African Nationalism

(noun)

The political movement for the acknowledgment of peoples on the continent by instituting their own states, as well as the safeguarding of their indigenous customs.

Related Terms

Examples of African Nationalism in the following topics:

  • Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress

  • African Americans in Southern Politics

    • The Republican coalition elected numerous African Americans to local, state, and national offices.
    • There were few African Americans elected or appointed to national office.
    • African Americans voted for white candidates and for blacks.
    • As a result, states with majority African-American population often elected only one or two African-American representatives in Congress.
    • Because he preceded any African American in the House, he was the first African American in the U.S.

  • The Rise of the African Slave Trade

    • The crews of several European ships were killed by African sailors whose boats were better equipped at traversing the West African coasts and river systems.
    • There, Dutch traders brought the first enslaved Africans in 1619.
    • As European nations grew more powerful—especially Portugal, Spain, France, Great Britain, and the Netherlands—they began vying for control of the African slave trade, with little effect on local African and Arab trading.
    • The English crown provided a charter giving the Royal African Company monopoly over the African slave routes until 1712.
    • Other researchers claim the Atlantic slave trade was not as detrimental to various African economies as some historians purport, and that African nations at the time were well-positioned to compete with pre-industrial Europe.

  • The Rise of Garveyism

    • Marcus Garvey, a political leader and orator, was a proponent of black nationalism and Pan-Africanism.
    • Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) was a Jamaican political leader, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator who was a staunch proponent of the black nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements .
    • Prior to the 20th century, African-American leaders had advocated the involvement of the African diaspora in African affairs.
    • His philosophy, known as Garveyism, was an aspect of black nationalism that focused on the complete, total, and never-ending redemption of the continent of Africa by people of African ancestry, at home and abroad.
    • Promoted by the UNIA as a movement of African redemption, Garveyism would eventually inspire others, ranging from the Nation of Islam to the Rastafari movement (which proclaims Garvey as a prophet).

  • Marcus Garvey

    • Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) was a Jamaican political leader, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator who was a staunch proponent of the black nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements.
    • Prior to the 20th century, African-American leaders advocated the involvement of the African diaspora in African affairs.
    • Garvey was unique in advancing a Pan-African philosophy, known as Garveyism, which focused on the complete and unending redemption of the continent of Africa by people of African ancestry, both at home and abroad.
    • Promoted by the UNIA as a movement of African redemption, Garveyism would eventually inspire others, ranging from the Nation of Islam to the Rastafari movement, which proclaims Garvey a prophet.
    • Garvey summarized his essential ideas in the Negro World editorial "African Fundamentalism," in which he wrote, “Our union must know no clime, boundary, or nationality…to let us hold together under all climes in every country….”

  • Minorities and the New Deal

    • The 1941 Executive Order 8802 banned racial discrimination in the national defense industry.
    • While formally the New Deal was designed to benefit also African Americans, some of its flagship programs, particularly those proposed during the First New Deal, either excluded African Americans or even hurt them.
    • The 1933 National Recovery Administration, the main First New Deal agency responsible for industrial recovery, had hardly anything to offer to African Americans as National Industrial Recovery Act's (NIRA) provisions covered the industries, from which black workers were usually excluded.
    • He also cited reports of discrimination: "There is evidence available that needed workers have been barred from industries engaged in defense production solely because of considerations of race, creed, color or national origin, to the detriment of workers' morale and of national unity."
    • The nation's oldest black collegiate fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, took on the case of Pearson v.

  • Black Power

    • Between 1964 and 1968, there were 329 protests in 257 cities across the nation.
    • Thousands of businesses were destroyed, and, by the time the violence ended, 34 people were dead, most of them African Americans killed by the Los Angeles police and the National Guard.
    • The Nation of Islam advocated the separation of white Americans and African Americans because of a belief that African Americans could not thrive in an atmosphere of white racism.
    • On February 21, 1965, he was killed by members of the Nation of Islam.
    • Unlike Carmichael and the Nation of Islam, most Black Power advocates did not believe African Americans needed to separate themselves from white society.

  • The Harlem Renaissance

    • New authors attracted a great amount of national attention, and the Harlem Renaissance led to more opportunities for blacks to be published by mainstream houses.
    • Some authors who became nationally known were Jean Toomer, Jessie Fauset, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, Alain Locke, Eric D.
    • Locke, who were pressing for young African American artists to express their African heritage and African American folk culture in their art.
    • Jacob Lawrence (Atlantic City, NJ September 7, 1917; Seattle June 9, 2000) was an African-American painter known for his portrayal of African-American life.
    • He was 23 years old when he gained national recognition with his 60-panel Migration Series, painted on cardboard.

  • Race and Opportunity

    • By 1810, 75 percent of African Americans in the North and 13.5 percent of all African Americans in the United States were free.
    • Many politicians believed that this would provide a permanent solution to the vexing question of slavery in the expanding American nation.
    • Free African American males enjoyed wider employment opportunities than free African American females, who were largely confined to domestic occupations.
    • The African American community also established schools for African American children, who were often barred from entering public schools.
    • While the majority of free African Americans lived in poverty, some were able to establish successful businesses that catered to the African American community.

  • Minstrel Shows

    • Blackface minstrelsy, which portrayed African Americans in stereotyped, troubling ways, was the first distinctly American theatrical form.
    • Minstrel shows originated in the early 1830s as brief burlesques with comic interludes and evolved into a national theatrical art form within the next decade, superseding less accessible genres such as opera for the general populace.
    • The shows typically involved African instruments and dance and featured performers with their faces blackened—a technique called "blackface."
    • Many minstrel songs and routines were depicted as authentically African American; however, this often was not the case.
    • As African Americans began to make advances politically, legally, and socially against racism and prejudicial treatment, minstrelsy lost popularity.