TERMS & CONCEPTS

African Personality

In its broadest sense, the African Personality speaks to African people's cultural idiosyncrasy as distinct from non-African peoples. Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832-1912) used the term as far back as 1883 in a speech titled, The Origin and Purpose of African Colonization to the Young Men's Literary Association of Sierra Leone (Esedebe 1982, 36).  Marcus Garvey (1887-1935) popularized the concept to the African masses in the Americas, Europe, and Africa through his organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Community Leagues and their organs, Negro World (1918-1933), Daily Negro Times (1922-1924), Blackman (1929-1931), the Black man magazine (1933-1939) (Esedebe 1982, 67; Lewis 1988, 80-83).  Both of these Caribbean-born Africans were somewhat condescending in referential language when referring to Africans on the African continent.  Through the passage of time, however, both discovered and projected the splendors of African achievement.  Both ideologues were also drenched in a racial analysis, which is understandable given the social order of their geographical origin and upbringing.

These two points distinguish this older usage from the way it was employed by Nkrumah.  The change was more one of degree rather than kind.  For Nkrumah this personality was still a distinct reflection of a distinct people but that distinction was based on synthesis of heterogeneous traditions and external impacts on a composite culture as opposed to a biological race.  Nkrumah also held traditional values and methods in higher esteem than the external impacts imposed on the African continent.