Kersuze Simeon-Jones - The Intellectual Roots of Contemporary Black Thought: Nascent Political Philosophies

The Intellectual Roots of Contemporary Black Thought examines the ways in which the intellectual production of notable historical figures of African Diasporan Thought has shaped, and continues to shape, social and political discourses in relation to peoples of African descent.

With an internationalist approach, this volume places the philosophies of intellectuals and activists from different regions in cross-generational dialogues. The work studies seminal publications from the 1700s to the late 1800s, including monographs, manifestos, speeches, and letters, analyzing the subsequent influence of such publications on the works of later thinkers and scholars of the 1900s. Hinged in qualitative and critical analysis, it investigates the extent to which the intellectual works of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have influenced education and institutions over time, scrutinizing the multifaceted contemporary outcomes of historical practices through the theories of historical knowledge. The excerpts and translations in the text engage readers in informed and meaningful interactions, with the philosophies of liberation, reparation, and rehabilitation.

This book contributes to the fields of intellectual historiography, human rights, political philosophy, social thought, and critical race theory and will be of interest to students and scholars of history, politics, and philosophy.

Kersuze Simeon-Jones is Associate Professor at the School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies, University of South Florida, USA.

Nascent Political Philosophies

Kersuze Simeon-Jones

First published 2021

by Routledge

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Simeon-Jones, Kersuze, 1974- author.

Title: The intellectual roots of contemporary black thought : nascent political philosophies / Kersuze Simeon-Jones.

Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020017044 (print) | LCCN 2020017045 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367485573 (hbk) | ISBN 9780367473013 (pbk) | ISBN 9781003041634 (ebk)

Subjects: LCSH: BlacksIntellectual life. | Pan-AfricanismPhilosophy. | African diaspora in literature.

Classification: LCC CB235 .S55 2021 (print) | LCC CB235 (ebook) | DDC 305.896/073dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020017044

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020017045

ISBN: 978-0-367-48557-3 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-47301-3 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-003-04163-4 (ebk)

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All praise to the Creator, the Supreme Being. All reverence to the ancestors for their foundational work and sacrifices. Gratitude for my daughter, whose presence on this earth has helped me decipher life more insightfully.

The Intellectual Roots of Contemporary Black Thought: Nascent Political Philosophies examines not only the ways in which the intellectual production of notable historical figures of African Diasporan Thought has shapedand continues to shapesocial and political discourses in relation to peoples of African descent but also the extent to which intellectual production has influenced the process and progress of social transformation. Though specific figures and writings are examined, the analytical method of the work is conceptual and theoretical, and the structural approach is thematic; thus, it moves across regions and languages of the African Diaspora. With its international and diasporic framework, the present work will expand the fields of intellectual historiography, human rights, and social theory, particularly within the disciplines of Africana studies, African Diaspora studies or Black Diaspora studies (depending on the disciplinary nomenclature of a given college or university), world history, philosophy, and political science. The work contributes to African descendants concepts of history, critical race theory, social thought, and their overarching epistemological framework; in so doing, it probes the effects of representation and misrepresentation as well as the social processes and politics of cultural inventions, that is, the link between power and cultural designations. The contents developed in the various intellectual productions of critical Black thinkers are vital for community psychological rehabilitation and structural/systemic adjustments. To that end, the present work is written with the objective of accessibility not only to scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduate students but also to informed lay readers. Methodologically, the text studies seminal publications from the late 1700s to the late 1800s, in the genres of monographs, manifestos, speeches, and letters; it analyzes the subsequent influence of these publications on the works of later thinkers and scholars of the 1900s; lastly, hinged in qualitative and critical analysis, it investigates the extent to which the intellectual works of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have influenced contemporary institutions, particularly educational structures from K12 to the university level. The mode of analysis is interdisciplinarynamely, history, political philosophy, and existential philosophy. Within the interdisciplinary analytical framework, the book scrutinizes the multifaceted contemporary outcomes of historical practices, through the theories of historical knowledge, as well as the philosophies and theories of liberation and advancement. In an avant la lettre Black Internationalist and African Diaspora approach, in 1829 David Walker addressed an Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, in which he entreated them to read, or get some one to read it to them, the religious, political, and social history of African descendants, from Ancient Africa to the Americas. The objective was for African descendants to thoroughly understand the reasons behind the enslavement of Africans, to grasp the history of Africa from antiquity to their current era, and to examine the lasting interconnection between politics, military and economic power, and social and cultural manipulations. Walker emphasized the words or get some one to read it to them, as he was aware of the inability of African descendants to read the language of their respective enslavers; learning to read was, as a matter of fact, violently prohibited. Moreover, Walker was aware of the different languages that further divided and rendered it quasi-impossible for revolutionary thoughts to reach African descendants as a collective, in their tragic historical circumstances and in their rehabilitation processes; thus, he recognized that a process of transmission, translation, or interpretation would be necessary. In spite of the barriers, Walker insisted that