International Aspects of American Race Relations

DR. PHIMISTER: Our speaker today is Dr. James H. Robinson, who every year speaks to as many if not more students than any other man in the United States. Dr. Robinson's efforts have influenced student groups in initiating a number of domestic and overseas projects. Over five thousand students have given voluntary service to these enterprises.

During the summer of 1958, Dr. Robinson took his first pilot project, known as operation Crossroads Africa, on a student study seminar and work camp project to five countries of West Africa. The group consisted of seventy-five undergraduates, graduates and leaders representing fortyone colleges and universities and all racial and faith groups in the United States. In the summer of 1960 he expanded the group and took 183 students and twenty leaders and other personnel to ten countries of West Africa. Dr. Robinson intends to concentrate on the continent of Africa for the next five years.

Until recently Dr. Robinson was Pastor of the Church of the Master and Director of the Morningside Community Centre, located in Harlem in New York City, but in addition to this major work he has given outstanding leader

ship to many community enterprises. He has helped to found the interracial fellowship of greater New York; the Sydenham Hospital (the first such interracial institution in the United States), and the National Scholarship Service for Negro students.

During World War II, Dr. Robinson preached and lectured for the army, and recently for the air force. In April 1955 Dr. Robinson was invited to give the Lyman Beecher lectures at Yale Divinity School, Yale University. This is perhaps the greatest honour which can come to a minister, for this particular lecture is undoubtedly the most renowned of its kind in the world. The lectures were published in 1955 under the title of "Adventurous Preaching".

We are pleased to have as our speaker today one who has influenced the lives of many for good, and who has directly brought help to the emerging nations in Africa, on which the attention of the world is focussed today. It is my pleasure to present Dr. James H. Robinson, who will address us on the subject, "INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF AMERICAN RACE RELATIONS".

DR. ROBINSON: The revolutionary changes in Africa are shaking every social, economic, political and cultural foundation of that continent from the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope and from Dakar on the west to Zanzibar on the east. These changes, little short of miraculous, have taken place within the last two decades and most of them within the last ten years, but the changes are not limited to Africa alone. Upheavals have erupted so rapidly in the wake of what Premier Macmillan of England called "winds of change", that they have forced the nations of the West, as well as the nations of Asia and the Far East, to make basic readjustments in their attitudes, policies and strategies as they form new relationships to the rapidly developing nations of Africa which did not exist a half-dozen years ago. In the process of these dynamic changes both African nations and African individuals have gained important and increased status, as they are thrust by historical circumstances into the family of nations.

At the end of World War II, almost no great nation in the world had any significant plans for relating to what was shortly to be the cataclysmic events of emerging African nations. Most European nations, with the possible exception of Great Britain, still evolved their policies of relationship to the areas of Africa they controlled, in terms of what they thought would be an indefinite extension of colonial relationships. The United States, at the time, did not even have a desk of any consequence in the Department of State to advise on Africa and obviously had no well defined African policy. Our policies, if any, were related to Africa through our colonial allies.

It would also be fair to say that even an average American Christian thought of Africa in terms of the old Edgar Rice Burroughs framework which considered Africa as a far-off mysterious dark continent filled with black, backward, uneducated, uncultured people with no significant history behind them and very little future before them. This attitude was still prevalent, despite the heroic sacrifice of a significant number of devoted Christians who held the call of Divine missions to share in the redemption of the people of Africa, many of whom paid willingly with their lives, even though they knew that the day they set foot on African soil they began to die. It is a sad commentary that few pastors and members of Christian churches, in America, held the same high hopes of developing a sociological, political, economic, social and religious basis in Africa, similar or equivalent to our own, to the same degree as these intrepid missionaries.

Up to 1950, all the principal, political, economic and social decisions involving four-fifths of the people of Africa and three-fourths of its land area, were made in London, Paris, Lisbon and Brussels. Fortunately, none of these decisions were made in Washington, although financial and industrial influence was deeply intertwined in European policy. Unfortunately, on the other hand, we had on influence on the minds of Africans desiring political independence and a new way of life, nor did our government have any direct international relationships in Africa, except with Liberia, Ethiopia and, to a lesser degree, South Africa. Yet political, economic and social ferment in Africa had been going on for the last quarter of a century with increasing intensity, even though most of it was submerged since the pleas of Africans were firmly contained, controlled or suppressed by European powers.

