzanne Roussi in Paris in 1937, and the two went back home two years later with their first son. Although they both took teaching positions at the Lycée Schoelcher (where students included Frantz Fanon and Edouard Glissant), the couple was deeply involved in the political and literary life of the time. World War II had brought Martinique under the umbrella of the Vichy government. Along with René Ménil and Aristide Maugé, Aimé Césaire and his wife founded a new review, the provocative Tropiques (1941–1945). The project was to resist political oppression and to defend Martinique’s cultural creativity and African heritage. It was during this period that André Breton spent a few months in Martinique and had the opportunity to meet with Aimé Césaire, whose poetry he had discovered accidentally in a little shop in Fort-de-France. Breton was captivated by Césaire’s style, which was so close to what the surrealists were themselves doing. Césaire himself would embrace surrealism as a powerful way to express what he had been conceptualizing on his own. Pursuing his exploration of Negritude, Césaire’s rage against oppression exploded in three poetry collections published between 1946 and 1949: Les Armes Miraculeuses (1946), Soleil Cou Coupé (1948), and Corps Perdu (1949). After a seven-month sojourn in Haiti in 1944, Césaire came back to Martinique, where he decided to enter political life. From 1945 until 2001, he was mayor of Fort-de-France. Although reluctant to enter the political arena, he envisioned his political action as a means of shifting the fight begun in poetry and literature to new ground. In 1945 he was elected deputy to the French Assembly on the Communist ticket and helped pass the law that transformed Martinique, Guyane, Guadeloupe, and Réunion

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Martiniquais writer and politician Aimé Césaire in 1982. (Sophie Bassouls/Corbis)

from French colonies into French departments. In spite of an obvious contradiction with his own political agenda, Césaire agreed to defend the departmentalization status and called for what was then named assimilation. He firmly believed that this was the best way to put the populations of these former colonies on an equal economic footing with France. He kept his seat in the assembly until 1993. It was in the context of decolonization that he pursued his assault on colonialism. Discours sur le Colonialisme (Discourse on Colonialism) was first published in 1950. Césaire also participated in the creation of the journal Présence Africaine along with Alioune Diop and Guy Tirolien. In September 1956, he attended the First World Congress of Black Writers and Artists in Paris. As the keynote speaker, he gave a talk entitled “Culture and Colonization,” in which he outlined the necessity of overthrowing colonialism. Posing colonialism and racism, and not class struggle, as the first

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strongholds to destroy moved him away from the Communist Party line, and in 1956 he decided to resign from the party. One of the main goals of the Parti Progressistee Martiniquais (PPM; the Martinican Progressive Party) that he created was to lead Martinique toward autonomy. However, with the election of the Socialist François Mitterrand to France’s presidency in 1982, the PPM declared a moratorium on this question. Césaire continued to explore the possibilities for independence and black liberation in his poems and published new poetry collections—Ferrements (1960) and Cadastre (1961). However, he also turned to theater as a tool of expression. With Et Les Chiens Se Taisaient (1958), Toussaint L’Ouverture, ou la Révolution Française et le Problème Colonial (1960), La Tragédie du Roi Christophe (1963), Une Saison au Congo (1965), and Une Tempête (1968), Césaire examined the themes of rebellion, failure, independence, and colonialism.

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Césaire, Suzanne (1915–1966) | 299 He remained actively involved in political life until 2003 but did not stop writing poetry; he published Moi, Laminaire (1982/1991) and La Poésie (1994). In his last book, Nègre Je Suis, Nègre Je Resterais (2006), Césaire reaffirms the centrality of the concept of Négritude. Veronique Helenon See also Damas, Léon-Gontran (1912–1976); Fanon, Frantz (1925–1961); Glissant, Edouard (1928–); Négritude. F URTHER R EADING Arnold, A. James. 2000. Modernism and Négritude: The Poetry and Poetics of Aimé Césaire. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Césaire, Aimé. 2001. Discourse on Colonialism. New York: Monthly Review Press. Eshleman, Clayton, and Annette Smith, eds. 1983. Aimé Césaire: The Collected Poetry. Translated, with Introduction and Notes. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kesteloot, Lilyan. 1991. Black Writers in French: A Literary History of Négritude. Trans. Ellen Conroy Kennedy. Washington, DC: Howard University Press.

z Césaire, Suzanne (1915–1966) Suzanne Roussi Césaire (August 11, 1915–May 16, 1966) remains one of the more enigmatic figures of Martinican literary history. Her published works consist of only seven essays (in Tropiques, 1941–1945); her one play (written around 1955) was apparently lost. Yet, her vision of a new Caribbean literature, her refusal of exoticism, and her recognition of the dynamic interrelations at play in the islands held a profound message for future generations of writers, echoed in the works of such authors as Daniel Maximim and Edouard Glissant. Suzanne Roussi (also spelled Roussy) was born in Trois-Islets, Martinique, and studied literature in Toulouse and Paris. She married Aimé Césaire in July 1937 in Paris and returned

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to Martinique in 1939, where she taught with him at the Lycée Schoelcher in Fort-de-France. They had six children together: Jacques (1937); Jean-Paul (1939); Francis (1941); Ina (1942); Marc (1948); Michèle (1951). In 1941, the couple, with René Ménil and Aristide Maugée, founded the revue Tropiques. Her first three essays for the revue focus on the significance of European figures for Caribbean literature— the ethnographer Leo Frobenius, the art critic Alain, and the surrealist Alain Breton. Beginning with her fourth essay in 1942, “Misère d’une poésie” (“An Impoverished Poetry”), Suzanne Césaire began building toward a new theory of Martinican poetics, which she developed further in her essay “1943: Surrealism and Us.” Heavily influenced by surrealism, Césaire sought nevertheless an authentically Caribbean literature that might make use of European models but that would by no means imitate them. Her vision of a multiethnic and socially dynamic Caribbean culminates in her highly influential 1945 essay, “Le Grand Camouflage.” After the war, Suzanne Césaire moved to Paris with her husband when he became assemblyman of the newly created French department of Martinique. She returned with him to Martinique after he left the Communist Party but went back to France in the mid-1950s to teach again in Paris. She and Aimé separated in April 1963. She died of cancer at the age of 50. Kara Rabbitt See also Césaire, Aimé (1913–2008). F URTHER R EADING Condé, Maryse. 1998. “Unheard Voice: Suzanne Césaire and the Construct of a Caribbean Identity.” In Winds of Change: The Transforming Voices of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars, ed. Adele S. Newson and Linda Strong-Leek, 61–66. New York: Peter Lang. Rabbitt, Kara M. 2006. “Suzanne Césaire and the Forging of a New Caribbean Literature.” The French Review 79 (3): 538–548. Rosemont, Penelope. 1998. Surrealist Women: An International Anthology. Austin: University of Texas Press.

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300 | Chile: Afro-Chileans Sharpley-Whiting, T. Denean. 2002. Négritude Women. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Sourieau, Marie-Agnès. 1994. “Suzanne Césaire et Tropiques: De la poésie cannibale à une poétique créole.” The French Review 68 (1): 69–78.

z Chile: Afro-Chileans H ISTORY AND O RIGINS Africans and their descendants have contributed significantly to Chile’s historical development, particularly from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The first generation arrived as personal servants for such Spanish conquistadors as Diego de Almagro, who led the first expedition from Peru in 1536. When this attempt to conquer the region failed, Pedro de Valdivia returned in 1541 with African slaves, who helped him found and establish Santiago as the capital. Juan Valiente and Juan Beltrán are two of the best-known slave soldiers from this era. As a result of their services to the Chilean expeditions, they and a handful of other African slaves settled in Santiago’s central valley region, where they were granted encomiendas (land grants) in 1550 (Sater 1974). Still, there was never a continuous migration of Africans (or Europeans) into Chile until gold was discovered in 1552. Thereafter, thousands of Spaniards arrived, and authorities sanctioned the importation of a limited number of African slaves to fulfill various roles as domestic servants, agricultural workers, and miners, which supplemented labor demands not met by the hostile indigenous population. Freed and enslaved Africans also worked as artisans, overseers, and soldiers in Spanish armies that warred with resistant Araucanians and Mapuches. Two primary routes of the slave trade supplied African slaves to Chile: the sea route from Panama through Lima-Callao, Peru, to Chile’s main port city, Valparaíso; and the over-

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land route, which originated in the Platine provinces and led through Mendoza, Argentina, and across the Andes to Santiago. The relative numbers of Africans legally and illegally sent to colonial Chile were small in comparison with those sent to other areas of Spanish America. Chile’s distance from such major slave markets in South America as Lima, Buenos Aires, and Potosí made it too expensive to import large numbers of slaves. Still, by the late 16th century, more than 3,000 African slaves had been introduced into Chile (Mellafe 1984). By the turn of the 17th century, the number of Afro-Chileans, both free and enslaved, had reached more than 20,000. Most Afro-Chileans became domestic servants, but they often formed their own communities beyond the households they served. The latest research shows that they were often primary witnesses in weddings and godparents at baptisms. In comparison with other domestic servants in the Americas, they suffered the same forms of punishment; in addition, they also received excessive punishments especially if they committed crimes against the social order. A complex series of laws regulating slaves prohibited them from trading, gambling, carrying weapons, and trespassing (Sater 1974). Indeed, Afro-Chilean slaves were often punished by being taken from their families, even when they were married to freed persons. Free and enslaved Afro-Chileans frequently interacted with ecclesiastical institutions. The Jesuits, in particular, owned various estates that were supported by slave labor. Contacts with the Catholic Church during the colonial period had a detrimental effect on African beliefs and religious practices among slaves who lived in isolated regions. Many priests and nuns saw African slaves as social delinquents, while mixed-race groups were labeled sexually promiscuous or born out of wedlock. Other research shows that Afro-Chileans, especially in the central valley region, became highly devoted to Catholic beliefs. Indeed, they formed their own cofradías (religious brotherhoods),

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Chile: Afro-Chileans | 301 the most active being the Cofradía de Nuestra Señora de la Candeleria de los Mulatos, located in Santiago. Catholic authorities were among the first to champion the rights of African slaves to marry and not to be forcefully separated from their families (López-Chávez 1996). As the 18th century drew to a close, manumission accelerated even as commercial relations with other regions and the demand for laborers expanded. By then, there were many more freed than enslaved Afro-Chileans. Those considered loyal by their owners were frequently manumitted, but slaves were also more likely to be able to buy their freedom or were freed after their masters died. Hundreds of freed Afro-Chileans joined the ranks of the Spanish colonial militia but were organized into separate companies with their own officers. By the early 19th century, African slavery ceased altogether because cheaper labor from indigenous and European immigrant sources became more readily available. As a result, a few prominent politicians, including Manuel de Salas and José Miguel Carrera, called for slavery’s abolition. At the same time, Chile began its movement for independence, and more and more Afro-Chilean soldiers fought against Spanish rule. In 1814, revolutionaries promised all slaves their freedom if they enlisted in patriotic armies under Bernardo O’Higgins. As a result, many served in the armies of O’Higgins and José de San Martín as they finalized Chile’s liberation from Spain in 1817. By 1823, Chile had become one of the first republics in the Americas to abolish slavery. M ISCEGENATION AND D ECLINE OF THE B LACK P OPULATION Miscegenation also had increased by the end of the 18th century. This process began at the very moment Africans arrived, as slave traders imported more males than females, thereby creating a gender gap among the Afro-Chilean population. In this environment, male African slaves tended to choose indigenous women as

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mates (Grubessich 1992; Dubinovsky 1988). For their part, African-descended females also tended to marry outside their social ranking (Flusche and Korth 1983). In fact, the percentage of persons categorized by authorities as Negro (pure African) declined so dramatically during the colonial period that they had almost completely disappeared by the middle of the 19th century (Carmagnani 1967). After 1810, the history of Afro-Chileans remains largely unknown. By then, those described as negros and mulattos (half European and half African) constituted approximately 10 percent of Santiago’s total population; however, by the end of the 19th century, the population of AfroChileans had virtually disappeared from the city. Most scholars agree that social and biological mixture with a rapidly growing number of Italian and Spanish immigrants meant that blacks and their descendants would have disappeared by the 20th century. C ONTEMPORARY R EALITIES Still, some cultural and biological traces of Africans exist today. Recent blood samples taken from various residents in Santiago, for example, confirm the historical and biological presence of Africans in Chile’s gene pool. In addition, studies of names among the Aymara tribes in Chile and Bolivia reveal the influence of African-derived naming systems for their children. This presents very strong evidence that frequent cultural contact occurred between African and indigenous peoples. AfroChileans still live in various areas of the country. In Arica, Chile’s northernmost town (once a Peruvian city before it lost control to Chile in 1884), for example, a resurgence of cultural pride in the country’s African past has occurred as a result of the migration of AfroPeruvians to the area in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Such public festivals as the Pascua de los Negros demonstrate the fact that Afro-Latin American and African cultural traits have mixed with modern Catholic rituals. A group calling itself Oro Negro has called

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attention to Chile’s rich African heritage and has rejected the deep-seated national idea of la raza chilena, the notion promoted by the first historians of Chile that the country’s heritage may be understood by studying only its Spanish and Amerindian roots. Jesse Hingson See also Argentina: Afro-Argentines; Peru: AfroPeruvians; Uruguay: Afro-Uruguayans. F URTHER R EADING Carmagnani, Marcello. 1967. “Colonial Latin American Demography: Growth of Chilean Population.” Journal of Social History 1: 179– 191. Dubinovsky, Adela. 1988. “El tráfico de esclavos en Chile en el siglo XVIII.” Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos 451–452: 111–159. Flusche, Della M., and Eugene H. Korth. 1983. Forgotten Females: Women of African and Indian Descent in Colonial Chile, 1535–1800. Detroit: Blain Ethridge Books. Grubessich, Arturo. 1992. “Esclavitud en Chile durante el siglo XVIII: el matrimonio como una forma de integración social.” Revista Historia 2: 115–128. López-Chávez, Celia. 1996. “Microhistoria de la esclavitud negra en el siglo XVIII: el caso de la residencia jesuita de San Juan de la Frontera.” Colonial Latin American Historical Review 5: 441–474. Mellafe, Rolando. 1984. La introducción de la esclavitud negra en Chile: tráfico y rutas. 2nd ed. Santiago, Chile: Editorial Universitaria. Sater, William F. 1974. “The Black Experience in Chile.” In Slavery and Race Relations in Latin America, ed. Robert Brent Toplin, 13–50. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

z China and Japan: African and East Asian Relations W. E. B. DuBois once advocated the necessity of cooperation and solidarity between Africans or those of African descent and Asians, thinking that it would liberate both peoples from white

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rule. In the 21st century, 100 years after DuBois’s famous statement, racism still exists all over the world. In such a situation, studies of Africans and the African Diaspora, which have tended to be treated within the context of national histories or relations with Western countries, need more global and cross-cultural perspectives. Historical studies, as well as studies of current issues in Afro-Asian relations, will surely provide some of those views. This article, therefore, first deals with the relations chiefly between East Asians and Africans and then the former’s contacts with African Americans. Contacts between Africans and Asians can be traced back to ancient times. Archaeological and historical studies, for instance, have revealed African influence and presence in the Indus Valley civilization. After the rise and spread of Islam in the seventh century, black Muslims visited China’s great capital at Changan during the Tang dynasty (618–907). This cosmopolitan city also housed people from various Asian countries. Not a few East Africans had their first “close encounter” with the Chinese when a fleet led by the well-known Muslim navigator Zeng He (Cheng Ho) sailed from China and reached the East African coast in 1418. Portuguese maritime activities in Asia since the 16th century created numerous opportunities for Africans and Asians to interact. Africans were brought to Portuguese trading and military outposts in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. In Japan, Oda Nobunaga, de facto leader of the country, was even presented with a black youth from the current Mozambique area as a gift by a Jesuit missionary in 1581. It seems that the youth became a particular favorite of Lord Nobunaga. African sailors and slaves also visited East Asian ports on Dutch ships, and some spent time in such cities as Melaka, Jakarta, and Nagasaki from the 17th to the early 19th century. In the late 18th century, African Americans began to visit East Asia for the first time, on

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China and Japan: African and East Asian Relations | 303 U.S. vessels and whaling ships. One of the first U.S. vessels to reach Japan’s shore was the Lady Washington, which arrived in 1791 during Japan’s 250-year period of isolation. In the mid-19th century, African American contacts with Asians increased in East Asia. A whaling ship, the Manhattan, saved more than a score of Japanese castaways, and Pyrrhus Concer, a former slave who had become a skilled helmsman on the ship, played a significant role in the friendly development of early Japan-U.S. relations in 1845, eight years before Commodore Matthew Perry forced Japan to open its door to foreign nations. In the meantime, the first Japanese to set foot in the United States were accidental visitors who were the victims of shipwrecks on the high seas. They observed the nation with their own eyes, and some experienced racial discrimination against them. A choral group from Fisk University, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, had made a few European tours to raise funds for the school. On their final tour abroad, they sailed back by way of Asia, visiting several Asian cities and performing concerts, including three port cities of Japan in 1878. In the 1880s, students from East Asia—mostly Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans—began to attend black educational institutions such as Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (now Hampton University) and Howard University. In 1890, Hampton had students from Turkey, China, Japan, and West Africa. Howard admitted three Chinese students in 1870 and six Koreans around 1896. A few Japanese were enrolled in the 1890s. Some Asians also studied at Oberlin College, which was the first college in the United States to adopt coeducation and to admit students “without respect to color.” Presumably, they had some personal contacts with African American students on campus. Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) at the turn of the 20th century gave impetus to Japan’s imperialism and invasion in Asia. However, it also had a strong impact not only on Western powers but on people

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of color in Asia, Africa, and African Americans. Japan’s victory was regarded as a symbolic triumph of colored people against Western colonialism and racism. During the war, while serving as U.S. consul in Siberia, Russia, Richard Theodore Greener, a Harvard graduate lawyer and diplomat, showed pro-Japanese views and helped a number of Japanese living there go back to their country. Between World War I and World War II, eminent Africans or African Americans who visited East Asia included NAACP secretary James Weldon Johnson, who attended the conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations in Kyoto and then was invited to attend Emperor Hirohito’s garden party in Tokyo in 1929; Heruy WaldaSellase, the Ethiopian foreign minister who, as emperor Haile Selassie’s special envoy, stayed in Japan for two months in 1931 in order to strengthen ties between the two colored independent nations; poet Langston Hughes, who visited Japan and China on his way back from the Soviet Union in 1933; and W. E. B. DuBois, who stayed a week in Manchukuo, a Japanese puppet state in China, followed by two weeks in Japan giving speeches in 1936. In sports, the first U.S. baseball team that crossed the Pacific was the Philadelphia Royal Giants of the Negro League. They played more than 20 matches in Japan and Korea in 1927. A Japanese who played in a game against the Royal Giants testified that “black players were gentlemanly and played games in a friendly atmosphere, fostering in us a love for baseball.” The Royal Giants visited Japan again in 1932 and in 1934. The first professional baseball league was organized in Japan in 1936, no doubt instigated by their visits. Two world wars had significant impact on racial consciousness among Africans, people of the African Diaspora, and Asians. The global rise of Pan-Africanism and Pan-Asianism helped the growth of decolonization movements in the 1950s and 1960s. The Afro-Asian Conference (Bandung Conference) held in 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia, was to promote solidarity

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between Africans and Asians. Such trends, in turn, influenced the struggle for independence in Africa and the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. In Japan, the Association of Negro Studies (now the Japan Black Studies Association) was founded in June 1954, a few months after the groundbreaking U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education. Upon the termination of the Pacific War, a large number of African-American soldiers took part in the U.S. occupation of Japan and in the Korean War of 1950–1953. There were numerous contacts between black soldiers and Japanese and Koreans, and not a few children were born of unions between them. Many such children, especially those who were abandoned by their American fathers as well as by their Asian communities, went through hardships in their lives. Meanwhile, in Japan, an activist woman, Sawada Miki, opened an orphanage in 1948 to help those children. Josephine Baker, an African American expatriate singer and a friend of Sawada, visited Japan to perform more than 20 charity concerts for the orphanage in 1954. Their friendship lasted until Baker died in Paris in 1975. During the 1970s and 1980s, there were new political and economic developments in AfroAsian relations. Most African colonies had gained independence but were trapped in Cold War politics. In this situation, China had political and economic influence on socialist nations in Africa. North Korea also tried to expand its influence in those countries. In South Africa, relations between black Africans and Asians remained tense until the apartheid regime collapsed in 1993, while Japanese business circles continued to give economic assistance to the old regime, enjoying “honorary white” status. In the United States, the Civil Rights Movement ignited the social consciousness of other minority groups, including Asian Americans. However, as the economic status of Asian Americans rose and newcomers from Asian nations increased, the conflict between the two

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groups became increasingly tense and visible. An example of such unfortunate conflict, though the cause cannot be so simplified, could be seen between the Korean community and the African American community during the 1992 Los Angeles riot. Currently, at the beginning of the new century, interactions between Africans and African-descended people and Asians are seen more than ever in the global arena. In Japan only, there are reportedly more than 2,000 African American residents, including businesspeople, teachers, students, and spouses. A sharp increase in the number of African American military personnel and their families temporarily living on U.S. bases in Japan is included. African students study in universities in China and Japan. Afro-Asian relations, which have a long, rich history, are becoming more complex at present; therefore, it is important to see their historical aspects as well as their current condition. However, until recently, these relations have not been given adequate attention, even in academic contexts. Afro-Asian relations is a topic to be further explored. Furukawa Tetsushi See also Central Asia and the Caucasus: The African Presence. F URTHER R EADING Furukawa, Hiromi, and Furukawa Tetsushi. 2004. Japanese and African Americans: Historical Aspects of Their Relations. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Galliccho, Marc. 2000. The African American Encounter with Japan and China. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Kearney, Reginald. 1998. African American Views of the Japanese: Solidarity or Sedition? Albany: State University of New York Press. Life, Regge. 1993. Struggle and Success: The African American Experience in Japan. (This is an independent film televised on PBS and the first documentary to thoroughly examine the relationship between African Americans and Japanese.) Morikawa, Jun. 1997. Japan and Africa: Big Business and Diplomacy. London: Hurst.

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Christian, Barbara (1943–2000) | 305 Snow, Philip. 1988. The Star Raft: China’s Encounter with Africa. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

z Christian, Barbara (1943–2000) Literary critic and social activist Barbara Christian dedicated her life to the scholarly documentation of the African-American literary tradition, specifically women novelists and poets. Whether it was lending her voice, marching, and joining protest demonstrations demanding that the University of California at Berkeley divest its investments in South Africa during the height of the antiapartheid struggle, or marching to protest the U.S. invasion of Grenada, or objecting to the dismantling of affirmative action, Barbara Christian was unequivocal in her stance for equity and justice. She was a dedicated social activist, a committed feminist literary critic, and a rigorous scholar. Her essays on Toni Morrison and Alice Walker helped to establish these writers as standard readings in women studies and literature courses throughout the United States as well as in Europe. Christian began teaching at the City College of the City University of New York in 1965. She earned a doctorate in contemporary British and American literature from Columbia University, New York, in 1970. She taught at City College until 1971, when she relocated to the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught from 1972 until she retired in 2000 due to debilitating illness. Dr. Christian’s first major scholarly text, Black Women Novelists: The Development of a Tradition, 1892–1976 (1980), is a germinal work that documents clearly the trajectory of African American women writers and the primacy of their work, not just as literary accomplishments but also as insightful social commentary about the society in which they lived and the conditions to which they were subjected.

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At the University of California, Berkeley, as its first black woman full professor, she also completed Black Feminist Criticism (1985), which introduced readers to such other writers from the African Diaspora as Audre Lorde, Gloria Naylor, and the Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta. In addition to these two major scholarly works, Dr. Christian wrote a wealth of other articles and essays, as well scripts for video productions on Alice Walker and the African American filmmaker Marlon Riggs. Her most controversial essay, “The Race for Theory” (1996), offers a new way to theorize and legitimize approaches that depart from the traditional Western canon. In 1991, Dr. Christian became the first African American to receive the prestigious Distinguished Teaching Award. She was selected to edit the 1970s–1990s section of the Norton Anthology of African American Literature (1996). She lectured extensively in Japan, Germany, France, Canada, Italy, and the Englishspeaking Caribbean, and throughout the United States at numerous universities and colleges. A pioneer and engaging intellectual, she was honored with the prestigious Berkeley Citation on April 19, 2000. Dr. Barbara Christian died of cancer on June 25, 2000, in her home in Berkeley, California. Opal Palmer Adisa See also Feminism: Black Feminist Movement in the United States; Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Abel, Elizabeth, Barbara Christian, and Helene Moglen, eds. 1997. Female Subjects in Black and White: Race, Psychoanalysis, and Feminism. Berkeley: University of California Press. Christian, Barbara. 1980. Black Women Novelists: The Development of a Tradition, 1892–1976. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Christian, Barbara. 1985. Black Feminist Criticism. New York: Pergamon Press. Christian, Barbara. 1987. “The Race for Theory: Science, Technology and Socialist Feminism in the 1990s.” Cultural Critique 6 (Spring): 51–63. Christian, Barbara. 1988. Alice Walker and The Color Purple. New York: Simon and Schuster.

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Christophe, Henri (1767?–1820) After playing a prominent military role in Haiti’s war of independence (1791–1804), Henri Christophe became the president (1807– 1811) and king (1811–1820) of Haiti’s North. Christophe was born a slave in Grenada on October 6, 1767 (the exact date and place remain in dispute). After Haitian slaves revolted against their French masters in August 1791, Christophe joined the fighting, becoming one of the most famous subordinates first of Toussaint L’Ouverture and later of Jean-Jacques Dessalines. One of his most famous revolutionary acts was to burn Cap Haïtien (then known as Cap Français) in February 1802 before the city was taken by Napoleon’s troops (Christophe later collaborated with, then turned against, the French expeditionary force). A signer of the January 1804 Haitian Declaration of Independence, Christophe opposed Dessalines’ massacre of the white population in Haiti, then participated in the 1805 invasion of Santo Domingo (present-day Dominican Republic). Christophe took part in the revolt that overthrew Dessalines on October 17, 1806. Under an agreement with mulatto leader Alexandre Pétion, Christophe was to become president, ruling the country jointly with Pétion, the president of the Senate. The relationship between the two quickly degenerated into a civil war. On February 17, 1807, Christophe established a separate state in northern Haiti with himself as sole president (Pétion declared himself president of the southern and western part of the country on March 9, 1807). Though Christophe quickly established complete control over his half of the country, his repeated attempts to oust Pétion proved inconclusive. On March 26, 1811, Christophe proclaimed himself King Henri I of the North. He proceeded to create a nobility equipped with the necessary decorum, then to organize a magnificent coronation ceremony (June 2, 1811). Christophe ruled with an iron hand, creating a 4,000-strong police force known as the Royal

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Corps of Dahomey. Thieves, stragglers, and idle peasants were severely punished. Even though slavery had been abolished during the War of Independence, Christophe continued L’Ouverture and Dessalines’ policy of fermage. Under this policy, peasants were forced to remain as workers on the plantations on which they had once been slaves, in exchange for a 25 percent share of the crop, along with food, clothing, and housing (they could tend their own gardens on Saturdays). Christophe’s rule was brutal, but in comparison with Pétion’s South, where a policy of land distribution had led to subsistence farming and plummeting exports of sugar, the North flourished economically. Christophe used some of the proceeds to build magnificent mansions, including Sans Souci palace in Milot and the nearby citadel of La Ferrière (also known as Citadelle Christophe), a massive, 200-gun fortress surrounded by precipitous cliffs. Left paralyzed by a debilitating stroke on August 15, 1820, Christophe quickly found himself faced with an armed rebellion. He killed himself (allegedly with a silver bullet) on October 8, 1820. His wife, Marie-Louise Christophe, and their two daughters, Améthyste and Athenaire, fled into exile. Philippe R. Girard See also Dessalines, Jean-Jacques (1758–1806); Grenada; Haiti; Haitian Revolution; L’Ouverture, Toussaint (ca. 1744–1803). F URTHER R EADING Cole, Hubert. 1967. Christophe, King of Haiti. New York: Viking Press. Vandercook, John W. 1980. Black Majesty: The Life of Christophe, King of Haiti. New York: Harper and Brothers.

z Clarke, Austin (1934–) Widely regarded as Canada’s most important black writer and a major figure in the Cana-

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Clarke, Austin (1934–) | 307 dian literary landscape, Austin Chesterfield Clarke is the author of 10 novels, 5 collections of short stories, 3 memoirs, and several extended essays. He is best known for his complex delineation of the lives of Caribbean immigrants to Canada. Clarke’s early Toronto fiction accomplished for Toronto’s growing Caribbean community what Trinidadian Samuel Selvon’s Lonely Londoners had achieved for postwar Caribbean immigrants to England a decade before. In the 1960s, Clarke emerged rapidly as Canada’s best-known black writer. His early work helped to create a Canadian audience for the explosion of black literary production in the following decades. Born to a poor family in Barbados, Clarke was educated at Combermere Secondary School and Harrison College, achieving his Cambridge and Oxford certificates in 1952. After three years of teaching, he took leave in 1955 to attend the University of Toronto. However, Clarke’s studies interested him less than life outside the classroom; he left after two years, married Betty Reynolds, who was a Canadian-born nurse and the child of Jamaican parents, and decided to stay in Canada. Their daughters, Janice (b. 1958) and Loretta (b. 1960) arrived soon after. A variety of odd jobs followed, including a year as a journalist in northern Ontario, first in Timmins and then in Kirkland Lake, and then with the Toronto Globe and Mail. Clarke had been writing poetry since his school days, but during this period he turned to fiction. By 1963, he was writing full-time. His first novels came rapidly: Survivors of the Crossing (1964), Among Thistles and Thorns (1965), and The Meeting Place (1967), the first book of his Toronto trilogy, were all written by 1964. Clarke’s earliest novels are set in Barbados; the first is the tragicomic account of a cane workers’ strike; the second, a coming-of-age story. Most of his subsequent novels and short stories are set in Toronto and depict the struggles of Caribbean immigrants in an unwelcoming Canada that refuses to recognize their

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humanity or appreciate their uniqueness. His short fiction is replete with failed men whose bravado belies bitter disappointment and women whose labor brings few rewards. Clarke has described his Toronto trilogy—The Meeting Place, Storm of Fortune (1973), and The Bigger Light (1975)—as a comedy of manners. During the tumultuous 1960s, Clarke’s public profile as a successful author made him also a spokesperson and interpreter of the American civil rights struggle for a Canadian audience. For the Canadian Broadcasting System, he interviewed a range of African American leaders and artists, including Malcolm X and Amiri Baraka. Between 1968 and 1974, he taught at a variety of American universities, including Yale, Brandeis, Duke, and the University of Texas at Austin. Following his American sojourn, which included a stint as cultural attaché to the Barbadian embassy in Washington, D.C., Clarke returned to Barbados to head the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation. This ill-fated venture became the topic of The Prime Minister (1977). Proud Empires (1986), too, is set in Barbados. Most important and characteristic of Clarke, Growing Up Stupid under the Union Jack (1980) boldly asserts the value of his rigorous colonial education, claiming his right to the intellectual and artistic heritage it represents, while at the same time dissecting colonial legacy. His most recent memoir, Pigtails ‘n’ Breadfruit (1999), takes the form of a cookbook. Clarke considers his most recent and highly acclaimed novel, The Polished Hoe (2002), the culmination of his life’s work in fiction. It is, indeed, a storytelling tour de force. Compressed into a single night, in which the central character, Mary-Mathilda, confesses to the murder of her lover, the local plantation owner, and her reasons for it, is the entire history of Caribbean slavery and its soul-destroying legacies. The Polished Hoe is epic in scope and magisterial in tone. Clarke’s long and distinguished career has brought him many honors and prizes. These

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include honorary degrees from Trinity College, the University of Toronto, the University of the West Indies, and Lakehead University; the Canadian W. O. Mitchell Prize for mentoring young writers. The Origin of Waves (1997) received the Rogers Communications Writers’ Development Trust Prize for Fiction. In addition, Storm of Fortune (1973) and The Question (1999) were short-listed for the Governor General’s Award. In 1998, Clarke was invested with the Order of Canada. Leslie Sanders See also Barbados: African Cultural Elements; Canada and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Algoo-Baksh, Stella. 1994. Austin C. Clarke: A Biography. Toronto: ECW Press. Birbalsingh, Frank. 1996. “Austin Clarke: Caribbean Canadians.” In Frontiers of Caribbean Literatures in English, ed. Frank Birbalsingh, 86–105. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Brown, Lloyd W. 1989. El Dorado and Paradise: Canada and the Caribbean in Austin Clarke’s Fiction. Parkersburg, Iowa: Caribbean Books. Sanders, Leslie. 1984. “Austin Clarke.” In Profiles in Canadian Literature, vol. 4., ed. Jeffrey M. Heath, 93–100. Toronto: Dundurn Press.

z Clarke, George Elliot (1960–) Poet, playwright, and scholar George Elliot Clarke’s debut collection, Saltwater Poetry and Deeper Blues (1983), announced his central artistic project: to render visible the long presence of people of African descent in Canada, particularly in Nova Scotia, and to articulate their experience. To this end, and to acclaim, Clarke has written an additional five collections of poetry, two operas, two plays, a film script, and a novel. In addition, he has edited two anthologies of African Canadian writing. The first, the groundbreaking two-volume Fire in the Water: An Anthology of Black Nova Sco-

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tian Writing (1991, 1992), made readily available two centuries of Africadian—the term is Clarke’s invention—literary production, work that was virtually unknown. As scholar, Clarke also engages in a definitional project. His many essays seek to situate and theorize African Canadian literature both as part of Canadian literature and as distinct within the national project and different from African American literature, in particular. A seventh-generation Nova Scotian, Clarke claims both black Loyalist and Mi’kmaq ancestry. Born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, Clarke grew up in Halifax, leaving to attend the University of Waterloo for his undergraduate degree. He returned to Dalhousie University for his M.A. and then obtained his Ph.D. at Queens University. Clarke’s academic career took him first to Duke University (1993–1999) and then to the University of Toronto, where he holds the position of E. J. Pratt Professor of Canadian Literature. Known primarily as a poet, Clarke’s work is formally various, ranging from sonnets and haiku to free verse. Most notable is Whylah Falls (1990), Clarke’s second collection of poetry, sometimes termed a novel in verse. Set in a fictional rural black Nova Scotian community in the 1930s, Whylah Falls focuses on one family, whose son, Othello, is murdered by a white man; the murderer is exonerated. The unique work, with its multileveled language use, is his tribute to his roots and community: he later turned it into a well-received play for stage and radio (first produced in 1997) and wrote the script for One Heart Broken into Song (1999), a feature-length film directed by Clement Virgo, which is set in Whylah Falls. Clarke’s most recent prize-winning collection of poetry, Execution Song (2001), also comprises a narrative: the story of his relatives George and Rue who, in 1949, were hanged for the murder of a New Brunswick cab driver. Clarke’s novel George & Rue (2005) returns to his cousins’ story.

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Clarke, John Henrik (1915–1998) | 309 Opera, too, has engaged Clarke’s talents. First written as a verse drama, Beatrice Chancy sets the story of Beatrice Chancy on a slave plantation in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. The opera, with music by Canadian composer James Rolfe, premiered in 1998 to excellent reviews. With composer D. D. Jackson, Clarke returned to the form in 2003, writing Québécité, a jazz opera commissioned by the Guelph Jazz Festival. Set in Quebec, the story follows to a happy conclusion the difficult courtships of two racially mixed couples. Both a commentary on the present and the dream of a richly diverse future, Québécité was a musical success. In addition to the Governor General’s Award for Poetry, Clarke has received many awards, honorary degrees, and other honors. Leslie Sanders See also Canada and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Banks, Michelle. 2002. “Myth-Making and Exile: The Desire for a Homeplace in George Elliot Clarke’s Whylah Falls.” Canadian Poetry 51 (Fall-Winter): 58–85. Compton, Anne. 1998. “Standing Your Ground: George Elliot Clarke in Conversation.” Studies in Canadian Literature 23 (2): 138–164. Wells, Dorothy. 1997. “A Rose Grows in Whylah Falls: Transplanted Traditions in George Elliot Clarke’s ‘Africadia.’” Canadian Literature 15: 56–73. Wilson, Ann. 2001. “Beatrice Chancy: Slavery, Martyrdom and the Female Body.” In Siting the Other: Re-Visions of Marginality in Australian and English-Canadian Drama, ed. Franca Bellarsi, 267–278. Brussels, Belgium: Peter Lang.

z Clarke, John Henrik (1915–1998) John Henrik Clarke was a Pan-Africanist and an eminent scholar of African Diasporic studies. He was born January 1, 1915, in Union Springs,

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Alabama, and he passed on July 16, 1998. He was the eldest son of an Alabama sharecropper family, and he had three daughters. In 1933, he moved to New York via Chicago. He enlisted in the army and earned the rank of master sergeant. Clarke pursued his African Diasporic studies in Harlem, as well as abroad in Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, Latin America, and Africa. He grounded himself on the African Diaspora along with many other brave, salient African studies scholars and had the opportunity to mentor Kwame Nkrumah when he arrived in the United States as a student. Clarke assisted in founding the Harlem’s Guild and a number of other institutions, such as the Harlem Quarterly (1954–1951), the Black Academy of Arts and Letters, the African American Scholars’ Council, Presence Africaine, the African Heritage Studies Association, the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, the National Council of Black Studies, and the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilization. In 1968, Dr. Clarke founded the Black Caucus of the African Studies Association. In 1969, he was the founding chairman of the Black and Puerto Rican Studies Department at Hunter College in New York City. There, he was the director of the African Heritage Program of the Harlem antipoverty agency (HARYOU-ACT). Clarke was a coordinator for the Columbia University–WCBSTV series Black Heritage (1968). Further, Clarke applied his Pan-Africanist interest by becoming a member of the Universal Ethiopian Students Association. He was a prominent scholar and professor in African and Puerto Rican studies at Hunter College in New York City and in the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. In 1985, Cornell University developed the John Henrik Clarke Africana Library, a 9,000-volume facility consisting of sixty seats. He donated the majority of his books to the Atlanta University Center and to the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture. Clarke wrote songs and published

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numerous short stories, edited books, major essays, book introductions, books, magazine articles, journal articles, and monographs. He has edited about 15 books, including Malcolm X: The Man and His Times (1970) and Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa (1974). He has published about 10 monographs, such as New Dimensions in African History: The London Lectures of Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochannan and Dr. John Henrik Clarke (1990) and Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan World Revolution (1992). Published pamphlets, such as Black Americans: Immigrants against Their Will (1974) and The End of the Age of Grandeur and the Beginning of the Slave Trade (1981), and more than 30 journal articles, such as “Ancient Nigeria and the Western Sudan” (1960), “The Passing of Patrice Lumumba” (1962), “Bambata (of Southern Africa), a Zulu Chief ” (1963), are among his contributions. An abundance of articles in such magazines and newspapers as Ebony, Crisis, Essence, the Pittsburgh Courier, Amsterdam News, Black American, and the NY Daily Challenge complete his repertoire. He was the book review editor of the Negro History Bulletin (1948–1952), associate editor of Freedomways magazine, and a feature writer for the Ghana Evening News and the Pittsburgh Courier. Clarke was recognized as a recipient for the Thomas Hunter Professorship at Hunter College (1983). In 1994, he was awarded the Phelps-Stokes Fund’s Aggrey Medal. The film “John Henrik Clarke: A Great and Mighty Walk” (1996) was directed by Saint Clair Bourne and narrated by Wesley Snipes. Cheryl Jeffries See also “African” in African American History. F URTHER R EADING Acree, Eric Kofi. “John Henrik Clarke: Historian, Scholar, and Teacher.” Cornell University: John Henrik Clarke Africana Library. www.library.cornell.edu/africana/clarke/ (accessed July 15, 2004). Conyers, James L., Jr. 2004. “John Henrik Clarke and Africana History: A Bibliographical Essay.” The Life and Times of John Henrik Clarke, ed.

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J. L. Conyers Jr. and J. Thompson, 21–34. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Hunter College. Department of Black and Puerto Rican Studies. “Published Works by (and on) John Henrik Clarke.” www.hunter.cuny.edu/blpr/clarke2.html. Toure, Ahati N. N. 2004. “John Henrik Clarke and Issues in Afrikan Historiography: Implications of Pan Afrikan Nationalism in Interpreting the Afrikan Experience in the United States.” In The Life and Times of John Henrik Clarke, ed. J. L. Conyers Jr. and J. Thompson, 1–21. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.

z Clarke, Leroy (1938–) Born November 7th, 1938, in Gonzales, Port-ofSpain, Trinidad, Leroy Clarke is the Caribbean’s most preeminent artist. Described as a surrealist and compared to Wilfredo Lam, he is also a poet who has five collections of poems, Fragments of a Spiritual (1970); Taste of Endless Fruit (1974), Douens (1981) Eying the Word (2004), and now The Distance Is Here: The El Tucuche Poems, 1984–2006 (2007). A retrospective exhibition of his work was held at the National Museum and Art Gallery of Trinidad and Tobago, November 7–December 4, 1998, and published as Of Flesh & Salt & Wind & Current (2003). Each of these collections carries some of his artwork in various forms. LeRoy Clarke held his first exhibition in 1962 at the National Independence exhibition and taught school in nearby John-John, an urban neighborhood marked as much for its creativity as for its economic deprivation. His first exhibition was held in 1965; since then, he has held more than 50 solo exhibitions, and his work has been shown in countries around the world in such venues as the October Gallery, London; New York University and Cornell University in the United States; São Paulo, Brazil; Venezuela; and Jamaica. He has been honored as a Caribbean Master Artist by CARIFESTA and is a popular speaker, men-

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Cleaver, Eldridge Leroy (1935–1998) | 311 tor of aspiring artists, and outspoken representative of Caribbean arts in governmental and popular forums. Leroy Clarke has written numerous position pieces and essays, not only for local newspapers but also for Ebony magazine and various art magazines around the world. Clarke moved to the United States in 1967, and his work was immediately recognized. One of his most distinctive honors was to be the first artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum of Harlem, from 1971 to 1974. After this, in 1978, Clarke made the bold move of returning to Trinidad, having decided that home was the logical base out of which he created. Thus, his early artistic and poetic movements, Douens and Fragments of a Spiritual, serve as a base for his poetic rise to the highest point of excellence and creativity, represented by El Tucuche, the highest mountain point in Trinidad and Tobago. But he also came of artistic age during the time of black consciousness and the literary, political, and artistic movements of the 1960s and 1970s. The folklore, mythology, people, and landscape of the Caribbean— but also its struggles for excellence—became the creative fuel for his artistic and poetic oeuvre. Clarke creates out of his studios in Mt. Hope and Aripo, teaches a class at the Creative Arts Centre at the University of the West Indies, and otherwise engages his communities as a critic and advocate of a country not living out the maximum of its potential. Carole Boyce Davies See also Art in the African Diaspora; Trinidad and Tobago. F URTHER R EADING Clarke, Leroy. 2003. Of Flesh & Salt & Wind & Current: A Retrospective. Researched and compiled by Caroline C. Ravello. Port of Spain: National Museum and Art Gallery of Trinidad and Tobago.

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Cleaver, Eldridge Leroy (1935–1998) Eldridge Leroy Cleaver was born on August 31, 1935, and lived in Wabbaseka, Arkansas, until his family moved to Los Angeles. His youth was marred by a variety of criminal convictions, including rape, theft, and possession of marijuana, for which he served prison sentences in San Quentin, Soledad, and Folsom prisons. While serving nine years in prison, he wrote his best-selling book Soul on Ice, which won literary praise and the acclaim of many critics, who readily embraced him as a prominent voice in the black power debate. He was a cofounder of Black House and a member of the Nation of Islam (NOI). He joined the Black Panther Party (BPP) as its minister of information after witnessing a dramatic confrontation between Huey P. Newton and police officers while covering an event as a reporter for Ramparts magazine. Soul on Ice was required reading for all BPP members and was also the subject of BPP political education classes. Cleaver and his wife, Kathleen, who also served as the BPP’s communications secretary, mobilized support for Newton during the Free Huey movement. Cleaver’s blistering criticism and rhetorical style attracted many BPP supporters and inspired many people to join and support the BPP. Cleaver also donated proceeds from the sale of his book to support the BPP. In 1968, Eldridge Cleaver was an unsuccessful presidential candidate on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket. A shootout involving himself, 17-year old BPP treasurer Bobby Hutton, and Oakland police ended with the killing of Hutton by police as Cleaver emerged nude from his refuge in a basement home to distract police and was arrested. Although the California Adult Authority (CAA) revoked Cleaver’s parole status, his lawyers secured a writ of habeas corpus, ordered his release from prison, and reinstated his parole. The California State Supreme Court affirmed the CAA’s decision,

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and Cleaver was ordered returned to prison on November 27, 1968. Determined never to return to prison, Cleaver jumped the $50,000 bail posted by supporters and boarded a plane to Cuba. Despite warnings to maintain a “low profile in Cuba,” Cleaver sought to implement a “grand design” of recruiting “revolutionary camps and personnel” to invade the United States, which exacerbated his tensions with the Cuban government. Cleaver left Cuba in 1969 and was reunited with his wife, Kathleen Cleaver, in Algiers. While in Algiers, Cleaver established an international section of the BPP. Cleaver’s alleged violent physical abuse of his spouse and other BPP members, as well as fatal confrontations between Cleaver and Newton supporters, dominated newspapers and tabloids in 1971. In 1972, Cleaver expelled most of the members of the international section in Algiers. His tensions with the Algerian government prompted him to travel to Paris, where he unsuccessfully attempted to produce men’s fashions. Cleaver’s lawyers in the United States negotiated a brief prison sentence as a condition of his return in 1975, after which he announced his conversion to evangelical Christianity and publicly renounced the BPP. He published his second autobiographical account, Soul on Fire, in 1978 and became a conservative Republican. His marriage to Kathleen Cleaver ended in divorce. Cleaver also resumed a drug habit, which yielded additional convictions throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He died in Los Angeles in 1998. Rose C. Thevenin See also Black Panther Party; Black Power Movement in the United States. F URTHER R EADING Cleaver, Eldridge. 1969. Cleaver: Post Prison Writings and Speeches. Edited and with an appraisal by Robert Scheer. New York: Random House. Cleaver, Eldridge. 1970. Soul on Ice. New York: Dell. Cleaver, Eldridge. 1978. Soul on Fire. Waco, TX: Word Books.

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Jones, Charles, ed. 1998. The Black Panther Party Reconsidered. Baltimore: Black Classic Press. Lockwood, Lee. 1970. Conversation with Eldridge Cleaver, Algiers. New York: Delta Book.

z COINTELPRO COINTELPRO, the Counter-Intelligence Program of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the U.S. government, under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover, targeted black leadership and black political organizations. The millions-strong Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) would never recover from this campaign of destruction. Later, a similar fate and set of techniques would await Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Black Panther Party (BPP), not to mention many others. While the period of official COINTELPRO activity is said to date from 1956 to 1971, such covert politics clearly predate and postdate any given year. The overt repression of McCarthyism, the Smith Act, and the Subversive Activities Control Board Hearings were prior examples. Notable COINTELPRO targets therefore also included the Communist Party USA, the Socialist Workers Party, New Left organizations, the Puerto Rican Independentistas and the American Indian Movement. Well-known “white hate groups” such as the Ku Klux Klan were monitored but also sometimes aided and abetted by these counterintelligence operations. In Still Black, Still Strong: Survivors of the War against Black Revolutionaries, ex-Panther Dhoruba Bin Wahad outlines it as a “domestic war” against black militancy and independent thought (Bin Wahad, Abu-Jamal, and Shakur 1993, 18). One of the infamous memos would state its aims bluntly: “to prevent the coalition of militant black nationalist groups,” “to prevent the rise of a messiah who could unify and

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Collins, Merle (1950–) | 313 electrify the militant black nationalist movement,” and “to prevent the long-range growth of militant black organizations, especially among the youth.” This information has been compiled in such collections as Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall’s The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars against Dissent in the United States (1990). The BPP was designated “Public Enemy Number One” and hit with the total package of COINTELPRO: outright murder or assassination; agent provocateurs, “black-bag jobs” or burglaries, and snitch-jacketing; psychological warfare; defamation or vilification in various media; judicial harassment and political imprisonment; exile; and more. Most symbolic, then, may be the ambush-execution of Fred Hampton Sr. and Mark Clark in Chicago on December 4, 1969. On March 8, 1971, a clandestine group of antiwar and anti-imperialist radicals calling themselves the Citizen’s Commission to Investigate the FBI broke into a federal storage facility in Media, Pennsylvania. Their raid would lead to the declassification of certain files and the creation of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (the “Church Committee”). A few politically imprisoned activists could mobilize these records and successfully appeal their sentences. However, the declassification of documents was far from complete, and absolutely no one would be held liable for any COINTELPRO crimes despite the rampant criminality of this state-sanctioned violence. A political prisoner for 19 years and a present resident of Ghana, Bin Wahad suggests COINTELPRO is just one name for its specific mode of counterinsurgent repression. Besides its international Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) equivalent, Operation Chaos, there would also be, for example, NEWKILL (New York Killings), Operation PRISAC (Prison Activists), Operation Mirage (Arab Americans), FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Act), JATTF (Joint Anti-Terrorist Task Force), and SWAT/BUT

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(Special Weapons and Tactics/Basic Unit Tactics); and this is all before Homeland Security and the Patriot Acts (I-III), for which these earlier programs pave the way. Many now term as “Rap COINTELPRO” another system of surveillance focusing on hiphop figures from New York to California to Miami. Though the FBI claims to investigate crime, the COINTELPRO papers revealed that 41 percent of its investigations were devoted to policing political activists, while all of 1 percent was devoted to organized crime. The FBI committed far more crimes that it pretended to solve. Under George W. Bush, there has a been a return to the legalized persecution identified with McCarthyism, at the same time that many of the activities identified with COINTELPRO are now managed under the War on Terror and the various Patriot Acts. Greg Thomas See also Black Panther Party; Jackson, George Lester (1941–1971). F URTHER R EADING Abu-Jamal, Mumia. 2004. We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party. Boston: South End Press. Bin Wahad, Dhoruba, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Assata Shakur. 1993. Still Black, Still Strong: Survivors of the War against Black Revolutionaries, ed. Jim Fletcher, Tanaquil Jones, and Sylvere Lotringer. New York: Semiotext(e). Churchill, Ward, and Jim Vander Wall, eds. 1990. The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars against Dissent in the United States. Boston: South End Press.

z Collins, Merle (1950–) The creative writings of Merle Collins have engaged very dynamically with the issue of Diaspora and the multiply located subject. Born to Grenadian parents living in Aruba in 1950,

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Merle Collins grew up in Grenada, where she attended the St. Joseph’s Convent. She went on to the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, to study English and French, and later received her postgraduate education from Georgetown University in the United States and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in England. She taught in London and was a visiting professor of English at St. George’s University in Grenada. She also served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Grenada. Professor Collins now teaches comparative literature at the University of Maryland. While her training has been academic, Collins’s love for creative writing has manifested itself in her poetry and her prose—writings that have captured her deep love for the Grenadian landscape, her appreciation for its folklore, and her sense of the creative evocativeness of Grenadian native speech. Her first novel, Angel (1987), explores the experience of coming of age in the Caribbean. Although this theme is a recurring one in Caribbean literature, Collins’s own innovation, in its fusing of racial, political, and sociocultural issues, connects the development of the female protagonist to the growth of a nation. Her second novel, The Colour of Forgetting (1995), allows her to draw deeply on the historical and political traditions of the island society on which Angel rests. The dynamics of Caribbean family relationships, the relationship between political history and social behavior, drama and trauma are all issues that repeatedly constellate in this work. While this novel is set on a mythical island named Paz, its similarity to Grenada is too marked to go unnoticed. As in Angel, the language of this second novel is inflected by the cadences of Grenadian native speech, and the novel form is influenced by the oral storytelling traditions. Collins has a collection of short stories, Rain Darling (1990), and recently completed her third novel, Invisible Streams. Collins has published three collections of poetry: Because the Dawn Breaks (1985), Rotten

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Pomerack, and Lady in a Boat (2003). It is in Collins’s poetry that we are best able to appreciate the tensions wrought by the experience of Diaspora. Her poems are both personal and political, and often a poem works simultaneously as an evocation of a personal experience and as a commentary on a larger social reality. In her poetry, Collins deals with issues as political as the Grenadian revolution and the subsequent intervention and the death of Maurice Bishop; and as personal as her pain at this loss. Issues about nationalism, about belonging, about finding one’s home, and the search for self are comfortably laid out alongside her evocations of home and family life and the rich oral traditions that provide sustenance. Antonia MacDonald-Smythe See also Grenada. F URTHER R EADING Cudjoe, Selwyn, ed. 1986. Caribbean Women Writers. Wellesley, MA: Calaloux Press.

z Colombia: Afro-Colombians In the last decade, the African Diaspora has become a group of local forces that are trying to generate global responses for Afro-descendants. This interest shows the asymmetry between the ethnic local populations and the global reality. Some of these global responses are the multilateral agreements against any form of discrimination or slavery and the formation of multilateral groups for Afro-descendants’ affairs in the world. In this regard, the causes of the current global commonality of Afro-descendants in the Americas are mainly twofold. The first cause is the recognition of the traces of forced migration from Africa, particularly by means of slavery, throughout the world. The second cause consists of the similar problems faced by Afro-descendants, as it will be analyzed in the

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Colombia: Afro-Colombians | 315 Colombian case. In fact, the African Diaspora has impelled the global solidarity of people who not only share to some degree the same skin color but also the process of finding solutions to social, political, cultural, and economic problems that are similar for the Diasporic community. The case of Colombia is particularly interesting because of the forces intervening in its current situation. Colombia holds the secondlargest Afro-descendant population in Latin America, approximately 11,745,403 AfroColombians. The country also faces one of the most complex armed conflicts in the world, nurtured by drug trafficking. In particular, this armed conflict has sharpened in regions with major Afro-Colombian populations, where the conjunction of the extreme vulnerability and the growing licit and illicit economic interests has engendered a complex violence phenomenon in the last decade. This entry studies the current meaning of the African Diaspora in a particular context. In doing so, it attempts to answer the following questions: What does the African Diaspora mean for Afro-Colombians? How does the asymmetry between global and local Afrodescendant actions work in the Colombian case? Some of the possible answers to these questions can be discussed by describing the situation and the processes developed by different Afro-Colombian grassroots groups. T HE A FRO -C OLOMBIAN S ITUATION : A N OVERVIEW Colombia is located in the northwest corner of South America. It shares its borders with Panama, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. Colombia’s territory is over one million square miles (1,147,798). The population is about 43.7 million, of which three-quarters live in cities. Afro-Colombians account for 26.83 percent of the population and indigenous persons for 2 percent. Afro-Colombians are the majority group in the Atlantic and the Pacific coast regions.

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In the Pacific coastal region, Afro-Colombians have collective land rights to more than 5 million hectares of the 10 million hectares of tropical forests that form this region. In the Atlantic coastal area, the racial mixture has been remarkable, generating a lack of clarity about ethnic self-recognition. In the Pacific coast region, the level of mixture is marginal, and there exists more self-recognition among the Afro-descendant majority. This latter fact also explains why the Afro-descendant movement has been more dynamic in the Pacific region. The beginning of the African forced migration to Colombia is estimated to have begun in 1500. Cartagena, one of the most important cities on the Atlantic coast of Colombia, was the main port in which African slaves disembarked. From there, African slaves were distributed to different parts of the country, for example, to work in the mining industry in Choco. Slavery was officially abolished in Colombia in 1851. After this declaration, AfroColombians had to wait more than 100 years to be included in the National Constitution of 1991, in which it is stated that Colombia is a multicultural and pluriethnic society. Two years later, Law 70 ruled for the specific inclusion of the Afro-descendant community in the Colombian society. Law 70 especially emphasized territorial rights, mechanisms for the protection of the ethnic identity and culture, an ethno-educational approach, and promotion of Afro-Colombian social and political development. Not until 1993 was Law 70 passed. Still, today Afro-Colombians keep trying to defend their rights and to enforce this law that has been only partially implemented. That AfroColombians are not clearly accepted as a group with an important contribution to the country’s development is demonstrated by such a late recognition of legal status. Notwithstanding that this community has left undeniable traces on the Colombian culture, it has also contributed greatly to the country’s

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economic development and biodiversity. Studies show that many species on the Pacific coast were brought by African slaves and have enriched the biological diversity in the region. As will be discussed in the following section, the delay and lack of legal recognition of AfroColombians has generated an identity problem that partially explains the Afro-Colombian state of stagnation. A P ROBLEM OF I DENTITY Part of the late legal recognition of Afro-Colombian rights has been caused by the many years in which this population considered themselves an inferior Colombian group. Dominated by the white and mestizo elite, Afro-Columbians’ concerns received minor attention because the mestizos’ and indigenous groups’ affairs were considered more important. Despite some historians’ mention of the fact that there were different Afro-Colombian slaves’ movements for freedom, there is no record of Afro-Colombian movements after the declaration of the abolition of slavery (1851) until 1970. Since 1970, some AfroColombians have started to defend their difference. For the activists, difference impelled not inferiority but the right to be treated differentially, the recognition of a historical process, and the need for reparations. Considering the oppression and inhumane condition imposed on this community for centuries, these groups have called attention to the AfroColombians’ need to be treated under equal conditions in a country to which they were forced to migrate. One of the main obstacles has been to make society understand that the presence of different ethnic groups within a country does not constitute a threat or a shame but rather carries the possibility and necessity to integrate these groups’ views in the country’s construction without isolating and ignoring their different views, lifestyles, and beliefs. One of the main reasons why the AfroColombian social movements started later, as compared to the indigenous movements, was

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the profound traces of slavery on the ancient colonialized and colonialist. The collective memories of slavery have marked the present in problems such as the confusion in the AfroColombian identity and the created slave mind-set. Without a clear and recognized identity, the fight for Afro-Colombian civil rights is socially fragmented by the lack of self-determination, while the other ethnic groups decide the entire future of the society, imposing their homogeneity and view. The slave mind-set mainly consists of lack of esteem in terms of being Afro-Colombian, with compromised rights and living conditions. One of the homogenized views was that black was an inferior skin color. That explains why some Afro-descendants developed a sense of self-protection by mixing with the other races in order to diminish the darkness of their skin. The brightest skin color could imply a better level of acceptance in a so-called white society. Nowadays, despite the fact that globalization provides a broader picture of the world, one in which the Diasporic community can see people like themselves who are proud of their skin color, there still exists a denial of ethnic recognition. In this national self-recognition, darker- and lighter-skinned Colombians ask themselves why they have to recognize their African Diaspora. Notwithstanding that, in most of the national musical, sportive, and traditional practices, all recognize a racial mixture; at the moment of defining the AfroColombian identity there is a complete denial. For instance, some of the native inhabitants of the Colombian Atlantic coast argue that the Caribbean culture is broadly recognized, but this is not the case for the Afro-descendants. Although the Caribbean identity is deeply rooted in the African culture, there is not a clear connection. In such a case, one question arises: Is this identity issue a matter of race or culture? In the following discussion, the ethnic explanation is more inclusive in terms of inte-

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Colombia: Afro-Colombians | 317 grating race and culture. But many AfroColombians see themselves as mestizos, or different from the black group. T HE A FRICAN D IASPORA IN C OLOMBIA : T HE R EALITY OF I NVISIBILITY AND E XCLUSION For many years, Afro-Colombians have faced the reality of invisibility and exclusion, in which they were not considered a significant group of Colombian society. That is the reason why most Colombian leaders do not consider that Colombia has been an inclusive society or that it has even been concerned about racial issues. When someone is invisible, there is no perception of that person’s problems; to some extent these problems do not exist, or they exist just for the negative aspects caused by the invisible ones. They became invisible for the situation in which they were forced to live; slaves did not exist for the colonialist power apart from their role as a workforce—a workforce superior to animals but still not compared to the human intellectual capacity of the colonizers. Nevertheless, facts speak for themselves. The ancient and current vulnerable state of AfroColombians refers to a series of factors such as violence, displacement, natural disasters, unemployment, low access to education, health care, job opportunities and housing. The AfroColombian population, in all basic social indicators, lives at a lower level compared to the rest of the population (Consejo Nacional de Política Económica y Social 2004), despite that it accounts for 26 percent of the total national population. Afro-Colombians have an average annual per capita income of USD $500, while the national per capita income average corresponds to USD $1,500. Seventy-four percent of the Afrodescendant population has a monthly salary equivalent to USD $130. The life expectancy in such regions as Choco or Uraba is 55 years. The educational panorama is dismal; out of 100 Afro-Colombian young people, only 2 can get into a university. The public service coverage is one major indicator of the level of

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underdevelopment of the areas with major Afro-descendant population. Most do not have sewers or running water; the water is undrinkable, and electricity service covers some hours a day. Looking at this latter fact, a question is, How can these major Afro-Colombian municipalities generate economic development without quality and coverage in the public services? From a different perspective, the invisibility can also be analysed with a gender lens. The critical Afro-Colombian social situation shows the harsh reality of women’s issues in the Pacific coast region. For example, there is a high percentage of female-headed households; more than 40 percent of women with children are single mothers, most of them very young. The responsibility of the family falls mostly on the Afro-Colombian woman, for many reasons. One is the lack of a life project; the AfroColombian woman does not establish what she wants for her life, mainly due to the lack of expectation for a different future. Another reason is Afro-Colombian men’s irresponsibility and lack of familial sense. In the last years, Afro-Colombian men have become actively involved in violence; in several cases, the male heads of families are members of illegal groups, were killed, or were forced to leave due to the lack of job opportunities. The Pacific coast exemplifies this ethnical development paradox in a region where 90 percent of the population is Afro-descendant. Considered one of the world’s biodiversity hot spots, the Pacific coast is one of Colombia’s poorest, most underdeveloped regions; 80 percent of the population lives in extreme poverty with a high level of malnutrition (125 children out of every 1,000 die before reaching their first birthday). The illiteracy rate is three times the national average. The infrastructure is deficient, the means of transportation are precarious and, in most municipalities, mainly fluvial. Young Afro-Colombians are being recruited by illegal groups and increasingly are involved in drug trafficking. Yet another indicator of the Pacific coast’s problems is that an increasing number

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of Afro-Colombian women are turning to prostitution, which is perceived as one of the few alternatives for income generation. Some Colombian policy makers will argue that, in the widespread Colombian social crisis, they do not understand the need for special considerations for Afro-Colombians. This position shows the level of invisibility of the AfroColombian population, marked by a lack of historical reflection and awareness of the development gap of this community compared to the other 74 percent of Colombian society. Not only are Afro-Colombians invisible to most Colombian decision makers, they also have been mostly invisible to the international community. This can be shown by the prevalence of indigenous concerns, despite the fact that the Afro-Colombian population stands at more than 10 times the indigenous population with the same cultural connotation. A FRO -C OLOMBIAN I NSTITUTIONAL S TRENGTHENING In the 1970s, some Afro-Colombians started organizations that could represent their position. They became interlocutors with the different power sectors (e.g., the government and businesses) and responded to the need to defend Afro-Colombian rights and to gain major control of environmental and social issues. These organizations can be classified into three main groups. One represents the social movements (e.g., Movimiento Cimarron, Proceso de Comunidades Negras, AFRODES). The main feature of these organizations is their advocacy of autonomy, territorial and political rights, their cultural legacy, and the defense of life. This latter aspect has been crucial, given the sharpening of the armed conflict and the continuous attack on the ethnic communities (Wade, 1999). Other groups are considered the communitarian councils, which arose from a response to Law 70 based on the necessity of organizational performance and synergy to defend and validate territorial rights. Currently, there exist 160 com-

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munitarian councils, which defend the AfroColombian rights against infringement by the state, economic forces, and even such illegal networks as guerrilla and paramilitary groups. As the leader of one communitarian council in Tumaco mentioned, “We are the State in regions where there is no State, we have joined to defend our lives, and we have achieved consideration as a group from the armed groups, the economic groups and the State” (translated by Paula Moreno-Zapata, extracted from her interview with the leaders of the communitarian councils in Tumaco [RECOMPAS] on May 15, 2005). Afro-Colombian communitarian councils, recognizing their different perspectives toward development and the environment, have established their life projects, which can be said to have the same relevance as the official municipalities’ development projects. Likewise, for biodiversity management, they have established their plans for Integral Environmental Management (Planes de Manejo Ambiental Integral [PMAI]), in which these communities establish their land rights, principles for protection of the environment, and the improvement of the traditional agricultural practices (ACIA 2002; PCN 1999; 2003). Among the Afro-Colombian organizations that have formed more recently, a group of politically oriented associations have emerged; for example, the Colombian Association of Afrodescendant Mayors (AMUNAFRO) and associations of mostly Afrodescendant municipalities in different parts of the Pacific coast region, such as AMUNORCA and FEDEMPACIFICO. These associations strengthen and enhance the political participation of Afro-Colombian leaders in order to include the ethnic perspectives in the major decision-making instances of the country, the region, and the municipality. Other interest groups are the Afro-Colombian Network of Women and the Young AfroColombian Network. These interest groups address the particular approaches of the different groups among the Afro-Colombian community.

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Colombia: Afro-Colombians | 319 C ONNECTIONS WITH A FRICA AND THE D IASPORA In a recent analysis of several municipalities with major Afro-Colombian populations located in Colombia’s Pacific coast region, some of the participants suggested that the reality of these municipalities and their problems were similar to the situations of several African countries or Caribbean islands (e.g., Haiti). The similarities stemmed not only from the ethical component but also from the problems of underdevelopment and the general explanations of these problems. For instance, Colombian authorities provide two main arguments for the Afro-Colombian social crisis, like the explanations for most African countries. The two main explanations are the widespread corruption and laziness of the population and its representatives (see the Colombian vice president’s opening speech at the Third Conference on the Afro-Colombian Institutional Strengthening, held in Cali, August 4–6, 2005), which corresponds to an ancient African stigma. Jeffrey Sachs has argued that corruption and laziness are overly simplistic explanations for the complexities of the African crisis; this same argument can also be made regarding the major problems of the Afro-descendant population in Colombia (Sachs 2005). There is a history behind the evident social phenomena of a particular population, and there are power systems that do not try to find differential responses for particular groups. An example of the need for differential responses is shown by some Colombian experts who worked with the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank projects. In these projects, in addressing the environmental protection and social development of the Pacific coast of Colombia (e.g., Plan Pacifico), they agreed in stating that their main weakness was their lack of understanding of the AfroColombian culture. The experts said that the cultural issue became more complex when they discovered that there was not one unified AfroColombian culture but many subcultures that

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need to be understood at the moment of establishing any intervention. Another example of this existent social connection within the African Diaspora is exemplified by a visit to Colombia in August 2005 by U.S. congressman Gregory Meeks, representing the Congressional Black Caucus. He reflected upon the Afro-American past and current achievements and challenges to reduce discrimination in the United States and the similar efforts of Afro-Colombians. Some past and future common challenges are the lack of representation in the major national institutions, the low access to opportunities, discrimination, and poverty. Despite the different historical processes and settings, these communities find similarities in their goals and fights. From different national and international perspectives, the African Diaspora shares not only an ancient racial movement and transmission of several components (e.g., culture, plants) but also the main social, economic, and political challenges faced by its populations. Despite differences among the different Diasporic communities, there are some common responses and current connections. One clear example is music, the hip-hop and reggaeton phenomena, two musical expressions that represent the feelings of a considerable group of young Afro-descendants in a world of violence, injustice, and exclusion. S UMMARY The African Diaspora represents one of the strongest, most dynamic trends in the process of globalization, in which communications play an important role for divulgence of events and knowledge about the Diasporic community. The African Diasporic community represents a significant ethnic group in the world. This fact is generating the emergence of an ethnic power and influence that crosses borders. As in the other interest groups of globalization, this community without borders that has a strong cultural legacy becomes an avenue for social and economic change.

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Afro-Colombians are one of the largest African Diasporic communities in the world. This condition has emerged as a powerful motivation in the process of self-definition and self-positioning of the same community in the country. The complexity of the Colombian situation is aggravated for the Afro-Colombian community, which faces not only illegal pressure but also discrimination and marginalization by the nation-state in which they live. One of the major challenges for AfroColombians and its enhanced global support group consists of making visible its difference, requiring specific responses for its critical social, political and economic situation, while at the same time making the country recognize the historical traces of slavery and the contribution of the Afro-descendant community— a contribution not limited to music or dance but evident in such clear examples as the development of several industries, conservation of the environment, and sports. Paula Moreno-Zapata See also Argentina: Afro-Argentines; Bolivia: The African Presence; Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Ecuador: Afro-Ecuadorians; Hip-Hop Culture in the African Diaspora; Hip-Hop, Latin American; Peru: Afro-Peruvians. F URTHER R EADING ACIA. 2002. La defensa del territorio: una historia de vida—Comunidades negras del Medio Atrato. Bogotá, Colombia: Red de Solidaridad Social. Escobar, Arturo. 1995. Encountering Development: The Making and the Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Escobar, Arturo. 1997. Biodiversidad, Naturaleza y cultura: localidad y globalidad en las estrategias de conservación. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Centro de Investigaciones Interdisciplinarias en Ciencias y Humanidades. Escobar, Arturo. 1998. “Whose Knowledge, Whose Nature? Biodiversity Conservation and Social Movements’ Political Ecology.” Journal of Political Ecology 5: 53–82. Moreno, Paula. 2004. “To What Extent Can Local Communities Benefit from Biodiversity?” M. Phil diss., University of Cambridge.

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Moreno-Zapata, Paula. 2005. Interview with leaders of communitarian councils in Tumaco (RECOMPAS). May 15. Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN). 1999. “Proceso de Comunidades Negras: Territorio Región del Pacífico Colombiano.” Documento interno. Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN). 2003. “Proceso de Comunidades Negras: Participación.” Documento interno. Government of the Republic of Columbia. 2004. “El documento CONPES 3292 del 28 de junio del 2004.” Restrepo, E., and A. Rojas. 2004. “Conflicto e invisibilidad: Retos en los estudios de la gente negra en Colombia.” Editorial. Cauca, Colombia: Universidad del Cauca. Colección Políticas de Alteridad. Sachs, J. 2005. “The End of Poverty.” Time, March 14. Wade, Peter. 1993. Blackness and Race Mixture: The Dynamics of Racial Identity in Colombia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Wade, Peter. 1997. Race and Ethnicity in Latin America. London: Pluto Press. Wade, Peter. 1999. The Guardians of Biodiversity: The Anthropology of Power, Empowerment and Disempowerment in Changing Structures. London: Routledge.

z Colored Farmers Alliance The Colored Farmers Alliance was one of the principal organizations of black farmers and agricultural laborers in the late 19th century that gave rise to black Populism, the largest rural black independent political movement of that time period. Founded in Houston County, Texas, in 1886, the Colored Farmers Alliance began by espousing self-help and economic cooperation as it organized African Americans in rural areas. But the organization quickly adopted more radical measures (including lobbying efforts, boycotts, and calls for strikes) as it met resistance from the Southern Democracy— the white planters and business elite that, through the Democratic Party and its affiliated

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Combahee River Collective (CRC) | 321 network of courts, militias, sheriffs, and newspapers, maintained control over the region. Within five years, the Colored Alliance had spread to every state in the South and claimed a membership of 1,200,000; some 300,000 were women. The organization helped to consolidate the growing networks of black farmers and agrarian workers from several previously formed groups, including the Grange, the Agricultural Wheel, and the southern branch of the Knights of Labor. It soon incorporated other agrarian groups into its ranks, including the Farmers Union and the Cooperative Workers of America. Most of its leaders were black, including the Rev. Walter A. Pattillo, Jacob John Shuffer, and George Washington Murray, although Robert M. Humphrey, a white Baptist minister, served as the organization’s general superintendent and national spokesperson— a collective decision prompted by Humphrey’s demonstrated commitment to organizing rural African Americans, and for tactical considerations in a social and political environment that gave preference to white Southerners when dealing with the press. In 1891, the Colored Alliance launched a national cotton pickers’ strike, demanding a minimum of one dollar per hundred pounds. The strike, which gained little traction, was broken by the white Populist movement’s principal organization, the Southern Alliance, in conjunction with local white planters. The Colored Alliance had become increasingly active in electoral politics, pushing for and getting a unanimous vote to endorse the failed Lodge Bill, federal legislation that would have provided supervision of local elections—where rampant fraud led to Democratic Party hegemony. The Colored Alliance would then send a delegation to the founding of the People’s Party. By the early 1890s, the Colored Alliance effectively served as a principal source for the recruitment and development of African Americans in the People’s Party, which was the most successful third party during that decade. As the new third party grew, accelerating the

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momentum of black Populism, the Colored Alliance showed itself to be a critical part of the movement’s development. By the mid-1890s, its members were mobilized to participate in the activities of the People’s Party, and the organization itself dissolved as a national entity. Black agrarian radicalism was revived a generation later through the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union and the Alabama Sharecroppers Union, which, like its predecessor, sought to give rural African Americans a more powerful vehicle to promote reforms. Omar H. Ali See also Black Populism (1886–1898). F OR F URTHER R EADING Ali, Omar H. 2003. “Black Populism in the New South, 1886–1898.” Ph.D. diss., Columbia University. Goodwyn, Lawrence C. 1976. Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America. New York: Oxford University Press.

z Combahee River Collective (CRC) The Combahee River Collective (CRC) was one of the most important black feminist organizations in African Diaspora history. Formerly known as the Boston chapter of the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO), the CRC issued one of the most publicly recognized position papers on the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation in 1977. The CRC broke new ground in the development of other black feminist organizations and is important because it was one of the first nationally recognized grassroots organizations that sought to address the simultaneity of oppressions that affect black women’s lives. Named after the South Carolina river where Harriet Tubman mounted a military campaign to free 750 enslaved Africans during the Civil

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War, thereby positioning Tubman as one of black feminism’s foremothers, the CRC wanted other organizations (especially white feminist and black liberationist) to know that the tradition of black feminism had a long history that did not just start in 1974. Black women’s troubled relationships with different movements (women’s suffrage, feminist movements, the Civil Rights Movement, black nationalism, the Black Panthers, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and others), had situated them within a matrix of domination (male privilege, patriarchy, racism, classism, and heterosexism), often relegating their concerns to the periphery of the black and women’s communities as well as the larger society. As a result, when black women participated in black and feminist liberation movements, they often had to confront sexism and racism. Black feminist theory and the Black Feminist Movement grew out of, and in response to, this phenomenon. It has been one of the only movements that has historically made an effort to complicate the ways in which people look at, analyze, and discuss black women’s lives and oppression. Most black feminist scholars and activists argue that black feminism had its roots in historical resistance to oppression, such as the women’s movements and black liberation struggles. Although this is true, most of the recognized black feminist resistance struggles became visible only after 1970. Most of the invisibility and silencing around the Black Feminist Movement had to do with black women’s relationship with the political and academic canons throughout history. Either black women simply did not have access to them, or their struggles were prevented from airing on television, getting documented, or getting in newspapers. The CRC felt that there had always been a black feminist presence in literature, academia, and the larger society. At the same time, the CRC also recognized that black feminism and black feminist discourse and activism had been silenced and rendered invisible by the highly

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androcentric civil rights and black liberation movements and the racially hegemonic women’s suffrage and white feminist movements. Consequently, three members of the CRC—Barbara Smith, Beverly Smith, and Demita Frazier—took it upon themselves to issue a statement outlining their philosophy, activities, and agenda. In April 1977, the Black Feminist Statement was published as a manifesto that articulated, for the first time in history, the genesis and evolution of black feminist theory and praxis, the specific political agenda of the organization, the myths surrounding black and other women of color’s apprehension in aligning themselves with the Black Feminist Movement, and the CRC brief history as a chapter of the National Black Feminist Organization. Believing in the simultaneity of oppressions (race, class, gender, and sexual orientation), the CRC urged theoreticians, academicians, activists, and other organizations to investigate black women’s individual lives as a means to understand their collective political commitments. More specifically, the CRC believed that all black women were linked together by their personal relationships with the political institutions that sought to oppress them. The CRC contended that other mass movements and organizations had never developed a collective political agenda or personal commitment to black women’s liberation. Therefore, in their Black Feminist Statement, the CRC candidly argued that in order for the United States or the black community to take black women’s lives seriously, they had to examine the ways in which black women’s lives were shaped around and within the oppressive forces of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and classism. In addition, the CRC also clearly outlined that the audience of their Black Feminist Statement was to be black women, rather than white feminists or black male activists. The CRC felt that black women had spent entirely too much wasted energy addressing their oppressors’ (white men, white women, and black men)

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Condé, Maryse (1937–) | 323 agendas and needs. The CRC also urged black women to develop a critical, feminist consciousness and begin a dialogue that directly addressed their experiences and connected them to a larger political system. They also urged black women and men to have respect for one another’s ideas and agendas and contended that the reason other organizations had failed in their agendas was that they focused on only one type of liberation. The CRC’s Black Feminist Statement, as well as the organization’s activism, helped many communities across the African Diaspora to engage in a critical and progressive dialogue with one another about the ways in which racism, sexism, heterosexism, and classism affected their personal lives. Kaila Adia Story See also Black Panther Party; Cooper, Anna Julia (1859–1964); Davis, Angela (1944–); Feminism: Black Feminist Movement in the United States; Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Lorde, Audre (1934–1992). F URTHER R EADING Cole, Johnnetta Betsch, and Beverly Guy-Sheftall. 2003. Gender Talk: The Struggle for Women’s Equality in African American Communities. New York: Johnson. Collins, Patricia Hill. 1998. Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Giddings, Paula. 1984. When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Sex and Race in America. New York: HarperCollins. Guy-Sheftall, Beverly, ed. 1995. Words of Fire: An Anthology of African American Feminist Thought. New York: New Press. Hull, Gloria T., Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith, eds. 1981. All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave. New York: Feminist Press. Mankiller, Wilma, Gwendolyn Mink, Marysa Navarro, Barbara Smith, and Gloria Steinem, eds. 1998. Reader’s Companion to U.S. Women’s History. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

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Condé, Maryse (1937–) Maryse Condé has been recognized globally as one of the most widely-read Francophone writers from the Caribbean. Her novels, written in an innovative and often ironic style, range from presenting characters seeking to establish a cultural and personal identity while living between cultures in the African Diaspora, to recasting historic periods and classics of world literature from an Afro-Caribbean perspective. She has written children’s tales, short stories, and plays, as well as scholarly essays. Born in Guadeloupe in 1937, Condé’s has been a nomadic life: she escaped the bourgeois milieu of her childhood by studying in Paris (1953–1959), and spent 10 years in the newly independent African nations of the Ivory Coast, Guinea, Ghana, and Senegal. She returned to Paris in 1970 to pursue graduate studies. In 1976, she defended her dissertation on the portrayal of black characters in Caribbean literature and published her first novel. Since Hérémakhonon, Condé’s writing and publishing have continued steadily, even when scholarly fellowships and invitations to teach brought her to the United States in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She returned to live in Guadeloupe in 1986, after a 30-year absence. By the early 1990s, however, she was dividing her time between Guadeloupe and the United States. She taught at Berkeley, the University of Maryland, and the University of Virginia before going to New York City in 1995 to teach at Columbia University and to chair the Center for French and Francophone Studies. Retired from teaching in 2002, Condé continues to lecture and write and to divide her year between the United States, France, and Guadaloupe. Some of Maryse Condé’s most celebrated works include La migration des cæurs, translated as Windward Heights (1998); Traversée de la Mangrove, translated as Crossing the Mangrove (1995); Moi, Tituba, sorcière noire de Salem, translated as I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem (1994); Ségou: La terre en miettes, translated as

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Guadaloupean author Maryse Conde in 1981. (Sophie Bassouls/Corbis)

The Children of Segu (1989); and Ségou: Les murailles de terre, translated as Segu (1987), for which she won France’s celebrated Prix de Goncourt. Recent work includes Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? A Fantastical Tale (2004) and The Story of the Cannibal Woman: A Novel (2007). Condé’s style moves readers between past and present and among a variety of perspectives. Condé thus invites readers to scrutinize the world in the layered way she does, for in her narrative universe it is perhaps the search for truth that counts more than truth itself. Sarah Barbour See also Black Paris/Paris Noir; Césaire, Suzanne (1915–1966); Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Guadeloupe; Négritude. F URTHER R EADING Barbour, Sarah, and Gerise Herndon. 2005. Emerging Perspectives on Maryse Condé, A

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Writer of Her Own. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Kadir, Djelal, ed. 1993. “Focus on Maryse Condé.” Special issue. World Literature Today 67 (4). Perret, Delphine, and Marie-Denise Shelton, eds. 1995. “Maryse Condé.” Special issue. Callaloo 18 (3): 535–711. Pfaff, Françoise. 1996. Conversation with Maryse Condé. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Translation by the author of Entretiens avec Maryse Condé. Paris: Karthala, 1993.

z Confiant, Raphaël (1951–) Born in 1951 in Martinique in the French Caribbean, Raphaël Confiant is a novelist, poet, and journalist known in the Francophone world as favoring the emergence of a Martinican national consciousness. In the 1970s, he

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Cook, Mercer (1903–1987) | 325 began writing in Creole, but it was with his first French novel, Le nègre et l’Amiral, in 1988 that he became recognized as a major author in Paris. In 1989, along with fellow Martinicans Jean Bernabé and Patrick Chamoiseau, he published “Eloge de la créolité” (“In Praise of Creoleness”), a manifesto about the concept of Créolité, which has become the most famous and controversial Francophone literary movement since Négritude in the 1930s. He has also published a number of Creole-French dictionaries and historical and analytical works especially known for a critical biography of Aimé Césaire. Confiant’s narratives address questions of literary form and cultural representation. The status of the Creole language and the survival of a Creole imaginaire in the face of Western modernization are nodal points in his literary production. His plots and characters are deeply anchored in the atmosphere of rural Martinican society during the Vichy years until the 1970s. Eau de café (1991) and L’allée des soupirs (1994) illustrate the hybrid linguistic aesthetics created out of the subtle negotiation between the French and Creole idioms. Confiant does not write in French but complicates the idea of literacy to transcribe the multifaceted reality of Caribbean individuals who declare themselves “Creoles.” Nadege Veldwachter See also Creole, Creolity, Creolization; Négritude. F URTHER R EADING Chamoiseau, Patrick, and Raphaël Confiant. 1999. Lettres créoles. Paris : Gallimard-Folio. Taylor, Lucien. 1997. “Mediating Martinique: The ‘Paradoxical Trajectory’ of Raphaël Confiant.” In Cultural Producers in Perilous States: Editing Events, Documenting Change, ed. George E. Marcus, 259–329. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Taylor, Lucien. 1998. “Créolité Bites: A Conversation with Patrick Chamoiseau, Raphaël Confiant and Jean Bernabé.” Transition 74: 124–161.

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Cook, Mercer (1903–1987) An unsung scholar of French, Francophone, and African Diasporan studies, Mercer Cook was born in 1903 in Washington, D.C., the only child of renowned jazz composer Will Marion Mercer Cook and soprano singer Abbie Mitchell Cook. At an early age, young Mercer benefited from worldwide cultural and linguistic exposure, as his parents often took him along on their European tours and performances. His grandmother, Isabel Marion Lewis Cook, was an instructor in the Industrial Department of Howard University, while his grandfather, John Hartwell Cook, was one of the first graduates of the Howard University law program and was later appointed dean of its law school. Mercer Cook came from a family of black intellectuals and artists who valued education. With degrees from Amherst College (1925) and the Université de Paris (1926) and an M.A. (1931) and Ph.D. (1936) from Brown University (1936), he was appointed professor and head of the Department of Modern Languages at Atlanta University (AU) in 1936. Cook’s scholarship and pedagogy were innovative. He revitalized the foreign language (FL) department, adding a total of 11 new courses during his tenure, including a course entitled “The Negro in French Literature.” The addition of the Negro course was a historic and revolutionary event in the history of FL instruction. Not only was Cook able to invigorate the FL curriculum, but he also laid the foundation for future curriculum changes in FL departments across the nation. Today, many institutions of higher learning, whether predominantly black, white, or mixed, have made the study of African literature and/or Caribbean literature a requirement in their FL departments; yet very few can trace the source of this crucial curriculum innovation to Dr. Cook. An outstanding pedagogical leader, Cook added modern teaching methods now viewed in the larger academy as crucial to students’

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sociocognitive development; contextualization, motivation, and self-efficacy, to name just a few, were all part of Cook’s approaches to teaching French. With a student-centered, humanistic approach, in his article “The Teaching of French in Negro Schools” (1938), Cook continued to exhort Negro French teachers to keep abreast of new developments in FL pedagogy and French literature. He argued that the “Negro” French teacher could not afford not to prepare himself, nor could he not revitalize his course, and not use his position to expose his students to the civilization of other people. Cook’s courses on the Negro and Haiti made his students aware of the millions of black Frenchmen in Martinique, Guadeloupe, and African colonies whose history included outstanding literary and historical Negro figures such as Toussaint L’Ouverture, Chevalier de Saint Georges, and René Maran, who contributed to the literary fabric of the French language (Cook 1938, 149). In addition to developing his students’ awareness, he also invited influential dignitaries to inspire his students. Cook was undoubtedly a brilliant scholar, a caring and gifted educator, and a prolific writer. As a scholar and educator, he forged, affected, and nurtured many minds and left us with a formidable legacy. Lucie Viakinnou-Brinson See also Négritude. F URTHER R EADING Atlanta University Bulletin. 1929–1950. Atlanta, GA: Atlanta University. Cook, W. Mercer. 1934. “On Reading.” Quarterly Review of Higher Education among Negroes 1: 41–45. Cook, W. Mercer. 1938. “The Teaching of French in Negro Schools.” Journal of Negro Education 7: 147–154. Cook, W. Mercer. 1950. “The Negro in French Literature: An Appraisal.” French Review 23: 378– 388. Mayes, Janis A. 2001. “ ‘Her Turn, My Turn’: Notes on Transatlantic Translation of African Francophone Women’s Poetry.” In Femmes

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Africaines en poesie, Irene Assiba d'Almeida, ed. Special issue, Palabres: Revue d'etudes africaines (2001): 87-106. Rivers, W. Napoleon. 1935. “Reviews, Le Noir.” Journal of Negro Education 3: 627–628. Spelman Messenger. 1929–1950. Atlanta, GA: Spelman College.

z Cooper, Anna Julia (1859–1964) Anna Julia Haywood Cooper (August 10, 1859–February 27, 1964) was a teacher, high school principal, historian, scholar, college president, and one of the most extraordinary African American intellectuals and activists of the 20th century. She was the first African American woman to attend and deliver a speech at the first Pan African conference (1900) and to write a book-length black feminist text, A Voice of the South by a Black Woman of the South (1892). Cooper was born a slave during the Civil War in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her mother was Hannah Stanley Haywood (1817–1899), a domestic servant in the plantation household in Raleigh, where the family lived. Her father was probably George Washington Haywood, her mother’s white master, who never acknowledged Anna as his daughter. In 1868, Anna was awarded a scholarship to attend St. Augustine’s Normal School and Collegiate Institute, which was founded in 1867 by the Episcopal Church to train teachers for newly freed slaves. Anna married George Cooper, a native of Nassau, British West Indies, who had come to the United States in 1873 to study for the ministry at St. Augustine’s. In 1876, he was ordained as an Episcopalian minister, and they were married on June 21, 1877. Two years later, when Anna was only 19, her husband died, and she remained a widow for the rest of her life.

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Corrido | 327 From 1881, Anna attended Oberlin College, earning the A.B. in 1884 and the A.M. in 1887, then went to Wilberforce College in Xenia, Ohio, to head their Department of Modern Languages and Literature. She taught at St. Augustine’s and the famous Washington Preparatory High School for Colored Youth (later M Street and Dunbar High School), where she served as principal from 1901– 1906. Following an angry confrontation with the board, Cooper was fired, so she left Washington, D.C., and joined the faculty at Lincoln Institute in Jefferson City, Missouri, where she taught foreign languages from 1906–1910. She was summoned back to M Street School in 1910, where she joined the faculty and taught Latin for 20 years. Following her retirement from the public schools after a distinguished career, in 1930 she became the second president of the experimental Frelinghuysen University, an evening school for working black adults who would not otherwise have been able to attend college. Fulfilling a lifelong dream, Cooper began her doctoral studies in French literature and history at Columbia University in the summer of 1914, transferred to the University of Paris, Sorbonne, and completed a dissertation in 1925 at the age of 65 entitled “L’Attitude de la France dans la question de l’Esclavage entre 1780 et 1848” (The Attitude of France on the Question of Slavery between 1789 and 1848”). This accomplishment earned Cooper the distinction of being the first African American women to earn a doctorate from the Sorbonne and only the fourth African American woman to earn a doctorate. Dr. Cooper died in her sleep at her home in Washington, D.C., on February 27, 1964, at the age of 104. She experienced one of the most difficult yet stunning careers in the history of the struggle for education among African American women. Perhaps her most significant legacy was her intellectual work as a black feminist and her doctoral work on slavery in the African Diaspora. Beverly Guy-Sheftall

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See also Feminism: Black Feminist Movement in the United States; Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Baker-Fletcher, Karen. 1994. A Singing Something: Womanist Reflections on Anna Julia Cooper. New York: Crossroad. Cooper, Anna Julia. 1998. A Voice from the South by a Black Woman of the South. New York: Oxford University Press. Glass, Kathy L. 2005. “Tending to the Roots: Anna Julia Cooper’s Sociopolitical Thought and Activism.” Meridians 6 (1): 23–55.

z Corrido The corrido is a musical folk ballad about situations related to different aspects of Mexican history. Afro-Mexican corridos originated in the Costa Chica de Guerrero region, an area populated by people of African descent in Mexico. These Afro-Mexican corridos depicting AfroMexican situations have been circulated by Afro-Mexicans who are interested in drawing attention to their unique heritage. Additionally, scholars such as anthropologist Miguel Angel Gutiérrez have spent much time collecting and transcribing Afro-Mexican corridos in an effort to bring them to a wider audience. Although corridos are popular throughout Mexico, Gutiérrez is of the view that the Afro-Mexican corridos from Oaxaca and Guerrero, areas that are populated by Afro-Mexicans, are the most dynamic (1988, 11). Jameelah Muhammad also claims that the corridos are so popular in black communities that they hold annual competitions in which corridistas compete against each other (1995, 174). Many Afro-Mexican corridos do not necessarily make explicit reference to blackness but reflect the cultural values that characterize the oral culture of the Afro-Mexican community. Among these values are selfpraise, commentaries on various sociopolitical

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issues as they affect the Afro-Mexicans, and the ideological positions that inform them. According to Gutiérrez, the Afro-Mexican corrido shows the position of the corridos within the social and cultural life of the coastal region (1988, 9). The corrido is an important aspect of Afro– Mexican oral tradition and provides an understanding of the centrality of the corridos in the lives of the Afro-Mexicans. In keeping with the oral tradition, the corridos are rhythmic, anecdotal, and typified by tradition, action, and performance. They depict various settings and experiences and unfold in a type of AfroMexican dialect with a very expressive diction. They employ a range of verbal techniques that include repetition, assonance, multiple rhymes, and internal rhymes (Ramsay 2004, 450). Afro-Mexican corridos are usually framed by historical events (Ramsay 2004, 451). They depict different periods of Mexican history as these affected the Afro-Americans. These are usually the times at which Afro-Mexicans were mistreated by different groups who held positions of importance in Mexico’s history, such as the Mexican Revolution and War of Independence. Afro-Mexican corridos depict violence. This has been rationalized as in keeping with the fact that the society came into being as a result of violence, as Afro-Mexicans fought for liberation from slavery and other oppressive situations. Many corridos, therefore, are creative tales about the defeat of soldiers and other authority forces by Afro-Mexicans. In general, Afro-Mexican corridos provide a rich sociocultural and political discourse that alludes to the experiences of the Afro-Mexican population—a people who knew brutality under slavery and continue to be marginalized in a country that does not include its African– derived people in its definition of Mexican identity. Paulette A. Ramsay See also Mexico: African Heritage.

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F URTHER R EADING Delegación Benito Juárez, México: Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes. Gutiérrez, A. M. 1988. Corrido y violencia. Chilpancingo: Universidad Autónoma de Guerrero. Hernández, G. E. 1999. “What Is a Corrido? Thematic Representations and Narrative Discourse.” Studies in Latin American Popular Culture. www.sscnet.ucla.edu/csrc/gmo/span145/articles/whatisacorrido.html. Accessed 1/18/08 Mendoza, V. T. B., and V. de Mendoza. 1952. Folklore Mexicano. Muhammad, J. S. 1995. “Mexico and Central America.” In No Longer Invisible, ed. P. PérezSarduy and J. Stubbs, 170–175. London: Minority Rights Group. Pereira, J. 1995. “La literatura afromexicana en el contexto del Caribe.” América Negra 9: 51–61. Ramsay, Paulette A. 2004. “History, Violence and Self-Glorification in Selected Afro-Mexican Corridos.” Bulletin of Latin American Research 23 (3): 303–321.

z Cox, Oliver Cromwell (1901–1974) Oliver Cromwell Cox, the often-ignored sociologist who authored such classics as Caste, Class, and Race (1948) and The Foundations of Capitalism (1959), was born into a lower-middleclass family in the then English colony of Trinidad. Although his father’s income afforded him the privilege of attending primary school, apparently Cox did not earn the grades necessary to continue on to high school at either Queens Royal College (Anglican) or St. Mary’s College (Catholic), the top two schools on the island. After a couple of years of taking odd jobs and attending an agricultural school, Cox’s father decided to send the young Cox to the United States in 1919 to join two of his older brothers and to improve his future prospects. After completing high school in Chicago, where his brothers had settled earlier, and at-

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Cox, Oliver Cromwell (1901–1974) | 329 tending Crane Junior College, Cox was accepted into Northwestern University and was awarded a B.S. degree in law in 1928. As far as we know, he intended to take his law degree from the same institution. Then, personal tragedy struck. In the same year that the Great Depression began, Cox was stricken with polio. For the rest of his life, he moved with the aid of crutches. Aside from the loss of normal mobility, dashed, too, were his plans to become a lawyer and to return to Trinidad. Instead, he decided to remain in the United States, where he thought he would receive better health care; he also decided to become an academic, a profession that, he believed, would require less physical movement than a legal career. Toward this end, Cox enrolled in the economics department at the University of Chicago. In the University of Chicago’s sociology department, Cox began reading leftist literature and became a New Deal/Popular Front socialist. From that point forward, he was one for whom socialism is primarily the state direction of the economy, if not state ownership of key sectors of the economy, and fascism, capitalist rule stripped of its liberal trappings. Cox’s long admiration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and of the Soviet Union reflected this worldview. Cox took his doctorate in sociology in 1937. It is likely that also in the mid-1930s Cox began to contest the manner in which his professors interpreted race relations in the United States generally and in the South specifically. Cox undertook formal study of the Indian caste system as it relates to racial hierarchy in the U.S. South, using his observation of the practice of this philosophy in the Indian communities in Trinidad, whose population at that time constituted a third of the island’s total. For Cox, unlike caste relations, which are noncapitalist, race relations are governed by a capitalist division of labor in which physically or culturally distinct populations by and large occupy specific positions. Born out of the expropriation of Amerindian lands and the en-

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slavement of first indigenous and then African peoples in the wake of Columbus’s voyages, this social order was then justified ideologically by capitalist elites as reflecting the intellectual or physical capacities of the populations so stratified. Thus, Cox concluded that capitalist elites were not only the founders of racism but also its principal perpetuators. Many see, in Caste, Class, and Race, where Cox made these claims, an early Marxist theory of racism, however much he protested the label. It is clear from Caste, Class, and Race that Cox could not see capitalism surviving long past the close of World War II. Convinced that the lessons learned about the capitalist system by western working classes during the Depression and the global war against fascism would provoke it to fulfill the historic role that Marx had prescribed for it, Cox believed in the midto late 1940s that capitalism’s days were numbered. However, when it became clear to him by mid-century that the working-class revolution was not going to materialize anytime soon, he was forced to look for another path to end capitalist exploitation, which included racism. Many see in the fruits of his efforts—The Foundations of Capitalism (1959), Capitalism and American Leadership (1962), and Capitalism as a System (1964)—the elements of what came to be known as world systems theory. In the last decade of his life, Cox remained committed to his belief in socialism but intolerant of particularly black nationalism. The two positions were interconnected. From his scholarly findings, Cox drew the conclusion that imperialism was not only the primary source of capitalist leader nations’ wealth but also the means by which they bought the allegiance of their working classes. Thus, western working classes were mainly reformist, not revolutionary. This was also true of their black constituencies, Cox maintained, despite the nationalist rhetoric of some within the ranks. It was, rather, the working classes of the former colonized world who were the new socialist revolutionaries because their countries lacked

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colonies to exploit. Cox believed that western workers could best aid their revolutionary counterparts by relentlessly demanding from their national capitalists larger and larger portions of the capitalist pie. Such challenges would ideally serve not only to limit the ability of capitalist leader nations to derail social movements in the former colonized world but also to make western society more amenable to socialism. It was for these reasons that Cox counseled black Americans to seek to assimilate into mainstream American society rather than to separate from it. Cox held such political views for most of the 21 years that he taught sociology at Lincoln University in Missouri and for the 3 years that he was distinguished visiting professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. He died there in September 1974. Immanuel Wallerstein has proclaimed Cox, having already expounded all the basic ideas of world systems theory, thereby its founding father (Wallerstein 2000, 174). Christopher McCauley See also Langston University and HBCUs; Trinidad and Tobago and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Cox, Oliver Cromwell. 1970. Caste, Class and Race. New York: Monthly Review Press. Cox, Oliver Cromwell. 2000. Race: A Study in Social Dynamics. New York: Monthly Review Press. McCauley, Christopher. 2004. The Mind of Oliver Cox. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2000. “Oliver C. Cox as World-System Analyst.” In The Sociology of Oliver C. Cox: New Perspectives, ed. Herbert M. Hunter, 173–183. Stamford, CT: JAI Press.

z Coyolillo/Coyoleños The village of El Coyolillo lies some 30 kilometers northeast of Xalapa, capital of the state

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of Veracruz, in the present-day municipality of Acotopan, and rests on land that once belonged to the hacienda Almolonga, founded in 1572. By 1622, the first black slaves are recorded in the area with the institution of a sugar mill (ingenio). Because of the unsuitability of most of the land for farming, Coyoleños to this day, like their ancestors, find work in the nearby sugarcane fields. During the 17th and 18th centuries, tobacco gradually replaced sugar as a more attractive cash crop, and many blacks in the area were freed and hired to work these farms. Growers preferred to hire free blacks rather than to keep slaves, which they found to be more costly. Between 1733 and 1798, the inhabitants of El Coyolillo were classified in the casta of pardos (a mixed race Latin American category). Records in the Archivo Parroquial de Actopan indicate an Afro-Mexican presence in many areas of the municipality, such as Omiquila, Rancho de las Animas, Pastoría, Chicoasén, San Nicolás, Santa Rosa, and Villa Rica. For the present-day inhabitants of El Coyolillo, the memory of the plantation of Almolonga circulates as a kind of myth, according to which the slaves who worked there had the luck to encounter a buried treasure that was reclaimed by the owner of the granjería. According to legend, he offered liberty to the slaves in exchange for the treasure. They accepted the offer and settled in nearby El Coyolillo. Some residents tell the story of the period of the Mexican Revolution during which an influx of “Cubans,” who were escaping a siege by the enemies of Zapata, fled to El Coyolillo. While it seems certain that the ancestors of the Coyoleños came from Africa, the community does not always maintain a consciousness of this. Their African physical characteristics are often attributed to the “Cuban” migration or to a popular notion that “God colors us as he wants to.” Such nearby landmarks as Cerro del Congo and Cerro del Valle de Mozambique strongly suggest an early African presence, as do other nearby place names with an African phonetic structure, such as Guarumbo and Gimba.

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Coyolillo/Coyoleños | 331 The first impression of the visitor to El Coyolillo suggests that the people are the result of centuries of race-mixing among African, European, and indigenous populations. One striking aspect of many Coyoleños is that, while their skin is very dark, some have pale blue-green eyes. Many people around Xalapa who have not visited El Coyolillo believe that the inhabitants are universally tall and black with blue eyes. And while perhaps 50 percent of the inhabitants of El Coyolillo have phenotypical features that can be described as African, one sometimes hears residents state, “They say we’re black, but we’re not black” (Dicen somos negros pero no somos negros). Yet others say, “We are the brownest” (mas moreno) in the municipality of Actopan. Another Coyoleño says, “Here the race is brown” (moreno), while the other villages “are very Spanish” (están muy españoles) or “they are another race” (son de otra raza). The comments indicate that, while some Coyoleños deny they are “black,” they are conscious of their “racial difference.” Like many Mexicans, some Coyoleños have internalized European standards of beauty, which dictate “the lighter the better,” but in spite of this, others say, “We are not ashamed of our origin.” Today, as in many Mexican communities, there is a shortage of young men. This shortage is a result of massive emigration to the United States. Anthropologists in other Afro-Mexican communities report similar emigration. Sociologist Annabella Cruz Martínez recently conducted a study of emigration patterns in several rural communities in the state of Veracruz. She reports that in 2002, according to the Clinica Rural del IMSS, out of a total population of 1,927, Coyolillo had 812 males and 1,115 females. In the year 2000, this agency reported that the sex ratio in the productive age group of 20–24 was 44 men to 130 women. This figure nearly reverses that of the African slave population in the early colonial years, when there were an estimated 3 men for each woman. The overall “masculinity index” (in-

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dice de masculinidad) for the past decade stands at 72 percent. El Coyolillo’s overall population declined from 2,251 in 1998 to 1,927 in 2002. Most of this decrease is the result of male emigration. So many young men have emigrated to the United States that there is a perceptible shortage of them in this rural community. Coyoleños are known for their hospitality. This is a great source of pride, and they feel it distinguishes them from surrounding towns, which are not known for such receptivity to visitors. Coyoleños often invite outsiders into their homes for a hot meal, even if the visitor to the town is totally unknown to the host. Each year during the pre-Lenten Carnaval, the overwhelmingly Catholic Coyoleños celebrate. Young men and children wear elaborate, quilted costumes and masks. They perform a dance known as la negreada, in which a group of celebrants cavort in their colorful costumes while wearing masks of wood representing cows or deer. These masks and other aspects of the Carnaval, including the use of musical instruments such as guitarra, jarana, arpa, and marimbol, as well as jarocho music, can be interpreted as representations of the town’s African heritage. Such African-derived musical forms as danzón and jarocho are popular throughout the state of Veracruz. At the 2002 Carnaval in Coyolillo, the group Obini-Añá perfomed a syncretic blend of jarocho and African drums. Another local group, Son Mestizo, features drums almost exclusively, accompanied by female dancers performing African-influenced dances. Says Paulino Vazquez Carreto, leader of the Xalapa danzón band Paulino y su Danzonera: “The music surges from Africa—tropical, happy music. Danzón comes from Cuba, which is a nation that has much in common with the nation of Africa. Africans play the drums and so do the Cubans.” Paulino, whose mother is from El Coyolillo, says, “The music comes to me from the blood of my mother. The Cubans and Africans are brothers in the blood and this blood flows in me also.”

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As Coyolillo begins to emerge as a living example of an Afro-Mexican community, it has increasingly attracted the attention of both scholars and tourists. This, in turn, is leading to the Coyoleños’ rediscovery of their own identity and, as in the case of much of AfroMexico, a proud history. Richard Fantina See also Mexico: African Heritage; Veracruz. F URTHER R EADING Bermudez Gorrochotegui, Gilberto. 1995. Historia de Jalapa, Siglo XVII. Xalapa, Mexico: Universidad Veracruzana. Cruz, Annabella. 2002. “Uso y distribucion de la tierra en un pueblo migrante. Un analisis comparativo en dos localidades del municipio de Actopan: Santa Rosa y Coyolillo,” un tésis de licenciatura para obtener el grado de Lic. Sociologia por la Facultad de Sociologia de la Universidad Veracruzana. Martínez Maranto, Alfredo. 1991. “Coyolillo: presencia de Nuestra Tercera Raíz,” in Nuestra Palabra. San Angel, Mexico: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, November. Martínez Maranto, Alfredo. 1994.”Dios pinta como quiere: Identidad y cultura en un pueblo afromestizo de Veracruz.” In Presencia africana en Mexico, ed. Luz María Martínez Montiel. San Angel, Mexico: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes.

z Creole, Creolity, Creolization The term “Creole” derives from the Portuguese Criollo, verb criar, which means “to create or nurture,” as well as from crier, “to cry.” It would have been used on the West African coasts, where the violent contacts between slave and slave drivers resulted in a family of new (Romance) languages, due to the mixture of African idioms and mainly Portuguese, Spanish, and French vocabulary. As a label for a whole group of languages born out of the transatlantic slave trade and the plantations in

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the Caribbean, “creole” is a very well-documented, well-studied branch of linguistics; but it still yields a lot of mystery, too, because of so many unknown facts about its origin and development. Today, “Creole” as noun and adjective refers, in different African Diasporic communities, to different forms or types of race breeding and race mixing and subsequent phenomena as language (in the first place), cuisine, dress, and so on. “Creole” meant originally a person of European descent born especially in the West Indies or Spanish America; in French, a white person born in Martinique and Guadeloupe. Today, the word is used in the French Caribbean and elsewhere in the region to refer to people, regardless of their color, born or living in the Caribbean. In the British West Indies, a Creole woman or man had the same signification and thus a pale complexion. In the Dutch Caribbean islands, and certainly on mainland Suriname, “Creole” is used to designate descendants of the black slaves, to differentiate blacks born in the New World from Africans (newly) imported to the colonies. Creolization thus describes European and African “naturalization” in the New World. The same word “Creole” has different, even opposite, significations as it derives from a geographical marker (born in the New World) to a purely racialized marker. Thus, “Creole” also means different phenotypes or ethnic groups or individuals living in the Americas. Some have identified an Afro-Creole, as distinct from a Euro-Creole. In the Caribbean world of the plantations (sugar, coffee, tobacco, or cotton) with slavery at its base, the total authority of the white master over the black slave, male and female, by terror, harsh punishments for roughly three centuries (16th–19th) maintained a strictly segregated world in which the local creole had a separate identity. While it is impossible to develop here the whole list of stereotypes concerning “Creole,” essentially, as the result of the mixing of “races,” the “creole individual” would

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Creole, Creolity, Creolization | 333 be often identified with lunacy and madness. Creole offspring were the object of a lot of pseudoscientific speculations; for instance, it was said that the mulattos were sterile; that, except for the beautiful “tragic mulatto,” they were bad and ugly creatures because they brought out the minor qualities of both “species.” Early accounts of plantation life brought the first of a series of racial stereotypes of the Creole men and women in the Caribbean. An example is the writings of Father Labat, a Dominican priest who owned slaves himself and whom he treated very badly. He was convinced that black people were evil, and he saw Satan everywhere. He proved particularly intolerant to so-called non-Christian attitudes and behavior on the part of slaves and even other planters in Martinique. Labat is much in line with Moreau de Saint-Méry in his Voyage aux isles: Chronique aventureuse des Caraïbes, 1693–1705 (Phébus, 1993). He, too, notes how a European woman declined, how she became depressed by plantation life, by the treason of her husband, who sleeps with any female slave he desires, by the heat and tropical weather. In many instances, this ends in a transformation into a terrible monster, devoured by revenge and sadistically laying whips and torture on all the insubordinate subjects. It must be stressed, however, that there are significant divergences between racial stereotyping in the continental area, the “Deep South,” and in the Caribbean. For instance, the whole idea of “passing,” of transgressing the color line in African-American literature, is almost absent from the Caribbean literature and arts, where créolisation and métissage are responsible for the same complex hierarchy of colors and “mixture” but where miscegenation was not as institutionalized as in the United States. Whereas one would designate a “True Belle” (as in Toni Morrison’s Jazz, 1992), or “Belle du Sud,” a white or very pale mulatto woman with straight hair, this would be called a mulâtresse in Martinique, Guadeloupe, or Haiti, an island that for many reasons is an ex-

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ception, having the lowest percentage of whites and given its early independence (in 1804, with a massive emigration of whites and their families out of the “First Black Republic” of the New World). From Césaire to Glissant, from Condé to Chamoiseau, French Caribbean authors have been dealing with the question of being “creole,” and they have responded in different ways to the existential crisis of being “mixed,” torn between Europeanity and Africanity, French and non-French. Some have put forward the “Creolizing process” as a curse born of rape, others as a gift, but all as a metaphor of their postcolonial condition: reuniting more than one tradition or civilization. Some French Caribbean authors from the 1990s on have been claiming and praising “la créolité” (creolity); the fact that was an obsession and a disaster for Leon Damas now was a fortune and a chance to break open to the world beyond the islands, building bridges with other creolized groups (on the islands of Réunion and Mauritius), as well as Louisiana, which also had its creoles. “In Praise of Creoleness” (1989), a manifesto, attempted to transcend the burden of a history of subordination and the complex of slavery by showing the richness and diversity that comes out of this violent past. Still, the promiscuity and sexual freedom of the master has caused a hierarchy of classes and colors: the tragic mulatto is again much more present, occupying the intermediate space between white society and black population, as André Schwarz-Bart shows in La Mulâtresse Solitude (1972). While, contradictorily, it was believed that making love to the inferior race of Africans resulted in an offspring that was not only stupid and infertile but certainly unstable and hence insane (a mulatto, or “small mule”). Yet, the ambiguity and the very fascination of white men for the very often beautiful women resulted in métissage, and the rumor arose that these women of color were particularly desirable in bed, passionate and affectionate. The same result of assimilation and

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“alienation” was the “mimic man,” the educated, civilized, and handsome mulatto and/or, in Caribbean culture, the effeminate black male, a despicable macoumère. For Martinican Edouard Glissant, the Creole condition is a specific ontological situation that points to controversial and threatening issues about “purity” enforced by the dominant European societies and transmitted to people of color, who are the majority of the population on all the Caribbean islands. Creolization, for Glissant as for Kamau Brathwaite (creole societies), represents a process in which the Caribbean is still engaged and thus a theoretical possibility that captures current postmodern notions that challenge fixity. Kathleen Gyssels See also Brathwaite, Kamau (1930–); Damas, Léon-Gontran (1912–1976); Glissant, Edouard (1928–); Mestizo; Mulatta. F URTHER R EADING Bernabe, Jean, and Patrick Chamoiseau. 1988. Eloge de la créolité (In Praise of Creoleness). Paris: Gallimard. Brathwaite, Kamau. 1974. Contradictory Omens: Cultural Diversity and Integration in the Caribbean. Mona: Savacou, 1974. Glissant, Edouard. 1964. Le Quatrième siècle. Paris: Seuil. Glissant, Edouard. 1997. Le discours antillais (Caribbean Discourse). Paris: Gallimard. Labat, Jean-Baptiste. 1993. Voyage aux Isles. Chronique aventureuse des Caraïbes (1635– 1705). Paris: Phébus. Moreau de Saint-Méry, Mederic Louis Elie. 1958. Description topographique, physique, civile, politique et historique de la partie française de l’Isle Saint-Domingue. Paris: Société de l’Histoire des colonies françaises et Librairie Larose. (Original published in 1797.) Shepherd, Verene, and Glen Richards, eds. 2002. Questioning Creole. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle.

z

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Creole Incident On November 7, 1841, enslaved Africans seized control of the American brigantine Creole to demand their freedom. The ship was in the northern Bahamas en route from Virginia to New Orleans with a cargo of tobacco and 135 slaves. The Creole mutineers must have been aware of the possibility for freedom in the Bahamas. A year before, another Virginia vessel, the Hermosa, was wrecked in this area. Slaves aboard that ship were taken to Nassau and freed. In Nassau, the crew enlisted the help of the U.S. consul to have the mutineers arrested and returned to the United States for trial. The British governor agreed to investigate the matter and arrest the mutineers because an overseer had been killed in the takeover. All others would go free, since slavery was illegal in the British Empire. Local blacks and whites actively supported the course to free the slaves. Soldiers sent to guard the ship were from the all-black West India Regiments. Other black people gathered in small boats around the Creole, while an even larger crowd of black people voiced their support from the shore. The crew engaged the help of sailors from two other U.S. ships in port to retake the Creole and return to the United States. A boatman overheard their plans and alerted the soldiers, who refused to let them board the ship. After several days’ inquiry, the 19 mutineers identified were arrested and held in Nassau’s jail. The remaining 116 slaves were granted their freedom. At least half of them chose to continue on to Jamaica, possibly for fear their former owners might have tried to reclaim them. Those remaining in the Bahamas were likely settled in one of the three Liberated African villages on New Providence. Six slave servants on board the Creole, five females and a young boy, voluntarily went on to New Orleans. The colonial government ruled that the mutineers had acted to secure their freedom, so

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Cromanti | 335 the overseer’s death resulted from this struggle and not from piracy. Two of the 19 mutineers died in prison, but the other 17 were freed in April 1842. It is uncertain whether all of them remained in the Bahamas. One of them, Elijah Morris, and his descendants lived in Gambier, a Liberated African village. Eventually, in 1852, the British government compensated the slave owners for the loss of their “property.” Grace Turner See also Bahamas; Bahamas: Liberated Africans; West India Regiments. F URTHER R EADING Eden, Edward. 2000. “The Revolt on the Slave Ship Creole: Popular Resistance to Slavery in Post-Emancipation Nassau.” Journal of the Bahamas Historical Society 22: 13–20. Hendrick, George, and Willene Hendrick. 2003. The Creole Mutiny: A Tale of Revolt aboard a Slave Ship. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee.

z Cromanti “Cromanti” (also spelled “Coromantee,” “Coromantine,” “Koromantee,” “Kromanti,” etc.) is the term historically used to identify the ethnicity of enslaved Africans forcibly removed from the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana) and transported to Jamaica, Suriname, and British Guiana (modern-day Guyana). While it continues to be used throughout the African Diaspora to refer to an ethnicity of origin, it is more popularly used to describe African principles of Jamaican culture (language, music, rituals, etc.), particularly that of Jamaican maroons. The term is derived from Kormantse, a small fishing village located 31 miles east of Elmina in modern-day Ghana, for which the transliterated “Fort Cormantine,” one of the busiest trading posts on the coast of West Africa, was named. Africans exported across

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the Atlantic by way of this fort came to be known by Europeans as Cromanti. Although they were named after the location of the trading post, these individuals were not exclusively from Kormantse but more likely from surrounding areas. African traders often transported enslaved Africans from the interior to the coast to be sold to and by European traders. Many enslaved Africans were purchased in the markets of the north, but raiding and warfare obtained many, and the fortresses and markets on the coast comprised largely captives of local wars (Sherlock and Bennett 1998). Furthermore, given the British practice of trading along the Windward coast before entering the Gold Coast to pick up their final “cargo,” we must deduce that the Cromanti people were not a homogenous group (Campbell 1988). In fact, they probably consisted of a variety of Gold Coast cultural groups, including the Akan, Ewe, and Ga peoples. Though the majority of Africans identified as Cromanti were of the Twi-speaking Akan nation, particularly the Fante and Asante, it is highly unlikely that the Akans referred to as Cromanti were actually from the town Kormantse, though some may have been. By the time British forces seized the island of Jamaica in 1655, England had already built and established Fort Cormantine as its first permanent trading settlement and headquarters on the West African coast. As the British sought to gain maximum profit from their newly conquered province, they began exporting large numbers of enslaved Africans from Fort Cormantine to Jamaica. The British were particularly interested in the Cromanti because they regarded them as excellent workers, physically strong and unusually active as compared to other ethnic groups. However, not long after importation to the island, English planters began to lose their enthusiasm for the Cromanti. Though they were valued for their physical prowess, they were notorious for being the most resistant and rebellious. Almost from the

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beginning of their experience in Jamaica, many Cromanti sought freedom in the mountains and found refuge with the maroons in such numbers that they soon constituted the large majority of maroon populations. The planters’ fears were not unwarranted, as the majority of the resistance movements initiated on the island were in fact instigated and organized by Cromanti people and posed an imminent threat to the success of the Jamaican sugar industry, which relied almost exclusively upon the labor of enslaved Africans for its production. The English feared that the maroons represented a symbol of freedom for those Africans still held captive, as maroon villages offered escaped Africans asylum. In the same way, maroons viewed the planters as an immediate obstacle to their sovereignty and did not hesitate to defend their freedom. Thus, tensions arose and the stage was set for a series of successful plantation uprisings that would come to be known as the Maroon Wars. In the tradition of their ancestors and under the leadership of such figures as Cudjoe, Qauo, Cuffee, Quashie, and Queen Nanny, the Cromanti were relentless in their battle for independence. The names of these infamous maroon leaders are undoubtedly Akan; however, their transliterations and subsequent pronunciations have been anglicized. These names are consistent with the Akan practice of naming children according to the day of the week they were born, such that Cudjoe is Kojo, meaning a male child born on Monday; Quao is Kwau, a male child born on Thursday; Cuffee is Kofi, a male child born on Friday; and Quashie is Kwesi, a male child born on Sunday. Though not a “day-name,” the name Nanny is the anglicized version of Nana, a title of respect given to chiefs, spiritual leaders, and respected elders, and ni, which means “first mother” (Gottlieb 2000). Thus, the title of respected first mother, Nanani, anglicized became Nanny; and the title of Queen was most likely added to emphasize her status.

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It is evident that the Cromanti carried their culture across the Atlantic Ocean and, once in Jamaica, continued to practice aspects of their traditional beliefs, naturally leaving an indelible mark on the demography, structure, and traditions of Jamaican society and providing the basis for much of African Jamaican culture and religion. Because what little literature exists on these African ancestors of the Jamaican maroons refers to them as “Cromanti” or some variation of the term, many scholars mistakenly identify the town Cormantine as the origin of the Cromanti people. The Akan do not typically identify individuals according to the town or village they are from; rather, one’s identity is more often determined by one’s regional state. Thus, it would be more culturally accurate to refer to the Cromanti as Akan generally, Fante specifically, Kormantseni (Akan for “a person from Kormantse”), or Kormantsefo (Akan for “people from Kormantse”). Yaba Amgborale Blay See also Jamaica; Maroon and Marronage; Obeah. F URTHER R EADING Alleyne, Mervyn. 1996. Africa: Roots of Jamaican Culture. Chicago: Research Associates School Times Publications. Campbell, Mavis C. 1988. The Maroons of Jamaica: 1655–1796: A History of Resistance, Collaboration, and Betrayal. Granby, MA: Bergin & Garvey. Gottlieb, Karla. 2000. The Mother of Us All: A History of Queen Nanny, Leader of the Windward Jamaican Maroons. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Sherlock, Philip, and Hazel Bennett. 1998. The Story of the Jamaican People. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener. Monteith, Kathleen, and Glenn Richards, eds. 2002. Jamaica in Slavery and Freedom: History, Heritage and Culture. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press.

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Celia Cruz, an Afro-Cuban American singer who reigned as the supreme diva of Latin music for over four decades. Pictured in 1962. (Library of Congress)

Cruz, Celia (1924–2003) The queen of salsa, Celia Cruz, was born in Havana, Cuba, on October 21, 1924. She won amateur singing competitions before going professional with Sonora Matancera in 1950. In the end, she was the recipient of six Grammy Awards and two Latin Grammy Awards, a star in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. The former Eighth Street in Miami’s Little Havana is now called Celia Cruz Way. In the 1950s, she was known for such songs as “Yerbero Moderno,” “Sopita en Botella,” “Caramelo,” and “Burundanga,” which became popular throughout the Caribbean and Latin America. This led to her first gold record in 1957 and her first trip to the United States. When La Sonora Matancera toured Mexico after 1960, Cruz defected publicly, criticizing

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Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution. She became persona non grata in Cuba and was even denied attendance at her mother’s funeral (1962). She married Pedro Knight, a trumpeter with La Sonora Matancera, who would become her most trusted adviser, manager, and companion until her death in 2003. Knight died in 2005, two years after Cruz, and was prominent in her funeral ceremonies. Celia Cruz proudly represented her AfroCuban heritage in song and music and by her selection of material, some of which came from Santería rhythms and lyrics. A major exponent of women’s rights as well, she was perhaps the most important ambassador of Afro-Latin culture in the Diaspora. Cruz worked with Tito Puente, Johnny Pacheco, Willie Colón, Ray Barreto, and Papo Lucca and his Sonora Ponceña and, with New York-based Puerto Rican and Cuban musicians, advanced the genre called salsa, of which she became a major exponent. She sang with the Fania All Stars for the Ali–Foreman fight in Zaire. She can be seen as going mainstream when she was named the female vocalist of the year by Billboard magazine in 1978. Cruz performed to sold-out Madison Square Garden audiences throughout the 1980s, and in 1983 she won another gold record for “Tremendo Trío.” In the 1990s, she appeared in two feature films, Mambo Kings and The Pérez Family, and continued to tour the world as the international icon of Latin music. Her signature phrase, “Azuca!” (“Sugar”), became identified with her lively performances as an older but sensual woman with varicolored wigs and clothing. Her last album, Regalo del alma (“A Gift from My Soul”), was released in 2003, just months before her death. Her funerals, held in Miami and New York, became almost state funerals, representing the extent of Celia’s impact on people across the world and making her one of the most important contributors to an understanding of the African Diaspora. Neri Torres

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338 | Cruz, Manoel de Almeida (1950–2004) See also Afro-Cuban Music; Cuba: Afro-Cubans; Salsa. F URTHER R EADING Fernández, Raúl. 1999. “Arte y autonomía de Celia Cruz.” Encuentro de la Cultura Cubana 12 (13): 45–51. Valverde, Umberto. 1995/1981. Celia Cruz, Reina Rumba. Bogotá, Colombia: Arango Editores.

z Cruz, Manoel de Almeida (1950–2004) Professor Manoel de Almeida Cruz, popularly known as Manoel de Almeida, was born in Salvador and lived most of his life in the neighborhood of Fazenda Grande. A founder of the Afro-Brazilian Cultural Nucleus and the Unified Black Movement, the writer, sociologist, poet, and public intellectual was born on April 2, 1950, and died on June 19, 2004. Manoel had no children and only one brother, but he had a legion of admirers and friends impressed with his intelligence. Considered one of the greatest intellects of his time, he was recognized both in Brazil and abroad, especially as an adviser on master’s and doctoral theses and dissertations. A brilliant man of profound scholarly knowledge and a voracious reader, he turned his home into a library of more than 3,000 volumes, which filled every room. Dedicated to the study of race relations in Brazil, he was a prolific writer and the creator of Interethnic Pedagogy, a model for intervention in the education arena through a transformative pedagogy. He wrote two books and published hundreds of articles about education and ethnicity, which were published in such scientific journals as the research journals of the Carlos Chagas Foundation in São Paulo and the Afro-Asian Notes of the Candido Mendes research center in Rio de Janeiro. His published work of greatest impact was the

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book Alternatives for Combatting Racism through Interethnic Pedagogy (Salvador: Nucleo Cultural Afro-Brasileiro, 1989). His work was unique in that he presented an interethnic pedagogic system that could be instituted in school programs, advocating interventions at the curricular level. The applicability of his program was evidenced when it was implemented in the Olodum Creative School and the public school Alexandrina dos Santos Pita. This work was profiled in the journal Escola and Brazil’s most widely read magazine, Veja. Manoel de Almeida’s book served as a reference for the implementation of the unit on cultural pluralism in the National Curricular Standards. It is also the basis of the lawmaking interethnic pedagogy mandatory in the public school system of Salvador, the first Brazilian city to include black history in its curriculum by mandate of a 1993 law. In his final years, Manoel Almeida dedicated himself to poetry, specifically to a form he called “cyberpoems”—poems embodying cybernetic theory. He said he had two great passions in life, his books and his friends, to whom he dedicated great appreciation and devotion. Rita Honotorio and Gerusa Bispo (Trans. Kim D. Butler) See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians. F URTHER R EADING Cruz, Manoel de Almeida. 1989. Alternatives for Combatting Racism through Interethnic Pedagogy. Salvador, Brazil: Nucleo Cultural AfroBrasileiro.

z Cuba: Afro-Cubans Africans and their descendents have been central to Cuban history since their arrival on the island in the early 1500s. In fact, throughout the 20th century, numerous scholars, such as Fernando Ortiz, José Luciano Franco, Manuel

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Cuba: Afro-Cubans | 339 Moreno Fraginals, and Pedro Deschamps Chapeaux, dedicated themselves to understanding the lives and contributions of free AfroCubans, urban slaves, and the rural slave complex (modes of plantation work and economy, slave–master relations, runaway slave communities, and slave culture) in colonial and republican Cuba, primarily focusing on African-derived dance, music, and religious forms. Collectively, they have disproved the once-touted belief that Africans and their descendents are a “people without history.” This important focus on Afro-Cuban culture and slavery has shifted radically since the early 1990s, as researchers have increasingly examined the scope of Afro-Cubans’ role in history beyond cultural production and the slave labor force. Recent excellent research has charted black Cubans’ decisive participation in both waging and winning the anticolonial insurgency against Spanish colonialism from 1868 to 1898. Other scholars have documented Afro-Cuban activism in Cuba’s 20th-century nationalist and anti-imperialist movements. They have shown Afro-Cubans’ powerful contributions to Cuban society as civic activists and as a professional class as well as their centrality to the labor movement and the post1959 revolutionary processes. Many of these narratives are still being elaborated. Indeed, throughout history Afro-Cubans have shaped the tenor and symbols of Cuban politics and society in both their activism and their articulations of complex sensibilities about race, nation, gender, and class; their role in Cuban history is an important case of the African Diaspora experience in the Americas. The first Africans (including Spaniards of African descent) arrived in Cuba in the early 1500s. Most of these early arrivals were enslaved. Yet, despite harsh work lives they played a significant role in the colonial economy and society, particularly in organizations known as cofradías and cabildos de nación. Cabildos de nación were social and political associations whose membership was based on African eth-

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nicity. For example, ethnic Yorub established cabildos for their own ethnic group, as did Calabar Africans and Vivi Africans. Cabildo leaders were liaisons between their cabildo’s at-large membership and colonial authorities. Cofradías (religious brotherhoods) proliferated in the Americas as a result of Spain’s imperial, overseas expansion and the central role that the Roman Catholic Church played in governing many of Spain’s colonial territories in Latin America. Numerous, ethnically segregated cofradías were founded in Latin America and the Spanish Caribbean, including those formed on the Latin American continent among indigenous people. According to historian Carmen Montejo, a portion of the African-descended population in Cuba participated in cofradías and demonstrated their ongoing veneration of African ethnic and religious values in celebrations and social gatherings, even in their funerals and mutual aid. Montejo also states that evidence may link early colonial African cofradías in Cuba to those organized by people of African descent in Spain (Montejo Arrechea 1993). Cofradías facilitated the accumulation of wealth for members and granted them certain social prestige because the Church and state supported and encouraged them (Montejo Arrechea 1993). In fact, Cuba had one of the largest free Afro-Cuban populations in the Americas. By the nineteenth century, some free Afro-Cubans had formed a small but powerful and privileged class. The majority of Africans and their descendents, however, were relegated to work as slaves or for subsistence wages in Cuban export agriculture, primarily in the island’s coffee, sugar, and tobacco fields. Until the 19th century, tobacco, cattle, and small-scale sugar production generally constituted the bulk of Cuba’s economic activity. This, however, changed after the triumph of the Haitian Revolution. In 1789, slaves on the island of Saint Domingue (present-day Haiti) rose up against white planters to end the slave system there. Led by Toussaint L’Ouverture,

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Henri Christophe, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and others, rebel slaves won their freedom in 1804, thereby launching the first successful antislavery rebellion in the Western Hemisphere and toppling the island’s highly lucrative sugar industry as well as its long-standing position as the crown jewel of the French colonies. While the French empire incurred heavy losses due to the disastrous collapse of sugar on Saint Domingue, this was a welcome turn of events for planters in Cuba. As French Haitian planters fled Saint Domingue, those in Cuba hurried to erect new sugar mills (ingenios) and to fill the vacuum left by Saint Domingue sugar exports on the global market. In the decades following the Haitian Revolution, planters built 944 new mills, bringing the island’s total number to 1,473 by the 1860s, or almost three times as many mills as had existed before 1804 (Pérez 1988). The increase in mill operations demanded a steady influx of new laborers from Africa and parts of the West Indies, and large numbers of slaves were imported to Cuba to toil on sugar plantations. Between 1792 and 1862, the number of slaves imported by planters in Cuba increased four and a half fold, from approximately 86,000 in 1792 to more than 368,000 in 1862 (Bergad, Iglesias García, and Barcia 1995). This rise in the number of Africans and their descendents also coincided with important developments in Cuban political history. The Aponte Rebellion, one of Cuba’s most famous and well-organized revolts, was launched in the early months of 1812, helping to mark the unprecedented expansion of the island’s slave population and its sugar production. Spearheaded by José Antonio Aponte, a free AfroCuban sculptor, religious leader, and former captain of Havana’s free Afro-Cuban militia, the rebellion was made up of slaves and free Afro-Cubans and mulattos across the island who desired an end to Spanish colonialism and the slave system. Throughout the early months of 1812, slaves at several western and central plantations

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rose up, burned property to the ground, and killed white plantation owners and their families as well as overseers. Widespread panic set in among owners and colonial authorities, causing military officials to initiate property searches in order to roust conspirators and rebel leaders. On March 18, 1812, when Havana officials raided the home of José Aponte, they found a “book of drawings” containing maps of military garrisons and streets and portraits of Aponte’s own family as well as those of kings from Spain, Abyssinia, and Haiti, including recent Saint Domingue revolutionary leaders such as Toussaint L’Ouverture, Henri Christophe, and Jean-Jacques Dessalines (Childs 2006). The book of drawings seemed to confirm Aponte’s guilt as a principal rebel leader. Though he was summarily hanged two weeks after the raid on his home, some scholars suggest that his legacy inspired several subsequent revolts. Arguably, the 1812 rebellion serves as a powerful testament to Afro-Cuban antislavery and anticolonial activism. For example, scholars have linked the Aponte Rebellion of 1812 to the 1912 Race War in Cuba, when hundreds of men of African descent rose up to fight for their political rights and in support of their independent political party. Besides being a rejection of the slave system, the Aponte Rebellion might also be rightfully regarded as one of Cuba’s most significant movements against Spanish imperialism. In 1844, free Afro-Cuban, mulatto, and white Cubans allegedly mobilized yet another large-scale antislavery and anticolonial revolt. Known as the Conspiracy of the Ladder (La Escalera), it was so named for the torture that colonial authorities meted out against alleged conspirators after their arrest. Suspects were frequently tied to a ladder and whipped until badly wounded, unconscious, or dead. Though many still debate whether or not the conspiracy in fact occurred or was a figment of a paranoid and unstable colonial government, scholars argue that it was likely a highly com-

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Cuba: Afro-Cubans | 341 plex movement of subalterns and elites as well as Afro-Cubans, mulattos, and whites, which drew on the strength of cross-class and crossracial ties to end slavery and colonialism. One of the most famous alleged participants was a mulatto poet and man of letters, Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés (1809–1844). Valdés (a.k.a. Plácido) was accused of leading the conspiracy and was summarily put to death along with several of his colleagues. Hundreds of others were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. Within two decades of La Escalera, the Ten Years’ War (1868 to 1878) erupted. Creole planters in the eastern portion of the island, frustrated by the Spanish crown’s repressive social and economic controls, mobilized themselves and armed many of their slaves to challenge colonial rule. The insurgency that resulted from their call to arms fought for three decades in total, as nationalist insurgents mobilized and remobilized on three separate occasions (1868 to 1878, 1879 to 1880, and 1895 to 1898). Historians have examined the role of slaves and free Afro-Cubans and mulattos in winning Cuban independence from Spain in 1898. Further, the role of racial ideas in Cuba’s anticolonial insurgency has been explored recently, as insurgent and royalist military leaders struggled to galvanize their forces, increase their numbers, and win an acceptable peace (Ferrer 1998). Crown supporters and detractors alike sought to strengthen their ranks by appeasing many whites’ fears of an armed Afro-Cuban militia, yet military leaders also needed the support of Afro-Cubans. Thus, they were obliged to acknowledge free Afro-Cuban and slave soldiers’ demands for increased social, political, and economic inclusion in order to win their support. Although limited reforms were granted to slaves beginning in 1870, race-based disparities remained entrenched in colonial Cuban society, and abolition was hard won. For example, during the Ten Years’ War, the legal status of some slaves changed after desperate colonial authorities passed the Moret Law (1870), which emancipated only those born after 1868,

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those who were more than 60 years old, or those who had served in the colonial army during the early Ten Years’ War. The terms of the Pact of Zanjón (1878), which ended the Ten Years’ War, included the establishment of two political parties and granted freedom to those slaves who had fought in the Ten Years’ War, whether on the side of royalists or independence insurgents. Further, a policy of gradual abolition was instituted from 1880 to 1886. Despite abolition, however, for many Africandescended Cubans social acceptance and economic opportunities continued to be elusive, and many believed that education and cultural improvement were the key to AfroCuban socioeconomic advancement. These sentiments were famously captured by Minerva: Bi-Monthly Magazine Dedicated to the Woman of Color (Minerva: Revista Quincenal Dedicada a la Mujer de Color), which first appeared in 1888. Edited by a key figure among Afro-Cuban intellectuals, Miguel Gualba, the magazine targeted Afro-Cuban women of all classes in an effort to proselytize among them and inculcate such cultural values and practices as social restraint, industry, refinement, maternal guidance, and thrift. Most contributions to the pages of Minerva hailed from the ranks of elite and lettered Afro-Cuban women, although the target audience was the island’s newly emancipated female population. Minerva served to galvanize and promote aspirations for advancement among Cubans of African descent. Minerva was also a precursor to other efforts aimed at unifying upwardly mobile AfroCubans. Perhaps the most significant of these efforts was the Central Directorate of Societies of the Race of Color (Directorio Central de las Sociedades de la Raza de Color), founded in 1886, the year that slavery was finally abolished. Directorate member organizations were privileged social clubs, also called societies, which emerged in the latter half of the 19th century. Afro-Cuban clubs also functioned as mutual aid societies, assisting their members

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by underwriting at least a portion of costs related to illness, unemployment, or funerals. The directorate was led by Juan Gualberto Gómez, perhaps the most famous Afro-Cuban nationalist and race activist of the colonial and early republican periods. Gómez was among many Afro-Cuban politicians in the early republic who helped shape national discourse and widespread opinion regarding race and the fate of Cubans of African descent. Along with such prominent Afro-Cuban politicians as Martín Morúa Delgado and Rafael Serra, Gómez served for years as an elected official, first in the House of Representatives (1914 to 1916) and later in the Senate (1916 to 1924). In his waning years, he used his position as newspaper editor to attack political corruption (Estuch 1954). In the early republic, many Afro-Cubans were deeply frustrated by economic difficulties and ongoing racist exclusions, despite their critical role in winning Cuban independence from Spain. By 1912, this frustration boiled over, resulting in an uprising of the Afro-Cuban Partido Independiente de Color (PIC) (Independent Party of Color). In part, the independentistas were disenchanted because their party had been outlawed in 1910. In the early months of that year, Senator Martín Morúa Delgado, a mulatto, drafted an amendment banning political organizing based on color. By proscribing the efforts of Afro-Cubans or any racial group to organize along racial lines, the amendment outlawed the PIC and reinforced the power of existing political parties. In response, independentista leaders Pedro Ivonnet and Evaristo Estenoz launched a protest. In May 1912, in order to seek repeal of the Morúa Law, Ivonnet, Estenoz, and several hundred followers occupied foreign property across the island and concentrated in the island’s eastern Oriente province. The uprising drew an immediate response from white civilians and Cuban and U.S. militia. In the “race war” that ensued, many PIC members as well as civilian Afro-Cubans were brutally slaughtered. After the war ended, the dead

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numbered in the thousands, with the vast majority being Afro-Cuban, civilian nonmembers of the PIC (Helg 1995). If the early 19th century in Cuba had witnessed a massive expansion in sugar production and a concomitant increase in the number of slaves imported to plant, harvest, and process Cuban cane, a comparable phenomenon occurred in the early 20th century in response to new economic opportunities on the island. Three decades of anticolonial insurgency against Spain had left the island devastated. The anticolonial insurgency that raged from 1868 to 1898 exacted an enormous death toll, reducing the population by 20 percent. Further, it left most of the island’s bridges, roads, farms, plantations, livestock, buildings, and towns destroyed or in shambles. The new republic, in fact, desperately needed new industry to rebuild its infrastructure and economy. Many local and foreign investors were eager to participate in the reconstruction and refurbishing or creation of new railroads, utilities, roads, and agriculture. The Cuban sugar industry, in particular, exploded in the first decades of the 20th century as foreign investors built sugar centrales (industrial sugar mills) in the east. With this explosion came a demand for agricultural laborers, and most of these laborers, who came from neighboring islands such as Jamaica and Haiti, were in search of relatively high wages. Between 1898 and 1929, hundreds of thousands of Antilleans immigrated to Cuba to work in sugar, tobacco, and coffee fields (McLeod 2000). The early 20th century, in fact, was a period of intensive transfer of people and ideas in the African Diaspora, and African immigrants from the Caribbean settled in neighboring islands or as far away as the Panama Canal Zone and Harlem, New York. The massive introduction of Jamaican and other British West Indian immigrant workers to Cuba from 1898 to 1929 also helped provide a context to implant the philosophies and ideas of Marcus Garvey, one

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Cuba: Afro-Cubans | 343 of the most significant mass leaders of the African Diaspora in the early 20th century. Garvey, who was Jamaican, founded the United Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) in his home country in 1914. Soon after, he traveled to New York City and founded a New York division of the organization in 1917. The UNIA quickly established chapters internationally, including in Cuba, where it proved to be a significant presence among English-speaking Antillean immigrants and, to a lesser degree, among Afro-Cubans. Although scholars currently debate the scope and significance of Garveyism in Cuba, many branches of the organization existed throughout the island. Concentrated in the eastern region and among first- and secondgeneration British West Indians, Cuban chapters had a significant presence on the island. In fact, the importance that Cuban statesmen gave Garvey’s movement is evidenced by an official reception for him during his visit to the island in 1921, when Cuban statesmen publicly received him, as did leaders of the prominent Afro-Cuban elite society, Club Atenas. Antillean immigration to Cuba may have helped to fuel entrenched antagonisms toward the social and economic progress of Cubans of African descent. Indeed, antiblack sentiments ran high in the early republican period. The early decades witnessed intense repression against Afro-Cubans, particularly those who practiced African-derived dance, music, and religious forms, and historians have documented several incidences of repressive violence, including death by hanging and shootings. This period also witnessed the rise of Cuban anthropology and eugenics. Such highly respected, if now discredited, researchers and scientists as Israel Castellanos measured and recorded the lips, nose, hair texture, speech, and craniums of African-descended Cubans in an effort to prove their social and intellectual inferiority. The scientific movement to categorize, rank, and socially engineer populations

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was not limited to Cuba. In fact, scientists of that period across the globe espoused eugenics theories and gathered data in support of these theories. Their findings were often lauded and received widespread respect and recognition from their local intellectual communities (Lys Stepan 1991). In part, these were global issues. Not only had European and New World scientists been influenced by variants of social order and engineering since the 19th century, many researchers also worked in conjunction with lawmakers to apply these principles to their own societies. This was also true in the case of Cuba. As republican Cubans joined the “family of nations,” they were also keenly aware that they bore the burden of proving their fitness for self-rule and their ability to behave as “moderns.” This was exacerbated by the U.S. presence in the region and its dominance in Cuban political and economic affairs. Indeed, the U.S.-sponsored Platt Amendment to the Cuban Constitution (1902) gave the United States carte blanche in Cuban domestic affairs. Even more telling are the estimates of one scholar, who argues that, on the eve of the Great Depression of 1929, the United States had more than $1 billion invested in Cuban sugar, public utilities, railways, mines, tobacco, hotels, factories, government debt, and real estate (Jenks 1928). Despite significant foreign and domestic investments in infrastructure and agriculture, economic stability proved elusive for the young republic. The crisis that put millions out of work and on American streets in October 1929 arrived even earlier in Cuba. From the early 1920s to the 1930s, a series of boom-and-bust economic cycles caused a series of widespread economic crises. Many Cubans were underemployed or went unpaid for months. Among the most devastated were workers in agriculture, where Afro-Cubans and immigrant Antillean workers were disproportionately represented. Sugar and other agricultural production slowed to a trickle, and during the off season

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between harvests (which might last as long as six or nine months per year), agricultural workers had to eke out a living at other jobs that often did not pay enough to enable them to survive. This extended economic crisis helped to fuel rebellion. By August 1933, the island was paralyzed by a general strike. Cuban workers in communication, transportation, utilities, agriculture, and the media declared a work stoppage, which was quickly followed by a revolt of the Cuban military’s rank-and-file soldiers and officers. Without the ability to control masses of workers or the military, then-president Gerardo Machado y Morales conceded defeat and fled the island for the Bahamas on August 12, 1933. The combined worked stoppage, revolution, and “Sergeant’s Revolt” helped to steer the course of the island in new political directions and to break Cuba’s formal political subjugation to the United States. Just prior to the 1933 revolution, AfroCuban journalist Gustavo Urrutia convinced Havana’s most conservative daily newspaper, El Diario de la Marina, to publish a weekly column devoted to “the black question.” Titled “Ideals of a Race,” Urrutia proposed a column that would both air Afro-Cuban concerns and inform El Diario’s general, predominantly white readership about issues that were important to Afro-Cubans. Although this column was short lived, running from 1928 to 1931, it resurfaced a bit later under the title “Harmonies.” This new title reflected the concerns caused by racial tensions and the general climate of revolution during the period. It was the hope of Urrutia that open discussion of race issues might help to support the nationalist project of social advancement, which many believed rested on racial unity and tranquil relations among the island’s varied socioeconomic sectors. Notwithstanding the economic crisis, nationalism, and anti-imperialist sentiments that fueled the 1933 revolution, this period spawned an artistic movement aimed at dis-

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covering cultural forms and expressions that were uniquely Cuban. Artists and intellectuals alike began to focus their creative energy on Cuban folklore and the African presence on the island and to lend form to what they perceived were African influences in Cuba’s national culture. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Afrocubanismo (“Afrocubanism”) emerged as one of the most influential (though not most widely accepted) cultural forms of the 20th century. Out of this movement, such dance forms as rumba were popularized. Further, Afrocubanist poets, including Nicolas Guillén and Ramiro Guirao, published many now famous works, such as Guillén’s book of poetry Sóngoro Cosongo (1931). Guirao also compiled many works of Afrocubanist poetry under the title Órbita de la poesía afrocubana (1938). Afrocubanism was frequently rejected by the nation’s elite Afro-Cuban sectors, particularly in the Afro-Cuban press, because in many ways they believed that Afro-Cuban advancement lay in cultural refinement and bourgeois values and practices rather than in valorizing or creating African aesthetic forms. Afrocubanism celebrated a perceived African aesthetic, emphasizing syncopation and alliterative sounds. Its professed adherents and interpreters also characterized African influences in Cuba as exotic, hypersexual, unrefined, bestial, and differentiated from European influences in Cuban culture. Finally, the Afrocubanist movement embraced nationalist ideals, suggesting in particular that African influences served the Cuban nation by vivifying Cuban cultural production (Arredondo 1939). Afrocuban studies, Afrocubanism, and the Afro-Cuban press are important and wellknown aspects of republican Cuban history, yet far less is known about the history of AfroCuban Cubans in the island’s powerful labor movement. The movement gained momentum during the economic crisis of the 1920s and early 1930s, when thousands of workers suffered underemployment and layoffs or went without wages for months. It was during this

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Cuba: Afro-Cubans | 345 time that many of the island’s most vocal labor organizations were founded, including the National Federation of Cigar Workers, the National Confederation of Cuban Workers, the National Sugar Workers’ Union, and the Electrical Plant Workers’ and Employees’ Union. In fact, Afro-Cubans undertook important leadership roles in Cuba’s labor movement, particularly helping to mobilize Cubans of all colors in areas of large-scale economic activity on the island and in industries with a significant percentage of Afro-Cuban workers, such as sugar, tobacco, and shipping docks. The best-known of these leaders were Lázaro Peña (tobacco), Aracelio Iglesias Díaz (shipping docks), and Jesus Menéndez (sugar). Peña, Iglesias, and Menéndez were among several founders of the Confederation of Cuban Workers (CTC) in 1939. Jesús Menéndez was also founder of the provincial federation of the CTC in the central province of Las Villas. Lázaro Peña served as a delegate to the Confederation of Latin American Workers in 1938 and later as secretary general of the CTC in the early 1960s. Although critical to Cuba’s labor movement, their activism was costly. Menéndez, who led the National Federation of Sugar Workers (FNTA), was murdered in January 1948 for speaking out against then-president Ramón Grau San Martín and after convincing sugar workers to stop a zafra (sugar harvest). In October of the same year, Aracelio Iglesias, the leader of the Maritime Workers Union, was also shot to death for labor activism (Riera Hernández 1965). Labor mobilization was one of many intense political currents in Cuba during the 1940s and 1950s. Economic crises, U.S. domination of Cuban politics and economy, and increasing repression by military chief and president Fulgencio Batista (1940–1944, 1952– 1958) helped to radicalize the population. Perhaps the most significant movement to emerge at this time was the nationalist, anti-Batista 26th of July movement, led by Fidel Castro. Also known as los barbudos (“the bearded

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ones”), early movement activists were primarily young, middle-class, educated Cubans. The 26th of July rebels launched their first armed attack against Batista’s army in 1953. Nearly six years later, rebels had succeeded in ousting Batista from power. He fled the island on December 31, 1958, and on January 1, 1959, the Cuban Revolution had triumphed. Among the many tasks facing the new revolutionary government was to define its ideological position. On September 2, 1960, the revolution issued the first “Declaration of Havana.” The statement served as a position paper on questions of political philosophy and social policy. In particular, the declaration signaled an antiracist and antidiscriminatory ideological turn in Cuba, one that was also firmly rooted in prolabor and working-class ideals. The declaration challenged all forms of discrimination against indigenous and Africandescended peoples, as well as inequalities based on gender, sex, and cultural practices. It represented an ideological break from past social and economic exploitation on the island, and many of these ideals were institutionalized; that is, they have been implemented with broad socioeconomic policy changes since the early years of the revolution. Most early reforms in agriculture, education, employment, and housing, for example, granted equal access to social and economic resources to Cubans of all colors. Since the early 1960s, the Cuban government has responded to discrimination and promoted racial equality in its institutions. It has also widely articulated a belief that African influences in Cuban culture are important and undeniable, sponsoring numerous programs for Cubans and tourists alike that feature AfroCuban cultural forms. The state has also publicly acknowledged the need for Cubans to buttress these efforts, due to entrenched racist beliefs among a portion of the island’s population. In 2003, in his address to the delegates of the annual Conference on Pedagogy, prime minister Fidel Castro stated that, despite four

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decades of institutionalizing revolutionary education and social and economic equality for all Cubans, discrimination on the island persisted. Castro pledged that his administration would continue to implement measures to increase the level of education among Cubans, thereby helping to eradicate persistent prejudice and race-based discrimination in Cuban society. Cubans of African descent have also struggled in the revolutionary period to improve the recognition, respect, and widespread exposure of Afro-Cuban experiences in broader Cuban society. In particular, the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) has taken up the issue of racial discrimination. In the late 1990s, for example, a subsidiary of UNEAC was formed called Color Cubano. This group was created specifically to address issues of racial discrimination. Members have staged an ongoing dialogue on the role that media and school textbooks play in challenging racial stereotypes, as well as the historical underrepresentation of African-descended Cubans in Cuban history and its artistic and intellectual canons (Afrocubaweb 2001). Some Cuban scholars have even suggested that Cubans’ fight against racism is linked directly to the political struggle against a possible return to capitalism in Cuba. Such African Diaspora cultural movements as Rastafarianism have also exploded among Afro-Cuban youth in places such as Santiago de Cuba and Havana. Increasingly, they have joined this movement though they may be stigmatized by broader society. Such contemporary Cuban writers as Nancy Morejon and such filmmakers as Gloria Rolando contribute to advancing AfroCuban culture. Cuban youth have also plugged into the global hip-hop movement since the 1990s. Organizers of the U.S.-based Black August arts group joined Havana’s annual rap festival in 2000. Black August is an annual arts benefit concert with principal centers in Oakland, California, and New York City. Drawing on the legacy of African resistance in the Americas, Black August explores the legacy and future

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of African Diaspora culture, politics, and resistance (Afrocubaweb 2000). Black August members have developed ties with both Cuban rap artists and state-sponsored cultural institutions, and Black August concerts have raised funds to help Cuban artists create a recording studio and a public hip-hop library in Havana. Melina Pappademos See also Afro-Cuban Literature; Afro-Cuban Music; Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940); Haitian Revolution; Hip-Hop, Latin American. F URTHER R EADING Afrocubaweb, “Black August 2000,” www.afrocubaweb.com/Rap/blackaugust00.ht ml (accessed 30 August 2000). Afrocubaweb, “Gisela Arandia Covarrubia,” www.afrocubaweb.com/arandiaB.htm (accessed 2001). Arredondo, Alberto. 1939. El Negro en Cuba: Ensayo. Havana, Cuba: Editorial “Alfa.” Bergad, Laird, Fe Iglesias García, and María del Carmen Barcia. 1995. The Cuban Slave Market, 1790–1880. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Childs, Matt. 2006. The 1812 Aponte Rebellion in Cuba and the Struggle against Atlantic Slavery. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Estuch, Leopoldo Horrego. 1954. Juan Gualberto Gómez: un gran inconforme. Havana, Cuba: Editorial Mecenas. Ferrer, Ada. 1998. Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868–1898. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Helg, Aline. 1995. Our Rightful Share: The AfroCuban Struggle for Equality, 1886–1912. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. Jenks, Leland. 1928. Our Cuban Colony. New York: Vanguard Press. Lys Stepan, Nancy. 1991. “The Hour of Eugenics”: Race, Gender, and Nation in Latin America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. McLeod, Mark. 2000. “Undesirable Aliens: Haitian and British West Indian Immigrant Workers in Cuba, 1898 to 1940.” Ph.D diss, University of Texas at Austin. Montejo Arrechea, Carmen Victoria. 1993. Sociedades de Instrucción y Recreo de pardos y morenos que existieron en Cuba colonial,

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Cuban Intervention in Angola | 347 período 1878–1898. Veracruz, México: Instituto Veracruzano de Cultura. Pérez, Louis A., Jr. 1988. Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press. Riera Hernández, Mario. 1965. Historial obrero cubano, 1574–1965. Miami, FL: Rema Press.

z Cuban Hip-Hop See Hip-Hop, Cuban.

z Cuban Intervention in Angola Cuba was extensively involved in a civil war to control Angola that drew major attention from such Cold War actors as the United States and South Africa. In the process of decolonization, competing groups arose in Angola. These groups included the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), and the Union for Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). The fighting became serious in 1974, when the competing factions tried to succeed the Portuguese, who were decolonizing countries rapidly following political instability at home. Accords on the course of decolonization among the three competing problems lasted only for a short time, and by 1975 the MPLA and FNLA were in a pitched battle over the capital, Luanda. The MPLA, a Marxist-oriented group, gained the upper hand in the bilateral conflict and seized control of the majority of Angola’s provinces. Supported by the Portuguese Communist Party, which was then in power, the MPLA pressed forward; but when Portuguese support for the MPLA flagged, Cuba became involved by sending a small contingent of troops (1,500)

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and logistical support. This intervention reflected what had been an ongoing interest on the part of Cuba in support of decolonization in Africa. Cuba had previously been involved in Zaire and Guinea-Bissau but had never been a decisive factor in an African conflict; this time would be different. In response to the Cuban intervention in support of the MPLA, South Africa forged an alliance with UNITA and routed the MPLA in the southern regions of the country. In one part of the country, Cuban and MPLA troops faced the FNLA and the forces of Zaire’s dictator, Mobutu. By late 1975, in order to deal with the onslaught, Cuba committed an additional 650 troops. This ongoing intervention was perceived in the United States as part of Soviet strategy; however, subsequent experts have concluded that Cuba appears to have acted alone and without the support of the Soviet Union. The intervention of South Africa raised the question from one of ideology to one of race. Black activists in the United States, Africa, and the Caribbean decried the South African apartheid regime’s intervention in the conflict and supported the Cubans. Picking up on this symbolism, the Cuban regime named its troop buildup “Operation Carlotta” in reference to the black woman leader of a slave rebellion in the Matanzas region. This signaled a rhetorical change inside Cuba that placed new emphasis on the African roots of Cuban culture and identity. Castro even announced that Cuba was an “African Latin nation,” and black representation in party organs was increased. This was a substantial turn of events, for the regime had been for several years decidedly silent on issues of race. Despite continuing U.S. support for UNITA and the South African military, by 1976 Cuba had forced a South African retreat and had soundly defeated American and South African mercenaries fighting on behalf of UNITA and the South African government. By 1988, UNITA was forced into signing a decisive peace

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accord, and Cuban troops began their withdrawal. While there have been many stops and starts in the fighting between the MPLA and UNITA since then (the leader of UNITA, Jonas Savimbi, was killed in February 2002 in a government raid), the MPLA has arisen as the recognized and legitimate government of Angola, in large part due to the heroic Cuban intervention in Africa. Mark Q. Sawyer See also Cuba: Afro-Cubans; Cuban Revolution and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Gleijeses, Piero. 2002. Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington and Africa, 1959–1976. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Moore, Carlos. 1991. Castro, the Blacks and Africa. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: University of California, Center for Afro-American Studies. Sawyer, Mark Q. 2005. Racial Politics in Post-Revolutionary Cuba. New York: Cambridge University Press.

z Cuban Revolution and the African Diaspora The Cuban Revolution has had a broad impact on people of African descent in Cuba and worldwide. The revolution, led by Fidel Castro and his 26th of July movement, triumphed over the U.S.-supported dictator Batista in the beginning hours of January 1959. Afro-Cubans had been a critical part of the movement for Cuban independence at the dawn of the 20th century; Cuban troops at that time were led by Antonio Maceo, and former slaves fought simultaneously for freedom and for Cuban independence. Although African religious factors and such Afro-Cuban cultural forms as the son rhythm formed part of the bedrock of Cuban culture, Afro-Cubans were violently repressed

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and exploited throughout Cuban history until the Cuban Revolution in 1959. The revolution created unprecedented changes for AfroCubans but also came with limitations. People of African descent around the world watched the revolution with great interest. In particular, U.S. African Americans sought to understand what the revolution might mean for racial relations on the island and perhaps as an example for the United States. Initially, Castro said very little about issues of race. However, after being pressured by black activists in Cuba and abroad, and seeing an opportunity to embarrass the hostile U.S. government, Castro took bold steps on racial issues. The regime announced sweeping reforms on racial issues. Castro and his government eliminated private schools and clubs that had discriminated against Afro-Cubans and removed barriers to Afro-Cuban entry into labor unions and professional associations. AfroCuban advancement was also aided by the rapid departure of many Cubans, most of whom were white or mestizo. While not articulated as programs to help Afro-Cubans, socialist reforms profoundly aided AfroCubans, who made up a disproportionate share of the poor and illiterate. Afro-Cuban life expectancy has approached white life expectancy, and other indicators of health and social welfare are equally extraordinary. In keeping with the evolving Marxist character of the revolution, Castro implemented land reform, nationalized critical industries, and expanded health and educational opportunities. The regime embarked upon a literacy campaign that helped many Afro-Cubans gain literacy skills for the first time. However, the government also moved aggressively against Afro-Cuban organizations and cultural activities. As part of a closing of space in civil society, Afro-Cuban mutual aid societies were eliminated, and Afro-Cuban religious organizations and secret societies were forced to register with the police in order to practice. Emergent Afro-Cuban power organizations

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Cuban Revolution and the African Diaspora | 349 were also eliminated. The elimination of these organizations was in part caused by the government’s concern that racial divisions could be exploited by the United States. On the international scene, Cuba became a powerful supporter of battles for racial equality. Castro continually criticized the United States for racial apartheid, and during his first visit to the United Nations, he stayed in the Theresa Hotel in Harlem. He and his aides were warmly greeted by the African American residents of Harlem and met with such African American leaders as Malcolm X, Kwame Nkrumah, congressman Adam Clayton Powell, and Langston Hughes. Since then, Fidel Castro and the Cuban government have enjoyed broad support from African American leaders and the masses. Beginning in the mid-1960’s, such U.S. black activists as Eldridge Cleaver, Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davis, Huey Newton, and Assata Shakur visited or sought asylum in Cuba. They were inspired by the revolution’s championing of Third World issues and its challenge of U.S. racial apartheid. Castro also supported independence struggles in Africa and worked against apartheid South Africa. In fact, Cuban troops came into direct conflict with South African troops in Angola, where Cuba supported the Marxist Angolan government, and the United States and South Africa supported the UNITA rebels led by Jonas Savimbi. Cuban support for the Angolan government was essential in holding the UNITA and South African forces at bay. The Cuban Revolution also supported the African National Congress in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Still, the record of the revolution on racial issues has been a source of profound controversy. After implementing basic reforms, Fidel Castro declared the race problem solved. Supporters of the revolution point to the growing integration in all aspects of Cuban life and the visible gains for Afro-Cubans in such areas as health and education. Critics note that AfroCubans remain concentrated in poorer areas and argue that the lack of an independent

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Afro-Cuban political voice makes it impossible to remedy problems of racial inequality. They further point to a dearth of Afro-Cubans at the very top of the regime. At the same time, AfroCubans are overrepresented in prisons. Such critics of the regime as Carlos Moore, once a supporter of the regime who served as a translator when Fidel Castro visited the UN in 1960, contend that socialism has destroyed AfroCuban activism and made it possible for the regime to hide racial problems. Such supporters of the regime as Angela Davis note the gains of Afro-Cubans in Cuba and Castro’s support of blacks internationally. A third perspective is that of the Cuban exile community. This community, which is more than 95 percent white (compared to the island, which has been estimated by many to be as much as 70 percent nonwhite), has argued that race was not a problem before the revolution and that Castro has only used the issue to dupe Afro-Cubans into supporting the regime. In 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union meant a withdrawal of critical economic support for Cuba. The economy quickly contracted and was thrown into a tailspin. In response, the regime opened up to tourism and foreign investment. However, it was still illegal for Cubans to have or use dollars or shop in the newly created dollar stores. The regime was unable to meet the basic needs of the population in terms of food and salaries. In 1994, following riots focused on the island’s wealth and goods that were unavailable to average Cubans (most of whom were black), the regime made it legal for Cubans to hold dollars and increased the pace of foreign investment in the economy. Critical services were cut back, and medicines became scarce. Remittances from Cuban exiles flowed, and continue to flow, predominantly to white Cubans, exacerbating social inequality based on race. Further, Afro-Cubans have had a difficult time finding employment in the lucrative area of tourism (other than as entertainers or athletes). Increasing numbers of Afro-Cubans have been

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forced to resort to petty crime and prostitution to survive. Despite the growing inequality, Afro-Cubans still represent the regime’s strongest supporters, for they find their major political alternative, the Cuban exile community, to be hopelessly anachronistic if not racist. As a sign of the change, refugees to the United States from Cuba in the 1990’s were increasingly darker and also less ideological in their opposition to the Castro regime. They were predominantly economic refugees who recognized many of the gains of the revolution on racial issues. However, these gains are in profound jeopardy given the current economic restructuring necessitated by the tightening U.S. blockade of the island. The Cuban economy and Afro-Cubans are struggling to adjust to a more market-oriented economy, which runs counter to the socialist economy that pushed gains for Afro-Cubans through the first three decades of the revolution. Mark Q. Sawyer See also Cuba: Afro-Cubans. F URTHER R EADING De la Fuente, Alejandro. 2001. A Nation for All: Race, Inequality and Politics in TwentiethCentury Cuba. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Helg, Aline. 1995. Our Rightful Share: The AfroCuban Struggle for Equality, 1886–1912. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Mealy, Rosemari. 1997. Fidel and Malcolm X: Memories of a Meeting. Melbourne, Australia: Ocean Press. Moore, Carlos. 1991. Castro, the Blacks and Africa. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: University of California, Center for Afro-American Studies. Reitan, Ruth. 1999. The Rise and Decline of an Alliance: Cuba and African American Leaders in the 1960s. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press. Sawyer, Mark Q. 2005. Racial Politics in Post-Revolutionary Cuba. New York: Cambridge University Press.

z www.abc-clio.com

Cugoano, Ottobah (ca. 1757–ca. 1791) Ottobah Quobna Cugoana was born around 1757 in Ajumako (described by him as “the city of Agimaque”), near Winneba, in the central region of present-day Ghana. At the beginning of his sole published work, Thought and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffick and Commerce of the Human Species, Humbly Submitted to the Inhabitants of Great-Britain, by Ottobah Cugoana, a Native of Africa (1787), he gives a brief but vivid account of his capture and enslavement during an outing with other boys of his age group. He was then taken to Grenada in the West Indies, but, as he narrates, it was not long before “[a] gentleman coming to England, took me for his servant, and brought me away, where I soon found my situation become more agreeable.” In England, he lived as a free man, taught himself how to read and write, and was eventually sent to “a proper school: by his master—Alexander Campbell.” Baptized, married to an English woman, and settled with a family as a respected intellectual, he communicated with philosopher Edmund Burke, and as a leading member of the London Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, he petitioned King George III in 1787 to put an end to the evil traffic in human cargoes. It is evident from Thoughts and Sentiments that Cugoano not only acquired considerable formal education but also became well versed in the classics, law, theology, history, philosophy, and other humanities, through intensive and wide-ranging out-of-school reading. His erudition and incisive reasoning are reflected in the compelling argument he makes in Thoughts and Sentiments for the abolition of slavery. He not only vindicates the humanity of Africans, he also castigates white Christian Europe, especially Britain, not only for abandoning the precepts of the scriptures (which they hypocritically appear to champion among the

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Cugoano, Ottobah (ca. 1757–ca. 1791) | 351 so-called heathen peoples of the world) but also for displaying barbaric savagery greater than anything found among the Africans and other humans whom they have detractingly branded and enslaved as savages. He wrote with such circumspection and insight into the effects of slavery and European domination and racism on black history, culture, and consciousness, that resonances of his key arguments can be felt in the works of subsequent leaders of the black intellectual tradition, from civil rights leaders to anticolonial nationalists and latter-day cultural nationalists and Afrocentricists. Cugoano died in London in 1791 (or 1802, according to some sources). Chukwuma Azuonye See also Equiano, Olaudah (1745–1797); Wheatley, Phillis (ca. 1753–1784). F URTHER R EADING Azuonye, Chukwuma, and Steven Serafin, eds. Forthcoming. The Columbia Anthology of African Literature. New York: Columbia University Press. Cugoano, Ottobah. 1963. Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffick and Commerce of the Human Species, Humbly Submitted to the Inhabitants of Great-Britain, by Ottobah Cugoana, a Native of Africa, Printed in the year 1787. London: British Museum Pho-

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tographic Service. (Original published in 1787.) Dathorne, O. R. 1974. The Black Mind: A History of African Literature. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Edwards, Paul, and James Walvin. 1983. Black Personalities in the Era of the Slave Trade. London: Macmillan. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. 1988. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism. New York: Oxford University Press. Gikandi, Simon, ed. 2003. Encyclopedia of African Literature. London: Routledge. Herdeck, Donald E. 1974. African Authors: A Companion to Black African Writing, vol. 1, 1300–1973. Washington, D.C.: Inscape. Irele, F. Abiola, and Simon Gikandi, eds. 2004. The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jahn, Janheinz. 1968. Neo-African Literature: A History of Black Writing. New York: Grove. Jahn, Janheinz, Ulla Schild, and Almut Nordmann. 1972. Who’s Who in African Literature: Biographies, Works, Commentaries. Tübingen, Germany: Horst Erdmann Verlag. Killam, Douglas, and Ruth Rowe, eds. 2000. The Companion to African Literatures. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Sandiford, Keith. 1988. Measuring the Moment: Strategies of Protest in Eighteenth-Century Afro-English Writing. London: Associated University Press.

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Index

z

Abakuá, 1–3, 2 (photo) Abeng, 266, 267 Abernathy, Ralph, 852, 854 Abolitionism, in the African Diaspora, 3–8 in North America, 5–6 in South America, 6–7 Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society, 291 Abu-Jamal, Mumia, 8–9 Abyssinia/Ethiopia, 9–10 Achebe, Chinua, 10–11 Adivasi, 11–12 major categories of, 12 Adriana, Alberto, 948 Africa, 12–17 development of humanity in, 13–14 etymology of the name, 12–13 and European explorers, 15–16 geography of, 13 organized African empires, 14–15 Africa Alive, 467 Africa Vive, 92, 97 African Abolition Society, 720 African American history, 41–53 “African” in, 41–42 background of, 42–44 Black/Atlantic world studies, 51–52 colonial and antebellum studies, 45–46 cultural/interdisciplinary studies, 50–51 gender/women studies, 49–50 public history studies, 48–49 recent trends and tendencies in, 44–45

resistance studies, 46–48 African American Vernacular English (AAVE), 17–18 African American women, 19–20 themes found in the works of, 19 African Americans, and the constitutional order, 20–28 Civil Rights Movement and beyond, 24–27 Civil War era, 21–22 early cases, 20–21 segregation and Jim Crow, 22–24 African Ballet, 28 African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), 28–30, 185, 199, 230, 688–689 African Canadian film, 30–31 African Diaspora, 16, 314–315 African Diaspora texts, xlvii causes of, xxxiii–xxxiv definition of, xxxiii–xxxvii, xli distinguishing characteristics of, xxxvi encyclopedias covering, xxxii–xxxiii historical background and geographical range of, xxxvii–xxxix tendencies in African Diaspora studies, xxxiv and women, xlix–li “African Diaspora” (Shepperson), xxxiv–xxxv African Diaspora film, 31–32 The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA), xlv, 562, 883–884 African Diaspora performance aesthetics, 32–33 African Diaspora Studies, xlv–xlvi, xlviii I-1

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I-2 | Index African Diasporic sociology, 33–41 institutionalizing of, 37–39 major pre-1970s classical figures in, 35 pre-1970s, 34–37 vision and imagination in, 39–41 African film festivals, 442–443 African Literature Association, xlvi African literatures, xlvi–xlvii African matrix culture, 53, 829 African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, 54–55, 176, 177 Dress Reform Society, 54 Women’s Mite Missionary Society, 54–55 African National Congress (ANC), 182, 183, 650–651 African peoples, xli African Society of Culture (ASC), 992 The African Times and Orient Review, 75–76, 459 African Union (AU), xl–xli, 17, 55–58 guiding principles of, 55–56 members of, 56 organs of, 56–57 origin of, 55 symbols of, 57 working languages of, 57 Africanus, Sextus Julius, 58–59 AfriCobra, 113, 169 Afrika, Llaila O., 519 Afro-Asian Conference (Bandung Conference) (1955), 303–304 Afrobeat. See Anikulapo-Kuti, Fela Afro-Brazilian Studies and Research Institute (IPEAFRO), 701 Afrocentricity, 59–62 the Afrocentric paradigm, 59–60 contemporary issues in, 61 context of, 59 and Eurocentricity, 60 key assumptions, 61 leading Afrocentrists, 61 and location, 60 and ways to grasp facts, 60–61 Afro-Cuban literature, 62–65 Afro-Cuban music, 65–68 cha-cha-chá, 67 columbia, 67 danzón, 66 Latin jazz, 67 mambo, 67

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rumba, 66 son, 66 yambú, 67 Afro-Cuban Partido Independiente de Color (PIC) (Independent Party of Color), 342 Afrocubanism, 344 Afro Descendientes Movement. See Venezuela, Afro-Venezuelans in Afrodiaspora, Inc., 972 Afrofest, 252 Afro-fusion dance, 68–70 Ahimsa, 70–71 Aidoo, Ama Ata, 71–72 Akara/acara/acaraje, 72 Akina Mama Wa Africa (AMWA), 441 Albizu-Campos, Pedro, 778–779 Aleijadinho, 108 Alexis, Jacques Stéphen, 73 Algerian Revolution, 73–75 Ali, Duse Mohamed, 75–76 Ali, Muhammad, 76–77 Alim, Samy, 789 Al-Jahiz, 77–78, 575 All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (AAPRP), 78–79, 918 All-African Women’s Revolutionary Union, 918 “Build the A-AARP” program of, 79 Nkrumahism–Turéist ideology of, 78, 79 Allen, James de vere, 875 Allen, Richard, 175, 176 Alleyne, Mervyn, 581 Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA), 19, 79–80 Alves, Miriam, 81–82 Amankwatia II, Baffour. See Hillard, Asa G. Ambar, Malik, 82–83, 106–107, 565–566, 1002 Ambedkar, B. R., 355 American Antislavery Society (AAS), 6 American Colonization Society (ACS), 46, 54, 628 American Historical Association, xlvi Amistad decision (1841), 21, 682 Amo, Antonius Guilielmus (Wilhelm), 83–84 Ananse, 84–85 in Caribbean literatures, 84–85 importance of to Ghanaian authors, 84 Anastácia, 85–86 Andrews, George Reid, 883 Angelou, Maya, 86–87 Anikil, Awagi, 112

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Index | I-3 Anikulapo-Kuti, Fela, 87–90, 88 (photo) Ansina, 90–91 Antigua Caribbean Liberation Movement (ACLM), 267, 524 Antonio the Ethiopian, 91–92 Aponte, José Antonio, 340 Appadurai, Arjun, xxxv Appeal . . . to the Coloured Citizens of the World (D. Walker), xxxv, 5, 970–971 Aptheker, Herbert, 43 Aravaanan, K. P., 401 Archipelago Movement for Ethnic-Native SelfDetermination (AMEN-SD), 787 Argentina, Afro-Argentines in, 92–98 contemporary realities, 97 cultural fusions and contemporary trends, 96–97 history and origins of, 92–95 whitening and the decline in black population, 95–96 Arias, Aurora, 98–99 Aristide, Jean-Bertrand, 99–100 Armstrong, Byron K., 603 Armstrong, Lil Harden, 588 Armstrong, Louis, 586–587 Arozarena, Marcelino, 63 Art, in the African Diaspora, 100–117 first phase (40,000–4000 BCE), 101–102 second phase (3500 BCE–500 CE), 102–103 third phase (650 BCE–599 CE), 103–105 fourth phase (600–1600), 105–108 fifth phase (1500–1900), 108–110 sixth phase (1901–1970), 110–114 seventh phase (1971–2005), 114–116 Art West Associated, 113 Asante, Molefi Kete, 59 Asantewaa, Yaa, 117–118 Àshé, 118–120 Asia, and the African Diaspora. See The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA) Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), 120–121 ASWAD Conferences, xlvi Atlantic world, and the African Diaspora, 121– 133 the African Diaspora, labor, and the Atlantic economy, 125–127 and the demand for slave labor, 126–130 and the development of an integrated economy, 122–125

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Western Africa’s contribution to the Atlantic economy, 130–131 Atwell, Winnifred, 905 Aunty Roachy Seh (Bennett), 160–161 Australia, 738 penal colony in, 736–738 and the “White Australia” policy, 737 Australian Association of Caribbean Studies, xlviii Axum, 133–134 Ayim, May Opitz, 466 Azanian People’s Organization (AZAPO), 183 Azikiwe, Nnamdi, 134–135 Baartman, Sarah, 137–138 Babalawo, 138–139 Babu, Abdulrahman Mohammed (A.M.), 139– 140 Badalkhan, S., 564 Bahamas, 140–141 Liberated Africans in, 141–142 Baker, Ella J., 142 Baker, Josephine, 142–144, 143 (photo), 304, 588 Baker, Thomas Nelson, 758 Bambaataa, Afrika, 144–145, 532 (photo), 790 Banner, William A., 756 Banton, Michael, 36 Baptists, 176–177 Baraka, Amiri, 145–147, 166–167 Barbados, African cultural elements in, 147–149 folk traditions, 149 food names, 147–148 music and masquerade characters, 148 national heroes, 148–149 Baron Samedi. See Samedi Bascom, William R., 581 Basquiat, Jean-Michel, 150–151, 151 (photo) Batalha, Luis, 260 Batouala, a True Black Novel (Maran), 151–152 Battey, C. M., 763–764, 764 Bava Gor, 152–153, 559, 560–561 Bekolo, Jean-Pierre, 443 Belize, African communities in, 153–155 Creoles, 153–155 Garinagu, 154–155 Beltrán, Aguirre, 673–674, 676–677 Benedetto the Moor, Saint, 155–156 Benin, 156–160 Benítez-Rojo, Antonio, xlvii

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I-4 | Index Benjamin, René, 964 Bennett, Louise, 160–162, 161 (photo) Berlin, Ira, 45 Bethune, Mary McLeod, 162–163, 163 (photo) Bethune-Cookman University (formerly Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls in Florida; Bethune Cookman College), 162, 163–164 Bettelheim, Judith, 829 Bhagwan, Moses, 487 Bibb, Henry, 164–165, 835 Biko, Stephen, 165–166, 182, 183 Bin Wahad, Dhoruba, 312, 313 The Birth of a Nation (1915), 593–594 Bishop, Maurice, 476 Bitter Canaan (C. Johnson), 37 Black Aesthetic, 166–167 The Black Aesthetic (ed. Gayle), 167 Black Arts Movement, 145, 167–169, 198–199 black arts in Africa, 168 black arts throughout the Diaspora, 168–169 The Black Atlantic (Gilroy), 51 Black Bourgeoisie (Frazier), 36–37 Black churches, and African American spirituality, 170–174 and ancestors, 171 and dreams, 173–174 fasting, 172–173 prayer meetings and devotional services, 171–172 the preacher, 173, 175 and spirit possessions, 171 Black churches, in the United States, 174–179. See also specific churches Black cinema, 179–182 and black stereotypes, 179–180 from the Caribbean, 181 The LA Film Rebellion, 180–181 “Negro interest films,” 180 race films, 179 Black Cinema Movement, 464 Black Consciousness Movement, 165, 182–183, 376 Black Feminist Movement, in the United States, 322, 432–436 Black Film and Video Network (BFVN), 30 Black History Month, 120 The Black Jacobins (James), 264 Black Liberation Movement, 434–435 Black Marxism, 184–185

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Black Marxism (Robinson), 185 Black Panther Party (BPP) (formerly the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense), 185–187, 192 The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service (a.k.a. The Black Panther), 715 the Free Breakfast for Children program of, 186 slogan of, 715 Ten Point Platform and Program of, 185, 714 Black Paris/Paris Noir, 187–189 Black People’s Convention (BPC), 166, 182 Black Populism (1886–1898), 189–190, 320 Black Power Movement, 145, 198–199 in the Caribbean, 265–269 in the United States, 190–193 Black Power, The Politics of Liberation (Ture and Hamilton), 192 Black Seminoles, 193–194 at Red Bays, Bahamas, 194–195 Black Skin, White Masks (Fanon), 37, 428–429 Black theology, 178 “Black Woman Writer in the African Diaspora” conference, xlix Black women. See African American women Black Women Organized for Action, 435 Black Women’s Diasporas (ed. C. Boyce Davies), l Black/Africana studies in the United States, 195–198 challenges facing the field, 197–198 major organizations for, 196 specialized journals of, 196 values of, 196–197 Black/blackness, and philosophical considerations, 198–203 and the concept of “Negro,” 200–201 and the definition of blackness as race, 202– 203 Blocos afoxés, 203–204 Blocos afros, 203–204 Bluefields (Nicaragua), 204–205 Blues, 205–212 black women blues singers, 588–591 and the blues continuum, 206 and blues orthodoxy, 205–206 and the minor tones AAB, 205 Blyden, Edward Wilmot, xxxv, 212–214, 708 Board of Regents v. Roth (1972), 661 Boas, Franz, 907 Boggs, Grace Lee, 214–215

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Page I-5

Index | I-5 Boggs, James, 190, 214–215 Bois Caiman, 215–216 Bolívar, Simón, 7, 944–945 Bolivia, African presence in, 216–221 culture, 220–221 demographics, 220 during the colonial period, 217–218 during the republican period, 219–220 future trends, 221 political and cultural movements, 221 Bonaparte, Prince Roland Napoleon, 763 Born in Slavery (ed. Rawick), 206 Boukman, 215–216, 499, 504 Boulogne, Joseph Chevalier de Saint-George, 222–223 Bowen, John Wesley Edward, 758–759 Boxer, David, 115 Boyer, Jean-Pierre, 500 Bracks, Lean’tin L., xlix Brand, Dionne, 223–224, 251 Brathwaite, Kamau, xlvii, 224–225, 334, 658 Brazil, Afro-Brazilians in, 225–230 the abolitionist movement and branqueamento, 227 contemporary realities of, 228–229 culture of, 227–228 history and origins of, 225–226 in the nineteenth century, 226–227 quilombos and black consciousness, 226 Breton, André, 297, 914 Briggs, Cyril V., 29, 230–231 The British American, 772 Brixton (south London), 231–232 Brodber, Erna, 232–233 Brooklyn, 233–234 Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids, 508, 788 Browder v. Gayle (1956), 687 Brown, Elaine, 186, 187, 234–235, 235 (photo), 715 Brown, James, 199 Brown, Sterling, 432 Brown v. Board of Education (1954), 24, 660– 661, 705 Buhnen, Steven, 814 Burnham, Forbes, 487, 489 Butler, Broadus N., 759, 760 Butler, Octavia Estelle, 235–236 Butler, Tubal Uriah “Buzz,” 477, 905 Bynoe, Hilda, 477

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Cabral, Amilcar Lopes, 237–239, 261 and “Re-Africanization,” 238 and “Returning to the Source,” 238 Cachoeira (Bahia), 239–240 Cadernos Negros (Black Notebooks) series, 81, 783 Calalu/callaloo, 241 Caldor, Nicholas, 487 Callaloo, xlvi, li, 241 Calypso, 241–245, 904 Campbell, Grace P., 245–246 Campbell, Gwyn, xxxviii Canada, and African American refugee settlements, 246–247 Dawn Settlement, 247 Elgin Settlement, 247 Oro Township, 246 Sandwich Mission, 247 Wilberforce Settlement, 246 Canada, and the African Diaspora, 247–256 crime and marginalization, 254–255 film, 253–254 history of, 248–249 literature, 251 music, 252–253 and official multiculturalism, 248–249, 255, 256 the queer community, 255–256 theater, 251–252 typology of African-descended groups, 248 Candombe, 96, 881–882 Candomblé, 204, 228, 239, 256–257. See also Irmandade de Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte Cannes Brûlées, 257–259 as the basis of contemporary Carnival, 258– 259 elemental features of, 258 Cape Verde, 259–263 culture of, 261 history of, 260–261 literature of, 262 music of, 261–262 Capitalism and Slavery (E. Williams), 263–265 major propositions of, 263 Caribana, 250 Caribbean Association of Researchers and Herbal Practitioners, 515 Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), 269–270

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Page I-6

I-6 | Index Caribbean Diaspora, 270–287 and the black Caribbean Diasporic imaginary, 275–276 the contemporary Diaspora, 279–285 early migrations in the Caribbean American Atlantic, 270–272 household levels of income, 282 (table) self-identified racial categories, 284 (table) transnational migrations, 272–275 women in, 276–279 Caribbean Quarterly, xlvi Caribbean Studies Association, xlvi Carmichael, Stokely. See Ture, Kwame Carnival, 96, 287–289, 395, 678–679, 904. See also Notting Hill Carnival Carpentier, Alejo, 646 Carraway, Arthur, 115 Carter, Betty, 590 Carter, Martin, 487, 490 Carver, George Washington, 289–290, 921 Cary, Mary Anne Shadd. See Shadd Cary, Mary Anne Casa de Cultura da Mulher Negra, 808 Casa Grande e Senzala (“The Masters and Slaves or Enslaved Quarters”) (Freye), 227 Casely-Hayford, Adelaide, 437 Casely-Hayford, Joseph Ephraim, 290–291, 978 Caste, Class, and Race (Cox), 329 Castellanos, Israel, 343 Castro, Fidel, 345, 345–346, 348–349 Catholicism and compulsive acculturation, 942–943 and syncretism, 96–97, 228, 369–373, 964– 965 Center for African Studies (CAS), 237 Central America, African presence in, 291–294 Afro-Amerindian mestizos, 291–292 Afro-Caribeños, 293 Afro-mestizos, 292 Central Asia, African presence in, 294–296 Central Directorate of Societies of the Race of Color (Directorio Central de las Sociedades de la Raza de Color), 341–342 Centro de Esudos Afro-Orientais (CEAO), 296– 297 Césaire, Aimé, xlvii, 297–299, 298 (photo), 495, 663, 708–709, 914 Césaire, Suzanne, 299–300, 914 Charles, May Eugenia, 390 Chase, Ashton, 487

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Chaundhuri, K. N., 123 Chile, Afro-Chileans in, 300–302 contemporary realities, 301–302 history and origins of, 300–301 miscegenation and the decline of the black population, 301 China, and Afro-Asian relations, 302–305 Chisholm, Shirley, 234, 273 (photo), 435 Christian, Barbara, 305 Christophe, Henri, 306, 499, 500 Church of God in Christ (COGIC), 178 Clark, Veve, 382–383 Clarke, Austin, 306–308 Clarke, George Elliot, 308–309 Clarke, John Henrik, 309–310 Clarke, Leroy, 114–115, 310–311 Cleaver, Eldridge, 186, 193, 311–312, 714, 715 Cleaver, Kathleen, 186, 714 Clifford, James, 276 Cohen, Robin, xliv COINTELPRO, 186, 312–313, 836 Cole, Bob, 594–595, 596 Collins, Merle, 313–314, 478 Colombia, Afro-Colombians in, 314–320 Afro-Colombian organizations, 318 connections with African and the Diaspora, 319 and invisibility and exclusion, 317–318 overview of, 315–316 and the problem of identity, 316–317 Colonialism, 16–17, 20 Colored Farmers Alliance, 320–321 Combahee River Collective (CRC) (formerly National Black Feminist Organization [NBFO]), 321–323, 435, 706 Black Feminist Statement of, 322–323 Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), 29, 230 “Black Belt Theory” of, 246, 689 “Conceptualizing the African Diaspora” (Hamilton), xxxvi Condé, Maryse, 323–324, 324 (photo) Cone, James, 190 Conferences of Intellectuals of the African Diaspora (CIAD), xlv–xlvi Confiant, Raphaël, 324–325 Congress of Negro Artists, xlvi Conquest, Sexual Violence and North American Indian Genocide (Andrea Smith), xlii Conwill, Houston, 114

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Index | I-7 Cook, Joyce Mitchell, 758 Cook, Mercer, 325–326 Cooper, Anna Julia, 326–327, 433, 437 Cooper, Carolyn, 39 Corrido, 327–328 Cos Causse, Jesús, 64 Cox, Deborah, 252 Cox, Oliver Cromwell, 328–330 Coyolillo/Coyoleños, 330–332 Creole/Creolity/Creolization, 153–155, 293, 332–334, 711 Creole incident, 334–335 Crisis Magazine, 705 Cromanti, 335–336 Crook, Larry, 828 Crummell, Alexander, 761 Crusader, 29, 230, 389 Cruz, Celia, 337–338, 337 (photo) Cruz, Manoel de Almeida, 338 Cruz-Janzen, Marta, 886–887 Cuba Afro-Cubans in, 338–347 the Cuban Revolution and the African Diaspora, 348–350 intervention in Angola, 347–348 The Special Period in, 528 See also Grito de Yara; Santiago de Cuba Cugoano, Ottobah, 350–351 Cultural Association for Women of African Heritage, 631 Curtin, Philip, 814, 815 Da Silva, Benedita, 353–354 Dafora, Asadata, 359 Daily American Newspaper, 596 Dalits (Untouchables), 354–355 Damas, Léon-Gontran, 355–356, 708 Dance, in the African Diaspora, 356–363 on the African continent, 357–359 in the Caribbean, 360–361 in Latin America, 361–362 in the United States, 359–360 Dance Theatre of Harlem, 366–368 Dandridge, Dorothy, 589 Dangarembga, Tsitsi, 368–369 Danish West Indies, Oldendorp’s 18th-century findings on, xliv, 369–373 Danticat, Edwidge, 373–375, 374 (photo), 501 Daughters of the Diaspora (ed. DeCosta Williams), l

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Davies, Carole Boyce, l, 50, 81, 440, 728, 802 Davies, Horace, 487 Davies, K. G., 129–130 Davis, Angela, 349, 375–376 Davis Wade, 813 Dawson, Christopher, 575 De Almeida, José Lino Alves, 376–377 De Oxóssi, Mãe Stella, 377–378 de Silva, Jennifer Hodge, 30 De Sousa, T., 565 DeCarava, Roy, 764 Decolonization, 378–379, 486 “Defining and Conceptualizing the Modern African Diaspora” (Palmer), xxxviii– xxxix Delta Sigma Theta (DST), 379–380 Depestre, René, 501, 658, 709 Desmangles, Leslie, 785 Dessalines, Jean-Jacques, 380–381, 499, 501 The Destruction of Black Civilization (C. Williams), xxxv, 982–983 Detroit Summer, 215 La Diablesse, 381 Diaspora literacy, 382–383 Diaspora Vibe Gallery, 383–384 Diasporas, xlvi Diasporic marronage. See Maroons/marronage Diggs, Elder Watson, 603–604 Diop, Alioune, 188, 708, 766–767, 992 Diop, Cheikh Anta, xlv, 13, 387–388 Documentaries, 30, 253–254 Domingo, Wilfred Adolphus, 389–390 Dominica, 390–391 Dominican Republic, 391–396 and the African Diaspora, 396 African influences in, 394–396 the Haitian revolution and the unification period, 392 move toward democracy, 394 as a new republic, 392–393 the Trujillo regime, 393–394 U.S. occupation (1916–1924), 393 Douglarization. See Indians, and the African Diaspora in the Caribbean Douglas, Aaron, 111, 397 Douglass, Frederick, 6, 190, 397–398 Dracius, Suzanne, 398–399 Drake, St. Clair, xxxix Dravidians, 399–401 Drayton, Richard, 126

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I-8 | Index Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), 22, 47 Drum (formerly Africa Drum), 401–402 du Sable, Jean-Baptiste Pointe, 402–404 DuBois, W. E. B., 35, 43, 47–48, 110, 152, 166, 302, 303, 404–405, 404 (photo), 445, 461, 469, 508, 760 double consciousness concept, 38, 46 “Talented Tenth” concept, 404 Duke, Alison, 31 Dulles, John Foster, 24 Dumas, Alexandre, Jr., 424 Dunham, Albert M., 759 Dunham, Katherine, 359, 405–406, 406 (photo) Duval-Carrié, Edouard, 111 Duvalier, François “Papa Doc,” 500, 890–891 East African Community (EAC), 407–409 Ebonics. See African American Vernacular English (AAVE) Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS), 409–411 Ecuador, Afro-Ecuadorians in, 411–416 demography of, 412–413 economic activities of, 413–414 history of, 411–412 intercultural relations and racism, 415–416 politics of, 414–415 religion of, 413 Eddins, Berkley, 760, 761 Edgell, Zee, 416–417 Edwards, Brent Hayes, xxxv Edwards, Mel, 115 Egypt, 14 influence of on ancient Greece, 103–105 and Kemetic art in Asia Minor, 102–103, 168 See also Nubia El Diario de la Marina, 344 El Moudjahid, 417–418, 429 Elder, Jacob Delworth, xlviii, 418–419 Emancipation Proclamation (1863), 6 Emancipator, 389 Enlightenment, the, 94–95 Enríquez, Miguel, 775 Environmental justice, 419–420 Episcopalianism, 176 Equiano, Olaudah, 420–422 Esmeraldas, 422–423 Estupian Bass, Nelson, 415 Ethiopia Awakening (Fuller), 110 (photo)

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Ethiopian Orthodox Church, 134 Ethiopianism. See Haile Selassie I; Rastafarianism Eurocentrism, 60 Europe, and the African Diaspora, 423–426. See also specific European countries Evers, Medgar, 889 Exchanging Our Country Marks (Gomez), 45–46 Facing Mount Kenya (Kenyatta), 606 Falgayrettes-Leveau, Christiane, 617 Falucho, 427–428 Fanon, Frantz, 37, 74–75, 192, 428–430, 429 (photo), 709 Farah, Issa, xlii Fard, Wallace D., 702 Farrakhan, Louis, 704 Farris Thompson, Robert, xliv, xlvii, 121, 532 Febres, Mayra Santos, 430–431 Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), 431–432 African American writers involved in, 431 Guide to America series, 431 rural studies, 432 Slave Narrative Collection, 432 urban studies, 432 Fedon, Julien, 476 Feminism, and black women in the African Diaspora, 436–442 Caribbean feminist works, 438 feminist literary criticism works, 440 South African feminist journals, 441 works on African feminisms, 440 works on sexuality in the African Diaspora, 439–440 See also Black Feminist Movement, in the United States Feminist Africa, li Filhos de Gandhy, xlii–xliii, 443–445 Firmin, Anténor, 501 Fisk University, 445–446 Fitzgerald, Ella, 589 Flores, Juan, 886 Florida International University conferences, xlv Florida Memorial University, 446–447 “Flying Africans” narrative, 447–448 Fontaine, William T., 759, 760 Forum, 267 Foster, William, 179 The Foundations of Capitalism (Cox), 329

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Page I-9

Index | I-9 Fourah Bay College, 448–449 Fowler, Víctor, 64–65 France, and the African Diaspora, 423–424, 424, 425, 426, 449–452 black immigrant grassroots organizations, 451 Francisco, Slinger, 243 (photo), 477 Francois, Elma, 452–453 Franklin, John Hope, 43 Frazier, E. Franklin, 34, 36, 37, 907 Free African Society, 175 Freye, Gilberto, 227 Friandes, Mestre Manoel, 108, 109 From Slavery to Freedom (Franklin), 43 Frye, Charles A., 760, 761 Fuller, Hoyt, 166, 167 Fuller, Meta Warrick, 110 Gadsby, Meredith, l Gairy, Eric, 476 Gama, Luiz, 699 Gandhi, Mahatma, xlii, 70–71, 355 Garifuna, 154–155, 292, 455–456 Garrison, William Lloyd, 6 Garvey, Amy Ashwood, 456–458 Garvey, Amy Jacques, 458–459 Garvey, Marcus, xl, 46, 342–343, 389, 459–463, 459 (photo), 492, 689, 742, 793 African Nationalism philosophy of, 460 anti-Garvey forces, 461 Garveyism. See Garvey, Marcus Gaskin, Winifried, 487 Gates, Henry Louis, xlv, 842 Gays and Lesbians of the African Diaspora (GLAD), 256 “Gendering the African Diaspora” conference, l Geographers, Arab/African, 463–464 George Padmore Research Library, 741 Gerima, Haile, 464–465 Germany, and the African Diaspora, 465–468 Afro-Deutsche communities, 467 contemporary realities, 468 hip-hop in Germany, 467–468 historical background, 465–466 recent trends, 466–467 Ghana, 469–470 Gillespie, Dizzy, 587 (photo) Gilroy, Beryl Agatha, 470–472 Gilroy, Paul, xliv–xlv, xlvii, 51, 121, 272, 470 Githae-Mugo, Micere, 664

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Glissant, Edouard, xlvii, 334, 472–473, 482, 658, 709 Global Diasporas (Cohen), xliv Global Mappings Atlas (Hanchard), xliii Golightly, Cornelius, 759 Goméz, Juan Gualberto, 342 Gomez, Michael, xxxix, 45–46 Goodison, Lorna, 473 Gordon, Monica, 278 Graffiti, 150 Great Awakening, 174–175 Greaves, William, 30 Greenberg, Joseph, 373 Grenada, 474–478 culture of, 477–478 early history of, 474–475 the Grenadian Diaspora, 477 social movements in, 475–476 socioeconomic profile of, 475 Grierson, John, 30 Griots/griottes, 478–480 Grito de Yara, 480 The Groundings with My Brothers (Rodney), 267, 804 Guadeloupe, 480–482 Gualba, Miguel, 341 Guerra, Juan Luis, 395 (photo) Guillén, Nicolás, 63, 344, 482–483 Guimarães, Geni, 483–484 Guirao, Ramiro, 344 Gumbo, 484–485 Guy-Sheftall, Beverly, xlix Guyana, 485–490 as a British colony, 485–486 cultural and intellectual contributions to the African Diaspora, 490 and decolonization, 486–287 overlapping Diaspora in, 489–490 political scene in, 487–489 Haile Selassie I, 134, 491–493, 792–793 Hairstyles of blacks, 493–495 the Afro, 494 braiding, 493–494 dreadlocks (locks or dreads), 494–495 relaxers/perms, 494 straightening, 494 Haiti, 495–502, 504 culture of, 496 economy of, 497

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I-10 | Index environmental degradation in, 496 geography of, 495 government of, 497–498 the Haitian Revolution, 498–500, 502–504 history of, 498–501 population of, 495–496 Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo, xxxix Hall, Prince, 771–772 Hall, Stuart, xlv, 272 Hamilton, Charles, 191, 192 Hamilton, Ruth Simms, xxxvi, 37 Hamilton, Sylvia, 30 Hammond, Francis Monroe, 759 Hampton Institute/Hampton University, 504–505 Hanchard, Michael, xliii Handy, W. C., 208, 210 Hansberry, Lorraine, 199 Harlem, 506–507 Harlem Renaissance, 111, 199, 506, 507–509, 661 Harlem Tenants League, 246 Harleston, Elise Forrest, 764 Harper, Frances E. W., 434 Harris, Joseph, xxxviii Harris, Wilson, 658 Harrison, Hubert H., 688 Haynes, Samuel A., 154 Haywood, Harry, 509–510 Health, in the African world, 510–522 biomedicine (Western or official medicine), 514 health disparities, 510–514, 518 HIV/AIDS, 519–520 popular medicine, 511, 518–519 spirituality and healing, 517 traditional/folk medicine, 511, 514–517 Healy, Patrick Francis, 758 Heath, Roy, 522–523 Hector, Leonard “Tim,” 523–525 Hemphill, Essex, li Henson, Josiah, 247 Herrera, Georgina, 64 Herskovits, Frances S., 43 Herskovits, Melville, xliii, 32, 36, 581, 858, 907– 908 Heywood, Linda, xlviii Highlife, 525–527 Hill, Charles Leander, 758, 760, 761 Hilliard, Asa G., III, 527–528 Hine, Darlene Clark, xxxix

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Hintjens, H., 567 Hip-hop, 531–537 Cuban, 528–529, 530, 531 elements of, 532 in Germany, 467–468 internationalism of, 534 Latin American, 529–531 mistaken assumptions about, 533 musical, cultural, and historical connections, 532–533 original school, 534 origins of, 531 and rap COINTELPRO, 535–536 true school, 534 See also Rap/Rappin’; Yaad hip-hop The History of Mary Prince, 770–771, 813 Hitti, Philip K., 575 Holiday, Billie, 537–539, 538 (photo), 588–589 Holiness-Pentecostal Movement, 177–178 Holmes, Eugene C., 756 Homburger L., 401 Hope, John, 69 Hopkinson, Nalo, 540–541 Horne, Lena, 589 Horton, James Africanus Beale, 541–542 Houbert, Jean, 566 Houston, Charles Hamilton, 24 Howard University, 542–544 faculty and students, 543 library of, 543 Howell, Leonard, 793 Hughes, Langston, 303, 483, 544–545, 544 (photo) Huiswoud, Otto, 545–546 Hunt, Nettie, 25 (photo) Hunter, Alberta, 588 Huntley, Jessica, 487 Hunton, William Alphaeus, Jr., 48 Hurston, Zora Neale, 35, 431, 546–548, 547 (photo), 815 Hurtado, Lenin, 415 Hutton, Clinton, 816 Hyde, Evan X., 154 Hyppolite, Hector, 111 Ibeji, 549–550 “Ibo Landing” story, 550–551 Ifekuwingwe, Jane, l Iglesias Díaz, Aracelio, 345 Ilê Aiyê, 551–552

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Page I-11

Index | I-11 Immigration, to the United States admission by region and country of birth (1989–2001), 280 (table) patterns in (1989–2003), 274 (figure) Incense, 552–553 India, and the African Diaspora, 553–562, 563, 565–566 cultural expressions of, 560 Diaspora connections, 560–561 economy of, 557–558 ethnic groups and languages, 555–557 geographical boundaries, 557 history of, 554–555 political and social structure of, 558–559 religions of, 559–560 and the slave trade, 564–565 Indian Ocean world and the African Diaspora, 562–569 Dutch East Indies, 568 Habashi/Sidi/Kaffir terminology, 562–563 Mauritius, 566–567 music of, 564 Pakistan, 563–564 Réunion, 567 Sri Lanka, 567–568 See also India and the African Diaspora Indians, and the African Diaspora in the Caribbean, 569–571 Indigo, 571 Indonesia and Africa, 571–573 The Institute of the Black World (IBW), 573– 574 The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself, 421 International African Friends of Abyssinia (IAFA) (later International African Friends of Ethiopia), 457 International African Opinion, 741 International Club, 667–668 International Council of Women of the Darker Races, 436–437 International Labor Defense (ILD), 689 Iraq, ancient, African presence in, 574–576 Sumer, 575 Irmandade de Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte, 576–578 Islam African elements of Islamic art, 105–108 and women, 988–991

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Jackson, George Lester, 532, 579–580 Jackson, John G., 1000 Jackson, Joseph, 175 Jackson, Richard L., 675 Jagan, Cheddi, 486, 487, 489 Jagan, Janet Rosenberg, 487 Jamaica, 580–583 Jamaica Labrish (Bennett), 160 James, C. L. R., 43, 185, 264, 524, 583–585, 585 (photo), 860, 905 James, Cynthia, 658 James, George G. M., 761 Japan, and Afro-Asian relations, 302–305 Jazz, 585–587 black women jazz singers, 588–591 Jean, Roland, 115–116 Jeffers, Audrey, 905 Jerk seasoning, 591 Jim Crow, 22–24, 591–594 and the “separate but equal” doctrine, 592 Jiménez, Rafael D., 828 Johnson, Charles S., 34, 37, 431, 445 Johnson, J. Rosamond, 594–595, 596, 629, 705 Johnson, James Weldon, 303, 594–595, 595– 596, 629, 705 Johnson, Linton Kwesi, 596–597 Johnson, Lyndon B., 24, 853 Johnson, Sargent Claude, 111 Johnson, William D., 756 Johnston, Harry, 35–36 Johnston, Percy E., 760 Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education and Liberation (JEWEL), 267 Jones, Claudia Cumberbatch, 598–599, 598 (photo), 905 Jones, Lois Mailou, 111 Jones, Peter, 179 Jones, William A., 505 Jones, William R., 758, 760–761, 761 Journal of African American History, 120 Journal of African Civilizations, 940 Junkanoo, 599–600 Kali, 601–602 Kalimba, 602–603 Kanogo, Tabitha, 664 Kappa Alpha Psi, 603–604 Kayiga, Kofi, 115 Keens-Douglas, Richard, 604–605 Kelley, Robin D. G., xxxix, 790

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Page I-12

I-12 | Index Kelsey, George D., 757 Kelshall, Jack, 487 Kenya Land and Freedom Army. See Mau Mau Kenyatta, Jomo, 605–608, 607 (photo) Keyes, Cheryl L., 790 Killens, John Oliver, 739 Kincaid, Jamaica, 608–609 King, B. B., 609–610 King, Martin Luther, Jr., xlii, 71, 173,175, 610– 611, 852, 853 Kinyatti, Maina wa, 664 Kitt, Eartha, 589 Koelle, Sigismund, 373 KRS-ONE, 611–613 Ku Klux Klan, 22, 592 Kuti, Fela. See Anikulapo-Kuti, Fela Kwanzaa, 613–615 celebration and ritual of, 614–615 five fundamental activities of, 613 seven principles of (Nguzo Saba), 613–614 Kwayana, Eusi, 487 La poblacion negra de México (Beltrán), 673– 674, 676–677 Labat, Jean-Baptiste, 333 Lalla, Barbara, 658 Lam, Wifredo, 111–112, 617–618 Lamming, George, 618–619 Langston, John Mercer, 619–620 Langston University, 620–622 Laporte, Roy Bryce, 39 Latino, Juan, 622–623 Lawrence, Jacob, 111, 623–625 Lazare, Muzumbo, 904–905 Lee, Carlton L., 760, 761 Lee, Spike, 181, 234 LeFlesche, Susan, 505 Legba, 625–626 Legion Rastafari (Legiao Rastafari), 633 Légitime défenese, 626–627 Les Ballets Africains. See African Ballet Lewis, Earl, 50 Lewis, Samella, 113–114 Lewis, W. Arthur, 125 The Liberator, 6 Liberia, 627–629 “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” 594, 596, 629–630, 705 Liga para Promover el Progreso de los Negros en Puerto Rico, 778

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Lincoln, Abbey, 590, 630–641 Lincoln University (formerly Ashmun Institute), 632–633 Lino Alves de Almeida, José, 633–634 Lion, Jules, 763 Locke, Alain L., 111, 152, 508, 634–635, 756– 757 López, Rafael Brea, 829 Lorde, Audre, xlix, l–li, 635–637, 636 (photo), 999–1000 L’Ouverture, Toussaint, 5, 380, 499, 501, 637– 639, 638 (illustration) Lovejoy, Paul, 814–815 Lovelace, Earl, 639–640 Loven, Sven, 581 Lowery, Joseph E., 854 Lumumba, Patrice Emery, 640–641 Lynching, 887–889, 976–977 Maceo y Grajales, Antonio, 643 Macumba, 643–644 Magubane, Peter, 765 Mahdi rebellion, 644–645 Makandal, François, 645–646 Malcolm X, xl, 48, 192, 647–649, 648 (photo), 703, 799, 800 Male revolt, 649–650 Mandela, Nelson, 650–651 Mandela, Winnie, 651–653, 652 (photo) Manley, Edna, 112 Manley, Norman, 486 Manzano, Juan Francisco, 63 Maran, René, 151–152, 653–654 Marassa, 654–655 March on Washington Movement (MOWM), 214, 788 Mariategui, Carlos, 948 Marley, Bob, xlv, 655–657, 656 (photo) Maroons/marronage, 4, 226, 384–387, 391, 481, 657–659, 677–678, 744–745, 934, 944–945 grand marronage, 657, 934 the Ndyuka maroons, 870–873 petit marronage, 657, 934 See also Palmares Mars, Jean Price, 111 Marshall, Paule, 233, 270, 659–660 Marshall, Thurgood, 660–661, 661 (photo), 705 Marson, Una, 438 Martin, Tony, xxxix Martínez, Annabella Cruz, 331

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Page I-13

Index | I-13 Martinique, 662–664 Marson, Una, 661–662 Maryshow, Theophilus Albert, 476–477 “Master Abdias,” 112 “Master Didi,” 112 Mathaba International, 524 Mau Mau, 664–665 Maximilien, Louis, 964 Maynard, Valerie, 115 Mazrui, Ali, 728 Mbari Club, 665–666 M’bow, Amadou Makhtar, 666–667 McBride, Dwight, li McBurnie, Beryl, 361 McCarran-Walter Act (1952), 272 McDaniel, Lorna, 815–816 McFadden, Patricia, 441 McKay, Claude, 667–668 McKinney, Richard I., 757 McKittrick, Katherine, l McLeod Bethune, Mary. See Bethune, Mary McLeod McLeod, Jacqueline, xxxix McRae, Carmen, 668–669 McTair, Roger, 30 McWatt, Tessa, 669–670 Medici, Alessandro de, 670–671 Meeks, Gregory, 319 Mendizábal, Horacio, 97 Menéndez, Jesús, 345 Messenger, 184, 389, 787 Mestizo, 292, 671–672 Métraux, Alfred, 964, 965 Mexico, 673–679 African heritage of, 673–675 Carnival in, 678–679 maroons in, 677–678 and mestaziaje ideology, 674–677 See also Veracruz Micheaux, Oscar, 32, 179 Middle Passage, 679–683, 893 crew and officers of the ships, 682 and slave resistance, 681–682 and the slaves’ health and well-being, 680–681 The Migration of the Negro (Lawrence), 624, 624 (photo) Million Man March, 704 Milonga, 882–883 Minerva, 341 Mintz, Sydney, 486

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Miskito Indians, 292, 539–540 Mitchell, Arthur, 366, 367 Montejo, Esteban, 658 Montejo Arrechea, Carmen, 339 Montgomery, Evangeline J., 113, 114 Montgomery Bus Boycott, 685–687 Montgomery Improvement Association, 686– 687 Moore, Audley E. See Moore, Queen Mother Moore, Carlos, 349 Moore, Queen Mother, 687–688 Moore, Robin, 883 Moore, Richard B., 688–689 Moreau de Saint-Méry, Mederic, 333 Morehouse College (formerly Augusta Institute), 689–690 Morejón, Nancy, 63–64, 690–692 Moreland, Marc M., 760 Morisseau-Leroi, Félix, 501 Morrison, Toni, 692–693 Mos Def, 693–694 Moseka, Aminata. See Lincoln, Abbey MOVE, 8 Movement for Assemblies of the People (MAP), 267 Movimento Negro Unificado (MNU), 694–696 Moya Pons, Frank, 396 Mtoro bin Mwinyi Bakari, 696–697 Muhammad, Elijah, 76–77, 702–703 Mulatta, 697–698 Murrell, Nathaniel Samuel, 816 Muslim Mosque, Inc., 648 Mutabaruka, 698 Nardal, Jane, 188, 663 Nardal, Paulette, 188, 663 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, 397 The Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, 165 Nascimento, Abdias do, 114–115, 699–702 quilombismo philosophy of, 701–702 Nation of Islam (NOI), 76–77, 647–649, 702– 704 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 461, 596, 508, 704–705 Legal Redress Committee, 705 National Association of Colored Women (NACW), 19, 434

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I-14 | Index National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. (formerly National Baptist Convention), 175 National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO), 435, 705–707 National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in American (N’COBRA), 707–708, 801 N’COBRA’s International Affairs Commission (NIAC), 707 National Conference of Artists (NCA), 113 National Congress of British West Africa, 291 National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), 19, 162 National Joint Action Committee (NJAC), 267, 268 National Organization for Women (NOW), 434 National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), 165 National Urban League, 508 National Youth Administration (NYA), 162 Négritude, 297, 388, 429, 708–710 Negro History Bulletin, 120 The Negro in the New World (H. Johnston), 35– 36 Negro Renaissance. See Harlem Renaissance Negro Society for Historical Research, 830 Negro Welfare Cultural and Social Association (NWCSA), 452–453 Negro World, 389, 460, 461 “Our Women and What They Think” page, 458 Nelson, William Stuart, 757–758 Netherlands Antilles, and the African Diaspora, 710–712 Netherlands East Indies, African soldiers in, 712–714 Nettleford, Rex, 361, 797 New Jewel Movement (NJM), 267, 268, 476 The New Negro (Locke), 508 New Negro Movement. See Harlem Renaissance Newitt, M., 566 Newton, Huey Percy, 185–187, 192–193, 714– 715 Ngudu Herbarium, 516 Nichols, Grace, 716–717 Nketia, J. H. Kwabena, 358 Nkrumah, Kwame, xl, 408–409, 469, 492, 717– 718, 742–743 Notting Hill Carnival, 718–720 Nova Scotia, and the African Diaspora, 720–721

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Nubia, 721–724 Kerma period (2040–1554 BCE), 721 New Kingdom period (1554–1080 BCE), 721–722 Kush period (900 BCE—320 CE), 722–723 Meroe period (270 BCE—350 CE), 723–724 Nuestra Raza, 935 Nxumalo, Henry, 401, 402 Nyerere, Julius, 408 Nzegwu, Nkiru, xxxv Obadele, Gaidi, 800 Obadele, Imari, 800 Obeah, 725–726 Oberlin College, 303 Ogou/Ogum/Ogun, 726–727 Ogundipe-Leslie, Molara, 439 Okpewho, Isidore, 727–728 Olatunji, Babtunde, 358 Old Hige, 728–729 Oldendorp, Christian Georg Andreas. See Danish West Indies, Oldendorp’s 18thcentury findings on Olodum, 729–730 Olugebefola, Ademola, 115 Opoku, Albert M., 357, 358 Optiz, May Ayim, 730 Order of the Eastern Star (Queen Esther Chapter), 19 Organizaciones Mundo Afro, 935 Organization of African Unity (OAU), 55 Oro Negro, 301–302 Ortiz, Fernando, 617, 731–732 Osun (Oxum/Ochun/Oshun), 732–733, 733 (photo) Our Caribbean (ed. Glave), li Outlet, 267 Owen, Chandler, 389, 787 Oya, 734 Oyewumi, Ronke, li Pacific world and the African Diaspora, 735– 740 in antiquity, 735–736 during the Spanish-American War, 738–739 during World War II, 739 early contacts, 736 early migrations, 735 and European hegemony, 736 post–World War II, 739

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Page I-15

Index | I-15 recent Diaspora, 739 See also Australia Padmore, George, 43, 740–741, 905 Palcy, Euzhan, 181, 741–742 Palmares, 1009–1010 Palmer, Colin, xxxviii–xxxix Palmer, Ransford W., 275 Pan-African Congresses (PAC), 182, 183, 437, 457, 741, 743, 992 Pan-African Freedom Movement for East and Central Africa (PAFMECA), 408 Pan-Africanism, xxxix–xl, 78, 275–276, 408, 524, 742–743, 918 dominant ideas of, 743 Panama, Afro-Panamanians in, 292, 743–748 Afro-Antilleans, 745–747 Afro-Colonials, 744–745, 746–747 Pankhurst, Richard, 562 Park, Robert Ezra, 34 Parker, Lawrence Anthony. See KRS-ONE Parks, Gordon, Sr., 764 Parks, Rosa, 48, 588, 685, 686 (photo) Partido Autóctono Negro (PAN), 935 Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC), 261 “Passing,” 594 Pastor, Robert A., 272 Patterson, Louise Thompson, 846 Patterson, Tiffany, xxxix Pattillo, Walter Alexander, 748–749 Payada, 96, 749–750 Peña, Lázaro, 345 People with their feet on backward, 751 People’s Educational Forum, 688 People’s National Party (PNP), 389 People’s Progressive Party (PPP), 487 Peralta, Pedro Andaverez, 221 Pereira, C., 566 Pérez-Sarduy, Pedro, 64 Perry, Rufus L. M., 761 Perry, Rufus Lewis, Jr., 761 Peru, Afro-Peruvians in, 751–753 history and origins of, 752 recent trends, 753 resistance to slavery, 752–753 Pétion, Alexandre, 499, 500, 501 Petwo, 753–754 Pharaoh, Shengé, 114–115 Phi Beta Sigma, 754–755 The Philadelphia Negro (DuBois), 404

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Philip, Marlene Nourbese, 251, 755–756 Philosophers and the African American experience, 756–762 Photography and the African Diaspora, 762– 766 Pitt, David, 477 Placidó, 63, 341 Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), 22, 202, 592, 661 Pointe du Sable, Jean Baptiste. See du Sable, Jean Baptiste Pointe Poitier, Sidney, 180, 471 Polk, P. H., 764 Portalatin, Aida Cartagena, 766 Powers, Harriet, 108 The Practice of Diaspora (Edwards), xxxv Prempeh I, 834 Presbyterianism, 176 Présence Africaine, xlvi, 708, 766–767 Price, Richard, 657 Price-Mars, Jean, 501 Prieto, Claire, 30 Primus, Pearl E., 359, 767–770, 769 (photo) Primus-Borde Dance Language Institute, 768 Prince, Mary, 770–771 Prince Hall Masons, 771–772 Progressive National Baptist Convention, 175 Provincial Freeman, 772–773 Puerto Rico, Afro-Puerto Ricans in, 773–780 cultural connections, 777–779 history of, 773–777 racism and color stratification in, 886–887 The Pullman Porter (1910), 179 Pushkin, Alexander Sergeevich, 424, 780–781 Quakers, 5 Quilombhoje, 81, 783–784 Quilombo, 700 Quintana-Murci, 564 Race and Culture Contacts in the Modern World (Frazier), 36 Racial identity, 886 Rada, 785–786 Raimond, Julien, 222 Rainey, Gertrude “Ma,” 588 Raizales, 786–787 current situation of, 787 history of, 786–787 Randolph, A. Philip, 214, 389, 787–788 Ransome-Kuti, Funmilayo, 438

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I-16 | Index Rap COINTELPRO, 313, 535–536 Rap/Rappin’, 788–791, 995 Rapso, 791–792 Rasta Reggae, 376–377 Rastafarianism, xlv, 266, 268, 492, 495, 792–795 key principles of, 793–794 Rawick, George P., 206 Rayner, John Baptis, 795–796 Reagon, Bernice Johnson, 796–797, 879 Red Thread, 490 Reddock, Rhoda, li Refugee Home Society, 247 Refugee’s Home Colony, 165 Reggae, xlv, 376–377, 634, 655, 797–798, 995 Reparations, 707, 798–799 Republic of New Africa (RNA), 799–801 The Review of the Black World, 663 Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), 799 Ribeiro, Esmeralda, 801–802 Richards, Beah, 846 Rigaud, Milo, 965 Riggs, Marlon, li Riley, Cheryle, 116 Ríos, Soleida, 64 Robaina, Tomás Fernández, 64 Robeson, Eslanda Goode, 188 Robeson, Paul, 47–48, 802–803 Robinson, Cedric, 185 Rodney, Walter, 266, 267, 488, 490, 803 Rogers, Joel Augustus, 805–807 Rojas, Marta, 64 Rojo, Antonio Benítez, 829 Rolling calf spirit, 807 Roney, Antoine, 363 Roney, Nia, 363 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 162 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 162, 431, 788 Roosevelt, Theodore, 35 Ross, Jacob, 807–808 Rossi, Vicente, 882, 883 Roumain, Jacques, 501 Rouse, Irving, 581 Ruffin, Josephine St. Pierre, 434 Rufino, Alzira, 808–809 Ruiz, Antonio. See Falucho Sachs, Jeffrey, 319 Sage, xlix Saldaña, Excilia, 64 Salsa, 811–813

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Salt, and the African Diaspora, 813–817 culinary uses of, 815 and hypertension, 814 symbolic use of, 813–814, 815–816 Salvador, 817–818 Samba, 818–820 Samba schools, 820–821 Samedi/Baron Samedi, 821–822 San Martín, José, 7 San Mateo de Cangrejos, 822 Sancho, Ignatius, 822–823 Sankofa, 823–824 Santa Cruz, Nicomedes, 753 Santería, 824–828 alternative names for, 824 Santiago de Cuba, 828–829 Saving Our Sons and Daughters (SOSAD), 215 Schomburg, Arturo Alfonso, 830–831, 830 (photo) Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 831–832 School achievement, and minority students, 683–685, 684 (figures) Schwarz-Bart, André, 333 Scott, Hazel, 832–833, 905 Scottsboro Boys, 23, 23 (photo) Scurlock, Addison, 764 Seale, Bobby, 185–187, 192–193, 714, 715 Second Great Awakening, 5 Segregation, 22–24 Sembene, Ousmane, 180 Senghor, Léopold Sédar, 400–401, 709 Sexual Demon of Colonial Power (G. Thomas), xlii Seychelles Islands, 833–834 Seymour, William J., 177 Shadd Cary, Mary Anne, 772–773, 834–835 Shakur, Assata Olugbala, 835–836 Shakur, Tupac Amaru, 836–837 Shaman Pharmaceuticals, 516 Shange, Ntozake, 837–839 Shango, 839–840 Shelley v. Kramer (1948), 24, 660 Shepperson, George, xxxiv–xxxv Shook, Karel, 366, 367 Shorty, Lord, 244 Siddis, 840–841 Signifying, 842–843 Simone, Nina, 590, 843–844 Singer, Merrill, 517

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Page I-17

Index | I-17 Sistren, 844–845 Sitson, Gino, 358 Skinner, Elliott, li Slave narratives, 42, 165, 206 Slave revolts, 3, 339–340 the Aponte rebellion, 340 in the Dominican Republic, 391 in the Dutch Antilles, 712 in Haiti, 5, 499, 502–504, 637–638 the Male revolt, 649–650 Nat Turner’s rebellion, 920–921 in Panama, 744–745 the Stono Rebellion, 867–868 in the United States, 637 in Uruguay, 934 in Venezuela, 944–945 in the Virgin Islands, 957 Zanj rebellion, 575–576, 1001–1002 See also Maroons/maroonage Slavery/slave trade, 3, 7, 16, 158–159, 566 in Africa, 16 in the Arab world, 16, 1001 in Argentina, 93–95 in Brazil, 225–226 in Cape Verde, 260 and the demand for slave labor, 126–130 in the Dominican Republic, 391 in the Dutch Antilles, 710–711 in Guadeloupe, 481 in Haiti, 498–499, 503 in India, 564–565 in Panama, 744 in Puerto Rico, 774–776 transatlantic slave trade, 892–897 in Uruguay, 932–933 in Venezuela, 941–947 in the Virgin Islands, 957 See also Middle Passage Smith, Adam, 123, 125, 126 Smith, Bessie, 588 Smith, Dante Terrell. See Mos Def Smith, John M., 757 Smith, Raymond, 488 Smith v. Allwright (1944), 660 Smitherman, Geneva, 842 Sobel, Mechel, 39 Sociedad de Estudios Afro-Cubanos, 731 Sociedad Hispano-Cubana de Cultura, 731 Society of Friends. See Quakers Sojourners for Truth and Justice, 845–848

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“A Call to Negro Women,” 846–847 Solanke, Ladipo, 978 Soukous, 848–849 Soul music, 849–852 Soul on Ice (E. Cleaver), 193, 311 The Souls of Black Folks (Douglass), 46, 404, 508 South Africa, 47 and “the White Man’s Burden,” 47 South African Students’ Organization (SASO), 165–166, 182 Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 178, 610, 852–854 Soyinka, Akinwande Oluwole, 709–710, 854– 855 Sparks, Randy J., 129 Spelman College, 855–857 Spiral, 113, 169 Spiritual Shouter Baptists, 857–860 Sport, and the African Diaspora, 860–862 in Africa, 861 in the Caribbean, 860 in the twenty-first century, 861–862 in the United States, 860–861 Sri Lanka, 862–863 St. Hill, Arlette, 383 Staton, Dakota, 590 Steady, Filomena Chioma, xlix, 49, 436 Steele, Beverley A., 474 Steelpan, 863–867, 864 (photo) history of, 863–865 manufacture of, 865 steelbands, 865, 866 Stephens, Michelle, l Stono rebellion, 867–868 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 852–853, 916–917 Sugar cane, and the African Diaspora, 868–870 Sutherland, David “Suds,” 31 Sutherland, Efua Theodora, 873–874 Swahili, 874–879 the apex of Swahili civilization, 876 orientation and bias in Swahili historiography, 877–878 proto-Swahili civilization, 874–875 the Swahili today, 878 trade and the arrival of Europeans, 876–877 Sweatt v. Painter (1950), 23, 660 Sweet Honey in the Rock, 879–880

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Page I-18

I-18 | Index Sylvain, Benito, 501 Szwed, John, 34 Tango, 96, 881, 882–883 Taylor, Gardner C., 175 Teatro Experimental Negro (TEN), 229, 700, 901 Teatro Negro Independiente, 935 Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn, xlix Terrell, Mary Church, 434 Things Fall Apart (Achebe), 10 Thiong’o, Ngugi wa, 664, 884–885 Thomas, Francis A., 757 Thomas, Greg, xlii Thomas, John Jacob, 905 Thomas, Piri, 886–887 Thompson, Casildo, 97 Till, Emmett, 887–889, 888 (photo) “Time, Space, and the Evolution of AfroAmerican Society in British Mainland North America” (Berlin), 45 Tolson, Melvin Beaunoris, 889–890 “Tom Shows,” 923–924 Tonton Macoutes, 890–891 Tosh, Peter, 891–892 Traditional Medicine research program, 515 Transition, 898 Tribe/tribalism, 899–901 Trinadade, Solano, 901–902 Trinidad and Tobago, 902–907 cultural expressions in, 904 economy of, 906 history of, 902–903 languages of, 903–904 political and social structure of, 905–906 religions in, 903 See also Trinidad and Tobago, African impact on the social order Trinidad and Tobago, African impact on the social order, 907–914 arts and crafts, 910–912 demography, 908 economics, 909–910 politics and social control, 912–913 social organization, 909 worldview religion, 908 Tropiques, 297, 914–915 Truman, Harry S., 24, 788 Truth, Sojourner, 433, 433 (photo), 915–916 Tubman, Harriet, 173

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Ture, Kwame, xl, 190, 191 (photo), 192, 905, 916–918, 917 (photo) Turkey, Afro-Turks in, 918–919 Turner, Nat, 5, 501, 920–921 Tuskegee Institute/Tuskegee University, 921– 922 Tuttle, E. H., 401 21st A.D. Socialist Club, 688 Tynes, Maxine, 249, 922 Uncle Tom, 923–924 Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or, Life among the Lowly (Stowe), 823 Underground Railroad. See Canada, and African American refugee settlements “Unfinished Migrations” (Patterson and Kelley), xxxix Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), 346 Color Cubano subsidiary, 346 United Black Association for Development (UBAD), 154 United Kingdom, and the African Diaspora, 423–424, 425, 925–930 United Movement for the Reconstruction of Black Identity (UMROBI), 266–267 United Negro College Fund (UNCF), 164 Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), 29, 46, 154, 185, 199, 266, 343, 459, 460–461, 462, 506, 508, 742, 777 “Africa for Africans” slogan, 110 auxiliaries of, 461 Black Star Line Shipping Corporation, 460, 461 choirs and orchestras of, 461 Negro Factories Corporation, 460, 461 political figures influenced by, 462 See also Negro World “University of Woodford Square,” 930–932 Upadhyaya, U. P., 401 Urrutia, Gustavo, 344 Uruguay, Afro-Uruguayans in, 932–937 emancipation and beyond, 934 history and origins of, 932–933 recent trends, 935–937 resistance and maroonage, 933–934 Uslar Pietri, Arturo, 948 U.S. Constitution, 5, 21 Fifteenth Amendment, 22 Fourteenth Amendment, 22

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Index | I-19 Thirteenth Amendment, 6, 604 See also African Americans and the constitutional order U.S. Supreme Court Burger Court, 25–26 Nixon Court, 25 See also African Americans and the constitutional order; specific Court cases Valdés, Juana, 383 van den Berghe, Pierre, 36 Van Kessel, I., 568 Van Peebles, Melvin, 180 Van Sertima, Ivan, xxxvi, 940–941 VanDerZee, James, 764, 939–940 Vanhee, Hein, 813 Vaughn, Sarah, 590 Venezuela, Afro-Venezuelans in, 941–954 and the absence of antiracist laws, 950 Afro-descendent organizations, 952–953 the constitutional absence of Afrodescendents, 949–950 demographics of, 950–951 the modernization of the Venezuelan state and the exclusion of Afro-descendents, 947–949 origin of, 941 priorities of, 953 and the school system, 951–952 and slavery, 941–947 Veracruz, 954–955 Verger, Pierre, 227 Vesey, Denmark, 5 Vieux-Chauvet, Marie, 955–956 Villard, Sylvia del, 361 Vincent, Ted, 532 Virgin Islands, 956–959 connections with the African Diaspora, 958– 959 demographics of, 958 economy of, 958 history of, 956–957 Virgo, Clement, 30–31 Vodoun, 159, 496, 785, 959–966 iconography of, 964–965 pantheon of, 963–964 rites of, 962–963 temples of, 960–962 See also specific Vodoun deities Voice of the Fugitive, 165, 772

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Wadabaei, xlvi Waddy, Ruth, 113 Wailer, Bunny, 967–968 Wailing Wailers, 891 Walcott, Derek Alton, 968–969 Walcott, Rinaldo, xlvii Walda-Sellase, Heruy, 303 Waldinger, Roger, 273 Walker, Alice, 49, 969–970 Walker, David, xxxv, 5, 970–971 Walker, George William, 971–972 Walker, Madame C. J., 198, 494 Walker, Sheila Suzanne, 972–973 Wallerstein, Immanuel, 330 Wand, Hart, 210 Ward, Frederick, 973–974 Ward, Samuel Ringgold, 772 Ware, David, 208 Warner-Lewis, Maureen, xlvi, xlviii Warner-Vieyra, Myriam, 974–975 Washington, Dinah, 589 Washington, Booker T., 505, 921 Washington, Harriet, 512 Washington, Margaret Murray, 436, 437 Water Mama/Mami Wata spirit, 975–976 Watson, Osmond, 114 Wekker, Gloria, li Wells-Barnett, Ida B. 433–434, 888–889, 976–978 West African Students Union (WASU), 743, 978–979 objectives of, 978 West India Company (WIC), 710 West India Regiments, 979–980 West Indian Gazette, 905 Western Hemisphere African Diaspora Network (WHADN), 980–981 Weusi Artist Cooperative, 113 Wheatley, Phillis, 981–982 Where We At: Black Women Artists, 113 White, Garth, 266 White, Walter, 48 Whiteman, Unison, 476 Whitten, Norman E., Jr., 413 Wiggins, Forrest O., 759–760 Wilding, Richard, 874, 875 Williams, Brackette, 487 Williams, Chancellor, xxxv, 982–983 Williams, Egbert Austin, 971–972, 983–984 Williams, Eric Eustace, 125, 263–265, 266, 486, 905, 930–931, 931 (photo), 984–985

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I-20 | Index Williams, George Washington, 43 Williams, Henry Sylvester, 904, 985–987 Williams, Mary Lou, 589 Williams, Robert F., 535 Williams Samuel W., 757 Williams, Steven, 30–31 Williams, Wilson Elbe, 265 Wilson, Thomas W., 814 Wofford, Chloe A. See Morrison, Toni Wolof, 987–988 Womanism, 969–970 The Woman’s Era, 434 Women in Africa and the African Diaspora (ed. Terborg-Penn), xlix Women in the Caribbean Project (WICP), 278 Women in Nigeria (WIN), 439 Woodruff, Hale, 111 Woods, David, 991–992 Woodson, Carter G., 120 Word-Faith Movement, 178 World Congress of Black Artists and Writers, 992–993 The Wretched of the Earth (Fanon), 429, 709 Wright, Michelle, l Wright, Richard, 184–185, 993–994

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Writings of Black Women of the Diaspora (Bracks), xlix Wynter, Sylvia, l Yaad hip-hop, 995–996 Yanga, 996–997 Yemoja/Olokun, 997–998 Yoruba, 138 Zami, 999–1000 Zandu Pharmaceuticals, 516 Zanj (zinj, zang), 1000–1003 Zanzibar, and the African Diaspora, 1003–1006 contemporary Zanzibar, 1004–1006 history of, 1003–1004 Zarzuela, Juan Falú, 778, 779 Zealy, J. T., 763 Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe, xliii Zeta Phi Beta, 1006–1007 Zimele Trust Fund, 166 Zobel, Joseph, 1007–1008 Zong incident, 20, 682, 926 Zouk, 1008–1009 Zulu Nation, 144 Zumbí, 1009–1010

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE

AFRICAN DIASPORA

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE

AFRICAN DIASPORA Origins, Experiences, and Culture

z Volume 2 D–M

Carole E. Boyce Davies, Editor

Santa Barbara, California Denver, Colorado Oxford, England www.abc-clio.com

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Copyright © 2008 by ABC-CLIO, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Encyclopedia of the African diaspora : origins, experiences, and culture / Carole E. BoyceDavies, editor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-85109-700-5 (acid-free paper) ISBN 978-1-85109-705-0 (ebook) 1. African diaspora-Encyclopedias. 2. Africans-Migrations-Encyclopedias. 3. African Americans-Encyclopedias. 4. Blacks-Encyclopedias. 5. Africans-Encyclopedias. 6. Africa-Civilization-Encyclopedias. I. Boyce Davies, Carole. DT16.5.E53 2008 305.896003—dc22 2008011880 12 11 10 09 08 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Production Editor: Anna A. Moore Production Manager: Don Schmidt Media Editor: Ellen Rasmussen Media Resources Manager: Caroline Price File Management Coordinator: Paula Gerard ABC-CLIO, Inc. 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116–1911 This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an ebook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Manufactured in the United States of America

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Contents

z Volume 1 Contributors, xiii Advisory Board, xxiii About the Editors, xxv Acknowledgments, xxvii Introduction, xxxi Maps, lix

A

Africanus, Sextus Julius (ca. 160–ca. 240), 58 Afrocentricity, 59 Afro-Cuban Literature, 62 Afro-Cuban Music, 65 Afro-Fusion Dance, 68 Ahimsa, 70 Aidoo, Ama Ata (1942–), 71 Akara, 72 Alexis, Jacques Stéphen (1922–1961), 73 Algerian Revolution, 73 Ali, Duse Mohamed (1867–1944), 75 Ali, Muhammad (1942–), 76 Al-Jahiz (776–868), 77 All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP), 78 Alpha Kappa Alpha, 79 Alves, Miriam (1952–), 81 Ambar, Malik (ca. 1550–1626), 82 Amo, Antonius Guilielmus (Wilhelm) (1703–ca.1753), 83 Ananse, 84 Anastácia (1741–?), 85 Angelou, Maya (1928–), 86 Anikulapo-Kuti, Fela (1938–1997), 87

Abakuá, 1 Abolitionism in the African Diaspora, 3 Abu-Jamal, Mumia (1954–), 8 Abyssinia/Ethiopia, 9 Achebe, Chinua (1930–), 10 Adivasi, 11 Africa, 12 African American Vernacular English (AAVE), 17 African American Women, 19 African Americans and the Constitutional Order, 20 African Ballet, The, 28 African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), 28 African Canadian Film, 30 African Diaspora Film, 31 African Diaspora Performance Aesthetics, 32 African Diasporic Sociology, 33 “African” in African American History, 41 African Matrix Culture, 53 African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, 54 African Union (AU), 55 v www.abc-clio.com

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vi | Contents

Ansina (1760?–1860), 90 Antonio the Ethiopian (?–1550), 91 Argentina: Afro-Argentines, 92 Arias, Aurora (1962–), 98 Aristide, Jean-Bertrand (1953–), 99 Art in the African Diaspora, 100 Asantewaa, Yaa (ca. 1830–1922), 117 Àshé, 118 Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), 120 Atlantic World and the African Diaspora, 121 Axum, 133 Azikiwe, Nnamdi (1904–1996), 134

B Baartman, Sarah (1788–1816), 137 Babalawo, 138 Babu, Abdulrahman Mohammed (1924– 1996), 139 Bahamas, 140 Bahamas: Liberated Africans, 141 Baker, Ella J. (1903–1986), 142 Baker, Josephine (1906–1975), 142 Bambaataa, Afrika (1957?–), 144 Baraka, Amiri (1934–), 145 Barbados: African Cultural Elements, 147 Basquiat, Jean-Michel (1960–1988), 150 Batouala, 151 Bava Gor (14th Century?), 152 Belize: African Communities, 153 Benedetto the Moor, Saint (ca. 1524–1589), 155 Benin, 156 Bennett, Louise (1919–2006), 160 Bethune, Mary McLeod (1875–1955), 162 Bethune-Cookman University, 163 Bibb, Henry (1815–1854), 164 Biko, Stephen (1946–1977), 165 Black Aesthetic, 166 Black Arts Movement, 167 Black Churches and African American Spirituality, 170 Black Churches in the United States, 174 Black Cinema, 179 Black Consciousness Movement, 182

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Black Marxism, 184 Black Panther Party, 185 Black Paris/Paris Noir, 187 Black Populism (1886–1898), 189 Black Power Movement in the United States, 190 Black Seminoles, 193 Black Seminoles at Red Bays, Bahamas, 194 Black/Africana Studies in the United States, 195 Black/Blackness: Philosophical Considerations, 198 Blocos Afros and Afoxés, 203 Bluefields, 204 Blues: A Continuum from Africa, 205 Blyden, Edward Wilmot (1832–1912), 212 Boggs, James (1919–1993) and Grace Lee Boggs (1915–), 214 Bois Caiman and Boukman, 215 Bolivia: The African Presence, 216 Boulogne, Joseph Chevalier de Saint-George (1739?–1799), 222 Brand, Dionne (1953–), 223 Brathwaite, Kamau (1930–), 224 Brazil: Afro-Brazilians, 225 Briggs, Cyril V. (1887–1966), 230 Brixton, 231 Brodber, Erna (1940–), 232 Brooklyn, 233 Brown, Elaine (1943–), 234 Butler, Octavia Estelle (1947–2005), 235

C Cabral, Amilcar Lopes (1924–1973), 237 Cachoeira, 239 Calalu/Callaloo, 241 Calypso, 241 Campbell, Grace P. (1883–1940), 245 Canada and African American Refugee Settlements, 246 Canada and the African Diaspora, 247 Candomblé, 256 Cannes Brûlées, 257 Cape Verde, 259 Capitalism and Slavery, 263

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Contents | vii Caribbean Black Power, 265 Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), 269 Caribbean Migrations: The Caribbean Diaspora, 270 Carnival, 287 Carver, George Washington (1864–1943), 289 Casely-Hayford, Joseph Ephraim (1866– 1930), 290 Central America: African Footprints, 291 Central Asia and the Caucasus: The African Presence, 294 Centro de Estudos Afro-Orientais (CEAO), 296 Césaire, Aimé (1913–2008), 297 Césaire, Suzanne (1915–1966), 299 Chile: Afro-Chileans, 300 China and Japan: African and East Asian Relations, 302 Christian, Barbara (1943–2000), 305 Christophe, Henri (1767?–1820), 306 Clarke, Austin (1934–), 306 Clarke, George Elliot (1960–), 308 Clarke, John Henrik (1915–1998), 309 Clarke, Leroy (1938–), 310 Cleaver, Eldridge Leroy (1935–1998), 311 COINTELPRO, 312 Collins, Merle (1950–), 313 Colombia: Afro-Colombians, 314 Colored Farmers Alliance, 320 Combahee River Collective (CRC), 321 Condé, Maryse (1937–), 323 Confiant, Raphaël (1951–), 324 Cook, Mercer (1903–1987), 325 Cooper, Anna Julia (1859–1964), 326 Corrido, 327 Cox, Oliver Cromwell (1901–1974), 328 Coyolillo/Coyoleños, 330 Creole, Creolity, Creolization, 332 Creole Incident, 334 Cromanti, 335 Cruz, Celia (1924–2003), 337 Cruz, Manoel de Almeida (1950–2004), 338 Cuba: Afro-Cubans, 338 Cuban Intervention in Angola, 347

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Cuban Revolution and the African Diaspora, 348 Cugoano, Ottobah (ca. 1757–ca. 1791), 350 Index, I-1

Volume 2 Contributors, xiii Advisory Board, xxiii About the Editors, xxv Acknowledgments, xxvii Introduction, xxxi Maps, lix

D Da Silva, Benedita (1942–), 353 Dalits: The Black Untouchables of India, 354 Damas, Léon-Gontran (1912–1976), 355 Dance in the African Diaspora, 356 Dance Theatre of Harlem, 366 Dangarembga, Tsitsi (1959–), 368 Danish West Indies: Oldendorp’s 18thCentury Findings, 369 Danticat, Edwidge (1969–), 373 Davis, Angela (1944–), 375 De Almeida, José Lino Alves (1958–2006), 376 De Oxóssi, Mãe Stella (1925–), 377 Decolonization, 378 Delta Sigma Theta, 379 Dessalines, Jean-Jacques (1758–1806), 380 La Diablesse, 381 Diaspora Literacy, 382 Diaspora Vibe Gallery, 383 Diasporic Marronage, 384 Diop, Cheikh Anta (1923–1986), 387 Domingo, Wilfred Adolphus (1889–1968), 389 Dominica, 390 Dominican Republic, 391 Douglas, Aaron (1899–1979), 397 Douglass, Frederick (1818–1895), 397 Dracius, Suzanne (1951–), 398

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Dravidians, 399 Drum, 401 du Sable, Jean-Baptiste Pointe (1745–1818), 402 DuBois, William Edward Burghardt (1868– 1963), 404 Dunham, Katherine (1909–2006), 405

E East African Community (EAC), 407 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), 409 Ecuador: Afro-Ecuadorians, 411 Edgell, Zee (1940–), 416 El Moudjahid, 417 Elder, Jacob Delworth (1914–2004), 418 Environmental Justice, 419 Equiano, Olaudah (1745–1797), 420 Esmeraldas, 422 Europe and the African Diaspora, 423

F Falucho (?–1824), 427 Fanon, Frantz (1925–1961), 428 Febres, Mayra Santos (1966–), 430 Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), 431 Feminism: Black Feminist Movement in the United States, 432 Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora, 436 FESPACO and African Film Festivals, 442 Filhos de Gandhy, 443 Fisk University, 445 Florida Memorial University, 446 Flying Africans, 447 Fourah Bay College, 448 France and the African Diaspora, 449 Francois, Elma (1897–1944), 452

G Garifuna, 455 Garvey, Amy Ashwood (1897–1969), 456 Garvey, Amy Jacques (1895–1973), 458 Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940), 459 Geographers, Arab/African, 463 Gerima, Haile (1946–), 464

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Germany and the African Diaspora, 465 Ghana, 469 Gilroy, Beryl Agatha (1924–2001), 470 Glissant, Edouard (1928–), 472 Goodison, Lorna (1947–), 473 Grenada, 474 Griots/Griottes of West Africa, 478 Grito de Yara, 480 Guadeloupe, 480 Guillén, Nicolás (1902–1989), 482 Guimarães, Geni (1947–), 483 Gumbo, 484 Guyana, 485

H Haile Selassie I (1892–1975), 491 Hair, 493 Haiti, 495 Haitian Revolution, 502 Hampton Institute/Hampton University, 504 Harlem, 506 Harlem Renaissance, 507 Haywood, Harry (1898–1978), 509 Health in the African World, 510 Heath, Roy (1926–), 522 Hector, Leonard Tim (1942–2002), 523 Highlife, 525 Hilliard, Asa G. (1933–2007), 527 Hip-Hop, Cuban, 528 Hip-Hop, Latin American, 529 Hip-Hop Culture in the African Diaspora, 531 Holiday, Billie (1915–1959), 537 Honduras and Nicaragua: Miskito Indians, 539 Hopkinson, Nalo (1950–), 540 Horton, James Africanus Beale (1835–1883), 541 Howard University, 542 Hughes, Langston (1902–1967), 544 Huiswoud, Otto (1893–1961), 545 Hurston, Zora Neale (1891–1960), 546

I Ibeji, 549 Ibo Landing, 550

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Contents | ix Ilê Aiyê, 551 Incense, 552 India and the African Diaspora, 553 Indian Ocean and the African Diaspora, 562 Indians and the African Diaspora in the Caribbean, 569 Indigo, 571 Indonesia and Africa, 571 The Institute of the Black World, 573 Iraq: The African Presence in Early Iraq, 574 Irmandade de Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte, 576

Latino, Juan (ca. 1516–1606), 622 Lawrence, Jacob (1917–2000), 623 Legba, 625 Légitime défense, 626 Liberia, 627 “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” 629 Lincoln, Abbey (1930–), 630 Lincoln University, 632 Lino Alves de Almeida, José (1958–2006), 633 Locke, Alain (1886–1954), 634 Lorde, Audre (1934–1992), 635 L’Ouverture, Toussaint (ca. 1744–1803), 637 Lovelace, Earl (1935–), 639 Lumumba, Patrice Emery (1925–1961), 640

J Jackson, George Lester (1941–1971), 579 Jamaica, 580 James, Cyril Lionel Robert (1901–1989), 583 Jazz, 585 Jazz and Blues Singers, Black Women, 588 Jerk Seasoning, 591 Jim Crow, 591 Johnson, J. Rosamond (1873–1954), 594 Johnson, James Weldon (1871–1938), 595 Johnson, Linton Kwesi (1952–), 596 Jones, Claudia Cumberbatch (1915–1964), 598 Junkanoo, 599

K Kali, 601 Kalimba, 602 Kappa Alpha Psi, 603 Keens-Douglas, Richardo (1953–), 604 Kenyatta, Jomo (1889–1978), 605 Kincaid, Jamaica (1949–), 608 King, B. B. (1925–), 609 King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929–1968), 610 KRS-ONE (1965–), 611 Kwanzaa, 613

L Lam, Wilfredo (1902–1982), 617 Lamming, George (1927–), 618 Langston, John Mercer (1829–1897), 619 Langston University and HBCUs, 620

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M Maceo y Grajales, Antonio (1845–1896), 643 Macumba, 643 Mahdi Rebellion, 644 Makandal, François (?–1758), 645 Malcolm X (1925–1965), 647 Male Revolt, 649 Mandela, Nelson Rolihlahla (1918–), 650 Mandela, Winnie (1936–), 651 Maran, René (1887–1960), 653 Marassa, 654 Marley, Robert Nesta (Bob) (1945–1981), 655 Maroon and Marronage, 657 Marshall, Paule (1929–), 659 Marshall, Thurgood (1908–1993), 660 Marson, Una (1905–1965), 661 Martinique, 662 Mau Mau, 664 Mbari Club, 665 M’bow, Amadou Makhtar (1921–), 666 McKay, Claude (1889–1948), 667 McRae, Carmen (1920–1994), 668 McWatt, Tessa (1959-), 669 Medici, Alessandro de (1510–1537), 670 Mestizo, 671 Mexico: African Heritage, 673 Middle Passage, 679 Miseducation and Contemporary Urban Black America, 683 Montgomery Bus Boycott, 685 Moore, Queen Mother (1898–1997), 687

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Moore, Richard B. (1893–1978), 688 Morehouse College, 689 Morejón, Nancy (1944–), 690 Morrison, Toni (1931–), 692 Mos Def (1973–), 693 Movimento Negro Unificado, 694 Mtoro bin Mwinyi Bakari (1860–1927), 696 Mulatta, 697 Mutabaruka (1952–), 698

Okpewho, Isidore (1941–), 727 Old Hige, 728 Olodum, 729 Optiz, May Ayim (1960–1996), 730 Ortiz, Fernando (1881–1969), 731 Osun (Oxum/Ochun/Oshun), 732 Oya, 734

P

Index, I-1

Volume 3 Contributors, xiii Advisory Board, xxiii About the Editors, xxv Acknowledgments, xxvii Introduction, xxxi Maps, lix

N Nascimento, Abdias do (1914–), 699 Nation of Islam, 702 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 704 National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO), 705 National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA), 707 Négritude, 708 Netherlands Antilles and the African Diaspora, 710 Netherlands East Indies: African Soldiers, 712 Newton, Huey Percy (1942–), 714 Nichols, Grace (1950–), 716 Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–1972), 717 Notting Hill Carnival, 718 Nova Scotia and the African American Diaspora, 720 Nubia, 721

O Obeah, 725 Ogou/Ogoun, 726

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Pacific: The African Diaspora, 735 Padmore, George (1901–1959), 740 Palcy, Euzhan (1957–), 741 Pan-Africanism, 742 Panama: Afro-Panamanians, 743 Pattillo, Walter Alexander (1850–1908), 748 Payada, 749 People with Their Feet On Backward, 751 Peru: Afro-Peruvians, 751 Petwo, 753 Phi Beta Sigma, 754 Philip, Marlene Nourbese (1947–), 755 Philosophers and the African American Experience, 756 Photography and the African Diaspora, 762 Portalatin, Aida Cartagena (1918–1994), 766 Présence Africaine, 766 Primus, Pearl E. (1919–1994), 767 Prince, Mary (1788–?), 770 Prince Hall Masons, 771 The Provincial Freeman, 772 Puerto Rico: Afro-Puerto Ricans, 773 Pushkin, Alexander Sergeevich (1799–1837), 780

Q Quilombhoje, 783

R Rada, 785 Raizales, 786 Randolph, Asa Philip (1889–1979), 787 Rap/Rappin’, 788 Rapso, 791 Rastafarianism, 792 Rayner, John Baptis (1850–1918), 795 Reagon, Bernice Johnson (1942–), 796

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Contents | xi Reggae, 797 Reparations, 798 The Republic of New Africa, 799 Ribeiro, Esmeralda (1958–), 801 Robeson, Paul (1898–1976), 802 Rodney, Walter (1942–1980), 803 Rogers, Joel Augustus (1880–1966), 805 Rolling Calf, 807 Ross, Jacob (1956–), 807 Rufino, Alzira (1949–), 808

Spiritual Shouter Baptist Religion, 857 Sport and the African Diaspora, 860 Sri Lankan African Diaspora, 862 Steelpan, 863 Stono Rebellion, 867 Sugar Cane and the African Diaspora, 868 Suriname: The Ndyuka Maroons, 870 Sutherland, Efua Theodora (1924–1996), 873 Swahili, 874 Sweet Honey in the Rock, 879

S

T

Salsa, 811 Salt and the African Diaspora, 813 Salvador da Bahia, 817 Samba, 818 Samba Schools, 820 Samedi/Baron Samedi, 821 San Mateo de Cangrejos, 822 Sancho, Ignatius (1729–1780), 822 Sankofa, 823 Santería, 824 Santiago de Cuba, 828 Schomburg, Arturo Alfonso (1874–1938), 830 Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 831 Scott, Hazel (1920–1981), 832 Seychelles Islands, 833 Shadd Cary, Mary Ann (1823–1893), 834 Shakur, Assata Olugbala (1946–), 835 Shakur, Tupac Amaru (1971–1996), 836 Shange, Ntozake (1948–), 837 Shango, 839 Siddis in North Karnataka, India: Biomedical Status, 840 Signifying, 842 Simone, Nina (1933–2003), 843 Sistren, 844 Sojourners for Truth and Justice, 845 Soukous, 848 Soul Music, 849 Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 852 Soyinka, Akinwande Oluwole (1934–), 854 Spelman College, 855

Tango, Candombe, Milonga, 881 The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA), 883 Thiong’o, Ngugi wa (1938–), 884 Thomas, Piri (1928–), 886 Till, Emmett (1941–1955), 887 Tolson, Melvin Beaunoris (1898–1966), 889 Tonton Macoutes, 890 Tosh, Peter (1944–1987), 891 Transatlantic Slave Trade, 892 Transition, 898 Tribe and Tribalism, 899 Trinadade, Solano (1908–1974), 901 Trinidad and Tobago, 902 Trinidad and Tobago: African Impact on the Social Order, 907 Tropiques, 914 Truth, Sojourner (ca. 1797–1883), 915 Ture, Kwame (1941–1998), 916 Turkey: Afro-Turks, 918 Turner, Nat (1800–1831), 920 Tuskegee Institute/Tuskegee University, 921 Tynes, Maxine (1949–), 922

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U Uncle Tom and Tom Shows, 923 United Kingdom: The African Diaspora, 925 The University of Woodford Square, 930 Uruguay: Afro-Uruguayans, 932

V VanDerZee, James (1886–1983), 939 Van Sertima, Ivan (1935–), 940 Venezuela: Afro-Venezuelans and the Afro Descendientes Movement, 941

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Veracruz, 954 Vieux-Chauvet, Marie (1916–1973), 955 Virgin Islands, 956 Vodoun, 959

W Wailer, Bunny (1947–), 967 Walcott, Derek Alton (1930–), 968 Walker, Alice (1944–), 969 Walker, David (1785–1830), 970 Walker, George William (1873–1911), 971 Walker, Sheila Suzanne (1944–), 972 Ward, Frederick (1937–), 973 Warner-Vieyra, Myriam (1939–), 974 Water Mama/Mami Wata, 975 Wells-Barnett, Ida B. (1862–1931), 976 West African Students Union (WASU), 978 West India Regiments, 979 Western Hemisphere African Diaspora Network (WHADN), 980 Wheatley, Phillis (ca. 1753–1784), 981 Williams, Chancellor (1898–1992), 982 Williams, Egbert Austin (1874–1922), 983

Williams, Eric Eustace (1911–1981), 984 Williams, Henry Sylvester (1869–1911), 985 Wolof, 987 Women and Islam, 988 Woods, David (1959–), 991 World Congress of Black Writers and Artists, 992 Wright, Richard (1908–1960), 993

Y Yaad Hip-Hop, 995 Yanga and Cimarronaje in Mexico, 996 Yemoja/Olokun, 997

Z Zami, 999 Zanj (Zinj, Zang), 1000 Zanzibar and the Southwest Indian Ocean in the African Diaspora, 1003 Zeta Phi Beta, 1006 Zobel, Joseph (1915–2006), 1007 Zouk, 1008 Zumbí of Palmares (1655–1695), 1009 Index, I-1

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Contributors

z Simone A. James Alexander Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey

Keshia Abraham Florida Memorial University Lawrence Abraham Florida International University, Miami

Williams H. Alexander Virginia State University, Petersburg

Tomi Adeaga University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany

Omar H. Ali Towson University, Towson, Maryland

Opal Palmer Adisa California College of the Arts, San Francisco and Oakland

Andrea Allen Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Kwame K. Afoh N’COBRA, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Michael Alleyne George Washington University, Washington, DC

Ivor Agyeman-Duah Embassy of Ghana, Washington, DC

Patricia Alleyne-Dettmers University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Funso Aiyejina University of the West Indies, Saint Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka University of Kansas, Lawrence

Jeannette Allsopp University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus

Chiji Akoma Villanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania

Giselle Liza Anatol University of Kansas, Lawrence

Folashade Alao Emory University, Atlanta

Juan Angola Maconde FUNDAFRO, La Paz, Bolivia

Jessica M. Alarcón Independent Scholar, Miami, Florida

Molefi Kete Asante Temple University, Philadelphia

Delores P. Aldridge Emory University, Atlanta

Kwaku Asare Independent Scholar

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xiv | Contributors

Uche Azikiwe University of Nigeria, Nigeria

June Bert-Bobb Queens College, Queens, New York

Chukwuma Azuonye University of Massachusetts, Boston

Dhoruba bin Wahad Independent Scholar, Ghana

Mariam Bagayoko University of Versailles Paris, France

Yaba Amgborale Blay Lehigh University, Philadelphia

Julius Bailey University of Redlands, Redlands, California

Nemata Blyden George Washington University, Washington, DC

Phyllis Baker Miami Dade College, Miami

Yvonne Bobb-Smith Independent Scholar, Trinidad and Tobago

Sharada Balachandran-Orihuela University of California—Davis, Davis, California

Rosabelle Boswell Rhodes University, South Africa John K. Brackett University of Cincinnati, Ohio

Ivan Banks New Jersey City University, Jersey City, New Jersey

Brian Brazeal University of Chicago, Illinois

Sarah Barbour Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Pam Brooks Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio

LaShonda Katrice Barnett Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York Michael Barnett University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica Kanika Batra Janki Devi Memorial College and University of Delhi, Delhi, India

La Tasha A. Brown University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom Linda Spears Bunton Florida International University, Miami Joan Hamby Burroughs Florida A&M University, Tallahassee

Pascal Becel Florida International University, Miami

Kim D. Butler Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey

Dixie-Anne Belle Florida International University, Miami

Leana Cabral Spelman College, Atlanta

Jesse Benjamin Kennesaw State University, Atlanta, Georgia

Horace Campbell Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York

Brett A. Berliner Morgan State University, Baltimore

Kathy Campbell East Tennessee State University, Johnson City

Celeste-Marie Bernier University of Nottingham, England

Ben Carrington University of Texas at Austin

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Contributors | xv Joan Cartwright FYIICOM, Ford Lauderdale, Florida

Darrell Davis Afro-in Books and Things

Jorge L. Chinea Wayne State University, Detroit

Paula de Almeida Silva Alexis Brooks de Vita Notre Dame University, Notre Dame, Indiana

Veve A. Clark (deceased) University of California, Berkeley

Pietro Deandrea Università degli Studi di Torino, Torino, Italy

George Elliott Clarke York University, New Haven, Connecticut

Milagros Denis Hunter College, New York, New York

Christine Cohn American University, Washington, DC

Diarapha Diallo-Gibert University of Virginia, Charlottesville

Amanda Conrad University of Kansas, Lawrence Carolyn Cooper University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica Vincent O. Cooper University of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands María de Jesús Cordero Utah State University, Logan Alexandra Cornelius-Diallo Florida International University, Miami Sandra Courtman University of Sheffield, England Julie Crooks Independent Filmmaker, Toronto, Canada Iréne Assiba d’Almeida University of Arizona, Tucson

Gloria Harper Dickinson The College of New Jersey, Ewing Ronald Donk Royal Netherlands Institute of South Eastern, Asian and Caribbean Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands Joseph Dorsey Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana Jocelio dos Santos Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA), Bahia, Brazil Kate Dossett University of Leeds, Leeds, England Marcia Douglas University of Colorado, Boulder

Yvonne Daniel Smith College (emerita)

Dawn Duke University of Tennessee

William A. Darity Jr. Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

Quince Duncan Costa Rica

Carole Boyce Davies Florida International University, Miami

Jessica Durand Florida International University, Miami

Dalia Davies Journalist, MTV & Trace Magazine

Esma Durugönül Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey

Jonelle A. Davies Savannah College of Art and Design

Erika Denise Edwards Florida International University, Miami

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xvi | Contributors

Constance Ejuma Actress, Silver Springs, Maryland

Janice Giles Florida International University, Miami

Jacob D. Elder (deceased) Trinidad and Tobago

Angela Gillam Evergreen State University, Olympia, Washington (emerita)

Jason Esters Lincoln University, Pennsylvania

Delia C. Gillis Central Missouri State University, Warrensburg

Michael Ezra Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California

Philippe R. Girard McNeese State University, Lake Charles, Louisiana

Richard Fantina University of Miami, Miami Gérard Alphonse Férère Retired Scholar, Boca Raton, Florida

Chege Githiora School of Oriental and African Studies, London

Eve Ferguson Florida International University, Miami

David Gold California State University, Los Angeles

Odile Ferly Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts

Randi Gray Kristensen George Washington University, Washington, DC

Rev. Raul Fernandez Calienes Saint Thomas University, Miami Gardens, Florida

Jeffrey Green Independent Scholar, England

Giovanna Fiume University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy

Jean-Germain Gros University of Missouri, Saint Louis

Nicola Foote Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, Florida

Carla Guerron-Montero University of Delaware, Newark Beverly Guy-Sheftall Spelman College, Atlanta

Camille F. Forbes University of California, San Diego

Miriam Gyimah University of Maryland–Eastern Shore

Charles H. Ford Virginia State University, Petersburg

Kathleen Gyssells University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

Meredith Gadsby Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio Pramod B. Gai Karnatak University, Dharwad, India

Philipa Hall University of Central Lancashire, Lancashire, England

Jesus Chucho Garcia Afro-Venezuelan Network, Caracas, Venezuela

Veronique Helenon Florida International University, Miami

Marybeth Gasman University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Marco Polo Hernandez North Carolina Central University

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Contributors | xvii Gerise Herndon Nebraska Wesleyan University, Lincoln

Anthony B. Johnson Grambling University, Grambling, Louisiana

Nefertari Patricia Hilliard-Nunn Makare Publishing, Gainesville, Florida

Nadia I. Johnson University of Miami, Miami, Florida

Jesse Hingson Honorary Consul of Belize

Newtona (Tina) Johnson Tarnue Johnson East West University, Chicago, Illinois

Rita Honotorio Nucleo Cultural Afro-Brasiliero, SalvadorBahia, Brazil

Justin M. Johnston Independent Scholar

Rosalyn Howard University of Central Florida, Orlando Delridge Hunter Medgar Evers College, Brooklyn, New York Scot Ickes University of South Florida Joseph E. Inikori University of Rochester, Rochester, New York Siga Fatima Jagne Pro-Poor Advocacy Group, Bakau, The Gambia

Earnestine Jenkins University of Memphis, Tennessee Lee M. Jenkins University College, Cork, Ireland

Safietou Kane Florida International University, Miami Annette I. Kashif Associate Professor

Sean Kheraj York University, Toronto, Canada

Shihan De Silva Jayasuriya King’s College London, University of London

Cheryl Jeffries Florida International University, Miami

Kenneth Julien University of Trinidad and Tobago

Tricia Keaton University of Minnesota

Monica Jardine State University of New York, Buffalo

Régine Michelle Jean-Charles Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Christina Violeta Jones Howard University, Washington, DC

Martin Klein University of Toronto, Canada Marie H. Koffi-Tessio Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey Kwasi Konadu Winston-Salem State University, WinstonSalem, North Carolina Perry Kyles University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Beverly John Chicago State University

Renee Larrier Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey

David J. Johns Columbia University, New York

Angela Michele Leonard Loyola College, Baltimore, Maryland

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xviii | Contributors

Khadijah O. Miller Norfolk State University, Norfolk, Virginia

Jeremy I. J. D. Levitt Florida International University, College of Law, Miami

Shamika Ann Mitchell Temple University, Pleasantville, Pennsylvania

Dominique Licops Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

Julie E. Moody-Freeman DePaul University, Chicago

Hollis Urban Liverpool University of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas Nia Love Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts Antonia MacDonald-Smythe St. George’s University, Grenada, West Indies

Paula Moreno-Zapata University of Cambridge and Colombia Jo-Ann Morgan York University, Toronto, Canada

Elizabeth MacGonagle University of Kansas, Lawrence

Sharon Morgan Beckford Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York

Marcia Magnus Florida International University, Miami

Anthony Ugalde Muhammad Miami Dade County Public Schools, Miami

Tony Martin Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts

Sharron Muhammad Howard University, Washington, DC

Karen J. Matthew Florida International University, Miami

Michelle Murray Florida International University, Miami

Janis A. Mayes Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York

Claire A. Nelson Inter American Development Bank, Washington, DC

Babacar M’bow Broward County Libraries Division, Florida Penda M’Bow Universite Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal

Caryn E. Neumann The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

Cher L. McAllister Temple University, Philadelphia

Claire Newstead University of Nottingham-Trent, United Kingdom

Christopher McCauley University of California, Santa Barbara

Charles Muiru Ngugi Truman State University, Kirksville, Missouri

John H. McClendon III Michigan State University

Beatrice Nicolini Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy

Pellom McDaniels III Emory University, Atlanta

Mario Nisbett University of California, Berkeley

Erik S. McDuffie University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Brian Meeks University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica

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Nkiru Nzegwu Binghamton University, Binghamton, New York

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Contributors | xix Marie-José N’Zengou-Tayo University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica Khonsura G. K. Ofei (Aaron J. Wilson) Independent Scholar Aaron Ogletree Florida International University, Miami Femi Ojo-Ade Saint Mary’s College, University of Lagos, Nigeria Fred Oladeinde WHADN, Washington, DC Amy Abugo Ongiri University of Florida, Gainesville Roberto Pacheco Florida International University, Miami Melina Pappademos University of Connecticut, Wood Hall Prakash Patil J/N Medical College, India David W. H. Pellow North Carolina Central University (emeritus) Sharon M. Peniston Independent Scholar Charles Peterson College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio Francoise Pfaff Howard University, Washington, DC Esther Phillips University College of Barbados, Barbados Tiffany D. Pogue Florida International University, Miami

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Marc Prou University of Massachusetts, Boston Matthew Quest Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island Diego Quiroga Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Quito, Ecuador Carlos A. Rabasso Rouen School of Management Groupe Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Rouen, France Fco. Javier Rabasso Rouen School of Management Groupe Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Rouen, France Kara Rabbitt William Paterson University, Wayne, New Jersey Chaman Lal Raina Florida International University, Miami Louis D. Ramos Independent Scholar Paulette A. Ramsay Runoko Rashidi Independent Scholar Thelma Ravell-Pinto Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York Rhoda Reddock University of the West Indies Lorriane Rivera-Newberry Independent Scholar Nicole Roberts University of the West Indies Florence Bellande Robertson Independent Scholar

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xx | Contributors

Martin S. Shanguhyia West Virginia University, Morgantown

Maria Soledad Rodriguez University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus Sybil Rosado Benedict College, Columbia, South Carolina

Malik Simba California State University, Fresno

Gregory Rutledge University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Kerry Sinanan University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom

Amon Saba Saakana Karnak House, London

Walter Sistrunk Michigan State University, East Lansing

Alicia M. Sanabria Independent Scholar, Brazil

Zipporah Slaughter Broward Community College, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Leslie Sanders York University, Toronto, Canada Meshak Sangini Langston University, Langston, Oklahoma

Fouzi Slisli Saint Cloud State University, Saint Cloud, Minnesota

Rick Santos Nassau Community College, Garden City, New York

Andre L. Smith Florida International University College of Law, Miami

Chris Saunders University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

Valerie Smith Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers

Mark Q. Sawyer Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles

Yushau Sodiq Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas Augusto Soledade Florida International University, Miami

Jason M. Schultz Georgia State University Library, Atlanta

Maboula Soumahoro Barnard College, New York City

Ralph Schusler Florida International University, Miami

Andrew Stafford Independent Scholar

Daryl Michael Scott Howard University, Washington, DC

John H. Stanfield, II Indiana University, Bloomington

Hillary Scott The University of California, Berkeley

Michelle Stephens Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts

Paula Marie Seniors Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia Macheo Shabaka American Association of Professional Ringside Physicians (AAPRP)

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Andrea Stone University of Toronto, Canada Kaila Adia Story University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky

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Contributors | xxi Ida Tafari Florida International University, Miami

W. van Wetering Free University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Clarence Taylor Baruch College, City University of New York

Nadege Veldwachter University of California, Los Angeles

Clyde Taylor New York University, New York

Lucie Viakinnou-Brinson Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, Georgia

Furukawa Tetsushi Otani University, Kyoto, Japan

Rinaldo Walcott University of Toronto, Canada

Noelle Theard Florida International University, Miami

Carlton Waterhouse Florida International University, Miami

Rose C. Thevenin Florida Memorial University, Miami

C. S’thembile West Western Illinois University, Macomb

H. U. E. Thoden van Velzen University of Amsterdam and Utrecht

Alan West-Durán Northeastern University, Boston

Gregory Thomas Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York

Derrick White Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton

Valeria Thompson-Ramos Independent Scholar, North Carolina

Dessima Williams Independent Scholar, Grenada

Antonio D. Tillis Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana

Ian Williams Fitchburg College, Fitchburg, Massachusetts

Neila Todd Ministry of Education, Trinidad and Tobago

Regennia N. Williams Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio

Neri Torres Ife Ile Dance Company, Miami

Deborah Willis Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, New York

Charles Tshimanga University of Nevada, Reno

Ludger Wimmerlbucker University of Hamburg, Germany

Horen Tudu Independent Scholar

Graeme Wood The American University in Cairo, Egypt

Elizabeth Turnbull Florida International University, Miami, Florida

Gloria-yvonne University of Illinois, Chicago

Grace Turner College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia

Mary Zeigler University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee

Ineke van Kessel African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands

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Advisory Board

z G ENERAL E DITOR Carole Boyce Davies, Florida International University M ANAGING E DITOR Babacar M’Bow, International Programs, Broward County Libraries, Florida L OCAL C OEDITORS ( FROM F LORIDA A FRICANA S TUDIES C ONSORTIUM ) Keshia Abraham, Florida Memorial University Veronique Helenon, Florida International University Babacar M’Bow, International Programs, Broward County Libraries, Florida Linda Spears-Bunton, Florida International University Rose C. Thevenin, Florida Memorial University I NTERNATIONAL A DVISORY B OARD Edmund Abaka, University of Miami Cecil Abrahams, University of Missouri, Saint Louis Kofi Anydoho, University of Ghana, Legon Boubacar Barry, Universite Cheik Anta Diop, Senegal Hillary Beckles, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Jesse Benjamin, Kennesaw University, Georgia Kamau Brathwaite, New York University Abena Busia, Rutgers University Monica Carillo, LUNDU Centro de Estudios y Promocion Afroperuanos, Peru Linda Carty, Syracuse University Julio Ceasar Tavares, Universidade Federale Fluminense, Brazil Kassahun Checole, Africa World Press, New Jersey Shimmer Chinodya, Independent Scholar, Zimbabwe Maryse Condé, Guadeloupe Shihan da Silva, The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA), India Yvonne Daniel, Smith College (emerita) Lino de Almeida, Nucleo Cultural Afro-Brasiliero, Brazil (deceased) Dieudonne Ghanammankou, Ediciones Monde Global, France Michael Hanchard, Johns Hopkins University xxiii www.abc-clio.com

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xxiv | Advisory Board

Joseph Harris, Howard University (emeritus) Marco Polo Hernandez Cuevas, ALARA/North Carolina Central University Asa Hilliard, Georgia State University (deceased) Percy Hintzen, University of California, Berkeley Siga Jagne, Pro-Poor Advocacy Group, The Gambia Maureen Warner Lewis, University of the West Indies (emerita), Jamaica Janis Mayes, Syracuse University Ali Mazuri, Binghamton University Ahmadou Mahtar M’Bow, Retired Director-General of UNESCO Penda M’Bow, University Cheikh Anta-Diop, Senegal Brian Meeks, University of the West Indies, Jamaica Molara Ogundipe, Arkansas State University Isidore Okpewho, Binghamton University Trevor Purcell, University of South Florida, Tampa (deceased) Runoko Rashidi, Independent Scholar, United States Rhoda Reddock, University of the West Indies, Trinidad Charles Rowell, Callaloo and Texas A & M University Beverly Guy Sheftall, Spelman College Faizia Shereen, University of Dayton Muniz Sodre, University of Rio de Janeiro (emeritus), Brazil Robert Stam, New York University John Stanfield, Indiana University John Stewart, University of California, Davis Nana Wilson Tagoe, School of Oriental and African Studies, London Clyde Taylor, New York University Furukawa Tetsushi, Otani University and Japan Black Studies Association, Japan Michael Thelwell, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Gregory Thomas, Syracuse University Dudley Thompson, lawyer and former ambassador of Jamaica Antonio Tillis, Purdue University Nelia Todd, Ministry of Education, Trinidad and Tobago Wangui wa Goro, Nottingham University, United Kingdom Rinaldo Walcott, University of Toronto, Canada Sheila Walker, Afrodiaspora, United States Leo Wilton, Binghamton University Paul Zeleza, University of Illinois, Chicago E DITORIAL A SSISTANTS Jessica Alarcon, African–New World Studies, Florida International University (graduate student) La Tasha Amelia Brown, African–New World Studies, Florida International University (graduate student) Sabrina Collins, African–New World Studies, Florida International University (graduate student) Safietou Kane, African–New World Studies, Florida International University (graduate student) Karen J. Matthew, Public Health, Florida International University (graduate student) www.abc-clio.com

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About the Editors

z

Carole Boyce Davies is professor of African–New World Studies and English at Florida International University and served as director of African–New World Studies for three terms between 1997and 2006. From Trinidad and Tobago, she has worked and studied in Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, Brazil and the United States. In 2000–2001, she was Herskovits Professor of African Studies and Comparative Literary Studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of Migrations of the Subject. Black Women, Writing Identity (1994) and Left of Karl Marx. The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones (2008). She has coedited several critical collections on African Diaspora literatures, most recent, The African Diaspora. African Origins and New World Identities (1999) and Decolonizing the Academy. African Diaspora Studies (2003). Managing Editor Babacar M’Bow is originally from Senegal. He curates international art exhibitions and develops museum management policy with an emphasis on African Diaspora cultures, cultural institutions building, and community cultural patrimony. He also supervises international conferences and symposia for Broward County Libraries Division. A well-known curator of African and African diaspora art one of his recent works is as curator and editor of Benin: A Kingdom in Bronze. The Royal Court Art (2005). Local Contributing Editors Keshia Abraham was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and is a world traveler who identifies as a diasporic African. She is a popular professor at Florida Memorial University, in Miami, Florida, and specializes in literatures of the African Diaspora. She is also an independent scholar and a cultural worker committed to international education and social change. xxv www.abc-clio.com

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xxvi | About the Editors

Veronique Helenon is from Martinique and studied in France. She is an assistant professor at Florida International University who specializes in African Diaspora history. A specialist on the African Diaspora in Europe, she has published essays on areas of African diaspora history and is completing a manuscript on colonial relationships between African and the Caribbean. Linda Spears Bunton is an associate professor of education in the College of Education at Florida International University. Her areas of specialization are literature, language literacy, and the African American experience. Her new book is A Literacy of Promise The African American Experience (2008). Rose C. Thevenin is originally from Haiti and is an associate professor of history and college historian at Florida Memorial University. Her areas of specialization are African American History and Black social movements. She is an executive member of Association of Black Women Historians and has published in works such as Diasporic Africa: A Reader (2006).

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Acknowledgments

z

or a project of the magnitude of the Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora, gratitude is owed to a variety of people who assisted in various ways in its conceptualization, execution, and realization. I will identify these both chronologically and in order of importance to the history of this project. First of all, Babacar M’bow, a knowledgeable cultural programmer, coordinator of International Programs and Exhibits of Broward County Libraries, whom I met soon after being contacted by the publishers, was instinctively conscious of the importance and the need to pursue this project to its end. We worked together on the proposal to submit to ABC-CLIO, and he was an invaluable resource, because of his knowledge of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization (UNESCO) General History of Africa project, having seen it grow from its inception under the leadership of Mahtar M’bow, then director general of UNESCO. Babacar M’Bow assisted in myriad ways in the development and execution of this project, serving as managing editor for the encyclopedia, contacting contributors and giving shape to its conceptual and technical aspects. In this regard, International Programs, Broward County Libraries, Fort Lauderdale, Florida is also acknowledged. The encyclopedia’s formidable research assistant, Karen Matthew, very competently took up the project at a critical time when it was stalling and worked meticulously, in a very professional, reliable and mature way, to reorganize the encyclopedia files, finalize entries, reestablish contacts with contributors, format and submit entries, and bring this project to completion. I am sure that we would not have been able to complete this encyclopedia successfully without her diligence and steady professionalism. A major debt of gratitude is owed to Ms. Matthew for her work in this regard. The International Advisory Board is acknowledged for encouraging, advancing, and supporting the realization of this project by their experience and by their intellectual understanding that this was a doable project. The first major related event we had was a symposium that allowed us to create the international advisory board and a local advisory board. The idea of creating large subject essays on

F

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various African Diaspora topics came out of this April 2003 meeting, as well as a variety of fruitful discussions on how to proceed. From this point, we created a logo and literature with which to promote the project, and we attended major conferences to begin the process of disseminating materials. Jonelle A. Davies is acknowledged for her work in designing the logo for the Encyclopedia’s promotion. The staff of the Florida International University (FIU) Studio of Digital Arts (SODA) who created and managed the project’s Web site, especially Rob Yunk, have been wonderfully responsive as we have moved the project through its various stages. SODA understood the importance of the project and the ways in which we could promote it on the World Wide Web. Two graduate students in the African New World Studies program, Safietou Kane and Sabrina Collins, were tasked with promoting and disseminating information on the project and attended the African Studies Association conference in Boston in 2004. Sabrina Collins served as the first research assistant and began the process of receiving and organizing entries. La Tasha Amelia Brown worked during one summer on the encyclopedia assisting Sabrina Collins at a critical time. A major international conference, “The African Diaspora Knowledge Exchange” was held at Florida Memorial University in 2005 at which many of the subject essays were presented. Safietou Kane was the primary student liaison on this conference and helped receive subject essays ahead of time. The format intended was to provide an opportunity for authors of subject essays to present their work for critical feedback. This proved to be a very successful approach as it allowed the audiences (including teachers from south Florida) to review the material presented and ask the kinds of questions to which those knowledgeable in the field were able to respond. The late Mr. Thirlee Smith, Jr., of Miami-Dade Public Schools and leading supporter of the Florida Statute on Teaching African American Studies (1994 Florida Legislature, Section 1003.43 [g]), ensured that his teachers had access to the content aspects of African Diaspora material at various conferences. We encouraged all the graduate students at FIU, and in graduate programs around the country, to contribute entries on the African Diaspora. We acknowledge the significant contributions and support of Dr. Karl S. Wright, Dr. Sandra Thompson, faculty, staff and students of Florida Memorial University who hosted our various conferences and assisted with this project. We thank all the graduate students who contributed, especially Jessica Alarcon, who came into the program as a new student and immediately offered assistance. Then a pre-dissertation fellow in the AfricanNew World Studies (ANWS) program (2006–2007), Yaba Blay of Temple University, also provided links to other graduate students who could contribute their research to the encyclopedia. Rosa Henriquez, the program coordinator of ANWS, also steered potential contributors, interested individuals, and others with questions to the appropriate individuals who could help or answer their questions. In the process of executing this project, ANWS received a grant from the Ford Foundation, which led to the creation of the Florida Africana Studies Consortium (FLASC), which formed the kind of academic community in south Florida that supported intellectual and community work on the African Diaspora. All the conferences we organized in the succeeding period were done with the assistance and collaboration of FLASC. Many FLASC members served on the local advisory

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Acknowledgments | xxix board of the Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora, and the encyclopedia became a place where these faculty could publish their work. FLASC then has to be recognized for its help in ensuring that this project was successfully realized. In this regard as well, the Ford Foundation is acknowledged for providing the financial support for the African Diaspora Knowledge Exchange Conference. During my tenure as director of ANWS at FIU (1997–2000; 2001–2006), the ANWS program and the College of Arts and Sciences provided space for advancing African diaspora projects such as this one which began to have impact nationally. We acknowledge them for that support. We are pleased that this project came out of the south Florida community proving that there is an intellectual community that could produce an encyclopedia of this magnitude. All the writers of entries are acknowledged for their understanding of the need for this encyclopedia, for contributing their work, but above all for patience and for responding promptly (at times) to requests for information, corrections, and updates. Several entries, at the end, could not be accommodated because of space allocation. We thank those contributors nevertheless. Angela Leonard of Loyola University in particular reached out to us at a critical stage in the project’s history, offering support and contacts for entries, as she terminated a related project. Veronique Helenon, assistant professor of history in ANWS, is recognized as well for instinctively expecting a quality program and demonstrating this by her contributions to this project. And in particular, the south Florida community members who encouraged this work’s completion. Out of this has come other related works on the African Diaspora. Jesse Benjamin, on the international advisory board, is recognized for consistent support of this project, often going beyond normal expectations, pursuing leads diligently, finding contributors for some areas not often covered and finally assisting with responding to queries in the final editing stage, always in a professional and politically committed manner. The Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora project was presented at three African Diaspora conferences (the Association of the World Wide African Diaspora [ASWAD] in Rio de Janeiro in 2005; The African Diaspora in Asia [TADIA] Conference in Goa, India, in January 2006; and the African Literature [ALA] Conference in Ghana in 2006). We thank the audiences of these presentations for feedback. Finally, all of the people who helped in various unrecognized ways, whether by informing colleagues, circulating flyers, offering verbal support, or dropping by to help at critical times, to make this project happen are also acknowledged. In particular, the scholars and activists from Ecuador are offered special recognition and thanks for responding rapidly to the need for an Afro-Ecuadorian entry. Thanks are due to Chucho Garcia, Diego Quiroga, Edson Leon, Catherine Walsh for finding ways to strategically fill this gap, knowing that a project like this is larger than individual/personal dramas and that what is most important is for these communities to be recognized. Above all, the staff at ABC-CLIO are acknowledged for their vision, patience, and understanding at the various turns in the completion of this encyclopedia. Carole Boyce Davies, General Editor

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T HE A FRICAN D IASPORA AND THE A FRICAN WORLD To study the African Diaspora is, indeed, to study the world. This is the first realization to which any scholar of the African Diaspora comes very early in the process, for at least two reasons: (a) Africa is the birthplace of human civilization, and from there human beings migrated to various locations worldwide; and (b) African peoples in our contemporary understandings (continental Africans and African-descended peoples) exist globally, following a series of subsequent migrations. While all migrations do not necessarily create a diaspora, what is particular to diaspora creation includes, first of all, a migration, but second, some historical, emotive, political, economic, and cultural connections to that homeland and a consciousness of that interaction. The study of the African Diaspora has involved various generations of scholarship, various disciplinary approaches, various conceptual formulations, and various identifications and interrogations of what and/or who constitute/s the African Diaspora. The Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora then attempts to account for as many of these peoples and communities as possible within its limited space and organizational abilities. All we claim to do at this point is to present as much of the available research as is possible, making connections as we exchange knowledge about who African Diaspora peoples are and where they live, and as we try to understand the kinds of cultural transformations they have engaged in; to document their leading ideas; to provide future researchers with information that can lead to further inquiry. By these means, we already recognize that each contribution, such as this three-volume one, merely adds to the developing knowledge about the African Diaspora. As we make additional connections, we prepare for a further expansion of the discourse. As we recognized in the production of this work, a three-volume encyclopedia merely scratches the surface. This Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora engages the contemporary, covers the emergence of new levels and discourses of blackness, and deliberately extends to include areas such as the African Diaspora in the Indian xxxi www.abc-clio.com

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Ocean and other areas of the world, such as the Mediterranean, often not covered in African Diaspora projects. We recognize at the outset that an encyclopedia of this type at its best can offer only snapshots of the phenomenon, its people, and the processes it describes. As we bring this project to a close for publication, we acknowledge that much has to be left out; much more needs to be included. The range and the staff, for example, of the more than 25 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Compton’s Encyclopedia, or World Book Encyclopedia are perhaps closer to what is needed. The difference in access and coverage has already been identified in the institutional dominance of European studies and the general marginalization or subordination of Africana Studies in the various academic structures. Decolonizing the Academy: African Diaspora Studies (2003) is one of the places that discusses this issue. What is represented here must be seen as a selection that moves toward a more complete rendering at some later date, if that is ever an attainable goal. We say this knowing that no encyclopedia can ever claim complete coverage, as it will always have to be updated at a later time when more information is available. Encyclopedias, like anthologies, are often seen as creating canons—as definitive, when in reality they contain only a selection of the available material based on access, time, resources, reach, and, of course, the force of scholarly knowledge production and the nature of publication arrangements. The range of other particular encyclopedias emphasizes the point about coverage, as each geographical region as well as several particularized groups, fields, and subject areas have produced, or require, their own encyclopedia. There are already several encyclopedias of U.S. African American history, biography, and major events, perhaps largely because African Americans in the United States have been at the forefront of making their voices heard, establishing their presence through the various media available; and clearly, U.S. capitalism has often marketed itself via media. The African American Encyclopedia (ed. Michael Williams), which appeared first as five volumes in 1993 and now appears as ten volumes, and the Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History (1996, supplement in 2001; ed. Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith, and Cornel West) indicated the growing nature of the knowledge base and the trepidation at the thought of leaving out important information. All editors also indicate a number of other challenges, including space limitations, difficult choices, timelines, authors’ schedules, changes in subjects’ lives, and the sense that some people’s favorite subjects may not be covered. The new edition of the Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History: The Black Experience in the Americas (2005, ed. Colin Palmer and Howard Dodson) is a six-volume set described as updating the 1996 edition. With Schomburg Library collaboration, it attempts to be more expansive and contemporary and moves away from a U.S.-centered approach to include more on the Americas in general. It moves the definition of African American outward, extending the coverage to the rest of the Americas. Still, as already indicated, the African American field has been fairly well covered by such early works as the Ebony Black America: Pictorial History (1973) and The African American Almanac, now in its ninth edition in 2003 (formerly The Negro Almanac). And there are particular works, such as the two-volume Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia (1993, ed. Darlene Clark Hine with Ros-

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Introduction | xxxiii alyn Terborg Penn and Elsa Barkley Brown) and The Encyclopedia of Black Studies (2005, ed. Molefi Asante and Ama Mazama). More particular regional encyclopedias provide more detailed coverage than general field encyclopedias. The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century African History (2002, ed. Paul Zeleza) includes entries that provide important documentation of places, regions, countries, and language groups, as well as topical and thematic essays. But the editor chose not to include biographical entries. The Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara, although it continues the error of dividing Africa into upper and lower Sahara, is four volumes, with John Middleton as editor in chief. The introduction by the then-leading African historian J. F. Ade Ajayi, who served as a primary local editor, indicates the difficulty in attempting such a project, some of which we share. The two-volume Encyclopedia of Contemporary Latin American and Caribbean Cultures (2002, ed. Daniel Balderson, Mike Gonzalez, and Anne M. Lopez) lists entries under various countries. And Enciclopedia Brasileira da Diaspora Africana (2004, ed. Nei Lopes) is a very important and useful reference guide that covers Afro-Brazilian culture but reaches into the rest of the African Diaspora as well, thereby demonstrating the magnitude of the field for the Brazilian audience, though entries are very short, sometimes only a few lines long. The ambitious Encyclopedia of Diasporas: Immigrant and Refugee Cultures Around the World (2004, ed. Melvin Ember, Carol R. Ember, and Ian Skoggard) is a two-volume compilation of essays divided into Volume I: Diaspora Overviews and Topics and Volume II: Diaspora Communities, attempting by these means to cover the larger communities of world peoples. Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American Experience (1999, ed. Henry Louis Gates and Anthony Appiah; CD version is Microsoft’s Encarta Encyclopedia Africana) began as an attempt to complete the Du Bois encyclopedia project but ended up dealing more with the relations between Africa and the Americas. The updated version was extended to five volumes, signifying in its more expansive coverage the point I made earlier about size and relational work. D EFINING AND C ONCEPTUALIZING THE A FRICAN D IASPORA The term African Diaspora refers to the dispersal of African peoples all over the world. The word diaspora comes from the Greek diaspora (dia, meaning “through,” and spora, which refers to the process of sowing) (1). Thus, it refers to dispersal of seeds as well as the result of the dispersal. The implication of “through” in the first part of the word also gives a metaphorical sense of the movement aspects of diaspora, that is, “through different routes.” In this reading, then, the Diaspora can be seen as a kind of harvest of peoples, cultures, and knowledge that comes initially out of Africa—a demographic globalization, and internationalization, of African peoples created through centuries of migration. Indeed, African Diaspora peoples have been the products or the recipients of this economic globalization, often the demographic/human resource engine through the expropriation of their labor for the advancement of current economic and communications structures now defined as globalization (2). As a result, it has a different intent and political identity than the globalization created for economic oppression. The dispersal that created the African diaspora occurred through (a) voluntary means (economic and

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pre-Columbian exploratory journeys); (b) trade, servitude, and military expeditions (early Indian Ocean trade journeys from the sixth century); (c) forced migrations (transatlantic slavery over at least four centuries in the modern period, from the 15th to the 19th centuries); and (d) induced migration, the more recent 20th- and 21st-century migrations of African peoples based on world economic imbalances. These have resulted, thereby, in the relocation and redefinition of African peoples in a range of now-international locations (3). While one aspect of the definition of the African Diaspora is fairly constant in terms of its association with dispersal or scattering, there is a plurality of interpretations of the nature of the result of that dispersal, that is, what constitutes the African Diaspora. Some would argue that this plurality is in fact a good thing, as it allows for multiple perspectives, which engender further research and additional subjects of study. Others see forced exodus as the most important constitutive element in diaspora creation. As far as the Atlantic end of the Diaspora, in terms of numbers, in this encyclopedia Inikori has argued that the conservative Curtin statistics of 11 million people moved via transatlantic slavery, and the more generous 19 million people, are not a source for debate, as the numerical basis for the forced migration (which of course does not include the uncountable numbers lost in passage) is enough to make the arguments about demographic shifts as well as the transformation of the economic patterns on both sides of the Atlantic, but largely benefiting Europe and America (4). A number of scholars over the years have provided definitions and the history of the use of the term African Diaspora. George Shepperson’s (1993) “African Diaspora: Concept and Context” documents the usage of this particular combination and provides much of the language that is used still to define the African Diaspora, identifying the origin of the use of the term to refer to the Jewish Diaspora (5) and therefore also emphasizing the “homeland” element. The first usages of the term for African peoples he identifies as being linked to the rise of black political organizing during the immediate decolonization period beginning in the 1950s, particularly around the time of the First International Congress of Negro Writers and Artists in 1956 and the International Congress of African Historians held in Dar es Salaam in October 1965. Clearly, the use of the term African Diaspora is linked to decolonization activity and therefore has political intent, and that is to account for the “status and prospects” of various peoples of African descent scattered around the world, who are often denied their humanity. Thus, one sees at least two broad tendencies in African Diaspora studies: (a) to account for dispersal mainly from a common source in Africa; and (b) to account for those communities that have migrated in various directions and thereby have reconfigured identities in those now-home locations. By these means, one often has a sense of studying (a) Africa and the Diaspora or the continent and the dispersal and/or (b) the African Diaspora itself as a unit that includes the continent and the various intra-African migrations and movements. We propose to bring these two tendencies together in this Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora. Shepperson (1993) is careful to point out, however, that although usage of the expression African Diaspora began in the mid-20th century, the concept’s usage is

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Introduction | xxxv older than its 20th-century definition, extending all the way back to the Biblical reference that “Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her hands” (Psalm 68:31). Shepperson credits Edward Wilmot Blyden with his 1880s “Ethiopia Stretching Out Her Hands unto God: or, Africa’s Service to the World” as one of the first places to see the conceptualizing of the African Diaspora in an intellectual approach. For him, though, African Diaspora is a framework for comparative study; it must be approached through different languages. It cannot be a mere statistical rendering but must engage ideas, and it must not deal solely with dispersal outward, as it “loses much of its force if it is limited to dispersal in an outward direction only” (Shepperson 1993, 44). But even before Blyden, in the U.S. context, David Walker’s 1829 Appeal was directed to the Coloured Citizens of the World, and thus already embodied a consciousness of political challenge of oppression that would be echoed later in Fanon but was definitely imbued with the sense of an African Diaspora in its conceptual framing. Brent Hayes Edwards, The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism (2003), then, is a very important intervention, as it addresses the particular ways in which Diaspora has been put to use for political, emotive, and cultural reasons. But one must also consider the disjunctures, as did Appadurai (2006), as well as the differences in terms of application. In this particular case, the political connections between the Anglophone and Francophone diaspora become importantly identified via the political organizing of George Padmore (Trinidad/United Kingdom/Ghana) and Garame Kouyate (Ivory Coast/Paris). Thus, in terms of the first tendency, the concept of the African Diaspora is much older than its contemporary formulation. If we accept that, based on archaeological evidence, the birthplace of human beings is Africa, and that humankind from there began its dispersal around the world, then we can argue logically that the African Diaspora is the first constituted formulation of human migration. Therefore, some aspects of African cultures have touched all societies. While this may seem too loose and floppy a category, too totalizing in a way, one still must consider the credible historical research in this area. Chancellor Williams (1976), in The Destruction of Black Civilization, for example, identifies the early migrations from the “Ethiopian empire which once extended from the Mediterranean to the north and southward to the source of the Nile” (44) in present-day Ethiopia, based on a series of human and natural disasters. Thus, there are particular historical movements, periods, and places that allow us to identify specific communities—cultural, social, economic, and political formulations in our contemporary realities. Nkiru Nzegwu’s subject entry, “Art in the African Diaspora,” seems to follow this logic as it identifies seven formulations of the African Diaspora and insists that the categories received from European scholarship have been arbitrary and indeed limit our fuller understandings of African Diaspora as it relates to creativity and the arts, at least. More expansive than the five phases of Colin Palmer, she identifies seven phases, as follows: the Paleolithic; the Egyptian Diaspora; the Kemetic; the Kushite phase; the Atlantic; the colonial and anticolonial phase; and the postcolonial phase. In this way, art-related creations for those earlier periods, she argues, also fall under African Diaspora. Importantly, then, in her formulation she would want to include the Egyptian or Ethiopian Diaspora.

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The intellectual work of the premodern African Diaspora can be traced to the universities in Alexandria, Egypt; to the University of Timbuktu and Djenne in the actual republic of Mali; and to the various centers of learning of the West African kingdom of Ghana (University of Kumbi-sahel) that were burned by the Almoravids in the 14th century. The library of African/Diaspora studies, then, eventually must address this earlier information even as it extends into the contemporary. Thus, temporally, as the research has moved in two directions: backward to the early historical periods, as Afrocentrists do, and forward to embrace new formations of African Diaspora; spatially, it can address the range of existing communities worldwide; and conceptually it can examine the nature of epistemological contributions of the African Diaspora. While we acknowledge the existence of a preslavery migration to the Americas, as Van Sertima (2003) asserted, the more contemporary African Diaspora, which constitutes our second tendency, can be more firmly identified in the period after European enslavement and forced migration of Africans to the New World. Following the work of the first Pan-Africanists, such as Edgar Wilmot Blyden (1886) in his famous speech in Liberia College, 20th-century studies of the African Diaspora have made major contributions toward the understanding of the dispersal of African peoples. Such early and mid-20th-century scholars as Anna Julia Cooper, W. E. B. DuBois, Melville Herskovits, Carter G. Woodson, and Katherine Dunham (United States); J. J. Thomas, George Padmore, Una Marson, and Fernando Ortiz (Caribbean); Casely Hayford, Funimalayo Ransome Kuti, and Cheikh Anta Diop (Africa); and Nina Rodrigues and Abdias do Nascimento (Brazil) have helped to provide frameworks of analysis as well as documented research and activism that advanced possibilities or studies of various aspects of the African Diaspora. Ruth Simms Hamilton’s (1995) “Conceptualizing the African Diaspora” works theoretically within the framework of world systems analysis. She defines the African Diaspora as a social formation that includes a “global aggregate of actors and subpopulations differentiated in social and geographical space, yet exhibiting a commonality based on shared historical experiences conditioned by and within the world ordering system” (Hamilton 1995, 394). She deploys three historical characteristics to identify the Diaspora as distinct from other groups: a. Geosocial displacement and the circularity of a people (the historical dialectic between geographical mobility and the establishment of “roots”) b. Social oppression: relations of domination and subordination (conflict, discrimination, and inequality based primarily, although not exclusively, on race, color, and class) c. Endurement, resistance, and struggle: cultural and political action (creative actions of people as subjects of their history; psychocultural and ideological transformations; social networks and dynamics). Hamilton’s work offers important categories for situating a range of African Diaspora movements, histories, and cultural transformations; above all, it includes the issues of dominance and subordination but also resistance. Her diaspora as a “field of action” predates “unit of analysis” formations and identifies a more dynamic praxis as it also includes a range of literary, cultural, and political movements. www.abc-clio.com

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Introduction | xxxvii The field of African Diaspora studies thus promises an engaging and rewarding study for scholars of the African Diaspora. In the contemporary moment in the academy, the study of the African Diaspora has continued with a surge in intensity as manifested in a series of texts, conferences, journal articles, and academic programs at the end of the 20th century and into the 21st century. And a range of post-1960s scholars in the academy have maintained a solid interest, which has led to this contemporary articulation. For example, “Interrogating the African Diaspora,” which was the theme of a graduate seminar at Florida International University (2003–2006) will have an impact on the next generation of scholars. A 2006 conference entitled “Diaspora Hegemonies” at the University of Toronto tried to account for some of the complexity in the field in its recent incarnations, raising a number of questions about what and who is privileged in African Diaspora studies. And an issue of the journal Radical History has the special theme of contemporary reconceptualizations of the African Diaspora. H ISTORICAL B ACKGROUND AND G EOGRAPHICAL R ANGE OF THE C ONTEMPORARY A FRICAN D IASPORA The trans-Saharan passage and the opening up of the Arabian Peninsula, as well as the circum-Indian Ocean geography, located a range of African peoples in what is now called the African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean (6). Although the Atlantic Diaspora (the 14th through the 21st centuries) has been studied more extensively, scholars have begun to advance the study of this earlier migration to the Indian Ocean (from the fifth century onward), ensuring that this migration was driven not so much by enslavement but more often by sailors, merchants, and soldiers, some of whom became members of royalty and attained political and military leadership, as did Malik Ambar in India. Thus, earlier migrations across the Mediterranean Sea, the Eritrean (Red) Sea, and the Indian Ocean, as both free and enslaved people from approximately the sixth century, must now be a central understanding of the formation of the contemporary African Diaspora. The long history of forced migration that displaced African peoples across Europe and the Americas via transatlantic slavery from the 15th century onward has been well addressed. Historians of the African Diaspora have continued to document the ways in which this transatlantic slave trade displaced and disrupted the lives of peoples of numerous already-intact African nations, locating them in the New World for the services of plantation systems (7). Subsequent industrial developments in the Americas (the 15th to the 19th centuries) were facilitated, with slavery abolished in the various New World locations only in a sliding 19th-century date arrangement based on decisions in the various colonizing centers of power (French, Spanish, English, American, Portuguese) from 1838 to 1888 (8). The history of Euro-American imperialism’s border transgression and its larger assumption of control of human and physical resources, unlimited space and movement, serves as one contextual background for the Atlantic African Diaspora. In the development of triangular trade routes through the “Middle Passage,” the economics of slavery and colonialism facilitated the rise of European modernity. We can conclude, then, that contemporary notions of globalization have always been economic, and that globalization has used African peoples’ labor in its processes. Preexisting frameworks of operation that ensured www.abc-clio.com

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European control of the world’s resources were put in place with the rise of European modernity. The result of all these processes of free and forced migration was the appearance of Africans in the Americas, in Europe, and in Asia, and the simultaneous recreation of sociocultural practices in these various locations, making Africans essentially a global people. Africans moved from a range of political formations from the precolonial nations, empires, and other smaller ethnic political structures (often misnamed “tribes” by anthropologists) (9). This relocation of African peoples to different geographical locations often meant subordination or dispossession. So, even though some, such as Gwyn Campbell (at the TADIA converence in Goa in 2006), would make hard distinctions between the nature of the Atlantic African Diaspora and the Indian Ocean Diaspora, suggesting that the latter is not a “victim Diaspora,” today in India, African Indians—or Indo-Africans who describe themselves more particularly as Siddis or Habshis—still live visibly oppressed by the state and its elites, located as “backward tribes” and later “scheduled tribes” and accorded few benefits of citizenship (Caitlin-Jairazbhoy and Alpers 2004; Prasad 2005). Still, there are other groups whose lives remained consistently debased in their new locations. The condition of African peoples in the Americas is an example. Following enslavement in the Americas, the most glaring of inequities continued as a period of colonialism in which Africans as colonial subjects were powerless, until formal political independence some 300 years later, to fully represent their rights both in Africa and the Americas. Postindependence nation-states have often been neocolonial systems, which were therefore not reliable protectors of rights, because within them were already imposed race- and class-based hierarchies that subordinated sometimes majority populations (10). In many countries, these peoples remained disenfranchised under various colonialisms (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Arab, and Asian), without the means to return to their native lands and subject to horrendous conditions violating every tenet of human rights and with no other legitimate recourse but to fight for those rights. Throughout the Americas, the abuse of labor, the denial of rights, and beatings, maimings, and other forms of physical brutality accompanied the processes of colonialism that succeeded plantation slavery. The work of historians of the African Diaspora has been fundamental in backgrounding and detailing the nature of these movements. Joseph Harris’s lead in this area has been absolutely pivotal in the development of the field. From the late 1970s and through the Howard University conference that produced the landmark Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora (Harris 1982), Harris has maintained the African Diaspora as a subject of study and as its own unit of analysis, pushing as well for an expanded scope beyond the Atlantic Diaspora. This recent phase has also been advanced by work such as Colin Palmer’s “Defining and Studying the Modern African Diaspora” (1998), which led into the 1999 American Historical Association conference, “Diasporas and Migrations in History,” raised a number of questions about definition, and identified five major African diasporic streams: the first dispersal, which Palmer estimates occurred about 100,000 years ago and constituted the beginning dispersal of humankind; the second, taking

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Introduction | xxxix place about 3000 BCE with the movement of Bantu-speaking peoples from the region around west Africa to other parts of the continent; the third, the trading Diaspora to parts of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, which began around the fifth century; the fourth, the transatlantic migration of enslaved Africans, from the 15th century; the fifth, after the 19th century and continuing to the present day, the movement of Africans and peoples of African descent and their resettlement in various societies. For this reason, the framework that Tiffany Patterson and Robin D. G. Kelley (2000) used is “Unfinished Migrations: Reflections on the African Diaspora and the Making of the Modern World” (11), which provided a conceptual overview of the logic of the Diaspora as a process still in formation as it summarized the important literature and theoretical positions advanced in African Diaspora up to the end of the 20th century. The work of a variety of other historians has been critical, such as Michael Gomez’s Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South (1998); Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora (New Approaches to African History) (2004) (12); and Black Crescent: The Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas (2005). Earlier, Darlene Clark Hine and Jacqueline McLeod, from another conference, produced the book Crossing Boundaries: Comparative History of Black People in the Diaspora (1999), which provided useful additions to the library of African Diaspora Studies. And Gwendolyn Midlo Hall’s “Making Invisible Africans Visible: Coasts, Ports, Regions and Ethnicities” in her Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas: Restoring the Links (2005) provides a good analysis of the various studies of the African Diaspora in the Americas and ends up identifying from her related databases the various movements of African Diaspora peoples and their ethnic origins. P OLITICAL M OVEMENTS AND P ROJECTS : A FRICAN P EOPLES , D IASPORA , PAN -A FRICANISM The African Diaspora is also understood as a political and cultural category. At the political level, its primary ideological formations have been expressed as PanAfricanism, a political philosophy articulated through a variety of congresses and projects. For some scholars, such as Tony Martin, the rudiments of Pan-Africanism exist in the yearnings of Africans displaced via transatlantic slavery to return to their homelands. Thus, the flying back stories are seen as a kind of proto-PanAfricanism, as are some of the myths, legends, songs, and spirituals, and also spiritual possessions and chants that talk about wings and homes and heaven and have continued to give African entities and practices presence in other diasporic locations. From the start, there has been a logic linking Diaspora to Pan-Africanism as St. Clair Drake (1993) identifies in his analyses of the relationships between these two discourses. Thus, Diaspora can be seen as condition, Pan-Africanism as political project. The primary motivation of Pan-Africanism can be summarized as follows: Because a range of capitalist policies and projects have produced African peoples who live all over the world, how, then, can we represent their rights fully if the various nation-states in which they live do not always guarantee those rights? How can we produce a political system that coordinates these rights? What political projects

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need to be advanced in a coordinated way? How are African citizenship rights to be internationally understood alongside issues of nation-state sovereignty, jurisdiction, and the rights and duties of citizens who are located everywhere in nationstates to which they may have primary loyalty? One such formation (13) would create usable policies for transcendence of limitations of geographies, nation-state boundaries, and ethnic and linguistic differences for progressive social transformation of the lived realities of African peoples globally. Kwame Nkrumah’s vision of Pan-Africanism on the continent, Malcolm X’s vision of an Organization for Afro-American Unity (OAAU) as linked to, and expressed at, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) meeting in Cairo additionally attempted to make some of these connections (14). In similar ways, Kwame Toure’s All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party describes itself in terms of the practice of Pan-Africanism already identified. But even before that, the work of Marcus Garvey and his “Africa for the Africans” and “Back to Africa” constructs critiqued the oppressed conditions of black peoples in the Diaspora as it articulated the possibility of a conceptual (if not a physical) return and began the process of instituting economic systems that could ensure that that possibility would become the reality that it is for many today. The problematic knot, though, is the extent to which African peoples can give primary or sole allegiance to the nation-states in which they live, particularly when those nation-states often do not identify or respect their human rights. The “Constitutive Act of the African Union” (July 2001) begins its preamble with a direct assertion concerning African peoples, invoking generations of PanAfricanists as follows: INSPIRED by the noble ideals that guided the founding fathers of our Continental Organization and generations of Pan-Africanists in their determination to promote unity, solidarity, cohesion and cooperation among the peoples of Africa and the African States (15). All the research reveals that these Pan-Africanists were members of the worldwide leadership community of African Diaspora and African continental peoples with a commitment to working toward the liberation and advancement of the continent and its dispersed peoples (16). The African Charter (written in Banjul, The Gambia) consistently refers to African peoples in the plural, thus leaving in the possibility of including a multiplicity of peoples across the continent of Africa. This definition of African peoples is an advance in the sense that it allows space for a definition of African peoples in a broad continental and Diaspora sense. And beyond that, the African Union’s acceptance of the Diaspora as its sixth region (2005) has meant the possibility of some sort of political assertion for the African Diaspora. The full articulation of this structure has yet to be fully worked out; movement toward this goal has been deliberate and careful. The African Union, replacing the OAU, in its Constitutive Act took into consideration The Lusaka Summit Decision on the “establishment of a strategic framework for a Policy of Migration in Africa” and gestures therefore toward the development of a definite future relationship with the African Diaspora (17).

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Introduction | xli Through the African Union Diaspora Conference in Washington, D.C., in December 2002, two objectives were established: the development of “capacity building projects by Diaspora Civil Society organization in the Western Hemisphere Diaspora,” and the development of a “plan of ongoing collaboration with the African Union including a plan of action and a hemispheric steering committee” (18). One of the most important resolutions of this conference was the creation of a coordinating body for the African Union Western Hemisphere Diaspora, accepted unanimously by the meeting on December 19, 2002. This body had as one of its initiatives the proposal of an African Diaspora component of the African Union and its representative bodies, particularly the Pan-African Parliament (Article 17) and the Commission (Article 20) of the Constitutive Act of the African Union (19). Since then, the African Union has taken significant steps toward operationalizing the African Diaspora within its framework. The Executive Council, in its third extraordinary session held in Sun City, South Africa, May 21–24, 2003, took several decisions, among which was convening a technical workshop held in Portof-Spain, Trinidad, in June 2004 for the elaboration of a framework and recommendations on the relationship between the African Union and the Diaspora (20). The definition of Diaspora that came out of this workshop and was finally approved in 2005 reads as follows: “Peoples of African origin living outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship and nationality and who are willing to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the African Union. It includes communities created by the movements and cultures of persons from the continent of Africa and their descendants throughout the world — Asia, The Pacific, Europe and the Americas including United States and Canada, the Caribbean, South and Central America” (AU Web site, www.africanunion.com). The operational definition interestingly includes willing membership in the African Diaspora, as opposed to generic descent or other historical connections, and therefore becomes a kind of 21st-century political definition different from the initial usage of the term African Diaspora. In this encyclopedia, African peoples are defined as those who have historical origins in Africa, irrespective of time period and current geographical location. In this way, descendants of those who were displaced from the continent forcibly and voluntarily in the Indian Ocean migrations, those moved forcibly during the period of transatlantic slavery, and those who have migrated more recently for economic, educational, social, and other reasons, also have claims to the status of African peoples or African-descended peoples as used in Latin America. African peoples in this understanding refer to peoples of African origin, comprising a variety of African ethnicities, on the continent of Africa and in the international African community termed African Diaspora. A number of contemporary nation-states and regions have also begun to claim their own Diasporas. The Jamaican Diaspora and the Haitian Diaspora have already had a major impact on the politics and economics of their home communities, particularly in the areas of remittances, often more than the gross domestic product of these countries, and have increasing impact on the politics of their home countries, such as the right to vote and the choices for political leadership. And while the trade and circulation of people and commodities brings people,

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places, and things into contact, at times in diaspora that can be collaborative or conflictual, at other times they can lead to heightened articulations of particular nation-state diaspora. In a related manner, a number of larger nation-states (such as India) are recognizing their communities abroad as essential to the full access of all their human and material resources. And work is taking place on specific African nation-state Diaspora created by contemporary migration, such as the Somali Diaspora by Issa Farah, a young Somali scholar in Australia. His research, presented at La Trobe University, Australia seminar (March 2007) identifies at least 1 million Somalis in Diaspora with significant populations in North America (the United States, from as early as 1915 based on photographs taken in Chicago, and Canada), Europe (England, Scandinavia, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and France), Middle East (United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia), Australia, and New Zealand. Regional definitions are also being articulated as in the African Diaspora in the Andean region of South America and the Caribbean Diaspora. The Caribbean is already well recognized as a place for the practice of overlapping or intersecting Diaspora as say the Indian and African communities but also the African and native Carib, Arawak and Taino communities as well. In Canada as well, African Diaspora work on indigeneity (to a lesser degree in the United States, though work on the Black Seminoles in Florida in relation to maroon communities is increasing) means recognizing the importance of native peoples and the ways they have been dispossessed of their land even as Africans claim their diasporic existence in those same expropriated lands. This poignant articulation from Native Americans has to be consistently readdressed by African Diaspora peoples, also themselves exploited, so as to avoid the errors of settlers in the Americas and Australia who assumed appropriated land to be theirs. By these means, earlier collaborations between Native peoples and Africans can be maintained. While these competing claims to geographical location can make for conflict, they can also make for collaboration as oppressed groups struggle against these earlier and contemporary imperialist projects that have indeed driven and in some cases created these Diaspora. Andrea Smith, in Conquest, Sexual Violence and North American Indian Genocide (2005), describes well how these issues of imperialism are and were carried through sexual violence and often literally on the backs of women. Another work, Greg Thomas’s Sexual Demon of Colonial Power (2007), indicates a similar set of arguments of the intersection of sexual constructions and indeed sexual exploitation in advancing colonial projects. But resistance has also overlapped or intersected. The importance of Indian ahimsa or nonviolence, as advanced by Mahatma Gandhi, who gained his understandings of oppression in apartheid South Africa, had a significant impact on the Indian anticolonial struggle as it challenged offensive traditional practices, like child marriages. Gandhi, in turn, influenced Martin Luther King and his particular strategies to resist white racist dominance, as manifested in Jim Crowism and segregation in the United States. And a politicocultural movement like the Afro-bloco, Filhos de Gandhy in Salvador-Bahia, Brazil, also demonstrates the logic of diasporic collaborations in their appropriation of the meaning of Gandhi for carnival production. In making a political statement against Brazilian demonization of Afro-Brazilian cultural practices the Afro-bloco movement initially articulated itself as coming out in

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Introduction | xliii peace, and therefore used Gandhi paraphernalia and iconography, combined with the symbology of the Yoruba-derived Candomblé. And African and Indian cultures converge, even as political allegiances diverge. Thus, the tassa, an African drum is played by both Africans and Indians: both Trinidadians and Siddis (Afro-Indians). Food like roti and curry are now staples of the Eastern Caribbean and Guyanese (Afro-Caribbean) diet, and the exchanges continue based on close proximity as in the pejorative “douglarization.” “Dougla,” a word that is even worse than “mulatto” (which means “little mule”) in various languages ranging from Persian to Hindi, means among other things according to Shalini Puri in a lecture at Florida International University (Interad, Summer 2006), “bastard,” “stain,” “blot,” “polluted,” “dirty,” and other terms even more offensive. It is a formation that some still embrace to challenge logics of single belonging and interpret miscegenation in terms of what their dual heritages mean in this particular version of hybridity. Many who use “dougla” as definition are not fully aware of this historical meaning of the term and embrace it in a way similar to how some reappropriate other offensive terms used to describe black people. The existence of self-identified Indo-Africans or Siddis provides alternative political readings of this particular blend. So in terms of political projects, as Michael Hanchard’s experimental Global Mappings Atlas of the African Diaspora demonstrates (21), we can chart the influences and collaborations of political movements across the African world and understand more fully how these movements and their primary actors begin to have an impact on diverse geographical locations. S OCIOCULTURAL P ROJECTS : C OMPLICATING THE A FRICAN D IASPORA S TORY The question of how best to identify African Diasporan peoples and their cultures continues to be a source of important scholarly debate. Zeleza, using Appadurai’s framework of flows, identifies demographic, cultural, economic, political, ideological and imagistic flows. The hyphenated logic is one that has been followed by a number of communities as they attempt to account for these dual heritages, such as U.S. African Americans, African Caribbeans or Afro-Caribbeans, and Afro-Latin Americans, at the start of the 21st century. Afro descendientes (African descendants) is the agreed-upon descriptor. Some sort of connection to the African continent is assumed in terms of direct and discernable historical lines, physiognomy, and clearly recognized sociocultural practices. Thus, in the field of anthropology, the early work of Herskovits and his contemporaries has been preeminent as it led to a variety of discussions about how to recognize and/or measure African cultural patterns and practices and how to name African communities worldwide. Though this early work of Herskovits has been criticized by subsequent generations of anthropologists for operating on the basis of some versions of African essentialism and/or for making too easy conclusions (J. D. Elder, personal communication, 2003) based on not enough research, the idea of identifying aspects of African culture in New World cultures has not died. For many in the Caribbean and Latin America, this kind of work was one of the only sources for claiming a history and human identity that was being erased or denied by dominant cultural formations.

