W.E.B Du Bois, Ella Baker, and Asa Hilliard: The Legacy and Development of Afrocentric Pedagogical Theory and Practice

Afrocentric Pedagogy is more than just teaching African history as a lot of people would like to frame it. It is more than opening schools for African people to function better within the non-Afrikan politico-cultural paradigm. Afrocentric Pedagogy is the entirety of the methods, frameworks, and processes produced within a distinctly Afrikan utamawazo for the expressed purpose of producing Afrikan people who are equipped with the technical and ideological skills necessary to operate in the best interests of Afrikan people – that is, that which is conducive to the survival and development of Afrikan people worldwide. This includes the history, ritual life, and traditional methods of socialization drawn from the countless millennia of our existence. The development of Afrikan Pedagogy has been an evolutionary process.

What is Afrocentric Pedagogy ? How have our national ancestors intersected education and other areas of expertise ? What have these national ancestors made of the question of “education ?”

We will begin with a succinct definition of “African pedagogy” that is holistic. In his essay “African Education: Engine For Our Liberation” Mzee Sanyika Anwisye works to explain an appropriate model for the often ambiguous “Afrikan pedagogy.” He rejects the idea of “African centered education” as simply an embrace of an African “aesthetic motif” or “evidence of top-rated academic achievement.” He describes African education as a “womb-to-the-tomb process which prepares the members of a society to become … the workers and warriors necessary to retain … the society’s freedom, its sovereignty.” This idea of education as a life-long undertaking, or womb-to-the-tomb process, is echoed when Nana Baffour Amankwatia (Dr. Asa Hilliard III) explains the Egyptian Mystery system as a 40 year process. He proceeds building the definition of education as a “socialization and conditioning process which is conducted simultaneously, interconnectedly, and interdependently, by the five major societal elements which influence worldview behavior and character” which he lists as “the home or family, the spiritual assemblage, the adesua bea (known in Eurospace as schools), the storytellers, the part-time and supplementary programs.” He further develops “a proper African education” equips us with the spiritual-moral direction, the cultural-social orientation, academic-intellectual fervor, psycho-emotional-physical wholeness, African personality and commitment needed to work effectively and collectively to facilitate our people’s return to righteous living and sovereignty.”

Conversely, the end of a colonial education is to perpetuate the current world order, to develop the skill and talent of the colonized and integrate them into the rapacious machine that is the Empire. Afrocentric Pedagogy recognizes itself as a holistic process of socialization, grounded in the best of our traditions, intended to produce the necessary personnel whose expressed and sole purpose is to work for the positive sovereignty of African people, and to transmit this purpose onto the next generations.

Three major driving forces behind conceptualizing the use of pedagogy for the survival and development of African people have been W.E.B. Du Bois, Asa Hilliard and Ella Baker. These three ancestors, although operating in different fields of expertise, represent intersections of pedagogy as well as three consecutive generations of movement that all added to the evolution and meaning of “Afrikan centered education” upon which my generation currently stands. They and their contemporaries were all asking “what direction are African people headed in,” and “how should African people be trained to better wield the power necessary for accomplishing what is in their best interests?” Each of them pulled on the cultural foundations of Africa in order to answer those essential questions.

Over the generations, African people solutionizing a way towards development, have always begun with a discussion around what “skills” are necessary for our development and the transferring of skills by way of a distinct Afrikan ethic. Within the context of our Great Suffering (Maafa), our national ancestors have come to develop an umbrella of methods that coheres to this understanding. Thus, a proper definition of education-socialization can not be thought of in the context of upward mobility within our colonizer’s system. On the contrary, it must also be viewed in the context of the needs of African people in the specific place and time that We find Ourselves in. Similarly, it can not be thought of in the context of our colonizer’s episteme, or ways of knowing. Our ancestors arrived at a theory of Afrocentrism, the application of which was directed chiefly to processes of education-socialization.

