Background And Trailer Of 'Hidden Colors (The Untold History of People of Aboriginal, Moor, and African Descent)'

Watch and learn from the trailer and the director's background of Tariq Nasheed's very interesting, self-descript documentary film 'Hidden Colors (The Untold History of People of Aboriginal, Moor, and African Descent'


Kwaku
www.taobq.blogspot.com

A Thread On Pan-Africanism History

This piece, originally published in the New Internationalist magazine, is culled from a BNVillage thread in response to the forum question: How is Pan Africanism Relevant Today?

MAIN TRENDS

The Pan-Africanist movement began in the 19th century among intellectuals of African descent in North America and the Caribbean who thought of themselves as members of a single, "Negro," race. In this they were merely following the mainstream of 19th-century thought in North America and Europe, which developed an increasingly strong focus on the idea that human beings were divided into races, each of which had its own distinctive spiritual, physical, and cultural character. As a result, the earliest Pan-Africanists often limited their focus to sub-Saharan Africa: to the region, that is, whose population consists mostly of darker-skinned (or, as they would have said, "Negro") peoples. In this way, they intentionally left out lighter-skinned North Africans, including the large majority who speak Arabic as their first language.

In the 20th century, however, this way of thinking of African identity in racial terms has been challenged. In particular, the intellectuals born in Africa who took over the movement's leadership in the period after the World War II developed a more geographical idea of African identity. The founders of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), such as Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, for example, had a notion of Africa that was more straightforwardly continental. African unity for them was the unity of those who shared the African continent (though it continued to include, in some unspecified way, those whose ancestors had left the continent in the enforced exile of the slave trade).

Nevertheless,the movement's intellectual roots lie firmly in the racial understanding of Africa in the thought of the African American and Afro-Caribbean intellectuals who founded it. Because Pan-Africanism began as a movement in the New World, among the descendants of slave populations, and then spread back to Africa, it aimed to challenge anti-black racism on two fronts. On the one hand, it opposed racial domination in the diaspora; on the other, it challenged colonial domination, which almost always took a racial form, in Africa itself. The stresses and strains that have sometimes divided the movement have largely occurred where these two rather different goals have pulled it in different directions.

INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS

The idea of linking together the whole "Negro" race for political purposes was developed by a wide range of 19th-century African American intellectuals. We can still speak of these 19th-century thinkers as Pan-Africanist, even though they did not use the term. Like Pan-Slavism in Eastern Europe and the forms of romantic nationalism that created modern Germany and Italy, early Pan-Africanism reflected a philosophical tradition, derived from the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803). In Herder's opinion, peoples (or, as they were often called, nations) such as the Slavs, Germans, and Italians, were the central actors of world history. He suggested that their identities were expressed largely in language, in literature, and in folk culture. And he thought that such nations were naturally drawn together by the desire to live together in states, with a shared language, culture, and traditions. The cultural oneness of a nation led naturally, in Herder's view, to political union.

The first black intellectual to apply this theory in a systematic way to people of African descent was W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963). In a lecture on "The Conservation of Races," published by the American Negro Academy in 1897, Du Bois used the word "Pan-Negroism." Du Bois was an African American who had studied as an undergraduate at Harvard with the philosopher William James. But in 1892 Du Bois had gone on to do graduate work at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, and was, therefore, thoroughly familiar with the intellectual traditions of modern European nationalism, as well as with the philosophical tradition that began with Herder.

In "The Conservation of Races" Du Bois argued that "the history of the world is the history, not of individuals, but of groups, not of nations, but of races." (But he mentions Slavs, Teutons “that is, Germans and the Romance race, indicating that, like so many other Western intellectuals of his day, he took real nations to be races.) He argued, too, that the differences among races were "spiritual, psychical, differences” undoubtedly based on the physical, but infinitely transcending them." And, finally, he insisted (in a manner strongly reminiscent of Herder) that each race was "striving” in its own way, to develop for civilization its particular message."

The problem for Pan-Negroism was how the Negro people were to deliver their message. Du Bois believed that African Americans (whom he called the "advance guard of the Negro people") were to play the leading role in that task. He thought that they were especially well-suited for this task because, some of them, like Du Bois himself, had been exposed to the best modern educations and the highest forms of knowledge.

