James Emman Kwegyir Aggrey: An African Intellectual in the United States

Abstract

When men are intellectually greater than others, we learn from their utterances; when they are morally better than others, we learn from their lives. - J.E.K. Aggrey After T. Washington's death in 1915, James Emman Kwegyir Aggrey, sometimes called Father of African Education or Booker T. Washington of Africa, was seen by some of his contemporaries of 1920s as leading proponent of Washington's accommodationist philosophy. Critics demonstrated Aggrey's advocacy of black-white cooperation by pointing to his and black piano keys parable, which he repeated often: You can play a tune of sorts on white keys, and you can play a tune of sorts on black keys, but for real harmony you must use both black and white.(1) W. E. B. Du Bois castigated industrial arts focus of both Washington and Aggrey for putting too much stress on teaching blacks manual skills rather than educating them to think. Actually, Aggrey was critical of both bread and butter and for knowledge sake approaches to education. In lectures on education that he gave in United States and around world, he emphasized that ultimate aim of education was the development of socially efficient individual. Aggrey insisted that he believed in types of education. Sounding very much like Joseph Charles Price, first president of his alma mater, Livingstone College, Aggrey answered his critics with By education, do not mean simply learning. mean training in mind, in morals, and in hand that helps to make one socially efficient. Not simply three R's, but three H's: head, hand, and heart. Aggrey stressed that he wanted all my people to be educated in larger sense. This included girls as well as boys. He believed that No or people can rise half-slave, half-free. The surest way to keep a people down is to educate men and neglect women. If you educate a man you simply educate an individual, but if you educate a woman, you educate a family.(2) For Aggrey, education was training for development of skills and character which would be required for success in life. He believed strongly that race vindication for both Africans and African-Americans would come from an educated people who could demand equal treatment from whites. It is important to note that Aggrey had a great deal of respect for Du Bois, whom he referred to as Moses of his people. After founding in 1909 of National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Aggrey corresponded with Du Bois, NAACP publications director: I want also especially to be connected if only temporarily with your office in New York this summer to study ins and outs of National Association for Advancement of Colored People. The idea of forming an organization for Africans similar to African-American-focused NAACP, that would protest exploited conditions and racist treatment of Africans, was something that appealed to Aggrey.(3) However, there appears to have been no further communication between these two men.(4) It was in 1920s that James Aggrey gained fame as one of best known recipients of progressive and Christian legacy of late nineteenth century West African intellectual life. For this group of Western-educated elite, their training and education had prepared them to assume leadership roles in their countries after control was wrested from European colonizers. At independence this West African intelligentsia would be natural successors to Europeans because they were better educated than their African rivals, traditional chiefs. After all, they had received a Western education and had been indoctrinated to Western civilization and culture, and now accepted some of its aspects.(5) James Emman Kodwo Mensa Otsiwadu Humamfunsam Aggrey (he later shortened his name) was born, eldest son of eight children, on Monday, October 18, 1875 at Anamabu in British Gold Coast (present-day Ghana). …