Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Black History Month in Germany: An African-German educator speaks out

So, I know that you all have been waiting patiently for our resident historian "Patrick" as referenced in my first post in the series Black History Month in Europe: An Introduction... so without any further ado, I present the work of my friend and a young man that I admire a great deal - Patrick von Deutschland!

Special note for non-German speaking readers:
Don't panic! The English version is on its way. I'm still not satisfied with the translation and Patrick has used a few difficult words "auf Deutsch". What the heck is Geistesleben?




Schwarze Geschichte?
Was ich im Geschichtsunterricht und im Geschichtsstudium über die Geschichte Schwarzer Deutscher bzw. Schwarzer Europäer gelernt habe!

Wie bereits angekündigt, schreibe ich, Patrick, einen Beitrag zur Schwarzen Geschichte in Deutschland und Europa. Wie ebenfalls angekündigt, bin ich Historiker (genauer gesagt Geschichtslehrer) und selbst Afro-Deutscher. Dreizehn Jahre lang habe ich in den verschiedenen Abteilungen des bremischen Schulwesens Unterweisung in historischen Sachverhalten erfahren. Fünf Jahre lang habe ich Geschichte an der Universität Bremen studiert. Das macht also insgesamt 18 Jahre. Achtzehn Jahre lernen von Geschichte – wow, das ist doch eine ganze Menge! Da muss doch einiges zusammengekommen sein!

Ist es auch. Was also, lieber Patrick, so frage ich mich nun selbst, hast du in jenen 18 Jahren über die Geschichte von Schwarzen in Deutschland bzw. Schwarzer Deutscher gelernt? Nichts. Wie, nichts? Das kann doch gar nicht sein! Es leben doch mehrere hunderttausend Schwarze in Deutschland und viele davon sind sogar Schwarze Deutsche!! Sind die erst seit wenigen Jahren da, oder was? Kann doch gar nicht sein, weil du selbst ja schon 30 Jahre alt bist!

Das einzige, was ich über Schwarze in Deutschland gelernt habe ist, dass nach dem 1. Weltkrieg schwarze Soldaten aus den französischen Kolonien (vorwiegend Senegalesen) als Besatzungstruppen im Rheinland stationiert waren und nach dem 2. Weltkrieg schwarze G.I.’s in der BRD. Angehörige beider Gruppen gingen mit ortsansässigen Frauen Verbindungen ein und hatten auch Kinder hier.

Dass die deutschen bzw. europäischen Juden im Nationalsozialismus Verfolgung und Vernichtung zu erdulden hatten, ist im Geschichtsunterricht vielfach behandelt worden. Ebenso die Tatsache, dass neben den Juden als größter Opfergruppe auch Sinti und Roma, Behinderte, Homosexuelle, Kommunisten, Demokraten und bekennende Christen das gleiche grausame Schicksal teilten. Nicht jedoch ist das Schicksal der so genannten
„Rheinlandbastarde“, also der Nachfahren der schwarzen französischen Kolonialsoldaten, behandelt worden. Nicht nur soziale Ausgrenzung und Diffamierung wurde ihnen zu Teil, nein, sie wurden u.a. auch Opfer von Zwangssterilisation. Der berühmte Afro-Deutsche Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi (*19.01.1926 in Hamburg, „Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger!“) hat den Nationalsozialismus doch nur deshalb überlebt, weil seine Mutter ihn versteckt hat.

Kein Wort von diesen Dingen im Geschichtsunterricht, kein Wort davon auf den alljährlichen Gedenkveranstaltungen mit ihren unvermeidlichen „betroffenen“ Reden. Würde man eine Umfrage auf deutschen Straßen starten und fragen welche Bevölkerungsgruppen im Nationalsozialismus verfolgt wurden, könnten viele Leute zumindest einige der betroffenen Gruppen nennen. Aber die Schwarzen Deutschen? Die würden wohl den Wenigsten einfallen. Wie auch, denn es ist ja kein Thema!

Die Deutsche Geschichtswissenschaft (die ja für die Aufarbeitung dieser Wissenslücken in der Bevölkerung zuständig wäre) kennt eine Menge Unterdisziplinen, so z.B. Politikgeschichte, Kulturgeschichte, Frauengeschichte, Geschlechtergeschichte, Militärgeschichte, Medizingeschichte, Technikgeschichte, Wissenschaftsgeschichte Sozialgeschichte, Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Alltagsgeschichte, Mentalitätsgeschichte u.a.m. – „Schwarze Geschichte“ bzw. „Afro-Deutsche Geschichte“ als Unterdisziplin der Geschichtswissenschaft kennt sie nicht.

Schwarzer Geschichte kann es aber nicht in erster Linie um die Opferrolle der Schwarzen in der Geschichte gehen. Sicher, schwarze Europäer waren und sind als Minderheit in Europa Opfer von Ausgrenzung und Verfolgung und dies soll auch wissenschaftlich aufgearbeitet werden. Aber das ist doch nicht alles! Was ist mit den Kulturleistungen von Afro-Europäern bzw. Afro-Deutschen? Was mit ihren Beiträgen zu unserer gemeinsamen europäischen Kultur? Wie war bzw. ist ihr Alltag? Haben sie eine eigene, ihnen gemeinsame Identität und Mentalität oder sind sie in puncto Mentalität und Identität der europäischen Mehrheitsbevölkerung gleich? Sind sie vielleicht einfach typische Vertreter europäischer bzw. deutscher Kultur oder sind sie vielmehr ein zunehmend wichtiger Bestandteil einer europäischen Gesamtkultur? Gab es Schwarze in Europa bzw. Deutschland vor dem 1. Weltkrieg und falls ja, wie sind sie hierher gekommen und wie haben sie gelebt? Diese und viele andere Fragen muss sich Schwarze Geschichte vorrangig stellen.

Der Afro-Deutsche
Anton Wilhelm Amo (1703-1759), der Jurist und Philosoph war und später sogar Professor an der Universität Halle wurde (ein afro-deutscher Professor im 18. Jahrhundert!), war mir bis vor wenigen Wochen gar nicht bekannt. Amo, eine der wichtigsten afro-deutschen Persönlichkeiten – und ich kannte ihn nicht! Aber mir hatte ja auch keiner etwas über Amo erzählt und allein durch Zufall bin ich eben nicht auf ihn gestoßen. Warum wird über Amo, der ja als deutscher Professor zu den großen deutschen Gelehrten zu zählen ist, nicht im Geschichtsunterricht, nicht im Geschichtsstudium, nicht im Philosophiestudium und nicht im Jurastudium berichtet? Warum wird über diese Persönlichkeit, die doch einen Beitrag zum deutschen Geistesleben und zur deutschen Kultur geleistet hat, nicht öffentlich gesprochen? Warum macht der „unvermeidliche“ TV-Historiker Guido Knopp nicht eine Sendung für das ZDF über Anton Wilhelm Amo? Wo ist die Historiker-Kommission, die das Leben von Amo genau untersucht und unsere Wissenslücken über diese wichtigen Afro-Deutschen schließt? Warum halten Bundespräsident Horst Köhler oder Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel nicht eine Rede über Amo, um genau diese Dinge anzustoßen?