As late as five years ago, there were only four African nations, including South Africa, which held membership in the United Nations. Today, there are twenty-five nations, sixteen of which have been admitted to the United Nations in 1961. It seems hard to believe, but it is true, that representatives of African nations, along with their Asian colleagues in the Afro-Asian Bloc, now play a very significant, if not dominant role in the United Nations. The result is an entirely new focus on the importance of Africa's role in the world and a radical shift both in the centre and in the balance of power.

Up to three years ago, almost no African nation, excepting a mere half-dozen, had direct relationships of any kind with the countries of the Middle East, Asia, and South America. Almost daily, one reads of delegations from Africa visiting all parts of the world on political, social, economic, trade and a variety of missions. Conversely, a few years back there were few, if any, unofficial visitors from Asia and South America to Africa, but today there is hardly a capital of an independent African country which does not have either accredited diplomatic representatives or plans for future representation to an extent they never dreamed of three of four years previously. This is a development of greater significance than most Europeans, Americans, and perhaps even Africans themselves have yet caught up with. This is precisely so because it brings the African continent into a cross-fertilization with peoples and nations of the world from whom they were hitherto denied access.

The rapid change of the tremendous events which are reshaping Africa into a wholly new continent and catapulting it into world relatedness cannot be considered apart from the dynamic changes of world social, economic and political order. The rapidity of the means of communication and transportation is bringing the peoples and nations of the earth into closer relationships. Moreover, the fact that the African continent is the last great bastion of mineral resources, so greatly in demand by the technological developments of today's world, cannot help but thrust Africa and its new nations into the vortex of the world situation. This would be so, even if there were not the cold war developments which have led both the West and the Soviets into an increased rivalry for the minds and souls of the people of Africa and for the tremendous quantities of mineral resources in the bosom of Africa's soil.

The sum and substance of this new international impact has created a rediscovery of Africa by Western nations and a discovery of Africa on the part of all the other nations of the world which had no relationship with the continent. On the other hand, it has occasioned a discovery of the world by Africans. Twenty years ago, only a few thousand Africans were permitted to leave the continent to study abroad in colonial countries and few could cross the boundaries established by colonial governments within the continent. Today, African students not only go to colleges in other African nations, but they are enrolled in universities from Jerusalem to Peking and from Hawaii to Moscow. Furthermore, unofficial delegations of labour and political and cutural groups and organizations are constantly on the move seeking aid and support, attending conferences and making friends. Even before Kenya becomes independent, it leaders have opened up the world to Kenya. Brilliant, indefatigable Tom Mboya and Jomo Kenyatta changed Kenya from a spot on the map to a place to reckon with. Four members of the Legislative Council toured the Middles East and Asia in the Fall of 1961, and while Jomo Kenyatta was still under restriction at Marsabit, leaders of many countries beat a path to his door.

On my first extended trip to Africa in 1954, Africans in all countries were astounded that I had crossed so many boundaries and talked with so many of the leaders of neighbouring countries. Even at that time, men who knew very little beyond the boundaries of either their own local tribal areas or the arbitrary limits of their countries, had become aware of Africa as a whole. In Kenya, they asked me about what was then known as the Gold Coast. In Dakar, they were concerned about the organization of labour unions in the Camerouns. In the Congo, they wanted to know about developments in Nigeria. In Liberia, they raised questions about the Rhodesias. In Ethiopia, they were not disinterested in Africa South of the Sahara, as I had been led to believe. But in all countries, they spoke with great feeling and in the most hostile tones about South Africa, Angola and Mozambique. When I discussed the Mau Mau emergency with a group of students at the University College in Accra, and referred to the terrorists' activities, one lad stood up to chastise me by saying, "Dr. Robinson, they are not terrorists, they are like your patriots in 1776 fighting for their land, their freedom, and for independence."

The rejection of colonialism has not and cannot move with the same speed in all countries. The speed depends upon a number of complex and interrelated factors which are different in different areas and different colonial powers. It proceeded fastest and best where the controlling power was willing to recognize the changing fact of history and graciously prepare their people at home and the people of Africa for the change (it does not matter that they did this with some reluctance); where there were no settlers; where there were no great industrial installations or discoveries of tremendous deposits of mineral wealth; where there was a fairly sizeable body of educated people. In these areas of West Africa, the leaders and their people soon learned that violence was not the best or the only weapon of liberation. This is to a great extent also true in the culturally homogeneous areas of North Africa.

