Racial Identity and the Civilizing Mission
Double-Consciousness at the 1895 Congress on Africa
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4807328 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Paul William Harris (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 145-176 |
| Publication date | 2008-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Religion and American Culture A Journal of Interpretation (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1052-1151 • E-ISSN: 1533-8568 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1525/rac.2008.18.2.145 |
| OpenAlex | W2159515859 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 30 |
The Congress on Africa was held in Atlanta, Georgia, in December 1895 as part of a campaign to promote African American involvement in Methodist missions to Africa. Held in conjunction with the same exposition where Booker T. Washington delivered his famous Atlanta Compromise address, the Congress in some ways shared his accommodationist approach to racial advancement. Yet the diverse and distinguished array of African American speakers at the Congress also developed a complex rationale for connecting the peoples of the African diaspora through missions. At the same time that they affirmed the need for "civilizing" influences as an indispensable element for racial progress, they also envisioned a reinvigorated racial identity and a shared racial destiny emerging through the interactions of black missionaries and Africans. In particular, the most thoughtful participants in the Congress anticipated the forging of a black civilization that combined the unique gifts of their race with the progressive dynamics of Christian culture. These ideas parallel and likely influenced W. E. B. Du Bois's concept of double-consciousness. At a time when the missionary movement provided the most important source of awareness about Africa among African Americans, it is possible to discern in the proceedings of the Congress on Africa the glimmerings of a new pan-African consciousness that was destined to have a profound effect on African American intellectual life in the twentieth century
Aesthetics · African american · Art · Atlanta · Civilization · Compromise · Consciousness · Diaspora · Environmental ethics · Manifest destiny · Political science · Politics · Racism · Social science · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Anthropology · Gender Studies · History · Law · Psychology · Race, History, and American Society · Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment
Errand to the world
Edward Wilmot Blyden
W.E.B. Du Bois
Christianity, Islam and the Negro race
UnAfrican Americans
The American Negro Academy
Alexander Crummell
W. E. B. DuBois
White” Americans in “Black” Africa
The Pan-African Movement
Americans in Africa, 1865-1900
Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900-1920
Black Americans and the Evangelization of Africa, 1877-1900
The American Negro Academy
Songs of Zion
Black Americans and the Evangelization of Africa, 1877-1900
The Social Gospel in Black and White
The African Nexus
Ethiopianism and Afro-Americans in Southern Africa, 1883-1916
Black Livingstone
Black Americans and the Missionary Movement in Africa
Excluded Ancestors, Inventible Traditions
Black Americans and the Missionary Movement in Africa
Alexander Crummell
Songs of Zion. The African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States and South Africa
Orishatukeh Faduma and the New Theology
Black Baptists and African Missions
The Origins of Modern African Thought
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,17 |
| Citation span | 2014 - 2018 (5) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |