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The Encyclopedia Africana
W.E.B. Du Bois had long advocated and pursued an encyclopedia project. In his 1968 Autobiography he wrote:
I had planned an "Encyclopedia Africana" in 1909 but my leaving Atlanta for New York postponed this project and the World War prevented its renewal. In 1934 I was chosen to act as editor-in-chief of a new project of the Phelps-Stokes Fund to prepare and publish an Encyclopedia of the Negro. I spent nearly ten years of intermittent effort on this project and secured cooperation from many scholars, white and black, in America, Europe and Africa. But the necessary funds could not be secured. Perhaps again it was too soon to expect large aid for so ambitious a project directed by Negroes and built mainly on Negro scholarship. Nevertheless, a preliminary volume summarizing this effort was published in 1945. (p.302)
In 1961 Du Bois accepted President Nkrumah's invitation to move to Ghana and work on the Encyclopedia Africana project. The project was underway, but far from being completed by the time of Du Bois's death in 1963. As mentioned in the above quotation, he published a preliminary work entitled the Encyclopedia of the Negro, Preparatory Volume with Reference Lists and Reports (NY: Phelps-Stokes Fund, 1946), co-authoring it with Guy B. Johnson.
This web page is divided into the following sections:
* Primary sources by DuBois related to the Encyclopedia.
* Secondary sources by later scholars.
* The influence of DuBois' encyclopedia idea on others.
Note that the spelling "Encyclopaedia Africana" is also common.
Robert W. Williams, Ph.D. [Bio] LATEST LINK (As of 20 July 2010)
A Secondary Source
Posted below is a link to another of Clarence G. Contee's articles: "W.E.B. Du Bois and the Encyclopedia Africana" (from The Crisis, November 1970).
PRIMARY SOURCES
"A Statement Concerning the Encyclopaedia Africana Project." As Director of the Secretariat for the project, DuBois issued this statement on 1 April 1962 in Accra, Ghana.
Encyclopaedia Africana Project (Accra, Ghana)http://www.endarkenment.com/eap/legacy/620401duboisweb.htm
"Opening Address: A Proposed Conference on the Encyclopedia Africana." Du Bois made this address on Encyclopaedia Africana Project (Accra, Ghana)http://www.endarkenment.com/eap/legacy/621218duboisweb.htm
SECONDARY SOURCES ON THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA AFRICANA
"W.E.B. Du Bois and the Encyclopedia Africana" by Clarence G. Contee was published in the The Crisis, 77: 9 (November 1970 ): 375-379. This article is substantially the same as—and indeed, in many places it is a verbatim rendition of—Contee's similarly named "The Encyclopedia Africana Project of W.E.B. Du Bois" (see below). The Crisis article does not include the same concluding paragraph as the later essay.
Start page of the article at Gook Books http://books.google.com/books?id=NV2MtmlurRYC...pg=PA375....
"The Encyclopedia Africana Project of W.E.B. Du Bois" by Clarence G. Contee was published in the African Historical Studies (1971).
Contee detailed the goals and difficulties faced by Du Bois over the decades in attempting to organize and create an Encyclopedia Africana. In addition to Du Bois's efforts, Contee discussed other projects of the era, such as Daniel Murray's never completed Historical and Biographical Encyclopedia of the Colored Race throughout the World and Carter G. Woodson's rival encyclopedia. Contee speculated about three possible sources of influence on Du Bois's conception of the Encyclopedia Africana:
One possible source, more a model than an important impetus, was the Jewish Encyclopedia, first published in 1901. Du Bois, like many other Blacks, often compared the Black struggle for liberation with the Jewish experience. [ . . . .]
A second source of greater significance was obviously his own work. From 1898 to 1916 Du Bois directed the Atlanta University Studies, which were also edited in his name. [. . . .] Most of these studies contained historical and social references to the African background of Blacks, and Du Bois demonstrated his Pan-African sentiments in them. [. . . .]
