Edward Wilmot Blyden

Dzieła

• 1887Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race (Chrześcijaństwo, islam i „rasa murzyńska”)

  Islam służył Afrykanom lepiej niż misyjne chrześcijaństwo – apel o afrykański szacunek do siebie.

Stanowisko

Blyden argued that Africans are not a backward copy of Europeans but a people with their own gifts and history – an “African personality” expressed in community, spirituality and closeness to nature. Education and religion should therefore strengthen African character instead of erasing it. In Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race he contended that Islam, spread largely by Africans themselves, had served the continent better than missionary Christianity, which bred contempt for everything African. He called for the return of the diaspora and for African unity. His belief in fixed racial characters is now criticized, but he deeply influenced Garvey, Nkrumah and the Négritude movement.

Życie i kontekst

Edward Wilmot Blyden was born in 1832 on St Thomas in the Danish West Indies. Refused admission to theological colleges in the United States because of his race, he emigrated to Liberia in 1851. There he became a Presbyterian minister, a professor and later president of Liberia College, secretary of state and envoy to Britain. He also worked in Sierra Leone and Lagos, and died in Freetown in 1912.

Dalsze główne dzieła

• A Vindication of the African Race (1857)
• Liberia’s Offering (1862)
• West Africa before Europe (1905)
• African Life and Customs (1908)

Pojawia się w

• Podróż „Filozofia afrykańska” · Przystanek 6 z 10