Nach meiner Auffassung muss sich Schwarze Geschichte in einen gesamteuropäischen Kontext stellen. Die in diesem Zusammenhang vordringliche Frage lautet: Seit wann leben afrikanisch-stämmige Menschen in Europa, d.h. seit wann gibt es Afro-Europäer?

Die meisten Leute würden wahrscheinlich spontan antworten, dass es Afro-Europäer erst im Anschluss an den 1. Weltkrieg gab – aber wir hatten ja schon festgestellt, dass Anton Wilhelm Amo bereits im 18. Jahrhundert in Deutschland lebte. Wem aber ist bewusst, dass
Alessandro de’ Medici (* 22. Juli 1510; † 6. Januar 1537) Afro-Europäer war? Alessandro de’ Medici, genannt il Moro („der Maure“), war von 1530 bis 1537 Stadtherr von Florenz und damit Herrscher einer der kulturell und politisch wichtigsten Städte im mittelalterlichen bzw. frühneuzeitlichen Europa. Offenbar war seine Hautfarbe kein Hinderungsgrund – und das ist nicht nur interessant, sondern für viele Zeitgenossen sicherlich auch verwunderlich. Was war denn mit dem Rassismus? Hat es die Florentiner, gerade die einflussreichen Florentiner nicht gestört, dass ein Schwarzer die Stadt beherrschte?

Aber mit dem Rassismus ist das so eine Sache, denn den gibt es bei weitem nicht so lange, wie man meinen könnte. Rassismus im engeren Sinne gibt es überhaupt erst seit dem Beginn der Neuzeit. Er ist in engem Zusammenhang mit der „Legitimation“ des Frühkolonialismus und der neuzeitlichen Sklaverei (ab dem frühen 16. Jahrhundert) zu sehen. Ebenso wie die Verachtung der mittelalterlichen Kreuzfahrer für die muslimischen Araber, ist die Verachtung der „Wilden“ im Frühkolonialismus eher eine Form des „kulturellen Rassismus“, d.h. es wird primär die vermeintlich primitive Kultur verachtet und eben nicht in erster Linie auf biologische Unterschiede abgehoben.

Einen systematischen „biologischen Rassismus“ gibt es erst seit dem 19. Jahrhundert. Dieser ist im Zusammenhang mit der Epoche zu sehen, die wir meinen, wenn wir „Kolonialismus“ sagen – also die nahezu weltumspannende Beherrschung und Ausbeutung durch europäische Staaten und Kulturen im 19. Jahrhundert. Der zweifelhaften Ruhm, als Begründer des modernen, also des systematischen biologischen Rassismus zu gelten fällt
Arthur de Gobineau (* 14. Juli 1816, † 13. Oktober 1882; „Essay über die Ungleichheit der Menschenrassen“, 1853-1855) zu.

Wenn man sich also fragt in welcher Epoche ein reger Austausch zwischen Afrika und Europa begann, wird man nicht zuerst an die (Früh-) Neuzeit zu denken haben. Mit der Antike hingegen ist man wesentlich besser beraten.

In der Antike fand nicht nur ein personeller und kultureller Austausch zwischen Afrika und Europa statt. Nein, vielmehr waren Teile Afrikas ein Teil Europas – und zwar kulturell und staatlich. Das Römische Reich (der erste gesamteuropäische Staat) hatte mehrere afrikanische Provinzen: Aegyptus (heutiges Ägypten und Teile des nördlichen Sudans), Cyrenaica (in etwa das heutige Libyen), Africa (in etwa das heutige Tunesien und Teile des heutigen Algeriens) und Mauretania (in etwas das heutige Marroko und Teile des heutigen Algeriens). Es gab also
schwarze Römer !, Afrikaner, die römische Bürger waren und sich als solche als Geschäftsleute, als Beamte und als Soldaten auch im gesamten Imperium bewegten.

Im Militär des Imperiums waren schwarze Soldaten eine feste Größe. Die
Legio III Cyrenaica wurde um 36 v. Chr. von Marcus Antonius aufgestellt, als er Statthalter in der Provinz Cyrenaica war und auch die vom römischen Kaiser Septimius Severus aufgestellte Legio II Parthica bestand u.a. nachweislich aus afrikanischen Soldaten. Eben jene II. Legion wurde auch in Britannien zur Bekämpfung einheimischer Stämme eingesetzt. Das muss man sich mal vorstellen: Schwarze Römer, die weiße „Wilde“ (Skoten und Pikten ) jagen!

Aber es kommt noch besser: Eben jener
Kaiser Septimius Severus (193–211), der diese Legion ausgehoben hat und die militärischen Operationen in Britannien geleitet hat, war selbst ein Schwarzer (aus Leptis Magna in der Provinz Africa). Ein schwarzer Kaiser! Herrscher eines der größten und mächtigsten Reiche, das die Welt je gesehen hat – und heutzutage fragt man sich, wann es endlich mal einen schwarzen Präsidenten der Vereinigten Staaten gibt, da waren wir also schon mal weiter… Die severische Dynastie umfasste noch weitere Kaiser, die direkt von Septimius Severus abstammten, nämlich Caracalla (211–217) und Geta (211), Elagabal (218–222) und Severus Alexander (222–235).

Auch die christliche Kirche des Römischen Reiches hatte viele Afrikaner in ihren Reihen. Unter ihnen finden wir einige der bekanntesten Namen des frühen Christentums, darunter die drei Kirchenväter
Tertullian, St. Cyprian und St. Augustinus von Hippo, die alle drei aus der Provinz Africa stammten. Es gab auch schwarze Päpste, darunter der dritte afrikanische Papst Gelasius I. (Papst von ca. 492 bis ca. 496), der die für das Verhältnis von Papsttum und Kaisertum wichtige Zweischwertertheorie formulierte.

Mit diesem kurzen Überblick versuche ich klar zu machen, dass Schwarze Geschichte ein weites, interessantes und für Deutschland und Europa wichtiges Forschungsfeld ist, das es verdient, eine eigenständige und geachtete Disziplin der Geschichtswissenschaft zu werden. Die Geschichte der Afro-Europäer reicht mindestens zweitausend Jahre zurück. Wenn Afro-Europäer heute selbstbewusst ihre Ziele als Individuen und als Bevölkerungsgruppe verfolgen, dann ist das nichts spektakuläres, dann ist das nichts Neues. Nein, es ist, historisch betrachtet, die Rückkehr zur Normalität.

