African-American Exploration in West Africa

African-American Exploration in West Africa

Author: James Fairhead

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2003-11-13

Total Pages: 514

ISBN-13: 9780253110046

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In the 1860s, as America waged civil war, several thousand African Americans sought greater freedom by emigrating to the fledgling nation of Liberia. While some argued that the new black republic represented disposal rather than emancipation, a few intrepid men set out to explore their African home. African-American Exploration in West Africa collects the travel diaries of James L. Sims, George L. Seymour, and Benjamin J. K. Anderson, who explored the territory that is now Liberia and Guinea between 1858 and 1874. These remarkable diaries reveal the wealth and beauty of Africa in striking descriptions of its geography, people, flora, and fauna. The dangers of the journeys surface, too -- Seymour was attacked and later died of his wounds, and his companion, Levin Ash, was captured and sold into slavery again. Challenging the notion that there were no black explorers in Africa, these diaries provide unique perspectives on 19th-century Liberian life and life in the interior of the continent before it was radically changed by European colonialism.


Africa, Its Geography, People, and Products

Africa, Its Geography, People, and Products

Author: William Edward Burghardt Du Bois

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 109

ISBN-13: 0199385734

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W. E. B. Du Bois was a public intellectual, sociologist, and activist on behalf of the African American community. He profoundly shaped black political culture in the United States through his founding role in the NAACP, as well as internationally through the Pan-African movement. Du Bois's sociological and historical research on African-American communities and culture broke ground in many areas, including the history of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Du Bois was also a prolific author of novels, autobiographical accounts, innumerable editorials and journalistic pieces, and several works of history. Written in very accessible prose, these two booklets, originally published in 1930, allowed W. E. B. Du Bois to reach a wide audience with an interest in Africa. What is so incredible about the two Africa booklets is their lasting relevance and value to the study of Africa today. Coupling Du Bois's breadth of scholarship with his passion for the subjects, the analyses in these booklets are integral to the study of Africa. Many of his arguments foreshadowed the issues and debates regarding Africa in the twentieth century. Expertly synthesized in an introduction by Emmanuel Akyeampong, this edition of the two Africa booklets is essential for anyone interested in African history.


Native Stranger

Native Stranger

Author: Eddy L. Harris

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9780679742326

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When Eddy Harris went to Africa, he ended up learning a great deal about his own identity as a black American as well as witnessing both the splendor and squalor of the continent. From encounters with beggars and bureaucrats to a visit to Soweto and a hellish night in a Liberian jail, Harris evokes Africa with candor and vividness.


In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West 1528-1990

In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West 1528-1990

Author: Quintard Taylor

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 1999-05-17

Total Pages: 450

ISBN-13: 0393318893

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The American West is mistakenly known as a region with few African Americans and virtually no black history. This work challenges that view in a chronicle that begins in 1528 and carries through to the present-day black success in politics and the surging interest in multiculturalism.


The Ties that Bind

The Ties that Bind

Author: Bernard Magubane

Publisher: Africa World Press

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9780865430372

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This book presents an interpretation and analysis of the phenomenon of ambivalence so persistent in the Afro-American consciousness of Africa. Today a wide range of black opinion has accepted Pan-Africanism and Africa and many are consciously making an effective attempt to create more links with Africa. The right of blacks to be culturally independent is now accepted, at least verbally, without question. But this was not always the case. The present study is offered as an exploration in the field of social identity as it affects people in diaspora. The identity of every people is shaped in their environment, it is a legacy of historical forces.


Rooted in the Earth

Rooted in the Earth

Author: Dianne D. Glave

Publisher: Chicago Review Press

Published: 2010-08

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 156976753X

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With a basis in environmental history, this groundbreaking study challenges the idea that a meaningful attachment to nature and the outdoors is contrary to the black experience. The discussion shows that contemporary African American culture is usually seen as an urban culture, one that arose out of the Great Migration and has contributed to international trends in fashion, music, and the arts ever since. However, because of this urban focus, many African Americans are not at peace with their rich but tangled agrarian legacy. On one hand, the book shows, nature and violence are connected in black memory, especially in disturbing images such as slave ships on the ocean, exhaustion in the fields, dogs in the woods, and dead bodies hanging from trees. In contrast, though, there is also a competing tradition of African American stewardship of the land that should be better known. Emphasizing the tradition of black environmentalism and using storytelling techniques to dramatize the work of black naturalists, this account corrects the record and urges interested urban dwellers to get back to the land.


Explorations & Adventures in Equatorial Africa

Explorations & Adventures in Equatorial Africa

Author: Paul Belloni Du Chaillu

Publisher:

Published: 1861

Total Pages: 570

ISBN-13:

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It was on this expedition that Du Chiallu confirmed the existence of that "monstrous and ferocious ape, the gorilla," His work is one of the seminal pieces of early Central African exploration -- Buddenbrooks catalogue "Roam from Home"