EAP Editorial Board Archive
1964 September 24
First Annual Meeting:
EAP Editorial Board
Part 1
A Speech by
Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah
University of Ghana, West Africa
Distinguished members of the Editorial
Board of the Encyclopaedia Africana Project
, Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is a great pleasure and privilege for me
to inaugurate this first meeting of the Editorial Board of the
Encyclopaedia Africana Project
. The presence on this Board here today of
representatives from all parts of the Continent of Africa is yet another token of the
African cultural renaissance which is manifesting itself side by side with the political
resurgence of the African Continent.
I must also confess, distinguished guests,
that today I feel a great sense of relief and joy to think that at long last a first
significant step has been taken towards the positive realisation and consummation of a
long cherished dream. Years ago, I felt that Africa needs to buttress her unimpeachable
claim to political independence with parallel efforts to expose to the world the bases of
her rich culture and civilisation through the medium of a scholarly
Encyclopaedia. I
therefore invited W.E.B. Du Bois of blessed memory to come to Ghana to help us establish
the framework for this great natural heritage.
Dr. Du Bois was happy to come to Ghana in
the very evening of his life to embark upon this task; he took Ghanaian citizenship, and
immediately plunged headlong into the stupendous work of setting out the general aims of
this project and securing the interest and support of eminent scholars throughout Africa
for its realisation. To him this was an exciting States to produce such an
Encyclopaedia.
It is perhaps not without significance that Du Bois should have had to wait until the very
sunset of his life to find and receive encouragement and support for this project, not in
the abundance of the United States, but rather in an Africa liberated from the cramping
and oppressive conditions of colonial rule.
In taking upon ourselves this great
responsibility for Africa, we are reminded of an old Roman saying: "Semper aliquid
novi ex Africa." Africa had a noble past which astounded even the ancient Roman world
with its great surprises. Yet, it was only much later, after a millennium and a
half of African history that we are now busily engaged in reconstructing for all the world
to know, that racial exploitation and imperialist domination deliberately fostered a new
and monstrous mythology of race which nourished the popular but unfounded image of Africa
as the "Dark Continent." In other words, a Continent whose
inhabitants were without any past history, any contribution to world civilization, or any
hope of future development - except by the grace of foreign tutelage!
It is unfortunate that men of learning and
men of affairs in Europe and America from a century ago down to yesterday, have spent much
valuable time to establish this unscientific and ridiculous notion of African inferiority.
A European author declared that "the history of civilization on the continent
begins, as concerns its inhabitants, with Mohammedan invasion" and that African
is poorer in recorded history than can be imagined. Even the Eleventh Edition of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica also declared:
Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah
First Prime Minister
Republic of Ghana
(1957 to 1960)
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"Africa, with the exception of the
lower Nile Valley and what is known as Roman Africa is, so far as its native inhabitants
are concerned, a continent practically without history and possessing no records from
which such history may be conducted ..... the Negro (referring to the Black man) is
essentially the child of the moment and his memory, both tribal and individual, is very
short," And "if Ancient Egypt and Ethiopia be excluded, the story of Africa is
largely a record of the doings of its Asiatic and European conquerors and
colonizers.
And here I want to sound a note of
caution about the term "Negro." I hope that in the record of the Encyclopaedia Africana
the term "Negro", whatever meaning or
connotation has been given to it, will not find a place, except perhaps in a specific
article proving its opprobrious origin and redundancy. I would like that people of African
descent and Africans in general should be described as Black men, or Africans. I
personally would like to be referred to as a Black man, African or Ghanaian, not referred
to as a "Negro". |
It would be long to attempt to survey this
field of malicious distortion against Africa. But this would be a useless and unprofitable
venture, and I am sure that your Editorial Board would not suffer this pointless waster of
valuable time. But listen a while to Leo Frobenius in his Voice of Africa:
"The ruins of the mighty past lie
slumbering within the bosom of the earth but are glorified in the memory of men who live
beneath the sun." He dwells on the "god-like strength of memory in those who
lived before the advent of the written word" and he continues: "Every
archaeologist can quote examples from the nations of the North. But who would imagine that
the Negro Race (here again referring to the Black race) of Africa possessed an equally
retentive mind for its store of ancient monuments."
It may be argued, however, that this sort
of view about Africa is dying out, and we may be accused of whipping a dying horse. It is
also true that, particularly in the years since World War II, there has been a marked
improvement in much of the writing by non-Africans on Africa and there are today a number
of writers and scholars who have made signal contributions to African historiography.
Nevertheless, it is to be doubted if the popular image of the so-called Dark Continent has
been much affected by the widening horizon of knowledge of Africa.
The fact is that the powerful
forces which seek to block the advance of the 280 millions of Africans to a place of full
equality in the world community and which strive to maintain neo-colonialist or even overt
colonial domination and white supremacy rule in Africa, find it in their interest to
perpetuate the mythology of racial inferiority.
Thus it is not simple ignorance of Africa,
but deliberate disparagement of the continent and its people that Africanists and the
Encyclopaedia Africana
must contend with. The foulest intellectual rubbish
ever invented by man is that of racial superiority and inferiority. We know now, of
course, that this distortion and fabrication of the image of man was invented by the
apostles of imperialism to salve their conscience and justify their political, cultural
and economic domination of Africa.
I understand that through the medium of the
Information Report, published periodically by the Encyclopaedia Africana
Secretariat, have appeared expressions of support
and pledges of co-operation in the work of this great project from numerous eminent
scholars. And I am particularly happy that among those who have expressed their
endorsement of our work are distinguished scholars in the United States, the Soviet Union,
China, India, Britain and other countries outside Africa.
I am sure the members of the
Editorial Board share my appreciation of this world-wide support of the idea of an
Encyclopaedia Africana
. However, it is of course only logical that an
encyclopaedia work on Africa should be produced in Africa, under the direction and
editorship of Africans, and with the maximum participation of African scholars in all
countries.
While I believe that no contribution
to the projected Encyclopaedia should be rejected solely and simply because the author
happens to be non-African, there are surely valid reasons why the maximum participation of
African scholars themselves should be aimed at. Let me illustrate this point with an
example from a book published just fifty years ago by George W. Ellis, an Afro-American
who served from 1901 to 1910 as Secretary of the United States diplomatic mission in
Liberia. From this study came his book, Negro Culture in West Africa, published in 1914.
continued...: First Annual Meeting:
EAP Editorial Board - Part 2
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