10 Interesting Facts About Edward Wilmot Blyden, the Father of Pan-Africanism

The Father of Pan-Africanism A highly respected African intellectual, Edward Wilmot Blyden (Aug. 3, 1832–Feb. 7, 1912) was the father of Pan-Africanism. He was also an educator, writer, diplomat and politician. In 1881, Blyden gave his inaugural address as the new president of Liberia College. He discussed his vision for independent African colleges and wanted them to create a new generation of educated African youths. During his time as an educator and college president, he fought a war that he called the “decolonization of the African mind.” This was a process to get students away from focusing on white colonization and getting them more focused on their own African heritage. From 1871 to 1873, Blyden spent time in Sierra Leone as a government agent to the Interior, leading official expeditions -- one to Falaba (a Koinadugu District of the northern area of Sierra Leone) and the other to Futa Jallon (a West African area based in the highlands of modern Guinea). In 1878, he became an honorary member of the Athenaeum Club in London. The prestigious organization was founded in 1824 for individuals who specialized in scientific, literary or artistic areas. American minister John Knox educated and served as a mentor to Blyden. In 1850, Blyden visited the United States with Knox’s wife and sought an education at Rutgers Theological College. He was denied admission because of his race. In his major work, Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, published in 1887, he promoted the idea that practicing Islam was more fulfilling for Africans than Christianity. He argued that Christianity was introduced by European colonizers. In Sierra Leone from 1871 to 1873, Blyden had lively debates with the Creole people, or Krio community, by opposing the influence of European culture. They are the descendants of freed African-American, West Indian and former African slaves who settled west of Sierra Leone between 1787 and 1885. He told the Krios that they were "de-Africanized." He scolded members of the community for separating themselves from the people in the provinces and advised them to remember that they were Africans. Around 1872, Blyden wanted a West African University that was focused entirely on African history, cultures and languages and run completely by Africans. Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, and writer and historian John Henrik Clarke were influenced by Blyden. They attended meetings of an organization called the Blyden Society for the Study of African History in their early years as Pan-Africanists in Harlem in the 1940s. Pan-Africanists and historians, W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey, also were inspired by the work of Blyden. Garvey said of African-Americans and Afro-Caribbean people that if “you do not know anything of your ancestry, it will do you well to read the works of Blyden, one of our historians and chroniclers who has done so much to retrieve the lost prestige of the race."

The Father of Pan-Africanism

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