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The follow-up work by scholars like Yale University’s Robert Farris Thompson provided a bridge into the contemporary period of cultural studies work and specificity to more general contemporary assertions. Thus, the study of Africanisms and/or African cultural retentions, raised through the group of anthropologists who worked on this throughout the early and mid 20th century, is not as important today in terms of proving one-to-one correspondences and equivalences that held sway in the early 20th-century period of African Diaspora research. Thus, questions of transformation or re-elaboration continue to be addressed substantially in the Americas. In the contemporary early 21st century, the task of building one-to-one correspondences via the study of Africanisms has been replaced by discussions of representation and transformation. Tendencies in the field still demonstrate that the nature of these latter movements and the meaning of African-generated cultural practices are worth fighting for in many locations, particularly as a people’s culture is the place from which they can begin to assert their freedom. Indeed, current discussions about creolization, syncretism, and even hybridity assume some combination of African cultural forms with either European or indigenous/native American patterns. But as the work of Olendorp shows, as discussed in this encyclopedia, creating hybrid cultures was precisely the project of enslavers in the immediate postenslavement period. Hybridity and creolity have long antecedents in the range of created “blood” and proportional categories such as mulatto, creole, octoroon, and others by which the slaving class tried to literally “breed” ideal and complicit and interesting variations of Africans as they similarly did animals and grafted plants. What connects the Diaspora continues to be a fundamental issue. For some it is related sociocultural formations; for others it is history, the human chain of slavery, and above all contemporary realities of subordination; and for others political practice. The definition of blackness is therefore an aspect, though not an equivalent, for these African diasporan definitions. A consciousness of racial identification and oppression generated from enslavement and other forms of subordination is one of these connecting points (Hanchard 1990, 1991) that have been present from all the early attempts to examine the status of African peoples. Though disparagingly called “victim Diaspora” by scholars like Robin Cohen in his Global Diasporas: An Introduction (1997) some of these points of connection generated for political effect have found their bases in prior or present situations of oppression and the need to effect some sort of political solidarity in order to challenge these. In his global Diaspora frame, Cohen also attempts some classification of Diaspora communities, not specifically African Diaspora communities, but ranging from Chinese to Sikhs and Zionists. Works such as The African Diaspora. African Origins and New World Identities (1999, ed. Isidore Okpewho, Carole Boyce Davies, and Ali A. Mazrui) include contributions from a range of African Diaspora locations in the Americas and pursue such issues as theater, art, photography, music, and literature. In this regard, the cultural studies work of scholars like Stuart Hall (2006) and Paul Gilroy (2006) becomes important as they engage the idea of membership. Gilroy favors the “routes” model over the “roots,” preferring to look at contemporary formations rather than

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Introduction | xlv some difficult-to-prove historical connections (Gilroy 1993). Stuart Hall wisely sees both the political strategy in the construct as well as its articulation possibilities and difficulties. But it is precisely in culture, as expressed in music, literature, and art, where some of these connections have been most visible. The lyrics of Peter Tosh, “No matter where you come from/as long as you are a black man/you are an African,” resonates with the logic of African Diaspora and Pan-Africanism. The wide-range exportation and dissemination of reggae music and the culture, lifestyle, and politics of Rastafarianism with Bob Marley as a leading exponent are also critical signs of the mobility of African diasporic cultural practice. However, recent DNA work, as championed by Henry Louis Gates of Harvard University, has seemed to be able to make some direct connections using scientific evidence. By sampling continental African peoples, researchers have created a database for subsequent matches with people in the African Diaspora (as in Oprah’s Roots, a television inquiry into the genealogy of the African American talk show host Oprah Winfrey, aired in January 2007). Pretty soon one may know with some scientific certainty, using some definite types that already exist in DNA databases collected on the continent, what has been relegated so far to speculation based on physiognomic appearance. This brings a bit more certainty to genealogical studies like the oral history work of Alex Haley in Roots. In this regard, new scientific work gives a kind of contemporary restatement of the kind of early scientific work undertaken by Cheikh Anta Diop in his carbon dating projects (described in Civilization and Barbarism) as far as the original human Diaspora in Africa is concerned T HE F IELD OF A FRICAN D IASPORA S TUDIES The field of African Diaspora studies can be seen through the generations of intellectual projects and their products. These have ranged from initial and individual or group scholarly research of people like Edward Blyden, J. J. Thomas, Melville Herskovits, and, more contemporaneously, Joseph Harris, Michael Gomez, Sheila Walker, Robert Farris Thompson, Darlene Clark Hine, and Colin Palmer in each generation. These individual projects have produced disciplinary studies of various communities that have then made some connections to the larger field of African Diaspora studies. The second major way in which the field has advanced has been scholarly conferences of specific institutions or organizations, which have been able to produce their collections as already described. For example, at Florida International University, the conferences that produced the African Presence in the Americas (1995) and Decolonizing the Academy. African Diaspora Studies (2003) attempted to intervene in the production of knowledge, all challenging the Eurocentric assumptions of knowledge of U.S. and European institutions, but also those in the Caribbean, Africa, Latin America, Australia, Asia, all formed as auxiliaries for maintaining European hegemony. Each conference brings forward additional connections as for example did The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA) Conference in Goa, India, in January, 2006 (22) with an earlier publication The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean (2003) edited by Shihan de S. Jayasuriya, whose work also appears in this encyclopedia. The Conferences of Intellectuals of the African Diaspora (CIAD I

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and II, Senegal 2004 and Salvador Bahia 2006) have papers as well as declarations available online at the African Union Web site (www.africanunion.org). The ASWAD Conferences and formation of an association to do some of this work similarly advanced the field in innumerable ways. The first tangible product of ASWAD has been Diasporic Africa. A Reader (2006, ed. Michael Gomez). A FRICAN D IASPORA L ITERATURES AND C ULTURES While we have not presented a large subject essay on literature, we point here to some important references, this perhaps because literature has been one of the most popular ways by which African diaspora knowledge has been advanced. The best place to find the presentation and discussion of a range of African diaspora literatures is the journal Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters (see “Calalu/Callaloo” entry) which for the last forty years, under the leadership of Charles Rowell, has indeed presented creative and critical work in literature from a wide range of African Diaspora communities. And for many years, Presence Africaine has served this function in francophone letters. The more recent creation of journals like Diasporas, though, has advanced the discussion of the larger field of Diaspora studies in general, specifically targeting the Diaspora as an area of study and the variety of overlapping or intersecting Diaspora that have an impact on these various world communities. In a similar way, Wadabagei: A Journal of the Caribbean and Its Diaspora has supported the development of a Caribbean Diaspora knowledge field. But a variety of particular journals, like Caribbean Quarterly, and the work of scholars like Maureen Warner-Lewis in her study of language and culture, have maintained an ongoing space for the discussion of a variety of diasporic subjects as they manifest themselves in the Caribbean. A range of professional organizations like the African Literature Association, the Caribbean Studies Association, and the American Historical Association and their publications also provide a place for discussing aspects of the African Diaspora as they pertained to those fields. Encyclopedia production is another strand in this process, pulling together a range of scholars and their research but also creating that necessary library of materials that advance a field. The Congress of Negro Artists marked the beginnings of this phase of African Diaspora intellectual and creative work in the middle of the 20th century, as already established. And formed in the late 1970s, the African Literature Association, through its conferences and publications, has been a place where African Diaspora literature has been consistently addressed. Thus, literature has been one of the foremost ways by which Diaspora identities have been articulated and a primary area in which this field of African Diaspora studies has taken shape. Some of the best pieces of literature have confronted this issue directly. The definition of “African Literatures” in the plural that comes out of journals like Presence Africaine and the African Literature Association refers to the range of genres and types of African literature one finds on the continent and other parts of the world. A vast field, with its specialized encyclopedias, bibliographies, yearbooks, journals, and numerous publications, has been documenting these literatures. While not including a large subject entry on African diaspora literatures, we have included salient writers, themes, concepts and texts in most categories. There are several

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Introduction | xlvii dictionaries and encyclopedias of African-American and African literatures. Still, we can point to some classic African Diaspora texts that have engaged the themes of African Diaspora directly. Equaiano’s Travels. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789) as well as Mary Prince’s The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself (1831) are among the first. Ayi Kwei Armah’s Two Thousand Seasons (1973), Kamau Brathwaite’s The Arrivants (1967), Ama Ata Aidoo’s Dilemma of a Ghost (1965), and Anowa (1970), Earl Lovelace’s Salt (1996), Grace Nichols’s I Is a Long Memoried Woman (1983), Paule Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow (1983), Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (1982), Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), and Okepwho’s Call Me by My Rightful Name (1994), Sandra Jackson-Opoku’s The River Where Blood Is Born (1997), are some texts that have addressed African Diaspora themes. A helpful reference is Killam and Rowe, The Companion to African Literatures (2000), which offers larger coverage of major categories of African diaspora literatures, and Mark de Brito’s The Trickster’s Tongue. An Anthology of Poetry in Translation from Africa and the African Diaspora (2006), an ambitious collection of poetry. A range of helpful and related concepts have come out of these literatures as we develop frameworks for doing relational work. Literary reimaginings have come through the work of writers like Ishmael Reed, Fred d’Aguiar, and Alice Walker. Aimé Césaire has talked about unboundedness in his no-fence island, expressed in his long poem, Cahier, and Edouard Glissant has developed the idea of errance or wandering. He has also advanced the discussions of creolization as conceptualized by Kamau Brathwaite, whose tidalectics is as fluid a construct as is Antonio BenítezRojo’s repeating island imagery, both driven by water, by the sea. In this way, Gilroy’s “Black Atlantic,” a theoretical rearticulation of Farris Thompson’s “Black Atlantic Civilizations,” provides tremendous theoretical mileage (Gilroy 2006). Discourses of migrations in history and literature continue to drive research on Diaspora. And rememory makes literature one of the central places where creative articulations take place. Aboriginal Australians have a theoretical and cultural category called “dreaming” that is worth invoking here as it has to do not only with the flow of the imagination in storytelling but also in art, history, and movement, in terms of life experience. Thus, for African Americans, concepts like polyrhythms and improvisation, as articulated in jazz or quilting, have had great utility in vernacular theory and signifying. Rinaldo Walcott’s (2003) call for a Diaspora reading practice that allows for the “uncovering of the histories, memories, desires, free associations, disappointments, pleasures, and investments we bring to any given texts” (118) resonates with “diaspora literacy” (Clark) or “cultural fluency” (Mayes). In the same way, as far as music in the African Diaspora is concerned, we have included a range of African Diaspora music forms—blues, jazz, hip-hop, highlife, salsa—though not a single entry on music. The vastness of the field forbids reduction and synthesis. A related project to which one can refer is The African Diaspora: A Musical Perspective, which includes a range of essays on different aspects of African Diaspora musical forms, genres, and styles. The field of ethnomusicology is a rich one, and through it much of the early African Diaspora work was carried out. Work done by Alan Lomax, J. D. Elder, Alan Waterman, and others

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documented a range of forms that demonstrated how African rhythmic patterns could be subjected to structural analysis. Recent DVD collections such as “Songs of the Orisha Palais, Trinidad and Tobago” (2005) could only be credibly mounted and sustained with that earlier sustaining work already in place. In this regard, Maureen Warner-Lewis’s work in linguistics has also been amazingly solid. Her Trinidad Yoruba (1996) and earlier Guinea’s Other Suns (1991) have been formidable in documenting African religions in the Caribbean at a time when African Diaspora work was not the popularly engaged in research field that it is today. In this contemporary period, one can identify a range of academic programs and departments dedicated to the study of the African Diaspora, some of which have doctoral programs, like the University of California, Berkeley, one of the first programs to specifically offer an advanced degree in African Diaspora Studies. Approximately 25 programs (see the www.africandiasporastudies.com) have an Africana studies program or do Diaspora work in other departments. Courses like Spelman College’s two-semester “African Diaspora and the World,” attempt to give a general coverage of the African Diaspora akin to the Western civilizations courses that are staples of the major universities, in order to provide students with knowledge of the major historical, philosophical, artistic, and scientific developments of the African world. Therefore, work on African Diaspora communities within the larger construct of African Diaspora, can be advanced. Quite a number of scholars have engaged with or are engaging with Afro-Brazilian communities in various ways, and Afro-Brazilians themselves are beginning to be the major and best articulators of their own history and culture. Work on the Caribbean has also become a very dynamic field advanced by scholars and associations internationally. For example, the Australian Association of Caribbean Studies held a February 2007 conference in Melbourne, “Mo(ve)ments: Local, Regional, Global in Caribbean Popular Culture,” that covered issues of migration and thereby of Diaspora. In this regard, the work of Linda Heywood, Maureen Warner-Lewis, and J. D. Elder has deliberately engaged Diaspora as a theoretical framework, and, as already indicated, the work on the Caribbean Diaspora (by Harry Goulbourne, Winston James, Stuart Hall, Beryl and Paul Gilroy, Alrick Cambridge, C. L. R. James, John La Rose, Claudia Jones, Amon Saba Saakana) as it relates to Caribbean communities in the United Kingdom has often offered theoretical leadership in articulating this construct, as have a range of scholars in the United States. The broadening of the definition of Afro-America to include the north and the south brings back into focus the African Diaspora communities throughout South America. As already indicated, work on Asia and the Maghreb is also increasing, and work on Australia is another area that will likely soon be advanced. Besides the premodern migration that produced black Aboriginal inhabitants in Australia, from 1888 to 1901, black convicts are reported to have entered Australia—a group of 13 black convicts arrived with the first shipment. Often they were those convicted for minor crimes and a kind of debt peonage. And in the early 1900s there was reportedly a Sydney branch of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association. Documents of letters of representatives sent overseas are available in the Garvey archives, and this is an area well worth a fuller exploration.

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Introduction | xlix Overlapping or intersecting diaspora allows further relational work that looks at Indian, Jewish, Arab, Asian, Native American, Aboriginal, Latin American, and Caribbean Diasporas as these overlap or extend the boundaries of the African Diaspora. This is another area that is going to be very significant in the future. And a new African Diaspora, created by Africans migrating for economic reasons to various metropolises and other continents in the 20th century, is another key area for research. By some counts, more Africans have crossed the Atlantic in this period than in the earlier transatlantic slavery period. The products of some of these overlapping or intersecting Diaspora have been often named, misnamed, and claimed under douglarization, creolity, mulatto consciousness, hybridity, mestizaje, concepts that are also presented in this Encyclopedia. WOMEN AND THE A FRICAN D IASPORA The question of gendering the African Diaspora is one that is long in being fully articulated from the early work of conferences like the Michigan “Black Woman Writer in the African Diaspora” in 1985. Audre Lorde’s work in building an international community for black women has articulated in Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States the kind of black women’s Diaspora politics that parallels earlier work by Pan-Africanists to create a Zami community. Lorde’s essay “Sisterhood and Survival,” available in Sister Outsider, provides the impetus for a black woman’s Diaspora. And as she stated in an interview with Pratibha Parmar and Jackie Kay, Lorde (1988) also believed some kind of international network of black women was absolutely essential. Throughout the 1980s, the journal Sage had an African Diaspora orientation in terms of the kind of research it included from black women internationally. In this regard, Beverly Guy-Sheftall’s essay “Feminism and Black Women and the African Diaspora,” which is included in this encyclopedia, provides some important connections between women as political and intellectual organizers throughout the 20th century. A conference organized by Rosalyn Terborg-Penn at Howard University, out of which was produced Women in Africa and the African Diaspora (1989; ed. Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, Sharon Harley and Andrea Benton Rushing), has also been significant, recalling as it does the work of Filomena Steady in The Black Woman Crossculturally (1989). Both contexts have influenced at least two generations of scholars studying women and the African Diaspora. Describing itself as producing concepts, methodology, and projected guidelines for studies of women and the African Diaspora, Women in Africa and the African Diaspora included a nice range of scholarship on Latin American, Brazilian, African American, Caribbean, and African women and often used a quilting metaphor for the Diaspora. See also In Praise of Black Women, Volume 4: Modern Women of the Diaspora (2003). Writings of Black Women of the Diaspora by Lean’ tin L. Bracks (1998) also used the quilting metaphor, but applies it specifically to literature. Daughters of Africa. An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from the Ancient Egyptian to the Present (1992; ed. Margaret Busby) is an expansive and ambitious project. Earlier, Chinosole had spoken of “matrilineal Diaspora” and Grewal et al. had produced a collection of creative works titled Charting the Journey.

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Similarly, Black Women’s Diasporas, the second volume of International Dimensions of Black Women’s Writing (1994; ed. Carole Boyce Davies), is perhaps one of the only places one can see the formation of black women’s Diasporas in practice. Another would be Miriam DeCosta-Williams’s edited collection Daughters of the Diaspora: Afra-Hispanic Writers (2003). In 2002, Judy Byfield organized a conference at Dartmouth College on the subject of “Gendering the African Diaspora: Gender, Culture and Historical Change in the Caribbean and Nigerian Hinterland.” One of its general aims was to “encourage the production of scholarship that both extends and challenges our current writing of African and Caribbean women’s history/cultures, and integrates gender analysis more systematically into our conceptualization of the African Diaspora.” And the two Yari Yari Pamberi international black women’s writing conferences at the turn of the century hosted by New York University brought together black women writers from all over the world. Since then, not much has happened in an organized way on this topic, and this area of study requires further development. Individual works of a new generation of scholars, like Michelle Stephens (Black Empire: The Masculine Global Imaginary of Caribbean Intellectuals in the United States, 1914–1962, 2005) and Michelle Wright (Becoming Black: Creating Identity in the African Diaspora, 2004), have challenged the masculinist constructions of black internationalism as they have cleared the ground for the study of new African Diaspora identities that are appropriately gendered. Thus, Jane Ifekuwingwe’s Scattered Belongings. Cultural Paradoxes of “Race,” Nation and Gender (1999) and Meredith Gadsby’s Sucking Salt: Caribbean Women Writers, Migration, and Survival (2006) advance the discourse on black women’s identity in migration as earlier articulated by Carole Boyce Davies in Black Women, Writing and Identity. Migrations of the Subject (1994). Gadsby’s own research into salt and the African Diaspora is included in this encyclopedia. More recently, Katherine McKittrick’s Demonic Grounds. Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle (2006) uses Sylvia Wynter’s formulation to advance the study of the geographies of women in the Diaspora. It is important to point out then, that although there have been a fair number of works on black women, the work has often dealt with individual/national or regional specifics like the United States or the Caribbean. Confronting the contributions of black women as a larger category not limited to specific national boundaries is what seems to be appearing in this new round of scholarship. This Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora, although it does not specify a section on women in the African Diaspora, covers the issue of women in specific entries. It includes proportionately a large number of entries on and by women and includes subjects not often covered in general works on black women, like an entry on the 1950s black women’s activist organization, Sojourners for Truth and Justice. Early work on specific African Diaspora communities, particularly in the United States, has, for the most part, marked this discussion. Audre Lorde’s “Zami” formation has already been mentioned as one model in which issues of black women’s sexuality have migrated across the African Diaspora from Carricacou and the Eastern Caribbean, its places of origin, to the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and even South Africa in terms of Lorde’s organizational

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Introduction | li schema. By these means, submerged discourses of black female sexuality that challenged heteronormatives began to be articulated. Gloria’s Wekker’s “Mati” work has also articulated another version, this time coming out of Suriname and the Dutch Caribbean; in many ways it is a sexual-cultural formation that is related to, although not identical to, black lesbian constructions in the United States. And though Ifi Amadiume resists the limitation of the meaning of her work to issues of sexuality in the European-American sense, her discussion of some aspects of African gender constructions in Male Daughters, Female Husbands (1987) has opened up issues of gender in the African context, with variations by Ronke Oyewumi (The Invention of Women, 1997) in her subsequent work. A 2006 special issue of Feminist Africa, guest edited by Rhoda Reddock, was subtitled “Diaspora Voices” and included a range of essays from scholars in the African Diaspora. In her introductory essay, Reddock brings together for analysis the passing of the African Protocol on Women in relation to the passing of the African Union’s African Diaspora definition, both in 2005, to underscore an African Union recommitted to gender equity and to solidifying its ongoing relationship between the continent and the Diaspora. As far as black gay communities are concerned, work on the U.S. black gay experience has been advanced by the work of poet/activist Essex Hemphill and the filmic interventions of Marlon Riggs, such as “Black Is Black Ain’t.” Dwight McBride’s work on James Baldwin and in advancing a more inclusive Africana Studies in general has done some of the kind of institutional work that allows the field to be cleared and that is required to advance this discourse. More substantial work has been produced for a special issue on GLBT literature and culture for the journal Callaloo (vol. 23, issue 1, 2000). An edited collection by Thomas Glave on literature of Caribbean/Antillean Gay communities, titled Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from the Antilles, is described as the first anthology of lesbian and gay writing from the Caribbean. For scholars who discuss the question of essential identities, one has to always place the dialectics of Diaspora in the foreground. Although the idea of the home and exile is one formation raised by Elliott Skinner in the Harris book, Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora, some would argue that this borrows too much from the Jewish Diaspora. Although a consciousness of homeland is critical, often returning to a homeland, as in the case of Palestine, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, can be laden with conflict as it means dispossessing people who are already occupying that place and who have similar claims. Diaspora discourse can look relationally at a range of communities, even as it evokes some older historical realities. Thus, what does it include? What does it exclude? What are the erasures and disclosures? What are the loci of contradictory or contestatory understandings of Diaspora? These are still questions worth pursuing. S COPE OF T HIS E NCYCLOPEDIA Producing the Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora has been a daunting task. It was driven by the fact that many colleagues and community supporters were clear that this was a project that needed to be done and therefore they were supportive of its intent. We began with a meeting of consultants from a range of areas across

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the African Diaspora in order to develop a pool of intellectuals that we could engage, call on, and encourage to contribute subject essays in their specialization areas. That group decided on the pattern we have used, which covers subject entries of major aspects and disciplines of the African Diaspora; people, represented by selected biographies and coverage of ethnic groups that have contributed to the African Diaspora or had significant impact on the advancement of the discourse; regional and country essays on some critical areas of the African Diaspora; and topical essays on African Diaspora concepts. Entries were organized in terms of places (geography), people (personalities), movements (e.g., Pan-Africanism), theories (e.g., Négritude) in a straightforward A to Z order. Each entry also provides cross-references: at the end of each entry is a “See also” listing that provides researchers with a way of finding additional material on a topic. We developed a Web site (www.africandiasporastudies.com) to update contributors on the project, solicited entries at major conferences, and created entry format models, which included original research and full coverage of the field in well-documented and concise entries, including recent discoveries and theories. A list of recommended readings for further research accompanies entries. In terms of scope, the volumes are international in reach, covering the five continents with documented African Diaspora communities. We had excellent coverage from Latin American communities like Colombia, Bolivia, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, calling on young scholars from those areas, like Paula Moreno-Zapata (Colombia), to contribute recent work, or Leana Cabral, the niece of Amilcar Cabral, also a young scholar-activist, to do an entry on Cape Verde. More experienced scholars like Marco Polo Hernandez Cuevas on AfroMexico or Quince Duncan on Costa Rica were contacted to contribute their research. Juan Angola Maconde of Bolivia entered this project after the ASWAD conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2005. And we have identified the important contribution on Afro-Ecuadorians. All of these scholars have provided knowledge of their research on their own communities. Many of these scholars have been working on their own communities in isolation and are pleased to have a location for collaborative research. The Indian Ocean Diaspora was also well covered because of the advances in the knowledge of scholars like Shihan De Silva from that area and the TADIA (The African Diaspora in Asia) organization which hosted its first conference in Goa in January 2006. Subject essays from expert scholars in their fields, including Nkiru Nzegwu on art and the African Diaspora, Joseph Inikori on the political economy of the African Atlantic system, Monica Jardine on the Caribbean migration, and Brian Meeks on Caribbean black power have been important contributions. Many of these subject essays were presented at a conference held at Florida Memorial University in 2005. In this regard, we also encouraged and solicited entries from graduate students, allowing them by these means to have a publication profile and benefiting from the fact that they are usually the ones doing the freshest work in the field. Part of this has been advanced through the creation of FLASC—the Florida Africana Studies Consortium, which has been one of the umbrellas for this project as has African–New World Studies at Florida International University.

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Introduction | liii The purpose of this publication, as we have indicated, is to provide in one place a well-documented and readily accessible body of information about the most important historical, political, economic and cultural relations between people of African descent in the world community. What connects such a diverse group of people and wide-ranging locations across time and space? How they have affected and been affected by their environments? How have they created and re-created cultural forms and movements? For hip-hop we decided to go with a general subject entry on hip-hop culture in the African Diaspora and then a second entry on hip-hop in Latin America. We also decided on a few exponents of the tradition, like Mos Def, rather than the proliferation of artists that one could end up having. Perhaps a future “Encyclopedia of Hip Hop Culture” will be planned at some later date. We, the editors of this encyclopedia, envisage a library of African Diaspora materials as one similarly encounters materials on other area subjects. The audience includes students, journalists, policy makers, activists, scholars, libraries, international organizations, and all those with an interest in the African Diaspora. Our editors at ABC-CLIO have been helpful in this process, making sure that we had balance and distribution, and even providing a grid by which we could check off where each contribution came from, thereby ensuring a more even coverage. Biographies were the hardest entries to make decisions about, though the easiest submissions to receive. Though these entries tended to be shorter than most, we had to make selections carefully about what to include so the biographical entries did not go on ad infinitum. And of course everyone had his or her own list of people he or she thought should be included. At one time someone submitted his entire family for inclusion. For major contributors — scholars-activists-theoreticians like C. L. R. James—we allotted a bit more space, as they were often difficult to limit to a short 500-word entry without doing a disservice to what these people represented. The discipline that was enforced by our publisher limited entries to those who had a significant impact on the African Diaspora itself rather than on a single nation or community. The African Diaspora then and its subformations, like the “Black Atlantic” or the “Black Pacific,” as units of analysis, have allowed the kind of academic inquiry that will also have impact on policy and on people’s understandings of themselves in the world. This is therefore one area that does not remain as a singly academic enterprise, for in our increasingly globalized world, “Diaspora literacy,” a term developed by Veve Clark and included in this volume, becomes an important way of reading the world. Although we have attempted to obtain entries on a wide range of African Diaspora forms and manifestations that display cultural connections, we are conscious of the need to expand the knowledge base in a range of areas. We have included subject essays or shorter entries on health, sports, carnivals, hair, dance, music, and religion. For scholars in the field, a number of subject areas still remain underresearched. These include style and fashion in the African Diaspora, body, sound, food, architecture, “livity” or lived experience, and language. New work is being done on the relationships of Diaspora to transnationalism and on theories of Diaspora. Additional work on contemporary African Diasporas in places like

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Australia and the South Pacific needs to be done. Some work on the Arabian Peninsula and the Mediterranean is being carried out. As we connect the nodal points of the African Diaspora via various knowledge exchanges and publications like this one, we advance understanding of world communities in that still unfinished process of reclaiming the epistemologies and thereby the humanity of African Diaspora peoples. Ideally, a web-based project that can be infinitely updated is perhaps the direction that one can pursue in the future (23). Carole Boyce Davies Editor

R EFERENCES Appadurai. 2006. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” In Theorizing Diaspora, ed. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur, 26–48. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Baptiste, Fitzroy A. 1998. “African Presence in India —I and II.” African Quarterly 38 (1998): 76–90, 91–126. Brah, A. 1996. Cartographies of Diaspora. Contesting Identities. London: Routledge. Byfield, Judith. 2000. “Introduction: Rethinking the African Diaspora.” Special issue on Diaspora. African Studies Review 43:1 (April):1–9. Caitlin-Jairazbhoy, Amy, and Edward Alpers, eds. 2004. Siddis and Scholars. Essays on African Indians. Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press. Clifford, James. 1994. “Diasporas.” Cultural Anthropology 9:3:302–338. de Silva, Shihan Jayasuriya, and Richard Pankurst, eds. 2003. The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean. Lawrenceville, N.J.: Africa World Press, 2003. Diop, Cheikh Anta. 1991. Civilization or Barbarism. Brooklyn, New York: Lawrence Hill Books (Paris: Presence Africaine, 1981). Drake, St. Clair. 1993. “Panafricanism and Diaspora.” In Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora, 2nd ed., ed. Joseph E. Harris, 451–514. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press. Edwards, Brent Hayes. 2003. The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Gilroy, Paul. 2006. “The Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of Modernity.” In Theorizing Diaspora, ed. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur, 49–80. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Gomez, Michael A. 2005. Reversing Sail. A History of the African Diaspora. New York: Cambridge University Press. Gomez, Michael, ed. 2006. Diasporic Africa: A Reader. New York: New York Univeristy Press. Grewal, Shabnam, Jackie Kay, Liliane Landor, Gail Lewis and Pratibha Parmar. 1988. Charting the Journey: Writing by Black and Third World Women. London: Sheba Feminist Publishers. Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo. 2005. Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas. Restoring the Links. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.

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Introduction | lv Hall, Stuart. “Epilogue: Through the Prism of an Intellectual Life.” In Meeks (2007): 269–291. Hall, Stuart. 2006. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” In Theorizing Diaspora, ed. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur, 233–247. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Hamilton, Ruth Simms. 1995. “Conceptualizing the African Diaspora.” In African Presence in the Americas, ed. Carlos Moore, Taunya Saunders, and Shawna Moore, 393–410. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Hanchard, Michael. 1990. “Identity, Meaning and the African American.” Social Text 24:31–42. Hanchard, Michael. 1991. “Racial Consciousness and Afro-Diasporic Experiences. Antonio Gramsci Reconsidered.” Socialism and Democracy 3 (Fall): 83–106. Harris, Joseph E., ed. 1982. Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press. Harris, Joseph. 2003. “Expanding the Scope of African Diaspora Studies: The Middle East and India, a Research Agenda.” Radical History Review 87 (Fall): 157– 68. Hesse, Barnor, ed. 2000. Un/settled Multiculturalisms: Diaspora, Entanglements, “Transruptions.” London: Zed Press. Hine, Darlene Clark, and J. McLeod. 1999. Crossing Boundaries. Comparative History of Black People in Diasporas. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hintzen, Percy C. 2007. “Diaspora, Globalization and the Politics of Identity.” In Meeks, Culture, Politics, Race and Diaspora. The Thought of Stuart Hall, 248–268. Jamaica: Ian Randle. Jalloh, Alusine, and Stephen E. Maizlish, eds. 1996. The African Diasporas by Joseph Harris, Alusine Jalloh, Joseph Inikori, Colin A. Palmer, Douglas B. Chambers, Dale T. Graden. Arlington, Texas: Texas A & M Press. Killam, Douglas, and Ruth Rowe, eds. 2000. The Companion to African Literatures. Oxford: James Currey and Bloomington: Indiana University Press. McKittrick, Katherine. 2007. “I Entered the Lists: Diaspora Catalogues.” XCP: Cross-Cultural Poetics 17:7–29. Meeks, Brian, ed. 2007. Culture, Politics, Race and Diaspora. The Thought of Stuart Hall. Kingston: Ian Randle. Morehouse, Maggi M. 2007. “The African Diaspora: Using the Multivalent Theory to Understand Slave Autobiographies.” Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education: An International Journal. 1:3 (July-September): 199–216. Palmer, Colin. 1998. “Defining and Studying the Modern African Diaspora.” American Historical Association Newsletter 36 (6 September): 21–25. Patterson, Tiffany, and Robin D. G. Kelley. 2000. “Unfinished Migrations: Reflections on the African Diaspora and the Making of the Modern World.” African Studies Review 43 (1 April): 11–45. Prasad, Kiran Kamal. 2005. In Search of an Identity. An Ethnographic Study of the Siddis in Karnataka. Bangalore, India: Jana Jagrati Prakashana. Rashidi, Runoko, and Ivan van Sertima, eds. 1999. African Presence in Early Asia. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.

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Shepperson, George. 1993. “African Diaspora: Concept and Context.” In Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora, 2nd ed., ed. Joseph E. Harris, 41–49. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press. van Kessel, Ineke. 2006. “Conference Report: Goa Conference on the African Diaspora in Asia.” African Affairs (Oxford) (June). Van Sertima, Ivan. 2003. They Came Before Columbus. The African Presence in Ancient America. New York: Random House. Walker, Sheila S., ed. 2001. African Roots/American Cultures. Africa in the Creation of the Americas. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield. Williams, Chancellor. 1976. Destruction of Black Civilization. Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D. Chicago: Third World Press. Zimba, Benigna, Edward Alpers and Allen Isaacman, eds. 2005. Slave Routes and Oral Tradition in Southeastern Africa. Maputo, Mozambique: Filsom Entertainment, Lds. N OTES 1. Thanks to Greek Diaspora writer Konstandina Dounis at LaTrobe University in Melbourne, Australia, and Dean Kalimniou, an expert in languages and a lawyer in Melbourne for providing details of usage in the Greek language and as it pertains to the Greek Diaspora. This information benefits from a seminar in diasporas that I gave at LaTrobe University in February 14, 2007, at which I fortuitously met Konstandina. 2. Lawrence M. Friedman. 2001. “Erewhon: the Coming Global Legal Order.” Stanford Journal of International Law Summer: 2–11; International Monetary Fund. 2000/2001.Globalization: Threat or Opportunity. Issues Brief. International Monetary Fund offers some discussion of the economic implications. See also Globalization and Its Discontents by Saskia Sassen and Anthony Appiah (New Press, 1999). 3. A useful study of some of the theories of African diaspora is Maggi M. Morehouse, “The African Diaspora: an Investigation of the Theories and Methods Employed When Categorizing and Identifying Transnational Communities,” African American Studies, University of California, Berkeley (n.d.), http://istsocrates.berkeley.edu/~african/morehouse.pdf. 4. Interview for “African Diaspora Knowledge Exchange” conference, Florida Africana Studies Consortium (FLASC), Florida Memorial University, Miami, May 2006. Available on FLASC, DVD Series \#1, 2007. 5. Indeed, the Encyclopedia Americana (Danbury, CT: Scholastic Library Publishers, 15 editions, 22 volumes), under its entry on “Diaspora” indicates, “See Jews.” 6. See, for example, Joseph E. Harris, “Expanding the Scope of African Diaspora Studies: The Middle East and India, a Research Agenda,” Radical History Review 87 (Fall 2003): 157–168; Fitzroy A. Baptiste, “African Presence in India — I and II,” African Quarterly 38:2 (1998): 76–126; African Presence in Early Asia, edited by Runoko Rashidi and Ivan Van Sertima (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1999); and Slave Routes and Oral Tradition in Southeastern Africa, edited by Benigna Zimba, Edward Alpers, and Allen Isaacman (Maputo, Mozambique: Filsom Entertainment, 2005). The most recent contribution in this area has been the conference “The African Diaspora in Asia,” held in Goa, India, in January, 2006. See

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Introduction | lvii Ineke van Kessel, “Conference Report: Goa Conference on the African Diaspora in Asia,” African Affairs (Oxford) (June, 2006). See also the work The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean, edited by Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya and Richard Pankurst (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2003). 7. See, for example, essays in The African Diaspora by Joseph E. Harris, Alusine Jalloh, Joseph Inikori, Colin A. Palmer, Douglas B. Chambers, Dale T. Graden (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996); Michael A. Gomez, Reversing Sail. A History of the African Diaspora (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas. Restoring the Links (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005). 8. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, created to ensure the protection of rights and freedoms, was very clear about the need to make a statement on slavery. 9. Cheikh Anta Diop’s Precolonial Black Africa (Independent Publishers Group, 1990) and the range of Diop’s publications are reliable sources of this information based on substantial research. See also Chancellor Williams, The Destruction of Black Civilization (Chicago: Third World Press, 1987). 10. Examples of the most egregious of these include apartheid in South Africa, U.S. segregation laws, and Brazil’s official processes of “racial democracy,” which functioned to disenfranchise the majority African-derived populations. 11. This entire issue of African Studies Review on African Diaspora includes essays on Brazil and the Indian Ocean, which, along with the introduction by guest editor, Judith Byfield, “Rethinking the African Diaspora,” are important resources in the field of African Disapora studies. 12. See also his recent edition of papers from the first Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora conference, Diasporic Africa: A Reader (New York University Press, 2006). 13. See Carole Boyce Davies and Babacar M’bow, “Towards African Diaspora Citizenship: Operationalizing an Already Existing Geography.” In McKittrick, Black Geographies (South End Press, 2007). 14. February 1965: The Final Speeches. 15. See Web site of the African Union www.african-union.org. 16. A range of Pan-African activists, thinkers, and strategists from the continent and the African Diaspora met repeatedly in Pan African congresses beginning in 1900 and continuing throughout the century to produce the independence of Africa from colonial rule, to produce independent states, and to secure a place for a range of displaced African Diaspora peoples. These include W. E. B. DuBois, Anna Julia Cooper, Sylvester Williams, George Padmore, C. L. R. James, Marcus Garvey, Edgar Wilmot Blyden, Casely-Hayford, Kwame Nkrumah, and others. DuBois, who was at the first Pan African congress, retired to Ghana; he died and was buried there. Padmore was Nkrumah’s assistant and a major architect of PanAfricanism as articulated by Nkrumah in Ghana. 17. African Union Program Summary, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (CM/Dec. 614 [LXCIV]). 18. See: http://democracy-africa.org/articles/diaspora02.html. 19. See: www.au2002.gov.za/docs/key oau/au act.pdf.

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20. See: http://www.whadn.org/. 21. This site, which is now closed, was available at http://diaspora.northwest ern.edu. 22. See the conference report, “Goa Conference on the African Diaspora in Asia” by Ineke van Kessel, African Affairs, June 6, 2006:1–4. 23. The late Lino de Almeida suggested that it be housed in a place like Brazil.

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Human Rights Commission. In 1990, she was once again reelected, this time with 53,000 votes, becoming the most voted-for federal representative for the PT in Rio de Janeiro. As a politician, da Silva distinguished herself in the field of social justice reform. She has led several initiatives and authored such law projects as the incarcerated women’s right to breast-feed, equal pay for equal work for blacks and whites, and three months’ maternity leave. For a brief period, upon Anthony Garotinho’s resignation, da Silva assumed the post of mayor of the troubled city of Rio de Janeiro. During her brief leadership period, Rio’s appalling public safety situation improved noticeably. In 1992, she ran for reelection unsuccessfully. With 1,326,678, her defeat could hardly be classified as a failure. Nowadays, Senator da Silva is recognized nationally and internationally as one of the most respected political voices in Brazil. She is known at the House of the Federal Representatives as “the voice of all disenfranchised folks.”

Born on March 11th, 1942, in Rio de Janeiro, Benedita da Silva is the first elected black female senator in the history of Brazil. As do many prominent Afro-Brazilians, she comes from a poor family background. She was born at Favela Praia do Pinto but soon moved to Favela Chapéu Mengueira, where she grew up and became a community leader. Moved by a revolutionary spirit, she realized that the strength of the oppressed lies in their ability to fight against their own oppression, and that, by doing so, they are fighting for human rights for all. At Chapéu Mangueira, da Silva became a community organizer and a teacher. She used Paulo Freire’s methodology to teach and politicize children and adults. Da Silva earned her B.A. in social work and became a member of the Workers Party (PT). In 1982, she was first elected municipal representative (vereadora) for the city of Rio de Janeiro. Four years later, she was reelected, this time as a federal representative and leader of the National Constituents Assembly. She distinguished herself in the House and became a permanent member of the Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous populations subcommittee. Soon she became a member of the Social Order and

Rick Santos See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians. F URTHER R EADING Benjamin, Medea. 1997. “Benedita da Silva: An Interview with Community Activist and

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354 | Dalits: The Black Untouchables of India Senator.” North American Congress on Latin America Report on the Americas 31 (1): 13–14. da Silva, Benedita. 1997. “Benedita da Silva: An Afro-Brazilian Woman’s Story of Politics and Love.” As told to Medea Benjamin and Maisa Mendonça. Oakland, CA: Institute for Food and Development Policy. da Silva, Benedita. 1997. Benedita da Silva. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: MAUAD.

z Dalits: The Black Untouchables of India Ancient India was Africa’s Asian heartland. In Greater India, during the third century BCE, industrious black men and women erected the powerful Indus Valley civilization. For more than a thousand years, black rule from the Indus Valley flourished over a territorial expanse larger in size than both ancient Sumer and Egypt of the pharaohs. Often referred to as Dravidians, these proud blacks of the Indus Valley were eventually pushed into the central and southern regions of India by the increasingly aggressive incursions of Indo-European tribes. By 800 BCE, these nomadic Aryan peoples had conquered most of northern India and renamed their newly won dominions Aryavarta (“the Aryan Land”). Throughout Aryavarta, a rigid, caste-segmented social order was established, with masses of conquered blacks (Sudras) positioned as the lowest caste and imposed upon for service (in any capacity required) to the higher castes. With the passage of time, this brutally harsh caste system became the basis of the religion that is now practiced throughout all India. This is the religion known as Hinduism. The greatest victims of Hinduism have been the Untouchables. These people are the longsuffering descendants of Aryan-Sudra unions and native black populations, who retreated into the hinterlands of India in their efforts to

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escape the advancing Aryan sphere of influence, to which they ultimately succumbed. The existence of Untouchability has been justified within the context of Hindu religious thought as the ultimate and logical extensions of karma and rebirth. Hindus believe that persons are born Untouchable because of the accumulation of sins in previous lives. Hindu texts describe these people as foul and loathsome things. For caste Hindus, any physical contact with an Untouchable was regarded as polluting. Usually, they lived in pitiful little settlements on the outskirts of Hindu communities. During certain periods in Indian history, Untouchables were allowed to enter the adjoining Hindu communities only at night. Indeed, the Untouchables’ very shadows were considered polluting, and they were required to beat drums and make loud noises to announce their approach. Untouchables had to attach brooms to their backs to erase any evidence of their presence. Cups were tied around their necks to capture any spittle that might escape their lips and contaminate roads and streets. Their meals were consumed from broken dishes. Their clothing was taken from corpses. They were forbidden to learn to read and write and were prohibited from listening to any sacred Hindu texts. Regular access to public wells and water wells was denied them. They could not use ornaments and were not allowed to enter Hindu temples. The primary work of Untouchables included scavenging and street sweeping, emptying toilets, the public execution of criminals, the disposal of dead animals and human corpses, and the cleanup of cremation grounds, all of which were regarded as impure activities by caste Hindus. The daily life of the Untouchables was one of degradation, deprivation, and humiliation. Possibly the most substantial percentage of Asia’s blacks can be identified among India’s two hundred million Untouchables, or Dalits. India’s Untouchables number more than the combined populations of England, France, Belgium, and Spain. Frequently, they are called

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Damas, Léon-Gontran (1912–1976) | 355 Outcastes. The official name given them in India’s Constitution (1947) is Scheduled Castes. The Indian nationalist leader, devout Hindu, and social reformer Mohandas K. Gandhi called them Harijans, meaning “children of god.” Dalit, meaning “crushed and broken,” is a name that has come into prominence only within the past five decades, reflecting a radically different response to oppression. The smoldering anger among Untouchables was fanned into flames almost single-handedly beginning in the 1920s by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956). Born an Untouchable, Ambedkar quickly realized that “there will be outcastes as long as there are castes” and advocated the destruction of the caste system. Under his leadership, the Untouchables began political policies of self-help in the educational and social spheres and launched strident attacks on Hindu orthodoxy. They demanded that the Untouchables be recognized as a separate entity from the caste Hindus and be accorded their own electorate with representation in legislative bodies. In 1956, in a dramatic final break with Hinduism, Ambedkar, with 500,000 of his followers, converted to Buddhism. The Dalit Panthers, named and modeled after the Black Panther Party, also exists among other black liberation groups. Runoko Rashidi See also Central Asia and the Caucasus: The African Presence; India and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Dutt, Nripendra Kumar. 1970. The Aryanisation of India. Rev. ed. Calcutta, India: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay. Keer, Dhananjay. 1971. Dr. Ambedkar: Life and Mission. 3rd ed. Bombay, India: Popular Prakashan. Rajshekar, V. T. 1987. Dalit: The Black Untouchables of India. Foreword by Y. N. Kly. Annexture by Laxmi N. Berwa. Atlanta: Clarity Press. Rashidi, Runoko, and Ivan Van Sertima, eds. 1995. African Presence in Early Asia. Rev. ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press.

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Damas, Léon-Gontran (1912–1976) Léon-Gontran Damas was born in Cayenne, Guyana, and died in Washington, D.C. Damas, who was raised by his aunt, was sent to Meaux (France), where he faced, both materially and mentally, a difficult life in exile and developed a very profound sense of displacement and dislocation. His poetry evokes what Frantz Fanon calls the “scandal of the Negro”: his blackness always and everywhere made him an “affront,” a scandal in a French society identified as white, racist, sexist, and patriarchal. One of the founders of the Négritude movement, Damas launched a collection of vociferous, eruptive, yet also elusive poetry, Pigments (1937), whose title refers to “pigmentation” as the eternal marker of otherness and exclusion, an ontological malaise, and a reason for his awareness of marginalisation in the French society and under racism. While resisting départementalisation—that is, colonies as French overseas departments under French colonialism—the politician Damas would consider this ambivalent colonial solution as a catalyzing everlasting “interior” exile. In his view, départementalisation did not offer a solution for those French-Caribbean populations. Rather, France’s assimilation politics devastated authentic cultures and Creole and Amerindian languages. Worst of all, it generated overall condescending attitudes toward ex-colonies, and their inhabitants created an alienated subject. Damas collaborated intensively with both the Senegalese Léopold Sédar Senghor and the Martinican Aimé Césaire, as well as such African intellectuals in exile in Paris as Cheikh Anta Diop and Alioune Diop, the founder of Présence Africaine (editing house and review). Damas would be involved in the reviews of that period, launching the movement of emancipation of blacks from France’s (ex-)colonies (Légitime Défense, Présence Africaine, Tropiques), and for the presence of the African Diaspora worldwide.

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His poetry expresses the whole “identity prism”: not only race and class but also gender are at stake in his “jazz poetry.” Damas is in line with a major voice of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes, whom he knew very well. A close friend, Damas was preparing a biography in French of the African-American poet. Damas also had as mentor Richard Wright and had fled to Washington for his resistance against the Vichy régime in the World War II war years. Married twice, Damas had the courage to denounce the many difficulties faced by black men in the postwar years in Paris, Europe, and America; for example, how to behave without being called a savage brute wild male (Bigger Thomas) or becoming the very opposite, an emasculated, weak, and totally alienated man (“Solde,” or an Uncle Tom figure). This dilemma comes out in Black-Label (1956), published the same year as James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, which also deals with the problem of black male sexuality. Damas represented the French Antilles in the Assemblée Générale; as an ethnographer, he also traveled the interior of the Amazon forest for a UNESCO mission. The result is Retour de Guyane (republished by Ed J. M. Place, 2003), his travel report, interspersed with very personal reflections on a South American landscape under colonial power. Damas left many uncompleted projects because of his unsuccessful struggle with lung cancer. He died in Washington D.C., where he taught at Howard University at a time when French-Guyanese professors were without doubt rare. Damas was a perfect intermediary between the African American intellectuals and the Afro-Caribbeans, delivering conferences and speeches on Guyana, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and the other French colonies in English. Damas’s impressive writing is totally republished in the ARCHIVOS collection (2005). Kathleen Gyssells See also Césaire, Aimé (1913–2008); France and the African Diaspora; Négritude; Présence Africaine.

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F URTHER R EADING Emina, Antonella, et Sergio Zoppi, eds. 2005. Léon-Gontran Damas. Paris: ARCHIVOS. “Léon-Gontran Damas.” www.lehman.cuny.edu/ile.en.ile/paroles/ damas.html. (Accessed February 12, 2008.) Racine, Daniel. 1983. Léon-Gontran Damas. Paris: Présence Africaine. Tétu, Daniel. 1989. Léon-Gontran Damas: Actes du colloque L-G Damas. Paris: ACCT/Présence Africaine.

z Dance in the African Diaspora Throughout the human world, dance is powerful, nonverbal, expressive communication. Across the African Diaspora, that aesthetic, often dramatic communication is central to social life. Among most African-derived peoples, dancing not only provides festive relaxation but also connects to things beyond entertainment or creativity. For example, dance can be political virtuosity, as black youths, spinning and breaking, take charge of urban spaces when they have been ostracized elsewhere; it can be viable economics, found at the core of tourist settings where critical gains are calculated within aesthetic displays. Most often across the Diaspora, however, dance is wondrous artistry, inseparable from music, and is presented through seasoned specialists who kinesthetically provoke a participating community or touch an observing audience. Dance evokes history; promotes ethnicity, regionalism, and nationalism; and displays the full range of human emotions. Dance and music are barometers of culture; they are constant among social community members and creative artists wherever there are people of African descent. Here, we present a sweeping view of Diaspora dance through its performers, both musicians and dancers, and its themes. Definitive

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Dance in the African Diaspora | 357 case studies of Diaspora dance are growing in number and quality (see bibliography); however, this article only surveys dance performance generally on the African continent, in the Caribbean, and in Latin America. DANCE ON THE A FRICAN C ONTINENT There are key elements to consider when viewing the African continent as broadly as we must here. One issue to remember is that, most often, dance and other African customs are usually described in translations of multiple African languages into English, French, or Portuguese. Confusions abound when, for example, one nation group that has different ethnic or subgroups within it performs certain dances and/or explains their meanings; quite often, the same dance can be called by many names and interpreted differently. Researchers must carefully translate translations of translations, and, as we know, within one language there are often omissions and mistakes in telling the same story. Therefore, explaining the nonverbal communication of African dance across thousands of differing African groups is a daunting task. When we look for dance performance in Africa, however, we see all sorts of incredible and vibrant musical life. Africa’s reality is charged with the power and knowledge of both music and dance. African dance and music—in the east, west, north, or south—are tools that are placed jointly and firmly within form, technique, and structure; they are linked to everything in the environment and laced with emotions, sentiments, and belief systems that support the coexistence of society and the natural world. In Ghana, among the Ewe, Akan-Ashanti, and Krobo, for example, the dancing exhibits an ease of downward and relaxed (versus upward and held) energy; body positioning emphasizes Ghanaian understanding of the close relationship between humans and the earth. Albert M. Opoku, one of the foremost teachers/performers of Ghanaian dance, has ex-

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plained particular gestures and movement patterns in Gakpa, Agbadza, and Atsiagbekor dances (to name a few) that embody Ghanaian history (1965). He points out the flapping motion of the performers’ arms as the action of birds’ wings. This artistic attribute symbolizes historical data regarding the migration of the Ewe people from present-day Benin to Ghana. Similarly, within the national dance of Senegal, sabar, there is a rhythm that references thie bou dien, which is also the name of a Senegalese fish and rice dish. In the dance, viewers see a scooping motion of the hands and arms that signals the Senegalese custom of eating from a communal bowl. Dance researchers have demonstrated that African dance is a signpost directing the community and the viewer through time, revealing culture. Another issue to remember is that secular and nonsecular divisions are for the most part meaningless, since, for example, a particular dance can be social for one event and sacred for another. In African philosophy and traditional religions, however, there is a constant connectedness to the ancestors, often a pantheon of deific entities, as well as to what we usually call the all-encompassing Supreme God; and many worshipers use dance and music to pray. Also for West African dance, which spread across the Diaspora profusely, the role of the griot is especially important to appreciate, since it covers genealogy, history, and performance. Griots are responsible for singing the lineages of African families and thereby relating and maintaining history. As sung histories, griot performances often involve instruments, and in the contemporary world, full orchestrations, with both African and European instruments. Such griots as Foday Musa Suso from Senegal/Gambia and the late Djimo Kouyate of Mali use music as well as dance performance to retell ethnic and national histories to 21st-century audiences beyond their native homes. Oumou Sangare is one of the few female griots, descending from a traditional lineage in Mali.

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Gino Sitson is a modern storyteller and regal horn player, two other important roles in western and central African music/dance. He comes out of a long ntontah tradition from the village of Bazou among the Damileke in western Cameroon, where royal horns herald historical tradition. He uniquely presents traditional rhythms and languages in combination with modern sounds, that is, with jazz or blues superimposed upon traditional melodies and lyrics. When looking at scholarly endeavor on African dance/music, we turn first to some of the most respected masters worldwide, for example J. H. Kwabena Nketia and Albert M. Opoku. Nketia is a Ghanaian musicologist and composer and is easily one of the most prodigious authorities on African music and aesthetics. He is director of the International Center for African Music and Dance (ICAMD), based at the University of Ghana, Legon-Accra (Nketia 1965). The late Albert M. Opoku was founder and director of the National Dance Ensemble of Ghana (Opoku 1965); he has many professional descendents across the Diaspora. A few others who have contributed to the study of African dance include U.S. Americans and Africans: Margaret Thompson Drewal (1992) and Omofolabo Ajayi (1998) on Yoruba performance practices, Kariamu Welsh-Asante on Shona practices in Zimbabwe (1998), and Felix Begho (in Welsh-Asante 1998), Doris Green (in Welsh-Asante 1998), Judith Hanna (1981/82) and Drid Williams (1968, 1970) on the dances of various west African groups (see also Glendola Yherma Mills in Welsh-Asante 1998 for a foundational bibliography). European research on African dance dates from E. E. Evans-Pritchard (1928) to the notable collection by Paul Spencer and others (1985). Some of the richest research on dance, however, is found within Dance Research Journal, Society of Dance History Journal, and Yearbook for Traditional Music. Perhaps two of the most important African

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dance performers and teachers of the ancient Mali Empire (area of current Senegal and Mali) dance materials are Marie Basse-Wales and Hasan Kounta. Sekou Sylla from Guinea and the late Malonga Casquelourds from the Republic of the Congo are dance/music treasures who have generously given of their legacies and creative artistry. These Africans have spread African dance knowledge to several generations, particularly in the United States. Briefly looking at the impact of African musicians on Diaspora dance, the late Nigerian master Babatunde Olatunji was one of the main Africans to educate the Diaspora community and the international music world about African music. He influenced “worldbeat” dancing and music. He and many African musicians joined such African Americans as John Coltrane, Yusef Lateef, Chief Bey, and Nana Yao Dinizulu to create and teach rhythmic and melodic material from many African music cultures both modern and traditional. For contemporary African dancers, we note a unique generation of performer/choreographers, those who are willing to “push the envelope” past the idea of “traditional Africa.” Germaine Acogny Cree of Benin, Salia Sanou and Seydou Boro from Burkina Faso, Youssouf Kambassa from Guinea, Nii Yarty of Ghana, just to name a few, are outspoken artist/ craftspersons. They have shaped works that show the influence of African Americans, that is, daring intra-Diaspora connections. It is this type of engagement with the commonalities that exist among Diaspora cultures, as well as a profound respect for the interrelationship of music and dance, that signals change in African dance aesthetics of the future. Young African artists are examining both the variations and commonalities that Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora share. They call upon ancestral wisdom concerning dance/music and healing and hope the world takes seriously the social cures of dance performance. On the continent, dance is esteemed, and performers are well-regarded,

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Dance in the African Diaspora | 359 despite the current era of microtechnology and the ever-present need for economic support of artistic performance. A FRICAN AND A FRICAN -D ERIVED DANCE IN THE U NITED S TATES In the United States, African and African American dance have historically been sources of embarrassment and erasure or cultural history and creative legacy (Hazzard-Gordon 1990; Gottschild 1996; De Frantz 2002). African dance and music survivals—calland-response form, flexed and readied body orientation, interdependency of movement and music-making, and so forth—produced African American creations that influenced both “black and white America.” Dancer Asadata Dafora from Sierra Leone is often cited as the first impetus to American presentation of concert and theatrical African dance presentation. Not until significant immigration from newly independent African nations in the 1960s did the United States have or promote such African dance masters as the Ghanaian Ladzepko brothers, the Congolese Malonga Casquelourds and family, the Senegalese Zac Diouf, and many others. For centuries, dance itself fought against the rigid restrictions on dancing and music-making in a Judeo-Christian society. Neither social nor artistic dance displays have ever totally destroyed the Puritan negativity toward the body itself within mainstream U.S. culture (Foulkes 2002). Still, from the 17th century forward, African Americans routinely released their bodies in dance and music in order to manifest spirit—on plantations, in rural praisehouses, and in storefront urban churches (Emery 1985). In the 18th and 19th centuries, they fostered the growth of dance performance in their homes as well as through vaudeville and a “chitlin’ circuit” of theaters (theaters with black audiences; Gottschild 2000). Additionally, they began to maintain dance/music training centers. By the 20th century, dance studios and centers had become common structures in black communities.

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In 1998, Philadanco’s Joan Myers Brown, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company’s Jeraldyne Blunden, Dallas Black Dance Theater’s Ann Williams, Denver’s Cleo Parker Robinson, and Los Angeles’s Lula Washington—all black dancers/directors/teachers—were feted nationally for contributing more than one thousand black dance artists to national and international companies. And there are many others—such as Ruth Beckford and Dimensions Theater’s Deborah Vaughn in Oakland, California, and Mary Lois Hudson Sweatt in Dallas, Texas—who have kept dance performance in the fore of community activity for more than 25 years. All of these dance companies/schools—and dance itself, by extension— have supported local communities, keeping black children especially off the streets, teens out of prison, and adults in honest and regular employment (Daniel et al. 1997). These teachers/artists owe a great deal to two African American dancers, researchers, and community educators: Katherine Dunham and Pearl Primus. Dunham became a choreographer for stage and movies in the 1930s and 1940s, developed Dunham dance technique in order to train dancers in her Caribbean-based dance repertoire, and presented African-derived cultures in theatrical scenarios. She spread knowledge of Diaspora cultures to an international audience by touring her self-produced company for more than 30 years (Aschenbrenner 1980). Primus brought African-inspired dance to the concert stage and the classroom as a fierce solo artist. She transmitted the heritages of Africa when people in the United States were more miseducated about the continent than they are now (Green 2002). Dunham and Primus also infused the then new modern dance with themes from a segregated U.S.(Hill 2002). Dunham and Primus paved the way for thousands of recognized performers: Talley Beatty, Donald McKayle, Carmen de Lavallarde, Janet Collins, Charles Moore, Eleo Palmare, Chuck Davis, and Bill T. Jones (Long

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1989; Myers et al. 1993). Also, their promotion of dance as a research subject aided African dance legacies by inspiring early dance historian Joe Nash and others to keep track of this ethereal form in organized documentation; their artistry and research encouraged dance reconstructionist and African American dance griot Dianne McIntyre and others to perform the dances of African American choreographers. It was Alvin Ailey who succeeded Dunham in making African American dance the dance emblem of the United States through his exquisite company choreography. Most recently, African-derived dance in the United States has skyrocketed via the Internet and public dance clubs as popular music culture has become globalized. Since the 1970s, hip-hop culture has come to define a major portion of contemporary popular culture—from music and dance to fashion and language. Computerized technology permits youth around the world to jam to rap songs and spoken words and assume African American body postures and gestures. There is an Afrocentric explosion, from a U.S. dance viewpoint: tap dance is often entwined with modern concert dance; break dance has been on stage with ballet and is a television mainstay; Caribbean and African traditional materials are being fused to European and North American–derived concert dance; and an Africanderived movement vocabulary certainly dominates mainstream dance on videos, films, and dance floors. Such transculturation of African-derived dance makes issues of authenticity, appropriation, and globalization loom large (Scott 2003). A FRICAN DANCE IN THE C ARIBBEAN The Caribbean region has been a repository of African dance as well as a lush garden of new creations; things African have also suffered from colonialism, classism, and racism within the Caribbean. Countless African ethnic groups formed amalgam nations in the Americas and have constructed neo-African reli-

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gious rituals. These were resistant acts against the total destruction of African customs. Dance-dependent African American religions formed that were resilient in the face of Roman Catholic and/or Protestant hegemony and exhibited spiritual transformations within worshipping congregations, for example, Santería in Cuba, Vodou in Haiti, Kumina in Jamaica and Spiritual Baptists in Trinidad and Tobago. During plantation times, Africans in the Caribbean performed what they remembered of African movement. They also imitated movement from the new European-influenced environment. Additionally, by the 19th century, new forms and styles that had been created were set. Each island developed national dance typologies (e.g., Honorat 1955; David 1985). Regardless of linguistic differences, common dance forms emerged: (1) circular group forms, in which a solo performer or a duo danced rhythmically in the center to percussion and vocal accompaniment; (2) linear group forms, in which groups of couples danced in an open position in configured spatial patterns to percussion, string, wind, and brass instruments; and (3) closed partner dance forms that featured male and female body contact while performing to percussion, string, wind, and brass instrumentation. Always improvisation and rhythm were key elements of African-derived dance/music structure. By the 20th century, dance performance potentially yielded three products: aesthetic pleasure (or recreation), spiritual transcendence, and foreign currency (or profit). Tourism became one of the largest economic forces throughout the Caribbean, and with it came commercialization of African-derived culture. The main advantages for dance within tourism were that island nations could present distinct images of their diverse cultures and simultaneously make much-needed profits from performance. Among many disadvantages of tourist dance were condensation of form and secular-

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Dance in the African Diaspora | 361 ization of sacred materials (Goldberg 1982; Daniel 1996). Many Caribbean performers have relied on African heritage and have presented African and African American culture over time to myriad international audiences. For Haiti there are several distinguished dance artists: Haitians Jean Léon Destiné, Odette Wilner, and Vivian Gaultier, and the late African American Lavinia Williams Yarborough, in addition to more well-known Katherine Dunham, who have presented African dance as it evolved in the first black Republic (Yarborough 1958; Burroughs 1995; Wilckens 2002). Cuba is exceedingly important for African dance (Ortiz 1951; Daniel 2002). Catholic associations, cabildos, conserved distinct African ethnic heritages from the 16th century forward. Four dance/music traditions evolved within cabildos: Kongo-Angola, Arará, Yoruba and Carabalí (or Abakuá). These music/movement traditions continue today, as well as echo within classic Cuban choreographies by Ramiro Guerra, Eduardo Rivera, Teresa Gonzalez, and Manolo Micler (Mousouris 2002). The late, formidable Sylvia del Villard almost single-handedly fostered the recognition of African dance in 20th-century Puerto Rico. She and two families noted for the dance bomba, the Cepedas and Ayalas, have placed Puerto Rican forms within the stage dance repertoire (Barton 2002). Puerto Rican identity and issues of transnationality and transculturation have also brought salsa to serious analysis (Quintero-Rivera 1998; Waxer 2002). For Jamaica, perhaps no one has done more for African-derived movement artistry than Rex Nettleford, founder of the National Dance Theater of Jamaica (Nettleford 1985). From maroon settlements to Rasta rebellions to reggae explosions, agency and resistance through music and movement have marked this island (Thomas 2002). Beryl McBurnie, a Trinidadian, is considered the “Mother of Caribbean dance” in the Anglophone Caribbean, especially for the

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training of several generations of theater artists and dance teachers (Ahye 1982). Additionally J.D. Elder and Molly Ahye have documented dance/music of Trinidad and Tobago (Ahye 1978; Elder 1969). Other scholars have documented Trinidad’s most famous ritual of rebellion, Carnival (Stewart 2001; Hill 1993). Dancers in Martinique perform a festive group form called bele to reiterate their island identity, as Guadeloupans dance gwoka and Carriacouans dance nation dance or big drum (McDaniel 1998). Many look to the directors of bele, gwoka, and nation dance organizations as both artistic and sociopolitical leaders, like Martinican La Soso and Guadeloupean Lena Blou. Also in the Netherlands Antilles, AfroCuraçaoan dance/music still prevails despite postcolonial antagonisms; the struggle of tambu performance has been documented and also popularized by poets, drummers, and storytellers (Rosalia 1997; Christa 2002). Thus, we see that the dancers and the musicians of each island are responsible for the continuity of African descended dance in the Caribbean. These specialists make dramatic, virtuoso displays that thrill onlookers; but most importantly, they generate the impulse to keep dancing. A FRICAN DANCE IN L ATIN A MERICA Although Latin America is vast and noted for its indigenous characteristics, it, too, has received the indelible influence of African dance and music. In niches from the maroon encampments of San Basilio, Colombia and Yanga/San Lorenzo de los Negros, Mexico, to northern Surinamese nations, to eastern communities in Peru and southern Afro-Latin communities in the Rio de la Plata of Uruguay and Argentina, African-derived dance formations have survived (Andrews 2004; Olivera Chirimini 2001; Daniel 1983). Each country has some named African dances. Most often in Latin America, however, African legacies were erased from history through mestisaje or an emphasis on the native and European mixtures

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that regularly occurred. Yet, in the playing of the harp and the hip punctuation amid zapateo or the typical foot-stamping of Mexican dance/music, even mestisaje observers give credit to the resilience of African ways in Mexican dance (Gonzalez 2004). In Central America and across the Diaspora today, thousands of mixed African and indigenous peoples organize annually around music making and dance. For example, the Central American Garifuna gather for punta dancing and sociopolitical agendas (Greene 2004). The largest African population and culture outside of the African continent impresses its identity on national dance/music forms. In Brazil’s samba and carnaval (Browning 1995; Scott 2001) to capoeira (Almeida 1986; Lewis 1992) and Candomblé religious forms (Walker 1991), African customs and performance values reign. Brazilian dance documentation is relatively scarce as compared with music documentation (see de Andrade and Canton 1996; cf. Perrone and Dunn 2001). The main promoters of Afro-Brazilian dance heritage are Marlene Silva (choreographer of Orfeo Negro) in Rio; Raimundo Mestre “Kinge” dos Santos and his disciples Augusto Omolu, Luiz Badaró, Silvestre Silvestre, and Rosangela Sylvestre in Bahia; and Clyde Morgan, Isaura Oliveira, and Augusto Soledade in the United States. Jelon Vierra, Mestre Jojo Grande, Mestre Jojo Pequeno, and Mestre Cobrinha have introduced thousands of students to capoeira and thereby have influenced the international dance scene as well. In the southern cone, African-derived dance and music are experiencing a national revival. Both Argentine tango and Uruguayan candombe have been transposed to the new key of 21stcentury African roots (Chasteen 2004; Garcia 2001; Rodriguez 2001). Northern Latin America has recognized African heritage more often than the south. One 20th-century example documents the crucial influence of chombos, in this case African American sailors who brought and circulated early salsa recordings and established

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Colombia and Venezuela as salsa centers (Satizábal 2002). C ONCLUSION From a Diaspora viewpoint, African and African-derived dance/music have affected the world beyond their African-derived creators (from tap, rumba, reggae, samba, tango, bamba, bomba, zouk, salsa, to hip-hop). Most often, it does this through riveting, rhythmic excitation and creative, participatory response. African dance/music is core to many nonAfrican forms of creative enterprise, producing fusions of all sorts. Fusion is not unique to artistic forms. Cubans have developed danza cubana, a technique and an aesthetic that have spread their African roots history and simultaneously presented cultural fusion worldwide on the dance concert stage (John 2002). Also, Dunham technique and choreography are concert fusions of Caribbean and U.S. modern dance. A similar national fusion in popular dance is Puerto Rican salsa. For contemporary artists, however, fusion is emblematic of current theoretical issues: identity formation, authenticity, hybridity, transculturation, appropriation, transnationalism, and globalization. For example, Curaçaoan Gabri Christa and Brazilian Augusto Soledade, like many other young Diaspora dance artists, are presenting concert work that fuses two “homes,” as they artistically examine transnational identities and, in the process, forge new fusions (Soledade 2003). Some fusions are not simply mainstream and African-derived mixtures but intra-Diaspora in structure. For example, dancers have experimented with soca (U.S. soul and Trinidadian calypso), sambareggae (Brazilian samba and Jamaican reggae), rumbatap (U.S. tap and Cuban rumba and other Cuban rhythmic forms). Also on the concert stage, Ghanaian court dance materials have fused with hip-hop gestural dance to produce new movement forms (Love 2003). Some of the most profound fusions to hit the stage have come from the per-

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Dance in the African Diaspora | 363 spectives of jazz music and concert dance, for example, Antoine and Nia Roney, who have united not only African-derived music and dance in refreshing proximity but also continental and Diaspora dance, resulting in creative intra-Diaspora hybridity (Dunning 2001). The Diaspora is still permeated with patriarchy and arts industry politics. Local “old-boy” networks harness power across the Diaspora and control the gates of black dance presentation. Feminism, gender, and queer studies have only begun to raise consciousness among dance funders and the public (Desmond 2001). For example, women dance artists, while more numerous and as prolific as men, still “pay the price” to a male-dominated international arts industry. More male dancers are accorded the financial support that comes with public recognition of artistic excellence. In New York City, for example, African and African-derived dancers have Djoniba’s, Boys’ Harbor, and only a few more studios to develop their techniques and artistry; space is expensive and scarce. Brilliant choreographies like Garth Fagan’s “Lion King,” Marlies Yearby’s “Rent,” Jawole Zolar’s “Praise House” and “Hair,” or stellar mélanges of dance, music, and theater in Les Ballets Africains de Guinea or Les Ballets Senegalais, Folklórico Nacional de Cuba or Peru Negro, have all earned tremendous acclaim. These are the phenomenal exceptions; most Diaspora dance artists struggle constantly to engage in dance as life work (Gonzalez 1999; Gottschild 2003). Regardless, African communities survive, and performers thrive. African heritage continues both within and outside of the Diaspora. As Diaspora communities keep dancing, they endure marginalization and overcome erasures due to racism, religious bias, and fear of the body itself. They celebrate joyfully in dance and music making as their ancestors have done across generations and geography for centuries. Dance performance across the African Diaspora is still resilient and joyful body communication. Yvonne Daniel and Nia Love

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See also African Diaspora Performance Aesthetics. F URTHER R EADING Acogny, Germaine. 1980. Danse Africaine. Dakar, Senegal: Les Nouvelles Editions Africaines. Ahye, Molly. 1978. Golden Heritage: The Dances of Trinidad and Tobago. Petit Valley, Trinidad: Heritage Cultures. Ahye, Molly. 1982. Cradle of Caribbean Dance: Beryl McBurnie and the Little Carib Theatre. Petit Valley, Trinidad: Heritage Cultures. Ajayi, Omofolabo. 1998. Yoruba Dance: The Semiotics of Movement and Body Attitude in a Nigerian Culture. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Almeida, Bira. 1986. Capoeira, A Brazilian Art Form. Richmond, CA: North Atlantic Books. Andrade, Marilia de, and Katia Canton. 1996. “Overview of Dance Research and Publications in Brazil.” Dance Research Journal 28 (2): 114–122. Andrews, George Reid. 2004. Afro-Latin America, 1800–2000. New York: Oxford University Press. Aschenbrenner, Joyce. 1980. “Katherine Dunham: Reflections on the Social and Political Contexts of Afro-American Dance.” Dance Research Annual 12. New York: CORD. Barton, Hal. 2002. “The Challenges of Puerto Rican Bomba.” Caribbean Dance from Abakuá to Zouk, ed. S. Sloat, 183–198. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Blum, Odette. 1973. Dance in Ghana. New York: Dance Perspective Foundation. Browning, Barbara. 1995. Samba: Resistance in Motion. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Buonaventura, Wendy. 1990. The Serpent and the Nile: Women and Dance in the Arab World. New York: Interlink Books. Burroughs, Joan. 1995. Haitian Ceremonial Dance on the Stage: The Contextual Transference and Transformation of Yanvalou. Ph.D. diss., New York University. Chasteen, John C. 2004. National Rhythms, African Roots: The Deep History of Latin American Popular Dance. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Chernoff, John Miller. 1979. African Rhythm, African Sensibilities: Aesthetics and Social Action in African Musical Idioms. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Christa, Gabri. 2002. “Tambu: Afro-Curaçao’s Music and Dance of Resistance.” In Caribbean

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364 | Dance in the African Diaspora Dance from Abakuá to Zouk, ed. S. Sloat, 291– 304. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Clark, Veve, and Margaret Wilkerson, eds. 1978. Kaiso! An Anthology of Writings. Berkeley: University of California Press. Cyrille, Dominique. 2002. “Sa Ki Ta Nou (This Belongs To Us): Creole Dances of the French Caribbean.” In Caribbean Dance from Abakuá to Zouk, ed. S. Sloat, 221–246. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Dance Research Journal. 1974–. New York: Congress on Research in Dance (CORD). Daniel, Yvonne. 1983. “Dancing Down River: A Presentation on the Dance of Suriname.” Dance Ethnologists, University of California, Los Angeles, 7: 24–39. Daniel, Yvonne. 1995. Rumba: Dance and Social Change in Contemporary Cuba. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Daniel, Yvonne. 1996. “Dance in Tourist Settings: Authenticity and Creativity.” Annals of Tourism Research 23 (4): 780–797. Daniel, Yvonne. 2002. “Cuban Dance: An Orchard of Caribbean Creativity.” In Caribbean Dance from Abakuá to Zook, ed. S. Sloat, 23–55. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Daniel, Yvonne. 2005. Dancing Wisdom: Embodied Knowledge in Haitian Vodou, Cuban Yoruba, and Bahian Candomblé. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. Daniel, Yvonne, et al. 1997. Dance Women: Living Legends. New York: Arts Center. David, Christine. 1985. Folklore of Carriacou. St. Michael, Barbados, W.I.: Coles Printery. de Andrade, Marilia, and Katia Canton. 1996. “Overview of Dance Research and Publications in Brazil.” Dance Research Journal 28 (2): 114–122. DeFrantz, Thomas, ed. 2002. Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Desmond, Jane, ed. 2001. Dancing Desires: Choreographing Sexualities On and Off Stage. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Drewal, Margaret Thompson. 1975. “Symbols of Possession: A Study of Movement and Regalia in an Anago-Yoruba Ceremony.” Dance Research Journal 7 (2): 15–24. Drewal, Margaret Thompson. 1992. Yoruba Ritual: Performance, Play, Agency. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Dunham, Katherine. 1985. Dances of Haiti. Los Angeles: Center for Afro-American Studies,

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University of California. (Original published in 1947.) Dunning, Jennifer. 2001. “Through Sidewalk Cracks, Hardy Cultural Flowers Leap Toward the Sun.” New York Times, June 7. Elder, Jacob D. 1969. From Congo Drum to Steelband: A Socio-historical Account of the Emergence of the Trinidad Steel Orchestra. St. Augustine: University of the West Indies. Emery, Lynne. 1985. Black Dance in the United States from 1619 to 1970. Palo Alto: National Press Books. (Original published in 1972.) Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1928. “Dance.” Africa 4: 446–462. Foulkes, Julia. 2002. Modern Bodies: Dance and American Modernism from Martha Graham to Alvin Ailey. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Fraleigh, Sondra, and Penelope Hanstein, eds. 1999. Researching Dance: Evolving Modes of Inquiry. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Garcia, Jesús (Chucho). 2001. “Demystifying African Absence in Venezuelan History and Culture.” In African Roots, American Cultures, Africa in the Creation of the Americas, ed. S. Walker, 284–290. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Gerstin, Julian. 2000. “Musical Revivals and Social Movements in Contemporary Martinique: Ideology, Identity, and Ambiguity.” In The African Diaspora: A Musical Perspective, ed. Ingrid Monson, 295–238. New York: Garland Press. Goldberg, Alan. 1982. “Play and Ritual in Haitian Voodoo Shows for Tourists.” In The Paradoxes of Play, ed. John Loy, 24–29. West Point, NY: Leisure Press. Gonzalez, Anita. 1999. “Caught Between Expectations: Producing, Performing and Writing Black/Afro-Latin and American Aesthetics.” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Spring: 149–156. Gonzalez, Anita. 2004. Jarocho’s Soul: Cultural Identity and Afro-Mexican Dance. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Gottschild, Brenda. 1996. Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance: Dance and Other Contexts. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Gottschild, Brenda. 2000. Waltzing in the Dark: African American Vaudeville and Racer Politics in the Swing Era. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Gottschild, Brenda. 2003. The Black Dancing Body: A Geography from Coon to Cool. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

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Dance in the African Diaspora | 365 Green, Richard. 2002. “(Up) Staging the Primitive: Pearl Primus and ‘the Negro Problem’ in American Dance.” In Dancing Many Drums, ed. T. DeFrantz, 105–139. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Greene, Oliver N. 2004. “Ethnicity, Modernity, and Retention in the Garifuna Punta.” Center for Black Music Research (CBMR) Journal 22 (Fall): 189–216. Hanna, Judith Lynne. 1981–1982. “Dance and the ‘Women’s War.’” Dance Research Journal 14(1– 2): 25–28. Hazzard-Gordon, Katrina. 1990. Jookin’: The Rise of Social Dance Formations in AfricanAmerican Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Hill, Constance Vallis. 2002. “Katherine Dunham’s Southland: Protest in the Face of Repression.” In Dancing Many Drums, ed. T. DeFrantz, 289–316. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Hill, Donald R. 1993. Calypso Calaloo: Early Carnival Music in Trinidad. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Honorat, Michel Lamartinière. 1955. “Les danses folkloriques haitiennes.” Bureau du Ethnologie 2 (11): 1–155. John, Suki. 2002. “The Ténica Cubana.” In Caribbean Dance from Abakuá to Zouk, ed. S. Sloat, 73–78. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Lewis, John. L. 1992. Ring of Liberation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Long, Richard A. 1989. The Black Tradition in American Dance. New York: Rizzoli International. Love, Nia. 2003. “Deconstructing Body Poses in the Diaspora.” Contemporary Issues Panel of Association for the Study of Worldwide African Diaspora Conference, Oct. 3, unpublished paper. McDaniel, Lorna. 1998. The Big Drum Ritual of Carriacou: Praisesongs in Rememory of Flight. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Mousouris, Melinda. 2002. “The Dance World of Ramiro Guerra.” In Caribbean Dance from Abakuá to Zouk, ed. S. Sloat, 56–72. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Myers, Gerald, et al. 1993. African American Genius in Modern Dance. Durham, NC: American Dance Festival. Nettleford, Rex. 1985. Dance Jamaica: Cultural Definition and Artistic Discovery: The National Dance Theater Company of Jamaica. New York: Grove Press.

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Nketia, J. H. Kwabena. 1965. “The Interrelations of African Music and Dance.” Studia Musicologica 7: 91–101. Olivera Chirimini, Thomas. 2001. “Candombe, African Nations, and the Africanity of Uruguay.” In African Roots, American Cultures, Africa in the Creation of the Americas, ed. S. Walker, 256–274. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Opoku, Alfred M. 1965. “Choreography and the African Dance.” Institution of African Studies Research Review, University of Ghana, 3(1): 53–59. Ortiz, Fernando. 1951. Los bailes y el teatro de los negros en el folklore de Cuba. La Habana: Editorial Letras Cubanas. Perrone, Charles A., and Christopher Dunn, eds. 2001. Brazilian Popular Music and Globalization. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Primus, Pearl. 1969. “Life Crises: Dance from Birth to Death.” American Therapy Association Proceedings from the Fourth Annual Conference, Philadelphia, 1–13. Primus, Pearl. Ca. 1983. “African Dance: Eternity Captured.” Caribe 7(1&2): 10–13. Quintero-Rivera, Angel. 1998. Salsa, sabor y control: Sociología de la música “tropical.” Mexico City, Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno Editores. Rodriguez, Romero Jorge. 2001. “The Afro Populations of America’s Southern Cone: Organization, Development, and Culture in Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay.” In African Roots, American Cultures, Africa in the Creation of the Americas, ed. S. Walker, 314–331. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Rosalia, Rene. 1997. Tambu: De legale en kerkelijke repressie van Afro-Curaçaose volksuitingen. Zutphen, Netherlands: Uitgeversmaatschappij Walburg Pers. Satizábal, Medardo Arias. 2002. “Se Prohibe Escuchar “Salsa y Control”: When Salsa Arrived in Buenaventura, Colombia.” In Situating Salsa: Global Markets and Local Meaning in Latin Popular Music, ed. and trans. L. Waxer, 247–258. New York and London: Routledge. Scott, Anna. 2001. “A Falaque Fav/Words That Work”: Performance of Black Power Ideologies in Bloco Afro Carnaval in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, 1968–Present. Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University. Scott, Anna. 2003. “What’s It Worth to Ya? Adaptation and Anachronism: Remy Harris’s Pure Movement and Shakespeare.” Discourses in Dance, 3: 2–18.

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366 | Dance Theatre of Harlem Sloat, Susanna, ed. 2002. Caribbean Dance from Abakuá to Zouk: How Movement Shapes Identity. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Society of Dance History Scholars’ Journal. 1983–. Riverside, CA: Society of Dance History Scholars. Soledade, Augusto. 2003. “Moving Poetics of the Sweet and Sour: A Phenomenology of African Diaspora Fusion Aesthetics.” Contemporary Issues Panel of ASWAD Conference, Oct. 3, unpublished paper. Spencer, Paul, ed. 1985. Society and the Dance: The Anthropology of Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stewart, John O. 2001. “Cultural Passages in the African Diaspora: The West Indian Carnival.” In African Roots, American Cultures, ed. S. Walker, 206–221. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Thomas, Deborah. 2002.”Democratizing Dance: Institutional Transformation and Hegemonic Re-Ordering in Post-Colonial Jamaica.” Cultural Anthropology 17(4): 512–550. Walker, Sheila. 1991. “A Choreography of the Universe: The Afro-Brazilian Candomblé as a Microcosm of Yoruba Spiritual Geography.” Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly 16 (2): 42–50. Walker, Sheila, ed. 2001. African Roots, American Cultures, Africa in the Creation of the Americas. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Waxer, Lise, ed. 2002. Situating Salsa: Global Markets and Local Meaning in Latin Popular Music. New York: Routledge. Welsh-Asante, Kariamu, ed. 1998. African Dance: An Artistic, Historical, and Philosophical Inquiry. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Wilckens, Lois. 2002. “Spirit Unbounded: New Approaches to the Performances of Haitian Folklore.” In Caribbean Dance from Abakuá to Zouk, ed. S. Sloat, 114–123. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Williams, Drid. 1968. “The Dance of the Bedu Moon.” African Arts 2(1): 18–21. Williams, Drid. 1970. “Sokodae: Come and Dance.” African Arts 3(3): 36–39. Yarborough, Lavinia Williams. Ca. 1958. Haiti: Dance. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Bronners. Yearbook for Traditional Music. 1982–. New York: International Council for Traditional Music.

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Dance Theatre of Harlem In its own words, the Dance Theatre of Harlem is more than dance. As both a professional performing company and an affiliated community school of the allied arts, the Dance Theatre of Harlem was founded with the express purpose of enriching the lives of the young and the old through music, dance, and theater. This fundamental commitment to transcendence and integration would simultaneously epitomize the company and, at times, constrain it—specifically, the tension between validating itself as a premier classical ballet company and living up to the sociocultural expectation that black people really can dance and can dance ballet. Fashioned as a multicultural, never exclusively black American ballet company, the Dance Theatre of Harlem was formed in 1969 under the leadership of Arthur Mitchell, one of the country’s leading black American dancers, and Karel Shook, Mitchell’s ballet instructor and mentor to many black dancers of the time. Born into a political climate of social change, particularly racial reclassification and reconfiguration, the company’s guiding principles—returning the arts to people to whom they belong (implicitly, black Americans) while maintaining the technical and artistic integrity typically associated with classical ballet—shaped both the artistic and social aims of the company. Though nonpolitical and selfproclaimed as unethnic, it was the company’s mission to prove that black people could dance ballet, and collectively the company was intent on convincing audiences, both new and old, that dance could be simultaneously entertaining and enlightening. Mitchell and Shook sought to provide dancers of all nationalities with an outlet to perform, teach, and encourage. Ominously, the Dance Theatre of Harlem came into existence during a time when civil rights were still a galvanizing ideal. In fact, Mitchell would cite the assassination of Dr. Mar-

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Dance Theatre of Harlem | 367 tin Luther King Jr. in 1968 as inspiration for the creation of the school, hoping that it would offer children, particularly those in poor urban settings, the opportunity to learn about dance and the allied arts. In its early years, the company was sometimes met with resistance from audiences who responded unfavorably to the newfangled idea of black dancers performing classical ballet. Mitchell committed himself to imbue young dancers, black and white alike, with the compulsory confidence, concrete technique, and imaginative artistry to perform in a society that historically consigned black dancers to ethnic forms of dance. In 1969, the Dance Theatre of Harlem became the nation’s first (black) professional ballet company, joining the prodigious Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre as an elite (black) professional dance company. During this time, such large foundations as the Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts contributed money, particularly to new, emergent forms of black arts. Although at the time, black dancers were not a complete anomaly in a majority white, or at least nonblack, professional dance world, they were rarely principal company members. Such black male ballet dancers as Arthur Mitchell, Geoffrey Holder (who would become one of the first black male lead dancers at the Metropolitan Opera), and John Jones sometimes found work with leading dance companies; more frequently they enjoyed more prominent stints with shortlived ballet companies. Equally, black women dancers were typically relegated to guest appearances in works outside the standard ballet repertory. Leading dancers of the period—Judith Jamison, who would later become Alvin Ailey’s muse; Janet Collins, who, despite her light complexion was told that she could only perform in white face; and Carmen de Lavallade, Collins’s cousin, who studied under Lester Horton and later danced under Alvin Ailey—all found work but were rarely offered contracts to remain as principal company members. Though these women would go on to accomplish great

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things in the dance world, it was not without hard-fought struggles against racism and the tradition of classical ballet as reserved only for white dancers that these accomplishments were made. From its beginnings, the Dance Theatre of Harlem was largely reliant upon Mitchell and Shook’s personal networks, the generosity of large institutions, and the patronage of a culture excited about patronizing the arts. The company became public with its official debut at the Guggenheim Museum in 1971 and performed its first extended engagement at Jacob’s Pillow in 1970. Both performances were met with decisive praise, rapidly securing the company’s position as the first established black classical ballet company with an international reputation, a claim supported by performances in such places as Sadler’s Wells and for such individuals as Queen Elizabeth. Such prominent dance performances would continue throughout the company’s sometimes financially difficult career, as evidenced by its appearance as the first dance company to perform in postapartheid South Africa in 1992. The company’s critical and international acclaim was largely the result of a solid repertoire of such standard classical ballets as Agon and Concerto, the rights of which were given free of charge by Dance Theatre of Harlem board member and celebrated artistic director George Balanchine. Similarly, the company enjoyed the support of such high-status art directors and patrons as Lincoln Kristen, patron of the New York City Ballet, who also sat on the board with Balanchine. The Peabodys, Rockefellers, and Plimptons are included among family names long associated with philanthropy. These families also provided generous donations to the Dance Theatre of Harlem, particularly in the company’s early years. Given its heavy reliance on private and government donations, during social periods of extreme social and financial strife, the company suffered tremendously. For example,

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in 1981, 12 years after its inception, the company lost its financial footing chiefly because of declines in private donor support—likely a response to changing social and economic conditions under the Reagan administration. Similarly, in 1990, when faced with a projected $1.7 million deficit, the company laid off all its company members and staffed personnel for six months. Most recently, in 2004, the company scaled back its performance calendar due to extreme budget deficits. Sometimes these changes demand reducing the size of its principal company, prohibiting the performance of such larger, standard ballets as the company staple, Firebird, or the use of the company school’s students to fill space in the chorus; at other times, reducing the company’s efforts to teach dance and the allied arts both at the company’s school in Harlem and throughout the world. However, despite these periods of financial privation, the company has consistently found ways to continue fulfilling Mitchell’s legacy of teaching and performing dance in ways that transcend, and in many ways deconstruct, existing racial, class, and social barriers. David J. Johns See also Dance in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Dance Theatre of Harlem, “Company,” www.dancetheatreofharlem.org/company. (Accessed January 22, 2008) Defrantz, Thomas F. 2001. Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance. Studies in Dance History. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Emery, Lynne F., and Katherine Dunham, eds. 1988. Black Dance: From 1619 to Today. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Book Company. Garafola, Lynn. 2000. “Dance Theater of Harlem at Thirty.” In Legacies of Twentieth-Century Dance. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Originally published in The Nation. Gottschild, Brenda D. 2003. The Black Dancing Body: A Geography from Coon to Cool. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Shook, Karel. 1977. Elements of Classical Ballet Technique as Practices in the School of the

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Dance Theatre of Harlem. New York: Dance Horizons.

z Dangarembga, Tsitsi (1959–) Although born in Mutoko, Zimbabwe, this incredibly gifted writer, filmmaker, feminist, and activist spent her childhood from ages two through six in Britain, much like one of the leading characters in her coming-of-age novel, Nervous Conditions (1988). She began her education in a British school, thereby citing English as her first language and having to relearn Shona, but after returning to Rhodesia with her family, she concluded her A-levels in a missionary school in the city of Mutare. Later, she went back to Britain to attend Cambridge University, where she pursued a course of study in medicine. Feelings of homesickness and alienation moved her to return to her homeland of Rhodesia in 1980, just before it became Zimbabwe under black majority rule. After returning home, Dangarembga pursued a degree in psychology at the University of Zimbabwe and wrote and directed several plays, including The Lost of the Soil (1983) and She No Longer Weeps (1987). Nervous Conditions, which was published by the time Dangarembga was 25, has been praised internationally and is considered foundational to the study of patriarchy, coloniality, and postindependence. In addition to being the first book published in English by a Black Zimbabwean woman, this novel won the African section of the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize in 1989. Dangarembga continued her education in Berlin at the Deutsche Film und Fernseh Akademie, where she studied film direction and produced a documentary for German television. Her film Everyone’s Child (1996) presents a beautifully haunting narrative of a family struggling to survive the AIDS pandemic. It is also the first film written and directed by a Zimbabwean

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Danish West Indies: Oldendorp’s 18th-Century Findings | 369 woman. Also to her film credit is Neria (1992), for which she wrote the story. This film became the highest-grossing film in Zimbabwean history. Dangarembga divides her time between Germany and Zimbabwe. Keshia Abraham See also Germany and the African Diaspora; United Kingdom: The African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Dangarembga, Tsitsi. 1988. Nervious Conditions. Seattle: Seal.

z Danish West Indies: Oldendorp’s 18th-Century Findings In 1767, Moravian scholar Christian Georg Andreas Oldendorp (1987, 203–206) interviewed scores of Africans who originated from the geographical areas ranging from Senegambia to West Central Africa. His work reveals some early aspects of the development of the African Diaspora in the Caribbean. The four main cultural groups he identified were the Mande, the Kwa (Akan and Yoruba), and the Kongo-Angola (Bantu). These groups correspond to Alleyne’s (1989, 66–67) main groups within the Niger-Congo family: the West Atlantic (located in Senegal, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Sierra Leone, and comprising chiefly Wolof, Serer, Temne, and Fulani), Mande (located east of the Atlantic group, in Senegambia, Mali, and Guinea, with principal members being Mandingo, Bambara, Mende, and Dyula), Kwa (located on the Gold Coast and made up primarily of Akan dialects: Fante, Twi, and Asante), and Bantu (located in East, West, and Central Africa). The Bantu languages of the Congo River Basin area include Luba, Kikongo, Lingala of Zaire and the Congo Republic, and Kimbundo of Angola.

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Oldendorp’s research suggests not only that the relationship between “bussals” (newly arrived Africans) and creolized Africans was more complex than traditionally assumed but also that Afro-European religious syncretism predates the Atlantic slave trade era. C OSMOLOGIES IN C ONTACT: C ATHOLICISM AND KONGO C OSMOLOGY The Portuguese, who were invited to help establish the Catholic Church in Central Africa in 1471, understood perfectly well that Catholicism was a guest religion coexisting with indigenous African “belief systems” in a society where religious pluralism, integration, and symbiosis were practiced as a matter of political expediency. For the Africans, the worship of the supreme being transcended the confines of any one man-made religious convention, and so religious tolerance was the order of the day. One “religion” complemented the other. The Church catechisms also reflected the common and widely accepted practice of syncretized, or creolized, Afro-Portuguese nomenclature and hence doctrine. Because of the relative shortage of European priests, most of the “Christian” teaching was performed by African catechists, who communicated those concepts at first in Kikongo and Kimbundu, in Kongo and Angola respectively. The European clergy also learned these two languages (Thornton 1983, 273). Also, in cases where catechisms were not available in translation, the local Africans who served as catechists “would spread the specifically African interpretation of Christianity similar to those of the catechisms from their own African experience” (273). During the earlier period of Afro-European contact, religious syncretism was so widely tolerated that in 1658 the Spanish Inquisition accepted a catechism that used the Fon (Benin) words Vodu and Lisa as generic terms for “God” and “Christ.” It also shows that the Vatican respected the status of the “Africanized”‘ Catholic Church in 16th- and 17th-century Angola (a name that at first applied specifically

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to Ndongo, a part of Kimbundu culture, but which was later subsumed under the general term “Kongo”). Also, Afro-Catholic priests referred to the Christian Bible as mukand nkisi (“charm book” or “holy book”); and they referred to the church building as nzo nkisi (“charm house”) (56–68). And for several decades, African officials in the home church reported directly to the pope. It was from this type of society that some enslaved peoples of West Central Africa were taken to the New World, first on Dutch ships and later on French and British ships. Many of the Africans from Kongo and Angola who were brought to the Danish West Indies were therefore already informed about the teachings of Catholicism, as Oldendorp found out during his interviews with scores of Africans in 1767 and 1768. The same is true for the French section of St. Kitts, which was settled in 1625. Evidence of African–European religious syncretism abounds in the vocabulary of New World religions such as Vodun. Hence also the correspondences between Vodun deities and Catholic saints, of Dom Pedro (derived from the Congo), and Bondieu; as well as the presence of the Catholic notions of miracles and saints in the Vodun ceremony. Note also the ubiquitous presence of such words as Loa, Chango (or Xango), Babalawo, Legba, Ogun. Vodun is itself a syncretism of Dahomean (or Fon of Benin), Yoruba, and Kongo-Angolan religions. Indeed, it was only after the outright invasion and subjugation of West Central Africa during the 19th century that African religions and cultures in general became associated with the extreme negative images passed on through colonial reports into traditional mainstream university and school textbooks—referred to as the canon. It is often noted that bussals, or recently arrived Africans, were more rebellious than the already-seasoned or creolized Africans. However, the reaction of bussals to their Caribbean plantation experiences reflected the nature of their prior contact with European culture in Africa. The Kikongo- (or Kishikongo-) speak-

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ing Africans who landed in the Danish West Indies in the 17th century, or in St. Kitts during the early 17th century, represent two examples of accommodation influenced by previous exposure to such culture contact in Africa. Hence, Africans from the Kongo were used by the French to serve as trusted cavalry soldiers against the British in the repeated border disputes that occurred between the two colonial powers in early-17th-century St. Kitts (or St. Christophe). These Africans, who lived together in Angola Town (Ville d’Angole 1641– 1661), located just north of Basseterre, probably spoke either Kikongo or an AfroPortuguese creole, perhaps Sao Tomense, or perhaps both. (See Ferraz 1979, 8–9). C REOLES S POKEN BY A FRICANS Examples exist of Afro-Portuguese creoles spoken by Africans who were brought to St. Kitts and the Danish West Indies. Examples of creole expressions from the French colony of Guadeloupe (to which Africans from French St. Christophe were taken in the 1700s) suggest Kikongo and Kimbundu linguistic influence. (Although the study of comparative historical linguistics teaches that lexical evidence by itself may be insufficient to establish grammatical influence, the examples following, combined with interdisciplinary evidence, prove valuable.) (See Cerol 1992.) Guadeloupean creole (Gpe. creole) po derives from Kikongo (Kik.) poo, “sound of falling”; Gpe. creole blokoto derives from Kik. bolokoto, “sound of falling”; Gpe. awa derives from Kik. awa, “expression of displeasure”; Gpe. zamba derives from Kik. nzamba, “elephant”; Gpe. taka-taka derives from Kik. ntaka, “fish”; Gpe. kongolivo derives from Kik. nkongo, “myriapode”; Gpe. tenkentenk derives from Kik. teketeke, “to agree”; Gpe. senmaka derives from Kik. maka, “world of the dead”; Gpe. gangann derives from Kik. nganga, “ancestor” (Cerol 1992). It is reasonable to assume that many of these terms were used in French St. Christopher during the 17th and early 18th centuries. Note, in

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Danish West Indies: Oldendorp’s 18th-Century Findings | 371 particular, the last two terms, which occur in religious contexts. Note also the semantic modification of the Kikongo term nganga, which originally (especially in the 16th and 17th centuries) referred to rural herbal medicine men, who mediated the relationship between the community and the spirit world. The indigenous Kongo Nganga (also called “village priests”) normally administered to the needs of individuals, whereas the Itomi (town herbalists, or town “priests”) had a public function in their role of mediating the physical and spirit worlds. These individuals received the first fruits of harvest, predicted the future, and provided other services. Kongo people valued the Itomi more highly than the Nganga because they communicated with the natural forces more directly. Nganga, on their part, used special charms (nkisi and iteke) in the performance of their functions and often charged their individual clients a fee for the performance of special favors (Cerol 1992, 62) The evidence suggests that Catholicism had been well established in the Kongo for at least a century before Oldendorp’s research was done. But in both St. Christopher and the Danish West Indies, the Africans from Kongo-Angola brought with them a syncretized version of African and Christian beliefs and practices. Also, many Africans had been trained in the Kongo by the Europeans in the arts of cavalry warfare and land irrigation—skills that would be put to work promptly upon their arrival in St. Kitts. The new African arrivals, or bussals, in the Danish West Indies (St. Croix in particular) during the 18th century were often conversant with Catholic religious teachings. The scores of Africans Oldendorp interviewed in the DWI came from the Mande, the Akan, the Yoruba, and the Kongo-Angola, and among these at least one group, the Kongo-Angola, had experienced prior extended contact with the Catholic Church and European political, military, and administrative influence in Africa, mentioned previously. However, their experiences would differ from that of their earlier

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counterparts on the colony of French St. Christopher (St. Kitts) for at least two reasons. The newly arrived Africans from the Akan nation on the Gold Coast that led the highly organized, six-month resistance in 1733 on St. John had had little or no exposure to European Christian missionaries in Africa. Unlike the Kongo-Angola bussals, who functioned as highly skilled and trusted cavalry men in St. Kitts a hundred years earlier (1641–1661), who continued to practice their creolized version of Afro-Catholicism, the Kongo and Angola bussals in the mid-18th-century DWI would find it difficult to reconcile the teachings of the Protestant churches with their Afro-Catholic beliefs. Secondly, unlike their St. Kitts counterparts a century earlier, they would have to face the full rigors of labor as well as oppressive laws associated with plantation society. Under the watchful eye of the Moravian or Lutheran missionary, it would be more difficult to offer libations to Nzambe Mpungu (source of the Kongo life force) or to hold rituals associated with Nsimbi (the belief in reincarnation). It would also be more difficult for Nganga (herbal remedy men) to practice their traditions in the New World. It is also important to note the significance of Kongo exposure to the interaction between Kongo nobility and European church politics at a period in history when church and state often shared political power in Europe. In some cases, the Catholic priests conspired with the Kongo nobility to replace the indigenous rural Nganga, whose popularity in the villages of Lubada was often perceived as threatening to the economic designs of the town nobility, or the Mbanza, who taxed the rural villagers, appropriated their land, and sometimes invaded villages in order to capture slaves for trading. But although such feudal exploitation by the nobility was symbolically represented in Kongo mythology, the villagers fought to resist such abuses from the nobility. Such local conflict was often influenced by the Europeans for commercial reasons. For example, in addition to trying to exploit the

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local rivalries between the indigenous Africans—the nobility and the rural villagers— the Portuguese and Dutch also sought to exploit the rivalries between Kongo and Angola. Such manipulation of local conflict usually provided the European traders with slaves. By the 1630’s, Kongo rulers viewed the Portuguese colony in Angola as both an economic rival and a cause for military embarrassment. The Portuguese obtained more and more of their slaves from Angola, while manipulating the Spartan-like Imbangala warriors in raids against Kongo’s southern provinces. The straw that broke the camel’s back for the Kongo rulers, however, was the Dutch occupation of Luanda in 1641, and this contributed to increased conflict between Kongo and Angola (Thornton 1983). Oldendorp’s interviews of the Africans from the Kong-Angola areas as well as the Senegambia, Gold Coast and Nigeria regions must be seen against this background of power struggle between town nobility and village leaders, between European ideology and indigenous African belief systems. The following comments by Oldendorp apply to bussals from the Kongo-Angola areas of (1) Loango (Bakongo), (2) Camba (Bakamba/Nsundi), (3) Mandongo (Mandonga/ Angolan), and (4) Congo (Kongo/Bakongo). The (1767–1768) name of the god reported for the first subgroup is Sambi; for the second, Sambi-ampungo; for the third, Sambiampungo (sic); for the fourth, the name of god is also Sambiampungo. And all four subgroups share a common word for “hand,” kogo (203–206). Oldendorp’s remarks about the bussals from Kongo-Angola reveal both scholary insight and Eurocentric bias and ambivalence about the cultural and intellectual merits of the Africans, observing firsthand the AfroEuropean syncretism evident in the religious practices of these people. Oldendorp also witnessed the practice of seasoning slaves via a baptism ritual having the more seasoned ones acculturate the newcomers from Africa, a practice that began in the 18th century. “It is an early practice of bap-

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tismal of fathers and mothers to provide some kind of foster parents for the poor ‘Bussals’ who find themselves in the West Indies as total aliens, without father, mother, or other relatives” (Oldendorp, 1987, 263). In both observations above, Oldendorp reveals the ethnocentric bias typical of his era. He noted that the Africans in the Danish West Indies, who were at that time to the European mind uncivilized, could often rise to the human challenge of attaining the virtues of kindness and civility through contact with Western Christian ideology. Oldendorp’s mixed observations not withstanding, it is evident that the so-called primitive aspects of the Africans’ religious practices, taken together with the so-called Christian, or more refined, rituals in fact constitute hard evidence of Afro-European syncretic or hybridizing processes that began in West Central Africa during the 15th century. Evidence of the early (17th- and 18th-century) presence of Kikongo-derived expressions in the Caribbean also supports this article’s thesis of prior AfroPortuguese creolization in Sao Tome, Principe, and Annobon, plantation island communities close to West Africa. Finally, it is necessary to revise the absolute distinction often made between the newly arrived Africans and the seasoned or creolized Africans in the Caribbean. It may even be advisable to interrogate the viability of the term “bussal” because of its ethnocentric bias. Conclusions arrived at here corroborate the reports on culture contact in Trinidad (WarnerLewis 1996) and Jamaica (Alleyne 1989). At this point, it would be particularly appropriate to summarize Alleyne’s definition of the term, which “originally meant of European origin, but born in the colonies, and referred to persons, animals, trees, plants. It then came to designate persons of African descent born in the New World, and from there, the language related by vocabulary to the European language, and which was spoken by African creoles in the colonies in the New World and on the West African coast” (Alleyne 1989, xi). The general point about the re-

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Danticat, Edwidge (1969–) | 373 lationship between newly arrived Africans and creolized Africans is perhaps more complex than traditionally represented by the Western canon. The nature of this relationship depended on geographical location, ethno-racial demographic ratios, and historical context. Oldendorp’s contribution to historical research on religion is complemented by his significant, pioneering contribution to early research on Creole languages and African languages. Although a more detailed discussion of this linguistic contribution is beyond the scope of this essay, it should be noted that Oldendorp’s linguistic work on African languages appears 100 years before the landmark work of Sigismund Koelle, Polyglotta Africana, and more than 150 years before the landmark work by Joseph Greenberg on Niger-Congo languages. Oldendorp’s empirical research with Africans in the Danish West Indies in the mid1700s holds the potential for providing significant validation for, and counterexamples to, the paradigms established or supported by Koelle and Greenberg. Vincent O. Cooper See also Atlantic World and the African Diaspora; Middle Passage; Transatlantic Slave Trade. F URTHER R EADING Alleyne, Mervyn C. 1989. Roots of Jamaican Culture. London: Pluto Press. Bossard, Johann Jakob, ed. 1770. C.G.A. Oldendorp: Geschichte der Evangelischen Bruder auf den Caribischen Inseln S. Thomas, S. Croix und S. Jan. 2 vols. Barby: Christian Friedrich Laur. Cerol, Marie Josee [Ama Mazama]. 1992. “The Nature of Language Contact in Guadeloupe during Slavery: Sociological and Linguistic Evidence.” SCL Conference, University of the West Indies, Barbados. Cooper, Vincent O. 1990. “Review of Oldendorp.” Journal of Caribbean Studies, Spring. Curtin, Phillip. 1969. The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Dolphyne, Florence Abena. 1998. “Ghanaian Sociolinguistic History.” Lecture given at University of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas, Fall.

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Ferraz, Luis Ivens. 1979. The Creole of São Tomé. Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa: Witwatersrand University Press. Greenberg, Joseph. 1963. The Languages of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Koelle, S. W. 1963. Polyglotta Africana. Ed. P. E. H. Hair and D. Dalby. Graz, Austria: Graz University Press. (Original published in 1854.) Labat, Jean Baptiste. 1722. Noveau voyage aux iles de l’Amerique. 6 vols. Paris: G. Cavelier. Meier, Gudrun, Stephan Palmié, Peter Stein, and Horst Ulbricht, eds. 2002. Christian Georg Andreas Oldendorp: Historie der caribischen Inseln Sanct Thomas, Sanct Cruz und Sanct Jan. 4 vols. Dresden, Germany: Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung. Mintz, Sydney, and Richard Price. 1976. An Anthropological Approach to the Afro-American Past: A Caribbean Perspective. Philadelphia: ISHI Occasional Papers in Social Change. Oldendorp, C. G. A. 1987. A Caribbean Mission. Trans. A. Highfield and V. Barac. Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma. (Original published in 1770.) Rey, Terry, and Henry Sweet. 2001. NEH Workshop Lecture given at Florida Memorial College, May 12–18. Sprauve, G., V. O. Cooper, and K. Villesvik. 1984. “From Oldendorp to Koelle: Toward an Analysis of Virgin Islands Historical African Linguistic Data.” Paper presented at SCL Conference, University of the West Indies, Jamaica. Thornton, John. 1983. The Kingdom of Kongo: Civil War and Transition: 1641–1718. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Warner-Lewis, Maureen. 1996. Trinidad Yoruba: From Mother Tongue to Memory. Tuscaloosa: Univ. of Alabama Press. Whinnom, Keith. 1972. “Linguistic Hybridization and the Special Case of Pidgins and Creoles.” In Pidginization and Creolization of Languages, ed. Dell Hymes, 91–115. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

z Danticat, Edwidge (1969–) Edwidge Danticat is a Haitian American writer and activist who was born in Haiti on January 19, 1969. She has distinguished herself in her generation for opening up a space for Haitian

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writers in the American literary landscape. When she was four, her parents left Haiti for the United States. She was raised in Port-auPrince by an aunt and uncle until the age of 12, when she reunited with her parents in Brooklyn. Danticat’s official writing career began shortly thereafter, when one of her essays about immigrant life was published in a newspaper. She went on to attend Barnard College, where she majored in French Literature, and upon receipt of a scholarship for the master’s program in fine arts at Brown University, she went on to obtain a formal education that would complement her talents. Her MFA thesis would later be published in the form of her first novel. Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994) is a story about a young girl who migrates to the United States from Haiti and experiences trauma and change, love and loss as she comes into womanhood. Her second full-length work, Krik? Krak! (1995), is a collection of short stories about immigrant life. The far-reaching success of these first works made the 1998 appearance of her second novel, The Farming of the Bones, a widely anticipated event. This time, she located her text on the other half of the island, once known as Hispaniola—Haiti’s neighbor, the Dominican Republic. Two years later, she edited her first anthology, The Beacon Best of 2000: Great Writing by Men and Women of All Colors and Cultures (2000). In 2001, eager to give voice to other Haitian women, she edited The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora (2001). A work of adolescent fiction came as Behind the Mountains (2002). After the Dance: A Walk Through Carnival in Jacmel, Haiti appeared in 2002. The Dew Breaker (2004) is a collection of interrelated stories dealing with Haiti’s complicated and traumatic history, published during a year that marked the bicentennial of Haiti and the disputed unseating of president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Danticat’s writing often draws upon Haitian history by covering such topics as the devastating 1937 massacre of nearly 15,000 Haitians in the Dominican Republic. She is

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Haitian-born author Edwidge Danticat. (Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

also celebrated for readjusting perceptions of Haitian immigrants, whose images have been distorted by the American media. Although her work is primarily written in English, Danticat demonstrates the complexity of language identification in the Haitian Diaspora by interspersing French and Kreyol throughout her works. She has been the recipient of multiple prizes, including the National Book Award for Krik? Krak! (1995) and for Brother, I’m Dying! (2007) and the American Book Award for The Farming of the Bones (1999). In addition to her literary accomplishments, Danticat has added her voice to such important projects as Walking on Fire: Haitian Women’s Stories of Survival and Resistance (2001), the moving anthology by Beverly Bell. She has twice collaborated with film director Jonathan Demme to produce documentaries related to Haiti. The first, Courage and Pain (1996), tack-

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Davis, Angela (1944–) | 375 led the difficult subject of torture survivors living in Haiti. The second film, The Agronomist (2004), is an intimate portrait of Jean Dominique, one of Haiti’s greatest radio personalities, who was gunned down at his radio station in 2000. Danticat currently resides in Miami with her husband and daughter, who was born in 2005; she makes frequent trips to Haiti. Régine Michelle Jean-Charles See also Haiti. F URTHER R EADING Alexandre, Sandy, and Ravi Y. Howard. 2002. “My Turn in the Fire: A Conversation with Edwidge Danticat.” Transition: An International Review 12.3 (93): 110–128. Braziel, Jana Evans. 2003. “Daffodils, Rhizomes, Migrations: Narrative Coming of Age in the Diasporic Writings of Edwidge Danticat and Jamaica Kincaid.” Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism 3.2: 110–131. Chancy, Myriam. 1997. Framing Silence: Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Danticat, Edwidge. 1996. “We Are Ugly, but We Are Here.” The Caribbean Writer, 10: 137–141. Larrier, Renée. 2001. “ ‘Girl by the Shore’: Gender and Testimony in Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones.” Journal of Haitian Studies 7.2 (Fall): 50–60. Shea, Renee H. 1996. “The Dangerous Job of Edwidge Danticat: An Interview.” Callaloo 19.2 (Spring): 382–389.

z Davis, Angela (1944–) Born in Birmingham, Alabama, on January 26, 1944, to B. Frank and Sally Davis, activist Angela Yvonne Davis became an iconic American figure in 1970 as she eluded the FBI and became the third woman ever to be included on their most-wanted list. After becoming a member of the Communist Party in 1968, Davis was accused in 1970 of conspiracy to free a political prisoner devoted to Marxist reform, a member of the Black Panther Party. Although

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Davis was not present at the courtroom attempt to free George Jackson, a bloody affair resulting in multiple deaths, a gun registered to her was used in the attempt. Davis evaded capture for more than two months before being arrested. The case drew national publicity, and Davis served 18 months in prison before being acquitted of all charges in the case. Davis’s activism on behalf of socialist and feminist progress began with her awareness of systematic prejudice while growing up in the South. A talented student, she was accepted into a program that placed Southern black students in integrated northern high schools, and she graduated from Elizabeth Irwin High School in New York, where she first learned about socialism and communism. Davis attended Brandeis University on a full scholarship, and she studied in Europe as part of her undergraduate college education. She graduated from Brandeis in 1965 and attended the University of Frankfurt for graduate education in philosophy, studying under Theodor Adorno. She followed Adorno, with his permission, back to the United States after two years in Frankfurt and became an active participant in radical political groups. She received a master’s degree from the University of California, San Diego, and returned to Germany to receive a doctorate in philosophy from Humboldt University of Berlin. She was hired as a lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles, and then fired in 1969 because of her Communist Party activities. She was later rehired due to public outcry over the decision. Davis continued her work to promote socialism by running for vice president on the Communist ticket in 1980 and 1984. She helped found the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, which broke away from the Communist Party in 1991, and argues for a more democratic socialist orientation. Currently, she is a professor in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and has served as director of the Feminist Studies Department.

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Davis’s writings explore structures of inequality within society, focusing especially on the interplay of race, gender, and economics. She works to abolish what she terms the “prison-industrial complex,” concerned with the lack of alternatives to prison. Her critical studies focus on the ways in which American society continues to encode inequalities for minorities within its institutions. Davis’s works include If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance (1971); Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974); Women, Race and Class (1981); Women, Culture and Politics (1988); Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday (1998); and Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003). Amanda Conrad See also Black Panther Party; Black Power Movement in the United States; Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Davis, Angela, and Eduardo Mendieta. 2005. Abolition Democracy. Beyond Empire, Prisons, and Torture. Interviews with Angela Y. Davis. New York: Seven Stories Press. James, Joy. 1998. The Angela Y. Davis Reader. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.

z De Almeida, José Lino Alves (1958–2006) Jose Lino Alves de Almeida, also known as Lino de Almeida, was born on February 1, 1958, in the historic neighborhood of Liberdade, a mecca of Afro-Brazilian cultural expression. One of the original activists in the Black Consciousness Movement, which began during the military dictatorship in the 1970s, he was a founding member of the seminal organization of the era, the Movimento Negro Unificado (Unified Black Movement). From that point on, he was a

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staunch militant for black rights, pioneering and leading the struggles for reparations, affirmative action, and the inclusion of African history in the public school curriculum. He was instrumental in designating November 20 as the National Day of Black Consciousness in commemoration of the quilombo leader Zumbi. Trained as a sociologist, Lino de Almeida helped shape the intellectual foundations for the Black Consciousness Movement. At its start, black activists worked within the established leftist opposition, where their concerns were routinely subjugated in deference to what was perceived as the larger problem of class. Lino de Almeida drew from his training and his understanding of liberation movements in Africa and the Diaspora to articulate the foundations of an autonomous Black Consciousness Movement deeply rooted in the unique cultural and political realities of Brazil. His ability to unleash the political power of popular culture, combined with his love of black musical traditions, allowed Lino de Almeida to create new languages of activism. He belonged to the generation that was energized by the messages and images of soul music and black power. Expressing his support for those ideals, he adopted an Afro hairstyle but, after the death of his idol Bob Marley, switched to the dreadlocks that would become emblematic of his public persona and, more importantly, one of the early expressions of the politics of the personal aesthetic as a significant feature of the Black Consciousness Movement in Bahia. In 1981, he founded the Rastafari Legion and was a major figure in the reggae movement, which helped translate and disseminate the political messages in the music of Marley and other reggae artists. This became an increasingly important component of Afro-Bahian protest culture, giving rise to its hallmark samba-reggae music, rejection of cultural hegemony, and the affirmation of blackness. In 1986, Lino de Almeida debuted his pioneer reggae radio program, Rasta Reggae, which became an immensely popular forum for philosophy, social criticism, and African and Di-

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De Oxóssi, Mãe Stella (1925–) | 377 aspora history, as well as Bahia’s window onto the global reggae music scene. His irreverent, innovative, and militant discourse resonated with the most disadvantaged sectors of society, and he became a popular symbol of reggae’s power to transform identity. De Almeida also moved beyond reggae as a cofounder of the Nucleo Cultural Afro-Brasileiro, which produced the Afro-Brazilian Biennial, a cultural festival celebrating a wide range of artistic expression. Also in the 1980s, de Almeida took up the cause of religious freedom in defense of AfroBrazilian candomblé communities. The city’s refusal to fund preservation of the Parque São Bartolomeu threatened a sacred place of traditional worship and reflected political neglect of Afro-Brazilian concerns. He produced a video connecting religious, social, and ecological politics, which he screened as a delegate to the 1986 World Orisha Congress in New York, signaling the start of his international political career. With his radio program educating people about South Africa, de Almeida was instrumental in bringing Archbishop Desmond Tutu to Bahia and quickly became a key conduit connecting the local community and global African political and artistic leaders. He traveled extensively in Brazil and abroad and was frequently the voice of black Brazil at international forums. He was a representative from Brazil to the Foundation for Democracy in Africa, based in Washington, D.C., and thereby a participant in the creation of an African Diaspora representation in the charter of the African Union. After a brief stint in electoral politics, de Almeida devoted his professional attention to cultural production as a political tool. Following the forced relocation of the reggae bars because of gentrification, he innovated the Rasta Reggae Live broadcasts from the new site to provide a forum for locally produced black music. Now a full-time promoter, he brought reggae into Bahia’s carnival, and his shows publicized the music of such stars as Peter Tosh, Burning Spear, and Gregory Isaacs. In 2000, he was in-

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vited by the group Filhos de Gandhy to produce a documentary about the often-overlooked African spiritual philosophies embodied by this historic organization of black men. The awardwinning A Bahia do Afoxé Filhos de Gandhy was featured at the 2005 African Diaspora Film Festival (New York), and has been shown around the world. In 2005, de Almeida produced a prize-winning short, Ponto de Interrogação, which dealt with the issue of police discrimination and stereotyping. One of the most recognizable and active figures in the Black Consciousness Movement, Lino de Almeida left a lasting impact as a passionate voice of the people, a tireless fighter for black liberation, and an innovator of new languages of struggle forged from the raw and rich material of black culture. Rita Honotorio (Translated by Kim D. Butler) See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Centro de Estudos Afro-Orientais (CEAO); Filhos de Gandhy; Movimento Negro Unificado; Salvador da Bahia. F URTHER R EADING Boyce Davies, Carole, prod. Fire Man. A Luta Continua. FLASC DVD Series, #3, Miami, Florida (includes lectures and interviews by Lino de Almeida). Butler, Kim. 1998. Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abolition Sao Paulo and Salvador. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

z De Oxóssi, Mãe Stella (1925–) One of Bahia’s most respected Ialorixás, Maria Stella Azevedo Santos—Mãe Stella de Oxóssi— was born in Salvador on May 2, 1925. A nurse by profession, Mãe Stella was initiated into the Candomblé religion at the early age of 15. In 1976, she was chosen by the Búzios to become the spiritual leader of Axê Ilê Opô Afonjá, one of the

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oldest terreiros (Candomblé houses) in Bahia. In the 1980s, when a strong conservative wave gained momentum against Afro-religions, Mãe Stella spoke against syncretism and the confusion of Catholicism and Candomblé that, according to her, deludes both religions and is particularly pernicious to the preservation of the cultural traditions of the oppressed. Although at several national and international conferences Mãe Stella has raised the importance of preserving the roots of Afro-Brazilian religions and cultures, she is also known all over Brazil as one of the foremost figures to promote intercultural and interreligious dialogue. In August 2001, she distinguished herself as one of the most prominent speakers against racism and intolerance at the UN Conference in Durban. Mãe Stella is the author of several pamphets, booklets, articles, and books, including Meu Tempo É Agora (1993); Essa É a Nossa Crensa, Esse É o Nosso Universo (1995); and Expressões de Sabedoria: Educação, vida e saberes; she is coauthor with Cléo Martins of E Daí Aconteceu o Encontro (1993). She has lectured all over Brazil and the world. Rick Santos See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Candomblé. F URTHER R EADING Martins, Cléo, and Mãe Stella de Oxóssi. 1993. E Daí Aconteceu o Encontro. Salvador, Bahia: Edição dos Autores. Oxóssi, Mãe Stella de. 1993. Meu Tempo É Agora. Salvador, Bahia: Edição da Autora. Oxóssi, Mãe Stella de. 1995. Essa É a Nossa Crensa, Esse É o Nosso Universo. Salvador, Bahia: Hospital Getúlio Vargas Press. Oxóssi, Mãe Stella de. 2002. Expressöes de Sabedoria: Educação, vida e saberes. Salvador, Bahia: UFBA University Press.

z Decolonization Decolonization is the process in which a colony or a subjected territory moves from dependent

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to independent status from a conquering nation or empire. Another definition of decolonization is “the surrender of external political sovereignty over colonized peoples, or the power transfer from empire to nation-state” (Springhall 2001, 2). A third definition states that decolonization is “the process by which the peoples of the Third World gained their independence from their colonial rulers” (Chamberlain 1999, 2). The French Moroccan philosopher Albert Memmi and the French Martinican psychiatrist Frantz Fanon introduced an added dimension to the term by insisting upon the psychological and existential experiences of the colonized and the colonizer in the context of colonial reality. Thus, the term “decolonizing the mind” would be a part of the process of the movement from mental dependency and identity to autonomous identity. In more recent times, there have been two major periods of decolonization. The first period, between the late 18th century and the mid-19th century, began with the revolt by American colonists against British rule and continued with the collapse of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Latin America and the Caribbean. During the second period, from the 20th century and into the 21st, many European colonies and protectorates in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean gained independence following World War II. The process of decolonization has occurred in two major ways: (1) violently, usually through revolts and wars (for example, the United States, Haiti, and Kenya), or (2) nonviolently, usually through negotiations and nonviolent protests (India, Jamaica, and Nigeria). In some cases, decolonization may occur through the use of both methods (French West Africa). In certain cases, external factors could contribute to the independence of a colony, such as sympathetic countries of the same ethnic, cultural, and/or religious identity, or even some countries that would support decolonization as a strategic move to weaken a rival or enemy colonizing power (France against England vis-à-vis

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Delta Sigma Theta | 379 the American Revolution, for example), or decolonization support could come from a nation that wants to create space for its own sphere of monopolized influence (for example, the United States via the Monroe Doctrine). Inside the colonized nations, an array of forces could contribute to the need for independence, such as class and elite forces that become convinced that national power should be in their hands. Historically, colonies were lost due to the diminishing nature or collapse of an empire, such as the disintegrating Spanish Empire during the late 18th century. During modern times, however, some colonial states were able to abandon the colonial rule of their empires without a total break from the former colonial power or without the colonies being taken away or taken over by other empires. In many cases, strong cultural, political, and economic ties continued to exist between the former colony and the imperial country (as in Senegal). Marc Prou See also Diaspora Literacy; Middle Passage. F URTHER R EADING Boyce Davies, Carole, Meredith Gadsby, Charles Peterson, and Henrietta Williams. 2000. Decolonizing the Academy: African Diaspora Studies. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Chamberlain, Muriel E. 1999. Decolonization: The Fall of the European Empire. 2nd ed. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell. Schrover, Marlou. 2003. “Decolonization.” www.let.leidenuniv.nl/history/migration/ chapter8.html’. Accessed May 3, 2005. Springhall, John. 2001. Decolonization since 1945: The Collapse of European Overseas Empires. London: Palgrave. Thiong’o, Ngugi wa. Decolonising the Mind. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.

z Delta Sigma Theta Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated (hereafter DST or Delta), was founded on the

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campus of Howard University on January 13, 1913, by 22 women dedicated to the ideals of sisterhood, scholarship, and public service. Born out of a movement to form organizations that reflected the needs and issues of the African American community, DST became the fifth of nine African-American Greek-letter organizations that later formed the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC), established in 1930 on the campus of Howard University. In addition to an outstanding presence among the NPHC organizations, the members of DST have played a major role in various social and political movements. Three months after Delta was formed, its members marched in support of the women’s suffrage movement on March 3, 1913, fighting against a double layer of discrimination: one layer from white misogynist males and another from the white women suffragettes who relegated the members of DST to the back of the line because they were black. Before the conclusion of the march, the women took their rightful place toward the front of the line. Women’s suffrage was not the only concern of Delta; the organization has been actively involved in various causes. In 1937, DST instituted the National Library Project, a traveling library for black communities without access to local libraries. Past president Lillian Pierce Benbow’s projects through DST Telecommunications sought to combat negative depictions of African Americans in films (such as Blacksploitation) by producing their own films. This initiative resulted in Countdown at Kusini (1976), which was filmed in Nigeria, and Roses and Revolution (ca. 1976), an album of poetry, prose, and music with Delta celebrities such as opera singer Leontyne Price, actress Ruby Dee, and Delta founder Osceola McCarthy Adams—the first black actress in a play on Broadway. Deeply centered in the Five-Point Programmatic Thrust, Delta’s programs focus on Economic Development, Educational Development, International Awareness and Involvement, Physical and Mental Health, and Political Awareness

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and Involvement. The dedication to community has driven Delta women since the organization’s inception. Delta’s 22 founders gathered their exigency from the desire to become active participants in social change. Delta boasts among its ranks such prolific women as Dr. Johnetta B. Cole, Mary McLeod Bethune, Aretha Franklin, Shirley Chisholm, Nikki Giovanni, Rev. Vashti McKenzie, and Mary Church Terrell. The colors of the sorority are crimson and cream, and the flower is the violet. DST’s public motto is “Intelligence is the torch of wisdom.” DST boasts a membership of more than 200,000 college-educated, predominantly African American women, with chapters spanning the United States, the Caribbean, Europe, and Asia. The national headquarters is in Washington, D.C. Jessica M. Alarcón See also Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Delta Sigma Theta. Official website. www.deltasigmatheta.org (Accessed January 23, 2008) Giddings, Paula. 1988. In Search of Sisterhood: Delta Sigma Theta and the Challenge of the Black Sorority Movement. New York: William Morrow. Height, Dorothy Irene. 2003. Open Wide Freedom Gates: A Memoir. New York: Public Affairs. Ross, Lawrence C. 2000. The Divine Nine: The History of African American Fraternities and Sororities. New York: Kensington @/Alt:Books.

z Dessalines, Jean-Jacques (1758–1806) Jean-Jacques Dessalines was a great leader of the Haitian Revolution and the first emperor of Haiti. He was born on a sugarcane plantation in Grande-Rivière-du-Nord in colonial Saint-Domingue.

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Dessalines first served as an officer in the French army. He would later become a commander in the revolt against France. During the uprising, Toussaint L’Ouverture appointed Dessalines to govern the South Province, and he accomplished that task with fierce brutality, slaughtering thousands to crush resistance to the revolution. L’Ouverture was captured in May 1802. Six months later, Dessalines was appointed the leader of the resistance. His army defeated the French troops sent by Napoleon in November 1803. After his victory, the resistance of exslaves was no longer a revolt but a revolution. On January 1, 1804, Dessalines declared SaintDomingue an independent nation. Dessalines and his generals chose to name their new nation Ayiti, an aboriginal word meaning “the land of the mountains” (Rogozinski 2000, 175). Dessalines became governor general for life. In 1805, he made himself emperor of Haiti. During Dessalines’s reign, Haiti became a nation of two castes. The colored rich elite dominated politics and commerce in the coastal towns, while the poor black peasants populated the countryside, producing their own food on small plots of land (Rogozinski, 2000, 216). Although the hated white masters were all but gone from the island, racial tension still existed between blacks and colored. Dessalines hated both whites and their biracial products, now called Haitian mulattos. During the revolution, he killed without mercy all whites—men, women, and children—and left their corpses to rot in the sun to strike terror into the French troops (James 1989, 301). Once in power as emperor, he was still an impressive hater of whites and ordered the massacre of most whites “without regard to age or sex” (Corbett 2004), except for priests, skilled artisans, health care workers, Americans, and British (James 1989, 373). Dessalines tried to keep the sugar industry and the plantation system going to produce wealth for Haiti. He seized two-thirds of all productive plantations and reimposed forced labor

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La Diablesse | 381 on Haiti’s blacks. His rule was uncompromising and singular; when the government decreed that all persons must labor either as soldiers or as laborers on a plantation estate, the decree was implemented systematically and ruthlessly. His army drove the majority of men and women back to the plantations, and the overseers of these estates used harsh physical punishments to increase production. Dessalines and his forced labor policy were the reason many blacks created communities in the hills. Though Dessalines hated the mulattos as much as he hated the whites, he depended on them and could not run Haiti without them. They were historically the most highly educated, and they filled most of the positions as literate officials and managers running an efficient dictatorship. In October 1806, a revolt began with the secret approval of the highest officer in the army, Henri Christophe. Dessalines, on his way south to crush the rebels, was ambushed and killed at Pont Rouge outside of Port-au-Prince on October 17, 1806 (Nicholls 1996, 40). La Desalinienne, the Haitian national anthem, is in his honor. Marc Prou See also Haiti; Haitian Revolution; L’Ouverture, Toussaint (ca. 1744–1803). F URTHER R EADING Corbett, Bob. 2004. “Dessalines—William Wells Brown.” www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/ history/earlyhaiti/dessalines-brown.htm’. Accessed June 3, 2005. James, C. L. R. 1989. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Vintage Books. (Original published in 1938.) Nicholls, David. 1996. From Dessalines to Duvalier: Race, Colour, and National Independence in Haiti. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Rogozinski, Jan. 2000. A Brief History of the Caribbean: From the Arawak and the Carib to the Present. New York: Penguin Putnam.

La Diablesse La Diablesse is the Caribbean folk version of a female devil. Caribbean parents often weave stories about the La Diablesse to caution children about the virtue of good behavior. La Diablesse also features in cautionary tales warning young men to be wary of women who look attractive on the outside but may be evil personalities waiting to entrap them. La Diablesse is a popular archetype in several cultures; it is used in folk theater and was modernized as a metaphor for AIDS in Best Village presentations in Trinidad and Tobago. It has also been updated and used in literature, as in the children’s story La Diablesse and the Baby, winner of the Storytelling World Honor award, written by Richardo Keens-Douglas, the Grenadian storyteller, actor, playwright, author, and radio and television host. However, La Diablesse and the Baby, like many other stories written by Keens-Douglas, re-creates and revolutionizes in narrative form the folk legends that his parents once told him. In this story, the demon-like diablesse is a figure of evil that the loving and crafty grandmother manages to outwit. The grandmother’s dedicated love comes through very clearly in the story and serves to balance the eeriness that is integral to stories about devil figures. Stories such as these raise children’s awareness of their heritage and demonstrate how rich the Caribbean cultural landscape is as a nourishing source for the creative imagination. Antonia MacDonald-Smythe See also Elder, Jacob Delworth (1914–2004); Grenada; Keens-Douglas, Richardo (1953–); Trinidad and Tobago; Trinidad and Tobago: African Impact on the Social Order. F URTHER R EADING Alladin, M.P. Folk Legends of Trinidad and Tobago. Keens-Douglas, R. 1994. La Diablesse and the Baby. Ontario, Canada: Annick Press.

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Diaspora Literacy Diaspora literacy is the ability to read and comprehend the discourses of Africa, Afro-America, and the Caribbean from an informed, indigenous perspective. In such an environment, names such as Legba, Belain d’Esnambue, Sundiata, Nanny, Bigger Thomas, Jose Marti, and Marie Chauvet represent mnemonic devices whose recall releases learned traditions. This type of literacy is more than an intellectual exercise. It is a skill for both narrator and reader that demands a knowledge of historical, social, cultural, and political development generated by lived and textual experience. The diasporically literate would have undergone both the intellectual and experiential components of this phenomenon. Referring to the phenomenon and history of African American (hemispheric) displacement in the New World, beginning with Columbus’s settlements in coastal Hispaniola during the 16th century, as the African Diaspora, demographic, cultural, and class differences among the slaves exported to North America and the Caribbean were reconstructed by merchants, colonists, and early colonial historians as an essentialist tale of shared experience. Centuries later, the recognition of an African Diaspora in part reclaimed the differences and rhetorically redefined unity in transnational terms. Alain Locke would, for example, link decolonization struggles to postemancipation activities to decolonization struggles in the United States as well as in the then-colonized territories in the Caribbean and Africa. Essentially, new letters invited readers into a sphere of cultural difference that required a command of what this article terms “diaspora literacy” if the texts were to be understood from indigenous, cultural perspectives beyond the field of Western or westernized specification. Some of the sites in which new letters movements occurred include such places as Harlem, Port-au Prince, Paris, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Trinidad.

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Throughout the 20th century, “diaspora literacy” has implied an ease and intimacy with more than one language, with interdisciplinary relations among history, ethnology, and the folklore of regional expression. For example, Maryse Condé, who was raised in Guadeloupe and lived for many years in Guinea and Ghana and for periods in France and the United States, has written extensively on the literature and sociopolitical culture issuing from four hemispheres of the African Diaspora. Some women novelists have represented the personal quest cross-culturally: Zora Neale Hurston, Katherine Dunham, Marita Golden, Buchi Emecheta, Jean Rhys, Paule Marshall, and Jacqueline Manicom. Male authors of African descent who have lived in or treated at least three areas of the Diaspora include Rene Maran, W. E. B DuBois, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Kamau Brathwaite. In textual practice, this is experienced as a reformation of form, a reduplicative narrative posture that assumes and revised DuBois’s double consciousness. In the wider field of contemporary literary criticism, this reformative strategy approximates Houston Baker’s “mastery of form/deformation of mastery.” The consciousness accompanying the revision in which many of us participate has no name. It may well be that peasants engaged in Vodoun ceremonies in Haiti and its Diaspora have provided a figure and frame through which African Diaspora criticism might establish a theory of comparative literature based on the vernacular. Black music has provided examples of contextual and formal re-presentation by mastering form/deforming mastery and reforming form. John Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things” masters the text by replicating its melody, deforms that same text by sounding on it and the listener’s implied identification with Broadway fantasy and through improvisation reforms the conflicting registers it has established in the process of their articulation. Veve A. Clark

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Diaspora Vibe Gallery | 383 See also DuBois, William Edward Burghardt (1868–1963); Haiti; Harlem; Puerto Rico: Afro-Puerto Ricans; Trinidad and Tobago; Vodoun. F URTHER R EADING Baker, Houston. 1987. Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Clark, Veve A. 1990. “Developing Diaspora Literacy: Allusion in Maryse Condé’s Heremakhonon.” In Out of the Kumbla: Caribbean Women and Literature, ed. Carole Boyce Davies and Elaine Savory Fido, 303–319. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Clark, Veve A. 1991. “Developing Diaspora Literacy and Marassa Consciousness.” In Comparative American Identities, ed. Hortense Spillers, 40–61. New York: Routledge. Cobb, Martha K. 1979. Harlem, Haiti and Havana. Washington, DC: Three Continents Press.

z Diaspora Vibe Gallery The Diaspora Vibe Gallery, located in Miami’s design district, was established by Rosie Gordon-Wallace in 1999 to nurture and promote the vision and work of emerging artists from south Florida, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Through traditional and mixed renditions of such diverse media as ceramics, collage, installations, painting, performance, photography, printmaking, sculpture, textile works, and video, the artists explore a variety of themes, including but not limited to multiculturalism and gender politics, the epic of migration, the dual experience of living on the hyphen, and the Diasporic longing for home. The artists meet with the curator and other artists to discuss their work and receive feedback in a supportive environment. In this way, their confidence increases as their work matures. Artists are also assisted in the preparation of professional artists’ statements, biographies, résumés, and slides and photographs of their creations, as

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well as in the installation and presentation of their works in professional galleries and museums. The gallery’s intern and artist-inresidence programs continue to place young artists in programs sponsored by cultural arts institutions both in south Florida and abroad. Opportunities for international exchange make it possible for artists to display along with their counterparts on the other side of the sea. Professional and amateur writers who are drawn to the works of these artists because of a shared background are encouraged to interpret and write about their work in a way that does justice to their vision and preserves it for posterity. Work of such artists as Barbadian Arlette St. Hill has been showcased at the Diaspora Vibe Gallery. As part of the exhibit Three Generations—Contemporary Art from Barbados 2005, St. Hill’s mixed media maro print “Child of the Diaspora” portrays the violent separation of mothers and daughters as a result of the Diaspora, symbolized by the large knife that threatens to sever the umbilical cord linking their two like bodies. Another example is the work of Cuban American artist Juana Valdés dealing with the topic of migration. The idea for her installation “The Journey Within” (2005), which was part of the exhibit Deep-Blue: Caribbean-American Statements, evolved from a visit to Cuba during which she literally set adrift paper boats made from the pages of Cirilo Villaverde’s novel Cecilia Valdés. These delicate boats, made out of the pages of a Cuban literary masterpiece, with which the Afro-Cuban Juana Valdés would surely have identified in a deeply personal way, appear to represent the island-nation and, simultaneously, the self in danger of being engulfed by the vast sea of history. Translated into the installation, which consists of 60 small porcelain boats secured in the shape of a funnel on a deep-blue platform, the boats suggest the tragic realization that only a few manage to escape history’s devastation. Through its contemporary art programs, the Diaspora Vibe Gallery is reaching out to

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south Florida’s multicultural communities to show them that art really does matter. María de Jesús Cordero See also Art in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING hooks, bell. 1995. Art on My Mind: Visual Politics. New York: New Press.

z Diasporic Marronage African captives who deliberately absconded from bondage reveal an irrepressible yearning to reclaim their humanity. Scholars have identified two broad categories of slave flight: “petit marronage” and “grand marronage.” The former usually involved short-term escapes that often ended with the voluntary or forcible return of the runaway. Rather than endure a lifetime of pain and suffering, they denied slave-owners the indispensable, tractable labor force they desperately craved to run their mines, plantations, cattle ranches, ships, shops, and residences. If captured and forced back into slavery, they fetched a lower price when their frustrated owners attempted to sell them. Runaways who raised families, built homes, and organized self-sustaining villages deep within the forests and mountain fastnesses of the Americas are associated with “grand marronage,” or permanent flight. The establishment, entrenchment, and perseverance of maroon communities hinged on many factors. Where the maroons succeeded in utilizing hostile topographical/environmental conditions advantageously, improvised hideouts and transitory provision grounds gradually gave way to settlements set in remote, inaccessible regions. The precipitous decline of the white population and difficulties in raising funds for local defense in some territories prevented colonial authorities from assembling expeditions against the maroons. Even when conscripted

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into military service, however, white indentured servants and European soldiers and seamen frequently refused to fight the black rebels. In other instances, the unforgiving terrain and tropical diseases prevalent in the backwoods, coupled with the guerrilla-style fighting tactics deployed by the maroons, kept the Eurocolonials at bay. Some of the largest and longest-lasting palenques, quilombos, cumbés, and mocambos, as the rebel societies were variously known, surfaced in such places as Jamaica, eastern Cuba, Hispaniola, Dominica, Panamá, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, and Suriname. Some of these strongholds were located in the heart of plantation America, right under the colonial nose of resource-rich European powers possessing sophisticated armed forces that seemed capable of overpowering them. Still, the rural guerrilleros prevailed. In Jamaica, for example, black rebels foiled armed expeditions that tried to subdue them; they harassed, captured, or killed colonists and slave catchers who ventured too close to their refuge; raided plantations or otherwise thwarted white settlement of the hilly interior, thus preventing the British from fully appropriating the raw materials of the island; and freed, kidnapped, or enticed other slaves to join them. Their ability to grow and thrive under strenuous situations and their use of hit-and-run strikes taxed the resources and energies of the British. Not only did the maroons beat back most efforts to capture and re-enslave them, but on two separate instances in 1738 and 1796 even managed to get the British government to negotiate with them. While runaways owed much of their survival to the impenetrable mountains, swamps, and forests that served as their sanctuaries, they were not the secluded rustic dwellers shown in much of maroon literature. That characterization is a carryover from the wild, rebellious, and “savage” depictions of maroons found in the master narratives of such writers as Edward Long (1774), Bryan Edwards (1796), and John Gabriel Sted-

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Diasporic Marronage | 385 man (1796). Their racist representations of the rebels reflect the European justification of enslavement as a spiritual, civilizing crusade designed to bring the “inferior” Africans into the Western cultural mold. By contrast, the extant records show that African rebels depended on the bush as much as the nearby plantations, cities, and coastal areas for new recruits, weapons, food rations, items of clothing, medicines, and information. They periodically apprised themselves of all kinds of news and rumors taking place within and beyond their “home” areas by keeping in contact with other rebel groups, enslaved counterparts, free nonwhites, sympathetic whites, and visitors. Although many enslaved Africans/blacks toiled on plantations and cattle pens, they filled myriad manual occupations both on land and sea. Growing numbers of captives raked salt, salvaged shipwrecks, harvested oyster pearls, fished and hunted manatees, turtles, and whales in the open seas, operated docks, built or repaired watercrafts, and served on the maritime crews of private ships and naval convoys. African/black pilots, shipwrights, caulkers, sailmakers, sailors, and cooks on transatlantic voyages acquired valuable navigational skills and familiarity with the Antillean archipelago, Africa, and Europe, as well as with North, Central, and South America. These mariners had access to travel opportunities, overseas markets, wages, contacts, and information channels seldom available to their land-based peers (Jarvis 2002, 606–611). The sea lanes became one of their chief means of communication and a potential underground railroad to freedom. In their quest for freedom, “maritime maroons” slipped into naval fleets, buccaneering parties, fishing boats, merchant ships, and canoes. When necessary, they built rudimentary vessels on their own or appropriated them by force. Royal decrees issued in the 17th and 18th centuries by the Spanish crown offering asylum and freedom to slaves fleeing from colonies held by rival European powers prompted a seaborne exodus of

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deserters from South Carolina to Spanish Florida; from Essequibo, Grenada, and Curaçao to Venezuela; from French St. Domingue to Spanish Santo Domingo; from the Bahamas, Saint Domingue, and Jamaica to Cuba; and from British Honduras to various parts of Central America. One such case involved the enslaved Manuel Huevo, who was wounded while defending the Honduran port city of Omoa in the 1780s during a British invasion. Taken prisoner and sold in Roatán, a nearby island then under English control, he later ran away by “crossing rivers and mountains” to reach the Spanish side. In 1785, he successfully petitioned and was awarded his freedom by availing himself of the Spanish sanctuary provisions (Konetzke 1962, 3: 583–585). In choosing a particular destination, Diasporic maroons weighed such variables as proximity, navigational or ground logistics, socioeconomic conditions in the targeted colony, and the state of political relations between the various European powers vying for supremacy in the New World. The foremost consideration, however, was their prospects of throwing off the shackles of slavery. Thus, African captives in 18th-century Puerto Rico, an island notoriously known as a receptor of fugitives, fled to the adjacent Danish Virgin Islands, where it was believed that slaves would be freed once they embraced the Lutheran creed (Chinea 1997, 76). Although Jamaica was a major slave market and the least likely place to draw seaborne fugitives, it attracted escapees from the nearby Spanish and French colonies. One of them was the African Cuffee, who had been previously sold from Jamaica to the Bay of Honduras and later to a plantation in Cuba. He was among the slaves who defected to the British ranks when the latter attacked Havana in 1762. Subsequently taken to Jamaica, he was freed there in compensation for his military services to England when its forces occupied the Cuban capital (Black 1969, 95). As if getting away and regaining their freedom were not enough, maroons wrote or sent

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messages to their previous owners and/or relatives boasting about their new status as freed men and women or to get in touch with loved ones left behind. The Danish planter-author Reimert Haagensen reported in 1758 that maroons who had escaped to Puerto Rico were sending “greetings to their erstwhile overseer on St. Croix, as well as to their noted owner, through strangers who come here to trade and to complete their business,” informing them that “that they are living well” (Haagensen 1995, 32). The cimarrón Damaso Portuondo Bravo fled Santiago de Cuba aboard a French ship that took him to Veracruz. In a September 6, 1864, correspondence penned to his mother, Portuondo claimed to have been treated well during the five-day trip to the Mexican port city. The letter also recounts how he met a fellow countryman, who sheltered Portuondo and found him a good-paying job at a railroad company. “I feel so indebted to him,” Portuondo said of the anonymous benefactor, “that I do not know how to repay him.” Portuondo was overwhelmed with the outpouring of affection and support shown by the veracruzanos, which he attributed to the racially harmonious social relations in the Mexican republic, where all whites and blacks “are the same.” The remainder of the letter entreated his mother to give his regards to a dozen or so people in Santiago de Cuba, including acquaintances, relatives, and his girlfriend (García Rodríguez 1996, 56). Diasporic marronage helped shaped New World affairs in other significant ways as well. In the 1730s, Cuban authorities tried to gain the upper hand in their dealings with the cobreros, a group of state-owned African/black captives who for many years resisted their enslavement. Called upon to mediate the dispute, the clergyman Pedro Morel de Santa Cruz recommended that the Spanish crown recognize their freedom and allow them to settle peacefully in the town of Santiago del Padro. Santa Cruz argued that such an arrangement would be in Spain’s best interests because the formation of towns would improve the defense of the

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southeastern coast of Cuba, a frontier zone close to Jamaica (Franco 1975, 45). This observation, which was widely interpreted as signaling fear that the maroon “problem” in Jamaica might eventually spread to Cuba, was later used to justify waging war on runaway settlements in the latter colony (La Rosa Corzo 2003, 43). Across the channel, however, British officials were convinced that Spain was conspiring against English colonial interests in the Americas by assisting maroons in Jamaica. A 1730s British colonial report describes a high-ranking Jamaican rebel combatant named Assado, killed during a British firefight against a maroon stronghold, as a Spanish mulatto who had arrived from Cuba several months earlier (Great Britain PRO, part 5). During a sworn deposition taken around the same time, one John Tello testified learning in Porto Bello (Panamá) that the maroons of Jamaica had written to the governor of Caracas offering to help Spain recover the British colony in exchange for recognizing their freedom and property rights. According to Tello, at the governor’s order, an “East Indian Negro man” secretly came ashore in Jamaica to confirm the offer. Another witness, Captain William Quarrell, testified learning about the rumored Iberian–maroon plot from several Spanish merchants in the Cuban ports of Santa María, Santa Cruz, and Puerto Príncipe, adding that the Jamaican rebels had inflated their number to between 25,000 and 30,000 (Great Britain PRO, parts 1–2). Whether or not the alleged scheme can be substantiated, these reports further corroborate that diasporic marronage had a major influence, directly or indirectly, on interimperial relations in the Americas. Jorge L. Chinea See also Black Seminoles; Danish West Indies: Oldendorp’s 18th-Century Findings; Santiago de Cuba; Veracruz; Zumbí of Palmares (1655– 1695). F URTHER R EADING Black, Clinton V. 1969. History of Jamaica. 4th ed. London: Collins Clear-Type Press.

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Diop, Cheikh Anta (1923–1986) | 387 Chinea, Jorge L. 1997. “A Quest for Freedom: The Immigration of Maritime Maroons into Puerto Rico, 1656–1800.” Journal of Caribbean History 31 (1–2): 51–87. Franco, José L. 1975. Las minas de Santiago del Padro y la rebelión de los cobreros, 1530–1800. La Habana, Cuba: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales. García Rodríguez, Gloria. 1996. La esclavitud desde la esclavitud: la visión de los siervos. Mexico City, México: Centro de Investigación Científica Ing. Jorge L. Tamayo. Great Britain, Public Records Office, London. 1730. Colonial Office 137, class 145, vol. 47, parts 1–2, 5. “The deposition of John Tello aged 27 years or thereabouts,” June 10, and “The deposition of Captain William Quarrell aged about fifty years,” June 23. Haagensen, Reimert. 1995. Description of the Island of St. Croix in America in the West Indies. Ed. and trans. Arnold R. Highfield. St. Croix: Virgin Islands Humanities Council. (Original published in the Danish language in 1758.) Jarvis, Michael J. 2002. “Maritime Masters and Seafaring Slaves in Bermuda, 1680–1783.” William & Mary Quarterly 59 (3): 585–622. Konetzke, Richard, ed. 1962. Colección de documentos para la historia de la formación social de hispanoamérica, 1493–1810. Vol. 3, primer tomo, 1691–1779. Madrid, Spain: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. La Rosa Corzo, Gabino. 2003. Runaway Slave Settlements in Cuba: Resistance and Repression. Trans. Mary Todd. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. (Original published in Spanish in 1988.)

z Diop, Cheikh Anta (1923–1986) Cheikh Anta Diop is one of the foremost African thinkers of the 20th century. For 40 years, this strong native of Senegal intellectually navigated the formidable machine of destruction of western cultural imperialism. Cheikh Anta Diop was born in the village of Thieyou in the district of Diourbel, Senegal, on December 29, 1923. This district is located in the Baol region, which, together with the Cayor

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region, constitutes the principal site of resistance to French imperialism. To measure Cheikh Anta’s contributions to scientific development worldwide and the anticolonial movement in black Africa under French imperialism, it is important to sketch the African milieu from which he evolved and the shaping of his consciousness by this same milieu. Cheikh Anta spent his first years at the study center of Kokki in the heart of the intellectual and religious system of the Baol. Kokki is an important sanctuary of the national resistance. It is here, in the Cayor, where Ahmadou Cheikhou resisted in a bloody battle against the French invaders and failed on February 11, 1875. A year after Kokki, Cheikh Anta Diop was admitted to the private inner circle of Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, the founder of Mouridism, an essentially black Islamic doctrine. Cheikh Anta spent five years here, from the ages of 5 to 11, cultivating his first intellectual, religious, and moral weapons. These studious years were interrupted by rare journeys to the familial foyer of Thieyou, in the company of the second-most respected by Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, Cheikh Ibra Fall, another historical figure of mouridisme and resistance to French invasion. Born in the Senegalese peasant world, where he passed his adolescence divided between the daaras (Koranic schools), the rigors of farming, and the cultural vitality of mouridisme, Anta Diop exercised his critical judgment on the problems of the hour from parameters recentering the place of the peasant world and the masses in the African political concept. For, having lived within the peasant masses, he carried in him the still fresh scars of the economic rigors of his region, the ferocity of colonial exploitation, the deep poverty of the peasants with their monotonous life cadenced by the never-ending labor that makes young wo/men prematurely old, and the obscurantism favored by the colonial politic of tabula rasa in the domains of teaching and education.

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The phenomenon of cultural alienation is a horrifying element characteristic of African elites of the afterwar period. In this sense, it can be said that the capitulation of the Senghorian Négritude movement before the central questions of African national liberation favored, if not announced, the recrudescence of cultural alienation within the “evolved.” The manifestations of this cultural infirmity in the Africans are the absence of self-confidence and confidence in the African culture; skepticism about the capacity to tame the forces of nature in an autonomous way with science and superior organizational capacities; belief in the fact that Africa had always been absent of world cultural movement and had only a history of nothingness dominated by obscure centuries; acceptance of the presupposed fact that it would never be capable of undertaking anything tangible in the domain of industrialization and cutting-edge research without Europe; and finally, the lack of faith in African cultural unity, doubled with a lack of clear historical perspectives on the origin of African population and historical basis of the integration of African past and present. Cheikh Anta Diop arrived in Paris under these circumstances after solid studies sanctioned by a bachelor’s degree, a kind of ritual of passage imposed by the colonial system with the aim of creating a “Frenchized” African elite loyal to the interest of the colonial master. In 1945, the young student was 22 years old. He immediately invested himself in a militant opposition to cultural alienation wherever it appeared. Equipped with a bachelor’s degree in literature, he abandoned the academic path on which he had been and began to specialize in exact sciences. This was an aspiration almost unthinkable for the students of that epoch, who were more focused on the humanities, education, and mathematics since exact sciences were deemed out of reach for the average African student. In 1951, Diop submitted a Ph.D. thesis at the University of Sorbonne, Paris. His disser-

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tation, based on the premise that the Egypt of the pharaohs was an African civilization, was rejected. Cheikh Anta Diop maintained his argument and for the next next nine years pursued the thesis, adding stronger evidentiary support; in 1960, he re-presented the thesis. This time, before an array of sociologists, anthropologists, and historians, the evidence was too overwhelming, even for a racist intellectual environment such as the Sorbonne. He was awarded the Ph.D. degree. Five years earlier, the thesis had been published in the popular press as a book titled “Nations nègres et culture” (“Negro Nations and Culture”). The book proved very successful and made him one of the most controversial historians of his time. He eventually earned five Ph.Ds. In that same year, 1960, two of his other works were published: The Cultural Unity of Black Africa and Precolonial Black Africa. After 1960, Diop went back to Senegal and continued writing. A radiocarbon laboratory was established at the University of Dakar (which was named Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar after his death), and Diop was made its head. Among the many contributions he has made to science is the dosage test, a technique he developed to determine the melanin content of the Egyptian mummies. This technique was later adopted by the forensic units in the U.S. to determine the racial identity of badly burnt accident victims. Cheikh Anta Diop died in his sleep in Dakar, Senegal, on February 7, 1986. Babacar M’bow See also Africa; Afrocentricity. F URTHER R EADING Diop, Cheikh Anta. 1974. African Origins of Civilization: Myth or Reality. New York: Lawrence Hill. Diop, Cheikh Anta. 1989. Civilization or Barbarism. New York: Lawrence Hill. Diop, Cheikh M’Backe. 2003. Cheikh Anta Diop: L’homme et l’oeuvre. Paris: Presence Africaine.

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Domingo, Wilfred Adolphus (1889–1968) Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Wilfred Adolphus Domingo was a Jamaican nationalist and a revolutionary socialist. Domingo began his political life in Kingston, working for Jamaican self-government by joining the S.A.G. Cox’s National Club. The group was the first of its kind in Jamaica and counted Marcus Garvey as one of its members. In 1910, Garvey and Domingo drafted a pamphlet entitled The Struggling Mass, which detailed the Jamaican liberation struggle. Domingo moved to the United States to pursue a medical career later in 1910 but abandoned this pursuit and moved to New York City in 1912. In New York, Domingo contributed to three different political tendencies active in Harlem after World War I: Black nationalism, associated with Marcus Garvey; the Messenger group of Socialist Party members Chandler Owen and A. Philip Randolph; and the race-first revolutionary socialism of the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB). Domingo continued his agitation for Jamaican independence, working with the British Jamaicans Benevolent Association. In 1916, he helped introduce a newly arrived Marcus Garvey to the Harlem political scene. Their partnership continued; in 1918, Domingo was named the first editor of the Negro World, the official organ of Garvey’s United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Domingo held this position until Garvey fired him in 1919 for publishing his socialist views. Domingo’s move toward socialism and his later affinity with the politics of the Communist Party began after the United States entered World War I. He declared himself a conscientious objector and developed ties with African American Socialist Party members A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen. They appointed him contributing editor of the Messenger in 1919. Randolph and Owen were critical of Gar-

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vey’s nationalist politics. Domingo was also involved with the 21st A.D. Socialist Club and its affiliated People’s Educational Forum. In 1920, Domingo launched his own publication, the Emancipator, which lasted only several issues and centered on criticism of Marcus Garvey. After his paper folded, Domingo joined with Cyril Briggs to produce the Crusader, while becoming a member of the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB). Unlike many ABB members, Domingo chose not to join the Communist Party of America (CPUSA) and instead continued his affiliation with the Messenger group and People’s Educational Forum. He split with Owen and Randolph in 1923 over their attack on Caribbean immigrants in an effort to have Garvey deported. From 1923 to 1936, Domingo turned his energies toward building a business as an importer of Caribbean foods. By 1936, Domingo was again politically active, forming the Jamaica Progressive League (JPL). He remained active in the fight to secure Jamaica’s independence and advised individuals who made up the original core of the People’s National Party (PNP) in 1939, traveling to Jamaica several times to help the PNP. His activities drew the ire of British colonial officials, who jailed Domingo in 1941. After his release 20 months later, Domingo was denied entry into the United States. He remained in Jamaica and wrote articles for the PNP and for such antiimperialist publications as Public Opinion. Domingo disagreed with PNP leadership on some issues, most notably over the short-lived West Indian Federation in the 1950s. He strongly opposed this federation, feeling that Jamaica should obtain its independence autonomously. Domingo returned to New York in 1947 and continued working to secure an independent Jamaica. He died in 1968. Jason M. Schultz See also African Blood Brotherhood (ABB); Campbell, Grace P. (1883–1943); Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940); Huiswood, Otto

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390 | Dominica (1893–1961); Moore, Richard B. (1893–1978); Randolph, Asa Philip (1889–1979). F URTHER R EADING Hill, Robert A., ed. 1983. “W. A. Domingo.” In The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, 527–531. Berkeley: University of California Press. James, Winston. 1998. Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America. New York: Verso. Kornweibel, Theodore. 1998. “Seeing Red”: Federal Campaigns against Black Militancy 1919–1925. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.

z Dominica Not to be confused with the Dominican Republic, the Commonwealth of Dominica is a Caribbean island located in the Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles. The largest of the four Windward Islands, it lies between the French islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, and is volcanic in nature. It is known for its mountainous terrain (the tallest peak is almost 5,000 feet above sea level) and numerous natural features, such as a boiling lake that sits in a volcano’s crater (the second-largest in the world), champagne (an underwater attraction), 365 rivers, and numerous waterfalls, which in part earned it the nickname “the Nature Island of the Caribbean.” Another name, Wai’tukubuli (“Tall Is Her Body”), was given by the indigenous inhabitants, the Carib Indians, who still exist today. Its rugged features and dense forests are part of the reason it was a safe haven for maroons during slavery. The country is divided into ten parishes: St. George, St. Paul, St. Joseph, St. Luke, St. Mark, St. Andrew, St. Peter, St. John, St. Patrick and St. David. The capital, Roseau, is in the southwestern parish of St. George. The population, which is fewer than 70,000, consists of people of African descent, Carib Indians, and some

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Europeans. The life expectancy is about 75 years. The official language is English; however, a rich French Creole (patois) is also spoken there. The rainiest months are June to November, and the country is particularly vulnerable to hurricanes. The island was first sighted by Columbus in 1493, although the indigenous people had been there for hundreds of years before and managed to maintain control for some time afterward, becoming one of the last islands to be controlled by Caribs. As a colony, this country was owned by both France and Britain. The cultural repercussions of its multiple inhabitants, including African (brought by slaves via the Middle Passage) and Carib influences, can still be seen today. Dance and language are mainly the result of a combination of African, French, and British cultures. The music was mostly influenced by French and African cultures. Education and government styles came from the British. Art and crafts were most influenced by the native Carib Indians, while the folktale tradition originated from the Africans. Food was influenced mainly by French, African, and Carib inhabitants.The names of some villages have French, English, or Amerindian roots. Dominica gained independence on November 3, 1978. Dominica’s music has been noted for its originality and is credited with the creation of cadence music and, more recently, bouyon music (a combination of modern and traditional music), which have influenced other music styles in the region. Dominica hosts the World Creole Music Festival, an annual affair that celebrates Creole music worldwide. It was also the home of the first female Caribbean prime minister, Mary Eugenia Charles (nicknamed “the Iron Lady,” 1919–2005), who was prime minister from 1980 to 1995. She was also the first female lawyer on the island. Dominica is also home to the only UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Caribbean (the Morne Trois Pitons National Park). Karen J. Matthew

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Dominican Republic | 391 See also Caribbean Black Power; Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM); Caribbean Migrations: The Caribbean Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Honychurch, Lennox. 1995. The Dominica Story: A History of the Island. London: Macmillan. Honnychurch, Lennox. 1998. Dominica, Isle of Adventure: An Introduction and Guide. London: Macmillan Education. Jno-Baptiste, Merlyn. 1995. Caribbean Social Studies: Dominica. London: Macmillan Education.

z Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic occupies the eastern two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola; the rest of the island is Haiti. The first African to travel to the Dominican Republic was Pedro Alonso Nino, a navigator who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his first voyage to the Americas. Along with Nino, there were the black colonists who helped Nicolás de Ovando in 1502. In fact, the earliest shipment of enslaved Africans to the Dominican Republic dates back to the early 1500s, ushering in the social and demographic change in history, not just for the Dominican Republic but for the Americas. By the late 1500s, the Dominican Republic’s large black population consisted of such African ethnic groups as the Mandinga, Bantu, Dahomean, Minas, Angolan, Cape Verdean, Guinean, and Sudanese. To build cities, establish plantations, and exploit mineral wealth, the Spaniards needed more laborers than they could recruit from among their metropolitan masses. Slavery was considered the most desirable system of labor because it allowed the master control over life and productivity. With the declining indigenous population, the Spaniards then turned toward the continent of Africa and began importing inhabitants from Western and Cen-

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tral Africa, and by the late 18th century, the supply zone extended from southern East Africa as well. Enslaved Africans constituted the highest proportion of laborers in the Dominican Republic. In fact, the first insurrection and maroon community in the Americas took place in the Dominican Republic in 1522. Led by Lemba, the maroons settled in the mountainous region along the border of today’s Haiti and the Dominican Republic (Esteban Deive 1980; Cambeira 1997). Other renowned leaders of these fugitive slave communities are Diego Guzmán, Diego de Ocampo, and Juan Vaquero. Sugar was introduced in Hispaniola in 1506. Spanish records indicate that, by the 1530s, there were between 30 and 40 sugar mills in operation in the Dominican Republic, worked by enslaved Africans (Moya Pons 1995). A roughly estimated 2.5 million pounds of sugar were exported to Seville, Spain, every year. Because of this growth in sugarcane production, the Spanish crown needed to begin to import Africans annually to work on these newfound plantations. However, enslaved Africans in the Dominican Republic were working not only on the sugar plantations but also on ranches, rural estates, and as servants and urban laborers in the capital city of Santo Domingo. The black population in the Dominican Republic at the time was so high that, in the 16th century, Spanish chronicler Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo nicknamed Santo Domingo a “new Guinea” (Cambeira 1997). By the end of the 16th century, however, the Dominican Republic’s sugar industries and the Spanish planter community quickly began to decrease due to the exploration and interest in the Spanish mainland countries of Mexico and Peru. Santo Domingo fell into a commercial decline and what many Dominican historians have referred to as the “century of misery.” The “century of misery” was characterized as a period of historical regression from the Spanish islands’ putative splendor of the 1500s. With the decline of the plantation economy, Santo

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Domingo’s population soon consisted of a few Spaniards and enslaved Africans working on large cattle estates. Over time, several slaveholders rented out enslaved Africans for whom they no longer had any use (Esteban Deive 1980). According to several historians of the Dominican Republic, by the 17th century nearly three-fourths of all persons of African descent were free and constituted the majority of the colony (Esteban Deive 1980; Cambeira 1997; Moya Pons 1995). By the 18th century, the economic development in the Dominican Republic mobilized. This was partly due to the establishment and development of the western side of the island, known as Saint Domingue, by the French. The interests of those colonists who lived in Santo Domingo was to redevelop a plantation economy. T HE H AITIAN R EVOLUTION AND U NIFICATION P ERIOD When the Haitian Revolution broke out in 1791, Santo Domingo watched closely the events taking place on the western side of the island. In 1795, when Spain ceded the eastern two-thirds of Hispaniola to France as a result of its defeat in the wars that had been raging in Europe, the colonial system in Santo Domingo was interrupted. The cession of Santo Domingo to France plunged the country into a turbulent time of revolutions, wars, and invasions, which brought it to bankruptcy and set it apart from the general development of the Spanish American colonies. In 1804, the whole island of Hispaniola became known as Haiti, and it was free and independent from colonial rule. Many changes took place in the former colony that would affect the Dominican Republic and its future. In fact, the Haitian constitution proclaimed that the island was “indivisible,” meaning that it could not be divided. The new leaders of the Republic of Haiti believed that it was their right to control and protect the entire island from foreign powers, while the eastern part was still under Span-

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ish control. However, when Jean Pierre Boyer became president of Haiti in 1818, he promised to give land to his followers. In order to keep this promise, he developed a plan whereby Haiti could “officially” control the entire island of Hispaniola. By 1822, Boyer invaded Santo Domingo, and eventually the whole island was under the laws of Haiti once more. Nonetheless, the Spanish descendants on the eastern side of the island began to feel as though the Haitian government was not fulfilling their needs. Many wanted to break from Haitian rule and become independent. On February 27, 1844, the leaders of Dominican independence, led by Spanish criollo Juan Pablo Duarte, met in the city of Santo Domingo and declared their independence. The next day, the independence leaders met with the Haitian government officials to arrange the details of Haitian withdrawal from the Spanish side of the island (Moya Pons 1995). T HE N EW R EPUBLIC : T HE D OMINICAN R EPUBLIC After independence, Dominicans worked hard to establish their new country. Within the Dominican Republic there were various communities, and each community had drafted a different plan for running their country. Some wanted complete independence without foreign control, while others wanted to be annexed to a European country. Between the years of 1844 and 1899, several caudillos (military strongmen) dominated the Dominican Republic. The most notable were Pedro Santana and Buenaventura Baez (Moya Pons 1995). By 1880, the Dominican Republic had entered a period of stability. Elections were called for the next president; General Ulises Heureaux, who was of Haitian ancestry, was elected president in 1882. The Dominican inhabitants gave him the nickname “Lilís” (pronounced “Lee-lee”). Lilís’s dictatorship was characterized not only as authoritarian but also as catastrophic and misguided. He presided over a time of unprecedented stability and na-

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Dominican Republic | 393 tional growth. His regime built new roads, dug irrigation canals, increased agricultural production, and brought in a great amount of foreign investment, particularly major sugarcane producers from Cuba. Like his predecessors, however, he ruled with a dictatorial hand. He created a fearsome secret police force, restricted the press, and committed blatant electoral fraud. Lilís was assassinated in 1899 by Ramon Cáceres, a rival politician, and the country returned to the chaotic politics of the past. New leaders took over and in return were forced out, including Juan Isidro Jimenez and Horacio Vasquez, two bitter rivals, and Cáceres himself. Even the accession of the archbishop Adolfo Nouel to the presidency in 1912 failed to stem disorder, and within four months he, too, was forced to resign. T HE U NITED S TATES O CCUPATION (1916–1924) At the same time, the United States had expanded its commercial interests in the Dominican Republic (and the entire Caribbean region) and had replaced Europe as the republic’s major trading partner. However, U.S. and European investors became alarmed by the republic’s deteriorating financial situation. In 1905, the United States began to administer the Dominican Republic’s customs agency, using it in part to pay off the republic’s European creditors, who had threatened to collect on their debts. The United States assumed complete control of the nation’s government in 1916 after its fragile political structure collapsed again. The United States occupation in the Dominican Republic established roads, schools, communications, sanitation facilities, and other projects, and the occupation government enacted legal reforms that allowed U.S.-owned sugarcane companies to expand their operations (relying on the labor first of British West Indians, referred to as cocolos, and then of Haitians). In addition, the marines trans-

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formed the nation’s cultural life by introducing chewing gum and baseball, a sport that has since then become a Dominican passion (Moya Pons 1995). Some Dominicans, such as the Gavilleros, reacted strongly against the occupation forces, which had assumed arbitrary control and frequently abused their authority. As they prepared to depart the island, the U.S. Marines created a modern, unified military constabulary that became the instrument by which future Dominican authoritarians would seize power. T HE T RUJILLO R EGIME A revolution launched in 1930, triggered in part by the initial economic shock of the Great Depression, firmed the control of its leader, Rafael L. Trujillo y Molina. The Trujillo dictatorship (1930–1961) was one of the longest, cruelest, and most violent in Latin American and Caribbean history. Trujillo maintained complete control of the military, appointed family members to key offices, strictly enforced censorship and laws, and ordered the murder of political opponents. Trujillo also dominated the church hierarchy, educational system, entertainment industry, and every other element of Dominican society. He had Santo Domingo renamed Ciudad Trujillo, and he amassed a vast fortune for himself by taking ownership of everything he touched: land, airlines, trading monopolies, manufactures, and sugarcane producers (Moya Pons 1995). One of the most important policies for Trujillo was “Dominicanizing” the Dominican Republic. In 1937, the regime took part in one of the most horrific acts in human rights history, known as the Haitian Massacre. The massacre was Trujillo’s attempt to nationalize the Dominican borderlands and provide a good example of the antihaitianismo (the long-term evolution of racial prejudice against Haitians in the Dominican Republic) ideology that strengthened in the Dominican Republic. For almost 31 years, Dominican society was subjected to the antihaitianismo ideology, which

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affected—and still affects—every aspect of life, from culture to politics, in today’s Dominican Republic (Sagas 2000, Chs. 2 and 3). A M OVE TOWARD D EMOCRACY In May 1961, Trujillo was assassinated on a rural highway. His heirs and followers attempted to remain in power but were driven out, and the country embarked on a more democratic course. In 1963, Juan Bosch and the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD) took power; he was the first elected democratic and progressive president in the country’s history. However, Bosch earned the enmity of the country’s oligarchy and key U.S. officials, and after seven hectic months, he was overthrown. In 1966, the winner of the U.S.-organized elections was Joaquin Balaguer, a former Trujillo puppet who presented himself as a moderate conservative and a symbol of orderly change. Balaguer remained one of the main national figures for the next three decades in the face of political challenges from Bosch and other progressive politicians. The 1996 presidential elections, a contest between Leonel Fernandez of the Partido de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD) and Jose Pena Gomez, witnessed a repetition of the “dirty” campaigns. Pena Gomez, a dark-skinned Dominican who was said to be of Haitian ancestry, was a presidential candidate in both the 1994 and 1996 elections. He became the mayor of Santo Domingo and eventually moved up the ranks to become one of the leading presidential candidates under the PRD. However, due to racial and class discrimination in the Dominican Republic, Pena Gomez was accused of being of Haitian origin, which, in turn, made him an enemy of the Dominican people and a threat to the Dominican nation. This accusation led his enemies, particularly Balaguer, Pena Gomez’s longtime opponent and president of the country for most of the late 20th century, to question even his Catholic beliefs, in addition to his loyalty to the Dominican Republic. This led to numerous rumors that Pena

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Gomez was a voodoo practitioner and that he wanted to unify Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In the end, Pena Gomez lost; in his final speech, he declared that racism had played an important role in both of his electoral defeats. He died in 1998 (Sagas 2000). Fernandez, who hoped to mark the end of caudillo rule, proved an able but occasionally mercurial leader who oversaw unprecedented rates of economic growth. Hipolito Mejia, a former agrarian engineer, was elected president in 2000 as the PRD candidate. By the turn of the 21st century, Fernandez had again regained the power of the presidency. By then, the Dominican Republic had developed a stronger basis for democracy, with viable political parties, civilian-led governments, and a larger middle class; however, its authoritarian and corporatist influences still remained strong. A FRICAN I NFLUENCES IN D OMINICAN C ULTURE , H ISTORY, AND S OCIETY Most Dominicans are of African heritage at least to some degree. As stated earlier, most of the enslaved Africans who were brought to the island of Hispaniola during the early part of the 15th and the 16th centuries came from different parts of Africa. Essentially, the Spaniards regarded the enslaved Africans as inferior and uncivilized peoples, a view that sanctioned, in their minds at least, the way they treated the slaves. This attitude marked the beginning of a prejudice based solely on skin color and common to most of the Americas. To this day, Dominicans in the Dominican Republic are very sensitive when it comes to the topic of race and ethnicity. Unlike the United States, where a small amount of African blood identifies a person as African and/or African American, in the Dominican Republic, as elsewhere in Latin America and the Caribbean, the exact opposite is true: any amount of “white” blood qualifies a person as white. Although Dominicans have flaunted and continue to flaunt their blackness as a collective banner to advance economic, cultural,

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Dominican musician Juan Luis Guerra performs at the 2007 Billboard Latin Music Awards in Coral Gables, Florida. (Gary I. Rothstein/epa/Corbis)

and/or political causes, they cannot deny the African contributions that are visible throughout their culture in their everyday activities. For example, the official religion in the Dominican Republic has been Roman Catholicism; however, there are various African-derived religions that are heavily influenced not only by the presence of African culture within Dominican culture but also by the presence of the Haitians. These African-derived religions include voodoo and gaga, both of which are products of syncretism and/or a combination of varying degrees of belief systems, drawing from the civilizing trilogy that makes up Dominican society (indigenous, Spanish, and African) (Cambeira 1997). C ARNIVAL In the Dominican Republic, as in other countries in the Americas, the days leading up to Ash Wednesday, which for the Catholics signifies the beginning of Lent, are filled with wild merriment and jubilation known as Carnival.

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After Independence Day, it is the biggest celebration of all. Parades are the most salient manifestation of carnival. From such cities as Santo Domingo, Santiago de Los Caballeros, and San Pedro de Macrois one sees a variety of parades made up of dance troupes, beauty queens on floats, and/or military contingents in uniform. Some of the most intriguing characters from the parades in the Dominican Republic are the diablos cuejelos (horned devils) and the lechones (suckling pigs). These two characters are considered members of the lower class; however, they are probably two of the best-known figures of carnival celebrations in the Dominican Republic (Cambeira 1997). Carnival parades also include groups of people dressed in regional costumes, representing the different areas of the country. The upper class celebrates Carnival with costume balls at private clubs. DANCE AND M USICAL S TYLES The strong influence of African culture is also seen in Dominican performing arts. Performing arts in the Dominican Republic, especially on the popular level, are free from the constraints and limitations of a dominating European/American influence. For example, the biggest African contribution to Dominican music is in the area of percussion. One hears its long-lasting and profoundly influential effect on the evolution of folk and popular music. Some examples include the adenco, the palitos de los bailes de cinta, the metal maraca, the botijuela, and the yon (Cambeira 1997). One can also see the African contribution to dance in the Dominican Republic. The merengue is the national dance; it is said to have some Haitian origin, dating back to the colonial period, and was a form of entertainment of the enslaved community in the Dominican Republic (Cambeira 1997). For most of its history, merengue was seen by the upper class as a dance limited to the rural and poor classes. It was not until the American occupation and during the Trujillo regime that merengue took on a popular form among all

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sectors of Dominican society. Merengue songs are usually about such topics as love, lust, politics, money, history, voodoo, modern technological advancements, stories, and sociological problems like race and immigration issues. The lyrics are sometimes humorous and satirical. Another dance that has become popular in the Dominican Republic and that is heavily African influenced is bachata. Bachata emerged in the Dominican Republic at the beginning of the 1960s. Since the 1960s and up to the time that Juan Luis Guerra popularized it in the 1990s, bachata was an acoustic guitar–centered ensemble, with bongo drums and maracas for percussion. Initially, it was not something that one danced to, but over time, a slow movement similar to the bolero became associated with the music. A typical bachata song deals primarily with love or the loss of a loved one (Cambeira 1997). D OMINICANS AND THE A FRICAN D IASPORA It has been said that by 2010, Dominicans will become one of the largest Latino/ Afro-Latino groups to reside in the northeastern region of the United States. A population of that size would clearly have a tremendous impact on the economic, political, cultural, and social situation in the United States, the Dominican Republic, and most importantly within the Dominican Diaspora community. In fact, Moya Pons has argued that it was not until the late 20th century that Dominicans discovered their black roots due to their experience living in the United States, and that they have only begun to influence their native land by bringing this discovery to their homeland (1995). In the United States, many dark-skinned Dominicans find themselves having to face questions regarding their nationality, race, and identity that their historical experience has not prepared them to embrace. This has led many to assume a discourse of identity that emanates from the particular struggles of the black liberation movement in the United States (Torres-Saillant 1998). According to several studies

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on Dominican migration to New York City, some Dominicans claim themselves to be not Dominicans but Africans born in the Dominican Republic. Furthermore, because so many young Dominicans are migrating back and forth between the United States and the Dominican Republic, they are introducing to the Dominican Republic the racial categories prevalent in the United States, which will have a tremendous impact on how race and ethnicity are understood in the Dominican Republic (Torres-Saillant 1998). Christina Violeta Jones See also Haiti. F URTHER R EADING Cambeira, Alan. 1997. Quisqueya La Bella: The Dominican Republic in Historical and Cultural Perspective. New York: M. E. Sharpe. Esteban Deive, Carlos. 1980. La Esclavitud del Negro en Santo Domingo: 1492–1844. 2 vols. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Museo del Hombre Dominicano. Howard, David. 2001. Coloring the Nation: Race and Ethnicity in the Dominican Republic. Oxford: Signal Books. Moya Pons, Frank. 1995. The Dominican Republic: A National History. New Rochelle, NY: Hispaniola Books. Sagas, Ernesto. 2000. Race and Politics in the Dominican Republic. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. San Miguel, Pedro L. 2005. The Imagined Island: History, Identity, and Utopia in Hispaniola. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Torres-Saillant, Silvio. 1998. “The Tribulations of Blackness: Stages in Dominican Racial Identity.” Latin American Perspectives 25 (3): 126– 146.

z Douglarization See Indians and the African Diaspora in the Caribbean.

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Douglas, Aaron (1899–1979) Aaron Douglas was a brilliant artist and illustrator whose inspired artwork graced the covers of a great many books and magazines published during the Harlem Renaissance, and whose giant murals were commissioned in New York, Nashville, and Chicago. He was born in Topeka, Kansas, on May 26, 1899, and subsequently lived in Detroit, studied art at the University of Minnesota and University of Nebraska at Lincoln, where he earned his bachelor’s degree, and moved to Kansas City as a high school teacher. In 1925, he moved to Harlem and immediately began illustrating the covers of The Crisis and Opportunity magazines, as well as books, most famously The New Negro by Alain Locke and God’s Trombones by James Weldon Johnson. For him, art was not only a matter of depicting beauty but rather of depicting life in a way that spoke to the black masses, and his high-contrast, high-impact images were heavily influenced by African art as well as cubism and modernism. He was the recipient of a number of grants and fellowships and became a professor at Fisk University in Nashville, where he devoted himself to inspiring a new generation of black artists. He died in Nashville in 1979. Noelle Theard See also Art in the African Diaspora; Harlem Renaissance. F URTHER R EADING Kirschke, Amy Helene. 1995. Aaron Douglas: Art, Race, and the Harlem Renaissance. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

z Douglass, Frederick (1818–1895) Although he was born enslaved on a plantation in Talbot County, Maryland, in 1818, Frederick Douglass rose to become one of the most

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important American writers and orators of the 19th century. Secretly taught to read by his owner’s daughter, he began to understand that the “pathway from slavery to freedom” (Douglass 1993, 58), at least mentally, began in literacy, and he began reading widely. In 1838, Douglass escaped slavery and moved to Massachusetts, a free state, with the help of his fiancée, Anna Murray, a free black woman. Making use of both African American and white oratorical and religious traditions, Douglass soon gained a reputation as a powerful and persuasive speaker for abolition. In 1845, Douglass published the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself. At the time, slave narratives were commonly published as “as told to” stories, narrated by illiterate former slaves but not actually composed by them. Douglass, in writing his own narrative, asserted the right to speak for himself as an African American—and thus, indirectly, for African Americans to speak for themselves. An international bestseller, the Narrative drew attention to the horrors of slavery and established Douglass as an eloquent advocate for abolition. It also eventually led to broken ties with some of his white supporters in the abolitionist movement, as Douglass soon began to advocate for more aggressive political reforms than some of the more cautious abolitionists were comfortable with. After publishing the Narrative, Douglass, still legally enslaved, began lecturing in England, where, in 1847, his supporters there purchased his freedom for him. Returning to the United States, he began a newspaper, the North Star, and continued lecturing. In 1848, he attended the Seneca Falls Convention, demonstrating his support for women’s rights. In 1852, Douglass delivered his most famous speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” in which he challenged the hypocrisy of a nation that professed to be a democracy but whose denial of citizenship to black people made a “hollow mockery” of its “shouts of

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liberty.” In 1855, he published another autobiographical work, My Bondage and My Freedom. In 1860, Douglass worked for Abraham Lincoln’s presidential campaign and continued working for Union causes during the Civil War. Always an independent thinker, however, in 1863 he quit his recruiting efforts for the Union Army to protest its treatment of black soldiers. Although deeply disappointed by the backlash against Reconstruction and the subsequent reversal of African American civil rights gains in the South, Douglass maintained his faith in constitutional processes and the Republican party. In 1881, he published his last autobiographical work, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. In 1882, his wife, Anna, died, and in 1884, he married Helen Pitts, a white woman. He continued to “agitate,” as he put it, for civil rights. In 1893, he wrote the introduction for Ida B. Wells’s Why the Colored American Is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition, and in 1894, he wrote The Lessons of the Hour, a critique of lynching and racism and what he saw as the Christian hypocrisy that allowed them. Douglass died on February 20, 1895, after attending a meeting of the National Council of Women. David Gold See also Abolitionism in the African Diaspora; “African” in African American History. F URTHER R EADING Burke, Ronald K. 1996. Frederick Douglass: Crusading Orator for Human Rights. New York: Garland. Douglass, Frederick. 1950. The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass. Ed. Philip S. Foner. New York: International Publishers. Douglass, Frederick. 1993. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself. Ed. David W. Blight. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press. (Original published in 1845.) Douglass, Frederick. 1996. The Oxford Frederick Douglass Reader. Ed. William L. Andrews. New York: Oxford University Press. Foner, Philip S. 1964. Frederick Douglass: A Biography. New York: Citadel Press.

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Huggins, Nathan Irvin. 1980. Slave and Citizen: The Life of Frederick Douglass. Boston: Little, Brown. Martin, Waldo E., Jr. 1984. The Mind of Frederick Douglass. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

z Dracius, Suzanne (1951–) A poet, playwright, short story writer, and novelist, Suzanne Dracius shared her life between Martinique and Paris. A graduate in classics from the Sorbonne, she taught at the Université des Antilles et de la Guyane in Martinique until 1996. Her slim though diverse corpus includes L’autre qui danse (1989), a novel; Negzagonal (1992) and Moun le Sid (1993), poems in Creole with their French translation; Rue monte au ciel (2003), a collection of short stories; Habitation Anse Latouche (1994), an essay on a historical monument; and the historical play Lumina Sophie dite Surprise (2005). The notion of cultural métissage underlies Dracius’s work, where the French Caribbean is envisaged as a cultural crossroads between preColumbian America, Africa, Europe, India, and the Middle East. Dracius’s writing is also concerned with the situation of women in Martinique and their reinscription in history. The denunciation of the Afrocentric and androcentric nature of Aimé Césaire’s négritude identity quest in L’autre qui danse (1989) echoes Maryse Condé’s early fiction. The protagonist Rehvana’s itinerary begins in an imaginary Africa, continues in Martinique, and concludes in Paris. Rehvana’s journey, however, does not faithfully replicate that of the Antillean Diaspora; it is its distorted image: the mythical Africa that Rehvana leaves behind is a sect’s hallucinatory re-creation, divorced from reality; the Martinique she constructs bears no relation to her actual surroundings, and, far from providing subsistence, the Paris to which

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Dravidians | 399 she eventually retreats ends in starvation and death. Rehvana fails to value the multiplicity of her cultural heritage, singling out instead one component (first her African ancestry, then her Afro-Martinican culture) in the name of an “authenticity” that is as impoverishing as it is self-destructive. Both in the sect and in Martinique, Rehvana is abused by her male companion. The author thus points to the dangers of an identity discourse fully endorsing tradition, for tradition is seldom advantageous to women. Unlike her sister Rehvana, Matildana succeeds in constructing a positive sense of identity by reconciling the multiple elements of her cultural heritage. While métissage remains central to most of the stories in Rue monte au ciel (2003), many are further concerned with the art of writing itself, as in “Ecrit au jus de citron vert,” “Les trois mousquetaires étaient quatre,” and “Chlorophyllienne création,” all written in a playful mode. The play Lumina Sophie dite Surprise (2005) recounts the story of Lumina, the leader of the 1870 women’s insurrection in Martinique, who fights for decent working conditions and social justice. This episode has fallen virtually into oblivion. Here, Dracius’s project is one that Glissant advocates in his Caribbean Discourse, where he argues for the necessity for Caribbean writers to rewrite their history. The play questions Martinican historiography, which ignores local events such as those of 1870 to focus instead on what occurred in France. In Lumina Sophie dite Surprise, however, not only does Dracius reappropriate the Martinican past, but she also reasserts the contribution of women. Odile Ferly See also Césaire, Aimé (1913–2008); Condé, Maryse (1937–); Fanon, Frantz (1925–1961); Glissant, Edouard (1928–); Négritude. F URTHER R EADING Ferly, Odile. 2002. “Diversity Is Coherence: Métissage and Créolité in Suzanne Dracius’s L’autre qui danse.” MaComère 5: 145–155.

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Ferly, Odile. 2001. “The Fanonian Theory of Violence in Women’s Fiction from the Caribbean.” In Convergences and Interferences: Newness in Intercultural Practices, ed. K. Gyssels and I. Hoving, 107–119. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Rinne, Susanne B. 1997. “Entretien par correspondance avec Suzanne Dracius.” In Elles écrivent des Antilles (Haïti, Guadeloupe, Martinique), ed. Susanne Rinne and Joëlle Vitiello, 367–372. Paris: L’Harmattan. Rinne, Susanne B. 1997. “L’impossibilité de vivre l’Afrique: Suzanne Dracius.” In Elles écrivent des Antilles (Haïti, Guadeloupe, Martinique), ed. Susanne Rinne and Joëlle Vitiello, 361–366. Paris: L’Harmattan.

z Dravidians The term “Dravidian” is a linguistic category often associated with an array of ethnic groups that inhabit South Asia. In terms of a common phenotype, the Dravidians possess those physical characteristics that anthropologists have often associated with the pseudoscientific racial categories “Negroid” and “Austroloid,” for they display a straight to wavy hair texture similar to Australian aboriginals, in contrast to the tightly curled variety exhibited by most continental Africans and other members of the African Diaspora. Geographically, most Dravidians are found in the southern portion of the Indian subcontinent, located in present-day Tamil Nadu and Tamil Eelam (Northern Sri Lanka). According to the standard linguistic nomenclature, the modern Dravidian family of languages can be divided into several family trees, consisting of Northern, Central, South-Central, and Southern Dravidian tongues in addition to other unclassified dialects and closely related languages. Major languages include Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Gondi. The origins of the Dravidian people are enigmatic and riddled with many controversies embedded in vestiges of the unscientific

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and sometimes utterly false ethnographic investigations conducted by the European colonialist historians and anthropologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Furthermore, many orthodox Hindu scholars, many of whom identify with the Indo-European invaders known as Aryans, have distorted the interpretation of the historical documents and anthropological data in accordance with various Hindu nationalist propaganda campaigns. Hence, the investigations into the origins of the Dravidian people have become an active but very complex subject of research and debate. Today, many academic researchers have attempted to connect the Dravidians with the remnants of the great Indus Valley civilization located in Northwestern India, of which carbon 14 dating estimates a starting point at approximately 1866 BCE with an endpoint of 1500 BCE. This coincides with the forced migration of Aryan nomads from central Asia into this region. It is mere speculation that the Dravidians are the ensuing post–Indus Valley settlement of refugees into South and Central India. Other theories of Dravidian origins propose the existence of an ancient land mass known as Lemuria. Evidence that supports the existence of Lemuria is largely circumstantial; however, some recent events have stimulated many researchers to search for more convincing physical evidence. A massive tsunami that struck maritime Indonesia and other coastal areas of the Indian Ocean during December 2004 has revealed the ruins of an ancient city under water. Ancient Tamilian myths claim that the ancestors of the Tamils once lived on a continent extending from Sri Lanka that was demolished by the sea around 2387 BCE. Many important details regarding territories and geographical features were passed down orally and eventually written down circa the 11th century CE. Furthermore, modern geologists and paleontologists have hypothesized that a common ancestor of the Oceanic Negroids, Australian aboriginals, continental Africans, and the Dravidians once

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occupied this landmass that connected Madagascar with South India. For centuries, while the northern and northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent were more susceptible to Aryan influences, the Dravidians of South India managed to maintain the integrity of their classical culture and spiritual systems. The three principal Tamil dynasties that ruled South India during the classical Dravidian period were the Cholas, the Cheras, and the Pandyas. The early and medieval Cholas reigned between the first and the seventh centuries CE, supporting a flourishing social and economic atmosphere. They ruled most of South India and Bengal and even extended control over such islands as Indonesia. The Cheras ruled over southwestern India in a region known today as Kerala from the third century BCE to about the sixth century CE. The Cheras developed an advanced culture and practiced forms of spirituality rooted in animism. Chera priests and scholars developed a highly advanced literary tradition and intellectual prowess in the arts and sciences. The Cheras were in direct competition with the Cholas, often feuding over arable land and human resources. The Pandyan kingdom was one of the oldest kingdoms of Tamil Nadu, founded around the sixth century BCE. The Pandyas excelled in both trade and learning. They controlled the important pearl fisheries along the south Indian coast, between Sri Lanka and the mainland, which produced the finest pearls known in the ancient world. The name Pandya is derived from the aristocratic family Pandu, from the Aryan epic Mahabharata. The Pandyan capital Madura was an intellectual center for authors, poets, and artisans. The city contained numerous Sangams, or universities, that housed several tenured poets. The culture of the Dravidians contains many elements that bear a striking similarity to many African cultures. The former president of Senegal, Dr. Léopold Sédar Senghor, is sometimes known as the founding father of

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Drum | 401 this comparative study of Africans and Dravidians. In 1974, Dr. Senghor wrote an influential article entitled “Negritude and Dravidian Culture,” in which he explored such various shared cultural elements as metallurgical designations and matriarchal cultural cycles. K. P. Aravaanan, inspired by the work of Senghor, followed with extensive comparative studies on the culture and commercial contacts between Africans and Dravidians. Aravaanan also played an important role in highlighting the Cult of the Serpent as a prominent and ubiquitous feature amongst Dravidian India, the Pre-Hellenic Mediterranean world, and black Africa. Many of the rituals that are connected with snake worship in different parts of Africa find their precise parallels in the customs and spiritual practices observed in the western and southern coasts of India by Dravidian and Adivasi communities. The linguistic affinities between the Dravidian languages and those of continental Africa are essential in establishing the Dravidians as members of the African Diaspora. In 1983, Dr. U. P. Upadhyaya published an important manuscript entitled “Dravidian and Negro-African,” in which he attempted the most comprehensive discussion of these linguistic comparisons of the time, compiling the work of such important linguistic researchers as L. Homburger and E. H. Tuttle. In 1948, Homburger, a French linguist, published her observations of specific typological and morphological resemblances between such African languages as Peul, Bantu, and other West African languages and the Dravidian languages Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada. Moreover, Tuttle discovered hundreds of lexical items of Nubian dialects that can be attributed to the Dravidians. In addition, Upadhyaya later extended this research by noting many phonological and acoustic resemblances between these languages. Horen Tudu See also Adivasi.

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F URTHER R EADING Aravaanan, K. P. 1977. Dravidians and Africans. Madras, India: Tamil Koottam. Joseph, P. 1972. The Dravidian Problem in the South Indian Culture Complex. New Delhi: Orient and Longman. Pillai, Purnalingam. 2003. Ravana, The Great King of Lanka. New Delhi: Asian Educational Services. Upadhyaya, U. P. 1983. Dravidian and NegroAfrican. Karnataka, India: Samshodhana Prakashana. Wolpert, Stanley. 1997. A New History of India. 5th edition. New York: Oxford University Press.

z Drum Drum is a monthly South African magazine that started as African Drum in 1951. From a conservative magazine focusing on rural and traditional lifestyles of Africans, it became a springboard for political, literary, and radical thought. Drum became a launching pad for a generation of such black writers as Lewis Nkosi, Bessie Head, Bloke Modisane, Can Themba, Ezekiel Mphaphlele, Todd Matshikiza, Arthur Mamaine, and many others. The first black journalist who worked for Drum was Henry Nxumalo, who was the sports reporter. He was part of the Sophiatown Renaissance and had been writing for the Pittsburgh Courier in the 1940s, linking the New Negro modernity in the United States to New African Modernity in South Africa. Africa Drum was started by the South African millionaire Jim Bailey. The first editor, Bob Crisp, was a white national cricketer on the Springbok team and a popular journalist and radio reporter (Sampson 1957, 14– 15). The first issues contained feature stories like “Music of the Tribes”; “Know yourselves, History of the Bantu Tribes”; installments of Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton; and articles on religion and farming. The poem by the African American Countee Cullen, “What

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Is Africa to Me,” and a poem in Zulu, “Mlung ungazikhlohlisi” (“White man, do not deceive yourself ”) were included in one of the early numbers, too (Sampson 1957). Many white readers subscribed to the magazine because its colonial gaze was norm affirmative. The first copies of Drum were even sent to the South African information offices abroad. This Drum did not sell to urban Africans in the townships. Anthony Sampson (August 3, 1926–December 18, 2004), a British journalist, was brought to South Africa and succeeded Bob Crisp as editor. Under Anthony Sampson, Drum took a complete change of direction, with Henry Nxumalo as the key instigator of this change. The appointment of Todd Matshikiza, a jazz musician and composer of the musical King Kong, transformed the magazine. Another important addition to the staff was Arthur Maimane. Although this was only the beginning, these changes influenced the readership. Drum lost most of its white support, and many of its initial subscribers withdrew their subscriptions. The group of bright young African journalists thus assembled were to become one of the leading schools of South African writers. Most of them went into exile during the apartheid years. From these militant beginnings, Drum slowly developed into a highly successful international magazine featuring articles about politics and black achievement in Southern Africa as well as in the United States. In postapartheid South Africa, it has become a glossy magazine in which all the advertising targets a black South African readership. Some of the features are “People in Pictures,” public interest stories like weddings and graduations, crime, political figures and political commentary, fashion, sports, and horoscope. Drum has become part of the daily lives of the majority of South Africans. It is the sixth-largest consumer magazine in Africa. Thelma Ravell-Pinto

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See also Mandela, Nelson Rolihlahla (1918–); Mandela, Winnie (1936–) F URTHER R EADING Head, Bessie. 1993. The Cardinals with Meditations and Short Stories. Cape Town, Republic of South Africa: David Philip. Maimaine, Arthur. 1976. Victims. London: Alison and Busby. Matshikiza, Todd. 1961. Chocolates for My Wife. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Modisane, Bloke. 1963. Blame Me on History. London: Thames and Hudson. Mphahlele, Ezekiel. 1974. The African Image. Rev. ed. New York: Praeger. Nkosi, Lewis. 1965. Home and Exile. London: Longmans. Sampson, Anthony. 1957. Drum: The Newspaper That Won the Heart of Africa. Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press. Themba, Can. 1972. The Will to Die. Ed. Donald Stuart and Roy Holland. London: Heinemann.

z du Sable, Jean-Baptiste Pointe (1745–1818) Jean-Baptiste Pointe du Sable was an explorer, fur trader, farmer, and founder of Chicago. He was born in St. Marc, Saint Domingue, the French Caribbean colony that became Haiti. His father was a French captain and his mother was a black slave. For his formal education, his father took him to France. Later, he worked on his father’s ships as a mariner. He spoke French, Spanish, English, and several Native American languages fluently. He was also a connoisseur of fine art. When he lived in Europe, he acquired a valuable collection of works, which he eventually sold. At age 20, because of a serious injury he sustained during a voyage, du Sable disembarked in New Orleans. At the intervention of French Jesuits while convalescing, he narrowly escaped enslavement by Spaniards, who governed Louisiana at the time. After his recovery, he sailed north on the Mississippi River to Illinois,

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du Sable, Jean-Baptiste Pointe (1745–1818) | 403 settled in Peoria, and acquired more than 800 acres of land. He married a Native American, a Potawatomi named Kittihawa who, on converting to Catholicism, was renamed Catherine. They had two children, Jean and Marie-Suzanne. In 1779, du Sable left Peoria to explore Eschikagou, or “Fetid Swamp,” so named for its malodorous waters. In French, he rendered the name “Checagou,” “Chicagot,” or “Chicageaux.” Later, English speakers standardized the spelling to “Chicago.” He recognized its potential as a settlement and built the city’s first permanent home, where the Tribune Tower now stands. One of his grandchildren, born in 1796, was the first child born in the new settlement. His trading post became the main supply station for trappers and traders en route to the west. The fame of his wealthy enterprise spanned from Detroit to Milwaukee. Between 1800 and 1805, du Sable sold his estate for a paltry $1,800 and moved to Missouri, where he died, near penniless, in 1818. Details about du Sable’s life remain sketchy. The year of his birth is an approximation. Though legally free, if his African-born mother was truly a slave, he automatically inherited her servile status at birth. If this was the case, it is probable that his father freed him at an early age. Other records suggest that someone freed du Sable’s slave mother before his birth. Documents in the archives of the Chicago Historical Society cannot verify that he was the city’s only founder. Some say that Jean-Baptiste Guillory preceded him, though his stay was brief. Nor can they verify exactly where he was born, on the Spanish side (Santo Domingo) or the French side (Saint Domingue) of the island of Hispaniola. Some assert that he came from Spanish Florida while others cite British Canada. Though in a letter written in 1779, a British officer described him as a handsome, well-educated French-speaking black man, we have no idea what he looked like. From an inventory of items he sold before moving to Missouri, it is apparent that his wealth was

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considerable. But such sources about him are rare. Even the spellings of his surnames are uncertain. Various documents show “Pointe du Sable,” “Point de Sable,” “Point au Sable,” “Sabre,” “Saible,” and so on. Biographical gaps notwithstanding, most agree that he was a Caribbean-born multilingual businessman of African descent who, in the late 1700s, established a sophisticated trading complex in the vicinity of present-day Michigan Avenue. He is especially revered among Haitian immigrants and African American Chicagoans, who fought since the 1920s to win him recognition as the city’s founder. Official recognition came in 1968. Joseph Dorsey See also Dominican Republic; Haiti F URTHER R EADING Andreas, A. T. 1884–1886. History of Chicago from the Earliest Period to the Present. Chicago: A. T. Andreas. Davey, Monica. 2003. “Tribute to Haitian Native Jean-Baptiste Point DuSable, Founder of the City of Chicago.” New York Times, June 25. Drake, St. Claire, and Horace Cayton. 1945. Black Metropolis. New York; Harcourt, Brace and Company. Dubois Graham, Shirley. 1953. Jean-Baptiste Pointe du Sable, Founder of Chicago. New York: J. Messner. Julien, Virginia, and Lorraine Passovoy. 1983. The Black Root: Documents of Point Sable and Chicago. Chicago: Virginia Julien. Marsh, Carole. 1998. Jean-Baptiste Pointe du Sable, Father of Chicago. Peachtree City, Georgia: Gallapade International. Miller, Robert H., and Richard Leonard. 1995. The Story of Jean-Baptiste Pointe du Sable: Stories from the Forgotten West. Parsippany, New Jersey: Silver Press. Passovoy, Lorraine. 1982. Point Sable and Chicago, 1778–80. Chicago: Lorraine Passovoy. Quaife, Milo. 1933. Checagou: From Indian Wigwam to Modern City, 1673–1835. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Robb, Frederic, ed. 1927. The Negro in Chicago, 1779 to 1927. 2 volumes. Chicago: Intercollegiate Club of Chicago and the International Negro Student Alliance.

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404 | DuBois, William Edward Burghardt (1868–1963) Sawyers, June. 1991. Chicago Portraits: Biographies of 250 Famous Chicagoans. Chicago: Loyola University Press.

z DuBois, William Edward Burghardt (1868–1963) Arguably one of the most significant intellectuals of the 20th century, William Edward Burghardt DuBois was born on February 23, 1868, to Alfred DuBois and Mary Silvina Burghardt. DuBois began his studies at Fisk University in September 1885 and graduated in 1888. Determined to receive a Harvard education, he entered Harvard as a junior and earned his bachelor’s degree cum laude in 1890. As a young man DuBois had hoped that he and other African Americans privileged to be among the “Talented Tenth” (what he defined as an elite group representing the artists and intellectuals who would be leaders of their communities) would be able to use their intellectual work to contest efforts to relegate African Americans and their descendants to an inferior social, political, cultural, and economic status. He became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. at Harvard University. In 1895, he completed his dissertation, “The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638–1870.” Upon completing his graduate studies, DuBois was eager to put his rigorous intellectual training to practical use. He embarked on a 15-month sociological study of Philadelphia titled The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (1899). Impressive in its scope, attention to detail, and empirical data, the study proved critical to setting the high standards for social scientific methodology. DuBois later took a position at Atlanta University, where he published a series of sociological studies that explored various aspects of African Americans’ economic, physical, and social well-being.

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W. E. B. DuBois, considered one of the fathers of pan-Africanism for his work on behalf of the emerging African nations, devoted his life to the struggle for equality for African Americans and all people of color. (Library of Congress)

In 1903, DuBois published his best-known text, The Souls of Black Folk. In the book, he publicly challenged Booker T. Washington’s political accommodation of Southern elites. In Souls, DuBois also explored the notion of “double consciousness.” “One ever feels his twoness,” he wrote, “—an American, a Negro; two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” Moving and provocative, DuBois’s statement informed many of his intellectual descendants. In 1910, DuBois became a principal founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He assumed a central role as the editor of the NAACP’s principal journal, The Crisis. DuBois supported the NAACP fight for civil rights, provided social commentary, and continually championed the cause of racial equality. His position as editor

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Dunham, Katherine (1909–2006) | 405 was contested by members of the NAACP’s board who resented his unwillingness to compromise his autonomy. Board members clashed over many of DuBois’s iconoclastic critiques of black and white leadership. Finally, in 1932, DuBois championed the formation of a “separate black cooperative economy.” The notion of voluntary segregation on any level was untenable to NAACP’s executive leadership. DuBois resigned in 1934 and returned to his professorship in Atlanta. DuBois’s academic work continued to defy the dominant academic trends and scholarship. Such works as The Negro (1915), Black Reconstruction (1935), Black Folk Then and Now: An Essay on the History and Sociology of the Negro Race (1939), and The World and Africa (1946), for example, cast the African American struggle for civil rights and economic development within broader antiracist and anti-imperialist frameworks that interrogated capitalism as it fueled the oppression of working-class people. In 1951, DuBois was charged with being an unregistered agent of a foreign power. Although he was acquitted, DuBois was deeply offended by the process and emigrated to Ghana, where he joined the Communist Party in 1961. On August 27, 1963, DuBois died in his adopted homeland at the age of 95. Alexandra Cornelius-Diallo See also National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); PanAfricanism. F URTHER R EADING Carby, Hazel. 1998. Race Men. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lewis, David Levering. 1993. W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919. New York: Henry Holt. Lewis, David Levering Lewis. W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919–1963. 2nd ed. New York: Owl Books. Posnock, Ross. 1998. Color and Culture: Black Writers and the Making of the Modern Intellec-

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tual. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

z Dunham, Katherine (1909–2006) Katherine Dunham, noted for her pioneering work as a dancer, choreographer, anthropologist, author, and human rights activist, was born on June 22, 1909, in Chicago, Illinois. She received her Bachelor of Arts, Masters of Arts and doctoral degrees from the University of Chicago. Dunham is best known for incorporating African American, Caribbean, African, and South American movement styles and themes in her choreography. Dunham choreographed Aida for the Metropolitan Opera (1963), as well as Cabin in the Sky, Stormy Weather, Carnival of Rhythm, A Negro Rhapsody, and Star Spangled Rhythm. Her innovative choreography has been reconstructed by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Company, and the Dayton Contemporary Dance Theatre. Her technique is being studied at the prestigious Alvin Ailey American Dance School, in the public school system in New York City, and at several colleges and universities throughout the world. Dunham has been honored with many awards and honorary doctoral degrees. In 1935, she received the Rosenwald Award to study movement and traditional dances of the Caribbean, which included Jamaica, Haiti, and Martinique. The study produced one of the foremost discoveries in the world of dance, anthropology, and culture; the findings are demonstrated in her thesis, “The Dances of Haiti: Their Social Organization, Classification, Form and Function.” This work resulted in her first books, Journey to Accompong (1946) and Island Possessed (1969). In 1979, Dunham received

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Katherine Dunham was an African American dancer, choreographer, and activist who was also trained as an anthropologist. She was a leader in the field of Dance Anthropology, or Ethnochoreography. (Library of Congress)

the Albert Schweitzer Music Award for her lifework dedicated to music and humanity. In 1983, she was one of five distinguished artists to receive the Kennedy Center Award, and in 1986 she received the prestigious Samuel Scripps American Dance Festival Award. Additionally, in 1986 Dunham was appointed as a Distinguished Fellow of the United States Fulbright Commission on Dance in affiliation with UNESCO. In 1987, she was inducted into the National Museum of Dance Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, New York. In the spring of 2000, she was presented with the Duke Ellington Award. In 1992, Dunham made national headlines by conducting a 47-day hunger strike protesting the deportation and maltreatment of the Haitian people. Katherine Dunham has created a phenomenal dance methodology, the Dunham technique.

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The Dunham technique is an application of her physical and cultural studies and has resulted in an innovative field of study, dance anthropology. In the mid-1940s, she opened the Dunham School of Dance and Theatre in New York City. The school was later renamed the Katherine Dunham School of Cultural Art, Inc. She later opened dance centers in Paris, Rome, and Stockholm. Dunham continued to tour as a performing artist, dancer, and choreographer from the 1940s to the mid-1960s in film and television and on Broadway, as well as internationally. In 1970, she instituted the Dunham Centers and Museum in East St. Louis, Illinois. The primary focus of the center has remained constant and increasingly important to the diverse society in which we live: multicultural issues and the utilization of the arts for prosperous interaction between individuals of divergent backgrounds. In 1982, Katherine Dunham implemented a comprehensive arts education dance program. This innovative program is multidisciplinary; in it, students study ballet, tap, jazz, modern dance, Dunham technique, music, languages, visual arts, and anthropology. Until the time of her death in 2006, Dunham continued the philosophy of the Dunham technique, universal love for humanity and nature. The most important elements of the Dunham technique are understanding and knowledge of self, and mind, body, and spirit working in unison. Michelle Murray See also Dance in the African Diaspora; Haiti. F URTHER R EADING Clark, Veve, and Sara Johnson, eds. 2006. Kaiso! Writings by and about Katherine Dunham. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2007. Dunham, Katherine. 1946. Journey to Accompong. New York: Henry Holt. Dunham, Katherine. 1959. Touch of Innocence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dunham, Katherine. 1969. Island Possessed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Harman, Terry. 1974. African Rhythm, American Dance. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

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E z

East African Community (EAC)

1920s as a mandated territory entrusted to Britain by the League of Nations. The 1920s also witnessed increased interests not only in federating the three territories but also extending the scheme to the white, minority-administered territories of Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia, and Southern Rhodesia. In what was commonly referred to as “Closer Union,” this scheme was mainly advanced by the white settlers in the region, who drew support and opposition alike from these territories and Britain. Subsequently, reports by the OrmsbyGore Commission (1924), the Hilton-Young Commission (1928, 1929), and the Joint Parliamentary Select Committee (1931) put to rest any hopes of federating East and Central African British territories, especially when motives for establishing it seemed to rest on the selfish white minority interests that ignored the aspirations of the African population. However, closer cooperation between the East African territories continued into the 1940s. The exigencies of World War II demanded that the governors of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika form the Governors’ Conference, which cocoordinated military and economic issues related to the war. After the war, the existence of this arrangement was legitimized by the creation of the East African High

The East African Community (EAC) is a regional intergovernmental organization of the republics of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. Its major objective is to promote socioeconomic cooperation between member countries. It represents an effort by the local African population to consolidate and preserve a shared historical experience that transcends the colonial era, but one that also reflects Africa’s search for a collective initiative with which to stamp its identity in the modern world. It has its origins, first, in the British colonial attempts to consolidate the resources of these territories for imperial needs, and second, in a conscious effort by the local African leaders to federate the territories as part of the wider nationalist and Pan-African activities after World War II. Initial efforts at regional integration in East Africa were mainly a colonial undertaking that started with the creation of a single administration in 1902 to run the railway services of Kenya and Uganda. This was followed with the establishment of a common currency for both territories in 1905, to be regulated by the East African Currency Board, set up in 1920. The Customs Union was established in 1917, of which Tanganyika became a member in the 407 www.abc-clio.com

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Commission in 1948, which had the institutionalized authority to oversee the running of common services between the territories. The importance attached to this initiative resulted in the establishment of the East African Common Services Organization (EACSO) in 1961, to replace the commission. The African leaders of these territories inherited the EACSO at independence in the early 1960s, as they worked toward a treaty that established the East African Community in 1967. African initiatives toward regional integration in East Africa were linked to the PanAfrican movement and growing nationalism on the continent after 1945. Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya was one of the main organizers of the 1945 Manchester Conference, which fired up nationalist movements across Africa. Yatu, a Ugandan delegate at the conference, later advocated for a country made up of Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, Nyasaland, and the adjacent Indian Ocean Islands, with Swahili as the common language. It was not until 1958 that an East African-based Pan-African movement emerged with regional integration as one of its main objectives. Thus, the Pan-African Freedom Movement for East and Central Africa (PAFMECA) was launched at Mwanza, Tanganyika, drawing membership from Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda, Zanzibar, and Nyasaland. Liberation of these and other African territories from colonialism was its primary objective, to be followed up with plans of federation. Julius Nyerere of Tanganyika and Tom Mboya of Kenya were among the founders of PAFMECA, after which they pressed for the first All African Peoples’ Conference (AAPC) in Accra in December 1958. PAFMECA and Nyerere, in particular, represented a regional, gradual approach to a continental, all-African union, a means to African unity to which such radicals as W. E. B. DuBois, Kwame Nkrumah, and Namdi Azikiwe were averse. PAFMECA’s influence on AAPC’s resolutions was evident, however, as it was agreed that the continent be divided into five regions, each coordinating its

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own struggle for independence, after which each region would cooperate in political and economic issues as an initial step toward continent-wide federation. At its Addis Ababa meeting in February 1962, PAFMECA added Ethiopia and Somalia to its membership and also received delegates from Mozambique, Southern Rhodesia, South Africa, South West Africa, Bechuanaland, Basutoland, and Swaziland. It also reaffirmed its commitment to a regional federation as a prelude to an all-African federation, a scheme that Nyerere later defended at the inaugural Organization of African Unity (OAU) meeting at Addis Ababa in May 1963. Nyerere became the epitome of “regional Pan-Africanism” and federation and sought to link the two to the liberation struggle in Eastern Africa. He was thus willing to delay Tanganyika’s independence if that would serve to quicken the advance of political freedom in Kenya and Uganda, so as to pave the way for federation. Yet the liberation struggle in East and Central Africa proved complex, as independence came to each of the territories at different times. This helps to explain why federation involving the territories across the region failed to materialize immediately after independence in the early 1960s. But as far as East Africa was concerned, the period between 1961 and 1964 witnessed political disunity along party lines in Uganda, Kenya, and Zanzibar, precluding attempts at unity at the regional level. Furthermore, talks for federation after Kenya and Uganda gained independence in 1961 and 1963, respectively, often floundered, for national sovereignty was jealously guarded; Uganda, in particular, invoked the OAU charter that guaranteed that right for its member states. Buganda’s exclusive “federal” status within Uganda complicated the country’s position to the proposed regional integration. Foreign intervention also seemed to scuttle efforts at federation, as Nkrumah, keen on an all-African union government, openly countered Nyerere’s efforts in East Africa as balkanizing the continent. Nkrumah saw the proposed federation as

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Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) | 409 a neocolonial project pushed by Britain for the latter’s interests. Scott W. Thompson has subsequently indicated that Uganda’s reluctance to the proposed federation between 1962 and 1965 arose partly out of Nkrumah’s encouragement (Rothschild 1968, 152). Nkrumah’s influence was also evident on antifederation advocates in Kenya, notably Oginga Odinga. State nationalism in each of the republics, however, may have been a chief impediment to political federation after independence. Economic and social needs seemed to outweigh the political obstacles in the quest for regional cooperation, a fact that led to the signing of the Treaty for the East African Cooperation on June 6, 1967, by Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. This treaty established the East African Community, which took over the functions of EACSO, the coordination of the social, economic, and legal services of the three states. There were also legislative and ministerial institutions to help streamline the community’s operations. The community was set to expand its geographical area in 1968 when Zambia, Somalia, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Burundi applied for membership; but at the start of the 1970s, several problems combined to ruin the emerging community. Political problems bedeviled Uganda following Idi Amin’s coup of 1971, an event that further served to alienate Nyerere from Amin’s regime. Divergence in ideological orientation set Kenya and Tanzania apart, as Kenyatta’s capitalist tendencies proved a contradiction to Nyerere’s socialist agenda. Differences were more evident in foreign relations, for Tanzania leaned further to the socialist countries and the nonaligned states, while Kenya looked to the West and Amin-oriented Uganda to the Arab world. However, disagreement over the fundamental logistics of running the community’s services led to its collapse in 1977. The EACSO was revived on November 30, 1993, through a treaty by the three heads of state that set up the Tripartite Commission for the East African Cooperation. It was reconsti-

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tuted as the EAC with the signing of another treaty in Arusha on November 30, 1999. Plans are under way to admit Rwanda and Burundi as members. Martin S. Shanguhyia See also Africa; African Union (AU); Kenyatta, Jomo (1889–1978); Pan-Africanism. F URTHER R EADING Adi, Hakim, and Marika Sherwood. 2003. “Julius Nyerere (1922–1999).” In Pan-African History: Political Figures from Africa and the Diaspora since 1787. New York: Routledge. Hazelwood, A. 1975. Economic Integration: The East African Experience. London: Heinemann. Nye, Joseph S. 1965. Pan-Africanism and East African Integration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rothschild, Donald. 1968. Politics of Integration: An East African Documentary. Nairobi, Kenya: East African Publishing House.

z Ebonics See African American Vernacular English (AAVE).

z Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) In 1964, the notion of a West African community was put forth by William V. Tubman, former president of Liberia. The concept of a West African community was well received by leaders in West Africa. In February 1965, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone entered into a regional economic arrangement, which never became operational. In April 1972, several West African leaders sought to revisit proposals for a regional community. Generals

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Yakuba Gowon and Gnassingbé Eyadema of Nigeria and Togo, respectively, spearheaded the idea. In July and August 1973, they drafted new proposals and visited 12 countries to solicit support for the establishment of a West African community. Several West African leaders met in Lomé, Togo, between December 10 and 15, 1973, to study and modify a draft West African community treaty. The new draft that was produced during this meeting was examined by a group of jurist-technical experts in Accra, Ghana, in January 1974, and by decision makers during a ministerial meeting in Monrovia in January 1975. On May 28, 1975, in Lagos, Nigeria, 15 states—Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, GuineaBissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo—signed the treaty establishing the ECOWAS (also known as the Treaty of Lagos). ECOWAS adopted four protocols that officially launched and operationalized the organization on November 5, 1976, in Lomé, Togo. After joining in 1978, Cape Verde became the sixteenth member state of ECOWAS. While economic integration and development, rather than Pan-Africanism, were the driving forces behind the establishment of ECOWAS, the grand ideals of its founders did not comport with the sociopolitical, economic and geopolitical realities and challenges faced by West African states in the post-independence, Cold War era. As the Cold War came to a close and the political dynamics within Africa shifted, the region became engulfed with civil conflict, leading ECOWAS to adopt a new constitutive framework and mechanisms. On July 24, 1993, ECOWAS adopted the Revised Treaty of ECOWAS (Revised Treaty) in Contonou, Benin. The Revised Treaty, which came into force immediately thereafter, was adopted to meet the new economic, social, cultural, and security challenges facing West Africa and the continent at large in the post– Cold War era. The treaty aims to establish an economic and monetary union with a com-

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mon market and single currency by integrating the economies of its member states. Equally relevant, it seeks to institute a West African parliament, an economic and social council, and a community court of justice. While progress has been slow on the economic front, implementation of the treaty’s political aims has been more successful, as the parliament, the economic and social council, and the court have been established and operationalized. Moreover, the Revised Treaty was considerably influenced by ECOWAS’s peacekeeping and peace enforcement activities in Liberia, as evidenced by Article 58 on regional security, which explicitly empowers the organization to employ peacekeeping forces where and when it is deemed appropriate. In order to combat the scourge of conflict that engulfed West Africa in the 1990s, particularly in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and GuineaBissau, ECOWAS also provided for the establishment of a robust conflict mechanism. It adopted the “Protocol Relating to the ECOWAS Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution, Peace-Keeping and Security” (ECOWAS Mechanism) during the 22nd Summit Meeting of Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS on December 10, 1999, in Lomé, Togo. A key aim of the ECOWAS Mechanism is to prevent, manage, and resolve internal and interstate conflict. In internal conflict situations sustained and maintained from within, the protocol empowers ECOWAS to launch military enforcement action in situations that threaten to trigger a humanitarian disaster or that pose a serious threat to peace and security in the subregion, where there has been a serious and massive violation of human rights and the rule of law, and when there has been an overthrow or attempted overthrow of a democratically elected government. ECOWAS relied on the mechanism to attempt to avert crises in Guinea in 2001 and in Côte d’Ivoire in 2002. The new ECOWAS doctrine of peacemaking lays down an unambiguous framework not

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Ecuador: Afro-Ecuadorians | 411 only for the protection of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in West Africa but also for humanitarian and prodemocratic rights of intervention. The evolution of ECOWAS comes at the behest of West African nations that have come to realize that economic integration and development are not possible without peace, security, and the rule of law; that is, an enabling environment for development, which unfortunately remains elusive in the region. While it is not possible to predict the various ways in which ECOWAS will be challenged in the future, it is clear that conflict and underdevelopment will continue to plague the region in the years to come. This fact notwithstanding, the history and practice of the organization dictates that it will continue to develop elasticity and institutional memory to adapt and evolve to meet new challenges in the 21st century. Jeremy I. J. D. Levitt See also Africa; African Union (AU); East African Community (EAC). F URTHER R EADING Levitt, Jeremy. 2003. Africa: Selected Documents on Political, Conflict and Security, Humanitarian and Judicial Issues, pp. 61, 259. Ardsley, NY: Transnational Publishers.

z Ecuador: Afro-Ecuadorians Black people of Ecuador live in diverse environmental and social settings in both rural and urban contexts. Rural Afro-Ecuadorians live mainly on the northern coast and in some of the valleys in the northern highlands. Black people also live in many cities, such as Guayaquil, Quito, Esmeraldas, and Ibarra. They have successfully developed various cultural strategies to adapt to these diverse environments. They have created dynamic cultural and symbolic systems

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that shape their relations with their natural, social, and spiritual surroundings. Their symbolic system and their beliefs and rituals are part of a rich cultural lore that reflects the fusion of African, European, and indigenous traditions. As will be shown in this article, recent ecological, economic, and political changes in the country have affected Afro-Ecuadorians in many, often paradoxical ways. H ISTORY The first African people in Latin America seem to have come from the Senegambia region in northern West Africa. This is evidenced by the influence of the Bantu and Mande in the curralao—funerary rituals for adults—(Whitten and Quiroga 1995) and in the structure of their musical traditions. The early arrivals were all in the region of Esmeraldas Province, where later some cimarrones (runaway slaves from Colombia) joined them. In 1533, a group of Africans escaped from a shipwreck, led by Alonso Illesca, who was only recently declared a national hero for his contribution to the consolidation of the Afro-Ecuadorian identity. This was the beginning of the presence of black peoples on the northern coast of Ecuador. By 1599, African and indigenous people in the area had organized the Republic of the Zambos. The word zambo refers to a person of mixed black and Indian decent. For the Spaniards, the Afro-Ecuadorian region of the coast consistently posed problems and throughout colonial times remained an area they were never able to control. Slave ships (negreros) brought slaves from the Pacific coast of Panama to an area in Colombia next to the Zambo Republic. Every year, approximately 10 boats with black slaves were brought to Ecuador to work in gold mining. Some of these slaves replaced those who had run away from the sugar plantations in the northern Andes and from the gold mines further south. Other areas of Ecuador were also populated by people of African descent. In the 16th century, a group of black people entered the valleys

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in the northern highlands, in the provinces of Carchi and Imbabura along the Chota Mira Valley. These pioneers, who came from the coast and from the Andes, entered the valleys as the indigenous chiefdoms were broken down. Also in the 16th century, the Jesuits began to bring slaves to work the sugar and cotton plantations in the highland valleys. Although there are reports of conflicts between groups, the Jesuits successfully managed to stop any attempts of rebellion. Besides the production of sugar, they also introduced grapes for the production of wine and brandies for their own consumption. In the south of Ecuador, black people worked in the gold mines of Loja, Zaruma, and Zamora. Both free and enslaved Africans grew their own subsistence crops: taro, manioc, plantains, avocado, and tomatoes, as well as various fibers (Whitten and Quiroga 1995). They participated with indigenous people in some rebellions, such as the 1579 rebellion of the so-called Jivaro Indians in the eastern part of the country, but most of these rebellions were controlled by the Spaniards. Many slaves fled those conditions and found refuge in the adjacent tropical areas. Today, their descendants live in the Catamayo Valley and in the city of Loja. Black people participated in Ecuador’s independence wars. In 1820 in Esmeraldas, they led the insurrection of Rio Verde against the Spaniards. They formed part of the liberal armies of Eloy Alfaro that fought against the conservative highland government during the last part of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th (Antón Sánchez 2005). Manumission laws were passed in Ecuador in 1854, but slavery was still present in some areas in the 1880s. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, a system of debt peonage called the concertaje replaced slavery and served to subordinate and control the black and the indigenous populations. D EMOGRAPHY After Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela, Ecuador is home to the fourth-largest number of

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Afrodescendants in South America. According to the 2001 census, “blacks and mulattos” numbered 604,009. Some black organizations consider the number to be between 900,000 and 1.2 million. Most of them are found in the provinces of Guayas, Pichincha, and Esmeraldas (Antón Sánchez 2005). According to the census figures of 2001, 68.7 percent of the population live in urban areas. Most of them live in Guayaquil (54,289), Esmeraldas (44,814), and Quito (44,484). In Quito and Ibarra, black people come from rural areas in the northern Sierras, such as Mira, Chota, and Juncal, whereas in Guayaquil, many come from the coastal province of Esmeraldas. The rural population is found mostly in Esmeraldas (44.6 percent), Guayas (12 percent), and in the northern highlands (7.9 percent) in Imbabura and Carchi (Antón Sánchez 2005). The illiteracy rate among Afro-Ecuadorians is 10.3 percent above the national average of 9 percent. Although this rate is higher than that of the white population (4.7 percent) and the mestizos (8 percent), it is lower than that of the indigenous population (28 percent). Afro-Ecuadorians have the second-highest mortality rate among children from birth to age five; 49.3 percent of children die for every 1,000 born, whereas the national level is 42.3 percent (Antón Sánchez 2005). Some 70 percent of the black population in Ecuador lives under the poverty line, compared with 40.5 percent of the white population. The worst levels of poverty are found on the north coast, where areas of abject poverty exist. Black people have the highest rate of unemployment of any ethnic group in the country, 12 percent above the average for the white population and 11 percent above the average for the mestizo population. According to figures from 2003, this unemployment rate represents 14 percent above the urban national average of 11 percent in the urban areas and 7 percent above the national average of 5 percent in the rural areas (Antón Sánchez 2005). Violence is often directed against black people, and in some cases black people have been lynched and accused of

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Ecuador: Afro-Ecuadorians | 413 robbing goods and animals in the rural and urban areas of Ecuador. Gender relations among Afro-Ecuadorians are complex and in flux. Men are more often engaged in such industrial economic activities as shrimp farming, logging, cattle farming, and working on banana plantations. Many women are dedicated to subsistence activities and to some market activities. Women also play a central role in rituals and healing rites. Recently, some Afro-Ecuadorian women have become prominent political figures at the national level. A black woman was chosen as Miss Ecuador in 1995–1996. Whitten (1965) has characterized the family structure as matrifocal, as women are the economic, social, and cultural center. Despite the centrality of women in the family, however, society and the economy are controlled by men. Black women constitute one of the poorest and most marginalized groups in Ecuadorian society. R ELIGION AND THE S PIRITUAL WORLD Traditional Afro-Ecuadorian religion on the coast is based to a large extent on Catholic rituals and beliefs. The conflict between God and the devil forms the basis of their cosmology. The Divino represents the forces of God and consists of the saints, the virgins, and the angelitos, children who have not been baptized and upon death go directly to heaven. The humano consists of the forces of evil, controlled by the devil and the visiones, or evil spirits, for example the tunda, a woman who resembles a close relative and takes children and adults to the forest, where they become wild, and the ribiel, the spirit of a deceased person that travels at night in a canoe in the estuaries. Different celebrations and rituals reflect and reproduce the duality between good and evil. Rites of passage include baptisms, through which the dangerous and uncontrollable spirits of children who have not been baptized (called moros) become little angels; marriages; and chigualos, which are the funerals of angelitos, who go directly to heaven. Rituals include

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arrullos, which are organized by women to celebrate a favor that a saint or a virgin has granted to them; and the most ambiguous curralao. Tales also have been recorded about the white male devil who metaphorically represents the process of disenfranchisement that black people feel they have suffered as a result of the expansion of modern capitalist economies. Rituals performed by healers and witches utilize the contrasting forces of good and evil to cure people or make them sick; thus healers and midwives rely on the power of saints and virgins to help people give birth and to fight folk illnesses such as the evil eye, evil air, and fright (Quiroga 1993). A more recent change in religion and cosmology is the introduction of Christian sects, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Mormons to the coastal areas. These groups have challenged some of the most traditional beliefs in saints and virgins and the rituals that have been associated with them. They ask people to burn their small house shrines and to stop celebrating the saints and virgins. E CONOMIC ACTIVITIES Afrodescendants in many rural areas support themselves to a large extent on small farms, where they grow such subsistence crops as plantains, corn, yucca, taro, and fruits, and such market products as cocoa, coffee, and coconuts. They also work for and are recruited by many of the large export enterprises. In the city, they often work at low-paid jobs. On the north coast, women gather clams and cockles in the mangroves or on the sandy beaches. Wood extraction has been an important industry since the middle of the 20th century. The development of the industry meant that Afro-Ecuadorian men established links with white and mestizo middlemen, who bought the wood and took it to the main cities. Organized as labor groups, men went to the forest to extract the wood. The town of Borbon, on the northern coast, is a center of the flourishing lumbering business that has resulted in

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the extraction of thousands of tons of wood from the primary forest in the Choco region. Although this extractive economy has made some people in Guayaquil and Quito very wealthy, it has brought few benefits to the AfroEcuadorians who live in the area. Boom-and-bust cycles based on exports have characterized the local economy of the province of Esmeraldas on the north coast (Whitten 1974). In some areas, the expansion of the export economy has resulted in the exclusion of Afro-Ecuadorian groups and their expulsion from some of the areas they have traditionally used, as is the case with the mangroves and tropical forests with the expansion of shrimp farms and African palm plantations. In some areas, new jobs and economic opportunities have been created by the export sector; men and, to a lesser extent, women work for these new, bustling industries. The expansion, during the 1990s, of shrimp farms, tourism facilities, and urban areas in the northern part of the coast in areas that used to be mangrove forest, was to a large extent at the expense of the black populations that depended on this ecosystem for their survival. The expansion also had an important effect on gender relations, for the shrimp farms created jobs for men while destroying the habitat where women gathered cockles. To resist these processes of disenfranchisement, womens’ co-ops were organized in the area. These co-ops invited the Greenpeace boat Rainbow Warrior to come and resist the expansion of shrimp farms in the mangrove forest. Green activists and local people who felt that they had been affected by the illegal shrimp-farm industry destroyed shrimpfarm dikes that had been illegally built in areas that were once mangrove forests. Along Ecuador’s border with Colombia, in the northern part of the province of Esmeraldas, black communities are affected by the conflicts between left-wing combatants and the Colombian government. As violence has disrupted the traditional communication links

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between Ecuadorian and Colombian Afrodescendants, the displacement of black and indigenous people has generated tensions regarding access to land and resources. Many coastal towns have become important tourist centers; for example, such places as Atacames, Sua, and Same attract hundreds of national and international tourists. The large numbers of tourists have created the need for many services. Afro-Ecuadorians are often hired as maids, waitstaff, and guards by hotels, restaurants, and other businesses owned by mestizos and whites. Afro-Ecuadorians also sell crafts and food. In the cities, Afro-Ecuadorians often work in low-paying jobs as maids, chauffeurs, guards, or in the informal sector. Although some black people have professional degrees and are part of the middle class of Ecuador, the black middle class is still small; except for the city of Esmeraldas, few blacks are part of the middle class. P OLITICS The history of resistance and the fight against slavery and the process by which cimarrones created palenques—autonomous areas where a new synthesis of African cultures emerged— have become a key reference point in the construction of black identity among black political leaders and intellectuals. After the meeting of the First Congress of Black Cultures of the Americas in Cali, Colombia, in 1976, the Afroecuadorian Cultural Center was created in 1998. This center, promoted by Catholic priests, was mostly dedicated to the diffusion of Afro-Ecuadorian culture and the preservation of their identity. From these initial efforts some 3,000 AfroEcuadorian organizations of the most diverse natures emerged. With the goal of consolidating the black movement and organizing the groups, the Confederacion Nacional de Afroecuatoriana (CAN) was created; its main fight was for the rights of Afro-Ecuadorians. This effort was not very successful, and internal fights

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Ecuador: Afro-Ecuadorians | 415 and divisions weakened the movement. Later, the Consejo de Desarrollo Afroecuatoriano was created (CODAE). At the same time, the Coordinadora de Mujeres Negras del Ecuador (CONAMUNE) was formed to represent and defend the rights of black women in the country (Edison Leon, personal communication, January 15, 2008). Much of the struggle of African people, especially in the rural areas, is about the access to land and natural resources. Some of the local organizations were formed against logging companies and African palm and shrimp farms. In the cities, principal issues include racism and the need for greater access to political power. A critical turning point in the political organization of Afro-Ecuadorians was the killing of Lenin Hurtado, the most prominent AfroEcuadorian leader, in the 1980s. Hurtado founded the MPD (Movimiento Popular Democratico), the most important leftist political movement, and in 1979 he was elected to the National Congress. He was a candidate in the 1984 presidential elections and finished fourth, with 7 percent of the votes. He ran again in 1988 but was slain that same year in the streets of Quito. Although arrests have been made for this crime, it is still not clear who was responsible. Hurtado’s family and friends consider the crime a product of his fight against the large, corrupt groups that have dominated the country’s politics and economy (Walsh and Garcia 2002). In the last 10 years, a number of black men and especially women have become important figures and representatives of both left- and right-wing parties. Afro-Ecuadorians are now part of the organized civil society, and their needs and concerns are being voiced by some of their leaders in various meetings and forums. I NTERCULTURAL R ELATIONS AND R ACISM Several Afro-Ecuadorians have attained national and international fame as writers and poets. Such is the case of Adalberto Ortiz,

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Nelson Estupinan Bass, Antonio Preciado Bedoya, and Luz Argentina Chriboga, who is one of the best-known black woman writers (Beane 1995a, b). In 1993, Estupinan won the Eugenio Espejo Award, the most prestigious prize in the science and the humanities awarded in Ecuador and was a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature (Antón Sánchez 2005). When blackness is discussed or made visible in the media, it is often the corporeal and physical characteristics of black people, crime and violence, sensuality and sexuality that capture the popular imagination of many nonblack Ecuadorians. Sports is another area in which Afro-Ecuadorians excel. As professional soccer players, many black people achieve legendary status, money, and fame in Ecuador. Opinions differ about the contribution of black athletes to the recent success of the Ecuadorian team in qualifying twice for the World Cup. Most Ecuadorians recognize the names of black athletes on the national team, and more do when the team is successful. Nonetheless, when the team fails, sports aficionados and even the authorities have pointed to the large number of black players as the problem. Spectators often use names like “Shadow” to refer to black players and imitate the call of monkeys and apes when black players appear in the arena. In the media, television commercials and programs, magazines, and some business logos use stereotypes of black people (for example, images that emphasize their alleged primitiveness, their supposed rural unsophisticated character, and a natural and unproblematic happiness) to promote such products and businesses as detergents and restaurants or to provide entertainment for their mostly mestizo and white audiences and customers. Despite the contributions of Afro-Ecuadorians in such areas as poetry and literature, black contributions to Ecuadorian culture and identity are largely ignored. Ecuadorian history

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as it is taught in the classroom mentions almost nothing about black history and identity. This process of “invisibilizing” the African presence has had important consequences at the economic, political, and intellectual levels of society. Diego Quiroga See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Colombia: AfroColombians; Esmeraldas; Venezuela: AfroVenezuelans. F URTHER R EADING Antón Sánchez, John. 2005. Sistema de indicadores sociales del pueblo Afroecuatoriano. Santiago de Chile: CEPAL. Beane, Carol. 1995a. “Chiriboga: A Conversation.” In Moving Beyond Boundaries, vol. 2: Black Women’s Diaspora, ed. Carole Boyce Davies, 78–89. New York: New York University Press. Beane, Carol. 1995b. “Strategies of Identity in Afro-Ecuadoran Fiction: Chiriboga’s Bajo la piel de los tambores/Under the Skin of the Drums.” In Moving Beyond Boundaries, vol. 2: Black Women’s Diaspora, ed. Carole Boyce Davies, 165–173. New York: New York University Press. Cervone, Emma, and Fredy Rivera, eds. 1999. Ecuador Racista: Imágenes e Identidades. Quito, Ecuador: FLASCO (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales). Chiriboga, Luz Argentina. 1991. Bajo la piel de los tambores. Quito, Ecuador: Casa ade la Cultura Ecuatoriana Benjamin Carrion. Dzidzienyo, Anani, and Suzanne Oboler, eds. 2005. Neither Enemies nor Friends: Latinos, Blacks, Afro-Latinos. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Quiroga, Diego. 1993. “Saints, Virgins and the Devil: Magic and Healing in the Northern Coast of Ecuador.” Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Tello, Julio Estupinan. 1967. El Negro en Esmeraldas. Quito, Ecuador: Talleres Graficos Nactionales. Walsh, Catherine, and Juan García. 2002. “El pensar del emergente movimiento afroecuatoriano. Reflexiones (des)de un proceso.” En Estudios y Otras Prácticas Intelectuales Latinoamericanas en Cultura y Poder, coord. Daniel Mato, 317–326. Caracas, Venezuela: Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO) y CEAP, FACES, Universidad Central de Venezuela.

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Whitten, Norman E., Jr. 1965. Class, Kinship and Power in an Ecuadorian Town: The Negroes of San Lorenzo. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Whitten, Norman. 1974. Black Frontiersmen: A South American Case. Rochester, VT: Schenckman Publishing Co. Whitten, Norman E., Jr. 1993. Pioneros Negros: La cultura afro-latinoamericana del Ecuador y de Colombia. Quito, Ecuador: Centro Cultural Afro-Ecuatoriano. Whitten Norman E., Jr., ed. 2003. Millennial Ecuador: Critical Essays on Cultural Transformations and Social Dynamics. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. Whitten, Norman E., Jr., and Diego Quiroga. 1995. “Ecuador” in No Longer Invisible: AfroLatin Americans Today, ed. Minority Rights Group, 287–317. London: Minority Rights Publications. Whitten, Norman E., Jr., and Arlene Torres, eds. 1998. Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

z Edgell, Zee (1940–) Creole writer Zee Edgell distinguishes herself as the first Belizean to be published internationally. Her novels, short fiction, and essays present this black woman writer’s critical perspective on slavery, colonialism, neocolonialism, the environment, and women’s rights within the specific context of Belizean history, culture, and politics. Like other writers from the African Diaspora, her literary works’ narrative form and content focus on the remembrance, critique, and (re)visioning of a colonial history that muted and left untold the stories of the indigenous peoples from the New World and Africa. Zee Edgell, christened Zelma Inez Tucker by her parents, Veronica and Clive Tucker, was born on October 21, 1940, in Belize City, Belize, Central America. Her primary and secondary education were completed in Belize, where she

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El Moudjahid | 417 grew up, and she has lived and worked in many different countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Belize, England, Jamaica, Nigeria, Somalia, and the United States. Edgell worked as a trainee journalist for The Daily Gleaner in Kingston, Jamaica, from 1959–1962, and in 1965 she received her diploma in journalism from the School of Modern Languages, Regent Street Polytechnic, in London. From 1966 to 1968, Edgell was the founding editor of The Reporter, a local Belizean newspaper. In addition to her experiences as a reporter, Edgell has worked in the area of women’s affairs in several countries. She served as secretary to the governing board of Concerned Women for Family Planning in Dacca, Bangladesh, from 1978 to 1980. Edgell was the UNICEF consultant for the Somali Women’s Democratic Organization in Mogadishu, Somalia, from 1984–1985, and during the 1980s, she served as director in the Department of Women’s Affairs in Belize, Central America. She has taught at Old Dominion University; University College of Belize; the University of Wisconsin, Marinette Center; St. Catherine’s Academy, Belize; and she is currently an associate professor of English at Kent State University. When Heinemann published Zee Edgell’s Beka Lamb in 1982, she became the first woman novelist in the history of Belize. In the international arena, she was the first published Belizean writer. Beka Lamb was Edgell’s first entry into an international literary discourse in which Belizeans had been silent for centuries. Since then, she has published two additional novels: In Times Like These (1991) and The Festival of San Joaquin (1997). Her writings have been featured in the following anthologies: Women Writers from the Caribbean (1997), 500 Great Books by Women (1994), Daughters of Africa (1991), Her True True Name (1989), and De Moedervlek Suite (Netherlands 1987). Julie E. Moody-Freeman See also Belize: African Communities; Creole, Creolity, Creolization.

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F URTHER R EADING Edgell, Zee. 1982. Beka Lamb. Oxford, UK: Heinemann. Edgell, Zee. 1991. In Times Like These. Oxford, UK: Heinemann. Edgell, Zee. 1994. “Belize: A Literary Perspective.” Lecture presented at the Cultural Center, Inter-American Development Bank, September 30, Washington, D.C. Edgell, Zee. 1997. The Festival of San Joaquin. Oxford, UK: Heinemann.

z El Moudjahid El Moudjahid was the official clandestine newspaper of the Algerian Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) throughout the war of independence. To the regret of contemporary French historians, El Moudjahid was not an objective organ of information; rather, it was part of the FLN’s war machine. It made public FLN’s decisions and positions and worked to create a coherent vision of the national liberation struggle and of Algerian nationhood. In its editorials, El Moudjahid glorified love of the land and Third World liberation. It exalted the heroism of its fighters in detailed reports of the battles with colonial forces, and it sought to debunk the myth of a French Algeria (l’Algérie Française) by insisting on the Islamic heritage and the Islamic identity of the country. Ninety-one issues of El Moudjahid were published between the summer of 1956, when the first issue appeared, and March 1962, when Algeria achieved its independence. El Moudjahid was based first in Algiers under the direction of FLN member A. Temmam. It was forced to leave as a result of the systematic repression unleashed by General Massu in 1957 and settled in Tunis until independence. Its editor-in-chief was Redha Malek, and the team included, among others, Frantz Fanon, Dr. Chaulet, and Abbane Ramdane. Each issue opened with an editorial or an official proclamation of the FLN, and most

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of the articles were anonymous. Fanon’s articles in El Moudjahid appeared unsigned between December 1, 1957, and January 1960 under the headline “French Intellectuals and Democrats and the Algerian Revolution.” Most of these articles were identified by his widow after his death and were later published in Toward the African Revolution. In an article published in an Algerian daily in 1984, Redha Malek revealed that the French occupying army falsified El Moudjahid. “On four occasions,” he wrote, “the French army produced counterfeits of issue 63, 64, 65, 66 of 1958.” It was essentially “an indirect homage to the efficiency of El Moudjahid” in the war of national liberation, he wrote. The journal was written in Tunis and flown as a parcel via Algiers to Rabat (Morocco), where it was published. The French army intercepted the parcel in Algiers and placed counterfeit sheets in place of some of the original sheets of El Moudjahid. The falsified sheets made it to print in four issues before the editorial team of El Moudjahid and the leadership of the FLN realised what was happening and stopped using that route. The incident was known until 1984 only to high-ranking FLN veterans. Although it had no impact on the course of the war, it nonetheless showed that the war of words between the two sides was equally ruthless and murky. Fouzi Slisli See also Algerian Revolution; Fanon, Frantz (1925–1961). F URTHER R EADING Gadant, Monique. 1988. Islam et Nationalisme en Algérie: d’Après “El Moudjahid” Organe Central du FLN de 1956 à 1962. Paris: Editions L’Harmattan. Ihaddaden, Zahir. 2001. “La Désinformation Pendant la Guerre d’ Algérie.” In Militaires et Guérilla dans la Guerre d’Algérie, ed. JeanCharles Jauffret et Maurice Vaïsse, 363–382. Paris: Éditions Complexe. Perinbam, B. Marie. 1982. Holy Violence: The Revolutionary Thought of Frantz Fanon. Washington, DC: Three Continents Press.

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Elder, Jacob Delworth (1914–2004) Perhaps the foremost researcher into African Diaspora culture in Trinidad and Tobago, Jacob Delworth Elder precedes and informs Herskovits’s work on the eastern Caribbean. Born in Charlotteville, Tobago, in 1914 to Charles and Eva Maria Elder, Jacob Delworth (popularly known as J.D.) was surrounded by music as a child in a family in which music permeated all aspects of life. According to Elder himself in one 1993 interview, he was given use of a horse as a child and very early on explored every inch of Charlotteville and its surrounding villages. By the age of 14, when he began to teach, he was writing down the songs and tales of his grandmother and the Congo people in his community. Elder remained fascinated by the culture of the Congos and was writing a book on the subject when he died in 2004. More radical than recording it, Elder in those days began using the local culture in his classes, just as he began carrying his classes into the community to see the old mills and to study the estate ruins and their slave lists, using the black music all around in his classes rather than the songbooks sent from England. Rising from apprentice teacher in 1928 to full teacher in 1930, Elder completed his teacher training certification in Port of Spain in 1939 and by 1940 was back in Tobago studying for a B.Sc. in the extramural classes of London University alongside A. N. R. Robinson, who would become prime minister. Andrew Pearse, also a noted researcher into Caribbean culture, was the resident tutor, and in 1951 Elder was seconded from teaching to be his research assistant. In that capacity, he oriented and accompanied Herskovits and other research teams on African Diaspora culture of the eastern Caribbean, and especially on Trinidad and Tobago. After a number of teaching stints in Trinidad, he earned a diploma in community development at London University, studying approaches to gang culture

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Environmental Justice | 419 in London; he returned home to work in various ways with youth groups as a cultural development officer with Carlton Ottley. In this capacity, he had a major role in transforming the steelband from a gang culture into a nationally recognized and professional orchestra. Elder completed his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1966, becoming one of the first scholars to take calypso seriously. His dissertation, “The Evolution of the Traditional Calypso of Trinidad and Tobago: A SocioHistorical Analysis of Song Change” (1966), applied a cantometric analysis to the Trinidad folksong corpus. As the major anthropologist and ethnomusicologist in Trinidad, Elder engaged in major research collection of all aspects of Trinidad and Tobago oral culture. He also published a landmark work on the malefemale conflict in calypso and another on the Yoruba culture in Trinidad, which led to his research in Nigeria from 1976–1980. Elder’s major writings include more than a dozen large volumes on such folk music of Trinidad and Tobago as stick-fighting songs, kalinda, calypso, children’s game songs, and parang. His folktale collections include Ma Rose Point: An Anthology of Rare and Strange Legends and Mythos from Trinidad and Tobago (Port of Spain, National Cultural Council, 1972). His oeuvre includes published essays and monographs on material culture, as well as several unfinished projects, including a textbook on Trinidad and Tobago folklore and oral traditions (tales, legends, language), music and dance, as well as culinary practices, clothing, and ethnic architecture. Another book in progress was on indigenous arts and crafts, starting with the native Carib and Arawak peoples. He also collected songs, some of which have been documented with Alan Lomax. Elder’s work in African culture has resulted in publications and major research, making connections with the Yoruba, which allowed him to affirm his African ancestry on his father’s side as well and led to his acceptance of Orisha traditions as his spiritual base.

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An early member of the PNM, Elder developed the Best Village from an idea of the prime minister, Williams, into a practical reality. He lamented, however, that it was used for political purposes and did not become a full-blown cultural program as an ongoing process of cultural literacy. Elder became a senator in the Tobago House of Assembly under the NAR government and in that capacity created the Tobago Heritage Festival. Carole Boyce Davies See also Trinidad and Tobago: African Impact on the Social Order. F URTHER R EADING Boyce Davies, Carole. 2007. J.D. Elder. A Griot of the African Diaspora. DVD #2. Miami, FL: FLASC & Onscreen Productions, Inc. Elder, Jacob Delworth. 1965. Song Games from Trinidad and Tobago. American Folklore Society Bibliographical and Special Series, No. 16. Austin: University of Texas Press. Elder, Jacob Delworth. 1968. “The Male–Female Conflict in Calypso.” Caribbean Quarterly 14 (3): 23–41. Elder, Jacob Delworth. 1970. “The Yoruba Ancestral Cult in Gasparillo.” Caribbean Quarterly 16 (3): 5–19. Elder, Jacob Delworth. 2001. African Survivals in Trinidad and Tobago. London: Karia Press.

z Environmental Justice Environmental justice is broadly understood as the right to a clean environment regardless of race, ethnicity, or economic status. The industrial disregard for environmental standards in black communities worldwide, the exclusion of black residents from environmental decision making, and the targeting of black countries and communities for the disposal of hazardous waste all represent environmental injustices. In 1990, U.S. African Americans challenged the Environmental Protection Agency to stop the disproportionate placement of pollution sources in black communities. Four years later,

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the president of the United States established a policy requiring federal agencies to identify and address adverse environmental and health effects falling disproportionately upon black and latino communities. Ozone depletion and global climate change are worldwide environmental phenomena resulting from the production of gases that cause major disruptions in the Earth’s atmospheric layer. Although industrialized countries bear responsibility for the overwhelming majority of these gases, global climate change and ozone depletion both present serious threats to those on the African continent and African peoples throughout the Diaspora. Another environmental threat facing the people of Africa was recognized when the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) began reporting on the illicit dumping of toxic and hazardous waste in African and other developing countries. In 1995, the UNCHR appointed a special rapporteur to chronicle the actions of transnational corporations and other enterprises involved in the disposal of toxic waste and other dangerous products that have adverse effects on the human rights to life and health. Within some African countries, the neglect of good environmental management practices by industrial actors places indigenous, racial, and ethnic populations at risk from pollution and ecological degradation. Gas flaring, deforestation, and thousands of oil spills occurred from the 1950s to the 1990s in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Decades of inadequate environmental standards and poor management practices caused substantial environmental degradation in the region, resulting in ongoing civil and political unrest. Carlton Waterhouse See also Health in the African World. F URTHER R EADING Bullard, R. 2000. Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

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Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. 2004. “Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on Adverse Effects of the Illicit Movement and Dumping of Toxic and Dangerous Products and Wastes on the Enjoyment of Human Rights.” http://www2.ohchr.org/english/ issues/environment/waste/index.htm (accessed February 4, 2008)

z Equiano, Olaudah (1745–1797) One of the most remarkable of the African neoclassical writers, Olaudah Equiano, in his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written By Himself (London, 1789), describes himself as an Eboe (Igbo) from Essaka (possibly Isieke, in the present-day state of Anambra, Nigeria). He was in all probability born in 1745. At the age of 10 (1755), he was kidnapped with his younger sister by slave raiders, whose description matches that of the Aro of southeastern Igboland, and sold into slavery at Calabar on the coast. After the Middle Passage, during which he witnessed horrendous acts of European barbarity against his fellow captives, he was brought to Barbados and then to Virginia, where he was lucky enough to be bought by a British captain, who named him Gustavus Vassa and engaged him in service aboard his ship. Equiano remained in the service of several vessels engaged in commerce or even warfare until July 10, 1776, by which time he had saved enough money to buy his own freedom. During this period, he was introduced to Christianity and taught how to read and write by close friends among his fellow sailors. In the years to come, Equiano would travel extensively in Europe, the Middle East, the Caribbean, in North, Central and South America, and even (on a scientific expedition) to the arctic regions. He eventually settled in England, where in 1792 he married an

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Equiano, Olaudah (1745–1797) | 421 English woman, Susanna Cullen, with whom he had two daughters. Living the life of a British gentleman and a Methodist, Equiano was almost completely assimilated into English society but for the burning African nationalism born of passionate revulsion at the inhumanity of European slavery that sparkles on every page of his autobiography. Equiano not only read voraciously in a wide range of subjects, he also used his freedom to travel extensively in North America and even to the North Pole. In England, the patronage of his former masters, coupled with his own inquiring disposition and crusading spirit, enabled him to form close associations with the powerful, the famous, and the wealthy in English society and to become one of the central figures in the British abolitionist movement in the 1780s. He was acquainted with Granville Sharp, among other abolitionists, and wrote petitions to the British House of Commons. Although he never revisited the Africa he loved, his deep involvement in the abolitionist crusade earned him the position of commissar general for the resettlement of free African slaves in Sierra Leone. Equiano’s sole published work, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself (London, 1789), written in the neoclassical style of the day, is the first published work in the genre of slave narrative. It is also an arresting testimony in defense of African humanity at a time when stereotypes that portrayed Africans as subhuman and Africa as a dark continent of primitivism and savagery were becoming increasingly popular, owing to the impact of the slave trade and the exaggerated tales of European travelers in Africa. It is also a veritable precursor of the cultural nationalist rhetoric of the 20th century, as manifested in the writings of Chinua Achebe and his school and in the earlier works of the Négritude school in Francophone Africa. The Interesting Narrative, one of the first texts to combine autobiography with social protest, is considered one of the first

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texts of African written literature in English. An interesting attempt has been made by Acholonu (1987 and especially 1989) to locate Equiano’s Igbo hometown of “Essaka” and to reconstruct the names, Igbo phrases and sociocultural data contained in the narrative. In all probability, Equiano died on March 31, 1797, but some sources suggest that he died as late as 1802. Chukwuma Azuonye See also Achebe, Chinua (1930–); Cugoano, Ottobah (ca. 1757–ca. 1791). F URTHER R EADING Acholonu, Catherine Obianuju. 1987. “The Home of Olaudah Equiano—A Linguistic and Anthropological Search.” The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 22 (1): 5–16. Acholonu, Catherine Obianuju. 1989. The Igbo Roots of Olaudah Equiano: An Anthropological Research. Owerri, Nigeria: Afa Publications. Azuonye, Chukwuma. 1994. “African Literatures.” In The Reader’s Adviser, vol. 3, The Best in World Literature, 103–168. 14th ed. New Providence: R. R. Bowker. Azuonye, Chukwuma, and Steven Serafin, eds. Forthcoming. The Columbia Anthology of African Literature. New York: Columbia University Press. Dathorne, O. R. 1974. The Black Mind: A History of African Literature. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Edwards, Paul, and James Walvin. 1983. Black Personalities in the Era of the Slave Trade. London: Macmillan. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. 1988. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism. New York: Oxford University Press. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., and Nellie Y. McKay, eds. 1997. The Norton Anthology of AfricanAmerican Literature, New York: W. W. Norton. Herdeck, Donald E. 1974. African Authors: A Companion to Black African Writing, vol. 1, 1300–1973. Washington, DC: Inscape. Irele, F. Abiola, and Simon Gikandi, eds. 2004. The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jahn, Janheinz. 1968. Neo-African Literature: A History of Black Writing. New York: Grove Press.

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422 | Esmeraldas Jahn, Janheinz, Ulla Schild, and Almut Nordmann. 1972. Who’s Who in African Literature: Biographies, Works, Commentaries. Tübingen, Germany: Horst Erdmann Verlag. Killam, Douglas, and Ruth Rowe, eds. 2000. The Companion to African Literatures. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Sandiford, Keith. 1988. Measuring the Moment: Strategies of Protest in Eighteenth-Century Afro-English Writing. London: Associated University Press.

z Esmeraldas A tropical lowland province on the northern coast of Ecuador, bordering Colombia, the name “Esmeraldas” is synonymous with black freedom and autonomy. Eighty-five percent of the provincial population are of African descent. Afro-Hispanic culture in Esmeraldas dates back to the self-liberation of 23 Africans from the coast of Guinea who took advantage of a shipwreck to attack the slavers and free themselves. This group formed alliances with the indigenous population, and the community became a magnet for runaway slaves throughout Ecuador and Colombia. Led by Allonso de Illescas, the black community came to dominate the entire coastal stretch from Manabi to what is now Barbacoas, Colombia, which became known as “the Zambo Republic” in reference to its mixed blackindigenous genesis. In 1599, a group of Zambo leaders trekked to Quito and successfully forged an alliance, in which they declared their allegiance to Spain in exchange for a guarantee of their liberty and autonomy—a unique arrangement in Spanish America. The black identity of the province was reinforced by the migration of ex-slaves following abolition in 1854 and of Jamaicans who had entered Ecuador to participate in railroad construction at the beginning of the 20th century. During the 1880s, Esmeraldas became the site of Liberal guerrilla activism and contributed

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significantly to the Liberal Revolution of 1895. Afro-Esmeraldans were loyal supporters of Liberal leader Eloy Alfaro and formed the core of his army. When Alfaro was assassinated by a rival political faction in 1911, the effort to avenge his death plunged Esmeraldas into civil war. The Concha Revolution, as this struggle was known, lasted until 1916 and pitted black peasants with machetes and sticks against wellarmed government troops. Although many Afro-Esmeraldans became officers of the revolutionary army, many lives were lost, and the war left a bitter legacy of chaos and destruction. During the 19th and 20th centuries, Esmeraldas was the subject of much attention from British, German, French, and American corporations, who invested in tagua, cacao, and mining, and the province experienced a series of boom-and-bust cycles. The interest of foreign capital was not reflected by the Ecuadorian government, and as late as 1900 there were neither paved roads nor hospitals in the provincial capital. Schools could not be established, as teachers from Quito refused to work in the province, citing the “depravity” of its inhabitants. A road connecting Esmeraldas with the highland capital was not completed until 1958, yet plans for the road as an alternative route to the sea had first been broached in the 1550s. For much of the 20th century, the only means of transportation was by canoe. Since the 1960s, there has been increased migration to the province by white and mestizo Ecuadorians as a result of the banana boom and the opening of the country’s largest oil refinery during the 1970s; however, the subsequent social and political transformations have not improved the impoverished situation of the majority black population. Nicola Foote See also Diasporic Marronage; Ecuador: AfroEcuadorians; Maroon and Marronage. F URTHER R EADING Bass, Nelson E. 1987. When the Guayacans Were in Bloom. Transl. Henry J. Richards. Washington, DC: Afro-Hispanic Institute.

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Europe and the African Diaspora | 423 Chiriboga, Luz Argentina. 1991. Bajo la piel de los tambores. Quito, Ecuuador : Casa ade la Cultura Ecuatoriana Benjamin Carrion. Rueda Novoa, Rocío. 2001. Zambaje y Autonomía: Historia de la Gente Negra de la Provincia de Esmeraldas, Siglos XVI-XVII. Esmeraldas, Ecuador: Taller de Estudios Históricos. Whitten, Norman, Jr. 1965. Class, Kinship and Power in a Ecuadorian Town: The Negroes of San Lorenzo. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Wolf, Theodore. 1933. Geography and Geology of Esmeraldas. Trans. James F. Flanagan. Toronto: Grand and Toy.

z Ethiopianism See Haile Selassie I (1892–1975); Rastafarianism.

z Europe and the African Diaspora The African presence in Europe dates back to the earliest times in history, and although Western Europe is certainly where most Africans settled, Afro-European communities were also formed in Eastern Europe. As early as antiquity, people crossed the Mediterranean, exchanged goods, and migrated to the other coast of the sea. Africans were traders and soldiers, but some had also been enslaved in the Roman and Greek empires, along with other peoples from Europe. In this long-term history of relations webbed between Africa and Europe, Afro-Europeans have been constructed progressively as the ultimate other, essential to the European definition of self. Indeed, the exclusion and progressive racialization of various peoples—including Eastern Europeans—has been essential to the idea of the West. Such is the context for the AfroEuropean presence in Europe. Africans and peo-

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ple of African descent have not only made huge contributions to the economic development of Europe, but they have also been central to the making of Europe and the West; however, their role has consistently been denied. It is first essential to recognize the variety of representations of Afro-Europeans in Europe. From the many Christian references to Africans (King Balthazar; the Black Madonna; Saint Maurice, Knight of the Holy Lance, one of the greatest patron saints of the Holy Roman Empire; Saint Benedict; and Saint Monica, to name but a few) to Ellen More at the Court of King James IV of Scotland in the early 16th century; Alesandro de Medici (1510–1537), first Duke of Florence; Ibrahim Petrovitch Gannibal (1696–1781); Anton William Amo (1703–1759); and Juan de Pareja (1610–1670), among many others, European history is full of examples of Afro-Europeans who reached positions of power in European countries. On the other hand, many stereotypes developed regarding black people in literature: The Song of Roland, for instance, in the 11th century; in cantingas (Spanish medieval poetry), it was common to refer to black people in a pejorative manner; the Swarte Piet in Holland and Germany, which dates back to the Middle Ages; in the Middle Ages, Satan frequently was given such names as “Black Man,” “Black Ethiopian,” “Big Negro.” These images grew stronger as the AfroEuropean population in Europe increased, especially after the Muslim occupation of Spain, which facilitated the settling of many Arabs, but also Africans. The transatlantic slave trade and the Enlightenment reinforced stereotypes that were in the germination stage, making the condition of black people in Europe at the same time increasingly unstable while larger numbers were migrating to Europe primarily from the Americas but also from Africa. In Great Britain and France, the two major European countries involved in the slave trade in the 18th century, the legal system stated that no one should be a slave in those kingdoms.

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This created a divide between the legal system that was at the basis of the transatlantic slave trade and the legal system that existed in Europe. This contradiction was used by many to question their condition and to receive legal recognition of their status as free persons, the most famous of those cases being that of James Somerset in Great Britain (1772). Although prominent figures among Afro-Europeans as well as anonymous people sided with the fight against slavery in Europe, Jacobus Capitein (1717–1747), predicator in Leiden, distinguished himself with the treatise that he wrote, which defends slavery and defines it as an avenue to redemption for Africans. The period of the so-called Enlightenment has been key in determining the situation of Afro-Europeans in Europe. First of all, throughout the 18th century increasing numbers of Afro-Europeans settled in Europe (as a consequence of slavery as well as the American War of Independence), thereby creating new realities in European demographics. Secondly, it was possible to conceive of the idea of absolute freedom so dear to the philosophers only because slavery was an institution that had already been at the core of European society for several centuries. Thirdly, the Haitian Revolution reinforced prejudices that were already existing. Finally, scientific racism soon became a useful tool to justify and define AfroEuropeans as a marginal and oppressed group. Coming from the Americas and Africa, many descendents of slaves lived in Europe, where they started families and reached high positions. Such men as the Chevalier de Saint Georges (1745–1799), Alexander Pushkin in Russia (1799–1829), and general Alexandre Dumas (1762–1807) are a few examples. Not only were they celebrities in their own time, they also became national emblems of their country, closely associated with the very definition of nationhood in France and Russia. However, their positions did not protect them from racism and discrimination. Pushkin started a biography of his great-grandfather,

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Ibrahim Petrovich Gannibal (1696–1781), who had been general in chief of the imperial Russian Army, general director of the fortifications, and chief of Russian engineers. The Dumas family also left their print on the French psyche over three generations: The first Alexandre Dumas was a general in the Napoleonic armies; his son, Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870; referred to as Dumas père), became one of the most famous and popular writers of 19th-century France. Author of The Three Musketeers, he had a son, Alexandre Dumas, Jr. (referred to as Dumas fils), who also became an important writer in French literature. Not only did famous and anonymous persons work in different businesses that ultimately benefited the society at large, their influence also fueled the building of a national identity. It is no coincidence that the formation of the Italian, French, British, and German states received final definition during the colonial period. The empires had indeed become powerful means to define the standards against which those nations were to be established in their geographical space. Both world wars saw increasing numbers of Afro-Europeans settling in Europe, forming a minority that was becoming all the more visible at a time when Afro-Europeans already had well-established networks. If France was the only Western country to bring Afro-European troops to the battlefields of Europe during World War I, all European countries included the colonies in their military campaign. With World War II, Afro-European recruitment operated on such a large scale that their participation in the war became essential to European countries. For instance, General De Gaulle was able to defeat the Germans only because of the compelling efforts of Félix Eboué, a grandson of slaves who was at the time general governor of Afrique Equatorial Français (AEF), to rally the empire to De Gaulle’s cause rather than Vichy. It is also important to emphasize the toll paid by Afro-Europeans who were tortured in the Nazi camps.

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Europe and the African Diaspora | 425 After the wars, many went back home, but large numbers of Africans decided to make Europe their new home. Most of them were workers, but they also formed a non-negligible percentage of artists, while a few were allowed to reach higher positions in the social hierarchy. However, during the interwar period, the migration of black people from the United States, although limited, largely contributed to shape the condition of black people over the long term. This is particularly true of France, to which some African American musicians and intellectuals migrated. When comparing France to their native countries, they generally came to describe it as a country of opportunities. This discourse has been subtly used to justify France’s colonialist positions as well as the situation of black people in the United States. It is interesting to note that, during the 1920s and 1930s, black associations and organizations were extremely active in Europe in their fight against racism and often took the lead of the PanAfrican movement. Besides the many soldiers who settled in Europe after World War II, the military reorganization of postwar Europe also brought its contingents. For instance, in Germany, where U.S. troops were stationed under the NATO flag, the Afro-European minority received a new contribution. In addition, in the second half of the 20th century, the European economy lacked the required manpower for a jump-start. Immigration from the former African and American colonies was then organized and encouraged. The period of economic reconstruction of the 1950s and 1960s triggered the planning of large-scale migration to provide the necessary manpower. Such European countries as France and Great Britain drew from their empires the hands that would satisfy the economic need. However, people were brought to Europe with the assumption that, after spending most of their lives on the Continent, they would return home, never becoming an integral part of European society. Therefore, since the situation was seen as tem-

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porary, hardly any tools were set to address discrimination; in fact, the legal system efficiently marginalized black people in Europe. Of course, the result of this policy was an increase in the Afro-European population in Europe. As a consequence, in most cases, the children of Afro-Europeans who were born in Europe had access to citizenship, which put them in a better position to fight racism and assert their rights. Indeed, by the turn of the 20th century, Afro-Europeans had become more visible in Europe, making their appearance in the media. For instance, the Senegalese Idriss Sanneh has become one of the most prominent commentators on Italian TV. However, although the number of Africans and people of African descent keeps increasing, they largely remain second-class citizens in a Europe that builds and multiplies barriers to crossing its borders. With the Schengen agreement and subsequent conventions, the opening of the borders inside the European community became synonymous with harsher controls to be faced by those trying to enter the European Union. Since increasing numbers of Africans are trying to reach Europe, illegal traffic takes place in worse conditions, leading to the death of thousands each year. Consequently, citizenship has become harder and harder to obtain. With the British Nationality Act of 1981, new statuses were created, and it became more and more difficult for Caribbean members of the commonwealth to obtain British citizenship. One consequence of these new laws was the partial redirection of the migratory trend toward North America. Thus, more and more frequently, those who can afford it leave Europe for North America. This trend has particularly affected scholars who, despite having been educated in Europe, can hardly find any jobs in the academy there. Since the legal grounds under which black people can file for citizenship have been narrowly defined, other avenues have been explored and used by Africans and people of African descent to assert their presence in Europe. Soccer

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is now a powerful showcase for a few influential players from Africa and the African Diaspora. While Afro-European soccer players are constantly courted by the most famous clubs, they are increasingly victims of overt racism. Many players have raised their voices to denounce and fight racism on the playing field (monkey chants during the game, racist comments from journalists, coaches, players) but despite FIFA’s claims that steps are being taken to make soccer a strong antiracist tool, racism continues to run rampant. More successfully, hip-hop has brought attention to the current condition of AfroEuropeans in many European countries as well as to the historical reasons for their arrival on that continent. When the legal system has failed to address discrimination, hip-hop has proved an efficient way to speak in the first person and define new ways to address the situation. However, the continuous deafness of the political authorities and their refusal to take into account the realities with which most people of African descent are confronted have led to more violent steps, as attested to by the riots in France throughout the 1980s and 1990s that culminated in the three weeks unrest in November 2005. Rather than listening to the voices of the marginalized, the French government decided on an authoritarian response, trying and sending to jail large numbers in order to set an example.

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At the beginning of the 21st century, the situation of Afro-Europeans in Europe is embedded in paradox. While they are more visible, they also face raging racism with poor tools to address their condition. Veronique Helenon See also France and the African Diaspora; Germany and the African Diaspora; United Kingdom: The African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Blakely, Allison. 1989. Russia and the Negro: Blacks in Russian History and Thought. Washington, DC: Howard University Press. Blakely, Allison. 2001. Blacks in the Dutch World: The Evolution of Racial Imagery in a Modern Society. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Diawara, Manthia. 2003. We Won’t Budge: An African Exile in the World. New York: Basic Civitas Books. Edwards, Brent. 2003. The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation and the Rise of Black Internationalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. Gilroy, Paul. 1991. There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack: The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Grosfoguel, Ramon. 2003. “Caribbean Colonial Migrants in Western Europe and the United States.” In Colonial Subjects: Puerto Ricans in a Global Perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press. Stovall, Tyler. 1996. Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light. Boston: Mariner Books.

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F z

Falucho (?–1824)

As early as 1890, historian Manuel Florencio Mantilla raised doubts about the identity and existence of Falucho. Mantilla, for instance, claims that Ruiz could not be Falucho because his rank would have prohibited him from serving guard duty, which is exactly what Mitre and others claim Falucho was doing when he died defending the revolutionary flag (Estrada 1979, 109n.). More recently, George Reid Andrews describes Falucho as a “mythical” character (Andrews 1980, 125), while Ernesto Quiroga Micheo considers that Corporal Ruiz did in fact exist but was not the Falucho documented by Mitre (Quiroga Micheo 1997). Still, Afro-Argentines served gallantly in the military from as early as 1664 and, during the English invasions of the River Plate in 1806 and 1807, defended their homes and beat back the foreign invader, earning the praise and gratitude of the Spanish government, which even freed some of the slaves as a reward for their loyalty. Afro-Argentines even achieved officer ranks in the 19th century. Notable examples were Lieutenant Colonel Manuel M. Barbarín, Colonels Domingo Sosa and Lorenzo Barcala (called by Domingo F. Sarmiento “El caballero negro”), and Captains Antonio Videla and Casildo Thompson (Andrews 1980, 132–133,

“Falucho” is the nickname of Second Corporal Antonio Ruiz, an Afro-Argentine hero of independence. Ruiz fought in José de San Martín’s Army of the Andes. According to history (some would say legend), Corporal Ruiz, born a slave (perhaps in Africa), served in the Regiment of the River Plate and died while defending the colors (white and light blue) of the revolutionary flag against traitors during a revolt at the fort of Callao (in Peru) on February 6, 1824. Rather than hoist the Spanish flag, Falucho was shot by the traitors, crying out with his last breath, “A Viva Buenos Aires!” (“Viva Buenos Aires!”) (Estrada 1979, 85–121). The history of Second Corporal Antonio Ruiz was largely unknown until the late 1850s, when soon-to-be president Bartolomé Mitre first reported Falucho’s heroism in the pages of the Buenos Aires newspaper Los Debates. Subsequently, Mitre would retell the story of Falucho in his monumental Historia de San Martín y de la emancipación americana (1887). Mitre based his history of Ruiz on personal testimonies from his commanding officers, including Generals Enrique Martínez and Tomás Guido, among others (Mitre 1968).

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136). Afro-Argentine soldiers earned the praise of their superiors; General Guillermo Miller, in a letter dated April 9, 1827, lauded the valor and patriotism of black soldiers during the independence struggle (Estrada 1979, 86). The mytho-legendary aspects of Falucho notwithstanding, Mitre, known as the father of Argentine historiography, “nationalized” the sacrifices of all Afro-Argentines. To this day, streets in many major Argentine citites (including the capital) bear the name Falucho. A bronze statue of Falucho, sculpted by Lucio Correa Morles and commissioned by the Argentine military, resides in downtown Buenos Aires (in Palermo) as a commemoration of African Argentine services rendered to the nation. At the base of the statue is a plaque from the Club Militar (May 9, 1897), which reads: “To ‘Falucho’— This monument to the heroic black defender of Callao, symbolizes the glory of his entire race— grandly serving during the independence war and in all the other struggles for freedom and national honor” (Estrada 1979, 118n.). Roberto Pacheco See also Argentina: Afro-Argentines. F URTHER R EADING Andrews, George Reid. 1980. The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, 1800–1900. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Estrada, Marcos de. 1979. Argentinos de origin africano. 34 biografías. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial de la Universidad de Buenos Aires. Mitre, Bartolomé. 1968. Historia de San Martín y de la emancipación Americana. 3 vols. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Universitaria. Quiroga Micheo, Ernesto. 1997. “Mitre tenía razón. La verdad de Falucho.” Todo es Historia 30 (354): 72–82.

z Fanon, Frantz (1925–1961) Frantz Fanon was born in Fort-de-France, the capital of Martinique, in 1925 to a relatively

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prosperous, middle-class black family. In a normal French colonial pattern, Fanon grew up speaking and thinking of himself as French. He did, however, take classes in secondary school from the négritude poet Aimé Césaire, who called Antillians to rediscover their African roots. Disillusioned with the racism and repression of the pro-Nazi Vichy regime in Martinique, the 17-year-old Fanon left his homeland in early 1943 with the intention of joining the forces of the Free French, whose liberation he considered inextricably bound up with his own and that of Martinique. With the sudden end of the Vichy regime in Martinique a short time later, Fanon was repatriated but later left for Europe to participate in the effort to liberate the “motherland,” toward which he felt a deep loyalty at the time. He arrived in the Moroccan port of Casablanca for basic training in 1944. While stationed in North Africa and subsequently in France, where he would be decorated for distinguished conduct, Fanon made the depressing discovery that the French army, which he had hoped would save Europe and the world from fascism and racism, was itself hierarchically structured along racial and ethnic lines, privileging Europeans above North Africans. After Germany’s capitulation in 1945, the 20-year-old Fanon returned to Martinique, where he finished his secondary school education and, after some discussion with local authorities, was ultimately awarded a grant available to war veterans for the pursuit of higher education. The following year, Fanon began his medical studies in Lyons, France. It is likely that his growing awareness of racism in France influenced his decision to specialize in psychiatry. In 1952, he published his first book, Peau noire, masques blancs (trans. 1967, Black Skin, White Masks), in which he drew from his psychiatric training to demonstrate the impact of racism and colonialism on the black psyche. In Peau noire, masques blancs, Fanon argues that color and race are not essences, but rather it is the “white gaze” that he encounters on the streets

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Frantz Fanon was a leading ideologist of the anticolonial and Black Power movements of the 1950s and 1960s. In addition to his intellectual contributions to colonial liberation movements around the world, he also worked with the National Liberation Front during Algeria’s struggle for independence. (Algerian Ministry of Information)

of Paris and Lyons that defines Fanon and forces him to define himself. In response to this “epidermal overdetermination,” the Fanon of Peau noire endorsed the négritude movement, which called in the 1940s and 1950s for a distinctive black cultural identity rather than complete assimilation into French culture. Later, Fanon would call the négritude movement “a black mirage” and would look to build unity along national rather than racial lines. Having completed his psychiatric training, Fanon decided to move in 1953 to the Algerian town of Blida, where his expertise was more urgently needed. A year later, in 1954, the Algerian Revolution began. This war, which

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would become the most brutal war of decolonization in France’s history, became the driving force of Fanon’s life and writing. Although Fanon considered joining the armed struggle in the mountains, he decided that he would be more useful to the Front de Liberación Nationale (FLN) at the psychiatric hospital in Blida, where he could safely harbor wounded fighters and treat their psychological ailments. Upon being discovered by the French police, Fanon went into exile in Tunis at the end of 1956 and emerged as the national spokesman for the FLN. He was an ongoing contributor to El Moudjahid, the FLN newspaper that sought to secure the support of the international Left. After the establishment of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Algeria (GPRA), based in Tunis, Fanon became part of its diplomatic corps. In 1957, he became the GPRA’s ambassador to Ghana and began promoting the cause of Algerian independence in such other black African countries as Guinea, Ivory Coast, Congo, and Mali. In 1959, Fanon published L’An, V de la Révolution algérienne (trans. 1965, A Dying Colonialism), a collection of essays on topics related to the revolution. This work was seized by the police three months after its publication. In 1960, Fanon was diagnosed with leukemia. During a brief period of remission in 1961, he was able to complete his greatest work, Les Damnés de la terre (trans. 1965, The Wretched of the Earth), which would be a central text of the Black Power Movements in the United States and the Caribbean. Frantz Fanon died of leukemia in 1961, when he was only 36 years old. A number of his essays were posthumously collected and published in 1964 as Pour la révolution Africaine (trans. 1976, Toward the African Revolution). Fanon’s ideas inspired the Black Power Movement in the United States and have left a lasting impression on important African and Caribbean anticolonial writers, novelists, and activists. Maria de Jesus Cordero

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430 | Febres, Mayra Santos (1966–) See also Algerian Revolution; Césaire, Aimé (1913–2008); Négritude. F URTHER R EADING Bulhan, Hussein Abdilahi. 1985. Frantz Fanon and the Psychology of Oppression. New York: Plenum Press. Geismar, Peter. 1971. Fanon. New York: Dial Press. Gordon, Lewis R., Denean Sharpley-Whiting, and Renee White. 1996. Fanon: A Critical Reader. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Macey, David. 2001. Frantz Fanon: A Life. New York: Picador. Onwuanibe, Richard C. 1983. A Critique of Revolutionary Humanism: Frantz Fanon. St. Louis: W.H. Green.

z Febres, Mayra Santos (1966–) A poet, essayist, short story writer, and novelist, Mayra Santos Febres has won international recognition. Santos Febres graduated from the University of Puerto Rico and earned master’s and doctoral degrees from Cornell University in the United States. Now a professor of Latin American literature and ethnic studies at the University of Puerto Rico, she serves on the committee for the Cuban Casa de las Américas literary prize. To date, she has published three collections of poems: Anamú y manigua (1991), El orden escapado (1991), and Tercer Mundo (2000). Her fiction includes two anthologies of short stories: Pez de vidrio (1995), recipient of the 1994 Letras de oro prize awarded in Miami and Spain; and El cuerpo correcto (1998), which explores unorthodox sexual practices usually condemned by society. A selection from these two collections was published in English as Urban Oracles (1999). More recently, Santos Febres has published two novels. Sirena selena vestida de pena (2000) recounts the debut of an adolescent Puerto Rican transvestite as a bolero singer in the Dominican Republic. The novel records the plight of homosexuals and transvestites in Hispanic

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Caribbean countries and also points to the pernicious effects of tourism in Dominican society and the rest of the Caribbean. Cualquier miércoles soy tuya (2002) is an exploration of the Puerto Rican urban underworld using the detective novel genre. Her play Matropofagia was performed in Cuba in 2001. Recurring themes in Santos Febres’s writing are the African heritage, the marginalization of Afro-Puerto Ricans, the situation of women in postfeminist Puerto Rico, the city in a technological age, and the urban underworld. Santos Febres’s poetry celebrates her Afro-Puerto Rican cultural and historical legacy. In Anamú y manigua, for example, she gives overt focus to the varied problematics that constitute black identity in Puerto Rico. In much of her poetry, Santos Febres examines the fact that, for black bearers of a Hispanic identity, the problems are both exterior and interior. The former is the case with those whose phenotype may link them in ethnicity to blackness, and this brings with it the difficulty of suffering prejudice and racism. The latter problem lies with the internalizing of race denial and exclusion and/or the desire for blanqueamiento, or whitening. A clear political concern pervades Santos Febres’s poetry. On the one hand, she writes of the sense of loss left by colonization. On the other, she describes the void, left by feelings of rootlessness, which is being filled by “nouveau imperialism.” Accordingly, Santos Febres rages against the latter, which is found in much U.S. culture and its total domination, across language, across the African Diaspora, and across Puerto Rico. The African legacy and the black community remain central to several stories in Santos Febres’s first collection. Thus “Marina y su olor” (“Marina’s Fragrance”) denounces the discrimination endured by Afro-Puerto Ricans, while “Hebra rota” (“Broken Strand”)—later adapted as a short film—recounts an alienated black girl’s claim to fame as a model endowed with all the attributes of the Western beauty canon, such as long, straight hair. Several stories in Pez de vidrio also reveal the loneliness of modern, independent

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Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) | 431 Puerto Rican women, unable to find understanding partners who can accept them as equals. Odile Ferly and Nicole Roberts See also Arias, Aurora (1962–); Puerto Rico: AfroPuerto Ricans. F URTHER R EADING DeCosta-Willis, Miriam. 2003. Daughters of the Diaspora: Afra-Hispanic Writers. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers. Ferly, Odile. 2001. “The Fanonian Theory of Violence in Women’s Fiction from the Caribbean.” In Convergences and Interferences: Newness in Intercultural Practices, ed. K. Gyssels and I. Hoving, 107–119. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Morgado, Marcia. 2000. “Literatura para curar el asma: Entrevista con Mayra Santos Febres.” The Barcelona Review (marzo-abril 17), available at: www.barcelonareview.com/17/s_ent_msf.htm. (Accessed January 24, 2008) Paravisini-Gebert, Lizabeth. 2003. “Unchained Tales: Women Prose Writers from the Hispanic Caribbean in the 1990s.” Bulletin of Latin American Research 22 (4): 445–464. Roberts, Nicole. 2004. “Discovering Resemblances: Language and Identity in Caribbean Poetry.” Delaware Review of Latin American Studies 5 (1): 1–28.

z Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) The Federal Writers’ Project was a Depressionera program that produced groundbreaking publications and research in African American culture, including slave testimonies, African American history, and folklore. After the Great Depression had plunged the United States into a period of mass unemployment and economic instability, President Franklin Roosevelt instituted a broad spectrum of social programs to undergird the economy, provide social services to the masses, and stimulate growth by providing people with a source of optimism. These social reforms are collectively known as the New Deal.

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The Federal Writers’ Project, or FWP, was one of the relief programs administered through the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration (WPA). Other programs included the Federal Theater Project and the Federal Art Project. President Roosevelt sanctioned the Federal Writers’ Project to provide out-of-work writers with employment through the creation of the Guide to America, a series of guidebooks that described the regional history and cultural diversity of each state. Between 1935 and 1939, the FWP employed more than 100 AfricanAmerican writers. Though these numbers are small, the FWP employed more African Americans than any other government program at the time. More importantly, the FWP had an institutional focus on documenting African American life, history, and culture, and supported the livelihood of many of the most important African American writers of the 20th century. Several important African American writers sustained themselves by working for the FWP at critical phases of their careers. The Illinois project hired Margaret Walker, Richard Wright, Willard Motley, Frank Yerby, William Attaway, Fenton Johnson, Arna Bontemps, and Katherine Dunham. Writers in the New York project included Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Claude McKay, and Waring Cuney; Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston briefly directed the Florida project. Charles S. Johnson, who had started archiving African American folklore, culture, and slave histories at Fisk University in 1929, participated in the project through the Tennessee State Guild. Actually, it was his research that spawned the fieldwork methodologies of the Slave Narrative Collection, arguably the Writers’ Project’s most significant contribution. Part of the genius of the Federal Writers’ Project was its commitment to archiving the genuine voices, experiences, and reflections not only of those who observed the tumultuous struggle for African American progress but of the individuals who endured it. Many of the accounts of these communities were recorded by African Americans themselves.

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To this end, the FWP supported humanizing and authentic portraits of African American rural and urban communities. FWP writers and archivists interviewed former slaves about their lives in order to preserve their voices for future generations. At a time when the United States had approximately 100,000 former slaves living within its borders, the Slave Narrative Collection relied on interviews from more than 2,000 ex-slaves from 18 states living in the 1930s. These interviews created a foundation for subsequent works on the peculiar institution of American slavery, such as Roscoe Lewis’s The Burden Down: A Folk History of Slavery (1945), George P. Rawick’s 19-volume The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography (1972), and Charles L. Perdue’s Weevils in the Wheat: Interviews with Virginia Ex-Slaves (1976). A large portion of the materials collected by the FWP never saw publication. However, much of the research compiled during these projects provided these writers with the materials, insights, and experiences needed to produce a number of relevant studies on African American culture. Rural FWP studies included the North Carolina project’s These Are Our Lives (1939) and the Savannah project’s Drums and Shadows: Survival Studies among the Georgia Coastal Negroes (1940). Urban studies include Arna Bontemps’s Cavalcade of the American Negro (1940); McKay’s Harlem: Negro Metropolis (1940); Wright’s Twelve Million Black Voices (1941); Ottley and William Weatherby’s New World A-Comin’: Inside Black America (1943); St. Clair Drake and Horace Clayton’s Negro Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City (1945); Moon’s Balance of Power: The Negro Vote (1948); Gilbert Osofsky’s Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto (1965); Bontemps and Jack Conroy’s Anyplace but Here (1966); and Ottley’s The Negro in New York: An Informal History (1967). Partially because of its inclusion of African Americans, the FWP was publicly accused of supporting communism and distributing communist literature. Sterling Brown, the FWP’s na-

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tional editor of Negro affairs, faced resistance from several state project heads who refused to comply with Brown’s objective of eliminating “racial bias” and often refused to hire black interviewers. Though the main office in Washington categorically deplored the practice of racial discrimination in their auxiliaries, they were reluctant to intervene on behalf of African Americans, fearing they would alienate the larger white communities of the South. Consequently, some slavery historians maintain that many of the former slaves interviewed by the FWP exercised quite a bit of self-censorship because most of the FWP interviewers were white. However, most scholars agree that, despite the inconsistencies in some of the slave testimonies, the Writers’ Project produced an invaluable resource. Jason Esters See also “African” in African American History. F URTHER R EADING Foley, Barbara Clare. 1996. “Federal Writers’ Project.” In Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, ed. Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith, vol. 1, 946–948. New York: Macmillan. Natanson, Nicholas J. 1992. The Black Image in the New Deal: The Politics of FSA Photography. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. Sitkoff, Harvard. 1981. A New Deal for Blacks: The Emergence of Civil Rights as a National Issue: The Depression Decade. New York: Oxford University Press. White, Craig Howard. 1997. “Federal Writers’ Project.” In The Oxford Companion to African American Literature, ed. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris, 270– 271. Foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Oxford University Press.

z Feminism: Black Feminist Movement in the United States U.S. black feminism is a movement by black women of the United States that fights for

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Feminism: Black Feminist Movement in the United States | 433 equal rights against such discriminating factors as gender, race, and class. E ARLY B LACK F EMINISM To speak of U.S. black feminism, one must go beyond the 1960s and 1970s and into the previous century to consider the foremothers of U.S black feminism and acknowledge the groundbreaking strides they made, thereby providing modern African American women the platform to forge the issues concerning them. Clearly, not all historical figures can be mentioned here, but at the very least, Sojourner Truth, Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells, Mary Church Terrell, and Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin must be acknowledged. For black women, a fight for the race was also a fight for themselves, and they therefore notably became known as “race women,” especially also since the term “feminist” was not being used to describe them. These women saw the need to join white suffragists to combat the white patriarchal order so that they, too, not just their men, would be truly free. Among the first to penetrate the white suffragist movement, in which black women were often not desired and clearly not given equal footing, was Sojourner Truth. A formerly enslaved woman who had taken to traveling and speaking the truth of the equality of all people, Sojourner Truth, boldly forced her way into a white antislavery rally, where, as a black woman, she was not welcomed. In an 1852 suffragist meeting, while white women again attempted to silence her, Truth was able to penetrate, gain an opportunity to have her voice heard, and give her famous “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech. In this speech, she gives a voice to black women, an act that was to affect not only the abolitionist movement but also the suffrage movement. U.S. black feminism included women of all ranks and class. As the unschooled Truth made inroads for African American women, so also did the highly educated Anna Julia Cooper, the fourth African American to earn a Ph.D. Cooper was an educator and activist who

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Sojourner Truth is identified as one of the founding mothers of black feminism. She spoke out for the abolition of slavery and for women’s rights in America. (Library of Congress)

boldly lectured and wrote on racial and gender equality. Her 1892 book, A Voice from the South, contributed to the first discussions of women’s social status and rights to higher education (hooks 1981). Another contributor to the U.S. black feminist movement was the aggressive anti-lynching campaigner and journalist Ida B. Wells. Wells, who was born a few years before the demise of chattel slavery, forged an international movement to save the lives of black men and women from the racist, murderous hands of violent white men while at the same time championing women’s rights. Wells, a good friend of white suffragists Jane Addams and Susan B. Anthony, was a member of the suffrage movement and worked tirelessly to impact changes for the good of all women,

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especially black women. Wells’s activities and participation with the suffrage movement were not without struggle and contention as she fought with Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Southern white women so that black women’s concerns would be incorporated in the suffragist agenda. But perhaps, one might argue that Wells was also most influential where black women were concerned, as she helped pioneer the women’s club movement, which gave birth to the legendary National Association of Colored Women (NACW) in 1896, an organization that brought together all black women’s clubs under one umbrella for racial uplifting, training, and addressing the issues and problems of black women. Significant to the advancement of black women was Mary Church Terrell, who served as the first president of the NACW and worked with the group for many years thereafter. Terrell was a wealthy daughter of ex-slaves and was educated at Oberlin University. Rejecting her father’s request that she not work and simply live as a “lady,” the highly political Terrell not only served as a teacher but also as a speaker fighting against racial and gender inequality. Another female figure important to U.S. black feminism was Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin of Boston, Massachusetts. Ruffin was editor of The Woman’s Era, a black woman’s magazine that educated black women on politics, race, gender, and other relevant issues. Ruffin was also one of the original members of the NACW and a recognized suffragist; it was she who called for a national convention of black women in 1895, which led to the founding of the NACW. Among these vocal women were others who came before, such as Maria Stewart and Frances E. W. Harper, a notable black woman novelist and suffragist who spoke in women’s suffrage meetings nationally. According to scholar bell hooks, she was the most outspoken on black woman suffrage of her era (hooks 1981, 168). Black women worked hard among themselves and contentiously alongside white suf-

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fragists to realize the vote for women in 1920. However, U.S. black feminism took a downward turn, particularly after women won the vote, for while black women were finally given the right to vote, white women and their men still discriminated against them because of their race. Thus, after 1920, because winning the vote did not change black women’s racial positioning in the United States and because Jim Crow found new ways to further oppress black women and men, black women, while still participating in their clubs, focused their energies largely on issues of race. T HE B LACK F EMINIST M OVEMENT – P OST-1960 S It was not until the 1960s that feminism was given a second birth for black and white women with the establishment of the National Association for Women (NOW) in 1966. However, with this renaissance, black women faced the same old problems with white women and new ones with black men. Black feminists of this era, like their foremothers, contended that feminism had to grapple not only with issues of gender but also with those of race and class. Black lesbians also wanted to complicate that even further by including questions of sexuality. For them, not only were they fighting against patriarchy, racism, and sexism, they were also fighting against heterosexism. White feminists’ rhetoric and agenda reflected that the organization narrowly viewed feminism as a movement for middle-class white women concerned with equality in the workplace and for whom the race matter was a non-issue. In the meantime, the hostile racial climate had given birth to several black liberation organizations (the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student NonViolent Coordinating Committee, the Black Panthers). Such black women as Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Angela Davis were critical of these organizations. Black women, who had always fought simultaneously for racial and gender equality, were now being

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Feminism: Black Feminist Movement in the United States | 435 pressured by the masculine influence to ignore feminist issues and focus on racial solidarity alone. The new masculine rationale behind the black liberation movement was that black women’s fight for gender equality was just another means of divide and conquer, in that black women were joining white women against black men. As a result, many black women who felt the pressure of having to choose between their race and gender chose race. Still, others maintained that a simultaneous fight against sexism and racism should be the focus and that they couldn’t deny their gender just as they couldn’t deny their race. The black women, who insisted on combating all oppressions, formed the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO) in New York in 1973. Tired of the racism in NOW and the sexism in the black liberation movement, they formed groups that focused on their unique needs. 1973 also saw the founding of the Black Women Organized for Action in San Francisco. In 1974, growing out of the NBFO, was the lesbian group the Combahee River Collective, formed in Boston. Other U.S. black feminist organizations were to follow. Founders and members included Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, Pat Parker, and Eleanor Holmes Norton. In addition to working against racial, gender, and class discrimination, the organizations fought for the rights of women to control their bodies against unwanted pregnancies, violence and rape, lesbian and gay rights, health care, child care, and environmental protection, as expressed in But Some of Us Are Brave (1981). The success of the U.S. Black Feminist Movement is evident in the improved condition of black women’s lives in the country and, arguably, the awareness it has brought to them historically, sociologically, politically, academically, and otherwise. Black women’s place in feminism has led them to make significant impact in politics, as attested by the accomplishments of Shirley Chisholm, the first black female member of Congress and the first African American to run for presi-

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dent (in 1972), provided political leadership and example for future black and women politicians. Moreover, because of the movement, there are now various humanities courses and programs in universities about the contributions of black women in America and other parts of the world. The awareness also helped bring focus, celebration, and critical insights to black women’s experiences through the works of creative writers such as Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Gloria Naylor. Black women scholars continue the tradition begun by foremothers such as Anna Julia Cooper as they explore issues plaguing and defining the modern black woman’s role in the United States and the world. In the 21st century, U.S. black feminists continue to wield significant influence on their racial, gender, and class positioning in the country. Miriam Gyimah See also “African” in African American History; Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Collins, Patricia Hill. 1990. Black Feminist Thought. Boston: Unwin Hyman. Davis, Angela Y. 1983. Women, Race and Sex. New York: Vintage. Giddings, Paula. 1984. When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America. New York: William Morrow. Guy-Sheftall, Beverly, ed. 1995. Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought. New York: New Press. hooks, bell. 1981. Ain’t I a Woman? Boston: South End Press. Hull, Gloria T., Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith, eds. 1981. All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave. New York: Feminist Press. James, Joy. 1999. Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics. New York: St. Martin’s Press. James, Stanlie M., and Abena P.A. Busia. 1993. Theorizing Black Feminism. New York: Routledge. Smith, Barbara, ed. 1983. Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology. New York: Kitchen Table Press.

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436 | Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora Sterling, Dorothy. 1988. Black Foremothers: Three Lives. 2nd ed. New York: Feminist Press.

z Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora One of the most exciting and potentially ground-breaking areas of scholarly inquiry to emerge within the field of black studies/ Africana/African Diaspora studies over the past decade is the interrogation of gender discourses. The work of African-descended (or Africana) feminist intellectuals, scholars, writers, and activists, though they continue to be accused at home of diluting the struggle against racism, imperialism and neocolonialism, is transforming black studies, which has been limited in many ways by antifeminist and masculinist paradigms. These counterdiscourses by Africana women intellectuals need to be taken seriously by Afrocentric scholars within the United States and throughout the Diaspora who often ignore the situation of Africana women in postcolonial contexts and devalue the work of profeminist African writers who consistently challenge idealized, uncomplicated, and monolithic portrayals of “Mother Africa.” Despite the early work of Filomena Chioma Steady, an anthropologist from Sierra Leone who was the first to articulate an African feminist standpoint in her 1981 pioneering anthology, The Black Woman Cross-Culturally, many black scholars continue to assert the irrelevance of feminist discourse in analyses of the historical and contemporary situation of Africans on the continent and throughout the Diaspora. It is also the case that Africana feminist thought has been ignored by Western scholars, highly contested on the Continent and throughout the Diaspora, and often misunderstood. Although this discourse is complex and addresses a range of topics from many different

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perspectives and disciplinary locations, there are common themes: the impact of racism, colonialism, and neocolonialism on gender roles; the nature of gender oppression or patriarchal structures in various Diasporan contexts, especially the Americas; the necessity for transformation of gender relations and the empowerment of Africana women and girls; discrimination against women in the public sphere; the need for involvement of Africana women in policy making at the local, national, and international levels; the eradication of gender-based violence and other cultural practices that impede the full development of Africana females; and the interconnections between race, gender, and class oppression. The extent to which African American feminist politics employed African Diaspora frameworks early on is apparent by recalling the efforts of 19th-century black clubwomen to understand the global realities of women, especially African women and other women of color. In the 1920s, the International Council of Women of the Darker Races emerged as a result of the racial uplift impulses and the international educational projects of the black women’s club movement in the United States. Organized by several prominent clubwomen in 1924, most notably Margaret Murray Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Women’s Club in Alabama, president of the National Association of Colored Women from 1914–1918, and the Council’s first president, its purpose was to study the history of peoples of color throughout the world (particularly West Africa, India, Haiti, and Cuba) and to disseminate knowledge about them for the purpose of engendering racial pride. Study groups, which were called Committees of Seven, were also formed to infuse public school curricula with material on blacks and other people of color. These curriculum development efforts can be seen as a precursor of black studies. Field trips were also organized to gain firsthand experience of other cultures. The council also studied the situation of women and children of color transnation-

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Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora | 437 ally. Like clubwoman Anna Julia Cooper, who mentioned Muslim harems and the Chinese practice of foot binding on the first page of her pioneering feminist 1892 text, A Voice from the South, council members were aware of the differential experiences of women because of their reading and travel to international conferences. Margaret Murray Washington taught a course at Tuskegee Institute on the condition and status of women throughout the world. This forward-looking organization is reminiscent of recent attempts by contemporary black feminists to establish linkages with other women of color around the world and to struggle for the elimination of sexism and racism globally. Black women’s global concerns were apparent in other ways as well. The Pan-African Congress, which stressed the unity of all African peoples, was organized in 1919 in Paris, and Anna J. Cooper, a council member, was one of only two U.S. black women to address this international gathering of people of African descent. The council also cosponsored, with the Chicago Women’s Club, a fundraising activity to support an African sister, Adelaide Casely-Hayford (1868–1960), in her efforts to build a school for girls in Sierra Leone. A member of the Creole elite, Adelaide moved from Sierra Leone with her family to London in 1872 when she was four years old and was later educated there and in Germany. Intent on returning home to Sierra Leone to make a living as a teacher, she arrived in Freetown in 1892 and embarked upon a mission to start a school for girls that would be under the control of Africans and not Europeans. Five years later, though it would be short-lived, the school opened. In 1903, at age 35, she married the prominent Ghanaian lawyer/journalist/intellectual (also a Garveyite) who edited Gold Coast Leader, a leading Pan-Africanist publication. They lived in Ghana before the marriage disintegrated and she moved back to Freetown with their daughter, Gladys, in 1914. It was at this time that her career as a public figure began. In 1915, she delivered a lecture at the

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Wesley Church entitled “The Rights of Women and Christian Marriage,” and became president four years later of the YWCA and eventually head of the Freetown branch of Marcus Garvey’s UNIA, under whose auspices she would embark again upon her life’s mission of starting a school for African girls. In 1920 at the age of 52, she left home for a two-year stay in the United States, during which time she wanted to learn how African American girls were educated and launch a major fund-raising project for her school back home. She also attended the 20th Annual Meeting of the Women’s Convention Auxiliary of the National Baptist Convention in Indianapolis, whose corresponding secretary at the time was Nannie Burroughs, founder of the National Training School for Girls in Washington, D.C., and one of the founding members of the Women’s Convention, which was launched in 1901 in Richmond, Virginia. Later, for a week she would visit Burroughs’s school, which she saw as a model for what she hoped to build in Freetown. She also interacted with clubwomen and addressed in 1922 the Richmond meeting of the National Council of Negro Women, during which she argued that Africans had a history to be proud of and pleaded the cause of African womanhood and African ancestry in general. Her fund-raising efforts yielded $114.52 in a matter of minutes; a year later, in 1923, her Girls’ Vocational and Industrial Training School opened with African American educators Margaret Murray Washington and Nannie Burroughs as advisory board members. She returned to the United States again in 1926 to raise funds, and she managed to keep it open until 1940. During this second trip, she also attended the Fourth Pan-African Congress (1927) in New York City (which DuBois organized with the help of the National Association of Colored Women) and formed alliances with the black clubwomen’s Circle of Peace and Foreign Relations and the Suffrage Departments of the YWCA and the NAACP.

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The life of Nigerian activist Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti (1900–1978), described by her biographers as “one of the very few radical, feminist leaders in Africa of her time,” parallels the life of Adelaide Casely-Hayford with regard to her linkages with women activists around the globe and her participation in international anti-imperialist and women’s movements (JohnsonOdim and Mba 1997, 139). Like Adelaide, she was in contact with Garvey’s United Negro Improvement Association’s women’s division and proposed in 1949 cooperation between it and the Nigerian Women’s Union. In the Caribbean, where feminist activism had its birth as well in the black nationalist organizations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the writer/activist Una Marson (1905–1965) is linked ideologically in some respects to both Casely-Hayford and RansomeKuti. Influenced by both the Pan-Africanist Movement and Garvey’s Universal Improvement Association—which was founded in 1914 in Kingston, Jamaica, and had a strong feminist component and consistent women’s leadership—Marson advocated the eradication of racism and was committed to women’s rights. Active in two international feminist organizations, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and the International Alliance for Women, she understood the power of art and cultural expression in the struggle for women’s empowerment, which is a major legacy of hers to the contemporary women’s movement in her native Jamaica, particularly the Sistren Collective. Her major work, Pocomania (1938), an autobiographical play about the struggles of a middle-class Creole woman to reclaim her African heritage and free herself from the repressiveness of colonialism, illustrates the confluence of the artistic and political in her vision of Caribbean feminism. Over the past several decades, Caribbean feminist discourse has come of age with the publication of key texts such as Eudine Barriteau’s The Political Economy of Gender in the Twentieth-Century Caribbean (2001) and Con-

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fronting Power, Theorizing Gender: Interdisciplinary Perspectives in the Caribbean (2003); Patricia Mohammed’s edited collection, Gendered Realities: Essays in Caribbean Feminist Thought; Hilary Beckles’s Centering Woman: Gender Discourses in Caribbean Slave History; Rhoda Reddock’s Women, Labour and Politics in Trinidad and Tobago: A History (1994); Kamala Kempadoo’s Sun, Sex and Gold: Tourism and Sex Work in the Caribbean (1999); Elsa Leo-Rhynie, Barbara Bailey and Christine Barrow’s Gender: A Caribbean Multi-Disciplinary Perspective; Verene Shepherd’s coedited collection, Engendering History: Caribbean Women in Historical Perspective (1995); Janet Momsen’s Women and Change in the Caribbean (1993); Christine Barrow’s Carribean Portraits: Essays on Gender Ideologies and Identities (1998); M. Jacqui Alexander’s Pedagogies of the Crossing (2004); and a special issue (1998) of Feminist Review on “Rethinking Caribbean Difference.” The important international work and coalition building of women of African descent would continue during the contemporary period, though their antiracist and antisexist political activism would continue to be ignored in mainstream black and women’s history scholarship. In 1960, African American women attended the First Conference of African Women and Women of African Descent held in Accra, Ghana, in July 1960, long before the United Nations–sponsored international women’s conferences. In the summer of 1992, the first international conference entitled “Women in Africa and the African Diaspora: Bridges Across Activism and the Academy” was held in Nsukka, Nigeria. At the end of this historic conference, a communiqué was released that highlighted persistent discrimination against women in all spheres, particularly employment; the plight of rural women, migrant workers, and women infected with AIDS; and the seriousness of violence against women, which includes psychological as well as physical violence. A series of resolutions were included, following which was a strong statement

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Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora | 439 asserting that “colonial, racist, class and gender oppression and injustices against the majority of women in Africa and the African Diaspora are still continuing, and women and men must be educated on gender issues and be encouraged to deal with gender inequalities” (Nnaemeka, Appendix). This historic WAAD Conference signaled the coming of age in many ways of Africana feminism. It is important to underscore, however, the foundational work of feminist scholars such as Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, a Yoruba writer/critic/intellectual who has been speaking and writing about the issue of gender, politics, and social transformation within the African context for more than 30 years. Her essay “African Women, Culture and Another Development” is explicit about the nature of African women’s oppression (Ogundipe-Leslie, 27–35). She was a founding member of WIN (Women in Nigeria), a feminist women’s research and activist group, and AAWORD, the Association of African Women for Research and Development. One of the leading feminist critical thinkers from Africa, Ogundipe-Leslie argues that male domination was an integral part of many precolonial African societies, even though women’s position relative to men certainly deteriorated under colonialism. Like African American feminists, she also argues that there are also traditions of resistance and activism among African women going back to precolonial times. In other words, there were indigenous “feminisms” prior to contact with Europeans, just as there were indigenous modes of rebellion and resistance throughout the period of colonial domination. What this means is that feminism or the struggle for women’s rights is not the result of contamination by the West or simple imitation by African women of Euro-American values. An important task of Africana feminists continues to be identifying/excavating and analyzing these indigenous forms of feminist resistance. It is extremely important in an analysis of African feminisms to examine the

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activist work of contemporary women’s organizations as well, without which it is impossible to understand the ways in which African feminism is being conceptualized by scholars. For example, WIN emphasizes the importance of understanding both class and gender systems in Nigeria and asserts that the majority of women and men suffer from the exploitative and oppressive character of many aspects of Nigerian society under military dictatorships, though women are doubly victimized as members of subordinate classes and as women. One of the most compelling treatises in Ogundipe-Leslie’s collection of essays is “Stiwanism: Feminism in an African Context,” which can be compared to the Combahee River Collective’s “A Black Feminist Statement,” an essential document for understanding African American feminism as it was beginning to evolve in the 1970s. In this essay, OgundipeLeslie attempts to demystify the African past and offer a more complex picture of our cultural legacy as Africans in the Diaspora. Her message to cultural nationalists in the United States, in particular, is that there is much within traditional African cultures from which we were severed as a result of the transatlantic slave trade and which should be celebrated, embraced, and longed for, but there are also cultural practices that need to be understood, critiqued, and in some cases eradicated. She also makes a compelling argument about the need to ignore hypocritical assertions of black men who castigate Western feminist thinkers but embrace without reservation Western male intellectuals. She argues that men need to be progressive feminists and that feminism is the business of both men and women everywhere. “All black men in Africa or in the diaspora need to be liberatory feminists to ensure a fuller life for their mothers, daughters, and sisters” (230). She also indicates that gay and lesbian discourses and sexuality more broadly are still areas of silence that need to be broken. A growing body of scholarship addresses issues of sexuality in the African Diaspora. It includes

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Delroy Constantine-Simms’s edited collection The Greatest Taboo: Homosexuality in Black Communities (2000); Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe’s edited collection, Boy Wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African Homosexualities (1998); Monika Reinfelder’s Amazon to Zami: Towards a Global Lesbian Feminism (1996); Randy P. Conner’s Queering Creole Spiritual Traditions: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Participation in African-Inspired Traditions in the Americas (2004); and Signe Arnfred’s edited collection, Re-thinking Sexualities in Africa (2004). A larger body of scholarship, which analyzes feminist impulses in the creative writing (and oral traditions) of African women, began with the pioneering anthology of Carole Boyce Davies and Anne Adams Graves, Ngambika: Studies of Women in African Literature. At the outset (1950s and 1960s), African literatures were subjected to the same “phallic criticism” by European and American scholars that characterized critical approaches to literatures in general; Continental Africans and Caribbean scholars would not break this pattern, Boyce Davies continues, so women writers or the portrayal of women went largely unnoticed. The emergence of three major African women writers—Ama Ata Aidoo (1965), Flora Nwapa and Grace Ogot (1966)—did not immediately alter the African literary critical terrain as one might have expected. We also find Carole Boyce Davies’s articulation of the contours of African feminism in their pioneering text, which remains one of the most cogent descriptions of this important liberatory discourse (7–11). Since the publication of Ngambika, there has been a substantial body of scholarship under the rubric of African feminist literary criticism, most notably Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi’s Africa Wo/Man Palava: The Nigerian Novel by Women (Chicago, 1996); Gender in African Women’s Writing: Identity, Sexuality and Difference, edited by Juiliana Makuchi and Nfah-Abbenyi (Bloomington,

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1997); Florence Stratton’s Contemporary African Literature and the Politics of Gender (Routledge, 1994); Writing African Women: Gender, Popular Culture and Literature in West Africa, edited by Stephanie Newell (Zed Books, 1997); Emerging Perspectives on Buchi Emecheta (Africa World Press, 1996), and Emerging Perspectives on Flora Nwapa (Africa World Press, 1998), both edited by Marie Umeh; Emerging Perspectives on Ama Ata Aidoo (Africa World Press, 1999), edited by Ada Uzoamaka Azodo and Gay Wilentz; Irene Assiba D’Almeida’s Francophone African Women Writers (1994); Carole Boyce Davies has continued her pioneering scholarly work on women writers in the African Diaspora with the publication of two edited collections, Moving Beyond Boundaries: International Dimensions of Black Women’s Writing and Moving Beyond Boundaries: Black Women’s Diasporas. There is also a diverse group of older and recent texts by African women that are critical for understanding African feminisms. These include Awa Thiam’s Black Sisters Speak Out: Feminism and Oppression in Black Africa (1978); Christine Obbo’s African Women: Their Struggle for Economic Independence (1981); Ifi Amadiume’s Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society (1987); Florence Dolphyne’s The Emancipation of Women: An African Perspective (1991); Mercy Oduyoye’s Daughters of Anowa: African Women and Patriarchy (1995); Mary E. Modupe Kolawoke’s Womanism and African Consciousness (1997); Sisterhood, Feminisms, and Power: From Africa to the Diaspora (1998), edited by Obioma Nnaemeka; and Engendering African Social Sciences (1997), edited by Ayesha Imam, Amina Mama, and Fatou Sow. Though it is impossible to delineate here all of the parameters of contemporary Africana feminist discourse, which includes the black British context, it is also necessary to examine the wealth of material being generated by African women’s organizations in the Diaspora

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Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora | 441 with a liberatory agenda. There is the impressive and comprehensive work of Akina Mama Wa Africa (AMWA), an NGO for African women based in London and founded in 1985. A major premise of this African feminist organization is that African women living outside Africa face struggles on two fronts: in a predominantly white society, they face racial discrimination; and within their own communities, they suffer gender-based oppression. AMWA is also concerned about the deteriorating economic, political, and social systems in Africa and human rights abuses of African women and children in both Europe and Africa. They maintain strong links with progressive women’s movements in Africa and around the world and are committed to developing spaces for African women to articulate their own development needs. They document racial abuse; the trafficking of African women in England (some of whom are lured there as domestic workers and then exploited by pimps); the treatment of African women prisoners (many of whom are lured into the international drug trade); the treatment of migrant workers; domestic violence; and genital mutilation of young girls. They also provide training for women activists in dealing with these gender-related human rights abuses. Another important site for African feminist resistance and theory building is southern Africa. Three feminist journals published in South Africa are particularly useful: Southern African Feminist Review, published by the Southern African Institute for Policy Studies, Harare, Zimbabwe; Feminist Africa; and Agenda: Empowering Women for Equality, which has three special issues on African feminisms. Other feminist publications on the continent include Sauti Ya Siti, the official publication of the Tanzania Media Women’s Association, based in Dar es Salaam; the African Journal of Reproductive Health, based in Benin City, Nigeria, at the Women’s Health and Action Research Centre; Echo: Bilingual Quarterly Newsletter of the Association of African Women for Research and De-

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velopment, based in Dakar, Senegal; and Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies (www.jendajournal.com). Patricia McFadden, an outspoken scholar/activist living in Zimbabwe, discusses the difficulties of having embraced the term “radical African feminist” and asserts that male privilege transcends race and class in the southern African context, a point that has been underscored by African American feminists as well. In a lecture delivered at the Feminist Institute of the African Women’s Leadership Institute, McFadden offered a challenge to African women at the dawn of a new century. After talking about AIDS, gender violence, bodily integrity, indigenous women’s movements, reproductive rights, female circumcision, sexuality, the rise of religious fundamentalisms, civil strife, the insensitivity of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to the plight of women, and African women’s legacy of struggle, she asserted, “We must bring the African feminist tradition of thinking and problem solving to the global women’s movement.” As women from all over Africa and the African Diaspora gathered in Nsukka, Nigeria, in the summer of 1992 for the historic WAAD Conference, they hammered out a progressive agenda, despite their differences over a number of issues, including what to call themselves (feminists vs. black feminists vs. African feminists vs. African womanists). They underscored the need for raising the consciousness of women and men on gender issues in both formal and informal educational settings. They reminded women of the necessity of setting their own agendas for development and placing women’s issues at the center of national agendas and governmental developmental programs. The final resolution was that “women in Africa and of African descent need their own space in order to challenge and combat injustices suffered by women.” Clearly, women of African descent were speaking for themselves across profound cultural differences on their own terms.

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Feminist scholarship by Africana women in a variety of cultural contexts is critically important for understanding the global realities of women’s lives. It also helps to dismantle the hegemony of Western, white feminist analytical frameworks. These discursive, imaginative, and activist projects are important sites of resistance among Africana women, and they compel us to reimagine what “feminism” means in a global context. Beverly Guy-Sheftall See also “African” in African American History; Feminism: Black Feminist Movement in the United States; Black/Africana Studies in the United States. F URTHER R EADING Bereton, Bridget, Barbara Bailey, and Verene Shepherd. 1995. Engendering History: Caribbean Women in Historical Perspective. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Boyce Davies, Carole, and Anne Adams Graves, eds. 1986. Ngambika: Studies of Women in African Literature. Lawrenceville, N.J.: Africa World Press. Cole, Johnnetta Betsch, and Beverly Guy-Sheftall. 2003. Gender Talk: The Struggle for Women’s Equality in African American Communities. New York: Johnson. Guy-Sheftall, Beverly, ed. 1995. Words of Fire: An Anthology of African American Feminist Thought. New York: New Press. Hull, Gloria, Pat Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith. 1982. All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave. New York: Feminist Press. Johnson-Odim, Cheryl, and Nina Emma Mba. 1997. For Women and the Nation: Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti of Nigeria. Urbana Champaign: University of Illinois Press. Nnaemeka, Obioma. ed. 1998. Sisterhood, Feminisms and Power in Africa: From Africa to the Diaspora. Lawrenceville, N.J.: Africa World Press. Ogundipe-Leslie, Molara. 1994. Re-Creating Ourselves: African Women & Critical Transformations. Lawrenceville, N.J.: Africa World Press. Oyewumi, Oyeronke. 2005. African Gender Studies: A Reader. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

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FESPACO and African Film Festivals Film festivals themed around Africa abound. Since 1969, Burkina Faso, under the leadership of Thomas Sankara, has opened its doors for the biennial Pan-African Festival of Film and Television in Ouagadougou (FESPACO). Still, this particular festival, arguably the biggest and most popular one located on the African continent itself, has been criticized for being out of date. In one interview, Cameroonian filmmaker Jean-Pierre Bekolo likens the festival to “a giant dinosaur.” The Carthage Film Festival in Tunisia is another biennial festival, which alternates with FESPACO. In Europe, the most sought-after festival is the Cannes Film Festival, which has featured a number of African films and launched the careers of the likes of Ousmane Sembene. In North America, there is the New York African Film Festival, which also tours six American cities, and the Toronto International Film Festival, which has a section called “Planet Africa” that is devoted to black Diaspora films. Festivals are also a place where the quest for acclamation is inevitable; but this comes with a price: judgment by Western standards. Western sympathy and interest in African films is truly phenomenal, considering the fact that one is never hard pressed to find an African-themed film festival in most First World countries in any given month of the year. Oliver Barlet (2000) provides a helpful list of black African–themed film festivals around the world in his book African Cinemas: Decolonizing the Gaze. The problem, however, is of balancing the flow. Yes, there are dozens of African film festivals in Europe, but even here, African films are still marginalized. They do not receive as much screen time in Europe as European films receive in Africa; the reason given is that African films do not have much box office appeal in Europe. Based on the audience figures Barlet (2000) provides, this may

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Filhos de Gandhy | 443 be true. In France for example, Desire Ecare’s Visages de Femmes (1985) had an audience of between 120,000 and 340,000; Djibril Diop Mambety’s Hyenas (1993) had an audience of 52,892; and Jean-Marie Teno’s Clando had an audience of 486 (251). In African cinema, hybridity reflects the assimilation of Eurocentric culture in African artistic expression. Jean-Pierre Bekolo, a Cameroonian filmmaker, made a film called Quartier Mozart. Both the title and thematic content articulate how Western culture has become a part of African culture. Bekolo also proves himself to be an apt pupil of Western popular culture with Aristotle’s Plot, a film in which he examines the ideological clash between Hollywood fanaticism and Aristotle’s Poetics in an urban African setting. In Hyenas, Djibril Diop Mambety, beyond his accusations of the World Bank as the source of Africa’s demise, approaches hybridity more proactively in an attempt to make a continental film without boundaries. African cinema is far from autonomous and independent. However, because of the industry’s dependence on Europe, and to a lesser extent North America, the argument can be made that the present condition of African cinema is a good model of the trend toward which globalization continues to move: domination and exploitation of the Third World. Constance Ejuma See also Black Cinema. F URTHER R EADING Armes, Roy. 1987. Third World Film-Making and the West. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bakari, I., and Mbye Cham, eds. 1996. African Experiences of Cinema, London: British Film Institute. Barlet, Olivier. 2000. African Cinemas: Decolonizing the Gaze. London: Zed Books. Bing, A. 1993. “Preface.” In Dossier 10: Africa at the Pictures, ed. Keith Shiri. London: British Film Institute. Ngayane, L. 1993. “For Africans, With Africans, By Africans.” In Dossier 10: Africa at the Pictures, ed. Keith Shiri. London: British Film Institute.

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Nyamnjoh, F. B. 1989. Broadcasting for Nation Building in Cameroon: Development and Constraints. Ph.D. diss., University of Leicester: Center for Mass Communications Research. Pfaff, F. 1988. Twenty-Five Black African Filmmakers: A Critical Study. New York: Greenwood Press. Pines, J., and P. Willemen, eds. 1989. Questions of Third Cinema. London: British Film Institute. Shiri, Keith, ed. 1993. Dossier 10: Africa at the Pictures. London: British Film Institute. Shohat, Ella, and Robert Stam. 1994. Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media. New York: Routledge. Smiers, J. 2003. Arts under Pressure: Promoting Cultural Diversity in the Age of Globalization. London: Zed Books. Ukadike, N. F. 1994. Black African Cinema. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ukadike, N. F. 2002. Questioning Africa Cinema: Conversations with Filmmakers. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

z Filhos de Gandhy Filhos de Gandhy was founded by dock workers in the city of Salvador, Bahia, in 1949, shortly after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. They paraded in that year’s Carnival, using Gandhi’s image to symbolize the humanistic principles of African philosophy embodied in the Afro-Brazilian religion of candomblé. In defiance of a 1905 ordinance outlawing the use of African music and imagery in Carnival, the group drew from candomblé’s sacred rhythms, rituals, and songs in a style known as afoxé. The solidarity of the men supporting Gandhy reflected their increased organization against unfair labor practices, traced in part to the history of stevedore work as the province of enslaved men of color. Filhos de Gandhy continued to be closely tied to the port workers until composer Camafeu de Oxossi joined the directorate in 1976. His presence attracted some of Brazil’s top musi-

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The Filhos de Ghandy afoxé during carnival celebrations in Salvador. (Courtesy Jim Kane)

cians, most notably Bahian native Gilberto Gil, who had recently returned from political exile. Pop songs honoring the afoxé soon ensconced Filhos de Gandhy as a symbol of the African roots of Brazilian culture. Filhos de Gandhy represents the everyday nature of divinity by bringing the sacred into the public streets. Their members dress in white turbans and robes, the hallmark color of the Yoruba deity Oxalá, who symbolizes peace and is syncretized with Salvador’s patron saint, the Senhor do Bomfim. The Gandhy costume also features blue and white beads and sashes and a white turban bejeweled with a blue brooch representing the third eye. Their repertoire of afoxé songs features the hypnotic ijexá rhythms played on drums, bells, and xequeré beaded gourds, accompanied by cornets heralding the arrival of the group, or bloco. Members carry small vials of perfume that they may spray on spectators. Every appearance by Filhos de Gandhy begins with a private cere-

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mony called the padé to ask Exu, the guardian of the crossroads, to clear their path. Exu is again invoked in the streets as the private moves into public space. The procession then begins, a sea of white turbans and robes winding through the streets of Salvador, with as many as 14,000 men. Gandhy initially limited membership to men to avoid fights over women, a practice that today has become an affirmation of mutual male support and includes ages ranging from infants to the elderly. A women’s group, Filhas de Gandhy, was founded in 1981. Filhos de Gandhy provided a mechanism to reaffirm and renew the African underpinnings of Bahian popular culture. During Carnival and other festivals, anyone wearing the Gandhy costume is welcomed as an honorific member of every style of parading group, an acknowledgement of the afoxé’s significance to all Brazilians. The group has become internationally recognized by such organizations as the

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Fisk University | 445 United Nations and was honored in India on the group’s 50th anniversary. The Filhos de Gandhy have appeared in numerous films and recordings and were the subject of the documentary “A Bahia do Afoxé Filhos de Gandhy” by filmmaker and activist Lino de Almeida in 2005. Kim D. Butler See also Ahimsa; Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Carnival; Salvador da Bahia. F URTHER R EADING De Almeida, Lino. 2005. A Bahia do Afoxé Filhos de Gandhy. Documentary Film. Salvador, Bahia, Brazil: S12 Producoes. Dunn, Christopher. 1992. “Afro-Bahian Carnival: A Stage for Protest.” Afro-Hispanic Review 11 (1–3): 11–21. Morales, Anamaria. 1988. “O afoxé filhos de Gandhi pede paz.” In Escrivadao e Invencão da Liberdade. Estudos Sobre of Negro no Brasil, ed. Joao Jose Reis, 264–274. São Paulo, Brazil: Editor brasiliense. Risério, Antonio. 1981. Carnaval Ijexa Notas Sobre Afoxés e blocos do novo carnaval afrobaiano. Salvador, Bahia, Brazil: Corrupio.

z Fisk University At the close of the Civil War, in Nashville, Tennessee, three men—Erastus Milo Cravath, Edward P. Smith, and John Ogden—established the Fisk School to educate the formerly enslaved people. They named the school for general Clinton B. Fisk of the Freedmen’s Bureau. The school was sponsored in part by the American Missionary Association. The original classrooms for the students were located in a former Union Army barracks; however, the university eventually moved to its present location on the West side of Nashville, across the Cumberland River from the city’s center. Although the first student body included children as young as seven years, the institution was incorporated as Fisk University on August 22, 1867.

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Underfunded from the start, the institution used the talents of students to raise money for the college’s operating budget. The Fisk University Jubilee Singers traveled throughout the United States and Europe, introducing statesmen, intellectuals, and royalty to Negro spirituals—and raising enough money to fund the construction of Jubilee Hall. During its early years, Fisk was heavily influenced by white northern philanthropists who took an interest in its ability to educate black leaders. In the 1920s, this influence erupted into controversy and rebellion when Fisk alumnus W. E. B. DuBois led a revolt against the actions of the autocratic president, Fayette McKenzie— one of the philanthropists’ handpicked leaders. The alumni wanted a black president and objected to the Jim Crow atmosphere perpetuated by McKenzie, including suppression of the student newspaper. Their wishes were finally realized in 1946, when Charles S. Johnson, the famed University of Chicago–trained black sociologist, was appointed to the presidency. Johnson had led the departments of social science and race relations at Fisk since the late 1920s; he was an internationally known figure and had strong ties to Northern funders and good relationships with the faculty and local community. He had also been a promoter of the Harlem Renaissance, serving as editor of the Urban League’s Opportunity magazine during the 1920s. When he became president, he brought to Fisk many of the luminaries whose work had appeared in Opportunity, including Langston Hughes, Arna Bontemps, James Weldon Johnson, Sterling A. Brown, and Robert Hayden. It was also during this time that Johnson’s famed Race Relations Institutes were drawing people from across the world to the Fisk campus, providing one of the few interracial gathering places in the Nashville area. Under Johnson’s leadership, Fisk acquired a national reputation for producing leaders and scholars and was recognized in 1952, when it received a charter for a Phi Beta Kappa chapter, the first of its kind at a black college.