ENDE

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Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Black History Month in Germany at The Atlantic Review

Running late, backlogged on blog posts for the Black History in Europe Project, steeped in European Renaissance and Medieval History. I feel like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. We are having lots of fun (and success thanks to our readers) with the search for black and African history in the context of European history and literature.

I’ve just followed a tip from Michael Fisher about black Roman Legions in Switzerland during the 3rd Century A.D. Damn! You’re kidding? I have to check this out with the Pope for accuracy. Dialing 1- 800 CHECK-W-ST-PETER. Ring…ring…ring…ring. Click.

“Hello? Hello? Connect me with the Pope, please. He’s not in? O.K. then put me in touch with the Vatican’s Head Librarian. This is important and it’s a long distance call.”

In case my readers or new visitors haven’t read it yet, BHM-E team member Jörg has published his first article on the history of Africans and black people in Germany. Jörg’s post at the Atlantic Review is focused on 20th Century history up to the present and contains information about several notable personalities i.e. Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi (Afro-German survivor of the Third Reich and a former editor at Ebony magazine in the U.S.A.), Cherno Jobatey (Afro-German co-anchor of Germany’s most popular TV morning news program), and several more figures. The debate (see the comments section of Jörg’s post) is quite lively and a number of readers have contributed even more information on black historical figures and related events in German History. Here is an excerpt from the Atlantic Review article “Black History Month in Germany”:

African-German Filmmakers Hope to Open-Up 'New Perspectives,'" writes David Gordon Smith in Spiegel International about a special series at the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale):

The African-German community has a long history, but the sizeable minority is often overlooked in a country where being German is often considered to mean being white. Now a group of black German filmmakers is trying to change that.

(...)
The series features six short films that aim to represent the breadth of black filmmaking in Germany -- from Yohannes' coming-of-age story, to "You Are Welcome!," a documentary featuring interviews with German visitors to Ghana, to "Diver" a cartoon about a German superhero. However Yohannes emphasizes that black German filmmakers see themselves as complementing the mainstream. "We are not trying to segregate or differentiate ourselves," she says. "Rather, we're coming together in order to become visible."

They have a hard task ahead of them. Black Germans, who generally refer to themselves as Afrodeutsche or African-Germans, have to constantly fight to be accepted as German -- for many people within and outside Germany, being German is synonymous with being white.

It's not known exactly how many African-Germans live in Germany -- one legacy of the Holocaust is that census data in the country does not include ethnicity or religion -- but estimates range from 100,000 to 500,000. Many African-Germans are the offspring of Africans who came to Germany to work or study and married white Germans. A significant number grew up in East Germany, which had links to then-communist countries such as Mozambique. There is also a growing number of German citizens who immigrated as adults from sub-Saharan Africa.

The article continues to discuss stereotypical roles in German films and points out "There is no Denzel here" and that "black filmmakers in Germany have a lot of catching up to do compared with the United States, where the Black Filmmaker Foundation is an integral part of the filmmaking scene."

The "New Perspectives" series at the Berlinale is organized by the association Schwarze Filmschaffende in Deutschland (SFD) ("Black Artists in German Film")."New Perspectives" also features the documentary, "And We Were Germans," about one of the best-known African-Germans, Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi, who grew up in Germany during the Third Reich. His memoir "Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany" was a bestseller in Germany and was made into a TV movie, as the above Spiegel article points out.

The British Black Information Link describes Black Germans as "Hitler’s invisible victims:

"Their story is largely untold, their battle for compensation mostly fruitless. Thousands of African descent perished in Nazis concentration camps, the New Nation reports today. Many survivors have since died of old age, their place in history forgotten. This reporter spoke exclusively to two Afro-Germans, both in their 80s, who revealed their extraordinary story of living under an ever-present fear of death.”

Read more over at the Atlantic Review – Black History Month in Germany

Note: One important fact that the Spiegel International article fails to point out about SFD – Schwarze Filmschaffende in Deutschland is that this professional film & TV association’s founding members and staff is comprised entirely of African-German women. 100% Schwarze Frauen Power in the 21st Century. Bravo!

Coming up next at Jewels in the Jungle:
An African-German educator speaks out on history education in the Federal Republic of Germany. Don’t miss it. The article will be published in both German and English.



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Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Black History Month in Europe 2007: Amo's Ghost

Updates on our Black History Month in Europe project

This is the 3rd entry in a series of blog posts about the history of Africans and black people in Europe. If you are a first-time visitor you may want to start with Part 1 and Part 2 of the series and then come back here to continue reading this article.

I know that some of you may be wondering “What about the contribution from the German team members? Where are the German points of view that you promised?” Well, if you ever worked with Germans you know that sometimes it takes awhile before they feel their product is ready for release (Angst!). But have no fear, as my team members on the project are ready to go. Here’s the latest news about our present status:

One of the main contributors to our BHM-E 2007 team project, Patrick (our resident historian & teacher of history), has finished his first article titled:

Ein afro-deutscher Historiker:
Was ich im Geschichtsunterricht und im Geschichtsstudium über die Geschichte von Schwarzen in Deutschland bzw. Schwarzer Deutscher gelernt habe!

Translation (English)
An African-German Historian:
What I have learned in history instruction at school and university about the history of black people in Germany and black Germans.

Patrick has composed a 5-page masterpiece, auf Deutsch (in the German language). I must translate Patrick’s article so that we can publish in two language versions (English & German) for our international readers. Needless to say that Patrick’s piece for the BHM-Europe 2007 Project is a “Hammer”. This is a must-read article so please stay tuned to Jewels in the Jungle for notice about the pending release date. Having to translate five pages of German is not my idea of a “fun weekend”, but it must be done.

Patricia (the university student specializing in American Studies) and Jörg (the scholar over at the Atlantic Review) are also ready, almost. I refuse to translate Patricia’s work because she is more than capable of doing that all by herself. Ditto for Jörg. Jörg has whittled away (editing, revisions, more revisions) at his articles so much that there may be nothing left for publication. “Cut it loose into the blogosphere Jörg, it’s ready Man.”

So that’s it for updates on the project and now to get down to the main business of the day. “Yes Virginia, there were black people in Europe going way, way back in time. Long before Columbus set sail for the New World the Portuguese had brought the first black Africans to Lisboa in 1441. As a matter of fact, there were more than 32,000 Africans in Portugal alone by the mid-16th Century.”
Ref: Anti-Slavery.org Breaking the Silence – Slave Routes - Portugal

After posting my article about the 18th century African philosopher Dr. Anton Wilhelm Amo I began asking friends and acquaintances in Germany if they knew anything about this important historical figure. Not a single person has been able to answer yes so far, not one. However, several people I have spoken to about Anton Wilhelm Amo are very interested in learning more about him and the history of people of African descent in Germany and Europe. It appears there is a knowledge vacuum in a country with one of the most celebrated educational systems in the world – Deutschland. No wonder school students in several German states perform so poorly on the PISA tests (PISA = Program for International Student Assessments).