Contrary-wise, it was proceeded more slowly in those areas where the colonial powers have pursued an enlightened policy; where there has been unyielding resistance supported by a die-hard policy in Europe and encouragement from their countrepart in the United States and an intractable settler population in the African country. In counries like South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, and the Federation of Nyasaland and the Rhodesias, Africans will ultimately, though in different degrees, reject colonialism and seek independence and an equal voice in government with whatever means are available to them, although they have shown that they prefer to achieve the ends with nonviolent means and methods.

A sad case in point is the turbulent and unhappy Congo -a land of fabulous mineral deposits, where the ruling powers made no preparation for growth and change, discouraged higher learning to the extent of having only fourteen Africans of university graduate level out of 13,500,000 people, and a host of other equally negative factors overlooked by an interest that was wholly economic exploitation and a paternalism unequalled in colonialism.

One contemplates in horror the recent violence in the Congo which is indicative of the frightening fate which might overtake those areas which refuse to yield to history, time and change. Though methods of violence as a method of change is horrible and cannot be condoned, it is well to put these events in Africa in the framework of revolutionary changes in Europe's past which were accompanied by bloody strife. By comparison with Europe, the African situation up to now is a quiescent affair; and one that gives, fortunately enough, little evidence that it will be anywhere nearly as long. Nonetheless, Africans will be satisfied with nothing less than the complete and final demise of colonialism.

The greatest single change is wrought by the breaking of the colonial ties which Africans have been hammering at for a long time. While rejecting colonialism and demanding the opportunely for self-government and independence, Africans have not wholly, out of hand, rejected Europeans, especially where Europeans have demonstrated a desire to share with them as equals and as partners. It is, however, true that there is a long history of insolence and domination of Africans which has yet to be overcome. Stubborn resistance to African demands for treatment as equal members of the family of nations and of the human race and subordination of personality plus stringent racial segregation and denial of basic opportunities in the formula of apartheid still bodes ill for the future. However, in the main, Africans are still ready to work with people from Europe and America on the basis of mutual respect and equality. It simply remains for the former European colonial powers and their representatives to reciprocate on this common ground of mutual respect and partnership which Africans are seeking. Many Africans are not only aware of, but will readily concede to the importance of the developments during the colonial epoch, even though the framework in which these developments were made is to them anathema. They know, however, that whatever economic development and achievements were made in Africa were basically those of exploitation of both their people and their resources, in which they did not share to any considerable degree. They are simply not willing to have this situation continue, even if it would greatly improve their lot economically and socially.

President Sekou Toure of Guinea spoke for all Africans when he said "We prefer independence and poverty to riches and slavery." Africans are just as willing to readily admit this agreement with, and appreciation of, the newaid programmes of some of the European countries and the United States in their lands so long as this is not a return of a neo-colonialism or a continuation of the old paternalism. In other words, they want political colonialism eradicated, but they will just as rigorously reject an economic colonialism.

The rejection of colonialism and its death has finally begun to free African people and countries from the ties which bound them solely to European colonial powers and denied them access to the rest of the world. Until the last two or three decades, the African people had absolutely almost no contact with the rest of the world. It is equally important to understand that peoples of the various African nations had only minimal, if any, contact at all, even with their neighbours. Often members of tribal groups were isolated from each other by the arbitrary lines which often split the geographical areas where tribal and ethnic groups of the same family spread over a wide territory. Even though they were the same people and sometimes of the same family, they could not readily cross the arbitrary boundaries of the political divisions drawn by the Europeans.

But with the demise of colonialism, Africans have not only begun to discover Africa, they have begun to discover the rest of the world, and the rest of the world has begun to discover them. Colonial disengagement of European powers has, therefore, created a desire on the part of Africans for engagement, not only with their near neighbours and peoples, in even the remotest parts of Africa, but engagement with the other nations of the world, who were denied access to the continent and with whom Africans were neither permitted nor encouraged to develop relationships. Their recent discovery of one another and their developing relationships with nations around the world will move much more rapidly. The most important aspect stimulating this desire of discovery is their common opposition to colonialism, their common desire to achieve independent status and equality and respect from the other members of the family of nations, and their common need of all kinds of assistance and trade.

Interest in, concern for and the resulting confrontation with Africans of other nations has led to be loosely, but inaccurately, referred to as Pan-Africanism. Pan-Africanism is destined to become a powerful force of change and will stimulate many more changes.

The new, but latent, desire to understand and relate to the rest of Africa, beyond the boundaries by which they were formerly limited, have now become a reality, for not only do the new rising leaders among African students relate to Africans in the great university centres of other countries, and get to know them, but Africans are travelling all over Africa in innumerable capacities, not the least of which are the many efforts of Pan-Africanism, or the more particular and special conferences called by the churches, the labour unions, the governments, and many other organizations.