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Charles S. Johnson died in 1956; shortly thereafter, Stephen Wright came to the helm. It was under his leadership that the institution weathered the storm of the Civil Rights Movement. Some of the most prominent leaders of the movement were Fisk students, including John Lewis and Diane Nash. Although some black college presidents had adversarial relationships with student protesters, Wright supported the students in their attempts to fight injustice in Nashville. Over the course of its existence, Fisk University has educated some of the most prominent African Americans, including two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David Levering Lewis, historian and activist W. E. B. DuBois, poet Nikki Giovanni, historian John Hope Franklin, and Clinton-era energy secretary Hazel O’Leary. The institution has been and continues to be a leader in educating the country’s future African American doctors, lawyers, judges, and college professors. Marybeth Gasman See also DuBois, William Edward Burghardt (1868– 1963); Langston University and HBCUs. F URTHER R EADING Anderson, James D. 1988. The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Cohen, Rodney T. 2001. Fisk University (TN). College History Series. Charleston, SC: Arcadia.

z Florida Memorial University Florida Memorial University is the only historically black college and university (HBCU) in Miami, Florida. The university was established in 1892 by Reverend Mathew Gilbert, Reverend J. T. Brown, and Sarah Ann Blocker in the basement of Bethel Institutional Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida. The American Home Mission Society, renamed the Florida

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Baptist Academy, provided financial assistance, and with local community support, it offered elementary and secondary education. Mathew Gilbert served as president of the institution from 1892 to 1894 but resigned for health reasons. Reverend J. T. Brown served as president from 1894 to 1896 and resigned to resume his pastorate. Although Florida Baptist Academy relocated to eastern Jacksonville’s Campbell Addition in 1894, the institution was nearly defunct, but Sarah Ann Blocker persevered. Blocker recruited Nathan White Collier, who served as principal from 1894 to 1896 and later became president from 1896 to 1941. Blocker and Collier engaged in various fund-raising activities and employed noted faculty, including J. Rosamund Johnson, who later assisted his brother, James Weldon Johnson, in composing the black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” From 1900 to 1918, the institution changed its name to Florida Baptist College and then to Florida Normal and Industrial Institute. It was recognized as a premier site of higher learning in Florida with increases in student enrollment, financial support from the Rockefeller General Education Board, Baptist organizations, the Bethany Association, and the American Home Mission Society. In 1918, the institution relocated to St. Augustine, Florida, where it remained until 1968. From 1924 to 1940, the institution achieved numerous milestones, including construction of new buildings, and most important, accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools and the Florida Department of Education in 1931. Florida Normal and Industrial Institute was one of the main producers of African American teachers and skilled tradespeople in the state of Florida. Today, there is also a significant number of Caribbean students, and the Florida Memorial Steelband has won prizes in the Caribbean. Financial obligations necessitated the 1941 merger of Florida Normal and Industrial Institute with the Florida

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Flying Africans | 447 Baptist Institute, founded in Live Oak, Florida, in 1879. Such a merger culminated in increased financial support from Baptist churches and organizations and also yielded national recognition of the institution as a four-year college. Following Collier’s death in 1941, Sarah Ann Blocker continued to serve as executive vice president until her death in 1943. Dr. William H. Gray Jr. became the institution’s fourth president, serving from 1942 to 1944. Succeeding presidents have been: Dr. John L. Tilley (1944–1949), Dr. Royal W. Puryear (1950–1975), Dr. Willie C. Wright (1975–1976), Dr. Willie C. Robinson (1976–1989), Dr. Lee E. Monroe (1990–1992), Dr. Albert E. Smith (1993–2006), and Dr. Karl S. Wright, of Jamaican origin (2006–present). The institution changed its name to Florida Memorial College in 1963, relocated to Miami, Florida, in 1968, and became Florida Memorial University in March 2006, with 41 undergraduate degree programs and graduate programs in education and business administration. Florida Memorial University is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs, and the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. Rose C. Thevenin See also Bethune-Cookman University; Johnson, James Weldon (1871–1938). F URTHER R EADING McKinney, George Patterson. 1987. History of the Black Baptists of Florida. Miami: Florida Memorial College Press. Scott, J. E. Irving. 1974. The Education of Black People in Florida. Philadelphia: Dorrance.

z Flying Africans The narrative of “flying Africans” permeates African Diasporic mythology. It is one of the most enduring narratives, for it provides an ex-

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ample for spiritual and symbolic return to Africa for those physically trapped in enslavement. In Broad Symphony, an anthology of African Diasporic mythology, Alphonso Frost provides an example of the Diasporic currency of the flying Africans tale, linking it to the Surinamese legend “Sjaki and the Flying Slaves.” The tale has political significance, as it resonates with the July 1, 1863, emancipation of slaves in Suriname. According to the legend, the flying slaves visit their descendants to celebrate their liberation annually on that very day. Sjaki, a young boy, wanders through the forest and meets Liba, the witch woman, who feeds him a drug that induces sleep and fantastic dreams. He dreams that Liba honors his request to be transformed into a bird so that he could soar with the flying slaves. He soon discovers the flying Africans, just as they complete their ascent of the highest hill and subsequently jump off. The tragedy of the story is that the children of these men, in an effort to make their fathers stay with them, had put salt in their food. Fortunately, Sjaki is only dreaming, and the men do not fall to their deaths. In his dream, he is able to recall the history of the flying slave men, and they are able to relive the experience. They tell Sjaki how they survived their dive, flying by not having eaten salt. The flying slaves return every year to caution those left behind not to attempt flight, for they have been tainted by the ingestion of salt. Instead, they must stay behind and construct lives for themselves in resistance to slavery and persecution. It seems the flying slaves come to their descendants to remind them of the positive possibilities of resistance and of building transformative New World communities as they maintain the spiritual connection between the living and the ancestors. Two tales of flight, emerging in an African American context, come to us from Wallace Quarterman. Quarterman, an elderly man living in Darien, tells interviewers a version of the flying Africans tale for the collection of folk narratives published in Drums and Shadows:

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Survival Studies among the Georgia Coastal Negroes. Alphonso Frost, in a discussion of Wallace Quarterman’s recounting of the story about flying Africans, adds that, although Quarterman had not actually witnessed the event, he knew many slaves who saw the hoes left behind by the Africans, stuck in the ground. Toni Morrison utilizes another version of the flying Africans tale in her novel Song of Solomon (1977), as does Earl Lovelace in Salt (2004). Paule Marshall’s novel Praisesong for the Widow (1984) contains a version as well. And Grace Nichols references a bit of it in her poem “Ala,” in which an African rebel woman sets her child to wing its way back to Africa. Here, flight exists as resistant alternative to persecution against all odds. The body symbolizes a prison over which the enslaved have little physical control. In this context, transcending enslavement must take the form of death, allowing the spirit to fly free. In tales of flying Africans, the consumption of salt prevents enslaved Africans from escaping bondage by making their spirits too heavy. “Sjaki and the Flying Africans” provides one example. And Lorna McDaniel, an ethnomusicologist who has conducted extensive and invaluable research on the Big Drum Ritual of Grenada and Carriacou, was told by an “old head” in his late eighties (who identified as African) on the island of Carriacou an almost identical story of the inability of Africans who had eaten salt to fly home. She was told, “The Africans who were brought here didn’t like it. They just walked to the sea. They all began to sing as they spread their arms. And a few rose to the sky. Only those who did not eat salt left the ground. The Africans flew home.” Meredith Gadsby See also Pan-Africanism; Salt and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Georgia Writers Project. 1986. Drums and Shadows: Survival Studies among the Georgia Coastal Negroes. Athens: University of Georgia Press.

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Hamilton, Virginia. 2000. The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. McDaniel, Lorna. 1998. The Big Drum Ritual of Carriacou: Praisesongs for Rememory of Flight. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

z Fourah Bay College The founding of Fourah Bay College (Fourah Bay/ FBC) in 1827 in Freetown, Sierra Leone, marked the beginning of Western higher education in sub-Saharan Africa. Fourah Bay College was established as the Fourah Bay Institution (renamed Fourah Bay College in 1848) by the Church Missionary Society (CMS), a British Anglican organization with very strong ties to the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. This society, founded by Granville Sharpe and Thomas Clarkson, was instrumental in the creation of the colony of Sierra Leone in 1787 for the resettlement of freed slaves and other Africans displaced from their homelands by the transatlantic slave trade. Fourah Bay was thus established as a Christian training college, particularly to produce African clergy, missionaries, and teachers to further the CMS’s evangelical mission in West Africa. Fourah Bay gained degree-granting status in 1876 when it became a constituent college of Durham University, England. This affiliation spanned 90 years, during which Fourah Bay students followed a curriculum approved by Durham and were granted Durham degrees. However, the push for self-determination that culminated in Sierra Leone’s independence in 1961, coupled with a growing postcolonial national consciousness in Sierra Leone, led to the severing of Fourah Bay’s affiliation with Durham in 1966 and the establishment of the University of Sierra Leone, with FBC as the flagship institution.

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France and the African Diaspora | 449 Similar to the community of Freetown in which it is located, Fourah Bay is an integral part of the early history of the transatlantic African Diaspora, even though its place in this history is seldom recognized in contemporary African Diaspora discourse. The institution was created literally and figuratively out of the ruins of the transatlantic slave trade. In addition to its early student body, which consisted mainly of displaced New World and continental Africans, the original site of the college in the Fourah Bay area of Freetown (hence the name) was once a slave factory, and the original building that was the college until 1848 was the slaver’s home (Paracka 2003, 25). Also, some of the lumber used in the new building of 1848 came from former slave ships (Fyfe 1962, 237). Furthermore, because of its location in Freetown, Fourah Bay College was embedded in a relatively new African Diasporic community on the homeland continent. Being relatively new, Freetown was an extremely fertile ground for the CMS to recruit students willing to be trained and to relocate to other parts of West Africa and even beyond. Intellectually and culturally stimulated by the cosmopolitan milieu of Freetown, Fourah Bay College was for more than a century the premiere marketplace of ideas and intellectual training ground in Africa for Anglophone Africans, so much so that the college adopted Freetown’s moniker, “the Athens of West Africa.” Many of FBC’s graduates became very distinguished figures in Africa and African Diaspora history. Its first graduate, Samuel Ajayi (Ajai) Crowther, became a well-respected ethnolinguist and, later, Africa’s first Anglican bishop. Others include James Africanus Horton and James (Holy) Johnson, two pioneer Pan-Africanist thinkers. Fourah Bay College produced its first female graduate in 1938, Latilewa Christiana Hyde. Hyde (Forster) became the first black principal of the Annie Walsh Memorial School, Sierra Leone’s premiere secondary school for girls, founded in 1849.

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Fourah Bay College is no longer located at Fourah Bay in Freetown but since 1945 has occupied a sprawling campus perched atop Mount Aureol, overlooking Freetown. In the early decades following Sierra Leone’s independence, FBC continued to attract many students from such African nations as The Gambia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and Cameroon. Many of these graduates have held and continue to hold important positions in their postindependent nations; however, many contemporary “Mount Aureolites” from Sierra Leone, similar to Fourah Bay’s first cadres of graduates, have pursued their careers outside of Sierra Leone; like true Diasporic subjects, they have maintained ties to their homeland, if not physically, at least in their imaginations. Newtona (Tina) Johnson See also Horton, James Africanus Beale (1835– 1883); Pan-Africanism. F URTHER R EADING Fyfe, Christopher. 1962. A History of Sierra Leone. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Paracka, Daniel J. 2003. The Athens of West Africa: A History of International Education at Fourah Bay College, Freetown, Sierra Leone. New York: Routledge.

z France and the African Diaspora The notion of black France conjures up the historical ties that have linked France to Africa and the Caribbean, as well as the current presence of a so-called invisible minority. In the 19th century, France conquered West African territories in order to expand its domination in the world and to civilize the indigenous populations. The underlying motive of such an “invasion” was to take advantage of African natural resources. Prior to that, in the 18th century, during the triangular trade France imposed its sovereignty over some Caribbean territories

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now known as DOM-TOM (Département d’outre-mer—Territoire d’outre-mer, meaning “overseas departments or territories”). Even if black people, legally speaking, were French citizens in the colonized territories, they were not treated as such, and they started demanding independence. The appointment of native Africans to the governments of the Fourth Republic between 1946 and 1958 and their seats in the National Assembly were not significant enough to temper the growing discontent and aspirations to self-determination. From the mid-1930s on, such outspoken black African and French West Indian intellectuals as Léopold Sédar Senghor, Aimé Césaire, and Leon Damas, among others, championed négritude. But Pan-Africanism and Marxism became the driving forces of the independence movements. The black African migration to France first started with the Senegalese Riflemen (Tirailleurs sénégalais), who came from all parts of West Africa and fought for France during both world wars. At the beginning of the 20th century, about 189,000 Saharan Africans and 41,000 men from the island of Madagascar were drafted into the French Army. Blacks were then considered physically fit and strong enough to be enlisted, a situation that was all the more paradoxical, since their status as indigenous people whose territories were colonized by France prevented them from claiming full French citizenship. French African soldiers never really reaped the benefits from their commitment to the nation, and to this day the French government has failed to acknowledge its debt to those people and does not always pay them their long-overdue pensions. Nowadays, the French black community consists of people of African origin and others mainly from the Caribbean and French Guyana. Following the decolonization process that ended in 1960, thousands of Saharan Africans migrated to France in search of a promising future and to escape political instability and poverty. At the same time, the French government called on North African and black

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African men to work in the industrial sector (in car manufacturing and construction), for the national workforce was not sufficient during the period of economic prosperity known as the Trente Glorieuses (“Thirty Glorious Years”) that had begun in the early 1950s. African migration was authorized until the 1980s, when the French government decided to limit it. Also in the 1960s, French West Indians began moving to metropolitan France, as they call it, to work as civil servants, mainly in Parisian public hospitals, town halls, and post offices, where they worked as clerks. Their emigration was arranged and managed by the Bumidom (Bureau for Overseas Department Migration). It is impossible to accurately quantify the black presence in France, because it is illegal to conduct any investigation based on ethnicity, which is the reason the French census has never taken into account racial origins or religious practices. On the one hand, opponents of ethnic references argue that it would support racist ideologies and political parties (for instance, the National Front Party) that are against immigration from Africa. On the other hand, ethnic claims or demands by minority groups are deemed dangerous; supposedly, they can foster the development of communitarianism and thereby pit different racial groups or social classes against a certain conception of “genuine France” represented by whiteness and Catholicism. According to estimates, there are nowadays about three million black people in France, who arrived between the 1960s and 1980s and represent 5 percent of the total population. Black people, be they citizens, legal residents, or illegal aliens, constitute a heterogeneous minority group. They consist of native Africans and their offspring who were born in France (mostly French-speakers originally from such former colonies as Senegal, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Togo, Mauritania, Benin, Central Republic of Africa, Gabon, Burkina Faso,

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France and the African Diaspora | 451 Niger, and Madagascar), French Caribbeans coming from Martinique and Guadeloupe, as well as citizens from French Guyana and the Reunion and Comoro Islands, who total about 700,000. The black community turns out to be very diverse, mainly because the borders of its native lands were created by European colonizers who disregarded the importance of ethnic clans. Hence, French blackness can be considered the embodiment of a transatlantic Diaspora coming from Africa and the Caribbean and inherited from colonization. French republican ideals clash with any kind of reference to racial or ethnic origins for fear that such reference might jeopardize the social stability of the country. For more than a century, France promoted assimilation and integration of its foreign-born citizens and residents and their offspring, regardless of their ties to their culture of origin. In the name of cultural equality, successive French governments have denied any possibility to demand recognition as blacks. Furthermore, the “invisibility” of black people in French society constitutes a key aspect of the black identity crisis. They are seldom given the opportunity to be represented in the political or media spheres. They find themselves confined to unskilled positions, while a happy few succeed mainly in the sports or music industry. Among the second generation, an increasing number of college graduates are confronted with racial discrimination when it comes to finding jobs that match their expectations and profiles. Therefore, they hardly climb the social ladder. This particular phenomenon has led to the creation of black immigrant or French Caribbean grassroots organizations in order to speak up for the community and fight against a blatant discrimination that is generally denied by French authorities. The most famous organization is SOS Racisme, founded in 1984 by young French Caribbean and North Africans as a response to racial crimes and the emergence of the National Front Party. The Mouvement contre le Racisme

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et pour l’Amitié entre les Peuples (MRAP; Movement against Racism and for Friendship among the Peoples), set up in 1949, strives to promote understanding and solidarity between Muslims and Jews. More recently, due to unemployment and job discrimination, black businessmen and social workers have created associations whose goals are to help young graduates find a job or create their own companies. That is the case of Africagora and the Association pour l’Insertion Professionnelle (AFIP; Association for Professional Integration) respectively created in 1999 and 2002. In 2004, scholars and social activists founded such political and social movements as France Diversité and Cercle d’Action pour la Promotion de la Diversité en France (CAPDIV; Association for the Promotion of Diversity in France) whose intent is to promote black involvement in politics and to call attention to the racial question through public meetings and conferences. French West Indians tend to lament the white antiblack prejudice. That is why, just like people of African descent, they make it a point to call themselves “black,” “quebla,” or “renoi” (reverse versions of “black” and “noir” used in French slang) instead of French. Those of African origin are victims of the white majority perception that associates them with immigration (despite the fact that the second and subsequent generations are French citizens), Islam, and insecurity. Some cultural practices related to the Muslim religion further exacerbate racist reactions because of polygamy, large families, genital mutilation, and other ancestral practices. In France, black people are overwhelmingly poor, and most of them live in ghettos and inner cities mostly situated in Paris, its outskirts, and Lyons or Marseille. The stereotypical views of black people as good at sports and music are still pervasive in France, so much so that some young urban youths of African or Antillan descent contemplate those kinds of careers instead of college education, since the latter does not guarantee an interesting and well-paid job.

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For more than 40 years, black people have been treated as second-class citizens in France. Nowadays, their discontent sheds light on their “invisibility” and the need for remedies. It has compelled the last administrations to address the issue of positive discrimination and has generated a heated debate in the French political arena. During president Jacques Chirac’s term of office (1995–2007), the conservative governments “reached out” by appointing people of Arabic descent to ministership, and in June 2005, a ministry for equal opportunity was created. Nevertheless, many college-educated Africans advocate a strong unified movement to lobby French institutions and obtain equality. Mariam Bagayoko See also Caribbean Migrations: The Caribbean Diaspora; Decolonization; Europe and the African Diaspora; Négritude. F URTHER R EADING Beriss, David. 2004. Black Skins, French Voices: Caribbean Ethnicity and Activism in Urban France. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Dewitte, Philippe, ed. 1999. Immigration et Intégration: l’état des savoirs. Paris : La Découverte. Diawara, Manthia. 2003. We Won’t Budge. New York: Basic Civitas Books. Gourévitch, Jean-Paul. 2000. La France Africaine: Islam, Intégration, Insécurité: Infos et Intox. Paris: Le Pré aux Clercs. Grosfoguel, Ramon. 2003. “Caribbean Colonial Migrants in Western Europe and the United States.” In Colonial Subjects: Puerto Ricans in a Global Perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hayes Edwards, Brent. 2003. The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation and the Rise of Black Internatonalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

z Francois, Elma (1897–1944) Elma Francois was possibly the most important working-class woman activist in early 20th-century Trinidad and Tobago. Born on

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October 14th, 1897, in Overland, St. Vincent, to parents Stanley and Estina Francois, she became aware of the difficult conditions of life in Kingstown, the capital, where her family moved when she was five years old to escape the destructive ravages of volcanic eruptions. Her early activism on behalf of the plight of fellow workers on the cotton estates was stimulated by her association with labor organizer George McIntosh. During the 1919 depression, at the age of 22 Francois migrated to Trinidad and the promise of greater economic opportunities, leaving behind a son, who would later join her. She worked as a domestic and soon joined the Trinidad Workingmen’s Association (TWA; Trinidad Labour Party after 1934). Francois’s more participatory approach to political activity, using “rap sessions” in the local square and hunger marches in and around Port of Spain, went beyond the parameters set by the less radical TWA/TLP, which by the end of 1936 she eventually challenged. In 1934, Francois was one of the founders of the National Unemployed Movement (NUM), which at the end of 1935 was transformed into the more structured Negro Welfare Cultural and Social Association (NWCSA). Other members were her partner, Jim Barrette, Christina King, Adelaide Harrison, Mathilda Goodridge, and Rupert Gittens. Their international links included George Padmore, first of the COMINTERN and then of the International African Service Bureau (IASB), and Sylvia Pankhurst of the Ethiopian Struggle, the U.S. movement to free the Scottsboro Boys. In Trinidad and Tobago, they were also responsible for the formation of four major trade unions: the Seamen and Waterfront Workers’ Trade Union (SWWTU); the National Union of Government Workers (NUGW); the Federated Workers Union, which later joined with the NUGW to form the NUGFW; and the Public Works and Public Service Union (PW&PSU). The communist-inspired NWCSA concentrated on the country’s poor and working class,

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Francois, Elma (1897–1944) | 453 organizing domestic servants and women transporting coal on the Port of Spain docks. They highlighted the high cost of living, for example, forming the Trinidad Condensed Milk Association to lobby for lower milk prices. They petitioned against the destruction of small black businesses by the Shop Hours (Opening and Closing) Ordinance, which favored larger enterprises, and led the campaign against the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. With T. U. B. Butler, labor movement catalyst, they were part of the historic labor disturbances that started on June 19, 1937. This led to the arrest of Francois, Butler, and other NWCSA members and the Sedition Trials of 1937–1938. Elma Francois earned the distinction of being the first woman in Trinidad and Tobago’s history to be tried for sedition and undertook her own successful defense. Francois identified June 19, 1937, as the date of the new emancipation of labor, and in 1939, the NWCSA reactivated the celebration of August 1, 1934, the first Emancipation Day, at a time when others preferred to forget the slave experience. In 1939, unlike most organizations, Francois and the NWCSA campaigned against Caribbean working-class participation in World War II as part of the British forces, an

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extremely radical action at a time when unity of the British Empire was encouraged. With her untimely death on April 17, 1944, the NWCSA lost much of its momentum, but her historical significance in the cause of labor and socialism is undisputed. On September 25, 1987 (Republic Day), she was made a National Heroine of Trinidad and Tobago and the source of much pride in her native St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Rhoda Reddock See also Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Jones, Claudia Cumberbatch (1915–1964); Trinidad and Tobago; Trinidad and Tobago: African Impact on the Social Order. F URTHER R EADING Reddock, Rhoda. 1988. Elma Francois, the NWCSA and the Workers Struggle for Change in the Caribbean. London: New Beacon Books. Rennie, Bukka. 1973. The History of the Working Class in the 20th Century (1919–1950). New York and Trinidad and Tobago: New Beginning Movement. Yelvington, Kevin. 1999. “The War in Ethiopia and Trinidad: 1935–1936.” In The Colonial Caribbean in Transition, ed. Bridget Brereton and Kevin Yelvington, 189–225. Mona, Jamaica: The Press, University of the West Indies.

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G z

Garifuna

In 1763, the Treaty of Paris ceded Saint Vincent to the British, and land was parceled and sold to individual British colonists. Caribs and Garifuna resisted redistribution of their lands, and the First Carib War erupted. The war soon stalemated, and agreements between the two sides established that the Caribs would return all runaway slaves in their possession and deny refuge to the maroons (a population of runaway slaves joined by Africans who had never been enslaved). In exchange, Caribs were permitted to govern themselves, trade with other British islands, or leave the island if they chose. In 1786, a French-Carib/Garifuna alliance developed, and the French captured the island. In 1791, the British gained control again, only to face another war in 1795. The British were final victors. For aiding the French, approximately 4,195 Black and Red Caribs were transported to Baliseau (Honduras). In 1797 they were tranferred to Roatan. Lack of food and fresh water, disease, and overcrowding decreased the population to approximately 2,248 people (Gonzalez 1983, 148–149). The Spanish, viewing the Carib arrival as a British invasion, dispatched troops to recapture the island. They encountered armed Caribs and decided to negotiate peacefully. The Caribs were then transported to Trujillo, where they established communities along the Honduras coast.

Garifuna (also called Black Caribs and Garinagu) are found in Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, and Nicaragua. They are one of several examples of ethnogenesis (a new ethnic group created from genetic mixtures). The Garifuna resulted from genetic mixtures of Carib/Arawak Indians and Africans. Ethnohistorical data suggest that they originated on Saint Vincent’s eastern coast. In the 1600s two slave ships sank off the coast of Saint Vincent. The Africans escaped and settled on Saint Vincent, but Caribs may have captured some of the African slaves. Two different theories about the Africans’ early life have developed: (1) Caribs enslaved them and (2) they established separate communities and intermarried with the Caribs. The interactions created a unique genetic pool and culture. When Europeans arrived on Saint Vincent, Garifuna outnumbered indigenous populations (called “Red Caribs” and “Yellow Caribs”). One contributor to rapid growth was the continued infusion of new escaped slaves from neighboring Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Barbados. Carib groups established political and territorial provinces by the early 18th century. The Garifuna claimed the leeward side and the Caribs claimed the windward side of the island. 455 www.abc-clio.com

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In 1823, the Central American constitution reclassified the Garifuna as “Negroes.” Political unrest between warring colonial powers caused many Garifuna to leave Honduras and move north to Belize, a British colony. Those remaining in Spanish-speaking areas ultimately settled into the societies, but relations were sometimes volatile. The Garifuna are close-knit and consider themselves unique because of their synthesis of traditional African music and dance, ceremony, and religious rites with Amerindian agriculture and fishing and hunting techniques. Their language has Amerindian, African, Spanish, French, and English influences. Cultural contributions of the Garifuna include parranda, punta music and dance, and Wanaragua, a Christmas Day dance describing Garifuna resistance to colonization. Approximately 50 Garifuna communities exist, although most are located in Honduras. Well-known communities include Punta Gorda on Roatan Island (Honduras); Dangriga (formerly Stann Creek), Belize; Livingston, Guatemala; and Bluefields. Nicaragua. Valerie Smith See also Barbados: African Cultural Elements; Guadeloupe; Maroon and Marronage. F URTHER R EADING Arzu, Roy Guevara. 1995. “The Garifuna in Honduras.” In African Presence in the Americas, ed. Carlos Moore, Tanya Saanders, and Shawna Moore, 241–249. Trenton, NJ: Third World Press. Bateman, Rebecca. 1995. “Africans and Indians: A Comparative Study of the Black Carib and Black Seminole.” In Slavery and Beyond, ed. Dairen J. Davis, 29–51. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources. Craton, Michael. 1986. “From Caribs to Black Caribs: The American Roots of Servile Resistance in the Caribbean.” In In Resistance: Studies in African, Caribbean and Afro-American History, ed. Gary Y. Okihiro, 96–116. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Gonzalez, Nancie. 1969. Black Carib Household Structure: A Study of Migration and Modernization. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

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Gonzalez, Nancie. 1983. “New Evidence on the Origin of the Black Carib, with Thoughts on the Meaning of Tradition.” New West Indian Guide 57: 143–72. Gonzalez, Nancie. 1988. Sojourners of the Caribbean: Ethnogenesis and Ethnohistory of the Garifuna. Urbana: University of Illinois. Kerns, Virginia. 1983. “Black Carib Domestic Organization in Historical Perspective: Traditional Origins of Contemporary Patterns.” Ethnology 20: 77–86. Taylor, Douglas. 1951. The Black Carib of British Honduras. Viking Publications in Anthropology, No. 19. New York: Wenner-Gren.

z Garvey, Amy Ashwood (1897–1969) Amy Ashwood Garvey was one of the leading figures of the Pan-Africanist movement in the early 20th century and a feminist activist who collaborated with the leaders of both movements during this period. Born in Port Antonio, Jamaica, in 1897, she spent many years of her childhood in Panama. At age 11, she returned to Jamaica to attend school, and it was during this time, at age 17, that she met Marcus Garvey, her future husband. Her parents did not approve of this relationship and sent her back to Panama in 1916. Garvey left for the United States that same year, and the two continued their relationship through letters. While still a teenager, Ashwood was first secretary and then a member of the board of management of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) founded by Garvey in 1914. Indeed, some reports refer to her as cofounder of the UNIA, and some argue that the integration of women into the structure and organization of the UNIA was due to her early influence. Ashwood worked to establish the early UNIA in Jamaica. She was involved in planning the inaugural meeting in Collegiate Hall in Kingston and helped organize the

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Garvey, Amy Ashwood (1897–1969) | 457 weekly elocution meetings and fund-raising activities. She also started the Ladies Division, which later developed into the Black Cross Nurses Arm of the organization, and she was involved in early plans to establish an industrial school. The UNIA office was established at a house on Charles Street that was rented by the Ashwood family. In October 1919, Ashwood and Garvey were married in a private Catholic ceremony at Liberty Hall in New York City, followed by a public reception on Christmas Day. Also in that year, she was made secretary of the Black Star Line, the shipping company of the UNIA, and one of its first directors. The marriage, however, was disappointingly short, lasting about six months. After this, Ashwood Garvey continued her independent life as a pan-Africanist, cultural activist, and feminist, first in the United States and later in England. Her musical, “Hey Hey,” a comedy set in the United States, was produced at the Lafayette Theatre in New York in 1926. She traveled to Europe and West Africa and then settled in London in the mid-1930s. In these ventures, she was supported by her companion, Sam Manning, a Trinidadian musician and calypsonian with whom she toured the Caribbean. In England Ashwood Garvey was heavily involved in Pan-Africanist activities as well as feminist activities through her friendship with Sylvia Pankhurst, the Ethopianist and feminist. One of her earliest activities was collaborating with Nigerian law student Ladipo Solanke to form the Nigerian Progress Union in 1924. In 1937, Ashwood Garvey joined George Padmore, C. L. R. James, and others to form the International African Service Bureau, a successor to the International African Friends of Abyssinia (IAFA). Members of the IAFA included founder C. L. R. James, Jomo Kenyatta, I. T. A. WallaceJohnson, and George Padmore. Formed in 1935 in response to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, its name was later changed to International African Friends of Ethiopia. In London, Ashwood Garvey’s West End Florence Mills Nightclub was a

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regular meeting place for activists, artists, and students. In 1945, along with George Padmore, T. T. Makkonen, Kwame Nkrumah, and Peter Abrahams, Ashwood Garvey was involved in organizing the historic Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester from October 13 to 21. This conference was significant to the decolonization process as many of the future leaders of independent Africa were present. Ashwood Garvey and fellow Jamaican Alma La Badie were the only two women presenters, and Ashwood Garvey chaired the opening session. Ashwood Garvey embarked on her second Caribbean tour in 1953, visiting Antigua, Aruba, Barbados, British Guiana (now Guyana), Dominica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname calling on educated women to become more involved in politics. Amy Ashwood Garvey died in 1969, leaving two unpublished manuscript drafts of her memoirs of her life with Marcus Garvey and the UNIA. Rhoda Reddock See also Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Garvey, Amy Jacques (1895– 1973); Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940); James, Cyril Lionel Robert (1901–1989); Jones, Claudia Cumberbatch (1915–1964); Padmore, George (1901–1959); Pan-Africanism. F URTHER R EADING Adi, Hakim, Marika Sherwood, and George Padmore. 1995. The 1945 Manchester Pan-African Congress Revisited. London: New Beacon Books. Ford-Smith, Honor. 1988. “Women and the Garvey Movement in Jamaica.” In Garvey: His Work and Impact, ed. Rupert Lewis and Patrick Bryan. Kingston, Jamaica: ISER-Mona and UWI Extra Mural Studies Department. French, Joan, and Honor Ford-Smith. 1985. Women, Work and Organisation in Jamaica: 1900–1944. Research Report. The Hague: Institute of Social Studies. Garvey, Amy Ashwood. 1983. “The Birth of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.” In Tony Martin, The Pan-African Connection. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing Company.

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458 | Garvey, Amy Jacques (1895–1973) Hill, Robert, ed. 1987. Marcus Garvey, Life and Lessons: Centennial Companion to The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers. Berkeley: University of California Press. Martin, Tony. 2007. Amy Ashwood Garvey. PanAfricanist, Feminist and Mrs. Marcus Garvey No. 1 Or, A Tale of Two Amies. Dover, MA: The Majority Press. Reddock, Rhoda. 1994. Women, Labour and Politics in Trinidad and Tobago. London: Zed Books.

z Garvey, Amy Jacques (1895–1973) Amy Jacques Garvey served the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) as secretary, legal adviser, journalist, and associate editor of the organization’s weekly newspaper, the Negro World. In 1922, Jacques Garvey married the movement’s leader, Marcus Garvey, and when he was convicted of mail fraud by the U.S. government and imprisoned in 1925, she took charge of his legal defense campaign and the management of the UNIA headquarters in Harlem. Thus, she was widely regarded as the unofficial leader of the movement. Historians of the Garvey movement have traditionally focused on her role as the wife and helpmate of Marcus rather than on her own intellectual contribution to black nationalism, but more recently she has been seen as an important black feminist leader. Jacques Garvey’s own account of the movement suggests that she chose to invest her strength in Garveyism, the movement, rather than Garvey, the man. Published in 1963, Garvey and Garveyism is essentially a memoir in which she claims much of the credit for sustaining Garvey’s legacy through his years in prison and for much of the 20th century. Indeed, in 1922 Jacques Garvey compiled, edited, and published a collection of Marcus Garvey’s speeches, The Philosophy and Opinions of Mar-

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cus Garvey, which inspired scholars and leaders of black nationalist movements across the globe. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, on December 31, 1895, as a member of the brown middle class, Jacques Garvey had an education denied most Jamaicans. Jacques Garvey’s father encouraged her intellectual development through reading foreign newspapers and studying current affairs, although he was unwilling to allow her to work in a law office where she might be exposed to the wiles of young men. However, her father’s sudden death allowed Jacques Garvey to work as a clerk in a legal office for four years. Prevented from sailing to England because of World War I, Jacques Garvey chose instead to go to the United States, a land much spoken of by her father as one mixed with opportunity and restrictions. The circumstances in which Jacques Garvey and her future husband met have been buried beneath the contradictory reports from Jacques Garvey and from Garvey’s first wife and subsequent speculation on the part of biographers. Garvey’s first wife, Amy Ashwood, claimed that she and Jacques Garvey had been best friends in Jamaica, but Jacques Garvey stated that she did not meet Ashwood until she moved to the United States. Either way, Jacques Garvey served as Ashwood’s bridesmaid at her 1919 marriage to Garvey, just two and a half years before her own marriage to Garvey in 1922.The two women remained enemies throughout their lives. Between 1924 and 1927, the period when her husband was in prison, Jacques Garvey edited the women’s page in the Negro World, “Our Women and What They Think.” The space allowed Jacques Garvey to draw attention to the liberation struggles of black women across the world. Her editorials are generally regarded as her most important intellectual contribution. Jacques Garvey continued to campaign for the Pan-African cause throughout her life. Returning to Jamaica in 1938 with her two sons but without her husband, who remained in

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Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940) | 459 London. Jacques Garvey continued to promote Garveyism and her husband’s legacy after his death in 1940. In addition to editing a second volume of Garvey’s Philosophy and Opinions, Jacques Garvey continued to write and publish in Pan-African magazines. In the 1940s she actively supported the People’s National Party in Jamaica. Jacques Garvey died in 1973, disillusioned with Jamaican politics since independence and still promoting Garvey’s legacy. Kate Dossett See also Garvey, Amy Ashwood (1897–1969); Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940); James, Cyril Lionel Robert (1901–1989); Padmore, George (1901–1959); Pan-Africanism. Further Reading Jacques Garvey, Amy. 1963. Garvey and Garveyism. New York: Collier Books. Jacques Garvey, Amy, ed. 1986. The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey; Or, Africa for the Africans. Dover, MA: Majority Press. Taylor, Ula Y. 2002. The Veiled Garvey: the Life and Times of Amy Jacques Garvey. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

z Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940) Marcus Mosiah Garvey led the largest PanAfrican movement in history. At its height in the 1920s, Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) had millions of members in at least 1,200 branches in more than 40 countries throughout Africa and the Diaspora. Garvey formed the UNIA in his native Jamaica in 1914. He had just returned home from four years of travel in Latin America, Europe, and the Caribbean. Although he did not get to Africa, he had worked with Africans on the docks in London and on the famous Pan-African magazine, Africa Times and Orient Review, published in London by the Sudanese-Egyptian Duse Mohammed Ali.

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Marcus Garvey, in uniform as the president of the Republic of Africa. Marcus Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) to realize the ideals of the black rights movement as they were elaborated by Egyptian nationalist Duse Mohammed Ali and Booker T. Washington. Garvey’s rallying cry for the UNIA was, “Up, you mighty race, you can accomplish what you will!” (Library of Congress)

Garvey was born and grew up in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica, but moved to the capital city of Kingston as a teenager. In Kingston he practiced his trade as a printer, was a prize-winning public speaker, was an executive member of the important Nationalist Club, led a historically important pioneer strike of the Printers’ Union, and was a journalist. He left Jamaica for Costa Rica in 1910 and continued to travel widely for the next four years. He published a newspaper, La Nacion, in Costa Rica and a successor, La Prensa, in Panama. Garvey’s travels, readings, and observations convinced him that Africans, both at home and in the Diaspora, were in dire straits everywhere. The conquest of the African continent by European imperialism was in its final stages.

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Forced labor, loss of independence, and mass slaughter were the fate of large numbers of Africans. In the United States hundreds of Africa’s descendants were publicly lynched (hanged, burnt to death, shot, and/or mutilated) in the streets every year. No one was ever punished for these atrocities. In the Caribbean, few African descendants could vote, and racial discrimination was widespread. Garvey was deeply saddened by what he saw and heard. He asked: Where is the Black man’s government? Where are his king and his kingdom? Where are his president, his country, and his ambassador, his army, his navy, his men of big affairs? He could not find these institutions, so he decided to help to re-invent them. Garvey realized that even though African people lacked political, economic, and military power, their situation was far from hopeless. In the power of organization Garvey saw a force that black people could use to eventually regain their past glory and assert their equality with other people. He saw in his mind’s eye a vast organization of African people united in a common purpose. The organization would extend throughout the world of Africa and her Diaspora. It would work to establish a center of power on the African continent that would be strong enough to protect Africans wherever they might be. He thought Africans in the Diaspora who had been lucky enough to acquire Western education and technology should bring those skills back home to Africa. Garvey formed the UNIA within days of returning to Jamaica from England in 1914. After two years of work in Jamaica, in 1916 he moved to Harlem, New York, the unofficial black capital of the United States. He undertook a year-long speaking tour of the United States and Canada. Back in Harlem in 1917 he began speaking on street corners and later rented a hall for his meetings. His popularity grew, and by 1918 he was already an important voice in African America. In 1918 he began Negro World, which became the most widely circulated African newspaper in the world. He

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also began his Negro Factories Corporation, which employed more than a thousand people in small businesses. In 1919, he launched the Black Star Line Shipping Corporation, which amazed both friends and foes by purchasing oceangoing vessels. By August 1920, when Garvey held his First International Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World, he had become the best-known African on the planet. The conference was attended by 25,000 delegates from the Americas, Africa, and Europe. The delegates deliberated for the entire month, ultimately adopting an anthem for the race, issuing the famous Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World, and adopting the colors red, black, and green as the colors of the African race—red for blood and struggle, black for the people, and green for the luxuriant vegetation of the motherland, Africa. Several African countries later adopted variations of these colors for their national flags. Garvey proclaimed his guiding philosophy to be that of African Nationalism. It consisted of three main ideas, namely 1. Race First—the idea that African people should put their self-interest first. They should write their own history, critique their own literature, and worship their own gods that looked like them. 2. Self-reliance—Black people must strive to do things for themselves. 3. Nationhood—political self-determination. These principles appealed to Africans everywhere and provided the basis for the rapid expansion of the UNIA. There were more than 700 branches in the United States, the largest concentration in Louisiana. Practically every island in the Caribbean had branches, and some of the most numerous were in Central American countries, such as Costa Rica and Panama. Cuba and Trinidad and Tobago led in

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Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940) | 461 the Caribbean. South Africa had more branches than any other country in Africa. There were also branches in other southern African countries and in West Africa. There were even Garveyites, many of them prominent nationalists, in some countries where there were no formal UNIA branches, including Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Uganda. In 1922, the French colonialists in Senegal raided newly formed UNIA branches in Dakar, Rufisque, and Thies. The UNIA even reached Australia, where Aborigine survivors of white genocide formed a branch of the UNIA in Sydney. The Negro World carried news and literary contributions from around the African Diaspora and published French and Spanish language sections. The organization’s Negro Factories Corporation ran laundries, restaurants, a printing press, a millinery factory, and other small businesses and employed more than a thousand people around New York. The Black Star Line allowed black seamen to work in positions commensurate with their qualifications and allowed black passengers to travel free from the segregation and harassment then the norm in international travel. UNIA auxiliaries, such as the Black Cross Nurses, the Universal African Legions (a male paramilitary organization), and the Universal African Motor Corps (its female counterpart), enrolled thousands of uniformed members. UNIA choirs and orchestras provided splendid music at the organization’s Liberty Halls in Harlem and elsewhere. Politicians running for high office spoke at Liberty Halls, though the organization tried to steer clear of party affiliations. In places such as New York, Philadelphia, Montreal, Detroit, Cleveland, Toronto, and Port Limon, Costa Rica, the UNIA owned considerable amounts of real property. Everywhere it provided sickness and death benefits and employment assistance for members. Garvey hoped eventually to move his headquarters to Liberia, the only easily accessible African country enjoying a measure of independence. He considered the reclamation of

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Africa from colonial rule to be the major priority in his quest to regenerate the African race. His presence in Liberia would hopefully facilitate this effort. An amazing array of forces mobilized against Garvey to try to thwart his plans for African liberation. The colonial governments deported and imprisoned his followers and sometimes banned the Negro World. The British passed laws preventing Garvey from visiting their African colonies. Other British colonies, such as Bermuda and Trinidad and Tobago, either prevented him from entering or tried to pass special legislation deeming him a prohibited immigrant if he should ever show up. The Liberian government, after initially agreeing to let Garvey bring thousands of followers there, later changed its mind, under pressure from the British and French governments. African American integrationists (those who preferred to work in white-led organizations) worked hard for his downfall. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and its major African American spokesman, W. E. B. DuBois, spearheaded this campaign. Socialists such as African American A. Philip Randolph and communists also worked tirelessly for Garvey’s downfall. Private organizations such as the National Civic Federation collaborated with the U.S. government in their anti-Garvey activity. Leaders of American Jewish organizations, such as Rabbi Stephen Wise and Judge Julian Mack (the judge who sent Garvey to jail in the United States), were part of the anti-Garvey effort, in part through their leadership positions in the NAACP. Eventually, the U.S. government imprisoned Garvey in 1925 on a false charge of mail fraud in connection with the Black Star Line. After a promising start, the line had failed because of U.S. government pressure, lack of business experience, and sabotage. The U.S. deported Garvey back to Jamaica in 1927. There he received the greatest welcome in the history of the country up to that time. In Jamaica he started the Peoples Political Party

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and was elected to the local government council in Kingston. In 1934, Garvey relocated to London in an effort to keep in better contact with his worldwide following. By this time the UNIA was slowly declining because of Garvey’s separation from the bulk of his followers in the United States. From London, Garvey circulated his last publication, The Black Man. He instituted his School of African Philosophy for UNIA organizers around the world. He toured Canada and the Caribbean, holding conferences and giving speeches. He also interacted, sometimes closely, sometimes perfunctorily, with a new generation of London-based Pan-Africanists. These included the activists of the West African Students Union and the up-and-coming George Padmore and C. L. R. James. Marcus Garvey died in London in 1940. After his death, history books in the U.S. and European colonies pretended that he had never existed. In the 1960s, however, with the Black Power movement in the United States and elsewhere, he again became a popular figure. Garvey’s impact on the Pan-African movement is without parallel. He built an organization on the ground that succeeded everywhere, in spite of geographical, linguistic, and political differences. He proved that scattered Africa could be reached by a single ideological message. The UNIA was not only the largest PanAfrican movement in a global sense, but it was also the largest regional Pan-African body in the Caribbean, Latin America, and Africa, in addition to being the largest African American and Afro-Canadian organization. In addition to its broad universal appeal, the UNIA was able to effectively embrace local struggles wherever it happened to be. Thus, it became an important catalyst for change in labor relations, politics, and social relations everywhere. It is no coincidence that many of the leading political figures of the African Diaspora should have emerged from the UNIA or been intimately influenced by it. Many of these have acknowledged such influence in their au-

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tobiographical writings: Malcolm X, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and former Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm in the United States; Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana; Nnamdi Azikiwe in Nigeria; Harry Thuku and Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya; many of the leaders of the early African National Congress in South Africa; labor leader D. Hamilton Jackson in the U.S. Virgin Islands; the Trinidad Workingmen’s Association; some of the closest early associates of Jamaica’s long-standing prime minister, Alexander Bustamante; and many others. In 1927, Garvey expressed his Pan-African vision in the poems “Hail! United States of Africa!” and “Africa for the Africans.” This vision continues to find expression in the myriad Pan-African organizations that currently crisscross the world. This vision also informs the recent efforts of the African Union to initiate an African parliament and to incorporate the African Diaspora into its framework. Tony Martin See also DuBois, William Edward Burghardt (1868– 1963); Garvey, Amy Ashwood (1897–1969); Garvey, Amy Jacques (1895–1973); Malcolm X (1925–1965); National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–1972); Padmore, George (1901–1959); Pan-Africanism. F URTHER R EADING Garvey, Amy Jacques. 1963. Garvey and Garveyism. Kingston, Jamaica: New York: Collier Books. Garvey, Amy Jacques, ed. 1986. The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, Or, Africa for the Africans. Dover, MA: The Majority Press. Garvey, Marcus. 1983. The Poetical Works of Marcus Garvey, comp. and ed. Tony Martin. Dover, MA: The Majority Press. Garvey, Marcus. 1986. Message to the People: The Course of African Philosophy, ed. Tony Martin. Dover, MA: The Majority Press. Hill, Robert A., ed., and Carol A. Rudisell, assistant ed. 1983. The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers. Vol. I. Berkeley: University of California Press. Seven vols. published to date. Lewis, Rupert, and Patrick Bryan, eds. 1988. Garvey: His Work and Impact. Kingston, Jamaica:

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Geographers, Arab/African | 463 ISER (Institute for Social and Economic Research). Martin, Tony. 1976. Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Reprint, Dover, MA: The Majority Press, 1986. Martin, Tony. 1983. Literary Garveyism: Garvey, Black Arts and the Harlem Renaissance. Dover, MA: The Majority Press. Martin, Tony. 1983. Marcus Garvey, Hero: A First Biography. Dover, MA: The Majority Press. Martin, Tony. 1983. The Pan-African Connection. Dover, MA: The Majority Press. Martin, Tony, compiler. 1991. African Fundamentalism: A Literary and Cultural Anthology of Garvey’s Harlem Renaissance. Dover, MA: The Majority Press.

z Garveyism See Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940).

z Geographers, Arab/African Arab geographers, cartographers, chroniclers, and historians, many of whom were African or lived parts of their lives in Africa, provide us with a rich body of historical knowledge about various parts of Africa and the wider world of which they were a part. From at least the 10th until the 16th centuries, they are perhaps the most important sources of written knowledge about both West and East Africa. This was due to the lively pursuit of knowledge and science that existed in the cultural centers of North, West, and East Africa and Southwest, South, and East Asia, where universities and other knowledge-producing institutions were widespread and venerated. Scholars of this period were generalists by today’s standards, and rigid distinctions between disciplines were not common, so

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it is not always possible to place Arab scholars into today’s disciplinary categories. Many of the “discoveries” later made by colonial Europeans in the 16th to 20th centuries were already known by these scholars and travelers, such as the source(s) of the Nile River, the presence of snow-covered mountains on the equator, and sailing routes for the circumnavigation of Africa and crossing the Atlantic Ocean. However, as with histories of even earlier eras, they are still too little known today in the West. A growing body of modern scientific research in fields such as linguistics, archaeology, historiography, orature (oral literature), anthropology, and numismatics has confirmed much of the knowledge recounted in the works of the Arab geographers, even though they occasionally also include fanciful, exaggerated, or ethnocentric passages. Some of the best-known Arab scholars who discussed Africa include al-Masudi, Ibn Hawqal, al-Bakri, al-Idrisi, Yaqut, al-Umari, Abu al-Fida, Ibn Battuta, Abu al-Mahasin, and perhaps best known of all, Ibn Khaldun. All of these scholars built on the known wisdom of the world, particularly that of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, and steadily added to it through their pursuits. They also engaged directly with all or parts of what today we call the African continent, some briefly and others in great detail, some collecting from secondhand accounts, and others based on firsthand travel experiences. Several of these scholars were themselves African by modern terms, and this raises the issues of boundaries and overlap between African and Arab identities both in the past and in the present. Reading the Arab geographers, it is clear that they all lived, worked, and sometimes traveled in a multifocal and interconnected world grounded solidly in the African continent. Modern readers may be surprised to find Ibn Battuta, in the early 14th century, “bumping into” friends while traveling thousands of miles away from home, in places as far afield as West Africa and East Asia—indicating that the world was already a very cosmopolitan place.

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This also reflects the fact that much of travel and trade in those days was negotiated through networks and social relations, as hotels and restaurants were rare if unheard of, and safety and sustenance were derived through temporary incorporation into extended families and communities being visited. It is also clear from any cursory reading of the texts of Arab geographers that for many of these scholars, bilad al Sudan, or “the land of the Blacks,” was at the boundaries of their experience and was not always fully understood or appreciated. Even Ibn Khaldun, probably the greatest scholar of the period, had little but a few disparaging stereotypes to share about “the land of the Blacks.” Ibn Battuta, on the other hand, was far more complex, occasionally starting in his later West African journeys, for example, from a position of skepticism, but then warming to the sophisticated royal cultures and economic complexities of the places he visited in the Sahara Desert and along the Niger River. Throughout his writings, he has many positive things to record about African societies, cultures, and people. Collectively, the Arab geographers provide an invaluable source of contemporary firstand secondhand knowledge about the various regions of Africa, their peoples, trade items, customs, architecture, food, legends, religious practices, and histories, and of the early formation of the African Diaspora. Jesse Benjamin See also Swahili; Zanj (Zinj, Zang). F URTHER R EADING Bovill, E. W. 1958. The Golden Trade of the Moors. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener. Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P., ed. 1975. The East African Coast: Selected Documents from the First to the Earlier Nineteenth Century. London: Rex Collings. Hamdun, Said, and Noel King. 1994. Ibn Battuta in Black Africa. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener. Van Sertima, Ivan. 1992. Golden Age of the Moor. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.

z www.abc-clio.com

Gerima, Haile (1946—) Filmmaker Haile Gerima, who was born in Gonder, Ethiopia, is considered one of the fathers of the new Black cinema movement, which was characterized by directors determined to tell their own cultural stories rather than relying on definitions rooted in colonialism and the Eurocentric view of Africa. Gerima is the recipient of the 2001 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant and the 1993 Best Cinematography award at FESPACO (Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou), the African continent’s most important competitive film festival, which is held in Burkina Faso. A tenured professor of film at Howard University in Washington, D.C., Gerima was born the fourth child in a family of 10, to a playwright father and a schoolteacher mother. He began his initial training in theater before coming to the United States in 1967 to study at Chicago’s Goodman School of Drama. He received an MFA from UCLA in 1976. Among his best-known films are the awardwinning classic film Sankofa (1993), After Winter: Sterling Brown (1985), and Ashes and Embers (1982). Gerima has directed numerous documentaries, including Adwa: An African Journey (1999) and Wilmington 10—U.S.A. 10,000 (1978). He is currently working on a seven-hour documentary series, The Maroons, examining African resistance to chattel slavery in the New World. Gerima has participated in scores of film festivals over the past three decades, including La Biennale di Venezia International Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival, the Jamerican Film Festival, and the Cannes International Film Festival. He lives in Washington, D.C., and teaches film at Howard University. Eve Ferguson See also Black Cinema; FESPACO and African Film Festivals; Sankofa.

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Germany and the African Diaspora | 465 F URTHER R EADING Alexander, George. 1993. Why We Make Movies: Black Filmmakers Talk About the Magic of Cinema. New York: Harlem Moon. Imperfect Journey. 1994. Ethiopia: BBC TV. Sankofa on Video/Soundtrack. 1993. Washington, DC: Mypheduh Films.

z Germany and the African Diaspora About 700,000 people of African descent currently reside in Germany. This includes about 300,000 from the African continent as well as from other parts of the world. The African Diaspora in Germany can then be divided into two groups: the first group comprises continental Africans, including those born in Germany to two African parents and Africans who came to Germany in search of jobs, for business, to seek political asylum, or to study and who decided to stay on; the second group comprises the Afrodeutsche (those with one parent of African descent) and people of African descent from other parts of the world. Even after having lived in Germany for many years, Afro-deutsche as they are self-defined are still perceived as an Ausländer (foreigner). H ISTORICAL B ACKGROUND Afro-deutsche or Afro-German history dates as far back as the 18th century. The first recognized Afro-deutsche was Anton Wilhelm Amo, who completed his doctorate degree in Germany in 1729. Unfortunately, there is little documented history about Afro-Germans in this period. Although a lot has been said, documented, and written about the systematic annihilation of Jews in Germany during World War I and II, little has been said of the fate of Afro-deutsche and the continental Africans living in Germany at the time. Given that Adolf Hitler and other

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German leaders advocated for purity in the German race, the presence of people of African descent was not seen favorably. Hitler even said in his book, Mein Kampf, that the mixed relationships between people of African descent and German women in the Rhineland area was a plot crafted by the Jews to bastardize Europe. This is how what came to be known as Rheinlandbastarde came about. After Germany had been defeated during World War I and had signed the Treaty of Versailles, the left parts of Rhineland, Frankfurt, and Saarland were occupied by French troops, which included about 10,000 North and East Africans as well as some troops of Asian origins. A number of the Francophone Africans in the French army formed relationships with German women and had children with them. In 1923, the National Socialists started making plans in 1923 to find solutions to the contamination of the German race by these “colored” children. By 1933, Hermann Göring, the prime minister for Prussia, gave orders that the list should be scrutinized. Although it was impossible to have the Rheinlandbastarde sterilized on the basis of the “law against the hereditary diseases in the children,” plans for the illegal sterilization of the children still went ahead. The Gestapo’s newly formed Sonderkommission rounded up the children, and their families were not given the opportunity to protest or take legal action. Although official records show that 436 children were sterilized, the unofficial number is much higher. Hans Hauk, one of those sterilized at the time, said they were lucky to have been sterilized (without anesthesia) and not sent to the concentration camps. More than 400 children were sent to concentration camps, including some who were working for Jewish families and were sent to the camps along with their employers. The occupation of Germany by the allied forces after the World War II brought a new wave of Afro-deutsche. The children of relationships between African American soldiers

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and German women came to be known as Besatzungskinder (occupation children). In 1952, the Internationale Vereinigung für Jugendhilfe in Geneva and some German research centers reported that of the 94,000 children born out of relationships between German women and allied soldiers between 1941 and 1951, 3,000 were fathered by African American soldiers. Although these children were Germans because they were born of German mothers, they were not considered Germans; they were perceived to be nationals of their fathers’ countries. Until the 1970s, efforts were made to extradite them to their fathers’ countries or to give them up for adoption outside Germany. These attempts often proved to be difficult as the laws did not allow the children to be taken away from their mothers. Why did Germans resent the presence of these children? Klaus Eyferth and other employees of the Psychology Institute of the Universität Hamburg conducted a survey in 1960 and found three sources of racial discrimination against people of African descent in Germany. First, animosities against the allied forces were transferred to the children born of relationships mainly between African American soldiers and German women. Second, there were hostilities toward the children’s origins. Their mothers were blamed for rearing such children and were said to have gone into such relationships not out of love but for financial gain. Once these children grew up, all the animosities were transferred to them. Third, the National Socialist racist theories that developed during the German colonial occupation of African countries like Namibia, Togo, and Cameroon saw all people of African descent as inferior to the Aryan race. R ECENT T RENDS Until the mid-1980s, the Afro-deutsche were marginalized and ignored. A forceful voice behind the need for recognizing them is found in the person of May Opitz Ayim, a woman, completely entwurzelt (cut off from her African

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roots), who was adopted by a German family and grew up knowing nothing of her African heritage. In 1984, during the Panafest arts festival in Ghana, she described the term Afrodeutsche as still relatively new in Germany, indicating that it came to life when a few women of African German descent met with the African American author and poet Audre Lorde and decided to define themselves instead of being constantly defined by others. Often Afro-Germans are subjected to the following questions and conclusions: “You speak fluent German?” they were asked. “Where are you from?” they were asked. They finally consoled them with these words: “You are not really that black.” One of the most popular books on the Afrodeutsche experiences in Germany, Farbe bekennen—Afro-deutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte (Showing Our Colours. AfroGerman Women Speak Out; Opitz 1992), shows the lack of integration of these groups within the German societies. They are alienated within their own country; their otherness based on their “exotic” skin color has made them targets for racial discrimination. Beginning in the latter part of the 1980s, Afro-deutsche became the banner under which most of these individual groups found solace and with which they could identify. In the process of searching for their identities, some have tried to be “Schwarzer als die Schwarze (blacker than the blacks).” Others have suppressed their African heritage, one with which they have not been in contact given the environments in which they have grown up. Significantly, most of the founders and members of these groups are predominantly women who experience the double discrimination and the social injustice imposed on them over the decades. They have taken an active part in creating awareness for the need for changes in the social status of Afro-deutsche and all people of African descent living in Germany. As a result of this need to create a place for themselves within the German communi-

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Germany and the African Diaspora | 467 ties, to make their voices heard, and to make their plights known to the rest of the world, books like Invisible Woman. Growing Up Black in Germany (2001) by Ika Hügel-Marshall and Heimat aus unserer eigenen Feder. Frauen of Color in Deutschland (Talking Home) (1999), edited by Olumide Popoola and Beladan Sezen, are among the works of substance written on the Afro-deutsche experiences in Germany. C OMMUNITIES The existence of small groups of Afro-deutsche and continental Africans in towns and villages created the need to form associations to cater for their needs and to link them with other groups. Associations or communities (as they are often called) such as ADEFRA (Afrodeutsche Frauen) and ISD (Initiative Schwarze Deutsche), which later took on the name of Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland, were founded, and ISD branches were set up in Stuttgart, Freiburg, Hanover, Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, Nuremberg, Giessen, Rhine/Main, Mannheim, and Muenster/Westphalia. ISD was also among the initiators of the yearly meetings of the African Diaspora across Germany where experiences are discussed among the young and the old and seminars and other forms of dialogues are organized. This is how black parents and their children, Young Stars, came together to organize the first Sankofa meeting in 2004. Other meetings were established, including Black History Month in 1990 and the Black Community Conference and the Black Media Congress in 2002. All had the aim of presenting a collective front to fight against social injustice and racial discrimination. In 2004, the Black Media Congress featured the May Ayim Award, the first international Black German literary award. Ayim had committed suicide in 1996, after she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The May Ayim Award 2004 was chosen as a German UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) contribution for the international year 2004 in

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memory of the fight against racism and its abolition. Africa Alive, one of the few festivals in Europe dedicated to promoting African culture, was founded in 1994. Its main goals are to correct the negative image of Africa in Germany and to paint realistic pictures of Africa, different from what had been imprinted in the minds of most Germans. A different country or region is made the central theme every year. Africa Alive opens the doors of the African continent to those Afro-deutsche who have been completely cut off from their roots by providing films, concerts, readings, exhibitions, children and youth programs, and political programs. UNESCO declared Africa Alive as the project for the world decade of cultural development in 1996, and it was the German contribution to the United Nations year of dialogue among cultures in 2001. Africa Alive also presents highlights of the most important African cultural events, including the panAfrican film festival FESPACO in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; the Carthage film festivals in Tunisia; and the African photographic biennial in Bamako, Mali. The Internet and publications have also been used to reach out to the Afro-deutsche and all people of African descent living in Germany. Key publications include Afrolook (1986–1999), Afrekete (Adefra in the 1980s), and BliteJugendzeitschrift (ISD-Berlin, 1999–2002). Internet Web sites such as www.afronetz.de, www. afrolink.de, www.cybernomads.net, and www. isdonline.de are among the numerous sources of information and communication catering to the needs of the Afro-deutsche and the rest of the black communities in Germany. H IP H OP IN G ERMANY The Afro-deutsche have also made their presence felt in the hip-hop scenes. Hip-hop music started gaining prominence in Germany toward the end of the 1980s. Practitioners oriented themselves toward the Black Power Movement and the African American political

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activists Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X. They were also inspired by African American hiphop rappers like Chuck D, KRS-One, and the book Showing Our Colours, Afro-German Women Speak Out. Many of the rappers, such as D-Flame, Torch, Ade, and Linguist, attended ISD meetings and found common ground for their brand of music. Music has become a tool with which they reach out to other Afrodeutsche still in search of their identities. The message they send is quite clear: you are no longer alone. This was also the idea transmitted by Linguist in a documentary called Lost in Music—Hip-Hop Hooray. Albums such as Die Neger in Mir, by the rapper B-Tights, have recorded good sales. Afrob, Samy Deluxe, and Chiefrokkk have also become popular in the hip-hop scenes in Germany.

city. Some Africans teach in the local schools and some take on lowly cleaning jobs, which most Germans do not want to do. All of these activities paint a different picture from the image propagated by some of the media and some authorities who believe the people of African descent in Germany are mainly unemployed and deal in drugs. Despite all the efforts being made by people of African descent living in Germany to redraw the German sociocultural and political maps to include people of color, there is much doubt as to whether they will ever be fully accepted by the German communities.

C ONTEMPORARY R EALITIES Other equally significant changes have been taking place in the lives of peoples of African descent in Germany. Most of these changes can be traced back to continental Africans who set up businesses, often called Afro-shops, to cater to the needs of Africans and peoples of African descent. These businesses are often underfunded because of the complexities involved in applying for subventions from the states in which they live, but this still has not reduced the number of such businesses springing up in different communities. All in all, there are now more than 500 African shops in many towns and cities. A number of these businesses can be found in Hamburg, which has the largest population of people of African descent, about 17,000 or 1 percent of the population. It also has more than 40 African churches, many African cultural societies and groups, and African festivals. Notable among the groups are the Afrikanische Union Hamburg and the Dachverband Afrikanische Organisationen. More than 50 Afro-shops and transportation companies, and about five travel agents cater to the needs of not only the Africans but also the rest of the population living in the

F URTHER R EADING Blackshire-Belay, Carol Aisha. 1996. The AfricanGerman Experience: Critical Essays. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. Hopkins, Leroy T., Jr. 1999. Who Is German? Historical and Modern Perspectives on Africans in Germany. Millersville, PA: Millersville University, American Institute of Contemporary German Studies. Hügel-Marshall, Ika. 2001. Ika: Invisible Woman. Growing up Black in Germany. Trans. Orlanda Verlag. New York: Continuum. Massaquoi, Hans J. 2000. Destined to Witness. Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany. New York: Harper Collins. Oguntoye, Katharina. 1997. Eine Afro-deutsche Geschichte. Zur Lebenssituation von Afrikanern und Afro-Deutschen in Deutschland von 1884 bis 1950. Berlin: Hoho-Verlag Christine Hoffmann. Opitz, May, Katharina Oguntoye, et al. 1992. Showing Our Colours: Afro-German Women Speak Out. Trans. Anne V. Adams. London: Open Letters. Popoola, Olumide, and Beladan Sezen, eds. 1999. Talking Home. Heimat aus unserer eigenen Feder. Frauen of Color in Deutschland. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Blue Moon Press.

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Tomi Adeaga See also Europe and the African Diaspora; HipHop Culture in the African Diaspora; Lorde, Audre (1934–1992).

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Ghana | 469

Ghana On March 6, 1957, Ghana, a country with a population of 20 million on the west coast of Africa, became the first African nation to become independent of colonial rule. Kwame Nkrumah, who led the process to that historic event, not only created a platform for the decolonization process in much of Africa (by way of funding anticolonial movements in West and South Africa and providing intellectual inspiration) but also gave black people in the Caribbean and the United States hope of a historical brotherhood. In the 1960s, Ghana became the Mecca of Pan-Africanism and a rallying point for African attempts at political and economic growth, embodied by the formation of the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union) in 1963 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and the formation of regional economic groups, such as the Economic Community of West Africa States and the South Africa Development Community. Afro-Caribbean intellectuals, including George Padmore and C. L. R. James, visited and worked in Ghana, and African American intellectuals (some of them classmates of Nkrumah at Lincoln University) worked in Ghana’s civil service. The country afforded by way of resources an open-door policy, “a call of return” to Ghana, especially for African American writers. The most famous of the returnees was W. E. B. DuBois, who later became a Ghanaian citizen. When DuBois died he was buried at his Cantonments residence in Accra, which is today the W. E. B. DuBois Memorial Centre for Pan-African Affairs. DuBois is also credited with starting The Encyclopedia Africana in Ghana late in his life. Other visitors to Ghana included Richard Wright, Malcolm X, and Maya Angelou, whose books All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986) and Kofi and His Magic (1996) were based on an African American perspective of Ghana. Today, 3,000 African Americans and Africans of the Diaspora have relocated to and are living in Ghana,

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View of Nima, a suburb of Ghana’s capital, Accra, (2006). (Peeter Viisimaa/iStockPhoto)

among them Rita Marley, the wife of Bob Marley, the Jamaican reggae star. Musician Stevie Wonder has made financial investments in the country. In February 1966, Nkrumah was overthrown by the National Liberation Council led by General Kotoka and later General Kwesi Afrifa (in what was the first military coup in the new African states). Successive governments, despite their different ideological positions in foreign relations, have maintained cordial relations between Ghanaians and the African Diaspora. After the first military coup, Ghana reverted to a constitutional government under the leadership of Professor Kofi A. Busia (a long-time Nkrumah opponent) under the Progress Party from 1969 to 1972. Busia’s government was then overthrown by a pro-Nkrumah military government of the Supreme Military Council, headed by General Ignatius K. Acheampong, which ruled from 1972 to 1978. From 1978 till 1981, there were serious military wrangling and instability that itself led to a dramatic June 4, 1979, revolution led by a 34-year-old flight lieutenant, Jerry John Rawlings. Three former heads of state and senior army officers were executed

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by firing squad for allegations of corruption and running the country down. The year 1979 again saw the dawn of civilian rule when the Peoples National People, the latest incarnation of Nkrumah’s Convention Peoples’ party, was in power under Dr. Hilla Limann. Yet in 1981, Rawlings who had handed over power to Limann, overthrew him again. From December 1981 to 1991, under his Provisional National Defence Council, Rawlings ruled Ghana as a socialist state, à la Libya, until the early 1990s when it became more liberal and conducted elections. Rawlings supervised the 1992 and 1996 elections and won a four-year mandate in each under his National Democratic Party (NDC). In 2000, Rawlings handed power to John Agyekum Kufuor, an Oxford University–trained economist and lawyer, after his NDC was defeated in elections. Since then normal elections have been conducted. In its relation with the African Diaspora the Kufuor government’s foreign policy was not that different from that of Rawlings. The first Emancipation Day celebration outside the United States was in Ghana. Since then, the number of visitors, especially black people from the United States and the Caribbean, has increased. The availability of dual citizenship in Ghana, especially for black people in the United States and the Caribbean, was implemented after parliamentary approval by the Kufuor administration. This move sought not only to encourage immigration to Ghana and Africa but also aimed to cultivate professional skills and capital to help the economy of the country from the wealthy black upper class. With a land mass of 238,540 square kilometers, Ghana has a diversified cultural heritage in its ten regions (states). Ghana is an agricultural country—60 percent of the population works in agriculture. Agriculture products include cocoa (Ghana is the second-largest producer in the world) rice, coffee, cassava, peanuts, corn, shea nuts, bananas, and timber. Ghana’s industrial output includes mines (Ashanti Goldfields, one of the world’s largest

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mines, recently merged with Anglogold of South Africa), lumber, light manufacturing, aluminum, and food processing, and it has a gross domestic product (GDP) of $8.5 billion, a GDP per capita of $410, and a growth rate of 4.4 percent. The University of Ghana, Legon, is legendary for its intellectual contributions to Africa and the African Diaspora. Major writers include Ayi Kwei Armah, Ama Ata Aidoo, and Efua Sutherland. Ivor Duah See also African Union (AU); DuBois, William Edward Burghardt (1868–1963); Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–1972); Padmore, George (1901– 1959); Pan-Africanism. F URTHER R EADING Agyeman-Duah, Ivor. 1992. Ivor Antiochus Lives Again—Political Essays of Joe Appiah. Kumasi, Ghana: Catholic Press. Martin, Anthony. 1983. The Pan-African Connection. Dover, MA: The Majority Press.

z Gilroy, Beryl Agatha (1924–2001) Beryl Gilroy, well known in Britain as a pioneering black teacher, in her writing explored the individual life histories of the African-Caribbean Diaspora and the theme of cultural identity. Her son, Paul Gilroy, would later theorize about these issues in The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (1993). Publishing fiction, autobiography, poetry, reminiscences, Beryl Gilroy analyzed her own writing practice in a collection of essays, Leaves in the Wind (1998). Although British critics have been reluctant to appraise her creative output, she has received much more recognition in the United States, where she was honored by the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars in 1996. Her final novel, The Green Grass Tango was published shortly after her death in April of 2001.

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Gilroy, Beryl Agatha (1924–2001) | 471 Born in Springlands, Berbice (then British Guiana) in 1924, Gilroy was inspired to write by her maternal grandmother’s storytelling. She attended Georgetown’s teachers’ training college, leaving with a first-class diploma in 1945. She traveled to London University in 1951 and was awarded an advanced diploma in child development in 1953. She went on to earn a bachelor of science degree in psychology in 1956, a master’s degree in 1970, and was awarded a doctoral degree in ethnopsychology in 1987. She became the first black head teacher in 1969. Her groundbreaking autobiography, Black Teacher, published in 1976 and reprinted in 1994, details her experience, although her woman’s perspective on this black experience is still much less well known than that of her contemporary, E.R. Braithwaite, who described his teaching experiences in To Sir with Love (1959). Sidney Poitier gave a remarkable performance as Braithwaite in the film of the same name. Gilroy published The Nippers Series, more than 16 award-winning text-readers for children throughout the 1960s and 1970s, perhaps the first reflections of the Black British presence in UK for children. Her service to education was marked by an honorary doctorate from the University of North London in 1995. Throughout the 1960s, publishers rejected her work at a time when Caribbean fiction from male writers like Sam Selvon, George Lamming, and V. S. Naipaul was blooming. Sunlight on Sweet Water (eventually published in 1994) preserved her memory of life in an African-Guyanese village, and In Praise of Love and Children (1996) depicts her move to London through the eyes of a female protagonist, Melda Hayley, who fosters damaged children of her fellow black settlers in 1950s Britain. Beryl Gilroy felt marginalized by the largely male Caribbean writing community in London and was only able to be fully read when publishing opportunities opened up for women in the 1980s, Gilroy’s fictional concerns marked her as an innova-

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tive writer, and she began to attract some critical attention. Frangipani House (1986), which won the Greater London Council’s Literature Prize, explores the theme of aging when traditional Caribbean models of caring have been displaced by patterns of transnationality. Boy Sandwich followed in 1989. Her interest in historical fiction was captured in Stedman and Joanna—A Love in Bondage (1991) and Inkle and Yarico (1996), and she experimented with form in an epistolary novel, Gather the Faces (1996). Gilroy died before the publication of her last novel, The Green Grass Tango (Peepal Tree). Her creative explorations were matched by a practitioner element. Both in her writing, and through her later work as an ethnotherapist in London, she attempted to heal some of the deep psychic wounds inflicted by the African Diasporic condition. Beryl Gilroy was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of London and an Honorary Fellowship by the Institute of Education for her major contributions to educational psychology in London. Sandra Courtman See also Guyana; United Kingdom: The African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Boyce Davies, Carole and Meredith Gadsby. 2002. “Remembering Beryl Gilroy.” Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies 2: 1. Bradshaw, Roxann. 2002. “Beryl Gilroy’s ‘FactFiction’ through the Lens of the ‘Quiet Old Lady’.” Callaloo: A Journal of African-American Arts and Letters 25: 381–400. Courtman, Sandra. 2002. “A Black British Canon? The Uses of Beryl Gilroy’s Black Teacher and Its Recovery as Literature.” Wasafiri 36 (summer): 51–55. Gilroy, Beryl, and Joan Anim Addo, eds. 2004. Leaves in the Wind. Collected Writings. London: Mango Publishing. Kemp, Yakini Belinda, and Janice Liddell, eds. 1999. Arms Akimbo: Africana Women in Contemporary Literature. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Newson, Adele S., and Linda Strong-Leek, eds. 1998. Winds of Change: The Transforming

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472 | Glissant, Edouard (1928—) Voices of Caribbean Writers and Scholars. New York: Peter Lang.

z Glissant, Edouard (1928—) Edouard Glissant is one of Martinique’s most prestigious theorists as well as a novelist and poet celebrated for his theories of relationality and antillanité (Caribbeanness). His monumental and mammoth essay, Caribbean Discourse (1981; trans. 1989), openly borrows from French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari the competing metaphor of the rhizome, which suggests that beneath singularity, diversity, and specific identity (in Glissant’s case, antillanité) there lies a more fundamental relational link. Glissant is quick to see this relation as part of a wider Caribbean and Atlantic identity, encompassing the preColumbian Americas as well as Louisiana. He is also critical of the burying of Caribbean folklore, of the disparaging treatment of creole language, for all its attachment to African culture. But Glissant’s theories and novels do not fall into cultural hermeticism abstracted from real historical determinants: not only does he cautiously extend the metaphor out of and away from créolité, to embrace the tout-monde (whole world) of human interculturalism, but he also negotiates the specificity of Caribbeanness in relation to Atlantic history. Thus, his second novel The Fourth Century (1964)— winner of the Charles Veillon Prize in 1965— though a proto-Roots search for Caribbean history, opens with a powerful narrative of two enslaved Africans on board a slave ship dueling before reaching the Caribbean, and then recounts their exploits once they become maroons and then the exploits of their progeny over two centuries. The intertwined genealogies of the two Martinican families are thus traced back to a foundational (though not all-determining) moment of Middle Passage

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history. The characters in the novel, one an African-style oral storyteller, recur at regular intervals in Glissant’s prose fiction. A later novel, Malemort (1975), works backwards through history looking for the mythical figure of Odono transported from Africa. Glissant’s most recent writing celebrates chaos and posits a world free from conflict. Though Glissant is often heralded as the contemporary champion of Caribbeanness, his theoretical and creative work regularly engages with what he has called “detour.” In a 1961 play that follows Toussaint L’Ouverture’s move across the Atlantic toward imprisonment and subsequent death in Napoleon’s dungeon in the Jura region of France, Glissant recognizes the importance of climbing back through history, of going through the triangular trade backwards—from the Caribbean to Africa, and then from Africa to Europe (in his case, France, where he was a left-wing intellectual in the 1950s arguing for Caribbean independence)—as a way of defining the specificity of Caribbeanness. Glissant has a deeply ambivalent link to the ocean that carried its human cargo from Africa and into chains. This is linked to today’s realities in the French-dominated region of Martinique and Guadeloupe. Thus, he uses “slave trade in reverse” to describe the large movement of Caribbeans toward France, in a further exile to find jobs, but insists that this Atlantic voyage is—like its Middle Passage counterpart in the other direction—a crucial moment in their discovery of Caribbeanness. The Middle Passage also appears in his short story “The First Voyage” (1994). Thus, it is not surprising that Glissant’s earliest poetry (1952, 1954) owes much to the oceanic consciousness of a Saint-Jean Perse. His recent work has tended to stress the inability of Caribbeans to see what Africa actually is, but his Atlanticist consciousness has remained remarkably constant throughout his literary and theoretical voyages. Andy Stafford

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Goodison, Lorna (1947—) | 473 See also Césaire, Aimé (1913–2008); Creole, Creolity, Creolization; Martinique. F URTHER R EADING Britton, Celia. 1999. Edouard Glissant and Postcolonial Theory. Strategies of Language and Resistance. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Dash, Michael. 1995. Edouard Glissant. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stafford, Andy. 2001. “Travel in the French Black Atlantic: Dialoguing and Diverging, between Aimé Césaire and Edouard Glissant.” ASCALF Critical Studies in Postcolonial Literature and Culture 1: 15–30.

z Goodison, Lorna (1947—) Lorna Goodison, poet, short story writer, and painter, expresses in her poetry the African Diaspora’s constant engagement with resistance, revival, and regeneration. Born in Jamaica, West Indies, in 1947, Goodison grew up in a world dominated by the independence struggles of Africa and the Caribbean and the civil rights struggles of the United States. As a result, in the imaginary landscapes she creates, she brings into existence sacred spaces where the refashioning of self, community, and nation is possible. Goodison, known mainly as a poet, has also published a collection of short stories, Baby Mother and the King of Swords (1990). As a painter, her works have been exhibited in the United States and Europe. The publication of Lorna Goodison Selected Poems (1992), and her inclusion in the New Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, have made her work accessible to an audience beyond the Caribbean. Lorna Goodison: Selected Poems is a solid introduction to the poet’s work. Poems come from Tamarind Season (1980), I Am Becoming My Mother (1986), Heartease (1988), and other works. Rooted in the landscape of her island Jamaica, her poems celebrate the resilience of

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the Jamaican folk, their rituals, and their survival strategies. Yet the poet is constantly connecting her island and people to the history and reality of Africans wherever they exist. Inspiriting her work is the legendary figure of Nanny of the maroons, who has been transformed in Goodison’s poetic world into a symbol of female liberation and resistance. Nanny connects Africa to the Caribbean and epitomizes a New World identity grounded in both worlds. Ranging from Rosa Parks and Winnie Mandela to the nameless women of the Caribbean, Nanny’s daughters, Goodison locates her female personae in spaces where regeneration is possible. To Us All Flowers Are Roses (1995) is a good example of Goodison’s affirmation of life and living. Her female personae, rooted in the drudgery of daily living and with the burden of the past always present, are still able to survive. They engage in the rituals and ceremonies of living as they integrate the past and history in the landscapes of the imagination that they inhabit. Such integration is at the heart of Travelling Mercies (2001). The female persona achieves a moment of transcendence; her body becomes “a container for stars” (60). Goodison’s women explode the confines of the domestic; they integrate Old and New World realities and become catalysts for humanizing and reshaping the diasporic female self. Lorna Goodison’s latest collection, Controlling the Silver (2004), was published by the University of Illinois Press. June Bert-Bobb See also Jamaica; Mandela, Winnie (1936–). F URTHER R EADING Chamberlin, J. Edward. 1992. Come Back to Me, My Language: Poetry and the West Indies. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Fiet, Lowell, ed. 2001. Concerning Lorna Goodison. Sargasso. Río Piedras, Puerto Rico: University of Puerto Rico Press.

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474 | Grenada

Grenada Located just above the equator, Grenada is the largest of a tri-island state of Grenada and the Grenadines, which includes Petite Martinique and Carriacou. Just 90 miles north of Trinidad, Grenada’s beauty belies its painfully traumatic past as a busy port in the 16th-century transatlantic slave trade, which brought Ashantis, Congos, Dahomeys, and other West Africans to its shores to labor and be dehumanized on sugar plantations and to be trampled on by colonial society (Brizan 1984). Today, 88 percent of Grenadians are of African descent, and those of indigenous Kalinago ancestry, as well as those of East Indian, English, French, and Portuguese background, make up the remaining 12 percent. Grenada’s topography of cascading mountains; its refreshing breezes, which blow through tens of thousands of nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, and other spice trees; and its pleasant tropical climate were the essential attractions that, in the late 19th century, caused Europeans to change their earlier reasons (slavery and aggressive missionary work) for going to Grenada. They began to come with hopes of recovering from illness and disease and generally being reinvigorated. Today, hundreds of thousands of tourists arrive by sea and air each year as Grenada emerges as a tourism destination of choice. E ARLY H ISTORY Waves of migration are believed to be responsible for Grenada’s pre-Columbian peoples, most prominent among them the Awarakans. Earlier knowledge that commonly referred to “Carib” and “Awarak” as early peoples is now being reconsidered, as contemporary research suggests that the Awarakan group was rather large, encompassing several subgroups, including the Caribs. Steele (2003) indicates that for the southern and eastern Caribbean, where Grenada lies, the Kalinago people were dominant. Further north and in Cuba and Jamaica,

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the Ciboney and Taino peoples, also subgroups of the Awaraks, predominated. Camerhogne is the island’s name given, it is believed, by her Kalinagos. Kayryouacou or Cariouwacou, today’s Carriacou, is said to mean, “Island surrounded by reefs” (Steele 2003, 16). After his arrival in 1498, Columbus called the island Conception, reflecting the Catholic faith of the Spanish throne in whose name the island was claimed. The French name La Grenade replaced Conception, and the former eventually gave way to the British version of Grenada (pronounced GreNAYda). French power dominated as early as 1609 and, amid challenges from the British, laid a social foundation in lifestyles, language, social graces, and religion (e.g., Catholicism). French names of places, such as Sauteurs, La Baye, Soubise, Marquis, La Sagesse, Morne Jaloux, L’Ance aux Pines, Piedmontemps, Molienere, and Belvidere, remain. But the 178-year period of continuous British colonial rule (1796–1974) cultivated the modern administrative, educational, social, emotional, and political identity of the island. Strong social and cultural contributions from Africa, especially in rural areas, remain. These include foods, drumming and dance, close family and community ties, and a host of other manifestations of Africanness remain, like the Shango religion and local patois. Today, this cultural identity can still be seen in Carriacou’s Big Drum Dance, in the positive response some people feel toward their African origins, and in exhibitions in Grenada’s two national public museums. Grenada experienced slavery from circa 1670 until 1834. After emancipation, the country’s political system shifted to that of a crown colony, that is, direct rule by an appointed British governor, in which (political) rights did not accrue to the (African) mass of the newly formed peasantry nor to the local minority Franco-Grenadians. Only landed and educated elites could vote or be voted for. The introduction of adult suffrage came in 1951. From about 1885 to 1958, Grenada served as the adminis-

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Grenada | 475 trative headquarters for British rule of six small island territories making up the Federal Colony of the Windward Islands. This unique role attracted to, and then left in Grenada, a cadre of public officials from across the Windward Islands and quickened the pace of the island’s development relative to some others. Internal self-government came about as associated statehood was in place from 1967 until 1974. Also, similar to all the English-speaking Caribbean colonies, Grenada remained a member of the short-lived West Indian Federation from 1968 to 1972. Grenada gained independence from British rule on February 7, 1974. S OCIOECONOMIC P ROFILE Grenada is home to an estimated 102,000 persons or about 37,000 households. This makes the tri-island nation one of the smallest independent states in the world, one that actively participates in the United Nations Alliance of Small Island States and the Small Island Developing States. Until the 1980s, the economy was highly dependent on the agricultural sector for employment, income, export, and foreign exchange earnings. During the 1990s, however, the economy became more diversified as there were investments in the tourism industry. As a result, today, agriculture, tourism, manufacturing, construction, and the service sector together contribute about 80 percent to the country’s economy. Grenada is the secondlargest producer of nutmeg, now the source of value-added products such as the therapeutic Nut-Med. As measured by the United Nations, Grenada ranks No. 85 of 177 member states, with a life expectancy of 65 years, adult literacy rate of 94.4 percent, and a human development index of 0.762. Still, Grenada remains very vulnerable and faces new challenges from climate change that threatens both agricultural production and tourism. There have been three hurricanes in four years, Ivan (2004), Emily (2005), and Felix (2007). The largest, Hurricane Ivan, weakened up to 80 percent of the

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tri-island’s economy and infrastructure. More than 60,000 residents became homeless as 84 percent of homes and buildings were destroyed or damaged; rebuilding has been significant, helped by millions from savings and contributions by Diaspora families, and this has allowed for a great buoyancy and lots of economic activities. Thus, gross domestic product stands at about EC$1.2 billion (US$437.3 billion) in 2005. M AJOR M OVEMENTS H ISTORICAL F IGURES Over about four centuries, Grenada has developed several social movements toward its own freedom, self-determination, and progress, and these have had relevance for regional and global sociopolitical struggles for liberty. The first movement, undertaken in the 16th century by the Kalinago people, contributed to Caribbean nationalism and national (territorial) sovereignty. Starting in the 1580s, once they understood the European’s mission of conquest and occupation, Kalinagos waged guerilla warfare on the invading French. Their early military campaign was fought to prevent the French from taking and consolidating territory, although the French eventually overcame them in the 1650s. Despite military defeat, Kalinago bravery, loyalty, and patriotism gained them respect from their antagonists and helped the population internalize a love for resistance and self-determination. Local oral history has it that facing certain defeat and slaughter at the hands of the French, the leadership of the Kalinagos assembled at a northern seafront precipice for the final showdown. Running backwards into the ocean as they vowed never to turn their backs on their beloved homeland, the men jumped to their deaths into the roaring ocean below. That northernmost promontory acquired the name Le Monde du Sauteurs, or Leapers Hill, and today it is a heritage tourism site. Grenada’s second social movement also contributed to anticolonialism and national

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pride and was led by Julien Fedon with critical organizing support from an enslaved AfroGrenadian woman, Gammy, who operated out of the Grenville market. Fedon was unable to launch his strike for freedom until Gammy had organized the villages and sent word of the same to Fedon and a score of other lieutenants. This unique female-male leadership alliance succeeded in overthrowing British power and, with it, slavery in early 1795. The Fedon Revolution governed Grenada for 15 months in one of the first emancipation projects of the 18th century. That social movement remains important as perhaps the one that planted the seeds in Grenada, with repercussions across the region, of people’s power emancipation versus British legal emancipation. As an example of early African Diaspora collaboration, the man who would later become Haiti’s emperor, Henri Christophe, was born in Grenada and is reputed to have taken part in the 1795 rebellion and then departed to Haiti where he joined the revolution that would succeed in 1804. The submerged narrative that Fedon and others had indeed played a pivotal though bloody role in temporarily freeing 18th century Grenadians from slavery took a century and a half to be recovered—by none other than its progeny, the Grenada Revolution at the end of the 1970s. With that recovery in literature, politics and military lore came the naming of Fedon as “revolutionary” and the removal of the pejorative “rebel,” which was his identity in British colonial schoolbooks. In the 1950s, Eric Gairy, through his Grenada Manual, Mental and Intellectual Workers Union in 1950 and then the Grenada United Labour Party in 1951, launched another successful challenge to Grenada’s colonial project by forcing the plantocracy to recognize and support demands for wage increases and other worker benefits for agricultural workers. A society dominated by elite values of white-mulatto social power was forced to break the color barrier and admit black-skinned Grenadians to jobs and so-

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cial clubs (Benoit 2007). Gairy’s political leadership of the nation is generally regarded as one of those nationalist projects, like that of François Duvalier of Haiti, which moved from racial solidarity to dictatorship. The New JEWEL Movement (NJM) emerged in the mid to late 1970s, an amalgam of a number of small popular and grassroots structures. NJM’s coleaders were Maurice Bishop, an attorney and member of Parliament since 1976, and Unison Whiteman, an agricultural economist and also a member of Parliament. They, along with scores of others, led this socialist-oriented movement, which became a political party and undertook the Grenada Revolution, which lasted from March 1979 to October 1983. NJM was revered worldwide as forging and leading one of the most creative and dynamic mass movements and one of the most fortunate to be able to seize state power and undertake noncapitalist development. The Grenada Revolution, with its people’s power system of local to national popular participation, mixed economy, and intense emphasis on social development, developed a system of direct participation and extensive popular consultations. Still, NJM and its creation, the Grenada Revolution, are considered to be among the most tragic movements of the late-20th-century Caribbean. Internal struggles and external harassment, mainly by the U.S. government, led to implosion and collapse just as it was poised to be a major people’s victory and a model for the Caribbean and the Third World in general. In less than five years, the NJM fell victim to internal divisions, and Bishop and Whiteman were assassinated, along with other ministers of government, leading trade unionists, and other supporters, including schoolchildren. The U.S. invasion of Grenada followed on October 25, 1983. L EADING F IGURES Besides Maurice Bishop, several other leading figures have had a significant impact on the African Diaspora. Theophilus Albert Mar-

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Grenada | 477 ryshow (1887–1958), a journalist and publisher, literary leader, and elected political representative, also championed Caribbean regional integration and is known as the “Father of West Indian Federation.” The T. A. Marryshow House is the home of the local branch of the University of the West Indies in Grenada; the community college is named the T. A. Marryshow Community College. Marryshow was also a social rights activist, writing polemics such as Cycles of Civilization (1917) against the views of racial segregationist, South Africa’s Jan Smuts. Tubal Uriah “Buzz” Butler (1897–1977) was a trade unionist who had significant impact on the wider Caribbean. In keeping with the times, he too was an advocate for adult suffrage. In 1918 he launched the Grenada Representative Government Movement, and the Grenada Union of Returned Soldiers, which sought benefits and employment for soldiers like himself who were returning from war. In 1921, at age 24, Butler migrated to Trinidad where he launched major strikes in the 1930s and was pivotal in the development and recognition of trade unionism and interracial trade union solidarity. Butler was named a national hero by the People’s Revolutionary Government of Grenada. Dame Hilda Bynoe (1921–), a physician, was the first woman governor in the British Commonwealth and the first native-born governor of Grenada. She was appointed in 1968 and has been a patron of social organizations such as the Red Cross and the Caribbean College of Family Physicians. Her book of poetry, I Woke at Dawn, was published in 1996. Other critical contributions to the African Diaspora have been made by world-renowned painters John Benjamin and Canute Calliste (1914–2005). Slinger Francisco, the “Mighty Sparrow,” the world’s premier calypsonian has made history as the King of Calypso while living in Trinidad for the past 50 years, but is still claimed as a Grenadian due to his birth and early life. And in 1970, Jennifer Hosten was

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crowned Miss World, the first Grenadian to achieve this feat. D IASPORA It is estimated that as many Grenadians live outside Grenada as inside; thus, Grenada is a larger nation by virtue of this Diaspora. Communities of one to three generations can be found in London and Birmingham, England; Brooklyn, New York; Maracaibo, Venezuela; Toronto, Canada; and Port of Spain, Trinidad. Scores of Grenadians are medical, dental, and academic professionals in U.S. cities. Listed among the 100 Great Black Britons is Grenada’s Lord David Pitt of Hampstead (1913–1994), a British-trained physician who was elected mayor of London and to the House of Representatives and was the longest serving black parliamentarian in the United Kingdom. He was granted a life peerage to the House of Lords in 1975 in recognition for his advocacy of the rights and opportunities for the black community in Great Britain and for his extraordinary political leadership in the United Kingdom. C ULTURAL L IFE The most recognized African cultural ritual in Grenada is the Big Drum Dance, especially in Carriacou. The dance is celebrated in anthropological and literary texts, such as Paule Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow (1983). The ritual recalls and preserves African roots and family lineages through celebration (song, dance, and drumming). The Big Drum is an opportunity to give thanks, to mark an occasion, to pass on knowledge of one’s nation, that is, the original African ethnic identity of local families. It is especially used to mark death anniversaries by the children of the deceased when the headstone (of a grave) is raised. Saraca (Saraka, a Senegambian practice) or food feasts with the ancestor are also associated with the Big Drum. Within the past 60 years, calypso, soca, and steel pan music have emerged as mainstays of

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popular culture. And in the literary field, Merle Collins is Grenada’s best-known writer today. Collins has made contributions to poetry, fiction, and oral recitals of her original works. Angel (1997) is a unique social anthropology of a half century of development in Grenada. Dessima M. Williams See also Abolitionism in the African Diaspora; Brooklyn; Calypso; Caribbean Black Power; Haitian Revolution; Marshall, Paule (1929–); Transatlantic Slave Trade; Trinidad and Tobago: African Impact on the Social Order; United Kingdom: The African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Benoit, Oliver. 2007. “Resentiment and the Gairy Social Revolution.” Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism 22: 95–111. Brizan, George. 1984. Grenada Island of Conflict: From Amerindians to People’s Revolution 1498– 1979. London: Zed Books Ltd. Devas, Raymond P. 1964. The Island of Grenada (1650–1950). St. George’s, Grenada: University of the West Indies Press. Lewis, Patsy. 2002. Surviving Small Size. Regional Integration in Caribbean MiniStates. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. Marshall, Paule. 1983. Praisesong for the Widow. New York: G.P. Putnam and Sons. McDaniel, Lorna. 1988. The Big Drum Ritual of Carriacou. Praisesongs in Rememory of Flight. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Steele, Beverley A. 2003. Grenada: A History of Its People (Island Histories). Kingston, Jamaica: Macmillan Caribbean. Williams, Dessima. 1994. “Grenada: From Parlimentary Rule to People’s Power.” Democracy in the Caribbean. Myths and Realities, ed. Carlene Edie, 93–111. New York: Praeger.

z Griots/Griottes of West Africa The griots/griottes of West Africa are worldreknowned oral artists known as guardians of the word. They are the repositories of history, literature, and the arts in Africa. It is because of their roles as historians that we are today

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able to document how the African Diaspora came into being and how it was peopled— from the first African explorers to the new, followed by the West, who later decided to enslave the Africans to build new empires and new worlds. As the guardians of the culture, they ensure that information passes from one generation to the next. Their excellent skills in memorizing huge texts and creating new songs and poems to praise or criticize kings, queens, princes, princesses and leaders in general are impressive. The importance of the griots/griottes within the social structures cannot be overemphasized. Most importantly, the griots/griottes are not controlled by society in regards to speech. They are given a license by society to say whatever they want without censure. They are the bearers of both good and bad news. Their art forms influence the art forms of the Diaspora, from work songs to calypso, religious rituals, dances, festivals, and modern-day rap and hip-hop poetry. Historically, the griots/griottes occupy a caste based on occupation/profession, such as smiths and wood and leather workers. The griot became a significant connector of the African Diaspora when represented in Alex Haley’s Roots. The Epic of Sundrata is related through the oral text of the griot. Studies today look at the verbal performance of men and women, griot and griotte. The term griot has a number of possible origins. In the Senegambia region, the term used is djeli, which preceded the arrival of white people in Africa by more than 5,000 years. Ibn Battuta, a North African chronicler who traveled throughout the Muslim world, arrived in the court of the Mali empire in the 14th century and commented on the importance of the djeli at the royal court. Thus, in Mandé, the correct term is djeli, with comparable versions for oral artists and historians across Africa. In contemporary West Africa, the djeli is a messenger, a broadcaster of good and bad news, whether baptism, wedding, fetes, meetings, assembly, death, or war. The djeli is also a troubadour who, with drum under arm, car-

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Djeli, known in the western world as Griots, are traditional historians, poets, and musicians. Here, they entertain during the annual ceremony at the chiefdom of Bafut, a village located in Cameroon’s northwestern province in December, 2004. (Jean Pierre Kepseu/Panapress/Getty Images)

ries the news from village to village. The djeli performs the role of the radio, telephone, and television and is the symbol of the oral culture in which everything is said or transmitted through the word. However, there are different categories of djeli. For example, the Kélé Mansa, also called Djeli Gnara, are principal masters of the word; the Balafôdjeli are masters of the musical instruments; the Séné-Djeli are djeli with granaries full of terms to galvanize the courage of farmers during farm work; the Keliomah-Djeli are masters of the deep occult knowledge of the mystical masks; the Kéné-Djéli are specialists in circumcision and are great sorcerers and blacksmiths; and the Serawa Djeli are masters of proverbs and adages as well as being excellent singers, dancers, and composers. Djeli in general accompany great warriors and hunters in the battle fields and hunting sessions.

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In Mandé djeli means blood, which reflects that the djeli, whether male or female, are the repositories of the tradition and collective life, that is, the memory of their people. They become the encyclopedia of the history of the peoples, the transmitter of usages and customs. In short, the djeli are to society what blood is to the body. The special status of this group is highlighted by the fact that it has no totem or forbidden rule; thus, it constitutes a particular social body. The djeli are adored because they are close to power and are the only ones allowed to express what the people think and what the leader must do. The djeli are listened to because they know the history and the genealogy of all the families and can, at any moment, publicly unfold the glory and/or shame of families. The djeli are sought after because they master the word, which they have the right to exaggerate to better moralize, make lis-

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teners laugh or cry, or recall the collective consciousness to its mission of defending the integrity of the territory and consolidating the parental unity. The djeli, because they are exempt from any totem and taboo, have the right to lie in the cases of strengthening of bonds of friendship, family or marriage. Thus, the Djeli are mediators and social animators. The Djeli (griot/ttes) have a variety of both specific and general functions in knowledge production, entertainment, and documentation. Hampaté Bâ’s assertion that every time an elder dies, it is as if a library is burnt down, is also evoked here as it pertains to the griot. The aesthetic characteristics of the Djeli (griot/griotte) continue to influence traditions both on the continent and in the African Diaspora from hip hop, to calypso, rapso, blues and various forms of spoken word performances. Siga Jallow and Babacar M’bow See also Blues: A Continuum from Africa; Calypso; Hip-Hop Culture in the African Diaspora; Rap/Rappin’.

Rev. Raúl Fernández-Calienes

F URTHER R EADING Alleyne, Mervyn, Stewart Brown, and Gordon Rohlehr. 1989. Voice Print. An Anthology of Oral and Related Poetry from the Caribbean. London: Heinemann. Hale, Thomas. 1998. Griots and Griottes, Masters of Words and Music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hampaté Bâ, Ahmadou. 1990. “The Living Tradition.” General History of Africa/UNESCO, vol. 1, Methodology and African Prehistory, ed. Joseph Ki-Zerbo, 166–203. London: Heinemann. Okpewho, Isidore. 1992. African Oral Literature in Africa Backgrounds, Character and Continuity. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

z Grito de Yara The Grito de Yara is the Cuban Declaration of Independence, issued on October 10, 1868, in

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the eastern area of Yara, which launched the Ten Years’ War (1868–1878) against Spain. Cuban reformers sought several major social changes, including the gradual abolition of slavery and the development of free business trade. Spain rejected Cuban proposals and instead imposed a new tax on revenue. In response, plantation owner Carlos Manuel de Céspedes declared independence and organized fellow planters in a rebellion against Spanish rule, freeing and arming his slaves in the process. The popular movement gained strength and drew great successes early on, and Cuban guerilla fighters (many of whom were Afro-Cubans) routed the Spanish military in several battles. Over time, though, the movement lost ground to internal divisions and external pressures from Spain. In addition, the war ravaged the countryside and the economy, thereby deepening the crisis. The Grito de Yara was a rallying cry and an early step toward the eventual elimination of slavery in Cuba and Cuba’s liberation.

See also Cuba: Afro Cubans; Cuban Revolution and the African Diaspora; Rapso. F URTHER R EADING Pérez, Louis A., Jr. 1995. Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press.

z Guadeloupe Guadeloupe is an island in the Caribbean originally populated by Carib people, who were thought to have migrated from the Amazon region. Guadeloupe first came to European attention when Christopher Columbus’s second voyage brought him to the island in November 1493. The Spanish raided the island for slaves and used it as a stopover on their way to what Europeans considered the Greater Antilles (the islands now known as Haiti, Cuba, and the Do-

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Guadeloupe | 481 minican Republic) and the American continents. After a century of Spanish exploitation, the Caribe population was decimated; the few survivors fled to neighboring uncolonized islands. The first of what would become hundreds of boatloads of Africans docked in Guadeloupe in 1502. The French took over the colonization of Guadeloupe in 1635. French colonization of Guadeloupe and Martinique was meant to give France a chance to compete with English and Dutch Atlantic slave trading and other acts of government-sanctioned piracy. Under King Louis XIV, with the creation of the West Indies Company in 1664 and the Company of Senegal in 1672 under finance minister Colbert, the importation of enslaved Africans escalated. Many of the enslaved resisted the brutal conditions imposed on them. To quell revolt by institutionalizing the chattel slavery system, the Code Noir (Black Code) of 1685 defined the loss of human status and the imposition of object status and correlate European right to exploit the African population. Those of African descent who resisted the loss of their humanity could be imprisoned, whipped, branded with irons, dismembered, and hanged by the neck until dead. By 1730, many Africans who escaped enslavement organized maroon revolutionary community networks in the forests of Basse-Terre (the Low Country) and Grande-Terre (the Great Country). A failed maroon takeover of Guadeloupe in 1736 resulted in an islandwide extermination effort by the French and the English, who occupied the island from 1759 to 1763. As a result of the English regime, the importation of enslaved Africans and the total African population of Guadeloupe more than doubled from 1750 to 1790, from 41,000 to more than 90,000. This shift meant that the European population percentage on the island diminished from one third in 1735 to one tenth in the early 1800s. As the population of European plantation owners and enslavers dwindled and weakened politically, the popu-

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lation and politic influence of the class of their freed mixed-race offspring, most of them educated merchants, soared. After the French Revolution of 1789, the French republic abolished slavery on February 4, 1794. When Napoleon Bonaparte’s troops descended on the French island colonies in 1802 to reinstitute the enslavement of those of African descent, “coloreds” and “blacks” presented an organized military resistance that failed, perhaps because it lacked Haiti’s guerrilla ferocity. On May 28, 1802, rather than submit willingly to the reinstitution of slavery, mixed-race Martinican Louis Delgrès admitted the defeat of the freed Africans by detonating himself with his troops. Antoine Richepanse led France’s 1802 military reimposition of slavery. The French desire to bolster its sugar cane prosperity grappled with international political discussions about the European discovery of the concept of humanity and innovative efforts on the part of the enslaved to free themselves. As a result, slavery was again abolished in Guadeloupe on April 27, 1848. Even after slavery was finally abolished, the French continued to “import” 6,000 African and 40,000 East Indian “laborers” to bolster French competition in the fluctuating global sugar market. After Guadeloupe’s economic crisis of the 1880s and 1890s, a new political contingent of African-descent politicians such as Hégésippe Légitimus and Achille René-Boisneuf instituted an ongoing era of racial pride and socialjustice politics. On March 19, 1946, France’s law of departmentalization confirmed Guadeloupe as a French dependency. This departmentalization, defended by Martinican Aimé Césaire and Gaston Monnerville of French Guiana, was supposed to give Guadeloupe legal equality with mainland French governmental departments, a move continuously fought by French conservatives. Influenced by the writings of Martinican Frantz Fanon and the Cuban Revolution, the Guadeloupean drive for independence, led by

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the Group for the National Organization of Guadeloupe (formed in 1963) and the Front for Guadeloupean Autonomy (formed in 1965), has suffered from indigenous poverty and isolation from the decision-making mainland, French economic and military backlash, and the island’s crippling trade deficit. The post-Négritude essayist, Martinican Edouard Glissant has described the economic dependency or “soft” subjugation of Guadeloupe as one of modernity’s rare successful colonizations. Guadeloupe’s own tiny population of fewer than half a million has produced several powerful literary voices of its own, including Myriam Warner-Vieyra, Simone Schwarz-Bart, Maryse Condé, and Gisele Pineau, whose vivid images of the complex psychosocial experiences of French colonization rank among the African Diaspora’s classics. Alexis Brooks de Vita See also Condé, Maryse (1937–); Middle Passage. F URTHER R EADING Busby, Margaret, ed. 1992. “Maryse Condé,” “Simone Schwarz-Bart,” and “Myriam WarnerVieyra” in Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from the Ancient Egyptian to the Present, 478–482, 495–502, 621–630. New York: Ballantine Books. Condé, Maryse. 1986. Moi, Tituba, sorcière . . . noire de Salem. Paris, France: Editions Mercure de France. Trans. I Tituba, Black Witch of Salem. New York: Ballantine Books, 1994. Nesbitt, Nick. 1999. “Guadeloupe.” In Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, ed. Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Basic Civitas Books. Schwarz-Bart, Simone. 1980. Pluie et vent sur Telumée Miracle. Saint Amand, France: Editions du Seuil. Warner-Vieyra, Miriam. 1982. Juletane. Paris: Presence Africaine. Warner-Vieyra, Miriam. 1988. Femmes echouées. Paris: Presence Africaine.

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Guillén, Nicolás (1902–1989) Widely considered Cuba’s national poet, Nicholas Guillén was also one of the foremost poets writing in Latin America in the 20th century. His work holds a special place within Cuban letters because of its focus on the experience of African descendents in pre- and post-Revolutionary Cuba. Guillen created a distinctive mode of poetic expression first integrating the African and Spanish aspects of Cuban culture, which he himself embodied, and then embracing more fully his AfroCuban identity. His extensive travels throughout the world served to heighten Guillén’s sensitivity toward the suffering of oppressed peoples in the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, and the southern United States. A committed member of the Communist Party beginning in 1934, Guillén worked for much of his life to promote the cause of social justice by making it the focus of his poetry and journalistic writing. He especially condemned imperialist interventions that promoted the brutal exploitation of the masses for the profit of a few and called for a violent uprising that anticipated the Cuban Revolution of 1959. In an interview with Guillén included in Nancy Morejon’s Recopilacion de Textos sobre Nicolas Guillen, he describes the racial segregation that characterized Cuban society in his youth as well as the violence upper-class members of the dominant racial group used to maintain their privileged position. For instance, Guillén recalls how the members of the Liceo prevented blacks and mulattos from walking though Agramonte Park, in his home province of Camagüey, by hurling insults, sharp objects, and bags full of paint at them. In 1930, Guillén incited great controversy with the publication of Motivos de Son, eight short poems inspired by the son—a strongly syncopated musical form whose lyrics originally reflected the speech and thought of Cuban blacks and mulattos living in pre-Revolutionary Cuba. During the 1920s, the son swept through

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Guimarães, Geni (1947—) | 483 Havana and broke many racial barriers by bringing black music and musicians into contact with the white middle- and upper-class elite at social and private functions. By transferring the rhythm and subject matter of the son into poetry (thereby creating the poemason), Guillén established black culture as a legitimate focus of Cuban literature. Guillén was profoundly influenced by Langston Hughes, one of the leading figures in the group of New York black writers, artists, and musicians who created the Harlem Renaissance and who also used black music, especially jazz and blues. Hughes inspired Guillén to turn to the son as the medium for his most original poetic expression. The poems of Songoro cosongo, published in 1931 (a year after the Motivos de Son), continue to reflect the musical form of the son with its roots in AfroCuban popular culture. In 1937, Guillén published Cantos para Soldados and Sones para Turistas (Songs for Soldiers and Sones for Tourists) as a strong indictment against the Batista regime. Other work includes El Son Entero (1947), Elegias (1958), Tengo (1964), El Gran Zoo (1967), La Meda Dentada and Eldiario que a Diario (1972), Sol de Domingo (1982), and Champion of Afro Cuban Poets, and Experience. Maria de Jesus Cordero See also Afro-Cuban Music; Cuba: Afro-Cubans; Hughes, Langston (1902–1967); Négritude. F URTHER R EADING Guillén, Nicolás. 1972. Man Making Words. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Morejon, Nancy, ed. 1974. Recopilación de textos sobre Nicolás Guillén. Habana, Cuba: Casa de las Américas.

z Guimarães, Geni (1947—) Geni Guimarães is currently one of the leading Afro-Brazilian women writers of today, a fore-

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runner in an explosion of poetic and prose writing within the genre of what is currently described as Afro-Brazilian literature. The literary output of these women has attracted substantial interest and is influential in terms of the subsequent rise in the number of AfroBrazilian women writers, especially from the late 1980s onwards. Guimarães has produced many poems and short stories and is especially known as one of the important writers of children’s stories. She was born in the town of São Manuel, São Paulo. From there she moved to another town, Barra Bonita, where she resides today. She is a teacher by profession. Her career in writing started while she was still an adolescent, and many of her writings appeared in local newspapers such as Debate Regional and Jornal da Barra (Guimarães 1994). Guimarães is a national award-winning writer and stands out as the Afro-Brazilian female writer of today with the most individual published work, including poems, Terceiro Filho (1979), Da Flor o Afeto (1981), and Balé das Emoçoes (1994); children’s stories, Leite do Peito (1988/2001), A Dona das Folhas (1995), O Rádio de Gabriel (1995), and Aquilo que a Mãe Não Quer (1998); and a novel, A Cor da Ternura (1988). She earned the Jaboti Award in São Paulo in 1990, and her work A Cor da Ternura earned her the Adolfo Aizem Award of the Brazilian Academy of Letters in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. She has also published poems and short stories in Cadernos Negros 4 (1981); Axé. Antologia da Poesia Negra Contemporânea Brasileira (1982); A Razão da Chama. Antologia de Poetas Negros Brasileiros (1986); O Negro Escrito (1987); Pau de sebo. Coletânea de Poesia Negra (1988); and São Manuel em Ritmo de Poesia (1992); Callaloo vol. 18, number 4 (1995); Enfim . . . Nós/Finally . . . Us: Contemporary Black Brazilian Women Writers (edited by Miriam Alves and Carolyn R. Durham) (1995); and Quilombo de Palavras—A Literatura dos Afro-descendentes (2000). Her works have also been published in Germany (Guimarães 1994).

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In many ways, Guimarães attributes her success to her family background, most of all to the encouragement she received from her mother. The lifestyle of the interior, far away from the great urban metropolis, the sense of community, and an intense pride in AfroBrazilian roots are the motivating factors behind a literature that reaches out, especially to the younger generations. Her works confirm her acute sensitivity to the specifics of the black community, especially in relation to poverty and discrimination. It is this that stimulates the time and attention she gives to depicting the Afro-Brazilian child within the domestic sphere and at school. Her work A Cor da Ternura is perhaps the most representative of this focus (Guimarães 1995, 1998). Dawn Duke See also Alves, Miriam (1952–); Brazil: AfroBrazilians; Quilombhoje; Ribeiro, Esmerelda (1958–). F URTHER R EADING Guimarães, Geni. 1994. Balé das Emoçoes. Barra Bonita, Brazil: Hipergraf. Guimarães, Geni. 1995. “Geni Guimarães.” Callaloo 18: 810–812. Guimarães, Geni. 1998. A Cor da Ternura. São Paulo: FTD.

z Gumbo Gumbo is one of a group of African Diaspora foods that, like callaloo in the Anglophone Caribbean and caruru in Salvador-Bahia, use okra as a main ingredient and have come to symbolize creative cultural mixtures. It is therefore much like the people of New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast. It is a fragrant, spicy, colorful cornucopia of tastes and textures with a consistency somewhere between a soup, a stew, and gravy. The diverse flavors come from an abundant assortment of ingredients in varying combinations, including chicken wings,

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plump gulf shrimp, blue crab, fine sausage, crayfish, fresh okra, stewed tomatoes, and an assortment of garden staples such as onions, peppers, and celery. Fresh and dry spices are added and adjusted throughout the cooking. All of the ingredients are individually prepared and then added to a large cast iron pot. Part of the ritual and comfort of gumbo is in the communal nature of its preparation. People coming to make and eat the gumbo often bring “a little something” to add to the pot and roll up their sleeves to share the preparation as well as a drink, conversation, and laughter. As vegetables are sautéed, meats are lightly browned, and the tomato base simmers, bouillon is added as the pot fills. Often there are many willing tasters who are welcome to comment and make suggestions, but there is only one cook. The cook is best defined as the one who holds the big wooden spoon and expertly navigates through the bubbling pot. This individual makes the roux. Roux are browned-flour mixtures added to the gumbo. The roux must be made perfectly, and burned roux must be thrown away. Color has historically been a uniquely important cultural construction among people of the African Diaspora. Gumbo colors range from a light to medium brown to deep red, like the clay of earth when it is dry. Gumbo the color of very deep, dark chocolate is highly regarded and is the most difficult to make. Skill, audacity, and lively language add to the drama of gumbo; it is theater, soul and memory food. Like the people, the color of the roux and the secrets of its making differ among families and communities; some families use crayfish and blue crab, others only blue crab; some families use smoked and fresh shrimp to achieve a distinctive smoky flavor. The ritual of gumbo operates with the assumption that many people are coming and copious amounts of food will be eaten that day. The cooking begins early and continues nearly all day. By the time the lid is placed over the bulging pot, the community is ready to gather in a circle and bow their heads. Gumbo is served over white

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Guyana | 485 long grain rice with warm French bread. Eating gumbo takes time and several large napkins; it is often accompanied by laughter and music. Gumbo is cultural manna to be stored in memory and relived the next time. Gumbo is an important member of the “soul food” category among Americans of African descent. Linda Spears-Bunton See also “African” in African American History. F URTHER R EADING Demers, J., and Andrew Jaeger. 2003. New Orleans by the Bowl: Gumbos, Jambalayas, Soups and Stews. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press. McDonald, James C., and Marcia Gaudet. 2003. Mardi Gras, Gumbo, and Zydeco: Readings in Louisiana Culture. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi. McKinney, L. 2006. New Orleans: A Cultural History. New York: Oxford University Press. Wilkie, L. A. 2000. Creating Freedom: Material Culture and African American Identity at Oakley Plantation, Louisiana, 1840–1950. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

z Guyana Previously known as British Guiana until the country received its independence in May, 1966, Guyana is the only country of the former British Empire that is on the South American mainland, where it shares a border with Venezuela on its western front, Suriname to the east, and its largest and potentially most significant boundary with Brazil on its south and southeastern front. Originally populated by Caribs and Arawaks, the Amerindian population has been repeatedly marginalized. The country’s transition to a technically advanced sugar plantation economy was made within the political/administrative change over from Dutch colonial (Berbice, Esequibo, Demerarra areas) to British imperial rule at the beginning of the 19th century (Rodway 1891–1894), and like the

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Caribbean economies, the development of plantation production for the world market had depended on a continuing inflow of African slave labor until the 1834 emancipation of slavery in the British imperial system led planters to turn to Portugal, China and then India for a new, one hundred year supply of indentured labor. The second investment in the bonded labor relations left its mark on the entire course of Guyana’s post-war development, for as the possession of a captive labor force facilitated the centralization of capitalist control over the difficult hydraulic coastal Atlantic region (Adamson 1972), planters moved to stymie the economic expansion of the free post-emancipation African villages. Ex- indentured Indian workers tied their settlement in Guyana to the commercial production of rice in the coastal region. Canadian and US capital left the control of the coast to British capital and drew Afro-Guyanese workers to the interior of the country for the mining of bauxite (David 1969), and the Amerindian communities were huddled into reservations at the perimeter of the country’s western boundary with Venezuela (Menezes 1977). On the eve of independence, a more modern capitalist sugar plantation sector employed 15 percent of the labor force and produced 17 percent of GDP (David 1969, 122); the technologically more advanced bauxite sector was producing 17 percent of GDP with a much smaller labor force of 4,000 mainly Afro Guyanese workers (David 1969, 191). In between these two key sectors of imperial economic control, British capital had conspired to seize control of vital local industries (Despres 1967). Local, mainly Portuguese and Chinese, merchants had gained a foothold in wholesale and retail trade, and rice production had risen to 5 percent of GDP on 311,147 acres of land (David 1969, 191). Anticipating the removal of British control of the state, both local and World Bank economists had defined the Guyanese economy as “structurally underdeveloped” because of the inherited export-based system of production,

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the low wage levels and absence of critical technical skills of its people, and the country’s depressed level of population growth, which at 560,128 in 1960 was less than the populations of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. On the other hand, Guyana’s greater physical size of 83.000 square miles, its industrial potential, including the energy-generating capacity of its great Kaiteur Falls, and its long-established cultural and migration linkages with the rest of the Anglophone Caribbean, gave the country a special status in an imagined conception of a regionally linked path of modern economic development (Brewster 1973). D ECOLONIZATION , I NDEPENDENCE AND C ARIBBEAN R ELATIONS Like the transitions of Asian and African countries to independence over the conjuncture of 1945–1966, the transition of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Guyana to constitutional independence between 1962–1966 presupposed a history of decolonization in the British imperial system in which the Imperial state had granted independence to the “white dominions” within an imagined cultural fraternity of “Westminster” like states (Lee 1967). This longer history of decolonization in the British empire system marks the critical disjunctures in national and cultural consciousness that would come into being in the post-war independence movements. Beginning with India’s refusal to accept the status of a backward nation whose independence would be postponed to an “undated” future (Lee 1967), Asian and African countries had refused to remain tied to the British monarchical system, and to conceive of post-colonial political transformation as a “modular” rearticulation of the British nation state example (Chatterjee 2001). On the other hand, the idea that countries seeking independence should continue to belong to a Commonwealth of nations sharing a tradition of “Westminster democracy” met with the approval of key Caribbean leaders like the social democrat of Jamaica, Norman Manley; the lib-

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eral nationalist leader of Trinidad and Tobago, Eric Williams, and the Marxist leader of Guyana, Cheddi Jagan, each of whom opted to mobilize for local power within the idiom of British constitutional democracy, and to sustain links of trade, aid and culture with the former Imperial country in the post-independence period. As the Anglophone Caribbean countries began to look for identifying status identities vis-à-vis the other Caribbean countries, the region’s key political scientists demarcated the Anglophone boundary as a zone of “indigeneous Westminster democracies” whose colonial histories more favorably disposed them to sustain electoral democracy than Cuba, the Dominican Republic or Haiti. But from the beginning of the interwar conjuncture (Blanchard 1947), US social scientists pushed behind the appearance of autonomous British control, to reveal the central role that the British Imperial state had played in facilitating the military, economic and cultural expansion of the US from Jamaica in the northern Caribbean, through the eastern Caribbean islands, to mainland Guyana. According to the well-known anthropologist Sydney Mintz (1974), the incorporation of the Caribbean into the US orbit of power had ruptured the viability of preexisting coloniallyrooted class, ethnic and national Caribbean identities. After 1945, the construction of air and sea routes linking the Caribbean to North America had proceeded at a faster rate than the intertrade routes constructed by the British Imperial state within the Anglophone Caribbean region (Poole 1951). The liberalization of Canadian and US immigration laws in 1962 when British immigration routes were being closed to Caribbeans would send a third of the population of the Anglophone zone to North America between 1962–1986. Although the maintenance of juridical and cultural links between Anglophone Caribbean states and Britain would remain important to elites, by the moment of the battle of Grenada in 1983—the first US military intervention in an Anglophone country—it had become clear that economic, military and trade

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Guyana | 487 links between the Caribbean and the US had effectively replaced the previous colonial ties to Britain. As Mintz’s theory implied, the boundaries of cultural and territorial self-conception of Caribbean actors had been (forcibly) remapped by the American structure of regional power. Confronting the transition to constitutional decolonization within the subordinate British Imperial Caribbean field, the Guyanese anthropologist Brackette Williams (1991) succeeded in elaborating two intersecting fields of cultural and political struggle: a cultural nationalist struggle where competing ethnic groups are battling “over place and contribution,” and a struggle of territorial nationalism, where competing political groups must raise a secular political discourse of nationalism in order to prevent the descent of the country into the “status of an unchic peasant society.” In neighboring Barbados, a ruling elite with long-established cultural ties to the British cultural order had exchanged capitalist economic growth for a British cultural identity, but the possibility that such a “Westminster compromise” could sustain itself in post-war Guyana had been displaced in the independence struggle by the central place of the interethnic struggle in the consciousness of Indian and African Guyanese, and because of the early radicalization of the secular political struggle for control of the state. The memories and scars of the Black/Indian “genocidal” encounters of 1964–1966 persist. Unlike South Africa, the movements in Guyana have not sought to establish “peace and truth” commissions, and without this kind of cultural innovation ordinary Guyanese continue to live their lives with the fear of recurring ethnic violence. At the macro level of the state, the lived crisis of ethnic binarization shifts to a field of a stalemated ethnic polarization of political culture. PARTY P OLITICS AND NATIONALIST ACTIONS The entry of the PPP (People’s Progressive Party) into Guyana’s political scene in 1950

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marked a critical point of departure in the evolution of the country’s modern political culture, because the spectacular achievements of the party set a new bar from which the country’s political development would later be judged. Founded by Dr. Cheddi Jagan after his return to Guyana from studying dentistry in the US (Jagan 1966), the party possessed the profile of an insurgent anti-colonial agent of change, dedicated to mobilizing among peasants, workers and the discontented middle classes, and to transforming the structure of class and racial privilege in Guyana. As in many colonial countries, the two central party leaders, Dr. Jagan and Forbes Burnham, would compete with each other for dominance of the country’s politics for a full half century, but the party had attracted a range of native talent drawn to the task of establishing a secular territorial nationalism. Beginning in 1950, the intellectual base of the PPP included the former poet laureate of Guyana, the late Martin Carter who remained a member of the party’s executive until 1957; the militant teacher and historian, Eusi Kwayana, who later founded ASCRIA (the Association for Cultural Relations with Independent Africa) in 1960; the labor historian Ashton Chase; the talented lawyer Moses Bhagwan who headed the party’s youth movement, the Progressive Youth Organization (PYO); and impressive women like the late educator, Winifred Gaskin; the American-born wife of Dr. Jagan, Janet Rosenberg Jagan; and the founder of Bogle L’Ouverture publishing house, Jessica Huntley, who founded the women’s wing of the party. Later Dr. Jagan would solicit the services of well-known international Marxist scholars like the economist Nicholas Caldor who wrote the infamous tax budget of 1962, the Marxist sociologist Horace Davies who had been slated to become the head of the University of Guyana, and the Trinidadian publisher, Jack Kelshall who became Dr. Jagan’s private secretary. Although Dr. Jagan had earned an international reputation as a great fighter for Guyana’s

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freedom, and had sustained an official party affiliation with the international (pro-Soviet) communist movement until the ending of the cold war, Marxist ideology had ceased to have revolutionary meaning in the Guyanese political scene after the split in the PPP into two ethnic parties in 1957. The section of the PPP that remained under Jagan’s control grew into the party representing the 47.9 percent of the Indian Guyanese people; the renamed P.N.C. (People’s National Congress) became the party of 32.83 percent Afro-Guyanese, while the minority ethnicities, the 6 percent Portuguese, 0.73 percent Chinese, the 11.99 percent mixed groups and the 4.54 percent Amerindian combined as the base of the party of capital, the United Force in 1960 (Despres 1967). The two main events that are identified as shaping the political history of modern Guyana are the historic 1953 victory of the first PPP, and the British military occupation of the country that followed four months later. These marked that critical historical moment when strictly local political events have acquired a set of intellectual interrogations linking them to a Caribbean postcolonial field of history. Raymond Smith in 1962 was struck by the sober discipline and optimism of ordinary people who were waiting in line to vote in Guyana’s first election under universal suffrage, and the Party’s commanding victory of 75 percent of the parliamentary seats with a combined Indian and African base of support was unmatched by any of the early political victories of parties in the rest of the Anglophone Caribbean over the independence conjuncture. Winning what the leadership clearly interpreted as a mandate for revolutionary change, the PPP government moved to expand the access of poor children to the better secondary schools, enunciated the policy of removing the churches’ control of education, promoted legislation guaranteeing peasants better access to well-drained land and workers the right to have unions of their choice, and the government even challenged the right of the Imperial

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state to prevent the flow of “undesirable” information into the country (Jagan 1966). In Jamaica and Barbados, parties deploying both socialist and conservative identities had encouraged workers to lift their wages through trade union mobilization, but the official imperial report on the suspension of Guyana’s constitution had made much of the visits of the party intelligentsia to communist conferences in Eastern Europe, and the accusation of communist affiliation trumped the capacity of Caribbean parties to coalesce against the Imperial outside. Although the three central goals of the PPP (the seeking of political independence, the creation of a socialist Guyana, and the promotion of Guyana’s membership in a West Indian Federation) in effect formed the discursive tenets of a pan-Caribbean secular nationalism, none of the political leadership in the Anglophone Caribbean region could sustain the subregional solidarity that would have been necessary to create the Caribbean state that had been imagined prior to independence. The loss would be irretrievable, for whereas the British had implanted a federated state as a condition of its rule in India, this task had fallen to nationalist Caribbean movements where development outside of the constraint of size required it (Demas 1965). Walter Rodney, who would become Guyana’s leading historian and political actor in the 1970s and ’80s, would often tell the story of his having entered one of Guyana’s best academic high schools, Queen’s College, on a special scholarship program legislated by the 1953 PPP government, and the architect of the PPP’s educational, reform in 1953 had been the minister of education, L. F. S. Burnham. Rodney’s murder at the hands of the same Burnham government in 1980 therefore marks the maturing of a 25-year cycle, when new postindependence parties, like the party that Rodney built in Guyana, the W.P.A. (The Working People’s Alliance), and the party that Maurice Bishop built in Grenada (The New Jewel Movement), faced the region’s shift to the status of Anglophone “Banana Republics” often

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Guyana | 489 destroying its most brilliant youth, who were no longer able to remain under the cover of “Westminster” culture. In Guyana, the shift had been made via the fragmentation of the first PPP into two competing ethnic forces. OVERLAPPING D IASPORA The predictable recriminations that followed the ouster of the first PPP from the state encouraged competing ethnic interpretations of the place and contribution of African and Indian leaders to the decline of Guyanese political culture (Premdas 1996). Two key questions dominated the inquiry into the nature of the state in Guyanese society. (1) Did the split in the first PPP into competing Indian/Black governments (one, the PPP representing all Indians after 1957, and the other the PNC becoming the party of Afro Guyanese) represent an inevitable development grounded in the colonial/ethnic division of labor? (2) Had divided cold war patterns of intervention promoted a level of ethnic/racial rupture whose consequences had been unimagined by native actors? Studies of the 1955–1970 conjuncture provide ample evidence for both of these interpretations (Despres 1967). As Dr. Jagan (1966) acknowledged, his decision to welcome Indian rice merchants and small industrialists, Hindu pundits and Moslem mullahs into the post– 1957 PPP, had been motivated by his desire to prevent a conservative capitalist party from drawing support from the rural Indian people. The highly successful consolidation of nonChristian Indian support would make Dr. Jagan a “hero” in the Indian Guyanese world (Premdas1995), but the ideological and racial backlash that Indian electoral power generated among Portuguese capitalists, the Black middle class and the dispossessed Black urban proletariat let loose forces of opposition that he could not control and left the final arbitration of the political road to independence to Britain and the US. Mr. Burnham for his part had accepted the constraints of coming to power in a Portuguese/ Black alliance in 1964, but he would find it easy

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to break loose from this partnership, when the Portuguese party became implicated in the attempted “coup” at the Venezuelan border. More tactically savvy than his rival, Burnham would successfully court the support of the Caribbean intellectual community, by sponsoring Caribbean arts festivals, turning Georgetown into the host capital of CARICOM, and using the skills of his competent foreign minister, Rashly Jackson, to stabilize the VenezuelaGuyana boundary dispute and link with Castro’s chairing of the nonaligned movement. Although Burnham became a hero in parts of the Caribbean until the murder of Rodney, his regime came in for relentless criticism by the intellectual groups at the University of Guyana, who attacked his “scientifically” rigging of elections, and the centralization of power that the nationalization of the bauxite and sugar industries after 1970 facilitated. In 1979, the WPA manifesto argued that the rise of a Black ethnic bureaucratic group making use of the resources, privileges and facilities of the state, “stamp them as a bourgeoisie of a new type, occupying with increased license the gap left by foreign business . . . control of the state gives the new rulers the aim of building an indigeneous capitalism” (Working People’s Alliance Manifesto 1979). By 1980, the rise of a state-based Black bourgeoisie could be observed across the Anglophone Caribbean, but its dependence on economic trade linkages with the US made the reproduction of its Guyanese counterpart by “left” means highly unstable. What the WPA could not foresee in 1979 was that the political accommodation to U.S. power in Guyana would come from Dr. Jagan, who having spent three decades as a loyal ethnic communist opposition party, at the end of the Cold War would travel “cup in hand” to sell rice to the US. The irony was noted by the U.S. media that “the firebrand who led Guyana to independence and was one of the Caribbean’s most contentious leaders for half a century, died yesterday at the Walter Reed Army hospital” (The New York Times, March 6, 1997). The real irony was that the leader whom

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the CIA had cultivated as the alternative to Jagan had died in 1984 in the care of Cuban doctors. Guyana politics has remained both paradoxical and stagnant. C REATIVE AND I NTELLECTUAL C ONTRIBUTIONS TO THE A FRICAN D IASPORA At the level of cultural and intellectual production, Guyana has produced some of the Caribbean and African diaspora’s leading writers and scholars. In many ways led by Martin Carter (1927–1997) whose Poems of Resistance (1954) set the standard in terms of the combination of history, politics and creativity, are writers like Edgar Mittelholzer, Andrew Salkey, John Agard, Roy Heath, Jan Carew, Beryl Gilroy, the productive work of Jessica and Eric Huntley in the creation of Bogle L’Ouverture Publications (London), Fred d’Aguiar, Grace Nichols, Janice Lowe Shinebourne, Cyril and David Dabydeen, the scholarship of Gordon Rohlehr F and Ivan van Sertima. Significant as well are the feminist activism and writing of Andaiye and the community work of the Red Thread, which has been working for women’s empowerment but also toward redefining the political and social culture of violence and racism in Guyana. A twentyfour-hour vigil on April 30, 2003 by the Red Thread, in collaboration with a range of other local and international organizations and groups, challenged the culture of violence, which was permeating the society. Above all, the major contribution of Walter Rodney to the articulation of a Panafricanist scholarship, politics and activism, puts Guyana squarely on the map of the African Diaspora. Monica Jardine See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Caribbean Black Power; Gilroy, Beryl (1924–2007); Rodney, Walter (1942–1980); Venezuela: AfroVenezuelans.

Braveboy-Wagner, Jacqueline A. 1984. The Venezuela–Guyana Border Dispute: Britain’s Colonial Legacy in Latin America. Connecticut: Westview Press. Brewster, Havelock. 1973. The Dynamics of West Indian Economic Integration. Studies in Regional Economic Integration. Mona, Jamaica: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies. Blanshard, Paul. 1947. Democracy and Empire in the Caribbean. New York: Macmillan. Chatterjee, Partha. 2001. Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. David, Wilfred. 1969. The Economic Development of Guyana 1953–1964. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Demas, William G. 1965. The Economics of Development in Small Countries. Montreal: McGill University Press. Despres, Leo A. 1967. Cultural Pluralism and National Politics in British Guiana: Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jagan, Cheddi. 1966. The West on Trial. New York: International Publishers. Lee, J. M. 1967. Colonial Development and Good Government. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Menezes, Sister Mary N. 1977. British Policy towards the Amerindians in British Guiana. Oxford: Clarendon. Mintz, Sidney W. 1974. Caribbean Transformations. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Nettles, Kimberly. 2007. “Becoming Red Thread Women: Alternative Visions of Gendered Politics in Post-Independence Guyana.” Social Movement Studies 6:1 (May): 57–82. Poole, Bernard L. 1951. The Caribbean Commission. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Premdas, Ralph R. 1996. Ethnic Conflict and Development: The Case of Guyana. Vermont: Ashgate. Rodway, James. 1891–1894. History of British Guiana from the Year 1668. 3 vols. Georgetown: University Microfilms (1972). Williams, Brackette F. 1991. Stains on My Name, War in My Veins: Guyana and the Politics of Cultural Struggle. Durham: Duke University Press.

F URTHER R EADING Adamson, Alan H. 1972. Sugar Without Slaves: The Political Economy of British Guiana, 1838– 1904. New Haven: Yale University Press.

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Haile Selassie I (1892–1975)

of a school bearing his name in 1925. He is also credited with abolishing slavery throughout the empire. On April 3, 1930, he took the official title of His Imperial Majesty, Haile Selassie I, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God, and King of Kings of Ethiopia. On November 2, 1930, he and his wife, Empress Menen, held their coronation at the Cathedral of St. George in Addis Ababa. Internationally, Ethiopia under the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie afforded members of the African Diaspora a conceptualization of Africa that countered the popularized notion of “The Dark Continent.” However, even before Emperor Selassie came to power, Ethiopia was held in great esteem among Africa’s peoples and her diasporan communities. Biblical reference to the Ethiopia of antiquity, denoting the vibrancy of her land and the spirituality of her peoples, provided a counternarrative to the calculated interpretation of the scriptures by missionaries and slave masters who endeavored to render Africans as wretched and subhuman. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the perceived parallel between Ethiopians and Africans in general engendered the development of Ethiopianism, a Pan-African movement popular among members of the Diaspora in Britain, the United States, and the Caribbean.

His Imperial Majesty (H.I.M.) Emperor Haile Selassie I stands as one of the Diaspora’s most powerful political and spiritual figures of the 20th century. Born Tafari Makonnen on July 23, 1892, in Ejersa Goro, outside the city of Harar, Haile Selassie was reared within one of Africa’s most renowned and longest surviving royal families. From as early as 1916, Ras (Prince) Tafari Makonnen was declared regent and successor to Empress Zauditu in recognition of his sophistication in balancing progressive reform ideas and Ethiopia’s cultural and theological traditions. His acumen and diplomacy ensured his advance through various governor appointments and afforded his exercise of power as a paramount ambassador. In 1923, Ras Tafari achieved membership status for Ethiopia in the League of Nations. In 1924, he embarked upon a tour of Jerusalem, Egypt, and much of Europe where he was well received. As the son of Ras Makonnen of the ruling House of Shoa, and the cousin of the legendary Menelik II, his reputation preceded him. Long before he was crowned negus of Ethiopia in 1928, Ras Tafari effected change in the form of land and taxation reform and education expansion, including the establishment 491 www.abc-clio.com

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However, with the coronation of an African emperor in a political milieu dominated by imperialist maneuverings and racist ideologies, the entire diasporan expanse was afforded a figurehead and mythic homeland to identify with. Haile Selassie I, therefore, represented more than a statesman; he became the embodiment of black pride. The coronation of Haile Selassie I took on additional significance for the followers of Marcus Garvey in the early part of the 20th century. Garvey’s historic prompt to “look to the East for the coming of a Black King” led the founders of a newly emerging resistance theology and lifestyle, Rastafarianism, to identify further biblical references authenticating Emperor Selassie as the long-awaited messiah. Both Haile Selassie’s solomonic title, and evidence garnered from the 13th-century Kebra Nagast, cemented his legitimacy as the head of a black monarchy whose lineage could be traced back to Solomon, son of King David, and the legendary Queen of Sheba. As a result, Haile Selassie I (whose name translates as “power of the Trinity”) was seen as God incarnate by one of the world’s largest and most influential Diaspora-born religions. Indeed, it was on account of Emperor Selassie’s deification and aggrandized status among member states of the international community that Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia held such significance. News of Italy’s occupation of Ethiopia, and Selassie’s forced exile from 1936 to 1941, instigated such outcry that activism and resistance to colonialism became more urgent. The proliferation of Ethiopian support organizations, as well as the intensified coverage by the black press, exposed the ties of sentimentality evidenced among Africans at home and abroad. Kwame Nkrumah attributed much of the fervor for Ghanaian independence to both the perceived affront toward Haile Selassie and the threat to the integrity of Ethiopia. Hence, Haile Selassie is not only regarded as invaluable to the independence movement for his role in founding the Organization of African

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Unity (OAU) and assistance in the liberation of other colonized African states, but the attempted colonization of Ethiopia by Italy was a catalyst for a surge in racial consciousness that portended the liberation and Civil Rights Movements of the mid-20th century. Although Haile Selassie I was deposed on September 12, 1974, and died while in detention in August of the following year, his influence extends well beyond the span of his reign or the borders of Ethiopia. Present-day Africanists continue to engage the history of Ethiopia as a means to access world history from antiquity to contemporary times. Via the study of the politics of Haile Selassie’s reign, the African Diaspora is able to gain insight into the scramble for Africa, colonial history, the impact of the Cold War on independent African states, the threat of neocolonialism, and the debilitating effects of the receipt of external aid. In grappling with the aforementioned, the rationalization for the establishment of the African Union in 2002, some 40 years after its predecessor (the OAU), becomes evident. Socioculturally, Haile Selassie’s endorsement of African emigration and purvey of Shashamane a land settlement given over to and now a homeland to Rastafari from the African diaspora, effectively preserve the eschatological concept of return for Rastafari and encourage a continued striving toward the actualization of a Pan-African reality for diasporans in general. Janice Giles See also Abyssinia/Ethiopia; Pan-Africanism; Rastafarianism. F URTHER R EADING Budge, E. A. Wallis. 1922. Kebra Nagast. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Chevannes, Barry. 1994. Rastafari: Roots and Ideology. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Getachew, Indrias. 2001. Beyond the Throne: The Enduring Legacy of Emperor Haile Selassie I. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Shama Books. Marcus, Harold G. 1987. Haile Selassie I: The Formative Years, 1892–1936. Los Angeles: University of California Press.

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Hair | 493 Mockler, Anthony. 1984. Haile Selassie’s War: The Italian-Ethiopian Campaign, 1935–1941. New York: Random House. Mosley, Leonard. Haile Selassie: The Conquering Lion. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1964. Owens, Joseph. 1982. Dread the Rastafarians of Jamaica. Westport, CT: Heinemann. Rogers, Robert Athlyi. 1924–1928. The Holy Piby. www.sacred-texts.com/afr/piby/index.htm (accessed October 2003). Selassie I, Haile. 1999. My Life and Ethiopia’s Progress: The Autobiography of Emperor Haile Selassie I. Trans. Edward Ullendorff. New York: Frontline Books.

z Hair Black hair—referring colloquially to a range of hair textures on the heads of people of African descent—begins simply as keratin that protrudes from our skin; however, across the African Diaspora, black hair serves as a marker for racial and personal identity, a source of emotional trauma, a political statement, a social moniker, an art form, a source of discrimination, and the basis for rituals, beliefs, and culture. Black hair is primarily characterized by its distinctive wave, curl, or kink pattern. This tightly curled or spiral hair is the result of hair follicles that produce flat or elliptical hair cells and the resulting hair shafts. Lower levels of sebum, or oil, and larger amounts of low-sulfur protein also increase the amount of twisting in the hair shaft. All these biological factors work in unison to form what is traditionally viewed as black hair. Because the curl pattern in black hair is so strong, its texture has been characterized as being coarse, woolly, or cottony. Scientists have used the morphological differences in hair shaft curvature to infer racial classifications. White racism has been a major factor in the perception of black hair as a negative variation from the norm. Defining African physical fea-

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tures, such as hair, as the antithesis of the EuroAmerican beauty ideal led to the development of pejorative terms such as “nappy,” “bad,” “fragile,” “woolly,” and “coarse” to describe phenotypically black hair. Almost every commonly used descriptor for black hair is negative. Throughout the African Diaspora, negative connotations have been associated with having nappy, kinky, and coarse hair. In the past in African American culture, hair has been divided into two opposing categories: “good hair,” which is straight and silky, and “bad hair,” which is curly or nappy. However, the perception of black hair as an overtly negative physical characteristic is slowly changing (Banks 2000). The texture of black hair makes it amenable to complex grooming practices. Its natural ability to be molded, sculpted, and generally extended from the scalp in a multitude of directions and shapes has created a plethora of potential hairstyles for people with black hair. This versatility has resulted in the development of black hairstyles that range from what can be characterized as traditional to contemporary responses to the beauty ideals encountered during colonization and enslavement. One of the most common hairstyles worn by people of African descent is braiding. Braiding has traditionally involved twisting three sections of hair in an overlapping motion until the end of the hair is reached. Cornrows, or canerows, are a traditional form of African hair braiding art that involves braiding all or part of the hair in tight rows very close to the scalp. In Africa, particularly among the Yoruba, cornrow braids were used to symbolize important cultural markers such as ethnicity, social status, religion, and age. Braiders produce many artistic cornrow styles that range from simple lines to complex replicas of geometrical shapes. This has led to the study of cornrows by mathematicians who specialize in ethnomathematics, which is a field of science that promotes the culturally situated understanding of mathematical concepts. Proponents of ethnomathematics argue that geometrical cornrow designs

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are evidence of the complex nature of traditional African mathematics and culture (Banks 2000; Seiber 2000). One of the first contemporary hairstyling methods to gain widespread popularity among U.S. African Americans was the use of the hot comb to straighten the hair. Madame C. J. Walker (1867–1919) the first African-American woman millionaire, cited by some as the first self-made American woman millionaire, is often credited with inventing the hot comb, but in reality she simply introduced the French-created product to large numbers of black women with her “shampoo-press-andcurl” system (Byrd and Tharps 2001; Lasky and Bennett 2000). The hot comb is a metal comb that is heated and pulled through the hair to temporarily straighten black hair. The popular predecessor of the hot comb was a similar flat iron tool called pullers, which were sold by the Poro Company. Both the Poro Company, developed by Annie Malone, and Madame C. J. Walker’s company were extremely successful (Phillips 2003). They used such network marketing techniques as paying agents commissions for sales and recruitment activities, training and incentive programs, and a policy for educating and empowering black women. Eventually they found markets for their products in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. One of the first chemical straightening methods developed for black hair was called congalene, or conk. This process involved placing a caustic mixture of eggs, potatoes, and soap powder or lye on the hair to chemically alter it (Byrd and Tharps 2001). This style was popular among black men; the best-known account of the pain and pleasure this procedure produced can be found in the Autobiography of Malcolm X. In the United States in the mid-1960s, “Negroes” redefined themselves as black people, and black hair became political with the advent of a hairstyle called the Afro (Byrd and Tharps 2001). The Afro hairstyle is produced by comb-

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ing natural black hair away from the scalp. The curl pattern in black hair allows the hair to extend away from the scalp without dropping. This natural strength can be used to create a domelike hairstyle that can be molded with light patting. A less sculpted form of the Afro was the natural. The Afro gained its political significance when it began to symbolize the Black Power Movement. It was associated with such overtly political groups as the Black Panthers and with such slogans as “Black is beautiful.” The political and beauty ideals of the Black Power Movement are summarized by the lyrics James Brown wrote for the song “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud.” African Americans began to use their hair as a symbol of their connection to Africa and the African Diaspora while simultaneously rejecting notions of assimilation and integration (Byrd and Tharps 2001). This made the Afro one of the most politically charged hairstyles for blacks. Relaxers, or perms, remain one of the most popular hairstyles among black women. This look is achieved by using a mixture of either sodium hydroxide or guanidine hydroxide to penetrate the cortex of the hair shaft and break the cross-bonds of the cortical layer. This process substantially weakens the hair strength, but it provides the wearer with hair that appears straight. Despite its detrimental effects on the physical makeup of the hair, relaxers are used by black women across the African Diaspora. Some scholars have argued that the popularity of this particular hairstyle is evidence of people of African descent having assimilated the beauty ideals of European culture. Alternatively, scholars have also proposed that individuals who wear this hairstyle are simply interested in styling versatility. Dreadlocks, or simply locks or dreads, are achieved by allowing the hair to intertwine and twist into its natural curl pattern. This process causes the hair to become matted, and it can no longer be combed. In curly black hair, this process can occur naturally or can be cultivated by twisting or palm-rolling techniques. Dread-

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Haiti | 495 locks have been worn by Africans since ancient times. However, more recently they have been associated with Rastafarianism through the popularization of the hairstyle by Bob Marley. Some people argue that the current name for this hairstyle came from Rastafarians, who wanted to create dread in the hearts of nonbelievers. Currently, this particular hairstyle evokes images of African cultural and religious affiliation and political activism, despite the fact that some wearers are simply interested in the aesthetics of the style—that is, what are called “cultural dreads.”

pendent black republic in the world. The latter accomplishment earns Haiti a special place in African Diaspora studies, for, as the Martinican poet and politician Aimé Césaire points out, it is the place where Négritude stood up for the first time, thus ushering in centuries of struggle for African liberation from slavery and the slave trade, colonialism, political oppression, economic exploitation, cultural alienation, and other indignities. Sadly, 200 years after independence, Haiti is still in the throes of these ills.

Sybil Rosado

G EOGRAPHY Covering slightly less than 28,000 square kilometers of territory, Haiti occupies the western third of the island of Hispaniola, which is part of the archipelago of the Greater Antilles in the Caribbean. Haiti has 1,771 kilometers of coastline and a land border (with the Dominican Republic) of 360 kilometers. Mountains dominate the topography of Haiti, among them Massif de la Selle (the highest elevation at 2,680 meters) and Massif de la Hotte, but there are extensive areas of plains and valleys suitable for agriculture, such as Grande Rivière du Nord, Plaine du Cul-de-Sac, Leogane, and Artibonite. Haiti has no truly navigable rivers but water resources, such as the Artibonite River, the Saut D’eau waterfall, Etang Saumatre, and numerous streams, are not insignificant.

See also Afrocentricity; Black Power Movement in the United States; Malcolm X (1925–1965); Marley, Robert Nesta (Bob) (1945–1981); Rastafarianism. F URTHER R EADING Banks, Ingrid. 2000. Hair Matters: Beauty, Power, and Black Women’s Consciousness. New York: New York University Press. Byrd, Ayana, and Lori Tharps. 2001. Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Lasky, Kathryn, and Nneka Bennett. 2000. Vision of Beauty: The Story of Sarah Breedlove Walker. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press. Madame C.J. Walker (1867–1919). The Official Website. www.madamecjwalker.com (Accessed January 19, 2008). Phillips, Evelyn N. 2003. “Annie Malone’s Poro: Addressing Whiteness and Dressing BlackBodied Women.” Transforming Anthropology 11.2 (2003): 4–17. Seiber, Roy, and Frank Herreman. 2000. Hair in African Art and Culture. New York: Museum of African Art.

z Haiti Haiti, or Land of Mountains in the Amerindian Arawak language, is the second oldest independent republic in the Americas (after the United States) and the first inde-

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P OPULATION As of 2004, Haiti had a population of 8 million people divided almost evenly between males and females (respectively, 49 and 51 percent). The annual population growth rate hovers around 2.2 percent. The birthrate is 37 per 1,000 people, and the death rate is 12 per 1,000 people. The infant mortality rate is high—73 deaths per 1,000 live births—but so too is the fertility rate at five children for each woman of childbearing age. Life expectancy at birth is 53 years. The combination of size (geography and topography), environmental degradation, and demography (population growth) makes Haiti

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the most densely populated country in the Americas (288 people per square kilometer), although population distribution is greatly uneven. Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s largest city and its capital, has a population of 2 million people. But Cap Haitien, the second-largest city, has a population of 250,000 people. Other towns include, in order of population, Les Cayes, Gonaives, and Jacmel, but none has more than 100,000 inhabitants. Haiti is still overwhelmingly rural: nearly 60 percent of Haitians live in the countryside. T HE E NVIRONMENT Environmental degradation is extensive. This is, arguably, the most important problem facing Haiti, for without a sustainable environment, economic development is not possible. Less than 2 percent of Haitian territory has forest cover, down from 50 percent at the turn of the 20th century. Haiti loses hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of topsoil every year to deforestation, which is caused by the relative scarcity of arable land (28 percent of the territory) and, more importantly, the use of timber as a major source of energy, especially for cooking. There are some areas of forest conservation, such as Forêt des Pins above Port-au-Prince and Pic Macaya National Park in the southeast, but even these sanctuaries are under constant assault by illegal loggers aided by the connivance of corrupt state officials. As a result of deforestation, hurricanes devastated parts of Haiti in May and September 2004, specifically in Mapou, Fonds Verrettes, and Gonaives. Haiti is also prone to earthquakes. C ULTURE Haiti is the most African country outside Africa: at least 95 percent of Haitians are black or of African origin, and 5 percent are white and mixed (or mulatto). Officially, 80 percent of Haitians practice Roman Catholicism (down from 90 percent in the mid-1950s) and 20 percent are Protestant. But Vodun, which has been much maligned and misunderstood and can be traced directly to the west coast of

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Africa, is the most influential religion, inasmuch as it preceded the Western Christian churches. Vodun has shaped Haitian history much more profoundly than Christianity. The Haitian Revolution started at a Vodun ceremony in Bois Caiman in the north in 1791 (see the History section for details), and among its leaders was a houngan (Vodun priest) from Jamaica: Dutty Boukman. Virtually all Haitians speak Creole at birth, a synthetic tongue combining French, English, Spanish, and even Amerindian, but which, according to linguists, is African in syntax. The family, not the nation or the state, is the primary referent for most Haitians. Haitians deeply love their family, nuclear or extended, and it is not unusual for mutual friends from two families to assimilate into one, even in the absence of blood relations. This, along with spirituality, is perhaps the most visible manifestation of an African presence in Haiti. Slavery and colonialism did not obliterate the Haitians’ attachment to family; they merely transferred it to a new milieu, where old modes of familial veneration were preserved. Hence in Haitian Vodun many deceased ancestors become venerated (loas), and an annual visit to the cemetery on Saints’ Day is not simply an occasion for the living to reconnect with the ancestors, whose souls are thought to have returned to “Guinea” (Africa) upon death; it is almost a pilgrimage. In rural Haiti the family is an economic unit: all members lend a hand in cultivating the family plot (jadin), and the customary practice of primogeniture dictates that all children, legitimate or illegitimate, are entitled to inherit land upon the father’s death. In this way, it is a rare Haitian peasant who does not have access to land, small, contested, and unproductive as it may be, a situation that is not uncommon in Africa where land is “owned” by the community and individual members have user rights. Diaspora Haitians are not exempt from familial obligations—on the contrary. Annual remittance from Diaspora Haitians is estimated to be 1.6 billion USD, or 1/3 of Haiti’s GDP, far

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Haiti | 497 more than Haiti receives in foreign aid from any single source, attesting once again to familial loyalty and solidarity. E CONOMY Haiti has a market-based, developing economy. With an estimated per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of $1,800 in 2007, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. The economy shrank by 20 percent between 1991 and 1994. There was a modest rebound in the mid-1990s, but the economy shrank again by 1.2 percent in 2001, 0.9 percent in 2002, and 3.5 percent in 2004. At least 80 percent of the people live below the poverty line, and 70 percent of the workforce is unemployed. Even though two-thirds of the Haitian labor force consists of farmers, agriculture accounts for only 30 percent of GDP, while services and industry account for 50 and 20 percent of GDP, respectively. In truth, all of these figures are, at best, educated guesses, for 90 percent of economic activities in Haiti are in the informal sector. Haiti produces coffee, cocoa, mangoes, sugarcane, corn, rice, sorghum (millet), and wood—all, except mangoes and a modest amount of coffee and cocoa, are for domestic consumption. Industrial production includes light assembly manufacturing in textile apparel, electronics, and toys, mostly for export, and basic consumer goods (e.g., cooking oil, soap, matches, soft drinks, flour, cigarettes) for the Haitian market. Haiti imports far more than it exports: in 2007, exports stood at an estimated $554.8. million (FOB) while imports were $1.844 billion (FOB). Consequently, there are chronic trade deficits, and the external debt in 2007 was $1.248 billion. Haiti’s largest trading partners are the United States, the Dominican Republic, Columbia, Venezuela and the European Union countries. Haiti is a member of the Caribbean Community. S TATE Haiti is a unitary state with a nominally strong central government, which is divided among

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executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The executive system is a hybrid modeled after that of the French; power is shared between the head of government, or prime minister, and the head of state, or president. Parliament is bicameral: there is a 27-member Senate and an 83-member Chamber of Deputies. Senators are elected for four years and deputies for two years. The two chambers may meet in a National Assembly to consider important matters. The judicial branch is divided among a supreme court (Cour de Cassation), courts of appeal, courts of first instance, courts of peace, and special courts, such as the Superior Court of Auditors and Administrative Disputes, which investigates cases of financial malfeasance by state officials. Haitian law is based on the Napoleonic tradition rather than English common law. The 1987 constitution is, nominally, the law of the land. The largest administrative unit in Haiti is the department (département), of which there are ten: Artibonite, Centre, Grande Anse, Nord, Nord-Est, Nord-Ouest, Ouest, Sud, Nippes, and Sud-Est. The smallest is the communal section (section communale). In 1995 Haiti effectively disbanded its army: the Forces Armées d’Haiti (FAD’H). Internal security is provided by the 8,000-member Haitian National Police, assisted since 2004 by a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping force (Mission des Nations Unies pour la Stabilité en Haiti, MINUSTAH). Haitians constitutionally enjoy basic freedoms. Political parties abound. They include Lespwa, Fanmi Lavalas, Organisation du Peuple en Lutte and Fusion. There are 41 AM and 26 FM radio broadcast stations, most privately owned and none overtly censured by the state. There are two television broadcast stations—one state owned, one privately owned—and numerous newspapers. Daily newspapers include Le Nouvelliste, one of the oldest newspapers in the Americas (first published in 1886) and weeklies include Haiti en Marche, Haiti Observateur, and Haitian Times, which are published in the United States.

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The state in contemporary Haiti is highly dysfunctional. The democratically elected government led by President Jean-Bertand Aristide was overthrown in February 2004 by an armed uprising and heavy diplomatic pressure from the United States and France (Aristide claimed he was kidnapped). In 2006 there were presidential and legislative elections. After days of tension René Préval was declared the winner. His party, Lespwa, won a plurality but not a majority in parliament, which has barely functioned. Insecurity is rampant. Kidnapping for ransom is common, at least in Port-auPrince. In parts of the countryside, former soldiers, thugs chased out of Port-au-Prince and narcotic traffickers rule. The justice system is in tatters. In sum, Haiti is a failed state, that is to say, centralized authority has nearly collapsed, leaving the functions of statecraft— policing, national defense, environmental protection, economic development, social services delivery—either unfulfilled or to external (UN) and non-state actors (humanitarian nongovernmental organizations). The travails of the state and economy in Haiti, and indeed of Haiti itself, are long-standing; they cannot be understood without a historical perspective. H ISTORY Christopher Columbus made landfall in Haiti in 1492. In less than 30 years the Indian population was virtually wiped out by disease, war, and hard labor. To make up for the shortage in humanpower and mollify those in Spain (e.g., Las Casas) who pleaded on behalf of the Amerindians, Africans were imported onto the island beginning in 1530. The development of plantation agriculture took some time to be successful, but by the late 17th century Haiti had become sufficiently attractive for the colonial powers to fight over it. Spain ceded the western part of Hispaniola (Haiti) to France in 1697 in the Treaty of Ryswick. Through investment in irrigation and large-scale importation of African slaves from Senegal to Angola, the French made Haiti a successful economy (that

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is, for French capitalists). In the late 18th century, Haiti accounted for as much as half of France’s foreign trade, producing sugar, coffee, and wood. It was the Pearl of the Antilles. But underneath the prosperity lay widespread misery. Slaves were worked to death—literally. Average longevity among them did not surpass 30 years. The Code Noir of 1665 was supposed to offer some protection against inhuman treatment of slaves by their masters, but few paid attention. Environmental degradation, even then, was extensive, as trees were cut down to be exported to Europe or used as fuel for the sugar furnace blasts. Schools were few, as white planters came to the colony in the hope of rapid fortune so they could return to France, purchase titles of nobility, and mingle in the salons of Paris. Cap Haitien (then Cap Français) was in its heyday: beautiful, with a superb port, scores of colonial buildings with wraparound balconies, narrow cobblestone streets, and wide boulevards. Beyond city limits plantations in Plaine du Nord churned out sugar for European consumption, but the rest of Haiti did not evince as much prosperity. A visitor, Baron de Wimffen, likened Port-auPrince in the late 18th century to a Tartar camp, with squalid streets and open sewers. The colonial state was extremely weak. Governors were appointed by the Crown and enjoyed significant formal powers, but on the ground the reality was different. The colonial army was small and often ill-equipped, lacking even footwear for its soldiers. Defense and internal policing were left to voluntary militias controlled by planters. They often ignored the injunctions of Crown officials, including governors, because they had the advantage of the gun. Corruption was rampant in the civil service. One comptroller in the 1750s eloped with the entire payroll of the colonial administration. In the late 18th century, Haiti was a social powder keg: 20,000 whites, 30,000 mulattoes and free blacks, and as many as 450,000 enslaved Africans shared the same space in a most

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Haiti | 499 rigid and racist caste system. All manner of divisions cut through Haiti like a knife. Regionalism was strong: the north, west, and south were separately (mis)governed, and identities were forged on this geographic demarcation of Haitian territory. The whites were divided between the grands and petits blancs (big and small whites), financiers and plantation owners, liberals (meaning pro-independence), and conservatives (pro-Crown), but virtually all were dead set against even minor social reform (e.g., greater rights for mulattoes and free blacks, improvement in slave diet and living conditions) that challenged the supremacy of their race. On the eve of rebellion in 1791, mulattoes owned as much as a third of the plantations and a fourth of the slaves, but their economic success was in reverse proportion to their political misfortune. They could not bear arms, then a sign of so-called gentlemanliness, wear certain fabrics, sit on the same church benches as whites, or vote. The slaves had it worse than everyone. After all, they were property, so they could be mishandled in any way their masters saw fit, and the Saint Domingue (Haiti) master may have been particularly sadistic, because of the numerical advantage of the slaves and the ease with which fresh ones could be acquired from Africa. Below the aforementioned divisions were the intrigues of the imperial powers that rivaled France: Britain, first of all, but also Spain and a young United States. These countries were anxious to see France lose its monopolistic grip on Haiti, and so they took turns fomenting trouble inside the colony. Their interest was commerce, mainly the sugar and coffee trade, not the wellbeing of the slaves. Haiti literally went up in flame in midAugust 1791 after a Vodun ceremony at Bois Caiman in the north, at which a Jamaica-born leader by the name of Dutty Boukman told his followers that God had decided that the time had come to redeem the African race. Over the next 13 years the country would be consumed by local and regional rebellions, which would

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ultimately culminate in a national revolution that created the world’s first black republic in 1804. Scores of leaders would distinguish themselves in the melee, among them Macaya, Yayou, and Sans Souci (all Africa born), but the most heralded ones, rightly or wrongly, would turn out to be Creoles, that is, those born in the New World: Toussaint L’Ouverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Henri Christophe (born in Grenada), and Alexandre Pétion. The Haitian Revolution was more of a series of rebellions against slavery than a nationalist campaign for a new nation-state. This is absolutely vital for understanding postcolonial Haiti. Toussaint L’Ouverture (in power from 1799 to 1802) never declared Haiti independent from France. After his capture, his closest generals, including Dessalines, Christophe, and Pétion, were integrated into the expeditionary army sent by Napoleon Bonaparte to maintain French control over the colony. They fought against the slaves who continued the fight led by Toussaint L’Ouverture, until they learned of Bonaparte’s real plan—the reestablishment of slavery (in fact, slavery was restored in Guadeloupe and Martinique in 1802). Greater unity among the Haitians, an epidemic of yellow fever among the French, and a naval blockade by Britain and the United States contributed to the French defeat on November 18, 1803, at Vertières, and the Haitians became independent January 1, 1804. But the great victory would be short-lived, and its price in human terms high: as many as 150,000 dead Africans and 40,000 Frenchmen. Haiti became perhaps the only country in world history that lost its entire ruling class to revolution, and the high number of deaths among ordinary Haitians led to a general labor shortage for much of the 19th century. Haiti would never again constitute itself into a modern state with responsible governments and a viable economy capable of ameliorating the lives of most Haitians. Dessalines was proclaimed governor and then emperor, but he was assassinated on October 17, 1806. His

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principal successors (and probably coconspirators in his death), Christophe and Pétion, could not agree on how to share the spoils of power. They broke up Haiti into two microstates in 1807: a republic led by Pétion in the west and south and a kingdom under Christophe in the North. Pétion pursued (or was compelled to do so by events) a policy of land reform, which transformed the plantation estates into mini-fundias. Christophe attempted to restore plantation agriculture on a crop-sharing basis, but high rates of desertion to Pétion’s more liberal mini-republic undermined the efficacy of the strategy; two modes of production could not coexist side by side in so small a country, indeed, not even in the United States. Political and economic dualism prevailed in Haiti until 1820, when the country became whole again under the leadership of Jean-Pierre Boyer. Boyer continued Pétion’s land reform policy; in less than one generation the Haitian economy was completely changed: export-oriented, capitalist agriculture on large estates using slave labor gave way to subsistence farming on small plots (jadins) by free peasants. The new Haitian elite would turn their back on agriculture and devote themselves entirely to politics. Control of the state would become the primary avenue for private capital accumulation, making the capture of state power an end in itself and giving Haitian politics its zero-sum character. Boyer invaded the eastern part of Hispaniola in 1824 and governed the entire island until 1844. After his overthrow, Haiti atrophied to its preoccupation size. Coups d’état, civil wars, territorial secession, constitutional changes, and presidential assassinations would become the norm in Haitian politics from the 1840s onward. Between 1911 and 1914 there would be three presidents, the last, Vilbrun Guillaume Sam, was literally shred to pieces by a Port-au-Prince mob after he had apparently ordered the massacre of political prisoners in the Port-au-Prince penitentiary. This was the excuse the Americans needed to invade, but the

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real motive may have been to collect money Haiti owed to National City Bank and prevent the Germans from posing an effective challenge to the Monroe Doctrine. The U.S. Marines, aided by various puppet regimes, governed Haiti from 1915 to 1934. They made some progress: they eliminated warlordism, stabilized the political system, restored order to Haitian public finance, built roads, and implemented a public health program. They failed at modernizing the economy, exacerbated social tension (mainly between the light-skinned Haitian upper class and the dark-skinned middle class and poor Haitians), and, above all, prepared the way for the tyranny of the Haitian army. The 1940s and 1950s were years of relative prosperity, thanks to stable commodity prices, especially coffee, some success at large-scale banana production, and tourism. Hurricane Hazel devastated the economy in 1954. Two years later the Haitian state collapsed after the departure of military strongman (kanson fè or trousers of steel) Paul E. Magloire. Amid the rubble, the U.S.-trained army rigged presidential elections in 1957 in favor of François (Papa Doc) Duvalier, who ruled until his death in 1971 but not before bestowing power to his son, Jean-Claude (Baby Doc). Duvalier fils ruled until February 1986, when he was forced out in the usual Haitian way: popular uprising and foreign pressure (i.e., from the United States). Haitian politics resumed its brigandage and instability after the Duvalier dynasty ended. There were five governments (three military and two civilian) between 1986 and 1990. In 1990, democratic elections brought former priest and liberation theologian JeanBertrand Aristide to power. He was overthrown in a military coup in September 1991. The Haitian army (FAD’H) effectively ruled Haiti between September 1991 and October 1994, during which as many as 5,000 Haitians are estimated to have been murdered. Widespread human rights violations, the continued influx of so-called “boat people” into South Florida,

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Haiti | 501 and pressure from Aristide allies in the United States (e.g., the Congressional Black Caucus, TransAfrica) may have compelled the democratic administration of President Bill Clinton to launch a second U.S.-led occupation of Haiti in October 1994 and restore Aristide to power. Aristide was allowed to serve his remaining term until December 1995, when he stepped down and made way for his former prime minister, René Garcia Préval. He ruled until 2000, when Aristide ran for the presidency again and was elected a second time. Aristide was forced out of power by a popular uprising and U.S. and French pressure in February 2004. New elections were held in 2006, to restart Haiti’s unending transition to democratic rule under second-time president René Préval. A SSESSMENT In the absence of sustained infusion of economic aid by the international community, coupled with a prise de conscience among Haitians that their country is essentially the open sore of the Caribbean, if not the African world, and, therefore, must change, Haiti’s prospects are bleak. Haiti may be the only country in the world in which population and economic growth have taken divergent paths in the past 50 years. The attendant result is painfully apparent to all: misery. But analysis of Haiti must not give way to a Caribbean version of Afro-pessimism or self-denigration. Indeed, Haiti’s current status as a failed state should not hide its historical significance. The Haitian Revolution was a major source of inspiration for Africans fighting for their freedom in the 19th century, when all blacks who landed in Haiti as fugitives were automatically declared free and granted Haitian citizenship. Toussaint L’Ouverture wanted to eradicate the slave trade at its source by leading a Haitian expeditionary force back to Africa. Dessalines, emperor of Haiti between 1804 and 1806, threatened to invade Jamaica to liberate enslaved Africans there. Pétion, president of Haiti between 1807 and 1818, was a liberator

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tout court. He provided crucial support to Simón Bolivar in his effort to free Latin America from the grip of Spain. Haitians, including Christophe, future king of Haiti, fought on the side of the patriots in Savannah, Georgia, thus helping the United States rid itself of British domination. The slave revolt led by Nat Turner in the United States in 1831 was inspired by the example of Haiti; indeed, the similarities between Turner’s rebellion and that of the Haitians in 1791 are striking in their religious overtones, military tactics, violence and even the dates of their occurrence. Haiti’s contribution to world history is undeniable. By its very success, the Haitian Revolution contributed immensely to Pan-Africanism. Individual Haitians have played key roles in the Pan-Africanist movement as well, among them Anténor Firmin and Benito Sylvain. Sylvain founded the Black Youth Association in Paris, which was one of the many pressure groups formed in the heart of imperialism during the scramble for Africa period. In 1896, he made his way all the way to Ethiopia to congratulate Emperor Menelik II on his victory over the Italians and stayed there briefly as a special adviser. Haitian contribution to African literary expression is remarkable. Firmin effectively dismantled racist notions alleging the inferiority of blacks in L’égalité des Races Humaines (The Equality of the Human Races). He may have inspired Jean Price-Mars, who is acknowledged as the father of Négritude by none other than Léopold Senghor; Jacques Roumain’s Gouverneurs de la Rosée (Masters of the Dew) has been recognized as a truly revolutionary novel, so much so that it has been translated into 40 languages; Félix Morisseau-Leroi translated the Greek tragedy Antigone into Haitian Creole and did much to rescue the language from the scorn of a historically Francophile elite. René Depestre is another Haitian writer of international stature. Edwidge Danticat is rapidly gaining ground with her novels, which explore a wide range of subjects for audiences young and old.

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Haitian imprints may be seen in popular African culture: the musical style zouk from the French Antilles is practically a derivative of the Haitian kadans konpa pioneered by Nemours Jean-Baptiste and Weber Sicot in the 1960s, and Haiti’s so-called primitive painting is imitated by artists throughout the Caribbean. Haitians have served in African governments from imperial Ethiopia under Menelik II to republican Ivory Coast under Houphouët-Boigny. Let ordinary Haitians not be forgotten, for they have demonstrated great resilience in the face of long odds in the past 200 years. The economies of many countries in the Caribbean Basin benefit greatly from Haitian labor in construction, agriculture, and tourism. According to the 2000 census, there are one million ethnic Haitians in the United States. Diaspora Haitians are making strides in politics, business, academe, and popular culture. Wyclef Jean is a Grammy-nominated artist; Haitians serve as mayors, state legislators, and judges in key states such as Florida, New York, and Massachusetts. The Haitian vote is increasingly being sought by Republicans and Democrats, although most Haitians probably have a preference for the latter and strongly identify with African Americans and causes common to both groups (e.g., police brutality, racism, and unemployment). In the final analysis, that Haiti has managed to survive at all as a sociopolitical and cultural entity, in the face of relentless assault by stronger powers, often animated by the most visceral of racism, may, in fact, be a more accurate measure of Haitian success than economic prosperity. Viewed from this angle, Haiti’s contribution to the African experience remains as poignant as it was two centuries ago: a beacon of resistance to Western imperialism. Jean-Germain Gros See also Aristide, Jean-Bertrand (1953–); Haitian Revolution; Tonton Macoutes; Vodoun.

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F URTHER R EADING Central Intelligence Agency. December 2007. The World Factbook. Economic Figures on Haiti. www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ ha.html#Econ. Fatton, Robert. 2002. Haiti’s Predatory Republic— The Unending Transition to Democracy. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Geggus, David Patrick. 2002. Haitian Revolutionary Studies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. James, C.L.R. 1963. The Black Jacobins. New York: Random House. (Orig. pub. 1938). Leyburn, James. 1966. The Haitian People. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (Orig. pub. 1941). Lundahl, Matts. 1979. Peasants and Poverty. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Madiou, Thomas. 1989. Histoire d’Haiti. Port-auPrince: Editions Henri Deschamps. (Orig. pub. 1848). Nau, Emile. 2003. Histoire des Caciques d’Haiti. Port-au-Prince: Collection Patrimoine, Presses Nationales d’Haiti. (Orig. pub. 1854). Plummer, Brenda Gayle. 1988. Haiti and the Great Powers (1902–1915). Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Preeg, Ernest. 1996. The Haitian Dilemma. Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies. Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. 1990. Haiti: State Against Nation. New York: Monthly Review Press.

z Haitian Revolution With the exception of pre-Columbian times, the history of Haiti, a country occupying the western third of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, and that of its African inhabitants are virtually undistinguishable. Today, about 90 percent of the 7 million Haitians are of pure African ancestry (called authentiques or nègres), while the remaining 10 percent are mulâtres (mulattoes). The native Indian population disappeared within 40 years of Christopher Columbus’s first voyage in 1492; most Euro-

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Haitian Revolution | 503 pean settlers fled or were executed shortly after the declaration of independence in 1804. The first shipment of enslaved Africans arrived in Hispaniola in 1510. They and their successors were put to work in the mines and on plantations. Slave imports continued throughout Spanish rule, partly as a result of the local Indian population’s dwindling numbers, partly to heed Spanish priest Bartolomé de las Casas’ advice that slavery was a humane way to alleviate the Indians’ woes. But with the conquest of Mexico and Peru, Hispaniola became a backwater area of the Spanish empire, and the number of slaves stagnated at a few thousands in the western part of the island. The number of Africans living in the island increased dramatically with France’s takeover of the western third of Hispaniola, which was renamed Saint Domingue. French smugglers and buccaneers had been present in the island throughout the 1600s (particularly at La Tortue), but the official takeover took place at the Treaty of Ryswick on September 20, 1697. The French, initially reliant on hunting and privateering, soon turned to the cultivation of sugarcane, coffee, cacao, indigo, bananas, and cotton, most of which were then exported to Europe. Because these crops were labor intensive, the slave trade reached significant proportions, particularly during the late 18th century. Numbering 4,000 in the 1720s, annual slave imports grew to 10,000 in 1771, 27,000 in 1786, and 40,000 in 1789. As a result of this rapidly growing trade, according to Moreau de Saint Méry, who visited Saint Domingue on the eve of the Revolution, 60 percent of all French slaves in the Americas lived in Saint Domingue by the 1780s; of those, two-thirds had been born in Africa. Slaves came primarily from the Congo and Angola, followed by modern-day Guinea, Nigeria, and Ghana. As French women were in limited supply, particularly in the early years of the colony, miscegenation was widespread. As described by Saint Méry, people of African ancestry were classified according to a complex taxonomy that

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held that in each human being blood is made of 128 equal parts (corresponding to the number of great-great-great-great-great grandparents). Based on the content of white blood, Haitians could be described as sacatra, griffe, marabout, mulâtre, quarteron, métis, mamelouque, quarteronné, or sang-mêlé (from blackest to whitest, respectively). The vast majority of these were slaves, numbering half a million by 1790. They were theoretically regulated by the relatively benevolent Code Noir, promulgated by Louis XIV in 1685, but in practice abuses flourished as slaves were left at the mercy of each individual planter. Numerous accounts relate stories of slaves being burnt alive in boiling sugarcane, devoured by red ants, mutilated, and branded. The need to constantly import new slaves vividly illustrates the high death rate the slaves suffered. Despite the appalling cruelty, the slave system proved economically efficient, and Haiti became France’s most profitable colony, widely known as the Pearl of the Antilles. Slaves enjoyed little of this prosperity, but free blacks and mulattoes (approximately 30,000 people in 1790), many of whom owned slaves, often rivaled whites (about 20,000 people) in wealth. They complained, however, that as their ranks swelled in the 18th century racial discrimination turned them into second-class citizens forced to provide free military service, banned from many public positions, and subjected to numerous inequities in the courts. In 1791, Vincent Ogé led a failed mulatto revolt that aimed at gaining full citizenship rights. As slaves came to outnumber the free ten to one, resistance was always a feature of colonial Saint Domingue. Some slaves chose suicide; others became maroons; others poisoned their masters. In 1758, Mackandal, a maroon and houngan (Voudon priest), organized a slave network that managed to poison several hundred planters before Mackandal was arrested and executed. The largest, and only successful, revolt broke out on August 21, 1791, when the Jamaican-born slave and Voudon priest Dutty

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Boukman organized a ceremony at Bois Caiman, outside Cap Français (today’s Cap Haitien) during which slaves vowed to revolt against their masters. Over the following days, a thousand planters were killed in the neighboring plains, marking the beginning of the Haitian war of independence. The conflict, lasting until November 1803, pitted white planters nostalgic of the old regime against French revolutionary and Napoleonic troops, Spanish and British expeditionary forces, slave armies led by Toussaint L’Ouverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and Henri Christophe, and mulatto armies led by André Rigaud, Alexandre Pétion, and JeanPierre Boyer (actual alliances shifted over time). By the time the victorious slaves declared the country’s independence in January 1804, renaming it Haiti in the process, at least 200,000 people had died in a conflict that was particularly brutal even by the standards of the time. Most white Frenchmen who had not fled by that time were killed in the spring of 1804. Racial and national pride was high after independence, as the former slaves had defeated Spain, England, and France (including 50,000 of Napoleon’s best troops), then proceeded to found the first independent black republic in the world. Revivals of such racial nationalism took place in the 1930s with the noiriste movement, in the 1960s under François Duvalier, and the 1990s under Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Haiti, once the richest colony in the Western Hemisphere, is now the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country (with a per capita gross domestic product of approximately $400) and suffers from a variety of development woes (AIDS, emigration, land erosion, cocaine trafficking, political stalemate, and child slavery). Philippe R. Girard See also Aristide, Jean-Bertrand (1953–); Creole, Creolity, Creolization; Haiti; Voudon. F URTHER R EADING Barros, Jacques. 1984. Haïti de 1804 à nos jours. 2 vols. Paris: L’Harmattan.

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Gold, Herbert. 1991. Best Nightmare on Earth: A Life in Haiti. New York: Simon and Schuster. Heinl, Robert D., Nancy G. Heinl, and Michael Heinl. 1996. Written in Blood: The Story of the Haitian People, 1492–1995. Rev. ed. New York: University Press of America.

z Hampton Institute/Hampton University Hampton Institute/Hampton University, a historically black university was founded in 1865 by former slaves, C. B. Wilder, and Samuel Chapman Armstrong. It was initially founded to train African Americans in industrial education. The ardent desire for education became one of the driving forces for African Americans in their pursuit of citizenship and uplift in the United States during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hampton University remains one of the most important outcomes of this desire, and African Americans were instrumental in founding the school. During the Civil War everywhere the Union armies gained a stronghold in the South escaped slaves joined them seeking freedom and a safe harbor. One of the places where slaves congregated was the site of Hampton Institute. With the end of the Civil War and the end of slavery the former slaves demanded that a school be established at Hampton for the sole purpose of educational uplift; thus, Hampton Institute was founded in 1865 (Armstrong and Ludlow 1874; Armstrong 1885). White Civil War Captain C. B. Wilder was originally placed in charge of Hampton Institute and practiced radical reconstruction by redistributing the land and founding Hampton as a school of higher learning. Wilder was soon replaced by white Civil War veteran General Samuel Chapman Armstrong, who did not practice radical reconstruction and patterned Hampton’s educational system on the industrial education model his father established in Hawaii to educate Native Hawaiians.

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Students studying agricultural sciences at the Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia, about 1900. (Library of Congress)

Hampton Institute became one of the foremost educational institutions for African Americans and other aggrieved groups of color in the United States. From 1878 to 1923, Hampton established a biracial educational program for blacks and Native Americans (Lindsey 1995). The school also accepted students from around the world including Africa and Asia. Famous people to have graduated from Hampton Institute included African American Booker T. Washington who founded Tuskegee Institute, Susan LeFlesche the first Native American doctor in the U.S., William A. Jones who graduated in 1892 and went on to be the first Native American to graduate from Harvard and the first Native American to receive a PhD from Columbia University under the tute-

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lage of Franz Boas in 1904 (Talks and Thoughts 1904, Southern Workman 1909, Lindsey 1995). Paula Marie Seniors See also Tuskegee Institute/Tuskegee University. F URTHER R EADING Armstrong, M. F., and Helen W. Ludlow. 1874. Hampton and Its Students by Two of Its Teachers. New York: Putnam’s Sons. Armstrong, Samuel Chapman. 1885. Hampton Institute 1868–1885: Its Work for the Two Races. Hampton, VA: Hampton Virginia Normal School Press Print. Lindsey, Donal. 1995. Indians at Hampton Institute. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Talks and Thoughts. 1904. Vol. X no. 7, January 1904: 2. Hampton University Archives. “William Jones Obituary.” 1909. Southern Workman. May: 263. Hampton University Archives.

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Harlem Harlem is the historically black community in the borough of Manhattan in New York City where the African Diaspora has come together in remarkable ways. Constantly rezoned over the years, the neighborhood ultimately frames Central Park north from 110th Street to 155th Street, between the East River and the Hudson River. Originally named “Nieuw Haarlem” in 1658 after the Dutch city, Haarlem, the land was rebuilt by the Dutch West Indian Company’s slaves and renamed Harlem by the English settlers. At the turn of the 20th century, a mass migration of black peoples entered the neighborhood, and Harlem was essentially an entirely black community by 1904. Known for its spacious sidewalks and streets, seductive Victorian-style brownstone townhouses, and boastful residents, Harlem, affectionately called “uptown,” has been a synonym for elegant living and being a center of culture, intelligence, and fashion. Guided by W. E. B. DuBois, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People became active in 1910. The Universal Negro Improvement Association, led by Marcus Garvey, became active in 1916. With principles founded in economic independence and selfimprovement, as well as political leaders of black consciousness, the Harlem chapters soon flourished as the largest in the country. The golden era of Harlem is indisputably the decades of the 1920s and 1930s during the Harlem Renaissance. The movement of artistic rebirth generated a wealth of literature, art, dance, theater, and music from legendary Harlem residents like James Baldwin, who used Harlem as the setting for his most famous novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1959). Zora Neale Hurston wrote from her brownstone on 131st Street, and Langston Hughes was lauded “the Poet Laureate of Harlem.” Edgecombe Road, in the area dubbed “Sugar Hill,” was also a resident boulevard for many Harlem activists. Lenox Avenue and Sev-

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enth Avenue housed more than 125 entertainment stops, including lounges, dance halls, theaters, cafes, art galleries, supper clubs, bars, and grills. The Savoy Ballroom, closed in 1958, was renowned for its improvised swing dancing and musical guests like Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington performing classic songs like “Take the A Train,” which immortalized the rapid mode of transportation. The Lafayette Theater, closed in 1951, performed professional revues where many of the theatrical roles portrayed realistic lifestyles and personas of African Americans. In 1936, Orson Welles produced his famous black Macbeth at the Lafayette Theater. Other famed acts include Bessie Smith and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. Inadequate housing contributed to racial unrest and health problems. Many grand theaters were torn down or converted to churches during the latter 1950s through the 1970s; however, the lack of building developments catering to modern renovations resulted in the preservation of some of the finest original architecture in New York City. Many historic Harlem landmarks are still functioning today, including the world famous Apollo Theater, a staple of 125th Street and famed for introducing popular music; the Theresa Hotel, where Cuban president Fidel Castro stayed in his famous 1960 snub to the U.S. government; the National Black Theater; the Lenox Lounge; the Harlem YMCA; the Cotton Club; the Classical Theater of Harlem; the Audubon ballroom, where Malcolm X was assassinated; the Harlem Hospital; and 125th Street itself. With a history of marginalization and economic deprivation, towers of public housing projects are equally scattered throughout Harlem. Landlords charged high rents to people who earned low wages, and overcrowding became rampant. Residents of Harlem rioted in 1935, 1943, 1964, 1968, and 1995. Most riots were sparked by police brutality. The 1968 riot followed the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the 1995 riots were against white shop owners in 125th Street’s commercial strip.

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Harlem Renaissance | 507 Dozens of black nationalist groups mobilized in Harlem in the 1960s fighting for better schools, jobs, and housing. The Nation of Islam’s Temple Number Seven was run by ElHajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) from 1952 to 1963. The Black Panthers organized a branch in Harlem in 1966. Harlem is also home to more than 400 Christian churches, most notably the Abyssinian Baptist Church. The churches often provided a home for cultural activities. For example, the Dance Theatre of Harlem began when Arthur Mitchell started giving ballet classes in a church basement in 1968, and the Harlem Boys Choir, a famous touring choir and education program, was established in 1965. In the 1970s, the character of the community changed as middle-class African Americans left for the outer boroughs and suburbs. In the 1980s, the introduction of heroin and crack cocaine became widespread producing collateral crime and violence. By 1987, 65 percent of the buildings in Harlem had become empty shells, convenient shelter for drug dealing and other illegal activity. Harlem began to blossom again in the early 1990s. Political and musical efforts promoted anti–gang glorification and drug-free lifestyles and raised standards of higher education. In 2001, former U.S. President Bill Clinton rented office space on West 125th Street after completing his second term in the White House, a move seen locally as debatably the best or worst moment of gentrification, race versus class, in the community. On the streets where Malcolm X (renamed from Lenox Avenue) and Martin Luther King Jr. (renamed from 125th Street) meet, contemporary Harlem hosts a unique mix of people. Here, residents of the neighborhood, including many well-known, legendary local characters, rub shoulders with visitors in front of the monument of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. under the state building in his name. And all can honor the community’s history at studies and lecture forums at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

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Others simply prefer to spend their money in uptown’s black-owned businesses like landmark Sylvia’s Soul Food restaurant, Carol’s Daughter beauty care, Magic Johnson’s AMC movie theater and Starbucks café, Pieces of Harlem clothing boutique, the Studio Museum of Harlem, the Harlem art gallery, and numerous quick stops for African hair braiding. Harlem has been the muse for an uncountable number of movies like Harlem Nights and American Gangster and hip-hop anthems like Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power.” Dalia Davies See also Harlem Renaissance; DuBois, William Edward Burghardt (1868–1963); Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940); Holiday, Billie (1915–1959); Hughes, Langston (1902–1967); Hurston, Zora Neale (1891–1960); King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929–1968); Malcolm X (1925– 1965); National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). F URTHER R EADING Lewis, David Levering. 1997. When Harlem Was in Vogue. New York: Penguin Books. Marberry, Craig, and Michael Cunningham. 2003. Spirit of Harlem: A Portrait of America’s Most Exciting Neighborhood. New York: Doubleday. New York Daily News and Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce. 2006. Forever Harlem. New York: Spotlight Press.

z Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance was also known as the New Negro Movement and the Negro Renaissance. These terms refer to the artistic and cultural activity that awakened a sense of pride and achievement within the African American community during the 1920s and early 1930s. Though this movement is commonly referred to as the Harlem Renaissance, many of its contributors did not reside in Harlem. In fact, during this period there was a cultural boom in cities with large African American populations

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around the country, including Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. However, Harlem was the epicenter and crown jewel of this movement. First, it was an area that had developed from a relatively affluent middleclass suburb, which gave Harlem an air of social sophistication. Its bourgeois roots also provided the artists of the new cultural movement with plenty of white thrill seekers who would pay handsomely to delve into the exciting, exotic, and considerably foreign experience of Harlem art, music, and dance. Most critics and historians agree that by 1917 there were signs of increased cultural activity among black artists in the Harlem section of New York City. Considered by many at that time the greatest African American city in the world, Harlem’s population soared with an influx of African Americans from the South during the Great Migration and immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa, which produced an amalgamation of the Diaspora that had talented artists, writers, painters, and musicians from across the country flocking to Harlem. A number of black intellectuals, such as W. E. B. DuBois and Alain Locke, were making it clear that the time had come for white America to take notice of the achievements of African American artists and thinkers. Locke’s work, The New Negro (1925), articulated the growing sensibilities of the African American population and set in motion the winds of change for a literary revolution. DuBois, the most prolific writer of his time, provided the intellectual and cultural compass for the movement, first through his seminal work, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), and then through his work with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and its publication, The Crisis. Harlem also developed into a base of operations for political and civil rights organizations that reached every stratum of Harlem society. The NAACP spoke for sociopolitical change, was led by a multicultural delegation, and appealed to both whites and blacks who

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were concerned about the African American community. Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association instilled a sense of race pride, diasporic consciousness, and economic empowerment in the working-class masses and those of Caribbean decent. The National Urban League counseled and petitioned for migrant workers from the South, and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids unionized African Americans in their respective industries. These organizations encouraged thousands of African Americans to embrace a heightened sense of race consciousness and the belief that the public display of their artistic achievement, coupled with a renewed sociopolitical zeal, would lead to the widespread acceptance of African Americans. The literature, music, and art of the Harlem Renaissance reflected these new sensibilities. In the area of music, the poetry, prose, and art of the Harlem Renaissance paid homage to the music surrounding black life. Blues, spirituals, and even some derivatives of African modalities flourished. However, jazz flourished as the musical pulse of the movement. As jazz became the emerging sound of the city, interpreting its pace of life, it also became the music of the Harlem Renaissance. The two greatest jazz bandleaders of the time, Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson, resided and performed in Harlem and brought thousands of people to the area. Visual artists were not only commissioned to create and display their works in galleries for exhibitions and shows but also published their art in magazines and illustrated books. Aaron Douglas was often considered to be the most influential artist of the period. Arguably the most significant contribution of the Harlem Renaissance was in literature and letters. Black journals, such as W. E. B. DuBois’s Crisis, Charles S. Johnson’s Opportunity, and The Messenger provided both sociopolitical commentary and an outlet for aspiring writers to publish their poetry and prose. Writers such as DuBois, James Weldon

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Haywood, Harry (1898–1978) | 509 Johnson, Jean Toomer, Jesse Redmon Fauset, Walter White, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, and Carl Van Vechten received financial support for their works from white and black admirers. The same can be said for Harlem Renaissance poets Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Countee Cullen. Mainstream intellectual society and major New York–based publishing houses embraced these writers and supported the movement to educate African Americans about their race, culture, and heritage through their art. These writers and others explored topics of religion, race pride, African history and civilization, family life, miscegenation, passing, and segregation. Some writers—to the chagrin of those primarily concerned with the uplift of the race through their art—wrote about the seedier side of African American urban life, including speakeasies, gambling, and carousing in cabarets. The intellectual atmosphere was so vibrant that the writers of the Harlem Renaissance wrote frequently about current events, the ideas of their contemporaries, and each other. Most scholars today recognize that the diversity of individual writers provided Harlem Renaissance literature with a panoramic view of black life, even as a few authors (foremost among then was Van Vechten) were accused of exploiting the culture for financial gain. By the mid-1930s the movement had lost much of its original vigor. The Great Depression, initiated by the stock market crash of 1929, sapped much of the financial backing of the Harlem artistic community. However, the Harlem Renaissance continued to influence subsequent generations of African American writers. The movement also provided inspiration internationally. Poets Léopold Sédar Senghor of Senegal, Aimé Césaire of Martinique, and Léon-Gontran Damas of French Guiana acknowledge the works of Harlem Renaissance writers as instrumental in developing their concept of Négritude. Jason Esters

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See also Césaire, Aimé (1913–2008); Damas, Léon-Gontran (1912–1976); DuBois, William Edward Burghardt (1868–1963); Harlem; Hughes, Langston (1902–1967); Jazz; Johnson, James Weldon (1871–1938); McKay, Claude (1889–1948); Négritude. F URTHER R EADING Aberjhani, Sandra L. West. 2003. Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. New York: Facts on File. “Harlem Renaissance.” 1997. In The Oxford Companion to African American Literature, ed. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris. New York: Oxford University Press. Kirschke, Amy Helene. 1995. Aaron Douglas: Art, Race, and the Harlem Renaissance. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

z Haywood, Harry (1898–1978) Harry Haywood, in the belief that capitalism supported racism, became one of the bestknown African American communists. He was born Haywood Hall in South Omaha, Nebraska, on February 4, 1898, the youngest of three children of former slaves Harriet and Haywood Hall. In 1913, a racially motivated attack by Irish gang members forced the family to leave Omaha for Minneapolis. Harassed by whites at his new school, Haywood dropped out in the eighth grade. After moving to Chicago, Haywood joined the 8th Regiment of the U.S. Army in 1917 at the American entrance into World War I. He served on the Western Front in France. Upon his return to Chicago, he became a railroad waiter and witnessed the 1919 race riot that killed 38 people. The incident became a turning point in Haywood’s life. Always hot tempered and unwilling to tolerate abusive behavior, Haywood committed himself to struggle against whatever made racism possible. He had no hope of finding a solution through the government: experience had

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taught him that official agencies were among the most racist. A brief sojourn in the short-lived African Blood Brotherhood in 1922 introduced Haywood to African American communists. He joined the communist Young Workers League in 1923—he was one of only two African Americans in the Chicago chapter—to encourage African American youth to become communist. He subsequently helped found the American Negro Labor Congress. Planning a visit to the Soviet Union in 1925 and expecting a Federal Bureau of Investigation examination of his activities, Haywood applied for a passport using the first names of his parents. Haywood Hall then became Harry Haywood, an identity he would keep for the remainder of his life. Haywood attended KUTVA, the Comintern school in Moscow, to get a better understanding of communism. The school had been founded by the Bolsheviks for the purpose of training cadres, who would then promote communism throughout the world. In 1927, he took the Comintern’s three-year International Lenin Course to train in theoretical and practical subjects; the course included observations of Soviet trade unions and collective farm work. He was influential in the Comintern’s 1928 decision to support the right of self-determination for African Americans and to encourage recruitment of blacks in the American South. In 1930, Haywood returned to the United States where he planned to build a national black revolutionary movement in close alliance with the communist working-class movement. The Communist Party planned to launch the League for Negro Rights as the nucleus of a united front movement targeting African Americans. Haywood headed the new campaign, writing a manifesto and program for the new organization. He also joined the antilynching struggle, participating in attempts to gain freedom for the Scottsboro boys. In 1936, Haywood joined the heavily communist Abraham Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil War to fight fascism, and then he joined the Mer-

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chant Marines in World War II. Divisions within the Communist Party forced Haywood out in the late 1950s. He moved with his third wife, historian Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, and children to Mexico in 1959. Haywood died in 1978. Caryn E. Neumann See also African Blood Brotherhood (ABB); Black Marxism; Jones, Claudia Cumberbatch (1915– 1964). F URTHER R EADING Haywood, Harry. 1978. Black Bolshevik: Autobiography of an Afro-American Communist. Chicago: Liberator Press.

z Health in the African World E NVIRONMENT, D EVELOPMENT, G LOBALIZATION , AND H EALTH “Disparity” is an apt one-word description of health globally in the African world (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001). Africans on the continent and Africans and indigenous peoples in Latin America, the Caribbean, and North America all suffer disparities in access to health and health care services in relation to the non-African populations. Sometimes this has been the result of geographic distance from health facilities, as in Africa and the Caribbean, where accessibility is greater in urban areas. In addition, the “brain drain” to the Western world has taken many physicians (Sankore 2006, Kimani 2005, Awases et al. 2004). In the Western world, there is typically one physician to serve 407 people. In contrast, the physician-to-patient ratio is 1 to 1,282 in the developing world. In Africa, the ratio is 1 to 3,125. African nations, ranking toward the bottom of the 2000 United Nations Human Development index, have one physician per 50,000 people (Buchan & Calman 2004). Caribbean Community countries have doctor to popula-

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Health in the African World | 511 tion ratios in the range of 5 to 14 doctors per 10,000 people. The range is broad comparatively; some island nations are more equipped than others. Since the mid-1990s St. Kitts has had a relatively higher supply of nurses: 59 per 10,000 people compared with a ratio of 1 per 10,000 people in Haiti and 7 per 10,000 people in Jamaica. This difference may be attributed to a new Nursing School that opened in St. Kitts in 1996. In the smaller countries of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, like St. Kitts, nurses form the backbone of the public healthcentered networks. Nursing shortages are not just a problem for nursing, they are a health systems problem. The Dominican Republic reported 115 doctors per 10,000 people (Caribbean Regional Health Study 1996, Morgan 2005) It is rumored they have benefited from the Cuban brain drain. It is reported that Cuba’s doctor-patient ratio of 1/170 and its national pool of 30,000 general practitioners who are skilled bestow pride to the country. Out of this arena have come the world’s first meningitis B vaccine, heart transplants and cancer research programmes and the world’s lowest national rates of AIDS, due to the separation of the population. This dramatic ratio of physician to persons needing service on the continent and throughout the Diaspora speaks directly to the reason for the strong presence of traditional medical practitioners all over the African world, especially in areas where there is little access to physicians. The presence of traditional medical practitioners lessens the ratio of patient to practitioner. For example, the ratio of traditional medical practitioners to the population is estimated at 1 to 200 in Ghana, 1 to 100 in Swaziland, and 1 to 20 in Mozambique. Nevertheless, even where African populations have access to biomedical care, such as in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, they often still prefer to use traditional systems of healing, or they may combine the two systems. Sometimes their distrust of biomedicine causes them to suffer the consequences of not seeking

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professional care. This, however, is only one aspect of the disparity in health.(Gbodossou, Floyd, and Katy 2008; Sindiga, Chacha, Kanunah 1995) According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2001) health disparities are defined as the differences in the incidence, prevalence, mortality, and burden of diseases and other adverse health conditions among specific population groups. Disparities are frequently pervasive and multifactorial: socioeconomics, genetics, environmental factors, and racism have all been implicated. The National Institute of Health reports that even though infant mortality rates in the United States are comparatively low, the rates among African Americans are more than double those of whites. Heart disease death rates are more than 40 percent higher for African Americans than for whites. The death rate for all cancers is 30 percent higher for African Americans than for whites and for prostate cancer the rate is more than double. African American women have a higher death rate for breast cancer despite the fact that mammography screening rates are nearly the same for black and white women. The HIV/AIDS death rate for African Americans is more than seven times that for whites, and the rate of homicide is six times that for whites (healthdisparities.nih.gov/whatare.html). Ideas of health and healing are found in most cultures. Health practitioners and healing practices have been intimate elements of culture in the African social matrix throughout the Diaspora. Historically select foods as well as herbs, customarily brewed as morning tea, have been conceptualized as disease-preventive, and considered medicine. Modernity has created its own rituals for healthy living, but food quality is no longer prioritized. Health has become its own domain as opposed to being an integrated part of a larger cultural matrix that includes spirituality, social relationships, and every aspect of social living. One of the main difficulties for advocates and researchers lies in understanding how to work with locals in a social context where

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the idea of “community” as a sociological construct may be illusory because of change. There may not be one shared idea of how to live in these localities. Community medicine has come out of the indigenous context. The biomedical system is just coming to this knowledge at a time when communities are changing greatly. That is, communities seldom exist in their original context, and the collective that formed is an administrative construction, a civic construction. In urban areas around the world primary care clinics serve administrative districts often comprising a mix of long-term residents and new migrants, the poor and the not so poor. There may be few cross-cutting social ties and few common interests as in more traditional social groupings (Janes 2004, 457–471). Such change has contributed to alienation toward the biomedical system in some regions. This is reflected in a plural medical system, one formal and one informal, in most African communities around the world. The evolutions of social living at various levels have increased the vulnerability of human populations to disease. Sedentary living, larger populations, and technological advancements have contributed to increased health risk. Migration, war, land reform, and overcrowded cities have all cost in terms of disease. In the Caribbean, there are many reports of “slave medicine,” that is, the medical knowledge Africans brought with them from the continent to the Americas. The very success of African populations in the Americas after Columbus is attributed to their biological adaptations and knowledge of health, healing, and sorcery (Kiple and King 1981). Plantation physicians were not favored in the Caribbean, and once the plantation system broke down, many physicians had to change professions or leave the islands. Most of the Africans on the islands were not seeking their services, thereby driving them out of business (Wilkins 1991, 29). African people have always had some apprehension about the use of Western medicine. Cross-culturally, Africans tend to be very practi-

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cal and are willing to give alternatives a chance, especially when they are suffering, which has often been the case. If one system does not work or causes harm, many will move on to another, and this includes self treatments. In North America and the Caribbean, distrust was generated by issues of race, coupled with incidents such as the Tuskegee syphilis experiments (1932–1972) in the U.S. in which 399 black men were never informed that they had syphilis and were left untreated without their permission. The hegemonic science of the day claimed venereal disease manifested differently in blacks than in whites, and the Public Health Service (PHS) scientists wanted to document this by finding a group of infected black men to experiment on, withholding treatment from them, and documenting the progression of the disease. Life in the 1930’s in Macon, Alabama, for African Americans differed little from the life of their parents and grandparents enslaved. African people were still jailed for trying to leave the area. Their free, forced labor was still valued. Some African Americans in Macon County were aware of the intentions of the PHS but did not come forward to expose the issue. The PHS wanted to confirm their beliefs in a racial dimorphism of syphilis and disease in general. (The black body was viewed as primitive and different.) By the 1940’s penicillin was discovered to cure syphilis. Some southerners had hoped the disease would rid the country of the “Negro Problem.” Black belief systems and their biology were attributed to the disease manifestation. This had been the thinking of the colonial governments in Africa and the Caribbean as well. Disease was attributed to the people rather than to the conditions in which they were forced to live, and their nutritional status, which made them vulnerable to infection. Harriet Washington (2006) gives a thorough description of this history in Medical Apartheid. In a White House ceremony in 1997, Bill Clinton apologized to the eight survivors, their families, and the nation for the study. In the colonies disease had a serious impact on health and productivity of blacks. Any Public

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Health in the African World | 513 Health measures were largely designed to protect Europeans from African diseases. African practices had been blamed for their disease. Theories that Africans were “racially” prone to tuberculosis allowed mining companies to ignore the conditions they created for workers, rather than oppose the terrible labor conditions. African populations all over the world responded, coped, overcame racist policies through indigenous healing techniques and other cultural resources (Packard 1989, Hunt 1999, De Barros & Stilwell 2003). Each generation comes to personalize an experience to trigger the distrust and becomes aware that there are blind spots when it comes to race and medical practices in the United States. The Tuskegee experiments demonstrated that the degrading racial status of African Americans was reinforced by the legal system and the pathological relationship between them and the white medical profession. Washington (2006) and a host of other researchers in the US, Europe, and Africa question whether things have changed in medical research today. Middle-class American ideas and cultural norms continue to see health disparities as the fault of the victims rather than the fault of inequitable and biased health care and sociopolitical systems (Byrd and Clayton 2001). Reports of clinical trials in Africa, sterilization of Puerto Rican and black women in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s, and rumors that illicit drug addicts who fail to adhere to HIV/AIDS treatment medications are outliving those who do adhere have deterred biomedical use for some and nurtured the distrust that was already there (Tafari, Smith et al. 2000). The administrative structure of hospitals and biomedical access and care remains alienating to many for reasons that extend well beyond issues of cost and distance. This is especially so for men. The intrusiveness of access; the surveillance of personal intimacies; and the view of medical practitioners not as health care provider, health broker, or healer, but as police and tax collectors put biomedicine totally out of the picture for many African pop-

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ulations in the United States. Medicine is expensive in the U.S. and millions of working people are uninsured. Local clinics require a copayment fee with each visit, even when they are subsidized by the government. Official documents are required to prove identity and in some areas social security numbers have been used to cross check with arrest and child support records. People are often intimidated and disrespected by staff. Recent work conducted in a Miami local neighborhood clinic confirmed the difficulty in accessing health care for the disenfranchised (Brown et al. 2008). Independence did not mainstream African cultural medicine on the continent or in the Caribbean. Biomedical health emphases all over the African world have been determined by what the metropoles have an interest in studying. The molecular basis of protein-calorie malnutrition was a greater concern for tropical medicine agendas than encouraging the correction of the social and economic disparities that were part of the structurally institutionalized syndrome of malnutrition when I conducted my dissertation research on malnutrition in urban Kingston in the seventies (Tafari 1993). Politically conservative factions within health science have shaped the research agenda of federal agencies like the National Institute of Mental Health, agencies that promote biogenic over social or environmental explanations of mental disorders and favor criteria for acceptable research based on empirical models, objectivity, reductionism, and stringent control of variables. For various reasons, the study of racism and health is not a good fit with this agenda. By the 1980s and 1990s, health had reached crisis dimensions in U.S. African populations and much of the world with the emergence of old and new infectious diseases. The new millennium has witnessed the chronic diseases of modernity and the resurgence of infectious diseases of antiquity around the globe. Infectious disease, the capacity for biological warfare, environmental disaster, and a rise in iatrogenic disorders collectively constitute modern-day world

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crises. We have not come a long way in resolving health disparities globally in African populations. Race, tribalism, greed, and politics still play a large part in access to health around the world, and civil rights, civic societies, and globalization have not leveled the playing field. Instead, as the New Orleans Hurricane Katrina situation made particularly clear, the corporate structure has contributed to the poverty of world culture, including the United States. Even those people employed by these corporations were transformed into refugees and sufferers and were given no way out, and once removed from the area, no way back to their homes. The tsunami disaster that struck Southeast Asia and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans have presented problems to which solutions will take generations. Concepts of development have simply been disease impairing. The felling of trees has caused climatic changes, and many nations are suffering drastic changes in the weather and other ecological changes that affect the food supply and subsequently health. Environmental hazards of development, including the urbanization process, continue to increase people’s vulnerability to infectious diseases, a phenomenon thought to have been under biomedical control. If scholars were unsure of it in the 1970s, it has proven to be the case in the new millennium: the study of health and disease goes far beyond the clinical. It must embrace the cultural, economic, social, and political domains of social living. Racism, greed, economic deprivation, and the failure of the system to come to grips with environmental issues still best depict the new epidemiological profile throughout the African world; they also demonstrate the continued need for traditional medical knowledge and practitioners. R ACE AND H EALTHCARE : T HE G LOBALIZATION OF P OVERTY In assessing the health of African populations collectively over this broad geographic range the source of corruption may be found in gov-

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ernments and corporate boardrooms. The social meaning of race/ethnicity in the African world largely reflects at least three health modalities. Payne-Jackson and Alleyne (2004) break these down into the following categories of health services: the official biomedicine; the traditional/folk medicine (specialist); and the popular medicine, which is often defined as home remedies or medicine of public knowledge found in the local stores. Biomedicine or Official Medicine Biomedicine, also known as Western or cosmopolitan medicine, is the medicine of the West. It refers to the predominant medical theory and practice of Euro-American societies, a medicine widely disseminated throughout the world. The terms “modern,” “scientific,” “allopathic,” and “biomedicine” capture one of its characteristics: it is Western, blended with elements of other ethnic medicines that were diffused, integrated, borrowed from colonial encounters. Biomedical practitioners believe their domain is distinct from morality and aesthetics and from religion, politics, and social organization (Hahn and Kleinman 1983). Biomedicine is the product of dialectical tensions between culture and nature. Over the past two decades, the relationship between biomedicine and pharmaceutical production has intensified, and the business of drug production has fueled and directed the prioritization of research initiatives and funding (Ocampo 2000). Although its function in the marketplace is ever growing, encouraging the growth of technology and consumerism, it also continues to be questioned by many, and larger numbers of people seek an alternative. Traditional/Folk Medicine Side by side with biomedicine is the contrasting folk medical system. The continued flourishing of folk medicine in the Caribbean and Africa can be attributed to functional factors (poor health infrastructures); social, economic, and ecological situations; government policies

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Health in the African World | 515 (national and international); historic factors (in the Americas this includes slavery, Jim Crow laws, and segregation); cultural; and cognitive factors. Payne-Jackson and Alleyne (2004) assert that the stagnated economies of the Caribbean cannot sustain biomedical services, including pharmaceuticals, or ensure that they are easily accessible to the entire population; thus, the area is ripe for continued reliance on folk medicine, at least in some of its manifestations. Folk medicine or African cultural medicine can by no means be described as stagnant. Sometimes called traditional medicine, it is creative and continuously changing, incorporating and diffusing what is needed, and sometimes adapting new strategies. This is the case in much of the African world, where traditional medical practitioners heal side by side with biomedical practitioners or Western medical physicians. Organizations such as Traditional Medicine, an applied research program that focuses on popular medicine in the Caribbean, began work in rural areas of Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and a few English-speaking islands and attests to the seriousness of studying and maintaining traditional medicine in the Caribbean for humans and animals. Out of this group emerged the publication of Farmacopea Carobana (1997) in Spanish. The Caribbean Association of Researchers and Herbal Practitioners, another organization committed to restoring the heritage of Caribbean herbal cultural tradition, meets annually and focuses currently on integrating the folk system into the biomedical curriculum. Although the continent has made more headway in legitimizing African cultural medicine in cosmopolitan medical arenas, this has happened in part because these nations also face functional limitations of access to biomedicine. A country like Nigeria, with so much indigenous medicine integrated into the mainstream system and with community organizations encouraging capacity building for

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indigenous healers and practitioners, cannot deny the agency of folk traditions. Folk traditions have been integrated into the larger medical institutions and continue to be integrated through patents and a focus on intellectual property rights. It is clear today, however, that Western paradigms cannot assess African traditional medicine, and patent laws in the West are not suitable to protect these ancestral traditions. The differences in African medicine and biomedicine make them competitive. One difference between Western and African cultural medicine is how the patient is regarded. In Western medicine the patient is simply a consumer of products. In the African setting no two patients are the same. Such differences make African cultural medicine clash with Western medicine and delay the integration and development of a real cosmopolitan system versus just a Western system. During the 1990s in particular, headway has been made with African cultural medicine patents. One is a contraceptive called Badapeer that is taken only once a year. Professor Iwu (Stewart 1999, 57) has described about six patents on unique drugs, and argues for following the path that India has taken in forming a biodiversity register to prevent the biopiracy that is becoming increasingly common today. In Jamaica, local researchers Manley West and George Lockhart developed the extract Cannasol, which is now registered and used in the treatment of glaucoma. Another product, Asmasol, was developed based on the Cannasol research, and is used in the treatment of cough, cold, and bronchial asthma. Work done by West and John Golding toward developing a protocol for use of a cannabis preparation to control pain in terminally ill patients is another success (National Council on Drug Abuse Jamaica 1998, Chevannes 2001). Because cannabis plays a central role in the “Just say no” agenda of U.S. drug policy, and at the same time occupies an acceptable role among traditional folk customs and religious tradition in

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Jamaica, and other parts of the African world, it represents one of the most serious contradictions of belief systems internationally today (Chevannes 2001). Many people believe the death rate is higher from legal pharmaceuticals and substances such as alcohol. Today, the folk and alternative culture of healers has the ambition to change policy and influence the acceptance, utilization, and benefits of traditional medicine on the continent. Organizations like Shaman Pharmaceutical, which has encouraged moving from a Western paradigm of competition to a new paradigm of cooperating with traditional healers, is a capacity-building strategy. Including all the people who are involved in the development of the drugs is important in this venture. Shaman Pharmaceuticals was founded to address the need of indigenous communities and organize healers. It is a pioneer in ethno-directed natural product research. The company collects plant samples directed by the knowledge of local Shaman in the area. These are herbalists and plant specialists as opposed to a random selection of plants to test by trail and error. We are not starting from scratch. The Western control of the pharmaceutical market industries is being challenged not just in African countries but also in South America. Brazil threatened to ignore patents if the U.S.-owned companies did not lower the prices on their patented drugs (Jaspen 2005). These debates and disputes could have major ramifications for many other countries around the world. Influenced by India’s Zandu Pharmaceuticals, which focuses on Ayurvedic medicine and takes the position that it is not the way of the world to compete, Africans are moving in the same direction and focus on the development of their ancestral medicine. It is agreed, in Asia and Africa and now Latin America, that there has to be a new paradigm in drug development that is not dependency or capitalism but communication at all levels. Patents secure drug companies with exclusive rights to control the release of their products

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into the public domain for a predetermined time period. They can charge high prices for a particular medication, even though manufacturing costs are extremely low and of course this is what is occurring. Brazil’s efforts at containing HIV/AIDS have been praised with only half of the number of HIV/AIDS cases projected by USAID, and its success is based on the free distribution of anti-retroviral drugs. As the U.S. increases the price of the drugs, Brazil has threatened to ignore the patent and produce its own generic drug for distribution. Constrained by the World Trade Organization, which the U.S. controls, all decisions usually fall in the favor of the US profit intention. Patent rights have been winning over prevention efforts. In African cultural medicine today, issues of public knowledge and ownership are being addressed through public trust and partnerships with established entities like Walter Reed, which has a history of establishing patents and is not profit driven. Professor Iwa (Stewart 1999) describes this relationship as productive because Walter Reed knows the process and it is not corporate or profit motivated. African pharmacists and healers have to learn the process and gain access to it. Patenting laws or rules do not apply to African ancestral knowledge and practices. Thus new structural relationships are forming to accommodate collective ownership of knowledge. The place of prayer, faith, divine inspiration, and attitude held in medicine and healing must be acknowledged in the Western paradigm. Much has been accomplished in the basic objective to conserve biological resources and to allow drug development to lead to economic growth in some countries. The Ngudu Herbarium, a resource center for medical plants in Nigeria, was formed to distribute the benefits from the plants. Nigeria and the Cameroons have one of the strongest traditional healers’ organizations. The national system of solidarity based on ethnicity and obligation will also maintain these traditions. The enthusiasm on the continent

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Health in the African World | 517 and throughout the African world is great for maintaining, researching, continuously documenting, and practicing African cultural medicine. African medicine is more than herbs; it is a specialist activity. African medicine has to do with how power is ordered, and it cannot be reduced to a one-on-one correlation with Western medicine. It has been pointed out that African medicine heals more than a single patient, but has the capacity to heal the entire society. Africans around the world are serious about challenging the idea that the only way to see the world is through a Western gaze. In North America, many African Americans have lost knowledge of herbs, and those that are knowledgeable have been self-taught. The increasing waves of Africans from the Caribbean, however, serve as a means of diffusing information, and more North Americans of all ethnicities, young and old, are looking for alternatives to biomedicine. What has become a phenomenon in North America for many who do not have access to Western pharmaceuticals is the alternative of the local herb gates that usually sell illegal substances such as cannabis, cocaine, or heroin. These street-corner entrepreneurs, also called drug dealers, handle other drugs such as synthetic pharmaceuticals or prescription drugs. The self-healing practice that this represents has become more popular as a response to sickness before consulting the emergency department for care in a public hospital. Pharmacists in black neighborhoods often do not carry the medications for pain that people with chronic disease require, again giving them no access unless they go elsewhere to obtain them. Merrill Singer’s Drugging the Poor (2008) addresses the issue of drug addiction in the US, where primary care physicians increasingly treat depression and pain, and the trend toward pharmaceutical addiction. He critically assesses the entire idea of drugging populations, whether the drugs are legal or illegal. Self-medicating against social discrimination,

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poverty, and structural violence whether with legal or illcit drugs offers short-term relief, but in the long run, it functions to maintain an unjust and oppressive system. African Americans have every reason to look elsewhere for alternative health care. After several hundred years under first plantation medicine, and later biomedicine’s disparity, many are unhappy with the system of care. In the Caribbean, as Payne-Jackson and Alleyne (2004) point out, a key component of the continued practice of folk medicine is the growing recognition of the importance of health of the mind and spirit in the context of alternative or holistic systems of medicine. The concept of mind and spirit has gained mainstream respectability today and a larger clientele. Caribbean practitioners of folk medicine, for example, use internationally recognized herbs, such as sinkle bible, aloe vera, dandelion (Cassia occidentalis), rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), and ganja (Cannabis sativa), but they also use local herbs whose therapeutic properties are part of the generalized herbal lore existing within the Caribbean. Many people who might not otherwise have consulted folk herbalists may now do so with more confidence and less fear that they will lose respectability. These herbs are commonly acceptable today internationally. Spirituality and Healing Finally, the fulfillment in spiritual pursuits is another aspect of ancestral medicine. Spirituality benefits those forms of religion that place communion with the spirits and the Holy Spirit at the center of their religious observance and belief system. Denominations such as Revivalism, Pentecostalism, and Spiritual Baptists are growing in the English Caribbean; Santeria, Candomblé, and Yoruba in the Spanish and Portuguese world; and Vodou and its variants, such as Rara, in the French Caribbean Diaspora. More people are being exposed to the availability of the spiritual healing practiced by these churches and traditions.

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These religions transcend ethnicity and nations. Such indigenous traditions are alive and well all over the African continent and are competing successfully with non-government organizations (NGOs) for patrons. African medicine increasingly acts as a solution to the contemporary health needs of the populace. The Band-Aid of NGOs and the new Peace Corps–type health intervention proposed by the United States as a supplement to the structural adjustment programs of allocations for the poor have enhanced the place of African cultural medicine in all African societies. Many developing nations are in debt and poverty partly due to the policies of international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. These programs have been heavily criticized for many years for resulting in poverty. Some governments have questioned whether the IMF and World Bank can be sued for misdirecting nations to their benefit. There has been an increased dependency on the richer nations. This is despite the IMF and World Bank’s claim that following their outlines will reduce poverty. Following an ideology known as neoliberalism, Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs) have been imposed to ensure debt repayment and economic restructuring. But the way it has happened has required poor countries to reduce spending on things like health, education and development, while debt repayment and other economic policies have been made the priority. The film made in Jamaica entitled “Life and Debt” (2001) addresses the issues of the process of undermining local products, industries, and services and the increasing dependence that has emerged. Those today who subjectively identify themselves as Africans share an objective health circumstance. If you are from the Caribbean, you may be more likely to look for a natural remedy, as opposed to chemicals, but if you are from North America, you may not have that option. This begins with the concept of health

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and the tradition of healer and health practitioner in the household, especially for the African continent and the Caribbean. The sociological and ethnological dimensions of folk medicine in the Caribbean, including herbal medicine, need to be developed. Payne-Jackson and Alleyne (2004) point out that the historical linguistic aspects and underlying philosophical structures of folk medicine have been understudied. The etiology of disease has not been studied or financed. The writings of Caribbean scholars, herbalists, and practitioners are being added to the literature of medical anthropology, and the extensive folk pharmacopoeia based on herbals is becoming more widely known through publication. A fuller understanding of the folk medical system could undoubtedly lead to a better understanding between folk practitioners and biomedical practitioners in the biomedical system. It could also lead to a better understanding between biomedical practitioners and clients/patients who may be immersed in an alternative system of medicine. Nevertheless, the advantage of high-tech medicine remains questionable when it comes to African people. Cesarean births, for example, limit reproduction. In Miami for example, more than half of the deliveries are cesarean. In the United States black women are at high risk for cesarean delivery, and this creates suspicion toward the system. In addition, contraceptive alternatives are often deleterious for black women’s later reproductive success, and yet alternatives with the highest risk factor are often selected for blacks. Such circumstances make African peoples wary about using the biomedical system and create a lack of trust based on the medicalization of race. Popular Medicine Popular culture is derived in large part from the traditional or folk culture and overlaps with it. Popular medicine and “street medicine” (my term; it refers to the urban street peddlers of everything from illicit drugs to prescription

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Health in the African World | 519 pain killers) in the Caribbean also includes Chinese and East Indian remedies. Today this includes over-the-counter substances commonly used to enhance health such as vitamins or tonics. The existence of street medicine is a symptom of a poor health system and reflects a lack of access to physicians and market economy systems of health. Caribbean herb consciousness is an example of popular medicine. As is the case with other aspects of Caribbean traditional culture, Caribbean folk medicine is largely misunderstood and subject to negative, pejorative attitudes on the part of the modernizing, socially mobile segments of the population. It may include the kinds of medicine found on the counter in Caribbean stores, ranging from Chinese, Indian, and African substances. Popular also is the idea that Caribbean herbs are psychoactive in that they influence the mind and establish a consciousness that people are linked with the forces of the universe. Holistic health offers another example of popular medicine. Llaila O. Afrika’s African Holistic Health (1983) gained wide popularity in the United States, and several more publications have followed. Holistic health has addressed a change in consciousness required in treating disease. In so doing it has spoken to the miseducation of North American populations about themselves. Films like Thunderbolt (West Africa) were made to inform audiences of the seriousness of African cultural medicine, and the knowledgeable practitioners within the African context. This film, although fictional, demonstrates the challenges to biomedicine that cultural medicine brings forward. T HE D IASPORA : T RENDS , C ONCERNS , P ROSPECTS Structural adjustment programs with NGO aid have been a detriment to African peoples globally. Confessions are now turning up in the academic literature, which recognize the failure of such programs in this complex scenario. The belief or philosophy that civil society organizes

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political participation just as markets organize economic participation in the society is faulty thinking. This new discourse whereby NGOs give voice to the poor has contributed instead to widening the gap between the haves and the have nots (Pfeiffer 2004). Faith-based initiatives are not reaching out and are often not in touch with their communities, particularly the very poor communities. The pattern of dissociation from the world of foreign aid reveals important shortcomings of the donor-driven NGO model in penetrating, mobilizing, or capturing the imagination and confidence of poor communities around critical health and development issues. Yet, the Western world is committed to increasing aid as opposed to removing the barriers that would allow Africa to earn its own way through trade. What is the advantage of aid? Surely the psychological damage it has on a continent and on an entire cultural identity of people is severe. And surely anything people can do for themselves is better than what someone else can do for them. Aid is an industry, and it only helps the one making the offer of aid. The African world community requires more self-love, more self-joy, and more self-prosperity. HIV/AIDS In Africa and the Caribbean, health disparities come largely from lack of access to health care combined with failing economies and obsolete and dependent health infrastructures, and nowhere are those disparities more evident than with HIV/AIDS. Much of the burden of HIV/AIDS falls on Africa (70 percent), and in some cities of Africa at least one in five people have HIV/AIDS. Three million people died of HIV/AIDS in 2000, and in 2008 2.7 million of the infected individuals are children. The Caribbean has been identified as second to Saharan Africa in prevalence of HIV. While carrying this burden, other diseases continue to soar. In every direction one gazes, Africa is not doing so well with respect to issues of health.

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The malpractice the academic literature continues to report with respect to the HIV/AIDS prevalence and incidence throughout the African world has created more fear of the biomedical system. Poor medical practices, misguided intention, presumptions about African health behavior, carelessness (for example, the use of dirty needles), a lack of cultural sensitivity, and a belief that Africans are highly sexual have caused more cases of HIV/AIDS than unsafe sex practices alone (Brown 1997, Gisselquist 2003, Falola and Heaton 2008). The Conference on HIV/AIDS, Chronic Disease and Indigenous Knowledge held in Ghana (March 2006) demonstrated a full commitment to investing in African ancestral knowledge with respect to agricultural biodiversity, reproductive health, nutrition, safety, legislation and policy formation, research, and protective rights of property. In addition, the conference established a goal of ending HIV by 2015. How to translate these words to a context of theory, research, and practice that NGOs have not achieved cannot be the preoccupation. C ONCLUSION The distrust toward Western medicine builds throughout the African Diaspora. The connections across the Diaspora (especially the African continent and the Caribbean) are heightened as a result of the failure of the United States and Europe to live equitably with fair exchanges. Instead, the system of life the West has organized through the mandates of international organizations, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization has failed all. Issues ranging from access to clean drinking water to lack of citizenship all culminate in trauma and stress. Through the process of globalization, the African world can acknowledge consistent patterns toward Africans at home and in the Diaspora, just as colonial policy shared a consistent baseline of oppressive conditions. To move from identifying health disparities to

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correcting health disparities requires a multimethod approach targeting the full range of related disparities. Most important is to build a civil service capable of delivering the money down to where it is needed and building the physical infrastructure for Africa and the Caribbean where corruption in high places is a pandemic. On the other hand, in the United States and the United Kingdom, where this physical infrastructure already exists, racism and the lack of cultural competency limit participation. The common barriers to health must be alleviated through innovative research with legitimate outreach, functioning partnerships, and skilled ethnographic advocates who will connect this system from the macro to the micro level and cover the array of sectors (youth, elder, disabled, women, mothers and infants, men, and so on). New methodologies and new teams of people will be needed to direct health promotion. And in directing medical research and intervention, it will be necessary to give more respect to those knowledgeable in cultural studies, such as anthropologists, Africanists, and Caribbeanists. Both the researchers and the researched need to pay closer attention to the shaping influence of cultural schemas that are critical to better understanding the relationship of cultural beliefs to health behaviors, such as cultural attitudes toward rape, homosexuality, and the response to AIDS in the African world. African people worldwide must stand up and take responsibility for their health and well-being. Ancestral knowledge ranging from herbal use, collection, and preparation, harvesting herbs, preventive health to ancestral methods of oral performance, drama, and music associated with healing and conflict resolution need to be integrated into the school curriculum for youth and in medical schools for physicians. It is time for the cultural knowledge of African peoples to be taken very seriously. Ida Tafari See also Candomblé; Santería.

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Health in the African World | 521 F URTHER R EADING Afrika, Llaila O. African Holistic Health. 1983. Beltsville, MD: Sea Island Information Group, Adesegun, Johnson and Koram Publishers. Awases, M. J. N. Gbary, and R. Chatora. 2004. Migration of Health Professionals in Six Countries: A Synthesis Report. WHO. Regional Office for Africa. Division of Health Systems and Service Development. Brazzaville. Brown, D. R., A. Hernandez, G. Saint-Jean, S. Evans, I. Tafari, L. G.Brewster, M. Celestin, C. GonezEstefan, F. Regalado, S. Akal, B. Nierenberg, E. D. Kauschinger, R. Schwartz, J. B. Page. 2008. “A Participatory Action Research Pilot Study of Urban Health Disparities Using Rapid Assessment Response and Evaluation.” American Journal of Public Health. Vol. 98, No. 1, January. Brown, P. J. 1997. “Culture and the Global Resurgence of Malaria.” In The Anthropology of Infectious Disease. International Health Perspectives, ed. Marcia C. Inhorn and Peter J. Brown, 119–141. Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. Gordon and Breach Publishers. Buchan, J., and L. Calman. 2004. “The Global Shortage of Registered Nurses: An Overview of Issues and Actions.” International Council of Nurses, Place Jean-Marteau, 1201 Geneva (Switzerland). Byrd, W. Michael, and Linda A. Clayton. 2001. An American Health Dilemma: Race, Medicine, Health Care in the United States. New York: Routledge. Chevannes, B., W. Edwards, et al. 2001. Report of the National Commission on Ganja. Jamaica Information Service, September. Kingston. De Barros, J., and Stilwell, S., eds. 2003. “Colonialism and Health in the Tropics.” Caribbean Quarterly. Vol. 49, No. 4, December. Falola, T., and M. M. Heaton, eds. 2008. Health Knowledge and Belief Systems in Africa. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. Gbodossou, E. V. A., V. D. Floyd, and C. I. Katy. 2008. “AIDS in Africa: Scenarios for the Future. The Role of Traditional Medicine in Africa’s Fight Against HIV/AIDS.” www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=AIDS+in+ Africa%3A++Scenarios+for+the+Future&btn G=Search, accessed February 1, 2008. Germosen-Robineau, Lionel, ed. 1997. “Farmacopea Vegetal Caribena.” In Ediciones Emile Desormeaux. Fort-de-France, Martinique, French West Indies. Gisselquist, D., J. J. Potterat, S. Brody, F. Vachon. 2003. “Let It Be Sexual: How Health Care

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Transmission of AIDS in Africa Was Ignored.” International Journal of STD & AIDS 14: 148– 161. Hahn, Robert A., and Arthur Kleinman. 1983. “Biomedical Practice and Anthropological Theory, Frameworks and Directions.” Annual Review of Anthropology. Vol. 12, 305–333, October. Hunt, N.R. 1999. A Colonial Lexicon: Of Birth, Ritual, Medicalization and Mobility in the Congo. Durham: Duke University Press. Institute of Medicine. 2002. Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Janes, Craig R. 2004. “ Going Global in Century XXI: Medical Anthropology and the New Primary Health Care.” Human Organization 63: 457–471. Jaspen, B. 2005. “Brazil Pressures Abbott, Rivals to Cut Prices; Country Wants Lower Costs for AIDS Drugs.” Chicago Tribune, June 28, C3. Kimani. 2005. Special Correspondent. “Brain Drain Robs Africa’s Health Sector of 552 bn.” The East African: The Daily Nation. Feb. 7. Kiple, Kenneth F., and Virginia H. King. 1981. Another Dimension to the Black Diaspora, Diet, Disease, and Racism. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. Leclerc-Madlala, S. 2002. “On the Virgin Cleasing Myth: Gendered Bodies, AIDS and Ethnomedicine.” African Journal of AIDS Research 1:87–95. Loustaunau, Martha O., and Elisa J. Soto. 1997. The Cultural Context of Health, Illness, and Medicine. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey. Morgan, O. 2005. Health Issues in the Caribbean. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle. National Council on Drug Abuse Jamaica. 1998. Report on the Medico-Scientific Factors in the Use and Misuse of Marijuana. Prepared by the Medical and Scientific Committee of the National Council of Drug Abuse. National Institutes of Health. “Addressing Health Disparities: The NIH Program of Action.” Available at: healthdisparities.nih.gov./ whatare.html. Accessed January 8, 2005. National Institutes of Health. Health Disparities. healthdisparities.nih.gov/whatare.html. Accessed January 8, 2005. Ocampo, Carlota. 2000. “Psychophysiology and Racism.” American Psychologist, Vol. 55, No. 10, pp. 1164–1165.

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522 | Heath, Roy (1926–) Packard, R. 1989. White Plague, Black Labor: Tuberculosis and the Political Economy of Health and Disease in South Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press. See also Randall Packard, “Tuberculosis and the Development of Industrial Health Policies on the Witwatersrand, 1902–1932” In Journal of Southern African Studies 13.2 (1987): 187–209. Payne-Jackson, Arvilla, and Mervyn C. Alleyne. 2004. Jamaican Folk Medicine A Source of Healing. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press. Pfeiffer, J. 2004. “Civil Society, NGOs, and the Holy Spirit in Mozambique.” Human Organization 63: 359–372. Ramsay, F. J. 1997. Global Studies, Africa. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. Saha, S., J. J. Arbelaez, and L. A. Cooper. 2003. “Patient-Physician Relationships and Racial Disparities in the Quality of Health Care.” American Journal of Public Health.Vol. 93, No. 10. Sankore, R. 2006. “How the Brain Drain to the West Worsens Africa’s Public Health Crisis.” Pambazuka News. Weekly Forum for Social Justic in Africa. Fahamu Ltd. Network for Social Justice. Oxford, UK. (http:llwww.fahamu.org), retrieved 2–1–08. Sindiga, I., C. N. Chacha, M. P. Kanunah, eds. 1995. Traditional Medicine in Africa. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers Ltd. Singer, M. 2008. Drugging the Poor: Legal and Illegal Drugs and Social Inequality. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, Inc. Smith, P. C., I. Tafari, T. Bryant, and K. Kihohia. 2000. “Barriers to Treatment of Crack-Cocaine Dependent African American Men: Re-Examination of Treatment Approaches.” In Journal of the Research Association of Minority Professors, Vol. 4, No. 1. Stewart, Taimoon. 1999. “Discussion on Intellectual Property Rights.” In Herbal Medicine in the Caribbean: To Restore a Caribbean Heritage, ed. C. D. Ezeokoli and C. E. Seaforth, 57– 61. Proceedings of the First International Workshop, April 6–8, 1998. Port of Spain, Trinidad. Tafari, Ida Vintes. 1993. Malnutrition in Urban Jamaica. Culture, Health, and Well-being: The God Factor. December 15. University Microfilm Inc. 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Tafari, I. V., P. C. Smith, J. B. Page, and H. L. Marcelin. 2000. “Cross-Sectional Survey Re-

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sults and Case Studies Lend Insight into Appropriate Treatment Alternatives for Black Men Addicted to Crack-Cocaine in the State of Florida.” Journal of the Research Association of Minority Professors, Vol. 4, No. 1. US Department of Health and Human Services. Healthy People 2010. 2001. International Medical Publishing. McLean,Virginia. Available at www.healthypeople.gov/document/table of contents.htm#under. Accessed Nov. 2, 2006. Washington, H.A. 2006 Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. New York: Doubleday. Wilkins, Nadine Joy. 1991. “Doctors and Ex-Slaves in Jamaica 1834–1850.” The Jamaican Historical Review 27: 19–30.

z Heath, Roy (1926–) Roy Heath is a first-generation Caribbean writer whose novels capture the anxieties of modernity in the face of crippling economic forces and explore the burdens of the past defined by slavery, indentured labor, and Amerindian disenfranchisement. Born on August 13, 1926, in Georgetown, British Guiana (now Guyana), and now resident in the United Kingdom, Heath’s writing career began at age 45 when his play Inez Combray won the Guyana Theatre Guild award. Since then he has published nine novels; one memoir, Shadows Round the Moon (1990); a number of essays; short stories; and lectures on Guyanese art and history. Heath’s writings represent an undiminished concern with the urban poor, the fate of West Indians with roots in the Old World, and a determination to forge a Guyanese identity, complicated by seemingly inescapable Old World consciousness. Heath attended Central High School in Georgetown and worked as a junior civil servant under British colonial Guyana before he immigrated to Britain in 1951. He obtained his bachelor’s degree at the University of London in 1956 and would be employed as a French

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Hector, Leonard Tim (1942–2002) | 523 and German instructor, teaching in the London secondary school system. Heath also studied law, and though called to the London bar in 1964, he never practiced. A veteran educator (not to be confused with the Princeton University educator Roy S. Heath), Heath’s fame rests on his novels, especially in the ways that he generously evokes Guyanese mythic and folkloric traditions. His first novel, A Man Come Home (1974), derives its central conflict from the activities of Fair Maid, the river spirit, a Guyanese representation of the West African Mammy Wata figure. In both contexts, she is a mermaid that promises—indeed, delivers— wealth to her human male lovers on only one condition: a covenanted, monogamous exclusivity. Heath’s second novel, The Murderer (1978), won the London Guardian prize for fiction. The book features Galton Flood, a neurotic protagonist who appears to be modeled on Bakoo, the Guyanese mythic figure of a little man in a bottle who is capable of creating wealth or destruction. Heath then published four novels in quick succession: From the Heat of the Day (1979), One Generation (1980), Genetha (1981), and Kwaku; Or the Man Who Could Not Keep His Mouth Shut (1982). The first three novels make up the Armstrong Trilogy (1994), which charts the misfortunes of two generations of the Armstrong family, variously delineating characters caught in hapless marriages, uninspiring careers, and prostitution. In Kwaku, Heath returns to a direct engagement with an Afro-Guyanese folkloric figure as the aesthetic paradigm for his art. Kwaku, the protagonist, is a trickster figure in the Akan Ananse trickster tradition. Heath published a sequel to Kwaku, The Ministry of Hope, in 1997, after the publication of two other novels that gave prominence to minority ethnic groups such as the Amerindians in the Guyanese hinterland (Orealla, 1984) and East Indians (The Shadow Bride, 1988). Despite decades of living in the UK, a strong Guyanese consciousness continues to inspire Heath’s creative imagination. Chiji Akoma

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See also Ananse; Caribbean Migrations: The Caribbean Diaspora; Guyana. F URTHER R EADING Akoma, Chiji. 1998. “Folklore and the AfricanCaribbean Narrative Imagination: The Example of Roy Heath.” Research in African Literature, 29 (3): 82–97. McWatt, Mark A. 1990. “Wives and Other Victims: Women in the Novels of Roy A. K. Heath.” In Out of the Kumbla: Caribbean Women and Literature, ed. Carole Boyce Davies and Elaine Savory Fido, 223–235. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Saakana, Amon Saba. 1996. Colonization and the Destruction of the Mind: Psychosocial Issues of Race, Class, Religion and Sexuality in the Novels of Roy Heath. London: Karnak House.

z Hector, Leonard Tim (1942–2002) Leonard “Tim” Hector was an Antiguan politician, educator, journalist, historian, and cultural critic. As editor-publisher of the biweekly newspaper The Outlet, he updated his Internet column, “Fan the Flame,” on a regular basis with essays and prose of the finest quality. He was a Caribbean integrationist, a Pan-Africanist, an advocate for freedom of the press, an opposition leader, and a fighter of corruption. Hector was known as a fervent contender, wielding ideas without spewing hatred, and a man who bore the consequences of his actions. He was jailed 11 times, and his publication was sued at least five times. An opponent of the V. C. Bird and Lester Bird governments of Antigua for decades, Hector was instrumental in inspiring the Caribbean Left through many trials and tribulations. A product of his environment, Hector was greatly inspired by his grandfather, whose love for education, ideas, and debate was insatiable. The name “Tim,” by which he became known, was a shortened version of “Timoshenko,” the

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identity of a well-known Russian general of the period, with which his grandfather had graced him. Awarded a scholarship, Hector studied in Canada at McGill University up to 1967. Eventually he broke off his postgraduate studies to return home where he felt his contributions were most needed. A protégé of the internationally acclaimed Marxist thinker and PanAfrican political activist C. L. R. James, Hector was intent on battling for a free society in Antigua and the Caribbean and immediately became active in politics. He was perhaps James’s most libertarian political protégé of African descent; he had a flare for direct democratic visions and rejected state power as a negation of government by everyday people. As chairman of the Progressive Labour Movement, an executive member of the Public Service Association and the Antigua Workers Union, his journalistic ability shone. A founder of the Antigua Caribbean Liberation Movement (ACLM) in 1968, he struggled relentlessly for the next two decades as one of its leaders for the social, political, and economic transformation of Antigua-Barbuda and the region. The ACLM started off as a small middle-class movement that coexisted uneasily with George Weston, the doyen of Antiguan Pan-Africanism. By 1973 it evolved to embrace Weston’s legacy and would be motivated further by the ideas of C. L. R. James. Hector distinguished himself in many ways in the Pan-African movement. In the late 1960s he was a leader of the Caribbean Unity League and wrote for Caribbean International Opinion. In 1972, with Owusu Sadauki (Dr. Howard Fuller), an African American activist, Hector initiated African Liberation Day. This movement intended to mobilize mass support globally among peoples of African descent to aid the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and the anticolonial struggles against the Portuguese in Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique. A tireless worker, Hector also developed a keen interest in agriculture, to the point where

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he owned a farm and sought to address the question of autonomy of economic production in Caribbean society. This experiment in reorganizing agricultural production in his native land was aborted by the tragic murder of his first wife, Arah, in 1989. He continued to read widely, familiarizing himself with the subject, convinced that reorganizing agricultural production was the key to transforming AntiguaBarbuda. This vision was his challenge to imperial dependency and a political economy of tourism that was wrecking the moral economy of the Caribbean. In the 1990s, Hector became a leading participant in the Mathaba International, a global forum of Third World solidarity sponsored by Libya’s Muammar Gadhafi. As a militant rejection of empire by activist-intellectuals gave way to a more ambiguous discussion of globalization, old divisive debates about race and class were papered over for the opportunity to consult about common grievances. Defending his participatory vision of government to the end, Hector was ultimately won through hard experience to James’s vision of the mass party in peripheral nations, whose perspectives and proposals are no threat to state power exactly because it extends its capacities to serve a people whose potential to be self-governing is still emerging. Matthew Quest See also Caribbean Black Power; James, Cyril Lionel Robert (1901–1989); Pan-Africanism. F URTHER R EADING Buhle, Paul. “Tim Hector: In Tribute,” www.guyanacaribbeanpolitics.com/commentary/hector_tribute.html (accessed May 2, 2004). Hector, Tim. Fan the Flame. An archive of Tim Hector’s essays from 1996–2002. www.candw.ag/%7Ejardinea/fanflame.htm (accessed May 2, 2004). Hector, Tim. 2000–2001. Tim Hector Anthology. Special Issue. C.L.R. James Journal 8 (Winter). Henry, Paget. 1992. “C.L.R. James and the Antiguan Left.” In C.L.R. James’s Caribbean, ed.

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Highlife | 525 Henry Paget and Paul Buhle, 225–262. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Luke, Conrad. “Tim Hector: A Man for All Seasons.” www.candw.ag/%7Ejardinea/ffhtm/ thprofil.htm (accessed May 2, 2004).

z Highlife Highlife is a distinctive genre of popular dance music that originated in Anglophone West Africa in the early 1900s. Pan-ethnic and pan-national in approach, highlife music blends African musical principles with Western concepts of harmony and the polyphonic musical innovations of the African Diaspora. It draws inspiration from African American jazz, Caribbean calypso, and West African dance orchestra. Vibrant exchanges and collaborations across the African Diaspora took place among early black highlife artistes. For example, members of Campbell’s Jolly Orchestra included prominent Caribbean trumpeters, while Ghanaian Kofi Ghanaba (Guy Warren) played with Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker. Many prominent highlife musicians have recounted how Louis Armstrong’s visit to Ghana in 1956 enriched their music. On the political front, Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of independent Ghana, and a Pan-Africanist, adopted highlife as the national music under his Africanization policy. Highlife music reached its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, spreading to different parts of the continent and beyond. However by 1975, the popularity of the music had declined, giving way to new musical trends. A highlife orchestra typically consists of African percussive instruments (idiophones, membranophones) and European wind and string instruments (aerophones, chordophones), which give it its distinctive sounds and cosmopolitan ambience. The music retains the pronounced syncopated polyrhythm characteristic of African music, which is ingen-

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iously reproduced on the pattern of the European brass and marching bands. Highlife bands were first introduced to colonial-centered institutions such as schools, police, and military forces. Unable to comprehend the principles of African music, especially its complicated rhythm and call-and-response style, Europeans arrogantly dismissed it as undisciplined and mere noise. In its place they introduced Western-style music, especially the marching and brass bands that were considered critical in instilling discipline among African recruits in colonial institutions. To the Africans, European music was all harmony and no rhythm, so to satisfy their musical aesthetics, the Africans in the marching bands explored ways of blending the two. The result was a brass pop band with lively tunes and rhythms. The pop bands were often hired out to entertain at African ceremonies, and they were especially popular at funeral corteges. Invariably, African-centered festivities where the orchestra played only original indigenous tunes, were soon considered unfashionable and sometimes labeled “retrogressive.” The close link with the brass pop bands explains the reason highlife music was often described as the music of the new African elites. These elites were Western educated and professionally trained Africans, but it was not only the elites who were aware of, or needed contemporary forms of entertainment. The term “highlife” captures the social space being created by a colonial ideology that privileged European ways and regarded indigenous lifestyle as backward, or “lowlife.” There is no doubt that highlife catered to the needs of the emerging African elites who occupied the new urban spaces and who, in spite of their excellent Western qualifications, were not especially welcome at clubs and other entertainment venues reserved for colonial officials. However, the new social space also needed the services of semiprofessionals, traders, artisans, and other workers for its maintenance. Predictably, migrants from the rural interior flocked to these urban centers to

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perform the required services and to partake of the new highlife. For their own entertainment needs, they brought with them their ethnic-flavored brand of African music. Although they did not have the financial resources to equip their orchestra with expensive, imported Western instruments, they did not lack the creativity to adapt indigenous wind and string instruments to produce more contemporary, cosmopolitan tunes and rhythms. Kakraba Lobi, a former laborer at the Waterworks in Ghana, exemplified such adaptation: in between playing on the streets of Ghana and Nigeria, he was invited to join the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana in Legon as a master xylophonist. Ghana and Nigeria are commonly regarded as the birthplaces of highlife, but an often overlooked and earlier source is Liberia. The Kru of Liberia, reputed mariners who traveled along West African coasts even before the advent of Europeans, were famous for the portable musical instruments they carried and played at gatherings for palm wine revelers. By the early 1800s, they had become associated with the so-called “palm-wine music.” Also known as maringa, the music is unique with its adaptation of the Spanish guitar, the mandolin. The Kru quickly became fixtures on European ships, especially during the legitimate triangular trade—Africa, Europe, and the New World. Their tricontinental travels further exposed them to different musical styles and enriched their maringa music. After World War I, the Kru Diaspora became more pronounced along the coast of West Africa, and along with it, maringa music was often played at the local musical scenes of Calabar in Nigeria and Accra, Sekondi, and Kumasi in Ghana. The influence of the music was easily discerned in the guitar bands common in these areas, and they were famed for their modern arrangement of folk songs. The guitar bands in turn were important in the evolution of highlife music. In 1930, Sibo, a Kru man, established a brass band in Ghana that played both African and European music;

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in Nigeria about the same time, the Calabar Brass Band moved to Lagos. Both events established the roots of highlife music in the two countries. Generally, as the music and its accompanying highlife dance spread across West Africa, each region maintained its ethnic specificity by composing songs in the local language, and some bands, especially the multinational ones, created compositions in English or pidgin English. Typical highlife songs covered topics ranging from love to social, philosophical, and the occasional political commentary. Popular bands regularly played at bars, hotels, and nightclubs. E. T. Mensah and the Tempos (Ghana), Joe Mensah (Ghana), Rex Lawson (Nigeria), and Victor Olaiya (Nigeria) were among the more renowned Highlife band leaders and orchestras of the 1950s and 1960s. Several factors contributed to the decline of highlife music. One major factor was the wave of independence sweeping through colonial Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. As countries attained independence, they lost vital connections they once shared through the British colonial system. Each new nation turned inward, focusing on developing independently. Closely related to this were the political unrest in Ghana and Nigeria. The 1965 coup d’etat that swept President Nkrumah from power also stifled his favored projects, including the state patronage of highlife music. The Nigerian Civil War (1969– 1971) had even a more devastating impact because many of its prominent musicians were located in Biafra where the war raged the most. Finally, there was the widely, internationally popular soul music with its strong appeal to the younger generation, and West African youths proved to be no exception. Suddenly, highlife was no longer hip; it slipped into the memory lane of the middle-aged. However, nostalgia was also responsible for the revival of the music among new generation of musicians at the turn to the 21st century. Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka See also Ghana; Jazz; Pan-Africanism.

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Hilliard, Asa G. (1933–2007) | 527 F URTHER R EADING Aning, Ben A. 1989. “Kakraba Lobi: Master Xylophonist of Ghana.” In African Musicology: Current Trends, Volume One. A Festschrift Presented to J.H. Kwabena Nketia, ed. Jacqueline Cogdell Djedje, 93–110. Los Angeles: University of California. Euba, Akin. 1988. Essays on Music in Nigeria, Volume I. Bayreuth, Germany: Bayreuth African Studies. Chernoff, John. 1981. African Music and Sensibility. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Peretti, Burton. 1992. The Creation of Jazz: Music, Race and Culture in Urban America. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Schmidt, Cynthia. 1998. “Kru Mariners and Migrants of the West African Coast.” In Africa: The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, ed. Ruth M. Stone, 370–382. New York: Garland Publishing. Veal, Michael E. 2000. Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

z Hilliard, Asa G. (1933–2007) Dr. Asa G. Hilliard III (Baffour Amankwatia II), was a Pan-Africanist, educator, psychologist, and historian who had considerable impact in the field of education. His work linked interdisciplinary theory and practice in African and African Diaspora history, culture, and socialization practices. School districts, universities, and other institutions, including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Geographic Society, called on Hilliard to share his expertise in early childhood education, teacher training, testing, assessment systems, African socialization, African content in curriculum, and more. Hilliard was born on August 22, 1933, in Galveston, Texas, to Dr. Lois O. Williams, a Pentecostal minister, and Asa G. Hilliard II, an educator. He earned a BA in psychology from the University of Denver (1955), and an MA in

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counseling and an EdD in educational psychology from Denver University (1963). He served in the U.S. Army and worked as a teacher, custodian, railroad porter, bartender, cook, and waiter. In 1963, Hilliard joined the faculty at San Francisco State University and was sent to Liberia, West Africa, where he served as chief of party for the San Francisco State advisory team in Liberia, a school psychologist, a consultant to the Peace Corps, and ultimately as superintendent of schools in Monrovia, Liberia. He returned to San Francisco State in 1970 and served as department chair and, later, dean of the School of Education. In 1980, he became the Fuller E. Calloway Professor of Urban Education at Georgia State University in Atlanta, where he served for 27 years. Hilliard was a board-certified forensic examiner and diplomate of the American Board of Forensic Examiners and the American Board of Forensic Medicine. He served as lead expert witness in landmark federal cases on test validity and bias, including Larry P. v. Wilson Riles in California, Mattie T. v. Holliday in Mississippi, Deborah P. v. Turlington in Florida, and two Supreme Court cases, Ayers v. Fordice in Mississippi and Marino v. Ortiz in New York City. Hilliard was a producer of multimedia presentations, African timeline posters, bibliographies, and other educational materials. His popular slide show, Free Your Mind, Return to the Source: African Origins of Civilization (1971), was reproduced as a video by the same name and aired on the television show For the People. He also served with Dr. Barbara Sizemore as chief consultant on the Every Child Can Succeed television series, produced by the Agency for Instructional Technology. Hilliard led study tours to Egypt, Ghana, and Mali, and in 2001, he was enstooled as development chief for Mankranso, Ghana. Hilliard served on numerous boards and helped found and/or provide guidance for several organizations and conferences, including the Black Child Development Institute; the

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Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations; the Nile Valley Conference at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia; the Infusion of African and African-American Content in the School Curriculum Conference in Atlanta; the African Education for Every African Child conference in Mali; and the Illinois TransAtlantic Slave Trade Commission. He also founded Waset Educational Productions and the Per MAAT Foundation and cofounded Makare Publishing Company. Hilliard designed the approach and selected the essays that appeared in The Portland Baseline Essays. This seminal work was the first time a comprehensive global and longitudinal view of people of African ancestry was presented in a public school curriculum. Hilliard authored numerous publications, including journal articles, forewords, magazine articles, special reports, chapters in books, and books. Some of those works include The Maroon Within Us: Selected Essays on African American Community Socialization (Black Classic Press 1995), SBA: The Reawakening of the African Mind (Makare, 1997), and African Power: Affirming African Indigenous Socialization in the Face of the Cultural Wars (Makare, 2002). He also coedited The Teachings of Ptahhotep, the Oldest Book in the World with Larry Williams and Nia Damali (Blackwood Press, 1987) and Young, Gifted, and Black: Promoting High Achievement Among African American Students (Beacon Press, 2004) and edited Testing African American Students, Nos. 2 and 3, special issues of the Negro Educational Review (December 1990). Fittingly, Asa G. Hilliard III died in Cairo, Egypt, his beloved Kemet, which he had studied diligently, on August 13, 2007. Nefertari Patricia Hilliard-Nunn See also Afrocentricity; Miseducation and Contemporary Urban Black America; PanAfricanism. F URTHER R EADING Benson, Janice E. Hale. 1986. Black Children: Their Roots, Culture and Learning Styles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

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Delpit, Lisa. 2006. Other People’s Children. Cultural Conflict in the Classroom. New York: New Press. Hilliard, Asa. 1995. The Maroon Within Us: Selected Essays on African American Community Socialization. Baltimore: Black Classic Press.

z Hip-Hop, Cuban Although a post-1990 phenomena, Cuba has more than 500 rap groups, having held 10 Annual Festivals featuring international stars from the United States, Europe, Africa, and Latin America. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and increased cultural exchanges between the United States and Cuba, hip-hop’s influence grew dramatically as the island went into an economic nosedive known as The Special Period. As Cuba decriminalized the holding of dollars and tourism became the main earner of foreign exchange, Cuba’s Afro-Diasporic rap dialogue intensified, with such U.S. organizations as Black August and such conscious rappers as Roots and Common visiting the island. Cuba’s economic crisis hit its black population hard, since many did not have family abroad that could send them money, and despite tourism’s takeoff, many Afro-Cubans were discriminated against in job hiring. Alamar, a housing project east of Havana, is credited with being the birthplace of Cuban rap and is still one of the main locations for both the festival and the concerts. Initial government reaction was hostile, considering rap “foreign” and “anti-social,” but eventually, seeing that it was too large and too popular a force, the government instead tried to co-opt and contain it. Now there is an official responsible for rap in the Ministry of Culture, which also has published the island’s first rap magazine, Movimiento. More recently, the Cuban Rap Agency was formed to promote, record, and help in the musical training of rappers.

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Hip-Hop Culture in the African Diaspora | 529 Cuba’s rappers have strongly affirmed their Afro-Cuban roots, be it musically or religiously, as well as being adamant in their denunciation of racism, discrimination, and social inequality. Cuban rappers have clearly debunked the myth of Cuba’s self-image as a racial democracy. Songs about prostitution, street life, poverty, domestic violence, obsession with money and class differences, and the lack of spiritual and ethical values abound, and their biting, poetic criticism is a refreshing antidote to the island’s lifeless press. Despite this predominantly socially aware viewpoint, Cuban rappers also sing about partying, sex, and having fun. Though Cuban rap uses programmed drumbeats and round bass lines, samples Public Enemy, Jay-Z, Vico C, and throws in words in English, it also draws heavily on the island’s deep Afro-Cuban musical traditions of ritual music, rumba, son, and the guaracha. Some groups have used the batá drums, others sample old songs like “Quirino” or “Lágrimas negras”; and Cuban choteo (an irreverent humor where nothing is sacred), similar to signifying. This makes Cuban rap an extremely rich and layered example of a genre that is conversant with Cuban and world history, culture, poetry, and music. Orishas, the best-known Cuban rap group, lives in Paris but performs frequently on the island. However, most groups reside on the island, still struggling to make ends meet, with scant technical resources, rarely appearing on radio or TV unless they have a more “commercial sound.” Yet such groups as Hermanos de Causa, Anónimo Consejo, Las Krudas, Obsesión, Los Paisanos, Papo Record, Cubanitos en la Red, 100 Percent Original, Explosión Suprema, Eleyó, Junior Clan, Grandes Ligas, Madera Limpia, and Alto Voltaje perform widely and have a significant following among black, brown, and white Cuban youth. Alan West-Durán See also Afro-Cuban Music; Cuba: Afro-Cubans; Hip-Hop, Latin American; Hip-Hop Culture in the African Diaspora.

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F URTHER R EADING Pacini Hernández, Deborah, and Reebee Garofalo. 1999–2000. “Hip Hop in Havana: Rap, Race, and National Identity in Contemporary Cuba.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 11/12: 18–47. West-Durán, Alan. 2004. “Rap’s Diasporic Dialogues: Cuba’s Redefinition of Blackness.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 16 (1): 4–39.

z Hip-Hop, Latin American Latin American hip-hop has developed in the past two decades to become part of the popular culture with varying degrees of mainstream acceptance in all Latin American countries. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela are countries where hip-hop has taken root and developed regional distinction while maintaining the four traditional elements of hiphop culture: deejays, emcees, b-boys and b-girls, and graffiti artists. All classes and genres are represented in Latin American hip-hop, including pop, politically conscious, gangster, and Christian rap. Latino influences, especially Puerto Rican, have been prevalent in hip-hop since its inception in New York City in the 1970s. Some early Puerto Rican hip-hop pioneers include DJ Charlie Chase of the Cold Crush Brothers, Rubie Dee and Prince Whipper Whip of the Fantastic Five, as well as most of the Rock Steady Crew and the New York City Breakers. Because of its neocolonial status as a commonwealth of the United States, Puerto Rico served as an early encounter zone between hiphop and Latin America. Migrating youth brought hip-hop culture back to the island, where it flourished, and Puerto Rico became a point of origin for a genuinely Latino hip-hop, influencing the rest of Latin America. Vico C (born Armando Lozada Cruz) is one of the island’s most influential emcees; since 1989, he

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A daytime hip-hop jam in San Juan del Urigancho, just outside of Lima, Peru, draws youth of all ages. (Noelle Theard)

has released five albums and won both Grammy and Latin Grammy awards. Cuba’s hip-hop culture traces back almost as far as that of Puerto Rico, but radio signals from Miami radio stations in the late 1980s and 1990s, more than migration, brought the hip-hop culture to Cuban shores. Currently, there are reportedly more than 500 hip-hop groups in Cuba. Although the revolutionary Cuban government originally viewed hip-hop with suspicion as a form of U.S. cultural imperialism, it has been embraced as a Cuban art form and has strong institutional support. The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, at the impetus of U.S. political exiles Nehanda Abiodun and Assata Shakur, worked to bring such progressive and revolutionary U.S. hip-hop acts as

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dead prez and Talib Kweli to Cuba to counter the popularity of U.S. mainstream rap. Cuba’s best-known hip-hop group, Orishas, brought traditional Cuban son and instrumentation together with beats and lyrics to create a genuinely Cuban hip-hop sound. Hip-hop festivals, especially those in Cuba, Colombia, and, more recently, Venezuela, have fostered exchanges between artists from all countries in Latin America and the United States. Cuba hosts the longest-running hip-hop festival in Latin America, which was created in 1995 in Havana’s district of Alamar, the birthplace of Cuban hip-hop. Hiphop al Parque began in Bogota, Colombia, in 1999, and Venezuela’s Cumbre International de Hiphop began in 2005. Each of these festivals is financially supported by their

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Hip-Hop Culture in the African Diaspora | 531 respective governments through the ministry of culture. In the case of Cuba and Venezuela, socialist reform plays heavily in festival programming. Beyond politics, these festivals foster a sense of Pan-Americanism through hip-hop, which is creating artistic and intellectual links throughout Latin America. Transnationalism plays an enormous role in Latin American hip-hop. Latin Americans have been critical to hip-hop development in the United States and all over Latin America. DJ Disco Wiz is credited as being one of the first Latino deejays. In 1981 the Mean Machine released the bilingual song “Disco Dreams,” and the first bilingual hip-hop hits were “Mentirosa” (1989) by Cuban American Mellow Man Ace and “La Raza” (1990) by Chicano rapper Kid Frost. Ecuadorian American Gerardo, born Gerardo Mejia, released “Rico Suave” in 1991. Cypress Hill, made up of Cuban and Mexican Americans from Los Angeles, is the best-selling Latin rap group to date with 11 albums released, including their triple platinum album Black Sunday (1993). As a testament to their enormous Latin American following, Cypress Hill released Los Grandes Éxitos en Español (1999), on which they translated their greatest hits in Spanish. Puerto Rican rapper Big Pun was the first solo Latino rapper to go platinum, or sell 1 million copies, with his album Capital Punishment. Cuba’s Orishas was made up of Cuban immigrants in Paris, and Colombia’s Tres Coronas is based out of Queens, New York. Control Machete, a group from Monterrey, Mexico, sold 100,000 copies of their debut album Mucho Barato (1997) and became one of the bestknown groups in Latin America. European Spanish hip-hop also has a strong influence in Latin America. One of the most successful Spanish rappers, Nach (born Ignacio José Fornés Olmo) sold 30,000 copies of his latest album, Ars Magna/Miradas (2005) and performed in Latin America for the first time in 2006. Spanish language magazines are widely circulated in hip-hop shops, and the Internet has become vital in the propagation of hip-hop

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culture, with worldwide sites allowing music to be exchanged beyond national boundaries. Noelle Theard See also Bambaataa, Afrika (1957–); Hip-Hop Culture in the African Diaspora; KRS-ONE (1965–). F URTHER R EADING George, Nelson. 1998. Hiphop America. New York: Penguin Books. Jacobs-Fantauzzi, Eil, dir. 2005. Inventos: Hiphop Cubano. DVD. Clenched Fist Productions. Rivera, Raquel Z. 2003. New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Umlauf, Simon. 2002. “Cuban Hip-hop: The Rebellion Within the Revolution.” CNN Headline News, 25 November.

z Hip-Hop Culture in the African Diaspora I NTRODUCTION : H OW I T B EGAN Hip-hop can be said to be the rhythm, the soul, the people, the dress code, and the language of the post-1970s African American generation. Hip-hop’s “holy trinity” of founders included Afrika Bambaataa, DJ Kool Herc, and Grandmaster Flash. Bambaataa is also said to be most responsible for the music’s original African flavor. Bambaataa, a former member of the Black Spades street organization from the Bronx, New York, collaboratively worked to turn a negative urban culture into a positive. This is explained in Yes, Yes Y’All: The Experience Music Project’s Oral History of Hip-Hop’s First Decade (Fricke and Ahearn 2002, 45). Thus, a radical, anticolonialist, and anti-imperialist vision of hip-hop was there at its inception. Bambaataa had seen the film Zulu (1964) set at Rorke’s Drift in Natal, South Africa, in 1879. Identifying with the Zulu uprising against the British, he was then inspired to launch a movement of cultural politics to fight for freedom and self-determination, promoting “peace, love, unity and

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having fun” while “being warriors for the community” at the very same time. The four elements of deejaying, graffiti writing, break-dancing, and emceeing were brought together and baptized under the official banner of “hip-hop” on November 12, 1974. The fifth element of hip-hop, of which so few critics or consumers are even aware, is knowledge, which becomes the main element of hip-hop and the element that holds it all together. Among the poor black youth in the cities of African Diaspora, hip-hop also resonated with George L. Jackson who in Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson (Jackson [1970] 1994, 251–252) defined neoslavery as an economic condition manifested in the loss of selfdetermination. Thus, Jackson’s vision has inspired many a hip-hop artist time and time again. In other words, “Africa’s ex-slave Diaspora” is without a doubt “Africa’s neoslave Diaspora,” and it is this African Diaspora that makes history in its creation and re-creation of hip-hop.

One of the founding elders of hip-hop, musician Afrika Bambaataa, spins turntables. (S.I.N./Corbis)

T HE H IP-H OP R EVOLUTION : M USICAL , C ULTURAL AND H ISTORICAL C ONNECTIONS Ted Vincent’s Keep Cool: The Black Activists Who Built the Jazz Age (1995) identifies four “musical revolutions” in 20th century U.S. history: jazz; rhythm and blues, or soul; funk; and hip-hop. The Jazz Age is connected back to direct action, black liberation, and Marcus Garvey’s millions-strong Universal Negro Improvement Association. The revolution of jazz is drowned or watered down in swing music, just as rhythm and blues or soul is in its rock and roll imitations. The militant funk music inspired by black power activism is drowned in monotonous disco before a fourth revolution occurs in music, according to Keep Cool (whose title comes from a hit song written by Garvey himself while in prison in Atlanta, Georgia). Described by some as an “anti-disco” movement, the hip-hop revolution is given added credence as a concept by this rendition of black

music, culture, and politics. Thus, the politics of hip-hop is often lost in what might be called “hip pop” in the 21st century. Robert Farris Thompson confirms this resistance, aesthetically, in “Hip-Hop 101,” written for Rolling Stone magazine in 1986. In this account, James Brown gave us soul; soul gave us George Clinton and funk; James Brown, George Clinton, and others, along with jazz, salsa, and reggae (or its sound system), gave us Afrika Bambaataa and the Zulu nation or, again, the hip-hop revolution. These bonds extend beyond the 20th century and U.S. music history, however, given their great Kongo (an ancient and distinguished black civilization of central Africa) cultural ties (Thompson 1996, 212). A great number of Kongo and Angolan peoples endured and survived the European slave trade (Thompson 1996, 214) and they

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Hip-Hop Culture in the African Diaspora | 533 would make a tremendous impact on popular music, worldwide. There is the colossal significance of Congo Square in New Orleans, “the city of jazz,” in addition to rumba in Cuba and samba in Brazil. Thus, hip-hop’s cultural origins are shared by five populations descending from Africa and converging or climaxing in the generation of hip-hop: Africans from Barbados; African Jamaicans; Africans from Cuba (with AfroCuban conga drums); “Boricuas” or Puerto Ricans; and Africans born and raised in North America, who bring the world jazz, soul, and funk (Thompson 1996, 213–214). These crosscurrents of Pan-Africa make sense as well as sound and motions of dance. It was a conga drum break that DJ Kool Herc extended to make “break music” before it was ever called hip-hop; and the “uprock” style of dance that dominated break dancing before back spins and such is much like nsunsa, a Kongo battle dance (or sport, even) that is performed oneon-one and very popular among males (Thompson 1996, 218). The connection to capoeira in Brazil has also been made. “HipHop 101” must be Pan-African at base, affirming present combinations of the old and the new in hip-hop revolution. H IP-H OP : W HAT I T I S /W HAT I T I S N OT Conventional mistakes and assumptions about hip-hop are as follows: First, hip-hop is misunderstood to be identical with “rapping” and is thereby reduced to merely one of its elements. It is wrenched or removed from the context of its organic relationship to all the others: graffiti-writing or tagging pioneered by artists like Phase 2 and Blade in New York and Cornbread and Cool Earl in Philadelphia; breaking, uprocking, electric boogieing or boogalooing, and the b-boying and b-girling pioneered by dancers like Shaka Zulu Kings & Queens, Nigger Twins, NYC Breakers, and Rock Steady Crew as well as Lockatron Jon, Shabba-Doo, and the Solomon brothers in California; deejaying pio-

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neered by innovators like Herc, Flash, and Bambaataa as well as Grand Wizard Theodore and early female DJs Pambaataa, Wanda D, and Debbie D; and the fifth and most important element of hip-hop, knowing, or knowledge. Second, hip-hop is not only reduced to rap in such a misconception, it is also reduced to so-called “commercial rap,” and the distinction between commercial and noncommercial rap is a largely unexamined distinction that many take for granted. What or who is commercial or noncommercial (or underground) is always subject to major debate and change. Moreover, access to commercial airwaves does not mean all of this music is completely compromised, necessarily; and, similarly, music that does not make commercial airwaves is not necessarily more authentic or superior. Therefore, hip-hop is simply not reducible to whatever is being played on the radio or television. Third, a rigid gender dynamic is also imposed on hip-hop when it is further identified with male rappers almost exclusively, so that female emcees battling in every phase and domain of hip-hop are often erased (even by an allegedly feminist or antisexist criticism). In this context, it is important to be able to identify a long line of artists—from Sha Rock of the Funky Four Plus One and Lisa Lee to Lady B and Mercedes Ladies Sequence to Roxanne Shanté and the Real Roxanne to Queen Latifah, Monie Love, and MC Lyte to Salt-N-Pepa to Sister Souljah and X-Clan affiliates Isis and Queen Mother Rage to Yo-Yo and Lady of Rage to Bytches with Problems and Boss to Lauryn Hill and Bahamadia, Mystic and Medusa and Lil’ Kim. Fourth, this general misconception of hiphop is typically confined to U.S. national space, even though it is true that U.S. settler segregation and subordination is what makes black cultures of resistance so necessary. As a result, its international dimension is reduced when the guiding assumption is that hip-hop is a U.S. phenomenon and not an international, African, world phenomenon.

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H IP-H OP ’ S I NTERNATIONALISM Domestically and globally, the historical impact of the Pan-African phenomenon of hiphop has been undeniably explosive. A recent documentary is aptly entitled Hip-Hop Immortals: We Got Your Kids (2004). What was thought by so many on the outside to be a cultural fad—for white bourgeois exploitation— would leave its mark on the planet across the millennium. For example, the Chinese Communist Party announced in 2003 that it would repackage Mao Zedong, so respected by Malcolm X and Huey P. Newton’s Black Panther Party, as a rap artist in an attempt to appeal to Chinese youth. In Africa’s Diaspora, industrywise, it’s a multibillion dollar affair, but typically not for all the artists, though some have had to become business savvy. Internationally known artists include Immortal Technique of Peru and Harlem, dead prez of Brooklyn, Racionais MC’s of Brazil, and Pantera Negras in Chile. Many of these artists loudly reject a “conscious hip-hop” versus “unconscious hip-hop” distinction as counterproductive, elitist, and politically backward, even as they loudly reject “hip pop” and counterrevolutionary trends across the board. Oddly, when international hip-hop revolutionism is recognized by others, it is often simplistically opposed to hip-hop in North America, even though there are also multiple manifestations of hip-hop and rap in places like Brazil, Cuba, Peru, and Puerto Rico in addition to Senegal, Gambia, Mali, Nigeria, Tanzania, South Africa, Angola, and other countries in contemporary Africa. The continent is often typically left out of such a highly problematic representation of hip-hop. O LD -S CHOOL , N EW-S CHOOL , T RUE -S CHOOL RULES While a rhetoric of “old school” and “new school” is now chic in the society of the establishment, a new language has emerged to correct the misuse of these terms. Many in hip-hop now use the terms “original school”

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and “true school”: original school refers to hiphop ’s actual pioneers, the people who did it for love when there was no money or fame, though lots of hate and hostility; true school refers to anyone at any time who is hip-hop in the spirit or tradition of this original school. The true school is true because it is about true hip-hop as opposed to hip pop or any commercial distortion. Most consumers and critics of hip pop in the mainstream establishment believe old-school hip-hop to be the rap that was released “last year” or, at best, the first roster of mainly middle-class artists signed to Def Jam Records (including LL Cool J and others, if not MTV-certified Run DMC). The corporate exploitation of hip-hop begins before Def Jam’s founding in 1984. The artificially assembled Sugar Hill Gang of Sugar Hill Records recorded “Rapper’s Delight” in 1979 with rhymes literally lifted from Grandmaster Caz of the truly oldschool Cold Crush Brothers (“I’m the C-A-S-SN-O-V-A and the rest is F-L-Y . . .”). The fact that the acts that would ultimately replace the original school as part of the commercialization of hip-hop are now given the label old school is a convenient strategy to revise the history and definition of hip-hop. It places the power to define who and what is hip-hop in the hands of corporate entities whose one and only interest is profit, not black artistry, self-determination, or well-being. The hip-hop adage, “old-school, new school, no school rules,” is echoed by Nas (quoting Doug E. Fresh) on “Bridging the Gap” from Street’s Disciple (2004). Many latter-day critics of new-school rap are clearly not well-versed in hip-hop history. Their ideas about the music, culture, and movement pivot around a false opposition between partying or pleasure and politics. The idea is that once upon a time hip-hop was purely revolutionary, and this meant that it was a conscious revolution in music purified of partying, sexuality, or pleasure-seeking of any kind. This was supposedly old school. The supposed new school in this

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Hip-Hop, Latin American | 535 formulation is thought to be made up of hiphop that is unconscious or “only” about partying, clubbing, sexuality, and pleasure-seeking. This is a wrongheaded and inaccurate distinction. It assumes that there can be nothing political or revolutionary about sex or pleasure; and it assumes that there can be a revolution without a radical politics of sex or a radical politics of pleasure (sexual and nonsexual). It also ignores the basic origins of hip-hop in the parties of the parks and schoolyards that were the communal spaces of the masses of African Diaspora; and it ignores the fact that music with a so-called old-school orientation is still being produced in the present. C RITICISM OR P ROPAGANDA : S EX , V IOLENCE , AND R AP COINTELPRO The image of the sexist, misogynistic, or homophobic rapper is stereotypically a black male. Female emcees, for example, unlike male emcees, are not criticized for sexism, misogyny, or homophobia. They are more likely to be condemned for simply being sexual—even though their symbolic practice of sexuality may be a notoriously wicked counterpoint to male perspectives in and outside of music (e.g., Lil’ Kim, if not Foxy Brown, of hip-hop, and Lady Saw in dancehall-reggae). In this criticism, black sexuality is presented as publicly “objectionable” in and of itself. In the end, eliminating sexism, misogyny, and homophobia from the world of hip-hop is hypocritical double-talk for eliminating hip-hop and its black masses from the sexually repressed and repressive world of the white bourgeoisie and its black elites. This position on matters of sex or sexuality is related to the other, overarching piece of propaganda against hip-hop (or rap), which, ironically, concerns violence (and gun violence in particular). It is, after all, the violence of the state of Western empire that spawns the socioeconomic conditions conducive to hip-hop’s emergence, historically, as a black culture of resistance in African Diaspora. But this sort of large-scale violence is not subject to the same

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level of criticism among critics of violence associated with hip-hop. Violence in this context is a separate and unequal access to its usage, as Robert F. Williams once noted of U.S. social attitudes in his Negroes with Guns (1962). Critics who condemn violence in hip-hop rarely if ever condemn state violence or even police terrorism in black communities—no matter how murderous or epidemic or centuries long. This school of criticism is identical to that of the sexual discourse that conjures up images of sexual violence as an automatic response to hip-hop while having very little to say about the white middle-class sexism, misogyny, and homophobia that govern the globe. The “lyrical gun” of hip-hop is supposedly more cause for concern than the literal guns of white power. What many have come to call “Rap COINTELPRO” is a case in point (Allah and Ratcliffe 2004). For years, a host of hip-hop artists have protested surveillance and persecution by the U.S. government and its police, courts, and complex of prisons: Scarface, The Notorious B.I.G., and, more recently, Lil’ Kim. A complete network of “hip-hop cops” was exposed stretching from New York and Miami to Los Angeles as part of an emergent nationwide policing program. It explains a wide range of events from raids on black record companies and the prosecution of their owners to the arrest, prosecution, and incarceration of a list of artists long enough to fill a famous hip-hop magazine cover with famous mug shots. This is not to mention the unsolved murders of lyrical legends Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls (The Notorious B.I.G.) who, media sources concede, was under Federal Bureau of Investigation surveillance on the night of his death. Rap COINTELPRO makes sense as a criminal extension of J. Edgar Hoover’s COunter INTELligence PROgram, which operated to destroy movements for liberation—the Black Panther Party, most specifically—in the 1960s and 1970s. There are links between the dominant response to black power and hip-hop revolution, then and now, both youthful movements of Africa’s Diaspora

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yearning for a freedom never experienced over centuries of oppression and persecution. C ONCLUSION : H IP-H OP PAN -A FRICANISM “Turn off the radio” best characterizes the recommended response. To be hip-hop, or to live it, requires commitment and participation rather than spectatorship or simply listening. An unabashedly, unambiguously revolutionary duo like dead prez tells people to turn off the radio in the name of true-school hip-hop. They step out from their official record company contract to release independent albums as “dpz,” delivering Turn Off the Radio: The Mixtape, Vol. 1 (2002) and then the second volume, Get Free or Die Tryin’ (2003), which climaxes in a song called “Afrika.” The radio of hip-hop revolt is not the economically driven media. The “O.G.” of “gangsta rap” could just as easily stand for “original Garvey,” especially as featured guest Fred Hampton, Jr., echoes the oratory of black power revolt as “hood news” in the age of hip-hop. Accordingly, their song “Afrika” reveals and revels in their desire to go to “Afrika” instead of being pimped like a “ho” in “Amerika,” so to speak. Theirs is a rapid-fire, hip-hop Pan-Africanism that makes a sonic map of the continent in which all the countries rhyme. This openly echoes “The Changing Same” of Max Roach’s “All Africa,” featuring Abbey Lincoln, on Freedom Now Suite (1960). Here is “hip-hop culture in the African Diaspora,” or a resounding element of it; and it is what you can hear when you “turn off the radio of corporate counter-revolution, a sound system that silences ‘Afrika’ in the West for colonialism and imperialism, slavery and neoslavery, at home and abroad.” On the African continent, hip-hop militancy and Pan-Africanism are booming. It is said that there are more than 3,000 rap acts in Senegal alone. Only the United States and France can boast larger audiences for hip-hop, and the numbers there are amplified because of the African communities in Diaspora. Artists such

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as Diaara J, Fou Malade, and Dakar All-Stars, along with Awadi and Radical, make music that mesmerizes, aesthetically and politically, voicing genius, opposition, and pleasure in black resistance to neocolonial and economic injustice. Omzo, a mic-fiend from Thiaroye, samples and loops a fiery speech from Ousmane Sembène’s film Guelwaar on “Kunu Abal Ay Beut” (or “The Hand That Gives Is the Hand That Rules,” Africa Raps: Senegal, Mali and the Gambia, 2005). The original, anti-elitist pioneer of African cinema of liberation grounds with emcees often enough to be given a hip-hop moniker, as a matter of fact, “Ousmane-the-Axe.” The artist and activists themselves put on concerts regularly to entertain and raise consciousness beyond colonialnational borders. Although female lyricists are not yet out in force on this specific scene, it is by no means exclusively male; and Fatoumata Kandé-Senghor and crew put in serious work on Radikal Spirit, their groundbreaking documentary on rap and its enraptured following. Finally, this hip-hop Pan-Africanism has even been covered by an electronic organ (based in Germany) at “SeneRap.Org: The African HipHop News Magazine of Dakar, Senegal.” This takes us back to the fact that the term hip-hop originates with the movement organized by Afrika Bambaataa’s Universal Zulu Nation. In the early 1970s, Zulu Bambaataa called for peace, love, unity and an end to violence in black communities, where violence against blacks supports an empire of whitesupremacist rule. Having fun requires a redirection of this violence and standing up in the fight against the “British” or Europeans who name themselves “Americans” overseas. It means becoming warriors for the community instead warring against each other, having fun while fighting all along. As if taking another page from Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1961), it is about an experience of ecstasy in rebellion against all the many deprivations of the white bourgeois West. This way of life would become true school. Real hip-hop

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Holiday, Billie (1915–1959) | 537 revolution, the rhythm, the soul, the people, the dress code, the language, thanks to its global African creators, is just a blessing, from above and below.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) See Langston University and HBCUs.

Greg Thomas

z

See also Bambaataa, Afrika (1957–); Brown, Elaine (1943–); COINTELPRO; Fanon, Frantz (1925–1961); Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887– 1940); Hip-Hop, Cuban; Hip-Hop, Latin American; Jackson, George Lester (1941– 1971); KRS-ONE (1965–). F URTHER R EADING Allah, Dasun, and Joshua Fahiym Ratcliffe. 2004. “Law and Disorder.” The Source (June): 41–46. A different Village Voice version of this article by Dasun Allah is available at www.villagevoice.com/news/0414,allah,52443,1.html. Banjoko, Adisa. 2004. “Afrika Bambaataa: A Beautiful Mind.” AllHipHop.Com (October). www.allhiphop.com/features/index.asp?ID= 935 (accessed January 5, 2008). Brown, Elaine. 2002. The Condemnation of Little B: New Age Racism in America. Boston: Beacon Press. dead prez. 2003. Turn Off the Radio, The Mixtape. Vol. 2: Get Free or Die Tryin’. Landspeed Records/Boss Up. Dre, A. L. 2004. “Major Figures: Afrika Bambaataa” The Ave Magazine 5 (Anniversary): 70. Fanon, Frantz. 1961. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press, 1963. Fricke, Jim, and Charlie Ahearn, eds. 2002. Yes, Yes Y’All: The Experience Music Project Oral History of Hip-Hop’s First Decade. New York: Da Capo Press. Herman, Robin, Khalil Osiris, and Tony Villa, Sr. 2004. The Psychology of Incarceration: A Distortion of the State of Belonging. Beavercreek, OH: Hanbleceya House. Thompson, Robert Farris. 1996. “Hip-Hop 101.” In Droppin’ Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture, ed. William Eric Perkins, 211–219. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. (Orig. publ. 1986). Various artists. 2002. Africa Raps. Trikont Records. Vincent, Ted. 1995. Keep Cool: The Black Activists Who Built the Jazz Age. London, UK: Pluto Press.

z www.abc-clio.com

Holiday, Billie (1915–1959) Born Eleanora Fagan Gough, in Baltimore, Maryland, Billie Holiday was dubbed “Lady Day” by famed saxophonist Lester Young. Her grandfather was one of 17 children of a black Virginia slave and a white Irish plantation owner. Her father, Clarence Holiday, played guitar and banjo with Fletcher Henderson and her mother was only 13 at Holiday’s birth. Holiday first heard the music of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith on a Victrola at Alice Dean’s, the Baltimore brothel where she ran errands and scrubbed floors as a young girl. She made her singing debut in Harlem nightclubs, borrowing her professional name from screen star Billie Dove. Producer John Hammond wrote her up in a column for Melody Maker and brought Benny Goodman to one of her performances. After recording a demo at Columbia Studios, Holiday joined Goodman’s band to make her commercial debut on November 27, 1933, with “Your Mother’s Son-In-Law.” Between 1933 and 1944, she recorded more than 200 albums, although she never received royalties for any of them. In 1935, she sang at the Apollo Theater and appeared in a film with Duke Ellington. She did four sessions with pianist Teddy Wilson’s band, recording obscure songs from Tin Pan Alley because in the swing era music publishers kept the best songs strictly in the hands of society orchestras and popular white singers. Holiday, trumpeter Roy Eldridge, alto Johnny Hodges, and tenors Ben Webster and Chuck Berry energized flat songs like “What a Little Moonlight Can Do,” “Twenty-Four Hours a

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American jazz singer Billie Holiday, often called Lady Day, was a model for countless artists. Her smoky voice, emotional quality, and remarkable way with lyrics reflected her virtuosity and contributions to jazz. (Library of Congress)

Day,” and “If You Were Mine.” Her vocals made them quite popular on the Columbia, Brunswick, and Vocalion labels. In 1936, she toured with Jimmie Lunceford and Fletcher Henderson. In January 1937, she recorded several numbers with a group managed by Hammond, Count Basie’s Orchestra. Tenor Lester Young and trumpeter Buck Clayton became attached to Holiday. The three did their best records together and Holiday bestowed the nickname “Pres” on Young. In 1937, she toured with Basie. She was fired for being temperamental and unreliable after she refused to sing 1920s female blues standards. The move benefited Holiday as she was hired by Artie Shaw’s band less than a month later, one of the first in-

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stances of a black female singer appearing with a white group. But promoters and radio sponsors objected to Holiday’s unorthodox singing style almost as much as her race. After a series of escalating indignities, she quit the band in disgust and took a gig at a hip new club, Café Society, the first popular nightspot with an interracial audience. There, Holiday learned “Strange Fruit,” the song that catapulted her career to a new level. In 1943, she signed a contract with Decca Records. The recordings were pop oriented, and Holiday was surrounded with large string-laden orchestras. Despite a lack of technical training, Holiday’s unique diction, inimitable phrasing, and acute dramatic intensity made her the outstanding jazz singer of her era. White gardenias in her hair were her trademark. Her 1956 autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, says “I’ve lived songs like that.” Her own compositions include “God Bless the Child,” espousing the virtues of financial independence, and “Don’t Explain,” a lament on infidelity. Holiday was the first black woman to perform at Carnegie Hall, but at the same time her growing drug addiction was causing problems and would lead to her arrest. Her troubles continued after her release. The drug charge made it impossible for her to get a cabaret card, so nightclub performances were out. She recorded for Decca until 1950 but two years later she began to record for jazz entrepreneur Norman Granz, owner of the labels Clef, Norgran, and, by 1956, Verve. The recordings returned her to the small-group intimacy of her Columbia work and reunited her with Ben Webster and other top-flight musicians like Oscar Peterson, Harry “Sweets” Edison, and Charlie Shavers. Though the ravages of a hard life were taking their toll on her voice, many of Holiday’s mid1950s recordings are just as intense and beautiful as her classic work. In 1954, she toured Europe to great acclaim, and her 1956 autobiography brought her even more fame. Her last appearance, in 1957, was on the CBS television special, The Sound of Jazz, with Webster, Young,

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Honduras and Nicaragua: Miskito Indians | 539 and Coleman Hawkins. In 1958, the Lady in Satin album clothed her naked, increasingly hoarse voice with the overwrought strings of Ray Ellis. In 1959, she made two more appearances, in Europe, before collapsing, in May, of heart and liver disease. Still procuring heroin while on her deathbed, Holiday was arrested for drug possession in her private room and died on July 17. Her cult of influence spread quickly after her death and gave her more fame than she had enjoyed in life. In 1972 Lady Sings the Blues was filmed, featuring Diana Ross. The film illuminated Holiday’s tragic life and introduced her to many future fans. Joan Cartwright See also Jazz and Blues Singers, Black Women. F URTHER R EADING Billie Holiday: The Official Site of Lady Day. www.cmgww.com/music/holiday/ (accessed January 4, 2008). Davis, Angela Y. 1998. Blues Legacies and Black Feminism. New York: Vintage Books. Gourse, Leslie. 1995. Billie Holiday: The Tragedy and Triumph of Lady Day. New York: Franklin Watts. The Unofficial Billie Holiday website. www.ladyday.net/ (accessed January 4, 2008).

z Honduras and Nicaragua: Miskito Indians Honduras and Nicaragua are the home of a unique indigenous population who are the results of ethnogenesis (the creation of a new ethnic group as a result of genetic mixture of two or more ethnic groups): the Miskito Indians. The Miskito are a mixture of indigenous Indians and African maroon (escaped slaves) populations who settled in the Mosquita region. The term “Miskito” does not come from the insect “mosquito,” as is often thought, although the actual origin of the name is not known. There are two versions of its etiology. The first

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version is that British named the Indians after the term “musket” because the Indians used this weapon. The Miskito, on the other hand, believe their name originated from the name of one of the chiefs, Muskut. In the language of Miskut, the group’s proper name is Miskut uplikanani, which was difficult to say so it was shortened to Miskito. The Miskito are the largest indigenous group in Honduras. Their communities extend from Cape Cameron, Honduras, to Rio Grande, Nicaragua. Many of the communities are remote with limited access; thus, contact with Spanish and other outside groups has not influenced the culture and people tremendously. Researchers suggest that the Miskito nation was created sometime before 1625. First contact with the British occurred before that date. The Miskito kingdom served during the American Revolution by attacking Spanish colonies and gaining victories alongside the British. The British established Miskito territory as a protectorate in the 1740 Treaty of Friendship and Alliance, a formal treaty between the king of the Miskito and the British. In 1783, the British relinquished control of the coast, and in 1787, they withdrew completely. The Miskito had a well-developed military and were able to repel incursions into their territory for much of their history. This allowed them to maintain their independence during Spanish rule. Traditional Miskito society is very structured. The leadership hierarchy originally consisted of a king and generals. After 1750, admirals were added. The first confirmed recorded king was Jeremy I in 1687. Before that date many of the kings were semimythical. Culturally, the Miskito are a synthesis of British, African, and Indian cultures. Most speak English and are Protestant. Many identify with the British and do not consider themselves Nicaraguan and Honduran citizens, although they reside there. During the 1970s and 1980s, Miskito Indians were very involved in the contra war against the Honduran government. Many left Nicaragua en masse and settled in Honduran refugee camps

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and contra communities, joining forces to fight for the liberation of selected areas of the country. As primarily a rural people, many Miskito are migratory workers, agricultural laborers, and fisherman. As hired fisherman, they make up a large segment of the lobster industry. A major ongoing problem facing the Miskito has been the physical damage sustained from lobster diving. As the supply of lobsters decreases, the divers must go deeper to locate them. Many fishermen have been paralyzed and/or lost limbs because of the compression they experience in their rapid ascent to the surface of the water. The Miskito are very active in initiatives directed toward protecting indigenous rights, protecting the rain forest, establishing better working conditions in the lobster industry, and promoting bilingual education. They have achieved worldwide recognition for their initiatives and dedication. Valerie Smith See also Maroon and Marronage. F URTHER R EADING Biography.ms. miskito.biography.ms (accessed May 19, 2005). Mis-Kito-Indianer. Nicaragua: Links in the Internet. miskito-nicaragua.de/nicarag/links.htm (accessed May 23, 2005).

z Hopkinson, Nalo (1950–) Nalo Hopkinson is one of the few black science fiction writers published today (Samuel R. Delany, Octavia Butler, and Steven Barnes are some of the others). Her work blends speculative fiction, African-Caribbean spirituality, and folklore into powerful narratives about the roles of women and people of the African Diaspora in contemporary society. Texts include the novels Brown Girl in the Ring (1998), Midnight Robber (2000), and The Salt Roads (2003); a

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collection of short stories entitled Skin Folk (2001); and two volumes that she edited: Whispers From the Silk Cotton Tree (2000) and Mojo: Conjure Stories (2003). Hopkinson identifies science fiction as a subversive form of literature, claiming that what she likes about the genre is its ability to indicate the systemic flaws that exist in society. Brown Girl in the Ring, for example, tells the story of a Caribbean-Canadian family attempting to survive in a futuristic inner-city Toronto where the wealthy have fled and the remaining population must battle hunger, homelessness, drug lords, and a new plot for harvesting the healthy bodies of the dispossessed. Midnight Robber explores abuses of power, linking the political to the personal: the protagonist’s father’s abuse of mayoral power in one community translates to the sexual abuse of his daughter in another. The transhistorical scope of The Salt Roads allows Hopkinson to address the inequities of black women’s lives in fourth-century Egypt, slave-era San Domingue (Haiti), and 19th-century Paris. Hopkinson’s diasporic experience is evident in her history: she was born in Jamaica and traveled between Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad, and the United States before immigrating to Canada at the age of 16. Her father was Slade Hopkinson (d. 1993), Guyanese poet, playwright, and actor. The interwoven diasporic themes of exile and search for home recur in Nalo Hopkinson’s writing, as does the theme of alienation. By grounding her fiction in African-Caribbean culture, the author challenges the Europeandominated field of science fiction. Hopkinson’s writing has been honored extensively. Giselle Liza Anatol See also Butler, Octavia Estelle (1947–2005); Canada and the African Diaspora; Flying Africans; Jamaica; Salt and the African Diaspora; Trinidad and Tobago: African Impact on the Social Order. F URTHER R EADING Hopkinson, Nalo. www.sff.net/people/nalo/ (accessed September 15, 2004).

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Horton, James Africanus Beale (1835–1883) | 541 Rutledge, Gregory E. 1999. “Speaking in Tongues: An Interview with Science Fiction Writer Nalo Hopkinson.” African American Review 33.4: 589–601.

z Horton, James Africanus Beale (1835–1883) James Africanus Beale Horton, medical practitioner, surgeon-major, nationalist, businessman, philosopher, and essayist, was born to Isuama Igbo parents (rescued on the high seas by the British) in the village of Gloucester, near Freetown, Sierra Leone, on June 1, 1835. Educated in Church Missionary Schools in and around Gloucester, where he learned Greek, Latin, astronomy, mathematics, natural philosophy, music, English history, and cotton growing, he attended Fourah Bay Institution in Freetown before he was selected, along with two other bright students, by the British War Office in 1855 to study medicine in Britain. Horton distinguished himself at King’s College, London University (where he qualified as a doctor), and in Edinburgh, where he earned an MD degree (in 1859). His thesis, The Medical Topography of the West Coast of Africa, was published in London the same year. On returning to Sierra Leone, he was posted to Anamaboe, in present-day Ghana, where he faced stiff racist attitudes, which he bore with fortitude in order not to close the way for other Africans who might benefit from British higher professional education of the kind he received. He maintained a strong belief in the goodness of the British and missionary enterprise in Africa and championed the cause of the African Aid Society while giving unyielding battle to the racist ideologies epitomized by the writings of Dr. Hunt and Richard Burton of the London Anthropological Society. The scales fell from Horton’s eyes when on July 5, 1867, British perfidy was revealed in a

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treaty, concluded without reference to the Fanti or their African advocates, which ceded part of Fantiland to the Dutch. He was further disillusioned when his enamored African Aid Society issued a bulletin supporting this same treaty that he had seen as clear evidence of British betrayal. Thereafter, his African nationalism became more radical and uncompromising. Apart from his distinguished colonial and military service and center-stage roles in 19th-century African nationalism, Horton distinguished himself as an African pioneer in the fields of industry, banking, and education. Unfortunately his visionary proposals for the transformation of Fourah Bay Institution into a university and for setting up a medical school in West Africa, were both ignored by the British. He died at the early age of 48, on October 15, 1883, survived by his wife and two daughters. Horton was a prolific writer. In his brief lifetime he published eight books: The Medical Topography of the West Coast of Africa (1859); Geological Constitution of Ahanta, Gold Coast (1862); Political Economy of British West Africa (1865); Physical and Medical Climate and Meteorology of the West Coast of Africa (1867); West African Countries and Peoples (1868); Guinea Worm, or Dracunculus (1868); Letters on the Political Condition of the Gold Coast (1870); and The Diseases of Tropical Climates and Their Treatment (1874; second edition, revised, 1879). He regularly wrote letters to the editor of African Times and published two technical articles in the Army Medical Department annual reports for 1768. His arguments for the humanity of the African and for the complexity of his mentifacts and artifacts are supported by hard facts drawn from medicine, biology, linguistics, psychology, archaeology, and other historical sciences. Horton’s sophistication and elegance are representative of what has been called the African Victorian style (see Echeruo 1978). Chukwuma Azuonye See also Pan-Africanism.

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542 | Howard University F URTHER R EADING Ayandele, E. A., ed. 1970. Letters on the Political Condition of the Gold Coast, 1870, by James Africanus Beale Horton. London. Azuonye, Chukwuma, and Steven Serafin, eds. Forthcoming. The Columbia Anthology of African Literature. New York: Columbia University Press. Echeruo, Michael J. C. 1978. Victorian Lagos. London: Macmillan. Herdeck, Donald E. 1974. African Authors: A Companion to Black African Writing, Volume 1: 1300–1973. Washington, D.C.: Inscape Corporation. Jahn, Janheinz. 1968. Neo-African Literature: A History of Black Writing. New York: Grove. Jahn, Janheinz, Ulla Schild, and Almut Nordmann. 1972. Who’s Who in African Literature: Biographies, Works, Commentaries. Tübingen, Germany: Horst Erdmann Verlag. Shepperson, George, ed. 1969. West African Countries and People (1868), by James Africanus Beale Horton. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press (African Heritage Books).

z Howard University Founded in 1867, Howard University is considered a premiere U.S. institution of higher education and has trained a plethora of leaders across the African Diaspora. The university evolved from a series of discussions and meetings of the white First Congregational Society in mid-November 1866. The society established a board of trustees consisting of society members (18 white men). They wanted to develop an institution that provided freed African Americans with opportunities for education and empowerment. The original focus was on religious teaching; thus, they spoke of creating a divinity school. Over time, the breadth of the intended education expanded and the preferred vision became providing broad liberal arts education. In a two-month period, the name of the institution changed three times, reflecting the broadening focus. Initially, it was Howard The-

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ological Society, then Howard Theological and Normal Institute for the Education of Teachers and Preachers, and finally Howard University. The Act to Incorporate Howard University passed on March 2, 1867, and set the stage for the university’s mission to educate African Americans and youth in the liberal arts. The original matriculating students in the first unit opened, the Normal School, were daughters of members of the board of trustees. In May 1867, the first African American male, Henry Highland Garnet, was appointed to the board. Two years later the Reverend D.W. Anderson became the first African American elected to the executive committee. In 1924, 47 years later the first woman, Sara Brown, was appointed. The first African American to ascend to the presidency of Howard was Dr. Mordecai Johnson in 1926. War hero General Oliver O. Howard was a member of the First Congregational Society. He initially headed the post–Civil War Reconstruction Agency and later the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, which was established to facilitate the country’s transition from slavery to freedom and from war to peace. Under Howard’s leadership, federal funds were provided to purchase lands for the campus and to erect the first buildings. In 1869, the Main Building and the medical school were constructed and presented as a gift. Until the bureau was abolished in 1872, the Main Building was used for the bureau’s offices. General Howard became the first president of Howard University, and the institution was named in his honor. Funding for the University has ranged from relative abundance to extreme scarcity The Freedman’s Bureau was very instrumental in providing funds until its dissolution. In 1879 Congress established a subsidy program for Howard that continues. The university has 12 schools and colleges: Arts & Sciences; Business; Communications; Dentistry; Divinity; Education; Engineering, Architecture & Computer Science; Graduate School; Law; Medicine; Pharmacy, Nursing & Allied Health Sciences; and Social Work.

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Howard University | 543 T HE L IBRARY The library houses more than 2.2 million volumes, 3.7 million microfilm pieces, 14,000 journals, 6,600 manuscripts, thousands of audiovisual items, and state-of-the-art technology (Howard University Official Web site). It is considered one of the most comprehensive libraries on African Diaspora studies. Particularly valuable is the Moorland-Springarn Research Center, which houses the papers of several African American intellectuals and artists and is a site for research activity on the African Diaspora amassed under the leadership of Dorothy Burnett Porter. The library has a central library group consisting of the Founders Library (named in honor of the 17 founders), Undergraduate Library, four professional libraries (Architecture, Business, Divinity, and Social Work), Moorland-Springarn Research Center, Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs Center Library, Lewis Stokes Health Sciences Library, Law Library, and the Afro-American Studies Resources Center. The Founders Library, which opened in 1938, was designed by Albert Alvin Cassell, an African American architect from neighboring Towson, Maryland. FACULTY AND S TUDENTS Historically and contemporarily, Howard University ranks as the premiere historically black college and university (HBCU) in the United States. Its faculty and administrations embrace and nurture students who typically go on to become the next generation’s leaders in almost every major field. Their presence is felt worldwide, especially (but not only) among peoples of color. The faculty teaches by example. Among its renowned faculty have been Dr. Charles Drew, who developed the blood bank concept and researched blood plasma; Dr. Ralph Bunche, an alumnus, who returned to establish the Political Science Department; Dr. E. Franklin Frazier, who established the School of Social Work and was a consummate scholar and researcher; and Dr. Alain Locke, an internationally known educator and scholar.

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Howard is the alma mater of key leaders in nearly all career fields. During the segregation era in the United States, Howard University was one of only a few HBCU institutions offering advanced degrees. By 1960 it had trained more than 50 percent of the black doctors, dentists, architects, and engineers as well as 96 percent of the black lawyers in the United States (Howard University Official Web site). A sampling of Howard University graduates include Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), Black Power activist; Mike Espy, the first African American secretary of agriculture; Dr. LaSalle Lefall, a surgeon and the first African American president of both the American College of Surgeons and the American Cancer Society; Thurgood Marshall, the first African American Supreme Court justice; Toni Morrison, Nobel Laureate and Pulitzer Prize–winning author; Jessye Norman, concert and opera singer; Douglas Wilder, the first African American elected U.S. governor (in Virginia); and Andrew Young, the first African American ambassador to the United Nations and the second African American mayor of Atlanta. H OWARD U NIVERSITY—PAST A ND F UTURE Howard remains a comprehensive research and educational institution with a global perspective and approach to the world. Often a pioneer forging new areas where African Americans can excel, it has always been in the forefront for activism and empowerment. In World War II it served as a training site for African American soldiers. The 1960s Civil Rights and Black Power Movements had students actively engaged in struggles for freedom, enfranchisement, and equality. Howard also boasts a variety of sports and cultural activities. It reflected the global inclusiveness and international nature of its student population by being one of the earliest HBCUs to offer intercollegiate soccer. Valerie Smith See also African Americans and the Constitutional Order; Langston University and HBCUs.

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544 | Hughes, Langston (1902–1967) F URTHER R EADING Dyson, Walter. 1926. “The Founding of Howard University (Charter Day, March 2, 1922).” Howard Alumnus 4(5): 112–113. Howard University Official Web site. www.howard.edu (accessed January 5, 2008). Howard University. 1941. Howard University: The Capstone of Negro Education, A History: 1967– 1940. Washington, D.C.: The Graduate School, Howard University. Logan, R.W. 1968. Howard University: The First Hundred Years 1867–1997. New York: New York University Press. Thompson, C.H. 1966. Howard University (1961) 1961–1966 Self-Study Report. Washington, DC: Howard University.

z Hughes, Langston (1902–1967) Langston Hughes was the quintessential Harlem Renaissance artist who excelled as poet, essayist, playwright, autobiographer, and children’s author. He was born in Joplin, Missouri, in 1902 but spent most of his adolescence in Lawrence, Kansas. He had short stints in Illinois, Ohio, and Mexico before moving to New York. It was there that Hughes established himself as a young, gifted, and talented African American poet. He launched his career with the heavily anthologized poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” which was first published in The Crisis, edited by W. E. B. DuBois. Though Hughes considered American writers such as Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg important influences to his writing style, he committed himself to writing primarily about African Americans. He enrolled at Columbia University in 1921 in New York; however, he left in 1922, supporting his writing with a succession of menial jobs while traveling the globe. He worked on a freighter in West Africa and in Paris, before returning to the United States in 1924. Hughes was inspired by the visceral sensations and rhythms of all aspects of African

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For more than five decades, Langston Hughes wrote poetry, fiction, and plays that were meant to capture the essence of the black experience in America. A prolific writer of rare versatility, he wrote for the men and women he saw struggling first for survival and then for equality from the 1920s through the 1960s. (Library of Congress)

American culture, especially its music. His first two volumes of traditional verse, The Weary Blues (1926) and Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927), paid homage to the blues and the new sound of urban life, jazz. His innovative mixtures of vernacular music forms and poetic portraits of common black people earned Hughes both praise and criticism. His emphasis on street life and Harlem after hours led to harsh attacks from the African American press. However, no one could deny the talent and original voice Hughes possessed. He also established himself as a literary theorist and critic with his essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.” Thus, he became known as a major force in the Harlem Renaissance. In 1927, Hughes, then a student at Pennsylvania’s historically black Lincoln University, obtained the patronage of Charlotte Mason, who supported him for two years and supervised the completion of his first novel, Not

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Huiswoud, Otto (1893–1961) | 545 Without Laughter (1930). Though Hughes considered this relationship one of the most important in his life, it dissolved around the same time the novel appeared. Disappointed and disillusioned, Hughes turned his attentions to the radical left in politics. During a period (1931–1933) spent in the Soviet Union, he wrote his most radical verse. A year in Carmel, California, led to a collection of stories, The Ways of White Folks (1934). In the mid and late 1930s, Hughes turned his attention to the stage and wrote many plays. Some dealt with miscegenation and family relationships (Mulatto, 1935) and others were comedies (Little Ham, 1936), historical drama (Emperor of Haiti, 1936), and political satire (Don’t You Want to Be Free, 1938). As the country moved into World War II, Hughes’s writings moved away from the socialist leanings of the earlier decade. Perhaps one of Hughes’s most endearing literary achievements was his creation of the character of Jesse B. Simple, a socially astute, sage, beloved, but somewhat eccentric Harlemite who delivered Hughes’s pointed commentary on issues of race and race relations. Simple became Hughes’s most celebrated fictional creation and the subject of a musical (Simply Heavenly, 1947) and five collections edited by Hughes, starting in 1950 with Simple Speaks His Mind. As the war drew to a close, Hughes again began concentrating on his poetry, publishing Fields of Wonder (1947) and One Way Ticket (1949). In 1951, he published the bebop jazz–tinged volume Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951). From the mid 1950s until his death in 1967, Hughes remained an active writer and a fervent advocate for race consciousness and the beauty and vitality of black people. As the political movement of civil rights gave way to the younger generation’s protest for black power, Hughes was sidelined but remained an influential poet of the Diaspora influencing artists like Kamau Brathwaite. Jason B Esters

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See also Brathwaite, Kamau (1930–); Harlem Renaissance. F URTHER R EADING Rampersad, Arnold. 1986. The Life of Langston Hughes. Vols. 1 and 2. New York: Oxford University Press.

z Huiswoud, Otto (1893–1961) Born on October 28, 1893 in Paramaribo, Suriname, Otto Eduard Gerardus Majella Huiswoud was a charter member and first black man to join the Communist Party of America (CPUSA). He remained involved in the party throughout his life, and in 1922 became the first black man to serve as an official delegate to the Comintern in Moscow. Huiswoud also served as a national organizer and Supreme Council member of the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), acting as the organization’s liaison to leftist trade union leadership. Huiswoud came to the United States in 1913 as a worker aboard a banana boat from Suriname. Upon arrival, he worked selling tropical products from Puerto Rico, briefly returning to this profession later in his life. In 1918, Huiswoud caught the eye of the Socialist Party (SP) after leading a strike of black crew members on a ship he worked. Impressed by his leadership, the SP offered him a one-year scholarship to the Rand School in New York, which he accepted. This galvanized Huiswoud’s political life. He became a party member in Harlem, worked as a union printer, and joined the editorial board of the Messenger, a publication edited by fellow Black Socialist Party members A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen. Huiswoud’s longest and most important affiliation was with the CPUSA. He remained a major party figure, helping create the CPUSA’s original political theory concerning questions of black liberation. Under the assumed name “J Billings,” Huiswoud attended the Fourth

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Congress of the Communist International as an official U.S. delegate in 1922. At this Congress, Huiswoud was elected permanent chairman of the Negro Commission, a body that drafted the Comintern’s first statements on the selfdetermination of black people living in the United States. Huiswoud’s report to the full congress stated that the “Negro question” encompassed internal colonialism and was part of the wider class struggle within the United States. Huiswoud returned to the United States in 1923 and was appointed as the first black member of the Party’s Central Executive Committee. In the early 1920s Huiswoud worked with another organization, the ABB. Huiswoud influenced many ABB leaders in Harlem to join the CPUSA. By 1924, the ABB dissolved into the CPUSA. Like many former ABB members, Huiswood helped organize the American Negro Labor Congress (ANLC) throughout the mid1920s. However, he fell further out of favor in 1930 when he voted against the Comintern’s line declaring the “Right of Self-Determination for Negroes” in the American South, commonly referred to as the “Black Belt Theory.” Huiswoud was very involved with organizing internationally, living for a time in Jamaica and South Africa. In the 1930s he worked and lived in Germany, Belgium, Holland, and France. He edited the Negro Worker in 1933 after party member and noted Pan-Africanist George Padmore resigned. Huiswoud continued to edit this publication but was forced to move from Belgium to Holland and later to France to escape the prevailing anti-communist pressure from government authorities. He returned to the United States in 1939 and worked as an instructor at the People’s School in Harlem. Returning to his homeland of Suriname in 1941, Huiswoud was jailed by Dutch colony authorities and was refused reentry to the United States upon his release in 1942. By 1947, he moved to Holland to live with family members. Otto Huiswoud died in Amsterdam in 1961. Jason M. Schultz

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See also African Blood Brotherhood (ABB); Padmore, George (1901–1959). F URTHER R EADING Haywood, Harry. 1978. Black Bolshevik: Autobiography of an Afro-American Communist. Chicago: Liberator Press. Hill, Robert A. 1986. “Otto Huiswoud.” In Biographical Dictionary of the American Left, ed. Bernard K. Johnpoll and Harvey Klehr, 219– 211. New York: Greenwood. James, Winston. 1998. Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America. London: Verso. Solomon, Mark. 1998. The Cry War Unity: Communists and African Americans, 1917–1938. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press.

z Hurston, Zora Neale (1891–1960) Coming to the Harlem Renaissance during the rule of social realist writing, Zora Neale Hurston was a creative genius whose unique blending of autobiography, folklore, rare anthropological insight, idiom, and robust racial self-love placed her works far beyond the understanding or appreciation of her contemporaries. Hurston’s extraordinary literary gifts made her an anomaly in her time. Like other African American literary women of genius before her, such as the poet Phillis Wheatley and the first published African American novelist, Harriet Wilson, Hurston also died alone and in poverty. Hurston was born in 1891 in Notasulga, Alabama, and grew up in Eatonville, which was incorporated by 27 African American men in 1887 to sustain African American autonomy amidst the shambles of America’s failed postslavery Reconstruction. Zora Neale Hurston’s father, John Hurston, was Eatonville’s fourth mayor and a master carpenter. He was also a Baptist preacher whose rhetorical style evidently contributed to his

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Zora Neale Hurston, from Etonville, Florida, became one of the leading writers of the Harlem Renaissance. An anthropologist by training, she travelled across the diaspora documenting its cultural production. Here she peruses a book at the New York Times Book Fair in 1937. (Library of Congress)

daughter’s deft literary transcription of the lyrical wealth of uniquely African American speech patterns. Left motherless in 1904, little is known about Zora Neale Hurston’s teen and early adult years. It is clear that she may have drifted from home to home or job to job, or like Janie in Hurston’s most celebrated novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), she may even have married and run away. What is known is that Hurston eventually made her way north as a maid employed by the Gilbert & Sullivan Company and was a student at what is now Morgan State University and Howard University. Hurston came on the Harlem Renaissance scene in New York in 1925 as a secretary and chauffeur for Euro-American novelist Fannie Hurst, author of Imitation of Life. Hurston won a scholarship to Barnard College that allowed

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her to earn a bachelor’s degree in anthropology in 1928, under the tutelage of Franz Boas. While a student, she was very briefly married to Herbert Sheen in 1927. Upon graduation, Hurston spent four years researching southern African American folktales, rhetorical strategies, and folk customs. Some of this work was published in Mules and Men (1935), though volumes of her American anthropological research were misplaced, lost, or assumed to be someone else’s work for more than 60 years. What remained of this lost work was finally published as Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-Tales from the Gulf States (2001). Hurston won a Guggenheim fellowship to study folklore in the Caribbean and brought a diasporic approach to her understanding of black culture, doing research in the Bahamas,

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Haiti, Jamaica, and Honduras. Her work defined another world in which south Florida and the Caribbean were reconfigured. She became versed in Vodoun and published this astonishing account in Tell My Horse, also published as Voodoo Gods (1938). Her creative autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road (1942), exposed Hurston’s pain and personal struggle, protected by the supposed flamboyancy Harlem Renaissance men accused her of flaunting. Perhaps such attacks, placing Hurston in the harshly critiqued company of such women as Jessie Redmon Fauset and Nella Larsen, proved to be portentous. Hurston’s celebratory depiction of all cultural traits African American set her apart from the school of thought that believed the exposure of injustice demanded social realism. Despite the importance of her research and autobiographical accounts, Hurston may be best remembered for her novels. Her first published novel was Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934), followed by the consummate blending of myth, dialect, and story that make up Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). Her still underappreciated fictional treatise on race and power, Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939), was published in the same year that Sigmund Freud’s Moses and Monotheism attempted to bring rational analysis to Europe’s raging racial discourse. Hurston’s final novel was Seraph on the Suwanee (1948), which proved to be her literary swansong. Twelve years after contention and personal difficulties drove Hurston from New York, she died in the St. Lucie County Florida Welfare Home in 1960. In 1968, African American Studies professor Mary Helen Washington discovered a 75 cent copy of the long out-of-print Their Eyes Were Watching God. Interest in the novel and its author quickly grew among African American women professors of literature. In 1971, when future Pulitzer Prize– winner Alice Walker taught Their Eyes at Wellesley College, she read that Hurston rested in an unmarked grave. Walker’s pilgrimage to

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Fort Pierce and Eatonville in 1973 to erect a tombstone honoring Hurston was followed by emotionally rich eruptions of debate among scholars of African American literature over Hurston’s masterpiece. Contention and contemplation of Hurston’s prolific writings soon spread like wildfire, earning the ostracized genius the place in the canon her work so clearly merits as well as recognition as an early African American anthropologist. Today, the town of Eatonville hosts a Zora Neale Hurston Festival every January, and Fort Pierce, Florida has city markers that identify the places where she spent her last days. Alexis Brooks de Vita See also Griots/Griottes of West Africa; Harlem Renaissance; Haiti. F URTHER R EADING Boyd, Valerie. 2003. Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston. New York: Scribner. Brooks de Vita, Alexis. 2000. “Air and Fire, Bringing Rain.” In Mythatypes: Signatures and Signs of African/Diaspora and Black Goddesses, 101– 122. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Busby, Margaret, ed. 1992. “Zora Neale Hurston.” In Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from the Ancient Egyptian to the Present, 187–199. New York: Ballantine Books. Chase, Henry. 1994. “Eatonville.” In In Their Footsteps: The American Visions Guide to AfricanAmerican Heritage Sites, 44–45. New York: Henry Holt and Company. Hurston, Zora Neale. 2001. Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-Tales from the Gulf States. New York: William Morrow. 2002. McDowell, Deborah E. 1991. Foreword to Moses, Man of the Mountain, by Zora Neale Hurston. New York: HarperPerennial. Walker, Alice. 1984. “Zora Neale Hurston: A Cautionary Tale and a Partisan View” and “Looking for Zora” in In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose, 83–116. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company. Washington, Mary Helen. 1990. Foreword to Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston. New York: Harper & Row.

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belief and culture as well as the practices associated with the ibeji. Arising from these myths are the beliefs that the ibeji are abiku, children born to die only to return and repeat their tortuous cycle: they share one soul that cannot be divided and they can bring death to those who anger them, bring wealth to their parents, and give children to barren women. Ibeji are also fed certain foods, usually sweet foods, and offerings are made to the Orisha-Ibeji in their honor. If an ibeji or a pair of ibeji should die, statuettes are made in their likeness, usually in adult form with tribal markings. These statuettes are treated as living ibeji and are cared for by the family members of the deceased ibeji so they do not return to torture their family. Just as the Yoruba religion has been preserved in the Caribbean, so has their integral belief in the powers of the ibeji. In the Orisha religion of Trinidad, twins are referred to as Da Lua and Da Logee, in Vodoun of Haiti as the Marassa, and in Santería of Cuba as the Ibeyi, Taebo, and Kehinde, common Yoruba names for twins. Just like the Yoruba of West Africa, the practitioners of these religions believe the ibeji bring fortune, prosperity, and fertility. They also believe the ibeji can cause grave misfortune if they are angered, separated, or neglected. So powerful are the ibeji in the African-based religions of the

The ibeji (ibeji is the Yoruba word for twins) hold an esteemed position in Yoruba society as they are believed to possess metaphysical powers that allow them to transcend both the human and spirit worlds, a marked cultural belief that has been retained in the African-based religions of the Caribbean such as Trinidad’s Orisha, Haiti’s Vodoun, and Cuba’s Santería. Indeed, the ibeji are so revered in Yoruba-based religions that they are protected by their own diety, the Orisha-Ibeji. The term ibeji, derived from the Yoruba words Ibi (“born”) and Eji (“two”), literally means born twice. Like many other African peoples, such as the Ibo of east Nigeria, the Yoruba once believed twins were evil omens that threatened their communal way of life because the birth of twins was considered to be unnatural. As a result, they demanded their sacrifice/death. Although the exact cause of the ibeji’s shift from evil to deity remains undetermined, it is distinctly due to their ability to navigate both worlds that the Yoruba have developed one of the most elaborate systems of worship dedicated to twins. Several myths in Yoruba folklore lend an understanding to the significance of the ibeji in the cosmological balance of Yoruba religious 549 www.abc-clio.com

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Caribbean that they are often invoked during religious ceremonies. Nadia Johnson See also Marassa. F URTHER R EADING Chappel, T. J. H. 1974. “The Yoruba Cult of Twins in a Historical Perspective.” Africa 44: 250–265. Courlander, Harold. 1996. A Treasury of African Folklore: The Oral Literature, Traditions, Myths, Legends, Epics, Tales, Recollections, Wisdom, Sayings, and Humor of Africa. New York: Marlowe & Company. Olmos, Margarite Fernandez, and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert. 2003. Creole Religions of the Caribbean: An Introduction from Vodou and Santeria to Obeah and Espiritismo. New York: University of New York Press. Oruene, Taiwo. 1985. “Magical Powers of Twins in the Socio-Religious Beliefs of the Yoruba.” Folklore 96: 208–216.

z Ibo Landing Probably the most popular version of the narrative of “flying Africans” is the Ibo Landing story. Floyd White, an elderly man interviewed for the Georgia Writer’s Project in the 1930s, tells a tale of flying Africans that explicitly identifies Ibo Landing: Heahd bout duh Ibo’s Landing? Das duh place weah dey bring duh Ibos obuh in a slabe ship an wen dey git yuh, dey ain lak it an so dey all staht singin an dey mahch right down in duh ribbuh tuh mahch back tuh Africa, but dey ain able tuh git deah. Dey gits drown (Georgia Writer’s Project 1986, 185). According to White, Ibo Landing is located at Dunbar Creek, St. Simon’s Island, off the coast of Georgia. Another version of the tale, told by Frankie and Doug Quimby, professional story-tellers,

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or griots from the Sea Islands, tells the tale a bit differently. Although they identify the enslaved Africans as Ibo who arrived at St. Simon’s Islands on the eastern coast of Georgia, the Africans had been tricked into willingly traveling to the United States. When these people got to St. Simon’s Island, they found out that they had been tricked and were going to be sold as slaves. Then all 18 agreed and said, “No! Rather than be a slave here in America, we would rather be dead.” They linked themselves together with chains and said a prayer: “Water brought us here, and water is going to carry us away.” They backed themselves out into Dunbar Creek and drowned themselves. As they were going down, they were singing a song in their African language. We continue to sing the same song today using English words. The Quimbys close their recounting with “The Ibo Landing Song,” preserving the legend of those Ibos in the spiritual “Oh Freedom” with the chorus, Oh freedom, oh freedom, oh freedom over me And before I’d be a slave I’ll be buried in my grave And go home to my Lord and be free. Paule Marshall uses a version of the Ibo Landing story modeled on White’s recollection in her novel Praisesong for the Widow (1984). Julie Dash modifies Marshall’s fictional account in her film Daughters of the Dust (1991), set in the Georgia Sea Islands. Dash’s cinematic representation fuses the visual with the written, bringing the recollection to life in the family history of the Pazants. However, the slaves do not drown in either Marshall or Dash’s recountings; they successfully journey home. It is interesting that Floyd White’s oral history account definitively states that the slaves drowned. Although Frankie and Doug Quimby argue that the Africans did drown, they make it a point to convey that in death, they made a spiritual journey back to Africa and out of bondage. This is

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Ilê Aiyê | 551 the point at which the story makes the leap between history and mythology. Meredith Gadsby See also Flying Africans; Marshall, Paule (1929–); Pan-Africanism; Salt and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Gadsby, Meredith. 2006. Sucking Salt. Caribbean Women Writers, Migration and Survival. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. Georgia Writers Project, Savannah Unit, Work Projects Administraton. 1986. Drums and Shadows: Survival Studies among the Georgia Coastal Negroes. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Marshall, Paule. 1983. Praisesong for the Widow. New York: Penguin. Traylor, Eleonor W., Alphonso Frost, and Leota S. Lawence, eds. 1997. Broad Sympathy: The Howard University Oral Traditions Reader. Needham Heights, MA: Simon and Schuster Custom Publishing.

z Ilê Aiyê Ilê Aiyê is a Brazilian carnival group that infuses the African Diaspora into its music, style, dress, and politics. The group has been exploring how culture through music can effectively open up new spaces for Afro-Brazilians. What began as a carnival band in Salvador, Bahia in 1974, today is a social service organization consisting of a primary school, a percussion band for youth, and a vocation school for adults. The conditions for Afro-Brazilians during the 1970s were extremely difficult and Ilê Aiyê was created in order for black people to have greater participation in the carnival of Bahia. The group encountered a number of obstacles in the early years of Brazil’s military dictatorship, which occurred from 1964 to 1985. Ilê Aiyê was labeled as communist, and even called racist for asserting that racism existed in Brazil.

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In the 1970s, the musical rhythms of Ilê Aiyê emanated from African traditions that were not being used by other carnival bands. In essence, Ilê Aiyê popularized a new music movement in Bahian carnival. In song, dance, and theme the image of Ilê Aiyê was that of black Brazil, an affirmation of black identity. The group transmitted a perception of the African ancestral past together with significant contributions from Afro-Brazilians. Through its use of percussion instruments and rhythms, style of carnival dress, insistence on members who self-identify only as “black” (negra), and even its dance choreography, Ilê Aiyê reasserted an African heritage and what it meant to be Afro-Brazilian. Today, the mission statement of Ilê Aiyê is to spread black culture by aiming to join all AfroBrazilians in the struggle against the most diverse forms of racial discrimination; developing cultural and educational carnival projects; and redeeming and elevating self-esteem through music, song, and dance. Ilê Aiyê aims to valorize black culture and combat its commercialization, folklorization, and distortion; seek better employment opportunities; and reevaluate the role of blacks in the history of Brazil. Its leader, Vovô, set out to achieve the group’s mission through the selection of its annual carnival themes. History lessons based on Afro-Brazilian contributions to Brazilian society and African heritage are vocalized. After the administrators choose a theme for the year, stories from that theme are then incorporated into text and taught to students in the associated schools. The carnival festivities for Ilê Aiyê are organized around the same subject in costume, song, dance, gesture codes, and language. Teachings about Afro-Brazilians are found in the school texts, the group’s monthly newspaper, and song lyrics. Not only are contributions of black Brazilians brought forward, but everyday realities of Afro-Bahians are also highlighted. Plus, there is an emphasis on the relationship of ancestral identity among black people all over the world.

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The vision of the association is to be recognized internationally as a standard for valorizing the black community. It is important for the group to be considered a point of reference for other entities. The idea is not to remain local or to continue as a separate entity in the larger domain of social justice. From its inception, Ilê Aiyê has continued to pull in ideas and landmarks from the African Diaspora. The major concern is the improvement of life for black people, not only in Bahia but everywhere in Brazil. What encompasses Ilê Aiyê’s message to its students, both children and adults, is the importance of self-affirmation and racial identity. Each of the association’s three schools at some level focuses on raising consciousness and promoting self-awareness as an individual and as part of the collective Afro-Brazilian identity. Appreciating one’s cultural heritage is weighed at least equally with academics. Ilê Aiyê imagines a singular Afro-Brazilian community not fragmented by color categories that do little more than differentiate nonwhites from whites and maintain existing power dynamics in the hands of a few. Through their song lyrics and educational material, Ilê Aiyê formulates a concept of Africa as a birthplace, reservoir of historic achievements, and body of ancient civilizations of which the present-day black Brazilians are successors. Ilê Aiyê is situated in the neighborhood of Liberdade—home of the largest Afro-Brazilian population in Bahia. The group was founded by Antônio Carlos dos Santos, who is simply called Vovô, and his late friend Apolônia de Jesus. The administration of Ilê Aiyê consists of Vovô, his mother Mãe Hilda, and a number of directors. The literal translation of Ilê Aiyê from Yoruba is “house of life.” Zipporah Slaughter See also Black Panther Party; Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Carnival; Filhos de Ghandy; Olodum. F URTHER R EADING C. da Silva, Jônatas. 1988. “História de Lutes Negras: Memórias do Surgimento do Movimento

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Negro na Bahia.” In Escravidão e Invenção da Liberdade: Estudos sobre o Negro no Brasil, ed. João José Reis, 275–288. São Paulo, Brazil: Editora Brasiliense S.A. Cunha, Olivia Maria Gomes da. 1998. “Black Movements and the ‘Politics of Identity’ in Brazil.” In Cultures of Politics, Politics of Cultures, ed. S. Alvarez, E. Dagnino, and A. Escobar, 220–251. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Ilê Aiyê. 1997. Associação Cultural Bloco Carnavalesco Ilê Aiyê. Salvador, Brazil: Ilê Aiyê.

z Incense Incense was a commodity of central importance to world trade patterns for several millennia, and much of this trade originated and centered on eastern Africa, bringing this region into regular economic and cultural contact with the rest of the ancient world. Today incense is still traded and used ritually across the African Diaspora. Incense may consist of numerous natural substances such as resins from tree saps and resins derived from tree roots, barks, and/or other plant material. These are often burned, inhaled, smudged, or otherwise used for medicinal or ritual purposes. Incense has been vital to the religious practices of ancient Egypt, Judaism, Christianity, and, to an extent, Islam. Incense was also central in the cultures and economies of Egypt, Rome, Mesopotamia, Nabataea, Phoenicia, India, and the early Christian kingdoms of Africa and the Levant. According to the Bible, incense was one of the gifts brought by the three kings to Jesus in the manger, which presents further evidence that throughout most of antiquity incense, and especially frankincense, together with gold and perhaps cinnamon, was one of the three most valued commodities of exchange. In fact, the three were often given exactly interchangeable values, and all were used as currency at various times in many parts of the world, including Africa.

