Colonizationalists, notwithstanding
all that has been said against them, have always recognized the manhood of the
Negro and been willing to trust him to take care of himself. . . . They have
believed that it has not been given to the white man to fix the intellectual or
spiritual status of this race. They have recognized that the universe is wide
enough and God’s gifts are varied enough to allow the man of Africa to find out
a path of his own within the circle of genuine human interests, and to
contribute from the field of his particular enterprise to the resources—material,
intellectual, and moral—of the great human family.
~ Edward Wilmot Blyden, “The African
Problem, and the Method of Its Solution”
 |
| A Young Blyden |
I can think of no better-prepared
authority from the 19th century to address “The African Problem”
than Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832–1912). Born on the island of St. Thomas in the
Dutch West Indies one year before the Dutch government ended slavery in its
territories and granted freedom to all slaves, Blyden began his life ahead of
the times of nearly all people of African descent living in the Americas. He
was afforded a good education, was welcomed without prejudice into the Reformed
Dutch Church, and came to manhood without the daily suspicions of his character
and ability endured by nearly all Africans living in the Americas.
When Blyden was but 18 years old, the wife of his pastor, Mrs. John P.
Knox, carried him to the United States to seek admission in one of the
theological colleges in the Northeast. At least three times he was rejected
merely on the basis of his race. The sting of that rejection never left him,
but Blyden refused to succumb to bitterness.
He accepted the encouragement of the New York Colonization Society, an auxiliary
of the American Colonization Society, founded 1816, and soon found himself
bound for the world’s only colony established to provide a haven for displaced
Africans: the colony that was to become the Republic of Liberia.
Once in Liberia the young Blyden wasted no time seizing the opportunity
that lay before him. He entered Alexander High School in Monrovia and rose to
prominence, so much so that at his graduation he was appointed Principal at the
school.
Remarkably, Blyden received no further formal education. His innate
intelligence, hungry mind, and thirsty soul, however, drove him to become the
greatest intellectual, moral, and spiritual force West Africa, the Americas,
and Europe ever had seen from an African. By the end of his life Blyden was
known for his linguistic skills. He mastered all of the Romance languages. He
read and wrote in Greek and Latin. He pursued Hebrew in hopes of unraveling the
19th century claims of Negro inferiority on the basis of “the
malediction of Noah” in Genesis 9. Upon encountering African Muslims, Blyden
threw himself into the study of Arabic, as well as the practices of Islam in
West Africa.
Blyden was no retiring intellectual. He carried his vigor into the
public arena. He was an educator, serving on the faculty of Liberia College
three different times, and as the President once. He was a statesman, serving
as Secretary of State in Liberia and, too, as Ambassador to St. James Court in
London (at his own expense), and later, to France. He had a failed attempt at
the presidency of Liberia.
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| Blyden, c. 1890 |
In the midst of it all, Blyden was
an indefatigable activist for the plight of Africans, slave and free, in the
Americas. Owing to his own opportunities from the New York Colonization
Society, Blyden accepted an appointment in 1861–1862 from the Liberian
President to become one of three Commissioners to “itinerate and lecture among
the people of color in the United States” with the hope of attracting more
immigrants to the growing colony.
The “Macedonian Call” received by the Apostle Paul (see Acts 16.9)
captures the verve and hope of Edward Wilmot Blyden. He was the one issuing a
call from Liberia to all displaced Africans from the 18th and 19th
centuries. “Come and help us,” he said.
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