The new Pan-Africanism projected on the continent, most often thought of by Westerners as basically a political concept, is in reality much broader than the limited area which most of us have assigned it. It is, in fact, a rallying cry for those with many motives but with a basic desire for something specific, authentic and distinctive as they seek to shape a new African personality, which is resulting from the sustenance of a multitude of bewildering social, educational, religious and political shocks which the people are sustaining. Pan-Africanism is a result of perhaps the most significant and greatest change in Africa-a change in attitude towards themselves as people of equal worth and with unique characteristics and contributions. Poised as they are between the old civilization of Africa and the new civilization of the Western world, with which they have been related through colonial machinery which has now become confused with the impact of increased Soviet and Asian interests, Africans are neither the people they were three decades ago, nor have they been, nor do they desire to be, molded into the pattern of the peoples who are vying to imprint their own civilization upon African culture. While they desire to move out of the past, they do not, on the other hand, desire to be European, American, Russian, Asian or anything else but what they themselves hope to become-a fact undoubtedly not fully recognized by those who seek to influence or to win Africans. Although they desire independence, freedom, education and the progress of the modern world, they want more than anything else to be themselves.

This new recognition of the importance of self, as they reach toward a new dignity of self-respect and independence, is an important fact with which most of us outside Africa must fully come to terms. Having begun to develop a new sense of personal pride and personal worth, Africans are done forever with paternalism, arrogance and condescension, no matter from which ideology or area of the earth it comes. They have absolutely no complex about race or colour; on the contrary, they are proud of their colour and they measure the worth and acceptability of many other people partly by it. No longer is a European or a person with a white skin thought to be better, more intelligent or more important than an African, an Asian or a Middle Easterner. In fact, whiteness of skin carries definite liabilities, even for many sincere and devoted missionaries. This does not mean that Africans fail to recognize the tremendous contribution of white men to Africa-far from it. Africans, not only appreciate this fact, but they desire those of every race, including the white race, who will believe in them and work with them as partners and equals, not only to remain but to come and join with them, as they march toward a new place in self-government and international relationships.

Changing as it is, often with dramatic speed, a whole new continent is entering the main stream of its peoples' quest for human dignity. It is inevitable that the problem of "who am I", and "where am I going" should loom large though not as overt or as articulate and prominent as material and political organizations, in Africa's concept of its future. The discredit of old African cultures and ways of life brought by the impact of Western civilization, in the beginning, induced a number of Africans to reject their customs, rites, and rituals through which their fathers had achieved a sense of balance, dignity and a satisfying relationship between the spiritual and material world in which they lived. Today, however, after the first impact of this onslaught has worn off, more and more Africans are seeking a reinterpretation and a new pride in their old indigenous cultures, without, at the same time, being immobilized by looking back too fondly and unobjectively upon former ancient grandeur. It is most unfortunate that most people in the West knew so little of Africa's past which was wilfully neglected by the Western conquerors and the penetration of business and commerce, and was too little known and understood by Africans themselves. Nevertheless, Africa does have a substantial cultural heritage. Achieving a proper balance between the old and the new will, in large measure, determine the success of African stability and progress in the future.

The psychological problems created by the necessary synthesis has important implications both for the Africans to understand themselves and their role in the world and for the people of other nations who must work out new relationships with Africans. To a greater extent than most Westerners believe, they must learn how to look at Africa through African eyes and minds. It is not only imperative for Africans undergoing great personal changes to apply their new knowledge and insights to gain a better understanding of themselves, it is also imperative for other peoples to utilize this knowledge to gain a better insight and understanding of Africans and of themselves in relation to the Africans. In order to understand what is loosely referred to as African neutralism-very perplexing and frustrating to those who view African development naïvely-which will be dealt with in another section of this book, it will be necessary to give more attention to this particular problem than we have heretofore, because it creates serious psychological problems for us, as well as for the Africans. Otherwise, we will be led into the dead end of the pursuit of illusions.

