4/9/2018 Africa's Part in World History

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March 9, 1947

Africa's Part in World History

By SAUL CARSON

"The World and Africa" is the third statement of an important

historical fact, voiced by the same author, in a period of
THE WORLD AND
thirty-two years. In 1915, after establishing a reputation as a
AFRICA
sound historian and clear-thinking political scientist, Dr.
By W. E. Burghardt Du
William E. Burghardt Du Bois published a book entitled "The
Bois.
Negro," which stimulated other historians and some
anthropologists to inquire further into the subject tackled by
the young man. The book had importance because of its concept, rather than because of
the meager material presented.

Tacitly, Dr. Du Bois himself admits today that "The Negro" was written primarily to
satisfy the pride of an educated Negro. He set out to prove that the ancestors of
America's black slaves had a fairly rich culture of their own before the slave-traders
arrived. When Du Bois actually found some proof to back his wishful reasoning, when
he discovered historical facts supported his a priori thesis -- he was astonished. The
result was a book that, for all its impact, was seen later by the author himself as a
"somewhat naïve" narrative that was "not altogether logical."

It took Du Bois until 1939 to enlarge upon the subject and to enrich it not only with
greater logic but also with more profound and more exhaustive research. In 1939 he
published "Black Folk: Then and Now." But history's acceleration since 1939
demanded further restatement. In "The World and Africa" Dr. Du Bois has combined
the ardor of "The Negro" with the scholarship of "Black Folk: Then and Now." It
illustrates the growth of a social student whose first published work received the
imprint of the Harvard Historical Studies as far back as 1896.

Modestly, Dr. Du Bois calls the present book "an inquiry into the part which Africa has
played in world history." Because the world today is faced with a "nervous breakdown"
of Europo-American civilization, it seems essential to Dr. Du Bois that history be asked
to help explain the reason as well as the nature of the catastrophe. These he sees in the
"habit, long fostered, of forgetting and detracting from the thoughts and acts of the
people of Africa." He does not seek exaggeration of Africa's role, but he insists that the
role must not be forgotten. And his insistence is firm. It is persuasive, eloquent,
moving. Considering the magnitude of the provocation, it is well-tempered, even
gentle. It is a fitting third movement to a historical symphony that struck a fresh note
with its first phrase in 1915.

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4/9/2018 Africa's Part in World History

Manchester, according to Dr. Du Bois, could not justify its ivory trade, or New Orleans
its commerce, in sugar and live-flesh, if the dark slaves from Africa's West Coast were
acknowledged human beings and more than beasts of the field. Yet the ancestors of
these Negroes practiced domestic agriculture at a time when nomadic tribesmen in
northern and central European forests had not yet learned the secret of plowing the
earth and raising steady crops. The captives chained to cotton empire could not be
given recognition as descendents of the same races that had produced the beautiful
bronzes of Benin, over which connoisseurs of ancient sculpture could become so
enthusiastic in the British Museum.

It did not suit a society sanctioning the use of Negro slaves for breeding purposes to
admit that these same Negroes came from tribes with strict moral codes. Nor could
architects of colonial anarchy grant that the benighted peoples had traced clear patterns
of social and political organization, had developed religions of their own, or had hit
unaided upon the art of weaving.

That these patterns are clear is shown by Dr. Du Bois -- often through exact historical
reference, at times through the employment of permissible deductive license, which he
considers not only his prerogative but also his duty. Dramatically, he traces the
influences of one stream of dark peoples after another who pushed up the valleys of the
African rivers, each successive movement enriching the cultures already developed by
its predecessors.

He shows the influence of southern and central Africa upon Ethiopia, and of Ethiopia in
turn upon the only African culture recognized as worthy of the European's attention --
the Egyptian civilization. He cites sources wherever he can find them -- and he finds
them in many places. He draws upon the prophet Isaiah's appeal to the "land of the
buzzing wings, which lies beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, that sends ambassadors by sea
in papyrus vessels," as well as upon Jeremiah, the Book of Daniel, the Psalms of David
and the Song of Solomon."

He drains Greek mythology and he lines up Arabic legend. He brings the testimony of a
rare student like Leo Frobenius, a well-known anthropologist like Franz Boas and a
witness like Oxford's Egyptologist David Randall-MacIver who is known only to "the
trade." He overlooks no fragment that might bolster his thesis. But the witnesses are
reputable, their affidavits relevant and valid.

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