In , Professor Wendell Adjetey dives into African American history from 1900 to 2000, with specific focus on global Black liberation movements. Professor Adjetey is an Assistant Professor of post-Reconstruction U.S. and African Diasporic history in the Department of History and Classical Studies.
His book situates 20th century issues such as immigration, civil rights, racial identity, revolution, counter-revolution, imperialism and neo-colonialism, with a diasporic North American and transatlantic frame work.
We spoke to Professor Adjetey about his latest book. Read our interview with him below.
How did the idea for this book come about?
Although I conducted most of the research for this book during my doctoral studies at Yale University, its genesis is older. At the University of Toronto in my sophomore year, I enrolled in a Caribbean history course with Dr. Sheldon Taylor, my first and only undergraduate Black professor. Dr. Taylor’s course taught me the symbiotic connections that enslavement, imperialism, and colonialism created between the Caribbean Basin and North American mainland and the ways that African peoples forged connections throughout the Atlantic World. That course changed my life.
What is Pan-Africanism, and in what ways is it similar to, or different from, its French counterpart, “Négritude”?
Pan-Africanism is the unity of Black people throughout the global African Diaspora and on the African continent. It is rooted in the belief that the only way Black people will overcome millennia-old systems of anti-Black exploitation, domination, and extermination is when Africa is united under one flag and the continent can serve as a beachhead for its children at home and abroad. It is fundamentally a movement of the masses; social revolution from the bottom-up. NĂ©gritude is a literary movement that promoted Black consciousness in the 1930s in the French Black Atlantic. Although there are some similarities, NĂ©gritude is more of an elite project.
Your introduction begins with the mention of Juanita DeShield, the first Canadian born Black woman to graduate from 91ÉçÇř (BA Honours in French); why was it important to start with Juanita’s story, and what can we learn about her cross-border activism?
Juanita DeShield is a quintessential cross-border cosmopolitan and African North American. She was engaged in Pan-Africanism, anti-fascism, and other forms of justice work and community building that bridged Canada and the United States as well the broader Atlantic World. More important, her self-assertion and commitment to the liberation of Black people illustrates that Pan-Africanism or cosmopolitanism was not gendered or elite. Regular Black men and women participated equally, meaningfully, and complementarily.
Your book marks 1919 as the year of the start of a “Messianic moment”, which was marked by “great yearning for a race leader- a deliverer- who would help redeem the African world”. What legacy did this idea of a messianic leadership have on 20th century history, and more specifically, on Black thought leaders, politicians, and philosophers?
The Messianic Moment underscored in the minds of the Western powers—especially the United States and its burgeoning intelligence and national security apparatus—the “dangers” of ethical, courageous, charismatic, and uncompromising Black leaders who sought the complete emancipation of African peoples globally. Marcus Mosiah Garvey, I argue, was the archetypal Black "messiah" whose revanchist racial redemption program foreshadowed the heavy-handed, paranoid, and violent measures that F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover and the U.S. government would deploy to “neutralize” the “rise of a Negro messiah" after World War II. Garvey is the blueprint that allows us to understand Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, and other leaders in North America (including the Caribbean) and Africa who fought for Black liberation in the 1960s and 1970s. Given the gendered focus of this anti-Black messiah policy, I cite Genocide and Black Male Studies, positing that the focus on eliminating Black males from the political process is inherently patriarchal, that is, “gendercidal,” considering patriarchy’s emphasis on eliminating subordinate males.
Who was Marcus Garvey and why is his legacy controversial? What discussions or insights are you looking to explore in this book about his legacy and that of his contemporaries?
Marcus Garvey was the most effective organizer, mass mobilizer, and propagandist (not in the negative sense) leader in the history of the Atlantic World. He gave Black people the concept of the United States of Africa—Pan-Africanism’s ultimate nationalist objective to liberate and protect all Black people. Garvey’s legacy is controversial because he was the first to spark revolutionary race pride in the hearts, minds, and spirits of African peoples. Concomitantly, he posed an existential threat to the Western powers and their ability to plunder and exploit Africa and Black people in perpetuity.
There’s much vitriol, misperception, and outright falsehoods that prevail in history books about Garvey and his movement, that is, Garveyism or the Universal Negro Improvement Association. As a historian, my job is to chronicle history accurately and as objectively as possible, which means seeing through the smoke of anti-blackness and humanizing Garvey and his followers.
What are you hoping your readers and students to learn and discover when they read your book? What would you invite your readers to reflect upon?
Despite enduring a protracted, genocidal transatlantic slavery, African peoples managed to look beyond their parochial markers—ethnicity, nationality, religion, class, and gender—opting instead to forge a Pan-African movement and community in the long twentieth century. Why?
In your acknowledgements, you thank your 91ÉçÇř colleagues for their support in completing your manuscript. What lessons would you share with other emerging academics who are struggling to complete their manuscripts whilst juggling their academic duties and commitments?
In my case, I became a father during COVID lockdown, teaching from home, and completing a book manuscript. I’m immensely grateful for supportive loved ones near and far. A cooperative baby who sleeps in your arms as you type one word at a time in slow motion, and a support network are game-changing, truly. Indeed, senior colleagues have a wealth of experience and can be helpful. Universities should create optimal work and learning environments for senior colleagues to support junior colleagues; this includes course release for senior colleagues to help junior colleagues workshop and polish book manuscripts. Mentorship is labour intensive and universities should honour this seen and unseen labour.