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India and the African Diaspora | 553 The story of frankincense is of particular interest for African history. It was at once the most common and most valued of the ancient incenses, and importantly, was and is still found only in the unique ecosystems of northeast Africa in what are today the semiarid interior regions of Somalia and northern Kenya. Myrrh was of similar importance and is also found almost exclusively in these regions and their surroundings. Some of the oldest hieroglyphic writing in the world records the journeys of Egyptians throughout the dynastic periods undertaking trading missions to the Land of Punt and/or Bia-Punt, where incense was one of the most treasured commodities being sought after. Frankincense and myrrh were treasured for their medicinal properties, were used in spiritual rituals and as perfumes, and, perhaps most importantly, were central to afterlife rituals. They were a key ingredient in the Egyptian embalming process, and they were also left in tombs to accompany the dead on their voyage to the afterlife. Amazingly, incense recovered in Egyptian tombs still retains some of its pungent aroma, even after thousands of years. Merchants of this period are known to have kept their sources of incense secret, so as to protect their interests, and this has resulted in many historical records mistakenly locating incense production in southern Arabia rather than Africa. Huge volumes of this ancient commodity were exchanged across great distances, at times following the Nile Valley trade routes to the north, at other times traversing the Arabian Peninsula along the camel caravan routes of the Himyarites and Nabateans, and later the precursors of today’s Bedouin. At its height, it is believed that more than 3,000 tons of incense traversed the Nabatean Incense Road annually, from East Africa to Gaza, and then the world beyond. Eventually, this trade shifted to vessels in the Red Sea, although it was still controlled for a time by the Nabateans, whose famous capital was the red stone city of Petra in modern-day Jordan.

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Further evidence of the East African origins and presence of incense is seen in the importance of incense in Swahili culture to the south of Somalia, where it still serves as ubani, or payment, in various cultural transactions. Archaeologists are beginning to track the ties between Nabateans and Nubians and other East Africans, and incense is a primary cultural and economic indicator of these social ties over time. More research needs to be done on this commodity, which was central to Old World global trade economies over a period of several millennia and placed East Africa at the center of ancient world systems. Jesse Benjamin F URTHER R EADING Allen, James de vere. 1993. Swahili Origins: Swahili Culture and the Shungwaya Phenomenon. London: James Curry. Benjamin, Jesse. 2002. “Of Nabateans and Nubians: Implications of Research on Neglected Dimensions of Ancient World History.” In Conceptualizing/ Reconceptualizing Africa: The Construction of African Historical Identity, ed. Maghan Keita. Leiden: Brill. Miller, J. Innes. 1969. The Spice Trade of the Roman Empire: 29 B.C. to A.D. 641. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

z India and the African Diaspora The concept of the African Diaspora is based on a triadic relationship: an African homeland, Africans and their descendants, and an adopted residence or home abroad. The African Diaspora in India have adopted India as their home, but they have collective memories and myths about Africa as their homeland or the place of origin of their ancestors. Oral histories and retentions of African languages, religions, music, and dance rekindle memories and myths about the ancestral African homeland. In India, people of African origin have been called Abexin, Abeixm, Abyssinian, Habshi,

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Habsi, Cafre, Caffre, Caffree, Kafara, Kafra, Kaphirs, Khafris, Khapris, Seedee, Seede, Scidee, Scidy, Sciddee, Seydee, Sheedi, Sidi, Sidy, Siddi, Siddy, and Sidhi whose etyma are Arabic (de Silva Jayasuriya 2001; de Silva Jayasuriya and Pankhurst 2003). The word “Sidi” was sometimes used as an honorific title—Sidi Yaqut— and nowadays it is used by some Sidis as a clan name—Laurence Sidi. Throughout this article, Africans in India are interchangeably referred to by these ethnonyms. H ISTORY Indian medieval and modern imperial history barely discusses the important issue of Sidis restructuring alliances, redefining themselves, and contributing to the development of Indian kingdoms. A complete history of African migration to India has yet to be compiled. There have been both free and forced migration of Africans to India, but slavery has been the mechanism by which most were displaced to a land far away from their homeland (de Silva Jayasuriya 2004, 2006). Forced migration of Africans to India increased in the sixth century when the Arabs became the masters of the Indian Ocean and expanded their trade in Asia. Significant numbers of slaves entered northern India after the expansion of Islam at the end of the 10th century. In the 13th century, slaves seem to have been obtainable through slave markets. Enslaved Abyssinians were soldiers, concubines, and eunuchs in Muslim India. A slave trade from the Swahili coast and the Red Sea ports to Muslim markets in Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and India existed before the European powers set sail on the Indian Oceanic voyages. Africans had a high profile in the Indian political arena from the 14th to the 19th centuries in various parts of India. They held prominent positions in north India; Ibn Batuta, the Moroccan traveler who visited India during 1333–1343, referred to the governor of Alahapur—Badr—an Abyssinian slave of the rajah of Dholpur. Africans also

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wielded power in east India. The ruler of Bengal, Sultan Rukn al-Din Barbak Shah (1460– 1481), had 8,000 African slaves, some of whom he elevated to the higher ranks. Barbak Shah’s grandson, Sikander II, was deposed in 1481 after ruling only a few months. His successor, Jalal-ud-din Fath Shah (1481–1486), attempted to control the power of the Habshis. In 1486, however, under the leadership of the chief eunuch, Sultan Shahzada, the Habshis conspired, murdered Fath Shah, and gained the throne of Bengal (Pankhurst 2003). Yet this was not a united Habshi rule. Indil Khan, commander-in-chief, a Habshi, avenged his master’s death by murdering Shahzada. Indil Khan then ascended the throne as Saif-uddin-Firuz, mainly due to pressure exerted by Jalal-ud-din’s widow and the courtiers of Gaur, the capital of Bengal. The Sidis controlled the island of Janjira (south of Mumbai) for almost 300 years. Janjira (in western Maharashtra) was important as a base for commerce with the interior of India. The Sidis were the unchallenged masters of the Konkan coast from 1601 until 1870, when they formally submitted to the British. The most famous Habshi in Indian history is Malik Ambar, who defeated the Mughal army, became the wazir, and ruled the western Deccan from Aurangabad, from 1600 to 1626 (Harris 1971). He is renowned for his public works (mosques, palaces, schools, tombs, water systems) and for his military and administrative achievements. In the 16th century, African slaves were also brought to India by the Europeans, who established themselves at various coastal entrepôts. The Portuguese, who began exercising political and economic control over parts of the west coast of India, particularly the Konkan coast, transported slaves from East Africa to India from about 1530 until about 1740. Sayf alMulk Miftah, the governor of Daman during the Portuguese occupation in 1530, was a Habshi chief whose force included 4,000 Habshis. In the 1730s, Indian Gujarati merchants on

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India and the African Diaspora | 555 Mozambique Island owned a small number of slaves and shipped a few slaves to the Portuguese enclaves of Diu and Daman (which are administered as a union territory today) (Machado 2004). François Pyrard de Laval, who visited Goa, the administrative headquarters of the Portuguese Estado da India (State of India), in the early 17th century noted that African slaves generated wealth for the Portuguese through their hard labor. They were, however, treated harshly and fled to the Indian states that were under Muslim rule where they were esteemed for their talents and skills. From 1724, the Nizam of Hyderabad who had African slave-soldiers also brought to the fore their musical talents by asking them also to entertain him with their traditional singing and dancing. The descendants of these African military men—African Cavalry Guards—are known as Chaush, an Ottoman military term. In 1811, the British colonial government in India enacted the Abolition Act, which prohibited the importation of African slaves. This, however, did not end slavery in India. In 1837, the British government pledged to abolish slavery in the empire, and this was officially accomplished in British India in 1838. In the wake of the major uprising against the British throughout India in 1857, a Sidi named Bastian led a group of rebels, including both Sidis and Kanarese (indigenous Indians in Karnataka), around Supa in Uttara Kannada (North Karnataka), where they wreaked havoc until 1859 through a campaign of looting and burning along the border with Goa (Shirodkar 1998). British India (modern-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Bhutan) consisted of two types of territories: provinces and princely states. Fifteen provinces (Ajmer-Merwera, Assam, Baluchistan, Bengal, Bihar, Bombay, Central Provinces and Berar, Coorg, Delhi, Madras, Northwest Frontier, Orissa, Punjab, Sind, and United Provinces) were ruled by the British. On the other hand, hundreds of princely states were ruled by local hereditary rulers who acknowledged British sovereignty

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in return for local autonomy. The end of the British presence in 1947 led to the formation of India and, on two opposite sides of India, West Pakistan (today’s Pakistan) and East Pakistan (today’s Bangladesh). When the British rule ended, Portuguese India was limited to the coastal enclaves of Dadra, Daman, Diu, Goa, and Nagar Haveli; French India included Chandernagore, Yanaon, Pondicherry, Karikal, and Mahe. Chandernagore was taken over by India in 1952 and is part of West Bengal today. In 1954, the other French enclaves— Pondicherry, Yanaon, Karikal, and Mahe—and the Portuguese holdings of Dadra and Nagar Haveli were also taken over by India. In 1962, Portuguese rule in India finally ended when India took over Daman, Diu, and Goa. E THNIC G ROUPS AND L ANGUAGES In multiethnic India, people often speak more than one language or dialect depending on the demands of their contact situations, and the Sidis are no exception. The Sidis still form a separate ethnic group and have maintained African physiognomy, though the distinction is blurred in some cases. Skin color is not always a distinguishing feature between Sidis and indigenous Indians. Comprehensive population estimates of contemporary Sidis in India have yet to be compiled. The largest groups of Sidis have so far been identified in the states of Karnataka (neighboring the state of Goa), Andhra Pradesh, and Gujarat. In the state of Maharashtra, there are a few Sidi families in Mumbai who are descendants of the Sidi rulers of Janjira as well as small Sidi communities near Kolhapur whose residents are descendants of slaves from Goa. In Madhya Pradesh a small community of Sidis lives near Bhopal, and there are small Sidi settlements in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, and Tamil Nadu. The main languages of India fall into one of two categories: Indic or Dravidian. In addition to their mother tongues, most people need to speak the main languages of the state, which

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A Sidi man exits a mosque after praying in Zambur village outside Junagadh city, in the Indian state of Gujarat. The Sidis are Africans who migrated to India beginning in the fifth century. (AFP Photo/Rob Elliott)

are Hindi (also the official language of India) in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi but Tamil (a Dravidian language) in Tamil Nadu, if they wish to enhance their job prospects and keep up with modern India. Gujarati (an Indic language that is the main language of the state of Gujarat) is the mother tongue of the Sidis who live in and around Jambur. Their roots extend to North and East Africa. Sidis of Saurashtra speak a mixture of Gujarati and Hindi; they also use Swahili words. Swahili is the national language of Tanzania and Kenya; is a main language in parts of Zaire and the Congo; and is spoken in Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. Many dialects of Swahili are spoken from the Somali border to Mozambique, and many Swahili words are found in the language of the people of African origin in Diu. Micklem (2001) reports that the Africans in Diu are called Kafaras, and many are Christians. They do not intermarry with Sidis. They speak Gujarati and Hindi; the

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younger generation also speaks English but the older generation speaks Indo-Portuguese, a Creole Portuguese. Indo-Portuguese dialects were the bridging tongues in the Portuguese trading posts in the Indian subcontinent: Bassein, Bombay (Mumbai), Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Cochin, Daman, Diu, Korlai, Mahe, Mangalore, and Negapatnam. Indo-Portuguese seems to have originated in Cochin and spread throughout Portuguese Asia. Sidis in Karnataka speak Kannada (a Dravidian language that is the main language of the state of Karnataka), Konkani (the Indic language spoken in the state of Goa), Marathi (an Indic language that is the main language of Maharashtra), Hindi, or Urdu; those in Andra Pradesh speak Urdu and Telugu (a Dravidian language that is the main language in the state of Andra Pradesh); those in Kerala speak Malayalam (a Dravidian language that is the main language of the state of Kerala); and those in West Bengal speak Bengali (an Indic

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India and the African Diaspora | 557 language that is the main language of the state of West Bengal). Sidis had learned Konkani when they were domestic servants in Goan households. Some Muslim Sidis speak Urdu, which was the lingua franca in much of the Indian subcontinent after the Mughul conquest. G EOGRAPHICAL B OUNDARIES Sidis have lived in various parts of India, but because of changes in political scenarios there has also been internal migration. Thus, identifying Sidi communities is an ongoing process. In contemporary India, Sidis are known to live in the states of Andra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. In the state of Andra Pradesh, the Sidis live in Hyderabad. They are the descendants of the Nizam’s African Cavalry Guards. They played in the military band, rode horses, and paraded daily, until the last Nizam lost his powers because of the political changes after the end of British India. In the state of Gujarat, the Sidis live in Kutch, Jamnagar, Portbander, Junagadh, Amreli, Bhavnagar, Rajkot, Surendranagar, Ahmedabad, Surat, and Bharuch. They also live in Daman and Diu, which are geographically apart but together form a single union territory today. In South India, the state of Karnataka became a refuge for unhappy free Africans and for runaway slaves from Goa between the 16th and 19th centuries. In the district of Uttara Kannada, Sidis live in the subdistricts of Ankola, Belgaum, Haliyal, Manchikeri, Mundgod, Sirsi, and Yellapur. In the state of Maharashtra, Sidis live in the districts of Kolhapur, Mumbai, Raigarh, and Thana. In the state of Madhya Pradesh, Sidis still live in Bhopal, the original location in which they were housed when they were brought to the princely state of Bhopal to serve as domestic servants and soldiers in the Nawab Hamid Ullah’s army. When the Abyssinians were expelled from Bengal because they posed a threat to the In-

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dian rulers, they sought refuge in North India (Delhi and Jaunpur) but later drifted southward to the Deccan and westward to Gujarat, where many found employment as mercenaries. Muslim Sidis in Bengal married Indian Muslim women, which resulted in a dispersed population of mixed origin. E CONOMY Africans have contributed to the Indian economy through their expertise and talents in several spheres and at various levels of the economy, and they have held many important positions in India. They were traders, rulers, prime ministers, nobles, regents, architects, builders, riders, personal guards, musicians, court jesters, servants in courts, domestic servants, personal attendants, masters of the royal stables, mercenaries, soldiers, sailors, admirals, army chiefs, hunting assistants, kennel keepers, palanquin bearers, herbalists, and midwives. Today, Sidis are contributing to India as fakirs, musicians, dancers, doctors, lawyers, graduates, teachers, tutors, computer trainers, computer engineers, white-collar workers, athletes, drivers, painters, butchers, shoe shop sales assistants, security guards, watchmen, street hawkers, soft drink sellers, farmers, hunters, and unskilled workers. The array of jobs undertaken by Africans throughout the hundreds of years of migration to India has slotted them into different socioeconomic groups. A few examples illustrate this. In the early 13th century, an Ethiopian slave, Jalal-ud-dinYakut, was elevated to the post of master of the royal stables in the kingdom of Delhi, which was ruled by Queen Raziya (1236–1240), the daughter of Iltutmish, a Turk who had made himself the master of most of Northern India. When Ibn Batuta sailed down the southwest coast of India in the early 14th century, his ship had “fifty Abyssinian men-at-arms.” He noted that they were the guarantors of safety on the Indian Ocean and that if there was one Abyssinian on a ship, it will be avoided by the Indian pirates and idolaters. In Calicut (South

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India), Batuta noted that the owner of the Chinese junk that he embarked on also had Abyssinians with javelins, swords, drums, trumpets, and bugles and who stood with their lances on both sides of the door and acted as guards. In the mid-15th century in Bengal, 20,000 Habshi horsemen were the protectors of the Bengali sultanate, but the Habshis themselves became the masters of Bengal from 1486 to 1493. When Akbar (1556–1605) the Mughul emperor entered Gujarat in Western India in 1572, he was accompanied by 700 Habshi horsemen. The most venerated Muslim saint among some Sidis—Bava Gor—was an African migrant to Gujarat who became a gem trader and extended the already existing trade in agate to Eastern Africa. Some Sidis came to India for trade, but as there were too many competitors in India, they enlisted in the military service of the Brahman (Bahamani) kingdom in the Deccan. These Sidis settled in the island fort of Janjira and excelled as able seamen and reliable soldiers. Sidi captains were appointed admirals of the Mughul fleet. The Sidis had received annual payment for defending the Mughul king’s subjects from piracy and plunder, both on the sea and on land (Banaji 1932). The military contribution of the Sidis is apparent in the high profile of Sidi military leaders: Malik Ambar, Malik Yakub, and Malik Kafur. Like their Muslim rivals in the Indian Ocean, the Europeans also used African slave labor in India as sailors, soldiers, and servants. The Portuguese employed slaves from Mozambique as part of the crew in ships sailing to India. After abolition in the 1840s, the Parsis (Indians of Persian origin), an affluent ethnic minority in India, employed freed Sidis as domestic servants. In the late 1980s, the Sports Authority of India envisaged training Sidi athletes to international standards. Many Sidi trainees who entered this scheme have, unfortunately, dropped out as, among other reasons, their services were

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bought up by state enterprises who play intercompany sports events between their staffs. The Sidis opted for jobs that they would otherwise not have been able to obtain as there was no guarantee they would continue to excel in sports indefinitely and be attractive to employers. African migrants filled a gap in the labor market whenever the Indian labor pool could not supply the demand at the required level. Sometimes the Indians were able to meet the market demand but were not employed because of issues such as suspicions of disloyalty. This may explain to some extent why foreigners were needed when India already had an excess supply of labor and immense human capital. P OLITICAL AND S OCIAL S TRUCTURE There is no single model for the social and political organization of the Sidis who migrated at different times to various locations in India. They encountered different host societies where the social organization was guided by distinct religions: Islam, Hinduism and Christianity. Sidis who were part of the Muslim nobility did not constitute a separate ethnic or social unit that survived the disintegration of the Muslim systems of power. The Sidi nobility merged with the Muslim elite of former rulers. Most Sidis in Janjira are relatives of the nawab (head of state) of Janjira; they inherited state grants and allowances. They are landowners and civil servants. The Royal Sidis marry among themselves or with upper-class Indian Muslims. The Royal Sidis are the survivors of the Sidi state of Jafarabad established by the Sidi naval chief of Janjira, in the mid-19th century. There are also Royal Sidis in Hyderabad, Aurangabad, and Radhapur in the Kathiawar region of North Gujarat and in Sachin (near the port of Surat). Differences in family histories and socioeconomic status divide the Sidis. Muslim Sidis at the lower end of the social spectrum form a distinct community that defines itself by reference

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India and the African Diaspora | 559 to African roots and a common religious cult. Their identity is constructed in Gujarat through an African past commemorated in rituals dedicated to African ancestor-saints. Basu (1993) states that the Sidis in Gujarat are mainly descendants of slaves who were without caste, affiliation, ancestry, or family but were integrated into a caste of black people by mediation of fakirs. Their role as fakirs is based on their bond to the shrine of Bava Gor. Bava Gor, an African immigrant to India, is considered a Muslim saint. Fictive kinship ties provided the Sidis with a social identity, which is needed for establishing marital relations. Runaway and freed slaves who went to the Bava Gor’s shrine (dargah) in Gujarat felt the need to re-create a community based on their African roots. The Sidis have a marginal involvement in modern Indian politics. In Karnataka and Gujarat, Sidis serve in the panchayats (Five Member Leadership Committees), an ancient Indian system of democratic administration that hands over power to the grassroots level. The Sidis have their own youth organizations (e.g., Ratanpur Yuvak, Mandal, Vadava Sidi Yuvak Mandal, Sidi Rastriya Yuvak Mandal). There are several Sidi societies and groups in India today: the Sidi Development Society and Sidi Sanskriti Kala Mandd in Yellapur, the Sidi Goma Al-Mumbrik Charitable Trust and Sidi Goma Group in Gujarat, and the Arabi Daff Party in Andhra Pradesh. R ELIGIONS Sidis are either Muslims, Hindus, or Christians. The Hyderabad Sidis are Muslims; they are descendants of the African Cavalry Guards of the 6th Nizam of Hyderabad who recruited a 300strong troop. Some people of African descent in Diu, in neighboring Gujarat, are Muslims; others are Christians as a result of the Portuguese presence. Sidis have contributed to the complex and plural religious landscape of India. In Karnataka, some Sidis are Muslims, some are Hindus and others are Christians. Although

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the Sidis have been slotted into the three main religious groups, they have appropriated local practices into their own versions of religiosity while practicing the faiths of their choice. Sidis in the subdistricts of Haliyal, Mundgod, Yellapur, and Sirsi venerate a Muslim saint, Abd alQadir Jilani (also known as Mahbub Subhani), who is considered to be the founder of the Qadiri Sufi order (Obeng 2003). Christian Sidis in Karnataka perform sigmo, which is usually a Goan Hindu musical event. They go around the villages singing, dancing, and receiving gifts during the Lenten season. It is unusual for Christians to indulge in forms of entertainment during the Lenten season, and this represents a cross-cultural influence. Sidis have been divided along religious lines and therefore have been easily exploitable. Now Sidis in Karnataka participate in each other’s religious festivities. In so doing, the Sidis are affirming their racial and ethnic identity beyond a religious context. The rituals and festivals that the Karnataka Sidis perform in their villages are pivotal in their ongoing cultural and political articulation in the state. At the centenary of canonization of St. Rita, for example, the Sidis of Karnataka expressed their music and dance within a Catholic ritual to a multireligious audience. Sidi Konkani (a hybrid of Konkani, Marathi, and Kannada) is now a language of liturgy in Karnataka. Through song and dance, the Sidis of Karnataka help the rest of the congregation to worship. Their sense of self-worth fosters their ability to empower one another. The Sidis of Jambur village in Gujarat follow Muslim customs but their most revered pirs (saints) are Bava Gor, Nagarchi Bava, Sidi Makbut, Sidi Pyara, Sidi Mamul, Dariyapir, and Mai Parsan (a sister of Bava Gor). Every evening they pay homage to the pirs by burning incense sticks, lighting lamps, and playing bugles and drums. They also observe Muslim festivals—Namaz, Id, Moharrum—and wish to visit Mecca, the holiest place of worship for Muslims (Patel 1991). The followers of Bava

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Gor include Indians of other ethnic groups and those belonging to other religious faiths— Christians, Hindus, and Zoroastrians. The Bava Gor memorial shrine in Bombay was built by a Parsi devotee in 1947 (Schroff 2005). The cult of the Bava Gor is deep rooted in the Parsi community, and the Parsi Diaspora visit the Bava Gor’s shrine in Bombay and introduce their children to the cult. Because of cultural transfusions, the Muslim Sidis follow the social customs and codes of both Muslims and Hindus. Some Muslim Sidis in Gujarat have accepted Hindu gods as their clan gods. In Karnataka, Muslim Sidis worship Lakshmi, the Hindu deity. C ULTURAL E XPRESSIONS Since the early medieval era, Africans who came with Persians (modern-day Iranians), Turks, and Arabs have contributed to the sociocultural landscape of India. In particular, the Sidis have carried their musical traditions with them. Today Sidi Goma groups perform in India and abroad. They play sacred music and dance as wandering fakirs, singing to the Sidi saint, Bava Gor. They perform dhamal, which they call goma, a word that has its etymon in the Swahili word ngoma, which means “drum.” The most significant African retention is the malunga, a braced musical bow, which is found in many African communities. Sidi servants performed ngoma dances with drums, rattles, and shells on birthdays and weddings in the noble courts (Basu 1993). Sidis wearing animal skins and headgear of peacock feathers or other bird feathers, and with painted bodies, perform a sacred traditional dance to the rhythm of the dhamal (small drum), madido (big drum), mugarman (footed drum), Mai Mishra (coconut rattle), nafir (conch trumpet), malunga, and other musical instruments. Bava Gor’s urs (the death of a Muslim saint) is celebrated over several days and is an occasion for playing dhamal music and dancing. Music seems to be the main African cultural retention in the Hyderabad Sidis, who excel in

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music. They have drum bands that play African drums and are hired to play music and dance in “African ways” on special occasions such as weddings. They had learned songs that are sung in a Bantu language in Tanzania during spirit possession rituals to effect healing. African retentions also remain in Swahili words in the lyrics of the songs of the Sidis and in the names of the musical instruments of the Sidis. Sidis in Karnataka play the gumat, a type of drum that is also used by Indian musicians in Goa and the Goan Diaspora who play Goan Catholic folk songs, which indicates culture crossings. The popular folk songs of the Sidis— Balo, Leva, Bandugia—are replete with pride for the community and religious fervor (Chauhan 1995). D IASPORA C ONNECTIONS Africans have lived in India for several centuries. As most Sidis, though not all, were displaced because of slavery and the slave trade, the true African origins are difficult to establish, although the Sidi have legends and oral histories about their ancestral homelands. A legend relating to the Sidis of Jambur village asserts that Africans came as drum-beaters with the invading forces of Mahamud of Gazni from Afghanistan. However, most Sidis in Gujarat trace their roots to their community progenitor, the Sidi saint Bava Gor, who is usually described as an Abyssinian who came to Gujarat in the 14th century. Another legend claims that their ancestors were followers of Bava Gor, who came from Kano, Nigeria, but through Abyssinia and Mecca. They had apparently settled in Rajpipla in Gujarat. Bava Gor was accompanied by his siblings—six brothers and three sisters. He was a mendicant, but in Gujarat he became a merchant and developed the agate trade, which had been established in India since the first century BCE. Agate was a precious stone called akik and was abundant in the area. Bava Gor specialized in carving and making many forms of agate beads and extended the agate trade to East Africa. One

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India and the African Diaspora | 561 bead is named after the saint (the Bava Gori bead) and another is named after his sister (the Mai Mariam bead). Ngoma, performed by Sidis, suggests African roots. African characteristics—singing in thirds, call-and-response singing, hemiola, and “talking drums”—have been retained in Sidi music and song. Africans from northern Mozambique and Kilwa (in Tanzania) were exported to India, the Arabian peninsula, and the Indian Ocean Islands of Madagascar and the Mascarenes. In the mid-17th century, the French East India Company bought African slaves in Zanzibar and sold them in Oriental markets and transported them to French commercial and strategic outposts on the Mascarene Islands and in India. Diu had the strongest commercial ties to Mozambique through its communities of Hindu and Muslim traders. As late as 1838, this intimate connection expressed itself in an African population that made up 6 percent of the town’s total inhabitants. In the 20th century, an African presence, in the form of colonial troops recruited in Mozambique, continued at Diu until the Portuguese presence ended. The Muslim Sidis in Karnataka trace their arrival in India to 1490, when the Omani Arab slave traders sold their ancestors to the Muslim leaders to work as dockworkers, domestics, and guards. The Christian Sidis in Karnataka trace their roots to Goa. The Hindu Sidis are descendants of slaves sold by Arabs, Indian merchants, and Portuguese to Havik Brahmins “in exchange for local products.” The Konkanispeaking Christian and Hindu Sidis in Karnataka have migrated from Goa and other parts of the Konkan coast. Sidis in Andhra Pradesh sing songs in Shambaa (a Bantu language spoken in northeastern Tanzania), which have been learned through an oral tradition from their grandfathers who migrated from Tanzania as soldiers in the Nizam’s army. Some Sidis have tribal names, such as Tai of Saurashtra, Shemali of Jambur, and Saheli of

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Daman, and there is no intermarriage between these tribes. A few Sidis have returned to Africa, mostly during the British rule of Zanzibar. A community of Christian Sidis who returned to their ancestral homeland from Bombay now live in Freretown, Mombasa, Kenya. They have integrated to modern Kenya despite their varied African roots. The eastward African Diaspora, unlike the transatlantic one, has received little scholarly attention. The Sidis have been underresearched, and multidisciplinary studies would help to construct a comprehensive picture of the African Diaspora in India. Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya See also Ambar, Malik (ca. 1550–1626); Bava Ghor (14th Century?); The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA). F URTHER R EADING Banaji, D. R. 1932. Bombay and the Sidis. London: Macmillan. Basu, H. 1993. “The Sidi and the Cult of Bava Gor in Gujarat.” Journal of Indian Anthropological Society 28: 289–300. Chauhan, R. R. S. 1995. Africans in India: From Slavery to Royalty. New Delhi, India: Asian Publication Services. De Silva Jayasuriya, S. 2001. “Les Cafres de Ceylan: Le Chaînon Portugais.” Cahiers des Anneax de la Mémoire 3: 229–253. De Silva Jayasuriya, S. 2004. “Trading on a Thalassic Network.” Paper presented at the International Conference on Issues of Memory: Coming to Terms with the Slave Trade and Slavery, UNESCO, Paris, December 3–5. De Silva Jayasuriya, S. 2006. “Trading on a Thalassic Network: African Migrations across the Indian Ocean.” Internacional Social Sciences Journal 188: 215–225. De Silva Jayasuriya, S., and R. Pankhurst. 2003. “On the African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean.” In The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean, ed. S. de Silva Jayasuriya and R. Pankhurst. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Harris, J. 1971. The African Presence in Asia. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Machado, P. 2004. “A Forgotten Corner of the Indian Ocean: Gujarati Merchants, Portuguese India and the Mozambique Slave Trade, c. 1730–1830.” In The Structure of Slavery in

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562 | Indian Ocean and the African Diaspora Indian Ocean Africa and Asia, ed. G. Campbell, 17–32. London: Frank Cass. Micklem, J. 2001. The Sidis of Gujarat. Occasional Working Paper Series. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press. Obeng, P. 2003. “Religion and Empire: Belief and Identity Among African Indians of Karnataka, South India.” Journal of the American Academy of Religions 71 (1): 99–120. Pankhurst, R. 2003. “The Ethiopian Diaspora to India: The Role of Habshis and Sidis from Medieval Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century.” In The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean, ed. S. De Silva Jayasuriya and R. Pankhurst. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Patel, J. 1991. “African Settlements in Gujarat.” In Minorities on India’s West Coast: History and Society. Delhi, India: Kalinga Publications. Schroff, B. 2005. “Spiritual Journeys: Parsis and Sidis.” In Journeys and Dwellings: Indian Ocean Themes in South Asia, ed. H. Basu. New Delhi, India: Orient Longman. Shirodkar, P. P. 1998. “Bund of Siddi Bastian in North Canara.” In Researchers in IndoPortuguese History, Vol. 2, ed. P. P. Shirodkar, 205–220. India: Jaipur Publication Scheme.

z Indian Ocean and the African Diaspora The Indian Ocean world encompasses three continents, many languages, several religions and is very complex. The eastward SubSaharan African Diaspora that resulted from displacements of African people across and beyond the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean to the Near East, the Middle East, and the Far East has attracted little scholarly attention compared with that of the transatlantic migration. There are crucial differences between the two Diasporas in terms of the time span, the demands being met, and, perhaps most importantly, the nature of interactions with the host cultures. First, eastward African migration (whether forced or by free will) has taken place over a

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much longer period (de Silva Jayasuriya and Pankhurst 2003a). International trade, commercial enterprises, religious beliefs, and colonization were important forces behind this migration. Second, the demand for slaves was not driven simply by economic motives. Concubines and eunuchs to guard harems, for example, did not yield monetary returns, but instead, provided perceived social benefits. The demand for militia and plantation workers also propelled migration. Third, eastward migration was more complex than the transatlantic migration. African slaves and émigrés encountered more diverse and older cultures in the East. These societies were colored by ancient religious affiliations, and they possessed their own systems of social organization and hierarchy. Miscegenation was encouraged at times, and slave descendants were absorbed into some existing kinship networks. Africans who migrated to uninhabited Indian Ocean islands, on the other hand, were creolized. Scholars from various disciplines working on different locations in the Indian Ocean region have integrated their work in projects such as The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean with Professor Richard Pankhurst, the Ethiopianist (de Silva Jayasuriya and Pankhurst 2003b). In March 2003, an academic cyber network formed, TADIA (The African Diaspora in Asia), which currently includes 300 scholars (historians, anthropologists, linguists, ethnomusicologists, geographers, sociologists, and scientists) based in 60 countries. TADIA is now associated with the UNESCO Slave Route Project (Angenot and Angenot-de Lima, 2003). In Asia, and particularly in India, Habshi, Sidi, and Kaffir are synonyms for people of Ethiopian and other African descent. These words with Arabic etyma have different histories and connotations. The term “Kaffir” was used indiscriminately by the Arabs, and later by the Portuguese, for a pagan or a black. It sometimes referred to slaves irrespective of

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Indian Ocean and the African Diaspora | 563 their race or color, and at other times it referred to anyone not of the Islamic faith. Habshi was a corruption of Habash, the Arabic for Abyssinia. Habash is believed to be derived from Habashat, the name of a Semitic people who lived in northern Tegray in present-day Ethiopia, and part of Eritrea; many believe they migrated from Taman in ancient times. The term “Habshi,” initially used for Abyssinians (Ethiopians), was later used for other Africans. Most Africans taken to India, however, came from the continent’s eastern flank and would probably have included a predominant number of Abyssinians, as the origin of the word Habshi, in fact, suggests. Abyssinians enjoyed a unique position in the Indian and Asian slave context. They were known to the Islamic world since the time of the Prophet Muhammad, whose first muezzin in Mecca had been the son of an Abyssinian slave girl. They were liked on account of their “Oriental” physiognomy and were considered to make brave soldiers, loyal servants, and beautiful concubines. Their homeland, with its temperate and agreeable climate, was also known as the “Third India.” The term “Sidi” (in Arabic “Saiyid” means “master”) was used in India for African slaves, particularly those on the subcontinent’s western coast. It was also used as a title—Sidi Yaqut, for example. The Arabs were masters of the Indian Ocean from the 6th century until the 16th century when the Portuguese entered those waters. For a millennium the Arabs were the chief promoters of the African slave trade in India (Banaji 1932, 20). Arab and African sailors used lateen-rigged dhows to navigate the seasonal monsoon winds of the Indian Ocean; they carried African slaves across the Indian Ocean. Africans migrated to India as police, traders, bureaucrats, clerics, bodyguards, concubines, servants, soldiers, and sailors. The eastward African Diaspora was not entirely the result of slavery. Afro-Indians are not a homogenous group as they are separated by geographical

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distances and religious differences. Africans either lived or live in the Indian states of Andra Pradesh, Bengal, Delhi, Goa, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Madya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh. In the southern Indian state of Karnataka, for example, there are Hindu, Christian, and Muslim AfroIndians. Afro-Indians live in the districts of North Kanara, Dharwad, Belagum, and Uttara Kannada in the Indian state of Karnataka. They are known as Siddi, Habshi, Kaffir, Kafira, African, and Negro, but they prefer to call themselves Siddi. They have little knowledge about their origins. Most do not identify themselves as Africans but as Indians. Yet the other Indians in Uttara Kannada do not always identify the Siddis as Indians. Afro-Indian settlements were established at least since the early 16th century onward. Through migration of ex-slaves and free Africans within India, new settlements arose, such as that in the hilly district of Uttara Kannada, where they are found in Ankola, Mundgod, Sirsi, Supa Haliyal, and Yellaur talukas (small political units of administration). In the state of Karnataka there are 18,000 Siddis in Uttara Kannada, mostly descendants of maroon slaves from Goa since the 16th century. In the state of Gujarat, there are about 10,000 Siddis. In the state of Andhra Pradesh, there are 12,000 Siddis in Hyderabad. In the state of Maharashtra, there are some Siddi families in Mumbai who are mostly descendants of the rulers of Janjira. Near Kolhapur, there are small communities of Africans, descendants of runaway slaves from Goa. In the state of Madhya Pradesh, there is a small community near Bhopal. In the states of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala there are also small Siddi settlements. In neighboring Pakistan an estimated one and a half million Afro-Pakistanis live in the Makran, Baluchistan, and Sindh. Badalkhan (2002) draws attention to the important role of the Makran coast in the maritime trade among the peoples of South Asia, the Middle

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East, Central Asia, and the African continent. The Omani Arabs who had settled down along the Makran coast had been important slave dealers. The Makran was not part of the Omani empire, but it was within the trading orbit of the Bombay-Muscat-East Africa circuit. Although the Makran had been a stopover point for slaves destined for other lands in South Asia, it seems that some of these slaves fed the local demand. It is estimated that around 30 percent of a total population of about one million have slave ancestry. Baloches of African origin are known as gulam (slave), naukar (servant, slave), dada (black) or shidi (black). In Karachi, they are called syah (black) or Makrani as they migrated from the Makran coast during the late 19th and first half of the 20th century. Badalkhan (personal communication, 2005) points out that most Baloches of African origin had been employed as sailors and in neighboring countries, too. The migrant Africans have carried their music and belief system, which are still expressed in music therapy for evil spirit possessions and dance sessions such as damal. Two musical genres—amba and laywa—are found on the Baloch coast. They are both group dances accompanied by drums of different sizes and by choral songs. Amba consists of work songs meant to incite collective work and songs of praise to God, the Prophet Muhammad, and Muslim saints. In contrast, laywa songs are festive songs whose themes vary from love songs to sexual songs. Badalkhan (personal communication, 2005) points out that the laywa songs are similar to the lewa songs performed by African slave descendants in Oman. The main difference between the two is that the former are merely festive songs whereas in the latter the performers go into a trance. Badalkhan points out that this musical tradition seems to recur in the Indian Ocean world, from India to the Persian Gulf countries and to the East African coasts. Laywa performers color their faces and decorate their heads with plumes or tie bird feathers around their

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arms for officially sponsored performances where they are advertised as “black dancers from Makran.” Afro-Pakistanis are artists, dancers, musicians, and footballers. Lluis Quintana-Murci, a population geneticist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, has studied the maternal and paternal genes of the Makrani. He found that more than 40 percent of the maternal gene pool of this community is of African derivation, whereas only 8 percent of their paternal gene pool is of African derivation. By making comparisons of this gene pool with that of an extended African database, he has found that most of their gene sequences match with East Africans, particularly with Mozambicans. This seems to provide scientific confirmation of what was previously known about concubinage. The children of concubines were free and treated the same as the children born to freeborn wives. Significant numbers of military slaves entered the subcontinent after the expansion of Islam to northern India at the end of the 10th century. It is to this later era that the Siddis of Gujarat trace the roots of their saint and community progenitor, Gori Pir, who is usually described as an Abyssinian who came to Gujarat to trade in the 14th century. Local traditions have the virtue of providing a coherent explanation for the wide distribution of Gori Pir shrines across the Sind through Saurashtra to southern Gujarat in association with the agate trade. Diu, in the Gujarat region, had the strongest commercial ties to Mozambique through its communities of Hindu and Muslim traders. As late as 1838, this intimate connection expressed itself in an African population that made up 6 percent of the town’s total inhabitants. In the 20th century, an African presence continued at Diu in the form of colonial troops recruited in Mozambique until the Portuguese presence ended. African slaves were brought to India in the 16th century by the Europeans who established themselves at various coastal entrepôts from

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Indian Ocean and the African Diaspora | 565 Kacch to Kolkata. Like their Muslim rivals in the Indian Ocean, the Europeans generally used African slave labor in India as sailors, soldiers, and servants. The Portuguese employed slaves from Mozambique as part of the crew in ships sailing to India. Although Goa was the center of Portuguese India, the descendants of African slaves are not identifiable today. African slaves were domestic servants in Goan households where they learned Konkani (Pinto 2006). They also spoke Kannada, the Dravidian language of the state of Karnataka. The Siddi villages deep in the forests of the Western Ghats were an attractive refuge for enslaved or unhappy free Africans from Goa. These Siddis replicated the pattern of African maroons in the Americas and elsewhere in the Indian Ocean world. In the wake of the major uprising against the British throughout India in 1857, one Siddi, Bastian, led a group of rebels including both Siddis and Kanarese around Supa in Uttara Kannada, where they wreaked havoc until 1859 through a campaign of looting and burning along the border with Goa (Shirodkar 1998). De Sousa (2004) describes the involvement of the French in the Goan slave trade through the Mhamay family in Goa. The Mhamays, natives of Goa, were brokers for the French East India Company in Goa from about 1764. The first recorded French slave dealers were Couronat and Warnet. On October 15, 1777, Couronat wrote to the Mhamay family requesting 400 young and strong negro slaves and was willing to invest 20,000 rupees. He also specified his requirements in terms of gender: 200 adult men, 100 women, and 100 young men. The Mhamays informed Couronat that Galinem had come with a chalupa from Mauritius and taken 140 slaves from Goa. The ships from Mozambique had brought 700 slaves to Goa. Moracin, a veteran French official of the French East India Company, had held a responsible position in Pondicherry since 1765 and had been involved in the slave trade privately. Moracin was buying slaves for his es-

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tablishment in Mauritius through a Goa-based French businessman, Frederic Breauchaud. When Breauchaud died, his assets, including his slaves, had been confiscated. The Mhamays had supplied slaves to Janvier Monneron who was based in Mauritius during the years 1785– 1787. In December 1786, the Mhamays sent five black slaves, Januario, Alberto, João, Ignacio, and Joaquim, at 822 Bombay rupees, to De Court, the director of the French establishment at Mahe. They were purchased at a reduced price from the Portuguese governor in Goa, Dom Federico de Souza, who had sold them before returning to Europe. The French connection had been disrupted by the AngloFrench wars and the British occupation of Goa from 1798 until the Napoleonic threat was over. João da Silva Guedes, a Mozambiquebased trader, wrote to the Mhamays on April 22, 1800, referring to a slump in the slave market because of the French involvement in the war and mentioning that he was expecting the market to pick up once the war was over. In the Islamic lands of the northwest Indian Ocean, Africans were sailors, militia, domestic servants, and urban workers. Most were enslaved but others were free migrants. Enslaved Ethiopians were soldiers, concubines, and eunuchs in Muslim India. In the 16th century, the Siddis were given control of the island fort of Janjira (south of Mumbai), and for the next two centuries, they were the unchallenged masters of the Konkan coast. They maintained their independence until 1870, when they formally submitted to the British. Most Siddis in Janjira were relatives of the nawab (the head of state) of Janjira; they had inherited state grants and allowances. Most Siddis were landowners and state servants (Pinto 2006). Malik Ambar, the wazir and virtual ruler of Ahmadnagar from 1600 to 1626, was the most famous Habshi in the political history of the Deccan (Harris 1971). He rose to prominence by defeating and invading the Mughal army in 1601. Malik Ambar’s tomb in India

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commemorates his gallantry and political achievements. There were other African elites in India (Robbins and McLeod 2005). For example, in Daman, on the coast of Ahmadnagar, the governor during Portuguese occupation in 1530 was a Habshi chief, Sayf al-Mulk Miftah. His force included 4,000 Abyssinians. In the mid-15th century there were 20,000 Ethiopian riders of the sultanate in Bengal. Between 1486 and 1493 the kingdom was ruled by Habshis. The Bengali ruler, Sultan Rukn al-Din (1450–1474), had 8,000 African slaves. African slaves were particularly powerful during 1481– 1487, in the reign of Jalal al-Din Fath Shah. They took advantage of the absence of the loyal Habshi commander-in-chief, Amir al-Umara Malik Andil, and the Habshi commander of the palace guards, Sultan Shahzada, assassinated Jalal alDin Fath Shah. Shahzada assumed the throne in 1486 and ruled as Barbak Shah (Pankhurst 2003). Thus, the Abyssinians who were protectors of the Bengali Indian dynasty became masters of Bengal. At the time Abyssinian rule of Bengal fell because of mismanagement, no less than 5,000 well-armed Habshis served in the army of Bengal. When the Africans were expelled from the kingdom, they sought refuge in North India (Delhi and Jaunpur) but later drifted south toward the Deccan and to Gujarat in the west. Many found employment as mercenaries. Some of the Muslim Afro-Bengalis married Indian muslims, which resulted in a dispersed population of mixed origin. Most Afro-Asians have not been to Africa. However, Pereira (2006) draws attention to a community in Freretown, Mombasa, who are the descendants of repatriated Bombay Africans. They had various African roots but have integrated to modern Kenya and to African society. Cultures of the Indian Ocean world are varied and complex, and the Indian Ocean Islands were often the sites of multicultural interactions. Some uninhabited Indian Ocean islands—Mauritius, Réunion, Seychelles, Rodrigues, and the Chagos—were populated

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during the struggle between different European states for hegemony over the Indian Ocean region and trade monopolies in the Orient. Other Indian Ocean islands—Sri Lanka and the Maldives—had been inhabited for thousands of years and had deep-rooted cultures before the Europeans set sail in the Indian Oceanic waters. These different scenarios have affected the identities of African migrants to the Indian Ocean area. In contrast to its geographic location and political affiliation, Mauritius could be considered a world away from Africa. These islands were populated as a result of European colonization, which resulted in bringing together slaves from Africa and Asia to work on plantations. Creole societies and Creole languages evolved. Jean Houbert (2003) argues that these Indian Ocean islands have more in common with the far-off West Indian islands than with their non-creole neighbors in the Indian Ocean world. Newitt (2003) also states that a second Caribbean was created in the Indian Ocean. The demand for slaves grew with the tobacco and sugar industry, and the principal slave market was Madagascar. It is estimated that 70,000 of the total 160,000 slaves who came to these islands between 1610 and 1810 were from Madagascar. The slave trade reached a high between 1760 and 1793, when 80,000 slaves were taken to these islands. The Creole islands were first the sites of colonization for the Dutch and the French. After two attempts, the Dutch abandoned their plans to colonize Mauritius. Two maroons who survived the Dutch in 1710 were the first settlers of Mauritius. The French settlers occupied Mauritius in 1721 and renamed it Île de France. The French had begun colonizing Réunion earlier, in 1663, and creolization first occurred in Réunion. From 1793, the French and the British struggled for control of the Indian Ocean. In 1810, the British forces captured Île de Bourdon/Réunion and Seychelles. In 1815, Réunion was returned to France, but all the

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Indian Ocean and the African Diaspora | 567 other Creole islands (Seychelles, Rodrigues, and the Chagos) became part of the British crown colony of Mauritius. At this time, it was estimated that 160,000 slaves had been brought to these islands. This intra-African migration (if the Creole islands were considered African islands) was 45 percent Malagasies, 40 percent East Africans, and 2 percent West Africans. Hintjens (2003) draws attention to the Africans in Réunion who were victims of the slave trade and then became French citizens when slavery was abolished. They had originated in East Africa (via Zanzibar and Mozambique) and Madagascar. The Afro-Asiatic origins of the Malagasy complicate the notion of the African Diaspora in Réunion. Most people in Réunion, including those of Afro-Malagasy origin, adopt both Creole and French identities depending on the context. They remain marginalized in an Indian Ocean island where the purchasing power parity is the same as in France. The historical and sociocultural factors that affected the African migrants to the southern Indian Ocean islands, such as Sri Lanka and the Maldives, were different. Sri Lanka (called Ceylon by the British) as yet has no adequate written history of African migration. In the sixth century, Abyssinians were trading in Matota (Northern Province), when Sri Lanka was an emporium in the Indian Ocean, but there are no records of any intermarriages between them and the Sri Lankans. A significant African presence does not seem to predate European colonization. The only exception is a record of 500 Abyssinians who served in the garrison of the wazir of Colombo, Jalasti, during the 14th century (Gibb 1929). The Portuguese empire was an amalgam of Europeans, Africans, and Jews (de Silva Jayasuriya 2001a). In 1630, the Portuguese were saved from defeat in Sri Lanka, only by a reinforcement of African soldiers who were sent from their base in Goa (de Silva Jayasuriya 2001b, 2005). It is important to note that historical research demonstrates that the Por-

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tuguese paid salaries to their African soldiers in Sri Lanka. Use of African labor continued under the Dutch. For them, Africans built fortresses and worked as nannies, housemaids, gardeners, and water carriers. There was gender differentiation also; male and female slaves were given different tasks. Sick and pregnant slaves were either exempt from work or given “light” work. Slaves who converted to the Dutch Reformed Church were liberated after the death of their master and his wife, and the children of converted slaves were freed (de Silva Jayasuriya 2003a). British rule in Sri Lanka began in 1796 before Britain’s Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. Frederick North (1798–1805), the first British governor, bought slaves from Goa and Bombay (de Silva Jayasuriya 2003b). Because of the inadequacy of the Sepoy and Malay regiments, the British reinforced their forces with African soldiers. In the 19th century, the 3rd and 4th Ceylon Regiments included 874 Africans. In 1865, when the 3rd Ceylon Regiment’s detachment in Puttalama (in the North Western Province) was disbanded, the soldiers were given a plot of land and resettled there. In the late 19th century, Leopold Ludovici, a surveyor, was instructed to survey the different claims with the object of granting suitable titles to the holders of these land grants. During my fieldwork, when members of the Afro-Sri Lankan community in Sirambiyadiya (near Puttalama) were asked whether they wished to visit Africa, they answered that they do not want to live in Africa but that they would like to visit Africa. They said in Sinhala, the language that they all speak, and which is also my mother tongue, “Ape rata Lankava” meaning “Sri Lanka is our country.” On the other hand, they identify their physiognomy with Africans. Referring to a Nigerian visitor to their village, they said in Sinhala “Ape jatiye ekkenek,” which means “someone of our race.” The Indo-Portuguese of Ceylon, which is called Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole now, was

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the mother tongue of Afro-Sri Lankans (de Silva Jayasuriya 2000, 2001c). Today, only the elderly in Sirambiyadiya can converse in Creole, although the entire community can sing Creole songs. These songs have revealing lyrics relating to their past. The Afro-Sri Lankans do not compose new songs; they only sing songs that were taught to them through an oral tradition. They make music mainly with homemade instruments (for example, a coconut shell beating time on a piece of wood, a spoon and a fork), but they also use the Sri Lankan drum and a tambourine to emphasize the rhythm. Their dance movements are characteristically African with pronounced hip movements and body bent forwards while dancing (de Silva Jayasuriya 2003c, 2004a, 2006) The African contribution to Sri Lankan popular music and dance is signaled through two cross-cultural genres: Baila and Kaffrinha (de Silva Jayasuriya, 2002). Kaffrinha is from the Portuguese word cafre, which the Portuguese, in turn, adopted from the Arabic word qafr, meaning “nonbeliever” (de Silva Jayasuriya, 2001d). Intermarriage between different ethnic groups was never legally prohibited in Sri Lanka. This meant that the descendants of thousands of Afro-Sri Lankans have become less conspicuous. In Sri Lanka, a child assumes the father’s ethnicity, so the children of AfroSri Lankan women who outmarry are not counted as Afro-Sri Lankans. Heredity is all powerful with inbreeding; determination is absolute: the group, the population, the caste, or the race is invariable. With outbreeding, on the other hand, heredity disintegrates; gene recombination produces unpredictable variability and endless innovation (Darlington 1979). Some Afro-Sri Lankans have a paler skin color than the indigenous population, and skin color is not seen as a determinant of group identity. Van Kessel (2006) draws attention to people of African origin who went to the Dutch East Indies. The Dutch recruited Ghanaians as paid soldiers. In the first phase of African recruit-

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ment most of the retired soldiers had chosen to return to their native lands, but as the number of Africans in the East Indies increased, some of them chose to retire with their Indonesian wives and Afro-Indonesian children, often maintaining close contact with fellow Africans. This occurred despite the fact that the Dutch were prepared to provide free passages for the Ghanaians to return to Elmina in Ghana when they retired. African soldiers were known as Black Dutchmen (Belanda Hitam) and were legally considered European. By 1915, no African soldiers were serving in the Dutch East Indies army, but some veterans settled in Indonesia. Genetic fingerprinting tests on Indonesians reveal their African ancestry. Africans were in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Timor, Turkey, and Yemen. It is important to ascertain why this African presence has received little attention. Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya See also Ambar, Malik (ca. 1550–1626); Mauritius; Seychelles Islands; Sri Lankan African Diaspora, The; Zanzibar and the Southwest Indian Ocean in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Angenot, J-P., and G. Angenot-de Lima. 2003. The Afro-Asian Diaspora and the Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean: A Bibliography. CEPLA Working Papers in Linguistics. Rondônia, Brazil: Universidade Federal de Rondônia, Campus de Guajará-Mirim. Badalkhan, S. 2002. “On the Presence of African Musical Culture in Coastal Balochistan.” Proceedings of the International Conference on Cultural Exchange and Transformation in the Indian Ocean World, Los Angeles, University of California. April 5–6. Banaji, D. R. 1932. Bombay and the Siddis. Bombay, India: Macmillan. Darlington, C. D. 1979. The Evolution of Man and Society. London: George Allen & Unwin. De Silva Jayasuriya, S. 2000. “Portuguese Cultural Imprint on Sri Lanka.” LUSOTOPIE : 253–259.

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Indians and the African Diaspora in the Caribbean | 569 De Silva Jayasuriya, S. 2001a. Les Cafres de Ceylan: Le Chaînon Portugais. Cahiers des Anneax de la Mémoire No. 3, 229–253. Nantes, France. De Silva Jayasuriya, S. 2001b. Indo-Portuguese of Ceylon: A Contact Language. London: Athena Publications. De Silva Jayasuriya, S. 2001c. Tagus to Taprobane: Portuguese Impact on the Socioculture of Sri Lanka from 1505 AD. The Ceylon Historical Journal Monograph Series, vol. 20. Sri Lanka: Tisara Publishers. De Silva Jayasuriya, S. 2001d. An Anthology of Indo-Portuguese Verse. Lampeter, UK: Edwin Mellen Press. De Silva Jayasuriya, S. 2002. “The Ceylon Kaffirs: A Creole Community in an Indian Ocean Island.” Paper presented at the Conference on Cultural Exchange and Transformation in the Indian Ocean World, USA, University of California Los Angeles, April 5–6. De Silva Jayasuriya, S. 2003a. “The African Diaspora in Sri Lanka.” In The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean, ed. S. De Silva Jayasuriya and R. Pankhurst. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. De Silva Jayasuriya, S. 2003b. Les femmes et l’esclavage au Sri Lanka. Cahiers des Anneax de la Mémoire No. 5, pp. 99–122. Nantes, France. De Silva Jayasuriya, S. 2003c. “La Musique Créole Portugaise du Sri Lanka.” Paper presented at the Conference on Métissages et Créativité, Journées de recontres internationales, Paris, May 22–23. De Silva Jayasuriya, S. 2004a. “La Musique Créole Portugaise du Sri Lanka.” In Métissages Culturels et Créativité, ed. R. De Villanova and G. Vermès. Paris: L’Harmattan. De Silva Jayasuriya, S. 2005. “The Portuguese Identity of the Afro-Sri Lankans.” LUSOTOPIE XII, 21–32. De Silva Jayasuriya, S. 2006. Les afro-sri lankais : liens et racines. Cahiers des Anneaux de la Mémoire. Nantes, France. De Silva Jayasuriya, S., and R. Pankhurst. 2003a. “On the African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean Region.” In The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean, ed. S. de Silva Jayasuriya and R. Pankhurst, 7–18. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. De Silva Jayasuriya, S., and R. Pankhurst, eds. 2003b. The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. De Sousa, T. 2004. “Goa’s Slave Heritage.” Parmal Vol. III, 43–49. Goa, India. Gibb, H. A. R. 1929. Ibn Batuta, Travels in Africa and Asia, 1325–1354. London: Routledge.

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Harris, J. 1971. The African Presence in Asia. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Hintjens, H. 2003. “From French Slaves to Citizens: The African Diaspora in the Reunion Island.” In The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean, ed. S. de Silva Jayasuriya and R. Pankhurst. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Houbert, J. 2003. “Creolisation and Decolonisation in the Changing Geopolitics of the Indian Ocean.” In The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean, ed. S. de Silva Jayasuriya and R. Pankhurst. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Newitt, M. 2003. “Madagascar and the African Diaspora.” In The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean, ed. S. de Silva Jayasuriya and R. Pankhurst. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Pankhurst, R. 2003. “The Ethiopian Diaspora to India: The Role of Habshis and Sidis from Medieval Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century.” In The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean. ed. S. de Silva Jayasuriya and R. Pankhurst. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Pereira, C. 2006. Les Africains de Bombay et la colonie de Freretown. Cahiers des Anneaux de la Mémoire 9: 231–250. Nantes, France. Pinto, J. 2006. “The African Native in Indiaspora.” African and Asian Studies 5:383–397. Robbins, K. X., and J. McLeod. 2005. Habshi Amarat: African Elites in India. Hyderabad: Mapin Publishers. Shirodkar, P. P. 1998. “Bund of Siddi Bastian in North Canara.” In Researchers in IndoPortuguese History, Vol. 2, ed. P. P. Shirodkar, 205–220. Jaipur, India: Jaipur Publication Scheme. Van Kessel, I. 2006. Aux Indes néerlandaises: des Africains, agents de police, militaries, exiles et un prince. Cahiers des Anneaux de la Mémoire. 9: 189–220. Nantes, France.

z Indians and the African Diaspora in the Caribbean Large Indian communities live adjoining black populations in such nations as Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Barbados, Suriname, Guyana, and Martinique. These populations challenge

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the idea of a homogenous national, racial, and ethnic identity and complicate identity formation and acculturation in the Caribbean. For close to 200 years, the Caribbean endured a cruel system of sugar cultivation that was maintained by slavery and the steady importation of enslaved peoples from Africa. The early 19th century brought with it the end of slavery, with the Emancipation Act, and a dramatic shortage in the labor force that once cultivated sugar exclusively. The labor shortage soon became critical in the Caribbean, and the British began introducing indentured servants to the islands in hopes that would prevent a total abandonment of sugar manufacture in the West Indies. The planters first turned to free Africans and indentured laborers from poor Eastern European nations, but finding these populations insufficient to meet their needs, turned to South Asian indentured labor. India was ideal for the importation of indentured labor because of its vast population, its position as a British colony, and the similarity of agricultural and climatic conditions in India and the Caribbean. The immigrant Indian indentured servants consisted of members of lower castes, widows, petty criminals, political dissenters fighting against the British, and impoverished Indian farm workers. The importation of Indian indentured labor continued through the early part of the 20th century. Kala Pani, meaning “black water,” refers to the experience of the treacherous oceanic path Indian indentured servants traversed in order to reach the Caribbean. It is also associated with the idea of losing caste. Racial tension has always existed between the Indo-Caribbean and Creole, or local AfroCaribbean, population, from the inception of immigration in the Caribbean. It is also important to note that the dispossession and elimination of the native population in the Caribbean is critical, since both Indo- and Afro-Caribbean groups attempt to seek “nativity” not based on indigenous origin. The introduction of East Indians presented a labor

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competition in the Caribbean, since former slaves refused to work at pre-emancipation levels of production and demanded higher wages. The British, relying on the ignorance of the Indian immigrants, were therefore able to exploit their new labor source. Though the labor conditions of the indentured servants were similar to those of slavery, this fact did not elicit sympathy from the Creoles, who contended that Indian immigrants voluntarily chose to undertake slavelike labor conditions. Conversely, Indo-Caribbean peoples also take pride in knowing that they, unlike Creoles, came to the islands of their own free will. This dynamic is further complicated by the transitory nature of Indian residency in the Caribbean, since Indians were not considered permanent members of the islands but rather (im)migrant workers. And since the majority of Indian laborers were guaranteed passage back to India with the completion of their indenture, Indians themselves thought they were temporary additions to the population. This led to the inability of many Indo-Caribbean people to assimilate and integrate into a predominantly Afro-Caribbean society. Though the population of douglas (a word that has a long negative history; see Puri 2004), or mixed-race individuals of both Indo and Afro-Caribbean heritage, continues to grow (douglarization), they are forced to navigate racial tenets that do not encourage hybridity and instead advance purist constructs of Indianness and Africanity. As Caribbean society evolves, racial, ethnic, and national identities are still in flux and evolving, too. In such places as Trinidad and Guyana, Indian and African cultural practices (food, dance, music, song) continue to influence each other and represent one way in which the Indian and African Diaspora overlap. Sharada Balachandran-Orihuela See also India and the African Diaspora; Mulatta; Siddis in North Karnataka, India: Biomedical Status; The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA).

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Indonesia and Africa | 571 F URTHER R EADING Klass, Morton. 1961. East Indians in Trinidad: A Study of Cultural Persistence. New York: Columbia University Press. Mehta, Brinda. 2004. Diasporic (Dis)locations: Indo-Caribbean Women Writers Negotiate the Kala Pani. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. Munasinghe, Viranjini. 2001. Callaloo or Tossed Salad? East Indians and the Cultural Politics of Identity in Trinidad. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Puri, Shalini. 2004. The Caribbean Postcolonial: Social Equality, Post-nationalism, and Cultural Hybridity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

into a solution in which dyeing can occur. When a textile is lifted from a dye bath, indigo is transformed by oxygen back into its original insoluble state but now within the fibers of the fabric. Caryn E. Neumann F URTHER R EADING Balfour-Paul, Jenny. 1998. Indigo. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn. Sandberg, Gösta. 1989. Indigo Textiles: Technique and History. London: A & C Black.

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z Indonesia and Africa Indigo Indigo is a plant-based, deep blue dye found throughout the world. The oldest of dyes, indigo is treasured because it is absorbed by material and is absolutely fast. Part of the triangular trade, indigo-dyed textiles went from Asia to Europe for export to West Africa as barter for slaves who then produced indigo on West Indian and American plantations. The use of indigo dates to ancient times. In Africa, knowledge of the dye was probably diffused throughout the continent from three main centers: the Ghana Empire of Upper Senegal, the southwestern Yoruba region, and the northern Hausa region. Indigo began to be cultivated systematically on a large scale in the 17th century, but African indigo never became significant in world trade. Indigo is a labor-intensive product. Fresh green leaves of the bush are put in a large wooden mortar. Once the leaves have been pounded into a blue-black mass by a heavy wooden pestle, the indigo is scraped together by hand and shaped into a round lump that is left to dry in the sun. During this fermentation process, an enzyme present in the leaves produces the dye. Indigo is insoluble in water but an alkaline reduction, such as urine, can turn it

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The islands of the Indonesian archipelago and the continent of Africa have had a long and close social and historical relationship across the Indian Ocean for more than 2,500 years, and new archaeological findings may yet push that date back even further in time. This connection has consisted in large part of sailing and trading contact between what is today the Indonesian archipelago and the entirety of the East African coast and its offshore islands, most especially the subcontinent of Madagascar. The domestic chicken reached Africa from Indonesia and then spread to much of the rest of the world. The xylophone, which shaped the later emergence of the kalimba or thumb piano, also took this route. Perhaps the most profound cultural legacy of this contact is the culture and language of Madagascar, which has a clear Malayo-Polynesian influence still visible today, particularly in the Malagasy languages. Another major result of the contact was in fact the vessels that made this contact possible: small outrigger sailing canoes. It is now understood that the voyages across the Indian Ocean from Indonesia to East Africa followed major oceanic currents that swept boats over many weeks’ travel time directly to the African continent, without the aid of stoppages in southern

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Asia or the various island chains slightly to the north of this direct path. Almost no archaeological research has been done on reverse voyages, in which Africans (and Indonesians) may have traveled back to Indonesia, partly because of wars and human rights problems in the past 40 years in the Indonesian archipelago, and partly because of epistemological oversight among researchers. Such research will some day discern whether African ancestors came to Indonesia only in the early outward migrations from Africa ca. 100,000–40,000 years ago, or whether more recent maritime visitors and settlers may have also added to this earlier wave. Indonesia’s influence on Africa, and its admixture with Bantu and other local cultures, should neither be denied nor exaggerated, and wariness in the latter regard remains in light of the unremitting colonial-era historiographic tendency to ascribe all African cultural developments to diffusion of outside elements from beyond the continent. As suggested, what transpired was more of an exchange or a series of absorptions, and research continues to reveal the nuanced details of these interactions. The outrigger sailing canoes that made these incredible journeys across open ocean with only the stars for navigational purposes became common on the coast of East Africa and are still seen today, especially around the Kenya-Tanzania border. Known in Swahili as ingalawa (plural maingalawa), they have a thin center hull, no keel, usually one but sometimes two outrigger pontoons for balance, and the triangular lateen rigging of vessels commonly seen throughout the Indian Ocean. The lack of a keel means they can be beached directly on any coastline and do not need a harbor, and can traverse shallow waters while avoiding impact with coral reefs. Madagascar has been heavily influenced by Indonesian or Polynesian culture for two millennia, and was perhaps the primary stopping point of voyagers crossing the Indian Ocean’s 4,000-mile expanse. This is attested in the linguistic heritage of the subcontinent, whose

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Malagasy languages have more than 90 percent Malayo-Polynesian vocabulary, mixed with Bantu phonology and some vocabulary, as well as traces of Arabic, Indian, and other languages as well. Madagascar’s culture is also a heterogeneous mix of Bantu and Indonesian influences, for example, the Bantu cattle-complex of cattle domestication, rearing, and cultural signification. Indonesian influences include architecture, irrigated terrace rice culture, some elements of ancestor worship, the double-valve bellows, volcanic rock furnaces, the mounted file coconut tool, and the already mentioned ingalawa. Indonesian cultural influences are less directly in evidence across the channel and along the coasts of East Africa; only a few loans words are in evidence in the language, for example, but influences on the material culture were many. The ingalawa and the mounted file coconut opener, for example, are found throughout the Swahili world, as far north as Somalia. There remains today a fascinating mystery as to the sources and transshipment routes of the ancient cinnamon trade. Although it was conventionally thought that cinnamon bark reached Asia and Europe via a coastal trade from Indonesian growing points by way of India or Sri Lanka, others maintained that cinnamon was in fact grown in Sri Lanka. Still others, such as James de vere Allen, have more provocatively suggested that cinnamon was part of the direct trans-oceanic trade with East Africa, where it first reached the coast in the south, around Madagascar and southern Tanzania or northern Mozambique. From there it would have followed coastal routes similar to those for gold and other commodities—such as woods, incense, and animal skins—moving north along the Swahili coast and islands. At Somalia, cinnamon was known to have been traded to southern Arabian pastoralists and from there to have reached ancient Rome, and before that Egypt, by means of Red Sea trade routes. Allen further suggests that there may have been a parallel overland route as well, following Oromo pastoralists to the Ethiopian highlands and on

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The Institute of the Black World | 573 to Nubia, where it traced the Nile Valley north. Again, future archaeological study will be the best hope for solid answers in this regard, but it remains interesting that cinnamon is mentioned in ancient texts as having been found on the coast of East Africa, and Mediterranean writers thought it originated somewhere in the southern Red Sea area, originally in the ancient land of Punt. Yet we know climatologically that it only grew in the Indonesian archipelago. Somalia is often referred to as the “cinnamon coast” in ancient texts, and whichever route it traversed to get there, cinnamon and cassia were an important link between Indonesia and Africa, and through Africa to much of the rest of the world, at a time when this was the world’s most valued commodity, on a par with gold. Although Africa had its own wild and semidomesticated birds that were commonly raised and eaten, including the dodo, the modern domestic chicken arrived in Africa in outrigger canoes some time before 300 BCE and was found very early in the fossil records as far north as Zanzibar soon thereafter. This new terrestrial fowl quickly spread throughout the continent in every direction, gradually reaching Europe, the Middle East, and eventually the New World. Debate about a possible similar route of dispersion for certain kinds of bananas remains less certain. Following a similar pattern, at the ethnomusicological level, xylophones, with their unique scale and tuning, also arrived in the small, intrepid sailing vessels. These quickly transformed into the kalimba (mbira or thumb piano) as they spread inland and along the coast. The kalimba were much smaller but to this day maintain the same musical scale and tuning systems, as seen in the work of modern musicians such as Zimbabwe’s Thomas Mapfumo. Varieties of xylophone and kalimba are used throughout most of Africa, often occupying positions of spiritual or ritual importance, particularly in regard to ancestors. Indonesia’s relationship with Africa has also continued into modern times, particularly around the shared experiences of colonialism

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and resultant anticolonial movements. The 1955 Bandung Conference of new and soon to be postcolonial countries in Asia and Africa, brought together anticolonial luminaries such as Kwame Nkrumah and Diasporic figures such as Richard Wright (who covered the event as a journalist and wrote a book on the subject) with anticolonial world leaders in host country Indonesia. Jesse Benjamin See also Kalimba; Swahili; Zanzibar and Southwest Indian Ocean in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Allen, James de vere. 1993. Swahili Origins: Swahili Culture and the Shungwaya Phenomenon. London: James Curry. Jones, A. M. 1964. Africa and Indonesia: The Evidence of the Xylophone and Other Musical and Cultural Factors. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill. Verin, P. 1980. “Madagascar.” In UNESCO General History of Africa, Vol. II, Ancient Civilizations of Africa, ed. G. Mokhtar, 373–382. London: James Currey. Wright, Richard. 1994. The Color Curtain: A Report on the Bandung Conference. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press. (Orig. pub.1956).

z The Institute of the Black World The Institute of the Black World (IBW) was a collection of black intellectuals who used their intellectual abilities to advance the demands for black liberation. Founded in November 1969, the Atlanta, Georgia–based organization was initially affiliated with the Martin Luther King Center established in honor of the slain civil rights leader. The organization analyzed black economic, social, and political conditions and believed black liberation was a political and intellectual project. They sought to provide new concepts for the black freedom struggle that had stagnated in the stifling environs of the 1970s.

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Although dozens of black intellectuals passed through the institute, historian Vincent Harding, historian Robert Hill, and political scientist William Strickland formed the foundation of the organization. The intellectuals who supported the institute were world renowned, including Stephen Henderson, C. L. R. James, Walter Rodney, St. Clair Drake, Lerone Bennett, Jr., Joyce Ladner, and many others. The dramatic call for black power and its subsequent manifestations of black studies and black politics influenced this eclectic group. The institute sought to provide rigorous conceptual, social, political, and economic analysis of the struggle for black freedom. The IBW analyzed black studies programs developing across the country in order to identify which programs could serve as models for other programs in terms of philosophy and curriculum. In November 1969, IBW held a seminar for directors of black studies programs attended by more than 35 directors. IBW believed the seminar would begin to shape the field of black studies. The intellectuals at IBW agreed that an ostensibly color-blind universal curriculum was discriminatory toward the contributions of black people. The scholars concluded that a theoretical perspective which emphasized the need for black scholars to control the definition of blackness was essential. IBW believed it was the organization to formulate this theoretical perspective. IBW’s focus on developing a black perspective conflicted with the goals of the King Center. In September 1970, after a series of contentious meetings, the institute believed its independence was threatened and separated from the King Center. The institute’s independence allowed for the development of programs beyond black studies. In 1971, IBW held its first summer research symposium, which included Robert Hill, C. L. R. James, Edward Brathwaite, and St. Clair Drake. In addition, the Institute worked on creating a black political agenda, most of which was incorporated in the 1972 National Black Political Convention

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in Gary, Indiana. The organization was instrumental in organizing the convention and composing its preamble. Moreover, the 1974 summer research symposium further developed a conceptual framework for analyzing political, social, and economic conditions across the Diaspora with the help of Guyanese scholar Walter Rodney. By the mid-1970s, the financial strain of an independent research center had become too much to bear, and the intellectual collective began to break up: Vincent Harding, William Strickland, and Robert Hill accepted positions at various universities. Additionally, the institute faced a series of break-ins from external forces that further destabilized the organization. The institute held on until the early 1980s, but it existed primarily as a resource center, and the dynamic intellectual activity of the early 1970s faded in the stifling environs of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Derrick White See also Pan-Africanism. F URTHER R EADING Harding, Rachel. 1998. “Biography, Democracy, and Spirit: An Interview with Vincent Harding.” Callaloo 20 (3): 682–698. The Institute of the Black World, ed. 1974. Education and Black Struggle: Notes from the Colonized World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational Review. Rodney, Walter. 1990. Walter Rodney Speaks: Making of an African Intellectual. Trenton, NJ: African World Press.

z Iraq: The African Presence in Early Iraq Evidence of the presence of African people in ancient Southwest Asia, particularly in the country now known as Iraq, stretches far back into antiquity. The Greek writer Homer, for example, describes African people referred to as

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Iraq: The African Presence in Early Iraq | 575 “Ethiopians” as dwelling at the ends of the earth, toward the rising and setting sun. The Greek historian Ephorus noted that the Ethiopians were thought to occupy all the south coasts of both Asia and Africa, divided by the Red Sea into Eastern and Western Asiatic and African. A very important part of Southwest Asia is the country now called Iraq. In truth, Iraq has had an African presence for thousands and thousands of years. Indeed, the first civilization of Southwest Asia, known as Sumer and located in southern Iraq (formerly Mesopotamia “the land between the two rivers”) was dominated by black people. Flourishing during the third millennium BCE between the mighty Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Sumer set the guidelines and established the standards for the kingdoms and empires that followed her, including Babylon and Assyria. Sumer, as is well known, was an early center for advanced mathematics, astronomy and calendars, writing and literature, art and architecture, religion, and highly organized urban centers, some of the more notable of which include Kish, Uruk, Ur, Nippur, Lagash, and Eridu. The ancient Sumerians referred to themselves as the “black headed people.” And there is no doubt that the oldest and most exalted deity of the Sumerians was Anu, a name that loudly recalls thriving black populations at the dawn of history, including Africa itself, the Arabian Peninsula, India, and even Europe. Equally important are the skeletal evidence exhumed from ancient Sumerian cemeteries, Biblical references in which Nimrod (the Old Testament founder of Sumer) is described as a son of Kush (Ethiopia), architectural similarities, eyewitness accounts, and oral traditions. Long after the fall of Sumer, African people continued to play an important role in the region. One of the great men and intellectuals of early Iraq was Al-Jahiz. Abu “Uthman” Amr Ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Fuqaimi al-Basri, an outstanding African scholar known to posterity as

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Al-Jahiz (ca. 776–869), has been described as one of the greatest prose writers in classical Arabic literature. On this issue, all of the major authorities agree. Christopher Dawson believed Al-Jahiz was the greatest scholar and stylist of the ninth century. Philip K. Hitti argued that Al-Jahiz was one of the most productive and frequently quoted scholars in Arabic literature. His originality, wit, satire, and learning, made him widely known. Born in Basra, in southern Iraq, where he studied philology, philosophy, and science, AlJahiz became a brilliant scholar, prolific writer, and chronicler of the deeds of African people. During the lifetime of Al-Jahiz, Basra was a major trading city on the Shatt al Arab waterway, which empties into the Persian Gulf. Al-Jahiz lived during an era marked by a visible increase in overt racial hostility directed by Arabs against Africans in the Islamic world. One of the most extreme reactions to this racial bias was the massive slave insurrection in 868 (around the time of Al-Jahiz’s death), known in Arab histories as the “Revolt of the Blacks.” Al-Jahiz was the author of the Book of the Glory of the Blacks over the Whites, which contains penetrating commentaries on great African heroes such as Antarah the Lion, a dashing knight and poet who is considered by some to be the father of the codes of European chivalry; Lokman, the “celebrated sage of the East”; and the African ancestry of the prophet Muhammad himself. According to Al-Jahiz, Abd al-Muttalib (the guardian of the sacred Kaaba in Mecca) fathered 10 lords, black as the night and magnificent. One of these men was Abdallah, the father of the prophet Muhammad. The largest African slave rebellions occurred in early Iraq. Here, well over a millennium ago, were gathered tens of thousands of East African slave laborers called Zanj. These Africans, from Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Zanzibar (an island off the coast of mainland Tanzania that gave the Zanj their name) and other parts of East Africa, worked in the humid salt marshes of southern Iraq in

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conditions of extreme misery. Laboring in terrible, humid conditions, the Zanj removed layers of topsoil and dragged away tons of earth to plant labor-intensive crops like sugarcane on the less saline soil below. Fed scant portions of flour, semolina, and dates, they were in constant conflict with the Iraqi slave system. Conscious of their large numbers and oppressive working conditions the Zanj rebelled on at least three occasions between the seventh and ninth centuries. The largest of these rebellions lasted 15 years, from 868 to 883, during which time the Africans inflicted defeat after defeat on the Arab armies sent to suppress their revolt. This rebellion is known historically as the “Revolt of the Zanj” or the “Revolt of the Blacks.” It is significant to point out that the Zanj forces were rapidly augmented by large-scale defections of black soldiers under the employ of the Abbassid Caliphate at Baghdad. The rebels themselves, hardened by many years of brutal treatment, repaid their former masters in kind, and are said to have been responsible for great massacres in the areas that came under their sway. At its height the Zanj revolt spread as far as Iran and advanced to within 70 miles of Baghdad itself. The Zanj even built their own capital, called Moktara (the Elect City), which covered a large area and flourished for several years. They even minted their own currency and actually dominated southern Iraq. The Zanj rebellion was ultimately only suppressed with the intervention of large Arab armies and the lucrative offer of amnesty and rewards to any rebels who might choose to surrender. Runoko Rashidi F URTHER R EADING Harris, Joseph. 1971. African Presence in Asia. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Preston, William, ed. 1985. Book of the Glory of the Blacks. Los Angeles: Preston. Rashidi, Runoko, and Ivan Van Sertima, eds. 1995. African Presence in Early Asia. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press.

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Irmandade de Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte The Irmandade de Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte is a lay Catholic sisterhood in Cachoeira, Bahia, Brazil, composed of Afro-Brazilian women beyond childbearing age who maintain secret traditions of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé. Irmandade da Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte literally means “Sisterhood of Our Lady of the Good Death.” Official Roman Catholic doctrine articulated by Pope Pius the XII in 1950 holds that the Virgin Mary did not die but was assumed into heaven alive by her son Jesus Christ. But a far more ancient tradition exists, articulated in one of the apocryphal gospels and celebrated in pre-Counter-Reformation Portugal that Mary died and was buried in Gethsemane, but her body was untouched by mortal corruption and her soul was assumed into heaven. The image of the dead but miraculously uncorrupted Mary is venerated by the Sisters in their yearly services and processions. But these Catholic devotions are only part of the story. Although lay Catholic brotherhoods, including that of Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte were Iberian traditions, in Bahia they were used by free Africans and Afro-Brazilians as institutional structures within which to maintain ethnic and religious traditions. They also functioned as liberation societies, whereby members would join their resources to purchase the freedom of their countrymen and women, and as burial societies to ensure decent (and even lavish) funerals for their members. The Irmandade da Boa Morte filled all of these functions. The devotion to Our Lady of the Good Death was not a cover for, but a complement to, these African traditions. The exact origins of the Irmandade de Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte in Bahia are lost in history, but we know that in 1820 it was functioning at the Barroquinha Church in Salvador. Its members were free Africans of the Jeje ethnicity (Gbe-speakers from present-day

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Members of the “Sisterhood of the Good Death” in Cachoeira, Brazil, wait outside their church on their festival day. (Courtesy Jim Kane)

Benin and Togo) and devotees of the Jeje nation of Candomblé. Sometime in the first half of the 19th century the Irmandade came to Cachoeira, where it was affiliated with the sesquicentennial Jeje terreiros (temple of Candomblé worship) called the Roça da Cima and the Casa da Ventura. Because of its relationship with Candomblé, the Irmandade had a rocky relationship with the Catholic Church in Cachoeira. Its sacred image (a carved wooden statue of the deceased Virgin Mary) moved among Cachoeira’s various churches, and its devotional center moved among the houses of its members. Now, thanks to the support of the Bahian government, the author Jorge Amado, and several African American religious organizations from the United States, the Irmandade has its own church and headquarters where both public and secret devotions are performed. The Irmandade’s membership is composed of women of African descent who have been initi-

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ated for more than a decade in Candomblé, who have passed their childbearing years, and whose heads and destinies are dedicated to Orixás (the deities of Candomblé) who are in some way related to birth and death. These Orixás include Yansan, Omolu or Oboluaiye, Nanã, Yemanjá, and Oxum. Sexual activity is prohibited to the sisters for large parts of the year as a result of ritual requirements for abstinence that inhere in their secret devotions. There is no longer any distinction among African ethnicities as a requirement for membership. The administrative structure of the Irmandade includes a novitiate, who solicit alms for the Sisterhood’s annual festival; a scribe; a treasurer; a general-procurator (procuradora geral); and a solicitor (provedora), all of whom are elected in the annual voting among the sisters that follows the festival. The festival (Festa de Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte) is the sisterhood’s most important public devotion. It spans three days culminating on August 15.

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Each day has a mass, a feast, and a procession. On the first day the sisters abstain from meat and palm oil and eat only white food, including fish. White signifies mourning (for the death of Mary) in Candomblé and the Orixá Oxalá, father of all the Orixás. On the second day the sisters hold a funeral procession for Our Lady of the Good Death wearing black sashes across their typical Bahian white clothes. On the third day the sisters celebrate the assumption of Maria processing in gala dress, wearing red satin sashes and copious ornate jewelry. The procession is followed by a typical Bahian dinner of caruru (okra stew), offered to all and sundry, and a dance for the sisters with the typical music of Cachoeira, Samba de Roda. These public devotions are accompanied by secret rituals that surpass even the rigorous fundamental ceremonies of Candomblé. These rituals have not been subject to ethnographic analysis and description as they are closed and unknown to outsiders. But it is licit in Cachoeira that they are concerned with the cult of Eguns, the feared spirits of the dead. Even very old practitioners of Candomblé have some measure of fear and reticence in regard to the secret internal ceremonies of the Irmandade da Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte. The Irmandade’s yearly festival draws thousands of tourists from all over the world. African Americans from the United States

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often see in the Irmandade an intact survival of African traditions in the New World and a heroic resistance against slavery. They come in great numbers every year and open their hearts and their wallets to the sisterhood. The Irmandade has been instrumental in the city of Cachoeira’s revitalization as a tourist destination because it has attracted international attention, literary fame, and considerable investment from the Brazilian federal government. Brian Brazeal See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Cachoeira; Candomblé. F URTHER R EADING Costa, Sebastião Heber Viera. The Brotherhood of the Good Death Holiday and the Orthodox Icon of Mary’s Dormancy. Salvador: ZUK Comumicação. Do Espiríto Santo, Sofia. “The Revitalization of Cachoeira.” The International Review of African American Art 9 (1): 4–12. Harding, Rachel. A Refuge in Thunder: Candomblé and Alternative Space of Blackness. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Morais Ribeiro, Antonio. “The Irmandade da Boa Morte.” The International Review of African American Arts (9) 1: 44–55. Mulvey, Patricia. “Black Brothers and Sisters: Membership in the Lay Brotherhoods of Colonial Brazil.” The Luso-Brazilian Review 17 (2): 253–297.

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prisoners. Jackson had already been given a life sentence, so this charge would spell certain death—not to mention prolonged solitary confinement. A spectacular protest of all of this was conducted by younger brother, Jonathan. On August 7, 1970, Jonathan stormed a Marin County courtroom with machine gun in hand to demand freedom for the Soledad Brothers. He freed the three San Quentin prisoners who were either testifying or on trial (William Christmas, Ruchell Magee, and James McClain) and took the judge, several jurors, and the prosecutor hostage. Jackson, along with Christmas, McClain, and the judge, were killed by the police in the courthouse parking lot. “He was free for a while,” the caged Jackson would mourn and boast in the final letter of Soledad Brother (Jackson 1970, 329). Etched into the credits of Haile Gerima’s film Child of Resistance (1972) is perhaps the most prominent of all Jackson’s words: “They’ll never count me among the broken men” (Jackson 1970, 27), though he would be executed on August 21, 1971. Huey P. Newton eulogized him at his funeral service in Oakland, California; the text is reprinted in Jackson’s second book, Blood in My Eye (1972), a posthumously published treatise on guerilla warfare in “the Black colony” of U.S. settler imperialist rule.

George Lester Jackson was born in Chicago to Georgia and Robert Lester Jackson. In 1956, the family moved to Los Angeles, where conflicts with the state would land Jackson in juvenile detention cells. At 18, he was convicted for allegedly stealing $71 from a gas station and received a one year to life sentence. At San Quentin and Soledad prisons Jackson embodied what he would so famously espouse, the transformation of the black “criminal mentality” into the black “revolutionary mentality.” While in prison, Jackson studied Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin as well as Mao Zedong and Frantz Fanon. He cofounded the Black Guerrilla Family at San Quentin in 1966, and while at Soledad, he also cofounded a chapter of the Black Panther Party, the organization for which he later became field marshal. Jackson’s first book was Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson (1970). In 1970, Jackson, John Clutchette, and Fleeta Drumgo, who became known as the “Soledad Brothers,” were accused of killing a white prison guard in retaliation for another white prison guard’s murder of three black 579 www.abc-clio.com

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The role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s COINTELPRO (COunter-INTELligence PROgram) or (“Operation PRISAC”) in this conspiracy is clear. The 1971 uprising at Attica State Prison was in great part a response to what many saw as the assassination of Jackson, and Jackson’s death was lamented in song by the likes of Elaine Brown, Bob Dylan, Archie Shepp, and Steel Pulse. Revolutionaries in Africa and across the Americas weighed in on his importance and the iniquity of the social system that lived on in his wake. Thirty years later, more than 2 million persons are locked up in U.S. prisons. Jackson had prefigured what would get fashionably phrased as “the prison-industrial complex,” although his analysis of race and empire was much more radical in nature. This is why his memory lives on strong in hip-hop from artists ranging from dead prez to Ja Rule. The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement recalls him vividly in its annual Black August Hip-Hop Benefit Concert as well. Thus, the spirit of “Comrade George” as he is referred to travels across Africa’s sorely oppressed diaspora. Gregory Thomas See also Black Panther Party; COINTERPRO. F URTHER R EADING Jackson, George. 1970. Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books. Jackson, George. 1990. Blood in My Eye. Baltimore: Black Classic Press. (Orig. pub. 1972).

z Jamaica Jamaica is one of the Caribbean islands that has contributed substantially to the understanding of the African Diaspora. It has given us Nanny of the Maroons, Marcus Garvey, reggae, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and a range of political actors and radical intellectuals who have

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shaped the modern world and the politics of Pan-Africanism. More recently it has provided us with the first woman prime minister in the 21st century, and the third in the Caribbean, in the person of Portia Simpson Miller. Jamaica, the third largest island in the Greater Antilles chain of islands in the Caribbean Ocean, is an independent, democratic state in the West Indies lying 95 miles south of Cuba. It is 4,471 square miles or about 150 miles long and 30 miles wide. As of 2000, it had a population of approximately 2.7 million people. In 2005, an estimated 64 percent of the population was between the ages of 15 and 64 years. The average life expectancy is 74 years for men and 78 years for women. Jamaica has a diverse population: 91 percent black, 1.3 percent East Indian, less than 1 percent Chinese, among other communities also represented. English is Jamaica’s principal language; however, many Jamaicans speak among themselves a patois (patwa) that contains 30 identifiable Twi words and that has filtered down from their African ancestors. The island is home to some 10 Protestant religions, which are represented by 61 percent of all churches on the island; 4 percent of the churches are Catholic. More noteworthy is that 35 percent of all the religious organizations in Jamaica are various African-derived or African-oriented social and spiritual forms and communities, such as Myalism, Pocomania, Rastafari. Many of these groups have their origins in African and Islamic religious practices. Jamaica’s history can be traced through the archaeological evidence that demonstrates that a thriving culture existed in the Caribbean before European contact. The transfer of a second culture occurred with the influx of African cultures, among them the Ashanti, Yoruba, Twi, Ibo, Congo, Akan, Bandos, Dehomey, and Cormantee, into the Caribbean by way of the transatlantic slave trade. Jamaica’s name likely originates from the Taino (Arawak) word “Xaymaca,” meaning “land of springs.” Researchers almost unanimously agree that the Taino culture encompassed the majority of

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Jamaica | 581 the Caribbean Islands, including Jamaica, although a few islands in the Lesser Antilles were inhabited by Caribs. The Taino culture originated in the Orinoco River Valley of South America. Loven (1935) explains that Taino is the name the Indians called themselves but some anthropologists refer to them as Arawaks because of shared linguistic and cultural traits between the two. Rouse (1992) concurs with Loven and distinguishes the eastern Taino in Hispaniola from the western Tainos in Puerto Rico, although cultural contacts, and hence cultural continuity through travel by canoes, may be seen between the islands. On his second voyage to the New World, on May 4, 1494, Christopher Columbus, was forced to land on Jamaica, and for the next 12 months he remained on the island with his crew, repairing their broken ships, healing their bodies, and searching endlessly for gold. In 1509, Spain sent the first governor to the island, which remained under Spanish rule until 1655. In 1655, after a bitter battle, the British took possession of the island after the extermination of the vast majority of the local population of Arawaks. In 1517, because of the lack of indigenous labor, the Spaniards brought the first slaves from Africa to Jamaica. In 1663, after fierce battles with the maroons, a group comprised of Africans and Arawaks who had escaped to the mountains, the British government signed a treaty granting lands and sovereign rule to the maroons. In 1838, slavery was abolished and a socalled system of apprenticeship was established. Maroons were given full rights as British subjects in 1842. The first legislative council with a new governor was formed in 1866, but Jamaica remained under British rule. Not until 1944 did Jamaica get a new constitution with provisions for the election of members from each parish (county) to the Legislative Council and the House of Representatives as a full British colony. In August 1962, Jamaica declared and received independence, simultaneously entering a new phase as a member of the British Commonwealth.

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The University of the West Indies at Mona has been the academic home of many Caribbean intellectuals, such as Maureen Warner-Lewis, Rupert Lewis, Carolyn Cooper, Brian Meeks, Eddie Baugh, Verene Shepherd, and Fitzroy Baptiste, who have worked on African Diaspora subjects. Among them, Mervyn Alleyne offers one of the few explanations of Jamaica’s Caribbean-African roots. His thesis is that when Africans were brought to Jamaica from the 15th century to the end of the 17th century, they brought with them aspects of their homeland. In other words, Alleyne contends that the Africans carried with them skills, memories, habits, predispositions, cognitive orientations, and language sufficient to prevail over the ordeals of captivity, the Middle Passage, and slavery in the New World. Alleyne’s conclusion is that parallels exist between language, religion, and music in Jamaica both structurally and functionally. “[T]his distinction enables us to go beyond the view that Jamaican culture is merely a mixing of African and European forms” (Alleyne 1988, 149). Herskovits and Bascom’s evidence contradicts the theories of their day and those of earlier scholars, which asserted that slaves were blank slates, born stupid and backwards and retaining no residue of their African culture. By identifying the origins of Africans from the records of slave ships, Herskovits and Bascom were able to identify African American retentions and survivals. They stress that it is not enough to examine culture from a historic viewpoint; one must continually examine the institutions, values, and other nonsociological aspects of Afro-American culture to understand (and obtain a holistic view of) “new Negro” societies (Herskovits and Bascom 1941, 132). They call the identification of African cultural traits in modern-day societies “retention in the New World.” Today a visitor to Jamaica will see the cultural connections between the Jamaican people and their ancestors who made the Middle Passage. The evidence of a surviving African heritage is

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seen in the women (higglers) selling produce and other items along the roadside or at market; wood carvings and goombay drums; rituals that include dancing, music, and food for special ceremonies; the importance of elders and children; and a lifestyle that attempts to harmonize with the earth. The practice also remains of naming behavior-social interaction-lifestyles. Storytelling is also important, and Annancy tales of the trickster spider are an important part of Jamaican culture that has its roots in Africa. Finally, titles of respect bestowed on both kin and nonkin, such as “aunty” or “sister,” not only are salutations but are a distinctive feature of courtesy and cultural exchanges, as are the phases used when one is departing, such as “stay well” or “walk good.” The most convincing evidence of the cultural connections between Jamaica and Africa is found in the importance that is socially attached to funerals and the practices that surround grieving and mourning periods. Today changes are occurring as Jamaica strives to find itself in a global world order while many of her citizens strive to retain their culture and independence from Western influences. Jamaica’s north shore is the heart of its tourism and film industry, which has been critically documented in the film Life and Debt (2001) and served as the setting of Terry McMillan’s sex/romance tourism novel, How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1996), and the film of the same name (1998). Its primary export and most important economic mineral is bauxite, followed by sugar, bananas, coffee, and several other food crops. Approximately 36 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, and the estimated unemployment rate was almost 17 percent in 2002. Since the mid-1970s Jamaica’s economy has been in crisis, although the boom in the tourist industry in 2003 and 2004 provided Jamaica with a moderate rebound. Jamaica continues to face the historically unequal allocation of wealth that was established during enslavement, colonialism, and its aftermath. With emancipation in 1834, the slow transition from a slave-based colonial wage sys-

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tem caused severe economic conditions for the majority of Jamaicans, many of whom migrated from the small towns and rural areas to the larger cities and to other countries where they could find work. During this period the last of human bondage occurs: in May 1841 approximately 1,798 indentured servants arrive in Jamaica from Asia, India, and Africa. After 1962, as Jamaica struggled with independence, the country found itself facing a growing balance of payments, trade problems, rising unemployment, rapid increases in basic products and transportation, and overconcentration of growth in the tourism industry. To cope, Jamaica sought aid from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. From 1989, when the exchange rate was 5.51 Jamaican dollars to one U.S. dollar, to 2004, when the exchange rate peaked at 63 Jamaican dollars to one U.S. dollar, the economy continued to be unstable. The government attempted several stabilization programs, including allocating funds for social welfare programs in an effort to offset the effects of monetary devaluation. In 2004, the government faced another round of debt problems, an increase in crime, and devastation from Hurricane Ivan, which has forced Jamaica to make strong efforts at deficit control while rebuilding. In the 21st century, interest in the Jamaican populations abroad has lent itself to the creation of the Jamaican Diaspora as an official governmental unit that has an influence on politics at home. The Jamaican involvement in the African Diaspora remains an important cultural component through the work of its writers, artists, scholars, and everyday people as well as through aspects of Jamaican life, such as its cuisine. Dreadlocks popularized by Rastafarians have become ubiquitous everywhere in the world, a tangible metaphor for the impact of Jamaican culture on the world. Sharon M. Peniston See also Diasporic Marronage; Garvey, Amy Ashwood (1897–1969); Garvey, Amy Jacques

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James, Cyril Lionel Robert (1901–1989) | 583 (1895–1973); Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887– 1940); Marley, Robert Nesta (Bob) (1945– 1981); Pan-Africanism; Rastafarianism; Reggae; Trinidad and Tobago; Tosh, Peter (1944–1987); Wailer, Bunny (1947–). F URTHER R EADING Agorsah, Emmanuel Kofi. 1994. Maroon Heritage: Archaeological Ethnographic and Historical Perspectives. Kingston: Canoe Press. Alleyne, Mervyn. 1988. Roots of Jamaican Culture. London: Pluto Press. Alleyne, Mervyn. 2002. Construction and Representation of Race and Ethnicity in the Caribbean and the World. Kingston, Jamaica: University of West Indies Press. Barrow, Christine. 1992. And I Remember Many Things: Folklore of the Caribbean. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers. Braithwaite, Edward. 1971. The Development of a Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770–1820. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. Butler, Kathleen Mary. 1995. The Economics of Emancipation: Jamaica and Barbados, 1823– 1843. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Census Projections Report. 2001. Kingston, Jamaica: Statistical Institute of Jamaica. Craton, Michael. 1997. Empire Enslavement and Freedom in the Caribbean. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers. The Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica). October 7, 2000 and June 14, 2005. Herskovits, Melville J., and William R. Bascom. 1941. The Myth of the Negro Past. New York: Harper & Row. Herskovits, Melville J., and William R. Bascom. 1959. Continuity and Change in African Cultures. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Higman, B. W. 1984. Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807–1834. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Holt, Thomas C. 1992. The Problem of Freedom; Race, Labor and Politics in Jamaica and Britain, 1832–1938. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. James, C. L. R. 1973. “The Slaves.” In Slaves, Freemen, Citizens; West Indian Perspectives, ed. Lambros Comitas and David Lowenthal, 4–19. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. Lee, Maureen Elgersman. 1999. Unyielding Spirits: Black Women and Slavery in Early Canada and Jamaica. New York: Garland Publishing.

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Lewis, Maureen Warner. 2003. Central Africa in the Caribbean: Transcending Time, Transforming Cultures. Kingston, Jamaica: University of West Indies Press. Loven, Sven. 1935. Origins of Tainan Culture, West Indies. Göteberg, Sweden: Elanders Boktryckeri Aktiebolag. Monteith, Kathleen E. A., and Glen Richards. 2002. Jamaica in Slavery and Freedom: History, Heritage, and Culture. Mona: University of the West Indies Press. Population Projection Jamaica 1980–2015. 1986. Kingston, Jamaica: The Statistical Institute of Jamaica, 2–27. Rouse, Irving. 1992. The Tainos. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Shepherd, Verene, and Kathleen Monteith. 2002. “Pen-keepers and Coffee Farmers in a Sugar Plantation Society.” In Slavery Without Sugar: Diversity in Caribbean Economy and Society Since the 17th Century, ed. Verene Shepherd, 82–97. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. Shepherd, Verene, and Kathleen Monteith. 2002. Working Slavery, Pricing Freedom: Perspectives from the Caribbean, Africa and the African Diaspora. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishing. Sherlock, Philip. 1984. Keeping Company with Jamaica. Kingston, Jamaica: Macmillan Caribbean. Smith, M. G. 1973. “The Plural Framework of Jamaican Society.” In Slaves, Freemen, Citizens; West Indian Perspectives, ed. Lambros Comitas and David Lowenthal, 174–193. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.

z James, Cyril Lionel Robert (1901–1989) The mark of a true intellectual often lies in his or her ability to anticipate historical change with such depth and engagement that he or she remains always of the moment, able to speak to audiences in multiple times and locations. Trinidadian scholar and intellectual C. L. R. James was such a scholar. James’s life

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and journeys as a colonial intellectual can be seen as emblematic of many of the great changes that have shaped both the previous empires of Europe and their colonies in the African Atlantic over the course of the 20th century. His work continues to serve as a model of intellectual engagement with the world in which we live. An early predictor, for example, of the geopolitical events and effects of globalization, James’s scholarship and theoretical analyses provided new scholars with ways to recognize the importance of the framework of the African Atlantic for analyzing the geopolitical events that shaped the 20th century and for predicting the events and historical changes in the century to come. Born in Trinidad on January 4, 1901, Cyril Lionel Robert James’s trajectory began when he was a boy growing up in a small colonial society, trained to be a Victorian gentleman scholar. James sailed to England at the age of 31 to become a novelist. Though he had already published his first and only novel, Minty Alley, in 1928, in London the young immigrant intellectual’s activities expanded to include his political involvement with Trotskyism and his writing and organizing for Pan-African liberation between 1932 and 1938. James ended what was to be the first of many phases of his life in England as a historian, publishing in 1938 his classic account of the first black revolution in Haiti, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. That same year, James traveled to the United States on a speaking engagement for the Trotskyite movement. There he would live as an underground revolutionary until 1956, when he became a deportee and a victim of McCarthyism in the 1950s. During his time in the United States, James wrote texts that have now become classics in American intellectual history: the expansive Notes on American Civilization, which he began in 1949, and his polemical Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways, published in 1953, an original study of Herman Melville’s American classic Moby Dick that included an

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indictment of the U.S. government for treating him like a political prisoner and keeping him imprisoned on Ellis Island while awaiting his deportation decision. Upon his deportation from the United States in the late 1950s, James’s attention would turn to Pan-African and PanCaribbean politics. James returned to his homeland of Trinidad in 1958 to become a political journalist and organizer, but he was once again detained as a political prisoner. This time he was kept under house arrest in Trinidad in March 1965. During the years he spent traveling throughout the Caribbean and speaking on issues central to Caribbean and African politics, such as federation and decolonization, James wrote his autobiographical meditation on cricket Beyond A Boundary. This 1963 text, published a year after Trinidadian national independence, has since become a classic in postcolonial and Caribbean literature. James returned to the United States in the late 1960s, where he spent more than a decade teaching in American universities and speaking to intellectual audiences. In this role he often served as an elder radical statesperson and interlocutor for the newly radicalized youth of the Black Power Movement in the United States. During these years he also anticipated the emergence of black feminism in American cultural and intellectual circles in the 1980s. Posthumously, James was seen as a leading figure in postcolonial and Caribbean studies and, most recently, as a model for intellectual and scholarly work in a newly reconceived postnational, transatlantic, American studies as well as cultural studies, Pan-Africanist and African Diaspora studies. He died in Brixton, South London, in 1989, and his remains are interred in Tunapuna, Trinidad. Matthew Quest F URTHER R EADING Archives of the C. L. R. James Institute in New York. Director Jim Murray. Cambridge, Alrick X. 2003. “C.L.R. James’s Socialist Future and Human Happiness.” In Decolo-

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Trinidad-born writer, pan-Africanist, and leading African diaspora theoretician Cyril Lionel Robert James appeared in this photo shortly before his death in 1989. (Steve Pyke/Getty Images)

nizing the Academy: African Diaspora Studies: 61–91. Carole Boyce Davies, ed. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Grimshaw, Anna, ed. 1992. The C. L. R. James Reader. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. James, C. L. R. 1973. Modern Politics. Detroit, MI: Bewick/ed. James, C. L. R. 1993. American Civilization. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. McClendon, John. 2005. CLR James’s Notes on Dialectics: Left Hegelianism or Marxism-Leninism? Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

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Worcester, Kent. 1996. C. L. R. James: A Political Biography. Albany: State University of New York Press.

z Jazz As an eclectic blend of culturally, regionally, and socially influenced musical styles and

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standards, fused within the oral traditions of the various West African cultures brought to North America, jazz has evolved as America’s most significant artistic contribution. Emerging from the late 19th century in the form of African American folk music based on plantation melodies, spirituals, work songs, the blues, and ragtime, jazz resonates, still, as the voice of the oppressed and marginalized. This innovative communicative device speaks to the strengths and benefits of unifying differences of expression, which represent particular ideals and attitudes toward life and its unfolding circumstances. Through the utilization of presentation techniques such as improvisation, call and response, and calling out, the jazz musician is able to impart a link to the universal discourse of performance, which effectively incorporates all present into the spectacle. As a result, jazz music has been able to transcend its supposed origins of collaboratively derived aboriginal African musical formations and influences into an idiom of universal resistance, still unmatched and unchallenged. Jazz historians have agreed that the origins of this form of communication, culture, and resistance can be found in the southern port city of New Orleans, Louisiana, where Africans had a great impact on the local customs. During the early 19th century in Congo Square in New Orleans—an open market area outside the city—native, African, and African Americans danced and played music on drums, flutes, banjos, and other musical instruments within their particular traditions. These open displays of indigenous cultural activity continued well into the late 19th century, changing accordingly based on the social, political and economic conditions influencing and challenging the black masses’ claim to sovereignty. However, when traditional African instruments were banned—because they were purportedly being used to incite the community of African slaves to rise up and overthrow their masters—the new Americans used their inventive spirit of survival, resisting the overt pre-

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sumptions of white supremacy. By adapting European instruments to communicate a range of feelings and desires, African Americans advanced the development of a unique language of the subjugated black masses. The rhythmic practices that evolved as a result of this incorporation of traditions of expression and resistance, allied with specific social and political activities and opportunities, had a direct effect on the advancement of jazz as a significant original American art form. By the end of the 19th century, African Americans had successfully incorporated new techniques for playing traditional European instruments into specific social and cultural activities. Indeed, from parades, carnivals, funeral processions, and culturally relevant celebrations, early jazz music practitioners honed their skills playing in various brass bands and in venues showcasing the local talent. In New Orleans, especially, musical stalwarts such as Buddy Bolden (1877–1931), Jelly Roll Morton (1890–1941), and Louis Armstrong (1901–1971) played throughout the region, cutting their teeth in night clubs and brothels, such as the famed New Orleans legal red-light district of Storyville. For artists like Morton—a blues, ragtime, jazz pianist and composer—each performance provided the opportunity to explore the possibilities and range of his command of a particular technique and sound. His collaborative efforts within the framework of the five- to seven-piece bands he played with succeeded in influencing the masses to move in time to a new rhythm that reflected a desired state of emotional bliss, as well as its cause for enjoyment. By the time trumpeter Louis Armstrong moved to Chicago in 1922, the city had become a Mecca for African Americans and the center of the jazz movement. With the migration of tens of thousands of African Americans from the South, beginning during Reconstruction and proceeding well into the 20th century, the spread of jazz became an inevitable by-product of this mass movement. What had been considered a distinctive instrumental New Orleans

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Jazz | 587 jazz style—the use of the clarinet, drums, piano, banjo, and tuba—was further developed in cities such as Kansas City, Chicago, and New York with the introduction of the tenor saxophone and electric guitar. Armstrong’s technical musical training and his ability to incorporate his own personal style of play within the context of a harmonic framework of the collective opened the possibilities of jazz music to continue to grow. Throughout the early 1920s and 1930s, Armstrong’s nuanced and inventive approach would influence the sound and format of the jazz style recognized as swing. Performed by big bands comprised of 10 or more musicians and divided into sections—a reed section, a rhythm section, and a brass section—swing music, with its emphasis on dancing, took center stage in cities such as New York, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Chicago, to name but a few. Led by dynamic bandleaders such as Bennie Moten (1894–1935), Count Basie (1904–1984), Fletcher Henderson (1898–1952), and the talented composer and musician Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (1899–1974), the big band or swing band incorporated a calland-response dialogue between different sections of the band, punctuated by several solos within the jazz performance. This coordinated effort helped to further the development of jazz music, and by the 1940s the seeds for the next transition had been successfully planted. Conceived by dynamic musicians who had been attracted by the artistic freedom that jazz represented, bebop symbolized the continued push to develop jazz beyond its conceived boundaries, form, commercial emphasis, and contemporary traditions. Nevertheless, for musicians such as the trumpeter John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie (1917–1993), the saxophonist Charlie Christopher “Bird” Parker (1920– 1955) and the bassist Charles Mingus (1922–1979) this artistic drive became the impetus for the development of the free jazz movement, a movement that would produce the unparalleled saxophonist John Coltrane

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A trumpet virtuoso who worked with Charlie Parker to ignite the bop revolution, showman Dizzy Gillespie inspired scores of instrumentalists by walking the musical high wire. His driving improvisations displayed fertile imagination, incredible technical skill, lightning contrasts, and cascading notes as he puffed out his cheeks and blew a misshapen trumpet. (Library of Congress)

(1926–1967); and the father of cool jazz, the trumpeter Miles Davis (1926–1991). Following in the tradition of their predecessors, the performances of contemporary trumpeter Wynton Marsalis (1961–) and jazz vocalist Cassandra Wilson (1955–) have cleared the way for the next stage of growth for the voice of the folks. Pellom McDaniels III See also Blues: A Continuum from Africa; Highlife; Jazz and Blues Singers, Black Women. F URTHER R EADING Gioia, Ted. 1997. The History of Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press. Gridley, Mark C., and Wallace Rave. 1984. “Towards Identification of African Traits in Early Jazz.” The Black Perspective in Music 12 (Spring): 44–56.

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588 | Jazz and Blues Singers, Black Women Levine, Lawrence. 1989. “Jazz and American Culture.” The Journal of American Folklore 102 (Jan-Mar): 6–22. Taylor, William “Billy.” 1986. “Jazz: America’s Classical Music.” The Black Perspective in Music 14 (Winter): 21–25.

z Jazz and Blues Singers, Black Women In the United States, blues singers were members of the subculture created by enslaved Africans who sang European music from hymnals in church, the only place they were allowed by law to congregate. The most evident reason the music of enslaved Africans of North America differs from music created by enslaved Africans in the rest of the Diaspora, including the Caribbean (calypso, reggae, soca, and salsa) and South America (samba and bossa nova), is based on what was produced after the drum was outlawed. Authorities realized that Africans used the drum as a means of communication, to sound rebellion. The high fine levied upon a slave master whose slaves were caught playing a drum was incentive enough to encourage the master to see that his slaves abided by the law. Hence, drumming was relegated to hand clapping and foot stomping, which created a new dynamic in the music of blacks in North America. Blues singers were considered crude and loud by classical listeners. However, jazz liberated singers from the precise pitch and calculated rhythms of European music. The music was more natural, the melody was more natural, and the rhythm was more like that of speech. The first black women singers came out of the spiritual and blues styles and, later, developed the jazz style. Blues singers used church music with secular lyrics that turned the minds of people from thoughts of life and reward in heaven after death to thoughts of life

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here on earth. The music is what kept black people in North America alive and thriving. Blues and gospel have a code to express the joy that blacks found in music, which freed their inner souls from the turmoil surrounding them. Jazz, the offspring of blues, is considered America’s greatest indigenous art form. Women of blues and jazz kicked down doors of racism and sexism without breaking any laws or using any kind of force other than music. Female jazz and blues singers stood out as icons for international audiences, rebuffing the image of black women in American society. In 1923, blues singer and composer Gertrude “Ma” Rainey signed a contract with Paramount Records and recorded 100 songs by 1928, bringing that company to the forefront of the music industry. Bessie Smith was with Columbia Records and was the first American recording artist to sell more than a million copies of Alberta Hunter’s song, “Down Hearted Blues,” in 1923. Lil Harden Armstrong led her own band, which included her husband, Louis Armstrong, whose career she helped to shape. Her band featured many of the blues women of the day, including Bessie Smith and Alberta Hunter. Hunter and Josephine Baker performed abroad in USO shows, bringing joy and raising the morale of soldiers black and white. When Baker returned to America, she refused to perform for all-white audiences, insisting that black people should be allowed to attend her concerts. Hunter, Smith, and Ethel Waters performed in several shows on Broadway during the twenties, long before Rosa Parks started a revolution for civil rights. On December 1, 1955, Parks refused to give up her seat on a Birmingham bus to a white man, resulting in a boycott that changed the course of events in U.S. history. Less than a year later, Billie Holiday became the first woman of color to perform at Carnegie Hall, on November 10, 1956. Despite her unfortunate early demise from drug use, Holiday’s influence on future singers is undeniable. Her renditions of

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Jazz and Blues Singers, Black Women | 589 “God Bless the Child,” “Solitude,” “Good Morning, Heartache” and “Strange Fruit” are highly influential in American and European society. Black women continued to forge change with jazz and blues performance at venues designated “for whites only.” Singer and actress Dorothy Dandridge infiltrated the “white only” Hollywood scene from 1935 to 1961, appearing in more than 30 films. Her infamous role as Carmen Jones in the movie of that name, produced by Otto Preminger in 1954, resulted in her becoming the first black woman to be nominated for an Academy Award, in 1955, for best actress in a leading role. Lena Horne was signed with MGM, but the movies were filmed so that her scenes could be cut when they were shown in the South, which had ridiculous notions about race. Movie executives feared a loss of revenue if a black performer appeared in a role other than that of servant or minor occupation. Lena refused to appear in stereotyped roles. In 1943, MGM loaned Lena to Fox Studios for the role of Selina Rogers in the allblack musical Stormy Weather, which did very well at the box-office. Her song by the same name became a big hit on the musical charts. Horne’s film, stage, and television appearances number in the hundreds. Known as the “Queen of the Blues,” Dinah Washington took the nation by storm as a versatile vocalist who could sing anything from jazz and blues to rhythm and blues and pop. Although she started out as a gospel pianist and singer, she wouldn’t mix the religious and secular when she recorded. Her penetrating, high-pitched voice, her incredible sense of drama and timing, her crystal-clear enunciation, and her equal facility with sad, bawdy, celebratory, or rousing material enabled her to sing anything and everything with distinction. She was featured with the Lionel Hampton Band from 1943–1946, when she dominated the pop charts. She wanted to record what she liked, despite its suitability, and she is considered a crossover superstar.

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On the international front, in the early 1950s, singer and actress Eartha Kitt crossed the Atlantic to perform in Europe. In her book Rejuvenate! (It’s Never Too Late) (2001), she says she delighted in French and Turkish songs. However, Americans in the audience rebuffed her for singing in foreign languages, and she realized that, to be true to herself, she had to rebel against the notion that a black woman should be limited to one culture. When she returned to America, after becoming accustomed to traveling first class in Europe, she refused to relinquish her first-class seat on a train when the conductor told her she had to move. She said she was not “in a race-terrorized state of mind.” In 1968, at a White House luncheon hosted by Lady Bird Johnson, Kitt was asked, “Why is there so much delinquency in the streets of America?” Based on her work with children in Watts and around the country, she responded affirmatively that U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam had meant the neglect of its own children. Her statements resulted in canceled engagements, which convinced her to return to Europe, where she was in demand. In 1974, she realized that she was the target of government persecution, complete with a CIA dossier. In 1978, ten years after she was blacklisted, President Carter invited Kitt back to the White House. Composer and arranger Mary Lou Williams, who arranged for the bands of Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, and Jelly Roll Morton, broke the ban on black musicians staying in Europe for more than six weeks. Williams stayed two years. In June 1953, concerts in Paris and Holland convinced her to relocate to France, where she said she was happiest because there were no union rules to inhibit her music making. In July 1977, Ella Fitzgerald flew across the Atlantic to perform at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, claiming the hearts of European fans as she had in America. Fitzgerald was the youngest woman to lead a 16-piece, all-male band from the age of 21 to 23. She inherited the band from creator Chick Webb.

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Sarah Vaughan influenced every popular singer of her day. She played piano in the Billy Eckstine Band, which included Miles Davis and Art Blakely. By 1947, she had topped the charts with her renditions of “Tenderly” and other pop songs. Though she never had the commercial success of her contemporaries Peggy Lee and Rosemary Clooney, singer Mel Tormé said Vaughan “had the single best vocal instrument of any singer working in the popular field.” Nina Simone was a graduate of Juilliard. She used music to protest the injustices of racism suffered by blacks in America. Her protest song “Mississippi Goddamn” condemned the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham church that killed four little black girls. In 1966, “Four Women” was banned on Philadelphia and New York radio stations because “it was insulting to black people.” This song was a bitter lament of four black women whose circumstances and outlook are related to subtle gradations in skin color. Her repertoire includes more civil rights songs, including “Why? The King of Love is Dead,” capturing the tragedy of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.; “Brown Baby,” “Images” (based on a Waring Cuney poem), “Go Limp,” and “Old Jim Crow.” Her song “To Be Young, Gifted and Black,” inspired by Lorraine Hansberry’s play of the same title, became the black American national anthem. Her songs are featured in many films, including five songs in Point of No Return (1993; also called The Assassin, Code Name: Nina); Ghosts of Mississippi (1996): “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free”; Stealing Beauty (1996): “My Baby Just Cares For Me”; and One Night Stand (1997): “Exactly Like You.” Simone’s distaste for American racism led to her becoming an expatriate to France, where she lived for more than 20 years. This diva was awarded an honorary doctorate in music and humanities and has attained unrivaled legendary status as one of the very last griots (ninasimone.com/nina.html). Dakota Staton won the 1955 Downbeat Magazine poll for Best New Artist. However,

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her religious convictions as a Moslem and difficulties arising from her husband’s conflicts with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam, stifled Staton’s growth as a recording artist. She was with Capitol Records in 1958, with an album that rose to #22 on the charts, but without a hit single, she failed to make the mark in the music industry that her producers felt she deserved. Betty Carter was the consummate jazz singer who stood her ground with beboppers Charlie “Bird” Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Lionel Hampton. She recorded duets with Ray Charles, most notably, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” Like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, Carter claimed that horn players influenced her singing. Her disregard of lyrics made her “far out” in even the hip circles of early modern jazz. The “weirdness” of Carter was not just musical. Her high energy, authoritative presence, husky lower register, wit, and sarcasm melded with her bop unorthodoxy in a way that undermined nearly all expectations of the female jazz singer. In sound and image, Betty Carter projected fierce independence. Though she sang the standard material of the times, what she did with it was musically amazing. She advocated jazz tradition and worked tirelessly as an educator of young musicians and singers, to whom she lectured about the freedom of jazz. Carter made more than 30 recordings. She owned her own recording company, Bet-car Records, and led her own trio until her death in 1998. Aminata Moseka (Abbey Lincoln) participated in a recording with her husband, drummer Max Roach, of the “We Insist—Freedom Now Suite” that rocked the jazz scene, resulting in their blacklisting, along with bassist Charles Mingus, by the mainstream record companies for 10 years. However, their retreat to the European jazz market proved to be both lucrative and history making. In the United States, music served black people as a means of rhetorical complaint and exhalation, often in the same song. Music is a tool

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Jim Crow | 591 that brings people together as no gun, bomb, dollar amount, supply, march, boycott, religion, or politics can. Jazz and blues have brought continents and people of all races together. Joan Cartwright See also Baker, Josephine (1906–1975); Baraka, Amiri (1934–); Blues: A Continuum from Africa; Griots/Griottes of West Africa; Lincoln, Abbey (1930–). F URTHER R EADING Cartwright, Joan. 2006. In Pursuit of a Melody. Victoria, B.C., Canada: Trafford Publishing. Harrison, Daphne Duval. 1988. Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the 1920s. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Kitt, Eartha. 2001. Rejuvenate! It’s Never Too Late. With Tonya Bolden. New York: Scribner.

z Jerk Seasoning Jerk, a method of cooking highly seasoned meat over a pit, has been part of Jamaica’s culinary tradition for two centuries. Jerked pork was used during the 18th century as one strategy of meeting the nutritional needs of maroons—runaway Africans who refused to be enslaved by the British. The maroons lived in the Blue Mountains and Cockpit country and successfully fought British troops. Wild hogs, released by early Spanish colonists, roamed the densely wooded terrain of the mountainous interior. The maroons seasoned pork with spices from the Arawaks—allspice, pimento, thyme, cinnamon, garlic, scallions, Scotch bonnet pepper, salt, and nutmeg. The seasoning may have as many as 30 spices. The ancestral method of cooking jerk often included wrapping the seasoned meat in leaves to preserve it until the next hunting expedition. Sometimes, the marinated meat would be buried in a hole filled with hot stones, and it would steam in its own juices. On other occasions, it would be jerked—cooked very slowly

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at low heat over a fire of green pimento wood. The term “jerk” is derived from the Arawaks. It is important to note that no smoke was made in some of these processes. In contrast, the maroons could see the British cookfires from miles around. Maroons had cooked, dried jerk and didn’t need to do any cooking. For centuries, jerk pork and chicken were only available in Portland, Jamaica, especially at Boston Beach. In the 1980s, jerk seasoning powder in bottles and plastic bags became commercially available. Since then, jerk pits or jerk joints (restaurants that sell jerk pork, chicken, and fish) have emerged all over the streets of modern Jamaica. Jerk meat is often sold with thick slices of hard dough bread (made from white flour) or festival—a finger-shaped, slightly sweet, deep-fried dough of white flour and cornmeal. In Jamaican jerk pits or jerk joints, pepper is often added to maximize flavor, and today, jerk chicken has surpassed jerk pork in popularity. Lobster, fish, shrimp, and goat are all jerked in local restaurants. Jerk seasoning has also been commercially available as a powder or as a wet marinade or paste in Jamaica and has been exported all over the world. Jerk dishes of chicken and fish (with varying degrees of spiciness) are now available in Jamaican and non-Jamaican restaurants in overseas communities that have substantial immigrant populations. Marcia Magnus See also Jamaica; Maroon and Marronage. F URTHER R EADING www.gracefoods.com/site/jerk. Accessed January 31, 2008.

z Jim Crow Jim Crow is the name of a system of legalized racial discrimination, segregation, and violence that was perpetuated against African Americans

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from the 1860s to the 1960s. Jim Crow began as Black Codes, or laws devised to control the physical movement and economic potential of previously enslaved people. These laws were enforced by the U.S. government, society, and mob violence in a way that often resulted in lynchings. The main focus of these laws was to segregate the races in public places and prevent African American men from voting. The force of these laws gained strength in 1883, when the Supreme Court ruled the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional and asserted that the Fourteenth Amendment did not apply to private businesses and individuals. Most states reacted by quickly creating complex laws to mandate segregation of the races in both private and public spaces (Davis 2005; Woodward 1955). The term “Jim Crow” was first used in a minstrel show act when white performer Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice began wearing blackface, a paste of charcoal or burnt cork applied over a base of white makeup, and imitating exaggerated black stereotypes. His character became known as “Jim Crow.” The racist portrayals of African Americans that were common in the minstrel shows helped fuel beliefs about white supremacy and black inferiority. Jim Crow turned into a racial epithet but eventually it became synonymous with segregation of the races (Davis 2005; Riggs 1987). Segregation was, of course, practiced everywhere, but not with this strange euphemistic name. Elsewhere other terms, usually more direct, such as “apartheid,” were used. The concept of “separate but equal” became a fundamental component of the Jim Crow era. This legal doctrine meant that as long as equal facilities were provided for the different races they could be legally separated. This law permeated U.S. society and extended into almost every aspect of life for African Americans, including public transportation, educational institutions, medical facilities, employment, residential areas, and public buildings. Unfortunately, the law did not define “equal,” and most of the time separate but equal meant sep-

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arate and extremely unequal. This doctrine was established in a landmark 1896 decision by the Supreme Court: Plessey v. Ferguson. In this case the Court held that the doctrine of “separate but equal” was the legal and appropriate means for segregating the races (Litwack 1999; Woodward 1955). One of the primary methods of controlling African Americans during the Jim Crow era was started by Nathan Bedford Forest, a confederate general, and his organization the Ku Klux Klan. In 1866, the Ku Klux Klan began as a social fraternity, but it quickly grew into a terrorist organization bent on intimidating and controlling African Americans. This control was established through an unrelenting program of night visitations that often ended in the burning, shooting, and lynching of African Americans. This terrorist organization served as a self-appointed police force that was ordained to maintain white supremacy through a program of unrestrained violence against African Americans and their sympathizers. As a response to Jim Crow laws, African Americans developed survival strategies that became known as “dissembling” or “wearing the veil.” These strategies, sometimes called “masking,” involved cultivating the appearance of being nonconfrontational by avoiding eye contact with whites, calling whites, even white children, by formal names, and espousing political ideas that did not conflict with the notion of white supremacy. Life behind this veil was difficult to maintain because it often caused African Americans internal conflict, and these experiences were documented by poets like Langston Hughes, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and sociologist W. E. B. DuBois (Riggs 1987). The policy of Jim Crow, or separate but equal, in the United States resulted in the segregation of African Americans in almost every facet of life. As a response to this policy, African Americans created their own schools, medical facilities, churches, businesses, neighborhoods, and even towns. Specifically, the development of historically black colleges and universities

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Jim Crow | 593

From the end of the Civil War until the mid-1950s, Jim Crow laws upheld a system of de jure racial segregation in the South. These laws separated blacks from whites in all aspects of public life, from drinking fountains to schools. Here, African American men march in the 1940s with a casket symbolizing the imminent dismantling and “death” of Jim Crow laws. (Library of Congress)

served to positively affect the intellectual development of African Americans. Schools like Morehouse University, in Atlanta, Georgia; Howard University, in Washington, D.C.; and Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, served as the main producers of African American professionals (Litwack 1999). Jim Crow also encroached on the private lives of African Americans as it related to their ability to marry. Miscegenation, or interracial marriage, was outlawed, and states created detailed laws about how to classify the race of children born from these unions. Most states adhered to “the one drop rule,” which meant that if a person had one drop of African blood, then he or she would be considered black. There was a

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great amount of fear that African American men, who were stereotypically characterized as uncontrollable rapists, would take the virtuous white woman away from white men. This perception was exacerbated by the release of the first full-length motion picture, D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, in 1915. This film was an adaptation of The Clansman, a novel written by Thomas Dixon, the son of a disgruntled Confederate war officer. The movie tells a story of the Civil War and Reconstruction where African Americans are able to disenfranchise whites, and black men are portrayed as wild animals who physically pursue white women until they are forced to commit suicide as a means of escape. The powerful racist imagery in this movie was

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blamed for a substantial rise in Ku Klux Klan membership and a rash of overt violence against African Americans (PBS 2002; Riggs 1987). The strict social and economic restraints imposed by Jim Crow laws precipitated the need for some African Americans to engage in what has become known as “passing.” Passing as white was available to some African Americans if their skin color was light enough and their hair texture was not kinky. An analysis of U.S. Census data indicates that between 1910 and 1920 an estimated half million African Americans selected this option and were often encouraged by family members to leave their communities, change their speech patterns, and blend into white society as a means of avoiding the restrictions of Jim Crow. Sybil Rosado See also Till, Emmett (1941–1955). F URTHER R EADING Davis, Ronald L. F. 2005. “Creating Jim Crow: InDepth Essay.” The History of Jim Crow. www.jimcrowhistory.org/history/creating2.htm (accessed June 8, 2005). Litwack, Leon F. 1999. Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow. New York: Vintage Books. PBS. 2002. The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow. List of resources for research on Jim Crow. www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/resources.html (accessed June 8, 2005). Riggs, Marlon T., ed. 1987. “Ethnic Notions: Black People in White Minds.” Narrated by Esther Rolle. Berkeley: California Newsreel. Woodward, C. Vann. 1955. The Strange Career of Jim Crow. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

z Johnson, J. Rosamond (1873–1954) J. Rosamond Johnson was born on August 11, 1873, in Jacksonville, Florida. His mother, Helen Louise Dillet, was a free woman of Hait-

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ian descent who was born in Nassau, in the Bahamas, on August 4, 1842. His father was James Johnson, a freeman from Virginia, born in 1830, who met Dillet in New York City. His older brother was James Weldon Johnson, and the two would go on to collaborate in their musical careers. J. Rosamond Johnson attended the New England Conservatory of Music, graduating in about 1895 after six years (Bulletin of Atlanta University 1898). Upon graduation, Johnson toured the country with John Isham’s Oriental America company (ASCAP n.d.). He returned to Florida in 1896 where he opened his own music school, and from 1896 to 1898 he held the position of supervisor of music for the Jacksonville public schools (New York Times 1954). In 1896, while teaching at the Florida Baptist Academy, Johnson wrote the music to what was to become the black national anthem “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a song that offered hope and faith to African Americans in the face of a degraded slave past. Despite the horrific conditions of slavery, black people remain hopeful and victorious in their survival. From 1899 to 1911, Johnson, Bob Cole, and James Weldon Johnson worked as successful musical collaborators in the realm of popular music and theater. In 1901 they held two lucrative songwriting contracts: they collaborated with Klaw and Erlanger, the producers of largescale Broadway musicals, and maintained careers as writers of popular songs. To capitalize on their fame as writers of popular songs, in 1901 Cole and J. Rosamond Johnson formed a vaudeville team in which they dressed elegantly and performed throughout the United States and Europe. While by today’s standards dressing elegantly may not seem like a form of resistance, in 1901 the most common representation of blackness on stage was that of blackface minstrelsy, so appearing on stage as sophisticated urbanites challenged the common discourse surrounding African American men. After their foray into vaudeville, J. Rosamond Johnson, Bob Cole, and James Weldon Johnson

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Johnson, James Weldon (1871–1938) | 595 communicated a politics of uplift in offering audiences black men as heroes and black women as heroines in their Broadway theatrical productions of Shoo Fly Regiment (1906) and The Red Moon (1908). Informed by Booker T. Washington’s philosophy of uplift, the settings, situations, and plot lines in these productions linked the communal black struggle for social advancement, education, and citizenship to images of heroic black masculinity in the service of the United States and black female respectability to legitimate black women in U.S. society through the hegemonic codes of bourgeois respectability. With the death of Bob Cole and James Weldon Johnson’s departure from the group to pursue a diplomatic career, J. Rosamond Johnson committed himself to a career in music. In 1913 he became the musical director of the Hammerstein Opera House in London, England. That same year he married Nora Ethel Floyd. From 1914 to 1918 Johnson was the musical director of the Music Settlement School for Colored People in New York City. In 1925 J. Rosamond Johnson and James Weldon Johnson began their efforts to raise the status of the Negro spiritual by publishing The Book of American Negro Spirituals followed by The Second Book of American Negro Spirituals (1926), and Rolling Along in Song (1937). J. Rosamond Johnson continued to perform in the theater appearing in the European tour of The Blackbirds of 1936, and the Broadway production of Mamba’s Daughter with Ethel Waters from 1939 to 1941. Johnson also appeared on Broadway in Porgy and Bess as Lawyer Frazier in 1935, 1938, and 1942 and worked as the music arranger of the 1942 production. In 1946, he appeared in the Broadway production of Cabin in the Sky as Brother Jones with his choir and in Young Americans. Johnson was an active member of ASCAP and Actors Equity Association. He died in 1954. Paula Marie Seniors See also Hampton Institute/Hampton University; Johnson, James Weldon (1871–1938); “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”

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F URTHER R EADING ASCAP. n.d. J. Rosamond Johnson Papers. Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, New York. Bond, Julian, and Sandra Kathryn Wilson. 2000. Lift Every Voice and Sing. New York: Random House. The Bulletin of Atlanta University, June 1898, no. 93. Atlanta University Center, Robert F. Woodruff Library. Clark Atlanta University, Atlanta, GA. John Rosamond Johnson Papers, MSS 21, Irving S. Gilmore Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT. Lemus, Rienzi B. Company K, Twenty-fifth Infantry. “The Enlisted Man in Action or, The Colored American Soldier in the Philippines.” The Colored American, no. 5 (May 1902). Special Collections. Fisk University Library, Nashville, TN. New York Times. 1954. “J. R. Johnson, 81, Composer, Dead.” May 16.

z Johnson, James Weldon (1871–1938) James Weldon Johnson was an African American political activist, writer, and lyricist of popular song, black musical theater, and the black national anthem “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” James Weldon Johnson was born on June 17, 1871, in Jacksonville, Florida. His mother, Helen Louise Dillet, was a free woman of Haitian descent who was born in Nassau, in the Bahamas, on August 4, 1842. His father was James Johnson, a freeman from Virginia, born in 1830, who met Dillet in New York City (Johnson, 1933). His younger brother was J. Rosamund Johnson, and the two would go on to collaborate in their musical careers. James Weldon Johnson attended Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia, as a preparatory and college student graduating in 1894 (Johnson 1895). Upon graduation he became the principal of the Stanton School, the “colored”

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school in Jacksonville, Florida, where he initiated a high school curriculum and elevated the school so that a certificate from Stanton held prestige in academe. In 1896, while acting as the principal of the Stanton School, James Weldon Johnson wrote the lyrics to “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” and his brother J. Rosamond Johnson wrote the music. In 1897, Johnson founded the Daily American Newspaper, an African American newspaper dedicated to antilynching rhetoric. That same year he was admitted to the Florida bar and practiced law until he joined his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, in New York where they would pursue careers as composers of musical theater. In 1899, James Weldon Johnson moved permanently to New York. His partnership with actor and composer Bob Cole and J. Rosamond Johnson formed one of the most productive black theatrical teams, Cole and Johnson. From 1899 to 1911, Bob Cole, J. Rosamond Johnson, and James Weldon Johnson worked as successful musical collaborators in the realm of popular music and theater. James Weldon Johnson left the Cole and Johnson team to pursue a political career. Theodore Roosevelt appointed him the consul of Venezuela, and he served from 1906 to 1908. From 1909 to 1912 he acted as the consul to Nicaragua. In 1910, he married Grace Nail. Johnson wrote The Autobiography of an Ex Colored Man in 1912. In 1916, Johnson began working for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and was appointed executive secretary, a position he held from 1920 to 1931. In 1931 he was appointed to the board of directors for the NAACP, a position he held until 1938. James Weldon Johnson continued with his literary pursuits with “The Creation,” and The Book of American Negro Poetry in 1922. In 1925, he and his brother began their efforts to raise the status of the Negro spiritual by pub-

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lishing The Book of American Negro Spirituals followed by The Second Book of American Negro Spirituals (1926), and Rolling Along in Song (1937). Johnson also wrote God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (1927), Black Manhattan (1930), and his autobiography Along This Way (1933). From 1931 until 1938 James Weldon Johnson held the Spence Chair of Creative Literature at Fisk University. In 1938 James Weldon Johnson died tragically in a train accident in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Paula Marie Seniors See also Florida Memorial University; Hampton Institute/Hampton University; Johnson, J. Rosamond (1873–1954); “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” F URTHER R EADING James Weldon Johnson Biography. James Weldon Johnson Collection, Fisk University Special Collections. James Weldon Johnson Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT. John Rosamond Johnson Papers, MSS 21, Irving S. Gilmore Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT. Johnson, James Weldon. 1895. “What Atlanta University Has Done for Me.” The Bulletin of Atlanta University, Number 64, April. Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta, GA. Johnson, James Weldon. 1933. Along This Way: The Autobiography of James Weldon Johnson. New York: Viking Press. Woll, Allen. 1989. Black Musical Theatre: From Coontown to Dreamgirls. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

z Johnson, Linton Kwesi (1952–) Linton Kwesi Johnson is considered a pioneer of dub poetry, a definition he coined for poems

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Johnson, Linton Kwesi (1952–) | 597 performed over reggae rhythms. The extremely oral nature of his phrasing also identifies him as a seminal figure for the development of vernacular arts and black British performance poetry. Johnson was born in 1952 in Chapelton, Jamaica, but in 1963 he joined his parents in Brixton, London. There he became actively involved in politics with the Black Panthers and the Race Today Collective and was influenced by W. E. B. DuBois’s writings. He later took a degree in Sociology at Goldsmiths’s College and published his first collection of poetry, Voices of the Living and the Dead (1974). His pathbreaking second collection, Dread Beat and Blood (1975), is composed of political poems conveying London’s tense racial atmosphere on the verge of explosion, as the 1976 Notting Hill Carnival riots would later prove. Its protest rhetoric, constantly focused on the plight of the black British working class who were confronting social exclusion, high unemployment, and police harassment, is especially evident in some famous compositions such as “Street 66” and “All Wi Doin Is Defendin.” The book also shows a stylistic quality fueled by biblical and Rasta imagery. Its language includes standard English, Jamaican Creole, and a distinct black British vernacular, thus following in the wake of older folk-inspired Caribbean poets like Louise Bennett and E. K. Brathwaite. A recording of the book (1978) brought Johnson’s multifaceted craft to light and contributed to the worldwide emergence of his dub poetry; similar to other dub poets, such as Mutabaruka, Oku Onuora, and Michael Smith, Johnson’s aesthetics can be traced back to the wave of 1970s Jamaican DJs who satirically improvised on instrumental music. Johnson’s later collections—Inglan Is a Bitch (1980) and Tings an’ Times (1991)—and topselling records are marked by musical experimentation, lyricism, irony, and an intimate vein fused into his undaunted political outspokenness: see, for instance, the album More

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Time (1998) and the often-quoted “Reggae fi Dada,” where an elegiac tenderness for the death of the poet’s father is interwoven with the bitterness at the sight of the squalor and corruption still plaguing contemporary Jamaica. These works established Johnson as an inspirational figure for the 1980s generation of black British poets who performed their poems on stage in vernacular, like Jean “Binta” Breeze and Benjamin Zephaniah, amongst others. More generally, his campaigns against institutionalized racism have become a point of reference for the whole black British community. Johnson has been anthologized, honored with awards in the United Kingdom and abroad, and translated into German and Italian. In addition, he has repeatedly toured the world with Dennis Bovell’s Dub Band. He also edited the journal Race Today, recorded programs for the BBC and Channel 4; founded his own record label, LKJ; and produced albums by other poets and musicians. With Mi Revalueshanary Fren—Selected Poems (2002), Penguin Books included him in its Modern Classics editions, thus acknowledging the literary excellence of his work. Pietro Deandrea See also Jamaica; Reggae; United Kingdom: The African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Hitchcock, Peter. 1993. “ ‘It Dread Inna England’: Linton Kwesi Johnson, Dread, and Dub Identity.” Postmodern Culture 4 (1). Online journal. www.iath.virginia.edu/pmc/text-only/issue.993/ hitchcoc.993 (accessed January 8, 2008). Johnson, Linton Kwesi. 1975. Dread Beat and Blood. London: Bogle-L’Ouverture. Johnson, Linton Kwesi. 1980. Inglan Is a Bitch. London: Race Today, 1980. Johnson, Linton Kwesi. 1984. Linton Kwesi Johnson in Concert with the Dub Band. CD 003. LKJ Records, Herne Hill, London.

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Jones, Claudia Cumberbatch (1915–1964) Claudia Vera Cumberbatch Jones was born in Belmont, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad in 1915 and migrated with her siblings to join her parents in Harlem, New York, in 1924. She attended high schools in New York and joined the Communist Party, U.S.A. (CPUSA) at the age of 18. Her political affiliations and positions are reflected in the range of descriptors with which she is identified: political activist, black nationalist, feminist, communist, anti-imperialist, journalist, and community organizer. Jones is best known as a journalist, however; her work included moving from early articles in a black newspaper to her work in the Young Communist League’s Weekly Review and a steady movement through the editorial ranks. In each of these cases, her work as a journalist paralleled other political positions and served as a means of public education and organizing. Her work on the Weekly Review accompanied her service as education director for New York State’s Young Communist League. Her subsequent work on The Worker and Daily Worker paralleled her position as secretary of the National Women’s Commission of the CPUSA. Because of her activity in organizing working-class communities for the Communist Party, Claudia Jones was imprisoned three times by the U.S. government, finally serving close to a year at Alderson in West Virginia before being deported in 1955 under the notorious Smith Act and McCarran Act. She is identified as one of 13 communists tried and imprisoned for communist organizing in the United States and thus was clearly also a political prisoner. Although Jones had lived in the United States from about the age of eight and this was her home, she was deported and was given asylum in England where she spent the years from 1955 to 1964 doing political and cultural organizing among the black London community. She was known particularly for founding and editing The West Indian

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Communist leader Claudia Jones at the National Communist Headquarters in New York on January 26, 1948. Jones, who was from Trinidad, had been arrested in New York for her communist activism and work on behalf of the African Diaspora communities in the United States. (Hulton Archives/Getty Images)

Gazette and Afro-Asian Caribbean News and the first Caribbean Carnival, which has now become known in its outdoor street carnival version as the famous Notting Hill Carnival. Jones died in her sleep on Christmas Eve 1964 and, after an almost state-level funeral for a left activist, her ashes were interred next to Karl Marx in Highgate Cemetery, London. Carole Boyce Davies See also Carnival; Harlem; Trinidad and Tobago; United Kingdom: The African Diaspora.

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Junkanoo | 599 F URTHER R EADING Boyce Davies, Carole. 2001. “Deportable Subjects: U.S. Immigration Laws and the Criminalizing of Communism.” The South Atlantic Quarterly 100. 4 (Fall): 949–966. Boyce Davies, Carole. 2008. Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Johnson, Buzz. 1985. I Think of My Mother: Notes on the Life and Times of Claudia Jones. London: Karia Press. McClendon, John. 1996. “Claudia Jones.” In Notable Black American Women, Book II, ed. Jessie Carney Smith, 343–346. Detroit, MI: Gale Research. Sherwood, Marika. 1999. Claudia Jones. A Life in Exile. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

z Junkanoo Junkanoo is a celebration of music and dance that has become the premier cultural event in the Bahamas. The essence of Junkanoo is dancing to the music of goatskin drums, cowbells, and whistles. This was one means by which enslaved Africans in the Bahamas, and elsewhere in the Americas, commemorated special events. Junkanoo is a vibrant, spontaneous performance, and as such it has evolved considerably over time. Documentary accounts from the early 19th century all note the loud music and celebrations lasting into the wee hours. Bahamian slaves only had holidays on Christmas Day and Boxing Day (the day after Christmas), so it is not coincidental that a Junkanoo parade is held in the predawn hours of Boxing Day. After emancipation in the 1830s a second parade was held in the early hours of New Year’s Day. Today the largest Junkanoo performances are along Nassau’s main streets. This location is now considered integral to the ambience of Junkanoo parades. A blatantly African-derived cultural festival, Junkanoo has come to be identified as a major display of the coun-

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try’s indentity. A key factor is that Junkanoo was always a very public performance with high entertainment value. Emancipated black Bahamians were already aware of this potential for Junkanoo and acted to maximize it. Local and visiting residents within the city were wealthier than most blacks living in communities immediately south of Nassau (the oldest of these communities date at least to the early 19th century). Junkanooers traveled a short distance to perform in hopes of being rewarded for their efforts. Oral history accounts and early 20th-century photographs indicate that Junkanoo dancers in particular carried containers for money they expected to collect. Powerful white interests attempted several times in the late 19th century to quietly eliminate Junkanoo through ordinances to control noise and large gatherings. These measures only succeeded temporarily. For a few years Junkanoo performances were restricted to Over-the-Hill, the collective name for the black communities south of Nassau. They eventually returned to Nassau’s Bay Street because of their popularity with tourists and many local whites. During World War II Junkanoo was banned for two years. For its revival the tourism board also decided to capitalize on its performance value. Cash prizes were offered for the best costume and music. The certainty of monetary prizes was a catalyst that transformed the parades. Groups of dancers and musicians were formed to compete, and the design of costumes metamorphosized into a uniquely Bahamian art form, though versions also exist in Jamaica. Traditionally, Junkanoo costumes were created from whatever materials were most readily available, hence the reason visitors often described performances as a masquerade. Since the late 1940s costumes were created using stripes of crepe paper. Until the 1970s Junkanoo groups were often all male. Women first participated mainly as dancers but now participate in all aspects. Antithetical to competing groups are scrap gangs that retain the

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A man plays horns in the midst of other costumed musicians during a Junkanoo parade. Junkanoo parades, which feature homemade costumes, are held every year on Boxing Day and New Year’s Day in Nassau. (Philip Gould/Corbis)

spontaneity and enjoyment always so characteristic of Junkanoo. Grace Turner See also Bahamas; Carnival. F URTHER R EADING Bethel, Clement E. 1991. Junkanoo, Festival of the Bahamas, ed. and exp. Nicolette Bethel. London Macmillan Education.

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Craton, Michael, and Gail Saunders. 1992. Islanders in the Stream: A History of the Bahamian People, 2 vols. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Ferguson, Arlene Nash. 2000. I Come to Get Me an Inside Look at the Junkanoo Festival. Nassau, Bahamas: Doongalik Studios. Wisdom, Keith G. 1985. “Bahamas Junkanoo: An Art in a Modern Social Drama.” Ph.D. diss., University of Georgia, Athens.

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K z

Kali

unshared immortal bliss. It dwells aloof in its bare infinite, which is one and unique. But it is unutterably alone. As a being who is formless, featureless, and silent, Kali can be viewed with aesthetic intuition. Kali is revered as the feminine force absorbing all the essentials of Shiva, who is uncreated and unborn. The one by whom all live, who lives by none, an immeasurable luminous secrecy is found in the black beauty of Kali, guarded by the force of love. Philosophically, Kali is the silent cause but occult, impenetrable but infinite, eternal but unthinkable. Kali is personified as the worldprotecting, feminine, maternal side of the ultimate being. Kali is also adored in the mandalas as being the geometrical figuration with symmetrical designs of triangles, circle/circles. Giuseppe Tucci says about Hindu and Buddhist mandalas: “Between God and the world, between the Absolute and life, the conscious being and the psyche, there is an unequivocal identity of nature, not an opposition but, as it were, the superposition of planes (2001, 9).” Kali is also the terrible goddess who devours and rends everything where smiles Durga, the Great Mother, dispenser of life. Both of these alternate in the world’s rhythm as do the steps of dancing Shiva, which both create and destroy the universe.

Kali is the black feminine deity revered as “Mother energy” in Hinduism. In Sanskrit Kali means “jet black.” Generally, the followers of Hinduism have adored Kali as primal energy. Kali is also taken from the concept of time, as Kala is a unit of time. The root of the word Kali in Sanskrit is Kala, which means to calculate or enumerate. Kali is the vibrant force within the limits of Time. The word Kala is used in India’s Shaivism philosophy to represent an aspect of the omnipotence of the Absolute, with a limiting condition of the subject. The spirit of unity, which has been inferred from and perceived by people of spiritual merit, has always preferred to see the divine in the form of eternity, which is Mahakali/the dark form. Kali is therefore considered the supreme deity presiding over all the feminine energies. The Atharva Shirsha read with the Vedic Ratri Suktam makes it clear that Mahamaya, or Kali, is both transcendent as well as the manifested phenomenon of the universe. Therefore, being black in color, she plays the role of Mahamaya at the beginning of the universe, when every thing sprang forth from eternity It is said in the Tantras that Kali is pure existence. In her, one observes a consciousness of 601 www.abc-clio.com

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Kali sometimes incarnates to relieve the suffering humanity from the grip of evil. Her blackness symbolizes her all-enveloping comprehensive nature, as black is the color in which all other colors merge. Black absorbs and dissolves them. Black is said to be total absence of color, which in reality is the first law of nature. Chaman Lal Raina See also India and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Brodrick, Alan Houghton. 1973. The Theory and Practice of Mandala. New York: Samuel Weiser. Pandey, Kanti Chandra. 1959. Comparative Aesthetics, Vol. I, 2nd ed. Varanasi, India: The Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office. Raina, Chaman Lal. 2004. Introduction of Facets of Shri Chandi. Delhi, India: Sharada Publishing House. Shri Durga Sapta Shati in Sanskrit-Hindi. Gorakhpur, India: The Gita Press. Tucci, Giuseppe. 2001. The Theory and Practice of the Mandala. New York: Courier Dover Publications. Zimmer, Heinrich. 1962. Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization. New York: Harper & Row.

z Kalimba The kalimba is an important and ancient small African instrument of widespread provenance, in which plucked metal tabs attached to a soundboard are resonated over a gourd or chamber. Kalimbas consist of a series of spaced metal keys that have usually been attached to a resonator chamber, traditionally a gourd, and are then often placed inside another larger resonating chamber or gourd (deze) for even greater amplification. Beads, shells, or other rattles are often attached to create a continuous humming or buzzing sound to accompany the melody lines. In its diverse embodiments, this class of instruments, known as lamella-

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phones, provide musical entertainment, but they are also important ritual items that are often used to commune with ancestor spirits in various religious ceremonies, and to transmit oral traditions through music and song. These instruments have a very wide distribution throughout Africa, particularly eastern, central, and western Africa, and they have also been found since the 16th century in parts of the Diaspora, especially the Caribbean and North America. With such a wide distribution and cultural significance, they have acquired many local names, including generic terms such as thumb piano, gourd piano, and finger harp, as well as specific names, such as mbira, sansa, sanza, kisanje, mbwetete, lukeme, likembe, ikembe, and marimba, each usually associated with a specific culture, language, or place. In the Diaspora, variations have included the Jamaican thumb piano and the bass mbira, and some argue that the Jew’s harp may also be loosely included in this line of influence. It is generally believed that thumb pianos originated in the context of the culture contact with Indonesians who first reached the southern East African islands and coastal regions before the rise of the first millennium CE. With these immigrants came their xylophone traditions, together with its unique tuning and scale, which is still reflected in various mbira and kalimba tunings today. Although some consider the African thumb piano to be a purely indigenous invention, most conclude that it was an innovation based on Indonesian influences, which soon took on distinctly African characteristics. Many specific cultural variations of the kalimba may be noted throughout the continent; Shona’s mbira is one of the best known. Known to be more than a thousand years old, this tradition uses the mbira to commune with ancestors and was once part of royal court ceremonies as well. Mbira usually have between 22 and 28 metal keys. Originally they were smelted directly from local iron ore, but more recently makers

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Kappa Alpha Psi | 603 have relied more often on recycled metal from bed springs, bike spokes, or other available materials. The standard range of a kalimba is at least three octaves. With multiple tuning traditions, the customary polyphonic playing style involves a leading repetitious, and a slightly shifting melody (kashaura), coupled with an alternating and intertwining countermelody (kutsinhira) that is most often played by a second instrument. This jazzlike, nonlinear improvisation is usually accompanied by a percussion gourd instrument, such as the Shona hosho. Specific traditions associated with cultures such as the Zaramo in Tanzania, the Shona’s neighbors the Ndebele, or peoples in southwest Africa, Uganda, or Ghana may also be noted. Although the kalimba made its way with enslaved and free Africans to the New World, a more recent fusion has also been taking place that involves recent African emigrants, cultural tourism, and the advent of world music. Mbira music clubs are springing up all over the United States, and mbira-laced music from the continent is now widely available on CD. Numerous artists incorporating kalimba, mbira, or other thumb piano traditions may also be found today in the world music marketplace. Jesse Benjamin See also Indonesia and Africa. F URTHER R EADING Jones, A. M. 1964. Africa and Indonesia: The Evidence of the Xylophone and Other Musical and Cultural Factors. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill.

z Kappa Alpha Psi In 1910, frustrated by isolation, structural and institutional racism, and the lack of established mechanisms for socialization, nine black men at Indiana University gathered to converse

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about their experiences. The men gathered at the home of Miss Mollie Spaulding, the residence of founding members Byron Armstrong and Marcus Blakemore, who, like the other black undergraduates at Indiana, were denied access to campus housing. United by the common experiences of marginalization, the humiliation of racism, and the lack of institutions conducive to building community, the fraternity’s founding members, Elder Watson Diggs, Edward Irvin, Paul Caine, Marcus Blakemore, Byron K. Armstrong, Henry T. Asher, Ezra D. Alexander, Guy L. Grant, and John M. Lee, gathered to share one another’s experience and support one another—socially, spiritually, and academically. Their conversations would become the impetus for forming the fraternity. Kappa Alpha Psi historical sources, as well as Indiana University records, assert that blacksponsored Greek-letter organizations on the Indiana campus may have begun in 1903 with the loosely organized Kappa Alpha Nu Greek Society, which was designed to strengthen the voice of black students and improve the quality of life at Indiana. However, few mechanisms existed for ensuring the organization’s sustainability, thus prohibiting, or at least inhibiting, the establishment of a formal fraternity. On January 5, 1911, the fraternity’s founders met with the purpose of establishing a permanent fraternal organization. George Edmonds, a fellow student who had entered the university the previous year, joined the nine men. From the beginning the fraternity’s founding members undertook the mission of constructing a fraternity completely removed from the politics and practices of existing fraternal organizations, principally the only existing black Greek-letter fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, founded in 1906 at Cornell University. Committed to founding an inimitable and authentic fraternity both Diggs, “the dreamer,” and Armstrong took up formal studies of Greek heraldry and mythology while creating the fraternity and designing its insignia, motto, practices, and rituals. Anchored by strong faith,

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extreme investment in education (Elder Watson Diggs spent the majority of his life as an educator) and achievement in every human endeavor (which would become the fraternity’s motto), the fraternity’s application was filed with the state of Indiana on April 11, 1911. From the onset, the founders of Kappa Alpha Psi intended for the fraternity to be a support system to benefit black students throughout the nation. Less than 46 years since the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which called for the end of slavery and involuntary servitude in 1865, the founders and early members of black Greek-letter organizations continued the legacy of strengthening bonds between and among black students in ways that championed racial uplift, academic excellence, community service, and leadership development. Achieving these goals was facilitated by a fraternal and sororal structure that paid homage, both consciously and otherwise coincidentally, to people and things African. Organizational insignia, rites, and practices all have roots in African traditions, and Kappa Alpha Psi is no exception. The fraternity’s colors, crimson and crème, and rites, rituals, and traditions, such as carrying canes, each contain remnants of African traditions. Since its inception in 1911 and national incorporation in 1915, Kappa Alpha Psi has undergone several changes, adapting to changing political climates, the shifting interests and attitudes of the burgeoning elite black upper and middle classes, and the context of various historical periods. Perhaps the most salient example of such change is the evolution of the fraternity’s appellation—from Alpha Omega to Kappa Alpha Nu Greek Society to Kappa Alpha Nu fraternity to Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Incorporated. However, consistent throughout such periods of change has been the fraternity’s commitment to achievement in every endeavor, which is manifested in pointed community programming, such as the Guide Rite leadership development initiative; leading by example, which is exemplified by the Kappa

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League and individual member’s commitment to achieving in every possible field of human endeavor; and fulfilling the principles established by the fraternity’s founders with dignity, style, and grace. David Johns F URTHER R EADING Bryson, Ralph. 2003. The Story of Kappa Alpha Psi: A History of the Beginning and Development of a College Greek Letter Organization: 1911– 1999. 5th ed. Philadelphia: Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity. Jones, Rick L. 2004. Black Haze: Violence, Sacrifice, and Manhood in Black Greek-Letter Fraternities. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Kimbrough, Walter. 2003. Black Greek 101: The Culture, Customs and Challenges of Black Fraternities and Sororities. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. McKenzie, Andre. 2005. “In The Beginning: The Early History of the Divine Nine.” In African American Fraternities and Sororities: The Legacy and the Vision, ed. Tamara L. Brown, Gregory Sparks, and Clarenda M. Phillips, 181–210. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. Ross, Lawrence C., Jr. 2002. The Divine Nine: The History of African American Fraternities and Sororities. East Rutherford, NJ: Dafina Books. Torbenson, Craig L. 2005. “The Origin and Evolution of College Fraternities and Sororities.” In African American Fraternities and Sororities: The Legacy and the Vision, ed. Tamara L. Brown, Gregory Sparks, and Clarenda M. Phillips, 37–66. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky.

z Keens-Douglas, Richardo (1953–) Oral traditionalist, actor, author of children’s literature and drama, and award winner Richardo Keens-Douglas has several performances and children’s books to his credit, including The Nutmeg Princess (1992), which was

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Kenyatta, Jomo (1889–1978) | 605 also adapted for stage and premiered at Young People’s Theatre in Toronto in 1999. The production won the 2000 Dora Mavor Moore Award for outstanding new musical, making him a double winner of the same award. Born and raised in Grenada, Keens-Douglas migrated to Canada at age 17 and has lived in Montreal and Toronto. He attended Dawson Theatre School, spent a season at the Stratford Shakespearean Festival in Ontario, and is now an acclaimed playwright, actor, storyteller, and teacher. Keens-Douglas promotes Canadian/West Indian Culture in his stories, which engage the imagination of children and adults alike and remind us of the hope in the human spirit. Drawing on the rich folkloric tradition in the Caribbean, Keens-Douglas’s works gently and humorously teach moral lessons in the traditional oral cultures. Never forgetting the legacy of slavery, he uses the trickster spider figure Anancy to teach wider lessons of humanity. Keens-Douglas recently founded a drama school in Grenada where he teaches every summer. His works include Le Mystère de l’île aux Épices (1992); La Diablesse and the Baby: A Caribbean Folktale (1994), which was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award and earned him the Storytelling World Honor Award; Freedom Child of the Sea (1995); Grandpa’s Visit (1996); The Miss Meow Pageant (1998); Mama God, Papa God: A Caribbean Tale (1999), a Caribbean creation tale that he performed for Diana, the Princess of Wales, on board the HMY Britannia during the 1991 royal visit; The Trial of the Stone: A Folktale (2000), the tale of a stone that is accused of a crime and villagers who learn to take the judicial system seriously, and which is based on a folktale that appears in various forms throughout Africa, Asia, and South America; Anancy and the Haunted House (2002), which was published in French in 2003; The Firefly Who Lost Its Light (2003), a collection of stories for primary level performances and reader’s theater; and Tales from the Isle of Spice: A Collection of New Caribbean Folktales (2004).

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Keens-Douglas has written and performed in Canada in a video production 2 of a Kind Storytelling (1997); a cassette recording of Once upon an Island Storytelling Comedy Live in Toronto (1998); and his storytelling cabaret Once Upon an Island, which was nominated for the Sterling Award for Best Touring Production in Edmonton in 1991. Since 1991, he appeared in Playboy of the West Indies, and wrote and starred in The Obeah Man, which was produced in Toronto and won him his first Dora Mavor Moore award in 1985. Keens-Douglas’s storytelling voice received national recognition on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s acclaimed storytelling talk show Cloud 9, and he has also been a storytelling voice of CBC Radio’s Between the Covers program, reading stories written by Austin Clarke and Cecil Foster. Keens-Douglas divides his time between Toronto and Grenada and has recently produced a new play, Full Moon, which was staged at the Harbourfront Centre in 2003. After dividing his time between countries, he moved back to Grenada in 2003, and has worked on television there since, as well as other areas of his career, and published: Tales from the Isle of Spice: A Collection of New Caribbean Folktales (2004). Sharon Morgan Beckford See also Canada and the African Diaspora; Grenada. F URTHER R EADING Black, Ayanna, ed. 1994. Fiery Spirits: Canadian Writers of African Descent. Toronto: HarperPerennial.

z Kenyatta, Jomo (1889–1978) Jomo Kenyatta is one of the founding fathers of the modern African states. To the African Diaspora he is of considerable interest as a leading Pan-Africanist. He is best known for leading Kenya’s struggle for independence

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from Britain and for serving as the country’s first president. Kenyatta was also a literary figure of considerable stature: his Facing Mount Kenya (1938) is one of the earliest scholarly books to tell the African story from an African perspective. Kenyatta also acted alongside Paul Robeson in the 1930s classic movie, Sanders of the River, in which he was featured as one of the African chiefs. Born Kamau wa Ngengi in 1889, Kenyatta was educated by Scottish missionaries at Thogoto outside Nairobi, but was to be arrested a few years later for behaving in a very un-Christian manner by drinking liquor and getting married under Kikuyu customary law instead of in church. After completing his schooling, he initially worked as a clerk in Nairobi’s Public Works Department. Starting around 1921, he became a political activist in Harry Thuku’s East African Association. He became general secretary of the Kikuyu Central Association and edited its journal, Mwigithania (mediator or reconciler). The organization later sent him to England to agitate for African land rights. In Europe from 1929 to 1946, Kenyatta campaigned for his people by making various spirited representations to the colonial office and writing articles in newspapers. He also studied at the London School of Economics and Moscow University. His dissertation at the London School of Economics, an anthropological study of his own Kikuyu people, was published as Facing Mount Kenya in 1938. While in England, he befriended other African and PanAfrican nationalists, including George Padmore and Kwame Nkrumah. In 1938, he famously broke through a police cordon to embrace Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie who had been deposed by the Italians. Just before his return to Kenya in 1946, Kenyatta became a founding member of the Pan-African Federation in 1945 and an organizer of the Fifth Pan-African Congress, which had the themes “Freedom Now” and “Africa for Africans.” Kenyatta’s first job upon his return was as principal of Kenya Teachers College. The

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school had been founded by the Kikuyu independent school movement, which was started by Kikuyu nationalists in protest against the colonial educational curriculum. In 1947, he became president of the Kenya African Union, in which role he toured the country extensively, giving speeches and building the party to a formidable organ against the colonial administration. His popularity alarmed the British colonial authorities who associated him with Mau Mau, a clandestine army that aimed to overthrow colonial rule through violent means. Kenyatta was arrested in 1952, along with 182 other leaders, on charges that he was the leader of Mau Mau. He was convicted on the evidence of a coached witness by the name of Rawson Macharia, who later confessed the details of the conspiracy in his memoirs. Kenyatta’s trial was staged in a remote outpost in northern Kenya, away from the mass of his supporters, and his defense team included a Nigerian lawyer, H. O. Davies. Sentenced to seven years in prison with hard labor, Kenyatta was denied the right of appeal by the Privy Council, despite the best efforts of his chief counsel, Dennis Pritt. In prison, owing to his advanced age and failing health, Kenyatta served as cook for the rest of his inmates, all of them political prisoners. As a result of increasing pressure, both internally and abroad, Kenyatta was finally released from prison in 1961. Meantime, he had been elected in absentia as president of a new party, the Kenya African National Union, which refused to take office until his release. After a series of constitutional conferences held in London’s Lancaster House, Kenya finally became independent in December 1963 with Kenyatta as prime minister. A year later, on the first anniversary of independence, Kenya became a republic with Kenyatta as president. Kenyatta invited his former colonial tormentors to stay on in Kenya, asking Kenyans of all races, tribes, and clans to forgive the past and look forward into the future. This policy was later copied by other anglophone colonies with substantial white populations, including

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Jomo Kenyatta, newly elected prime minister of Kenya, waves to supporters on June 19, 1963. (Library of Congress)

Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa. His rule saw Kenya’s economy continue to be dominant in the region. However, he consolidated power around the presidency, and commentators have accused him of creating an imperial presidency. Kenyatta pursued a capitalist ideology while all his African neighbors experimented with socialism. Kenyan socialists like Jaramogi Oginga Odinga blamed Kenyatta for the wide gap between the rich and poor and for favoring Kikuyu businesspeople. Referred to as Mzee, the Swahili term for grand old man, Kenyatta died in his sleep on August 22, 1978 and his death was perhaps the biggest event in Africa that year, attended by dignitaries from many countries, including

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Prince Charles, Andrew Young, Moraj Desai, Julius Nyerere, and Kenneth Kaunda. Charles Muiru Ngugi See also Mau Mau; Pan-Africanism. F URTHER R EADING Delf, George. 1961. Jomo Kenyatta, Towards the Truth about the Light of Kenya. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Kenyatta, Jomo. 1968. Suffering Without Bitterness: The Founding of the Kenya Nation. Nairobi, Kenya: East African Publishing House. Macharia, Rawson. 1991. The Truth about the Trial of Jomo Kenyatta. Nairobi, Kenya: Longman Kenya. Murray-Brown, Jeremy. 1972. Kenyatta. London: G. Allen & Unwin.

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608 | Kincaid, Jamaica (1949–) Ngweno, Hilary. 1978. The Day Kenyatta Died. Nairobi, Kenya: Longman. Slatar, Montagu. 1955. The Trial of Jomo Kenyatta. London: Secker & Warburg.

z Kincaid, Jamaica (1949–) Jamaica Kincaid is considered one of the unique voices of the African Diaspora. She was born Elaine Potter Richardson in 1949 on the island of Antigua, then a British colony. At age 17, after completing her secondary education, Jamaica Kincaid left her homeland for America to work as an au pair in New York City. In the United States, she earned a U.S. high school diploma, attended a community college, and later attended Franconia College in New Hampshire for one year. She also studied photography at the New School for Social Research. After being discovered by New Yorker columnist George Trow Kincaid, she worked as a New Yorker staff writer for 20 years. Kincaid’s first short story collection, At the Bottom of the River (1983), which won the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, sets the stage for her later works. The opening story, “Girl,” functions as a guide, a cautionary tale of “true” female virtue and womanhood. The nameless, faceless girl is every girl, restricted by societal conventions and patriarchal impositions. The girl’s powerlessness contrasts starkly with the powerful aura of the also unnamed creator of the guide, an invisible mother, who gives her daughter a lesson on female hygiene and self-preservation. The complexity of this mother-daughter relationship is addressed at length in Kincaid’s first novel, the semiautobiographical Annie John (1986). Kincaid’s next novel, Lucy (1990), which takes place in America, is suggestive of America’s role as imperialist power, which it has adopted from Britain. Like her earlier novels,

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Kincaid’s third novel, The Autobiography of My Mother (1996), once again addresses the themes of the complex mother-daughter relationship, identity and language, colonialism and conquest. The “timely” death of Xuela’s Carib mother at the beginning of the novel is Kincaid’s approach to addressing the extinction of the Carib people. This extinction is further evidenced in the letter “x” in Xuela’s name. A Small Place (1988) is Kincaid’s most poignant and searing critique of British colonialism and American tourism. The small place is Antigua; its geographical smallness further dwindles in the face of astronomical political and economical turmoil. In her memoir, My Brother (1997), Kincaid offers a revealing and harsh account of her youngest brother’s (Devon Drew) struggle with AIDS and his consequent death in 1996. The monotonous existence of Mr. Potter, the main character of Kincaid’s fourth novel, mirrors Devon’s life of inactivity and passivity. Like most of Kincaid’s books, Mr. Potter (2002) is semiautobiographical. Kincaid charts the life course of her father who has fathered many daughters, all of whom he abandoned and one of which is the narrator/lover of words and most likely Kincaid herself. An illiterate taxi chauffeur, Mr. Potter makes his living by traveling the same roads each day. The traveled roads mirror his life of toil and perpetual struggle. Finally, Kincaid’s passion for gardening is chronicled in her 1999 book My Garden and her 2007 book Among Flowers. Simone A. James Alexander F URTHER R EADING Alexander, Simone A. James. 2000. “Growing Pains: Construction of the Girl Child/Woman Child in Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John.” Mango Season: Caribbean Women’s Writing 31 (1): 54– 63. Alexander, Simone A. James. 2001. Mother Imagery in the Novels of Afro-Caribbean Women. Columbia: Missouri University Press. Bouson, J. Brooks. 2006. Jamaica Kincaid: Writing Memory, Writing Back to the Mother. Albany: SUNY Press.

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King, B. B. (1925–) | 609 Edwards, Justin. 2007. Understanding Jamaica Kincaid. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Macdonald-Smyth, J. 2001. Making Homes in the West/Indies: Constructions of Subjectivity in the Writings of Michelle Cliff and Jamaica Kincaid. New York: Routledge.

z King, B. B. (1925–) B. B. King was born Riley B. King on September 16, 1925, near the Mississippi Delta towns of Itta Bene and Indianola. King is the greatest and most influential blues guitarist of the 20th century. After his sharecropper parents, Nora and Albert King, divorced in 1929, he lived with his grandmother in Kilmichael, Mississippi. He is not related to bluesman Albert King, who also came from the Delta. King’s earliest musical influence came from the church. He attended Elkhorn School, an affiliate of Elkhorn Baptist Church. At nine, his mother died, and at fifteen, when his grandmother died, King had to fend for himself. But cotton cultivation proved insufficient to sustain him, so he moved to Lexington, Kentucky, with his father. Nostalgic for Kilmichael, King returned to his studies and his singing. He worked for a white family that encouraged his musical interests. In 1942, King headed for Indianola in search of a better job and a better singing group. He became a tractor driver and joined a new gospel ensemble, but he also played and sang the blues on street corners and soon realized that he enjoyed performing blues more than gospel. In 1944, he married Martha Denton but in 1946 he left Indianola after wrecking his boss’s tractor. He went to Memphis, Tennessee, to search for his cousin, Bukka White, who taught him the art of the blues, from lyric composition to proper posture. When King played for radio KWEM, listeners flooded the station with calls praising

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him. The response earned him a fixed position at WDIA, a black-operated radio station. He found additional work performing at the Sixteenth Avenue Grill and Miss Annie’s Saloon. From there, his ascent was meteoritic. His agents encouraged him to select a catchier name as “Riley King” was lackluster and the stage names he chose were too long. The more succinct “B.B. King” moniker was coined, and a musical phenomenon was born. Until the 1960s, most of King’s fans were African Americans who bought his records and flocked to see him in small-town clubs. But in 1965, guitarist Mike Bloomfield admitted that he patterned his style after King. Bloomfield’s acknowledgment helped catapult King to the top. Larger clubs, luxury hotels, college campuses, and rock palaces solicited engagements. With Sidney Seidenberg as his new manager, bookings increased. He performed on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show in 1969 and on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1971. King’s work schedule—annually, more than 200 one-night stands nationwide—is linked to two failed marriages. The devastation of two divorces resulted in two runaway hits, “Woke Up This Morning” and “The Thrill Is Gone,” his signature song. But the most famous “woman” in his life is his guitar, “Lucille,” named after the catalyst of a dance hall brawl in Arkansas that led to a fire. On realizing that he left his guitar in the building, amid crashing beams he dashed back to retrieve it, narrowly escaping with his life. His oeuvre consists of more than 80 albums and CDs and hundreds of singles, including 83 never-released recordings. He has appeared in eight films and earned 13 Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award. Between 1984 and 1995 he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame and he received the Presidential Medal for the Arts, the Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award, Kennedy Center Honors, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Heritage Fellowship Award

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from the National Endowment of the Arts. He has won an MTV Video Music Award, has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and was thrice honored with the NAACP Image Award. He has won 22 Downbeat Music Magazine Readers and Critics Awards and five Guitar Player Magazine Awards. He has received honorary doctorates from Berklee College of Music and Yale University. From the University of Mississippi he received the National Award of Distinction. He has performed in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, and he owns blues clubs in New York, Tennessee, and California as well as casinos in Connecticut. He is a television spokesperson for the American Diabetes Association and cofounder of the Foundation for the Advancement of Inmate Recreation and Rehabilitation. The father of 15 children, King is known by the honorifics “King of the Blues,” “The Elder Statesman,” and a “Living National Treasure.” Joseph Dorsey See also Blues: A Continuum from Africa. F URTHER R EADING Duchin, Sebastian. 1998. Blues Boy: The Life and Music of B.B. King. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. King, B. B. 1999. Autobiography of B.B. King. New York: Harper Paperbacks. Kostelanetz, Richard. 2005. The B.B. King Reader: Six Decades of Commentary. Hal Leonard. Shirley, David. 1995. Everyday I Sing the Blues: The Story of B.B. King. London: Franklin Watts.

z King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929–1968) Martin Luther King, Jr., was an international human right activist, scholar, and Christian minister who worked diligently to improve the living conditions of African Americans in the African Diaspora. He was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to

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Martin, which was his father’s name. He attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of 15; he received a bachelor of arts degree in sociology in 1948 from Morehouse College. He was ordained as a minister in 1948 at Ebenezer Baptist Church and became its assistant pastor. Following this, he studied theology for three years at Crozer Theological Seminary, where he was elected president of his senior class. King was awarded a bachelor’s of divinity in 1951. With a J. Lewis Crozer fellowship he enrolled in doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University and received the degree in 1955. In Boston, he met and married Coretta Scott. They had two sons and two daughters. In 1954, Martin Luther King accepted the pastorate of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a strong worker for human rights, he became a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He was ready, then, early in December 1955, to accept the leadership of the Montgomery Improvement Association, which oversaw the Montgomery bus boycott and implemented the strategy of nonviolent action. During the yearlong bus boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, and he was subjected to personal abuse, but all the while he was emerging as the symbol of both African American leadership and American human rights activism. On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional Alabama’s laws requiring segregation on buses, and on December 21, 1956, King marked the end of the boycott by boarding a city bus and sitting near the front. In 1957, King became president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization he helped found to assist the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s legal efforts to end racial segregation. He took the ideals for this organization from Christianity and its operational approaches from Gandhi’s nonviolent strategy called satyagraha.

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KRS-ONE (1965–) | 611 During 1957 and 1968, King spoke hundreds of times and appeared whenever possible to curtail injustice. During these years, he wrote articles and books, such as Stride Toward Freedom (1958), Where Do We Go from Here (1967), and Why We Can’t Wait (1963). He led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, providing what he called a coalition of conscience and inspiring his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” On August 28, 1963, he gave the keynote address of the March on Washington with his “I Have A Dream” speech, which is widely perceived as one of the best speeches in U.S. history. In acknowledgment of his leadership of the Civil Rights Movement and his commitment to nonviolent action, King received the 1964 Nobel Prize for Peace. Yet he continued to face challenges in his campaign for civil rights. He was arrested and assaulted numerous times. At the same time, the Federal Bureau of Investigation increasingly sought to undermine him illegally by various means. Eventually, King’s leadership style changed and he changed his advocacy beyond civil rights to include human rights criticisms of U.S. imperialistic practices, such as in the Vietnam War. He also expressed his concern over massive poverty. In 1968, he made plans to address these concerns through a Poor People’s March to Washington, D.C. However, on April 4, 1968, while attempting to support the economic rights of striking African American garbage workers, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Even after his death, King continues to be an influential voice in human rights discourse and in the folklore of American culture. His death sparked rebellions across the United States for several days, against his principles of nonviolence. The same year Coretta King established the King Center to promote her husband’s legacy through educating about his work and his philosophy and methods of nonviolent conflict-reconciliation and social change. His legacy became a standard against which other human rights activists are measured.

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On November 2, 1983, both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate made King’s birthday a national holiday, and January 20, 1986, marked the first national celebration of his holiday. Today, many of the places where rebellions took place after his assassination have named streets, schools, and other social institutions after him. The ongoing commercialization of King, however, has generated controversy. His image has often been exploited in ways contrary to his activism, although some believe his family is entitled to financially benefit from his activism. King’s criticism of U.S. imperialism and hypocrisy has been highlighted by activists and ignored by others, but his legacy as a symbol of resistance to oppression and his identification with the oppressed, such as the untouchables in India, is secure. In 2006, King’s papers were brought to be housed at his alma mater, Morehouse College. Aaron Ogletree See also Montgomery Bus Boycott; Morehouse College. F URTHER R EADING Carson, Clayborne, and Martin Luther King, Jr. 2001. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. New York: Warner Books. Dyson, Michael Eric. 2000. I May Not Get There with You: The True Martin Luther King Jr. New York: Free Press. Frady, Marshall. 2001. Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Penguin Life (Penguin Lives). New York: Viking Books. Friedly, Michael, and David Gallen, eds. 1993. Martin Luther King, Jr.: the FBI File. New York: Carroll & Graf. Oates, Stephen B. 1985. Let the Trumpet Sound: The Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: New American Library.

z KRS-ONE (1965–) KRS-ONE (which stands for knowledge reigns supreme over nearly everyone) is one of hip-

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hop’s leading exponents. Born Lawrence Parker, KRS-ONE was homeless in New York at age 14. He educated himself in the public libraries and volunteered to give out food with the Hare Krishnas. As a result, the nickname “KRSNA,” would officially become his throughout the shelter system. With graffiti artist Zore he perfected his craft and began tagging the name KRS!. When other graffiti artists began writing similar names, KRS added a more identifying element to his tag; thus, KRS-ONE was born. In 1985, KRS-ONE met a young social worker named Scott Sterling (DJ Scott La Rock of Club Broadway International) with whom he developed a friendship, and the two formed a rap group called Boogie Down Productions. Known to many as “the Teacha,” KRS-ONE began emphasizing the knowledge component of hip-hop, called “edutaining,” through hit records like The South Bronx (1986). He also used his platform to teach hip-hop history and propel the conscious rap movement into the heart of “undaground” hip-hop. Major contributions included Criminal Minded (1987) with DJ Scott La Rock (BDP) and By All Means Necessary, which featured such songs as “Stop the Violence,” “My Philosophy,” and “J-I-M-M-Y” and tackled issues like violence prevention, the state of the recording industry, and safe sex. KRS-ONE has been a major participant in the “stop the violence movement” since 1989, and his song “Self Destruction” proved the potential for rap music as a tool for social justice. Proceeds from this song were donated to the National Urban League. A popular third album was Ghetto Music—The Blueprint of Hip-Hop. KRS-ONE was becoming increasingly frustrated with the way in which hip-hop culture was being depicted in rap music and exploited as a product, so he called on rap music’s biggest stars to form an organization called Human Education Against Lies. Joined by his friend and study partner, Dr. Zizwe Mtafuta Ukweli (Professor Z), KRS recorded a special side album entitled Civilization vs. Technology and recorded and published his fourth album, Edutainment.

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By 1992, KRS-ONE had visited more than 200 universities and presented his message of attaining health, love, awareness, and wealth through various unorthodox methods commonly found in hip-hop culture. His fifth album, Sex and Violence (1992), warned against negative effects of irresponsible sex and violence. In 1994, KRS recorded and published his sixth album Return of the Boom Bap. Subsequent albums include KRS-ONE (1995), which coined the phrase “Rap is something you do, Hip-Hop is something you live!” After the publication of the first how-to book on rap music, entitled The Science of Rap (1996), KRS announced the birth of the organization Temple of Hiphop and began expressing to the hip-hop community “I am Hip-Hop!” He explained, “Hip-Hop is not over there somewhere, external of self; Hip-Hop is our creative intelligence originating from God within self.” With I Got Next (1998) and Criminal Justice—From Darkness to Light (1999), by the Temple of Hiphop, he began to seek more political ways of empowering true hip-hoppers and hip-hop’s pioneers (graffiti artists and B-boys). KRS briefly accepted an executive position as vice-president of A&R for Reprise/Warner Records (1999–2000) and moved to Los Angeles, California, where he established a Los Angeles Temple of Hiphop membership; hosted a radio show entitled the Temple of Hiphop every Sunday night on the old 92.3 The Beat; and, as A&R, signed various artists, including Kool DJ Herc, Kool Moe Dee, and Mad Lion. He returned to New York City in 2000 and approached UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to promote hip-hop as an international culture for peace and prosperity. Currently, KRS-ONE is teaching and lecturing at the Temple of Hiphop in Los Angeles on the spiritual principles of hip-hop as a strategy toward health, love, awareness, and wealth. More recent albums include The Sneak Attack and Spiritual Minded (2001), a spoken word lecture album entitled The Fundamentals

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Kwanzaa | 613 of Hiphop (2002), Kristyles (2003), and Keep Right (2004). KRS has focused primarily on establishing hip-hop’s common spirit and was recognized by the entire hip-hop community as the “Best Live Performer of All Time.” Still a popular lecturer, KRS-One identifies a PanAfricanist orientation and describes being influenced politically by Kwame Toure. Tony Muhammed See also Bambaataa, Afrika (1957–); Hip-Hop Culture in the African Diaspora; Pan-Africanism. F URTHER R EADING Chang, Jeff. 2005. Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Fricke, Jim, Charles Ahearn, and the Experience Music Project. 2002. Yes yes Y’All: The Experience Music Project Oral History of Hip-Hop’s First Decade. New York: Da Capo Press. KRS-ONE Keep Right Web site. www.krs-one.com (accessed January 9, 2008). Light, Alan, ed. 1999. The Vibe History of Hip Hop. New York: Three Rivers Press.

z Kuti, Fela See Anikulapo-Kuti, Fela.

z Kwanzaa Kwanzaa is a Pan-African holiday started in the United States in 1966 during the midst of African struggles for equality and liberation worldwide. The holiday is a cultural celebration of African traditions and values celebrated annually from December 26 through January 1. Patterned after African harvest festivals, Kwanzaa gets its name from the Swahili phrase “matunda ya kwanza” or “first fruits.” Though

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the holiday was begun in the United States during the Black Power movement, it is based on communitarian value systems practiced in Africa for thousands of years and therefore available to all descendants of Africans regardless of where they live. As part of a larger Kawaida cultural theory, Kwanzaa is usually celebrated by people of African ancestry who are interested in reclaiming and reconstructing their cultural heritage. Kwanzaa was started by Maulana Karenga through the Organization Us and is based on five fundamental activities performed by its practitioners: (1) ingathering of the people, (2) reverence for the creator and creation, (3) commemoration of the past, (4) recommitment to the highest cultural ideas, and (5) celebration of the good. The cultural holiday is not religious and can be celebrated by Africans regardless of religious affiliation. N GUZO S ABA At its core, Kwanzaa is based on a matrix of seven governing principles that are meant to help Africans build up and reinforce the African culture and worldview. Collectively known as the Nguzo Saba, the seven principles were selected for their recurrence in communitarian African societies, their relevance to the African American struggle for equality, the cultural and spiritual importance of the number seven in African cosmology, and the manageability of this number in learning and teaching the principles. Created as an Afrocentric value system, the Nguzo Saba is also regarded as contributing to the building up and reinforcing of family within the Pan-African community. The seven principles of Kwanzaa are as follows: Umoja (unity): Umoja is the first principle; it is considered foundational in the celebration of Kwanzaa because without it, the remaining six principles suffer. Kujichagulia (self-determination): Succinctly, kujichagulia expresses the importance of self-definition and the right

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of a people to define and develop themselves outside of external influences. Ujima (collective work and responsibility): This third principle emphasizes the need for all Africans to work together on issues affecting the entire collective. As defined by Karenga, this principle regards “African” as more than an identity; it is also a duty and a responsibility. Ujamaa (cooperative economics): This principle of the Nguzo Saba stresses the relevance of shared wealth and social responsibility and is based on communitarian values. Nia (purpose): As the fifth principle of Kwanzaa, Nia is a commitment to the understanding that Africans are a people whose legacy has contributed to the world as it is known today and thereby links Africans to a specific cultural and historical identity. Kuumba (creativity): The sixth principle of the Nguzo Saba is based on African spiritual beliefs that view creativity as an imitation of the original act of the Creator. As a principle of Kwanzaa, Kuumba addresses the responsibility of Africans in making the community more beautiful than the previous generation had. Imani (faith): The final principle of the Nguzo Saba is to remind Africans that they are capable of victory. C ELEBRATION AND R ITUAL During the week of December 26 through January 1, celebrants meditate on one of the Nguzo Saba principles each day. The family usually gathers at some time during the day to discuss the principle, recommit to its basic value, and practice tambiko, or the pouring of libation from the kikombe cha umoja or unity cup. During this gathering, the family congregates in a space decorated according to Kwanzaa practice. In a central location in the family home or community institution, a mkeka (or straw mat) is placed to symbolize the cultural and

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historical foundation upon which Kwanzaa is based. On top of this mkeka are placed mazao (the crops) that symbolize the rewards of collective labor; the kinara (candleholder) symbolizing the roots of African people found on the African continent; the muhindi (ears of corn) to symbolize the children; the mishumaa saba (seven candles) to symbolize the seven principles of Kwanzaa; the kikombe cha umoja (unity cup) to symbolize unity; zawadi (gifts) to symbolize the reciprocal relationships between parents, through labor and love, and their children, through their commitments made and kept; and occasionally the bendera (flag) to symbolize the struggle (red), people (black), and the future (green). Once gathered, it is common for one to ask “Habari gani?” or “What is the news?” A oneword response is given according to the principle of the day. For example, “umoja.” Each day, candles are lit to commemorate the value of the day. Each candle in the kinara represents a single principle. The center candle is black and represents the people. This is the first candle lit during the celebration and symbolizes the principle of umoja or unity. To the left of this candle are three red candles symbolizing the principles kujichagulia, ujamaa, and kuumba. To the right of the black candle are three green candles symbolizing the principles ujima, nia, and imani. The black candle is always lit first to illustrate the understanding that the people come first. Candles are then lit left to right to show that the people come first, followed by the struggle, but that from the struggle comes hope. During the Kwanzaa celebration, if gifts are exchanged, they are usually given to children. Included in these zawadi (gifts) are always a book and some symbol of the child’s cultural heritage. Commercialization of Kwanzaa is a concern for many of its practitioners and for that reason many zawadi are handmade to avoid corporate exploitation of the holiday. The final day of celebration, January 1, is reserved for somber reflection and assessment of the preceding principles and the work of the in-

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Kwanzaa | 615 dividual in the coming year. Kwanzaa’s emphasis here is on recommitment to the restoration of African culture and sovereignty globally. Tiffany D. Pogue See also “African” in African American History; Swahili. F URTHER R EADING Karenga, Maulana. 1996. “The Nguzo Saba (the Seven Principles): Their Meaning and Mes-

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sage.” In African Intellectual Heritage: A Book of Sources, ed. Molefi Kete Asante and Abu S. Abarry, 543–558. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Karenga, Maulana. 1998. Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture, commemorative ed. Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press. Karenga, Maulana. 2003. Kawaida Theory: An African Communitarian Philosophy. Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press.

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Lam, Wilfredo (1902–1982)

portant Cuban artists. He married a second time, had many children, and split his time living in Paris and Havana until the end of his life. Christiane Falgayrettes-Leveau’s critical work in “Lam Metis,” the catalog for a retrospective on Lam’s paintings in the Dapper Museum of Paris (September 26, 2001, to January 20, 2002), is important for understanding Lam’s works within the context of African American art. She divides his works into different periods. The first, as already mentioned, covers his time in Europe from 1938 to 1942. This was a crucial period for his artistic development. The second period, which covers his time in the Caribbean from 1942 to 1944, was one of the most prolific. He painted “The Jungle” (1943), one of his masterpieces. A mixture of Native, African, and European artistic trends, this painting opens up an intertextual dialogue with the literary works of other artists such as Langston Hughes, Nicolás Guillén, Garcia Lorca, and Aimé Cesaire as well as anthropologists such as Lydia Cabrera, Fernando Ortiz, and Bronislaw Malinowski. Lam rediscovered a collective memory in a “transcultural” work of many sources: Creole motifs, Hispanic baroque elements, millenary Egyptian attitudes, and indigenous themes in an ochre and green-blue canvas of intertwined bodies with trees, plants, and organic technologies.

Wilfredo Lam was a Cuban painter whose work experimented with African Diaspora religious and cultural forms. Born in Cuba, he painted in Havana before traveling to Spain in the 1920s. From there he went to Paris and met Pablo Picasso, André Breton, and the surrealists. He participated in some exhibitions between 1938 and 1941 and closely worked with the surrealists. Afterwards he went back to Cuba in search of his African roots. Lam’s paintings evolved toward themes and forms that conceptually suggest many of the Yoruba traditions. He searched Santería sources in order to deconstruct traditional geometries, reorganizing chaos and creating his own images. Lam was initially linked to the Latin American writers identified with magical realism, but in “Wifredo Lam y su Obra” (1950), Fernando Ortiz, the Cuban intellectual expert in the African Diaspora, was one of the first to consider the intrinsic values of Lam’s paintings for Afro-Cuban traditions and contemporary art. In the 1970s, one of the most important Cuban filmmakers, Humberto Solas, made a film in which the painter described his own life from early childhood to maturity. The painter was already acclaimed as one of the most im617 www.abc-clio.com

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Another painting, “The Eternal Present” (1944), anticipates the anthropomorphic and hybrid forms and enigmatic shapes and images (the elegguas, or private altars of Santería practitioners) of his future works. In the third period, from 1945 to 1947, Lam shows a native modernity, a métissage (mixture) going to the African spiritual sources. The rites and practices of Christian mythologies and Vodoun are present in another major work, “The Wedding” (1947). On a blue-gray canvas, three black and white horse-like figures combined with feminine bodies face each other in a ceremony staged in a triangular form. The sexual organs and upside-down middle figure (a kind of female priest) portray a fantastic setting of archaic and millenary traditions. In the fourth period, from 1947 to 1960, Lam exhibited in Paris and acquired an international reputation as a major avant-garde artist. In “Belial, the Emperor of Flies” (1948) he continues with the themes and techniques of the former period by creating an intratextual self-referencing symbolic environment with a kind of symphony of shapes and movement, which continues in “Great Composition I” (1949) and “Luguanda Yembe” (1950). It is in the fifth period, from 1960 to 1970, that Lam’s most spectacular mythical abstract works appear: “Tropic of Capricorn” (1961) and “The Guests” (1966). From 1970 to 1982, Lam dedicated a great part of his life to creating masks and sculptures. Fco. Javier Rabasso See also Art in the African Diaspora; Cesaire, Aimé (1913–2008); Guillén, Nicolás (1902– 1989); Hughes, Langston (1902–1967); Ortiz, Fernando (1881–1969); Santería; Vodoun. F URTHER R EADING Balderamma, Maria, ed. 1993. Wilfredo Lam and His Contemporaries, 1938–1952. New York: Studio Museum in Harlem. Sims, Lowery Stokes. 2002. Wilfredo Lam and the International Avant-Garde, 1923–1982. Austin: University of Texas Press.

z www.abc-clio.com

Lamming, George (1927–) George Lamming is one of the Caribbean writers whose creative vision and intellectual and political work have embraced the African Diaspora. His The Pleasures of Exile (1960) is cited as a foundational text in colonial discourse studies. Born in 1927, in Carrington Village, St. Michael, George Lamming is a Caribbean intellectual, literary artist, teacher, poet, novelist, broadcaster, and critic. He is the author of several literary works: In the Castle of My Skin (1953), The Emigrants (1954), Of Age and Innocence (1958), Season of Adventure (1960), Water with Berries (1971), Natives of My Person (1972), Conversations, Essays and Interviews 1953–90 (edited with Richard Drayton and Andaiye), and Coming Coming Home: Conversations 11 (1995). As one of the group of writers who became popular after their migration to London in the 1950s, Lamming documents the creation of the African Diaspora experience in the United Kingdom. Lamming has received several awards in recognition of his work, including the Guggenheim Fellowship, a Martin Luther King Fellowship, the Langston Hughes Festival Award, and the Henry Sylvester Williams (Trinidad) Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Pan-African Century. In 1987, he received the Barbados Companion of Honour for distinguished national achievement and merit. He has also been awarded honorary doctorates by the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, and the City University of New York. On September 19, 2006, Lamming was honored in Paris with the DuBois Memorial Medal, which commemorates the life and works of W. E. B. DuBois, the Pan-Africanist, philosopher, and historian. The event also coincides with the 50th anniversary of the first Congrès International des Ecrivains et Artistes Noirs. Lamming was the youngest writer and intellectual attending that first congress. At present Lamming is a visiting professor in comparative literature and creative writing at

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Langston, John Mercer (1829–1897) | 619 the Africana Studies Department of Rhode Island’s Brown University in the United States. Esther Phillips See also Barbados: African Cultural Elements; Caribbean Migrations: Caribbean Diaspora; Pan-Africanism; United Kingdom: The African Diaspora; World Congress of Black Writers and Artists. F URTHER R EADING Forbes, Curdella. 2005. From Nation to Diaspora: Samuel Selvon, George Lamming and the Cultural Performance of Gender. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. Nair, Supriya. 1996. Caliban’s Curse: George Lamming and the Revisioning of History. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Thiong’o, Ngugi wa. 1972. Homecoming: Essays on African and Caribbean Literature, Culture and Politics. London: Heinemann.

z Langston, John Mercer (1829–1897) John Mercer Langston, abolitionist, diplomat, and educator, participated in the Underground Railroad, was one of the first African Americans elected to Congress, and is credited with establishing two predominantly black educational institutions. Born free on December 14, 1829, in Louisa County, Virginia, to a white plantation owner and an emancipated African–Native American woman, Langston moved with his siblings to Chillicothe, Ohio, at the age of four to live with family friends after the deaths of his parents. There, in 1849, he became the fifth black man to graduate from Oberlin College. He also received his master’s degree in theology at the school but was denied admittance to Oberlin’s law school (and others, such as Albany Law School, which would admit him only if he pretended to be something other than black). Undeterred, Langston studied under a local attorney and, on September 13, 1854, became the

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first black lawyer admitted to the Ohio bar. While in Ohio, he became perhaps the first black publicly elected official as the town clerk of Brownhelm, an Oberlin city councilman and member of the board of education, and a leader of the state Republican Party. Nationally, Langston participated heavily in the black rights movement before and after the U.S. Civil War, becoming perhaps the second most notable black figure during that period, after Frederick Douglass. He organized the National Equal Rights League, participated in the Underground Railroad, helped John Brown plan his raid on Harpers Ferry, and organized at least two regiments of black volunteers for the Civil War (the Massachusetts 54th and 55th). After war’s end, Langston moved to Washington D.C., where he served private associations, government, and educational institutions. He was the educational inspector general for the Freedman’s Bureau; the U.S. minister and consul general of Haiti from 1877 to 1885; the organizer and first dean of Howard University’s law department (now Howard University School of Law), the country’s first black law school; and later president of Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute (now Virginia State University). Langston defended himself twice from attacks by a Democratic Party intent on minimizing his influence. While a diplomat in Haiti, a Democratic-controlled Congress voted to decrease his pay by more than 30 percent. Langston argued his case before the U.S. Supreme Court (U.S. v. Langston, 118 U.S. 389) in 1886. Three years later, in 1889, he ran as an independent candidate and became the first African American popularly elected to Congress from the state of Virginia, although he was only able to take his seat after a year’s battle against the Democratic Party’s losing candidate and their members of Congress. Langston died on November 15, 1897, in Washington, D.C. Named after him are the town of Langston, Oklahoma; Langston University; the poet Langston Hughes (his grandnephew); and numerous schools, parks, and a

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golf course in Washington, D.C. He is the author of a volume of works entitled Freedom and Citizenship and an autobiography, From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol. Reprints of his speeches are available on the Oberlin College Web site. Andre L. Smith See also Howard University; Hughes, Langston (1902–1967); Langston University and HBCUs. F URTHER R EADING Cheek, William, and Aimee Lee Cheek. 1989. John Mercer Langston and the Fight for Black Freedom 1829–65. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Langston, John Mercer. 1969. From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol. New York: Arno Press. Smith, J. Clay, Jr. 1993. Emancipation: The Making of the Black Lawyer 1844–1944. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

z Langston University and HBCUs Langston University is one of the 117 historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) that are predominantly located in the U.S. South that have links to the African Diaspora. Of the 27 colleges and universities in the state of Oklahoma, Langston stands alone as the only predominantly black university. Though more than 10 HBCUs were founded between 1854 and 1888, Langston University was founded in 1897. Langston’s founding was essentially based on the 1890 Morrill Act through which a variety of land-grant colleges were established (Sagini 1996). Land-grant colleges were originally designed to offer mechanical, agricultural, and vocational education to citizens and communities of rural America. This original mission has been significantly expanded at Langston.

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Langston University is a traditionally nonresearch and predominantly four-year historically black university in Oklahoma in the second century of its existence. On the one-year anniversary of Oklahoma statehood, April 22, 1890, the city of Langston was officially established. Its development and planning was carried out by its founders, one of whom was a prominent African American, Edwin P. McCabe, who was also influential in selecting the current site for Langston University. In 1892, the city of Langston had a population of 600 and 25 retail businesses, a common school, two attorneys, five churches, and a newspaper. The school’s enrollment was 135. Because African Americans were not allowed to attend any of the institutions of higher education in Oklahoma Territory, black citizens appeared before the Oklahoma Industrial School and College Commission in July 1892 to petition that Langston should have a college for black people. Eventually, Territorial Governor William Gary Renfrow, who had vetoed a civil rights bill that would have disregarded segregation, proposed a reform bill establishing the university, which was founded as a land-grant college under the auspices of the Morrill Act of 1890. The school was officially established by House Bill 1521 on March 12, 1897, as the Colored Agricultural and Normal University. Langston University has a rural, international, and urban mission. Students are awarded two-year, baccalaureate, and master’s degrees in the arts, sciences, business, and education. The school of physical therapy graduates students with a doctorate. University students who seek admission are influenced by the locale, size, tuition cost, areas of study, and degrees offered. They are also interested in its ability to provide Greek organizations, sports, athletics, music, and internship programs. Langston University rationalizes seven historically and universally established schools of thought upon which the curriculum is based: the functionalist, accommodationist, liberal, reconstructionist, Africanist, black nationalist, and

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Langston University and HBCUs | 621 integrationist (Sagini 1996) models. Some of these schools of thought have historically either colonized or liberated and uplifted or debased the development of the African American students. The demand for intelligent and trained leadership within the African American post– Civil War community dictated the need and tempo for the evolution of black colleges and universities in the United States. The 1890 Morrill Act was an extension of the 1861 institutional blueprints that became the foundation for 19th-century American vocational, mechanical, agricultural, and consumer economy. The undergraduate institutions that were created during that time included Lincoln (1854), Wilberforce (1856), Atlanta University (1865), Fisk (1867), Morgan State (1867), Morehouse (1867), Howard (1868), Hampton Institute (1868), Tougaloo (1871), Jackson State College (1877), and Langston University (1897). Although most of those institutions were private, Langston and several other colleges were public land-grant universities. In 1979, Langston University’s 14th president, Dr. Earnest Holloway, took the helm and restored stability to the office and to the university after some years of internal problems. The immediate challenge was implementing the new urban mission that had been assigned to Langston University in 1978 by the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education as one component of Oklahoma’s plan for compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The intent of the new institutional mission was not only to give the university a new image and new thrust but also to make it a more integral and rational part of the total higher education effort in the state of Oklahoma. Langston University cultivates a scientific orientation, and on April 22, 2002, the Office of Scholarly and Scientific Research came to fruition. At Langston University, there are two complementary elements of what constitutes university-related research. First, there is the E. Kika de la Garza Institute for Goat Research, which is a federally and state funded and inde-

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pendent experimental station that has existed for 16 years and is known throughout the state, nation, and abroad. In support of the Angora Goat Program, 160 acres of land were purchased. Second, there is LUISSO—Langston University International, Scholarly and Scientific Organization—an organization of international scholars and scientists who have become the engine and nucleus of research productivity. Langston has also been officially adopted by the Federal Aviation Administration to provide support to the Department of Technology, which has resulted in the establishment of a bachelor’s degree in airway science, a cooperative effort with Oklahoma State University. The university also publishes The Journal of Scholarly and Scientific Research annually. The goals and objectives of Langston University are an analytical by-product of the educational, sociocultural, and historic-political evolution of the African American community in America. These goals and objectives are enshrined in the institution’s mission statement (Langston University Catalog 1996–1998). The institution offers associate, baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral degrees that are at the same time accredited by state, regional, and national accreditation agencies. The multicampus institution has locations at Langston, Tulsa, and Oklahoma City, but its academic heart is at Langston. Currently, LUISSO’s professorial participants have direct, cultural, nationality, and intellectual roots in the United States, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Kenya, Zambia, South Africa, Israel, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Zaire (Congo Democratic Republic), and Australia. Indirectly, many of them have European, African, and African American intellectual traditions. Such a diverse, experienced, and intellectually gifted group of professors and administrators has started to generate scholarly research that is second to none. In miniature, the historically evolutionary administrative, philosophical, and academic development of Langston University shows how Africa has, both voluntarily and involuntary,

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exponentially and geometrically, expanded through diffusion and fusion. Meshack Sagini See also Howard University; Lincoln University; Langston, John Mercer (1829–1897). F URTHER R EADING Appadurai, A. 1999. “Globalization and the Research Imagination. International Social Science Journal vol: 229–238. Ebony. 2005. Historically Black Colleges and Universities. 9th ed. Patterson, Z. J. B. 1979. Langston University: A History. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Sagini, M. M. 1996. The African and the AfricanAmerican University: A Historical and Sociological Analysis. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

z Latin American Hip-Hop See Hip-Hop, Latin American.

z Latino, Juan (ca. 1516–1606) Juan Latino, celebrated African Latin poet and scholar of the Spanish renaissance, was born in Guinea (West Africa) in 1516. There are some unfounded speculations that he was born in Spain; but, as he himself writes, “hic scriptor nec fuit orbe natus, Aethiopum terries venit” (“this writer was not born in the region, he came from the country of the Ethiopians”). In 1528, at the age of 12, he was sold into slavery and sent with his mother (of whom we know very little) to Baena, Spain. They became the property of a noblewoman, Doña Elvira, whose father (Gonzalo Fernádez of Cordoba) was a leading Spanish general with the title gran Capitán. Dona Elvira gave the young Juan the name Juan de Sessa after her own husband, the second Duke of Sessa. Detailed to look after www.abc-clio.com

Dona Elvira’s son, Don Gonzalez Fernádez (the third Duke), Juan’s main task was to fetch schoolbooks for his young master, who was then eight years younger than he was. When the family moved to Granada in 1530, Juan not only continued to fetch his master’s books, but he also read the books and participated in the lessons in Latin and Greek at the cathedral school. He displayed such superior talent and such excellence in the lessons that he was eventually appointed his master’s tutor. Later, Juan entered the newly founded University of Granada, where—because of his love for Latin—he assumed the surname Latino. Latino earned a bachelor of arts degree from Granada in 1546 and became a professor there (1556) after taking higher degrees. Later, in 1565, he won the university’s highest honor when his Latin address (now presumably lost) opened the academic year. Latino also distinguished himself as a musician, playing the organ, lute, guitar, “and other strange things” (y otras cosa curiosas) believed to be African musical instruments (Jahn 1968). His popularity in the city enabled him to become acquainted with Don Carlobal, a graduate of the university, councilor, and judge. Latino tutored Carlobal’s daughter, Doña Ana, in Latin, and the two fell in love during the conjugation of “amo, amas, amat.” The couple was later married—a happy union that produced four children (in 1549, 1552, 1556, and 1559). It has been said of Latino that “his life . . . spanned the greatest period in Spain’s history, and he was a shining light of the Spanish Renaissance” (Jahn 1968). Latino was born in the year Emperor Charles V ascended the throne and gave up his professorial chair in 1586, two years before England’s defeat of the Armada. During this period, he formed close friendships with Spanish nobility and literati, among them Don Juan of Austria (son of Charles V), whose great victory over the Turks at Lepanto inspired Latino’s best-known extant work, the long praise poem Austrias, otherwise known as The Austriad, first published in 1573 and reprinted in 1576 and 1585. His other works

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Lawrence, Jacob (1917–2000) | 623 include the poem Epigrammatum Liber (1571), composed to celebrate the birth of Prince Ferdinand; a praise poem, Translatione (1585), eulogizing Philip II’s fatherly devotion to his son, the prince; and a short poem in honor of his former master and benefactor, the Duke of Sessa (d. 1579). Latino wrote in high scholarly style, but his main work, Austrias, has been compared to an African praise poem. In it, classical allusions transforming Spanish heroes into ancient deities are mixed with apparent memories of African traditional beliefs, for example, reincarnation (“in him seems now resurrected”) as well as “ancestor veneration, fertility rites, and queen mothers” (Jahn 1968). It is remarkable that Juan’s complete assimilation into Spanish culture did not blind him to racial issues, and there is clear evidence of cultural nationalist impulses, anticipating the Négritude tradition, in some lines from Austrias. Interestingly, too, the epitaph he wrote for his own tombstone bears the unmistakable tone of the boast or self-praise in the African oral poetic tradition. Cervantes immortalized Latino as “The Negro Juan Latino” in his celebrated chivalric romance, Don Quixote; Lope de Vega mentions the circumstance of Latino’s falling in love with Doña Ana; and Jiménez de Enciso wrote a comedy (Comedia Famosa de Juan Latino) about the incident. Latino died in 1606 and was buried next to his wife, Doña Ana de Carlobal. Chukwuma Azuonye See also Europe and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Azuonye, Chukwuma, and Steven Serafin, eds. Forthcoming. The Columbia Anthology of African Literature. New York: Columbia University Press. Dathorne, O. R. 1974. The Black Mind: A History of African Literature. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Herdeck, Donald E. 1974. African Authors: A Companion to Black African Writing, Volume 1: 1300–1973. Washington, D.C: Inscape Corporation.

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Irele, F. Abiola, and Simon Gikandi, eds. 2004. The Cambridge History of Africa and Caribbean Literature. 2 vols. Cambridge University Press. Jahn, Janheinz. 1968. Neo-African Literature: A History of Black Writing. New York: Grove. Jahn Janheinz, Ulla Schild, and Almut Nordmann. 1972. Who’s Who in African Literature: Biographies, Works, Commentaries. Tübingen, Germany: Horst Erdmann Verlag.

z Lawrence, Jacob (1917–2000) Jacob Lawrence, a visual storyteller and prolific artist, used art to engage history, culture, politics, and labor. By experimenting with materials and techniques, expanding popular constructions of subjects and places, and challenging racial divisions in the art world, Lawrence crossed many boundaries. Resisting formal identification with particular art forms, he engaged multiple traditions—cubism, expressionism, social realism, and abstractionism. Experimenting with materials such as tempera, watercolor, and gouache, his work fused such diverse forms as Mexican muralism and African art. Lawrence, the oldest child of Jacob and Rosalee Lawrence, was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on September 7, 1917. After his parents’ breakup, Lawrence and his mother moved to New York City. Although he quit high school after two years, he cultivated an interest in art at the Utopia Children’s Home, the Harlem Arts Workshop, and the 306 group. Painter Charles Alston, an instructor at the Harlem Workshop, was instrumental to Lawrence’s development, renting him studio space and introducing him to other artists. Within these circles, Lawrence met poet Langston Hughes, collage artist Romare Bearden (a lifelong friend), sculptor Augusta Savage, and artist Gwendolyn Knight (whom he married in 1941). Despite facing economic hardships

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Painting by Jacob Lawrence from his Migration of the Negro series, depicts African Americans migrating north during World War I. (National Archives)

during the Depression, Lawrence flourished and premiered his Toussaint L’ Ouverture series at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1939. Emphasizing cultural pride, historical recovery, and the tenets and values of the New Negro Movement and the Harlem Renaissance, Lawrence produced three more historical narrative series: Frederick Douglass (1939), Harriet Tubman (1940), and John Brown (1941). Covering issues ranging from civil rights to education, social life, and rituals, Lawrence drew on the landscapes that surrounded him as a child and other places he encountered throughout his life. Sketching images of living rooms, streets, pool halls, and libraries, Lawrence believed places had the power to connect and give meaning to the experiences of individuals and communities. In 1940, a Rosenwald Foundation fellowship allowed Lawrence to travel, paint, and begin to research a new project, The Migration of the Negro. The Migration series (1941), his most critically ac-

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claimed series, was the first black art exhibition shown at the Downtown Gallery in New York. Panels from the series were also reproduced in Fortune magazine. In the Migration series, Lawrence illustrates the migration stories of his family and community. Lawrence’s family was among the millions of black Southerners who relocated from the South to the North during the Great Migration (1910–1940). Drawing on oral history, interviews, and archival research, he acknowledges the push/pull factors of migration while underscoring black choice and humanity in the midst of poverty and racial violence. Although much of his early work explored Harlem’s landscape and residents, Lawrence was also committed to exploring the transnational dimensions of black life. In the 1960s he traveled to Nigeria, an experience that inspired drawings and paintings on African life. These were also guided by his commitment to portraying black life in an honest and complex

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Legba | 625 manner. Although most known for his serial narratives, Lawrence continued to experiment with forms, colors, techniques, and subjects until his death. Folashadé Alao See also Art in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Bearden, Romare, and Harry Henderson. 1993. A History of African American Artists from 1972 to Present. New York: Pantheon Books. Dubois, Michelle, and Peter Nesbett, eds. 2000. Over the Line: The Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Turner, Elizabeth Hutton, ed. 1993. Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series. Exhibit catalog. Washington, D.C. Rappahannock Press in association with the Phillips Collection. Wheat, Ellen Harkins. 1986. Jacob Lawrence: An American Painter. Seattle: University of Washington Press in association with the Seattle Art Museum.

z Legba Often referred to as “keeper of the gates” and “keeper of the crossroads,” Legba is the Lwa (force over deity/divinity) that sustains communication among all of the Lwas and between the Lwas and devotees in the Haitian and African Diasporan Vodoun tradition. Under the direction of a mambo (a female Vodoun priest) or a houngan (a male Vodoun priest), vodunsi gather to incite communication with the Lwas through rituals or sacred gatherings that take place in the houmfort, a sacred ritual space characterized by a potomitan (pole) in its center. To begin each ritual, participants must first appease Legba through song and dance. On the floor of the houmfort, the mambo or houngan scripts Legba’s kwasiyen (cross). These initial ritual activities collectively signal the Vodoun devotees’ desire for Legba to “open the way” for transcendence. Once the Lwas re-

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ceive the Vodoun devotees’ desires, Legba facilitates communication among the Lwas to organize the order in which each will “cross” into the potomitan through which the Lwas can then enter the Vodoun devotees. Entering their consciousness, the Lwas use several Vodoun devotees as vehicles to speak to other ritual participants about their individual, familial, and collective destinies. Transcended devotees, moreover, experience a momentary, yet eternal oneness with the Lwa. Legba is therefore the medium for this sacred gathering of renewal, rebirth, and redirection, and without Legba the transcendent communication would be impossible. Legba’s origins are linked by scholars to the Fon (Dahomey) and Nago (Yoruba) cultural groupings of West Africa. Within the Fon cosmology in particular, the creator Mawu-Lisa creates the Vodoun (Fon forces in existence/ deities/divinities), the universe, and human existence in four moments of time. Represented as the literal sun and a metaphorical cross, the path of creation is a cycle in which all existence adheres. The horizontal line symbolizes the realm of human existence, and the vertical line represents access to the realm of the Vodoun (Desmangles 1992). Mawu-Lisa fashions Legba as the primary Vodoun who ensures that the Fon peoples will fulfill their “Fa” or individual, familial, and collective eternal destinies in accordance with the cyclical path of the four moments of the sun and the cross. In this way, Legba allows reciprocal communication to occur between the horizontal realm of human existence and the vertical realm of the many Vodoun (Herskovits and Herskovits 1964). Legba’s symbols therefore are the sun and the cross, both of which symbolize renewal, reconnection, renewal, rebirth, and redirection. With the forced merging of enslaved Fon, Nago, Bakongo, and other African cultural groupings in what is now contemporary Haiti, these African traditions have survived collectively as the contemporary Vodoun tradition of Haiti and the African Diaspora. While

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within the Fon tradition the Vodoun were the forces in existence, or deities/divinities, Haitian Vodoun practitioners replaced the Fon term “Vodoun” with the Bakongo term “Lwa.” Furthermore, merging these African cultural groupings brought about two major families of Lwas with Haitian Vodoun, the subtle and nurturing Rada Lwas and the more obvious and retributive Petro Lwas. Legba as Rada Lwa incurred only minor transformation among Haitian and other African Diasporan Vodounists. Anthropomorphic representations of Legba among the Fon and Nago are those of a youthful male with erect phallus representing the insistent cyclical path of the possibilities for them to regenerate their relationship with and reliance on the Vodoun. Legba as Rada Lwa among Vodoun devotees becomes aged Papa Legba who now walks slowly with a cane, smokes a pipe, and carries a knapsack of food. A necessary transmitter of cultural continuation, yet contemporary cosmological significance, in this diasporic representation, Rada Legba expresses the very moribund human situation in which the Vodoun devotees find themselves. That is, Papa Legba represents the Haitians who have slowly journeyed a long tiresome path far from home, Africa, and who have struggled and endured down the long cyclical path toward fulfilling their destiny back to their ancestral home, across the vertical line, by trying to feel, think, and behave according to the desires of the Lwa. If Papa Legba has remained “keeper of the gate” and “keeper of the crossroads,” then Kafou Legba, the Petro Lwa manifestation of Legba, has functioned in Vodoun as the Lwa that necessarily “tries” devotees’ souls in response to their problematic decisions or actions, often causing seeming confusion and chaos in their lives. Papa Legba is therefore the sun and the cross, Kafou Legba is the moon and moments in between the cross that jolt devotees seemingly off their destined path (Deren 1972). Yet, as the sun and moon are celestial complements, the sun providing light during the day and the

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moon emitting the sun’s rays as night, so too is Kafou Legba the necessary reflection of Papa Legba’s activities toward fulfilling his people’s daily and eternal destiny. Sekhmet Ra Em Kht Maat (Cher Love McAllister) See also Haiti; Santería; Vodoun. F URTHER R EADING Deren, Maya. 1972. The Divine Horseman: The Vodoo Gods of Haiti. New York: Delta Publishing. Desmangles, Leslie G. 1992. The Faces of the Gods: Vodou and Roman Catholicism in Haiti. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Herskovits, Melville, and Herskovits, Frances. 1964. “An Outline of Dahomean Religious Belief.” In Memoirs, ed. American Anthropological Association. New York: Kraus Reprint Corporation. Laguerre, Michel S. 1980. Voodoo Heritage. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Mambo Mazama, Ama. 2004. “Vodou.” In The Encyclopedia of Black Studies, ed. Molefi Asante and Ama Mazama. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Mercier, Paul.1999. “The Fon of Dahomey.” In African Worlds: Studies in the Cosmological Ideas and Social Values of African Peoples, ed. Daryll Forde. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Metraux, Alfred. 1959. Voodoo in Haiti. New York: Schocken Books.

z Légitime défense In 1932, a group of Martinicans studying in France published a single issue of an anti-imperialist revue entitled Légitime défense (“legitimate self-defense”), which explored African influences, surrealism, and communism as sources for a new Martinican literature. Though it was limited by its ideologies and consequently suppressed, Légitime défense served as an important point of departure for a new Caribbean

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Liberia | 627 poetics and for the Négritude movement. Like many colonized students of the 1930s, the authors had gone to Paris to finish their studies, leaving behind an island whose elite sought to be Europeanized only to discover a continent in artistic, social, and political turmoil whose most innovative found inspiration in “primitive” Africa. These Martinicans participated in an era of cultural discovery through contact with African students in Paris and through study of the works of European ethnographers, surrealist writers, and cubist painters who were glorifying African cultures. In its first and only issue the Martinican collective questioned the main premises of their black bourgeoisie class: distance from African cultures, a French education, assimilation to French mores, and economic success through capitalism. The writers recognized the limitations of their audience and of their own educational background for their project, but they hoped nevertheless to lay the groundwork for a future, nonassimilated literature in the French-speaking Caribbean. The revue opens with a manifesto, or warning, proclaiming the importance of surrealism and communism as tools of black liberation. It lists as its sources the Third International Communist Party, the 1926 and 1932 surrealist manifestos of Breton, and the work of prominent European surrealist writers and artists. The authors also gesture to Hegel, Lautréamont, Rimbaud, and Freud as influential forefathers. Four signed articles on varied Caribbean political and literary topics follow the opening manifesto: a critique of the bourgeoisie of color by Jules-Marcel Monnerot, an economic analysis of educational disparities in Martinique by Maurice-Sabas Quitman, a critical study of contemporary Caribbean writers of color by René Ménil, and finally an attack on assimilated Martinican poetics by Etienne Léro. Léro also initialed an editorial, sarcastically entitled “Civilisation,” on the contemporary Scottsboro trial in the United States, which criticizes the ineffective response of the American black press

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and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and advocates communism as means to escape racism. The revue also included a French translation of an excerpt from Claude MacKay’s Banjo showing an assimilated Martinican who is criticized by a young African American for using his French education to look down on his own people. Inserted after this text is an unsigned commentary on the status of scholarships in Martinique. The revue finishes with 15 poems. Those by Léro and Ménil demonstrate their readings of surrealists and 19th-century poets; those by J. M. Monnerot and Simone Yoyotte could be argued as reaching toward the poetic ideals introduced in the revue’s critical essays. Kara Rabbitt See also Black Paris/Paris Noir; Négritude. F URTHER R EADING Kesteloot, Lilyan. 1974. Black Writers in French: A Literary History of Negritude, trans. Ellen Conroy Kennedy. Philadephia: Temple University Press. Ménil, René. 1979. “Préface.” Légitime défense. Paris: Jean-Michel Place. Pandolfi, Jean. 1980. “De Légitime défense à Tropiques; Invitation à la découverte.” Europe 612: 97–107. Rabbitt, Kara. 2002. “Cultural Genealogies and Pre-Negritude Africanicity in Légitime défense.” SORAC Journal of African Studies 2: 1–16.

z Les Ballets Africains See African Ballet, The.

z Liberia Liberia’s importance to the African Diaspora lies in its history as a haven for New World Africans,

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mainly from the United States, but also from the Caribbean. It was a place where Africans fleeing oppression in the New World could start new lives. Consequently, a Diaspora in reverse took place for several decades in the 19th century. Located on the Atlantic Coast, east of Sierra Leone, south of Guinea, and west of the Ivory Coast, Liberia occupies 43,000 square miles of territory. A coastline with mangrove swamps, plateaus, lagoons, wooded hills, and tropical forests characterizes its terrain. Its original inhabitants, among which were the Bassa, Gola, Kpelle, Gbandi, Mandingo, Krahn, Mano, Dei, Vai, and Kru, were joined at the beginning of the 19th century by African American immigrants. Although little is known of the history of Liberia in the period before African Americans settled there, historical and anthropological evidence points to a settled population by the 12th century. The indigenous populations engaged mainly in agricultural production as well as iron smelting and gold mining. Long-distance trade was also a significant enterprise in the era before outside contact. By the early 19th century, the Gola and Mandingo Condo Confederation dominated the region that would be settled by black Americans. In 1816, the American Colonization Society (ACS), founded by the Reverend Robert Finley from New Jersey, sought to find a solution to the growing free black population in the United States. The society’s stated aim was to alleviate the condition of free Africans in the United States by providing them with the option to emigrate in order to escape discrimination and oppression. Supported by many southern slaveholders, in 1821 the ACS sent out its first group of emigrants. This small group became the foundation of what was later to become Liberia, and during the 19th century, African Americans continued to migrate to the settlement in West Africa. Africans captured from slave ships bound for the Americas after the trade in humans was legally abolished augmented the colony’s population. Over time, migrants from the Caribbean and other parts of Africa joined these immigrants.

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Liberia became an independent nation in July 1847, adopting a republican form of government. Over the next hundred years, Americo-Liberians continued to expand further inland, incorporating indigenous populations, sometimes violently, into the nation state. The black settlers re-created many elements of their American experience and retained many of its cultural aspects, including housing and dress styles. Furthermore, they brought with them a strong Christian religious tradition. Liberians continue to be largely Christian, although a significant number practice indigenous African religions and there is a small Muslim population. Historically, Liberia’s political system was made up of an executive and a legislative branch, with a judicial system in place. At the head of the executive branch was the president. The legislative branch consisted of a 30-seat Senate and a 64-seat House of Representatives, modeled somewhat on the American system of government. The judicial system consisted of a Supreme Court with criminal, appeals, and magistrate courts. Mayors administered the country’s principal towns, and a traditional system of chieftaincy government persisted among many of the indigenous populations. Although the government of Liberia was dominated by Americo-Liberians, under President William Tubman greater national integration occurred, allowing for indigenous Liberian participation in the nation’s future. In the late 20th century, the country began an era of political turmoil that disrupted Liberia’s system of government. The era saw a large number of Liberians, especially the descendants of African American immigrants, marginalized and displaced. Americo-Liberian dominance in politics ended on April 12, 1980, with a coup by Samuel K. Doe, from the Krahn ethnic group. Under Doe and later Charles Taylor, who toppled Doe’s government in 1989, Liberia experienced turbulence and violent wars. A civil war in the 1990s forced many to flee, creating a significant Liberian refugee

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“Lift Every Voice and Sing” | 629 population in West Africa and a new diaspora abroad. Liberia’s population is currently about 3.5 million. The 14-year civil war in the country greatly affected the economy and, until recently, there has been little economic activity in Liberia. Most of the country’s labor force is engaged in agriculture, producing rubber, cocoa, palm oil, coffee, rice, and cassava. Industry and service make up a small sector of the country’s economy. Despite its high poverty rate, Liberia remains rich in natural resources. Before the war, Liberia’s economy was largely dependent on its rubber industry and exports of timber, diamonds, iron ore, tin, and gold. Since 1989, Liberia’s social structure has been largely disrupted by the civil war, though social institutions within the country continued to function. There are distinctions and differences in the social and cultural institutions of Liberians, based on ethnicity, gender, class, and religion. The family remains the basic social unit of most Liberians, although the upheaval of war has led to the breakup of many families. As in other parts of Africa and the African Diaspora, kinship relationships remain central to how Liberians relate to each other. Practices and patterns differ among the different ethnic groups. For instance, marriage customs among the largely Christian population of Americo-Liberians require monogamous relations, while other ethnic groups practice polygyny. Significant differences are also evident between rural and urban Liberians; the latter are more educated and engage in more service-oriented industries, and the former are mainly engaged in agriculture. Gender divisions are also evident in Liberian society and are often influenced by ethnicity and class. The Americo-Liberian population has always had a significant number of educated women who, if not equal to their male counterparts, have held their own in society and its institutions, civil and governmental. During the recent turmoil, women showed themselves to be resilient and empowered, standing up as leaders in the

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struggle for change. A peace agreement reached in August 2004 ended the civil war in Liberia, leading to democratic elections in 2005. The elections, seen to be free and fair, resulted in the election of Africa’s first female president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Nemata Blyden See also Africa; Pan-Africanism. F URTHER R EADING Beyan, Amos Jones. 2005. African American Settlements in West Africa: John Brown Russwurm and the American Civilizing Efforts. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Dunn, D. Elwood, and Svend E. Holsoe. 1985. Historical Dictionary of Liberia. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. Moran, Mary H. 2006. Liberia: The Violence of Democracy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Shick, Tom W. 1980. Behold the Promised Land: A History of Afro-American Settler Society in Nineteenth-century Liberia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

z “Lift Every Voice and Sing” The song “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was written by the Johnson brothers and is commonly known as the black national anthem. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) adopted the song as the organization’s official anthem in the 1920s. “Lift Every Voice and Sing” is one of the most influential songs written by and for African Americans. In 1896, J. Rosamond Johnson wrote the music while his brother, James Weldon Johnson, wrote the lyrics to the song in Jacksonville, Florida. “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was dedicated to Booker T. Washington, the founder of Tuskegee Institute, and was written in celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday (Johnson 1933; Gaines 1996). The song was performed for the first time by 500 schoolchildren from the Stanton School,

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where James Weldon Johnson was the principal, and the Florida Baptist Academy, where J. Rosamond Johnson taught music (Johnson 1933; The History of Florida Normal and Industrial Institute). The lyrics resonated with the collective group memory of the horrors of slavery and embodied the ideals of the uplift ideology of an unwavering commitment to hope, freedom, and social progress. Lift ev’ry voice and sing, till earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of liberty; Let our rejoicing rise high as the list’ning skies, Let it resound loud as the rolling sea. Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us; Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us, Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, Let us march on till victory is won.

z Lincoln, Abbey (1930–)

After its first performance the song became incredibly popular in the black community. Schoolchildren around the South sang it in assemblies, and churches adopted the song for church services. Performances of the song also occurred during official events such as programs honoring African American heroes and banquets sponsored by the NAACP and other civil rights and self-help organizations (Southern 1971). By the 1920s the song was so widely favored by the black community that it became known as the negro national anthem and in the 1960s as the black national anthem. Paula Marie Seniors See also Florida Memorial University; Johnson, J. Rosamond (1873–1954); Johnson, James Weldon (1871–1938). F URTHER R EADING Bond, Julian, and Sandra Kathryn Wilson. 2000. Lift Every Voice and Sing. New York: Random House.

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Gaines, Kevin G. 1996. Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. “The History of Florida Normal and Industrial Institute.” Florida Normal and Industrial Bulletin 50th Anniversary Catalog. 1941–1942. Florida Memorial College Archives, Miami. Johnson, James Weldon. 1933. Along This Way: The Autobiography of James Weldon Johnson. New York: Viking Press, 1933. Southern, Eileen. 1971. The Music of Black Americans. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Abbey Lincoln, also known as Aminata Moseka, is an actress, singer, composer, painter, and poet. She was born Anna Marie Wooldridge on August 6, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois. Lincoln, the tenth of twelve children, grew up on a farm in the township of Calvin Center, Michigan. As a youth Lincoln played the family piano and sang in the choir at the African Methodist Episcopal church her family attended. At age 14 she was deeply affected by the recordings she heard of Billie Holiday and Coleman Hawkins, so after winning an amateur singing contest in 1949, she traveled to California with her brother and sang as a nightclub performer in Los Angeles. Then, in 1951, she moved to Honolulu where she sang with the Rampart Streeters at the Trade Winds Club. There she met Louis Armstrong and attended several Billie Holiday performances at the Brown Derby. Upon her return to California in 1954, Lincoln was performing under the names Gaby Lee and Gaby Marie at various supper clubs, such as the Moulin Rouge. Soon she joined the company of Jose Ferrer, Rosemary Clooney, and Mitch Miller who introduced her to lyricist Bob Russell. Russell later became her man-

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Lincoln, Abbey (1930–) | 631 ager and suggested that the singer change her name to Abbey Lincoln. Their collaboration culminated in Abbey Lincoln’s Affair: A Story of a Girl in Love (1956), the singer’s first recording with the Benny Carter orchestra. Three subsequent albums were That’s Him (1957), It’s Magic (1958), and Abbey Is Blue (1959). In 1957, Lincoln appeared in the film The Girl Can’t Help It, moved to New York, and met many leading musicians, including Max Roach (whom she later married), Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charles Mingus. In 1960, Lincoln collaborated with Max Roach and Oscar Brown, Jr. on the landmark civil rights recording, We Insist! Freedom Now Suite. That same year Lincoln also appeared in the offBroadway production of Jean Genet’s absurdist drama, The Blacks, which boasted the stellar cast of James Earl Jones, Maya Angelou, Billy Dee Williams, Roscoe Lee Brown, and Cicely Tyson. The following year, Lincoln provided vocals and lyrics for two songs, “Garvey’s Ghost” and “Mendacity,” on Roach’s 1961 Impulse album, Percussion Bitter Sweet. She also released her own album, Straight Ahead, on the Candid label, which featured four of her own lyrics, most notably “In the Red,” which spoke to black America’s economic plight. In 1962, she founded the Cultural Association for Women of African Heritage. According to Lincoln, the association was organized for the sole purpose of exploring the cultures of the African Diaspora. The group’s activities included promoting African hairstyles (Lincoln herself began to wear an afro and braids and was quoted in Ebony magazine as coming out against black women straightening their hair), producing African-based fashion shows, and protesting the assassination of Patrice Lumumba at the United Nations. In the mid1960s Lincoln’s acting career gained new impetus when she appeared in several films, including Nothing But a Man (1964) and For Love of Ivy (1966). In 1970, after her divorce from Roach, Lincoln returned to California where she taught

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drama at California State University in Northridge; painted; composed songs; and wrote essays, poetry, and a play. Lincoln also contributed an essay on black women’s moral, economic, and sexual victimization entitled “To Whom Will She Cry Rape?” to Toni Cade Bambara’s The Black Woman anthology (1970). In 1975, the South African singer Miriam Makeba invited Abbey Lincoln to Africa as her guest. For Lincoln, the highlights of the trip involved meeting the leader of Guinea, Ahmed Sékou Touré, who named her “Aminata” (trustworthy), and the Zairean minister of information who gave her the name “Moseka” (God’s image in the form of a maiden). Lincoln’s subsequent albums include Painted Lady (Blue Marge, also reprinted as Golden Lady on the Inner City label in 1981), Talking to the Sun (1983), and three Billie Holiday tribute albums Abbey Sings Billie (1987). Lincoln appeared in Spike Lee’s 1990 jazz drama Mo’ Better Blues as the mother of the young trumpeter protagonist, Bleek Gilliam. Nine later albums were The World Is Falling Down (1990); You Gotta Pay The Band (1991); Devil’s Got Your Tongue (1993); When There Is Love (1994); A Turtle’s Dream (1995); Who Used to Dance (1997); Wholly Earth (1999); Over The Years (2000); and It’s Me (2003). Lincoln’s is an African-based aesthetic that also draws from spirituals and work songs. Lincoln performs in the tradition of the griot or the African American preacher; that is, she has made vernacular sermonic performance the central element of her artistic expression. LaShonda Katrice Barnett See also Jazz and Blues Singers, Black Women. F URTHER R EADING Griffin, Farah Jasmine. 2001. “Abbey Lincoln: The Dawn of a New Day.” In If You Can’t Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday. Monson, Ingrid. 1997. “Abbey Lincoln’s Straight Ahead: Jazz in the Era of the Civil Rights Movement.” In Between Resistance and Revolution, ed. Richard Fox and Orin Starn. New Brunswick, NJ; Rutgers University Press.

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632 | Lincoln University Porter, Eric. 2002. “Straight Ahead: Abbey Lincoln and The Challenge of Jazz Singing.” In What Is This Thing Called Jazz: African American Musicians as Artists, Critics, And Activists, ed. Eric Porter. Berkeley: University of California Press.

z Lincoln University Originally named Ashmun Institute, Lincoln University was founded as America’s first college for “youth of African descent” (Bond 1976, 3). Chartered on April 29, 1854, by the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, it was an all-male institution empowered to offer “a full and thorough course of instruction in any or all the departments of science, literature, the liberal arts, classics and theology” (reproduced in Bond 1976, 217). From its inception, Lincoln’s educational focus included Africans on the continent as well as youth of African descent throughout what we now term the African Diaspora in the Americas. Lincoln University ‘s founder was the Reverend John Miller Dickey, pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Oxford, Pennsylvania. He originally named the college after Jehudi Ashmun (1794–1828), the first effective administrator of the colony of Monrovia, Liberia, to which former slaves from the United States had been repatriated under the auspices of the American Colonization Society. Ashmun Institute’s main objective was to educate ministers who would return to Africa as missionaries. The first three students were James R. Amos, a 30year-old preacher whose quest for an education had led Dickey to found the new college after all efforts to enroll him in an existing college or seminary had failed; Thomas Amos, James’s brother; and Armistead Miller, who had been repatriated to Liberia but came back to the United States for an education. All three men graduated as ministers and sailed for Liberia with their families in 1859.

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In 1866, Ashmun Institute’s charter was amended to rename the institution in honor of the slain president, Abraham Lincoln. The charter was also revised to make Lincoln a fullfledged university. The two-year college degree program was expanded to a four-year baccalaureate degree program. Schools of law, medicine, pedagogy, and theology were started, but a national financial crisis in 1873 prevented the university from developing as planned. Only the theological seminary was established and survived as a graduate-degree-granting entity until 1959. Thus, Lincoln has remained a predominantly undergraduate institution. Since the 1970s, however, various collegiate departments have established fully accredited master’s degree programs, and a master’s of human services program has also been added. Despite its small size and mainly collegiate status, for more than 150 years, Lincoln’s reputation for excellence has attracted students from many countries in Africa, students of African descent from various countries in the Americas, and other international students from a few countries in Europe and Asia. Lincoln’s domestic student body has always been predominantly African American, but it has been racially and ethnically mixed since 1866. Notably, Lincoln’s first baccalaureate class of 1868 was one-third white: it consisted of four black men and two white men. Lincoln’s charter was amended again in 1952, to permit the university to grant degrees to women. Since 1965, its campus has been fully coeducational. Today, as at most other coeducational historically black colleges and universities, women students outnumber men by a considerable margin. Lincoln University’s fame derives mainly from the outstanding accomplishments of its alumni. Foremost among them are those who would be listed in any “who’s who” of the 20th century: Langston Hughes (1929), Thurgood Marshall (1930), Nnamdi Azikiwe (1930), and Kwame Nkrumah (1939). However, over its history, Lincoln has graduated hundreds of

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Lino Alves de Almeida, José (1958–2006) | 633 other nationally and internationally known leaders as well as thousands of noted professionals. Most remarkable is the large number of prominent African leaders who graduated from this small school in rural Pennsylvania. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a number of pioneering South African clergy were among Lincoln’s alumni. Later came Azikiwe, Nkrumah, and scores of other future West African leaders, mainly from Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Gambia. Then, in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s came groups of students from South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Kenya, and Zimbabwe who are now or recently were prominent in the leadership of their countries. In more than 150 years of its existence, Lincoln has had 12 inaugurated presidents and a number of acting and interim presidents. Of the inaugurated presidents, eight were white and four were African Americans; there were eleven men and one woman. Niara Sudarkasa See also African Americans and the Constitutional Order; “African” in African American History; Azikiwe, Nnamdi (1904–1996); Howard University; Langston University and HBCUs; Liberia; Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–1972). F URTHER R EADING African Profiles International magazine. 1994. Special Issue, “Historic Lincoln at 140! Celebrating Global African Connections.” April/May. Bond, Horace Mann. 1976. Education for Freedom: A History of Lincoln University, Pennsylvania. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Pitts, Reginald H. 1994. “Founders and Focus of the Ashmun Collegiate Institute for Colored Youth, Chester County, Pennsylvania, 1854– 1866.” Journal of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society 13 (3 and 4): 144– 164. Russo, Marianne H., and Paul A. Russo. 2005. Hinsonville: A Community at the Crossroads: The Story of a Nineteenth-Century AfricanAmerican Village. Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press. Sudarkasa, Niara. “Lincoln University’s International Dimension.” In Education for Interna-

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tional Competence in Pennsylvania, ed. Andrew Dinniman and Burkart Holzner, 146–150. Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Department of Education and University of Pittsburgh University Center for International Studies.

z Lino Alves de Almeida, José (1958–2006) A black movement activist, filmmaker, journalist, and sociologist, José Lino Alves de Almeida, popularly known as Lino, was born in the barrio of Liberdade (Freedom), Salvador-Bahia, Brazil. As a sociologist he studied the condition of Afro-Brazilians and provided analyses and solutions to their conditions. Many of the political gains achieved by AfroBrazilians today resulted from the fights waged by the movement and by Lino and his colleague Manuel de Almeida in Salvador. These include the politics of affirmative action, the financial situation of Afro-Brazilians, and the introduction of Afro-Brazilian studies in schools. From the 1970s, Lino de Almeida was one of the leaders and mainstays of black movement in Bahia. In 1978, as a representative for Bahia, he participated in the first national National Encounter of the Movimento Negro Unificado (MNU) in Rio de Janeiro. There he participated in discussions on questions of race, which at that time was enough to brand one as troublesome for challenging a system that denied that there was racism. As one of the founders of the MNU in the decade of the 1970s, Lino worked through culture and created Legion Rastafari (Legiao Rastafari) in 1981, one of the biggest movements of black resistance. Lino attended the African Union conference of the Foundation for Democracy in Africa as a representative of Brazil and was made a representative of the African Diaspora for the association based in Washington, D.C. He attended conferences throughout the United States on

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black music, Afro-Brazilian culture, and black political movements in Brazil, insisting always on the need for Afro-Brazilians not to be erased or spoken for by white Brazilians but to be allowed to speak for themselves. He spoke with amazing clarity about the condition of AfroBrazilians. Although his bid for political office was unsuccessful in his city of Salvador-Bahia, he was recognized on the streets as a popular representative of his people. As a journalist, and black music and culture exponent Lino was one of the greatest promoters of reggae in Bahia. He was responsible for the spread of reggae and its ideology through the airwaves of Salvador-Bahia from the 1980s, which also influenced the development of samba-reggae according to Vovô (Antonio Carlos Dos Santos) the president of Ilê Aiyê. In Pelourinho, in 1978, Lino de Almeida was one of the founders of the Bar of Reggae, out of which the Reggae Plaza came. He was a producer of the music of reggae artists as well as cultural and music programs and concerts in Salvador and across Brazil. He was also a consultant on Brazilian music to major U.S. producers of television programs. Lino also helped to expose Jamaican artists in Bahia. He hosted a range of reggae icons from Bob Marley to Starlight, organized concerts, and produced their music for Brazilian consumption. He was the first to bring Jimmy Cliff to Bahia and appeared with Bob Marley during his visit to Brazil. He produced Jamaican/Brazilian versions of reggae artists like Gregory Isaacs. At his death he was developing a career as a filmmaker. He was also the creator of a set of television micro-dramas and documentaries on race in Brazil. He directed and produced a documentary, “A Bahia do Afoxe Filhos de Gandhy” (2005), that won the Cultural Award given by Petrobras. Carole Boyce Davies and Rita Honotorio See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Filhos de Gandhy; Ilê Aiyê; Movimento Negro Unificado; Olodum; Salvador da Bahia.

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F URTHER R EADING Boyce Davies, Carole. 2007. “Fireman. A Luta Continua.” FLASC DVD Series No. 3. Miami, Florida. de Almeida, José Lino Alves. 2005. “A Bahia do Afoxe Filhos de Gandhy.” Salvador-Bahia: Núcleo Cultural Afro Brasiliero.

z Locke, Alain (1886–1954) Alain Locke was born in Philadelphia in 1886. His grandfather, Ishmael Locke, was a teacher whose education at Cambridge University in England was sponsored by the Society of Friends (Quakers). After that stint, Ishmael spent four years establishing schools in Liberia. Alain’s father was also a teacher. He obtained a law degree from Howard University and worked as a postal clerk in Philadelphia. Alain’s mother, Mary, was in the same profession as his father. After attending the Philadelphia School of Pedagogy, Alain Locke enrolled at Harvard University in 1904 and completed the four-year program in three. He graduated magna cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In addition, he won the prestigious Bowdoin Prize for an essay in English. For his exceptional achievement, he was named the first African American Rhodes Scholar to Oxford University, where he studied philosophy and Greek and obtained a bachelor’s degree in literature in 1910. Locke then proceeded to study advanced philosophy at the University of Berlin (1910–1911). Meeting Africans and Caribbeans in Europe gave Locke a broader perspective on racism and the black condition. He embarked on a sixmonth tour of the southern United States, to study firsthand the lives of African Americans. He came away with the opinion that only by setting high standards for themselves, and showing they were capable of the same achievements as whites, would African Americans gain the same status as whites. This idea was to be deepened and better defined in his later philosophy.

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Lorde, Audre (1934–1992) | 635 Locke was appointed assistant professor at Howard in 1912, but he took a leave in 1916 to pursue his doctorate at Harvard, and he obtained the degree in 1918. Back at Howard, he became professor of philosophy and remained there until he retired in 1952. During the World War I era, Howard University had a white president, and the board of trustees twice refused Locke’s courses on comparative race relations, maintaining that it was a nonracial college. When he returned in 1918, there was an ongoing power struggle between the majority black students and faculty and the administration. Locke and other professors were dismissed in 1925, only to be reinstated with full pay. Still, Locke did not return to Howard until 1928 when Mordecai Johnson, the first African American president, was installed. Locke quickly established himself as one of the university’s leading minds on issues of race and culture. In 1924, he took a sabbatical leave and traveled to Egypt and the Sudan with the French Oriental Archaeological Society. He witnessed the opening of one of the pharaoh tombs and learned a great deal about African contributions to Egyptian civilization. Back home, he continued research in the area, and his views positively affected the way whites thought about African American culture. Locke’s reputation grew very fast, and he became friends with many prominent whites, including patrons of the arts. Among them was Charlotte Mason, who gave him financial support and helped him visit Paris several times. There, Locke began to collect African art, becoming one of its leading collectors in America. He was a pioneer critic of that art and later encouraged young African American artists as he believed they should draw inspiration from their African heritage. He also encouraged dramatists to seek material from their African ancestry, placing emphasis on folklore. Locke’s work as philosopher, critic, and social scientist explicating “Negro” culture went beyond Howard. He was an exchange professor at Fisk University in 1927 and later, in 1943,

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was the inter-American exchange professor to Haiti. By the end of World War II, Locke was recognized as one of the most influential African American scholars, contributing regularly to journals and magazines. He was a visiting scholar at the University of Wisconsin (1945–1946), a visiting professor at New York’s New School for Social Research (1947), and a visiting professor at the City College of New York (1948). Later, he would teach at both City College and at Howard. He worked assiduously for Howard’s development into a major college, and in 1953 helped secure a Phi Beta Kappa chapter for the institution. Upon his retirement in 1953, he was given an honorary doctorate. While still working on his final book in New York, he died in 1954. Femi Ojo-Ade See also Howard University; Philosophers and the African American Experience. F URTHER R EADING Cain, Rudolph Alexander Kofi. 2002. Alain Leroy Locke: Race, Culture, and the Education of African American Adults. New York: Editions Rodopi B.V. Harris, Leonard. 1999. The Critical Pragmatism of Alain Locke. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Locke, Alain, ed. 1925. The New Negro. New York: Atheneum.

z Lorde, Audre (1934–1992) Audre Lorde, a Caribbean-American poet and essayist, was born February 18, 1934, in New York City. She was raised by Barbadian and Grenadian immigrant parents who fostered the belief that “home” was in the Caribbean. Lorde saw this as both an asset and a liability growing up in the United States, but eventually came to embrace her position as a member of the African Diaspora. Her early relationships to homelands and to national, racial, and sexual identity are detailed in Zami: A New Spelling of

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My Name (1982), a “biomythography” fusing autobiography, biography, cartography, and myth and revealing the interwoven structures of privilege and discrimination in American society. Later in life, Lorde traveled to Germany and became involved in the Afro-German movement, participating in the anthology Farbe Bekennen (Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out [1992]). Health reasons led her to move from New York City to St. Croix (U.S. Virgin Islands) in the final years of her life. There, she continued to fight against racism, imperialism, and colonialism: she spoke out against the island’s economic exploitation by the United States and urged unity between African Americans and the indigenous and African Diasporic people of the islands. A gifted poet, Lorde was named New York State’s poet laureate in 1991. From a Land Where Other People Live (1973) was nominated for the National Book Award in 1974 and The Cancer Journals (1980) won the 1981 Book Award from the American Library Association Gay Caucus. In addition, Lorde won National Endowment for the Arts grants in 1968 and 1981. Other poetry volumes include The First Cities (1968); Cables to Rage (1970); New York Head Shop and Museum (1975); Coal (1976); The Black Unicorn (1978), which was inspired by a 1974 visit to Dahomey (Benin); Chosen Poems—Old and New (1982), which was later revised as Undersong: Chosen Poems Old and New (1992); and Our Dead Behind Us (1986). Lorde is also noteworthy for being an inspired essayist and is praised for the intellectually challenging yet highly accessible nature of her work. She aimed her writing and speeches at the destruction of white patriarchal power and the eradication of the invisibility and denigration suffered by women, gays, and lesbians within the African Diasporic community. Her challenge to white feminists to recognize their own racial and class advantages within society and within the women’s movement radically changed the face of that movement. Similarly, her call to straight feminists/womanists to ac-

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Audre Lorde was a prominent African American poet, feminist, and political activist during the 20th century. (Library of Congress)

knowledge their heterosexual privilege and fight homophobia as well as sexism, classism, and ageism was a powerful contributor to the development of contemporary black feminist theory. Essay collections include Burst of Light: Essays (1988) and Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984), in which Lorde considered “Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger” and “Poetry Is Not a Luxury” as the core of her prose writing. Other often-cited pieces include “An Open Letter to Mary Daly,” calling the writer to task for her Eurocentrism; “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” advocating for the allowance and celebration of difference and “necessary polarities” in society; “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” a speech originally delivered at a groundbreaking “Lesbian and Literature Panel” at the 1977 Modern Language Association Conference; and an interview between Lorde and fellow poet-activist Adrienne Rich.

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L’Ouverture, Toussaint (ca. 1744–1803) | 637 In 1980, Lorde cofounded Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press. Two documentaries have been released in tribute to her literary and social influence: A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde (Third World Newsreel 1995), produced by Ada Gay Griffin and Michelle Parkerson, featuring excerpts from eight years of collaboration with the warriorpoet, and The Edge of Each Other’s Battles: The Vision of Audre Lorde (Women Make Movies 2002), produced by Jennifer Abod, and depicting the four-day “I Am Your Sister” Conference (1990), which brought together 1,200 activists from 23 countries. After an arduous battle with cancer, Lorde died November 17, 1992. Part of her archival collection resides at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia; the remainder can be found at the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, New York. Giselle Liza Anatol See also Brooklyn; Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Grenada; Zami. F URTHER R EADING DeVeaux, Alexis. 2004. Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde. New York: WW Norton. Rowell, Charles H. 1991. “Above the Wind: An Interview with Audre Lorde.” Callaloo 14 (1): 83–95.

z L’Ouverture, Toussaint (ca. 1744–1803) Born on a slave plantation in San Domingo, now the site of present-day Haiti, François Dominique Toussaint Breda is famous as the first modern black hero. Popularly celebrated and feared throughout the Atlantic world as the “Black Napoleon,” he also became an inspirational figure for abolitionists campaigning within North America, France, and Britain in the late 18th and throughout the 19th centuries

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as he fought back against slavery. He was soon given the surname “L’Ouverture” (the opening) in recognition of the openings he created in Napolean army and for black emancipation. The greatest significance of Toussaint L’Ouverture’s involvement in the Haitian Revolution lay not only in his superlative military prowess but also in his endorsement of revolutionary rhetoric. L’Ouverture set a precedent for the rhetoric and actions of at least three major African American rebellions in the 19th century: Gabriel Prosser’s conspiracy (1800), Denmark Vesey’s plot (1822), and Nat Turner’s rebellion (1831). By the end of the 18th century, conditions on the plantations of Saint Domingue had reached horrifying proportions: one in every ten slaves died within four years of arrival as they labored hard in the fields to fill the coffers of rich elites. As news of the French Revolution spread to the colonies, so too did the spirit of insurrection as the black population grew restless at their enslavement. Uprisings became frequent as they were met with bloody reprisals from local authorities, including the famous Ogé rebellion of 1790 led by the mulatto class, which resulted in the brutal execution of its ringleaders. By 1791, Toussaint, a welleducated descendant of enslaved Africans, joined the ranks of the rebels and took a prominent role in the numerous battles between whites, blacks, and mulattoes. By 1793, Toussaint’s army had gained possession of central Haiti and had, therefore, succeeded in beating both Spanish and French colonial forces into retreat. The French half of the island ended slavery in 1794, but the Spanish continued to participate in the system until 1801 when Toussaint took possession and emancipated all slaves. By July 1801, Toussaint became governor-general of the island and immediately declared an official end to all systems of slavery. However, his worries were not over as he soon experienced difficulties in his attempts to control and appease the power struggles between the island’s population of grand blancs

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Toussaint L’Ouverture led the Haitian Revolution, which made Haiti the first black republic in the Western Hemisphere. (Library of Congress)

(plantation owners), petit blancs (artisans and overseers), formerly enslaved Africans (including the powerful mulatto classes), all of whom were rivals for prominence. He also faced the threat of an economic impasse as the agricultural industry of the islands had been sustained solely by enslaved labor. To rectify these difficulties, in October 1800, Toussaint decided to introduce enforced bonded labor on plantations for ex-slaves according to which they worked for some small share in the profits. This decision inspired moral outrage and exacerbated his difficulties in governing the island’s population. Meanwhile, Napoleon, concerned about Toussaint’s success, commanded that an invasion be led by General Leclerc to regain French control of the island

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in 1802. Toussaint’s response was immediate and unequivocal as he burned the city of LeCap. On June 17, 1802, Toussaint was invited to a meeting with General Brunet, and was arrested, put on board a ship and sailed for France where he was imprisoned in Fort de Joux, where he died from neglect and maltreatment on April 7, 1803. However, the French were destined only to enjoy a pyrrhic victory: indigenous forces prevailed and in 1804 Haiti became the first independent black republic with Jean-Jacques Dessalines established as the first emperor. For many African diasporans and abolitionists, Toussaint was the quintessential black hero: magnanimous, strong, indomitable, powerful, and revolutionary, he represented the potential as well as the possibilities of the race for distinction. Since the revolution, Toussaint’s status as a heroic liberator of slaves has fired the imaginations of writers and artists on both sides of the Atlantic, starting in the 19th but continuing on into the 20th centuries. Famous dramatists of the “black Napoleon” in the 19th century included the Romantic poets, William Wordsworth, Harriet Martineau, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge; the French senator, Victor Schoelcher; white American activists, including Wendell Phillips and Lydia Maria Child; the African American statesman Frederick Douglass; and the historians William Wells Brown and William C. Nell. Among the 20th century dramatizations are the numerous plays written by Caribbean and African American writers such as C. L. R. James, Lorraine Hansbury, Ntozake Shange, and Leslie Pinckney Hill. In the early 20th century, African American actor Paul Robeson made Toussaint legendary by his dramatic performances while Jacob Lawrence devoted a whole series of paintings solely to the accomplishments of Toussaint’s life and the power of his example for the black community. In the present day, Toussaint L’Ouverture remains a powerful emblem in the struggle for emancipation and for black liberation as he symbolizes the will to

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Lovelace, Earl (1935–) | 639 survive and to triumph of all displaced Africans in the Diaspora. Celeste Marie Bernier See also Haiti; Haitian Revolution. F URTHER R EADING Beard, John R. 1863. Toussaint L’Ouverture: A Biography and Autobiography. Boston: James Redpath. Fick, Carolyn E. 1989. The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below. Knoxville: Tennessee University Press. James, C. L. R. 1989. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, 1789–1804. New York: Vintage. (Orig. pub. 1938). Kaplan, Cora. “Black Heroes/White Writers: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the Literary Imagination.” History Workshop Journal 46 (1998): 32–62. Tyson, George F., ed. Toussaint L’Ouverture. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1973.

z Lovelace, Earl (1935–) Earl Lovelace was born in Toco, Trinidad, in 1935. At three, he was sent to live with his maternal grandparents in Tobago, returning to Trinidad at age 11 to live with his mother. As an adult, except for occasional engagements outside, Lovelace has worked in various parts of the country and in various jobs. He has worked as a forest ranger, an agricultural assistant, a proofreader, a journalist, a resident playwright and director of grassroots theater groups, and a university lecturer. These wideranging occupations have contributed to the emergence of an intellect that is a perceptive interpreter of people and the landscapes of their struggles. In 1965, Lovelace won the British Petroleum Independence Literary Award with the manuscript of While Gods Are Falling (1965). This was followed by The Schoolmaster (1968), The

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Dragon Can’t Dance (1979), The Wine of Astonishment (1982), Jestina’s Calypso and Other Plays (1984), A Brief Conversion and Other Stories (1988), and Crawfie the Crapaud (a children’s story; 1997). Salt (1996), considered his most outstanding work to date, won the prestigious Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1997. Growing in the Dark (2003) brings together a wide-ranging selection of his essays spanning 1967 to 2002 and confirms him as one of the major organic, original, and rooted thinkers, writers, and aesthetes of the region. As a Caribbean writer who has made the Caribbean his operational base, Lovelace’s work celebrates the ordinary people whose engagement with the landscape has created a foundational culture that defies the burdens of colonialism to affirm them as human beings with dignity, an abiding love of freedom, an awareness that the quality of struggle is determined by how much they learn from their mistakes and the mistakes of others, an impulse toward a dignified life for all, and a refusal to settle for less than their human best. Nowhere is his identification with the ordinary people more in evidence than in his deployment of folk language and culture. Both the language for his characters and his narrative language acknowledge the grammar of Standard English and the rhythm of Creole. The overall aesthetic principles that shape his work combine to distinguish him as a perceptive interpreter of people and their history, realities, and aspirations. Lovelace has won several awards over the years, including a Guggenheim Fellowship (1980), a Chaconia Medal (Gold) from the government of Trinidad and Tobago (1988), the Express Individual of the Year (1997), and an honorary doctor of letters from the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago (2002). In 2005, his The Dragon Can’t Dance was serialized in The Trinidad Express Newspapers to popular acclaim, and the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, spearheaded a celebration of his 70th birthday, in collaboration

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with the government and corporate organizations, with an unprecedented week of an international academic conference, a playwriting workshop, the staging of one of his plays, public readings, and cultural shows, culminating in a Writing Route project that took more than a hundred participants on a tour of the various places in Trinidad where Lovelace had lived and worked. Funso Aiyejina See also Trinidad and Tobago; Trinidad and Tobago: African Impact on the Social Order. F URTHER R EADING Aiyejina, Funso. 2000. “Novelypso: Indigenous Narrative Strategies in Earl Lovelace’s Fiction.” Trinidad and Tobago Review 22 (7–8): 15–17. Brydon, Diana. 1989. “Trusting the Contradictions: Competing Ideologies in Earl Lovelace’s ‘The Dragon Can’t Dance.’” English Studies in Canada 15 (3): 319–335. Cary, Norman Reed. 1988. “Salvation, Self, and Solidarity in the Work of Earl Lovelace.” World Literature Written in English 28 (1): 103–114. Lovelace, Earl. 2003. Growing in the Dark (Selected Essays), ed. Funso Aiyejina. San Juan, Trinidad and Tobago: Lexicon. Rahim, Jennifer. “The ‘Limbo Imagination’ and New World Reformation in Earl Lovelace’s ‘Salt.’” Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism vol (5): 151–160.

z Lumumba, Patrice Emery (1925–1961) Patrice Emery Lumumba, the first prime minister of the independent Congo (the current Democratic Republic of the Congo), is one of the African Diaspora’s most important political leaders, and he remains a key figure of global renown more than 40 years after his death. After only eight weeks in power, he was removed by Mobutu’s first coup d’état in September 1960. His assassination on January 17, 1961, made

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him the patron martyr of African struggles against colonialism and imperialism and the symbol of the Pan-Africanist movement. Patrice E. Lumumba was born on July 2, 1925, in Onalua. He studied under both Catholic and Protestant missionaries and proved to be an exceptionally gifted student. From 1943, he worked in various clerical positions and completed a variety of educational courses. After moving to Leopoldville, the capital of the Belgian Congo, Lumumba became conscious of the real colonial situation and the deprivation of fundamental rights for the Congolese. Lumumba collaborated with two Leopoldville newspapers devoted to the évolués: La Croix du Congo (The Cross of Congo) and La Voix du Congolais (The Voice of the Congolese), in which he personally published 74 articles. Furthermore, in 1955, he became the editor in charge of the Echo Postal, the quarterly journal of the Postal Workers’ Society. At the same time, he was collaborating with the Belgian newspaper L’Afrique et le Monde (Africa and the World). In 1959–1960, his political party, the National Congolese Movement (MNC, Mouvement national congolais), was endowed with three propaganda newspapers: Indépendance (Leopoldville), Uhuru (Stanleyville), and Tabalayi (Luluabourg). Although the period was one of colonial censure, Lumumba discussed political topics in his articles for The Cross of Congo and The Voice of the Congolese. With subtlety, he broached the question of racial discrimination in the Belgian Congo. He rejected tribalism and regionalism and was of the view that all Congolese had the right to live in any region of the country. Another theme ardently defended by Lumumba concerned the education of women. Lumumba’s major publication is his 1956 book Congo, My Country (original title: Le Congo, terre d’avenir, est-il menace?). After some early political work within the colonial structure, which led to his 1956 imprisonment, on October 10, 1958, with a group of other Congolese citizens, Lumumba formed the MNC. From December 1958 on, after Lu-

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Lumumba, Patrice Emery (1925–1961) | 641 mumba’s trip to the Accra Conference, where he met heads of state like Nkrumah and Nasser, he reoriented his political action and chose a political platform that was radically nationalist and Pan-Africanist and that distinguished him from the bourgeois nationalism of the other Congolese évolués. He advocated unity in the Congo and began to establish his movement on the national level by creating sections of the MNC in the eastern provinces (Stanleyville), the equatorial provinces (Coquilhatville), and Kivu. Lumumba became prime minister and was able to form the independent Congo’s first government. In the pivotal period that would lead to independence, the MNC wanted to increase the level of political involvement among the Congolese, and so it launched a campaign of recruitment aimed at the educated youth. At the Lulabourg Congress in October 1959, the MNC/L appealed solemnly to the country’s intellectual elite, asking them to join the movement and to help hasten the liberation of the Congo. In early 1960, when the date of independence had already been determined, the MNC directed its focus more precisely on the youth. Lumumba proposed the names of several young Congolese students of the Diaspora (who were studying in Belgium) for accelerated internships in different branches of the Belgian government. One of them, Joseph Désiré Mobutu, would end up betraying him. During Cold War politics, the strategic position of Congo and its rich mineral resources, most notably those that could be used to make nuclear weapons (Congolese uranium permitted the construction of the first American atomic bomb), made it unthinkable for the Western Bloc, to which Belgium belonged, to allow an independent Congo to fall into the

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communist bloc. Lumumba was not a communist; instead, he was a true nationalist, an internationalist, and a Pan-Africanist who wanted to point his country in a new direction. Sources show that the plot to kill Lumumba was the work of the American Central Intelligence Agency and the Belgian government, with the support of some in the Congolese elite. With Lumumba dead, Mobutu came to power and with him came the regression of Congo/Zaire in all respects, the destruction of the state apparatus, and widespread corruption, all of which are difficulties against which Congo continues to struggle to this day. Charles Tshimanga See also Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–1972); PanAfricanism. F URTHER R EADING De Witte, Ludo. 2001. The Assassination of Lumumba. Trans. Ann Wright and Renée Fenby. London: Verso; 2001. Kapita Mulopo, Léonard. 1992. P. Lumumba. Justice pour le héros. Paris: Editions L’Harmattan. Lumumba, Patrice. 1962. Congo, My Country. London: Pall Mall Press. Omasombo Tshonda, Jean, and Benoit Verhaegen. 1998. Patrice Lumumba. Jeunesse et apprentissage politique, 1925–1956. Cahiers africains 33–34 (1998). Tervuren/Paris: Institut africain-Cedaf/Editions L’Harmattan. Van Lierde, Jean, ed. 1972. Lumumba Speaks. The Speeches and Writings of Patrice Lumumba, 1958–1961. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.

z Lynching in the United States See Till, Emmett (1941–1955).

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M z

Maceo y Grajales, Antonio (1845–1896)

whom were Afro-Cubans—to some of the most dramatic victories of both wars. On December 7, 1896, Maceo was killed in battle. He was remembered as “The Bronze Titan.”

The well known Afro-Cuban soldier Antonio Maceo y Grajales was born on June 14, 1845, in Santiago de Cuba, of a black mother and a mulatto father. Known popularly as Maceo, he was a fierce advocate for the abolition of slavery on the island and has gone down in Cuban history as a hero for these accomplishments. He joined the insurrection against Spain and became a leader of the Cuban independence army in both the Ten Years’ War (1868–1878) and the War of Independence (1895–1898). He joined the rebel army as a private (along with his father and three brothers), rose quickly through the ranks because of his courage and skill, and eventually was made a general, second in command of all forces. Beginning in 1878, he lived for many years in exile, frequently traveling to several nations of the Caribbean and Central America, raising funds for the independence movement. In 1895, he returned to Cuba to continue the fight for freedom from Spain and against slavery. He was a brave guerilla fighter and a brilliant military strategist, and he led his troops—most of

The Rev. Raúl Fernández-Calienes See also Cuba: Afro-Cubans; Cuban Revolution and the African Diaspora; Guillén, Nicolás (1902–1989); Lam, Wilfredo (1902–1982). F URTHER R EADING Foner, Philip S. 1977. Antonio Maceo: The “Bronze Titan” of Cuba’s Struggle for Independence. New York: Monthly Review Press. University of Michigan. “The African Presence in the Americas Exhibition: Antonio Maceo (photograph).” www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/ Schomburg/ text/resistance28b.html (accessed November 30, 2004).

z Macumba Macumba is a term whose meaning changes radically depending on who uses it and in what context. The word may derive from mamcumba, the name for a spiritual system among the Wolof people. 643

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Macumba has long been used as a derogatory term for all varieties of Afro-Brazilian religions by outsiders. In this context it signaled all the perceived negative aspects of these religions, such as devil worship, witchcraft and black magic, money-hungry unscrupulous male homosexual priests, animal sacrifice, and late-night drumming. Lately it has been revalued and used by practitioners of a certain variety of this Afro-Brazilian religion in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo to refer to their own religious practice. This religion openly welcomes homosexuals, many of whom are strong charismatic priests. Macumbeiros (practitioners of Macumba) perform spiritual services, including both healing and witchcraft, in exchange for money. They certainly sacrifice animals, conduct ceremonies with all-night drumming, and honor the Orisha Exú, but none of this is considered evil or wrong. Practitioners of the traditional Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé in Bahia in northeast Brazil use Macumba to refer to the practice of black magic within their own religion and to parties held in honor of the Caboclo (cowboy and Indian) deities where drums are played with the bare hands rather than with sticks. In this context one may either fazer uma macumba (do or make a Macumba, that is, put witchcraft on someone) or ir para a Macumba (go to the Macumba, that is, go to a religious event where these drums are played). Practitioners of the Umbanda religion in the cities of the Brazilian south use Macumba to distinguish the practices of less wealthy and often darker-skinned devotees of Afro-Brazilian religions from their own, which draw heavily on 19th-century French Kardecist Spiritism. Practitioners of Umbanda and Candomblé will often disavow any knowledge of or participation in Macumba. Even though some scholars, journalists, government officials, tourists, and others must be very circumspect in their use of the term Macumba because of its shifting and often highly negative connotations, among practi-

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tioners of Afro-Brazilian religions, it is a term of in-group solidarity. Brian Brazeal See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Candomblé. F URTHER R EADING Bastide, Roger. 1978. African Religions of Brazil: Toward a Sociology of the Interpenetration of Civilizations, trans. Helen Seeba. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Langguth, A. J. 1975. Macumba: White and Black Magic in Brazil. New York: Harper and Row. Hayes, Kelly. 2004. “Black Magic at the Margins: Macumba in Rio de Janeiro: An Ethnographic Analysis of a Religious Life.” Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago.

z Mahdi Rebellion The revolt against the Turco-Egyptian regime in Sudan began in 1881 when Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah (Muhammad al-Mahdi, 1844–1885) proclaimed his mission as the Mahdi (the guided one) or divinely guided leader, and provided Sudan with a locally created ideal of a centralized state system (Voll 2000, 153–167). Muhammad al-Mahdi was born in 1844 in the province of Dongola and moved as a boatbuilder’s son to a few miles north of Khartoum, where there were supplies of timber. He received a traditional religious education and showed a propensity toward ascetism. He soon became a visionary leader, a strong combatant against the enemies of Islam, and was seen as a mujaidid. His movement, the Mahdiyya, was a reformist but orthodox movement. The Mahdiyya, although a central notion in Shiite theology, was deeply influenced by Indian, Jewish, and Persian tradition and thought. The jihad of the Mahdist revolt (1881– 1885) was contemporary to the British establishment of political and administrative control over Egypt (1882). In 1883, the Kon-

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Makandal, François (?–1758) | 645 dorfan region became the center of the future territorial Mahdist state; meanwhile, Turkish control had been weakened by British intervention in Egypt (September 1882). The Mahdi soon became the master of western Sudan, and in 1884 the British government sent Governor General Charles George Gordon (1833–1885) to Khartoum as representative to the Turkish khedive with tasks of planning the future Sudan. But Gordon, known as Gordon pasha or Gordon of Khartoum, found himself under siege by the Mahdi’s forces, until the decisive battle of January 25, 1885 where Gordon was killed in the fighting. With the taking of Khartoum, the jihad ended: the Mahdi was the ruler of the Sudan. He made his own capital in Omdurman. In the new territorial state, the chief officers became military governors of provinces. The Mahdi minted gold pounds and silver dollars, and he was the first Sudanese ruler to exercise this power. He gave judicial decisions and promulgated administrative regulations. From the time of the Mahdiyya, an Islamic conceptualization of the state, political processes, and community identity played a crucial role in Sudanese politics and society. During the Mahdiyya, the area of the Sawakin was under British occupation and quartered large numbers of ex-slave soldiers enrolled in the Sudanese battalions (Makris 2000, 102). The Convention for the Suppression of the Slave Trade was signed by the Egyptian and British governments on August 4, 1877. However, the convention remained totally ineffective (Warburg 2003, 12–21). In 1870, the Mahdi made a proclamation that slavery was once again a legitimate institution. During the second half of the 19th century it was estimated that between 5,000 and 6,000 slaves were transported annually from the Darfur region into Egypt, and the route through Sudan to Mecca gradually assumed an important role, too. This “40 days route” brought merchandise and people, and it soon became an important trade route. On the Red

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Sea shores, the Suaakin and Massawa ports monopolized most of the East African trade with the Arabian Peninsula. The Mahdi died on June 22, 1885 and the Mahdi’s 14-year rule of the Sudan ended with the Anglo-Egyptian intervention. Nevertheless, the Mahdiyya continued to represent a powerful force, especially in the west of Sudan. Beatrice Nicolini See also Swahili. F URTHER R EADING Ibrahim, H. A. 2004. Sayyid ‘Abd al-Rahman alMahdi. A Study of Neo-Mahdism in the Sudan, 1899–1956. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers. Kaye, A. S. 1999. “Sudan.” Encyclopaedia of Islam. CD-rom ed. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers. I. IX:747a. Lesch A. 1998. The Sudan—Contested National Identities. Indian Series in Middle East Studies. Oxford, UK: J. Currey. Makris, G. P. 2000. Changing Masters: Spirit Possession and Identity Construction among Slave Descendants and other Subordinates in the Sudan, 23–102. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Voll, J. O. 2000. “The Eastern Sudan, 1822 to the Present.” History of Islam in Africa.,N. Levtzion and R. L. Pouwels, 153–168. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. Warburg, Gabriel. 2003. Islam, Sectarianism, and Politics in Sudan Since the Mahdiyya. London: Hurst and Co.

z Makandal, François (?–1758) François Makandal (also spelled Macandal, Mackandal, or Makendal) was an enslaved African who was born in Lenormand de Mezy and lived in the district of le Limbé, which later became one of the most significant centers of the Haitian revolution. He was the epitome of the maroons who fled from the plantations to establish their own communities in the mountains known as mornes.

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Makandal was considered one of the greatest chiefs of the maroons, blessed as he was with courage, resilience, and conviction for the cause of freedom and his ultimate return to his original home in Africa. He not only led a movement of resistance, but he also planned a revolution by which the colonists would be exterminated. Makandal conceived the bold plan of uniting Africans on the island and driving out all the whites. He instilled fear in the masters through the religion of Vodoun. A great orator, he was fearless, and in spite of the fact that he had lost an arm in an accident, he had no match in combat. In Vodoun, he was viewed as a lwa (a deity) with supernatural power, the ability to predict the future, and immortality. He was also believed to be capable of anthropomorphism. He had absolute authority over his followers. Makandal’s plan for poisoning whites became known as “the great fear of 1757.” Makandal spent several years recruiting and organizing his followers. His men spread terror in the northern part of the island between 1748 and 1758. On a chosen day, the water of every home in the provincial capital was to be laced with poison. The idea was that, as the victims were convulsing and in the throes of the poison, the slaves would carry out a general attack in the city and in the countryside. Makandal’s undoing was his temerity and sense of invincibility, which made him careless. On the fateful day of January 20, 1758, he got drunk on a plantation. He was betrayed, captured, and publicly executed. In another version, it is claimed that he was burned alive. Meanwhile, his followers were convinced that he had used his supernatural powers to escape from the fire, to fly away, to continue the struggle, and to protect his people. The French authorities were so scared of Makandal’s power, and the Vodoun religion, that three months after his execution, a law was promulgated forbidding funeral ceremonies. Makandal’s legend became part of the nation’s lore and served as a precursor to the revolution that led to Haiti’s independence in 1804. When Dessalines, considered father of the na-

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tion, was betrayed and assassinated at independence, rumors made the rounds that Makandal had spoken to him and warned him not to go to Pont Rouge, the place of betrayal. The much publicized ceremony at Bois-Caiman, where the leaders of the revolution supposedly met and drank the blood of a sacrificial dog, was said to have been held in Makandal’s birthplace. Proof that his memory remained ingrained in French people’s minds was the publication of details of his extraordinary actions and 1758 execution in French gazettes of 1787 (Mercure de France, September 15, 1787). One of Cuba’s major writers, Alejo Carpentier, has immortalized Makandal in his novel El reino de este mundo (The Kingdom of This World). Makandal, an inspiring figure for Haitians, was seen as one of the essential components of the “marvelous reality” of a culture combining the mysterious and miraculous with the resilience of reality. Witnesses of his execution reported that his lycanthropic powers led the collective faith of his people to produce a miracle on the day of his execution. For the French masters, his name was synonymous with occult malevolence and the power not only to withstand pain but also to believe in the supremacy of the revolutionary spirit capable of surmounting the greatest obstacle. Significantly, amulets and packets containing incense, holy water, and other items, which authorities forbade slaves from selling or buying after Makandal’s demise, were called makandals. Femi Ojo-Ade See also Haiti; Haitian Revolution; Maroon and Marronage; Vodoun. F URTHER R EADING Arthur, Charles. 2002. Haiti in Focus: A Guide to the People, Politics, and Culture. New York: Interlink Publishing Group. Carpenter, Alejo. 1989. The Kingdom of This World. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Dubois, Laurent. 2005. Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

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Malcolm X (1925–1965) Malcolm X was a human rights activist and an advocate for the human dignity of all members of the African Diaspora who recognized that black people existed in a world that systematically destroyed their self-respect. He taught the need for them to become the instrument of their own liberation. Born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska, his mother was a Caribbean woman named Louise Norton Little, and his father, Earl Little, was a Baptist minister and follower of black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey. Earl Little’s activism resulted in death threats from white nationalists and forced the family to move repeatedly after Malcolm’s birth. In 1929, their Lansing, Michigan, home was burned to the ground. Two years later Earl’s mutilated body was found lying on the town’s trolley tracks. His family knew that white nationalists were responsible for their suffering. After her husband’s death, Louise had an emotional breakdown and was committed to a mental institution. Malcolm’s family was broken up into different foster homes and orphanages. As a junior high school student, Malcolm was at the top of his class; however, he soon lost interest in school and dropped out. He moved to Boston, Massachusetts, to live with his sister, Ella, who attempted to reunite their family. From there, he became involved in the urban nightlife and worked odd jobs, such as a busboy, waiter, and railroad dining car waiter. He then traveled to Harlem, New York, and by 1942, Malcolm was surviving by manipulating people, selling drugs, pimping, gambling, and committing petty crimes. Eventually, Malcolm and his friend, Malcolm Jarvis, moved back to Boston, where they were convicted on burglary charges and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1946. Malcolm used his prison sentence to better himself by self-education through reading and debating. He was intrigued by Paul Robeson and began modeling himself after Robeson’s style of ac-

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tivism. Around this time Malcolm’s brother Reginald visited and discussed his conversion to the Lost-Found Nation of Islam, led by Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm began studying the teachings of the Nation of Islam and practicing its moral standards. When he was paroled in 1952, after serving seven years, Malcolm took the name Malcolm X signifying that his surname was a slave name. Malcolm rose through the ranks quickly, becoming a minister and national spokesman for the Nation of Islam in charge of establishing and ministering at new mosques in various cities. Malcolm started the newspaper Muhammad Speaks and used different forms of media to spread the Nation of Islam’s message. His leadership helped increase the membership in the Nation of Islam and attracted many sympathizers. The media and controversy followed Malcolm, making him the most recognizable member of the Nation of Islam. Tensions surrounding the Nation of Islam grew increasingly high during the 1960s, and Malcolm’s vivid personality captured the government’s attention. As membership in the Nation of Islam continued to grow, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents infiltrated the organization (one even acted as Malcolm’s bodyguard) and secretly placed bugs, wiretaps, and camera surveillance equipment to monitor the group’s activities. In 1962, Alfred Balk approached the FBI about an article that he and Alex Haley were writing together for The Saturday Evening Post. A deal was struck between Balk, Haley, and the FBI that the FBI would provide information to Balk and Haley that they could use to write and put a spin on their article. This article became the blueprint for the structure of The Autobiography of Malcolm X. In 1963, Malcolm received another blow when he realized that Elijah Muhammad was having relations with women in the Nation of Islam and fathered children by some of them. Malcolm’s tensions with the Nation of Islam were exacerbated after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy when he stated that

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African American Muslim leader Malcolm X addresses a crowd gathered at a rally in New York City, about 1960. Malcolm X was important in shaping a Black Power movement that challenged the nonviolent and integrationist path to African American equality favored by Martin Luther King Jr.’s Civil Rights Movement. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Kennedy’s death was a result of the climate of hate U.S. racism produced. Muhammad silenced Malcolm for 90 days, then he made Malcolm’s suspension indefinite. In March 1964, Malcolm ended his official relationship with the Nation of Islam and founded the Muslim Mosque, Inc., an Islamic organization focused on expanding the scope of the Civil Rights Movement and working with the movement’s leaders. That same year he went on a pilgrimage to Mecca and numerous African and Arab countries, and during his journey, he announced new perspectives on race relations and the relationship of African Americans to the rest of the world. He converted to Orthodox Sunni Islam and returned with a message

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that crossed racial, cultural, and class lines and increasingly spoke against imperialism. Relations between Malcolm, now known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, and the Nation of Islam became increasingly hostile. Malcolm was informed that members of the Nation of Islam were planning his assassination. Yet he proceeded with his plans to start the Organization of Afro-American Unity, which was modeled after the Organization of African Unity. On February 14, 1965, his home in East Elmhurst, New York was firebombed, although he, his wife, Betty, then pregnant with twins, and their four daughters escaped physical injury. A week later, on February 21, 1965, while addressing an audience in Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom,

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Male Revolt | 649 Malcolm was assassinated by gunmen rushing the stage. New evidence shows Malcolm’s assassination was at the hands of the FBI, the New York Police Department, the Nation of Islam, members of his own entourage, and the Central Intelligence Agency, all of which had an interest in eliminating his influence on society. Malcolm X’s assassins failed to achieve their objective. After his death, he became a martyr for brotherhood across all forms of divisions. He inspired generations of artists and members of the African Diaspora to think, respect themselves, and rebel against repression. Aaron Ogletree See also African Americans and the Constitutional Order; Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940); Pan-Africanism. F URTHER R EADING Clarke, John Henrik, ed. 1969. Malcolm X: The Man and His Times. New York: Macmillan. Clayborne, Carson, and David Gallen, eds. 1991. Malcolm X: The FBI File. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers. Cone, James. 1991. Martin and Malcolm and America. New York: Orbis Books. Evanzz, Karl. 1992. The Judas Factor: The Plot to Kill Malcolm X. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1992. Haley, Alex, and Malcolm X. 1965. Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Grove Press.

z Male Revolt The Male revolt happened in the city of Salvador in the state of Bahia, Brazil, in 1835. After the Haitian Revolution, it is considered the second largest revolt of freed and enslaved Africans in the Americas. In the conflict, about 70 Africans died and about 500 were taken prisoner. The early 19th century was a period of economic decline and political turmoil in Bahia. As a consequence, between 1816 and 1835, there were many smaller revolts in the region.

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Yet, the Male revolt was truly extraordinary, as the most common form of slave resistance in Brazil was taking flight instead of engaging in armed revolts. The Male revolt was an African movement and not merely a slave revolt. In fact, it involved both slaves and ex-slaves almost equally in terms of numbers. Salvador was an urban slave society and all of the slaves who participated in the revolt were wage earners. In this sense, they had the freedom of movement to pass on messages to individuals in other areas of the city and the state. One characteristic of this movement was the involvement of large numbers of Muslim Africans. In fact, the term Male means African Muslim and it probably derives from the Yoruba word Imale, meaning any African who adopted the Islamic religion. Islam functioned as a unifying force among the rebels. Muslims organized the movement and enforced discipline in the group. They were a unifying factor in a nonunified community. However, the rebels were not spearheading a religious revolution in the region. The Male revolt was not a religious war. The movement’s objective was to take power from the established elite and give it to the African population. Muslim slaves became common in Salvador only in the first half of the 19th century, when the slave trade to Brazil increased significantly. Muslims were an elite group within the slave society, as some of them were religious leaders and possessed knowledge of reading and writing. However, it seems they were also feared and hated by other Africans. News of the impending revolt was leaked to the authorities by two freedwomen, both African born, and the revolt was crushed at its inception. The people participating in the Male revolt believed their enemies were not only the whites but all of the Brazilian-born population regardless of their race. So any Brazilian-born black was also considered an enemy. The plan was to kill everyone in Bahia who was not an African, including whites, blacks, and mulattos. Apparently, the mulattos who were not

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killed were to be enslaved. One of the results of the revolt was a wave of violence and racism toward Africans in Bahia. Many peaceful Africans were killed and persecuted by the dominant population. In fact, fear of a black revolt was a very real aspect of Brazilian life during the colonial period and during the first half of the 19th century. The violent slave revolution that began in Haiti in 1792 terrified whites living in the many slave societies of the Americas for many years after the event. When the sovereignty of the Haitian nation was declared in 1804, it seemed possible that a similar revolt could occur anywhere enslaved people outnumbered whites. The Male rebellion of 1835 reinforced this fear. Rosanna Barbosa-Nunes See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians. F URTHER R EADING Mattoso, Katia M. de Queirós. 1989. To Be a Slave in Brazil, 1550–1888. London: Rutgers University Press. Nishida, Mieko. 2003. Slavery and Identity. Ethnicity, Gender and Race in Salvador, Brazil, 1808– 1888. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Reis, João José. 1993. Slave Rebellion in Brazil. The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

z Mandela, Nelson Rolihlahla (1918–) Nelson Mandela, the respected human rights activist, politician, and statesman, was born in a village in the Transkei, South Africa, on July, 18, 1918. His father was Chief Henry Mandela, who worked as the principal councillor to the acting paramount chief of Thembuland. When his father died, Mandela became the ward of the paramount chief, Jongintaba Dalindyebo, and was educated to assume high office. How-

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ever, influenced by the cases that came before the chief ’s court and his ancestors’ stories of brave resistance, he chose to become a lawyer and advance the cause of human rights for black South Africans. During the 1930s, Mandela received his education at a mission school and then at Healdtown, a Wesleyan secondary school. At this time, black South Africans were being oppressed through segregation laws and forcibly removed from their land. He then attended the University College of Fort Hare to study for a bachelor of arts degree. At Fort Hare, he was elected to the student’s representative council, but was eventually suspended from school for joining in a protest. Mandela moved to Johannesburg in 1941 and became a policeman at Johannesburg’s Crown Mines. There he saw firsthand the poverty and exploitation of his people. At this time, he was completing his bachelor’s degree through correspondence from the University of South Africa. He began studying for his law degree and took articles of clerkship. While studying in Johannesburg, he became politically active by joining the African National Congress (ANC) and meeting members of the Communist Party of South Africa in 1942. Witnessing and experiencing oppression led him to help form the ANC Youth League of which he later became president. He received his law degree through the University of the Witwatersrand and, with Oliver Tambo, started South Africa’s first black-run law firm. Mandela became increasingly active, participating in nonviolent campaigns of civil disobedience, organizing strikes, and advocating for people to not comply with the laws of segregation. When the ANC launched its Campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws in 1952, Mandela was elected the national volunteer-in-chief. During 1956 to 1961, he faced charges for treason, but was aquitted in 1961. After the ANC was banned in 1960, he advocated for creation of a military wing within the ANC. In 1961, the

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Mandela, Winnie (1936–) | 651 ANC considered and accepted his proposal on the use of violent strategies by ANC members. This led to the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe (“spear of the nation”) with Mandela as its commander-in-chief. In 1962, he left the country unlawfully to travel abroad for several months. In Ethiopia, he spoke at the Conference of the Pan African Freedom Movement of East and Central Africa. During his journey, he set up guerrilla training for members of Umkhonto we Sizwe. After his return to South Africa, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency helped the South African government arrest Mandela. In 1962, Mandela was arrested for treason again and sentenced to five years in prison with hard labor. He proclaimed his innocence on the basis that the laws he had violated were unjust. While serving his sentence, Mandela was again charged with sabotage for plotting to overthrow the government through violence, and the Rivonia trial started. He served as his own defense expressing that he was against tyranny whether imposed by blacks or whites. In 1964, he was convicted of sabotage and treason and sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island. While in prison, Mandela’s legend grew, and he became an international symbol of human rights. He refused to compromise his principles by accepting the South African government’s condition for his freedom: restricting his strategies to nonviolence only and recognizing the independence of the Transkei and agreeing to settle there. When in Robben Island, he was a primary figure in organizing political education classes within the prison. In 1984, he was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town, and then in 1988, he was transferred to the Victor Verster Prison near Paarl. On February 18, 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from prison; he had been robbed of more than 27 years of his life. After his release, he plunged himself wholeheartedly into his life’s work, striving to attain the goals he and others had set out to achieve almost four

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decades earlier. In 1991, at the first national conference of the ANC held inside South Africa since the organization had been banned in 1960, Mandela was elected president of the ANC. Mandela and his delegation agreed to the suspension of armed struggle. On May 10, 1994, Mandela was inaugurated as president of South Africa. In 1997, however, he turned over leadership of both the ANC and the South African government to Thabo Mbeki. On the personal side, after Mandela’s release from prison, he and his wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, separated. On July 18, 1998, Mandela married Graca Machel, the former wife of deceased Samora Machel. After retiring from politics, he has continued to serve as an activist on issues like AIDS awareness, and he has advocated for the cancellation of Third World debt. Aaron Ogletree See also Mandela, Winnie (1936–). F URTHER R EADING Guilioneau, Jean, and Joseph Rowe. 2000. Nelson Mandela: The Early Life of Rolihlahla Mandela. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books. Mandela, Nelson. 1994. Long Walk to Freedom. The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. New York: Little Brown. Meer, Fatima. 1990. Higher Than Hope: The Authorized Biography of Nelson Mandela. New York: Harper. Meredith, Martin. 1998. Nelson Mandela. A Biography. New York: St. Martin’s.

z Mandela, Winnie (1936–) Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, a South African activist and freedom fighter, is considered by her many supporters to be the “Mother of the Nation” or “Mama Africa.” She was born Nomzamo Nobandla Winnifred Madikizela in the Pondoland on September 26, 1936, one of

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Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was married to Nelson Mandela during the 27 years when he was the world’s most well-known political prisoner. She became the face of the struggle against apartheid and an activist in her own right during the long years of her husband’s incarceration on Robben Island, South Africa. (Corbis)

eight children of Columbus and Gertrude Madikizela. Her father was a government official in the Transkei and her mother was a teacher who died when Mandela was eight. She graduated from the Jan Hofmeyer School of Social Work in 1956 and was the first African medical social worker hired at the Baragwanath Hospital. It was during her years as a social worker that Winnie became politicized in the struggle for human rights. For nearly three decades, Winnie Mandela was the face and voice of the South African freedom movement when her husband was imprisoned. Winnie married Nelson in 1958, and the couple had two children, daughters

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Zindzi and Zenani. The year they were married, Winnie was arrested for participating in pass law demonstrations. She was pregnant at the time. Nelson was imprisoned in 1962, leading to Winnie’s famous line “a life with him had always been a life without him.” In 1963, Winnie received her first banning order when she visited her husband in Pretoria not far from their Johannesburg home. Eventually, the systematic oppression would cause Winnie to lose her job as a social worker and she would send her children to live outside South Africa for their safety. Nelson Mandela often commented that he thought the situation was far worse for his wife as she was constantly harassed, arrested, detained, and even banished by the South African security forces. During one imprisonment, Winnie endured 18 months in solitary confinement. In 1977, she was banished for eight years to the remote area of Brandtfort. Yet the architects of apartheid did not break her spirit and grudgingly the white Afrikaner residents accepted her presence with a degree of respect. In typical Winnie fashion, she disobeyed her banning order and returned to Soweto to continue the struggle against apartheid. In 1990, Nelson was released from prison and walked to freedom with Winnie on his arm. After the first democratic elections, Winnie was elected to Parliament twice and served as president of the African National Congress Women’s League and deputy minister of arts and culture, science, and technology. In recent years, the publicity surrounding Winnie has been very critical and controversial. After such a long separation, the Mandelas were unable to enjoy a happy marriage and divorced in 1996. Winnie was also convicted of crimes related to the death of 14-year-old Simpei Stompei. For all of her flaws and mistakes developed in the process of struggle against an overarching injustice, most realize that without her sacrifice and devotion to the struggle, Nelson Mandela may have never become South Africa’s first democratically elected pres-

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Maran, René (1887–1960) | 653 ident and that the horrendous apartheid against which she fought was the main villain and created these negative conditions. Delia C. Gillis See also Mandela, Nelson Rolihlahla (1918–). F URTHER R EADING Bezdrob, Anne Marie du Preez. 2003. Winnie Mandela: A Life. Cape Town, South Africa: Zebra Press. Gilbey, E. 1994. The Lady: The Life & Times of Winnie Mandela. London: Vintage. Harrison, N. 1985. Winnie Mandela: Mother of a Nation. London: V. Gollancz. Mandela, Winnie. 1985. Part of My Soul Went With Him. New York: W. W. Norton. Ndebele, Njabulo S. 2004. The Cry of Winnie Mandela. Banbury, UK: Ayebia Clarke Publishing.

z Maran, René (1887–1960) René Maran was a French, Afro-Caribbean author who criticized French colonialism and influenced both interwar African-American writers and the Négritude movement. Born in Fort-de-France, Martinique, Maran was educated in Bordeaux where he perfected his French and became thoroughly acculturated, defining himself primarily as a Frenchman and secondarily as a black. Too poor for university studies, Maran enrolled in the colonial service from 1910 to 1923 and was stationed in French Equatorial Africa. There, he wrote his most important book, Batouala, véritable roman nègre (1921), which won the 1921 Goncourt prize, the highest literary prize for a young author in France. Batouala was a seminal novel in the African Diaspora. It diverged from all previous exotic and colonial novels by representing black Africans as rational, analytical, and creators of a language and civilization different from that

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of whites and worthy in itself. This achievement was crucial for the development of Négritude. Furthermore, Maran unleashed a storm of controversy with his polemical preface, a bold attack on both the actual practice of colonization and colonial officials in Africa, one of the first by a black Frenchman. Following the publication of Batouala, Maran became the most prominent black French critic of colonialism in the interwar years. But Maran’s earnest criticism during these years was neither for African liberation nor for France to abandon the colonial project. Rather, he demanded that abuses be addressed, corrupt officials be punished, and France live up to its highest ideals and extend them to the colonies. For this, white colonial apologists excoriated Maran in the interwar years, and postwar antiimperialist black intellectuals, most notably Frantz Fanon, stridently attacked Maran’s assimilationist ideology and valorization of French humanism. Maran has thus been marginalized in history. But in the interwar years he was an active, committed intellectual. He championed the works of the Harlem Renaissance to French publishers; hosted a salon for black intellectuals from the United States, Africa, and the Caribbean; and laid the foundation for Négritude. He also continued to write, publishing numerous novels, collections of poems, and nonfiction studies of colonial pioneers. In addition, he published articles on Africa and colonization in the periodical press on both sides of the Atlantic and did a regular radio broadcast after World War II. Maran’s importance to interwar black intellectuals and to the cause of Africa cannot be underestimated, nor can his love and identification with France and French civilization. He sought nothing less than fraternity, if not harmony, between races and nations. Brett A. Berliner See also Batouala; Fanon, Frantz (1925–1961); Harlem Renaissance; Négritude.

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654 | Marassa F URTHER R EADING Cameron, Keith. 1985. René Maran. Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers. Ojo-Ade, Femi. 1984. René Maran—The Black Frenchman: A Bio-Critical Study. Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press.

z Marassa The term marassa is a Haitian creole word that conveys the French meaning of gémellité and is equivalent to the English word “twinship.” Etymologically, it originates from the Kikongo term mabassa, which means “those who come divided.” The word and the concept that it signifies were brought to the French colony of Saint Domingue (today Haiti) by African captives during the 17th and 18th centuries. In many African and neo-African cultures, twins are either feared or revered. Twins—ibeji among the Yoruba, for example—are imbued with symbolic power. In the south of Congo as well, the birth of twins is such a celebrated event that there is a special dance of twins called mapassa, which extols their arrival. In Haitian culture, the term marassa refers to two or more children—male or female, of the same or differing genders—born at the same time from the same mother. Biologically, they are what are referred to as twins in the English language. For a simple set of twins, Haitians speak of marassa deux, a set of three refers to marassa trois,and so on. The dossou, a male child born sequentially after a set of marassa, and the dossa, a female child similarly positioned, are symbolically represented as a unit and are referred to as “marassa twins,” thus complementing the twins. According to Vodoun beliefs, marassas are generally divided into three categories: living marassas, that is, twin children who are still alive; dead marassas; and ancestral marassas. Above these exist the Lwa marassas, twin Vodoun deities that can temporarily mount (inhabit) a

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devotee in a state of trance or the so-called “possession.” But regardless of their categories, at birth marassas are believed to be endowed with special magical powers. Ancestral or living marassas are to be thus venerated and honored according to time-set rituals and ceremonies. In Haitian Vodoun mythology, the marassas are considered powerful and stronger than all the Lwas (Vodoun spirits or dieties). During Vodoun ceremonies, marassas are saluted even before Legba, who sits at the crossroads of life and death. However, the first and most important characteristic of the “divine twins” is that they incarnate the notion of segmentation of some original cosmic totality that must regain wholeness. The awe—whether admiration or fear—in which marassas are held explains why in worshipping the divine twins, one celebrates the twinned nature of human beings: half matter, half spirit. Thus, the marassas are regarded as half human and half divine, and the Feast Day of the marassas is one of Haitian Vodoun’s most sacred festivities. Most importantly, for Vodoun devotees of Haiti, marassas symbolize abundance, plurality, wholeness, healing, newness, and innocence; thus, they are represented as children. Marassas are also referred to as “calfou marassa” for they are guardians, they control the crossroads, and they are linked to the Lwaspirit Legba, who opens the gate to the crossroads, life, and destiny. Florence Bellande Robertson See also Haiti; Vodoun. F URTHER R EADING Bellande-Robertson, Florence. 1999. The Marassa Concept: A Socio-Literary Analysis of the Haitian Race/Color and Gender Problematic. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt. Clark, Vèvè A. 1991. “Developing Diaspora Literacy and Marassa Consciousness.” In Comparative American Identities: Race, Sex, and Nationality in the Modern Text, ed. Hortense Spillers, 40–61. New York: Routledge. Deren, Maya. 1983. Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti. New Paltz, NY: Documentext, McPherson.

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Marley, Robert Nesta (Bob) (1945–1981) | 655 Laguerre, Michel S. 1980. Voodoo Heritage. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.

z Marley, Robert Nesta (Bob) (1945–1981) Bob Marley was born in the parish of St. Ann in Jamaica, West Indies, on February 6, 1945. Marley’s legendary status as an international reggae superstar, however, benefited most directly from the ability of his music to capture and express a century-long tradition of the struggle for black freedom across the Diaspora, from Africa to the Caribbean to the United States, from the maroons of the colonial period to the buffalo soldiers of the 19th century, and from the days of slavery to the days of the decolonization movements in Africa in the late 20th century. His father was Captain Norval Marley, a white quartermaster in the British West Indian regiment, and his mother, Cedella Booker, was an 18-year-old Jamaican. Marley was known locally as a “Creole pickney,” a designation that also describes the space of his Caribbean homeland and the very process by which reggae developed as a musical form. Marley and his mother’s move to Kingston, the capital city, when he was 10, was the first of many movements that would mirror the larger migration patterns of other black and Caribbean people in these middle years of the 20th century. Reggae was created in the streets of Kingston from a combination of African American jazz and rhythm and blues beats; Jamaican music and dance steps, such as those found in the folk form mento and the popular music ska; and African rhythms practiced in the drumming and chanting rituals of Rastafarian musicians. In the ghetto trench towns of Kingston, Marley came under the mentorship of leading figures such as the singer Joe Higgs, who held lessons

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for up-and-coming singers in the tenement yards. Marley’s first significant move was to join with Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh to form the Wailing Wailers, after which they signed with record producer Clement “Sir Coxsone” Dodd, whose Studio One was the site where ska was invented. Here the Wailers recorded their first single, “Simmer Down,” a tune that became a “rude boy” anthem for Jamaica’s urban male youth of the early 1960s. By February 1966, Marley met and married singer Rita Anderson, a local singer in a girl group, the Soulettes. Hardship, however, soon led Marley to join his mother, who had migrated to the United States in 1964. Marley would stay in Wilmington, Delaware, for six months, earning money to take back to support himself on the island. Marley used his hard-earned cash to finance his own record label when he returned to Jamaica in October. His second important musical step was to combine with another legendary producer, Lee “Scratch” Perry, a figure instrumental in transitioning Jamaican popular music from ska and rock steady to reggae proper. While both earlier musical forms took the conventional four beats to the bar of classic rhythm and blues and added an accentuated afterbeat, reggae musicians added an additional half note to the classic afterbeat of the ska/rock steady formula. By 1968 to 1969 reggae had emerged as the new sound of Jamaican popular music, and Marley’s tunes and lyrics were at the center of that transformation. By the early 1970s the Wailers had secured recording contracts in Britain. While recording in London, Marley met Chris Blackwell, the Jamaican founder of the international label Island Records. Under the Island label, reggae and Marley’s music became both part of a world market and important in the development of a now multinational music industry. In his first record with Island, Catch a Fire, Marley played with Jamaican musical forms even further by incorporating rock and other elements of American popular music in the 1970s.

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Bob Marley was a reggae music pioneer whose songs about overcoming oppression and violence earned him heroic status in his native Jamaica and abroad during the late 1970s and after his death in 1981. (S.I.N./Corbis)

By 1976, Marley and the Wailers were international stars. However, Marley was also at the center of a tense political situation in Jamaica, which destabilized even further in December 1976, when the government’s call for an election precipitated violence between warring political factions. On the eve of a planned free concert to emphasize the need for peace in the streets of Kingston, Marley was shot and wounded, and though he defiantly appeared on stage briefly and returned to the Jamaican stage once again in April 1978 to play at another concert for peace, the political situation was so fraught that he left Jamaica. Unable to return to his island homeland his interests turned to Africa, and he produced two African-influenced albums, Survival and Uprising, within nine months of each other over 1979 and 1980. In April 1980, Marley was officially invited to perform at the independence celebrations in Zimbabwe, ce-

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menting his stature as an international, black, Third World superstar. Later that year, after performing two shows at Madison Square Garden as part of his American Survival tour, he collapsed while jogging in New York’s Central Park on September 21, 1980; the cancer that had first been identified in the big toe of his right foot in July 1977 had recurred. Bob Marley died of cancer on May 11, 1981, in a hospital in Miami. His musical legacy and heirs continue to proliferate. Michelle Stephens See also Jamaica; Rastafarianism; Reggae; Wailer, Bunny (1947–). F URTHER R EADING Davis, Stephen. 1985. Bob Marley. New York: Doubleday & Company. Johnson, Howard, and Jim Pines. 1982. Reggae: Deep Roots Music. New York: Proteus Books. Partridge, Rob. 1992. Songs of Freedom. Booklet. Bob Marley. Island.

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Maroon and Marronage | 657 Stephens, Michelle A. 1998. “Babylon’s ‘Natural Mystic’: The North American Music Industry, the Legend of Bob Marley, and the Incorporation of Transnationalism.” Cultural Studies 12 (2): 139–167. White, Timothy. 1994. Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

z Maroon and Marronage The term “maroon” derives from the Spanish cimmaron, which was initially used to describe domesticated animals that had escaped to the wilderness from colonial settlements. It was subsequently applied to indigenous people who escaped colonial slavery, and finally, to New World Africans who escaped urban or plantation enslavement. Marronage is the historical practice of self-emancipation by oppressed people who, individually or communally, reach free spaces out of the control of their oppressors and then build resistance and community in those spaces. Marronage is the French version of the word; the practice is called cimmaronaje in Spanish, either marronage or maroonage in English, and quilhombismo in Portuguese. People who practiced marronage are called maroons in English, cimarrones in Spanish, and quilombos in Portuguese. In Mexico, they are called palenqueros. Historical marronage took two forms: petit marronage, that is, short periods of escape ranging from a day to a year, and grand marronage, where self-emancipated New World Africans claimed land and established self-governing communities engaged in creolization and resistance to re-enslavement. Since the last quarter of the 20th century, the term has also been used metaphorically to describe spaces and practices of resistance and creativity under conditions of oppression that are less overt than legal enslavement but that reproduce oppressive social and economic structures.

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The first maroon is said to have escaped to the mountainous regions of Hispaniola in 1502 from the first shipment of Africans to the New World. By the 1530s, such escapees were commonly known as maroons. Over the next four centuries, maroon communities arose throughout the hemisphere. Wherever there was slavery, there was marronage, ranging from the establishment of large communities that endured for a century or longer, like Palmares in Brazil or those established by the Jamaican and Surinamese maroons, to small migrating bands or individuals who would escape for short periods. Price (1979, 20) notes that “before 1700, the great majority of Maroon leaders on whom we have data were African-born.” Initially, a relative few were Creole, that is, American-born Africans in skilled positions, although as both European and Afro-Creole cultures took hold in the New World, their leadership became more significant. The earliest maroon societies tended to be organized after a monarchical model, reflecting the claim of a number of early leaders that they had been kings in their lands of origin. Their primary concerns were military: how to communicate, get supplies, conduct defensive ambushes, and replenish their own populations. Where there was still a Native American population, relationships varied from cooperative alliance, and sometimes absorption of one group by the other (as in the case of the Black Caribs) to open hostility and the use of Native Americans to hunt maroons. In the southern United States, indigenous Seminoles and maroons fought together against the United States in the 19th century but maintained their own fighting bands. Maroons maintained extensive contacts with plantation slaves, with whom they may also have had kinship and slave-ship bonds. Thus, the plantation margins of slave quarters and provision grounds provided an open border between these competing, yet interdependent, Afro-Creole cultures. Spirituality provided another strand in the web of relations and sustenance to a people

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confronting an alien environment in wartime. From the Saramaka, who believe their spirits intervened to clear a river from worms shortly after their arrival in Suriname’s interior, to warriors throughout the hemisphere who underwent rituals and wore amulets to render themselves invisible or impenetrable to bullets, spiritual belief and practice was part and parcel of the construction of individual and community agency. Maroon communities not only differed according to location but also over time. Political systems evolved from monarchical to protodemocratic forms, leadership shifted from African born to Afro-Creole, and spiritual systems shifted from emphasizing individual empowerment to promoting systems of ethics and community sanction. Maroons throughout the hemisphere shared the values of resistance; community formation as embattled, but free, Afro-Creoles; spiritual foundations; and guerilla tactics, but their specific adaptations were neither uniform nor predictable. Their strength rested on creating an atmosphere of uncertainty for their enemies, and maintaining a consciousness of cultural development, not stasis, during their existence. Although marronage endured until the end of hemispheric slavery in the late 19th century, by the end of the 18th century, those maroon groups that posed the greatest threats to imperial stability in the hemisphere had been pacified, either through a battle to the death, as in the fall of Palmares in Brazil in 1695, or through treaties, in “areas as scattered as Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Hispaniola, Jamaica, Mexico, and Surinam” (Craton 1983, 65). The notable exception to this is the Haitian Revolution, in which maroons united with the enslaved to win independence in 1804. Maroon communities maintained ideals of self determination as they developed alternative New World forms of governance based on at least rhetorical and often stronger allegiance to African ideals, adapted to new and inherently unpredictable circumstances.

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Historical research on marronage continues. A recent addition to the discourse is “maritime marronage,” which describes escape to the sea by New World Africans from slave territories that did not provide wildernesses for land escape. Other concepts of marronage, delinked from territoriality, that emerged in the 20th century are cultural, literary, and psychological marronage, which often overlap. Rene Depestre (Haiti) identifies cultural marronage as practices of resistance that evade containment by Eurocentric models; Edward Kamau Brathwaite (Barbados) further develops this idea and identifies psychological marronage as a site of resistance within Caribbean consciousness; Wilson Harris (Guyana) and Edouard Glissant (Martinique) invoke the figure of the maroon as Caribbean hero. Cynthia James and Barbara Lalla have both theorized about marronage in Caribbean literary discourse, the former regarding it cross-culturally to include marooned Europeans, and the latter asserting it as a foundation for a national literary tradition, as in Jamaica. The maroon and marronage have entered literary discourse through creative works as well. Some notable examples include fiction by Vic Reid, Paule Marshall, Wilson Harris, Michelle Cliff, Maryse Condé, Toni Morrison, Leslie Marmon Silko, Namba Roy, and Toni Cade Bambara as well as poetry by Lorna Goodison and Edward Kamau Brathwaite, among others. The Haitian Revolution and other manifestations of marronage have been popular sources for playwrights, including Derek Walcott, Denis Martin Benn, and John Campbell. The most famous Maroon narrative is probably Autobiography of a Runaway Slave, a testimony by Esteban Montejo of Cuba, told to Miguel Barnet in the 1960s, when Montejo was more than 100 years old. Recent renewed attention to marronage and maroon heritage has led to conferences and festivals and increased self-representation by contemporary maroons: Maroon Heritage: Archaeological, Ethnographic and Historical Perspectives includes maroon

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Marshall, Paule (1929–) | 659 autoethnography with scholarly work, and the Smithsonian Institution hosted hemispheric maroons for a folklife festival and established a permanent Web site devoted to maroon cultures and histories. Contemporary maroons face very different social and political postcolonial circumstances. In Jamaica, maroons maintain self-governance and territory, but they also participate in national institutions. In Brazil, descendants of quilombos have achieved recognition of their rights to some of their ancestral lands, and they continue to seek such recognition for more than a thousand pieces of territory. In Suriname, Maroons are not recognized as a distinct political entity; in contrast, in Colombia, the 1991 revision of the national constitution includes designated legislative seats for representatives of the maroons. Regardless of official national recognition, maroon identity, history, and culture remain significant throughout the hemisphere. Randi Gray Kristensen See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Cuba: AfroCubans; Diasporic Marronage; Haitian Revolution; Jamaica. F URTHER R EADING Agorsah, E. Kofi, ed. 1994. Maroon Heritage: Archaeological, Ethnographic, and Historical Perspectives. Kingston, Jamaica: Canoe Press, the University of the West Indies. Campbell, Mavis C. 1990. The Maroons of Jamaica, 1655–1796. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Craton, Michael. 1983. Testing the Chains: Resistance to Slavery in the British West Indies. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Fouchard, Jean. 1981. The Haitian Maroons: Liberty or Death. New York: Edward Blyden Press. Montejo, Esteban. 1968. Autobiography of a Runaway Slave. New York: World Publications. Price, Richard. 1979. Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. The Smithsonian Institution. 1999. “Creativity and Resistance: Maroon Cultures in the Americas.” www.folklife.si.edu/resources/maroon/start.htm (accessed September 30, 2004).

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Marshall, Paule (1929–) Caribbean-American novelist Paule Marshall was born in 1929 in Brooklyn, NY, to Barbadian immigrant parents. She is arguably the best known U.S.-born author of Caribbean descent and has been described as an African Diaspora writer as her work cannot be identified singly with one national literary tradition. Her work highlights the composite, pluralistic nature of American identity in its skilled depictions of immigrant Caribbean populations. Also thematically present are the interrelated issues of physical and cultural exile, searches for “home,” and journeys—both physical and mental—in an attempt to establish a coherent, Pan-Africanist identity. Her novels include Brown Girl, Brownstones (1959); The Chosen Place, The Timeless People (1969); Praisesong for the Widow (1983); Daughters (1991); and The Fisher King (2000). Soul Clap Hands and Sing (1961) and Reena and Other Stories (1983) are her collections of short fiction. Marshall holds a distinguished chair in creative writing at New York University and has won numerous awards for her writing, including a 1992 MacArthur Genius Grant, the John Dos Passos Award for Literature, the Rosenthal Award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters for Soul Clap Hands and Sing, and a 1984 Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award for Praisesong for the Widow. The process of psychic healing that Marshall explores in her works is often gendered: female protagonists must contend with the traumatic legacies of slavery, colonialism, and the accompanying racism and sexism. In Daughters, for example, Ursa Mackenzie attempts to resolve the psychic split in which she lives—in limbo between the United States and the fictional Caribbean island of Triunion. Avey Johnson, the protagonist of Praisesong for the Widow, remembers and reconnects with her roots in Caribbean space and becomes a PanAfricanist subject as she gains the independence of widowhood.

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In The Chosen Place, The Timeless People, the reader’s first impression of protagonist Merle Kinbona is of a person who embodies cultural amalgamation. A native of the fictional Caribbean Bourne Island, one learns that she has studied in England, where she married a Ugandan. The conclusion of the novel shows her flying to Africa, not by the usual route through the imperial metropoles of New York and London, but instead through Trinidad and Brazil, models of cultural creolization, and then Dakar and Kampala. The Fisher King continues the theme of connections between populations of African descent around the world. Sonny Carmichael Payne, the eight-year-old protagonist who is the embodiment of the African Diaspora, is born in France of a Cameroonian father and a French-born mother whose own parents were U.S.-born African American expatriates—her father’s parents migrated to New York City from the Caribbean and her mother’s parents migrated to the city from the American South. Besides Sonny’s lineage, his desire for connections makes him a perfect representative of cultural bridges. Giselle Liza Anatol See also Barbados: African Cultural Elements; Brooklyn; Ibo Landing. F URTHER R EADING Boyce Davies, Carole. 1994. “Paule Marshall.” Dictionary of Literary Biography (Twentieth Century Caribbean and Black African Writers, Third Series), ed. Rhinehard Sander and Bernth Lindfors, V. 157:192–202. Coser, Stelamaris. 1995. Bridging the Americas: The Literature of Paule Marshall, Toni Morrison, and Gayl Jones. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. DeLamotte, Eugenia. 1998. Places of Silence, Journeys of Freedom: The Fiction of Paule Marshall. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Denniston, Dorothy Hamer. 1995. The Fiction of Paule Marshall: Reconstructions of History, Culture, and Gender. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. Hathaway, Heather. 1999. Caribbean Waves: Relocating Claude McKay and Paule Marshall. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

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Pettis, Joyce. 1995. Toward Wholeness in Paule Marshall’s Fiction. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.

z Marshall, Thurgood (1908–1993) Thurgood Marshall remains the most important African American lawyer in U.S. history. His legacy includes winning the landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education, thereby prohibiting government-sanctioned racial apartheid in the United States, and becoming the first African American to sit as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. Marshall was born on July 2, 1908, in Baltimore, Maryland. After attending historically black Lincoln University (at the same time as poet Langston Hughes, entertainer Cab Calloway, and Pan-Africanist Kwame Nkrumah), Marshall applied to the University of Maryland Law School but was rejected because he was black. In 1933, Marshall received his law degree from the Howard University School of Law, the oldest and most esteemed legal academy for African Americans. Later that year, Marshall successfully sued the University of Maryland, gaining entrance into the law school for another African American, Donald Gaines Murray. In 1934, Marshall joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where he soon became its chief counsel and created the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. In this position, he many times secured previously withheld legal rights for all African Americans, winning notable cases such as Smith v. Allwright (prohibiting whites-only electoral primaries), Shelley v. Kramer (prohibiting the enforcement of racially restrictive real estate covenants), and Sweatt v. Painter (desegregating the University of Texas graduate school system). Brown v. Board of Education, however, remains his most

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Marson, Una (1905–1965) | 661 In 1967, Marshall was elevated to the U.S. Supreme Court. During his 24-year tenure, Marshall was best known for scrutinizing the actions of the federal government and bolstering the rights of individuals and disempowered groups. In Board of Regents v. Roth, Marshall declared that “The government may only act fairly and reasonably,” and that “it is not burdensome [for the government] to give reasons [for its actions] when those reasons exist.” Justice Marshall died in 1993 at the age of 84. Andre L. Smith See also African Americans and the Constitutional Order; Lincoln University.

Thurgood Marshall, the first African American appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, built a remarkable legal career on the premise that all forms of racial segregation were unconstitutional. (Lavenburg/National Geographic Society, Courtesy of the Supreme Court of the United States)

F URTHER R EADING Marshall, Thurgood. 2001. Thurgood Marshall: His Speeches, Writings, Arguments, Opinions and Remininsces, ed. Mark V. Tushnet. Chicago, IL: Lawrence Hill Books. Williams, Juan. 1998. Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary. New York: Random House.

z Marson, Una (1905–1965)

famous case. There, Marshall convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its own precedent, Plessy v. Ferguson, and hold that the “separate but equal” doctrine, which permitted unjustified racial discrimination by the government, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. Marshall went on to win several more cases relating to the struggle for African American civil rights. He was also recruited to help write the constitutions of newly independent African countries such as Ghana and Tanzania. Marshall was appointed to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1961, where he rendered more than 100 judgments, none of which were ever reversed by the Supreme Court, and then to the position of U.S. solicitor general in 1965, from which he became the first African American to represent the United States in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, winning 14 out of 19 cases.

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Jamaica-born Una Marson authored four volumes of poetry, Tropic Reveries (1930), Heights and Depths (1931), and The Moth and the Star (1937), all published by the author in Kingston, and Towards the Stars (1945), published in London by University of London Press. Her poetry continues and extends the pioneering work in the vernacular of her countryman Claude McKay. Her correspondence with James Weldon Johnson and Langston Hughes, the latter of whom would publish several of her poems in his 1949 anthology Poetry of the Negro, demonstrates that Marson was also influenced by the poets of the Harlem Renaissance, the blossoming of African American cultural expression in the 1920s of which McKay is often described as the initiator. Marson lived in London in the 1930s and 1940s, working for Dr. Harold Moody, founder

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of the League of Coloured Peoples. Poems such as “Quashie Comes to London” and “Little Brown Girl” are early evocations of the Caribbean immigrant experience, the latter focalized through the female perspective that characterizes much of Marson’s writing. Her feminist journalism and lifelong commitment to the international women’s movement complemented the womanist blues that Marson developed in poems such as “Kinky Hair Blues.” Marson subsequently worked with the exiled Haile Selassie, accompanying him to the League of Nations in 1935. Her first play, At What a Price, was staged in Kingston in 1932, and the following year made history as the first black colonial production to be staged in London’s West End. Her second play, Pocomania, performed in Kingston in 1938, anticipates much postcolonial Caribbean writing in its exploration of folk materials as cultural resistance. In the 1940s Marson was employed by the British Broadcasting Corporation, where she devised Caribbean Voices, the radio program that would prove “the single most important literary catalyst for Caribbean creative and critical writing in English” (Brathwaite 1984, 87). On her return to Jamaica, Marson worked for the Daily Gleaner and the Pioneer Press, where she encouraged other new writers, including the young Andrew Salkey. Her considerable contribution to Caribbean and international culture was recognized in 1977 in a special “Caribbean Woman” issue of the journal Savacou, dedicated to the memory of this “poet, pioneer, patriot and people-person” (vi). Marson’s books remain out of print, although selections from her poetry appear in the Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse in English. Lee M. Jenkins See also Brathwaite, Kamau (1930–); Haile Selassie I (1892–1975); Jamaica; Pan-Africanism. F URTHER R EADING Brathwaite, Kamau. 1984. History of the Voice: The Development of Nation Language in Anglophone Caribbean Poetry. London: New Beacon.