Granted, teaching the humanities (history, philosophy, literature, art, etc.) to young people has always been a challenge for educators. That’s why my favorite teacher from the past, Ms. Smith of the JMT Elementary School 4th Grade Class of 1961-62, used to keep her “attention getter” handy (a blackboard pointer). She’d whack you with that baby too if you weren’t paying attention or acting up in the back of the class while she was trying to teach our class something important. Lot’s of guys from my old 4th grade class still have the scars to prove it too (I’m lying). Actually Ms. Smith never used a pointer or a paddle on us (a common practice in some schools back then); she used her brains instead. Ms. Smith inspired us to be passionate about learning using her fresh, effective teaching methods and her fervor for teaching young, under-privileged children.

Ms. Smith was the first teacher that I can remember to get our ragtag band of bright but mischievous children in my elementary school class to become interested in languages and history and culture. It was a sensation back in those days to have a class of 9 and 10 year-old schoolchildren that could sing and recite prose & poetry in the French language. It was a really big deal if these same schoolchildren were black, half-black, half-blooded Native American, and poor white kids from working-class families.

There were other great teachers that I remember from my youth but Ms. Smith was the best and we (her students) owe her Big Time for her efforts. I have a love for world history and cultures, literature, and languages to this very day thanks to this fine lady and many of her colleagues of the former Missouri State Association of Negro Teachers. Unfortunately, Ms. Smith was relieved of her teaching position (fired) after only a year on the job due to unbearable pressure and harassment from certain influential community members (suckas) who didn’t like her and/or approve of her new teaching methods.

So enough already about St. Louis and U.S. American History. I promised not to do that while focusing on Black History in Europe this month.
I want to share with you a list of many unanswered questions that I still have about this important philosopher, doctor, lawyer, and university professor: Anton Wilhelm Amo.

1. Who was this guy Anton Wilhelm Amo and what were his impressions of Europeans and European life between 1707-1747?

2. How did he arrive at the Burg (a small castle) of the Herzog (Duke) of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel from Holland? A gift? Give me a break. Was he a gift from a 18th Century Gold Coast king or chief to the Dutch merchants who then carried Anton off to a strange new world (Europe in 1707), or was he captured by the slave traders of the Dutch East India Company and carted off to the Netherlands in chains?

3. Who exactly made the decision to raise Anton within the walls of the castle at Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, to raise him like “one of the family” and educate him at the finest schools and universities of the time? Was his upbringing and education some kind of “experiment” or did Duke Anton Ulrich (or his wife) see promise and genius in this young boy from West Africa? How did the aristocracy receive and treat Anton at court? How did the servants and lower-class people (serfs, farmers, etc.) around the Burg treat him? Did they honor him with respect and wonderment or despise him with jealousy and hatred, fear and superstition?

4. How did Anton get along with his peers at school and at play as a young boy and a young man? Did he have any friends? Did he ever fall in love? Did he travel extensively or was he basically restricted to the area around the Burg until he was sent off for his studies at the Wolfenbüttel Ritter Akademie (an academy for Knights) and the universities of Helmstedt and Halle (Halle-Wittenberg) and Jena? (Note: follow links to review the rich histories of these famous universities)

5. Did Anton keep a journal or a diary? If yes, where are these documents today? Did Amo’s close friends and colleagues and students write in their journals and diaries about him? The French Roman Catholic bishop and abolitionist Abbé Henri Grégoire (1750-1831) referred to Amo’s writings in his “De la litérature des nègres” (1808). Did the great German jurist (lawyer) and philosopher, Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), who wrote extensively about the royal Houses of Hannover and Brunswick, actually meet the young Anton Wilhelm Amo? Where is all of this stuff? Lost, burned, or forgotten?

6. Was the Roman Catholic Church or the Protestant Church involved with his upbringing and education? What faith and religion did Anton Wilhelm Amo practice, Protestant or Catholic? The Duke Anton Ulrich converted to the Roman Catholic faith in 1709. The Reformation had started in 1517 in nearby Wittenberg and many decades of violence and atrocities followed that religious breakaway movement. The German territories where Anton Wilhelm Amo lived and worked were firmly in Protestant hands by the beginning of the 18th Century. See map.

7. What really caused Amo to give up his professorship at the University of Jena in 1746-47? Was it that he lost his sponsorship from Anton Ulrich due to the duke’s death or was it due to the rising tide of xenophobia, racism, and abuse amongst his fellows and students? When he returned to Guinea and Ghana in 1747, how was he able to communicate with his father and sister and the people of the region if he could not speak the language of his birthplace or languages of the many tribes in this region of West Africa? Have any monuments been erected to pay homage to this great historical figure in Ghana?

8. Was Amo the only African black living in Germany in the 1700’s or were there other Africans in royal households who lived a similar lifestyle? Where are the African women and children in this 18th Century German story? There is no mention of them anywhere in the references to Anton Wilhelm Amo that I have read so far. Did the African women and children stay behind in 18th Century Holland or were they shipped off to the New World to labor on the plantations?

9. Why have German historians, scholars and educators, writers and filmmakers, German press and news & entertainment media networks and last but not least Germany’s political and business leaders kept this important figure in German history hidden from the world for so long? Are they ashamed of Anton Wilhelm Amo or just ignorant of his existence and the role he played in 18th Century German history?

Whoever can answer all of these questions above will be doing a great service to the memory of this deserving historical figure, Anton Wilhelm Amo, and to the citizens of the countries that he called home for so many years of his short life.

In my next article I shall move on to the Renaissance (as promised) and focus on great African and black historical figures from that important period in European history. As we part ways with Professor Dr. Anton Amo think about what Cameron Doudu wrote on March 20, 2006 at the popular U.K. Guardian blog “Comment is Free” as he described Dr. Anton Wilhelm Amo’s proper place in European and World History:

Excerpt from “Reading without Prejudice” by Cameron Duodu
Also see Wikipedia info about Dr. Frank Ellis at the University of Leeds

Where a black journalist would dismiss [Dr. Frank Ellis] by asking, for instance, "'What about Alexander Pushkin, Wilhelm Anton Amo [sic], or W E B Du Bois," a white journalist - who may not know anything about these black intellectuals whom I have listed off the top of my head - might think Ellis worth writing about because his views are "interesting". As for academia, it often confuses the right to think and speak freely about racial issues with a right to intimidate black students or even fail them solely on account of their race.