While many deep thinkers-practitioners fancied what eventually became known as “Afrocentrism,” it was codified and coined as a philosophical approach by Molefi Kete Asante. Asante’s (1980a, 1987, 1988) Afrocentric theory of communication holds as its basic premise that objectivity of social scholars is in actuality a collective subjectivity of European culture. Eurocentric theorizing is marked by positivist assumptions, including objectivity, mind-body separation (Cartesian dualism), reductionism, linearity, and the separation of the researcher as subject from the phenomena as object. In other words, the only “right” ways of knowing are those that correspond to Western interpretation of reality. Conversely, Afrocentrism takes an Afrikan-based cultural reality as its primary vantage point.

The need for organization in response to colonization demanded a personnel-type with both technical capacity, ideological clarity, and moral proficiency. A specific philosophy of education geared towards producing a type of Afrikan person to satisfy these needs began to be formulated. Our elders came to understand that if we are a people distinct from our colonizers, and from other colonized groups, then we need a specific education-socialization process that can have folks respond to the pressures of our particular situation. They understood that we needed a process of socialization specific to our cultural-political reality. Nana Baffour asserts “integration” may actually result in the “group cultural disintegration” of an “oppressed group” while at the same time allowing the “privileged cultural group” to “maintain themselves.” Put another way, an “oppressed” group and a “privileged” group can not be educated together without the cultural foundation and identity of the oppressed group being distorted.

The fundamental idea in categorizing educational systems as “liberating” must address respective differences in the epistemological, axiological, and ontological modes of Afrikans and non-Afrikans and parallel that with the “on the ground” reality of Afrikan people of the day. Afrikan people have a specific and distinct way in which We interact with Our environment, and Our coming to liberate ourselves must spring from a process of socialization, a process of human development, that prioritizes those distinctions and variances. Du Bois, Ms. Baker, and Nana Asa – pivotal scholar-practitioners at different intersections of struggle – all recognized the aforementioned truth and sought ways to include this into their innovations for the survival and development of African people. Here we will attempt to analyze their contributions to our understanding of the necessity of a distinctly Afrikan education-socialization process.

W.E.B Du Bois (1868-1963) came at the time when the Afrikan in the United States was newly freed, and debating amongst ourselves “which way.” The whole of the United States, reeling from a devastating conflict that saw the agrarian slaveocracy of the South brought to heel by a burgeoning Northern industrial bourgeoisie, that claimed 620,000 lives, and formally initiated an nation-wide economic transformation, was faced with the “Negro Question.” Du Bois, the first “negro” Harvard trained Ph.D, found the question of “training” consequential to the question of the direction of “the black man who was not born into slavery.” In what direction is he to face and more importantly Du Bois asked, “how should he be trained and educated ?”

Du Bois, in conceptualizing the utility of education for advancement of the Race, drew inspiration from “the Yorubas, and other Sudanese and Bantu tribes,” whose education system he describes as “perfect” because of the process being inherently “integrated with life.” Here we see the seeds of a utilitarian frame being constructed in Du Bois educational thought. The utility of education-socialization being measured on what is required by one’s environment is exemplified in a speech he gave at Howard University entitled “Education and Work” in which he asserts that “educational institutions must graduate to the world men [and women] fitted to take their place in real life by their knowledge, spirit, and ability to do what the world wants done.” In other words, Afrikan people need training that prepares them to anticipate the sharp twists and turns of the modern world ruled by industry and automation, yet grounded in our own cultural ideals and personality. Du Bois, in a speech at Hampton University, posed the question: “what is it in the modern world that this race of ours most clearly lacks – our greatest need, or greatest failing ?”

