''Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American Experience'' edited by

Henry Louis Gates Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950) is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker, who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African Amer ...

and Anthony Appiah (

Basic Civitas Books Basic Books is a book publisher founded in 1950 and located in New York, now an imprint of Hachette Book Group. It publishes books in the fields of psychology, philosophy, economics, science, politics, sociology, current affairs, and history. Hi ...

1999, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 2005, ) is a compendium of Africana studies including

African studies African studies is the study of Africa, especially the continent's cultures and societies (as opposed to its geology, geography, zoology, etc.). The field includes the study of Africa's history (pre-colonial, colonial, post-colonial), demography ...

and the " Pan-African diaspora" inspired by W. E. B. Du Bois' project of an ''Encyclopedia Africana''. Du Bois envisioned "an ''Encyclopedia Africana''," which was to be "unashamedly Afro-Centric but not indifferent to the impact of the outside world." The first edition appeared in a single volume, of which about a third each was dedicated to North American African-American studies, to Afro-Latin American topics of Latin America and the Caribbean and to

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

proper. The second edition was published by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

in five volumes, including more than 3500 entries on 3960 pages.Encyclopedia Africana online
The official website

W. E. B. Du Bois and the ''Encyclopedia Africana''

Daniel Alexander Payne Murray was one of the first African-Americans to work as a

librarian A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users. The role of the librarian has changed much over time ...

at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

in 1871. In 1899 Murray organized an exhibit at the

1900 Paris Exposition The Exposition Universelle of 1900, better known in English as the 1900 Paris Exposition, was a world's fair held in Paris, France, from 14 April to 12 November 1900, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate developmen ...

Negro In the English language, ''negro'' is a term historically used to denote persons considered to be of Black African heritage. The word ''negro'' means the color black in both Spanish and in Portuguese, where English took it from. The term can be ...

authors. Under his direction, his award-winning exhibit became the core of the Library of Congress's Colored Author Collection. Murray planned to expand his collection and create an encyclopedia of

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

achievement. Although he never completed the project, the idea of an encyclopedia that explored the black experience was revived and expanded by W. E. B. Du Bois. In 1901 Du Bois widened the scope of the project to encompass the entire African diaspora. He suggested that the encyclopedia be called the ''Encyclopedia Africana'' in a similar fashion to the ''

Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...

''. Du Bois envisioned a scientific and comprehensive work on Africa and peoples of African descent that would refute the Enlightenment notion of blacks as devoid of civilization and the hallmarks of humanity. Due to lack of support from the established philanthropies, the project died.''W. E. B. Du Bois and the Encyclopedia Africana, 1909-63'' HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 568, No. 1, 203-219 (2000)

References

*Jay Spaulding, ''The International Journal of African Historical Studies'' (2001), 147f.

External links

Oxford University Press
Information about the five-volume set from the publisher. {{Authority control African studies 1999 non-fiction books Books about Africa Encyclopedias of culture and ethnicity African encyclopedias 20th-century encyclopedias 21st-century encyclopedias

W. E. B. Du Bois and the ''Encyclopedia Africana''

See also

References

External links