Alexander Pushkin has been described as someone who "single-handedly created modern Russian literature" and the 442,000 entries under his name in Google attest to his status as a Russian poet and writer of the greatest significance. You're not always told, in the references to him, that he was black. But he was.

Wilhelm Anton Amo [sic], a Ghanaian from Axim, (106,00 entries in Google) was taken to Amsterdam in 1708, when he was only four. He attended Halle University in 1727, learning Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, German and Dutch, as well as medicine. In 1729 he graduated from Halle University in law with his disputation "Dissertatio Inauguralis De jure Maurorum in Europa" (Inaugural Dissertation On The Legal Rights of Moors in Europe). In the dissertation, Amo argued, well ahead of the ant-slavery movement, that African kings, like their European counterparts, had been vassals of Rome and that by carrying out the slave trade, Europeans were violating the common heritage of Roman law, which enshrined the principle that all the Roman citizens were free, including those who lived in Africa. He thus antedated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by over 200 years.

In 1730, Amo went to Wittenberg University and in the same year, gained the Doctor of Philosophy degree. In 1733, on the visit of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, to Witttenberg, Amo led the students' procession in the monarch's honour. He taught at the universities in Halle, Wittenberg, and Jena. In 1734 Amo published his second doctoral dissertation, De Humanae Mentis "Apatheia" (On the Absence of Sensation in the Human Mind), a critique of Descartes's dualism, the opposition between mind and body. Descartes, who had died in 1650, is described as "not just any thinker, but a towering figure in European philosophy and mathematics", and this was perhaps "one of the reasons why Amo decided to deal with the subject".

Amo's third major publication was De Arte Sobrie et Accurate Philosophandi (Treatise on the Art of Philosophising Soberly and Accurately) published in 1736, which runs to 208 pages. Amo moved in 1739 to Jena, where he taught at the university. He lectured among others on "the refutation of superstitious beliefs". During the early years of the reign of Frederick II of Prussia, Amo was invited to the court in Berlin as a government councilor. He was also elected a member of the Dutch Academy of Flushing. In 1965, a statue in Amo's honour was erected in Halle and his studies were published in 1968 in German and English editions in Halle by the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg. The university has also established an annual Anton Wilhelm Amo Prize.


Considering the prejudice with which the works of Africans in Europe in his time were viewed, Amo's work must have been of a singular distinction for him to attain these honours, both in his lifetime and afterwards. Ellis can count himself lucky if he achieves even a third of what Amo achieved nearly 300 years ago, though, according to Ellis, Amo is "genetically inferior" to Ellis!

End Excerpt
Note: links to external online sources have been added

Additional online resources and related information:

Short Bibliography of and about Anton Wilhelm Amo’s works:
Source: African Philosophical Bibliography
Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium), Faculté des sciences philosophiques

Henri Grégoire (French priest and revolutionary 1750-1831)
(De La Littérature des Nègres by Henri Grégoire – 1808)

H-Net Book Reviews
On the Cultural Achievement of Negroes by Henri Grégoire – Translated with notes and introduction by Thomas Cassirer and Jean-Francois Brier 1996.
Review by Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, Stanford University 1998

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MOMA – New York City)
Europe and the Age of Exploration ( ca.1400 – 1700 A.D.)
A Timeline of Art History w/ Thematic Essays
The Portuguese in Africa (1415 –1600 A.D.)

Anti-Slavery.org
Breaking the Silence – learning about the transatlantic slave trade
Slave Routes – Europe - Portugal

History News Network @ George Mason University

The History Cooperative
- University of Illinois Press, American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians, National Academies Press

Journal for World History – Vol. 14 Issue 4, December 2003
The Agony of Asar: A Thesis on Slavery by the Former Slave, Jacobus Elisa Johannes Capitein (1717–1747)
Translated with comments by Grant Parker. Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener, 2001.

University of Mainz (Germany) – Johannes Guttenberg University
Black European Studies Project (BEST)
Project director and staff info

University of Massachusetts (U.S.A.) – Amherst campus
Remapping Black Germany:
new perspectives on Afro-German history, politics, and culture

Columbia University Libraries – African Studies database
African History and Culture

University of Illinois - Urban/Champaign campus – Dept. of Archaeology
African Diaspora Archaeology Network


Stanford University Libraries – SULAIR
Africa South of the Sahara
African Diaspora in Europe



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Saturday, February 17, 2007

CNN "International Correspondents" features Nigerian author and columnist Uche Nworah

Feb. 19th update to the original post below:

I woke up early on Sunday morning, February 18th, just to see the International Correspondents episode referenced in my post below. Uche Nworah and I have already had an "off the blog" communication about his experience on the program and I really appreciate that privelage.

As I have expressed to Uche in a message today, unfortunately the CNN anchor Becky Anderson and the senior Africa correspondent Jeff Koinange chose to defend CNN's position in the Government of Nigeria vs. CNN row instead of addressing the much more important issues of biased reporting in the international news media and press toward sub-Saharan African governments and people.

Uche's appearance on the program was approximately 8-10 minutes long before Becky Anderson quickly moved on to the next subject (freedom of the press in Hong Kong & China). Time is money you know, especially in the cable and broadcast TV industry. Perhaps the program's regular host, Fionnuala Sweeney, would have given the poor guy more time to present his views? Nah, I doubt it.

Word on the street is that the Government of Nigeria has cancelled the multi-million dollar "Heart of Africa" advertising contract with CNN as a result of the row over the Niger Delta report. CNN's parent company, Time Warner Inc., is not gonna like that news, not at all.

Please note that I've also made corrections to the spelling of Uche's last name in the post below. That's Uche Nworah, N-W-O-R-A-H. Thank's Imnakoya for the tip-off about my error in the original post.

Original text from Feb. 17th:

Some of you may remember my January 2007 post about “nation branding in sub-Saharan Africa” where I wrote about our fellow blogger Emeka Okafor of Africa Unchained & Timbuktu Chronicles appearing on CNN Inside Africa. Well today I received this really nice message from Uche Nworah (profile), author of the book The Long Harmattan Season and well-known online journalist, writer and critic. Uche authored the November 2006 report on the Nigeria – The Heart of Africa advertising campaign titled “Re-branding Nigeria: Critical Perspectives on the Heart of Africa Image Project”. I quoted from this report toward the end of my post about nation branding and you should also read his April 2005 post Nigeria As A Brand over at the Nigerian Village Square.

CNN International Correspondents, “a program that brings together some of the worlds leading journalists, editiors, media figures to discuss the top stories and critique the current media landscape” will be featuring a discussion between Uche Nworah, Jeff Koinange, and Becky Anderson about international media coverage of Africa. You can check the program schedule for your local area at the CNN International Correspondents website. The program has already aired in Europe today but repeats tomorrow morning, February 18, at 07:30 CET. Readers in North America still have time to catch the Saturday airing of International Correspondents starting at 11:00 EST. If you miss the show this weekend you can read the transcript over at the CNN website after it has been transcribed and published (takes forever).