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Brathwaite, Edward Kamau, et al. eds. 1977. “Caribbean Woman.” Special issue, Savacou 13. Burnett, Paula, ed. 1986. Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse in English. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin. Jarrett-Macauley, Delia. 1998. The Life of Una Marson. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.

z Martinique With a land area of 1,128 km and a population of 401,000 according to 2007 census, Martinique is located between the Caribbean islands of Dominica and St. Lucia. Known to the Arawaks, its first inhabitants, as Madinina—the Flower island—it became a French colony in 1635. By the middle of the seventeenth century, sugarcane was the main culture of the island. Although indentured servants were responsible for a significant portion of the initial labor, increasing numbers of enslaved Africans were brought to the plantations. The native American population rapidly declined, but its influence remains strong and is still evident in residents’ medicinal plant knowledge, fishing techniques, lexicon. In 1789 the population was more than 96,000, 85 percent of whom were enslaved Africans. In 1831 the population was 116,031, 67 percent of whom were enslaved Africans (many had been emancipated). Enslaved Africans engaged in various modes of resistance: suicide, arson, sabotage, poison, abortion, rebellion, marronage. Under the pressure of resistance, changing economic opportunities, and the abolitionist movement, slavery underwent major blows. In 1802 Napoleon reestablished slavery, partly to satisfy the interests of the planters, which were wellrepresented by his wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais, a white Creole from Martinique.Today May 22 is the official anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Martinique. On this date in 1848, a rebellion forced the governor to adopt a strong assimilationist policy. This date has al-

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Martinique | 663 most exclusively been associated to the French abolitionist Victor Schoelcher, minimizing local actions such as Cyrille Bissette. All inhabitants were granted citizenship, which placed them in the ambiguous position of colonized citizens. In spite of this clear attempt to erase the past, the African heritage remains key and it can be experienced in music, food, belief systems, names, carnival for instance. After abolition, a system of exploitation and discrimination persisted. As a compensation for their loss, planters received 1.5 million francs and workers from China, India and even Africa were brought to Martinique after 1848. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century and the twentieth century riots and strikes continuously punctuated life on the island. Martinicans who could afford to go to school entered the colonial administration in large numbers. Many stayed in the Caribbean, but others were appointed in Africa. Relations between Martinique and the African continent have been established in various ways. For instance, Behanzin—king of Dahomey—was captured by the French army and sent in exile to Martinique from 1894 to 1906.On the other hand, many tales make precise references to Africa. The impact of slavery and colonialism on Martinican psychological identities has been examined by Frantz Fanon. On May 8, 1902, the eruption of Mount Pelée killed 28,000 and destroyed the city of Saint-Pierre, the island’s cultural capital of the island known as “Little Paris.” Across the Atlantic, Paris, France became an inescapable crossroad, where Martinicans met with Africans, other Caribbeans, and African Americans. The sisters Jane and Paulette Nardal held a literary salon in the capital during the interwar period. Between 1931 and 1932 they published The Review of the Black World, a bilingual review, which aimed at bridging the gaps within the African Diaspora. After World War II, Aimé Césaire, one of the three recognized founders of Negritude decided to enter the political arena. He was elected mayor of Fort-de-France in 1945. In

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1946 he presented to the French Parliament a law to change the status of Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guyane and Réunion from colony to department. In 1958 he created the Martinican People’s Party (PPM), which is still today Martinique’s most influential political party. However in spite of the new status of department, unemployment rate remained much higher than in France, while the minimum wage stayed below national average. Violent riots often took place. In 1948, 16 agricultural workers were accused of murdering their plantation owner. Their lawyers used the trial as a platform to denounce the colonial situation in the island where blatant racism and obscene exploitation continued ruling. The workers were found innocent. In response, the French government started investing in collective infrastructures and created the Migration Office for Overseas Departments (BUMIDOM) in 1963 to organize the migration of the youth to France and defuse potential conflicts. Today, Martinique is a French department of the Americas with full membership to the European Community. In spite of an unemployment rate that still remains above France’s average, consumption is high and shopping malls activities keep growing. The main proindependence party is the Movement for Martinican Independence (MIM) led by Alfred Marie-Jeanne, also president of the Regional Council. In December 1987, announcements of the visit of French Extreme-right wing leader Jean-Marie Le Pen led to an important demonstration, which prevented his plane from landing. Similarly, there was opposition to the Februrary 23, 2005 law, which called for a positive evaluation of colonialism. Although independence remains the choice of a minority, activists, scholars, politicians, educators and artists have actively contributed to develop knowledge on Martinique’s African heritage. College-level education in Creole is now available, traditional dances and music are researched and taught. Leading Martiniquan artists include Euzhan Palcy, Gilbert Gratiant,

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Michel Sardaby, Malavoi, Jocelyne Béroard, Marc Latamie, Eugène Mona, Alexandre Stellio, Marius Cultier, Vincent Placoly, Jenny Alpha, Ti Emile, Lola Martin, Leona Gabriel, Francisco. And of the writers, and theorists, Aime Cesaire and Franz Fanon, and Edouard Glissant and Patrick Chamoiseau are perhaps the most internationally recognized names across the African Diaspora. Veronique Helenon See also Cesairé, Aimé (1913–2008); Fanon, Frantz (1925–1961); Glissant, Edouard (1928–); Négritude; Palcy, Euzhan (1957–). F URTHER R EADING Capecia, Mayotte. 1948. Je Suis Martiniquaise. Paris: Correa. Fanon, Frantz. 1952. [1967]. Black Skin White Masks. New York: Grove Press. Price, Richard. 1998. The Convict and the Colonel: A Story of Colonialism and Resistance in the Caribbean. Boston: Beacon Press.

z Mau Mau The Kenya Land and Freedom Army (called the Mau Mau by the colonial apparatus) was a clandestine liberation army that fought for Kenya’s independence between 1952 and 1956 when the rebellion was finally put down by a large British army and air force and assorted regiments of African colonial armies from Kenya and Uganda. For some, Mau Mau has become a metaphor for all that is disorganized, vile, and grotesque. The exact origin and meaning of the term “Mau Mau” remains unclear. The fighters themselves called their organization the Kenya Land and Freedom Army, so most commentators tend to assume that the Mau Mau was a name invented by colonial propagandists to create the image of a meaningless, depraved band of ragtag opportunists with no cause. The movement started in the Rift Valley province of Kenya around 1947 when oathing rituals were first reported in the Olenguruon www.abc-clio.com

area. According to Kenyan historian Tabitha Kanogo, this area was ripe for political activity as aggrieved Kikuyu squatters on white farms mixed with returning African veterans of World War II, who were by now familiar with British vulnerability and the concept of national independence. The Kikuyu, though stateless, had a long tradition of militancy and proud nationalism. The famous colonial administrator, Captain Frederick Lugard, records instances of Kikuyu attacks against the initial British excursion into mainland Kenya. The Mau Mau uprising resulted in the death of about 200 Europeans. Colonial records put the number of African deaths at 13,000, most of which were attributed to disease and malnutrition. More recent research has concluded that the number of African dead was probably four times this figure. A further 1.5 million Kikuyu were detained, purportedly for “reeducation,” but again, official colonial records put the number of detained at 80,000. Many Kikuyu loyalists, called “homeguards,” fought alongside the colonial forces. In addition, Kenyans from other ethnic groups participated in the fight against Mau Mau “terrorism.” As a result, memories of the decade from 1950 to 1960 are extremely divisive in Kenya, despite Jomo Kenyatta’s call to Kenyans to forgive the past. Academics and historians debate the role of Mau Mau in Kenya’s liberation struggles. Kenyan academics, literary figures like Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Micere Githae-Mugo, and historian Maina wa Kinyatti, have defended the uprising as a genuine liberation movement. Outside Kenya, Mau Mau is seen as the first genuine mass movement to take up arms against a colonizing power in Africa. It is said to have inspired the anticolonial wars in Algeria, Rhodesia, Mozambique, Angola, and South Africa. When Nelson Mandela visited Kenya after his release from jail in 1991, he paid glowing tribute to Mau Mau and their leader, Dedan Kimathi, and acknowledged their example and inspiration to South Africans. Throughout postindependence Kenya, Mau Mau remained a banned organization in Kenyan statutes, a ban

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Mbari Club | 665 that was lifted only after the Kenya African National Union, which had ruled Kenya since independence, was defeated in the 2002 general election and a new government ascended to power. Charles Muiru Ngugi See also Kenyatta, Jomo (1889–1978). F URTHER R EADING Clough, S. Marshall. 1998. Mau Mau Memoirs: History, Memory and Politics. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Elkins, Caroline, 2005. Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya. London: James Cape. Furedi, Frank. 1989: The Mau Mau War in Perspective. Athens: Ohio University Press. Kershaw, Greet. 1997: Mau Mau from Below. Athens: Ohio University Press. Maloba, Wunyabari O. 1993. Mau Mau and Kenya: An Analysis of a Peasant Revolt. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

z Mbari Club The Mbari Club, which was founded in the Nigerian city of Ibadan in 1961 and, subsequently, in the town of Oshogbo in southernwestern Nigeria in 1962, was catalytic in the development of modern African visual and verbal art. The first Mbari Club was founded with the German scholar Ulli Beier; the South African writer Ezekiel Mphahlele; and the Nigerian writers Wole Soyinka, Christopher Okigbo, and J. P. Clark as founding members. The Nigerian dramatist Duro Ladipo, along with Beier and Mphahlele, also developed the concept of the club at Oshogbo in 1962, where it was known as Mbari Mbayo. Its influence continues to resonate, not only through the artists whose work it nurtured, but also in the various cultural organizations, both in Africa and the United States, that have been founded in a direct and self-conscious relationship to principles that emerged from this pioneering effort. The club provided a space for creative interaction, fueled by its library; sponsored exhibiwww.abc-clio.com

tions of artists of African descent from within Africa and the Diaspora, as well as nonblack artists; and ran the magazine Black Orpheus, which Beier had founded in 1957 with the pioneering German Africanist Janheinz Jahn. The club developed a publishing house that published what have become iconic works of modern African literature. It also initiated and hosted performances of seminal African theatrical and musical works, along with writing competitions, entry into which represented the first writing experience for several budding writers who would be later recognized as distinguished African diaspora writers. An intense, intercontinental activity, within an interactive space, proved vitalizing for some of the earliest and most influential verbal and visual art produced in modern African discourse. The Mbari Club drew on the aesthetics of organic dissolution and regeneration represented by the Mbari art of the Ibo of southern Nigeria, who created works of art only to let them decay and decompose, awaiting another season of creation. Coming to birth in the flux of the preindependence and immediate postindependence period in Nigeria, it brought together a constellation of artists whose work embodied the quality of transformation embodied by the aesthetic of creation, decay, and regeneration evoked by the Mbari tradition. It did this in terms of an imaginative reconfiguration and transmutation of indigenous African forms within a matrix constituted by the creative conflict of cultures engendered by the colonial experience, which was reworked by the artists into the development of novel discursive forms. Okigbo, Soyinka, and Ladipo, among other members of the club, represented a vanguard constituted by the second generation of Nigerian artists, whose works boldly and dramatically transformed the dialectic between education in indigenous African cultures and Western education into startling new forms that have become classics in the constitution of modern African art. Toyin Adepoju

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666 | M’bow, Amadou Makhtar (1921–) See also Soyinka, Akinwande Oluwole (1934–). F URTHER R EADING Benson, Peter. 1986. Black Orpheus, Transition and Modern African Cultural Awakening. Berkeley: University of California Press. James, Louis. 1969. “The Protest Tradition: Black Orpheus and Transition.” In Protest and Conflict in African Literature, ed. Cosmo Pierterse and Donald Munroe, 109–124. London: Heinemann. Ogundele, Wole. 2003. Omoluabi:Ulli Beier, Yoruba Society and Culture. Bayreuth, Germany: Bayreuth University.

z M’bow, Amadou Makhtar (1921–) Born in Senegal on March 20, 1921, Amadou Makhtar M’Bow was the director general of the United Nation Education Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO) from 1974 to 1987, a period when the projects undertaken under his leaderhip at UNESCO had a tremendous impact on the Diaspora. Brillant intellectual and Pan-Africanist, M’Bow’s tenure at the international organization demonstrated the possibility of an alternative framework in international relations away from the Eurocentric monopoly inherent in world organizations. To understand M’Bow’s indefatigable attachment to international justice and the necessity for Africans and the African Diaspora to intellectualize in their own terms, one needs to first understand M’Bow’s intellectual formation: Africa first and then Western traditions. His African education brought him the rules of behavior at the foundation of his personality, which allowed him to fully assume the principles of his culture and the responsibility of being part of a family, a race, and humankind at large. M’Bow was raised in daily contact with the native reality of peasantry—a partnership with the soil that must be worked to produce the food—an often too-dry soil that one never www.abc-clio.com

knows will bear the fruit for a harvest essential to the survival of the community. Because of this a community consciousness is at the heart of M’Bow’s intellectual formation, which he articulated at the global level in his functions as the head of UNESCO. It is this community consciousness that M’Bow defends as having founded his respect for others and his generosity. “Never forget who you are or what you must be,” his father told him. At the head of the international organization, M’Bow’s leadership provided Africa and the African Diaspora with a blueprint for engagement in these instances. The first work he wrote as director of UNESCO—The Source of the Future (1976), in which he synthesized the sense and action of UNESCO—remains a document of reference 30 years after. M’Bow has dedicated his life to denouncing the inequality of information trends between the North and the South. The privileging of Western countries to the detriment of underdeveloped countries through the systematic hijacking of prescriptive schemas of thought by Western media must be exploded to give rise to the diversity of voices, experiences, and cultures. For M’Bow, access to knowledge and information are constitutive of a people’s culture and cannot be compatible with a unilateral discourse. Hence, M’Bow’s rallying cry echoed Hervé Bourges’s in his 1970s work, Decolonizing Information. In retrospective, one can understand the violence of the diplomatic struggle this formulation unleashed and the opposition to M’Bow’s idea of a New World Order of Information. At stake was the domination of the globe by one media system. Feeling the danger M’Bow represented to maintaining the status quo, the United States and Great Britain deployed their imperialist powers to subjugate member states in their quest for his removal. In 1987, after several inconclusive ballots, M’Bow withdrew his name for a third mandate as the head of the world body. The United States and Britain employed the extreme measure of financially strangling UNESCO by withdrawing from it.

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McKay, Claude (1889–1948) | 667 During his two terms, M’Bow left a legacy of accomplishments ranging from the groundbreaking General History of Africa—an eightvolume documentation of the history of the continent and its peoples that dismantled the Eurocentric historiography of human experience—to the inscription of several African and African Diaspora national patrimony sites such as Gorée Island, Salvador de Bahia, the Citadel of Haiti, and the Florida Everglades to the register of world patrimony. M’Bow’s legacy also includes his use of the international forum to advocate political issues such as disarmament, the end to Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and an end to apartheid in South Africa, because for him, UNESCO’s major function is intellectual collaboration rather than international so-called development. Although he is perceived as “anti-Western,” M’bow was and remains, first and foremost, a fighter for oppressed peoples worldwide. Babacar M’Bow See also Africa; Environmental Justice; PanAfricanism. F URTHER R EADING Bourges, Hervé. 1970. Decolonizing Information. Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO General History of Africa, 8 vols. Heineman/California/UNESCO, 1972–1993.

z McKay, Claude (1889–1948) Claude McKay was a leading writer of the Harlem Renaissance and one of a group of writers like Paule Marshall, Edwidge Danticat, and even Olaudah Equiano who are fully of the African Diaspora. McKay was first identified as an associate/protégé of the British folklorist Walter Jekyll and had his first collections of poetry, Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads, published through Jekyll’s patronage in his native Jamaica in 1912. McKay left Jamaica for New York in 1912 and became part of the literary political activity known as the Harlem www.abc-clio.com

Renaissance. Although known mostly as a poet, McKay was also a novelist, essayist, journalist, social and political critic, and activist. His writings include Spring in New Hampshire (1920), Negroes in America (1923), Home to Harlem (1928), Banjo: A Story without Plot (1929), Gingertown (1932), Banana Bottom (1933), A Long Way from Home (1937), Harlem: A Negro Metropolis (1940), and My Green Hills of Jamaica (1978). During his childhood, McKay was exposed to his elder brother’s free-thinking literature and was without religious indoctrination, despite his family’s participation in the church. His migration to the United States also put him in touch with the Euro-American left wing, as well as with various Pan-Africanists of differing political persuasions. McKay is also known, although to a lesser degree, for his leftist affiliations, such as his work with the two most powerful left-wing editors in New York—Max Eastman of The Liberator and the voluble Frank Harris of Pearson’s Magazine. McKay’s left-wing political works include his early publications in The Workers’ Dreadnought in June 1919. Three poems, “The Barrier,” “After the Winters,” and “The Little Peoples” were reprinted from Eastman’s Liberator. “If We Must Die” (which became his most popular poem, recited by Winston Churchill over the wireless during World War II) appeared in September of the same year. McKay’s first article appeared in January 1920, entitled “Socialism and the Negro,” and his career as journalist, although not placing him as a writer within the wider context of British literary life, certainly afforded him extensive opportunity to observe, report on, and understand British political life. When McKay arrived in England in 1919 he frequented two clubs; the International Club and another, situated in a basement in Drury Lane, were the center for Africans. McKay was banned from the latter by the manager because of his reference to her as being “maternal” in her treatment of Africans. McKay subsequently spent most of his spare time at the International Club, which had been founded by radical

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Germans in 1840 and was the reputed center for pan-European radical thought. Marx and Engels had spoken there in the 1840s, and it was a popular meeting place for leftists of the time. McKay followed all the leaders of the major workers’ groups and wrote features, reports, and book reviews of some of the leading radical writers of the 1920s. McKay not only published articles under his own name, but he also used pseudonyms, including Hugh Hope or the initials of his name. One of the most interesting of McKay’s experiences came with his association with Sylvia Pankhurst,who he learned later was involved with the politburo of the Russian Communist Party after 1917. When a member of her organization was arrested, it was revealed that he was a courier between Pankhurst and Lenin, Zinovyev, and members of the politboro. McKay himself cleverly escaped being arrested after the publication of a sensitive document about the navy. McKay had secured the original document on his person, after the police had thoroughly ransacked Pankhurst’s offices, and was descending from the building when he was questioned by the police. McKay did not circulate only within the circles of the English and Europeans, but he also made important social contacts with Africans from the Caribbean and Africa. He did not function as a political organizer, either with the socialists or with the Pan-Africanists; that he saw himself as a socialist is without doubt, but that he felt a strong bond with the suffering and circumstances of Africans was indisputable. With this consciousness, he tried to expose the cracks in the armor of British imperialism and what he referred to as the “congenial” nature of British racism. Amon Saba Saakana See also Black Marxism; Harlem Renaissance; Jamaica. F URTHER R EADING Cooper, Wayne, and Robert C. Reinders. 1968. “A Black Briton Comes ‘Home’: Claude McKay in England, 1920.” Race and Class 9:67–83.

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James, Winston. 2001. A Fierce Hatred of Injustice. Claude McKay’s Jamaica and His Poetry of Rebellion. London: Verso. McKay, Claude. 1985. A Long Way from Home. London. (Orig. pub. 1937). Rani, Kandula. 2006. Claude McKay: The Literary Identity from Jamaica to Harlem and Beyond. London: McFarland.

z McLeod Bethune, Mary (1875–1955) See Bethune, Mary McLeod (1875–1955).

z McRae, Carmen (1920–1994) Carmen McRae was one of the best American jazz singers and an accomplished pianist and songwriter. Born in April 1920 in New York City, early in her career she sang with bands led by Benny Carter, Mercer Ellington, Charlie Barnet, Dave Brubeck, and Count Basie, sometimes under the name of Carmen Clarke (from her brief marriage to drummer Kenny Clarke). Although a familiar figure on the New York jazz club scene, including a spell in the early 1950s as intermission pianist at Minton’s Playhouse, her reputation did not spread far outside the jazz community. In the 1960s and 1970s, she toured internationally and continued to record—usually accompanied by a small group. On one occasion, the Clarke-Boland Big Band joined her. By the 1980s, McRae was one of only a handful of major jazz singers whose work had not been diluted by commercial pressures. One of her early songs, “Dream of Life,” written when she was 16 years old, was recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939. Although very much her own woman, McRae occasionally demonstrated Holiday’s influence through her ability to project a lyric

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McWatt, Tessa (1959–) | 669 with bittersweet intimacy. She sang with remarkable rhythmic ease and her deft turns of phrase helped conceal a relatively limited vocal range, while her ballad singing revealed enormous emotional depths. Her repertoire included many popular items from the Great American Songbook, but her jazz background ensured that she rarely strayed outside the idiom. Relaxed and unpretentious in performance and dedicated to her craft, McRae secured a place of honor in the history of jazz singing. Carmen McRae, Miss Jazz by Leslie Gourse takes a look into the art and life of this legendary performer. The focus, however, is not on the intricate details of her life from cradle to grave, but on her exposure to and love of jazz music. Featuring segments from numerous interviews with McRae, along with reflections by many artists who knew or worked with her, Miss Jazz provides an interesting look at the artist’s life. Joan Cartwright See also Blues: A Continuum from Africa; Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Jazz; Jazz and Blues Singers, Black Women. F URTHER R EADING Gourse, Leslie. 2001. Carmen McRae: Miss Jazz. New York: Billboard Books.

z McWatt, Tessa (1959–) Novelist, poet, screenwriter, and librettist Tessa McWatt is the author of several acclaimed works of fiction, including There’s No Place Like . . .(2004), a novella for teenaged readers. Commissioned by the Ontario and Canadian arts councils, McWatt has written libretti for the well-known Canadian composer Bruce Pennycook and is also the writer and producer of a film based on John Berger’s novel To the Wedding. Her poetry and short fiction have

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appeared in several Canadian and British literary journals. Born in Guyana, McWatt migrated to Toronto with her family at the age of three. In her later years, she worked as a book editor, ESL (English as a second language) teacher, and an adapter of screenplays. She also taught literature and creative writing for several years at institutions in both Canada and England. McWatt’s novels focus on history, memory, and place, and feature characters whose pain of loss and displacement, whether physically or psychically, characterize their diasporic existences. Her trilogy, written between 1998 and 2004, addresses a number of diasporic concerns, such as displacement, fragmentation, and loss coupled with a strong desire for belonging and connection/reconnection. Yet, although the past is important to her characters’ identities, McWatt’s novels insist on the possibilities in a future that does not romanticize the past. The first novel in the trilogy, Out of My Skin (1998), is set mainly in Quebec, Canada. It explores issues of identity framed by race and sexuality. It also questions the history of colonialism, giving immediacy to the political and racial tensions that are its legacy. The selfmythologizing protagonist, Daphne, the offspring of an incestuous relationship between her mother and her grandfather, learns the disturbing truth about her ancestry from the diaries of her mad father/grandfather, Gerald, who is a product and victim of the declining colonial era in Guyana. This story also reflects some of the devastating effects of colonialism on the psyches of the characters living in Guyana who experience a society in transition from colonialism to independence. Dragons Cry (2001), her second novel and the second novel in the trilogy, was short-listed for the City of Toronto Book Award and the Governor General’s Award in 2001. Set mainly in Toronto and Barbados, the novel, in part, is a story of love and death, forgiveness and renewal as experienced by characters whose lives are invested in family and family relationships.

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The story is framed by the relevance of history and memory to identity as realized through characters who travel across time and space. Her latest novel, This Body (2004), completes the trilogy. Here McWatt builds on the previous themes of family and identity linked to the concerns of a woman who is “trapped” in and uncomfortable with her aging body. The story takes place in London, Toronto, and Guyana, evocatively portraying two people in search of truth and identity, which are leitmotifs in McWatt’s oeuvre. McWatt spends her time between Toronto and London. Sharon Morgan Beckford See also Canada and the African Diaspora; Guyana.

z Medici, Alessandro de (1510–1537) Alessandro de Medici, the product of an illicit liaison between his father, Duke Lorenzo II de Medici, and his black African slave, Simonetta, was the first of this famous Renaissance Florentine family to rule the city as duke. He was only 19 in 1529 when the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and his cousin, Pope Clement VII (1521–1534), collaborated to bestow this position on him. Born in the Umbrian city of Urbino, Alessandro was a courtier in training at the imperial court until 1531, when he entered the city to assume its rule. After six tumultuous years, his enemies conferred upon him the lasting slur of tyrant. In 1537, about a year after his marriage to Charles’s own illegitimate daughter, Margherita, he was assassinated by his cousin, Lorenzaccio (“wicked Lorenzo”), whose action, he claimed, was necessary for Florence to reclaim its liberty, a motive that has always been questioned. Duke Lorenzo manumitted Alessandro’s mother in return for giving up rights to her son.

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Her grief at the separation would have been assuaged by the prospect of a life far better than anything she could have provided as a peasant in the village of Colle Vecchio, near Rome. The only contact between the two came unexpectedly in 1529. A letter from Simonetta beseeched her son to alleviate the grinding poverty in which she and her husband lived. She died soon thereafter. No document indicates whether he extended a helping hand; perhaps help would have come too late. Instead, there is the charge made by his eventual murderer, Lorenzaccio, that Alessandro had caused Simonetta to be poisoned to rid him of the shame he suffered because of her “vile” condition. Although one must remember that this was a charge made by Alessandro’s assassin in a treatise meant to justify his murder of a relative, the possible truth of the charge must also be acknowledged. Mercilessly and publicly parodied as the offspring of peasant stock, the duke likely had scant knowledge of or affection for his mother. Duke Alessandro, under the long-distance tutelage of Pope Clement VII, focused political authority on his person. To support this controversial action, Clement was clever enough to have pushed the creation of the ducal state as though it had been the idea of local leaders. The sharply narrowed bureaucratic base of government in Florence created enemies even of former supporters, squeezed out of the apparatus of power. Many of these men went into exile in Venice. When Clement died in 1534, Alessandro hastened work on the construction of the Fortezza da Basso, manned by foreign troops, in the middle of the city. Finally, having had little time for positive achievement, he was assassinated by his cousin. Lorenzaccio’s tyrannicide in 1537 has since inextricably linked the two through history though, in the process, eclipsing Alessandro’s memory in Lorenzaccio’s shadow. Alessandro left two children, a girl named Giulia, and a son, Giulio. John K. Brackett See also Europe and the African Diaspora.

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Mestizo | 671 F URTHER R EADING Brackett, John K. 2005. “Race and Rulership: Duke Alessandro de’Medici, 1529–1537.” In Black Africans in Renaissance Europe, ed. Kate Lowe and Thomas Earle, 303–325. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Rogers, J. A. 1972. “Alessandro de’ Medici.” In World’s Great Men of Color, 24–31. New York: Touchstone, Simon and Schuster.

z Mestizo The term mestizo comes from the Spanish word for “mixed ancestry.” The comparable French term is métis. In the Americas, racial mixing involved three groups: Europeans, Amerindians, and Africans. In Asian countries, it involved Europeans and Chinese. In Latin America, there were terms measuring different kinds and degrees of mixture. In English, terms like half-breed or half-caste were catchall terms, which often indicated the contempt of white society for mixed populations. In New Orleans, a quadroon was one-fourth African, an octoroon one-eighth. There have been attempts to give each variety of mixing a name, but the infinite variety and degrees of mixing became impossible to measure. The roots of the mixing in European expansion lie in the fact that Europeans abroad were largely male. Only in colonies of settlement, such as the United States, Canada, or Australia, were women numerous, and even there men were a majority. Men without women generally sought partners from the indigenous populations. This began as soon as the first Spaniards arrived in the Americas. Sometimes female prisoners were prizes of war. Sometimes they were gifts from allied or friendly chiefs. Sometimes Europeans formed temporary marriages, which ended as soon as the European male returned to his home country. In Senegal and on the Canadian fur trade frontier, this was called marriage à la mode du

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pays and was highly institutionalized. In the Dutch East Indies, few employees of the Dutch East India ever returned home. They married women from southern India, Japan, or Indonesia. Their children were not allowed to move to the Netherlands, but many were educated and entered the service of the Dutch East India Company. It was not unusual for a European abroad to have several female partners even though European churches disapproved of such behavior. Where European women were present, wealthy and powerful men often married them, but they also had relationships with local women. This was particularly true of Latin America, where wealthy men often had a wife, who produced legal offspring, and kept a mistress, who was set up in her own apartment. No place was the disparity of power more evident than on the slave plantation. Some men treated all female slaves as their sexual property, but others ended up in regular and stable relationships with slave women. Most freed slaves were the partners or children of European men, often freed by the owner-lover’s will. In the United States, European women were present, and the Christian churches were committed to monogamy. This meant that the master rarely recognized his brown-skinned offspring, who usually remained in slavery. Even in the United States, however, there were cases where white men lived openly with an enslaved or free black woman and tried to protect their children. By contrast, many European planters in the West Indies did not bring European women with them. If they were successful, they often returned to Europe and used a manager and overseers to manage their plantations. These men did not have European partners and almost always lived with enslaved black women. Often, white men came to see certain types of indigenous women as attractive sexually. The French planters of Louisiana chose their partners not from African slaves, but from Amerindian women, who were provided by a slave trade from the American Southwest.

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New Orleans was known for its balls, where wealthy white men would meet quadroon and octoroon women who were available to become either occasional partners or mistresses. In 18th- and 19th-century Senegal, French men posted to the colony chose their partners not from dark African women, but from women called signares, who were themselves the product of similar earlier relationships. Like the quadroons and octoroons of New Orleans, these women were known for their charm, elegance, and dazzling clothing styles. In the Caribbean and Latin America, lightskinned offspring of mixed-race relationships were usually freed, but in the United States, there were slaves who looked white. In one celebrated case in New Orleans, a lightskinned slave woman successfully claimed to be the lost daughter of a German immigrant. There was always the temptation for people who looked white to pass themselves off as European. Runaway slave ads would sometimes warn that the runaway was so light he or she might try to “pass.” Mestizo origins are more openly recognized in Latin America, where lines between groups are more blurred and where there is a distinctive mixed-race population. Many Latin American countries, including Mexico, Ecuador, and El Salvador, overwhelmingly identify themselves as mestizo, and de-emphasizing African ancestry define themselves as Amerindian or mestizo countries, a practice or condition referred to as mestisaje. This type of ideology is most striking in Mexico, where Amerindian civilizations are seen as the source of Mexican identity. Not only do the mix and social status of the mixed populations vary, but in some cases, one group swallows up the others. Thus, in Brazil, Amerindians are seen as primarily in the Amazon region, because Amerindian slaves intermarried with the larger number of Africans on the slave plantation. In Mexico, by contrast, Africans brought in by the slave trade were a large part of the population, indeed a majority in Mexico City, in the 16th century.

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In many areas, mestizo populations functioned as the intermediaries between European and native populations (merchants, property owners, civil servants, lower-level government jobs). In slave societies, people of color often worked as traders, artisans, or bar owners. The Haitian revolution was begun by land owners and merchants of color who were angry that they were not granted the privileges of citizenship that the French Revolution had extended to their white brethren. The United States was unusual in that it did not see mixed people as a distinctive group, but rather as black. Even in the United States, however, light-skinned people of mixed ancestry found it easier to find skilled jobs and to improve their social and economic position than dark-skinned people. Martin Klein See also Mulatta; Central America: African Footprints; Mexico: African Heritage. F URTHER R EADING Cohen, David W., and Jack P. Greene, eds. 1972. Neither Slave nor Free: The Freedmen of African Descent in the Slave Societies of the New World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Degler, Carl. 1986. Neither Black nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States. New York: Macmillan. Jordan, Winthrop. 1968. White over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. MacLachlan, Colin M., and Jaime Rodriguez. 1980. The Forging of the Cosmic Race: A Reinterpretation of Colonial Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mörner, Magnus. 1967. Race Mixture in the History of Latin America. Boston: Little Brown. Mörner, Magnus, ed. 1970. Race and Class in Latin America. New York: Columbia University Press. Taylor, Jean Gelman. 1983. The Social World of Batavia: European and Eurasian in Dutch Asia. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Williamson, Joel. 1980. New People: Miscegenation and Mulattoes in the United States. Tappan, NJ: Free Press.

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Mexico: African Heritage T HE A FRICAN H ERITAGE OF M EXICO Enslaved Africans began to arrive in New Spain (colonial Mexico) as early as 1521 (Riva Palacio 1994, 5). There are various estimates of the number of Africans brought to New Spain by the Europeans, but what is known is that by 1640, New Spain had “the second-largest population of enslaved Africans and the greatest number of free blacks in the Americas” (Bennett 2005, 1). The phenomenon of Mexico’s partial psychological whitening began in the 1630s when Spanish was imposed as the language of business in the newly acquired colony. All trade and governmental activities had to be conducted in Spanish, although those who spoke and wrote it well were few, even among Spaniards. Nevertheless, during the colonial period (1521– 1821), Spaniards, through their European imported institutions (clergy, police, army, prisons, and the like) established themselves as superior to the majority of New Spain’s (now Mexico) population. Their faith, Catholicism, was glorified as a synonym for honesty and divine truth; European (particularly Spaniard) institutions as a synonym for civilization and justice; and whiteness for beauty and purity. The majority of the 100 million Mexicans descend as well from the hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans brought to Mexico during the colonial period. This understanding is crucial to dispel the myth that Mexicans are the offspring of Amerindians and Spaniards exclusively. It also helps to clarify that when darker Mexicans are referred to as “blacks,” it is not a reference to a separate group; it is a reference to a portion of Mexicans that due to their looks alone were singled out by the racist criollo thought that controlled the discourse on nation during the cultural phase of the Mexican Revolution. After the wars of independence (1810– 1821), the overwhelming majority of people in the new nation were, just as today, nonwhites

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born from innumerable mixes between Africans, Amerindians, Spaniards, and Asians. Mezclas (black, Indian, Asian, and Spanish mixes) and the Amerindians, whose population had recovered from near extinction by mixing with mestizos and mulattoes, were 95 percent of the Mexican population. Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, known as the father of Mexican independence, began the massive uprising of 1810 and was executed early in 1811 by the Spaniards. After Hidalgo’s death, catholic priest José María Morelos Tecla y Pavón (1765–1815), became the leader of the independence movement. Morelos retained the movement’s pledge to abolish slavery and promote racial equality and land reform. He was a “mestizo of the mulatto type,” as were a considerable number of the troops of his army and the “chinaco” armies of the south. A similar case was that of General Vicente “el negro” Guerrero (1782–1831) who became president of Mexico for a year before being assassinated in 1831 by the criollos who usurped power from these maroons. The rediscovery of Mexican “blacks” is tied to the emergence of the mundonovismo (New Worldism) perspective around the second half of the 19th century. At that time, darker people and the landscape in the Americas became the focus of interest of Africanist and indigenista scholars. In 1944, French anthropologist Alfred Métraux arrived in Mexico to study one of the black enclaves. According to Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán, Métraux put him in touch with Melville J. Herskovits. Aguirre Beltrán studied at Northwestern University for a year in 1945, under the direction of Herskovits and with the encouragement of indigenista scholar Manuel Gamio. In 1946, Aguirre Beltrán published La población negra de México: estudio etnohistórico (The Black Population of Mexico: Ethno-Historic Study). This book-length essay was in step with the mundonovismo worldview. The African heritage of Mexico and the nationality, thus far denied officially, had to be recognized to keep up with the times. However,

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Adrian Morga and his wife Leonora pose for a photograph at their home in Cujinicuilapa, Guerrero. Experts estimate 50,000 blacks still live in 30 communities on the Costa Chica. Cujinicuilapa is one of the largest black communities on Mexico’s Pacific coast. (Tomas Bravo/Reuters/Corbis)

in the final analysis, La población reinforced, under the cloak of academia, the myth that blacks in Mexico had largely disappeared through integration. In support of that thesis, black enclaves such as Cujinicuilapa in Guerrero State and Coyolillo and Tamiagua in Veracruz State were exposed as the last bastions of the African presence in Mexico. La población was the first 20th-century scholarly survey of Mexico’s African legacy and has predisposed an important part of recent domestic and international scholarly studies on the Mexican African legacy. In the introduction to its study, La población focuses on a part of today’s Mexicans who, under untold standards, were judged to be black. Thereby, it ignores Mexicans who may not look as black to the arbitrary evaluator, even though they descend, as much as their darker brothers and sisters in Mexico and else-

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where, from the millions of Africans brought to the Americas by the Europeans from the 15th to the 19th centuries. From an Africancentered perspective, one of the major flaws of La población is that it reinforces the whitening discourse on nation as it insists that the hundreds of thousands of black Africans brought to New Spain have disappeared through miscegenation. La población argues that New Spain’s population was integrated by various degrees of mixing among the three principal “races” that concurred in Mexico: Amerindian, Spanish, and African. The black disappearance through absorption (or integration) is a view contained in the Eurocentric ideology of “mestizaje.” This notion began to form as New Spain’s independence from Spain was won by the dark-skinned masses in 1821. After appropriating political power, criollos posed that they wanted to create

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Mexico: African Heritage | 675 a common identity for a deeply fragmented population and thus modernize (i.e., Europeanize) the emerging nation. One hundred years later, mestizaje discourse, with an added twist, acquired prominence. The intricacy of identifying the Africanness of Mexicanness is aggravated by a number of studies that follow the “biological” perception of mestizaje. A considerable part of these works insist on classifying Mexicans according to complexion. Part of those works fail to challenge, and thereby appear to concur with the notion that Africa and its legacy is a phenomenon of Mexico’s dwindling past and that now there remains a minor population of a still vanishing black people, predominantly in coastal enclaves. There is an alternative reading of the “color” of Africanness in Mexico and the rest of Hispanic America. Echoing Black writers in Latin America, Richard L. Jackson calls for the distinction between mestizaje positivo and mestizaje negativo. The first case refers to a merger of cultures in which there is equal respect for all. The second, the reigning Eurocentric view, professes that a marginal culture is absorbed because of its supposed inferiority. Under Jackson’s views, mestizos can reclaim their blackness. He believes that even in societies such as Mexico’s, black writing can be fully black and universal as well. This position departs from the so-called biological premises of mestizaje. Instead, it approaches the subject with an ethnic lens. Can a people who as a whole may not seem “Black” still be African in part? This apparent paradox can be explained through the case of the African American Walter White, who was marked by North American racism as “negro.” White is described as “white by physical appearance—even down to his blond hair and blue eyes—[who nevertheless] was classified by law and custom as a Negro” (Cottrol 2003, 79–80). “Color” in New Spain’s colonial society, just as in other places of the New World, was a matter beyond appearance. A person was not free to choose a place; he or she was assigned a stratum by what he or she was believed to be.

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N EW S PAIN ’ S R ACIAL P YRAMID : M ESTIZAJE OR W HITENING AND THE “C OSMIC R ACE ” M YTH One hundred years later, after the revolution of 1910–1920, the idea that Mexicans were the exclusive offspring of Indians and Spaniards was disseminated under the myth of mestizaje (miscegenation), also known as “the cosmic race.” Those who advocated this ideology sold it as a means to bond a deeply divided nation and to modernize through whitening at the same time. Modernization was equated with Europeanization. Those with an African heritage saw it as an opportunity to “cleanse” themselves from hundreds of years of stigmatization because of their Africanness. For the revolutionary government, it was a matter of educating or persuading everyone to faithfully believe in the supremacy of criollo culture over the others and that through mestizaje or whitening one could aspire to upward mobility and thus gain entrance into the so-called civilized world. The emergence of the cosmic race myth, based on the 100-year-old mestizaje ideology, began in 1921. That year José Vasconcelos enters the picture as minister of education and starts to broadcast the myth that the Africanness of the population and culture had been extinguished through integration. This fallacy was disseminated through all media at the disposal of the newly created Ministry of Education and thereby Mexicans were whitened further by another stroke of the pen. There is no record of Mexican resistance to being called the offspring of Indians and Spaniards only. Moreover, there is documentation of the opposite. Three hundred years of colonial segregation and stigmatization due to their Africanness may explain why most Mexicans would want to pass as other than black, particularly when this meant a supposed access to a better life. The cosmic race myth actually introduced, reproduced, and massively perpetuated stereotypes about nonwhite people. It turned the

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members of a mainly dark population against one another, made a whole country and its people ashamed of their African heritage, and propagated the whitening mentality (the whiter the better) that infects a considerable portion of Mexicans up to the present. Moreover, said stereotypes, when repeated, reinforce other subjacent symbols, thereby developing codes about darker Mexicans based more on myth than reality. Society in New Spain, just as in the other Spanish colonies, was stratified. Peninsulares (European Spaniards) were the most privileged. Criollos followed. Amerindians formed a separate nation. Blacks of innumerable shades and appearances formed the lower echelon and were considered the least desirable given their Africanness or “tainted blood.” The mere suspicion of descent from an African was enough to be discriminated to the bottom of the social edifice. New Spain’s social pyramid was a rigid social structure that believed and professed that merits and infamy were genetic. This eugenicist line of thinking relied on appearances in part, but it rested largely on family lineage. Even hidalgos, at the base of nobility’s hierarchy, had to prove their lineage. Nevertheless, it was possible to purchase papers, known as “Licencias de dar gracias al sacar,” to assert or prove one’s “pure” lineage, or blood line. However, this whitening recourse was beyond the economic possibilities of the majority of the population. According to Manuel Abad y Queipo (1751– 1825), in 1779 New Spain’s population was about 4.5 million. Ten percent were Spaniards, and they possessed nearly all the land and treasures of the kingdom. Castes and Amerindians made up the other nine tenths: 60 percent were castes and 30 percent were Amerindians. Castes were made infamous by law as descendants of black slaves. They were taxpayers, and tribute became for them an indelible mark of slavery that they could not erase in time or through the mixing of races in the ensuing generations.

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La población presents a different picture of the census of 1793 in which the population was estimated at 3,799,561. Based on Fernando Navarro y Noriega and Alexander von Humboldt accounts, La población introduces its own classifications. La población reports that according to Humboldt there were 2,500,000 Amerindians, whereas Noriega reported 2,319,741. Humboldt counted 70,000 Europeans and 1,025,000 criollos, whereas Noriega’s numbers were 7,904 European and 677,458 American Spaniards. Humboldt found 6,100 Africans and 1,231,000 mestizos, while Noriega reported 794,458 castes. La población cites that Humboldt and Noriega’s population totals fluctuate by half a million, reasoning that this is because they probably used different summaries and made different corrections in the partial results. La población reclassifies and counts anew the same population. It finds the following: European, 7,904; African, 6,100; Amerindian, 2,319,741; Euromestizos, 677,458; Afromestizos, 369,790; and Indomestizos, 418,568. It should be recalled that for Abad y Queipo the population of castes (the descendants of black slaves) in 1779 was 2,700,000 or 60 percent of 4,500,000. Conversely, La población divides these castes into Euromestizos, Afromestizos, Indomestizos, and “blacks,” and thus, through language and numbers manipulation, whitens the population. La población recognizes that at the end of the 18th century, miscegenation among the castes was such that, with the exception of the recently arrived Europeans and the most secluded Amerindians, it would be hard to find anyone without some mixture. It also concludes that the Amerindian population recovered through the mix of Amerindian women with mestizos and mulattoes. La población points out as well that the Euromestizo caste, toward the end of the colonial epoch, was formed by people with distinct negroid features and dedicates a few pages to the phenomena of escape and passing. In 1946, Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán added another di-

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Mexico: African Heritage | 677 mension to the problem when a “black” population in Mexico’s south Pacific Coast was officially “rediscovered.” Contrary to the Vasconcelos practice of unification under one term, Aguirre Beltrán reclassified mestizos as Indo-mestizos, Euro-mestizos, and Afro-mestizos, or Afro-Mexicans based on appearance. As a result, the term “Afro-Mexican” seems to have become a referent to the supposed visibly black portion of Mexican mestizos in a growing body of academic work. Beltrán chose to ignore both the Anglo customary and legal concept of “the one drop rule” as well as its counterpart Spanish concept of “blood purity.” La población, although recognizing Mexico’s indisputable African heritage, distances the overall contemporary Mexican population from their African relatives by subscribing to Vasconcelos’s eugenicist views. It perpetuates the belief that the Africanness of Mexicanness is mostly a thing of the past. Whether Mexicans are African in part and conscious of this fact appears to be a matter of perception. Although alike in its origins and development to a large extent, slavery nonetheless acquired particular characteristics according to time and place. The same applies to the societal organizations and institutions forged after independence and manumission in the various former European colonies in the Americas. Mexican mestizaje discourse declares that blacks in Mexico disappeared through “integration.” Colonial caste nomenclatures were abolished as part of the independence settlement of 1821. Thereafter, according to the letter of the law, all people became equal and were supposed to be judged according to their intrinsic worth. Of course, the legal disappearance of slavery, the caste system, and hundreds of years of colonial exploitation did not mean that the colonial structure was not going to survive through custom. After independence and manumission, those once termed negros, mulattos, coyotes, albinos, and so on changed nomenclature and thus “disappeared” in name and law. In their

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“pass” from caste to class they became morenos, prietos, and pintos; and along with indios nevertheless continued forming the lower classes of the new nation. Otherness developed under new names but followed colonial customary divisions along physical appearance and behavior lines. Thus, although blackness may have “vanished,” a similar consciousness developed in its place under different names, such as jarocho, tapatío, chino, chilango, among others. The self-consciousness of these Mexicans, who nonetheless descend from black Africans, is reflected in their subversive popular cultural expressions. It is apparent that black people and their offspring, who were denied schooling in New Spain, as in other European colonies in the Americas, were forced to forge and re-create their cultural memory in alternative manners. Some cultural texts or expressions that captured, transmitted, and reinforced the nationality are archives, among others, of the jarocho, tapatío, chilango, or black experiences in New Spain and Mexico. The portion of their food, music, and languages thus far studied presents undeniable ties with African-based cultural texts elsewhere in the Americas. Contrary to prior affirmations, the parallels between Ebonics (black English) and Chilango languages have been established. Chilango is the language of the Mexico City masses also known as “léperos” (lepers) identifiable for their wit with words, their gloomy sense of humor and subversive creativity. M EXICO ’ S M AROON H ISTORY Many of Mexico’s ties with other parts of the American continent are contained in Mexican maroon history, which has been largely overlooked until today. Outside of father Yanga’s story (Gaspar Yanga, b. Gabón, Africa, 1500s), little is known about the multiple rebellions and palenques that sprouted up throughout New Spain. Knowledge of Yanga’s story is owed to Vicente Riva Palacio (1832–1896). Riva Palacio composed Yanga’s account from the Saint

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Inquisition annals. This superb short story was published in El libro rojo (1868) under “Los treinta y tres negros y otros episodios nacionales” (The Thirty-three Blacks and Other National Episodes). El libro rojo is a compilation of short stories by Riva Palacio and Manuel Payno. Ted Vincent has identified Riva Palacio as the maternal grandson of the first African-Indian president of Mexico, Vicente Guerrero. Riva Palacio will likely soon be recognized as the African Mexican father of Mexican National literature. The notion of a “counterplantation” culture identifies two types of African presence in the Americas: one with isolated and fragmentary traits, and the other formed by whole and integrated cultural groups. This view posits that the organizational process of the counterplantation was essential so that Africanism could surface to a more significant level. Maroon societies are the media where counterplantation cultures were incubated during the colonial period. In New Spain, maroonage started during the first decades of the colonial period and peaked with manumission in 1821. Areas of the Gulf Coast as well as the Pacific were especially affected by the presence of runaway slaves. Maroon rebellions during Mexico’s War of Independence resulted in the destruction of the sugar industry in some regions of New Spain. It became apparent that 300 years of Spanish style colonial control produced counterplantation cultures that harassed and kept in check the “master’s” activities and rebel cultures that eventually overthrew the oppressors while forging the independent nation and the national identity. After the manumission and independence wars, armies disbanded and dissenter armies were formed. The former dark-skinned slaves and servants were not about to go back to their old routine as proposed by the criollo commanders who usurped the movement. These rebels, women and men, although hated and feared by the new oligarchy, were loved by the masses and would become the national proto-

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type of gallantry. The official discourse of the 19th century branded these rebels as “banditos”; nevertheless, the Mexican people saw their desire for justice embodied by these “chinacos and chinas.” The popular discourse ran counter to the official one until the revolution of the early 20th century. The popular songs of the epoch contain a wealth of information on these maroon bands and their leaders. In 1920, after the armed phase of the Mexican Revolution ended (at least on paper), the government appropriated the popular discourse on the chinaco and the china. After whitening them through the media, it forged a palatable image of the Mexican charros and chinas. Mexicans read, heard, and saw images that reflected a supposed Spanish-Indian heritage. The government reinvented the national history and erased by omission the indisputable Africanness of Mexicanness. Said national discourse failed to mention that the pantheon of African Mexican forefathers and mothers include a José María Morelos y Pavón, a Vicente Guerrero, a Vicente Riva Palacio, and the women who made their life possible. T HE A FRICANNESS OF M EXICAN C ARNIVAL The Africanness of Mexico and its population at large was erased from memory during the first decades of the 20th century as the modern nation was being built. Through education and the arts (mural painting, literature, cinematography, music, dance) and more traditional channels of persuasion, such as radio and newspapers, the Amerindian heritage was extolled and the African heritage was removed from the ideal image of the modern Mexican mestizo. Nonetheless, beyond the official history and with the emergence of cultural studies, popular culture expressions have begun to be studied as “texts” where the African legacy of Mexicanness is recorded. It has been shown that Carnival in Mexico, as in other places of the Americas, became for Africans and their Mexican mestizo descendants, among others,

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Middle Passage | 679 an organized artistic stage to vent their protests against the Spaniards and their institutions. In this annual multiple days of all-out revelry (taking place just before Ash Wednesday), the anonymous, profane, African-rooted dances and songs were used to reinforce the identities of the revelers, for they told stories peppered with irony that acquired political dimensions. This popular discourse, understood here as a maroon strategy that began brewing the moment the first person was kidnapped in Africa, was instrumental in the emancipation of New Spain from Spain in the beginning of the 19th century. Carnival as a philosophy laid a major part of the cultural foundations of the independent nation and became vital for constructing the modern nation and Mexican national identity. The African and African Mexican worldviews expressed during these masquerades, where all hierarchies and genders were inverted or vanished temporarily, influenced the shaping of the Mexican picaresque sense of humor, the national devotion to a Virgen Morena (Black Madonna), and the development of a world-renowned festive spirit. Carnival in Mexico, just as fandangos and street parties, became a verbal and nonverbal theater of contestation where inconformity, in various creative disguises, was performed. The Spaniards and their lackeys accepted in part this form of controlled criticism (much of which was beyond their understanding), because it provided a means to diffuse tensions and the everpresent possibility of rebellion. The Africanness of Mexican Carnival was omitted in the discourse on nation. Paramount to the understanding of Mexicanness is that the Mexican character is unexplainable from a historical perspective that omits the Maafa or “Black Holocaust” from the Mexican experience. The officially sanctioned enigma of the Mexican festive personality (which codifies the common Mexican) vanishes by reincorporating the African lineage of Mexicanness, which was systematically negated from the onset of

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the cultural phase of the Mexican Revolution in 1920. Marco Polo Hernandez See also Carnival; Coyolillo/Coyoleños; Diasporic Marronage; Venezuela: Afro-Venezuelans; Yanga and Cimarronaje in Mexico. F URTHER R EADING Abad y Queipo, Manuel. 1973. “La población novohispana en 1779.” In México en el siglo XIX: Antología de fuentes e interpretaciones históricas, ed. Álvaro Matute. Mexico City: UNAM. Aguirre Beltrán, Gonzalo. 1972. La población negra de México. Estudio etnohistórico. Mexico City: Fondo. (Orig. publ 1946.) Bennett, Herman L. 2005. Africans in Colonial Mexico: Absolutism, Christianity, and AfroCreole Consciousness, 1570–1640. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Cottrol, Robert J., et al. 2003. Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Fraginals, Manuel Moreno, ed. 1984. Africa in Latin America, trans. Leonor Blum. New York: Holmes and Meyer Publishers. Jackson, Richard L. 1979. Black Writers in Latin America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Riva Palacio, Vicente. 1994. Los treinta y tres negros y otros episodios nacionales. Mexico City: Alianza Cien. (Orig. pub. as part of the Libro Rojo, 1868). Vasconcelos, José. 1925. La raza cósmica: misión de la raza iberoamericana. Madrid, Spain: Agencia Mundial de Librerías.

z Middle Passage The Middle Passage was the maritime voyage of slave ships from Africa to the Americas. It was called the Middle Passage because most ships sailed a triangle: the first leg out to Africa, the middle leg to the Americas, and the third leg back to Europe. For the enslaved, however, it was the whole voyage, a hard, brutal, and traumatic trip. Before entering the ships, the

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enslaved had often undergone a voyage to the coast and a period where they were kept in barracoons or castles on the coast while waiting to be sold. The length of the voyage varied considerably. A trip from Angola to Brazil could be as short as 30 days. A trip to the Caribbean or North America could last 80 to 90 days, but the length varied substantially according to the weather. The ships were sometimes built specially for the trade, but any ship usually had special decks built, with platforms on which the enslaved Africans were confined. The extra deck and barriers to control movement were often built just before or while the ship was on the African coast. It was also necessary to separate the men’s section from the one for women and children, and there was often a barrier between the area where the enslaved were brought on deck and the ship’s wheel and the officers’ quarters. There also had to be enough space to store food and water. The ships varied in size depending on how much capital the investors had and where they were going. Most ships carried about 300 enslaved Africans, but some carried as few as 80 or over 500. Larger ships often had 3 and a half or 4 decks, platforms where a slave had at most seven to eight feet of space and about four feet of headroom. Socalled tight-packers often provided less space, but at the expense of higher mortality. One of the problems for the larger ships is that they had to spend more time in African ports putting in cargo. Buying Africans into slavery was a slow process that took extensive bargaining. Most African merchants knew that the longer a European ship stayed in port, the more crew members would be lost to malaria and other African ailments. Patience was often necessary to get a good price. At ports like Whydah or Calabar, where large numbers of enslaved Africans on the way to becoming reduced to “slaves” were available, there were also usually numerous ships eager to buy, and African merchants could play them off against each other. Sometimes a ship spent three or four months

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putting together a cargo, in which case there were often deaths of both crew and cargo. H EALTH AND W ELL -B EING The health and well-being of the Africans who had become slaves was a major concern. The captain’s job was to land as many slaves as possible in the Americas. The first concern was to buy only healthy slaves. Slave merchants often had ways to disguise the slave’s age and health problems, for example, oiling the slave’s skin or blackening his or her hair. Ships carried a surgeon, who took care of the sick, but was primarily there to examine all slaves before a purchase price was agreed. The examination usually involved looking at the slave’s mouth and anus and making the slave move or jump to demonstrate his or her agility. They were particularly anxious to avoid anyone who was diseased. If smallpox, typhus, or the “bloody flux” broke out on a ship, it could kill many of the slaves and lead to a loss for the investors. Given the closeness on the ship, diseases could spread very rapidly. Before boarding the ship, the slaves, both male and female, generally had their heads shaved and were branded with their owner’s mark. They were also often stripped naked, supposedly in the interest of cleanliness. The Portuguese baptized the slaves. Once on board the ship, the slaves were brought onto the deck whenever the weather was good to be washed, exercised, and fed. Generally, they had two meals a day. The men were kept chained and were very much feared. The women and children were often allowed to move around. Sometimes a ship carried an accordion or a fiddle to produce music, and the slaves were forced to dance, chains and all. The approach to feeding and exercise reflected long experience. Captains wanted to keep slaves alive and over the years were successful at reducing the mortality rate. Losses depended on the place of origin and the length of the voyage. Ships from the Bight of Biafra always had a high mortality, 17.4 percent overall, but ships from Mozambique had the

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Middle Passage | 681 highest mortality at 18.3 percent. The mortality rates, however, had generally lowered from the earliest days of the slave trade. From Senegambia, they went from 13.6 percent in the 17th century to 4.7 percent in the early 19th century. From the Gold Coast, they went from 21.6 percent to 4.2 percent during the same period. This was still a very high loss of life for groups that were made up mostly of young men and women chosen for their health. Not only did slaves have physical problems, but they also had mental problems. The slaves had been torn violently from their world and were often separated from friends and relatives during the course of the trip to the coast or at the point of sale. Slaves often feared that their white captors were cannibals. The sight of big cooking pots only convinced them that they were going to be eaten, though ships sometimes hired someone to communicate to slaves in languages they might understand. The slaves were then confined below deck in nauseating conditions on rolling ships. The stench from vomit and feces was often unbearable. A slave ship could be identified from its smell long before it was boarded. Crew members often found it difficult to spend more than 15 minutes below deck. Slaves had no choice, and when a ship was caught in a storm, which could last for days, they were not allowed on deck and were not fed. The ventilation ports were also closed to prevent water coming in. Crew members regularly washed down the slave quarters and fumigated them with burning tar or vinegar, but often to limited avail. Not surprisingly, slaves often suffered from melancholy and depression. Many also developed skin disorders and lost weight. The dangers to a ship were many. Epidemic disease could decimate a cargo. Storms could blow a ship off course or, in extreme cases, damage the sails or the masts. There was always a danger of shipwreck when the ship was near an uncharted coast, but the biggest danger was probably being becalmed. Sailing ships depend on the wind blowing. Their routes were usu-

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ally designed to be able to pick up prevailing winds, but sometimes a ship could be caught for days on end in a calm sea. Most ships did not carry enough water to come anywhere near what modern nutritionists think the body needs and barely enough food. Generally, a slave received two half pints of water a day. If the ship was becalmed, even these rations had to be cut. In some cases, crew rations were cut even more than those of the slaves because the crew was expendable. The crews did have one perquisite not available on cargo ships. The logic of separate compartments for men and women was partly to isolate the less docile men, but it also made slave women available for crew members. Some captains maintained a tight discipline over their crew, but many allowed crew members to take their pleasures from slave women. Sometimes a captain had one of the more attractive slave women brought to his cabin for his pleasure. S LAVE R ESISTANCE As a ship pulled away from Africa’s shores, the voices of people often sang a mournful song. They knew they were being taken far away, but they rarely knew to what or for what. In their despair lay desperation, a willingness to destroy themselves and their oppressors. Slave ships were prepared for a range of problems. Many slaves tried to starve themselves to death. A slave ship usually carried instruments that could be used to force a slave’s mouth open for force-feeding. Slaves who resisted food would often be whipped to break their resistance and force them to yield to the slaver’s will. There was also great care taken to prevent suicide. Sometimes slaves would jump overboard and either drown or be eaten by sharks. Ships often had nets to prevent slaves from jumping into the sea. A slave who committed suicide was destroying someone else’s property. Ships also carried thumbscrews and other instruments of torture to be used when they wanted to break a slave’s will.

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682 | Middle Passage

The biggest fear, however, was revolt. To prevent revolt, the male slaves were always chained and were carefully watched when on deck. The ship’s guns could be turned to fire on the slaves. Officers and crew were armed and kept constant watch over the slaves. Slave ships carried crews twice the size of cargo ships of the same tonnage because of the need to be vigilant. In spite of that, some slaves managed to get out of their shackles and attack the crew. Occasionally, they killed the crew and seized the ship, which then drifted aimlessly because they did not know how to steer it. Eventually, they would all starve to death, but for many this was preferable to slavery. Exceptions included the Amistad, which was the subject of a wellknown movie. The ship was carrying slaves who had been taken to Havana, Cuba, and sold there. The slaves were being shipped to plantations in eastern Cuba when they seized the ships. They ordered the surviving crew members to steer toward the rising sun, which was the direction of Africa. At night, however, the crew members steered north and the ship was eventually stopped off Long Island, New York. After a famous legal case, in which former President John Quincy Adams argued for the Amistad prisoners and against their Spanish owners, they were returned to Sierra Leone. C REW AND O FFICERS The crews were sometimes an international group that shipped out of different ports. Strict discipline was generally maintained, which could involve a severe whipping for any crew member who misbehaved. The officers came from another, though still modest, social class. Many were men who came from port cities or sailing families. Sometimes a man would start as a cabin boy and work himself up the ladder step by step. For many, rising to the rank of captain was a chance to finally make some money. The captain generally received 2 to 5 percent of the value of the sale of the slaves in the Americas. Often, this was in the form of a certain number of slaves, which

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he then sold on his own account. Some of the officers and the surgeon also received the right to sell a certain number of slaves on their own account. The captain was sometimes also able to do some trading on his account, for example, in gold. The captain was entrusted not only with navigation but also with the trading of goods. A ship generally carried a carefully selected combination of merchandise, and the captain’s job was to see that he got value for his goods. The captain had great authority over both crew and slaves. Most of them were very strict disciplinarians, sometimes occasionally to the point of irrationality. Many became, through the trade, totally insensitive to the value of human life. The Zong case demonstrates this. While on the way to Jamaica in 1781, the Zong was struck by disease and food shortages. Knowing that the cargo was ensured, the captain had 136 slaves thrown overboard. The gambit failed because the insurance underwriters refused to pay, and when the owners sued, the insurers won the case. It was a case much cited in the debates about abolishing the slave trade. Once the ships arrived in the Americas, the slaves often had to put up with even more indignities. The slaves were frequently in such bad shape that they had to be fed and given some time to restore their health. Once they were ready for sale, they had to once again go through the process of being poked and prodded and having their bodily parts examined by would-be purchasers. Usually the sale was handled by a broker. Sometimes it was by private sale, other times by auction or scramble. In a scramble, would-be purchasers gathered around the slaves and, at a sign, rushed in and grabbed those they wanted. They then paid, but it must have terrorized the slaves. Once sold, there was still a “seasoning” process. Mortality was often high in the first years in the New World. Slaves often preserved strong emotional ties to those who shared their suffering on their voyage. Martin Klein

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Miseducation and Contemporary Urban Black America | 683 See also African Americans and the Constitutional Order; Atlantic World and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Harms, Robert. 2002. The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Worlds of the Slave Trade. New York: Basic Books. Klein, Herbert. 1978. The Middle Passage: Comparative Studies in the Atlantic Slave Trade. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Klein, Herbert. 1999. The Atlantic Slave Trade. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Rawley, James. 1981. The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History. New York: Norton. Reynolds, Edward. 1985. Stand the Storm: A History of the Atlantic Slave Trade. London: Allison and Busby.

z Milonga See Tango, Candombe, and Milonga.

z Miseducation and Contemporary Urban Black America Between 1970 and 1988, U.S. schools were applauded for making significant progress toward closing the achievement gap in reading and math among African American, Latino, and white students. However, the most recent analyses of data from the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE), based on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), show that the progress made during that period has come to a screeching halt, and the achievement gaps have once again begun to widen. According to statistics from the USDOE, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), and the NAEP, by the time children

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reach grade 4, only 30 percent can be regarded as proficient or advanced readers and 32 and 38 percent are regarded as basic or below basic, respectively. When sorted by ethnicity, only 12 percent of black children, 14 percent of Latino children, and 16 percent of Native American children have achieved grade-level proficiency in reading compared with 39 and 37 percent, respectively, for white and Asian children. This glaring discrepancy in reading progress is further compounded by the overtly apparent differences in resources that distinguish the haves from the have-nots. When sorted by family income, 56 percent of poor children—that is, children who qualify for free or reduced-cost lunch—fail to achieve even basic levels of reading proficiency compared with 25 percent of their more affluent peers. Although these children, for the most part, continue to move through the school system, by grade 12 African American and Latino students have levels of proficiency in reading and mathematics that are only comparable to white students in grade 8. These statistics are graphically displayed in the exhibits that follow. Conventional wisdom suggests that these alarming deficits are probably caused by poverty, parents who are too young to provide the kind of guidance and support children need to succeed in school, and even an illprepared teaching force. Very little attention has been given to more insidious factors associated with the environments where these children reside and, more specifically, the intense exposure these low-performing and mostly urban children of color have to ever-increasing levels of violence in their communities. It is no secret that urban children are far more likely than their more affluent peers to have seen the use of weapons and other acts of violence against people in their neighborhoods. Additionally, this exposure to community violence often includes acts of interpersonal violence by people who are not intimately related to the victim. By 1992, homicide had become the leading cause of death among black males and females

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684 | Miseducation and Contemporary Urban Black America

Comparisons among Mathematics Proficiencies in White 8th Graders and African American and Latino 12th Graders

White 8th Graders Latino 12th Graders African American 12th Graders

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Figure 2

Comparisons among Reading Proficiencies in White 8th Graders and African American and Latino 12th Graders

White 8th Graders African American 12th Graders Latino 12th Graders

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0% 150

200

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Source: NAEP 1999 Long Term Trends Summary Tables.

Figure 3

aged 15–34 years and the second leading cause of death for all young people aged 10–19 years. More alarming evidence of exposure to community violence can be seen in the increased rates of homicide committed by young people

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aged 15–19, which now surpass the homicide rates for young adults aged 25 to 34 years. Although the FBI reports that the homicide rate for people aged 15–19 reached a peak by 1991, they continue today as the highest ever recorded

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Montgomery Bus Boycott | 685 in the United States for this age category. Moreover, violence is now perceived as a public health issue, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that homicide is, overall, the leading cause of death for African Americans and the second leading cause of death for young children between the ages of 15 and 24 years (Cole 1999). Common sense, supported by a significant body of research, confirms that the violence these children regularly experience has detrimental effects on their social and emotional development and on their sense of self-efficacy (Linares 2001). Given the well-established link between self-efficacy and school achievement, along with what is now known about the impact of the latter on self-efficacy, researchers can better understand how low-income children of color—who are more frequently exposed to high levels of community violence—continue to fall behind their more affluent and fortunate peers who live in communities where repeated exposure to community violence has not become the norm. With this in mind, it seems reasonable to suggest that efforts to improve academic achievement must also be accompanied by changes in public policy that ameliorate conditions that contribute to community violence. Anthony B. Johnson and Ivan Banks See also African Americans and the Constitutional Order. F URTHER R EADING Cole, T. 1999. “Ebbing Epidemic: Youth Homicide Rate at a 14 Year Low.” Journal of the American Medical Association 281: 25–26. Linares, L. O. 2001. “Community Violence: The Effects on Children.” www.aboutourkids.org/article/communityviolence.html (accessed January 1, 2002). U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. 2000. NAEP (1999).Trends in Academic Progress. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. 2003. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Summary Data Tables.

z www.abc-clio.com

Miskito Indians See Honduras and Nicaragua: Miskito Indians.

z Miss Lou See Bennett, Louise (1919–2006).

z Montgomery Bus Boycott On Monday morning, December 5, 1955, the black residents of Montgomery, Alabama, in protest of their ill treatment on the public buses and their subordinated position overall, launched what proved to be a successful 381day boycott of the city’s segregated buses. What ensued was a protest not only aimed at fair treatment of black patrons, but also one that held more important implications for the eventual demise of a particularly noxious form of white supremacy in the U.S. South. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was linked to other parts of the African Diaspora through its shared ancestors and by a political ideology that stressed the eradication of colonialism and all forms of racial injustice. The united efforts of the women and men who participated in the boycott opened the way to a renewed and more forceful black activism in the United States. Mrs. Rosa L. Parks’s December 1 refusal to move from her seat at the demand of the white bus driver was the effective spark that sent the Women’s Political Council (WPC) membership into action after they learned of her arrest. The next morning, December 2, the WPC leafleted black neighborhoods calling for a boycott. Edgar Daniel Nixon, a Pullman porter and president of the local chapter of the National Association for

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Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white passenger sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and fueled the Civil Rights Movement, sits in the front of a bus on December 21, 1956. After the court ruling in NAACP v. St. Louis-San Francisco Railway (1955), the Interstate Commerce Commission banned segregation in public transit. (Library of Congress)

the Advancement of Colored People (Parks, a respected seamstress, served as the chapter secretary), had located attorney Clifford Durr and his wife, Virginia, two white political allies, to secure Mrs. Parks’s legal representation and bail. Once Nixon activated the Black Ministerial Alliance to discuss a proposed boycott of the city buses, members of the WPC, members of black church organizations, and other black activists came together to form the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). The new organization would officially lead negotiations with the city administration, white business leaders, and the Montgomery City Lines bus company. Among the leadership of the MIA was its 26-year-old president, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., newly ar-

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rived pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Rev. Ralph David Abernathy of the First Baptist Church; Rev. S. S. Seay, MIA executive secretary; Rufus Lewis, organizer of the carpools; Fred Gray, legal counsel; and Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, president of the WPC and member of the negotiating team, each contributed significantly to the leadership of the MIA. Despite police intimidation, mass arrests, injunctions against the carpools and the boycott, church bombings, and the bombings of King’s and Nixon’s homes, the mass membership of the MIA, composed largely of ordinary working men and women, insisted on continuing the boycott. Proving the efficacy of militant nonviolence, the black citizens of Montgomery who

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Moore, Queen Mother (1898–1997) | 687 continued to walk to and from work, schools, and centers of business set an important example for future Freedom Movement activists. On February 1, 1956, counsel for the MIA filed suit in federal district court against the City Commission and the bus company, claiming the unconstitutionality of segregated municipal buses. In the case known as Browder vs. Gayle, a threejudge panel agreed with the plaintiffs and rendered their decision on June 5, 1956, citing violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. On appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the MIA’s favorable decision was upheld on November 13. The desegregation order, however, did not reach the boycotters until December 20. On Friday morning, December 21, 1956, an integrated group of riders including King and Abernathy boarded the first integrated bus and completed their journey without incident. Pam Brooks See also African Americans and the Constitutional Order. F URTHER R EADING Branch, Taylor. 1988. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963. New York: Simon and Schuster. King, Martin Luther, Jr. 1958. Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. New York: Harper and Brothers. Morris, Aldon. 1984. The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change. New York: The Free Press. Parks, Rosa, with Jim Haskins. 1992. Rosa Parks: My Story. New York: Dial Books. Robinson, Jo Ann Gibson. 1987. The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, ed. David J. Garrow. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.

z See Moore, Queen Mother (1898–1997).

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Born in New Iberia, Louisiana, on July 27, 1898, Audley E. Moore was a communist organizer who became a civil rights leader and symbol of black nationalism and Pan-Africanism. The lynching of her grandfather and other racially motivated violence she witnessed and experienced growing up in the rural South led her to political activism. In New Orleans, she joined Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association before moving north as part of the Great Migration. Moore settled in Harlem, New York, where she organized domestic workers and tenants. In the 1930s, she joined the Communist Party, supporting the Scottsboro Boys and becoming a member of the International Labor Defense. In 1938, she ran as a Communist Party candidate for the New York State Assembly and, two years later, for alderman. However, by 1950, Moore resigned from the party, protesting its internal racist practices. Over the next three decades she focused her political attention and energies on fighting for prisoners’ rights and reparations for slavery from the U.S. government. In the early 1970s she began to travel throughout Africa at the invitation of leaders of the continent’s newly independent nations. In Ghana, Moore was given the honorary title “Queen Mother” in an Ashanti ceremony. Her political activism began to slow down in the 1980s due to her declining health and advancing age. Nevertheless, as late as October 1995 she could be seen on national television addressing the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. On May 2, 1997, at the age of 99, she passed away. Omar H. Ali

Moore, Audley E.

z

Moore, Queen Mother (1898–1997)

See also Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940); Ghana; Jones, Claudia Cumberbatch (1915–1964); Pan-Africanism.

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688 | Moore, Richard B. (1893–1978) F URTHER R EADING Appiah, Kwame Anthony, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds. 1999. Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African American Experience. New York: Basic Books. Brown, Elsa Barkley, et al., eds. 1993. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, 2 vols. Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Publishing.

z Moore, Richard B. (1893–1978) Richard Benjamin Moore, a noted public orator, a member of the African Blood Brotherhood and Communist Party of America, and an important figure in the struggle for PanCaribbean liberation was born in Hastings, Barbados, on August 9, 1893. After losing both his parents by the age of eight, he then lived with his sisters, his stepmother, and her children. Moore was a gifted student, receiving the thorough British colonial education given a growing number of black middle-class Barbadians at that time. Moore joined his migrating family in New York on July 4, 1909, and settled in Harlem, becoming part of a growing population of Caribbean immigrants living there. Moore worked a number of jobs in New York City, including office clerk, elevator operator, and stock manager at a silk manufacturing firm. Moore continued educating himself, reading a wide variety of books ranging from the autobiography of Frederick Douglass to socialist interpretations of Christianity. The latter helped him bridge his evangelical Christian philosophies with those of social justice and humanitarianism. Moore’s political involvement began sometime in 1917 when he happened upon Hubert H. Harrison speaking in a park. Harrison was a brilliant writer, orator, and activist and was the first black man to join the Socialist Party. Moore was thoroughly impressed and was drawn to other black socialists, including A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen, editors of the Messenger. In 1918, Moore joined

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the 21st A.D. Socialist Club in Harlem, a group loosely affiliated with the Socialist Party. In this space, Moore fully engaged with the developing milieu of individuals grappling with questions of black liberation through increasingly revolutionary socialist philosophies. From this group emerged the People’s Educational Forum, known for staging study groups and public lectures. Moore helped start this forum, using it as a training group to develop his politics and public lecturing skills and debating important figures like W. E. B. DuBois, Franz Boas, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and Walter White, among others. Moore continued sharpening his political oratory skills by preaching socialism on street corners in Harlem. He worked for Black Socialist Party candidates Randolph, Owen, W. B. Williams, and Grace P. Campbell, who ran for public office in 1918 and 1920. Though Moore concentrated mostly on public oratory, he did help begin the short-lived Emancipator publication with W. A. Domingo in 1920. By that same year Moore had turned his energies toward building a secret organization aimed at fighting white supremacy in the United States, ending imperialism against Caribbean and African peoples, while professing an affinity with revolutionary socialism. That organization became known as the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB). Richard Moore was an original member of the ABB along with journalist Cyril Briggs and Grace Campbell. Founded in 1918, the ABB combined militant black nationalism and revolutionary socialism with a thoroughly internationalist perspective. Moore was the public voice of the ABB whereas Briggs, who struggled with a speech impediment, edited the ABB official organ, the Crusader. Moore served on the Supreme Council as educational director while holding leadership positions in Post Menelik, the group’s Harlem local. The ABB is best known for its rumored involvement in directing armed self-defense of the black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, during a race riot

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Morehouse College | 689 in June 1921. They were also strong opponents of the politics of Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association. Moore never worked with Garvey, but he did support him when Randolph, Owen, Harrison, Briggs, and others sought to have him deported in the 1920s. By 1921, Moore officially broke his ties with the Socialist Party. He continued to work with the ABB, where by this time many members of the Supreme Council joined the Communist Party of America (CPUSA). At first, Moore resisted joining an organization dominated by white Americans and Europeans because of his experience with the Socialist Party and their lack of will to address questions of black liberation. However, he joined the CPUSA by 1922, the same year the party began seriously considering the plight of black people in America. Throughout the middle and late 1920s, Moore served in party leadership positions, working for the American Negro Labor Congress along with former ABB comrades. His greatest success during this time came when he helped form the Harlem Tenants League in 1928. However, he fell out of party favor in 1930 when he voted against the CPUSA’s line advocating a separate nation for African Americans in the American South, referred to as the “Black Belt Theory.” Despite his disagreement with official party politics, Moore continued his work for the party with the International Labor Defense (ILD). This group fought racism by conducting defense committees for African Americans facing legal trouble. The ILD’s highest-profile campaign was in Alabama defending the Scottsboro boys in the mid-1930s. However, in 1942, Moore was expelled from the CPUSA, charged with being too nationalist by party leaders. Moore continued his political activity, focusing on Pan-Caribbean liberation. Throughout his long life, Moore advocated for the self-government of the Caribbean peoples against imperialist domination. In the late 1950s, he supported the short-lived West In-

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dian Federation, which included his native Barbados. After the federation experiment ended in 1961, he wholeheartedly supported independence for individual Caribbean nations from colonial rule. Moore continued his fight against imperialism and white supremacy in political, cultural, and scholarly associations. He waged a campaign against the use of the term “Negro,” arguing that the word originated from slavery. In 1960, he published the pamphlet “The Origins of the Term Negro and Its Evil Use,” which anticipated the struggle of African Americans to forge an identity of their own choosing. Moore, who was married twice, died in 1978. Jason M. Schultz See also African Blood Brotherhood (ABB); Black Marxism; Caribbean Migrations: Caribbean Diaspora; Jones, Claudia Cumberbatch (1915– 1964). F URTHER R EADING James, Winston. 1998. Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America. London: Verso. Solomon, Mark. 1998. The Cry War Unity: Communists and African Americans, 1917–1938. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press. Turner, W. Burghardt, and Joyce Moore Turner, eds. 1988. Richard B. Moore, Caribbean Militant in Harlem: Collected Writings 1920–1972. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

z Morehouse College Morehouse College, one of the historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), is located in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1867 in Augusta, Georgia, it is the only all-male HBCU in the United States. The school, which was originally named the Augusta Institute, was started in the basement of the Springfield Baptist Church by Richard C. Coulter, a former slave; Rev. Edmund Turney of the National Theological Institute;

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and William Jefferson White, an Augusta Baptist minister. Established as a branch of the National Theological Institute and later the American Baptist Home Mission Society, the institute occupied several sites around Augusta until making a permanent move to Atlanta in 1879. After undergoing several name changes, the institute acquired its current name, Morehouse College, in 1913 in honor of Henry Lymon Morehouse, corresponding secretary of the American Baptist Home Mission Society. Morehouse College was founded in the wake of the post–Civil War effort on the part of Northern religious organizations to create schools for the newly freed Africans in the southern states. Recognizing education as key to improving the lives of the formerly enslaved, private organizations, in cooperation with federal bodies (The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands), established a network of public and private schools to meet these educational needs. Morehouse College’s original mission was to educate former slaves in basic skills. As Morehouse grew in size, however, its curriculum expanded to include a traditional liberal arts program and theological training. In 1906, John Hope was the first man of African descent to be appointed president of Morehouse College (1906–1931). Hope’s founding participation in the Niagara Movement (1906) and his personal and professional alliance with the movement’s major spokesperson, scholar, and activist, W. E. B. DuBois, placed Morehouse College at the forefront of institutions providing liberal arts education for African American students. Inheriting the expansion efforts of his predecessors, Hope presided over a period of growth and development of the college that was extended by successive presidents, most notably Benjamin E. Mays (1940–1967) and Hugh M. Gloster (1967–1987). Under these presidents Morehouse College expanded its physical plant, professional faculty, endowment, and international reputation. Morehouse College is noteworthy for its commitment to educating men of African de-

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scent. The figure of the “Morehouse Man” acknowledges the record of leadership and achievement displayed by alumni. This list of notable alumni includes Howard Thurman, theologian; Mordecai W. Johnson, president emeritus of Howard University; James M. Nabrit, Jr., ambassador to the United Nations; Maynard Jackson, first black mayor of Atlanta; Lerone Bennet, Jr., journalist; Martin Luther King, Jr., theologian and activist; Shelton (Spike) Lee, actor, screenwriter, and director; and Samuel L. Jackson, actor. Over the years, a number of Caribbean and other students and faculty from across the Diaspora have been part of the Morehouse community. Charles Peterson See also Howard University; Langston University and HBCUs; Lincoln University; Spelman College. F URTHER R EADING Jones, Edward A. 1967. A Candle in the Dark: A History of Morehouse College. Valley Forge, PA: The Judson Press

z Morejón, Nancy (1944–) Born in the working-class neighborhood of Los Sitios in Havana, Cuba, in 1944, Nancy Morejón began her literary career shortly after the triumph of the revolution. Morejón’s vision has also been markedly influenced by her condition as an Afro-Cuban woman. Her first two books, Mutismos (1962) and Amor, ciudad atribuída (1964), were published by El Puente, a private publishing house operated from 1960 to 1965, which gave support and publicity to young writers. Written under the influence of poets such as César Vallejo, José Lezama Lima, and Octavio Paz, Mutismos displays a personal, individual, and intimate poetry full of heightened emotions. From within the depths of her

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Morejón, Nancy (1944–) | 691 soul, the poet expresses an acute sense of the pain and despair inflicted upon the members of her race. In Amor, ciudad atribuída, the city of Havana is depicted as a lover who awakens the senses of the young poet and becomes the source of her inspiration. Curiously, the theme of race is silenced in Amor, ciudad atribuída. Richard trajo su flauta, one of her most acclaimed collections of poetry, was published three years later. Adopting a new, more conversational style, this work proves Morejón’s commitment to both the black cause and the Cuban revolution. One year later, in 1968, a group of leading black intellectuals (among them Morejón) was suspected of holding meetings and drafting a position paper on race and culture in Cuba to be presented before the World Culture Congress. According to Carlos Moore, Morejón’s subsequent inability to publish her poetry in Cuba until 1979 can be attributed to this incident. Parajes de una época, the work with which Morejón broke her imposed 12-year silence, reflects a stronger, more public commitment to the revolution. In it, she eulogizes the fallen heroes of the revolution, such as Abel Santamaría, one of the leaders of the attack on the Moncada barracks; Camilo Cienfuegos, one of the best-loved leaders of the revolution, who disappeared in an airplane crash; and the young men who died defending their homeland from the invaders at Playa Girón. Similarly, Morejón exhibits a view of international politics that underscores the revolutionary discourse. She denounces the lynching of blacks in the United States, the U.S. invasion of Grenada, the war in Vietnam, and social repression in Chile during the time of Pinochet. In spite of its preoccupation with the revolutionary cause, this collection includes “Mujer negra,” which has become Morejón’s signature poem. This poem represents a rewriting of Guillén’s “Mujer nueva,” but from a feminist and a revolutionary perspective. In it, Morejón recounts the history of the black woman’s oppression and lauds her contributions during the war of independence

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and the Cuban revolution. In Octubre imprescindible (1982), Morejón appears to privilege her ideologically committed poems, relegating those dedicated to race to the second half of the book. However, this collection contains Morejón’s powerful “Amo a mi amo,” in which a black female slave becomes aware of her condition of double exploitation and seeks to invert the power imbalance that exists between her and her master through violence. With Cuaderno de Granada, a poetic response to the U.S. invasion of this Caribbean island, Morejón appears to have labored hardest to polish the aesthetic form of the most political poems in this collection. In her next work, Piedra pulida (1987), Morejón highlights existentialist concerns and continues to be preoccupied with form. Throughout her literary career, Morejón has labored to balance her devotion to the revolutionary cause, to her African roots, and to aesthetic perfection. But of these various passions, the one that appears most consistently strong throughout her works is her desire to forge a space for the expression of Afro-Cuban identity within Cuban letters during the postrevolutionary era. Most often the voice she liberates from the clutches of silence and death is that of a black woman who is just beginning to assume her personal power and subjectivity. María de Jesús Cordero See also Cuba: Afro-Cubans; Guillén, Nicolás (1902–1989). F URTHER R EADING Cordones-Cook, Juanamaría. 2003. Looking Within/Mirar Adentro. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. DeCosta-Willis, Miriam. 1999. “Orishas Circling Her House: Race as (Con)Text in Morejón’s Poetic Discourse.” In Singular like a Bird: The Art of Nancy Morejón, ed. Miriam DeCostaWillis, 277–295. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press. Luis, William. 1999. “Race, Poetry, and Revolution in the Works of Nancy Morejón.” In Singular like a Bird: The Art of Nancy Morejón, ed.

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692 | Morrison, Toni (1931–) Miriam DeCosta-Willis, 45–67. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press. Maloof, Judy. 1999. Voices of Resistance: Testimonies of Cuban and Chilean Women. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. Moore, Carlos. 1989. Castro, the Blacks, and Africa. Los Angeles: The Center for AfroAmerican Studies.

z Morrison, Toni (1931–) Toni Morrison is one of the most important and influential authors in the history of world literature and of black literary culture. A magnificent novelist, librettist, editor, and public scholar, Morrison exemplifies the immense possibility of the creative mind. Her historic Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1993 personifies the essence and intent of her literary inventions not as entertainment but knowledge production (Morrison 1996). To date, Morrison has published eight novels: The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1973), Song of Solomon (1977), Tar Baby (1981), Beloved (1987), Jazz (1992), Paradise (1998), and Love (2003). With rare imagination and deep-sightedness, Morrison’s fiction explores life’s imponderable questions gathered from the inner lives, life forces, and untold histories of black people. Morrison’s narratives are inhabited by a range of complex characters who grapple with the consequences of living in the modern world. First, she depicts women, men, and children from Africa dispersed in European slave ships as cargo via ocean passages into unimaginable horror as chattel in African Diasporas, and second, she offers a collective history of inventiveness whereby new art, black identities, languages, religions, and ways of being and thinking emerge in the face of slavery, colonialism, foreign domination, war, and white supremacy. From multiple locations in U.S. territory and African Diaspora, and across centuries, Morrison’s unwavering look illuminates

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what the term “black” means to black people and in literature. In turns of imagination, Toni Morrison creates multilayered versions and variations of the human condition. The vitality of black culture is at the crux of Morrison’s fiction; at the heart is the vibrancy of black communities made of unforgettable characters living within and outside the laws and affects of unspeakable histories. Morrison’s women and girls, alongside their ancestral counterparts, narrate and sustain life by knowing beyond the five senses, by taking ownership of themselves. An eloquent storyteller, Morrison is a gifted linguist of mother tongues inflected with a range of memories, coded messages, and sounds. The poetic phrasing and melodic patterns of speech that characterize the language of Morrison’s books resonate within African American culture. Musical elements generate the referential quality of Morrison’s literature. Attesting truths and inviting audience participation, an array of folk tales and songs—Sugar Men, The Flying African, Brer Rabbit, The Blind Horsemen, The Blind Old Woman—are rebirthed by Morrison as interpretive frameworks. As librettist and lyricist, Morrison’s original writing extends to collaborative projects with divas and percussionists. Her “Honey and Rue” was written for Kathleen Battle (Carnegie Hall 1992); “Sweet Talk” and “Woman.Life.Song,” for Jessye Norman (Carnegie Hall 1997, 2000); the opera “Margaret Garner,” commissioned by the Detroit Opera, premiered with Denyce Graves (May 2005). Like jazz musicians, Morrison is a studied listener and participant. In unrecorded reading and drumming performances with legendary percussionists, Max Roach and Elvin Jones, respectively, Morrison amplifies the art and politics of improvisation. Moreover, Morrison’s keen take on hip-hop controversy, expressing her healthy respect for young people’s music, stresses the importance she places on renewal. As a senior editor at Random House (1964–1983), Morrison intro-

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Mos Def (1973–) | 693 duced new black writers and critics (including Toni Cade Bambara, Gayle Jones, and Chinweizu) as well as well-known political activists and public figures (including Muhammad Ali, Angela Davis, George Jackson, and Huey P. Newton). During this period of social uprisings and Black Power movements, Morrison’s editorial signature is an expression of her activism and determination to reformulate “official records.” Her edited volumes, The Black Book (1974) and Rac-ing Justice, En-gendering Power (1992), are cases in point. Turning to young readers, Morrison coedited with her son Slade Morrison a “Who’s Got Game?” series of fables (2003–2005) and wrote a special interpretation of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education desegregation decision entitled Remember? (2004). Morrison, a world-class writer and architect of black book culture, has earned many of the most important distinctions of the world of literature: the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993, making her the first African American woman to receive this honor; the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1977 for Song of Solomon; the Distinguished Writer Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1978; the Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for Beloved; and the Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in 1994 (Paris). In addition, in 2006, Beloved was selected as the best work of American fiction of the previous 25 years. In 2006, Morrison served as the guest curator of the Louvre Museum where she delivered a series of lectures and discussions titled “The Foreigner’s Home.” Morrison’s work has been translated into 13 languages, and she has received numerous honorary degrees from major institutions throughout the world. In 2008, she publicly endorsed Barack Obama’s candidacy for president of the United States, indicating this political endorsement as a first for her, in a public letter dated January 28, 2008. Morrison’s academic achievements are many. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Howard University in 1953 and a master’s de-

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gree from Cornell University in 1955. Her master’s thesis was on suicide in the works of William Faulkner and Jane Austen. After an illustrious career as a scholar and teacher that began at Howard and Texas Southern universities, Morrison retired in 2006 from the faculty at Princeton University, as the Goheen Professor of the Humanities emeritus. Toni Morrison is her pen name. Chloe Aurelia (later Anthony) Wofford, daughter of George and Ramah Willis Wofford, was born February 18, 1931 into a family and community in Lorain, Ohio, where black culture, creativity, and education were valued. “Anything I learned of any consequence,” Morrison asserts, “I learned from black people.” Janis A. Mayes See also Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Howard University. F URTHER R EADING McKay, Nellie, and Kathryn Earle, eds. 1998. Approaches to Teaching the Novels of Toni Morrison. New York: Modern Language Association. Morrison, Toni. 1993. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. New York: Vintage. Morrison, Toni. 1996. The Dancing Mind: Speech upon Acceptance of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. New York: Knopf. Tate, Claudia, ed. 1984. Black Women Writers at Work. New York: Continuum. Taylor-Guthrie, Danille Kathleen. 1994. Conversations with Toni Morrison. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

z Mos Def (1973–) Mos Def was born Dante Terrell Smith in Bedford-Stuyvesant, New York City, on December 11, 1973. Like many Brooklynites with an air of rugged intellectual savvy, he spent his adolescence embedded in the vast artistic spectrum of his surrounding borough, especially

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taking in the African Diaspora culture that flourishes there. A golden age of rap music in the late 1980s elevated a cipher of “conscious” artists including Afrika Bambaataa, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Public Enemy, Black Sheep, and Brand Nubian creating a membership known as the Native Tongue collective. The youth, skill, and charisma of new school visionaries like Mos Def, Common, Talib Kweli, The Roots, Outkast, and the Fugees replenished this movement, more apt to celebrate the African Diaspora cultures than the growing gangsta culture. As an MTV Lyricist Lounge staple and with the 1996 releases of “Universal Magnetic,” Def instantly became an underground hip-hop favorite. Mos would soon connect with “partner in rhyme” Talib Kweli and form the legendary collaboration, Black Star, thereby invoking the emblem for Marcus Garvey’s venture. In Kweli, Mos found a brother with equal talent and beliefs in community activism. Named after the first black-owned steamship company, Black Star shook up the rap scene with the self-titled debut album Mos Def and Talib Kweli Are Black Star, released August 26, 1998, on Rawkus Records. With classic hits like “RE: Definition,” “Brown Skin Lady,” “K.O.S. (Determination),” and “Respiration,” Def and Kweli promoted black love and self-worth through endless rhymes and jazzy beats produced by DJ Hi-Tek. Mos cemented his trademark nasal mumble and playful scatting with the infamous Black on Both Sides, released October 12, 1999. Def ’s first solo album, with classic cuts like “Umi Says,” “New World Water,” “Ms. Fat Booty,” and “Mathematics,” exhibited his techniques as a ghetto griot detailing moments in time and encounters seasoned by his random tongues of Caribbean accents and dialects. In the early 2000s Mos maintained a low profile, working with several grassroots movements while keeping up the African bookstore he co-owns with Kweli. Now signed to Geffen Records, on October 19, 2004, Def released his

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Grammy-nominated sophomore solo album, The New Danger. Def continued to broaden his perspective and refocus his innate ability to entertain toward acting. Appearing in Bamboozled (2000), Monster’s Ball (2001), Something the Lord Made (2004), Lackawanna Blues (2005), and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005), he received numerous awards. In the action drama The Italian Job (2003) and the romantic comedy Brown Sugar (2002), Def both acted and composed the soundtrack. Mos Def was also the host of the acclaimed hit television series Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry Jam, serving as co-executive producer, musical director, and random performer representing the marriage of rap music and spoken word poetry, pushing both art forms further. Def has developed a very well-reviewed acting career. Mos Def is currently working on The Brazilian Job and is in the studio completing his last album on Geffen Records tentatively titled The Undeniable Flaco. Dalia Davies See also Hip-Hop Culture in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Mos Def: True Magic Web site. www.mosdefmusic.com (accessed January 12, 2008). Black August Hip-Hop Project. www.blackaugust.com (January 12, 2008).

z Movimento Negro Unificado During the 1960s and 1970s, Brazil experienced a renaissance that manifested itself as a political rights movement initiated by its black youth. To date, Afro-Brazilians are the largest population of African-descended people outside the African continent. Created in 1978 as an instrument of struggle for the black community, the Movimento Negro Unificado (MNU), or Unified Black Movement, was founded in São Paulo, one of the epicenters of

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Movimento Negro Unificado | 695 the Afro-Brazilian movement. With the momentum of the movimento negro (black movement), MNU was created by the events that culminated in the torture and slaying of a black taxi driver, Robson Luz, by São Paulo police. Although Luz’s murder was not an atypical incident, as one perpetrated by the state against blacks, it garnered enough attention to generate a response from black activists. The rally to protest Luz’s murder was the MNU’s first public act, where a public address stated the MNU’s agenda “as a campaign against racial discrimination, against police repression, underemployment and marginalization” (Hanchard 1994, 125). Hoping to bring attention to and improve the socioeconomical conditions of Brazil’s racial underclass, the MNU made public the plight of Afro-Brazilians in Brazil. Formerly a Portuguese colony, Brazil’s history of slavery and the institutionalized practices of racial discrimination created a racial/color caste system in which Afro-Brazilians were unduly represented among the poorest and most oppressed in the nation. The MNU’s primary premise was to form an amalgamation of all the politically militant black organizations in Brazil. To encourage this, branches of the MNU, called Centers of Struggle (Centros de Luta), were formed in Salvador, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, Allegre, and Espirito Santo. What makes the MNU so significant is that although there were many predecessors to MNU (e.g., Black Soul, Negritude, the Society for Brazil-African Exchange, the Centro de Cultura é Arte Negra), the MNU was one of the first Afro-Brazilian organizations to directly address the subjects of racial discrimination and violence. Either during or before the dictatorship, few black organizations made explicit critiques of the myth/ideology of racial democracy or advocated black unity in the manner of the MNU, which was a drastic shift in modern black protest in Brazil. Unlike many Marxist-inspired political parties and organizations, the MNU did not favor the matters of class conflict over those of racial

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conflict and considered each topic equally significant in its cause. As an organizing principle and a motivating factor, matters pertaining to race were of particular importance to the MNU. The legacy of the MNU’s struggle is evident in the representation of Brazilian black rights organizations at the world summit on race relations in Durban, South Africa, in 2001. As the National Black Consciousness Day, November 20 is commemorated annually, and Brazil is forced to recognize the strength and widespread influence of the movimento negro. This particular date is affiliated with the brutal assassination in 1695 of Ganga Zumba-Zumbi, a maroon who became the supreme chief of the quilombo of Palmares, a region with an estimated population of more than 30,000 that was one of the most well-known and important maroon communities in the Americas. As an example of courage and human dignity, Zumbi is a hero who inspired the oppressed throughout Brazil to break their shackles and resist, even at the cost of their lives. In the beginning of his mandate, Brazil’s President Lula approved the inclusion of the National Black Consciousness Day in the school calendar; also included in the curriculum is education about African history. Recent activities include organizing a demonstration in favor of racial quotas at the second Conference of Intellectuals of the African Diaspora (CIAD) in Salvador, Bahia, in July 2006. Shamika Ann Mitchell See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; De Almeida, José Lino Alves (1958–2006); Diasporic Marronage; Nascimento, Abdias do (1914–); Zumbí of Palmares (1655–1695). F URTHER R EADING Butler, Kim D. 1998. Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abolition São Paulo and Salvador. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Hanchard, Michael. 1994. Orpheus and Power: The Movimento Negro of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil, 1945–1988. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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696 | Mtoro bin Mwinyi Bakari (1860–1927) Moura, C. 1983. Brasil, raizes do protesto negro. São Paulo: Global Editora. Moura, C. 1994. Dialética radical do brasil negro. São Paulo: Editora Anita. Movimento Negro Unificado. 1988. 1978–1988: 10 Anos de luta contra o racismo. São Paulo: MNU.

z Mtoro bin Mwinyi Bakari (1860–1927) Mtoro bin Mwinyi Bakari was an ingenious teacher and gifted writer who went to Germany in 1900 and died in Berlin on July 14, 1927. Born in Dunda in the 1860s, he grew up in Bagamoyo, a major caravan station and small port city on the East African coast. Coming from a family background and culturally mixed social environment, with Swahili as his first language, Mtoro was able to study higher Islamic sciences (‘ilm). The fight against the German colonizers in East Africa in 1888–1889 increasingly exposed local populations to violence and destruction, even those who chose not to take up arms. In this context, the people of Dunda, certainly including relatives of Mtoro, had to escape attacks of the anticolonial forces. This explains why Mtoro did not tend to see the colonial regime in a negative light at that time. About two years before leaving Bagamoyo he was even ready to be employed as a tax collector—in retrospect admitting that this was a rather “troublesome business” and that “everybody hated” him. The motive to overcome his difficult economic situation must have played an important role when Mtoro decided to work as a lecturer in the Swahili language at the Seminary for Oriental Languages in Berlin. As a consequence, he left his wife and his young daughter behind. In Berlin he wrote two sections for the Safari za Wasuaheli (Swahili

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travel accounts) and compiled Desturi za Wasuaheli (Swahili customs). Both books were edited by his superior, Carl Velten, and simultaneously published in German and Swahili; the Desturi was later translated into English. Mtoro’s exceptional reputation as a lecturer and educated person was of no use when he was forced to give up his position after marrying a German wife in 1904. Both of them traveled to German East Africa but were not allowed to enter the colony. The governor’s decision that the presence of such mixed couples would undermine the colonial order stimulated administrative measures directed against legal unions between white men and black women in the German colonies. Back in Berlin, Mtoro offered private Swahili lessons and joined discussions on Islam, together with the missionary Carl Meinhof, a professor of African languages in Berlin and later at the Colonial Institute in Hamburg. Meinhof ’s recommendation rendered it possible for Mtoro to resume his work as a Swahili lecturer in Hamburg in 1909. However, in 1913, a conflict arose when a young German lecturer, who had never been to Africa but who used to teach Swahili, did not treat Mtoro with due respect. Lacking the necessary support in a racially prejudiced academic context, and not being ready to endure corresponding discriminations, Mtoro was forced to leave again. He returned to Berlin and during the following years he traveled to various places in Germany giving public talks on East Africa until his death in 1927. Ludger Wimmelbücker See also Germany and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Allen, J.W.T., ed. and trans. 1981. The Customs of the Swahili People: The Desturi za Waswahili of Mtoro bin Mwinyi Bakari and Other Swahili Persons. Berkeley: University of California Press. Velten, Carl. 1901. Safari za Wasuaheli. Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

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Mulatta | 697 Velten, Carl. 1903. Desturi za Wasuaheli na khabari za desturi za sheri’a za Wasuaheli. Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

z Mulatta Mulatta, a word whose construction reveals roots in Spanish, Portuguese, and English languages (the “a” ending provides a feminine literary version of “mulatto”), is a talismanic term for a woman of primarily African and European ancestry. The term developed in the period of the classic colonial plantation systems of the Western hemisphere and is one of a range of racial classificatory names used to signify various hybrid combinations of European, African, and sometimes Amerindian peoples. The mythic mulatta epitomized the eroticized inequality in the social relations between the dominant European planter class and the subordinated African-descended slave. The slave’s social value, on one hand, represented the material production of the slave system of labor, and on the other, the sexualized body image, which rationalized exploitation of that body’s use to reproduce the slave labor force itself. Narratives about the mulatta in the United States, Cuba, and Brazil, among other places, served to not only mask the level of violence against women but also to deny the African slave’s contribution to the linguistic and cultural transformation in the Americas. Colonial plantation systems in the Western Hemisphere developed powerful racial and cultural symbols that defined social relations between master and slave, colonizer and colonized, men and women, and “superior” and “inferior.” Cemented in such systems of the African Diaspora were structures of differential access to the resources, power, and rewards of society, with the presumptions being that mixed-race

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identity was linked to embranquecimento (whitening) and could therefore offer cultural capital and a pathway to upward mobility. During slavery, the development of distinct body types promoted a continuum of body privilege; Europeans embodied the “normal” body types and African types were deemed to be their opposites (Reuter 1918). The idealized mulatta identity incorporated long, wavy hair and café con leche skin complexion as crucial symbols of positive body representation in more than one national context. These cultural patterns were in place throughout the hemisphere by the 19th century and slavery’s enduring aftermath; songs, jokes, and other aspects of popular culture gave evidence to their importance. In the United States, for example, recent work maintains that the lingering notion of the “tragic mulatta” was a literary device promulgated more by white women writers as “a sensationalized figure of ruined womanhood” (Zackodnick 2004, 1), rather than the more empowering representations of the mulatta put forth by African American women in the late 1800s. However, the word mulatta as a descriptive fell out of common usage in 20th-century popular culture. In Brazil, the concept of mulatta has gradually expanded its social meaning to include such factors as age (youthfulness), weight (slenderness), and even to signify a “show girl” of indeterminate ethnicity. Hence, one’s phenotype (the genetic heritage that is visible to the eye) can be adjusted to approximate or reject mulatta identity. In spite of progress toward equality in many areas of the African Diaspora, the legacy of slavery means that a woman worker’s body is subtly coded racially for certain types of employment. Even today throughout the hemisphere, approximating the physical—and sometimes cultural—attributes of the mulatta bestows the label of boa aparencia (“good appearance”) and extends greater options to women for work. Angela Gilliam

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698 | Mutabaruka (1952–) See also Brazil: Afro Brazilians; Mestizo. F URTHER R EADING Corrêa, Mariza. 1996. “Sobre a Invenção da Mulata” (“Regarding the Invention of the Mulata”). Cadernos PAGÚ 6–7: 35–50. Reuter, Edward Byron. 1918. The Mulatto in the United States: Including a Study of the Role of Mixed Blood Races Throughout the World. Boston: Richard G. Badger, Gorham Press. Sarduy, Pedro Perez, and Jean Stubbs, eds. 2000. Afro-Cuban Voices: On Race and Identity in Contemporary Cuba. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Zackodnik, Teresa C. 2004. The Mulatta and the Politics of Race. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

z Mutabaruka (1952–) Mutabaruka, formerly Allan Hope, is a unique and powerful voice in Caribbean poetry. Although many people label his work “dub poetry” or “protest poetry” he resists both labels as these terms do not speak to the breadth of his work. Strong beliefs in Rastafarianism guide his work, lifestyle, and politics, and he is very clear about his critique of Christianity. During the groundswell of black consciousness that pervaded Jamaica in the 1960s and 1970s, Mutabaruka became much more acutely aware of social inequities and the disenfranchisement of black people internationally, prompting him to

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move away from Kingston and into the countryside. He was among the first wave of widely published Caribbean poets to emerge in the early 1970s, linking his written work with a dynamic oral presentation that continues to captivate worldwide audiences. Like Louise Bennett and other contemporary poets, his work uses the language of the masses, making poetic expression both accessible and incendiary. Mutabaruka is known by many through his numerous CDs, including Check It! (1983), Outcry (1984), Land of Africa (1985), The Mystery Unfolds (1986), Any Which Way . . . Freedom (1989), Blakk wi Blak (1991), Melanin Man (1994), Mutabaruka: The Ultimate Collection (1996), Mutabaruka: Live at Reggae Sumfest ’93! (1986), Gathering of the Spirits (1998), Muta in Dub (1998), and Life Squared (2002). His film credits include Sankofa (1993) and The Land of Look Behind (1990). His work has been widely anthologized internationally, and his much anticipated collection of poetry, The First Poems/The Next Poems, was published in 2005. Keshia Abraham See also Bennett, Louise (1919–2006); Jamaica; Rastafarianism. F URTHER R EADING Nelson, Angela, ed. 1999. This Is How We Flow: Rhythm in Black Cultures. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Prahlad, Sw. Anand. 2001. Reggae Wisdom: Proverbs in Jamaican Music. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press.

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Index

z

Abakuá, 1–3, 2 (photo) Abeng, 266, 267 Abernathy, Ralph, 852, 854 Abolitionism, in the African Diaspora, 3–8 in North America, 5–6 in South America, 6–7 Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society, 291 Abu-Jamal, Mumia, 8–9 Abyssinia/Ethiopia, 9–10 Achebe, Chinua, 10–11 Adivasi, 11–12 major categories of, 12 Adriana, Alberto, 948 Africa, 12–17 development of humanity in, 13–14 etymology of the name, 12–13 and European explorers, 15–16 geography of, 13 organized African empires, 14–15 Africa Alive, 467 Africa Vive, 92, 97 African Abolition Society, 720 African American history, 41–53 “African” in, 41–42 background of, 42–44 Black/Atlantic world studies, 51–52 colonial and antebellum studies, 45–46 cultural/interdisciplinary studies, 50–51 gender/women studies, 49–50 public history studies, 48–49 recent trends and tendencies in, 44–45

resistance studies, 46–48 African American Vernacular English (AAVE), 17–18 African American women, 19–20 themes found in the works of, 19 African Americans, and the constitutional order, 20–28 Civil Rights Movement and beyond, 24–27 Civil War era, 21–22 early cases, 20–21 segregation and Jim Crow, 22–24 African Ballet, 28 African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), 28–30, 185, 199, 230, 688–689 African Canadian film, 30–31 African Diaspora, 16, 314–315 African Diaspora texts, xlvii causes of, xxxiii–xxxiv definition of, xxxiii–xxxvii, xli distinguishing characteristics of, xxxvi encyclopedias covering, xxxii–xxxiii historical background and geographical range of, xxxvii–xxxix tendencies in African Diaspora studies, xxxiv and women, xlix–li “African Diaspora” (Shepperson), xxxiv–xxxv African Diaspora film, 31–32 The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA), xlv, 562, 883–884 African Diaspora performance aesthetics, 32–33 African Diaspora Studies, xlv–xlvi, xlviii I-1

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I-2 | Index African Diasporic sociology, 33–41 institutionalizing of, 37–39 major pre-1970s classical figures in, 35 pre-1970s, 34–37 vision and imagination in, 39–41 African film festivals, 442–443 African Literature Association, xlvi African literatures, xlvi–xlvii African matrix culture, 53, 829 African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, 54–55, 176, 177 Dress Reform Society, 54 Women’s Mite Missionary Society, 54–55 African National Congress (ANC), 182, 183, 650–651 African peoples, xli African Society of Culture (ASC), 992 The African Times and Orient Review, 75–76, 459 African Union (AU), xl–xli, 17, 55–58 guiding principles of, 55–56 members of, 56 organs of, 56–57 origin of, 55 symbols of, 57 working languages of, 57 Africanus, Sextus Julius, 58–59 AfriCobra, 113, 169 Afrika, Llaila O., 519 Afro-Asian Conference (Bandung Conference) (1955), 303–304 Afrobeat. See Anikulapo-Kuti, Fela Afro-Brazilian Studies and Research Institute (IPEAFRO), 701 Afrocentricity, 59–62 the Afrocentric paradigm, 59–60 contemporary issues in, 61 context of, 59 and Eurocentricity, 60 key assumptions, 61 leading Afrocentrists, 61 and location, 60 and ways to grasp facts, 60–61 Afro-Cuban literature, 62–65 Afro-Cuban music, 65–68 cha-cha-chá, 67 columbia, 67 danzón, 66 Latin jazz, 67 mambo, 67

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rumba, 66 son, 66 yambú, 67 Afro-Cuban Partido Independiente de Color (PIC) (Independent Party of Color), 342 Afrocubanism, 344 Afro Descendientes Movement. See Venezuela, Afro-Venezuelans in Afrodiaspora, Inc., 972 Afrofest, 252 Afro-fusion dance, 68–70 Ahimsa, 70–71 Aidoo, Ama Ata, 71–72 Akara/acara/acaraje, 72 Akina Mama Wa Africa (AMWA), 441 Albizu-Campos, Pedro, 778–779 Aleijadinho, 108 Alexis, Jacques Stéphen, 73 Algerian Revolution, 73–75 Ali, Duse Mohamed, 75–76 Ali, Muhammad, 76–77 Alim, Samy, 789 Al-Jahiz, 77–78, 575 All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (AAPRP), 78–79, 918 All-African Women’s Revolutionary Union, 918 “Build the A-AARP” program of, 79 Nkrumahism–Turéist ideology of, 78, 79 Allen, James de vere, 875 Allen, Richard, 175, 176 Alleyne, Mervyn, 581 Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA), 19, 79–80 Alves, Miriam, 81–82 Amankwatia II, Baffour. See Hillard, Asa G. Ambar, Malik, 82–83, 106–107, 565–566, 1002 Ambedkar, B. R., 355 American Antislavery Society (AAS), 6 American Colonization Society (ACS), 46, 54, 628 American Historical Association, xlvi Amistad decision (1841), 21, 682 Amo, Antonius Guilielmus (Wilhelm), 83–84 Ananse, 84–85 in Caribbean literatures, 84–85 importance of to Ghanaian authors, 84 Anastácia, 85–86 Andrews, George Reid, 883 Angelou, Maya, 86–87 Anikil, Awagi, 112

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Index | I-3 Anikulapo-Kuti, Fela, 87–90, 88 (photo) Ansina, 90–91 Antigua Caribbean Liberation Movement (ACLM), 267, 524 Antonio the Ethiopian, 91–92 Aponte, José Antonio, 340 Appadurai, Arjun, xxxv Appeal . . . to the Coloured Citizens of the World (D. Walker), xxxv, 5, 970–971 Aptheker, Herbert, 43 Aravaanan, K. P., 401 Archipelago Movement for Ethnic-Native SelfDetermination (AMEN-SD), 787 Argentina, Afro-Argentines in, 92–98 contemporary realities, 97 cultural fusions and contemporary trends, 96–97 history and origins of, 92–95 whitening and the decline in black population, 95–96 Arias, Aurora, 98–99 Aristide, Jean-Bertrand, 99–100 Armstrong, Byron K., 603 Armstrong, Lil Harden, 588 Armstrong, Louis, 586–587 Arozarena, Marcelino, 63 Art, in the African Diaspora, 100–117 first phase (40,000–4000 BCE), 101–102 second phase (3500 BCE–500 CE), 102–103 third phase (650 BCE–599 CE), 103–105 fourth phase (600–1600), 105–108 fifth phase (1500–1900), 108–110 sixth phase (1901–1970), 110–114 seventh phase (1971–2005), 114–116 Art West Associated, 113 Asante, Molefi Kete, 59 Asantewaa, Yaa, 117–118 Àshé, 118–120 Asia, and the African Diaspora. See The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA) Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), 120–121 ASWAD Conferences, xlvi Atlantic world, and the African Diaspora, 121– 133 the African Diaspora, labor, and the Atlantic economy, 125–127 and the demand for slave labor, 126–130 and the development of an integrated economy, 122–125

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Western Africa’s contribution to the Atlantic economy, 130–131 Atwell, Winnifred, 905 Aunty Roachy Seh (Bennett), 160–161 Australia, 738 penal colony in, 736–738 and the “White Australia” policy, 737 Australian Association of Caribbean Studies, xlviii Axum, 133–134 Ayim, May Opitz, 466 Azanian People’s Organization (AZAPO), 183 Azikiwe, Nnamdi, 134–135 Baartman, Sarah, 137–138 Babalawo, 138–139 Babu, Abdulrahman Mohammed (A.M.), 139– 140 Badalkhan, S., 564 Bahamas, 140–141 Liberated Africans in, 141–142 Baker, Ella J., 142 Baker, Josephine, 142–144, 143 (photo), 304, 588 Baker, Thomas Nelson, 758 Bambaataa, Afrika, 144–145, 532 (photo), 790 Banner, William A., 756 Banton, Michael, 36 Baptists, 176–177 Baraka, Amiri, 145–147, 166–167 Barbados, African cultural elements in, 147–149 folk traditions, 149 food names, 147–148 music and masquerade characters, 148 national heroes, 148–149 Baron Samedi. See Samedi Bascom, William R., 581 Basquiat, Jean-Michel, 150–151, 151 (photo) Batalha, Luis, 260 Batouala, a True Black Novel (Maran), 151–152 Battey, C. M., 763–764, 764 Bava Gor, 152–153, 559, 560–561 Bekolo, Jean-Pierre, 443 Belize, African communities in, 153–155 Creoles, 153–155 Garinagu, 154–155 Beltrán, Aguirre, 673–674, 676–677 Benedetto the Moor, Saint, 155–156 Benin, 156–160 Benítez-Rojo, Antonio, xlvii

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Page I-4

I-4 | Index Benjamin, René, 964 Bennett, Louise, 160–162, 161 (photo) Berlin, Ira, 45 Bethune, Mary McLeod, 162–163, 163 (photo) Bethune-Cookman University (formerly Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls in Florida; Bethune Cookman College), 162, 163–164 Bettelheim, Judith, 829 Bhagwan, Moses, 487 Bibb, Henry, 164–165, 835 Biko, Stephen, 165–166, 182, 183 Bin Wahad, Dhoruba, 312, 313 The Birth of a Nation (1915), 593–594 Bishop, Maurice, 476 Bitter Canaan (C. Johnson), 37 Black Aesthetic, 166–167 The Black Aesthetic (ed. Gayle), 167 Black Arts Movement, 145, 167–169, 198–199 black arts in Africa, 168 black arts throughout the Diaspora, 168–169 The Black Atlantic (Gilroy), 51 Black Bourgeoisie (Frazier), 36–37 Black churches, and African American spirituality, 170–174 and ancestors, 171 and dreams, 173–174 fasting, 172–173 prayer meetings and devotional services, 171–172 the preacher, 173, 175 and spirit possessions, 171 Black churches, in the United States, 174–179. See also specific churches Black cinema, 179–182 and black stereotypes, 179–180 from the Caribbean, 181 The LA Film Rebellion, 180–181 “Negro interest films,” 180 race films, 179 Black Cinema Movement, 464 Black Consciousness Movement, 165, 182–183, 376 Black Feminist Movement, in the United States, 322, 432–436 Black Film and Video Network (BFVN), 30 Black History Month, 120 The Black Jacobins (James), 264 Black Liberation Movement, 434–435 Black Marxism, 184–185

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Black Marxism (Robinson), 185 Black Panther Party (BPP) (formerly the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense), 185–187, 192 The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service (a.k.a. The Black Panther), 715 the Free Breakfast for Children program of, 186 slogan of, 715 Ten Point Platform and Program of, 185, 714 Black Paris/Paris Noir, 187–189 Black People’s Convention (BPC), 166, 182 Black Populism (1886–1898), 189–190, 320 Black Power Movement, 145, 198–199 in the Caribbean, 265–269 in the United States, 190–193 Black Power, The Politics of Liberation (Ture and Hamilton), 192 Black Seminoles, 193–194 at Red Bays, Bahamas, 194–195 Black Skin, White Masks (Fanon), 37, 428–429 Black theology, 178 “Black Woman Writer in the African Diaspora” conference, xlix Black women. See African American women Black Women Organized for Action, 435 Black Women’s Diasporas (ed. C. Boyce Davies), l Black/Africana studies in the United States, 195–198 challenges facing the field, 197–198 major organizations for, 196 specialized journals of, 196 values of, 196–197 Black/blackness, and philosophical considerations, 198–203 and the concept of “Negro,” 200–201 and the definition of blackness as race, 202– 203 Blocos afoxés, 203–204 Blocos afros, 203–204 Bluefields (Nicaragua), 204–205 Blues, 205–212 black women blues singers, 588–591 and the blues continuum, 206 and blues orthodoxy, 205–206 and the minor tones AAB, 205 Blyden, Edward Wilmot, xxxv, 212–214, 708 Board of Regents v. Roth (1972), 661 Boas, Franz, 907 Boggs, Grace Lee, 214–215

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Page I-5

Index | I-5 Boggs, James, 190, 214–215 Bois Caiman, 215–216 Bolívar, Simón, 7, 944–945 Bolivia, African presence in, 216–221 culture, 220–221 demographics, 220 during the colonial period, 217–218 during the republican period, 219–220 future trends, 221 political and cultural movements, 221 Bonaparte, Prince Roland Napoleon, 763 Born in Slavery (ed. Rawick), 206 Boukman, 215–216, 499, 504 Boulogne, Joseph Chevalier de Saint-George, 222–223 Bowen, John Wesley Edward, 758–759 Boxer, David, 115 Boyer, Jean-Pierre, 500 Bracks, Lean’tin L., xlix Brand, Dionne, 223–224, 251 Brathwaite, Kamau, xlvii, 224–225, 334, 658 Brazil, Afro-Brazilians in, 225–230 the abolitionist movement and branqueamento, 227 contemporary realities of, 228–229 culture of, 227–228 history and origins of, 225–226 in the nineteenth century, 226–227 quilombos and black consciousness, 226 Breton, André, 297, 914 Briggs, Cyril V., 29, 230–231 The British American, 772 Brixton (south London), 231–232 Brodber, Erna, 232–233 Brooklyn, 233–234 Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids, 508, 788 Browder v. Gayle (1956), 687 Brown, Elaine, 186, 187, 234–235, 235 (photo), 715 Brown, James, 199 Brown, Sterling, 432 Brown v. Board of Education (1954), 24, 660– 661, 705 Buhnen, Steven, 814 Burnham, Forbes, 487, 489 Butler, Broadus N., 759, 760 Butler, Octavia Estelle, 235–236 Butler, Tubal Uriah “Buzz,” 477, 905 Bynoe, Hilda, 477

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Cabral, Amilcar Lopes, 237–239, 261 and “Re-Africanization,” 238 and “Returning to the Source,” 238 Cachoeira (Bahia), 239–240 Cadernos Negros (Black Notebooks) series, 81, 783 Calalu/callaloo, 241 Caldor, Nicholas, 487 Callaloo, xlvi, li, 241 Calypso, 241–245, 904 Campbell, Grace P., 245–246 Campbell, Gwyn, xxxviii Canada, and African American refugee settlements, 246–247 Dawn Settlement, 247 Elgin Settlement, 247 Oro Township, 246 Sandwich Mission, 247 Wilberforce Settlement, 246 Canada, and the African Diaspora, 247–256 crime and marginalization, 254–255 film, 253–254 history of, 248–249 literature, 251 music, 252–253 and official multiculturalism, 248–249, 255, 256 the queer community, 255–256 theater, 251–252 typology of African-descended groups, 248 Candombe, 96, 881–882 Candomblé, 204, 228, 239, 256–257. See also Irmandade de Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte Cannes Brûlées, 257–259 as the basis of contemporary Carnival, 258– 259 elemental features of, 258 Cape Verde, 259–263 culture of, 261 history of, 260–261 literature of, 262 music of, 261–262 Capitalism and Slavery (E. Williams), 263–265 major propositions of, 263 Caribana, 250 Caribbean Association of Researchers and Herbal Practitioners, 515 Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), 269–270

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Page I-6

I-6 | Index Caribbean Diaspora, 270–287 and the black Caribbean Diasporic imaginary, 275–276 the contemporary Diaspora, 279–285 early migrations in the Caribbean American Atlantic, 270–272 household levels of income, 282 (table) self-identified racial categories, 284 (table) transnational migrations, 272–275 women in, 276–279 Caribbean Quarterly, xlvi Caribbean Studies Association, xlvi Carmichael, Stokely. See Ture, Kwame Carnival, 96, 287–289, 395, 678–679, 904. See also Notting Hill Carnival Carpentier, Alejo, 646 Carraway, Arthur, 115 Carter, Betty, 590 Carter, Martin, 487, 490 Carver, George Washington, 289–290, 921 Cary, Mary Anne Shadd. See Shadd Cary, Mary Anne Casa de Cultura da Mulher Negra, 808 Casa Grande e Senzala (“The Masters and Slaves or Enslaved Quarters”) (Freye), 227 Casely-Hayford, Adelaide, 437 Casely-Hayford, Joseph Ephraim, 290–291, 978 Caste, Class, and Race (Cox), 329 Castellanos, Israel, 343 Castro, Fidel, 345, 345–346, 348–349 Catholicism and compulsive acculturation, 942–943 and syncretism, 96–97, 228, 369–373, 964– 965 Center for African Studies (CAS), 237 Central America, African presence in, 291–294 Afro-Amerindian mestizos, 291–292 Afro-Caribeños, 293 Afro-mestizos, 292 Central Asia, African presence in, 294–296 Central Directorate of Societies of the Race of Color (Directorio Central de las Sociedades de la Raza de Color), 341–342 Centro de Esudos Afro-Orientais (CEAO), 296– 297 Césaire, Aimé, xlvii, 297–299, 298 (photo), 495, 663, 708–709, 914 Césaire, Suzanne, 299–300, 914 Charles, May Eugenia, 390 Chase, Ashton, 487

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Chaundhuri, K. N., 123 Chile, Afro-Chileans in, 300–302 contemporary realities, 301–302 history and origins of, 300–301 miscegenation and the decline of the black population, 301 China, and Afro-Asian relations, 302–305 Chisholm, Shirley, 234, 273 (photo), 435 Christian, Barbara, 305 Christophe, Henri, 306, 499, 500 Church of God in Christ (COGIC), 178 Clark, Veve, 382–383 Clarke, Austin, 306–308 Clarke, George Elliot, 308–309 Clarke, John Henrik, 309–310 Clarke, Leroy, 114–115, 310–311 Cleaver, Eldridge, 186, 193, 311–312, 714, 715 Cleaver, Kathleen, 186, 714 Clifford, James, 276 Cohen, Robin, xliv COINTELPRO, 186, 312–313, 836 Cole, Bob, 594–595, 596 Collins, Merle, 313–314, 478 Colombia, Afro-Colombians in, 314–320 Afro-Colombian organizations, 318 connections with African and the Diaspora, 319 and invisibility and exclusion, 317–318 overview of, 315–316 and the problem of identity, 316–317 Colonialism, 16–17, 20 Colored Farmers Alliance, 320–321 Combahee River Collective (CRC) (formerly National Black Feminist Organization [NBFO]), 321–323, 435, 706 Black Feminist Statement of, 322–323 Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), 29, 230 “Black Belt Theory” of, 246, 689 “Conceptualizing the African Diaspora” (Hamilton), xxxvi Condé, Maryse, 323–324, 324 (photo) Cone, James, 190 Conferences of Intellectuals of the African Diaspora (CIAD), xlv–xlvi Confiant, Raphaël, 324–325 Congress of Negro Artists, xlvi Conquest, Sexual Violence and North American Indian Genocide (Andrea Smith), xlii Conwill, Houston, 114

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Index | I-7 Cook, Joyce Mitchell, 758 Cook, Mercer, 325–326 Cooper, Anna Julia, 326–327, 433, 437 Cooper, Carolyn, 39 Corrido, 327–328 Cos Causse, Jesús, 64 Cox, Deborah, 252 Cox, Oliver Cromwell, 328–330 Coyolillo/Coyoleños, 330–332 Creole/Creolity/Creolization, 153–155, 293, 332–334, 711 Creole incident, 334–335 Crisis Magazine, 705 Cromanti, 335–336 Crook, Larry, 828 Crummell, Alexander, 761 Crusader, 29, 230, 389 Cruz, Celia, 337–338, 337 (photo) Cruz, Manoel de Almeida, 338 Cruz-Janzen, Marta, 886–887 Cuba Afro-Cubans in, 338–347 the Cuban Revolution and the African Diaspora, 348–350 intervention in Angola, 347–348 The Special Period in, 528 See also Grito de Yara; Santiago de Cuba Cugoano, Ottobah, 350–351 Cultural Association for Women of African Heritage, 631 Curtin, Philip, 814, 815 Da Silva, Benedita, 353–354 Dafora, Asadata, 359 Daily American Newspaper, 596 Dalits (Untouchables), 354–355 Damas, Léon-Gontran, 355–356, 708 Dance, in the African Diaspora, 356–363 on the African continent, 357–359 in the Caribbean, 360–361 in Latin America, 361–362 in the United States, 359–360 Dance Theatre of Harlem, 366–368 Dandridge, Dorothy, 589 Dangarembga, Tsitsi, 368–369 Danish West Indies, Oldendorp’s 18th-century findings on, xliv, 369–373 Danticat, Edwidge, 373–375, 374 (photo), 501 Daughters of the Diaspora (ed. DeCosta Williams), l

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Davies, Carole Boyce, l, 50, 81, 440, 728, 802 Davies, Horace, 487 Davies, K. G., 129–130 Davis, Angela, 349, 375–376 Davis Wade, 813 Dawson, Christopher, 575 De Almeida, José Lino Alves, 376–377 De Oxóssi, Mãe Stella, 377–378 de Silva, Jennifer Hodge, 30 De Sousa, T., 565 DeCarava, Roy, 764 Decolonization, 378–379, 486 “Defining and Conceptualizing the Modern African Diaspora” (Palmer), xxxviii– xxxix Delta Sigma Theta (DST), 379–380 Depestre, René, 501, 658, 709 Desmangles, Leslie, 785 Dessalines, Jean-Jacques, 380–381, 499, 501 The Destruction of Black Civilization (C. Williams), xxxv, 982–983 Detroit Summer, 215 La Diablesse, 381 Diaspora literacy, 382–383 Diaspora Vibe Gallery, 383–384 Diasporas, xlvi Diasporic marronage. See Maroons/marronage Diggs, Elder Watson, 603–604 Diop, Alioune, 188, 708, 766–767, 992 Diop, Cheikh Anta, xlv, 13, 387–388 Documentaries, 30, 253–254 Domingo, Wilfred Adolphus, 389–390 Dominica, 390–391 Dominican Republic, 391–396 and the African Diaspora, 396 African influences in, 394–396 the Haitian revolution and the unification period, 392 move toward democracy, 394 as a new republic, 392–393 the Trujillo regime, 393–394 U.S. occupation (1916–1924), 393 Douglarization. See Indians, and the African Diaspora in the Caribbean Douglas, Aaron, 111, 397 Douglass, Frederick, 6, 190, 397–398 Dracius, Suzanne, 398–399 Drake, St. Clair, xxxix Dravidians, 399–401 Drayton, Richard, 126

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I-8 | Index Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), 22, 47 Drum (formerly Africa Drum), 401–402 du Sable, Jean-Baptiste Pointe, 402–404 DuBois, W. E. B., 35, 43, 47–48, 110, 152, 166, 302, 303, 404–405, 404 (photo), 445, 461, 469, 508, 760 double consciousness concept, 38, 46 “Talented Tenth” concept, 404 Duke, Alison, 31 Dulles, John Foster, 24 Dumas, Alexandre, Jr., 424 Dunham, Albert M., 759 Dunham, Katherine, 359, 405–406, 406 (photo) Duval-Carrié, Edouard, 111 Duvalier, François “Papa Doc,” 500, 890–891 East African Community (EAC), 407–409 Ebonics. See African American Vernacular English (AAVE) Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS), 409–411 Ecuador, Afro-Ecuadorians in, 411–416 demography of, 412–413 economic activities of, 413–414 history of, 411–412 intercultural relations and racism, 415–416 politics of, 414–415 religion of, 413 Eddins, Berkley, 760, 761 Edgell, Zee, 416–417 Edwards, Brent Hayes, xxxv Edwards, Mel, 115 Egypt, 14 influence of on ancient Greece, 103–105 and Kemetic art in Asia Minor, 102–103, 168 See also Nubia El Diario de la Marina, 344 El Moudjahid, 417–418, 429 Elder, Jacob Delworth, xlviii, 418–419 Emancipation Proclamation (1863), 6 Emancipator, 389 Enlightenment, the, 94–95 Enríquez, Miguel, 775 Environmental justice, 419–420 Episcopalianism, 176 Equiano, Olaudah, 420–422 Esmeraldas, 422–423 Estupian Bass, Nelson, 415 Ethiopia Awakening (Fuller), 110 (photo)

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Ethiopian Orthodox Church, 134 Ethiopianism. See Haile Selassie I; Rastafarianism Eurocentrism, 60 Europe, and the African Diaspora, 423–426. See also specific European countries Evers, Medgar, 889 Exchanging Our Country Marks (Gomez), 45–46 Facing Mount Kenya (Kenyatta), 606 Falgayrettes-Leveau, Christiane, 617 Falucho, 427–428 Fanon, Frantz, 37, 74–75, 192, 428–430, 429 (photo), 709 Farah, Issa, xlii Fard, Wallace D., 702 Farrakhan, Louis, 704 Farris Thompson, Robert, xliv, xlvii, 121, 532 Febres, Mayra Santos, 430–431 Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), 431–432 African American writers involved in, 431 Guide to America series, 431 rural studies, 432 Slave Narrative Collection, 432 urban studies, 432 Fedon, Julien, 476 Feminism, and black women in the African Diaspora, 436–442 Caribbean feminist works, 438 feminist literary criticism works, 440 South African feminist journals, 441 works on African feminisms, 440 works on sexuality in the African Diaspora, 439–440 See also Black Feminist Movement, in the United States Feminist Africa, li Filhos de Gandhy, xlii–xliii, 443–445 Firmin, Anténor, 501 Fisk University, 445–446 Fitzgerald, Ella, 589 Flores, Juan, 886 Florida International University conferences, xlv Florida Memorial University, 446–447 “Flying Africans” narrative, 447–448 Fontaine, William T., 759, 760 Forum, 267 Foster, William, 179 The Foundations of Capitalism (Cox), 329

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Page I-9

Index | I-9 Fourah Bay College, 448–449 Fowler, Víctor, 64–65 France, and the African Diaspora, 423–424, 424, 425, 426, 449–452 black immigrant grassroots organizations, 451 Francisco, Slinger, 243 (photo), 477 Francois, Elma, 452–453 Franklin, John Hope, 43 Frazier, E. Franklin, 34, 36, 37, 907 Free African Society, 175 Freye, Gilberto, 227 Friandes, Mestre Manoel, 108, 109 From Slavery to Freedom (Franklin), 43 Frye, Charles A., 760, 761 Fuller, Hoyt, 166, 167 Fuller, Meta Warrick, 110 Gadsby, Meredith, l Gairy, Eric, 476 Gama, Luiz, 699 Gandhi, Mahatma, xlii, 70–71, 355 Garifuna, 154–155, 292, 455–456 Garrison, William Lloyd, 6 Garvey, Amy Ashwood, 456–458 Garvey, Amy Jacques, 458–459 Garvey, Marcus, xl, 46, 342–343, 389, 459–463, 459 (photo), 492, 689, 742, 793 African Nationalism philosophy of, 460 anti-Garvey forces, 461 Garveyism. See Garvey, Marcus Gaskin, Winifried, 487 Gates, Henry Louis, xlv, 842 Gays and Lesbians of the African Diaspora (GLAD), 256 “Gendering the African Diaspora” conference, l Geographers, Arab/African, 463–464 George Padmore Research Library, 741 Gerima, Haile, 464–465 Germany, and the African Diaspora, 465–468 Afro-Deutsche communities, 467 contemporary realities, 468 hip-hop in Germany, 467–468 historical background, 465–466 recent trends, 466–467 Ghana, 469–470 Gillespie, Dizzy, 587 (photo) Gilroy, Beryl Agatha, 470–472 Gilroy, Paul, xliv–xlv, xlvii, 51, 121, 272, 470 Githae-Mugo, Micere, 664

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Glissant, Edouard, xlvii, 334, 472–473, 482, 658, 709 Global Diasporas (Cohen), xliv Global Mappings Atlas (Hanchard), xliii Golightly, Cornelius, 759 Goméz, Juan Gualberto, 342 Gomez, Michael, xxxix, 45–46 Goodison, Lorna, 473 Gordon, Monica, 278 Graffiti, 150 Great Awakening, 174–175 Greaves, William, 30 Greenberg, Joseph, 373 Grenada, 474–478 culture of, 477–478 early history of, 474–475 the Grenadian Diaspora, 477 social movements in, 475–476 socioeconomic profile of, 475 Grierson, John, 30 Griots/griottes, 478–480 Grito de Yara, 480 The Groundings with My Brothers (Rodney), 267, 804 Guadeloupe, 480–482 Gualba, Miguel, 341 Guerra, Juan Luis, 395 (photo) Guillén, Nicolás, 63, 344, 482–483 Guimarães, Geni, 483–484 Guirao, Ramiro, 344 Gumbo, 484–485 Guy-Sheftall, Beverly, xlix Guyana, 485–490 as a British colony, 485–486 cultural and intellectual contributions to the African Diaspora, 490 and decolonization, 486–287 overlapping Diaspora in, 489–490 political scene in, 487–489 Haile Selassie I, 134, 491–493, 792–793 Hairstyles of blacks, 493–495 the Afro, 494 braiding, 493–494 dreadlocks (locks or dreads), 494–495 relaxers/perms, 494 straightening, 494 Haiti, 495–502, 504 culture of, 496 economy of, 497

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I-10 | Index environmental degradation in, 496 geography of, 495 government of, 497–498 the Haitian Revolution, 498–500, 502–504 history of, 498–501 population of, 495–496 Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo, xxxix Hall, Prince, 771–772 Hall, Stuart, xlv, 272 Hamilton, Charles, 191, 192 Hamilton, Ruth Simms, xxxvi, 37 Hamilton, Sylvia, 30 Hammond, Francis Monroe, 759 Hampton Institute/Hampton University, 504–505 Hanchard, Michael, xliii Handy, W. C., 208, 210 Hansberry, Lorraine, 199 Harlem, 506–507 Harlem Renaissance, 111, 199, 506, 507–509, 661 Harlem Tenants League, 246 Harleston, Elise Forrest, 764 Harper, Frances E. W., 434 Harris, Joseph, xxxviii Harris, Wilson, 658 Harrison, Hubert H., 688 Haynes, Samuel A., 154 Haywood, Harry, 509–510 Health, in the African world, 510–522 biomedicine (Western or official medicine), 514 health disparities, 510–514, 518 HIV/AIDS, 519–520 popular medicine, 511, 518–519 spirituality and healing, 517 traditional/folk medicine, 511, 514–517 Healy, Patrick Francis, 758 Heath, Roy, 522–523 Hector, Leonard “Tim,” 523–525 Hemphill, Essex, li Henson, Josiah, 247 Herrera, Georgina, 64 Herskovits, Frances S., 43 Herskovits, Melville, xliii, 32, 36, 581, 858, 907– 908 Heywood, Linda, xlviii Highlife, 525–527 Hill, Charles Leander, 758, 760, 761 Hilliard, Asa G., III, 527–528 Hine, Darlene Clark, xxxix

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Hintjens, H., 567 Hip-hop, 531–537 Cuban, 528–529, 530, 531 elements of, 532 in Germany, 467–468 internationalism of, 534 Latin American, 529–531 mistaken assumptions about, 533 musical, cultural, and historical connections, 532–533 original school, 534 origins of, 531 and rap COINTELPRO, 535–536 true school, 534 See also Rap/Rappin’; Yaad hip-hop The History of Mary Prince, 770–771, 813 Hitti, Philip K., 575 Holiday, Billie, 537–539, 538 (photo), 588–589 Holiness-Pentecostal Movement, 177–178 Holmes, Eugene C., 756 Homburger L., 401 Hope, John, 69 Hopkinson, Nalo, 540–541 Horne, Lena, 589 Horton, James Africanus Beale, 541–542 Houbert, Jean, 566 Houston, Charles Hamilton, 24 Howard University, 542–544 faculty and students, 543 library of, 543 Howell, Leonard, 793 Hughes, Langston, 303, 483, 544–545, 544 (photo) Huiswoud, Otto, 545–546 Hunt, Nettie, 25 (photo) Hunter, Alberta, 588 Huntley, Jessica, 487 Hunton, William Alphaeus, Jr., 48 Hurston, Zora Neale, 35, 431, 546–548, 547 (photo), 815 Hurtado, Lenin, 415 Hutton, Clinton, 816 Hyde, Evan X., 154 Hyppolite, Hector, 111 Ibeji, 549–550 “Ibo Landing” story, 550–551 Ifekuwingwe, Jane, l Iglesias Díaz, Aracelio, 345 Ilê Aiyê, 551–552

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Page I-11

Index | I-11 Immigration, to the United States admission by region and country of birth (1989–2001), 280 (table) patterns in (1989–2003), 274 (figure) Incense, 552–553 India, and the African Diaspora, 553–562, 563, 565–566 cultural expressions of, 560 Diaspora connections, 560–561 economy of, 557–558 ethnic groups and languages, 555–557 geographical boundaries, 557 history of, 554–555 political and social structure of, 558–559 religions of, 559–560 and the slave trade, 564–565 Indian Ocean world and the African Diaspora, 562–569 Dutch East Indies, 568 Habashi/Sidi/Kaffir terminology, 562–563 Mauritius, 566–567 music of, 564 Pakistan, 563–564 Réunion, 567 Sri Lanka, 567–568 See also India and the African Diaspora Indians, and the African Diaspora in the Caribbean, 569–571 Indigo, 571 Indonesia and Africa, 571–573 The Institute of the Black World (IBW), 573– 574 The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself, 421 International African Friends of Abyssinia (IAFA) (later International African Friends of Ethiopia), 457 International African Opinion, 741 International Club, 667–668 International Council of Women of the Darker Races, 436–437 International Labor Defense (ILD), 689 Iraq, ancient, African presence in, 574–576 Sumer, 575 Irmandade de Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte, 576–578 Islam African elements of Islamic art, 105–108 and women, 988–991

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Jackson, George Lester, 532, 579–580 Jackson, John G., 1000 Jackson, Joseph, 175 Jackson, Richard L., 675 Jagan, Cheddi, 486, 487, 489 Jagan, Janet Rosenberg, 487 Jamaica, 580–583 Jamaica Labrish (Bennett), 160 James, C. L. R., 43, 185, 264, 524, 583–585, 585 (photo), 860, 905 James, Cynthia, 658 James, George G. M., 761 Japan, and Afro-Asian relations, 302–305 Jazz, 585–587 black women jazz singers, 588–591 Jean, Roland, 115–116 Jeffers, Audrey, 905 Jerk seasoning, 591 Jim Crow, 22–24, 591–594 and the “separate but equal” doctrine, 592 Jiménez, Rafael D., 828 Johnson, Charles S., 34, 37, 431, 445 Johnson, J. Rosamond, 594–595, 596, 629, 705 Johnson, James Weldon, 303, 594–595, 595– 596, 629, 705 Johnson, Linton Kwesi, 596–597 Johnson, Lyndon B., 24, 853 Johnson, Sargent Claude, 111 Johnson, William D., 756 Johnston, Harry, 35–36 Johnston, Percy E., 760 Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education and Liberation (JEWEL), 267 Jones, Claudia Cumberbatch, 598–599, 598 (photo), 905 Jones, Lois Mailou, 111 Jones, Peter, 179 Jones, William A., 505 Jones, William R., 758, 760–761, 761 Journal of African American History, 120 Journal of African Civilizations, 940 Junkanoo, 599–600 Kali, 601–602 Kalimba, 602–603 Kanogo, Tabitha, 664 Kappa Alpha Psi, 603–604 Kayiga, Kofi, 115 Keens-Douglas, Richard, 604–605 Kelley, Robin D. G., xxxix, 790

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Page I-12

I-12 | Index Kelsey, George D., 757 Kelshall, Jack, 487 Kenya Land and Freedom Army. See Mau Mau Kenyatta, Jomo, 605–608, 607 (photo) Keyes, Cheryl L., 790 Killens, John Oliver, 739 Kincaid, Jamaica, 608–609 King, B. B., 609–610 King, Martin Luther, Jr., xlii, 71, 173,175, 610– 611, 852, 853 Kinyatti, Maina wa, 664 Kitt, Eartha, 589 Koelle, Sigismund, 373 KRS-ONE, 611–613 Ku Klux Klan, 22, 592 Kuti, Fela. See Anikulapo-Kuti, Fela Kwanzaa, 613–615 celebration and ritual of, 614–615 five fundamental activities of, 613 seven principles of (Nguzo Saba), 613–614 Kwayana, Eusi, 487 La poblacion negra de México (Beltrán), 673– 674, 676–677 Labat, Jean-Baptiste, 333 Lalla, Barbara, 658 Lam, Wifredo, 111–112, 617–618 Lamming, George, 618–619 Langston, John Mercer, 619–620 Langston University, 620–622 Laporte, Roy Bryce, 39 Latino, Juan, 622–623 Lawrence, Jacob, 111, 623–625 Lazare, Muzumbo, 904–905 Lee, Carlton L., 760, 761 Lee, Spike, 181, 234 LeFlesche, Susan, 505 Legba, 625–626 Legion Rastafari (Legiao Rastafari), 633 Légitime défenese, 626–627 Les Ballets Africains. See African Ballet Lewis, Earl, 50 Lewis, Samella, 113–114 Lewis, W. Arthur, 125 The Liberator, 6 Liberia, 627–629 “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” 594, 596, 629–630, 705 Liga para Promover el Progreso de los Negros en Puerto Rico, 778

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Lincoln, Abbey, 590, 630–641 Lincoln University (formerly Ashmun Institute), 632–633 Lino Alves de Almeida, José, 633–634 Lion, Jules, 763 Locke, Alain L., 111, 152, 508, 634–635, 756– 757 López, Rafael Brea, 829 Lorde, Audre, xlix, l–li, 635–637, 636 (photo), 999–1000 L’Ouverture, Toussaint, 5, 380, 499, 501, 637– 639, 638 (illustration) Lovejoy, Paul, 814–815 Lovelace, Earl, 639–640 Loven, Sven, 581 Lowery, Joseph E., 854 Lumumba, Patrice Emery, 640–641 Lynching, 887–889, 976–977 Maceo y Grajales, Antonio, 643 Macumba, 643–644 Magubane, Peter, 765 Mahdi rebellion, 644–645 Makandal, François, 645–646 Malcolm X, xl, 48, 192, 647–649, 648 (photo), 703, 799, 800 Male revolt, 649–650 Mandela, Nelson, 650–651 Mandela, Winnie, 651–653, 652 (photo) Manley, Edna, 112 Manley, Norman, 486 Manzano, Juan Francisco, 63 Maran, René, 151–152, 653–654 Marassa, 654–655 March on Washington Movement (MOWM), 214, 788 Mariategui, Carlos, 948 Marley, Bob, xlv, 655–657, 656 (photo) Maroons/marronage, 4, 226, 384–387, 391, 481, 657–659, 677–678, 744–745, 934, 944–945 grand marronage, 657, 934 the Ndyuka maroons, 870–873 petit marronage, 657, 934 See also Palmares Mars, Jean Price, 111 Marshall, Paule, 233, 270, 659–660 Marshall, Thurgood, 660–661, 661 (photo), 705 Marson, Una, 438 Martin, Tony, xxxix Martínez, Annabella Cruz, 331

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Page I-13

Index | I-13 Martinique, 662–664 Marson, Una, 661–662 Maryshow, Theophilus Albert, 476–477 “Master Abdias,” 112 “Master Didi,” 112 Mathaba International, 524 Mau Mau, 664–665 Maximilien, Louis, 964 Maynard, Valerie, 115 Mazrui, Ali, 728 Mbari Club, 665–666 M’bow, Amadou Makhtar, 666–667 McBride, Dwight, li McBurnie, Beryl, 361 McCarran-Walter Act (1952), 272 McDaniel, Lorna, 815–816 McFadden, Patricia, 441 McKay, Claude, 667–668 McKinney, Richard I., 757 McKittrick, Katherine, l McLeod Bethune, Mary. See Bethune, Mary McLeod McLeod, Jacqueline, xxxix McRae, Carmen, 668–669 McTair, Roger, 30 McWatt, Tessa, 669–670 Medici, Alessandro de, 670–671 Meeks, Gregory, 319 Mendizábal, Horacio, 97 Menéndez, Jesús, 345 Messenger, 184, 389, 787 Mestizo, 292, 671–672 Métraux, Alfred, 964, 965 Mexico, 673–679 African heritage of, 673–675 Carnival in, 678–679 maroons in, 677–678 and mestaziaje ideology, 674–677 See also Veracruz Micheaux, Oscar, 32, 179 Middle Passage, 679–683, 893 crew and officers of the ships, 682 and slave resistance, 681–682 and the slaves’ health and well-being, 680–681 The Migration of the Negro (Lawrence), 624, 624 (photo) Million Man March, 704 Milonga, 882–883 Minerva, 341 Mintz, Sydney, 486

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Miskito Indians, 292, 539–540 Mitchell, Arthur, 366, 367 Montejo, Esteban, 658 Montejo Arrechea, Carmen, 339 Montgomery, Evangeline J., 113, 114 Montgomery Bus Boycott, 685–687 Montgomery Improvement Association, 686– 687 Moore, Audley E. See Moore, Queen Mother Moore, Carlos, 349 Moore, Queen Mother, 687–688 Moore, Robin, 883 Moore, Richard B., 688–689 Moreau de Saint-Méry, Mederic, 333 Morehouse College (formerly Augusta Institute), 689–690 Morejón, Nancy, 63–64, 690–692 Moreland, Marc M., 760 Morisseau-Leroi, Félix, 501 Morrison, Toni, 692–693 Mos Def, 693–694 Moseka, Aminata. See Lincoln, Abbey MOVE, 8 Movement for Assemblies of the People (MAP), 267 Movimento Negro Unificado (MNU), 694–696 Moya Pons, Frank, 396 Mtoro bin Mwinyi Bakari, 696–697 Muhammad, Elijah, 76–77, 702–703 Mulatta, 697–698 Murrell, Nathaniel Samuel, 816 Muslim Mosque, Inc., 648 Mutabaruka, 698 Nardal, Jane, 188, 663 Nardal, Paulette, 188, 663 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, 397 The Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, 165 Nascimento, Abdias do, 114–115, 699–702 quilombismo philosophy of, 701–702 Nation of Islam (NOI), 76–77, 647–649, 702– 704 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 461, 596, 508, 704–705 Legal Redress Committee, 705 National Association of Colored Women (NACW), 19, 434

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I-14 | Index National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. (formerly National Baptist Convention), 175 National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO), 435, 705–707 National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in American (N’COBRA), 707–708, 801 N’COBRA’s International Affairs Commission (NIAC), 707 National Conference of Artists (NCA), 113 National Congress of British West Africa, 291 National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), 19, 162 National Joint Action Committee (NJAC), 267, 268 National Organization for Women (NOW), 434 National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), 165 National Urban League, 508 National Youth Administration (NYA), 162 Négritude, 297, 388, 429, 708–710 Negro History Bulletin, 120 The Negro in the New World (H. Johnston), 35– 36 Negro Renaissance. See Harlem Renaissance Negro Society for Historical Research, 830 Negro Welfare Cultural and Social Association (NWCSA), 452–453 Negro World, 389, 460, 461 “Our Women and What They Think” page, 458 Nelson, William Stuart, 757–758 Netherlands Antilles, and the African Diaspora, 710–712 Netherlands East Indies, African soldiers in, 712–714 Nettleford, Rex, 361, 797 New Jewel Movement (NJM), 267, 268, 476 The New Negro (Locke), 508 New Negro Movement. See Harlem Renaissance Newitt, M., 566 Newton, Huey Percy, 185–187, 192–193, 714– 715 Ngudu Herbarium, 516 Nichols, Grace, 716–717 Nketia, J. H. Kwabena, 358 Nkrumah, Kwame, xl, 408–409, 469, 492, 717– 718, 742–743 Notting Hill Carnival, 718–720 Nova Scotia, and the African Diaspora, 720–721

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Nubia, 721–724 Kerma period (2040–1554 BCE), 721 New Kingdom period (1554–1080 BCE), 721–722 Kush period (900 BCE—320 CE), 722–723 Meroe period (270 BCE—350 CE), 723–724 Nuestra Raza, 935 Nxumalo, Henry, 401, 402 Nyerere, Julius, 408 Nzegwu, Nkiru, xxxv Obadele, Gaidi, 800 Obadele, Imari, 800 Obeah, 725–726 Oberlin College, 303 Ogou/Ogum/Ogun, 726–727 Ogundipe-Leslie, Molara, 439 Okpewho, Isidore, 727–728 Olatunji, Babtunde, 358 Old Hige, 728–729 Oldendorp, Christian Georg Andreas. See Danish West Indies, Oldendorp’s 18thcentury findings on Olodum, 729–730 Olugebefola, Ademola, 115 Opoku, Albert M., 357, 358 Optiz, May Ayim, 730 Order of the Eastern Star (Queen Esther Chapter), 19 Organizaciones Mundo Afro, 935 Organization of African Unity (OAU), 55 Oro Negro, 301–302 Ortiz, Fernando, 617, 731–732 Osun (Oxum/Ochun/Oshun), 732–733, 733 (photo) Our Caribbean (ed. Glave), li Outlet, 267 Owen, Chandler, 389, 787 Oya, 734 Oyewumi, Ronke, li Pacific world and the African Diaspora, 735– 740 in antiquity, 735–736 during the Spanish-American War, 738–739 during World War II, 739 early contacts, 736 early migrations, 735 and European hegemony, 736 post–World War II, 739

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Page I-15

Index | I-15 recent Diaspora, 739 See also Australia Padmore, George, 43, 740–741, 905 Palcy, Euzhan, 181, 741–742 Palmares, 1009–1010 Palmer, Colin, xxxviii–xxxix Palmer, Ransford W., 275 Pan-African Congresses (PAC), 182, 183, 437, 457, 741, 743, 992 Pan-African Freedom Movement for East and Central Africa (PAFMECA), 408 Pan-Africanism, xxxix–xl, 78, 275–276, 408, 524, 742–743, 918 dominant ideas of, 743 Panama, Afro-Panamanians in, 292, 743–748 Afro-Antilleans, 745–747 Afro-Colonials, 744–745, 746–747 Pankhurst, Richard, 562 Park, Robert Ezra, 34 Parker, Lawrence Anthony. See KRS-ONE Parks, Gordon, Sr., 764 Parks, Rosa, 48, 588, 685, 686 (photo) Partido Autóctono Negro (PAN), 935 Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC), 261 “Passing,” 594 Pastor, Robert A., 272 Patterson, Louise Thompson, 846 Patterson, Tiffany, xxxix Pattillo, Walter Alexander, 748–749 Payada, 96, 749–750 Peña, Lázaro, 345 People with their feet on backward, 751 People’s Educational Forum, 688 People’s National Party (PNP), 389 People’s Progressive Party (PPP), 487 Peralta, Pedro Andaverez, 221 Pereira, C., 566 Pérez-Sarduy, Pedro, 64 Perry, Rufus L. M., 761 Perry, Rufus Lewis, Jr., 761 Peru, Afro-Peruvians in, 751–753 history and origins of, 752 recent trends, 753 resistance to slavery, 752–753 Pétion, Alexandre, 499, 500, 501 Petwo, 753–754 Pharaoh, Shengé, 114–115 Phi Beta Sigma, 754–755 The Philadelphia Negro (DuBois), 404

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Philip, Marlene Nourbese, 251, 755–756 Philosophers and the African American experience, 756–762 Photography and the African Diaspora, 762– 766 Pitt, David, 477 Placidó, 63, 341 Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), 22, 202, 592, 661 Pointe du Sable, Jean Baptiste. See du Sable, Jean Baptiste Pointe Poitier, Sidney, 180, 471 Polk, P. H., 764 Portalatin, Aida Cartagena, 766 Powers, Harriet, 108 The Practice of Diaspora (Edwards), xxxv Prempeh I, 834 Presbyterianism, 176 Présence Africaine, xlvi, 708, 766–767 Price, Richard, 657 Price-Mars, Jean, 501 Prieto, Claire, 30 Primus, Pearl E., 359, 767–770, 769 (photo) Primus-Borde Dance Language Institute, 768 Prince, Mary, 770–771 Prince Hall Masons, 771–772 Progressive National Baptist Convention, 175 Provincial Freeman, 772–773 Puerto Rico, Afro-Puerto Ricans in, 773–780 cultural connections, 777–779 history of, 773–777 racism and color stratification in, 886–887 The Pullman Porter (1910), 179 Pushkin, Alexander Sergeevich, 424, 780–781 Quakers, 5 Quilombhoje, 81, 783–784 Quilombo, 700 Quintana-Murci, 564 Race and Culture Contacts in the Modern World (Frazier), 36 Racial identity, 886 Rada, 785–786 Raimond, Julien, 222 Rainey, Gertrude “Ma,” 588 Raizales, 786–787 current situation of, 787 history of, 786–787 Randolph, A. Philip, 214, 389, 787–788 Ransome-Kuti, Funmilayo, 438

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I-16 | Index Rap COINTELPRO, 313, 535–536 Rap/Rappin’, 788–791, 995 Rapso, 791–792 Rasta Reggae, 376–377 Rastafarianism, xlv, 266, 268, 492, 495, 792–795 key principles of, 793–794 Rawick, George P., 206 Rayner, John Baptis, 795–796 Reagon, Bernice Johnson, 796–797, 879 Red Thread, 490 Reddock, Rhoda, li Refugee Home Society, 247 Refugee’s Home Colony, 165 Reggae, xlv, 376–377, 634, 655, 797–798, 995 Reparations, 707, 798–799 Republic of New Africa (RNA), 799–801 The Review of the Black World, 663 Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), 799 Ribeiro, Esmeralda, 801–802 Richards, Beah, 846 Rigaud, Milo, 965 Riggs, Marlon, li Riley, Cheryle, 116 Ríos, Soleida, 64 Robaina, Tomás Fernández, 64 Robeson, Eslanda Goode, 188 Robeson, Paul, 47–48, 802–803 Robinson, Cedric, 185 Rodney, Walter, 266, 267, 488, 490, 803 Rogers, Joel Augustus, 805–807 Rojas, Marta, 64 Rojo, Antonio Benítez, 829 Rolling calf spirit, 807 Roney, Antoine, 363 Roney, Nia, 363 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 162 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 162, 431, 788 Roosevelt, Theodore, 35 Ross, Jacob, 807–808 Rossi, Vicente, 882, 883 Roumain, Jacques, 501 Rouse, Irving, 581 Ruffin, Josephine St. Pierre, 434 Rufino, Alzira, 808–809 Ruiz, Antonio. See Falucho Sachs, Jeffrey, 319 Sage, xlix Saldaña, Excilia, 64 Salsa, 811–813

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Salt, and the African Diaspora, 813–817 culinary uses of, 815 and hypertension, 814 symbolic use of, 813–814, 815–816 Salvador, 817–818 Samba, 818–820 Samba schools, 820–821 Samedi/Baron Samedi, 821–822 San Martín, José, 7 San Mateo de Cangrejos, 822 Sancho, Ignatius, 822–823 Sankofa, 823–824 Santa Cruz, Nicomedes, 753 Santería, 824–828 alternative names for, 824 Santiago de Cuba, 828–829 Saving Our Sons and Daughters (SOSAD), 215 Schomburg, Arturo Alfonso, 830–831, 830 (photo) Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 831–832 School achievement, and minority students, 683–685, 684 (figures) Schwarz-Bart, André, 333 Scott, Hazel, 832–833, 905 Scottsboro Boys, 23, 23 (photo) Scurlock, Addison, 764 Seale, Bobby, 185–187, 192–193, 714, 715 Second Great Awakening, 5 Segregation, 22–24 Sembene, Ousmane, 180 Senghor, Léopold Sédar, 400–401, 709 Sexual Demon of Colonial Power (G. Thomas), xlii Seychelles Islands, 833–834 Seymour, William J., 177 Shadd Cary, Mary Anne, 772–773, 834–835 Shakur, Assata Olugbala, 835–836 Shakur, Tupac Amaru, 836–837 Shaman Pharmaceuticals, 516 Shange, Ntozake, 837–839 Shango, 839–840 Shelley v. Kramer (1948), 24, 660 Shepperson, George, xxxiv–xxxv Shook, Karel, 366, 367 Shorty, Lord, 244 Siddis, 840–841 Signifying, 842–843 Simone, Nina, 590, 843–844 Singer, Merrill, 517

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Page I-17

Index | I-17 Sistren, 844–845 Sitson, Gino, 358 Skinner, Elliott, li Slave narratives, 42, 165, 206 Slave revolts, 3, 339–340 the Aponte rebellion, 340 in the Dominican Republic, 391 in the Dutch Antilles, 712 in Haiti, 5, 499, 502–504, 637–638 the Male revolt, 649–650 Nat Turner’s rebellion, 920–921 in Panama, 744–745 the Stono Rebellion, 867–868 in the United States, 637 in Uruguay, 934 in Venezuela, 944–945 in the Virgin Islands, 957 Zanj rebellion, 575–576, 1001–1002 See also Maroons/maroonage Slavery/slave trade, 3, 7, 16, 158–159, 566 in Africa, 16 in the Arab world, 16, 1001 in Argentina, 93–95 in Brazil, 225–226 in Cape Verde, 260 and the demand for slave labor, 126–130 in the Dominican Republic, 391 in the Dutch Antilles, 710–711 in Guadeloupe, 481 in Haiti, 498–499, 503 in India, 564–565 in Panama, 744 in Puerto Rico, 774–776 transatlantic slave trade, 892–897 in Uruguay, 932–933 in Venezuela, 941–947 in the Virgin Islands, 957 See also Middle Passage Smith, Adam, 123, 125, 126 Smith, Bessie, 588 Smith, Dante Terrell. See Mos Def Smith, John M., 757 Smith, Raymond, 488 Smith v. Allwright (1944), 660 Smitherman, Geneva, 842 Sobel, Mechel, 39 Sociedad de Estudios Afro-Cubanos, 731 Sociedad Hispano-Cubana de Cultura, 731 Society of Friends. See Quakers Sojourners for Truth and Justice, 845–848

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“A Call to Negro Women,” 846–847 Solanke, Ladipo, 978 Soukous, 848–849 Soul music, 849–852 Soul on Ice (E. Cleaver), 193, 311 The Souls of Black Folks (Douglass), 46, 404, 508 South Africa, 47 and “the White Man’s Burden,” 47 South African Students’ Organization (SASO), 165–166, 182 Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 178, 610, 852–854 Soyinka, Akinwande Oluwole, 709–710, 854– 855 Sparks, Randy J., 129 Spelman College, 855–857 Spiral, 113, 169 Spiritual Shouter Baptists, 857–860 Sport, and the African Diaspora, 860–862 in Africa, 861 in the Caribbean, 860 in the twenty-first century, 861–862 in the United States, 860–861 Sri Lanka, 862–863 St. Hill, Arlette, 383 Staton, Dakota, 590 Steady, Filomena Chioma, xlix, 49, 436 Steele, Beverley A., 474 Steelpan, 863–867, 864 (photo) history of, 863–865 manufacture of, 865 steelbands, 865, 866 Stephens, Michelle, l Stono rebellion, 867–868 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 852–853, 916–917 Sugar cane, and the African Diaspora, 868–870 Sutherland, David “Suds,” 31 Sutherland, Efua Theodora, 873–874 Swahili, 874–879 the apex of Swahili civilization, 876 orientation and bias in Swahili historiography, 877–878 proto-Swahili civilization, 874–875 the Swahili today, 878 trade and the arrival of Europeans, 876–877 Sweatt v. Painter (1950), 23, 660 Sweet Honey in the Rock, 879–880

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Page I-18

I-18 | Index Sylvain, Benito, 501 Szwed, John, 34 Tango, 96, 881, 882–883 Taylor, Gardner C., 175 Teatro Experimental Negro (TEN), 229, 700, 901 Teatro Negro Independiente, 935 Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn, xlix Terrell, Mary Church, 434 Things Fall Apart (Achebe), 10 Thiong’o, Ngugi wa, 664, 884–885 Thomas, Francis A., 757 Thomas, Greg, xlii Thomas, John Jacob, 905 Thomas, Piri, 886–887 Thompson, Casildo, 97 Till, Emmett, 887–889, 888 (photo) “Time, Space, and the Evolution of AfroAmerican Society in British Mainland North America” (Berlin), 45 Tolson, Melvin Beaunoris, 889–890 “Tom Shows,” 923–924 Tonton Macoutes, 890–891 Tosh, Peter, 891–892 Traditional Medicine research program, 515 Transition, 898 Tribe/tribalism, 899–901 Trinadade, Solano, 901–902 Trinidad and Tobago, 902–907 cultural expressions in, 904 economy of, 906 history of, 902–903 languages of, 903–904 political and social structure of, 905–906 religions in, 903 See also Trinidad and Tobago, African impact on the social order Trinidad and Tobago, African impact on the social order, 907–914 arts and crafts, 910–912 demography, 908 economics, 909–910 politics and social control, 912–913 social organization, 909 worldview religion, 908 Tropiques, 297, 914–915 Truman, Harry S., 24, 788 Truth, Sojourner, 433, 433 (photo), 915–916 Tubman, Harriet, 173

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Ture, Kwame, xl, 190, 191 (photo), 192, 905, 916–918, 917 (photo) Turkey, Afro-Turks in, 918–919 Turner, Nat, 5, 501, 920–921 Tuskegee Institute/Tuskegee University, 921– 922 Tuttle, E. H., 401 21st A.D. Socialist Club, 688 Tynes, Maxine, 249, 922 Uncle Tom, 923–924 Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or, Life among the Lowly (Stowe), 823 Underground Railroad. See Canada, and African American refugee settlements “Unfinished Migrations” (Patterson and Kelley), xxxix Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), 346 Color Cubano subsidiary, 346 United Black Association for Development (UBAD), 154 United Kingdom, and the African Diaspora, 423–424, 425, 925–930 United Movement for the Reconstruction of Black Identity (UMROBI), 266–267 United Negro College Fund (UNCF), 164 Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), 29, 46, 154, 185, 199, 266, 343, 459, 460–461, 462, 506, 508, 742, 777 “Africa for Africans” slogan, 110 auxiliaries of, 461 Black Star Line Shipping Corporation, 460, 461 choirs and orchestras of, 461 Negro Factories Corporation, 460, 461 political figures influenced by, 462 See also Negro World “University of Woodford Square,” 930–932 Upadhyaya, U. P., 401 Urrutia, Gustavo, 344 Uruguay, Afro-Uruguayans in, 932–937 emancipation and beyond, 934 history and origins of, 932–933 recent trends, 935–937 resistance and maroonage, 933–934 Uslar Pietri, Arturo, 948 U.S. Constitution, 5, 21 Fifteenth Amendment, 22 Fourteenth Amendment, 22

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Index | I-19 Thirteenth Amendment, 6, 604 See also African Americans and the constitutional order U.S. Supreme Court Burger Court, 25–26 Nixon Court, 25 See also African Americans and the constitutional order; specific Court cases Valdés, Juana, 383 van den Berghe, Pierre, 36 Van Kessel, I., 568 Van Peebles, Melvin, 180 Van Sertima, Ivan, xxxvi, 940–941 VanDerZee, James, 764, 939–940 Vanhee, Hein, 813 Vaughn, Sarah, 590 Venezuela, Afro-Venezuelans in, 941–954 and the absence of antiracist laws, 950 Afro-descendent organizations, 952–953 the constitutional absence of Afrodescendents, 949–950 demographics of, 950–951 the modernization of the Venezuelan state and the exclusion of Afro-descendents, 947–949 origin of, 941 priorities of, 953 and the school system, 951–952 and slavery, 941–947 Veracruz, 954–955 Verger, Pierre, 227 Vesey, Denmark, 5 Vieux-Chauvet, Marie, 955–956 Villard, Sylvia del, 361 Vincent, Ted, 532 Virgin Islands, 956–959 connections with the African Diaspora, 958– 959 demographics of, 958 economy of, 958 history of, 956–957 Virgo, Clement, 30–31 Vodoun, 159, 496, 785, 959–966 iconography of, 964–965 pantheon of, 963–964 rites of, 962–963 temples of, 960–962 See also specific Vodoun deities Voice of the Fugitive, 165, 772

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Wadabaei, xlvi Waddy, Ruth, 113 Wailer, Bunny, 967–968 Wailing Wailers, 891 Walcott, Derek Alton, 968–969 Walcott, Rinaldo, xlvii Walda-Sellase, Heruy, 303 Waldinger, Roger, 273 Walker, Alice, 49, 969–970 Walker, David, xxxv, 5, 970–971 Walker, George William, 971–972 Walker, Madame C. J., 198, 494 Walker, Sheila Suzanne, 972–973 Wallerstein, Immanuel, 330 Wand, Hart, 210 Ward, Frederick, 973–974 Ward, Samuel Ringgold, 772 Ware, David, 208 Warner-Lewis, Maureen, xlvi, xlviii Warner-Vieyra, Myriam, 974–975 Washington, Dinah, 589 Washington, Booker T., 505, 921 Washington, Harriet, 512 Washington, Margaret Murray, 436, 437 Water Mama/Mami Wata spirit, 975–976 Watson, Osmond, 114 Wekker, Gloria, li Wells-Barnett, Ida B. 433–434, 888–889, 976–978 West African Students Union (WASU), 743, 978–979 objectives of, 978 West India Company (WIC), 710 West India Regiments, 979–980 West Indian Gazette, 905 Western Hemisphere African Diaspora Network (WHADN), 980–981 Weusi Artist Cooperative, 113 Wheatley, Phillis, 981–982 Where We At: Black Women Artists, 113 White, Garth, 266 White, Walter, 48 Whiteman, Unison, 476 Whitten, Norman E., Jr., 413 Wiggins, Forrest O., 759–760 Wilding, Richard, 874, 875 Williams, Brackette, 487 Williams, Chancellor, xxxv, 982–983 Williams, Egbert Austin, 971–972, 983–984 Williams, Eric Eustace, 125, 263–265, 266, 486, 905, 930–931, 931 (photo), 984–985

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I-20 | Index Williams, George Washington, 43 Williams, Henry Sylvester, 904, 985–987 Williams, Mary Lou, 589 Williams, Robert F., 535 Williams Samuel W., 757 Williams, Steven, 30–31 Williams, Wilson Elbe, 265 Wilson, Thomas W., 814 Wofford, Chloe A. See Morrison, Toni Wolof, 987–988 Womanism, 969–970 The Woman’s Era, 434 Women in Africa and the African Diaspora (ed. Terborg-Penn), xlix Women in the Caribbean Project (WICP), 278 Women in Nigeria (WIN), 439 Woodruff, Hale, 111 Woods, David, 991–992 Woodson, Carter G., 120 Word-Faith Movement, 178 World Congress of Black Artists and Writers, 992–993 The Wretched of the Earth (Fanon), 429, 709 Wright, Michelle, l Wright, Richard, 184–185, 993–994

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Writings of Black Women of the Diaspora (Bracks), xlix Wynter, Sylvia, l Yaad hip-hop, 995–996 Yanga, 996–997 Yemoja/Olokun, 997–998 Yoruba, 138 Zami, 999–1000 Zandu Pharmaceuticals, 516 Zanj (zinj, zang), 1000–1003 Zanzibar, and the African Diaspora, 1003–1006 contemporary Zanzibar, 1004–1006 history of, 1003–1004 Zarzuela, Juan Falú, 778, 779 Zealy, J. T., 763 Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe, xliii Zeta Phi Beta, 1006–1007 Zimele Trust Fund, 166 Zobel, Joseph, 1007–1008 Zong incident, 20, 682, 926 Zouk, 1008–1009 Zulu Nation, 144 Zumbí, 1009–1010

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE

AFRICAN DIASPORA

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE

AFRICAN DIASPORA Origins, Experiences, and Culture

z Volume 3 N–Z

Carole E. Boyce Davies, Editor

Santa Barbara, California Denver, Colorado Oxford, England www.abc-clio.com

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Copyright © 2008 by ABC-CLIO, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Encyclopedia of the African diaspora : origins, experiences, and culture / Carole E. BoyceDavies, editor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-85109-700-5 (acid-free paper) ISBN 978-1-85109-705-0 (ebook) 1. African diaspora-Encyclopedias. 2. Africans-Migrations-Encyclopedias. 3. African Americans-Encyclopedias. 4. Blacks-Encyclopedias. 5. Africans-Encyclopedias. 6. Africa-Civilization-Encyclopedias. I. Boyce Davies, Carole. DT16.5.E53 2008 305.896003—dc22 2008011880 12 11 10 09 08 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Production Editor: Anna A. Moore Production Manager: Don Schmidt Media Editor: Ellen Rasmussen Media Resources Manager: Caroline Price File Management Coordinator: Paula Gerard ABC-CLIO, Inc. 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116–1911 This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an ebook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Manufactured in the United States of America

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Contents

z Volume 1 Contributors, xiii Advisory Board, xxiii About the Editors, xxv Acknowledgments, xxvii Introduction, xxxi Maps, lix

A

Africanus, Sextus Julius (ca. 160–ca. 240), 58 Afrocentricity, 59 Afro-Cuban Literature, 62 Afro-Cuban Music, 65 Afro-Fusion Dance, 68 Ahimsa, 70 Aidoo, Ama Ata (1942–), 71 Akara, 72 Alexis, Jacques Stéphen (1922–1961), 73 Algerian Revolution, 73 Ali, Duse Mohamed (1867–1944), 75 Ali, Muhammad (1942–), 76 Al-Jahiz (776–868), 77 All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP), 78 Alpha Kappa Alpha, 79 Alves, Miriam (1952–), 81 Ambar, Malik (ca. 1550–1626), 82 Amo, Antonius Guilielmus (Wilhelm) (1703–ca.1753), 83 Ananse, 84 Anastácia (1741–?), 85 Angelou, Maya (1928–), 86 Anikulapo-Kuti, Fela (1938–1997), 87

Abakuá, 1 Abolitionism in the African Diaspora, 3 Abu-Jamal, Mumia (1954–), 8 Abyssinia/Ethiopia, 9 Achebe, Chinua (1930–), 10 Adivasi, 11 Africa, 12 African American Vernacular English (AAVE), 17 African American Women, 19 African Americans and the Constitutional Order, 20 African Ballet, The, 28 African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), 28 African Canadian Film, 30 African Diaspora Film, 31 African Diaspora Performance Aesthetics, 32 African Diasporic Sociology, 33 “African” in African American History, 41 African Matrix Culture, 53 African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, 54 African Union (AU), 55 v www.abc-clio.com

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vi | Contents

Ansina (1760?–1860), 90 Antonio the Ethiopian (?–1550), 91 Argentina: Afro-Argentines, 92 Arias, Aurora (1962–), 98 Aristide, Jean-Bertrand (1953–), 99 Art in the African Diaspora, 100 Asantewaa, Yaa (ca. 1830–1922), 117 Àshé, 118 Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), 120 Atlantic World and the African Diaspora, 121 Axum, 133 Azikiwe, Nnamdi (1904–1996), 134

B Baartman, Sarah (1788–1816), 137 Babalawo, 138 Babu, Abdulrahman Mohammed (1924– 1996), 139 Bahamas, 140 Bahamas: Liberated Africans, 141 Baker, Ella J. (1903–1986), 142 Baker, Josephine (1906–1975), 142 Bambaataa, Afrika (1957?–), 144 Baraka, Amiri (1934–), 145 Barbados: African Cultural Elements, 147 Basquiat, Jean-Michel (1960–1988), 150 Batouala, 151 Bava Gor (14th Century?), 152 Belize: African Communities, 153 Benedetto the Moor, Saint (ca. 1524–1589), 155 Benin, 156 Bennett, Louise (1919–2006), 160 Bethune, Mary McLeod (1875–1955), 162 Bethune-Cookman University, 163 Bibb, Henry (1815–1854), 164 Biko, Stephen (1946–1977), 165 Black Aesthetic, 166 Black Arts Movement, 167 Black Churches and African American Spirituality, 170 Black Churches in the United States, 174 Black Cinema, 179 Black Consciousness Movement, 182

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Black Marxism, 184 Black Panther Party, 185 Black Paris/Paris Noir, 187 Black Populism (1886–1898), 189 Black Power Movement in the United States, 190 Black Seminoles, 193 Black Seminoles at Red Bays, Bahamas, 194 Black/Africana Studies in the United States, 195 Black/Blackness: Philosophical Considerations, 198 Blocos Afros and Afoxés, 203 Bluefields, 204 Blues: A Continuum from Africa, 205 Blyden, Edward Wilmot (1832–1912), 212 Boggs, James (1919–1993) and Grace Lee Boggs (1915–), 214 Bois Caiman and Boukman, 215 Bolivia: The African Presence, 216 Boulogne, Joseph Chevalier de Saint-George (1739?–1799), 222 Brand, Dionne (1953–), 223 Brathwaite, Kamau (1930–), 224 Brazil: Afro-Brazilians, 225 Briggs, Cyril V. (1887–1966), 230 Brixton, 231 Brodber, Erna (1940–), 232 Brooklyn, 233 Brown, Elaine (1943–), 234 Butler, Octavia Estelle (1947–2005), 235

C Cabral, Amilcar Lopes (1924–1973), 237 Cachoeira, 239 Calalu/Callaloo, 241 Calypso, 241 Campbell, Grace P. (1883–1940), 245 Canada and African American Refugee Settlements, 246 Canada and the African Diaspora, 247 Candomblé, 256 Cannes Brûlées, 257 Cape Verde, 259 Capitalism and Slavery, 263

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Contents | vii Caribbean Black Power, 265 Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), 269 Caribbean Migrations: The Caribbean Diaspora, 270 Carnival, 287 Carver, George Washington (1864–1943), 289 Casely-Hayford, Joseph Ephraim (1866– 1930), 290 Central America: African Footprints, 291 Central Asia and the Caucasus: The African Presence, 294 Centro de Estudos Afro-Orientais (CEAO), 296 Césaire, Aimé (1913–2008), 297 Césaire, Suzanne (1915–1966), 299 Chile: Afro-Chileans, 300 China and Japan: African and East Asian Relations, 302 Christian, Barbara (1943–2000), 305 Christophe, Henri (1767?–1820), 306 Clarke, Austin (1934–), 306 Clarke, George Elliot (1960–), 308 Clarke, John Henrik (1915–1998), 309 Clarke, Leroy (1938–), 310 Cleaver, Eldridge Leroy (1935–1998), 311 COINTELPRO, 312 Collins, Merle (1950–), 313 Colombia: Afro-Colombians, 314 Colored Farmers Alliance, 320 Combahee River Collective (CRC), 321 Condé, Maryse (1937–), 323 Confiant, Raphaël (1951–), 324 Cook, Mercer (1903–1987), 325 Cooper, Anna Julia (1859–1964), 326 Corrido, 327 Cox, Oliver Cromwell (1901–1974), 328 Coyolillo/Coyoleños, 330 Creole, Creolity, Creolization, 332 Creole Incident, 334 Cromanti, 335 Cruz, Celia (1924–2003), 337 Cruz, Manoel de Almeida (1950–2004), 338 Cuba: Afro-Cubans, 338 Cuban Intervention in Angola, 347

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Cuban Revolution and the African Diaspora, 348 Cugoano, Ottobah (ca. 1757–ca. 1791), 350 Index, I-1

Volume 2 Contributors, xiii Advisory Board, xxiii About the Editors, xxv Acknowledgments, xxvii Introduction, xxxi Maps, lix

D Da Silva, Benedita (1942–), 353 Dalits: The Black Untouchables of India, 354 Damas, Léon-Gontran (1912–1976), 355 Dance in the African Diaspora, 356 Dance Theatre of Harlem, 366 Dangarembga, Tsitsi (1959–), 368 Danish West Indies: Oldendorp’s 18thCentury Findings, 369 Danticat, Edwidge (1969–), 373 Davis, Angela (1944–), 375 De Almeida, José Lino Alves (1958–2006), 376 De Oxóssi, Mãe Stella (1925–), 377 Decolonization, 378 Delta Sigma Theta, 379 Dessalines, Jean-Jacques (1758–1806), 380 La Diablesse, 381 Diaspora Literacy, 382 Diaspora Vibe Gallery, 383 Diasporic Marronage, 384 Diop, Cheikh Anta (1923–1986), 387 Domingo, Wilfred Adolphus (1889–1968), 389 Dominica, 390 Dominican Republic, 391 Douglas, Aaron (1899–1979), 397 Douglass, Frederick (1818–1895), 397 Dracius, Suzanne (1951–), 398

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Dravidians, 399 Drum, 401 du Sable, Jean-Baptiste Pointe (1745–1818), 402 DuBois, William Edward Burghardt (1868– 1963), 404 Dunham, Katherine (1909–2006), 405

E East African Community (EAC), 407 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), 409 Ecuador: Afro-Ecuadorians, 411 Edgell, Zee (1940–), 416 El Moudjahid, 417 Elder, Jacob Delworth (1914–2004), 418 Environmental Justice, 419 Equiano, Olaudah (1745–1797), 420 Esmeraldas, 422 Europe and the African Diaspora, 423

F Falucho (?–1824), 427 Fanon, Frantz (1925–1961), 428 Febres, Mayra Santos (1966–), 430 Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), 431 Feminism: Black Feminist Movement in the United States, 432 Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora, 436 FESPACO and African Film Festivals, 442 Filhos de Gandhy, 443 Fisk University, 445 Florida Memorial University, 446 Flying Africans, 447 Fourah Bay College, 448 France and the African Diaspora, 449 Francois, Elma (1897–1944), 452

G Garifuna, 455 Garvey, Amy Ashwood (1897–1969), 456 Garvey, Amy Jacques (1895–1973), 458 Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940), 459 Geographers, Arab/African, 463 Gerima, Haile (1946–), 464

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Germany and the African Diaspora, 465 Ghana, 469 Gilroy, Beryl Agatha (1924–2001), 470 Glissant, Edouard (1928–), 472 Goodison, Lorna (1947–), 473 Grenada, 474 Griots/Griottes of West Africa, 478 Grito de Yara, 480 Guadeloupe, 480 Guillén, Nicolás (1902–1989), 482 Guimarães, Geni (1947–), 483 Gumbo, 484 Guyana, 485

H Haile Selassie I (1892–1975), 491 Hair, 493 Haiti, 495 Haitian Revolution, 502 Hampton Institute/Hampton University, 504 Harlem, 506 Harlem Renaissance, 507 Haywood, Harry (1898–1978), 509 Health in the African World, 510 Heath, Roy (1926–), 522 Hector, Leonard Tim (1942–2002), 523 Highlife, 525 Hilliard, Asa G. (1933–2007), 527 Hip-Hop, Cuban, 528 Hip-Hop, Latin American, 529 Hip-Hop Culture in the African Diaspora, 531 Holiday, Billie (1915–1959), 537 Honduras and Nicaragua: Miskito Indians, 539 Hopkinson, Nalo (1950–), 540 Horton, James Africanus Beale (1835–1883), 541 Howard University, 542 Hughes, Langston (1902–1967), 544 Huiswoud, Otto (1893–1961), 545 Hurston, Zora Neale (1891–1960), 546

I Ibeji, 549 Ibo Landing, 550

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Contents | ix Ilê Aiyê, 551 Incense, 552 India and the African Diaspora, 553 Indian Ocean and the African Diaspora, 562 Indians and the African Diaspora in the Caribbean, 569 Indigo, 571 Indonesia and Africa, 571 The Institute of the Black World, 573 Iraq: The African Presence in Early Iraq, 574 Irmandade de Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte, 576

Latino, Juan (ca. 1516–1606), 622 Lawrence, Jacob (1917–2000), 623 Legba, 625 Légitime défense, 626 Liberia, 627 “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” 629 Lincoln, Abbey (1930–), 630 Lincoln University, 632 Lino Alves de Almeida, José (1958–2006), 633 Locke, Alain (1886–1954), 634 Lorde, Audre (1934–1992), 635 L’Ouverture, Toussaint (ca. 1744–1803), 637 Lovelace, Earl (1935–), 639 Lumumba, Patrice Emery (1925–1961), 640

J Jackson, George Lester (1941–1971), 579 Jamaica, 580 James, Cyril Lionel Robert (1901–1989), 583 Jazz, 585 Jazz and Blues Singers, Black Women, 588 Jerk Seasoning, 591 Jim Crow, 591 Johnson, J. Rosamond (1873–1954), 594 Johnson, James Weldon (1871–1938), 595 Johnson, Linton Kwesi (1952–), 596 Jones, Claudia Cumberbatch (1915–1964), 598 Junkanoo, 599

K Kali, 601 Kalimba, 602 Kappa Alpha Psi, 603 Keens-Douglas, Richardo (1953–), 604 Kenyatta, Jomo (1889–1978), 605 Kincaid, Jamaica (1949–), 608 King, B. B. (1925–), 609 King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929–1968), 610 KRS-ONE (1965–), 611 Kwanzaa, 613

L Lam, Wilfredo (1902–1982), 617 Lamming, George (1927–), 618 Langston, John Mercer (1829–1897), 619 Langston University and HBCUs, 620

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M Maceo y Grajales, Antonio (1845–1896), 643 Macumba, 643 Mahdi Rebellion, 644 Makandal, François (?–1758), 645 Malcolm X (1925–1965), 647 Male Revolt, 649 Mandela, Nelson Rolihlahla (1918–), 650 Mandela, Winnie (1936–), 651 Maran, René (1887–1960), 653 Marassa, 654 Marley, Robert Nesta (Bob) (1945–1981), 655 Maroon and Marronage, 657 Marshall, Paule (1929–), 659 Marshall, Thurgood (1908–1993), 660 Marson, Una (1905–1965), 661 Martinique, 662 Mau Mau, 664 Mbari Club, 665 M’bow, Amadou Makhtar (1921–), 666 McKay, Claude (1889–1948), 667 McRae, Carmen (1920–1994), 668 McWatt, Tessa (1959-), 669 Medici, Alessandro de (1510–1537), 670 Mestizo, 671 Mexico: African Heritage, 673 Middle Passage, 679 Miseducation and Contemporary Urban Black America, 683 Montgomery Bus Boycott, 685 Moore, Queen Mother (1898–1997), 687

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Moore, Richard B. (1893–1978), 688 Morehouse College, 689 Morejón, Nancy (1944–), 690 Morrison, Toni (1931–), 692 Mos Def (1973–), 693 Movimento Negro Unificado, 694 Mtoro bin Mwinyi Bakari (1860–1927), 696 Mulatta, 697 Mutabaruka (1952–), 698

Okpewho, Isidore (1941–), 727 Old Hige, 728 Olodum, 729 Optiz, May Ayim (1960–1996), 730 Ortiz, Fernando (1881–1969), 731 Osun (Oxum/Ochun/Oshun), 732 Oya, 734

P

Index, I-1

Volume 3 Contributors, xiii Advisory Board, xxiii About the Editors, xxv Acknowledgments, xxvii Introduction, xxxi Maps, lix

N Nascimento, Abdias do (1914–), 699 Nation of Islam, 702 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 704 National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO), 705 National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA), 707 Négritude, 708 Netherlands Antilles and the African Diaspora, 710 Netherlands East Indies: African Soldiers, 712 Newton, Huey Percy (1942–), 714 Nichols, Grace (1950–), 716 Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–1972), 717 Notting Hill Carnival, 718 Nova Scotia and the African American Diaspora, 720 Nubia, 721

O Obeah, 725 Ogou/Ogoun, 726

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Pacific: The African Diaspora, 735 Padmore, George (1901–1959), 740 Palcy, Euzhan (1957–), 741 Pan-Africanism, 742 Panama: Afro-Panamanians, 743 Pattillo, Walter Alexander (1850–1908), 748 Payada, 749 People with Their Feet On Backward, 751 Peru: Afro-Peruvians, 751 Petwo, 753 Phi Beta Sigma, 754 Philip, Marlene Nourbese (1947–), 755 Philosophers and the African American Experience, 756 Photography and the African Diaspora, 762 Portalatin, Aida Cartagena (1918–1994), 766 Présence Africaine, 766 Primus, Pearl E. (1919–1994), 767 Prince, Mary (1788–?), 770 Prince Hall Masons, 771 The Provincial Freeman, 772 Puerto Rico: Afro-Puerto Ricans, 773 Pushkin, Alexander Sergeevich (1799–1837), 780

Q Quilombhoje, 783

R Rada, 785 Raizales, 786 Randolph, Asa Philip (1889–1979), 787 Rap/Rappin’, 788 Rapso, 791 Rastafarianism, 792 Rayner, John Baptis (1850–1918), 795 Reagon, Bernice Johnson (1942–), 796

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Contents | xi Reggae, 797 Reparations, 798 The Republic of New Africa, 799 Ribeiro, Esmeralda (1958–), 801 Robeson, Paul (1898–1976), 802 Rodney, Walter (1942–1980), 803 Rogers, Joel Augustus (1880–1966), 805 Rolling Calf, 807 Ross, Jacob (1956–), 807 Rufino, Alzira (1949–), 808

Spiritual Shouter Baptist Religion, 857 Sport and the African Diaspora, 860 Sri Lankan African Diaspora, 862 Steelpan, 863 Stono Rebellion, 867 Sugar Cane and the African Diaspora, 868 Suriname: The Ndyuka Maroons, 870 Sutherland, Efua Theodora (1924–1996), 873 Swahili, 874 Sweet Honey in the Rock, 879

S

T

Salsa, 811 Salt and the African Diaspora, 813 Salvador da Bahia, 817 Samba, 818 Samba Schools, 820 Samedi/Baron Samedi, 821 San Mateo de Cangrejos, 822 Sancho, Ignatius (1729–1780), 822 Sankofa, 823 Santería, 824 Santiago de Cuba, 828 Schomburg, Arturo Alfonso (1874–1938), 830 Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 831 Scott, Hazel (1920–1981), 832 Seychelles Islands, 833 Shadd Cary, Mary Ann (1823–1893), 834 Shakur, Assata Olugbala (1946–), 835 Shakur, Tupac Amaru (1971–1996), 836 Shange, Ntozake (1948–), 837 Shango, 839 Siddis in North Karnataka, India: Biomedical Status, 840 Signifying, 842 Simone, Nina (1933–2003), 843 Sistren, 844 Sojourners for Truth and Justice, 845 Soukous, 848 Soul Music, 849 Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 852 Soyinka, Akinwande Oluwole (1934–), 854 Spelman College, 855

Tango, Candombe, Milonga, 881 The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA), 883 Thiong’o, Ngugi wa (1938–), 884 Thomas, Piri (1928–), 886 Till, Emmett (1941–1955), 887 Tolson, Melvin Beaunoris (1898–1966), 889 Tonton Macoutes, 890 Tosh, Peter (1944–1987), 891 Transatlantic Slave Trade, 892 Transition, 898 Tribe and Tribalism, 899 Trinadade, Solano (1908–1974), 901 Trinidad and Tobago, 902 Trinidad and Tobago: African Impact on the Social Order, 907 Tropiques, 914 Truth, Sojourner (ca. 1797–1883), 915 Ture, Kwame (1941–1998), 916 Turkey: Afro-Turks, 918 Turner, Nat (1800–1831), 920 Tuskegee Institute/Tuskegee University, 921 Tynes, Maxine (1949–), 922

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U Uncle Tom and Tom Shows, 923 United Kingdom: The African Diaspora, 925 The University of Woodford Square, 930 Uruguay: Afro-Uruguayans, 932

V VanDerZee, James (1886–1983), 939 Van Sertima, Ivan (1935–), 940 Venezuela: Afro-Venezuelans and the Afro Descendientes Movement, 941

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Veracruz, 954 Vieux-Chauvet, Marie (1916–1973), 955 Virgin Islands, 956 Vodoun, 959

W Wailer, Bunny (1947–), 967 Walcott, Derek Alton (1930–), 968 Walker, Alice (1944–), 969 Walker, David (1785–1830), 970 Walker, George William (1873–1911), 971 Walker, Sheila Suzanne (1944–), 972 Ward, Frederick (1937–), 973 Warner-Vieyra, Myriam (1939–), 974 Water Mama/Mami Wata, 975 Wells-Barnett, Ida B. (1862–1931), 976 West African Students Union (WASU), 978 West India Regiments, 979 Western Hemisphere African Diaspora Network (WHADN), 980 Wheatley, Phillis (ca. 1753–1784), 981 Williams, Chancellor (1898–1992), 982 Williams, Egbert Austin (1874–1922), 983

Williams, Eric Eustace (1911–1981), 984 Williams, Henry Sylvester (1869–1911), 985 Wolof, 987 Women and Islam, 988 Woods, David (1959–), 991 World Congress of Black Writers and Artists, 992 Wright, Richard (1908–1960), 993

Y Yaad Hip-Hop, 995 Yanga and Cimarronaje in Mexico, 996 Yemoja/Olokun, 997

Z Zami, 999 Zanj (Zinj, Zang), 1000 Zanzibar and the Southwest Indian Ocean in the African Diaspora, 1003 Zeta Phi Beta, 1006 Zobel, Joseph (1915–2006), 1007 Zouk, 1008 Zumbí of Palmares (1655–1695), 1009 Index, I-1

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Contributors

z Simone A. James Alexander Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey

Keshia Abraham Florida Memorial University Lawrence Abraham Florida International University, Miami

Williams H. Alexander Virginia State University, Petersburg

Tomi Adeaga University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany

Omar H. Ali Towson University, Towson, Maryland

Opal Palmer Adisa California College of the Arts, San Francisco and Oakland

Andrea Allen Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Kwame K. Afoh N’COBRA, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Michael Alleyne George Washington University, Washington, DC

Ivor Agyeman-Duah Embassy of Ghana, Washington, DC

Patricia Alleyne-Dettmers University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Funso Aiyejina University of the West Indies, Saint Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka University of Kansas, Lawrence

Jeannette Allsopp University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus

Chiji Akoma Villanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania

Giselle Liza Anatol University of Kansas, Lawrence

Folashade Alao Emory University, Atlanta

Juan Angola Maconde FUNDAFRO, La Paz, Bolivia

Jessica M. Alarcón Independent Scholar, Miami, Florida

Molefi Kete Asante Temple University, Philadelphia

Delores P. Aldridge Emory University, Atlanta

Kwaku Asare Independent Scholar

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xiv | Contributors

Uche Azikiwe University of Nigeria, Nigeria

June Bert-Bobb Queens College, Queens, New York

Chukwuma Azuonye University of Massachusetts, Boston

Dhoruba bin Wahad Independent Scholar, Ghana

Mariam Bagayoko University of Versailles Paris, France

Yaba Amgborale Blay Lehigh University, Philadelphia

Julius Bailey University of Redlands, Redlands, California

Nemata Blyden George Washington University, Washington, DC

Phyllis Baker Miami Dade College, Miami

Yvonne Bobb-Smith Independent Scholar, Trinidad and Tobago

Sharada Balachandran-Orihuela University of California—Davis, Davis, California

Rosabelle Boswell Rhodes University, South Africa John K. Brackett University of Cincinnati, Ohio

Ivan Banks New Jersey City University, Jersey City, New Jersey

Brian Brazeal University of Chicago, Illinois

Sarah Barbour Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Pam Brooks Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio

LaShonda Katrice Barnett Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York Michael Barnett University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica Kanika Batra Janki Devi Memorial College and University of Delhi, Delhi, India

La Tasha A. Brown University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom Linda Spears Bunton Florida International University, Miami Joan Hamby Burroughs Florida A&M University, Tallahassee

Pascal Becel Florida International University, Miami

Kim D. Butler Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey

Dixie-Anne Belle Florida International University, Miami

Leana Cabral Spelman College, Atlanta

Jesse Benjamin Kennesaw State University, Atlanta, Georgia

Horace Campbell Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York

Brett A. Berliner Morgan State University, Baltimore

Kathy Campbell East Tennessee State University, Johnson City

Celeste-Marie Bernier University of Nottingham, England

Ben Carrington University of Texas at Austin

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Contributors | xv Joan Cartwright FYIICOM, Ford Lauderdale, Florida

Darrell Davis Afro-in Books and Things

Jorge L. Chinea Wayne State University, Detroit

Paula de Almeida Silva Alexis Brooks de Vita Notre Dame University, Notre Dame, Indiana

Veve A. Clark (deceased) University of California, Berkeley

Pietro Deandrea Università degli Studi di Torino, Torino, Italy

George Elliott Clarke York University, New Haven, Connecticut

Milagros Denis Hunter College, New York, New York

Christine Cohn American University, Washington, DC

Diarapha Diallo-Gibert University of Virginia, Charlottesville

Amanda Conrad University of Kansas, Lawrence Carolyn Cooper University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica Vincent O. Cooper University of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands María de Jesús Cordero Utah State University, Logan Alexandra Cornelius-Diallo Florida International University, Miami Sandra Courtman University of Sheffield, England Julie Crooks Independent Filmmaker, Toronto, Canada Iréne Assiba d’Almeida University of Arizona, Tucson

Gloria Harper Dickinson The College of New Jersey, Ewing Ronald Donk Royal Netherlands Institute of South Eastern, Asian and Caribbean Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands Joseph Dorsey Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana Jocelio dos Santos Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA), Bahia, Brazil Kate Dossett University of Leeds, Leeds, England Marcia Douglas University of Colorado, Boulder

Yvonne Daniel Smith College (emerita)

Dawn Duke University of Tennessee

William A. Darity Jr. Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

Quince Duncan Costa Rica

Carole Boyce Davies Florida International University, Miami

Jessica Durand Florida International University, Miami

Dalia Davies Journalist, MTV & Trace Magazine

Esma Durugönül Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey

Jonelle A. Davies Savannah College of Art and Design

Erika Denise Edwards Florida International University, Miami

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xvi | Contributors

Constance Ejuma Actress, Silver Springs, Maryland

Janice Giles Florida International University, Miami

Jacob D. Elder (deceased) Trinidad and Tobago

Angela Gillam Evergreen State University, Olympia, Washington (emerita)

Jason Esters Lincoln University, Pennsylvania

Delia C. Gillis Central Missouri State University, Warrensburg

Michael Ezra Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California

Philippe R. Girard McNeese State University, Lake Charles, Louisiana

Richard Fantina University of Miami, Miami Gérard Alphonse Férère Retired Scholar, Boca Raton, Florida

Chege Githiora School of Oriental and African Studies, London

Eve Ferguson Florida International University, Miami

David Gold California State University, Los Angeles

Odile Ferly Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts

Randi Gray Kristensen George Washington University, Washington, DC

Rev. Raul Fernandez Calienes Saint Thomas University, Miami Gardens, Florida

Jeffrey Green Independent Scholar, England

Giovanna Fiume University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy

Jean-Germain Gros University of Missouri, Saint Louis

Nicola Foote Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, Florida

Carla Guerron-Montero University of Delaware, Newark Beverly Guy-Sheftall Spelman College, Atlanta

Camille F. Forbes University of California, San Diego

Miriam Gyimah University of Maryland–Eastern Shore

Charles H. Ford Virginia State University, Petersburg

Kathleen Gyssells University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

Meredith Gadsby Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio Pramod B. Gai Karnatak University, Dharwad, India

Philipa Hall University of Central Lancashire, Lancashire, England

Jesus Chucho Garcia Afro-Venezuelan Network, Caracas, Venezuela

Veronique Helenon Florida International University, Miami

Marybeth Gasman University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Marco Polo Hernandez North Carolina Central University

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Contributors | xvii Gerise Herndon Nebraska Wesleyan University, Lincoln

Anthony B. Johnson Grambling University, Grambling, Louisiana

Nefertari Patricia Hilliard-Nunn Makare Publishing, Gainesville, Florida

Nadia I. Johnson University of Miami, Miami, Florida

Jesse Hingson Honorary Consul of Belize

Newtona (Tina) Johnson Tarnue Johnson East West University, Chicago, Illinois

Rita Honotorio Nucleo Cultural Afro-Brasiliero, SalvadorBahia, Brazil

Justin M. Johnston Independent Scholar

Rosalyn Howard University of Central Florida, Orlando Delridge Hunter Medgar Evers College, Brooklyn, New York Scot Ickes University of South Florida Joseph E. Inikori University of Rochester, Rochester, New York Siga Fatima Jagne Pro-Poor Advocacy Group, Bakau, The Gambia

Earnestine Jenkins University of Memphis, Tennessee Lee M. Jenkins University College, Cork, Ireland

Safietou Kane Florida International University, Miami Annette I. Kashif Associate Professor

Sean Kheraj York University, Toronto, Canada

Shihan De Silva Jayasuriya King’s College London, University of London

Cheryl Jeffries Florida International University, Miami

Kenneth Julien University of Trinidad and Tobago

Tricia Keaton University of Minnesota

Monica Jardine State University of New York, Buffalo

Régine Michelle Jean-Charles Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Christina Violeta Jones Howard University, Washington, DC

Martin Klein University of Toronto, Canada Marie H. Koffi-Tessio Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey Kwasi Konadu Winston-Salem State University, WinstonSalem, North Carolina Perry Kyles University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Beverly John Chicago State University

Renee Larrier Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey

David J. Johns Columbia University, New York

Angela Michele Leonard Loyola College, Baltimore, Maryland

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xviii | Contributors

Khadijah O. Miller Norfolk State University, Norfolk, Virginia

Jeremy I. J. D. Levitt Florida International University, College of Law, Miami

Shamika Ann Mitchell Temple University, Pleasantville, Pennsylvania

Dominique Licops Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

Julie E. Moody-Freeman DePaul University, Chicago

Hollis Urban Liverpool University of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas Nia Love Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts Antonia MacDonald-Smythe St. George’s University, Grenada, West Indies

Paula Moreno-Zapata University of Cambridge and Colombia Jo-Ann Morgan York University, Toronto, Canada

Elizabeth MacGonagle University of Kansas, Lawrence

Sharon Morgan Beckford Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York

Marcia Magnus Florida International University, Miami

Anthony Ugalde Muhammad Miami Dade County Public Schools, Miami

Tony Martin Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts

Sharron Muhammad Howard University, Washington, DC

Karen J. Matthew Florida International University, Miami

Michelle Murray Florida International University, Miami

Janis A. Mayes Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York

Claire A. Nelson Inter American Development Bank, Washington, DC

Babacar M’bow Broward County Libraries Division, Florida Penda M’Bow Universite Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal

Caryn E. Neumann The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

Cher L. McAllister Temple University, Philadelphia

Claire Newstead University of Nottingham-Trent, United Kingdom

Christopher McCauley University of California, Santa Barbara

Charles Muiru Ngugi Truman State University, Kirksville, Missouri

John H. McClendon III Michigan State University

Beatrice Nicolini Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy

Pellom McDaniels III Emory University, Atlanta

Mario Nisbett University of California, Berkeley

Erik S. McDuffie University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Brian Meeks University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica

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Nkiru Nzegwu Binghamton University, Binghamton, New York

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Contributors | xix Marie-José N’Zengou-Tayo University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica Khonsura G. K. Ofei (Aaron J. Wilson) Independent Scholar Aaron Ogletree Florida International University, Miami Femi Ojo-Ade Saint Mary’s College, University of Lagos, Nigeria Fred Oladeinde WHADN, Washington, DC Amy Abugo Ongiri University of Florida, Gainesville Roberto Pacheco Florida International University, Miami Melina Pappademos University of Connecticut, Wood Hall Prakash Patil J/N Medical College, India David W. H. Pellow North Carolina Central University (emeritus) Sharon M. Peniston Independent Scholar Charles Peterson College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio Francoise Pfaff Howard University, Washington, DC Esther Phillips University College of Barbados, Barbados Tiffany D. Pogue Florida International University, Miami

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Marc Prou University of Massachusetts, Boston Matthew Quest Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island Diego Quiroga Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Quito, Ecuador Carlos A. Rabasso Rouen School of Management Groupe Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Rouen, France Fco. Javier Rabasso Rouen School of Management Groupe Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Rouen, France Kara Rabbitt William Paterson University, Wayne, New Jersey Chaman Lal Raina Florida International University, Miami Louis D. Ramos Independent Scholar Paulette A. Ramsay Runoko Rashidi Independent Scholar Thelma Ravell-Pinto Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York Rhoda Reddock University of the West Indies Lorriane Rivera-Newberry Independent Scholar Nicole Roberts University of the West Indies Florence Bellande Robertson Independent Scholar

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xx | Contributors

Martin S. Shanguhyia West Virginia University, Morgantown

Maria Soledad Rodriguez University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus Sybil Rosado Benedict College, Columbia, South Carolina

Malik Simba California State University, Fresno

Gregory Rutledge University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Kerry Sinanan University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom

Amon Saba Saakana Karnak House, London

Walter Sistrunk Michigan State University, East Lansing

Alicia M. Sanabria Independent Scholar, Brazil

Zipporah Slaughter Broward Community College, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Leslie Sanders York University, Toronto, Canada Meshak Sangini Langston University, Langston, Oklahoma

Fouzi Slisli Saint Cloud State University, Saint Cloud, Minnesota

Rick Santos Nassau Community College, Garden City, New York

Andre L. Smith Florida International University College of Law, Miami

Chris Saunders University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

Valerie Smith Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers

Mark Q. Sawyer Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles

Yushau Sodiq Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas Augusto Soledade Florida International University, Miami

Jason M. Schultz Georgia State University Library, Atlanta

Maboula Soumahoro Barnard College, New York City

Ralph Schusler Florida International University, Miami

Andrew Stafford Independent Scholar

Daryl Michael Scott Howard University, Washington, DC

John H. Stanfield, II Indiana University, Bloomington

Hillary Scott The University of California, Berkeley

Michelle Stephens Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts

Paula Marie Seniors Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia Macheo Shabaka American Association of Professional Ringside Physicians (AAPRP)

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Andrea Stone University of Toronto, Canada Kaila Adia Story University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky

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Contributors | xxi Ida Tafari Florida International University, Miami

W. van Wetering Free University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Clarence Taylor Baruch College, City University of New York

Nadege Veldwachter University of California, Los Angeles

Clyde Taylor New York University, New York

Lucie Viakinnou-Brinson Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, Georgia

Furukawa Tetsushi Otani University, Kyoto, Japan

Rinaldo Walcott University of Toronto, Canada

Noelle Theard Florida International University, Miami

Carlton Waterhouse Florida International University, Miami

Rose C. Thevenin Florida Memorial University, Miami

C. S’thembile West Western Illinois University, Macomb

H. U. E. Thoden van Velzen University of Amsterdam and Utrecht

Alan West-Durán Northeastern University, Boston

Gregory Thomas Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York

Derrick White Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton

Valeria Thompson-Ramos Independent Scholar, North Carolina

Dessima Williams Independent Scholar, Grenada

Antonio D. Tillis Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana

Ian Williams Fitchburg College, Fitchburg, Massachusetts

Neila Todd Ministry of Education, Trinidad and Tobago

Regennia N. Williams Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio

Neri Torres Ife Ile Dance Company, Miami

Deborah Willis Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, New York

Charles Tshimanga University of Nevada, Reno

Ludger Wimmerlbucker University of Hamburg, Germany

Horen Tudu Independent Scholar

Graeme Wood The American University in Cairo, Egypt

Elizabeth Turnbull Florida International University, Miami, Florida

Gloria-yvonne University of Illinois, Chicago

Grace Turner College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia

Mary Zeigler University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee

Ineke van Kessel African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands

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Advisory Board

z G ENERAL E DITOR Carole Boyce Davies, Florida International University M ANAGING E DITOR Babacar M’Bow, International Programs, Broward County Libraries, Florida L OCAL C OEDITORS ( FROM F LORIDA A FRICANA S TUDIES C ONSORTIUM ) Keshia Abraham, Florida Memorial University Veronique Helenon, Florida International University Babacar M’Bow, International Programs, Broward County Libraries, Florida Linda Spears-Bunton, Florida International University Rose C. Thevenin, Florida Memorial University I NTERNATIONAL A DVISORY B OARD Edmund Abaka, University of Miami Cecil Abrahams, University of Missouri, Saint Louis Kofi Anydoho, University of Ghana, Legon Boubacar Barry, Universite Cheik Anta Diop, Senegal Hillary Beckles, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Jesse Benjamin, Kennesaw University, Georgia Kamau Brathwaite, New York University Abena Busia, Rutgers University Monica Carillo, LUNDU Centro de Estudios y Promocion Afroperuanos, Peru Linda Carty, Syracuse University Julio Ceasar Tavares, Universidade Federale Fluminense, Brazil Kassahun Checole, Africa World Press, New Jersey Shimmer Chinodya, Independent Scholar, Zimbabwe Maryse Condé, Guadeloupe Shihan da Silva, The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA), India Yvonne Daniel, Smith College (emerita) Lino de Almeida, Nucleo Cultural Afro-Brasiliero, Brazil (deceased) Dieudonne Ghanammankou, Ediciones Monde Global, France Michael Hanchard, Johns Hopkins University xxiii www.abc-clio.com

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xxiv | Advisory Board

Joseph Harris, Howard University (emeritus) Marco Polo Hernandez Cuevas, ALARA/North Carolina Central University Asa Hilliard, Georgia State University (deceased) Percy Hintzen, University of California, Berkeley Siga Jagne, Pro-Poor Advocacy Group, The Gambia Maureen Warner Lewis, University of the West Indies (emerita), Jamaica Janis Mayes, Syracuse University Ali Mazuri, Binghamton University Ahmadou Mahtar M’Bow, Retired Director-General of UNESCO Penda M’Bow, University Cheikh Anta-Diop, Senegal Brian Meeks, University of the West Indies, Jamaica Molara Ogundipe, Arkansas State University Isidore Okpewho, Binghamton University Trevor Purcell, University of South Florida, Tampa (deceased) Runoko Rashidi, Independent Scholar, United States Rhoda Reddock, University of the West Indies, Trinidad Charles Rowell, Callaloo and Texas A & M University Beverly Guy Sheftall, Spelman College Faizia Shereen, University of Dayton Muniz Sodre, University of Rio de Janeiro (emeritus), Brazil Robert Stam, New York University John Stanfield, Indiana University John Stewart, University of California, Davis Nana Wilson Tagoe, School of Oriental and African Studies, London Clyde Taylor, New York University Furukawa Tetsushi, Otani University and Japan Black Studies Association, Japan Michael Thelwell, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Gregory Thomas, Syracuse University Dudley Thompson, lawyer and former ambassador of Jamaica Antonio Tillis, Purdue University Nelia Todd, Ministry of Education, Trinidad and Tobago Wangui wa Goro, Nottingham University, United Kingdom Rinaldo Walcott, University of Toronto, Canada Sheila Walker, Afrodiaspora, United States Leo Wilton, Binghamton University Paul Zeleza, University of Illinois, Chicago E DITORIAL A SSISTANTS Jessica Alarcon, African–New World Studies, Florida International University (graduate student) La Tasha Amelia Brown, African–New World Studies, Florida International University (graduate student) Sabrina Collins, African–New World Studies, Florida International University (graduate student) Safietou Kane, African–New World Studies, Florida International University (graduate student) Karen J. Matthew, Public Health, Florida International University (graduate student) www.abc-clio.com

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About the Editors

z

Carole Boyce Davies is professor of African–New World Studies and English at Florida International University and served as director of African–New World Studies for three terms between 1997and 2006. From Trinidad and Tobago, she has worked and studied in Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, Brazil and the United States. In 2000–2001, she was Herskovits Professor of African Studies and Comparative Literary Studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of Migrations of the Subject. Black Women, Writing Identity (1994) and Left of Karl Marx. The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones (2008). She has coedited several critical collections on African Diaspora literatures, most recent, The African Diaspora. African Origins and New World Identities (1999) and Decolonizing the Academy. African Diaspora Studies (2003). Managing Editor Babacar M’Bow is originally from Senegal. He curates international art exhibitions and develops museum management policy with an emphasis on African Diaspora cultures, cultural institutions building, and community cultural patrimony. He also supervises international conferences and symposia for Broward County Libraries Division. A well-known curator of African and African diaspora art one of his recent works is as curator and editor of Benin: A Kingdom in Bronze. The Royal Court Art (2005). Local Contributing Editors Keshia Abraham was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and is a world traveler who identifies as a diasporic African. She is a popular professor at Florida Memorial University, in Miami, Florida, and specializes in literatures of the African Diaspora. She is also an independent scholar and a cultural worker committed to international education and social change. xxv www.abc-clio.com

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xxvi | About the Editors

Veronique Helenon is from Martinique and studied in France. She is an assistant professor at Florida International University who specializes in African Diaspora history. A specialist on the African Diaspora in Europe, she has published essays on areas of African diaspora history and is completing a manuscript on colonial relationships between African and the Caribbean. Linda Spears Bunton is an associate professor of education in the College of Education at Florida International University. Her areas of specialization are literature, language literacy, and the African American experience. Her new book is A Literacy of Promise The African American Experience (2008). Rose C. Thevenin is originally from Haiti and is an associate professor of history and college historian at Florida Memorial University. Her areas of specialization are African American History and Black social movements. She is an executive member of Association of Black Women Historians and has published in works such as Diasporic Africa: A Reader (2006).

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Acknowledgments

z

or a project of the magnitude of the Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora, gratitude is owed to a variety of people who assisted in various ways in its conceptualization, execution, and realization. I will identify these both chronologically and in order of importance to the history of this project. First of all, Babacar M’bow, a knowledgeable cultural programmer, coordinator of International Programs and Exhibits of Broward County Libraries, whom I met soon after being contacted by the publishers, was instinctively conscious of the importance and the need to pursue this project to its end. We worked together on the proposal to submit to ABC-CLIO, and he was an invaluable resource, because of his knowledge of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization (UNESCO) General History of Africa project, having seen it grow from its inception under the leadership of Mahtar M’bow, then director general of UNESCO. Babacar M’Bow assisted in myriad ways in the development and execution of this project, serving as managing editor for the encyclopedia, contacting contributors and giving shape to its conceptual and technical aspects. In this regard, International Programs, Broward County Libraries, Fort Lauderdale, Florida is also acknowledged. The encyclopedia’s formidable research assistant, Karen Matthew, very competently took up the project at a critical time when it was stalling and worked meticulously, in a very professional, reliable and mature way, to reorganize the encyclopedia files, finalize entries, reestablish contacts with contributors, format and submit entries, and bring this project to completion. I am sure that we would not have been able to complete this encyclopedia successfully without her diligence and steady professionalism. A major debt of gratitude is owed to Ms. Matthew for her work in this regard. The International Advisory Board is acknowledged for encouraging, advancing, and supporting the realization of this project by their experience and by their intellectual understanding that this was a doable project. The first major related event we had was a symposium that allowed us to create the international advisory board and a local advisory board. The idea of creating large subject essays on

F

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various African Diaspora topics came out of this April 2003 meeting, as well as a variety of fruitful discussions on how to proceed. From this point, we created a logo and literature with which to promote the project, and we attended major conferences to begin the process of disseminating materials. Jonelle A. Davies is acknowledged for her work in designing the logo for the Encyclopedia’s promotion. The staff of the Florida International University (FIU) Studio of Digital Arts (SODA) who created and managed the project’s Web site, especially Rob Yunk, have been wonderfully responsive as we have moved the project through its various stages. SODA understood the importance of the project and the ways in which we could promote it on the World Wide Web. Two graduate students in the African New World Studies program, Safietou Kane and Sabrina Collins, were tasked with promoting and disseminating information on the project and attended the African Studies Association conference in Boston in 2004. Sabrina Collins served as the first research assistant and began the process of receiving and organizing entries. La Tasha Amelia Brown worked during one summer on the encyclopedia assisting Sabrina Collins at a critical time. A major international conference, “The African Diaspora Knowledge Exchange” was held at Florida Memorial University in 2005 at which many of the subject essays were presented. Safietou Kane was the primary student liaison on this conference and helped receive subject essays ahead of time. The format intended was to provide an opportunity for authors of subject essays to present their work for critical feedback. This proved to be a very successful approach as it allowed the audiences (including teachers from south Florida) to review the material presented and ask the kinds of questions to which those knowledgeable in the field were able to respond. The late Mr. Thirlee Smith, Jr., of Miami-Dade Public Schools and leading supporter of the Florida Statute on Teaching African American Studies (1994 Florida Legislature, Section 1003.43 [g]), ensured that his teachers had access to the content aspects of African Diaspora material at various conferences. We encouraged all the graduate students at FIU, and in graduate programs around the country, to contribute entries on the African Diaspora. We acknowledge the significant contributions and support of Dr. Karl S. Wright, Dr. Sandra Thompson, faculty, staff and students of Florida Memorial University who hosted our various conferences and assisted with this project. We thank all the graduate students who contributed, especially Jessica Alarcon, who came into the program as a new student and immediately offered assistance. Then a pre-dissertation fellow in the AfricanNew World Studies (ANWS) program (2006–2007), Yaba Blay of Temple University, also provided links to other graduate students who could contribute their research to the encyclopedia. Rosa Henriquez, the program coordinator of ANWS, also steered potential contributors, interested individuals, and others with questions to the appropriate individuals who could help or answer their questions. In the process of executing this project, ANWS received a grant from the Ford Foundation, which led to the creation of the Florida Africana Studies Consortium (FLASC), which formed the kind of academic community in south Florida that supported intellectual and community work on the African Diaspora. All the conferences we organized in the succeeding period were done with the assistance and collaboration of FLASC. Many FLASC members served on the local advisory

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Acknowledgments | xxix board of the Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora, and the encyclopedia became a place where these faculty could publish their work. FLASC then has to be recognized for its help in ensuring that this project was successfully realized. In this regard as well, the Ford Foundation is acknowledged for providing the financial support for the African Diaspora Knowledge Exchange Conference. During my tenure as director of ANWS at FIU (1997–2000; 2001–2006), the ANWS program and the College of Arts and Sciences provided space for advancing African diaspora projects such as this one which began to have impact nationally. We acknowledge them for that support. We are pleased that this project came out of the south Florida community proving that there is an intellectual community that could produce an encyclopedia of this magnitude. All the writers of entries are acknowledged for their understanding of the need for this encyclopedia, for contributing their work, but above all for patience and for responding promptly (at times) to requests for information, corrections, and updates. Several entries, at the end, could not be accommodated because of space allocation. We thank those contributors nevertheless. Angela Leonard of Loyola University in particular reached out to us at a critical stage in the project’s history, offering support and contacts for entries, as she terminated a related project. Veronique Helenon, assistant professor of history in ANWS, is recognized as well for instinctively expecting a quality program and demonstrating this by her contributions to this project. And in particular, the south Florida community members who encouraged this work’s completion. Out of this has come other related works on the African Diaspora. Jesse Benjamin, on the international advisory board, is recognized for consistent support of this project, often going beyond normal expectations, pursuing leads diligently, finding contributors for some areas not often covered and finally assisting with responding to queries in the final editing stage, always in a professional and politically committed manner. The Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora project was presented at three African Diaspora conferences (the Association of the World Wide African Diaspora [ASWAD] in Rio de Janeiro in 2005; The African Diaspora in Asia [TADIA] Conference in Goa, India, in January 2006; and the African Literature [ALA] Conference in Ghana in 2006). We thank the audiences of these presentations for feedback. Finally, all of the people who helped in various unrecognized ways, whether by informing colleagues, circulating flyers, offering verbal support, or dropping by to help at critical times, to make this project happen are also acknowledged. In particular, the scholars and activists from Ecuador are offered special recognition and thanks for responding rapidly to the need for an Afro-Ecuadorian entry. Thanks are due to Chucho Garcia, Diego Quiroga, Edson Leon, Catherine Walsh for finding ways to strategically fill this gap, knowing that a project like this is larger than individual/personal dramas and that what is most important is for these communities to be recognized. Above all, the staff at ABC-CLIO are acknowledged for their vision, patience, and understanding at the various turns in the completion of this encyclopedia. Carole Boyce Davies, General Editor

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T HE A FRICAN D IASPORA AND THE A FRICAN WORLD To study the African Diaspora is, indeed, to study the world. This is the first realization to which any scholar of the African Diaspora comes very early in the process, for at least two reasons: (a) Africa is the birthplace of human civilization, and from there human beings migrated to various locations worldwide; and (b) African peoples in our contemporary understandings (continental Africans and African-descended peoples) exist globally, following a series of subsequent migrations. While all migrations do not necessarily create a diaspora, what is particular to diaspora creation includes, first of all, a migration, but second, some historical, emotive, political, economic, and cultural connections to that homeland and a consciousness of that interaction. The study of the African Diaspora has involved various generations of scholarship, various disciplinary approaches, various conceptual formulations, and various identifications and interrogations of what and/or who constitute/s the African Diaspora. The Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora then attempts to account for as many of these peoples and communities as possible within its limited space and organizational abilities. All we claim to do at this point is to present as much of the available research as is possible, making connections as we exchange knowledge about who African Diaspora peoples are and where they live, and as we try to understand the kinds of cultural transformations they have engaged in; to document their leading ideas; to provide future researchers with information that can lead to further inquiry. By these means, we already recognize that each contribution, such as this three-volume one, merely adds to the developing knowledge about the African Diaspora. As we make additional connections, we prepare for a further expansion of the discourse. As we recognized in the production of this work, a three-volume encyclopedia merely scratches the surface. This Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora engages the contemporary, covers the emergence of new levels and discourses of blackness, and deliberately extends to include areas such as the African Diaspora in the Indian xxxi www.abc-clio.com

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Ocean and other areas of the world, such as the Mediterranean, often not covered in African Diaspora projects. We recognize at the outset that an encyclopedia of this type at its best can offer only snapshots of the phenomenon, its people, and the processes it describes. As we bring this project to a close for publication, we acknowledge that much has to be left out; much more needs to be included. The range and the staff, for example, of the more than 25 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Compton’s Encyclopedia, or World Book Encyclopedia are perhaps closer to what is needed. The difference in access and coverage has already been identified in the institutional dominance of European studies and the general marginalization or subordination of Africana Studies in the various academic structures. Decolonizing the Academy: African Diaspora Studies (2003) is one of the places that discusses this issue. What is represented here must be seen as a selection that moves toward a more complete rendering at some later date, if that is ever an attainable goal. We say this knowing that no encyclopedia can ever claim complete coverage, as it will always have to be updated at a later time when more information is available. Encyclopedias, like anthologies, are often seen as creating canons—as definitive, when in reality they contain only a selection of the available material based on access, time, resources, reach, and, of course, the force of scholarly knowledge production and the nature of publication arrangements. The range of other particular encyclopedias emphasizes the point about coverage, as each geographical region as well as several particularized groups, fields, and subject areas have produced, or require, their own encyclopedia. There are already several encyclopedias of U.S. African American history, biography, and major events, perhaps largely because African Americans in the United States have been at the forefront of making their voices heard, establishing their presence through the various media available; and clearly, U.S. capitalism has often marketed itself via media. The African American Encyclopedia (ed. Michael Williams), which appeared first as five volumes in 1993 and now appears as ten volumes, and the Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History (1996, supplement in 2001; ed. Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith, and Cornel West) indicated the growing nature of the knowledge base and the trepidation at the thought of leaving out important information. All editors also indicate a number of other challenges, including space limitations, difficult choices, timelines, authors’ schedules, changes in subjects’ lives, and the sense that some people’s favorite subjects may not be covered. The new edition of the Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History: The Black Experience in the Americas (2005, ed. Colin Palmer and Howard Dodson) is a six-volume set described as updating the 1996 edition. With Schomburg Library collaboration, it attempts to be more expansive and contemporary and moves away from a U.S.-centered approach to include more on the Americas in general. It moves the definition of African American outward, extending the coverage to the rest of the Americas. Still, as already indicated, the African American field has been fairly well covered by such early works as the Ebony Black America: Pictorial History (1973) and The African American Almanac, now in its ninth edition in 2003 (formerly The Negro Almanac). And there are particular works, such as the two-volume Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia (1993, ed. Darlene Clark Hine with Ros-

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Introduction | xxxiii alyn Terborg Penn and Elsa Barkley Brown) and The Encyclopedia of Black Studies (2005, ed. Molefi Asante and Ama Mazama). More particular regional encyclopedias provide more detailed coverage than general field encyclopedias. The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century African History (2002, ed. Paul Zeleza) includes entries that provide important documentation of places, regions, countries, and language groups, as well as topical and thematic essays. But the editor chose not to include biographical entries. The Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara, although it continues the error of dividing Africa into upper and lower Sahara, is four volumes, with John Middleton as editor in chief. The introduction by the then-leading African historian J. F. Ade Ajayi, who served as a primary local editor, indicates the difficulty in attempting such a project, some of which we share. The two-volume Encyclopedia of Contemporary Latin American and Caribbean Cultures (2002, ed. Daniel Balderson, Mike Gonzalez, and Anne M. Lopez) lists entries under various countries. And Enciclopedia Brasileira da Diaspora Africana (2004, ed. Nei Lopes) is a very important and useful reference guide that covers Afro-Brazilian culture but reaches into the rest of the African Diaspora as well, thereby demonstrating the magnitude of the field for the Brazilian audience, though entries are very short, sometimes only a few lines long. The ambitious Encyclopedia of Diasporas: Immigrant and Refugee Cultures Around the World (2004, ed. Melvin Ember, Carol R. Ember, and Ian Skoggard) is a two-volume compilation of essays divided into Volume I: Diaspora Overviews and Topics and Volume II: Diaspora Communities, attempting by these means to cover the larger communities of world peoples. Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American Experience (1999, ed. Henry Louis Gates and Anthony Appiah; CD version is Microsoft’s Encarta Encyclopedia Africana) began as an attempt to complete the Du Bois encyclopedia project but ended up dealing more with the relations between Africa and the Americas. The updated version was extended to five volumes, signifying in its more expansive coverage the point I made earlier about size and relational work. D EFINING AND C ONCEPTUALIZING THE A FRICAN D IASPORA The term African Diaspora refers to the dispersal of African peoples all over the world. The word diaspora comes from the Greek diaspora (dia, meaning “through,” and spora, which refers to the process of sowing) (1). Thus, it refers to dispersal of seeds as well as the result of the dispersal. The implication of “through” in the first part of the word also gives a metaphorical sense of the movement aspects of diaspora, that is, “through different routes.” In this reading, then, the Diaspora can be seen as a kind of harvest of peoples, cultures, and knowledge that comes initially out of Africa—a demographic globalization, and internationalization, of African peoples created through centuries of migration. Indeed, African Diaspora peoples have been the products or the recipients of this economic globalization, often the demographic/human resource engine through the expropriation of their labor for the advancement of current economic and communications structures now defined as globalization (2). As a result, it has a different intent and political identity than the globalization created for economic oppression. The dispersal that created the African diaspora occurred through (a) voluntary means (economic and

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pre-Columbian exploratory journeys); (b) trade, servitude, and military expeditions (early Indian Ocean trade journeys from the sixth century); (c) forced migrations (transatlantic slavery over at least four centuries in the modern period, from the 15th to the 19th centuries); and (d) induced migration, the more recent 20th- and 21st-century migrations of African peoples based on world economic imbalances. These have resulted, thereby, in the relocation and redefinition of African peoples in a range of now-international locations (3). While one aspect of the definition of the African Diaspora is fairly constant in terms of its association with dispersal or scattering, there is a plurality of interpretations of the nature of the result of that dispersal, that is, what constitutes the African Diaspora. Some would argue that this plurality is in fact a good thing, as it allows for multiple perspectives, which engender further research and additional subjects of study. Others see forced exodus as the most important constitutive element in diaspora creation. As far as the Atlantic end of the Diaspora, in terms of numbers, in this encyclopedia Inikori has argued that the conservative Curtin statistics of 11 million people moved via transatlantic slavery, and the more generous 19 million people, are not a source for debate, as the numerical basis for the forced migration (which of course does not include the uncountable numbers lost in passage) is enough to make the arguments about demographic shifts as well as the transformation of the economic patterns on both sides of the Atlantic, but largely benefiting Europe and America (4). A number of scholars over the years have provided definitions and the history of the use of the term African Diaspora. George Shepperson’s (1993) “African Diaspora: Concept and Context” documents the usage of this particular combination and provides much of the language that is used still to define the African Diaspora, identifying the origin of the use of the term to refer to the Jewish Diaspora (5) and therefore also emphasizing the “homeland” element. The first usages of the term for African peoples he identifies as being linked to the rise of black political organizing during the immediate decolonization period beginning in the 1950s, particularly around the time of the First International Congress of Negro Writers and Artists in 1956 and the International Congress of African Historians held in Dar es Salaam in October 1965. Clearly, the use of the term African Diaspora is linked to decolonization activity and therefore has political intent, and that is to account for the “status and prospects” of various peoples of African descent scattered around the world, who are often denied their humanity. Thus, one sees at least two broad tendencies in African Diaspora studies: (a) to account for dispersal mainly from a common source in Africa; and (b) to account for those communities that have migrated in various directions and thereby have reconfigured identities in those now-home locations. By these means, one often has a sense of studying (a) Africa and the Diaspora or the continent and the dispersal and/or (b) the African Diaspora itself as a unit that includes the continent and the various intra-African migrations and movements. We propose to bring these two tendencies together in this Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora. Shepperson (1993) is careful to point out, however, that although usage of the expression African Diaspora began in the mid-20th century, the concept’s usage is

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Introduction | xxxv older than its 20th-century definition, extending all the way back to the Biblical reference that “Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her hands” (Psalm 68:31). Shepperson credits Edward Wilmot Blyden with his 1880s “Ethiopia Stretching Out Her Hands unto God: or, Africa’s Service to the World” as one of the first places to see the conceptualizing of the African Diaspora in an intellectual approach. For him, though, African Diaspora is a framework for comparative study; it must be approached through different languages. It cannot be a mere statistical rendering but must engage ideas, and it must not deal solely with dispersal outward, as it “loses much of its force if it is limited to dispersal in an outward direction only” (Shepperson 1993, 44). But even before Blyden, in the U.S. context, David Walker’s 1829 Appeal was directed to the Coloured Citizens of the World, and thus already embodied a consciousness of political challenge of oppression that would be echoed later in Fanon but was definitely imbued with the sense of an African Diaspora in its conceptual framing. Brent Hayes Edwards, The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism (2003), then, is a very important intervention, as it addresses the particular ways in which Diaspora has been put to use for political, emotive, and cultural reasons. But one must also consider the disjunctures, as did Appadurai (2006), as well as the differences in terms of application. In this particular case, the political connections between the Anglophone and Francophone diaspora become importantly identified via the political organizing of George Padmore (Trinidad/United Kingdom/Ghana) and Garame Kouyate (Ivory Coast/Paris). Thus, in terms of the first tendency, the concept of the African Diaspora is much older than its contemporary formulation. If we accept that, based on archaeological evidence, the birthplace of human beings is Africa, and that humankind from there began its dispersal around the world, then we can argue logically that the African Diaspora is the first constituted formulation of human migration. Therefore, some aspects of African cultures have touched all societies. While this may seem too loose and floppy a category, too totalizing in a way, one still must consider the credible historical research in this area. Chancellor Williams (1976), in The Destruction of Black Civilization, for example, identifies the early migrations from the “Ethiopian empire which once extended from the Mediterranean to the north and southward to the source of the Nile” (44) in present-day Ethiopia, based on a series of human and natural disasters. Thus, there are particular historical movements, periods, and places that allow us to identify specific communities—cultural, social, economic, and political formulations in our contemporary realities. Nkiru Nzegwu’s subject entry, “Art in the African Diaspora,” seems to follow this logic as it identifies seven formulations of the African Diaspora and insists that the categories received from European scholarship have been arbitrary and indeed limit our fuller understandings of African Diaspora as it relates to creativity and the arts, at least. More expansive than the five phases of Colin Palmer, she identifies seven phases, as follows: the Paleolithic; the Egyptian Diaspora; the Kemetic; the Kushite phase; the Atlantic; the colonial and anticolonial phase; and the postcolonial phase. In this way, art-related creations for those earlier periods, she argues, also fall under African Diaspora. Importantly, then, in her formulation she would want to include the Egyptian or Ethiopian Diaspora.

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The intellectual work of the premodern African Diaspora can be traced to the universities in Alexandria, Egypt; to the University of Timbuktu and Djenne in the actual republic of Mali; and to the various centers of learning of the West African kingdom of Ghana (University of Kumbi-sahel) that were burned by the Almoravids in the 14th century. The library of African/Diaspora studies, then, eventually must address this earlier information even as it extends into the contemporary. Thus, temporally, as the research has moved in two directions: backward to the early historical periods, as Afrocentrists do, and forward to embrace new formations of African Diaspora; spatially, it can address the range of existing communities worldwide; and conceptually it can examine the nature of epistemological contributions of the African Diaspora. While we acknowledge the existence of a preslavery migration to the Americas, as Van Sertima (2003) asserted, the more contemporary African Diaspora, which constitutes our second tendency, can be more firmly identified in the period after European enslavement and forced migration of Africans to the New World. Following the work of the first Pan-Africanists, such as Edgar Wilmot Blyden (1886) in his famous speech in Liberia College, 20th-century studies of the African Diaspora have made major contributions toward the understanding of the dispersal of African peoples. Such early and mid-20th-century scholars as Anna Julia Cooper, W. E. B. DuBois, Melville Herskovits, Carter G. Woodson, and Katherine Dunham (United States); J. J. Thomas, George Padmore, Una Marson, and Fernando Ortiz (Caribbean); Casely Hayford, Funimalayo Ransome Kuti, and Cheikh Anta Diop (Africa); and Nina Rodrigues and Abdias do Nascimento (Brazil) have helped to provide frameworks of analysis as well as documented research and activism that advanced possibilities or studies of various aspects of the African Diaspora. Ruth Simms Hamilton’s (1995) “Conceptualizing the African Diaspora” works theoretically within the framework of world systems analysis. She defines the African Diaspora as a social formation that includes a “global aggregate of actors and subpopulations differentiated in social and geographical space, yet exhibiting a commonality based on shared historical experiences conditioned by and within the world ordering system” (Hamilton 1995, 394). She deploys three historical characteristics to identify the Diaspora as distinct from other groups: a. Geosocial displacement and the circularity of a people (the historical dialectic between geographical mobility and the establishment of “roots”) b. Social oppression: relations of domination and subordination (conflict, discrimination, and inequality based primarily, although not exclusively, on race, color, and class) c. Endurement, resistance, and struggle: cultural and political action (creative actions of people as subjects of their history; psychocultural and ideological transformations; social networks and dynamics). Hamilton’s work offers important categories for situating a range of African Diaspora movements, histories, and cultural transformations; above all, it includes the issues of dominance and subordination but also resistance. Her diaspora as a “field of action” predates “unit of analysis” formations and identifies a more dynamic praxis as it also includes a range of literary, cultural, and political movements. www.abc-clio.com

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Introduction | xxxvii The field of African Diaspora studies thus promises an engaging and rewarding study for scholars of the African Diaspora. In the contemporary moment in the academy, the study of the African Diaspora has continued with a surge in intensity as manifested in a series of texts, conferences, journal articles, and academic programs at the end of the 20th century and into the 21st century. And a range of post-1960s scholars in the academy have maintained a solid interest, which has led to this contemporary articulation. For example, “Interrogating the African Diaspora,” which was the theme of a graduate seminar at Florida International University (2003–2006) will have an impact on the next generation of scholars. A 2006 conference entitled “Diaspora Hegemonies” at the University of Toronto tried to account for some of the complexity in the field in its recent incarnations, raising a number of questions about what and who is privileged in African Diaspora studies. And an issue of the journal Radical History has the special theme of contemporary reconceptualizations of the African Diaspora. H ISTORICAL B ACKGROUND AND G EOGRAPHICAL R ANGE OF THE C ONTEMPORARY A FRICAN D IASPORA The trans-Saharan passage and the opening up of the Arabian Peninsula, as well as the circum-Indian Ocean geography, located a range of African peoples in what is now called the African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean (6). Although the Atlantic Diaspora (the 14th through the 21st centuries) has been studied more extensively, scholars have begun to advance the study of this earlier migration to the Indian Ocean (from the fifth century onward), ensuring that this migration was driven not so much by enslavement but more often by sailors, merchants, and soldiers, some of whom became members of royalty and attained political and military leadership, as did Malik Ambar in India. Thus, earlier migrations across the Mediterranean Sea, the Eritrean (Red) Sea, and the Indian Ocean, as both free and enslaved people from approximately the sixth century, must now be a central understanding of the formation of the contemporary African Diaspora. The long history of forced migration that displaced African peoples across Europe and the Americas via transatlantic slavery from the 15th century onward has been well addressed. Historians of the African Diaspora have continued to document the ways in which this transatlantic slave trade displaced and disrupted the lives of peoples of numerous already-intact African nations, locating them in the New World for the services of plantation systems (7). Subsequent industrial developments in the Americas (the 15th to the 19th centuries) were facilitated, with slavery abolished in the various New World locations only in a sliding 19th-century date arrangement based on decisions in the various colonizing centers of power (French, Spanish, English, American, Portuguese) from 1838 to 1888 (8). The history of Euro-American imperialism’s border transgression and its larger assumption of control of human and physical resources, unlimited space and movement, serves as one contextual background for the Atlantic African Diaspora. In the development of triangular trade routes through the “Middle Passage,” the economics of slavery and colonialism facilitated the rise of European modernity. We can conclude, then, that contemporary notions of globalization have always been economic, and that globalization has used African peoples’ labor in its processes. Preexisting frameworks of operation that ensured www.abc-clio.com

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European control of the world’s resources were put in place with the rise of European modernity. The result of all these processes of free and forced migration was the appearance of Africans in the Americas, in Europe, and in Asia, and the simultaneous recreation of sociocultural practices in these various locations, making Africans essentially a global people. Africans moved from a range of political formations from the precolonial nations, empires, and other smaller ethnic political structures (often misnamed “tribes” by anthropologists) (9). This relocation of African peoples to different geographical locations often meant subordination or dispossession. So, even though some, such as Gwyn Campbell (at the TADIA converence in Goa in 2006), would make hard distinctions between the nature of the Atlantic African Diaspora and the Indian Ocean Diaspora, suggesting that the latter is not a “victim Diaspora,” today in India, African Indians—or Indo-Africans who describe themselves more particularly as Siddis or Habshis—still live visibly oppressed by the state and its elites, located as “backward tribes” and later “scheduled tribes” and accorded few benefits of citizenship (Caitlin-Jairazbhoy and Alpers 2004; Prasad 2005). Still, there are other groups whose lives remained consistently debased in their new locations. The condition of African peoples in the Americas is an example. Following enslavement in the Americas, the most glaring of inequities continued as a period of colonialism in which Africans as colonial subjects were powerless, until formal political independence some 300 years later, to fully represent their rights both in Africa and the Americas. Postindependence nation-states have often been neocolonial systems, which were therefore not reliable protectors of rights, because within them were already imposed race- and class-based hierarchies that subordinated sometimes majority populations (10). In many countries, these peoples remained disenfranchised under various colonialisms (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Arab, and Asian), without the means to return to their native lands and subject to horrendous conditions violating every tenet of human rights and with no other legitimate recourse but to fight for those rights. Throughout the Americas, the abuse of labor, the denial of rights, and beatings, maimings, and other forms of physical brutality accompanied the processes of colonialism that succeeded plantation slavery. The work of historians of the African Diaspora has been fundamental in backgrounding and detailing the nature of these movements. Joseph Harris’s lead in this area has been absolutely pivotal in the development of the field. From the late 1970s and through the Howard University conference that produced the landmark Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora (Harris 1982), Harris has maintained the African Diaspora as a subject of study and as its own unit of analysis, pushing as well for an expanded scope beyond the Atlantic Diaspora. This recent phase has also been advanced by work such as Colin Palmer’s “Defining and Studying the Modern African Diaspora” (1998), which led into the 1999 American Historical Association conference, “Diasporas and Migrations in History,” raised a number of questions about definition, and identified five major African diasporic streams: the first dispersal, which Palmer estimates occurred about 100,000 years ago and constituted the beginning dispersal of humankind; the second, taking

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Introduction | xxxix place about 3000 BCE with the movement of Bantu-speaking peoples from the region around west Africa to other parts of the continent; the third, the trading Diaspora to parts of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, which began around the fifth century; the fourth, the transatlantic migration of enslaved Africans, from the 15th century; the fifth, after the 19th century and continuing to the present day, the movement of Africans and peoples of African descent and their resettlement in various societies. For this reason, the framework that Tiffany Patterson and Robin D. G. Kelley (2000) used is “Unfinished Migrations: Reflections on the African Diaspora and the Making of the Modern World” (11), which provided a conceptual overview of the logic of the Diaspora as a process still in formation as it summarized the important literature and theoretical positions advanced in African Diaspora up to the end of the 20th century. The work of a variety of other historians has been critical, such as Michael Gomez’s Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South (1998); Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora (New Approaches to African History) (2004) (12); and Black Crescent: The Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas (2005). Earlier, Darlene Clark Hine and Jacqueline McLeod, from another conference, produced the book Crossing Boundaries: Comparative History of Black People in the Diaspora (1999), which provided useful additions to the library of African Diaspora Studies. And Gwendolyn Midlo Hall’s “Making Invisible Africans Visible: Coasts, Ports, Regions and Ethnicities” in her Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas: Restoring the Links (2005) provides a good analysis of the various studies of the African Diaspora in the Americas and ends up identifying from her related databases the various movements of African Diaspora peoples and their ethnic origins. P OLITICAL M OVEMENTS AND P ROJECTS : A FRICAN P EOPLES , D IASPORA , PAN -A FRICANISM The African Diaspora is also understood as a political and cultural category. At the political level, its primary ideological formations have been expressed as PanAfricanism, a political philosophy articulated through a variety of congresses and projects. For some scholars, such as Tony Martin, the rudiments of Pan-Africanism exist in the yearnings of Africans displaced via transatlantic slavery to return to their homelands. Thus, the flying back stories are seen as a kind of proto-PanAfricanism, as are some of the myths, legends, songs, and spirituals, and also spiritual possessions and chants that talk about wings and homes and heaven and have continued to give African entities and practices presence in other diasporic locations. From the start, there has been a logic linking Diaspora to Pan-Africanism as St. Clair Drake (1993) identifies in his analyses of the relationships between these two discourses. Thus, Diaspora can be seen as condition, Pan-Africanism as political project. The primary motivation of Pan-Africanism can be summarized as follows: Because a range of capitalist policies and projects have produced African peoples who live all over the world, how, then, can we represent their rights fully if the various nation-states in which they live do not always guarantee those rights? How can we produce a political system that coordinates these rights? What political projects

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need to be advanced in a coordinated way? How are African citizenship rights to be internationally understood alongside issues of nation-state sovereignty, jurisdiction, and the rights and duties of citizens who are located everywhere in nationstates to which they may have primary loyalty? One such formation (13) would create usable policies for transcendence of limitations of geographies, nation-state boundaries, and ethnic and linguistic differences for progressive social transformation of the lived realities of African peoples globally. Kwame Nkrumah’s vision of Pan-Africanism on the continent, Malcolm X’s vision of an Organization for Afro-American Unity (OAAU) as linked to, and expressed at, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) meeting in Cairo additionally attempted to make some of these connections (14). In similar ways, Kwame Toure’s All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party describes itself in terms of the practice of Pan-Africanism already identified. But even before that, the work of Marcus Garvey and his “Africa for the Africans” and “Back to Africa” constructs critiqued the oppressed conditions of black peoples in the Diaspora as it articulated the possibility of a conceptual (if not a physical) return and began the process of instituting economic systems that could ensure that that possibility would become the reality that it is for many today. The problematic knot, though, is the extent to which African peoples can give primary or sole allegiance to the nation-states in which they live, particularly when those nation-states often do not identify or respect their human rights. The “Constitutive Act of the African Union” (July 2001) begins its preamble with a direct assertion concerning African peoples, invoking generations of PanAfricanists as follows: INSPIRED by the noble ideals that guided the founding fathers of our Continental Organization and generations of Pan-Africanists in their determination to promote unity, solidarity, cohesion and cooperation among the peoples of Africa and the African States (15). All the research reveals that these Pan-Africanists were members of the worldwide leadership community of African Diaspora and African continental peoples with a commitment to working toward the liberation and advancement of the continent and its dispersed peoples (16). The African Charter (written in Banjul, The Gambia) consistently refers to African peoples in the plural, thus leaving in the possibility of including a multiplicity of peoples across the continent of Africa. This definition of African peoples is an advance in the sense that it allows space for a definition of African peoples in a broad continental and Diaspora sense. And beyond that, the African Union’s acceptance of the Diaspora as its sixth region (2005) has meant the possibility of some sort of political assertion for the African Diaspora. The full articulation of this structure has yet to be fully worked out; movement toward this goal has been deliberate and careful. The African Union, replacing the OAU, in its Constitutive Act took into consideration The Lusaka Summit Decision on the “establishment of a strategic framework for a Policy of Migration in Africa” and gestures therefore toward the development of a definite future relationship with the African Diaspora (17).

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Introduction | xli Through the African Union Diaspora Conference in Washington, D.C., in December 2002, two objectives were established: the development of “capacity building projects by Diaspora Civil Society organization in the Western Hemisphere Diaspora,” and the development of a “plan of ongoing collaboration with the African Union including a plan of action and a hemispheric steering committee” (18). One of the most important resolutions of this conference was the creation of a coordinating body for the African Union Western Hemisphere Diaspora, accepted unanimously by the meeting on December 19, 2002. This body had as one of its initiatives the proposal of an African Diaspora component of the African Union and its representative bodies, particularly the Pan-African Parliament (Article 17) and the Commission (Article 20) of the Constitutive Act of the African Union (19). Since then, the African Union has taken significant steps toward operationalizing the African Diaspora within its framework. The Executive Council, in its third extraordinary session held in Sun City, South Africa, May 21–24, 2003, took several decisions, among which was convening a technical workshop held in Portof-Spain, Trinidad, in June 2004 for the elaboration of a framework and recommendations on the relationship between the African Union and the Diaspora (20). The definition of Diaspora that came out of this workshop and was finally approved in 2005 reads as follows: “Peoples of African origin living outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship and nationality and who are willing to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the African Union. It includes communities created by the movements and cultures of persons from the continent of Africa and their descendants throughout the world — Asia, The Pacific, Europe and the Americas including United States and Canada, the Caribbean, South and Central America” (AU Web site, www.africanunion.com). The operational definition interestingly includes willing membership in the African Diaspora, as opposed to generic descent or other historical connections, and therefore becomes a kind of 21st-century political definition different from the initial usage of the term African Diaspora. In this encyclopedia, African peoples are defined as those who have historical origins in Africa, irrespective of time period and current geographical location. In this way, descendants of those who were displaced from the continent forcibly and voluntarily in the Indian Ocean migrations, those moved forcibly during the period of transatlantic slavery, and those who have migrated more recently for economic, educational, social, and other reasons, also have claims to the status of African peoples or African-descended peoples as used in Latin America. African peoples in this understanding refer to peoples of African origin, comprising a variety of African ethnicities, on the continent of Africa and in the international African community termed African Diaspora. A number of contemporary nation-states and regions have also begun to claim their own Diasporas. The Jamaican Diaspora and the Haitian Diaspora have already had a major impact on the politics and economics of their home communities, particularly in the areas of remittances, often more than the gross domestic product of these countries, and have increasing impact on the politics of their home countries, such as the right to vote and the choices for political leadership. And while the trade and circulation of people and commodities brings people,

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places, and things into contact, at times in diaspora that can be collaborative or conflictual, at other times they can lead to heightened articulations of particular nation-state diaspora. In a related manner, a number of larger nation-states (such as India) are recognizing their communities abroad as essential to the full access of all their human and material resources. And work is taking place on specific African nation-state Diaspora created by contemporary migration, such as the Somali Diaspora by Issa Farah, a young Somali scholar in Australia. His research, presented at La Trobe University, Australia seminar (March 2007) identifies at least 1 million Somalis in Diaspora with significant populations in North America (the United States, from as early as 1915 based on photographs taken in Chicago, and Canada), Europe (England, Scandinavia, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and France), Middle East (United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia), Australia, and New Zealand. Regional definitions are also being articulated as in the African Diaspora in the Andean region of South America and the Caribbean Diaspora. The Caribbean is already well recognized as a place for the practice of overlapping or intersecting Diaspora as say the Indian and African communities but also the African and native Carib, Arawak and Taino communities as well. In Canada as well, African Diaspora work on indigeneity (to a lesser degree in the United States, though work on the Black Seminoles in Florida in relation to maroon communities is increasing) means recognizing the importance of native peoples and the ways they have been dispossessed of their land even as Africans claim their diasporic existence in those same expropriated lands. This poignant articulation from Native Americans has to be consistently readdressed by African Diaspora peoples, also themselves exploited, so as to avoid the errors of settlers in the Americas and Australia who assumed appropriated land to be theirs. By these means, earlier collaborations between Native peoples and Africans can be maintained. While these competing claims to geographical location can make for conflict, they can also make for collaboration as oppressed groups struggle against these earlier and contemporary imperialist projects that have indeed driven and in some cases created these Diaspora. Andrea Smith, in Conquest, Sexual Violence and North American Indian Genocide (2005), describes well how these issues of imperialism are and were carried through sexual violence and often literally on the backs of women. Another work, Greg Thomas’s Sexual Demon of Colonial Power (2007), indicates a similar set of arguments of the intersection of sexual constructions and indeed sexual exploitation in advancing colonial projects. But resistance has also overlapped or intersected. The importance of Indian ahimsa or nonviolence, as advanced by Mahatma Gandhi, who gained his understandings of oppression in apartheid South Africa, had a significant impact on the Indian anticolonial struggle as it challenged offensive traditional practices, like child marriages. Gandhi, in turn, influenced Martin Luther King and his particular strategies to resist white racist dominance, as manifested in Jim Crowism and segregation in the United States. And a politicocultural movement like the Afro-bloco, Filhos de Gandhy in Salvador-Bahia, Brazil, also demonstrates the logic of diasporic collaborations in their appropriation of the meaning of Gandhi for carnival production. In making a political statement against Brazilian demonization of Afro-Brazilian cultural practices the Afro-bloco movement initially articulated itself as coming out in

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Introduction | xliii peace, and therefore used Gandhi paraphernalia and iconography, combined with the symbology of the Yoruba-derived Candomblé. And African and Indian cultures converge, even as political allegiances diverge. Thus, the tassa, an African drum is played by both Africans and Indians: both Trinidadians and Siddis (Afro-Indians). Food like roti and curry are now staples of the Eastern Caribbean and Guyanese (Afro-Caribbean) diet, and the exchanges continue based on close proximity as in the pejorative “douglarization.” “Dougla,” a word that is even worse than “mulatto” (which means “little mule”) in various languages ranging from Persian to Hindi, means among other things according to Shalini Puri in a lecture at Florida International University (Interad, Summer 2006), “bastard,” “stain,” “blot,” “polluted,” “dirty,” and other terms even more offensive. It is a formation that some still embrace to challenge logics of single belonging and interpret miscegenation in terms of what their dual heritages mean in this particular version of hybridity. Many who use “dougla” as definition are not fully aware of this historical meaning of the term and embrace it in a way similar to how some reappropriate other offensive terms used to describe black people. The existence of self-identified Indo-Africans or Siddis provides alternative political readings of this particular blend. So in terms of political projects, as Michael Hanchard’s experimental Global Mappings Atlas of the African Diaspora demonstrates (21), we can chart the influences and collaborations of political movements across the African world and understand more fully how these movements and their primary actors begin to have an impact on diverse geographical locations. S OCIOCULTURAL P ROJECTS : C OMPLICATING THE A FRICAN D IASPORA S TORY The question of how best to identify African Diasporan peoples and their cultures continues to be a source of important scholarly debate. Zeleza, using Appadurai’s framework of flows, identifies demographic, cultural, economic, political, ideological and imagistic flows. The hyphenated logic is one that has been followed by a number of communities as they attempt to account for these dual heritages, such as U.S. African Americans, African Caribbeans or Afro-Caribbeans, and Afro-Latin Americans, at the start of the 21st century. Afro descendientes (African descendants) is the agreed-upon descriptor. Some sort of connection to the African continent is assumed in terms of direct and discernable historical lines, physiognomy, and clearly recognized sociocultural practices. Thus, in the field of anthropology, the early work of Herskovits and his contemporaries has been preeminent as it led to a variety of discussions about how to recognize and/or measure African cultural patterns and practices and how to name African communities worldwide. Though this early work of Herskovits has been criticized by subsequent generations of anthropologists for operating on the basis of some versions of African essentialism and/or for making too easy conclusions (J. D. Elder, personal communication, 2003) based on not enough research, the idea of identifying aspects of African culture in New World cultures has not died. For many in the Caribbean and Latin America, this kind of work was one of the only sources for claiming a history and human identity that was being erased or denied by dominant cultural formations.

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The follow-up work by scholars like Yale University’s Robert Farris Thompson provided a bridge into the contemporary period of cultural studies work and specificity to more general contemporary assertions. Thus, the study of Africanisms and/or African cultural retentions, raised through the group of anthropologists who worked on this throughout the early and mid 20th century, is not as important today in terms of proving one-to-one correspondences and equivalences that held sway in the early 20th-century period of African Diaspora research. Thus, questions of transformation or re-elaboration continue to be addressed substantially in the Americas. In the contemporary early 21st century, the task of building one-to-one correspondences via the study of Africanisms has been replaced by discussions of representation and transformation. Tendencies in the field still demonstrate that the nature of these latter movements and the meaning of African-generated cultural practices are worth fighting for in many locations, particularly as a people’s culture is the place from which they can begin to assert their freedom. Indeed, current discussions about creolization, syncretism, and even hybridity assume some combination of African cultural forms with either European or indigenous/native American patterns. But as the work of Olendorp shows, as discussed in this encyclopedia, creating hybrid cultures was precisely the project of enslavers in the immediate postenslavement period. Hybridity and creolity have long antecedents in the range of created “blood” and proportional categories such as mulatto, creole, octoroon, and others by which the slaving class tried to literally “breed” ideal and complicit and interesting variations of Africans as they similarly did animals and grafted plants. What connects the Diaspora continues to be a fundamental issue. For some it is related sociocultural formations; for others it is history, the human chain of slavery, and above all contemporary realities of subordination; and for others political practice. The definition of blackness is therefore an aspect, though not an equivalent, for these African diasporan definitions. A consciousness of racial identification and oppression generated from enslavement and other forms of subordination is one of these connecting points (Hanchard 1990, 1991) that have been present from all the early attempts to examine the status of African peoples. Though disparagingly called “victim Diaspora” by scholars like Robin Cohen in his Global Diasporas: An Introduction (1997) some of these points of connection generated for political effect have found their bases in prior or present situations of oppression and the need to effect some sort of political solidarity in order to challenge these. In his global Diaspora frame, Cohen also attempts some classification of Diaspora communities, not specifically African Diaspora communities, but ranging from Chinese to Sikhs and Zionists. Works such as The African Diaspora. African Origins and New World Identities (1999, ed. Isidore Okpewho, Carole Boyce Davies, and Ali A. Mazrui) include contributions from a range of African Diaspora locations in the Americas and pursue such issues as theater, art, photography, music, and literature. In this regard, the cultural studies work of scholars like Stuart Hall (2006) and Paul Gilroy (2006) becomes important as they engage the idea of membership. Gilroy favors the “routes” model over the “roots,” preferring to look at contemporary formations rather than

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Introduction | xlv some difficult-to-prove historical connections (Gilroy 1993). Stuart Hall wisely sees both the political strategy in the construct as well as its articulation possibilities and difficulties. But it is precisely in culture, as expressed in music, literature, and art, where some of these connections have been most visible. The lyrics of Peter Tosh, “No matter where you come from/as long as you are a black man/you are an African,” resonates with the logic of African Diaspora and Pan-Africanism. The wide-range exportation and dissemination of reggae music and the culture, lifestyle, and politics of Rastafarianism with Bob Marley as a leading exponent are also critical signs of the mobility of African diasporic cultural practice. However, recent DNA work, as championed by Henry Louis Gates of Harvard University, has seemed to be able to make some direct connections using scientific evidence. By sampling continental African peoples, researchers have created a database for subsequent matches with people in the African Diaspora (as in Oprah’s Roots, a television inquiry into the genealogy of the African American talk show host Oprah Winfrey, aired in January 2007). Pretty soon one may know with some scientific certainty, using some definite types that already exist in DNA databases collected on the continent, what has been relegated so far to speculation based on physiognomic appearance. This brings a bit more certainty to genealogical studies like the oral history work of Alex Haley in Roots. In this regard, new scientific work gives a kind of contemporary restatement of the kind of early scientific work undertaken by Cheikh Anta Diop in his carbon dating projects (described in Civilization and Barbarism) as far as the original human Diaspora in Africa is concerned T HE F IELD OF A FRICAN D IASPORA S TUDIES The field of African Diaspora studies can be seen through the generations of intellectual projects and their products. These have ranged from initial and individual or group scholarly research of people like Edward Blyden, J. J. Thomas, Melville Herskovits, and, more contemporaneously, Joseph Harris, Michael Gomez, Sheila Walker, Robert Farris Thompson, Darlene Clark Hine, and Colin Palmer in each generation. These individual projects have produced disciplinary studies of various communities that have then made some connections to the larger field of African Diaspora studies. The second major way in which the field has advanced has been scholarly conferences of specific institutions or organizations, which have been able to produce their collections as already described. For example, at Florida International University, the conferences that produced the African Presence in the Americas (1995) and Decolonizing the Academy. African Diaspora Studies (2003) attempted to intervene in the production of knowledge, all challenging the Eurocentric assumptions of knowledge of U.S. and European institutions, but also those in the Caribbean, Africa, Latin America, Australia, Asia, all formed as auxiliaries for maintaining European hegemony. Each conference brings forward additional connections as for example did The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA) Conference in Goa, India, in January, 2006 (22) with an earlier publication The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean (2003) edited by Shihan de S. Jayasuriya, whose work also appears in this encyclopedia. The Conferences of Intellectuals of the African Diaspora (CIAD I

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and II, Senegal 2004 and Salvador Bahia 2006) have papers as well as declarations available online at the African Union Web site (www.africanunion.org). The ASWAD Conferences and formation of an association to do some of this work similarly advanced the field in innumerable ways. The first tangible product of ASWAD has been Diasporic Africa. A Reader (2006, ed. Michael Gomez). A FRICAN D IASPORA L ITERATURES AND C ULTURES While we have not presented a large subject essay on literature, we point here to some important references, this perhaps because literature has been one of the most popular ways by which African diaspora knowledge has been advanced. The best place to find the presentation and discussion of a range of African diaspora literatures is the journal Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters (see “Calalu/Callaloo” entry) which for the last forty years, under the leadership of Charles Rowell, has indeed presented creative and critical work in literature from a wide range of African Diaspora communities. And for many years, Presence Africaine has served this function in francophone letters. The more recent creation of journals like Diasporas, though, has advanced the discussion of the larger field of Diaspora studies in general, specifically targeting the Diaspora as an area of study and the variety of overlapping or intersecting Diaspora that have an impact on these various world communities. In a similar way, Wadabagei: A Journal of the Caribbean and Its Diaspora has supported the development of a Caribbean Diaspora knowledge field. But a variety of particular journals, like Caribbean Quarterly, and the work of scholars like Maureen Warner-Lewis in her study of language and culture, have maintained an ongoing space for the discussion of a variety of diasporic subjects as they manifest themselves in the Caribbean. A range of professional organizations like the African Literature Association, the Caribbean Studies Association, and the American Historical Association and their publications also provide a place for discussing aspects of the African Diaspora as they pertained to those fields. Encyclopedia production is another strand in this process, pulling together a range of scholars and their research but also creating that necessary library of materials that advance a field. The Congress of Negro Artists marked the beginnings of this phase of African Diaspora intellectual and creative work in the middle of the 20th century, as already established. And formed in the late 1970s, the African Literature Association, through its conferences and publications, has been a place where African Diaspora literature has been consistently addressed. Thus, literature has been one of the foremost ways by which Diaspora identities have been articulated and a primary area in which this field of African Diaspora studies has taken shape. Some of the best pieces of literature have confronted this issue directly. The definition of “African Literatures” in the plural that comes out of journals like Presence Africaine and the African Literature Association refers to the range of genres and types of African literature one finds on the continent and other parts of the world. A vast field, with its specialized encyclopedias, bibliographies, yearbooks, journals, and numerous publications, has been documenting these literatures. While not including a large subject entry on African diaspora literatures, we have included salient writers, themes, concepts and texts in most categories. There are several

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Introduction | xlvii dictionaries and encyclopedias of African-American and African literatures. Still, we can point to some classic African Diaspora texts that have engaged the themes of African Diaspora directly. Equaiano’s Travels. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789) as well as Mary Prince’s The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself (1831) are among the first. Ayi Kwei Armah’s Two Thousand Seasons (1973), Kamau Brathwaite’s The Arrivants (1967), Ama Ata Aidoo’s Dilemma of a Ghost (1965), and Anowa (1970), Earl Lovelace’s Salt (1996), Grace Nichols’s I Is a Long Memoried Woman (1983), Paule Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow (1983), Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (1982), Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), and Okepwho’s Call Me by My Rightful Name (1994), Sandra Jackson-Opoku’s The River Where Blood Is Born (1997), are some texts that have addressed African Diaspora themes. A helpful reference is Killam and Rowe, The Companion to African Literatures (2000), which offers larger coverage of major categories of African diaspora literatures, and Mark de Brito’s The Trickster’s Tongue. An Anthology of Poetry in Translation from Africa and the African Diaspora (2006), an ambitious collection of poetry. A range of helpful and related concepts have come out of these literatures as we develop frameworks for doing relational work. Literary reimaginings have come through the work of writers like Ishmael Reed, Fred d’Aguiar, and Alice Walker. Aimé Césaire has talked about unboundedness in his no-fence island, expressed in his long poem, Cahier, and Edouard Glissant has developed the idea of errance or wandering. He has also advanced the discussions of creolization as conceptualized by Kamau Brathwaite, whose tidalectics is as fluid a construct as is Antonio BenítezRojo’s repeating island imagery, both driven by water, by the sea. In this way, Gilroy’s “Black Atlantic,” a theoretical rearticulation of Farris Thompson’s “Black Atlantic Civilizations,” provides tremendous theoretical mileage (Gilroy 2006). Discourses of migrations in history and literature continue to drive research on Diaspora. And rememory makes literature one of the central places where creative articulations take place. Aboriginal Australians have a theoretical and cultural category called “dreaming” that is worth invoking here as it has to do not only with the flow of the imagination in storytelling but also in art, history, and movement, in terms of life experience. Thus, for African Americans, concepts like polyrhythms and improvisation, as articulated in jazz or quilting, have had great utility in vernacular theory and signifying. Rinaldo Walcott’s (2003) call for a Diaspora reading practice that allows for the “uncovering of the histories, memories, desires, free associations, disappointments, pleasures, and investments we bring to any given texts” (118) resonates with “diaspora literacy” (Clark) or “cultural fluency” (Mayes). In the same way, as far as music in the African Diaspora is concerned, we have included a range of African Diaspora music forms—blues, jazz, hip-hop, highlife, salsa—though not a single entry on music. The vastness of the field forbids reduction and synthesis. A related project to which one can refer is The African Diaspora: A Musical Perspective, which includes a range of essays on different aspects of African Diaspora musical forms, genres, and styles. The field of ethnomusicology is a rich one, and through it much of the early African Diaspora work was carried out. Work done by Alan Lomax, J. D. Elder, Alan Waterman, and others

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documented a range of forms that demonstrated how African rhythmic patterns could be subjected to structural analysis. Recent DVD collections such as “Songs of the Orisha Palais, Trinidad and Tobago” (2005) could only be credibly mounted and sustained with that earlier sustaining work already in place. In this regard, Maureen Warner-Lewis’s work in linguistics has also been amazingly solid. Her Trinidad Yoruba (1996) and earlier Guinea’s Other Suns (1991) have been formidable in documenting African religions in the Caribbean at a time when African Diaspora work was not the popularly engaged in research field that it is today. In this contemporary period, one can identify a range of academic programs and departments dedicated to the study of the African Diaspora, some of which have doctoral programs, like the University of California, Berkeley, one of the first programs to specifically offer an advanced degree in African Diaspora Studies. Approximately 25 programs (see the www.africandiasporastudies.com) have an Africana studies program or do Diaspora work in other departments. Courses like Spelman College’s two-semester “African Diaspora and the World,” attempt to give a general coverage of the African Diaspora akin to the Western civilizations courses that are staples of the major universities, in order to provide students with knowledge of the major historical, philosophical, artistic, and scientific developments of the African world. Therefore, work on African Diaspora communities within the larger construct of African Diaspora, can be advanced. Quite a number of scholars have engaged with or are engaging with Afro-Brazilian communities in various ways, and Afro-Brazilians themselves are beginning to be the major and best articulators of their own history and culture. Work on the Caribbean has also become a very dynamic field advanced by scholars and associations internationally. For example, the Australian Association of Caribbean Studies held a February 2007 conference in Melbourne, “Mo(ve)ments: Local, Regional, Global in Caribbean Popular Culture,” that covered issues of migration and thereby of Diaspora. In this regard, the work of Linda Heywood, Maureen Warner-Lewis, and J. D. Elder has deliberately engaged Diaspora as a theoretical framework, and, as already indicated, the work on the Caribbean Diaspora (by Harry Goulbourne, Winston James, Stuart Hall, Beryl and Paul Gilroy, Alrick Cambridge, C. L. R. James, John La Rose, Claudia Jones, Amon Saba Saakana) as it relates to Caribbean communities in the United Kingdom has often offered theoretical leadership in articulating this construct, as have a range of scholars in the United States. The broadening of the definition of Afro-America to include the north and the south brings back into focus the African Diaspora communities throughout South America. As already indicated, work on Asia and the Maghreb is also increasing, and work on Australia is another area that will likely soon be advanced. Besides the premodern migration that produced black Aboriginal inhabitants in Australia, from 1888 to 1901, black convicts are reported to have entered Australia—a group of 13 black convicts arrived with the first shipment. Often they were those convicted for minor crimes and a kind of debt peonage. And in the early 1900s there was reportedly a Sydney branch of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association. Documents of letters of representatives sent overseas are available in the Garvey archives, and this is an area well worth a fuller exploration.

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Introduction | xlix Overlapping or intersecting diaspora allows further relational work that looks at Indian, Jewish, Arab, Asian, Native American, Aboriginal, Latin American, and Caribbean Diasporas as these overlap or extend the boundaries of the African Diaspora. This is another area that is going to be very significant in the future. And a new African Diaspora, created by Africans migrating for economic reasons to various metropolises and other continents in the 20th century, is another key area for research. By some counts, more Africans have crossed the Atlantic in this period than in the earlier transatlantic slavery period. The products of some of these overlapping or intersecting Diaspora have been often named, misnamed, and claimed under douglarization, creolity, mulatto consciousness, hybridity, mestizaje, concepts that are also presented in this Encyclopedia. WOMEN AND THE A FRICAN D IASPORA The question of gendering the African Diaspora is one that is long in being fully articulated from the early work of conferences like the Michigan “Black Woman Writer in the African Diaspora” in 1985. Audre Lorde’s work in building an international community for black women has articulated in Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States the kind of black women’s Diaspora politics that parallels earlier work by Pan-Africanists to create a Zami community. Lorde’s essay “Sisterhood and Survival,” available in Sister Outsider, provides the impetus for a black woman’s Diaspora. And as she stated in an interview with Pratibha Parmar and Jackie Kay, Lorde (1988) also believed some kind of international network of black women was absolutely essential. Throughout the 1980s, the journal Sage had an African Diaspora orientation in terms of the kind of research it included from black women internationally. In this regard, Beverly Guy-Sheftall’s essay “Feminism and Black Women and the African Diaspora,” which is included in this encyclopedia, provides some important connections between women as political and intellectual organizers throughout the 20th century. A conference organized by Rosalyn Terborg-Penn at Howard University, out of which was produced Women in Africa and the African Diaspora (1989; ed. Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, Sharon Harley and Andrea Benton Rushing), has also been significant, recalling as it does the work of Filomena Steady in The Black Woman Crossculturally (1989). Both contexts have influenced at least two generations of scholars studying women and the African Diaspora. Describing itself as producing concepts, methodology, and projected guidelines for studies of women and the African Diaspora, Women in Africa and the African Diaspora included a nice range of scholarship on Latin American, Brazilian, African American, Caribbean, and African women and often used a quilting metaphor for the Diaspora. See also In Praise of Black Women, Volume 4: Modern Women of the Diaspora (2003). Writings of Black Women of the Diaspora by Lean’ tin L. Bracks (1998) also used the quilting metaphor, but applies it specifically to literature. Daughters of Africa. An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from the Ancient Egyptian to the Present (1992; ed. Margaret Busby) is an expansive and ambitious project. Earlier, Chinosole had spoken of “matrilineal Diaspora” and Grewal et al. had produced a collection of creative works titled Charting the Journey.

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Similarly, Black Women’s Diasporas, the second volume of International Dimensions of Black Women’s Writing (1994; ed. Carole Boyce Davies), is perhaps one of the only places one can see the formation of black women’s Diasporas in practice. Another would be Miriam DeCosta-Williams’s edited collection Daughters of the Diaspora: Afra-Hispanic Writers (2003). In 2002, Judy Byfield organized a conference at Dartmouth College on the subject of “Gendering the African Diaspora: Gender, Culture and Historical Change in the Caribbean and Nigerian Hinterland.” One of its general aims was to “encourage the production of scholarship that both extends and challenges our current writing of African and Caribbean women’s history/cultures, and integrates gender analysis more systematically into our conceptualization of the African Diaspora.” And the two Yari Yari Pamberi international black women’s writing conferences at the turn of the century hosted by New York University brought together black women writers from all over the world. Since then, not much has happened in an organized way on this topic, and this area of study requires further development. Individual works of a new generation of scholars, like Michelle Stephens (Black Empire: The Masculine Global Imaginary of Caribbean Intellectuals in the United States, 1914–1962, 2005) and Michelle Wright (Becoming Black: Creating Identity in the African Diaspora, 2004), have challenged the masculinist constructions of black internationalism as they have cleared the ground for the study of new African Diaspora identities that are appropriately gendered. Thus, Jane Ifekuwingwe’s Scattered Belongings. Cultural Paradoxes of “Race,” Nation and Gender (1999) and Meredith Gadsby’s Sucking Salt: Caribbean Women Writers, Migration, and Survival (2006) advance the discourse on black women’s identity in migration as earlier articulated by Carole Boyce Davies in Black Women, Writing and Identity. Migrations of the Subject (1994). Gadsby’s own research into salt and the African Diaspora is included in this encyclopedia. More recently, Katherine McKittrick’s Demonic Grounds. Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle (2006) uses Sylvia Wynter’s formulation to advance the study of the geographies of women in the Diaspora. It is important to point out then, that although there have been a fair number of works on black women, the work has often dealt with individual/national or regional specifics like the United States or the Caribbean. Confronting the contributions of black women as a larger category not limited to specific national boundaries is what seems to be appearing in this new round of scholarship. This Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora, although it does not specify a section on women in the African Diaspora, covers the issue of women in specific entries. It includes proportionately a large number of entries on and by women and includes subjects not often covered in general works on black women, like an entry on the 1950s black women’s activist organization, Sojourners for Truth and Justice. Early work on specific African Diaspora communities, particularly in the United States, has, for the most part, marked this discussion. Audre Lorde’s “Zami” formation has already been mentioned as one model in which issues of black women’s sexuality have migrated across the African Diaspora from Carricacou and the Eastern Caribbean, its places of origin, to the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and even South Africa in terms of Lorde’s organizational

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Introduction | li schema. By these means, submerged discourses of black female sexuality that challenged heteronormatives began to be articulated. Gloria’s Wekker’s “Mati” work has also articulated another version, this time coming out of Suriname and the Dutch Caribbean; in many ways it is a sexual-cultural formation that is related to, although not identical to, black lesbian constructions in the United States. And though Ifi Amadiume resists the limitation of the meaning of her work to issues of sexuality in the European-American sense, her discussion of some aspects of African gender constructions in Male Daughters, Female Husbands (1987) has opened up issues of gender in the African context, with variations by Ronke Oyewumi (The Invention of Women, 1997) in her subsequent work. A 2006 special issue of Feminist Africa, guest edited by Rhoda Reddock, was subtitled “Diaspora Voices” and included a range of essays from scholars in the African Diaspora. In her introductory essay, Reddock brings together for analysis the passing of the African Protocol on Women in relation to the passing of the African Union’s African Diaspora definition, both in 2005, to underscore an African Union recommitted to gender equity and to solidifying its ongoing relationship between the continent and the Diaspora. As far as black gay communities are concerned, work on the U.S. black gay experience has been advanced by the work of poet/activist Essex Hemphill and the filmic interventions of Marlon Riggs, such as “Black Is Black Ain’t.” Dwight McBride’s work on James Baldwin and in advancing a more inclusive Africana Studies in general has done some of the kind of institutional work that allows the field to be cleared and that is required to advance this discourse. More substantial work has been produced for a special issue on GLBT literature and culture for the journal Callaloo (vol. 23, issue 1, 2000). An edited collection by Thomas Glave on literature of Caribbean/Antillean Gay communities, titled Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from the Antilles, is described as the first anthology of lesbian and gay writing from the Caribbean. For scholars who discuss the question of essential identities, one has to always place the dialectics of Diaspora in the foreground. Although the idea of the home and exile is one formation raised by Elliott Skinner in the Harris book, Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora, some would argue that this borrows too much from the Jewish Diaspora. Although a consciousness of homeland is critical, often returning to a homeland, as in the case of Palestine, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, can be laden with conflict as it means dispossessing people who are already occupying that place and who have similar claims. Diaspora discourse can look relationally at a range of communities, even as it evokes some older historical realities. Thus, what does it include? What does it exclude? What are the erasures and disclosures? What are the loci of contradictory or contestatory understandings of Diaspora? These are still questions worth pursuing. S COPE OF T HIS E NCYCLOPEDIA Producing the Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora has been a daunting task. It was driven by the fact that many colleagues and community supporters were clear that this was a project that needed to be done and therefore they were supportive of its intent. We began with a meeting of consultants from a range of areas across

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the African Diaspora in order to develop a pool of intellectuals that we could engage, call on, and encourage to contribute subject essays in their specialization areas. That group decided on the pattern we have used, which covers subject entries of major aspects and disciplines of the African Diaspora; people, represented by selected biographies and coverage of ethnic groups that have contributed to the African Diaspora or had significant impact on the advancement of the discourse; regional and country essays on some critical areas of the African Diaspora; and topical essays on African Diaspora concepts. Entries were organized in terms of places (geography), people (personalities), movements (e.g., Pan-Africanism), theories (e.g., Négritude) in a straightforward A to Z order. Each entry also provides cross-references: at the end of each entry is a “See also” listing that provides researchers with a way of finding additional material on a topic. We developed a Web site (www.africandiasporastudies.com) to update contributors on the project, solicited entries at major conferences, and created entry format models, which included original research and full coverage of the field in well-documented and concise entries, including recent discoveries and theories. A list of recommended readings for further research accompanies entries. In terms of scope, the volumes are international in reach, covering the five continents with documented African Diaspora communities. We had excellent coverage from Latin American communities like Colombia, Bolivia, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, calling on young scholars from those areas, like Paula Moreno-Zapata (Colombia), to contribute recent work, or Leana Cabral, the niece of Amilcar Cabral, also a young scholar-activist, to do an entry on Cape Verde. More experienced scholars like Marco Polo Hernandez Cuevas on AfroMexico or Quince Duncan on Costa Rica were contacted to contribute their research. Juan Angola Maconde of Bolivia entered this project after the ASWAD conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2005. And we have identified the important contribution on Afro-Ecuadorians. All of these scholars have provided knowledge of their research on their own communities. Many of these scholars have been working on their own communities in isolation and are pleased to have a location for collaborative research. The Indian Ocean Diaspora was also well covered because of the advances in the knowledge of scholars like Shihan De Silva from that area and the TADIA (The African Diaspora in Asia) organization which hosted its first conference in Goa in January 2006. Subject essays from expert scholars in their fields, including Nkiru Nzegwu on art and the African Diaspora, Joseph Inikori on the political economy of the African Atlantic system, Monica Jardine on the Caribbean migration, and Brian Meeks on Caribbean black power have been important contributions. Many of these subject essays were presented at a conference held at Florida Memorial University in 2005. In this regard, we also encouraged and solicited entries from graduate students, allowing them by these means to have a publication profile and benefiting from the fact that they are usually the ones doing the freshest work in the field. Part of this has been advanced through the creation of FLASC—the Florida Africana Studies Consortium, which has been one of the umbrellas for this project as has African–New World Studies at Florida International University.

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Introduction | liii The purpose of this publication, as we have indicated, is to provide in one place a well-documented and readily accessible body of information about the most important historical, political, economic and cultural relations between people of African descent in the world community. What connects such a diverse group of people and wide-ranging locations across time and space? How they have affected and been affected by their environments? How have they created and re-created cultural forms and movements? For hip-hop we decided to go with a general subject entry on hip-hop culture in the African Diaspora and then a second entry on hip-hop in Latin America. We also decided on a few exponents of the tradition, like Mos Def, rather than the proliferation of artists that one could end up having. Perhaps a future “Encyclopedia of Hip Hop Culture” will be planned at some later date. We, the editors of this encyclopedia, envisage a library of African Diaspora materials as one similarly encounters materials on other area subjects. The audience includes students, journalists, policy makers, activists, scholars, libraries, international organizations, and all those with an interest in the African Diaspora. Our editors at ABC-CLIO have been helpful in this process, making sure that we had balance and distribution, and even providing a grid by which we could check off where each contribution came from, thereby ensuring a more even coverage. Biographies were the hardest entries to make decisions about, though the easiest submissions to receive. Though these entries tended to be shorter than most, we had to make selections carefully about what to include so the biographical entries did not go on ad infinitum. And of course everyone had his or her own list of people he or she thought should be included. At one time someone submitted his entire family for inclusion. For major contributors — scholars-activists-theoreticians like C. L. R. James—we allotted a bit more space, as they were often difficult to limit to a short 500-word entry without doing a disservice to what these people represented. The discipline that was enforced by our publisher limited entries to those who had a significant impact on the African Diaspora itself rather than on a single nation or community. The African Diaspora then and its subformations, like the “Black Atlantic” or the “Black Pacific,” as units of analysis, have allowed the kind of academic inquiry that will also have impact on policy and on people’s understandings of themselves in the world. This is therefore one area that does not remain as a singly academic enterprise, for in our increasingly globalized world, “Diaspora literacy,” a term developed by Veve Clark and included in this volume, becomes an important way of reading the world. Although we have attempted to obtain entries on a wide range of African Diaspora forms and manifestations that display cultural connections, we are conscious of the need to expand the knowledge base in a range of areas. We have included subject essays or shorter entries on health, sports, carnivals, hair, dance, music, and religion. For scholars in the field, a number of subject areas still remain underresearched. These include style and fashion in the African Diaspora, body, sound, food, architecture, “livity” or lived experience, and language. New work is being done on the relationships of Diaspora to transnationalism and on theories of Diaspora. Additional work on contemporary African Diasporas in places like

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Australia and the South Pacific needs to be done. Some work on the Arabian Peninsula and the Mediterranean is being carried out. As we connect the nodal points of the African Diaspora via various knowledge exchanges and publications like this one, we advance understanding of world communities in that still unfinished process of reclaiming the epistemologies and thereby the humanity of African Diaspora peoples. Ideally, a web-based project that can be infinitely updated is perhaps the direction that one can pursue in the future (23). Carole Boyce Davies Editor

R EFERENCES Appadurai. 2006. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” In Theorizing Diaspora, ed. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur, 26–48. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Baptiste, Fitzroy A. 1998. “African Presence in India —I and II.” African Quarterly 38 (1998): 76–90, 91–126. Brah, A. 1996. Cartographies of Diaspora. Contesting Identities. London: Routledge. Byfield, Judith. 2000. “Introduction: Rethinking the African Diaspora.” Special issue on Diaspora. African Studies Review 43:1 (April):1–9. Caitlin-Jairazbhoy, Amy, and Edward Alpers, eds. 2004. Siddis and Scholars. Essays on African Indians. Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press. Clifford, James. 1994. “Diasporas.” Cultural Anthropology 9:3:302–338. de Silva, Shihan Jayasuriya, and Richard Pankurst, eds. 2003. The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean. Lawrenceville, N.J.: Africa World Press, 2003. Diop, Cheikh Anta. 1991. Civilization or Barbarism. Brooklyn, New York: Lawrence Hill Books (Paris: Presence Africaine, 1981). Drake, St. Clair. 1993. “Panafricanism and Diaspora.” In Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora, 2nd ed., ed. Joseph E. Harris, 451–514. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press. Edwards, Brent Hayes. 2003. The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Gilroy, Paul. 2006. “The Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of Modernity.” In Theorizing Diaspora, ed. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur, 49–80. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Gomez, Michael A. 2005. Reversing Sail. A History of the African Diaspora. New York: Cambridge University Press. Gomez, Michael, ed. 2006. Diasporic Africa: A Reader. New York: New York Univeristy Press. Grewal, Shabnam, Jackie Kay, Liliane Landor, Gail Lewis and Pratibha Parmar. 1988. Charting the Journey: Writing by Black and Third World Women. London: Sheba Feminist Publishers. Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo. 2005. Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas. Restoring the Links. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.

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Introduction | lv Hall, Stuart. “Epilogue: Through the Prism of an Intellectual Life.” In Meeks (2007): 269–291. Hall, Stuart. 2006. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” In Theorizing Diaspora, ed. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur, 233–247. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Hamilton, Ruth Simms. 1995. “Conceptualizing the African Diaspora.” In African Presence in the Americas, ed. Carlos Moore, Taunya Saunders, and Shawna Moore, 393–410. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Hanchard, Michael. 1990. “Identity, Meaning and the African American.” Social Text 24:31–42. Hanchard, Michael. 1991. “Racial Consciousness and Afro-Diasporic Experiences. Antonio Gramsci Reconsidered.” Socialism and Democracy 3 (Fall): 83–106. Harris, Joseph E., ed. 1982. Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press. Harris, Joseph. 2003. “Expanding the Scope of African Diaspora Studies: The Middle East and India, a Research Agenda.” Radical History Review 87 (Fall): 157– 68. Hesse, Barnor, ed. 2000. Un/settled Multiculturalisms: Diaspora, Entanglements, “Transruptions.” London: Zed Press. Hine, Darlene Clark, and J. McLeod. 1999. Crossing Boundaries. Comparative History of Black People in Diasporas. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hintzen, Percy C. 2007. “Diaspora, Globalization and the Politics of Identity.” In Meeks, Culture, Politics, Race and Diaspora. The Thought of Stuart Hall, 248–268. Jamaica: Ian Randle. Jalloh, Alusine, and Stephen E. Maizlish, eds. 1996. The African Diasporas by Joseph Harris, Alusine Jalloh, Joseph Inikori, Colin A. Palmer, Douglas B. Chambers, Dale T. Graden. Arlington, Texas: Texas A & M Press. Killam, Douglas, and Ruth Rowe, eds. 2000. The Companion to African Literatures. Oxford: James Currey and Bloomington: Indiana University Press. McKittrick, Katherine. 2007. “I Entered the Lists: Diaspora Catalogues.” XCP: Cross-Cultural Poetics 17:7–29. Meeks, Brian, ed. 2007. Culture, Politics, Race and Diaspora. The Thought of Stuart Hall. Kingston: Ian Randle. Morehouse, Maggi M. 2007. “The African Diaspora: Using the Multivalent Theory to Understand Slave Autobiographies.” Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education: An International Journal. 1:3 (July-September): 199–216. Palmer, Colin. 1998. “Defining and Studying the Modern African Diaspora.” American Historical Association Newsletter 36 (6 September): 21–25. Patterson, Tiffany, and Robin D. G. Kelley. 2000. “Unfinished Migrations: Reflections on the African Diaspora and the Making of the Modern World.” African Studies Review 43 (1 April): 11–45. Prasad, Kiran Kamal. 2005. In Search of an Identity. An Ethnographic Study of the Siddis in Karnataka. Bangalore, India: Jana Jagrati Prakashana. Rashidi, Runoko, and Ivan van Sertima, eds. 1999. African Presence in Early Asia. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.

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Shepperson, George. 1993. “African Diaspora: Concept and Context.” In Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora, 2nd ed., ed. Joseph E. Harris, 41–49. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press. van Kessel, Ineke. 2006. “Conference Report: Goa Conference on the African Diaspora in Asia.” African Affairs (Oxford) (June). Van Sertima, Ivan. 2003. They Came Before Columbus. The African Presence in Ancient America. New York: Random House. Walker, Sheila S., ed. 2001. African Roots/American Cultures. Africa in the Creation of the Americas. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield. Williams, Chancellor. 1976. Destruction of Black Civilization. Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D. Chicago: Third World Press. Zimba, Benigna, Edward Alpers and Allen Isaacman, eds. 2005. Slave Routes and Oral Tradition in Southeastern Africa. Maputo, Mozambique: Filsom Entertainment, Lds. N OTES 1. Thanks to Greek Diaspora writer Konstandina Dounis at LaTrobe University in Melbourne, Australia, and Dean Kalimniou, an expert in languages and a lawyer in Melbourne for providing details of usage in the Greek language and as it pertains to the Greek Diaspora. This information benefits from a seminar in diasporas that I gave at LaTrobe University in February 14, 2007, at which I fortuitously met Konstandina. 2. Lawrence M. Friedman. 2001. “Erewhon: the Coming Global Legal Order.” Stanford Journal of International Law Summer: 2–11; International Monetary Fund. 2000/2001.Globalization: Threat or Opportunity. Issues Brief. International Monetary Fund offers some discussion of the economic implications. See also Globalization and Its Discontents by Saskia Sassen and Anthony Appiah (New Press, 1999). 3. A useful study of some of the theories of African diaspora is Maggi M. Morehouse, “The African Diaspora: an Investigation of the Theories and Methods Employed When Categorizing and Identifying Transnational Communities,” African American Studies, University of California, Berkeley (n.d.), http://istsocrates.berkeley.edu/~african/morehouse.pdf. 4. Interview for “African Diaspora Knowledge Exchange” conference, Florida Africana Studies Consortium (FLASC), Florida Memorial University, Miami, May 2006. Available on FLASC, DVD Series \#1, 2007. 5. Indeed, the Encyclopedia Americana (Danbury, CT: Scholastic Library Publishers, 15 editions, 22 volumes), under its entry on “Diaspora” indicates, “See Jews.” 6. See, for example, Joseph E. Harris, “Expanding the Scope of African Diaspora Studies: The Middle East and India, a Research Agenda,” Radical History Review 87 (Fall 2003): 157–168; Fitzroy A. Baptiste, “African Presence in India — I and II,” African Quarterly 38:2 (1998): 76–126; African Presence in Early Asia, edited by Runoko Rashidi and Ivan Van Sertima (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1999); and Slave Routes and Oral Tradition in Southeastern Africa, edited by Benigna Zimba, Edward Alpers, and Allen Isaacman (Maputo, Mozambique: Filsom Entertainment, 2005). The most recent contribution in this area has been the conference “The African Diaspora in Asia,” held in Goa, India, in January, 2006. See

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Introduction | lvii Ineke van Kessel, “Conference Report: Goa Conference on the African Diaspora in Asia,” African Affairs (Oxford) (June, 2006). See also the work The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean, edited by Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya and Richard Pankurst (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2003). 7. See, for example, essays in The African Diaspora by Joseph E. Harris, Alusine Jalloh, Joseph Inikori, Colin A. Palmer, Douglas B. Chambers, Dale T. Graden (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996); Michael A. Gomez, Reversing Sail. A History of the African Diaspora (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas. Restoring the Links (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005). 8. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, created to ensure the protection of rights and freedoms, was very clear about the need to make a statement on slavery. 9. Cheikh Anta Diop’s Precolonial Black Africa (Independent Publishers Group, 1990) and the range of Diop’s publications are reliable sources of this information based on substantial research. See also Chancellor Williams, The Destruction of Black Civilization (Chicago: Third World Press, 1987). 10. Examples of the most egregious of these include apartheid in South Africa, U.S. segregation laws, and Brazil’s official processes of “racial democracy,” which functioned to disenfranchise the majority African-derived populations. 11. This entire issue of African Studies Review on African Diaspora includes essays on Brazil and the Indian Ocean, which, along with the introduction by guest editor, Judith Byfield, “Rethinking the African Diaspora,” are important resources in the field of African Disapora studies. 12. See also his recent edition of papers from the first Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora conference, Diasporic Africa: A Reader (New York University Press, 2006). 13. See Carole Boyce Davies and Babacar M’bow, “Towards African Diaspora Citizenship: Operationalizing an Already Existing Geography.” In McKittrick, Black Geographies (South End Press, 2007). 14. February 1965: The Final Speeches. 15. See Web site of the African Union www.african-union.org. 16. A range of Pan-African activists, thinkers, and strategists from the continent and the African Diaspora met repeatedly in Pan African congresses beginning in 1900 and continuing throughout the century to produce the independence of Africa from colonial rule, to produce independent states, and to secure a place for a range of displaced African Diaspora peoples. These include W. E. B. DuBois, Anna Julia Cooper, Sylvester Williams, George Padmore, C. L. R. James, Marcus Garvey, Edgar Wilmot Blyden, Casely-Hayford, Kwame Nkrumah, and others. DuBois, who was at the first Pan African congress, retired to Ghana; he died and was buried there. Padmore was Nkrumah’s assistant and a major architect of PanAfricanism as articulated by Nkrumah in Ghana. 17. African Union Program Summary, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (CM/Dec. 614 [LXCIV]). 18. See: http://democracy-africa.org/articles/diaspora02.html. 19. See: www.au2002.gov.za/docs/key oau/au act.pdf.

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20. See: http://www.whadn.org/. 21. This site, which is now closed, was available at http://diaspora.northwest ern.edu. 22. See the conference report, “Goa Conference on the African Diaspora in Asia” by Ineke van Kessel, African Affairs, June 6, 2006:1–4. 23. The late Lino de Almeida suggested that it be housed in a place like Brazil.

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One event that forever affected his psyche was the story of the Afro-Brazilian abolitionist and writer Luiz Gama, mulatto son of a white aristocrat. Gama’s mother, a freedwoman, was a leader of the 19th-century Male insurrection in Bahia. Luiz was born free, but his irresponsible father sold him into slavery in São Paulo to pay off gambling debts. Notwithstanding his bad fortune, Luiz was able to pull himself out of this condition, becoming a leading abolitionist and attorney, and committing himself to the the manumission of slaves until abolition in 1888. The young Abdias was a brilliant, hardworking student. He was trained as an accountant and served six years in the Brazilian army, which he left as a result of racial discrimination. When he had enlisted in 1930, he was naive and hopeful of finding a good life in the big city of São Paulo. It was during that stint that he received a distressing telegram from home, went absent without leave and arrived to find his mother dead. Though politically confused, Abdias was firm in his engagement with his black identity. He moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1936 where he worked as a news reporter, studied economics, and got his university degree. His entry into the Afro-Brazilian struggle began with Frente

See National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

z Nascimento, Abdias do (1914–) Abdias do Nascimento was born in 1914 in the small town of Franca in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. One of seven children, his memories of the life of his parents and grandparents underline his own later development as an activist in the struggle of Afro-Brazilians to regain their humanity, which had been trampled on through years of slavery and subsequent discrimination and marginalization. Before her death, when Abdias was but sixteen, his mother used to tell him stories of their people’s incessant suffering, including that of his maternal grandmother, who had been committed to a notorious mental institution, Juqueri, as the direct result of the harsh, horrid life Afro-Brazilians experienced. His mother also related stories about his paternal grandmother, who had been raped by a Portuguese merchant and gave birth to his father. 699 www.abc-clio.com

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Negra Brasileira (Brazilian Black Front), which was created in the 1920s. He and others organized the first youth gathering, the AfroCampineiro Congress in 1938. In 1950, Teatro Experimental Negro (the Black Experimental Theater, or TEN) organized the first Congress of Brazilian Blacks in Rio. Those organizations and meetings asserted the African presence in Brazil, making blacks aware of their rights and arousing pride in their African ancestry. Abdias was involved in protest all his life. He joined the integralist movement, a nationalist but hardly pro-black group, because of its antiimperialist and anticapitalist agenda. There, he met people who became lifelong friends, such as the poet Gerardo Mello Mourão, and progressive bishop Helder Camara, whose name was banned from public reference by the military dictatorship. His time in that movement helped Abdias to understand the intricacy of Brazil’s socioeconomic and political realities. As soon as he discovered the racist downside of the movement, he jumped ship and involved himself full time in the Afro-Brazilian movement. After obtaining his degree in economics, Abdias returned to Rio de Janeiro. His decision to create TEN there was influenced by an experience in Lima, Peru. In 1940, he and some friends had formed the Holy Orchid Brotherhood: they were three Argentines and three Brazilians, poets all, traveling through South America, destitute but surviving on their creative energy. At Lima, they attended a production of Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones, in which a white actor in blackface played the title role. There and then, Abdias decided to create a black theater in Brazil. Before the inception of TEN, however, he was jailed for a club incident for which he had been discharged from the army. There, he founded a convicts’ theater, thus wetting his feet as theater director. TEN’s objective was to showcase Afro-Brazilian creativity and to use theater as a weapon in the struggle to improve the living conditions of blacks, while emphasizing the excellence of their culture. The doors

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were open to white participants, as long as they accepted the theater’s premises. Abdias summarily rejected any sign of paternalism. His theater was supported by many people, including Eugene O’Neill, whose play was first on the list of productions. The premiere was held at Rio’s exclusively for whites Municipal Theater on May 8, 1945, by the order of President Getulio Vargas, Brazil’s dictator. TEN’s future was tumultuous, victimized by detractors uncomfortable with its agenda. Always unruffled, Abdias and his group published a newspaper, Quilombo: Black Life, Problems and Aspirations (1949–1950), which contained a variety of thought-provoking articles and essays, such as Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Black Orpheus” on Négritude, and biographical sketches on important black figures, such as Solano Trindade. Quilombo means “maroon society,” symbol of African resistance, freedom, and survival. From an early age, Abdias had been irked by his people’s absence from the political arena. He got involved in politics in Rio and ran unsuccessfully for office on several occasions. In his opinion, his failure was due to racism. Political success came upon his return from exile in 1981, after the military dictatorship ended. He won elections for the National Congress in 1982, becoming the first African-Brazilian representative explicitly dedicated to advancing Afro-Brazilian concerns. In 1990, he became the first Afro-Brazilian senator in Brazil’s National Assembly. In 1991, when Leonel Brizola, the new governor of Rio, created a state secretariat for the defense and promotion of black peoples, he appointed Abdias as secretary. Abdias’s international African Diaspora experience was enabled when he was invited to New York on a grant in 1968. In the United States, he had the opportunity to continue his scholarly, cultural, artistic, and political work and to gain the recognition that was denied him back home. He derived special joy from the attitude of New York City’s African American community. He met important figures and participated in demonstrations by black students,

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Nascimento, Abdias do (1914–) | 701 joining those at Harvard who were keeping vigil at the president’s office for divestment from apartheid South Africa. He visited the Black Panthers’ headquarters in Oakland and met Bobby Seale. Abdias was invited to several institutions as professor, lecturer, and fellow. At the State University of New York at Buffalo, he was named full professor. Notwithstanding all those gratifying successes, the African-Brazilian neither forgot his African roots nor the fact of American racism. He once went to the New York Human Rights Commission to report a woman who refused to rent him an apartment. He was invited twice to speak to the Congressional Black Caucus, in 1980 and 1983, the latter occasion as member of Brazil’s National Congress. The U.S. example showed him the sad state of race relations in Brazil. It was also during the American exile that he met and married his wife, Elisa. Pan-Africanism is well documented in his travels on the African continent, and involvement in many activities on behalf of his ancestral home. He visited Nigeria in 1977 during the FESTAC (Festival of African Culture). Despite the fact that he was excluded from the official Brazilian delegation, Abdias made a name for himself with a fiery statement on Brazilian racism; the text became the seminal book O Genocídio do Negro brasileiro (The Genocide of Brazilian Blacks). He was one of the driving forces behind several congresses on black culture held in the African Diaspora. He delivered the inaugural lecture at the W. E. B. DuBois Center for PanAfrican Culture in Accra, Ghana, in 1988. The following year, he spent a month in Angola as a United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) consultant. On March 21, 1990, he was present at Windhoek for the ceremony of Namibia’s independence, which he considers “the crowning event in these Pan-African peregrinations.” Since his return to Brazil in 1981, Abdias has done much more than participate in politics.

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He founded the Afro-Brazilian Studies and Research Institute (IPEAFRO), which sponsored the Third Congress of Black Culture in the Americas (São Paulo 1982). In 1984, the institute, in conjunction with South West Africa People’s Organization and the United Nations, organized a seminar on 100 years of Namibia’s struggle for independence. It also created the teacher’s cultural training program, Sankofa: Consciousness of African Culture in Brazil, held at São Paulo’s Catholic University in 1983– 1984, and at Rio’s State University in 1984– 1995. He was a keynote speaker at the 2001 World Conference against Racism, in Durban, South Africa. Abdias is a prolific writer, and his books have been translated into many languages. He has edited two journals, Afrodiaspora and Thoth. His artwork has been exhibited at several venues, in Brazil and abroad, most recently in Rio (2005). Of the many awards given to him, one of the most memorable was the UNESCO Toussaint L’Ouverture Prize, after his 2004 nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. His abstract paintings constitute a dimension of his creativity of which many may be unaware. Similar to his writings and thoughts, the art emanates from and is immersed in African culture as the basis for his humanity. Although not a Candomblé initiate, Abdias loves and respects the Orisha, deities of Ifa, traditional African religion, and the figures he portrays, even though abstract in the Eurocentric sense, are filled with symbols of Ogun, Sango, Yemanja, and others. His Pan-Africanist philosophy is called quilombismo, derived from quilombo, the independent state established by the maroons who ran away from slave plantations. It is defined and explained in his 1980 book, Quilombo. The idea is for all Africans, continental and diasporic, to eschew all forms of bondage and to come together beyond national borders for true liberation, culturally, socially, and economically. The importance of Africa remains the anchor of Abdias’s political and cultural

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program. Throughout his life, he has always sought respect for African Brazilians, and his ultimate goal is to “build an African Brazil.” Femi Ojo-Ade See also Brazil: Afro Brazilians; Diasporic Marronage; Guyana; Movimento Negro Unificado; Pan-Africanism. F URTHER R EADING Butler, Kim D. 1998. Freedoms Given. Freedoms Won. Afro Brazilians in Post Abolition Sao Paulo and Salvador. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Nascimento, Abdias do. 1992. Africans in Brazil. Trenton NJ: Africa World Press. Nascimento, Abdias do. 2003. Quilombo Vida Problemas e Aspiracoes de Negro Edicato.

z Nation of Islam The Nation of Islam (NOI) has proven to be one of the most influential and longest-lasting black nationalist organizations in the United States and beyond. The organization, originally known as “Allah Temple of Islam,” was founded in 1930 by Wallace D. Fard (Master Fard Muhammad) with the aim of restoring black people living in “The Wilderness of North America” to what he viewed as their rightful original position in civilization socially, morally, spiritually, and economically. According to the fundamental teachings of the NOI, Fard was a traveler from the Holy City of Mecca who had been studying blacks in the United States for well over a decade before he “made himself known” to them as a silk peddler in Detroit, Michigan, on July 4, 1930. Certain scholars argue that Fard joined and/or loosely took part in several major black nationalist groups before founding the NOI, including the Moorish Science Temple of America, the Garvey Movement, and the Hebrew Israelites. A large number of scholars,

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most of whom express extremely critical views of the NOI, have strongly questioned Fard’s claimed identity and have attempted to show that he has Polynesian or even Pakistani origins. Yet the strongest criticism made about the NOI is its teachings surrounding the concept of “race” (i.e., the black people being the “original” and “chosen” people and the white people being the “devil”). Because of these beliefs principally, both Islamic and non-Islamic scholars have questioned the NOI’s legitimacy as a true Islamic community. Yet what has not been taken into context within opposing views on this matter are the greatly intolerant views that the Arab world has by and large adopted against people of other cultures who accept Islam according to their distinct cultural understanding, especially African peoples. Hence, several West African Islamic civilizations were invaded by traditional (i.e., Arab-leaning) Islamic groups before the advent of the transatlantic slave trade because they believed mixing traditional West African customs with Islam was not true Islamic practice. After Fard mysteriously left the United States in 1934, reportedly to Mexico, the NOI continued under the leadership of one of Fard’s most committed students, Elijah Poole (now renamed Elijah Muhammad). It was at this point that Elijah Muhammad no longer taught that Fard was merely a prophet but “Allah in his person.” Consequently, Elijah Muhammad was now elevated to the status of “messenger”—the last messenger before the destruction of America, which they believed would come at the hands of Allah himself. The NOI received considerable notice throughout the 1940s and 1950s as Elijah Muhammad wrote articles for the nationally circulated black-owned newspaper The Pittsburgh Courier. However, the NOI rose to prominence and reached a zenith in its membership after the airing of a week-long television special called “The Hate That Hate Produced” with Mike Wallace in 1959. Strongly

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A young girl in the company of women of the Nation of Islam listens to Minister Farrakhan’s speech at the Millions More Movement march in Washington D.C. in October, 2005. (Noelle Theard)

influencing the NOI’s growth at the time was a fiery young minister named Malcolm X, who became the organization’s national spokesperson, responsible for building the membership of several temples (mosques) throughout the country. Malcolm X eventually left the NOI and was assassinated in 1965 by men popularly believed to be NOI members. However, out of the three assassins the only one who was actually caught at the scene was Talmadge Hayer, who was reportedly never a registered member of the NOI. Hayer testified that the other two men who were controversially identified, convicted of and charged with the crime, Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson (both NOI members), were not present at the scene and were not involved in the shooting. Although frequently denied, it has long been suspected that the Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) played a central role in the assassination of

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Malcolm X in its well-documented mission to prevent the rise of a “black messiah” as a part of its larger counterintelligence program aimed to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” the activities of “radical” movements and their leaders. In 1968, the FBI admitted that it had an agent working in a high position in the NOI. After Elijah Muhammad’s death in 1975 (although certain NOI splinter groups argue that he is still alive), the council chose his son Wallace to become the supreme minister of the NOI. Soon after, Wallace, who changed his name to Al-Imam Warith Deen Muhammad, did away with his father’s organizational structure and much of its religious beliefs, and moved the NOI toward Sunni Islam. Many of the farms and successful businesses owned by the NOI were sold. Several years later, out of dissatisfaction with Warith Deen’s leadership, several splinter

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organizations emerged under the NOI banner. The most successful among them has been led by Louis Farrakhan, who in 1968 became the NOI’s second national spokesperson. Under Farrakhan’s leadership, the NOI has continued its program of black self-determination and selfimprovement. In 1995, Farrakhan organized the historic Million Man March, which was attended by nearly 2 million men. The message of the march was focused on encouraging young black men to reaffirm responsibility at home and in the community. The march inspired the formation of a series of other marches with similar aims (i.e., the Million Women’s March, the Million Youth’s March, the Million Family March, and most recently, the Millions More Movement: 10th Anniversary of the Million Man March). As Farrakhan has increased the NOI’s presence and participation into the mainstream, so has its cultural diversity increased; it now includes a considerable Latino membership, and mosques and study groups are being developed in Canada, England, Africa, and several Caribbean countries. Antonio Ugalde-Muhammad See also COINTELPRO; Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940); Malcolm X (1925–1965); Male Revolt; Pan-Africanism; Women and Islam. F URTHER R EADING Brent Turner, Richard. 1997. Islam in the African American Experience. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Gardell, Mattias. 1996. In the Name of Elijah Muhammad. Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Gomez, Michael. 2005. Black Crescent. The Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas. New York: Cambridge University Press. Lincoln, C. Eric. 1994. The Black Muslims in America, 3rd ed. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Marsh, Clifton. 1996. From Black Muslims to Muslims: The Resurrection, Transformation, and Change of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam in America, 1930–1995, Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press.

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Muhammad, Elijah. 1992. Message to the Blackman in America, United Brothers Communications Systems.

z National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), founded in 1909, was one of the first civil rights organizations to take direct action in addressing the issues of disenfranchisement of the African American community during the 20th and 21st centuries. Using the legal system, the organization worked with chapters all across the United States to enfranchise African Americans by ending segregation and enforcing the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution (Franklin 1967). The multiracial organization also worked to end white racialized violence against blacks (both mob violence and lynching) and to end educational disparities between black and white children. The organization’s founding was sparked by the growing racialized violence against African Americans in the United States, which culminated in race riots in Brownsville, Texas in August 1906; Atlanta, Georgia, in September 1906; and Springfield, Ohio, in 1909. Another spark was provided by William English Walling’s article “Race War in the North,” which appeared in The Independent on September 3. 1908, and chronicled the Springfield riot in which whites went on a rampage, terrorizing the black community. The white mob lynched two African American men, one of whom was 84 years old, and burned black-owned homes and businesses (Franklin 1967, Bennett 1969, Fox 1970, Robinson 1997). The NAACP was founded by anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells-Barnett, chairwoman of

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National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO) | 705 the Anti-Lynching League; W. E. B. DuBois, scholar and civil rights activist (DuBois was the only black officer and was the director of publicity and research); New York high school teacher William L. Buckley; Pastor Theodore Dwight Weld and his wife, abolitionist Angelina Grimke; and Bishop Alexander Walters of the AME Zion Church and president of the AfroAmerican Council. Some participants of the Niagara Movement, such as publisher and activist William Monroe Trotter, initially refused to join the organization because of their distrust of white people (Fox 1970). The white founders of the NAACP included those liberals who were upset by the riot in Springfield, such as civil rights activist and writer Walling, social worker Mary White Ovington, abolitionist Oswald Garrison Villiard, and physician Henry Moscowitz. The white founders of the organization were wary of Wells and Trotter because of their militant stances on lynching and black civil rights. Still, because of DuBois’s presence as a board member, the organization was considered very radical and militant (Bennett 1969, Franklin 1967). The NAACP became a formal organization in 1910. In the 1920s, the group adopted “Lift Every Voice and Sing” as its official anthem. The lyrics were written by James Weldon Johnson, a founder of the NAACP who served as its secretary from 1917 to 1930, and the music was written by his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson. Two important arms of the NAACP include the Crisis Magazine, which reports on the issues and concerns of the black community and calls for change, and the Legal Redress Committee, which takes legal action related to civil rights issues such as segregation. The group has had many legal victories, including a Supreme Court decision banning the grandfather clause and the victory over racial segregation in Brown v. The Board of Education Topeka; the latter case was one of 32 won by Thurgood Marshall, who acted as special counsel to the NAACP before being appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Paula Marie Seniors

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See also DuBois, William Edward Burghardt (1868–1963); Johnson, J. Rosamond (1873– 1954); Johnson, James Weldon (1871–1938); “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” F URTHER R EADING Bennett, Lerone. 1969. Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America. Chicago: Johnson Publishing Company. Fox, Stephen R. 1970. The Guardian of Boston. New York: Atheneum. Franklin, John Hope. 1967. From Slavery To Freedom. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Logan, Rayford W. 1969. The Betrayal of the Negro: From Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson. London: Collier-Macmillan. Robinson, Cedric J. 1997. Black Movements in America. New York: Routledge. Moon, Henry Lee. 1972. The Emerging Thought of W.E.B. DuBois. New York: Simon and Schuster.

z National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO) The National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO) was founded in New York in 1973. The NBFO is important to African Diasporan history because it was the first nationally recognized organization that sought to address the simultaneity of oppressions (race, class, gender, and sexual orientation) that affect black women’s lives. Even though most black political movements were fought out of the need for people of African descent in the U.S. to be understood and redefined for themselves and by themselves, and women’s political movements were fought out of the need to be redefined as women, historically the political agendas of white women and black men had never addressed the specific oppressions experienced by black women. The Civil Rights Movements, other black liberation movements, and the women’s movements of the 1950s and 1960s were recent replays of this same dynamic.

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By 1970, the lack of positive representation in the media, political agendas, and the overall dehumanization of the black female experience and life in America created a sociopolitical body of scholarship and protest that placed black women at the center of their historical, political, spiritual, emotional, and psychological experiences, making them the focus and subjects of their own relatively defined histories and current realities. Using the donated offices of the National Organization of Women (NOW), a group of 30 Black Feminists gathered in May 1973, to discuss the same issues black women had been discussing for more than 173 years. The NBFO wanted the black community and the larger society to recognize that there was indeed a black feminist politics that had a long history and current relevance within the black community and larger society. A second aim of the NBFO was to ensure that the black community, black political movements, the contemporary feminist movement, and larger society recognized the importance of looking at oppression through a matrix of domination and simultaneity. More specifically, the NBFO wanted the world to see that racism, sexism, classism, and heterosexism did and do exist in isolation from one another, but they often intersect, which makes their effect on the lives of black women that much more severe. The NBFO also recognized the need for a national organization to address all of these issues in order to finally eradicate them within the national consciousnesses of the United States and the world. The NBFO fought for minimum wage for domestic workers; raised consciousness about rape and sexual abuse in the black community and larger society; worked with political candidates who supported NBFO issues; and confronted the racist and sexist media, which continually portrayed black women as jezebels, mammies, or tragic mulattoes. The NBFO also fought for reproductive rights for black women; an end to the sterilization abuse of black women and other women of color; equal

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access to abortion, health care, and child care; welfare rights; an end to anti-imperialist struggles; lesbian and gay rights; an end to police brutality; the preservation of the environment; labor unions; nuclear disarmament; and antiracism issues. The NBFO membership included black women from all classes and addressed issues that pertained to all of them. The NBFO held its first Eastern Regional Conference in New York in November 1973. For one of the first times in history more than 500 black feminist women from around the world gathered together to form independent chapters of the NBFO. One of the most recognized grassroots chapters that formed out of this conference was the Combahee River Collective (CRC). In 1977, the CRC, which was socialist at its core, issued one of the most publicly recognized position papers on the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. The CRC broke new ground in the development of other black feminist organizations. Even though the NBFO dissolved in 1977, sister organizations, publications, and conferences, such as the first National Conference for Black Women in Otara, New Zealand, in 1980, grew out of it, and a black feminist intellectual and political movement continues to protest and work to eradicate the oppression of black women at the regional, national, and transnational levels. Kaila Adia Story See also Combahee River Collective; Cooper, Anna Julia (1859–1964); Davis, Angela (1944–); Feminism: Black Feminist Movement in the United States; Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Lorde, Audre (1934– 1992); Sojourners for Truth and Justice. F URTHER R EADING Cole, Johnnetta Betsch, and Beverly Guy-Sheftall. 2003. Gender Talk: The Struggle for Women’s Equality in African American Communities. New York: Johnson Publishing Co. Collins, Patricia Hill. 1998. Fighting Words: Black Women and Search for Justice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

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National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA) | 707 Giddings, Paula. 1984. When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Sex and Race in America. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. Mankiller, Wilma, Gwendolyn Mink, Marysa Navarro, Barbara Smith, and Gloria Steinem, eds. 1998. Reader’s Companion to U.S. Women’s History. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. Sheftall-Guy, Beverly. 1995. Words of Fire: An Anthology of African American Feminist Thought. New York: New Press.

z National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA) The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA) defines reparation as a process of repairing, healing, and restoring a people who have been injured by governments or businesses because of their group identity and in violation of their fundamental human rights. Those injured from such inhumanity have the right to obtain from the governments or businesses responsible for the injuries what is needed to repair and heal themselves. In addition to being a demand for justice, it is a principle of international human rights law. As a remedy, it is similar to the remedy for damages in domestic law that holds a person responsible for injuries suffered by another when the infliction of the injury violates domestic law. Examples of groups that have obtained reparations include Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust; Japanese Americans interned in concentration camps in the United States during World War II; Alaska Natives for land, labor, and resources taken; victims of the 1923 massacre in Rosewood, Florida, and their descendants; Native Americans as a remedy for violations of treaty rights; and political dissenters in Argentina and their descendants. N’COBRA is a grassroots, coalition organization, founded in 1987. Its primary goal is to

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win full reparations for black African descendants residing in the United States and its territories for the genocidal war against Africans that created the transatlantic slave trade, chattel slavery, and Jim Crow laws and for the continuing vestiges of racial discrimination, which result in dual systems in virtually every area of life, including punishment, health care, education, and wealth, while maintaining the myths of white superiority and black inferiority. To help win reparations, N’COBRA has initiated several strategic fronts. Its legislative front focuses on lobbying and passing reparations proclamations, resolutions, bills, and laws at all levels (for example, organizations, cities, counties, states, U.S. Congress), while its litigation front files reparations lawsuits of all types for the African holocaust of enslavement and its vestiges, for example, filing against individuals, families, corporations, and the U.S. and other governments. N’COBRA’s grassroots and popular support front creates and distributes brochures and holds public forums (for example, town hall meetings and conferences to inform and educate the people of this important movement), while its international front lobbies and petitions international governing bodies, such as the United Nations, the World Court, and the African Union for support. Although N’COBRA’s primary focus is on obtaining reparations for African descendants in the United States, it is part of the international movement for reparations. N’COBRA’s International Affairs Commission (NIAC) is the arm of N’COBRA that is responsible for building effective international support, linkages, strategies, cooperation, and partnerships with reparations movements in other parts of the world. Representing N’COBRA, NIAC was very active during the preparatory process for the World Conference Against Racism and the Non-Governmental Organization Forum and government conference held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001. N’COBRA leaders were instrumental in forming the African and African Descendants Caucus during the preparatory

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process. Under NIAC leadership, N’COBRA played a leading role in the International Front of Africans for Reparations, which was formed at the African and African Descendants Conference in Bridgetown, Barbados, in 2002, and is a founding member of the Global African Congress, which was also organized there. NIAC is currently cochaired by Aurevouche Dorothy Benton Lewis, a founding member of N’COBRA, former national cochair of N’COBRA, and representative to the Global African Congress; and Sababu Shabka, a member of N’COBRA since the mid-1990s and former education adviser to the International Medical Exchange, a health advocacy nonprofit for African health care services. Collectively, both cochairs have travelled extensively in Africa, North and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, and the Middle East. Recently, they worked with international reparations groups in planning an International Reparations Conference that was held in Ghana in July 2006. N’COBRA continues with its organizing activity, conferences and actions, which are all designed to achieve reparations for African descendants victimized by the oppressive systems of enslavement, colonialism, segregation, discrimination, and continuing social and economic inequities. Kwame K. Afoh See also Pan-Africanism; Reparations. F URTHER R EADING N’COBRA Web site. www.ncobra.org (accessed January 12, 2008).

z Ndyuka Maroons See Suriname: The Ndyuka Maroons.

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Négritude Négritude, a political and cultural movement and theory of black solidarity and antiracism, was first developed in Paris in the 1930s and 1940s by Aimé Césaire, Léopold Senghor, and Léon Damas. Although the movement attempted to unite all black peoples in the world who had been subjugated by European colonialism and Western racism, it insisted on the centrality of Africa (and hence slavery) in determining black pride. Inspired by the Harlem Renaissance and theorized about often via poetry, the movement led to the 1947 launch of the bilingual journal Présence Africaine. Headed by Alioune Diop, Présence Africaine was also (and still is) a prolific publisher of literature from across the black world. Through its conferences in the 1950s, Négritude became the reference point for anticolonial and antiracist struggles and debates around the world and helped develop the Pan-Africanist movement. Senghor had originally taken the idea for Négritude from the 19th-century black American Edward Wilmot Blyden. Blyden was famous for his interest in establishing parallels between the manner in which Jews and African peoples had experienced modernity, a worldcomparatist viewpoint that would resurface in Césaire’s work. Renowned for its lack of a coherent and agreed definition, the Négritude movement has often been criticized (rather abstractly) as an antiracist form of “racism,” as it was perceived to promote black culture as superior to white culture. However, a reading of key texts such as Césaire’s 1950 speech Discourse on Colonialism shows the character of the movement as merely a stage toward black liberation and the end of racism, rather than an end in itself. Once the cultural imbalance foisted on blacks by European colonialism and slavery, whereby Africa and its Diasporas were deemed inferior to the advanced West, was challenged and redressed, the need for Négritude would, argued Césaire, be “dépassé” (surpassed). This is the tone of Sartre’s renowned

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Négritude | 709 1947 essay “Orphée noir,” and of the writings of Frantz Fanon. This idea of Négritude as a time-bound movement demanding equality was specifically disputed by Senghor; in a 1976 speech, he claimed, in rather staunch essentialist fashion, that blackness, Négritude, was a fundamental cultural feature of Africa and its Diaspora, and not merely a stage (or tactic) toward liberation. Indeed, Senghor’s writings throughout his life underlined his commitment to this essentialist understanding of the idea, writings that link Négritude to humanism and African authenticity in a manner that now seems to have more to do with Senghor’s role as father and president of newly independent Senegal than with a theory and practice of antiracist and anticolonial liberation. At the same time, as Arnold (1981) points out, Césaire’s Discourse displayed an ambiguous form of Marxism that, after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, became difficult for Césaire to maintain. Indeed, Césaire wrote his famous “Letter to Maurice Thorez,” then leader of the French Communist Party, announcing his resignation from the party. For Fanon, Négritude and its celebration of culture and history did not go far enough, or rather needed to be supplanted by world anticolonialism. As expressed in his book, The Wretched of the Earth (1961), Martinican poet, novelist and one-time activist Edouard Glissant is also tactfully and strategically critical of Négritude, insisting that Négritude is a moment, albeit a total one, for the oppressed black, that ceases to exist when the oppressed takes up arms against racial discrimination or colonial oppression. Thus, though adapting the “dépassement” thesis in Césaire’s conception of Négritude, Glissant is quick to point to its inability to suggest an alternative world. Other criticisms of Négritude are apparent. Creole theorists have criticized Négritude for its universalist pretensions, seeing them as mirroring European colonialism’s ideology of expansion. A gendered version of the Négritude debate also exists as a specifically female cri-

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tique of Négritude’s masculinist poetics and politics. There have also been a number of Marxist critiques of Négritude, notably by Haitian poet René Depestre. Having received a powerful rebuttal by Césaire to his criticisms of Négritude in the form of a poem (in 1956), Depestre set out his Marxist critique of Négritude in his famous Bonjour et adieu à la négritude (1980). First, he argued, there is a paradox at the heart of Négritude. Formulated to awaken and sustain the dignity of black people, who had been considered worthless animals because of slavery, Négritude had only succeeded in turning pride and selfconfidence into a “somatic metaphysics.” Rather than arm consciences against underdevelopment, Négritude dissolved its black constituents into a “perfectly inoffensive essentialism,” for a “system” (presumably capitalism and/or imperialism) that denies people their identity. “Negrologists,” argued Depestre, present Négritude as exclusive to African peoples, whether in Africa or the Americas, and as irrespective of the social, material, and above all class position in society that each black person occupies. Moreover, “recuperated” by neocolonialism, the movement was being used to hide those determinisms in poor black people’s lives that were also the conditions of their struggle for liberation: once a form of cultural “marronage,” Négritude was now a “state ideology.” Indeed, critics have rightly pointed out that many African and Caribbean rulers since independence have benefited politically from the concept of Négritude, by twisting it to justify their autocratic regimes. Senghor could certainly be accused of this in Senegal not to mention Colonel Mobutu, whose projects of authenticity and “bantuization” of Zaire drew heavily on Négritude. Haiti’s François “Papa Doc” Duvalier would similarly use a form of “noirisme.” Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature, also wondered, if the tiger does not need to proclaim its “tigritude,” why black people should need to proclaim in words their “blackness”; rather they

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should act. This position itself has been challenged and revised by Soyinka himself. Andrew Stafford See also Blyden, Edward Wilmot (1832–1912); Césaire, Aimé (1913–2008); Maroon and Marronage; Présence Africaine. F URTHER R EADING Arnold, A. James. 1981. Modernism and Négritude. The Poetry and Poetics of Aimé Césaire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Beti, Mongo, and Odile Tobner. 1989. Dictionnaire de la Négritude. Paris: L’Harmattan. Jack, Belinda Elizabeth. 1996. Négritude and Literary Criticism. The History and Theory of ‘Negro-African’ Literature in French. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

z Netherlands Antilles and the African Diaspora The Netherlands Antilles consists of six islands in the Caribbean: Saint Martin, Saint Eustatius, and Saba, which belong to the Leeward Islands (Saint Martin is partly Dutch and partly French), and Curaçao, Bonaire, and Aruba, which are the Windward Islands (Lesser Antilles). The Windward Islands are situated some 900 kilometers from the Leeward Islands, close to the mainland of Venezuela. The islands today have an autonomous position within the kingdom of the Netherlands, which is made up of the three countries: Aruba, the Netherlands Antilles, and the Netherlands. From 1568 to 1648 the Dutch were at war with Spain. In 1580, Spain conquered Portugal and expelled Dutch traders from the country. This meant that the Dutch had to find an alternative for the Portuguese salt that was used in the herring industry, and the Caribbean seemed to be a good alternative. At the end of the 16th and in the first decades of the 17th centuries, private Dutch merchants and privateers were active in the Caribbean. The Dutch

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government supported the foundation of the Dutch West India Company (WIC) in 1621 to regulate the trade to Africa and America. The main aim of this company was to extend the war against Spain. After the WIC occupied part of northern Brazil (1624–1654), slave trading became a major factor in WIC’s history. Seeking strongholds in the Caribbean in the struggle against Spain, the WIC conquered the island of Curaçao in 1634. The neighboring islands of Aruba and Bonaire followed. In the Leeward Islands, Saint Martin, Saint Eustatius, and Saba also became Dutch colonies. In 1648, Saint Martin was divided into a French and a Dutch part. During the Brazilian experience the Dutch conquered the Portuguese slave center of Elmina on the West African coast in 1637, which accelerated the nascent Dutch slave trade. From Elmina many Dutch slave ships crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Brazil, Surinam, Curaçao, and Saint Eustatius. Elmina was one of more than 20 Dutch trading posts in West Africa in the 17th century. Curaçao and Saint Eustatius were crucial staple markets for the Dutch slave trade from Africa. Dutch slave exports from Africa from 1620 to 1803 totaled approximately at 550,000 or 5 percent of the whole transatlantic black Diaspora; 64 percent of these slaves were men. Most slaves came from the Gold Coast, the Slave Coast, and the Loango-Angola region. The Dutch West Indian islands were not really suitable for large-scale plantation production, and the WIC saw more possibilities selling slaves from Curaçao and Saint Eustatius to the Spanish and English colonies in the Caribbean. About 92,000 slaves were transported to Curaçao and 29,000 to Saint Eustatius, and from there they were sold to the Caribbean region. Compared with most of the sugar-producing Caribbean colonies the percentage of slaves in the population was low, and the ratio of whites to slaves was atypical. In 1789, the Dutch Leeward Islands had about 4,256 whites, 785 free “coloreds,” and 9,400 slaves. Slaves

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Netherlands Antilles and the African Diaspora | 711 formed 65 percent of the total population, and the ratio of whites to slaves was 1 to 2.2. In Curaçao there were 3,564 whites, 4,560 free nonwhites, and 12,864 slaves in 1789. Slaves made up 61.3 percent of the population and the ratio of whites to slaves was 1 to 3.6. This meant that many slave owners were in direct and personal contact with their slaves. On the largest island, Curaçao, more than 60 percent of the slave owners possessed less then five slaves in the period from 1735 to 1863. In 1764, this island counted 534 owners and 5,534 slaves, but only five masters had more than 100 slaves. Compared with Suriname the slave population in the Dutch Antilles saw a continuous natural increase in the 19th century. This is in sharp contrast with the large plantation societies in the Caribbean. The reasons for this increase were the labor conditions, the nature of slavery, and a higher level of fertility of the female slaves. A proof of these favorable factors are figures from a reliable 1845 report stating that 70 percent of slave children on Curaçao reached the age of 12, while in Suriname only 50 percent survived to this age. The plantations in the Dutch Antilles did not produce for a world market and that made a big difference in the conditions and treatment of slaves. Dutch travelers tell us that slaves of Curaçao were afraid to be sent to Suriname where slaves were treated far worse. Although the slave situation on these islands was atypical compared with the sugar plantation societies in the West Indies, the social stratification was almost the same. The white elite was formed by Protestant Dutchmen and Sephardic Jews on Curaçao and by British and Dutch settlers in the Dutch Leeward colonies. Most were civil servants, military men, merchants, and planters. Free coloreds and blacks were important for the economy. They formed 20 percent of the Curaçao population in 1789 and 50 percent in 1863. They worked on the land and in the harbors or were artisans or sailors. At the bottom of the social ladder were slaves. They produced corn and sorghum for their masters and the

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black community, took care of the cattle, did the hard work in the salt pans of Bonaire and Saint Martin, and served their masters in crafts and in their homes. On Saint Martin and Saint Eustatius slaves were active also on the small sugar plantations. In 1863, slavery in the Dutch colonies was abolished. In a process of adaptation, mingling, and integration slaves developed local forms of music, traditions, cooking, stories, and a sort of common African language, guené, which had long existed as an underground slave language on Curaçao. This process of creolization was not identical in the six islands, because the demographic, social, and economic context was different. The Lesser Antilles had more commercial contacts with Spanish-speaking colonies, and these small societies were influenced by Spanish, Dutch, and African cultural trends. On Aruba, where slavery was not as important as on Curaçao, African influences were not really significant. Latin and Indian features dominate on this island. The African beat and rhythm in dances like tambú and tumba in the Lesser Antilles and the belief in evil ghosts or zumbis and eszé (related to Haitian Voudon) show a more sustained African connection. In the context of this slave society, and in communication with the whites, a new language, Papiamento, started to develop on Curaçao in the 17th century. In this language the nanzi (Anancy) stories of the spider as a trickster figure were recounted and adjusted to the local situation. In matters of religion in the Antilles, the Calvinist Dutch Reformed Church was not really interested in baptizing the slaves. However, the administration tolerated preachers of other religions who did the religious teaching of the slaves, and this was even encouraged in the 19th century. On Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao many slaves became Roman Catholics, and on the Leeward Islands many became Methodists, Anglicans, and Roman Catholics. Still, the white elite considered these inferior religions to be specifically for the slaves.

