Encyclopedia of Sociology

AFRICAN STUDIES

indigenous traits. Such creative responses have
been, in their own way, acts of resistance enabling
cultural perpetuation. These adaptive responses
have assured the ultimate survival of many aspects
of African culture and institutions. It must also be
noted that with time comes transition. Many things
traditionally African have been altered, progress-
ing from their original, indigenous form to com-
pletely new and different forms. It is perhaps in
this tension, the reconciliation of the old with the
new, the indigenous with the nonindigenous, that
African studies will find its most exciting terrain
for future inquiry. The challenge will be to discov-
er the cultures and the people who have been
historically distorted by the twin activities of con-
cealment from within, and degradation and
misperception from without.

AMERICAN SCHOLARSHIP AND AFRICAN

STUDIES

The dismissal of the importance of African studies
preceded its acceptance as a scholarly discipline.
While clearly diminished today, the white male
Eurocentric focus has historically dominated uni-
versity curricula. Both grassroots and academic
movements pointed to the need for recognition of
the African contribution to world and American
culture. The early to mid-1900s saw the emergence
of black intellectuals in Africa (e.g., Léopold Sédar
Senghor, Patrice Lumumba, Cheikh Anta Diop),
the Caribbean (Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, Claude
McKay), and America (W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston
Hughes, Anna Julia Cooper), who spoke of paral-
lel movements based on the assumption that black
people in all parts of the world were a community
with shared interests and identity (e.g., Negritude,
Pan-Africanism). The goals of these scholars em-
phasized the uplift of people of African ancestry
worldwide through education, research, politics,
and cultural activities. These international move-
ments among black intellectuals were in direct
response to theories of black inferiority and the
systematic oppression of Africans (both on the
continent and abroad). Herbert Spencer, among
others, launched the ideology of Social Darwin-
ism, which developed into a popular, pseudoscientific
justification for racial hierarchies. Social Darwin-
ism assigned Africans, and thereby African Ameri-
cans, to the lowest rung in the evolutionary ladder.

A nineteenth-century phenomenon, Social Dar-

winism and its associated beliefs persisted well

into the twentieth century. Its philosophy is still

heard in the remnants of eugenics, in the present-

day interest in sociobiology, and in recurring as-

sertions of black innate intellectual inferiority.

Before the incorporation of African studies

into predominantly white colleges, black educa-

tors and leaders had stressed the value of black

America’s ties to Africa for decades. Notable activ-

ists from William Monroe Trotter to Booker T.

Washington and Marcus Garvey called for ‘‘Back

to Africa’’ movements. Zora Neale Hurston was an

anthropologist whose studies of African Ameri-

cans emphasized retentions and links with original

African cultures. The distinguished sociologist

W.E.B. Du Bois founded the Pan-African Con-

gress in 1921, supported by notables such as the

author Jessie Redmon Fauset, in order to explicitly

link the problems and fortunes of African Ameri-

cans to those of blacks in Africa and elsewhere.

Moreover, much of his work over a long and

illustrious career focused on Africa. Ultimately Du

Bois renounced his American citizenship and ac-

cepted Kwame Nkrumah’s invitation to settle

in Ghana.

Within white-dominated institutions, the val-

ue of African studies had strange origins.

Egyptologists and anthropologists gathered infor-

mation from Africa during colonial rule. In such

instances, sociology was both friend and foe. Early

sociologists promoted cross-cultural studies as well

as research into the social conditions under which

blacks lived. However, many of these sociologists

embraced Social Darwinism and its belief in the

inherent inferiority of blacks. Rarely did these

early academics speak out or take active stances

against the oppression of Africa and African peo-

ple by Europeans.

Some American colleges remained racially seg-

regated until the 1960s. The inclusion of African-

American students, and later African-American

studies classes, came in response to student activ-

ism, which occurred against the backdrop of the

push for civil rights and amidst significant racial

unrest. The black power movement of this time

strongly influenced many African Americans to

reclaim their heritage in everyday life and to de-

mand that black history and culture be included in

school and university curricula. There was—and