Uche has published a post about his appearance on International Correspondents at the Nigerian Village titled “What Will You Do or Say”. I also recommend Uche’s article re: biased mainstream media coverage of stories and news about Africa titled “Global Media Coverage and Michael Peel’s Africa”.


Who’s Michael Peel?

Answer: Peel is a Financial Times (U.K.) legal correspondent and former associate fellow at Catham House (U.K.) Africa Programme who recently slammed the government of the Republic of Nigeria and the U.K. with a scathing report titled “Nigeria Related Financial Crime and its Links with Britain” (Nov. 2006). Here is the Chatham House transcript and audio archive re: a meeting and Q&A session featuring Michael Peel, Dr. Titilola Banjoka (Chairwoman - Africa Recruit), and Babajide Ogundipe (a partner in the Nigerian law firm Sofunde, Osakwe, Ogundipe & Belgore).

Since this is a Heads Up post for my readers and fellow blog authors I’ll leave it at that for today. Checkout International Correspondents this weekend and see if Uche can “rein-in Becky Anderson” and take control of the interview. Should be a very interesting half-hour show.


Ciao. I’m off to Florence in search of Alessandro dé Medici, the Black Prince.


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Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Black History Month 2007 in Europe: Updates on the BHM-E project status

As stated in my earlier post on Black History Month in Europe the team working on this special project is pretty excited as we do the research on people of African ancestry and the role they played in the history of Europe & the New World (novi orbis). This subject is of special importance to me because I remember as a sophomore in high school back in the 1960’s the battles we had with local and state officials, politicians, and community leaders in Missouri and Illinois to get information about African-American history into our school curriculums. When I review the amount of material available online today I can see how far we have come in America re: this important area of U.S. history and culture. It is simply amazing in comparison to what was available to students and adults alike back in the 1960’s. Canada and the United Kingdom (U.K.) also present more info online today about the contributions of black people to their respective national histories.

Those were turbulent times back then (the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, 1955-1968) and the fight was led not only by African Americans but included people from different ethnic and racial backgrounds from every social and economic strata of our society. Minorities wanted the history of the United States re-written to reflect the truth about what really happened from the arrival of the first Europeans in the Americas up to the present. Warts and all!

I’ve been fighting the urge to write at length about my own personal experiences growing up during that period of American history (1950’s-1960’s) and sharing with you the stories about various people who had a strong, positive impact on my desire to learn and to keep learning as a lifelong experience until the day you die. But I want to focus now on the history of black people in Europe, a history that is intricately linked to the history of black and white and indigenous peoples in the Americas from the beginning of European expansionism and the transatlantic slave trade until the present. A history that the director of the Black European Studies Project at the University of Mainz describes as follows:


Research on History and Present of Black People in Europe
Source: BEST Project - Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz

Within Anglophone Postcolonial Studies, the African Diaspora has been long recognized as an important concept. The history and culture of African populations, violently transported to the “new world„ via the slave trade, as well as their commonalities and different trajectories, are the subjects of vigorous scholarly debates. However, the history of Black Europeans, whose current number is estimated at eighteen million, still remains mostly unknown. This is a consequence both of the reluctance of many European nations to deal with their colonial history and of the widespread notion that Europe indeed consists of many different ethnicities who however all belong to the same „white race“. Black Europeans are thus often consigned to the role of „foreigner“ instead of being conceived as part of the plurality of a new united Europe.

The century-long history of black Europeans stands in sharp contrast to this political and academic negligence. A few individuals have achieved some renown, for instance Wilhelm Anton Amo [sic], 18th century professor of philosophy at the University of Halle or the writers Alexander Puschkin und Alexandre Dumas, but the history of the majority of Black Europeans, like the Afro-Germans sterilized under National Socialism, is completely forgotten. Since the 1980s scholars have begun to rediscover this forgotten history of Black Europe, inspired in some part by the constitution of Black movements in countries like Great Britain, Germany, or the Netherlands. As most European countries lack knowledge about their own indigenous Black minorities, academic exchange has been possible to date mainly in connection with U.S. studies of the African Diaspora. But Americans still regard the European experience as a divergence from the question central for their own research, the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Yet if one considers the history of Black Europe in its totality, along with differences that derive from the specificities of national history it is possible to discern important commonalities which on the one hand contradict the thesis of divergent experiences and on the other define colonialism as central also for history inside of Europe.

As a consequence of colonialism, the strategic maneuverings of the superpowers during the Cold War, and new migrations in the wake of increasing globalization, more Black people than ever are at home in Europe. But these new populations are neither taken into account, nor are the political and social consequences of their presence analyzed (for instance, their role as targets of the new xenophobia). Since the various Black populations of Europe are increasingly subjected to the same conditions (and confront an ever more homogeneous image of a Europe which up to now has excluded its non-white residents), a comparative study of these populations is of crucial scholarly importance and urgently demands a transnational approach.

The Black European Studies Program (BEST) at the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, supported by the Volkswagen Foundation, aims at offering such an approach, adequate to the history, the present-day experience, and the future perspectives of the Black populations of Europe.

Note 1: I have added links to external online resources for clarity

The reception for this startup project about the history of black people in Europe has been great and again I thank the people who have sent us messages of encouragement. For several nights I have not been able to sleep very well due to excitement about new discoveries and re-discoveries re: European history and the desire (worry) to get my contribution to this project right and make it interesting for our international readers. I have to remember that there are some loving & caring wise people who are “looking over our shoulders” on this effort, some long dead (ghosts), so we should be just fine. It would be wise for me to follow the same advice I offered the young & energetic team members at the start of this Black History Month in Europe project: Stay cool. Take your time with it. Have fun and write from the heart.

I want to take the opportunity to personally thank the Black European Studies Project @ Johannes Gutenberg University – Mainz (Germany) for allowing us to use their excellent resources. A special thanks to Timo Wandert of the BEST Project at Uni-Mainz who is in contact with our very own resident historian Patrick (graduate of the University of Bremen). Timo works as a research assistant at the University of Mainz and is responsible for quantitative emperical research for the BEST Project and will be keeping a watchful eye over us in the blogosphere. Welcome to our sector of the blogosphere Timo and greetings to Dr. Randolph Ochsmann (Project Director) and Peggy Piesche (European Coordination).

I encourage my readers make a visit to the BEST Uni-Mainz website in order to read material they have published to date and to use their online database of scholarly articles about black history in Europe. There is a download link to the 1st International Interdisciplinary BEST Conference (Nov. 2005) summary document titled “Challenging Europe: Black European Studies in the 21st Century” that was attended by some of the finest international scholars in the field. I have found this document to be very useful in my own research and will be using excerpts from it for future posts on this subject.