Perhaps the rapid pace of change and development in Africa can be fairly accurately gauged by a recital of a few startling facts:

1. Forty million Africans, more than a fifth of the total population, have moved from primitive villages of the rural areas to the modern cities within the last two decades. Perhaps forty percent of that number, overwhelmingly men, are constantly on the move from their villages to mines, industrial centres, commercial enterprises and the great ports which have resulted from the increasing discovery and development of and reliance upon the mineral resources in Africa by the Western world. A large number of these single men are constantly moving between their home villages and the centres of their work where they stay for brief periods and return again while others take their places. Consequently, the old tribal patterns of control are breaking down. Family structure is seriously disrupted and juvenile delinquency, a phenomenon unknown in the African tribal society, has reached serious proportions in all the large cities. These are obviously, of course, problems of urbanization which will continue as long as Africa develops and forges ahead in changing its economic, political and social structure.
2. American capital investments in Africa have increased since 1945 by nearly 3000%, and this is only the beginning. The fabulous resources of the continent will demand even larger investments in the future to meet the world needs which will be greatly increased by African demands for both capital and consumer goods as their progress moves forward and expands. Even a superficial accounting of the long list of vital and strategic minerals necessary to Western economy which comes out of Africa is enough to explain the continent's new importance, the rapid growth of its commerce and industry and development of its labour supply. But Africa's manpower and human resources are even more important than its mineral wealth, once it is educated, trained and organized.
3. Most Africans are workers. Therefore, labour unions, which were just beginning a quarter of a century ago, today are very powerful and significant in all areas of free Africa and are of increasing importance even in colonial areas where settlers have control of political and police power. These unions, formed and influenced by the World Federation of Trade Unions, such as the Confederation Generale du Travail, in French-speaking areas, largely leftist and sometimes communist dominated, or by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, which are organized along more soundly democratic lines, are bound to play an even more important role in Africa's future development. Wheras a quarter of a century ago less than 5,000 Africans belonged to labour unions, there are today over l,700 locals.
4. Africans are more and more becoming aware of the wealth which lies in their soil. They know of the growing dependence of the Western world, of the Soviets and the United States in particular on their mineral resources. They are also acutely aware of the fact that this dependence gives them an increased leverage both within the context of the cold war and outside of it.
5. They know that colonialism is either dead or dying and that the sooner it dies, the healthier will be the world situation, including their own. While decolonialism moves faster in some areas than in others, it is doomed by the winds of change in every area of Africa, and sooner or later they know that they themselves will make decisions in all the areas of Africa. Despite the resistance and delaying tactics of a country like Portugal and the Federation of the Rhodesias and Nyasaland and South Africa, which are in a somewhat different category, Africans know that the hegemony of Europeans over the Africans in these areas is also doomed and that soner than later new relationships will ultimately have to be worked out in which Africans either are partners or the dominant political force in those countries. The slogan of President Sekou Toure of Guinea, "We prefer independence and poverty to riches in slavery," is deep within the heart and mind of every African in every area of Africa.
6. Twenty-five years ago, there were less than 500 African students studying in European and American Universities. Today, there are almost six times that many in the United States alone, ten times that many in the British Isles, at least eight times that many on the continent of Europe, including the Eastern bloc countries, and at least as many, if not more, in the Middle East and Asia. This new and potential leadership will undoubtedly have a profound effect upon speeding up even more rapidly the miraculous changes taking place in all the areas of Africa. Furthermore, it will also bring increased cross-fertilization of ideas.
7. The material changes each year not only in the cities but increasingly in the rural areas, are stupendous, to say the least. One who travels to Africa every year is greatly impressed by the amazing increase in economic, social, industrial, political, urban and transportation developments over what he witnessed the year before.

The rapid social changes and economic development in Africa are not only inevitable, but they will accelerate in rapidity as time moves on. Neither Africans, nor we ourselves, can hope for or wait for a more leisurely change in these developments. Basic changes in world development will not wait for the readiness of people. This will be as true in Africa as it has ever been in the past in every other nation in the world. To take refuge in the shibboleth that Africans are not ready is sheer folly. To shape a policy on the basis of unreadiness is not only to beg the main point, it is an indulgence in a dangerous fallacy of self-deception. No people are ever fully ready for progress, change and self-government. When the time comes, they either move with it, or time leaves them behind. While some Americans drag their feet arguing about readiness, others say, join us and we will help you to achieve your ambitions. A careful perusal of the early days of American history could prompt the same insidious question in anyone looking objectively at the readiness of America in 1776 for the most dynamic revolution which ever took place in human history. The leaders of the American revolution simply took the tide of history at its flood to lead the nation on to fame and fortune. What we have done, others, including Africans, can surely do also.

THANKS OF THE MEETING were expressed by Dr. Ernest M. Howse.