The African Dream

Why has the onetime Pittsburgh correspondent for Frederick Douglass's North Star become known as "the Father of Black Nationalism"? Martin Delany was involved in the crucial 19th century events in his own country—the Abolition Movement, the Civil War, and Reconstruction—but he often took independent and unpopular positions arising from his pan-African views. Professor Griffith traces the evolution of Delany's thoughts about Africa and shows how they affected his actions.

This book presents a detailed account of Delany's back-to-Africa movement and why it failed. Although he became a major in the Union Army and politician in South Carolina during Reconstruction, Delany's interest in Africa did not wane. In the 1870s and 1880s he expressed his views on African themes, participated in the Liberia Exodus movement, and tried to emigrate to Africa. Delany seemed to live in one world while constantly thinking of another. Delany's own circumstances, his people's lack of appreciation of Africa's promise, and the European powers' expansion into West Africa prevented him from realizing his dream of settling on the ancestral continent. Yet Delany anticipated the development of African nationalism in the 20th century and made a major contribution to pan-African thought.