SECOND PAN-AFRICAN CONGRESS: MANIFESTO
The American W.E.B. DuBois became one of the most eloquent spokespersons for African independence and nationalism. In 1919, the fate of African colonies was being discussed in the negotiations for the Treaty of Versailles. DuBois helped organize the first Pan-African Congress in Paris in the hope of influencing decisions being made at the peace conference. A second meeting of the Pan-African Congress, which was held in 1921, was attended by 113 delegates from Africa, the United States, England, and the British West Indies. At the close of the 1921 congress the delegates issued the following manifesto.
Points to Ponder:
1. How does the manifesto reject the idea of racial inequality among the people of the world?
2. What obstacles to African advancement are stressed in the Manifesto?
3. According to the manifesto, why should "advanced" people aid the Africans?
5. Do the authors of the manifesto feel that Africa is
ready for self-government? Why or why not?
The absolute equality of races,-physical, political and social-is the founding stone of world peace and human advancement. No one denies great differences of gift, capacity, and attainment among individuals of all races, but the voice of science, religion, and practical politics is one in denying the God-appointed existence of super-races, or of races naturally and inevitably and eternally inferior.
That in the vast range of time, one group should in its industrial technique, or social organization, or spiritual vision, lag a few hundred years behind another, or forge fitfully ahead, or come to differ decidedly in thought, deed and ideal, is proof of the essential richness and variety of human nature, rather than proof of the coexistence of demi-gods and apes in human form. The doctrine of tacial equality does not interfere with individual liberty, rather, it fulfils it. And of all the various criteria by which masses of men have in the past been prejudged and classified, that of the color of the skin and texture of the hair, is surely the most adventitious {accidental} and idiotic.
It is the duty of the world to assist in every way the advance of the backward and suppressed groups of mankind. The rise of all men is a menace to no one and is the highest human ideal; it is not an altruistic benevolence, but the one road to world salvation.
For the purpose of raising such peoples to intelligence, selfknowledge, and self-control, their intelligentsia of right ought to be recognized as the natural leaders of their groups.
The insidious and dishonorable propaganda, which, for selfish ends, so distorts and denies facts as to represent the advancement and development of certain races of men as impossible and undesirable, should be met with widespread dissemination of the truth....
If it be proven that absolute world segregation by group, color, or historic infinity is best for the future, let the white race leave the dark world and the darker races will gladly leave the white. But the proposition is absurd. This is a world of men, of men whose likenesses far outweigh their differences; who mutually need each other in labor and thought and dream, but who can successfully have each other only on terms of equality, justice, and mutual respect. They are the real and only peacemakers who i work sincerely and peacefully to this end.
The beginnings of wisdom in interracial con- 2 tact is the establishment of Dolitical institutions among suppressed peoples. The habit of democracy must be made to encircle the earth. Despite the attempt to prove that its practice is the secret and divine gift of the few, no habit is more natural or more widely spread among primitive people, or more easily capable of development among masses....
Surely in the 20th century of the Prince of Peace [Jesus], . . . there can be found in the civilized world enough of altruism, learning, and benevolence to develop native institutions for the native's good, rather than continue to allow the majority of mankind to be brutalized and enslaved by ignorant and selfish agents of commercial institutions, whose one aim is profit and power for the few.
And this brings us to the crux of the matter: It is the shame of the world that today the relation between the main groups of mankind and their mutual estimate and respect is determined chiefly by the degree in which one can subject the other to its service, enslaving labor, making ignorance compulsory, uprooting ruthlessly religion and customs, and destroying government, so that the favored Few may luxuriate in the toil of the tortured many....
The day of such world organization is past and whatever excuse be made for it in other ages, the 20th century musr come to judge men as men and not as material and labor....
What do those wish who see these evils of the color line and racial discrimination and who believe in the divine right of suppressed and backward peoples to learn and aspire and be free?
The Negro race through its thinking intelligentsia is demanding:
l. The recognition of civilized men as civilized despite their race or color
2. Local self-government for backward groups, deliberately rising as experience and knowledge grow to complete self-government under the limitations of a self-governed world
3. Education in self-knowledge, in scientific truth and in industrial technique, undivorced from the art of beauty
4. Freedom in their own religion and social customs, and with the right to be different and non-conformist
5. Co-operation with the rest of the world in government, industry, and art on the basis of Justice, Freedom, and Peace
6. The ancient common ownership of the land and its natural fruits and defense against the unrestrained greed of invested capital
7. The establishment under the League of Nations of an international institution for the study of Negro problems
8. The establishment of an international section in the Labor Bureau of the League of Nations, charged with the protection of native labor.
The world must face two eventualities: either the complete assimilation of Africa with two or three of the great world states, with political, civil, and social power and privileges absolutely equal for its black and white citizens, or the rise of a great black African state founded in Peace and Good Will, based on popular education, natural art, and industry and freedom of trade; autonomous and sovereign in its internal policy, but from its beginning a part of a great society of peoples in which it takes its place with others as co-rulers of the world.
In some such words and thoughts as these we seek to express our will and ideal, and the end of our untiring effort. To our aid we call all men of the Earth who love Justice and Mercy. Out of the depths we have cried unto the deaf and dumb masters of the world. Out of the depths we cry to our own sleeping souls.
The answer is written in the stars.