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On the Leeward Islands many British settlers influenced the culture and language of the Dutch colonies, and by the 19th century Caribbean English had become the common language of society. In culture and religion the Dutch Leeward Islands show many similarities with the surrounding English-speaking West Indies. In the Dutch Antilles there were three substantial slave uprisings. In 1750 and 1795 slaves of some plantations rebelled on Curaçao. The 1750 uprising lasted only one day, although 59 slaves and one white overseer were killed by the rebels. The 1795 revolt began August 17 and was more serious. More than 2,000 slaves took part in the rebellion under the leadership of a slave named Tula. After two weeks of negotiations and battles the Dutch soldiers, assisted by civilians and groups of free coloreds and blacks, defeated the rebellious slaves. After both revolts, the punishments for the slave leaders were harsh and cruel. In 1848, the 1,100 slaves of St. Eustatius demanded their freedom. The leaders of the uprising based their demand on the abolition of slavery in the British and French colonies. After some skirmishes, however, the slaves returned to the plantations. Although there were not such large slave revolts as there were in Haiti or Jamaica, the slaves of the Dutch Antilles were not stereotypically obedient. The many laws to control and regulate the behavior of slaves had to be officially reannounced periodically to remind the white settlers of the black threat. Regulations to prevent slaves from fleeing to foreign colonies were especially strict. Nevertheless, hundreds of slaves still fled from the Lesser Antilles to Venezuela. In 1760, 400 ex-slaves from these islands lived in a city quarter of Coro, Venezuela, where Papiamento was the language commonly used. Ronald Donk See also Atlantic World and the African Diaspora; Middle Passage. F URTHER R EADING Most publications about slavery in the Netherlands Antilles are in the Dutch language. In

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English the following studies can be recommended. Goslinga, Cornelis Ch., 1971. The Dutch in the Caribbean and the Wild Coast, 1580–1680. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Goslinga, Cornelis Ch., 1985. The Dutch in the Caribbean and in the Guyana’s, 1680–1791. Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum Assen. Goslinga, Cornelis Ch., 1990. The Dutch in the Caribbean and in Surinam, 1791/5–1942. Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum Assen. Postma, Johannes Menne, 1990. The Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade 1600–1815. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Sypkens Smit, M.P., 1995. Beyond the Tourist Trap: A Study of St. Maarten Culture. Amsterdam: Natuurwetenschappelijke Studiekring voor het Caraïbisch Gebied.

z Netherlands East Indies: African Soldiers Between 1831 and 1872, more than 3,000 African recruits sailed from the West African town of Elmina to Batavia (now Jakarta), the capital of the Netherlands East Indies, to serve in the Dutch colonial army. After their contracts expired, some returned to the Gold Coast where the majority settled in Elmina, on a hill still known today as Java Hill. Others, having established families during their long years of army service, opted to settle in the East Indies. They became the founding fathers of the Indo-African communities in the Javanese towns of Purworejo, Semarang, Batavia, Salatiga, and Solo. On Java, the African soldiers and their descendents became known as Belanda Hitam—black Dutchmen. The shortage of manpower in the Dutch colonial army, and the high mortality among European troops in the tropics, caused the Dutch government to explore various options for recruitment. Inspired by the example of the British West India Regiments, the Department of Colonies turned to the almost forgotten Dutch possessions on

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Netherlands East Indies: African Soldiers | 713 the Guinea Coast, where commercial activity was at a low ebb after the abolition of the slave trade in 1814. It was assumed that Africans would be better equipped to withstand the hot climate and the dreaded tropical diseases in the East Indies. The 3,080 Africans were recruited in two phases. An experimental phase began in 1831 with the recruitment of a company of 150 volunteers. However, volunteers proved very scarce. Three ships that were sent from Holland in 1831–1832 collected altogether only 44 recruits. This first batch took part in a military expedition in southern Sumatra, and initial reports about their qualities as soldiers were highly favorable: the Sumatrans were reportedly full of awe and admiration for the Africans. In September 1836, an official mission, headed by Major-General Jan Verveer, sailed from the Netherlands with a vast array of presents for the king of Ashanti and instructions to arrange for the enlistment of between 2,000 and 3,000 soldiers. Along the coast volunteers were few and far between, but the Kingdom of Ashanti—a long-standing partner in the slave trade—was seen as the key to solving the manpower problem. In a contract signed on March 18, 1837, the Ashanti king agreed to deliver 1,000 recruits within a year. He received 2,000 guns by way of advance payment, and the promise of 4,000 more to come. Moreover, the Dutch obtained permission to open a recruitment agency in Kumasi. As recruitment was still supposed to be voluntary, slaves offered to the recruiting agent received an advance payment to purchase their freedom. On arrival in Elmina, they were given an act of manumission as proof of their legal status as free men. As part of the deal two young Ashanti princes, Kwasi Boakye and Kwame Poku, accompanied Verveer back to The Netherlands, where they were to receive a Dutch education. Boakye later continued his studies in Delft and became a mining engineer. Contrary to initial plans, he did not go back to the Gold Coast but went to work in the Nether-

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lands Indies, where he died in 1904. Kwame Poku did return to Elmina in 1847, where he committed suicide in St. George’s Castle in 1850. Recruitment in Kumasi never met Dutch expectations. All in all, between 1836 and 1842 some 2.280 African soldiers made the journey to the East Indies. Recruitment was first suspended and then abandoned altogether in 1841. The British government had protested that this mode of recruitment amounted to a covert form of slave trading. Moreover, several mutinies by African troops in the Indies had led the colonial administration to doubt the wisdom of the African recruitment scheme. The African soldiers were counted as part of the European contingent of the army. Their conditions of service were mostly the same as those of Europeans, and considerably better than those of the indigenous soldiers. In due course, the Indo-Africans became part of IndoEuropean society: they spoke Dutch as their mother tongue, their children attended Dutch schools, and they held Dutch nationality. The most cohesive Indo-African community lived in the garrison town of Purworejo in central Java, where in 1859 King Willem III allocated them a plot of land. Indo-Africans living outside the main centers tended to assimilate into Indo-European or into Indonesian society, often becoming oblivious of their African roots. The African soldiers turned out to be no less vulnerable to diseases than their European counterparts. On the other hand, quite a few Africans chose to reenlist for one or more terms of two, four, or six years after their initial contracts expired. They were generally regarded as loyal and courageous, but ill-disciplined in combat. Recruitment was resumed in the late 1850s, but on a much smaller scale and with more precautions to ensure the voluntary nature of enlistment. Between 1860 and 1872, another 800 Africans enlisted in the Dutch army, but recruitment ended in 1872 with the transfer of Elmina to the British.

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By 1915, there were no longer any African soldiers in active service in the East Indies. However, many of the sons and grandsons of the African soldiers continued to serve in the Netherlands East Indies Army, establishing colonial control over the vast Indonesian archipelago, fighting the Japanese in World War II, suffering the hardships of prisoner-of-war camps, and ultimately fighting the Indonesian nationalists until the final transfer of sovereignty to Indonesia in 1949. Along with vast numbers of Dutch and Indo-Europeans, most IndoAfricans opted for repatriation to the Netherlands, where they maintained informal contacts with each other. Contact with Ghanaian descendents was established in 2000, when Thad Ulzen, the great-great-grandson of one of the first recruits, Manus Ulzen, attended the 10th Indo-African reunion in the Netherlands. Inspired by the discovery of this unknown family history, the Ulzen family founded the ElminaJava Museum in Elmina, which has exhibits on the story of the African soldiers of Java. Ineke van Kessel See also Ghana; Indian Ocean World and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Kusruri, Endri. 2002. “Reminiscences of the African Community in Purworejo, Indonesia.” In Merchants, Missionaries and Migrants: 300 Years of Dutch-Ghanaian Relations, ed. I. van Kessel, 143–149. Amsterdam: KIT Publishers. Van Kessel, Ineke. 2003. “African Mutinies in the Netherlands East Indies: A NineteenthCentury Colonial Paradox.” In Rethinking Resistance: Revolt and Violence in African History, ed. J. Abbink, M. de Bruijn, and K. van Walraven, 141–169. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. Van Kessel, Ineke, 2005. Zwarte Hollanders: Afrikaanse soldaten in Nederlands-Indië. Amsterdam: KIT Publishers. Yarak, L.W. 1996. “New Sources for the Study of Akan Slavery and Slave Trade: Dutch Military Recruitment in the Gold Coast and Asante, 1831–72.” In Source Material for Studying the Slave Trade and the African Diaspora: Papers from a Conference of the Centre of Common-

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wealth Studies, University of Stirling, ed. R. Law. Stirling: University of Stirling.

z Newton, Huey Percy (1942–) Huey Percy Newton, a major leader of the Black Panther Party was born on February 17, 1942, in New Orleans, Louisiana. He grew up in Oakland, California, and drifted into patterns of delinquency, which resulted in multiple disciplinary problems, including his dismissal from Berkeley High School and a sentence in juvenile hall. He graduated from Oakland Tech High School and attended Merritt College. His criminal activities yielded multiple criminal convictions before his enrollment at Merritt College. In 1966, he reunited with college friend Bobby Seale to form the Black Panther Party for SelfDefense (BPP) in Oakland, California. Borrowing heavily from the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, drawing from the Deacons for Defense and Justice in Louisiana, and including the teachings of civil rights activists Malcolm X, Robert Williams, and the Lowndes County Freedom organization, Newton and Seale drafted the Ten Point Platform and Program of the BPP. They demanded self-determination, employment, housing, justice, education, exemption from military service, freedom for all black men in federal, state, county, and city prisons and jails. The BPP also demanded an immediate end to police brutality through their paramilitary structure. As the minister of defense of the BPP, Newton advocated “revolutionary suicide,” the belief that a revolutionary must accept death as a resolute determination to effect political, economic, and social change. Newton’s imprisonment and subsequent conviction for the 1967 fatal confrontation that resulted in the death of police officer John Frey spawned massive nationwide Free Huey rallies organized by BPP Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver and Kathleen Cleaver. While in

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Newton, Huey Percy (1942–) | 715 prison, Newton ran unsuccessfully as a political candidate for the 17th District in California on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket. In 1968, the BPP dropped Self Defense from its name to emphasize its transition from a paramilitary stance to an organization focused on implementing a series of social programs that Newton termed “survival programs” by 1970. Newton asserted that the BPP sought natural rights for the people, as reflected in the BPP’s slogan “all power to the people.” The BPP’s free “survival programs” included breakfast programs, sickle cell anemia testing, free food and shoes, medical services, and busing to prisons. Such programs emphasized the self-determination of the BPP’s Ten Point Platform and Program. Upon his release from prison in 1971, Newton advocated his theory of revolutionary “intercommunalism” in a global context. Newton argued that technology created a “global village” that mandated sharing of all wealth produced. The BPP’s political organ, The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service (a.k.a. The Black Panther), encouraged international solidarity with the governments of Cuba, Vietnam, China, the Caribbean, and Africa. The BPP’s international outreach included facilitating the escape of BPP fugitives, including Eldridge Cleaver, to Cuba and the subsequent establishment of international BPP chapters, especially Cleaver’s International Section of the BPP in Algiers in 1970. Counterintelligence measures fractured the BPP in 1971, exacerbating growing discord. Newton and Cleaver publicly expelled each other from the BPP in 1971 resulting in internal warfare between the New York BPP chapter and other chapters. Some BPP members joined the Black Liberation Army and others moved to Oakland as Newton consolidated the organization to mobilize support for the unsuccessful political campaigns of BPP cofounder Bobby Seale and Elaine Brown, who later became the only chairwoman of the BPP (1974– 1977). In 1971, Newton traveled to China to meet with dignitaries, which added to his na-

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tional and international recognition as leader of the BPP. In 1972, Newton’s business company, Stronghold Consolidated Publications, published the account of George Jackson, who was shot and killed at San Quentin prison on August 21, 1971. He also published his autobiography, Revolutionary Suicide, in 1973. Also in 1973, noted author and poet Toni Morrison edited a collection of Newton’s writings entitled To Die for the People: The Writings of Huey P. Newton. By 1978, Bobby Seale, Elaine Brown, and other BPP members left the organization. Newton later enrolled at the University of California at Santa Cruz where he earned a doctorate degree. His doctoral dissertation, aptly titled, “War Against the Panthers: A Study of Repression in America,” examined the effects of counterintelligence measures against the BPP throughout its history. Drug abuse led to Newton’s demise in 1989. Rose C. Thevenin See also Black Panther Party; Brown, Elaine (1943–). F URTHER R EADING Newton, Huey P. 1996. War against the Panthers, A Study of Repression in America. New York: Harlem River Press. Newton, Huey P. 1973. Revolutionary Suicide. New York: Writers And Readers Publishing Inc. Newton, Huey P. 1973. To Die for the People: The Writings of Huey P. Newton. ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Writers and Readers Publishing Inc. Seale, Bobby. 1991. Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton. Baltimore: Black Classic Press.

z Nicaragua and Honduras: Miskito Indians See Honduras and Nicaragua: Miskito Indians.

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Nichols, Grace (1950–) Poet, novelist, and children’s author Grace Nichols is known for her literary platform, adeptly laced with political undertones, from which she advances the cause for black women’s self-worth, acceptance, multiplicity, and resiliency. Born and raised in Guyana, Nichols attended the University of Guyana where she earned a diploma in communications, which afforded her travels to the interior regions of Guyana, where she studied indigenous cultures. She worked as a teacher and journalist before her departure for the United Kingdom in 1977. Her first and only comingof-age novel, Whole of a Morning Sky (1986), chronicles her experiences as a child growing up in Georgetown, the capital of Guyana, and captures the country’s tumultuous path to independence and the succeeding migrations of Guyanese. Nichols is best known for her first and most celebrated poetry collection, I Is a LongMemoried Woman (1983), which won the 1983 Commonwealth Poetry Prize and was subsequently adapted into a film of the same name, directed by Frances Anne Solomon, which was awarded a gold medal at the International Film and Television Festival of New York. This collection is a reliving, a reenactment of the Middle Passage, that chronicles an unnamed African-Caribbean woman’s journey from Africa to the Caribbean, from bondage to freedom. This long-memoried woman mourns her past and the loss of her mother tongue, yet remembers and celebrates her ancestral past, preserving these memories in mind, body, and spirit. Having crossed an ocean and lost her tongue, a new tongue that spurts defiance and resistance has sprung, and a New World woman is born. Nichols claims that her next collection of poetry, The Fat Black Woman’s Poems (1984), was created out of sheer fun. However, there is a searing critique and questioning of the acceptance of a European standard of beauty—

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the slim, blue-eyed, blonde European model. Nichols posits the fat black woman as her symbol of beauty, challenging these so-called ideals and subverting so-called established norms. Immersed in self-love the fat black woman becomes the subject of her own discourse as she crowns herself the beauty of all beauties. Nichols’s next collection, Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Woman (1989), can be classified as a sequel to The Fat Black Woman’s Poems. The lazy woman questions body conformity, or more specifically, beautification of the female body, as she indicts the female tycoons, Mary Kay, Estée Lauder, and Helena Rubenstein, as the mouthpieces of patriarchy and the enforcers of law and order. Moving beyond body commodification and subjugation, the lazy woman reclaims her body sexually and spiritually. Nichols’s poetry collection, Sunrise (1996), won the Guyana Poetry Prize in the same year. The Caribbean landscape is celebrated in a lengthy poem about carnival, as an African consciousness is invoked. This carnival atmosphere has far-reaching power as England is Caribbeanized when it is hit with the 1987 hurricane. The hurricane, interestingly, awakens her Caribbean sensibility and sensitivity. Nichols is also well-known for her children’s poetry; the best-known collection is Come On into My Tropical Garden: Poems for Children (1988), where she brings to life a lush tropical landscape as she paints a fun-filled Caribbean childhood. She also coauthored, with partner and poet John Agard, No Hickory No Dickory No Dock: Caribbean Nursery Rhymes in which she substitutes British fables for West Indian folktales. Simone A. James Alexander See also Guyana; Rodney, Walter (1942–1980); United Kingdom: The African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Ngcobo, Lauretta, ed. 1987. Essays by Black Woman in Britain. London: Pluto. Nichols, Grace. 1983. I Is a Long-Memoried Woman. London: Karnak House.

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Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–1972) | 717 Nichols, Grace. 1984. The Fat Black Woman’s Poems. London: Virago. Nichols, Grace. 1986. Whole of a Morning Sky. London: Virago. Nichols, Grace. 1989. Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Woman. London: Virago. Nichols, Grace. 1991. No Hickory No Dickory No Dock: Caribbean Nursery Rhymes. London: Viking. Nichols, Grace. 1996. Sunris. London: Virago. Nichols, Grace, and John Agard. 1988. Come On into My Tropical Garden: Poems for Children. London: A & C Black. Solomon, Frances Anne, director. I Is a LongMemoried Woman. London: Women Makes Movies.

z Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–1972) Kwame Nkrumah, the first president and prime minister of Ghana, was born on September 21, 1909, in the village of Nkroful, which is located in the southwestern region of Ghana. He was a member of the Nzimba people and his initial name was Francis NwiaKofi Ngonloma. In 1930, he earned his teacher’s certificate at Prince of Wales College in Achimota, Ghana. He continued his studies in the United States where, in 1939, he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and sociology at Lincoln University of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Later, he received his master’s in education and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. In 1942, he earned a bachelor’s degree in theology at Lincoln Theological Seminary. During his academic studies in the United States, he helped found the African Students Association of America. In 1945, he traveled to London where he intended to earn a doctorate in economics at the London School of Economics. He also enrolled at Gray’s Inn to study law. Nkrumah was secretary and vice president of the West African Student Union, which enabled him to practice his Pan-Africanist and

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political activist interests. In 1945, he and colleagues Jomo Kenyatta and George Padmore organized the Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester, England. In 1947, Nkrumah wrote his first book, Towards Colonial Freedom. Later works included What I Mean by Positive Action (1950), Ghana—Autobiography (1957), I Speak of Freedom (1961), Africa Must Unite (1963), Consciencism (1964), and Dark Days in Ghana (1968). In December 1947, Nkrumah returned to Ghana and became the general secretary and the party treasurer of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC). In September 1948, he founded the Accra Evening News. In 1957, he also founded the Accra News Agency. In 1949, he left the UGCC and organized the Convention People’s Party. Nkrumah’s political activism included strikes, boycotts, and campaigns declaring “Positive Action.” In January 1950, he was arrested for one of his campaigns that resulted in civil unrest and charged with sedition. In 1951, He was released from prison because he won the elections for the Accra Central seat. Nkrumah held the position of leader of government business, and in 1956, he became prime minister. On March 6, 1957, Nkrumah declared Ghana’s independence. Later that year, on December 31, he married Helena Ritz Fathia, the niece of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the second president of Egypt. The couple had three children, named Gokeh, Samiah Yarbah, and Sekou Ritz. In 1958, Nkrumah organized the first ACCRA Conference (Conference of Independent African States), which promoted cooperation with African self-governing states and management of their own affairs. On November 23, 1958, he formed the Ghana-Guinea Union (Union of African States) with President Sékou Touré of Guinea. Later, he extended the union to Mali under President Modibo Keita. In December 1958, he also organized an All African People’s Conference in Accra, Ghana to confront the issues of uniting all Africans and ending imperialism.

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Nkrumah was tenacious about three major objectives: economic planning and integration on a continental basis, a unified military, and a unified foreign policy. In 1960, he declared Ghana as a republic, and in 1964, he declared himself as the life president and Ghana a oneparty state. In 1966, Nkrumah was deposed by coup d’etat, while he was abroad in Hanoi, North Vietnam, assisting Ho Chi Minh with solutions on the Vietnam War. Nkrumah suffered from health problems during his exile stay in Conakry, Guinea, where he was made honorary copresident. Subsequently, he was flown to Romania for medical treatment, where he died of cancer on April 27, 1972. Cheryl Jeffries See also African Union (AU); Ghana; Lincoln University; Pan-Africanism. F URTHER R EADING James, Cyril Lionel Robert. 1977. Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution. Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill & Co. Nkrumah, Kwame. 1966. Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. New York: International Publishers. Rugamba, Matthew. 2004. “F.N.K. Kwame Nkrumah.” Contemporary Africa Database. people.africadatabase.org/en/profile/3196. html (accessed February 24, 2004). Timothy, Bankole. 1963. Kwame Nkrumah: His Rise to Power. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

z Notting Hill Carnival Notting Hill Carnival—originally transported to London by Afro-Caribbeans, mostly Trinidadians—takes place the last Monday in August, over the bank holiday weekend. What began as a nostalgic celebration of folk memory has proliferated to such an extent that it now has the potential to be used as a model for multicultural integration and instruction in other large European cities. Although this carnival has been ac-

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knowledged as “Europe’s largest street festival,” it takes place primarily in Notting Hill. The carnival has contributed to London’s image as a world city because of the economic booster it provides through tourism and its highly professional aesthetic content, which is jointly facilitated by carnival artists from London’s different multiethnic groupings. The Notting Hill Carnival is rooted in Trinidadian carnival: formerly enslaved Africans publicly celebrated emancipation in 1834 by taking to the streets reinstituting their African cultural forms yet simultaneously adopting European festival forms. This historical legacy was transplanted to the global city of London when Caribbean migrants began arriving in London in the early 1950s. However, the literature is sparse and contradictory regarding the actual genesis of the Notting Hill Carnival. Stuempfle states that as early as 1951, a group of 11 steel band players, the Trinidad All Steel Percussion Orchestra, was invited to participate in the Festival of England (Stuempfle 1995, 94). This festival engendered the space for the steel band to become a dominant art form in Caribbean Britain, as it created the possibility not only for homesick Trinidadians to display Trinidadian culture but also to give public prominence to steel band as a Caribbean musical form in Britain. This articulation of Caribbean culture was institutionalized by Claudia Jones, a black Trinidadian writer and activist, who organized the first carnival events. Trinidadians continued to come together to drink rum and “beat pan.” The creation of “rum shop culture” in the late 1950s at St. Pancreas created a culture for the genesis of carnival in Britain. The 1960s saw the public popular demonstration of carnival adopting other features. As early as 1964, a social worker invited the steelband players to participate in the “Notting Hill Festival.” Notting Hill was to become the official site for the celebration of carnival, a poor, migrant slum, adjacent to the wealthy streets of Kensington.

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Notting Hill Carnival | 719 In 1965, Notting Hill Carnival appeared in this area for the first time, although there was no financial support from the prestigious Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for this street festival for migrant and other lower class peoples. Rhaune Lazlett, a London-born woman of Amerindian and Russian descent, organized the multiethnic community event. Russell Henderson and other Trinidadians, all members of the Trinidad All Steel Percussion Orchestra, took to the streets with a few masqueraders to celebrate the community event in Trinidadian style. In this way the steel band reclaimed public space for itself in Britain thereby placing carnival at Notting Hill, and initiating Notting Hill Carnival, as we know it today. At the beginning of the 1970s there were growing racial tensions between the police and Afro-Caribbean youths living in Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove, which were quite visible in the carnival celebrations. This culminated in the race riots at Notting Hill. Numerous investigations revealed not only opposition from the authorities but also the more serious problem of cultural fragmentation within the different Caribbean groupings, and the clash between black British-born Jamaican youths, who introduced reggae music to carnival. Reggae music is associated with Rastafarianism while soca music is overtly associated with Trinidadian carnival’s diverse forms of celebration. With this form of cultural fragmentation, Notting Hill and its carnival thus began to experience a slow transformation from its initial, traditional, Trinidadian Caribbean forms of celebration into a transnational, global site of struggle that was culturally different and differentiated. Nonetheless, the official threat to remove carnival from the streets reverberated deeply among these groups, as Carnival provided the forum for these various groups to coalesce. This form of coming together facilitated a marking out and a shaping of new collectivities and multiple ethno-Caribbean identities in the British mainstream context.

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Although becoming a highly politicized event at this point in its existence, Notting Hill Carnival assumed other features. In 1978, a commission was formed to develop and promote the carnival and to raise its profile as a multidiversified, holistic art form embodying dance, music, theater, political commentary, and all the visual arts. At the start of the 1980s, carnival’s reputation began to change as other celebratory forms were introduced. Sound systems appeared officially in carnival. This move created other publicity for carnival, particularly among white British youths, so that by 1986 the population increased, this time with a large number of white British youths. The 1990s saw the best developments for the economics of the Notting Hill Carnival. As early as 1995, the carnival became known as The Lilt Notting Hill Carnival sponsored by Coca Cola. The Arts Council of Britain also provided financial support for carnivalists. In 1995, in an attempt to raise the national profile of the carnival, the Combined Arts Department of the Arts Council of England provided financial support, in collaboration with Roehampton Institute in London, to develop and compile a publicly accessible National Carnival Database of textual and visual information, and Notting Hill Carnival began to be seen with different eyes. Notting Hill Carnival, enacted out of place in the urban metropolitan setting, has paradoxically transformed this urban place into a highly politicized space that has facilitated the actual development of a culture of carnival in the United Kingdom. This model is now being used in many other cities in Britain as well as elsewhere in Europe, including Sweden; Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Greece; Tenerife, Spain; and Paris, France. The German Carnival of Cultures celebrated in Berlin, Bielefeld, and Hamburg, is one example of how the model of Notting Hill Carnival has been used as a multicultural, multidiversified form of celebration in a homogenous society. Patricia Alleyne-Dettmers

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720 | Nova Scotia and the African American Diaspora See also Carnival; Jones, Claudia Cumberbatch (1915–1964); Trinidad and Tobago. F URTHER R EADING Alleyne-Dettmers, Patricia T. 1996. Carnival: The Historical Legacy. UK: Arts Council of England. Cohen, Abner. 1993. Masquerade Politics. Explorations in the Structure of Urban Cultural Movements. Berkeley: University of California Press. Jackson, Peter. 1988. “Street Life: the Politics of Carnival.” Society and Space 6: 213–227. Stuempfle, Stephen. 1995. The Steelband Movement: The Forging of a National Art in Trinidad & Tobago. Mona, Jamaica and Philadelphia, PA: University of the West Indies and University of Pennsylvania Press.

z Nova Scotia and the African American Diaspora The African American Diaspora in Nova Scotia is the migration, voluntary and involuntary, of blacks from the United States to this British North American colony during the late 18th and early 19th centuries when two separate African American migrations—black loyalists and black refugees—took place. By 1784, after the American Revolutionary War, 3500 black loyalists had immigrated to Nova Scotia and, in addition, 1,232 slaves were brought to the colony by their white loyalist owners. The black loyalists received small allocations of land in a number of widely separated locations, and some of them endured the first race riot in British North American history in 1784. They faced discrimination in terms of employment and an unfair judicial system. In search of better opportunities, nearly 1,200 immigrated to Sierra Leone in 1792–1793 with the aid of British abolitionist John Clarkson. Under similar circumstances during the War of 1812, 2,000 black refugees migrated to Nova Scotia.

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Beset by poverty, government inaction, and the hostility of the local white population, the refugees were forced into menial laboring jobs while attempting to farm unfertile land. Both the loyalists and the refugees came north because of military proclamations offering freedom, risked their lives in escaping from slavery, and fought for the British during the wars. Yet there is one important difference between these groups. Unlike the leadership of the black loyalists, the refugee elite opted to stay in Nova Scotia. Thus, despite numerous offers from the colonial government, 94 percent of the refugee population remained in Nova Scotia. It is important to understand the black loyalists and black refugees in the context of the African American Diaspora. These migrants brought many of their experiences and cultural values to Nova Scotia, such as African churches, the Gullah language, burial ceremonies, and cooking styles. Moreover, African Nova Scotians were keenly aware of events in Afro-America. For example, although slavery had ended in Nova Scotia in the early 19th century, the black population founded the African Abolition Society in 1846. This society’s mission focused on the plight of long-lost relatives and friends still laboring in Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia. As events unfolded during the American Civil War, some African Nova Scotians attempted to aid the cause of freedom through service as seamen. The linkages between Afro-Nova Scotia and Afro-America continued throughout the latter half of the 19th century. Jason B. Esters See also Canada and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Walker, James, 1976. “The Establishment of a Free Black Community in Nova Scotia, 1783–1840.” In The African Diaspora: Interpretive Essays, ed. Martin Kilson and Richard Rotberg. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Whitfield, Harvey Amani. 2004. From American Slaves to Nova Scotian Subjects: The Case of the Black Refugees, 1813–1840. Canadian Ethnog-

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Nubia | 721 raphy Series. Toronto: Pearson Education/ Prentice Hall.

z Nubia Nubia was an ancient African civilization that endured for almost 5,000 years (3500 BCE– 1323 CE). The long history of Nubia has always been interwoven with that of Egypt, and for this reason, to a great extent obscured by its more well-known neighbor to the north. Ancient Nubia, the land immediately to the south of Upper Egypt, extended about 700 miles into the Nile Valley to modern-day Khartoum. Today, ancient Nubia is partly under the Aswan Dam, partly in Egypt, and partly in the Sudan. Ancient Nubian history is generally divided into the periods of Kerma, the Egyptian Colonization of Nubia, the Kushite Twenty-Fifth Dynasty of Egypt, Napata, and Meroe. K ERMA (2040–1554 BCE) The Egyptians were aware of Nubia from about 3100 BCE. By Dynasty IV, Egyptian pharaohs were sending occasional expeditions into Lower Nubia for cattle, ebony, oils, copper, diorite stone, incense, ivory, leopard skins, and slaves. Beginning in the Middle Kingdom the Egyptians began to view Nubia as a serious force to be reckoned with. The Twelfth Dynasty pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom constructed a series of massive fortresses in Lower Nubia near the Second Cataract. They were built to oversee the gold mines the Egyptians had started to work in the deserts in Northern Nubia. The fortresses also enabled the Egyptians to control the river traffic in the region. The defensive character of the garrisons, however, indicates the real reason motivating their construction. Located 170 miles south of the fortifications was a strong and flourishing culture the Egyptians called the “Kingdom of Kush.” Archaeologists have named it Kerma

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after a modern-day town. Kerma was the most powerful state yet seen in Nubia. Kerma, located in the southern part of Nubia in an area generally referred to as Upper Nubia, had been free of Egyptian control since the end of the Old Kingdom period. It reached its height during the Second Intermediate Period in Egypt, when the Hyskos invaders overran that country. Kerma had developed into a powerful state ruled by a monarchy. There is no more grandiose example of its past glory than the huge circular mounds, as long as football fields, where the rulers of Kerma were buried. The kings were laid to rest on beds covered with gold. Finely crafted objects in bronze, gold, ivory, and faience were placed around them. The most distinctive feature of royal burials in Kerma was human sacrifice. As many as 400 of the king’s close officials and concubines dressed themselves elaborately and were voluntarily buried alive to honor and serve the king in the afterlife. The arts were free to flower under the stability of Kerma government. Some Kerma artists used Egyptian designs, but they reworked borrowed elements of design and form to create pieces unique to their culture. They were especially skilled in pottery and jewelry making. Beautiful, delicate, and small figurines were the result, made from copper, faience, and mica and taking the form of humans and animals. The most distinctive artwork was a type of pottery, called black topped ware, which had thin, shell-like walls, a black rim, and a brickred lower section. This delicate, eggshell ware was highly valued in Kerma and was frequently interred along with the dead in royal graves. N UBIA DURING THE N EW K INGDOM (1554–1080 BCE) Once the Egyptians returned to power, they concentrated on subduing Nubia. It required 50 to 100 years of military campaigning, but they finally destroyed Kerma, or Kush, as they referred to the country, dominating the region as

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far as the Fourth Cataract. The Egyptians reoccupied their fortresses at the Second Cataract and began to settle again in Lower Nubia. They governed Nubia by installing an Egyptian official with the title King’s Son of Kush. The Egyptians made strong efforts to acculturate the Nubians. The pharaohs institutionalized the practice of taking young Nubians princes back to Egypt. There they came to adulthood and were steeped in an Egyptian education and culture. As a result, they developed a commitment to Egypt that endured even when they were sent back to govern in their own homeland. The Nubians, for their part, were quite adaptable to Egyptian culture. For instance, they worshipped some Egyptian gods, such as Amun and the goddess Isis. They built small pyramids to bury their royalty and decorated the interiors of their tombs like Egyptian tombs with hieroglyphic texts and wall paintings. The Nubians engaged in trade activities, worked the gold mines in the desert, and contributed to the Egyptian economy through the enforced tribute and taxes they paid. The Egyptians living in Nubia worked as civil servants, soldiers, merchants, and priests. The Nubians and Egyptians also intermarried, increasing the level of interaction, and the sharing of cultures. After the New Kingdom’s decline around 1070 BCE, Egyptian ties and traditions remained strong in Nubia for centuries afterwards. K USH (900 BCE–320 CE) An extensive gap exists in the history of Nubia from about 1000 to 850 BCE. During the eighth century, however, Nubia emerged once again from obscurity with great drama and in triumph. After the New Kingdom declined, Egypt experienced another period of foreign rule known as the Third Intermediate Period (1085–715 BCE). During this period the Nubians gradually moved their center of power further to a site in Upper Nubia called Napata, located just beneath the Fourth Cataract. Upper Nubia was located between the third and sixth cataracts. This region was the epi-

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center of the African kingdom in Nubia that the Egyptians called Kush. The Kushite era is divided into two periods known as Napata and Meroe, after sites bearing these names. Kush may have originated at Napata because of the area’s importance as an early religious center. Part of the Napatan period is known as Egypt’s Twenty-Fifth Dynasty, when the Kushites ruled over Egypt. About 750 BCE, a Kushite king named Kashta boldly advanced as far as Thebes and conquered Upper Egypt. It is not exactly known how Kashta accomplished this feat. He may have been asked to intervene in Egyptian affairs by the powerful priests of the state god Amun, seeking protection against foreign aggressors. Kashta took the title of pharaoh and his daughter, Amenirdas I, was made divine wife of the god Amun. These important political and religious acts established the Kushite kings as legitimate rulers in Upper Egypt. As a result, they involved themselves in the struggles for political power as new overlords in the country. Kashta’s successor, Piankhy, marched his great army north to do battle with a prince from Libya who had taken over the Western Desert in Lower Egypt (the northern Delta). He soundly defeated the Libyan opposition and conquered all of Egypt. Piankhy left a detailed record of the war and his entry into Egypt’s ancient capital, Memphis, on a magnificent victory stele erected in the Great Temple of Amun at Napata. He described himself as raging like a panther against the enemy, but also as a moral and compassionate king with a love for fine horses. He initiated the practice among the Kushite pharaohs of burying entire chariot teams near their royal graves. For the next 60 years the Napatan royal house ruled both Nubia and Egypt from the old Delta capital of Memphis. Piankhy and his successors comprised the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty in Egyptian history. The Kushite Empire was a cultural renaissance in Egypt, especially in the realm of art and architecture. The

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Nubia | 723 Kushites admired Egyptian culture but were just as proud of being Kushite. They wore the wide armbands, bracelets, and anklets typical of the Kushite south, along with traditional Egyptian dress and royal trappings. They invented a new symbol of royal authority called the Kushite skullcap. It fit close to the head and was encircled by streamers in the back. Two uraie (the sacred asp and insignia of Egyptian royalty) jutted out from the forehead whereas the Egyptians had used only one. The two uraie was the new symbol of Kushite rule over both Egypt and Kush. Kushite artists fashioned wonderful objects in the fine art of jewelry making. Beautiful pendants, pectorals, earrings, and bracelets exhibited novel design and consummate skill. One of the most splendid was found in the tomb of a queen who was one of the wives of Piankhy. Reflecting an original Kushite conception, a gold Hathor head (goddess of women and beauty) was mounted on top of a perfectly shaped ball made from rock crystal. Architecture constructed during this period was also modeled after Egyptian prototypes. The Kushite pharaohs were mummified and buried near small pyramids. Included in the tomb burials were small Egyptian statuettes, called shwabti figures, whose function was to perform any work the gods demanded of the king in the afterlife. The Kushite pharaoh Taharqa (690–664 BCE) had 1,070 shwabti figures accompany him into the afterlife (690– 664 BCE). Kushite rule lasted about 100 years in Egypt. The Kushites were forced out when they were defeated by the Assyrians in 671 BCE and were forced to retreat back to Napata. After several attempts to regain the Egyptian throne, they left Egypt for good. Over the next several centuries, the Nubians gradually shifted their focus even farther south. They founded a new political entity and cultural center at Meroe. Located between the Fifth and Sixth Cataracts, the last Nubian state evolved largely in obscurity and independent of foreign invasion.

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M EROE (270 BCE–350 CE) Meroe is frequently described as Nubia’s “Golden Age.” Its isolation within the difficult Nubian terrain provided protection from the Persians, Greeks, and Romans; the foreign rulers were busy occupying an Egypt whose last native dynasty was put to death by the Persians (ca. 343 BCE). Meroe comprised all of Nubia and extended further south into areas that are now modern-day Sudan. Its significant relations were therefore with other peoples and states within inner Africa. At the same time, they adapted Hellenistic (Greek culture after Alexander the Great) and Roman influences and maintained Egyptian traditions as well. Meroe achieved its pinnacle of power between 270 and 90 BCE. This era is marked by the large number of powerful queens who wielded political authority. Their special title was a combination of ruler (Qore) and “Queen Mother” (Kandake). The predominance of queens contributed to Greek and Roman legends about the Nubians and their female queens who they believed were all named Kandake. Some of the female rulers of Meroe were involved in confrontations with Roman legions during the early part of Meroitic history. Roman rule had supplanted Greek rule in Egypt in 30 BCE, and the hostilities that ensued were over control of the trade routes from India and through central Africa. Eventually, the Meroites and the Romans reached an agreement. It was probably the Kandake Amanirenas (40–10 BCE), who organized a series of negotiations with the Roman emperor Augustus that resulted in a very favorable peace treaty in 21 or 20 BCE. The Meroites were exempted from paying tribute to the Romans. The treaty was honored between Meroe and Roman Egypt until the third century CE, leaving the Meroites to develop their unique civilization in relative peace. The Meroites experienced glorious cultural achievements. They built large cities and restored old ones. Skilled architects erected a variety of structures, such as Egyptian-like temples, pyramids, mastabas, palaces, and

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fortifications as well as Roman-influenced taverns, kiosks, and public baths. They used stone and brick. One of the most significant architectural achievements was Musawwarat esSufra. This large temple complex consisted of numerous stone buildings. Archaeologists are not certain of its function. However, because of the presence of huge ramps and many elephant carvings and reliefs the Meroites seem to have been involved in the trade of elephants and training these huge animals for warfare in the classical world. Writing and the arts were other areas of expertise. The Meroites invented their own script. It was based on the Egyptian hieroglyphs but reduced the numerous signs in that language to 23 symbols, to which the Meroites added written vowel notation. By the second century they were writing primarily in their own unique script. However, it remains a mystery as it has not been deciphered. Meroitic can be read, but its meaning is not completely understood. Meroitic pottery is among the finest examples of ceramics ever produced in the ancient world. Pottery was made by hand and thrown on the pottery wheel. The Meroites created diverse vessels and designs in all shapes and sizes. Painters adorned the surfaces in radiant colors, elegant floral and geometric designs, and with lively animal and human figures. Meroe came to a gradual end sometime around the middle of the fourth century CE. Increased assaults from desert nomads probably contributed to its demise, in addition to the expansion of the Axumite kingdom (ancient

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Abyssinia) in northeast Africa. Both of these factors helped to disrupt the economy. The nomads made overland travel hazardous, and they endangered the northern trade routes. And the rise of the Axumites diverted trade routes and activity toward the Red Sea region. The Axumites finally sacked the weakened Meroitic state in 350 CE. Today, the land that was ancient Nubia is divided between the Sudan and Egypt. And in the African Diaspora, it is not unusual to have descriptive reference to Nubia such as that found in the name of the popular singing group, Les Nubians. Earnestine Jenkins See also Art in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Adams, Williams Y. 1977. Nubia: Corridor to Africa. London: Penguin. Conah, Graham. 1987. African Civilizations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Davidson, Basil. 1967. The African Past. New York: Grosset & Dunlap. July, Robert. 1992. A History of the African People. 4th ed. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Mokhtar, G., ed. 1987. Ancient Civilizations of Africa. Vol. 2, UNESCO General History of Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press. Oliver, Roland. 1991. The African Experience. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. Shillington, Kevin. 1995. History of Africa. Rev. ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Snowden, Frank. 1970. Blacks in Antiquity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wenig, Steffen. 1978. Africa in Antiquity: the Arts of Ancient Nubia and the Sudan. 2 vols. Exhibition Catalogues. Brooklyn, NY: The Brooklyn Museum.

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resistance on the island. The success of legendary maroon leaders, Cudjoe (Kojo), Queen Nanny (Nanani), and Tacky (Takyi), was often attributed to the practice of Obeah. European historians have attached myriad functions to practitioners of Obeah, including medicine men and women, creators of protective amulets and charms, initiators of spells, obtainers of revenge for injuries or insults, peacemakers, enforcers of punishment (particularly of thieves and adulterers), magicians, and fortune-tellers. Most popular and most emphasized of the tasks assigned to Obeah practitioners was “duppy catching.” A duppy is a person’s shadow, which remains with their corpse upon death and, if not properly buried, can linger and cause harm to people (Stewart 1992). An analysis of Obeah must place the practice within its proper cultural context, more accurately positioning Obeah as a Caribbean expression of traditional African religious and scientific knowledge. For example, if the terms obayifo and/or bayi are accepted as the etymological precursors of Obeah, it becomes important to examine their form and function within traditional Akan society. Traditionally, abayifo (plural of obayifo) are an accepted reality and are recognized as having both positive and negative functions. Reflective of Akan

Obeah (also spelled Obia) is a spiritual and medicinal system of African origin that is practiced throughout the Caribbean. Its important function was to empower, protect, heal and liberate African people. Though it has been argued that the term derives its meaning from various sources, including the term ob, the Egyptian term for serpent, and/or ubio, the Efik (southern Nigeria) term for a charm used to cause sickness or death (Williams 1934), given the preponderance of Twi-speaking Akan taken to the Caribbean in the transatlantic slave trade, Obeah is more likely etymologically derived from the Akan terms obayifo, meaning witch or sorcerer, and/or bayi, meaning witchcraft or sorcery. Early English planters frowned on the practice of what they saw as superstitions and began to stipulate legal sanctions against the practice of Obeah. Europeans also recognized the relationship between African religion and African resistance and attempted to quell any practices that could inspire Africans to revolt and subsequently jeopardize the success of the plantations. The English were particularly suspicious of the religious practices of the Cromanti as they were the leading instigators of 725 www.abc-clio.com

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cosmology, which holds that both positive and negative energies are present and necessary in all things, bayi pa, translated to mean “good witchcraft,” uses spiritual powers to bring good fortune to those who seek its assistance, whereas bayi boro, translated as “bad witchcraft,” invokes evil spirits for the purpose of bringing disaster to specified individuals (Opoku 1978). Thus, abayifo are believed to possess magical powers to provide spiritual blessings and protection or cause harm and injury. In the Western context, however, much of this dual significance of bayi, and consequently both obayifo and Obeah, are obscured in translation. Furthermore, because of the influence of religions such as Christianity and Islam, much of postcolonial Akan society itself focuses solely on the negative roles of abayifo as specialists of bayi boro, holding them responsible for much of society’s misfortune. From this perception of obayifo scholars have drawn parallels to the Obeah practitioners of Jamaica. Though a necessary part of society, because they have come to be associated more with their negative aspects, abayifo operate in secrecy, and if confronted, may deny their participation. Ethnographic research in the Caribbean confirms that there are two kinds of Obeah—one that is negative and deals with evil and witchcraft, and one that is positive, therapeutic, and good (Gottlieb 2000). Thus, Obeah is divested of the negative connotations of black magic and sorcery that are most often given. Obeah practitioners often operate in secrecy and refuse to share the particulars of the practice with outsiders. Yaba Amgborale Blay See also Jamaica; Maroon and Marronage. F URTHER R EADING Gottlieb, Karla. 2000. The Mother of Us All: A History of Queen Nanny Leader of the Windward Jamaican Maroons. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Opoku, Kofi Asare. 1978. West African Traditional Religion. London: FEP International Private Limited.

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Stewart, Robert J. 1992 Religion and Society in Post-Emancipation Jamaica. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press. Williams, Joseph J. 1934. Psychic Phenomena of Jamaica. New York: Dial Press. Zips, Werner. 1999. Black Rebels: African Caribbean Freedom Fighters in Jamaica. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers.

z Ogou/Ogoun Ogou/Ogum/Ogun/Gu is one of the most multivalent and well-traveled deities in the African Diaspora. Originating among the Yoruba of present-day Nigeria, his significance quickly spread to the Gbe-speaking people of presentday Benin and Togo where Gbe-speakers worship him as the Vodoun Gu. In the 19th century, wars between the kingdoms of Oyo and Dahomey sent thousands of Africans into the hands of European slave traders. These enslaved Africans brought Ogou/Ogum/Ogun to the Americas. Among the Yoruba, Ogun is an Orisha associated with iron and warfare, tools, roads and law enforcement. Ogun’s signs are the first in the Ifá divination corpus used by babalao to discover the individual destinies of their clients. Ogun receives sacrifices of male animals, especially dogs. He was the husband and consort of the Orisha Yemoja. These associations have persisted in the New World. Ogou is the preeminent Vodoun in the Haitian Vodoun pantheon. His devotees brandish machetes when in the throes of possession trance and offer him clarin (raw cane liquor) rum, gunpowder, and animal sacrifice. He has both a cool benevolent avatar in the Rada pantheon, named Ogou Balandjo, who is identified with the Catholic Saint Joseph, and a hot, demonic manifestation in the Petwo pantheon, named Ogou Ferraille, who is identified with Saint Jaques Majeur (Saint James). Ogou devotees (called serviteur) may walk on hot coals, hold flaming

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Okpewho, Isidore (1941–) | 727 gunpowder in their bare hands, or eat fire to prove the veracity of their manifestation. In Brazil, Ogum is a prominent Orixá and is honored before all others in the ceremonies of Bahian Candomblé. Candomblé devotees identify him with Santo Antonio (Saint Anthony), while Umbanda practitioners identify him with São Jorge (Saint George). He manifests himself as an Orixá, as a sailor (Ogum Marinho), and as a demonic Exú (Ogum Xoroké). He was the occasionally cuckolded husband of the Orixá of the sea, Yemanjá. He is associated with iron tools, cutting implements, the police, and the opening of roads and clearing of paths. His devotees wear blue while in a possession trance and symbolize their devotion by wearing blue beaded necklaces. In Cuba the Oricha Ogun is prominent in the orthodox variant of Santería called Regla De Ocha. There he is syncretized with the Catholic Saint Peter. As in Haiti his followers brandish machetes while in a possession trance, and as in Brazil, they wear blue garments and blue beaded necklaces. From these three loci of the slave trade and the efflorescence of African-derived religions, devotion to Ogou/Ogum/Ogun has spread throughout North and South America and the Caribbean. Brian Brazeal See also Babalawo; Candomblé; Santería; Vodoun. F URTHER R EADING Apter, Andrew. Black Critics and Kings: the Hermeneutics of Power in Yoruba Society. Chicago: Univesity of Chicago Press. Barnes, Sandra, ed. Africa’s Ogun: Old World and New. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Bascom, William. 1969. Ifa Divination: Communication Between Gods and Men in West Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Bascom, William. 1984. The Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria. Prospect Heights IL: Waveland Press. (Orig. pub. 1969). Bastide, Roger. 2007. The African Religions of Brazil: Toward a Sociology of the Interpenetration of Civilizations, trans. Helen Seeba. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press (new ed.).

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Brown, David H. 2004. Santería Enthroned: Art, Ritual and Innovation in an Afro-Cuban Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cosentino, Donald, ed. 1995. Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou. Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles, Fowler Museum of Cultural History. Hurston, Zora Neale. 1938. Tell My Horse. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company.

z Okpewho, Isidore (1941–) Isidore Okpewho is a prolific writer whose accomplishments in creative writing are strongly matched by his outstanding contributions to African literary criticism and scholarship. Quite easily, Okpewho is regarded as the preeminent scholar on African oral performance traditions whose works, such as The Epic in Africa (1979), Myth in Africa (1983), African Oral Literature (1992), and Once Upon a Kingdom: Myth, Hegemony, and Identity (1998), and the collections he edited, The Heritage of African Poetry (1985) and The Oral Performance in Africa (1990), are highly received. As a novelist, Okpewho chronicles some of the social, political, and economic issues facing African societies, such as minority rights, ethnicity, and polygamy. Okpewho was born on November 9, 1941, in Abraka, in the Delta region of Nigeria. He studied classics at the University of Ibadan, won the Sir James Robertson Prize for best classics student, and earned his bachelor’s degree with firstclass honors in 1964. In 1974, he earned a doctorate in comparative literature at the University of Denver and another in humanities from the University of London in 2003. Okpewho’s literary production effectively began after graduation from college, when he worked as editor in the Lagos office of Longman publishers. While with Longman he published his first novel, The Victims (1970), a work that presents a gritty image of African polygamy exacerbated by the demands of contemporary urban life.

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Okpewho’s two subsequent novels, The Last Duty (1976) and Tides (1993), fix an unrelenting gaze at the shaping of the modern Nigerian nation state. The former won the African Arts Prize for Literature and the latter, the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa. By the early 1990s, Okpewho’s creative and scholarship interests had substantially widened to explore folks arts not only in Africa but also in the African Diaspora, especially in the Americas. In 1994 he had contributed a chapter, “The Cousins of Uncle Remus,” to The Black Columbiad: Defining Moments in African American Literature and Culture, edited by W. Sollors and M. Diedrich. In 1999 he coedited The African Diaspora: African Origins and New World Identities with Carole Boyce Davies and Ali A. Mazrui, followed by a study of the African American poet Jay Wright in the essay, “Prodigal’s Progress: Jay Wright’s Focal Center” (MELUS 23 (3): 187–209). In 2002 his essay “Walcott, Homer, and the Black Atlantic” appeared in the journal Research in African Literatures. His novel, Call Me by My Rightful Name (2004), marks what could be regarded as the ultimate union of Okpewho’s creative imagination with his scholarship, as the novel explores the roots of an African Diaspora identity through a narrative aesthetic that leans heavily on Yoruba oral poetic traditions. Chiji Akoma See also Africa. F URTHER R EADING Killam, Douglas, and Ruth Rowe, eds. 2000. The Companion to African Literatures. London: James Currey Publishers. Obiechina, Emmanuel. 1996. “Isidore Okpewho.” Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 157: Twentieth-Century Caribbean and Black African Writers, 3rd Series, ed. Bernth Lindfors and Reinhard Sander, 262–276. Detroit: Gale Research, Inc. Schipper, Mineke. 1989. Beyond the Boundaries: African Literature and Literary Theory. London: Allison & Busby with W. A. Allen.

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Old Hige In Jamaica, Ole Hige (also known as Kin Owl) is believed to be an elderly woman or witch who has the ability to take off her skin and fly about the island in a stream of fire. She particularly favors newborn babies, sucking their blood. In earlier times, mothers afraid of Old Hige crossed a knife and fork and put a Bible next to their child’s bed, keeping vigil. Infant lockjaw was considered a sign of Old Hige’s visitation and much precaution was therefore taken to protect the child. It was believed that after the ninth night, a newborn would be safe from Old Hige. Known also as “the soucouyant” in the Eastern Caribbean, Old Hige is sometimes thought to be a duppy (or spirit) but has also been imagined as a woman who lives in the community, keeping her secret. She may also have some connection to the Ashanti obayifo—a sorcerer who leaves his or her body at night, streaming flames, catching souls, and drinking human blood. The way to defeat Old Hige is to find her skin and sprinkle it with salt and pepper. The expression, “salt and pepper to yu Mammy,” has its origin here, for these words must be repeated to ward off the witch’s evil. Marcia Douglas See also Jamaica; Obeah. F URTHER R EADING Banbury, Rev. Thomas. 1894. Jamaica Superstitions; or the Obeah Book. Kingston: Mortimer C. DeSouza. Barnes, “Busta” Leslie. 2000. “Rolling Calf.” In Jamaican Folk Tales and Oral Histories, ed. Laura Tanna. Miami: DLT Associates, Inc. Hurston, Zora Neale. 1938. “Hunting the Wild Hog.” Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica. New York: Lippincott Inc. Moore, Brian L., and Michele Johnson. 2000. “Afro-Creole Belief System I: Obeah, Duppies and Other ‘Dark Superstitions.’” In Neither Led Nor Driven: Contesting British Cultural Imperialism in Jamaica, 1865–1920, 38–39. Mona: University of the West Indies Press.

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Olodum | 729 Olmos, Margarite Fernández, and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert. 2003. “Obeah Myal and Quimbois.” In Creole Religions of the Caribbean: An Introduction from Vodou and Santería to Obeah and Espiritismo, 131–140. New York: New York University Press.

z Olodum Olodum—short for Yoruba supreme being Olodumaré—is a popular, percussion-based band whose thundering rhythms and social vision have made it the driving force behind the revival of one of Brazil’s most African, and most beautiful, cities: Salvador, Bahia. The group’s samba-reggae fusion helped put Bahia on the world’s musical map, making a mecca of the once-decrepit and dangerous lanes of Salvador’s cliffside old town, Pelourinho. The first celebrated Bloco Afro in Carnaval Salvador, Olodum has lured a worldwide following through its layered rhythms and social vision, symbolized by an encircled peace sign set against a backdrop of green, red, yellow, and brown. Free, twice-weekly concerts made it one of the most successful grassroots organizations in the world and a guiding star to thousands of children looking for their musical voice. Olodum’s reggae-samba fusion introduced a new musical voice to the world, inspiring Paul Simon to lease it for his “Rhythm of the Saints” recording, made during a free 1991 summer concert he and Olodum gave in Central Park before an estimated 700,000 people. The group’s appeal owes largely to its mesmerizing drumming scheme, which runs the gamut from the fine-sounding repique to middle-range timbao, the deeper macasao, and the big, bass surdo. The band’s annual Carnival themes regularly push the envelope on social issues and global trends. Olodum’s social activism extends well beyond the pre-Lenten season: the group

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Members of Olodum practice in Pelourinho Street, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. (Ricardo Azoury/Corbis)

led an effort to include a chapter protecting the rights of Afro-Brazilians in Bahia’s constitution, held a march of more than 50,000 people to mark the 100th anniversary of slavery’s abolition in Brazil, and mounted vociferous opposition to South African apartheid. It dedicated its two platinum records to Nelson Mandela and threw a huge party when Desmond Tutu visited Salvador in 1989. Proceeds from Olodum’s overseas forays have traditionally gone to fund the group’s Creative School on Rua das Laranjeiras, which feeds, molds, and ennobles the spirits of musically minded Brazilian children and youth. In addition to mastering an instrument, these students—many former street urchins—study Portuguese, English, dance, and diction. Beneath posters of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., they also take courses in human rights issues,

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self-esteem, racial democracy, nonviolent resistance, and Bahia’s Afro-Brazilian heritage. Many make their first public appearance, and assume their first personal commitment, as a member of an Olodum ensemble. Close to the Creative School lies Olodum House (A Casa de Olodum), the group’s administrative headquarters and site of the Nelson Mandela Auditorium. The three-story colonial gem, restored by the city of Salvador as part of a neighborhood reconstruction project, emerged from the shell of a structure that dated back to the late 1800s. Its spacious, airy interior was designed by architect Lina Bo Bardi and has welcomed more than 50,000 visitors. Olodum, which was founded on April 25, 1979, seeks to incorporate blacks and other marginalized members of Bahian society into Brazil’s oldest and most traditional Carnival celebration. Voted top Bloco Afro in 1985, the group has since appeared in more than 20 countries, yet has never abandoned its commitment to the humble origins of Maciel-Pelourinho, where Tshirt salespeople and other street vendors earn a daily wage selling products emblazoned with the Olodum emblem, which has also become the foremost emblem of Bahia. Ralph Schusler See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Cachoeira; Carnival; Ilê Aiyê. F URTHER R EADING Jorge, Joao, et al. 2005. OLODUM Carnaval Cultura Négritude 1979–2005. Salvador, Bahia: Bloco Afro Olodum. Vianna, Hermano. 1999. The Mystery of Samba: Popular Music and National Identity in Brazil. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

z Optiz, May Ayim (1960–1996)

Hamburg on May 3, 1960. Her first year and a half were spent in a children’s home, after which she was adopted by foster parents who gave her their last name, Optiz. She lived with the Optiz family from 1962 to1979 in North-Rhine Westphalia. She attended schools in Muenster before studying at the University of Regensburg, from which she graduated in 1986. The title of her thesis was Afro-Deutsche, Ihre Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte auf dem Hintergrund gesellschaftlicher Veränderungen (“Showing Our Colours, AfroGerman Women Speak Out”), which was later published in the book, Farbe bekennen. Afrodeutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte. It was then translated into Showing Our Colours: Afro-German Women Speak Out in England and the United States in 1992. She was one of the founders of the Initiative Schwarze Deutsche in 1986. She also cofounded the Literatur Frauen e. V., Verein zur Förderung der Literaturen der Frauen. She worked as a speech therapist in a therapeutic pedagogy school for mentally retarded children in 1990 and subsequently wrote a thesis on ethnocentrism and sexism in speech therapy. She further worked on this theme at the Freien Universität Berlin in 1992. Optiz strove to draw awareness to the plight of the Afro-deutsche and people of African descent living in Germany, presenting her work in forums such as Ghana’s PANAFEST (PanAfrican Historical Theatre Festival). Her poetry collection, Blues in Schwarz—Weiss, was published in 1995. After a series of illnesses, which led to admissions into psychiatric hospitals in Berlin, she committed suicide in 1996. The May Ayim Award (2004) for young Africans initiated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization has immortalized her in recognition of her tireless efforts to bring social changes into the lives of people of African descent living in Germany. Tomi Adeaga See also Germany and the African Diaspora.

May Ayim Optiz was born to Emmanuel Ayim, a Ghanaian, and Ursula Andler, a German, in

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Ortiz, Fernando (1881–1969) Fernando Ortiz is considered a key figure in the study of 20th-century Afro-Cuban culture. Along with Nina Rodrigues and U. B. Phillips, Ortiz was one of the first intellectuals who studied black societies in the Americas. Born in Havana on July 16, 1881, he was of Spanish descent; his father had Basque roots and his mother was a native Cuban. He studied law at the University of Havana until 1899, when he decided to settle in Barcelona, Spain, to complete his degree. Afterward, he moved to Madrid, where he pursued his doctorate in law and attended classes at the Instituto Sociológico, founded by Professor Manuel Sales y Ferré, who introduced him to penitentiary sciences, criminology, and penal law. Between 1902 and 1905, Ortiz lived in different European cities while working for Cuban consulates (Spain, France, and Switzerland). In Geneva, he had the opportunity to attend classes taught by Cesare Lombroso, a wellknown medical doctor and psychiatrist who founded the field of criminal anthropology. Ortiz conducted investigations that covered a wide range of disciplines, such as anthropology, law, ethnology, history, folk culture, criminology, linguistics, archeology, art, religion, geography, literature, and identity. In Latin America, Ortiz created the concept he termed “transculturation,” to convey the influence of Africa, other continents, and other races in shaping the culture of the New World. During the early days of the Republic, he was actively involved in Cuban national life as a college professor. He also taught public law at the University of Havana for nine years. Beginning in 1910, and for 50 years on, he was in charge of the Revista Bimestral Cubana (Bimonthly Cuban Review) under the aegis of the Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País (Economic Society of the Friends of the Country) of which he had become a member in 1907. In 1926, he founded Sociedad Hispano-Cubana de Cultura, whose goal was to promote culture: it

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sponsored the first movie conferences, painting exhibits, and the presentation of major black novelists and poets highlighting the relationship between Hispanic elements and African ones. From 1931 to 1933, he exiled himself in Washington, D.C., to show his opposition to General Machado’s dictatorship in Cuba. In 1930, he created Surco and Ultra, two reviews that dealt with Cuban culture. In 1937, he founded the Sociedad de Estudios AfroCubanos aimed at analyzing the demographic, legal, religious, literary, artistic, linguistic, and social phenomena generated by the coexistence of different races in Cuba. In 1954, Columbia University awarded him an honorary doctoral degree. In 1906, Ortiz began his first investigations on the African, Asian, and American culture, which led to the publication of Los Negros Brujos (Black Witch Doctors); it was the first part of Hampa Afro-Cubana (Afro-Cuban Mob). This criminal ethnology study analyzed the Cuban society and its ethnic components. In this book, he raised the issue of blackness in Cuba from a scientific, social, and historical point of view. Ortiz believed black Cuban witchcraft was instrumental to the understanding of their idiosyncrasy. This work eventually turned out to be the starting point of his intellectual quest. In 1916, he published Los Negros Esclavos (Black Slaves), second part of Hampa Afro-Cubana, in which he dealt with the Afro-Cuban mob by stressing its anthropological, legal, philosophical, and economic dimensions. Moreover, he brought attention to the geographical origins of Afro-Cubans in their motherland and examined the key features of ethnic groups like the Wolof, Fulani, Mandingo, Lucumi, Arara, Dahomey, Mina, Carabali, and Congo, who constitute the African roots of Cuba to this day. The third part of his work included books on free blacks, and on the Abakuas to complete his study on Cuban delinquency. In other respects, Ortiz studied and analyzed African oral traditions and mulatto culture. In

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his opinion, Cuba would not exist without blackness. In 1924, he published El Glosario de Afronegrismos, a study on black language in Cuba from a linguistic perspective and was one of the participants in a movement defined as negrismo. In 1940, he published the Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azúcar in which he mentioned for the first time, the concept of “transculturation” (later used by Bronislaw Malinowski), which reflects the culture shock and the subsequent formation of a synthetic culture. Cultural interpenetration generates the emergence of a new entity. Moreover, the “transcultural method” would make it possible to combine economic, social, and political elements and hereby understand society. Between 1946 and 1952, Ortiz investigated Cuban music, instruments, theater, dance, and their African roots. In the early 1950s, he published La Africania de la Música Folklórica de Cuba (Africa in Cuban Folk Music), Los bailes y el teatro de los negros en el Folklore de Cuba (Black dances and theater in Cuban Folk Culture), and Los instrumentos de la música afrocubana (Afro-Cuban Music Instruments). Ortiz died on April 10, 1969, in Havana on L and 23 streets in the Vedado neighborhood where the Fernando Ortiz Library and the Fundación Fernando Ortiz are located. The foundation, now chaired by the Cuban writer Miguel Barnet, promotes investigations and knowledge of Afro-Cuban issues. It also awards an annual prize (L’adya) that symbolizes Obatala, a Yoruba divinity. Carlos A. Rabasso See also Abakuá; Cuba: Afro-Cubans; Obeah; Santería. F URTHER R EADING Iznaga, Diana. 1989. Transculturación en Fernando Ortiz. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales. Matos Arevalos, José Antonio. 1999. La Historia en Fernando Ortiz. La Habana: Fundación Fernando Ortiz. Ortiz, Fernando. 1973. Hampa Afro-Cubana. Los Negros Brujos (Apuntes para un estudio de etnología criminal). Miami: Ediciones Universal.

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Ortiz, Fernando. 1996. Los Negros Esclavos.La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales. Suarez, Norma. 1996. Fernando Ortiz y la Cubanidad. La Habana: Ediciones Unión & Fundación Fernando Ortiz.

z Osun (Oxum/Ochun/Oshun) The goddess (orisha) Osun is the deity of fresh water, wealth, fertility, and kindness in the indigenous Yoruba tradition called ‘Ifa. The Odu Ose Tura states that Osun was the only woman among the 17 original Orisa to come from heaven to Earth. Osun was ignored and left out of the serious work of the male divinities because of her gender. Eventually, the male divinities had to appease her in order to have success with their work and efforts. From that point forward Osun/women were no longer to be excluded. Scholar and priestess of Osun Deidre Badejo identifies Osun as the communal mother of an African World. In this role as communal mother, the Yoruba goddess has given birth to generations of communities in the Diaspora. Through migrations within Africa and through the forced dispersal during the transatlantic enslavement of Africans, those who were able to survive the journeys carried with them their history, their culture, and their traditions. As Osun manifests in the Diaspora, her children have adapted their worship to fit the various frameworks. Some have even claimed her to be the patron “saint” of their locality. In the Cuban tradition Santería, she is Caridad del Cobre and is also called Ochun; in the Candomblé tradition of Brazil she is Oxum or Pomba Gira; in Voudoun of Dahomey (Benin) and Voudoun of Haiti she is Erzulie. The variations in the names and styles of Osun in traditional practice continue throughout the Diaspora as time and physical distance lend to the adaptations and changes of ancient African traditions.

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Osun (Oxum/Ochun/Oshun) | 733 Orunmila; red, because of her relationship with Sango; and pastels (pink, lavender, etc.) representing her lightheartedness and happiness. Osun loves to eat honey, gin, hens, and sweet wine. Her sacred number is five, and her most sacred animal is the fish, according to Osogbo tradition. Osogbo, Nigeria, is the worldwide center of Osun worship and where the annual Osun festival is held in early August. Osun’s highest priestess is called the Iya Osun Agbaye. She lives in the temple in Osogbo. The current Iya Osun is named Omileye Adenle. Osun is also the owner of the Eerindinlogun (16 cowry) form of divination practice, an art she acquired from her husband, Orunmila. Osun continues to morph and travel throughout the Diaspora as her children constantly create and re-create tradition. Jessica M. Alarcón See also Candomblé; Santería.

Statuette of the deity Osun in a Candomblé temple in Olinda, Brazil. (Laurence Fordyce; Eye Ubiquitous/Corbis)

Each Orisa is associated with a color, number, element in nature, and characteristics. Osun’s original color is white. Her priests in Nigeria use this as the principal color. During the Osun Osogbo festival, priests, devotees, and participants will wear white. The Osun River, where the festival is held, is said to have medicinal powers, and people crowd the river gathering the waters to fulfill their wishes. She lives in the river, and a popular story of Osun says that she was very tidy and would go to the river constantly to wash her white garment. Eventually, the dress turned yellow from washing in the water, and this is how yellow became one of her colors. She is also associated with gold, representing riches and her position as a queen; green, because of wealth and her relationship with the deity of wisdom,

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F URTHER R EADING Alarcon, Jessica M. 2008. (Re)Writing Osu: Osun in the Politics of Gender, Race and Sexuality— From Colonization to Creolization. Miami, FL: Torkwase Press. Badejo, Diedre. 1996. Osun Seegesi: The Elegant Deity of Wealth, Power and Femininity. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Bascom, William. 1980. Sixteen Cowries. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Fatunde, Fakayode Fayemi. 2004. Oshun the Manly Woman. Brooklyn, NY: Athelia Henrietta Press. Murphy, Joseph M., and Mei-Mei Sanford. 2001. Oshun Across the Waters: A Yoruba Goddess in Africa and the Americas. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Neimark, John Phillip. 1995. The Sacred ‘Ifá Oracle. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. Olajubu, Oyeronke. 2003. Women in the Yoruba Religious Sphere. Albany: State University of New York Press. Oshun State. 2000. Osun Osogbo Festival. Osogbo, Nigeria: Oshun State. Booklet. Washington, Teresa N. 2005. Our Mothers, Our Powers, Our Texts: Manifestations of Aje in Africana Literature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

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734 | Oya

Oya Goddess (Orisha) of wind, lightning, hurricane, and tornado, the chaos that disrupts unjust social orders, and the justifying word, Oya’s name is Yoruba for “she tore,” signifying her power for upheaval. Because of her penchant to right wrongs and empower the victimized, Oya and her qualities seem to be frequently invoked in the writings of women of African descent throughout the Diaspora. Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1938, republished 1990), Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day (1993), Simone Schwartz-Bart’s Pluie et vent sur Telumée-Miracle (1980), and Myriam Warner-Vieyra’s Juletane (1982) are novels that dramatize the destructive balancing of social hierarchical powers that characterizes Oya’s intervention on behalf of downtrodden or mistreated women. Of all the Yoruba Ifa riverain goddesses whose followers could be venerated as devotees or condemned as practitioners of witchcraft, Oya seems to be the witch/goddess most feared and encrypted throughout the Diaspora. Though she remains Oya of cemeteries, hurricanes, and thunderstorms in Cuban Santería, she surfaces as the feared Ti Kita of Haitian Voudoun, still symbolized by the black cloth she tore in her West African origins, the source of her name, but believed to be relegated solely to a cult dedicated to mysteries of death and destructive magic. In Brazilian Candomblé, Oya seems to be dispersed between the revered Iansá and the benevolent works of women’s societies such as the Sisters of the Good Death, her more malevolent powers returned in public worship to her husband, called Xango in Candomblé. Such limitations and identity dispersions are probably best understood in their historical context of chattel enslavement’s several hundred years of the binding and silencing impact of the forced intimate intermingling of various traditions, complicated by religious, philosophical, and linguistic suppression. Writing against this tidal legacy, women authors of the

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African Diaspora are resurrecting Oya with a devastatingly poignant eloquence reminiscent of her own articulate, piercing powers. Thief of lightning, Oya appropriates traditionally masculine powers in the service of her own disturbance of rigid, oppressive, or ostracizing social orders. A purifying wind that brings storms to shatter the mind and heart and scatter one’s enemies, Oya allows afflictions of anguish, despair, or insanity to drive her protagonists to respond to betrayals of the most heinous kinds with spiritual transcendence and even triumph (of an often bloody kind) over their tormentors. Wife of Shango who resurrected her suicidal husband, Oya carries souls between the lands of the living and the dead. She can gift the infertile with babies and return both the world-weary and their abusers to the spiritual realm, there to live renewed by an insightful understanding of their earthly and otherworldly existences, the purposes of their existence, and the goals for which they struggled all resolved under the leveling influence of Oya’s volatile hand. The veil between the worlds is irrevocably sundered by evocation of the goddess who bridges barriers and forces turbulent change. Alexis Brooks de Vita See also Candomblé; Osun (Oxum/Ochun/Oshun); Santería; Shango. F URTHER R EADING Brooks de Vita, Alexis. 2000. “Air and Fire, Bringing Rain.” In Mythatypes: Signatures and Signs of African/Diaspora and Black Goddesses, 101– 122. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Fatunmbi, Awo Fa’lokun. 1993. Oya: Ifá and the Spirit of the Wind. New York: Original Publications. Fatunmbi, Awo Fa’lokun. 1993. Shango: Ifá and the Spirit of Lightning. New York: Original Publications. Gleason, Judith. 1992. Oya: In Praise of an African Goddess. New York: HarperCollins. Harding, Rachel E. 2003. A Refuge in Thunder: Candomblé and Alternative Spaces of Blackness. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

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P z

Pacific: The African Diaspora

Polynesians, who show some genetic affinities with their Melanesian neighbors, were the most recent of the early migrants, arriving perhaps 3,000 or 4,000 years ago. The Melanesian people, the most populous, have the most obvious African ancestral connection. They occupy the larger islands in the southwest region of the Pacific, namely Vanuatu, Fiji, New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea—so named by Europeans because the people and climate there reminded them of “old” Guinea in Africa. Significant Melanesian populations are also found in the Philippines, Indonesia, and the Torres Strait Islands of Australia. The black or Melanesian countries have the largest landmass areas, the largest populations, and the richest agricultural and mineral resources: gold, copper, nickel, oil, timber, cattle, fish, sugar, cocoa, and coffee are all produced in this region.

E ARLY M IGRATIONS The first African Diaspora to the Pacific region was created tens of thousands of years ago when humans first migrated from the mother continent—Africa—where all people are thought to have originated. DNA studies currently suggest this took place around 65,000 years ago. Some oral traditions suggest that the early peoples of Southeast Asia were black or dark skinned, and this is supported by the African-appearance of peoples living in certain isolated areas, such as the Andaman Islands off the coast of Burma. Later migrations of an Asian branch of humanity moved east and southeast and gradually displaced or absorbed the original populations to produce a physical type that shows characteristics typical of both strains. The eastward movement of these Asians appears to have gone in two main directions: the northern one crossing into the Americas to give rise to the Native American peoples and other groups migrating via a southern route down through the black islands—Melanesia—acquiring some of the genetic markers of those populations before fanning out into the Pacific and colonizing the smaller islands known today as Polynesia. The

A NTIQUITY Archaeologists assert, on the basis of current evidence, that the present black populations of the Pacific date back 40,000 years for Papua New Guinea, 22,000 years for the Solomon Islands, 20,000 for Vanuatu, and 3,000 for Fiji, and the limits for Black Australians (also known 735

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as Aborigines, which means “original inhabitants,” who are considered to be distinct from Melanesians) have recently been extended from 40,000 to more than 50,000 years. Because there is no evidence of a land bridge between these countries, such as the one that connected North America to Asia during the last Ice Age, the Black Pacific peoples were most likely the world’s first sailors and navigators. Other evidence of the resourcefulness of these early black communities is found in Papua New Guinea, where 9,000-year-old irrigation terraces show the inhabitants to be among the world’s first to practice agriculture (Bellwood 1980). E ARLY C ONTACTS Modern Pacific history did not begin with the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan, James Cook, or Louis-Antoine de Bougainville. For the southwest quadrant at least there appears to have been ample opportunity for contacts of various kinds in which Africa may have played a part. During this pre-European period there were meaningful links and exchanges between the two regions, including the following: 1. Indonesians sailed across the Indian Ocean and made direct contact with Africa, probably from the 5th to the 10th centuries (Verin 1981). Some settled in Madagascar, where their descendants—the Merina or Hova people—still speak an Indonesianbased language. 2. Indian trade extended from East Africa to the southwest Pacific, where Hindu religious and political influences have been important; evidence for this is seen in the Srivijaya Empire in Indonesia and the Hindu religion of Bali. 3. Arab trade likewise extended from East Africa into the Pacific, creating important Muslim communities in China, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines and giving rise to the world’s most populous Islamic nation today—Indonesia.

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4. Asian trade contacts with Melanesia for sandalwood, pearl, and sea cucumber had long been in place when a rapid expansion of Chinese commercial and political initiative took place early in the 1400s under the Muslim admiral Cheng He, which reached beyond the Pacific, as far as the Red Sea and East Africa. 5. Trade and social contacts occurred between black Australians and their neighbors to the north, in Indonesia, Malaya, and Papua New Guinea. Some of these Australians had traveled and worked in Southeast Asia long before Europeans arrived. These contacts suggest many opportunities for interaction among the regions discussed, and they are currently receiving the attention of a new generation of world historians whose careful research promises to develop these possibilities in considerably more depth (Keita 2005). E UROPEAN H EGEMONY The European conquest of the Americas and their encroachments elsewhere reached into the Pacific, and by the 19th century virtually every Pacific territory had fallen under the control of outside powers—the Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, German, Dutch, or American. Pacific peoples suffered greatly, and many were lured, tricked, or kidnapped from their homes and sold into servitude or slavery. Early sugar plantations in Queensland, Australia, were worked by Melanesians, mostly from Vanuatu and New Caledonia, some of whom had been recruited while others were captured by slavers commonly known as “blackbirders.” AUSTRALIAN P ENAL C OLONY African connections to the Pacific are better documented during the late 18th century as a result of spillover from the European activities

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Pacific: The African Diaspora | 737 in the Americas. When the British lost their North American colonies in the U.S. War of Independence (1775–1783), they turned to Australia, a continent in the southwest Pacific with a relatively sparse population, close to Asia and Melanesia. Instead of slavery, the British opted for the forced labor of convicts, and the first 700 of these from English prisons landed in January 1788. Free settlers came later, especially when gold was found in 1851, but for the first few decades of the 19th century convicts were routinely deported to the emerging Australian colonies. When those colonies were united into a federal commonwealth in 1901 it was the policy that only Europeans would be allowed to settle there, but the infamous “White Australia” policy was an oxymoron at best, because Australia was never white to begin with. Furthermore, a good number of the convicts sent there—beginning with the very first fleet in 1788—were people of African descent, and included former slaves or free blacks from the United States, Britain, and the Caribbean (Duffield 1988). Their numbers have been variously estimated to have been from 2 percent to 6 percent of the arrivals at that time. Black convicts continued to arrive well into the 1830s. B LACK C ONVICTS Evidence for this black presence, although often overlooked, is plentiful in published journals, travel accounts and memoirs of the time, and convict records preserved in various archives. John Caesar, an Afro-Englishman (born either in Africa or the West Indies) living in Deptford, England, was convicted in 1784 (or 1786) for theft and was sentenced to seven years’ transportation to the convict colony of New South Wales. Deptford, a town on the Thames River downstream from London, was the site of shipbuilding yards, docks, and a naval base and, like other such towns, already had a black community by the 18th century. Caesar arrived at Botany Bay in January 1788 aboard the ship Alexander in the very first shipment of prisoners. He escaped several times,

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only to be recaptured. On his last escape Caesar lived free as an outlaw before finally falling victim to bounty hunters in 1796. In the Australian national myth there looms the bushranger, a figure of heroic proportions, a poor settler or ex-convict turned outlaw who rebels against an unjust system and defies it successfully for a while until treachery brings him an untimely end. The Irish-Australian Ned Kelly, a notorious bushranger in the 1870s, is a national icon, but Australia’s first bushranger was John Caesar, a black man, who preceded Kelly by almost a century (Ward 1958). Black convicts transported to Australia included British-born blacks, Africans or West Indians living in England, and at least 40 U.S.born individuals. American slaves who, with the promise of freedom, had joined the British forces during the Revolutionary War and again during the War of 1812 had ended up in Canada or Sierra Leone, while others had settled in England—mostly in port cities. The Afro-British population grew steadily during the 18th century, as Britain’s military and commercial influence came to dominate the Atlantic. After 1830, colonial courts began sentencing slaves directly from the Caribbean, and so people from Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad, and other points were added to the traffic south. Yet another source of black deportees to Australia was the Cape Colony in South Africa, where a new supreme court in 1828 began sentencing petty criminals to transportation, a practice that lasted for about a decade (Duly 1979). Prison sentences were in multiples of seven; seven years was the minimum and fourteen was the average, although terms could last up to “life.” Although some convicts left after their term expired, many stayed, benefiting from the grant of land accorded to new settlers. Black ex-convicts signed on as crew, leaving Australia and returned to Britain or America; some simply went to sea and worked on trade or whaling ships—arduous work that was open to men of all races—while

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others gravitated elsewhere. Popular tradition in Vanuatu, for example, tells of an African American who operated a successful cotton plantation on Efaté Island in the 1860s. Of the African descendants who remained in Australia there is little trace, as most appear to have been absorbed into the main population, yet in recent years several communities have laid claim to their Afro-Australian ancestral heritage. G OLD RUSH The 19th century saw more and more free settlers in the Australian colonies and fewer convicts, so that by mid-century the penal colony system was in its last days. The discovery of gold in 1851 set off a gold rush that by 1852 was joined by settlers, freed convicts, and an influx of immigrants. These came to include adventurers from California, which the United States had acquired from Mexico in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and which itself had been the scene of a major gold rush in 1849. The Mexican constitution had outlawed slavery in 1829 when California was still a part of Mexico, so that territory had been a destination for African Americans—free or fugitive. After the California gold rush peaked in 1852, a number of prospectors—black and white— pulled up stakes and took passage to Australia. Included in their number were John Jacobs, brother of Harriet Jacobs, author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and Harriet’s son Joseph. Australian newspaper accounts in the 1850s make mention of parties of “coloured Americans,” “Jamaican blacks,” “an American man of colour,” and “a party of American blacks [who] took 500 ounces of gold out of one hole” (Potts and Potts 1985). E UREKA S TOCKADE African Americans were present at a defining moment in Australian history, when protests against licence fees led to a rebellion against the authority of the British crown. Several hundred miners, a number of whom were black, took up

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positions in the fortified Eureka Stockade and defied the crown’s authority. Redcoat troops stormed the stockade at dawn on December 3, 1854, putting the insurrection down with considerable force but losing their own captain to a rebel bullet. Two black men were among the survivors accused of treason and brought to trial: John Joseph an African American from Baltimore, Maryland (or Boston), and James Campbell, from Kingston, Jamaica. Despite damning testimony against them, both men were acquitted. As the Australian gold rush tapered off some prospectors remained on their claims, still finding the precious metal, some drifted into towns and cities to look for work, and others signed on to ships to try their luck elsewhere. Of those remaining little or nothing is known, unless they distinguished themselves in some way, like Harry Sellars, an African American living in Melbourne, who won the Victorian middleweight boxing championship title in the 1860s (Potts and Potts 1985). Similarly, for the rest of the Pacific, there are no accurate figures for the individuals of African descent who may have left their mark in the region. A footnote to the “Mutiny on the Bounty” story shows that one of the crew was a West Indian, Midshipman Edward Young, born in 1762 (or 1766) in Saint Kitts, who ended his days on Pitcairn Island with Fletcher Christian and the other mutineers. T HE S PANISH -A MERICAN WAR The next African American contacts with the Pacific were mainly military, coming at intervals of about a half century. The first of these was during and after the Spanish-American War (1898) when the United States sent black troops to help crush the Philippine independence movement. This was the first time since emancipation that the United States had used African Americans in an overseas war, and although black citizens generally welcomed the chance to prove their loyalty and patriotism, there was considerable sympathy for the “little brown brothers” who were falling under Amer-

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Pacific: The African Diaspora | 739 ican control. African Americans often felt an affinity with the Filipino people, and after black units were withdrawn in 1902 some 500 individuals chose to remain rather than return to the United States (Gatewood 1971). WORLD WAR II The next major African American contacts in the Pacific came during World War II, when thousands of “colored troops” were sent to the region, mostly in engineer (labor) battalions. Black troops were with the first wartime convoy to reach Melbourne in February 1942, and by May of that year—a mere six months after the United States had entered the war—there were more than 5,000 in Australia and New Guinea alone. More were to arrive later. One of the U.S. black battalions included John Oliver Killens, who in later years drew on his wartime experiences for his vivid novel And Then We Heard the Thunder. This phase of the war was centered in the southwest Pacific, where the Japanese had occupied Malaya, Indonesia, the Philippines, the Solomons, and parts of New Guinea and had bombed northern Australia as a prelude to invasion. Meanwhile, Australia, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu (then known as the New Hebrides) were the centers for the American and Allied buildup, and were the launch points for the actions that would eventually turn back the Japanese. P OSTWAR D EVELOPMENTS The relative freedom and prosperity that U.S. African Americans seemed to enjoy—in contrast to the colonized peoples of Melanesia and the subject Aboriginal people of Australia— gave many of those Pacific peoples a greater awareness of themselves and an urgent sense that change was needed. Change has come. The U.S. Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s inspired black Australians and galvanized their efforts to finally achieve citizenship in 1967. Since then, most Melanesian countries have become independent: Fiji in 1970, Papua New Guinea in 1975, Solomon Islands in 1978, and

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Vanuatu in 1980. Independence movements are active in New Caledonia, which is still controlled by France, and West Papua (Western New Guinea), which has been absorbed into Indonesia. Black Pacific peoples often look to African Americans for inspiration and are intensely interested in events taking place in the United States. Youngsters take cues from music, the reading public seeks African-American writers, and local poets take inspiration from such literary greats as Langston Hughes. Growing political and economic power in Black America is watched with great interest, because Pacific peoples themselves were dispossessed and disadvantaged through colonialism. Even more important is the need to reclaim a heritage and cultural identity that have been badly damaged by events of the past few hundred years. Here too the U.S. African American example has been salient: Pacific people are beginning to talk with pride about the “Melanesian or custom” way and to acknowledge their historical connection to Africa. R ECENT D IASPORA As a prosperous member of the industrialized Western world Australia has attracted immigrants and refugees of diverse origins to the extent that its population can no longer be characterized as mainly Anglo-Celtic. Black Britons have made their home there as well as refugees from countries like Somalia, Ethiopia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Congo, so that now there are small African communities established in most of the major cities. African-born Australians in recent years have included university professors, a beauty queen, and a captain of the national rugby team. David W. H. Pellow See also Indian Ocean and the African Diaspora; United Kingdom: The African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Bellwood, P. S. 1980. “The Peopling of the Pacific.” Scientific American 243 (November): 174–183.

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740 | Padmore, George (1901–1959) Duffield, Ian. 1988. “From Slave Colonies to Penal Colonies: The West Indian Convict Transportees to Australia.” In De la traite à l’esclavage. Actes du colloque international sur la traite des Noirs, Nantes 1985, vol. 2, ed. Serge Daget, 315–331. Nantes, France: Centre de Recherche sur l’histoire du monde atlantique. Duly, Leslie C. 1979. “‘Hottentots to Hobart and Sydney’: The Cape Supreme Court’s Use of Transportation 1828–1838.” Australian Journal of Politics and History 25 (April): 39–50. Gatewood, Willard B., Jr. 1971. “Smoked Yankees” and the Struggle for Empire: Letters from Negro Soldiers, 1898–1902. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Keita, Maghan. 2005. “Africans and Asians: Historiography and the Long View of Global Interaction.” Journal of World History 16:1–30. Potts, E. Daniel, and Annette Potts. 1968. “The Negro and the Australian Gold Rushes, 1852– 1857.” Pacific Historical Review 37 (November): 381–399. Potts, E. Daniel, and Annette Potts. 1985. Yanks Down Under 1941–45: The American Impact on Australia. Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press. Pybus, Cassandra. 2002. “Black Caesar: our first bushranger was a six-foot African man who arrived on the first fleet.” Arena Magazine (February 1): 30–35. Verin, P. 1981. “Madagascar.” In General History of Africa. Vol. 2, Ancient Civilizations of Africa, ed. G. Mokhtar, 693–717. Berkeley: UNESCO, Heinemann and the University of California Press. Udo-Ekpo, Lawrence T. 1999. The Africans in Australia: Expectations and Shattered Dreams. Henley Beach, South Australia: Seaview Press. Van Sertima, Ivan. 1988. African Presence in Early Asia. Revised edition. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books. Ward, Russel. 1958. The Australian Legend. Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press.

z Padmore, George (1901–1959) George Padmore, whose native name was Malcolm Ivan Meredith Nurse, was born in 1901 in Trinidad, though there are accounts that give

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this year as 1902 or 1903. He qualified as “citizen of the world” having through his life expressed interest in the liberation of people under colonial rule as both victims and exploited beings. In 1924, he migrated to the United States after his secondary education in Trinidad to study at Columbia, Fisk, New York, and Howard Universities. Fully trained as a lawyer, political scientist, and journalist, he was a communist convert who rose through the ranks, using his intellect and strong communist influence on the world stage. Padmore traveled to the Soviet Union in 1929, where he became head of the Negro Bureau of the Red International Labour Union, and to Germany in 1931, where he headed the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers and published The Life and Struggles of Negro Toilers. He wrote extensively as editor of The Negro Champion (later The Liberator) in Harlem, New York, about injustices in colonial rule and interpreted many world events unfolding at the time with Marxist tools until he left the Communist Party and became a critic of Marxism. In 1955, he wrote that black people should forget about Marxism as a tool of development and should instead free themselves from all European ideologies. Of all the places he traveled, it was Africa where Padmore’s influence became clearer. He met Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, Tom Mboya, and many of the African students in London and America in the late 1940s, and activists like Garame Kouyate in Paris. He obviously impressed them as an international black activist. When he moved to live in Africa during the decolonization period after Ghana’s independence in 1957, he did so as a mentor of Nkrumah and many of the leaders. He had been Nkrumah’s representative in London before this, attending to and honoring invitations on his behalf, among them, serving as the best man on Nkrumah’s behalf at the sensational London wedding of Joe Appiah, a Ghanaian colonial law student who married the daughter of the Labour chancellor of the exchequer, Sir Stafford Cripps.

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Palcy, Euzhan (1957–) | 741 Padmore established the International African Service Bureau and the International African Opinion, a journal connecting Caribbean and African political activists, trade unionists, and intellectuals. In 1944, Padmore, along with the likes of Nkrumah, Anna J. Cooper, W. E. B. DuBois, Amy Jacques Garvey, and Amy Ashwood Garvey, helped to organize the 5th Pan-African Conference in Manchester, England, which has proven to be one of the most important and strategically decisive conferences held. While in Ghana, Padmore worked closely with Nkrumah at the Christiansburg Castle, Osu, when Nkrumah was prime minister. Padmore died in 1959, four years after Ghana gained its independence and four years before the Organization of African Unity was founded in Addis Ababa, a project to which he had given great intellectual input. It is significant that Padmore died and was buried in Accra at the Christiansburg Castle, Osu, which is still the seat of government. It seems a fitting symbol of Padmore’s contribution to the country of Ghana. Padmore had helped to establish the Africa Research Library in Ghana; therefore, in the late 1980s his body was exhumed from the Christiansburg Castle and reburied at the library, which was renamed George Padmore Research Library. The library, which was originally built as a monument to Pan-Africanism and a memorial for Padmore, is today a major African research library housing not only Padmore’s books and other writings but also a one-stop shop for research on many African countries. Apart from being a reference library with affiliations to U.S. universities and libraries, it is also the storage house of materials of the Bureau of African Affairs, including letters from African leaders to Padmore and Nkrumah as well as information about the strategies that went into many policy works in Africa in the 1950s and 1960s. The library also publishes the Ghana National Bibliography. Ivor Duah

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See also Ghana; Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–1972); Pan-Africanism; Trinidad and Tobago. F URTHER R EADING Appiah, Joe. 1996. The Autobiography of an African Patriot. Accra, Ghana: Assemblies of God Publishers. Padmore, George. 1972. Panafricanism or Communism. New York : Doubleday. Padmore, George. 2007. The Life and Struggle of Negro Toilers. San Bernadino, CA: Borgo Press. Tenkorang, Omari Mensah. 2005. Interview with author, May 13.

z Palcy, Euzhan (1957–) Euzhan Palcy is the best-known woman filmmaker of the Caribbean and the most recognized director from Martinique. Her most popular feature is no doubt Rue Cases Nègres, or Sugar Cane Alley, about a boy trying to achieve an education in the midst of crushing poverty and segregation in 1930s Martinique. Also successful was her drama about apartheid, A Dry White Season, and her three-part documentary for French television on Aimé Césaire. Born in Martinique to a family of musicians and writers, Palcy herself read avidly and began dreaming of filmmaking at age 10 after she read Alan Paton’s Cry the Beloved Country. When Palcy then read Martinican writer Joseph Zobel’s La Rue Cases-Nègres, she cried at finally seeing her culture represented on the printed page. For the first time she discovered a black writer from Martinique who wrote about the poor. Though there were no images of Martinique onscreen, Palcy admired the work of Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock, and Orson Welles. At age 17 she made her first film, Le Messagère (The Messenger), for French television, a black-and-white representation of Martinique’s landscape and Creole-speaking people. Though discouraged by those who thought a black girl would never achieve

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success in France, she left for Paris where she met François Truffaut who supported her efforts to make Sugar Cane Alley. Based on Zobel’s novel, budgetary constraints allowed for only two well-known actors, yet the film was more successful than ET when shown in Martinique. Sugar Cane Alley also succeeded in France: it won 17 awards, among them the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival. It marked the first time most Martinicans saw their own landscape and culture reflected in cinema. With Palcy’s 1989 film, A Dry White Season, she became the first black woman to direct a Hollywood film. The big-budget MGM film, starring Marlon Brando, was adapted from Andre Brink’s novel about the Soweto riots. Because of producers’ initial reluctance to fund a film by a black filmmaker representing South African blacks, Palcy ended up telling the story of two white families. Her most recent film, The Killing Yard, concerns the Attica Prison uprising. She was awarded the Sojourner Truth award in 1991 at the Cannes Film Festival. She is currently working on a film version of the Japanese thriller The Third Lady and continues to make documentary films and made-for-TV movies. Gerise Herndon See also Black Paris/Paris Noir; Césaire, Aimé (1913–2008); Zobel, Joseph (1915–2006). F URTHER R EADING Givanni, June. 1992. “Interview with Euzhán Palcy.” In Ex-iles: Essays on Caribbean Cinema, ed. Mbye Cham, 286–307. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Herndon, Gerise. 1996. “Auto-ethnographic Impulse in Rue Cases-Nègres.” Film/Literature Quarterly 4 (3): 261–266. Linfield, Susan. 1984. “Sugar Cane Alley: An Interview with Euzhan Palcy.” Cinéaste 13 (4): 42– 45. Ménil, Alain. 1992. “Rue Cases-Nègres or the Antilles from the Inside.” In Ex-iles: Essays on Caribbean Cinema, ed. Mbye Cham, 156–175. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.

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Pan-Africanism Pan-Africanism is an ideology developed by the African-Diaspora and based on the fundamental proposition that people of African ancestry share a common historical experience during the rise of European mercantile expansion and imperial conquest of Africa. Moreover, this common “African” experience provided the basis for the suspension of Africans as the determinant factors in their own historical development and the substitution of European historical development as the determinant influence in the lives of Africans everywhere. In this sense, modern Pan-Africanism is an ideological response to the epoch of European and Arab imperial conquest and their respective slave trades. In 1884, the Berlin conference had established the “Scramble for Africa,” which had separated African precolonial nations and ethnic groups and created the artificial borders of colonial and contemporary nation-states. Whenever one thinks of Pan-Africanism one almost always first think of Marcus Mosiah Garvey, an African-Jamaican native, and Kwame Nkrumah, of Ghana. In the first quarter of the 20th century, Garvey, having moved to the United States, led the largest mass-based movement based on the ideology of black nationalism and Pan-Africanism in the history of the African Diaspora. His organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association, advocated “Africa for Africans” at the height of European domination of the African continent. Garvey, like Pan-African spokespersons before him, made the connection between the livelihood of Africans in the Diaspora and those on the continent long before European imperialism and the imperialist competition between modern nation-states evolved into modern globalization. A foremost advocate of Pan-Africanism on the African continent was, of course, Nkrumah. Nkrumah realized that before Africa could achieve economic prosperity Africa must first achieve Pan-African political unity and independence: without Pan-African political unity

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Panama: Afro-Panamanians | 743 or union, the economic development of the continent would depend on individual states’ relationships to a global economy increasingly dominated by former imperial powers. In short, for Africa to prosper, Africans must return to acting in their own interests and cease operating as a footnote to European development and history. Africans must take control over their own destiny; this, in essence, is the fundamental proposition of political Pan-Africanism. A great deal of political activity led up to the landmark first Pan-African Conference, organized in 1900 by Trinidadian Henry Sylvester Williams and Haitian Benito Sylvain in London. For example, the West African Students Union empowered a new generation of activists, some of whom would eventually have an impact on the development of African independence movements. Some also see the invasion of Ethiopia by the Italian fascists under Mussolini as a major politicizing event in the advancement of Pan-Africanism. But the first Pan African Conference is credited with establishing the use of the word and concept “PanAfricanism,” bringing together Pan-Africanist thinkers and activists from across the world and giving some concrete structure to this disparate though related set of activities. An organ, The Pan-African, was established and a name was given to the movement. A number of other Pan-African congresses would be held in London in 1919, 1921, 1923, and 1927; in Manchester, England, in 1945, and in Dar-es-Salaam in 1975. A more recent conference was held in 1994, organized by a new generation of PanAfrican intellectuals and activists. Tony Martin, a scholar of Pan-Africanism, identifies six dominant ideas that have formed the basis of Pan-Africanism: 1. A global African community 2. Africa as a base 3. A politically unified continent 4. A race-based global movement with a continental united states of Africa 5. Economies of scale 6. Pan-African political impact

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Attempts would be made to actualize these principles, either singly or in combination, in various ways through independent nation states, political organizations, and individual scholarship and activity. Some see the more recent organizing of the African Union, which deliberately invokes the politics of PanAfricanism, as a new possibility for those still caught in bureaucratic nation-state politics but needing a program of action for African peoples on the continent and African Diaspora peoples worldwide. Dhoruba bin Wahad See also African Union (AU); DuBois, William Edward Burghardt (1868–1963); Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940); Garvey, Amy Ashwood (1897–1969); James, Cyril Lionel Robert (1901–1989); Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–1972); Padmore, George (1901–1959); Ture, Kwame (1941–1998). F URTHER R EADING Garvey, Amy Jacques, ed. 1986. The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, or, Africa for the Africans. Dover, MA: The Majority Press. (Orig. pub. in two vols. in 1923 and 1925). Hooker, James R. 1967. Black Revolutionary: George Padmore’s Path from Communism to Pan-Africanism. London: Pall Mall. Martin, Tony. 1984. The Pan-African Connection: From Slavery to Garvey and Beyond. Dover, MA: The Majority Press. (Orig. pub. 1983). Martin, Tony. 2006. Amy Ashwood Garvey: Feminist, Pan-Africanist and Wife No.1, Or, A Tale of Two Amies. Dover, MA: The Majority Press. Mathurin, Owen. 1976. Henry Sylvester Williams and the Origins of the Pan-African Movement. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

z Panama: Afro-Panamanians Panama has been a region of political importance because of its geographic position. During colonial times, Panama was a strategic place for the Spanish Empire, as a barrier between the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean, and thus a

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center of communication between the metropolis and the coasts of the Peruvian Viceroyalty. In the 19th and 20th centuries, it became a commercial point of connection in the Americas. The presence of people of African descent (and other ethnic groups) in Panama is strongly tied to the history of this nation as a place of transit. Throughout Panama’s history, there have been five major immigrations to the country, with very different characteristics and from different areas. These migrations have influenced and shaped the construction of the nation in dramatic ways. Afro-Panamanians can be divided into two major groups: those who landed in Panama as slaves in the 16th century and those who migrated involuntarily or voluntarily to work on different projects in the 19th century. The former are commonly known as Afro-Colonials (or negros coloniales) and the latter as West Indians, Afro-Antilleans, criollos, or antillanos (subsequently called Afro-Antilleans in this entry). In early colonial history, the Isthmus of Panama was the fundamental commercial link between Spain and western South America. Sixty percent of the total production of silver from the Andes passed through Panama. The isthmus became the first major arrival point for enslaved Africans, particularly those from West Africa. Scholars of the history of Panama do not agree on the specific circumstances of the arrival of the first Africans to the country or on their numeric importance. According to Diez Castillo (1981, 15), the first black slaves to arrive in Panama were brought by the expedition of Diego de Nicuesa, governor of Castilla del Oro in 1509, as a result of the Capitulación de Burgos, signed by de Nicuesa and Spain’s King Ferdinand on June 19, 1508. Lewis (1980) argues that black slaves first arrived in Panama in 1511. Historians affirm that Pedro Arías de Avila (Pedrarias) was the first to bring slaves to Panama in 1513, as royal governor of Castilla del Oro. There is also contention over the number of slaves present in Panama at any given time. Some scholars argue that black

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slaves represented 76 percent of the population of the city of Panama in the 17th and 18th centuries (De la Rosa 1993). Others claim that Panama was not a place where slavery was highly important numerically or socially (Guzmán Navarro 1982). Slavery was transmitted from mother to child and in owners’ wills (also known as esclavitud testada). In Panama, slavery was not linked, as in other regions of the Americas, to plantation life. Most slaves were brought to Panama to work in the mining industry, by far the most important economic resource of colonial Panama. Use of slaves maximized the profits of Spaniards in the mines of Veracruz, Coclé, and Concepción. Black slaves were also used as a labor force to build cities, towns, roads, churches, and monasteries and as domestic servants. In colonial Panama, enslaved Africans were considered to be of dubious character and dangerous and were placed in the most arduous tasks. The severe conditions experienced by the enslaved provoked several insurrections and the formation of numerous palenques (fortified villages of escaped slaves). The first known revolt of black slaves in the Isthmus occurred in the city of Panama in 1525; this rebellion was suppressed and the instigators were executed, but it brought about other insurrections and uprisings. By 1533, it was estimated that there were approximately 800 maroons in Panama. Among the most famous maroon leaders, documents mention Felipillo and Bayano or Vallano. By 1533, trips through the King’s Highway were highly dangerous because of the assaults and alliances of maroons with pirates such as Sir Frances Drake, Henry Morgan, Edward Vernon, William Parker, and John Oxenham. These attacks continued throughout the 17th century. Colonists lived in a constant state of fear of escaped slaves. Mechanisms to reduce uprisings included a series of concessions by the Spanish government, physical coercion, and unsuccessful attempts to evangelize the palenques. Capitu-

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Girls at a carnival celebration in Panama. (Danny Lehman/Corbis)

laciones were among the most important mechanisms against insurrection. Through them, maroons were able to gain recognition, lands, and rights from the Spanish crown if they promised to settle in communities under Spanish control and to pledge allegiance to the crown. Ironically, capitulaciones allied the black maroons with the Spanish crown against the mestizos. In spite of the success of certain methods of repression of rebellions, maroons continued to be considered threats for Spanish society. “Colonial blacks” (particularly in palenques) remained a society apart with their own rituals and ceremonies. Freedom for Panamanian slaves was a difficult task to accomplish. Some of the mechanisms used included letters of freedom (cartas de libertad), given to slaves as a result of a decree by King Ferdinand in 1526, and the libertad graciosa, granted to a slave (in some cases, postmortem) due to affection, good services, or illness.

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The first Manumission Courts (in charge of providing government funds to collaborate in the payment of individual freedom) appeared in the year 1821 and marked a transition in the history of slavery in Panama. That same year, Panama was incorporated into the Gran Colombia after its independence from Spain. Panama was known as Colombia’s “black province” because of its high degree of miscegenation. With this annexation, Panama became subject to the laws of the Gran Colombia. One of these laws was the law of Cúcuta (promulgated July 21, 1821), which established “freedom of the womb” for slaves born after 1821. Slavery gradually waned, and on January 1, 1852, slaves were granted universal freedom in Panama. One of the most important historical events that produced Panama’s second major black experience (Afro-Antilleans) was the famous California gold rush, which started in 1849. The discovery of gold in the region motivated the construction of a railroad that would transport

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goods and laborers from the East to the West Coast of the United States. Construction of the Panamanian Railroad began in August 1850 with workers hired from different countries: New Grenada, Jamaica, England, France, Germany, India, Austria, and China. However, organizers of the project were interested in a labor force well adjusted to the environment and with knowledge of the English language. Afro-Antilleans met all these criteria. When construction ended in 1855, thousands of Afro-Antilleans remained in Panama. A second migration of Afro-Antilleans was the product of the French efforts to build a canal in Panama from 1880 to 1889, under the leadership of Count Ferdinand de Lesseps. By 1884, there were more than 18,000 workers in the project, most of them Afro-Antilleans from Jamaica, Barbados, Santa Lucía, and Martinique (Westerman 1980; cf. Gaskin 1984). The French project was not successful, and the company displaced more than 18,000 AfroAntilleans from Jamaica and more than 8,000 Afro-Antilleans from Haiti. From 1881 to 1889, more than 22,000 Afro-Antilleans died of hunger, malaria, and yellow fever. Only 800 from Jamaica and 200 from Haiti survived (DiezCastillo 1981). Some returned to their island territories, but a large number remained in the country. The third and largest migration of AfroAntilleans took place during the first decade of the 20th century when the United States took charge of the construction of the Panama Canal (1904–1914). The Panama Canal Company brought 31,000 men and 9,000 AfroAntillean women to Panama from 1904 to 1913, most from Barbados. Some of the workers on the U.S. canal had worked for the French Canal Company. Throughout the construction of these large infrastructural projects, Afro-Antilleans constantly struggled to improve their salaries and working conditions. The conditions that AfroAntilleans were forced to endure on both canal projects represented a system of semislavery;

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several strikes to protest these injustices took place between 1881 and 1904. It is important to mention a fourth migration of Afro-Antilleans to Panama, in this case specifically to the Province of Bocas del Toro, in the northwestern region. Afro-Antilleans arrived in Bocas del Toro during the mid- or late 18th century (accounts vary) to work as slaves of English and Scottish families who had settled in the region after leaving the islands of Providence and San Andres. Adams (1914) suggests that Afro-Antilleans arrived in Bocas del Toro during the 17th century from Jamaica and other British colonies. However, there is no other evidence that confirms this hypothesis. After slavery was abolished in Panama, AfroAntilleans in Bocas del Toro became part of a society of independent peasants in small villages on the islands and along the coast. The economy of the Afro-Creole peasant was based on subsistence agriculture, hunting (particularly of turtles), and fishing. This system continued during the 19th century. When the United Fruit Company established large commercial banana plantations in Bocas in 1899, the region became one of the most prosperous in Panama. This triggered another important migration of AfroAntilleans from the Caribbean and from Panama City and Colon (Reid and HeckadonMoreno 1980). When the United Fruit Company closed its Atlantic Coast plantations in the 1920s and 1930s (due to outbreaks of the Panama disease and the Great Depression), some Afro-Antillean families were able to buy parcels of land and establish small and mediumsized family farms. This resulted in the unusual development of a black, rural, middle class in the old banana zones. Consequently, the AfroAntillean experience in Bocas del Toro differs significantly from that of black workers elsewhere in Panama and Latin America. Relations between “colonial blacks” and Afro-Antilleans have been problematic. Cultural traditions and their history of arrival distinguished “colonial blacks” from AfroAntilleans: “Colonial blacks” were descendants

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Panama: Afro-Panamanians | 747 of Spanish colonial era slaves, spoke Spanish, and were mostly Catholic; Afro-Antilleans were descendants of enslaved Africans from the British colonies, came to Panama mostly as low-paid workers, spoke English, and most were Protestant. “Colonial blacks” and mestizo Panamanians were both prejudiced against Afro-Antilleans, who were perceived as having a distinct culture, an apparent disdain for Latino customs and the Panamanian nation in general, and an envied economic success. The derogatory term chombo was used to designate the Afro-Antilleans and differentiate them from “colonial blacks.” Afro-Antilleans maintained their Caribbean and British ties, were keen to educate their children in that tradition, and were considered (and in some cases, considered themselves) to be “in transit.” Afro-Antilleans encountered a more overt level of discrimination than Afro-Colonials. After the construction of the Panama Canal, the contradictory and prejudicial policies of the Panamanian government were clearly demonstrated in the way in which migrations were handled. For instance, Law No. 26 of 1931 prohibited migration of Chinese, Libyans, Palestinians, Syrians, Turks, and blacks “whose language was not Spanish.” In the Constitution of 1941, Arnulfo Arias Madrid established Hispanic heritage as the “true” heritage of Panamanians, prohibiting migration and citizenship to Afro-Antilleans. The history of Afro-Panamanians is characterized by rebellion, resistance, and accommodation and by an internal diaspora. Panama prides itself for being a “racial democracy.” Although the level of discrimination evident against black and indigenous peoples in other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean is not present in Panama, racism toward black and indigenous populations (regardless of ethnic ascription) is present. Historically, Afrocolonials and Afro-Antilleans struggled for better rights and opportunities—the former as maroons in palenques; the latter as workers in infrastructural and other projects—and for

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recognition as worthy contributors to the nation. The past has witnessed conflicts between Afro-colonials and Afro-Antilleans, but more recently there have been efforts to present a unified front to represent Afro-Panamanians as a whole. Examples of those efforts include the institution of the Day of Black Ethnicity (Día de la Etnia Negra), which has been celebrated nationwide in May since 2000; the creation of the Center for Afro-Panamanian Studies in Panama City; and the organization of the Committee Against Racism. Cultural connections with other Latin American, and particularly Caribbean, African Diaspora populations are strong and include music (reggae, reggaeton, calypso, jazz, among others), dance, architecture, and religion. Although not commonly known, the Rastafarian movement is present in Panama. Recent government emphasis on tourism has produced an official recognition of the nation’s heritage of cultural diversity and the contributions of Afro-Panamanians to this diversity. In addition, it has stimulated a healing of the internal Diaspora between the descendants of Afrocolonials and Afro-Antilleans. Carla Guerrón Montero See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Ecuador: AfroEcuadorians; Jamaica. F URTHER R EADING Adams, Frederick Upham. 1914. Conquest of the Tropics: The Story of the Creative Enterprises Conducted by the United Fruit Company. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page and Company. Castillero Calvo, Alfredo. 1973. Los Negros y Mulatos Libres en la Historia Social Panameña. Panama. Conniff, Michael L. 1995. “Afro-West Indians on the Central American Isthmus: The Case of Panama.” In Slavery and Beyond: The African Impact on Latin America and the Caribbean, ed. Darién Davis, 147–172. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources. De la Guardia, Roberto. 1975. Civilización Occidental: Variedad Panameña. Panama: Impresora Roysa. De la Guardia, Roberto. 1977. Los Negros del Istmo de Panamá. Panama: Ediciones INAC.

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748 | Pattillo, Walter Alexander (1850–1908) De la Rosa, Manuel. 1993. “El Negro en Panamá.” In Presencia Africana en Centroamérica, ed. Luz María Martínez-Montiel, 217–292. Mexico: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura. Diez Castillo, Luis A. 1981. Los Cimarrones y los Negros Antillanos en Panamá. Panama: Impr. J. Mercado Rudas. Gaskin, E. A. 1984. Blacks Played Significant Role in Improving Life on the Isthmus of Panama. Balboa, Panama: Gebsa de Panamá. Grannun de Lewis, Catalina N. 1979. Los Trabajadores Panameños de Ascendencia Antillana en la Zona del Canal de Panamá: Su Situación Social y Económica. Panama: CELA. Guerrón Montero, Carla. 2002. Esclavitud y Relaciones Interétnicas entre Afro-panameños Coloniales y Afro-antillanos en Panamá (Siglo XIX). Revista Académica Lotería 442 (3): 79–96. Guerrón Montero, Carla. 2005. “Voces Subalternas: Presencia Afro-Antillana en Panamá.” Cuadernos Americanos 111: 33–59. Guzmán Navarro, Arturo. 1982. La Trata Esclavista en el Istmo de Panamá. Panama: Editorial Universitaria, 1982. Lewis, Lancelot. 1980. The West Indian in Panama: Black Labor in Panama, 1850–1914. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America. Marrero Lobinot, Francisco. 1984. “Nuestros Ancestros de las Antillas Francesas: Interpretaciones Históricas y Sociológicas de Una Minoría Étnica Nacional.” 67. Panama. Reid, Carlos. 1980. Memorias de un Criollo Bocatoreño, ed Stanley Heckadon-Moreno. Panama: Litho-Impresora Panamá. Rodríguez, Frederick. 1981. Cimarron Revolts and Pacification in New Spain, the Isthmus of Panama, and Colonial Colombia, 1503–1800. Chicago: Loyola University Press. Smith, Ronald Richard. 1976. The Society of Los Congos of Panama: An Ethnomusicological Study of the Music and Dance-Theater of an Afro-Panamanian Group. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Westerman, George. 1980. Los Inmigrantes Antillanos en Panamá. Panama: Impresora de la Nación.

z Paris Noir See Black Paris/Paris Noir.

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Parker, Lawrence Anthony See KRS-ONE (1965–).

z Pattillo, Walter Alexander (1850–1908) Born into slavery on November 9, 1850, Walter Pattillo was the leader of the Black Populist movement, the largest political movement of rural African-Americans in the late 19th century. Over the course of three decades, Pattillo became one of his state’s most important religious, educational, and political leaders, helping to spur the growth of the black Baptist church, establishing the Colored Orphanage Asylum, and serving as a lecturer and national leader of the Colored Farmers Alliance. After the Civil War, Pattillo drove wagons and worked in a sawmill to support his mother. His father was most likely his mother’s slave master. Pattillo joined the General Association of the Colored Baptists of North Carolina at the age of 17 to promote the expansion of the black-led church. Having taught himself how to read and write while a slave, he was determined to get a formal education. In 1870, he married Mary Ida Hart, with whom he would have 12 children. In 1876, he entered Shaw University to study theology. He would go on to preach to dozens of congregations over his lifetime, delivering nearly 3,000 sermons and baptizing more than 3,100 people. He served as a member of the Home Mission Board of the Baptist State Convention in Granville and was elected president of the Middle Baptist Association. Pattillo’s work with the black Baptists brought him into contact with people throughout the state. In the early 1880s, Pattillo ran unsuccessfully for Register of Deeds as a Republican. He became actively involved in public education, not only teaching classes but also serving as Superintendent of Schools in his

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Payada | 749 county and adjoining areas. He established the Colored Orphanage Asylum (later renamed the Central Children’s Home), the state’s only black orphanage, and served as its general agent in the mid-1880s. As economic and political conditions deteriorated among African-Americans, however, Pattillo turned his attention to building what would become the largest network of black farmers, the Colored Farmers Alliance. During this period, he edited two newspapers, the Alliance Advocate and the Baptist Pilot. In his capacity as the elected state organizer and lecturer for the Colored Alliance, Pattillo traveled across the state spreading word of the growing movement and recruiting members into local chapters. His talent as an organizer was in part reflected in the phenomenal growth of the Colored Alliance, which by the early 1890s claimed a membership of some 55,000 black farmers and agrarian laborers. Recognizing the limits of agrarian organizing without engaging the electoral process itself, Pattillo was among the first to call for the formation of an independent political party, which became the People’s Party. After the demise of Black Populism, Pattillo became principal of Oxford High School while continuing to preach to various congregations. In 1906, two years before his death, Shaw University, his alma mater, honored him for his life’s work with a doctor of divinity degree. Omar H. Ali See also Black Populism (1886–1898). F URTHER R EADING Ali, Omar H. 2002. “The Making of a Black Populist: A Tribute to the Rev. Walter A. Pattillo.” Oxford Public Ledger, March 28. Ali, Omar H. 2008. In the Balance of Power: Independent Black Politics and Third-Party Movements in the United States. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Ali, Omar H. Forthcoming. Black Populism in the New South, 1886–1898. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

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Payada The payada is a form of Creole or folkloric poetry, especially associated with and popular among the gauchos or cowboys of Argentina and Uruguay. Its origins are uncertain, but what is known is that it was already commonly performed in the open air or in the pulperías (general stores where gauchos would go to drink) throughout the campaña or countryside of the River Plate by the early 1800s. The payada takes the form of improvised, sung verses, usually accompanied by a guitar. Common themes intoned by payadores included love, the beauty of rural life, and death. A payada could be performed as a solo act or as a kind of contrapuntal duel by a duo of payadores, as depicted in the Argentine national classic El gaucho Martín Fierro (1872), by José Hernández. This answer-and-response contest would end when one of the singers could not poetically retort his adversary. The payada, as was also true with the tango, benefited from the genius of Africans and their descendants. First, Africans enslaved and free worked as horsemen on cattle estates on the River Plate throughout the colonial and national periods, and some even became slave foremen, as was the case with one Patricio de Belén in the Banda Oriental estate of Las Vacas (Mayo 1997). They therefore worked and relaxed alongside their white counterparts and shared (and influenced) gaucho culture, including the payada. Second, several scholars attest to the importance of Africans in the formation of Creole expressions and language in the River Plate. African Argentines and Uruguayans donated such commonly used terms in Argentina and Uruguay as quilombo, mandinga, and cachimba, words putatively associated with the Congo-Angola nations (see Britos Serrat 1999). Third, throughout the River Plate (and the Americas), Africans were renowned for their verbal agility, coming up with catchy sales pitches or pregones to hawk their wares during the 1700s and 1800s and cantos de cuna or nursery rhymes to put infants

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(their masters’ and their own) to bed (for example, “La ronda catonga” by Pereda Valdés 1962, 360). The chant-and-response nature of the payada is common to other verbal and musical expressions throughout Africa and the Diaspora. West Africans, imported to the River Plate certainly brought with them a linguistic and folkloric repertoire inherited from their griots (singers, storytellers, historians). The Mande-speaking peoples of Senegambia made their way to the River Plate via the transatlantic slave trade; among the Mendes (including the Mandinga), griots played an important role in preserving and transmitting ethnic lore and traditions. Their prodigious verbal skills also made them valued advisers to chiefs and kings. In short, West Africans possessed, as an integral element of ancestral culture, “the power of speech” (Bird 1971). Often performed before large audiences by white and black payadores in theaters and circuses in both cities and rural areas in the River Plate, the payada is similar to contrapuntal and satiric songs generically called makawas and ibiririmbo on the African continent. Néstor Ortiz Oderigo compares the payada to other African and Afro-American songs found throughout the Americas, including the Brazilian canto de sotaque, the Caribbean canto de gallo, and the North-American “answer-back songs,” for example, rap (Ortiz Oderigo 1974, 108–109). Just as significant is the role Afro-Argentines and Afro-Uruguayans played in the development of the payada. The best payadores (just like many of the best early tango musicians) from the city and countryside were black men, notably Luis García, Higinio Cazón, and the greatest of the 19th-century payadores, Gabino (Gavino) Ezeiza. Toward the end of the 1800s, these folk troubadours would face off in “cutting contests” throughout Buenos Aires and the interior provinces. Until well into the 20th century, many Argentines nostalgically commemorated Ezieza’s birth, and a small monument consisting of a

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(now weather-faded) bust of Ezeiza can still be found in the old slaughterhouse district of Buenos Aires—one of only three public monuments recalling the Afro-Argentine experience (the other two celebrate the end of the slave trade and the heroism of Falucho, a black hero of Argentine independence). The payada and its performers symbolize yet another African contribution to the culture of the River Plate. The names and performances of legendary payadores have endured in the national memory, becoming the stuff of legend. Even the “foundational fictions” of the region have immortalized the black payador. Hilario Ascasubi’s gauchesque classic Santos Vega (1850 or 1851) also incorporates the legend of the Mandinga; he depicts a verbal duel between Santos Vega and the devil, or Mandinga, represented as a black man. Thus, the payada truly constitutes an example of afronegrismos rioplatenses. Roberto Pacheco See also Argentina: Afro-Argentines; Falucho (?–1824); Griots/Griottes of West Africa; Tango, Candombe, Milonga; Uruguay: AfroUruguayans. F URTHER R EADING Bird, Charles S. 1971. “Oral Art of the Mande.” Papers of the Manding 3: 15–25. Britos Serrat, Alberto, comp. 1999. Glosario de afronegrismos uruguayos. Montevideo, Uruguay: Ediciones Mundo Afro. Lewis, Marvin A. 1996. Afro-Argentine Discourse: Another Dimension of the Black Diaspora. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. Mayo, Carlos. 1997. “Patricio de Belén: nada menos que un capataz.” Hispanic American Historical Review 77 (4): 597–614. Ortiz Oderigo, Néstor. 1974. Aspectos de la cultura africana en el Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires: Editorial Plus Ultra. Pereda Valdés, Ildefonso. 1962. “La ronda catonga.” In Lira negra, ed. José Sanz y Díaz, 360. Madrid: Ediciones Aguilar. Zabala, Abel. 1998. “El negro Gavino: payador de payadores.” Revista de Historia Bonaerense 4 (16): 25–26.

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People with Their Feet on Backward People with their feet on backward are figures present throughout the folklore of the Caribbean and other parts of the New World that are often used to instill fear in children so they will not wander off by themselves. For some artists they represent early stages of human growth and even the muse. In Trinidad they are called douens (also dwens or duennes) and are said to lead people, especially children, into the forest until they are lost or never heard from again. Associated there with the souls of unbaptized children, they often make sad sounds and are depicted as wearing mushroom hats that hide their faces, although sometimes one can see their eyes glowing like burning coals. Artist Leroy Clarke sees the state of “douendom” as a metaphor for the underdevelopment and psychic morass of New World people, the result of enslavement, colonialism and capitalist expansionism, rendering them “turned around,” which is why their feet point backward. For protection against being completely lost, it is sometimes suggested that you recite some words while you hold a piece of silk from a silk cotton tree in your hand. In Saint Lucia, a similar figure is the bolom, an unchristened dead child with feet on backward like a foetus; they are also described as wearing a hat. Belize has its folk versions of this figure, too. One of them is the duende (also duhende or tataduhende), a small, dwarflike man who wears a big hat, makes a strange noise, and has his feet on backward. He can be a trickster or a guardian of the forest. A motif some versions of the duende share with the Sisimite (also Sisimit), a hairy creature who may or may not have its feet on backward or the ability to reverse them, is that they carry off children. In the Dominican Republic, people with their feet on backward are called ciguapas. They are supposed to have lived in Hispaniola before the arrival of Christopher Columbus and reside mostly in mountain areas, where they move by

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taking gigantic leaps. The sound they make is like a hiccup. The women cover themselves with their long hair and come out at night to get food, often stealing it from homes where people are asleep. Though rarely mentioned, male ciguapas look like roosters turned upside down and have women’s breasts. They make sounds similar to the cries of children. Whoever kills one of them will pay dire consequences for the rest of his or her life. Near the Haitian border they say ciguapas kidnap children. To catch a ciguapa you need a native dog with five toes and a crescent moon, but it is better to leave them alone because they die of sadness whenever they are caught. Maria Soledad Rodriguez See also La Diablesse. F URTHER R EADING Allsopp, Richard, ed. 1996. Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage. With a French and Spanish Supplement edited by Jeannette Allsopp. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Clarke, Leroy. 1981. Douens. (Poetry collection accompanying an art exhibition, New York, 1974– 1979). New York: KaRaEle. Estrella Veloz, Santiago. 2001. “La ciguapa: entre la decadencia y el olvido.” [A]hora 30 (23 de abril): 30–31. Parham, Timothy, and Mary Gomez Parham, eds. 2000. If Di Pin Neva Ben: Folktales and Legends of Belize. Benque Viejo del Carmen, Belize: Cubola. Walcott, Derek. 1996. “Afterword: Animals, Elemental Tales, and the Theater.” In Monsters, Tricksters and Sacred Cows: Animal Tales and American Identities, ed A. James Arnold, 269–277. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.

z Peru: Afro-Peruvians People of African descent constitute between 6 and 10 percent of the Peruvian population. Afro-Peruvian communities are concentrated mainly on the coast, in the zones surrounding

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the plantations and in the major cities, most notably Lima; however, people of African descent can also be found in the highlands. The contribution of Afro-Peruvians to national culture has been highly significant and is evident in culinary, artistic, sporting, and religious traditions, yet most Afro-Peruvians experience poverty, marginalization, and racism in their daily lives and tend collectively and individually to possess little sense of ethnic identity. There is little national recognition that AfroPeruvians constitute a community with particular problems and goals. In response, a number of Afro-Peruvian individuals and organizations have been working to build a social movement whose aim is full achievement of equal rights and the recognition of Afro-Peruvian culture. H ISTORY AND O RIGINS Africans first arrived in Peru during the Spanish conquest, as colonized people forced to participate in the military defeat of the Incas. Africans were imported in large numbers throughout the colonial period, and slave labor was essential to the rural and urban economies. Africans brought skills and techniques in agriculture, metallurgy, craftsmanship, and manufacturing, and they occupied roles as domestics, laundresses, wet nurses, artisans, tailors, and construction workers. By the late 16th century, peoples of African descent formed 50 percent of the Lima population. There was no direct slave trade to Peru; Africans arrived via other American ports and, as a result, were already used to European culture and integrated more easily into the new culture. Daily interactions in the cities between people of African descent, indigenous peoples and Hispanic creoles led to the creation of unique customs. Africans played a particular role in the development of popular religion. The procession of Señor del Milagros (Our Lord of Miracles), today considered to be one of the three most important religious festivals in Latin America, originated in the practices of an African religious fraternity, while Martín de

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Porras, a black cleric famous in colonial society for his acts of healing among the poor, was canonized after inspiring popular worship. Female food vendors spread a taste for dishes of African origin throughout the city, and elite society came to consider that a table was not well-set without the inclusion of soups and savories made by an Afro-Peruvian cook. R ESISTANCE AND PALENQUES Active resistance to slavery was a permanent condition of life among people of African descent in Peru and was chiefly expressed in the flight of slaves and the formation of bandas de cimarrones and palenques. The most famous refuge for runaway slaves was El Palenque de Huachipa on the central coast, which was led by Francisco Congo. Although relations between Africans and indigenous people were largely characterized by resentment and distrust, a result of the role played by Africans in the Conquest, on occasion alliances did develop, most notably the relationship between African rebel leader Juan Santos Atahualpa and indigenous chief Tupa Amaru in the 1780 insurrection: the first to demand the liberation of all slaves. People of African descent played a key role in the struggle for independence; in particular, Afro-Peruvian battalions playing a decisive role in the crucial battles of Junín and Ayacucho. Participation was a strategy for emancipation: Simón Bolívar had decreed freedom for all slaves who served against Spain in 1821, and the Peruvian Constitution of 1823 legislated freedom for all children born of slaves. Yet these gains were followed by a shameful reversal of policy in the face of landowner agitation, and in 1840 slavery was reestablished and remained in place until 1854. Final abolition brought little change in the economic position of ex-slaves and, after the initial flight from the haciendas, racial discrimination and economic depression forced many black people to return to the same kinds of positions they had held during slavery. The lack of change in conditions prompted two

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Petwo | 753 major 19th century rebellions by Afro-Peruvian peasants: the Chincha uprising in 1879, and the Cañete rebellion in 1881. R ECENT T RENDS In the early 20th century, there was significant Caribbean migration to the Amazonian region of Peru, most notably that of laborers from Jamaica and Barbados to the rubber plantations of the Putumayo, where they were subject to severe abuse. Many Caribbeans stayed in Peru after the end of the rubber boom: the black community of Las Lomas in Northern Peru is said to have been founded by Afro-Jamaicans. The first half of the 20th century saw no major revaluation of the cultural legacy of Afro-Peruvians, and elites and intellectuals— including the socialist and proindigenous intellectual José Carlos Mariategui—continued to present blackness as a negative trait in Peruvian culture. From the 1950s, an Afro-Peruvian protest voice emerged to challenge this perception, first through dance and theater groups, such as Cumana, Union Santa Cruz, Gente Moreno and Peru Negro, which sought to revalidate Afro-Peruvian artistry, and later through social groups influenced by the Civil Rights Movements in the United States. The most famous articulator of an Afro-Peruvian consciousness is Nicomedes Santa Cruz. He championed the decima—a form of poetry based on African norms. His most famous 1964 work, Cumana, dealt with black problems in Africa and the Americas and caused great controversy, as it represented the first time an Afro-Peruvian had vocally drawn attention to such issues. Contemporary Afro-Peruvian consciousness groups, such as Movimiento Francisco Congo, Agrupación Palenque, and Asociación Pro-Derechos Humanos del Negro, view their goals within a nationalist framework and hope to use their organization to strengthen Peruvian democracy by creating greater economic and politics rights for people of African descent. Nicola Foote

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See also Bolivia: The African Presence; Chile: Afro-Chileans; Ecuador: Afro-Ecuadorians. F URTHER R EADING Aguirre, Carlos, ed. 2000. Lo africano en la cultura criollo. Lima: Fondo Editorial del Congreso del Peru. Busto Duthurburu, José Antonio del. 2001. Breve historia de los negros del Peru. Lima: Fondo Editorial del Congreso del Peru. Luciano, José, and Humberto Rodriguez Pastor. 1995. “Peru.” In No Longer Invisible: Afro-Latin Americans Today, ed. Minority Rights Group, 271–286. London: Minority Rights Group. Santa Cruz, Nicomedes. 1971. Antología: décimas y poemas. Lima, Peru: Campodonicoediciones.

z Petwo Petwo is the fiery component of Haitian Vodoun that is composed of lwas (spirits) and practices that are considered Kreyol (creole) or indigenous to Haiti; according to scholars they were inspired as an enraged response to atrocities engendered by chattel slavery on the isle of Saint Domingue. The origin of the Petwo rite is somewhat shrouded in mystery. It is attributed by some to a Spanish-speaking man of African descent, Don Pedro, a powerful oungan (ritual specialist) whose name appears in many Vodoun songs. The Petwo component of the Haitian Vodoun complex is derived from his name. The religious practice Petwo is also considered the result of a request by enslaved Africans for African “medicine” that would aid in combating and overthrowing the conditions of servitude in Haiti (St. Juste, personal communication). A Petwo rite conducted at Bois Caïmon is considered the catalyst that fueled Haiti’s 1791 revolution, freeing enslaved Africans from chattel slavery and simultaneously gaining Haitian independence. Petwo is considered the active, aggressive side of Haitian Vodoun (Deren 1953).

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Many of the lwa of the Petwo nation are, according to Herskovits, associated with Angola and some are believed to be Congo deities (1937). It is generally accepted that the Petwo lwas are ferocious and can be prone to acts of violence, severely punishing negligent devotees. Some aspects of Petwo, however, parallel the Rada component of Vodoun; there is some overlap in the names of Petwo and Rada lwas. Rada lwa names are sometimes used in conjunction with Petwo descriptors. The Petwo part of their names usually indicates aggressive, fiery temperaments—terms such as je wouge (red eyes) or la flambeau (torch). Petwo ezulis, for example, include Ezuli Je Wouge and Ezuli Danto and are described as aggressive and violent. Compared with the sweet and flirtatious actions of Rada lwa Ezuli Freda Dahomey, Deren describes the sounds made by Ezuli Je Wouge as “half groan, half scream” (Deren 1953). The date designated for Petwo is July 24, the height of summer with its accompanying heat. Fire is always a component of Petwo ceremonies in that it is sacred to Petwo lwas; bathing in ritually prepared flames is part of Petwo services for the lwas. Petwo drums, energetic singing, and dancing for the lwas, a ritual specialist adept in managing the protocol that underlies Petwo rites, food for the lwas and congregation, as well as altars and implements that are favored by Petwo lwas are all necessary elements for a Petwo ceremony. The ceremonies are hot, due in part to the fires that are kept throughout the service. They are hot also because of the intense spirited rhythms and actions of ceremony participants. Joan Hamby Burroughs See also Haiti; Vodoun. F URTHER R EADING Brown, Karen M. 1991. Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn. Berkeley: University of California. Davis, Wade. 1988. Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

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Deren, Maya. 1953. The Divine Horsemen. New York: Thames & Hudson. Dunham, Katherine. 1969. Island Possessed. New York: Doubleday. Fouchard, J. 1981. The Haitian Maroons, trans. A. F. Watts. New York: Theo Gaus, Ltd. Frank, Henry. 2002. “Haitian Vodou Ritual Dance and Its Secularization.” In Caribbean Dance from Abakuá to Zouk, ed. S. Sloat, 109–113. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Herskovits, Melville. 1937. Life in a Haitian Valley. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Laguerre, Michel. 1980. Voodoo Heritage. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Metraux, Alfred. 1972. Voodoo in Haiti, trans. H. Charteris. New York: Schocken Books. Rigaud, Milo. 1985. Secrets of Voodoo, trans. R. B. Cross. San Francisco: City Lights Books.

z Phi Beta Sigma Phi Beta Sigma is an African-American Greek letter fraternity that was organized to “exemplify the ideals of brotherhood, scholarship, and service” among college-educated young men. As one of the nine predominately African American Greek letter organizations in the Pan Hellenic Council, Phi Beta Sigma has a membership of more than 110,000 members and more than 700 chapters throughout the continental United States, Hawaii, the Caribbean, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Phi Beta Sigma was founded on January 9, 1914, on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D.C. On April 15, 1914, Phi Beta Sigma became the first Greek letter organization formally recognized on the campus of Howard University. A. Langston Taylor, a Howard University student, along with fellow students Leonard F. Morse and Charles I. Brown, envisioned an African American fraternity that would promote a greater sense of fellowship between exceptional, yet diverse, men of color who would unite for the cause of service to humanity.

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Philip, Marlene Nourbese (1947–) | 755 The founders conceived Phi Beta Sigma as a mechanism to deliver services to the general community. Rather than gaining skills to be used exclusively for themselves and their immediate families, the founders of Phi Beta Sigma held a deep conviction that they should return their newly acquired skills to the communities from which they had come. This deep conviction was mirrored in the fraternity’s motto, “Culture for Service and Service for Humanity.” On January 31, 1920, Phi Beta Sigma was incorporated in Washington, D.C., and became Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Incorporated. Phi Beta Sigma implements its mission of service through its three national programs of Bigger and Better Business, Education, and Social Action. Bigger and Better Business became a key interest during the 1924 Conclave held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, when the fraternity hosted exhibits from 25 African American business establishments. It is also the first and only fraternity to own and operate a Credit Union for its members. In 1934, Phi Beta Sigma instituted a program that was primarily concerned with the well-being of minority groups. Past social action projects have focused on national and state anti-lynching legislation, abolition of Jim Crow laws, fair wage and working conditions legislation for minorities, full citizenship rights for all citizens, and Project SADD (Students Against Drunk Driving). Phi Beta Sigma was also instrumental in providing leadership, organization, and resources for the Million Man March in Washington, D.C., in 1995 and the Million Family March in 2000. The purpose of Phi Beta Sigma’s education program is to help graduates, undergraduates, and the community at large attain the highest scholastic achievement possible. Its membership boasts a large percentage of educators, including former U.S. Secretary of Education Ron Paige. As an international organization, Phi Beta Sigma was the first Greek letter organization to establish chapters in the continent of Africa

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and was the first to have presidents of other countries in its membership, such as Kwame Nkrumah, past president of Ghana, and Nelson Mandela, past president of South Africa. Other notable members of Phi Beta Sigma are scientist George Washington Carver; Alain Locke, philosopher and first African American Rhodes scholar; Harlem Renaissance writer James Weldon Johnson; Black Panther cofounder Huey P. Newton; A. Philip Randolph, founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; and Nnamdi Azikiwe, past president of Nigeria. Jason Esters See also Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–1972); Zeta Phi Beta. F URTHER R EADING Ross, Lawrence C., Jr. 2002. The Divine 9: The History of African-American Fraternities and Sororities. New York: Dafina Books. Savage, Sherman W., and Lawrence D. Reddick. 1957. Our Cause Speeds on an Informal History of the Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity. Fuller Press.

z Philip, Marlene Nourbese (1947–) A versatile writer, poet, essayist, fiction writer, and playwright, Marlene Nourbese Philip is known as much for her trenchant critiques of Canadian society and analyses of the legacies of slavery and colonialism in the Afrospora, as she calls the Diaspora, as she is for her haunting poetry. Several of Philip’s works have been especially influential: her novel for adolescents, Harriet’s Daughter (1988) has become a classic; her first collection of essays, Frontiers: Essays and Writing in Racism and Culture (1993), and her monograph, Showing Grit: Showboating North of the 49th Parallel (1993), engaged a variety of debates over racism and culture with

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an uncompromising clarity and directness that shook the Toronto cultural establishment. Her third poetry collection, She Tries Her Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks (1988), which won the Casa de las Americas prize for that year, contains an evocative poetic argument about the nature of language in the African Diaspora that has fueled considerable theorizing and debate. Born in Tobago, Philip moved to Trinidad as a child. She graduated from the University of the West Indies in Economics. Her master’s degree in political science (1968) and her law degree (1973) were obtained at the University of Western Ontario. After seven years practicing family and immigration law in Toronto, where she still lives, Philip turned to writing full time. Her first collection, Thorns, appeared in 1980, and her second, Salmon Courage, three years later. In 1991, Philip published Looking for Livingstone, in which a fictional traveler pursues the historical Livingstone for eons, on her journey meeting a series of tribes whose names are anagrams of the word silence. A second collection of essays, A Genealogy of Resistance and Other Essays (1997), gathers work written over a number of years; it contains one of Philip’s finest pieces, “Dis Place—The Space Between,” a mixed-genre essay on women, women’s bodies, and slavery and its aftermath that moves between argument and poetry and ends in a play. Philip had earlier concluded the second edition of Showing Grit with a farcical and exhilarating dramatic postscript (1994). Her major foray, Coups and Calypsos (1999), has been produced in Toronto and London; it depicts the dissolution of a mixed marriage (an African and a South Asian) against the backdrop of the 1990 coup in Trinidad. More recently, her script of Harriet’s Daughter has received workshop productions. Philip’s awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry in 1990, a McDowell Fellowship in 1991, the Toronto Arts Award in Writing and Publishing in 1995, the Elizabeth Fry Society Rebels for a Cause Award in 2001, the YWCA Woman of Distinction in the Arts

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Award in 2001, and the Chalmers Fellowship in Poetry in 2002. Leslie Sanders See also Canada and the African Diaspora; Trinidad and Tobago. F URTHER R EADING Deloughrey, Elizabeth. 1998. “From Margin to the (Canadian) Frontier: ‘The Wombs of Language.’” In She Tries Her Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks, ed. M. Nourbese Philip, 121–144. Journal of Canadian Studies 33 (1). Mahlis, Kristin. 2004. “A Poet of Place: An Interview with M. Nourbese Philip.” Callaloo 27 (3): 682–697. McKittrick, Katherine. 2000. “‘Who Do You Talk To, When a Body’s in Trouble’: M. Nourbese Philip’s UnSilencing of the Black Bodies in the Diaspora.” Journal of Social and Cultural Geography 1 (2): 223–236.

z Philosophers and the African American Experience Only about one percent of all academic philosophers in the United States are African American, and in the past the percentage was even lower. Moreover, before the 1970s, and because of segregation, most African American philosophers taught at the historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). In 1895, the Afro-American Encyclopedia presented William D. Johnson’s article, simply titled “Philosophy.” Johnson defines philosophy and outlines its tasks and scope with only secondary commentary about the black experience (Johnson 1895). Even more strongly, William A. Banner (Harvard PhD, 1946) has consistently argued against the very idea of a distinctive African American or black philosophy. Others, such as Marxist philosopher Eugene C. Holmes (Columbia PhD, 1942) and Rhodes Scholar Alain Locke (Harvard PhD, 1918), wanted to directly adjoin philosophy

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Philosophers and the African American Experience | 757 with the black experience. Locke and Holmes both discussed the subject of the aesthetics of African American literature and more generally issues about black culture. In turn, Richard I. McKinney, former chair of the Department of Philosophy at Morgan State University, expressed his intellectual interest in black life as early as the submission of his bachelor of divinity thesis, The Problem of Evil and Its Relation to the Ministry to an Under-privileged Minority, at Newton Theological Seminary in 1934. McKinney’s doctoral dissertation (although in education rather than philosophy), Religion in Higher Education Among Negroes, at Yale University (1942) clearly indicates his abiding concern with the African American religious experience. In contrast, John M. Smith pursued a PhD in philosophy rather than education, although his area of specialty was in the philosophy of education. Smith’s dissertation topic was A Comparison of Plato’s and Dewey’s Educational Philosophies, and he received a doctorate from the University of Iowa in 1941. Smith went on and taught at the HBCU Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina. It should be noted that some African American philosophers decided to get their doctorates in religion/theology or education rather than in philosophy because they considered their roles as philosophers to be ineluctably tied to the educational aims of the HBCUs. Thus, in addition to McKinney, Francis A. Thomas, the long-time chair of philosophy at Central State University (Wilberforce, Ohio), also received his doctorate in education. Thomas, whose doctoral dissertation was about Philosophies of Audio Visual Education as Conceived of by University Centers and by Selected Leaders (Indiana University 1960), functioned as both chair of philosophy and director of audio visuals at Central State University. In fact, combining administrative duties with teaching became the plight of several African American philosophers, and such burdens associated with the survival of HBCUs often re-

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stricted their needed time and energy for research and publication. Among those serving as presidents of HBCUs were Joseph C. Price at Livingston College (North Carolina), John Wesley Edward Bowen at Gammon Theological Seminary (Georgia), Willis Jefferson King at Gammon Theological Seminary and Samuel Houston College (Texas), John H. Burrus at Alcorn A & M (Mississippi), Richard I. McKinney at Storer College (West Virginia), Marquis L. Harris at Philander Smith (Arkansas), William Stuart Nelson at Shaw University (North Carolina) and Dillard University (Louisiana), Broadus Butler at Dillard University, Gilbert Haven Jones and Charles Leander Hill at Wilberforce University (Ohio), and Benjamin Mays at Morehouse College (Georgia). Among those in the capacity of chairs of philosophy departments, along with the aforementioned McKinney and Thomas, were Louis Baxter Moore, Alain Locke, Eugene C. Holmes, Winston K. McAllister, and William A. Banner at Howard University; James L. Farmer at Wiley College; William T. Fontaine at Morgan State University; and Samuel W. Williams at Morehouse College. An advocate of the philosophy of nonviolence with social democratic leanings, Samuel W. Williams was a key mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr., and King gained a philosophical foundation for his views on nonviolence from Williams. George D. Kelsey was another faculty member in the philosophy and religion department of Morehouse who contributed to the development of King’s notions about nonviolence as a philosophical perspective. King directly consulted Kelsey for advice when writing the classic text Stride Toward Freedom. Kelsey, who received a PhD from Yale in 1946, would go on to publish an important book representative of the Christian idea of nonviolence, titled Racism and the Christian Understanding of Man. William Stuart Nelson not only advised King during the Montgomery bus boycott on Gandhian principles of nonviolence but also

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developed the first academic course on the philosophy of nonviolence at a higher educational institution, namely Howard University. Nelson held several positions at Howard, including dean of the School of Religion and vice president. Nelson also founded and was editor of The Journal of Religious Thought, which remains a major source for intellectual discussion in the philosophy of religion. Both Benjamin Mays and James Farmer also taught at Howard’s School of Religion, and Nelson, along with Mays, actually met with Gandhi in India. Thus, for a sizable group of African American philosophers, especially at the HBCUs, religion was intractably tied to philosophy, and this was especially prominent with the institutionalization of departments/programs that combined religion and philosophy. Charles Leander Hill, who was a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, specifically comments on the role of religion in education. In fact, Hill was an internationally renowned expert on Philip Melanchthon, the Protestant co-reformer with Martin Luther. As late as 1973, in a report to the American Philosophical Association, African American philosopher William R. Jones makes a public note of religion’s detrimental effects on the development of black philosophy students for graduate study in the discipline. Even today in contemporary African American history there are far more preachers and theologians than philosophers. The first two African Americans holding doctorates in philosophy were Patrick Francis Healy and Thomas Nelson Baker; both men were former slaves and ordained ministers. Although Baker attended Hampton Institute, neither he nor Healy taught at HBCUs. Healy earned his doctorate from the University of Louvain in Belgium in 1865. Healy was one of a handful of African American scholars during the 19th century to teach at predominantly white or all-white institutions. Ordained a

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Catholic priest, Healy was on the faculty at Holy Cross, St. Joseph College (Philadelphia), and Georgetown. Healy was the first African American to earn a PhD in philosophy. Patrick Healy being very fair in complexion (his father was white) decided to pass for white. Patrick Francis eventually became the president of Georgetown at a time when this school did not admit black students. Thomas Nelson Baker became the first African American to earn a PhD in philosophy from an institution in the United States. Baker’s doctorate in philosophy came in 1903 from Yale. Born on a plantation, just five years before Healy got his doctorate, Baker was 33 when he received his first degree from Boston University. He later received a bachelor’s degree in divinity from Yale before getting his terminal degree. Yale also has the distinction of being the institution to grant the first PhD in philosophy to an African American woman. Joyce Mitchell Cook was the first African American woman to serve in the capacity as an academic philosopher. Cook earned her doctorate from Yale University in 1965. Her dissertation in axiology (value theory) was entitled A Critical Examination of Stephen C. Pepper’s Theory of Value. Faced with racism and sexism, Cook taught at Howard University but was also employed outside academia because of restricted opportunities. Unlike fellow pioneers Healy and Baker, Cook was not engaged in philosophy from a religious standpoint. This was not the case for John Wesley Edward Bowen; he was interested in questions related to religion and philosophy. Bowen earned a PhD from Boston University in 1887 and taught philosophy at several HBCUs. Yet he received his degree in historical theology rather than outright in philosophy. Bowen’s dissertation topic was The Historic Manifestations and Apprehensions of Religion as an Evolutionary and Psychological Process. Bowen received a bachelor’s degree from the University of New Orleans in 1878 and a bachelor’s of divinity

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Philosophers and the African American Experience | 759 from Boston University in 1885. Bowen’s academic career included teaching at Central Tennessee College, Morgan State College, Howard University, and Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta, and he was the first African American to hold a professorship at Gammon Theological Seminary. In the first decades of the 20th century, at best only a few African American philosophers acquired visiting positions at white universities. Resistance to black philosophers as faculty has had a long history. For example, after receiving his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1933, Albert M. Dunham was assigned to teach a summer class in the philosophy department. The appointment was to be a gateway to full-fledged membership with the philosophy faculty. However, more than half of the students dropped the class when they discovered that their professor was a black man. Although the administration managed to gather enough students to continue the class, the idea of Dunham joining the Chicago faculty was quickly abandoned. After Alain Locke recruited him, Dunham went on to teach at Howard University. The decision not to hire Dunham at Chicago ultimately proved too much for him to handle. He suffered a nervous breakdown and subsequently died in a mental institution. It should be noted that, during the 20th century, Cornelius Golightly became the first philosopher to break the race barrier as a regular faculty member with a department of philosophy on a white campus. With a doctorate from the University of Michigan, awarded in 1941, and primarily through the support of the Rosenwald Fund, Golightly was hired at Olivet College in 1945. In 1946 Francis Monroe Hammond joined the philosophy department at Seton Hall. Hammond was not only the first African American on the Seton Hall faculty, but he was also the first black person to ever serve as chair (1946–1951) of a philosophy department at a white college. Remarkably, in

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1953, Hammond also became chair of the department of psychology at Seton Hall. Hammond’s capacity to take on this dual role was in no small measure due to the fact that his doctoral dissertation, La Conception Psychologique de la Société selon Gabriel Tarde, was an interdisciplinary undertaking positioned within both philosophy and social psychology. One year after Hammond came to Seton Hall, William T. Fontaine entered the philosophy department at the University of Pennsylvania as a lecturer, and in 1949 he was promoted to assistant professor. Fontaine advanced to associate professor in 1963 and thus acquired the distinction of becoming the first African American professor to receive tenure at the University of Pennsylvania. Despite these advances, the door to philosophy departments at white colleges and universities remained primarily closed for most black philosophers. A glaring example is the experience of Broadus N. Butler. After finishing his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Michigan in 1952, Butler (a former Tuskegee airman) applied for a job at a white college. He was told in a rather emphatic manner, “Why don’t you go where you will be among your own kind” (Harris 1983). Also in 1952, Forrest O. Wiggins (University of Wisconsin PhD, 1938) was dismissed from his position as an instructor in the philosophy department at the University of Minnesota. Wiggins was hired in 1946 as the first African American faculty member at Minnesota. However, racism and political ideology combined to lead to his firing. The president of the university, James L. Morrill, acknowledged that because Wiggins was black he would be under close watch. Subsequently, Morrill fired Wiggins despite the fact that the philosophy department and a considerable number of students supported Wiggins’s continuance on the faculty at Minnesota. In fact, before being fired Wiggins received three consecutive merit pay raises. Officials in the state legislature called for Wiggins’s dismissal after he gave a lecture on

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“The Ideology of Interests.” Wiggins argued that capitalist and military interests were at the foundation of the Korean War. Undoubtedly, in addition to racism, the influence of McCarthyism and Cold War politics played no small part in Wiggins’s departure. Along with Wiggins, philosophers Charles Leander Hill and Marc M. Moreland directly spoke out against the dangers of McCarthyism and the Cold War. Moreland, a professor of philosophy at Morgan State, in his article “The Welfare State: Embattled Concept” thus challenged the undemocratic character of loyalty oaths and the Justice Department’s use of “subversive lists.” In turn, Hill joined in the countrywide efforts of some 365 people of various ideological and professional backgrounds to repeal the Subversive Act of 1950 and later united with 100 concerned citizens, scholars, and clergy in calling for world peace in opposition to the nuclear arms buildup. Pressing issues connected with political and social reality were not remote from the actual context of the academic work pursued by African American philosophers. For a substantial number, the African American experience was the crucially situated object of philosophical inquiry. William T. Fontaine was a Rosenwald Fellow (1942–1943) and did his research on “A Study of the Mind of the Negro as Revealed in Imaginative Literature.” Fontaine continued along the path of exploring African American philosophy in several articles, and this culminated with his book, Reflections on Segregation, Desegregation, Power, and Morals. Carlton L. Lee, who taught philosophy and religion, explicitly focused on the black experience. Lee’s doctoral dissertation (submitted to the University of Chicago Divinity School in 1951) was on Patterns of Leadership in Race Relations: A Study of Leadership Among American Negroes. Although Broadus Butler wrote on the topic of A Pragmatic Study of Value and Evaluation, for his terminal degree in philosophy from the University of Michigan, he was nevertheless a prolific writer on issues facing African Americans. Many

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of his articles not only appear in numerous mainstream (white) publications but also in black journals such as Negro Digest and The Crisis. Butler did work on W. E. B. DuBois and in 1964 published a booklet titled Another 1963 American Tragedy: Dr. W.E.B. DuBois. Though DuBois did not pursue graduate study in philosophy, he did major in it as an undergraduate. Among other notable philosophers, DuBois studied with William James, the Harvard philosopher/psychologist and cofounder of pragmatism. Several African American philosophers have commented on DuBois. In the Afro-American journal Freedomways, Eugene C. Holmes wrote on the topic, “W. E. B. DuBois—Philosopher.” Holmes argued that DuBois was a materialist. Robert C. Williams (PhD Columbia University, 1975) wrote an essay, “W. E. B. DuBois: Afro-American Philosopher of Social Reality.” Berkley Eddins initiated discussion around philosophy and black studies in a major mainstream (white) journal of philosophy with his “Philosophia Perennia and Black Studies,” and Charles A. Frye devoted a complete text on the subject, Towards a Philosophy of Black Studies. Frye, who earned a doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh (1976), was also committed to formulating theoretical grounds for developing black philosophy with Level Three: A Black Philosophy Reader. A former student of Eugene C. Holmes, Percy E. Johnston started the Afro-American Journal of Philosophy in 1982. This was the first academic journal dedicated to philosophy and the black experience. Other efforts along the lines of the philosophy of the black experience include William R. Jones’s pioneering essay, “The Legitimacy and Necessity of Black Philosophy: Some Preliminary Considerations.” In another article, “Crisis in Philosophy: The Black Presence,” Jones developed a crucial report on the status of black philosophers, which he presented to the American Philosophical Association (APA). This report was the catalyst for one of the most significant institutional changes in professional

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Philosophers and the African American Experience | 761 philosophy; namely the advent of the Committee on Blacks in Philosophy within the APA. Furthermore with the rise of black studies, philosophers not only carried out research in this field but also began serving as administrators. Carlton L. Lee founded and was the first director of Black Americana Studies at Western Michigan University; he held that post from 1970 until his death in 1972. William R. Jones was the long-time director of African American Studies at Florida State University. Additionally, Robert C. Williams was acting director of Afro-American Studies at Vanderbilt University and Charles A. Frye was director of a similar program at the Southern University at New Orleans from 1991 to his untimely demise in 1994. Before the aforementioned philosophers and even going back to the 19th century, the philosophy of the black experience was on the agenda of African American philosophers. Alexander Crummell graduated from Cambridge University in 1853 and studied with William Whewell, one of the Cambridge Platonists. Crummell founded the American Negro Academy (ANA) in 1897 and among its members were W. E. B. DuBois, J. W. E. Bowen, and George Washington Henderson. Henderson was a graduate of the University of Vermont and first black person in the country to be inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. Four years before the ANA, Rufus L. M. Perry published his “The Cushite or the Descendent of Ham as Found in the Sacred Scriptures and in the Writings of the Ancient Historians and Poets from Noah to the Christian Era.” Perry, a former slave, graduated from Kalamazoo Seminary in 1861. A precursor to what today is known as the public intellectual, Perry’s contributions to philosophy earned him an honorary doctorate in philosophy from the State University of Louisville in 1887. Perry’s son, Rufus Lewis Perry Jr., also pursued philosophy, although he was a lawyer. Perry was an 1891 graduate of New York University and a member of the French scholarly

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association, Société Academique d’Historie Internationale. In addition to his work titled “L’Homme d’après la Science et le Talmud,” he published a history of Western philosophy, which was the first published by an African American. Perry’s Sketch of Philosophical Systems (1899) was principally concerned with Greek philosophy. Later, in 1954, George G. M. James’s Stolen Legacy critiques the standard presentation about Greek origins of the history of philosophy. James argues that Greek philosophy amounts to no more than plagiarized Egyptian philosophy. Three years before James’s book, there appeared another text on the history of Western philosophy written by an African American philosopher. Instead of a spotlight on classical Western philosophy, Charles Leander Hill published A Short of History of Modern Philosophy from Renaissance to Hegel. The second African American to earn a doctorate in philosophy from The Ohio State University (1938), Hill served as president of Wilberforce University from 1947 to 1956. Hill’s primary motivation for writing his book was to provide his students with a suitable introductory text in the history of philosophy. It should be noted that the teaching of philosophy was a central concern of philosophers at the HBCUs. This becomes transparent with Richard I. McKinney’s essay, “Some Aspects of the Teaching of Philosophy.” Later Berkley B. Eddins made inroads into the philosophy of history. In this subfield, Eddins remains one of the foremost African American philosophers. His scholarly articles, “Does Toynbee Need Two Theories of History?” and “Speculative Philosophy of History: A Critical Analysis,” and his book Appraising Theories of Histories are representative of a larger corpus. This essay is only the tip of the iceberg with regard to the history of African American philosophers. Undoubtedly there remains a considerable wealth of valuable materials that are yet to be unearthed and that will surely provide the needed material for historical reconstruction

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of the intellectual legacy left by African American philosophers. John H. McClendon III See also African Diasporic Sociology; “African” in African American History; Black/Blackness: Philosophical Considerations. F URTHER R EADING Belles, A. Gilbert. 1969. “The College Faculty, the Negro Scholar, and the Julius Rosenwald Fund.” The Journal of Negro History 54 (4): 383–392. Blakely, Allison. 1974. “Richard T. Greener and the “‘Talented Tenth’s Dilemma.” Journal of Negro History 59 (4): 305–321. Butler, Broadus N. 1962. “In Defense of Negro Intellectuals.” Negro Digest 11 (August): 41–44. Cook, Joyce Mitchell. 1977–1978. “On the Nature and Nurture of Intelligence.” The Philosophical Forum 9 (2–3): 289–302. Crummell, Alexander. 1897. Civilization: The Primal Need of the Race. Occasional Papers, III. Washington, D.C.: American Negro Academy. Eddins, Berkley B. 1971. “Philosophia Perennia and Black Studies.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 9 (2): 207–210. Fontaine, William T. 1967. Reflections on Segregation, Desegregation, Power, and Morals. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas. Frye, Charles A. 1978. Towards a Philosophy of Black Studies. San Francisco: R & E Research Associates. Harris, Leonard. 1983. Philosophy Born of Struggle. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co. Hill, Charles Leander. 1955. “William Ladd, the Black Philosopher from Guinea: A Critical Analysis of His Dissertation on Apathy.” The A.M.E. Review 72 (186 October-December): 20–36. Holmes, Eugene C. 1950. “The Main Philosophical Considerations of Space and Time.” American Journal of Physics 18 (59): 560–570. James, George G. M. 1954. Stolen Legacy. New York: Philosophical Library. Johnson, William Decker. 1895. “Philosophy.” In Afro-American Encyclopedia, ed. James T. Haley. Nashville, TN: Haley and Florida. Johnston, Percy E. 1969. “Black Theories of History and Black Historiography” Dasein 9 (1 and 2): 27–38. Jones, William R. 1973. Report of the Subcommittee on the Participation of Blacks in Philosophy. Crisis in Philosophy: The Black Presence.

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Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association. 47: 118–125. Jones, William R. 1977–1978. “The Legitimacy and Necessity of Black Philosophy: Some Preliminary Considerations.” The Philosophical Forum 9 (2–3): 149–60. Locke, Alain L. 1935. “Values and Imperatives.” In American Philosophy, Today and Tomorrow, ed. Horace M. Kallen and Sidney Hook, 313–336. New York: Lee Furman. (Reprinted in Leonard Harris, ed. 1983. Philosophy Born of Struggle. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co.) McClendon, John H. 1982. “The Afro-American Philosopher and the Philosophy of the Black Experience: A Bibliographic Essay on a Neglected Topic in Both Philosophy and Black Studies.” Sage Race Relations Abstracts 7 (4): 1–53. McClendon, John H., III. 2004. “The African American Philosopher and Academic Philosophy: On the Problem of Historical Interpretation.” APA Newsletter on Philosophy and the Black Experience 4 (1; Fall): 2–9. McKinney, Richard I. 1960. “Some Aspects of the Teaching of Philosophy.” Liberal Education 5 46 (463): 366–379. Titcomb, Caldwell. 2001. “The Earliest Members of Phi Beta Kappa.” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 33 (Autumn): 92–101. Williams, Robert C. 1976a. “W. E. B. DuBois: Afro-American Philosopher of Social Reality.” In Bicentennial Symposium on Philosophy. New York: City University of New York Graduate Center. (Reprinted in Leonard Harris, ed. 1983. Philosophy Born of Struggle. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co.) Williams, Robert C. 1976b. “Afro-American Folklore as a Philosophical Source.” Journal of the West Virginia Philosophical Society (Fall): 1–6. Williams, Robert C. 1985. “Ritual, Drama, and God in Black Religion: Theological and Anthropological Views.” Theology Today 41.4 (January): 431–443.

z Photography and the African Diaspora African Americans shaped the practice of photography from its origin in 1840 and have par-

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Photography and the African Diaspora | 763 ticipated in its history as practitioners and subjects. Six months after the public announcement of the process in Paris, Jules Lion (1810–1866), a free man of color, a lithographer and portrait painter, exhibited the first successful daguerreotypes in New Orleans. The African-American public was interested in making likenesses (which we now call photographs). These were numerous free black men and women who established themselves as daguerreans, photographers, inventors, artists, and artisans who had gained local and national recognition in their respective cities. Portraits of prominent and lesser-known African Americans were produced regularly in galleries and studios throughout the country. The portraits of well-known African Americans soon became popular, and the practice of private photography—photographing individuals for personal collections and albums—became more and more the artistic method for creating a likeness. In the last half of the 19th century in Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the Americas, photographs were created for scientific studies, ethnographic portraits, portraiture, art, pornography, documentation, families of all classes, and those who thought it important to have their likenesses preserved for posterity. French photographers began photographing in French colonies as early as 1839. The earliest photography in Africa was concentrated in the north. During photography’s early history, images produced by African, Caribbean, and African American photographers presented portraits of noted men and women and family members in dramatic settings. Some of the most noted early and mid–20th century African portrait photographers in Africa include Mama Casset (1908–1992), Meissa Gaye (1892–1982) (Senegal), Daniel Attotumo Amichia (1908–1994) (Ghana and the Ivory Coast), Alphonso LiskCarew (Sierra Leone) (1887–1969), Seydou Keita (1923–2004), Malick Sidibe (Mali, b. 1936), and Samuel Fosso (Cameroon, b. 1962). In North America, black photographers such

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as J. P. Ball (1825–1905), Augustus Washington (1820–1875), C. M. Battey (1873–1927), Arthur Bedou (1882–1966), Florestine Collins (1895–1987), Elise Forrest Harleston (1891– 1970), and James VanDerZee (1886–1983) made photographs to celebrate special occasions in the sitter’s life—such as marriage, birth, graduation, confirmation, and anniversaries—or the achievement of a particular social or political success. One of the earliest known photographic studies in America of African American physiognomy was conducted in 1850 by Harvard scientist Louis Agassiz and J. T. Zealy, a white daguerreotypist in Columbia, South Carolina. The latter was hired to take a series of portraits of African-born slaves on nearby plantations. The daguerreotypes were anatomical studies of the faces and the nude upper bodies of African men and women. A French photographer, Prince Roland Napoleon Bonaparte, trained as an ethnologist, made a career out of ethnographic photography. Much of the work of 19th-century black photographers was in sharp contrast to these scientific and stereotypical images. From the turn of the century to the mid1920s, photography expanded in a variety of ways. Newspapers, such as The Negro World, published by the Universal Negro Improvement Association, incorporated photographs from around the world; journals such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s Crisis and books published photographic images of black subjects and events. Courses in photography were offered in schools and colleges, and correspondence courses were also available. C. M. Battey, an accomplished portraitist and fine-art photographer, was a noted educator in photography. Battey founded the photography division at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in 1916. Battey did the most extensive portrait series of African American leaders produced in the 19th century and early 20th centuries. His photographic portraits of John Mercer Langston, Frederick

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Douglass, W. E. B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, and Paul Laurence Dunbar were sold nationally and reproduced on postcards and posters. In 1911, Addison Scurlock (1883–1964), who was Howard University’s official photographer, opened a studio in Washington, D.C., which he operated with his wife and his sons, Robert and George, until 1964. In New York City, James VanDerZee, undoubtedly the best known black studio photographer, began capturing the spirit and life of New York’s Harlem in the 1920s and continued to do so for more than 50 years. In the 1920s, young black photographers who viewed themselves as artists moved to larger cities in search of education, patronage, and support for their art. Harlem was a cultural center for many of these photographers. In 1921 the New York Public Library’s 135th Street branch in Manhattan (now known as the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture) organized its first exhibition of work by black artists, entitled “The Negro Artists.” Two photographers, C. M. Battey and Lucy Calloway, displayed six photographs in this exhibition of more than 65 works of art. The Harmon Foundation was one of the first philanthropic organizations to give attention, cash awards, and exhibition opportunities to black photographers. These awards came to be known as the William E. Harmon Awards for Distinguished Achievement Among Negroes. In 1930 a special prize of $50 for photographic work was added in the name of the Commission on Race Relations. Elise Forrest Harleston (1891–1970) of Charleston, South Carolina, and P. H. Polk (1898–1985) of Tuskegee, Alabama were also notable photographers. Harleston opened a photography studio with her painter husband, Edwin Harleston, after studying with Battey in 1922. Polk opened his first studio at Tuskegee in 1927. During the depression, numerous images were taken of the lives of African Americans.

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The Resettlement Administration, later known as the Farm Security Administration (FSA), was created in 1935 as an independent coordinating agency; it inherited rural relief activities and land-use administration from the Department of the Interior, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. From 1935 to 1943, the FSA photography project generated 270,000 images of rural, urban, and industrial America. Many of the heavily documented activities of the FSA were of black migrant workers in the South. In 1937, Gordon Parks, Sr., decided that he wanted to be a photographer after viewing the work of the FSA photographers. He was hired by the FSA in 1941, and during World War II he worked as an Office of War Information correspondent. After the war he was a photographer for Standard Oil Company. In 1949 he became the first African American photographer to work on the staff of Life magazine. Roy DeCarava (b. 1919) is the forerunner of contemporary urban photography. In 1955, DeCarava collaborated with Langston Hughes in producing a book entitled The Sweet Flypaper of Life, which depicted the life of a black family in Harlem. In 1952, DeCarava became one of the first black photographers to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1954 he founded a photography gallery that became one of the first galleries in the United States devoted to the exhibition and sale of photography as a fine art. DeCarava founded the Kamoinge Workshop for black photographers in 1963. From the 1930s through the 1960s photographers began working as photojournalists for local newspapers and national magazines marketed to African American audiences, including Our World, Ebony, Jet, Sepia, and Flash, among others. Only a few African-American photojournalists, most notably Gordon Parks, Sr., Richard Saunders, Bert Miles, and Roy DeCarava, were employed for the larger picture magazines, such as Life, Look, Time, Newsweek, and Sports Illustrated. Most had learned pho-

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Photography and the African Diaspora | 765 tography while in the military and had studied photography in schools of journalism. This period also marked the beginning of reportage and the documentation of public pageantry and events. In the 1930s, smaller handheld cameras and faster film helped photographers express their frustration and discontent with social and political conditions within their communities. The Civil Rights Movement was well documented by photographers such as Moneta Sleet, Jr. (1908–1998) (New York and Chicago), Jack T. Franklin (b. 1922) (Philadelphia), Charles “Teenie” Harris (Pittsburgh), and U.S. Information Service Agency photographers Saunders and Griffith Davis. From 1935 to the early 1990s musical pioneers were the frequent subjects of photographers. Chuck Stewart (b. 1927), Milt Hinton (1910–2002), DeCarava, and Bert Andrews (1931–1993), for instance, photographed performing artists in the studio, onstage, and in nightclubs. During the active years of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements—the early 1960s through the 1970s—a significant number of socially committed men and women became photographers, documenting the struggles, achievements, and tragedies of the freedom movement. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee photographers Doug Harris, Elaine Tomlin, and Bob Fletcher were in the forefront in documenting the voter registration drives in the South; Robert Sengstacke (b. 1943), Howard Bingham, Jeffrey Scales (b. 1954), and Brent Jones photographed the activities of the Black Panther Party and desegregation rallies in the North and on the West Coast. In 1969 Moneta Sleet, Jr., was the first African American photographer to receive a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of Coretta Scott King and her daughter at the funeral of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In South Africa, Peter Magubane (b. 1932) photographed the atrocities of the apartheid regime. His photographs were published in Drum Magazine, a South African magazine

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that was established in the early 1950s. The magazine published photographs of black urban life and culture as well as the political climate of South Africa. In the 1970s, universities and art colleges began to offer undergraduate and graduate degrees in photography, and African American photographers began studying photography and creating works for exhibition purposes. Others studied in community centers and workshops. The symbolic and expressive images of the works produced in the 1980s and 1990s offer sociological and psychological insights into the past, as well as examinations of contemporary social themes, such as racism, unemployment, child and sexual abuse, and death and dying. Most of these works are informed by personal experience. Significant contributors to the development of this genre are Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe (b. 1951), Albert Chong (b. 1958), Hank Sloane Thomas (b. 1976), Roland Freeman, Todd Gray (b. 1954), Chester Higgins (b. 1946), Jeffrey Scales (b. 1954), Coreen Simpson, Lorna Simpson (b. 1960), Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1950), Carla Williams (b. 1965), Noelle Theard (b. 1979), and Willie Williams (b. 1950) in the United States; Magubane, George Hallett, Zwelethu Mthewa (b. 1960), Santu Mofokeng (b. 1956), Rashid Lombard, and Andrew Tshabangu (b. 1966) in South Africa; David A. Bailey, Joy Gregory, Roshini Kempadoo (b. 1959), Ajamu, and Rotimi Fani-Kayode (1955–1989) in the United Kingdom; Rene Pena Gonzales (Cuba, b. 1957), David Davidson (Martinique, b. 1963), Radcliffe Roye (Jamaica, b. 1970), Rose-Ann Marie Bailey (Canada, b.1971), and Terrie Boddie (b. 1965) (Nevis) in the Caribbean; and Anisio C. De Caravalho (b. 1930), Bauer Sa (b. 1950), Eustaquio Neves (b. 1955), Vanten Pereira, Jr. (b. 1960), Walter Firmo (b. 1937), Carla Osorio (b. 1972), Denise Camargo (b. 1964), and Luiz Paulo Lima (b. 1955) in Brazil. Many of the photographers working currently respond to social issues, political issues, culture, family, and collective history. They also

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explore the impact of sexuality, colonialism, stereotyping and the female body.The issues addressed in contemporary photography create a revised interpretation of the visual experience through digital technology and in genres including portraiture, landscape, and documentary photography. Deborah Willis See also Drum; Harlem. F URTHER R EADING Crawford, Joe. 1973. The Black Photographers Annual, Brooklyn, NY: (self-published by the editor and the black photographers annual). Simon, Njami. 1998., Anthology of African & Indian Ocean Photography. Paris: Editions Revue Noire. Willis, Deborah. 2000. Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840–Present. New York: W.W. Norton.

z

Widely acknowledged and respected for the quality and militancy of her poetry, Portalatin’s better-known works are Una mujer esta sola, the first openly feminist poem published in the Dominican Republic, and La voz desetada and La tierra escrita, poems of angry protest against racial discrimination and exploitation. After retiring from her work as a college professor, Portalatin continued to live in the Dominican Republic and engaged in literary activities until she passed away in June 1994. See also Dominican Republic. F URTHER R EADING Cocco de Filippos, Daisy. 1995. “Aida Cartagena Portalatin: A Literary Life.” In Moving Beyond Boundaries. Vols. 1 and 2, International Dimensions of Black Women’s Writing, ed. Carole Boyce Davies and Molara Ogundipe-Leslie. London: Pluto Press. Cocco de Filippos, Daisy, ed. & trans. 1988. From Desolation to Compromise: The Poetry of Aída Cartagena Portalatín. Santo Domingo: Ediciones Montesinos. No. 10.

Pointe du Sable, Jean Baptiste (1745–1818)

z

See du Sable, Jean Baptiste Pointe (1745– 1818).

Présence Africaine

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Présence Africaine—the magazine and the publishing house—were successively founded by Alioune Diop, a Senegalese intellectual (1910– 1980), to promote exchanges between African and European intellectuals. In November 1947, the first volume of the magazine appeared simultaneously in Paris and Dakar, Senegal. In his first editorial, entitled “Niam N’goura vana niam m’paya” (“Eat so you can live not so that you can fatten”), Diop explains that the idea goes back to 1942–1943 in Paris where some students from “out of sea” or “overseas” (the former appellation for territories under French domination), who were living in a Europe anxious about its essence and the authenticity of its values, decided to get together to study the situation and the characteristics that defined them.

Portalatin, Aida Cartagena (1918–1994) Aida Cartagena Portalatin is the most recognized woman writer in 20th century Dominican literature. She is the author of Del sueno al mundo (poetry, 1944); Vispera del sueno and Llamale verde (poetry, 1945); Mi mundo el mar and Una mjer esta sola (poetry, 1956); La voz destada and La tierra escrita (poetry, 1961); Escalera para Electra (novel, 1982); Yania tierra (poetry, 1982); En la casa del tiempo (poetry, 1984); and Culturas africanas: rebeldes concausa (essays, 1985).

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Primus, Pearl E. (1919–1994) | 767 These intellectuals from the French colonies found themselves on their own and caught in the trap of leaving home and finding Paris an alienating though exciting city. Hence, the magazine allowed them to define themselves. Writings of intellectuals such as Leopold Sédar Senghor, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Theodore Monod were frequently featured in its columns. In 1949, Diop founded the Présence Africaine publishing house. Although the beginning was very difficult, books such as Cheikh Anta Diop’s Nations Nègres et Culture and Aimé Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism were very successful and established the house’s reputation throughout the black world. Seydou Badian’s Under the Storm propelled Présence Africaine to its height, selling 30,000 copies. While the eruption in the African literary landscape of powerhouse publishing companies such as L’Harmattan, Silex, and Karthala threaten the venerable Présence Africaine, it continues to stand, just like an African baobab extending its branches with roots plunging deep in the African literary soil. Among the historical achievements of Présence Africaine is the organization of the first international congress of black writers and artists. Organized in the heart of Eurocentric production of knowledge, the congress announced the beginning of the contestation of European intellectual supremacy and gave Présence its institutional dimension. Although Eurocentric critics have dismissed the success of the congress because it focused more on questions of imperialism and colonialism and less on literary issues, their arguments amply demonstrate their ignorance of the duality of literature and political engagement in African Diaspora knowledge production. These analyses fail to see the refusal by the United States of exit visas to W. E. B. Dubois and Paul Robeson as precisely the criticism they levied against Présence Africaine. Decolonization and the rejection of Europe’s place at the top of the intellectual hierarchy were considered legitimate subjects of

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literature. Creating that unruptured link between creativity and political liberation, Présence Africaine has always stood for African writers and artists, encouraging them to make it a duty and an obligation to play their roles in the process of liberation then and now. Today, after the death of Alioune Diop, and after more than 50 years in existence, Présence Africaine is managed by Alioune Diop’s wife, Christiane Yandê Diop, an intellectual and his creative partner from the start. Babacar M’Bow See also Négritude; Paris Noir. F URTHER R EADING Mudimbe, V. Y., ed. 1992. The Surreptitious Speech: Présence Africaine and the Politics of Otherness 1947–1987. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Présence Africaine: Cultural Review of the Negro World. 1947-present. Ojo-Ade, Femi. 1977. Analytical Index of Présence Africaine. Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press.

z Primus, Pearl E. (1919–1994) Pearl Primus was a worldwide authority on dance of the African Diaspora and pioneer of modern dance. Born November 29, 1919, in Trinidad, Primus determined her ancestry as Ashanti. Her family moved to New York City when she was two years old, where she grew up. She received her bachelor of arts in biology, health, and physical education from Hunter College in 1940. Intending to become a doctor, she was denied access to medical school because of racism. She also experienced racism as a graduate student of sociology and health education when she was denied access to a laboratory job and to a swimming program. Racism was not a deterring factor but a motivational one leading her to the YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association) in Harlem,

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where she found her first dance home and began a career devoted to dance study, research, teaching, and choreography. In 1943, Primus made her first and highly successful professional dance presentation at the New York City 92nd Street YMCA/YWCA while continuing to perform at Café Society Downtown, an integrated nightclub (Life Magazine, October 11, 1943). Her research in the Caribbean and the southlands of the United States led to the interpretative dance pieces from Langston Hughes’s “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” (1943), Lewis Allen’s “Strange Fruit” (1943), and the music of Josh White, Sr.’s, “Hard Time Blues” (1943). Her powerful interpretation of other people’s words and music continued until as late as 1979, when she memorialized the racially motivated bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, producing a piece to “Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore” in 1979. From 1945 to 1947, Primus studied education at Columbia University while also performing professionally with her own dance company and in the Broadway revivals of “Showboat” (1946) and “Emperor Jones” at the Chicago Opera House (1947). In 1948, she was awarded the last of the Julius Rosenwald Foundation grants and began a 28-month fellowship to study dance in Africa. Primus lived throughout West and Central Africa observing and recording African dance and ceremonies. Primus performed internationally in 1951 by special invitation for King George VI and Queen Mary of England, and in 1952, she performed at the second inauguration of Liberian president William V. S. Tubman as well as in Israel and France. In 1953, she met her husband Percival S. Borde, a Trinidadian dancer and choreographer. Together they founded what was to become the Primus-Borde Dance Language Institute, developing methods for crosscultural education in elementary schools through dance. In 1956, the Primus Company went on a world tour in 1956 to Belgium, Italy, India, Indonesia, India, and Liberia. In 1959,

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the Oni (king) of Ife, Adesou Adermi II, spiritual head of the Yoruba people of modern Nigeria, officially adopted Primus as his daughter and named her Omowale “child returned home.” Upon returning from overseas, Primus completed a master of arts in educational sociology from New York University in 1959 followed by another research travel grant to Africa in 1962 from the Rebecca Harkness Foundation. The tour included command performances for heads of state plus 28 other performances. From 1959 to 1961 Primus founded and directed the first performing arts center in Liberia, called “Konama Kende” (A New Thing Living), where she was called “Jay Bonu” (The Boss Lady) and her husband, Percival, was nicknamed “Jangbanolima” (a man who would rather dance than eat). Her interpretive dance from Liberia “Fanga” (1949) became her signature piece, resulting in the award of the “Star of Africa” from the Liberian government. Other highly recognized works are “African Ceremonial” (1944), “Impinyuza” (The Incomparable”) (1951), and “The Wedding” (1979), from her dance repertoire totaling an astounding 150 works over a 52-year career. Primus taught and influenced dancers and choreographers who have continued to build on her work, including the late Alvin Ailey, Judith Jamison, Donald McKayle, and Talley Beatty, among many others. Primus was awarded a PhD in anthropology in 1978 from New York University. It was the first time African dance was allowed to meet the language requirement for a doctorate. Her works have been performed worldwide. In the United States performances and reconstructions of her work have been conducted by and through Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, Phildanco, Jacob’s Pillow, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and Urban Bush Women. In 1992, a gala 50 Year Celebration of Dance was held in Primus’s honor at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

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Pearl Primus depicts lynching through expressionistic dance, 1951. (Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis)

Primus has held a number of teaching positions, including the Five College Consortium in Massachusetts, Howard University, New York University, and State University of New York. Her awards include the Distinguished Service Award from the Association of American Anthropologists (1985) and honorary doctorates from Spelman College (1988), and the New School for Social Research (1992). In 1991, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts from President George H. W. Bush and the American Dance Festival’s (ADF) first Balasaraswati/Joy Ann Dewey Beinecke Chair for Distinguished Teaching. She was posthumously awarded the ADF Scripps Award for

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Lifetime Achievement in Choreography. One of her last public appearances was in the spring of 1994 at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, where she was awarded the Olaudah Equiano Award of Excellence and Pioneering Achievement. Primus taught and choreographed up to her death in October 1994. In December 1995 her ashes were taken to Barbados and scattered across the ocean by her son, master drummer Onwin Babajinde Borde, so she could forever touch the shores of Africa. The nonprofit Kuumba Cultural Arts Resource Center, in Lumberton, North Carolina, run by codirectors Louis D. Ramos II and Veleria

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Thompson-Ramos, continues to perpetuate the legacy of Pearl Primus. Louis D. Ramos II Veleria Thompson-Ramos See also Dance in the African Diaspora; Trinidad and Tobago. F URTHER R EADING Ahye, Molly. 1978. Golden Heritage: The Dances of Trinidad and Tobago. Petit Valley, Trinidad: Heritage Cultures. Alladin, M. P. 1979. Folk Dances of Trinidad and Tobago. Maraval: National Cultural Council. Emery, Lynne. 1985. Black Dance in the United States from 1619 to 1970. Palo Alto, CA: National Press Books. (Orig. pub. 1972). Green, Richard. 2002. “(Up) Staging the Primitive: Pearl Primus and ‘the Negro Problem’ in American Dance.” In Dancing Many Drums, ed. T. DeFrantz, 105–139. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Haskins, James. 1990. Black Dance in America: A History Through Its People. New York: T.Y. Crowell. Welsh-Asante, Kariamu, ed. 1998. African Dance: An Artistic, Historical, and Philosophical Inquiry. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Web sites: www.geocities.com/pearlprimus/ www.geocities.com/kuumbaculturalarts/

z Prince, Mary (1788—?) Most of the available biographical and historical information about Mary Prince comes from her own account, The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave Related by Herself (1831). Published by the Anti-Slavery Society in London and Edinburgh, it ran to three editions that year alone and was crucial in rousing public support for the abolitionist cause. In 1829, Prince had presented a petition to Parliament appealing for manumission from her owner, James Wood of Antigua. Prince’s petition was unsuccessful but was part of a multipronged and powerful campaign that

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was to culminate in the passing of the Emancipation Act in 1833. Mary Prince’s History remains unique being the only account published in Britain by a female slave, relating in first-person narrative the experience of West Indian slavery. Her history was written while Prince was a servant to Thomas Pringle, secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society. Susanna Strickland, later Susanna Moodie, transcribed the narrative, and Pringle, who was also a poet, edited the transcription. Prince details the emotional suffering of slavery, the physical and sexual abuse, as well as her many resistances, thus exploiting the roles of both the “good slave” and the noble rebel. Written in the mode of Romantic abolitionist discourse, the History achieves the effect of sounding like the unmediated voice of Prince directly appealing to the British public, truthful eyewitness and spokesperson whose task is to inform the public of slave suffering and of the moral turpitude of the plantocracy. Prince was born in Bermuda in the Devonshire parish in 1788 into the ownership of a farmer, Charles Myners. Her mother was a household slave and her father was a sawyer, and they had other children. When Myners died, Prince passed into the possession of Captain Williams. Until the age of 12, when the estate was sold off and the Prince family dispersed, Prince was a companion to Williams’s daughter. Prince was bought by Captain Ingham of Spanish Point. After five years of severe abuse Prince was sold at her own request to a Mr D. He owned land on the remote Turk’s Island where the salt industry supplied Bermuda with its main income. For about ten years Prince labored in the gruelling salt ponds until D returned to Bermuda. At around the age of 30, Prince asked to be sold to the Woods family, and they took her to Antigua, a relatively liberal environment for British slaves. In the Woods’s household Prince faced another violent regime, yet she took steps toward freedom. She saved money through huckstering and hints at the relationship she had with a white man, Captain Abbot, who tried to

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Prince Hall Masons | 771 buy her freedom. Prince never mentions having any children. She later joined the Moravian Church where she met her future husband, a free black named Daniel James. In her mid-forties Prince came to England with the Woods hoping they would free her. The Woods were intransigent. Prince was forced to leave them and came under the direction of the Moravians and the Anti-Slavery Society. Sustaining many injuries incurred by her masters’ violence, by her middle age Prince had arthritis, was lame, and was going blind. She is described in a court transcript of 1833 in which Woods won a case of libel against Pringle over the History’s content. After this there are no further records. It is uncertain whether she was able to rejoin her husband in Antigua as a free woman. She remains a key figure of slave resistance. Kerry Sinanan See also Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Salt and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Ferguson, Moira. 1992. Subject to Others: British Women Writers and Colonial Slavery, 1670– 1834. London: Routledge. Prince, Mary. 1986. The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave. 1831. London: Pandora Press.

z Prince Hall Masons Prince Hall Masons are an official branch of the worldwide fraternal order of Free and Accepted Masons, commonly referred to as Freemasons. It was founded as a refuge of manhood for African American men by Cambridge, Massachusetts, minister Prince Hall, a man believed to be of Caribbean origin. It is the only American branch of Freemasonry that received its charter directly from the Grand Lodge of England. In 1775, Hall journeyed to Boston Harbor, Massachusetts. to fulfill his desire to become a

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Mason. Hall was initiated in the rites of Freemasonry at British Lodge No. 58, an army lodge connected to a regiment stationed under General Gage, thus becoming the first person of African decent who was initiated into the order of Freemasonry in the American colonies. On March 6 of the same year a number of other men were initiated, passed, and raised to the degree of Master Mason in the same lodge. These 15 Masonic brothers were issued a dispensation by the lodge so they could meet and organize (but not initiate new Masons) until they were authorized by an official charter to establish their own lodge. On July 3, 1775, Prince Hall dedicated the first Lodge of Colored Americans, African Lodge No. 1, at a lodge room he had prepared on Water Street in Boston. He also became their first lodge leader, or Worshipful Master. Prince Hall was not content with the limited powers contained in the dispensation from the army lodge and wanted African Lodge No. 1 to enjoy the full Masonic rights and powers of other Masonic bodies in the country. Hall’s many requests and petitions for an autonomous charter were summarily rejected by his white counterparts in the Masonic order, most times on the basis of color. Yet, solely because of Hall’s persistence, African Lodge received a charter from the Grand Lodge of England 10 years later on March 2, 1784, establishing the lodge officially as African Lodge No. 459. Hall became the only Mason in America who held a warrant directed to himself from the Mother Lodge in England. The warrant to African Lodge No. 459 of Boston is the most significant and highly prized document known to the Prince Hall Masonic Fraternity. Through it, Masonic legitimacy among free black men is traced and on it, more than any other factor, rests their case. That charter, which is authenticated and in safekeeping, is believed to be the only original charter issued from the Grand Lodge of England still in the possession of any lodge in the United States. In later years, the fact that Hall obtained his charter from the Grand Lodge of England

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itself, along with the right and executive power to establish other Lodges of African American Masons, became a point of contention for some white Masons in America. The question of extending Masonry arose when Absalom Jones of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, appeared in 1791 in Boston. He was an ordained Episcopal priest and a Mason who was interested in establishing a Masonic lodge in Philadelphia. Delegations also traveled from Providence, Rhode Island, and New York to establish the African Grand Lodge that year. Prince Hall was appointed Grand Master, serving in this capacity until his death in 1807. Prince Hall served in the American Army during the Revolutionary War and was instrumental in appealing to George Washington for the right of all men of color to be allowed to fight in the Revolutionary War. The resulting resolution from that meeting ensured that freemen of color (including those in African Lodge No. 459) would be allowed to become soldiers. Shortly after his death, the name of African Lodge No. 459 was changed to Prince Hall Grand Lodge in honor of the man who made it possible for men of color to unite under the Masonic Order in North America. The Prince Hall Masons, though rarely a topic of discussion, have invariably had a strong presence throughout the centuries in shaping the destiny of black people in the Americas and representing cross-diaspora collaborations. Prince Hall Masons helped a young Ida B. Wells keep her orphaned family together before she became a leader in the antilynching movement. In its 200-plus years, the Prince Hall Grand Lodge has spawned more than 44 other Grand Lodges. Today, the Prince Hall fraternity has more than 4,500 lodges worldwide, forming 44 independent jurisdictions with a membership of over 300,000 Masons. Jason Esters See also Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940).

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F URTHER R EADING Cass, Donna. 1957. Negro Freemasonry and Segregation. Chicago: Ezra A. Cook Publications. Grimshaw, H. 1995. Official History of Freemasonry Among the Colored People in North America. Kila, MT: Kessinger Publishing. (Orig. pub. 1902). Wallace, Maurice O. 2002. Constructing the Black Masculine Identity and Ideality in African American Men’s Literature and Culture, 1775– 1995. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

z The Provincial Freeman The black abolitionist paper Provincial Freeman (1853–1859) was the third black newspaper published in Canada. (The first black newspaper in Canada, The British American, was first published in March 1845.) Its inaugural issue—born out of controversy with Canada’s second black paper, the Voice of the Fugitive (1851–1853) published in Windsor, Canada West—appeared on March 24, 1853. Cofounded by Samuel Ringgold Ward and Mary Ann Shadd, the antislavery Provincial Freeman supported “the elevation of the Colored people,” temperance, and women’s rights. The paper was a broadsheet with seven columns per page. It included material such as reprinted poetry from the National Era, addresses from various antislavery associations, a letter by Harriet Beecher Stowe, news of a black singer in Buffalo, and recipes. The second issue of the Provincial Freeman appeared one year later. Beginning March 25, 1854, the newspaper was published weekly in Toronto. Its prospectus, attributed to Shadd, stated the paper’s devotion to “Anti-Slavery, Temperance and General Literature.” The masthead added Shadd as publishing agent. Scholars recognize that naming Ward editor was a guise to protect Shadd from gendered assaults on her capabilities as publisher and editor. Furthermore, Ward

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Puerto Rico: Afro-Puerto Ricans | 773 toured Europe for much of the period during which his name appears on the masthead, which seems to support the evidence that Shadd was the primary editor. In its first year, the Freeman promoted black emigration to Canada and criticized the Refugee Home Society, which was locally administered by former Voice of the Fugitive publisher Henry Bibb, and the Dawn Institute, which was managed by Josiah Henson and John Scoble. The paper questioned the success of white American and Canadian abolitionism and sought support from the Toronto Ladies Association for the Relief of Destitute Colored Fugitives, which, to Shadd’s frustration, held a fund-raiser in support of Frederick Douglass’ Paper. Articles advocating women’s rights were also of prominence in its pages. Pieces on suffrage, letters from women readers discussing the paper’s acceptance of female correspondence, and a column entitled “Women’s Rights” all appeared in the paper’s first year. The Freeman also reprinted literature from prominent women writers such as Fanny Fern (Sara Parton) and Frances E. Watkins Harper. By its first anniversary as a weekly, in March 1855, the Provincial Freeman had added emigration to its list of causes—second on the nameplate after antislavery—and authorized Isaac D. Shadd (Mary Ann’s brother) “to receive subscriptions.” By June of that year, Mary Ann Shadd announced her departure from the paper’s editorship, transferring it to Baptist minister and active member of the Provincial Union, William P. Newman, though Shadd continued to write and raise funds for the paper. Publication paused until August while the Freeman moved to Chatham where it was met with antiblack resistance. In November 1855, African American journalist William Howard Day became the paper’s corresponding editor. Facing legal challenges, the Freeman continued publication into 1857, though it was pleading for funds. Extant copies do not exist for the remainder of 1857. The history of the paper after this period is incomplete, and it is unclear how

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many issues were printed. Extant copies exist from January and June of 1859. Andrea Stone See also Shadd Cary, Mary Ann (1823–1893). F URTHER R EADING Heath, Leila. 1987. “Black Ink: An Historical Critique of Ontario’s Black Press.” Fuse 11 (1): 20–27. Murray, Alex L. 1959. “The Provincial Freeman: A New Source for the History of the Negro in Canada.” Ontario History 51 (1): 25–31. Murray, Heather. 2002. Come Bright Improvement. The Literary Societies of Nineteenth-Century Ontario. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Rhodes, Jane. 1998. Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The Black Press and Protest in the Nineteenth Century. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

z Puerto Rico: Afro-Puerto Ricans Borikén or Boriquén, as the indigenous Tainos called the island of Puerto Rico, is situated to the east of Hispaniola, now the nations of Haiti and Dominican Republic. On his second voyage (1493) Christopher Columbus sighted Boriquén and called it San Juan Bautista. The island was renamed Puerto Rico in 1506 and followed the pattern of colonization of Spanish territories in the Americas. Spain implemented a colonial system in which indigenous people and later enslaved Africans supplied the labor force in the development of the colony and thus formed an important element of the island’s social composition. H ISTORY Puerto Rican historiography asserts that Africans arrived on the island both as slaves and libertos (free people). Some of these libertos were domestic servants and conquerors; such was the case of Juan Garrido, who participated in the conquest of Mexico, Florida, and the West Indies (Alegría 2004). These conquistadores lived

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in the Iberian Peninsula and became ladinos or Christianized Africans. In addition to Juan Garrido, other ladinos arrived in Puerto Rico by 1500. Francisco Piñon and Francisco Mexia were among them. Both were engaged in mining. Piñon and Mexía were also encomenderos. Their descendants are the founders of black communities on the island, such as Piñones and Loíza (Sued Badillo and López Cantós 1986, 23– 32). Hence, the presence of Africans in Puerto Rico was established from the conquest of the island. During the colonial period, the Spanish established an economy that required more labor than could be supplied by indigenous people, mainly because the Taino population had decreased from exploitation and mistreatment by settlers. In Hispaniola the Tainos rebelled in response to this mistreatment. In some instances they joined with Africans to establish maroon communities. This union placed the colonizers on alert against any alliance between indigenous people and Africans. Despite attempts to exploit the indigenous population as the main source of labor, advocators for the rights of indigenous people shifted the balance against Africans. In 1501, Spain granted asientos (licenses) to Portuguese merchants to bring captive Africans to the Indies. Among the requirements, Africans brought to the Spanish colonies were to be Christianized. Juan Ponce De León, first governor of Puerto Rico, imported the first captive Africans to the island in 1508. However, these Africans were brought under special circumstances as it was not until 1510 that a Dutchman named Geronimus introduced enslaved Africans as stipulated by an asiento (Díaz-Soler 2000, 30). There was very little settlement in the first decades after 1501, and the island’s population was modestly low. The census of 1530 shows Africans and Indians in the majority (1,523 slaves, 1,148 Indians, and 369 whites). The asientos granted to Portugal lasted from 1595 to 1640. During this period the Spanish colonies received thousands of enslaved

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Africans from Portuguese domains (Cape Verde, Angola, and Minas) in Africa. Documents related to this particular period have helped to establish that the captive Africans brought to Puerto Rico during the late 16th and throughout the 17th century came mainly from Angola. In 1598, British forces under the command of Sir George Cumberland occupied the city of San Juan; in his diary Cumberland confirms the Angolan factor. Cumberland notes that while he was there a slave ship arrived in Puerto Rico with Angolans; they were confiscated (Díaz Soler 2000, 78). Another account by Bishop Damián López de Haro, who visited the island in 1644, observed that in addition to the few Portuguese and Spanish residents in the city of San Juan, Angolan slaves made up the majority of the population (López Cantos 1986, xlv). The increasing number of Africans enslaved or free was a key factor in the development of the Puerto Rican society. Several census reports suggest that throughout the Spanish colonial period the free African descent population outnumbered whites. The padrón (census) of 1673 shows 1,791 free blacks, 820 whites, and 667 slaves (Figueroa 1979, 103). The increasing number of libertos on the island might be also explained by the fact that in 1664, the Spanish crown began to enact cédulas; these granted political asylum to runaway slaves from the British and Netherlands colonies. These selfemancipated Africans were granted freedom in exchange for embracing Catholic faith and taking an oath of loyalty to the king of Spain (Brau 2000, 145). They established new communities on the outskirts of the city San Juan (Santurce) and composed the new free black class while the local enslaved population remained in bondage. In the 18th century, the economy and society were founded. The existing haciendas depended on enslaved labor. As the colonial period took its course, political developments involving succession to the throne in Spain resulted in neglect of its colonies. Lack of proper

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Puerto Rico: Afro-Puerto Ricans | 775 oversight and the proper regulation of trade encouraged contraband and smuggling with other European dependencies. In addition to acquiring basic commodities for survival, many hacendados (planters) smuggled captive Africans, mainly from the British, Dutch, and French, contravening the asiento agreement. Consequently, there were close ties with the rest of the Antilles, which contributed to the making of the Afro-Caribbean community (Morales Carrión 1952). The large number of free people of color resulted from the ambivalence of the Spanish colonial system, which maintained a segment of the African-descended population in bondage, while free people of color made significant gains in the colonial social structure. A good case is Miguel Enríquez, who was born a free mulatto. His grandmother was an African from Guinea. In the early days he worked as a shoemaker and learned to read and write. Later he emerged as a corsair, sailor, smuggler, and military man. Enríquez participated in the defense of the island of Vieques against the British in 1718 by loaning the Spanish his fleet of ships. Hence, he received accolades for the defeat of the British. As a result of the success of his business and his military service, Spain granted Enríquez the honorific title of “Caballero de la Real Esfinge” and a license to become a corsario (corsair or coast guard). Through this Enríquez accumulated considerable wealth. Reports indicate that when the situado or cash trading from Mexico was delayed, Enríquez made loans to the colonial government to cover the military payroll. Consequently, many mulatto soldiers emulated Enríquez, who also became a target of envy and had to be protected by the local government. In the end, a plot orchestrated by some Spanish colonial officers and the white elite stripped Enríquez of all his wealth; he fled to Saint Thomas where he died in 1743 (López Cantos, 1994). For many years it has been debated whether the haciendas and slave labor complex in

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Puerto Rico was very different from that of the rest of the Caribbean. It was assumed that the development of slave trade and sugar plantation economy was not interrelated. This paradigm made it difficult to establish the role of the enslaved population in the island’s economy and society. This continued until the 1970s when efforts were still being made to assess the role of slavery in Puerto Rican history. The tendency was to deny the importance of the enslaved labor in the development of sugar production and in fact their organic contribution in the island (Díaz Soler 2000). This paradigm was virtually unchallenged until the early 1980s when a study focusing on the Ponce region (southern part of the island) demonstrated that the growth of the slave plantation complex was a logical result of the collapse of Spanish mercantilism and its replacement by a new colonial relationship in which foreign trade, imported capital, and African slave labor played dominant roles (Scarano 1984). The work adopted another interpretation of the Puerto Rican sugar industry, presenting it as a counterpoint to the Cuban model. Another important study on slave labor and the development of the plantation economy focused on the municipality of Vega Baja between 1800 and 1873. The study traced the history of the agrarian property and social weaving that slavery created. According to the study, slavery permitted the rise of the sugar economy at the beginning of the 19th century, and enslaved Africans were pivotal. It was only because of the demands and external pressures to end slave trade that the planters forced the peasants or jornaleros to do this labor (San Miguel 1989, 84). The historiography of the plantation system in Puerto Rico also sheds light on the social aspect of slavery. Slaves lived in barracks or huts, yet they were able to establish families. According to the 1869 census, 34.4 percent of slaves worked in the fields and nearly 8 percent worked as domestic servants and artisans. In their spare time slaves had social gatherings where they played

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bomba, an Afro-Puerto Rican musical genre. In many instances during these bomba gatherings slaves plotted and organized uprisings (Baralt 1982; Díaz Soler 2000). Drum playing (an African Diaspora phenomenon) became a tool of communication that caused fear among the plantations. Slave resistance on the island and racial relations are subjects of the new historiography, which disputes the belief that there were few insurrections and that the island did not provide topographical characteristics for maroon communities similar to those in Jamaica (Díaz Soler 2000). On the contrary, it has been established that in the early 16th century the Spanish government kept records of many Africans who fled to the interior of the island. Some returned to work; on occasion, they formed a group engaged in “petit maroonage.” Enslaved persons in Puerto Rico did not depend on maroonage to be free, however. They resorted to the legal system to complain against the physical abuse of their masters (Nistal Moret 2000, 17–18). In other instances they purchased their own freedom through coartación (a system that allowed slaves to purchase freedom in installments). However, coartación was limited and depended on the character and goodwill of the masters. The slave population was under constant surveillance, and Spanish authorities increased their vigilance and repression after the revolt in Haiti. The records the colonial authorities kept on slaves’ activities are a good source for study in this area. These records include the name of people involved, type of offense, and legal outcome. To prevent widespread revolution, the Spanish authorities opted to deny these events or simply to report them as uprisings (Baralt 1982). Another strategy of social control was the implementation of bandos or codes, such as Bando contra la raza africana of 1848, which attempted to institutionalize racial control among the enslaved and free black population. Research on the racial discourse in Puerto Rico has shown that during Spanish colonial

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administration racial tensions and race discrimination against the African population were pervasive. As early as the 1760s Friar Abbad y La Sierra stated that people of African descent had suffered constantly because of their origins (Abbad y La Sierra 1975, 399– 400). Discrimination against people of African descent is closely linked to the fact that the island was a slave society and the social colonial structure perpetuated the stigma of associating slavery only with Africans. In Puerto Rico, racial and class struggles also have their history in slavery and abolition. In 1864, the issue of slavery in Puerto Rico assumed new urgency. The founding of the Sociedad Abolicionista put pressure on the Spanish government to abolish slavery. In November 1865, after the liberal monarchists came to power in Spain, Cuba and Puerto Rico were invited to send representatives to the Junta Informativa (an advisory, fact-finding group) in Madrid the following year. Interestingly, Spain had neglected this group for decades. The reasons why Spain changed its policy are unknown, but some have speculated that the government was under pressure from England and local abolitionist groups to end slavery. Others believed Spain’s invitation to the colonies was spurred by the fear that the expansionist mood displayed earlier by the United States would continue once the Civil War ended (Jiménez 1998, 158). Regardless of Spain’s motives, the Cuban and Puerto Rican delegates welcomed the opportunity to represent their homelands in Madrid. The group of Puerto Rican attendees included five liberal abolitionists and one conservative. The delegation argued that Puerto Rico, unlike Cuba, depended almost entirely on its free labor force for its agricultural production. As a result of this meeting and the outbreak of the first war of independence in Cuba, in 1870, the Ley Moret was enacted to abolish slavery gradually. The Ley Moret created a system of patronato, or apprenticeship. Plantation owners also attempted to flout the law by changing the ages of the slaves to keep them in

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Puerto Rico: Afro-Puerto Ricans | 777 bondage for a longer period. In addition, the Ten Years’ War in Cuba delayed the complete implementation of the law. At the end of it, the newly created Partido Liberal Reformista, with its antislavery platform, pushed for a serious solution to the problem of slavery in Puerto Rico. As a first measure to legitimize the process in 1868 and 1872, two censuses were taken, which indicated a reduction of the slave population—a fact that abolitionists used as their final attack (the 1869 census showed a figure of 323,454 whites; 237,710 free colored; and 39,069 slaves). Finally, in March 22, 1873, slavery was abolished in Puerto Rico. African descendants began to construct alternative communities, and most of them would later shape the Puerto Rican working class. The status of African descendants after emancipation is relevant to the understanding of the strategies used by the working classes during the first 20 years of the American occupation of 1898. Recent scholarship on the topic of the post-emancipation period, particularly in the Caribbean, has provided a comparative framework for study among different Caribbean colonies (Beckles and Shepherd 1996). In the case of Puerto Rico, the most recent research sheds light on the life of free black Puerto Ricans after emancipation. It examines how freed slaves used new forms of “contracts” as mechanisms to reunite with their relatives. The study also contributes to the understanding of the socioeconomic structures of the 19th century and the different social developments that took place during that period; these include the emergence of urban identities, artisanship, labor movement links, and political party struggles (Mayo Santana, Negrón Portillo, and Mayo López 1997). Historians agree that the labor movement concept began in the late 1860s and early 1870s. The first group that formed a “workeroriented organization” was the artesanos, who organized themselves in the urban centers. These organizations were characterized by the creation of clubs, societies for mutual help, and

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cooperatives. Initially, the casinos, or artisan clubs, imitated the social activities of the Creole class, but later they were transformed into organizations that fostered the intellectual growth of its members (García and Quintero 1982). With the American occupation workers sought advancement of their group by affiliating with the American Federation of Labor and established cross-class alliances. An example of these cross-class alliances was reflected by the leader of the Republican Party José Celso Barbosa, an Afro-Puerto Rican with a medical degree from the University of Michigan. Despite his political convictions of the eventual annexation of Puerto Rico to the United States, Barbosa was respected by all social groups. His birthday (July 27) is one of the island’s national holidays. As in the case of workers’ organizations in the Caribbean, Puerto Rican unions established political cross-class alliances to advance their agenda. From mid 1910 to the beginning of the 1920s, the labor movement in Puerto Rico evolved from guilds and exclusive groups to political parties, which had the goal of obtaining better social and economic conditions. A recent study indicated that in 1920 a chapter of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) was established in San Juan. The founding of a UNIA chapter in Puerto Rico demonstrates another contribution of AfroPuerto Ricans to the labor movement and demonstrates that Afro-Puerto Ricans used labor unions as vehicles in the struggle against economic oppression and racial discrimination (Román 2003). C ULTURAL C ONNECTIONS Racial discrimination became more evident when the African-descended population reaffirmed its cultural link with Africa. One of the debates in Puerto Rican historiography is the cultural contribution of Africans. It was the held view that Afro-Puerto Ricans lost all connection with their African traditions and rituals. Furthermore, it was suggested that African

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traditions were absorbed by the Indian and the Spanish race (Díaz Soler 2000, 173). Although the island is mainly Catholic, traces of African religions are seen in different spiritual practices. It is not a surprise seeing an altar dedicated to Shangó, Ochún, or Yemaya in a Puerto Rican household; at the same time the person is a devotee of the Catholic faith. On the island it is common to visit a santero to receive guidance while making a visit to the church and praying before an image of the Virgin Mary. It is not a contradiction to make a trip to the botánica to purchase special lotions and herbs prescribed by the santero to chase away evil spirits. Thus, the so-called syncretization of European and African religions in Puerto Rico is a clear evidence of the Africanization of the island’s culture. The previous example challenges the misconceptions that on the island there is no trace of the African culture. In the early 1970s a debate on this issue was sparked with the publications of the two volumes of Narciso descubre su trasero, El negro en la cultura puertorriqueña (Zenón Cruz 1974) and El elemento afronegroide del español en Puerto Rico (Alvarez Nazario 1974). In Narciso the concept of black Puerto Rican is defined and the political, economic, and cultural contributions of Africandescended people on the island’s national identity are described. El elemento afronegroide is a linguistic study of the African presence in Puerto Rico in the Spanish spoken on the island. Both seminal works attempt to articulate the concept of Afro-Puerto Ricanness that has been missed in the island’s national discourse. A similar claim emerges from a Marxist point of view in the seminal essay El país de cuatro pisos (The Four-Storeyed Country). It establishes that Africans and Afrocriollos were the precursors of nationalism, which Puerto Rican intellectuals now associate with el jíbaro or the peasant (González 1980). The jíbaros are seen as deriving from European immigrants that settled in the rural areas. This debate about the jíbaro can

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be traced back to the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century when Puerto Rican intellectuals romanticized the jíbaros and identified them as the initiators of Puerto Rican culture. While the European, particularly the Spanish race, was exalted (Hispanophilia), the African-descended population was excluded from the island’s national identity. Recently, the discussion on the role of Africans in the island’s national identity has become a vehicle through which issues of race and racism among Puerto Ricans are directly addressed. However, because this critical scholarship is mainly produced by members of the Puerto Rican Diaspora in the United States, particularly in relation to the brand of racism they experience there, its impact in Puerto Rico has been limited and gradual (Duany 2002). The degree of denial over racism in Puerto Rican society is so profound that textbooks and other literature on the history of Puerto Rico downplay the fact that in the 1950s the group Liga para Promover el Progreso de los Negros en Puerto Rico (League to Promote the Advancement of Blacks in Puerto Rico) denounced racist practices in the private and government sectors. Juan Falú Zarzuela founded this group, which is modeled after the principles of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The exclusion of this civil rights group from Puerto Rican social history by the Puerto Rican elite illustrates how in several intellectual circles the attempt to dilute the problem of race makes it difficult for black people to organize and mobilize against racial oppression. The U.S. presence in Puerto Rico has exacerbated political tensions on the island. Manifestations against American imperialism were channeled through the creation of political parties such as the Partido Nacionalista (1922). Its leader, Pedro Albizu-Campos, an AfroPuerto Rican, fought for the island’s independence. He also advocated for preserving the island culture by using a contemporary strat-

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Puerto Rico: Afro-Puerto Ricans | 779 egy that consisted of embracing Catholicism and hispanofilia (cult of Hispanic culture). Some scholars have argued that Albizu’s approach was a denial of the island’s African past; whereas others contend that his approach was merely a reliable strategy to resist U.S. imperialism. Albizu and his party followers were persecuted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the local government; he was in and out from prison until he died in 1965. Today the discussion related to the African presence in Puerto Rico is being raised with relative openness. Private institutions, such as the Banco Popular of Puerto Rico, contributed to the making of a documentary recognizing the Afro-Puerto Rican musical genre bomba and plena. A new trend was established by the descendants of Juan Falú Zarzuela, founder of the Liga: by using research and DNA they were able to trace their family roots to Senegal. Inspired by this outcome, another Afro-Puerto Rican family (the Richardsons) also traced their roots to Nigeria. Another admirable effort is the alliance among the traditionally black communities and members of the academia. Their hard work and activism have sparked the interest of the Afro-Puerto Ricans citizens to celebrate their African heritage. Overall, the search of the tercera raíz (third root) has given voice and agency to AfroPuerto Ricans in the conceptualization and construction of Puerto Rican identity. Milagros Denis See also Cuba: Afro-Cubans; Dominican Republic; Febres, Mayra Santos (1966–); Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940); Haiti; Mexico: African Heritage; Santería. F URTHER R EADING Abbad y Lasierra, Fray Iñigo. 1975. Historia geográfica, civil y natural de la isla de San Juan Bautista de Puerto Rico. Annotated by Isabel Gutiérrez del Arroyo. Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico: Editorial Universitaria. Alegría, Ricardo. 2004. Juan Garrido: el conquistador negro en las Antillas, Florida, Mexico y California. 2nd ed. San Juan: Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y del Caribe.

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Alvarez Nazario, Manuel. 1974. El elemento afronegroide en el español de Puerto Rico. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña. Baralt, Guillermo. 1982. Esclavos rebeldes. Conspiraciones y sublevaciones de esclavos en Puerto Rico (1795–1873). Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico: Ediciones Hiracán. Beckles, Hilary, and Verene Shepherd, eds. 1996. Caribbean Freedom. Economy and Society from Emancipation to the Present. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener. Brau, Salvador. 2000. Historia de Puerto Rico. Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico: Editorial Edil. Diaz Soler, Luis M. 2000. Historia de la esclavitud negra en Puerto Rico. Río Piedras: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico. Duany, Jorge. 2002. The Puerto Rican Nation on the Move: Identities on the Island and in the United States. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Figueroa, Loida. 1979. Breve historia de Puerto Rico. 2 vols. Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico: Editorial Edil. Garcia, Gervasio L., and A.G. Quintero. 1982. Desafío y solidadridad: breve historia del movimiento obrero puertorriqueño. Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico: Ediciones Huracán. González, José Luis. 1980. El pais de cuatro pisos y otros ensayos. Río Piedras, Puerto Rico: Ediciones Huracán. Jiménez de Wagenheim, Olga. 1998. Puerto Rico. An Interpretative History from Pre-Columbian Times to 1900. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers. López Cantos, Angel. 1994. Miguel Enríquez: corsario Boricua del siglo XVIII. Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico: Ediciones Puerto. Mayo Santana, Raúl, Mariano Negrón Portilla, and Manuel Mayo López. 1997. Cadenas de esclavitud y solidaridad. Esclavos libertos en San Juan, siglo XIX. Rio Piedras: Universidad de Puerto Rico. Morales Carrión, Arturo. 1952. Puerto Rico and the Non-Hispanic Caribbean: A Study in Decline of Spain’s Exclusivism. Rio Piedras: University of Puerto Rico. Nistal Moret, Benjamín. 2000. Esclavos prófugos y cimarrones. Puerto Rico, 1770–1870. Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico: Editorial Universitaria. Román, Reinaldo L. 2003. “Scandalous Race: Garveyism, the Bomba, and the Discourses of Blackness in 1920s Puerto Rico.” Caribbean Studies 31 (1, January-June): 213–259.

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780 | Pushkin, Alexander Sergeevich (1799–1837) San Miguel, Pedro. 1989. El Mundo que creó el azúcar. La haciendas en Vega Baja, 1800–1873. Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico: Ediciones Huracán. Scarano, Francisco. 1984. Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico. The Plantation Economy of Ponce, 1800–1850. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Sued Badillo, Jalil, and Angel López Cantos. 1986. Puerto Rico Negro. Río Piedras, Puerto Rico: Editorial Cultural. Zenón Cruz, Isabelo. 1974. Narciso descubre su trasero: el negro en la cultura puertorriqueña. 2 vols. Humacao, Puerto Rico: Editorial Furidi.

z Pushkin, Alexander Sergeevich (1799–1837) Heralded as Russia’s most beloved writer, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was born into a family of wealth and serf-abusing privilege, a fact that many Soviet revolutionaries were willing to overlook. Because his maternal greatgrandfather, Ibrahim Petrovich Gannibal, was an African slave from present-day Eritrea, who became the godson, chief engineer, army general, and court favorite of Czar Peter the Great, some of Pushkin’s biographers have wrongly asserted that he was an “octoroon.” Following aristocratic tradition of intermarriage, his parents, Nadja and Sergei, were related by blood, and both were the descendants of the famous Ibrahim. Thus, Pushkin’s African ancestry came from both sides of his family. Pushkin’s poems began to appear in public when he was 15. By the time he graduated from the Imperial Lyceum three years later, Russia’s leading literary figures acknowledged him as a rival. His extensive repertory of poetry and prose is revered for its intrinsic “Russianness.” Though he experimented with Shakespearean styles in romantic tragedy and Byronic styles in poetry, he rejected popular literary trends from France and Germany. For the most part,

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he wrote about Russian people, Russian culture, and Russian values. Pushkin settled in Petersburg, where he wrote extensively. He also sold the serfs he inherited in order to live a life of youthful hedonism, drinking heavily and taking many mistresses, including married women. During this time, he gradually developed a sense of political consciousness and a taste for social reform. Thus, he occasioned the czar’s disfavor in 1820, resulting in his banishment from Petersburg to Ekaterinoslave in southern Russia. While in exile, he visited the Caucasus and the Crimea. In 1823, he was transferred to Odessa, where his drinking, womanizing, and literary energy continued. He also wrote many personal letters, one of which was intercepted and forwarded to the czar. Because the letter contained the sentiments of an atheist, he was exiled once more, this time to his mother’s estates in the village of Mikhaylovskoe in northern Russia, where he was kept under constant surveillance. Pushkin was proud of his African ancestry. Indeed, before his untimely death, he had begun composing a novel in homage to his grandfather, entitled The Blackamoor of Peter the Great. Marriage and court intrigues plagued him consistently in the last years of his life. Determined to marry “the most beautiful woman in Russia,” he met Natalya Goncharova in 1829 and married her in 1831. Wedlock did not discourage Natalya’s many admirers. Czar Nicholas I had two reasons for summoning the handsome couple to court. First, he wanted to control the content of Pushkin’s publications. The prolific writer could publish nothing without the czar’s official permission, not even a newspaper editorial. Permission, if forthcoming, took as long as four years. Second, he enjoyed the company of the coquettish Natalya. Pushkin was certain that Nicholas conferred him with a court title to facilitate Natalya’s attendance at lavish balls and other court functions. Yet these troubled

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Pushkin, Alexander Sergeevich (1799–1837) | 781 years, 1831 to 1837, proved to be Pushkin’s most productive literarily. In 1834, Madame Pushkina met GeorgesCharles d’Anthès, a young French émigré, and the adopted son and paramour of Baron Jacob von Heeckeren, a Dutch diplomat. Their intimacy was less than private, and when Pushkin learned of it in 1837, he challenged the Frenchman to a duel. This was not his first duel but it was his last. Court society sided with d’Anthès but the Russian people rendered him the most hated personality in the history of their literature. For the sake of mob control, the czar ordered a small, well-guarded funeral, by invitation only. With reason to fear for his life, d’Anthès fled to Paris, where he pursued a career in politics. Natalya remarried in 1844. The Pushkins had four children: Alexander, Grigory, Natalya, and Marya Alexandrovna. Pushkin’s descendants include the actor Peter Ustinov and Prince Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh, consort of England’s Queen Elizabeth II. Of Pushkin’s work, Serena Vitale, one of his recent biographers, puts him, as

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many Russians have, in the company of Shakespeare. Joseph Dorsey See also Europe and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Blagoi, D. D. 1982. The Sacred Lyre: Essays of the Life and Work of Alexander Pushkin. Moscow, Russia: Raduga Publishers. Creighton, Laura G. 1999. A Bibliography of Alexander Pushkin in English: Studies and Translations. New York: Mellon Press. Evdokimova, Svetlana. 2003. Alexander Pushkin’s Little Tragedies: The Poetics of Brevity. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Pushkin, Alexander. 1936. The Works of Alexander Pushkin: Lyrics, Narrative Poems, Folktales, Plays, and Prose. New York: Random House. Pushkin, Alexander. 1943. Poems, Prose, and Plays. New York: Random House. Pushkin, Alexander. 1999. Collected Stories. New York: Everyman’s Library. Sandler, Stephanie. 1989. Distant Pleasures: Alexander Pushkin and the Writing of Exile. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Vitale, Serena. 2000. Pushkin’s Button. Chicago: University of Chicago.

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embodied literary aesthetics. It was also during this period that the group was joined by some young writers, who would later become major names in contemporary Afro-Brazilian literature, such as Miriam Alves, Abilio Fereira, Esmeralda Ribeiro, Márcio Barbosa, Sônia Fátima da Conceição, and Oubi Inae Kibuko. The new, revitalized Quilombhoje grew and reached out to the entire country, becoming the central space for the maturation of the contemporary Afro-Brazilian literary voices. Currently run by Esmeralda Ribeiro, the president, and Márcio Barbosa, the vice president, more recently, Quilombhoje has embraced a broader editorial mission to promote and market Afro-Brazilian literature and culture at large. Among other titles, the group has published a collection of critical essays entitled Reflexões sobre a Literatura Afro-Brasileira (Reflections about Afro-Brazilian Literature) (1982) and a book about issues of race and selfesteem, called Gostando Mais de Nós Mesmos (Liking Ourselves Better) (1999). Quilombhoje also runs a Web site, www.quilombhoje.com.br, with updated information about Afro-Brazilian literature, upcoming cultural events, and new releases. Although more recent editions have been cosponsored by partnerships with private and public institutions, the collective has

São Paulo–based Quilombhoje (Quilombo today) was the first African Brazilian writers’ collective. Founded in 1980 by Cuti, Owaldo Camargo, Paulo Colina, Abelardo Rodrigues, and others, the group’s main objective is to discuss and critically analyze the Afro-Brazilian experience in literature and to create space for Afro-descendants to discuss issues of identity, inclusion, citizenship, and self-esteem. The first meeting of the collective took place at the now-defunct Bar Matamba, a bohemian tavern popular among intellectuals, located downtown in the city of São Paulo. Soon after its creation, the group took over the task of publishing and promoting Cadernos Negros. Cadernos Negros, the first publication by, about, and for an Afro-Brazilian audience, has been published annually since 1978, with editions featuring poetry and short fiction alternatively. In the mid–1980s the group went through its first major crises and schism, resulting in the departure of Camargo, Colina, and Rodrigues. These writers were very critical of the literary quality of the early material published by Cadernos Negros, which at time privileged social politics of community building over dis783 www.abc-clio.com

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remained an independent and self-supporting institution staffed by volunteer members.

Quilombhoje’s website. www.quilombhoje.com.br.

Rick J. Santos

z

See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians. F URTHER R EADING Afolabi, Niyi, Marcio Barbosa, and Esmeralda Ribeiro, eds. 2007. The Afro-Brazilian Mind: Contemporary Afro-Brazilian Literary and Cultural Cricticism. (Bi-Lingual). Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Cadernos Negros (journal). 1979–present. Sao Paulo: Quilombhoje.

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Quilombismo See Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Diasporic Maroonage; Maroon and Maroonage; Nascimento, Abdias do (1914–), and Zumbi of Palmares.

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Rada

corporated into the two major ceremonial groups of Haitian Vodoun, Rada and Petwo. Rada Lwas, compared with the Lwas of Petwo, are considered “cool” spirits who are often associated with water and the air. Among the Rada pantheon are Lwas such as Danbala Wedo, Ayida Wedo, Ezuli Freda Dahomey, Papa Legba, and Aizan, to name a few. Each Lwa has specific attributes that include some aspect of nature, personality traits that are similar to those of human beings, and control over some domain of human existence. Rada ceremonies facilitate interchanges among people and the Lwas, providing links to cultural heritage while affording opportunities for creating harmony between spirit and material realms. Ritual specialists aid in this process by creating an environment that encourages interaction between humans and Lwas. The ritual specialist (oungan or manbo) coordinates all components of Rada ceremonies. Those components include musical instruments played by skilled specialists; altars and items dedicated to the Lwas; ritual expressions that include speech, songs, and dances that are carried out by the ritual specialists and members of the congregation; and food for Lwas and the congregation. Each Lwa has specific objects, colors, food, songs and dances

Rada, one of the two prominent ritual components of the Haitian religion Vodoun, is largely a product of an ancient African civilization located in Dahomey (now Benin), West Africa. More specifically, the word “Rada” is a shortened version of the name of the Dahomey town, Arada, from which many aspects of Haitian Vodoun were transported and transformed (Desmangles 1992; Metraux 1972). Enslaved Africans in Haiti organized themselves according to the territory they occupied in Africa and their common languages. Haitian Vodoun includes a complex of several ritual groups that were originally organized in that manner; hence, place names like Congo, Arada, or Siniga (Senegal) or cultural designations like Ibo, Nago, or Bambara identified groups of people in Haiti (Herskovits 1937; Metraux 1972). Those groupings are referred to as nations and were instrumental in the organization of Vodoun’s religious structure. Each nation held on to beliefs and practices from its ancestral culture, and those practices became a part of the larger complex that is referred to as Vodoun. According to Leslie Desmangles (1992), at least 17 nations of Lwas have been identified in Haiti. Many of them are now in785 www.abc-clio.com

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that they favor. The presence of those items, in addition to favorable drumming, singing, dancing, and proper protocol, increases the potential for Rada Lwas attending services in their honor. Joan Hamby Burroughs See also Haiti; Petwo; Vodoun. F URTHER R EADING Burroughs, Joan. 1995. “Haitian Ceremonial Dance on the Concert Stage: the Contextual Transference and transformation of Yanvalou.” Ph.D. diss., New York University. Deren, Maya. 1953. The Divine Horsemen. New York: Thames & Hudson. Desmangles, Leslie. 1992. The Faces of the Gods. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Dunham, Katherine. 1969. Island Possessed. New York: Doubleday. Fleurant, Gerdes. 1996. Dancing Spirits: Rhythms and Rituals of Haitian Vodun, the Rada Rite. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Frank, Henry. 2002. “Haitian Vodou Ritual Dance and Its Secularization.” In Caribbean Dance from Abakuá to Zouk, ed. S. Sloat, 109–113. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Herskovits, Melville. 1937. Life in a Haitian Valley. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Laguerre, Michel. 1980. Voodoo Heritage. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Metraux, Alfred. 1972. Voodoo in Haiti, trans. H. Charteris. New York: Schocken Books. Wilcken, Lois. 2002. “Spirit Unbound.” In Caribbean Dance from Abakuá to Zouk, ed. S. Sloat, 109–113. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

z Raizales OVERVIEW The English-speaking Afro-descendants of the Archipelago of San Andrés, Old Providence (Providencia) and Kathleena, Colombia, self-described as natives and indigenous people, were finally recognized in the 1991 Colombian Constitution as “raizales.” However, these Caribbean

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people, principally of African and British descent, who built the communities on the Archipelago, have different origins, history, cultural identities, language, traditions, religious beliefs, institutions, and social organizations from the rest of their fellow Colombians. The Archipelago, presently a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization world biosphere reserve, includes three inhabited islands, located in the Caribbean Sea, southwest of Jamaica, 110 miles east of Nicaragua, and 480 miles northwest of mainland Colombia. Politically, it is a province of Colombia. H ISTORY In 1627, a group of Puritans landed on San Andrés and Providence, followed during the next decade by more ships bringing slaves from Bermuda and Jamaica. But in 1641, because of the wars between England and Spain, the Spaniards cleared the islands of British settlers, taking the slaves as spoils of war and sending the Pilgrims back to England. Within years, however, British colonists were back, reestablishing settlements in the Archipelago. They bought slaves from Jamaica to work the tobacco and cotton farms. In 1822, the native people of the Archipelago agreed to become part of the Gran Colombia (Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador). Basically, they were left alone to till their soil, practice their religion (Protestantism, mainly Baptist), speak their language (English), and develop their own culture. After slavery was outlawed, the demarcation between master/mistress and slave blurred, and blacks and whites mixed freely. They produced local musical, dance, and culinary blends as well. Evolving over three centuries, this English/Creole-speaking, AfroAnglo-Miskito-Latino mixture is the unique native culture of the Archipelago. Family names such as Bowie, Downs, Forbes, Hudgson, May, and Pomiere from San Andrés, and Archbold, Henry, Howard, Livingston, Newball, Robinson, and Taylor from Old Providence are common on the Archipelago.

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Randolph, Asa Philip (1889–1979) | 787 Beginning in 1912, Colombia changed its laissez-faire policy and implemented laws to colonize and Colombianize the ethnic natives. In 1953, the state declared San Andrés a free port, thereby initiating uncontrolled immigration, overpopulation, and tourism that promoted economic activity benefiting the nonnative community at the expense of the raizales. In the 1970s, the state built three bases for all branches of the Colombian military armed forces on San Andrés and Providence. C URRENT S ITUATION Today, with a population of more than 100,000, San Andrés has the highest population density in the Caribbean—more than 3,000 persons per square kilometer. Overpopulation has resulted in severe stress on government services, which in turn has resulted in ecological degradation of the islands and the surrounding coral and oceanic biosphere. To this end, the Afro-descendants—churches, ethnic movements, small foundations, and the native community abroad—founded an umbrella organization: Archipelago Movement for Ethnic-Native Self-Determination (AMEN-SD), whose mission is to bring dignity to the ethnic people of the islands. In this effort, the Seaflower Archipelago Development Agency was formed to help the native islanders living in the United States and on the Archipelago improve their social well-being and economic opportunities and to work against discrimination and social exclusion. Ernestina Martinez and Claire A. Nelson See also Colombia: Afro-Colombians. F URTHER R EADING Archipelago Movement for Ethnic-Native SelfDetermination, www.amensd.org. “Articulo 310, Titulo XI, Capitulo 2.” Constitución Política de Colombia 1991, 2nd ed. Bogotá: Escuela Superior de Administración Publica ESAP, 125. Eastman Arango, Juan Carlos. 1992. “Creación de la Intendencia de San Andrés y Providencia: La

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Cuestión Nacional en sus Primeros Años.” Revista Credencial Historia 3 (January-December): 25–36. Petersen, Walwin Godfrey. 1995. “Brief Review of the Archipelago’s Colonization.” In This Is San Andrés, 8–30. Bogotá, Colombia: Ediciones Gama. Yelvington, Kevin A. 2001. “The Anthropology of Afro-Latin America and the Caribbean: Diasporic Dimensions.” Annual Review of Anthropology 30:227–260.

z Randolph, Asa Philip (1889–1979) A. Philip Randolph, born in 1889 in Cresent, Florida, was one of the early leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. When Randolph was young, his family moved to Jacksonville, Florida, and soon after graduating Bethune-Cookman College, Randolph migrated to New York City in 1911, where he worked several jobs, including an elevator operator. Experiencing job exploitation, Randolph created an Elevator and Switchboard Operators Union, thus gaining early experience in labor organizing. Randolph also attended the City College of New York, although he never received his bachelor’s degree. Randolph received an education in politics on the streets of New York. There he heard soapbox speakers such as Eugene V. Debs and the black socialist Hubert Harrison preach the gospel of socialism. Taken by their class analysis, Randolph became convinced that there were numerous benefits for working-class African Americans in industrial unionism. After meeting Chandler Owen and studying Marxism, both men became members of the Socialist Party, arguing that racism was rooted in capitalist exploitation and the Socialist Party was the best means of liberating the black masses. In 1917, Randolph and Owen started the first black Socialist journal in the country, The Messenger.

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In 1925, Randolph became involved in the 12-year fight of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) to win the right to collectively bargain with its employer, the Pullman Company. The company used a host of intimidating tactics, including firing workers, persuading religious leaders and many of the black middle class to publicly denounce the Brotherhood, and organizing a company union to undermine the Brotherhood’s legitimacy. However, Randolph, the organizers, and members of the BSCP persevered. Randolph and the BSCP did not only turn to porters to win recognition but also relied on support from community and civic organizations. In particular, Randolph requested and received support from many in the various black religious communities. Labor organizations, including the American Federation of Labor, supported the BSCP. Finally, in 1937, the union won recognition after the passage of the Emergency Railroad Transportation Act (ERTA) and the National Industrial Relations Act (NIRA) gave workers the right to organize and collectively bargain. Eventually, the Railroad Mediation Board ordered an election for employee representatives for the porters, and the BSCP overwhelmingly won. By the summer of 1935, the Brotherhood began formal negotiations with the Pullman Company. But it should be noted that although it was because of the ERTA and the NIRA that the BSCP eventually received recognition, the fact that Randolph and the members of the BSCP “stayed the course” and did not fold led to the union’s victory. Moreover, the BSCP should be seen as more than a labor organization. Randolph and leaders of the organization interpreted their struggle as a civil rights one. Throughout his public career, Randolph argued that civil rights must be linked to the rights of working people, and in numerous speeches and letters he contended that the battle for recognition was to win dignity and respect for black people. Randolph remained active in the fight for labor and civil rights. By the early 1940s Ran-

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dolph had established the March on Washington Movement (MOWM), which helped organize thousands of people of African origins in the United States to march on the nation’s capital in 1941 demanding that President Franklin Roosevelt ban discrimination in the arms industry. The threat of thousands of black people coming to Washington, D.C. to protest convinced Roosevelt to issue an executive order banning discrimination in defense plants. The president also created the Fair Employment Practices Committee to help ensure that defense manufacturers would not practice racial discrimination. In 1948, Randolph also forced President Harry S. Truman to desegregate the United States Armed Forces. By 1963, as civil rights campaigns were taking place throughout the nation, Randolph again called for a march on Washington for jobs and freedom. The historic march took place in August 1963, bringing more than 250,000 people to the nation’s capital. Clarence Taylor See also Bethune-Cookman University. F URTHER R EADING Anderson, Jervis. 1974. A. Philip Randolph: A Biographical Portrait. New York: Harcourt Brace. Pfeffer, Paula F. 1990. A. Philip Randolph, Pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

z Rap/Rappin’ As an African linguistic tradition, rap or rappin’ is a speech act that has existed before the time of hip-hop and has several lexical entries. Smitherman (1994, 1977), Green (2002), and Keyes (2002) define rap as (1) a casual way to converse that involves the exchange of greeting, salutation, and some inquiry into the person’s well-being; (2) to engage in a duel of ritual insults such as signifyin’, or playin’ the dozens where the victor belittles his or her op-

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Rap/Rappin’ | 789 ponent by constructing an insult that is either fluid or rhythmic, but above all else funny; (3) to have an affectionate, flirtatious way with words and an ability to gain favor with the opposite sex, to have game; and (4) a poetic and rhythmic type of braggadocio speech that is chanted over music. The word rap itself has a fairly recent history. It entered into the English language late in the 16th century with the meaning to talk vigorously or or to say suddenly. Most scholars agree that use of rap in the African American community appeared in the mid to late 1960s. However, the word was in use as early as the 1940s and is most likely familiar to the blues genre. The word can be traced to Chicago where blues musician Peter Chatman (Leroy/Memphis Slim), who hailed from Memphis, Tennessee, frequently worked at a nightclub called the “Rap Club,” rappin’ the blues. The success of hip-hop is due in part to rap being a part of daily life and the reciprocal relationship that hip-hop artists have with Africans throughout the Diaspora. Before the 1979 commercial release of “Rapper’s Delight” by New York’s Sugar Hill Gang, “sistahs” were rappin’ on every community corner and took part in rap sessions where they performed call-andresponse chants called “cheers.” All-female neighborhood drill teams were formed. They performed these cheers in competitions and were featured in neighborhood parades and talent shows. Two of the most popular cheers were “Roll Call” and “Hollywood Swingin’(ers).” The performance of “cheer” among young adolescent women is a national pastime in the African American community. Like the legendary “baaad man” toasts such as Dolemite and Stagolee, cheers have numerous renditions and vary from region to region. They are called cheers or games in the Midwest, steps in the Northeast, and ring games in Jamaica. Rap is also incorporated into greeting rituals. In U.S. barbershops, historically regular patrons would announce their arrival by rhyming a rap about themselves upon entering. Rap was

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also incorporated into the greetings ritual among young men who engage in a friendly competition forming couplets about one another. Although this practice is competitive in that the person with the cleverest couplet is declared the winner, the aim is to pay the other the greater compliment, alluding to his coolness while at the same time downplaying one’s own coolness. In the end, both speakers are complimented and the ritual exchange demonstrates their camaraderie. Rappin’ is a common day-to-day speech act in the African American community. The rap found in hip-hop is not the product of gang street culture or the conditions of urban poverty; instead, it is part of the traditional discourse practices of the African Diaspora. In fact, most of the linguistic features found in hip-hop may be found in some form in communities throughout the African Diaspora, from the Spanish to English code switching stemming from Afro-Latin to the “rude boy” Patwa rants found in Jamaica sound systems and to Ebonics. In You Know My Steeze, Samy Alim (2004) shows that hip-hop artists use more African American linguistic features in their lyrics than they do in their day-to-day speech. His study shows that hip-hop artists are making a conscious effort in choosing linguistic forms to capture the attention of black people who are most attuned to the African Diasporic speech community. Alim’s study recorded an increase in final consonant cluster deletion and simplification, such as “r” deletion in the word “car” pronounced “Kaw” or the simplification of the final consonant cluster “ty” in the word fifty pronounced as “fifd.” There was also an increase in the production of sentences with zero copulas, as in “John bugging,” which means, “John is bugging” in European American English. Most languages in West Africa do not have words that end with consonants, or what linguists call word final consonants. Like many West African languages, the African American language uses several phonological rules transforming the English language into an African phonological form.

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Afrika Bambaataa is right when he states that rap has always been present and has played a crucial role in sustaining the African American community; keeping alive its traditions and customs; and chronicling its hardships and triumphs. Many progressive intellectuals who have taken on the question concerning rap in hip-hop all acknowledge its African linguistic attributes. Most scholars agree that hip-hop’s aesthetics of rhyme forms an intricate part of the African Diaspora and is merely sounding off on what hip-hop immortal Afrika Bambaataa describes as being the continuation of an African-derived bardic tradition (Perkins 1996, Keyes 2002, Kelly 1996, Rose 1994, Fricke & Ahearn 2002). Tracing the origins of hip-hop’s Africanderived bardic traditions, Keyes (2002) and Kelly (1996) explore this topic extensively. In his article “Kickin’ reality, Kickin’ Ballistics” Kelly situates hip-hop’s narrative style within the tradition of signification and traces its usage through the lineage of African American performers from the 20th century back to the 19th century. He cites performers such as Lightnin’ Rod (Jalal Uridin of the Last Poets), Lloyd Price, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, and the baaadman tales of the 19th century (Kelly 1996, 119). Also included in this tradition are the earliest known tales of lion and Brer Rabbit whose trickster insignia can be seen in the lyrical performances of hip-hop’s own Trick Daddy and Lil’ Kim. Their lyricism embodies the trickster figure who possesses a cunning intellect and gifted wordsmiths that both appropriately sashay “Aye wan’ sum su-ga on my tongue” in Trick Daddy’s video “Suga.” Keyes goes further back than Kelly to show how hip-hop’s narrative styles are similar to Dogon’s bardic tradition in Mali. She also indicates that several scholars noticeably observed that the Dogon concept of Nommo functions in the cultural practices throughout the African Diaspora (Keyes 2002, 22). Nommo is the concept that “the power of the word” can make a difference and change the world. Keyes

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also documents the symmetry between hiphop and the Dogon’s rhythmic speech performance and suggests that both are done “in a chant like fashion” (Keyes 2002, 20). She offers as evidence of hip-hop’s linkage to African bardic traditions the memoir of a Moroccan traveler in the 14th century who reported while visiting Mali the performance of poetry over the playing of drums (Keyes 2002, 19). In view of these examples, hip-hop is the latest derivation of an African tradition that was revolutionized by its abductees who were violently injected into the New World. The language underwent evolution after evolution as the abductees survived the atrocities associated with the ethos of the New World to become New Africans. These New Africans spoke Africanized languages throughout the African Atlantic. Hip-hop inspired the vitalization and resurgence of African languages by those of African descent who under European linguistic colonization were characterized as autistic. For many, the popular belief is that hiphop is a product of urban street culture born during the time many have characterized as the postindustrial era. The desolate conditions that define the era were caused by a dramatic change in the economy where the flight of industries from major metropolitan areas led to unemployment in large portions of the population, and this loss of industry led to urban decay. Coupled with Reagan’s administration policies, which changed the focus from welfare to warfare, an approach many have come to call “benign neglect” meant the loss of programs aimed at helping the poor. Indeed, times were hard during hip-hop’s development; however, these conditions do not account for its emergence. There are no empirical connections between poverty and a particular form of art. The notion that poverty is in any way responsible for hip-hop is unfounded. Rap originates from African American language and therefore rap and hip-hop are products of the African American community. In many re-

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Rapso | 791 spects, when defining the African American community, its populace can never be identified stagnantly by limiting its pedigree to the United States, thus defining hip-hop as an American art form. Instead, one must look toward the African Diaspora. The demands of the slave trade and the industrial market and the forced emigration and migration of Africans within the Americas constantly revitalized its populations and created a fluid mixture of African-derived cultures. So in all respects, to cite William Eric Perkins’s quote of Kool Herc, hip-hop is at its core “very African.” The epistemology where hip-hop gets its genius is distinctly African. When the first generations of Africans landed in the New World as slave laborers they brought with them their own epistemology. Although African languages were banished, African modes of thought continued to survive in European mediums of communication such as English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French. The juncture of African knowledge with European communication systems revolutionized strategies for conducting speech acts in European language systems among Africans in the Diaspora; the IndoEuropean had become Africanized. This transformation or Africanization of European languages underwent evolution as it was transmitted from generation to generation. As a result of this intergenerational transmission, the vocal aesthetics of rhyming evolved from field hollers, work songs, and spirituals to the praise songs of gospel to the blues, jazz, bebop, jive talk, and signifyin’ to, finally, rappin’. Walter Sistrunk See also Bambaata, Afrika (1957–); Blues: A Continuum from Africa; Griots/Griottes of West Africa; Hip-Hop Culture in the African Diaspora; Jazz; Rapso. F URTHER R EADING Alim, Samy H. 2004. You Know My Steeze: An Ethnographic and Sociolinguistic Study of Style Shifting in a Black American Speech Community. Los Angeles: American Dialect Society, no. 89.

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Di Poalo Healey, Attonette, ed. 2004. The Dictionary of Old English Corpus in Electronic Form. Toronto, Canada: Center for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto. Fricke, Jim, and Charlie Ahearn, eds. 2002. Yes, Yes Y’All: The Experience Music Project Oral History of Hip-Hop’s First Decade. New York: Da Capo Press. Green, Lisa J. 2002. African American English: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Harris, Sheldon. 1979. Blues Who’s Who: A Biographical Dictionary of Blues Singers. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington Publishers. Kelly, Robin D. G. 1996. “Kickin’ Reality, Kickin’ Ballistics: Gangsta Rap and Postindustrial Los Angeles.” In Droppin’ Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture, ed. William Eric Perkins, 117–158. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Keyes, Cheryl L. 2002. Rap Music and Street Consciousness. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Labov, William. 1972. Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Perkins, William Eric. 1996. “The Rap Attack: An Introduction.” In Droppin’ Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture, ed. William Eric Perkins, 1–47. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Rose, Tricia. 1994. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Rickford, John. 1999. Introduction. “Phonological and Grammatical Features of African American Vernacular English (AAVE).” In African American Vernacular English, 3–14. Oxford: Blackwell. Smitherman, Geneva. 1994. Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the Hood to the Amen Corner. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. Smitherman, Geneva. 1977. Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University

z Rapso Rapso is the power of the word, the rhythm of the word, the truth, and the light; therefore,

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pure rapso is the living experience of the voice. It is a vocal manifestation of the hopes and fears and aspirations of a people struggling for true liberation. Rapso then has its historical toots in the ancient African traditions of the djeli djali or griot. Therefore, the practitioners of rapso are considered the vessels of speech, the storehouse of knowledge and history, and the teachers and communicators for this new generation. The rapso poet—man or woman—is one who lives and practices the art of the word. In its initial creation, rapso was born from a deliberate study of the African oral forms, like the djeliya, and African Caribbean forms, like the chantuelle, calypso, and other oral traditions. The rhythms used included steelband, calypso, orisha, Shouter Baptist, the spoken forms of robber talk, pierrot grenade, calypso, and other aspects of Caribbean oral tradition, including the spoken rhythms of Rastafari. Rapso’s earliest progenitors, including Lancelot Layne, Brother Resistance, Cheryl Byron, and Eintou Pearl Springer, are identified as deliberately studying African and African-Caribbean oral culture and applying these to the creation of a distinctive form of Caribbean spoken word. Beginning with Layne, other noteworthy performers have been Sister Ava; Kareiga Mandela, known for his “Rapso Soldier”; Ataklan; 3 Canal, with the popular “Talk Yuh Talk”; Sister Shaquila of “Weep Not My Child”; and Sheldon Blackman, son of Ras Shorty I. Brother Resistance’s “Book So Deep” has been anthologized in Voiceprint. Thereby “the power of the word/the riddum of the word” as the shorthand summary of what is rapso repeats itself in all discussions of this form. Its political origins, in the Caribbean Black Power Movement of the 1970s, also infuses it with the politics of liberation. Brother Resistance, today’s foremost exponent of Rapso, defines it as the voice of the people in the heat of the struggle for true liberation and self-determination. The music form is called rapso riddum and represents the synthesis of voice rhythm with rhythm of drums (drums of

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skin and drums of steel). Rapso’s advent is simultaneous with dub poetry in Jamaica and rap in the United States. A conscious link with those poets is articulated—Baraka, Mikey Smith, Gil-Scott Heron, and Oku Onuora are all outgrowths of black power struggles in those countries. For resistance, they come to the same end, from different directions, including the socially and politically conscious lyrics of some U.S. soul singers like Curtis Mayfield and James Brown. Today, calypso tents in Trinidad feature some rapso artists, notably Brother Resistance, and there is a conscious cultivation of new generations in the annual “Breaking New Ground,” during which poems are created in workshops and then presented in a final public performance. Carole Boyce Davies See also Calypso; Griots/Griottes of West Africa; Hip-Hop Culture in the African Diaspora; Rap/Rappin’; Reggae. F URTHER R EADING Brother Resistance. 1986. Rapso Explosion. London: Karia Press/New Jersey. Brown, Stewart, Mervyn Morris, and Gordon Rohlehr, eds. 1989. Voiceprint: An Anthology of Oral and Related Poetry from the Caribbean. London: Longman Caribbean. Rapso (Booklet). 1999. Trinidad and Tobago. Webb, Dexter. 1998. “Beyond Lancelot Layne. A Survey of Rapso Music 1969–1998.” Undergraduate thesis, Caribbean Studies, University of the West Indies.

z Rastafarianism Rastafarianism can best be described as an African-oriented, Judeo-Christian–influenced, religious social movement that originated in Jamaica in the early 1930s. It was inspired by the crowning of Haile Selassie I as emperor of Ethiopia in 1930. Haile Selassie I was formerly

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Rastafarianism | 793 known as Rastafari Makonen before he was crowned, and from there the name “Rastafari” that defines this movement originates. Haile Selassie I is widely considered to have a lineage that is traceable to King Solomon of Israel and Queen (Makeda) of Sheba from Ethiopia. He is cited as being 225th in the line of Ethiopian monarchs that stretch back to King Solomon (see the Kebra Negast). In this respect, one of the central tenets of Rastafarianism is that Haile Selassie I is a descendant of King David, which the Bible cites as one of the necessary criteria for the returned Messiah (Revelation 5:5). When Ras Tafari was crowned Emperor Haile Selassie I, he was bestowed the titles king of kings, lord of lords, conquering lion of the tribe of Judah, elect of God, and light of the world. The founders of the Rastafari movement were Leonard Howell, Joseph Nathaniel Hibbert, Robert Hinds, Archibald Dunkley, and Altamont Reid, who preached (tirelessly around the island of Jamaica) that Haile Selassie I was the returned Messiah that the Bible spoke about in the book of Revelation. Remarkably, all of them preached this message independently of each other (except for Hinds who was effectively Howell’s lieutenant). Out of all these pioneering Rastafari preachers, Howell was clearly the most prominent and, in hindsight, the most successful of the early Rastafari proponents. Howell was so prominent with his teachings, in fact, that he quickly came to the attention of the then colonial Jamaican government. He was arrested in Kingston, Jamaica, in December 1933, for using what was considered seditious and blasphemous language to boost the sale of pictures of Haile Selassie I. He was sentenced to two years in prison, but upon his release went right back to preaching the divinity of Haile Selassie I (Rastafari) (Smith et al. 1960; Chevannes 1994). Rastafarianism is widely considered to be a continuation (and natural evolution) of Ethiopianism, which had been refined and widely disseminated by Marcus Garvey (Jamaica’s first

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national hero). Ethiopianism in a very fundamental sense is an interpretation of Psalm 68:31, which reads: “Princes shall come out of Egypt and Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her hands unto God.” Garvey’s interpretation of this piece of biblical scripture was that glory was soon to come to the black man and woman, and redemption for Africa and Africans was at hand. In addition to providing an Ethiopianist ideology that provided the theological and ideological foundation for the Rastafari movement, Garvey also developed a political ideology— Africa for the Africans at home and abroad— which helped to lay the foundational basis for the principle of repatriation that is so central in the Rastafari belief system (Barnett 2003). From its very early stages, the Rastafari movement has always been a polycephalous, heterogeneous, decentralized movement. It consists of various denominations, better known as houses or mansions of Rastafari. The largest and most pervasive mansions are the Twelve Tribes of Israel, the Nyahbinghi, and the Boboshante, known officially as the Ethiopian African Black International Congress. Though there is some doctrinal diversity between the mansions, some principles are common to all. These common principles of the Rastafari belief system, which are based largely on a typology provided by Winston Williams (2000), are detailed below, and have been adapted to nine key principles: • The first principle is that Haile Selassie I is divine. • According to the second principle, Marcus Garvey is considered to be a prophet and patriarch and, in the case of the Boboshante House, is also considered to be divine. • The third principle outlines how Rastafari are committed to the fight against oppression, wherever it may be and against whoever is committing it. Out of this principle comes the concept of “Babylon,” which for Rastafari is a term

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that epitomizes all agents of oppression, whether a nation-state, a group of nationstates, a government, an oppressive institution, the police, or even the military. • According to the fourth principle, Ethiopia is a holy and sacred land (the equivalent for Christians would be Jerusalem). Rastafari also consider Ethiopia to be the cradle of civilization and the birthplace of humanity. • The fifth principle, which addresses repatriation and reparations, is another important aspect of the Rastafari belief system. Most Rastafari consider their real and natural home to be Africa, which they refer to synonymously as Ethiopia (the land from which their ancestors were forcibly taken, only to experience the tortuous journey of the Middle Passage). They refer to it as Zion, the land God promised to his chosen people. As such, Rastafari strive to repatriate to the continent en masse and are agitating for reparations from the former European colonial powers, as well as the United States, to facilitate this. Some, like the Shashamane community, have already returned and now make their home in Ethiopia following a land grant from Haile Selassie after his visit to Jamaica. • The sixth principle is that of “Itality,” which is essentially striving to live a natural lifestyle, both in terms of appearance (for example, dreadlocked hair) and food (which is termed an “Ital diet”). There are degrees of variation, however, among the various houses. Thus, not every Rasta has dreadlocks (for example, some members of the Twelve Tribes of Israel House and the Coptic House) and not every Rasta is a vegetarian (for example, the Twelve Tribes of Israel House). However, pork is strictly prohibited as is the processing of one’s hair.

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• The seventh principle is that of the “I and I” concept. For Rastafari, a divine essence is considered to lie in everyone. All one has to do is tap into that essence to realize one’s potential godliness. The divine essence is considered to constitute the large I for Rasta, while the small I is considered to constitute one’s base physical self. • The eighth principle is that marijuana is a holy sacrament for Rastafari (as opposed to being a recreational drug). Rastafari adherents smoke it, drink it, and even eat it to facilitate connecting the small I with the large I. • The ninth principle is the way of reason. This is the way Rastafari reach the intersubjective truth and come to a consensus on important community issues. (Reasoning highlights the collective aspect of the movement.) The Rastafari movement consistently reconnects Africans of the Diaspora with continental Africa and its inhabitants. The fundamental philosophical and ideological orientation of the Rastafari movement is firmly rooted in the concept of the African Diaspora as a displaced populace, whose homeland and geographical base is ultimately Africa. Rastafari has also spread to the continent; there are communities in various African nations, including Zimbabwe, and a community of Jamaicans who returned to Ethiopia and are now residing in Shashamane, Ethiopia. The continent of Africa is not only central to Rastafari from a geographical perspective, it is also central in terms of the formulation of identity for Rastafari, who see themselves as displaced Africans in general, and, in some specific cases, as Ethiopian Israelites. Michael Barnett See also Africa; Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887– 1940); Jamaica; Marley, Robert Nesta (Bob) (1945–1981); Pan-Africanism; Reparations.

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Rayner, John Baptis (1850–1918) | 795 F URTHER R EADING Barnett, M. A. 2003. “Intra-Racial Encounters in Defining African Identity in the Americas.” A Comparative Analysis of Black Leadership and Social Movements.” Ideaz 2 (1): 32–41. Barnett, M. A. 2005. “The Many Faces of Rasta: Doctrinal Diversity within the Rastafari Movement.” Caribbean Quarterly 51 (2): 67–78. Chevannes, Barry. 1994. Rastafari: Roots and Ideology. New York: Syracuse University Press. Smith, M. G., Roy Augier, and Rex Nettleford. 1960. The Rastafari Movement in Kingston, Jamaica. Mona, Jamaica: University of the West Indies. Williams, Winston. 2000. The Seven Principles of Rastafari. Caribbean Quarterly Rastafari Monograph. Mona, Jamaica: University of the West Indies.

z Rayner, John Baptis (1850–1918) John Baptis Rayner, the black populist leader from Texas, was born on November 13, 1850, in Raleigh, North Carolina to a black slave, Mary Ricks, and a white planter, Kenneth Rayner. Raised by his great-grandparents, “J. B.” Rayner worked on the family plantation before his father, a Whig congressman and leader of the Know Nothing Party, gave him the support to attend Shaw University and St. Augustine’s Normal and Collegiate Institute. During Reconstruction, Rayner became active in the Republican Party, through which he was elected to several local offices, including deputy sheriff, magistrate, and constable. In the early 1880s he led a migration of black farmers and agrarian workers to Texas and settled in Calvert. Rayner became active in the Texas campaign for prohibition in 1887, which brought him back into politics. In 1892, as the Populist movement sweeping the South was making its transition from building farmers’ alliances toward engaging the electoral process itself, Rayner joined the newly formed People’s Party.

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Becoming a leading advocate of political independence in Texas, he traveled up and down the state establishing black chapters of the People’s Party and was credited for bringing at least 25,000 African Americans into the party’s ranks. Known as the “Silver Tongued Orator of the Colored Race” for his erudition and effectiveness as a political organizer, in 1894 he was elected to the People’s Party state executive committee as a member-at-large and a member of its platform committee, through which he strengthened the party’s position on black civil and political rights. He continued organizing across the state until 1898, before black Populism began its precipitous decline under fierce attacks by the Democratic Party and its local paramilitary apparatus—notably, the White Man’s Union. After the collapse of the independent movement, Rayner returned to the Republican Party. Earlier he had married Susan Clark Staten, with whom he had two children. After she died, he then married Clarissa S. Clark, with whom he had another three children. Rayner became a professional fund-raiser for black education initiatives, including Conroe College (for which he served as president) and the Farmers’ Improvement Society School. By the turn of the century he reversed his position on prohibition and campaigned against it. While Rayner worked publicly for accommodation— currying favor with the lumber magnate John Henry Kirby, who contributed to his educational projects and occasionally employed him as a labor recruiter—privately he wrote of “the white man’s hallucinated idea of his race superiority.” Rayner died at the age of 68 in his home in Calvert on July 14, 1918. Omar H. Ali See also Black Populism (1886–1898). F URTHER R EADING Abramowitz, Jack. 1951. “John B. Rayner: A Grass-Roots Leader.” Journal of Negro History 36 (April): 160–193.

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796 | Reagon, Bernice Johnson (1942–) Ali, Omar H. 2003. “Black Populism in the New South, 1886–1898.” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University. Cantrell, Gregg. 2001. Feeding the Wolf: John B. Rayner and the Politics of Race, 1850–1918. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson.

z Reagon, Bernice Johnson (1942–) Bernice Johnson Reagon, cultural historian, singer, songwriter, producer, and founder of the internationally renowned a cappella group, Sweet Honey in the Rock, began her illustrious career as an activist in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee as a field secretary and a member of the Freedom Singers with her former husband, the late Cordell Reagon, in the early 1960s. She was raised in rural Albany, Georgia, the daughter of a Baptist minister father, and was a singer most of her life. Reagon sang in the choir while attending Albany State College, where she was studying Italian arias and German lieder as a contralto vocalist. In December 1961, the first civil rights march occurred and Reagon joined the struggle, realizing that the songs she had learned in her childhood had laid the foundation for struggle during the movement. In 1968, she founded and directed the historical Harambee Singers in Atlanta, Georgia. After relocating to the Washington, D.C., area with her family, daughter Toshi and son Kwan, Reagon became the vocal director for the DC Black Repertory Theater from 1972 through 1977. During those years, Reagon joined the Smithsonian Institution as program director, curator, and folklorist, heading up the Program in Black American Culture of the National Museum of American History. During her tenure, Reagon pioneered the institution’s annual tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr., “Of Songs, Peace and Struggle,” held at the museum

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each January. She became curator emeritus at the Smithsonian in 1993. Reagon is the producer of the groundbreaking joint venture between the Smithsonian Institution and the National Public Radio series, Wade in the Water: African American Sacred Music Traditions, which began broadcasting in 1994. She was also curator of the accompanying traveling exhibition produced by SITES (Smithsonian Institutions Traveling Exhibition Service). At Spelman College, Reagon created a live performance production, Lord! I’ve Got A Right to the Tree of Life! A Tribute to Early African American Sacred Song, and produced a CD and video documentary based on the production. She has served as musical consultant, composer, and performer on several films and video projects, such as the award-winning Eyes on the Prize, the Emmy-winning We Shall Overcome, and the PBS special Roots of Resistance: A Story of the Underground Railroad, as well as Frederick Douglass: The Lion Who Wrote History. In 1992, Reagon was featured in the Emmy-nominated documentary The Songs Are Free: Bernice Johnson Reagon with Bill Moyers. In 1973, Reagon created the vocal group Sweet Honey as an outgrowth of her vocal workshops and wrote for, performed with, and directed the group until her retirement in February 2004. She is the composer/librettist for Temptations of Saint Anthony, a musical by Robert Wilson based on the 19th-century work of Gustav Flaubert (Madame Bovary), which premiered in Dulsberg, Germany in 2003. She also continues to collaborate with her daughter, Toshi, on projects including Beah: A Black Woman Speaks, produced by Jonathan Demme and LisaGay Hamilton, which premiered in Los Angeles in 2003 and showed on HBO during 2004. Reagon has released numerous solo recordings: River of Life (1986), Give Your Hands to Struggle (1975, rereleased by Smithsonian Folkways records in 1997), and Still on the Journey (1993) among others. Eve Ferguson

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Reggae | 797 See also Jazz and Blues Singers, Black Women; Sweet Honey in the Rock. F URTHER R EADING Reagon, Bernice Johnson. 1983. Songs That Moved the Movement. Washington, D.C.: New Perspectives. Reagon, Bernice Johnson. 1986. Compositions One: The Original Compositions of Bernice Johnson Reagon. Washington, D.C.: Songtalk Publishing. Reagon, Bernice Johnson, ed. 1992. We’ll Understand It Better By and By: Pioneering African American Gospel Composers. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Press. Reagon, Bernice Johnson. 1993. We Who Believe in Freedom: Sweet Honey in the Rock: Still on the Journey. New York: Anchor Books. Sweet Honey in the Rock. 2000. Continuum: The First Songbook of Sweet Honey in the Rock. Washington, D.C.: Contemporary A Cappella Publishing.

z Reggae “A type of music developed in Jamaica about 1964, based on Ska usually having a heavy four-beat rhythm, using the bass, electric guitar, and drum, with the scraper coming in at the end of the measure and acting as accompaniment to emotional songs often expressing rejection of established ‘white man’ culture.” That early definition of reggae, from the 1980 second edition of the Dictionary of Jamaican English (Cambridge University Press), points to the politics of reggae as well as its technical qualities. The social, cultural, and political resonance of reggae in the mid–1960s Jamaica is evident in the gloss on “skengay” given by Professor Rex Nettleford, who is quoted in the dictionary: “the sound of the guitar simulates gun-shots ricocheting in the violence-prone backlanes of the depressed areas of Kingston, hence ‘skeng’ means a gun or ‘iron.’ The link between the music and the realities of contemporary ghetto life gives the words a particular

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cogency at this time.” Thus, the music encodes violence, the language of musical expression onomatopoeically representing the sounds and pressures of ghetto life. In the entries on reggae and rocksteady, the Dictionary of Jamaican English cites a New York Magazine article of November 4, 1975 written by Jacobson: “Rock Steady is perhaps the slowest and most deliberate-tempoed popular music within memory. But the madness of ‘new’ Kingston couldn’t be fully expressed in the simple grind of Rock Steady. A more complicated structure evolved to carry the weight of the lyrics, which were increasingly political (songs like ‘Burning and Looting Tonight’). Sinuous music contrasted with cut-throat lyrics.” The classic 1971 movie The Harder They Come, a major cultural force in the worldwide spread of reggae, documents the role of the music as an expression of cultural resistance to systemic exploitation of the dispossessed. The soundtrack is an explosive celebration of the defiant human spirit that refuses to be suppressed: “As long as the sun will shine/ I’ve got to get my share, what’s mine/ So the harder they come, the harder they fall/ One and all.” Not much has changed in Jamaica since Jimmy Cliff, in the role of “Rhygin,” sang the angst of a generation of sufferers. So reggae music continues to be one of the weapons of choice for the urban poor whose “lyrical gun”—to quote Shabba Ranks—earns them a measure of respectability. The contemporary dance hall deejays are heirs to a long tradition of engaged music—a reggae tradition in which the dread sensibility of Rastafari trodding the steep and narrow path of righteousness fuses with the mystical consciousness of kumina and revival. Outside of Jamaica, reggae has spread globally as the music first accompanied migrant Jamaicans to Britain and North America and then became more broadly incorporated into the global economy of the multinational entertainment industry. Fusion with other musical styles, such as rock, was an inevitable

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consequence of this globalization. Bob Marley’s career illustrates the repackaging of indigenous reggae music to suit a “flower power” rock market that was ready to test the power of the new holy herb, marijuana, and the music that sacralized it. As a critical statement about safeguarding, recognizing, and promoting the art form, a Global Reggae Conference was held for the first time at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, in February 2008, bringing together scholars and exponents of reggae and related forms from around the world. Carolyn Cooper See also Jamaica; Marley, Robert Nesta (Bob) (1945–1981); Rastafarianism. F URTHER R EADING Bradley, Lloyd. 2004. Reggae. The Story of Jamaican Music. London: BBC Worldwide. Cooper, Carolyn. 2004. Soundclash. Jamaican Dancehall Culture at Large. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Davis, Stephen. 1981. Reggae Bloodlines. In Search of Music and Culture in Jamaica. London: Heinemann. (Orig. pub. 1977). Hebdige, Dick. 1987. Cut ‘N’ Mix. Culture, Identity and Caribbean Music. London: Routledge.

z Reparations The end of the 20th century saw increased calls for reparations across the African Diaspora. African descendants living in the West, along with several African nations, continued to emphasize the importance of reparations for slavery and colonial land grabs at the start of the 21st century as a means of addressing the historic injustices of Western Europe and the United States. African Diasporans point out that the reparations provided by Germany to the Jewish victims of Nazism, and reparations awarded by the United States to Japanese citizens interned during World War II, reflect the moral imperative that European nations pro-

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vide restitution or compensation for land taken during the colonization of Africa and that the United States provide reparations to African Americans for the harm caused by the transatlantic slave trade. In 2001, the 53rd session of the SubCommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights of the United Nations addressed the issue in a resolution entitled “Recognition of responsibility and reparation for massive and flagrant violations of human rights, which constitute crimes against humanity and which took place during the period of slavery, of colonialism and wars of conquest.” This resolution pointed out the need for the international community to consider the consequences of historic incidences of slavery, colonialism, and conquest. Later that year, the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance determined that slavery and the transatlantic slave trade constituted crimes against humanity and called on concerned states to “take appropriate and effective measures to halt and reverse the lasting consequences of those practices.” Furthermore, in 2005 the United Nations specifically addressed this issue through the “Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law.” These principles present specific obligations on states found guilty of committing gross human rights violations, including compensation, restitution, reconciliation, and apology as well as retribution against responsible parties. Despite United Nations resolutions and declarations, efforts to obtain reparations for slavery have largely been unsuccessful. In the United States, in the early 2000s, courts dismissed several reparations lawsuits filed by slave descendants against corporations that profited from slavery. Claimants seeking redress for more recent injustices, however, have met with slightly more success. In 1994, the Florida Legislature provided a $2.1 million reparations award to the

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The Republic of New Africa | 799 victims of a 1923 race riot in Rosewood, Florida. The award allotted up to $150,000 payments for victims of the violent riot that claimed eight lives and demolished a southern black town. In 1997, the African National Congress–led government of South Africa began implementing a broad reparations program for the victims of apartheid that included restitution, compensation, and reconciliation programs. Restitution programs include the provision of land or compensation for those stripped of their land rights under apartheid, and reconciliation programs include numerous memorials, educational awareness programs, and a national holiday commemorating reconciliation. As compensation, the roughly 19,000 victims of apartheid who testified before South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Committee received a one-time payment of close to $4,000 at a total cost of approximately $85 million. In 2006, the German government offered roughly $25 million to Namibia for the massacre of the Herero and Dama populations during its colonial period, which saw the loss of tens of thousands of lives. So far, Namibia had not accepted the offer, which fell far below the billions of dollars sought by the surviving members of those groups. Carlton Waterhouse See also African Americans and the Constitutional Order; The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA). F URTHER R EADING Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law. www.ohchr.org/english/law/ remedy.htm (accessed 2/18/08). Brooks, Roy L., ed. 1999. When Sorry Isn’t Enough: The Controversy Over Apologies and Reparations for Human Injustice. New York: New York University Press. Report of the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/ huridoca.nsf/(Symbol)/A.Conf.189.12.En? Open document (accessed January 20, 2008).

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Winbush, Ray, ed. 2003. Should America Pay: Slavery and the Raging Debate on Reparations. New York: Amistad/HarperCollins Publishers.

z The Republic of New Africa The Republic of New Africa (RNA) is an African American nationalist and separatist organization created on March 31, 1968, when more than 200 black nationalists came together in Detroit, Michigan, to draft a Declaration of Independence. The NRA plan was to establish an independent nation for African Americans. The RNA attempted to negotiate peacefully for freedom from the United States, at times seeking the help of other countries (CongoBrazzaville, Tanzania) to negotiate. The RNA declared itself “an African nation in the western hemisphere struggling for complete independence” and adopted the following as the nation’s oath: “For the fruition of Black Power, for the triumph of Black Nationhood, I pledge to the Republic of New Africa and to the building of a better people and a better world, my total devotion, my total resources and the total power of my mortal life.” The RNA partially derives from the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM). RNA and RAM belong to the lesser-known African American nationalist organizations that often remained small and isolated and perhaps, more importantly, remained independent of both the white Left and the mainstream Civil Rights Movement. Heavily influenced by Malcolm X, these organizations took an international and anticapitalist analysis and understanding of the world, with a particular interest vested in working-class struggles and issues of race and poverty in urban contexts. The RNA, unlike RAM, did launch active armed self-defense campaigns and offered self-defense classes. Beyond the creation of the RNA, the goal of the organization was to ultimately set up the

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United States of Africa through the consolidation of the African continent into five parts: North Africa, East Africa, South Africa, Central Africa, and West Africa. This state would be governed through the African Peoples Economic Congress headquartered in Central Africa and constituting the top command legislative body, made up of 5,000 members elected worldwide from every country of 50,000 or more Africans; the review body named OAS (Organization of African States); the United States of Africa, the elected executive body; and finally, the local states constituting the local/district body of government. The RNA advocates reparations to African Americans for the wrongs of slavery, segregation, discrimination, institutional racism, and white supremacy. After the abolition of slavery, the failed Reconstruction never successfully guaranteed the 40 acres and a mule promised then to former slaves. The RNA was willing to settle for $10,000 for every African American (asking for $400 billion to sustain the new nation during its first years). The money would help establish the new nation. Out of this amount, only a portion ($4,000) would go directly to the individual; the remainder was to go to the government. Influenced by Third World liberation movements, revolts, and uprisings, the anticapitalist leaders of the RNA modeled its economic system after the newly independent Tanzania’s socialism. All the citizens of the RNA were subjected to disciplinary guidelines, among which were the prohibition of narcotics, marijuana, and alcoholic intoxication; the compulsory payment of taxes; and the right for men to have several wives. Citizens must also submit to political education classes and maintain a respectable but firm attitude. The founders of RNA, Gaidi and Imari Obadele (formerly known as Milton and Richard Henry), were two brothers who were followers of Malcolm X. They were originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where they were active in local civil rights groups. The pair later moved to Detroit, Michigan, where they es-

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tablished the Group of Advanced Leadership (GOAL), a local civil rights organization. Invited by the organization for an address in 1963, Malcolm X delivered his famous “Message to the Grassroots.” After the death of Malcolm X, GOAL renamed itself the Malcolm X Society and fully embraced the idea of an independent black nation as the ultimate expression of black nationalism. In the manifesto establishing the organization, the RNA called for the creation of an independent black nation, the RNA, to be carved out of five Southern states. The manifesto also called for the payment of $400 billion in reparations. The RNA asserts that Africans in the United States have a right to self-determination, which ought to have been afforded to them after the Civil War in the form of a plebiscite. Instead, blacks were incorporated de jure into the United States by the Fourteenth Amendment. Thus, the first goal of the RNA was a United Nations–supervised election among African Americans to determine whether they wished to form a separate nation. If this vote was to turn out favorably to the RNA’s claims and demands, the aim of the organization would then have become to force the U.S. government to cede the national territory to create the new nation and transfer blacks in the Northern states to the new land and the whites in the five Southern states to the remaining parts of the United States. The Republic of New Africa demanded five states in the South of the United States (the Black Belt), namely Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina, to establish its new nation. These states were perceived as the land rightfully belonging to African Americans, given the history of the United States and the fact that this is where African Americans had mostly lived, toiled, and farmed. These states represented a tenth of the U.S. territory; they also symbolized the fact that at the time (1968), African Americans made up 10 percent of the total U.S. population. In 1971, Imari Obadele I became president of RNA and moved its headquarters to Jackson, Mississippi. Once established there, the

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Ribeiro, Esmeralda (1958–) | 801 RNA consecrated its capital in Hinds County, Mississippi, where the organization had bought 20 acres of farmland from a black landowner. There was founded the nation’s capital city of El Hajj Malik Shabazz (Malcolm X’s adopted name after his departure from the Nation of Islam). On that day, 13 citizens of the RNA were arrested on charges of concealed weapons and possession of marijuana. The same year the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), as part of its COINTELPRO (counterintelligence program) of political repression, conducted an early-morning raid on the Jackson offices of RNA, and in an ensuing gun battle, a Jackson police officer was killed while another officer and an FBI agent were wounded. Obadele I and several other RNA leaders were sentenced to long prison terms, but as a result of protest and litigation Obadele I was freed after five years and resumed his leadership of RNA. In March 1972, the RNA presented for enactment to both Houses of the U.S. Congress its “Anti-Depression Program of the Republic of New Africa to End Poverty, Dependence, Cultural Malnutrition, and Crime among Black People in the United States and Promote Inter-Racial Peace.” As indicated in its title, the program proposed a variety of solutions to some of the issues faced by African descendants in the United States. The program was never scheduled for debate in any of the Houses, however. The police and FBI raid on the headquarters of the RNA in 1971 left the group in disarray. It later moved its headquarters to Washington, D.C. In 1984, the national membership was between 5,000 and 10,000. Because of state repression, RNA reconstituted itself as the New Afrikan Movement, and since 1987 it has continued to press for reparations through N’COBRA (National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America), a coalition of black organizations dedicated to building a mass movement for reparations and a plebiscite for separations. Maboula Soumahoro

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See also “African” in African American History; Black Power Movement in the United States; COINTELPRO; Malcolm X (1925–1965); The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA). F URTHER R EADING Bracey, John. 1970. Black Nationalism in America. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. Chokwe, Lumumba, Imari Abubakari Obadele, and Nkechi Taifa. 1993. Reparations Yes! Baton Rouge, LA: House of Songhay. Davenport, C. 2005. “Understanding Covert Repressive Action: The Case of the United States Government Against the Republic of New Africa.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 49 (1): 120–140. Imari Obadele. 1975. Foundations of the Black Nation. Detroit: House of Songhay. Kelley, Robin D. G. 2002. Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. Boston: Beacon Press.

z Ribeiro, Esmeralda (1958–) A journalist by profession, Esmeralda Ribeiro stands out as one of the most important AfroBrazilian women writers of today. Her works, similar to those by Miriam Alves, Alzira Rufino, Geni Guimarães, and Conceição Evaristo, find their inspiration and are created within spheres that tend not to be part of the national literary mainstream. Ribeiro is very active in promoting the works of Afro-Brazilian women writers. Today, together with Márcio Barbosa, she is especially known as the editor of the Cadernos Negros series, a collaborative enterprise and collection initiated in 1978 to serve primarily as a space of literary expression for black writers in Brazil. Most of her poems and short stories are a part of this collection. Ribeiro reaffirmed her commitment to black writing when she joined the literary-activist organization Quilombhoje. An endeavor created by Cuti (Luiz Silva),

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Quilombhoje started in 1980, the third year of the annual Cadernos Negros anthology series, in a collaborative effort with Oswaldo de Camargo, Abelardo Rodrigues, Paulo Colina, and Mário Jorge Lescano. Ribeiro had a short novel, Malungos e Milongas, published in 1988. She is also one of the authors of Gostando mais de nós mesmos (1999). To date, her poems and short stories have appeared in Cadernos Negros 5 (1982), 7 to 26 (1984–2003), Cadernos Negros: Os Melhores Poemas (Black Notebooks. The Best Poems) (1998), and Cadernos Negros: Os Melhores Contos (Black Notebooks. The Best Short Stories) (1998) (Ribeiro and Barbosa 2003, 140–142). Ribeiro’s writings have been published in Portuguese and English. They appear in various other anthologies and collections: Pau de sebo. Coletânea de Poesia Negra (organized by Júlia Duboc, Brodowski: Projeto Memória da Cidade, 1988); Moving Beyond Boundaries. International Dimension of Black Women’s Writing (edited by Carole Boyce Davies and Molara OgundipeLeslie, London: Pluto Press, 1995); Enfim . . . Nós/Finally . . . Us: Contemporary Black Brazilian Women Writers (edited by Miriam Alves and Carolyn R. Durham, Colorado Springs, Colorado: Three Continent Press, 1995); Callaloo vol. 18, number 4, 1995; Ancestral House (edited by Charles H. Rowell, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1995); Quilombo de Palavras-a literatura dos afro-descendentes (organized by Jônatas Conceição and Lindinalva Barbosa, Salvador: CEAO/UFBA, 2000); and Fourteen Female Voices from Brazil: Interviews and Works (edited by Elzbieta Szoka, Austin, Texas: Host Publications, 2002). Ribeiro has produced several articles that reflect on the experience of writing in relation to issues of race, women, and the black movement in Brazil: Gênero e representação na literatura brasileira. Vol. II (organized by Constância Lima Duarte, Eduardo de Assis Duarte and Kátia da Costa Bezerra, Belo Horizonte: UFMG, 2002); “A escritora negra e seu ato de escrever participando,” in Criação

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Crioula Nu Elefante Branco. I Encontro de Poetas e Ficcionistas Negros Brasileiros (organized by Cuti, Miriam Alves, and Arnaldo Xavier, São Paulo: Secretaria do Estado da Cultura, 1987); and “Reflexão sobre Literatura Infanto-juvenil” in Reflexões. Sobre a Literatura Afro-Brasileira (Quilombhoje/Conselho de Participação e Desenvolvimento da Comunidade Negra, 1985). Dawn Duke See also Quilombhoje. F URTHER R EADING Ribeiro, Esmeralda. 1988. Malungos e Milongas. São Paulo, Brazil: Quilombhoje. Ribeiro, Esmeralda, and Márcio Barbosa. 2003. Cadernos Negros Volume 26. Contos AfroBrasileiras. São Paulo, Brazil: Quilombhoje.

z Robeson, Paul (1898–1976) Paul Leroy Robeson, well-known athlete, politician, singer, actor, and orator, was born on April 9, 1898, in Princeton, NJ. His mother was killed when he was six, leaving his Protestant minister father the sole provider. The family lapsed into abject poverty forcing his father to work in menial jobs. Paul graduated high school with honors. After earning 15 baseball, basketball, and track varsity letters and twice being named All-American football team member, he graduated valedictorian and Phi Beta Kappa from Rutgers University. Robeson completed a law degree at Columbia University, but chose theater rather than jurisprudence. He joined the Provincetown Players Company where Eugene O’Neill was resident playwright. O’Neill cast Paul as lead in All God’s Chillun Got Wings and Emperor Jones. Robeson chipped away at the seemingly insurmountable national political and social structure that made African Americans disenfranchised second-class citizens and became a respected and admired “world citizen.” Singing

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Rodney, Walter (1942–1980) | 803 in 25 languages, his deep baritone voice touched people worldwide. He made more than 300 recordings and brought spirituals into classical music (Blockson 1998). Significant in classical theatre, film, and the music industry, Robeson brought African Americans to the forefront in theater when he starred as Othello in Shakespeare’s Othello (1943–1944). In 1944, he won the Donaldson Award for best actor. His film debut, silent film Body and Soul (1925), was directed by African American pioneer film director Oscar Micheaux. Robeson starred in 11 films; his well-known movies include Emperor Jones (1933), Song of Freedom (1936), Jericho (1937), Big Fella (1937), and Proud Valley (1939). Robeson refused to accept a destiny of discrimination, inequality, and hypocrisy by becoming an activist, and he ultimately risked all as he fought social injustice. In 1921, Robeson married Eslanda Goode and they had one child, Paul Jr. Concerned about the oppressed, especially people of color worldwide, he embraced empowerment ideologies and socialist philosophy. As the chairman of the Council of African Affairs, Robeson, along with W. E. B. DuBois, Oliver Cox, Claudia Jones, and several African American scholars, was considered un-American and potentially dangerous. His civil rights activism resulted in castigation, physical endangerment, and the loss of a career that affected tremendously the artistic milieu of the United States. He was one of the top ten concert draws early in the second quarter of the century and was making an annual salary of approximately $100,000, but his earning had dropped to approximately $6,000 annually by the late 1940s. Hollywood, Broadway, concert halls radio, and television blacklisted him. His passport was revoked from 1950 to 1958 (White 1998). In 1956, congressional interrogators asked Robeson why he didn’t move to Russia since he embraced its people, politics and social ideology. He replied, “Because my father was a slave, and my people died to build this country . . . I’m going to stay here and have a part of it just

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like you. And no fascist-minded people will drive me from it! Is that clear?” In 1958, Robeson recovered his passport and published his autobiography, Here I Stand. In celebration of Robeson’s achievements and presence at Rutgers University, the student union is named in his honor. Robeson died on January 23, 1976. He received a posthumous Grammy Award in 1998. In February 2004, the U.S. Postal Service recognized him with a commemorative stamp. Valerie Smith See also Black Cinema; Cox, Oliver Cromwell (1901–1974); Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt (1868–1963). F URTHER R EADING Aptheker, Herbert. 1997. “Personal Recollections: Woodson, Wesley, Robeson and DuBois.” The Black Scholar 27(2): 42–45. Blockson, Charles L. 1998. “Paul Robeson, Melody of Freedom.” American Vision 13 (1, Feb/Mar): 14–19. Brown, Lloyd L. 1997. The Young Paul Robeson. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Brown, Lloyd L. 1997. On My Journey Now. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Foner, Philip S., ed. 1978. Paul Robeson Speaks. Writings, Speeches, Interviews 1918–1974. New York: Citadel Press. Howard, Wendell. 1996. “Paul Robeson.” Midwest Quarterly 38 (1, Autumn): 102–116. Robeson, Paul, Jr. 2001. The Undiscovered Paul Robeson. New York: John Wiley and Sons. White, Timothy. 1998. “Paul Robeson’s Song of Freedom.” Billboard, April 11.

z Rodney, Walter (1942–1980) Walter Rodney was born on March 23, 1942, in Georgetown, Guyana, to a working-class family. He attended the Queen’s College on an open exhibition scholarship, and his distinguished high school career culminated with his winning a scholarship to the University of the West Indies in Mona, Jamaica, in 1960.

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While in Jamaica, Rodney was an active supporter of Caribbean Unity, and he traveled extensively in Jamaica supporting the West Indian Federation during the referendum of 1961. Three years later, he obtained a degree in history with first class honors. As an undergraduate, Rodney was already writing and contributing to scholarly journals on the issues of slavery and capitalism, and speaking in the defense of the poor. In 1963, Rodney received yet another scholarship, to study African history at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. There, he became a member of the group of Caribbean workers and students who studied and debated with C. L. R. James. Rodney participated in the discussions at Hyde Park Corner. His doctoral research work took him to Spain, Portugal, and Italy and, in the process, Walter learned Portuguese and Spanish. In 1966, at the age of 24, Rodney received his PhD. His doctoral thesis was published in 1970 as A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545–1800. Rodney’s first job in the academy was as a lecturer in history at the University of Dar es Salaam, in Tanzania, East Africa. At that time, Tanzania was the headquarters of the Organization of African Unity Liberation Committee. In 1964, the Zanzibar revolution had radicalized the politics of East Africa, and in 1967, the Tanzanian government launched the Arusha Declaration. Che Guevara had also traveled through Tanzania on his way to fight in the Congo. In 1968, Rodney returned to Jamaica to lecture at his alma mater and became deeply involved in the rise of mass political activity on the island. He worked closely with poor people and “grounded” with Rastafarians in Kingston and other parts of the country. Though constantly under surveillance, Rodney was not intimidated. Scholarly work accompanied his work with the ordinary people. In October 1968, Rodney attended the Black Writers Conference in Montreal and was

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barred from Jamaica upon his return. The ban had massive repercussions as students and ordinary people, angry at the expulsion, began a massive popular uprising. Some of the public presentations Rodney gave in Jamaica were published in a small book, The Groundings with My Brothers (1969). After his expulsion from Jamaica, Rodney spent time in Toronto and traveled to Cuba. In early 1969, he returned to Tanzania, where he resumed teaching at the University of Dar es Salaam. At this time, the University of Dar es Salaam was a magnet for all of those in Africa who were thinking through the issues of liberation and freedom. It was in this intellectual milieu that he published his best-known work, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1974). Rodney’s numerous writings on the subjects of socialism, imperialism, working-class struggles, Pan-Africanism, and slavery contributed to a body of knowledge and an intellectual tradition that came to be known as the Dar es Salaam School of Thought. He traveled extensively throughout East Africa and was one of the founders of the History Teachers Workshop of Tanzania. This workshop assigned members the task of rewriting the textbooks for high school students in Tanzania. In 1974, Rodney moved with his family back to Guyana, and he was appointed professor of history at the University of Guyana. The government of Guyana, however, canceled the appointment as his political activity increased. Out of paid work, he refused to leave the country. Instead, over the next six years he threw himself into independent research and political organization. He increased his work as an international scholar, teaching and researching on a full-time basis, working full-time as an activist in the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), and remaining committed as a serious scholar. Rodney’s study of the Guyanese working people included a study of Guyanese plantations in the 19th century and a three-volume study of the Guyanese working people; however, before the latter was complete, Rodney

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Rogers, Joel Augustus (1880–1966) | 805 was assassinated on June 13, 1980, by a bomb concealed in a walkie-talkie. After his assassination, the first volume, A History of the Guyanese Working People, 1881–1905 was published by Johns Hopkins University Press. This book provided the historical foundations for the political movement that he played a central role in founding and that he led until his death, the WPA. More than anything else, the WPA was committed to the politics of reconciliation among all racial groups in Guyana, beginning with the working people. It was Rodney’s view that only when children learned proper history and respect for others that the struggles against racial insecurity could be overcome. Two children’s books were produced, Kofi Baadu Out of Africa and Lakshmi Out of India (1980). Rodney was not just a Guyanese figure. He was also known worldwide, especially in the Caribbean and Africa, where he enjoyed great popularity for his solidarity with the struggles of the working people. For this reason, Eusi Kwayana, the Guyanese politician and coleader of the WPA, termed him as the prophet of self emancipation. Horace Campbell See also Caribbean Black Power; Guyana; PanAfricanism. F URTHER R EADING Campbell, Horace. 1991. “The Impact of Walter Rodney and Progressive Scholars on the Dar es Salaam School.” Social and Economic Studies 40 (2): 99–135. Kwayana, Eusi. 1991. Walter Rodney. Wellesley, MA: Calaloux Publications. Lewis, Rupert. 1998. Walter Rodney’s Intellectual and Political Thought. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Rodney, Walter. 1974. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press. Rodney, Walter. 1980. Kofi Baadu, Out of Africa. Georgetown, Guyana: S.N. Rodney, Walter. 1981. A History of the Guyanese Working People, 1881–1905. Johns Hopkins Studies in Atlantic History and Culture. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Rodney, Walter. 1990. Walter Rodney Speaks: The

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Making of an African Intellectual. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Rodney, Walter. 2000. Lakshmi Out of India. Georgetown, Guyana: Guyana Book Foundation.

z Rogers, Joel Augustus (1880–1966) Over the span of 50 years, preeminent writer, historian, and anthropologist J. A. Rogers traversed continents, unearthing the suppressed and forgotten fragments of his people’s past in an effort to reclaim humankind’s most vital contributions as African. Born Joel Augustus Rogers on September 6, 1880, Rogers spent his formative years in Jamaica. The trajectory of Rogers’s career was not cemented until his immigration to the United States in 1906 and his exposure to the hypocrisy of a nation in debt to slavery, yet socially and politically crippled by xenophobia. With his remarkable lens, Rogers applied his many talents toward historiography, assessing the extent to which the victimization of Africans on the continent, in the Americas, and throughout the Diaspora could be directly attributed to Western history’s depiction of them as an ahistoric, barbarous, and relatively inferior people. Rogers became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1917, and after a brief stint in Chicago, established a home base in the heart of Harlem at the inception of the Harlem Renaissance and Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association’s (UNIA) back to Africa movement. Hence, at the time Rogers embarked on his career, he had not only gained insight into the many scientific and theoretical theses that debunked the pseudoscience that rationalized racism, he resided in an environment where evidence of African genius was ubiquitous. His From Superman to Man (1917) and As Nature Leads (1919), signaled his use of anthropological

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research to begin an early scientific challenge of the logic of the concepts of race and racism, and thereby the demystification of the construction of a “master race.” Through his scholarship, Rogers collapsed the great divide between whites and blacks and recast the world in shades of grey. His three-volume work entitled Sex and Race and his Nature Knows No Color Line attest to his achievement in this regard. Throughout the 1920s, much of Rogers’s work was centered on the burgeoning African American art forms and innovations, as popularized during the Harlem Renaissance. The masterfully poetic tribute entitled “Jazz at Home,” featured in Alain Locke’s The New Negro (1925), both showcased the versatility of his talent and situated this work within this colorful and complex diasporic space. His orations edified members of Garvey’s various UNIA chapters, and as a means of publicity, Rogers shared excerpts from his many works with academics and laypeople alike. As a journalist and correspondent, Rogers lent himself to the sociopolitics of the milieu, covering Garvey’s 1923 trial, the 1930 coronation of Haile Selassie I, and Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia. His publication, The Real Facts about Ethiopia (1935), revealed the details of the war from a perspective like no other, and afforded the Diaspora access to such realities as the role of women in the war and the predominance of fascism, veritably informing about Mussolini’s maneuverings. The 1930s and 1940s were Rogers’s most prolific, and his works demonstrated his tool of choice against the rise of leaders such as Mussolini and Hitler. Although local threats to Africans in America persisted, Rogers took the opportunity to use the evidence he accrued during his travels to Europe to quell the new wave of anti-African sentiment. Combining his knowledge of art and architecture with archival resources, Rogers produced Hitler and the Negro, a short piece documenting the role of Africans in German history, as well as Europeans’ reverence of black icons, such as the Madonna. To further emphasize the significance of Africans in Euro-

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pean and world history, Rogers completed World’s Greatest Men and Women of African Descent (1931), 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro, with Complete Proof (1934), and World’s Great Men of Color, 3000 B.C to 1946 A.D. (1946). Rogers, however, kept his finger on the pulse of racial politics back home where conditions were no less pernicious. Racist notions popularized by the eugenics movement still held currency, and the legislative decision regarding desegregation instigated the sponsorship of anti-integrationist press and media. His recognition of the shifting climate and fear of further bombings, riots, and other physical threats directed at the African American community engendered the creation of Africa’s Gift to America in 1959 and Five Negro Presidents in 1965. His writings as a columnist for the Negro World, Pittsburgh Courier, The Crisis, Survey Graphic, and American Mercury, were but a few of his many contributions. Rogers was also an active member of the Société d’Anthropologie, the American Geographic Society, and the American Academy of Political Science. In addition to the years he spent conducting research in Europe and countless other locales, Rogers sojourned to the Sudan, Egypt, and Morocco and documented the realities of populations as varied as the maroons of Jamaica and those of South America. Janice Giles F URTHER R EADING Rogers, Joel Augustus. 1920. The Approaching Storm and How It May Be Averted. New York: self-published. Rogers, Joel Augustus. 1925. “Jazz at Home.” Survey Graphic. Reprinted in Doubletake. A Revisionist Harlem Renaissance Anthology, ed. Venetria K. Patton and Maureen Honey, 127– 133. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2001. Rogers, Joel Augustus. 1957. From Superman to Man. New York: Helga M. Rogers. Rogers, Joel Augustus. 1972. World’s Great Men of Color. New York: The Macmillan Company. Rogers, Joel Augustus. 1989. Africa’s Gift to America. St. Petersburg, FL: Helga M. Rogers.

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Ross, Jacob | 807 Rogers, Joel Augustus. 1990. Sex and Race. St. Petersburg, FL: Helga M. Rogers. Simba, Malik. 2006. “Joel Augustus Rogers: Negro Historian in History, Time and Place.” AfroAmericans in New York Life and History 30.2: 47–68. Smith, Jessie Carney, ed. 1998. Notable Black American Men. Detroit: Thompson Gale.

z Rolling Calf In Jamaica it is believed that duppies (i.e., spirits of the dead) have the ability to appear in very particular forms. One such form is the rolling calf. This spirit is most often understood to be the duppy of a dishonest person (usually a shopkeeper) but has also come to include various bloodthirsty characters such as murderers and butchers. Rolling calves roam at night and frequent the roots of cotton trees during the day. As the name suggests, the rolling calf takes the physical form of an animal; however, its most distinguishing feature is a chain tied around its neck. When the rolling calf makes its presence known, the chain can be heard dragging on the ground. This rattling sound, accompanied by the spirit’s terrible roar, has made the rolling calf legendary for instilling fear. The rolling calf is in fact unique in that it is most often heard rather than seen. Those who claim to have seen this duppy report its fiery eyes as well as its fear of the moon or any type of light. Some have reported that they have chased this spirit away by turning on the headlights of a car. It is notable, however, that in the old days, there were more ceremonious ways as well. One interviewee who grew up in the 1940s in the parish of Clarendon, reports rumors of escape via a pen knife, a cross, and a bottle of white rum. The method was as follows: (1) Draw a cross on the ground with a pen knife; (2) sprinkle rum over the entire area; and (3) set the rum on fire. When the rolling calf smells the rum it would

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attempt to lick it and would become trapped by flames. Appearances of the rolling calf are particularly frequent during the Christmas season. Most Jamaicans associate the word “rolling” with the calf ’s tendency to wander, though the term may also refer to the thunder of its roar. Beyond that, the rolling calf ’s origin remains sketchy. Could there be some larger significance to the sound of chains dragging on the ground? This question incites imagination and imagination incites ancestral memory. In the novel Madam Fate, for example, the nature of the rolling calf is reimagined as the tormented and sad spirit of a runaway slave boy, an iron chain still anchored to his neck. Marcia Douglas See also Jamaica; Old Hige. F URTHER R EADING Douglas, Marcia. 1999. Madam Fate. New York: Soho Press.

z Ross, Jacob (1956–) Jacob Ross teaches creative writing at Goldsmith University in London and is acclaimed as a short story writer par excellence. Born in Grenada, Ross migrated to Europe where he attended the University of Grenoble, France. He moved to England in 1984 and has lived there since. Ross’s first collection of short stories, Song for Simone and Other Stories, published in 1986, evokes the Grenadian space of his childhood. Like other stories about adolescent life in the Caribbean, Ross’s collection is framed by a rapidly changing social world. The child protagonists in this collection struggle to maintain the simplicity and carefree innocence of childhood, yet they are faced with many adult responsibilities and endure many adult experiences in a society that is being tested by political instability. Song for Simone has earned Ross many accolades

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and has been translated into German and Spanish. The collection has often been compared to George Lamming’s In the Castle of My Skin, a coming-of-age novel that links the development of a male adolescent protagonist to the development of an island nationalism. Ross, like Lamming, succeeds in conveying themes that are powerful in their messages yet evocative in their rendition. The issue of alienation and the struggle to retain one’s individualism in the face of social constraints is portrayed in the title story about a young girl’s psychological journey to adulthood and is reinforced in the other stories in the collection. Ross’s second volume of short stories, A Way to Catch Dust, continues to explore the relationship between the individual and society. This book confirms Ross’s prowess as a skillful story teller. Although the characters depicted are older than those in Ross’s first collection of short stories, they are similarly struggling to come to terms with a society that is constantly and dramatically changing. Ross has also been coeditor of literary anthologies of Caribbean diasporic writings. In 1998, with the Grenadian poet Joan AminAddo, he coedited an anthology entitled Voices, Memory, Ashes: Lest We Forget. He also coauthored Behind the Masquerade, the Story of the Notting Hill Carnival with the Ghanaian cultural activist, Kwesi Owusu, and has contributed to Storms of the Heart: An Anthology of Black Arts and Culture, the anthology edited by Owusu. Ross has served as editor of Artrage Intercultural Arts magazine. This popular British magazine, originally called Echo, focuses on the visual, literary and performing arts. Ross has an abiding interest in photography, and this interest reveals itself in some of the pictures in the book. In a photo essay “Photographing Carnival, Catching the Spirits,” Ross describes his experience of carnival and how he comes to photography as an imaginative springboard to capture the sociopolitical drama of the cultural reality of the black Briton as it is being wrought in the pageantry of carnival.

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Ross has done many international lecture tours and creative writing workshops. He has taught his craft in universities as far as the University of Jordan in the Middle East and as close as St. George’s University in Grenada. Antonia MacDonald-Smythe F URTHER R EADING The Jacob Ross website. freespace.virgin.net/jacob.ross/ (accessed March 10, 2005).

z Rufino, Alzira (1949–) Activist, feminist, author, poet, essayist, and ialorixá (priestess of Candomblé, the AfroBrazilian religion), Alzira Rufino stands out as one of the leaders of Afro-Brazilian feminist consciousness today. Currently residing in Santos, São Paulo, Brazil, she is known as the founder and director of the Casa de Cultura da Mulher Negra (Black Women’s Cultural Center), an entity she has headed since its formation in 1986. Inspired by Rufino, the Casa started as a group effort, a collective, bearing the name Coletivo de Mulheres Negras da Baixada Santista (the Baixada Santista Black Women’s Collective). The expression “Baixada Santista” refers to the lower coastal plain upon which the port city of Santos is located. Four years later, in 1990, the coletivo evolved into the now well-known Casa de Cultura da Mulher Negra. To date, Rufino remains the central figure and driving force behind the Casa and all its endeavors. Interviewed and written about at home and abroad (Royster 1988; Haje 2000; Duke 2003), the activist Rufino is very well known in São Paulo as head of one of the most prominent nongovernmental organizations and as a very outspoken leader who fights for the rights of women. Rufino has written literary and political studies and publications on the historical and

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Rufino, Alzira (1949–) | 809 contemporary experiences of Afro-Brazilian women: her 1988 anthology entitled Eu, Mulher Negra, Resisto (I, Black Woman, Resist) and Muriquinho Piquininho (1989), a book-length poem that traces the experience of enslavement from Africa to the Americas through the eyes of a child. Some of her poems can also be found in Cadernos Negros 19 (1996). Today she is editor-in-chief of the biannual magazine published by her organization, entitled Eparrei, and the monthly Eparrei Online Bulletin. As part of this larger venture, Rufino has published several important essays and short works on women. Published in 1986, Mulher Negra Tem História (The Black Woman Has a History), the result of a collaborative project, is a biographical compilation of 30 Afro-Brazilian women who left their mark on Brazilian history. Her 1988 collection of essays, Articulando (Articulating), focuses on a wide range of issues, such as African politics, the black movement, and the status of black women, while her 1997 text, O Poder Muda de Mãos Não de Cor (Power Changes Hands Not Color), is a comparative study about the status of white and black women in Brazil over two decades. Domestic violence is another issue that is important to her, as can be seen in “Violência contra a mulher, uma questão de Saúde Pública” (Violence Against Woman, a Question of Public Health), which is found in the Annals of the II National Meeting of Popular Organizations. “Atravessando o muro das lamentaç ões contra o racismo” (Crossing the Wall of Lamentations Against Racism) was written on the occasion of the International Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa in 2001. Today Rufino continues to make strides in the district of Santos and on the national scale in the following arenas: the creation of shelters (2000); the elaboration and implementation of

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laws against racism and domestic violence; and the creation of the National Law of Compulsory Notification of Domestic Violence in Public and Private Services of Health (November 24, 2003). Her successes in the areas of cultural rescue, the creation of judicial and psychological services for victims of violence, and income generation have influenced other organizations to initiate similar work in the cities of Três Corações (Minas Gerais), Goiânia (Goiás), São Sebastião (São Paulo), and Duque de Caxias (Rio de Janeiro). Dawn Duke See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians. F URTHER R EADING Duke, Dawn. 2003. “Alzira Rufino’s Casa de Cultura da Mulher Negra as a Form of Female Empowerment: A Look at the Dynamics of a Black Women’s Organization in Brazil Today.” Women’s Studies International Forum 26 (4, July-August): 357–368. Haje, Bahiji. 2000. “Entrevista com Alzira Rufino. Poucas Mulheres Negras Superam as Barreiras da Cor no Mercado de Trabalho.” Mulheres, 7–11. Royster, Jacqueline Jones. 1988. “Brazilian Writer/Activist Alzira Rufino: A Resonant Voice From the Dark and Narrow Space.” SAGE 2 (Fall): 77–78. Rufino, Alzira. 2000. “10 Anos de (R)Existência.” Emparrei. Jornal da Mulher Negra, April: 12. Rufino, Alzira, Nilza Iraci, and Maria Rosa Pereira. 1986. Mulher Negra Tem História. Santos, São Paulo, Brazil: Alzira Rufino, Nilza Iraci, Maria Rosa Pereira.

z Ruiz, Antonio See Falucho (?–1824).

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Salsa

through previously learned dance patterns associated with each call. These patterns have specific and amusing names related to local sayings or typical romantic situations—but usually from a male perspective, as traditionally men are the callers. Salsa, which means “sauce” in Spanish, was first used as a catchall term in 1930s Cuba, and in 1933 it was mentioned in the song “Echale Salsita” by Cuban composer Ignacio Piñero. In the song, Piñero refers to the “spiciness” of the famous restaurant “El Congo” in Havana and at the same time the “in-the-groove” feel of the music. After the revolution in 1959, Cuba—once the Latin American version of Las Vegas—was isolated from the rest of the world, although new Cuban sounds and dance styles continued to emerge. Celia Cruz, the undisputable Queen of Salsa, and La Sonora Matancera, Perez Prado, Machito, and several other renowned Cuban musicians decided not to return to their now communist homeland and established themselves in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Venezuela and New York, where they signed long-term contracts. Meanwhile, Puerto Ricans had become the largest Spanish-speaking population in New York City. Puerto Rican artists were playing

“Salsa” is a catchall term currently used to describe every kind of Afro-Cuban musical genre, including guaracha, mambo, cha-cha, rumba, danzon, but predominantly son. The styles of son and casino in particular have had the greatest influence on salsa music and dance as it is known today. Rumba is an umbrella term for related music, dance, and song styles that originated in Cuba, with significant influences from African drumming and Spanish poetry and singing. Rumba is the essence of the popular Cuban rhythms now referred to as salsa. Casino refers to the Casino Deportivo in Havana where it was created and popularized as a successor to the syncopated son. Both son and casino are themselves related to earlier dance forms, particularly folkloric rumba (with its essential clave beat). Son and casino differ in terms of the movements they accent, the styles and patterns of steps, and the complexity with which partners’ arms are intertwined. Casino also tends to be faster and more high-energy than son. Unlike son, casino can be danced in a circle or rueda (wheel), where two or more couples respond to the call of a leading male dancer, and male partners exchange female partners 811 www.abc-clio.com

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and dancing to Cuban beats at the famous Palladium and started to mix in their own interpretations, adding to the jazz sounds from the Chano Pozo era. Scholars argue about who was the first to use salsa as a brand name. Among three big names in the industry, Jimmy Sabater released a record with a name “Salsa and Bembé” in 1962; in 1974, Tito Puente stated, “Esto es una gran Salsa,” literally, “This is a big Sauce” in reference to the music experimentation they were playing at the time; and Larry Harlow (creator of the Fania All-Stars) released his album “Salsa” in 1973. In the 1970s, and particularly in New York City, salsa eventually became known as its own dance style rooted in the Cuban dance forms of son and casino. The term “salsa” also helped popularize, brand, and commercialize all Latin American music. In 1985, Cuban singer Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine set the basis for the crossover boom of Latin music with their international hit song “Conga.” Marc Anthony, La India, Victor Manuel, Isaac Delgado, and Gilberto Santa Rosa, to name a few, represent the 1990s trend: the romantic salsa, where ballads with passionate lyrics took over the rhythm. During the growing, international salsa craze, salsa not only maintained its connection to its African roots but also drew on African Diasporic musical traditions of the countries where it was embraced. Even in African countries like Senegal (with the band Africando), Congo, and Nigeria, salsa was embraced and flavored with other popular and traditional styles. Meanwhile, the sounds, rhythms, and dance movements of rumba and other Cuban styles were echoed in the popular music played in urban Latino neighborhoods across the United States. A NTECEDENTS An important geographical factor must be considered with salsa: Cuba is the biggest island in the Caribbean and was the last to abolish slavery. With two important ports (Havana

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and Santiago de Cuba), the island served as a holding and trade center of enslaved Africans from diverse parts of Africa during Colonial times. And slave shipments can be traced as late as the 19th century. All these ethnic groups from Africa, and particularly the Bantu, Carabali, and Yoruba, brought their rich performance traditions to the island, and these in time mixed with those of the Spaniards and Europeans. Moreover, the Haitian Revolution against France spurred an important immigration of French and Haitians to Oriente (east of Cuba), adding to the already complicated polyrhythms inherited by Cubans of African descent. For each Cuban rhythm there is an associated dance. Historically, musicians have competed to monopolize the attention of the dancers in a country where music and dance are an integral part of society. Ignacio Cervantes, Miguel Failde, Trio Matamoros, Ignacio Piñeiro, Benny More, Felix Chapottin, Arsenio Rodriguez, and Enrique Jorrin are only a handful of the renowned groups whose songs are still played all around the world. In today’s Cuba, timba, a new version evolved from the son, replaced the popularity of casino. Orquesta Revé, Los Van Van, Charanga Habanera, and Adalberto Alvarez represent some of the more popular bands in the genre. Timba is a complex fusion of son with Afro-Cuban beats: bata drums, songo, rumba, and so on, called street dance in New York. Although dancing to timba does not require a partner, timba rescues the old sensuality of the son. Even now the story repeats: Cuban artists have left the island in search of freedom and opportunities, and with them, timba has spread around the world. The world was recognizing the Cuban rhythms now constantly syncretized with other genres such as cumbia, jazz, merengue, plena, samba, the Spanish “Cante Jondo,” the American hustle, swing, and so on. In all corners of the world—from Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe to the rest of the Caribbean and Latin America—thou-

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Salt and the African Diaspora | 813 sands of dance lovers had come to worship salsa. Neri Torres See also Afro-Cuban Music; Cruz, Celia (1924– 2003); Cuba: Afro-Cubans. F URTHER R EADING Boggs, Vernon. 1992. Salsiology: Afro-Cuban Music and the Evolution of Salsa in New York City. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Orovio, Helio. 1992. Diccionario de la Música Cubana. 2nd ed. Havana, Cuba: Letras Cubanas. Orovio, Helio. 2003. Cuban Music from A to Z. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Ortiz, Fernando. 1965. La Africanía de la Música Folklórica de Cuba [1950]. 2nd rev. ed. Havana, Cuba: Editora Universitaria. Ospina, Hernando Calvo. 1995. Salsa! Havana Heat, Bronx Beat. New York: Latin American Bureau for Research and Action.

z Salt and the African Diaspora In spite of the many health concerns associated with salt consumption, African Diaspora peoples enjoy an intimate relationship with salt, at the levels of culture and consciousness. The discussions, fictional and historical, of the salt trade and salt as a tool of oppression are numerous. In The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave (1987), Prince claims that she and other slaves lived in constant fear of being sent to mine salt in the salt bogs. Salt, as both a material and metaphorical substance, has been a source of great ambivalence in an African diasporic context. It has been used as an instrument of punishment (i.e., “seasoning,” or the agony of a whipped slave whose bleeding wounds are rubbed in salt or washed with brine), was a source of wealth in 18th-century Africa, and was a necessary ingredient for sufficient seasoning of foods. Salt can cause harm, as does the salt sea to the unsuspecting swim-

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mer, fisherman, hurricane survivor, refugee, or rebellious African. Perhaps the source of this ambivalence to salt lay in the trauma of the Middle Passage, among enslaved Africans, male and female, who chose to dive into the ocean rather than endure bondage in a foreign land, or among the children many threw overboard for the same reason. In this case, taking on the ocean and its salt sustains/preserves the spirit against degradation. An examination of the history of the salt trade in West Africa provides insight into the importance of salt among continental Africans. In his studies of the 18th-century history of the coastal states of west-central Africa and of the colony of Saint Domingue, cultural anthropologist Hein Vanhee noticed the use of salt for symbolic reasons. He indicates that Capuchin missionaries traveling in the kingdom of Kongo often met people indigenous to the region who asked them for salt, or anamungoa. These people used salt in rituals (called baptism by Vanhee). Often, after receiving the salt, they would rush off before the missionaries could apply water. He contends that although the historical information is scarce, it can be presumed that salt was used in other nonChristian initiation ceremonies. It could also be argued that they rushed off to hoard the valuable commodity before the missionaries could dilute it. Although Vanhee’s research did not yield information on the uses of salt in Saint Domingue among the African-born slaves working on plantations toward the end of the 18th century, much has been written on the use of salt for symbolic reasons in Vodoun ceremonies in Saint Domingue. Anthropologist Wade Davis’s The Serpent and the Rainbow contains information on symbolic uses of salt in Vodoun rituals in 20th-century Haiti (Davis 1985, 180). Salt is used to baptize a child, because an unbaptized child could be taken by the devil. To release the child from the devil’s grasp, a bit of salt is placed on its tongue. Salt is believed to be the antidote for

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tetrodotoxin, the poison that initiates the zombification process. As in Haiti, Steven Buhnen (1996) submits salt was used as an antitoxin during the 18th century in what is now the Republic of Guinea. Still, salt has contradictory meanings across the Diaspora. In contrast with the beneficial uses of salt, much sociological work has been done on the damaging effects of salt on African American communities in the United States. Thomas W. Wilson’s 1986 study, “Africa, AfroAmericans, and Hypertensions: An Hypothesis,” argued for what has become known as the “slavery hypothesis for hypertension.” Wilson posited that the prevalence of high blood pressure among African American populations in the United States is the result of (1) salt deficiency in West Africa, (2) the physical trauma of the Middle Passage, and (3) conditions of slavery in the United States, specifically the high salt content of food slaves were forced to eat. Recent research has found that African American peoples born in the United States are more sensitive than white Americans to increases in dietary salt and that when injected with saline solutions, African Americans retained intravenous sodium longer than white Americans did. These observations have prompted the medical community to look to the African past for genetic evidence of hypertension. In “The Slavery Hypothesis for Hypertension Among African Americans,” historian Philip Curtin contends, however, that this hypothesis is both inaccurate and ahistorical (Curtin 1992). Curtin’s position answers and raises several questions. First, he provides ample evidence that one of the primary elements of Wilson’s hypothesis, that Africans brought to the Americas during the Middle Passage came from saltpoor regions of Africa, is incorrect. In addition, salt was easily obtainable in 18th-century West Africa. Paul Lovejoy, who has researched the salt trade in the western Sudan extensively, asserts in Salt of the Desert Sun: A History of Salt Production and Trade in the Central Sudan

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A worker harvests salt from evaporative ponds in Fachi, Niger, in 1999. (Michael S. Lewis/Corbis)

(1986) that in the region including the Lake Chad basin, the south-central Sahara Desert, the Benue River basin, and the Niger Valley, from the Benue northward to the Sahel, the salt trade extended into present-day Ethiopia, Chad, Benin, Nigeria, Mauritania, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Senegambia. Imported and locally made sea salt had been traded in the region as early as the 18th century. Lovejoy has traced 16 different types of salt, each with very specific purposes and uses for culinary, medicinal, industrial and other purposes (Lovejoy 1986, 16–17). These salts can be broken down into two major classifications: salt and natron. The former consisted predominately of sodium chloride. The latter was a combination (sometimes erroneously referred to as potash) that included high concentrations of sodium carbonate, sodium sulphate, and other chemicals (Lovejoy 1986, 15).

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Salt and the African Diaspora | 815 Lovejoy also provides a discussion of the culinary uses of salt in 18th- and 19th-century Central Africa. Whereas salt was used as a condiment, usually sprinkled on food after it was cooked, Africans seasoned their foods with salt before cooking, using it to enhance the flavor of food (Lovejoy 1986, 18). Although Curtin determines that slave mortality had little to do with salt (and water) depletion and more to do with respiratory illness (Curtin 1992), it seems highly likely that slaves died from a combination of the two, along with the various other illnesses to which they were susceptible. Although there may be no evidence that the dietary trauma experienced during the Middle Passage is the source of African Americans’ difficulty in metabolizing salt, it is also logical to explore the possibility that dietary habits forced on slaves during the period of enslavement initiated dietary habits that, having persisted in the present day, account for the high incidence of hypertension among African Americans and Caribbeans. Salted meats and fish continue to be a staple of African Diasporic cuisine, even though many are moving toward more healthful foods. In addition, the socioeconomic conditions of most Africans in the Americas limit them to the very types of food that are least healthful, precisely because they are inexpensive and thus often the only ones that they can afford. Fresh fruits and vegetables and unprocessed, lowsodium foods tend to be extremely expensive and are often not offered in large supply in the communities in which they live. Besides its relationship with health concerns, salt can also be read in connection with spiritual health and well-being at the level of protection from evil. Drums and Shadow: Survival Studies among the Georgia Coastal Negroes (Georgia Writers Project 1986) contains several accounts by African American southerners of salt being used to prevent or dissipate evil, complete with the African origins of some of these beliefs, such as methods for keeping witches and evil spirits away. The root of this

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belief is found in a narrative amongst the Vai of Liberia: “when a witch comes to your house to ride you at night, he takes off his skin and lays it aside in the house. It is believed that the witch may be killed by sprinkling salt and pepper in certain portions of the room, which will prevent the witch from putting on his skin. Just before they go to bed it is a common thing to see Vais people sprinkling salt and pepper about” (Georgia Writers Project 1986, 264). This is probably one of the roots of the mythology of the “soucouyant” of Trinidad, or the “witch women” of Jamaica, who slip out of their skins at night and travel about as glowing balls of flames, usually sucking the blood of unsuspecting men, women, and children. In her essay “Hoodoo in America: Conjure Stories,” Zora Neale Hurston (1931) told of a good woman who after discovering a witch waited until she took off her skin and left it lying on the floor. The good woman then sprinkled salt and pepper on the witch’s skin (Liggins-Hill et al. 1998, 66). The narrative of flight, which permeates African diasporic folklore and spirituals, often includes a discussion of salt as an impediment to spiritual flight. In tales of “flying Africans,” the consumption of salt prevents enslaved Africans from escaping bondage by making their spirits too heavy to fly. Earl Lovelace uses a version of a flying Africans tale in relationship to salt to begin his famous novel entitled Salt (1996, 3). References to salt abound, beyond the biblical, into African, African American, and Caribbean literature—including Toni Cade Bambara’s The Salt Eaters (1980), Edouard Glissant’s Black Salt (1999), and Nalo Hopkinson’s The Salt Roads (2004)—and figure prominently in rituals of West African origin. Lorna McDaniel provides a discussion of salt as a hindrance to spiritual transcendence and as a means of persecution in The Big Drum Ritual of Carriacou: Praisesongs for Rememory of Flight (1998). In the various rituals connected with the Big Drum, food offerings to ancestors and river and sea orisas are not prepared with salt.

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Participants can consume salt, but only in small amounts (Liggins-Hill et al. 1998, 66). McDaniel argues that overconsumption of salt is as much a part of African diasporic physical history and consciousness as is the insistence on avoidance of it. Again, salt makes the spirit too heavy to fly. Although the consumption of salt would be necessary under the conditions of slavery (for the purpose of water retention in the hot sun), overconsumption also leads to hypertension and various other health problems. The issue of salt, then, is very important for African diasporic representations of flight. In African diasporic mythology, spirits are the only beings that can travel all over the world, and they do not eat salt. In several belief systems (Shango, Candomblé, Santería), foods prepared for the ancestors never contain salt. This belief in the spiritual benefits of avoiding salt is also held by Rastafarians and participants in the Kumina tradition, according to Clinton Hutton and Nathaniel Samuel Murrell (1998), who argue that many Rastafarians believe the saltheavy diet imposed on enslaved peoples in plantation society was designed to adulterate their minds and render their spirits too heavy to fly home free to Africa. Many Kumunists believe ancestral spirits do not need or eat salt for this reason (Hutton and Murrell 1998, 46). These multiple metaphors/narratives of flight and the usage or nonusage of salt unite African diasporic cultural traditions, mythology, and ritual. African Diaspora experience is characterized by constant negotiation between a past marked by constant upheaval, adversity, and struggle, and a present and future filled with the legacy of creative, practical, linguistic, and psychological resistance. Fully aware of the “salt of hardship” in all of its forms, Africandescended peoples have mastered the art of separating out of this hardship just what is needed for survival. Meredith M. Gadsby See also Middle Passage; Sugar Cane and the African Diaspora.

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F URTHER R EADING Bambara, Toni Cade. 1980. The Salt Eaters. New York: Random House. Buhnen, Stephen. 1996. “Brothers, Chiefdoms, and Empires: On Jan Jansen’s ‘The Representation of Status in Mande.’ ” History in Africa, Vol. 23, 111–120. Curtin, Philip. 1992. “The Slavery Hypothesis for Hypertension Among African Americans: The Historical Evidence.” American Journal of Public Health 3 (12): 1681–1686. Davis, Wade. 1985. The Serpent and the Rainbow. New York: Simon and Schuster. Ferguson, Moira. 1987. The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave. London: Pandora. Georgia Writers Project. 1986. Drums and Shadows: Survival Studies Among the Georgia Coastal Negroes [by the] Savannah Unit, Georgia Writers’ Project, Work Projects Administration. 1940. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Glissant, Edouard. 1999. Black Salt. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Hopkinson, Nalo. 2003. The Salt Roads. New York: Warner Books. Hurston, Zora Neale. 1931. “Hoodoo in America: Conjure Stories.” Journal of American Folk Lore 44: 404–405. Hutton, Clinton, and Nathaniel Samuel Murrell. 1998. “Rastas Psychology of Blackness, Resistance, and Somebodiness.” In Chanting Down Babylon: The Rastafari Reader, ed. Nathaniel Samuel Murrell, William David Spencer, and Adrian Anthony McFarlane, 36–54. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers. Liggins-Hill, Patricia et al. 1998. Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin. Lovejoy, Paul. 1986. Salt of the Desert Sun: A History of Salt Production and Trade in the Central Sudan. New York: Cambridge University Press. Lovelace, Earl. 1996. Salt. London: Faber and Faber. McDaniel, Lorna. 1998. The Big Drum Ritual of Carriacou: Praisesongs for Rememory of Flight. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Murrell, Nathaniel Samuel, William David Spencer, and Adrian Anthony McFarlane, eds. 1998. Chanting Down Babylon. The Rastafari Reader. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers. Perinbam, Marie. 1996. “The Salt-Gold Alchemy in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century

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Salvador da Bahia | 817 Mande World: If Men Are Its Salt, Women Are Its Gold.” History in Africa 23: 257–278. Wilson, Thomas W. 1986. “Africa, Afro-Americans, and Hypertensions: An Hypothesis.” Social Science History 10: 489–500. Wilson, Thomas W. 1986. “Salt Supplies in West Africa and Blood Pressures Today.” Lancet 1: 784–786. Wilson, Thomas W., and C. E. Grim. 1991. “Biohistory of Slavery and Blood Pressure Differences in Blacks Today: A Hypothesis.” Hypertension 17 (suppl 1): 122–128.

z Salvador da Bahia São Salvador da Bahia de Todos os Santos, generally known as Salvador, or simply Bahia, is the capital of the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia. It is located at 13° south latitude and 38° west longitude, at the tip of the peninsula that divides the Bay of All Saints (Bahia de Todos os Santos) from the Atlantic Ocean. The population of urban Salvador in 2007 is estimated at approximately 2.9 million inhabitants, and a total of approximately 3.7 million inhabitants live in the entire metropolitan region. This makes Salvador the largest city in the Brazilian northeast, the fourth largest city in Brazil, and one of the ten largest cities in Latin America. Salvador is famous throughout Brazil and throughout the world as a center of AfroBrazilian music, religion, cuisine, and culture. It is home to millions of Brazilians of African descent and has been known at least since the 1930s as the Black Rome (Roma Negra) of the Americas. Today, black movement activists call it “an African nation called Bahia.” Salvador’s first known European settler was Diogo Alvarez, known as Caramuru, a shipwrecked sailor who married an indigenous Tupinambá princess (later christened Catarina Paraguassú) and facilitated the city’s early colonization by the Portuguese. European settlement began in earnest in 1549 with the arrival

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of Tomé de Souza’s embarcation. Salvador remained the largest city and the capital of Portugal’s American colony until 1763 when the capital moved to Rio de Janeiro. Salvador was invaded and briefly occupied by the Dutch in 1624. In 1823, the city was the site of Bahia’s brief war of independence from Portugal (the rest of Brazil had already won its independence in 1822). The importation of enslaved Africans to the city of Salvador began in the mid 16th century. It entered its most intense period from 1790 through 1831 when slavery was officially banned. A clandestine trade in African slaves extended until 1850 and beyond, however. Salvador was a major market for enslaved Africans especially from the regions around the Bight of Benin as well as the kingdom of Kongo and Angola. In 1888, Brazil became the last American country to ban slavery. Most of the Africans imported to Bahia worked in the sugar cane and tobacco plantations of the fertile Recôncavo region around the Bay of All Saints. The sugar produced in Bahia was shipped out through Salvador’s bustling ports and provided the city’s wealth in its colonial heyday. The enslaved and free Afro-Brazilians in the city of Salvador itself performed a bewildering variety of occupations, working as porters, stevedores, barbers, musicians, domestic servants, street vendors of food and farm products, skilled artisans, tailors, and dockworkers. Many of Salvador’s enslaved people worked for pay and were eventually able to purchase their own freedom. This, along with other roads to freedom, precipitated the growth of a class of free Brazilians of African descent. These individuals were crucial for the development of Salvador’s Afro-Brazilian religious institutions and the leadership of its slave insurrections. In addition to this class of free Afro-Brazilians, the peripheral neighborhoods and forests around Salvador were home to many communities of escaped slaves called quilombos. Salvador saw a series of slave rebellions in the early

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19th century, the most famous of which was the Malê Revolt of 1835, led by African Muslims. The 19th century also saw the rise of Candomblé in Salvador and the Bahian Recôncavo. The city is home to the most famous temples of Candomblé in Brazil. These terreiros attract followers and clients from throughout the country and throughout the world. Famous priestesses of Candomblé, like Menininha de Gantois and Aninha de Opô Afonjá, called Salvador home. Salvador’s African heritage also gave it an extraordinarily rich musical culture. Many of Brazil’s famous musical styles, including samba, afoxé, axé music, samba reggae, pagode, and even MPB (or Brazilian popular music) arose in the city or its immediate hinterlands and carnival. Salvador’s culinary tradition incorporates many recipes and ingredients of African provenance, including peanut flour, dried shrimp, red palm oil (dendé), and okra. Salvador is divided into a lower city (Cidade Baixa), home to the bulk of the city’s industry, markets, ports, and commercial districts, and an upper city (Cidade Alta), which has most of the residential districts. The two are joined by steep alleys called Ladeiras, funicular inclined planes, and the famous landmark, the Elevador Lacerda. Salvador’s historic center was restored from decrepitude and transformed into a tourist district after being designated a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization World Heritage Site in 1985. As part of this push to restore the historic center to its colonial beauty, many of the neighborhood’s AfroBrazilian residents were forced from their homes and relocated to urban slums or distant, impoverished suburbs. The Pelourinho, as the tourist district is known today, takes its name from the pillory or whipping post where African and Afro-Brazilian slaves received public punishment for infractions against their masters. Like most of Brazil, the city of Salvador is characterized by vast disparities of wealth, which is reflected in the city’s geography where both gleaming apartment buildings and slums exist.

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These inequalities coincide largely (though by no means completely) with differences in skin color. The vast majority of Salvador’s urban poor are phenotypically darker than its elite. Bahia’s system of racial classification is often described as being based on a continuum. Interactions among people of different skin colors are largely cordial giving rise to the phenomenon of “cordial or cynical racism” in which color prejudice is maintained in education, access, the job market, and in the city’s elite public spaces. Brian Brazeal See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Cachoeira; Candomblé; Carnival; Filhos de Gandhy; Ilê Aiyê; Lino Alves de Almeida, José (1958–2006); Middle Passage; Olodum; Transatlantic Slave Trade. F URTHER R EADING Freyer, Peter. 2000. Rhythms of Resistance: African Musical Heritage in Brazil. Hanover: Wesleyan University Press. Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estadística www.ibge.gov.br/english/ (accessed January 22, 2008). Mattoso, Katia. 1991. Bahia, Século XIX: Uma Provincia no Império. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Editora Nova Fronteira. Pierson, Donald. 1942. Negroes in Brazil: A Study of Race Contact at Bahia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Reis, João José. 1991. A Morte é Uma Festa: Ritos Funebres e Revolta Popular no Brasil do Século XIX. São Paulo: Compania de Letras. Reis, João José. 1993. Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia, trans. Arthur Brakel. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Sansone, Livio. 2003. Blackness Without Ethnicity: Constructing Race in Brazil. New York: Palgrave.

z Samba Samba is the popular song and dance form of Brazil in a syncopated 2/4 time with emphasis

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Samba | 819 on the second beat. Traditionally played by strings, such as the cavaquinho (a small fourstringed guitarlike instrument), and percussion, such as the pandeiro (a tambourine) and tamborim (a smaller pandeiro played with a stick), samba is characterized by the persistent drumbeat of African spiritual ceremonies and a repertory of lyrical themes. As one of the more famous cultural expressions of Africans in Brazil, samba embodies the ideas of solace, celebration, culture, identity, philosophy, and tradition. Samba and its informal samba gathering are at once popular music, a genre, and an urban phenomenon that emerged in the favelas (impoverished areas) of Rio de Janeiro at the start of the 20th century. The origin of the term “samba” is said to be “semba,” an expression found in the KôngoAngola region of west central Africa where many of the enslaved Africans in Brazil were acquired. The historical evidence suggests that samba was not created in 20th-century Rio de Janeiro, as the term was used in 19th-century Brazil to generally refer to a polyrhythmic dance accompanied by percussion, and that those who are credited with samba’s emergence in Rio de Janeiro came from Bahia in northeast Brazil. Movement from northeast Brazil to Rio de Janeiro when slavery was abolished in 1888 allowed for the development of “houses” that functioned as sites of socialization and culture. One of the principal houses was that of Hilária Batista de Almeida (also known as Tia Ciata), who was a practitioner of Candomblé and one of the key persons responsible for samba and carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Samba coexisted with the transmission of the spiritual values and practices of Candomblé, an African-derived spiritual system adhered to in Brazil. The musical genre of samba was crystallized with the 1917 carnival hit “Pelo Telefone” (On the Telephone) by Donga. Regarded by most as the first samba recording, this song was composed at Almeida’s house and soon carried the new music outside the favelas. Houses like Almeida’s were gathering sites for musicians of

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African descent, and many of the famous sambistas (those who compose, sing, or play samba) were assiduous visitors. Notable sambistas include João da Baiana, Pixinguinha, Sinhô, Caninha, Heitor dos Prazeres, Nelson Cavaquinho, Clara Nunes, Noel Rosa, Adoniran Barbosa, Paulinho da Viola, Martinho da Vila, Cartola, and Bezerra da Silva. The traditional form of samba in Rio de Janeiro came to be known as samba de morro (samba of the impoverished hillside areas). Sambaexaltação (samba of praise) and samba-canção and the efforts of white Brazilian composers to popularize songs for white middle-class consumption overshadowed samba de morro. Several samba musicians countered this longstanding cooptation by the larger society with cultural resistance in the form of a dual sambapagode current; the first current of the 1970s and 1980s reflected the roots of samba, while the other more commercialized current of the early 1990s replaced the older styles in the media. The latter current represents an international African-Brazilian aesthetic, while the former embodies a national, tradition-bound African-Brazilian expression. The current forms of samba in Brazil, including sambareggae and samba de roda, exist in the domain of popular culture, while escolas de samba (Samba schools) or large-scale, organized carnival parade groups are exploited by the tourism industry. The stereotypical icons of samba lyrics, that is, the malandro (smoothtalking hustler), mulata (sensual black woman), and otário (utterly unintelligent person), underscore the issues of race, the paradox of African cultural life in Brazilian society, and samba as a site for simultaneous cultural innovation, resistance, and cooptation. Kwasi Konadu See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Carnival; Salvador da Bahia; Samba Schools. F URTHER R EADING Guimarães, Fernando. 1978. Na roda do samba. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Funarte.

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820 | Samba Schools Shaw, Lisa. 1999. The Social History of the Brazilian Samba. Brookfield, VT: Ashgate. Sodré, Muniz. 1998. Samba, o dono do corpo. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Mauad.

z Samba Schools Samba is Brazil’s national rhythm. Once repressed and marginalized because it belonged to the oppressed Afro-descendants, it has become a natural treasure, Brazil’s national identity, and the centerpiece of carnival. Its presence in the festival is ultimate proof of the Africanity of carnival. Samba schools are big associations constituted into Liga das Escolas de Samba do Rio (League of Rio Samba Schools) governed by special law. The competition is astonishingly competitive for the annual prize as champion of carnival. The schools are divided into two groups: schools in the Special Group parade on Sunday and Monday, and schools in the Second Division parade on Friday and Saturday. The winner is announced on Ash Wednesday after the jury’s deliberations. A queen is also elected annually. The importance of the event is comparable to the final of the World Cup competition in football (soccer), a sport synonymous with Brazil. Each school, mostly cariocas, has about 4,000 members. Some participants from elsewhere in Brazil, or from foreign countries, also join, and each member pays about $1,000 for a fancy dress, without which one cannot parade. A structure called the sambodromo, which was specially constructed by Oscar Niemeyer, the architect who created Brazil’s gorgeous capital, Brasilia, was unveiled in 1984; it serves as a viewing point of the parade and the culmination of the festival. If Rio’s carnival is a spectacle of endless love, or orgy, with beautiful women baring their breasts and lustful men ogling and hugging them, if it is the quintessential moment of merriment marked by the

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syncopated and pulsating beat of the samba, it is also the epitome of capitalistic commercialism. It is an industry bringing in foreign currency to the tune of billions. It is interesting to note that the rhythm of samba has evolved over the years according to the demands and dictates of the carnival parade, and heated debate has always been attached to the “real roots” of the music. One aspect has remained constant: samba has resisted the use of electric instruments and other forms of “modern” music. The crystallization of the music occurred in Rio within the carnival-parading samba schools in the 1930s. Thus, samba de morro (referring to the hills where the ghettos, or favelas, were located) became a national cultural symbol, and sambistas have traced its origin back to Africa. The first parade of a samba school took place in 1929, when Deixa Falar (Free Speech) was led by “people of ill repute”on horses furnished by the military police. From then on the schools were given government subsidies. By 1935, samba schools’ parade was a fixture on officialdom’s published program. Rio’s major newspaper, O Globo, became sponsor, establishing regulations, including the requirement that each group must have women dressed as Baianas (legendary women wearing traditional dress from the Afro state of Bahia). In 1937, the nationalist dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas decreed that samba schools must present, as part of their dramatized parade, didactic themes based on history and patriotism. That model was later extended to other parts of the country. As the population became more culturally aware and more politically progressive, beyond the restricted vision of the dictatorship, African themes came to enter the horizon of depiction. Samba schools have long attracted foreign cultural figures, such as Walt Disney, Josephine Baker, and the Japanese painter Tzuguharu Fujita, who, upon returning to his country, founded a samba band at the National School of Fine Arts. Samba schools have been invited

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Samedi/Baron Samedi | 821 to play at presidential events. In recent times, samba schools have honored Brazil’s superstars of music. Not only are they included in the parade, but themes are created in their honor: such was the case at the 1994 carnival when one of the most respectable schools, Mangueira, paid homage to the Bahian musicians Gilberto Gil (currently minister of culture), Gal Costa, and Maria Bethânia. Indeed, samba is Brazil’s national music, and samba schools are an integral and essential aspect of almighty carnival. Femi Ojo-Ade See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Carnival; Samba. F URTHER R EADING Vianna, Hermano. 1999. Samba. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

z Samedi/Baron Samedi Baron Samedi is an immensely popular deity in the Haitian Vodoun pantheon. He is the most commonly seen member of the Gede family of Haitian Loa who are often considered to be spirits of the dead. He presides over cemeteries and crossroads and the spirits of the dead. His typical iconography includes a black top hat and long black coat, his face painted like a skull, glasses or sunglasses, and a cane often adorned with an erect phallus. The name Baron Samedi is probably a Haitian Creole (Kreyol) derivation from the French words for Saturday and cemetery. The Baron possesses his followers (called serviteurs) at parties and in ritual contexts and they don some version of the aforementioned clothing. He is the last to arrive at a Vodoun ceremony but few Vodoun ceremonies end without an appearance of the Baron and the other Gede. His typical possession behaviors include singing and dancing lewdly, making lascivious comments to spectators in his typi-

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cal high-pitched nasal voice, miming coitus, eating gluttonously, drinking heavily, and smoking cigars, pipes, and cigarettes. But the Baron is taken very seriously. He may offer his clients and devotees helpful advice on a range of problems from romantic difficulties to employment. He advises them of when they are under the influence of witchcraft, and he can be invoked to wreak revenge on his follower’s enemies. He is well loved and deeply feared. Baron Samedi often serves as a social censurer. He insults all and sundry at possession parties, but especially the rich. He exposes hypocrisy and illicit affairs. He condemns the ungenerous. He is also the deity most often invoked in witchcraft and black magic. His devotees offer him candles and copious amounts of clarin (raw sugar cane liquor) and rum as well as candy and coins at cemeteries and crossroads. The Baron’s altars are adorned with crosses, iron chains, and wooden penises. All Souls’ Day (November 1) is the Baron’s holiday par excellence. He leaves the cemetery and goes out into the world. On one occasion in the 1950s a troop of serviteurs possessed by Baron Samedi and other Gede processed to the governmental palace in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and demanded money from the president, who promptly paid up. Baron Samedi is also invoked in the creation of Zombis. Haitian Zombi are not necessarily the soulless walking dead depicted in North American horror movies. In some aspects of the mythology, they are spirits of the dead, caught in bottles and used to help their owners. Baron Samedi must be invoked before graves can be opened to get the bones that are essential ingredients of such Zombi. Although Haitian Vodoun is usually thought to be derived from the Vodoun religions of old Dahomey (present day Benin and Togo), Baron Samedi is a uniquely Haitian deity without any obvious parallels elsewhere in the religions of the African Diaspora. François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, dictator of Haiti from 1957 to 1971,

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intentionally adopted the imagery and the voice of Baron Samedi in his public appearances and even in his cabinet meetings to signal his devotion to the malevolent forces of Vodoun and strike fear into the hearts of his people and his government ministers. Brian Brazeal

cassava farmers. In 1773, Cangrejos became a town. By this time, more than 800 people were living in the area. The same year, an auxiliary militia unit was created with men living in the area. Known as the “Morenos de Cangrejos,” they distinguished themselves in battle against invaders. Today the area of San Mateo de Cangrejos is called Santurce.

See also Haiti; Vodoun.

Lorraine Rivera-Newberry

F URTHER R EADING Ackerman, Hans, and Jeanine Gauthier. 1991. “The Ways and Nature of the Zombi.” Journal of American Folklore 104 (414): 466–494. Cosentino, Donald, ed. 1985. Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou. Los Angeles: University of California, Fowler Museum of Cultural History. Cosentino, Donald, ed. 1987. “Who Is that Fellow in the Many Colored Cap?: Transformations of Eshu in Old and New World Mythologies.” Journal of American Folklore 100 (37): 261– 275. Dunham, Katherine. 1969. Island Possessed. New York: Doubleday. Hurston, Zora Neale. 1938. Tell My Horse. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company.

z San Mateo de Cangrejos San Mateo de Cangrejos was a Puerto Rican town founded by maroons from neighboring Caribbean islands. In 1664, while under Spanish rule, Puerto Rico began recognizing escaped slaves from non-Spanish islands as free men and women, on the condition that they swore loyalty to the Spanish king and agreed to be baptized into the Catholic faith. Most of those seeking refuge came from English or Dutch islands. In time a community of runaway slaves developed in an area located near the capital city of San Juan. By 1710 more than 80 people inhabited this area, and in 1714 Governor Juan de Rivera officially granted this land to the refugees. Each man was given the usufruct of two cuerdas (1.94 acres) of land and materials to build a home. Most became

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See also Puerto Rico: Afro-Puerto Ricans. F URTHER R EADING Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration. 1940. Puerto Rico, a Guide to the Island of Borinquen. New York: The University Society. Tovar, Federico R. 1973. A Chronological History of Puerto Rico. New York: Plus Ultra Educational Publishers.

z Sancho, Ignatius (1729–1780) Ignatius Sancho was born aboard a slave ship off Guinea (West Africa) in 1729 and baptized with the name Ignatius at Carthegena, where he was taken to the Spanish West Indies with his parents, both of whom died shortly after, his mother of “a disease of the new climate” and his father by suicide. At a little over the age of two, Sancho’s master took him to England where he became the property of three disagreeable sisters living at Greenwich who surnamed him Sancho after an imagined resemblance to the squire of Cervante’s Don Quixote. In the belief that African ignorance was the surest insurance for his obedience, the three sisters shut the doors of education against the young Sancho. But Sancho was soon to be rescued by the Duke of Montagu who, on accidentally seeing him, immediately took a liking to him and frequently brought him home to Blackheath where he encouraged his wife to tutor Sancho in reading, much to the annoyance of his mistresses who threatened to send him back to African slavery. After the death of Montagu, Sancho fled to the

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Sankofa | 823 duchess for protection. There he remained a butler until her death, when he found himself favored by a bequest of 70 pounds and an annuity of 30 pounds from her will. Sancho married a young West Indian woman whom he loved dearly, and he frequently mentions her in his letters. Toward the end of 1773, “repeated attacks of gout, and a constitutional corpulence” forced him to retire from the duke’s family and to set up a grocery shop with his wife. Through hard work and thrift, they were able to raise a large family and live a fairly decent and stable life. However, Sancho died in December 1780. The letters of Ignatius Sancho, written mainly during his years as a grocer, were published in London in 1782 under the title, Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, An African, to which are prefixed Memoirs of His Life by Joseph Jekyll, Esz., M.P. The letters cover a wide variety of subjects and reflect the philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment and its neoclassical style. They reveal a mind nourished by intense and sensitive reading and understanding of the writings of his contemporaries (such as Alexander Pope and Laurence Sterne) and the classical greats they often imitated. Sancho also wrote poetry in the neoclassical style and even attempted two pieces for the stage, but these have not been located as yet. In addition, he composed and published music (described in Ignatius Sancho—An Early African Composer in England) and distinguished himself as an art critic. Although he barely discusses slavery, black freedom, his Africanness, and his experience of racism, the eloquence, clarity, sophistication, humor, and philosophical insights of his letters seem to have provoked many English readers to reconsider their prejudices toward Africans and the African World. Chukwuma Azuonye See also United Kingdom: The African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Azuonye, Chukwuma, and Steven Serafin, eds. Forthcoming. The Columbia Anthology of

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African Literature. New York: Columbia University Press. Dathorne, O. R. 1974. The Black Mind: A History of African Literature. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Gikandi, Simon, ed. 2003. Encyclopedia of African Literature. New York: Routledge. Herdeck, Donald E. 1974. African Authors: A Companion to Black African Writing, Volume 1: 1300–1973. Washington, D.C: Inscape Corporation. Irele, F. Abiola, and Simon E. Girkandi, eds. 2004. The Cambridge History of Africa and Caribbean Literature. 2 Vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Jahn, Janheinz. 1968. Neo-African Literature: A History of Black Writing. New York: Grove. Jahn, Janheinz, Ulla Schild, and Almut Nordmann. 1972. Who’s Who in African Literature: Biographies, Works, Commentaries. Tübingen, Germany: Horst Erdmann Verlag. Killam, Douglas, and Ruth Rowe, eds. 2000. The Companion to African Literatures. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. King, Reyahn, et al. 1997. Ignatius Sancho: An African Man of Letters. London: National Portrait Gallery. Sancho, Ignatius. 1782 (1803). Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African: to which are prefixed Memoirs of His Life by Joseph Jekyll. London.

z Sankofa The film Sankofa, written and directed by Ethiopian-born filmmaker Haile Gerima, was made in 1993 under his own Mypheduh Films and was coproduced by his wife, filmmaker Shirikiana Aina. The film took its title from an Akan concept that means “one must return and repair the past in order to move forward.” The groundbreaking independent film tells the story of Mona (played by Oyafunmike Ogunlano), a high fashion model who, while being photographed at Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, is reproached by an old man for forgetting her past. Instantly, she is transported back to the days of slavery where she becomes Shola, a house slave whose lover, Shango (played by Jamaican dub

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poet Mutabaruka), is caught up in the quest for freedom. The African-born slave Nunu (Alexandra Duah), whose mulatto son attempts to thwart their efforts, leads the struggle for freedom on the plantation. Shola, who is constantly abused by the master, eventually takes her fate into her own hands. Sankofa explores the multiple social levels of slavery in the United States, including the issues of division and loyalty within the slave communities, maroons (escaped slaves recreating African communities), and the schism between African and Western ways. The feature-length film was produced for less than $1 million and, despite critical acclaim, received no interest from major studios for distribution. This was attributed to the controversial content along with the fact that no major stars appeared in the film. With knowledge of the difficulties of distributing independent films with a distinctly black perspective, Gerima and Aina initially rented a theater, where the film played for an unprecedented 11 weeks. They used the profit to create copies of the film to be shown in alternative venues, such as the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where it became an international phenomenon. The initial success of Sankofa was due largely to word of mouth among those who had viewed the movie, which eventually traveled to Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, and Atlanta. The dramatic film won the 1993 Best Cinematography Award at FESPACO and the 1993 AGIP Grand Prize at the African Cinema Festival in Milan, Italy, among other awards. Eve M. Ferguson See also FESPACO and African Film Festivals; Gerima, Haile (1946–); Mulatta; Mutabaruka (1952–); Shango. F URTHER R EADING Alexander, George. 1993. Why We Make Movies: Black Filmmakers Talk About the Magic of Cinema. New York: Harlem Moon. Sankofa. 1993. Washington, D.C.: Mypheduh Films.

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Santería Santería is a Spanish word for the belief system of Yoruba heritage that developed among Cuba’s African and African-derived populations. But it refers also to the similar system practiced in places like Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Latino communities in the United States. The word Santería comes from the Spanish “santos” or “saints” and means “of the saints” or “the religion of the saints” in English. The religion was created by enslaved Africans as they confronted Roman Catholic Church teachings. It is important to note that both Catholic and African religious understandings included the belief that the Supreme Being could make his desires known through the saints. Santería members report alternative names for Santería: Lukumí, Yoruba, Ocha, and Regla de Ocha. Ulukumi, although not thoroughly substantiated, is thought to be a place, region, or city in ancient Yoruba-land, southeastern Nigeria and the Republic of Benin today (Castellanos in Lindsay 1996, 39–41). Eventually, the regional designation became a term for the many types of related Yoruba groups who left West African ports and landed in Cuba as Lukumís or Lucumís. In Cuba, the word Lukumi became a way of greeting friends, as well as an alternative name for the Spanish Regla de Ocha—literally, “The Oricha Order or Rule/Law” (see Brandon 1993 for Santería history). Although Santería is not always the preferred term, all refer to one West African worship practice of Yoruba heritage in which the Orishas are present. Researchers have noted intra-African as well as Catholic-African syncretism among the religions that formed in the Americas, including Santería (Walker 1980; Daniel 2005). An example of intra-African syncretism can be seen in the interspersed prayers, songs, and dances, or sometimes whole rites, from Kongo-Angola or central African tradition into Yoruba settings or in the interchange of Yoruba and Arará

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Santería | 825 (another West African religion of Cuba) names. Often, time and attention are given to “old Congo spirits” when they arrive in a public Santería service or when they are invoked in private as a separate part of Yoruba practice. At times, names of Yoruba orichas are interchangeable with Palo spiritual entities (nkisis), for example, Ogun and Sarabanda, or with Arará spiritual entities (vodunes), like Chango and Gebioso. Historically, intra-African syncretism is caused by joining two or more differing religions in one family, usually one from the maternal and the other from the paternal side. Children then practice both religions, and over time, practices combine as members try to be respectful to both ancestral traditions. S ANTERÍA , LUKUMÍ , AND YORUBA B ELIEFS Worshipers within this and similar African American religions understand Santería as a balancing of spiritual and material energies, individual and cosmic concerns, and practical and theoretical philosophies. They surround themselves with or attend carefully to nature (plants, herbs, animals, wind, earth, fire, and water) and combine natural objects with spiritual objectives. They perform devotional prayers of praise and follow a priestly caste of male and female leaders, called santeros (as), who pray for and advise, heal, and cure the extended religious family. These spiritual leaders also acknowledge a higher caste of divining priests, called babalawos, who study the philosophic principles of the oracle of Ifa and who counsel and direct religious practice also. Some Santería members express allegiance to Santería, but rely mostly on their Roman Catholic devotion and the Catholic clergy. More often, members are born into Santería or initiated in as iyawos. They construct and maintain altars for the saints in their homes. An iyawo studies for several months before initiation ceremonies, for one year after initiation, and fully completes obligations after seven years of service to the ritual community. At the time of death, members are ritually incorpo-

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rated into the ancestor realm (to live with the most ancient ancestors called Eguns) through organized funereal services. Orichas, the Yoruba divinities, were transported from their home territories in what are now Nigeria and Benin, across the Bight of Benin, to the Caribbean and Latin America (particularly Haiti, Cuba, Brazil, and Trinidad); there, they were transposed into or at least discussed in terms of santos or saints. A huge difference between Yoruba-land religious practices and those in the Americas was the joining of all the orichas into one religious liturgy, as opposed to worshipping each oricha on his or her own soil. This profound reconfiguration of African religious thought into an African American religion called Santería occurred in Cuba, but Yoruba beliefs and practices are now found within niches of transnationality in the United States and elsewhere around the globe—from Canada to Chile to Finland to Japan. Two prominent characteristics of Santería (and Roman Catholicism also) are beliefs in life after death and the existence of divine, human-like spirits or saints. Santería worshipers believe that the life force or ache that is within everyone and everything comes from God, or the Supreme Being, in Catholic terms, and from Olofi, Oludumare, or Olorun, and others in Santería. The saints or orichas have influence with the Supreme Being and are “more available” or close to the human community. Worshipers believe nothing truly dies at death, but lives on in different realms and forms within the universe. They believe that the orichas live in Orun, a cosmic realm of the universe, and that they come to earth when invoked properly or when needed, in accordance with their function of guiding and protecting the religious community. Worshipers believe humans may leave their bodies in the human realm at death, but their ache goes to live with the ancestors. Therefore, the dead are alive in the ancestor realm, a different location in the Yoruba worldview than the human realm (Bascom 1969; Daniel 2005, 81–82, 84–85).

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Like all of the dominant religions, Santería has spiritual transformation as its objective. The ideal and most preferred transformation is from an ordinary human to a godly or spiritual being, and transformation is the goal of many Santería services; also, ideally, the experience of transformation should linger beyond a single religious service and should affect behavior and attitudes in other nonreligious settings. In Santería, this idea is expanded to the idea of an extended family of believers within the social world. It begins and ends, however, with the believing individual in her or his relationship with nature and a very populated spiritual world. Santería devotees believe in multiple aspects of God, just as many Judeo-Christians believe. In their view, different aspects of God are responsible for particular domains of social life. For example, Oludumare is the creative aspect of God; he or she is not the dimension of God that they would call on for troubles with their agricultural or business concerns or for protection against imminent danger. She or he is thought to be too far away, while the orichas Yemanyá or Ogún would be invoked more quickly. Worshipers’ methods of efficient spiritual communication are through musical and danced invocations, as well as through prayer and sacrifice—sometimes the sacrifice of the animals that are thought to be associated with each oricha. Worshipers say they are “feeding” the orichas, but they also treat the spilling of blood as a symbol of serious purpose and commitment (similar to Christians’ views of symbolically “eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ” during communion in both Protestant and Catholic religions). Santería has often been analyzed in terms of its transformative power through ceremonial “spirit possession.” The term “possession” is problematic, however, in that it fosters a pejorative estimation of a legitimate African, as well as a legitimate religious, belief. Thoughtful worshipers speak of “manifesting” spiritual energy and “incorporating” or “embodying” the orichas. These terms are preferred to the one

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colonial authorities used to describe culturallydifferent behaviors among Africans. R ELIGIOUS S ERVICES OR C EREMONIES Private, prayerful services account for much of Santería worship; however, semi-public dance and music ceremonies invoke the orichas to commune with the entire religious community. Ceremonies, called toques or bembes in Spanish or wemileres in Yoruba, punctuate a calendar year with celebratory “birthdays” of the orichas, as well as “birthdays” or initiation anniversaries of worshipers. Toques are structured liturgies that combine drumming, singing, praying, dancing, and divining. As a result, Santería is often regarded as a “dancing religion,” and a great number of baptized drummers, drums, and initiates gather for regular services between sunrise and sunset; after sunset other abericula (nonbaptized) drums are usually played for services. Worshipers interpret the life histories of the orichas as lessons for human behavior. Proper social relationships and appropriate behaviors are outlined and retold in chants, proverbs, folk tales, and religious liturgy as well as oral, written, and danced histories. These relationships and behaviors are vividly repeated through codified gestures, expressive movement sequences, and a range of kinesthetic responses. Spiritual communication, physical healing, and societal solidarity are confirmed within danced religious services. In the dances of Santería, the physical body becomes the social body, both the repository of knowledge from the collective memory of a variety of Yoruba ethnic groups and the sensitized reactor to contemporary transnational culture. While in performance, the body is dressed in memory and spiritual clothing; it drinks of archaic chants and ancient rhythms, as well as from synthesized and electronic sound concoctions. It digests and displays organic movements of old, as well as contemporary gestures, until it generates a power within that is capable of transforming self and others.

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Santería | 827 porting social kinship or extended family organization. While the worship changed with the transatlantic crossing, many Yoruba principles and precepts on which it was grounded have survived in contemporary devotional communities. Worshipers believe that through initiation, divination, offerings, routine celebrations, and funeral services a believer can grow toward greater spiritual strength, maintain balance in the material world, and learn from the wisdom of the orichas. Rites of adoration and petition, including dance, song, and drumming, permit a transformation, a manifestation, or in other views a reincarnation of specific orichas or santos—and the orichas arrive within the body of a worshipping dancer. As drums voice each oricha’s particular set of rhythms, as chants are sung in archaic ritual languages, and as the worshipping bodies dance, African religious orientation continues as Santería in the Diaspora. Yvonne Daniel The batá are a group of three drums from the Yoruba culture in Nigeria. (islapercussions.com)

The music liturgy is led by the akpwon or lead singer and a chorus of males and females singing in responsorial or call and answer form. They sing a huge vocal literature that is organized into sections for the orichas, called trataos. Vocalists work simultaneously with trained musicians who play batá (or twoheaded drums), güiro (or beaded gourds), or Iyesa drums (specific Yoruba nation drums) from a huge percussion repertory (Amira and Cornelius 1992). And, the dancing is also codified according to the orichas. C ONCLUSION Santería maintains the following features within its worldview: a highly structured initiation process, specifically organized divining and funereal procedures, a richly textured sound, visual and gesture complex, and a sup-

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See also Àshé; Candomblé; Vodoun. F URTHER R EADING Adefunmi, I, Oba Osejiman Adelabu. 1982. Olorisha, A Guide Book into Yoruba Religion. Oyotunji Village, SC: Great Benin Books. Amira, John, and Steven Cornelius. 1992. The Music of Santería; Traditional Rhythms of the Batá. Crown Point, IN: West Cliffs Media. Barnes, Sandra T., ed. 1989. Africa’s Ogun: Old World and New. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Bascom, William. 1950. “The Focus of Cuban Santería.” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 6 (1, Spring): 64–68. Bascom, William. 1969. Ifa Divination: Communication between Gods and Men in West Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Bascom, William. 1972. Shango in the New World. Occasional Publication of the African and Afro-American Research Institute, No. 4. Austin: University of Texas. Bascom, William. 1980. Sixteen Cowries: Yoruba Divination from Africa to the New World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Bolívar, Natalia. 1990. Los orichas en Cuba. La Habana, Cuba: Ediciones Union.

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828 | Santiago de Cuba Brandon, George. 1993. Santería from Africa to the New World: The Dead Sell Memories. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Cabrera, Lydia. 1940. Cuentos negros de Cuba. Havana, Cuba: La Verónica. Cabrera, Lydia. 1957. Anagó: Vocabulario Lucumí. Havana, Cuba: Ediciones C.R. Cabrera, Lydia. 1974. Yemaya y Ochun. New York: Colección del Chichereku. Cabrera, Lydia. 1983. El monte. Miami: Colección del Chichereku. (Orig. pub. 1954). Canizares, Raul. 1999. Cuban Santería. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books. Carnet, Carlos. 1973. Lucumí. Religión de los Yorubas en Cuba. Miami: AIP Publications Center. Castellanos, Isabel. 1996. “From Ulkumí to Lucumí.” In Santería Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art, ed. Arturo Lindsay, 39–41. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. Daniel, Yvonne. 2005. Dancing Wisdom: Embodied Knowledge in Haitian Vodou, Cuban Yoruba, and Bahian Candomblé. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. Edwards, Gary, and John Mason. 1985. Black Gods: Orisa Studies in the New World. Brooklyn, NY: Yoruba Theological Archministry. Gleason, Judith. 1987. Oya, In Praise of the Goddess. Boston: Shambhala Publication. Gonzalez-Wippler, Migene. 1973. Santería: African Magic in Latin America. New York: Julian Press. Gonzalez-Wippler, Migene. 1992. The Santería Experience: A Journey into the Miraculous. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications. Lachatánere, Rómulus. 1942. Manuel de Santería. La Habana, Cuba: Editorial Caribe. Lindsay, Arturo, ed. 1996. Santería Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. Lucas, Olumide. 1948. The Religion of the Yorubas. Lagos, Nigeria: CMS Bookshops. Mason, John. 1985. Four New World Yoruba Rituals. New York: Yoruba Theological Archministry. Murphy, Joseph. 1988. Santería: An African Religion in America. Boston: Beacon Press. Murphy, Joseph, and Mei-Mei Sanford, eds. 2000. Osun Across the Waters: A Yoruba Goddess in Africa and the Americas. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Ortiz, Fernando. 1985. Los bailes y el teatro de los negros en el folklore de Cuba. La Habana, Cuba: Editorial Letras Cubanas. (Orig. pub. 1951).

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Sandoval, Mercedes Cros. 1975. La religión de los orichas. Hato Rey, Puerto Rico: Colección Estudios Afrocaribeños. Simpson, George. 1980. Black Religions in the New World. New York: Columbia University Press. Vega, Marta. 2000. The Altar of My Soul. New York: Bantam Books. Walker, Sheila. 1972. Ceremonial Spirit Possession in Africa and Afro-America. Leiden, Holland: E. J. Brill. Walker, Sheila. 1980. “African Gods in America: The Black Religious Continuum.” Black Scholar 11 (8): 45–61.

z Santiago de Cuba There is extensive literature on the African roots of Cuban culture. Historians agree that African culture remained a stronger presence in Cuban culture, largely because of the continuance of the “illicit slave trade” up through the end of the 19th century. Thus Yoruba and Congolese religious practices, and the Abakua secret society were able to maintain a certain currency. Larry Crook (1992) traces the origins of the enslaved Africans who were transported to Cuba as being primarily from West and Central Africa. They represented varied ethnic groups, including the Lucumi (Yoruba), Arara (Dahomean), Abakua (Carabali), and various Bantu (Congo) peoples. H ISTORIC D EVELOPMENTS Santiago de Cuba was founded in 1514 and was the first capital of Cuba, from 1522 to 1589. It was only a few years after Santiago became the capital of Cuba that the first enslaved Africans were transported there. They were the ancestors who sowed the seeds of African matrix cultural traditions in Cuba. Rafael D. Jiménez (2000) affirms that the first bozales, that is, Africans born in the continent of Africa, arrived in the village of Santiago in 1522. Cuba’s strategic location in the Caribbean and its large size made it a vital port during the

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Santiago de Cuba | 829 transatlantic enslavement trade. There was a diverse flow of imports and exports that included enslaved Africans who were transported from Africa, other Caribbean islands, South and Central America, and the United States. This allowed for a renewed flow of continental enslaved Africans who constantly replenished African cultural traditions in Cuba during the 350-year transatlantic slave trade. Jimenez estimates that 1.3 million enslaved Africans were imported to Cuba during that period, which endured legally until 1886. Thus Santiago de Cuba, like Salvador da Bahia in Brazil, is one of the African diasporic sites where the African imprint is strongest, and is expressed in the material, spiritual and cultural identity of its people. The historic background of the extensiveness of the transatlantic slave trade in Cuba can be seen by the large concentration of Africans imported to Cuba. This extensiveness also highlights the constant African cultural renewal that continued past the official 1886 abolition of slavery. Therefore, it also explains the rich and varied African matrix expressions evident in Cuba. Judith Bettelheim (1993) provides further insight into the significance of Santiago de Cuba’s contribution to the economic, social, and cultural realms that eventually led to Cuban national identity and cultural traditions. She invokes the recollection of the socioeconomic implications of the enslavement and plantation system in the establishment of Santiago de Cuba in a position of central importance for more than half of the island. In addition, Santiago de Cuba was fundamental in effecting profound cultural changes fundamental to the configuration of a national culture for all Cuban people. The dominant input in Cuban national culture is African, given the marked presence of African-descended people that have been bearers of the African matrix culture. This prominent African influence in Cuba was attained through the maintenance of African matrix cultural traditions and expressions. Antonio Benítez Rojo (1999) asserts that African music as reinterpreted in the African diaspora was the www.abc-clio.com

driving force in creating modern Cuban nationality. In Cuba, national culture is centered on music and dance. Rafael Brea López (1997) attests to the multidimensional significance of music and dance in the Caribbean. He proclaims music and dance to be the most popular artistic expressions in the multicultural Caribbean. López similarly argues for the importance of dance, song and percussion in the structuring of a cultural system that also has existence in the realm of ideas, philosophy and religiosity. C ONTEMPORARY S ANTIAGO DE C UBA As of July 2004, statistics on Cuba indicate an estimated population of 11,308,764. The province of Santiago de Cuba has a population of 1.2 million and the city of Santiago’s population is 554,000. Cuba’s population is estimated to be 62 percent African descended, including the black and mulatto census categories. Therefore, significantly more than half of Cuba’s population can be considered porters of African matrix cultural heritage. Santiago de Cuba is known to have the best carnival celebrations in Cuba. There are also numerous festivals, which are mostly African matrix cultural productions. The descendants of the African cultural porters who survived the transatlantic enslavement process managed to preserve what can be referred to as African matrix cultural expressions. Alicia M. Sanabria See also Abakuá; Cuba: Afro-Cubans. F URTHER R EADING Bettelheim, Judith.1993. Cuban Festivals: An Illustrated Anthology. New York: Garland Publishing. Boggs, Vernon, ed. 1992. Salsiology: Afro-Cuban Music and the Evolution of Salsa in New York City. New York: Excelsior Music Publishing Company. Crook, Larry. 1992. “The Form and Formation of the Rumba in Cuba.” Jimenez, Rafael A. D. 2000. Africa en Santiago de Cuba en su 485 Aniversario, ed. Guadalupe R. Hechavarria. Palma Soriano, Cuba: Gráfica Haydee Santamaria.

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830 | Schomburg, Arturo Alfonso (1874–1938) Lopez, Rafael Brea. 1997. “Africania de la Danza Caribena.” Del Caribe 26: 37. Rojo, Antonio Benitez. 1999. “The Role of Music in the Emergence of Afro-Cuban Cultures.” In The African Diaspora: African Origins and New World Identities, ed. Isidore Okpewho, Carole Boyce Davies, and Ali A. Mazrui, 197–203. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

z Schomburg, Arturo Alfonso (1874–1938) A writer, an activist, and a historian, Arthur Schomburg is a major contributor to the development of a body of knowledge and research sources on the African Diaspora. His large rare collection of literature and artifacts has been used by scholars of the African Diaspora worldwide for almost a century. He was born Arturo Alfonso Schomburg in Santurce (a community in San Juan), Puerto Rico, on January 24, 1874. His mother, Maria Josefa, was a freeborn black native of Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, and his father, Carlos Federico Schomburg, was a mestizo with German heritage. Arturo identified himself as an “Afroborinqueño” (Afro-Puerto Rican). Schomburg’s activist life began when he was a child and his fifth-grade teacher adamantly argued that people of African descent had no history, made no contributions to society, and were basically insignificant. Schomburg became committed to challenging these popular portrayals of his people. He developed an “insatiable thirst” for knowledge about the histories and cultures of people of Africa. Schomburg chose to study at St. Thomas College in the Virgin Islands after studying painting at the San Juan Institute in Puerto Rico. In April 1891 he moved from Puerto Rico to Harlem, New York. He immediately connected with the Latin American community and joined El Sol de Cuba Lodge No. 38, the

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Bibliophile Arturo Schomburg, who was of Puerto Rican descent, in an undated photo. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem is named after Schomburg, who was an avid collector of materials related to African Diaspora peoples and their experiences. (Bettmann/Corbis)

Spanish-speaking Masonic lodge. Between 1892 and 1896 he actively participated in the political club Las Dos Antillas, which advocated for independence for Cuba and Puerto Rico. In 1911 Schomburg cofounded the Negro Society for Historical Research and was one of its earlier secretaries. This organization published several scholarly documents on the African Diaspora experience. In 1914, Schomburg was inducted into the American Negro Academy, which championed black history and fought against the “scientific racism” of the day. He later became the president of the academy. In 1904, Schomburg published his first article, “Is Hayti Decadent?” in The Unique Advertiser. In 1925, he wrote “The Negro Digs Up His Past.” During that period he became a prolific writer, publishing multiple articles in the New York Times, the Crisis, Opportunity, and other journals and magazines. He was a very

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Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture | 831 important figure in the Harlem Renaissance and was friends with many of the artists and activists in both the Harlem Renaissance and within the Afro-Latino Diaspora community. Schomburg was awarded the William E. Harmon Award in 1927 for outstanding work in the field of education. From 1931 to 1932, he was curator of the Negro Collection at the Fisk University library (Nashville, Tennessee). In 1932, Schomburg traveled to Cuba, collected materials, and met Afro-Cuban artists and writers. From 1932 to 1938 he served as curator of the Schomburg Collection of Negro Literature and Art housed at the 135th Street Branch. He remained there, doing what he loved, until his death on June 8, 1938. Schomburg’s assessment of the importance of African and African Diaspora history and culture is best summarized in the three tenets that were articulated in his article “The Negro Digs Up His Past” and that guided his life: • The Negro has been throughout the centuries of controversy an active collaborator, and often a pioneer, in the struggle for his own freedom and advancement. • By virtue of their being regarded as something “exceptional,” even by friends and well-wishers, Negroes of attainment and genius have been unfairly disassociated from the group, and group credit lost accordingly. • The remote racial origins of the Negro, far from being what the race and the world have been given to understand, offer a record of creditable group achievement when scientifically viewed, and more important still, they are of vital general interest because of their bearing upon the beginnings and early development of culture. Valerie Smith See also Harlem Renaissance; Puerto Rico: AfroPuerto Ricans; Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

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F URTHER R EADING AfricaWithin.com. “Arturo (Arthur) Alfonso Schomburg (1874–1938), Bibliophile, Historian, Writer, Collector.” www.africawithin.com/schomburg/schomburg bio1.htm (accessed January 22, 2008). Ortiz, Victoria. 1986. “Arthur A. Schomburg: A Biographical Essay” in The Legacy of Arthur A. Schomburg: A Celebration of the Past, A Vision for the Future. Exhibition catalog. New York: The New York Public Library. Schomburg, Arthur A. 1925. “The Negro Digs Up His Past.” Harlem Number The Survey Graphic (March): 70–72. etext.lib.virginia.edu/harlem/SchNegrT.html (accessed January 22, 2008). Schomburg (Arthur A.) Papers, 1724–1895 (1904–1938). New York Public Library Digital Library Collection. The Arthur A. Schomburg Papers. 1991. The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. Sinnette, Elinor Des Verney. 1989. Arthur Alfonso Schomburg: Black Bibliophile & Collector. New York: The New York Public Library.

z Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Many consider the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture to be the world’s leading research facility devoted to the preservation of materials on the global African and African Diaspora experiences. It serves as a focal point for Harlem’s cultural life, a source of inspiration and education for the populace, and the national research library in the field. The original collection that formed the foundation of the center, which evolved over time, was purchased in 1926 from Arturo (Arthur) Alfonso Schomburg for $10,000 by the New York City Public Library. The collection reached international acclaim soon after its purchase and has served as a major repository of materials and artifacts of African and the African Diaspora peoples for more than 80 years. Originally, the

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library system housed the materials in a poorly lit dusty row house in Harlem, and they were accessible by appointment only. The breadth and scope of the collection is impressive, and at times overwhelming, because there is such a wealth of scholarly content and rich history. The collection was ultimately moved to a beautiful new building that serves as a library, research center, and museum, and it became known as the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The center houses permanent and temporary exhibits, as well as traveling exhibits. It contains databases, digital collections, and African American church collections, including the African Methodist Episcopal Church collection. The materials in the center are organized in five collections: • Art and Artifacts Division: Includes traditional African and Diaspora artifacts, such as masks, statuary, traditional dress, sculptures, paintings, and adornments and archival materials on the subject. The 20th-century works are emphasized. • General Research and Reference Division: Holds and provides access to books, serials, and microforms containing information by and about the people of Africa and the Diaspora. Particular emphasis is placed on the social sciences, humanities, and the arts of sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, and the Caribbean. • Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division: Contains one-of-a-kind and rare books, archival materials, and a variety of manuscripts. • Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division: Contains collections of records and other audiovisual materials, including a gallery collection. • Photographs and Prints Division: Contains documents and photos that provide in-depth study of the

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experiences of Africans and the Africandescent peoples. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a gathering place for cultural events, a major research center for scholars of the African and African Diaspora experience, and an educational center with the goal of increasing knowledge about the African American peoples and their experiences and cultures. Valerie Smith See also “African” in African American History; Schomburg, Arturo Alfonso (1874–1938). F URTHER R EADING Schomburg home page, www.nypl.org/research/sc/sc.html.

z SCLC See Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

z Scott, Hazel (1920–1981) Hazel Scott was one of America’s foremost pianists. Under the guidance of her mother, Alma, she began playing piano at the age of two. Hazel began formal music training after the family moved from Trinidad and Tobago to the United States in 1924. She made her American debut at New York’s Town Hall two years later and, by 1929, Scott had acquired six scholarships to Juilliard School of Music in New York City. At 14, she was too young to attend Juilliard, so she joined her mother’s AllWoman Orchestra, playing piano and trumpet. By 16, Hazel was a radio star on the Mutual Broadcasting System and playing at the Roseland Dance Hall with the Count Basie Orches-

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Seychelles Islands | 833 tra. Her combination of two approaches to piano—classical and jazz—made Scott an outstanding contributor to the genres. In the late 1930s, she appeared in the Broadway musicals Singing Out the News and Priorities of 1942. Her films include Something to Shout About, I Dood It, Tropicana, Broadway Melody, The Heat’s On (1943), Broadway Rhythm (1944), and Rhapsody in Blue (1945). During the early 1950s, she became the first black woman to have her own television show, but due to accusations of her being a communist, her show was canceled. Scott defended her position in fund-raising events, fighting for groups in the name of equal rights. She was widely recognized for her efforts in the struggle for racial freedom and justice. After living in Paris, she returned to America in 1967, and appeared on the television shows Julia and The Bold Ones. In 1978, she was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. In October 1940, she starred at the opening of Barney Josephson’s Cafe Society Uptown, off Park Avenue, and ever since that date, her pianistic pyrotechnics have been acclaimed throughout the United States and Europe. Hazel was married to the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., noted Congressman, preacher, and editor. Her most famous hit was “Tico Tico” released on her album Relaxed Piano Moods, with Charles Mingus and Max Roach, and is most highly regarded by critics today. Her style was stride and boogie woogie, popular in the 1940s. Scott continued to perform until her death in 1981. Joan Cartwright See also Jazz and Blues Singers, Black Women; Trinidad and Tobago. F URTHER R EADING The African American Registry. “Exceptional Talent and Appeal, Hazel Scott.” www.aaregistry.com/african american history/946/Exceptional talent and appeal Hazel Scott (accessed January 22, 2008). Caribbean Hall of Fame. “Hazel Scott” caribbean.halloffame.tripod.com/Hazel Scott.html (accessed January 22, 2008).

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Harrison, Daphne Duval. 1988. Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the 1920s. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

z Seychelles Islands The Seychelles Islands, or the Republic of Seychelles, is an archipelago of islands, with at least six defined groups of islands (Groupe d’Aldabra, Groupe de Farquhar, Groupe d’Alphonse, Groupe des Amirantes, Iles Proche, Groupe des Iles Australes) off the coast of East Africa in the Indian Ocean, in closest proximity to the islands of Mauritius and Reunion. The Seychelle islands, especially Mahe, the biggest, and Victoria, the capital, served as symbols of Anglo-African relationship in precolonial rule: Africa’s resistance to colonial rule and British exiles or dissidents to the islands. The Seychelles Islands today are populated partly by descendants of enslaved Africans who have influenced the history, politics, and culture of the country representing an important relationship between Africa and the Diaspora. In many ways, the Seychelles mirror the Caribbean islands, on the other side of the world with similar geographies, colonial histories, land and sea scapes, peoples and cultural production. With a population of 90,000 spread among 115 small islands covering an area of 107 square miles, the Seychelles was initially colonized by the French in 1756 and administered as part of Mauritius. In 1814, the British signed the Peace Treaty of Paris with the French and became the new colonizers. Between 1814 and 1920, the British used the islands as political prisons for the leaders who resisted colonial rule. The exiled leaders were from Palestine, but also (and most significantly) Cyprus (Archbishop Makarios), Malaysia (the Sultan of Perak), and Maldives (Afif Didi). Among the African political prisoners were King Mwanga and King Kabarega

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from the powerful kingdoms of Uganda; others were from Malawi, Somalia, Zanzibar, and Egypt. One prisoner who became world famous, however, was the 20-something-old King Nana Prempeh I of Asante who preferred exile to British destruction of his kingdom’s capital, Kumasi, in 1896. He was exiled the longest— 24 years in Mahe (almost equivalent to Nelson Mandela’s stay at Robben Island) with his mother Nana Yaa Akyea and 54 other chiefs and relatives. Prempeh’s imprisonment, like those of the others, was a strategy of weakening traditional political systems in the colonies while the period of exile was used for political and cultural indoctrination and dispossession. The prisoners became Christians under duress and chose their denominations. They were baptized and given Christian names. Prempeh converted to Anglicanism and was given the name Edward after King Edward of England. He, like the others, ended practices such as polygamy and wearing the traditional Ntam or African cloth. Instead, he was made to wear suits and taught to read and write in English. In 1924, when Prempeh I returned to Kumasi, and contrary to British expectation that his exile had weakened the kingdom and would make him the embodiment of a British ruler, his people, the Asantes, who had waited for 24 years and rejected British-appointed kings and chiefs in the interim, restored him as an asantehene or king of the Asantes. Though colonial intentions and systems largely succeeded with imposition of a Westminster type of parliamentary government, traditional institutions in Asante and parts of Africa where some of the exiles came from did not die completely and are today part of the local government structures. Today, while a high degree of tourism marks the beautiful Seychelle Islands, the people of Seychelles see themselves as one of the world’s exponents of creole language and cultures. A Creole Festival (Festival Kreol) organized by the Creole Institute (Institut Kreol) is held

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every year in the capital city of Victoria during the month of October. It is meant to showcase the cuisine, music, dance, film, knowledge production in general of Creole Culture (the blend of African, European, Asian cultures) in this part of the world. Another group, L’association Banzil Kreol, is headquartered there and is meant to coordinate activities of creole cultures across the islands in the Indian Ocean and beyond. Ivor Agyeman-Duah See also Ghana; Mauritius. F URTHER R EADING Agyeman-Duah, Ivor. 1999. Memories of History in Seychelles. Kumasi, Ghana: CIR Publishers. Festival Kreol. www.seychelles.net/festivalkreol (accessed February 9, 2008). Mahoune, J. C. P. 1999. One Century Ago—An Asante King in Seychelles! Kumasi, Ghana: CIR Publishers. Villiers, Les de. 2002. Africa 2002. Connecticut: The Corporate Council on Africa.

z Shadd Cary, Mary Ann (1823–1893) Teacher, activist, lecturer, publisher, editor, recruiter, and lawyer, Mary Ann Shadd was born on October 9, 1823 to a free black family in Wilmington, Delaware. Founder of Canada’s third black newspaper, Shadd became the country’s second woman newspaper editor. She was the first African American woman enrolled in law school in the United States. Shadd taught school in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New York. Critical of black material ostentation, she published Hints to the Colored People of the North (1849). In 1851 she attended an antislavery convention at St. Lawrence Hall in Toronto, where prominent black abolitionist delegates Henry Bibb, Samuel Ringgold Ward, and Martin Delany

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Shakur, Assata Olugbala (1946–) | 835 were in attendance. That year, she emigrated to Canada West to open an integrated school for children and adults in Windsor. In financial need for her project, Shadd enlisted the help of the Rev. Alexander McArthur and the American Missionary Association. Shadd promoted black immigration to Canada West and published A Plea for Emigration; or, Notes of Canada West (1852). Increasingly, Shadd’s support for integration and free black emigrants and her opposition to the Refugee Home Society cast her as a rival of Henry Bibb, local administrator of the Refugee Home Society and publisher of the black abolitionist biweekly Voice of the Fugitive (1851–1853), and his wife Mary, cofounder and teacher of a school for fugitives. Scholarship on Shadd and Bibb tends to underscore an “integrationist versus separatist” ideological divide between them and portrays the community as falling into either camp; however, competition for school funds, public accusations of malfeasance, and gendered attacks on character all informed the animosity between the high-profile leaders and suggest that neither the rivalry nor the community’s response to it was so neatly split. Shadd approached Samuel Ringgold Ward for help in starting a second black abolitionist newspaper in Canada West, the Provincial Freeman (1853–1859). Over the newspaper’s lifetime, Shadd worked as editor, writer, fund-raiser, and spokesperson. In 1856, she married Thomas Cary, a Toronto barber, antislavery activist, and father of three children from a previous marriage. They had two children, though, as Shadd had moved to Chatham by 1855, there is no evidence the two shared a residence. Shadd added Cary to her name and signed her editorials “M.A.S.C.” Thomas Cary died in 1860. Shadd Cary edited Osborne Perry Anderson’s memoirs, entitled A Voice From Harpers Ferry (1861). She received Canadian citizenship in 1862. In 1863, Shadd Cary recruited black troops for the Union Army. To this end,

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she traveled through the United States, primarily in the perilous Midwest. Although Shadd Cary had returned to Canada West at the end of the Civil War, she moved back to the United States after the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. She lived in Detroit and, in 1869, moved to Washington, D.C., where she wrote for the New National Era promoting black employment and women’s suffrage. She worked as a teacher and school principal. Shadd Cary enrolled in Howard Law School and graduated in 1883, after which she practiced law in Washington. She died of stomach cancer in 1893. Andrea Stone See also Canada and the African Diaspora; The Provincial Freeman. F URTHER R EADING Bristow, Peggy, coordinator. 1994. “We’re Rooted Here and They Can’t Pull Us Up”: Essays in African Canadian Women’s History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Cooper, Afua Ava Pamela. 2000. “Doing Battle in Freedom’s Cause: Henry Bibb, Abolitionism, Race Uplift, and Black Manhood, 1842–1854.” PhD Diss. University of Toronto. Rhodes, Jane. 1998. Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The Black Press and Protest in the Nineteenth Century. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Shadd, Mary Ann. 1998. A Plea for Emigration; or, Notes of Canada West, ed. Richard Almonte. Toronto: The Mercury Press. (Orig. pub. 1852). Silverman, Jason. 1984. “‘We Shall Be Heard!’ The Development of the Fugitive Slave Press in Canada.” Canadian Historical Review 65 (1, March): 54–69.

z Shakur, Assata Olugbala (1946–) Assata Olugbala Shakur (born Joanne Chesimard) was a prominent member of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and the author of an autobiography that changed the way

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resistance and women’s participation in revolutionary struggles have been conceptualized. Born in Jamaica, New York, on July 20, 1946, to a predominately Southern, female-led family, Shakur describes herself as being an ordinary revolutionary—someone who rises up to face the challenges of life for herself and her community. In Swahili her name means, “She who struggles,” “Love for the people,” and “the Thankful” (Shakur 1986) Exerting her independence at a young age, her life was filled with challenges to racism, sexism, and classism. She is a political activist who was falsely accused, tried, and persecuted by the U.S. government, specifically by the state of New Jersey, for allegedly killing a New Jersey State trooper. Depicted as a fearsome leader of the Black Liberation Army, Shakur was victimized by J. Edgar Hoover’s Federal Bureau of Investigation campaign to criminalize black nationalist organizations and their leaders (COINTELPRO or Counterintelligence Program). As a black activist woman, she was forced underground and made a fugitive for several years before her eventual arrest, during which she was shot at, physically and mentally tortured, and denied any and all human rights, even during her pregnancy in prison. Her case and the trials she was made to endure were highly publicized because of the blatant disregard for humanity she experienced in the hands of the U. S. criminal justice system. The charges against her included: armed robbery, bank robbery, kidnap, murder, and attempted murder—all of which have been proven false. As a result of this persecution, she spent more than 10 years in men’s and women’s detention centers in the United States before her liberation from prison and subsequent escape and exile to Cuba. In 1986, her autobiography, Assata, was published, revealing her own account of her life experiences including her capture and false arrest. She described the brutality she endured while incarcerated and a powerful background narrative that lays out her awakening as a black revo-

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lutionary grounded in a history of critical awakening. Several films about Shakur and her life story have been produced, such as Eyes of the Rainbow by Cuban filmmaker, Gloria Rolando. Recording artist Common wrote and produced “A Tribute to Assata,” which was featured on his Like Water for Chocolate album (2000). In addition to several interviews with Shakur, other significant publications include an autobiography written by Evelyn Williams, Shakur’s aunt, confidante, and lawyer. Campaigns to “Free Assata” were launched worldwide by organizations from South Africa to Cuba. Periodically, since her exile in Cuba, the New Jersey state government has offered substantial bounties for Shakur’s arrest. Despite protests and other actions to try to protect her, in May 2005, the state of New Jersey posted an international bounty on her for $1 million. In response, several student organizations of universities and colleges in the New York and New Jersey area displayed posters saying “Assata Is Welcome Here.” Keshia Abraham See also Abu-Jamal, Mumia (1954–); Black Power Movement in the United States; Cuba: AfroCubans. F URTHER R EADING AfroCuba Web. www.afrocubaweb.com. (Accessed February 21, 2008). Bin-Wahad, Dhoruba, Assata Shakur, and Mumia Abu-Jamal. 1993. Still Black, Still Strong. New York: Semiotext(e). Shakur, Assata. 1986. Assata. New York: Lawrence Hill Books. Williams, Evelyn A. 1993. Inadmissible Evidence: The Story of the African American Trial Lawyer Who Defended the Black Liberation Army. New York: Lawrence Hill Books.

z Shakur, Tupac Amaru (1971–1996) Tupac Amaru Shakur was a talented and gifted rap artist, actor, and poet. Tupac Amaru means

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Shange, Ntozake (1948–) | 837 “shining serpent” from the ancient Inca civilization of South America and Shakur means “thankful to God” in Arabic. His birth name was Lesane Parish Crooks and he was born in Manhattan, New York, on June 16, 1971. His mother, Alice Faye Williams (Afeni Shakur), was a political activist and a member of the New York Black Panther Party. His father was William Garland. A creative child, Shakur struggled growing up poor in the Bronx and Harlem, but learned to express his thoughts and feelings about his childhood, sexism, racism, and violence through his poetry. He was a member of a Harlem theater group, the 127th Street Ensemble, when he was 12 years old and later studied ballet and acting at the Baltimore School for the Performing Arts. He was a member of Leila Steinberg’s writing circle when he was 19 years old. In the early 1990s, Shakur left Digital Underground where he was a dancer and rap artist to strike out on his own. He succeeded in recording 13 albums and starring in eight films. His books and albums include Tough Love (1996), The Rose That Grew from the Concrete (1999), Tupac Resurrection (2003). In 1992, he made his first solo debut album, 2Pacalypse Now. Later, he made Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. (1993), Me Against the World (1995), All Eyez On Me (1995), and 2 PAC Outlawz: Still I Rise (1999). Even after his death, his phenomenal creative musical output has continued into the 21st century. Shakur’s strong and salient performance talent opened the door for his acting career. He starred in the movies Juice (1992), Poetic Justice (1993), and Above the Rim (1994). Shakur’s immersion into rap accompanied his thug image in the media and in reality. On April 5, 1993, he was sentenced to 10 days in jail for assaulting a local rap artist with a baseball bat at a concert in Lansing, Michigan. On October 31, 1993, he was also charged for shooting two off-duty Atlanta police officers, but the charges were dropped. On November 29, 1993, he was facing 25 years for charges of sodomy and sexual abuse of a 19-year-old woman, as

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well as weapons possession, for which he was largely acquitted on December 1, 1994. On March 10, 1994, he was charged for assaulting Allen Hughes, the director of the film Menace to Society, after being dropped from the movie cast. On November 30, 1994, he survived being shot five times during a suspected plotted robbery at a Times Square recording studio in New York. On February 14, 1995 he was sentenced to four and a half years at the New York Rikers Penitentiary. He spent eight months in a New York prison and in October 1995 Marion “Suge” Knight, the chief executive officer of Death Row Records, posted a $1.4 million bond to release him. Shakur became a member of Death Row Records and began to release albums. On September 7, 1996, he was shot four times in the chest in a drive-by shooting, after watching the Mike Tyson–Bruce Seldon fight with Suge Knight in Las Vegas. On September 13, 1996, he died after being in critical condition for six days. He was 25 when he died, and his murder remains unsolved. A poet of Shakespearean proportions to his generation, he conveyed a message of black self-love in his creative brilliance. Cheryl Jeffries See also Hip-Hop Culture in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Dyson, Michael Eric. 2001. Holler If You Hear Me. New York: Basic Civitas Books. Jones, Quincy. 1998. Tupac Shakur. New York: Three Rivers Press. “A TupacHQ—Life History— 2pac Tupac Amaru Shakur Makaveli.” www.tupaq.com/lifehistory.shtml.

z Shange, Ntozake (1948–) Ntozake Shange wrote her most famous work, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow is Enuf in 1975. The following year, the play opened at the Henry

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Street Settlement’s New Federal Theatre in New York, thrusting Shange into immediate prominence. That same year, and 17 years after the phenomenal run of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, Colored Girls became the second play by a black woman to reach Broadway. Through this play, Shange popularized a poetic style that sought to revive and tap from the nonverbal paradigms that inform her ancestral oral traditions. To preserve this ceremonial ideal, she devised an avant-garde stage—the choreopoem—to overcome the limitations of dialogue and realism. In her pursuit of a vibrant theatrical form, Shange initiated a revolutionary phase in the AfricanAmerican quest for a functional theater. To fully explore black music, dance, and other nonverbal resources, Shange rejected conventional theater practices and promoted a rich interdisciplinary form that appealed to all the physical senses. Reconstructing standard English usage, Shange used language to reinforce her theatrical liberty and further reject standard practice. Using a colloquial, metaphoric, and rhythmic style that agreed with her poetry, she deliberately distorted the English language by breaking away from conventional spellings and pronunciations. Using her chosen “language,” Shange addressed a wide range of themes, including, among others, racism, the unique position of black woman, stereotypes, the black middle class, the disregard for black artists, and black survival. Central to her themes was a black feminist and Pan-Africanist consciousness that emerged in her antiracism and antiimperialism stance, her rejection of Western cultural hegemony, and her commitment to recuperating marginalized black traditions. The intensity of Shange’s drama is perhaps best expressed in her adaptation of Frantz Fanon’s combat breath theory. Her combat breathing implies the opening of wounds that would be left to bleed as part of a healing process, inspiring solidarity, and seeking the spiritual transcendence of a corporal existence where women are vulnerable.

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Born Paulette Williams to Paul T. and Eloise Williams, a surgeon and a psychiatric social worker, in Trenton, New Jersey, on October 18, 1948, her early childhood, first in upstate New York and later in St. Louis, was extremely sheltered and comfortable. Shange was 13 when her family returned to New Jersey where she completed high school. In New Jersey, she became increasingly aware of the constraints imposed by sexism and racism. Shange earned a bachelor’s degree with honors in Afro-American music and poetry from Barnard College in 1970 and a master’s degree in American studies from the University of Southern California in 1973. In 1971 she dropped the name Paulette Williams and adopted the African (Zulu) name, Ntozake Shange. Ntozake means “she who comes with her own things” while Shange means “one who walks like a lion.” The new names pointed to her new identity and artistic direction. From 1972 to 1975, Shange taught at Sonoma State College, Mills College, and the University of California Extension. While teaching at Sonoma State College, she began writing poetry in earnest. She also found time to dance and perform her poetry with the Third World Collective, Raymond Sawyer’s Afro-American Dance Company; the West Coast Dance Works; and her own company, then called For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide. She also participated in poetry readings at San Francisco State College and with the Shameless Hussy poets. Her involvement with African-type dance was enhanced by her participation in the activities of Halifu Osumare’s The Spirit of Dance, a small troupe of black women. Shange also worked with dancers and musicians who practiced Santería. Taking advantage of her rich dance background, she reapplied this knowledge in the body language of Colored Girls with stunning effectiveness. At the age of 27, Shange moved to New York where, in July 1975, Colored Girls was professionally produced at Studio Ribea in New York

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Shango | 839 City. This was the beginning in a series of 867 performances, 747 on Broadway. Beginning by relying almost absolutely on the choreopoem form, Shange gradually shifted to less rigid choreopoem-related formulas. The significance of her stylistic shift lies in her awareness of the creative restraints resulting from the formulation of rigid dramatic techniques. This shift is evident in Colored Girls, Boogie Woogie Landscapes (1979), Spell #7 (1979), A Photograph: Lovers in Motion (1977), and Daddy Says (1987). Overall, Shange played a key role in expanding the black literary focus on racial and cultural identity so that it embraced a sexual revolution. Having lost faith in the ability of men to respond effectively to female subordination, she furnished the American stage not just with a significant black presence but also a feminine one. Shange thus made pronounced contributions to the black aesthetic and its efforts to break down conventional walls. Phillip Effiong Uko See also Feminism: Black Feminist Movement in the United States. F URTHER R EADING Brown-Guillory, Elizabeth. 1988. Their Place on the Stage: Black Women Playwrights in America. New York: Greenwood Press. DeShazer, Mary K. 1989. “Rejecting Necrophilia: Ntozake Shange and the Warrior Re-Visioned.” In Making a Spectacle: Feminist Essays on Contemporary Women’s Theatre, ed. Lynda Hart, 86–100. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Richards, Sandra L. 1983 “Conflicting Impulses in the Plays of Ntozake Shange.” Black American Literature Forum 17 (2, Summer): 73–78. Shange, Ntozake. 1975. For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co. Shange, Ntozake. 1979. Interview. In In the Memory and Spirit of Frances, Zora, and Lorraine: Essays and Interviews on Black Women Writing, ed. Juliette Bowles, 23–26. Washington, D.C.: Institute for the Arts and the Humanities. Shange, Ntozake. 1984. See No Evil: Prefaces, Essays & Accounts. San Francisco: Momo’s Press.

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Wilkerson, Margaret B. “Music as Metaphor: New Plays of Black Women.” In Making a Spectacle: Feminist Essays on Contemporary Women’s Theatre, ed. Lynda Har, 61–75. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1989.

z Shango Shango (in Brazil, spelled Xango) is a significant orisha in the pantheon of Yoruba cosmology. Shango came to the Americas via the enslaved Africans brought there by the Middle Passage. His presence today is greatest in Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago, and Cuba. His story of unification, upward mobility, and resurrection seemed to resonate with the enslaved, who hoped to do the same. According to various oral accounts from western Africa, Shango began as the fourth alafin of the city of Oyo, the center of Yoruba spiritual and political strength. An alafin was both a religious and dynastic leader, a divine king who ruled by divine right. As alafin, Shango unified the Yoruba peoples after years of bloody civil wars. Shango himself was a great soldier and the epitome of Yoruba masculinity. Once he had achieved unity by means of war, he thought he needed the thrills of battle to keep on being successful. Thus, in order to renew civil war and to recapture his momentum, Shango commanded his own brothers to fight each other. In the melee that ensued, one brother murdered the other. This new grim reality came as a shock to Shango, who hanged himself from an iroko tree. This death was not the final curtain for Shango, of course; his main wife, Oya, brought Shango back to life as an orisha through magical invocations. Shango transformed from dead ruler to orisha by admitting his failure and learning his lesson about the evils of arbitrary and selfish uses of absolute power. His example warned future alafins about abusing their subjects for self-image or selfgratification.

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After his resurrection, in nearly all versions of the story, Shango reconnected with his father, Obatala, who undergirded the moral values of Yoruba cultures. This reunion gave Shango the ethical insights to judge the actions of others, particularly other alafins. His displeasure with their policies or behaviors could lead to omens of lightning and fire, signs of Shango’s presence and his imminent enforcement of providential decisions. White, the color of lightning, and red, the color of fire, became associated with the veneration of Shango. In Cuba, enslaved Africans paired Shango with the Catholic Saint Barbara in part because both of their transcendent journeys involved lightning and fire and, thus, both the male African orisha and female Catholic saint were connected to the colors white and red. In Brazil, Xango was paired with the male Saint Jerome, whose own life story included fiery rhetoric and lightning-sharp flashes of revelation. Charles H. Ford See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Cuba: AfroCubans; Middle Passage; Oya; Santería. F URTHER R EADING Brandon, George. 1993. Santería from Africa to the New World: The Dead Sell Memories. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Canizares, Baba Raul. 2000. Shango: Santería and the Orisha of Thunder. Bronx, NY: Original Publications. Fatunmbi, Awo Fa’lokun. 1991. Iwa-pele: Ifa Quest. Bronx, NY: Original Publications. Warner-Lewis, Maureen. 1996. Trinidad Yoruba: From Mother Tongue to Memory. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.

z Siddis in North Karnataka, India: Biomedical Status The Siddis are an Afro-Indian ethnic group that settled in north Karnataka, especially in the Uttara Kannada district and bordering re-

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gions of the Belgaum and Dharwad districts. They have marked similarities to Africans, from whom they originate, and are popularly known as “Siddis” among the African Diaspora in India; they are found mainly along the west coast of India (Lobo 1984). The Portuguese and English refer to them by various other names, such as Caffre, Abyssinian, and Habshi (Burman 1984; Chauhan 1995). According to records and scholars, the Siddis are descendants of Africans who were brought to India mainly by Arab, Portuguese, and Dutch voyagers (Kamat 1985). The slave trade between western India and East and Southeast Africa throws light on the origin of the Siddis. Each Siddi settlement has about 5 to 40 houses, 8 to 10 settlements within 10 kilometers from the village sangha or Grameena sangha. Three or four village sanghas constitute a cluster sangha (which need not correspond to the taluka). Presently, there are nine cluster sanghas (Idagundi, Kotemane, Gunjavati, two at Arbail, Malagoan, Bhagvati, Mudalgeri, and Gavegal). In all the 28 Grameena sanghas there are 189 settlements, according to a 1996 survey. A sangha means “association” or “group”; Taluka means “block headquarters.” Many villages put together constitute a taluka. Many talukas put together constitute a district. Many districts form a state. The words “sangha” and “taluka” are in local language, Kannada. However these terms have the same meaning in most of the languages in India, including the national language, Hindi. Apart from their common ethnic stock and economic condition, there are three religious groups among the Siddis themselves: Hindu, Muslim and Christian. Physically they resemble each other. A lot of work has been done on the history of migration of African Diaspora peoples who settled in Goa, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat (along the coast), and Andhra Pradesh. Sociological aspects of the Siddis have also been studied extensively, especially by T. C.

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Siddis in North Karnataka, India: Biomedical Status | 841 Palakshappa in 1976 and Cyprian H. Lobo (now Kiran Kamal Prasad) in 1984. Few anthropometric studies have been done and little work has been done to study the biomedical status of the Siddis. We studied the nutritional status, oral health, and general health of the Siddi community. Non-Siddis of the same socioeconomic status who lived in the same environment served as controls. A total of 526 Siddis and 346 nonSiddis were registered for health examination. All subjects submitted for physical examination but some did not consent to a blood examination. Hence it was not possible to examine all the people for all the parameters. Height and weight for age were compared with the 50th percentile values of the National Centre for Health Statistics to determine nutritional status (Lavoipierre 1983). The Siddi children showed a better nutritional status compared with non-Siddi children (x2 = 13.732, df = 4, P<.01) The nutritional status of Siddi adults was better than that of non-Siddi adults (x2 = 13.422, df = 1, P< .001) C URRENT S TATUS AND C ONCLUSIONS • Better nutritional status observed among the Siddis could be attributable to their food habits, as they consume nonvegetarian food. The low incidence of dental caries in Siddis (10.13 percent in adults and 13.67 percent in children) compared with non-Siddis (20.23 percent in adults and 16.8 percent in children) could be attributable to the inherently greater resistance to caries in African races. • Very low incidence of lice infestation among Siddis (0.57 percent) compared with non-Siddis (21.95 percent) could be attributable to the curly nature of their hair, where the nits (lice eggs) may not be able to get firmly attached as well as different hair-grooming standards. • Scabies and tinea infections were slightly lower among the Siddis (0.57 percent

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and 2.68 percent, respectively) compared to non-Siddis (1.22 percent and 3.96 percent, respectively), which could be attributable to poor personal hygiene. • In blood groupings the Siddis exhibited a higher frequency of A gene (19 percent) than B gene (16.01 percent), whereas among the non-Siddis, the frequency of A gene was lower (20.77 percent) than B gene (23.01 percent). • The frequency of Rh negative gene was higher in Siddis (27.38 percent) than in non-Siddis (19.44 percent). • Sickle cell disease and thalassemia were not detected, probably indicating loss of the gene for these abnormal hemoglobins. Prakash V. Patil and Pramod B. Gai See also India and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Anbalagan, K. 1985. Electrophoresis: A Practical Approach, 81–90. Madurai, India: Life Science Book House. Burman, Roy B. K. 1984. Census of India: Bibliography on Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Selected Marginal Communities of India, Part XI (IV A). New Delhi: Office of the Registrar General, 1191. 1961. Chauhan, R. S. S. 1995. Africans in India: From Slavery to Royalty. New Delhi: Asian Publication Services. Dacie, J. V., and S. M. Lewis. 1991. Practical Hematology. 7th ed. Edinburgh: ELBS with Churchill Livingstone. Henry, J. B. 1989. Clinical Diagnosis and Management by Laboratory Methods. 17th ed. Philadelphia: WB Saunders Co. Kamat, S. U. 1985. Gazetter of India Karnataka State, 53. Bangalore, India: Government of Karnataka. Lavoipierre, G. J. 1983. Measuring Change in Nutritional Status, 75–86. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization. Lobo, C. H. 1984. Siddis in Karnataka. Bangalore, India: Centre for Nonformal and Continuing Education. Palakshappa, T. C. 1976. The Siddhis of North Kanara. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers.

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Signifying “Signifying” is the term used to characterize different forms of verbal play common in African American communities in which cleverly contrived comments are used to make subtly veiled commentary or witty insults are used to make not-so-subtly veiled criticisms. In America’s climate of racial segregation and violence, the coded literacy and secret skillful articulation of signifying is one Africanism that survived in the Americas as a means to cope with and resist the silencing oppression of slavery and its legacy. It is a means to suggest a critique while simultaneously sidestepping a direct response or even acknowledging any malicious intent. In short, signifying uses both irony and indirection to express ideas and opinions. Above all, signifying is a ritualistic practice that serves various functions in different African American discursive and communal spaces. Some scholars define signifying as primarily a male-dominated activity (the female version is called “specifying”). African American men in this verbal art form focus their anger, aggression, and frustration into a relatively harmless exchange of wordplay where they can establish their masculinity in verbal “battles” with their peers. This form of signifying lends itself to validating a pecking order style of dominance based on the result of the verbal exchange. Geneva Smitherman (1975) sees signifying as a humorous means to produce well-meaning social critiques for the good of the community at large. Therefore, all members of the community can participate in its formation and, if necessary, its correction. Each participant depends on the verbal text of the other from which he or she will extract some idea in order to construct a new level of meaning, thereby enriching the wordplay and revealing new ideas. Practitioners of signifying often display a mastery of rhythm and rhyme, social awareness, cultural critique, and a high level of improvisational ability.

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Parties who signify on one another are usually aware that they are entering an arena of verbal wordplay, where the most quick-witted, versatile, artful, playful, and layered rhetorician/speaker is often acknowledged as the victor through the response and acceptance of the audience. The opposing party can either “lose” through his or her lesser quality of skillful verbal play or by “losing his cool” by taking an artful slight too personally. These guidelines are readily apparent in various forms of signifying such as “playing the dozens,” “snappin” on somebody, telling “yo momma” jokes, or rhyming in a street corner hip-hop cipher. Henry Louis Gates (1988) suggests that signifying in literature is a rhetorical trope that embodies the African-American vernacular essence of the trickster character in African mythology. African American literary works and authors systematically pay homage to the literary tradition by “signifying back” to their literary forbears, establishing connections, revisiting themes, expanding their meaning and significance, and ultimately affirming their significance. Sometimes signification may occur by inverting a name or meaning, “turning it inside out” to express social commentary. Toni Morrison does this in her novel, Song of Solomon, where the street named for a prominent African American doctor who has been rejected by the town’s white society is called “Not-Doctor Street.” In today’s national politics, politicos and cultural critics in the African American community signify on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s name by inverting it, calling him “Tom-Ass Clarence.” Signifying can affirm, critique, or build community through the involvement of its participants. It depends on the bending, recycling, reshaping, revising, and reinventing of old ideas into new perspectives through instantaneous verbal engagement, which must meet the approval of the larger community witnessing the signifying event to be construed as valid. Though the witticisms expressed

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Simone, Nina (1933–2003) | 843 through signifying can be as sharp, pointed, and painful, as they are funny, it constitutes a set of rhetorical techniques that plays a vital role in the communication practices of African American communities. Jason Esters See also Rap/Rappin’. F URTHER R EADING Gates, Henry Louis. 1988. The Signifying Monkey. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Mason, Theodore O. 1997. “Signifying” In The Oxford Companion to African American Literature, ed. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris. New York: Oxford University Press. Smitherman, Geneva. 1975. Black Language and Culture: Sounds of Soul. New York: Harper. Smitherman, Geneva. 1977. Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America. Boston: Houghton.

z Simone, Nina (1933–2003) Nina Simone, a classically trained pianist, singer, and songwriter, was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina, on February 21, 1933. A child prodigy at the piano by the age of four, Simone’s musical talent blossomed at the African Methodist Episcopal church where her mother was a minister and where Simone played piano and sang in the choir. Simone continued her musical education and studied classical piano at the Juilliard School of Music in New York where she prepared for entrance in the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. When she was not accepted, Simone attributed her rejection to racism. By this time her family had moved from Tryon to Philadelphia, and to support them as well as to finance private music lessons Simone worked as an accompanist. In the summer of 1954, Simone took a job at the Midtown Bar and Grill in Atlantic City where she cultivated a fan base. By 1957, she

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had found an agent, and in 1958, Simone’s first album, Jazz as Played in an Exclusive Side Street Club (later known as Little Girl Blue) was issued on the independent label Bethlehem Records. The single, “I Loves You Porgy,” from Porgy and Bess, her only Top 20 hit, sold over a million copies. After Simone’s second album on Bethlehem, Nina Simone and Her Friends (1959), she signed with the national label Colpix (Columbia Pictures Records) and released nine albums, among them several important live ones, including Nina Simone at Town Hall (1959), Nina Simone at The Village Gate (1962), and Nina Simone at Carnegie Hall (1963). Simone briefly married Don Ross in 1958, and divorced him the next year. A second marriage to Andy Stroud, a former police detective who became her recording agent and with whom she had a daughter, Lisa Celeste, lasted from 1960 to 1970. Like Abbey Lincoln, who often traveled in Simone’s circle of artist friends, including James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, and Lorraine Hansberry—significantly all writers—Simone’s musical repertoire shifted away from show tunes and ballads to original songs about America’s racial problems. Simone was often called the voice of the Civil Rights Movement because of songs like Simone’s album “Mississippi Goddam” (featured on the 1964 album Nina Simone in Concert), which was written after the assassination of Medgar Evers in Mississippi (June 1963) and the bombing of a Baptist church in Alabama that killed four black girls (September 1963), “Old Jim Crow,” and “To Be Young, Gifted and Black.” The latter, composed with the keyboardist Weldon Irvine, Jr., honored playwright Lorraine Hansberry (who was writing a play with the same title at the time of her death), which became an anthem for the growing Black Power Movement and was recorded by numerous artists, among them Aretha Franklin. Simone also performed a plethora of songs that explicitly named sexual desire, such as “I

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Want A Little Sugar in My Bowl,” “Gimme Some,” “Chauffeur,” “Take Care of Business,” and “Don’t Take All Night.” Simone’s recordings of sexual blues bear significance in that they draw on and expand on the musical tradition of the early blues of the Jim Crow and Great Migration era. By revising old blues imagery and combining it with the social themes of her time, Simone represented a different kind of black female symbol—sexual, nurturant, authoritative, and committed to racial uplift. One of the first artists to wear her hair natural, Simone rejected bee hives and supper club gowns wearing instead short, natural hair, often corn-rowed or braided, and African clothes—what she considered symbolic representation of her racial pride. Her song, “Four Women,” in which she creates stark representations of black womanhood throughout American history by describing each woman’s skin tone and hair style in relation to her victimization and objectification, reflected the exclusion of black women from dominant Eurocentric representations of beauty. In 1967, Simone was named the Female Jazz Singer of the Year by the National Association of Television and Radio and became the first woman to win the Jazz Cultural Award. However, embittered by racism, Simone renounced the United States as her homeland in 1969 and would live, over the next two decades, in several countries, including Barbados, Liberia, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. Joining a tradition of African American artists such as Josephine Baker, Sydney Bechet, James Baldwin, Chester Himes, and Richard Wright, Simone adopted France as her home in 1991. That same year she published her autobiography, I Put a Spell on You, and her music was featured in the film Point of No Return. Here, Simone, like the black artists before her, experienced the freedom to explore new aesthetic and social perspectives in her music. In 1992, Verve Records released Let It

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Be Me! Nina Simone at the Vine Street Bar & Grill in Hollywood. On April 21, 2003, 10 years after Elektra released her last album, A Single Woman, Nina Simone, recipient of honorary doctorates in music and humanities and composer of more than 500 songs, died at Carry-le-Rouet, France. LaShonda Katrice Barnett See also Jazz and Blues Singers, Black Women. F URTHER R EADING Acker, Kerry. Nina Simone. 2004. New York, N.Y. Chelsea House Publications. Hampton, Sylvia, with David Nathan. 2004. Nina Simone: Break Down and Let It All Out. London, England: Sanctuary Publishing Ltd. Simone, Nina, with Stephen Cleary. 1991. I Put a Spell on You: The Autobiography of Nina Simone. New York: Da Capo Press. Nina Simone, Obituary, New York Times, April 22, 2003. S ELECTED D ISCOGRAPHY Baltimore (Sony 57906). Black Gold (BMG International 659624). Feeling Good: The Very Best of Nina Simone (Universal International 522747). Folksy Nina/Nina with Strings (Collectables 6208). Nina Simone in Concert/I Put a Spell on You (Verve/Polygram Records 846543). Nina Simone Sings Nina (Verve/Polygram Records 529867)

z Sistren The Sistren Theatre Collective is a women’s theatre group from the Caribbean island of Jamaica. In 1977, some women employed as street cleaners performed a play at the Annual Worker’s Week Celebrations with the assistance of Honor Ford-Smith, staff tutor at the Jamaica School of Drama. This resulted in the play Downpression Get a Blow about garment workers unionizing to defend their rights. Many of the women had been teenage mothers and were the sole breadwinners for their families.

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Sojourners for Truth and Justice | 845 After the worker’s week the women met FordSmith and persuaded her to help them devise performances based on their life experiences. This marked the beginning of the Sistren Theatre Collective (“sistren” means “sisters” in Jamaican creole), a grassroots theatre group that has become a model for politically committed postcolonial dramaturgy. Sistren’s first major production, Bellywoman Bangarang (1978), dramatizes the life stories of young girls marking their passage to womanhood as single mothers. Members’ testimonies were subsequently published in Lionheart Gal: Life Stories of Jamaican Women (1986). The group later performed QPH (1982) focusing on life narratives of elderly destitute women. This play was based on research and interviews with women in Kingston. Yet another play, Nana Yah (1979), examines the role of women in Jamaican history by invoking the legendary figure of Nanny, leader of the maroons or runaway slaves, who led them into battles against colonial authorities. The strength of contemporary women in battling sexual violence and capitalist exploitation is presented in Muffet in a all a wi (1983). Many of these plays use African and Caribbean rituals and folklore as essential elements to convey the message of struggle. Another aspect of Sistren’s work in feminist struggle and resistance was their community outreach workshops and performances. Their attempts to network with women’s and popular theater groups in Jamaica and the Caribbean resulted in productions such as Domestick, Ida Revolt inna Jonkonnu Stylee, Sweet Sugar Rage, Tribute to Gloria Who Overcame Death, and The Case of Iris Armstrong from 1982 to 1985. During this period, Sistren established a research unit and its newsletter became a magazine covering important issues such as domestic and sexual violence, the social effects of economic liberalization, and legal provisions for the protection of women. However, in 1987, the group made the regrettable decision to abandon outreach work in devel-

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oping women’s groups. After Sistren’s reorganization in 1987, it has continued under the leadership of some of its founding members. Because the scale of its work is much reduced it is difficult to assess its current impact in Jamaica and the Caribbean, but there is no denying the continued relevance of the work it undertook from the 1970s to the 1990s. Kanika Batra See also Jamaica. F URTHER R EADING Ford-Smith, Honor. 1989. Ring Ding in a Tight Corner: A Case Study of Funding and Organizational Democracy in Sistren 1977–1988. Toronto, Canada: Women’s Program. Sistren with Honor Ford-Smith. 1986. Lionheart Gal: Life Stories of Jamaican Women. London: Women’s Press.

z Slave Trade See Transatlantic Slave Trade.

z Smith, Dante Terrell See Mos Def (1973–).

z Sojourners for Truth and Justice The Sojourners for Truth and Justice was an all African American women’s progressive civil rights group that sought to give black women an independent voice in the emerging postwar black freedom movement and to build ties of political solidarity with women across the African Diaspora during the early 1950s.

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Veteran progressive activist Louise Thompson Patterson (1901–1999) and Mississippi-born actor-poet Beah Richards (1926–2000) formed the short-lived, New York–based organization in 1951. The group named itself after Sojourner Truth, the notable 19th-century African American abolitionist and women’s rights advocate. Inspired by a tradition of African American women’s resistance and drawing from the Marxist-Leninist positions of the American Communist Party (CPUSA) on racial and gender oppression, the Sojourners developed a radical black feminist program. The stifling Cold War political atmosphere in the United States and the ambivalence of the CPUSA toward the Sojourners contributed to the organization’s demise by 1953. Although practically forgotten today, the Sojourners anticipated radical black women’s organizations of the 1970s and 1980s. The Sojourners emerged at a moment of intense activity in progressive African American political circles around the cases of Willie McGee, the Martinsville Seven, the Trenton Six, and Rosa Lee Ingram during the late 1940s and early 1950s. The McGee case involved a black Mississippi truck driver who was falsely accused of rape by a white woman in 1945. The Martinsville Seven case involved seven African American men falsely accused of gang raping a white woman in Martinsville, Virginia, in 1949. The Trenton Six case involved a group of young African American men who were sentenced to death on a bogus charge of murdering an elderly white shopkeeper. Ingram, a black Georgia sharecropper, was sentenced to death in 1948 for defending herself from the sexual advances of a white man. The cases generated international attention. Despite the efforts of the Civil Rights Congress to build amnesty movements around these cases, McGee and the Martinsville Seven were executed in 1951. The idea for organizing the Sojourners originated during the summer of 1951, but was stimulated by a poem Beah Richards

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penned in 1950, “A Black Woman Speaks of White Womanhood, of White Supremacy, of Peace.” The piece powerfully critiqued the discourse of chivalry that justified the raping of black women and lynching of black men on the grounds of defending white womanhood. The poem asserted that systems of racialized sexual violence and white supremacy not only subjugated black women but also made white women the property of white men. Richards gained notoriety for the poem after reading it before the left-wing Women for Peace group in Chicago. Although not a communist, Richards was a Progressive Party activist, and she moved in left-wing circles. For Patterson, a long-time member of the Communist Party and the Civil Rights Congress, the poem was a clarion call for action. She approached Richards about forming an all-African American women’s civil rights group. By early September, the two women had formed the initiating committee for the Sojourners for Truth and Justice. The committee issued “A Call to Negro Women” for the group’s inaugural meeting in Washington, D.C. from September 29 to October 1, 1951. The Call stands as an important expression of 20th-century black feminism. The statement reflected the group’s understanding that African American women faced multiple oppressions and that mobilizing black women was essential for realizing equality and justice for all. The statement condemned Jim Crow, police brutality, lynching, the death penalty, sexual violence against African American women, and the impoverishment of black Americans. The group called on the federal government to enforce the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifeteenth Amendments and to protect civil liberties. The group stepped directly into Cold War politics, charging that racism was the United States’ Achilles’ heel on the global stage. They demanded the end to the Korean War. The final section called on African American women “to dry your tears, and in the spirit of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth,

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Sojourners for Truth and Justice | 847 ARISE” and attend the group’s opening meeting in Washington (FBI, Sojourners for Truth and Justice Files, 100–384225—2, October 1, 1951, n.p.). More than 130 women attended the Sojourners for Truth and Justice meeting in Washington. The event represented a coming together of a politically and socially diverse group of black women activists. Some of the notable attendees included veteran progressive activists/intellectuals Louise Thompson Patterson, Dorothy Hunton, Shirley Graham DuBois, and Eslanda Robeson, all of whom were members of the Council on African Affairs. New York–based community activist Angie Dickerson, the militant editor of the California Eagle, Charlotta Bass, actor Frances Williams, and playwright Alice Childress also took part in the proceedings. In addition, Rosalie McGee, the 28-year-old, working-class wife of the recently executed Willie McGee; Bessie Mitchell, a sister of one of the Trenton Six defendants; Amy Mallard, whose husband had been murdered in Georgia for voting; and Josephine Grayson, widow of one of the Martinsville Seven attended the meeting. The Sojourners recognized that these women served as powerful symbols of racial injustice meted against black people. The group also encouraged these women who had no previous experience as political activists to become leaders in the struggles for racial justice. The convention issued the “Proclamation of the Sojourners for Truth and Justice,” which reiterated many of the points in the Call. The group selected Bass as president and Patterson as executive secretary. The highlight of the meeting came on its final day. Delegations of Sojourners burst into the Pentagon, White House, and State Department. They demanded civil rights, protection of civil liberties, the end of the Korean War, and the respect of African American women. That evening Sojourners led a candlelight vigil for human rights and peace outside the White House. After the inaugural meeting, Sojourners attempted to build a black women–led, mass

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movement for racial equality and the dignity of black womanhood. The organization founded branches in New York; Baltimore; San Francisco; Los Angeles; Chicago; Cleveland; Richmond, Virginia; and North Carolina. The assassination of Henry Moore, the leader of the Florida branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and his wife, Harriett, on Christmas morning 1951 became a major rallying cry for the group. The Sojourners called for 5,000 African American women to march in Washington on February 12, 1952, Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, to protest the deaths of the Moores. Protestors were instructed to come dressed in black and in veils. However, the Sojourners were unable to stage the event. The group held its last major gathering, the Eastern Seaboard Conference, in Harlem, New York, on March 23, 1952. The proceedings reveal the influence of Communist Party positions on the “triple oppression” of black women, popularized by party leader Claudia Jones, who was also a member of the Sojourners. The group drafted a constitution, organized a youth auxiliary, and debated strategies to bring black women into the labor movement. The delegates also discussed how to build ties with progressive white women. The Sojourners’ efforts to forge ties of political solidarity with female antiapartheid activists in South Africa highlight the group’s diasporic vision. Sojourners sent letters condemning apartheid to the South African ambassador to the United Nations. The group took part in antiapartheid protests in front of the South African consulate in Manhattan. Sojourners also corresponded with female antiapartheid activists and labor organizers in South Africa. These actions illustrate that the Sojourners viewed black women’s oppression in internationalist terms and were attempting to build political alliances with progressive women in Africa. Cold War political repression was largely responsible for the Sojourners’ demise by early

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1953. FBI surveillance reports highlight the government’s tendency to view the group as a subversive, communist front. From the beginning, FBI informants riddled the organization. In little more than a year, the FBI collected more than 400 pages of detailed files on the organization. In the context of U.S. efforts to win the allegiance of emerging Third World nations against the Soviet Union, the efforts of groups like the Sojourners to bring international attention to Jim Crow were of particular concern to cold warriors. Government repression of the group illustrates the devastating effects McCarthyism had on black female progressives. The Communist Party’s ambivalence toward the Sojourners also contributed to the organization’s end. Party officials never fully embraced the Sojourners as the former viewed the latter as a divisive manifestation of racial and gender separatism. Although she never formally nor publicly broke from the CPUSA, Patterson gradually moved away from it by the early 1950s because of the party’s cool response toward the Sojourners. The Sojourners has recently attracted the attention of scholars interested in black feminism and African American women’s activism. The group anticipated radical black feminist organizations of the 1970s and 1980s, such as the Third World Women’s Alliance, National Black Feminist Organization, Combahee River Collective, and Sisters in Support of Sisters in South Africa. Despite its short existence, the Sojourners for Truth and Justice stands as an important social protest organization in the African Diaspora during the mid–20th century. Erik S. McDuffie See also Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Jones, Claudia Cumberbatch (1915–1964); National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO). F URTHER R EADING Boyce Davies, Carole. 2008. Left of Karl Marx. The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones. Durham: Duke University Press.

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Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Sojourners for Truth and Justice” Files. October 6, 1951. Green, Ben. 1999. Before His Time: The Untold Story of Harry T. Moore, America’s First Civil Rights Martyr. New York: Free Press. Hamilton, Lisa Gay. 2003. Beah: A Black Woman Speaks. Televised film, Clinica Estetico and LisaGay Inc for HBO/Cinemax. Videocasette. 90 minutes. Horne, Gerald. 1988. Communist Front? The Civil Rights Congress, 1946–1956. London: Associated University Presses. McDuffie, Erik S. 2003. “Long Journeys: Four Black Women and the Communist Party, USA, 1930–1956.” Ph.D. diss., New York University. Louise Thompson Patterson Papers. Special Collections, Robert W. Woodruff Library, Emory University, Atlanta, GA. Boxes 15, 27. Shapiro, Linn. 1996. “Red Feminism: American Communism and the Women’s Rights Tradition, 1919–1956.” Ph.D. diss., American University.

z Soukous The word soukous is a derivation of the French secouer, which means “to shake.” It is used to describe a popular rhythm of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire and the Belgian Congo). The antecedents of this fastpaced beat are Afro-Cuban music, Congolese rumba, and West African highlife, all brought together in various forms in the exciting history of African music. Congo music, as other Africans call the rhythm of the Congo, dates back to the work camps of European companies in the 1930s, where musicians used guitar, bottles, and likembe (sanza) to play and sing songs in traditional forms combined with Cuban (son, the mother of rumba, pachanga, charanga, mambo, bolero, salsa, and so on) and West African highlife. The advent of radio in the 1940s, and the later opening of studios brought to life various Congo music groups. The one Congolese constant was the language of songs,

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Soul Music | 849 Lingala; in East Africa the music was known as Lingala music. Franco’s influence was indelible: the guitar was a fixture, accompanied by rhythm guitar, double bass, congas, clips, and later a third guitar (misolo), and brass and woodwinds. A good number of the protégés of Franco, one of Soukous’s leading exponents, and his contemporaries branched out to form their own bands in the late 1960s and early 1970s. A common trend among them was the desire to speed up the rhythm of the rather slow rumba. They were listening to music from other places, such as highlife, rock and roll, and soul. Among them were students calling themselves Zaiko Langa Langa. Their music was fast paced and their dressing style was sophisticated. To the music they added dance steps. One of their leaders was Pepe Kalle, who went on to create the band Empire Bakuba. Others were Koffi Olomide and Tshala Muana. Because of the bad political situation in their country under dictator Mobutu, some musicians went into exile in Kenya where their fast music influenced the local dance craze, cavacha, and rhythm. A part of the remarkable phenomenon of soukous is that it affected popular music development in Francophone West Africa, and that influence has not abated, but has expanded to the Anglophone sector, too. Soukous really became a distinct genre in the 1980s as Congolese musicians, still suffering from the sociopolitical turmoil of their nation, left for Paris and London. Although some bands retained the old format of starting off a track in the sweet, slow mode of the rumba, reminiscent of Franco, others eschewed the slow beat and went directly into the speedy beat, inviting everyone to the dance floor. Paris-based Kanda Bongo Man pioneered this beat. His compatriot, Papa Wemba, had two bands, Viva la Musica for soukous, and another, including French session players, for his brand of pop. Kanda Bongo Man invented a dance for his soukous, kwassa kwassa. Other artistes have fol-

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lowed suit, and soukous has become inextricably linked to dance. In Central and East Africa, it is known as soukous ndombolo. In the new millennium of videos, bands produce CDs and DVDs, or CVDs, and the stage is packed by an array of musicians, instrumentalists, singers, and dancers, both male and female. The dancers, and often the singers and players, too, perform specially choreographed steps, with booty-shaking and hip-swinging a regular feature. Soukous’s popularity has spread across the Atlantic, and soukous bands regularly tour Canadian and American cities, playing in places such as Central Park, New York. Femi Ojo-Ade See also Highlife; Salsa. F URTHER R EADING Manuel, Peter. 1990. Popular Musics of the NonWestern World: An Introductory Survey. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Nidel, Richard. 2004. World Music: The Basics. London: Routledge. Rough Guide to Congolese Soukous. 2000. World Music Network (Audio CD)

z Soul Music Soul music was an outgrowth of the citified rhythm and blues that had moved up from the Deep South, particularly the Mississippi Delta, into the chilly North of New York City, the icy Midwest of Chicago, and the balmy Mudtown of Watts, Los Angeles, fused with the Godseeking cry of gospel. During soul music’s glory days in the 1960s and the early 1970s, Motown, Atlantic, Stax, and Arista Records were played 24 hours a day on radio stations devoted to soul, such as the Los Angeles KGFJ, an all–African American station whose byline was “The Sound of Success.” Soul music became the expression of young African America coming out of the explosive

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dawning of the Civil Rights Movement and the blighted faith of the great migrations North, Midwest, and Far West. Popping its fingers rhythmically in groups of two to five on street corners, doing a lot with simple lyrics and a repetitive chorus for the main message, and belting out that characteristic climax holler that had been racially strained out of the integrated new blues and jazz, soul took the deliberate buildup and full-voiced bellow of gospel music beyond rhythm and blues and singers like Lou Rawls, Brook Benton, and Johnny Mathis. Instead, soul was the raw cry of a broken heart full of the passion and suffering of a wrong relationship, because nothing else in the crumbling world of riots, assassinations, and arrests could possibly offer any happiness. The new combination of sacred musical patterns with profane, sensual lyrics was shocking, limitless, and profoundly satisfying. By the time rhythm and blues legends such as Ray Charles and Otis Redding had cut new songs for the new generation, young men and women in groups with names like the Drifters, Chubby Checker, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, the Four Tops, the Temptations, and the Supremes were already on the scene. African American businesspeople with a sharp ear for opportunity were picking up these young artists, recording their original songs, and putting their music out on the segregated radio waves. Enraptured young African American listeners headed for the corner record shops in droves to buy the new 45s (a single song on a plastic disc). When a young Marvin Gaye started cutting singles, he sang with a yearning that brought vivid images to the mind and a vibrant urgency to the body that demanded emotive movement. There was the unembarrassed showmanship of a prizefighter and a preacher overcome by the spirit in each of James Brown’s hollered-out raspy songs, whether they were about how men did not want skinny women or about how no man with black pride

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should still be straightening his hair. By the mid–1960s, everyone had gone from doing the twist to doing the mashed potato, the jerk, and the Watusi, because that is what these singers told you it was time to do. And African American disc jockeys had set the nation a new standard, shouting at young people to “be there” when the new soul singers hit the big stadiums, or “be square.” Soul filled the airwaves with shameful secrets, gut-wrenching disillusionment, and pain-filled love all expressed in flawless rhyme, with a trumpet or saxophone solo, a shoutand-response chorus, and a holler climax that brought soaring catharsis. These formulas applied even to the smooth serenade harmonies of Little Anthony and the Imperials, the Delfonics, the Chi-Lites, the Urhythmics, the Miracles, Herb Melvin and the Blue Notes, the Dells, the Naturalistics, and the earliest Temptations and Supremes. Riskier voices described unblushing need and grating pain: the Four Tops, Al and Jackie Wilson, “Wicked” Wilson Pickett, Jimmy and David Ruffin, Jerry Butler, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Irma and Carla Thomas. But soul could get downright raunchy; Millie Jackson, the Ohio Players, and eventually loner Chaka Khan brought that kind of soul on home in their very different ways. Raw voices, wrenching in their unrestraint, such as those of Aretha Franklin, Bobby Womack, Stevie Wonder, Al Green, and Bill Withers experimented with more abstract expressions of how that familiar old heartache sounded beside a new philosophical outlook, with deeply moving results. Holland, Dozier, and Holland made up a songwriting team whose lyrics could not fail a performer. Power and polish combined in the new soul that evolved in singers such as Luther Vandross and Barry White. Even single-song stars such as Fontella Bass and Ann Peebles had their place and their fame. Only one generation removed from the jazzy sound of big-city bands, jazz soul groups like Booker T. and the MGs, the Bar-Kays, and

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Soul Music | 851 Junior Walker and his All-Stars brought trumpet or sax riffs with rare and highly repetitive lyrics—or no lyrics at all—to a new level of youthful accessibility and success. Families too, such as Sly and the Family Stone, the Jackson Five, the Staple Singers, the Isley Brothers, the O’Jays, and finally the retro-jazz Pointer Sisters all made it big. Now the music drove the movement. Afro hair products including a fisted pick stuck straight in the back of the head, complex cornrow braids, huge hoops of silver and gold in the ears and on the wrists, and Dashiki shirts over tight hip-hugger bell bottoms proclaimed a confident new look that was all about racial self-invention and self-acceptance. As the protest eras of the 1960s and 1970s cooled into what would become the decades of conservative political backlash in the 1980s and 1990s, perhaps soul was hit by the Euro-American business spotlight. Like spirituals, ragtime, blues, and jazz before it, people whose ethnicities and interests lay outside African American communities seemed to have discovered that soul was a moneymaker. Solo artists emerged as Smokey Robinson abandoned the Miracles, as Eddie Kendricks left the Temptations, and the Commodores surrendered their lead singer, Lionel Richie, to soloism. Al Green preempted his last soul concert by using it to announce his return to gospel. A few consummate performers made chameleon changes, bringing as much joy to African American audiences as ever, such as Michael Jackson (formerly of the Jackson Five), Diana Ross (former lead singer of the Supremes), and Marvin Gaye, who had already risen once from the ashes of the death of his partner and lover, Tammy Terrell. Now Gaye, before his own death, briefly carried on in the wave of cooling male reflection that included such artists as Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield. But the incomparable Sam Cooke had long before been shot dead like a common thief, just trying to get into his own motel room, killed like freedom-fighting political leaders of the

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time. Disenchantment with the dream was setting in. The rhythmically gifted teens who had spawned and supported soul were now dispersed and a little older. Some determined young adults had taken the Civil Rights Movement at face value and forged a way into colleges, universities, and professionalism. Many had moved on to a struggling maturity via commitments such as marriage, babies, and jobs, all with their own challenges. A younger group was now teetering on the brink of community implosion brought about in the wildfire growth of gangs that arose after the Black Panthers were hunted down. What remained of soul in this era faded as passing single hits grew cute rather than emotive. New Age message jazz artists and musical groups, like Herbie Hancock; Quincy Jones; Earth, Wind and Fire; and Parliament were able to bridge to the subsequent artistic movements. Still in each generation, including hiphop, new versions appear, from the neo-soul contributors like India Irie to Alicia Keys, from Maxwell to Johnny Legend. And soul music would create echoes in the African Diaspora from the soul movement among Afro-Brazilians, Caribbean, African, and Black British youth to the more recent Heather Headley from Trinidad and Tobago. Alexis Brooks de Vita See also Black Panther Party; Blues: A Continuum from Africa; Hair; Hip-Hop in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Baraka, Amiri. 2002. “The Phenomenon of Soul in African-American Music.” In Jubilee: The Emergence of African-American Culture, ed. Howard Dodson. Washington, D.C.: The National Geographic Society. Lornell, Kip. 2002. Introducing American Folk Music: Ethnic and Grassroot Traditions in the United States. Boston: McGraw-Hill. Marsh, Dave. 1992. It Tears Me Up: The Best of Percy Sledge. Audio Cassette. New York: Atlantic Recording Corporation. Sellman, James Clyde. 1999. “Soul Music.” In Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and

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852 | Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) African American Experience. New York: Basic Civitas Books.

z Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) In January 1957, 60 African American leaders from major cities across the South met at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, and founded the Southern Leadership Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration. Most were members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), but they believed a more wellrounded approach that included appeals to government legislation and to the larger public consciousness would lead to social justice. The organization met again in New Orleans, Louisiana, on February 14, 1957, where it elected an executive board of directors and shortened its name to the Southern Leadership Conference. Most of the elected leaders were Baptist ministers. Rev. Wyatt T. Walker was the organization’s first executive director, but it was its first president Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who provided the organizational vision, inspirational leadership, and essential philosophy. Like King, several of the leaders, such as Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, T. J. Kempson, and Fred Shuttlesworth had recently led bus boycotts in their communities in order to win better treatment for black people in public transportation. During its first convention in Montgomery in August 1957, the organization was renamed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and adopted its primary objective: to achieve full citizenship and equality for African Americans through nonviolent protest. They believed this objective would appeal to public sympathy and would serve as an initial step in healing American society through “redemptive love.”

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The two weapons chosen to wage the war on the social, political, and economic system that enforced the second-class citizenship of African Americans were direct social action and voter registration. The Prayer Pilgrimage to Washington in 1957, the organization’s first demonstration, attracted 25,000 people. The success of this march led to the youth marches for integrated schools in 1958 and 1959, which together had 40,000 participants. However, it was not until several students in Greensboro, North Carolina, staged the first successful sit-in that the SCLC leaders found a method of direct action dramatic enough to build a coherent strategy around. The SCLC, along with other organizations, worked to pressure the government into desegregation of public services and staged several effective sit-ins that were televised by national media outlets. The NAACP, which had an older leadership constituency, was a bit reticent about the approach initially. During its peak years, the SCLC had 85 local affiliates. The SCLC played a key role in organizing and supporting several additional campaigns to fight segregation and secure voting rights. This included the Citizenship Education Project, sit-ins across the state of Georgia, the Birmingham Confrontation, and the 1964 Saint Augustine fight against segregation and the Ku Klux Klan. When the Congress of Racial Equality launched the freedom rides in 1961, SCLC leaders, including King, Abernathy, Lawson, and Shuttlesworth, provided their expertise. By mobilizing blacks, organizing marches, and filling jails with nonviolent protesters, a worldwide television audience observed the violent acts of southern whites against African Americans. Influenced by the SCLC’s mass protest movement, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, during nonviolent protest actions organized in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 the SCLC faced several challenges. The organization began to clash with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) over

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Flag-bearing demonstrators march from Selma to Montgomery in the historic March 1965 voting rights protest. Organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Congress, the march led directly to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which outlawed Southern states’ attempts to prevent African Americans from voting. (Library of Congress)

tactics, which many students believed were becoming stagnated; the limitations of the nonviolent philosophy; and the perceived notion that SCLC members took undue credit for the success of regional protests that SNCC had actually initiated. During the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965, as approximately 600 marchers attempted to cross Selma’s Edward Pettus Bridge and pray, 200 state troopers attacked them with whips, cattle prods, clubs, tear gas, and horses. Television crews recorded the battered protesters as they fled the area, and national media coverage dubbed the encounter “Bloody Sunday.” The resulting violence from Selma prompted President Lyndon B. Johnson to urge the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the SCLC quickly registered 85,000 new voters within four months. Despite the success of the march, the Federal Bureau of Investigation

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(FBI) spent most of its time trying to undermine the SCLC, which FBI Head J. Edgar Hoover saw as a communist front organization. Another unfortunate circumstance was that societal and racial violence continued to mar the national landscape. The Watts race riot in 1965, the call for “black power” by Stokely Carmichael on the Meredith march in 1966, the war in Vietnam, and the Detroit race riot in 1967 caused the SCLC to address a larger range of issues. In 1967, the SCLC organized the Chicago Freedom Movements and Operation Breadbasket, but these forays into galvanizing the protest movement in northern urban centers posed different challenges than the movements in the South in addition to significant white resistance. King was also speaking out against the Vietnam War, which detracted from his broad-based appeal and popularity.

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In 1968, the SCLC organized the Poor People’s March on Washington as a civil disobedience action. While taking time out from this campaign to support sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, King was assassinated in April 1968. The campaign continued, but the movement had lost much of its vigor. Abernathy succeeded King as president of SCLC and led the Poor People’s March on Washington, a demonstration at the Republican National Convention, and a sanitation workers’ strike in 1968. In 1977, Joseph E. Lowery, the chairman of the SCLC’s board of directors, was unanimously chosen as Abernathy’s successor. Lowery served as president of the SCLC for 20 years coordinating efforts against South African apartheid, extending the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and fighting the epidemic of drugs and violence in African American communities. He also grappled with the difficulty of maintaining the relevance of the organization in the post–civil rights era, which has plagued all succeeding leaders. Jason Esters See also King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929–1968); Ture, Kwame (1941–1998). F URTHER R EADING Peake, Thomas R. 1988. Keeping the Dream Alive: A History of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference from King to the Nineteen-Eighties. New York: P. Lang. Riches, William T. Martin. 2004. The Civil Rights Movement: Struggle and Resistance, 2nd ed. Palgrave Macmillian: New York. “Southern Christian Leadership Conference.” 1992. Encyclopedia of African-American Civil Rights: from Emancipation to the Present, ed. Charles D. Lowery and John F. Marszelek. New York; Greenwood Press.

z Soyinka, Akinwande Oluwole (1934–) Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka, who became Africa’s first Nobel laureate in literature in

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1986, was born in July 13, 1934, in Abeokuta, western Nigeria, a predominantly Yoruba region. After attending University College in Ibadan, Nigeria, from 1952 to 1954, Soyinka traveled to the University of Leeds, remaining in the United Kingdom for five years while obtaining a bachelor’s degree in English with honors in 1957. He worked as a play reader at the Royal Court Theatre in London and wrote and directed his own plays. He returned to Nigeria in 1960, the year of its independence from Britain, to research drama in West Africa by virtue of a Rockefeller grant. Soyinka’s return found him deeply involved not only in theater, beginning with the Orisun Theatre Company in 1964, but also in the country’s struggle for self-governance. Soyinka’s literature reflects his role as a political activist and his concern with individual human rights and experiences. Arrested twice and detained in solitary confinement for two years, Soyinka has worked to develop Nigerian independence and stability. Just as his literary works delve into the evaluation and reconstruction of African culture and knowledge, Soyinka has participated in the tumultuous Nigerian political evolution from colonial governance to self-governance. His criticism of Nigerian leaders has placed him in both voluntary and involuntary exile from the country on numerous occasions. His extensive works include drama and poetry, fields in which he writes most comfortably, but also personal memoir, novels, literary criticism, and political commentary. His most recognized plays, such as The Road (1965) and Death and the King’s Horseman (1975), examine the relationship between social institutions and individual knowledge, using the intersection of African and Western traditions to explore sources of strength and conflict within communities. Although Soyinka features Yoruba gods and traditions in many of his works, he writes primarily in English and incorporates nonAfrican tales in his plays, such as in his rewriting of The Bacchae of Euripides (1973). His investi-

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Spelman College | 855 gation of the connection between the material and the spiritual worlds emphasizes similarities of tradition throughout cultures and highlights African artistry as it contributes to human history and development. A critic of the Négritude movement, believing it contributes to a false dichotomy of European rationalism and African emotionalism, Soyinka promotes a revaluation of African thoughts and values as they have developed both before and in conjunction with Western relationships. His works explore the usage of myth and collective history in determining individual lives. Soyinka returned to Nigeria in 1998 after the death of its military leader. He has held positions at universities throughout the world, including Cornell University and the University of Ife. He continues to write and work for political equality for Africans. Soyinka’s plays include The Lion and the Jewel (1963), A Dance of the Forests (1963), Three Short Plays (1969), Madmen and Specialists (1971), Opera Wonyosi (1981), A Play of Giants (1984), and From Zia with Love and A Scourge of Hyacinths (1992). His poetry includes Idanre and Other Poems (1967), A Shuttle in the Crypt (1971), Ogun Abibiman (1976), and Mandela’s Earth and Other Poems (1988). His novels include The Interpreters (1965) and Season of Anomy (1973). His autobiographical writing includes The Man Died (1972), Aké: The Years of Childhood (1981), Isara: A Voyage Around “Essay” (1989), Ibadan: The “Penkelemes” Years, A Memoir, 1946–1965 (1994), and You Must Set Forth at Dawn (2006). His essays and critical works include Myth, Literature and the African World (1976), Art, Dialogue and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture (1988), and The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness (1999). Amanda Conrad See also Africa. F URTHER R EADING Jeyifo, Biodun. 2001. Conversations with Wole Soyinka. Literary Conversations Series. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

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Gibbs, James, ed. 1980. Critical Perspectives on Wole Soyinka. Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press. Maja-Pearce, Adewale, ed. 1994. Wole Soyinka: An Appraisal. Oxford, UK: Heinemann.

z Spelman College Spelman College, founded in 1881, is a private four-year liberal arts college for African American women in Atlanta, Georgia. Offering bachelors of arts and bachelor of science degrees, it remains the oldest historically black women’s college in the United States. It is a founding member of the Atlanta University Center (AUC), the largest consortium of historically black colleges. Dedicated to scholastic achievement, community involvement, and social leadership, Spelman features research centers and initiatives in the sciences, humanities, and business, including the Women’s Research and Resource Center and the Center for Biomedical Research. Established by two white teachers from New England, Sophia B. Packard and Harriet E. Giles, Spelman opened as the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary. In Atlanta, at the request of Dr. Shaver, a black ABHMS school teacher, Giles and Packard met with Pastor Frank Quarles, the minister of Friendship Baptist Church. Quarles was a staunch supporter of Packard and Giles, often calling on local ministers to provide them with further assistance. On April 11, in the basement of Friendship Church, the school opened with 11 students. The following week they had 25. With a growing student population, additional funds were needed to hire teachers, purchase supplies, and procure a new building. In 1882, Rev. George King, whom they met on a trip to New England, introduced Giles and Packard to John D. Rockefeller who provided substantial aid to the school. Spelman’s desperate need for more land was answered

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when ABHMS purchased former Union Army quarters in the West End area in 1883, including nine acres of land and five frame buildings. Here they opened the “Model School,” a student teacher training facility, which provided much needed instruction to fill positions opening in new urban and rural black schools. Spelman’s struggles, however, were not just financial. Dr. Henry L. Morehouse hoped the property would be shared with the Atlanta Baptist Seminary (Morehouse College). Packard and Giles opposed the proposals to unite the schools, arguing for independent women’s education. Rockefeller provided them with financial aid, allowing Spelman to remain independent. Moving enabled Spelman to offer new courses, increase the student body, and house boarders. Among other changes, in 1884, the Atlanta Female Baptist Seminary was renamed Spelman Seminary to honor John D. Rockefeller’s wife, Laura Spelman Rockefeller, and her parents, Harvey Buel Spelman and Lucy Henry Spelman, antislavery activists. In 1887, Spelman graduated its first class, conferring high school diplomas to six young women. Granted a charter by Georgia in 1888, Spelman became incorporated under a board of trustees consisting of 16 members, two of whom were African Americans. Spelman maintained organizational independence from Morehouse, but several students took college courses there. The 1890s marked another period of expansion: buildings were constructed and additional land was acquired. The formation of a missionary training program established international links by sending Spelman students to African countries and bringing African students to Spelman. Its college department opened in 1897, and Spelman granted its first college degrees to Jane Granerson and Claudia T. White five years later. Lucy Tapley’s presidency at Spelman Seminary was marked by the completion and dedication of Sister’s chapel in 1927. Under Tapley’s administration Spelman Seminary changed its name to Spelman College. Its expansion and growth as a college oc-

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curred under President Florence Read (1927– 1953). Not only did Read increase the school’s endowment, but she also redirected its focus from vocational training to liberal arts education. In 1930, Spelman received accreditation from the Association of American Colleges. Albert Manley became Spelman’s first African American president in 1953. The late 1950s–1960s marked a period of growing activism among Spelman students. Like their counterparts in Greensboro, North Carolina, Spelman students challenged segregation by organizing sit-ins, demonstrations, economic boycotts, and lawsuits. Spelman students along with students from other AUC schools drafted an “Appeal for Human Rights,” which received national attention. Spelman students were founding members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Committee on Appeal for Human Rights. Spelman established its first black studies program in 1969. The 1970s marked tension between administration and students who desired a black female president. They achieved their goal when Dr. Johnetta Cole, Spelman’s first black female president, was elected in 1987. The school’s endowment grew substantially under her administration; Dr. William (actor Bill Cosby) and Camille Cosby contributed $20 million to the college. Spelman’s first alumna president, Audrey Forbes Manley (class of ‘55) was appointed in 1997. In 2002, Dr. Beverly Tatum became Spelman’s third black female president. The college has produced numerous conferences and intellectual activities that link women scholars across the Diaspora, such as the journal Sage, the ongoing work of the Women’s Research and Resource Center, and a conference on women and AIDS in 2003. Folashadé Alao See also Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Morehouse College. F URTHER R EADING Cohen, Rodney. 2000. The Black Colleges of Atlanta. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing.

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Spiritual Shouter Baptist Religion | 857 Corley, Florence Fleming. 1985. “Higher Education for Southern Women: Four Church Related Women’s Colleges in Georgia, Agnes Scott, Shorter, Spelman and Wesleyan, 1900– 1920.” PhD thesis, Georgia State University. Guy-Sheftall, Beverly, and Jo Moore Steward. 1981. Spelman: A Centennial Celebration, 1881–1981. Charlotte, NC: Delmar. Lefever, Harry G. 2005. Undaunted by the Fight: Spelman College and the Civil Rights Movement, 1957–1967. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. Manley, Albert. 1995. A Legacy Continues: The Manley Years at Spelman College, 1953–1976. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Read, Florence Matilda. 1961. The Story of Spelman College. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Vanlandingham, Karen Elizabeth. 1985. “In Pursuit of a Changing Dream: Spelman College Students and the Civil Rights Movement, 1955–1962.” Master’s thesis, Emory University.

z Spiritual Shouter Baptist Religion Spiritual Shouter Baptist is a mystical religion, indigenous to the Caribbean, in particular, Trinidad and Tobago. The religion was established and sustained as a cultural response to colonial domination in slavery, a system that dehumanized and degraded African identities. Africans, however, while inculcating a diasporic consciousness, greatly retained their spiritual understanding of the world as manifested in their rituals and practices. Thus, for four centuries, beginning in the 15th century, Africans, with their fear of oppression, repressed many of their religious practices. By the 19th century, and particularly after emancipation, Africans began to be extremely forceful in exposing their spirituality in forms of religions like the Spiritual Shouter Baptist. The visibility of its members in worship was remarkable in the late 19th century when they

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began to conduct their religious activities openly, while they faced both society’s contempt of their rituals and practices and the colonizers’ challenge at imposing Christianity on them. The result was the legal constraint of the Shouter Prohibition Ordinance of 1917 in Trinidad and Tobago. However, the Spiritual Shouter Baptists, in a remarkable manner, continued not only a religious but also a political struggle: the right to freedom of worship and the right to social justice. The progress of the Spiritual Shouter Baptist religion exemplifies a movement of resistance. It enabled many Africans to gain control of their identities, both as spiritual and political beings, and enabled communities to become solidified in their commonality as African descendants in the Diaspora. According to the ideologues of this religion, Europeans plagiarized Christianity from its origins, Egypt. Thus, for the Spiritual Shouter Baptists, boundaries of African (Yoruba) and Christian ideologies can overlap. Therefore, the lead role European Baptists played in Christianizing enslaved Africans during the centuries of slavery was not entirely a threat in a diasporic African religious redevelopment. Africans, overall, were better able to re-create their past identities seeing that some Christian practices, handed to them by the colonizers, were not alien to them. However, the African content of their religion had to be masked or covert, because of the colonizers’ brutally punitive measures to restrain African forms of worship. Many Africans, however, believed their own cultural expressions were natural and empowering; thus, they persisted relentlessly with their religious practices. The perseverance of the Spiritual Shouter Baptists is remarkable, for, as African people, European Christianity could not contain them. They strongly maintain their claim to a lineage from John the Baptist, a reputable Biblical figure. The Spiritual Shouter Baptists experienced significant rejection by the state of Trinidad and Tobago because of their openness in

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worship; their singing, which noisily proclaimed manifestations of praise; and their vibrating body movements. Therefore, society named these believers “Shouters.” However, they failed to understand why the state persecuted them. They argued that many of their religious practices, for instance, baptism, the act of bell ringing, the use of the Bible, and the “Mourning Ground” for spiritual rejuvenation, were similar to practices in other faiths. Added to that, they claimed they carried out instructions that the Bible decreed. Yet the state criminalized members of this religion by enacting a law, the Shouters Prohibition Ordinance of 1917. The Shouters became a direct target of race and religious discrimination. Consequently, the Spiritual Shouter Baptists strategized their survival through their political consciousness. That is, they sought allies among people who showed dissidence toward colonial rule; those who practiced Protestant Christianity; and lawyers, politicians, and activists who were engaged in the labor movement to improve the welfare of the workers in Trinidad and Tobago. They displayed a high level of political consciousness, which enhanced the quality of their leadership, and their debates articulated the broader struggle in the 1940s. The many believers, at that time, who pioneered the struggle on behalf of the Spiritual Shouter Baptist religion, did extraordinary work. Among those engaged in politics were Archbishop Elton Griffith, Archbishop Glanville Williams, and Tubal Uriah Buzz Butler. Others, such as Samuel Ebeneza Elliot (Papa Neza) and Maka Leanie Brezian, were active in the healing and medicine power (Clarke 2005). In the 1940s, political mobilization, with supporters such as Philip Granger and Elma Francois, was the stimulus that helped them maintain their awareness and knowledge of the radical democratic changes that were taking place locally and globally. Events at that time, such as the anthropological research of Melville J. Herskovits in Trinidad, which legitimized rituals and practices of this religion; the constitutional changes, like universal adult suffrage in

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the Caribbean, which arose from the Moyne Commission Report in 1951; and the 1948 Universal Declaration of the Human Rights, would precipitate their success in repealing the Shouters Prohibition Ordinance in 1951. The Spiritual Shouter Baptist community has been notable for a very impressive presence of Caribbean women. Many of the women, who form the axis of this church, maintain impressive leadership in religious and secular roles. The religion, however, draws from the Bible to assert gender conventions. On the one hand, this faith recognizes “there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Jesus Christ” (Galatians 3:28) (Jacobs 1996, 172) as an egalitarian doctrine. While, on the other hand, it points to 1 Corinthians 11:3: “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.” In reality, these contradictions are truths in this religious context. Studies show that women conduct their responsibilities in religious practices with fortitude, yet the church, including the women, defer to men on an everyday basis, as men receive the standard respect and privileges accorded to them in society (Laitenen 2002, 14). Caribbean women in this religion have exercised supremacy to articulate social issues as they affect the lives of people of African descent. As a result, they engage in community organizing, in political debates, and often, in a personal way, ensure that caring and nurturing services are made available to those in need. Thus, such words as “pillars holding up the earth” (Lovelace 1986, 131), when used to describe these Caribbean Spiritual Shouter Baptist women, suggest that they distinguish themselves because of their heightened spiritual consciousness and their ability to pioneer religious and social movements. Generally, the religion regards these women as holding “dominance in the Spiritual realm” (Laitenen 2002, 11), as findings of several studies indicate their longevity in the Spirit as believers, worshippers, and servers. Thus, with accu-

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Spiritual Shouter Baptist Religion | 859 mulated knowledge and experience they can sustain highest authority. The Spiritual Shouter Baptist faith is one that is imbued with the power of the Spirit. Belief in the Spirit makes them independent and guides their roles in healing, inspiring, comforting, and helping those in need. Examples abound of their work with the homeless, the incarcerated, the sick and so on. Therefore, many leaders (archbishop, mother, reverend, bishop), in making meaningful their religious responsibilities, have strengthened the links between religion and social justice and human rights in the societies in which they reside. Believers of the Spiritual Shouter Baptist faith acknowledge the significance of sustaining African nationalism as a hallmark of their identity. They have rationalized that the persecution they have experienced for centuries and largely still encounter is due to their blackness. Though they believe in forgiveness, they feel the need to project theirs as a distinct mission to sustain an African identity totally as a means of respect to their ancestors and themselves. Nevertheless, many believers of this faith embrace other faiths, such as Hinduism and Orisha, as a reflection of their understanding of the Christ and the Spirit. Today the Spiritual Shouter Baptists are an officially recognized religion in Trinidad and Tobago. The Spiritual Shouter Baptist faith has had an influence on the calypso culture and rhythm of Trinidad and Tobago, and thus on the national community. Their hymns have pronounced African rhythms, which calypsonians borrowed and fused with the calypso to produce pulsating recordings that the public readily appreciated and purchased. Sometimes calypsonians dramatized and sensationalized the experiences of members of the faith in their renditions; at other times they, through ridicule in their lyrics, supported those in society who showed contempt and scorn toward this religion. The Spiritual Shouter Baptist Religion is a phenomenon of the dynamics in cultural and

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political resistance in Trinidad and Tobago, and indeed, the Caribbean region. Historically, domination and oppression created the battle for religious freedom, which this religion won and has remarkably sustained. Thus, the story of their journey offers strategies to resist colonizing forms of hegemony. Theirs was a successful goal to construct an oppositional religious entity that would keep them linked to issues that endanger the rights of African people. Therefore, communities of this religion flourish in many locations where diverse descendants of Africans in the Caribbean and its Diaspora become more and more attracted to the spiritual and to the social and political vitality it grants to society. Yvonne Bobb-Smith See also Trinidad and Tobago. F URTHER R EADING Bisnauth, D. 1989. History of Religions in the Caribbean. Kingston, Jamaica: Kingston Publishers. Clarke, Anthony. 2005. A Spiritual Shouter Baptist 2005 Sacred Solar Calendar. Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago: Gordon Rohlehr. Henry, Frances. 2003. Reclaiming African Religions in Trinidad. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. Herskovits, Melville. 1947. Trinidad Village. New York: Alfred Knopf. Houk, J. 1995. Spirit, Blood and Drums: The Orisha Religion in Trinidad. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Jacobs, Carl M. 1996. Joy Comes in the Morning: Elton George Griffith and the Shouter Baptists. Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago: The Caribbean Historical Society. Laitenen, Maait. 2002. Aspects of Gender in Spiritual Baptist Religion in Tobago: Notes from the Field. Working Paper series no. 6. Saint Augustine: University of the West Indies, Centre for Gender and Development Studies. Lovelace, Earl. 1986. The Wine of Astonishment. London: Heinemann. Rohlehr, Gordon. 1990. Calypso and Society in Pre-Independence Trinidad. Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago: Gordon Rohlehr. Said, Edward. 1993. Culture and Imperialism. London: Chatto and Windus.

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860 | Sport and the African Diaspora Taylor, Patrick, ed. 2001. Nation Dance: Religion, Identity and Cultural Difference in the Caribbean. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

z Sport and the African Diaspora R ACE AND S PORT IN THE B RITISH E MPIRE : T HE C ARIBBEAN Sport, that is, the institutionalized physical practice of internationally, rule-governed competitive games, emerged in its modern form during the 19th century. Most of the world’s most popular sports such as cricket, football (soccer), and rugby, derived their formal codification in Victorian Britain. The diffusion of Western sports attempted to supplant indigenous games and sports, also competitive, rulegoverned, and international at times, with a Western systematization of activities that were thought to be morally superior. British colonial elites viewed sports as a pedagogical tool, able to teach native peoples the values of fair play, respect for rules and authority, and notions of teamwork and sacrifice. However, the imposition of sports was met with degrees of resistance. For example, in the Caribbean, cricket came to articulate the wider politics of anticolonial struggle against British imperialism. As the Trinidadian intellectual C. L. R. James observed, the campaign during the 1950s to have a black player appointed captain of the West Indies cricket team mirrored and helped to produce a wider politics of black empowerment and political consciousness. From the late 1970s until the mid 1990s, the success of the West Indies cricket team came to be seen as a form of black pride and achievement not only for Afro-Caribbeans but also for black peoples throughout the African Diaspora. Today, cricket in the English-speaking Caribbean is no longer the cultural dominant it was during the 20th century. Because of American-

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ization, young Caribbeans are as likely to be interested in sports such as basketball and American football as they are cricket. And although cricket remains an important site for the production of a pan-Caribbean identity, some commentators suggest that the collectivist forms of solidarity that cricket used to create have now been replaced by a more individualist ideology that focuses on the individual achievements of players such as Brian Lara, rather than cricket embodying the aspirations of the region as a whole. R ACE AND S PORT IN THE U NITED S TATES The first black athletes were either horse racing jockeys, as enslaved Africans were given the task of caring for, training, and then riding their owners’ horses, or boxers who would, quite literally, fight their way to freedom. White slave masters would sometimes select physically able black men to box under their guidance and then bet on the outcome. However, the Jim Crow laws meant that the early African American experience in sport was marked by discrimination and exclusion. An important milestone in the history of African American sports history occurred in 1908 when the Texas-born Jack Johnson became the first black Heavyweight Champion of the World. Johnson’s successes, which attracted worldwide attention, publicly challenged the “obviousness” of white supremacy. In an effort to restore the symbolic order of white supremacy, when Johnson finally lost his world title the so-called “color line” was redrawn, which prevented black boxers from competing for world titles. The later successes of African American stars, such as the athlete Jesse Owens and boxer Joe Louis in the 1930s, the baseball player Jackie Robinson in the 1940s, and the tennis player Althea Gibson in the 1950s, served a similar role in representing black cultural achievement in the midst of white racism. The 1960s marked a shift in how black athletes were perceived in America. The black-gloved (Black Power) salute by Tommie Smith and John Car-

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Sport and the African Diaspora | 861 los at the 1968 Mexico Olympic Games remains an iconic and more militant image of black sporting struggles for freedom. Smith and Carlos were part of a wider campaign for human rights that included not only addressing the forms of racial segregation and discrimination still operating within U.S. sports at that time, but also challenging the lack of Civil Rights for African Americans more generally and highlighting the plight of black South Africans and the continued injustices produced by apartheid. With the emergence of self-conscious and politically aware athletes such as Muhammad Ali, sports came to be seen as an important site for articulating cultural politics engaged in exposing and challenging racial injustice. Today, athletes like tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams offer different images to young black people, showing a new, empowered form of black femininity, or what might be called a “ghetto fabulous” style. Black athletes in America have come a long way since the days of Jack Johnson and are now global celebrities, like Tiger Woods in golf and Michael Jordan in basketball, able to earn millions of dollars in endorsements and earnings. R ACE AND S PORT IN A FRICA Much of the limited research on sport in Africa has tended to focus on the politics of race and sport in South Africa. The 1977 Gleneagles agreement and the campaign to isolate South Africa through a sporting boycott is widely viewed as making an important contribution to the eventual downfall of apartheid. It is important to note for those studying South Africa, an ongoing concern has been how sport was used during the apartheid regime to further racial segregation and how, since the African National Congress came to power, sport is now being used as a way to develop a new, multicultural imagery for South Africa. In 1995, Nelson Mandela’s embrace of the Springboks, the South African national rugby union team, seen for many decades as the sport and team of white Afrikaners, was a public example

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of sport’s role in articulating a postracial democratic settlement in that country. Similarly, the achievements of black runners at international sporting events such as the Olympics have produced national pride in countries such as Ethiopia and Kenya. However, this success has come at a cost in reproducing biological discourses of absolute racial difference and perpetuating myths concerning the supposed “natural athleticism” of African bodies. Indeed, there is a widespread anthropological curiosity, which demonstrates the continuation of colonial frameworks in viewing Africa itself, with the constant media and academic fascination with Kenyan long-distance runners in particular and the concomitant search for racio-biological explanations for their success. The sporting success in recent years of soccer teams such as Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, and South Africa has shown the talent and progress that African countries have made, leading some commentators, such as the Brazilian soccer star Pelé, to predict that an African country will win the men’s football World Cup in the near future. South Africa’s successful bid to stage the 2010 men’s football World Cup finals is seen as an important moment in the sporting history of Africa in terms of demonstrating the continent’s ability to host a major sporting event and positioning Africa itself as a central player within world sport. R ACE AND S PORT IN THE 21 ST C ENTURY The future politics of sport within the African Diaspora will be as varied as the sports played and the regions they are played in. More attention needs to be paid to the experiences and achievements of black female athletes. As structural barriers to girls’ and women’s access to sporting opportunities slowly decline, the 21st century is likely to see the politics of race and sport played out through the lives and achievements of female athletes. However, alongside these success stories, black athletes in various parts of Europe continue to experience both verbal and physical racial abuse. The success of

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black athletes, many from various locations across the African Diaspora, reveals the contradictory nature of race and sport as these players are often regarded as local and national heroes and have played a vital role in helping Europe itself come to recognize, accept, and even celebrate its multicultural present and future. Although many of these athletes celebrate victories under particular nation-state flags, their success also lends itself to another reading in terms of increasing black participation and success in selected and available sports. Sometimes these are read as the breaking of barriers, as in speed skating. Thus, just as European colonialism reshaped the landscape of Africa, black athletes are now reconfiguring the contemporary political and cultural realities of what it means to be a European. Ben Carrington See also “African” in African American History; Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Jamaica; James, Cyril Lionel Roberts (1901–1989). F URTHER R EADING Armstrong, G., and R. Giulianotti, eds. 2004. Football in Africa: Conflict, Conciliation and Community. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave. Carrington, B., and I. McDonald, eds. 2001.“Race,” Sport and British Society. London: Routledge. Edwards, H. 1969. The Revolt of the Black Athlete. New York: Free Press. Hoberman, J. 1997. Darwin’s Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race. Boston: Mariner Books. James, C.L.R. 1963. Beyond a Boundary. London: Serpent’s Tail.

z Sri Lankan African Diaspora The presence of people of African descent in Sri Lanka draws attention to the eastward migration of Africans across the Red Sea and the

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Indian Ocean, a topic that has received less attention than the westward migration across the Atlantic. Although Abyssinians (modern-day Ethiopians) were trading in fifth-century Sri Lanka when the island was an emporium in the Indian Ocean, historical evidence so far suggests that the African presence in Sri Lanka coincides with colonial activity. Portuguese colonizers were saved from defeat by an emergency reinforcement of African soldiers sent from their base at Goa. The Dutch who followed the Portuguese also increased the African presence on the island. The British presence on the island predated Britain’s Abolition of Slavery Act. The British Empire also drew on African manpower. The population census reports of 1871 to 1911 list Africans as Kaffirs (a word the British adopted from the Portuguese word cafre, which the Portuguese adopted from the Arabic qafr, which means “nonbeliever”). Intermarriage with other ethnic groups is common, but there are physiognomically identifiable Afro–Sri Lankans in several parts of the island. The largest number are in Puttalama in the NorthWestern Province: Puttalama Town, Sellan Kandel, and Sirambiyadiya. The lyrics of their songs, which they call manhas (apparently a contraction of the Portuguese word marchinhas, meaning “little marches”) are in the Indo-Portuguese of Ceylon (nowadays called Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole). Creole was the lingua franca of the island for almost 350 years before English replaced it. Today Creole is mainly heard during singing sessions. Elderly Afro-Sri Lankans use Creole as a secret language. No attempt is made to teach their children Creole (unlike the Portuguese Burghers in Batticaloa and Trincomalee in the Eastern Province) but despite “out-marriages” the children learn manhas early in life. They do not compose new manhas and only sing the songs that have been handed down to them through an oral tradition. Homemade instruments (two halves of dried coconut shells and a piece of wood, a

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Steelpan | 863 spoon and a fork, a spoon and a bottle), rabana (a drum), and tambourine are used. A few decades ago the mandolin was played but the instrument is now less common. African cultural retentions are evident in their music and dance. The arm, hip, and body movements and postures are particularly significant in this context. The music is rhythm driven. Music, song, and dance give Afro–Sri Lankans a collective identity. Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya See also Creole, Creolity, Creolization; India and the African Diaspora; The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA). F URTHER R EADING De Silva Jayasuriya, Shihan. 2001. “Les Cafres de Ceylan: le chaînon portugais.” Cahiers des Anneax de la Mémoire (3): 229–253. De Silva Jayasuriya, Shihan. 2003. “Les femmes et l’esclavage au Sri Lanka.” Cahiers des Anneax de la Mémoire (5): 99–122. De Silva Jayasuriya, Shihan. 2003. “The African Diaspora in Sri Lanka.” In The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean, ed. Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya and Richard Pankhurst, 251–288. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Goonatilleke, Miguel. 1983. Report of an Interview with the Portuguese Speaking Community in Puttalam. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Department of National Archives.

z Steelpan The steelpan, the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago, familiarly called ‘pan’ by its many aficionados, is the only innovative musical instrument of the 20th century. H ISTORY The early history of the steelpan is closely tied to the carnival period and the freed slaves who participated in the pre-Lenten activities, especially in the postemancipation period of 1834 to 1838. Activities included the beating of

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African drums, which the Colonial administration later outlawed with Ordinance One of 1884 after the second Cannes Brulées Riots. However, the drums were subsequently replaced by the tambour (tamboo)-bamboo bands, which consisted of cut bamboo stems of various widths and lengths. Four different types of bamboo were selected. The largest or thickest in circumference was used for the bass or boom. There was also the fuller or foule, the chandler and the cutter. When these stems were struck on their sides or beaten on the ground they produced a variety of sounds that provided the rhythmic clatter for the procession of revelers. These tamboo-bamboo bands with their homemade instruments had supplied the background rhythms for the chanting of bongo and kalinda songs, which had traditionally accompanied the stick (bois) fights in the gayelles. The tamboo bamboo’s durability was effected by peeling the outer material of the stem and splitting the bamboo. For a brief transitional period in the mid 1930s some of the expressly tamboo-bamboo bands changed their format and became hybrid bands, which would offer the woody sound of the original tamboo-bamboo mixed with a new metallic sound produced by a range of discarded metal objects, creating a repertoire of instruments that also expanded to include the bugle, and the empty bottle struck with a spoon. This eclectic ensemble took over musically as the rhythmic base to accompany the singing of popular songs and calypsos. The metal surfaces of improvised containers also allowed some variation of sound if they were struck in different areas of the object. The emergence of the steelpan would come about in a series of small, significant, and in many cases accidental steps. Between 1936 and 1941, it was the ingenuity of a number of pioneering individuals who were trying to improve on the limitations of the instruments of the day in the interest of increasing the range and variation of the percussive sounds required for their street parades. These players

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The steelpan, or steel drum, is purported to be the only musical instrument created in the 20th century. (iStockPhoto)

competed for musical dexterity and bragging rites among themselves and only later on did they discern the possibilities of playing simple melodies, as the number and range of notes became available. Much of this innovation occurred within a relatively small area in Port-of-Spain and its environs, especially, but not exclusively, in the area known as Behind the Bridge. There was much networking and constant adoption of new ideas along with further and ongoing experimentation by the pioneers’ proletarian musical community. Initially, the metal surfaces had no defined notes and were struck with shortened broomsticks. This repeated striking caused the metal surfaces to fracture from the hard, sharp surfaces of the sticks. It was discovered that two different sounds could be produced by beating one part of the pan more often than the other. So, in those early days the players were actually beating pan, a term that is now considered

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quite patronizing and insulting to describe the action of playing the instrument. Later on, someone would shorten a small, 15-gallon, steel drum by removing a greater part of the side, called the skirt, and pounding the surface outward. A hammer was then used to sink three separate parts of the now convex playing surface. This action produced a pan with three notes. These pans were 15 to 20 inches in diameter and had a skirt of 12 to 14 inches from the rim. Moreover, it was realized that the reverse process of sinking the bottom in and the notes out would produce a better tonal quality. This method, credited to Ellie Mannette, has since become the standard for making a steelpan. Subsequent research has confirmed that this intuitive process was in fact scientifically correct. Before long, for the greater convenience to the performer, these pans would be strapped on the side or around the neck of the player

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Steelpan | 865 who was then able to use two sticks instead of one to beat the pan. The pannist’s hands were now freed to play the pan rather than supporting the pan with one hand, while beating it with the other. Coincidental with these developments was the introduction of the rubbercovered, lighter sticks or mallets, which allowed a better quality sound to be produced while also protecting and promoting the longevity of the pan’s playing surface. From these early beginnings came the evolution of three (1944), five (1945), and nine (1946) note pans, in relatively quick order, as a number of early pan tuners began using larger steel drums, which the demand for more musical notes had mandated. By 1951, there were 23 notes on the tenor pan. The increase in the number and variety of notes at this juncture would facilitate the playing of more complex melodies and, indeed, many musical exponents expressed surprise and amazement when the early pannists began to exhibit such range. S TEELBAND A typical steelband in these early days would consist of four or five lead pans, then called ping pongs, scratchers, kittle drum, and bass drum (cuff boom), which were considered background pans, and an iron percussion section, which has been expanded into what is now affectionately called “the engine room.” Today, a steelband consists of a variable number of steelpans of assorted types and may range from as few as four or five drums to as many as 200 or more pans, as is demonstrated at the annual Panorama competition in Trinidad, regarded as the premier pan event in the island or in the rest of the world. Today, steelpans are manufactured from specifically made 55-gallon steel drums, replacing the discarded oil drums of a previous era. These customized drums can better accommodate the hammering and stretching required for creating quality pans. The process of pan manufacture involves the following: the drum is cut to length for the particular pan

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type; after sinking and marking off the notes, backing occurs, the pan is grooved, its surface is heat treated, and the notes are tuned and blended. Any steelband, however, must consist of a number of basic units. First, there are the soprano, lead, melody, or tenor pan; a double second pan; a cello-pan; and a bass section in addition to an engine room consisting of a variety of percussion instruments such as the iron and scratcher. Each pan has a playing surface of various notes with a surrounding enclosure called a skirt, which acts as a resonator and varies in length for the different types of pans. The sizes of the pans are defined to a great extent by the length of the skirts, and this has important implications not only on the quality of the sound produced but also on the portability and transport requirements of the different instruments. Each pan is played with a different pair and kind of pan stick or mallet from the small, light sticks topped with rubber tubing for service on the tenor pans to the larger, longer sticks each topped with a rounded rubber ball for the bass pans. Some sticks use plain or polished wood with rubberized grips, and others use bamboo or aluminum rods. Further experimentation and development has led to electronic sticks, interchangeable sticks, and chord sticks. Iron and scratcher sections augment the sound of the band. Pan stands were introduced in 1956, followed in the 1960s and ’70s by yet another series of improvements for the steelpan, when road pans on wheels appeared, allowing greater mobility. This modernization was soon followed by the introduction of racks with canopies to protect the stretched metal playing surface from the effects of the sun, steelbands on floats (1965), the nine bass (1971), the rocket pan (1972), the 12 bass (1973), the quadraphonic pan (1974), the triple tenor harmony arrangement (1976), and the pan harmony comprising six pans (1977). The widespread adoption of chromed lead pans would soon follow. This originality would also

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have the dual function of increased protection of the playing surface while improving the pan’s aesthetic appeal. The pan yard is the main hub or locus of steelband functionality at the community level. It is thus used for a variety of activities such as storing the instruments, pan racks, for pan practice sessions, liming, and within recent times the staging of concerts, fetes, exhibitions, classes in music with emphasis on the pan, even religious gatherings, and limited commercial activity by vendors from the surrounding neighborhood. Some of the earlier pan yards were previously used as gayelles or Orisha palais, as these spaces represented the natural and historical gathering places in the communities. Since then pan yards have evolved from cramped enclosures that accommodated a few pans and a motley crew of panmen, to those of today, which are often spacious, organized, and owned, leased, or freehold properties on which the steelband men and women of various ages and social backgrounds can practice and hone their craft.

major universities and schools, including historically black colleges and universities, like Florida Memorial University in Miami, are engaging in research and/or have created their own orchestras. In 1979, Trinidadian steelband had a major impact at the Festival of African Culture in Nigeria (FESTAC), leading to steelband developing in Africa. Standardization of the pan and intellectual property rights for the instrument are issues as in 2002, the U.S. government granted two Americans a patent for supposedly being the first to make a steelpan using a hydro forming press, a process already discovered by Dr. Clement Imbert and Eugene McDavid at the University of the West Indies, Saint Augustine, in the 1970s. In addition, a grooveless pan is being patented by Phil Solomon from Guyana; a patent was granted in 2004 to a Trinidadianborn American, Trevor King, for a circle of fifths tenor pan, an instrument previously designed and developed by Anthony Williams, the leader of the famous Pan Am North Stars Steel Orchestra.

PAN ACROSS THE D IASPORA In 1951, a group of top panmen was selected for a tour of Europe. This panside was called Trinidad All Steel Percussion Orchestra, which departed Trinidad for England in July of that year to perform initially at the Festival of Britain. This trip by all accounts led to the internationalization of the instrument and led an appreciative acceptance at home. Concurrently, there was the formation of one of the first allfemale Girls Pat Steel Orchestra, which successfully toured British Guiana (now Guyana) and Jamaica in 1952. Along with developments in Trinidad steelbands were established across the Caribbean. Steelbands now exist in many cities across the world. There are also school steelbands in Trinidad with the governmentsponsored Pan in the Classroom projects as well as eclectic ensembles and exclusive family bands. International exploitation of this resource is beginning, and in the United States,

Neila Todd

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See also Calypso; Trinidad and Tobago. F URTHER R EADING Gonzalez, Sylvia. 1978. Steelband Saga: A Story of the Steelband (the First 25 Years). Trinidad and Tobago: Ministry of Education and Culture Publication. Horne, Louise. 2003. The Evolution of Modern Trinidad and Tobago. Eniath’s Printing Company (ISBN 976–8193–11–5). Johnson, Kim, Helene Bellour, Milla Cozart Riggio and BP Trinidad and Tobago. 2002. Renegades: The History of the Renegades Steel Orchestra. New York: Macmillan. Slater, John. 1995. The Advent of the Steelband (and My Life and Times with It). Rev. Ed. Lintho Press Printers. Steumpfle, Stephen. 1995. The Steelband Movement: The Forging of a National Art in Trinidad and Tobago. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. Thomas, Kenrick. 1999. Panrica-Tacarigua’s Contribution to the Evolution of the Steelband Phe-

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Stono Rebellion | 867 nomenon in Trinidad and Tobago. Washington, D.C.: Original World Press.

z Stono Rebellion The Stono Rebellion occurred in the low country of South Carolina about 12 miles south of Charleston in St. Paul’s Parish on September 9, 1739. Despite the celebrated history of slave rebellions in the American South, the uprising was one of only two organized slave rebellions in English-speaking North America that ever came to fruition. Although the hardships of plantation life are often looked at as the sole pretexts for slave uprisings, the Stono Rebellion and the events surrounding it illustrate the complex set of factors that the Stono rebels attempted to negotiate. In that year the white colonists were plagued by a yellow fever epidemic that was claiming the lives of six South Carolinians daily, and they were also threatened by the possibility of war with the Spanish. Furthermore the Spaniards guaranteed the freedom of escaped slaves from British North America and in 1738 established a settlement for fugitives entitled Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose (Fort Mose) north of Saint Augustine, Florida. Throughout the course of that year many slaves attempted to escape to Florida and some were successful. The revolt began in the early morning of September 9, 1739. A group of about 20 slaves gathered, made their way across the Stono Bridge, and under the command of a slave named Jemmy seized weapons and powder from a local store after decapitating the two storekeepers. Now armed, the conspirators made their way toward Georgia killing whites that they confronted along the way. Some slaves voluntarily joined ranks with the group as they encountered them; reportedly, others were forced to join. Lieutenant Governor William Bull by chance came in full view of the rebellious lot

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and was successful in avoiding their wrath. With swelled numbers, the rebels made their way to an open field where they began to celebrate. By four o’clock that evening, the white militia had organized under the leadership of Lieutenant Governor Bull. The better-armed militia took the rebels by surprise, rapidly disbanding the group. Though the uprising was contained by nightfall, many of the conspirators who were not captured that day were hunted down in bloody skirmishes. The characteristics of low-country plantation society helped to shape the atmosphere for the uprising. The colonists were familiar with African slavery from its very beginning. Some immigrants arrived in the colony from Barbados and the wider British Caribbean sometimes bringing slaves. Still the economy of the colony in its earliest years was based on deerskins, which the colonists acquired through trade with Native Americans. Another important undertaking of early South Carolinians was cattle raising, which provided limited economic success and fostered an environment of relative autonomy for blacks who worked on ranches. However, the economic structure of the colony changed once the colonists achieved success at growing rice primarily for Caribbean (primarily for slave consumption) and European markets (particularly Holland, Spain, and Portugal). In 1695, the colony had produced 500 pounds of rice. By 1704, the lands of low-country South Carolina yielded 800,000 pounds of rice. The dependence on African labor to work the rice plantations of the South Carolina lowcountry led to a commensurate rise in the African population. Rice planting required appreciably more labor than the tobacco plantations of the Virginia Chesapeake. In 1690 there were 1,500 slaves in South Carolina, and in 1710 there were 4,100. A small proportion were of Native American descent but the number of Native American slaves in Colonial South Carolina decreased as plantation society matured. By 1730, the black population had increased to 20,000.

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Colonial South Carolina’s dependency on enslaved African labor necessitated that the merchant-planter coalition that dominated South Carolina plantation society institute laws to draw sharp lines of distinction between the free and enslaved, and subject Africans to a perpetual state of servitude. In 1717, South Carolina passed a law relegating any white woman to a period of seven years of indentured servitude for giving birth to a mixed-race child. In 1721 and 1734, patrol acts were passed to keep a close eye on Africans on surrounding plantations. Among the most restrictive of these laws was the the Negro Act of 1735, which forbade slaves from wearing clothes “above the condition of slaves,” denied them access to trade houses, and limited the extent to which they could sell their services. The enslaved practiced several forms of resistance to vent their opposition, but in early Colonial South Carolina what stands out is the frequency with which slaves “voted with their feet” by running away. It was not uncommon for slaves to flee South Carolina plantation society in hopes of reaching Spanish Florida. However, the possibilities of achieving freedom by flight decreased considerably with the establishment of the British colony of Georgia (1732) to the south, between South Carolina and Florida. The timing of the rebellion could perhaps be attributed to the increased workload of the enslaved Afro-Carolinian population. The rice crop of 1739 was larger than any before it and twice that of 1738. As the labor supply was not proportionately increased, the labor demands on each slave were greatly increased. September was a period of the cycle of rice production where labor tasks were extremely arduous. Using a 15- to 25-pound mortar and pestle, processing and dehusking was usually a sunup to sundown task that was mostly done from September to April. The 1739 Spanish invasion threat, the inducements of slaves in British colonies, the implementation of restrictive laws backed by

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harsh punishments, greater labor demands, and the attenuation of the white minority by disease likely dictated the timing of the rebellion. The slaves were responding to New World circumstances that affected their lives. Thus, the Stono rebels were seeking to liberate themselves from enslavement in an increasingly oppressive plantation society of Colonial South Carolina. Perry Kyles See also African Americans and the Constitutional Order; “African” in African American History; Capitalism and Slavery; Haitian Revolution. F URTHER R EADING Carney, Judy. 2002. Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pearson, Edward A. 1996. “‘A Countryside Full of Flames’: A Reconsideration of the Stono Rebellion and Slave Rebelliousness in the Early Eighteenth-Century South Carolina Lowcountry.” Slavery and Abolition 17 (2): 22–50. Wood, Peter. 1974. Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

z Sugar Cane and the African Diaspora Sugar cane is perhaps unrivalled among other crops in its tremendous impact upon the landscapes, cultures, ecologies, economics, and politics of the New World. For centuries most of the sugar cane in the Americas was grown in the Caribbean, but it has historically been produced in substantial amounts in northeastern Brazil, Central and South America, and the southern United States. However, the role of Europe and Africa is just as critical to the historical study of sugar cane in the Americas, in that the growing consumption of sugar in Europe, the accumulation of wealth from the

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Sugar Cane and the African Diaspora | 869 sugar colonies, and the vast extraction of human capital from Africa, significantly affected the sugar cane industries of the New World. Sugar cane has emerged not only as a crop but also as a poignant illustration of external economic and political influence over former colonies, environmental transformation and degradation, social and race relations, and modern demographics in the Americas. Originally introduced to Hispaniola on Christopher Columbus’s second voyage and brought by successive expeditions to other areas, sugar cane in the 15th and 16th centuries was a relatively small-scale commercial enterprise in the Spanish colonies and northeastern Brazil. Subsistence farming characterized agricultural production in the early centuries of colonization, though it was eclipsed in the mid17th century by monoculture production of cash crops—namely sugar, but also tobacco, cacao, indigo, and coffee—for export to European markets. Sugar cane did not rise to the prominence it would enjoy for several centuries until British and French colonies in the Caribbean began large-scale cultivation in the Lesser Antilles, following the Dutch introduction of sugar cane to Barbados in 1640 via Brazil. By the 18th century, Saint Domingue (present-day Haiti) and Jamaica were the largest producers of sugar cane, while the economies of colonies like Barbados and Guadeloupe were based almost entirely on sugar. During the 18th century, the increasing popularity of this former luxury was evidenced by changes in the eating habits of many Europeans, due to increased availability, which in turn led to a surge in production of sugar in the colonies. Sugar cane production and demand suffered and declined at various times during the 19th century with the end of slavery and the emergence of new producers of cane sugar, and in the 20th century with free market trade in Europe and competition from beet sugar and other sweeteners. The production of sugar has decreased significantly today and is chiefly controlled by governments and a few large corpo-

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rations. However, the continued dependency on North American and European markets suggests that the outward orientation of the sugar cane production remains an important part of the legacy of sugar in the Americas. The sugar cane industries in the Americas monopolized land and created settlement patterns whose nuclei were the plantations, mills, and factories—or the centers of production. The harvesting of sugar cane requires careful coordination as it must be milled within one day to maintain the optimal sugar content, so efficient production of sugar depended on the close proximity of mills and factories. During the zenith of sugar production in the New World, extraction of wealth from the plantation societies also funded colonial endeavors, including further acquisition and occupation of land. Several scholars have argued additionally that the raw materials produced in the colonies stimulated the Industrial Revolution by providing capital, as well as viable models of agro-industry based on a combination of technical knowledge, coordination, and division of labor that would later characterize industrialized Europe. In this way the production of sugar is also closely tied to the development of capitalism. Labor is one of the most important aspects of the discussion of the American sugar industries, and one whose legacy is visible today. Both the limited indigenous population and European indentured laborers proved less than satisfactory for the demands of increasing plantations. Because sugar could be produced at a much cheaper cost with the use of slave labor and, in doing so, give colonies an advantage over sugar from the East, the African slave trade provided a solution to the lack of adequate labor. The labor-intensive cultivation and harvesting of sugar cane would come to rely on the importation of enslaved Africans to work on the plantations, dramatically changing the racial composition of the Americas. Of the more than 10 million enslaved Africans forcibly taken to the New World, roughly half

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labored in the Caribbean, where they constituted the majority of the population, governed by a small population of whites. Today, the demographics of the Americas, most notably the Caribbean and northeastern Brazil, reflect large populations of descendants of Africans. After emancipation and largely unsuccessful attempts at encouraging European and free African immigration, indentured laborers, primarily from India, were brought to the Caribbean to replace slave labor. Of the approximately 500,000 Indian laborers, most went to the newer sugar-producing colonies of Trinidad and British Guiana, although the French Caribbean also recruited a significant number. Chinese laborers were also brought to the New World, many of whom worked on sugar plantations in Cuba. These groups have all contributed to the diverse cultural geography of the Americas, linked by the common thread of labor in sugar production. The cultivation of sugar cane has had serious environmental implications resulting from the removal of forest cover, erosion, and soil degradation. The uneven patterns of land ownership created by the sugar cane industries have concentrated landholdings in the hands of a few, dispossessing many. The structure of plantation societies has had long-term effects on the social relations within territories and on the political and economic relationships between former colonies and colonial powers. Sugar cane has likewise been responsible for the migration of millions of peoples, whether free, coerced, or enslaved, and as such has had a major impact on the racial and cultural composition of the Americas. Hillary Scott See also Atlantic World and the African Diaspora; Capitalism and Slavery; Salt and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Galloway, J. H. 1989. The Sugar Cane Industry: An Historical Geography from Its Origins to 1914. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

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Mintz, Sidney. 1986. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Penguin Books. Richardson, Bonham C. 1998. The Caribbean in the Wider World, 1492–1992: A Regional Geography. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Williams, Eric E. 1994. Capitalism and Slavery. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

z Suriname: The Ndyuka Maroons H ISTORY The first permanent European settlements in Suriname were founded in 1651 by the British, but they passed to Dutch control after 1667. These relatively modest plantations used only small slave components, but after the Indian wars (1676–1686) they developed into largescale agro-industries, producing mainly sugar for the world market. Colony Suriname grew into a voracious consumer of slaves: inhumane working conditions, including the climate of the marshy lowlands, and the dramatic expansion of the plantation system required ever more enslaved Africans. In 1688, there were 23 plantations with 564 slaves; 50 years later, there were 430 plantations with 50.000 slaves. Between 1650 and 1700, 52 percent of the imported slaves were Loangos or Kongos. During the next 35 years the great majority of slaves were imported from West Africa; after 1736, Central Africa provided one-third of the slaves (Price and Price 1999, 278). Thus, a large arc of the African coast from present-day Senegal to Namibia, for hundreds of miles inland, lost part of its population to Suriname and contributed to the evolution of Ndyuka culture and that of the Suriname maroons in general. From the beginning, enslaved Africans escaped the plantations, some to found free communities in the interior. Many of these runaways successfully battled the planters and their mer-

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Suriname: The Ndyuka Maroons | 871 cenaries. In southeast Suriname, between 1720 and 1730, the Ndyuka nation coalesced out of a number of such groups. In Central Suriname, another powerful coalition of runaways achieved recognition as the “Saramaka.” During the 1750s, the Ndyuka posed such a threat to the colony that Dutch authorities offered them their freedom and regular shipments of goods if they would stop their attacks on the plantations and return to the planters any slaves that escaped later. The peace treaty, concluded in 1760, created an independent black nation, more than a century before the abolition of slavery in Suriname (1863). Thereafter, some runaways were returned to the planters, but most were integrated into Ndyuka communities. Dutch authorities attempted to restrict the Ndyuka to the country’s interior, but the planters needed them as lumberers. Gradually, hundreds of maroons settled in the plantation colony proper. From 1880 to 1925, Ndyuka and other maroons became important as boatmen transporting thousands of gold miners to places deep in French Guiana. About 10.000 Ndyuka still inhabit their old heartland along the Tapanahoni River, a tributary of the Marowijne (Maroni) River, which separates Suriname from French Guiana. Others have settled in the capital, Paramaribo, in the eastern part of Suriname’s coastal zone and in French Guiana. Several thousands live in the Netherlands. Today’s widely dispersed Ndyuka (estimated at 50.000 total) battle the forces of disintegration with the loyalties of kinship and religion. K INSHIP The dominant principle of Ndyuka social organization is matrilineality. All Ndyuka know to which of the 14 matrilineal clans (lo) they belong. Most Ndyuka villages are clan-owned. Clans are divided into matrilineages (bee), which can be subdivided into matrisegments (wan mama pikin). As is usual in matrilineal societies, other principles help structure kinship relations. Bilateral consanguineal kin

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groups (famii) play an important role. Whether lineage or family, kinship is crucial: when two unfamiliar Ndyuka meet, they first determine if and how they are related. One concern is to determine whether their respective kin groups had a bad relationship in the past: certain actions by one’s matrilineal ancestors may have aroused a fury (kunu) in the other’s matrilineage. In such cases, especial respect and decency should be shown toward that party, for the avenging spirit or ghost is easily provoked to inflict misfortune, illness, even death. Hence, precise genealogical data are imperative among Ndyuka in their heartland and in the diaspora (Köbben 1967; van Wetering and Thoden van Velzen 2002). G ODS AND O RACLES The second integrative force of Ndyuka society is even more important. The Ndyuka believe in a variety of gods and spirits. Central to every village both geographically and ritually are the ancestor shrines: the mortuary (kee osu) and the ancestor pole (faakatiki). Every morning village elders congregate at the faakatiki to beg their ancestors for the well-being of the community and speedy recovery of the sick; libations are poured and village affairs are discussed. Ancestors are respected but known entities. But the domain of the gods is largely unknowable. Ndyuka recognize numerous gods (gadu) who are powerful and immortal beings, though generally not considered omniscient and omnipresent. Topping the supernatural hierarchy is Masaa Gadu (the Lord God), the creator. Immediately below him in spiritual power are the great deities: Gaan Gadu (great deity) or Gaan Tata (great father), Ogii (danger), and Gedeonsu. These intervene directly in human affairs, take sides in conflicts, and punish humans for their sins. Unlike Masaa Gadu, who protects all humankind equally, the great deities are tribal or national gods. Gaan Tata led the Africans on the plantations out of slavery, fighting alongside his people like Yahweh among the Jews, and is still seen primarily as

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the Ndyuka’s staunchest defender against their enemies, especially against the most dangerous, witches (wisiman). Gaan Tata insists that every corpse be carried through the village and examined for evidence of witchcraft. If a witch is so discovered, or even if mere contamination with witchcraft is detected, the deceased’s possessions are confiscated by Gaan Tata’s priests, and the corpse is dumped at some unholy spot in the forest. Ogii is the king of the forest spirits and Gaan Tata’s host. When the rebel slaves arrived on the Tapanahoni River, infant mortality was high. Gaan Tata, a stranger to the Amazonian rain forest, begged Ogii for assistance. The king of the forest assigned Gaan Tata a small army of forest spirits to assist him and his people, on condition that Gaan Tata would behave as a proper guest, not spoiling the environment. During the 1970s, Ogii’s medium decided that Gaan Tata had condemned so many (mainly innocent) deceased Ndyuka of witchcraft that Ogii’s forest, river, and creeks had become polluted. That medium ruled the Ndyuka heartland for almost 10 years, desecrating Gaan Tata’s places of worship, forbidding the carrying of the corpse, and substituting periodic screening of the living population for witchery. For those found contaminated, a simple cleansing ritual was considered sufficient. Today, a generation later, Gaan Tata is again being venerated. Gedeonsu is considered a shielding, comforting deity. In their prayers, the Ndyuka say: “When we are hungry, we know where to run to. You will always be there to take care of us, to offer us solace.” Every three or four years pilgrimages are held to Gedeonsu’s forest shrines. Hundreds of Ndyuka men and women, from both the interior and the city, partake in these sacred treks. There is no formal cult for Masaa Gadu, but worship of the great deities is organized with shrines and priests. Secular offices, such as chief and captain (village headman), are often combined with priestly ones. “Carry oracles,” taber-

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nacles tied to a plank carried by two priests, dominate religious practice. The plank’s movements answer questions put to the oracle. All major problems are discussed this way. Any new spirit medium seeking legitimacy makes his or her first trip to one of those oracles. During the civil war (1986–1992), when hundreds of young Ndyuka men joined the resistance against Suriname’s military junta, the oracles were consulted to see whether the gods would support them. Gaan Tata told the guerrillas that they should have consulted him earlier and not to ask him to support a decision they had made by themselves. At the same time, the god criticized the military for their rough handling of the Ndyuka people. But followers of Ogii, the forest deity, openly supported the insurrection. Before every military action by the insurgents, a carry oracle was consulted. Before being allowed to join the guerrillas, every volunteer was checked by the carry oracle for witchcraft or intent to betray the cause (Thoden van Velzen and van Wetering 2004). Although almost all maroon societies in the Americas have disappeared, the Ndyuka and the Saramaka continue to exhibit considerable cultural vitality and autonomy (Price 1996). Approximately 100 miles separate the Ndyuka heartland from the coast where most economic activity takes place. It is common knowledge that the authorities in Paramaribo seek an agreement with certain influential Ndyuka to open the terrain between the Tapanahoni River and the coast to exploitation by international mining and logging interests. Opposition to these projects, which would destroy the virgin rain forest, is spearheaded by the Gaan Tata oracle. The oracle operates not by directly rejecting government proposals, but making accusations of witchcraft against the recently deceased relatives of those who favor the wholesale exploitation of Suriname’s forests, thus undermining the reputation of those families. H.U.E. Thoden van Velzen and W. van Wetering

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Sutherland, Efua Theodora (1924–1996) | 873 See also Maroon and Marronage. F URTHER R EADING Köbben, A. J. F. 1967. “Unity and Disunity: Cottica Djuka Society as a Kinship System.” Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land-en Volkenkunde 123 (1): 10–52. Price, Richard. 1996. Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Price, Sally, and Richard Price. 1999. Maroon Arts: Cultural Vitality in the African Diaspora. Boston: Beacon Press. Thoden van Velzen, H.U.E., and W. van Wetering. 2004. In the Shadow of the Oracle: Religion as Politics in a Suriname Maroon Society. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press. Van Wetering, W., and H. U. E. Thoden van Velzen. 2002. “Ndyuka.” In Encyclopedia of World Cultures, ed. Melvin Ember, Carol R. Embers, and Ian Skoggard, supplement, 222– 227. New York: Macmillan Reference USA.

z Sutherland, Efua Theodora (1924–1996) Efua Morgue (her maiden name) Sutherland, Ghanaian playwright and community activist, founded PANAFEST (PanAfrican Festival), the coming together of Africans of the Diaspora to celebrate the arts, and made significant contributions to drama in Ghana. Sutherland was born on June 27, 1924 in Cape Coast, in the central region of Ghana, then the Gold Coast, a British colony. After primary and secondary schooling there, she received her bachelor of arts in education at Homerton College, Cambridge University, and later studied linguistics, African languages and drama in the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. She returned to teach at her alma mater, St. Monica, and other learning institutions, including the prestigious Achimota School. In 1954, she married William Sutherland, an African American, and had three children.

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Sutherland was a woman of vision and creativity. In 1957, she helped organize the Ghana Society of Writers and later, the Ghana Experimental Theater Co. In 1959, she founded Okyeame, a literary journal, and in 1960, she founded the Ghana Drama Studio, a fixture in the University of Ghana in the Institute of African Studies, where she served as a research associate. In 1968, she developed Kusum Agromba, a performance group who entertained in various venues, including churches, schools, and colleges, all across the country. She also aided in developing the Ghana National Children’s Commission. As a writer, Sutherland focused on using her works as a means of educating and motivating Ghanaians to be politically involved, prideful, and agents in their country’s progress, all the while instilling pride in the different cultures and people of Ghana. Her play Foriwa (1967) is a drama set in the newly independent country of Ghana where the main female character, Foriwa, is a southerner who marries Labaran, a visionary northerner. Significant to their uniting is the role of the female, as Foriwa’s mother plays a critical role by embracing Labaran as a suitable mate for her daughter. Sutherland, who was also quite influenced by the Greek classics, penned Edufa (1967), her re-creation of Euripides’ Alcestis. Another celebrated play, The Marriage of Anansewa (1975), reveals Sutherland’s interest in and commitment to African oral culture and myth. Here, the Ananse trickster figure takes the role of a father who attempts to trick the various suitors of his daughter, Anansewa, so that he may gain wealth through her bride price. Important to this work is what Sutherland calls mboguo, which, much like a Greek chorus, is the act of audience members commenting on the development of the play through music and dance. Sutherland also wrote children’s books, including Playtime in Africa (1962), Vulture! Vulture! (1968), Tahinta (1968), The Roadmakers (1961), and The Voice in the Forest (1983). Sutherland worked with

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and influenced Ghanaian artists such as Ama Ata Aidoo, Joe de Graft, and many more. During the 1980s, Sutherland served as adviser to Ghanaian president Jerry Rawlings and helped establish the W.E.B. DuBois Memorial Center for Pan African Culture. Sutherland died on January 21, 1996. Miriam C. Gyimah See also Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Brown, Lloyd. 1981. Women Writers of Black Africa. London: Greenwood Press. Odamtten, Vincent. 2003. “Sutherland, Efua Theodora.” Encyclopedia of African Literature. New York: Routledge. Who’s Who in African Literature: Biographies, Works, Commentaries. 1972. Germany: BechtDruck & Co. Wilentz, Gay. 1992. Binding Cultures: Black Women Writers in Africa and the Diaspora. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

z Swahili The Swahili (singular Mswahili, plural WaSwahili) are a historically ancient group of coastal peoples stretching more than 2,000 miles along East Africa’s coast. Distinctly Swahili communities with a shared but regionally variant Swahili culture and language were already well established by the seventh century CE. The Swahili language of the northeastern Bantu family is today one of the most widely spoken African languages. Kiswahili is a lingua franca in more than eight modern East and Central African countries and is also widely known throughout parts of the African Diaspora and the rest of the world. With antecedents reaching back as far as seven millennia, Swahili civilization arose gradually, starting perhaps more than 2,000 years ago, producing lasting stone architecture by the sev-

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enth century CE, and extending through several major periods of cultural efflorescence. Swahili culture produced a set of distinct yet overlapping local communities with a common language and material culture featuring particular regional variants. Swahili villages, towns, and cities can be found in ecological niches: low-lying coastal areas, such as Malindi, Kenya or Mogadishu, Somalia; nearby islands often accessible at low tide, such as Mombasa or Manda in Kenya; and offshore islands, like Pemba, Zanzibar, and Mafia in Tanzania, accessible only by deep-sea vessel. Local production, trade, and cultural exchange form the economic basis of Swahili civilization. This cultural exchange connected coastal communities from Somalia to Mozambique in what Richard Wilding (1987) called the “coasting trade,” and it also connected the entire Indian Ocean world with hinterland and interior communities throughout East Africa and the continent beyond. The Swahili language, part of the northeastern Bantu linguistic stream, is widely accepted to be about 75 percent Bantu-based and 25 percent Arabic, with small influences from several other African and Asian linguistic groups. In the past century, Kiswahili has become a lingua franca in most of East Africa, including Kenya, Tanzania, and much of Uganda, Congo, the offshore Indian Ocean islands of the Comoros archipelago and Mozambique, as well as in numerous Afro-Diasporic communities throughout the world. E ARLIEST C ONTRIBUTORS TO P ROTO S WAHILI C IVILIZATION Most histories of the Swahili written during and since the colonial era (1880s to 1960s) wrongly emphasized the primacy of Arab influences in Swahili antiquity, largely because of diffusionist and racial tendencies in Western anthropology and science that attempted to deny African history and agency. However, recent linguistic, archaeological, and historical investigations, especially those of African scholars trained in postindependence African

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Swahili | 875 contexts, have largely overturned this perspective, important though Arab connections were. The earliest inhabitants of the East African coast were late Stone Age African foragers, whose hunter-gatherer descendants still live in pockets of the East African culture-scape. These peoples also engaged in fishing, hunting, and complex long-distance trade. Southern and eastern Cushitic-speaking and eastern Nilotic-speaking agro-pastoralists were the next major populations in the region, reaching as far south as present-day Tanzania. The historical influence of these groups on Swahili culture, particularly its northern half, has been underestimated by most scholars, but was provocatively suggested by James de vere Allen (1993) and Richard F. Wilding (1987). Their modern descendants include the Gabbra, Borana, and Oromo peoples, As Allen and Wilding suggested, this connection is crucial to understanding the influence of Axum and other Ethiopian cultures, as well as Sudanese and Egyptian states, on the Swahili world to the south. Much of the ancient world’s incense trade originated within this region, between the interior of the Horn of Africa and the Ethiopian highlands, and the extensive trade networks that emanated from both. More than 9,000 years ago, predynastic Egypt imported most of its resinous incense (used in embalming and other rituals), as well as precious stones and other goods from a land they called Punt, which researchers speculate lay on the African side of the southern Red Sea, or along the East African coast further south, if not generically referring to the whole of this pre-Swahili region. Together with gold and cinnamon, East Africa–derived incense was probably among the three most valued commodities of the ancient world, placing the earliest Swahili world at the center of global economic ties. Bantu-speaking people bearing sophisticated iron technology and intensive agricultural and hunting practices spread into Central and then Eastern Africa throughout the first millennium BCE, and reached the coastal regions in the ear-

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liest centuries of the first millennium CE. It is still unclear whether they blended with, displaced, or absorbed an existing agricultural coastal population that existed by exploiting the marine environment, but the new Bantu-speaking populations expanded quickly and forged social relations with the pastoralists and hunter-gatherers in their midst. The latter, for example, usually were members of the secretive and ritualized well-sinking guild that provided water for all coastal inhabitants and their livestock. The northeastern branch of the Bantu-speaking family, known as Sabaki, ultimately formed the basis of the widely spoken Swahili language, a particular Sabaki variant with up to 25 percent loan words from Arabic as well as a smattering of influences from Persian, Urdu, Hindi, Portuguese, Malagasy, and Cushitic language groups, and more recently from English as well. After the possibility that Egyptian and Phoenician vessels reached East Africa 2–6 millennia ago, there are good written records of Greek, Roman, and Arab travelers’ and geographers’ accounts of East Africa from the third century BCE. What was to later become the Swahili coast was at this time already an integral part of worldwide systems of trade and cultural contact. Dated to the first century CE, the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea is a Greek guide to the East African coast, known to them as Azania; it describes an already thriving and vital mercantile city known as Rhapta, whose location today remains a mystery despite speculation about the Rufiji and Lamu delta basins as probable sites. Arab ties with the East African coast began during this period as well, and Islam came to the Swahili coast from as early as the seventh century CE. The Arabic word for the coast and its people was Zanj, and the term Swahili is itself an Arabic term for coast (from Sawahil), much like the term Sahel, which refers to the southern “coast” or edge of the Sahara. Small numbers of Arab immigrants assimilated into coastal cultures over the centuries, intermarrying with local people and forming a part of local communities, while engaging in trade.

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T HE A PEX OF S WAHILI C IVILIZATION A florescence of distinctive stone architecture dates to this period, being already well established by the seventh century in cities from Mogadishu and Shanga in the north to Kilwa in the south. From the 8th to the 15th centuries, the Swahili coast entered a long period of florescence, with a major expansion in the number of cities and stone towns, reaching a total of more than 400 at its apex. Old and new cities grew in size; interior populations were drawn to the coasts and islands; and international trade, as well as trade with interior regions of the continent, expanded at steady rates. The 13th and 14th centuries may have been the penultimate apex of this development for the East African coast as a whole, although complex regional variation remained the norm. While this corresponds neatly with known developments elsewhere within the 13th century world system, the Swahili coast is often neglected in conventional world histories, although it clearly deserves to be seen as an integral part of Old World economies and cultural systems. It is possible that the Swahili world and its transoceanic allies to the east provided an important outlet for a southern shift of world systems into the Indian Ocean while the Mongol invasions wreaked havoc on societies across the whole of the Old World from the north. These global connections underwrote a rich cultural assemblage along the coasts of East Africa, with distinct multistoried stone and coral architecture, indoor plumbing, diversified crafts such as silversmithing and wood carving, and dense urban cores in the midst of elaborate multiethnic and multilingual cities that encompassed pastoralists and agriculturalists as well as merchants both foreign and local. The siwa, or side blown horn, became a distinct Swahili customary item, and ritual sword fighting, also still in practice today at ceremonies, stems from this era if not earlier. The ivory trade was growing in this period, as African ivory was preferred to Asian varieties, and a

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trickle of slaves continued to flow east and north as well. Iron and mangrove poles were also large-scale exports, and East African iron, being more malleable, was exported in massive quantities to India where it was found to be of the best quality for the new process of making the galvanized steel that was being smelted in Asia. It can even be suggested that this East African iron thus led to the creation of swords so superior to all others that when one found its way into Europe, where they were exceedingly rare at first, its power led to the creation of the Excalibur myth. Gauging from the quantity and importance of these trade items alone, it should be clear that the coast exported more than just luxury goods, as has often been suggested, even if gold from the Great Zimbabwe region, gems from various regions, turtle shells, and animal skins continued to occupy important places within trade economies. Other cultural elements, some of which were also exported, were less material, such as the language, oral history, and epic poetry that date to this era of Swahili history and were influential throughout the region. These provide lasting works of art as well as detailed historical accounts of the social history of the coast. T RADE AND THE A RRIVAL OF E UROPEANS Trade that had existed for millennia by this time became larger in scale and more regularized than it had ever been before. Oman, Yemen, the Arab world, Persia, and India were the main trade partners across the Indian Ocean, and their cultural influences were also felt along the length of the East African coast. More distant lands, including Cambodia, Indonesia, China, Rome, and Nabatea constituted additional trading partners and sources of cultural exchange. The pottery of these places is often found in archaeological digs from this era, among a vast majority of locally produced wares, usually known as incised Tana wares, named for the Tana River. This pottery base clearly indicates the foundations of Swahili society in local interior cultures reach-

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Swahili | 877 ing thousands of miles inland mainly along riverine valleys. Overland and trickle trade is also known to have existed with distant regions of the African continent, though this has been downplayed and less researched until the past decade or two, with the promise of exciting new discoveries to be made in the near future by local archaeologists such as Chapurukha Kusimba and Felix Chami. African trade partners with the Swahili coast included, at various times and places, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Central Africa, the Great Lakes region, the eastern and central Saharan caravan routes, Great Zimbabwe, and southern Africa. But as Wilding made clear, the bulk of Swahili trade was in fact intra-Swahili trade between regions like Mogadishu, Mombasa, and Malindi in the north; Zanzibar, Pemba, and Kilwa in the middle; and Mozambique, Great Zimbabwe, the Comoros, and Mapungubwe (in South Africa) in the south. The arrival of the Portuguese after 1498 did not destroy Swahili culture and trade as much as it posed a regular source of prolonged disruption. Swahili economies nevertheless managed to grow even during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries despite the predations and violence Europeans began visiting on the region. Omanis, especially the Mazrui Dynasty, established themselves in major coastal cities such as Mombasa and Pate, usually in close concert with inland peoples such as the Mijikenda or Oromo whom they relied upon as trade and military partners and allies. It was only with the advent of the Busaidi Omanis, who relocated the capital of their empire to Zanzibar from Muscat and rapidly conquered the coast in the first decades of the 19th century, that this balance was permanently disrupted and more exploitative relations became the norm. The 19th century saw an unprecedented skewing of coastal power relations, with the rise and massive expansion of Atlantic-style slave trading and plantations, underwritten by European naval power aligned with the Busaidi, Swahili elites, and Banyan financiers from India. Dur-

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ing this period social relations were profoundly reordered and, as was entailed in all colonial processes, history itself was largely rewritten to reflect the new social structure. Q UESTIONS OF O RIENTATION AND B IAS IN S WAHILI H ISTORIOGRAPHY From this period then originates the so-called Arab (or Persian) myth of Swahili origins, predicated on the racial assumption that African accomplishments could not reflect African cultures and so must derive from outside the continent. It was now claimed that Arabs had conquered or colonized the supposedly empty coast from the earliest times, bringing with them all of the lasting elements of Swahili civilization, especially stone architecture. While extreme versions of this biased perspective have been definitively overturned since the end of formal colonial rule in East Africa, vestiges of it remain in otherwise critical works of scholars even today. Nonetheless, Muslim and Arab settlers occupied numerically small proportions of coastal populations until the 19th century and generally fit themselves within existing social and hierarchical orders. Syncretism between Islam and indigenous cultures was the norm, and coastal cultures absorbed settlers and incorporated them for the most part, rather than the other way around. Conversion to Islam was rare beyond certain neighborhoods of the coastal cities, again until the 19th century. Biases toward a larger than historically justified role for Islam and Arabs in East Africa remain, in part, because of the effects of colonial dislocation on the production of knowledge. Few local coastal peoples other than Arabs and Swahili have produced social science scholars to represent their perspectives in the academy. These questions of bias are also pertinent to discussions of the slave trade. The British in particular blamed slavery, in exaggerated forms, on existing Arab cultures in the Indian Ocean, but these were not chattel forms of slavery, until this was introduced in the 19th

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century under European influence from the Atlantic system where it had gradually been limited. Far more slaves, now chattel slaves for the most part, were exported from East Africa in the 19th century than in the preceding two millennia. Some reached the Atlantic system via the French colonial islands in the southwest Indian Ocean, but most were destined for Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, Arabia, and India. Local Swahili and Omani elites were able to retain nominal autonomy throughout this period, though British and French rule was encroaching rapidly, and with the advent of the machine gun and the scramble for Africa, formal territorial colonialism began in the 1880s and 1890s. Abolition in East Africa, as it had been in West Africa in the preceding century, became largely a tool to undermine local elites and supplant them with European rule. T HE S WAHILI TODAY Swahili scholars and others have correctly pointed out that Swahili peoples at the coast have been marginalized in the postcolonial period, despite relative prominence and freedom during the colonial years (1895–1963 in Kenya). Investors from the interiors of Kenya and other East African countries, combined with the influx of foreign capital, have displaced the Swahili from the burgeoning tourist industries that have become leading sectors of postcolonial economies such as Kenya. Mijikenda and other non-Swahili coastal peoples, historical partners in earlier Swahili civilizations, also point out that they are even further displaced within the schema, being marginal to the Swahili who are themselves being marginalized from the centers of postcolonial state power. Much as elsewhere in the world, the colonial- and slave-era hierarchies set up in the past two centuries continue to a large extent to organize coastal social relations today. Swahili are marginalized economically vis-à-vis the state, tensions exist between what some refer to as pure versus innovated (i.e., African influenced) Islam, as well as between Muslims and non-Muslims in some parts of the

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coast, and many racial and slave-based terminologies are still used as ethnic labels. At the same time, many of the egalitarian and cross-cultural elements of Swahili history are still in full effect in coastal communities, and such tendencies continue to assert themselves in numerous ways, in cross-class marriages, business partnerships, and community and women’s organizations. Many non-Swahili coastal residents have and continue to undergo a process of what they might call Swahilization, an adoption of Swahili dress, linguistic inflection, comportment and mannerism, and styles of living. Such subtle shifts ensure that Swahili culture expands and allows mobility into Swahili industries such as fishing, boat trades, and urban commerce. Although these arenas are under competition from modern industries and postcolonial newcomers, they continue to assert their presence in contemporary cities and towns throughout East Africa. Numerous regional Swahili traditions continue unabated, such as the arrival each year of dhows from the Comoros Islands to celebrate the New Year or Maulidi each year in far away Lamu. Study-abroad programs bring new groups of students to learn about Swahili language and culture, and tourism continues despite the setbacks of recent geopolitical events. Swahili merchants still trade their wares, and Swahili fishermen continue to draw immense hauls of fish from the sea each day. Historical sites are being preserved for future generations and in turn are becoming tourist sites in their own right. Many chapters of Swahili history remain to be written in future years, and fertile debates about the past continue to produce new insights of this rich and complex history. The Swahili remain at once a global and a local, an African and an Indian Ocean, people. Jesse Benjamin See also Incense; Indian Ocean and the African Diaspora; Zanj (Zinj, Zang). F URTHER R EADING Abungu, George, and Henry Mutoro. 1993. “Coast-Interior Settlements and Social Rela-

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Sweet Honey in the Rock | 879 tions in the Kenya Coastal Hinterland.” In The Archaeology of Africa: Foods, Metals, and Towns, ed. Thurstan Shaw, Paul Sinclair, Bassey Andah, Alex Okpoko, and contributors. London: Routledge. Allen, James de vere. 1993. Swahili Origins: Swahili Culture and the Shungwaya Phenomenon. London: James Curry. Chami, Felix A. 2002. “The Graeco-Romans and Paanchea/Azania: Sailing in the Erythraean Sea.” London: British Museum, Society for Arabian Studies. Cooper, Frederick. 1980. From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890–1925. Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau. Glassman, Jonathan. 1995. Feasts and Riot: Revelry, Rebellion and Popular Consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856–1888. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Kusimba, Chapurukha M. 1999. The Rise and Fall of Swahili States. Walnut Creek, CA; London: AltaMira Press. Mazrui, Alamin M., and Ibrahim Noor Shariff. 1994. The Swahili: Idiom and Identity of an African People. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press/Red Sea Press. Mkangi, Katama. 1995. “The Perception of Islam by the Mijikenda of Kenya Coast.” In Islam in Kenya: Proceedings of the National Seminar on Contemporary Islam in Kenya, ed. Mohamed Bakari and Saad S. Yahya. Nairobi, Kenya: Mewa Publications. Pearson, Michael N. 1998. Port Cities and Intruders: The Swahili Coast, India, and Portugal in the Early Modern Era. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Wilding, Richard F. 1987. The Shorefolk: Aspects of the Early Development of Swahili Communities. Occasional Papers #2. Mombasa, Kenya: Fort Jesus. Willis, Justin. 1993. Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.

z Sweet Honey in the Rock Sweet Honey in the Rock, the legendary a cappella female vocal group, took its name from

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Psalm 81:16, where God promises the people will be fed by honey out of the rock. The symbolism of its name is an apt metaphor for African American women; honey, the ancient substance with myriad medicinal uses, is both sweet and nurturing, and rock represents strength and endurance against time and the elements. One of the group’s first performance songs was a rendition of the traditional song “Sweet Honey in the Rock” based on the biblical parable and became the inspiration for their name. The ensemble was created in 1973 by Bernice Johnson Reagon as an offshoot of her vocal workshops for the D.C. Black Repertory Theater Company. Its wide-ranging repertoire has its roots firmly planted in the African American musical legacy. Sweet Honey performs traditional gospel hymns, blues, spirituals, reggae, rap, African chants, poems, hip-hop, folk songs, jazz improvisations, and ancient lullabies solely through the use of the human voice or accompanied by minimalist hand percussion instruments such as shekeres and calabashes. The ensemble specializes in the sacred music of the black church, where the Civil Rights Movement, and the protest songs it inspired, was born. Sweet Honey’s songs, whether traditional or original compositions, cry out against struggle and injustice and instill hope and peace on a global level. Sweet Honey in the Rock began recording two years after it was formed; after a performance at the folk festival of the University of Chicago, the group signed with Flying Fish Records. On the second recording, B’lieve I’ll Run On, in 1978, the group worked with Redwood Records before returning to Flying Fish for most of their later albums. In 1989, the ensemble won a Grammy Award in the category of Best Traditional Folk Recording for their version of Leadbelly’s “Grey Goose” on the 1988 compilation album, Folkways: A Vision Shared. The group has also received several Grammy nominations for its own recordings. Sweet Honey in the Rock has also received

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numerous CARA (Contemporary A Cappella Recording) awards. Sweet Honey in the Rock released its 17th recording, And the Women Gather, in 2003. In 2007, they released “Experience 101,” which targeted a youth audience. The multimember ensemble has included more than 20 women since its inception more than three decades ago. Originating as a quartet, the group has grown to six members, including Shirley Childress Saxton, who has provided American Sign Language interpretation of Sweet Honey’s songs for the hearing impaired audience since 1980. In 2004, Bernice Johnson Reagon retired from the group, which was celebrated in their 30th-anniversary collaboration with Bernice Reagon’s daughter, Toshi, and her band, Big Lovely, entitled Eveningsong. The historic celebratory performance played to rave reviews in 13 cities throughout the United States. In 2003, Sweet Honey triumphantly returned to England and Scotland with a six-city tour that took them to London’s Royal Festival Hall, Exeter Cathedral, and Edinburgh’s Usher Hall. The group also regularly performs at the Michigan Womyn’s Festival and has traveled around the world carrying the message of love, peace, and struggle. In the autumn of 2003, the Smithsonian Institution paid tribute to the group by requesting the donation of artifacts reflecting the group’s history for its permanent collection in the National Museum of American History. Sweet Honey signed an official deed of gift covering the costumes, instruments, posters, and recordings donated to the performing arts collection, where the items will be housed alongside other musical history artifacts such as Michael Jackson’s glove. In appreciation of Sweet Honey in the Rock’s popularity nationwide, the group received the Award of Merit from the Association of Performing Arts Presenters. The ensemble was also honored in their hometown of Washington, D.C., with a star on the Warner The-

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ater’s walk of fame, which was feted by scores of local community members with an event surrounding the ceremony. To conclude its 30th anniversary, Sweet Honey in the Rock created and performed a concert featuring the Sweet Honey in the Rock Community Choir; Endings and Beginnings was based on original compositions. The 150member chorus, trained and directed by original Sweet Honey member Ysaye Barnwell, was developed during a semester course, “Vocal Community” at the University of Maryland. The one-time concert also featured the premiere of an a cappella suite composed by Sweet Honey based on the biblical text in Luke 2:1– 21, The Nativity. During its 31st season, PBS aired A Song for Everyone, documenting Sweet Honey in the Rock’s history by Emmy awardwinning filmmaker Stanley Nelson. See also Blues: A Continuum from Africa; Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Jazz and Blues Singers, Black Women; Rap/Rappin’; Reagon, Bernice Johnson (1942–). F URTHER R EADING Reagon, Bernice Johnson. 1993. We Who Believe in Freedom: Sweet Honey in the Rock: Still on the Journey. New York: Anchor Books. Discography The Women Gather (2003) Still the Same Me (2000) . . . Twenty Five (1998) Selections (1976–1988) (1997) Sacred Ground (1996) I Got the Shoes (1994) Still On the Journey (1993) In This Land (1992) All for Freedom (1989) Live at Carnegie Hall (1988) Breaths (1988) The Other Side (1985) Feel Something Drawing Me On (1985) We All . . . Every One Of Us (1983) Good News (1981) B’lieve I’ll Run On (1978) Sweet Honey in the Rock (1976) Videos Sweet Honey in the Rock: Singing For Freedom

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commonly known is that the tango also owes a debt of gratitude to African and Afro-Platine musicians for its origins and development. In Argentina and Uruguay, as across the Americas, Africans bestowed a rich musical legacy; from the earliest arrivals in the New World, Africans used music and dance (often in conjunction with religious worship) to preserve their ancestral culture(s) and resist the hegemonic traditions of their European masters. For example, African instruments in Argentina and Uruguay used to accompany dancers included the mazacalla (a kind of two-headed rattle), the marimba or xylophone, and, of course, the drum or tamboril. Folkloric dances in the River Plate attributed by specialists to African descendants include the calenda or caringa, the bambula, the chica or congo, the gato, the pericón, the charanda or zemba, and even the gaucho (cowboy) malambo. However, the candombe, which featured syncopated drum beats and improvised dance steps, was the favored rhythmic expression of Africans in the River Plate from the 18th until well into the 19th century. The traditional candombe is a highly choreographed or pantomimic dance between men and women, often involving folkloric characters such as the gramillero, the escobillero or escobero, and the tata vieja, as well

See The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA).

z Tango, Candombe, Milonga The tango is a musical genre (primarily music and dance, but also song) that originally developed in the slums and brothels (orilleras and arrabales) of downtown Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Montevideo, Uruguay between the 19th and early 20th century; it was especially popular at first with the urban lower class. The tango is musically related to the habanera, an Afro-Cuban rhythm in a moderate 2/4 time, having the same meter but with traditionally a faster pace. By the early 20th century, the tango had transcended its original artistic, social, and national boundaries, becoming popular with dancers and performers of all classes in the River Plate and eventually winning audiences throughout Latin America, Europe, and beyond. Although it is certainly true that in its modern form the tango is in fact inspired by some European rhythms and forms, what is not as 881 www.abc-clio.com

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as drummers or comparsas. Couples danced in file, side by side, as the “king” and “queen” supervised the performance. In the end, the king would raise his ceremonial scepter and call an end to the drumming and dancing (Carámbula 1995, 41–50). Candombe dances took place in Buenos Aires and Montevideo inside salas or outside in ranchos or rancherías. Holidays—especially Corpus Christi, the Feast of the Epiphany or festival of San Baltasar on January 6, and Christmas—and Sundays were commemorated by dances sponsored by the different African cofradías (Roman Catholic lay brotherhoods) and ethnic “nations,” such as the Cabindas, Molembos, and Minas, among many others. Colonial and early national elites feared the possibility of unrest and the social meaning of these dance festivals, which allowed large numbers of slaves and free blacks to come together and assert their agency and culture. Several times throughout the colonial and early national periods, white elites petitioned the government to ban candombes, and eventually African social organizations had to register with the police commissioner of their respective towns (see Andrews 1980, 157 for Buenos Aires). The echo of the candombe can still be heard today in Montevideo’s llamadas (drum playing) during carnival and the festival of San Baltasar, as well as almost daily in the city’s many conventillos or tenement housing (Goldman 1997). In addition, more than one academic has maintained that the candombe’s secret attraction rested in its religious content, a meaning often disguised by Africans in the River Plate (Lanuza 1967, 49–51). Some parallels between the dance steps of the candombe and those of Oxalá and candomblé in Brazil seem to exist. Regardless of whether or not the candombe contained religious connotations, the dance became an integral part of the black communities of Argentina and Uruguay for more than 200 years. Some scholars believe that the candombe was a distant precursor of the tango.

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In Buenos Aires’s traditional black zones, San Telmo, Montserrat, and Concepción, known as the “barrios del tambor” (neighborhoods of the drum), the candombe eventually gave way to another popular dance called the milonga or baile de corte y quebrada (cut-and-break dance) by the middle of the 1800s. The dance halls (academisas de baile) and brothels of both Buenos Aires and Montevideo were often located in black neighborhoods and attracted the urban demimonde of lower-class whites and gente de color (African descendents), who came to drink and dance (and more often than not, fight). Buenos Aires police records from 1856 document about 12 such establishments in Montserrat, Concepción, and El Retiro. The milonga originated as a dance of the so-called compadritos (street toughs), who were imitating (and taunting) the steps of the candombe. Even though in the traditional Afro-Platine candombe the dancers were apart from one another, the milonga nonetheless borrowed from the former many characteristic steps. An 1883 description of the milonga noted its relationship to the candombe, while Andrews quotes an old AfroArgentine woman who in 1902 recalled how the compadritos invented the milonga based “on our music” (Andrews 1980, 166). Rossi (1958, 125– 128) also concluded that the dance was created by Africans. By the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the tango replaced the milonga as the favorite music and dance of the urban poor. Some suggest that the word “tango” itself is an African (possibly Kimbundu or Kikanga) word for drum, dance, or festival (see, for example, Gobello 1976 for more on this topic). According to Rossi (1958, 144–147), the first reference to tango dances comes from 1808; in the Montevideo of the mid-1860s, furthermore, the tango was known as “el Chicoba.” The tango imitated the milonga, including its characteristic ombligada (the partners’ intimate embraces) and culeada (swiveling hips). Over time, however, as the tango became Europeanized, the torsos of the dancers stiffened

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The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA) | 883 and the cortes and quebradas became slower and more grave, eventually giving way to the modern-day tango with its “filigrees” and intricate steps. But as George Reid Andrews (1980, 165) asserts, whenever couples lock their bodies tightly together and sway back and forth, the descent of the tango through the milonga is manifest, and the “steps of the tango form a kinetic memory of the candombe.” Moreover, despite the popular opinion that tango’s white guardia vieja (old guard) were the only ones responsible for its development, black musicians in the River Plate played an important role in tango’s evolution during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among early Afro-Argentine tango musicians and composers were “El Negro” Casimiro, “El Mulato” Sinforoso, and “El Pardo” Sebastián Ramos Mejía. Casimiro was a celebrated composer and violinist, known for his “picardía morena” (or black wit, reminiscent of Afro-Platine payadores such as Gabino Ezeiza), while Ramos Mejía was an early exponent of the accordion. Other African Argentine tango musicians were “El Pardo” Jorge Machado, José Santa Cruz, and the most celebrated tango pianist of his day, Anselmo Rosendo Mendizábal. Mendizábal composed the earliest known modern tangos, including “Reina de Saba,” “Don José,” and, most famously, “El Entrerriano.” Thus, from its earliest days, the tango gained from the musical genius of black musicians on both sides of the River Plate (Natale 1984, 209–220). Similar to what Robin Moore (1997) has discussed regarding popular (i.e., Afro-Cuban) music in early 20th-century Havana and labeled as the “nationalizing of Blackness,” John Chasteen (2000) writes that by the 1920s, tango became recognized as an “unofficial national symbol” in Argentina (and, one could add, Uruguay). What is significant about this is Chasteen’s timing of tango’s nationalization to the 1920s. Rather than ignoring or forgetting the tango’s African heritage, as early as 1926 Vicente Rossi was already affirming and defending (his paternalism and sometimes

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questionable racial views notwithstanding) the black contributions to this “national” musical genre’s birth and evolution. Roberto Pacheco See also Argentina: Afro-Argentines; Dance in the African Diaspora; Payada; Uruguay: AfroUruguayans. F URTHER R EADING Andrews, George R. 1980. The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, 1800–1900. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Carámbula, Rubén. 1995. El candombe. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Ediciones del Sol. Chasteen, John C. 2000. “Black Kings, Blackface Carnival, and Nineteenth-century Origins of the Tango.” In Latin American Popular Culture: An Introduction, ed. William H. Beezeley and Linda A. Curcio-Nagy, 43–59. Wilmington, DE: SR Books. Gobello, José. 1976. “Tango, vocablo controvertido.” In La historia del tango: sus orígenes. Vol. 1, ed. Manuel Pampín, 134–144. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Ediciones Corregidor. Goldman, Gustavo. 1997. ¡Salve Baltasar! La fiesta de reyes en el barrio Sur de Montevideo. Montevideo, Uruguay: Impresora Federal Nuevosur. Lanuza, José Luis. 1967. Morenada: una historia de la raza africana en el Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Schapire. Moore, Robin. 1997. Nationalizing Blackness: Afrocubanismo and Artistic Revolution in Havana, 1920–1940. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Natale, Oscar. 1984. Buenos Aires, negros y tango. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Peña Lillo Editor. Rossi, Vicente. 1958. Cosas de negros. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Librería Hachette. (Orig. pub. 1926).

z The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA) The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA) is a network of scholars who were previously working in isolation on different areas of Asia and in

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diverse academic disciplines. Formed in 2002 by Jean Pierre Angenot and Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya, TADIA attempts to break down the compartmentalization that exists within institutions and pool the academic resources of its members. TADIA aims to seek out Afro-Asian communities and bring them to the attention of the academic world. It aims to investigate the educational, employment, and organizational needs of contemporary Afro-Asian communities. TADIA’s activities revolve around interconnected programs of academic research, cultural activities, educational needs, and socioeconomic and organizational workshops. The acumen of the academic community will be enhanced through conferences and the proceedings will be published and disseminated. TADIA is now a project associated with the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. The cultural activities include bringing together African musicians, dancers, and other artists so that they are aware of other similar diasporas and the significance of African retentions such as music, song, and dance, in molding African identity. This involves AfroAsian artists performing outside their countries as well as artists from other African Diasporas performing in Asia. Socioeconomic workshops would be held, initially in India, bringing together leaders of Afro-Indian communities. This would also provide a forum for Afro-Indians from various parts of India to meet and discuss how they would like to organize themselves in the future, for example by establishing an All India Siddi Federation. Organizational workshops are also planned in India to help the communities. TADIA’s first conference was held in January 2006 in Goa, India. A nongovernmental organization is being formed in India to receive grants from funding bodies to pay for the activities TADIA has earmarked to enhance Afro-Asian communities. The work is currently led from India, but there are also larger numbers of Afro-Asians in Pakistan. Currently, the number of Afro-Indians is

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estimated at more than 50,000 whereas there are one and a half million Afro-Pakistanis. TADIA membership currently exceeds 300 scholars who maintain an interest in AfroAsiatic communities. These scholars are affiliated with more than 200 institutions throughout the world. The diverse cultural systems faced by the African who migrated eastward and the complex interactions with the host societies who had ancient religions, many languages, and various customs require the attention of scholars who would approach the Diaspora from many facets. The scholar needs to be a historian, a linguist, an archaeologist, a biologist, an ethnologist, a psychiatrist, an anthropologist, and a specialist in oral tradition to analyze this Diaspora. It is not possible for any particular scholar to be a specialist in all these disciplines, so TADIA is gathering the expertise in order to develop the field and enhance the welfare of the AfroAsian communities. Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya See also India and the African Diaspora; Indian Ocean and the African Diaspora; Sri Lankan African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Baptiste, Fitzroy A. 1998. “African Presence in India (1 and 2).” African Quarterly 38 (2): 76– 90, 91–126. De Silva Jayasuriya, Shihan and Richard Pankurst, eds. 2003. The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Harris, Joseph. 2003. “Expanding the Scope of African Diaspora Studies: The Middle East and India, a Research Agenda” Radical History Review 87: 157–68.

z Thiong’o, Ngugi wa (1938–) Ngugi wa Thiong’o has led Kenyan struggles for literary and political autonomy for more than four decades. A writer and critic from the

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Thiong’o, Ngugi wa (1938–) | 885 Gikuyu ethnic group, he is best known for historical novels depicting crises in Kenya’s quest for independence, from the Mau-Mau rebellion of the 1950s to the semidictatorial regime of Daniel Arap Moi that ended in 2002. Thiong’o’s insistence on writing in African languages and his ideas about the place of culture and literature in postcolonial societies have influenced writers throughout Africa and beyond. Born in Limuru, Kenya, Thiong’o was educated in English at Christian colonial schools in Kenya, at Makerere University in Uganda, and at the University of Leeds, England. His family, members of the ethnic group most prominent in the Mau-Mau rebellion, suffered greatly after being accused of sympathies with the rebels. Thiong’o was radicalized during those years and during his subsequent study in England, where he came into contact with other ex-colonial subjects and imbibed the liberatory Marxism of Frantz Fanon. Thiong’o wrote his first novel, Weep Not, Child (1964), under his birth name, James Ngugi. During the remaining years of the 1960s and 1970s, he slowly shed the trappings of his colonial upbringing and replaced them with his indigenous African heritage. He adopted the name Ngugi wa Thiong’o and became increasingly dedicated to cultivating his mother tongue, Gikuyu. In 1967, he published A Grain of Wheat, another examination of the Kenyan fight for independence. Thiong’o taught at Nairobi University from 1968 to 1977. During the last years of the government of Jomo Kenyatta, Thiong’o became vocal about the imminent rise to power of Daniel Arap Moi, then the vice president of Kenya. Thiong’o’s play Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want; 1977), written and produced with fellow Gikuyus, so incensed Moi that he was jailed without charge for one year. While in prison he wrote Petals of Blood (1978), his last novel in English. Thiong’o claimed that by writing in English rather than African languages, writers had been propagating the “neocolonial slavish and cring-

ing spirit” that had convinced Africans that they could neither govern themselves nor foster a sufficiently rich indigenous culture (1986, 26). He pointed out that writing in English effectively excluded the African proletariat from cultural transactions. The shift from English to African languages (primarily Gikuyu, but Swahili as well) provoked a great deal of praise and condemnation from other writers who argued that he had effectively denied anyone but the Gikuyu the privilege of reading his books. In 1980, he published the first novel in Gikuyu, Caitaani Mutharabaini (Devil on the Cross). Continued friction between Thiong’o and Moi led Thiong’o to flee Kenya for London and then the United States, where he has lived for the last two decades. Thiong’o taught at Yale University, New York University, and the University of California at Irvine, where he is now a Distinguished Professor of Literature. Thiong’o returned to Nairobi triumphantly in August 2004 and began a hugely popular tour of Kenya to promote his novel Muroogi wa Kigogo, a Gikuyu work five years in the making. He also planned to reconsecrate his marriage to his wife Njeeri under Gikuyu traditional rites. The homecoming turned tragic just two weeks after he arrived, when armed assailants broke into Thiong’o’s apartment, stole money and a computer, and raped his wife. Ngugi and Njeeri defiantly continued with their planned ceremony later that month. At the end of August they returned to California, vowing to return to Kenya “again and again,” despite the ordeal they had faced. Graeme Wood See also Fanon, Frantz (1925–1961); Kenyatta, Jomo (1889–1978). F URTHER R EADING Gikandi, Simon. 2000. Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Thiong’o, Ngugi wa. 1986. Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. London: Heinemann. Sicherman, Carol. 1990. Ngugi wa Thiong’o: The Making of a Rebel. New York: Hans Zell.

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Thomas, Piri (1928–) Piri Thomas (also known by his birth name, Juan Pedro Tomas or John Peter Thomas) was born in Harlem, New York, of a white Puerto Rican mother and a black Cuban father. Initially, Thomas identified solely with his Puerto Rican identity; however, the urban barrio of Harlem gave Thomas a mixture of experiences. An important way he has developed his identity is through interactions with various characters in memoir. They present Thomas with complex, differing attitudes with regard to identity, giving special attention to his name, color, and language/accent, eventually leading him to self-understanding. In the memoir Down These Mean Streets, Thomas covers a span of 15 years, from 1942 to 1957, in which he discloses detailed episodes of his life and his desire to come to terms with his place within the social schema of America. In particular, he battles questions such as “Am I black? Puerto Rican? Or just American?” This journey takes Thomas from a static, stagnant center toward a fluid, conflictive, and ultimately peaceful inner space that resembles his trajectory in life. He goes from the barrio, around the world, to prison, and back to Harlem, but with a new determination to succeed and a new awareness of his black/Puerto Rican identity. As a native Harlemite and New Yorker, Thomas’s life was affected by the social structure of the United States, which contributed to Thomas’s bout with self-definition. Yet, despite the strong claim of U.S. multiculturalism, the two-tiered system of racial classification, in which people are viewed as either black or white, can cause confusion, especially as dark-complexioned immigrants attempt to apply concepts of racial identity familiar to them in their countries of origin to the social framework of America (Duany 1998, Torres-Saillant 1998). Various sources that address identity in Latin America argue that a major difference between the construction of identity in the

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United States and the construction of identity in Latin America is that in Latin America the emphasis is placed on nationality first and race second. In the United States, race supposedly takes precedence over nationality and is based on one’s genotype as opposed to phenotype. In Down These Mean Streets, Thomas’s encounters with discrimination occurred mainly because he did not “look” Latino, speak Latino, or have a name that people perceived to be “Latino.” Juan Flores in his book From Bomba to Hip-Hop (2000) discusses the reaction to this label, and asserts that “Latino” is an “imagined community” that is continuously being defined by interior and exterior forces, but according to Flores, the “outside representation” has the upper hand. Though there may be a difference between methods of constructing identity in the United States and Latin America, one should not assume that Latin America’s nationalityfirst model of classification signifies unity among all people in each separate Latin American country. There are distinctions between groups within individual countries. In Puerto Rico, for example, there are sublabels for different Puerto Rican people and a strong sense of color consciousness that divides groups. An illustration of this comes from Marta CruzJanzen’s article “Latinegras” (2001) where she addresses the truth about the blunt colorism and discrimination in Puerto Rico. In her article she provides a few subcategories based on shade of skin, color and shape of eyes, and textures and hues of hair that operate in Puerto Rico: Darkest: Negras, Morenas, and Prietas Brown/golden: Cholas and Mulatas Wheat colored; Trigueñas Light-skinned with black features: Jabas White features without straight hair: Grifas Spanish looking: Criollas Indigenous blood: Zambos Cruz-Janzen’s article exposes the multiple levels of blunt racism and color stratification in

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Till, Emmett (1941–1955) | 887 Puerto Rico and abroad. Evidence of this is reflected in Thomas’s memoir, where the frequent internal monologues, conversations, and events he recounts betray conflicting attitudes toward race and nationality. Thomas goes through various stages in finding his racial identity (innocence, awareness, questioning/testing, rebellion, and acceptance), and through his travels he eventually learns to come to terms with Puerto Rican, American, and black identity. His experiences teach that nationality and language do not exclude people from being discriminated against; all around the world people are color stricken. Jessica M. Alarcón See also Puerto Rico: Afro-Puerto Ricans; Salsa. F URTHER R EADING Cruz-Janzen, Marta. 2001. “Latinegras: Undesirable Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, and Wives.” Frontiers 22 (3): 169–182 Duany, Jorge. 1998. “Reconstructing Racial Identity: Ethnicity, Color and Class among Dominicans in the United States and Puerto Rico.” Latin American Perspectives 25 (3): 147– 173. Flores, Juan. 2000. From Bomba to Hip-Hop. New York: Columbia University Press. Thomas, Piri. 1967. Down These Mean Streets. New York: Vintage Books. Thomas, Piri. “Biography.” The Official Piri Thomas Web site. www.cheverote.com/piri.html (accessed November 10, 2004). Torres-Saillant, Silvio. 1998. “The Tribulations of Blackness: Stages in Dominican Racial Identity.” Latin American Perspectives 25 (3): 126– 147.

z Till, Emmett (1941–1955) Emmett Louis Till, born in 1941, was a 14year-old boy from Chicago who was mutilated and murdered in Mississippi in the summer of 1955, in a racial persecution ritual of hanging,

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dragging, maiming, and burning in some combination, traditionally known as lynching. Till had come down for the summer to Money, Mississippi, to visit his mother’s relatives. Because Till allegedly whistled at a white woman, a deadly lynching took place: local white men kidnapped the teenager from his great-uncle’s house, beat and mutilated him all about the face and head, chopped off much of his skull, shot him, tied a cotton-gin fan around his neck with barbed wire, and threw his body into the Tallahatchie River. The case gained international attention because of the unusual determination of Till’s mother, his surviving family members, and their supporters. As a unit, they refused to be cowed or silenced by fear of reprisal. Above all, Mamie Elizabeth Bradley, as Till’s mother was known at the time of his death, brought both national and international attention to the horrors enacted upon her child by insisting that his body be returned to her in Chicago from Mississippi. Young Till’s lynching exposed the nightmarish frequency with which African Americans still faced the lynching phenomenon in the Jim Crow South. For, when the Tallahatchie River was dragged to recover Till’s body, the bodies of two African Americans, George Lee and Lamar Smith, were also found. The two were religious leaders and political activists who had mysteriously disappeared shortly before Till’s murder. The Delta Region has been identified as having the highest number of lynchings in the period 1880–1930 and therefore the highest in the nation. News media covered the collapse of Till’s 33-year-old-mother when faced with her son’s casket at the station. Standing between the two bishops who supported her, she called on God to witness. The day she received her son’s remains, Bradley violated the agreements imposed on her and her representatives by Mississippi officials who had declared that the body could not be viewed but must be buried in a locked casket affixed with the seal of the

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Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till Mobley. The 14-year-old Till was murdered by vigilantes in Mississippi in 1955. (Library of Congress)

state in which her son had been murdered. Bradley had the funeral director break the lock and seal and prepare the body so she could identify her child. The funeral director had to hose away massive quantities of lime, which had been placed there to speed up disintegration and destroy evidence of the tortures that had been inflicted on the teen. Of the three bodies pulled from the river, Bradley’s uncle, Papa Mose, had managed to identify this particular body as Till’s because of a ring the boy wore that had been his father’s. Now, Bradley was only able to confirm that the body returned to her was her son’s by close inspection of his ankles and knees, the perfection of his two remaining teeth, and the color of his remaining eye. In an unprecedented bid to force the watching world to witness America’s tolerance of racist depravity, Bradley insisted on a glass-casket viewing of her son’s unrecog-

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nizable remains at the Rayner Funeral Home, followed by an open-casket funeral on September 3, 1955. In the course of four days, roughly 100,000 people came to bear witness to what had been done to Till. Jet magazine and the Chicago Defender circulated photos of his remains, with his mother’s pictures of him taken the previous Christmas taped to the velvet of his casket. Though the figure in the casket was cleaned up and suited, with the worst protrusions removed and the front and back of his head sewn together, the body was not readily identifiable as human. The trial of Till’s murderers brought international attention to the Civil Rights Movement—And its casualties—in Mississippi. Like Mississippi-born activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett, who exposed to an international community the barbarity of ritual lynching in her pamphlets Southern Horrors (1892), A Red Record

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Tolson, Melvin Beaunoris (1898–1966) | 889 1895), and Mob Rule in New Orleans (1900), Till’s family and witnesses risked their own lives to make sure that an international audience was once again forced to confront EuroAmerica’s rites of racial oppression. Civil rights leader Medgar Evers, field secretary for the Mississippi branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, gathered evidence for the case against Till’s murderers by assuring witnesses for the prosecution that they would have safe passage out of Mississippi. Even as she attempted to enter the courtroom to testify to her son’s character, Till’s mother was badgered by hostile local media. In an extraordinary act of courage, Till’s great-uncle Moses Wright became the first African American man in the state of Mississippi documented to have accused EuroAmerican men of hate crimes in a court of law. A jury of 12 Euro-American men returned a unanimous verdict of “not guilty” after one hour’s deliberation. This bald act of injustice ensured the escalation of racist persecution and activist resistance, as the Civil Rights Movement gained momentum. Two documentary films on Emmett Till have been made, and there have been media coverage and investigative journalism on programs like Sixty Minutes. In 2005, it was announced that Emmett Till’s body was being exhumed for further evidence and that new trials would take place. Alexis Brooks de Vita See also African Americans and the Constitutional Order; Jim Crow; Wells-Barnett, Ida B. (1862– 1931). F URTHER R EADING Beauchamp, Keith, producer and director. 2005. The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till. Till Freedom Come Productions. Campbell, Bebe Moore. 1993. Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine. New York: Ballantine Books. Hampton, Henry, and Vecchione, Judith, producers. 1987. Eyes on the Prize: Awakenings 1954– 1956. Boston, MA: Blackside. Moody, Anne. 1976. Coming of Age in Mississippi. New York: Laurel.

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Nelson, Stanley, producer. 2003. The Murder of Emmett Till. Written by Marcia A. Smith. PBS American Experience. Till-Mobley, Mamie, and Christopher Benson. 2003. Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America. New York: Random House. Wilkinson, Brenda. 1997. The Civil Rights Movement: An Illustrated History. New York: Crescent Books. Williams, Juan. 1987. Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years 1954–1955. New York: Viking Penguin.

z Tolson, Melvin Beaunoris (1898–1966) Melvin Tolson was a poet, essayist, and teacher. At times a controversial figure, through his work he explored the meaning of African American identity and was especially interested in the intersections between African American, European, and African culture. Though best known for his poetry, he was also an influential newspaper columnist and teacher who pioneered interracial college debates. The son of a Methodist minister, Tolson was born in 1898 in Missouri. After graduating from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in 1923, Tolson was hired as an English professor by Wiley College, a black liberal arts school in Marshall, Texas. Committed to the civil rights struggle, Tolson spoke out frequently against racial and economic injustice, both on campus and off and in the newspaper column, “Caviar and Cabbage,” he wrote for the Washington Tribune from 1937 to 1944. While at Wiley, Tolson started a debate team that participated in the first recorded interracial college debate in the United States, held in 1930 against the University of Michigan and had numerous victories over black and white colleges, including Harvard University. In 1947, Tolson left Wiley

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for Langston University in Oklahoma, where he remained the rest of his career. Tolson’s first collection of poems, Rendezvous with America, published in 1944, brought him great acclaim. In 1947, Tolson was named the poet laureate of Liberia and began writing the celebratory Libretto for the Republic of Liberia, published in final form in 1953. In 1965, Tolson published Harlem Gallery: Book I, The Curator. In this work, he continued his exploration of African American identity, especially the role of the black artist in American society. In his work, Tolson sought to integrate a number of influences and traditions, both scholarly and folk, epic and lyric, African American and American, and African and European. In Harlem Gallery especially, he blended African American cultural references, slang, oral traditions, folk humor, and blues forms with the complex syntactic patterns and esoteric allusions of modernist poetry. Tolson acknowledged the difficulty of his work, but insisted that it could be appreciated by a wide range of readers and that it illustrated the cultural amalgam he saw as at the heart of both African American identity and the American experience. In May 1966, four months before his death, Tolson was awarded the annual poetry prize by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. A film of Tolson’s activity as a demanding but inspiring teacher and community activist in Marshall, Texas, particularly his work with the legendary debate team, has been made as The Great Debaters produced by Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions and directed by Denzel Washington, who also played the role of Tolson. It was released in 2007 to great acclaim. David Gold See also Jim Crow; Langston University and HBCUs; Lincoln University. F URTHER R EADING Flasch, Joy. 1972. Melvin B. Tolson. New York: Twayne. Farnsworth, Robert M. 1984. Melvin B. Tolson, 1898–1966: Plain Talk and Poetic Prophecy. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.

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Gold, David. 2003. “‘Nothing Educates Us Like a Shock’: The Integrated Rhetoric of Melvin Tolson.” College Composition and Communication 55 (2, December): 226–253. Tolson, Melvin. 1982. Caviar and Cabbage: Selected Columns by Melvin B. Tolson from the Washington Tribune, 1937–1944, ed. Robert M. Farnsworth. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. Tolson, Melvin. 1999. “Harlem Gallery” and Other Poems of Melvin B. Tolson, ed. Raymond Nelson. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. Tolson, Melvin, Jr. 2001, February 25. Interview with the author. Washington, Denzel. 2007. Director. “The Great Debaters.” 123 minutes. Chicago, IL: Harpo Films.

z Tonton Macoutes The Tonton Macoutes were a private militia created by former Haitian president François Duvalier, who maintained and protected his authority through brutal methods of lawlessness. Their very name incited fear amongst the Haitian people. In Haitian folklore, the Tonton Macoute is a bogeyman who puts bad children in his knapsack. Duvalier established this new militia out of the fear that he could not trust members of the national army. Clémont Barbot, Duvalier’s right-hand man, led the Tonton Macoutes. They remained a semisecret entity until the first of many failed attempts to overthrow Duvalier from power. After this attempted coup, Duvalier uniformed his militia with denim shirts, blue jeans, red armbands, and their trademark dark sunglasses so that they would be easily recognized. However, the macoutes were best known for the vicious manner in which they hunted Duvalier’s adversaries, at times decimating entire families, including women and children. They often left evidence of their crimes visible as a warning to others who might rebel against the president.

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Tosh, Peter (1944–1987) | 891 Many joined Duvalier’s militia for the status and the fear that was associated with the Tonton Macoutes. Although members of Duvalier’s militia did not receive a salary, they did receive other perks—their children were given priority for admission to schools as well as scholarships, for example. After Duvalier’s death in 1971, the Tonton Macoutes continued to serve under his son Jean-Claude Duvalier. Although their title was changed to the Volunteers of National Security to separate them from their violent acts, the Tonton Macoutes continued to terrorize the Haitian people until they were disbanded in 1986 when Duvalier fled the country. Nadia I. Johnson See also Haiti. F URTHER R EADING Diederich, Bernard, and Al Burt. 1986. Papa Doc and the Tonton Macoutes. Port-au Prince, Haiti: Henri Deschamps. Ferguson, James. 1987. Papa Doc, Baby Doc: Haiti and the Duvaliers. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.

z Tosh, Peter (1944–1987) Peter Tosh, born Hubert Winston McIntosh on October 19, 1944, in the small fishing village of Belmont in the parish called Westmoreland, Jamaica, is probably best known for founding the legendary Reggae group the Wailing Wailers, along with Bob Marley and Bunny Livingstone, in 1963 in the Kingston ghetto of Trench Town. In addition to his rich baritone, Tosh brought to the Wailers his versatile musicianship and songs such as “Get Up, Stand Up” (written with Marley) and “Stop That Train.” The group shot to international prominence in the early 1970s. All three founding members eventually became superstars and arguably exerted as much influence on world music as the Beatles did. Aside from practically helping to

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invent reggae music, the Wailers were a force to contend with and influenced many different genres of music from jazz to rhythm and blues to rock to pop, from the 1970s right up to the present. Tosh was by far the tallest of the three original Wailers (he was about six feet, four or five inches tall), and he was undoubtedly the most militant. Tosh was an outspoken, defiant, fiery, unwavering protest artist. He was a true product of 1960s Jamaica in all its “rude-bwoy” aspects. The quality that stood out most in Tosh was the one that probably ensured him an untimely death: he was very politically committed and serious about social change. He was the ultimate role model of the politically conscious Rastafari adherent and exemplified the political potential of the Rasta movement. Tosh released his first album, “Legalize It,” in 1976 on the CBS label. The title track continues to this day to be the biggest-selling single in Jamaican history despite the fact the release was banned in Jamaica, because of the album’s pro-marijuana stance. Tosh’s songs were centered on topics like equal rights, the antiapartheid struggle, police brutality, and other human and civil rights issues. Tosh, an undeniable human rights and civil rights activist, had quite dramatically almost lost his life after a vicious police beating in 1978, not long after the famous One Love Concert. After criticizing the Jamaican government during this historic concert he had become a marked man. He made history at the concert by first calling down fire and brimstone on the rulers of Jamaica, Michael Manley, Edward Seaga, and other government (and opposition) officials in attendance. At the concert Tosh performed the song “Equal Rights” for the first time. The titles of Tosh’s songs graphically illustrate the various topics and issues he addressed: “Equal Rights,” “Downpressor Man,” “400 Years,” “Apartheid,” “Stand Firm,” “Recruiting Soldiers,” “African,” “Legalize It” (marijuana), and “Get Up, Stand Up (for your Rights).” These are just some of the politically

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charged songs Tosh wrote. It is evident from just this small sample that Tosh was an ardent campaigner for equal rights and justice for African/black people in particular and for poor people in general. His now classic “African” is recognized for its affirmation of African identity worldwide. “No matter where you come from/As long as you’re a Black man/You’re an African.” Tosh also experienced, in his own words, nine assassination attempts before he was murdered in his home. The mysterious circumstances around Tosh’s murder clearly raise the question as to whether the government orchestrated the assassination. The gunmen who invaded his house on that fateful night of September 11, 1987, took no money, jewelry, or any other material valuables. They simply killed Tosh in cold blood. Tosh was a forward thinker. He was not in search of a perfect world, but one that afforded its citizens a better modicum of equal rights and justice. Tosh dedicated his life to humanity and was a foot soldier in the loftiest of struggles. Tosh will always be remembered as a champion of equal rights and justice. Not only was he an acclaimed musician, but he was also an uncompromising activist in the tradition of the Rastafari elders who forged the Rastafari movement in a violently hostile social environment. Michael Barnett See also King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929–1968); Malcolm X (1925–1965); Marley, Robert Nesta (Bob) (1945–1981); Rastafarianism; Reggae; Wailer, Bunny (1947–). F URTHER R EADING Campbell, Nicholas. 1992. Stepping Razor Red X: the Peter Tosh Story. Amherst, MA: Northern Arts Entertainment. Scott, Ricardo A. 1999. On the Night He Was Betrayed: Peter Tosh, the Man, the Prophet, the Legend. New York: Cornerstone Productions, Inc. Tosh, Peter. 1997. Mark of the Beast (Honorary Citizens Box Set). Sony Music Entertainment.

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Tosh, Peter. 2002. Stepping Razor Red X. DVD. Canada. Video Service. 103 minutes.

z Transatlantic Slave Trade By the middle of the 15th century, the artistic, trade, and academic centers of the ancient West African empires of Mali, Ghana, and even the military Songhay had been weakened by centuries of expansionism and combat with Islamic North Africans when the first Europeans—Portuguese—landed on the West African coast seeking gold. West, North, and East Africa all had significant histories of trade and flourishing kingdoms. Thus, the Europeans circumventing the usual North African routes to come directly to the West African coast were treated with the usual ritual hospitality and openness to consider exchange that traditionally characterized continental African encounters with those who were not recognized enemies. Historians, aware of traditional customs that constrained West Africans to consider trade and offer hospitality when initially encountering European profiteers and pirates, now challenge the idea that African cooperation was due to ignorance, childlike trust, worship of the European, or self-surrender. The earliest story of Europeans taking up the Arab interest in capturing Africans seems to begin with a Captain Gonzales sent by a Prince Henry to West Africa in 1441. Arriving on the West Coast, Gonzales and his men captured three people. The captives offered to exchange themselves for 10 others. Gonzales accepted the three-for-ten trade and took his 10 prisoners back to Portugal as gifts. Portugal set itself up in trade on the Guinea Coast in 1444. By 1482, King Ansa of the Fanti granted the Portuguese permission to occupy the coast and take part in the gold trade. The Portuguese constructed a fort called El Mina that soon became a prison for more captives.

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Transatlantic Slave Trade | 893 In 1503, a Dominican priest pointed out to a Spanish king that a shipload of Africans enslaved in Spanish gold mines in San Domingo (Haiti) survived the brutal treatment and harsh conditions better than the indigenous population. The king therefore ordered that another 50 Africans be brought to Spain’s Caribbean gold mines in 1510. Thus, a sovereign’s exploitative acquisitiveness and a religious courtier’s sycophancy launched what would become the defining economic, sociopolitical, cultural, philosophical, and moral movement of the modern world: the Atlantic slave trade. Throughout its 400-year history, the Roman Catholic pope would remain an advocate and arbiter of Europe’s rapidly growing slave trade economies. As European nations dismantled African civilizations by depleting populations and inciting wars of survival, succeeding popes dispensed permissions to dominate the trade alternately between Portugal, Spain, and England, who competed with Holland, France, Sweden, Denmark, and the colonies that formed the United States. From 1500 through 1870 from 12 million to 15 million Africans are conservatively estimated to have been captured and transported across the Atlantic Ocean as forced unpaid laborers in the economic ventures of Europe’s American and Caribbean colonies. The highest estimate is approximately 75 million captives. Because of the less-than-straightforward strategies used to capture, retain, transport, and profit from these human beings during this wildly fluctuating period of international relations, arriving at a provable estimate of the numbers of people actually taken from the African continent is probably impossible. For example, there is the impossibility of adequately calculating the numbers of captives who left the African coast but died of disease or violence or who were thrown overboard during the Middle Passage so that ships’ crews might avoid arrest, pillage, tariffs, starvation, thirst, disease, rebellion, or piracy. There is no adequate way of accounting for all the captives

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who therefore never reached Caribbean island docks to be “broken” or prepared for continental American plantations during the heyday of Europe’s Atlantic slave trade. These cargoes of enslaved African laborers followed invading waves of European soldiers now armed with exploding gunpowder in projectile equipment, which allowed them unimpeded encroachment into the Americas and the Caribbean. Such weaponry complemented the European concept of honorable warfare as the mass projection of destructive matter on distant opponents not similarly armed, as opposed to the death-toll constraints imposed by pre-explosive face-to-face or hand-to-hand combat. Together with new access to the Chinese invention of explosive warfare, the Atlantic slave trade made possible Europe’s collective ambition to competitively appropriate the temperate world’s resources while suffering the least expenditure of its own, thereby establishing the bases of modern global economic and political imbalances. Portugal dominated the first 200 years of the Atlantic slave trade, transporting at the very least 1.7 million people from the CongoAngola region to the Caribbean and Brazil. Another 3.5 million (at minimum) people were soon brought not only from Congo-Angola but also from the Bight of Benin, the Bight of Biafra, the Gold Coast, Senegambia, and upper Guinea. As human beings came to be the predominant export from the rapidly disintegrating social systems of the African continent, political and ideological motives for making war against one’s neighbors were increasingly replaced by economic considerations and the threat of annihilation. What began as the profitable export of prisoners of war, or those considered social deviants, such as adulterers, murderers, sorcerers, or traitors, or those sold in times of crisis such as drought and famine to feed surviving family members, escalated into the development of warlike African states whose commerce depended on the capture and sale of their neighbors. In the early 1700s, King

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Agaja established the sale of human beings as the principal commerce of the growing West African kingdom of Dahomey. In the 1750s, King Agaja’s son, King Tegesibu, is known to have sold more than 9.000 people a year into the chattel slavery of Europe’s colonies. Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, England, and France brought shiploads of textiles, beads, rum, firearms, and gunpowder to the African coast. These European trading companies built forts along the coast to keep competing Europeans from stealing their African captives. The captives were then transported to the Caribbean to be “broken” and thence to Europe’s colonies in the Americas to be sold into gold and silver mining camps or agricultural slavery. Having unloaded and profited exponentially from the sale of their human cargo, European and colonialist ships then left the Americas bound for European markets with loads of gold, silver, cotton, coffee, tobacco, and rice to feed the new urban and industrial economies developing in Europe, a financial engine powered by European and U.S. investment in human bondage. This “triangular trade” (or “rectangular” according to Asante and Mattson 1992) established a lucrative link between the formerly somewhat isolated regions of Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas. As contact, profit, and genocide kept pace with each other, the exigent compromises of morality and humanity that made participation in the Atlantic slave trade possible also necessitated development of the socioeconomic, political, and philosophical rationalizations about racial superiority that characterized Europe’s emergence from feudalism into “Enlightenment.” Records indicate that most of these captives were the victims of African or Arab raids perpetrated on villages in the African interior. These newly enslaved people, therefore, had usually never seen Europeans before being sold to them on the coast, branded to mark which European company now owned them, imprisoned in fortresses, and detained in the holds of European ships for transport across the Atlantic

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Ocean. Many captives thought their European jailors were demons or spirits, not people, and that these “skinless” beings planned to eat or otherwise consume or befoul their African prisoners. This often proved to be a reasonable expectation, as a wide variety of physical and sexual abuses and degradations were practiced upon captive men, women, and children during these transatlantic voyages lasting five to eight weeks. Besides being subjected to rape, the lash, or more inventive methods of intimidation, subjugation, and control, captives reported being left to lie in their own and others’ bodily secretions, including effluvia from healthy as well as dying bodies trapped in close proximity in the hold; being underfed or deprived of water; or seeing fellow captives leap or be thrown overboard. Though imprisoned with strangers whose languages they often could not speak, individuals and several shiploads of Africans did manage organized revolts before their enslavers reached their destinations. When successful revolts did not take place, records indicate that many of the enslaved who were transported across the Atlantic were relieved to discover that what was expected of them in the land of their captors was work, however harsh. Yet there were equal numbers of captives who reportedly would have preferred death to their new lives of chattel enslavement, including as it did institutionalized rape and various acts of extreme terrorism and torture, used to discourage revolt and escape. As far as European colonizers were concerned, it is likely that importing foreign laborers unfamiliar with the terrain, wildlife, and languages of the Americas, and therefore hampered by disorientation should they try to escape the mines or plantations where they were enslaved, proved to be an effective method of retaining an imprisoned workforce. Importing Africans who, for whatever combination of reasons, had a likely chance of actually surviving the creative inhumanity of European chattel enslavement in the colonies was also an effective means of stemming the profit-eating

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Transatlantic Slave Trade | 895 tide of enslaved Native American deaths. Throughout the colonies, indigenous peoples, enslaved and free, were soon decimated in genocidal numbers not only by explosive weaponry but also by unprotected exposure to virulent European diseases. By the time it was outlawed, the international trade in enslaved Africans had already brought monumental wealth and, thereby, unprecedented international power to both the colonizing and formerly slave-trading countries of Europe and their satellite colonies. In this way modern slave societies fostered the rapid and powerful growth of an elite new wealthy European and Euro-American middle class. Many who did not participate directly in the trade benefited from the production, transportation, or sale of iron, cloth, lumber for ships and buildings, chocolate, coffee, tea, rice, cane for sugar and rum, and a wealth of other products made possible by exploiting the resources of the temperate zones. Many of the Euro-American colonists were by now in revolt, demanding autonomous control of what remained of their capitalproducing human and natural resources. Concurrently, the African aristocracy that had formerly benefited from the trade in human beings became dismantled and dramatically disempowered as the chaos engendered by European colonialist expansionism overran the African continent. Indeed, some of the African military potentates who had made a livelihood from capturing and selling their neighbors, such as the aforementioned Dahomean king Tegesibu, found themselves hunted down and enslaved in the second half of the 18th century, as desperation grew on the continent to feed the European demand for human lives or be consumed into the market or colonized into homeland slavery in one’s own turn. Holocaust levels of destabilization devastated the African continent after more than three and a half centuries of the aggressive deportation of the childbearing and arms-bearing preservers of disparate communities’ social orders. By the beginning of

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the 19th century, slave trade prey and predator alike, even as far as North Africa, found themselves equally vulnerable to European colonialism’s encroachment onto the African continent, with its Enlightenment disdain for and appropriation of Africa’s ancient peoples, monuments, and autonomous governments. By far, the most economically and militarily empowered new class of the Atlantic world’s elite in the 19th century were those who descended from European slaveholders in North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean, or from European and American shipping magnates and merchants who had served stints as slave transporters late in the previous century. The Act of 1807 outlawed international trade in human beings. Britain’s African Squadron patrolled the Atlantic to enforce the new ban on a practice from which England no longer benefited, having lost some of its most profitable colonies to the formation of the United States. By the time of the ban, records conservatively indicate that more than 10 million African people had been forced across the Atlantic in at least 36,000 voyages to Europe’s American and Caribbean colonies. The great bulk of this human cargo, perhaps half of the documented captives, had been taken from Angola-Congo to South America, predominantly to Brazil. Most of the captives who actually survived the Middle Passage and reached chattel enslavement were young men aged 14 through 30. It is estimated that about a fourth of the surviving captives were young women. More than a million captive Africans from various regions ended up in the island colony that eventually became Haiti. Nearly as many Africans arrived in each of the island colonies that became Cuba and Jamaica. Conversely, fewer than half a million captives from all over West, Central, and East Africa, as evidenced by the cultural retention of folklore characters such as East Africa’s “Kaka Sungura” or Br’er Rabbit, found themselves in the North American English colonies that would become the United States.

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Paradoxically, it seems that the AngloAmerican preference for the increasingly incestuous production of one’s own enslaved progeny shifted English colonists’ appetite from the importation of acculturated Africans to the circulation of racially and culturally Anglicized Afro-Americans. This taste for sexual usage of the indentured or enslaved African population in the English colonies that became the United States was not at all curtailed by outlawing marriage between those of European and those of African descent. Racist theorizing developed proportionately with the profits made by enslaving those of African descent in the English colonies, whether born enslaved, free, or indentured. Before the end of the 17th century, Virginia had outlawed marriage between European colonists and Africans. In 1705, Massachusetts determined that Africans participating in interracial marriages would be whipped and sold out of the colony into slavery. Pennsylvania adopted a similar law in 1726, specifying that it applied to free persons. While such measures to discourage legitimate, sanctioned, and protected sexual and reproductive relations between Europeans and Africans increased in number, region, and severity, concurrent laws to enslave the children of Europeans born to enslaved women were also enacted. In short, Anglo-American law favored the sexual usage of those of African descent by European men, rewarding these men who raped, coerced, or seduced their enslaved population by turning the responsibilities normally owed children into wealth owned by the European father. Anglo-American men were thus increasingly legally encouraged to rape the African women in their charge and enslave their own Anglo-African children who resulted from such unions. Such children were then subjected to sale, rape, and the continuing cycle of inbreeding Anglicization of the African population in the American colonies. The Anglo-American contribution to the insemination of its own enslaved Anglo-African population facilitated a superficial de-African-

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ization of the widely divergent ethnic groups brought together in the colonies that became the United States. These mixed-race and homegrown Anglo-Africans had been imported in only one-tenth the number that reached Brazil but were then spread thinly across as great a stretch of land. Racially and culturally Anglicized, increasingly light-skinned native Englishspeaking African Americans, enslaved by their English-American parents, siblings, distant relations, and neighbors, seemed to display an equally diluted grasp of the philosophical selfconcepts, modes of combat, and familiarity with non-Christian religious theories and deities that problematized the importation of Africans among the severely race-conscious English colonists, in the first place. It is important to recall that many of the United States’ abolitionists were not so much opposed to the notion of chattel slavery as to the presence among AngloAmericans of Africans. Now that enslaved Africans had made the United States one of the potentially wealthiest nations in the Atlantic region, many abolitionists now wanted America’s African population to simply disappear. They therefore argued in favor of shipping the originally imported Africans’ now deculturated descendants back to the African continent that they had never seen and could only abstractly consider home. English colonial laws that adapted to favor an enslaver’s rape of African women and the economically profitable enslavement of that Englishman’s own children when born of such rape contrasted with French law and Latin denial in other colonies struggling with the efficacy of freeing, educating, and gainfully employing children descended from both slaveowner and enslaved. The historically unprecedented numbers of Africans exported as chattel laborers into Europe’s American colonies, and European colonizers’ needs to justify and continue to profit from the extraordinary human rights abuses such genocidal activity necessitated, conflicted with Europe’s own philosophical disenchantment with its medieval feudal and aristocratic

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Transatlantic Slave Trade | 897 systems of government. While French citizens overturned aristocratic rule in their home country, their colonies struggled with concepts of racial versus class hierarchy. Although the French preference for a system of privilege seemed to be toward one that preferred class, meaning that children born of unions between the enslaved and their enslavers could initially be born into a free and privileged mixed-race middle class in the French colonies, racial hierarchy predominated and conflicted with this French approach in English, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies. The idea that national progress and self-improvement required that one blanquearse or whiten oneself led to literal and cultural African genocide in former Spanish colonies such as Argentina. This series of ideological conflicts has led to the modern development of sociophilosophical systems that historians call modern slave societies, modeled on slave societies of European antiquity but bolstered by hierarchical racial rationalizations. These justifications of drastic systems of inequality are driven by a European colonial equation of wealth and explosive military power with divine right. From the 1500s through the early 1800s, European religious dogma, including Anglican and Nordic departures from Catholicism, developed the self-serving concept that Europe’s Christian Godhead wanted the rest of the world to sacrifice itself to the apparently insatiable materialist drives of Europe and, eventually, to Europe’s revolting colonial descendants. As the African population in the colonized Atlantic increased, and slaveholding became the predominant symbol identifying social status and power, other socially sanctioned interactions began to mirror the extremity of the master-slave relational skew. Thus, dependence on stabilizing and justifying the chattel enslavement of the majority of the colonies’ populations eventually reshaped the pro-colonialist European philosophical mind away from egalitarianism and the fluidity of a power-wielding nonaristocratic class toward racial absolutism and racialized authoritarian-

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ism. By the time the Atlantic slave trade was no longer financially profitable and therefore ended, European and Euro-American philosophers and theologians had taught their populations to believe, in the main, that these systems of inhumanity were ordained and sanctioned by nature as well as by a Christian god. Alexis Brooks de Vita See also Abolitionism in the African Diaspora; Atlantic World and the African Diaspora; Middle Passage. F URTHER R EADING Asante, Molefi K., and Mark T. Mattson. 1992. Historical and Cultural Atlas of African Americans. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. Berlin, Ira. 1998. Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Dodson, Howard, ed. 2002. Jubilee: The Emergence of African-American Culture. Washington, D.C.: The National Geographic Society. Everett, Susanne. 1996. History of Slavery. Edison, NJ: Chartwell Books. Eze, Emmanuel Chukwudi, ed. 1997. Race and the Enlightenment. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Franklin, John Hope. 2000. From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Giddings, Paula. 1988. When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America. New York: Bantam. Horton, James Oliver, and Lois E. Horton. 2005. Slavery and the Making of America. New York: Oxford University Press. James, C. L. R. 1989. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. New York: Vintage Books. McEvedy, Colin. 1980. Atlas of African History. New York: Facts on File. Osagie, Iyunola Folayan. 2003. The Amistad Revolt: Memory, Slavery, and the Politics of Identity in the United States and Sierra Leone. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Sweetman, David. 1984. Women Leaders in African History. Oxford, UK: Heinemann Educational Books.

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Transition Transition, a cultural magazine founded in Kampala, capital of Uganda, in 1961, by the Ugandan-Indian Rajat Neogy, had its name changed to Ch’indaba in 1976 under the editorship of Wole Soyinka, was discontinued in 1976, and was revived in 1991 by Henry Louis Gates Jr., Anthony Appiah, and Wole Soyinka, thereby moving its base to the United States. The development of debate represented in its contents from its beginnings to the present; the impact of the fortunes of its editors on the vicissitudes of its existence; the shifting of its editorial base from Uganda to Ghana under state pressure; and its discontinuation on account of funding challenges, which led, eventually, to its revival in the United States, are indicative of fundamental aspects of the progression toward self-actualization of the African intelligentsia and the relationship of this striving to similar efforts in the African Diaspora in the United States, which, since the end of the 20th century, has come to represent the geographical and cultural axis around which the most prominent members of the black intelligentsia gravitate. Transition became a focus for the exploration of pivotal issues in the constitution of African identity, as realized both on the African continent and in the Diaspora. The formulation of the questions through which these issues were defined and the various modes of engagement with these questions represent some of the earliest efforts at charting the cultural frameworks that were coming into existence in Africa in the 1950s and 1960s, a cultural efflorescence inspired by the creative energies released in Africa in relation to the struggles for, and the subsequent freedom from, colonial rule. This shift in the geographical location of its editors and the journal itself, as well as the circumstances that brought that about, reflects the power balance between the north and the south that has characterized their relationship from the 19th to the 21st centuries, a balance reinforced by the experience of working with

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lean resources that motivated its first two editors to seek and get financial assistance from outside Africa. The debate on the linguistic and larger cultural identity of African literature that received particularly incisive exploration from a variety of perspectives in Transition, foregrounded questions central to cultural self-determination vital to all states where cultural and social institutions have been affected by colonialism, questions that are still being revisited on account of the permanently transformative character of the colonial experience. In its reemergence in the United States, Transition’s essays came to epitomize the lines of debate that characterize reflection on black identity, even though the magazine does go further afield to explore issues and works by scholars whose concerns do not directly involve the black world. A reading of the anniversary issue of Transition, the combined 75th and 76th issues, published in 1997, is vital to grasp the development of the magazine. It reprints key articles from its earlier volumes, with an essay by Michael Vazquez, the current executive editor, that reviews the history of the magazine, and another, by Wole Soyinka, the second editor in the magazine’s history (1974– 1976) and present chairman of the editorial board, that, from an autobiographical perspective, contrasts the idealism of the magazine’s earlier birth with the painful realities associated with its development. Toyin Adepoju See also Drum; Présence Africaine; Soyinka, Akinwande Oluwole (1934–). F URTHER R EADING Benson, Peter. 1986. Black Orpheus, Transition and Modern Cultural Awakening in Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press. James, Louis. 1969. “The Protest Tradition: Black Orpheus and Transition.” In Protest and Conflict in African Literature, ed. Cosmo Pieterse and Donald Munro, 109–124. London: Heinemann.

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Tribe and Tribalism Tribe is a problematic term that lacks a consistent meaning. A tribe can be a social group of families, clans, or generations united by common descent, or the term can describe a group of people with similar characteristics or interests. In African contexts, a tribe is often considered to be an ethnic group with a shared language or culture. However, given the millions of people who speak the same African languages and share the same cultures, the term tribe is often an inappropriate description that obscures realities. Tribe is used erroneously to describe many different groups, from nine million Zulu speakers in South Africa to a small band of Americans competing in a remote setting on the popular television show Survivor. There can be smaller tribes inside of larger tribes or large language/ethnic groups that run across vast regions as say the Yoruba, which became an empire with extensions now in the Americas and articulated through a variety of Orisa pratices. Some of these groupings were actually precolonial nation states disrupted by slavery and colonialism. Therefore, if a tribe can be just about anything, it serves as an unsatisfactory and contradictory label. As a unit of analysis, tribe is pervasive in the Western anthropological mindset. Many Westerners consider all Africans to be “tribal.” When classifying others, Westerners tend to look for tribes in Africa but not in other parts of the world, including the former Yugoslavia. Africans themselves have reinforced the stereotype of Africa as tribal in their usage of the word “tribe” (Lowe 1997) to capture their own ethnic belonging, assuming that outsiders are unfamiliar with African terms used in its place. Speakers of the Shona language in Zimbabwe, for instance, might use the term rudzi among themselves instead to denote a type or kind of group. One main problem with the term tribe is that it fails to be specific and describe the subtleties of many situations. The term also

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carries many negative connotations by reinforcing an image of the primitive and conveying a static sense of timelessness. For many, “tribe” suggests links to irrationality or superstition, and it carries misleading historical and cultural assumptions (Lowe 1997). The call to avoid using the term is an attempt to be more accurate about Africa and the Diaspora. Identities are expressed in many ways throughout Africa and the Diaspora. Although at times invented, identities are indeed very real, be they ethnic, linguistic, religious, national, regional, or local. Many scholars of Africa use the term “ethnic group” in place of tribe, given the stereotypes that surround tribe. To be even more specific, terms used to describe a particular group include lineage, clan, village, town, chiefdom, community, kingdom, political unit, state, or language group. Often, a combination of these terms is needed to describe sophisticated social identities within a complex social order. As Africans moved throughout the Atlantic world, their fluid ethnic identities traveled with them and remained central in their lives. The work of scholars has demonstrated that distinct, hybrid ethnic identities existed in slave societies in the Americas as certain African languages and cultures dominated particular slave ships and were present in large concentrations at various destinations (Thornton 1998). Research has revealed that the Bambara and others from Senegambia reestablished a Bambara culture as Africans in Louisiana, for example, while the Twi served as leaders in Jamaican communities (Caron 1997; Morgan 1997). In Bahia, Brazil, most slaves came from the Bight of Benin, and the practice of Candomblé in Brazil has clear connections with Yoruba religion and culture in West Africa. Numerous aspects of African ethnic identities and “nations,” including creative variations of these identities, appeared in expressive forms of African culture in the Diaspora. Ethnic consciousness is not simply some sort of deep primordial allegiance; rather, it is created and re-created as an ongoing process.

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People draw on historical memories and oral traditions to foster and alter ethnic identifications. Identities are diverse, ambiguous, complicated, messy, and fluid. Ethnic identities tend to take on a powerful salience because they appear to be natural and primordial, as evidence from Rwanda chillingly revealed during the genocide in 1994. However, ethnic identity or “tribalism” is often manipulated in the pursuit of power. This was the case in Rwanda, where the two main identities, Hutu and Tutsi, were once quite fluid but became fixed during the colonial period. Although Hutu and Tutsi speak the same language (Kinyarwanda) and share the same religion and clan affiliations, European colonial officials favored the Tutsi over the Hutu and issued identity cards during the colonial period as part of their quest to sort and label Africans. Thus, rather than reflecting “ancient tribal rivalries,” the violence in Rwanda in 1994 was the result of more recent power struggles where extremists used the “tribal card” to spur members of the Hutu majority to kill their fellow citizens. Ethnic identities may arise at any given time, but they are most famous for leading to violence when they are used to satisfy group aspirations at the expense of others (Wilmsen and McAllister 1996). In the African setting, it is widely understood that Africans and Europeans transformed ethnic identifications through social, political, and ideological means during the colonial and postcolonial eras (ca. 1890–present). Some scholars have argued that modern “tribalism” in Africa is the result of European and African “creations” of ethnic identities during the colonial era. While there is no doubt that much tampering with ethnicity occurred during the colonial period, recent research has revealed the existence of earlier roots of ethnic consciousness throughout Africa. Just as colonial officials manipulated ethnic identities, so did precolonial African leaders. After independence, there was much concern that ethnicity would act as a divisive force

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and subvert nationalist tendencies on the African continent. In some countries ethnic realities were ignored in favor of integration and nationalist agendas. The first president of Mozambique, Samora Machel, declared soon after independence, “We are all Mozambicans!” Zambia’s slogan was “One Zambia, One Nation.” However, the denial of ethnic realities and social trajectories in the postcolonial era led not only to disintegration but also to discontent among many African populations. Anger and frustration throughout the continent over acts of exclusion and domination served to strengthen the identities and agendas of many subnation groups. The Igbo of southeast Nigeria seceded soon after independence in 1967 to create the Republic of Biafra, but a civil war for over two years ended in defeat and national reconciliation. Eritrea, on the other hand, seceded from Ethiopia and successfully became an independent nation after a protracted struggle. Given the artificial formation of Africa’s national boundaries, there is a dire need today to examine both the constraints and possibilities of existing ethnic identities on the continent (Nnoli 1998). In the popular media and political arenas Africans are debating the implications of their history of tribalism. Despite the relatively useless meaning behind the term tribe, the phenomenon of tribalism continues to haunt postcolonial Africa. Elizabeth MacGonagle See also Africa; Atlantic World and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Caron, Peter. 1997. “‘Of a Nation Which Others Do Not Understand’: Bambara Slaves and African Ethnicity in Colonial Louisiana, 1718– 60.” Slavery and Abolition 18 (1): 98–121. Forrest, Joshua B. 2004. Subnationalism in Africa: Ethnicity, Alliances and Politics. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Lowe, Chris, with Tunde Brimah, Pearl-Alice Marsh, William Minter, and Monde Muyangwa. 1997. “Talking about ‘Tribe’:

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Trinadade, Solano (1908–1974) | 901 Moving from Stereotypes to Analysis.” Africa Action Background Paper. www.africaaction.org/bp/ethall.htm (accessed April 30, 2005). Morgan, Philip D. 1997. “The Cultural Implication of the Atlantic Slave Trade: African Regional Origins, American Destinations and New World Developments.” Slavery and Abolition 18 (1): 122–145. Nnoli, Okwudiba, ed. 1998. Ethnic Conflicts in Africa. Dakar, Senegal: CODESRIA. Thornton, John. 1998. Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800. 2nd ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Wilmsen, Edwin, and Patrick McAllister, eds. 1996. The Politics of Difference: Ethnic Premises in a World of Power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

z Trinadade, Solano (1908–1974) Solano Trindade is considered the greatest black poet that Brazil has ever known. He was born in Recife in 1908. His father was a cobbler and a dancer of the folk music pastoril and bumba-meu-boi. His mother, Emerenciana, a laborer and tidbit seller, used to have him read popular stories and romantic poetry to her. Thus, although he did not have much of a formal education, Trinadade grew up living and admiring Afro-Brazilian popular culture, while experiencing firsthand the joy and pain of his people. His career as a militant began indirectly in 1930, with his first poems dealing with the Afro-Brazilian condition. In 1932, he created in Recife the Frente Negra Pernambucana (Pernambucan Black Front), a movement that did not last. In 1934, Trinadade participated in the first and second Afro-Brazilian congresses, in Recife and Salvador, respectively. In 1936, he founded the Center of Afro-Brazilian Culture with the goal of disseminating intellectual and artistic

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production. He moved to Belo Horizonte in 1940 and, with the poet Balduino, formed a group for popular art. That was his first attempt at creating popular theater, another failure, because a flood swept away all the material. After a short return home to Recife, he left for Rio de Janeiro, where many AfroBrazilian artists and activists lived. Trinadade frequented Café Vermelhinho, a meeting point for young artists, poets, intellectuals, journalists, and politicians. One of those in attendance was another Afro-Brazilian artistactivist, Abdias do Nascimento, with whom Trinadade would collaborate in Teatro Experimental Negro (TEN). The 1945 premiere of TEN’s production would later spark a racist reaction from the white Rio community. Trinadade was already listed as a troublemaker by authorities: in 1944, after the publication of his poem, “Tem gente com fome” (You have hungry people), he was arrested, and his book, Poemas de uma vida simples, was seized. Such harassment did not deter Trinadade in his commitment to his people’s cause. In 1950, he realized one of his most cherished dreams: he collaborated with the socialist Edson Carneiro to found the Teatro Popular Brasileiro (Brazilian Popular Theater). Five years later, he added the dancing group, Brasiliana, which toured several European countries performing and promoting Afro-Brazilian culture. Trinadade was the first to produce on stage the classic play “Orfeu” (Black Orpheus) by Vinicius de Morais, which was later adapted into film by Marcel Camus. Trinadade was the architect of the cultural transformation of the town of Embu, about an hour away from São Paulo, into a center for black artists to live. There, memories are alive of Solano as an artist, researcher and promoter of black popular culture, theatrical director, and Bohemian, an Afro-Brazilian for whom art is the essence of life. In his Popular Theater, Trinadade taught dance and diction, and his students were mostly laborers, students, and the unemployed, in short, the mass of the people. He moved to Embu upon his return from Europe in 1955,

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and in 1967 he met a brother in struggle, the Négritude cofounder, Leopold Sedar Senghor. It was as a result of Trinadade’s efforts that Embu has become what it is today, a market and a home for artists welcoming a constant influx of tourists. Trinadade was nicknamed “the patriarch of Embu.” In Prague, Trinadade produced the documentary Brazil Dances. As an actor, he worked in several films, such as Misterios da Ilha de Venus (Mystery on the Island of Venus) and Santo Milagroso (Miraculous Saint). He coproduced the film Magia Verde (Green Magic), which was given an award at the Cannes Film Festival. Trinadade suffered immensely for his blackness. Wrongly accused of gun possession in the 1950s, and also because of his membership in the Communist Party, he was thrown in jail, while his ailing son, Liberto, was detained. In 1964, another son, Francisco, died in prison, a victim of the Brazilian dictatorship. His material poverty was never a deterrent in his work, and it remains striking how such a great talent lacked enough support. His theater eventually collapsed, and by 1970, his health was deteriorating. He died in Rio in 1974, penniless. After death, Trinadade seems to have found some recognition, particularly among critics. After his first poems in 1944, he published two other collections, Seis tempos de poesia (1958) and Cantares ao meu povo (1961). Trinadade the poet has been compared to the Cuban Nicolás Guillén, and to the African American Langston Hughes. Trinadade was exceedingly proud of his African ancestry. His poems are songs of AfroBrazilian freedom, struggle, and survival. The 21st century activists of Brazil’s O Movimento Negro Unificado (United Black Movement) and poetry collectives like Quilombhoje owe a great deal to Trindade, among others. Femi Ojo-Ade See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Guillén, Nicolás (1902–1989); Hughes, Langston (1902–1967);

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Nascimento, Abdias do (1914–); Négritude; Quilombhoje. F URTHER R EADING Nascimento, Abdias do. 1992. Africans in Brazil. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Butler, Kim D. 1998. Freedoms Given. Freedoms Won: Afro Brazilians in Post Abolition Sao Paulo and Salvador. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

z Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago is a twin island state that covers only 5128 square kilometers and contains a population of only 1.3 million persons. The two islands lie at the south of the Caribbean Sea near the coast of Venezuela, which is about seven miles away. But it has made contributions to the African Diaspora through political icons like Henry Sylvester Williams, George Padmore, C. L. R. James, Eric Williams, Claudia Jones, and Kwame Ture; through cultural enrichments in the forms of calypso, steelpan, and carnival; and through Olympic-level athletes and world-class entertainers far beyond what would be expected of a country of that size and population. H ISTORY In 1962, the two islands gained their independence from the United Kingdom as one nation. The nation became a republic in 1976 but has remained within the British Commonwealth and is a member of the United Nations, the Organization of American States, CARICOM (Caribbean Community), and other international organizations. The original inhabitants were so-called Caribs and Arawaks (of the same line as the Amerindians of the Americas). They established fishing and agricultural communities and pursued their distinctive social and cul-

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Trinidad and Tobago | 903 tural development. There is undeniable evidence that the natives had greeted people from Africa to their shores long before the arrival of Spaniards. This ancient meeting of the early African Diaspora with the indigenous people of the islands was to continue with the subsequent coming of additional Africans on the slave ships. The Europeans who came to these islands after the voyages of Columbus from 1492, were in general initially greeted by the native population with customary hospitality. Those natives, however, who did not die at the cruel hands of the Europeans lived only to regret their display of kindness. To replace the supply of labor that was depleted through inhuman treatment of the natives, the Europeans turned to Africa. This was the start of the permanent African Diaspora in the islands of Trinidad and Tobago. People were snatched from several parts of Africa, especially from the west coast, and taken across the dreaded Middle Passage of the Atlantic Ocean to work on the plantations of the New World. Postslavery African additions to the population of these islands has been minimal, except for the arrival of black ex-soldiers from the East Coast of the United States who had been recruited by the British army in the War of American Independence. These African Americans settled in the southern part of Trinidad; one of these settlements still bears the name of Fifth Company. At the end of the slave trade in 1807, and with the abolition of slavery in 1833, the population of the country changed its ethnic makeup with the arrival of indentured laborers, from India in particular. Other additions to the labor force also came from China and Portugal. In 1797, when the British took the country, the population was 14,250–10,000 Africans, 2,086 Europeans, 1,082 free people of color and 1,082 Amerindians—the present population of 1.3 million has an ethnic/racial makeup of 39 percent Africans, 39 percent East Indians, and small percentages of Chinese, Syrians, mixed, and local whites (often called

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French Creoles). The mixed and French Creole groups comprise people with varying percentages of African, European, and of diverse ethnic combinations, particularly African and Indian, called pejoratively “douglas.” No country in the world has a larger percentage of AfroIndians who identify more closely with their African than with their Indian origins than does Trinidad and Tobago. Many mixed-race persons also claim Amerindian ancestry. R ELIGIONS The religious breakdown of the population is 30 percent Roman Catholic; 24 percent Hindu; 10 percent Anglican; 6 percent Muslim, including Black Muslims; 4 percent Presbyterian, Evangelical, and other small Christian denominations; and a small but unspecified percentage following African-derived religions such as Orisha and Shango. The latter group includes the Spiritual Shouter Baptists. The religion with the strongest African retentions practiced in the country is Orisha, which in its earlier manifestations was called Shango. Adherents to this religious faith, along with the Spiritual Shouter Baptists, were, until recently, prohibited by law from practicing their religious rites. But that law was repealed, and the number of the African Diaspora who are able to openly practice their religion, has increased tremendously. Spiritual Shouter Baptist Liberation Day has been proclaimed as a national holiday on March 30. All other religions except Hindu have large representations from among the African Diaspora. One Muslim sect gained notoriety for an attempted overthrow of the government in 1990. L ANGUAGES English is the official language of the country, which has a 98 percent literacy rate. But as in other parts of the English-speaking world, it has its own peculiarities, particularly accent, grammatical structure, and local vocabulary. Alongside Standard English, a Creole English is widely used, increasingly at the popular level. The

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version of Creole English spoken in Trinidad and Tobago has evolved from the interaction of languages spoken by the various peoples who came to this land. Thus, although essentially English in syntax and vocabulary, the Creole English has distinct African retentions, along with French, and to a lesser degree Spanish and Hindi. This is the language of the Calypso—the typical “folk” song of the country. Spanish is now taught extensively in schools as the government intends that it be a second language. The African retentions in the popular language, which is used by all in varying degrees, relate to different features of society, especially food. Local dishes like pelau, coo coo, payme, calaloo, souse, roast corn, fufu, eddoes, and styles of seasoning and cooking can be traced back to Africa. The bongo drum and its use in wakes, the word “obeah” as a term of witchcraft, and sousou as a system of collective saving of money are all African derived. C ULTURAL E XPRESSIONS By far the best-known cultural expression of the people of Trinidad and Tobago is the calypso. This popular form of music and dance had its origins in the minds and bodies of those first Africans who were brought seminaked to this part of the world on slave ships. Calypso evolved from the rhythm and chant of the Kalinda of the Yoruba people, and the word kaiso, its traditional name, has been traced directly to African linguistic systems. Every year a new batch of calypso is prepared, sung, and danced during the carnival season. The calypsoes deal with all the issues people consider important. No one, no subject is exempt. Calypso is the voice of the people. It is well recognized that the only new musical instrument invented in the 20th century is the steelpan. Trinidad and Tobago and particularly the local African Diaspora are very proud of their invention and development of this musical instrument. Carnival can be considered another notable contribution of the African Diaspora of

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Trinidad and Tobago to world culture. This cultural festival is celebrated just before the start of the Catholic Lenten season. Only the carnival of Rio de Janeiro rivals in artistic and cultural magnificence. It is the time of the year when the African Diaspora flocks to the islands to participate in this “greatest show on earth.” Although some say it is derived from ancient Roman festivals, there is concrete evidence that carnival evolved from ceremonies and masquerades in Africa. This local festival has been exported to numerous cities in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Several masquerade festivals still take place in Africa. The celebration of Emancipation Day on August 1, a national holiday, is second only to carnival for the outpouring of the cultural expressions from the African Diaspora in Trinidad and Tobago. On that day, people of African descent display great pride in their African ancestry with parades in the finest African wear, singing, chanting, drum beating, conferences, artistic exhibitions, cultural shows, historical reenactments, and African religious ceremonies. Trinidad and Tobago is the first country to proclaim its day of emancipation as a national holiday. Local Africa-affiliated organizations such as the Caribbean Historical Society and especially the Emancipation Support Comittee have been successful in prompting other countries to give such recognition to emancipation. Both organizations came out of the National Joint Action Committee’s efforts in the Black Power Movement of the 1960’s. A FRICAN D IASPORA I CONS Trinidad and Tobago has produced numerous recognizable African Diaspora icons. These include Henry Sylvester Williams (b. 1869), who organized the first Pan-African Conference in 1900. He had a great influence on W. E. B. DuBois, Kwame Nkrumah, and other Africanists like George Padmore and C. L. R. James. Muzumbo Lazare, a Trinidadian attorney in London, helped organize this first Pan-African

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Trinidad and Tobago | 905 Conference (later to be called Congress), which brought delegates from Africa, the West Indies, the United States, and Canada. In London he ran unsuccessfully for Parliament, but was later elected to the Marylebourne Borough Council in 1906. He finally returned to his native land of Trinidad where, until he died in 1911, he energetically pursued his Africanism and nurtured the growth of the African Diaspora with outstanding zeal. George Padmore, who gave the greatest thrust to Pan-Africanism as we know it today, was born in the same Tunapuna/Arouca area of Trinidad as Sylvester Williams and C. L. R. James. One of the most influential but controversial icons of the African Diaspora born in Trinidad and Tobago is C.L.R. James. Claudia Jones has the distinction of being the founder of the first London carnivals and the first major black newspaper in England, the West Indian Gazette (1958). And, among the scholars in the African Diaspora, Eric Eustace Williams stands out for his intellectual output and political achievements. Kwame Ture, who was born in 1941 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and changed his name from Stokely Carmichael, is another noted activist who contributed significantly to U.S. African American struggles like voter rights, and the larger Panafricanism movement. John Jacob Thomas (b. 1840) distinguished himself as a teacher in the early postemancipation days by trying to provide education to Africans recently liberated from the trauma of slavery. Thomas wrote The Theory and Practice of Creole Grammar, which was a revolutionary attempt to dispel feelings of inferiority related to language. His greatest work, however, was Froudacity, which he published in 1889 the year of his death. It was a masterful counterattack against the contempt displayed for the people and society of the time by an English writer and historian, J. J. Froude, in his book The English in the West Indies. Hazel Scott was born in Trinidad in 1920 and played the piano at three years old, per-

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formed in New York City at eight years, and eventually became an outstanding pianist, performing at Carnegie Hall. She was married to Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., who was accused of being a communist sympathizer and spoke out vehemently against racial injustices. Winnifred Atwell (b. 1913) gained universal recognition as both a classical and jazz pianist with performances at illustrious venues like the Royal Albert Hall in London and before the Queen of England. During World War I, Audrey Jeffers (1898–1968) served with the West African troops and organized a West African Soldiers Fund. Returning home, she founded the Coterie of Social Workers and was the first woman to be elected to the City Council of Port-of-Spain and later to the nation’s Legislative Council in 1946. Tubal Uriah Buzz Butler (1895–1977) was born in Grenada but lived most of his life in Trinidad and Tobago. As a labor leader and politician, he distinguished himself as the champion of the worker and the poor and led the 1930s labor riots in the oilfields, which eventually brought independence to the country. He formed the Butler Party and was elected to the Legislative Council in 1950. He is recognized throughout the African Diaspora for his valiant battles for the people and against colonialism. P OLITICAL AND S OCIAL S TRUCTURE Since independence from the United Kingdom in 1962, the country has been operating as a parliamentary democracy with general elections every five years. The bicameral Parliament consists of the 31-seat Senate and the 36-seat House of Representative; the president is head of state and the prime minister is head of government. For the administration of the country there are nine county councils, two city and three borough corporations, and the special Tobago House of Assembly. The People’s National Movement has been the dominant political party since it brought the country into independence under the leadership of Eric Williams.

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This party has a strong African association while the opposition parties, including the present United National Congress, tend to have strong East Indian backing. The social structure of the country is essentially stratified according to income, but the demarcation lines are not very strong or rigid. Race, color, and particularly education are significant determinants of social classification. E CONOMY Trinidad and Tobago has the largest gross domestic product (GDP) of the Anglophone Caribbean, one of the highest per capita GDPs among the nations of the Western Hemisphere, and one of the highest standards of living in the developing world. The major sectors of the economy are natural gas, petroleum and petrochemicals, construction, services, and agriculture. Oil reserves at the current rate of extraction are expected to last approximately 10 years, but the islands enjoy large reserves of natural gas. The exploration of natural gas is steadily surpassing petroleum in its contribution to the GDP. New petrochemical plants, which are being constructed using the country’s natural gas resources, include ammonia, urea, and methanol. These large industrial projects are located at the newly built Point Lisas industrial park, which, along with the park’s new iron and steel plant, provide Trinidad and Tobago with an industrial base that is unmatched throughout the Caribbean. Tourism, which is rather undeveloped compared with other Caribbean islands, is concentrated in the sister isle of Tobago. The agricultural sector has been suffering a long decline, Even with cyclical growth, the citizens of the country have been benefiting from a quality of life that surpasses that not only of most other Caribbean islands but also of other Western Hemisphere oil exporters, such as Mexico and Venezuela. The country also enjoys a 98 percent literacy rate, which is higher than Italy’s, a per capita energy consumption rate that exceeds Britain’s, a per capita newspaper circulation

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above that in several Western European countries, an income distribution comparable to that of the United States, and access to electricity and potable water that is better than most developing countries. Life expectancy is 71, and primary and secondary school enrollment ratio is 94 and 85 percent, respectively. Nevertheless, the country also suffers problems associated with more developed societies, including pollution, obsessive consumption, entrenched labor disputes, growing drug abuse, and a recent escalation in crimes, especially kidnapping. As in other Caribbean countries, chronic unemployment is a major social problem. Trinidad and Tobago has a mixed economy that allows for a level of government involvement second only to that in Cuba among the countries of the Western Hemisphere. The large role in the economy of subsidies, transfers, and joint ventures between the government and the private sector creates an intertwining of the public and private sectors that often blurs distinctions between them. The government is the largest single employer in the country. Although Trinidad and Tobago is a country where capitalism generally flourishes, free enterprise, especially in the foreign sector, is highly regulated by the government. Trinidad and Tobago is a very open economy, dependent on the export of oil and gas to purchase large amounts of imported food, consumer goods, and capital goods. It is the most important exporter of oil and gas to the United States from the Caribbean Basin. Unlike virtually every other Caribbean country, it generally enjoys yearly trade and balance of payments surpluses. It depends on the United States for roughly 50 percent of its trade, but the islands also maintain important trade relations with the European Economic Community and CARICOM. Michael Alleyne See also Carnival; James, Cyril Lionel Robert (1901–1989); Jones, Claudia Cumberbatch (1915–1964); Padmore, George (1901–1959);

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Trinidad and Tobago: African Impact on the Social Order | 907 Pan-Africanism; Steelpan; Transatlantic Slave Trade; Ture, Kwame (1941–1998); Williams, Eric Eustace (1911–1981). F URTHER R EADING Anthony, Michael. 1988. Towns and Villages of Trinidad and Tobago. Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago: Circle Press. Augier, F. R., and S. C. Gordon. 1962. Sources of West Indies History. London: Longmans. Bereton, B. B. Samaroo, and G. Taitt. 1998. Dictionary of Caribbean Biography. Mona, Jamaica: University of West Indies Press. Elder, J. D. 1988. African Survivals in Trinidad and Tobago. London: Karia Press. Simpson, George E. 1965. The Shango Cult in Trinidad. Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico: Institute of Caribbean Studies, University of Puerto Rico. Van Sertina, Ivan. 1976. They Came Before Columbus. New York: Random House. Williams, E. 1963. History of the People of Trinidad and Tobago. London: Andre Deutsch.

z Trinidad and Tobago: African Impact on the Social Order The impact of Africa and Africa-originated populations on the social order of Trinidad and Tobago is a microcosmic part of the controversial question that, for several centuries, European historians, scientists, and administrators have attempted to answer without facing the facts. From the Greek historian Herodotus (484–425 BCE) to the Festival of African Culture (1977 CE) the question “What have Africa and the Africans contributed to world civilization?” has challenged scientists, researchers, travelers, and historians to produce reliable, valid answers. The early formulations of African cultural survivals have been the subject of academic dispute between social scientists debating the questions of white/black assimilation and segregation in the New World societies. Indeed, one of the most critical social scientists who opposed the view that Africans in the Dias-

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pora had retained at least some of their culture was Franklin Frazier, a product of the Chicago Sociological School. And this question is crucial to the subject: If New World Africans had retained nothing of their ancient African culture, as Frazier and others argued, there are no grounds on which to propose that they had any cultural impact on the New World social order as Melville Herskovits and later Africanists were obliged to admit. To understand the paradox of Frazier, a black man, denying the retention of Africanisms (African cultural traits) by New World blacks and locking horns with Herskovits over the question of an African cultural heritage in the Americas and the West Indies, one must recall that Frazier had set out initially to oppose Herskovits’s theories, all of which were based on genetics and physiology and purported to show Africans as being of a race different from Europeans and incapable of assimilation into European society. Because this was the position taken by the physical anthropologists under Franz Boas, Herskovits’s teacher, Frazier, who opted for integration, had to argue that the culture of Diaspora Africans was a product of their new environment, that they were Americans in culture and therefore as qualified for equality of opportunity as white Americans. But the fight over African cultural survivals took more serious shape after Herskovits returned from his field research in Dahomey, Nigeria, Suriname, Haiti, and Trinidad and flooded the world with his reports on what he termed the “tenaciousness of African culture” under conditions of “culture contact.” From his field materials he developed theories about cultural transmission—about the three ways in which acculturation takes place, reinterpretation, accommodation, and assimilation—and about the impact he had seen the African cultural heritage exerting on the social order of the New World, especially the Caribbean. Herskovits died fighting the battle of cultural relativism by which he had hoped to change the attitude of the white

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World to African culture. But the evil of centuries of anti-African theorizing had already done damage; even in Herskovits’s works ethnocentricism and bias turn up in unexpected places. The task of clinching the argument in favor of African survivals in the New World was thrown to a succeeding generation of scholars as for many groups of African ancestry, Africa was associated with a negative rather than a positive regard for their racial past and their cultural roots and origins. In the Trinidad and Tobago social order, research has revealed the dimensions of African culture in demography, worldview (cosmogony), religion, social organization, economics, property, work, art, craft, politics, and social control. D EMOGRAPHY The most significant African input is the injection of a variety of human ethnic groups, each with its unique genetic history generally classified under Negroid and Bantu. The potential reproductive capability with which this input has endowed the Caribbean population as a whole has not been evaluated. However, the African migration created a number of gene pools and hereditary types in an ecology in which the indigenes were gradually decimated. Further, the cross-fertilization of races in Trinidad and Tobago, small as it is, in the African, Caucasian, and Oriental sectors, has given rise to new “marginal types” of ethnics, thus canceling out or at least reducing the probability of genetic death through monozygous imbalance in the population. The straight nose bridge and silken smooth black skin of the Fulani/Hausa, the high cheekbones and brilliant white eyes of the Yoruba, the musculature of the Congo people, and the light tan shade of the Ibos—all of these physical characteristics and others of the black people of this country are transmitted through race-crossing to the people of Oriental and Caucasian origin, thus creating a distribution of ethnic variations seen in few lands.

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WORLDVIEW R ELIGION This heading includes metaphysical activities, moral and ethical systems, divinatory rituals, and beliefs about the dead and the gods. From West Africans like the Mandingoes, the Radas, the Yorubas, the Ibos, and the Hausas a religious system has developed in which there are a recognized Supreme Being (Olodumare, Chukwu Aro, and so on), and a pantheon of divinities of equal status who are active among humans to the point of possessing them spiritually. From them derives a system of sacrifice (blood), a body of sacred narratives by which the “faithful” are guided in their relations with the Orishas. From the West Africans, Trinidad and Tobago received a cosmogony in which the concept of fate, the afterlife, and judgment are central in the morality system. Connected with this belief in the other world is the belief in reincarnation and the active intervention of the living dead (compare with the Catholic saints) and the ancestors in the affairs of the living. One can, without fear of contradiction, account for the basic religiosity of the people of this nation by reference to the fundamental place of religion and its moral codes in traditional African civilizations. For these civilizations there is no generation gap: the older a person gets the nearer he or she is to the ancestral gods and the more his or her words become oracular. In this connection, in the Christian religion, my research has shown nothing in terms of belief, ritual acts, and dogma about the cosmos that can be demonstrated as being superior to African religions. From inside Africa, reports from the field show many native peoples refusing to accept Christianity on the grounds that it has nothing the native religion does not supply. (See Herskovits et al. 1959.) It is widely accepted that it is in the area of religion that Afro-Caribbean culture resembles most closely the traditional African cultures. It should be noted here, that the Mandingoes (Mende) and the Hausas were the first ethnics to introduce the Islamic religion into Trinidad.

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Trinidad and Tobago: African Impact on the Social Order | 909 S OCIAL O RGANIZATION Social organization includes kinship systems, social ranking on the basis of blood or affinity, family typology, residence, and descent rules. Many of the cultures from which the blacks of Trinidad and Tobago came practice patriliny— that is, descent is reckoned through males. In Trinidad and Tobago it is the male ancestral authority upon which people call in the disposal of immovable property like land. In a sense, just as in Nigeria, it is the land (ancestral) that claims the male child. The patrilineal extended family of West Africa is still very much with us as is the matrifocal family. The extended family, consisting of a man, his wife, his unmarried sons and daughters, and some of his grandchildren, resident in the old primary family household is an undying social institution that urban migration has reinforced, not to mention bad housing problems. Today, a woman may be the head of that extended family household and just as easily its primary authority figure. Another feature of social organization retained from ancient African customs is the fictive kin, whereby persons unrelated by blood or affinity may ask for and receive kinship status in a family and enjoy all the privileges and perform all the duties of a kinsperson. These kinspeople include godparents, portez, grannies, and nannies. This method of extending the corporate family group certainly substitutes for the several secret and social groups (for example, Ogboni cult, Oro) that traditional African communities used to give solidarity to their social relationships and impregnability to their lineage. In rural villages of Tobago all adults are addressed by the lateral kin term cousin. In fact, this status carries a duty of surrogate parent and mentor for the young of the community. Serial polygyny without proper controls loses all of its potential social value and functionality. Many females in the society would die without fulfilling their aspirations of sharing their life “as a natural woman” with a human being who is her offspring were it not for this

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breach of Christian monogamy prescriptions. It is an abomination to be infertile by nature or by accident; just so, any social restriction on the black woman in respect of her right to reproduce her kind is illegal in this cultural framework. Inside Africa, given names continue to be received by a person even after death. Such names, apart from the clan name, are indicative of the conditions and circumstances surrounding the birth and/or conception of the child. Names are therefore very significant and carry important signals about a person’s status and descent. Among the Trinidad and Tobago peasant black population this custom is very viable. It is common to hear names like Pretty Miss, Bright Man, Little Man, Pin-Pin, Oldman, Braveman, Bigman, Tryamsee, Giftson, Dearson, Comfort, Content, Hardtime, Corntime, Workman Bear All, and Oneseed. Related to this are nicknames or funny-names, which are given to children to baffle the evil spirits who can call infants, especially abiku, and lead them away to destruction. All the taboos about name-calling in Nigeria have been noted by field researchers among African descendants in Trinidad and Tobago. E CONOMICS Labor, savings, corporate productive groups, bride service, property, inheritance rules, and so on are included under this heading. Living on and off the land (subsistence agriculture) is the major form of production among the majority of African descendants in Trinidad and Tobago. The family, as in Africa, is the basic economic productive unit. Often the earnings of the family are supervised by the oldest male in the household. The mother often advises as to how this money (wealth) should be disbursed. As in Africa, black women are the true traders and are given much say in buying and selling transactions, although they will claim that their husbands have the last say. Work on the land is carried out on a cooperative basis; able-bodied men form work-corvees

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(lend-a-hand, brothers, partners, task-workers) to cultivate or farm each other’s fields in succession over a number of days, each owner providing food for his “partners.” In some cases, just as is done in West Africa, music is provided to help the workers perform. Women perform the light work on the family farm. Bride-price has not survived in the black social organizations of Trinidad and Tobago, but there is bride-service among peasants. A sonin-law, even a prospective one, must do some work on his wife’s parental homestead and hold himself ready to give to his in-laws some assistance with work all through his married life. Among the rural folk and the tradespeople in towns, there is the custom of cooperative saving (savings clubs calls susu, from the Akan “esusu”), by which very large items may be purchased by an individual through pooling small sums along with his friends. This is an African custom that has persisted among all AfroCaribbean societies, but Trinidad and Tobago people hold that it is peculiar to them. The talent system, involving a small capital advance, is another rural black economic institution. A common method of trading in Trinidad and Tobago is called “exchange,” in which payment in kind may be made for services received or there may be outright bartering of goods, ground provisions, and vegetables. Fishermen may “exchange” their fish for vegetables or fruits. A mutually accepted scale of values (“standards”) exists between such traders. This kind of economic arrangement has antecedents in Africa, although most service has been noted among rural villages in some remote communities on both islands. A RT, C RAFT These include the vernacular forms of the arts—such as local culinary arts, folk music and dance, and dramatics. Most of the Africanderived music of Trinidad and Tobago is ritual in function, for example, music for Orisha worship (Shango). The obituary music for

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dead-wakes (bongo, singing, velorios), the music for invocation of ancestors (Tobago–reel dance music), the music of the independent Baptists (jubilees), the hymns and chants of the Spiritual Baptists (groaning, throne-of-grace) all represent modified structural and performance or stylistic features of African traditional music. The emphasis on percussion and quadruple tempo, polyrhythm, and contrapuntal singing styles, together with the organization of the performing group (whether choral or orchestral) on a strictly labor “division” between leader and chorus, are definitely retained stylistic traits from African tradition. Many musical instruments found among black folk musicians in Trinidad and Tobago are identical with their counterparts inside Africa, for example the sanza (mbira), emele (omelet), dun-dun, and shekere. The traditional uses of music by Africans to accompany work, to induce trance-states in devotees, to palliate the gods and ancestors, and to drive out evil spirits from the sick can be found still among the blacks of this country. Music to accompany work on land and sea takes the form of digging songs, woodmen’s music, harvesting (reaping) songs, and planting songs, exactly as happens in West African communities. Satiric music and music to convey abuse and condemnation of social conditions are hereditary. The plastic arts derived from Africa constitute a very small part of the present corpus, but there is a small residue of wood carving and calabash carving that does not by any means approach the sophistication of the traditional carvers at Oyo in Nigeria. Post carvings, like those decorating the entrance to the Institute of African Studies, Unibadan, has been attempted in some Trinidad rural villages; however, they may be modern imitations of commercial pieces from present-day Africa. At Plymouth in Tobago, one sees house-wall decorations executed by fisherman brush (billy) with chip-chip shells, exactly as the Fulani people of Kano State, Nigeria, do to their mud walls with snail shells.

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Trinidad and Tobago: African Impact on the Social Order | 911 Thatching techniques executed with cane straw and palm fronds in Tobago villages bear a clear similarity to the straw work on mudwalled houses in Asaba and Onitsha in Iboland (Nigeria). Straw-plait motifs seen among the Fulanis have been noted at Mundo Muevo and at O’Meara Road among Afro-Hispanic hybrids. The mats made from balisier leaf-stalks for spreading cocoa to dry are identical to the prayer mats commonly used in Nigeria by the Hausa Islamic devotees, who carry them about rolled up under their arms. Of course, the materials used differ from Hausaland to Trinidad and Tobago. The weaving technique and designs however, show marked similarities across the two societies. Wood carving in Trinidad and Tobago shows a marked resemblance to that in some Nigerian localities, chiefly in articles like food mortars, cutlass and hoe handles, hope chests, and food platters or bread boards. Attempts at zoomorphic designs on these articles tie them with the African plastic arts tradition. Some carved masks have been turning up in the Best Village Fair, but their connection to African ancient traditional artists is unclear. Within the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, African-derived ceremonial artifacts include the Ju-ju masquerade (witch doctor) and the Perrot Grenade costume, which closely resembles the costume of the Egungun ancestral figure, seen annually in Yoruba towns and villages. The head mask of the African figure, since 1881, has been debarred from the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival costume. The Egun ancestor death mask of Yorubaland must not expose any part of the body whatever because it encloses the ancestor-spirit and is very sacred. The dragon beast mask of the carnival reminds me of the Cross River water python monster mask. The intricate carnival netalwork of Ken Norris has African antecedents. Sophisticated ancestral hair styles have been re-created in the contemporary period across the African diaspora. The common one seen is the corn-row or cane-row, very commonly

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Moko jumbies, African Diaspora stilt dancers, in Trinidad Carnival. (Wolfgang Kaehler/Corbis)

used for decorating heads of little Nigerian girls. The head tie known as the gele among the Yoruba, has been imitated in this country, and French Creole women have made the head tie a symbol related to courtship. It goes under other names, such as tete-marlin, madras, daizen. In Nigeria, it is indicative of ethnic and class distinction instead. Only a few of the traditional culinary arts of West Africa have persisted among Trinidad and Tobago blacks. The pounded yam of the Nigerians has been replaced by the pounded plantain. The roasted plantain is eaten as a special sweetmeat, while fried ripe plantain (dodo in Nigeria) is served with breakfast. Callaloo (kararu in Africa) has been retained, although it has been modified by adding salted pork, land crabs, and spices. Cassava meal is used in Trinidad and Tobago to prepare

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cassava-coocoo, a stiff paste very similar to the Nigerian garri, which is the standard meal for high- and low-class folk in Nigeria. In Trinidad and Tobago for a long time, only the lower economic class ever eats cassava coocoo. Corn coocoo, however, is a ritual meal for Shango in Trinidad and Tobago, while fungi is a nonritual delicacy. These have become now part of the national ethnic menus, available in major hotel chains and as delicacies in receptions and Sunday and holiday meals. Snails are eaten in Nigeria but not Trinidad. The welks (welkin) from the rocky coast and the blue land crabs, however, are delicacies for the peasants. Although one type of monkey is eaten in Trinidad, it is an abomination to eat monkeys in Nigeria. Some Nigerians eat dogs, a sacred animal to Ogun, the god of Iron, but in Trinidad and Tobago this custom is unheard of. Iguana is eaten in this country, but in Nigeria the chameleon is the most sacred beast in the bush and is never eaten, not even ritually. As in Nigeria, the manicou or giant rat is eaten here. A few items of clothing have survived the passage from Africa. The buba and the lappa can be seen among Tobago peasant women. A long skirt resembling the Fulani coat and called a koti has been noted among some rural villages both in Trinidad and Tobago. Body marks and decorative tattooing of the erogenic body parts have completely disappeared among New World blacks, especially the face marks indicative of tribal or ethnic membership. However, ceremonial marks (with very little scarification) are placed on initiates of the Shango and the Spiritual Baptist. Some black people still place identical “body marks” upon their infants. This custom is positively traditional for West Africans. Of course, in Trinidad and Tobago these marks are not by any means “decorative” compared with the circumcision marks placed on Ibo girls when they are age graded. Both male and female circumcision have disappeared among African descendants in Trinidad and Tobago.

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P OLITICS , S OCIAL C ONTROL This last area of the social order to be examined for African cultural influence concerns politics and the political institutions operative in this country, whether at the formal or informal level or organization or within the national communal or domestic sector. Political organization is concerned with the maintenance of social order within a territorial framework by the organized exercise of coercive authority through the use, or possibility of use, of physical force. Because of the predominance of the British constitutional system in Trinidad and Tobago, one must remember that politics is a very broadly defined institution. This allows researchers to recognize certain marginal conventions that are very effective in achieving the objectives of social control and even in administering what some anthropologists have termed regulated vengeance and repressive justice. Both of these popular functions of politics can be found among certain ethnic groups other than Africans in this country and, in terms of the subject under discussion, one can logically ask whether the Africans originally brought any of these popular political institutions to Trinidad and Tobago. Think of the kingole of the Kikuyu and the injoget of the Nandi people, by which individuals who had offended against the community were put to death or otherwise punished by popular ostracism, banishment, or other psychological privations. Think of the divine kingship system of West Africa, by which obas and chiefs hold on to their positions on the basis of charisma, through ancestral authority, and traditional rules of succession. Have any of these political traditional “conventions” persisted? For instance, is there anything in the politics of Trinidad and Tobago at the national level (or at the private communal level) that resembles the Ogboni society of kingmakers whose support or lack of it can make or break even the oba? It must be admitted that the African “secret societies” as such were not included in the cul-

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Trinidad and Tobago: African Impact on the Social Order | 913 tural baggage of those Africans who came to Trinidad and Tobago, at least not in sufficient strength to give them a new lease on life. History shows, however, that the Mandingoes and the Congoes did attempt to organize themselves, especially around Port of Spain, into politicoeconomic groups, but unlike their African counterparts in Haiti they failed. Nothing like the East Indian panchayat evolved among the Africans in Trinidad and Tobago. Africans in Trinidad and Tobago have retained nothing of the level of the traditional elders’ councils that are so powerful in peasant society in West Africa. Hence, there are no pseudopolitical integrative popular institutions among the black peasantry of this country whereby public opinion can be communally mobilized by a local leader. European culture, through the colonial system, was late in making its impact on the West African traditional lifeways before the 19th century, in spite of the inroads of the South Atlantic slave trade. Thousands of Africans transported from their homes would have been untouched by any European-type political institution before their migration. This can be seen in the case of the Haitians who retained their institutions of social control. Why did the Trinidadian blacks lose the elders’ council, the Ogboni, the Oro, and other suchlike “social regulators”? Of course something of the West African divine king syndrome can be seen in the founder/president institutions common to political parties, friendly societies, and of late, village councils in Trinidad and Tobago. In Nigeria, an oba (oni, king, ruler) who the populace decides has outlived his viability as a ruler is advised to “go to sleep” by either taking poison himself or having one of his several “mothers” (wives) administer it. To indicate their will, the kingmakers and the oba mogba (king’s friends) send him a calabash of parrot eggs. In modern times he is assassinated but in ancient times he was induced to die “in his own house” as a good man must do, according to Yoruba values.

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It is interesting to note that several modern African politicians have come up against the European political parliamentary system, which runs counter to the “settled indigenous (political) systems” of authority and leadership. The African traditional image of authority means permanent or hereditary leadership, as against the transient rotational image of authority in Western parliamentary systems. There is, therefore, a cultural basis for the “crisis in parliamentary democracy” inside many African countries. It may be that Trinidad and Tobago has retained this old African concept of permanent authority in its political system, which clashes with the Western institution of “rational leadership.” It is hardly reasonable to wonder why Africans exerted so slight an influence on the political institutions of Trinidad and Tobago. European political philosophy has swamped Africans both in Africa and in the New World. The situation in Africa is mitigated by the tenacity with which the Africans have held on to traditional law and their chieftaincy system, which operates through the basic patriclan system. In the New World, where the kinship system and its jural and political powers were eroded, there was nothing upon which the blacks could erect anything like popular government structures. Moreover, the loss of the powerful religious systems of authority by the Diaspora Africans can be held accountable for the almost complete absence of anything African in the Trinidad and Tobago political system, except maybe the use of clientage and the respect for charismatic leadership. C ONCLUSION Despite the academic controversies over the question of whether the African people who migrated under force to the Caribbean brought their culture with them and, more importantly, to what extent, if at all, they have influenced the social order of Trinidad and Tobago, it is admitted that it is materially impossible for a people to live in contact with other ethnic groups without influencing them in a variety

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of ways. In the case of Trinidad and Tobago, it is a matter for pride that several marks of the African tradition have evidently been left on the social order—on the physical form of the people, on the music and the dance, on the language and the literature, on the social control mechanisms, and on the political institutions, small as this may be. J. D. Elder See also Carnival; Steelpan; Trinidad and Tobago. F URTHER R EADING Elder, J. D. 1969. “The Yoruba Ancestral Cult in Gasparillo: Its Structure, Organization and Social Function in Community Life.” Caribbean Quarterly 16 (3):5–20. Herskovits, Melville. 1947. Trinidad Village. New York: A. A. Knopf. Herskovits, Melville, et al. 1959. “The Pakot Resistance to Change.” In African Cultures, 144– 167. Phoenix. Martin, Tony. 1983. The Pan-African Connection: From Slavery to Garvey and Beyond. Cambridge, MA: Schenckman Publishing Co. Warner-Lewis, Maureen. 1991. Guinea’s Other Suns: The African Dynamic in Trinidad Culture. Dover, MA: The Majority Press.

z Tropiques The Martinican cultural revue Tropiques was founded in 1941 by Aimé and Suzanne Césaire with the significant collaboration of René Ménil and Aristide Maugée. In 14 issues (12 volumes) published until 1945, the literary and cultural revue pressed for the construction of a new Martinican cultural identity. The contributors focused primarily on the island’s folklore, flora, politics, poetics, history, and cultural diversity (from Catholicism to Hinduism to Animism) as well as its African, Asian, European, and Latin American origins. But they also explored the potential influences of European theorists, such as the German ethnographer Leo Frobenius, and

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of French poets and writers, such as Lautréamont, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, and André Breton for a new literature. They turned as well to the Americas for inspiration, studying Venezuelan and Haitian poetry, exalting the Cubans Wilfredo Lam and Alejo Carpentier, and examining the impact of the Harlem Renaissance, particularly the work of Langston Hughes and Claude McKay. With its apparently apolitical cultural focus, the revue initially thrived in a period of unusual censorship, racism, and oppression during the Vichy regime in France, the repressive reign of Vichy representative Admiral Robert in Martinique, and the resulting American blockade of the island. Though the revue was briefly forbidden in 1943 for being revolutionary and racial, the collective’s authors prevailed in publishing increasingly radical cultural works until the end of the war. Tropiques’ critical engagement in the question of cultural identity marked a profound revolution in Caribbean poetics. The writers of Tropiques challenged a culture of attempted assimilation that had resulted in a literary sterility they decried. Suzanne Césaire, for example, indicted the sort of Caribbean poetry taught in schools in Martinique in 1942 as a literature of “sugar and vanilla,” a form of “tourism” that must die in order for a true Martinican poetry to be born. In their quest for a new literature, the writers explored different movements, in particular surrealism and Négritude—being among the first to embrace a black identity and an African origin for the island’s culture—as tools for constructing a new poetics. The French surrealist André Breton stumbled across the first issue of the revue while exiled in Martinique in 1941, an experience that led to his subsequent dissemination of Aimé Césaire’s hitherto-unknown Notebook of a Return to My Native Land in New York and Paris. In many ways Tropiques revitalized surrealism at a time when its main European practitioners were silenced and scattered. Likewise, in embracing the earlier works of the Harlem Renaissance, the revue also introduced them to a

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Truth, Sojourner (ca. 1797–1883 | 915 whole new audience. As it explored outside influences, the revue’s allegedly folkloric focus became increasingly radical, racially grounded, and political, a shift evident in its later essays on the socioeconomic and cultural impact of colonization for people of color in Martinique. Kara Rabbitt See also Césaire, Aimé (1913–2008); Césaire, Suzanne (1915–1966); Harlem Renaissance; Négritude. F URTHER R EADING Kesteloot, Lilyan. 1974. Black Writers in French: A Literary History of Négritude, trans. Ellen Conroy Kennedy. Philadephia: Temple University Press. Ménil, René. 1978. “Pour une lecture critique de Tropiques.” Tropiques 1: 25–35. Michel, Jean-Claude. 2000. Black Surrealists. New York: Peter Lang. Richardson, Michael, and Krzysztof Fijalkowski. 1996. Refusal of the Shadow: Surrealism and the Caribbean. London: Verso.

z Truth, Sojourner (ca. 1797–1883) Sojourner Truth stands as a hero among the most prominent and towering figures in the 19th-century abolitionist and feminist struggles in the United States. She brought vigor, vitality, and strength to the antislavery movement through her natural charisma and charm and her political activism in antebellum America. Sojourner Truth was born about 1797 in Ulster County, New York, not too long after the end of the American Revolution. She was named Isabella Bomefree and lived with her parents, James and Elizabeth Bomefree, in her early childhood. She spoke Dutch as her first language because it was the language of her parents’ slave masters. But by the time Isabella was about nine she was sold away after her master’s death to non–Dutch-speaking slaveholders. Before then, her parents had already lost 10 or 12 children to the slave trade.

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Isabella was bought by John Dumont in 1810. She worked for 17 years for the Dumont family practically until her emancipation in 1827 by an antislavery and abolitionist law promulgated in the state of New York. This statute promised to give legal freedom to all New York slaves under the age of 40 by 1827. Isabella married Thomas, a fellow slave, while she lived with the Dumonts; they had five children: Diana, born about 1815; Peter, born about 1821; Elizabeth, born about 1825; Sophia, born about 1826; and one who could not be identified. Thomas was much older then Isabella as was often the case on most slave plantations, and Isabella rarely saw her husband. She left him when she went away with her baby to work for Isaac and Maria Van Wagenen. The Van Wagenens shared the ideals of equality and simplicity that would eventually steer Isabella to the Methodist Church, where she became a preacher in the service of her Lord Jesus Christ and the cause of human freedom. In August 1831, Isabella became a servant of Pierson. In 1832 she would later join a religious commune in which her new master was an active member. This commune, called the “Kingdom,” was led by Prophet Mathias. Isabella, however, left the commune after three years when suddenly the Kingdom found itself in crisis upon the death of Pierson in 1834 in suspicious circumstances. Isabella was accused by the New York Times of being a witch who had been responsible for the death of Pierson. She successfully sued the Times and forced them to retract their story. She then asked her Lord for a new name after she got tired of being called Bell by her slave masters. Isabella believed that through a religious conversion the Lord had given her a new name, which did not include the last name of a slave master. That name would be “Sojourner Truth,” because she was by this time very much convinced that the Lord’s last name was Truth. At the age of 46, and in a state of heightened religious conversion and zeal, she traveled on foot throughout the length and breadth of New England delivering

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speeches to various audiences and constantly evoking the truths of biblical scriptures. Truth had no permanent address at this rather nomadic period in her life. She often stayed with prominent members of the women’s movement when she traveled, such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Her speeches were often a blend of religion and critical comments on contemporary political and social issues. Around this time Sojourner Truth began to embark on a path of personal autonomy that would make her an active participant in the abolitionist and women’s movement during that period. However, Truth had already demonstrated a spirit of defiance against the status quo of her times when in 1826 John Dumont sold her son Peter to one of his in-laws. The child landed in Alabama where slavery was not expected to end soon. Truth went to court and got the return of her son. There can be no doubt that this legal action was indicative of a strong woman who would fight to dislocate the structures of plantation and chattel slavery in the United States. Truth joined the Northampton Association for Education and Industry in the 1840s. Around this time she came into contact with antislavery advocates and feminists. In the late 1840s she met William Lloyd Garrison and many of his followers in the abolitionist movement. She also met Olive Gilbert and collaborated with her in 1850 to write and publish her autobiography, called the Narrative of Sojourner Truth. Between 1850 and the Civil War, she gained fame and notoriety on the feminist lecture circuit. At the so-called “Mob Convention” on women’s rights held in 1853 in New York, Truth warned that the time was near when women would gain full equality with men. Truth met Abraham Lincoln on October 29, 1864, during which time they deliberated on the most outstanding and burning issue facing the nation, which was of course the Civil War and the issue of slavery. During this meeting, she asked Lincoln to sign her book of life, a collection of signatures and photographs. Truth

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later became a counselor to the freeman society of Arlington, Virginia, assisting freed slaves from the South to resettle in the West. She remained in Washington, D.C. while she carried out her work among slave refugees from the Civil War. Truth died in November 1883 in Battle Creek, Michigan, in the house she had shared with her daughters. Tarnue Johnson See also Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Sojourners for Truth and Justice. F URTHER R EADING Clift, Eleanor. 2003. “And Ain’t I a Woman?” Newsweek 142 (18): 1–3. Lerner, Gerda. 1997. “Mother, Mystic, Myth.” Nation 264 (2): 25–28. Painter, Nell Irvin. 1994. “Representing Truth: Sojourner Truth’s Knowing and Becoming Known.” Journal of American History 81 (2): 461–493. Painter, Nell Irvin. 1997. Sojourner Truth. A Life, A Symbol. New York: Norton. Painter, Nell Irvin. 1998. Narrative of Sojourner Truth. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books

z Ture, Kwame (1941–1998) Kwame Ture, a leading figure in the progression of the African Diaspora struggles from the Civil Rights and anticolonial movements to Black Power and Pan-Africanism, was born Stokely Carmichael on June 29, 1941, in Port of Spain, Trinidad. He moved to New York at an early age and attended the famous Bronx High School of Science. Upon graduation he received scholarship offers from many Ivy League colleges but chose to attend Howard University where he received a bachelor’s degree in 1964. He later received an honorary doctorate (1971) from Shaw University. While at Howard University he joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a leading student organization in the desegre-

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Ture, Kwame (1941–1998) | 917 gation Civil Rights Movement in 1960. He was active with SNCC in Greene and Lowndes counties in Alabama, including the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, better known as the Black Panther Party (BPP). His participation in sit-ins and freedom rides, organizing peasants and literacy campaigns, as well as battles with the Klu Klux Klan, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Central Intelligence Agency throughout his life placed him at the forefront of the struggle for black human rights. In Mississippi he was involved in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. He put his life on the line, like so many, facing torture, jail, and endless abuses in the quest for a better quality of life. Undying love for the people describes his attitude and work. He raised and popularized the call for “black power” at the Meredith march in Mississippi in 1966 after his election as chairman of SNCC in June. During his tenure as Chairman of SNCC, he first traveled to Cuba. In 1967 he became honorary prime minister of the Black Panther Party in a gesture of unity between the SNCC and the BPP. His call for an African United Front with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Nation of Islam, Black Caucus, and other groups was his trademark demand. His increased ideological development guided him from Havana to Hanoi to Tripoli and beyond in support of and as part of the struggles of the oppressed peoples around the world. Under Ture’s leadership, SNCC played a vanguard role in building mass support in attacking numerous imperialist wars, including Vietnam. His stance on behalf of the Palestinian people in denouncing the Zionist aggression in 1949 and the 1967 Israeli war expanded African people’s understanding of the machinations of imperialism and European settler zionism. His historic support of the demands of the Chicano/Mexican/Native American struggles via the American Indian Movement, La Raza Unida, International Indian Treaty Council,

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Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), an effective leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), brought the concept of Black Power into the U.S. civil rights struggle. In 1967, an advocate of militancy rather than nonviolent cooperation, he broke with SNCC and joined the more radical Black Panthers. In 1978, he changed his name to Kwame Ture to honor African leaders Kwame Nkrumah and Ahmed Sékou Touré. (Library of Congress)

and so on, including their demand for the liberation of their homeland, the Americas, made him revered by indigenous peoples throughout the Western Hemisphere. In 1967, he coauthored with Charles V. Hamilton, Black Power, the Politics of Liberation in America. That same year, as a manifestation of an ongoing political struggle, Ture was disassociated from SNCC, and he became the prime minister of the Black Panthers, headquartered in Oakland, California. He soon became disenchanted with the Panthers and moved to Guinea, West Africa. While residing in Africa, the late President Ahmed Sékou Touré bestowed on him the name “Kwame Ture” to honor Osagyefo Kwame

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Nkrumah, who led Ghana to independence from Britain, and, Sékou Touré, who was president of Guinea and his mentor. For more than 30 years, Ture led the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party and devoted the rest of his life to Pan-Africanism as a movement to uproot the inequities of racism for people of African descent and to develop an economic and cultural coalition among the African Diaspora. Under the tutelage of these two great PanAfricanists, Ture recognized that organization and constant political education are the keys to the liberation of Africa and African people. The first study cells of the All African People’s Revolutionary Party (AAPRP) had been created by Kwame Nkrumah in Conakry in 1968. In 1969, Ture undertook the assignment to revisit North America and the Caribbean to build the AAPRP under Nkrumah’s organizational direction. Ture traveled all over the world building the AAPRP and supporting the just struggles against exploitation and oppression. Over the years, he met and worked with progressive and revolutionary leaders and with many national and international organizations representing Arab, Indian, Chicano, Irish, and other oppressed peoples. Although restricted by the effects of his illness and treatment for cancer, Ture continued to speak on college campuses until he returned to Guinea, determined to continue his chosen work with the AAPRP until the end. Even in his last days he was organizing against the Cuban and Libyan embargos/travel bans and promoting an African United Front. As he was fighting the battle against cancer, Ture received an outpouring of love and support from individuals, organizations, and governments. In 1980, Ture, together with the Sisters in the AAPRP, called for the formation of the All African Women’s Revolutionary Union, the largest formation within the AAPRP. This would ensure that African women assumed a vanguard role in eliminating not just national (race) and class oppression but also sexism.

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Ture made immense contributions to the struggles of African people worldwide. He was a fearless, humble organizer in the service of the African Revolution. Ture’s dedicated and tireless work earned him the love and admiration of the struggling people everywhere. To the end he answered the telephone, “Ready for the Revolution.” Kwame Ture died on November 15, 1998. His earlier marriages to Miriam Makeba and Guinean physician Marlyatou Barry had both ended in divorce. He is survived by his mother, two sisters, two sons, and his extended family throughout the world. Macheo Shabaka See also All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP); Black Panther Party; Howard University; Pan-Africanism; Trinidad and Tobago. F URTHER R EADING Carmichael, Stokely, and Charles V. Hamilton. 1967. Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America. New York: Random House. Thelwell, Ekwueme Michael, Stokely Carmichael, and John Edgar Wideman. 2003. Ready for the Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture). New York: Scribner.

z Turkey: Afro-Turks Afro-Turks are Turkish citizens who are of African ancestry. They are the descendants of Africans who were taken to the part of the world which is today Turkey during the Ottoman period as slaves. The ethnic composition of the population of Turkey is very diverse and the population of every region of Turkey differs from the others. The ethnic composition of the Aegean and the Mediterranean coast area includes people of African ancestry along with other groups. Therefore, it may be claimed that there exists an African Diaspora in Turkey, which is a constituent of the African Diaspora in Asia.

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Turkey: Afro-Turks | 919 Research on the African Diaspora in Turkey is of great importance in order to be able to clarify the position of the histories of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic within world history and within the system of global relations. Herewith, the position of the African Diaspora in Turkey within the African Diaspora in the world and its importance would be determined as well. In spite of the paucity of research on Ottoman slavery, which produced the AfroTurks, there are attempts to achieve more knowledge. For example, the discourse on Ottoman slavery is gradually becoming part of the slavery discourse in other societies through studies done by both Turkish scholars and scholars of other countries. A comparative overview of the studies on slavery in general and slavery in the Ottoman Empire would also reveal how studies on Ottoman slavery are lagging behind in the overall discourse on slavery which is currently generating interest and gaining significance in intellectual circles (Toledano 1998, 138). Besides, both in the Ottoman era, as well as the Republican era Africans have been considered as Turks/Muslims. Consequently, AfroTurks are virtually statistically non-existent in the official demographic records of the Ottoman and Republican eras of Turkish history. Little wonder, therefore, that Afro-Turks are absent from state reference sources such as yearbooks (salname), indexes (rehber), and statistics (Günes 1999, 4). Another reason for the neglect of people of African origin who lived or still live in this part of the world in both Ottoman and Turkish historiography is the fact that foreign research institutes still dominate the study of “Anatolia’s ancient and modern history and culture.” Thus there is an “absence of the development of a homebred intellectual scientific potential with a rationalist, competitive and revisionist quality to oppose conservatism” (Sahin 1995, 208). In this manner, there are almost no referable scholarly works in Turkish.

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Information on the lives of these people after the demise of slavery in the Ottoman Empire or in the Turkish Republic is very scarce. It is also impossible to obtain information on the lives of the descendants of the Africans, i.e., the African Turks today, as no questions were/are asked concerning race, ethnic origins or religion in the population censuses in Turkey. Besides using archive material, the only way to obtain information is using sociological/anthropological methods. Esma Durugönül F URTHER R EADING Andrews, Peter Alford. 1989/1992. Türkiye’de Etnik Gruplar (Ethnic Groups in the Republic of Turkey. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, and Istanbul: Ant Yayinlari. Durugönül, Esma. 2003. “The Invisibility of Turks of African Origin and the Construction of Turkish Cultural Identity: The Need for a New Historiography.” Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 33:3 (January): 281–294. Erdem, Y. Hakan. 1996. Slavery in the Ottoman Empire and Its Demise 1800–1909. London: Macmillan Press. Günes¸, Günver. 1999. “I˙zmir’de Zenciler ve Zenci Folkloru.” Toplumsal Tarih, S¸ubat: 4–10. Martal, Abdullah, 2000. “Afrika’dan I˙zmir’e: I˙zmir’de Bir Köle Misafirhanesi.” Kebikeç 10: 171–186. Olpak, Mustafa. 2005. Kenya-Girit-I˙stanbul Köle Kiyisindan I˙nsan Biyografileri. Istanbul: Ozan Yayincilik. Planhol, Xavier de. 1958. De la plaine Pamphylienne aux lacs pisidiens. Nomadisme et vie paysanne. Paris: Librarie Adrien-Maisonneuve. S¸ahin, Sencer. 1995. “Türkiye Genelinde Eskiçag˘ Bilimleri ve Eskiçag˘ Tarihi Temel Bilimleri.” Arkeoloji Dergisi III. Ed. Hasan Malay, Ege Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Yayinlari: 203– 214. Toledano, Ehud R. 1982. The Ottoman Slave Trade and Its Suppression, 1840-1890. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Toledano, Ehud R. 1998. Slavery and Abolition in the Ottoman Middle East. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press.

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Turner, Nat (1800–1831) Nat Turner was the leader of the most successful slave rebellion, which signaled the beginning of the end of chattel slavery within the United States. Turner was born on October 2, 1800, in Southampton County, Virginia, on Benjamin Turner’s plantation. Turner, the son of slaves, was the property of Benjamin Turner, a prosperous plantation owner. Nat Turner’s mother, Nancy, and grandmother were Africans brought to the United States. A mature and intelligent child, Turner was considered a prophet, accepted Christianity, and became very religious. Turner grew up sharing his mother and grandmother’s hatred of slavery. Taught to read by Benjamin Turner’s son, Samuel, Nat developed deep religious beliefs. He read the Bible, avoided participating in society, and spent most of his free time fasting and praying. In 1821, Turner ran away from his overseer, returning after 30 days because of a vision in which he was instructed to return to Benjamin Turner. The next year, following the death of his master, Samuel Turner, Nat was sold to Thomas Moore. In 1824, Nat Turner had another vision about obtaining freedom. Between 1825 and 1830, Turner preached to other slaves, teaching them self-respect, to struggle for justice, and to resist and struggle against slavery. His preaching and charisma gave him many followers who believed he was a prophet. He considered himself chosen by God to deliver African Americans from slavery and to kill whites with their own weapons. In 1830, Turner was moved to the home of Joseph Travis. His official owner, however, was now a child named Putnum Moore. In February 1831, there was an eclipse of the sun that Turner took as the sign he had been promised. He confided his plan to start the slave rebellion to the four men he trusted the most. They decided to hold the insurrection on the symbolic date of July 4; however, they had to delay the rebellion because Turner was sick. On August 13,

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1831, there appeared a bluish-green sky that Turner considered the last sign to begin the rebellion. Turner and his men met in the woods to make their plans. He took the title of General Cargill. Around two in the morning, on August 21, 1831, they went by horseback to the Travis household, where they killed the entire family as they were sleeping. They went from house to house killing all of the whites they encountered. Turner believed this show of force would encourage other slaves to join the rebellion, while frightening whites. Turner’s plan worked to an extent because his force grew to more than 40 slaves, most on horseback. On August 22, 1831, Turner went toward Jerusalem to acquire weapons. By this time, Turner’s forces had grown to 60 or 70 people as they continued to move from one house to another. However, as their size increased, Turner’s force became disorganized and lost the element of surprise. Whites learned of the rebellion and formed a militia of more than 100 people that confronted Turner and his rebels who scattered. After spending the night near some slave cabins, Turner and his men attempted to attack another house but were forced back. Some of the men left Turner to return to the plantations, and some of the rebels were captured. The remaining force then met the state and federal troops in their final struggle, in which one slave was killed and many escaped, including Turner. The rebels had shot, clubbed, and stabbed 57 whites to death. On October 30, 1831, Turner was found and arrested. He made a statement to his court-appointed attorney, Thomas R. Gray, in which he admitted to leading the rebellion, but pleaded not guilty. On November 5, 1831, Nat Turner was sentenced to death in the Southampton County Court. He was hanged and skinned. The state executed 55 African Americans, banished numerous others, and acquitted a few. After the rebellion, close to 200 African Americans, many of whom were innocent, were murdered by white mobs. In addition, slaves as far away as North Carolina were falsely

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Tuskegee Institute/Tuskegee University | 921 accused of having a connection with the rebellion and were subsequently tried and executed. Aaron Ogletree See also Haitian Revolution; Stono Rebellion. F URTHER R EADING Aptheker, Herbert. 1966. Nat Turner’s Slave Rebellion, Together with the full text of the so-called “Confessions” of Nat Turner made in prison in 1831. New York: Humanities Press. Bennett, Lerone, Jr. 1968. Pioneers in Protest. Chicago: Johnson Publishing Company. Clarke, John Henrik, ed. 1968. William Styron’s Nat Turner: Ten Black Writers Respond. Boston: Beacon Press. Foner, Eric, ed. 1971. Nat Turner. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1971. Tragle, Henry Irving, ed. 1971. The Southampton Slave Revolt of 1831. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

z Tuskegee Institute/Tuskegee University Tuskegee Institute was founded by Booker T. Washington in 1881 at the bequest of African American craftsman Lee Adams, who guaranteed the black vote to white legislator W. F. Foster for his support to start a school for black youth in Tuskegee, Alabama. It became one of the most successful of the historically black colleges and universities in the United States. Lee was able to secure $2,000 from the state legislature to establish the school. Hampton graduate and formerly enslaved Booker T. Washington was hired as the chief administrator and principal of the school (Logan 1969; Washington 1900). Washington used the Hampton model of industrial education (for example, farming, domestic work) and combined it with “practical knowledge,” such as hygiene and etiquette, and the Victorian morals of economy, hard work, and financial prudence. The objective at Tuskegee was to send students back to the rural

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and plantation districts as teachers to educate black people in these communities (Washington 1900). Using Hampton’s model of coeducation, Washington included black women in his educational model—as students, teachers, and principals (Washington 1900). In 1882, Fannie N. Smith, Washington’s first wife, worked with him to include students and teachers in their home life. She also organized conferences to uplift African American women in U.S. society. Hampton graduate Olivia A. Davidson joined Washington as a teacher at Tuskegee Institute and became his wife after Smith died in 1884. In 1890, Margaret James Murray, a Fisk University graduate, began working at Tuskegee Institute as a “lady principal.” She eventually married Washington after the death of Davidson (Washington 1900). By 1906, the 25th anniversary of Tuskegee Institute, the college had become one of the most important and thriving black educational institutions in the world with assets of $3 million. Housed on a 100-acre farm, the facilities grew from a shack to more than 10 large buildings, a women’s college, and more than a dozen instructors (Washington 1900). Black scientists like George Washington Carver had an academic home for his research on the peanut. Board members included President William Taft and President Theodore Roosevelt. In 1985, Tuskegee Institute became a university, and by 2005 the school was valued at $500 million. Paula Marie Seniors See also Hampton Institute/Hampton University. F URTHER R EADING Harlan, Louis R. 1983. Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee 1901–1915. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harlan, Louis R., and Raymond W. Smock. 1988. Booker T. Washington in Perspective. Jackson and London: University Press of Mississippi. Logan, Rayford W. 1969. The Betrayal of the Negro: From Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson. London: Collier-Macmillan.

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922 | Tynes, Maxine (1949–) Washington, Booker T. 1900. Up from Slavery: An Autobiography of Booker T. Washington. New York: Bantam, Doubleday, Doran & Company.

z Tynes, Maxine (1949–) Recipient of the Milton Acorn People’s Poet Award in 1988, Maxine Tynes is immensely popular in her native Nova Scotia, where her four collections of poetry are best-sellers. Tynes’s style comes alive in performance; her often intricate rhythms and realistic images are both moving and appealing. A particular preoccupation in her work is her sense of complex social location: as a diasporic black woman, as a Nova Scotian, as a feminist, and as a disabled person. Her topics are various: black Nova Scotian history and culture, women’s lives and gender relations, poverty, global politics, the difficulty of navigating the world for people with physical disabilities, deeply personal tributes to family and friends, and love. Tynes’s voice is unique in black Canadian literature, particularly because of her insistent orality. She takes up oral tradition, not by interpolating a dialectal voice or sayings, but rather by recourse to declamatory forms, lists,

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litanies, and exhortations. Orality is her register, and apparent directness and simplicity her mode in the tradition of a Langston Hughes or a Nikki Giovanni. Long neglected by scholars, Tynes is now attracting scholarly attention. Born in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, to a working class family, Tynes attended Dalhousie University and later became the first African Canadian member of its board of governors. Most of her working life has been as a high school teacher in the Dartmouth schools. Tynes’s poetry collections came in rapid succession: Borrowed Beauty (1987); Woman Talking Woman (1990); Save the World for Me (1991), a book for children; and The Door of My Heart (1993). In 1990, a room of the new Dartmouth Public Library was named for her. She has also received an honorary doctorate from Mt. St. Vincent University. Leslie Sanders See also Canada and the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Fuller, Danielle. 1999. “‘Raising the Heart’: The Politics of the Popular and the Poetics of Performance in the Work of Maxine Tynes.” Essays in Canadian Writing 67: 76–112. Stone, Marjorie. 1997. “The Poet as Whole-Body Camera: Maxine Tynes and the Pluralities of Otherness.” Dalhousie Review 77 (2): 227–257.

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U z

Uncle Tom and Tom Shows

a Christian who believed he would share eternity with Christ, he held enormous appeal for evangelical Christians. “[A] strong, powerfully built man,” wrote Stowe in describing Uncle Tom. In Hammatt Billings’s engravings for the original 1852 publication Uncle Tom was a father in the prime of life with dark hair and broad shoulders. The renowned English illustrator George Cruikshank drew Uncle Tom for an English edition that first year. By the 1860s, especially after emancipation of slaves in 1863, Uncle Tom was almost always rendered as an elderly man. Staged renditions of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s antislavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin became known as “Tom Shows.” As they had for the blackfaced minstrel shows, popular since the 1840s, white actors performed all the roles, including the slave roles, for which they darkened their skin with burned cork. George C. Howard’s premiere production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, set to George Aiken’s script, was mounted in New York City on July 18, 1853. Soon after, P. T. Barnum presented a version by Henry J. Conway at the American Museum and the Bowery Theater with minstrel star Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice in the role of Uncle Tom. By 1879, 49 touring Tom Shows were listed in the New York Daily Mirror.

The fictional character of long-suffering Christian slave Uncle Tom was created by Harriet Beecher Stowe after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, in a story that appeared in 41 installments between June 1851 and April 1852 in the Washington, D.C.– based abolitionist periodical The National Era. The story captivated Northern readers and, within weeks, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or, Life among the Lowly was published in book form by John P. Jewett of Boston. An unprecedented 300,000 copies sold before the end of 1852 in the United States. Almost immediately several editions were published in England where the story and representation of the characters in a variety of the popular art formats became a cultural phenomenon. In the story, Uncle Tom is sold down the river, away from his loving family and life on the Kentucky plantation where he had always lived. Even in the face of beatings by the cruel slavemaster Simon Legree, Uncle Tom remains devout and committed to his faith in a benevolent God; ultimately, though, he is beaten to death by Legree. As an ill-treated victim of an evil system, slavery, Uncle Tom was a sympathetic figure to the abolition-minded, and because he was 923 www.abc-clio.com

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924 | Uncle Tom and Tom Shows

In Harry Birdoff ’s 1947 description of Tom Shows, it is clear that they had evolved into an entertainment that bore less resemblance to Stowe’s original novel and had more in common with blackfaced minstrel shows or melodramas. The posters and flyers, which preceded a troupe’s arrival in small towns across the country, highlighted favorite scenes. “Eliza pursued across the ice by the hounds,” “Topsy doing a breakdown,” or, in his “grandiloquent” pose, “lawyer Marks,” a rather insignificant character from the novel, who through actors’ bombast onstage had become a hit. When the mulatto mother Eliza escaped over the frozen Ohio River in the novel, there had been no dogs in hot pursuit, but on stage, showing hounds lapping at the heels of the desperate runaway was fraught with heart-stopping thrills. Over the years more and bigger dogs became part of productions. Nor had the rowdy slave child Topsy danced a breakdown in the book per se. Yet this dance, along with the cakewalk, stump speeches, and pathetic songs, were minstrel show mainstays, and Topsy’s role had expanded in response to audience reactions. In the Howard-Aiken play, the producer’s daughter, Cordelia Howard, became a star as Eva, the white child who befriended the slave Uncle Tom. G. C. German had been reluctant to take the role of Tom, presuming it would be what he called a “Jim Crow Darkey” and not a dramatic role. That a New York Daily Times (July 27, 1853) review called German’s characterization “a strong, black, labouring man” indicates that he successfully avoided the minstrelsy stereotype. German played Tom from July 18 to August 22, 1853. Subsequently, J. Lingard played Tom as an older man. Meanwhile, at the Bowery Theater, Thomas D. Rice, the very performer who had in 1828 originated the black-faced character Jim Crow, the rustic old slave with the quirky jumping dance, was expected to perform Tom as an old man. An 1873 photograph shows the famous stage actor David Belasco costumed for his San Francisco performance as Tom. He appeared to be elderly, bald with a fringe of

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white hair. Belasco was then 20. In 1878, Sam Lucas became the first African American performer to portray Tom. The production was not successful. Tom Shows continued to be performed throughout the country well into the middle of the 20th century. By the 20th century, Uncle Tom was a familiar icon as an old man on playbills and posters for staged versions and motion pictures based on the story. As a stoop-figured old slave, Uncle Tom has become an icon evoking nostalgia for the Old South, a stereotypical figure of a loyal servant. During the American Civil Rights movement of the 1960s into the Black Power/Black Pride era of the 1970s, to be called an “Uncle Tom” or a “Tom” was perhaps the most severe insult one could receive from a fellow African American, derogatory shorthand for a fawning sycophant, “yassuh-ing” the (white) man at the expense of his own dignity. The sobriquet continues in use. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was called “Uncle Thomas” for his ultra-conservative opinions. Jo-Ann Morgan See also Jim Crow. F URTHER R EADING Ammons, Elizabeth, ed. 1980. Critical Essays on Harriet Beecher Stowe, Boston: G. K. Hall. Birdoff, Harry. 1947. The World’s Greatest Hit “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” New York: S. F. Vanni, 1947. Gossett, Thomas F. 1985. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and American Culture. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press. Hedrick, Joan D. 1994. Harriet Beecher Stowe—A Life. New York: Oxford, 1994. Moody, Richard. 1955. “Uncle Tom, the Theatre, and Mrs. Stowe.” American Heritage 6 (October): 29–33. 102, 103. Morgan, Jo-Ann. 2004. “Picturing Uncle Tom with Little Eva—Reproduction as Legacy.” Journal of American Culture 27 (1, March): 1– 24. Toll, Robert C. 1974. Blacking Up—The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-Century America. New York: Oxford.