So, that is all I have to say today about the background on the project and updates re: our status at the moment. The BHM-Europe team members (Jörg, Patricia, Patrick, and I) are all very busy researching and composing our posts and if I understand correctly Jörg & Patricia (Trish) will be dealing with black history in Germany during the 20th century to present time while Patrick and I will be heading back to Renaissance Europe and Early Britain & Scandinavia (ca. AD 100-200). Yep, black folks were there and an integral part of life in the Roman Empire at its farthest northern boundaries. Cold up there!

Note 2: We welcome anyone with knowledge about African and black history in Europe who would like to contribute an article to this project. Just get in touch with me via the comments section of this blog or with Jörg Wolf over at the Atlantic Review blog.

I also have updates on one of my favorite invisible European historical figures, Anton Wilhelm Amo (1703-ca.1759), to share with you before heading off to Renaissance Florence for a visit with Europe’s first black prince, Alessandro dé Medici. Alessandro’s story will knock The Da Vinci Code right off the international bestseller list! We’re negotiating for the movie rights on Alessandro’s story with an unnamed film producer so don’t even think about it. Too late, Dude.


Below I’ve listed additional online resources that you may find interesting and useful on this journey back in time:

Additional online resources (blogs):

Please Come Flying
Black History Month: Valaida Snow (famous female musician of the 1920’s-30’s era)

A Day in the Life
Black Americans that shaped my worldview: Sarah’s ABC tribute

The Black Informant
Nina Mae McKinney – the black “Garbo”

Negrophile
It is incontrovertible that America is a multiracial society

U.K. Guardian Unlimited – Comment is Free blog
Reading without prejudice by Cameroon Duodo – 03/20/06

The Ubyssey Online (Canada)
Author unveils black history

Additional online resources (websites):

History News Network @ George Mason University
Black History Month is relevant to all Americans by Randall Maurice-Jelks
400 years after Jamestown by Stephanie Robinson and Cornel West
More HNN articles about Black History in America

The History Cooperative - University of Illinois Press, American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians, National Academies Press

Journal for World History – Vol. 14 Issue 4, December 2003
The Agony of Asar: A Thesis on Slavery by the Former Slave, Jacobus Elisa Johannes Capitein (1717–1747)
Translated with comments by Grant Parker. Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener, 2001.

The Biography of Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua: His Passage from Slavery to Freedom in Africa and America.
Edited by Robin Law and Paul Lovejoy. Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener, 2001.

Journal of World History – Vol. 17 Issue 4, December 2006
Audience for a Giraffe: European Expansionism and the Quest for the Exotic
Erik Ringmar, National Chiao Tung University

University of Mainz (Germany) – Johannes Guttenberg University
Black European Studies Project (BEST)
Project director and staff info

University of Massachusetts (U.S.A.) – Amherst campus
Remapping Black Germany: new perspectives on Afro-German history, politics, and culture

Columbia University Libraries – African Studies database
African History and Culture


University of Illinois - UC campus - Dept. of Archaeology
ADAN - the African Diaspora Archaeology Network

H-Net (Humanities and Social Sciences Online)
H-Net is an international interdisciplinary organization of scholars and teachers dedicated to developing the enormous educational potential of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Our edited lists and web sites publish peer reviewed essays, multimedia materials, and discussion for colleagues and the interested public. The computing heart of H-Net resides at MATRIX: The Center for Humane Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences Online, Michigan State University, but H-Net officers, editors and subscribers come from all over the globe.

H-Net Africa (a member of H-Net consortium of scholarly lists)

H-Net Book Reviews
The African-German Experience, Critical Essays by Carol Aisah Blackshire-Belay
Review by Daniel J. Walther, Wartburg College – August 1997

Other Germans: Black Germans and the Politics of Race, Gender and Memory in the Third Reich by Tina M. Campt
Review by Eva Rosenhaft, University of Liverpool – July 2005

Die (koloniale) Begegnung: AfrikanerInnen in Deutschland 1880-1945, Deutsche in Afrika 1880-1918 by Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst and Reinhard Klein-Arendt, editors.
Review by Eva Rosenhaft, University of Liverpool – July 2005

USHMM – U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
Special Focus on Black History Month 2002 (U.S.A.)
Bibliography – Blacks during the Holocaust (WWII - Third Reich)

Stanford University Libraries - SULAIR

Africa South of the Sahara
African Diaspora in Europe

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Thursday, February 01, 2007

Black History Month in Europe?? An introduction to the Invisible Ones.

Today in the United States of America and in Canada millions of people will begin celebrating Black History Month, a month-long series of events dedicated to the rich history, culture, and contributions to society by citizens of color. A similar celebration and sharing of knowledge about the history of Africans and other people of color is not practiced in most European countries with the exception of the U.K. where Black History Month is celebrated annually during the month of October. The U.K. in 2005 had a fantastic yearlong celebration of African culture, history, and the arts titled Africa '05.

Millions and millions of tourists and business travelers and academics and students visit Germany and western Europe every year, but one almost never learns anything about the contributions black people have made to the early societies of Europe except for the “let’s not-talk-about-that subject of slavery” or the European colonization of Africa in the late 1800’s. These two dark periods in the history of mankind does not even begin to shed light on the true and complete story of Africans in Europe.

Over the past weeks leading up to this year’s Black History Month there have been intense and interesting conversations with some of my German friends about the contributions made to German society down through the ages by people of African descent. In addition my friend and fellow blog author over in Berlin, Jörg Wolf of the Atlantic Review, and I have been exchanging email messages about recent activities of high-profile German politicians, national leaders, and media personalities re: Africa and African-American issues and history in Germany.

So this is what’s up.

Despite my burning desire to share with my readers the story of my own family’s struggles and triumphs on the Western frontier of colonial America (ca. 1760-1790 in the territories that would become Illinois and Missouri… Indian Country) and forfeiting the opportunity to share with my readers all of those wonderful links I’ve collected to online resources about Black History Month and African American History and stuff, I (we) plan to do the following for the month of February 2007:

1. Jörg, a German Fulbright scholar alumni and prolific blogger on German-American relations and international affairs, will compose and post something about African-German history and/or about German-African heritage at his blog. I will cross-post Jörg’s piece here at Jewels in the Jungle.

2. Two very good German friends who just happen to be African-German, one a student of American Studies and the other a recent university graduate and teacher of European history will contribute articles about African-German history and/or their experiences as African-Germans growing up in Germany today.