The third, the most important, the most enduring, and the earliest source for the Encyclopedia Africana was he Black cultural nationalism of the Du Bois of that era. (p.78) [Contee cited here "The Conservation of Races" and The Souls of Black Folk.]
[Citation: Contee, Clarence G. 1971. "The Encyclopedia Africana Project of W.E.B. Du Bois." African Historical Studies, 4:1; pp.77-91.]
"A Brief History - Encyclopaedia Africana: Dictionary of African Biography®™" by Raymond A. Winbush.
"WEB Du Bois, Encyclopedia Africana and Nelson Mandela", written by Henry Louis Gates Jr., is an essay within The Meaning of Mandela: A Literary and Intellectual Celebration, edited by Xolela Mangcu (Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2004). Gates discusses Du Bois' long-term goal of an Encyclopedia project and relates it to Gates' Africana Encyclopedia project; along the way Gates details various aspects of their respective lives and endeavors. In the last sentence of the essay Gates mentions Mandela by name. Gates writes that his Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience is "dedicated to the memory of William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, and in honour of Nelson Mandela." The essays by Cornel West and Wole Soyinka, also included in this anthology, discuss Mandela more directly and extensively.
At the HSRC Press [Download page for the entire anthology]www.hsrcpress.ac.za/downloadpdf.php?pdffile=files%2FPDF%2F2156
[PDF: ~104 KB]
THE INFLUENCE EXERTED BY THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA AFRICANA
"Introduction" to the First Edition of Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, edited by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (First Edition: NY: Basic Civitas Books, 1999. Second edition -- Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.) In this introduction, the editors detail The publication of Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience as a one-volume print edition aspires to belong in the grand tradition of encyclopedia editing by scholars interested in the black world on both sides of the Atlantic. It also relies upon the work of thousands of scholars who have sought to gather and to analyze, according to the highest scholarly standards, the lives and the worlds of black people everywhere. We acknowledge our indebtedness to these traditions of scholarly endeavor -- more than a century old -- to which we are heirs, by dedicating our encyclopedia to the monumental contribution of W. E. B. Du Bois.
At the Oxford African American Studies Center [home page]http://www.oxfordaasc.com/public/books/t0002/t0002_intro_1st.jsp
[The New York Times provides an online copy (free registration required).]
[Another copy -- one which is accessible at BlackPast.org.]
Encarta Africana.
Encarta Africana is an encyclopedia project, prompted by Du Bois's Encyclopaedia, which was edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Kwame Anthony Appiah. Below are various links to different aspects of the Encarta Africana as they relate to Du Bois' project. Please note that the Encarta Africana, as discussed herein, is actually available as Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience [web site].
"The making of Henry Louis Gates, CEO" by Craig Offman. Posted on www.salon.com, 16 June 1999http://archive.salon.com/books/it/1999/06/16/gates/index.html
"Africana, and Encarta Africana" by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in Black Collegian, v.30,n.1 (October 1999).http://findarticles.com/.../.../.../is_199910/ai_n8875575/... [start page]
"W.E.B. Du Bois and the Encyclopedia Africana." A speech by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. delivered at Calvin College in January 2002. [This is a link to an audio file in RealAudio format, which requires the free RealPlayer program.]http://www.calvin.edu/january/2002/gates.htm
"The Making of Encarta Africana and the Digital Divide." A transcript of a speech by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. at Harvard Graduate School of Education, 9 April 2001http://www.edletter.org/past/issues/2001-mj/forum.shtml
"Encarta Africana: W.E.B. Du Bois to John Coltrane." Henry Louis Gates, Jr. delivered this speech at the Berklee College of Music (Boston) on 13 February 2003. The speech is available in audio and video formats.http://forum.wgbh.org/wgbh/forum.php?lecture_id=1166
* The announcement for Gates' speech
* Gates' speech in a Berklee News story by Sarah Murphy (posted 8 April 2003): "The Good Book: Henry Louis Gates, Jr, and Encarta Africana"
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