Though Du Bois's formulation had roots in the theorists of European nationalism, he was also strongly influenced by a number of earlier African American thinkers, whose work we can understand most easily in the context of the broad 19th-century history of antislavery or "abolitionist" thought. The focus of attention for all the major black thinkers in the New World in the early 19th century was the abolition of slavery and of the slave trade. Since most people, both black and white, believed that racial hostility between blacks and whites was inevitable (this view was explicitly held, for example, by Presidents Jefferson and Lincoln) one major preoccupation of some abolitionists concerned finding territories that could be inhabited by freed blacks. The colony of Sierra Leone was created in the late 18th century by British abolitionists, in part as a home for freed blacks and the black poor of England; the American Colonization Society played a similar role in the creation of Liberia in the 1820s. But other schemes were proposed to colonize parts of Latin America, the Caribbean and the American western frontier.

All of these schemes, of course, presupposed that Africans (and their descendants in the New World) belonged naturally together in a political community, separated from other peoples. There were significant voices raised in protest against this assumption ”notably that of the American ex-slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass” and they were joined by many others after the United States formally recognized the citizenship of people of African descent in the post-Civil War- amendments to the U.S. Constitution. But in the first half of the 19th century the majority view, among both black and white intellectuals, was that a home was needed for the Negroes if they were to be free.

Perhaps the most important black intellectual forerunners of Pan-Africanism were three men who addressed themselves to this situation: Martin R. Delany (1812-1885), Alexander Crummell (1822-1898), and Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832-1912). Martin R. Delany was born in the southern United States, but his family moved to Pennsylvania during his youth. He began a medical education at Harvard, but was forced to leave because white students would not work alongside him. Delany's contributions to the pre-history of Pan-Africanism begin with his own sense of a profound connection with Africa. He was proud that he was a "full-blooded Negro" and he named his children for ”among others” Toussaint Louverture (the black leader of the Haitian Revolution), Ramses II (the Pharaoh of Egypt), and Alexander Dumas (the French novelist, who had African ancestry).

But he was also a powerful voice for black emigration from the United States, arguing in his The Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States (1852) that only in a country without white people could black people flourish. In that early work, Delany did not make the obvious suggestion that blacks should "return" to Africa. This was not because he was against the idea but because, along with other leaders of the re-emigration movement, he believed that most African Americans (convinced by anti-Negro propaganda) were likely to see Africa as a very unattractive place to live.

In his Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploration Party (1861), written after he had been to Africa, he wrote of the continent as "our fatherland" and argued that its regeneration required the development of a "national character." And he proposed the formula, "Africa for the African race and black men to rule them," which is one of the earliest formulations of a Pan-Africanist principle.

Alexander Crummell was born in New York and studied at Cambridge University in England. He was the first African American to do so and was an ordained Anglican clergyman. He was also the first African American intellectual to spend a significant amount of time in Liberia. (When Delany visited that country in 1859, he met Crummell, who by then had been there for two decades.) In The Future of Africa (1862), a collection of essays and lectures written while he was in Liberia, Crummell developed a vision of Africa as the motherland of the Negro race. In "The English Language in Liberia," based on a lecture given on Liberian independence day in 1860, he argued that African Americans who had been "exiled" in slavery to the New World had been given by divine providence "at least this one item of compensation, namely, the possession of the Anglo-Saxon tongue." Similarly he argued for the providential nature of the transmission of Christianity to Negro slaves, and that it was the duty of "free colored men" in America to convert their ancestral continent to Christianity.

In the essay "The Relations and Duties of Free Colored Men in America to Africa," he also expressed with great clarity the underlying racial basis of his understanding of Negro identity. There he defined a race as "a compact, homogeneous population of one blood ancestry and lineage," and argued that each race had certain "determinate proclivities," which manifested themselves in the behavior of its members. Crummell was, with Blyden, one of the founders of Liberia College (later the University of Liberia).

Unlike Blyden, however, he did not become a permanent resident of Liberia, returning rather to the United States, where he continued to argue for the importance of an engagement with Africa on the part of blacks in the African diaspora. Crummell was the leading spirit in the foundation of the American Negro Academy, and was present at the meeting at which Du Bois first read "The Conservation of Races." He was also a significant influence on Du Bois, who included an essay about Crummell in his extremely influential volume The Souls of Black Folk (1903).

Edward Blyden was born in the West Indies but traveled to Liberia in 1850, under the auspices of the American Colonization Society, becoming a citizen of that country for the rest of his life. Like Crummell, he was a priest, and, as we have seen, they worked together in the early days of the University of Liberia. Blyden spoke many languages. His essays include quotations in the original languages from Dante and Virgil, and he studied Arabic in order to teach it at Liberia College. Later he became the Liberian Ambassador to Queen Victoria.

In Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race (1887) Blyden expressed the conviction that underlies Du Bois's first explicit formulation of Pan-Africanism: "Among the conclusions to which study and research are conducting philosophers, none is clearer than this ”that each of the races of mankind has a specific character and specific work." Blyden, like Crummell, had little respect for the traditional cultures of Africa. They shared the view that Christian blacks in the diaspora had a responsibility to convert their African cousins. But Blyden argued explicitly that what he called Africa's current "state of barbarism" did not reflect any innate deficiency in the Negro. "There is not a single mental or moral deficiency now existing among Africans," he said, "... to which we cannot find a parallel in the past history of Europe."

THE PAN-AFRICAN CONGRESSES

Pan-Africanism as an intellectual movement begins, then, in the work of Du Bois, Delany, Crummell, and Blyden. But its institutional history starts with Henry Sylvester Williams, a London barrister born in Trinidad. He planned to bring together people of the "African race" from around the world in 1897; and in July 1900, after a preliminary conference in 1899, such a gathering took place in London. (The actual word "Pan-Africanism" seems to have been coined either at this Pan-African Conference or at the earlier planning conference.) There were four African representatives ”one each from Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and the Gold Coast colony” and a dozen from North America (among them Du Bois); eleven representatives came from the West Indies, five from London.

The conference opened with the clearly stated aim of allowing black people to discuss the condition of the black race around the world. In 1919 Du Bois and others organized the first Pan-African Congress, in Paris, which brought together representatives from the Americas, Europe, and Africa to discuss the plight of Africans living under colonialism. This was followed by the second Pan-African Congress, also organized by Du Bois, which met in three sessions, in London, Brussels, and Paris, this time with representatives from French and Portuguese colonies in Africa as well. They issued a final declaration that insisted on the equality of the races, the diffusion of democracy, and the development of political institutions in the colonies. It also urged the "return" of Negroes to their own countries and urged the League of Nations to pay attention both to race relations in the industrialized world and the condition of workers in the colonies.

A third Congress occurred in London in 1923 and continued, according to Du Bois, in Lisbon (though this appears to have been little more than an opportunity for Du Bois to talk to some people from the Portuguese colonies on his way from London to Liberia, where he was the official representative of the United States at the installation of the Liberian president). The fourth Pan-African Congress was held in New York City in 1927. The Pan-African Congress movement then effectively disappeared until the fifth Congress in Manchester in 1945, during which the baton was handed from the diaspora to the continent. Du Bois's contribution now lay in the shadow of that of figures such as Kwame Nkrumah, who was to be Ghana's first prime minister. (And, indeed, Du Bois was the only African American present.) The sixth Congress, held in 1974 in Dar es Salaam, was presided over by Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere.

During the period between World War I and World War II, in the heyday of the Pan-African Congress movement, the sentiment received a substantial practical boost from the growth of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Led by Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican immigrant to the United States, the UNIA became the largest black movement in the African diaspora. While the slogan of the movement was "Back to Africa," and Garvey did indeed plan a shipping line for the purpose, relatively few members of the organization actually left the New World for the Old. Nevertheless, Garvey's commitment to racial pride and to the celebration of black historical achievement, and his concern to link the diaspora to the continent, make him an important figure in the movement's history.

One West-Indian-born intellectual did play an important role in planning the 1945 Congress, namely George Padmore (1902-1959). (Padmore was a pseudonym: he was born Malcolm Nurse.) Padmore was a Trinidadian who had spent some time in the United States, studying at Columbia University and at Fisk (a black university which Du Bois had also attended). He worked as a Communist Party organizer among students at Howard University, the black university in Washington, D.C Later he spent time in Germany and in Russia, where he became in 1930 the head of the Negro Bureau of the Red International of labor unions. In the next few years he worked for communist organizations in Austria and Germany, moving to London in 1935. From then until his death in 1959 he was the leading theorist of Pan-Africanism, and was a close friend and adviser of Kwame Nkrumah. His Pan-Africanism or Communism (1956) is probably the most important statement of his position.

PAN-AFRICANISM TODAY

In the period after World War II African intellectuals were preoccupied with the question of independence. Once independence was attained, Pan-Africanism became an ideology through which relations among the newly independent states could be thought about; Pan-Africanist rhetoric continues to be important in the language of the Organization of African Unity, which was founded in 1963.