3. I will compose a whole series of posts this month that highlight the rich history of Africans and African-Americans in Germany and in Europe. These posts will be based upon the work from some excellent historians and academics and writers that you have probably never heard of. It is a subject that I personally know little about but I know more about the subject than most people. Ignorance should never be a barrier to seeking new knowledge and sharing it with others.

4. We might, we just might get assistance from some serious historians and other academics working in the field of African-German Studies here in Germany and in the United States to help us out. That of course is optional. These people do have a reputation to worry about you know.

In the meantime below is an excerpt from the research and writings of Hyde Flippo at About.com on Black History and Germany. I discovered today to my great surprise that Mr. Flippo, a retired teacher of German language, history, and literature in the U.S., was thinking the very same thing as we were here on the other side of the Atlantic. It’s a small world after all.

Source: About.com – education - German language
Black History Month in the U.S., the U.K.__ and Germany? - 02/01/07

Black History Month in the U.S., the U.K. — and Germany?

In the United States February is Black History Month, but in the United Kingdom that observance falls in October. Although Germany has no such month, there are nevertheless Germans of African descent. Of the 82 million people living in Germany an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 have some form of African heritage. Germany's blacks fall into several historical and ancestral categories. A few Afrodeutsche are well known as writers, TV personalities, sports figures, and actors in Germany. One of the very first black persons in Germany was Anton Wilhelm Amo from Ghana in the 18th century. Another German black man grew up in Nazi Germany and later became the managing editor of Ebony magazine in the U.S.

Learn more in Black History and Germany.


Excerpt from Black History and Germany – an excellent multi-part overview article

Afrodeutsche - Black Germans

Black Germans? Non-Germans may be understandably surprised to learn that there are Afro-Germans (Afrodeutsche), but many Germans themselves are unaware of the concept of a German who is also black (ein Schwarzer). While compared to other minorities, such as the 2 million Turks living in Germany, blacks are definitely a tiny minority among Germany's 82 million people. While EU countries do not keep track of ethnicity, there are an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 Blacks living in Germany today.

Early History


The history of black people in Germany goes back much further than most people think. One of the first Africans known to have lived in Germany was Anton Wilhelm Amo (1703-1759). Born in what is today's Ghana, Amo came under the protection of the Duke (Herzog) of Wolfenbüttel in Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen) and grew up in the duke's castle.

He was both the first African known to attend a German university (Halle) and the first to obtain a doctorate degree (in 1729). As a professor, under his preferred name of Antonius Guilelmus Amo Afer, he taught at two German universities and published several scholarly works, including a Latin treatise entitled De Arte Sobrie et Accurate Philosophandi (1736, "On the Art of Philosophizing Soberly and Accurately"). Knowing the level of his achievements, it is all the more surprising to learn that Amo returned to Africa in 1747. Most accounts claim the reason for his return to his native Africa was the racial discrimination he encountered in Germany. Then as now, Africans in Europe were seen as something exotic and foreign.

Some historians claim that the first sizeable influx of Africans to Germany came from Germany's African colonies in the 19th century. Some Afro-Germans living in Germany today can claim ancestry going back five generations to that time. Yet Prussia's colonial adventures in Africa were quite limited and brief (1890-1918), far more modest than the British, the Dutch, the French, or other European powers, so there could not have been any great numbers. But Prussia's South West Africa colony was the site of the first mass genocide committed by Germans in the 20th century. In 1904 German colonial troops countered a revolt with the massacre of three-quarters of the Herero population in what is now Namibia. It took Germany a full century to issue a formal apology to the Herero (in 2004) for that atrocity, which was provoked by a German "extermination order" (Vernichtungsbefehl). But Germany still refuses to pay any compensation to the Herero survivors, although it does provide foreign aid to Namibia. (See Germany Urges Herero to Drop Lawsuit from dw-world.de.)

Afro-Germans Prior to World War II


After World War I, more blacks, mostly French Senegalese soldiers or their offspring, ended up in the Rhineland region and other parts of Germany. Estimates vary, but by the 1920s there were about 10,000 to 25,000 Afrodeutsche in Deutschland, most of them in Berlin or other metropolitan areas. Until the Nazis came to power, black musicians and other entertainers were a popular element of the nightlife scene in Berlin and other large cities. Jazz, later denigrated as Negermusik ("Negro music") by the Nazis, was made popular in Germany and Europe by black musicians, many from the U.S., who found life in Europe more liberating than that back home. Josephine Baker in France is one prominent example. Both the American writer and civil rights activist W.E.B. du Bois and the suffragist Mary Church Terrell studied at the university in Berlin. They later wrote that they experienced far less discrimination in Germany than they had in the U.S.

It is interesting to note that in the 1920s and 1930s, and even during Nazi times, Afrodeutsche appeared as extras in German movies portraying Africans, notably in the German color spectacle Baron von Münchhausen (1943), produced by the Ufa studio. (Blacks did not always volunteer to be extras; some were recruited from Nazi POW camps. More below.) To this day, it is in the field of entertainment, particularly on German television, where German blacks are most visible. Cherno Jobatey, a black man born in Berlin in 1965, has been a co-host of the popular morning show (ZDF-Morgenmagazin) on Germany's public ZDF TV network since 1992. Other Afro-Germans can be seen hosting music video shows on VIVA and Germany's MTV.

NEXT > The Black Holocaust and WWII

Note: some links to external online resources have been added to the original article above for clarity and further information.



Additional online resources and related articles:

Black History Month – U.S.A.
Black History Month - Canada
Black History Month – U.K.


History News Network @ George Mason University
Black History (U.S.) articles archive

Biography.com (A&E Television Network)
Celebrating Our Black History (multimedia and video)

PBS African American Lives (a fascinating 4-part TV series)
African American Lives home
African American Lives introduction
African American Lives about the filmmakers

Wikipedia
Afro-Germans (a category listing, very limited)

Pegasos (Finland)
Bio on Anton Wilhelm Amo

State University of Buffalo (New York) – Department of Mathematics
Brief article about Anton-Wilhelm Amo

Atlantic Review by Jörg Wolf & Crew
Martin Luther King Day – 01/15/07


Booker Rising
Black History - Time to Reflect... by Star Parker - 02/05/07
Carribean: From Abolition to Emancipation - 02/01/07
Find Your Ancestors - 02/01/07

U.K. Guardian Unlimited – Comment is Free blog
Reading without prejudice by Cameroon Duodo – 03/20/06

University of Mainz (Germany) – Johannes Guttenberg University
Black European Studies Project (BEST)
Project director and staff info

University of Massachusetts (U.S.A.) – Amherst campus
Remapping Black Germany:
new perspectives on Afro-German history, politics, and culture

UCLA – Wendy Belcher
Medieval and Early Modern African Literature

Stanford University - SULAIR – Africa South of the Sahara
African Diaspora in Europe


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