XVI. Race Emancipation — General Considerations: Edward Wilmot Blyden

Edward Wilmot Blyden.

The year 1907 found Kwamankra at Hampton, in the United States of America, as the guest of the African National University, which had been founded earlier in the century as the outcome of a spirit of intelligent co-operation on the part of the thinkers of the Ethiopian race both in the Mother Country and in their exiled home across the Atlantic. Gradually it had come to dawn upon educationists that the error of blindly imitating western methods must give place to original lines of racial intellectual development; and for that reason centres of learning were eager for information as to where mistakes had been made in the past, and how they might be remedied in the future.

Hampton has been described as one of the finest seats of learning in America. It is the work of Samuel Chapman Armstrong, a name which will ever be remembered with honour and veneration among cultured Ethiopians throughout the world, for it was left to him to point the way of freeing the souls of Africans in America after Abraham Lincoln and his stalwart men of iron will had freed their body.

It was “ Emancipation Day,” and the contrast between how the day was observed in earlier times on the plantations and the way the event was marked at Hampton on the occasion of Kwamankra’s visit was extremely remarkable. The boisterous, rowdy, senseless jubilation of young and old had given way to a purposeful intent to mark each passing year with some record of national progress and efficiency; and it was inspiring to see the modest manner and the dignified calm of the students as they filed into the Chapel Theatre to the music of the University orchestra. But they had not long been seated when a low murmur could be heard all over the building which soon rose to a ringing cheer, as a side door opened, and the Principal of Hampton mounted the rostrum with Kwamankra and the professors following. Kwamankra had been announced to speak upon the work of Edward Wilmot Blyden, about the foremost thinker of the race, and great was the enthusiasm of the audience as with craned necks they took in every word of the speaker, as if it were a message from a new sphere. The speaker dwelt on the broader outlook which Dr. Blyden had, for at least forty years, presented to his countrymen in his writings which RACE EMANCIPATION — EDWARD WILMOT BLYDEN. 163

he passed under review, dwelling upon each distinctive note, and wound up in the following graphic words : —

“ The claim of Edward Wilmot Blyden to the esteem and regard of all thinking Africans rests not so much upon the special work he has done for any particular people of the African race, as upon the general work he has done for the race as a whole.

“ The work of men like Booker T. Washington and W. E. Burghart Du Bois is exclusive and provincial. The work of Edward Wilmot Blyden is universal, covering the entire race and the entire race problem.

c £ What do I mean ? I mean this : that while Booker T. Washington seeks to promote the material advancement of the black man in the United States, and W. E. Burghart Du Bois his social enfranchisement amid surroundings and in an atmosphere uncongenial to racial development, Edward Wilmot Blyden has sought for more than a quarter of a century to reveal everywhere the African unto himself; to fix his attention upon original ideas and conceptions as to his place in the economy of the world ; to point out to him his work as a race among the races of men ; lastly, and most important of all, to lead him back unto selfrespect. He has been the voice of one crying in the wilderness all these years, calling upon all thinking Africans to go back to the rock whence they were hewn by the common Father of the nations — to drop metaphor, to learn to unlearn all that foreign sophistry has encrusted upon the intelligence of the African. Born in the West Indies some seventy years ago and nurtured in foreign culture, he has yet remained an African; and to-day he is the greatest living exponent of the true spirit of African nationality and manhood.

“ To emphasise an important consideration, in the Afro-American school of thought the black man is seeking intellectually and materially to show himself a man along the lines of progress of the white man. In the African school of thought, represented by Dr. Blyden, the black man is engaged upon a sublimer task, namely, the discovery of his true place in creation upon natural and national lines. That is the striking difference between the two great schools of the thinkers of the race. And it has been the work of Edward Wilmot Blyden to accentuate this difference, and to-day he, of whom we are all so proud, is the leading thinker of the latter school of thought.

“ Apart from the magnetism of his personality, the great influence of Dr. Blyden over the rising thinking youth of the race, lies in the fact that he has revealed in his writings and utterances the true motive power which shall carry the race on RACE EMANCIPATION — EDWARD WILMOT BLYDEN. 165

from victory unto victory. And all he has to say to his people, summing up his teaching in one word, is : man, know thyself.

“ The voice that was aforetime crying solitarily in the wilderness has suddenly become the voice of a nation and of a people, calling unto their kindred across the Atlantic to come back to their way of thinking. We notice with a pang the strivings after the wind in which our brethren in America are engaged, and we ask them to-day to return to first principles and to original and racial conceptions — to those cooling streams by the fountains of Africa which would refresh their souls.

“To leave no possible doubt as to my meaning, Afro-Americans must bring themselves into touch with some of the general traditions and institutions of their ancestors, and, though sojourning in a strange land, endeavour to conserve the characteristics of the race. Thus and only thus, like Israel of old, will they be able, metaphorically, to walk out of Egypt in the near future with a great and a real spoil.

“ Edward Wilmot Blyden is a leader among leaders of African aboriginal thought ; and, lest a prophet should be without honour among his own kindred, I am happy on this occasion also to have, among others, the privilege and the opportunity of giving him the recognition that is his due.” For days and days the students of Hampton talked of little else besides the new conception of national aims presented in the address; and, in after years, it was noted that it gave a new colour and meaning to the good racial work done at Hampton.