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United Kingdom: The African Diaspora | 925

Underground Railroad See Canada and the African Diaspora.

z United Kingdom: The African Diaspora Evidence of the black presence in Great Britain and Ireland (the United Kingdom) is scattered for the British never legalized segregation and so there are no lists of black people. Black people lived in Britain from the moment of the earliest written records—when the Romans under Julius Caesar added England to their empire 2,000 years ago. Some of the troops who controlled the pagan tribes were African. After these came other black people, traveling with returning pilgrims and Crusaders from the Holy Land; on ships that had ventured to the tropics; and as members of visiting groups, generally from Europe. African men and women were at the Scottish court in 1505 and at the English court where an African musician is noted in 1507 and depicted in a painting from 1511. Five Ghanaians came to London in 1555 to learn about and then assist with British trading activities in western Africa. British desire for Africa’s gold expanded within a decade to participation in the transatlantic slave trade. Africans also worked on ships trading with Africa and the Caribbean. At first recruited abroad, sailors settled in British ports. Coercion, slavery, and bondage played their part but the black men and women who lived in Britain were sometimes documented in baptism and other civic records, receiving money in wills, and entertaining Queen Elizabeth I (1575). A continuing black presence in Britain should be dated from 1596. In 1596, the queen suggested that “blackamoores” should be exchanged for prisoners of the Spanish. In 1601, she wanted to expel “the great numbers of ne-

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gars [sic] and Blackamoores which . . . are crept into this realm.” Elizabeth’s wishes did not lead to legislation, however. Despite racial laws in the colonies, in the United Kingdom interracial marriage was never illegal; there were no segregated schools or churches. Property ownership remained influenced by financial restraints not racial ones (some leases had antiblack clauses, but how many is unknown). The growth in British economic strength, underwritten by profits from the slave trade and plantation sugar, encouraged individuals from Africa and the Diaspora to seek their fortune in the United Kingdom. Samuel Pepys’s London diaries of the 1660s note black servants (male and female), and paintings of members of high society included black servants (the Duchess of Portsmouth, 1682; Lady Elizabeth Murray, 1779). Francis Barber’s portrait by Joshua Reynolds (1767) was painted 17 years after Barber left Jamaica—he was now valet and secretary to literary giant Samuel Johnson. Ignatius Sancho’s portrait was painted by Thomas Gainsborough (1768); the African had been sold in England at the age of two. He worked for the Duke of Montague who became his patron. Married to an Afro-Caribbean woman, Sancho ran a shop, wrote music, and had his letters published after his death in 1780. Other paintings and illustrations of London life included black subjects. Most are nameless. Considerable evidence of the black presence has been located in the parish records of city churches near docks. Liverpool has a dock church’s baptism records of August 6, 1795, listing the son of “a native of Savannah” and the son of a man from Antigua. Both fathers may have been white, however, and a dilemma for historians of the black presence in the United Kingdom is the near-absence of any note of a person’s ethnicity or race. We know that in 1768 Thomas Richmond and George Dorlton sailed on James Cook’s voyage, which brought knowledge of New Zealand and Australia to the British.

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Other slave-servants accompanying West Indian employers often broke from their bonds when in Britain, and they found support among Britons in all walks of life. Colonials placed announcements in the British press: missing “Negro slaves” have been identified from 1659 to the 1790s. This documentation supports a view that Britain’s black population resulted from slavery and shipping, which ignores self-motivated travelers (notably African leaders and traders) and craft workers (leatherwork, weaving, lace making, tailoring, carpentry, or work with horses: all occupations providing mobility). Servants in country houses attended their employers in London and when traveling, extending the black presence into distant corners of the kingdom. Some settled locally and married: rural church burial registers might note “from Africa” or “a native of Barbadoes [sic]” decades later. The rural presence of Africans outside the country houses is largely conjecture except for one woman in 17th-century Dorset. Revenues from slave-labor colonies discouraged government action over slavery, and affected the judiciary when colonial owners sought to recover human property. The status of slaves within the United Kingdom remained legally unclear, but a network of Africans assisted runaways and encouraged publicity. The case of James Somerset, owned by a Massachusetts official, brought greater awareness in 1772, and exposed the tyranny of the slave trade. So did an insurance claim by ship owners 10 years later. More than 130 slaves going to Jamaica on the Zong were thrown overboard because the ship was thought to be low on water: an English court ordered the insurers to pay the claim. Through Olaudah Equiano, a Nigerian enslaved in Barbados who settled in England in 1777, and Granville Sharp, these events encouraged the Anti-Slavery Society. In 1838 slavery was abolished in Britain’s empire. Abolitionist publicity named black people and provided their histories. So too did late 18th century efforts to remove unem-

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ployed sailors, including black Americans (mainly born in Virginia and the Carolinas), to a new life in Sierra Leone. Caesar Picton is missing from lists of exslaves and the “Black Poor,” for he used an inheritance from an employer to become a coal merchant in Kingston on Thames in 1788. He died rich. There were also largely nameless black street vendors, entertainers, beggars, and soldiers (often musicians). Descriptions of those charged with crimes has led to nearly 600 black people being identified as prisoners removed to Australia from 1787. Names have surfaced through other legal cases. Examination of cases reveals that judgments were similar for every criminal: society was otherwise not concerned with color. Black men and women were involved in less spectacular, more everyday, matters, earning a living and raising families. Joseph Emidy, a musician in Falmouth, Cornwall, established a family there in the 1800s (one strand migrated to the United States in the 1890s). Hampshireborn Thomas Birch Freeman worked as a gardener (he knew the Latin names of plants) when, in the 1830s, he became a Methodist missionary in Ghana for decades. But for his impact there, Freeman, like his father, would be an unknown black Briton. More visible individuals include Poland-born violinist George Polgreen Bridgetower. He played for British royalty in the 1790s, greatly impressed Beethoven, and died in London in 1860. Norwich-born William Darby (1796–1871) was famous as “Pablo Fanque” the circus proprietor. Georgia-born Bill Richmond boxed in and around London from 1805; Virginia-born Tom Molineaux was another successful boxer between 1810 and 1815. There has been a continuous black presence in British boxing ever since. The radical tradition includes William Davidson, who was executed for his role in plans to assassinate members of the government in 1819, and fellow-Jamaican Robert Wedderburn, whose speeches and publications led to a prison sentence. Social unrest in 1830–

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United Kingdom: The African Diaspora | 927 1848 involved the Chartists, in which Englandborn William Cuffay took a leading role—he was one of three black men duly transported to Australia. Joseph Jackson Fuller (1825–1908) of Jamaica moved with his father to Africa and became a major influence in the Baptist church in Cameroon. From the 1880s he lived in London, speaking at conferences. His son by his English wife worked in the Congo; a grandson was a shoe repairer in London. His son by his first wife studied engineering in Norwich. Nineteenth-century documentation includes New York–born actor Ira Aldridge, black sailors in paintings of the death of Admiral Nelson in 1805, and photographs of Dejatch Alamayu of Ethiopia, Cetshwayo of the Zulus, Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, and the Jamaican nurse-author Mary Seacole. Nameless people appear in photographs, illustrations, and publications promoting charities, notably Barnardo’s orphanage. There were “savage entertainers,” touring the United Kingdom presenting an image of Africa. Minstrel groups came from the United States. Black individuals also appear in numerous illustrations, in diaries and letters, and on posters and in books: the “Hottentot Venus” from South Africa, William Lane (“Master Juba”), and the Zulus seen by Charles Dickens. Dickens noted black servants in London as did fellow novelist Anthony Trollope. The release and computerization of British census records of 1881 and 1901 suggests that a search based on place of birth will reveal the black population. As New Yorker Aldridge is listed in the 1841 census as being from Africa, and a 1901 enumerator wrote “Siberia” instead of “Liberia,” this source has dangers. “Race” is not listed, so American author Henry Downing is not identified as black in the London census of 1901. Among other black models, Jamaicaborn Fanny Eaton sat for numerous painters in London from 1859. A seamstress in 1861, she was the widow of a cart driver, mother of seven, and a cook in the Isle of Wight in 1901. Africa and the Caribbean provided limited educational opportunities, so blacks came to

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England to acquire skills. James Horton qualified as a doctor in the 1850s and became a pioneering African nationalist. Theophilus Scholes, a Jamaican doctor who had also studied in Scotland, worked in both the Congo and Nigeria, retiring to London in the 1890s where he wrote four books critical of imperialism. Joseph Casely Hayford studied at Cambridge, worked in Africa and Britain, and wrote law books and a novel; and fellow England-educated Ghanaian John Mensah Sarbah’s Fanti Customary Laws was in a second edition by 1904. Two medical students from Sierra Leone show, by their different careers, the range of possibilities. Daniel Taylor, a London graduate of 1874, was a failure and unemployable by the authorities while John Randle, a graduate of St. Andrews University in Scotland, worked in Nigeria. He married Victoria Davies, the African goddaughter of Queen Victoria. Mrs. Victoria Davies Randle was educated in Cheltenham, often visited the queen, was proudly Yoruba, and supplied a Yoruba drum theme to the illegitimate son of Dr. Taylor—Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912), the Londonborn composer. He used it in his Twenty-four Negro Melodies, published in Massachusetts in 1905 with a preface by Booker T. Washington. It was through Mrs. Randle that the composer met the Casely Hayfords in London. African Americans sought support in the United Kingdom for the abolition of slavery. In 1878, Virginia-born Thomas Johnson and his brother-in-law Calvin Richardson (and their wives) moved to Cameroon after Baptist college training. Other Americans toured Britain, gathering funds and sympathy for their struggles: Frederick Douglass, the best known, toured in 1845–1847 and 1859–1860. William Brown, who escaped slavery in a box, wrote his autobiography and reenacted his escape in British theaters. Ida B. Wells toured in the 1890s on an anti-lynching campaign. Booker T. Washington visited twice, and W. E. B. DuBois made several visits, on vacation and for conferences (starting with the Pan-African conference in London in 1900).

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Liverpool is Britain’s longest-established black community as Liverpool merchants dominated Britain’s share of the slave trade. Some captives came to the city and were sold to be servants. Up to 70 boys and girls attended a school for black children by the 1780s. Some stayed, some sent their children to the city, and the community grew. James Cleveland (died 1791) a Liverpool-educated child of a Sierra Leonean mother followed his father’s occupation as a slaver in Africa, whereas Otto Ephraim of Nigeria benefited from a sea captain patron. Family recollections have provided much of the history of black Liverpool. Names emerge from the mists when a relative achieves. Because Liverpool-born John Archer became a borough mayor in London in 1913 we know of his brother and their Barbados-born father. Folkestone-born sportsman Walter Tull became a lieutenant in the army in 1917 (his brother was a dentist). George William Christian was one of six children of an Antigua-born sailor long settled in Liverpool: Christian was a merchant in Nigeria; two sisters migrated to Canada; and the third, Octavia Christian, had five sons, including Sir Herbert Gladstone McDavid, chief executive officer of two major shipping lines in the 1950s. Concern for others of African birth or descent led Archer to participate in the PanAfrican conferences of London (1900, 1919) as did Trinidad-born Edinburgh University graduate Dr. John Alcindor (1873–1924): both were to lead the London-based African Progress Union. They were friends of Coleridge-Taylor, DuBois, and visiting and resident black folk. Britain’s immigration law of 1905 was aimed at reducing migration from eastern Europe, but King’s Regulations, the army’s handbook, had long imposed a color bar: no “aliens, negroes, &c” could be officers. This was ignored in the case of ranker Tull, promoted in France. London-trained Sierra Leonean lawyer Samuel Lewis was knighted in the late 19th century. Ghanaian Samuel Brew (who died in London in 1915) had the ambition to be

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elected to parliament. Rhodes scholar Alain Locke (author of The New Negro [1925]) became a friend of Pixley Seme (officer of South Africa’s African National Congress) at Oxford in 1908, and British and Irish colleges continued to train lawyers and doctors, writers, musicians, nurses, and historians. Trinidad-born, London-qualified lawyer Henry Sylvester Williams (1869–1911) was elected a member of a London borough, but is known through his publication, Pan-African, and the 1900 conference. Snubbed by his white wife’s parents (as was Dr. Alcindor), he worked in Africa and the Caribbean. James Jackson Brown, a Jamaica-born medical student in London in the 1900s, had support from his wife’s family, qualifying after their sons were born and running a solid practice for decades. Brown and Alcindor were refused by the Royal Army Medical Corps (Brown refused to be a sergeant as he was a qualified doctor—and therefore should merit officer; Alcindor was awarded a Red Cross medal for his work with the wounded in London train stations). There are West Indian troopers’ graves in Sussex; more than 600 black South Africans are named on a memorial near Southampton, and in cemeteries in France honoring World War I dead, black and white lie side by side. In 1919, race riots hit British cities: unemployed soldiers blamed black people when they could not find jobs. Archer’s African Progress Union employed Oxford University graduate Edward Nelson (an Afro-Guyanese who was elected to the local council from 1913 to his death in 1940) in defense. This link between the professional black establishment and the poor had existed when Equiano alerted Sharp about the Zong, and in the settlement of Sierra Leone, and with Cuffay in the Chartists. Britain continued to receive ambitious settlers, including Jamaican Marcus Garvey who died in London, and fresh generations of nationalists took up the writings of Horton and Edward Blyden, and challenged imperialism. Some lived to see the political independence of

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United Kingdom: The African Diaspora | 929 African and Caribbean colonies (Guyanese Ras Makonnen, Jomo Kenyatta, Julius Nyerere, Eric Williams) while others (Garvey, Sol Plaatje from South Africa, Aggrey of Ghana, Scholes) left influences in Britain that survived long after their deaths. The 1920s and 1930s saw black entertainers at the highest levels: Americans Paul Robeson, Roland Hayes, and Lawrence Brown performed in concert recitals. From 1919 to 1921 the American-led Southern Syncopated Orchestra toured, featuring both New Orleans clarinetist Sidney Bechet and Dr. Horton’s violin-playing grandson. Royal Academy of Music graduate, South Carolina–born Edmund Jenkins (1894–1926) led high society bands. Café society had Grenada-born Leslie Hutchinson and the American duo Turner Layton and Clarence Johnston (who sold millions of discs). The 1930s understanding that jazz was a black creation enabled Guyana-born, Englandeducated Ken Johnson to lead a band of instrumentalists born in Cardiff, London, Trinidad, Panama, Jamaica, and Sierra Leone. It was in a tradition that owed a great deal to ColeridgeTaylor’s friend, choir leader Frederick Loudin, whose Fisk Jubilee Singers toured for decades from the 1870s—making spirituals accepted as a black musical achievement. The League of Coloured People, led from 1931 by Jamaicaborn and London-qualified Dr. Harold Moody, publicized achievement and discrimination in Britain and the tropical empire. War brought black men and women to Britain (and African American soldiers, whose British children numbered around 1,000) to serve in the anti-Nazi effort. Alcindor’s soldier son rose to be a captain, and Africans and Caribbeans, including Trinidadian ace Ulric Cross, flew airplanes. Postwar depression in the colonies and the need to rebuild British cities led veterans to consider migration, and in 1948 the Empire Windrush reached England from Jamaica. For many, this is the United Kingdom’s first black settlement.

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From the 1950s West Indian and then African migration to the United Kingdom had a colossal impact—the lands from which they came were denuded of ambitious and talented people. Views that “lower standards” would affect Britain became widespread. Accommodations, jobs, and promotion were restricted, but schools and universities were not. The migrants were generally anxious to get on, dreaming, as migrants always do, of a successful return to their natal lands. Settlement led to specialist shops, newspapers like the West Indian Gazette and Afro Asian Caribbean News and major festivals like the Notting Hill Carnival. As far as churches go, black participation in Christian worship is currently perhaps five times that of whites. Ugandan lawyer John Sentamu’s appointment to be Archbishop of York in June, 2005, makes him the second most senior official in the Church of England (Anglican Church). Political unrest and economic inequalities on the continent encouraged African settlement: regime changes were planned in London and refugees found a haven, still with the ongoing tension manifesting as well in overt racist attacks at times. A great deal of activism however had taken place in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s with journals like the Black Liberator, edited by Alric Cambridge, and the Black and Third World Book Fair organized by John La Rose of New Beacon Books. Poetry by writers like Linton Kwesi Johnson, Benjamin Zephaniah, and Dorothea Smartt offered another aesthetic that echoed Caribbean origins. And new waves of immigrants from former colonies create an amazing mix of post-colonial peoples now resident in England. The children, the first substantial number of British-born black people, and now grandchildren, have made an impact across the United Kingdom, and, despite the legend that the few black Britons before the Windrush were sailors, students, and servants, are participating in the rescue of their history. Britons aware of a black ancestor are making that public. Francis Barber’s descendants live in

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Staffordshire, Joseph Fuller’s near London, and Coleridge-Taylor’s near Croydon. The recovery of the lengthy history of Britain’s black population is in its early years. Jeffrey Green See also Abolitionism in the African Diaspora; Europe and the African Diaspora; PanAfricanism. F URTHER R EADING Costello, Ray. 2001. Black Liverpool. The Early History of Britain’s Oldest Black Community 1730– 1918. Liverpool, UK: Picton Press. Fryer, Peter. 1984. Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain. London: Pluto Press. Gerzina, Gretchen Holbook, ed. 2003. Black Victorians / Black Victoriana. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Green, Jeffrey. 1998. Black Edwardians: Black People in Britain 1901–1914. London: Frank Cass. Marsh, Jan, ed. 2006. Black Victorians: Black People in British Art 1800–1900. Aldershot, UK: Lund Humphries. Myers, Norma. 1996. Reconstructing the Black Past. Blacks in Britain 1780–1830. London: Frank Cass. Smith, Graham. 1987. When Jim Crow Met John Bull. Black American Soldiers in World War II Britain. London: I. B. Tauris.

z Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and African Communities League See Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940).

z The University of Woodford Square During the mid–1950s Dr. Eric Williams began a remarkable strategy of popular education

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that would propel the people of Trinidad and Tobago on a path toward self-determination and national independence and would indefinitely transform the meaning of democracy and public engagement during the postcolonial period. Williams offered a series of free university-style lectures on philosophy, international politics, and Caribbean race relations, many of which, after June 21 1955, were held in Woodford Square, a public park in the heart of the nation’s capital, Port of Spain. The lectures drew their intellectual grounding from Williams’s own scholarship. They reflected a belief in the revolutionary power of the intellect and education used as a tool that could rescue the people of Trinidad and Tobago from the humiliations of the past (Lamming 1997, 732): ideas that had been reinforced for Williams through his interactions with African American intellectuals and activists during his years at Howard University. Thousands traveled to hear “De Doc” at what he renamed the “University of Woodford Square” and its associated “colleges” in outlying areas. At a time when education was a privilege, Williams offered political instruction that focused on placing Trinidad and Tobago within the global context of other movements advocating democracy and self-government (Williams 1962, 243). Such a strategy not only provided the people with a language through which political demands for independence could be articulated but it also empowered them to believe in their potential as arbiters of their own destiny. The popularity of Williams’s lectures helped secure his position as leader of the People’s National Movement and his appointment as head of government after winning the 1956 general election. Although Williams is credited with a rare willingness and ability to engage the electorate in political dialogue, some commentators have pointed to a tension within his political leadership between this popularist tendency and his own position as prime minister, “father of the nation,” and “professor” (Cudjoe 1997).

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Eric Williams at The University of Woodford Square, by Adrian Camps-Campins, 1956. (Courtesy Adrian Camps-Campins)

This tension is witnessed in the lasting impact of Williams’s popular education strategy and the meaning assigned to Woodford Square as a public space for political participation. Before Williams, Woodford Square had been variously appropriated as a site of colonial authority (where military processions were performed and rebellious slaves were violently punished) and, after its redesign in 1813, pleasure (as a park where the wealthy and powerful could promenade and relax). Williams radically transformed these colonial meanings and, by renaming the park the “University of Woodford Square,” claimed it as a nationalist space where the marginalized majority could meet to participate in educational activities and political dialogue. So successful was his strategy that when the National Joint Action Committee (Black Power movement) began to protest Williams’s leadership in 1970, they took their

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meetings to Woodford Square. A series of destabilizing events and mounting urban violence, culminating in a national state of emergency, left Williams—initially responsible for igniting a popular spirit of public political engagement—with little choice but to padlock the gates to Woodford Square between April 21 and November 20, 1970. The University of Woodford Square is now marked by a sign: a faint reminder of the significance of Williams’s educational strategy to Trinidad and Tobago’s struggle for self-determination. To this day, however, Caribbean politics, religion, and philosophy continue to be debated in the park by small groups of people, many of whom remain marginal to the mainstream political and educational process. Clare Newstead See also Capitalism and Slavery; Trinidad and Tobago; Williams, Eric Eustace (1911–1981).

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932 | Uruguay: Afro-Uruguayans F URTHER R EADING Anthony, M. 1997. Historical Dictionary of Trinidad and Tobago. Latin American Historical Dictionaries Number 24. London: The Scarecrow Press. Cudjoe, S. R. 1997. “Eric Williams and the Politics of Language.” Callaloo 20 (4): 753–763. Lamming, G. 1997. “The Legacy of Eric Williams.” Callaloo 20 (4): 731–736. Williams, E. W. 1962. The History of the People of Trinidad and Tobago. Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago: PNM Publishing. Williams, E._W. 1969 Inward Hunger: The Education of a Prime Minister. London: Andre Deutsch.

z Uruguay: Afro-Uruguayans Afro-Uruguayans greatly contributed to their country’s economy, society, and culture. First, they were the slaves, peons, and artisans whose toils allowed for Uruguay’s economic development between the 17th and 19th centuries. Second, African Uruguayans were the soldiers whose blood and sacrifices forged an independent nation-state from a Spanish colony and defended that independence from foreign invaders, first Great Britain and then Brazil, during the first decades of the 19th century. Third, black Uruguayans were the musicians, writers, and artists whose works enriched, enlightened, and entertained their fellow citizens from colonial times to the present. Moreover, even the very symbols of nationhood in the River Plate, namely, the tango and the gaucho (cowboy), were influenced by the genius of Africans and their New World descendants. H ISTORY AND O RIGINS Some of the earliest African arrivals in the Americas came not only as slaves but also as conquerors. Ladino (or acculturated) servants such as Juan Cortés and Juan Garrido, both of whom assisted Hernán Cortés in the defeat of the Aztec Empire, and Juan Valiente, who ac-

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companied Pedro Valdivia to Chile in 1536 and was awarded with an estate near what would become Santiago de Chile, experienced extraordinary social mobility as armed retainers of their Spanish masters (Rout 1976, 75–77; Restall 2000). African-born slaves or bozales made their initial appearance in the River Plate in 1534 with Pedro de Mendoza. As in Mexico and Peru, enslaved Africans facilitated the colonization of the River Plate; Africans in the company of Governor Hernando Arias collaborated in settling the Banda Oriental (later Uruguay) in 1608 (Montaño 1997, 25). For most of the colonial period, the port of Buenos Aires served as the exclusive entry point for enslaved Africans in the River Plate. Spanish mercantilism sought to limit the ready access of slaves and other goods entering the New World by strictly regulating trade. Slaves entering the port of Buenos Aires, after passing a health inspection, were then regularly shipped inland, to Córdoba and the northwestern provinces of Salta and Tucumán, across the Andes Mountains to Chile, and to the mines of Potosí in Alto Perú (now Bolivia). The dearth of native workers in the region (unlike in Mexico and Peru), the Spanish elite’s disdain for manual labor, the need for domestic servants as social-status symbols, and the constant demands for manpower in the mines of Potosí combined to stimulate the transatlantic and internal slave trades in the River Plate during the 16th and 17th centuries. Exact figures of African slave arrivals in Uruguay for the 16th and early 17th centuries are imprecise, largely because of the contraband slave trade. Despite Spain’s best efforts, slave smuggling was endemic for most of the colonial period, owing in part to the proximity of Brazil, especially Colônia do Sacramento. For instance, of the 12,778 slaves recorded as entering the River Plate by way of Buenos Aires from Brazil between 1606 and 1628, only 288 did so legally (with licenses), and 8,932 slaves (worth 1,404,709 pesos) were confiscated from smugglers during the same period and resold by

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Uruguay: Afro-Uruguayans | 933 royal authorities. In 1611, the Council of the Indies in Seville, Spain, received information from colonial agents that more than 15 Dutch and English ships laden with contraband enslaved Africans had entered the port of Buenos Aires (Scheüss de Studer 1984, 91–92, 102; Pacheco 2001, 16–17). The slave trade—legal and contraband— continued unabated in the viceroyalty of the River Plate throughout the 1600s and 1700s. Enslaved Africans came from West, Central, and East Africa, especially from what are today Senegal, Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Angola. The Spanish monarchy successively bestowed permits or asientos to the Portuguese, French, and English for slave procurements and shipments to their colonies in the Americas. More often than not, however, European slave traders were unable to meet the demands of Spanish colonists for slave labor, which further encouraged contraband trade. Frustrated by the lack of compliance of European slavers and by slave smuggling, and owing to political and economic reforms within the Spanish bureaucracy in the 1770s, Spain freed its trade in the late 18th century. In 1779, Montevideo, with its excellent natural harbor, was designated as a port of entry for enslaved Africans, supplementing the trade through Buenos Aires. In Montevideo, the slave trade gained in importance and volume during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Pereda Valdés calculates that between 1751 and 1810, 20,000 slaves arrived legally in the port of Montevideo (Pereda Valdés 1965, 31–32). Centuries of the slave trade influenced the makeup of the population of Uruguay. For the first half of the 19th century, John Hoyt Williams (1987) highlights the racial composition and demographics of Montevideo and its countryside. Of a total population of 2,501 in 1800, for instance, people of color, free and slave, accounted for 817. By 1810, the numbers of Africans and their descendants had increased to 2, 518. In Montevideo’s hinterland (places such as Las Piedras, Pantanoso, and

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Toledo), moreover, Williams documents a population of color of close to 200 out of a total of less than 1,000 (Williams 1987, 415–416, 421). In the Banda Oriental, as in the rest of the New World, Africans labored in a host of jobs and under diverse conditions. Most slaves in Uruguay worked in and around the major cities, especially Montevideo, as domestics and day laborers. Female African slaves worked as seamstresses, cooks, laundresses, wet nurses, and duennas in elite homes. Male slaves were often hired out by their owners and worked in both skilled and unskilled jobs, regularly keeping for themselves a portion of their income. Black men occupied the lower artisan levels, laboring as tailors or shoemakers. Africans also monopolized several unskilled jobs throughout the cities, including pest exterminators, dock workers, water porters, and load bearers. Both slave men and women worked in meatsalting plants, slaughterhouses, workshops, bakeries, and pulperías (general stores) in and around Buenos Aires and Montevideo. What is often overlooked, however, is that slaves also labored as peons and gauchos in the countryside, and some even became slave foremen on cattle estates in the River Plate. Such was the case of Patricio de Belén, whose horsemanship and administrative skills allowed him to become the slave administrator of the cattle ranch of Las Vacas in the Banda Oriental (Pacheco 2001, 46–47, 48, 51; Mayo 1997). There were generally few large-scale plantations employing African slave labor in the River Plate; the Society of Jesus or Jesuits were among the largest slave owners in the region, owning sugarcane estates in Argentina’s Northwest. Because of this and the largely urban and domestic nature of slavery in the River Plate, scholars have often described the slave regime in Argentina and Uruguay as mostly benign. R ESISTANCE AND M AROONAGE Given the nature of the peculiar institution, even under the mildest of situations, African bondsmen in Uruguay resisted their servitude

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in various ways. For example, slave and free Africans often resorted to cattle theft as a means of gaining income and subsistence and as a show of resistance against the powers of the state and landowners. Slave theft and malingering constitute examples of what scholars call petit maroonage, which were common throughout the New World. John Chasteen records the stealing of cattle from large estates by poor blacks in Uruguay well into the 1890s (Chasteen 1995, 70–72). African and New World slaves in the River Plate also practiced cultural maroonage, routinely gathering in the salas (halls) of ethnic “nations,” for example, Benguelas, Congos, Mandingas, and Minas, among several West African and Central African peoples, and used ancestral rites, music, and dance to assert their agency. Acts of grand maroonage, or large-scale slave rebellions such as the Haitian Revolution (1794–1804), were uncommon in the River Plate. Nonetheless, colonial and early national officials in Buenos Aires and Montevideo feared slave uprisings by negros alzados. One of the largest slave revolts in the River Plate occurred in Montevideo in 1803. Twenty slave and free African Uruguayan men met in secret to plan their flight from the city. Taking their wives, children, and a few possessions, the rebels settled on a small island in the River Yi and founded a maroon colony. The colonial regime responded and attacked the slave settlement. The slaves and freedmen resisted but were ultimately defeated. The slaves were returned to their masters, and some of the free blacks were executed as a warning to others (Rama 1969, 21–22; Montaño 1995, 412, 423–427). E MANCIPATION AND B EYOND In addition to flight and resistance, enslaved Africans in the Americas had other, institutional means of procuring their freedom and that of their relatives. Medieval Spanish law, deriving from Las Siete Partidas (1251–1265) of Alfonso X of Castile and León (“The Wise), recognized the humanity and rights of slaves.

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Regardless of the strict sociedad de castas adhering in Spanish America throughout the colonial period, slaves had personal rights. Under the Recopilación de Leyes de Indias of 1680, slaves were given the right to acquire their own freedom and that of their family. Additionally, on May 31, 1789, the Spanish crown issued a royal decree on the treatment of slaves in its New World holdings. The Código Negrero of 1789 (not to be confused with King Louis XIV of France’s Code Noir of 1685) contained 14 chapters, outlining in detail the treatment, education, occupations, and rights of bondsmen and bondswomen in Spanish America. Slaves were entitled to legal representation by way of public defenders (or protectores de esclavos) in cases of grievances against their masters. Manumission, purchased and freely given by owners, although rare in Montevideo, nonetheless represented a legal means of slave freedom guaranteed under Spanish law. Slavery’s legal demise in the River Plate began with the promulgation of “free womb” laws in the early 1810s and the legal termination of the slave trade in the 1830s. However, slavery persisted in Uruguay into the 1840s and 1850s via contraband slave trading from Brazil. Also, de facto slavery continued in the form of the patronato, which extended the period of servitude for slaves born under free-womb legislation by placing them under the tutelage of owners for a specified period of time (which was often abrogated and illegally extended). In December 1842, President Joaquín Suárez formally abolished slavery. By 1846, former president Manuel Oribe and all political sides in Uruguay’s years-old civil conflict agreed to do away with the peculiar institution in the nation. Final emancipation for Uruguayan slaves, however, did not happen until 1853, when the patronato was constitutionally abolished. In effect, ultimate emancipation in the River Plate made de jure what had in fact long been de facto; by the first half of the 19th century, slavery had lost its raison d’etre in Uruguay. Abolition in the early national period was therefore

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Uruguay: Afro-Uruguayans | 935 very much a fait accompli in the River Plate (Pacheco 2001, 72, 74–75). Another legal means of emancipation available to African Uruguayan men before the formal termination of slavery was military service during the River Plate’s seemingly interminable independence and civil wars during the 19th century. Afro-Uruguayans fought faithfully against Native Americans (the Charruas, Guaranies, and Tapes, among others) during the conquest and colonization, as well as against the foreign invasion of the River Plate by the British in 1806–1807. They also sided with José Gervasio Artigas (the father of the Uruguayan nation) against the Spanish during the independence struggles between 1816 and 1820. In 1821, after Brazil’s capture of the Banda Oriental, the “Immortal 33” fought for and helped reassert the independence of Uruguay by 1825. Among the Immortal 33 who fought to free Uruguay from Brazil were several African and Afro-Uruguayan slaves, including two bearing the important last names of Artigas and Oribe, indicating their owners (Rout 1976, 170). Although few AfroUruguayan soldiers achieved lasting fame, “Ansina,” Joaquín Lenzina or Lencina (or was he Manuel Antonio Ledesma?), fought heroically with General Artigas and followed him into exile in Paraguay, earning the sobriquet the “fiel payador of Artigas” (Montaño 1998, 113– 120). Moreover, African Uruguayans fought on both sides of the Colorado-Blanco civil wars of the 19th century. After independence and the abolition of slavery in the first half of the 19th century, Afro-Uruguayans gradually assimilated to the national society (Rama 1969). Despite the displacement of the rigid social hierarchy of the colonial and early national periods, which limited the rights and privileges of blacks in Argentina and Uruguay (for example, they could not hold certain jobs or receive a higher education), African Uruguayans continued to face various degrees of alienation and discrimination. For instance, Afro-Uruguayans continued to live in poor tenement houses known as con-

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ventillos. Among the more popular of these slums in Montevideo were those of Medio Mundo, Palermo, and Reus. R ECENT T RENDS For black Uruguayans, political participation was practically nonexistent in the late 19th and first decades of the 20th centuries. As a result, African Uruguayan intellectuals united and formed their own cultural and political organizations and publications, notably the journal Nuestra Raza (founded in 1917, reestablished in 1933, and enduring until the middle of that century) and the political party Partido Autóctono Negro or PAN (founded in 1937 by Ventura Barrios, Elemo Cabral, and Salvador Betervide). Unfortunately, PAN never developed a coherent political program. Sadly for PAN’s leadership, it misjudged the support of the political movement’s natural constituency. Afro-Uruguayans simply did not vote for the party in several elections, opting instead to cast their ballots for the traditional Colorado or Blanco parties. By 1944, PAN disbanded (Pereda Valdés 1965, 195–196). Another notable Afro-Uruguayan cultural institution was the Teatro Negro Independiente, founded by playwright Andrés Castillo in the 1950s and enduring until 1982. The company sought to celebrate black cultural contributions to Uruguay (Cordones-Cook 1996). In the 1990s, and into the present day, Afro-Uruguayans and others have organized a network of people and organizations called Organizaciones Mundo Afro to promote black culture and fight against racism (Pacheco 2001, 112–113). Despite the ignorance of some of their compatriots, Afro-Uruguayans have played a critical role in the evolution of national culture. Black Uruguayans either created or helped shape Platine music and dance, especially the candombe, the milonga, and that quintessential Argentine-Uruguayan art form, the tango. Music and popular religion intersect in Montevideo during the holidays (especially during carnival and the festival of San Baltasar) and

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Members of a comparsa dance to the candombe during the Llamadas parade in Montevideo, Uruguay on February 6, 2004. The Llamadas, which date back to colonial times, started as a custom of the slaves in Montevideo, and actually are an important part of the longest running carnival in the world. (Andres Stapff/Reuters/Corbis)

are especially influenced by the llamadas of white and black drummers (Goldman 1997). Furthermore, folklore also evidences uniquely African elements. For example, the legend of the Mandinga is common to both sides of the River Plate, especially among country folk. Legend has it that Satan or the devil (depicted as a black cowboy or gaucho) roams the isolated rural parts of Argentina and Uruguay in search of souls to steal. In addition, popular speech in the River Plate has incorporated many words of putative African origin according to linguists, including cacunda, mandinga, and quilombo, among many others. The payada is a chant-and-response verbal duel similar to contrapuntal and satiric African songs known as makawas or ibiririmbo

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on the African continent and common among black communities throughout the Americas. Prominent Afro-Uruguayan/Afro-Uruguayanist writers and artists of the 20th century include Ildefonso Pereda Valdés, Juan Julio Arrascaeta, Carlos Cardoso Ferreira, Cristina Rodríguez Cabral, José Emilio Cardoso, and Julio Guadalupe. The two most widely acclaimed black writers were Pilar Barrios, who dwells on the sufferings of the black race in Piel morena (1947), and Virginia Brindis de Salas, who stresses black pride and liberation in her Pregón de Marimorena (1974). Visual artists include the 19th-century “impressionist” Pedro Figari, a white painter enamored with the culture of the conventillo and the candombe, and in recent times Rubén Galloza. Furthermore, Afro-

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Uruguay: Afro-Uruguayans | 937 Uruguayan entertainers, such as Rey Charol and Rubén Rada, and athletes, especially footballers, have proudly represented their nation on the world stage (Pacheco 2001, chapter 6). Many scholars assert that blacks in the River Plate are “forgotten.” They insist that a hegemonic state has “whitewashed” the history books to exclude them, marginalizing African Uruguayans as the “other.” There is a germ of truth to this; however, this is only a partial truth. Persistent problems with racism and discrimination notwithstanding, Afro-Uruguayans (about 6 percent of the population, mostly located in Montevideo, but also in the departments of Artigas, Rivera, Cerro Largo, Treinta y Tres, and Rocha) have by and large successfully integrated into national society. Africans in the River Plate were in reality subjected to demographic and social pressures that favored their biological and cultural assimilation. In fact, Afro-Uruguayans (although not to the extent of Afro-Argentines) have been rendered largely invisible as a result of centuries of miscegenation and acculturation. Black elites in the River Plate have nonetheless fought against the agents of their subordination and marginalization. To recognize black participation in the building of the nation is to acknowledge contributions entitling African Uruguayans to civil rights and full equality with whites, thereby ending their invisibility. Roberto Pacheco See also Ansina (1760?–1860); Argentina: AfroArgentines; Chile: Afro-Chileans; Ecuador: Afro-Ecuadorians; Tango, Candombe, Milonga. F URTHER R EADING Chasteen, John C. 1995. Heroes on Horseback: A Life and Times of the Last Gaucho Caudillos. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press.

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Cordones-Cook, Juanamaría. 1996. “The AfroUruguayan Theater of Andrés Castillo.” Latin American Theatre Review 29 (2): 31–36. Goldman, Gustavo. 1997. ¡Salve Baltasar! La fiesta de reyes en el barrio Sur de Montevideo. Montevideo, Uruguay: Impresora Federal Nuevosur. Mayo, Carlos A. 1997. “Patricio de Belén: nada menos que un capataz.” Hispanic American Historical Review 77 (4): 597–617. Montaño, Oscar D. 1995. “Los afro-orientales. Breve reseña del aporte africano en la formación de la población uruguaya.” In Presencia africana en Sudamérica, ed. Luz M. Martínez Montiel, 391–441. Mexico City, Mexico: Consejo Nacional Para la Cultura y las Artes. Montaño, Oscar D. 1997. Umkhonto: la lanza negra. Historia del aporte negro-africano en la formación del Uruguay. Montevideo, Uruguary: Rosebud Ediciones. Montaño, Oscar D. 1998. “Ansina: la senda del guerrero.” In La herencia cultural africana en las Américas, vol. 1, ed. Beatriz Santos, 113– 120. Montevideo, Uruguay: EPPAL. Pacheco, Roberto. 2001. “Invisible but Not Forgotten: The Afro-Argentine and AfroUruguayan Experience from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries.” MA thesis, Florida International University. Pereda Valdés, Ildefonso. 1965. El negro en el Uruguay: pasado y presente. Montevideo, Uruguay: Revista del Instituto Histórico y Geográfico del Uruguay. Rama, Carlos M. 1969. Los afrouruguayos. 3rd ed. Montevideo, Uruguay: Editorial “El Siglo Ilustrado.” Restall, Matthew. 2000. “Black Conquistadors: Armed Africans in Early Spanish America.” The Americas 57 (2): 171–205. Rout, Leslie B. 1976. The African Experience in Spanish America, 1502 to the Present Day. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Scheüss de Studer, Elena F. 1984. La trata de negros en el Río de la Plata durante el siglo XVII. 2nd ed. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Libros de Hispanoamérica. Williams, John H. 1987. “Observations on Blacks and Bondage in Uruguay.” The Americas 43 (4): 41–428.

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nent figures, including Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., Marcus Garvey, Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, and Bill Cosby, among others. He kept and stored his best work, which amounted to 75,000 glass and film negatives. VanDerZee was discovered by the mainstream art world in 1969, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art exposed many of his images in a controversial show titled “Harlem on My Mind.” Life-sized prints were made from his negatives, and VanDerZee earned worldwide acclaim. Many in the black community protested the show because of its anthropologic and ethnographic undertones; the emphasis was more on the documentary versus the aesthetic contributions of Harlem artists. Ironically, VanDerZee’s carefully composed, artistic, and embellished photos became useful in documentary research, and contained much more information about what Harlem was like in the 1920s and 1930s than the other documentary photographs produced around the same time. Because VanDerZee was a professional portrait photographer, his images presented the black community in Harlem the way that they themselves wanted to be represented and remembered.

James VanDerZee, Harlem’s most prolific and well-known photographer, is respected for his portraits of proud, middle-class African Americans in Harlem in its most dynamic era—the 1920s and 1930s—although he continued to work until his death in 1983. James VanDerZee was born in Lennox, Massachusetts, in 1886 and spent time in Virginia and New Jersey before permanently settling in Harlem, New York. In 1915, VanDerZee opened his first of several photo studios in Harlem. He was an artist of the Harlem Renaissance, an era that saw a proliferation of African American culture and a growing black middle class. He photographed soldiers, children, church and civic groups, graduations, sports teams, and hundreds of weddings, as well as mortuary portraits, which were sometimes the only images family had of their deceased loved ones. Committed to showing his sitter in his or her best light, VanDerZee was a skilled at retouching photographs, and he made his subjects as attractive as possible. He used props to tell stories and sometimes used a technique called photomontage, where multiple negatives are used in printing to give the images depth or enhance narratives. VanDerZee also photographed a number of promi-

Noelle Theard See also Photography and the African Diaspora.

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940 | Van Sertima, Ivan (1935–) F URTHER R EADING Haskins, Jim. 1991. James Van DerZee: The PictureTakin’ Man. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Willis-Braithwaite, Deborah, and Rodger C. Birt. 1998. VanDerZee Photographer 1886–1983. New York: Harry N. Abrams.

z Van Sertima, Ivan (1935–) Ivan Van Sertima has offered scholarship for over a quarter century in the area of rewriting African history and reconstructing the African’s place in world history, particularly in the field of the African presence in ancient America. Indeed, during this turbulent and exciting period, he has been in the vanguard of those scholars fighting to place African history in a new light. Van Sertima was born in Kitty Village, Guyana, on January 26, 1935. He was educated at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University, where he graduated with honors. From 1957 to 1959, he served as a press and broadcasting officer in the Guyana Information Services. During the decade of the 1960s, he broadcasted weekly from Britain to both Africa and the Caribbean. He came to the United States in 1970, where he completed his postgraduate studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Van Sertima began his teaching career as an instructor at Rutgers in 1972. Van Sertima is a literary critic, a linguist, and an anthropologist, and he has made a name for himself in all three fields. As a linguist, he compiled the Swahili Dictionary of Legal Terms based on his field word in Tanzania in 1967. As a literary critic, he is the author of Caribbean Writers, a collection of critical essays on the Caribbean novel. He is also the author of several major literary reviews published in Denmark, India, Britain, and the United States. In recognition for his work in this field, the Nobel Committee of the Swedish Academy

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asked him to nominate candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature from 1976 to 1980. However, the cornerstone of Van Sertima’s legacy will probably be his authorship of They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America—a groundbreaking historical work and a literary hallmark. The ideas and themes presented were not novel, but Van Sertima’s book was the first such work of its type written by an African to comprehensively address the subject. In 1979, after the publication of They Came Before Columbus, Van Sertima founded the Journal of African Civilizations, an equally momentous achievement. The journal quickly gained a reputation for excellence and uniqueness among historical and anthropological journals and is recognized as a valuable information source for both the layperson and student. From 1979, the Journal of African Civilizations published works by and about many of the world’s finest Africanist scholars in a series of magnificent anthologies. These works include Blacks in Science, Nile Valley Civilizations, African Presence in Early America, Black Women in Antiquity, Egypt Revisited, Egypt: Child of Africa, African Presence in Early Europe, Golden Age of the Moor, African Presence in the Art of the Americas, Great Black Leaders, Great African Thinkers (coedited with Larry Obadele Williams), and African Presence in Early Asia (coedited with Runoko Rashidi). In 1998 Transaction Press produced Van Sertima’s last major text—Early America Revisited—the closest thing so far to being the definitive statement on the subject of Africans in early America. On July 7, 1987, Van Sertima appeared before a Congressional Committee to challenge the Columbus myth. In November 1991, he defended his thesis in an address to the Smithsonian Institute. In this arena, Ivan Van Sertima has emerged clearly and distinctly as the undefeated champion. Runoko Rashidi See also Guyana.

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Venezuela: Afro-Venezuelans and the Afro Descendientes Movement | 941 F URTHER R EADING Van Sertima, Ivan. 1977. They Came Before Columbus. New York: Random House, 1977. Van Sertima, Ivan, ed. 1992. Early America Revisited. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press.

z Venezuela: Afro-Venezuelans and the Afro Descendientes Movement T HE O RIGIN OF E NSLAVED A FRICANS IN V ENEZUELA The commercial instrument that Westerners created to implement the capture and relocation of millions of Africans to Venezuelan lands was expressed in the “Asientos De Negros,” a monopolistic contract between the Spanish crown and the countries dedicated to this commerce. The Asientos de Negros, signed by the Spanish crown, was first fulfilled with Portuguese slave trade companies (1576–1640), then French companies (1702–1712), and next the English company (1713–1773), to which was joined the contraband of the Dutch companies, and, finally, the free commerce of blacks after 1782. To justify the slave trade, those involved in this terrible business (church, political, scientific, and economic powers) turned to biological, religious, and ideological justifications that they established throughout history. Today those justifications are known as racism and racial discrimination (Garcia 2001,113) From the period that runs from 1576 until the slave trade legally ended in Venezuela in 1810, one can calculate that between a half million enslaved men and women entered Venezuela legally and as contraband (Garcia 2004, 65). The first censuses conducted by the church in the so-called curacies of towns indicated that 80 percent of the inhabitants were of African origin represented by the following ethnicities:

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Congo-Loango-Mondongo-MalembaSundi (today the Republic of the Congo, and part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo [formerly Zaire]) Angola, Mbuila (Republic of Angola) Tare, Mina, Arara, Popo (People’s Republic of Benin [formerly Dahomey]) Mandinga, Wolof (Gambia, Senegambia, Senegal) Nago-Yoruba-Lucumi, Carabali (Republic of Nigeria) The ethnicities that appear in the registry documents show the African civilizations, and therefore the cultural, symbolic contributions, agricultural techniques, and religions that these African men and women brought. This provides an entire intellectual body of material that goes beyond the reductionist concept of the workforce. T HE P ROSLAVERY S YSTEM IN V ENEZUELA AND THE WORK OF A FRICAN M EN AND WOMEN AND T HEIR D ESCENDENTS African men and women were subjugated to forced agricultural work. The principal agricultural production units to which the enslaved men and women were subjugated were the following: Cocoa haciendas, which constituted the accumulation of wealth for the ancient province of Venezuela, constituted one place of forced labor. Most of the cocoa haciendas were situated on the coasts of Venezuela, and many of the Afro-descendent towns in Venezuela today were ancient enclaves of cocoa exploitation where the enslaved men and women worked. Four thousand cocoa haciendas existed in the subregion of Barlovento. The Africans and their descendents generated wealth from cocoa for landowners and the Spanish crown. Gold mining was another area of forced labor for Africans and their descendents,

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as gold represented a symbol of distinction and of capitalist value in Europe. The gold mines of Buria (in the state of Yaracuay) were established at the beginning of the 17th century in Venezuela. Precious pearl gathering was one of the cruelest production units; the slave was placed in a cage and dropped to the sea floor to look for pearls; many died by immersion when their lungs burst. This practice was carried out on the island of Cubagua, close to the island of Margarita. Coffee haciendas at the end of the 17th century and beginning of the 19th century were important for capitalist accumulation. Coffee haciendas were typically located in zones of mountainous climates and worked by enslaved people of African origin. Indigo haciendas also played a dynamic role in the economy as did cattle ranching, which developed in smaller proportions toward the Venezuelan plains. Sugar cane plantations were another production unit that the colonialists developed. This type of work, in contrast to work on the cocoa and coffee haciendas, was more intensive and exploitative. The great sugar cane plantations were located in El Tocuyo (state of Lara) and San Mateo (state of Aragua). T HE C OLONIAL S LAVERY S YSTEM AND THE NAMING OF P EOPLE ACCORDING TO T HEIR R ACIAL F EATURES As in the rest of the Americas and the Caribbean, the slavery system was characterized by the following aspects: Permanent Forced Labor For the intensive production of agriculture and precious metals it was necessary to organize the work of the enslaved people as a principal tool of the productive process, where not only manual labor but also intellectual work, that is to

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say the slaves’ knowledge of technologies for working the land, knowledge about traditional medicinal practices, and knowledge about constructing houses, among other things, was decisive in building the economies of the so-called New World. For example The Regulations of Work for the Chuao Hacienda in the year 1817 are as follows: 1. The bell will ring, as is the custom in the towns, at five in the morning to call the slaves from 12 to 60 years of age to worship God and give thanks singing out loud. 2. For this, all will come out with their iron tools; the worship concluded, the list with the number that has been assigned to each slave will be passed around so that each will answer his or her name, and next, will march to work in what the foreman has prepared. 3. Later, the foreman will be vigilant toward the precise completion of the respective jobs. 4. Everyday at sundown the bell will ring to call together the slaves, big and small, so that they will gather at the patio; they will be obliged to pray. 5. The prayer and worship of the Lord concluded, the list will be passed to all according to their numbers. 6. At nine o’clock at night, the five bells will ring, which will be the signal to all the slaves to retire to sleep. The foremen will make the rounds where the slaves sleep. Process of Religious Acculturation The Catholic Church, in complicity with the administrative military power, instigated a process of compulsive acculturation to eliminate the religious systems of the Afro-descendents, and convert them to Catholicism. This torturous practice of conversion to Catholicism that began at 5 in the morning with learning the rosary was linked to the work schedule to inculcate submission as an attitude toward

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Venezuela: Afro-Venezuelans and the Afro Descendientes Movement | 943 life. The Church intended to eliminate the original religions; however, many African religious practices have been preserved today throughout the continent. In Venezuela, there exist two religious creations as products of this process: The first was the Afro-Catholic practices that were the structure of a religious parallelism (not syncretism) between the Catholic religion and the African religious elements expressed through the Africans’ reinterpretation of the Catholic images that the Western Europeans attempted to impose as “patron saints.” The second was the Afro-Indigenous spiritualism of Maria Lionza that arose as an answer to the Catholic imposition. The term “Afro-indigenous” is used as most of the spiritual references of the essential components of this “spirituality” are indigenous and African. Process of Depersonalization One of the strategies for making the Africans and their descendents submit was the psychological reinforcement that they (the enslaved) were not people, did not have an identity, and were subject for life to be “slaves,” and that the only way to be a person was to assume obedience toward the master. One of the acts of greatest significance to achieve depersonalization was to eliminate the original names of the Africans and their descendents and to give them a Catholic, apostolic, and Roman name. In African traditional cultures a person’s name contains a symbol, a history, and a destiny; by changing the name the colonialists were erasing the historical memory of the origin civilizations. In Venezuela, very few names and ethnicities of African origin were conserved, in contrast to Colombia, a country that has the greatest number of African ethnicities on the American continent. Loss of the Original African Languages Language, an essential instrument that synthesizes identity, culture, and religiosity, was elimi-

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nated in most cases. This strategy was fundamental to avoid communication between the enslaved people. In the Americas and the Caribbean, many African languages were diluted with indigenous and European languages, and languages such as Creole, Garifuna, Palenque, and the religious symbolic languages of the Regla de Ocha-Abajua-Arara-Kongo (Cuba) or of Candomblé (Brazil) arose. In Venezuela, languages of African origin were not conserved, with the exception of a type of Creole spoken in the Eastern part of the country (the states of Sucre and Bolivar) as a result of contacts since the Colonial era with maroons and migrants from the Anglophone and Francophone Caribbean who migrated to these locations in Venezuela. Rape The rape of African women by the masters was a permanent fixture in the slavery system. At the same time, the exploitation of a woman’s womb to produce new enslaved men and women constituted an economic strategy to construct a new hacienda of enslaved people. E THNIC C LASSIFICATION IN THE C OLONIAL S YSTEM OF THE H UMAN G ROUPS T HAT I NHABITATED V ENEZUELA The following terms were used to classify people in Colonial Venezuela: Jet-black, brown, mestizo (white and Indian), Bachaco (a Venezuelan term for a large red ant used to describe people of dark skin with reddish curly hair), Bozal (a term used to refer to Africanborn black slaves), dark Zambo (refers to a person who is half black and half Indian), pale Zambo (Indian and white), Pardo (literally means “brownish-gray”), mulatto, light mulatto, quadroon (white and mulatto), Quinteron (white and quadroon), and “a step backward” (when the skin color was darker than that of the mother). These names were compiled from the censuses taken by the parish priests during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. This type of naming appears in the

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newspapers of the colonial and postindependence era, such as the Gazette of Caracas and The Venezuelan. The dominant sectors also used these connotations to create differences among the enslaved people. At the same time they reflected and continue to reflect the racial condition metamorphosized in these adjectives. C IMARRONAJE AS AN A NSWER TO THE P ROSLAVERY S YSTEM Confronting the cruelty and privation of liberty to which the Africans were subjugated during the proslavery system were acts of uprising and head-on cimarronaje. Cimarronaje can best be described as the quality of the runaway African, or maroon. The word carries with it a sense of resistance as well as escape. The “legal cimarronaje” encompasses the setting up of alternative communities outside of enslavement; “Confrontational cimarronaje” includes all forms of violent fights against the proslavery system in all of its expressions. In this way the uprisings of enslaved men and women emerge during the 16th century with the Negro Miguel (1522), who established an alliance with the indigenous Jiraharas and Gayones in the state of Maracay and with the enslaved Africans to demand their liberty from the intense labor to which they were subjugated in working the gold mines in the town of Buria. This act is considered the first uprising against the colonial exploitation in Venezuela. Some of the most significant uprisings include the following: • Uprisings of maroon men and women occurred in the 17th century in the valleys of El Tuy and Caracas. • The Rebellion of Andres Lopez del Rosario (Andresote) in 1732 was the first confrontation against the company Guipuzcoana, which held a monopoly on commerce and had introduced enslaved men and women into Venezuela. • The building of communities (quilombos) of runaway slaves, or maroons, in-

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cluding Ocoyta. One such community, Cumbe, led by the African Guillermo Rivas between the years 1768 and 1771, represented for three years a liberating reference for the enslaved Africans and their descendents in this region. • The military uprising of Jose Leonardo Chirinos (1795) in the San Luis sierra (state of Falcon) as a result of the influence of the Haitian rebellion of 1791. This rebellion is known as the first preindependence rebellion. Today, the symbolic remains of Chirinos rest in the National Pantheon. “Legal Cimarronaje” was the legal technicality established by the Law of Indians, through which enslaved men and women could obtain their freedom as is the case of the African Jose del Rosario Blanco, founder of Curiepe (a town of free blacks), a fugitive from Curaçao who received his liberty for having served in the Spanish army. African women also participated in the head-on cimarronaje, including Masnu Alagrin (Ocoyta Cumbe in 1791) and Josefina Sanchez (Taguaza Cume in 1794). Within legal cimarronaje were freedoms earned by the testamentaries, that is to say the freedom the landowners gave to some of their enslaved people for reasons of compassion or religion. Another form of buying their respective freedoms was through the work of haciendillas (small haciendas). This had to do with a legal system in the Black Code of 1789 (Nation’s General Archive, 1789), which held that if the masters could neither feed nor meet the needs of the enslaved people, they would have to give them a small piece of land so that they could cultivate it and sell its fruits, and the enslaved people took advantage of this to sell their fruits and accumulate money to buy their freedoms. Venezuela records many cases of enslaved men and women who bought their freedoms using the system of haciendillas. This Black Code, issued May 31, 1789, consisted of several chapters, such as the one re-

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Venezuela: Afro-Venezuelans and the Afro Descendientes Movement | 945 ferring to education, reoriented essentially to Catholic conversion through a permanent instruction, followed by baptism, attending mass, and administering the holy sacraments. Another chapter of the Black Code refers to the occupation of the “slaves” where it expressed that “the principal occupation of the slaves should be agriculture and other country work, and not of trades of sedentary life” (idem). This is where they give two hours daily for rest so that they could work on a small piece of land called a hacienda to cultivate minor fruits that the enslaved people could sell. Nevertheless, the masters did not comply with this Black Code of 1789, which was a replica of France’s Black Code of Colbert (1695); from there began the enslaved population’s permanent pursuit of escapes, uprisings, and clashes. The enslaved men and women’s entire freedom movement in the first years of the Spanish conquest and colonization was the antecedent to the War of Independence that started in Venezuela in the year 1808. T HE WAR OF I NDEPENDENCE PARTICIPATION OF THE E NSLAVED M EN AND WOMEN At the beginning of the War of Independence, the General Captaincy of Venezuela had the following population: AND THE

Native Spanish: 12,000 Creoles: 200,000 People of color: 406,000 As this statistical distribution of the population shows, most of the population in Venezuela was constituted by what the colonialists called “people of color.” Once the War of Independence began, the so-called white Peninsulares (Spanish born in Spain) and white Creoles (children of the Spanish, born in Venezuela) who were disputing the power were offering liberty, bread, land, and work to the enslaved African population. Among the independence supporters (white Creoles) were Manuel Espana, Pedro Gual, Gen-

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eral Francisco de Miranda, and Simón Bolívar. The “Royalists,” or those who wanted to preserve the colonial power, included Jose Tomas Boves, Monteverde, and Rossete. Both groups left behind testimonies that it would have been impossible to fight without the participation of the enslaved men and women who made up the majority of the Venezuelan population. Bolívar, after his first failures in initiating the War of Independence, turned to Haiti. The Haitian model, which, after more than a decade of fighting (1791–1804), had achieved with blood and fire its liberty from French and English imperialism, was the first of the African Diaspora to construct a liberating hope different from the European and North American models. This model would serve as a reference for several precursors and leaders of the independence movement, but only as military support and refuge, not as a political model to implement for the future construction of the Republic of Venezuela. Bolívar turned to the Haitian president Alexander Petion on January 2, 1816; there he received support, and Bolívar, to express his sentiments toward Petion upon arriving at Carupano (a city in the eastern part of Venezuela) on June 16, 1816, launched his decree abolishing slavery (Bolívar 1970, 458). This initiative from Bolívar is the result of a commitment that he had made before the Haitian President Alexander Petion, to whom he announced that he would decree the freedom of the “slaves,” expressed in a letter that Petion sent to Bolivar. Beforehand in July of this same year, in the town of Ocumare de la Costa, Bolívar launched the second decree of the abolition of slavery on July 6, 1816; this appealed the decree of Carupano, which conceded personal liberty to the slaves who took up arms. Many enslaved men, women, and boys and girls older than 12 joined the army led by Bolívar. Thanks to the decisive support from the Haitian government, Venezuela achieved not only its independence but also the independence of Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador.

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In the pursuit of the enslaved people’s freedom, on February 15, 1819, at the famous Congress of Angostura, Bolívar insisted: “I abandon to your decision that reform or the revocation of all of my statutes and decrees, but I implore the confirmation of the absolute liberty of the slaves, as I would implore my life and the life of the Republic” (Bolívar 1970, 589) During the 13-year War of Independence the Africans and their descendents participated in battalions with arms in hand, the women as lancers and nurses. Their former masters gave them liberty to participate in this war that did not limit itself to Venezuelan territory, but rather these Africans crossed the Andes to free Colombia-Panama, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia from the dominating Spanish colonialism. They resisted cold, hunger, and calamities and made up the only army in the history of humankind that helped liberate other countries without invading or subjugating them to new forms of colonialism. Most of the men and women who crossed the Andes were of African origin. Once the War of Independence ended, the former masters began to claim their previously enslaved men and women who had participated. The masters demanded their rights to the enslaved people unless the state would pay the price they had cost at purchase. This shameful act produced indignation in the African soldiers who had to abandon the army to once again incorporate themselves into the proslavery system. All of Bolívar’s decrees were thrown out, and the Republic would be uniquely and exclusively for the white Creoles, reproducing the colonial and proslavery system of the Spanish crown. T HE F IRST L EGAL E XCLUSION OF THE A FRICAN M EN AND WOMEN AND T HEIR D ESCENDENTS IN THE N EW B OLIVARIAN R EPUBLIC “What to do with the products of enslavement?” was one of the questions proposed by the legislators in the congress of the rising re-

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public. They began to trace reformist lines to forget about the Bolivarian proposals for abolishing slavery. They invented laws such as the Law of Birth or the Law of Manumission, which held that children who are born of the wombs of slaves will only be given liberty when they have reached 18 years of age, whereupon they will have to compensate their master for their 18 years of maintenance with whatever labor that the master chooses. In short, the enslaved men and women who participated in the War of Independence continued to be subjugated to the proslavery system. The Law of Manumission was like a first step to advance toward abolition. A few articles are: Art. 1— The children born to slaves from the day of the publication of this law in the capitals of the provinces will be free ... Art. 2— The owners of female slaves will have the precise obligation to educate, dress and feed the children that are born from the day of the publication of this law, but they, in recompense, will have the duty to indemnify the masters of their mothers for the costs of their nurturing with their labors and services that they will offer until completing 18 years of age (Law of Manumission of 1821, Congress of Cucuta). Thus, the Law of Manumission was a continuation of slavery through other means. Many times the masters hid a person’s birthdate so as not to have to give him or her freedom at 18 years old. In essence, enslaved labor continued as the law said the one to be set free had to pay for his or her maintenance, bed, and housing with labor. The first Law of Manumission was decreed in the city of Cucuta on July 21, 1821. And in 1830, the Law of Manumission of 1821 was modified; instead of granting liberty when the enslaved person was 18 years old, the enslave-

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Venezuela: Afro-Venezuelans and the Afro Descendientes Movement | 947 Art. 1— Slavery in Venezuela is abolished forever. Art. 2— The legal obligation for the freedmen to lend services ends, leaving them in full possession of their freedom. Art. 3— The introduction of slaves into the territory of the Republic is prohibited forever, and those who are introduced against this prohibition, under whatever pretext, will through the very act enter immediately into full possession of freedom. Art. 4— The slave owners will be indemnified for the value that these have according to the rate, or in case of illness according to the physicians’ judgment, with the funds directed toward or that will be directed toward this purpose . . .

ment was prolonged three more years, until he or she was 21 years old. T HE A BOLITION OF S LAVERY The rising republic approved the Constitution of 1830 in which Africans and their descendents were not included as citizens, and slavery as an institution prevailed. According to the official registration, this left 62,000 Africans and Afro-descendents in conditions of enslavement. In addition, the Constitution of 1830 stated that a citizen must “know how to read and write” and “be owners of property.” The abolition of slavery was not considered. This constitution, the first after the War of Independence, bestowed political rights only on the free men and landowners. To elect and be elected, one had to be a free man, owner of a property, with a minimum annual rent of 50 pesos, or in a professional position, office, or industry that earned wages of no less than 100 pesos a year. This was a legal way of excluding women, the enslaved, and most dispossessed sectors. Slavery continued in practice until 1854 when, for economic, social, and political reasons, the president, Jose Gregorio Monagas, liberated the enslaved African men and women by decree. Taking into account that the War of Independence in Venezuela and the Andean area ended in 1824, the enslaved men and women had to wait 30 years for the state to abolish slavery, so many of those who had fought were older than 60 years and in deplorable physical and mental states. It’s important to note that the government, instead of indemnifying enslaved people, indemnified the slaveholders. To indemnify the masters was the principal condition to abolish slavery. Without indemnification the abolition of slavery would not have taken place. According to the law passed by congress on March 24, 1854, 3 million pesos were allotted to indemnify the owners of some 13,000 enslaved men and women and 27,000 freedmen and freedwomen. Following are a few articles of the Decree of the Abolition of Slavery:

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In many cases, until the state repaid the cost of each enslaved man or women, some masters did not proceed to liberate them. F EDERAL WAR , THE M ODERNIZATION OF THE V ENEZUELAN S TATE , AND THE E XCLUSION OF THE A FRO - DESCENDENTS The Federal War (1859–1863), led by Ezequial Zamora, resulted from internal fights between the system of large estates and the monopoly of land on the part of the oligarchy. Hence, the platforms of this war were bread, land, work, and equality. Most of those who joined the Federal army were the enslaved men and women who now found themselves in a situation of semislavery, without land, without food, and without education. Believing the objectives of independence were incomplete, a large contingent of Afro-descendents participated in the Federal War in search of equality and citizenship. The Venezuelan state had not made itself responsible for the agreements established in the laws that favored equality and social responsibility. The proponents of miscegenation and racial equality in Venezuela maintain that racial

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inequality ended with the Federal War, but the reality was something else: inequality continued. The only favorable outcome was a pact made with certain rebel leaders who were given some land and political power. The population of African origin continued in a situation of semislavery, earning salaries that were paid with tokens with which they could only buy in the establishments of their former masters or hacienda owners, where the prices of the products cost 200 percent more than in the normal market. The laborers did not have access to education or dignified work. Some could not come out from the yoke of their former masters, even more than a decade after slavery was abolished. In the 20th century, with the beginning of modernization in Latin America states, most of the modernist ideologies (the Marxists as much as the positivists) conceptualized one Latin America of mixed race that should deepen its miscegenation to enter modernity. The 20th century brought the so-called modernization of American societies, state reform, laws, and processes of urban development, among other things. These ideas, at the continental level, indicate how this current will be converted into a dominant ideological position for what may be called “modernization with ethnoexclusion,” not only in Venezuela but also in the entire continent. Proponents of this view include the intellectual Marxist and Peruvian Carlos Mariategui. It is in this intellectual framework that two principal ideologies of modernity and miscegenation in Venezuela may be examined. The first is Venezuelan economist Alberto Adriana who, in the 1930s and 1940s, put forward a thesis of reducing the black population. According to Adriani, Venezuela had a high population of African origin; therefore, in the immigration plan the government set forth for those years, it was maintained that they could limit the entry of African peoples coming from the Antilles owing to the fact that they could corrupt the incipient democratic institutions.

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Then there is Arturo Uslar Pietri, father of Venezuelan miscegenation. With respect to the modernization of the Venezuelan state, Uslar maintained that Indians and Africans and their resulting mixtures were people incapable of positive contribution to modernity. In other words, he believed that if the ethnic composition of Venezuela’s population was not greatly modified, it would be almost impossible to change the course of history and make Venezuela a modern state (Garcia 2001, 82). These perspectives would establish the ideological foundations of the second ethnic exclusion of Afro-descendents in the conception of the construction of the modernity discourse and its projection into the legal, administrative structures of the states. The public policy that was implemented in most republics of Latin America had these great ideological weights that molded the political practices of the institutions, continuing the racist, discriminatory, and exclusive ideas that emerged with the republics of the 19th century. From the year 1945 the process of populist government was initiated in many parts of Latin America. The process was often preceded by a coup d’état, like the one that occurred in Venezuela on October 18, 1945. The sevenperson civic military junta included Dr. Luis Beltran Prieto Figueroa, an Afro-descendent who was not aware of his African ancestry. The 1948 presidential election was won by the writer Romulo Gallegos. In his campaign he had used the figure of the Afro-descendent as an emblem, demonstrating the high electoral percentage that the population of African origin represented. Once Gallegos was installed into power some intellectuals wrote articles in the press complaining that “the blacks were ruling” (Uslar 1948, 4). In this period the recognition of the Afrodescendent component passed silently. The government of Romulo Gallego, toppled by a militaristic coup, is replaced by a terrible dictatorship that proposes a project of the “national

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Venezuela: Afro-Venezuelans and the Afro Descendientes Movement | 949 ideal,” in which the race would be bettered by bringing in large quantities of migrants from Western Europe. Racism deepens, and large quantities of lands are handed over to the European migrants, putting the Afro-descendents aside with their misery. The dictatorship of Marcos Perez Jimenez (1948–1958) contributed to deepening the theory of miscegenation in the sense that he believed the whiter the population, the better Venezuela would be. In 1961 a new constitution was ratified that included recognition of the indigenous although Afro-descendents were not mentioned anywhere. Despite the fact that the constitution says, “we are all equal” without discrimination based on race, racial discrimination continues in Venezuelan society. The Afro-descendent sectors did not exist in educational programs, and recognition of their historic and cultural contributions did not exist. Thus, the 1961 constitution brings an end to diversity. M ULTIETHNIC AND M ULTICULTURAL S TATES : T HE P ROCESS OF M ODERNIZING THE S TATES WITH E THNIC I NCLUSION At the end of the 1980s a process of understanding the ethnic was initiated in Latin America on behalf of some states, such as Nicaragua, which launched the Law of Autonomy in 1987 where communal lands and the Garifuna language were guaranteed. But it is in the 1990s when Latin America states initiate a second phase of modernization where the ethnic element comes into play. In 1991, Colombia approves a new constitution expressing the country’s multiethnic and multicultural character, as in other constitutions that were approved in the Andean countries. Nevertheless, in 1993, Colombia drew up specific laws to address Afro and indigenous groups. In the case of the Afro-descendents, Law 70, known as the Law of Black Communities, was approved. Ecuador considers nominal inclusion of the Afro-Ecuadorian in its new constitution, and the Law of Afro-Ecuadorian Populations is initiated.

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T HE C ONSTITUTIONAL A BSENCE OF V ENEZUELAN A FRO - DESCENDENTS When Venezuela begins to discuss a new constitution, the Afro-American Foundation and the Union of Black Women propose that the state incorporate the Afro-Venezuelan notion into the multiethnic character and cultural diversity and as a foundational element of the republic. There are demands that the new constitution should include historic, political, and cultural recognition of African men and women and their descendents as well as a reconsideration of the collective property of the lands of the former cimarrones and cimarronas. Nevertheless, these propositions are ignored. In the preamble the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (CRBV) expresses the following: “The Venezuelan people, in exercise of its creative powers and invocating the protection of God, the historic example of our liberator Simon Bolivar and the heroism and sacrifice of our aboriginal forbears . . .” (CRBV 1999, 1), ignoring the role played by African men and women and their descendents from 1552 until the present day in the fights for the independence and dignity of the Venezuelan people. If other Latin American countries were able to understand the necessity of modernizing their states without ethnic exclusion (Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Nicaragua, Peru), why then were Afro-descendent men and women left legally excluded in Venezuela? The preamble to the CBRV does not fulfill the legal reordering that began to be carried out with the organic laws from the year 2000. None of the laws make reference to the Afro-Venezuelan notion as an essential component, despite the suggestions the Network of Afro-Venezuelan Organizations made, although the topic had been attached to the draft of the Law of Culture and the Law of Education. With changes of ministers and vice ministers and a reconsideration of the same drafts, these articles have been eliminated, arguing that here “we are all the same” and incorporating the Afro variable is introducing a false

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problem because we are all of mixed blood and, moreover, this category does not appear in the CRBV. The Afro-Venezuelan dimension does not appear in the constitution, the organic laws that govern the different sectors of the Venezuelan state, or in the nation’s strategic programs, plans, and projects. The institutional absence of recognition of the Afro-Venezuelan communities is evident in the planning of the state. In the Venezuelan state no organism attends to the situation of the Afro-descendents as in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil, because the Afro-descendants do not exist in the Constitution or the organic laws. There is no legal mandate to create state organisms for the Afro-descendent communities. T HE A BSENCE OF V ENEZUELA A NTIRACIST L AWS Despite the fact that antiracist laws do not exist in the constitution, nevertheless, Article 21 appears, expressing: All people are equal before the Law, consequently: 1. Discriminations founded on race, sex, creed, social condition or those which, in general, have as an objective or a result to annul or diminish recognition, enjoyment or exercise of the conditions of equality, rights, and liberty of all people will not be permitted. 2. The law will guarantee the legal and administrative conditions so that equality before the law will be real and effective; it will adopt positive measures favoring people or groups that may be discriminated against, marginalized or vulnerable; it will especially protect those people who for any of the aforementioned conditions find themselves in a circumstance of manifested weakness and will sanction the abuses or mistreatments that are committed against them.

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This article is one of the most advanced in the subject of combating racism. However, to date no media and no racist aggressors have been penalized according to what is established in this article. Since President Hugo Chavez took office, the government has emitted over a thousand anti- racist messages through various means; owing to the fact that the president is of African origin, some of his ministers are Afrodescendents. Still, in several nightclubs Afrodescendent people are still barred entry. And the police, above all those from the east of the city (where the whites and millionaires live), have been organized with the assumption of racial prejudices, thereby committing excesses toward the Afro-descendent population. This can take place because neither in the penal code nor in any other sphere of the Venezuelan legal apparatus is there any antiracist law that penalizes racism. C ONTEMPORARY A FRO -V ENEZUELAN M EN AND WOMEN : D EMOGRAPHICS Since colonization began at the end of the 19th century, the ethnic dimension appeared in the censuses by way of terms such as black, mulattos, people of color, pardo, zambo, and mulatto. But with the imposition of the concept of “racial equality” these same terms disappeared from the population censuses from the end of the 19th century until the 2000 census. Before the 2000 census took place, the network of Afro-Venezuelan organizations communicated to the National Statistic Institute the necessity of incorporating three questions about the Afro-descendent communities: How many are we? Where are we? How are we? The directorship of the institute rejected the proposal on the grounds that racial differences had been overcome in Venezuela. Still, a few sources, such as a report by the Inter-American Development Bank and the Organización Afronorteamericana expressed without foundation that the Afro-descendent population in Venezuela oscillated between 10 and 15 per-

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Venezuela: Afro-Venezuelans and the Afro Descendientes Movement | 951 cent. Recently, the Institute of Scientific Investigations, the Department of Anthropology, estimated that Afro-descendents were 14 percent of the population in Venezuela, but this figure does not have statistical backing. In 2004, the minister of planning, through the National Statistic Institute, conducted the first social survey since 1999. The Network of Afro-Venezuelan Organizations made a proposal to the Ministry of Planning to structure three questions about Afro-descendents in Venezuela. The Ministry of Planning agreed to include the questions on the social survey at the national level, which should produce some statistical indicators about Afro-descendent populations in this modern era. This represents a substantial advance with regard to public policy and recognition for Afro-descendent people and will provide valuable insights into the current situation of Afro-descendants in the workforce, health, and home conditions. Recent studies of poverty conducted by the social investment fund found that most of the municipalities with Afro-descendent populations experience critical and extreme poverty. P RESENCE OF A FRO -D ESCENDENT P OPULATIONS In Venezuela, the Afro-descendent communities are located largely in the ancient enclaves of the enslaved men and women in the central and western coastal zones. The states with the largest Afro-Venezuelan populations, both urban and rural, are the following, in order of highest to lowest population: Vargas, Miranda, Aragua, Sucre, Falcon, Carabobo, Zulia, Yaracuy, Bolivar and the Capital District. This Afro-descendent population is characterized not only by phenotypical features, but also by rural and urban styles of life, religion, culinary habits, cultural identity, agricultural techniques, solidarity, and collective labor, among other distinct features. Of the seven strategic areas of sustainable development in Venezuela, four correspond to Afro-descendent communities in the states of

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Miranda, Aragua, Bolivar, and Zulia. These communities are located in environmental settings important for the country for their water reserves and agricultural potential. In the media, the lack of racial diversity is clearly seen in the absence of Afro-descendents on soap operas, television news, and advertisements. Ninety percent of the actors, journalists, and reporters are of Caucasian descent. Afro-descendents are assigned the worst roles (crooks, prostitutes, servants, chauffeurs). P RESENCE OF THE A FRO - DESCENDENTS IN S CHOOL C URRICULUM In 2003, the Network of Afro-Venezuelan Organizations conducted a study on the Afrodescendent presence in the Venezuelan school system and found that racial discrimination exists in school texts, in both the formative texts used for teacher training and in the classroom texts where children learn about history, identity, culture, and lifestyles. In history texts, the contributions of African men and women appear in only four instances: first when they arrive as “slaves for their physical strength and as physical labor”; second, when the black woman “gave milk from her breast to Simón Bolívar, the liberator”; and third, when the zambo Jose Leonardo Chirinos rose up in 1795 against Spanish colonialism. The fourth is a reference to “the first-rate Negro” when in full battle during the War of Independence a general shouted “Why do you flee, coward?” “I don’t flee, my general,” the first-rate Negro responds to him, “I come to tell you goodbye because I am dead.” This historiographical vision of the coward continues to be repeated in school texts and in official contemporary discourses when the Battle of Carabobo, which sealed the independence of Venezuela, is commemorated. Images of families in textbooks are generally white and Western, which is to say the nuclear family of mother, father, and children. In texts referring to culture, only folkloric reductionism is highlighted in music and dance. This analysis was

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gathered in the project Prevention of Racism in the School System, which the Afro Network conducted in 2004. In October 2003, the government issued a presidential decree to eliminate October 12 as the day of discovery, substituting it with the Day of Indigenous Resistance. In this decree the participation of Afros in the processes of cultural resistance is recognized. This has created a space to honor the resistance of the African men and women and their descendents in the fights for independence in the country. A FRO - DESCENDENT O RGANIZATIONS IN V ENEZUELA In Venezuela, Afro-Venezuelan organizations frequently work in the area of culture reduced to a folkloric conception in the popular imagination. A census was taken of more than 300 organizations in this type of work as well as traditional organizations in the area of Venezuelan Afro-Catholic religious celebrations. But in 2000 the creation of the Network of Afro-Venezuelan Organizations, which unites 23 Afro-Venezuelan organizations in the eight states with the most important Africandescended presence, has begun the process of breaking with the folkloric vision of the majority of organizations. The Network of AfroVenezuelan Organizations articulated an organic process where self-recognition as AfroVenezuelans and Afro-descendents is important to have the objectives and goals clear to achieve the benefit of the Afro-Venezuelan communities. The fulfillment of the first AfroVenezuelan National Encounter (May 2001) was of utmost importance, as was the participation in the Pre-conference Against Racism (2001) and later participation in the Third World Conference Against Racism in South Africa in 2001, where Venezuelan representatives met with the official representatives so that they would include the Afro-descended notion in the discourse of the conference. In two years the group structured a team whose forces have been directed toward recog-

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nizing the Afro-descended communities in public policy, in the legal scene (organic laws), and in the sphere of multilateral organizations (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, Inter-American Development Bank, World Bank). An important step was to include in the Andean Letter of Human Rights and the Andean Social Letter (pushed by the Andean Parliament), several articles of recognition of Afro-descendent men and women in the subject of social and human rights. In the spheres of public policy the group is working in the following areas with some achievements: Culture: Cultural infrastructure, funding for associations, recognition in the area of tangible and intangible patrimony, publications. Education: Incorporation in the discussions in the area of curriculum reform (a demand put before the Ministry of Education). Agriculture: Common lands (case of Yaracuy). Technology and communication: Creation of information centers and communal broadcasting in communities. Health: Fight against the most common illnesses in Afro communities (leukemia, prostate cancer, uterine cancer, HIV). Tourism: Balance the politics of participation of the African-descended actors in the tourist areas as most of the beaches (which are now the greatest tourist destinations) are located in Afro communities. Environment: Many of the national parks are located in African-descended communities (Tacarigua de la Laguna, Guatopo, San Esteban, the Sierra of San Luis, among others). Sustainable development: several of the seven axes of sustainable development designed by the state are located in African-descended communities: Carenero-Tacarigua de la Laguna, Sur del lago

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Venezuela: Afro-Venezuelans and the Afro Descendientes Movement | 953 de Maracaibo, Sur de Aragua, and the state of Bolivar. Legal area: Reaffirm the international pacts Venezuela signed; 168 of the OIT; focus on economic, social, and cultural rights; put into practice the Durban Plan of Action, signed by Venezuela but until now not implemented; convene an Interministry Commission; and fight to reconsider in the drafts of the laws of culture and education, the articles referring to Afro contributions. In March 2002, together with other Africandescended organizations in South America, a proposal was made by Afro descendientes organizations to the Organization of American States for a resolution against racial discrimination that will go toward propelling an InterAmerican Convention Against Racism, an initiative driven in the past OAS assembly in Santiago, Chile (June 7–8, 2003). The Venezuelan government and the Brazilian government propelled this initiative. On September 24, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, after pressure from the Network of Afro-Venezuelan Organizations, signed the Convention’s optional Protocol 14 for the Elimination of Racism and Discrimination. T HE S IX P RIORITIES OF THE A FRO -D ESCENDENT P OPULATION First priority, to carry out an amendment to the National Constitution that recognizes the moral and political contributions of the Afro-descendents in the historic construction of Venezuela. Second priority, “to count ourselves,” to know how many Afro-descendents live in Venezuela as well as where they are and how they are. This has to do with the social survey, which will gather information about exclusion, poverty, health, and so on. These quantitative data should be used to influence public policy. Third priority, education, to incorporate Afro-descendant communities into the

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school system, to elevate the rate of schooling, and to incorporate African contributions in all levels of the curriculum from preschool to university. Fourth priority, putting into practice the Durban Plan of Action. Fifth priority, to push the Convention on Cultural Diversity in the United Nations with the aim of promoting the traditional cultures of African origin. Sixth priority, to promote the creation of a public space to channel the social, economic, cultural, ecological, and communicational demands of the Afro communities. As a result of the permanent struggles to attain recognition of Afro-descendent men and women, three of these priorities have been achieved. First, the history, culture, and global contributions of Afro-descendents have been incorporated in the new Venezuelan educational curriculum. Second, President Chavez has created a presidential commission to combat and prevent racism. Third, the Durban Plan of Action through the Vice-Minister for Africa has been put into practice. Jesus Chucho Garcia Translated by Elizabeth J. Turnbull See also Argentina: Afro-Argentines; Brazil: AfroBrazilians; Chile: Afro-Chileans; Colombia: Afro-Colombians; Hip-Hop, Latin American; Uruguay: Afro-Uruguayans. F URTHER R EADING Acosta Saignes, Miguel. 1967. La vida de los esclavos negros [The Life of Black Slaves]. Caracas, Venezuela. Acosta Saignes, Miguel. 1978. La vida de los esclavos negros en Venezuela [The Life of Black Slaves in Venezuela]. Havana, Cuba: Casa de las Américas. Adriani, Alberto. 1987. Labor venezolanista [Venezuelanist Labor]. Caracas, Venezuela: Academia Nacional de la Historia. Alvarado, Lisandro. 1956. Historia de la Revolución Federal [History of the Federal Revolution]. T.V. Caracas, Venezuela.

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954 | Veracruz Bolívar, Simón. 1970. Cartad del libertador [Letter from the Liberator]. T.VIII. Caracas, Venezuela: Banco de Venezuela. Bolívar, Simón. 1967. Obras Completas [Complete Works]. T.2. Caracas, Venezuela. Código negro [Black Code]. 1789. Archivo General de la Nación. Sección Real Cedulas. Constitución de la Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela [Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela]. 1999. Derechos Colectivos de los pueblos afroecuatorianos [Collective Rights of the Afro-Ecuadorian People]. 2000. Quito, Ecuador. Fondo de Inversión Social. 2001. Proyecto País [Project Country]. Caracas, Venezuela. García, Jesús. 1986. Nomenclatura de la trata negrera y la esclavización. [Nomenclature of the Black Slave Trade and Enslavement]. Mimeo. Garcia, Jesús. 1989. Barlovento tiempo de cimarrones [Barlovento, Time of Maroons]. Barlovento, Venezuela. Garcia, Jesús. 1990. África en Venezuela [Africa in Venezuela]. Caracas, Venezuela: Edit. Lagoven. Garcia, Jesús. 1995. La diáspora de Kongos en las Américas y el Caribe [The Diaspora of Congo in the Americas and the Caribbean]. Caracas, Venezuela: UNESCO-Cona. Garcia, Jesús. 1998. Africanas, esclavas y cimarrones [African Women, Women Slaves, and Maroons]. Caracas, Venezuela: Edit. Fundación Afroamerica. García, Jesús. 2001. Descontrucción, transformación y construcción de nuevos escenarios de las prácticas de la Afroamericanidad [Deconstruction, Transformation and Construction of New Scenarios of the Practices of AfroAmericanism]. Caracas, Venezuela: ClascoUNESCO. Garcia, Jesús. 2002. Comunidades Afroamericanas y transformaciones sociales [Afro-American Communities and Social Transformations]. Caracas, Venezuela: Clasco-UNESCO. Garcia, Jesús. 2004. Aprendamos de la historia y la cultura afrovenezolana. [Let’s Learn About Afro-Venezuelan History and Culture.] Cartilla para niños. Caracas, Venezuela: Red Afrovenezolana. Humboldt, Alejandro. 1956. Viaje a las regiones equinocciales del nuevo continente [Trip to the Equatorial Regions of the New Continent]. Caracas, Venezuela: Ministerio de Educación. Ley 70 de la Comunidades Negras [Law 70 of the Black Communities]. 1993. Congreso de Colombia.

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Mosquera, Joaquín. 1825. Memoria de la reforma a la ley de manumisión [Memory of the Reform of the Law of Manumission]. Caracas, Venezuela: Congreso de la República. Rondon Márquez, R.A. 1954. La Esclavitud en Venezuela. [Slavery in Venezuela]. Caracas, Venezuela. Uslar Pietro, Arturo. 1948. “Los negros mandando” [The Blacks Ruling]. Periódico El Nacional. Uslar Pietro, Arturo. 1937. “Venezuela Necesita inmigración” [“Venezuela Needs Immigration”]. Boletín de la Cámara de comercio de Caracas.

z Veracruz In African Diaspora history, Veracruz is significant because of its international impact and the large concentration of African-descent peoples in the region who contributed their culture and labor to its development. Only a few areas in Mexico have such large concentrations of Afro-Mexicans. The region was once home to ancient Olmec Indians. Considered the earliest civilization, evidence of their presence remains scattered throughout the state of Veracruz in the form of gigantic carved stone heads with distinct African features. Direct links appear to exist between the Olmec and the Manding of West Africa. The heads, weighing tons, are considered one of the wonders of the world. Veracuz is one of 31 Mexican states. It covers approximately 45,000 square miles and extends 425 miles along the Gulf. It is a major international location for commerce and trade of sugar cane, coffee, fruits, and tobacco. It is also a significant tourist destination. The population has large concentrations of AfroMexicans (African-Spanish genetic mixtures, also known as Creoles), mestizos (Spanish-Indian genetic mixtures), and Indians. Several cities and towns clearly reflect the African influence, for example, Mandinga, a derivative of

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Vieux-Chauvet, Marie (1916–1973) | 955 the West African Mandingo. Its ethnic diversity resulted in the creation of a vibrant, unique and colorful culture. Veracruz and Yanga are two key cities. Veracruz was the site of the first Spanish expedition in 1519 led by Hernan Cortes. Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz was Mexico’s first “European” city. The oldest and grandest port in Mexico and business establishments dating to the 1800s are located there. Veracruz was occupied by Spain, France, and in 1914, the United States. Each time the troops were quartered in the Plaza de Armas. Yanga is believed to be the first free African town in the Americas. Gaspar Yanga (sometimes spelled Nyanga) was an enslaved African fighting to free the enslaved. He led uprisings against the Spanish and is considered a regional hero. A village of free Africans was founded sometime between 1624 and 1635 as San Lorenzo de Los Negros. The name was changed to Yanga in 1932. The African heritage of the majority population is proudly articulated, manifested in the population’s phenotypic characteristics, the city’s politics, and its cultural history. The synthesis of African cultural movements and rhythms with Spanish cultural styles has created unique regional traditional music and dance. The regional dance, zapateado, consists of rapid footwork and rhythmic flowing movements. During the 1870s, Cuban refugees fleeing war-torn Cuba brought a dance style known as danzon. Popular among the poorer Jarochos (people of Veracruz), it was considered scandalously sensual by the elite. Eventually, however, it became popular throughout the region. An Afro-Veracruz contribution is the well-known song La Bamba, popularized worldwide in the 1950s by Ritchie Valens; it derives from the musical style known as son, which is a part of traditional culture in Veracruz. Valerie Smith See also Maroon and Marronage; Mexico: African Heritage; Yanga and Cimarronaje in Mexico.

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F URTHER R EADING Bennett, Herman L. 2005. Africans in Colonial Mexico: Absolutism, Christianity, and AfroCreole Consciousness, 1570–1640. Blacks in the Diaspora. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hernandez Cuevas, Marco Polo. 2004. African Mexicans and the Discourse on Modern Nation. Lanham, MD.: University Press of America. Restall, Matthew. 2005. Beyond Black and Red: African-Native Relations in Colonial Latin America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

z Vieux-Chauvet, Marie (1916–1973) Marie Vieux-Chauvet was born in Haiti; her mother originated from Saint Croix (Virgin Islands) and her Haitian father was deeply involved in politics. She married very young to a physician and bore him two children. She started her career as a writer with the tale “Ti sò la chouette” (Ti Sò the Owl) and a pantomime La Légende des fleurs (The Flowers’ Legend, staged in 1946). She divorced and married a Haitian businessman, Pierre Chauvet, and bore him a son. She published her first novel, Fille d’Haïti (Daughter of Haiti 1955), under the name of Marie Chauvet. This novel earned her a literary award, the France-Haiti Prize. She followed with La Danse sur le volcan (1957) and Fonds des nègres (1961). Her masterpiece, Amour, Colère, Folie (Love, Anger and Death), was published in 1968 during the worst years of the François Duvalier dictatorship. The manuscript was accepted for publication by the famous French publishing house, Gallimard. However, the Chauvet family, afraid of potential reprisal by Duvalier, bought all the copies except for the few that had already been sold. They arranged for Chauvet’s departure from Haiti and her subsequent divorce. While in exile, Marie Vieux remarried, to an American citizen;

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she later died in New York in 1973 from brain hemorrhage caused by a tumor. In 1986, her novel Les Rapaces was published posthumously in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, under her maiden name, Marie Vieux. More recently, her second novel, La danse sur le volcan (Dancing on the Volcano, 1957) has been reprinted in France under the name of Marie Vieux-Chauvet. Marie-José N’Zengou-Tayo See also Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Fanon, Frantz (1925–1961); Haiti; Négritude. F URTHER R EADING Chancy, Myriam. 1997. Framing Silence: Revolutionary Works by Haitian Women. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Dayan, Joan. 1995. Haiti, History and the Gods. Berkeley: University of California Press. Shelton, Marie-Denise. 1992. “Haitian Women’s Fiction.” Callaloo 15 (3): 770–777.

z Virgin Islands The Virgin Islands (VI), formerly the Danish West Indies (DWI), comprises Saint Thomas, Saint John, Saint Croix, and dozens of adjacent islets. The islands are located in the northeastern Caribbean about 991 miles southeast of Miami, Florida. The islands, once inhabited by Ciboneys, Arawaks, Tainos, and Caribs, were encountered by Christopher Columbus in 1493. Subsequently, after the displacement of the indigenous inhabitants, the Spanish, Dutch, British, French, and Knights of Malta held sway over one or more of the islands in the 16th and 17th centuries. However, other than a British occupation in 1801–1802 and 1807–1815, Denmark was the only European nation to permanently colonize Saint Thomas in 1672, Saint John in 1717, and Saint Croix in 1733 Consequently, a cosmopolitan group of

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Europeans and mainly Africans would come to dominate the islands’ population. Among the Europeans, the Dutch came to dominate the population on Saint Thomas and Saint John while the British would do likewise on Saint Croix. There were also some Danes, French, Germans, Jews, Spaniards, and other Europeans in the islands. By 1680, people of African descent dominated the population of the Virgin Islands, and unlike many of the Europeans, they would make the islands their home. Among the Africans, there are reports of Congolese, Igbo, Ijaw (Kalabari), Mandingo (Mandingspeaking), Yoruba, and Akan peoples in the DWI. Indeed, sizable numbers of Africans came from the area of the Danes’ most intense trading activities on the Gold Coast (presentday Ghana). From the late 1600s to the early 1800s, an estimated 75,000 Africans from West and West Central Africa were forcefully brought to the islands. In the colonial DWI a political and socioeconomic hierarchical system emerged in which the European minorities dominated the slave society. In the political sphere, Denmark, through the charted Danish West India Company (1671–1754) and later under crown rule, controlled the islands with governing officials at varying levels of subordination. Mainly the Danes, a minority among the other European population, controlled the government, serving as civil servants, soldiers, and clergy in all three islands. Aside from 1755 to 1874 when Christiansted, Saint Croix served as the capital, Charlotte Amalie, Saint Thomas was always the seat of the government. In Saint Thomas and Saint John, although sugar cane and cotton were cultivated, the important port of Charlotte Amalie was a principal entrepôt in the West Indies during the 18th and 19th centuries. The Dutch and British were prominent among the elite class of Europeans and were employed as merchants and plantation owners. As in Saint Croix, a small number of freed

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Virgin Islands | 957 persons were in the middle to lower status of the society. They labored mainly as craftspeople, tradespeople, and farmers with some made to perform duties in the local freedmen militia. However, for most of the slave era in Saint Thomas, the majority of African descendents were in the lowest rank of the society serving as slaves on plantations and the harbor. Alternatively, Saint Croix’s main economic activity focused on sugar and cotton production. There was a similar hierarchical system in Saint Croix: the British were the most prominent, freed persons were in the middle to lower status, and the largest enslaved population of the three islands was forced into the lowest status. In fact, in 1789, enslaved persons exceeded 88 percent of the population of the DWI. In 1803, the year Denmark became one of the first European powers to end the slave trade, the enslaved African population peaked at about 35,000. Even with harsh Danish slave laws and punishment, people of African descent resisted enslavement in various forms. Throughout the slave era, petite and grand (maritime) maroonage—activities ranging from temporarily running away into the woods to sailing as far away as North America—was one of the most used forms of resistance. In the 1700s, there are reports of at least one maroon community in Saint Thomas and another one referred to as Maroonberg in Saint Croix. Indeed, in 1789, there are accounts of more than 1,000 enslaved Africans being at large. Earlier, in November 1733, Akans, who were known for their utmost discontent with enslavement, primarily through the Akwamu people of the Gold Coast (under the leadership of Nyamma), revolted and for several months controlled Saint John; they intended to establish an Akan state in the island and two of the other surrounding islands. It took support of troops from Saint Thomas, British, and French islands for the Danes to regain control. Subsequent conspiracies and plots to revolt were reported in 1746,

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1759, and 1801. However, it was not until 1848, with island-wide revolts of enslaved Africans led by Moses Gotlieb and others of Saint Croix, that enslaved persons were able to force the Danish authority to abolish slavery. In the emancipation and postemancipation period, there were slight societal structural changes in DWI. In the new era, a complex color and class stratification very much influenced the political and socioeconomic structure of the colony. In the mid-19th century, a small group of people of French descent from Saint Barthelemy migrated to Saint Thomas and became mainly fishermen and farmers. The individuals of mixed ancestries were basically in the middle and lower echelon of the society. However, through the 1849 Labor Act, ex-enslaved persons were forced to continue to labor on the various estates. However, in 1878, an island-wide labor uprising in Saint Croix, led by Mary Thomas and others (with women well represented in the leadership), helped workers gain greater power to negotiate labor contracts individually. While dealing with natural disasters, including earthquakes, hurricanes, cholera epidemics, and malaria outbreaks, in addition to a declining economy, Virgin Islander workers formed labor unions, and continued to press for improved working conditions well into the 20th century. In 1917, the United States purchased the DWI, bringing the territory into a new era with changes in the political, economic, and social institutions of the islands. Fundamental services of the islands, including education, health care, and housing, received attention in the early years of American tutelage. After years of delayed political rights, Virgin Islanders were granted American citizenship in 1927. In the 1930s, the Danish-style colonial structure was reorganized more along the lines of a U.S. form of government with greater separation of the executive, judicial, and legislative branches and an expanded franchise. In the 1930s and 1940s, in coordination with the U.S. federal government, Virgin Islanders made some effort to

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improve the rum production, handicrafts, deep-sea fishing, tourism, and other industries of the failing economy of the islands. Additionally, during the World War II period, there were greater commercial and trade activities, which temporarily produced an upsurge in the economy. In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, there was further development of self-government, and islanders gained the right to elect the governor. In the 1960s and 1970s, although the sugar industry was phased out, various industries developed, and some of the largest businesses in the Caribbean were established, including Hess Oil Refinery and Harvey Aluminum Company. Additionally, there was tremendous growth in the tourism industry, and large numbers of Americans and other Caribbeans migrated to the territory in a continuous stream into the 1990s. With this economic growth, the USVI had one of the highest per capita incomes in the Caribbean, but it was accompanied by some social tensions among groups in the islands. The modern USVI society, with historical precedence, has a relatively diverse population. The 110,000 residents are scattered throughout the three major islands. The sizable numbers of minority groups could be described as people of European descent (mainly Americans with some local-born Jews and people of French descent who have a small African-descent admixture), Hispanics (mainly localborn Puerto Ricans/Afro-Puerto Ricans and immigrant Dominicans), and people of Asian descent (mainly relatively recent East Indian and Arab immigrants). However, the largest group in the USVI is Afro-Virgin Islanders (about 48 percent) and various AfroCaribbean migrants (about 27 percent) (U.S. Department of Commerce 1999, 17). Politically, there are a number of minorities in the government but Afro-Virgin Islanders are found throughout the islands’ political structure. The government is modeled after the U.S. governmental system and has separation of the executive branch, a unicameral 15-person leg-

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islative, judicial branches, and a nonvoting representative to Congress. The status of the Virgin Islands is colonial, an organized but unincorporated territory of the United States. In the economy, many business owners of European, American, and Asian descent are prominent in the economic sector. However, the economy is saturated with people of African descent in the lower and middle income brackets, though a few have risen into upper middle to upper echelons of the economy. The USVI economy is mainly centered on tourism, manufacturing (including petroleum refining and watch assembly), and business and financial services (U.S. Department of Commerce 1999, 5, 6). Most Virgin Islanders, although having adapted and shared many European and American cultural practices, have strong connections to the wider African Diaspora (especially with the large numbers of AfroCaribbean immigrants in the island). Most islanders are of African origin, and African retentions are evident in the culture. In the islands, the English Creole (and the now defunct Dutch Creole) language is influenced by certain African grammatical-syntactical and tone features with a small vocabulary of regularly used African-derived words such as dun dun (Yoruba origins), kunu-munu (Twi origins), kallalloo (Fon origins), and mumu (Igbo origins). Additionally, the proverbs and aphorisms of Akan are also evident in Virgin Islander sayings. There are kinship-based societal organization and traditional community arrangements of homes, which are clustered together with the use of traditional utilities (such as the mortar and pestle and the yabba pot) for dietary meals (funji/cornmeal, kallalloo, tamarinds, and yams) and herbal remedies (bead vine bush/Abrus precatorius). Additionally, the traditional social activities influenced by Africans are seen in historic and contemporary dances (bamboula, quelbe, masquerades, and mocko jumbi), songs (caruso), instrument usages (drums and banjo), story-

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Vodoun | 959 telling (Anansi stories), and game playing (Warri). Indeed, many of these cultural expressions are noticeable throughout the year but some have also been institutionalized in the annual carnivals in Saint Thomas, Saint John, and Saint Croix. Besides the aforementioned African retentions that Virgin Islanders shared with other African diasporic societies and peoples, Virgin Islanders historically have had among the most intimate interactions with other African diasporic peoples. From its inception to the present day, other Afro-Caribbeans have been migrating in a constant stream to the USVI. And in the earlier years of the transfer, African Americans, and many of their leaders (along with their organizations), had taken an active part in the affairs of these islands: three African Americans served as governor of the islands in the 1940s and 1950s. Moreover, Virgin Islanders have migrated to other places where notable individuals such as Edward Wilmot Blyden (Pan-Africanist leader), Frank Crosswaith (labor leader), Hubbert Harrison (activist), Roy Innis (Congress of Racial Equality leader), and Ashley Totten (of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters) were influential or organized people of African descent. Mario Nisbett See also Blyden, Edward Wilmot (1832–1912); Danish West Indies: Oldendorp’s 18th-century Findings; Maroon and Marronage. F URTHER R EADING Creque, Darwin D. 1996. The U.S. Virgin Islands and the Eastern Caribbean. Philadelphia: Whitmore Publishing Co. Dookhan, Isaac. 2000. History of the Virgin Islands. Mona, Jamaica: University Press of the West Indies. Kea, Ray A. 1996. “‘When I Die, I Shall Return to My Own Land’: An ‘Amina’ Slave Rebellion in the Danish West Indies, 1733–1734.” In The Cloth of Many Colored Silks: Papers on History and Society, Ghanaian and Islamic in Honor of Ivor Wilks, ed. John Hunwick and Nancy Lawler, 159–191. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

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Pope, Polly. 1972. “A Maroon Settlement on St. Croix.” Negro History Bulletin 35 (7): 153–154. Tyson, George R., and Arnold R. Highfield, eds. 1994. The Kamina Folk: Slavery and Slave Life in the Danish West Indies. US Virgin Islands: Virgin Islands Humanities Council. U.S. Census Bureau. 2003. 2000 Census of Population and Housing, Social, Economic, and Housing Characteristics PHC-4-VI, U.S. Virgin Islands. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. U.S. Department of Commerce. 1999. Virgin Islands: 1997 Economic Census of Outlying Areas. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce. Warner-Lewis, Maureen. 2003. Central Africa in the Caribbean: Transcending Time, Transforming Cultures. Kingston, Jamaica: University of West Indies Press. Westergaard, Waldemar. 1917. The Danish West Indies under Company Rule (1671–1754). New York: The Macmillan Company.

z Vodoun T RUE FACE AND T HEOLOGICAL I DENTITY Belief in supernatural beings constitutes the very essence of all religions. Christianity, for example, has its God, its Christ, its saints, its angels, and its demons. No less than any other religion, Haitian Vodoun has its own credo and pantheon of supernatural beings, zanj, espri, lwa, and so on, with their iconographic representations or vèvè. It has its rites, its liturgy, its priests or houngan, its priestesses or manbo, its initiates, its temples or houmfò, its ceremonies, and its festive days, the whole paraphernalia one could expect from any religion. Contrary to the view that Haitian Vodoun is a polytheist religion, the fact is that Haitian Vodoun is a monotheist religion. Highest in its pantheon is a unique and supreme God, the Bondye or Gran Mèt. The latter delegates some of his powers to the lwa, the forces of good, who act in his name and with his permission. Like all religions, Vodoun prescribes the worship and

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In a Haitian Vodou celebration in Miami in 2008, Ingrid Llera leads three other mambos (priestesses) in salutations to divinities (loa or lwa), demonstrating how Vodou has made a second migration, this time with the Haitian Diaspora. (Stefano Giovannini/Stefpix.com)

veneration of the Gran Mèt and the other supernatural beings from which adherents expect “ . . . remedy for ills, satisfaction for needs, and the hope of survival” (Métraux 1958, 11). As in the case of Lucifer and other evil spirits, some Vodou lwa betrayed the trust of the Gran Mèt and became venal spirits and evildoers: they are called lwa dyab, movezespri, move lwa. They represent the forces of evil and are served by bad houngan called bòkò. These are experts in sacrilegious ceremonies aimed at satisfying the lower instincts of followers who come to take their advice. From antiquity to modern times people have always expressed their faith in the existence of supernatural beings endowed with the power to affect their lives. Some call it religion; others, superstition; still others label it magic. The choice of the educated must be clear: tolerance and respect.

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C ONTEMPORARY S TRUCTURE Temples: Houmfò and Sosyete Houmfò Although Vodoun has somewhat managed to formalize some of its concepts, it is far from reaching the level of organic systemization to be found in most modern religions. Each houmfò or Vodoun temple is dedicated to the lwa venerated by its faithful and forms an autonomous entity placed under the authority of its own houngan and manbo, priests and priestesses, also known respectively by the name of papa lwa and manman lwa. Besides their association to a specific houmfò, the adherents also form a kind of confraternity or sosyete houmfò. The latter may include several sanctuaries and is headed by a president chosen among the most prestigious and influential members. Houngan and manbo are attended by a hierarchical personnel composed of

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Vodoun | 961 hounsi kanzo and hounsi, or initiates of rank, konfyans, or apprentice-houngan, hougenikon, or choir leaders, laplas, or masters of ceremonies, ogantye, boulatye, and triyangliye, or musicians, rènsilans, or sergeants-at-arms, bagikan, or servitors of the bagi, kodrapo, or flag bearers, bosal, or novices, pèsavann, former sextons or defrocked sacristans who know by heart the prayers and psalms of the Catholic Church in Latin or French. Though not officially members of the Vodou clergy, they play the Catholic priest’s role in rituals that are not within the competence of the houngan or manbo. Entrance onto the grounds of the houmfò is gained through the pòtay, a physical or symbolic gate guarded by Legba, master of the homes and the roads. With respect to its appearance, the houmfò is an ordinary house not unlike other residences in the neighborhood. As a rule it should have at least two, preferably three, rooms built in a row. It may happen however that the financial situation of the houngan or the sosyete does not allow for more than one room for the sanctuary. The room that opens onto the façade of the houmfò is called bagi. It houses the pe or altar. The pe is a concrete or stonework platform, varying in size with the dimension of the bagi and having lateral openings that are used to place offerings. There can be several pe inside one bagi, depending on the importance of the houmfò and the adherents’ financial means. The second room, at the other end of the houmfò, is called sobagi and is used for storing the sacred objects associated with the lwa. The third room, the one in the middle, functions as a corridor of communication between the other two and may serve as djevò or initiation chamber at the right moment.

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The surface of the pe must be large enough to accommodate the numerous ritual objects that are to be placed on top of it. Among them: several govi, ritual jars consecrated to the lwa served by the houngan or the manbo; they are wrapped in silk or velvet, in the lwa’s favorite color; an indefinite number of pòt tèt, white pottery ritual cups consecrated to the hounsi-kanzo of the houmfò; a Haitian national flag, Vodoun standards, flowers; a crucifix and a perpetual lamp like those found in Catholic churches. In front of the pe or sometimes on the pe itself, is a small basin, the basin of Danbala, the lwa of lakes and rivers. In houmfò where aquatic lwa are honored, it is sometimes big enough for a person to bathe in. Also in front of the pe, and fixed to the ground, are metallic supports or asen used to carry ritual objects. Inside the bagi, one can find liquor, rum, wine bottles, and other offerings that adherents or visitors brought the lwa. Also kept inside the bagi are sacred clothes and ornaments, such as the hat of Bawon Samdi, lwa of the dead; the crutch of Legba, master of the roads; the hat of Zaka, lwa of agriculture, and so on. These items are to be worn by the devotees in a trance. The interior walls of the houmfò are painted white and decorated with vèvè, iconographic emblems for the lwa, especially those venerated in the houmfò. For example, the boat represents Agwetawoyo, master of the seas; the heart, Ezili, lwa of love; the snakes, Danbala and Ayida, lwa of lakes and rivers, and so on. There will also be pictures of Catholic saints such as Saint James the Greater, Saint Peter, and Our Lady of Perpetual Help, representing, respectively, Ogou, Legba, and Ezili. The non vanyan or mystic name of the houngan or manbo in charge of the houmfò is also inscribed on the wall, not far from the Haitian national flag, the coat of arms of the republic, the picture of Haiti’s president,

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and other patriotic or governmental motifs. The exterior walls are likewise decorated with religious and national designs. On the plot of land adjoining the façade of the houmfò that opens into the bagi lies the peristil, an open rectangular shed varying in dimension with the importance of the temple and the size of its congregation. Big temples can have several peristil, respectively consecrated to different rites and lwa, but there will always be a main one. In the middle of the peristil stands the potomitan, a pillar decorated with multicolored stripes, at the bottom of which are placed the sacred objects of the lwa invoked during ceremonies and offerings. The base of the potomitan is a circular concrete or stonework structure that is in fact the pe of the peristil. The potomitan represents the “mystic passageway” of the lwa, the road they will take to come down and become incarnated in their devotees at the moment of what is called “theomorphosis,” lwa’s embodiment or Vodoun religious trance (Férère 1989, 42). Prayers, invocations, ritual dances, and sacrificial offerings to the lwa take place around the potomitan. The potomitan can be considered the most important location in the Vodoun temple. If the houngan’s or manbo’s means allow for it, the courtyard of the houmfò may include small huts with their small pe consecrated to lwa of lesser rank. Also in the courtyard stand tall trees, called repozwa, under which adherents go to pray. In the vicinity of some houmfò, one can sometimes see a structure resembling a tombstone surmounted by a cross and carrying offerings: it is the altar of the Gede or spirits of the dead. Finally, on the property of the houmfò, there will always be domestic animals and fowl of all kinds—goats, pigs, bulls, turkeys, pigeons—waiting for the day when, after being offered in sacrifice, they will be served as food to the congregation and guests attending the ceremony. Vodoun ritual sacrifice may well be the most misunderstood and misrepresented aspect of the Haitian religion. Yet it is in perfect har-

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mony with the accepted tradition that existed in many religions, including Judaism and Christianity, and consisted of offering an animal to the gods in order to obtain their favor and appease their anger. At no time in history has Vodoun ever prescribed human sacrifices as some authors, like Spencer St. John and Houston Craig, have sensationalistically and improperly claimed. Some lwa prefer sacrifices without blood: offerings such as vegetables, fruit, rum, and various delicacies. T HE PANTHEON OF THE LWA Rites As a whole, the various Haitian Vodoun liturgies have been classified under several rites, according to their ceremonials and modus operandi. The most popular are the Rada rite and the Petro rite, followed by other less important rites, such as the Kongo, Nago, Dantò, Zanda, Kanga, Boumba, and Kita rites. Some rites identified by the names of fanmi (family) or nachon (nation) evoke their African origins: Ibo, Siniga, Bandara, Awousa, Mondong, Ginen, and so on. Each rite has its own ceremonials, invocations, chants, rhythms, and instruments. For example, during services of the Rada rite—the most elaborate of all—three drums or groups of three drums are used; the biggest one is called manman penba. For Petro services, drums are paired up: the big one is called gwo baka, and the small one, ti baka. The two rites also differ in terms of their divinities’ characteristics and attributions. Lwa themselves are not necessarily different, although they are in some cases. Lwa Rada are assumed to be kind and benevolent whereas Lwa Petro are harsh and demanding. The latter are mostly invoked for material gains or the satisfaction of personal ambitions. Some of them sometimes require formidable commitments. For example, Bakoulo Baka has the reputation of being so ferocious that Vodou adherents will not even dare to utter his name, let alone invoke him.

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Vodoun | 963 Besides the rites, it is fitting to mention the ceremonies consecrated to the Gede family, lwa of cemeteries and spirits of the dead, which must not however be confused with the souls of the dead. They take on great significance in Vodoun theology but do not belong to any particular rite, unless one wants to recognize a Gede rite. However, their leader, Gede Nibo, is considered a lwa Rada. Gede have a reputation for vulgarity, immorality, and depravity. They use deception to break into services offered to other lwa, in order to eat, drink, play tricks, and say dirty words, and they are chased away by the congregation for misbehaving. Nomenclature A complete inventory of Vodoun lwa is difficult to establish because of, for example, their ever-rising number, owing to the fact that devotees regularly create new gods through the beatification of the spirits of deceased initiates. The word “lwa” is the one most commonly used, but other words, such as mistè, sen, zanj, and espri also identify Vodoun divinities. Experts have time and again attempted the individual classification of lwa under the headings of rites, family, or nation. Such a classification has some advantage, especially for minor divinities, if tracing their African roots is needed. As for major lwa, they are found in almost every rite under the same or slightly modified names. For example, for Ezili Freda Dahome, goddess of love in the Rada rite, there is a corresponding Ezili Je Wouj Petro, who is jealous and ready to bring down her rivals. Therefore, it is understood that, at any time, the most significant divinities may in turn belong to the rite in which adherents choose to serve them. Each divinity has specific attributes and powers. Here are a few examples: • Legba, the most powerful and important of all the deities, is the intermediary between the Gran Mèt and the other lwa. He opens the mystic passageway to the mistè, espri, zanj, sen, and lwa who want to ap-

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•

• •

•

•

• •

pear. He holds the keys to the pòtay, the potomitan, and all the roads and homes. All services must begin with a salute to him. Vodoun iconography sometimes portrays him as a crippled old man shuffling down the road with the help of crutches or a stick. However, beware of this deceptive appearance: Legba possesses extraordinary strength and agility, which he infuses into the devotees he incarnates. Agwetawoyo or Agwe, the Neptune of Haitian Vodoun, is the lwa of the ocean and patron of sailors. Ogou Balendjo is a warrior sea spirit and the captain of Agwetawoyo’s boat. Agawou, spirit of storms, is a member of the same crew. He shares his powers with Badè, spirit of the winds, and Sogbo, lwa of thunder. The couple Ayida and Danbala Wedo are the lwa of the rainbow, the rivers, lakes, and springs. Loko Atiso, lwa of medicinal plants, shares his powers with his cousin Zaka, the minister of agriculture, as Vodounists call him, who makes plants grow. Ogou Feray, the blacksmith, is the lwa of war and fire. Ezili, the Venus of Haitian Vodoun, is the beautiful coquette, the sensual lwa of love. She demands that her devotees marry her—which is what is meant by maryaj Ezili—live with her, and sleep with her in a special bedroom, twice a week, on Thursdays and Tuesdays.

The following list gives an idea of the magnitude of the Pantheon of the lwa (Métraux 1958; Rigaud 1953; Benjamin 1976): Achade Boko, Achade Bosou, Adelayid, Aganman, Agasou, Agawou Tonnè, Agawou Wedo, Agwetawoyo, Amisi Wedo, Anwezo, Atibon Legba, Avadra Bon Wa, Awoyo, Ayizan, Azagon, Azaka Mede, Badè, Bayakou, Belvenis Bosou Twakòn, Boko Legba, Brize Makaya, Brize Penba, Dam Tenayiz, Danbala Flanbo,

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Danbala Gran Chimen, Danbala Wedo, Danbala Yawe, Djobolo Bosou, Ezili Boumba, Ezili Dantò, Ezili Freda, Ezili Je Wouj, Ezili Mapyang, Ezili Towo, Grann Alouba, Grann Ayizan, Grann Brijit, Grann Ezili, Grann Simba, Grann Sogbo, Ibo Kikilibo, Ibo Kosi, Ibo Lazil, Ibo Lele, Ibo Petro, Kanga, Klemezin Klèmèy, Labalèn, Lasirèn, Legba Atibon, Legba Ayizan, Legba Evyeso, Lenglensou, Loko Atiso, Makanda, Marasa/Dosou/Dosa, Marinèt Bwachech, Mèt Kafou, Ogou Achade, Ogou Badagri, Ogou Balindjo, Ogou Batala, Ogou Chango, Ogou Donpèd, Ogou Tonnè, Silibo, Sofi Badè, Sogbo, Ti Jan Petro, Ti pyè Dantò, Towo Petro, Twa Simbi, Twafèy Twarasin, Zaka, Zazi Boutonnen, Zenglen Zen. From the Gede family: Bawon Lakwa, Bawon Sanmdi, Bawon Simityè, Gede Doktè Piki, Gede Fatra, Gede Loray, Gede Mòpyon, Gede Nibo, Gede Pisenandlo, Gede Senk Jou Malere, Gede Soufrans, Gede Tikaka, Gede Tipete, Gede Trase Tonm, Gede Zarenyen, Jeneral Fouye, Kaptenn Zonbi. I CONOGRAPHY Because of its syncretic nature, Haitian Vodoun has developed a dual iconography in which one detects simultaneously the European influence and the presence of the African substratum. The representation of a great number of divinities can be found both in the form of pictures of Catholic saints and drawings called vèvè. Vèvè Vèvè are symbolic drawings that the celebrant, acting as both priest and artist, draws around the potomitan at the beginning of ceremonies, while addressing the lwa they represent with ritual words. They play an extremely important role during Vodoun ceremonies because they identify the lwa being invoked and expected to come down by way of the potomitan. Depending on the rites and divinities, the drawing is made with wheat or corn flour, ground coffee, charcoal ashes, or even gun-

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powder for war divinities and some lwa Petro. If many spirits are invoked, several vèvè may be linked together around the potomitan and cover a large portion of the peristil area to form what is called a milokan. In addition to being located on the altar of the peristil, offerings (animals, food, and beverages) that are intended for the lwa are also placed on the vèvè. Vodoun adherents believe in the power of the vèvè to attract the divinities. Many authors have researched the history and evolution of the vèvè and generally seem to agree on their cosmopolitan origin, though with some divergences. Alfred Métraux emphasizes their Afro-European features (1958, 148). Louis Maximilien goes back to preColumbian America while adding the influence of Western magic (1945, 42). Although René Benjamin (1976) does not altogether dismiss Maximilien’s pre-Columbian theory, he disagrees with the hypothesis that magical motifs replaced American Indian ones. On the whole he grants vital significance to the symbolism of the vèvè. Pictures The Vodoun-Catholic symbiosis has been highly misunderstood and has given rise to many controversies, vexations, and calumnies. Although Vodounists see no harm in including Christian beliefs into their African heritage, Christian clergy and their overzealous flocks have demonstrated the most uncompromising sectarianism. Speaking of the syncretism at issue, one can observe, for instance, the devoted practice of the Catholic religion by Vodoun adherents and the parallelism that exists between the dates of the Christian festive calendar and Vodoun celebrations: the Catholic All Saints’ Day and the service of Gede on November 2nd; Vodoun Christmas, when ritual baths of purification take place to obtain the protection of the lwa; the celebrations of Holy Week, and so on. But the most conspicuous feature of the Catholic influence is the assimilation of a great number of lwa to the

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Vodoun | 965 pictures of Catholic saints. Several lists illustrating those correspondences have already been published. However, it is important to acquaint the uninitiated reader with their real religious significance to avoid taking them literally. So what are the origins and meaning of this practice? The use of Catholic pictures to represent lwa is derived from a subterfuge slaves resorted to when, faced with the strict prohibition to practice their own religions, they started pretending to worship Catholic saints, while in reality they served their lwa. A Catholic picture, adopted to represent a Vodoun divinity, is not an object of veneration because of the Christian virtues of the saint, but rather because of his or her name or an iconographic detail in the picture. That is how, for example, the chromo of Saint Joseph holding lilies in his hands corresponds to Loko Atiso, lwa of medicinal plants, and Saint Peter corresponds to lwa Pyè Dantò and Pyè Danbala. The same type of analogy determined that Saint Patrick and the Immaculate Conception, with serpents at their feet, be associated with the lwa couple, Danbala Wedo and Ayida Wedo, the serpent gods. The same picture sometimes corresponds to several lwa as can be observed in the following list (Métraux 1958; Benjamin 1976): Achade Ogou: Saint James the Greater Agwetaroyo/Agwe: Saint Ulrick Ayida Lakansyèl: Our Lady of Mount Carmel Ayida Wedo: Immaculate Conception, Our Lady of Grace Ayizan: Saint Lucy Bawon Sanmdi: Saint Gerard Majella Bosou Twa Kòn: Saint Vincent de Paul Danbala Lakansyèl: Saint Moses Danbala Wedo: Saint Patrick Ezili: Mater Salvatoris, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Grann Alouba: Mater Dolorosa Grann Batala: Saint Anne Grann Brijit: Saint Brigid

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Grann Ezili: Mater Dolorosa Gede Nibo: Saint Gerard Majella Jan Batis Trase Tonm: Saint John the Baptist Kaptenn Zonbi: Saint Francis of Assisi Klemezin Klèmèy: Saint Clare La Sirèn: Caridad del Cobre Legba Atibon: Saint Anthony of Padua Legba Mèt Potay: Saint Peter Legba Mèt Kafou: Saint Lazarus Legba Nago: Saint James the Greater Lenglensou: Saint Michael Loko Atiso: Saint Joseph Marasa: Saints Cosmas and Damian Ogou Badagri: Saint James the Greater Ogou Balindjo: Saint James the Greater Ogou Batala: Saint Philip Ogou Feray: Saint George Ogou Chango: Saint George Pyè Danbala : Saint Peter Pyè Dantò: Saint Peter Silvani Mede: Our Lady of Ransom Simbi Twa Kafou: The Three Kings Simbi Yandezo: The Three Kings Simbi Bwa: The Three Kings Simbi Dlo: Saint Raphael Ti Jan Dantò: Saint John the Evangelist Zaka: Saint Isidore C ONCLUSION In 1953, in La Tradition Voudou, Milo Rigaud underscored Vodoun’s ability to “forever survive.” Around the same time, Alfred Métraux, in Vaudou haïtien, stated the opposite: “it will have to disappear.” Today, half a century later, it still survives and keeps on providing a considerable service for the mental health of Haitians. In the face of their daily trials, Vodoun worship offers them a source of hope, an illusion maybe, the feeling they have some control over their spiritual and physical environment, thanks to the lwa. Gérard Alphonse Férère Translated by Pascale Bécel See also Candomblé; Haiti; Petwo; Rada; Santería.

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966 | Vodoun F URTHER R EADING Beauvoir, Max. 1988. Interview with Camille Lownds Benedict. Voodoo in the 20th Century. Fama II Productions. Benjamin, René S. 1976. Introspection dans l’inconnu. New York: French Printing Publishing Company. Davis, Wade. 1985. The Serpent and the Rainbow. New York: Simon and Schuster. Davis, Wade. 1988. The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombi. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Desmangles, Leslie. 1992. The Faces of the Gods: Vodou and Catholicism in Haiti. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Erickson, Carolly. 1976. The Medieval Vision. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Férère, Gérard A. 1976. “Haitian Voodoo: Its True Face.” Caribbean Quarterly (September– December). Férère, Gérard A. 1979. What Is Haitian Voodoo? Philadelphia: Saint Joseph’s University Press. Férère, Gérard A. 1989. Le Vodouisme Haïtien / Haitian Vodouism. Edition bilingue. Philadelphia: Saint Joseph’s University Press.

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Férère, Nancy T. 2005. Vèvè: L’Art rituel du Vodou haïtien / Ritual Art of Haitian Vodou / Arte ritual del Vodou haitiano. Boca Raton, FL: Educavisions. Laguerre, Michel. 1989. Voodoo and Politics in Haïti. New York: Saint Martin Press. Laroche, M. 1976. “The Myth of Zombi.” In Exile and Tradition. Halifax, Canada: Longman and Dalhousie University Press. Maximilien, Louis. 1945. Le Vodou haïtien. Portau-Prince, Haiti: Imprimerie de l’Etat. Métraux, Alfred. 1958. Le Vaudou haïtien. Paris: Gallimard. Rigaud, Milo. 1953. La Tradition voudou et le voudou haïtien. Paris: Niclaus. Roumain, Jacques. 1942. A Propos de la campagne anti-superstitieuse. Port-au-Prince, Haiti: Imprimerie de l’Etat. Roumain, Jacques. 1943. Le Sacrifice du tambour assotor. Port-au-Prince, Haiti: Publications du Bureau d’Ethnologie. Saint-Gérard, Yves. 1992. Le Phénomène zombi: la présence en Haïti de sujets en état de non-être. Toulouse, France: Editions Eres.

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and was arrested for marijuana possession in 1967. Despite the fact that the police found no marijuana on his person, he was convicted on officer testimony that he had stashed a bag in a nearby barrel. He ended up serving a year and two months in prison, an experience that undoubtedly inspired the captivating track “Battering Down Sentence” on his seminal (solo) album, Blackheart Man (1976), his first album after the Wailers parted ways. With tracks like “Rastaman,” “Reincarnated Souls,” “Bide Up,” “Fig-Tree,” “Armagedeon,” “Dreamland,” “Battering Down Sentence” and the title track “Black Heart Man,” the album is regarded by many as Wailer’s masterpiece. His subsequent albums, Protest (1977), Struggle (1978), and In I Father’s House (1979) continued in the same rootsy vein as Black Heart Man, with varying degrees of success until he made a distinct change in his approach to the reggae recording scene in the 1980s, when he started to incorporate various elements of the dancehall music style that had arrived on the scene. Wailer’s master plan apparently was to promote involvement of Rastafari with all the various branches of reggae music that were emerging at that time. In 1990, Wailer released his historic Time Will Tell: A Tribute to Bob Marley, for which he

Neville O’Riley Livingston—immortalized as Bunny Wailer of “Wailers” fame—was born in Jamaica, West Indies, on April 10, 1947. He is the last living member of the original vocal group once known as the Wailing Wailers, which included Peter Tosh and Bob Marley. Wailer’s relationship with Marley and Tosh stretched back to his childhood, when all three lived under the same roof in Trenchtown, a neighborhood in Kingston, Jamaica, in the late 1950s. His history with Marley goes back further than his history with Tosh, as the two lived in rural Nine Miles, St. Ann, before their families moved to Trenchtown. As teenagers Wailer, Marley, and Tosh spent countless evenings practicing their harmonies under the tutelage of the legendary Joe Higgs. Wailer, considered by some in the reggae industry to be a recluse, has an etherealness about him that belies his undeniable presence both on and off stage. Still he remains one of the pivotal pillars of a Jamaican recording scene that distinguished itself with ska in the early 1960s, rocksteady in the late 1960s, and reggae in the 1970s. Wailer, like many struggling black youth in Jamaica, became a target for police harassment 967 www.abc-clio.com

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received his first Grammy award in 1991. The second album that he received a Grammy award for was Crucial: Roots Classics released on the Shanachie Label in 1994. This album essentially collected the “Roots” reggae singles released during the early 1980s along with tracks from the original Roots album Struggle. Wailer’s third Grammy award was for Hall of Fame: A Tribute to Bob Marley (1995), making Wailer the recipient of the most reggae Grammy awards so far, save for Ziggy Marley, who has also received three Grammys. A relatively recent album release from Wailer is Communication (2000). In it he expresses the view that the absence of communication has led to many of the world’s current wars, conflicts, and state of tension (Barnett 2001). Wailer, a soulful and spiritual Rastaman and an artist is still a major force in the reggae music industry. In early 2005, Wailer released a seven-CD box set entitled The Wailers: The Legacy, which not only recaps the early music of the Wailers but also includes a personal testimonial from Wailer on the trials and tribulations that he, Bob Marley, and Peter Tosh encountered on their way to worldwide fame. Michael Barnett See also Jamaica; Marley, Robert Nesta (Bob) (1945–1981); Rastafarianism; Reggae; Tosh, Peter (1944–1987). F URTHER R EADING Barnett, Michael. February 2001. Personal interview with Bunny Wailer. Miami, Florida.

z Walcott, Derek Alton (1930–) Born January 23, 1930, on the British-colonized Caribbean island of Saint Lucia, Derek Walcott’s creative work draws strongly on his pluralistic background. Raised with the influences of both Caribbean and European society,

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Walcott’s poetry and plays explore identity as it connects to culture, race, history, and myth. An artist who experienced firsthand the conflicting traditions and values of native, colonial, and postcolonial structures, Walcott works with literary and historical traditions to express hybrid identity. Awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1992, Walcott has developed an oeuvre that questions the construction of the past and the effect of such constructions on the present. Walcott’s use of language plays a large part in this examination, as when he includes Caribbean patois alongside colonial British English in his epic work Omeros (1990), a Homeric tale spanning nations and history in its quest to follow threads of human development across traditionally imposed borders of time, land, and culture. Although most widely known as a Caribbean author, Walcott’s work incorporates the conventions of multiple cultures, emphasizing the connections between them. Walcott’s father died in 1931, and his mother, a teacher at a Methodist infant school, supplemented his colonial education. He graduated from St. Mary’s College in Castries, Saint Lucia in 1947. He then proceeded in 1950 to the University College of the West Indies in Jamaica on scholarship. After his graduation in 1954, he taught in Saint Lucia and Grenada, and his writing career began to flourish. After winning a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation to study American theater in 1957, he returned to the Caribbean and began the Trinidad Theatre Workshop. His awards include a Guinness Award for Poetry, a Royal Society of Literature Award, the Queen’s Medal for Poetry, the Cholmondeley Prize, and fellowships with the Eugene O’Neill and MacArthur foundations. In 1971, his play Dream on Monkey Mountain received an Obie for the best foreign off-Broadway production. He is an honorary member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Walcott’s poetry collections include The Prodigal (2004), Tiepolo’s Hound (2000), The

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Walker, Alice (1944–) | 969 Bounty (1997), Omeros (1990), The Arkansas Testament (1987), Collected Poems: 1948–1984 (1986), Midsummer (1986), The Fortunate Traveller (1981), The Star-Apple Kingdom (1979), Sea Grapes (1976), Another Life (1973), The Gulf (1970), The Castaway (1965), and In a Green Night (1962). His plays include The Odyssey: A Stage Version (1992), The Isle Is Full of Noises (1982), Remembrance and Pantomime (1980), The Joker of Seville and O Babylon! (1978), Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays (1970), and A Branch of the Blue Nile (1969). Amanda Conrad See also Caribbean Migrations: The Caribbean Diaspora; Creole, Creolity, Creolization; Mulatta; Trinidad and Tobago. F URTHER R EADING Baugh, Edward. 2006. Derek Walcott. Cambridge Studies in African and Caribbean Literature 10. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Terada, Rei. 1992. Derek Walcott’s Poetry: American Mimicry. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Thieme, John. 1999. Derek Walcott. Contemporary World Writers. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.

z Walker, Alice (1944–) Alice Walker is a Pulitzer Prize–winning author of such texts as The Color Purple (1982), The Temple of My Familiar (1989), and Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992). In addition to her writing, Walker is also a noted activist and social critic credited with coining the term “womanism.” Born February 9, 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia, to sharecropping parents, Walker has received numerous awards for her books and other publications. Walker is an author whose writing is heavily influenced by her own child-

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hood experiences. As a young girl, Walker was shot in the eye with a BB gun causing scar tissue to envelop her eye. She suffered alienation as a result of her deformity before the scar tissue was finally removed. As a young woman Walker attended first Spelman College and then eventually received her bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College in 1965. Upon graduation she worked in the New York Welfare Department before relocating to Mississippi with her husband. In Mississippi, Walker taught black studies at Jackson State University where she released her first book of poetry in 1968. It was also during her tenure at Jackson State that Walker participated in the Civil Rights Movement and helped with voter registration among African Americans. Her first novel, published in 1970, The Third Life of Grange Copeland, is said to be based on her experiences within the civil rights struggle in Mississippi. In 1973, Walker, along with Charlotte D. Hunt, located the unmarked grave of Zora Neale Hurston. The two paid for a tombstone marker for the African American writer and folklorist, and through their efforts Hurston received much deserved attention from the literary world. As an activist, Walker has not only participated in the Civil Rights struggle but has also spoken out against the U.S. embargo against Cuba in the 1980s. As a feminist scholar, she has challenged traditional definitions of feminism and has developed a framework she has termed “womanism.” Within her text In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose, womanism is introduced to address the particular needs and demands of African American women. Womanism therefore combines the concepts of the Civil Rights Movement with Walker’s own brand of black feminism to provide an alternative to African American feminists. Walker has also been an active campaigner against the practice of female circumcision, which appears both in The Color Purple, Possessing the Secret of Joy, and Warrior Marks, a non-fiction book and

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film she produced on the subject with Pratibha Parmar in 1993. Her concept of “womanism” echoes in the works of other writers across the African diaspora. Walker has received numerous awards for her writings, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Rosenthal Award, and the Lyndhurst Prize. Despite these accolades and general critical acclaim, Walker has also been criticized for her negative depictions of African American men within her fiction. Additionally, she has received criticism for her books and ironically, her participation in the documentary project Warrior Marks was labeled by some African feminist scholars as an ethnocentric work that ignored African women’s agency. Walker, who now lives in California, continues to be a prolific writer and social activist despite these criticisms. In addition to those mentioned, her works include Once (1976), Meridian (1976), The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult (1996), By the Light of My Father’s Smile (1998), Absolute Truth in the Goodness of the Earth (2003), and We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For (2006). Tiffany Pogue See also Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Bloom, Harold, ed. 2002. Alice Walker. Broomall, PA: Chelsea House Publishers. Hendrickson, Roberta M. 1999. “Remembering the Dream: Alice Walker, Meridian and the Civil Rights Movement.” MELUS 24 (3): 111– 128. White, Evelyn C. 2004. Alice Walker: A Life. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

z Walker, David (1785–1830) David Walker was the first prominent African American human rights activist. His views on armed resistance to oppression as well as

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African American self-help strategies remain influential to African American social discourse. In Wilmington, North Carolina, on September 28, 1785, he was born free under North Carolina law by virtue of having a free mother and slave father. He early learned to read and write, and he read extensively on the subjects of revolution and resistance to oppression. In 1826, Walker then moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where he became a writer for Freedom’s Journal, the first African American newspaper, and a leader in the Massachusetts General Colored Association. His Prince Hall Mason membership and his used clothing store helped establish him as a community leader. During 1828, Walker’s speech to the Massachusetts General Colored Association called for African Americans to produce positive change by helping each other, while opposing the inaction of those that allowed racism to flourish. He added to this argument using four published abolitionist articles to make his pamphlet Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (1829), thereby making it titularly an African Diaspora text. The Appeal articulates Christian philosophy and calls for African Americans to study and attack Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the States of Virginia (1785), particularly since Jefferson was himself an owner of slaves. In addition, he expresses the hope that the inhumane treatment of African Americans will end. His message to African Americans was that slavery was inhumane and armed revolt was justified in destroying this system. In 1829, Walker worked tirelessly to have his pamphlet circulated nationally and internationally by mailing it and hiding it in the clothes he sold to sailors from his store. Copies of the Appeal were delivered to a minister in Savannah, Georgia, who informed the police of the Appeal. The police then informed the governor of Georgia. This led the Georgia state legislature to enact a law prohibiting the circulation of materials that could cause a slave rebellion and making the violation of this law a

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Walker, George William (1873–1911) | 971 criminal offense. The legislature even offered a reward for Walker’s capture, $10,000 alive and $1,000 dead. Even abolitionists disagreed with Walker’s message and strategies, including William Lloyd Garrison, who printed parts of the Appeal in addition to reviewing it in the Liberator. Many abolitionists did, however, support Walker’s conclusion that chattel slavery must end immediately. Walker was warned to settle in Canada, but he refused to leave Boston. On June 28, 1830, he died in Boston under mysterious circumstances leading many to believe foul play was involved. Walker’s appeal for African Americans to become instruments of their own liberation has proved vital to their strategies for obtaining full citizenship and human rights. Aaron Ogletree See also African Americans and the Constitutional Order. F URTHER R EADING Aptheker, Herbert, ed. 1965. One Continual Cry: David Walker’s Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World. New York: Humanities Press. Bennett, Lerone, Jr. 1968. Pioneers in Protest. Chicago: Johnson Publishing Company. Hinks, Peter P. 1997. To Awaken My Afflicted Brethren: David Walker and the Problem of Antebellum Slave Resistance. University Park: Penn State University Press. Hinks, Peter P. 2000. David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World. U.

z Walker, George William (1873–1911) George William Walker (1873–1911) was a gifted dancer, comedian, and businessman and a leading figure in black musical theater. Born in Lawrence, Kansas, he began his career in entertainment performing in a medicine show. Around 1893, he traveled west to California, where he met Antiguan actor Bert Williams.

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The two had a 16-year partnership, working together first in minstrelsy, and later in vaudeville and black musical theater. By the time of his death, Walker had become (with Williams) the first black recording artist, working with Victor Talking Machine Company beginning in 1901. He had also headed an all-black theatrical company, the Williams and Walker Company. The performers’ partnership began as “Walker and Williams,” with Walker as the comedian of the duo. Years later, however, Williams one day playfully decided to perform in blackface, using burnt cork to cover his naturally fair skin. He was an overwhelming success; so much so that the two eventually changed their billing to Williams and Walker. Williams continued to perform in blackface, with hits like “Nobody,” but Walker never used blackface makeup during his career. In many ways, the offstage Walker reflected the character he played onstage. Onstage, Walker was a flamboyant, fashionable, citified “dandy.” A dynamic person, he used the character type—which had originated as a stereotype in minstrelsy—to his advantage. Outspoken and active, he was “a race man,” committed to supporting and defending blacks’ rights. He publicly shared his vision to erect an “Ethiopian” theater created for and by Afro-Americans. He fought for—and won— the Williams and Walker Company’s placement in first-class theaters, which was unprecedented. He also played a founding role in creating the Frogs, a black theatrical company based in Harlem, New York. In 1899, he married Aida Overton, a talented dancer and outspoken proponent of civil rights for blacks. Walker would play a significant role in the development of her career. Bert Williams died in March 1922, after collapsing while performing “Under a Bamboo Tree.” From 1898 to 1909, Walker and Williams starred in numerous original productions, creating their own company and employing black people as cast and crew. The shows, mounted

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in New York City, were Senegambian Carnival (1898), A Lucky Coon (1898), The Policy Players (1899), Sons of Ham (1900), In Dahomey (1902), Abyssinia (1906), and Bandanna Land (1907). In Dahomey brought them their greatest success, however; it had the distinction of being “the first book-length musical written and played by blacks to be performed at a major Broadway house” (Bordman 1978, 190). While working on Bandanna Land years later, Walker fell ill; he was suffering from syphilis, which was at that time an incurable disease. He retired from the stage in 1909, and died on January 6, 1911. He was 38 years old. Camille F. Forbes See also Williams, Egbert Austin (1874–1922). F URTHER R EADING Bordman, Gerald. 1978. American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle. New York: Oxford University Press. Charters, Ann. 1970. Nobody: The Story of Bert Williams. New York: Macmillan. Phillips, Caryl. 2005. Dancing in the Dark, a Novel about Bert Williams. New York: Knopf. Rowland, Mabel. 1923. Bert Williams—Son of Laughter. New York: English Crafters. Smith, Eric Ledell. 1992. Bert Williams: A Biography of the Pioneer Black Comedian. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

z Walker, Sheila Suzanne (1944–) Sheila S. Walker is an anthropologist who has done perhaps the most far-reaching African Diaspora connections in the contemporary period, aided by the fact that she has fluency in several languages where African diaspora communities reside. She is president of Afrodiaspora, Inc., a nonprofit organization that is developing video documentaries, a digital archive, and educational materials concerning the African Diaspora. She has been the director of the African Diaspora and the World Pro-

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gram at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. Previously she was the William and Camille Cosby Endowed Professor in the Humanities and Social Sciences at Spelman, and director of the Center for African and African American Studies and Annabel Irion Worsham Centennial Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. She has also held faculty appointments at the University of California at Berkeley and the College of William & Mary and visiting professorships at Smith College, the Schomburg Research Center, and the City University of New York. Walker has also conducted extensive field research and participated in cultural activities throughout Africa and the African Diaspora in the Americas. Walker’s scholarly and popular publications include the edited volume African Roots/American Cultures: Africa in the Creation of the Americas (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001) and video companion documentary Scattered Africa: Faces and Voices of the African Diaspora; The Religious Revolution in the Ivory Coast: The Prophet Harris and the Harris Church (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983); African Christianity: Patterns of Religious Continuity, coedited with George Bond and Walton Johnson (New York: Academic Press, 1979); and Ceremonial Spirit Possession in Africa and Afro-America (Leiden, Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1972). Walker’s scholarship and fluency in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Italian have informed her consultancies to governments, public history and culture initiatives, museums, archives, repositories, and development agencies. Her memberships in African Diaspora organizations include the steering committee of the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora; the advisory council of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History; chairpersonship of the Education and Culture Expert Committee for the National Summit on Africa; a jury member at Festival Panafricain de Cinéma de Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso;

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Ward, Frederick (1937–) | 973 the African Burial Ground Project; the advisory committee for the African Voices Project at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution; the board of directors of the West Africa Research Association; and the advisory committee of the Constituency for Africa in Washington, D.C. Walker organized a landmark 1996 conference, The African Diaspora and the Modern World, cosponsored by the University of Texas at Austin and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). She also served as an international lecturer at the March 2000 Instituto Superior de Formación Afro, Organizaciones Mundo Afro in Montevideo, Uruguay. Walker has held membership on the UNESCO World Decade of Culture’s International Scientific and Technical Committee, La Route de l’Esclave, since its 1994 inception. Gloria Harper Dickinson See also African American Women. F URTHER R EADING Rastafari.com. www.rastafari.com. Accessed February 24, 2008. Walker, Sheila S. ed. 2001. African Roots/American Cultures: Africa in the Creation of the Americas. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.

z Ward, Frederick (1937–) The now African-Canadian poet, novelist, screenwriter, playwright, artist, composer, actor, and teacher Frederick E. Ward was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1937. Ward was set before a keyboard at once by his tailor father and music-loving mother. As a youth, he studied art on a scholarship at the University of Kansas. Later, returning to music, he imbibed composition at the University of Missouri. This startling and unique genius fuses jazz

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rhythms, blues surrealism, and rap diction in impeccably musical texts. Like a rolling stone—or a restless Beat— Ward went to Hollywood to write songs, then pursued jazz piano with Oscar Peterson in Toronto. In the mid-1960s, he traveled to Arizona, where he took up Black Mountain–styled poetry under the gaze of Robert Creeley. Ward’s first book, Poems, appeared in 1964. His next was an edited anthology, Six Baha’i Poets (1966). This work signaled Ward’s adherence to the Baha’i faith as well as to the kaleidoscopic, cosmopolitan vision of his brother Baha’i and “Aframerican,” Robert Hayden (1913–1980). (Like Hayden, Ward assembles words “raced” by street talk and mama wisdom, Afrocentric “roots” plus rainbow multiculturalism.) After witnessing the Detroit riot of 1968, Ward exchanged its burning tenements for the Gothic and medieval architecture of Ville de Québec, spending two years in the walled city. Just as revolutionary fervor reached a boiling point in Quebec in 1970, Ward booked passage to Denmark to practice piano. However, a dockworker’s strike stranded him in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Befriended by refugees from the Africadian (African-Nova Scotian) village of Africville, which Halifax had just bulldozed into rubble, Ward remained in the city throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, teaching and writing the bulk of his oeuvre. Ward’s first—and finest—novel, Riverlisp, appeared in 1974. It is a series of sketches of the inhabitants of an Africville-like community, semirural, yet located within a city. Multiple narrators offer fragmented, “musicalized” accounts of mixed-up quests for love and spiritual salvation. It most recalls the AfricanAmerican fiction masterpiece Cane (1923) by Jean Toomer (1894–1967), but it is distinctly more Joycean in method and elliptical in structure. The next two novels, Nobody Called Me Mine (1977) and A Room Full of Balloons (1981), repeat the strategies of Riverlisp but are more African American in locale. Ward’s second poetry collection, The Curing Berry

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(1983), yields again his patented union of sound and sense, perhaps no better articulated than in “Blind Man’s Blues,” the narrative of an incestuous, dysfunctional love affair. Since moving to Montreal in the 1980s, Ward has not published any further books. However, his role in the feature film he wrote, Train of Dreams (1987), won him Best Actor laurels at the Chicago International Film Festival. Moreover, plays, short stories, and poems—often new—continue to turn up in every significant gathering of African-Canadian literature, as well as those of queer Canadian writers. George Elliott Clarke See also Canada and the African Diaspora; Nova Scotia and the African American Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Ward, Frederick. 1977. Nobody Called Me Mine: Black Memories. Plattsburgh: Tundra Books of Northern New York.

z Warner-Vieyra, Myriam (1939–) Myriam Warner-Vieyra is a Guadeloupean author whose novels are powerful renditions of the experiences and psychological traumas of French Antilleans in France and Africa, where they face oppression, isolation, rejection, and disillusionment. Their suffering and hopelessness lead them to the abyss of despair and to mental alienation. At times, Warner-Vieyra inserts incisive sociopolitical commentaries into her stories. In all of her texts, the writer mixes dreams, hallucinations, the Caribbean and African occult, and memory flashbacks within a realistic narrative frame. Her deceptively simple and rather unassuming style sustains haunting images of disenchantment, betrayal, disfiguration, castration, and suicide. Warner-Vieyra’s literary crisscrossing mirrors her biographical trajectory. Born in 1939 in

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Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, at age 12 she joined her mother in France. In 1961, she married the Benin-born filmmaker Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, and they settled in Dakar, Senegal, where she worked for many years as a librarian and still resides. She travels occasionally to Guadeloupe and frequently to Paris, where her three children and four grandchildren live. Warner-Vieyra’s first work, As the Sorcerer Said. . . , narrates the story of Zétou, a talented teenager who leaves the island where she lives happily with her nurturing grandmother to go to France to be with her abusive mother. Zétou’s forced abandonment of her sunny Caribbean matrix, the lack of schooling and contact with other adolescents, emotional isolation, and her mother’s mistreatment and betrayal, eventually lead the young girl to a Paris psychiatric ward. Much like Zétou, the eponymous protagonist of Warner-Vieyra’s second novel, Juletane, is severed from Guadeloupe at age 10. With the death of both parents, Juletane is sent to live in Paris with her godmother, an unmarried middle-aged seamstress. After her godmother’s death, she meets and marries Mamadou, an African student with whom she embarks for Africa when he receives his law degree. Aboard the ship bound for her husband’s homeland, Juletane discovers that he is also married to an African woman. Immediately after learning of Mamadou’s deceit, Juletane envisions her return to Paris, but she stays in Africa. Later, grieving over the miscarriage of a child, which leaves her sterile, and not adjusting to the polygamous situation, especially when the husband takes a third wife, Juletane grows mentally ill, kills the first wife’s children, and ends up in an insane asylum, where she dies. Her story is conveyed to readers through her diary. Warner-Vieyra’s most recent works include fictional writings in several publications and Femmes échouées (Shipwrecked Women), a collection of nine short stories set in the Caribbean and France, which have themes similar to those in her novels. Françoise Pfaff

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Water Mama/Mami Wata | 975 See also Guadeloupe; Négritude. F URTHER R EADING Fragd, Lulamae. 2002. “Reading Your Self Home: Myriam Warner-Vieyra’s Juletane.” CLA Journal 15 (4): 477–496. Lionnet, Françoise. 1992. “Inscriptions of Exile: The Body’s Knowledge and the Myth of Authenticity.” Callaloo 15 (1): 30–40. Lionnet, Françoise. 1993. “Geographies of Pain: Captive Bodies and Violent Acts in the Fictions of Myriam Warner-Vieyra, Gayl Jones, and Bessie Head.” Callaloo 16 (1): 132–152. Ngate, Jonathan. 1986. “Reading Warner-Vieyra’s Juletane.” Callaloo 29 (Autumn): 553–564. Pfaff, Françoise. 1995. “Conversations with Myriam Warner-Vieyra.” CLA Journal 39 (1): 26– 48. Warner-Vieyra, Myriam. 1980. Le Quimboiseur l’avait dit . . .. Paris: Présence Africaine. Published in English as As the Sorcerer Said. . . , trans. Dorothy S. Blair. London: Longman Drumbeat, 1982. Warner-Vieyra, Myriam. 1982. Juletane. Paris: Présence Africaine. Published in English as Juletane, trans. Betty Wilson. London: Heinemann, 1987. Warner-Vieyra, Myriam. 1988. Femmes échouées. Paris: Présence Africaine. Warner-Vieyra, Myriam. 2000. “La nièce de ma voisine-cousine.” In La nouvelle sénégalaise: Texte et contexte, ed. James Gaasch, 217–26. Saint-Louis, Senegal: Editions Xamal.

z Washington, Booker T. (1856–1915) See Tuskegee Institute/Tuskegee University.

z Water Mama/Mami Wata “Mami Wata” (Mama Water) is the pidgin English term for a female nature spirit that is

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widely used along the Atlantic coast of West Africa and the Americas. Many indigenous cosmologies included nature spirits, which were believed to bring material wealth and protect fertility, as long as the required sacrifices were performed. Nature spirits were considered to be present in the rivers and creeks, locations that became important trading sites for the transatlantic slave trade and the palm oil trade. Aspects of the European trade shaped the Mami Wata beliefs; for example, the female figureheads carved on the prows of European trade ships were often perceived to be representations of water spirits. In Calabar, an important slave port in the Cross River region of southeastern Nigeria, Mami Wata was the generic term used to refer to the indigenous ndem nature spirits of the Efik and Ibibio people. The landscape of the city is dominated by the Calabar River and the Qua River. In the local cosmology, the human world (ererimbot) was mirrored by an underwater world of spirits (obio ndem). Some people were believed to have existed in both worlds, as related in the popular Efik drama, Asibong Edem. In the traditional religion of Calabar, the worship of ndem spirits was practiced by women who were initiated into the office of priestess. The ndem priestess could identify the presence of ndem spirits in people’s lives and could specify the necessary sacrifices to make to the spirits. Certain foodstuffs and objects associated with fertility were considered appropriate sacrifices to be left at the shore, such as eggs and red and white cloth. Ndem spirits were believed to be capricious and demanding, capable of bringing about both good events, such as wealth and fertility, or bad events, such as madness caused by spirit possession or death by drowning. In Calabar, ndem were often represented as mermaid figures, light skinned, with long hair, and carrying a comb and mirror. Other ndem were considered to take the form of water snakes and precious jewels, which could sometimes appear as shimmering lights beneath the water.

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Mami Wata appears throughout coastal West Africa by different names. Many narratives of sighting Mami Wata exist throughout the Caribbean as represented artistically in the work of the Carriacou artist (Canute Calliste) where she is a major figure in the folklore and oral literary tradition. Representations in Latin America merge her also with Yemaya, the Yoruba orisha of the sea. A number of Mami Wata Festivals are held annually in Africa and the Americas. Phillipa Hall See also Candomblé; Grenada; Osun (Oxum/Ochun/Oshun); Santería; Yemoja/Olokun in the Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Boone, Sylvia Ardyn. 1990. Radiance from the Waters: Ideals of Feminine Beauty in Mende Art. New Haven: Yale University Press. Caliste, Canute. 1989. The Mermaid Wakes. Paintings of a Caribbean Isle. (Text by Lora Berg and Margaret Deutsch.) London: Macmillan Education, Ltd. Edyang, E. A. 1986. Asibong Edem. Calabar, Nigeria: Wusen Press. Hackett, R. 1985. “From Ndem cults to Rosicrucians: A study of religious change, pluralism and interaction in the town of Calabar, southeastern Nigeria.” PhD diss. University of Aberdeen. Kalejaiye, Dipo. 2006. Mammy-Water and Other Stories. Frederick, MD.: Publish America.

z Wells-Barnett, Ida B. (1862–1931) Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a journalist, fiercely brave antilynching crusader, racial uplifter, suffragist, and orator. Founder and cofounder of numerous organizations for racial and gender equality, she made it her life’s mission to travel internationally to garner support for her crusade against the lynching of black people.

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Ida Bell Wells was born during the Civil War on July 16, 1862, in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Wells attended both Shaw and Fisk University, but the 16-year-old quickly returned to assume responsibility for raising and caring for her remaining siblings after her parents died. Wells secured a teaching position 6 miles away after lying about her age. In 1884, Wells gained notoriety after refusing to give up her first-class train seat to make room for white passengers. She was forcefully tossed off the train by three white men. She sued the railroad and won, but later lost on appeal. This incident caused her to begin writing in a local Baptist church paper, the Living Way, reporting on local, statewide and national issues plaguing black people in a racially hostile climate. Her articles were so well received that other newspapers across the country began to print her column. In 1889, Wells bought a onethird interest in the paper Free Speech and served as editor as well. She also became secretary of the National Afro-American Press Association, the first woman to be so elected, and she spoke and wrote on lynching, discrimination, and women’s right to vote. The vocal Wells was later terminated from her teaching post in 1891 because she criticized the Memphis Board of Education for the poor conditions of black schools. She resolved to work full time as a journalist. In 1892, three of Wells’s friends were lynched; they were businessmen who ran a new store that competed and took away business from another store owned by a white man. Wells began to print editorials against lynching and to research the subject. She urged all black people to leave Memphis and go west. Many heeded to her call, and Memphis businesses suffered. Wells found that most lynchings were not the result of a black man being accused of raping a white woman, as generally reported, and suggested that in one-third of lynching cases in which there was an accusation of rape, most of those incidents were rather relationships of mutuality and

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Wells-Barnett, Ida B. (1862–1931) | 977 that it was rather white women who desired black men. An angry white mob ransacked and burned the office of her newspaper The Free Speech, threatening to lynch her on sight. Wells, who was fortunately out of town on engagements in Philadelphia and New York, learned of the incident and was advised not to return. Wells began writing for a New York newspaper, the New York Age, and became part owner. In 1892, she published Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. In 1895, she published A Red Record, a work on race lynching in America, and in 1900, Mob and Rule in New Orleans. Wells’s publications on lynching, in which she recorded actual cases, names, and testimonials, educated America and Europe on the conspiracy against African Americans’ lives. Wells traveled to Europe to continue her cause against lynching, meanwhile working with the suffragist movement fighting for equality for women as well as championing the racial cause. She also established the Anti-Lynching Committee in England in 1893. In June 1895, Wells married Ferdinand Barnett, a respected Chicago lawyer, founder and editor of the Conservator, the first black newspaper in Chicago; she had two sons and two daughters with him. Wells did not permit her new life to prevent her activism and even traveled to suffragist and racial uplift meetings while nursing her children. In 1909, Wells became a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, from which she would later resign because it failed to take what it considered her militant stance against lynching. Wells was also an outspoken opponent of Booker T. Washington’s racial politics. She was a member of the National American Women’s Suffrage Association. A friend of Susan B. Anthony and Jane Addams, she fought alongside them for women’s voting rights and to integrate the organization fully. Wells, who was discouraged from marching in the historic 1913 suffrage parade in Washington, D.C., for

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fear of offending southern white women, defiantly joined in. Wells was effectively active as a journalist, an orator, and an organizer of movements and organizations. She established the first black women’s civic clubs in Chicago and Boston and was a founding member of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs in 1896. In 1910, she formed the Negro Fellowship League, an organization that provided housing and transportation for black southerners relocating to the North. Wells founded the Alpha Club, the first black women’s suffrage organization in 1913. With Jane Addams, she won the fight against the segregation of Chicago schools. Moreover, Wells served as a probation officer in Chicago from 1913 to 1917, the first black woman to do so. In 1930, although a Republican, she ran unsuccessfully for the state senate as an independent. In 1931, Ida B. Wells died at 69 years old, a celebrated representative of Chicago and the entire country. Miriam C. Gyimah See also Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Jim Crow; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); Till, Emmett (1941–1955). F URTHER R EADING Decosta-Willis, Miriam, ed. 1995. The Memphis Diary of Ida B. Wells: An Intimate Portrait of the Activist as a Young Woman. Boston: Beacon. Duster, Alfreda M., ed. 1970. Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Giddings, Paula. 1984. When and Where I Enter. New York: William Morrow and Co. Giddings, Paula. 2008. Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching. New York: Harper Collins, Amistad Books. McKissack, Patricia, and Fredrick McKissack. 1991. Ida B. Wells-Barnett: A Voice Against Violence. New York: Enslow Publishers. Schechter, Patricia A. 2001. Ida B. Wells-Barnett and American Reform, 1880–1930. Gender and American Culture Series. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Shelf-Medearis, Angela. 1997. Princess of the Press: The Story of Ida B. Wells-Barnett. New York: Lodestar Books.

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978 | West African Students Union (WASU) Sterling, Dorothy. 1988. Black Foremothers: Three Lives. New York: The Feminist Press.

z West African Students Union (WASU) The West African Students Union (WASU) was jointly founded in 1925 by Ladipo Solanke and Dr. Bankole Bright for the purpose of organizing African students in London. Solanke had reacted strongly to the representation of Africans as curios at the 1924 Wembley Exhibition and sought the assistance of Casely Hayford and other West Africans in challenging this racial representation without any appreciable success. As early as 1919, the Committee for the Welfare of Africans discussed purchasing a home to house West African students who were studying in London. At a reception held at the Lincolnshire Room, Westminister, on May 22, attended by such colonial luminaries as Sir Hugh Clifford, Lord Henry Cavendish-Bentinick (member of parliament), Sir Sydney Olivier (a Fabian, former govenor of Jamaica, and liberal defender of poor Jamaicans), Sir Victor Buxter, and others, the committee’s purpose was to consult Africans about a memorial honoring Africans who had fought in World War I. They already had 2000 pounds in their possession. In 1929 WASU sent Solanke to Nigeria to solicit financial assistance and backing for its building, which would be run as a hostel. Solanke remained until 1932, consequently creating a number of WASU branches along the West African coast in Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. Casely Hayford became the first patron of WASU in 1927, followed by Prempeh I, the exiled king of the Asante (Ashanti) in 1931, and actor/activist Paul Robeson in 1935. On January 1, 1933, WASU moved into

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its rented premises in Camden Town, and later purchased its own property in 1938 in the same borough. From its inception, Solanke saw WASU as a microcosm and precursor of a federated West African state, ultimately leading to a federated African state. This was radical thinking in 1925 and was translated practically in the orientation of WASU’s policies; three of its objectives define its political vision: (a) to act as a bureau of information on African history, customs, law, and institutions; (b) to present to the world a true picture of African life and philosophy, thereby making a definitely African contribution toward the progress of civilization; and (c) to foster a spirit of national consciousness and racial pride among its members. These objectives are still as relevant as they were in the mid-1920s, and they provide the basis for African cultural and political organizations today. In 1934, when the Colonial Office established a hostel known as Aggrey House to rival that of WASU’s, many students abandoned WASU. Still, WASU had wide affiliations with groups and organizations of different political persuasions. This was characteristic of all African political organizations in London, whether controlled by West Africans or Caribbeans. The reason, ostensibly, was to circulate WASU’s ideas and, more importantly, to solicit support for its decolonization objectives from as wide a spectrum as possible. These organizations included the National Union of Students, British Centre for Colonial Students, and the League of Coloured Peoples. WASU also had close ties with the Fabian Colonial Bureau, the Labour Party, and other left wing organizations. Although WASU took several stances, its membership was not in agreement about expressing a hard political line. Solanke, the secretary-general, had an unwavering support for Britain over all the other European powers and characterized Britain’s past misdeeds as blunders. Some felt that receiving a British education compensated them, despite Britain’s

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West India Regiments | 979 violent colonial record. Despite WASU’s persistent involvement with the causes and conditions of the African, it fell short of a holistic view of independence. WASU’s political development was empowered by the wide range of political activists who shared its platforms and events, including George Padmore, C. L. R. James, and Kwame Nkrumah. The unexpected invasion of Ethiopia by the Italian fascists under Mussolini was the most politicizing event in WASU’s history, although Britain forestalled, along with the League of Nations, on taking a prompt response. Still, this never hindered WASU from proclaiming the leniency of the British colonial system, although expressing its own political agenda. WASU in the end maintained a bipartisan position in relation to Britain and Africa. Amon Saba Saakana See also Decolonization; Garvey, Marcus Mosiah (1887–1940); James, Cyril Lionel Robert (1901–1989); Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–1972); Padmore, George (1901–1959); PanAfricanism. F URTHER R EADING Adi, Hakim. 1998. West Africans in Britain, 1900– 1960: Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and Communism. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Fryer, Peter. 1984. Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain. London; Pluto Press. Geiss, Immanuel. 1974. The Pan-African Movement, trans. Ann Keep. London: Methuen and Co. Olusanya, G. O. 1982. The West African Students Union and the Politics of Decolonisation, 1925– 1958. Ibadan, Nigeria: Daystar Press.

z West India Regiments West India Regiments were black troops the British army first enlisted in the 1790s. This was a conscious decision to use black troops to

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fulfill the growing demand for military forces in the Caribbean. The original plan was to recruit black men who had been born in the New World. This proved more difficult than expected as planters resisted this potential threat to their workforce. The government resorted to purchasing slaves from specially commissioned traders. After the slave trade was abolished in 1807, a major source of recruits was Africans rescued from slave ships. Almost constant warfare between Britain and France from 1793 to 1815 greatly increased the need for troops. Eight black regiments were commissioned in 1795. More were added to incorporate the new Guiana territory in South America and black troops from captured French islands (Dominica, Guadeloupe, and Martinique). By 1798 there were 12 black regiments of 10 battalions, each with 95 privates. Commissioned officers were all white but noncommissioned officers were often black. With the war’s end in 1798, the battle focused on the legal status of these black troops. West Indian parliaments wanted to make them subject to local slave laws. In concession to this opposition, West India Regiments were to form only one third of troops in island garrisons. Within the military, West India Regiment troops were granted pay and status equal to that of white soldiers of similar ranks, and West India Regiment soldiers were encouraged to believe they enjoyed higher status than the enslaved. In 1802, the Eighth Regiment mutinied in Dominica on rumors from local enslaved Africans that their regiment was to be disbanded and they were to be sold as slaves. Seven were executed, and the regiment was disbanded. Those not implicated in the mutiny were drafted into other West India Regiments, and the rest were redeployed in other military offices or with white regiments in the Caribbean. The Mutiny Act, outlining terms of service in the British military, was amended in 1807 to state that all blacks in the King’s service were

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free. By 1811, West India Regiments also had posts for teachers to help the many African recruits become literate in English. West India Regiments were used more extensively inside and outside the Caribbean as white troops were deployed elsewhere. During the War of 1812, West India Regiments participated in the attack on New Orleans. This marked the first time these troops were engaged outside the Caribbean. They were also involved in West African campaigns from the 1830s to the 1880s. By 1815, Caribbean garrisons were defended mainly by West India Regiments, along with foreign white troops. Individual regiments were periodically disbanded, and only two remained by 1888. In 1927, the entire regiment was disbanded, although it was revived in 1958 under the Federation of the West Indies, an amalgamation of several British colonies. The regiment was disbanded once again in 1962 when the federation disbanded. Grace Turner See also Bahamas: Liberated Africans; Creole Incident. F URTHER R EADING Buckley, Roger Norman. 1979. Slaves in Red Coats: The British West India Regiments, 1795–1815. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

z Western Hemisphere African Diaspora Network (WHADN) WHADN is the acronym for the Western Hemisphere African Diaspora Network, the brainchild of the Africa Union Western Hemisphere African Diaspora Forum organized by the Foundation for Democracy in Africa and the African Union, and held in Washington, D.C. between December 17 and 19, 2002. WHADN’s mission is to encourage and facilitate the uti-

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lization of the collective talents and resources of the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean to advance the collective interests of Africans on the continent and throughout the Diaspora. This will be accomplished through joint projects by the WHADN and the African Union. The first objective of WHADN is to encourage and facilitate the enduring cultural, social, and economic ties to Africa within the Western Hemisphere Diaspora communities; second, to develop and identify funding for capacity-building projects by Diaspora civil society organizations in the Western Hemisphere Diaspora and the African Union; and third, to work with the African Union to create mechanisms to represent the views, concerns, and interests of the African Diaspora within the African regional organization. WHADN works on the following programs: democracy, governance and rule of law; health and the environment; peace and security; education; trade and economic development; science, research, and technology; communication; and arts and culture. WHADN represents the following geographical locations: Latin America (including Mexico and Central America), the Caribbean, Brazil, the United States, and Canada. The programs and activities within WHADN are specific to the needs of the people in the Diaspora and Africa. For example, the Education Working Group’s vision is of an Africa that consistently provides quality education for all. Toward this goal, the Working Group’s activities focus on providing human and material support for Africa’s efforts in education for self-reliance and sustainable development on the continent and extending the efforts to the Diaspora. The Education Working Group achieves this through the following objectives: to increase literacy in African languages, develop curriculum, facilitate technology exchange and capacity building, expand education opportunities, and facilitate interuniversity collaboration and funding. The Trade and Economic Development Committee proposed a framework for recom-

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Wheatley, Phillis (ca. 1753–1784) | 981 mendations as prerequisites to effective and meaningful participation in African trade and development by Africans in the Western Hemisphere Diaspora. These recommendations included considering the Africa Diaspora as a business partner with the African Union; promoting the African Growth and Opportunity Act; developing capital markets, commodity markets, and commodity pricing; becoming involved in reparation and labor issues. The WHADN secretariat organizes the participation of its network members at national, regional, and international events and organizes delegations from the Diaspora to participate in the African Union Summit of Heads of State and Government to meet and discuss issues of interest with members of the African Diaspora. Fred Oladeinde See also African Union (AU). F URTHER R EADING The Foundation for Democracy in Africa Web site, www.democracy-africa.org. Western Hemisphere African Diaspora Network Web site, www.whadn.org.

z WHADN See Western Hemisphere African Diaspora Network.

z Wheatley, Phillis (ca. 1753–1784) One of the most outstanding women of the African Diaspora in North America, Phillis Wheatley flourished in Boston, Massachusetts, where—within a brief life span of only 31 years—she established herself as a poet. Wheatley was born around 1753 in the Senegambia area of West Africa, of either the

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Fulani or Wolof nation. She was abducted at the age of seven by slave raiders and taken across the Atlantic in the slave ship Phillis (for which she was named). She seems to have been taken to the coast through the infamous Goree island in Senegal, a fact that has led some biographers to assume that she was of Senegalese origins. Surviving the Middle Passage, she ended up in Boston, Massachusetts, where on July 11, 1761, she was sold to Susannah Wheatley, the wife of a tailor. A woman of kindly disposition and perspicacity, Susannah Wheatley was quick to recognize this intelligent mind and creative genius. She began by personally teaching her reading and writing. And as she hoped, young Phillis proved herself a prodigy. Within two years, she was able to read the Bible and to begin studying Latin. By the age of 13, she was already writing poetry, including “On Being Brought from Africa to America.” Baptized on August 18, 1771, Wheatley was able to purchase her own freedom the following year. By the age of 20, she had composed enough poems to fill a volume, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, which she published in London in September 1773. Before the publication of the poems, she visited England in the company of her former mistress to prepare her manuscript for the press. During this visit she made her debut as a literary celebrity. She charmed London’s literary circles and high society with her wit, youth, circumstances, and achievements. She was visited by, among other celebrities, Granville Sharp, Thomas Gibbons, the Earl of Dartmouth, and Brook Watson. Voltaire, then living in England, described her in a 1774 letter to a friend as a writer of “trèsbon vers anglais” (very good English verse). On returning to the United States, she visited Benjamin Franklin and was visited by General Washington, to whom she addressed one of her tributary poems. After the death of Susannah Wheatley in 1774, Phillis Wheatley remained in Susannah’s family home supporting herself with her poetry and by working as a seamstress. On April 1, 1776,

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she married a free black, John Peters, described as “jack-of-all-trades grocery keeper, dandy and advocate for black rights before Massachusetts courts” and moved with him to Wilmington, Massachusetts. Wheatley bore three children, all of whom died before her. She died in poverty on December 5, 1784, aged only 31. Close reading of Wheatley’s poetry reveals that beneath the apparently complacent exterior of her poetry lies strong subversive undertones informed by a strong commitment to black freedom and nostalgia for “Afric’s fancy’d happy seat” or the “pleasing Gambia” from which she was snatched as a child. Chukwuma Azuonye F URTHER R EADING Azuonye, Chukwuma, and Steven Serafin, eds. Forthcoming. The Columbia Anthology of African Literature. New York: Columbia University Press. Busby, Margaret, ed. Daughters of Africa: Poems by Black Women. New York: Penguin. Dathorne, O. R. 1974. The Black Mind: A History of African Literature. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Gates, Henry Louis, et al., eds. 1997. The Norton Anthology of African-American Literature. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. Gikandi, Simon, ed. 2003. Encyclopedia of African Literature. New York: Routledge. Herdeck, Donald E. 1974. African Authors: A Companion to Black African Writing, Volume 1: 1300–1973. Washington, D.C.: Inscape Corporation. Irele, F. Abiola, and Simon Gikandi, eds. 2004. The Cambridge History of Africa and Caribbean Literature. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Jahn, Hanheinz, Ulla Schild, and Almut Nordmann. 1972. Who’s Who in African Literature: Biographies, Works, Commentaries. Tübingen, Germany: Horst Erdmann Verlag. Killam, Douglas, and Ruth Rowe, eds. 2000. The Companion to African Literatures. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Merriam-Websters. Webster’s Dictionary of American Authors. 1996. New York: Smithmark Publishers.

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Williams, Chancellor (1898–1992) Chancellor Williams was a university professor, and author-historian. Williams rose to prominence with his 1971 work, The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D. Williams was born the youngest of five children in Bennettsville, South Carolina, on December 2, 1898. His father had been a slave, and his mother a cook, nurse, and evangelist. He received his undergraduate degree in education and a master of arts degree in history from Howard University. He studied in England, serving as a visiting research scholar at Oxford University and the University of London. When Williams began his field research in African history in Ghana (University College) in 1956, his primary focus was on African achievements and autonomous civilizations before Asian and European influences. His last study in 1964 was both ambitious and comprehensive, covering an amazing 26 countries and more than 100 language groups. Williams began to assert that African historians have a responsibility to perform independent research and investigations so that the history of African people could be told and understood from their perspective without the relying on the validation of white historians. In The Destruction of Black Civilization, Williams sought to debunk many of the pervasive racial myths that littered historical accounts of Africa, African people, and their cultures and civilizations. He maintained that “by the start of the new millennium, African people would be suffering the same problems that African people of 4500 BCE suffered unless . . . we take a step back and give a critical, crucial, and correct analysis of the problems that confront us”(xxi). In an effort to provide this corrective frame, Williams shifted the main focus from the history of Arabs and Europeans in Africa to the Africans themselves. In this way, Williams un-

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Williams, Egbert Austin (1874–1922) | 983 covered valuable paradigms for examining the political and social transitions that have occurred in African societies and how they differ from European modes of thinking, inquiry, and acquisition. He also focused on how the ideologies and value systems of the oppressors unconsciously become those of the oppressed. Not only did the book correctively describe these civilizations, but it also probed the conditions created by slavery, colonialism, and neocolonialism and delved into possible solutions for solving problems those forces created. As Williams’s health began to deteriorate in the 1970s, he enlisted the help of several contemporaries and mentees to help him complete his work. However, Williams remained an avid scholar and researcher who still lectured and wrote. Williams published more than 50 articles, professional books, and lectures, and the lesser-known The Rebirth of African Civilization (1961). In addition to being a historian and professor, Williams was editor of a newsletter, The New Challenge, an economist, a high school teacher and principal, and president of a baking company. He died in 1992. Jason Esters See also Africa; “African” in African American History. F URTHER R EADING Williams, Chancellor. 1987. The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D. Chicago: Third World Press.

z Williams, Egbert Austin (1874–1922) Egbert “Bert” Austin Williams was a black comedian of Afro-Caribbean origin who captivated American audiences with his dynamic

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stage presence and skill. Williams moved to the United States at a young age and later became the leading comedian of his time, white or black. He was first known as the comic half of Williams and Walker and worked in vaudeville and musical theater with black American George William Walker. Their partnership lasted 16 years, ending when Walker retired from the stage in 1909. Williams continued to perform, and by the end of his life, he had headlined in major vaudeville venues; made more than 60 records for Columbia Records; integrated Broadway’s famous Ziegfeld Follies; starred in a musical comedy with an otherwise all-white cast; and, upon his death, brought blacks and whites together for the first time at the once whites-only Grand Masonic Temple in New York City. Williams and Walker met in about 1893 and began performing as Walker and Williams, with Walker as the comedian. Years later, Williams playfully decided to perform in blackface, using burnt cork to cover his naturally fair skin. Ironically, he discovered his gifts as a comic through that very means. The two changed their billing to Williams and Walker, and Williams continued to perform in blackface. Walker played a fashionable citified “dandy,” whereas Williams played a dimwitted, slow-moving rural character. Although these character types had begun as stereotypes in minstrelsy, Williams and Walker revised them in their performances. The two starred in several original productions in New York between 1898 and 1909: Senegambian Carnival (1898), A Lucky Coon (1898), The Policy Players (1899), Sons of Ham (1900), In Dahomey (1902), Abyssinia (1906), and Bandanna Land (1907). In Dahomey brought them their greatest success and had the distinction of being “the first book-length musical written and played by blacks to be performed at a major Broadway house” (Bordman 1978, 190). After Walker’s retirement, Williams starred in a final black musical theater production, Mr.

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Lode of Koal. After its financial failure, he surprised both blacks and whites by taking a featured role in Florenz Ziegfeld’s Follies; he was the first black performer in the annual revue, and he joined the cast amid controversy. He also intermittently headlined as a “single” (solo comedian) in vaudeville and continued recording for Columbia. Later, Williams appeared in film, performing his famous poker pantomime in A Natural Born Gambler and expanding one of his comic monologues for Fish (both in 1916). A frustrated dramatic actor, Williams sought opportunities to play characters other than the one that had made him famous. He left Ziegfeld in 1919, hoping to fulfill his ambitions. His final production, Under the Bamboo Tree, a “play with music,” was a starring role that incorporated both comical and dramatic elements, and he planned to take it to Broadway. While performing in Detroit on February 27, 1922, however, he fell gravely ill, and the show was canceled. On March 4, 1922, Williams died. He was 47 years old. Camille F. Forbes See also Walker, George William (1873–1911). F URTHER R EADING Bordman, Gerald. 1978. American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle. New York: Oxford University Press. Charters, Ann. 1970. Nobody: The Story of Bert Williams. New York: Macmillan. Phillips, Caryl. 2005. Dancing in the Dark. New York: Knopf.

z Williams, Eric Eustace (1911–1981) Eric Eustace Williams was born on September 25, 1911, in then British colonial Trinidad, the eldest of 12 children. His father was a minor postal clerk and his mother a homemaker. A brilliant student and athlete, Williams was edu-

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cated in Trinidad, eventually winning the single Island scholarship offered annually in his field, which allowed him to attend England’s Oxford University in 1932. In 1938, he received a doctorate of philosophy for his groundbreaking dissertation on British slavery in which he explored its connection to the development of capitalism and dismissed the notion that its abolition had been solely on humanitarian grounds. In 1939, Williams was offered a faculty position teaching political science at Howard University in Washington, D.C. While there, in addition to writing numerous articles and three books, he published his revised doctoral thesis as Capitalism and Slavery (1944). He also accepted a consultancy position with the newly formed Caribbean Commission, which required extensive travel, research, and communication within the wider non-English-speaking Caribbean region. Williams eventually left Howard in 1948 to become head of the commission’s research branch in Trinidad. During this period, Williams’s calls for independence and his insistence on self-determination for Caribbean peoples became the stuff of legend. Increasingly alienating his superiors on the commission, by 1955 his contract was effectively terminated. But the charismatic Williams had captured the public’s attention and with a firm grasp of the social and political needs of the citizenry, hitherto not experienced in the country, in 1956 he founded Trinidad and Tobago’s first modern political party—the People’s National Movement (PNM)—which has been the country’s leading party since independence. Fielding a slate of candidates throughout the entire country, based on a cohesive national program and on the premise that only a team of committed people held together by a common set of principles could hope to solve the intractable problems besetting it, that same year, the PNM garnered enough popular support to win the general election. Williams served first as Chief Minister, then Premier of Trinidad and Tobago under Great Britain from 1956 until 1962 when he became

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Williams, Henry Sylvester (1869–1911) | 985 the first Prime Minister of newly independent Trinidad and Tobago. He remained in that capacity until his death on March 29, 1981. Throughout his life, Williams never ceased to uphold the fundamental aspirations of the Caribbean nation he inherited, nor did he waver in his faith in its people. Under Prime Minister Williams’s leadership, Trinidad and Tobago prospered—creating disciplined internal government, attracting foreign investment, and developing diplomatic relations between the Caribbean and nations of the First and Third Worlds. Ever the historian, while prime minister, Williams took time to write several books including a much-needed history of the West Indies, From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean, 1492–1969 (1970), and his autobiography, Inward Hunger (1969)—a record not only of his personal development but also that of an emerging contemporary nation. In the 1970s, Williams faced down a Black Power uprising that was combined with an army mutiny and persistent industrial unrest. Popular will thwarted his desire to retire from public life in 1973, and in 1976, Prime Minister Williams again led his country through political change as it became a republic. Throughout the last years of Williams’s life, his government, boosted by oil revenues from the 1970s world energy crisis, in a bold and impudent move, took the opportunity, amid much opposition, to lay the very foundations that today make Trinidad and Tobago an economic force to contend with. Several energybased industries were established, in every case with majority ownership by the government and people of Trinidad and Tobago. Education and training in preparation for the dawning era, as well as appropriate legislation and the development of human resources—always hallmarks of Williams’s vision—became even more entrenched as he moved his country toward the “sustainable development” model that would, some 30 years later, become a buzzword of the 21st century. Indeed, there can be no doubt that Williams is largely responsible

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for leaving a country that, today, possesses one of the highest profiles in the energy-intensive industry—a profile that continues to bear fruit for future generations. With a population of some 1.3 million, Trinidad and Tobago is currently the world’s leading exporter of methanol and nitrogenous fertilizers, the principal supplier of natural gas to the United States, and home to the largest liquefied natural gas facility in the Western Hemisphere. With the genuine respect and affection that his name engenders, Eric Williams justly earned his moniker as “The Father of the Nation” of Trinidad and Tobago. Christine Cohn Kenneth Julien See also Capitalism and Slavery; Trinidad and Tobago; University of Woodford Square. F URTHER R EADING Azeez, Malik A. 1989. “The Legacy of Eric Williams: A Selected Bibliography.” Current Bibliography on African Affairs 21 (3): 267–273. Cateau, Heather, and Selwyn H.H. Carrington, eds. 2000. Capitalism and Slavery: Fifty Years Later: Eric E. Williams—A Reassessment of the Man and His Work. New York: Peter Lang. Cudjoe, Selwyn R., ed. 1993. Eric E. Williams Speaks: Essays on Colonialism and Independence. Calaloux: University of Massachusetts Press. Palmer, Colin A. 2006. Eric Williams and the Making of the Modern Caribbean. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Solow, Barbara L., and Stanley L. Engerman, eds. 1987. British Capitalism and Caribbean Slavery: The Legacy of Eric Williams. New York: Cambridge University Press.

z Williams, Henry Sylvester (1869–1911) Founder of Pan-Africanism, Henry Sylvester Williams was the first person to organize a global movement of persons of African descent.

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However, because of his premature death, his place as the progenitor of the movement was largely usurped by longer-lived and betterknown contemporaries such as W. E. B. DuBois. Others were able to carry on, if not to finish, the work Williams left behind. Williams was an organizer of the historic 1900 conference in London that attracted delegates from around the Atlantic world and inspired a global consciousness on the part of those of African descent to unite on the basis of shared experience, heritage, and common opposition to European colonization and oppression. Pan-Africanism had a huge impact on 20th century struggles for black liberation and freedom—in Africa and elsewhere—as well as decolonization, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Black Power Movement in the United States. Williams was born in 1869 at Arouca, Trinidad, in the then British West Indies. He was the eldest of five children born to Bishop and Elizabeth Williams, both of Barbadian descent. Bishop Williams was employed as a shipwright. Williams, a very bright student from a working-class family, attended the common schools and started off working life at age 17 as a teacher. At 18 Williams became head teacher and a founding member of the Trinidad Elementary Teachers Union. Eager to make something of himself, Williams taught throughout Trinidad before leaving for the United States at the age of 22. Williams’s first stop was New York in 1891. He probably worked as a porter for the Pullman Company and made the acquaintance of Sir Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière, an influential French Canadian lawyer-politician. In 1893, Williams arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada to study law at Dalhousie College. Williams was only the second black student to attend the university, which was a Presbyterian institution. Dalhousie’s president, the Rev. John Forrest, was a strong advocate of educational opportunities for African descendants. However, by Williams’s second year, he had abandoned his studies and left for London, having

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experienced racism so intense that he was even assaulted by a fellow white student at the library. In 1897, thanks to his patron Joly de Lotbinière, a member of the English Bar, Williams was admitted to Gray’s Inn. There he satisfied the entrance requirements by passing a preliminary examination in Latin, English, and history. During this time Williams made his living giving lectures through the Church of England Temperance Union. He also had the opportunity to travel around Britain and acquaint himself with the black community. Williams became engaged to the secretary of the Temperance society, Miss Powell, a middleclass white woman four years his senior. They married in 1898, despite opposition from the bride’s father, and eventually had five children. In 1900, Williams organized the first PanAfrican Conference, a three-day gathering that took place on July 23, 24, and 25 and drew delegates from around the African Diaspora. The conference discussed a number of themes and topics relevant to persons of African descent, such as racism and colonialism. After the conference, Williams set about spreading the word. He embarked on lecture tours to set up branches of the Pan African Association in Jamaica, Trinidad, and the United States. In 1901, the Trinidad branch was launched. Unfortunately, the Pan African Association was shortlived, mainly because Williams was not able to devote his full time to organizational work. In 1902, Williams returned to London to read for the bar at Gray’s Inn. His call to the bar qualified him to practice in South Africa, where he stayed for two years. He was frequently called on by South Africans to speak out against white racism and prejudice. Williams was South Africa’s first black lawyer. Williams left South Africa in 1905 and returned to London, where he intended to be the first person of African descent to seek and achieve elected political office. In 1906, he was elected to the Marylebone Borough Council. Despite not reaching Parliament, Williams led a gathering of black Britons there

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Wolof | 987 and became the first person of African descent to speak before the House of Commons. Over the next few years he defended Africans involved in the campaign against racism in South Africa. He also spent time in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. In 1908, his health broken, Williams returned to his native Trinidad, where he tried to establish a law practice. In March 1911, he died of chronic nephritis. He left behind a widow and four children and one yet to be born. Justin M. Johnston See also DuBois, William Edward Burghardt (1868–1963); Pan-Africanism; Trinidad and Tobago. F URTHER R EADING Contee, Clarence G. 1973. Henry Sylvester Williams and Origins of Organizational PanAfricanism: 1897–1902. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press. Green, Jeffrey. 1998. Black Edwardians: Black People in Britain, 1901–1914. London: Frank Cass. Hooker, J. R. 1975. Henry Sylvester Williams: Imperial Pan-Africanist. London: Rex Collings. Mathurin, Owen Charles. 1976. Henry Sylvester Williams and the Origins of the Pan-African Movement, 1869–1911. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Sherwood, Marika. 2004. “Williams, Henry Sylvester.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

z Wofford, Chloe A. See Morrison, Toni (1931–)

z Wolof Wolof is the dominant ethnic group and language in Senegal. Historically, the Wolof people formed the core population of the Jolof Em-

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pire that covered most of the area of presentday Senegal by the mid-15th century. Wolof people were also an important minority in the Serer kingdoms of Sin and particularly Saloum. They are one of the groups represented in the African Diaspora. The colonial capital of Saint Louis, the modern capital of Dakar, and the major railroad towns were all in Wolof-speaking areas. As a result, Wolof became spoken in numerous towns throughout Senegal and in other rural areas. Non-Wolof urban migrants tended to adopt the Wolof language and ethnicity within a generation or two. During the colonial period, groundnut was cultivated much more than traditional millet and sorghum in Wolof areas. Wolof belongs to the northern branch of the West Atlantic subcategory of the Niger Congo language family. Wolof is the lingua franca of Senegal and one of six national languages in the country given official recognition by the government (together with Jola, Manding, Pulaar, Serer, and Soninke). Close to 90 percent of the population of Senegal understand Wolof. Significant populations of Wolof are also found in the Gambia, Mauritania, Ivory Coast, Mali, France, Italy, Spain, and the United States. Wolof is also the trade language of the majority of non-Wolof people groups in Senegal. This means it is the language of choice when people of different ethnic groups meet, even in government offices and universities. Wolof has increasingly become the first language of many young people from non-Wolof groups in Senegal, especially in cities. Wolof is the official language in Gambia and is also widely spoken in Mauritania. Wolof culture has had a definite though less chronicled effect on African Diaspora cultures. Historians such as Bridget Bereton have identified the Wolof as an active presence in the shaping of resistance to oppressive conditions, cuisine, and other cultural practices among African peoples in Trinidad.

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With westernization or modernity, traditional social, hierarchical structures are being eroded. The major Wolof social distinctions are between urban elite versus rural peasants and other modern class structures introduced by the post-colonial state. The former dominate the government bureaucracy and all modern sectors of the economy, while peasants are the productive backbone of the groundnut basin. Wolof family structure tends to be less traditional in urban areas, and polygamy continues in law and practice. Islamic law is the norm in rural areas, interpreted by clerics in accordance with Wolof custom. Inheritance is generally patrilineal, although matrilineal inheritance was historically equally important for nobility. Safietou Kane See also Africa. F URTHER R EADING Colvin, Lucie Gallistel. 1981. Historical Dictionary of Senegal. London: The Scarecrow Press. Diop, Cheikh Anta. 1960. L’Afrique Noire Precoloniale. Paris: Presence Africaine. Diouf, Mamadou. 2001. Histoire du Senegal. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose.

z Women and Islam The study of women and Islam must be linked, on the one hand, to the context of globalization in which we live, and on the other hand, to the topicality of women’s situations with respect to the world’s religions and, more specifically, the Muslim religion. Further with the spread of Islam in the African Diaspora, the place of women in Islam demands clarification. Many African Diaspora women in places like Trinidad and the United States have embraced Islam. The Safiya Hussayni case (2001) in which a Nigerian woman was sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery garnered attention. Thanks to the mobilization of human rights organizations, women’s associations, and the entire in-

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ternational community, this woman was acquitted and escaped a humiliating death. The question of human rights in Islam has become more crucial than ever before, particularly in the new Pax Americana period. What is Islamic law, and in particular, what are Koran and Sunna, which is law derived from Muhammad’s practice? Since the Iranian revolution in 1979 and the founding of the Iranian Republic, a view of Islam, characterized by oversimplified representations, has been clashing with fundamentalists’ positions that are totally hermetic to any emancipative approach to women. World attention has been brought to Islamic women via the U.S. war in Afghanistan, the ongoing Iraq war, and the U.S. war on terrorism. Given the issue of women and Islam, one can apprehend all the complexity of the politicoreligious debate within which women constitute a very important stake. Issues related to Islam and modernity are not new or unique. At the end of the 19th century a reformist movement in Islam came to life in a few Arab countries, such as Egypt, in the aftermath of socioeconomic changes and contacts with European civilization. This movement allowed for the emergence of an elite: thinkers who attempted to adapt the teachings of Islam to the new exigencies of the times. They appealed to the Islam of origin, but questioned whether Islam as it was lived in the seventh century could solve the numerous current challenges facing Muslim societies in a world dominated by an ever more sophisticated technology. Though it is true that a Muslim country such as Pakistan has accepted many scientific challenges, the fact remains that the question of human rights has arisen with acuteness in many countries with a Muslim majority. As the West has questioned the situation of women within Muslim societies, four points have been neglected: 1. The Koran gave women a legal status superior to the one enjoyed by other women in the world;

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Safiya Hussayni appears at the Sharia appeals court with her daughter Adama Hussayni at Sokoto in northern Nigeria, on March 18, 2002. Hussayni was convicted of adultery in October, 2001, by an Islamic court, and sentenced to death by stoning. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)

2. Women’s fate has varied from country to country; 3. Until the middle of the 20th century the way of life for Muslim woman hardly differed from that of women in the rest of the Mediterranean Basin; 4. In the arduous struggle for emancipation, Muslims have targeted religion less than rigid social and mental structures. From this neglect arise the following critical perspectives: 1. The political thought of Islam through the debate on democracy and secularism. 2. Islam facing liberalism and the question of individual rights, mainly women’s place in Muslim society. 3. Finally, the demand for a new exegesis of religious texts: the updating of Ijtihad (the tools by which one approaches the Koran and Sunnah) or effort of personal

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interpretation being able to bring about a “concession” with regard to individual liberties. Under these conditions, women’s situation assumes a major stake. In reality, the will of Muslim women to accede to freedom of expression and increasingly participate in working life opens the reflection onto their living conditions. Breakthroughs have been the development of feminism in Islam and the sudden emergence of Muslim women in the public space, but also the expression of religious needs with an approach, for example to Sufism, that is their own. Feminist reflection attempts to dissociate in Islam what belongs to the sociological reality of scripture from its manipulation or tendentious interpretations. It is indeed the situation of confusion, which gives meaning to the feminist exegesis, The wearing of the veil or hijab may be confirmed as a form of deviation between the

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“letter” of the law, which fundamentalists apply rigorously, and the “spirit” of the law, which does not turn it into a compulsory norm. The veil touches all religions as a sign of humility before God. Originally, the term “hijab” designated anything (cloth, screen, or tree) that prevents seeing, that is to say, marks the boundaries between public and private spaces. According to tradition, the Prophet had a revelation of the veil on the day of his wedding with beautiful Zainab on whom men cast lustful glances. His friend ‘Umar, the future caliph, imposed it also on Medina’s female residents, a city with a laxer morality than Mecca. The Koran, however, destines it for the Prophet’s wives and the new female faithful to differentiate them from women who have not yet been converted. Why did it become the norm? The Koran asks women “to bring down the veil over their bosom” (from the Arabic word Jouyoub, which may also be translated as low neckline) and goes no further. Different cultural interpretations of this have resulted in the white haik (white being a Sunni color) worn by North African women, the black chador worn by Iranian women, and the carapace (burka) that wraps up Afghan or Saudi women’s bodies. Nevertheless, the Koran by no means arbitrates modalities of dress that are symbolic and cultural more than strictly religious, although the sanctification of (sexual) modesty is undeniable. For Islam the woman’s whole body is awra—a word that can be translated as “thing left to be discovered,” that is to say, what is hidden, and this refers as much to the (male and female) body’s genitalia as to private life. This cardinal notion of awra justifies and sanctifies (sexual) modesty. It was codified very early. Awra and hijab mark the boundaries between public and private spaces, man and woman. This is a radical sexual separation, which is imposed, normalized, and so internalized by mentalities that it suffices to explain the repulsion Western women’s exhibition of their nudity provokes in many Muslim women.

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In contrast to the Biblical traditions that burden women with the weight of the original sin, Islam prescribes for her women an astonishingly modern respect as early as the seventh century: God belongs as much to women as to men. Two hundred verses are dedicated to women in the fourth Sura, precisely called “Women.” Female faithful are destined for the same eternal Paradise as male faithful, and the same punishment if they are “hypocrites” or “idolaters.” God’s favorites are the mothers: “Paradise is under mothers’ feet,” one of the Prophet’s famous hadiths says. But wives and children are all “blessings of this world,” God’s invaluable gifts. “Women are man’s other half,” a hadith relates; still another says, “The best among you is the best to his wife.” Finally, what could be a more beautiful tribute than verse 21 in Sura “Ar-Rum,” which states: “Among God’s Signs is that He created for you mates from among yourselves, that you may dwell in tranquillity with them.” Repudiation is another much debated question. Particularly used to terminate a marriage, repeating it three times for repudiation to become final was a matter of allowing the man to reflect, go back on his decision, and reunite with his wife even if he uttered the formula three times. Repudiation has sometimes become an expedient method for an irascible husband to decide on his wife’s dismissal. How many traditions have been distorted and have become discriminatory in that manner? The question of women is most revealing of an Islam that attempts to reconcile “law and confession, citizen and believer, piety and good citizenship, public law and high religious principles.” But there are parallels of this both in Christianity and Judaism. The law has often perverted the original inspiration and exacerbated the imbalance of the Koranic letter. The will to modernize in Muslim societies as well as the centrality of women in any undertaking for development and human progress require control of the religious questions because they constitute the basis of collective psyches.

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Woods, David (1959–) | 991 In conclusion, to avoid fixing the woman issue in an antagonism in which all the conservatives want to contain it, one must move beyond a feminist interpretation, which today seems to be delivering all its potential, often also caught in its own state, colonial or imperial agendas. However, Muslim women need new resources and allies for this arduous struggle where gains are constantly called in question, and there is good reason to keep fighting until exhaustion to pull off a small victory (for example in Senegal revising family law to change paternal authority into parental authority or in Mali drawing up of family law launched by the authorities). The exploration of the sphere of human rights in Islam is a way of renewing feminist theories in Islam and broadening the foundation of such a reflection. Penda M’Bow Translated by Pascale Becel See also Feminism and Black Women in the African Diaspora; Nation of Islam (NOI). F URTHER R EADING An-Na’im, A. A. 1990. Toward an Islamic Reformation: Civil Liberties, Human Rights, and International Law. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Bessis, S., and S. Belhassen. 1992. Femmes du Maghreb: l’enjeu. Paris: Lattès. Boudhiba, A. 1986. La sexualité en Islam. Paris: PUF. Eposito, J., and J. O. Voll. 1996. Islam and Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press. Ghassan, Ascha. 1987. Du statut inférieur de la femme en Islam. Paris: l’Harmattan. Tabari. 1980. Mohammed, sceau des prophètes. Paris: Editions Sindbad.

z Woods, David (1959–) Born in Trinidad in 1959, David Woods is an atypical Africadian (African-Nova Scotian) and Afro-Trinidadian-Canadian writer and artist. He is distinct among Africadians because

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his offshore roots mark him as a “come-fromaway” playwright and poet, one who settled in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, with his family, in 1972, when he was 13. He stands out among other Afro-Trinidadian-Canadian writers— such as Claire Harris (1937–), M. Nourbese Philip (1947–), and Dionne Brand (1953–)— for choosing to highlight “indigenous” AfricanCanadian culture and history (with its strong African American idiom) as opposed to addressing the Anglophone-Caribbean Diaspora in the metropoles of Toronto, London, and New York. Woods has found his media, his models, his muses, and his métier, all within Halifax, Nova Scotia’s capital (where he studied briefly at Dalhousie University), and in nearby Preston— north and east—the site of Canada’s largest all-black community, some several thousand people, whose roots date back to the 1783 black loyalist exile from the fledgling United States. From the early 1980s to the present, Woods has served Preston—and Africadia—as a community organizer and social worker. More importantly, he has chronicled and celebrated his people as a poet, playwright, actor, filmmaker, painter, impresario, and curator. Woods has staged numerous original plays, but published none. He seldom publishes poetry in “little magazines.” He works intensively within African Nova Scotia, caring little for what outsiders may think. His major literary work is a collection of poetry, Native Song (1990), which also includes eight original paintings. Although the title nods to Richard Wright (1908–1960) and his famous novel, Native Son (1940), Woods’s persona is closer to that of Jean Toomer (1894– 1967) and the alienated, intellectual, male speakers of Cane (1923). Much of Native Song communicates the same portentous Weltschmerz, the same preachy abstractions. Woods’s finest lyrics are pithy portraits of archetypal folks and community foibles. See “Signs”: “She blamed it on stomach flue / but nine months later—/ Every-

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body knew!” Try “Love”: “I love that girl so much / My hair getting kinkier.” The models for these effective poems are both African Americans: Langston Hughes (1902–1967) and Frederick Ward (1937–), himself also an immigrant to Nova Scotia. Whatever reservations one may harbor about Woods’s poetry, his sumptuous, intensely hued, and pride-inspiring paintings merit only acclaim. In 1998, Woods organized a historic showing of Africadian art and fine crafts, In This Place, which toured Nova Scotia and won national attention. One result of this mighty curatorial intervention was Woods’s coauthorship of a historic catalogue, In This Place: Black Art in Nova Scotia, published in 1998. Woods now runs Halifax’s B-Space Gallery, a business retailing Africadian visual art, sculpture, books, and recordings. George Elliott Clarke See also Brand, Dionne (1953–); Canada and the African Diaspora; Philip, Marlene Nourbese (1947–); Wright, Richard (1908–1960).

z World Congress of Black Writers and Artists The first World Congress of Black Writers and Artists was an initiative by the publishing house Présence Africaine, founded in 1947 by Senegalese intellectual Alioune Diop (1910– 1980), who linked his destiny to that of Africa. Throughout his life, Alioune Diop focused on the defense of the values of African civilization. The congress coincided with a flourishing of black literary productions, such as the publication of the Anthology of Black Poets of French Expression 1900–1945 edited by Leon Damas, the Anthology of New Black and Malagasy Poetry edited by Leopold Sédar Senghor in 1946, and Black Orpheus by Jean-Paul Sartre. These announced the beginning of a great literary movement of black peoples. www.abc-clio.com

The First Congress of Black Writers and Artists still resonates in the memory of African and African Diaspora generations after the memorable days of September 19 through 22, 1956 at the Descartes amphitheater of the Sorbonne University in Paris. The most distinguished intellectuals from Africa, Europe, the United States, and the Caribbean gathered to discuss “The Crisis of Negro-African Culture.” The congress was also memorable because the echo of the racism of the U.S. government was heard through the absence of W. E. B. Dubois and Paul Robeson who were denied visas. The first congress followed a long line of Pan-Africanist congresses of the beginning of the 20th century in London, New York, Brussels, and Manchester, England. The Second International Congress of Black Writers and Artists was held in Rome from March 26 to April 11, 1959, under the theme “NegroAfrican Unity of Cultures.” The World Festivals of Black Arts of Dakar (1966) and Lagos (FESTAC 1977) also followed the First Congress. The African Society of Culture (ASC) was created from the first congress with the mission of “establishing linkages of solidarity and friendship among the peoples of culture of the black world.” ASC worked for the affirmation, defense, and enrichment of national cultures, ensured the promotion of respect of human rights, and struggled for economic rights of each individual in all communities without distinction of race or religion. In 1958, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) accorded a consultative status category A to the ASC. A 50th anniversary of this event was held at the Sorbonne in Paris, in 2006. Among the participants to the first congress were G. Sekoto (South Africa); P. Tchibamba (Equatorial Africa); Abbé Mario P. Andrade and M. Lima (Angola); P. Blackman and G. Lamming (Barbados); Tibério (Brazil); Pasteur T. Ekollo, François Sengat Kuo, Benjamin Matip, Nyunaï, and F. Oyono (Cameroon); A. R. Bolamba (Congo); Bernard Dadié (Ivory Coast); W. Carbonel (Cuba); N. Damz, Paulin Joachim,

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Wright, Richard (1908–1960) | 993 and P. Hazoumé (Dahomey); H. M. Bond, M. Cook, J. A. Davis, W. J. Ivy Fontaine, and Richard Wright (United States); P. Mathieu and Moune de Rivel (Guadeloupe); J. Alexis, R.P. Bisanthe, René Depestre, A. Mangones, E. C. Paul, R. Piquion, J. Price-Mars, and E. Saint-Lot (Haiti); Cédric Dover (India); M. James and J. Holness (Jamaica); Andriantsilaniarivo, Jacques Rabemanjara, and F. Ranaivo (Madagascar); L. Achille, Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, and Edouard Glissant (Martinique); M. Dos Santos (Mozambique); B. Hama (Niger); B. Enwonwu, L.A. Fabunmi, M. Lasebikan, and J. Vaughan (Nigeria); Mamadou Dia, C. A. Diop, David Diop, Diop O. Socé, A. Seck, L. S. Senghor, Bachir Touré, and Abdoulaye Wade (Senegal); D. Nicol (Sierra Leone); H. Bâ and A. Wahal (Sudan), F. Agblemagnon (Togo). Babacar M’Bow See also Pan-Africanism; Présence Africaine. F URTHER R EADING Congress of Black Writers and Artists. duboisparis2006.fas.harvard.edu/reflections.html/ (Accessed February 25, 2008). Fanon, Franz. 1963. “Reciprocal Bases of National Culture and the Fight for Freedom.” (Speech at the Congress of Black African Writers, 1959). The Wretched of the Earth. (Les Damnes de la terre). New York: Grove.

z World Systems Theory See Cox, Oliver Cromwell (1901–1974).

z WPA See Rodney, Walter (1942–1980).

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Wright, Richard (1908–1960) Richard Wright was the author of six novels, two collections of short stories, seven works of nonfiction, a collection of essays, and a host of unpublished works now housed at the Beinecke Library at Yale University. As a poet, fiction and nonfiction writer, playwright, essayist, journalist, bluesman, and social critic, Wright gave to the world a deluge of words during the 52 years of his short life. Born on September 4, 1908, at a plantation in Roxie, Mississippi, located 15 miles from Natchez. Wright stayed briefly in the backwoods until his parents moved into town with Wright’s maternal grandparents where he lived until the age of four. Nathaniel Wright, an illiterate sharecropper, was unable to find work, so he moved his family to Memphis, Tennessee, in an effort to find employment. It was here that Wright’s life fragmented and totally deteriorated from 1914 to 1920, starting with Nathaniel Wright’s early desertion of his family and Ella Wright’s struggles as a single parent earning low wages from domestic work. Because of this, young Wright endured years of transient housing and disruptive moves between Memphis, Elaine, Arkansas, and Jackson, Mississippi, where his maternal grandparents now resided. Despite the social, political, and religious edicts of the Deep South that supported race codes and insisted on black inferiority and staunch Jim Crow separatism in every aspect of life, young Wright thrived, but his food was knowledge. Literature gave the young selftaught writer reason to live and to hope, which he demonstrated at age 16 through writing and then having published in a Negro newspaper his first short story entitled “The Voodoo of Hell’s Half Acre,” which garnered the wrath of his zealous grandmother for its sacrilegious language. Graduating as class valedictorian from ninth grade at age 17 in 1925 with little racial nor economic hope of a better future, Wright cast his eyes North and arrived at age 19 in Chicago, Illinois, in 1927. A coworker took him to a meeting of the John Reed Club of the

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Chicago Communist Party at which Wright met the great white intellectuals and leftist writers of New Masses and other party organs who changed his philosophies of life and writing into a Marxist perspective. After that meeting Wright, like other Marxists, saw the solution to racial inequities through a class war against capitalism. The young recruit went home and wrote his first poem “I Have Seen Black Hands” reflecting his new proletarian ideology, which replaced the Christianity Wright had rejected earlier. Starting out as a respected poet, Wright plunged enthusiastically into his writing apprenticeship with these party intellectuals. “Big Boy Leaves Home” earned him the Story prize in 1936 along with a contract with Harper and Row for any other stories. Working for pay as a writer for the Federal Writers Project, he openly broke with the communists. Moving to New York in 1937, he earned a Guggenheim Fellowship, which allowed him to complete the first draft of his novel Native Son, which was later published in 1940. Its publication garnered Wright national and international acclaim and earned him the mantle of race leader as the foremost black writer in America. While turning out his novel-turned-short story “Almos’ a Man” (1940); his novella The Man Who Lived Underground (1941); and the text for the photographic 12 Million Black Voices: A Folk History in the United States (1941), which still holds its position as a classic in the genre, Wright worked with Paul Green to adapt Native Son to the stage and commenced work on his autobiography, American Hunger, which Dorothy Canfield Fisher of the Book-of-the Month Club insisted be shortened. As Black Boy (1945) that autobiographical work became and still remains a classic as well. Wright bade farewell to America in 1946 and moved with his Jewish wife, Ellen, and daughter, Julia, to Paris, where he remained until his death in 1960. There, Wright took on

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global concerns as a Pan-Africanist humanist affiliated with African nationalist Kwame Nkrumah and Caribbean nationalists C. L. R. James and George Padmore, all leaders at the Manchester Conference of 1946 in England to spearhead initiatives for decolonizing Africa. Three novels with American settings appear in this period: The Outsider (1953), Savage Holiday (1954), and The Long Dream (1957), which eluded his critics. In addition, he wrote three travel books: Black Power: Record of a Land of Pathos (1954), about Nkrumah’s reforms in Ghana; The Color Curtain: Report on the Bandung Conference (1955), about African and Asian race leaders meeting in Indonesia and voting not to align themselves against the West; and Pagan Spain: A Report of a Journey into the Past (1957), about Franco’s fascist policies and persecutions of Protestants whom Wright labeled “white Negroes.” A collection of essays entitled White Man, Listen! (1957) provided Wright’s assessment of the criteria required of black literature, similar to what he had done earlier in 1937 with “A Blueprint for Negro Writing.” The collection has additional commentary about the political affairs of Africa and Asia, which was not published in his travel books. He was working on a fourth travel book, French West Africa, when he met his untimely death of a heart attack in a Paris clinic on November 28, 1960. See also Black Paris/Paris Noir; Pan-Africanism. F URTHER R EADING Chinosole. 2001. “Individual and Collective Selves Portrayed in Wright’s Black Boy.” In The African Diaspora & Autobiographics: Skeins of Self and Skin,15–35. New York: Peter Lang. Fabre, Michel. 1973. The Unfinished Quest of Richard Wright. New York: William Morrow. Gilroy, Paul. 2002. Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the Color Line. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Smith, Virginia Whatley. 2006. Richard Wright’s Travel Writings: New Reflections. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press.

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periences and contemporary expressions of black music in addressing the movement of people from a variety of locations in the African Diaspora. In examining dancehall (developed in Jamaica) and hip-hop music (a hybrid of the Jamaican sound-system, rhythm and blues, and the New York City urban lifestyles of North America as are ‘Jamericans’ themselves), the foundation from which the two forms of music emerged is transfigured in urban centers, where the music converged to form a new variation of the previous black music expression of reggae and rap. Reggae and rap music have allowed for the experiences of African descendants to be deployed into the public forum of Western culture. The two genres of music have successfully created a multilingual expression, which has given voice to the voiceless. The relationship between the spoken and written word has allowed a rich amount of historical narratives to surface. Thus, the popularity of the two genres of music has functioned in exerting the cultural and political voice of the oppressed. The conceptualization of yaad/yard hip-hop as a new black cultural aesthetic and identity speaks to the migrational and transnational identities that reside in foreign locations. The urban center becomes the space and place where

Yaad/yard hip-hop is the hybrid form of dancehall (reggae) and hip-hop (rap) music and culture. It bridges the experiences of migrational identities of the past and present through music. It embodies the diasporic memories of Jamaicans who reside in foreign locations. Yaad/yard evokes ties to a certain form of Caribbean identity and place of origin. Yard refers to a backyard urban space and/or one’s free space outside the house, that is, one’s neighborhood, one’s community, or one’s land. Yard also functioned as the setting for a variety of Caribbean plays, novels, videos and films. Here it is a significant factor in how Jamaicans and their offspring construct their identity in a foreign location. Chevannes (2001) and Adams (2000) argue that “diasporic memory” is the memory of a particular reference point, a land, with which there are primordial ties of sentiment but to which there may be no real or enduring return. Yard becomes a diasporic memory space. The yaad/ yard becomes a vital reference point in the process of self-definition among the AfricanCaribbean peoples (Chevannes 2001). Migrations and transnational identity between Jamaica and North America fuse the ex995 www.abc-clio.com

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the identities of African diasporans are reconfigured. The poor inner-city communities of North America are locations where marginalized black populations live. The term “ghetto” has been romanticized for the purpose of corporate economic gain. For the individuals and families that migrated to and reside in these centers, the realities of urban life in the United States is a reflection and extension of sentiments of their former identities. Therefore, the formulation of yaad/yard hip-hop as a new cultural identity is a tangible expression and extension of the migrational and transnational experience of a new generation of Afro-Caribbean people in foreign locations. This new identity provides an infinite amount of autonomy and freedom for young women and men in the African Diaspora to refashion the symbols, language, and idioms of their memory of home. Thus they create or invent a new or temporary yaad/yard (home) within the contexts of the oppressive sociopolitical Euro-American context that becomes a tangible expression of their experiences and identity. La Tasha Brown See also Caribbean Migrations: The Caribbean Diaspora; Hip-Hop Culture in the African Diaspora. F URTHER R EADING Adams, J. C. 2000. “Contested Space: Psychosocial Themes around the Construction of Caribbean American Identities.” Wadabagei: A Journal of the Caribbean and Its Diaspora 1: 29–51. Chevannes, B. 2001. “Jamaican Diasporic Identity: The Metaphor of Home.” In Nation Dance: Religion, Identity, and Cultural Difference in the Caribbean, ed. P. Taylor, 129–136. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

z

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Yanga and Cimarronaje in Mexico Mexico’s Yanga may be considered the precursor of the maroon tradition in the New World for having led enslaved Africans in an uprising demanding their freedom. Their objective was achieved when the Spanish Viceroy was forced to grant the establishment of a free black settlement in the heart of the Spanish colony in 1631. Originally named San Lorenzo de los Negros and later renamed in honor of its founder, today this town located near the city of Córdoba, Veracruz, boasts of being “the first free pueblo of the Américas.” Indeed, Yanga existed well before Toussaint L’Ouverture who led an uprising against the French in Haiti and before the North American states had rebelled and freed themselves from English rule. Yanga landed on the shores of Mexico on a ship from Africa sometime during the second half of the 16th century. The descriptions of his origins found in historical documents suggest that he was from the Bari nation of South Sudan, possibly shipped via Angola. Yanga fled to the mountains of Sierra de Zóngolica, in south-central Mexico, in 1579, shortly after arrival in Mexico and for over thirty years, he organized his group of fugitive cimarrones (maroons) into a functioning community that included a military arm headed by an Angolan named Francisco de la Matosa. In the year 1612, rumor spread all over Mexico that a Black uprising was planned and that a king (Yanga) would be crowned on the day of general uprising planned for January 6th, the traditional “Day of Kings.” To settle colonial Spanish society’s fears, the contemporary Viceroy, Don Luis de Velasco, ordered the public decapitation in the central Plaza of Mexico City of scores of black men and women who had been jailed for petty crimes. A curfew was imposed on the black population countrywide, and the viceroy immediately dispatched troops to Veracruz to de-

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Yemoja/Olokun | 997 stroy Yanga and his ideals. In charge was Captain González de Herrera, who took with him 100 soldiers, a similar number of adventurers, and 150 Indian bowmen. Another 200 Spanish, mulatto and mestizo mercenaries joined these. Two Jesuit missionaries accompanied the raiders’ attempt to break Yanga by religious persuasion, and it was one of these two who kept a diary of the event. This campaign saw Yanga defeated militarily, but he refused a complete surrender. Instead he accepted a peace treaty, which included the establishment of a town in the designated area, about 20 kilometers southeast of Córdoba,where his people would live as free men and women. In return, Yanga promised not to allow escaped slaves to find refuge in his town, and to respect civil and church authorities. Gradually Yanga faded from national prominence as Afro-Mexicans progressively became integrated into colonial society. As Spanish authority strengthened in the region other towns were built as direct response to the challenge of black self-rule. Yanga’s achievement was also diminished as it became relegated to a distant memory of fear in the mainstream (white) society’s mind. The event and date of his death are unclear; there is no narrative—oral or written—nor a clearly discernible collective memory in today’s area people, presumably Yanga’s descendants. One version has it that he was assassinated in front of the church of his own town. Another claims that he was summoned to Mexico City by colonial authorities only to meet his assassins en route. Chege Githiora See also Diasporic Marronage; Mexico: African Heritage. F URTHER R EADING Archivo General de Indias. AGI: Seville, Spain. Archivos Generales de la Nacion. AGN: Mexico City, Mexico. Archivos Municipales, Cordoba. AMC: Veracruz, Mexico. Bennett, Herman L. 2005. Africans in Colonial Mexico: Absolutism, Christianity, And Afro-

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Creole Consciousness, 1570–1640 (Blacks in the Diaspora). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hernandez Cuevas, Marco Polo. 2004. African Mexicans and the Discourse on Modern Nation. University Press of America. Moreno, Enrique Herrera. 1892. El Cantón de Córdoba. Veracruz, Mexico: AMC. Restall, Matthew. 2005. Beyond Black and Red: African-Native Relations in Colonial Latin America. University of New Mexico Press.

z Yemoja/Olokun Originally worshipped in West Africa both as one complementary orisha and as two separate entities, Yemoja and her lover Olokun were sundered in the Middle Passage to reappear in Orisha practices across the Diaspora as the powerful sea goddess. The Yemanja Festival in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, is a huge annual celebration in Rio Vermellio. Variations exist throughout the Diaspora where Yemanja is one of the most powerful orishas and is seen as the major spirit of the sea where the colors of blue and white, as well as dances that mirror the movements of the ocean, mark her presence. Zora Neale Hurston’s collection Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-Tales from the Gulf States (2001) contains at least one amazingly exact African American retelling of an Ifa Yoruba West African religious moral tale about Olokun. Hurston’s version of the 20th-century American woman’s folktale recounts with astonishing exactitude Olokun the merman’s counsel to a man who has been on a quest; Olokun tells him to be vigilant, cautious, and wise if he will be safely reunited with his wife and son. In this way Olokun, known in Benin as a woman’s god, shows himself to have retained in the family-shattering Diaspora his ability to teach, with love, patience, and restraint, how African Americans may safely gather their loved ones back together.

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Literary, musical, and autobiographical voices of the African Diaspora continually describe how, separated in the Middle Passage, the fish king savior and his mermaid bride tirelessly gather their scattered descendants together, reteaching them practices founded on love, gentleness, mutuality, and faith, crucial qualities if this tried but tireless people mean to heal themselves. Grief-maddened women in Tina McElroy Ansa’s Ugly Ways (1993), Rosa Guy’s The Sun, the Sea, a Touch of the Wind (1995), Ntozake Shange’s Liliane (1994), and Bertice Berry’s Redemption Song (2000) search for healing in the lovers who rise from rivers and seas to offer them and their communities healing. Edwidge Danticat’s revolution-crossed lovers in Krik? Krak! (1996) find peace only when the hero, despairing of rescue by Agwe, the green-eyed sailor, descends peacefully to the bottom of the sea, to await his lover in the mermaid’s kingdom. In Toni Morrison’s Love (2003), it is only when the spirit of the narrator has died and embraced the powers of the real ocean that she can outgrow girlish fantasies of loving a false merman and return, mermaid-like, to influence the living to put an end to intracommunity persecution. Alexis Brooks de Vita

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See also Osun (Oxum/Ochun/Oshun); Santeria. F URTHER R EADING Cabral, Len, Richard Young, and Judy Dockrey. 1993. African-American Folktales for Young Readers. Little Rock, AR: August House Publishers. Fatunmbi, Awo Fa’lokun. 1993. Yemoja/Olokun: Ifá and the Spirit of the Ocean. Plainview, NY: Original Publications. Fuja, Abayomi. 1962. “The Beautiful Girl and the Fish.” In Fourteen Hundred Cowries. Ed. Abayomi Fuja. Ibadan: Oxford University Press. Hurmence, Bernice, ed. 2001. Before Freedom, When I Just Can Remember: Twenty-seven Oral Histories of Former South Carolina Slaves. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair. Hurston, Zora Neale. 2001. Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-Tales from the Gulf States. New York: William Morrow. Knappert, Jan. 1995. African Mythology: An Encyclopedia of Myth and Legend. London: Diamond Books. Rhyne, Nancy, ed. 2002. Slave Ghost Stories: Tales of Hags, Haunts, Ghosts, and Diamondback Rattlers. Orangeburg, SC: Sandlapper Publishing. Thompson, Robert Farris. 1984. Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy. New York: Vintage Books. Wolkstein, Diane. 1980. The Magic Orange Tree and Other Haitian Folktales. New York: Schocken Books.

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versity of their memberships; she describes how, in hopes of generating greater political efficacy or safety, they concentrate on sameness, further ostracizing those within their ranks who might be gay and of color, socialist and lesbian. The text echoes the powerful themes of Lorde’s other prose, especially her concern with challenging the interwoven structures of racial, national, gender, class, and sexual privilege in U.S. society. Lorde’s description of the book as a “biomythography” suggests her refusal to be hemmed in by already existing, limiting categories: in the word and in her narrative readers find myths (both celebrated and challenged), her own self-authored story, the collective biographies of influential people in her life, and, although perhaps not as overtly, pointed references to geography/cartography. As Lorde grew up, her parents’ strong longing for Grenada, their island home, left her in a conundrum because the United States, the only place she knew, was not supposed to be able to define her. By the end of the narrative, however, Lorde has created a more permanent and self-determined relationship to the United States and comes to embrace her position as a member of the African Diaspora, recognizing that neither her Caribbeanness, Americanness, nor Africanness should be denied.

Audre Lorde’s autobiographical narrative Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982) is the author’s deliberate utilization of the submerged Afro-Caribbean term “zami.” The integration of ethnic and sexual identities is behind the author’s positive appropriation of the Caribbean creole word “zami” for her selfnaming: this term is typically a derogatory naming of lesbians, derived from les amies, French for “friends.” Early in the book Lorde defines black “dykes” as “powerful women-oriented women—who would rather have died than use that name for themselves” (15). Her definition removes the sexual connotations from this identity, focusing instead on strength in the face of an oppressive mainstream society and creating alliances among women of African descent regardless of their sexual orientation. Lorde simultaneously rejects the popular myth in African diasporic communities that homosexuality is a European import and urges black readers to recognize the full range of subjectivities within their cultures. Correspondingly, throughout Zami she portrays the troubling tendency within predominantly white circles (feminist, lesbian, socialist) to deny the rich di999 www.abc-clio.com

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Significantly, the text concludes: “[In Carriacou, Grenada’s sister-island] it is said that the desire to lie with other women is a drive from the mother’s blood” (256). Lorde thus connects her Caribbean heritage, her lesbianism, and her often-fraught relationship with her mother as inseparably entwined and essential to her sense of self. A number of groups of black women writers (and black lesbians) have begun to use the term “zami” to describe themselves. Giselle Liza Anatol See also Grenada; Lorde, Audre (1934–1992). F URTHER R EADING Lorde, Audre. 1982. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. Trumansburg, New York: Crossing Press.

z Zanj (Zinj, Zang) Zanj is a general geographical and quasi-ethnic Arabic- and Persian-language descriptor usually referring to the locations, peoples, and/or cultures of East Africa during the past three millennia. Zinj, an alternative phrasing, is sometimes attributed to Persian, and African American historian John G. Jackson (1970) argued that in fact the Persian term Zinj preceded the Arabic term Zanj and was first recorded in the third century BCE. Various early Greek and Talmudic Jewish geographies also refer to Zangay, Zangistan, Cape Zingis, or Zangion in the East African region. On other occasions, Zanj was used to refer to various African people or places ranging from eastern to central or even western African locations, based on the known geographies of the times. In the African Diaspora, the term Zanj is also found within Haitian and other Caribbean spiritual terminologies, often referring to ancestor spirits, angels, or other supernatural

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forces, much as terms like mashetani (spirits) were imported into East African cultures from Islamic influence. Both Persian and Arab worlds have had intensive bi-directional economic and cultural relations with eastern Africa and the continent beyond for the past three millennia and more. As with most non-Western cultures, discrete delineations between identities and geographies were not common in these cultures, so terms such as Zanj functioned as what one scholar has called “mobile classificatory labels” (Moreas-Farias 1985). The term Zanj, which reached its widest usage during the medieval period, generally referred to East Africa, East African people, and East Africanity, or East African culture. As such, the term was somewhat slippery and could include different people, places, or things at different times and in different places. At some points during the height of Arab Islam in Southwest Asia, the term seems to have taken on quasiracial connotations of blackness, as it was often used to distinguish “black slaves” from “white slaves,” usually referred to as Mamluks. Some have taken Zanj to mean slave, or black slaves, but this would not be accurate, because even during the height of slave economies from East Africa to southern Asia, there were equal or greater numbers of free, nonenslaved Zanj in these regions. These Zanj were either ex-slaves, or had never been enslaved, but were rather traders or otherwise engaged in local cultures and economies. As a “mobile classificatory label,” the term Zanj shifted over time and circumstance. For some time, Bilad al-Zanj (the land of Zanj) referred to the area from Mogadishu down to Pemba Island in the south. On the other hand, Zanj was also often a much more generalized term referring to peoples and places throughout the range of eastern Africa and portions beyond, including Ethiopia (which was sometimes, and equally vaguely, called Habash, Habashi, or Habasha, among other terms), Sudan, Congo, and southern regions as well.

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Zanj (Zinj, Zang) | 1001 Several Arab geographers also identified places south of Nubia and along the Niger River and in Ghana as Zanj. One possibility rarely considered is that, rather than reflecting misunderstandings and generalizations on the part of Arab geographers, this could also indicate the traveling and intermixing of East African peoples in other portions of the continent. Indeed, in several Arab texts, Zanj, or related terms such as Zabaj, are also located in India and even as far as Indonesia. Probably the most famous reference to Zanj in history is the famous Zanj Rebellion, a major political and spiritual rebellion of enslaved and free Zanj peoples, allied with other supporters and dispossessed peoples during the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad. The powerful rebellion lasted from 868 to 883 CE (255 to 270 of the Islamic era) and set up an independent state in southern Iraq between Basra and Baghdad. Lasting 15 years, during the height of Abbasid power, the Zanj rebels managed to secure a large expanse of territory, set up their own government and ruling ideology, issue coinage, and threatened to shake Abbasi power to its foundations. Only a major countercampaign, after many failed attempts, finally ended the revolt, but not before social relations and hierarchies in the Abbasid Caliphate were profoundly reshaped, and many of the rebels were promised freedom and upper mobility within the new dispensation. Slavery in the Arab world was very different from modern chattel slavery in the Atlantic system. Slaves were generally accorded basic human rights and often gained their freedom. Plantation slavery was rare; instead, domestic service, concubinage, and work as soldiers and sailors were the norm. However, in the salt flats of southern Iraq and western Persia an exploitative plantation slavery did emerge, where large contingents of enslaved Zanj were employed in ditch and canal digging, clearing hardpan salt crusts from the low-lying soil surfaces, draining marshlands, and growing sugar and cotton on a large scale. From the seventh

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century at least, growing numbers of Zanj slaves worked in these exceedingly harsh conditions, and two early rebellions broke out in 689 and 694–695. The more substantial movement, known as the Zanj Rebellion, broke out in 868, with the arrival of ‘Ali ibn Muhammad, a serial rebel of Persian origin. Finally, he found more success by joining forces with disgruntled Zanj slaves and other oppressed peoples of the Abbasid society. As the Abbasid caliphate, a dominant global power of that era, came under internal and external political and economic stress, its leadership compensated by imposing an exorbitant tax on African imports and other goods, disproportionately affecting African importers and traders and the peasants who frequented them. This disruption of an African global trade network stretching into Asia was thus a major impetus for the rebellion, an element overlooked in most previous studies. When the Zanj rebels began their insurrection and started their own military force under the egalitarian Kharijite-inspired leadership of Muhammad, free Zanj traders, impoverished peasants, and others disaffected under Abbasi rule joined in the movement, rapidly giving it greater numbers and power. Zanj slaves numbering in the tens of thousands provided the numerical and military foundation of the movement, but it was in fact a multiethnic association linked by an egalitarian brand of militant Shia (Kharijite) Islam. Major battles ensued, the Abbasid army was repeatedly defeated, and major cities such as Basra fell into rebel hands. The fortified town of al-Mukhtara (the chosen, or elect city) in the salt flats, became the capital of the putative Zanj state. As their strength grew, enslaved Zanj, free Zanj, and the poor or disaffected generally from throughout South and Southwest Asia flocked to join in the free society in which property rights and power could be had by all. The Zanj ideology was based on full social equality for all true Muslim believers, following the distinct line developed by ‘Ali ibn

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Muhammad, as distinct from the Abbasid Sunni fold, and prohibiting enslaving anyone of faith. Thus, this new state created a safe zone for Muslim slaves and potential slaves. The Zanj adopted the Kharijite (proto-Shia) slogan “Judgment alone belongs to God,” referring to an interpretation that said believers could not be enslaved. ‘Ali ibn Muhammad declared himself the Mahdi, or Shiite messiah, and these ideas were imprinted on coins that were minted as a new regional currency. Two major scholars of the time, al-Tabari and al-Masudi, wrote disparagingly of the rebellion and the Zanj, based firmly as they were in Baghdad and the Abbasid society and hierarchy. However, much of what we know comes from a critical reading of their texts. At its height, the rebellion threatened to capture Baghdad, the most important city in the Islamic world at that time, but the movement was gradually undermined by the full military and naval forces of the Abbasid Empire. Most of the surviving rebels were incorporated into the caliphate armies, having gained their freedom; taxation was reduced; and the transoceanic African-Asian trade surged once again and was restored to its prominent role in the global economy. Although the institution of slavery continued, as did the presence of Zanj slaves among these populations, large-scale plantation slavery was never again resumed at the same level in the Arab world, until outside forces, mainly the British and French, combining with Zanzibaris, Omanis, and other Africans and Arabs, imported Atlantic-style chattel slavery into the Indian Ocean in the 19th century, just as it was being outlawed in the New World. For a thousand years, the reverberations of the Zanj Rebellion altered and dampened the severity of slave and labor relations for Africans as well as for others living within the Arab and Muslim worlds. In the aftermath of the ninth-century Zanj Rebellion, whose memory conjured powerful images for centuries, the term Zanj took on an

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increasingly negative or threatening connotation in some Asian societies, and scholars have even speculated that non-Zanj African populations became preferred in the regional slave trades of southern Asia as a result. At the same time, Zanj peoples were also thought of as bearing numerous positive qualities throughout the years, being renowned as traders, sailors (sometimes known as Siddis), soldiers, and often attaining positions of leadership and prominence throughout Asian societies in Persia, Arabia, and India. Malik Ambar was one such example. Born in Ethiopia in the mid-16th century, he was sold into slavery in the Hejaz, Baghdad, and finally Mocha, where he received an education, converted to Islam, and rose to great prominence commanding the armies of local potentates. Deserting, he formed an independent army of indigenous Deccani Arab and African mercenaries, with British artillery and a Siddi navy. Ambar eventually seized the sultancy and declared himself regent minister of the whole region, all the while holding off the surging Mughal Empire to the north. One further result of the geography of the category Zanj is the naming of Zanzibar Island, off the coast (and an integral part) of modernday Tanzania, a primary center of trade for many centuries in the latter half of the past millennium. Zanzibar essentially means “Zanj coast” in Arabic and is yet another element in this mobile classificatory label, in this case part of its heartland. Jesse Benjamin See also Iraq: The African Presence in Early Iraq. F URTHER R EADING Jackson, John G. 1970. Introduction to African Civilizations. New York: University Books. Moreas Farias, Paulo Fernando de. 1985. “Models of the World and Categorical Models: The ‘Enslavable Barbarian’ as a Mobile Classificatory Label.” In Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa, ed. John Ralph Willis. Totowa, NJ: Frank Cass. Muhammad, Akbar. 1985. “The Image of Africans in Arabic Literature: Some Unpublished Man-

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Zanzibar and the Southwest Indian Ocean in the African Diaspora | 1003 uscripts.” In Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa, ed. John Ralph Willis. Totowa, NJ: Frank Cass. Rashidi, Runoko, ed. 1995. African Presence in Early Asia. 10th anniversary ed., 2nd ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books. Segal, Ronald. 2001. Islam’s Black Slaves: The Other Black Diaspora. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

z Zanzibar and the Southwest Indian Ocean in the African Diaspora The southwest Indian Ocean is home to a variety of African Diaspora communities of which Mauritius, Seychelles, Zanzibar are prominent members. Zanzibar, for example, is a multiethnic archipelago in the southwest Indian Ocean. It is part of the Swahili coast, which stretches from Mogadishu to Mozambique. The archipelago, situated some 36 kilometers east of the Tanzanian port city of Dar es Salaam, consists of four islands: Pemba and Tumbatu in the north and Unguja and Mafia in the south. The archipelago contains many more islands besides those mentioned above. These include: Bawe, Changuu (or Prison Island), Chumbe and Latham Island (Fungu Kizimkazi). The population on the islands (particularly Pemba and Unguja) are of African, Indian, Arab and European descent. According to the U.S. Department of State Report on Tanzania in 2006 “much of Zanzibar’s African population came from the mainland.” The “Shirazis trace its origins to the island’s early Persian settlers. NonAfricans residing on the mainland and Zanzibar account for 1 percent of the total population. The Asian community, including Hindus, Sikhs, Shi’a and Sunni Muslims, and Goans, has declined by 50 percent in the past decade to 50,000 on the mainland and 4,000

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on Zanzibar. An estimated 70,000 Arabs and 10,000 Europeans reside in Tanzania.” The dominant religion on the island is Islam (90 percent) and the remaining population are Hindu, Roman Catholic, Anglican and Buddhist. Several sects exist within Zanzibari Islam and these serve to diversify belief and cultural practice. African beliefs (such as the importance of ancestral veneration) are also important in Zanzibar and these have creolised the dominant religions. The language of Zanzibar is Kiswahili. The islands have a long history of maritime trade and the population relies on the abundant marine life for subsistence, livelihood and culture. H ISTORY For more than 300 years, Zanzibar islands and communities along the East African coast have cultivated trade links with cities and people of Oman and the Persian Gulf. The more than 800 Arabic manuscripts which contain Arabic literature and rhetoric are indispensable to studies of the history of ideas, diseases, treatments, witchcraft, astronomy, navigation, slavery, poetry and art of eastern Africa. Lodged at the Zanzibar National Archives, they offer proof of a well-established cultural and political connection between Asia and Africa before the arrival of the Europeans in the region. Two hundred years ago Zanzibar was one of the wealthiest islands in the southwest Indian Ocean. Its Indian, Pakistani, Goan, Arab and European communities were at the centre of an influential commercial empire. The basis of this empire was slavery. The slave economy was facilitated by the presence of a monsoon season that allowed for communication between the Asian settlements of Bombay (India), Shiraz (Persia), Muscat, Aden (Oman), Mombasa, Kilwa (East Africa). Traders and sailors from the east encountered the Bantu and Cushitic people living along the African coast. On the southern tip of Zanzibar, the village of Shangani (Stone Town) a small fishing village in the twelfth century rapidly became a

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trading centre and the commercial empire of the Indian Ocean region. The town first experienced European occupation with the arrival of the Portuguese in 1498. Some 200 years later, Sultan Bin Seif of Oman took over Zanzibar and built the magnificent Ngome Kongwe (Old Fort) to defend the island and the wealth of the Omanis from the Portuguese and Mazrui Arabs based in Mombasa. Zanzibar’s deep and protected ports (that have coral reefs all around) and (its once) abundant source of timber and mild weather meant that it was ideally suited for trade, settlement and the cultivation of spices. Cloves were first introduced into Zanzibar in 1818 and still constitute up to 70 percent of the island’s exports. Enslaved Africans were the labour force behind the success of Zanzibar. At the height of the slave trade more than 60,000 people were transported annually from the mainland to Zanzibar and from there sent to other markets in Arabia, the Indian Ocean and America. The sultan received a tax on every sale. Tippu Tip, the servant of the sultan and historically a famous slave trader on the East African coast, is said to have owned more than 700 plantations. Today his house is a landmark for those interested in the history of slavery. The relocation of the Omani sultanate from Muscat to Zanzibar in 1832 provided traders with further impetus to move to the island and settle there. According to Laura Fair, slaves mostly from East Africa transformed the island into a complex, multicultural society and “the most productive clove plantations in the world.” In 1890, Zanzibar became a British protectorate. In 1875, slavery was abolished but the practice continued for a while after. In Kelly Askew’s work on Tanzania it is revealed that despite abolition, clear distinctions remained between slaves and the free, urbanites and rural dwellers, mainlanders and islanders and Arab and African. The poor treatment of Africans by Arabs, the privileges enjoyed by those of Arab descent and their favourable treatment by the British during colonial rule (1890–1946) cre-

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ated much resentment among Africans in Zanzibar. Stone Town was also further divided by the Europeans staying in Zanzibar. Sports clubs, administration offices and hotels were associated with and sometimes reserved for specific European groups — such as the Dutch, English and American. Furthermore and according to Jonathon Glassman, in the “Time of Politics” (1957–1963), processes were already in place that would serve to further divide the population. Political parties emerging at this time reflected the ethnic divide. There was the Zanzibar National Party (ZNP), which was “for” the Arab minority, and the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP), which was led by Abeid Karume and represented the interests of the Afro-Shirazi and the Africans. In 1964 pro-liberation activists on the mainland (i.e., in Tanganyika) led a revolution that brought Zanzibar under Tanzanian rule. Popular accounts tell of the exodus of Arabs, the confiscation of Arab and Indian property and the resettlement of Africans in Stone Town. By and large, the revolution was meant to solidify identity, redistribute resources and simplify an otherwise complex and fluid social world into a homogeneous whole. This involved violence that, as David Parkin argues, was a means to “reverse an earlier historical memory of violence against Africans.” The Revolution also heralded the re-engineering of Stone Town and Zanzibar society. Shortly after 1964, the first president, Abeid Karume called upon the assistance of engineers, architects and planners from Germany, China and Russia to reconstruct the town’s outlying neighbourhoods. The rebuilding included N’gambo or the “other side,” which was then, and still is, principally inhabited by those of African descent. C ONTEMPORARY Z ANZIBAR Today, the population of Tanzania stands at 39.5 million. Zanzibar has a population of 1.1 million with some 441,664 people living in the capital of Zanzibar, Stone Town. Zanzibar is also a semi-autonomous state that currently

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Zanzibar and the Southwest Indian Ocean in the African Diaspora | 1005 forms a part of the United Republic of Tanzania (URT). The president of Zanzibar is ultimately in control of matters in the islands and is a member of the URT cabinet. Tanzania remains one of the poorest countries in the world with a debt of 7.5 billion US dollars in 2006, and the government is using 40 percent of its income to service this debt. Agriculture employs 90 percent of the population and produces 57 percent of exports. Industry accounts for 17 percent of the GDP. Zanzibar is more urbanised than the mainland and population density is higher with some 260 people per square kilometre. However, the density is bound to increase as the local tourism industry improves and undocumented migrants come to live and work in Zanzibar in order to benefit from this industry. Literacy levels remain low in Zanzibar. Along with this poverty there are a high illiteracy rate (60 percent of women are illiterate), malnutrition, low life expectancy (48 years) and a growing HIV AIDS infection rate in Zanzibar. A country analysis report by the Zanzibar Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs confirms this: “Poverty is both perverse and widespread. Data indicates that 61 percent of Zanzibaris are without basic livelihood needs. Rural areas are hardest hit. In comparison to Unguja, Pemba is hit the most with 64 percent of the residents in that island living in deprivation compared to 59 percent for Unguja.” The Zanzibar Declaration of 1991 heralded the liberalisation of the economy and improved the tourism industry. In 1996, Tanzania received approximately 326,000 tourists. In 2001 Zanzibar received 76,000 tourists. By 2006 this number had grown to 137,111 and generated 1,362,000 US dollars. The Ministry of Tourism, Investment and Trade as well as the Zanzibar Commission for Tourism (ZCT) estimate that the island will receive 5 million US dollars and some 500,000 tourists in 2013. The plan of the ministry, the ZCT, the Zanzibar Association for Tourism Investment (ZATI) and the Zanzibar Investment Promotion Authority

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(ZIPA) is to increase facilities and to diversify the tourism industry so as to increase foreign direct investment. In 2000, UNESCO declared Stone Town a World Heritage Site that symbolises the harmonization of cultures. Since this declaration, government, civic organisations and international donors have been involved in the preservation and management of tangible heritage (buildings, monuments and infrastructure) in Stone Town. To a certain extent, this has encouraged the privileging of Arab/Omani history and architecture and the marginalisation of Africans and the African diaspora’s contribution to heritage in the town. Nevertheless, the emerging cultural tourism industry in Zanzibar is encouraging tourists to travel outside Stone Town and to encounter African diaspora heritage, such as that which is to be found in the southernmost village of Makunduchi where the descendants of Shirazi Persians celebrate a harvest festival known as mwaka kogwa. The Afro-Shirazi have also contributed to and creolised Bantu and Arab musical traditions and practices. Many, for example, continue to use various drums in their celebrations or ngoma. Celebrations will also include distinctly Islamic elements such as dhikr or vikr, the throwing of the breath. As noted elsewhere, practices of scent are also a distinct and creole feature of the Afro-Shirazi in Unguja. These involve the use of scent and associated receptacles, fabrics, contexts for religious, curative and political purposes. Thus, the Afro-Shirazi have a rich and as yet not fully documented culture and heritage. In terms of tourism, Afro-Shirazi do not appear to be benefiting from the emerging tourism industry. Despite the fact that the industry created some 10,436 jobs in 2006, very few AfroShirazi seemed to be employed in the industry. Part of the problem according to the 2006 Zanzibar Tourism Policy Statement, is the low level of education and training available to Zanzibaris. At present an undocumented number of

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migrants are coming to Zanzibar from mainland Tanzania. This population is generally better educated and obtaining work in the tourism industry. Such new arrivals are creating some tensions in the society in the battle over scarce resources. Donor agencies such as the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF), Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), UNESCO, The Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), are working closely with local civic organisations and groups to educate the population of Afro-Shirazi and prepare them for work in the emerging economy. The majority of AfroShirazi continue to work on plantations and to support their families by cultivating land for subsistence. Unlike other African diaspora in the southwest Indian Ocean such as the Creoles in Mauritius, the Afro-Shirazi maintain close links with mainland Africa despite the tendency to make the distinction between islanders and mainlanders. See also Indian Ocean and the African Diaspora; Mauritius; Seychelles Islands; Swahili; Zanj. F URTHER R EADING Askew, Kelly. 2004. Performing the Nation: Swahili Music and Cultural Politics in Tanzania. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Boswell, Rosabelle. 2006. “Say What You Like: Dress, Identity and Heritage in Zanzibar.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 12(5): 440–57. Boswell, Rosabelle. 2008. “Scents of Identity: Fragrance as Heritage in Zanzibar.” Journal of Contemporary African Studies (May 2008). Fair, Laura. 2004. Pastimes and Politics: Culture, Community and Identity in Post-Abolition Urban Zanzibar, 1890–1945. London: James Currey. Mussa, I. 2006. “City Tourism: A Case of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Presented at the UNWTO Workshop for Africa, Tourism Destination Management — Routes to Success.” Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 27–29 March 2006. Parkin, David. 2003. “The Commercialisation of biomedicine and the politics of flight in Zanzibar, Tanzania.” In Robin Cohen, ed. Migra-

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tion and Health in Southern Africa. Pretoria: Van Schaik. Sheriff, Abdul. 1987, Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar. London: James Currey.

z Zeta Phi Beta On January 16, 1920, five college women on the campus of Howard University marked a significant event in the history of African American women. The five women, also known as the five pearls, Arizona Cleaver (Stemons), Pearl Ann (Neal), sisters Viola Tyler (Goings) and Myrtle Tyler (Faithful), and Fannie Pettie (Watts) organized Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc. They adopted the colors royal blue and white and espoused four fundamental principles for their organization: scholarship, community service, sisterly love, and finer womanhood. With assistance and support from Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc.’s founders A. Langston Taylor and Leonard F. Morse, the sorority and fraternity became the first constitutionally chartered brother and sister Greek letter organization. The organization was incorporated on March 30, 1923, in Washington D.C. Between 1920 and 1923, Zeta Phi Beta Sorority expanded to include national chapters in southern states. As of 2006, the nonprofit organization had more than 125,000 members nationwide. The organization has eight intercontinental regions and more than 800 chapters in the United States, Europe, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa. Zeta Phi Beta has a membership intake policy that forbids all forms of hazing. Membership is by invitation to women with a notable record of community service who are currently pursuing a baccalaureate degree or in possession of a baccalaureate degree. The organization has always played a substantive role in the National Pan-Hellenic Council and established the National Educa-

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Zobel, Joseph (1915–2006) | 1007 tion Foundation, which provides scholarship and grants to students in pursuit of higher education. Throughout its history, Zeta Phi Beta has achieved a number of historic milestones as the first Greek letter organization to charter a chapter in Africa in December 1948 and the first to form adult and youth auxiliary groups, including the Amicae, the Archonettes, the Amicettes, and the Pearlettes. The sorority was also the first Greek letter organization to centralize its operations in a national headquarters, which is presently located in Washington, D.C. The women of the organization have long been associated with social, political, and economic movements throughout U.S. history, including voting rights, equal opportunity, school desegregation and integration, and social and economic justice. One of multiple examples of Zeta women is humanitarian, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Eartha Mary Magdalene White (1876– 1974) who established the Clara White Mission, which continues to provide supportive services for the homeless and displaced youth. Distinguished alumni of Zeta Phi Beta have represented multiple disciplines, including politics and law, science and engineering, the arts and social sciences, entertainment, education, and sports. The distinguished service of Zeta Phi Beta’s members also includes leadership positions in the United States Senate and House of Representatives as well as in federal, state, and local courts. In 2002, with the leadership of International Grand Basileus Barbara C. Moore, the sorority adopted Z-Hope (Zetas Helping Other People Excel) as a national service initiative to consolidate and enhance its programs targeting health care, education, HIV/AIDS, hurricane relief, prenatal care, literacy, addiction, voting registration, and violence. The organization’s Stork’s Nest program provides prenatal care, promotes education, and provides support to mothers. The sorority instituted the ZOL Program (Zeta Organizational Leadership Pro-

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gram) to train and assist local, regional, and state officers, including advisers to youth affiliates. The organization is affiliated with numerous national organizations and nonprofit organizations. Since 1997, Zeta Phi Beta Sorority’s National Educational Foundation partnered with the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Energy to examine overall developments in genetics research, particularly the Human Genome Project in minority communities. Zeta Phi Beta continues to play major roles throughout many local, national, and international communities. Rose C. Thevenin See also Alpha Kappa Alpha; Delta Sigma Theta; Kappa Alpha Psi; Phi Beta Sigma. F URTHER R EADING Brown, Tamara L., Gregory S. Parks, and Claranda M. Phillips, eds. 2005. African-American Fraternities and Sororities: The Legacy and the Vision. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. Kimbrough, Walter M. 2003. Black Greek 101: The Culture, Customs and Challenges of Black Fraternities and Sororities. New York: Fairleigh Dickinson Press. Ross, Lawrence C., Jr. 2000. The Divine Nine: The History of African-American Fraternities and Sororities. New York: Kensington Books.

z Zobel, Joseph (1915–2006) Joseph Zobel, novelist, short story writer, poet, and artist, is best known for his autobiographical novel La Rue Cases-Nègres (Black Shack Alley) (1950), which was adapted by Euzhan Palcy into the award-winning film Rue CasesNègres (Sugar Cane Alley) (1982). Zobel was born in Rivière Salée, Martinique, in 1915; migrated to France in 1946; worked in Senegal from 1957 to 1974 as an educator and producer of cultural programming at Radio Senegal; and retired to rural France where he sculpts, practices the Japanese art of flower arranging, and

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continues to publish. His works include Les Mains pleines d’oiseaux (1978), Poèmes de moimême (1984), Mas badara (1983), Si la mer n’était pas bleue (1987), Poèmes d’amour et de silence (1994), Le Soleil m’a dit (2002), and Gertal et autres nouvelles (2002), which contains excerpts from his journal. Zobel’s early work is part of a decade of groundbreaking literary developments in the Francophone world. His first novel, Diab’la, written in 1942, was deemed so subversive that it was censured by the Vichy regime. It was finally published in 1947, one year after his short story collection Laghia de la mort. The first and second editions of La Rue Cases-Nègres appeared in 1950 and 1955, coinciding with Aimé Césaire’s two editions of Discours sur le colonialisme. Other important literary events of that period were the founding of Présence Africaine in 1947; the first French editions of Jacques Roumain’s Gouverneurs de la rosée in 1946 and 1950; Mayotte Capécia’s Je suis Martiniquaise (1948); Aimé Césaire’s collections Soleil cou coupé (1948) and Corps perdu (1949); Frantz Fanon’s Peau noire, masques blancs (1952); Camara Laye’s L’Enfant noir (1953); Jacques Stéphen Alexis’s Compère Général Soleil (1955); and the convening of the First International Congress of Black Writers and Artists at the Sorbonne (1956). Inspired by Richard Wright’s Black Boy, which was translated into French in 1947, La Rue Cases-Nègres examines the trajectory of a five-year-old boy born on a sugar cane plantation who, against tremendous odds, graduates from a prestigious urban high school and passes the baccalauréat. However, this plot summary, centering on struggle, survival, and triumph, tends to mute other issues that Zobel addresses: race, class, gender, and color; the legacy of slavery, exploitation, and prejudice; the construction of family, masculinity, and identity; education and schooling; and migration to the city. Set in colonial Martinique less than 80 years after the abolition of slavery, La Rue Cases-Nègres traces the literal and sym-

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bolic journey of José Hassam, who is raised first by his maternal grandmother, Man Tine, and then by his mother, Délia, and mentored by elderly cane cutter Médouze and schoolteacher Stéphen Roc. Ironically, the novel tracks the growth of a future writer during the same historical period in which African diasporic literary movements—indigénisme, the Harlem Renaissance, negrismo, and Négritude—were being formulated and put into practice. The sequel to La Rue Cases-Nègres, La Fête à Paris (1953), which opens with the protagonist on a ship bound for France, was reissued under the title Quand la neige aura fondu (1979). Renee Larrier See also Guadeloupe; Martinique; Négritude. F URTHER R EADING Julien, Eileen. 1987. “La Métamorphose du réel dans La Rue Cases-Nègres.” The French Review 60 (6, May): 781–787. Warner, Keith Q. 1988. “Emasculation on the Plantation: A Reading of Joseph Zobel’s La Rue Cases-Nègres.” College Language Association Journal 32 (1, September): 38–44.

z Zong Massacre See African Americans and the Constitutional Order.

z Zouk Zouk is dance music that was created by black, French Caribbean musicians from Guadeloupe and Martinique in which the lyrics and the name of its leading group, Kassav, are all in Creole and the music makes use of the gwo ka

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Zumbí of Palmares (1655–1695) | 1009 drum, peculiar to Guadeloupe and an important retention of the African roots of Antillean people. These factors highlight the place of zouk within the African Diaspora. Originally meaning party, pleasure, or unrestrained festivities, “zouk” has now come to mean—in both Martinique and Guadeloupe—Antillean music in general, swinging music that makes the crowd dance. The name “Kassav” was selected because it is the name of a folk dish common in the French Caribbean; it is a carefully prepared blend of manioc with other ingredients. Similarly, zouk is a very careful and unique blend of musical influences, including U.S. jazz, soul, and funk; soukous from French Africa; cadence-rampa and compas from Haiti; salsa from Latin America, Cuba, and Puerto Rico; biguine from Guadeloupe and Martinique; merengue from the Dominican Republic; and soca and calypso from Trinidad. As zouk has evolved, the use of the traditional gwo ka drum has been replaced by electronic instruments, such as synthesizers, rhythm box, and samplers, to give it a more “international” flavor; however, that development has not detracted from the unique Antillean flavor of the music produced because of the structure and arrangements of the songs, the French Creole lyrics, and the way in which foreign music is mixed into zouk. The characteristic sound of zouk that would establish Kassav as a leading group and zouk as internationally popular dance music took about five years and many attempts to produce. Those attempts culminated in the 1984 hit, “Zouk-la sé sèl médikaman nou ni” (“Zouk is the only medicine we have”), which won Kassav the first gold record—France’s Disque d’Or—ever awarded to a French Caribbean group. A number of developments that coincided with the appearance of this song served to give an additional boost to Kassav’s phenomenal success. Zouk was both a political and a cultural phenomenon. From the early 1980s on,

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the upsurge of black racial consciousness in Europe and the sweeping social reforms brought about during President Mittérand’s regime gave greater freedom to the municipalities of the departments and regions. It is significant that Kassav wanted “to show the world that the Antilles exist” (Guilbault 1993, 170), as well as to have the world recognize that Antillean people are a mixture of different races and cultures. Kassav was followed by a number of other groups, including Zouk Machine, an allfemale group; Malavoi, which performs zouk and other Antillean music; and a number of solo artists, such as Martinican Joycelyne Béroard, who became lead singer for Kassav, and Guadeloupean Tanya St Val. After 1988, a number of new zouk styles, new arrangements, and new composition formats came into being. Jeannette Allsopp See also Calypso; Guadeloupe; Salsa. F URTHER R EADING Berrian, Brenda F. 2000. Awakening Spaces: French Caribbean Popular Songs, Music, and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Guilbault, Joycelynne. 1993. Zouk: World Music in the West Indies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Manuel, Peter, Kenneth Bilby, and Michael Largey. 1995. Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Rabess, Gregory. 1983. “Cadence Music.” In Eruptions. Roseau, Dominica: M.C.A. Publications.

z Zumbí of Palmares (1655–1695) Palmares is the most renowned maroon community in Brazilian history. Situated in the interior of the northeast province of Sergipe, Palmares thrived throughout the 17th century. Beginning as a barely accessible, humble refuge for a few dozen escaped slaves, Palmares grew into a confederation of settlements that at its

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peak boasted more than 20,000 residents. In addition to escaped slaves, the community attracted poor women, indigenous Indians, free mulattos, and white settlers, many of whom sharecropped on Palmares land. Developing its own subsistence agriculture, artisan production, iron production, and trade links with other settlements, Palmares’s economic surplus supported a political class and a military for defense as well as raiding to obtain supplies and future inhabitants. All property belonged to the community, and a shortage of women resulted in matriarchal heads of family; wives had multiple (up to four or five) husbands to do the work. Palmares was a dynamic mix of Portuguese, West African, Amerindian, and especially Angolan practices, which influenced its religion, its political and military structures, and a creole language unintelligible to most Portuguese. Zumbí was Palmares’s most famous leader. He was born in Palmares in 1654 but was kidnapped as a baby during one of many military incursions against the community. He was baptized and raised by a Catholic priest who taught him to read and write Latin and Portuguese. At 15 Zumbí escaped back to Palmares, and within two years he was taking important political positions within the community. His military and leadership skills won him further promotions, and by 1677 Zumbí was the head of the Palmarino military. In an essentially military coup he overthrew the great chief, Ganga Zumba, and became the new leader. From this point on, Zumbí turned on the Portuguese colonial order, convinced that until it was defeated there would be no peace for Palmares—only future enslavement. For 13 years (1680–1693), Palmares aggressively raided the surrounding settlements, putting the Portuguese on the defensive. The king of Portugal

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offered Zumbi and his family amnesty and freedom from enslavement if they desisted, but Zumbí refused. After 1690, however, bigger and better-equipped Portuguese armies with artillery were sent against Palmares, and in 1694 the community’s defenses were broached. Zumbí escaped, but government troops executed most of the men and attempted to sell the women and children into slavery along the coast. The women were said to have killed their children and starved themselves rather than be sold into slavery. Meanwhile, Zumbí continued the raids, but less than a year later he was betrayed into a Portuguese ambush by a trusted lieutenant. He was castrated and mutilated, and his head was publicly displayed on a pole to prove that he was not immortal. For contemporary African-Brazilians, Zumbí of Palmares continues to be a very important political and cultural icon for his association with a way of life that offered an alternative to European slavery and as an aggressive and heroic defender of freedom for Africans and their descendents. Scott Ickes See also Brazil: Afro-Brazilians; Maroons and Marronage; Yanga and Cimarronaje in Mexico. F URTHER R EADING Freitas, Décio. 1996. Zumbi dos Palmares. Luanda, Angola: Ministério da Culture. Funari, Pedro Paulo de Abreu. 1996. “A arqueologia de Palmares.” In Liberdade por um fio: História dos quilombos no Brasil, ed. João José Reis and Flávio dos Santos Gomes. São Paulo, Brazil: Companhia das Letras. Karasch, Mary. 2001. “Zumbi of Palmares.” In The Human Tradition in Latin America, ed. Kenneth Andrien. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources. Schwartz, Stuart. 1996. “Rethinking Palmares: Slave Resistance in Colonial Brazil.” In Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

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z

Abakuá, 1–3, 2 (photo) Abeng, 266, 267 Abernathy, Ralph, 852, 854 Abolitionism, in the African Diaspora, 3–8 in North America, 5–6 in South America, 6–7 Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society, 291 Abu-Jamal, Mumia, 8–9 Abyssinia/Ethiopia, 9–10 Achebe, Chinua, 10–11 Adivasi, 11–12 major categories of, 12 Adriana, Alberto, 948 Africa, 12–17 development of humanity in, 13–14 etymology of the name, 12–13 and European explorers, 15–16 geography of, 13 organized African empires, 14–15 Africa Alive, 467 Africa Vive, 92, 97 African Abolition Society, 720 African American history, 41–53 “African” in, 41–42 background of, 42–44 Black/Atlantic world studies, 51–52 colonial and antebellum studies, 45–46 cultural/interdisciplinary studies, 50–51 gender/women studies, 49–50 public history studies, 48–49 recent trends and tendencies in, 44–45

resistance studies, 46–48 African American Vernacular English (AAVE), 17–18 African American women, 19–20 themes found in the works of, 19 African Americans, and the constitutional order, 20–28 Civil Rights Movement and beyond, 24–27 Civil War era, 21–22 early cases, 20–21 segregation and Jim Crow, 22–24 African Ballet, 28 African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), 28–30, 185, 199, 230, 688–689 African Canadian film, 30–31 African Diaspora, 16, 314–315 African Diaspora texts, xlvii causes of, xxxiii–xxxiv definition of, xxxiii–xxxvii, xli distinguishing characteristics of, xxxvi encyclopedias covering, xxxii–xxxiii historical background and geographical range of, xxxvii–xxxix tendencies in African Diaspora studies, xxxiv and women, xlix–li “African Diaspora” (Shepperson), xxxiv–xxxv African Diaspora film, 31–32 The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA), xlv, 562, 883–884 African Diaspora performance aesthetics, 32–33 African Diaspora Studies, xlv–xlvi, xlviii I-1

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I-2 | Index African Diasporic sociology, 33–41 institutionalizing of, 37–39 major pre-1970s classical figures in, 35 pre-1970s, 34–37 vision and imagination in, 39–41 African film festivals, 442–443 African Literature Association, xlvi African literatures, xlvi–xlvii African matrix culture, 53, 829 African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, 54–55, 176, 177 Dress Reform Society, 54 Women’s Mite Missionary Society, 54–55 African National Congress (ANC), 182, 183, 650–651 African peoples, xli African Society of Culture (ASC), 992 The African Times and Orient Review, 75–76, 459 African Union (AU), xl–xli, 17, 55–58 guiding principles of, 55–56 members of, 56 organs of, 56–57 origin of, 55 symbols of, 57 working languages of, 57 Africanus, Sextus Julius, 58–59 AfriCobra, 113, 169 Afrika, Llaila O., 519 Afro-Asian Conference (Bandung Conference) (1955), 303–304 Afrobeat. See Anikulapo-Kuti, Fela Afro-Brazilian Studies and Research Institute (IPEAFRO), 701 Afrocentricity, 59–62 the Afrocentric paradigm, 59–60 contemporary issues in, 61 context of, 59 and Eurocentricity, 60 key assumptions, 61 leading Afrocentrists, 61 and location, 60 and ways to grasp facts, 60–61 Afro-Cuban literature, 62–65 Afro-Cuban music, 65–68 cha-cha-chá, 67 columbia, 67 danzón, 66 Latin jazz, 67 mambo, 67

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rumba, 66 son, 66 yambú, 67 Afro-Cuban Partido Independiente de Color (PIC) (Independent Party of Color), 342 Afrocubanism, 344 Afro Descendientes Movement. See Venezuela, Afro-Venezuelans in Afrodiaspora, Inc., 972 Afrofest, 252 Afro-fusion dance, 68–70 Ahimsa, 70–71 Aidoo, Ama Ata, 71–72 Akara/acara/acaraje, 72 Akina Mama Wa Africa (AMWA), 441 Albizu-Campos, Pedro, 778–779 Aleijadinho, 108 Alexis, Jacques Stéphen, 73 Algerian Revolution, 73–75 Ali, Duse Mohamed, 75–76 Ali, Muhammad, 76–77 Alim, Samy, 789 Al-Jahiz, 77–78, 575 All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (AAPRP), 78–79, 918 All-African Women’s Revolutionary Union, 918 “Build the A-AARP” program of, 79 Nkrumahism–Turéist ideology of, 78, 79 Allen, James de vere, 875 Allen, Richard, 175, 176 Alleyne, Mervyn, 581 Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA), 19, 79–80 Alves, Miriam, 81–82 Amankwatia II, Baffour. See Hillard, Asa G. Ambar, Malik, 82–83, 106–107, 565–566, 1002 Ambedkar, B. R., 355 American Antislavery Society (AAS), 6 American Colonization Society (ACS), 46, 54, 628 American Historical Association, xlvi Amistad decision (1841), 21, 682 Amo, Antonius Guilielmus (Wilhelm), 83–84 Ananse, 84–85 in Caribbean literatures, 84–85 importance of to Ghanaian authors, 84 Anastácia, 85–86 Andrews, George Reid, 883 Angelou, Maya, 86–87 Anikil, Awagi, 112

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Index | I-3 Anikulapo-Kuti, Fela, 87–90, 88 (photo) Ansina, 90–91 Antigua Caribbean Liberation Movement (ACLM), 267, 524 Antonio the Ethiopian, 91–92 Aponte, José Antonio, 340 Appadurai, Arjun, xxxv Appeal . . . to the Coloured Citizens of the World (D. Walker), xxxv, 5, 970–971 Aptheker, Herbert, 43 Aravaanan, K. P., 401 Archipelago Movement for Ethnic-Native SelfDetermination (AMEN-SD), 787 Argentina, Afro-Argentines in, 92–98 contemporary realities, 97 cultural fusions and contemporary trends, 96–97 history and origins of, 92–95 whitening and the decline in black population, 95–96 Arias, Aurora, 98–99 Aristide, Jean-Bertrand, 99–100 Armstrong, Byron K., 603 Armstrong, Lil Harden, 588 Armstrong, Louis, 586–587 Arozarena, Marcelino, 63 Art, in the African Diaspora, 100–117 first phase (40,000–4000 BCE), 101–102 second phase (3500 BCE–500 CE), 102–103 third phase (650 BCE–599 CE), 103–105 fourth phase (600–1600), 105–108 fifth phase (1500–1900), 108–110 sixth phase (1901–1970), 110–114 seventh phase (1971–2005), 114–116 Art West Associated, 113 Asante, Molefi Kete, 59 Asantewaa, Yaa, 117–118 Àshé, 118–120 Asia, and the African Diaspora. See The African Diaspora in Asia (TADIA) Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), 120–121 ASWAD Conferences, xlvi Atlantic world, and the African Diaspora, 121– 133 the African Diaspora, labor, and the Atlantic economy, 125–127 and the demand for slave labor, 126–130 and the development of an integrated economy, 122–125

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Western Africa’s contribution to the Atlantic economy, 130–131 Atwell, Winnifred, 905 Aunty Roachy Seh (Bennett), 160–161 Australia, 738 penal colony in, 736–738 and the “White Australia” policy, 737 Australian Association of Caribbean Studies, xlviii Axum, 133–134 Ayim, May Opitz, 466 Azanian People’s Organization (AZAPO), 183 Azikiwe, Nnamdi, 134–135 Baartman, Sarah, 137–138 Babalawo, 138–139 Babu, Abdulrahman Mohammed (A.M.), 139– 140 Badalkhan, S., 564 Bahamas, 140–141 Liberated Africans in, 141–142 Baker, Ella J., 142 Baker, Josephine, 142–144, 143 (photo), 304, 588 Baker, Thomas Nelson, 758 Bambaataa, Afrika, 144–145, 532 (photo), 790 Banner, William A., 756 Banton, Michael, 36 Baptists, 176–177 Baraka, Amiri, 145–147, 166–167 Barbados, African cultural elements in, 147–149 folk traditions, 149 food names, 147–148 music and masquerade characters, 148 national heroes, 148–149 Baron Samedi. See Samedi Bascom, William R., 581 Basquiat, Jean-Michel, 150–151, 151 (photo) Batalha, Luis, 260 Batouala, a True Black Novel (Maran), 151–152 Battey, C. M., 763–764, 764 Bava Gor, 152–153, 559, 560–561 Bekolo, Jean-Pierre, 443 Belize, African communities in, 153–155 Creoles, 153–155 Garinagu, 154–155 Beltrán, Aguirre, 673–674, 676–677 Benedetto the Moor, Saint, 155–156 Benin, 156–160 Benítez-Rojo, Antonio, xlvii

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I-4 | Index Benjamin, René, 964 Bennett, Louise, 160–162, 161 (photo) Berlin, Ira, 45 Bethune, Mary McLeod, 162–163, 163 (photo) Bethune-Cookman University (formerly Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls in Florida; Bethune Cookman College), 162, 163–164 Bettelheim, Judith, 829 Bhagwan, Moses, 487 Bibb, Henry, 164–165, 835 Biko, Stephen, 165–166, 182, 183 Bin Wahad, Dhoruba, 312, 313 The Birth of a Nation (1915), 593–594 Bishop, Maurice, 476 Bitter Canaan (C. Johnson), 37 Black Aesthetic, 166–167 The Black Aesthetic (ed. Gayle), 167 Black Arts Movement, 145, 167–169, 198–199 black arts in Africa, 168 black arts throughout the Diaspora, 168–169 The Black Atlantic (Gilroy), 51 Black Bourgeoisie (Frazier), 36–37 Black churches, and African American spirituality, 170–174 and ancestors, 171 and dreams, 173–174 fasting, 172–173 prayer meetings and devotional services, 171–172 the preacher, 173, 175 and spirit possessions, 171 Black churches, in the United States, 174–179. See also specific churches Black cinema, 179–182 and black stereotypes, 179–180 from the Caribbean, 181 The LA Film Rebellion, 180–181 “Negro interest films,” 180 race films, 179 Black Cinema Movement, 464 Black Consciousness Movement, 165, 182–183, 376 Black Feminist Movement, in the United States, 322, 432–436 Black Film and Video Network (BFVN), 30 Black History Month, 120 The Black Jacobins (James), 264 Black Liberation Movement, 434–435 Black Marxism, 184–185

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Black Marxism (Robinson), 185 Black Panther Party (BPP) (formerly the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense), 185–187, 192 The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service (a.k.a. The Black Panther), 715 the Free Breakfast for Children program of, 186 slogan of, 715 Ten Point Platform and Program of, 185, 714 Black Paris/Paris Noir, 187–189 Black People’s Convention (BPC), 166, 182 Black Populism (1886–1898), 189–190, 320 Black Power Movement, 145, 198–199 in the Caribbean, 265–269 in the United States, 190–193 Black Power, The Politics of Liberation (Ture and Hamilton), 192 Black Seminoles, 193–194 at Red Bays, Bahamas, 194–195 Black Skin, White Masks (Fanon), 37, 428–429 Black theology, 178 “Black Woman Writer in the African Diaspora” conference, xlix Black women. See African American women Black Women Organized for Action, 435 Black Women’s Diasporas (ed. C. Boyce Davies), l Black/Africana studies in the United States, 195–198 challenges facing the field, 197–198 major organizations for, 196 specialized journals of, 196 values of, 196–197 Black/blackness, and philosophical considerations, 198–203 and the concept of “Negro,” 200–201 and the definition of blackness as race, 202– 203 Blocos afoxés, 203–204 Blocos afros, 203–204 Bluefields (Nicaragua), 204–205 Blues, 205–212 black women blues singers, 588–591 and the blues continuum, 206 and blues orthodoxy, 205–206 and the minor tones AAB, 205 Blyden, Edward Wilmot, xxxv, 212–214, 708 Board of Regents v. Roth (1972), 661 Boas, Franz, 907 Boggs, Grace Lee, 214–215

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Index | I-5 Boggs, James, 190, 214–215 Bois Caiman, 215–216 Bolívar, Simón, 7, 944–945 Bolivia, African presence in, 216–221 culture, 220–221 demographics, 220 during the colonial period, 217–218 during the republican period, 219–220 future trends, 221 political and cultural movements, 221 Bonaparte, Prince Roland Napoleon, 763 Born in Slavery (ed. Rawick), 206 Boukman, 215–216, 499, 504 Boulogne, Joseph Chevalier de Saint-George, 222–223 Bowen, John Wesley Edward, 758–759 Boxer, David, 115 Boyer, Jean-Pierre, 500 Bracks, Lean’tin L., xlix Brand, Dionne, 223–224, 251 Brathwaite, Kamau, xlvii, 224–225, 334, 658 Brazil, Afro-Brazilians in, 225–230 the abolitionist movement and branqueamento, 227 contemporary realities of, 228–229 culture of, 227–228 history and origins of, 225–226 in the nineteenth century, 226–227 quilombos and black consciousness, 226 Breton, André, 297, 914 Briggs, Cyril V., 29, 230–231 The British American, 772 Brixton (south London), 231–232 Brodber, Erna, 232–233 Brooklyn, 233–234 Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids, 508, 788 Browder v. Gayle (1956), 687 Brown, Elaine, 186, 187, 234–235, 235 (photo), 715 Brown, James, 199 Brown, Sterling, 432 Brown v. Board of Education (1954), 24, 660– 661, 705 Buhnen, Steven, 814 Burnham, Forbes, 487, 489 Butler, Broadus N., 759, 760 Butler, Octavia Estelle, 235–236 Butler, Tubal Uriah “Buzz,” 477, 905 Bynoe, Hilda, 477

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Cabral, Amilcar Lopes, 237–239, 261 and “Re-Africanization,” 238 and “Returning to the Source,” 238 Cachoeira (Bahia), 239–240 Cadernos Negros (Black Notebooks) series, 81, 783 Calalu/callaloo, 241 Caldor, Nicholas, 487 Callaloo, xlvi, li, 241 Calypso, 241–245, 904 Campbell, Grace P., 245–246 Campbell, Gwyn, xxxviii Canada, and African American refugee settlements, 246–247 Dawn Settlement, 247 Elgin Settlement, 247 Oro Township, 246 Sandwich Mission, 247 Wilberforce Settlement, 246 Canada, and the African Diaspora, 247–256 crime and marginalization, 254–255 film, 253–254 history of, 248–249 literature, 251 music, 252–253 and official multiculturalism, 248–249, 255, 256 the queer community, 255–256 theater, 251–252 typology of African-descended groups, 248 Candombe, 96, 881–882 Candomblé, 204, 228, 239, 256–257. See also Irmandade de Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte Cannes Brûlées, 257–259 as the basis of contemporary Carnival, 258– 259 elemental features of, 258 Cape Verde, 259–263 culture of, 261 history of, 260–261 literature of, 262 music of, 261–262 Capitalism and Slavery (E. Williams), 263–265 major propositions of, 263 Caribana, 250 Caribbean Association of Researchers and Herbal Practitioners, 515 Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), 269–270

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I-6 | Index Caribbean Diaspora, 270–287 and the black Caribbean Diasporic imaginary, 275–276 the contemporary Diaspora, 279–285 early migrations in the Caribbean American Atlantic, 270–272 household levels of income, 282 (table) self-identified racial categories, 284 (table) transnational migrations, 272–275 women in, 276–279 Caribbean Quarterly, xlvi Caribbean Studies Association, xlvi Carmichael, Stokely. See Ture, Kwame Carnival, 96, 287–289, 395, 678–679, 904. See also Notting Hill Carnival Carpentier, Alejo, 646 Carraway, Arthur, 115 Carter, Betty, 590 Carter, Martin, 487, 490 Carver, George Washington, 289–290, 921 Cary, Mary Anne Shadd. See Shadd Cary, Mary Anne Casa de Cultura da Mulher Negra, 808 Casa Grande e Senzala (“The Masters and Slaves or Enslaved Quarters”) (Freye), 227 Casely-Hayford, Adelaide, 437 Casely-Hayford, Joseph Ephraim, 290–291, 978 Caste, Class, and Race (Cox), 329 Castellanos, Israel, 343 Castro, Fidel, 345, 345–346, 348–349 Catholicism and compulsive acculturation, 942–943 and syncretism, 96–97, 228, 369–373, 964– 965 Center for African Studies (CAS), 237 Central America, African presence in, 291–294 Afro-Amerindian mestizos, 291–292 Afro-Caribeños, 293 Afro-mestizos, 292 Central Asia, African presence in, 294–296 Central Directorate of Societies of the Race of Color (Directorio Central de las Sociedades de la Raza de Color), 341–342 Centro de Esudos Afro-Orientais (CEAO), 296– 297 Césaire, Aimé, xlvii, 297–299, 298 (photo), 495, 663, 708–709, 914 Césaire, Suzanne, 299–300, 914 Charles, May Eugenia, 390 Chase, Ashton, 487

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Chaundhuri, K. N., 123 Chile, Afro-Chileans in, 300–302 contemporary realities, 301–302 history and origins of, 300–301 miscegenation and the decline of the black population, 301 China, and Afro-Asian relations, 302–305 Chisholm, Shirley, 234, 273 (photo), 435 Christian, Barbara, 305 Christophe, Henri, 306, 499, 500 Church of God in Christ (COGIC), 178 Clark, Veve, 382–383 Clarke, Austin, 306–308 Clarke, George Elliot, 308–309 Clarke, John Henrik, 309–310 Clarke, Leroy, 114–115, 310–311 Cleaver, Eldridge, 186, 193, 311–312, 714, 715 Cleaver, Kathleen, 186, 714 Clifford, James, 276 Cohen, Robin, xliv COINTELPRO, 186, 312–313, 836 Cole, Bob, 594–595, 596 Collins, Merle, 313–314, 478 Colombia, Afro-Colombians in, 314–320 Afro-Colombian organizations, 318 connections with African and the Diaspora, 319 and invisibility and exclusion, 317–318 overview of, 315–316 and the problem of identity, 316–317 Colonialism, 16–17, 20 Colored Farmers Alliance, 320–321 Combahee River Collective (CRC) (formerly National Black Feminist Organization [NBFO]), 321–323, 435, 706 Black Feminist Statement of, 322–323 Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), 29, 230 “Black Belt Theory” of, 246, 689 “Conceptualizing the African Diaspora” (Hamilton), xxxvi Condé, Maryse, 323–324, 324 (photo) Cone, James, 190 Conferences of Intellectuals of the African Diaspora (CIAD), xlv–xlvi Confiant, Raphaël, 324–325 Congress of Negro Artists, xlvi Conquest, Sexual Violence and North American Indian Genocide (Andrea Smith), xlii Conwill, Houston, 114

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Index | I-7 Cook, Joyce Mitchell, 758 Cook, Mercer, 325–326 Cooper, Anna Julia, 326–327, 433, 437 Cooper, Carolyn, 39 Corrido, 327–328 Cos Causse, Jesús, 64 Cox, Deborah, 252 Cox, Oliver Cromwell, 328–330 Coyolillo/Coyoleños, 330–332 Creole/Creolity/Creolization, 153–155, 293, 332–334, 711 Creole incident, 334–335 Crisis Magazine, 705 Cromanti, 335–336 Crook, Larry, 828 Crummell, Alexander, 761 Crusader, 29, 230, 389 Cruz, Celia, 337–338, 337 (photo) Cruz, Manoel de Almeida, 338 Cruz-Janzen, Marta, 886–887 Cuba Afro-Cubans in, 338–347 the Cuban Revolution and the African Diaspora, 348–350 intervention in Angola, 347–348 The Special Period in, 528 See also Grito de Yara; Santiago de Cuba Cugoano, Ottobah, 350–351 Cultural Association for Women of African Heritage, 631 Curtin, Philip, 814, 815 Da Silva, Benedita, 353–354 Dafora, Asadata, 359 Daily American Newspaper, 596 Dalits (Untouchables), 354–355 Damas, Léon-Gontran, 355–356, 708 Dance, in the African Diaspora, 356–363 on the African continent, 357–359 in the Caribbean, 360–361 in Latin America, 361–362 in the United States, 359–360 Dance Theatre of Harlem, 366–368 Dandridge, Dorothy, 589 Dangarembga, Tsitsi, 368–369 Danish West Indies, Oldendorp’s 18th-century findings on, xliv, 369–373 Danticat, Edwidge, 373–375, 374 (photo), 501 Daughters of the Diaspora (ed. DeCosta Williams), l

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Davies, Carole Boyce, l, 50, 81, 440, 728, 802 Davies, Horace, 487 Davies, K. G., 129–130 Davis, Angela, 349, 375–376 Davis Wade, 813 Dawson, Christopher, 575 De Almeida, José Lino Alves, 376–377 De Oxóssi, Mãe Stella, 377–378 de Silva, Jennifer Hodge, 30 De Sousa, T., 565 DeCarava, Roy, 764 Decolonization, 378–379, 486 “Defining and Conceptualizing the Modern African Diaspora” (Palmer), xxxviii– xxxix Delta Sigma Theta (DST), 379–380 Depestre, René, 501, 658, 709 Desmangles, Leslie, 785 Dessalines, Jean-Jacques, 380–381, 499, 501 The Destruction of Black Civilization (C. Williams), xxxv, 982–983 Detroit Summer, 215 La Diablesse, 381 Diaspora literacy, 382–383 Diaspora Vibe Gallery, 383–384 Diasporas, xlvi Diasporic marronage. See Maroons/marronage Diggs, Elder Watson, 603–604 Diop, Alioune, 188, 708, 766–767, 992 Diop, Cheikh Anta, xlv, 13, 387–388 Documentaries, 30, 253–254 Domingo, Wilfred Adolphus, 389–390 Dominica, 390–391 Dominican Republic, 391–396 and the African Diaspora, 396 African influences in, 394–396 the Haitian revolution and the unification period, 392 move toward democracy, 394 as a new republic, 392–393 the Trujillo regime, 393–394 U.S. occupation (1916–1924), 393 Douglarization. See Indians, and the African Diaspora in the Caribbean Douglas, Aaron, 111, 397 Douglass, Frederick, 6, 190, 397–398 Dracius, Suzanne, 398–399 Drake, St. Clair, xxxix Dravidians, 399–401 Drayton, Richard, 126

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I-8 | Index Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), 22, 47 Drum (formerly Africa Drum), 401–402 du Sable, Jean-Baptiste Pointe, 402–404 DuBois, W. E. B., 35, 43, 47–48, 110, 152, 166, 302, 303, 404–405, 404 (photo), 445, 461, 469, 508, 760 double consciousness concept, 38, 46 “Talented Tenth” concept, 404 Duke, Alison, 31 Dulles, John Foster, 24 Dumas, Alexandre, Jr., 424 Dunham, Albert M., 759 Dunham, Katherine, 359, 405–406, 406 (photo) Duval-Carrié, Edouard, 111 Duvalier, François “Papa Doc,” 500, 890–891 East African Community (EAC), 407–409 Ebonics. See African American Vernacular English (AAVE) Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS), 409–411 Ecuador, Afro-Ecuadorians in, 411–416 demography of, 412–413 economic activities of, 413–414 history of, 411–412 intercultural relations and racism, 415–416 politics of, 414–415 religion of, 413 Eddins, Berkley, 760, 761 Edgell, Zee, 416–417 Edwards, Brent Hayes, xxxv Edwards, Mel, 115 Egypt, 14 influence of on ancient Greece, 103–105 and Kemetic art in Asia Minor, 102–103, 168 See also Nubia El Diario de la Marina, 344 El Moudjahid, 417–418, 429 Elder, Jacob Delworth, xlviii, 418–419 Emancipation Proclamation (1863), 6 Emancipator, 389 Enlightenment, the, 94–95 Enríquez, Miguel, 775 Environmental justice, 419–420 Episcopalianism, 176 Equiano, Olaudah, 420–422 Esmeraldas, 422–423 Estupian Bass, Nelson, 415 Ethiopia Awakening (Fuller), 110 (photo)

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Ethiopian Orthodox Church, 134 Ethiopianism. See Haile Selassie I; Rastafarianism Eurocentrism, 60 Europe, and the African Diaspora, 423–426. See also specific European countries Evers, Medgar, 889 Exchanging Our Country Marks (Gomez), 45–46 Facing Mount Kenya (Kenyatta), 606 Falgayrettes-Leveau, Christiane, 617 Falucho, 427–428 Fanon, Frantz, 37, 74–75, 192, 428–430, 429 (photo), 709 Farah, Issa, xlii Fard, Wallace D., 702 Farrakhan, Louis, 704 Farris Thompson, Robert, xliv, xlvii, 121, 532 Febres, Mayra Santos, 430–431 Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), 431–432 African American writers involved in, 431 Guide to America series, 431 rural studies, 432 Slave Narrative Collection, 432 urban studies, 432 Fedon, Julien, 476 Feminism, and black women in the African Diaspora, 436–442 Caribbean feminist works, 438 feminist literary criticism works, 440 South African feminist journals, 441 works on African feminisms, 440 works on sexuality in the African Diaspora, 439–440 See also Black Feminist Movement, in the United States Feminist Africa, li Filhos de Gandhy, xlii–xliii, 443–445 Firmin, Anténor, 501 Fisk University, 445–446 Fitzgerald, Ella, 589 Flores, Juan, 886 Florida International University conferences, xlv Florida Memorial University, 446–447 “Flying Africans” narrative, 447–448 Fontaine, William T., 759, 760 Forum, 267 Foster, William, 179 The Foundations of Capitalism (Cox), 329

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Index | I-9 Fourah Bay College, 448–449 Fowler, Víctor, 64–65 France, and the African Diaspora, 423–424, 424, 425, 426, 449–452 black immigrant grassroots organizations, 451 Francisco, Slinger, 243 (photo), 477 Francois, Elma, 452–453 Franklin, John Hope, 43 Frazier, E. Franklin, 34, 36, 37, 907 Free African Society, 175 Freye, Gilberto, 227 Friandes, Mestre Manoel, 108, 109 From Slavery to Freedom (Franklin), 43 Frye, Charles A., 760, 761 Fuller, Hoyt, 166, 167 Fuller, Meta Warrick, 110 Gadsby, Meredith, l Gairy, Eric, 476 Gama, Luiz, 699 Gandhi, Mahatma, xlii, 70–71, 355 Garifuna, 154–155, 292, 455–456 Garrison, William Lloyd, 6 Garvey, Amy Ashwood, 456–458 Garvey, Amy Jacques, 458–459 Garvey, Marcus, xl, 46, 342–343, 389, 459–463, 459 (photo), 492, 689, 742, 793 African Nationalism philosophy of, 460 anti-Garvey forces, 461 Garveyism. See Garvey, Marcus Gaskin, Winifried, 487 Gates, Henry Louis, xlv, 842 Gays and Lesbians of the African Diaspora (GLAD), 256 “Gendering the African Diaspora” conference, l Geographers, Arab/African, 463–464 George Padmore Research Library, 741 Gerima, Haile, 464–465 Germany, and the African Diaspora, 465–468 Afro-Deutsche communities, 467 contemporary realities, 468 hip-hop in Germany, 467–468 historical background, 465–466 recent trends, 466–467 Ghana, 469–470 Gillespie, Dizzy, 587 (photo) Gilroy, Beryl Agatha, 470–472 Gilroy, Paul, xliv–xlv, xlvii, 51, 121, 272, 470 Githae-Mugo, Micere, 664

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Glissant, Edouard, xlvii, 334, 472–473, 482, 658, 709 Global Diasporas (Cohen), xliv Global Mappings Atlas (Hanchard), xliii Golightly, Cornelius, 759 Goméz, Juan Gualberto, 342 Gomez, Michael, xxxix, 45–46 Goodison, Lorna, 473 Gordon, Monica, 278 Graffiti, 150 Great Awakening, 174–175 Greaves, William, 30 Greenberg, Joseph, 373 Grenada, 474–478 culture of, 477–478 early history of, 474–475 the Grenadian Diaspora, 477 social movements in, 475–476 socioeconomic profile of, 475 Grierson, John, 30 Griots/griottes, 478–480 Grito de Yara, 480 The Groundings with My Brothers (Rodney), 267, 804 Guadeloupe, 480–482 Gualba, Miguel, 341 Guerra, Juan Luis, 395 (photo) Guillén, Nicolás, 63, 344, 482–483 Guimarães, Geni, 483–484 Guirao, Ramiro, 344 Gumbo, 484–485 Guy-Sheftall, Beverly, xlix Guyana, 485–490 as a British colony, 485–486 cultural and intellectual contributions to the African Diaspora, 490 and decolonization, 486–287 overlapping Diaspora in, 489–490 political scene in, 487–489 Haile Selassie I, 134, 491–493, 792–793 Hairstyles of blacks, 493–495 the Afro, 494 braiding, 493–494 dreadlocks (locks or dreads), 494–495 relaxers/perms, 494 straightening, 494 Haiti, 495–502, 504 culture of, 496 economy of, 497

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I-10 | Index environmental degradation in, 496 geography of, 495 government of, 497–498 the Haitian Revolution, 498–500, 502–504 history of, 498–501 population of, 495–496 Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo, xxxix Hall, Prince, 771–772 Hall, Stuart, xlv, 272 Hamilton, Charles, 191, 192 Hamilton, Ruth Simms, xxxvi, 37 Hamilton, Sylvia, 30 Hammond, Francis Monroe, 759 Hampton Institute/Hampton University, 504–505 Hanchard, Michael, xliii Handy, W. C., 208, 210 Hansberry, Lorraine, 199 Harlem, 506–507 Harlem Renaissance, 111, 199, 506, 507–509, 661 Harlem Tenants League, 246 Harleston, Elise Forrest, 764 Harper, Frances E. W., 434 Harris, Joseph, xxxviii Harris, Wilson, 658 Harrison, Hubert H., 688 Haynes, Samuel A., 154 Haywood, Harry, 509–510 Health, in the African world, 510–522 biomedicine (Western or official medicine), 514 health disparities, 510–514, 518 HIV/AIDS, 519–520 popular medicine, 511, 518–519 spirituality and healing, 517 traditional/folk medicine, 511, 514–517 Healy, Patrick Francis, 758 Heath, Roy, 522–523 Hector, Leonard “Tim,” 523–525 Hemphill, Essex, li Henson, Josiah, 247 Herrera, Georgina, 64 Herskovits, Frances S., 43 Herskovits, Melville, xliii, 32, 36, 581, 858, 907– 908 Heywood, Linda, xlviii Highlife, 525–527 Hill, Charles Leander, 758, 760, 761 Hilliard, Asa G., III, 527–528 Hine, Darlene Clark, xxxix

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Hintjens, H., 567 Hip-hop, 531–537 Cuban, 528–529, 530, 531 elements of, 532 in Germany, 467–468 internationalism of, 534 Latin American, 529–531 mistaken assumptions about, 533 musical, cultural, and historical connections, 532–533 original school, 534 origins of, 531 and rap COINTELPRO, 535–536 true school, 534 See also Rap/Rappin’; Yaad hip-hop The History of Mary Prince, 770–771, 813 Hitti, Philip K., 575 Holiday, Billie, 537–539, 538 (photo), 588–589 Holiness-Pentecostal Movement, 177–178 Holmes, Eugene C., 756 Homburger L., 401 Hope, John, 69 Hopkinson, Nalo, 540–541 Horne, Lena, 589 Horton, James Africanus Beale, 541–542 Houbert, Jean, 566 Houston, Charles Hamilton, 24 Howard University, 542–544 faculty and students, 543 library of, 543 Howell, Leonard, 793 Hughes, Langston, 303, 483, 544–545, 544 (photo) Huiswoud, Otto, 545–546 Hunt, Nettie, 25 (photo) Hunter, Alberta, 588 Huntley, Jessica, 487 Hunton, William Alphaeus, Jr., 48 Hurston, Zora Neale, 35, 431, 546–548, 547 (photo), 815 Hurtado, Lenin, 415 Hutton, Clinton, 816 Hyde, Evan X., 154 Hyppolite, Hector, 111 Ibeji, 549–550 “Ibo Landing” story, 550–551 Ifekuwingwe, Jane, l Iglesias Díaz, Aracelio, 345 Ilê Aiyê, 551–552

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Page I-11

Index | I-11 Immigration, to the United States admission by region and country of birth (1989–2001), 280 (table) patterns in (1989–2003), 274 (figure) Incense, 552–553 India, and the African Diaspora, 553–562, 563, 565–566 cultural expressions of, 560 Diaspora connections, 560–561 economy of, 557–558 ethnic groups and languages, 555–557 geographical boundaries, 557 history of, 554–555 political and social structure of, 558–559 religions of, 559–560 and the slave trade, 564–565 Indian Ocean world and the African Diaspora, 562–569 Dutch East Indies, 568 Habashi/Sidi/Kaffir terminology, 562–563 Mauritius, 566–567 music of, 564 Pakistan, 563–564 Réunion, 567 Sri Lanka, 567–568 See also India and the African Diaspora Indians, and the African Diaspora in the Caribbean, 569–571 Indigo, 571 Indonesia and Africa, 571–573 The Institute of the Black World (IBW), 573– 574 The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself, 421 International African Friends of Abyssinia (IAFA) (later International African Friends of Ethiopia), 457 International African Opinion, 741 International Club, 667–668 International Council of Women of the Darker Races, 436–437 International Labor Defense (ILD), 689 Iraq, ancient, African presence in, 574–576 Sumer, 575 Irmandade de Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte, 576–578 Islam African elements of Islamic art, 105–108 and women, 988–991

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Jackson, George Lester, 532, 579–580 Jackson, John G., 1000 Jackson, Joseph, 175 Jackson, Richard L., 675 Jagan, Cheddi, 486, 487, 489 Jagan, Janet Rosenberg, 487 Jamaica, 580–583 Jamaica Labrish (Bennett), 160 James, C. L. R., 43, 185, 264, 524, 583–585, 585 (photo), 860, 905 James, Cynthia, 658 James, George G. M., 761 Japan, and Afro-Asian relations, 302–305 Jazz, 585–587 black women jazz singers, 588–591 Jean, Roland, 115–116 Jeffers, Audrey, 905 Jerk seasoning, 591 Jim Crow, 22–24, 591–594 and the “separate but equal” doctrine, 592 Jiménez, Rafael D., 828 Johnson, Charles S., 34, 37, 431, 445 Johnson, J. Rosamond, 594–595, 596, 629, 705 Johnson, James Weldon, 303, 594–595, 595– 596, 629, 705 Johnson, Linton Kwesi, 596–597 Johnson, Lyndon B., 24, 853 Johnson, Sargent Claude, 111 Johnson, William D., 756 Johnston, Harry, 35–36 Johnston, Percy E., 760 Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education and Liberation (JEWEL), 267 Jones, Claudia Cumberbatch, 598–599, 598 (photo), 905 Jones, Lois Mailou, 111 Jones, Peter, 179 Jones, William A., 505 Jones, William R., 758, 760–761, 761 Journal of African American History, 120 Journal of African Civilizations, 940 Junkanoo, 599–600 Kali, 601–602 Kalimba, 602–603 Kanogo, Tabitha, 664 Kappa Alpha Psi, 603–604 Kayiga, Kofi, 115 Keens-Douglas, Richard, 604–605 Kelley, Robin D. G., xxxix, 790

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I-12 | Index Kelsey, George D., 757 Kelshall, Jack, 487 Kenya Land and Freedom Army. See Mau Mau Kenyatta, Jomo, 605–608, 607 (photo) Keyes, Cheryl L., 790 Killens, John Oliver, 739 Kincaid, Jamaica, 608–609 King, B. B., 609–610 King, Martin Luther, Jr., xlii, 71, 173,175, 610– 611, 852, 853 Kinyatti, Maina wa, 664 Kitt, Eartha, 589 Koelle, Sigismund, 373 KRS-ONE, 611–613 Ku Klux Klan, 22, 592 Kuti, Fela. See Anikulapo-Kuti, Fela Kwanzaa, 613–615 celebration and ritual of, 614–615 five fundamental activities of, 613 seven principles of (Nguzo Saba), 613–614 Kwayana, Eusi, 487 La poblacion negra de México (Beltrán), 673– 674, 676–677 Labat, Jean-Baptiste, 333 Lalla, Barbara, 658 Lam, Wifredo, 111–112, 617–618 Lamming, George, 618–619 Langston, John Mercer, 619–620 Langston University, 620–622 Laporte, Roy Bryce, 39 Latino, Juan, 622–623 Lawrence, Jacob, 111, 623–625 Lazare, Muzumbo, 904–905 Lee, Carlton L., 760, 761 Lee, Spike, 181, 234 LeFlesche, Susan, 505 Legba, 625–626 Legion Rastafari (Legiao Rastafari), 633 Légitime défenese, 626–627 Les Ballets Africains. See African Ballet Lewis, Earl, 50 Lewis, Samella, 113–114 Lewis, W. Arthur, 125 The Liberator, 6 Liberia, 627–629 “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” 594, 596, 629–630, 705 Liga para Promover el Progreso de los Negros en Puerto Rico, 778

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Lincoln, Abbey, 590, 630–641 Lincoln University (formerly Ashmun Institute), 632–633 Lino Alves de Almeida, José, 633–634 Lion, Jules, 763 Locke, Alain L., 111, 152, 508, 634–635, 756– 757 López, Rafael Brea, 829 Lorde, Audre, xlix, l–li, 635–637, 636 (photo), 999–1000 L’Ouverture, Toussaint, 5, 380, 499, 501, 637– 639, 638 (illustration) Lovejoy, Paul, 814–815 Lovelace, Earl, 639–640 Loven, Sven, 581 Lowery, Joseph E., 854 Lumumba, Patrice Emery, 640–641 Lynching, 887–889, 976–977 Maceo y Grajales, Antonio, 643 Macumba, 643–644 Magubane, Peter, 765 Mahdi rebellion, 644–645 Makandal, François, 645–646 Malcolm X, xl, 48, 192, 647–649, 648 (photo), 703, 799, 800 Male revolt, 649–650 Mandela, Nelson, 650–651 Mandela, Winnie, 651–653, 652 (photo) Manley, Edna, 112 Manley, Norman, 486 Manzano, Juan Francisco, 63 Maran, René, 151–152, 653–654 Marassa, 654–655 March on Washington Movement (MOWM), 214, 788 Mariategui, Carlos, 948 Marley, Bob, xlv, 655–657, 656 (photo) Maroons/marronage, 4, 226, 384–387, 391, 481, 657–659, 677–678, 744–745, 934, 944–945 grand marronage, 657, 934 the Ndyuka maroons, 870–873 petit marronage, 657, 934 See also Palmares Mars, Jean Price, 111 Marshall, Paule, 233, 270, 659–660 Marshall, Thurgood, 660–661, 661 (photo), 705 Marson, Una, 438 Martin, Tony, xxxix Martínez, Annabella Cruz, 331

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Page I-13

Index | I-13 Martinique, 662–664 Marson, Una, 661–662 Maryshow, Theophilus Albert, 476–477 “Master Abdias,” 112 “Master Didi,” 112 Mathaba International, 524 Mau Mau, 664–665 Maximilien, Louis, 964 Maynard, Valerie, 115 Mazrui, Ali, 728 Mbari Club, 665–666 M’bow, Amadou Makhtar, 666–667 McBride, Dwight, li McBurnie, Beryl, 361 McCarran-Walter Act (1952), 272 McDaniel, Lorna, 815–816 McFadden, Patricia, 441 McKay, Claude, 667–668 McKinney, Richard I., 757 McKittrick, Katherine, l McLeod Bethune, Mary. See Bethune, Mary McLeod McLeod, Jacqueline, xxxix McRae, Carmen, 668–669 McTair, Roger, 30 McWatt, Tessa, 669–670 Medici, Alessandro de, 670–671 Meeks, Gregory, 319 Mendizábal, Horacio, 97 Menéndez, Jesús, 345 Messenger, 184, 389, 787 Mestizo, 292, 671–672 Métraux, Alfred, 964, 965 Mexico, 673–679 African heritage of, 673–675 Carnival in, 678–679 maroons in, 677–678 and mestaziaje ideology, 674–677 See also Veracruz Micheaux, Oscar, 32, 179 Middle Passage, 679–683, 893 crew and officers of the ships, 682 and slave resistance, 681–682 and the slaves’ health and well-being, 680–681 The Migration of the Negro (Lawrence), 624, 624 (photo) Million Man March, 704 Milonga, 882–883 Minerva, 341 Mintz, Sydney, 486

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Miskito Indians, 292, 539–540 Mitchell, Arthur, 366, 367 Montejo, Esteban, 658 Montejo Arrechea, Carmen, 339 Montgomery, Evangeline J., 113, 114 Montgomery Bus Boycott, 685–687 Montgomery Improvement Association, 686– 687 Moore, Audley E. See Moore, Queen Mother Moore, Carlos, 349 Moore, Queen Mother, 687–688 Moore, Robin, 883 Moore, Richard B., 688–689 Moreau de Saint-Méry, Mederic, 333 Morehouse College (formerly Augusta Institute), 689–690 Morejón, Nancy, 63–64, 690–692 Moreland, Marc M., 760 Morisseau-Leroi, Félix, 501 Morrison, Toni, 692–693 Mos Def, 693–694 Moseka, Aminata. See Lincoln, Abbey MOVE, 8 Movement for Assemblies of the People (MAP), 267 Movimento Negro Unificado (MNU), 694–696 Moya Pons, Frank, 396 Mtoro bin Mwinyi Bakari, 696–697 Muhammad, Elijah, 76–77, 702–703 Mulatta, 697–698 Murrell, Nathaniel Samuel, 816 Muslim Mosque, Inc., 648 Mutabaruka, 698 Nardal, Jane, 188, 663 Nardal, Paulette, 188, 663 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, 397 The Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, 165 Nascimento, Abdias do, 114–115, 699–702 quilombismo philosophy of, 701–702 Nation of Islam (NOI), 76–77, 647–649, 702– 704 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 461, 596, 508, 704–705 Legal Redress Committee, 705 National Association of Colored Women (NACW), 19, 434

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I-14 | Index National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. (formerly National Baptist Convention), 175 National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO), 435, 705–707 National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in American (N’COBRA), 707–708, 801 N’COBRA’s International Affairs Commission (NIAC), 707 National Conference of Artists (NCA), 113 National Congress of British West Africa, 291 National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), 19, 162 National Joint Action Committee (NJAC), 267, 268 National Organization for Women (NOW), 434 National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), 165 National Urban League, 508 National Youth Administration (NYA), 162 Négritude, 297, 388, 429, 708–710 Negro History Bulletin, 120 The Negro in the New World (H. Johnston), 35– 36 Negro Renaissance. See Harlem Renaissance Negro Society for Historical Research, 830 Negro Welfare Cultural and Social Association (NWCSA), 452–453 Negro World, 389, 460, 461 “Our Women and What They Think” page, 458 Nelson, William Stuart, 757–758 Netherlands Antilles, and the African Diaspora, 710–712 Netherlands East Indies, African soldiers in, 712–714 Nettleford, Rex, 361, 797 New Jewel Movement (NJM), 267, 268, 476 The New Negro (Locke), 508 New Negro Movement. See Harlem Renaissance Newitt, M., 566 Newton, Huey Percy, 185–187, 192–193, 714– 715 Ngudu Herbarium, 516 Nichols, Grace, 716–717 Nketia, J. H. Kwabena, 358 Nkrumah, Kwame, xl, 408–409, 469, 492, 717– 718, 742–743 Notting Hill Carnival, 718–720 Nova Scotia, and the African Diaspora, 720–721

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Nubia, 721–724 Kerma period (2040–1554 BCE), 721 New Kingdom period (1554–1080 BCE), 721–722 Kush period (900 BCE—320 CE), 722–723 Meroe period (270 BCE—350 CE), 723–724 Nuestra Raza, 935 Nxumalo, Henry, 401, 402 Nyerere, Julius, 408 Nzegwu, Nkiru, xxxv Obadele, Gaidi, 800 Obadele, Imari, 800 Obeah, 725–726 Oberlin College, 303 Ogou/Ogum/Ogun, 726–727 Ogundipe-Leslie, Molara, 439 Okpewho, Isidore, 727–728 Olatunji, Babtunde, 358 Old Hige, 728–729 Oldendorp, Christian Georg Andreas. See Danish West Indies, Oldendorp’s 18thcentury findings on Olodum, 729–730 Olugebefola, Ademola, 115 Opoku, Albert M., 357, 358 Optiz, May Ayim, 730 Order of the Eastern Star (Queen Esther Chapter), 19 Organizaciones Mundo Afro, 935 Organization of African Unity (OAU), 55 Oro Negro, 301–302 Ortiz, Fernando, 617, 731–732 Osun (Oxum/Ochun/Oshun), 732–733, 733 (photo) Our Caribbean (ed. Glave), li Outlet, 267 Owen, Chandler, 389, 787 Oya, 734 Oyewumi, Ronke, li Pacific world and the African Diaspora, 735– 740 in antiquity, 735–736 during the Spanish-American War, 738–739 during World War II, 739 early contacts, 736 early migrations, 735 and European hegemony, 736 post–World War II, 739

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Page I-15

Index | I-15 recent Diaspora, 739 See also Australia Padmore, George, 43, 740–741, 905 Palcy, Euzhan, 181, 741–742 Palmares, 1009–1010 Palmer, Colin, xxxviii–xxxix Palmer, Ransford W., 275 Pan-African Congresses (PAC), 182, 183, 437, 457, 741, 743, 992 Pan-African Freedom Movement for East and Central Africa (PAFMECA), 408 Pan-Africanism, xxxix–xl, 78, 275–276, 408, 524, 742–743, 918 dominant ideas of, 743 Panama, Afro-Panamanians in, 292, 743–748 Afro-Antilleans, 745–747 Afro-Colonials, 744–745, 746–747 Pankhurst, Richard, 562 Park, Robert Ezra, 34 Parker, Lawrence Anthony. See KRS-ONE Parks, Gordon, Sr., 764 Parks, Rosa, 48, 588, 685, 686 (photo) Partido Autóctono Negro (PAN), 935 Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC), 261 “Passing,” 594 Pastor, Robert A., 272 Patterson, Louise Thompson, 846 Patterson, Tiffany, xxxix Pattillo, Walter Alexander, 748–749 Payada, 96, 749–750 Peña, Lázaro, 345 People with their feet on backward, 751 People’s Educational Forum, 688 People’s National Party (PNP), 389 People’s Progressive Party (PPP), 487 Peralta, Pedro Andaverez, 221 Pereira, C., 566 Pérez-Sarduy, Pedro, 64 Perry, Rufus L. M., 761 Perry, Rufus Lewis, Jr., 761 Peru, Afro-Peruvians in, 751–753 history and origins of, 752 recent trends, 753 resistance to slavery, 752–753 Pétion, Alexandre, 499, 500, 501 Petwo, 753–754 Pharaoh, Shengé, 114–115 Phi Beta Sigma, 754–755 The Philadelphia Negro (DuBois), 404

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Philip, Marlene Nourbese, 251, 755–756 Philosophers and the African American experience, 756–762 Photography and the African Diaspora, 762– 766 Pitt, David, 477 Placidó, 63, 341 Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), 22, 202, 592, 661 Pointe du Sable, Jean Baptiste. See du Sable, Jean Baptiste Pointe Poitier, Sidney, 180, 471 Polk, P. H., 764 Portalatin, Aida Cartagena, 766 Powers, Harriet, 108 The Practice of Diaspora (Edwards), xxxv Prempeh I, 834 Presbyterianism, 176 Présence Africaine, xlvi, 708, 766–767 Price, Richard, 657 Price-Mars, Jean, 501 Prieto, Claire, 30 Primus, Pearl E., 359, 767–770, 769 (photo) Primus-Borde Dance Language Institute, 768 Prince, Mary, 770–771 Prince Hall Masons, 771–772 Progressive National Baptist Convention, 175 Provincial Freeman, 772–773 Puerto Rico, Afro-Puerto Ricans in, 773–780 cultural connections, 777–779 history of, 773–777 racism and color stratification in, 886–887 The Pullman Porter (1910), 179 Pushkin, Alexander Sergeevich, 424, 780–781 Quakers, 5 Quilombhoje, 81, 783–784 Quilombo, 700 Quintana-Murci, 564 Race and Culture Contacts in the Modern World (Frazier), 36 Racial identity, 886 Rada, 785–786 Raimond, Julien, 222 Rainey, Gertrude “Ma,” 588 Raizales, 786–787 current situation of, 787 history of, 786–787 Randolph, A. Philip, 214, 389, 787–788 Ransome-Kuti, Funmilayo, 438

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I-16 | Index Rap COINTELPRO, 313, 535–536 Rap/Rappin’, 788–791, 995 Rapso, 791–792 Rasta Reggae, 376–377 Rastafarianism, xlv, 266, 268, 492, 495, 792–795 key principles of, 793–794 Rawick, George P., 206 Rayner, John Baptis, 795–796 Reagon, Bernice Johnson, 796–797, 879 Red Thread, 490 Reddock, Rhoda, li Refugee Home Society, 247 Refugee’s Home Colony, 165 Reggae, xlv, 376–377, 634, 655, 797–798, 995 Reparations, 707, 798–799 Republic of New Africa (RNA), 799–801 The Review of the Black World, 663 Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), 799 Ribeiro, Esmeralda, 801–802 Richards, Beah, 846 Rigaud, Milo, 965 Riggs, Marlon, li Riley, Cheryle, 116 Ríos, Soleida, 64 Robaina, Tomás Fernández, 64 Robeson, Eslanda Goode, 188 Robeson, Paul, 47–48, 802–803 Robinson, Cedric, 185 Rodney, Walter, 266, 267, 488, 490, 803 Rogers, Joel Augustus, 805–807 Rojas, Marta, 64 Rojo, Antonio Benítez, 829 Rolling calf spirit, 807 Roney, Antoine, 363 Roney, Nia, 363 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 162 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 162, 431, 788 Roosevelt, Theodore, 35 Ross, Jacob, 807–808 Rossi, Vicente, 882, 883 Roumain, Jacques, 501 Rouse, Irving, 581 Ruffin, Josephine St. Pierre, 434 Rufino, Alzira, 808–809 Ruiz, Antonio. See Falucho Sachs, Jeffrey, 319 Sage, xlix Saldaña, Excilia, 64 Salsa, 811–813

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Salt, and the African Diaspora, 813–817 culinary uses of, 815 and hypertension, 814 symbolic use of, 813–814, 815–816 Salvador, 817–818 Samba, 818–820 Samba schools, 820–821 Samedi/Baron Samedi, 821–822 San Martín, José, 7 San Mateo de Cangrejos, 822 Sancho, Ignatius, 822–823 Sankofa, 823–824 Santa Cruz, Nicomedes, 753 Santería, 824–828 alternative names for, 824 Santiago de Cuba, 828–829 Saving Our Sons and Daughters (SOSAD), 215 Schomburg, Arturo Alfonso, 830–831, 830 (photo) Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 831–832 School achievement, and minority students, 683–685, 684 (figures) Schwarz-Bart, André, 333 Scott, Hazel, 832–833, 905 Scottsboro Boys, 23, 23 (photo) Scurlock, Addison, 764 Seale, Bobby, 185–187, 192–193, 714, 715 Second Great Awakening, 5 Segregation, 22–24 Sembene, Ousmane, 180 Senghor, Léopold Sédar, 400–401, 709 Sexual Demon of Colonial Power (G. Thomas), xlii Seychelles Islands, 833–834 Seymour, William J., 177 Shadd Cary, Mary Anne, 772–773, 834–835 Shakur, Assata Olugbala, 835–836 Shakur, Tupac Amaru, 836–837 Shaman Pharmaceuticals, 516 Shange, Ntozake, 837–839 Shango, 839–840 Shelley v. Kramer (1948), 24, 660 Shepperson, George, xxxiv–xxxv Shook, Karel, 366, 367 Shorty, Lord, 244 Siddis, 840–841 Signifying, 842–843 Simone, Nina, 590, 843–844 Singer, Merrill, 517

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Page I-17

Index | I-17 Sistren, 844–845 Sitson, Gino, 358 Skinner, Elliott, li Slave narratives, 42, 165, 206 Slave revolts, 3, 339–340 the Aponte rebellion, 340 in the Dominican Republic, 391 in the Dutch Antilles, 712 in Haiti, 5, 499, 502–504, 637–638 the Male revolt, 649–650 Nat Turner’s rebellion, 920–921 in Panama, 744–745 the Stono Rebellion, 867–868 in the United States, 637 in Uruguay, 934 in Venezuela, 944–945 in the Virgin Islands, 957 Zanj rebellion, 575–576, 1001–1002 See also Maroons/maroonage Slavery/slave trade, 3, 7, 16, 158–159, 566 in Africa, 16 in the Arab world, 16, 1001 in Argentina, 93–95 in Brazil, 225–226 in Cape Verde, 260 and the demand for slave labor, 126–130 in the Dominican Republic, 391 in the Dutch Antilles, 710–711 in Guadeloupe, 481 in Haiti, 498–499, 503 in India, 564–565 in Panama, 744 in Puerto Rico, 774–776 transatlantic slave trade, 892–897 in Uruguay, 932–933 in Venezuela, 941–947 in the Virgin Islands, 957 See also Middle Passage Smith, Adam, 123, 125, 126 Smith, Bessie, 588 Smith, Dante Terrell. See Mos Def Smith, John M., 757 Smith, Raymond, 488 Smith v. Allwright (1944), 660 Smitherman, Geneva, 842 Sobel, Mechel, 39 Sociedad de Estudios Afro-Cubanos, 731 Sociedad Hispano-Cubana de Cultura, 731 Society of Friends. See Quakers Sojourners for Truth and Justice, 845–848

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“A Call to Negro Women,” 846–847 Solanke, Ladipo, 978 Soukous, 848–849 Soul music, 849–852 Soul on Ice (E. Cleaver), 193, 311 The Souls of Black Folks (Douglass), 46, 404, 508 South Africa, 47 and “the White Man’s Burden,” 47 South African Students’ Organization (SASO), 165–166, 182 Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 178, 610, 852–854 Soyinka, Akinwande Oluwole, 709–710, 854– 855 Sparks, Randy J., 129 Spelman College, 855–857 Spiral, 113, 169 Spiritual Shouter Baptists, 857–860 Sport, and the African Diaspora, 860–862 in Africa, 861 in the Caribbean, 860 in the twenty-first century, 861–862 in the United States, 860–861 Sri Lanka, 862–863 St. Hill, Arlette, 383 Staton, Dakota, 590 Steady, Filomena Chioma, xlix, 49, 436 Steele, Beverley A., 474 Steelpan, 863–867, 864 (photo) history of, 863–865 manufacture of, 865 steelbands, 865, 866 Stephens, Michelle, l Stono rebellion, 867–868 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 852–853, 916–917 Sugar cane, and the African Diaspora, 868–870 Sutherland, David “Suds,” 31 Sutherland, Efua Theodora, 873–874 Swahili, 874–879 the apex of Swahili civilization, 876 orientation and bias in Swahili historiography, 877–878 proto-Swahili civilization, 874–875 the Swahili today, 878 trade and the arrival of Europeans, 876–877 Sweatt v. Painter (1950), 23, 660 Sweet Honey in the Rock, 879–880

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Page I-18

I-18 | Index Sylvain, Benito, 501 Szwed, John, 34 Tango, 96, 881, 882–883 Taylor, Gardner C., 175 Teatro Experimental Negro (TEN), 229, 700, 901 Teatro Negro Independiente, 935 Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn, xlix Terrell, Mary Church, 434 Things Fall Apart (Achebe), 10 Thiong’o, Ngugi wa, 664, 884–885 Thomas, Francis A., 757 Thomas, Greg, xlii Thomas, John Jacob, 905 Thomas, Piri, 886–887 Thompson, Casildo, 97 Till, Emmett, 887–889, 888 (photo) “Time, Space, and the Evolution of AfroAmerican Society in British Mainland North America” (Berlin), 45 Tolson, Melvin Beaunoris, 889–890 “Tom Shows,” 923–924 Tonton Macoutes, 890–891 Tosh, Peter, 891–892 Traditional Medicine research program, 515 Transition, 898 Tribe/tribalism, 899–901 Trinadade, Solano, 901–902 Trinidad and Tobago, 902–907 cultural expressions in, 904 economy of, 906 history of, 902–903 languages of, 903–904 political and social structure of, 905–906 religions in, 903 See also Trinidad and Tobago, African impact on the social order Trinidad and Tobago, African impact on the social order, 907–914 arts and crafts, 910–912 demography, 908 economics, 909–910 politics and social control, 912–913 social organization, 909 worldview religion, 908 Tropiques, 297, 914–915 Truman, Harry S., 24, 788 Truth, Sojourner, 433, 433 (photo), 915–916 Tubman, Harriet, 173

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Ture, Kwame, xl, 190, 191 (photo), 192, 905, 916–918, 917 (photo) Turkey, Afro-Turks in, 918–919 Turner, Nat, 5, 501, 920–921 Tuskegee Institute/Tuskegee University, 921– 922 Tuttle, E. H., 401 21st A.D. Socialist Club, 688 Tynes, Maxine, 249, 922 Uncle Tom, 923–924 Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or, Life among the Lowly (Stowe), 823 Underground Railroad. See Canada, and African American refugee settlements “Unfinished Migrations” (Patterson and Kelley), xxxix Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), 346 Color Cubano subsidiary, 346 United Black Association for Development (UBAD), 154 United Kingdom, and the African Diaspora, 423–424, 425, 925–930 United Movement for the Reconstruction of Black Identity (UMROBI), 266–267 United Negro College Fund (UNCF), 164 Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), 29, 46, 154, 185, 199, 266, 343, 459, 460–461, 462, 506, 508, 742, 777 “Africa for Africans” slogan, 110 auxiliaries of, 461 Black Star Line Shipping Corporation, 460, 461 choirs and orchestras of, 461 Negro Factories Corporation, 460, 461 political figures influenced by, 462 See also Negro World “University of Woodford Square,” 930–932 Upadhyaya, U. P., 401 Urrutia, Gustavo, 344 Uruguay, Afro-Uruguayans in, 932–937 emancipation and beyond, 934 history and origins of, 932–933 recent trends, 935–937 resistance and maroonage, 933–934 Uslar Pietri, Arturo, 948 U.S. Constitution, 5, 21 Fifteenth Amendment, 22 Fourteenth Amendment, 22

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Index | I-19 Thirteenth Amendment, 6, 604 See also African Americans and the constitutional order U.S. Supreme Court Burger Court, 25–26 Nixon Court, 25 See also African Americans and the constitutional order; specific Court cases Valdés, Juana, 383 van den Berghe, Pierre, 36 Van Kessel, I., 568 Van Peebles, Melvin, 180 Van Sertima, Ivan, xxxvi, 940–941 VanDerZee, James, 764, 939–940 Vanhee, Hein, 813 Vaughn, Sarah, 590 Venezuela, Afro-Venezuelans in, 941–954 and the absence of antiracist laws, 950 Afro-descendent organizations, 952–953 the constitutional absence of Afrodescendents, 949–950 demographics of, 950–951 the modernization of the Venezuelan state and the exclusion of Afro-descendents, 947–949 origin of, 941 priorities of, 953 and the school system, 951–952 and slavery, 941–947 Veracruz, 954–955 Verger, Pierre, 227 Vesey, Denmark, 5 Vieux-Chauvet, Marie, 955–956 Villard, Sylvia del, 361 Vincent, Ted, 532 Virgin Islands, 956–959 connections with the African Diaspora, 958– 959 demographics of, 958 economy of, 958 history of, 956–957 Virgo, Clement, 30–31 Vodoun, 159, 496, 785, 959–966 iconography of, 964–965 pantheon of, 963–964 rites of, 962–963 temples of, 960–962 See also specific Vodoun deities Voice of the Fugitive, 165, 772

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Wadabaei, xlvi Waddy, Ruth, 113 Wailer, Bunny, 967–968 Wailing Wailers, 891 Walcott, Derek Alton, 968–969 Walcott, Rinaldo, xlvii Walda-Sellase, Heruy, 303 Waldinger, Roger, 273 Walker, Alice, 49, 969–970 Walker, David, xxxv, 5, 970–971 Walker, George William, 971–972 Walker, Madame C. J., 198, 494 Walker, Sheila Suzanne, 972–973 Wallerstein, Immanuel, 330 Wand, Hart, 210 Ward, Frederick, 973–974 Ward, Samuel Ringgold, 772 Ware, David, 208 Warner-Lewis, Maureen, xlvi, xlviii Warner-Vieyra, Myriam, 974–975 Washington, Dinah, 589 Washington, Booker T., 505, 921 Washington, Harriet, 512 Washington, Margaret Murray, 436, 437 Water Mama/Mami Wata spirit, 975–976 Watson, Osmond, 114 Wekker, Gloria, li Wells-Barnett, Ida B. 433–434, 888–889, 976–978 West African Students Union (WASU), 743, 978–979 objectives of, 978 West India Company (WIC), 710 West India Regiments, 979–980 West Indian Gazette, 905 Western Hemisphere African Diaspora Network (WHADN), 980–981 Weusi Artist Cooperative, 113 Wheatley, Phillis, 981–982 Where We At: Black Women Artists, 113 White, Garth, 266 White, Walter, 48 Whiteman, Unison, 476 Whitten, Norman E., Jr., 413 Wiggins, Forrest O., 759–760 Wilding, Richard, 874, 875 Williams, Brackette, 487 Williams, Chancellor, xxxv, 982–983 Williams, Egbert Austin, 971–972, 983–984 Williams, Eric Eustace, 125, 263–265, 266, 486, 905, 930–931, 931 (photo), 984–985

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I-20 | Index Williams, George Washington, 43 Williams, Henry Sylvester, 904, 985–987 Williams, Mary Lou, 589 Williams, Robert F., 535 Williams Samuel W., 757 Williams, Steven, 30–31 Williams, Wilson Elbe, 265 Wilson, Thomas W., 814 Wofford, Chloe A. See Morrison, Toni Wolof, 987–988 Womanism, 969–970 The Woman’s Era, 434 Women in Africa and the African Diaspora (ed. Terborg-Penn), xlix Women in the Caribbean Project (WICP), 278 Women in Nigeria (WIN), 439 Woodruff, Hale, 111 Woods, David, 991–992 Woodson, Carter G., 120 Word-Faith Movement, 178 World Congress of Black Artists and Writers, 992–993 The Wretched of the Earth (Fanon), 429, 709 Wright, Michelle, l Wright, Richard, 184–185, 993–994

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Writings of Black Women of the Diaspora (Bracks), xlix Wynter, Sylvia, l Yaad hip-hop, 995–996 Yanga, 996–997 Yemoja/Olokun, 997–998 Yoruba, 138 Zami, 999–1000 Zandu Pharmaceuticals, 516 Zanj (zinj, zang), 1000–1003 Zanzibar, and the African Diaspora, 1003–1006 contemporary Zanzibar, 1004–1006 history of, 1003–1004 Zarzuela, Juan Falú, 778, 779 Zealy, J. T., 763 Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe, xliii Zeta Phi Beta, 1006–1007 Zimele Trust Fund, 166 Zobel, Joseph, 1007–1008 Zong incident, 20, 682, 926 Zouk, 1008–1009 Zulu Nation, 144 Zumbí, 1009–1010

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