Introduction
The African diaspora has resulted in a wave of “migration” of Africans from the African continent to other parts of the world. The main reason for this is the slave dispersal that moved Africans from Africa to America, the Middle East and even to the Far East. The dispersal that took place is thought to be one of the greatest forced migrations in the history of humankind (Britannia Academic: Slavery). There is always the ideology that all Africans, no matter where they find themselves around the world, are bound together by their traditional cultures and diasporic experiences. This paper will investigate how politics and events in the African communities in the various colonies and in Africa itself have helped influence and shape the politics of African Americans in general.
The Revolutionary Tradition
The revolution at San Domingo during which the Haitian sovereign state was formed is a defining moment in the history of slavery. It is the only successful Negro revolt, receiving inspiration from the French Revolution (San Domingo: San Domingo Reading). Southern slaveholders in the United States feared that this revolt would influence slave relations not only between the US and the slaves, but also between the US and the abolitionists as well. At the time, the US has interests in the area because of its vast sugar and other agricultural production. Thus it would make sense for the United States then not to recognize the new Haitian state to somehow repel the effects of this revolution in San Domingo. It is said that this revolution had the effect of Northern slaveholders freeing their own slaves (Dillon and Drexler, 6).
Fast forward to the 20th century, another event which galvanized African-based organizations around the world was the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. When this occurred in 1935, the African American press based in the United States took the responsibility of making the Ethiopian crisis known to the Americas. This group also felt that the response of the White western press was not enough, and thus this amounted to what they perceived to be racist. They also drew parallels between the Fascist conquest of Ethiopia and how African Americans were treated in the US mainland. The colonialist approach of the Italians was seen as similar to the colonialization of the African Americans (Von Eschen, 11-13).
In the 1940s, there were intense labor strikes in the West Indies. Again, the African American press viewed these incidents as responses to the colonialism and imperialism within which both the Black people in the West Indies and the African Americans had to live in. The labor unrest in the West Indies during this period was depicted as a strong manifestation of how African communities felt around the world, and how this activity was a response to the need to revolt against the poverty that they faced. This poverty had been brought about by their subjugation by the dominant White population, depriving them of economic, social and sometimes cultural opportunities to improve the quality of their lives (Von Eschen, 14). Attention was also paid to the presence of large American-based multinational companies making huge profits in the agricultural sectors in the West Indies such as those that could be found in Jamaica, with the United Fruit Company of America being able to dictate banana prices and being able to control the export of fruits such as bananas into the United States (Von Eschen, 15).
The Pan-Africanism movement is based on the ideology that all Africans whether in the continent or in the diaspora, not only share a common history, but also a common destiny. The movement started at about the turn of the 20th century, with Henry Silvester-Williams organizing the first Pan-African Conference in London in 1900 (Lubin, 71). While one of the major aims of this movement was to help initiate the liberation of the African countries colonized by Europeans, in the United States, the effect of the movement in the United States was one of clearly defining who a “negro” was, what was his identity, and that he had to act in communion with his fellow Negroes in order to be free of the discrimination and marginalization that he lived in while residing in the United States (Creation of the Negro Document Packet).
Thus in so far as the revolutionary tradition is concerned, the events in the various colonies where African Americans were subject to hardship and discrimination served to galvanize their feelings and opinions with regard to their “predicaments”. The feeling and knowledge of oppression by the colonists in the West Indies, in Africa, in the Middle East and in other places is the same feeling and knowledge shared by the African Americans in the United States. The latter’s main predicament is that of the need to be recognized as US citizens enjoying the same rights and privileges as any other US citizen.
The Revivalist Tradition
A religious approach could be seen in the events in the African colonies that dominated African American political movements back in the US mainland. This is clearly illustrated in the experience of Malcolm X, an African American civil rights leader. African faith and politics helped shape and frame the philosophy of Malcolm X. His travels outside of the United States, especially in Ghana, gave him a sense of refuge from the racial inequities felt back in the US. Going international likewise allowed him to announce and speak to the world about how African Americans did not enjoy the same rights and privileges that White people enjoyed, and that US domestic and foreign policy were tools by the government in order for the Whites to dominate all the other non-White sectors of society. Malcolm X’s exposure to politics and Islam in the African continent aided in the development of a strong solidarity with the African leaders fighting also for their freedom and independence from their foreign colonizers (Gaines, 179).
One can also see that African American music – such as the hip hop genre today, while enjoyed by millions around the world, is an art form that has been used to solidify and further define what it is to be Black. As people say, hip hop is the music of the outcast, with the use of the oppressed notes and the blue-beats, with the use of the dark themes and the rhyming words that reflect the lives of many African Americans. Today, many Black people around the world see hip hop music as a platform for creating a deeper Pan-African consciousness in all Black people around the world. Culture, in this sense is a tool for resisting the domination of one social group over another. Hip hop songs reflect the economic, social and other injustices felt by African Americans living in the inner cities of the United States (Pope, 113-115).
Conclusion
Both revolutionary and revivalist traditions have been utilized in order to convey ideas of inequity and the need for universal emancipation, as well as to clearly define the identity of a Black or Negro individual no matter where he is around the world. In the revolutionary approach, events such as the Haitian Revolution, the labor unrest in the West Indies and the Italian invasion of Ethiopia before the Second World War all served to first define the Negro identity, and thereafter create a solid front and unite all Black people around the world. The rallying cry is that the Black individual was subject to the inequities of society and domination by a ruling class such that these individuals could not enjoy equal access to economic and educational opportunities to help them improve the quality of their lives. Thus the Negroes around the world shared this history, and therefore must also share in the action that ought to be taken to ensure a bright future.
In the revivalist tradition, the travels of Malcolm X evolved into an experience that opened his eyes to a common culture that could be shared among all Black people, fortified by the experience of oppression and the need to be emancipated. His being a Muslim further strengthened his philosophy with regard to the faith being an instrument of hope and action to achieve independence and equality. The cultural revivalist element is likewise presented by the worldwide presence of hip hop music, that talks about the experiences of Black people as they face the many challenges of daily life with the absence of many opportunities that are offered to other non-Black people. Thus out of the music is not so much a need to declare independence, but the fortification of a common identity that allows Africans around the world to identify with and take action together.
Works Cited
Britannia Academic. Slavery. 2010. Web.
Creation of the Negro Document Packet.
Dillon, Elizabeth and Drexler, Michael. The Haitian Revolution and the Early United States. 2012. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Gaines, Kevin. African Americans in Ghana: Black Expatriates and the Civil Rights Era. 2006. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Lubin, Alex. The Contingencies of Pan-Africanism. 2014. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
San Domingo Reading: Pan African Revolt.
Pope, James. Pan Africanism in the United States. In Pan-Africanism in Modern Times: Challenges, Concerns and Constraints. O. Abegunrin and S. Ogbobode, editors. 2016. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Von Eschen, Penny. Race Against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937-1957. 2014. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
