W.E.B. Du Bois and the Encyclopedia Africana, 1909-63

In 1901, W.E.B. Du Bois, the African American intellectual and activist, conceived the idea of an encyclopedia Africana. He envisioned a scientific and comprehensive work on Africa and peoples of African descent that would refute the Enlightenment notion of blacks as devoid of civilization and the hallmarks of humanity. Du Bois stood in a tradition of earlier black works seeking to vindicate the race, but World War I and his move from academia to the NAACP postponed his efforts. In 1931, however, Du Bois participated in an encyclopedia project initiated by the Phelps-Stokes Fund. His writing during this period reveals his thinking about the nature and form a pan-African encyclopedia would take. Beset by rivalries and, primarily, lack of support from the established philanthropies, the project died. In 1960, shortly before his death, Du Bois was invited to Ghana to launch an encyclopedia. If any of these attempts had succeeded, the evolution of African and African American studies in the academy would have been significantly different.