This question of the training of the “freedmen,” its quality and direction, dominated much of DuBois’ thought and discourse with his contemporary thinker Booker T. Washington. Both labored over the “Negro Question.” Both recognized the necessity of “education” being the foundation of the rise of the Freedmen. Both were convinced that the Freedmen had something unique to contribute to American society. Washington advocated for the development of the Race through vocational training and economic self-reliance. “Education in farming, dairying, stock-raising, and horticulture” Washington argued in an 1899 essay “will place him near the top in these industries and the race problem will in large part be settled or at least stripped of its many perplexing elements.” In other words, Black people should make themselves indispensable to the economy of the South by ingratiating themselves to vocational and technical trades. Du Bois articulated that it was our “duty to conserve our [the Black Race] physical powers, our intellectual endowments, our spiritual ideals” and that we need “race organizations” to accomplish these ends. Among these “race organizations” include negro colleges or what he termed “a Negro Academy.” For the next 50 years Du Bois was to labor over providing a definition for what the negro college was supposed to produce.

Ella Baker(1903-1986) who is known as the backbone of the Civil Rights Movement embraced a radical theory of participatory democracy and group centered leadership at a time when charismatic leadership models dominated the landscape of social change. Her most notable contributions came at a time when social change in this country, and around the world was being spearheaded by ambitious, yet inexperienced teenagers and young adults. In this context, her role as “Fundi” or the one who passes down knowledge to the next generation was critical. Most notable contributions came with her training and advising organizing groups during the Civil Rights Movement. She emphasized the importance of more sustainable movements founded on horizontal organizational structures that did not rely on charismatic leadership. Her mentorship of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee displays her pedagogical theory in action and its effect on a wider movement. Her philosophy draws heavily on Afrikan political philosophy of gadaa (democracy) and decentralization.

“I have always thought what is needed is the development of people who are interested not in being leaders as much as in developing leadership in other people,” along with her more famous quote “strong people don’t need strong leaders” gives strong insight into her philosophy of training and how it connected to the trajectory she thought our young organizers ought to be headed to. Baker saw organizing as a process of allowing people to make their own mistakes as opposed to the traditional ideas of groups being brought together around a singular “charismatic” leader. Baker’s philosophy of decentralization, anti-bureaucracy, and group-centered leadership can be analyzed in full expression within the context of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, of which she was a major catalyst.

Baker’s years of experience in grassroots organizing theory and practice influenced movement formations of the 1960s. One of her ideas was around the development of cadre: small, tight-knit, highly trained groups. She contested the idea, which pervades even today, that the bigger an organization is the better, as well as the idea that rapid growth in membership is a sign of organizational vitality. Her contention was that large organizations can easily become antidemocratic, and are likely not to prioritize the nurturing and development of personnel that is necessary for sustainability. Baker’s criticism of the failure of the radical sector of movement can be attributed to sloganizing, leader-centric groups, and a failure to prioritize the mundane, less exciting work of training, studying and reflection. These are problems that are still very much at the forefront of our movement. Ella Baker was trying to figure out the question of education-socialization and its relation to movement praxis.

Asa Hilliard (1933-2007) was an educator, psychologist, and historian whose work in the field of educational psychology was extensive. Dr. Hilliard consulted with school districts, universities, government agencies, and private corporations on valid assessment, curriculum equity, and teacher training. Righteously named Nana Baffour Amankwatia popularized the term “education-socialization” to better define the process that is human development. “Nana Baffour,” as he was affectionately endeared, made many contributions to the thought of pedagogues, social workers, and other professionals working with Black children. The two that we will focus on here is 1) the effective training of teachers to carry out the education-socialization process and 2) the reframing of the entire process within an Afrocentric conceptual modality founded on the best educational-socialization practices from through the African world – past and present. He begins the latter inquiry with the questions of “How did the ancient Africans design and carry out the educational process? What were the aims, the methods, and the contents of ancient African education?”

The ideas of Du Bois, Ms. Baker, and Hilliard together serve to answer the question of the intersection of the Afrikan community, our historical trajectory, traditional systems of socialization and personhood into a utilitarian tool of liberation. Their collective effort in articulating and conceptualizing “education-socialization” as the foundation for wider general questions of survival and development, specifically like industrialization, a solid praxis for movement development, as well as an effective methodology of training teachers and conceptualizing education-socialization is paramount. Although their work took place at different times, their ideas and accomplishments, along with others within the generations they represent, represents a timeline allowing us to track the development of social-educational theory.