What Is The African Diaspora?
It’s hip-hop and street style. It’s Juneteenth in Harlem, the Caribbean Day Parade in Brooklyn and Carnevale everywhere. It’s all over Beyonce’s latest video. But what is the African Diaspora? It’s a common term for referring to the collection of cultures across the world that trace their roots back to the African continent.
Pan-Africanism And The Roots Of The African Diaspora
It was the hope, tenacity, creativity, genius and ultimately the success of the many Pan-Africanist movements that paved the way for what we now know as the African Diaspora, changing the world several times along the way. In this article, we will begin to explore the history of Pan-Africanism as a social, political and cultural force from the first coining of the phrase through the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance.
The Harlem Renaissance And The Emergence Of The African Diaspora
The Harlem Renaissance can be seen as a kind of mid-point in the narrative of Pan-Africanism. It’s timing, from roughly 1920 to 1930, stands between Pan-Africanism’s nascence in the discourse of 19th century orators such as Frederick Douglass and Edward Wilmot Blyden, and its eventual end, which came in the late 20th century. The Renaissance itself served as a turning point in the discourse of Black creatives and intellectuals. No longer was the conversation focused on asserting the humanity of Black people or debating the morality of their enslavement. Attention instead turned to exploring the meaning of that humanity and demonstrating the injustice of the circumstances under which it was forced to exist. The New Negro Movement, while contemporary with other group efforts of the time, occurred at a high point of international activity and col- laboration among Black creatives around the world. It was instrumental in the instigation and furtherance of such thought, and with Harlem as its symbolic flagship, sparked the imaginations of those whose work would follow, including the Chicago Renaissance of the 30s and 40s which would see the rise of writer’s such as Alice Walker and Richard Wright along with a host of visual and musical artists and dance ethnographer, Katherine Dunham. As such, the Harlem Renaissance represents a moment in the history of Pan-Africanism that presaged its greatest triumphs while simultaneously charting a course towards its obsolescence and the eventual emergence of Diaspora.
