The African Redefined: The Problems of Collective Black Identity

Abstract

In 1960, Wellesley College invited eminent scholars (Africanists!) and diplomats to discuss the question: “Does Africa Exist?” The symposium was organized to resolve “Whether or not Africa really exists as any sort of political, economic, cultural, or other concept.“ The challenge facing the experts was to determine whether Africa constitutes an entity, whether it has a real ethnic, geographical, economic, cultural, or political identity. Fortunately, most of the speakers agreed with the late Ralph Bunche that “There is an Africa seen as a continent, as a physical entity which takes concrete political and economic shape.“ That Africa, Bunche argued, is exploding onto the international political scene with an increasingly militant and demonstrable renaissance in terms of heightened and unified aspirations for true selfdetermination, human rights, rapid economic transformation, and the assertion of a collective dignity and unity for all peoples of African descent.