Blyden on Blyden

Perspectives on Edward Wilmot Blyden by Prof. Nemata Blyden from Professor Gloria Emeagwali on Vimeo. This short video featuring Nemata Blyden, a descendant of Edward Blyden is worth a listen. Blyden was one of the most intriguing figures in the history of pan-Africanism, one whose shadow looms large in many areas pertinent to Africa and its diasporas. Although Haiti was, from what I have read of Blyden's work, largely absent or seen as an example of colorism setting back an independent black state, I have long thought of the possible parallels between Blyden and his Haitian contemporaries. 

Rambling Thoughts on Blyden, Christianity, and Islam

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This intellectual and pan-Africanist is perhaps more responsible than anyone else for the fascination with Islam among African-Americans. West Indian-born Blyden, who chose Liberia and West Africa as his ultimate homeland, praised Islam in West Africa for encouraging education, discipline, abstinence from alcohol, and for not degrading Africans into servile conditions like Christianity. Blyden saw Christianity's spread in Africa by European missionaries as instilling a servile nature in converts whereas Islam, with its longer history in Africa, had promoted learning, trade, and, according to Blyden, was a step above 'fetishism' of African traditional religion. Blyden was so taken with Islam that he also traveled to Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt, studying the Arabic language and the Koran.

Blyden had also promoted the study of Arabic in Sierra Leone and Liberia, at one point envisioning a partnership between Christian Americo-Liberians and the Muslim states of the West African interior. Of course, Blyden saw Islam as a preparatory step to the 'true' religion of Christianity, but was unique among Western writers for acknowledging many positive elements of the faith. It also becomes clear that he romanticized Islam in Africa, largely ignoring the slave trade, and his praise of Islam over Christianity was clearly tied to the masculinist impulse of black nationalism as a political project. Unlike Christianity, which allegedly connoted servility (and therefore, femininity), for black men, Islamic African societies were masculine, strong, independent, and assertive.

I contend that Blyden, though writing for European and West African readers rather than African-Americans, influenced the way US blacks perceived Islam in relation to their own history and struggles. Islam and the black nationalist imagination of Blyden influenced African-Americans. Without Blyden, would there have been a Malcolm X?

Edward Wilmot Blyden

Edward Wilmot Blyden, West Indian-born, educated in US, and significant pan-Africanist intellectual in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Blyden criticized Krio elites for emulating Western culture, praised Islamic West Africa's intellectual tradition (as well as romanticized them), believed Islam was better suited for blacks, supported a Dress Reform Society to push Krio men to wear African-styled clothes, supported "Africanization" of Krio names (something already in practice before Blyden's time), and argued for a 'Negro personality' that would lead to development on its own. Blyden was something of a hypocrite, since he never 'Africanized' his name, but his influence is sometimes overstated. Regardless, he was a towering figure in 19th century Black Atlantic intellectual thought.