In that same period, black intellectuals in North America were taken up with questions of civil rights. There were always resonances between these two projects. Du Bois was involved in both throughout his long life, and died a citizen of Ghana; African diplomats sought to have civil rights questions raised in the forum of the United Nations. But Pan-Africanism took philosophical form in the period leading up to Padmore's work; and its major theoretical works are those of Padmore and Du Bois.

Taken from New Internationalist magazine no;32

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We Kick Off Our 1st Blog By Re-visting Our Position On African/Black History Month

The Other Side Of African/Black History Month

By: Awula Serwah & Kwaku 
First published on Ligali.org on 12 September 2011 Republished at NewAfricanPerspective

Awula Serwah & Kwaku reflect on the challenges and progressive way forward for African history Month in the UK

We have mixed feelings when we hear or read that some councils are reluctant to celebrate African/Black History Month (A/BHM). Why? Because much of what’s put out as A/BHM fare is often devoid of history. It often entertains but seldom increases knowledge of African history. So for example, we did not join the bandwagon last year demanding that London Mayor Boris Johnson reinstates his massively slashed A/BHM budget. But on the other hand, we did not oppose those who were campaigning for the budget to be re- instated.

This is because public bodies such as councils, have a duty to celebrate initiatives such as A/BHM. The 1987 African Jubilee Year Declaration, which most London councils signed up to, enjoined them to mark A/BHM. The Declaration drew its strength from sections of the 1976 Race Relations Act, strengthened by the 2000 Amended Race Relations Acts, which enjoins them to “promote race equality, equality of opportunity and good relations between persons of different racial groups”.

The Declaration recognised the contributions of Africans to the cultural, economic and political life of London and the UK, and called upon councils to recognise this fact and take their duties as enjoined by the Race Relations Act very seriously, and to do everything in their power to ensure that African* children did not lose the fact of the genius of their African-ness.

We have to acknowledge that a lot of events billed as A/BHM events have little to do with history, and donot improve knowledge of African history. Face painting, fashion shows, singing and dancing etc. taking place in October, are billed as A/BHM events, when in reality they are simply entertainment.

There is nothing wrong with singing and dancing, and it has its place, but A/BHM is not about entertainment. It is an opportunity to learn about African history and achievements, which are largely absent in the mainstream. By focusing on pure entertainment, we perpetuate the perception that our areas of expertise are limited to entertainment. Besides, we have a regular diet of entertainment and culture throughout the year.

We can of course argue that we do not want one month or a season to focus on our history, and that our achievements should be in the in the curriculum and mainstream 12 months of the year, and not just in October.

This is a valid argument. However, if we are arguing that councils have a duty to celebrate A/BHM, then we must ensure that where possible, informed Africans are in the driving seat or part of the decision-making process, and that A/BHM events improve knowledge of our history from an African perspective.

Africans have achieved

It is unfortunate that some A/BHM events focus on enslavement, as if our history starts with enslavement and that there are no other worthy stories to be explored. Others simply regurgitate information on the “usual suspects” - Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and now President Obama, etc., overlooking what has happened in Britain.

Perhaps some of our young people will show more respect for their elders when they learn what has been achieved through sacrifice and activism of their elders and forebears in Britain.

It’s not just Boris Johnson’s City Hall cuts we should be focusing on - after the hullabaloo in 2007, where all the London councils were involved in promoting Wilberfarce and A/BHM events, some councils have since either reduced or totally cut their A/BHM budgets.

Hillingdon for example, does not support A/BHM, which has been replaced with a patchy Hillingdon History Month in October. An African councillor in Hillingdon, Cllr June Nelson*, is putting forward a motion for the Council to re-instate A/BHM. Also, this year, Westminster has cut its A/BHM funding. It had done some good work in the past, particularly in making accessible the rich African history within its archives, and providing talks that highlighted key historic figures who operated within the borough.

2

Boroughs can be brought to account, if there is the will within the community to seriously engage with such structures. A case in point is Harrow Council. Thanks to the intervention of informed Africans, A/BHM in Harrow is now about the history of Africans, and it is made clear that the term African refers to the continent of Africa and its diaspora. Whilst the process is driven by Africans, the aim is for everyone irrespective of race, to participate in the events, and improve their knowledge of African history. In addition, there is an annual theme for funded events, which must have clear learning outcomes for participants.

A/BHM should always offer an opportunity for all sections of the community to learn something positive about the history of Africa and its diaspora. Perhaps before each A/BHM event, a short statement should be read, reiterating the reasons why A/BHM came into being, lest we forget.

