Modern African Ideologies

Abstract The chapter discusses African ideologies from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Two distinguishing characteristics are identified: a definition and promotion of human rights for Africans, and a global authorship of continental Africans and their descendants in the African Diaspora. The movement of ideologies between Africans and their descendents in the New World served to cross-fertilize political movements such as Pan-Africanism, many of which were formulated outside the continent. Key ideologies discussed include African Abolitionism and anti-colonialism, African Socialism and Marxism, the Non-Aligned Movement, Negritude, ujamaa, ubuntu, African feminism, environmentalism, and postcolonialism. Emerging as a response to racist Western ideologies, African responses were directed initially to Western audiences. The attempt to vindicate African humanity and human rights has evolved to an assertion of African contributions to world history and culture and to an engagement with African communities to promote a postcolonial independence.