It is amazing the number of times, in defending the maintenance of A/BHM, Africans say things like “We don’t know our history” or “They didn’t teach us African history in school”. It will be irresponsible of Africans to wait each year for BHM to learn about their history. There are a numerous and free resources available that provide information on African history from an African perspective. It is our responsibility to educate ourselves and our children on African history. We can decide to buy our children books and resources that will raise their self-esteem, or buy them the latest electronic games - the choice is ours. Finance is no excuse. There are families on minimum wage or benefits who raise their children with positive African values, history, and knowledge of who they are.

It is important for us to acknowledge what Africans have achieved in spite of the barriers. We should not, like the mainstream, continuously tell the one or two stories, such as the poor and helpless story, or the under-achievement story. Also in light of the August 2011 incidents, African pundits and teachers should be mindful of pushing the notion that Africans did not suffer loss, because they do not own property or businesses.

Africans have owned property and businesses in Britain for centuries. One of the Sons Of Africa abolitionists, Ignatius Sancho, voted in the 1780 parliamentary elections. In those days non-property owners could not vote, and Sancho was able to vote because he was a business owner – a shopkeeper, in Westminster.

We cannot afford to rob our children of hope by regurgitating the tired story of Africans in Britain as powerless victims of the system, who do not own anything. We are the descendants of overcomers, the likes of Nana of the Maroons, Marcus Garvey, Paul Stephenson, etc.

It is important that we tell the story of Africans who have navigated the system, own businesses and property, and have broken the glass ceiling to demonstrate that whilst we must redouble our efforts to remove barriers, some Africans have

been able to jump over the barriers and achieve. We do not lose anything by hearing their stories, and they can sow the seeds of inspiration to achieve great things.

Kwaku is the founder of the BritishBlackmusic.com (BBM) and Black Music Congress (BMC). He is NVQ assessor, tutor, journalist, music and media industry consultant and facilitator.

Ms Serwah is a Ghanaian-born barrister, social activist, and a Brent Citizenship Award 2007 awardee. She is the co-founder of community organisation, BTWSC and was appointed a notary public in 2010.

Collectively they have produced several notable publications including the NARM Role Model Book, African Voices: Quotations By People Of African Descent and Voice From Afar.

NARM (Naming And Role Model) African British Civil Rights History BHM 2011 events across London

* Press release following Cllr June Nelson A/BHM motion, which was defeated in Hillingdon Council, issued by the Labour Group Office:

Press Release

At the full council meeting on Thursday 8th September Cllr June Nelson gave an impassioned speech in moving a Labour Motion calling for the Council to re-instate October as Black History Month. This is because the internationally recognised Black History Month has, for the past few years, been renamed in Hillingdon to “Hillingdon History Month” and the commemoration and celebration of the achievements of African people has been watered down considerably.

The ruling Conservative group on Hillingdon Council, who are responsible for the renaming of the month and the move of focus away from Black people, voted the motion down on a very flawed argument that they were being inclusive by dedicating the month to all the residents of the borough, rather than just those from the Black community. The Conservative group also called for a recorded vote, so that they could use their flawed argument against the Labour group in their political propaganda.

This one issue highlights just how badly the Conservatives in Hillingdon understand what it means by being inclusive and cultivating true community spirit across all strands of our society. What they just don’t understand is that in order for communities to come together and breakdown barriers, they must understand and celebrate their differences.

During the debate Cllr John Major highlighted the flawed thinking of the Tory group be illustrating that throughout the year there are a number of days and weeks dedicated to one particular group or another, but none of these are at the exclusion of others, but they serve to focus attention on that particular group or issue, so that everyone understands and that any myths or fears of what makes us different are dispelled. After the meeting Cllr Mo Khursheed, Leader of the Labour Group, said:

“The flawed thinking of the Tory group is exactly what creates tensions and issues amongst our community. The renaming of “Black History Month” to “Hillingdon History Month” on the basis that it includes all residents and not just the Black ones amounts to the same as renaming “Christmas” to “Hillingdon Winter Festival” on the basis that it will include all residents and not just the Christian ones.

The Tories used to claim that it was the “loony left” that was to blame for political correctness gone mad, but the flawed thinking of this Tory council proves otherwise.” Cllr Khursheed added “I am glad that the Tories called for a recorded vote because you only have to look at the makeup of the Labour Group to see that we represent the whole community, and as such we welcome diversity and anything that will help different sections of our community understand each other, celebrate our differences and break down barriers”.